Budget process by way of the Selectmen Handbook:
Legal Requirements:

 To meet the minimum legal requirements for approving a budget, town meeting must vote appropriations for salaries and wages and for expenses of each town department. In addition, town meeting must vote each year to approve the salaries for elected officials. In some instances, town bylaws may prescribe specific aggregations of line items for appropriation purposes. More typically, there is no such stipulation, and a town may adopt any degree of itemization within its budget to achieve expenditure control and management flexibility. Regardless of the details of each appropriation, town meeting must approve any transfers of funds between separate appropriations [G.L. c. 44, §33B] for all departments, except the town’s school appropriation. If town meeting appropriates a sum for a reserve fund, then the finance committee may transfer funds from this reserve to specific departments within statutory limitations.


posted by Jeff bennett