Author: Sean Cronin - Senior Deputy Commissioner of Local Services
I hope everyone reading this edition of City & Town enjoyed welcoming 2026! The turn of the calendar to a new year always means it’s that time of year to start preparing and debating the ensuing fiscal year budget, while at the same time reviewing the current fiscal year budget performance – both critical processes for each city and town across the Commonwealth. I’d like to thank all of you in local government for all you do to deliver the core services that residents of the Commonwealth depend on. Local government employees undertake the critical and oftentimes unheralded work that keeps our cities and towns safe and functioning.
Hopefully, you’ve registered for our “Dollars, Data, and Dedicated Support: Insights from the DLS Team” workshop at the Massachusetts Municipal Association’s (MMA) Connect 351. Set for Friday, January 23 at 3:30 pm, this workshop provides an overview of key topics of interest to municipalities. This is a great opportunity for both new and experienced members to hear directly from us about municipal finance best practices, trends in property values, municipal statistics and a legal update.
At the conclusion of each tax rate setting season, I like to provide some management metrics. An important workload metric for DLS is the number of property tax recaps submitted/approved by the end of November. Why? Because fewer submitted by the end of November means more need to be approved in just one month (December), which can result in the need to delay review and approval of other important items (e.g., municipal, regional school district and special purpose district balance sheets and Schedule A’s).
As shown in the graph below, 144 tax rates were set by the end of November, meaning up to 207 tax rates had to be approved in December (199 were approved, with the remaining eight not submitted by the municipality by the end of December). In addition, there were 44 special purpose tax rates that had to be approved in December.
Thank you to those municipalities that submitted recaps earlier than you did the past few years! From my many years in town hall I understand the normal rhythm during the last quarter of the calendar year and that we can all be creatures of habit (I certainly was!), but I respectfully ask municipal leaders to consider getting your recaps into us earlier. For those who want to learn more about ways to complete the recap sooner and get a tax rate set earlier, visit our Training & Resource Center, specifically the Tax Rate Setting section. In addition, the DLS-hosted webinar where Yarmouth finance officials explained how they prepare the recap and are able to get their tax rate approved in the July-August timeframe is available here.
For Free Cash, 247 balance sheets were submitted by the end of November, with 209 approved. As shown in the graph below, 85% of those submitted were approved by the end of November.
In terms of turnaround time, the graph below depicts 69% of Free Cash submissions being approved within 10 working days. For tax rates, 77% were finalized within one work week.
In order to get to tax rate approval, a number of assessment-related items need to be submitted by local boards of assessors and reviewed / approved by the Bureau of Local Assessment (BLA). The graph below looks at the turnaround time for three such items, measured as approved within 5 working days: LA-3 (sales) 70%, LA-13 (new growth) 78% and LA-15 (interim year adjustment) 73%.
I want to remind local officials that the Community Tax Rate Status visual, which is part of our library of data visualizations and available during the tax rate setting season, is a helpful tool that allows you are able to view the status of each form required to set a tax rate by viewing. By utilizing this tool, there should be no question about the status of any of your community’s forms.
CY25 was another successful year for DLS. In addition to managing the core responsibilities noted above, we accomplished the following:
- increased and enhanced our Training & Resource Center
- improved the website, including launching a new page dedicated to EQV
- developed new ways to visualize the data we collect, including new dashboards related to New Growth and Enterprise Funds
- offered multiple in-person trainings to groups of municipalities on subjects such as developing financial policies, financial forecasting and the Tax Rate Recap
- held various webinars on matters including how to submit Prop 2 ½ ballot question information into Gateway and the balance sheet checklist
- advised many municipalities on opportunities to improve their financial management operations by taking advantage of the expertise of our Financial Management Resource Bureau (FMRB)
- managed the third year of the Local Finance Commonwealth Fellowship Program
- improved the functionality of Gateway
During CY25 we welcomed the following employees to DLS: Nick Cantella (BOA), Courtney Cardello (BOA), Jamie Farnum (FMRB), Anubha Khankari (BLP), Kathy Keddie (DARB), Katherine Lindstrom (MFLB) and Kristina West (BLA). At the same time, Bill Arrigal from our Bureau of Accounts retired after dedicating more than 30 years to DLS. He will be missed and I wish him a well-deserved long and healthy retirement!
At DLS, we remain committed to supporting our colleagues in local government. If you have any thoughts or ideas that you would like to share with me directly, please contact me at croninse@dor.state.ma.us. Our website, trainings and data dashboards can only improve from your feedback – so please provide it! In closing, I wish you the best during the busy coming months and always know that DLS is here to assist.
Helpful Resources
City & Town is brought to you by:
Editor: Dan Bertrand
Editorial Board: Tracy Callahan, Sean Cronin, Janie Dretler, Emily Izzo, Christopher Ketchen, Paula King, Jen McAllister, Jessica Sizer and Tony Rassias
| Date published: | January 22, 2026 |
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