Chelsea council approves en bloc free-cash appropriations to cover FY deficits (8–0 vote)

On May 4 the Chelsea City Council approved two combined orders appropriating free cash to cover fiscal-year deficits in salary and operating accounts.

The orders included line-item transfers to cover police overtime ($105,000), fire overtime ($406,000), emergency management overtime ($135,000), DPW streets and sidewalks overtime ($40,000), DPW snow-removal contracts ($787,296) and salt ($162,358), DPW solid-waste disposal ($75,000), employee benefits lines (health insurance $80,000; Medicare $46,000; unemployment $40,000), and other departmental lines. The clerk read the full list of account-level appropriations during the second-reading item.

City Manager summarized that unusually heavy snow and related overtime drove several of the deficits and described the orders as the year-end wrap-up of forecasted deficits. The council conducted a roll-call vote as requested; the clerk reported: “With 8 members voting in favor, 0 opposed, 3 absent. Orders en bloc have been approved.”

The approvals allocate certified free cash to close identified gaps; they do not represent policy changes beyond funding the current-year shortfalls.