Bellingham Select Board Sends $89.6 Million FY2026 Budget to Finance Committee

BELLINGHAM — March 1, 2025 — Bellingham Select Board unanimously forwards a $89.6 million proposed FY2026 budget to the Finance Committee. Chief Financial Officer Heidi Morano presented a general fund of approximately $86.7 million — a 3.49 percent increase over fiscal year 2025 — with no staff reductions and no use of reserves, projected to raise the average single-family tax bill by roughly $170 on a home assessed at $459,600. School funding remains the sharpest pressure point: Superintendent Peter Morse said fully funding all departmental requests would require a $3.84 million increase, but after $1.1 million in identified offsets the remaining gap against the town's 4.8 percent placeholder — worth $1.6 million to Bellingham Public Schools — still amounts to roughly $667,000, with school committee deliberations ongoing. Police Chief Anthony Sahady flagged a $200,000 dispatch console replacement as the department's most urgent unfunded capital need, warning the current system has been unsupported since 2020 and cannot be repaired if it fails. Fire Chief Dennis Miller disclosed that a newly approved ambulance will not arrive until 2027, leaving the department's second unit projected to exceed 100,000 miles before its replacement arrives.