Franklin is in the throes of the Beaver Street Interceptor project, said Jamie Hellen, Franklin Town Administrator. That is part of Franklin, “really preparing the town for the long haul,” he says.

At press time, the town was looking forward to the second meeting of the Joint Budget Subcommittee, which was scheduled to take place on October 23rd. Budget numbers, said Hellen, are expected to shift with local aid.

“At the end of the day, no one is getting local aid numbers until early February. We won’t know our health insurance numbers until then, too. I think the model is going to show some assumption, but there are still a handful of unknowns out there that are huge. This is a collective bargaining year for teachers, fire (personnel), custodians – all the major unions are up for a new contract this year. FY26 is going to see new collective bargaining agreements. We have eight unions.” 

Hellen also noted more needed to be revealed about the school redistricting analysis. (Since Local Town Pages spoke with Hellen in early October, Superintendent Giguere had issued a press release on this issue, which readers will find in this paper.) Hellen noted, “There’s going to be an enormous one-time cost to hire movers, coordinators, facilitators, to handle the bus system. This is not an inexpensive endeavor, but also what is the town going to save on expense costs, and what is the school going to save relative to any inefficiencies they see. I think the public needs to understand and have a clear vision on what those expenses are. There’s still a tremendous amount of questions we will slowly answer through the year.”

Hellen cautioned patience, focus and discipline among town members “not get ahead of ourselves. Everyone knows there’s a group of folks in town that want to know what that number is and when another override will be.” However, he said, beginning the budget process earlier than usual, the Town needed “to try to make sure we started from scratch. We’re showing people in live monthly meetings.”

Hellen encourages residents to attend these town meetings, calling them “an immensely good opportunity for people who are really interested in the mechanics of the budget … I think it’s essential we walk through month-by-month just exactly how the budget is built, on state laws that govern the budget process and inform people of the immense constraints on the local budget,” said Hellen. He points out Franklin is one of many towns in the Commonwealth that have held override votes, and added, “If you go to the FinCom meeting, we go through year to date, we show what departments are doing great … we do an immense deep dive, and usually no one ever shows up at those meetings.” 

The next Finance Committee meeting, should residents be interested, will take place on November 6th.

“After that, in December, we’re going to put out the entire calendar for next year,” says Hellen.