u/Mrcaptainpants

I'm trying to make a purely educational tool and would love feedback.

It's a Claude-assisted mix of Sim City, Google Sheets, and Wordle where all the safeties are turned off and you can sell as much legal marijuana as you want. Want to share your lottery winnings with the city? You can do that! Want to defund the fire department? You... can? Probably shouldn't. But you can! Want to model in pandemic-level free cash again? Okay, but can we not have a pandemic?

What you can't model in: an override.

Do you think you can balance the city budget without an override? Great! Please help me kick the tires on this and share your results in the comment thread. Use the copy/paste function at the bottom (see comments for an example)

DISCLAIMERS: This needs testing. Don't use this as anything other than an educational tool.

Northampton has a choice coming up: continue growing public school funding at the level we have in recent years, or shrink our services. Schools are the largest, by far, of those services.

To keep public schools funded at their current level without reducing spending elsewhere, we need about $3.4 million in new, recurring revenue by next year. By 2031, that gap grows to nearly $8.5 million.

Those are also roughly the cuts that would have to be made elsewhere in the operating budget to keep increasing the school budget by 4% annually without new recurring revenue.

How did we get here?

Northampton made a series of one-time, costly choices to support the school budget when recurring revenue wasn't sufficient to cover the full increase:

• FY23: The city used on one-time federal ESSER funds and School Choice reserves to increase NPS's budget.

• FY24: The city used $1.2 million from the Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund to increase the NPS' budget.

• FY25: The city added more than $1.1 million to the school budget through a combination of stabilization funds and a one-time contribution from Smith College.

• FY26: The city increased several revenue estimates to create additional capacity for school and public-safety spending. The city's own budget document described this as a strategic risk because those estimates would need to materialize to sustain the spending.

All of these were temporary solutions - not structural fixes. And each set a new floor for the next year, turning temporary fixes into dangerously compounding deficits.

None of this means Northampton doesn't support its public schools. Quite the opposite: these choices demonstrate that the city has repeatedly made supporting the schools a priority.

But that support has a cost, and we're now at the point where we have to decide how to pay for it.

Do we raise additional recurring revenue through an override? Do we cut the operating budget elsewhere, recognizing that the schools ARE the largest part of the operating budget? Do we find other recurring savings or revenues? Or is there something else we haven't considered?

That's exactly what FACT is asking. If you have another answer, tell the city. Tell FACT. Tell me. The comments are open.

And one more point about the Fiscal Stability Plan.

The plan is just a plan. It's a spreadsheet. It isn't magic, and it isn't the only possible approach. But it has produced measurable results: according to the city's FY26 budget, direct General Fund support for NPS increased by an average of 4.77% annually during the 13 years of the plan, compared with 2.1% annually in the 13 years before it.

That doesn't prove the plan is the right answer going forward. It does mean that replacing it requires an actual alternative that adds up.

“No” isn't enough. It needs to be: “No — and here's what we would do instead.” Or: “No — and here's what we're willing to give up to make that choice work.”

Another update in the soap opera of Northampton fiscal management. This comes from the finance director and Q4 reports.

For those in the "The city always has millions in extra revenue," here's the official word on FY26 after the city did exactly what folks asked and tightened projections beyond what the state recommends.

Overall, the City exceeded its FY2026 revenue projections by $1,070,243, or 0.87% of the budget. However, this represents $4,713,164 less revenue than the previous year.

A lower year-end surplus was anticipated because the City increased its revenue projections across several major local revenue sources, including budgeting an additional $2 million in investment income.

These increases helped the City maintain level services for most departments (reminder: the schools are the largest by far), absorb the full-year cost of eight new Fire Rescue personnel, and address increases in Information Technology costs.

What was not anticipated was that several of these revenue sources came in significantly below prior-year levels, with some also falling short of budget projections.

For example:

• Hotel/Motel Revenue met the budget projection but was $17,600 below the prior year. There appears to be limited room for additional growth in the out years following FY2027.

• Cannabis Revenue fell $55,000 short of the budget projection and was $292,173 below FY2025.

• Building and Wiring Permits fell short of the combined budget projection by approximately $100,000.

• Investment Income was budgeted at an additional $2 million, but actual investment income was $378,000 below the prior year. This was largely due to the use of ARPA funds and declining interest rates.

• Ambulance Revenue met the budget projection but was just under $200,000 below the prior year.

Historically, these revenue lines have generally performed above budget and helped offset shortfalls in other areas. The FY2026 results indicate that this may no longer be a reliable assumption.

Expense turn backs reported in the Q4 financial reports total approximately $1.2 million, although these figures are still being reviewed for accuracy.

Taken together, the lower-than-expected performance of several major revenue sources, combined with the expense turn backs and reduced investment income, means that the City's available free cash is expected to be significantly lower than in the prior year.

A reminder what free cash funds: Annual road repairs and capital needs; long-term capital planning and deferred maintenance; stability funds that delay overrides and provide emergency cushions.

TLDR: the city listened to critics and tilted the financial balance even further toward operations (schools) and away from capital (roads. Not PMS - all the other ones).

Just sharing this as a resource for folks who are curious about city finances or want to post questions directly to the city's Fiscal Assessment Community Task Force!

FACT was convened to “to take a careful, shared look at our finances to make sure everyone understands what is driving our costs, what we can reasonably expect in revenue, and what it takes to sustain the level of services our community relies on. That includes being honest about the balance between maintaining those services and keeping Northampton affordable, particularly for residents on fixed incomes"

The task force meetings are public and invite questions from the community to be answered by city representatives and discussed by taskforce members.

Last night's meeting, for example, was a crash course in revenue projection, free cash, why the city budgets the way it budgets, and more. You can see the presentation here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dgTcqpS13rTjTF4iIBM0qEirDbY4d9bo/view?usp=sharing. PMS is on the next agenda (the financial side of it).

You can also tuck in with a nice cup of tea (or whatever) to the meeting recording.

Please send your questions in, read the documents assembled for discussion, and get to bottom of every rabbit hole you want.