FAQs
Why Medford needs an override
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Like many other Massachusetts cities, in recent years Medford has not been able to maintain level services within the limits set by Proposition 2 ½. There are several reasons for this, including:
High inflation in recent years has meant that the City’s purchasing power has steadily declined.
Many hard costs are rising faster than inflation. Examples include the cost of healthcare and pensions, the price of construction supplies, and the salaries needed to attract and retain staff.
Competitive employment markets and rising healthcare costs for City employees have continued.
Significant increases in state-mandated expenses for education and pension payments have put pressure on the budget.
The limits Proposition 2 ½ places on raising property taxes mean we simply can’t raise enough funds to cover what we need without approving these measures.
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If the overrides don’t pass, the City will not have enough money to fund the budget we need and will have to make painful cuts:
Schools
Eliminate 35-45 Full Time Equivalent positions, including teachers, nurses, counselors, behavioral specialists, and literacy coaches.
Lose the opportunity to fix the high school schedule to align core curricula and vocational programs and expand access to the arts.
Limit the district’s ability to provide competitive wage increases to teachers, paraprofessionals, and student support staff to not more than City growth can provide under Proposition 2 ½.
Prevent increases in stipends for coaches, advisors, and teacher mentors.
Defer building maintenance and limit the opportunity to invest in cost- and energy-efficient systems
Allow our technology infrastructure to age and become obsolete.
Streets and Sidewalks
Without funding for a permanent street repair crew in Medford’s Department of Public Works, the City will continue to need to outsource work to maintain our streets and sidewalks, which is more costly than completing the work in-house. This will lead to more delays in addressing the backlog of street repairs, as well as increased costs for Medford taxpayers.
Fire Department
This funding is necessary to enable the City to proceed with plans to construct a new Fire Department Headquarters. The lack of this funding would delay the City’s ability to proceed with this critical project to provide the facilities needed to ensure the safety of the public and of Fire Department personnel. Funding this project without a debt exclusion means budget cuts elsewhere to afford $2 million annually for the next 30 years.
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Medford is one of only 36 cities and towns in the state, out of a total of 351, that has never approved an override or a debt exclusion. Many of our surrounding cities and towns, including Arlington, Winchester, Melrose, Everett, Stoneham, Somerville, and Belmont, have approved at least one override or debt exclusion in the past to meet their communities’ budgeting needs.
Medford has a “structural deficit,” meaning that revenues from all sources – local, state, and federal – are not adequate to maintain services at current (already low) levels. The biggest reason for this is that the City has never proposed a Proposition 2 ½ override or debt exclusion even though fixed cost growth for existing staff and services has increased faster than the growth in revenues.
Additionally, the State Legislature has imposed real cuts on state aid to cities and towns, as the small “increases” it has provided in state aid have not kept up with fixed cost growth, meaning a further loss in purchasing power. In addition to these cuts, Medford does not receive significant funding from state aid formulas for public schools. For example, Medford will receive only $21 million in net state aid in Fiscal Year 2025 while Malden will receive $65 million.
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Ballot Question 6: Fire Department Headquarters
Ballot Question 6 will ask: Shall the City of Medford be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and one-half, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bonds issued in order to pay costs of constructing a new Fire Department Headquarters to be located at 120 Main Street in Medford, Massachusetts, including the payment of all costs related to designing the project, equipping and furnishing the project, site improvements, and all other costs incidental and related thereto?
A YES vote on Question 6 will allow Medford to issue a bond to pay for the construction of a new, state-of-the-art Fire Headquarters to bolster our public safety services. Once the bond for construction is repaid, this temporary property tax increase would expire.
This will provide $30 million for the design and construction of a new Fire Headquarters at 120 Main Street. This temporary increase of about $2 million per year, distributed across all tax bills, will pay for the project’s construction bond.
A new Fire Headquarters will enhance safety and response times for our community and ensure our firefighters have a state-of-the-art facility.
Ballot Question 7: Funding For Medford Schools and Streets
Ballot Question 7 will ask: Shall the City of Medford be allowed to assess an additional $3,500,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for FY2025 general operations of the Medford Public Schools ($3,000,000), including but not limited to funding costs of teacher(s), literacy coach(s), behavior specialist(s), administrative assistant(s), and nurse(s) positions, and for regular facilities maintenance, and for FY 2025 general operations of the Department of Public Works ($500,000), including but not limited to additional staff for road and sidewalk infrastructure repair, for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024?
A YES vote on Question 7 will allow Medford to maintain basic services for streets and schools.
This measure will allow Medford to create a permanent street and sidewalk repair crew in the Department of Public Works to help address the City’s $100 million+ repair and maintenance backlog.
Voting YES on Question 7 will also prevent significant budget cuts to Medford Public Schools by providing a sustainable funding source to replace the one-time, expiring, federal pandemic aid funds that the City used to stabilize the Fiscal Year 2025 budget for the Medford Public Schools. A YES vote will help avoid drastic cuts to the arts, athletics, K-12 classrooms, mental health supports, maintenance, and technology. Vote YES to:
Save 35-45 Full Time Equivalent staff positions districtwide, including teachers, nurses, counselors, behavioral specialists, and literacy coaches.
Undertake deferred and preventative maintenance to extend the lifespan of our school buildings and systems.
Explore opportunities to invest in cost- and energy-efficient systems for our school building when new or replacement equipment is needed.
Increase capacity for proactive maintenance and upgrades to prevent our technology infrastructure from aging and becoming obsolete.
Ballot Question 8: Funding Medford Schools
Ballot Question 8 will ask: Shall the City of Medford be allowed to assess an additional $4,000,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for FY 2025 general operations of the Medford Public Schools to create a high school schedule that increases access to arts and vocational programming, expands classroom instructional opportunities, and for classroom teacher and paraprofessional compensation for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024?
A YES vote on Question 8 is a vote to invest in the future of Medford Public Schools. Medford Public Schools seeks to expand access to the arts, world language, and vocational programs at Medford High School. This expansion will require a change in how the school day is structured. At our middle and elementary schools the funding will help pay for the new programming and staff to help students succeed. The investment will ensure living and competitive wages for our paraprofessionals and all staff. We will be able to increase stipends for advisors and coaches; provide more resources to support educators and professional development; and expand transportation services for students and families.
These actions are critical to attracting and retaining talented administrators, educators, and support in our schools in a highly competitive market. A YES vote on Question 8 will strengthen our public schools and allow Medford students to not just survive, but thrive.
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Unfortunately, Medford is out of options for finding money to cover the items outlined in these three ballot questions.
The school budget is already quite lean, with 90% of costs “fixed costs.” This means they go toward staff salaries that can’t be modified or reduced, as well as required special education costs, tuition, and transportation costs. This leaves us with eliminating staff positions as the only way to reduce school costs.
State aid is not enough to help us close the immediate gap. The state aid funding formula for school districts currently caps inflation calculations at 4.5%. This is not enough to keep up with the drastic cost increases by inflation alone (8% in Fiscal Year 2023) seen by schools across the state. This year, Medford is receiving a funding increase that is only (approximately) $150,000—slightly more than 1% more than last year.
Finally, federal pandemic-related aid was only a one-time resource and has been spent to pay for the dramatic increases in costs during Fiscal Years 2021 to 2024. Medford is out of options and additional resources — an override is the only way to meet our immediate needs.
This, combined with a focus on increased new growth and the revenue it will generate over time, will create a sustainable opportunity for Medford to thrive. However, development and growth do not happen overnight, and while significant advancement has been made, the money it brings does not appear immediately.
A guide to overrides
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Proposition 2 ½ is a state law passed in 1980 that governs how local property taxes are raised. Under the law, a city may increase its total property tax (Levy Limit) by up to 2 ½ percent of the value of taxable property per year, plus an additional amount for new construction. Any increase in the Levy Limit beyond 2 ½ percent must be approved directly by a majority of city voters. Cities and towns in Massachusetts regularly hold override votes to increase revenues to match expenses, especially when inflation is higher than 2.5%, which was expected by proponents of the law when it was passed in 1980.
There are 2 types of ballot questions under the law, commonly referred to as overrides and debt exclusions.
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When the operating cost of city services exceeds the limits of Proposition 2 ½, communities may ask voters to consider an override ballot initiative. An operating override is a way for a Massachusetts city or town to raise the amount of the annual levy limit for property taxes by more than 2 ½ percent in one year. For the override to succeed, a majority of voters need to approve an override ballot question. The override must be for a set dollar amount, and the money must be spent towards the specific purposes. These parameters are outlined in the ballot questions that residents vote on.
If an override is passed, the additional amount approved is added to the levy limit to create a new baseline (see illustration below). In subsequent years, rate increases are once again limited to 2 ½ percent.
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Debt exclusions allow the City to build a new building, such as a new Medford Fire Department Headquarters, and pay for it over time (typically 30 years). By law, the temporary increase in taxes may only be used to pay back the cost of the buildings that voters approved. Once payments for a specific project are completed, the tax increase ends. The funding for these projects does not come out of the operating budget and cannot be used to pay for operating budget expenses. A debt exclusion cannot be sought to fund ongoing City expenses.
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The key difference between an override and a debt exclusion is permanence. A tax override permanently changes the levy limit, commonly referred to as the total tax base of the city. In contrast, an exclusion temporarily changes this limit to fund a specific capital project. Individual tax rates may fluctuate each year, but the total levy limit growth cannot exceed 2.5% without an override or debt exclusion.
My Taxes
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The City Council voted to put two overrides and a debt exclusion on the November 5th ballot. If all three measures are approved by the voters, they would add a total of less than $38 per month to the average Medford homeowner’s tax bill. Use our Property Tax Impact Calculator to look up your property, or compare your home’s assessed value (found on your tax bill or on the Medford Assessor’s Database) to these examples:
City Assessed Property Value: $500,000 - Approx. $290/year or $24/month
City Assessed Property Value: $769,000 (average) - Approx. $446/year or $37/month
City Assessed Property Value: $1,000,000 - Approx. $580/year or $48/month
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Yes. Medford offers a number of programs to help qualifying residents reduce or postpone property tax obligations. These fall into three categories:
Exemptions: The City offers a variety of exemptions to reduce property tax obligations for certain eligible taxpayers, including elderly residents, blind residents, and disabled veterans. A chart describing eligibility for these exemptions is available at Medford Board of Assessors Table of Tax Exemptions and Tax Deferrals.
Deferrals: Medford also offers a Tax Deferral Program, which enables qualified owners to defer up to 100% of annual property taxes until the sale of the home or the death of the owner(s). Deferred taxes are paid back, with accrued interest of 5%, at the time the home is sold. Applicants must be 65 or older and meet maximum income requirements. Applications are available at the Medford Assessor’s Office.
Work-Off Program: Through the Council on Aging, Medford also sponsors a Property Tax Work-Off Program, which allows older residents to reduce their property taxes by up to $1,500 per year by volunteering in various capacities for the City. Interested individuals should contact the Council on Aging directly for additional information at (781) 396-6010.
Accounting
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Currently, Medford’s residential tax rate is $8.52 per $1,000 of assessed value. As of 2023, Medford had the 93rd lowest tax rate out of the 97 Massachusetts cities and towns with populations over 20,000, and the 316th lowest tax rate out of all 351 cities and towns in the state.
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Yes, Medford is efficient in how it uses tax dollars. For this reason, S&P Global recently renewed the City’s AA+ bond rating citing “stable financial operations and fiscal management.”
Medford is also frugal, spending less per resident than most of our peer communities. As of 2023, Medford’s per capita spending ranked 92nd out of 97 cities and towns in Massachusetts with populations over 20,000, and 295th out of all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
In 2024, Medford spent only $3,152 annually per resident, which is only 65.8% of the average of $4,788 spent in other communities with at least 20,000 residents.
image|Source: MA State Databank|#
In recent years, Medford has taken additional steps to improve its financial management. In 2024, the City implemented a more effective and transparent budgeting process through the City’s first ever Budget Ordinance.
Additionally, in the 2023-24 fiscal year, Medford Public Schools implemented a similar budget measure, including new protocols for budget development so that future budgets will accurately reflect past spending. The School Committee also added an in-depth audit of all revolving funds to the annual budget process. The School Committee budget development process happens in regular meetings, and Committees of the Whole and the public are invited to attend and participate. The School Committee holds at least one public hearing per budget cycle in accordance with state law.
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“Free Cash” refers to funds that were allocated as a line item in the City’s budget for a fiscal year, but for some reason did not get spent by the end of that fiscal year. This can occur if there is higher revenue than projected (e.g., more permits pulled) or if money in the budget wasn't spent (e.g. a job posting wasn't filled).
Because Free Cash amounts fluctuate it should be viewed as a non-recurring revenue source and not be used for annual operating expenses. Medford adheres to the Massachusetts Department of Revenue (DOR) guidance that Free Cash should be restricted to paying one-time expenditures, funding capital projects, or replenishing reserve funds.
Free Cash is also Medford’s rainy day fund. The Massachusetts Department of Revenue further specifies that “under sound financial policies, a community strives to generate free cash in an amount equal to three to five percent of its annual budget. This goal helps deter free cash from being depleted in any particular year, which enables the following year's calculation to begin with a positive balance.”
Regardless of the specific amount, "Free Cash” cannot be spent until the Commonwealth certifies it a few months after the end of the fiscal year. Certification requires an in-depth review of Medford’s financial data each year by Department of Revenue/Division of Local Services staff members. The total added to Free Cash each year cannot be shared until the Department of Revenue certifies the information.
For Fiscal Year 2024, which ended on June 30, Medford’s Free Cash reserves were certified at $34.24 million. This included a $9 million increase over the certified Free Cash reserves from the prior year due to such factors as vacant staff positions and the City’s use of tens of millions of dollars in one-time pandemic-era funding, including ARPA and ESSER. Those one-time funds enabled the City to pay for expenses (such as HVAC repairs at our schools) that otherwise would have been paid through City funds like the property tax levy.
The City’s Finance Department has stated that the free cash balances we’ve had in recent years are one-time events. With federal pandemic aid expiring in December and increasing costs for the City’s expenses, there will not be large increases in Fiscal Year 2025 and beyond.
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New growth in the City has been accelerating over recent years thanks to zoning changes implemented by the Mayor and the City Council, with the last 3 years showing the highest level of new growth in the past two decades. But it takes several years for the impacts of new growth to be felt in the City’s budget, and it will not be enough to address these immediate and critical needs that these ballot measures are targeting.
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The 2 ½ percent limit applies to the total tax revenue on all existing property in the City. The 2 ½ limit does not apply to individual properties. If your tax bill increased by more than the city-wide average, it is likely due to a recent reassessment (required to keep up with market changes), a property sale, renovations, or other factors. If you think your assessment is too high, there is a process to appeal it. For more information, contact the Assessor’s Office at (781-393-2435).
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No. The total amount in property taxes that the City collects can increase by only 2 ½ percent each year, excluding new growth. When property values increase by more than 2 1⁄2 percent in a single year, as they recently have in Medford, the tax rate has to be adjusted so the total amount of taxes assessed city-wide only increases 2 ½ percent. As a result, the tax rate on properties can decline.
In recent years, the tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value in Medford has decreased from $10.24 in Fiscal Year 2018 to $8.52 for Fiscal Year 2024.
Medford has a “structural deficit,” meaning that revenues from all sources – local, state, and federal – are not adequate to maintain services at current, already reduced, levels. The biggest reason for this is that state aid to cities and towns has been cut deeply for years, and Medford was among the hardest hit by these cuts, along with limited new growth opportunities which reduce the city’s ability to expand the tax base.
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Voting Yes on Question 7 will add $500,000 to the Department of Public Works (DPW) budget annually. This money will be used to employ permanent in-house DPW staff in the City’s Highway Division who will help tackle the maintenance and routine upkeep of the City's public streets and sidewalks. This will allow for faster preventative maintenance work on crack sealing, patchworking, and potholes.
The City’s DPW Highway Division is responsible for the maintenance of approximately 120 curb miles of streets and roads. This includes asphalt patching, street sweeping, catch basin cleaning and rebuilding, street signs, pavement markings, trash control in all squares, and snow and ice control in the winter.
The City already owns the equipment to do the preventative maintenance work. Still, with the extensive workload in the Highway Division, the DPW needs more staff to devote to ongoing patching and repairs which are part of that preventative work. The additional staff will be able to commit weekly time to work on road repairs, significantly expanding their ability to address the needs throughout the City. Increasing the City’s ability to make these repairs will help slow down the degradation of our roads while the City works to address the significant backlog of more major road repairs needed around Medford.
Hiring more internal staff will also save the City money as this repair work is often currently outsourced, which is more expensive and less reliable in the long run.
More information about the backlog of repairs needed and the City’s plan for preventative maintenance is available under the “Infrastructure” tab on the City’s website.
Our Schools
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Ballot Question 7 ($3 million for Medford Public Schools and $500,000 for the Department of Public works) stabilizes the school budget by reducing dependence on one-time funds (e.g., ARPA, ESSER) that were used to fill in budget gaps over the last four budget cycles. This stabilization measure will help our schools survive.
Ballot Question 8 ($4 million) will help our schools, and our community, thrive. It provides a baseline infusion of funds that will allow us to fix broken systems and expand access to essential learning opportunities. For the first time in many years, we will have opportunities to make spending decisions based not on what is available, but on creating the future we want to see for all students.
While both measures take aim at the debilitating impacts of chronic underfunding, Question 7 responds to immediate crises seen in recent budget cycles. Question 8 pulls long-deferred projects off the shelf and invests in the future.
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We get it. You want to know what, exactly, you’re investing in. The answer is students, and, more abstractly, Medford’s future. Some of the items—such as the averted cuts in Question 7, additional buses, technology, and curricula—come with known price tags. Others require thoughtful conversation between district administration and union bargaining partners to negotiate the impact of these decisions on teacher and staff working conditions. Compensation, in the form of salaries and stipends, is one example, but so too are the provisions for professional development, classroom supplies, curricula, training, number of class periods, and class sizes.
By presenting a total number ($7 million) based on past budget calculations and deep discussions about the district’s needs and “wish lists,” we also open up the lines of communication with families and educators. A YES vote for these measures is about saying yes to the conversations—hearing from the community about what their children need, and allowing the people doing the work to articulate the impact these decisions will have on students. As it is, $7 million is not enough to fulfill everyone’s “wish list,” but it allows us to make decisions based on what is possible rather than on what is not.
All spending of these funds will be subject to the same laws that govern our budgets today. The Open Meeting Law expressly prohibits deliberations about the budgets behind closed doors. When passed, the Mayor will request an additional appropriation, and the City Council will need to approve it. The School Committee will then determine precisely how the public will be part of the discussion. Massachusetts General Laws require all city, town, and regional school districts to hold a public hearing about their proposed budget. Once the appropriation occurs, the money is considered part of the school budget. The only way to direct it to somewhere other than the school budget would be for the Mayor to reduce the allocation to Medford Public Schools. A review of budgets since 2011, all of which are available on the MPS website, shows that defunding the school budget hasn’t happened here in recent history.
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Building a new high school is a capital project, currently in the early stages of review for grant funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA). Medford Public Schools entered the Eligibility Phase of the grant process in May 2024 and submitted materials in July 2024 to move the project towards the next phase, and ultimately, a Feasibility Study. The Feasibility Study includes significant community input and will determine the project’s scope and answer important questions like, "Is it more cost effective to renovate or to build new?" and "How do we minimize disruption to our current students during construction?" Once this determination is made, preliminary design is completed. At that stage, the MSBA will tell Medford how much of the project it will pay for, and the City will need to identify a funding source for any remaining costs and bring this question to the voters, likely in the form of a debt exclusion. We are several years away from a ballot measure for such a debt exclusion. However, during discussions to size the “ask” of the ballot questions for November 2024, this was absolutely considered.
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Looking at per-pupil spending from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) alone is misleading. For these numbers to be an accurate comparison every city and town would need to provide the same, complete data to the DESE, which does not currently happen.
There are very few State requirements for how a city or town must organize and manage its municipal departments, the administrative and operational elements within these departments, and the budgets that fund them. As a result, every community in Massachusetts has developed its own budgeting procedures to meet its individual needs, which makes it very hard to compare seemingly similar departments—like the schools—across different communities.
All communities have the same basic needs to operate and manage their schools and school property. These needs include payroll, human resources, accounts payable, accounts receivable, information and technology services, legal services, custodial services, facility maintenance, electricity and other utilities, snow removal, garbage removal, professional development, and more. However, not all communities pay for these administrative and operational needs entirely from their School Budget.
Medford is a community where the School Budget includes every school-related expense and that is the same budget reported to DESE for the per-pupil calculation. In other communities, some of the school-related expenses are included in the budgets of different city/town departments (such as Public Works, Human Resources, etc.) instead of only their School Budget. Sometimes these costs are listed separately and are easy to identify in DESE reporting (such as school custodial costs), or they may be combined with other city/town resources (such as shared Human Resources) which makes it harder to determine how much is attributed to the schools.
One of the many examples of this is the Somerville budget for “School Custodians.” According to the most recent DESE report from FY2023, Somerville Public Schools reported $235,434 for “Custodial Services.” This number seems very low compared to the costs listed for other school districts in the same report, which includes $2.4M in Medford, $3.9M in Malden, $1.4 in Melrose, and $3.0M in Arlington. If you look at the City of Somerville’s FY2024 Budget Report you will see the actual amount the City spent on “School Custodians” in FY23 was $3.5M, much more than the amount reported to DESE. This expense is not included in Somerville’s School Budget, but rather is included in the budget for the City’s Department of Public Works (DPW). Adding in the true $3.5M cost for “Custodial Services” increases the dollar-per-pupil figure for Somerville.
Examples like this are found elsewhere in Somerville’s budget reports, and in many other neighboring cities and towns. Until reporting methodology is standardized, using dollars-per-pupil to compare school districts is inaccurate and misleading. Ultimately, it comes down to the questions “Are kids getting what they need?” and “Are we able to retain and attract teachers?” If the answer is “No” to either of these then we are failing as a district.
The Campaign
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The Invest in Medford campaign is run by volunteers from across Medford. The Campaign Chair is Nicole Morell and the Treasurer is David Zabner. We are concerned about the impact of our budget shortfall if the overrides and debt exclusion don’t pass. We support the overrides and the debt exclusion and encourage other voters in Medford to support it as well. See our website for more information.
If you’d like to get involved, please fill out our Volunteer Sign-up Form.
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You can sign up to volunteer, make a donation, and let us know you’re planning to vote YES!
We’d love to hear why you support these investments in our future. Send us your testimonial!
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The two overrides and the debt exclusion will be on Medford’s ballot in the general election on Tuesday, November 5th. You will vote at your regular voting location, and early voting will also be available at Medford City Hall for two weeks before the election, as well as mail-in voting. For a list of Election Day voting locations, early voting hours, mail-in voting information, and other voter information, please visit the website for the Medford Elections Commission.
These measures will be listed on your ballot as:
Questions 6 (Debt Exclusion for Fire Department Headquarters);
Question 7 (Tax Override for Schools and Streets); and
Question 8 (Tax Override for Schools).
We will continue to add more questions and answers to this list as more details about the override become available. If you have questions, please reach out to us at InvestInMedford@gmail.com.