The town of Natick published its 2025 Annual Report earlier this spring, revealing significant trends in public safety, residents’ health, and municipal finances. It also highlights some of Natick’s historic achievements and accolades last year, including recognition for its climate, zoning and housing initiatives.
Required annually by state law, these reports feature budget overviews, financial statements, Town Meeting minutes and updates from various town departments, committees, boards and commissions.
The full 312-page report can be accessed digitally on the town website. A limited number of printed copies are also available in the Select Board’s office, according to the website.
Here are 10 key takeaways from the 2025 annual report:
- The town saw its first all-female Select Board leadership slate
In 1975, over 300 years after Natick’s founding in 1651, Erica “Ricky” Ball was elected for a seat on the Board of Selectmen, making her the first woman to serve on the town’s executive body, according to the Natick Historical Society.
Exactly 50 years later, during the Select Board’s March 2025 reorganization, three women were chosen for the Board’s leadership positions: Kathryn Coughlin as chair, Linda Wollschlager as vice-chair and Kristen Pope as clerk.
This marked the first year in the town’s history in which all board leadership positions were held by women, the report states.
- Natick was named one of Massachusetts’ first Climate Leader Communities.
The Climate Leader Communities program evolved out of the earlier Green Communities program, which outlined the requirements for designation status and awarded grants to municipalities for energy efficiency projects.
However, after a vast majority of municipalities in Massachusetts achieved Green Community status, new state climate plans emerged, indicating that the focus needed to shift to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to the state website.
Now, through the Climate Leader Communities program, municipalities are guided toward these goals and, if they become certified, given access to grant funding for energy efficiency activities, policies and services.
Jillian Wilson-Martin, Natick’s director of sustainability, wrote in her section of the report that achieving this status was the result of reaching specific benchmarks outlined in the town’s 2021-2025 Net Zero Action Plan, a roadmap toward the goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
- Opioid-related overdoses in Natick declined significantly.
In 2025, the town saw a 62% decrease in opioid-related overdoses since 2019, the highest year for overdoses since the town began tracking in 2016, the report states.
The data is collected by The Natick 180 Coalition, a group aiming to address factors contributing to substance use disorder. The coalition consists of the Natick Opioid Task Force and the Natick Together for Youth Coalition.
In 2025, the Natick Police Department responded to 17 opioid-related overdoses, one of which was fatal, the report says.
For nearly a decade after 2014, the rate of fatal drug overdoses in Massachusetts was higher than the national average, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This disparity was widest in 2016, when the state’s rate was approximately 43% higher than the national average. In the years following, Massachusetts’ drug-related mortality rate gradually declined until it was eventually lower than the national average in 2024.
- Natick Fire Department responded to a record number of emergency calls
In 2025, the Natick Fire Department responded to 6,557 emergency calls, its highest recorded annual call volume, according to the report. This number has increased gradually year-to-year, growing approximately 22% since 2021.
Of the calls last year, 4,235 involved Emergency Medical Services and 2,322 involved fire-related incidents. The department requested mutual aid, assistance from emergency responders across jurisdictional boundaries, for 255 calls, almost all of which related to EMS responses, the report states.
The report claims the need for mutual aid has risen over the past few years to an extent that has shifted the dynamic from a reciprocal agreement with neighboring fire departments to an increasing reliance on them.
There was a total of 1,984 overlapping calls, an increase of slightly over 11% the previous year, and the department handled as many as 13 concurrent calls at its peak, according to the report.
- Natick Police Department shifted away from prosecuting traffic-related offenses.
Criminal complaints filed by the Natick Police Department, or its prosecutors, dropped approximately 49% for traffic-related offenses between 2024 and 2025, according to the recent report. There were 543 filed in 2024 and 278 in 2025.
Criminal complaints are formal legal documents usually filed by law enforcement officers or prosecutors that initiate court proceedings by accusing an individual of a crime.
The number of Natick police arrests for traffic-related offenses, such as speeding, broken taillights and driving under the influence, decreased from 78 to 59 for the same time frame, the report shows.
On the other hand, written warnings for such offenses rose by about 37%, from 2,564 to 3,520, the report states. This year’s number of warnings is almost double that of 2023, which was 1,778.
- Animal Control saw a spike in reported animal bites and intensified its enforcement efforts.
The Animal Control division of the Natick Police Department, headed by Peter Cunningham since December 2023, reported 69 total dog and cat bites in 2025, a 130% increase from 2023, according to those reports. (There is no report from Animal Control in the 2024 Annual Town Report.)
Animal Control also issued more than triple the number of violation citations this past year than it did in 2023, the reports show. In 2025, 132 citations were issued, with the most frequent violations being unlicensed animals (39) and unrestrained animals (37).
Natick residents who are either in possession of an unlicensed animal or have an animal found unrestrained on school or park property may be required to pay a $100 fine, according to Article 50 of the town by-laws, which outlines police regulations.
The division also opened 57 investigations for animal cruelty, slightly more than double the number of investigations in 2023, which was 28.
- The town’s residential real estate market has seen drastic growth since 2020.
In 2025, the average value of a single-family home in Natick was $877,913, the report states.
This is an approximately 43% increase from the average value in 2020, which was $613,133, according to that year’s annual report.
The housing data was reported by the town’s Board of Assessors, whose office is responsible for the assessment of taxes for real estate, personal property, motor vehicles and boats.
A similar trend was observed statewide, as single-family home prices have risen by nearly 45% over the same five-year period, according to a report from Real Boston, a real estate research publication.
- Natick achieved full compliance with the MBTA Communities Act.
The town received official confirmation in September 2025 that it had reached compliance with the MBTA Communities Act, the annual report states.
The MBTA Communities Act is a state law requiring communities that host MBTA services to establish at least one zoning district where multi-family housing is permitted without public hearings or approval, according to the state website.
Natick’s zoning district for the act is located in and immediately surrounding the Natick Center MBTA Commuter Rail Station, according to the town’s plan in August 2024, which was later approved.
As of January 2026, nine of the 177 designated communities failed to achieve compliance by the July 2025 deadline, leading them to be sued by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, according to a state press release.
Of these municipalities, only the town of Marblehead has voted to implement a compliant plan, according to a May 18 policy update by A Better City, a nonprofit that works to shape public policy based on the interests of its member businesses and civic institutions.
- Natick earned a “Platinum” rating for its readiness to host life science businesses.
In 2025, Natick’s Community and Economic Development department advanced the town from a “Bronze” to “Platinum” MassBio Ready rating. This system, developed by the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, serves as a prerequisite for towns to attract both domestic and foreign life science investment, the report states.
The requirements for this rating include adopting the National Institutes of Health guidelines on rDNA activity and having buildings already permitted for biotech use with at least 20,000 square feet of space available for those purposes, according to the MassBio website.
Alternatively, a municipality can acquire the rating by having a pre-permitted site with a specific water and sewer capacity to “meet additional demand,” the website states.
Currently, 41 municipalities across Massachusetts have the “Platinum” rating, most of which are located in the Boston metropolitan area, according to the website.
- The town’s total tax levy rose gradually between the 2020 and 2026 fiscal years.
Natick’s total tax levy, or the revenue raised through its real and personal property taxes, climbed 24% from the 2020 fiscal year to the 2026 fiscal year, annual reports show.
This increase was primarily driven by the town’s $7 million operating budget override in March 2025, allowing it to raise property taxes by a yearly average of $450. The decision, approved by 60% of voters at a town election, prevented dozens of layoffs for school and town employees.
The override also lessened the town’s heavy reliance on free cash, unused revenue from the previous fiscal year’s operations, by allowing for more investment in capital projects, major non-recurring expenditures used to improve or create a long-term asset, such as infrastructure, public buildings or utilities.
Massachusetts’ Financial Management Resource Bureau advises against using free cash for “ongoing operational purposes” due to the unlikelihood of it being constantly available, according to the state website.
The override was permissible under the state’s Proposition 2.5 law, which allows municipalities to levy property taxes above their current limit through voter approval at a referendum election.
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