Budget Override Information

Shall the City of Medford be allowed to assess an additional $3,500,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for FY 2025 general operations of the Medford Public Schools ($3,000,000), including but not limited to funding costs of teacher(s), literacy coach(s), behavior specialist(s), administrative assistant(s), and nurse(s) positions, and for regular facilities maintenance, and for FY 2025 general operations of the Department of Public Works ($500,000), including but not limited to additional staff for road and sidewalk infrastructure repair, for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024? 

Yes _ No_

Shall the City of Medford be allowed to assess an additional $4,000,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for FY 2025 general operations of the Medford Public Schools to create a high school schedule that increases access to arts and vocational programming, expands classroom instructional opportunities, and for classroom teacher and paraprofessional compensation for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024?

Yes _ No_

Shall the City of Medford be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and one-half, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bonds issued in order to pay costs of constructing a new Fire Station Headquarters to be located at 120 Main Street in Medford, Massachusetts, including the payment of all costs related to designing the project, equipping and furnishing the project, site improvements, and all other costs incidental and related thereto?

Yes _ No_

The Medford Public Schools have been operating at a deficit for several years due to costs increasing faster than available revenues. Federal pandemic aid funding has been used to fill this gap, but federal ESSER dollars expire this year and the use of any type of one-time funding source, such as the city’s free cash reserves, is not a long-term solution. The school budget was facing a cliff as the FY 25 budget was created.  This resulted in deep cuts to the City and Medford Public Schools budget.   Continued cuts to the school budget will reduce the programming we can provide and have a detrimental impact on our students. 

With the approval of the first override question totaling $3.5 million, the City will be able to continue to fund the costs of teachers, literacy coaches, behavior specialists, administrative support, nurses, routine technology replacement, and regular maintenance projects. Approval will avoid deep cuts across the board to programming that relies on $1.75 million in one time funds in the current FY25 budget that will not be available in FY26.

With the approval of the second override question totaling $4 million, the City will work to fix and integrate the high school and vocational program schedules to expand access to elective classes, the arts, foreign language and AP offerings, and our vocational programs for all high school students. Approval of this question would also allow Medford Public Schools to fund new classroom instructional opportunities and enable the City to ensure that staff are paid a living and competitive wage.

In 2019, the City decided to build a standalone police station instead of a joint public safety facility that the Police and Fire Department share. Separate buildings like this are common practice in many municipalities. In doing so, the Fire Department was left with an aging headquarters that lacked various core functions and produced significant upkeep costs.

In 2020, the current Mayor established a fire task force to assess all fire facilities and make recommendations on bringing these buildings in line with current standards. The task force recommended upgrading the satellite fire stations and building a new fire headquarters.

Since that recommendation, the City has moved forward with selecting the architectural design firm The Galante Architecture Studio, Inc. (TGAS) to design and envision the potential new Medford Fire Department Headquarters.

Approval of the Debt Exclusion Question is required to fund the construction of a new fire headquarters.

With the approval of the first override question totaling $3.5 million, $500,000 annually will be added to the DPW budget to hire and deploy permanent in house DPW staff to help tackle the maintenance and routine upkeep of the City's public streets and sidewalks, and allow for faster preventative maintenance work on crack sealing, patchworking and potholes.

While the City has been taking major steps forward to address pothole repair, patchwork and crack sealing work throughout the City, the current City-wide scope of its street and sidewalk work is approximately $175 million. The persistent occurrence of the wear and tear of our roads is due to a number of factors, with climate change and the increasing warmer temperatures during the winter being a primary culprit. As the weather teeters between freezing and melting over the course of the winter—instead of it historically being below freezing for a long duration—water that seeps into the asphalt expands and contracts at a much more frequent rate, causing gaps and cracks in the roadways. To address this, the City for the first time developed a plan to perform preventative maintenance on its roads through crack sealing and patchworking sections that would extend the life of the road and help prevent a full rebuild from occurring in the near future. 

In addition to the needs of repairing and restoring street conditions, Medford’s backlog of sidewalk repair work is $30,817,570 as of April 2021 according to the 2021 Sidewalk Assessment Report. Backlog is a “snapshot” or relative measure of outstanding repair work. The backlog not only represents how far behind the Medford sidewalk network is in terms of its condition, but it also offers a basis for comparison for future and/or past year’s backlog(s) to determine if the City is catching up, or falling behind. Backlog dollars represent the cost to repair sidewalks and curbing only. It does not include related repair costs for relocation and installation of utilities, lighting, signal/APS apparatus, or landscaping.

Proposition 2 ½ is a Massachusetts law enacted in 1980 that limits the amount of property tax revenue a municipality can raise through taxes. This revenue is called the tax levy.

 

Prop 2 ½ also limits how much the tax levy can be increased from year to year. The maximum amount a community can levy in any given year is called the levy limit.

 

Prop 2 ½ caps the tax levy at a 2.5 percent increase based on the value of all taxable commercial and residential property in the City, as well as new growth.

 

A community can permanently increase the levy limit through overrides with a majority vote by ballot.

Learn more with the Levy Limits: A Primer on Proposition 2 1/2 fact sheet from the Division of Local Services (DLS) or on the Proposition 2½ and Tax Rate Process state webpage. 

An override is a permanent increase in taxes that is voted on by residents. If approved, it would remain in place unless there was a subsequent underride vote.

While an override results in a permanent tax increase that is used to fund recurring operational expenses, debt exclusions result in an increased property tax levy for a defined period to pay for capital projects.

For debt exclusions, the debt service costs are added to the levy limit for the life of the debt only. Debt exclusions do not become part of the base used to calculate future years’ levy limits. Once the construction debt is paid off, the cost is removed from property owners’ tax bills.

An override enables cities to keep pace with inflation/fixed cost growth and make progress on funding public schools and essential city services.

Mayor Lungo-Koehn wrote in greater depth about the reasons for an override, what it would fund and how it would impact residents in her FY25 Budget Message.

The election is on November  5, 2024. Polls are open from 7am-8pm. 

To check where your precinct and polling place is, visit https://www.sec.state.ma.us/wheredoivotema/

Early voting and vote-by-mail will additionally be available for this election. 

All voters who are registered to vote in Medford are eligible to vote. To verify your registration, use this link: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/voterregistrationsearch/

Voter registration options include:

• Online via www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/eleidx.htm 

• Visiting the Elections Commission Office at Medford City Hall, Room 102.

• Requesting a voter registration card via email elections@medford-ma.gov
• Requesting a voter registration card to be mailed, by calling 781-393-2490. 

In addition, branches of the state Registry of Motor Vehicles, social service agencies and military recruitment offices provide voter registration services.

The last day to register to vote is ten days before an election, in this case, October 26, 2024. 

You can register to vote by visiting the Secretary of State's website.

You can register to vote by visiting the Secretary of State's website.

Early voting for the November 5, 2024 General Election begins on Saturday, October 19 and lasts until Friday, November 1 2024. The location is Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford MA. A full schedule is below:

• Oct 19th - 9:00am – 3:00pm
• Oct 20th - 9:00am – 3:00pm
• Oct 21st - 9:00am – 4:30pm
• Oct 22nd - 9:00am – 4:30pm
• Oct 23rd - 9:00am – 7:30pm
• Oct 24th - 9:00am – 4:30pm
• Oct 25th - 9:00am – 12:30pm
• Oct 26th - 9:00am – 3:00pm
• Oct 27th - 9:00am – 3:00pm
• Oct 28th - 9:00am – 4:30pm
• Oct 29th - 9:00am – 4:30pm
• Oct 30th - 9:00am – 7:30pm
• Oct 31st - 9:00am – 4:30pm
• Nov 1st – 9:00am – 12:30pm

You can find your polling location by visiting the Massachusetts Secretary of State's website. 

The expected cost of these combined questions would increase property taxes for the average single-family home in Medford (assessed value of $769,000) by approximately $446 per year or $37 per month.

The actual increase for each homeowner is based on the assessment for the home. Use the Department of Revenue Override Estimate Calculator to see the impact of the proposed override on your tax bill based on the assessed value of your property.

The average Medford residential tax bill is lower than many surrounding communities. For more detailed information on how Medford compares to other municipalities, visit https://dlsgateway.dor.state.ma.us/reports/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=AverageSingleTaxBill.SingleFamTaxBill_wRange

If approved by voters, the new tax rates would be reflected beginning with the January 2025 tax bills. 

There are exemptions and tax deferral programs currently available in the City of Medford. Linked here is a summary of 2024 programs. If you believe you meet the requirements for one of these exemptions, please contact the Assessing Department.

No, Medford has never passed an override.

This is a historic proposal for the City and would allow for a significant investment in our schools and assist with the backlog of road infrastructure. 

View the City budget here.