Rochester’s Select Board and the Finance Committee Monday officially recommended all 25 articles on the May 19 Annual Town Meeting Warrant after tweaking four problematic budget proposals.
In the Select Board’s previous meeting, Town Administrator Cameron Durant had said he wanted to re-vote one part of the town’s FY26 operating budget (Article #4) to remove $100,000 from free cash to help eliminate a $260,000 borrowing debt on an Ambulance and a Fire Truck. This debt reduction would free up money to spend instead on the Rochester Memorial School Special Education account (Article #11), boosting that line item by an equal $100,000. Board Member Adam Murphy halted an immediate recommendation vote on both, saying he wanted more information first.
On Monday, the board recommended Articles 4 and Eleven after Murphy reported he had been educated on the complex realities of special education budget funding that makes the move a good idea. He had a lengthy meeting with ORR school superintendent Michael Nelson and Finance Director Suzanne Szyndlar, he said, where he learned the intricacies of the state’s Circuit Breaker program, which reimburses the cost of delivering high-cost special education services to public school students but only in the fiscal year after the expense had been incurred. “I feel more educated now,” Murphy said. “I feel better about this expense now.”
Article 16 proposes establishing a Facilities Management reserve account with $20,000. Here too Murphy and the other board members had requested more information on this plan, which would grant Facilities Manager Andrew Daniels funds for emergency maintenance work. On Monday, Murphy elaborated that there needs to be a better plan for granting Daniels emergency funds. He wanted to know what exactly this $20,000 will be spent on. “We need to create a budget for him,” Murphy said.
The board members recommended this article after tweaking its language. They agreed to work on a better plan for funding the department in future years and, meanwhile, to add to this year’s article the language that services under $1,000 may be authorized by the town administrator; expenses over that amount must be approved by the Select Board.
The board then tweaked the budget proposal for the Capital Improvement Fund. It agreed with Murphy’s proposal to decrease that line item to $150,000; the original proposal was for $250,000. The board agreed that the $100,000 saved will now be free to spend on future special education stabilization funding.
Rochester’s total budget proposal for FY26 will be $27,022,457.
In other action, the board approved the appointments of retired Massachusetts State Police Sergeant David Mackin and retired Acushnet Police officer Paul Melo as Rochester Police Department reserve officers.
The board granted three conservation restrictions for Rochester properties. As requested by Buzzards Bay Coalition representative Allen Decker, the board endorsed CRs for 80 acres of Snipatuit Pond Cedar Forest off the northeast side of Neck Road that the Rochester Land Trust will hold and that will be available for passive recreation, 27 acres of the Paul property on New Bedford Road that the town of Marion will hold because the parcel is a drinking water aquifer, and 365 acres of Sippican East off of Cranberry Highway that the town land trust will hold as plans develop to restore the property to normal wetlands. This parcel currently contains cranberry bogs.
The board approved a new street name, Gates’ Path, for a new subdivision, Freetown Farms, off of Dr. Braley Road. Board Chair Brad Morse added to this motion that the Police, Fire and EMT departments must respond that this is not a duplicate street name in town.
The next meeting of the Rochester Select Board is scheduled for Monday, May 12 at 6:00 pm at Town Hall, 1 Constitution Way.
Rochester Select Board
By Michael J. DeCicco