Select Board meeting brims with positive financial news
The Aug. 19 Wellesley Select Board meeting was filled with happy financial updates (see Wellesley Media recording for full meeting).
Assistant Executive Director Corey Testa did the honors of sharing a slew of funding announcements.
The Metropolitan Area Planning Council awarded the town a grant worth nearly $11,000 to develop its arts and culture action plan (see also: “Wellesley moves to strengthen arts and culture scene with new strategic plan”). That’s on top of $5,000 received from the Community Fund for Wellesley.
The FY26 state budget was also kind to Wellesley, said Testa, who heaped praise on Sen. Cynthia Creem and Rep. Alice Peisch for securing monies for the town. The Food Pantry scored $50,000 through an earmark, while the local merchants association gets $25,000 for programming and events and the town receives $50,000 for a human resources structure working group. Because of uncertainty regarding federal funding, local legislators made more focused earmark requests than usual.
The state’s supplemental budget included $150,000 for Wellesley to buy a 14-passenger van for the youth and recreation departments to provide transportation for after-school and summer programs. The state is also sending $600,000 Wellesley’s way for a study in partnership with MassDOT to redesign the Fells interchange at Weston Road and Rte. 9. Any redesign would be years away, so won’t immediately pile on the current Weston Road reconstruction and shouldn’t undo any of that work, Testa said. This interchange is a hot button topic for residents, especially now with the new traffic flow created by school redistricting.
Separately, Assistant Finance Director and Acting CFO Tiana Moreau shared what Board Chair Marjorie Freiman termed “good information” on the town’s FY25 financials (slides are in the meeting agenda document).
Moreau started by saying Wellesley had appropriated about $13m in free cash in FY25, and with a combination of revenue exceeding expectations and expenses under budget, the town has about $13m being turned back. That puts Wellesley at about 17% of FY26 revenue in reserves.
FY25 revenue was strong in large part thanks to higher-than-usual interest earnings, plus a boom in motor vehicle excise taxes (more vehicle owners living in town by way of multi-family housing developments). With interest rates coming down, interest earnings are expected to trail off, Moreau said. On the expense side, a big contributor to going under budget was the school department turning back $2.4m, in part because of lower-than-anticipated legal expenses (a more detailed explanation of the turnback figures will be shared before the School Committee).
The board noted that while some one-time increases helped contribute to a strong FY25, various ongoing increased costs will be a factor in FY26, especially as the town negotiates union contracts.
Also at the meeting, Executive Director Meghan Jop said the town this week is interviewing for a chief financial officer. Tiana Moreau has been serving as acting CFO since Michael DiPietro’s departure earlier this year. A top contender for the job has previously worked for the town, Jop said.