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The Marblehead Select Board voted 3-1 Friday afternoon to approve a $56.6 million fiscal year 2027 balanced budget, completing the spending package that will go before voters at Town Meeting in approximately five weeks.
Select Board members Dan Fox, Erin Noonan and Moses Grader voted in favor. Jim Zisson cast the lone dissent. Alexa Singer was absent. The vote sends the budget forward as Article 23 of the May 2026 annual Town Meeting warrant.
The budget eliminates about 20 town positions and is the baseline the town will operate under if voters reject the multiyear, three-tier Proposition 2½ override the board approved 4-1 on Wednesday to close a $7.7 million townwide deficit. That same night, the board voted to place a separate standalone trash-funding override on the June ballot, giving voters the option to shift roughly $2.2 million in curbside collection costs onto the property tax levy instead of paying a per-household fee. An override is the only mechanism to reverse the cuts in the balanced budget.
The budget holds the town operating side at approximately $48.3 million and carries a school district appropriation of $47.6 million — the same figure the School Committee approved 5-0 earlier Friday morning after weeks of debate over a disputed health insurance reserve. Both numbers have remained constant throughout the budget process.
"What is presented here is a balanced budget," Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer said. "That's the role of the Select Board — make sure there's a balanced budget that goes to Town Meeting."
The budget breaks out curbside trash collection as a new standalone department line — $2.1 million in both revenue and expenditure — structured as a pass-through. Kezer said separating it from the operating budget was a matter of transparency.
"We were breaking it out separately rather than including the curbside trash expenditures as a supply line under town operating," Kezer said. "It'll confuse people."
Under the current plan, the Board of Health would administer the per-household fee to fund the service. If the standalone trash override passes, the fee goes away and the cost moves to the levy.
The trash structure drew pointed questions from Fox, who noted the budget relies on revenue from a fee that another board has not yet formally approved. The Board of Health has signed a contract with Republic Services for the collection but has not held its required public hearing or voted to implement the fee.
"We are voting on a budget right now that has a revenue assumption that they're going to pass," Fox said. "If they don't pass before Town Meeting, we need to come back with a new budget."
Finance Director Aleesha Nunley-Benjamin pushed back, saying the signed contract leaves the Board of Health no choice but to fund the service.
"They've already signed a contract," Benjamin said. "They are required to implement whether they do it now or later. They're on the hook."
Zisson cast the lone no vote, saying he visited town buildings before the meeting and struggled with the contrast between funding unfilled positions while employees in other departments face layoffs.
"I would prefer to save one job and not fill an open position," Zisson said.
He also questioned whether the board should assume more risk on two reserve lines — the $414,000 Finance Committee reserve fund and a $576,210 unemployment compensation line built to cover a full year of potential layoffs — arguing that trimming them could preserve positions. If the override fails and the reserves prove insufficient, he said, the board could find another way to cover the gap.
Only two changes had been made to non-Select Board department budgets since the prior Thursday: a $3,000 shift from the waste department to parks to cover irrigation costs that had not been accounted for. Select Board department budgets were unchanged from the board's vote the previous week. Benjamin confirmed the fire department carries one funded vacancy and a senior clerk position in the Select Board office is budgeted but not filled. The cut at the Department of Public Works was an actual employee, not a vacancy.
Grader presented a spreadsheet showing total cuts of approximately $4.5 million needed to balance the fiscal 2027 budget — roughly $1.4 million on Select Board departments and about $3 million on non-Select Board departments. Fox acknowledged the document but said it fell outside the scope of the vote. Both Fox and Kezer said the format could prove useful for presenting override information to voters.
The budget vote came hours after the School Committee voted 5-0 to accept $1.5 million in additional cuts and join the override effort. Kezer is expected to return to the Select Board on April 8 with override details.
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