On Friday, November 28, City Councilor Lenny Gentile (Ward 4) filed a late docket item asking Mayor-elect Marc Laredo to explain how his planned increase in Mayoral Office staff from 7 to 9 will fit within the current fiscal-year budget. The docket item also asked the Mayor-elect to submit a…
Posts published in “Budgets”
The final Healey-Driscoll Administration’s public listening sessions regarding the funding of education will be held from 4:30-6:30PM on Wednesday, December 3 at Newton North High School. The Healey-Driscoll Administration is completing a series of public listening sessions to solicit feedback on the Chapter 70 school finance formula, the primary funding…
The Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) joined Mayor Ruthanne Fuller at City Hall on Thursday, October 9, to announce a new report warning that cities and towns across Massachusetts are nearing a fiscal breaking point. The report, A Perfect Storm: Cities and Towns Face Historic Fiscal Pressures, was produced in partnership…
I read Mayor Fuller’s financial outlook for Newton. The mayor believes that Newton’s debt is stable and manageable. NPS believes that annual budget increases are insufficient. School families want much more spent on our schools. This, according to many, means regular overrides. Unfortunately, Newton taxes are among the states highest. How…
Mayor Fuller’s address introducing the City’s Long-Range Financial Plan to the City Council on October 6 (also transmitted in her newsletter) contained the same contradiction that we hear from this Mayor in every fiscal address: The City’s financial health is very strong and yet doomed at the same time. Setting…
On June 30, the Massachusetts state legislature passed, almost unanimously, a $61 billion state budget for FY2026. This budget and the Fair Share supplemental budget together contain $1,773,000 in earmarks for Newton, sponsored by members of Newton’s state delegation. Not since the FY2017 budget has the legislature completed the state…
Chris Brezski, the highly active and vocal Chair of the Newton School Committee, has announced that he will not run for re-election this November and will leave the Committee at year-end. In his relatively brief, two-year tenure as the Committee Chair, he oversaw momentous events such as the implementation of…
On May 29, the City of Newton was among 12 Massachusetts cities — along with the Commonwealth and 13 of its 14 counties — named by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as “sanctuary jurisdictions” that DHS said “obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws, …protect dangerous criminal aliens…
On May 19, in parallel meetings, the City Council voted to approve Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s proposed $623 million FY2026 budget, and the School Committee voted to implement a FY2026 NPS budget that conforms to the $293 million allocation to NPS in the budget approved by the City Council. Here are documents published…
On May 19, the Newton City Council voted unanimously to approve Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s proposed $623 million FY2026 budget. (Ward 6 Councilor Alan Lobovits and Ward 3 Councilor Pamela Wright were absent.) The Council took several different votes regarding the appropriation of various funds for FY2026 before the final vote…
On May 19, the School Committee – after months of debate, meetings, public outcry, and negotiation with City Hall following the initial February 26th disclosure of a large forecasted NPS budget deficit – voted to implement a budget for Fiscal Year 2026 (Fall 2025 – Spring 2026 school year) that…
The May 8 joint meeting of the Newton City Council’s Programs & Services Committee and Finance Committee featured a debate and non-binding straw vote on approving the Mayor’s allocation to Newton Public Schools (NPS) for Fiscal Year 2026 (Fall 2025 – Spring 2026 school year). NPS Superintendent Anna Nolin and…