Malden City Council unanimously approves $236.1M FY26 budget

This year’s figure is essentially level-funded, about $12 million or 8.3 percent higher than last year’s budget

By Steve Freker

The Malden City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a $236,117,62 budget for Fiscal Year 2026. Fiscal Year 2026 covers municipal expenditures from July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026. The $236.1 million budget proposal represents an increase of about 8.3%, or about $12 million, over last year’s FY25 figure of $224 million.

Voting unanimously in favor of the city budget appropriation for FY25 were Peg Crowe (Ward 1), Paul Condon (Ward 2), Council President Amanda Linehan (Ward 3), Ryan O’Malley (Ward 4), Ari Taylor (Ward 5), Chris Simonelli (Ward 7), Jadeane Sica (Ward 8) and Councillors-at-Large Carey McDonald, Karen Colón Hayes and Craig Spadafora.

The Council’s vote Tuesday was the culmination of a several weeks’ process of review of the budget proposal from Mayor Gary Christenson’s office from the mayor and his financial strategy team. The review was conducted by the Council’s Finance Committee, chaired by Councillor McDonald.

Councillor McDonald said at Tuesday’s meeting that the Finance Committee went over the budget thoroughly, but offered no changes. He said there was a good discussion with the Malden Public Schools operations team, including Superintendent Timothy Sippel, Ed.L.D. and School Committee Vice Chair Jennifer Spadafora, over such topics as rising costs of special education and transportation. “As soon as we are finished with this budget, it is on to the next one as we work to maintain fiscal prudence and a sustainable budget,” Councillor McDonald said Tuesday. “As we move forward, we still need to find more income and have less expense.”

“Last year at this time we said we had to grow our commercial tax base and tackle the dilemma of the state school funding formula, Chapter 70,” McDonald said. “We have seen slow progress in both. That work will continue. It is essential.”

Notably, there are no new positions proposed nor funded in the city’s approved FY2026 spending plan.

Though the budget is indeed balanced and funded with all of the city’s available resources, Mayor Christenson did make it clear — as he has done with several of the most recent years’ budgets — that the city’s available and projectable revenue sources do not match up with municipal expenditures. The Mayor has identified this situation as “a structural deficit” within the municipal budget.

This has been a point of contention both by the Mayor and his strategic planning team and the members of the City Council for several years now. There has been much discussion and explanations of the disparities between the Chapter 70 funding formula for schools, as it pertains to Malden as opposed to similar school districts nearby. From the Mayor’s budget letter: “First, numbers don’t lie. Malden generates fewer tax dollars per dollar of assessed value than all but two gateway cities. Put another way, our blended tax rate is lower than the norm, the average, and just about every other gateway city.”

Education spending continues to be the biggest portion of the budget — nearly 45% of the total figure — and for the first time, surpassing the $100 million level this year, projected at $102.17 million in the Mayor’s proposal. With last year’s Malden Public Schools budget at just over $96 million, this year’s proposed expenditure for education represents a 6% increase, or $5.8 million.

As for what lies ahead in the future, Mayor Christenson said he and his strategic planning team are poised to join with the City Council in coming up with ideas to address the structural deficit within the municipal budget. “Immediately upon the conclusion of this budget, it’s my intent to work with the City Council to establish a working group to look holistically at the structural deficit to chart a course for the future,” Mayor Christenson stated.

“Everything will need to be on the table. That we are not alone in this predicament is of little consolation,” the Mayor added. “We must identify a solution that works for us as a community, and do so taking into account the great knowledge of this community that we possess.”

The Council had to vote on the budget by June 30 or before that date, so as to ensure operations are funded and begin for the next FY26 on July 1, 2025.