Boxborough Select Board Approves Swap Shed, Veterans Tax Benefit, and Dozen Warrant Articles

BOXBOROUGH -- March 10, 2025, Boxborough Select Board approves swap shed, veterans tax benefit, and more than a dozen warrant articles ahead of Annual Town Meeting. The board voted unanimously Monday to install a swap shed at the town's transfer station at a cost of $11,000, backed by roughly $6,000 in grant funding coordinated by the Sustainability Committee, and 5-0 to adopt an annual CPI adjustment to the town's $800 property tax exemption for service-connected disabled veterans, effective fiscal year 2027. Veteran Services Officer James McCray told the board that the number of Boxborough veterans receiving VA disability compensation has grown from 28 in 2018 to 51 in 2024. The board voted 4-1 to raise constable warrant-posting compensation from $3 to $7 per posting, unchanged since 1991, over the objection of member Wes Fowler, who called posting six pieces of paper around town insufficient justification for the increase. A resident responded that elected employees "should get paid market rate." The board deferred a vote on the town's personnel plan, raising concerns that a proposed grievance process change would remove the Select Board and Library Board of Trustees from the process without consulting the trustees. Chair Kristen Clark closed with a warning from the town's first Budget Liaison Forum: "There is no way that we're going to avoid a significant override next year."