Triton Regional School Committee members, town select-board representatives and district administrators spent a large portion of a recent meeting laying out how state funding formulas, rising personnel costs and health-care increases have forced cuts to school programs and services and strained teacher recruitment.

Committee members and town officials said the district has already cut items they regret, including transportation routes, and that the three member towns have limited ability to restore those reductions within current revenue constraints. They described work under way to coordinate a multi-town outreach effort to state legislators and residents to press for changes to the formula that allocates state school aid.

The discussion centered on three drivers: the state school-aid formula, personnel costs (salaries and benefits) and special-education placements. A district official who spoke during the meeting summarized the budget makeup, saying personnel-related costs account for the vast majority of spending; attendees cited a commonly used estimate that roughly 85% of the district’s budget is for people — salaries, benefits and related services — and that health-insurance spikes alone are adding materially to year-to-year pressure.

Officials also described the cost of out-of-district special-education placements as a major pressure. A district representative told the meeting that the committee requested a breakdown of recent special-education costs and was told the district is serving approximately 93 students in higher-cost programs; staff said sending a single student out of district can cost about $100,000. The committee said administrators have worked to reduce transportation and placement costs by sharing vans and bringing some students back into district programs, and that the district recorded an unplanned $308,000 increase tied to these services in a recent period.

Multiple speakers urged coordinated action among Salisbury, Newbury and Rowley (the three Triton member towns) and with state legislators, calling out the Student Opportunity Act and the way minimum local contributions and formula changes have affected regional districts. Attendees noted that momentum to change the formula has increased because more districts beyond regionals are now seeing limited aid, and one participant pointed to the recent appointment of Kristen Castner to the House Ways and Means Committee as a potentially helpful development for local advocacy. Several participants said work by Senator Eric Lewis (referred to during the meeting) to study the “ability to pay” component of the formula could be important, but that any statutory fix would likely take years to phase in.

Town officials emphasized the limited local tax base in parts of the district and competing demands on municipal budgets — including police, fire and municipal employee collective bargaining — that restrict how much towns can increase their contributions in the short term. Speakers repeatedly said towns face a simple fiscal choice each year: add revenue or cut services. Several attendees described plans to present the budget and funding choices to residents in each town before any override votes.

Committee members and town representatives discussed past state audit work identifying disadvantages for regional districts and said that previous findings did not produce a durable policy fix. They identified several organizations and stakeholders that could be helpful in lobbying for change if engaged, including the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA), the state teachers’ associations (MTA and AFT), regional superintendents and municipal finance officials.

Participants also raised workforce concerns: that labor markets are tighter and teachers and specialized staff now have more options, making recruitment and retention more difficult than in prior decades. The committee said the Triton Regional Teachers Association (TRTA) has been reasonable in past negotiations but that benefit and salary pressures remain significant, and that rising health insurance costs could add an amount equivalent to multiple percentage points of the budget over several years if current trends continue.

Next steps reported at the meeting included scheduling coordinated presentations to each town’s residents explaining the budget choices and impacts, continuing outreach to state legislators to press for formula study and change, and convening a cross-town working group of select-board members, school committee representatives, the district finance director and the towns’ finance staff to prepare longer-term fiscal projections covering five to 20 years.

The meeting record shows no formal votes were taken on policy changes; participants described the session as a planning and coordination discussion.