Town Council Approves FY26 Budget

By Adam Swift

The town council unanimously approved a Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget of $66.4 million at a special meeting last week.

In addition, the council also approved about $14 million in revolving enterprise funds for parks, water, sewer, and solid waste, which are largely funded through user fees, as well as putting $1.4 million into an education stabilization fund. The education funds were approved as part of a school department Proposition 2-½ override vote by residents in April.

The operating budget that was proposed by Town Manager Tony Marino was about $5 million more than the FY25 budget, an increase largely driven by increased salary and insurance costs. The school portion of the budget accounts for about 60 percent of the total, at about $40.1 million, while the municipal side of the operating budget comes in at a little over $26.2 million.

“There are multiple motions that are made; sometimes it might seem like there may be a … relatively quick vote,” said Council President Jim Letterie. “This has taken numerous, double-digit meetings by the finance commission, the subcommittee on finance.”

Letterie thanked Town Manager Tony Marino, Finance Director Sarah Johnson, and the town department heads for their efforts in crafting the FY26 budget.

“This budget process is so much more transparent than it used to be,” he said. “Not to the fault of anyone preceding, but I think with the town manager coming on and a different approach and a much more streamlined approach and more details … it has been incredible as far as transparency and it gets very intricate and there are so many items to go over line by line in some of these budgets.”

Letterie also praised the role of the citizens finance committee in the budget process.

“The citizens finance committee, to me, is unique in so many ways,” he said. “They are cohesive, they agree to disagree, they have incredible in-depth conversations, they take this budget so incredibly seriously, as they should. They do such a fantastic job going over this budget, asking the right questions, looking for backup documentation; I’m sure they have emailed Tony and Sarah many, many times over the last few months.”

Letterie said the advisory committee does its due diligence and makes sure everything is factual and complete.

Precinct 6 Councilor John DaRos, who chairs the council’s finance subcommittee, said the subcommittee met prior to the full council vote and that it recommended approval of each of the financial budget motions.