Lakeville Voters Approve $38.2M Budget, Reject Multiple School Funding Amendments

LAKEVILLE -- June 8, 2026, Lakeville Annual Town Meeting approves a $38.25 million fiscal 2027 budget and adopts a suite of new bylaws, but defeats every amendment seeking to shift more money to the regional school district. Voters on June 8 passed the base operating budget by majority after rejecting four amendments, including a bid to strip $1.35 million from the Plymouth County Retirement assessment and a move to cut $150,000 from Highway Department expenses, that resident and former Select Board member Brian Day warned would "set them back probably a decade" and incur hundreds of thousands in pension penalties. Town Administrator Andrew Sukeforth cautioned that defunding the retirement line would create a projected $3.2 million structural deficit by fiscal 2028. A single amendment succeeded: Day's own proposal to reduce elected-official stipends for the Select Board, Board of Assessors, and Board of Health to token sums of $52 to $53, redirecting the savings to restore the assistant treasurer-collector position to a $72,000 full-time salary, passing 218 to 114. Voters also adopted a 0.75 percent local meals tax projected to yield $125,000 annually, a data center zoning bylaw capping electrical load at one megawatt and daily water use at 22,000 gallons after resident Brenna Donahue's amendment passed 220 to 7 on a required two-thirds vote, a wetland protection bylaw establishing a 25-foot no-touch buffer brought by Conservation Commission Chair Nancy Yates as a citizens' petition, and MGL Chapter 53, Section 18B requiring the town to mail balanced voter information before future override and debt exclusion ballots.