$3 Million Marblehead School Override Gets Finance Committee Backing

MARBLEHEAD, MA — A $3 million proposed tax override that will add about $397 annually to the average Marblehead property tax bill got the backing of the Finance Committee during Monday night's warrant meeting.

The Finance Committee voted unanimously to support Article 46, which is an addition to the $44 million school operating budget (as part of Article 30) as the $3 million supplemental budget in the form of a "general permanent override." Town meeting members will get their say on the first general tax override proposal in 17 years on May 2 before it goes to a town vote.

The support comes amid warnings that the entire town budget will require an override to meet what has repeatedly been called "structural budget challenges" starting next year.

But school officials have been signaling for months that long-neglected safety, technology, curriculum and personnel updates make the district's needs too urgent to wait another year for the general override.

"This is not really a wishlist," Superintendent John Buckey told the Finance Committee when the article came up for discussion more than three hours into Monday night's meeting. "These are priorities that the schools need in order to provide an exemplary education.

"Something that resonated with me tonight was when one of (the committee members) said: 'This is Marblehead. We want streets that are driveable and sidewalks that are walkable. I would think that the same would apply for the public schools."

Among the needs that the supplemental override is intended to address is free kindergarten — Buckey said that Marblehead is one of only 10 school districts in the state that does not provide this — updated high school history textbooks that include events of the past two decades, and educational support personnel, including a new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Director.

"This budget has presented to us as a budget developed from the ground up," Finance Committee Chair Alec Goolsby said in voicing his support, "a budget that meets the needs of Marblehead students and as a budget that is connected to the school department's five-year roadmap to success.

"I appreciate the process the school department drove this year and believe it is up to town citizens to decide whether they'll support this article."

Goolsby said that should the override pass it is his expectation that school leadership and the School Committee do "everything they can" to work within the budget adjusted for contractual obligations for the next four to five years.

While School Committee members have said they are always cognizant of being fiscally responsible with residents' tax money, they have not pledged to not seek an additional override in the next couple of years.

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