The City Council discusses the proposed FY26 budget at its special meeting on June 23.
Photo credit: Holyoke Media
HOLYOKE — The City Council passed a budget of approximately $180 million for the fiscal year 2026 operating budget, about a $8 million increase from FY25.
Mayor Joshua Garcia first introduced his proposed FY26 budget on May 13 during his fourth annual State of the City address.
Residents were also invited to attend the FY26 budget hearing on June 9 to weigh in on the proposed budget by offering their thoughts, concerns or questions.
The budget was approved during a special City Council meeting on June 23 where the City Council had the opportunity to make final cuts to the budget. Passed in an 8-4 vote, City Councilors Howard Greaney Jr., Kevin Jourdain, Carmen Ocasio and Linda Vacon were opposed to passing the budget.
City Councilor David Bartley was absent from this vote as he left the meeting earlier in the evening.
Jourdain stated his reason for voting no on the budget. “This year is going to be unprecedented increases on the residents. We’re going to have an 11% water rate increase; we now see a sewer budget that’s up a million dollars.”
Jourdain also said the tax levy in the last four years is up $11 million this year “despite it going up 6% last year is now going to go up with this budget another over 4% from $67.8 million to $69.8 million, so another $2 million increase in property taxes in the residents.”
Before the final budget was voted on, the City Council made $148,838 worth of cuts during its final budget hearing.
Two of the cuts were from the mayor’s budget. The first cut was $25,000 in contracted services, leaving $25,000 in the budget and the second cut was approximately $3,000 in dues and subscriptions, leaving $5,162 in budget.
Another cut came from the Police Department budget for $10,000 for Special Events Overtime, leaving $60,000.
The DPW City Property budget was cut by $55,000, leaving $265,889 and the Department of Parks and Recreation budget for overtime was cut by $10,000, leaving $10,000
The most notable cut was from the insurance, claims, benefits, travel, transfers, and other budget. Life Insurance was cut by $20,000, leaving $70,000 and claims and damages was cut by $25,000, leaving $75,000.
Although the budget was passed on June 23, the budget approval process may not yet be done. On June 30, after Reminder Publishing’s print deadline, there will be one more special meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to take final votes on some financial transfers that must be approved before the end of the fiscal year.
The other reason is partly for the City Council to consider several ordinance and charter proposals that were tabled on June 23.
The tabled orders all had to do with creating a central finance department. If those proposals get adopted, the budgets of several of the city’s departments that deal with the city’s finances would require changes.
With the Municipal Finance Modernization Act, Garcia talked about the need to create a new position, a chief financial administrative officer.
That meeting will be covered in the next edition of The Reminder.
