The math isn’t adding up as the City of Lowell and the Lowell Public School Department are reading from separate pages when it comes to school spending for the Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

An informational report in the city council agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting contains a letter addressed by City Manager Tom Golden to Superintendent of Schools Liam Skinner, spelling out dollar figures regarding city spending on schools in FY 2025, funding figures from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the calculation that the school department will received a combined $271,489,114 from the two levels of government.

Meanwhile, Thursday night’s School Committee agenda includes a proposed budget from Superintendent Skinner citing a $4-million reduction in “cash” from what the city provided the schools in Fiscal Year 2025.

As you can imagine, this is where the political science starts to kick in and the shell game of government budgeting accelerates to the dizzying pace where taxpayers eventually lose sight of which shell the ball is hiding under, not to mention losing sight of their tax dollars.

Be prepared for weeks of debate and commentary about cuts, net school spending, ARPA money, ESSER funds, the classroom and central office.

Both the City Manager and Superintendent, declined comment for this story, instead letting their respective agenda items do the speaking for now. But as the discussion begins to play out publicly at the respective meetings Tuesday and Thursday night, the political calculus between the city council and school committee will be interesting to watch, especially in an election year.

You might even say, it’ll be a production worthy of drama club.