Waltham City Council Approves $132.8 Million School Budget After Weeks of Negotiation

City Council Part 1 · Meeting of June 22, 2026

Waltham City Council approves a $402 million fiscal year 2027 budget and rezones three commercial corridors to mixed-use overlay districts. The council voted unanimously to set the school department budget at $132,847,897, $3,746,048 above Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy's original recommendation of $129,101,849, after a multi-week negotiation among the mayor, school committee, and Finance Committee Chair Paul S. Katz. The municipal budget was fixed at $269,820,972, representing a combined increase of roughly $22 million, or 5.7 percent, over the prior year.

The council attached two formal requests directing the schools superintendent to deliver, within five days, the district's strategic improvement plan and a summary of performance metrics. Thirteen-to-zero votes gave final passage to RCI overlay zoning amendments affecting properties associated with Bay Colony LLC, BXP Waltham Woods, Stony Brook Associates LLC, and 126 Main Street LLC. The council also approved 12-0 the purchases of two Mount Wally Road properties for affordable veterans housing, and eighth-grade McDevitt Middle School students won a committee referral, not just a congratulatory resolution, for their proposal to install a $9,704 Big Belly solar compactor at the Moody Street entrance to the Charles River Walk.

In the full story:

• McDevitt Middle School Action Civics: Big Belly Compactor on the Charles River Walk
• Public Hearing: National Grid Gas Main Replacement on South Street
• Public Hearing: Secondhand Dealer's License, Roadshow Concepts LLC
• The president's response was pragmatic: "However we figure out how to deal with it together is exactly how it's going to go."
• Communications from the Mayor
• The council received and referred multiple communications from Mayor Jeannette A. McCarthy. Notable among them
• Committee of the Whole Reports: Veterans Housing on Mount Wally Road
• DPW Relocation to Former Bernal School
• Zoning Amendments: RCI Overlay Districts
• 495 Lincoln Street: Zone Change Withdrawn Without Prejudice
• FY2027 Budget: Municipal and School
• Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance: Third and Final Reading
• Who Was There
• Organizations And Documents Referenced
• The complete report: 3,470 words

Source: the City Council Part 1 meeting of June 22, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript. It was corrected where it differed.