Tewksbury Town Meeting Cuts Shawsheen Tech Assessment to $3.75 Million, Approves Feasibility Study

TEWKSBURY — May 4, 2026 — Tewksbury Town Meeting slashed its Shawsheen Valley Tech assessment by nearly $6 million and narrowly approved a feasibility study for the aging vocational campus. Finance Committee Chair Richard Levasseur moved an amendment to reduce the district's fiscal year 2027 assessment from $9,560,993 to $3,750,000, citing unreconciled accounts, an unfinished ten-month state audit, and at least $900,000 in unaccounted free cash — a Finance Committee motion that itself passed only four-to-three internally. Shawsheen Superintendent-Director Tony McIntosh warned that any reduction "is essentially a no vote" under Chapter 71, Section 16B, and Town Counsel Kevin Feeley confirmed that if two-thirds of the district's five member communities reject the budget, the school committee must submit a revised budget within 30 days and all communities must hold a special town meeting within 45 days. School Committee member Patricia Mews, a 32-year veteran of the board, called the financial problems a prior-year accounting error now being corrected, adding "there was no true money missing." In a separate 35-to-31 standing vote, the meeting approved $405,650 from the stabilization fund for a Shawsheen building feasibility study — a vote that required unanimity across all five member communities to keep the district in the Massachusetts School Building Authority pipeline.