Above: Will you be one of the voters tonight deciding on what Southborough does and doesn’t fund in 2026 and what zoning changes to approve? (images edited from SAM 2024 video and Town seal)
All registered Southborough voters are encouraged to act as the Town’s legislature in the meeting opening tonight (Monday, April 7th) at 6:30 pm. Here’s what you need to know.
The meeting will take place at Trottier Middle School in the auditorium with a special setup in the cafeteria for parents with their children. If you want to read more about that – or need a refresher on what Town Meeting is, click here.
What Voters Will be Deciding this Monday
There are 37 Articles on the Warrant, but many of those will be consolidated into a “Consent Agenda” vote.1 That list hasn’t been publicly posted.
I’m guessing only about 16 Articles will be individually discussed, and far fewer will be debated. (In the case of any close votes, voters’ “clickers” should allow much quicker counting than in the past. The contractor will be on-site to help it go smoothly.)
On Friday, the Advisory Committee posted a report that updated the Town’s projection that passing all of the Town’s sponsored Articles for budgets and spending will result in a 7.37% tax increase in 2026 for the average single family home. (It also warns about a bigger tax hike problem looming for 2027. Read about that here.)
The Neary Finance Subcommittee has projected that combining those approvals with the future approval of the Neary Building Project (through the Special Town Meeting on May 10th and the Town ballot on May 13th) would mean a 7.9% increase for the average single family home tax bill. (Read about that here.)
(Neither of those figures includes the Citizen Petition Article, Article 37, since it isn’t part of the Town’s recommendation for spending.)
Below is the full list of Articles in the Warrant. I used gray font for those that I think are most likely to be approved without discussion and bolded the Articles that I’m assuming will at least be explained, and perhaps debated, prior to a vote.
Below, I’ve also added links to the items I’ve previously written about and any related handouts that have been shared/posted.
- Acceptance of Monies from Contributors*
- Borrowing Authorization*
- Authorize Select Board and Supt. of Schools/Three Year Contracts (allows them to sign contracts with terms up to 7 years)*
- Amend the Personnel Salary Administration Plan (Updates to position grades, salary schedule and stipends)
- Collective Bargaining Agreements
- Fiscal Year 2026 Budget
- Click links for the Advisory Committee’s Report (which uses more updated data than in the Town’s posted proposed budget), my coverage of budget drivers, police budget for increasing staffing, and new today, the Police chief’s fact sheet for his staffing request.)
- Fiscal Year 2026 Water Budget
- Annual Appropriation for OPEB Trust Fund
- Rescind Unused but Authorized Debt for Breakneck Hill Farm cleanup (This is a no-brainer, reducing the previously authorized debt by $627,960, but officials will probably take a moment to highlight to voters that the entire amound didn’t need to be used.)
- General Government Capital Items (non-borrowing) (Funding $400K for Road repairs, $55K to replace Trottier Middle School’s curtains & rigging and over $80K for a new police cruiser. Plus additional items to be funded for Facilities, Fire, the DPW and schools but paid using “Free Cash”2 or the Ambulance Fund.)
- Schematic Design for Trottier Middle School Roof ($100K for a Feasibility Study and Schematic Design for the roof replacement. A Community Advocate story highlighted that in 2011 the school had to close part of the building temporarily due to a partial roof failure. I found the blog’s coverage of the problems caused by heavy snow that winter here.)
- Pay & Classification Study for Non-Union Employees ($25K) (This is three years sooner than normally scheduled. The Personnel Board was unhappy with the work of a prior vendor in 2022. The board now proposes contracting a new study to identify appropriate salary ranges for Town employee positions on a sooner than usual time frame. There was some concern discussed with the Select Board that this could fix problems with some employees but cause new problems with others.)
- Authorize Borrowing from MWRA Loan Program for Lynbrook Road water main replacement ($1.5M 0% interest loan)
- General Government Capital Items (borrowing) ($4M for replacing a failing culvert and fixing problems related to sinkholes)
- General Government Capital Items (New Leases) (Over $74K for 1st year of lease for DPW equipment to replace a Loader and Dump Truck)
- General Government Capital Items (Existing Lease payments) (Over $120K for continuing annual payments on items previously approved to leased)
- General Government Capital Items (Hiring Consultants) ($10K)*
- Insurance Deductible Account ($10K)*
- Payment to Retirees for Accrued Leave Time ($35K)*
- Appraisal Services for Cyclical Inspections ($14K)*
- Facilities Maintenance Fund ($100K)*
- Recreation Facility Maintenance Fund ($25K)*
- Annual Authorization of Revolving Fund Amounts*
- Appropriation from CPA Funds – Administrative (Designating amounts in funding buckets)
- Appropriation from CPA Funds – Adjustments
- Appropriation from CPA Funds – Town Common Fence Rails (This requests $121K from the CPA fund to restore and preserve the iron railings and granite fence posts around the area of the Town Common. Read about that here.)
- Appropriation from CPA Funds – Transfer to Affordable Housing Trust (Read more about that here and the Town’s posted presentation here.)
- Amend Town Code – Zoning – Accessory Dwelling Units (click here for the Town’s posted presentation, and here for my dedicated post)
- Amend Town Code – Zoning – Unprotected Accessory Dwelling Units (click here for the Town’s posted presentation, and here for my dedicated post)
- Amend Town Code – Zoning – Parking and Loading Regulations (click here for the Town’s posted presentation, and here for my dedicated post)
- Award Contract for Valuation Services in Excess of Three Years (This allows the Board of Assessors the ability to sign an up to 5 year contract for this specific purpose)*
- Accept MGL for Assessor Certification Stipend
- Allowance for Substitution Labor for Senior Tax Work-Off Program (Would allow senior residents who qualify to participate in the program to designate a volunteer to do the work on their behalf)
- Accept MGL to Reauthorize Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) Fund (This is a recommended administrative action to adopt the state’s updated language around the fund that the Town already established years ago)*
- Accept MGL for Treasurer-Collector Certification Stipend
- Accept MGL for Investment of Trust Funds
- Citizen’s Petition – Appropriation for Counsel for Breakneck Hill Farm cleanup (click here for dedicated post on this Article to authorize $165K for the Select Board to hire legal counsel to conduct an investigation into potentially illegal actions related to the situation with the farm dump. If approved, the Select Board would not be legally compelled to follow through.)
You can view the official Warrant here and look for details and more handouts to be posted to the Town’s dedicated website page here.
See you tonight!
- *The “Consent Agenda” list of Articles is prepared by the Town Moderator to expedite the meeting. If the hall agrees, they are voted on as one bundle near the start of the Meeting. (Those that I have marked as likely to be on the list are based on observing lists in past years.) Any single voter can call to pull any (or all) Articles from the Moderator’s list before the Consent Agenda vote. If that happens, those Articles are later presented and discussed in the order originally numbered in the Warrant.
- Free Cash is “The amount of the Unreserved Fund Balance (Surplus Revenue) account over and above uncollected taxes of prior years”
