Freetown Select Board Reviews FY2025 Budgets Without Finance Committee Quorum

FREETOWN — April 17, 2024 — Freetown Select Board reviews FY2025 public safety budgets without a Finance Committee quorum. The board, meeting April 17, moved through departmental spending plans solo after the Finance Committee failed to achieve quorum for a scheduled joint session. Fire Chief presented a salary line of $1,199,831, including comp-time payouts and one new position, while also flagging a pending federal SAFER grant application that would cover 100 percent of salary and fringe for a fourth firefighter over three years. A replacement ambulance is now priced at $550,000 — up from $384,000 a year ago — but the purchase was deferred to the fall town meeting, with a fire station addition warrant article estimated at $1.5 million to $1.6 million taking priority. Police Chief Rose, presenting his first budget, described a department stretched thin by two injury-on-duty officers, a recruit in a 12-week field training program, and an average overtime rate of nearly $62 per hour across patrol ranks, and said a federal staffing grant structured at 75 percent federal funding for three years could support two or three additional hires beyond the single officer already budgeted.