ATHOL – At its meeting Tuesday night, the Selectboard reviewed the draft warrant for the June 9 Annual Town Meeting, which will include the proposed $26.4 million FY26 budget.

During the review of the 49 articles, Capital Program Committee Chair Jim Smith informed the board that the CPC had received a total of $1.8 million worth of requests from department heads for a variety of capital items, of which $1,275,329 were recommended. Town Meeting will be deciding factor for these requests.

Among the items supported by the committee was $88,000 for a new police cruiser, $65,000 for a pickup truck for animal control, $37,500 for an ADA-compliant entryway at the fire station, $136,000 for a final lease payment for a dump truck, $60,000 for repairs to roads in town-owned cemeteries, $115,000 for an F-550 pickup for the DPW, $220,000 for non-Chapter 90 road improvements, $145,000 for repairs to the downtown fire station and $200,000 for grant match funds.

Town Meeting voters will also be asked to approve repurposing $400,000 in borrowing authority and apply it to the purchase of a tanker truck for the Fire Department. A Proposition 2½ debt exclusion was approved in 2023 for the purchase of a new pumper for the department. Because the town received a USDA Emergency Rural Healthcare Grant of nearly $437,000 for the pumper, the town still has borrowing authority remaining. The repurposed funding would include $66,000 for the first payment of a four-year lease for the vehicle.

“One thing we should mention,” said Finance and Warrant Advisory Committee Chair Ken Duffy, “is that we have the borrowing authority for that $400,000, but we haven’t actually borrowed that money. If the Town Meeting approves that, that $400,000 will hit the tax rolls. It hasn’t hit the tax rolls yet because we didn’t need to use it. It needs to be known that that is new borrowing under the old authorization.”

The Selectboard will meet on May 6 to vote its recommendations on each of the warrant articles.

The proposed budget includes $5.6 million to cover the town’s assessment for the town’s share of the Athol Royalston Regional School District budget and $407,000 for Athol’s preliminary assessment for Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School.

The budget presented by Town Manager Shaun Suhoski indicates that, when revenues are weighed against expenses, Athol should end FY26 with a $35,000 surplus. But, he cautioned, that depends on what happens on Beacon Hill in coming months.

“We’re building our budget, as we have for the last decade, on the governor’s proposed local aid figure,” Suhoski explained.

The governor’s figure, he said, stands at $3,331,601, a 2.2% increase over last year.

“The House a couple of weeks ago voted a budget that was some $72,000 less,” he said. “If the legislature were to pull out the rug on state aid to the tune of $72,000, we’re back in a deficit, and we may need to look for a relief valve on that.”

“The Senate will take up its budget in May, so we’re advocating that they go with the governor’s plan,” Suhoski told the Athol Daily News. “It’s a fluid process. There will be some back-and-forth in Boston, but most cities and towns are hoping the governor’s numbers are the ones we can count on.”

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.