Essex's $24.5 million budget, line by line

How Essex decides its budget

A town budget is a one-year spending plan. Essex's fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30, so "fiscal 2027" started this summer and ends next June.

In Essex, voters themselves approve the budget at the annual town meeting. Before that, department heads enter their requests each January. The seven-member Finance Committee reviews every request, meets with department heads and recommends a budget. The Board of Selectmen signs the warrant, the list of questions town meeting will vote on.

Most of the money is in the town's main operating account, the general fund. Water and sewer are kept in separate enterprise funds paid for mainly by customers' bills. Essex does not run its own schools. It belongs to the Manchester Essex Regional School District, which sends each town a bill, and it pays a share of Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School for students who go there.

State law also limits how much the town can collect in property taxes. Under Proposition 2½, the total can grow 2.5% a year plus new construction. To go higher for ongoing costs, a town needs an override, which voters must approve at the polls. That is what happened this year.

This year was also the first time Essex built its budget in ClearGov, an online system. The fiscal 2027 budget book it produced lists each department's lines for four years, and it is the source for most figures here.

Where the money goes

Town meeting voted on five separate budgets. Together they add up to $24,471,614.

The town departments' budget pays for police, fire, the ambulance, public works, town hall, the library, the Council on Aging, debt payments and employee benefits. It also carries one school cost: Essex's $1.27 million share of the regional district's building debt, for the high school and Manchester's Memorial Elementary School, which the town pays as a debt payment.

Public safety and benefits account for most of the growth. Public safety, which includes police, fire, the ambulance, the harbormaster and building inspectors, rises $434,945, or 17%. Pensions and benefits rise $325,812, or 17%.

Why Essex needed two overrides

The Finance Committee's report in the budget book lays out the reasons. It says the town has long kept spending growth "very limited" and leaned on savings and leftover money for one-time costs. But it says recent increases were beyond what the tax limit allows. It lists:

• A first full-time position in the fire department, plus daytime station coverage seven days a week for eight hours a day. Call firefighters more often work outside town, the report says, leaving fewer people free to respond.
• Health insurance, which it says is rising 14.4%.
• A higher pay range to replace the public works superintendent, who retired in December 2025.
• The regional school district's budget, which grows 3.5% overall and 3.62% for Essex.

Early estimates put the school gap alone at about $230,000, Town Administrator Brendhan Zubricki told selectmen Feb. 9, relaying the Finance Committee's position at the time. On March 17, the Finance Committee settled how to share the town's limited room under the tax cap. It "reaffirmed its policy of a 50/50 split between the Town and the School," according to the minutes, which describe this as "a policy decision rather than a statutory requirement." The committee then approved the full budget unanimously.

The final amounts were $268,722 for town services and $185,727 for the schools. Selectmen endorsed both on April 13 by a 2 to 1 vote. Selectmen Peter Phippen and Ann Cameron voted yes. Then-Chairman Alva Ingaharro voted no. The minutes do not record her reasons.

Town meeting approved both override articles May 4, and motions to reconsider each one failed. On May 11, voters approved both at the polls. One in four registered voters cast a ballot.

An override permanently raises the most the town can collect. The $454,449 becomes part of Essex's levy limit and grows with it in future years. In the same election, Dexter Lee-Viator defeated Ingaharro for her seat on the Board of Selectmen, 508 to 236.

What the overrides cost a household. The town did not publish an estimate per home. A rough way to measure it is to divide $454,449 by the town's total taxable value last year, $1.41 billion, according to the state Division of Local Services. That works out to about 32 cents for every $1,000 of value, or roughly $295 a year on the town's average single-family home of $916,972. The real figure depends on this fall's values and tax rate. The calculator at the top of this story shows the estimate for any home value.

The fire department

The fire budget has the largest percentage increase of any town department, up $259,967 to $641,700, or 68%. Essex has an on-call department, meaning most firefighters are paid by the hour when they respond or work a shift. The new budget nearly doubles firefighter pay, from $219,750 to $414,457, and nearly triples training pay, from $32,000 to $86,724.

The fire chief's first request was about $650,000, according to Feb. 24 Finance Committee minutes. Committee member Josh Franklin built a model of the fire budget with input from the chief. On March 10, members noted the request was up 76% and asked the department to find about $75,000. A week later the committee cut about $43,000, from administrative hours, training and protective gear. It decided further cuts "could impact service levels" and approved $636,195. The final budget book shows $641,700; the minutes do not explain the $5,505 difference.

Selectmen added the new full-time job to the recommended pay scale Feb. 24 and on March 9 renamed it Fire Captain/Fire Prevention Officer, paid $90,000 to $120,000 a year. At town meeting, an amendment to remove the job from the pay scale failed. The position "was a major component of the need for an override," Zubricki said July 16, according to the minutes.

The job has been funded but not filled since July 1. Over the summer, selectmen and fire leaders moved toward a different plan: hiring a full-time fire chief, possibly by February. On Aug. 18, Finance Committee Chair Jodi Harris said the town has budgeted up to $120,000 for the position and about $40,000 for benefits, according to the minutes. On Sept. 14, officials said this year's budget can cover a new chief, but that keeping two firefighters on a weekday day shift next year would leave about a $50,000 gap. The fall town meeting would have to approve the change.

What went up and what went down

Health insurance is the largest increase in dollars, up $388,026 to $1,409,112. That is a 38% increase in the budget line. The Finance Committee's report and minutes cite an increase of 14% to 14.4%. The budget documents do not explain the rest of the difference.

Police rises $176,781, or 11%, which the Finance Committee's liaisons attributed mostly to contract raises, step increases and education incentives. Educational stipends alone rise from $130,443 to $176,438.

Public works includes a higher salary for a new superintendent. Voters raised the pay range to $120,000 to $160,000 last November. The fiscal 2027 budget funds the top of that range, split among the highway, water and sewer budgets. As of late July the town still had an acting superintendent.

Decreases include the town's pension assessment, down $64,118, and the vocational school, down $90,963. Interest on the Public Safety Building loan continues to fall as it is paid down.

Schools

The regional school district's budget is $33,737,241, up 3.5%. After state aid and other revenue, the rest is billed to Manchester and Essex using a formula in the towns' regional agreement that weighs enrollment, property wealth and population. Essex's share of the operating bill rises $389,326, or 3.62%, to $11,134,568.

Essex's percentage increase is larger than Manchester's because "the percentage of students from Manchester has declined more quickly than in Essex," according to the district's budget book. The district's resident enrollment has fallen 26% since the 2012-13 school year, to 1,156 students.

The school override, $185,727, covers part of the increase. The rest of the assessment, $10,948,841, was approved under Article 7.

How the regional schools compare

Because the district serves two towns, a state law gives the regional School Committee the power to set the budget, and both towns must approve their shares. The district spends far more than the state requires. In fiscal 2025 it spent $28.2 million that counts toward the state's minimum for school spending, 183% of the $15.4 million minimum. The average Massachusetts district spent 126%. It spent $25,121 per student in its own schools in 2024. The state average was $22,414.

This year's budget used $600,000 of district savings for the second year in a row, and the School Committee's Feb. 10 minutes record that "the district will have depleted its rainy-day fund." In spring 2026, 60% of district students in grades 3 to 8 met or beat expectations in reading on the state's MCAS tests, compared with 40% statewide. Of the class of 2025, 97.4% graduated in four years, compared with 89.3% statewide.

Water and sewer

The water and sewer departments are paid for almost entirely by customers. The water budget rises 4.6% to $1,051,804, including more for chemicals, sludge removal and well cleaning. It also includes payments on newer water debt, $34,839 of which comes from property taxes.

The sewer budget drops $456,971, or 27%, to $1,249,395, because the town is nearly done repaying the loan for the original sewer system. Loan principal falls from $575,048 to $129,352. Essex sends its wastewater to Gloucester's treatment plant, and its largest sewer cost is Gloucester's usage charge, $614,565.

That link matters for the future. Gloucester is planning a required upgrade of its plant, estimated at about $206 million in June. Essex's share under the sewer agreement is 3.125%, according to Finance Committee minutes, and officials have said it will likely need a separate vote to borrow outside the tax limit, called a debt exclusion.

One-time spending

Town meeting also approved one-time purchases. Most were paid from free cash and from the water and sewer funds' savings, not from this year's tax bills.

The road over 30 Apple Street drew several amendments, all of which failed, and a motion to indefinitely postpone it failed 85 to 103 before it passed. A new river use fee for motorized boats, $5 a foot, passed by just 104 to 97 and takes effect Jan. 1.

The town's savings

Essex keeps money in several reserve accounts. The largest is the trust for retirees' health insurance, called OPEB, which voters added $1 million to last fall. The Finance Committee says the town is about 82% of the way to covering that promise, "considerably above most other communities in Massachusetts."

The general fund's free cash is thinner. The state certified $2,562,283 as of July 1, 2025, according to the town's annual report. After the $884,590 deposit into the retiree trust and other uses, $650,579 was left in February. Town meeting used $314,714 more, including $64,947 to help cover last winter's snow and ice overrun. On March 17 the committee projected about $307,000 would remain, which the minutes describe as "lower than the preferred reserve level" but acceptable.

Search every line item

The budget book lists more than 400 spending lines across the town's departments, water and sewer. All of them are below. Search for a word such as "overtime," "electricity" or "training," or open a department to see each line.

From request to tax bill

Essex and its neighbors

Essex has the highest tax rate of the nine North Shore communities below. Its average single-family bill, $11,957 last year, is second only to Manchester's.

What comes next

• This fall's tax rate. The assessors will set fiscal 2027 values and the tax rate this fall, with state approval. That is when the overrides show up on bills.
• Fall town meeting, Nov. 16. Expected items include the Essex Elementary School project and the move to a full-time fire chief.
• Special election, Dec. 10. Voters will decide how to pay for the school project. Our earlier coverage: the school project nears $95 million and what officials plan to tell voters about the tax bill.
• Fiscal 2028. Department instructions are due about now, with the Finance Committee's review in the winter and the annual town meeting next May. The fire staffing gap of about $50,000 and Essex's share of Gloucester's sewer plant are already on the list.

How to take part

How we did this

Cape Ann Current read the town's fiscal 2027 budget book, the town meeting warrant and draft minutes, the official election results and the regional school district's budget book. We also read Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen minutes from January through September 2026 and compared figures with state Division of Local Services data. Minutes summarize meetings, so quotes from them are not verbatim transcripts. The interactive tools use the budget book's line items. This story was produced with the help of AI tools and checked against the documents listed below. If you see an error, tell us at [email protected].