South Hadley's Financial Difficulties

Longmeadow Select Board

Below is a "letter to the editor" in today's May 19, 2026 Republican outlining significant financial difficulties on the horizon for the Town of South Hadley and its residents.  According to this LTE written by a South Hadley resident, Denise L. Presley, voters will be asked to approve a Proposition 2½ Operational Override of between $9-11 million. Ms. Presley has served on the South Hadley Electric Light Dept Board (MLP) for the past 5 years.

[A Proposition 2½ operational override in Massachusetts is not financed in the way a capital project is. It is simply a permanent increase to the property tax levy limit.]

How does this relate to Longmeadow voters and property taxpayers? 
 
The Longmeadow Select Board/ Longmeadow Municipal Light Plant (MLP) is proposing that the Longmeadow Fiber Network will be developed, maintained and operated by the South Hadley Electric Light Department (SHELD).  At the present time there is an Inter Governmental Agreement in place with many details missing from public view.  The South Hadley Electric Light Department- SHELD is a public utility and it is owned by the Town of South Hadley

 

Has the Select Board or the MLP (still to be appointed pending a charter change to the Longmeadow Town Charter at the MA State Legislature) considered the implications of  doing business with SHELD given the Town of South Hadley's financial difficulties?

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Heating oil, gasoline, mortgage interest rates and groceries are all rising. Food banks are turning the needy away, and the chief investment strategist at the country’s second-largest bank has warned that 2026 market conditions and asset performance bear an “ominously close” resemblance to the 2007–2008 financial crisis.

So how are South Hadley’s leaders responding? They’re asking its 8,000 taxpayers to increase spending:

• A $9 million or $11 million tax increase (in addition to the annual 2.5% increases state law already allows).

• A new $36.5 million building for the municipal light company (SHELD).

• $47.2 million in Wastewater Treatment Plant updates.

• $49.6 million (the 40% that won’t be reimbursed by the state) for a new elementary school.

These proposals are being supported by well-organized efforts that dismiss the affordability fears of many lower-income homeowners. Take South Hadley’s school district. It serves approximately 1,644 students, costs over $25 million annually and the yearly deficit is projected to total $3.2 million by FY 2030.

But activists contend we need a $9 million or $11 million taxation override to “save our schools.”

Another special interest group is the town’s 652 employees who want to protect their jobs and/or health care insurance.

Other municipalities are negotiating with their most profitable tax exempt organizations to make payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs), but not South Hadley. Remarkably, if the town’s largest tax-exempt property owner paid the $2.8 million assessed annually on its properties, no override would be necessary. Sadly, the town’s leadership would rather make homeowners choose between taxes, food, heat and medicine.

Two years ago, the town’s Planning Department was promoting a Housing Production Plan based on its finding that South Hadley is unaffordable. It’s unclear how the town’s spending spree will cure that problem.

However, the planners are now pushing a new bylaw to allow property owners to raise “goats or pigs, or other meat animals for your family.”

Residents can visit the town’s website and calculate the override expense for their address. If you can’t afford the new tax, which doesn’t include the existing 2.5 % increase or the fire district tax, vote no overrides on April 14. 

Denise Presley, South Hadley