'This Is Dire': Swampscott Eyes $1.5M Tax Levy Increase, $661K School Gap Remains

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Swampscott residents could be facing big property tax increases for at least the next two years — in a town administration-proposed budget that is still $661,000 short of what the School Committee requested for Fiscal Year 2026 last month — according to a budget forum that laid out the challenges facing the town Wednesday night.

Swampscott Director of Finance & Administration Amy Sarro said the proposed budget would tap into $1.5 million in excess tax levy — the amount of property tax the town can charge homeowners without seeking a Proposition 2 1/2 override — that she said would translate into a $643 annual increase for the median single-family homeowner with a home assessed at $769,000 based on 2025 values. She said adding the $661,000 to meet the School Committee's request would increase the average tax bill another $99.94 to $743.

"We do want to be very clear as we head to annual town meeting and as we head to Finance Committee review the impact that this is going to have," Sarro said. "Knowing this, this is what we're recommending."

She added that a similar increase should be expected next year as costs — including double-digit increases in employee health insurance contributions — continue to rise while growth remains potentially stagnant.

"This is not a single-year issue," Sarro said. "We are anticipating to be in a similar place next year as well."

That increase does not include the 4.79 percent budget increase the School Committee approved on Feb. 7 — but instead the 3.25 percent increase the town proposed — a difference of about $661,000 that School Committee members said on Wednesday would result in the cutting of staff members currently employed.

"This is dire, right?" School Committee member Carin Marshall said. "It all sounds terrible. But I just want people to remember when we talk about sharing the pain that the schools have sort of bore the pain more than maybe other departments. ... The schools have been cutting every year."

• 'Enough Is Enough': Swampscott School Budget Battle Brewing

The budget proposal is still in the formative stages and still must go through the Finance Committee and eventually to town meeting for approval. But the contrast of parents who spoke at Wednesday's Select Board meeting and School Committees urging the "fully funding" of Swampscott Public Schools after years of cost-cutting, and town officials saying that tax increases will be necessary simply to maintain level services, points to a challenging road on the way to the May town meeting.

"I don't think it's fair that we continuously say to the schools: 'Who can you cut? Can you cut a librarian? Can you cut a teacher?'" Swampscott Select Board member Danielle Leonard said. "Until we have looked at every single position in this town with the same scrutiny. And I don't feel like we've done that."

The school budget accounts for about 68 percent of the town budget annually.

Superintendent Pamela Angelakis, who is retiring at the end of the school year after more than a decade, gave an impassioned pushback on the budget during the February meeting where the 4.79 percent increase was approved, saying "enough is enough" with the schools being forced to do more with less each year.

"There are no positions to cut," Angelakis said on Wednesday night. "All of my years of doing this, I have gone to the drawing board with my leadership team, looked at efficiencies, and we are lean. There is no place where there is a luxury. There is no place where there is excessive money put or excessive staff. The staffing is driven by student needs.

"We've reduced 40 positions. There is nothing left to touch unless I am going to touch programs that draw our kids to staying within our public schools."

A budget showdown last year played out on the floor of town meeting when a motion to increase the allocation on the fly passed one night, only to be reversed the next.

"This is all starting to feel a little bit like last year," Select Board member Doug Thompson said on Wednesday. "What happened at town meeting is that people had different versions of what was going to happen (if the increase was not allowed) so I don't want that to happen (this time)."

School Committee member Amy O'Connor said the school budget is already pressed to the breaking point with some classes packed with 30 students and critical open positions going unfilled.

"If we don't have a fully funded budget, the only place we have to meet our budget is by firing people," O'Connor said. "We can't tell you today which (employees) are going to be gone in September. But we can tell you, if we're talking about ($661,000) that's a lot more than seven (positions)."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)