GREENFIELD — The Ways and Means Committee continued its review of the mayor’s $70.02 million budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 on Tuesday, with much discussion centering around the Rec Room after-school program and the proposed elimination of the youth coordinator position.
Recreation Director Christy Moore told committee members that without the coordinator position, the department would be unable to run the Rec Room program next fiscal year.
“With this position eliminated, there will be no Rec Room. There will be no middle school programs,” Moore said. “Next week is the last Rec Room. There will be no summer programs designed specifically that are free for the middle school.”
Mayor Ginny Desorgher is proposing a $249,363 budget for the Recreation Department for FY27. This represents a $59,182 reduction from what the department requested, leading to one less full-time staff member. The proposed $249,363 would be a 12% decrease from the Recreation Department’s FY26 budget.
Desorgher said that with soaring health insurance costs, the city cannot afford to have as many full-time, benefited positions as it has. She suggested more should be accomplished using part-time roles.
“This year, we could not get the budget without reductions in staff. We couldn’t. It was absolutely impossible,” she added. “I’m the one who didn’t sleep night after night … because it’s a nightmare. There was just not enough money to go over everything.”
After facing a 19.3% rate increase under Health New England, the city opted to switch its health insurance provider to the state-backed Group Insurance Commission. For FY27, the city is budgeting employee health insurance at $11.2 million.
Moore said the Rec Room program could not be run with just part-time staff because children require continuity, and having the same person staff and plan programming has allowed it to grow and be successful. She added that the Recreation Commission did vote to raise fees for the Rec Room by about 60%, but that increase would cover the costs associated with the program, such as buying snacks for the children — not staff salaries.
The Recreation Commission had voted to increase the program’s registration fees from $150 per season or $400 per school year to $250 per season or $700 per school year.
Ways and Means Committee Chair Marianne Bullock, who has a child that attends the Rec Room, expressed concerns over the increased fee and its impact on lower-income families that rely on that program for child care.
“I just feel like this is going to have such a disproportionate impact,” Bullock said. “And I also feel like it’s one of those things where we’re trying to … fund things that are going to attract families and young people into our school system and our communities. I’m really worried about what this is going to mean in the long run.”
“We can’t continue to outcost our residents,” Moore added.
Desorgher said that, after reviewing staffing levels in other similarly sized communities, Greenfield spends more on staffing for the Recreation Department than on senior services, and, despite strong public support, she felt other services were more urgently needed.
“I don’t do any of these things lightly,” Desorgher said. “We spend the least and have the least staffing at our Senior Center, so although that cut didn’t resonate with many, that’s where we actually will probably need a full-time social worker.”
Precinct 4 Councilor John Bottomley said that cutting the youth coordinator position does not mean the mayor is against children, but she has to balance the needs of many departments, and he has heard from seniors in town who are struggling.
“I also talk to retired people that can’t pay for their insulin. They can’t live in their homes because of the tax increases. They also cannot afford the grocery increases,” Bottomley said. “We live in a poor city, and it’s not just kids, it’s not just middle school.”
The Council on Aging budget is also facing a 12% decrease over the current fiscal year and is set at $155,325 for FY27. Senior Center Director Hope Macary said she opted to prioritize the two “customer-facing positions” and reduce the office manager’s 30-hour-a-week role to 18 hours a week. She warned that if City Council makes any additional cuts, or if the department faces further cuts in future years, it could have a detrimental impact on their ability to serve Greenfield seniors.
“We’ll figure out a way to do it, because we always do. Our job is to fulfill the mission, but I need to be clear with you, super clear, that any further reductions [are] really gonna impact our ability to maintain core services,” Macary said. “We’re down to the bare minimum. … Greenfield has to be a place that is a good place to grow up, and grow old.”
Other departments seeing reductions in personnel include information technology (IT), which is losing one position. The director of the Energy & Sustainability Department will no longer be a full-time position, and in the Planning Department, Director Ella Wise will go from working five days per week to four days per week. Additionally, the licensing coordinator position will go from a 0.8 role to a 0.4 role.
“It’s gonna be tough,” Energy & Sustainability Director Carole Collins said regarding the reduction. “We pay all the bills and track all the energy and report on it and make recommendations, but we don’t have any control over operating the buildings, and that’s where we’ve seen increases.”
Collins added that due to increasing energy costs, the city has already used its entire energy budget for FY26 and will go over budget to pay May and June’s electric bills. For FY26, the department has a $905,867 expense budget, and according to the city’s open finance page, it has spent $565,152 on Eversource bills alone. In total, the department’s expenses so far this fiscal year have been $1.09 million.
The library budget is increasing by 4% for a total of $922,350. Greenfield Public Library Director Anna Bognolo said the library budget must meet requirements set by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, which entails certain staffing levels, budgets for purchasing materials and open hours depending on the population served. If the library fails to meet these requirements, it could lose its accreditation and access to the Central/Western Massachusetts Automated Resource Sharing (C/W MARS) library system.
In an attempt to limit the budget increase, Bognolo said the library will be removing its self-checkout kiosks and replacing them with cheaper self-checkout laptop stations.
The Ways and Means Committee is expected to continue discussion and vote on a recommendation for the FY27 budget at its next meeting, ahead of City Council’s expected vote on the budget later this month.
