Wenham Finance Committee Assigns Town Meeting Roles, Names School Building Committee Rep

WENHAM -- March 12, 2025, Wenham Finance Committee approves minutes, assigns school building committee seat, and debates town meeting roles. Meeting on March 12, the four-member quorum, Chair Finn Sprague, Jared Ward, Robert Puppetick, and Dano, approved minutes from three January sessions by 4-0 votes each and voted unanimously to appoint Puppetick as the Finance Committee's non-voting representative to the Hamilton-Wenham School Building Committee, filling a vacancy left by Scott Schoenenberger. Members parceled out speaking assignments for annual town meeting articles, including the operating budget, a $500,000 water PFAS engineering article, and a contested capital budget article whose warrant language records the committee as voting zero-to-five against the full list, despite members having backed all but a $50,000 historic district study. Finance Director Jeff confirmed that a near-20-percent spike in MIIA health insurance premiums, driven substantially by GLP-1 weight-loss drug costs, is prompting Town Administrator Steve Poulos to coordinate pressure on the insurer with peer communities, with a structural options review planned for after town meeting. A $500,000 Green Communities grant remains pending and could require a re-vote on the stabilization fund appropriation before the annual town meeting, tentatively rehearsed at a joint Select Board hearing on March 31.