Library HVAC project postponed; 0% tax increase in FY27

Officials have decided to pass over the Town Meeting agenda items on funding a new HVAC system for the library after learning that the projected tax incentives were too optimistic.

Warrant articles 7 and 8 would have asked voters to approve a $5.4 million project to install for a ground-source heat pump system or, failing that, $330,000 for a conventional boiler for the library to replace the library’s aging gas-fired boiler and air conditioning system. After a $1 million grant and $1.93 million in tax incentives, the cost to the town was pegged at about $2.47 million. This would not have resulted in a tax increase; the amount was to be bonded with the debt paid from future Community Preservation Act funds.

In summer 2025, the Green Energy Committee was awarded a three-year MassSave Energy Manager Grant, which was used to hire Power Options, Inc. as the town energy manager. The firm targeted the library decarbonization study as the most immediate need and brought in Energy Systems Group (ESG) to perform a more detailed study of library decarbonization strategies and develop 2-year life-cycle cost estimates, according to a Jan. 8 memo.

But ESG found that the expected tax credits were “best case scenario… it changed the dynamic. $1.9 million was not the number we felt comfortable with,” Assistant Town Administrator Dan Pereira told the Finance Committee on March 11. The group working on the project “made a recommendation to pause and allow us more time to work on the tax incentive side and get a better second opinion on costs.”

The group expects to present a revised spending proposal to voters at a Special Town Meeting in the fall. In the meantime, tax consulting firms feel that the incentives now on the table are “stable” and will still be available later this year.

The FinCom discussed what to do with the unexpected drop in expected spending for FY27. Several members suggest “giving back” some or all of the money in tax relief to residents. In February, the FinCom had recommended a tax increase of 3.5% for the median household in FY27, inclusive of the library HVAC program. The committee is now recommending using an additional $1.3 million ($2.3 million total) to offset debt service to result in a recommendation of a 0.0% increase in FY27 taxes for the median household, FinCom Chair Paul Blanchfield said.

Aside from the library, major capital costs expected in the new few years include $5.32 million in FY28 (the largest being $2 million for Ballfield Road restoration) and about $2 million in FY2029–30, with the next big expenditure coming in FY31 for a comprehensive road project currently estimated at $12 million. Farther in the future: a rebuild of the DPW site on Lewis Street, and land acquisition to expand the Lincoln Cemetery.