The FY 2026 Budget Moves Forward
It is $8 million more than last year’s due to vertiginous increases across the board.
Said Mayor Joshua García, in written remarks:
“The proposed FY26 City of Holyoke budget reflects current revenue and expenditure projections and a balanced consideration of the City’s municipal service needs. Revenue assumptions are based on the Senate Ways and Means budget and are subject to change pending final decisions by the Governor and Legislature. The City continues to take a conservative approach to forecasting, including cautious estimates of local receipts and unrealized new growth, which may result in greater-than-expected excess capacity and a lower anticipated tax increase than what’s presented. This strategy allows for fiscal flexibility in the face of economic uncertainty.
While we anticipate moderate growth in local revenues, our ability to raise funds is structurally constrained by Proposition 2½, which limits the tax levy regardless of inflationary or economic pressures. As a result, the proposed FY26 budget is balanced through conservative financial management, selective reductions of mostly unfilled full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, and targeted increases in priority areas. This approach avoids the need for a Proposition 2½ override, preserves core municipal services, and does not rely on reserves or Free Cash.
We recognize that the budget is a dynamic instrument, with state aid and other revenue updates occurring throughout the year. As we approach the close of both the fiscal and calendar years, additional adjustments may be necessary to refine our revenue assumptions and align resources with evolving service demands.
Key Cost Drivers
Education: The City’s required local contribution to the public schools will rise by 5.87% ($773,886), in accordance with the Student Opportunity Act, bringing the total to $13,957,634. After all offsets, the City’s net cost will increase by 5.23%, or $1,187,772.37, totaling $23,888,559.71.
Transportation: Costs continue to escalate, increasing by 10.32% ($1,195,465) for a total of $12,783,451.
Health Insurance: Premiums will rise by 9%, or $661,859, totaling $13,746,739.
Pensions: The Retirement Board’s accelerated funding schedule, targeting full funding by 2032, requires a 4.65% increase ($584,545), bringing the retirement appropriation to $13,147,588. Roughly $8 million of which keeps the city on schedule for fully funding retirement by 2032.
The following is the annual budget trend for reference:
2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 141,354,139 144,202,167 154,956,268 163,749,527 172,239,074 180,112,498 74,692,938 76,261,264 83,609,495 91,604,478 96,146,448 101,056,003 66,661,201 67,940,903 71,346,773 72,145,049 76,092,626 79,056,495 2.72% 1.92% 5.01% 1.12% 5.47% 3.90%
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- Mayor Joshua García
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- City Councilor Liunda Vacon
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- City Councilor Patti Devine
Regarding a much-debated need for adding a Chief Administrative and Financial Officer (CAFO); Treasurer/Collector and Comptroller, the councilors ultimately decided to take that up on another day.
Here are some of their comments:
“It is hearsay to say that with these positions, we’re going to save money because we don’t have a crystal ball. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the future.” Councilor Howard Greaney Jr.
“I can’t stress enough, that, you know, if you even look at the definition of insanity, it’s doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And we’re at a time where we’re trying to make an important change to fix these problems. And I don’t think that hiring these professional positions is hearsay. These are based on financial projections for the city. … I think if we can take our emotions out of the picture and think about what’s best for the city, I mean, you know, the mayor does a great job. And yes, he’s expected to handle the finances of the city, but he’s still one person. It’s not I’m not under the impression that he’s a finance professional.” Councilor Kocayne Givner
Greaney responded to Givner’s comment by saying: “When we use terms like insanity, I mean, that’s a pretty harsh term for somebody of differing opinions. And I take umbrage at that statement.”
“For what it’s worth, I kind of resent any implications that I am not willing to compromise or I’m not willing to make this work if I, similarly to the chair of Charter and Rules, have voted to send things back to committee, it’s because I’m trying to listen to the will of the body. I’m not trying to thwart any power.
I would love nothing more than to get this over with because we’ve all been working on it and I really resent if anyone is acting like the people who have gone to all of these committee meetings and not everyone has. I’ll make that super clear. Not everyone has gone to these committee meetings, and that’s okay. I don’t have the right to force you to do that, and that’s fine. But a lot of us have and a lot of us have been working really hard, and we don’t do this because of ego. So I resent anyone who is trying to say that now compromise is done and we’re done. I’m hoping we can just either send things back to the committee, table it, or just, you know, vote on the budget. That’s what I’m really hoping because the back and forth is killing me. ” Council President Tessa Murphy Romboletti
“There is complexity here, and it’s a bit like dominoes. It’s not as simple to pull one piece out, because in creating the combined treasure collector, which was the will of the electorate, we have this need to reestablish these roles and responsibilities. And in our current system of what we’ve put here in this package, certain rules and responsibilities and a grade 14 on schedule A was established based on those roles and responsibilities. But those roles and responsibilities might look very different if there is not a chief administrative and financial officer, which would then require us to revise the treasurer collector or to not combine them to go back to square one and just continue moving forward as we have been.
But as it stands, we have a plan in front of us that is budget-neutral or may save money in the end. But at least from my perspective, it’s clear that it is budget-neutral. It allows us to combine a position, allows us to add a position of a comptroller and a chief administrative and financial officer, allows us to have outside counsel that allows us to have a parliamentarian. It allows us to be able to have a shift from the auditor to a director of internal audit, and really clarifies a lot of roles and responsibilities. There is good work here, and it’s not as simple as just pulling one piece out. I think all of these things inform each other and good ways, but that’s also part of the compromise that we’ve created.” Councilor Meg MaGrath Smith
“I just want to remind everybody that we’re not talking about just adding a castle. We’re also adding a comptroller and an internal auditor. And these are positions that are in the financial structure of the city of Springfield, which is 3 to 4 times larger than Holyoke. We don’t even know if, given the job responsibilities of the castle in the job response abilities of the Comptroller. f there will be full-time work for both of those people. We do not have the same book of business in Holyoke as they have in Springfield. And I did speak to our consultant, and it’s acknowledged that that is an open question. So this is loading up our local government, and people are saying, well, the funding is hard to come by while our taxpayers are finding their funding hard to come by.”
And at the rate we’re going, everybody’s taxes will be going up again this year as much as they did last year. And I can’t be the only one that got those calls. We’re just making the government too big. Whether you’re in favor of the cash flow or not. If that got through, then at least you’d have a person who could take a look and say, do I need this or that?
But no, no, we’re building the whole thing out and we’re going to tell the flow, here you go. And here’s who you’re going to have. Here’s your team. We’re giving this one that job, this one the other job and the other one the other job. So we’re moving the deckchairs around on the ship and making new positions with bigger salaries, with the promise of savings, the savings that you’re looking at and the budget tonight come out of taking a position out of procurement has nothing to do with what we’re voting on right now. Councilor Linda Vacon
Despite the repeated support of the mayor, who said the city would benefit years into the future with a revamped team of financial experts, the creation of CAFO was not approved, with 8 in favor and 5 against. A two-thirds majority was needed. The proposal was tabled for another time.
The city’s Fiscal Year 180 Million budget was approved by a margin of 8 in favor, 4 against. Those against the budget expressed concerns about taxpayers having to open up their wallets to ever-increasing costs without first seeing a demonstrable way of keeping costs down.
Among the final speakers was City Councilor Israel Rivera, who said: “The final point I’ll make … all the things you’re saying about prices rising and everything, but there are other departments that take up a huge chunk of the budget, and they’re not producing exactly what we say they are or what they say they are, and we stray away from even putting a little bit of those budgets.
“But, we actually are not afraid to cut the budgets that are providing services throughout the whole city. So it’s interesting to me to see the the duplicity that’s happening. At the same time, we preach one thing, but there are ways that we vote that are like just running like cutting little pieces to act like we’re actually doing something.
“I appreciate the time, and I guess I’m also a taxpayer and I will be voting yes, even though I just recently got laid off. We figure it out as we go.”
