The town’s effort to convince Natick residents that an $8M override is necessary to support desired services and projects—even though it will hike already soaring property taxes—is filled with dramatic examples woven into powerpoint narratives. Examples of the number of teachers that will be cut, capital investments in things like sprinkler systems and roofs that will be kicked down the road… and yes, the roads themselves.
Holding the first of three planned FY26 Budget Override forums at the Morse Institute Library happened to provide Town Administrator Jamie Errickson with another example of a possible no override casualty: He warned that the library’s fire alarm panel was having issues and that it was possible a false alarm could go off during the meeting. He circled back to that wonky fire alarm box later in the session as an example of the sort of thing capital resources are needed for.
The hour-and-a-half session featured about 30 minutes of presentations by town and school officials, followed by questions and answers (the tone was polite and concerned). The town has also published a running list of override questions and answers on its website.
The forum followed public discussions of the override and very related FY26 budgets at Select Board and School Committee meetings, and those discussions will continue as Natick heads toward its annual election and Spring Annual Town Meeting.
The forum kicked off with basic definitions of terms such as “Proposition 2.5” and “Override,” then included numbers that the town and schools are grappling with. They’re budgeting for two scenarios: An override and no override, with the latter situation calling for much deeper budget cuts.
If the words “transparent” and “transparency” had been used any more often, you would have thought you were at a lingerie show. But town officials were just trying to lay bare the reality of the situation, what Errickson and team have frequently referred to as a “structural deficit” resulting from operating expenses continuing to outpace reliable revenue. Errickson, as he did at a recent Select Board meeting, explained the town’s desired approach to using free cash, including its preference for not relying on it to cover operating costs. He stressed the challenges that the town will face in making capital investments without the additional and permanent funds an override would generate. “With no override, it’s going to be extremely challenging to put money toward capital,” he said.
Natick Public Schools Supt. Dr. Melissa Spash recounted big cuts already made by the schools and previewed the need to make even deeper cuts—another $2.8 million on top of $1.4M—if an override is not approved. This would not allow the school system to offer level services with past years. Without an override, the schools would be looking at the elimination of about 40 full-time equivalent positions (including up to 12 teachers, plus interventionists, librarians, literacy coaches, and special ed paraprofessionals) and would need to raise fees for things like athletics. Some high school students could be shifted to online AP courses, class sizes could swell at middle and elementary schools.
“There’s staffing impacts, class size and offering impacts, instructional implications, and service fees for our caregivers and families,” Spash summed things up at one point. She expressed particular concern about possibly not being able to fund a strategic literacy plan she says could be “monumentally effective” for the school system’s youngest learners as they make their way on to middle and high school.
Many of the questions from the audience focused on the schools, including about the number of individualized education programs and what’s being done to ensure teachers don’t leave for better pay elsewhere (contract negotiations are underway with educators, limiting what school officials could say on this). The public’s focus on the schools makes sense since depending upon how you break it down (taking into account healthcare and other shared services), the schools account for about two-thirds of the roughly $200M overall town budget, and most of the school budget pays for staffing.
Though the first question from the crowd actually sought clarity on what the $8M from the override might pay for aside from what was detailed in the school presentation. Errickson pointed to numerous expenses, including shared services (including healthcare) as well as filling vacant public safety positions and investing in things like the town’s vehicle fleet.
Another member of the public seemed resigned to fact an override is needed now, but wondered how we got here and whether passing the override will prevent the need for another one anytime soon. In terms of how we got here, the town offers services sought by residents that cost a certain amount of money, Errickson said. The town every year seems to mull whether to cut services or go for an override, and this year “our proposal is to address it with an override,” he said.
While Errickson didn’t dare predict the future, he did suggest that an override this year might help the town bridge its finances to 2030 when it expects to have its retirement pension liability largely funded and not get whacked with an annual $13M or so expense for that anymore.
Errickson acknowledged, in response to a question about whether it’s feasible to fix the town’s structural deficit when adhering to Proposition 2.5, that it’s a real challenge, especially with regular salary increases and without new sources of revenue.
More opportunities for public engagement lie ahead. The Select Board, School Committee, and Finance Committee are set to meet on Feb. 3 for the big budget reveal party. Public forums like this first one are slated for Feb. 11 and March 3, at the Community-Senior Center and Library, respectively.
The Select Board tentatively will meet on Feb. 12 to discuss putting the override question on the ballot for this spring’s election.
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My Feb 2025 tax bill is over 7% higher than the bill for Feb 2024. The quarterly water bill has almost doubled. Seems like we’ve already been overridden. In the past 2 decades Natick taxpayers have approved debt exclusions for Wilson, NHS, Kennedy, the Senior Center, as well as an operational override and one to fund ambulance service. Time to say eNOugh.
“Override” is the scrubbed-down way of saying “Overspending.”