City Council passes $403 million budget, school budget finally resolved
The City Council passed Waltham’s budget of $403,238,842 for the upcoming fiscal year, marking an end to an unusually brief but tumultuous budget season.
After an update from Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy at Monday’s council meeting, councilors agreed to all of the mayor’s FY27 budget recommendations. The overall city budget represents a 6.7% increase over FY26.
McCarthy revised her original budget proposal, which had included more cuts to the School Department budget initially passed by the city’s School Committee.
After weeks of back-and-forth, McCarthy and Superintendent Marisa Mendonsa came to an agreement that preserved the majority of the School Department’s requested budget. However, it eliminated some funding that apparently came from a miscalculation in the department’s special education needs.
In a last-minute filing to the council, McCarthy requested a raise to the School Department budget for the upcoming year to a compromise number of $132.8 million — a 7.7% increase from last year’s school budget.
Other city departments’ budgets passed with no changes to McCarthy’s original proposals. The council preliminarily approved changes to Waltham’s ordinances for proposed new positions and raises around the city.
The road to compromise
The disagreement between McCarthy and Mendonsa culminated in a compromise at the School Committee’s June 17 meeting, as both sides significantly narrowed the $7.7 million gap that had defined their dispute.
Mendonsa moved first. In a revised budget presentation, she made two corrections to her special education out-of-district projections that reduced her request by approximately $3.6 million: extra contingency funding built into the out-of-district budget the department hadn’t counted on, and a miscalculation in the amount of state reimbursements for unusually high-cost special education expenses.
“My commitment to transparency requires that I share this information openly and make corrections when necessary,” Mendonsa said.
The School Committee voted to amend its request to City Council to reflect the lower figure.
McCarthy also revised her recommendation upward by $3.7 million, adding funding for transportation, utilities and other operating costs she initially had held flat from the previous year.
The mayor also added funds for an HVAC teacher for Waltham High School’s career and technical education program, two teachers at Stanley Elementary and an English as a second language coach at the high school. McCarthy still excluded from her calculations funding for new administrative positions proposed by Mendonsa, funding that drove the pair’s initial disagreement.
It’s still an open question, however, how the School Committee will use its personnel funds. The City Council appropriates a lump sum of funding to the School Department, but unlike with other city departments, it has no control over individual line items; the School Committee retains the authority to decide how the money is spent.
Confusion in the council
After hearing conflicting numbers from McCarthy, Mendonsa and the School Committee for weeks, city councilors initially expressed confusion at their June 22 meeting about what exactly they were voting to pass.
“This is kind of new for me, having been on the [Finance] Committee for seven years,” said Ward 1 Councilor Anthony LaFauci, describing the back-and-forth of the school budget process.
LaFauci also complained that councilors only received the mayor’s budget proposals at the beginning of June. “This is the first time we’ve ever done [budgeting] this late in the season,” he added.
After some discussion and procedural fixes, the council finally adopted McCarthy’s School Department budget proposal with the agreed-upon increase.
Ward 8 Councilor Cathyann Harris requested Mendonsa provide councilors with the department’s long-term plan and a clear idea of the changes that residents can expect to see as a result of new additions to the School Department budget.
Councilors applauded the mayor and the superintendent for working together to find a joint solution, but they also expressed frustration at the last-minute changes, inconsistencies and lack of clarity throughout the process.
“Our city deserves a budgeting process that connects spending with outcomes,” Harris said.
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I am glad to see a compromise finally reached for our schools and city budget—thank you to the councilors and school officials who worked hard to get this across the finish line for Waltham’s families.
While the final resolution is great news, this rushed, down-to-the-wire process shows a challenge with our current budgeting process. Our community, our teachers, and our students deserve a budget process that is transparent, collaborative, and deliberate from day one—not sorted out at the last minute.
Councilor LaFauci’s point is a good one. Everyone involved should use this moment as a steppingstone to build a more proactive, open, and predictable process for next year. We have a fantastic city, and if our city leaders can plan ahead collaboratively, maybe they might achieve even better results.