HINGHAM — The two-night 2026 town meeting gave Hingham a balanced fiscal year 2027 budget without an override while keeping room for significant infrastructure improvements. Residents also raised town employee salaries and other benefits, reformed the hiring process for public safety employees and voted against the construction of a new Center for Active Living.
Budget, property taxes increase
The $173.06 million operating budget for fiscal year 2027 represents a 4.4% increase over fiscal year 2026, though property tax increases are limited to 2.5%.
$73.88 million of that will go to the school department, giving the school district a 2.6% budget increase over fiscal year 2026. The department’s maximum allowed increase is 3.5%.
The department with the largest percent increase in its budget is the transfer station at 22.8%.
To pay its fiscal year 2027 debt service related to the construction of a new elementary school and new public safety building, the town appropriated $13.89 million from a stabilization fund.
Voters approved the town allocating $346,000 for “undetermined financial obligations of the Town relating to salary increases, fringe benefit changes, and job reclassifications for non-School Department employees." That includes wage increases for the police department, fire department and department of public works.
They also fixed the salaries of select board members at $2,000 and the salary of the chair at $2,500. Members of the board of assessors will receive $1,800 per year, while the chair will receive $2,000.
Five projects approved, appropriating up to $10.5 million
Voters authorized large capital projects to repair and improve town infrastructure, including school buildings and the water system.
The town appropriated $770,000 to be spent by the school committee to repair the roofs at Plymouth River Elementary School, South Elementary School and Hingham High School, as well as the HVAC system at the high school.
“The systems are old, they are failing, and they are in need of frequent repair,” Town Moderator Michael Puzo said.
The school department is eligible for state grants to help fund more extensive repairs to the roofing and HVAC systems, but those grants will not reimburse these “emergency repairs,” Superintendent Kathryn Roberts said.
Repairs to the high school’s HVAC will likely begin over the summer, but may begin before the end of the school year if temperatures rise high enough to shut down the boiler, Roberts said in a previous meeting.
Voters also authorized the appropriation of up to $2.6 million for two upgrades to essential school infrastructure. One project is the design and installment of a new fire detection and alarm system at Hingham High School, since the 26-year old current system is “reaching the end of its functional service life,” the advisory committee said. “Replacement of the system would provide a modern, fully supported Fire Alarm/Life Safety System designed to meet current code requirements and ensure reliable operation.”
The other project is the replacement of East Elementary School’s Energy Recovery Units, which are rooftop HVAC units that help regulate temperature, humidity and air circulation. The existing units are about 18 years old and have suffered continual failures which became harder to address when the equipment manufacturer went out of business.
Repairing the cooling system at Hingham Public Library will cost the town a projected $1.49 million. The article passed quickly without discussion.
“Portions of the cooling system need to be replaced as soon as possible in order for the Library to provide reliable, uninterrupted capacity for the building’s daily use, as well as its critical function to the Town as a designated cooling center during the summer months,” the advisory committee’s comment read.
The most expensive item on the list is a package of upgrades to the Weir River Water System for $5 million, which the town is authorized to borrow. Besides replacing water mains, installing new fire hydrants and making repairs, the town will replace about $9,650 feet of water main along Route 3A. The advisory committee’s comment said that the existing water main is over a century old and is made of cast iron, asbestos and concrete.
“Design work is currently underway, permits have been applied for, and bid documents are being prepared,” it read. The article passed without discussion.
Voters also authorized the town to spend almost $3 million in settlement money awarded to Hingham as part of a nationwide class-action lawsuit targeting manufacturers of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly known as PFAS. Russell Tierney, superintendent of the Weir River Water System, said in a previous meeting that the funding will support a comprehensive approach to reducing PFAS levels in the town’s water supply.
Research funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has identified potential links to cancer, Type 2 diabetes, and liver damage.
Center for Active Living construction rejected
The town will not construct the long-debated new Center for Active Living at Bare Cove Park after a town meeting article to appropriate funds for it failed. If passed, the article would have authorized the town to fund construction via a debt exclusion pending another vote of approval at the town election. Now, the proposal has been shot down before the election.
Puzo said that 980 people cast a ballot on the article—only 4.8% of Hingham’s registered voters, according to state data from 2025. 510 voted in favor and 470 voted against, falling 144 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to pass the measure.
Questions remain about the future of the Center for Active Living, which serves residents over 60—some residents advocated for the town to construct a new Center at a different site or with a smaller footprint than the proposed plan, which was projected to cost $25.8 million. But for now, the Center will continue to operate out of its 5,500-square-foot space in town hall.
Fire, police department shed civil service regulations
Voters reversed a 1943 decision to subject the fire and police departments to civil service, which regulates hiring, promotion and disciplinary action based on state test scores. Civil service requires Hingham to hire police and fire department employees from a state-compiled list of candidates ranked by test scores and other factors, which the advisory committee said makes for a hiring process that is “arduous, protracted, and lacks recruitment flexibility.”
Now, the town will make a one-time payment of $7,500 to compensate fire and police department employees who are union members for their release from civil service, as negotiated by the Hingham Permanent Firefighters Association IAFF, the Hingham Police Patrolman’s Association and the Hingham Police Superior Officers Union, though the articles clarify that the change “shall not affect the existing Civil Service rights” of current employees.
As applications to police and fire departments fall across the state, Personnel Board Chair Jack Manning said that both departments are struggling to fill openings.
“This is really about the fire department and the police department attempting to attract the best and the brightest people that are out here,” he said.
Studies to explore electronic voting, healthcare plans
An article passed to appropriate $100,000 to study implementing electronic voting at town meetings, empowering the town to create a task force charged with researching “municipal experiences, vendors, equipment options, procurement methods, training needs and cost estimates” related to electronic voting.
The task force will include the town moderator, the town clerk, a select board liaison and up to three town residents. Supporters say electronic voting machines would protect voter privacy, verify voter registration and make voting more accurate, efficient and accessible.
Since the town last considered adopting electronic voting in 2015, more towns in the region have purchased e-voting machines, Town Moderator Michael Puzo said.
The town could purchase e-voting machines in time for the 2027 town meeting depending on the outcome of the study. If implementing electronic voting does not cost the full $100,000, any remaining funds would be incorporated into the operating budget.
Voters also adopted an amended article funding both a temporary increase in the town’s contributions to employee healthcare and a study to explore future health care payment options.
The town appropriated $1.3 million of its unassigned excess funds so that it could pay 60% of employee health insurance costs in fiscal year 2027, up from 50% in previous years, to help employees manage rapidly rising rates. Towns across the South Shore are bracing for double-digit percent increases in fiscal year 2027 insurance premiums.
The town will also sponsor a study of “cost analysis and an analysis of health insurance offerings of our benchmark communities” conducted by a task force of personnel board members and liaisons.
“Upon completion of the study, the task force will recommend a competitive health insurance package, including how and when to implement the recommended package,” the article said. That recommendation is due at the end of the year.
No action taken on citizen’s petitions
Town meeting members voted to take no action on the three citizen’s petitions on the warrant, in alignment with the select board’s and advisory committee’s recommendations.
One petition would have established a Youth Commission to “provide a forum for youth to be involved in Town government” by creating increased coordination between current Hingham Public Schools and Recreation Department opportunities and sponsoring an awards program to recognize youth achievements in civic activity. But the advisory committee felt that more discussion was needed before the town could make a decision, and the petitioner, Henry Buckley, announced during the meeting that he supported a vote of no action.
Another petition sought to transfer a 6.8-acre parcel of land in the care of the school department to the Conservation Commission so that it can be designated as conservation land. In the case that the town approved the construction of the Center for Active Living on conservation land, the school committee voted to transfer the parcel in question to the Conservation Commission as replacement conservation land. This petition would have made that change regardless of the outcome of the Center for Active Living vote.
In its comment on the article, the advisory committee said it was “not comfortable supporting, through a citizen’s petition, a proposed change in the use and control of Town‑owned land outside the Town’s normal and established review process.” The petitioner, Anita Ryan, said at town meeting that she supported a vote of no action.
The last petition would have banned the construction of new pickleball courts unless “sound-attenuation measures, such as enclosure, sound barriers or soundproofing” prevent the sounds from playing pickleball from being “plainly audible beyond 100 feet.”
The advisory committee recommended no action because it felt that the restrictions were difficult to measure and enforce, and member Jerry Seelen said that the strict 100-foot regulation could be impossible to meet with an outdoor court.
“It's highly unlikely that any sort of exterior noise control mitigation measure would prevent hearing anything a hundred feet away,” he said. “While we are sensitive to the concerns of noise, particularly in residential areas, we feel like this proposed bylaw amendment is way too broad that it would effectively eliminate any outdoor pickleball courts in the town of Hingham, and that it is singling out a particular sport rather than objectively regulating quality and quantity of noise itself.”
During town meeting, petitioner Hillary Tutko expressed concern about the complex of pickleball courts set to be built at Bare Cove Park Drive, in accordance with a 2025 town meeting vote.
“The Rec Commission and the town committees continue to work hard to get as many pickleball courts in as possible, but diminish the neighbors’ concern of excessive noise,” she said. “Neighbors are going to get blasted by the constant noise generated on eight pickleball courts, eight to 12 hours a day, with the potential of hearing over 80,000 pops a day.”
The next steps
Hingham’s preliminary financial projections show that municipal costs will continue to rise by millions each year. Residents still have some appetite for large projects, and the town has helped employees navigate the growing cost of living with salary and health insurance contribution increases, but many town meeting members expressed concern about continually rising taxes.
Single-family tax bills have risen by 57% in the last ten years, though the average single family pays about 7% of its income in taxes to Hingham each year, less than most benchmark communities.
“I commend both the school and the municipal department's efforts to achieve this budget and this economic environment with pressures from the collective bargaining as well as just overall inflation,” Advisory Committee Chair Carol Tully said at town meeting. “Over the last two years, both departments have had to make very difficult decisions to stay within the constraints of the financial plan.”
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