New Bedford budget plan raises tax levy $19.2 million, 12%, to help close what mayor called a $32 million gap

NEW BEDFORD Mayor Jon Mitchell's fiscal 2027 budget counts on $19.2 million more in New Bedford property taxes than the city levied last year, a 12% increase, and a City Council vote still to come decides how much of it homeowners pay.

The figure is in the budget book Mitchell sent the council May 13, which puts the levy, the total the city collects in property taxes, at $178.8 million, up from $159.6 million last year.

That increase is more than four times the $4.4 million the levy grew last year and larger than the three previous years' increases combined, by South Coast 360's calculation from state Division of Local Services figures.

Mitchell told the council the added tax revenue would close about half of what he called a $32 million gap between what the city takes in and what it costs to run. Cuts that included 94 positions were to cover the rest.

The budget book also shows where the pressure is coming from, and the schools are funded. State aid pays for all but $1.4 million of an $18.7 million rise in education spending, while the city side of the budget, led by health insurance, pensions and trash collection, rises $18.4 million after its own revenue is counted.

South Coast 360 wrote to the mayor's office with questions about the budget gap and has not heard back. Council President Ryan Pereira, seven other councilors and the Board of Assessors were sent questions as well, and Councilor Joseph Lopes, who chairs the Finance Committee, replied that the questions were better suited to the council's Audit Committee because the matter is in committee. This story will be updated if the city responds.

What it could mean for a tax bill

No ballot question is needed for an increase of that size. Under Proposition 2 1/2 a city's levy limit rises 2.5% a year plus taxes on new construction, and any room a city leaves unused carries forward.

New Bedford left $12.3 million of that room unused in fiscal 2026. "We will need to use all of it this year," Mitchell told the council in May.

The budget's $19.2 million is that unused room plus the 2.5% step, worth $4.3 million, and $2.6 million in new growth the city assumed in May, by South Coast 360's calculation. The state has since certified $3.96 million in new growth, which puts the most the city can levy at about $180 million, roughly $20.5 million or 13% above last year, by the same arithmetic.

The final levy is not public yet: the council cut more than $1 million from the plan in June, WJAR reported, and the number is set when the state approves the city's fiscal 2027 tax rate, which had not happened as of Saturday, Nov. 14.

In fiscal 2026 the average single-family home in New Bedford was assessed at $424,920 and billed $4,653, state figures show. That bill rose $161 in a year when the levy grew 2.8%, and it is up about 19% from $3,910 in fiscal 2021.

What the bill does in fiscal 2027 depends on three things that are not yet public: the final levy, the new assessed values and the split between homes and businesses that the council chooses. A lower rate would not by itself mean a lower bill, since the residential rate fell from $11.31 to $10.95 per $1,000 last year while the average bill rose.

The vote that sets homeowners' share

Each year, after a public hearing, the council sets the residential factor, the number that splits the levy between residential property and commercial, industrial and personal property. On Nov. 18, 2025, it held the fiscal 2026 hearing and took up an order adopting the minimum residential factor, the lowest setting the state allows, which shifts the most tax onto business property.

The result in fiscal 2026 was a residential rate of $10.95 per $1,000 of value and a business rate of $21.80. Residential property held 84.1% of the city's taxable value and paid 72.7% of the levy, by South Coast 360's calculation from state figures.

That left business property paying about 1.72 times its share of the value, by the same calculation. State law caps that shift at 1.75 times, so the council has little room left to move more of the levy off homes.

A single rate for every class would have been $12.67 and would have made the average single-family bill about $5,384 instead of $4,653. If the council again adopts the minimum, homes keep the lowest share the state permits, and any other setting moves part of the levy back onto homes.

Fiscal 2026 average single-family tax bill and rates per $1,000, New Bedford and neighbors (state Division of Local Services; shares computed by South Coast 360 from the same figures)

Community	Avg. single-family bill	Residential rate	Commercial rate	Residential share of value	Residential share of levy
New Bedford	$4,653	$10.95	$21.80	84.1%	72.7%
Acushnet	$5,244	$10.45	$14.73	89.2%	85.5%
Dartmouth	$5,276	$8.03	$15.78	86.9%	77.1%
Fairhaven	$4,374	$9.19	$18.20	86.6%	76.5%
Fall River	$4,651	$11.48	$23.58	83.5%	71.2%
Somerset	$6,278	$12.93	$25.24	85.8%	75.6%
Taunton	$5,540	$11.14	$23.73	80.8%	66.4%
Westport	$4,931	$7.28	$7.28	92.0%	92.0%

New Bedford's average bill is the third lowest of the eight communities in dollars. Measured against what residents earn it is heavier than all of them but Fall River, since the state puts the fiscal 2026 bill at 20.65% of New Bedford's per capita income, against 20.81% in Fall River and 9.02% in Westport.

Exemptions, abatements and the CPA surcharge

Exemptions mean some owners will pay less than the rate alone shows, and in June the Board of Assessors asked the council to raise the city's fiscal 2027 property tax exemptions by 2.7%, the state's inflation figure, which would put the veterans' exemption under Clause 22 at $845.43, with larger amounts under Clauses 22A, 22B, 22C and 22E, and lift the income limit for exemptions under Clauses 41, 41B and 41C to $27,648.31 for a single owner and $31,905.67 for a married couple, according to the council's June 25 agenda.

The same agenda carried a Finance Committee recommendation that the assessors lower the eligibility age for the city's senior exemptions from 70 to 65, the subject of a motion by Councilor Shawn Oliver, who also asked what other exemptions the city could offer older owners. No record South Coast 360 has found shows the council's final vote on either item.

Under Chapter 59, Section 59 of the General Laws, the deadlines run from the tax bills, and an owner who believes a property is overvalued or wrongly classified can apply in writing to the assessors for an abatement, on a state form, by the day the first installment of the actual tax bill, the one issued after the rate is set, is due. Applications for most personal exemptions, among them those under Clauses 17, 22 and 41C, are due by April 1 or within three months after the bill is sent, whichever is later. A tenant who must pay more than half of a property's taxes may also apply for an abatement.

State law allows two other forms of relief that South Coast 360 found no sign of in New Bedford's records. A city may adopt a residential exemption on principal residences worth up to 35% of the average residential assessment, but the only order on the council's fiscal 2026 classification agenda was the minimum residential factor. A city may also accept a law that lets residents over 60 volunteer for city work in exchange for up to $2,000 a year off their tax bills, paid at no more than the state minimum wage, and no record found shows New Bedford has done so.

New Bedford property owners also pay for the Community Preservation Act: the city's Community Preservation Committee sent the council its fiscal 2027 budget in June, and state law funds the act through a surcharge on real property of up to 3% of the real estate levy, which does not count against the Proposition 2 1/2 limits described above.

Exemption and abatement applications go to the Board of Assessors, whose office is at 508-979-1440.

The schools are funded

Education is the largest part of the city's $535.2 million general fund, and it is paid for mostly by the state. The budget book's summary puts education spending at $290.2 million for fiscal 2027, more than half the fund and up $18.7 million, and state education aid at $276.8 million, up $17.3 million.

"A $17.3 million hike in Chapter 70 state education aid funded all but $1.4 million of School increases," Chief Financial Officer Robert Ekstrom wrote in the letter that opens the book. After that aid, the city's own share of education comes to $13.4 million.

The state's school aid file sets New Bedford's required school spending for fiscal 2027 at $314.5 million, which Ekstrom put at 6.6% above fiscal 2026's, with the state paying $271.2 million of it, about 86%, and the city required to contribute $43.3 million. That requirement counts school costs the budget carries outside its education line, which is why the city's $43.3 million required contribution is larger than the $13.4 million education share in the book. Mitchell said the city budgets its schools at the required level, which it cannot go below, "not because we believe the schools don't need more money, but it's all that we can afford."

"Our school department is better funded than it has been in a long time," Mitchell said in his budget address, crediting the state's Student Opportunity Act.

On the city side of the budget, municipal spending rises $18.6 million, the revenue that supports it rises about $165,000, and the difference of $18.4 million falls to property taxes, the book's summary shows.

Set side by side, the book's figures show the schools are not what is driving the levy up. After state aid, the city's cost for education rises $1.4 million in the plan, while the city side's cost rises $18.4 million.

What is driving costs

Five categories account for $16.7 million of the municipal increase, Ekstrom wrote.

Health insurance rises $4.1 million, to $24.5 million, after premium increases in January that were higher than expected and with another 10% assumed. The pension payment rises $3.7 million, to $47.3 million, on a funding schedule that runs until the unfunded liability is paid off in 2035.

Trash collection and disposal rises $3.7 million, or about 40%, based on the low bid for a new three-year contract. Debt payments rise $2.6 million, mainly for school construction and other capital projects, and state assessments, with charter school tuition the largest part, rise $2.6 million.

Ekstrom wrote that the savings measures held the increase in department requests, the part of the budget the city controls most directly, to $500,000, or less than 1%, police, fire and ambulance service included. Many of the costs that make up 80% of the budget are rising 6% to 10% a year, Ekstrom wrote, while local receipts such as excise taxes and fees are expected to grow 1%.

Mitchell's address pointed first to state aid for city services. The budget book puts that unrestricted aid at $29.4 million for fiscal 2027. Ekstrom wrote that it has only now returned to its 2009 level, and Mitchell said it would be about $13 million higher had it kept pace with inflation.

On health insurance, Mitchell said the city pays 75% of employee premiums and that each percentage point of that share costs $320,000. He said the council had four times rejected his proposal to adopt sections of a 2011 state health care law under which an arbitrator settles disputes with unions over health plan changes.

Where the $32 million comes from

The $32 million is the mayor's number, and it does not appear in the budget book. He described it in his May 13 address as the gap "between what is needed to run the City and the money available to us" going into the budget season, and said it was more than twice the largest gap of the previous 15 years.

The forecasts climbed through the spring, starting with the Chief Financial Officer's quarterly report dated March 6, which projected the fiscal 2026 budget would end $3.54 million short, with health insurance $2 million over. On March 30, Ekstrom told the council's Finance Committee the city had "$28 million of expenditure increases locked in" before any department asked for more, and he forecast a fiscal 2027 gap of $10 million to $15 million, The New Bedford Light reported.

In early May, Mitchell put the gap at $13 million, a figure that left out three unsettled union contracts and more than $8 million in department requests, according to The Light. A week later, on May 13, it was $32 million.

The city has not published a line-by-line accounting of the $32 million. The records do name the largest pieces of how it was closed. The budget book shows the levy, after a reserve for abatements, rising $19.5 million. Mitchell said the city rejected more than $8 million in department requests, and The Light reported that the 94 positions could save close to $4 million, citing the Chief Financial Officer's office.

Those three pieces add up to about $31.5 million, by South Coast 360's arithmetic. Read that way, the $32 million is the distance between what departments asked to spend and what the city would collect if the levy stayed where it was. Other savings Mitchell named, among them about $3 million from what he called "the most conservative calculation of net school spending," would push the total past $32 million, and no city document South Coast 360 has found shows exactly which items the figure counts.

The budget book shows the result after the fixes, with spending up $36.9 million, or 7.4%, from the fiscal 2026 budget as amended during the year. State aid, most of it for schools, rises $18.1 million, and the levy rises $19.2 million.

"The City Council received the [proposed] budget when the public did, and while I was aware there was a budget deficit, the figures presented by the Mayor have fluctuated significantly over the past few weeks," Councilor James Roy wrote in an online post The Light quoted.

The pension vote

While the forecasts were rising, the council voted to raise the base on which retirees' yearly raises are figured, and the mayor vetoed that vote.

The New Bedford Retirement Board voted last year to raise the base on which retirees' yearly cost of living increases are figured from $14,000 to $16,000, starting July 1, 2026, subject to the council's approval. On March 30, the night of Ekstrom's forecast, the Finance Committee recommended approval on a motion by Pereira, seconded by Roy, by a roll call of 10 to 0, according to the committee's report. The council's agenda records the full council's approval on April 9.

The council's reasons are on the record in The Light's account of the March 30 meeting, where Pereira said, "This increase is justified." Retirement Board Chairman Leonard Baillargeon told councilors that 17% of the city's retirees receive benefits at or below the poverty line and that retirees want to be "on par with" other systems, The Light reported. A 3% raise figured on the higher base would be worth up to $480 a year, against up to $420 on the old base, by South Coast 360's arithmetic.

Mitchell vetoed the measure April 23. "The problem is that the City simply cannot afford to increase benefits right now," he wrote to the council, saying the city faced "its largest budget gap since the 2008 financial crisis."

"By raising the pension base, the Council added $1.1 million annually to the City's annual pension contribution, an amount that under current circumstances can only be absorbed by further service reductions or tax increases," he wrote. He said the increase reaches every retiree, "including those receiving six figure annual benefits," and that New Bedford's pension system is the sixth lowest funded in the state.

The letter also said he shared the council's sentiment that retirees are finding it harder to pay their bills, and it asked the council to wait for a full briefing on the budget before taking the measure up again. In a second letter May 5 he wrote that one or more councilors might dispute his authority to veto it, and he urged the council to sustain the veto or rescind its approval.

Both letters were on the council's May 12 agenda, the night before the budget address. No published record South Coast 360 has found shows whether the council sustained or overrode the veto, no vote to override it or to rescind the approval appears on the later council agendas it reviewed, and no record it has found shows the higher base taking effect. The $1.1 million is the mayor's figure for a cost the council voted for, not one shown to be paid, and the budget book's pension line does not break it out.

State law treats the base and the yearly raise differently. Under Chapter 32, Section 103 of the General Laws, raising the base takes a majority vote of the Retirement Board, "subject to the approval of the legislative body," which for a city is "the city council in accordance with its charter." What Mitchell vetoed was the council's approval, not the board's vote, and his May 5 letter acknowledged that councilors "may dispute the legality of the exercise of my veto authority." No ruling in the records South Coast 360 reviewed settles that question.

The yearly raise itself is the board's decision alone. The same law lets a board that has accepted it elect each year to pay retirees up to 3%, after notifying the council at least 30 days ahead, with no council vote, so there was no council action for the mayor to veto. On May 28 the board voted 3 to 2 to pay the full 3%, with the city's two representatives voting no, according to a New Bedford Light column, which said the administration estimated that raise would cost the city about $1 million a year.

In a Feb. 3 letter, Ekstrom wrote that the retirement system was 54.5% funded, that an earlier $2,000 increase in the base "added an estimated $7 million to unfunded liability," and that the state will not extend the 2035 deadline for full funding. The chart with his letter shows the required yearly contribution for the whole retirement system, a larger figure than the city's own payment, climbing from $48 million in 2027 to $71.5 million in 2035.

"Without an additional infusion of pension funding, the City's compliance with State law will be solely reliant upon the tax levy, which will have to increase by over $27 million from now until 2035," he wrote.

One-time money and reserves

The budget book lists $6.1 million of free cash, the state-certified surplus left from earlier years, as general fund revenue in fiscal 2025 and $1.4 million in fiscal 2026, and it lists none for fiscal 2027. It also drops the $250,000 the city had been putting each year into a trust fund for retiree health costs.

Earlier budgets leaned on one-time money, by the mayor's account and S&P Global Ratings'. The fiscal 2026 budget needed $5.8 million in supplemental orders after it was adopted, according to Ekstrom's letter.

S&P wrote in a March 17 report that the council's cut to the fiscal 2026 police budget "was filled by an allocation of free cash that we view as not sustainable." Mitchell said the council had cut accounts the city could not avoid paying, such as electricity and the employer share of Social Security. "We were forced to use reserve funds to fill the void," he said, calling it "not a sustainable practice."

Over the same years the city's savings grew, and its stabilization funds held $36.7 million on June 30, 2025, or 7.7% of the operating budget, up from $9 million three years earlier, state figures show.

Some of that has been spent since, and in June the Finance Committee recommended moving $2.1 million out of the general stabilization fund, $1.93 million of it to a snow removal account budgeted at $300,000 for the year.

S&P gave the city's new bonds an AA+ rating, which rests on the state's qualified bond program, and affirmed its AA- rating on the city's own credit. It wrote that management expected fiscal 2026 to end with another surplus, and that "further reliance on free cash appropriations to cover budget adjustments could affect the rating."

Last winter's snow bill could still land on the coming rate. A state law passed this year lets cities pay off fiscal 2026 snow and ice deficits over three years, but only if the council adopts a schedule before the fiscal 2027 tax rate is set, according to a Division of Local Services bulletin. A deficit that is not spread out or otherwise paid for is raised in full on the fiscal 2027 rate.

Councilors Ian Abreu and Lopes asked the administration in July how it would use $713,441.91 in state winter road aid and what that means for the tax rate. A Finance Committee report on the council's agenda for Friday, Nov. 13, recommended no further action, and neither the motion nor the bulletin gives the size of New Bedford's deficit.

Where the money could come from

State law and the city's own records name a short list of places a Massachusetts city can turn for money to run itself, and nearly every one comes with a vote, a cap or a rule about what the money may pay for.

The first is the room under Proposition 2 1/2 that the budget already draws on. With the new growth the state has since certified, the fiscal 2027 limit works out to about $180.2 million, about $1.3 million more than the $178.8 million levy in the budget book, by South Coast 360's arithmetic from state figures, and that is the most the city could add without going to voters. The mayor's plan uses up the $12.3 million of unused room the city had going into the year, according to state figures, so later levies would grow by the yearly 2.5% and new growth from construction, which added $3.96 million to the limit this year, plus whatever room the final levy leaves unused.

Going above the limit takes a ballot question. Under Chapter 59, Section 21C of the General Laws, the council, with the mayor's approval where the law requires it, can vote by majority to ask voters to let the city assess a stated dollar amount above the limit, known as an override, and the question passes with a majority of those voting. A second cap in the law, 2.5% of the city's total value, left $143 million of room for one in fiscal 2026, state figures show. Mitchell said in May that an override was not on the table in New Bedford, The New Bedford Light reported May 7.

The same section lets the council, by a two-thirds vote, ask voters to tax above the limit for the payments on specific bonds, a debt exclusion, or for a specific capital purchase, a capital exclusion. Money raised either way sits outside the limit. State figures for fiscal 2023 through 2026 show no exclusion of either kind in New Bedford's limit, and the budget book puts general fund debt payments for fiscal 2027 at $12.8 million.

The classification vote described above raises nothing, since it only divides the levy between homes and businesses.

Local option taxes are largely in use already. The budget book counts $2.6 million from the local meals and room taxes and $10.5 million from the boat and motor vehicle excise in the general fund, and expects each to grow 1%. State law fixes the local meals tax at 0.75% and the vehicle excise at $25 per $1,000 of value, so the city cannot raise either rate, and it caps the local room tax at 6% and a local tax on retail marijuana sales at 3%. Part of the room tax goes to a city arts, culture and tourism fund under a special law signed in 2017, $133,747 of it this year, according to the budget book.

A city that has the room tax may add a fee of up to 3% on professionally managed short-term rentals, with at least 35% of it going to affordable housing or local infrastructure. Fees a city collects from marijuana businesses under host community agreements are capped at 3% of gross sales, have to be tied to documented costs and end after a business's eighth year, under Chapter 94G.

Fees and other local receipts, from building permits to ambulance billing, are expected to bring in $38.1 million in all, up 1.3%. Water and sewer service run through what the budget book lists as enterprise funds, paid for by ratepayers, and state law keeps an enterprise fund's receipts in its own account. Those bills are rising as well, with the budget planning for 16.6% more from water user charges and 5.8% more from wastewater charges, and the general fund collects $8.1 million from the enterprise funds for city services they use.

Reserves are one-time money, and of the $36.7 million in stabilization funds in June 2025, state figures show $19.6 million in the general stabilization fund and $17.1 million in funds set aside for specific purposes, and under Chapter 40, Section 5B, spending from the general fund takes a two-thirds vote of the council while spending from a special purpose fund takes a majority. Assessors also hold back part of each levy to cover abatements, $1.5 million in this budget, and state law lets whatever is not needed be moved to a reserve the city can appropriate.

The largest outside source is the state, which the city does not control. The state's final local aid figures for fiscal 2027 put New Bedford's school aid at $271.2 million and its unrestricted aid at $29.3 million, the second up $667,944, or 2.3%, from the year before. Those amounts follow the state budget, and the state sets the minimum the city has to spend on its schools.

Two of the largest costs have options attached, and both have been argued over. Chapter 32, Section 22F lets a retirement system adopt a funding schedule that runs as late as June 30, 2040, subject to the approval of the actuary. New Bedford's schedule, adopted by the state's Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission, calls for full funding by fiscal 2035, according to the budget book, and Ekstrom wrote in his Feb. 3 letter that the city has committed to that date and that the commission "will not permit any extensions."

On health insurance, Sections 21 to 23 of Chapter 32B let a city change its plans' copayments and deductibles, or move its employees and retirees into the state's Group Insurance Commission, by a majority vote of the council with the mayor's approval. The law gives the city and a committee of its unions and retirees up to 30 days to negotiate, then sends an unsettled proposal to a three-member review panel. Those are the sections the mayor said the council has rejected four times.

The deadline to commit federal pandemic aid has passed. New Bedford's direct share of the American Rescue Plan Act was $64.7 million, according to the U.S. Treasury, and federal rules required cities to commit, or obligate, that money by Dec. 31, 2024. Money committed by then for most uses may be spent through Dec. 31, 2026, and whatever is not spent by that date must be returned. Other federal money carries limits of its own, and the rules for Community Development Block Grants, for one, bar spending on the regular responsibilities of a local government.

Smaller lines add little, with payments in place of taxes budgeted at $505,000 and the state's payment for land it owns in the city at $42,061.

Selling city property does not cover yearly bills, because Chapter 44, Section 63 requires proceeds of more than $500 from a sale of real estate to go toward debt on that property or toward the kinds of long-term projects a city may borrow for. Borrowing is limited in the same way, since Section 7 of that chapter allows debt, by a two-thirds vote, for land, buildings, equipment and other assets expected to last at least five years, along with a few special cases such as court judgments, and Section 10 caps total debt at 5% of a city's equalized value, or 10% with a state board's approval.

That leaves spending, where the mayor's plan found the rest of its answer in the 94 positions, the more than $8 million in department requests it turned down and the service cuts described below.

Where New Bedford could look for money, what the record shows and who decides (city budget book, state Division of Local Services, General Laws, U.S. Treasury; the levy room is computed by South Coast 360)

Source	What the record shows	Who decides	The limit
Room left under the levy limit	About $1.3 million above the budgeted levy (our math)	Council and mayor	The state certifies the final limit
Override	Up to $143 million in fiscal 2026	Council majority, then voters	Ballot question
Debt or capital exclusion	None in the limit, fiscal 2023 to 2026	Two-thirds of the council, then voters	Bonds or capital purchases only
Meals and room taxes	$2.6 million budgeted	Council and mayor	Meals fixed at 0.75%, rooms capped at 6%
Boat and motor vehicle excise	$10.5 million budgeted	State law	Rate fixed at $25 per $1,000
All local receipts	$38.1 million budgeted, up 1.3%	City	Water and sewer charges stay in their own funds
Stabilization funds	$36.7 million in June 2025	Council: two-thirds (general), majority (special)	One-time money
State aid	Fiscal 2027: $271.2 million for schools, $29.3 million unrestricted	Legislature and governor	Set in the state budget
Pension schedule	Full funding set for fiscal 2035	Retirement Board and the state	State law allows schedules to 2040
Health insurance changes	City pays 75% of premiums	Council and mayor	Up to 30 days of talks, then a review panel
Federal pandemic aid	$64.7 million allocated	Federal rules	Commit by Dec. 31, 2024; spend by Dec. 31, 2026
Property sales and borrowing	Sale proceeds go to debt or capital projects	Two-thirds of the council to borrow	Capital purposes only

Audits and the finance office

The city's outside audits for the last four years were accepted by the federal deadline or within a day after it, each with an unmodified opinion, the best an auditor gives, and none reporting a material weakness, Federal Audit Clearinghouse records show. The fiscal 2025 audit was accepted March 31, 2026, the deadline.

The same records flag material weaknesses in the audits for fiscal 2016 through 2019 and none since.

The City Auditor's Office began issuing quarterly spending reports in 2025, and its section of the budget book says the balance sheet and the tax rate paperwork went to the state on time and earlier than ever before.

The office that built the budget has changed since May, and the Audit Committee's Oct. 21 minutes record City Auditor Quillan Lowney saying his office would make every effort to keep producing spending reports after Ekstrom's retirement and the departure of a senior member of the auditor's staff. The budget plan also eliminated a vacant assistant city auditor position.

That night the committee took up a 2024 motion asking for monthly spending reports from every department, then tabled it again. It also reviewed the mayor's hiring of a staff member after the council had cut $225,000 from the mayor's office budget.

The minutes record that the office had spent $225,000 on positions to that point, leaving $365,000 for the rest of the year, and that Chief of Staff Neil Mello said transfers would be sought from departments with surplus money to cover any shortfall. Lopes warned that the city could face a shortfall later in the year that would have to be handled in the tax rate recap, and Mello said the office wanted to honor the council's intent in good faith while it kept operating, the minutes say.

What the mayor has said

Mitchell told the council in May that he had warned for years that the budget was being squeezed by state aid that had not kept up and by pension and health costs it is required to pay.

"There is no avoiding the raising of the levy," he said. "This will be an imposition on our residents, at a time when many are struggling to pay their bills."

His plan cut 94 general fund positions, 36 through layoffs and 58 that were vacant, with the Fire Department down 26 and the Police Department down 25 in the budget book's count. It ended the police signing bonus, shortened library hours, dropped the ShotSpotter contract, put off work on the new police headquarters on Coggeshall Street, reduced yard waste pickup and merged five departments into a Department of Health and Human Services.

What the council has said

The council's answer has come mostly through its votes. It cut more than $1 million at its June 22 final budget session, including $500,000 from city utility bills and $250,000 from vehicle fuel and parts, WJAR reported.

Mitchell said in a statement that the council "yet again chose gimmicks and arbitrary budget cuts" that would reduce services.

On Aug. 25 the council unanimously approved $1 million to restore 26 firefighter positions and $300,000 for their benefits, money it had saved in its June budget cuts, and the mayor returned the orders unsigned, WBSM reported.

In September, as Pereira called a special meeting and asked the mayor to attend, a city spokesman called the council's push "yet another stunt by the city council to deflect blame from its chronic failure to control costs," and Pereira told the mayor to "stop playing political games with people's lives," according to WBSM.

Engine 9 and the police contract

The firefighter positions trace to the budget address, which said the city could no longer run nine fire companies with four firefighters on each and that, without a union agreement to smaller crews, Engine 9 on Ashley Boulevard would close. The mayor's office put the cost of a fire company at $1.8 million a year, WBSM reported.

On Sept. 23 the city said Gov. Maura Healey would seek $1.3 million in state aid and that Mitchell had committed to use it to keep Engine 9 in service. The House passed a supplemental budget with a $2 million public safety reserve, the account that money is to come from, 152 to 0 on Oct. 21, and the Senate passed its version 35 to 4 on Nov. 5.

State Sen. Mark Montigny's office said Nov. 9 that the $1.3 million will be in the final bill because both chambers wrote in matching amounts, and that with $500,000 he secured in the state budget, the department will receive $1.8 million in all. The two amounts would keep the engine running through June, WJAR reported.

The bill is not law yet, since it still needs a final vote and Healey's signature, and the Legislature's record showed no action after the Senate vote as of Nov. 14.

The budget also leaves one cost unstated, since the New Bedford Police Union's contract expired June 30, 2024, the union has said, which made Saturday the 867th day without one, and nothing on the public record says what a settlement would cost.

Earlier coverage: the House vote and the Senate vote.

What happens next

The council's calendar lists a special meeting for Tuesday, Nov. 24, at 6 p.m., ahead of its regular 7 p.m. meeting. The council has said the regular agenda will be released Friday, Nov. 20.

Last year's classification hearing was a 6 p.m. special meeting advertised two weeks ahead, though nothing posted so far says the Nov. 24 special meeting is this year's hearing.

The Finance Committee did not take up the budget, the levy or the tax rate when it met Nov. 9. What it approved by voice vote that night, a tax exemption agreement for 47 apartments at the Nashawena Mill complex and orders to pay bills left over from fiscal 2026, will be on the Nov. 24 agenda, Assistant City Council Clerk Susan Henriques said.

From here, the assessors present the new values and the options for the split, the council holds the hearing and votes on the residential factor, and the state reviews the city's tax rate paperwork and approves the rate. A snow and ice payment schedule, if the city uses one, has to be adopted before that approval.

Council and committee meetings are held in Room 214 at City Hall, 133 William St., and streamed on the city's website under Quick Links, then Meetings. The City Council Office is at 508-979-1455, and the Assessor's Office is at 508-979-1440.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.