Wayland Town Meeting approves $104.3 million budget, rewrites personnel bylaw

WAYLAND — May 13, 2024 — Wayland approves $104.3 million budget and curtails Personnel Board authority on opening night. Annual Town Meeting passed the fiscal 2025 operating budget 176-35, a 4.6 percent increase that Finance Committee Chair Pamela Roman said is driven by $3.2 million in higher personnel costs and a tax levy rising 5.7 percent to $89.8 million. Roman warned the town is heading toward an operating override in fiscal 2026 or 2027. Voters also approved an $8.2 million capital plan, including a late $526,000 amendment for wastewater membrane repairs, and narrowly passed 124-68 a rewrite of Town Code Chapter 43 that recasts the Personnel Board as advisory under the town manager. The meeting opened with the posthumous C. Peter R. Gossels Award to Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, a Wayland resident from 1946 to 1999.