Funding questions and a petition to drop healthcare for part-time officials to be considered by Lakeville fall Special Town Meeting

LAKEVILLE — Cuts to part-time elected officials’ healthcare, spending $25,000 for a building re-use study for Town Hall and establishing a revolving funds account for the Conservation Commission are all up for voters’ consideration at fall Town Meeting.

These matters and two others will be put before the Nov. 12 fall Town Meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in the Apponequet High School auditorium, at 100 Howland Rd. All registered voters are eligible to attend, participate and vote.

Here’s a look at what voters should expect.

Healthcare 

A citizen’s petition, created by resident Michael Smith, will ask voters if part-time elected officials should continue to receive healthcare benefits. If voters decide to drop the benefits, the cut would go into effect March 1, 2026. 

During a Tuesday, Oct. 21 Select Board meeting, Smith explained the town needs to save money, and the petition would cut the costs for providing health insurance to the three boards who have part-time elected officials: the Board of Health, Board of Assessors and the Select Board.

Town Administrator Andrew Sukeforth said part-time elected officials are given the choice to either receive a stipend or accept health insurance. He said there are three part-time officials who have a family-plan insurance package that costs the town about $22,000 per plan.

If officials qualify for a family plan, the stipend is around $5,000, and $2,500 for those that qualify for an individual plan. He said the town has a “host” of people that take the stipend instead of the plan.

The total amount that comes out of the town’s budget for both stipends and insurance plans is around $105,000.

Sukeforth added that although many neighboring municipalities offer varying degrees of stipends, it is uncommon for part-time elected officials to be offered health insurance. 

“The fear is, let's say you get 11 people that want to be on the health insurance family plan — we'll have to basically find a large sum of money to cover that,” he said.

Revolving funds 

The Conservation Commission is asking voters to consider establishing a revolving funds account for the commission. 

A revolving fund account is a dedicated account that would raise funds through various fees — in this case, administrative fees from proposed developments — and allows a commission to directly spend the funds for their purposes. Although Sukeforth’s office has oversight on the funds, using the revolving account doesn’t require annual approval from Town Meeting.

If approved, the Conservation Commission would collect money through development project fees and use the revenues as they need. The account’s spending limit is $15,000.

Purposes include maintenance and purchasing of conservation land, but the key purpose — explained by the chair of the commission, Nancy Yeatts, at the Tuesday Select Board meeting — is to expedite the creation of wetland protection bylaws. She said the commission does not have the expertise to write the bylaws themselves, and are in need of funding for consultants. 

Sukeforth said if voters were to approve the account, it would take effect on July 1, 2026. The account would start from zero and begin collecting fees after its creation. 

“Let's say no one files any large projects, they might not get the money until sometime like 2027,” Sukeforth said. 

He added the costs of creating a wetland study and establishing a bylaw with consultation help varies. He estimated that it could cost anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000. 

Select Board Chair Maureen Candito said since the revolving account would be funded by the administrative fees — that are already budgeted out in the town’s general fund — establishing the account for the commission could put the town in a deficit.

After the Tuesday Select Board meeting, she said this ballot question is the most financially impactful voters will consider. Sukeforth said the general fund has already budgeted about $10,000 of administrative fee revenues, of which would be removed from the general fund and reserved for the commission's revolving account if it passed on Nov. 12.

“That money comes out of our revenues eventually. We have to find $10,000 elsewhere in the budget to balance it out. It’s not a huge deal, but every dollar counts,” Sukeforth said.

Building study 

Voters will consider if the town should spend $25,000 on a building design study at Town Hall. The study would explore potential uses for space the Lakeville Fire Department currently occupies. The department will move to their new station that is slated to finish construction in 2027.

Sukeforth said the study would be the first “incremental” step in finding how the empty space would be used. He said although the town doesn’t have the funding to complete large renovations, they aim to complete the project through multiple phases.

“We thought it was small money and smart money to get some sort of realistic design, and to not overbuild,” he said at the Tuesday Select Board meeting. “We're not going to do a big debt-exclusion type of project. This is just the preliminary design for it.”

Sukeforth said the study would essentially deliver an answer to how the building can be eventually used. 

Other matters include paying unpaid bills, and an amendment to the town code regarding the appointment of at-large members of the Community Preservation Committee.

A Special Town Meeting Guide from the town will be released before Nov. 12, and a “fact-sheet” for the details of part-time official’s healthcare will also be available for voters beforehand. Find the full warrant on the town’s website.