Boxborough Finance Committee Votes Seven Small Budgets, Holds School Assessment Decision

BOXBOROUGH — January 9, 2024 — Boxborough Finance Committee approves seven small departmental budgets and holds firm against a local override. At the January 9 meeting at Grange Hall, Chair Maria Soter led the eight-member committee through preliminary votes on budgets ranging from the $80 town moderator line to $130,000 in legal services, while holding the technology, town clerk, and executive-office accounts pending unresolved salary and software questions. The committee reached consensus against seeking a Proposition 2½ override in Boxborough and against pre-funding the town's eventual $200,000 annual dispatch consolidation cost — estimated to arrive in roughly six years — saying it made no sense to tax residents now for an obligation representing under 1 percent of the town's roughly $27 million budget. Member Tony Gonyer's tax-rate modeling showed the difference between the regional school district's lowest assessment scenario (6.9 percent increase) and highest (roughly 17 percent) translates to approximately an $814 swing in the average household's annual tax bill, with the average Boxborough home assessed at $887,145. The committee also reassigned lead responsibility for a master plan land-acquisition bonding action item from FinCom to the Community Preservation Committee, with Soter calling the original assignment "a gross overstep."