NORTHAMPTON — As the City Council approved Northampton’s $152.5 million fiscal year 2027 budget Thursday, Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra reiterated previous warnings that voters will likely have to decide on a Proposition 2½ override next year to maintain services amid rising costs and uncertain state and federal funding.
The council approved the spending plan on a 7-2 vote, with Ward 6’s Christopher Stratton and Ward 4’s Meg Robbins opposed.
In her address to the council, Sciarra said that the budget’s primary goal next year is to stabilize the city’s finances while prioritizing many essential services. The budget increases overall spending by 4.63% and includes a $47 million allocation for Northampton Public Schools, a $2.9 million, or 6.79%, increase over the current year. Additionally, the Fire Department’s $8.3 million budget is going up $479,350, or about 6%, from the current year.
Sciarra said the budget, which kicks in July 1, reflects difficult choices about how to spend limited resources while maintaining core city services at a time when municipalities are facing rising costs, climate-related challenges and uncertainty from an “unstable and vindictive” federal government.
“While many municipalities are facing sudden and severe budget shortfalls, prompting unexpected override referendums and cuts to schools and services, we are a rare city with a fiscal stability plan that anticipates periodic reasonable overrides at least every four years,” the mayor said.
The mayor also touched on calls for her office to include the School Committee’s proposed “strong budget,” which includes a location allocation of $50.37 million. She noted that while some budgetary increases could be possible should a fiscal year 2028 override pass next year, she, as mayor, must produce a sustainable budget.
“What do we want to accomplish with the next override? Do we want to talk about how we can grow and incorporate, for example, some of the additions that the School Committee would like?” Sciarra remarked. “Every department in the city and the schools have needs that would require more funding. I appreciate that people are advocating, city department heads advocate to me as well, but I don’t present those lists to you unless we have worked to make the addition sustainable.”
During the budget discussion, City Council President Rachel Maiore said that while she has historically been skeptical — or, in her words, “fussy” — about approving budgets, she felt confident in the fiscal year 2027 spending plan. She described the schools’ level-services budget as a “holding pattern” that would keep the district afloat until the city has more resources to allocate.
At-Large Councilor Garrick Perry noted that most of the budgetary increases across departments next year fund additional personnel. He referred to the budget as being “of the people.” He explained that while none of the city’s departments report being “flush with cash,” budgetary hearings seemingly unanimously reflected a community-centered approach.
“This budget is a document of the people, you know, all these budgets primarily represent people who are working for our city, and I’ve said a lot of times that our greatest strength is our people. For me, what stands out is that if we want to move forward, we have to do it together,” Perry said. “No department really said they were flush with cash … but we did hear each department talking about trying to do the best for our city as efficiently as possible, and that really stood out to me. They talk a lot about working together, utilizing resources, and also trying to save the city money whilst doing it.”
In voting against the budget, Stratton argued that funding for projects such as downtown’s redesign known as Picture Main Street should be redirected to address the city’s broader capital needs. He acknowledged, however, that there was “no room” in the budget to fund the schools’ proposed strong budget.
Stratton also noted that many municipalities in Massachusetts are feeling the same financial stress, if not worse, than Northampton, alluding to Proposition 2½ override votes in neighboring communities.
“This budget is level only in sustaining the consequences of previous deeply harmful cuts. We are underserving our children, that’s a fact. The question is, if we will have the courage to do anything about that. Some have talked about trying to find money elsewhere in the operating budget; I don’t really think it’s there,” Stratton said. “We’re going to be going to the people for an override, but before we do that, we need to justify that we’ve used the money they already pay in the most strategic way to meet their priorities and not only our own. Our stubborn split between how we spend on people versus capital projects does not do that.”
Robbins also saw Picture Main Street, a $43.3 million project that carries an estimated $11.8 million local price tag, as a less urgent priority than education funding. She urged her fellow councilors, and the community at-large, to advocate for additional school funding.
Robbins argued that the city should treat education as an essential service, and that ignoring requests from educators and parents for additional teachers amounts to a failure to meet the city’s responsibility to its children.
“When our school principals and teachers and parents, who are on the ground every day, say we desperately need teachers to alleviate overcrowded classrooms … we are abrogating our fiscal duty to see that the children in our community are treasured,” Robbins said.
Ward 3 Councilor Laurie Loisel’s remarks echoed Maiore’s, as she noted that after roughly 30 years of following the city’s budgets, she felt proud of the city’s ability to stabilize its finances.
Loisel spoke to a common debate in the city’s budgeting process between personnel and operations spending, noting that investments in staff and municipal projects often go hand-in-hand. She said the two priorities should not be weighed against one another.
“It’s not a binary like that, projects versus people. I saw a very big pothole on a sidewalk being filled this week, and it was, it then enabled the person who walks her daughter to school, and she’s in a wheelchair, to be able to walk her daughter to school on that sidewalk, so projects are done for people,” Loisel said. “I don’t feel like we have to pit those things that our children need against the schools. It’s just we have to do it all to the degree that we can.”
