The Vote on June 29th
On June 29, Great Barrington voters will gather for a special town meeting to vote on three articles, one of which, Article 2, would appropriate $86,899 to fund the full amount of South Berkshire Ambulance Squad (SBAS)’s fiscal year 2027 request to the town. Its original request for full funding was shot down by the failure of the town’s attempted Proposition 2 1/2 override.
For context and history, SBAS has only recently started asking for townspeople’s tax dollars, but the asks have gotten dramatically bigger year over year, with this year serving as a sort of reckoning with the numbers.
History of SBAS Funding Requests to Great Barrington:
FY2024: $151,294
FY2025: $205,326
FY2026: $304,909
FY2027 requested: $414,676
FY2027 appropriated: $327,777
Further appropriation sought to make up difference on 6/29: $86,899
Think of these numbers as the newly visible part of an just-emerging iceberg. There’s a bigger problem under the surface, with potentially wide-ranging implic…
