Lets ruffle the selectmen feathers;

The Department of Revenue (DOR) division of local services puts out many publications to aid local officials with regards to municipal finance. One of them is a municipal calendar and within said calendar, it has listed that  December 31 is the timeline when the board of selectmen should begin to finalize budget recommendation for review by Finance Committee (Advisory Board)

February 28; Finance Committee continue budget review and develop recommendations.

That is pretty hard to do with the selectmen telling people they appoint not to meet with the Advisory Board. Pretty safe to say this BOS do not want any checks n balances in place.

Templeton Town by-laws, article IV (4)  Advisory Committee, section 5 states:

In the discharge of its duty, said committee shall have free access to all books of record and accounts, bills and vouchers on which money has been or may be paid from the Town treasury. Officers, boards and committees of the Town shall, upon request, furnish said committee with facts, figures and any other information pertaining to their several activities.

Included within the draft 2017 Templeton budget is an item of interest, a $47,000.00 salary figure for an assistant town administrator, Holly. Could that be Holly Young, current secretary in the BOS office and perhaps this is why she was sent to training for MSBA paper work.

Perhaps what is needed is one selectman with some moxie to speak up on some of these issues and to ask why at a selectmen meeting.

Some sunlight is clearly needed down at that office.

Speaking of sunshine, it was stated at last nights Advisory Board meeting that the secretary from the highway department went to MSBA training as well so i hope the Treasurer has been as well. 

Jeff Bennett

Templeton Finances may not be rosey

Templeton Town by-laws, article IV (4)  Advisory Committee, section 5 states:

In the discharge of its duty, said committee shall have free access to all books of record and accounts, bills and vouchers on which money has been or may be paid from the Town treasury. Officers, boards and committees of the Town shall, upon request, furnish said committee with facts, figures and any other information pertaining to their several activities.

Apparently the Town Administrator and selectmen do not feel like following this by-law.

An email sent to the chairman of the Advisory Board from the Town Administrator seems to reinforce my thought. As well as my other thought that the Town Administrator is trying to manage the Advisory Board and even circumvent it.

Within the email is the following;

All;  I received a copy of the Advisory Boards schedule for reviewing budgets from department heads. Some members of the select board and I feel that this effort is premature.
One comment from a member of the BOS stated "I believe it is inappropriate for them to put out a schedule when we as the selectmen may not have even met with any of them yet or asked to meet with them. This makes it really confusing and some of the department heads are very upset that they're even being asked to attend or just given a date for a meeting."

The email further states we are not holding up the budget process. Rather, we cannot make sensible decisions about spending for fiscal 2017 until we get important information about insurance costs and assessments for the schools. I did get a quote for general insurance on Monday and am hoping to have the health insurance number by mid month. We await the assessments from NRSD and Monty Tech.

Accordingly, I am recommending to the department heads that they postpone any meetings with the Advisory Board until the selectmen have finalized their budget request to the Town meeting for fiscal 2017.

So the Advisory Board is tying to follow Town bylaws as well as do their duty and the selectmen and Town Administrator apparently wish to have no part of it.

written and posted by Jeff Bennett