The West Springfield Town Council discusses the FY26 town budget during its June 2 meeting.
Photo credit: West Side Media
WEST SPRINGFIELD — The West Springfield Town Council hosted its second public hearing during its June 5 meeting for its fiscal year 2026 capital and operating budget, which is proposed to be approximately $134 million, a 4.54% or $5.8 million increase from FY25.
The first public hearing was during the Town Council’s May 19 meeting where West Springfield Chief Financial Officer Sharon Wilcox gave a presentation breaking down the FY26 budget.
During the June 5 meeting, the Town Council approved approximately $5.2 million for patrol officers’ salaries in the FY26 operating budget as proposed by Mayor William Reichelt.
During the discussion for the budget approval, Reichelt talked about the budget breakdown for the patrol officers’ salaries.
He said this is the first year since he has been mayor that they are close to having enough patrolmen to fund as many positions that are allocated for in the budget.
“Historically, the police have not had to come back to ask for overtime much like fire has because they’ve had empty positions. It’s been like that for the entire 10 years that I’ve been here. Historically, because of the empty positions, more overtime, we fund it with empty positions,” Reichelt explained.
The Town Council then discussed the School Department budget.
During an April School Committee meeting, the committee approved an approximately $58 million school budget for FY26, a $1.7 million increase from FY25.
The Town Council approved $58.7 million school budget for FY26 on June 5.
Town Councilor Michael LaFlamme made a motion to cut the School Committee’s budget by $16,000, which is listed at $46,000.
He explained, “You look at the line by line item for the budget. The School Committee’s at $46,000 which doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’re $5,000 positions and there’s six of them. That number should be $30,000.”
LaFlamme used the Town Council budget as an example and said each Town Council member is paid $10,000 and so eight councilors would add up to $80,000, which is listed, according to LaFlamme. The Town Council president position is $12,500.
“For here, the School Committee should reflect that at $30,000, instead it’s at $46,000, so it’s almost 50% higher than what the salary should be. We didn’t take that up last year, we didn’t increase the School Committee or City Council salary so I would like to bring that back down to what I believe is appropriate and we provide funding for, for those positions,” LaFlamme stated.
Adam Tarquini, West Springfield schools’ chief financial officer, explained that he saw for FY25 the School Committee salaries was not $30,000, but instead closer to $40,000, and the increase to $46,000 in FY26 is only a minimal increase.
LaFlamme still argued that the line item should be $30,000 and said, “It’s a precedent thing. We made the conscious decision not to increase that last year. I think if we start trying to back end that with what we’re going to start filling this line item with more money to pay for conferences, pay for travel. I don’t remember anybody coming forward to bring up any conferences or anything that anybody went to. I think that should reflect the salaries of those positions just like the Town Council line item does.”
Tarquini then was reminded by Reichelt that $10,000 was added to that budget line item for an RFP for the enrollment projection committee, because while they were building the budget, they were unsure where for how much it was going to be.
LaFlamme’s motion to cut the School Department budget by $16,000 was denied by the Town Council.
The School Department budget was then approved by the Town Council.
Town Councilor Jamie Smith recused herself from both votes due to a conflict of interest and Town Councilor William Forfa recused himself from the School Department vote for the same reason.
Once the two members rejoined the meeting, the Town Council approved appropriating the proposed $134 million general fund operating budget for FY26.
The now approved FY26 budget can be found at townofwestspringfield.org.
