Holliston Select Board approves DPW debt-exclusion ballot question for May 19 vote

Select Board · Meeting of April 13, 2026

Holliston closes its May Town Meeting warrant and sends a $48.75 million DPW debt-exclusion question to the May 19 ballot. The Select Board, chaired by Benjamin Sparrell and voting 3-0 on each motion, approved a $1,303,000 capital budget, reordered warrant articles to place the DPW facility article at position 20 and the $2.5 million high school feasibility study near the end of the evening at position 26, and directed the Town Clerk to ask voters whether 60 percent of annual debt service on bonds for the 63 Arch Street consolidated Public Works facility should be exempt from Proposition 2 1/2. Engineering firm Weston and Sampson presented an independent schematic-design cost estimate of $48.75 million, falling squarely within its previously modeled range of $47.75 million to $49.75 million, with roughly $42.75 million still to be financed after previously appropriated funds.

The session's most contentious exchange came when School Committee members Daniel Alfred and Sarah Fitzgerald proposed drawing $350,000 from the DPW capital set-aside to help bridge the gap to the $2.5 million feasibility study request; Clerk Tina Hein called the DPW "the biggest capital need" in town and objected that doing so moved goalposts set by a 2023 multi-board working group, but ultimately the board incorporated the transfer after Sparrell secured a commitment that any feasibility study funds coming in under $2.5 million would be returned to the DPW project.

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Source: the Select Board meeting of April 13, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.