HAWLEY — The 21 voters in attendance at Annual Town Meeting on Monday night swiftly passed all 27 warrant articles in just 22 minutes.

The short meeting outside the Town Office inspired little discussion on any of the articles, with the exception of Article 18 relating to a free cash transfer in the amount of $10,000 and Article 21 regarding vocational school funding.

Regarding Article 18, Selectboard member Hussain Hamdan clarified that transferring $10,000 from free cash to a fund that could be spent at the Selectboard’s discretion would allow the board to supply funding for any possible grant matches or to procure services to help with the development of grant proposals, avoiding the need to schedule a Special Town Meeting to approve each transfer.

“A lot of these grants require the town to commit to being able to match funds,” Hamdan said. “The idea behind this is to basically give the board a little bit of money that it can commit as a grant match on applications. In the event we got an award, it would be the grant match. In the event we didn’t get an award or we didn’t apply for it ... that money just gets returned when the fiscal year is over.”

When the town took up Article 21, Finance Committee Chair Lloyd Crawford moved to amend the article to transfer the $20,000 from free cash into the Vocational Transportation and Tuition Account rather than a Vocational Stabilization Fund as was written on the warrant.

“After this warrant was developed, we found out that we have more kids heading to the vocational school next year than we anticipated,” Crawford explained. According to Administrative Assistant Tinky Weisblat, as many as six Hawley students plan to attend Franklin Tech next school year, compared to the originally anticipated two.

However, Town Moderator Scott Purinton did not feel comfortable with amending the account that the money would be transferred to as it would change the “underlying intent” of the article, citing the meeting procedural guide “Robert’s Rules of Order.” To avoid any gray area, Crawford removed his amendment and the article was approved as written on the warrant.

Since the warrant was finalized before the town learned about the additional students going to Franklin Tech, more money will need to be appropriated, beyond the $20,000, to accommodate the increase in students. To get this money squared away, a Special Town Meeting will be needed this summer, but Weisblat said Tuesday that a date hasn’t been decided yet.

For FY26, Hawley has budgeted for assessments of $243,681 for the Mohawk Trail Regional School District, $256,079 for the Hawlemont Regional School District and $70,000 for Franklin Tech, making for a total of $569,760 in education costs, though the Franklin Tech number is expected to change.

Outside of the brief discussion on the two articles, Article 3 unanimously approved the $661,055 town operating budget for FY26. The budget represents a 8.63% increase from FY25, and includes $130,626 for general government, $32,352 for health and human services, a $11,193 assessment for services from the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, $52,324 for public safety, $308,360 for public works, and $126,200 for insurance and retirement benefits.

All other articles, including $1,324 for Hawley’s portion of a water heater replacement at Mohawk Trail Regional School and changes to the FRCOG charter, all passed.

By 7:22 p.m., the meeting was adjourned.

Erin-Leigh Hoffman can be reached at ehoffman@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.