Wilmington Finance Committee Unanimously Approves $100,000 Town Hall Cell Service Fix

WILMINGTON -- February 28, 2026, Wilmington Finance Committee approves $100,000 cell-service fix for new town hall while reviewing two school budgets totaling roughly $100 million. The committee voted unanimously Saturday morning to transfer $100,000 from its reserve fund to install a distributed antenna system in the town hall, where sun-screening film and a hillside location have created near-total cellular dead zones that Chair Theresa Manganelli called unacceptable as a safety matter. Interim Superintendent Dr. David Thompson then presented a $54.3 million Wilmington Public Schools FY27 budget, a 4.94 percent increase driven by four newly settled union contracts and a 52 percent spike in special education tuition, with the district no longer needing the previously planned $300,000 free cash transfer. Shawsheen Valley Technical High School Superintendent Tony Macintosh followed with a $44.3 million total budget carrying a 6.09 percent increase; Wilmington's share falls to $7,348,306 because fewer Wilmington students are enrolled. Committee members pushed back sharply on Shawsheen's budget presentation, identifying multiple salary-schedule reconciliation errors and calling a characterization of the increase as "1.71 percent" a "fictitious number," while a committee member who disclosed she receives retirement benefits through Shawsheen called the district's top-step teacher salaries of $130,000 "completely unsustainable."