Mayor Christopher Johnson, pictured in this file photo, presented his fiscal year 2026 budget on June 2.
Reminder Publishing file photo
AGAWAM — Mayor Christopher Johnson officially unveiled his $116.6 million fiscal year 2026 general operating budget during the June 2 City Council meeting; two weeks before the council officially votes on it.
The budget, a 4.1% increase from this year, funds all existing positions within all departments and includes no layoffs of existing personnel. The only major change in this realm is the slashing of funds for the assistant planner position and the creation of a new grant writer/administrator position to help the town secure more federal and state grants.
“We’ve been somewhat, knock on wood, successful getting grants from the state and federal government and even from some private resources,” Johnson said. “And at this point, we simply need help in not only trying to write more grant applications, but administering the grants that we currently have.”
In his presentation to the council, Johnson said the town wants to be as frugal as possible over the next couple of years while it awaits payments for the Agawam High School project, which officially broke ground last week. To that end, Johnson said the town will once again have a 2.5% tax increase this upcoming fiscal year.
“[We’re trying] to be as conservative as we can be and try to keep our taxes as low as possible as we wait for the high school project,” Johnson said.
The biggest area of increase in the FY26 budget is employee benefits insurance, which rose by $1.1 million. Johnson also mentioned that electricity and gas increased by $300,000 while solid waste went up $146,000.
Starting on July 1, Agawam will have a new solid waste contractor that will pick up trash weekly and recyclables biweekly. Johnson said residents’ pickup days will not change, and the new contractor plans to execute yard waste pickups throughout the spring, summer and fall.
USA Waste and Recycling, the contractor taking over, will have a service fee for its bulk pickups after only 10% of Agawam residents took advantage of bulk pickup in the existing system. Johnson said the new contractor will also solve some of the previous headaches the town faced under the current contract.
“They have an a la carte menu, which frankly is … less expensive than bringing an item to the transfer station yourself,” Johnson said, of USA Waste. “They’ll pick up virtually any kind of bulk item and without having to wait for it, you can call them, arrange payment, and get a pickup generally within five to 10 business days. The hope is that it’ll be easier for residents to get rid of the bulk items, and we won’t be stuck with that situation of items ending up on the curb that can’t be picked up.”
Johnson also presented the town’s Capital Improvement Budget, which sits at $2.6 million and increased about 7% over FY25. The mayor said Agawam has casino mitigation money to help complete the redesign and reconstruction of the Cooper-Suffield-Rowley streets intersection to help clear up traffic in that area.
“We’re hoping now to be able to finish it with what’s in the budget and upgrade that intersection to provide for better traffic flow in addition to replacing signals that are right now, I think, well north of 50 plus years old,” Johnson said. “The only way we can afford to do these kinds of things is with generally state or federal assistance and we don’t want to lose that casino mitigation money, so that’s why we put it in the capital improvement budget this year to try to make that intersection upgrade a reality.”
There was little discussion about the budget amongst councilors during the June 2 meeting. The body will likely vote on the mayor’s proposal during its June 16 meeting at 7 p.m.
