Topic

Where Brookline's money comes from and goes

What does the Town's budget pay for, and where does the money come from?

In FY2027 the General Fund is $450.7 million. About four-fifths of it is property tax, a third goes to the schools, and almost all Town money runs through this one fund.

Property tax is the main source; local fees and taxes, state aid and last year's leftover money (free cash) make up the rest.
Schools are the largest use, then Town departments and employee benefits, which are each about a fifth.
Proposition 2½ caps the property tax: the total may rise about 2.5% a year plus tax on new construction and renovation, and only voters can raise it further.
Water and sewer, the golf course, recreation programs and community preservation have their own funds, paid for mostly or entirely by their own fees or surcharge; together they are about a tenth of the total.
Very little money crosses between funds, and what does flows into the General Fund, not out of it.

The General Fund

The General Fund is the Town's main operating budget: schools, police and fire, public works, libraries, employee benefits, debt and capital. Town Meeting adopted the FY2027 budget, with the May 2026 override, at $450.7 million.

Where FY2027’s $450.7 million comes from, and where it goes

General Fund sources and uses, the FY2027 budget adopted by Town Meeting in May 2026, with the override

Property tax is $359.3 million, 80% of the total. Of that, $35.4 million is a debt exclusion: tax voters approved to repay specific school and building loans, which passes straight through to that debt. The rest, $323.9 million, is the ordinary levy, capped by Proposition 2½.

The other sources are local receipts such as motor vehicle excise, meals tax and fees ($37.6 million), state aid ($26.7 million), free cash ($18.3 million) and other available funds ($8.8 million).

Schools are the largest use, $149.8 million. Town departments are $103.5 million and employee benefits, mostly health insurance and pensions for current and retired staff, $99.1 million. The rest pays for capital, reserves, debt and state assessments.

The Town cannot simply collect more

When a home's assessed value goes up, the Town does not get more money. Under Proposition 2½, the total Brookline may collect from all property owners combined, the levy limit, rises about 2.5% a year whatever happens to house prices. Rising values change how that total is divided among owners, not the total.

The Town can collect more than that in only two ways:

New growth. When something is built, renovated or converted, the value it adds is taxed on top of the 2.5%, permanently, with no vote.
An override. Voters raise the limit at the ballot. It is permanent, and it compounds, because every later year's 2.5% is calculated on the larger base.

A debt exclusion looks similar but pays for one specific building, most recently new schools, and ends when that debt is paid off. It runs through the General Fund, but the tax matches the debt payments dollar for dollar and pays for nothing else, so the forecast sets both aside: leaving them in would add the same amount to revenue and spending and change nothing about the balance between them.

All five funds

Four smaller funds sit beside the General Fund. Water and sewer, the golf course and recreation programs are paid for by the people who use them; community preservation is paid for by a 1% property tax surcharge and a state match, and can be spent only on open space, historic preservation, affordable housing and recreation.

Brookline’s full financial picture: where every dollar comes from, which fund it sits in, and what it pays for

FY2027. Sources → fund → uses, all five funds at once. Note how little crosses between funds, and that what does cross runs from the enterprise funds to the General Fund, not the other way. Debt exclusion is shown in its own color: it is property tax, but restricted by law to the specific bonds voters approved. The General Fund is the budget Town Meeting adopted in May 2026, with the override; the other funds are from the FY2027 Financial Plan. CPA is the Financial Plan’s one gap: it isn’t budgeted there at all, so it is shown at its FY2024 audited actual.

Two adjustments, so every dollar is counted once. (1) The $4,019,498 that Water & Sewer, Recreation and Golf reimburse the General Fund for their staff’s fringe benefits is drawn as its own band from each fund to Employee Benefits, what it actually pays for, and so is removed from the General Fund’s “Other Available Funds,” where the budget books it. (2) The General Fund’s own Recreation Department ($1,258,275) is split out of Town Departments and drawn into the shared Recreation programs node, which is where the tax subsidy of recreation becomes visible. Employee Benefits still totals $99.1M and Recreation programs $6.3M; only the question of who funds them is made explicit.

The picture is simple once it is drawn: the General Fund is about 90% of the Town's money, and the smaller funds mostly keep to themselves. The main thing that crosses between them is about $4.0 million the enterprise funds pay the General Fund for their staff's benefits.

How Brookline's budget works explains each source and limit in detail, including how Proposition 2½ caps the property tax and why free cash arrives two years late.

Go deeper

How Brookline's budget works: Where does the Town's money come from, what is it allowed to collect, and what does "sustainable" mean?
Glossary: What do the budget terms on these pages mean?
Forecast Explorer: What happens to the budget under your own assumptions?

Last updated 2026-10-08. What has changed.