Scituate Advances Balanced $25.9 Million FY27 Budget, Sets April Town Meeting Slate

SCITUATE — March 10, 2026 — Scituate Select Board approves balanced $25.9 million FY27 budget and clears town meeting warrant at joint hearing. Town Administrator James Boudreau told the joint Select Board and Advisory Committee session Tuesday that the fiscal year 2027 general fund budget is balanced without free cash or one-time revenues, holding at roughly $25.9 million after rejecting all seven new full-time positions requested by departments. A health insurance spike above 14 percent forced a last-minute budget adjustment, moving 2 percent from the town's OPEB line to the contributory health insurance account — a shift voted unanimously by the Financial Forecast Committee the same morning — with the deferred OPEB contribution to be funded through free cash at a fall special town meeting. Boudreau cautioned that the town's fiscal cushion is thinner than in prior years and said an operational override "at some point" may be unavoidable as pension and health costs continue to outpace revenue growth. The board unanimously granted a seasonal all-alcohol on-premise license to Millennia's Fish Market at 8 Allen Place, voted to recommend the zoning deck-setback article and a stormwater bylaw update — minus a disputed 80-percent-threshold provision — to the April 13 town meeting, and confirmed Scituate's FY27 Chapter 90 road apportionment at $894,507.