Acushnet Select Board Ratifies Town Administrator Contract, Confronts $2 Million Budget Deficit

ACUSHNET — March 10, 2026 — Acushnet Select Board unanimously ratifies two contracts and grapples with a budget deficit nearing $2 million. The board ratified contracts for incoming Town Administrator Adam Lamontagne, expected to start March 31, and for the town's new Police Chief Coppa at its March 10 meeting, then spent the bulk of the evening on a fiscal outlook Finance Director Jamie Kelly described as carrying a deficit "somewhere close to $2 million." Kelly's figures show a best-case revenue increase of $967,270 — led by a $739,140 Proposition 2.5 levy increase — against a wall of rising fixed costs including a worst-case $442,000 health insurance increase, a $410,000 Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School assessment jump, and a rumored $1.4 million Acushnet School Department request. "We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem," said board member Kevin Gaspar, who also argued that a hypothetical $10 million commercial development would yield only roughly $150,000 in new annual tax revenue. The board directed Kelly not to forward the golf committee's budget to the Finance Committee as submitted, citing unauthorized salary increases.