By Adam Swift
Mayor Patrick Keefe and city finance director Richard Viscay kicked off the Fiscal Year 2026 city council ways and means committee budget hearings last Thursday morning.
Viscay laid out the revenue and expenses for a proposed balanced budget of just over $309 million, as well as touched on future financial obligations, such as the funding of the new high school project. The budget presentation included the school and municipal government budgets, debt service, and other expenses as well as revolving accounts for water, sewer, and solid waste disposal.
While Viscay and Keefe noted that the budget will be balanced, the administration will be proposing some increased fees, as well as increases to the water and sewer rates, to the city council in the near future.
During the budget presentation, Viscay also noted that the city’s biggest long-term expense, the new high school, recently saw a $10 million cut to its budget. The high school building committee recently approved a cut in the school building budget from $493 million to $483 million, with about half of the total cost of the project reimbursable through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA).
For the current budget, Viscay noted that one of the biggest drivers for the budget is a 17 percent increase in health insurance costs.
“Before you is a $309,608,179 budget, revenues equal expenses, the budget is balanced,” said Viscay. “The mayor and the departments, we had a pretty rough year meeting with departments and getting expenses in line with revenues. We believe it is a responsible budget with realistic revenue estimates based upon currently known information, and on behalf of the mayor, I would strongly recommend you pass the budget as submitted.”
The largest chunk of the operating budget is the school budget, which is about $131.5 million. The school transportation budget is $9.7 million, a five percent increase over the current year.
“We do have a fund that we set up a couple years back with the council and the school committee that is for reimbursements of transportation costs via the state, and that’s for special education students and homeless transportation,” said Viscay. “That money was building up a surplus in the fund and for Fiscal Year 2026, we are using some of that balance to offset the cost of student transportation.”
Viscay said there will be longer-term strategies discussed by the city and the schools about overall student transportation.
“Minimum net school spending does not include transportation, it is a cost absorbed by the city, and this particular year, with the rising costs, it was pretty much unsustainable at the figure that was being asked, so we had to dip into our special revenue accounts to offset the costs,” said Viscay. “There are going to be some long-term strategies talked through with regards to bussing and how that works with regard to student lottery and high school transportation, etc.”
The biggest department budget on the municipal side of the ledger is public safety, with that figure coming in at just under $34 million. That budget includes the police, fire, parking, and inspectional services departments, as well as the 911 operations.
“Uniformed police officers will be budgeted at 112, uniformed firefighters budgeted at 119,” said Viscay. “We did see a regional 911 budget decrease due to some increases in grant revenues that offset the expenses.”
Viscay also highlighted the revenues that will pay for the budget, with the two biggest chunks coming from property taxes and state aid.
The majority of the $123.6 million in state aid, about $107 million, helps fund the schools through Chapter 70.
As a result of new growth and the increase in the levy limit under Proposition 2-½, Viscay said the estimated property tax revenues for FY26 will be about $126.3 million. Local receipts through excise taxes and other city fees are expected to go up by 5 percent to $23.5 million, Viscay said.
The water and sewer and other enterprise revenues are slated at $36.3 million, with that budget being supported by the water and sewer rates. However, Viscay said the city will be asking for a 9.7 percent increase in water and sewer rates to help cover those costs.
“I just wanted to thank CFO Viscay for presenting this today, and as mentioned, we are very confident in what we have put in front of you,” said Keefe. “I am excited to see our department heads perform; I know that this is a great opportunity for them to explain their roles and what it takes to run their departments throughout the entire year. As mentioned, we put out a very responsible budget; the real challenges are all fixed costs, things like insurance and we all know that those are things that are really out of our control.
“We did a very good job with our department heads to make sure that our controllables were very much kept in control,” the mayor continued. “You can see that in a number of those departments there were actually reductions in expenses, which is really abnormal over the last dozen years because we had to offset the uncontrollables. But outside of that, we are very confident in what we have put in front of you and we look forward to your conversation and communication.”
The ways and means committee’s review of individual department budgets was expected to continue this week, with the school department slated to appear before the committee Tuesday, before the full council takes up approval of the FY26 budget later this month.
Ward 4 Councillor Paul Argenzio thanked the school building committee, the mayor, and Viscay for the recent vote to cut the high school project budget by $10 million.
“I agree with my colleague to the right’s comment about the $10 million cut, but without being derogatory, I would say that is a good first step, not nearly where we need to go,” said Councillor-at-Large Anthony Zambuto. “I’m still, you know where I stand about this, and I wouldn’t want to be in your position right now coming up and telling us how we are going to afford it, but that is a whole other story. So $10 million is a good first step, but it’s only a drop in the bucket.”
