Arlington Town Meeting Approves FY2027 Budget

ARLINGTON, MA — Town Meeting members voted unanimously to approve Arlington’s operating budget for Fiscal Year 2027.

Town Manager Jim Feeney led a presentation that broke down the proposed budget worth more than $247 million, marking an approximate $15 million increase from FY26.

Feeney noted differences between how this edition of the budget is structured in comparison to previous editions, including combining both the general and special education budgets into a single item line with a single growth rate. Curbside compost and trash collection is also being tracked as its own item line.

In addition, he noted that health insurance costs has increased by 10.4 percent in the last year, marking the third straight year in which the cost has increased by double digits.

“Certainly a bit of a crisis across municipalities with respect to healthcare costs,” Feeney said.

He noted the $14.8 million tax override passed by voters in March as the reason why the town has the ability to make a deposit into the override stabilization fund this year, which is used to balance the town’s budget in the long-term.

$107,775,899 accounts for the public school district, which is more than $4 million more than last year. According to Feeney, the passage of the override will enable the school district’s budget to increase by four percent annually through FY29.

Town employee salaries have increased by 6.09 percent this year.

“We’re pleased to report that everyone now does have a current collective bargaining agreement so this sum of money was set aside for appropriation later in the meeting to reconcile these two departmental budgets to where they will need to be in Fiscal Year 27 which is certainly a lot of ground to cover in a single fiscal year for upwards of 150 employees,” Feeney said.

Feeney gave credit to Finance Committee Chair Christine Deshler for her contributions in assembling the budget.

Superintendent of Schools Dr. Elizabeth Homan followed Feeney with a presentation of her own focused on the school’s portion of the budget. Of the $4,145,227 increase from the previous year, $2.2 million will go toward salary increases and the remaining $1.9 million will go toward operational expenses, which have increased in cost faster than anticipated in recent years.

Article 64 passed with 181 voting “yes”, zero voting “no” and two abstentions. The article did not include an $8,268,757 appropriation for Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School.

Town Meeting is set to resume for a fifth night on Monday, May 11.

See Also:

5 Restaurants In Arlington Taking Mother’s Day Reservations

Arlington Town Meeting Votes To Set Up Revolving Fund For Important Property

Arlington Brewery Earns Gold Medal In 'Beer Olympics'

Arlington Launches Grant Program Aimed At Providing Relief During Extreme Heat

Arlington Town Meeting Votes To Establish Roots For Tree Committee

Bald Eagle Killed By Rodent Poison In Arlington