On Monday night, voters will gather at Hull High School to begin work on a 44-article annual town meeting warrant, which features a $56.6-million budget plan for FY27, $1.49 million in Community Preservation projects, and several citizens’ petitions that would reaffirm last year’s vote to change the management structure of the light plant, require government meetings to be available in hybrid format, and jump start an earlier town meeting vote to acquire privately owned parcels of land to ensure access to the beach at James Avenue in Hull Village.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Among the first acts of the assembly will be to act on the “consent agenda” – the standard housekeeping-type articles that must be approved each year in order to operate the government. The 11 articles in this year’s consent agenda, which are bundled into a single vote, range from acceptance of departmental reports to the reauthorization of enterprise funds to allowing the town to cooperate with state agencies throughout the year. These articles are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14, and the town moderator’s message explains this process and how voters can modify the process if desired.
The town’s annual operating budget is Article 8. Earlier this year, Town Manager Jennifer Constable presented a proposed $56.6 million fiscal 2027 municipal budget, representing a 3.43%, or $1.9 million, increase over this year’s spending plan. Constable proposes to add two full-time fire department positions and an increase in hours for the IT, veterans services, and public works departments, as well as money for a collective bargaining agreement with library employees…