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Amid weeks of hearings examining New Bedford’s budget and the $32 million gap, one question surfaced repeatedly: What does the situation look like in other cities?
One way to answer that question is to look at the budgets of other midsized Gateway Cities close to New Bedford in population. Fall River, Lowell, Brockton, Quincy and Lynn are among the closest comparisons to New Bedford’s population of 101,834.
A review of proposed fiscal year 2027 budgets suggests that New Bedford is not alone in facing financial pressure. Pension obligations, health insurance costs, debt service and solid waste expenses are increasing across the state. Local officials from multiple communities say state aid is failing to keep pace with inflation and municipal costs.
Yet while the five other cities report many of the same structural challenges, they all present different strategies for balancing their budgets.
Just because cities don’t have to disclose the budget gap they closed in order to balance the budget, it doesn’t mean they didn’t face one, said Bob Ekstrom, New Bedford’s chief financial officer. Cities are required to submit balanced budgets, he said, and whether they publicly disclose the gap before balancing it is up to each administration.
“We felt like taxpayers in the city and the council needed to know how much work we do before we even put the budget before them,” Ekstrom said. “The mayor chose to disclose it this year to show how much work we did to get the budget in balance.”
A challenge shared across Gateway Cities
Adam Chapdelaine, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, said his organization has been sounding the alarm for more than a year about how difficult budgeting has become for cities and towns across the state.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that places like New Bedford and other communities are facing these challenges, because the structural challenge is very real, with costs rising faster than revenue,” Chapdelaine said.
New Bedford’s budget of about $535 million is roughly $51 million larger than Fall River’s. Yet New Bedford, in order to close the budget gap, eliminated 94 general fund positions — 58 of them vacant — reducing the total number of full-time general fund positions from 977 to 883. Fall River proposed adding 12 positions within the general government side of the budget, bringing its general fund positions to 707, of which 700 are full-time positions.
A Brockton official described their 2027 budget process as difficult and challenging, but ultimately they presented a balanced budget without service reductions. Lowell officials warned that slow growth in unrestricted local aid — a financial assistance program provided by the state that a city or town can spend at its discretion — remains one of their most significant long-term fiscal concerns. Lynn is confronting escalating employee benefit costs, while Quincy continues to carry one of the largest debt-service burdens among the cities we compared.
The cost drivers behind municipal budgets
To understand city budgets, said Chapdelaine of the MMA, it’s helpful to look at the major cost drivers and how fast they are growing.
Pension costs are rising sharply. New Bedford’s pension expenses are now $47 million, up roughly $3.7 million from 2026. That’s compared with about a $1.4 million increase in Fall River and a $45 million total cost.
These costs are typically driven by two major factors: how pension investments perform in the market and the goals city officials set for fully funding their pension systems.
“Every city and town has to have their pension fully funded by the year 2040,” Chapdelaine said. “But some communities have decided to fund their pensions sooner.”
Choosing a sooner funding schedule generally results in larger annual increases in pension contributions. Both New Bedford and Fall River currently have their pension systems scheduled to be fully funded by fiscal year 2035.
Health insurance is another major pressure point.
New Bedford expects to spend more than $61 million on health insurance in the new fiscal year. (That figure includes school employees, but excludes positions funded through enterprise funds, such as the airport, wastewater and cable access operations.)
Fall River’s health insurance costs have climbed to nearly $50 million, a jump of over 15% from the previous year.
Debt service — defined as funds required to cover loan or debt repayments including both principal and interest — is another area where the cities are moving in different directions. Debt service costs are largely driven by building projects and infrastructure improvements, said Chapdelaine.
New Bedford’s debt service costs now stand at $12.7 million. They’ve been increasing, like those in many other cities. But they remain modest compared with Quincy, which has budgeted nearly $95 million for debt-related obligations.
Brockton Chief Financial Officer Troy Clarkson said its revenues are projected at $565 million, and even though the administration proposed no workforce cuts, “it was certainly a difficult and challenging process.”
Mitchell has repeatedly warned that cities and towns are not receiving enough state aid.
“I think that Mayor Mitchell is absolutely spot on,” Clarkson said. “State aid is not keeping up with costs when health insurance costs are increasing by 10% or 15% per year.”
The state is increasing unrestricted local aid by $40 million in its budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which the governor signed July 9. Gateway Cities will receive modest increases.
With property tax revenue generally increasing by 2.5% annually and state aid growing at a similar rate, Clarkson said, “it’s created a significant challenge for cities and towns throughout the commonwealth to meet their responsibilities.”
The Gateway sisters: New Bedford and Fall River
In New Bedford and Fall River, a large portion of revenue comes from state aid. “It is going up,” Chapdelaine said, “but it is not going up at the same rate that costs are increasing.”
Unrestricted government aid is not significantly different between the two cities. Fall River is expected to receive about $30.3 million for fiscal year 2027, compared with approximately $29.3 million for New Bedford.
On the other hand, New Bedford saw larger growth in its tax levy — the amount a community raises through the property tax. The city’s levy increased by about $19.5 million from fiscal year 2026, and is now standing at $177 million. In Fall River, the increase was about $5.5 million from a fiscal year 2026 levy of roughly $147 million.
Emily Arpke, Fall River’s chief financial officer, said the city has consistently taken the maximum annual tax levy increase allowed under Proposition 2½ — a state law limiting annual property tax increases. New Bedford, meanwhile, has not always taken the full increase, allowing the gap between revenue and expenses to widen as municipal costs have risen by more than 2.5% in recent years.
This year, for the first time in at least four years, New Bedford maximized its $16 million levy, said Ekstrom.
“In 2024 we left about roughly $4 million, and then in ’25 it became $8 million and in ’26 it became $12 million. So really, that’s like $24 million of tax revenue that we would have collected had we gone to the maximum level,” Ekstrom said.
Jonathan Darling, New Bedford public information officer, said this is a consequence of the City Council’s approach to the last several budget cycles.
“In New Bedford, the City Council has repeatedly ignored the inflationary cost environment facing municipal governments, and instead passed four consecutive budgets based on changes in the levy approaching zero or below,” Darling said.
Municipal revenues are effectively capped at 2.5% annual growth under Proposition 2½, while costs continue to rise much faster, Arpke said.
“All the costs continue to increase at these different rates, and our biggest source of revenue is only allowed to go up by 2.5%,” she said. “The math itself just doesn’t work.”
Looking at the two most important revenue sources after education aid — unrestricted general governmental aid and the tax levy combined — New Bedford collected about $24 million more than Fall River.
“For the most part, we are very comparable,” said Emily Arpke, Fall River’s chief financial officer, referring to the city’s budget compared with New Bedford’s. However, in operating expenses and staffing, the two cities begin to diverge.
One example is emergency medical services: in New Bedford, EMS is funded through the general fund, while in Fall River it operates as an enterprise fund — an accounting mechanism where services are paid directly by the public for their use. In this case Fall River uses it to account for revenue generated by ambulance service fees.
Another difference is staffing in the general fund budget. Even with New Bedford’s workforce reductions, Fall River still operates with roughly 100 fewer employees.
Some costs are mostly out of the control of city leaders, like health insurance, school transportation and solid waste, said Chapdelaine, so it’s getting increasingly hard to maintain control.
Different revenue models
One of the clearest contrasts among the cities is how they generate revenue.
In New Bedford, about $29 million in unrestricted general government aid — a financial assistance program provided by the state that a city or town can spend at its discretion — accounts for roughly 5.5% of total General Fund revenue. Quincy also relies on unrestricted general government aid for about 5% of its General Fund revenue.
The biggest difference lies in the tax levy. Quincy draws roughly 74% of its revenue from property taxes, compared with about 33% in New Bedford — one of the lowest percentages in the state, according to Ekstrom.
As of April 2026, Quincy had collected $236 million in property tax revenue.
“When you go into wealthier communities with a more rich tax base with better housing and better values, they have more money in their pockets to allow bigger increases,” said Arpke of Fall River. “In low-income communities, you can’t really do that the same way. It’s not sustainable, and you’d be putting people out of housing at that rate.”
Lynn, with a proposed budget of $577 million, is projected to receive about $28.5 million in unrestricted general government aid.
Lynn is grappling with many of the same structural challenges, such as keeping up with rising fixed costs, said Lynn Chief Financial Officer Michael Bertino. “Health care and pensions are the two things that drive us, along with contracts,” he said.
For Lowell, which has proposed a $654 million budget, unrestricted general government aid amounts to $32 million. Lowell’s City Parking Garages Fund generates about $13 million, compared with just over $1 million from New Bedford’s Downtown Parking Enterprise Fund.
While Fall River, Brockton, Lowell and Lynn are among the cities that have received funding through the Massachusetts Municipal Public Safety Staffing Program, New Bedford has never qualified during the program’s 16-year history, according to the mayor.
The program helps cities maintain police and fire staffing levels. But eligibility is limited to municipalities whose police departments had an operating budget of less than $200 per resident in 2010. (That year, New Bedford spent $221 per resident on police.) Fall River, for example, received more than $1.6 million through the program last year.
“I don’t think we have a lot of different complaints than any other municipalities. They’re all under the same thing — getting a lot less government aid now than they need,” Ekstrom said. “It would help, obviously, if we got another $1.6 million to $2 million in state aid that our peers get and we don’t.”
Email Eleonora Bianchi at ebianchi@newbedfordlight.org.
Good article and I enjoyed reading it. New Bedford compared to Fall River, Brockton, and Lowell are better comparisons than Quincy and Lynn which are closer to Boston are much better off economically due to a industrial base that services the city and provides residents with access to good paying jobs.
The mayor has always ran a heavy and big government operation always spending money and expanding government and in this article it points this out saying the difference in that even with New Bedford’s recent workforce reductions, Fall River still operates with roughly 100 fewer employees.
While the cities share some similar issues it seems New Bedford has more serious problems. New Bedford can not continue to rely on State Aid, spend every dime we take in, keep expanding City Government, but these big five issues definitely need to be addressed.
1) Being able to afford and provide Fire Protection Services (The closing of Northend Fire Station No. 9 and how many men man the trucks are on the cutting table and this will affect the safety of residents, businesses, airport area, the industrial park, Kings Highway MBTA Station, new proposed housing, and future economic development (just imagine if Parallel Products was approved and there was fire).
2) A New Police Contract, lately with all the stabbings and shootings it has made it real clear how important our police are to this city and we need to support them and reach an agreement for the men and women who risk their lives everyday to protect our city.
3) City healthcare plan issues, we can no longer afford to not resolve this, and it’s time to find a compromise.
4) Retirement board issues. we can no longer afford to not resolve this and it’s time to find a compromise.
5) But the biggest and most important issue facing this city is the need for a major push to focus on new private economic growth and development that will bring new revenue into this city, bring jobs, and build our tax base.
After 14 years, this mayor’s vision has not worked, the city is in poor financial shape and this past budget season showed that millions of dollars of spending can’t be explained or accounted for, leaving the city with a $32 Million Dollar Deficit. It’s time to give someone else a chance to lead our city.
I agree with the above, but wonder if New Bedford were to push out unfunded pension liabilities balance goal to 2040 and take the max 2.5% increase in property tax, what would the budget gap look like? Yes, attract new business, fund police, invest in infrastructure. I know a non-profit exists to help families navigate property sales when an elder relative dies so vacancies and ensuing blight are minimized (name forgotten), but incentives to secure desired outcomes are needed, too. The commuter rail should change things, but currently the “gears are locked up” and development is NOT happening. How do we break the logjam?
As for city employees including schools, we pay into our retirement. The city can’t balance a budget is not our problem. As others have said in the past. Raise the amount withdrawn from active employees to all the same percentage instead of keeping them at the rate when hired, then a lot of more funds will be accumulated. Then you need someone that knows how to manage the fund like AFSCME retiree handler, Eric to handle the funds. Keep the city and schools hand off of them.
Very passionate response, and if everything was not so screwed up, your approach might have worked. But where this city is now, every one (all the players) must come together and make concessions to resolve this mess. If this can’t happen and all parties can not come together, this city will go into RECEIVERSHIP, and than no one will have a say in what happens to all these issues affecting our city.
I hope we do go into receivership! That will show how incompetent the mayor and the superintendent of schools are. The receivership will listen to us citizens that have information on wastes!
1. Comparing budgets without knowing the detailed economic and populace differences among the various cities is fraught with potential error. For example, school department budgetary needs do not make clear the difference between accommodating 14 different languages for ESL students in Fall River and the over 40 languages dealt with in New Bedford.
2. Current Political environment, including at the national level, influence more decision making. For example, recent studies show that health care cost paid by cities and towns in Massachusetts could be reduced by nearly half on a yearly basis but name calling, toxic political environment, and fear of change has stalled this.
3. A deeper dive could also include the number of middle managers who neither produce or improve the actions of agencies.
Perhaps a series of articles detailing each agency’s reason for being, scope and depth of work, etc. might be more valuable for citizens to understand prior to any outline of budget construction.
The article states 221.00 per person for police. RE TAXES COVERS THAT! There are households of 1, 2, 4, + residents, so why are the smaller households paying as much as the O’Leary size families! What is the average number of residents that’s based on. That also means renters are not paying for police. Maybe have like a homeowners fee, call it a residents fee, have a fee charged per person to be paid, to give a lesser burden to the households with less residents. Bad enough I pay for schools and I don’t and never will have kids. Cone on, get with the program, they have an amount per student but all RE taxes pick up the slack of funds not given by the state. Monies wasted by frivolous school department administrators! Our medical premiums never refunded us for not having kids yet, we pay the same premium as the next employees. Rarely using our plan where as a family constantly use it. We need someone with common sense. Sick if paying for everyone else and now talk about touching the health and retirement plans. How about getting the monies back for deceased members premiums being paid by the school dept.
How about the NB Light do a comparison of how New Bedford’s current situation compares to other cities that went into receivership (Chelsea 1991, Lawrence 2011, Springfield 2020) to see how close New Bedford is to having the state take control.
New Bedford is a governmental (Federal and Commonwealth) dependency, pure and simple. It is the “Gateway to Oblivion”.
Jon Mitchell’s only solution, other than endangering public safety, is begging for increased government funding from the Commonwealth.
No private enterprise has been secured, nor does it really have any viable interest in New Bedford.
As this financial situation is chronic and will be ongoing, the inevitable “solution” is, quite likely, receivership for New Bedford.
Other than more governmental “support”, what is the long term plan for this former industrial city in a current, non-industrial world?
A lot of good comments here and a lot of them ring true. It’s true one of the most biggest failures in the 14 years of this administration that has impacted this budget is the lack of effort to attract private economic development.
Looking back at the one attempt that was made to attract business was bringing Parallel Products to the Industrial Park. To the majority of residents this was considered a be very misguided venture that could impact neighborhoods and communities for years to come and now with the request for expansion it has the possibility of becoming New Bedford’s next contaminated Superfund site.
But it gets more complicated now, with the status of Parallel Products in the hands of the courts you have to wonder why closing a fire station at this time would even be considered when this fire station would be an integral part of the first responders that would respond to an industrial emergency (facility fire or chemical release) at this facility and provide protection to thousands of residents and businesses.
So compared to other cities, the management of this city definitely has to be questioned. The lack of economic development definitely has played a huge part in the failure of our city’s growth and creation of new tax revenue, but the biggest red flag of all is the poor budget decisions that have been made that would affect the safety of thousands of city residents and businesses.
More than ever it’s time for change and a new vision for New Bedford.