Marblehead has spent more than it collected every year since FY18. Free cash covered the gap, peaking at $10.2M in FY23 before FinCom flagged the draw as unsustainable.
Revenue – everything the town takes in: property taxes, state aid, local fees, investment income.
Expenses – total general fund spending: schools, public safety, DPW, health insurance, pensions, debt service.
Shaded gap – the deficit free cash, cuts, or an override has to close.
Expenses if override fails – only appears when an override is modeled. Shows what the town could spend without it: expenses capped at revenue. The space between this line and the full expense line is what the override is funding.
Projected FY40 gap: $12.6Mannual deficit.
Pick a tier or scenario below to see how it changes.
Step 1 of 6
Show more scenarios and controls (8 more scenarios, sliders, assumptions)More scenarios
Combine levers
Override (FY27 to FY29): $0.0M
Position cuts: 0
~$100K/yr each (salary + benefits). Shifts the expense line down but does not change its slope.
How fast does override money get spent? 5-year ramp
Immediate (year 1)5 yearsSlow (10-year ramp)
At 5 years (the default), override money is allocated to positions, programs, and deferred maintenance gradually. At 1, it is all committed in the year it arrives (the skeptic’s view). Slow ramps stretch the headroom but mean deferred needs stay deferred longer.
Assumptions
Revenue growth: 3.5%
Near Marblehead's FY15 to FY24 average of 3.7%. Typical Prop 2½ plus new growth.
Expense growth: 4.0%
FY15 to FY24 actual average. No change in trajectory.
Healthcare employer share: 83%
Marblehead pays 83% of GIC premiums. Hingham pays 50%. Drag to model a shift.
Wage offset: 50%
How much of the premium savings employees negotiate back as higher wages.
FY27 one-time step ($M): $0.0M
Adds a one-time cost (or savings) to FY27 only. Example: GIC premiums jumped about $1.1M in FY27. Set to 0 if the annual growth rate already accounts for it.
Do the lines have to re-cross? Only if expenses grow faster than revenue. At the FY15–FY24 averages (revenue 3.7%, expenses 4.0%), they always re-cross eventually because the gap compounds. To keep the lines apart for good, one of these has to hold:
Expense growth comes down to revenue growth (e.g. healthcare premiums moderate, contracts hold to COLA). Try the “Cost growth slows to 3%” scenario.
Revenue growth rises (more new construction, larger state aid). Try the “More new development” scenario.
A one-time structural reduction (healthcare share shift, position eliminations) shifts the expense line down by enough to absorb the cumulative gap. Try the combo scenarios.
An override on its own buys time. It does not change the slope of either line.
Key takeaway
As long as expenses (driven by health insurance, pensions, and contractual wages) grow faster than revenue (capped by Prop 2½), the gap reopens after any override. The question is not whether it closes, but how long the breathing room lasts and what the town does with it.
Historical revenue and expenditure figures (FY15 to FY24) are from the General Fund Budgetary Comparison schedules in each year's ACFR. These are budgetary-basis numbers, not GAAP. The data file is general_fund_budgetary_FY15-24.csv.
Free cash draw history is from free_cash_operating_history.csv, sourced from FinCom Annual Reports and ATM warrant articles.
The override phase-in schedule (FY27 to FY29) and tax bill conversion ($132.36 per $1M) are from the town's override tax impact data for an average single-family home assessed at $1,291,507.
Projections use constant annual compounding, which is a simplification. Real budgets have lumpy cost spikes (GIC rate jumps, PERAC revaluations) and uneven revenue growth.
The “how fast does override money get spent?” slider controls how many years it takes for override revenue to be allocated as new spending. At N years, each override draw is spread as equal annual expense bumps over N years. At 1, it is absorbed in the year of the draw. Default is 5 years, reflecting the gradual process of filling positions, restoring programs, and addressing deferred maintenance.