Freeport council hears public concerns on FY27 budget and signals restore of library position

The Freeport Town Council opened a public hearing on the proposed fiscal year 2027 budget and heard residents urge the council to protect library programming and other services as staff reviewed pre-council savings and revenue shortfalls.

Jessica, a town staff member, told the council she and departmental staff identified about $440,000 in savings before the proposal reached the council, including reductions in wages and benefits (a smaller COLA for nonunion staff), a half-position cut in public works and reductions to paving and engineering budgets. She said roughly $360,000 of the proposed net increase stems from lower state revenue sharing and a debt-service payment for a ladder truck approved by voters.

“Of the approximately 495,000, I think, we’re seeing right now, net increase on the budget, about 360,000 is due to the combined impact of a reduction in our state revenue sharing … and this also reflects debt payments for the ladder truck,” Jessica said.

Residents focused much of their remarks on specific cuts. Ashley Schumacher, a Freeport resident and a trustee of the Freeport Community Library, said eliminating a recently vacated 19-hour-per-week circulation desk position (about $20,000) would lead directly to reduced off-site and Saturday programming — story times, summer reading events, tech help for seniors and staffed Saturday activities the library runs for families.

“Eliminating that position would mean eliminating the programming hours if facilitated. These programs impact hundreds of residents annually,” Schumacher said.

Other commenters pressed the council for deeper scrutiny of discretionary line items. Bob Lyman, a resident, pointed to several large proposed increases — including items labeled in the budget as fire-rescue and other new spending — and said the municipal budget has averaged double-digit pressure in recent years, urging the council to identify cuts that would not touch salaries where possible.

Councilors acknowledged the tension between limiting the tax impact this year and maintaining capital reserves and service capacity for the future. Several members said the town’s finance committee will take up longer-term sustainability and options such as regionalization or attrition starting in July.

On library funding, council discussion centered on whether to restore the 19-hour circulation position that staff and the council had removed during prior adjustments. Councilor Brown and several colleagues said the position is a modest investment in a building and services that now function beyond a traditional library role and recommended restoring it. The chair conducted an informal straw poll and said the council would add the position back into the draft budget as a direction to staff ahead of the council’s scheduled tentative adoption on June 16.

The council did not take a binding vote on the FY27 budget at the hearing; members said they would finalize adoption at the scheduled June 16 meeting. Councilors also emphasized that continued public engagement through the coming months and the finance committee’s review will shape longer-term decisions about service levels and capital funding.