The Massachusetts Association of School Committees has won the contract to conduct a search for the Vineyard’s next superintendent of schools.

Current superintendent Richard Smith announced in September that he will retire at the end of June, 2026, after 24 years working in public education on Martha’s Vineyard.

The all-Island school committee voted Oct. 23 to engage the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, a nonprofit generally known as MASC, at a cost of $11,500 including expenses.

The funding will come from savings in the health insurance budget for the superintendent’s office, business director Mark Friedman said.

“Now that we have all of our staffing in place for the school year, we’ve identified a little over $46,000 of projected savings in our health insurance benefits line,” Mr. Friedman said.

“There would be no effect to programming [and] no effect to students,” he said, explaining that the insurance surplus derives from staffing changes.

“Folks who may have had a family medical plan last year and left, and now their replacement has an individual plan — it’s usually something like that that generates those savings,” Mr. Friedman said.

School district staff and committee members also considered two other nonprofits for the search, the New England School Development Council in Marlborough and the Center for Executive Search at Osterville-based Cape Cod Collaborative, before settling on MASC as the lowest bidder as well as a longtime collaborator.

It was a MASC search that led to the hiring of Mr. Smith’s predecessor, Matthew D’Andrea, said school committee member Jessica Mason, who led the working group that vetted the three firms.

In addition to conducting administrator searches, Boston-based MASC provides training for committee members in ethics, protocols, budgeting and finance, and tracks state legislation affecting education funding.

The Vineyard faces some challengers in the quest for qualified, experienced superintendent candidates, MASC field director Sean Costello told the committee at a public meeting Oct. 9.

The Monomoy and Wareham public school districts also are seeking new superintendents through MASC, Mr. Costello said.

Wareham’s current superintendent is Mr. D’Andrea, who left the Island in 2022 for the district where he formerly worked as a teacher and principal. Mr. D’Andrea is retiring, Mr. Costello said.

The all-Island school committee now is assembling a community advisory group to consult with MASC as the search gets underway.