At a Special Town Meeting on June 30, voters made several transfers to cover a fiscal deficit that was discovered in February. The matter involved “human error” by a town employee and is still under investigation.

In February, then-Town Administrator Mitch Ruscitti brought the matter to the attention of town officials in an emergency meeting of the Select Board. At the time, he said the issue was due to a “discrepancy in uncollected real estate taxes in FY25 appears to be substantial…This year is about ‘6x’ [six times] of what is usually uncollected” which raised concern. 

At the start of the June Special Town Meeting, Town Moderator Eugene Phillips acknowledged residents had many questions about how the town got into the current fiscal situation, “But I want to look at tonight as the fix for the situation we’re in and not a head-hunting [mission].” 

After reading the first article, Select Board Chair Glenda Hazard said, “I know people have a lot of questions and are pretty upset about the need to do this, and I’m with you on that. What started with questions about police detail funds has kind of led to the discovery of more things we need to fix…It’s not ideal that we need to make this transfer, but it’s at the advice of the Department of Revenue.” 

Hazard continued, “This has been being discussed for several months, and I have always been led to believe to this point that this is not due to any sort of malfeasance; that this is just due to errors that were made that people could not admit that they made mistakes and correct them, and they were compounded over time. The transfers that we are making tonight are transfers that we should have made during those years at that time and that slipped through the cracks, so this is what brings us here tonight.” 

Hazard said the District Attorney is involved to see if any theft occurred. She also said the town is taking other steps to review the town’s fiscal policies. “Even though that’s not ideal, I hope that makes you feel a little better about us correcting the problem.” 

Hopedale Chief Financial Officer Linda Catanzariti said the deficits were identified by the Department of Revenue in FY25. She said, “[The balances] might have gone off the rails in ‘22 or ‘23 or ‘24, but I think the bottom line is we had a deficit on the books for maybe a few years.” 

The town had about $1.2 million in its Stabilization Fund and the June Special Town Meeting spent “about two-thirds of it,” according to Hazard. 

The transfers included: 

Article 1 transferred $832,696.91 from the Stabilization Fund and $237,050 from Ambulance Receipts Reserves for a total of $1,069,746.91 to fund several budget deficits. 

Article 2 transferred $273,004 from the Water Department Retained earnings to cover deficits in FY26 debt interest, health insurance, legal fees, salaries, and building repair/maintenance. 

Article 3 transferred $46,335 from the Sewer Department Retained earnings to cover deficits in FY26 legal fees, salaries, and health insurance. 

The fourth article on the warrant – to amend the FY27 fire department operating budget - was not needed and was passed over.  

The full warrant is available at https://bit.ly/HopedaleSTMjune2026. 

A recording of the 35-minute meeting can be found at www.townhalllstreams.com.