HANSON – The warrant article for the June 17 special Town Meeting was reviewed by Select Board on Tuesday, May 28, but no vote has been taken as of yet due to questions over the clarity of syntax and the need for Finance Committee’s recommendation.
Finance Committee was also meeting on May 28 and Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett said by next meeting the Select Board will have that committee’s well-thought-out cuts.
The Select Board plans to meet again at 7 p.m., Friday, May 30 once the articles are revised and clarified, with a tentative fallback time set for 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 31, if needed. The Town Meeting Article must be posted by June 1.
“Basically, what we are doing is we are having a special Town Meeting to vote the budget with the school assessment minus an override question,” Town Administrator Lisa Green said. “The budget that’s going to be presented will show approximately $372,141 in budget cuts, with the numbers they will be getting. The Finance Committee is meeting this evening to discuss those.”
The initial language of Article 1, as drafted by Town Counsel Kate Feodoroff asks the town to vote in Town Meeting whether it should “rescind its approval of the town budget under Article 5 of the May 6, 2024 annual Town Meeting and to determine what sums of money town will raise and appropriate by taxation, transfer from free cash, transfer from town ambulance funds, Water Department revenue, water surplus, the Title V special revenue fund, MWAT loan repayment receipts reserved for appropriation, Conservation Notice of Intent fund, overlay surplus and unbalanced reserve for reduction of future excluded debt to defray charges and expenses of the town.”
Those expenses include payment of debt and interest while providing for a reserve fund for fiscal year 2025.
Feodoroff’s original text of the Article 1 explanation reads that on May 6, the town approved the “FY 2025 annual omnibus budget in Article 6, and disapproved the contingent appropriation for the W-H regional school district.
“The disapproval of Article 6 resulted in the rejection of the budget as assessed by the district,” Feodoroff wrote. “The original budget request was $14,974,735; but $14,602,595 was approved at Town Meeting and the contingent appropriation of $372,141 failed.”
The School Committee then met and revoted to resubmit the school assessment of $14,974,735 “for this town meeting’s consideration,” the explanation continued. “The purpose of this article is to present and deliberate upon the district’s reassessment and determine whether to approve:
- A reduced budget for the W-H regional school district as previously approved which would be sent to the School Committee, which would determine whether to accept the reduced amount or reject it, forcing a district-wide meeting;
- Approve the full school assessment with reduced services in the town’s budget; or
- Approve such other budget as may be deliberated upon by Town Meeting.
“I don’t want people to need a decoder ring to make it through this explanation, FitzGerald-Kemmett said, suggesting that it be edited by making bullet points of the options “so it reads, ‘here’s a choice, here’s a choice, here’s a choice.’”
She argued that would make things more apparent.
Board Clerk Ed Heal said the “decoder ring” issue for him was in the main text of the article where it said the original budget was approved, “but then, they came back with the same number,” he said.
“It’s not the same number,” Rein said.
“It’s not crystal clear, the way it’s written,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “Why are we using the words ‘omnibus budget?’ Does anybody even know what the hell that means? I’m not saying I don’t know what the word omnibus means, I’m saying it just adds extraneous words that don’t need to be there.”
After discussing the vocabulary used the Board composed a more direct way of explaining the article for submission to Town Counsel for approval.
“This is where I think it jumps the track,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said about the original legal syntax of the article. “Can we just say ‘did not approve the contingent appropriation?”
“It’s not wrong, it’s convoluted,” Vice Chair Ann Rein said. “It’s too wordy.”
“You’re all in the know, you pay more attention to this than the 300-plus people that are going to show up [for Town Meeting], said Board member Joe Weeks. “The more information and the more [direct] you could make the language, the more you’re going to have informed voters.”
Heal suggested that the language make clear the difference, making clear that the $372,141 is the difference between what was requested and what was voted upon.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the board has consistently outlined the difference between what was described and what was requested and what we appropriated.
FitzGerald-Kemmett wanted to try a different approach providing more clarification of the articles.
“We need it to be clear,” she said.
The final language the board worked out for town counsel approval reads: that “on May 6, the town approved the annual budget and did not appropriate the contingent appropriation for the W-H Regional School District. The disapproval of Article 6 resulted in the rejection of the budget as assessed by the district. … The original budget request was $14,974,735; but $14,602,595 was approved at Town Meeting and the contingent appropriation of $372,141 failed. (The contingent appropriation ‘the delta’) between the School District and municipal budgets.”
The Town Meeting options here are: - A reduced budget for the W-H Regional School District as previously approved;
- To present and deliberate on the district’s reassessment and to determine whether to approve it;
Appropriate a full schools assessment amount with reduced services in the town budget; or
Approve such other business could be deliberated on Town Meeting floor.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said even that language seems to be contradicting ourselves, because we say that we approved the [municipal] budget in Article 6 and disapproved a contingent appropriation, but in the next sentence talks about, the disapproval of Article 6.
“It’s like, pick a lane,” she said. The two lanes should be Article 1, tied to an explanation in Article 2 is no change, the budget is the one passed May 6.
Heal and Weeks suggested the contingent appropriation was Article 7 of the May Town Meeting.
In the June 17 warrant.
“I really want to go into this meeting without using ‘lawyer speak’ to pull something over on people,” Weeks said, noting the three possible outcomes if the budget passes. “Which of the possible outcomes are we going to get? Heal asked if each of the options would be voted on.
“We are absolutely trying to avoid making cuts from the floor,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “We want to be thoughtful about what the cuts are. We don’t want to be flying by the seat of our pants and cut the Veterans Agent or some other crazy thing that we haven’t all thought about and [asked ourselves] what are the ramifications?”
The Finance Committee’s meeting that night was for just that thought as they advise the Select Board on cuts and the Town Accountant is also going through that process with the aim of those recommendations reviewed by the Select Board Thursday or Friday, May 30 or 31.
“Ideally, we’ll align, but we may not,” she said, adding the Town Meeting will have two choices in the end:
A budget with no cuts – in essence, another “no” back to the school district; or
Not saying no, but saying yes to the budget by making cuts in services and other budget line items.
“Those will be presented side-by-side, just like we presented the line budget at Town Meeting, we’ll have a line budget for this, which will show where we’re cutting,” she said.
A third option is because someone could stand up at Town Meeting and cut things the board had not anticipated or planned to cut.
“If we vote yes on Article one, what happens,” Weeks asked. “The explanation is supposed to tell me what happens, but it’s not. It’s giving me every single option under the sun, which is obvious… If I was the casual or semi-casual [resident] coming to Town Meeting, knowing this is something I’m passionate about and wanting to know exactly what I’m voting for … Even me reading this right now I don’t know what I’m going to explain to people.”
In unison, Heal and Weeks suggested that, instead of a list of options for cuts, it be presented as “a yes vote means this and a no vote means this.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett instead suggested that it be presented as two articles, with Article 1 carrying the explanation “we’re not going to rescind anything” but rather the choice should be to approve the school assessment with reduced services in the town budget.
Article one is the explanation, and if Article 2 is rejected, it would lead to article 3 to the information of where the cuts will be made, Weeks suggested.
“… You have to arm people, in a very specific way,” he said.