Newton Mayor Delivers $495 Million Budget Speech

NEWTON, MA — Mayor Ruthanne Fuller will be giving her annual address on the proposed $495 million city budget for 2020 tonight at city hall. Tune into NewTV to watch it live tonight at 7 p.m. and see the full details, which are not yet public.

The majority of the budget has, in years past, gone to fund the schools. The mayor said last year she has 12 priorities and outlined during her speech how funding would be doled out to help those priorities. This year, the priorities remain, but her the new budget comes amid heated negotiations between the educator union and the Newton School Committee as they work on a new contract by the time the bridge contract expires this summer.

Last year during her speech the mayor acknowledged that the city still had challenges.

"To maintain our financial strength, we will have to address the challenge posed to us by our unfunded liabilities for retiree benefits, which are now close to $1 billion," she said last year, though did not go into details on how.

She has also previously promised to fully fund the city's pensions by 2031. Still, that is a top concern among many residents and city council members.

The School Department requested a budget of $236,297,312, which is an $8.7 million increase from last year. It's based on a projected enrollment of 12,702 students for next school year, which is a slight increase from this year.

Included in the budget is an additional $1 million for transportation, mainly because of the district’s need to add three buses to accommodate the expansion of the Cabot school district and the relocation of Horace Mann in September 2019. Salaries and benefits for employees are set to increase by $6.2 million. Also included is a bump to add technology, like chrome books. And there's also an additional $1 million increase to implement the Full Day Kindergarten program.

Ahead of getting approval from the city council on April 10, educators implored the city to reach a contract agreement. Negotiations are ongoing.

The fiscal year starts June 1, 2019 and goes until June 30, 2020.

Previous Newton budgets:

FY19 Budget $412 million of that $227.6 million went to education.
FY18 Budget $388 million.
FY17 Budget projected expenditures was $379 million - of that 55 percent went to education
FY 16 Budget projected expenditures was $362 million - of that 56 percent went to education
FY 15 Budget projected expenditures was $345 million - of that 57 percent went to education
FY 14 Budget projected expenditures was $331 million - of that 57 percent went to education

By comparison, Somerville, which has an estimated population of 79,000 had an FY19 operating budget of $241.7 million (their school department budget was $72.6 million). Neighboring Waltham, which has a population of about 62,000 people to Newton's 89,000, approved a $268.8 million budget for FY19. And this year, the Boston City Council approved a $3.48 billion budget. Boston's population is about 685,000.

To watch this year's budget speech live tune into NewTV's live stream of it beginning at 7:45 p.m.

Can also find it on channel 9 if you have Comcast, or channel 13 if you have RCN. For Verizon subscribers try channel 33.

Previously:

From Newton's Mayor: 'I Made Choices, Hard Ones For This Budget'

Newton City Council Passes $388 Million Budget, Raises School Fees

Newton Teachers Rally For New Contract Before Budget Is Passed

Patch reporter Jenna Fisher can be reached at Jenna.Fisher@patch.com or by calling 617-942-0474. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram (@ReporterJenna).