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.