The Melrose Messenger

School Committee Approves Budget for 2026-27 School Year

By Ellen Putnam

This week, the School Committee voted to approve the budget for the Melrose Public Schools for the 2026-27 school year, wrapping up their role in this year’s city budget process.

Next month, residents can expect the budget process for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27, which begins in July) to continue when the Mayor’s Office releases her proposed budget for the city as a whole, and the City Council holds their own budget hearings.

After Melrose voters approved a $13.5 million property tax override last November, the School Committee voted on a supplemental budget with $3.8 million in funds from the override. (You can read more about the supplemental budget here.) This year’s budget of $54 million reflects an increase of almost 17%, or $6 million, over last year’s initial budget (approved last spring), and an increase of 4.2%, or $2.17 million, over the final budget that was approved in December.

But despite those additional funds, the school budget remains lean in many places.

School Committee Chair Seamus Kelley and Vice Chair Matthew Hartman wrote in a letter: “While the override was a ‘game-changer,’ it wasn't a ‘cure-all.’ The override funds have immediate benefits, but they did not reverse all of the cuts that the schools faced over the last two years.” In terms of staffing, approximately 40 positions were cut between FY24 and FY26, and 17 of those have been restored through the override funds.

Central administration remains quite sparse, with one curriculum director position added back this year - for a total of two across the district - compared to a dozen in FY24. And while the district’s elementary schools have largely returned to their FY24 staffing levels, and the middle school actually has one more position than it had in FY24, the high school still has 10 fewer positions than it had in FY24 - including the 4 positions that were added back this year through the override funds.

While this year’s budget does not reflect a full return to the staffing levels the district had in FY24, it does reflect a significant improvement over what the school budget very likely would have looked like, if an override had not passed.

Last year, district leaders created a budget that, although it eliminated dozens of positions, avoided the need to close one of the district’s five elementary schools. But city officials projected that, without an override, the city would be facing an additional $4 million shortfall going into FY27 - which would likely have meant eliminating more positions in the schools, and quite possibly closing a school.

“FY27 without an override or a miracle on the state or federal level is catastrophic,” Mayor Jen Grigoraitis said during last year’s budget process. “And that’s true on the city side, too. We will be eliminating entire departments.”

“It's hard to imagine what the FY27 budget would look like without the override,” School Committee Member Jen Razi-Thomas told The Melrose Messenger this week. “In short, the override brought us back from the financial brink. It helped us fund our schools in a manner that our children deserve. Without it, we would be facing more cuts, considering closing an elementary school, and class size would be further ballooning. So all and all, we are grateful for the community decision to fund our schools and city in a much better fashion.”

But while the School Committee has approved the overall budget for the Melrose Public Schools, there are a number of areas that are still in flux.

For one, while the School Committee approves each budget category, more detailed budget decisions, including which staff to hire and which schools they will work at, are left up to district leadership.

And the School Committee is still negotiating new contracts with all three units of the Melrose Educators Union (MEU). Bargaining sessions are scheduled for April 30th and May 13th, which means that costs within the school budget could still increase, depending on the terms of the contract that is reached. Residents may remember that the MEU voted to go on strike during the last contract negotiations, in 2023.

“Upcoming collective bargaining agreements will likely increase our fixed staffing costs,” Kelley and Hartman noted in their letter.

While the deployment of override funds has not been immediate, residents are likely to start seeing more of the effects from those funds soon, especially as capital improvements that were approved in November’s supplemental budget are implemented during construction season.

In the schools, Kelley and Hartman said in their letter, “Positions are hiring now, wages have improved, and curriculum is rolling out. Many more of these investments will be seen when students return to their buildings next September. Soon these investments will begin to pay off, as students see more educators available to reduce class sizes, more specialists to help those who need additional support, a stronger curriculum, and buildings that are healthier and safer than years before.”

On the city side of the budget, some override effects could be seen this winter, such as the restoration of Sunday hours at the Melrose Public Library. Others, such as road and park improvements and repairs, will be seen this spring and summer. (And trash cans have now returned to the Melrose Common - a cut that did not have a direct budgetary component, but that many residents hoped would be reversed if an override passed. We personally hope that trash cans will also return to Cedar Park before the Melrose Farmers’ Market starts in June!)

And with some expenses that had been pushed onto free cash last year now back in the regular budget (including curriculum materials and technology for the schools), more free cash is available this year for funding nonessential but popular programs.

Earlier this month, the City Council approved the first three free cash requests for this year:

• $20,000 to the Elections department for poll pad laptops and printers;
• $50,000 to the Melrose Cultural Council to support additional grants for the arts (an increase over the $20,000 from last year’s free cash); and
• $25,000 to provide city support for beloved events like Summer Stroll, Victorian Fair, and Home for the Holidays (an expense that was covered by federal pandemic relief funds last year, but which had an uncertain future beyond that).

A wide range of representatives from arts organizations and the Melrose Chamber of Commerce spoke in favor of the Cultural Council and community event funding during public comment.

The full impact of the override funds on the FY27 budget will be made public when the city budget is published next month.

It’s also worth noting that most residents saw a significant jump in their property taxes for the second half of FY26 because the override was retroactive to July 1st, 2025, and that increase was concentrated in the Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 tax bills. However, while residents’ total yearly tax bill for FY27 will be higher than it was for FY26, residents will actually see lower quarterly tax bills for FY27, compared to Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 of FY26, because the override amount will be spread through all four quarters of the year.

Posted April 17th, 2026