~5 min read

What's actually flexible in Marblehead's budget?

Of the FY27 $109.78M general fund, roughly $42.4M is locked by law, contract, or funding schedule. That leaves about $67.4M as discretionary, and most of that is salaries, so "cut spending" almost always means "cut positions."

What's locked

Hard-locked this year — $17.9M Contract-locked — $18.3M Schedule-locked — $6.1M Flexible — $67.4M

Hard-locked this year

Legal or contractual obligations the town cannot reduce in FY27.

Bonded debt service	$11098K
State assessments (MBTA, charter school, county, MAPC, mosquito) Using FY26 figure — FY27 cherry sheet not yet published by DLS	$2530K
SPED out-of-district tuition + transportation (net of Circuit Breaker + IDEA offsets)	$4291K

Contract-locked

Set by current collective bargaining agreements; reducible only by contract renegotiation.

Healthcare (employer share, ~83%)	$16755K
Workers compensation insurance	$978K
Unemployment insurance	$597K

Schedule-locked

Long-term funding obligations governed by actuarial schedules.

Pension assessment (Marblehead Contributory Retirement)	$5843K
Medicare (federal employer match, 1.45%)	$278K

What it actually costs to employ someone

Teacher (schools)

Total cost-to-employ: $115.5K

Town employee (non-school)

Total cost-to-employ: $168.8K

Averages hide spread. A first-year teacher and a senior firefighter both count as one FTE but cost very different amounts. The translator below uses the average for each archetype.

How these were calculated

Teacher (schools):

Salary (FY27 estimate): $99103
Healthcare (employer share): $15000
Pension (MTRS — state pays): $0
Medicare (1.45%): $1437
OPEB allocation: $0

Town employee (non-school):

Salary (FY27 average): $115809
Healthcare (employer share): $15000
Pension (MCRS — town pays): $36294
Medicare (1.45%): $1679
OPEB allocation: $0

What a cut would mean

Cut amount

Teacher (schools) Town employee (non-school)

≈ 0 positions

Caveats

"Locked this year" ≠ "locked forever." CBAs expire and re-bargain (the union pool sets next year's number), debt is paid off and refinanced, pension and OPEB schedules can be re-amortized with PERAC approval.
Teacher pension is state-paid via MTRS, so the town avoids a direct contribution for teachers — but the state's bill is funded from taxes Marblehead residents also pay. The $0 entry above is "what the town's general fund pays," not "what teachers cost the public."
Averages hide spread. A senior firefighter and a first-year teacher both count as one FTE but cost very different amounts. The archetype values above are midpoints, not forecasts.
FY27 Proposed — No Override. Figures use the pre-vote no-override proposal. The adopted FY27 budget (with override revenue included) will be updated here when the town publishes it.
State assessments use FY26. The FY27 cherry sheet has not yet been published by the Department of Revenue. This page will update when DLS releases it (typically July–August).
OPEB is not in the FY27 No-Override budget at all. The $250,000 FY26 OPEB transfer was cut to $0. The FY24 actuarially-required contribution was $10.6M; actual was $6.5M; the net OPEB liability has grown to $147M. The override would restore only $96,771. This page's locked tiers do not include OPEB because nothing is being paid; the deferral is itself a fiscal choice that compounds over time.
"Flexible" overstates true discretion. Most of the $67M flexible residual is salaries that are themselves under collective bargaining agreements. In practice, the within-FY27 lever is hiring freezes and position cuts — which is exactly what the translator above measures.