Local Government in Massachusetts

Forms of City Government

Massachusetts law offers cities six standard charters, labeled Plan A through Plan F under M.G.L. c. 43. A city can also write its own home rule charter instead, and many have. The plans differ on two questions: who runs the city day to day, and how the council gets elected.

• Plan A: An elected mayor as chief executive, with all councillors elected at large. Boston and Springfield are mayor-council cities of this kind.
• Plan B: An elected mayor, with the council elected partly at large and partly from districts or wards, so some councillors answer to a neighborhood rather than to the whole city.
• Plan C: A mayor and a small board of commissioners. This is now rare.
• Plan D: A council of seven or nine members, one of whom serves as mayor, plus a professional city manager hired to run operations.
• Plan E: A council elected at large by proportional representation, a mayor chosen by the council from its own members, and a city manager who runs the city. Cambridge has used this since 1941 and elects its council and school committee by ranked choice voting.
• Plan F: Councillors elected partly at large and partly by ward, with the mayor and councillors nominated in party primaries. This is the one plan where local candidates run with party labels.

The practical distinction most people care about is whether the person running the city was elected or hired. In a mayor-council city the chief executive faces the voters. In a council-manager city, such as Worcester or Lowell, the manager is appointed by the council and answers to it, while the mayor presides and sets the agenda. Twelve Massachusetts communities have a city form of government with a manager and no mayor at all.

Forms of Town Government

• Open Town Meeting: Used by 260 Massachusetts towns, which makes it the most common form of government in the Commonwealth. Any registered voter may walk in, speak, and vote. Town meeting sets the budget, passes bylaws, authorizes borrowing, and decides zoning. Between meetings, a select board and usually a town administrator or manager run things. Towns with fewer than 6,000 residents are required to use open town meeting.
• Representative Town Meeting: Used by 32 towns. Voters elect town meeting members by precinct, and only those members vote, though any resident may attend and speak. Towns above 6,000 residents may choose this form, and larger towns often do, because a room that holds everyone becomes impractical.
• Town Council: A small number of communities have replaced town meeting with an elected council. The structure works like a city council while the community keeps the name town.

The annual town meeting must be held between February and June under M.G.L. c. 39, Section 9. A special town meeting can be called at other times of year, and the select board must call one within 45 days if 200 registered voters, or 20 percent of the town’s registered voters, whichever is fewer, ask for it in writing.

Put an Article on the Warrant

Here is the part that surprises people. In a town, you do not have to wait for someone in office to raise the thing you care about. The warrant is the list of items town meeting will vote on, and residents can put items on it themselves by petition.

• To insert an article into the annual town meeting warrant: the signatures of 10 registered voters.
• To insert an article into a special town meeting warrant: 100 registered voters, or 10 percent of the town’s registered voters, whichever is fewer.
• To force a special town meeting to be called at all: 200 registered voters, or 20 percent, whichever is fewer. The meeting must then be held within 45 days.

Ten signatures is a number a high school student can gather in an afternoon. The article then goes before the whole town, gets debated, and gets a recorded vote. If you cannot vote yet yourself, you can still write the article, gather the signers, and stand up to explain it. Your town clerk can give you the exact wording requirements and the deadline for your next meeting.

Key Local Officials

• Mayor: The elected chief executive in a city. The mayor proposes the annual budget, appoints department heads, and is accountable directly to voters. Terms are usually two or four years.
• City or Town Manager: A professional administrator hired by the council or select board, not elected. The manager handles hiring, budgets, and daily operations, and answers to the body that hired them.
• Select Board: The executive board of most Massachusetts towns, elected at large. State law allows three or more members serving terms of up to three years, and in almost all towns that means three or five members on staggered three-year terms. More than 180 municipalities have changed the name from Board of Selectmen to Select Board, each through its own charter change, bylaw, or special act of the Legislature.
• City or Town Council: The legislative body in cities and in some towns. Councils pass ordinances, adopt the budget, set the tax rate, and oversee the executive side.
• City or Town Clerk: The keeper of the records and, for your purposes, the most useful person in the building. The clerk maintains official documents, runs local elections, issues licenses, and can tell you what is on the next ballot and which boards have vacancies.
• School Committee: An elected body, separate from municipal government, that sets education policy, approves the district budget, negotiates educator contracts, and hires the superintendent.

Education Governance at the Local Level

Your school district is not a department of your city or town. It is governed by its own elected body, the school committee, which is why a fight about school funding often turns into a negotiation between two sets of elected officials.

School committees are elected to staggered terms, usually three years. The committee sets local education policy within state requirements, approves the district budget, negotiates and approves educator contracts, and hires, evaluates, and when necessary dismisses the superintendent. Meetings are public. For a student, a school committee meeting is the shortest distance between an opinion and the people who can act on it, because the decisions on that agenda are about your building, your schedule, and your programs.

Superintendents are hired by the school committee, not elected. The superintendent runs the district day to day, supervises principals, manages the central office, and serves as the district’s link to the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Local Elections

Nearly all municipal elections in Massachusetts are non-partisan, meaning candidates appear without party labels. The exception is a Plan F city, where the mayor and councillors are nominated in party primaries. Local elections are often held in the spring or fall depending on the community, with preliminary elections used to narrow a crowded field.

Voting rules for local elections are not identical to state ones, and the difference catches people out. Under the VOTES Act of 2022, in-person early voting is guaranteed for state primaries and biennial state elections, but not for municipal elections. Voting by mail is extended to municipal elections by default, but a select board, town council, or city council is allowed to vote to opt out of it for a given local election. So the reliable move is to check with your city or town clerk before your local election rather than assuming the state rules carry over. Terms for most local offices run two or three years and are staggered, so some seats are on the ballot every single year.

Home Rule and Local Authority

Massachusetts gives its cities and towns real independence through home rule, established by Article 89 of the Amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution and carried out through the Home Rule Procedures Act of 1966 (M.G.L. c. 43B). Under home rule a community can adopt its own charter, pass its own ordinances and bylaws, and settle local questions without asking the Legislature first, as long as it does not conflict with state law.

The Constitution holds a specific list of powers back for the state alone. A city or town cannot regulate elections, levy or collect taxes, borrow money or pledge municipal credit, dispose of parkland, enact civil or private law, or impose criminal penalties on its own authority.

When a community wants to do one of those things, it files a home rule petition and asks the Legislature to pass a special act just for it. That is why the General Court spends part of its time voting on whether one particular town may issue an extra liquor license, reorganize its own offices, set aside money in a special fund, or lease a specific piece of property. If you ever wondered why a state legislator is voting on something that sounds purely local, this is why.

How Local Government Connects to State Government

• Chapter 70 education funding: The state decides how much aid each district receives under the formula in M.G.L. c. 70, weighing enrollment, student need, and local property wealth. For many districts this is the single largest line in the budget.
• Local aid and the Cherry Sheet: Every year the state tells each community what it will receive and what it will be charged, on a document still called the Cherry Sheet because it was once printed on cherry-colored paper. Your town builds its budget around that number.
• DESE oversight: The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education sets curriculum frameworks, graduation requirements, and accountability standards that every district follows. A district in sustained difficulty can be placed in state receivership, which transfers local control to a state-appointed receiver.
• State mandates: State law requires districts to provide special education services, civics projects, and much else. The requirement comes from Beacon Hill and a large share of the cost sits in your local budget.
• Your legislators: Your state representative and state senator vote on the aid formulas, the mandates, and the home rule petitions that decide what your community is allowed to do.

Getting Involved Locally

Local government has the lowest barrier to entry of any level of government in the country, and you can start before you are old enough to vote.

1. Go to a meeting. Under the Open Meeting Law (M.G.L. c. 30A), nearly every meeting of a public body must be open, and the agenda must be posted at least 48 hours in advance. Select board, school committee, planning board, and zoning board sessions are all open to you. Agendas and schedules live on your community’s website.
2. Speak during public comment. The Open Meeting Law does not require a public comment period, so it is up to the chair. Check the agenda, and email the clerk ahead of time to ask to be added.
3. Apply for an appointed board. Conservation commissions, historical commissions, cultural councils, and library trustees are volunteer seats, and many have openings. An appointed seat often asks only for residency, which is why some students can serve.
4. Write an article for town meeting. Ten signatures puts an item on the annual warrant in a town, and the whole meeting then has to vote on it.
5. Run for something. A town office can take as few as 20 certified signatures, and Massachusetts charges no filing fee.
6. Vote in local elections. The people who turn out in a municipal election choose the officials who set your school budget and your tax rate, which is a great deal of authority handed over by a small number of ballots.