Abington voters have 29 articles to consider Monday night that touch on department budgets, capital spending, state mandated zoning, a possible ban on mini liquor bottles, and other topics.
The Annual Town Meeting starts at 7 p.m., in the Middle/High School auditorium. All Abington residents are able to attend, but only registered voters are allowed to vote.
As always, the tent pole topic is the town budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Town Manager Scott Lambiase has proposed – and the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee has endorsed – a $67.5 million budget that maintains services without layoffs.
Balancing a municipal budget always requires some pulling and tugging and cinching to make all the ends meet. Last year, a last-minute school aid windfall made that job easier. This year, Lambiase had to rely on the use of a couple one-time revenue sources and other budgeting strategies to avoid cuts.
However, Lambiase is already hoisting the storm warning flag for next year’s budget. Federal pandemic-era grants are expiring, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is feeling less generous when it comes to local and school aid. Department heads are being warned that there may need to be a hiring freeze to limit the Fiscal Year 2026 structural shortfall. Town Meeting voters on Monday will also be asked to set the foundation for a major shakeup in how trash disposal is paid for (more on that later).
It’s not all doom and gloom, however. A healthy fiscal year 2023 budget surplus means the town is looking to make another significant investment in the town’s infrastructure. The Community Preservation Committee has quietly squirreled away nearly $2 million in its reserve funds over the past few years, and is looking to tap into that for a number of projects, including playground improvements and an overhaul of Memorial Field.
In addition, voters will be asked to consider 14 amendments to the town charter, ranging from updating the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board, to encouraging town boards and committees to adopt rules that encourage increased public outreach and participation.
The needed quorum for the meeting is 150 registered Abington voters. Once that quorum is reached after 7 p.m., the meeting will get underway.
ARTICLE 1: SNOW AND ICE COSTS
This past winter – if you want to call it that – was terrible for winter enthusiasts but great for town budget writers. DPW Director John Stone told selectmen last Monday this was the smallest amount of sand and salt he has used going back at least four years. The town traditionally budgets $100,000 annually for snow and ice removal, knowing it can go back and make up the difference later. Some years, clearing the streets and side walks can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the budget. This year, the bill is “just” $245,000.
COST: $245,000
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLE 2: PRIOR YEAR BILLS
Sometimes the town gets bills from vendors after the fiscal year has closed. They still have to be paid. This year, Abington received bills from Motorola as well as from a contractor who did some work on the well at Griffin’s Dairy. The total of those two bills comes to $15,726.
COST: $15,276
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLE 3: SICK LEAVE BUYBACK
An employee with the Abington/Rockland Joint Water Works is retiring and is entitled to a $22,500 payment for unused time off. Funding will come from one of the water department’s reserve funds.
COST: $22,500
FUNDING SOURCE: Water receipts reserved fund
ARTICLE 4: POLICE STATION CAMERA SYSTEM
Abington’s police station is outfitted with an internal camera system that monitors the evidence room, records suspect interviews, films the booking area, and more. All that footage needs to be preserved, stored, and backed up in order to use it as evidence in court. The camera system, however, is failing, according to Lambiase and needs to be replaced. The $70,000 will cover the cost of cameras, in-house servers, and software.
COST: $70,000
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLE 5: FY 2025 BUDGET
The $67.5 million budget represents the smallest year-over-year increase in at least five years. It would increase spending by 2.9 percent over the current budget (the last few budgets have averaged year-over-year increases of more than 5 percent). As usual, the vast majority of the increase is driven by contractually obligated salary hikes.
School spending would increase 4 percent, from $31 million to $32.3 million. Just over $1 million of that increase is going to contractual obligations. Whether the budget includes money for any new teachers or staff is uncertain – the School Committee will vote on a final budget Monday night at 6 p.m. before Town Meeting
The public safety budget will see a 12 percent increase, with that boost driven by hikes in salary line items.
The flattened budget growth is driven by a combination of factors: soft state aid numbers and conservative local revenue estimates. State budget writers are wrestling with possible budget cuts as tax collections fail to meet projections. The town had seen million-dollar-plus increases in school aid the last couple years, but will receive only an additional $200,000 next year. Abington has embraced a conservative posture when it comes to estimating local revenues, such as meals, cannabis, and excise taxes. For the coming year, the town is counting on a 2.2 percent increase in all local receipts, with property taxes accounting for the e tirety of that increase, Everything else is predicted to be flat. This strategy has largely worked, with Abington wrapping up most fiscal years with a healthy surplus. The town finished fiscal 2023 with a $2.6 million surplus, with higher than expected local receipts accounting for 30 percent of it. Once again that surplus, which is the town’s “free cash” figure, will largely be used to pay for capital projects [see next article].
Lambiase acknowledges that the proposed budget is stitched together using some one-time revenue sources and other strategies that might not be available next year, which is why he’s already warning that next year’s budget could be tough. For example, $1.1 million of the town’s health insurance costs are being paid for with the town’s final allotment of ARPA money (money towns received during the pandemic to replace lost tax revenue), as well as the remaining balance of a health insurance trust fund set up when the town switched carriers a couple years ago. In addition, the town is proposing to classify $465,000 in spending on laptops and instructional materials for the schools as capital expenses rather than operating expenses, and paying for them using free cash.
Finance Committee Chairman Matt Salah said using one-time revenue sources isn’t “ideal” but enabled the town to balance the budget amidst some uncertainties.
“I definitely agree that next year could be tough,” he said. “A lot will depend on the overall economy and the state’s budget.”
COST: $67,482,034
FUNDING SOURCE: Various funding sources
ARTICLE 6: FUNDING OF CAPITAL PLAN
The town’s various departments are looking to spend a combined $3.48 million on capital projects. The Abington/Rockland Joint Water Works is proposing $960,000 for a range of projects to be paid for with revenue from water bills. The Sewer Department says it needs to spend $400,000 to upgrade a pump station on Walnut Street, also to be paid for with sewer bills. Strawberry Valley Golf Course is outlining $360,000 in work including new golf and maintenance carts, funded by greens fees. Free cash would also pay for additional road paving ($450,000), a new DPW front-end loader ($290,000) two new police cruisers ($130,000), a new fire department command vehicle ($60,000), among other capital projects and purchases.
COST: $3,482,240
FUNDING SOURCE: $1,761,740 from Free Cash; $1,720,500 from Strawberry Valley Golf/Water/Sewer funds
ARTICLE 7: NEW FIRE ENGINE
With the waitlist for a new fire engine currently between two and five years, depending on the manufacturer and level of customization, Fire Chief Jack Glynn says the time is now to order a replacement for Engine 1. Town Meeting back in 2020 approved spending $160,000 to refurbish engines 1, 2, and 3. The investment extended the life of all three engines, Glynn said, but Engine 1 is 29 years old and nearing the end of its useful life. “We bought some time, but not much,” Glynn said about the 2020 refurbishment. “We’re coddling this one.”
COST: $900,000
FUNDING SOURCE: Borrowing
ARTICLE 8: NEW FUEL ISLAND AT DPW FACILITY
This article allows the town to borrow $1.2 million to relocate the fueling station for municipal vehicles, which is currently located inside the DPW yard behind the basketball courts. Lambiase said the fuel island and its underground tanks are currently safe and not failing, but are nearing 30 years old. So with work scheduled to begin soon on the joint fire station/DPW complex, now’s the time to relocate the fuel island, Lambiase said. Plus, the town’s insurance company says it won’t cover underground fuel storage tanks anymore, especially those located near water bodies (Abington’s current fuel island is located across the street from Island Grove Pond). The new island, which will provide fuel for the town’s fleet of diesel and gasoline fueled vehicles, will likely be moved to the plot of land next to the Police Station that the town purchased last year (this area will also serve as the main entrance into the DPW yard). The pumps will connect to large above-ground fuel storage tanks, similar to the set up at the Town of Whitman’s DPW yard on Essex Street. The cost for this was not included in the $38.5 million override approved by voters last fall for the new fire station/DPW project.
COST: $1.2 million
FUNDING SOURCE: Borrowing
ARTICLE 9: COMMUNITY PRESERVATION BUDGET
The Community Preservation Committee started its deliberations with nearly $1.8 million available to spend: $509,133 in anticipated revenues from the CPA surcharge and state matching fund, and $1.2 million in its reserve funds. The committee is looking to spend just under $1.1 million on 12 items, leaving more than $700,000 in reserves.
That $1.1 million figure doesn’t include the full cost of the biggest CPA project to-date: a $2 million overhaul of Memorial Field. It does, however, include a $300,000 down payment on the project, as well as $30,000 in borrowing costs.
The committee is also proposing $185,000 in upgrades to the Green Street playground, Island Grove playground, and Beaver Brook playground. In addition, the committee has endorsed $82,500 to fix the Dyer Memorial Library roof, $35,000 to assist with record preservation in the Town Clerk’s Office, $15,000 to create a townwide Historic Preservation Plan, and $10,000 to help assess and organize the Wales Room at the Abington Public Library. Finally, the committee is recommending $150,000 to help South Shore Habitat for Humanity purchase 871 Plymouth Street, and placing another $250,000 in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
COST: $1,082,956.00
FUNDING SOURCE: Community Preservation Funds
ARTICLE 10: BORROWING FOR MEMORIAL FIELD PROJECT
The previous article asks whether the town can spend the money for the Memorial Field project. This article allows the town to borrow the money. More details on the project can be found here.
COST: $1.7 million
FUNDING SOURCE: Borrowing
ARTICLE 11: TRANSPORTATION FOR OUT-OF-DISTRICT STUDENTS
Each school district is required to cover the cost of transporting students to schools outside the district.
COST: $16,657
FUNDING SOURCE: General Fund
ARTICLE 12: HEALTH IMPERATIVE FUNDING
The town annually allocates a small amount of money to help support social service programs. This organization provides violence prevention and intervention programs for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence.
COST: $5,000
FUNDING SOURCE: General Fund
ARTICLE 13: ARC OF THE SOUTH SHORE
As in past years, this article allocates a small amount of money to the ARC of South Shore for services provided to Abington residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities
COST: $2,500
FUNDING SOURCE: General Fund
ARTICLES 14/15: FEMA FLOOD ZONE MAP & DISTRICT
Every few years FEMA updates its flood maps. The town then has to update its own zoning maps. Digital copies of the updated maps were not immediately available.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 16: MBTA MULTIFAMILY ZONING DISTRICT
Abington is required under state law to create a zoning district near the commuter rail station where multifamily housing can be built without a special permit (Housing projects would still have to go through site plan review and follow all the other town zoning rules, including conservation regulations). The Planning Board has proposed placing the district where three 40B projects have either already been built or permitted near Summer Street.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 17: SURPLUS LAND OFF LINWOOD STREET
This article would designate a 2.7 acre parcel of town-owned land off Linwood St as surplus land, freeing it up to be sold or auctioned off. Access to the land is located between 95 and 122 Linwood Street. More importantly, the land backs up to another 14-acre parcel of town-owned land that stretches to the corner of Brockton Avenue and High Street.
Lambiase said he’s eyeing the land as the site of a possible “friendly 40B” that could create a variety of mixed-income housing styles including townhouses, starter homes, traditional market rate homes, and single-floor residences for seniors looking to downsize. He said he’s planning to work with the Affordable Housing Trust to create a plan, establish some design guidelines, and identify possible partners, before putting it out to bid. The land off Brockton Ave was acquired back in the ’50s and eyed as a possible location for a school that was never built. It also abuts George Gillespie Way, which was built under 40B nearly 20 years ago.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 18: BAN ON 100ML LIQUOR BOTTLES (aka nips)
Anyone who lives on a roadway leading away from a liquor store understands the scourge known as nips. The small plastic 100 ml bottles of liquor are an increasingly common sight on local sidewalks and front lawns, tossed to the ground by drivers and pedestrians who can’t wait to get home for a quick drink. The Board of Health, acting on their statutory ability to regulate “nuisances” is interested in banning them, as a handful of other Massachusetts cities and towns have done. Rather than unilaterally institute the ban, they felt it should come before Town Meeting for a vote. Abington’s liquor store owners oppose the ban saying, while they recognize nips have become a littering problem, a ban will just drive customers to stores in other towns, resulting in lost business. They feel if a ban is needed, it should come from the state. The Board of Selectmen agrees with the liquor store owners. Selectmen Chairman Kevin Donovan said, although he has to regularly pick up nip bottles from his yard, the state should learn a lesson from the early days of smoking bans in restaurants and bars, when there was a hodgepodge of local bans. “I don’t think any town should be deciding this on its own,” he said during the board’s meeting last week. Board of Health member Katie Van Nest said she feels Abington should be a leader on the issue, approve the ban, and encourage neighboring towns to do the same.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 19: STABLE LICENSE & INSPECTION FEE
The Board of Health has been undertaking a top-to-bottom review of all its regulations and found out there’s a couple sets they should have adopted years ago but didn’t. One of those involves stable inspections. There’s only a handful of stables left in Abington, but the Health Department still needs to have regulations on the books. This article says every stable owner needs a license from the Health Department and institutes a one-time inspection fee of $40. The fee has turned controversial, however, with both the Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen opposing it. The Board of Health points out that all other health inspections come with fees to cover the cost, and that this $40 fee would cover stable owners for the length they own the stable.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 20: SENIOR CITIZEN/VETERAN TAX WORKOFF PROGRAM
Like many municipalities, Abington allows senior citizens and veterans to reduce their tax bill by volunteering with the town. This article would allow people to volunteer to perform work on behalf of those physically unable to do so. It also increases the maximum workoff from $1,500 to $2,000. Lambiase said town officials are clarifying the personal income tax implications of the article.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 21: ACCRUED LIABILITIES AND COMPENSATED ABSCENSES FUND
Currently, when employees leave or retire, the town pays for any accrued time buybacks through free cash. However, general accounting practices consider that accrued time as a known liability. Lambiase said the goal is to put money every year into this fund to cover anticipated payouts.
COST: $166,000
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLE 22: UNEMPLOYMENT RESERVE FUND
Similar to the previous article, this establishes a fund to pay for a known accounting liability: in this case the amount the town has to pay into the state’s unemployment insurance fund when it lays off employees. Traditionally, the town pays this bill after the fact using free cash. The town isn’t planning on laying off employees this year, but it could some day.
COST: $106,000
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLE 23: FUNDING BUDGET OVERRUNS
This article funds five line items that are running overbudget this current budget year.
Those line items are:
COST: $3,684.37
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLE 24: GRANT FUNDING
Sometimes the town needs to provide a certain percentage of matching funds to receive a grant. Rather than have to wait until Town Meeting to approve the funds, the town is asking permission from Town Meeting to set up a reserve fund with prior authorization it can use to immediately provide matching funds for grants.
COST: TBD
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
ARTICLES 25: REVOKE OPIOID SETTLEMENT STABILIZATION FUND
At a special town meeting last year, Abington voters approved a special revenue fund to hold the town’s share of settlement money it’s receiving from opioid manufacturers and retailers who worsened the nation’s opioid epidemic. This was done to make it easier for the town to spend the money without having to wait for Town Meeting approval. Shortly afterwards, the state passed a law that made the reserve fund irrelevant. This article would revoke the reserve fund.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 26: TOWN CHARTER AMENDMENTS
The Charter Review Commission is recommending 15 amendments to the town charter. These changes include updating the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board, encouraging town committees to adopt rules that improve public outreach and participation, making changes in the way vacancies are filled on elected boards, and adjusting the town budget writing timeline, among others. A ⅔ vote will be required to adopt. The entire package of amendments will then be placed on the 2025 Annual Town Elections for ratification.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 27: GRIFFIN’S DAIRY FARM WELL
The Griffin’s Dairy Farm Committee is requesting $50,000 to finish refurbishing the old well located near the front of the property. The well would then provide water for the community gardens located on the farm. The gardens currently use water from the municipal water system. Lambiase said the well is deep, has great water pressure, and could also possibly be used as a water source by the DPW to water flower beds on town properties. The money would be used to build a structure over the well, bring in a power line, and other finishing touches. The Finance Committee is not in support arguing that it could be paid with Community Preservation Act funds.
COST: $50,000
FUNDING SOURCE: TBD
ARTICLE 28: TRASH PICKUP FUND
Trash collection is now costing the town $1.5 million, as both disposal costs continue to increase, as well as the amount of trash and recycling town residents are putting curbside. That cost far outstrips the $600,000 Abington voters approved via an override back in 2008. A change needs to be made, Lambiase says. “What most towns around us have done is take municipal curbside trash and make it user fee-based,” he said. A formal plan will come later this year, with no changes taking effect until 2026. For now, this article sets up a special revenue fund to eventually start collecting fees.
COST: n/a
FUNDING SOURCE: n/a
ARTICLE 29: ST. PATRICK’S DAT PARADE OVERTIME & DETAILS
This article pays for overtime and detail costs associated with the 2025 Abington St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
COST: $10,000
FUNDING SOURCE: Free Cash
DISCLOSURE: The author is the Chairman of the Charter Review Committee and a member of the Planning Board. His spouse is Chairwoman of Parks & Rec Commission and a member of the Community Preservation Committee.
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