Schedule 19 Pension Charges and City Budget Gap

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; names and numbers may be misheard.

What: the city's interim chief financial officer (about five or six weeks into the job) told the committee how the dispute over pension charges to the schools (Schedule 19) is being settled and warned that city finances are in poor shape.
Where it stands: the city's actuary re-ran the unfunded pension liability for school employees only and found the school share is 25 to 27 percent of the city's piece, applied to the actuarial liability plus the schedule of pension obligation bond payments (which run to about 2036), with figures for fiscal 2024 through 2029. State revenue and education officials appeared satisfied but had not confirmed. The superintendent said the numbers are far closer to what the schools expected. Settling this was needed before the state would sign off on the tax rate and tax bills could go out.
Warning: the current year's budget relied on revenues that did not materialize and spending that was understated; reserves have been used to cover it and are nearly depleted. The CFO expects a multi-million-dollar problem next year, cannot see room above the legal minimum net school spending, and said cuts would fall on discretionary city services, possibly with layoffs unless voters or the state help. The school transportation deficit from last year remains unresolved.

The CFO promised bottom-up budgeting with early meetings, and supported a joint city council and school committee group for regular communication.
Members stressed transparency; one asked whether the council had approved an unbalanced budget, and the CFO declined to assign blame. The chair noted a new committee policy on the budget timeline.

2026-10-20 - School Committee - Interim CFO briefing and questions; no vote.
2026-10-26 - City Council - Interim CFO asks to use $18,184,462.35 from the Pension Stabilization Fund; see Stabilization Fund Transfers for FY27 Revenues and Deficits.