Fire Station Funding Leads Capital Improvement Requests

ORLEANS – After years of discussion, research and false starts, a request for funding to design and build a new fire station is expected to go before town meeting voters this spring.

 Town Manager Kim Newman presented drafts of both the fiscal 2026 capital improvement and operating budgets to the select board on Feb. 11. Final versions of both will be put before voters for approval at the annual town meeting in May.

 “It changes almost every single day,” she said of the figures outlined in the budget.

 The capital plan includes a request for an estimated $45 million for the design and construction of a new station to replace the existing one on Eldredge Park Way, which has been in operation since 1987. Town Manager Kim Newman in an email Tuesday said that the project would be funded through a debt exclusion.

 In recent years, town officials have discussed at length the need for a new fire station, none more so than Fire Chief Geof Deering. At the Feb. 11 meeting, Deering again stressed that the existing station is too small to accommodate the storage and training space that is needed for a modern fire facility. Structurally, he said that the station’s infrastructure is “failing,” and that the fire department has been left to deal with “daily maintenance issues.”

Deering told the select board that bringing a new station online is a “quality of life” issue, not just for his staff but for the entire community.

“We have air quality issues,” he said. “We have space issues. It is time to move on to a new building. It is desperately needed.”

“We are way overdue,” echoed Andrea Reed of the select board.

While there is broad support for building a new fire station, finding a location on which to build it has proven difficult. The $45 million is part of the town’s ongoing effort to explore the potential for creating a town campus on Eldredge Park Way that could accommodate a new station, a new or renovated Orleans Elementary School and perhaps a community center.

Last May, voters at the annual town meeting approved $150,000 in free cash for a study looking into the feasibility of the campus plan. The town has since contracted with Galante Architecture Studio of Cambridge to carry out the study. Assistant Town Manager Mark Reil said Galante is due to give an update on the study during a joint meeting of the select board and the Orleans Elementary School committee on Feb. 25.

The $45 million is currently an estimate, but some in attendance at the Feb. 11 budget presentation said they thought the number might be too low.

“We think you’re a hair shy on that. We’re looking at $50 [million],” said Scott Zenke, who served on a feasibility committee charged with exploring site options for a new fire station in town.

The capital items list for FY26 also includes $470,000 for a new fire department ambulance. Deering said the department is trying to look ahead in terms of vehicle upgrades and purchases, noting that the wait time for new vehicles to be delivered can be lengthy. As an example, he said another ambulance that the department ordered in Aug. 2023 is not due to arrive until the second quarter of 2026.

“There’s so much demand on the manufacturers of these that they’re backlogged,” he told the select board.

Other items on the FY26 capital improvement plan include approximately $40.5 million for construction on the third phase of town sewering. That includes between 237 and 267 properties in the areas of Pilgrim Lake, Crystal Lake, Areys Pond and Lonnie’s Pond. With approval of the funding at town meeting in May, the town would go out to bid for a contractor in April 2026, which would be followed by an anticipated start of construction in June 2026.

A draft fiscal 2026 operating budget presented Feb. 11 sits at $53.6 million, an increase of approximately 4 percent over the current fiscal year. That figure includes a $875,592 override for retirements and benefits and an override of $852,377 for negotiated contracts.

A large driver in the retirements and benefits cost is the number of retirements anticipated for the new fiscal year. In a follow up email Tuesday, Newman said anticipated retirements came in at 14 percent, which she said was “truly a shock.”

Meanwhile, the town is in negotiations with almost all of its employees across five unions. Those include police, fire, clerical/technical, public works and the town’s managers union, which includes department and division heads. Newman said negotiations are also ongoing with the town manager, police chief and fire chief as well as some non-union employees.

“These negotiations are about more than just wages,” Newman said in her email. “A large part of what we are trying to do is look at benefit packages and see how we can be competitive in a very difficult employment market.”

The override figure for contracts was able to be brought down some thanks to a $1.1 million line item reserved for negotiations in the new operating budget, Newman said.

The draft budget earmarks $6.35 million for Orleans Elementary School for the new fiscal year, an increase of 5 percent from FY25. The town’s assessment from the Nauset Regional School District is up 3 percent, coming in at $6.63 million.

Newman cautioned that the town’s share of the regional budget could change depending on what figures come in from the regional school district.

“What we don’t have are the region’s numbers yet,” she told the select board. “So what happens if those numbers come in higher than we have budgeted for? We’ll be back here having a conversation again about what and how we want to fund things for FY26.”

The select board voted Feb. 11 to move the proposed budgets to the finance committee for its review.