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About 72 cents of every dollar in Marblehead's general fund goes to people: $58.2M in salaries, $15.2M in employee group insurance, and $5.4M in pension contributions, out of a $109.3M FY26 operating budget. Those costs are set in nine collective bargaining agreements, negotiated by the School Committee on the school side and approved by the Select Board on the town side, largely outside the annual budget process. This is the calendar of what each contract says and when each one comes up again.
Bars run from each contract's effective date to its stated end date, ordered by expiration. Rows are drawn from the signed documents where we have them (school side, health agreement) and from reporting where we don't (town side); sources are footnoted per row in the sections below.
Three dates matter most. The firefighters' one-year bridge contract expired on June 30, 2026, so a successor is either signed and unpublished, or under negotiation right now. The municipal employees' agreement runs out June 30, 2027. And in the summer of 2028, seven contracts expire within nine weeks of each other: police, custodians, and all four MEA school units, including teachers. Those settlements will be negotiated during the same period the override's phase-in completes, and they are the largest variable in whether the town's no-new-override pledge through FY2030 holds.
The School Committee negotiates with five bargaining units. All five settled three-year agreements in the 2024-25 round, and all five expire between June 30 and August 31, 2028. The signed documents are public, posted by the district, and each card links to our archived copy.
The percentages below apply to each step of a salary schedule. Most employees below the top step also advance one step per year, so payroll for any given roster grows faster than the listed percentages alone. Where a contract prints dollar tables instead of percentages, the year-over-year change shown is derived from the tables; one example is footnoted per card.
September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2028
Raises of 2% (2025-26), 3% (2026-27), and 3.5% (2027-28) on most steps, with larger increases on the top step (3%, then 4%) and, in year three, the bottom step eliminated and a new top step added 2% above the old one. Successor negotiations must open no later than December 2027.
July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2028
Raises of 2%, 2.5%, and 2.5% on all steps. The only school-side unit on a fiscal-year term rather than a school-year term.
September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2028
Formerly the Tutors unit; renamed in this settlement round.
Hourly schedule rises from $26.18 to $26.70 to $27.37 at the entry step (about 2%, then 2.5%, derived: 26.70 ÷ 26.18 = 1.0199), with a new top step added in year two and a $1.00/hour differential for SPED assistants in sub-separate programs holding a relevant license.
September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2028
Salary schedule rises from $30,600 to $31,200 to $31,980 at the entry step (about 2%, then 2.5%), with the bottom step eliminated in year one and a new top step added in year two.
September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2028
Formerly the Paraprofessionals unit; covers lunchroom and recess monitors, van monitors, and two school clerical positions.
Hourly tables rise about 2% then 2.5% at each step (derived: Group A entry step $16.32 to $16.65 to $17.07), with a new top step added.
Police, fire, and general municipal employees bargain with the town. Unlike the school district, the town does not publish the agreements themselves, and they were approved after executive session, so what follows comes from news reporting of the May 5, 2025 Select Board votes rather than from the signed documents. If you have copies of the contracts, we would like to archive them; until then, every number in this section should be read as reported, not verified against a primary document.
July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026 (one-year bridge; now expired)
A one-year "bridge" contract with a 3% cost-of-living increase, signed after the prior contract expired June 30, 2025. It ran out on June 30, 2026. As of this page's last update we have found no public record of a successor.
July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2027
The Marblehead Municipal Employees Union covers roughly 80% of the non-school town workforce. Three-year agreement with raises of 2% (FY25), 3% (FY26), and 3% (FY27).
July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2028
Three-year agreement reached after the union worked without a contract from July 2024. The salary schedule was accepted but specific annual increases were not disclosed in open session.
Collective bargaining agreements are public records in Massachusetts once executed. A resident can request them from the town through a public records request; the town has ten business days to respond. The school district already posts its agreements, which is why the school-side cards above cite signed documents and this section cites a newspaper.
Separate from the wage contracts, one agreement governs health insurance for all town and school employees together: the PEC agreement, a deal between the town and a committee of all its unions. The last published version ran July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2024. It committed the town to buying insurance through the state's GIC and fixed the premium split between town and employees for its duration.
Employee health insurance costs the general fund about $15.2M a year. Whatever replaced the 2018-2024 agreement, we have not found it published: either a successor exists and is unpublished, or coverage has continued while one is negotiated. The town remains in the GIC today. The terms of the next PEC agreement (premium split, plan design, whether to stay in the GIC) will move more dollars than any single wage settlement above. Background on the insurance line is on the insurance surplus page.
The boards' override MOU commits to no new override at least through FY2030. The $15M override phases in through FY29; the contracts above all expire and reset during that same window: fire now, municipal employees in 2027, and seven units in mid-2028. Because most of the budget is personnel and most personnel costs are contractual, the size of the 2027 and 2028 settlements largely determines whether the override's revenue lasts to FY2030 as pledged. The override tracker follows the commitments; this page follows the contracts. Both update as documents surface, and both link the sources so you can check the math. Meeting coverage of the negotiating boards is at meetings and transcripts, and the Monday email digest flags those meetings as they happen.