Boxborough Finance Committee Refines Town Meeting Budget Presentation, Eyes Future Override

BOXBOROUGH — April 15, 2025 — Boxborough Finance Committee signals likely override ahead as town meeting preparation intensifies. The committee, meeting April 15 in hybrid format, spent the bulk of its session reviewing a draft town meeting budget presentation that showed a 4.6 percent total operating budget increase, with the Acton Boxborough Regional School District assessment — roughly half the town budget — rising 5.4 percent despite a cut of 20.5 full-time equivalent staff positions. Members agreed to relabel a budget category called "administration" to better reflect its actual contents — pension obligations, debt service, and insurance — after several members warned the current label would prompt residents to call for cuts to costs the town cannot control. The committee also flagged that existing debt of $5.8 million plus $4.2 million in new warrant-article debt brings the town to $10 million before any fire station borrowing, and voted to ask Town Administrator Mike Guzinski and finance staff to produce the per-household annual debt service figure for the proposed $32 million fire station rather than have the volunteer committee generate that number itself, in time for a public forum scheduled for April 28.