WHATELY — Union 38 officials presented Whately Elementary School’s largest budget request in recent years Thursday night, as required special education costs have been stacked upon the typical year-over-year increases.

Director of Business Administration Shelley Poreda and Darius Modestow, superintendent of the Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts, pitched the fiscal year 2026 budget of $2.62 million, a 10.11%, or $207,785, increase over FY25. Poreda said it is a level-service budget in all categories except for a $66,000 request to fund two new instructional assistants to work with preschool students with special needs, which the district is required to fund.

Those two position requests alone represent a 3.21% increase over the current fiscal year’s budget and the school also needs to cover $40,000 that was previously funded using federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) money, which has expired. In total, wages and salaries make up 83% of the budget.

“It’s really teaching and learning based,” Poreda said. “Our budget is built on that, as it should be.”

The original budget projection was originally a more than 14% increase, so the district removed $58,000 in sick leave buyback, which will need to be presented as a standalone article at Town Meeting, and applied $35,000 in rural aid to offset the increases.

“14.28% is really, significantly high. 10.11% is still high, but we were still able to supplement a little bit,” Poreda said, adding that the budget is not inflated, as “it’s meeting the needs of our resident students” and the two new positions are required by law.

The budget request is the largest in recent memory as percent increases from fiscal years 2020 to 2025 were 6.18%, 0%, 2.5%, 3.22%, 3.06% and 5.57%.

Longtime School Committee member Robert Halla said it is certainly the “biggest we’ve ever had,” but he expects the community will take it in stride as Whately supports its schools.

“We have a great town,” Halla said. “We have great people that support us.”

A test run of the budget was brought before the Selectboard and Finance Committee in February and there were few, if any, critical questions of administrators, although some members did ask about funding these instructional assistant positions in the future. Reductions of those positions, Modestow said at the time, could happen if students who require one-on-one support graduate from sixth grade.

The two boards will take another look at Whately Elementary School’s budget, as well as Frontier Regional School’s budget, at a joint meeting on Tuesday, March 11. If there are concerns from the boards or members of the public, Modestow said the district can take another look at the budget, as the district is able to lower the budget request, but not increase it, after a public hearing.

The Whately Elementary School Committee will vote on the budget on March 25. Voters will then consider the budget, if approved by the School Committee, at the April 29 Annual Town Meeting.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.