The Peabody City Council held a special meeting on December 9, 2025, at 6 PM in the Frank Alvigni Auditorium and via Zoom, presided over by Council President Julie Daigle. The primary agenda was the adoption of the fiscal year 2026 tax classification percentages for real and personal property. The meeting opened with a presentation from Mayor and Finance Director Mike Jingris, followed by public comments, council deliberation, and multiple votes on tax rates, budget transfers, and community preservation allocations.
Good evening. I'd like to call to order the special meeting of the city council of Tuesday, December 9th, 2025. I'm Julie Daigle, Ward for a city counselor and city council president. Public participation to this meeting is provided in person and remotely via Zoom in accordance with Mass General Law. The Zoom link can be found on the city website. This meeting is also being televised and recorded by Peabody TV and by the City Council stenographer. Would the clerk please read the meeting notice? Notice is hereby given that the City Council of the City of PBD will conduct a public hearing on Tuesday evening, December 9th, 2025, at 6 PM in the Frank Alwigan Auditorium, 24 Lowell Street, PBD Mass, and remotely via Zoom in accordance with Chapter 797 of the Acts of 1979 as amended of the Massachusetts general laws in order to adopt the percentages of the local tax levy to be borne by each class of real and personal property for fiscal year twenty twenty six. For remote participation using the Zoom platform, please visit www.pvd hyphen ma.gov under city calendar on the homepage or contact the city clerk's office. PVD City Council, Councillor Julie K. Dagle, City Council President. Thank you, Madam Clerk. I do see we do have um some public participants in the audience, so I just want to give them a heads up of how tonight's agenda will work. Thank you, Madam President. Uh move to receive item B, so moved. You heard the motion? Any discussion? All in favor, any opposed, it's a vote. Councilor McGinn. Thank you, Madam President. So moved to the motion, any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, it's a vote. Councilor McGinn. Thank you, Madam President. Uh move to receive late communication two. So moved. You're in the motion. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, any opposed, it's a vote. Council McGinn. That's it, Madam President. No further motions. Thank you. Council McGinn. Honorable Mayor, would you like to open up your presentation, please? Thank you, Madam President. Good evening, Q. Good evening, Councillors. Hope everybody's doing well. I'm pleased to be here tonight to discuss the state of our city's finances and to propose our two thousand twenty-six tax rate classification. Let me first express my gratitude to our hardworking finance team, Mike Jingris, Mary Martin, Sue Antonellus, Leslie George, and all their staff for their dedication and hard work in preparing tonight's presentation. Mike Jingers will provide you a more detailed overview shortly, but I wanted to share a few brief comments as to where we stand. This is by far the largest increase to health insurance insurance costs in our city's history. As I said in June, health insurance costs represent a looming budgetary upheaval, not only to Peabody, but to cities and towns across Massachusetts and across America. I cannot be more clear and definitive with the statement, but these increases are simply unsustainable. $5 million increase last year's budget is by itself a $200 plus almost $220 tax increase by itself before we look at anything else. And unfortunately, I'm here to tell you, based on meetings that we've had in the past couple weeks, that we are looking at a 15 to 20 percent health insurance increase coming up this year. Um waiting, we won't know the final number until probably February, uh, but we've been told to expect a 15 to 20 percent increase. Um that is uh going to uh make things obviously very difficult for all of us. In addition, we face a 17 percent increase for retiree health insurance and a nearly 3% increase to our budget or to our pension obligations, which total nearly 14.3 million dollars this fiscal year.