Great Barrington — After a nearly 90-minute public hearing at Town Hall on Tuesday, April 8, the Selectboard and Finance Committee passed the town’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget. The budget will now go before voters at the annual town meeting, which is scheduled for Saturday, May 3, at 2 p.m., at Monument Mountain Regional High School.
At the beginning of the April 8 public hearing, Interim Town Manager Christopher Rembold gave a presentation about the proposed town budget. The proposed town operating budget for fiscal 2026 is $16.7 million, a $313,336 (1.9 percent) increase from this fiscal year.
Rembold said the budget needed an “essential infusion” from the town’s free cash reserves for the town to avoid a Proposition 2½ override. Proposition 2½ is a state statute that limits tax levy increases. Rembold predicted back in June that the town would need a Proposition 2½ override to pass the fiscal 2026 budget. According to him, the proposed budget calls for $3.39 million from the free cash budget line item to reduce the tax levy and avoid a Proposition 2½ override.
Rembold explained that the budget increase “has primarily been driven by a very large [school district budget] this year.” The Berkshire Hills Regional School District’s assessment for Great Barrington is $22.2 million, a $1.17 million (5.6 percent) increase from this fiscal year. “Keep in mind that the school budget accounts for over 70 percent of what the town raises in taxes,” he said.
Remold added that if the budget passes at the annual town meeting as proposed, the estimated tax rate will be $14.09 per $1,000, or 1.379 percent of assessed value. The current tax rate for fiscal 2025 is $13.79.
Residents criticize proposed budget
The first resident to speak at the public meeting was Jan Wojcik, who criticized both boards for funding the local Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).
At a meeting on March 25, Rembold proposed to cut the entire veterans line item, eliminating $44,687 from the budget. This would have meant that the town would not fund the costs or the lease of the Housatonic Legion/VFW or the Great Barrington VFW. Rembold’s proposal was overturned by the Selectboard and Finance Committee at the March 25 meeting after passionate objections from several local veterans.
“The VFW is a nonprofit, but yet it’s a line item [in the budget],” Wojcik said. “Looking at their 990 [nonprofit tax] form, I get the sense that their income is basically whatever you all give them, and they don’t do much else to get additional income. I find that problematic. We’ve been told that nonprofits, if they need extra money for a project, they should raise it somehow.”
Wojcik also criticized the school district budget. “We’re spending a ton of money for not such a great school department, and having lots of less-than-exemplary assessments by the state for our school district,” she said. “We have some schools in western Massachusetts that are great, and some that are mediocre. But when you look at what the state publishes every year about how much [municipalities] spend per pupil, our numbers are just going up sky-high. Sometime in the future, we should reassess what we pay the school district.”
Resident Michelle Loubert said that while she is happy that the proposed budget avoids a Proposition 2½ override, the proposed budget “is still too much.” “The cost to live here is just going through the roof,” Loubert said. “I just turned 67, and my husband is a bit younger than I am. I’m a public employee and my husband works for a nonprofit. Together, we make less than some town employees make, and I have a master’s degree while my husband has a bachelor’s degree.”
Loubert said that the proposed budget, including the proposed school district assessment, is pushing her family to use her property as a short-term rental. “I think that [the boards] can feel the pain, and I don’t think you are ignoring it,” she said. “But I don’t think people can take too much more of it. I’m paying top dollar to live here, but I’m at a limit as a taxpayer.”
Back at the March 25 joint meeting, the Selectboard and Finance Committee both shot down Rembold’s recommendation to cut the town’s Parks and Recreation budget by $110,950. The budget elimination would have meant that weed-blocking mats at Lake Mansfield would not have been installed or maintained.
At the April 8 budget hearing, Selectboard member Garfield Reed said he is against funding weed-blocking mats at Lake Mansfield, a measure covered in the budget line item for lake management for $5,250. “Last night when I was making a fire from my wood stove, I had some very strong feelings, so I’m addressing them,” Reed said. “We are having a very tight budget season, and we may not be able to fund important items, and some teachers are losing jobs. Maybe I’m too much of a socialist, maybe I’m thinking with my emotions, but I have yet to hear anyone speak about the loss of teaching jobs and maybe some support staff. I am very disappointed that some of us would think that the mats are more important than the people who have lost their jobs. These are real folks and not an inanimate object. We are losing jobs, but by golly, we are keeping those mats. I want to show my support and respect for these people losing an income in an expensive town.”
Resident Jenise Lucey explained to both boards that “if the [weed] mats are not there, the [Lake Mansfield] area is unswimmable.” “The money that we’re spending on the lifeguards won’t make any sense because people won’t want to go in the water because there will be weeds everywhere,” she said. “Weeds create a safety hazard. It becomes much more difficult to see children or people who might have gone below the surface. Having the weed mats is important because it makes the area unswimmable if they are not there.”
Reed admitted, “I haven’t swung by Lake Mansfield in many, many moons.”
Neither board went along with Reed’s suggestion.
Find more information about the proposed fiscal 2026 budget on the town’s website.
