by John Osborn ·
Friday, February 13, 2026
Harvard’s Finance Committee voted Tuesday to recommend a $396,754 Proposition 2½ override to the Select Board, along with $267,000 in budget cuts split—albeit unevenly—between town departments and the schools.
The recommended override would reduce but not eliminate the town’s projected fiscal 2027 deficit of $663,754. The committee cut $179,000 from town budgets and $88,000 from the school budget, then recommended a single-tier override to cover the remainder.
A Proposition 2½ override allows a town to raise more from taxpayers to pay for town services and schools than permitted by the state’s Proposition 2½ law, which limits annual property tax increases to 2½% plus an allowance for new construction. An override must be approved by voters at the ballot box and permanently increases a town’s tax levy.
To guide the committee’s deliberations without violating the state’s Open Meeting Law, Finance Committee Chair Mike Derse polled the group’s six other members on their preferences prior to Tuesday’s meeting. He asked each to identify which of 14 town budget items they would vote to cut, plus, in the case of the schools, the dollar amount they thought should be trimmed.
Each member responded directly to Derse without sharing their votes with other members. Derse compiled the results and presented them to the committee in a color-coded spreadsheet, which members saw for the first time at Tuesday’s meeting.
With member Sara Fanning absent, Derse determined that four votes would be required to cut any item from the town budget. Items receiving fewer than four votes would be passed over. The results of Tuesday’s voting are shown in the table that accompanies this story.
By law, FinCom and the Select Board can decide the amount to be allocated to the schools, but not how that money is spent. Derse proposed cutting an additional $50,000 from the school budget; James O’Leary $88,000; Adam Meier $96,300; and Charles Oliver $176,300. Noyan Kinayman and Vikram Sampige said schools should not be asked to cut anything more.
The $88,000 school cut that the committee ultimately recommended represented a compromise among the four members who favored reductions. The amount was also considerably less than would have been required if the committee had applied the traditional 65%-35% allocation of available revenue between schools and town.
The town-side cuts include shifting payment for the purchase of an $80,000 police cruiser to the Capital Stabilization and Investment Fund; shifting a $10,000 building department salary to a revolving fund; a $14,000 reduction in the amount the town is assessed as a member of the Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District; a $25,000 reduction in other post-employment benefits (OPEB) funding, and cutting the land use planner position from 35 hours to 19 hours per week, saving $50,000.
The $88,000 school cut passed 4-2, with Sampige and Kinayman voting against it.
A $396,754 override would increase taxes on an average Harvard home assessed at $918,796 by $192.95, according to a Department of Revenue online calculator. The residential tax rate would rise from $15.87 to $16.02 per $1,000 of assessed value. That represents roughly 30% of last year’s $1.36 million override, which contributed to an estimated $655 increase in the average Harvard homeowner’s tax bill.
The discussion over how much to ask schools to cut proved contentious. O’Leary said his suggested $88,000 cut was based on a prioritized list of potential cuts provided by the schools some weeks ago. That list included a $50,000 early retirement position and $38,000 in supplies.
Sampige, however, said the schools should not be asked to further reduce their spending. “We heard in the joint meeting [of School Committee, Select Board, and Finance Committee] that the first place they are going to cut is personnel,” he said. “We’ve already seen a number of cuts over the last few years.” Kinayman agreed.
But Chair Mike Derse pressed for a number. “I think the schools, which represent a majority of where the money is spent in this town … could find $50,000 somewhere,” he said.
In other action, the committee unanimously voted not to prioritize its recommended cuts, but to provide the Select Board with Derse’s spreadsheet instead, which shows how individual members ranked each reduction. The committee also voted unanimously not to endorse the 65%-35% allocation of available revenue between schools and town departments that the Finance Committee and Select Board have used in past years.
After the committee voted 5-1 to recommend a $396,754 override—with Kinayman opposed because of the additional cuts it requires to the school budget —Oliver suggested the committee recommend a two-tier override, one that would let voters choose the full $663,754 needed to avoid any cuts to the budget.
Meier objected, however, saying that FinCom’s role was to recommend a budget amount, not dictate ballot language, which was the role of the Select Board. Oliver ultimately agreed.
O’Leary, noting that this was his first budget cycle, asked what happens as numbers change. “We’re going to recommend $397,000 now as the override. But what happens as … new numbers come in, as health care gets adjusted. Does that come back here to us?”
Derse said the Select Board would apply the committee’s recommended cuts to whatever deficit exists when final decisions are made. If the deficit shrinks significantly—for instance, to $300,000—the board could restore some cuts since less override money would be needed. Conversely, if the deficit grows larger, it would be up to the board to make additional cuts or seek a larger override. Derse said the override recommendation should be understood as a snapshot based on current projections.
One of those projections, however, was a near certainty, Assistant Town Administrator Dawn Dunbar told the group. She said the Nashoba Valley Regional Dispatch District steering committee had confirmed the town could expect a $14,000 reduction in its annual assessment because the town of Sterling would soon join the service. But she cautioned that the projected $100,000 in health insurance savings from eliminated positions remains an estimate, though the amount could potentially reach $135,000 on the town side. “We’re not really 100% sure on that one yet,” she said. FinCom voted not to include her forecast in its calculations.
The Finance Committee’s recommendation is due to be presented to the Select Board March 3. But the Select Board has scheduled its own budget retreat for Feb. 18 from 9 a.m. to noon at Town Hall.