Newton Finance Committee Blocks City Clerk Salary Vote Over Legal Concern

NEWTON — October 15, 2025 — Newton's Finance Committee approved $2.15 million in affordable housing funds and $152,255 for an LED lighting project, then stalled on two personnel matters at its October 15 meeting. The committee voted 8-0 to appropriate $2,154,544 in Community Preservation Act funds — $1,654,544 from the CPA unrestricted fund balance and $500,000 from the housing reserve — for the Newton Affordable Housing Trust, which recently deployed $4 million to secure 112 affordable units at the Newton Gardens project on the Nonantum-Newtonville border. The committee also voted 8-0 to hold docket 299-25, a fact-finding request on a workers' compensation claim filed by Loretta Busuca, a 70-year-old 43-year part-time city employee who suffered a severe fall at Hawthorn Park in August and remains in a rehabilitation facility; no administration officials appeared. Finance Committee Chair Councilor David Gentile then ruled a proposed city clerk salary ordinance — setting pay at $146,479 rising to $150,096 on January 1, 2026 — not properly before the committee, saying the outgoing council cannot bind its successor to a single employee's salary increase, and referred the question to the city law department.