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Town Meeting approves the budget and spending. The ballot raises the cap on what the town can collect.
Marblehead's FY27 override needs two separate votes, doing two different things. Most public discussion blurs them into one. They are not the same.
Town Meeting votes on the appropriation: the authority to spend money. Residents at Town Meeting can vote yes, vote no, amend the package on the floor, strip individual line items, or send the budget back to the Finance Committee. The appropriation is the binding decision on what the town spends.
The ballot votes on the override itself: the authority to raise property taxes above the cap set by Proposition 2½. State law caps annual levy growth at 2.5%; the override is the only way to permanently raise taxes beyond that cap. Voters answer yes or no on each ballot question. The override is the binding decision on what the town can collect.
(g) The local appropriating authority of any city or town, with the approval of the mayor if one exists, may, by majority vote, seek voter approval to assess taxes in excess of the amount allowed… Said question shall be deemed approved if a majority of the persons voting thereon shall vote “yes.”
The Select Board can put an override question on the ballot. It passes if more than half of voters vote yes. Town Meeting is not where the override is approved; the ballot is.
For the FY27 override, three nested ballot questions are planned: Tier 1 ($9M), Tier 2 ($12M), Tier 3 ($15M). The highest tier that gets a majority sets the override amount.
One detail worth knowing before Town Meeting: the two votes carry different dollar figures. The ballot override question asks voters to assess the full tier amount (up to $15M for Tier 3), and passing it raises the town's levy limit by that full amount in year one. The Town Meeting warrant appropriates only the first-year draw (about $4.3M for FY27), because the spending phases in over three years. So the levy limit can rise by the full $15M while the town actually spends about $4.3M of it in FY27. See the phase-in schedule and capacity chart for the breakdown.
Each combination of Town Meeting and ballot votes produces a different outcome.
The two votes are sequenced. Town Meeting acts first; if the appropriation fails there, the override fails without a ballot vote. If the appropriation passes Town Meeting, the override still requires a yes at the ballot to take effect.
In 2023, Marblehead held this same two-vote sequence on a $2.5M operating override. Town Meeting approved it. The ballot rejected it six weeks later by 407 votes. Town Meeting vote totals are from the May 1, 2023 Annual Town Meeting minutes recorded by the Town Clerk.
That sequence is the "Town Meeting yes, ballot no" cell of the grid above. The appropriation passed. The override authorization failed. The override-funded portion of the FY24 budget did not take effect, and the town operated under a non-override budget that year.
On May 4, 2026, Town Meeting passed Article 29, the FY27 override authorization, by 1,227 to 159, sending the override to the ballot. About 88 percent of those voting said yes. The override now needs a yes at the ballot on June 9 to take effect.
The FY27 sequence is now in the same first row as 2023: Town Meeting yes. Whether it ends in the same cell (TM yes, ballot no) or the diagonal cell (TM yes, ballot yes) depends on June 9.
For FY27, only the ballot remains. A yes at the ballot enables the override; a no defeats it. The Town Meeting branches (voting down the appropriation, or amending it on the floor) are closed for this cycle. The ballot only asks whether to raise taxes above the Proposition 2½ cap, not how the money gets spent; that decision was made on May 4.