Above: You can preview the slides the Select Board and School Committee have created for their presentations to voters this Monday night. (images cropped from files)
The Select Board Chair asked me to share the slides to be used in his presentation to Special Town Meeting voters this Monday night.
While I’m at it, I’m also sharing the presentations the School Committee has planned on the Articles and the state of Neary School’s failing roof.
Here’s a preview of what voters can expect to see and hear about on Monday night.
For more details on the March 2nd Special Town Meeting, click here.
According to Select Board Chair Andrew Dennington, the Town Moderator has agreed to give the Article sponsors 12 minutes for presentations.
That will begin with the Select Board’s presentation, explaining the reason for the financial requests, overviewing the Articles and sharing the board’s full support of Articles 1 & 4. (You can open a pdf version here or click through the images of slides below.)
[Editor’s Note: I received information that shows the data in Slide 8 is inaccurate/outdated and will be updated for tonight’s meeting. Scroll to the bottom for the updated details.]
The actual presentation will be narrated with more context than included. Without that context, readers may be confused by the budget levy numbers cited what those mean.
The figures in slide 8 relate to the projected impact that approving the funding of multiple Articles for building project studies would have on the budgets to be brought to Annual Town Meeting on April 11th.
A levy deficit would lead to voters being asked to approve a Proposition 2½ Override this spring. (Scroll to the bottom of this post for more details.)
The Select Board’s presentation will be followed by the School Committee presentation. (The board believed that NSBORO Schools Superintendent Gregory Martineau will make that presentation.)
That presentation will mainly focus on Neary School building issues, and the committee’s position that the building needs renovating. (It also touches on their opposition to Articles 2 & 3.)
You can open the pdf here or click through the images below:
A third presentation hones in with more details about Neary’s failing roof. (To be honest, I’m not sure if that will be included in the “12 minutes” or used later to answer questions if they are raised.)
You can view the “Roof Investigation Report Summary” presentation here, or click through the slides below:
The final slide above includes an explanation about ADA “triggers” is based on financial data that the Select Board expects to change later this year. You can read about that in my prior post here (under the subhead “Neary Roof”).
The school committee may also have handouts at the meeting from the materials they have recently been publicly promoting. You can find their flyers and other documents on a dedicated page of their website here.
The Town’s website with STM details and materials is here.
And you can find my past coverage (plus related letters to the editor) about the Special Town Meeting here.
FY27 Levy Balance Details
As I noted higher up in this post, slide 8 of the Select Board’s presentation refers to the “FY27 Levy Balance”. That’s terminology not all readers may be familiar with.
The Levy Balance is the amount of wiggle room the Town has to increase non-exempt expenses in their draft budget for the upcoming Fiscal Year July 1, 2026 – June 30, 2027.
If they exceed the levy cap (with a negative balance), the Town wouldn’t be able to levy enough property taxes to cover the budget without a supermajority of Town Meeting voters approving a Proposition 2½. (That would be at the Annual Town Meeting, not this Monday night.) It would also require a majority approval on a Town ballot. (That would be through the Annual Town election in May.)
The Town is near the end of its budgeting season as it prepares for the April 11th Annual Town Meeting (and posting a Warrant two weeks prior). The Select Board and Advisory Committee are still working out what their final recommendations will be for the Operating Budget and Capital Expenses they’ll ask voters to fund at the Annual Town Meeting.
On that topic, the Select Board’s Slide 8 identifies the impact of approving multiple combinations of Articles, but not all potential combos. By my calculation, passing Articles 1 & 3 (but not 2) would leave the estimated levy in the black by about $49K. [Editor’s Note: I received information that shows the data in this is inaccurate/outdated and will be updated for tonight’s meeting. the top figure should be $405,799, which changes all of the figures below. Scroll to the bottom for updated data and my calculated alternate scenarios.]
[Editor’s Note: Scroll to the bottom for my update which includes details that correct and add details related to the words struck and added in bold below.]*
All of their financial scenarios above appear to bake in the assumption that both Article 1 and 4 pass. But (as noted in slide 9), if Article 1 is rejected, the motion under Article 4 will request $2.35M more than if it is approved.
Meanwhile, if Article 4 fails that is another $4.5M to $6.85M the related expense wouldn’t hit next year’s budget. (There is an assumption that voters would ultimately exempt that debt from being included in the Prop 2½ override calculation. But it is unclear if that was built into the model cited above.)
But the situation the schools would be left with would be so dire, the Town would have to bring the ask back to voters at the Annual Town Meeting. (When it comes to replacing Neary’s roof, failure is not an option in the opinion of Town and school officials.)
It is worth noting that the stated figures don’t mean that that the Town would definitely need a Prop 2½ Override if Articles 1-3 pass. Alternatively, officials may look at slashing some expenses in proposed budgets to try to fit under the levy cap. But it’s an open question as to what costs would be cut. And it could lead to kicking more capital expense cans down the road or (less likely, but still possible) some Town staff cuts.
Updated (3/1/26 11:18 am): My original explanation of the Rev Cap (struck above) was flawed in relation to Article 4. I missed the detail that if the Article passes, the Town will add a ballot question in the Annual Town Election asking for the roof funding to be excluded from the calculation for Prop 2½.
I spoke to Select Board member Kathy Cook for clarity on those details. She also noted that she was following up with Finance, because she believed there may be a miscommunication/error in the draft budget the Select Board was drawing from. It is possible that the budget didn’t list the borrowing interest from the roof under exempted debt. If that is the case, the board will present the corrected updated figures on Monday night.
If it is corrected, that wouldn’t give the board millions of extra dollars to work with under the cap. I had also misunderstood a prior discussion about the impact to the next fiscal year’s budget. The Town would incur a debt payment in FY27. But that would just be close to $100K. (I don’t have that exact estimated figure.)
I also added the final sentence to the regular section of this post.
Updated (3/2/26 11:39 am): I received information that shows the data in Slide 8 is inaccurate/outdated and will be updated for tonight’s meeting. The Levy Balance was recalculated to be $405,799 with a baked-in assumption that Articles 1 & 4 pass. Below is my take on what that means for alternate voting scenarios:
