PELHAM — A citizen petition seeking to strengthen the town’s Safe Communities bylaw, which instructs police officers and town employees not to inquire about a person’s immigration status, comes before annual Town Meeting Saturday.

The effort to revise the bylaw adopted by residents seven years ago is one of 26 articles voters will act on beginning at 9 a.m. at the Pelham Elementary School.

This year, the town’s $1.31 million fiscal year 2026 assessment for the Amherst-Pelham Regional schools is broken out from the rest of the proposed $4.66 million operating budget. The $244,808 assessment increase is nearly 23% above this year’s $1.07 million assessment, and is more than the $180,987, or 4%, increase in the rest of the budget.

Even though Pelham is facing the highest percentage increase among the four-members towns, the Finance Committee is recommending the spending, in part because this is a one-time adjustment that will get the regional schools back to determining assessments mostly by how wealthy each community is and how many students they are sending to the district.

Leverett Town Meeting adopted its own large assessment increase Saturday, while Shutesbury Town Meeting will vote on its assessment at Town Meeting on May 31, and Amherst Town Council will vote on its assessment at some point this spring.

The $2.1 million elementary school budget is going up $86,448, or 4.3%, from this year’s $2.01 million budget.

A separate article for $36,838 covers wage adjustments for several positions, including treasurer/collector, town clerk and executive assistant, to make Pelham more competitive. Select Board Chairman Bob Agoglia said these adjustments are based on a wage study conducted for the town by the Collins Center at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

In a report to residents, the Finance Committee wrote that the budget has $300,000 in deficit spending, continuing a trend of seeing expenses exceed revenues, which it attributes to wage increases and rising insurance rates.

“The financial situation of the town continues to decline as expenses rise more than our revenue,” the report reads. “Over the last two years our expenses have exceeded our revenue by about $200,000. This year will be another year of deficit spending.”

That memo advises residents to reach out with input going forward.

“Tough choices are coming requiring that the taxpayers speak up so that the Finance Committee will know how to proceed next year,” the memo states.

Sanctuary Community

The revised bylaw to bring Pelham up to date with the sanctuary status in other communities requires periodic reporting on Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detainers, inquiries about immigration status and communications with federal immigration agencies by town task forces.

Adopted in 2018, the earlier bylaw instructs town employees to not monitor, detain or question anyone to determine legal immigrant status, and calls on police to only inquire immigration status of any victim, witness or suspect that is directly relevant to an investigation.

The warrant includes $268,281 in free cash spending, with a portion set aside for work on the elementary school building, such as $20,000 for boiler repairs, $15,000 for grounds work and $12,000 to improve privacy in bathroom stalls.

Another $25,000 is going to the elementary special educational school reserve. Other free cash is $30,000 going toward the capital reserve account for the regional schools and $27,245 for regional school capital, $15,000 for town legal expenses and $10,000 for boiler repairs at the Community Center.

The capital plan stabilization fund has $100,000 in spending to repair the exterior of Community Center, $95,000 to buy and equip a new Highway Department pickup truck, $70,000 to buy, outfit and equip a 2025 Ford Explorer Hybrid police cruiser and $19,000 to repair the 2015 F550 truck.

Community Preservation Act projects include $93,150 that would go to the Pelham Elementary School Playground Committee’s Americans with Disabilities Act renovation of the playground, removal of old equipment and delivery and installation of new equipment, and landscaping, and $10,000 for the town Conservation Commission’s creation of digital trail maps.

Other articles on the warrant include amending the bylaws for accessory dwelling units to bring these into compliance with state law, amending the solar electric installations bylaw adopted at Town Meeting in 2023 to fix language that wasn’t approved by the state attorney general’s office, and adopting a zoning map that was drawn June 2, 2024.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.