SWAMPSCOTT — Town Administrator Nick Connors addressed a joint session of the Select Board, Finance Committee, and School Committee last night at Swampscott High School.
Connors has been in his role as town administrator since early October, acting as the community’s chief administrative officer and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the municipal government. In his role, he is responsible for developing, presenting, and managing the annual operating budget and capital improvement plan.
The town administrator’s report concerned his fiscal year 2027 recommended budget and financial plan. This forecast balances expenses and revenues across all town departments, and is used to help town officials forecast things like tax rates and public services.
Connor’s 2027 budget was presented to the Select Board, Finance, and School Committees with an explanation of the budget model and the approach that Connors and Swampscott’s Treasurer Patrick Luddy took when making the budget, including feedback from the Select Board and the community during the December Town Meeting.
“This budget was built in a partnership,” Connors said. “You were clear about what matters most to the community … We built this budget with that in mind in each step.”
Connors’ proposed budget detailed line items across many different sections of the town’s management, split between the two main categories of revenue and expenditures. The town’s revenue, which is a 3.5% increase from the 2026 budget. Connors said there is a possibility that actuals may end up being higher.
“We take a very conservative approach to revenue,” he explained. Revenue totals are a combination of state aid, property taxes, and local receipts collected from things like motor vehicle excise, licenses and permits, and hotels, motels, and meals.
The projection for local receipts, where Connors signified they had exercised the most caution, was down 2.1% from what had been proposed in 2026. Connors explained that it is part of the town’s fiscal policy to set local receipt projections at no more than 90% of the actuals from the prior year.
Much of the increase in revenue projections comes from a tax levy of $68 million, which is a 30% increase. There is also a 2.38% increase in state aid as per Gov. Maura Healey’s state budget.
Connors walked the joint session through the expenditures side of the budget by department with a brief overview. Budgets are increasing across nearly all departments, with the largest increases coming from the town budget, school budget, and healthcare costs.
“Our priority is to maintain services while also building capacity where needed and when possible,” Connors said on the proposed expenditures. Most of the increases across these three departments can be traced to a couple big line items.
Throughout the meeting, Connors stressed that a new healthcare contract was a heavy item on the budget, representing nearly 30% of the total budget increase. The contract, he said, hadn’t yet been finalized. But conversations around a new plan (which is negotiated by union leadership), have prompted a higher estimate that reflects current market values.
The school department budget increases are due to healthcare and personnel costs, with a minor adjustment to include additional funding reflecting a $200,000 cash budget supplement that was needed for the school department last year, which will not be a recurring line item. Connors also pointed out that the figure included an anticipated assessment from Essex Tech.
In the town’s budget, which represents 27.7% of the total budget increase, includes an estimated $1.8 million contract in the solid waste enterprise fund. The current solid waste contract is up on June 1, 2027, and Connors noted that surrounding towns had experienced hefty increases in recent contract renewals.
Connors also presented the proposed budget’s impact on taxpayers. Based on 2026 property values and tax rate shifts, the proposed tax levy included in his proposed budget is estimated to increase residential property tax rates by 87 cents per thousand dollars, meaning that an average home (valued at $956,516) would experience an annual tax increase of $849.
Town Treasurer Luddy told the Select Board that the estimated increase is $11 lower than the tax increases for homeowners in the 2026 fiscal year. Still, Select Board members were cautious to accept another hefty increase without further discussion on the finer details of the proposed budget.
