FM #1399 - Town Council Mtg - FY 2026 Prelim Budget - 03/05/25

This session shares the Franklin (MA) Town Council Meeting of Wednesday, March 5, 2025. All 9 of the members participated in Council Chambers.  

The audio is in 2 sections:

Part 1 - the beginning and the ending (1 hour 40 mins)

Part 2 - the FY 2026 preliminary budget review & discussion (2 hours)

Quick recap:

Part 1 - non budget

• Police officer Steven Dejoie sworn in replacing Officer Lawrence who had retired a couple of months ago
• A string quartet of FHS students played a brief piece as part of a recognition of their music achievements which also resulted in a formal proclamation of their accomplishments. Many other students recognized were in the audience as well
• Dan Sherman provided the annual update on the town progress towards funding their OPEB liability. We are in good stead, better off than many other MA communities. We will do better once the Norfolk Retirement liability is paid off (2035ish) and that amount of funding can be shifted to the OPEB liability to advance the payoff schedule
• Approval for easement granted to DCR for access to SNETT extension, also a commitment from them for $1M to help prepare it when the trail does become ours (will take time with Federal process)
• From TA Report - another first in that the Town is first in using opioid funding for the Art Pharmacy program, more to come on this exciting opportunity for health with an economic development aspect for local arts/culture organizations

Part 2 - FY 2026 Budget

• FY 2026 - Town Administrator Jamie Hellen walked through the preview of the budget, some updates had been previewed most recently on Tuesday at the Senior Center with the Joint BUdget Listening Session. More was expanded upon here. The documents will be posted to the Town budget page today. We are in a $3.8M deficit and coming up with that (or an amount close to it) is likely the only way to maintain "level service". What we have is what will stay, if we want increases or expansions to such services, we need to get by this one first before considering more. "we need a win" someone said in the course of the discussion

Let’s listen to the meeting recording which runs about 2 hours. 

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Franklin TV video ->  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHS9BRE4cA&t=100 

The agenda doc ->

https://www.franklinma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03052025-1608 

The budget preview presentation ->

https://franklinma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4620/2025-03-05-Budget-Update---Town-Coucil-Version-PDF 

My notes captured during the session

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TELQ8ylitbI6RxGjNDCll4poFZsu2ONg/view?usp=drive_link 

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The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana"  c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

I hope you enjoy!

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