Granby Schools Face $390,000 FY27 Budget Gap After Special Ed Costs Surge

GRANBY — April 7, 2026 — Granby schools carried a $390,000 FY27 budget deficit into a planned joint session with town officials after a last-minute special education placement reversal reshuffled the numbers in a single week. The Granby School Committee, meeting April 7 in a sequence of three sessions, heard that a student expected to move to an out-of-district placement was instead kept in district, consuming the district's entire circuit breaker reserve and swinging net special education costs by roughly 21 percentage points over seven days. The town allocated $500,000 in additional funding — exceeding the $400,000 discussed the prior week — reducing the working deficit from an earlier figure but leaving a $390,000 gap against a total operating budget request that represents a 2.86 percent increase over FY26. "That nine point nine six percent could go to twenty-three percent next week when someone else changes," one member said. A joint meeting with the Finance Committee, Board of Selectmen, and Town Administrator is being scheduled for next week; a budget vote is targeted for April 28. In other business, the committee voted unanimously to adjust the 2025-2026 school calendar, moving the high school's last day to June 18 after an electrical outage earlier in the year required a make-up full day.