At the second of four annual budget summits, Town Administrator Patrice Garvin highlighted the town’s main challenges for fiscal year 2026.
Those challenges include the end of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds — which currently finance the equivalent of nine full-time positions in Belmont schools — the operations costs for two new municipal buildings, the need for an expanded IT department, and the costs of maintaining town buildings.
“This is the first time we’re truly doing a revenue-first approach,” said Warrant Committee member Geoffrey Lubien, who added the town’s budget growth should match its revenue growth. “The total revenue growth we have is about 3.1% or $4.4 million, so we have to live within that,”
“These are obviously not easy conversations,” Superintendent Jill Geiser said at the meeting. “We do have resource constraints, and one thing I’m reminded [of] is the pressure on those constraints is felt everywhere.”
During a recent presentation, Town Administrator Patrice Garvin said the multi-year model prepared for the recent fiscal year 2025 override established some base assumptions about the school and municipal budget growth, informing the current budget model:
- “School budgets will grow by $3,743,675 or 5.6% to a total of $70.63 million;
- Municipal budgets will grow by $833,231 or 2.5% to a total of $34.21 million.”
School Budget Increase
In March 2021, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act, allocating emergency funds to cities and towns nationwide to support COVID-19 relief efforts. Belmont received approximately $7.8 million in ARPA funds.
With this funding, the town added 10 staff members to Belmont Schools to support student learning and wellbeing, including math interventionists, social workers, nurses, a transition room educator, and an elementary assistant principal. However, the funds will be exhausted at the end of this fiscal year.
“That obviously creates a challenge within the school department because they have many needs they need to address,” said Garvin at the meeting.
According to one of her slides at the summit, ARPA-supported positions will have to be absorbed within the budget or discontinued.
“That would be a decision that the school district will have to make,” said Lubien. “It’s tough because I see that students’ post-COVID needs don’t end when the money runs out.”
A rise in student enrollment, especially students with disabilities, is adding additional pressure to the school budget. Between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years, the number of Belmont students with disabilities rose from 656 to 711, with the number continuing to climb this year.
“This does not account for any housing growth that would impact enrollment,” said Geiser. “So I would just say as those projects go further along, we do need to understand what the impact [is] on the school populations of any new housing developments.”
The process of developing the school budget is only beginning, she said.
“We have just started meeting with our leadership staff to discuss the resources at the building and department levels, so we’re only at the beginning stages of gathering the information we need for the full process,” she said
During her presentation, Geiser projected the school budget to increase between $4.6 million and $6.5 million — the range does not account for the potential savings resulting from re-allocating expenses. The district will determine a more specific estimate in upcoming budget conversations, she added.
Growing Municipal Budget
Garvin said the town’s new library and rink projects will also require funding for utilities and staffing.
“Obviously, we won’t have the revenues from the rink on day one,” she said. “So we’re going to have to figure out how we’re going to manage that as we move forward.”
Garvin said an assessment of the town’s older buildings was also recently conducted, likely generating additional maintenance costs.
She said the town’s Information Technology (IT) department is also expanding, adding IT touches every part of the community, including public safety and schools.
“Our infrastructure needs to be improved, and we need the staffing to support that,” Garvin said.
Additionally, she said, rising health insurance costs are also a potential factor in the municipal budget.
In upcoming budget conversations, the town will determine its plan for keeping the budget growth in line with the expected revenue growth. The next budget summit will be held on Jan. 23, and information about the budget summits can be found at Town Budget Information | belmontma.