Brookline Select Board Begins Override Deliberations With $23 Million Deficit on Table

MEDFIELD -- March 17, 2026, Brookline Select Board opens override deliberations with $23 million structural deficit and a two-week filing deadline. At a March 17 workshop, the board received the final 639-page report of the Expenditure and Revenue Study Committee, which projects a combined town-and-schools deficit of just under $26 million over fiscal years 2027 through 2029, with Brookline Public Schools accounting for $17.94 million of that gap. The committee's preferred Option 3 recommends a tiered Proposition 2½ override with a memorandum of understanding requiring structural cost reforms. A failed override would cut 58 full-time school positions on top of 22.1 already eliminated, eliminating middle-school world languages, guidance staff, and the South Brookline bus service. The board settled on a working target of roughly $19 million as a second-tier amount, approximately 86 percent of the full ask, and directed staff and schools to model what proportional cuts at that level would require before the next session on March 24, with a hard ballot-filing deadline of 11:59 p.m. on March 31.