The City Council passed the Fiscal Year 2025 budget last night, with little pushback following Manager Tom Golden’s last minute adjustments reducing the proposed trash fee increase by making $1.7-million in cuts across all departments.

After some back and forth about specific line items and a few efforts to snip additional money from the budget, the final vote was 10-1. The surprise was who the one turned out to be.

Councilor Wayne Jenness, who wasn’t among the most vociferous questioners of the proposed expenditures during the meeting, surprisingly ended up voting against a budget he didn’t overtly seem to have too much objection to during the meeting.

The “No” even led to speculation Jenness accidentally cast his vote that way, perhaps getting confused over what was being voted on given there were other points during the special meeting where councilors had to ask for clarification on what was being voted on at the time.

Contacted this morning, the District 4 Councilor made it clear his vote was “absolutely not accidental.” Asked what led to his negative stamp on the budget, Jenness told InsideLowell it was mainly over “process.”

“Getting the cuts at 4:00pm didn’t give anyone enough time to understand them,” Jenness said. “I voted no on Erik’s (Gitschier) motion to continue the hearing until Saturday because I didn’t think that would be fair to the department heads and the public. I figured it was going to pass anyway, so it was an opportunity to say “I don’t love how this all went down.” If my vote had been needed to pass it, I would have changed it.”

The budget and the last minute alterations will be delved into in more detail when City Manager Golden joins us for an InsideView podcast Thursday.