Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Select Board and Finance Committee of Great Barrington held a joint meeting on March 3, 2026, starting at 5:00 PM. The primary focus was a review of the Town Manager's recommended FY27 Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and capital budget. The meeting included a detailed discussion of individual department requests, budgeting philosophy, and significant conversations about the town's fiscal constraints during a challenging budget cycle.
The Town Manager reviewed the capital plan development process, which included a full-day peer-to-peer review workshop by department heads, followed by anonymous scoring. The proposed budget seeks to balance strategic priorities, personnel costs, and infrastructure needs using funding sources including Free Cash, Chapter 90, grants, and a small draw on capital stabilization.
Throughout the evening, several Finance Committee members (Rich, Michelle, Ann) voiced a strong theme of fiscal constraint. While praising the Town Manager's thorough work, they emphasized that the town faces a deficit, a proposed 2.5 override, a new school building, and significant taxpayer burden. Michelle stated that every year she hears promises of future savings, but the town's finances continue to struggle, making this a year where many "wants" will likely become "nos." The Town Manager acknowledged the dilemma, calling the budget a "menu to choose from," but made a specific plea to prioritize technology investments, stating, "If you cut anything, please do not cut technology."
Okay, it is five o'clock. I will call the meeting to order. Pursuant MGL 7C 30A session 20F after notifying the chair of public body. Any person may make a video or audio recording of an open session of the meeting of the public body, may transmit the meeting to any meeting. Beginning the meeting, the chair inform other attendees of any such recordings. Meeting is being recorded by the town, virtual edge, and CTSB. Any member of the public wishing to speak at the meeting must receive permission of the chair. The listing of agenda items reasonably anticipated by the chair, which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may back be discussed, and other items not listed, may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. Since this is a hybrid meeting for our members, we'll do a roll call vote versus select board. Um herefield. Yeah. Bill here, Eric here, and Steve. And for uh finance committee, I am here. Rich Gyler. Cheryl Beer. Here. And here Elena? Here. Madonna. Here. We're all present during the very moment. And we will turn it over with a discussion of Y 27 capital budget request and uh little calendar update to our town manager. Sure. There was a um thank you, Steve. And um so tonight is a capital budget, uh, beginning at that. And thank you also for your time and energy that you spent last week on the operating two nights of a lot of discussion and content to absorb and uh round two slash I guess day three of um budgets um for tonight. I know that there is in the action calendar, as you know, um it is always labeled draft in case we need flexibility and there is some room and capacity between tomorrow night and the next action item, which is um where the public hearing, this is the next joint meeting is actually the public hearing. Um so there is an opportunity for uh first of all having additional workshops or um pre-meetings before the actual public hearing that uh I would like to get a consensus from both boards if you feel that it is necessary to have an additional workshop before we go into an actual public hearing. Um then also there is um there is a uh opportunity that we can shift the public hearing to the week before uh because I know that there's some conflicts with scheduling um that I believe some uh members may not be available on the actual 14th, that they we should really have a full quorum or actually a full presence of both bodies. Um so I'd like for the boards to at least look at the week before to see if we can shift the public hearing to anywhere between uh Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and um which would be April 7th would be the Tuesday 8th and then 9th. So my thought would be we would do the public hearing finance committee. Our discussion would start after that in votes and then schedule another meeting after that in case we needed it. So like the 7th and 9th, 7th and 8th, 8th and 9th. That would give us plenty of time. Can you open that again, Steve? We'll have a public hearing on the fourth. Um no, we would move it to April 7th. Oh, oh. This is a draft calendar, so we're we're talking about right, right. That's what I'm just