WHATELY – Residents at Tuesday’s annual Town Meeting will be asked to consider a nearly $6.86 million operating budget and several bylaw amendments.

Whately’s Town Meeting will be held at Whately Elementary School, 273 Long Plain Road, at 6 p.m.

The town’s roughly $6.86 million FY26 operating budget will come before voters in Article 9, as they will be asked to consider a $460,998, or 7.21%, increase over FY25.

The major increases to the budget come a $200,000 increase from Whately Elementary School; an $85,000 increase in employee group health insurance and increases in most personnel costs are driven by a 4% cost-of-living-adjustment and a newly implemented wage table and step system. The insurance increase is hitting towns and school districts up and down the Pioneer Valley.

“Add them all together and you get a big number,” Selectboard member Fred Baron said of the wage and COLA increases, which include an additional $66,000 to the Police Department’s budget. “Generally, the financial status [of Whately] is good.”

Whately Elementary School will see a level-service budget in all categories, except for a $66,000 request to fund two new instructional assistants to work with preschool students with special needs, which the district is required to fund.

Of the town’s $350,000 in FY26 capital projects in Article 14, the major one is a $183,000 free cash request for new air packs for the Fire Department. Fire Chief JP Kennedy said this will replace equipment that has reached the end of its service life. The purchase will include air packs, spare bottles and rapid-intervention air packs, which are used to rescue firefighters.

“Our current air packs are in excess of 25 years old,” Kennedy said, adding this will bring the department into National Fire Protection Association compliance. “The new packs will provide increased safety in IDLH (immediately dangerous to life and health) environments, such as structure fires, carbon monoxide incidents and gas leaks.”

Alongside several minor bylaw changes, residents will be asked to amend the town’s zoning bylaws to add “Marijuana Product Light Manufacturer,” to the table of use regulations. The use, which only permits manufacturing without the use of hazardous or flammable materials, would only be allowed through special permit in the Commercial, Commercial-Industrial and Industrial districts.

The proposed change is pitched by Debilitating Medical Condition Treatment Centers (DMCTC), which is permitted to operate a retail cannabis dispensary in the former Sugarloaf Shoppes. The company is seeking to turn the rest of its 420 State Road facility into a small-scale marijuana product manufacturing site, which would work in tandem with the planned dispensary.

The Planing Board took no action on the article, while the Selectboard voted to not recommend it. Baron said the board isn’t against the proposal for DMCTC, but he and other members are worried that it is too broad and could take up other commercial real estate.

Other articles on the warrant include:

■Accepting a state law regarding the HERO Act of 2024, which adds two new veteran property tax exemption clauses.

■Approving a $300,000 free cash transfer to reduce the tax levy.

■A $58,000 free cash transfer to fund accumulated sick leave buyback for Whately Elementary School.

■A proposal to permanently change the annual town election from June to April and the annual Town Meeting to June.

The 25-article Town Meeting warrant, which contains brief notes for each article, can be found on the town website at bit.ly/4kISK8D.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.