Chelsea’s FY27 budget is $272,378,292, and the council passed it 11 to 0 on June 8 after a public hearing that, according to the minutes, opened and closed at 7:36 p.m. with nobody speaking. The numbers inside it are the story the hearing did not have.
The schools
The school budget is $156,248,491, up 3.55 percent, in a year when enrollment fell by nearly 350 students. The state’s Chapter 70 aid rose about 4 percent. The city’s Northeast Vocational assessment is $3.19 million, which includes $1.57 million a year in debt service on the new regional school building in Wakefield. Charter school costs rose $2.6 million in one year, and the charter assessment is up 12.78 percent with school choice up 26.57 percent. Fewer students, more money, and a larger share of it leaving the district: that is the arithmetic the School Committee lives with, and the reason the schools cut 50 adults this spring, which we reported here.
The city
The city side is $116,129,801, up 4.8 percent, and the administration told the budget subcommittee in May that mandatory costs, health insurance and the charter assessment above all, account for most of the increase. Health insurance alone rose $1.05 million. Strip out the unavoidable costs, the City Manager wrote in March, and the budget grows 0.92 percent. The one discretionary growth item is the fire department, up 7.25 percent, to make Engine 4 permanent.
The budget uses $4.5 million of reserves to balance. The FY26 free cash ledger labels a $2.5 million draw “Balance the Budget,” and the five-year forecast the administration produced in February shows the same structure producing a $7.2 million deficit in FY28 and $18.6 million by FY31 if nothing changes. New growth, the tax revenue from new construction, was $1 million, a quarter of its peak, and the City Manager’s own slide in March said the city’s inclusionary zoning was the reason.
The hearing
A $272 million budget passed without a public word. That is not unusual in Chelsea; the council’s own record this year shows public speaking running to zero or one speaker at most meetings, and 38 minutes only once, on inclusionary zoning. The council did its work in the Ways and Means and Conference subcommittees in May, where the department heads presented and councillors asked questions, and those minutes are where the detail lives. The public hearing is the formality. But a budget that balances on reserves, in a year the administration says reserves are ending, is the one a resident might have wanted to speak on. Nobody did, and the council did not wait.