Budgets, Contracts, and More at Town Meeting Tonight

The town budget, multiple union contracts, and clarification to the powers of the water and sewer commissioners, are some of the topics to be voted on at tonight’s Annual Town Meeting.

At the top of the meeting will be a vote on the proposed $65.95 million budget for fiscal year 2016. The figure is an increase of $3.3 million, or 5.27 percent.

New contracts with the firefighter’s union, dispatchers, highway and water department employees will also be up for a vote.

An annual article, voters will be asked to approve $764,069 for other post employment benefits, also known as OPEB. $700,000 of the funds will come from the meals tax, $51,256 from water receipts, and $12,813 from sewer enterprise receipts.

Other articles on the warrant include:

• Revising a town bylaw requiring the town to post the town meeting warrant online.
• Various zoning bylaw changes.
• To accept McNamara Way and Michelmore Way as public ways.
• To see if the town will authorize the selectmen to acquire by gift, purchase, or eminent domain a parcel of land on Elm Street behind the town’s DPW garage.
• To clarify the powers of the water and sewer commissions. If the article passes, the commissioners and the board of selectmen will share the power to sell sewer capacity to other towns.

The Annual Town Meeting starts ay 7:30 p.m. in the Foxborough High School auditorium. A quorum of 100 voters is needed to conduct the meeting.

Click here to read the warrant.