In Natick, it’s starting to be all override, all the time

The Natick Select Board this week at an off-cycle public meeting (see recording) spent about two hours discussing a potential $8M override for the fiscal year 2026 budget, and has scheduled a series of three public forums on the topic over the next three months.

Town Administrator Jamie Errickson has been sharing regular updates on the potential override at Select Board meetings, as well as at a joint Select Board-School Committee meeting held in mid-December. It’s up to the Select Board whether an override ballot question will go to voters in March.

Natick officials say the town’s ability to offer current services and make needed investments isn’t possible without a fresh annual infusion of money that an override would provide through increased taxation and that various one-time funding has been covering. General inflation—and more specifically health care, energy, and pension costs—are among the usual suspects to blame for rising expenses. Natick officials have regularly been inserting the term “structural deficit” or “structural budget deficit” into their financial presentations and discussions. An override in Natick would allow the town to surpass the property tax increase limit set by Proposition 2.5 and raise the town’s levy limit going forward (yes, this will increase your taxes above the usual increases).

During Wednesday night’s meeting, Errickson and team kicked things off with an updated presentation, including information on the town’s free cash spending plan (free cash refers to collected revenue that exceeds expectations, and isn’t easy to project from year to year) and five-year capital improvement plan.

Natick has had $7.8M in free cash certified. Under a budget scenario with funds from an override, the town would use free cash for things like stabilization funds that are currently below their targets and capital improvement, which includes a long list of items. Without an override, and projected cuts of more than $1M for even the current fiscal year budget, the town would need to rely more on free cash for its operating budget and have less to use elsewhere.

“The more we can spend free cash for capital, the less we need to spend on borrowing,” Errickson said.

The town projects $16M in capital needs but may only have $3M to $4M for this without an override, he said. That could meaning deferring maintenance on projects like updating the Ben-Hem Elementary School sprinkler system ($1.1M), designing and replacing roofs on older buildings as well as foregoing some vehicle upgrades. Errickson observed that the town has lots of 90s-ish buildings, components of which are coming up for replacement or fixing.

“There’s very real impacts to our capital program with no override,” Errickson said.

Board member Bruce Evans said he liked the focus of shifting free cash to capital expenses. “Deferred maintenance equals more expensive maintenance—See the MBTA, right? That’s Exhibit A of that,” he said.

The cost impact of deferred maintenance is “exponential, it’s not linear,” added Board member Rich Sidney.

Errickson, replying to a question from member Linda Wollschlager, confirmed that having the override funds would give the town more flexibility to borrow to fund projects.

The meeting included comments and questions from the public as well, including one about whether the town might have regrets letting go of the old school at 5 Auburn St. for $100 rather than a possible $2M (nope, largely in the name of paving the way for more affordable housing) and another about how the town has gotten to the verge of asking the public to support an override even as people are reeling from relentless property tax increases.

Errickson addressed this latter question in part by explaining some things the town has done to boost revenue, including increases in license and permit fees (the town has also changed its alcohol license rules to entice more restaurants to open for business). To cut costs, Natick has consolidated parts of the organization, such as IT, and has agreed to team with Framingham on a regional dispatch system that will be largely grant funded at the start. It has also scored significant grants in sustainability and other areas, to cut the cost of new projects. Looking forward, zoning changes are expected to encourage new growth, such as in areas on either side of downtown.

Board Chair Kathryn Coughlin also pointed to $2M in planned cuts on the school side over two years. “It’s not business as usual,” she said.

The town administrator acknowledged that Natick has essentially put a hiring freeze in place on the town side. What that means in practice, he said, is that whenever openings occur they are looked at to see if they are critical to fill (such as those that might be required by the state, such as health or building inspectors).

On the personnel front, Board member Evans made the case for Natick planning to hire an assistant fire chief for what he termed “an essential position” (questions have been raised by the public about this in light of the tight finances) and separately pointed to efforts by Fire Chief Jason Ferschke to reduce overtime pay levels to 2020 numbers despite the challenges of managing around staff illnesses, retirements, and vacations while keeping firehouses fully staffed.

More details on possible personnel cuts will be revealed with the release of the town’s proposed budget in early February, though Errickson noted some information has been shared, such as that without an override the town would need to cut 6.5 full-time equivalent positions in areas such as public works and public safety (schools would need to cut dozens of student-facing positions according to its plans).

Natick most likely would have faced an override vote a fews years back if the pandemic hadn’t happened. But federal stimulus dollars briefly came to the rescue to cover new costs and make up for lost revenue. With that money going away, the reality of an operational deficit has resurfaced.

“Now we’re at that crossroads again where “Are we are going to work to address our structural deficit?'” Errickson said. “We ran a lot of scenarios, and to truly address our structural deficit would be a much more significant override ask… The $8 million is a compromise.”

In response to questions from the public and Board, Errickson said the town continues to look at different scenarios (for example, he was asked about breaking out some of the burden into one-time debt exclusions rather than permanent overrides, or about breaking up operational overrides over multiple years… a version of the latter concept is shown in the slides shared).

Natick last approved an override in 2008 for fiscal year 2009, and that was for $3.9 million.

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