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Wareham Select Board approves FY2026 year-end municipal relief transfers
Summary
The Wareham Select Board voted July 14 to approve fiscal year 2026 municipal relief year-end transfers to cover shortfalls in payroll, IT, inspection, maintenance, animal housing and FICA; individual transfers cited by the presenter ranged from $1,800 to $4,200.
The Wareham Select Board on July 14 approved municipal relief year-end transfers for fiscal year 2026 to cover shortfalls in payroll, IT, inspection, municipal maintenance, animal housing and FICA costs.
Select Board member Derek Sullivan presented the transfers, explaining that municipal relief allows the town to amend its budget during the first 15 days of the new fiscal year if town meeting options (annual or special) are not used. "That's helpful because literally our last payroll is partially done in July," Sullivan said, describing the timing constraint.
Sullivan walked the board through line-item needs. He said a $4,200 transfer for assessing salaries was needed after a retirement and the decision not to rehire a finance director, with funds coming from the treasurer's salary. He identified a $1,800 transfer for personnel services, a $3,300 transfer for inspection salaries, a $3,200 transfer for the Division of Natural Resources to cover animal housing and kennel fees (the town uses an outside kennel in Lakeville for some animals), and roughly $3,100 for FICA, which Sullivan said has been affected by recent collective-bargaining agreements on the school side. He also described MIS/IT and staffing pressures related to outside monitoring and intermittent assistant-accountant coverage that have driven overtime and other costs.
After the presentation the Clerk moved to approve the fiscal year 2026 municipal relief year-end transfers as presented and read the transfers into the record; Sullivan seconded. The board approved the motion in a roll-call vote. Several members' verbal responses were recorded in the roll call as affirmative; the meeting record notes Joseph Still and Richard Bowen as excused.
Sullivan thanked members for convening the special session and said he probably should have requested an additional meeting earlier in the process. With no other business, the board moved to adjourn and closed the meeting.
The board did not provide a single consolidated total for all transfers in the meeting remarks; some line-item amounts were stated on the record and others were described qualitatively.
