HATFIELD — Creation of an affordable housing trust, planning for future efficiencies to address budget challenges and adopting a bylaw to regulate battery energy storage systems are among articles coming before annual Town Meeting Tuesday.
At the session, which begins at 7 p.m. at Smith Academy, voters will be presented 32 articles, including one for a $16.8 million fiscal year 2027 operating budget that is up $959,252, a 6.1% increase over this year’s $15.9 million budget.
The budget covers continued rising healthcare and special education costs and features a structural deficit of $325,000, according to Finance Committee Chairman Sean Barry.
But in the discussions between the Select Board and Finance Committee, Town Administrator Andrew Levine said the panels “looked pretty aggressively at either limiting spending in a few lines” to close the initial $565,000 gap. That was done through some cuts and use of one-time money, mostly free cash. The budget also didn’t meet all department requests.
To cover the structural deficit, $248,102 is being applied from various sources, such as $140,000 in free cash and $40,000 from the host community agreement with Treeworks, the cannabis manufacturing business on West Street.
While the overall budget is going up, the budget for the public schools, Smith Academy and Hatfield Elementary School, incorporated into the spending plan, is the same $6.28 million as this year.
The major new items in town spending are adding to the assistant assessor salary and expanding the hours for the assistant planner. But there is no Proposition 2 1/2 tax-cap override and town officials anticipate convening a budget task force to explore options to close the deficit.
In fact, an article asks to use $50,000 to hire a consultant to support studying or implementing efficiencies in service delivery by town departments, including regionalization, shared services or consolidation.
Another article fund an expected $70,000 in ambulance fees — with $50,000 coming from free cash — charged by South County Emergency Medical Services. South County acts as the back up ambulance provider when town ambulances are unable to be staffed.
The town is continuing to address the Route 5 infrastructure project to extend water and sewer lines. Town Administrator Andrew Levine noted that $90,000 will be appropriated for engineering and legal services, with the hope that these costs — initially funded by water and sewer reserves — will eventually be reimbursed.
Voters will be asked to accept the provisions of a state statute that would allow Hatfield to create a Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund. This would have five members, with one Select Board member.
Assistant Planner Isabella Yeager explained in a presentation that this is a key housing strategy of the town’s long-term planning, Hatfield 2040, to address affordability issues.
“This is in part a response to the number of units we currently have on the Subsidized Housing Inventory, which stands at 2.7%, which is well below the state’s 10% housing requirement,” Yeager said.
Shelly Goehring of Mass Housing Partnership, which will work with the town, said 152 Massachusetts communities have established such trusts.
“It’s really a tool to help you build your local capacity to create and preserve affordable housing,” Goehring said.
Of the $577,163 in free cash expected to be used, proposed are $100,500 to purchase a mini-loader for use by the Department of Public Works to clear sidewalks and $60,000 to pour a concrete floor, install garage door openers, electrify and upgrade the Department of Public Works garage on Elm Court. That would make the building usable and could be a place for storing the Council on Aging van.
There is also $43,076 going to cover snow and ice expenses, $34,000 for health insurance, $35,000 for repair of the Fire Department’s apparatus bay roof, $35,000 for the unemployment trust related to anticipated layoffs, and $12,500 to buy radios for the Fire and Ambulance Department.
Voters will be presented $297,000 in spending from the Community Preservation Act account for various projects. This includes $100,000 being sought by a developer planning to build affordable housing at 7 Elm St. This project, which would go through the state’s Chapter 40B process and allowing the units to count toward the Subsidized Housing Inventory, would have eight apartments, six of which would be market rate and two affordable.
Other CPA articles are appropriations to place the Golonka Farm into the state’s Agricultural Preservation Restriction program, ensuring the land remains in farming; preserving and restoring the facade, belfry and clock enclosures of the town-owned clock located at the First Congregational Church steeple; continuing to rehabilitate Day Pond on the grounds of Smith Academy; restoring and rehabilitating the Cutter Farm Museum Barn siding and roofing; and installing new and upgraded playground equipment at the School Street playground.
The Planning Board is bringing forward the Battery Energy Storage System or BESS, siting bylaw. This would provide standards for “placement, design, construction, operation, monitoring, modification, and removal of such systems” and ensure the town has oversight on public safety, minimize the impacts on the scenic, natural and historic resources, and to provide adequate financial assurance for the eventual decommissioning of such installations.
This bylaw has been written to align with the consolidated siting and permitting process for small clean energy infrastructure facilities in state law.
