The Wellesley Advisory Committee this week recommended favorable action by an 11-2 count on the town’s proposed $224M-plus FY26 budget, though not without reservations on some of the spending and with some desire in the future to vote on the largest chunks of the omnibus budget separately (see Wellesley Media recording of the March 19 meeting). The proposed budget figure reflects a 1.13% increase over the FY25 number, per the town-wide financial plan, which town leadership encourages everyone to read.

Advisory members thanked those from all departments who worked to submit an overall balanced budget, with 40%-plus for Wellesley Public Schools depending upon what you include in that. The town’s appointed Advisory Committee vets articles ahead of Town Meeting, which is scheduled to start on April 1. Advisory has been meeting regularly in recent weeks and months with various department leaders to go over their individual budgets and initiatives.

Advisory member Gail Sullivan, who led off discussion and voted in favor of the budget motion, was among those concerned about falling student enrollment vs. increased school headcount. “While I understand these numbers cannot move in lockstep and that much has changed in the education field, I believe many citizens would be interested in more analysis justifying the increases,” she said. Like others on the committee she found community testimony about mental health cuts in the school system compelling, but ultimately trusts in the school administration and School Committee to allocate its budget resources.

On capital spending, which adds up to more than $8M in the proposed FY26 omnibus budget, Sullivan singled out the $560,000 sought by the Facilities Management Department to make the Tolles Parsons Center/Council on Aging commercial-grade kitchen functional. The Advisory Committee has received pro and con feedback on this. Sullivan said she’s putting her faith in the Council on Aging, but would have liked to have seen more details on plans for the upgraded facility. Fellow member Doug Wilkins also cited a desire to see “a concrete plan on how and when the new facilities would be used.”

Tamara Sielecki, one of two members who did not vote favorable action, shared her appreciation for efforts by departments to budget for level services and for the human resources work to overhaul the town’s classification and compensation system to pay employees more fairly. But she aired concerns about the town’s ever-rising taxes (“which in a short 20 years have taken us from one of the lowest to one of the highest taxed towns…”) despite assurances that increased development will temper increases. Among other things, Sielecki would like to see the town be more explicit about the cost of layering in climate action-related investments in various projects.

Sielecki said she generally prefers the town’s decentralized structure for decision making, but acknowledged its shortcomings, including when it comes to investing in mental health resources through the schools and other departments. She favors a return to having the Health Department serve as a point organization for ensuring mental health services are available to all throughout the year.

Penny Rossano, who also did not vote favorable action, said that as a first-year member of the committee she found it challenging to vote on the budget as a whole, and would prefer to see the school, and perhaps Facilities Management, budgets broken out for separate discussion and votes. She struggled most with supporting the school budget, pointing to the falling enrollment and rising budget. She said assumptions that enrollment will rise again could be true, but she also would like to see analysis of various scenarios.

Jay Prosnitz compared the approach of voting for the omnibus budget to that of “having a seven-course meal where two things are bad and five things are really good; Do you say you like the meal or not?”

Sullivan was the first of many to raise the issue of needing a way to prioritize capital spending going forward, especially given “clear warnings in the town-wide financial plan about potential debt exclusions and overrides.”

Shawn Baker, on that topic, said increased operating expenses come with new capital investments, and that the town will have difficult choices to make. “I routinely hear concerns from taxpayers about the tax burdens associated with the increased costs, and I do not sense a strong appetite for future overrides,” he said.

Lucienne Ronco added that “I think we need a mechanism for prioritizing these large capital projects. I’m concerned that things like the MOPO project are very expensive. We have important recreation needs in our community, but it’s not clear that we need to spend that amount of money in order for us to be able to use that pond well and continue to have it as a gem of our community.”

Fellow member Mark Benjamin echoed concerns for the future about a lack of a mechanism for prioritizing large capital projects. Individual projects all appear warranted when proponents come to Advisory (and Town Meeting), he said. “I think we as an Advisory Committee need to be part of the process for developing some kind of process or metric for ranking and prioritizing large capital projects that have the potential for overrides or debt exclusions,” he said.

Phil Jameson said it would be helpful going forward for the town to better illustrate potential funding (grants, etc.) for capital projects and the tax impact.