OP-ED: Watertown’s Budget — What Are the Priorities?

By Linda Scott
Watertown Resident

PART 1: Watertown’s Days of Plenty

Over the last few years, there’s been a sort of “Boom town” attitude toward what we could afford here in Watertown. Despite the folks who said,”Don’t you think that we should slow down here? We’ve been here before, and this bubble is likely to burst sooner than later.” Those voices were drowned out and ignored. As one worried resident said, “When the downturn comes, it’s going to get ugly around here!”

You know when you have an uneasy feeling? Call it what you like … intuition, sixth sense, foreboding, “the jitters.” Well, lately I’ve been feeling uneasy and unsettled about the potential financial and policy direction of our City. Apparently, others share my angst. When I read Bruce Coltin’s Blog, I started to be able to identify some of the sources of that unease. I contacted other Watertown residents, some of whom had been involved in City government in the past to see if they shared my concerns. I ascertained that I was not alone.

I’ve just seen the statement made by George Proakis, Watertown’s City Manager, at the March 6th meeting of the Committee on Budget and Fiscal Oversight. When speaking about the 2026 City Budget, he said, in essence:

We have a lot of financial questions, and it will not be a “year of plenty.” Considering that growth (development) has slowed down and the State may not be in a position to be as financially helpful, to take on a “new initiative,” operating a second City ambulance (which would require the addition of eight more firefighters, two per shift, according to the Chief’s presentation), is a big ask for this year.

I had a question for Chief Nicholson about this. It wasn’t clear to me whether this would require the purchase of a new ambulance. Here’s his response:

“We do have a spare ambulance currently. We will also be taking delivery of a brand-new ambulance in early fall, that was ordered as part of our regular ongoing vehicle replacement plan. If the proposal is funded, we would look to keep the current spare as a third truck, instead of trading it in, so that we would have a reserve.”

The statistics presented that night were sobering and clear. Click here to watch the meeting.

About 4400 calls and 2000 transports yearly, with about a third of those transports handled by outside ambulances

Minutes count: An example, in cases of cardiac arrest, chances of survival decrease 7%-10% with every minute delay

The NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) acceptable standard is at least 90% of the time, an ambulance responds within 9 minutes

In 2024:

Watertown’s ambulance responded in 9 minutes or less a very respectable 94% of the time

Outside ambulances (usually coming from Cambridge) responded in 9 minutes or less just 48% of the time. (A personal note: I’m sure that the “improved” narrowed streets and street parking patterns are not helping). A councilor asked about response times to the west end of Watertown, since about one third of the ambulances are coming from Cambridge.

Revenue brought in by the Watertown ambulance transports: $1.5 million in 2024 (collected from insurance, Medicare, Medicaid). Revenue that was not collected by Watertown last year, because the transport was done by another ambulance service, amounted to about $400,000.

There was talk about what the priorities should be for the 2026 Watertown City Budget. I checked those priorities (called Budget Policy Guidelines), and nowhere in them do I find any specific language that lists the safety needs of our community, but I do see one strange addition to the list of priorities in a financially “lean year.” More about that later.

Parts 2 and 3 are set up sort of like a syllabus, a three credit course on the realities of today in Watertown, if you will. It is chockfull of facts and opinions (mine).

When you look at this, you might sigh and say, “There goes Linda again…she’s so painfully long-winded! Here’s my advice: read it or don’t. Dive as deeply or go as shallow as you choose. The point is, the 2026 budget could be one of the most consequential ones we’ll live with in decades. It could set us on a course one way or the other. You decide.

PART 2: And How Does Our Budget Grow?

Apparently, in leaps and bounds, personnel-wise.

Fiscal Year 2026 Watertown City Budget is now being formulated and discussed.

It would be good for all property owners in Watertown to be aware of what is being proposed, since they’ll be paying for it.

As City Manager, George Proakis said last year:

“The time to discuss reducing taxes is when the budget is created. The Property Tax Classification reflects the budget amount passed in June when the Council approved the budget.” In other words … if you want lower taxes, you need to plan for them.

And City Council President, Mark Sideris said of last year’s budget process:

“During the recent City Council Budget Priority Guideline hearings, cutting the budget did not come up as one of the priorities.”

“That would have been the time to say, ‘hey wait a minute, let’s take a look at this, maybe this isn’t the time to be adding.’ I think the Council needs to consider carefully before the manager makes his budget in the future that these are the ramifications,” Sideris said. “What we are doing tonight is basically what we voted for in June.”

So, budget meetings for the 2026 Watertown Budget have been happening. See meetings of the Committee on Budget and Fiscal Oversight (Click the date to watch):

November 13, 2024 Recommendations on FY 2026 Budget Policy Guidelines

February 24, 2025. Recommendations on Capital Improvements

March 3, 2025. Make Recommendations for the Fiscal Year 2026 – 2029 Capital Improvement Projects

March 6, 2025. Cost/Benefits of a second ambulance

Budget decisions are being made. The City Council will devote an entire meeting to this process at their next meeting on Tuesday, April 8th, from 7:00 to 10:00. After that, there’ll be meetings that cover expenditures in each City department, with a full meeting in June to approve the budget.

Part of the budget process was to review the 2025 budget. In the 2025 Budget “Strategic Priorities,” is listed a category called “Enhanced Organizational Effectiveness,” which seemed to be interpreted as adding more staff … a lot more staff! (and many in high priced supervisory positions). See the note at the bottom of the slide below. There were 24 additional requested City positions that could not be filled in that year.

Here’s what that looked like in the 2025 Watertown City Budget:

As an example, our City Manager, when he arrived in Watertown, already had an Assistant City Manager for Community Development and Planning and two very capable and experienced administrative assistants in his office.

Now, in addition to those three that he “inherited,” Mr. Proakis has added a Deputy City Manager, an Assistant City Manager for Finance, a Management and Grant Specialist, a Digital Media Manager (who he transferred from another department to his office), and a Community Engagement Specialist.Then there was a part-time job not listed on this slide (but hired by the Manager months before this slide was presented) that assisted the City Manager with the production value of his presentations as well as working on a City logo … hopefully that omission was a one-off. By the way, since we have decided to go in a different direction on the logo, is he still on the payroll to vet manager presentations, etc.?

Last year, we also had a City Compensation Study which raised salaries for many City workers by twenty to thirty percent. Here’s a link to that study’s results. And here’s one page to give you an idea of the scope of this:

The raises were a long time in coming, and I don’t begrudge staff making a decent living and the City retaining employees but that much higher number has to be accounted for in this whole budget picture. We own those expenses now, so we need to take them into consideration when making our decisions about other expenditures.

Then there’s paying for pensions. It’s called fully funding our City’s retirement system. This is the only responsible thing to do, and City Manager Michael Driscoll, with a lot of belt tightening from Watertown residents and staff, accomplished this very difficult task by July 1, 2021.

Question: As the number of employees precipitously rises and salaries increase, are we out of compliance again on this issue? If so, how much more of our budget needs to be devoted to fully funding our retirement system? As you can see from the review of the 2025 budget, the City Manager likely will be looking for funding for at least 24 more new positions in the future.

Another Question: Is the 2026 budget, with all of the fiscal uncertainties, the time and place to be adding more staff? And if we need to be careful in this area, wouldn’t staffing public safety be the first priority? Also, remember that staffing a second ambulance (which we already own) comes with added revenue from insurance (possibly almost two million dollars in total, as pointed out in the Chief’s March 6th presentation) for the City, as well as the “benefit” of saving lives.

And yet another question: How many new positions were created in 2023 and 2024? And how many new positions are included in this 2026 budget and in what departments? I know that there will be at least one new supervisory position mandated by the new Health and Human Services Study recommendations.

Allow me one more question: Where are the job descriptions for all of these folks? What are the demands of these jobs, and how many provide direct services to residents of this community?

And finally: I noticed that this year $25,000 was transferred into our Human Resources Department (not the Health Department), earmarked for wellness initiatives (I refer you to former City Councilor Kounelis’ April 1, 2026 letter in Watertown News for details). Do you think, given next year’s challenges, that that would be an appropriate use of taxpayer money in 2026?

Tomorrow: Part 3: Action Expresses Priorities