Arlington Finance Committee Approves Minuteman Assessment, Defers IT Budget Over $232,000 Gap

ARLINGTON — March 4, 2026 — Arlington Finance Committee approves Minuteman assessment but defers IT budget over a $232,000 funding gap. The committee unanimously backed Arlington's fiscal year 2027 Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical School assessment of $8,268,757 — down just under 1 percent from the prior year — after Superintendent Heidi Driscoll confirmed that all 55 Arlington applicants for the incoming class had been accepted and that the school has admitted 100 percent of member-town students for three consecutive years. The districtwide operating and capital budget totals just under $33.5 million, a 2.99 percent increase, with a newly negotiated three-year teacher contract carrying a 3 percent raise in year one. The committee voted 17-1 to approve the treasurer-collector budget at $737,182 and unanimously passed a $155,564 postage budget, but tabled the IT budget after a reviewer identified roughly $232,000 in unresolved gaps — including $44,000 in software maintenance cuts he called unrealistic and three unfunded technology requests — with the town manager and the chief information officer both unavailable to resolve the discrepancies.