What Decides Brookline's 2040 Budget

The outlook

Annual operating revenue minus annual operating spending, base case, with the May 2026 override. Excluded debt is left out of both sides because voters approved a separate tax that pays it exactly.

No further override is needed before 2040 if costs keep behaving as they have. Revenue runs $10 million ahead of spending in FY2028, about $16 to $19 million a year from FY2031 through FY2038, and $12 million in FY2040, about 2% of revenue.

The room peaks in the mid-2030s and then narrows. Once the override is fully phased in, revenue grows about 3.78% a year and spending about 3.98%, the same kind of small, persistent gap Brookline lived with for twenty years. It is best read as capacity the decisions below will use, not a surplus that will accumulate: Brookline has consistently spent close to what it has, and the override's later steps ($5.6 million in FY2028 and $7.8 million in FY2029) were sized to the School Department's own, faster cost forecast.

Budgets are balanced every year by law, so a projected gap is not a deficit anyone will run. It is the size of the choices ahead. FY2026 and FY2027, both adopted balanced budgets, come out at +$1.3 million and +$2.7 million, which is the check that the revenue side is counted correctly.

How free cash is counted. The Town budgets local receipts (excise, meals tax, fees, permits) below what it expects to collect; actual receipts ran $11 to $15 million above budget in FY2022–25. The excess, plus unspent appropriations, becomes the year-end surplus, which the state certifies as free cash and the Town appropriates two budgets later. This forecast budgets receipts the way the Town does (74% of expected collections) and returns each year's excess as free cash two years later, at the 84% share the Town has appropriated recently. An earlier version counted the excess in both places.

What decides it

Each row changes one assumption from the base case and shows the effect on the annual balance in FY2040 (left) and on the total over FY2026–40 (right).

The largest lever is what the Town pays for the services it already provides. Pay settlements, the health plan, how staffing follows enrollment, and what the pension savings are used for. None of these cuts a service. Each is a decision Brookline makes anyway, every year, in bargaining, benefit design and the school budget, and each is worth more than any plausible difference in how fast the town grows.

Four decisions dominate, and three of them are Brookline's to make:

• Pay settlements. One point of pay growth a year for all staff is worth $46 million a year by FY2040 and $272 million over the forecast. School wages at the School Department's own forecast rate, about 5% a year including steps, would cost $35 million a year by FY2040.
• The FY2031 pension shift. When the pension system reaches full funding, about $37 million a year of pension payments ends. The Town's schedule moves that money into prefunding retiree health. Not moving it would leave $35 million a year of room.
• School staffing as enrollment changes. If enrollment falls as NESDEC projects and enrollment-linked positions follow it down, FY2040 improves by $22 million a year. If enrollment instead rebounds as the School Department's own forecast projects and staff follow it up, FY2040 worsens by $18 million.
• Health premiums, which Brookline controls only through its 83% share and plan design: 6.5% instead of 8% long run improves FY2040 by $20 million; 10% worsens it by $32 million.

When the room runs out

Growth moves the answer less than any of these in the first decade and can move it more by 2040, depending on its kind (covered below).

Where these are decided. Several of these decisions already have a place in the Select Board's 2030 Roadmap. Action 3.D.3 revises the Town's policy on funding retiree health, which is the FY2031 pension decision, from July 2027. Actions 3.D.2 and 3.E.1 call for a five-year service and funding priority list, targeted for FY2027, the natural place to weigh all four. Actions 1.B.1 and 6.B.2 commit to competitive pay without putting a price on it. Health insurance and school staffing are not in the Roadmap's fiscal goal.

Why the Town's own plan shows a large deficit

The Town's FY2027–31 long-range plan, presented in January 2026, shows a gap of $42.7 million by FY2031. Run through this model with the Town's own revenue, its spending lines imply:

• Town departments: measured from the adopted FY2027 budget, pay growth of only about 1.5% a year with staff flat, well below the base case's 3.0%. On departments the Town's plan is more optimistic than the base case.
• Schools: either school pay growing about 6.6% a year with staff flat, or staff growing to about 1,350 positions by FY2031 while enrollment falls. Neither matches the record.

The school line explains it. Every school figure in the Town's plan is the School Department's own forecast, stitched from two versions. FY2027–29 come from a December 2025 forecast; FY2030–31 come from a November 2025 forecast that the School Department labeled "preliminary estimates of PSB costs prior to any analysis for potential efficiencies." Its stated assumptions: "Staffing levels remain constant, enroll remains flat," with salaries rising about 5% a year (steps and lanes of about $2.0 million a year, plus cost-of-living raises), out-of-district tuition up 4% a year, and bus contracts repricing about 20% at renewal. The two versions differ by $3.1 million in FY2029, which adds a one-time jump to FY2030. The budget the School Department adopted in February grows about 4% a year instead.

The two biggest differences are the override that passed and school pay. Together, steps 1 and 4 are $41.7 million of the $58.5 million between the Town's plan and the base case. The two answer different questions. The Town's plan asks what happens if school costs follow the School Department's own pre-efficiency forecast; the base case asks what happens if costs and revenue keep behaving as they have. Which is closer depends mostly on whether school pay keeps rising about 5% a year, as the School Department forecasts, or about 3.7%, the middle of the 3.3–4.1% range the School Department's FY2026 budget build gives at the contract's 2.75% raise. The teachers' contracts expired on August 31, 2026 and are being renegotiated.

The base case: Brookline's own record

Each assumption continues what Brookline actually did from FY2011 to FY2025, unless a published schedule says otherwise. A base case where staff shrink with enrollment and pay holds exactly to target would show large surpluses, and neither happened in the last fifteen years; those are shown as levers above instead.

Where the money goes

Annual operating spending by line, base case.

Health insurance is the line to watch. It more than triples, from $46 million to $143 million, and by FY2040 is nearly as large as all town departments combined. Three years of 12% premium increases, then 8%, on a plan that covers about 1,700 retirees as well as current staff, compounds quickly.

The pension and retiree health lines swap places in FY2031. The pension payment falls from $44 million to $7 million when the system reaches full funding, and retiree health prefunding rises from $6 million to $43 million under the Town's schedule. Total spending barely notices, which is also why a two-year delay in full funding changes the fifteen-year total by only $3 million.

FY2027's capital, reserves and other line includes a $3.6 million deposit to a new Override Stabilization Fund and a $1.6 million increase to the liability fund; from FY2028 the line follows the Town's capital policy again, which is why it dips. The deposit comes back as revenue, about $1.2 million a year in FY2028–30.

Schools: enrollment, staffing and pay

Two enrollment forecasts that disagree

Two demographers produced forecasts for the district in 2023, and they point in opposite directions. NESDEC projects enrollment falling to about 6,130 by 2033–34. Cropper-McKibben, the forecast the School Department plans with, projects a low in 2027–28 and a rise to about 7,440. Both have been close so far.

Cropper-McKibben has tracked the last three years slightly better. The base case still uses NESDEC because the population data points the same way: births to Brookline residents fell from about 690 a year (2008–13) to about 490 (2020–22), and UMass Donahue Institute projections have Brookline's 5–14 age group falling about 28% from 2020 to 2035. What would drive Cropper-McKibben's rebound isn't stated in the documents reviewed. With staff held at today's level, the choice between the two moves FY2040 by only $5 million; it matters much more if staffing follows enrollment.

How Brookline's staffing compares

Against 17 peer K–12 districts, Brookline had 5.6 students per staff member in FY2025, the 7th most staffed of 18 (peer median 5.9), and the same rank ten years earlier. Its needs rank 4th: 41% high-needs students (median 30%) and 11% English learners (median 4%). Peers added staff faster than enrollment too: over ten years Brookline's staff grew 10% while enrollment fell 6.5%; the peer median was +17% staff and −4% enrollment. Brookline serves most students with disabilities in-district, so its out-of-district tuition is low (5% of spending, 16th of 18). What stands out is pay: Brookline's average teacher salary ($132,000 in FY2025) is the highest of the 17 districts with data, against a peer median of about $112,000.

For the forecast. Staffing is somewhat above peers and so are needs, so there is no strong case for treating it as an outlier to be trimmed. School pay growth is the larger open question, and it is being bargained now.

Town services: what the workload data shows

Police and fire workload counts from sixteen Town Financial Plans and thirteen police annual reports, FY2003–25:

• Police calls don't track housing. The Town's reported count fell from about 75,000 (FY2013) to about 53,000–56,000 (FY2024–25). Part of that is a switch between two different counts and an unexplained 26% drop in 2016 with no change in the stated definition. The step down around 2020 is real but is mostly less officer-initiated activity: moving violations fell from about 13,700 (2019) to about 2,800–4,700 a year and arrests by more than half, while sworn staffing ran 14 to 19 officers below authorized strength. 911 calls rose. So the counts say nothing about new homes adding police demand, and they shouldn't be read as falling need either.
• Fire and EMS workload is rising, about five times faster than housing. Total fire responses grew 3.0% a year from FY2013 to FY2025, to about 10,500, and medical emergencies 2.7% a year. New homes account for perhaps 55 more responses a year against increases of several hundred. The likely driver is age: Brookline's 65-and-over population grew 36% from 2010 to 2020, and UMass Donahue projects the 75-and-over group growing another 43% by 2030.
• Staffing didn't follow workload. Public Safety positions fell by five over FY2011–25. The Town attributes its recurring Fire Department overtime deficit to leave rules in the FY2018 contract, injury leave up about 150%, and a 2022 arbitration award, and has floated three-firefighter companies.

Compared with peers. Brookline fields more police and firefighters per resident than most comparable towns, and its staffing has not grown with its population: from 2010 to 2020 residents rose 7.6% while budgeted police and fire positions stayed flat. Across Massachusetts, larger towns carry roughly proportionally more of both, and Brookline sits above what its size and density predict (about 6% for police, 30% for fire). Fire staffing moves in steps, a station or company at a time, not with each new home.

Police: FBI full-time officers, 2019, the last complete year before reporting gaps and before 2020–22 attrition; at 2022's 116 sworn officers Brookline is about 1.8. Fire: U.S. Fire Administration registry (self-reported; Brookline's matches its budget). Population: 2020 Census. Per-resident ratios leave out commuters and visitors.

For the forecast. This supports a low cost per new home for police and points to an aging population, not growth, as the pressure on fire and EMS. The forecast doesn't yet add a separate aging effect; the Public Safety pay premium carries it implicitly.

What growth brings in, by type

Annual tax revenue minus annual service cost in FY2040, by type of growth, for each growth scenario.

New homes come out slightly negative; everything else is net revenue. A new home's tax can grow only 2.5% a year under the levy limit, while the cost of its students and services grows with pay, so its net position worsens over time. At the model's 0.244 students per home and about $16,500 per added student (FY2027 dollars: one added position per 8.5 students, plus supplies, transport and health insurance), school costs are most of it. Renovations, commercial space and business equipment add tax with little or no added service demand. Renovation is modeled with no cost, which overstates it if renovations add bedrooms and students.

When a new home covers its costs

One home at a time: the number of school-age children at which a home's property tax just covers the Town services ($866 a year in FY2027) and schooling ($16,443 per added student) it brings. A home's tax grows about 2.5% a year under the levy limit while the cost of a student grows about 4.1%, so the breakeven falls over time.

A typical new Brookline home roughly breaks even; it needs to be worth about $477,000 to cover 0.244 children. Ownership homes pay their way with room to spare. That is why housing is a weak lever for the budget: each added tenth of a percentage point of new growth, sustained, is worth about $9.3 million a year by FY2040 through renovation, $7.5 million at today's mix, and only $1.7 million through new housing alone. The cost of a student is the assumption that matters most: at the full average cost per pupil instead of the marginal one, the rental breakeven falls from 0.22 to 0.12 children.

Town-wide, births matter more than new housing. Brookline residents had about 690 babies a year in 2008–13 and 422 in 2023, almost 40% fewer. So far families moving in have held enrollment level: from FY2021 to FY2025 the pool of Brookline-born children fell 4% while enrollment stayed near 7,000. From here they slow the decline rather than stop it. By FY2040 that pool is about 28% smaller, and keeping enrollment level would take more families moving in than during the 2010s boom; NESDEC projects about 5,970 students. Homes built at the recent pace plus Chestnut Hill, about 2,500 by FY2040, bring roughly 430 to 610 students into a system serving fewer than it did, and NESDEC's projection already includes them. The School Department's forecaster, Cropper-McKibben, projects enrollment rising to about 7,400 by 2034 instead, on projected construction and migration. That would mean Brookline drawing families the way suburbs like Newton or Lexington do, where kindergarten classes run 1.1 to 2 times the births five years earlier; in Brookline and its urban neighbors they run at or below births (0.93 in fall 2025). Section 3c of the reference document sets out the arithmetic.

How the cost of an added student is calculated

The forecast treats two-thirds of the school budget as moving with enrollment and one-third as fixed (buildings, administration, leadership), the split RKG set with Town staff. It staffs the enrollment-linked share at the FY2027 ratio of 5.67 students per staff member (6,889 students, about 1,214 staff). An added student therefore brings 0.67 ÷ 5.67 = 0.118 positions, or one position per 8.5 students.

That is 76% of the $21,745 average school budget per pupil in FY2027, and close to RKG's $15,572 (FY2025), which uses the same two-thirds split. It rises with pay and premiums: about $21,800 in FY2034 and $27,700 in FY2040 in nominal dollars. Teacher pensions are paid by the state and aren't included. The script checks these components against the full model's result. In practice the cost is lumpy: with K–8 classes averaging 17 to 21 against guidelines of 22 to 25, a child joining a grade with room costs little, while one that forces a new section costs a teacher. $16,443 is the long-run average.

Chestnut Hill: how it's counted

The Chestnut Hill project is added on top of trend growth on both sides: its property tax, rooms tax and excise ramp in over FY2032–34, after construction in FY2029–31 as the Planning Department's June 2026 pipeline shows, and so do the costs of its 266 homes, their students and about 960 employees. The five published fiscal-impact scenarios describe different buildings, which is why their revenue ranges from $3.2 million to $6.7 million:

The approved plan is priced from the scenarios' own rates: RKG's residential tax per home, and City Realty 1's commercial space, the only scenario with the approved 200-room hotel. Its 184,000 square feet of office and retail is consistent with the zoning requirement that more than half the floor area be commercial, but the actual commercial square footage isn't published. The tornado shows the alternatives: City Realty's average (+$1.2 million in FY2040), RKG's estimate (−$2.3 million), and counting Chestnut Hill as part of trend growth instead of on top of it (−$5.4 million a year, −$38 million over fifteen years).

How this compares with this project's earlier forecast

The earlier forecast grew each budget line at its own historical rate. With the same revenue, it shows +$11 million a year in FY2031 and +$22 million in FY2040, against +$16 million and +$12 million here. Total spending in FY2040 is close ($671.7 million against $684.7 million); the mix differs, with health insurance and other benefits about $15 million higher here and schools about $7 million lower.

How sure these numbers are

1. The method's own error. Run backward over FY2011–25 with the actual staff counts, enrollment and price indices, it predicts town departments 3.8% too high and schools 5.7% too low.
2. The two enrollment forecasts disagree by about 1,300 students by 2033–34.
3. The school variable share (67%) is RKG's judgment with Town staff, not a measured response.
4. One pay rate per group. Contracts differ by bargaining unit and year, and the teachers' contracts are open.
5. Retiree health is held flat after FY2031 in nominal dollars, as in the Town's schedule.
6. Free cash depends on the Town continuing to budget receipts conservatively and appropriating about 84% of each surplus.
7. The Override Stabilization Fund ($3.6 million set aside in FY2027) is assumed to be drawn down evenly over FY2028–30, about $1.2 million a year, to smooth the override's phase-in. The Town documents reviewed don't state the plan.

Checks in the script: FY2026 matches the Town's FY2026 budget and FY2027 matches the budget adopted by Town Meeting, both to the dollar, and both come out balanced after revenue; lines sum to the total every year; each assumption moves only the lines that depend on it; NESDEC's grade table sums to its own totals.