ORANGE — Voters adopted a $28.4 million fiscal year 2026 budget on Wednesday following a trying and contentious three-night Annual Town Meeting.

Moderator Steven Garrity decided at the June 16 Annual Town Meeting to withhold a vote on the budget until the day after the June 23 Proposition 2½ override. Those in attendance at the continuation on June 24 opted to postpone the session another night so the Finance Committee could hold an emergency meeting and produce a more bare-bones budget proposal.

State law requires voter approval before a municipality increases its property tax levy by more than 2.5%, but with the Proposition 2½ override being voted down, Orange residents rejected a hike that would have generated an extra $1.4 million to fund town services. The Finance Committee met for roughly four hours on Wednesday and hammered out a balanced budget that uses all of the town’s $768,144.97 in free cash to spare all positions that were threatened by financial cuts.

“We’re using every penny of free cash that we have to balance the budget,” Finance Committee Chair Keith LaRiviere told voters on Wednesday, the third night of Annual Town Meeting.

Various town department heads had spent weeks appealing to residents to adopt the override to avoid layoffs. With the state requiring a budget by July 1, Town Administrator Matthew Fortier worked with Town Accountant Amber Dupell and the Finance Committee to trim any spending possible.

One notable reduction was the “Cheney Maintenance” line item from $27,200 to $10,500. This pertains to the municipal offices at 62 Cheney St. Various town services had been based in the Orange Armory at 135 East Main St. until the Selectboard voted in October 2021 to close it due to its poor condition and temporarily relocate the municipal offices that were there to the former Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church’s rectory, which the town was leasing.

Fortier explained the new “Cheney Maintenance” figures account for three months of rent at Cheney Street, where the church is located, and the town will soon have to move its municipal offices to another space.

Cuts were also made to Town Hall maintenance, the town’s reserve fund, highway expenses and other line items.

Longtime resident George Willard spoke shortly before the budget vote to thank Fortier, the Selectboard and the Finance Committee for their hard work, and to encourage his fellow residents to adopt the new figures.

The budget article was adopted by a 135-14 vote, and the results generated applause and cheers from voters inside Ralph C. Mahar Regional School’s Kermit Cook Auditorium.

“It’s the best of the bad choices that we have, and we believe we can make it work,” LaRiviere said.

Fortier told voters to expect pay and hiring freezes in town “because this is a very tight budget.”

Some in town have named the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District as the culprit for Orange’s budget woes. The Mahar School Committee voted in April to approve a 4% budget increase for the next school year despite being repeatedly asked to make more significant cuts in light of Orange’s financial situation. The assessment to Orange increased by 12.8%.

But Orange was committed to paying its Mahar assessment regardless of how residents voted on the overall FY26 budget because New Salem, Wendell and Petersham — the other towns in Mahar’s regional agreement — adopted the figures, with Orange being the last town to vote. According to Town Counsel Donna MacNicol, a two-thirds majority of towns is required for ratification of the Mahar budget.

After the budget article vote, residents accepted Fortier’s recommendation to take no action on six warrant articles that pertained to using free cash.

Finance Committee member Kathy Reinig said at the Selectboard meeting on April 30 that the town faces “a death spiral” and she told voters on Wednesday that that predicament still exists.

“We’ve got to be careful to not go over the edge,” she said.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or
413-930-4120.