Topic

How Brookline got here, in full

Why has Brookline's budget kept outgrowing what Proposition 2½ allows it to collect?

Mostly because the same staff cost more each year, while state aid fell behind. Inflation in pay, prices and health premiums was $75.3 million (42%) of the $177 million rise in yearly spending from FY2011 to FY2025; the revenue Brookline controls kept pace with costs, but state aid did not, and overrides filled the gap.

Why costs keep outrunning the cap

Since 2005 Brookline's operating spending has grown about 3.65% a year, against the cap's 2.5%. (These pages use two periods. Totals of revenue and spending go back to FY2005, twenty years that include four overrides. Spending sorted by cause starts in FY2011, the first year after the state changed how towns report spending by category, so earlier years cannot be compared line by line; the forecast continues the FY2011 to FY2025 record for the same reason.) Two parts of the budget account for nearly all of the difference:

• Employee benefits, pensions and health insurance for current and retired staff, grew about 5.5% a year.
• Schools grew about 4.5% a year. Enrollment rose by almost a third from 2005 to 2019, and when it fell back, staff fell by less.

Everything else the Town does, from police and fire to libraries and public works, grew about 2.5% a year, close to what the cap allows.

Sorted by cause, most of that growth is not more people but the same staff costing more.

Where the $177 million went

Every dollar of the $177 million increase in Brookline's yearly General Fund spending, from FY2011 to FY2025, can be assigned to one of nine causes. The colors show who sets each one.

Inflation is the largest piece by far. The same staff doing the same work cost more each year as pay, prices and health premiums rose. Schools carry the largest share of it because they are the largest part of the budget.

Inflation here is measured with published benchmarks rather than Brookline's own costs: salaries grow with the national index of state and local government pay (2.8% a year from FY2011 to FY2025), other purchases with Boston-area consumer prices (2.5%), and health premiums with the national index of public-sector benefit costs (3.4%). Anything Brookline's cost per person did beyond those benchmarks is counted separately, as "Pay & costs vs inflation", and it came to only $7.6 million (4%). Brookline's costs for the same staff and supplies rose almost exactly as fast as public employers' costs nationally. Schools ran a little above the benchmarks (+$8.3 million) and Town departments a little below (−$3.2 million). Health premiums added $12.1 million and matched the national index almost to the dollar (+$0.2 million). The rest (+$2.3 million) is pensions costing more per dollar of pay, after the retirement system changed its actuarial assumptions.

Buildings come next. Debt service rose from $9.5 million to $36.3 million a year, mostly for projects voters approved separately: the Devotion (now Ruffin Ridley), High School, Driscoll and Pierce schools, the Newbury College land and fire station renovations. Most of that is paid by debt exclusions, outside the levy limit, so it grew the budget without taking room from day-to-day services. What this means for your tax bill explains how those payments reach a household.

Then staffing levels, mostly in the schools. Brookline had 6.75 students per school staff member in FY2011 and 5.62 in FY2025. Had staff moved one-for-one with enrollment, the schools would have about 208 fewer positions today, about $19.6 million a year in salaries.

Then the pension catch-up. Paying down the pension shortfall, for pensions already earned, added $19.6 million (11%). Those payments follow a fixed schedule that reaches full funding in FY2030, when the money they use is freed for another purpose. Liabilities, reserves and the credit rating has the detail, including retiree health.

How the school staffing ratio changed

Comparing only FY2011 and FY2025 hides how it happened, because enrollment rose and then fell:

From FY2011 to FY2019 enrollment rose 18.5% and staff rose 34%. After COVID, enrollment fell 10.6% by FY2025 while staff fell 5.0%. About 150 of the positions beyond enrollment were added while enrollment was rising; measured against today's smaller enrollment, about 135 of them remain, and about 73 more are positions kept after it fell. Over the same years the share of students with an individualized education program rose from 15.8% to 18.1%, and spending per pupil grew fastest in pupil services and counseling. Neither proves why the ratio changed, but both show where the added spending went. Schools: staffing, costs and open seats has the detail.

How much of this Brookline controls

Brookline's own decisions are staffing levels, borrowing, retiree health prefunding, and pay above or below the national benchmark. Outside Brookline means inflation in pay, prices and premiums, plus state, county and MBTA assessments. Past obligations are the pension shortfall payments.

The lines between these groups are judgment calls. Pay rates are bargained locally, so Brookline has some say over the part filed under inflation too; this page counts only the part of pay growth that differs from the national public-sector benchmark as a local decision. The pension shortfall built up over decades of earlier decisions, and its payment schedule is now fixed.

Revenue: what Brookline controls, and what it does not

Over the twenty years to 2025, the revenue that arrives without a vote grew about 3.52% a year, just short of costs. Split it by who sets it and the two halves behave very differently.

The part Brookline controls kept pace. The levy limit with Brookline's own new growth, and no overrides, grew about 3.91% a year, faster than costs. Fees the Town sets grew about 3.49%.

The part it does not control fell behind. State aid grew about 1.99% a year; it fell after 2008 and took until about 2015 to recover. Had it kept pace with costs, it would have been $34.4 million in 2025 instead of $24.9 million. That $9.5 million shortfall is 87% of the gap between costs and what revenue would have raised without overrides, and it is not unique to Brookline: unrestricted local aid across Massachusetts has fallen about 25% in real terms since 2002.

Brookline should keep pressing the state, but a plan that depends on winning that argument is not a plan. The levers Brookline controls have to do more.

Of the $175 million Brookline's allowed tax revenue grew over those twenty years, the automatic 2.5% supplied $75 million, new growth $61 million and overrides $39 million.

What this means for the forecast

The same causes drive the forecast. Pay and health premium growth decide the largest piece; the school staffing ratio decides much of the rest; and new homes add relatively little cost. Will Brookline need another override? puts a number on each.

Spending, FY2011 to FY2025 explains how each dollar was assigned, why the analysis starts in FY2011, and how sure each piece is.

Go deeper

• Spending, FY2011 to FY2025: How was each dollar of spending growth assigned to a cause?
• Revenue, FY2005 to FY2025: Why did revenue fall behind spending, and which parts?
• Schools: staffing, costs and open seats: How is Brookline's school system staffed, what does an added student cost, and how much room do the schools have?

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