Great Barrington — A public hearing on the proposed town budget for fiscal 2026 will be held at Town Hall on Tuesday, April 8, at 6 p.m.
The hearing follows multiple meetings with the Selectboard and the Finance Committee in February and March to discuss and determine the fiscal 2026 budget.
Back on January 31, Interim Town Manager Chris Rembold proposed a town operating budget of about $16.8 million, a $423,766 (2.6 percent) increase from this year’s fiscal budget. At the time, the estimated assessment for the town’s share of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District Budget was about $22.1 million, a $1.05 million (five percent) increase from this year’s fiscal budget.
On February 13, however, the school district released its proposed fiscal 2026 budget with a proposed town assessment of $22.4 million, a $1.36 million (6.44 percent) increase from this fiscal year. Because the increase came in at a higher rate than he expected, Rembold said at a February 11 meeting that the town faced a Proposition 2½ override in order to pass the proposed budget. (Proposition 2½ is a state statute that limits tax levy increases.)
At the Berkshire Hills Regional School District Committee meeting on March 6, the committee reduced the town’s assessment to $22.2 million, a $1.17 million (5.55 percent) increase from this fiscal year.
Over the course of multiple meetings between the Selectboard, Finance Committee, and leaders of municipal departments, Rembold’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget is now at $16.4 million, a $313,337 (1.91 percent) increase over this fiscal year.
Back at the March 25 Selectboard and Finance Committee meeting, Rembold proposed to reduce the veterans line item by $44,687. “[The proposed reductions] means no funding towards the costs or lease of the Housatonic Legion/VFW or the Great Barrington VFW,” Rembold wrote in a memo before the March 25 meeting. “The town could provide meeting space in existing town buildings if required by law.”
Commander of Housatonic VFW Post 8183 Tim Bailey and several other veterans who spoke at the March 25 meeting strongly objected to Rembold’s proposed cut. “We heard a lot tonight about essential services, and essential services is something you can’t live without,” Bailey said during the March 25 meeting. “What the VFW post in Housatonic does is provide services to veterans and their families. It might not seem like an essential service to many of you, but to the veterans who serve it means the world to them. There are 22 veteran suicides daily, and anything to keep a fellow veteran alive is important. This includes providing a safe space, a place that is their space that is not rented or some office in the basement of Town Hall. A place where they feel safe, welcome, and encouraged.”
Bailey, a veteran who served in Iraq and Somalia, spoke up for his fellow veterans. “I didn’t serve Vietnam, but there’s men who served in Vietnam who are more deserving than anything we can ever give them,” Bailey said. “The welcome they received when they returned home from war was absolutely disgusting. When I served in Iraq and Somalia, I returned as I was and nobody knew the difference and I wasn’t spit on. I respected these men. The World War II veterans that we looked up to as kids and who I idolized are all but gone. There’s just a few of them left. These are the men and the women whose legacy we carry on at the VFW, and we do that by providing scholarships for families.”
Eventually both boards decided against Rembold’s recommendation to reduce the veterans line item.
Another reduction shot down by both boards was Rembold’s recommendation to cut the town’s Parks and Recreation budget by $110,950. “This is the largest reduction and means eliminating youth services and lifeguards, the weed mat at Lake Mansfield, and proposed camera operations,” Rembold wrote in a memo before the meeting. “This is a cessation of service at Lake Mansfield and the skate park. However, the parks themselves would remain open and maintained because town staff does not need to be reduced.”
“I appreciate this recommendation, but I do think that the one thing that our town has always supported is our youth,” Selectboard Chair Steve Bannon said at the meeting. “To wipe out the skate park and [lifeguards at] Lake Mansfield, I just can’t support that. Wiping out Lake Mansfield lifeguards is a risk that I am not willing to take. We sometimes have 300 people up at the lake during the weekend, and somebody has to be up there watching the swimmers.”
The proposed budget includes eight special articles:
- Borrowing $3 million to pay for the design and construction of a temporary Brookside Road bridge.
- $304,909 from free cash to pay for Southern Berkshire Ambulance Squad’s annual funding request.
- An allotment of free cash to fund the tuition and transportation costs of four Great Barrington students to attend vocational programs at Taconic High School in Pittsfield. While Rembold recommends $80,000, the Finance Committee recommends $135,000.
- $71,747 from the town’s short-term rental special revenue fund for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund’s initiatives.
- $40,000 from the town’s cemetery funds to pay for general maintenance expenses of town cemeteries.
- $20,000 from free cash to replenish the town’s reserve for unemployment costs.
- $20,000 from the town’s Conservation Wetland Revolving Fund to pay for conservation work expenses.
- $17,000 from free cash to pay for costs associated with rights of way and easements for capital projects.
A ninth special article is listed on the special articles spreadsheet: $100,000 from free cash for Berkshire South Regional Community Center to support the programs and services utilized by Great Barrington residents. However, neither Rembold nor the Finance Committee are recommending the proposal.
View the full informational packet for the proposed fiscal 2026 budget here.
