Boxborough Finance Committee Defers Fire Station Vote, Reviews Swelling Free Cash Balance

BOXBOROUGH -- November 4, 2025, Boxborough Finance Committee reviews record free cash, defers fire station vote to March special town meeting. The committee met November 4 with Deputy Town Administrator Raejean Hudson and Finance Director Hongwa Lee to review a first-quarter FY26 budget dashboard showing free cash at approximately $4.2 million, roughly three times the town's target, prompting Chair Tony Newton to warn that using the surplus to offset the operating budget would be "a long-term foolish thing to do." The panel also heard that a December special town meeting on a fire station design warrant has been canceled, with the Select Board now targeting March 9; a previously undisclosed "Property X" is undergoing preliminary site testing as a possible alternative location. Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee member Adam Klein told the committee the district's FY27 budget guidelines call for $2.3 million to $2.9 million in cuts, roughly 50 percent more than the district's average annual reductions over the past four years, driven by a 3.75 to 4.25 percent overall budget increase target. The committee also worked through a multi-year budget model intended to ground FY27 revenue forecasts in actual, rather than projected, historical data, identifying a persistent half-million-dollar annual gap between the town's local-receipts forecast and actual collections.