SWAMPSCOTT — As School Committee members warn of rising special-education costs and an expected $190,000 annual operational cost for the new elementary school putting the district “well over budget,” the Select Board is working to address emerging budget concerns amid a decline in new growth year-over-year.
Less than a week before Monday’s Special Town Meeting, the Select Board discussed the fiscal year 2025 tax rate, agreeing to support a proposal to allocate $1 million in free cash to offset the tax burden on residents and an estimated $64 million debt expected to come from construction of the new elementary school.
The board also discussed shifting the commercial to residential tax ratio from 1.7:1 to 1.75:1 after Director of Assessment Cheryl Moschella told the board that residential property values increased by roughly 9% this year while commercial property values only saw a 6% increase.
New growth in the town, Moschella said, also saw a roughly 70% drop since the last fiscal year — a drop that she said is not specific to Swampscott. She also attributed the lack of new growth to a lack of new revenue sources emerging in 2023.
“I’ve talked to some of our other peer towns, neighbors, and it seems like new growth is down across the board for many towns,” Moschella said. “During COVID, there was quite a bit of building going on, and those seemed to finish around ‘22, ‘23. There wasn’t anything that really finished in ‘23 and there’s a few things in the pipeline.”
Prior to a lengthy budget and tax-classification discussion, School Committee Chair Suzanne Wright expressed concerns about the district’s ability to manage more than $1 million in “unexpected expenses” that are anticipated to throw the district over budget in FY24 and FY25.
Wright said the approximately $875,000 in deficit from out-of-district special-education placements and tuition increases will roll over into the FY25 budget, alongside staffing increases brought on by special-education individualized education programs, which will cost another $200,000.
Additionally, Wright added that the annual operational budget for the new school is expected to cost 9% more than the district’s other schools, with an estimated $190,000 price tag.
“The building’s all electric — we haven’t dealt with that previously. We also are planning on (installing) solar panels, and once in place, we know that that’s going to take time for it to function at capacity, so we anticipate there will be a few years where this expense is really unpredictable,” Wright said. “This is leaving our proposed FY25 budget well over 2% plus new growth.”
With a number of large-scale development projects slated to begin in the next few years, such as the revitalization of Vinnin Square and the Elm Place construction at the site of Gen. John Glover’s former home, Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said the town will have to support similar projects in the future if it wants to increase its revenue sources through new growth.
“We have to have a plan,” Fitzgerald said. “If we want new growth, we have to think about how we’re going to drive it… it’s not going to happen without the town taking an increasingly stronger role in supporting economic development in places like Vinnin Square (and) Humphrey Street.”
