By: Kevin Dube
2-26
At the January 8th 2026 North Andover School Committee meeting Superintendent Pam Lothrop uttered the words every taxpayer dreads: “We need to start actively planning for an override for FY28.” North Andover joins a long line of towns facing overrides due to spiraling costs and shrinking state aid thanks to Maura Healey and the Democratic supermajority in our legislature.
There are two Select Board and two School Committee seats up for election this year. Only the incumbents have pulled papers to run. For the 3rd year in a row all town elections will be uncontested.
The incumbents are Brian Roache and Laura Bates on the Select Board, and David Brown and Alissa Koenig of the School Committee. I sent each of them an email with the following question. I ensured they had plenty of time to reply, sending the email on Tuesday and requesting they reply by Thursday. Only the Select Board candidates replied. Following is the question I asked and their answers.
“As a candidate for re-election would you like to comment on how we got here, and what steps you propose the town takes to avoid an override vote? Are there measures you propose to shore up fiscal responsibility? Or is this a foregone conclusion at this point?”
Brian Roache: “An override should never be treated as a foregone conclusion. There are a wide variety of factors that contribute to budget challenges, and North Andover is far from the only town in Massachusetts facing this dilemma. If the voters see fit to re-elect me, my job on the Select Board will be to make sure that we have carefully evaluated all of the data and our options. But more importantly, I will work to ensure that we have clearly communicated that data, the alternatives, and the trade-offs with residents, as ultimately, they are the ones who will decide this matter.”
Laura Bates: “The Town and Schools have worked collaboratively to provide significant budget increases to the schools, funding of the new Kittredge School, road improvements and increases to public safety without a tax override.
The schools are doing the hard work right now to develop a strategic plan that will outline the needs of the district to improve the education we are providing to our students. If the strategic plan necessitates a proposition 2.5 override warrant article, it will require both town meeting and ballot box approval which means the voters of North Andover are the ultimate decision makers.”
It is telling that the members of the School Committee, the board most responsible for our fiscal chaos, were those not to respond. Afterall both were members of the board that completely ignored Dr. Mealey’s warning that we were experiencing unexpected cost increases. Dave Brown was the chair when the devastation finally came to light. Rather than take ownership of his failure he chose to shamefully fire Dr. Gilligan by pulling him out of a staff meeting, terminating him on the spot. The School Committee is ultimately responsible for school department finances and is charged with overseeing the superintendent. Dr. Gilligan and Dr. Mealey became the scapegoat for their failure and absolute abdication of fiducial responsibility to the town.
In any sane world the entire board would have resigned in disgrace last year when their egregious fiscal failures were exposed. Instead Joe Hicks, now chair, skated to reelection without opposition, and it looks as though the ring-leader Dave Brown and member Alissa Koenig are going to slip back in unchallenged as well.
I ran against both Joe Hicks in 2022 and Dave Brown and Alyssa Koenig in 2023 on a platform of fiscal accountability. Turnout in both elections was under 10%. There have been no challengers since. This cycle, the only vocal group recruiting people to run against the incumbents are those that increased the school committee budget at the last town meeting and want to push for an override. Who will stand up for the taxpayers?
One of the biggest obstacles we have is our very early town elections.
We are at the very preliminary phases of our budget cycle, yet the last day to pull papers to run for office was Friday, February 7th.
That will be the subject of a future column.
The mid-terms are fast approaching. Now is the time to get involved!
If you are interested in running email me at northandovergop@gmail.com. ◊