Arlington Finance Committee Approves Dozen DPW Budgets, Flags $426,000 Health Insurance Gap

ARLINGTON — March 23, 2026 — Arlington Finance Committee approved more than a dozen Department of Public Works budgets Monday and began — but did not finish — a health insurance review revealing a roughly $426,000 projected deficit for the current fiscal year. The committee approved IT, natural resources, highway, snow and ice, solid waste, curbside collection, motor equipment, cemetery, street lighting, traffic signals, facilities, parking, and Disability Commission budgets in a single session, with totals ranging from a $14,067 Disability Commission appropriation to a $5.39 million combined solid waste and curbside collection package. A data migration error discovered last August — in which one health insurance plan covering 17 employees was not exported during the budget build — accounts for roughly $480,000 of the insurance deficit alone, with additional shortfalls from higher-than-projected enrollment and unemployment claims. The recycling budget also surfaced a structural shift: under the town's new Waste Management contract, Arlington now pays a $480,000 annual recycling processing fee that did not exist in the prior budget, roughly 70 percent above the per-ton cost anticipated at bidding, though the town's contamination rate has dropped to 3 percent. Persistent vacancies in Motor Equipment Operator positions — spanning natural resources, highway, and cemetery departments — prompted the committee to request a formal multi-year vacancy matrix from the Human Resources department. The health insurance budget vote was continued to Wednesday.