by Jack Conway, our friendly neighborhood moderator

Your friendly neighborhood moderator here to provide a bit of context on “Free Cash” and what this year’s much-larger-than-expected amount of it means with regards to the recent override attempt. 

Critical piece of background information: at the FinCom meeting on 16 September 2024 the Town Manager stated he is anticipating approximately $6m in “Certified Free Cash” this year. This includes ~$2m from “interest payments” and ~$800k from property auctions. 

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by Karen Drane, member of Everyone for Norton and a parent to a 9th grade band student

Several people went to speak [at the Aug. 28th School Committee Meeting] about the middle school band/chorus, including myself. Part of my comment was related to comparable and neighboring schools and what they offer for band......As you can see, ALL OF OUR comparable and neighboring schools offer band during the school day and ALL offer band starting in Middle School. How can Norton say that we are offering a comparable and competitive education for our students when we don’t have a thriving band and chorus program (and no middle school art)? 

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by Sandy Ollerhead, member of Everyone for Norton and Norton Finance Committee

As the summer winds down and a new school year is on the horizon, we are starting to get a glimpse of some of the impacts of the “1% budget” that was passed at the Spring Town Meeting. In the interest of full transparency, I would like to put some facts out there about where we currently stand in terms of the FY25 budget. 

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