Rochester faces budget shortfalls, looks to personnel cuts to close gap

ROCHESTER — Financial constraints, due in large part to rising costs and stagnant revenue, will likely force Rochester officials to cut jobs across town to balance its budget for the upcoming year.

As Spring Town Meeting looms closer, the town must present voters with a balanced budget to approve. Without the funds to cover everything currently required to stay operational, personnel cuts appear to be a likely solution.

Town Administrator Cameron Durant estimates the budget will be about $28 million for 2027. He said there is a $1.5 million gap between what departments have requested and revenue the town expects to earn in the coming year. 

Some of that money was requested for things Durant said he knows can’t be funded, such as hiring more police department staff, but much of it is simply due to an increase in costs.

Services are becoming more expensive to provide, and mandatory spending such as insurance and pension benefits for employees is rising.

A significant portion of Rochester’s budget goes to education. Public schools are costly to run, and the town spends an average of $20,000 per student in the Rochester district according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

“The key cost driver is education, and most certainly not to blame the schools by any means, it's systematic of the problems the Commonwealth faces right now,” Durant said. 

Special education is especially costly, and Durant said there are a few students who need more support than the district can provide. These out-of-district costs are well over $1 million a year, although some of the money is reimbursed to the town. 

Compounding the issue is a resident-heavy tax base. The rural town has few businesses to offset resident taxes, and slow commercial growth means the town will likely continue to rely on residents to fund nearly all of Rochester’s operations. 

Budget issues are a problem “across the Commonwealth — it's not a Rochester issue, per se,” Durant said. Towns across the state are struggling to balance budgets as costs continue to rise while increases in state aid lag behind.

He pointed to Lakeville, Westport, Berkeley and Fairhaven, all neighboring towns proposing Proposition 2 ½ overrides to increase property taxes above the state-mandated limit.  

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rochester received aid through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, and the American Rescue Plan Act. These funds helped stave off budgetary shortfalls during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

In the years since this aid ended, coupled with the drastic inflation that occurred during this time, Rochester has been left scrambling to balance its budget.

“2020 and 2021 were a little bit easier years because of that influx of one-time cash,” Durant said. “When we saw the post-covid inflation hikes in 2022, 2023 and 2024, the budgets have become tighter and tighter because our revenue is fixed. You can't get more in property taxes.”

To make sure this year’s budget is balanced, Durant said the town is looking primarily at shrinking staff to reduce salary spending. These include cuts in the Assessor’s Office and at the Council on Aging, as well as changing some library and conservation roles from full- to part-time. 

Beyond this year, possible long-term solutions include seeking aid and grants, finding creative, revenue-boosting uses for town-owned land and encouraging commercial development to increase revenue.

Durant said these ideas must be balanced with a respect for the town’s rural character, and he said any development or rezoning wouldn’t generate enough profit to drastically change the town’s finances.

Without more money, he said the only option is to reduce services. That could look like fewer teachers and police officers employed in Rochester, or changes to current trash removal for example.

“The town will always ‘live within its means,’ because, by law, the town will always have a balanced budget. The question is whether people like how the town gets to that balanced budget,” Durant said.