Removing Disorderly Persons:

 State law does permit a presiding officer to order a person to leave a public meeting for unruly conduct and, if he or she does not leave, to order a constable or other officer to remove the person from the meeting [G.L. c. 30A, §20(f)]. While it may be tempting to do this at times, it is best not to, except under the most dire circumstances, and then only in consultation with legal counsel. Ordering someone removed from a meeting is fraught with the danger of a costly lawsuit and rarely worth the risk. There are several alternative steps a board can take rather than removing someone.

 The best is to take a recess. Rarely after a recess does the person continue his or her unruly behavior. Or, a police officer can be called in to speak to the person about being disruptive, which usually has the effect of restoring calm. When all else fails, the board should consider adjourning the meeting to another date. While a board may not want to appear to have backed down due to someone’s conduct, the wiser path is to avoid a controversy.

The above is from the pages of the newest edition of the Handbook for Selectmen. I think they should all read it, especially John Columbus.

Jeff Bennett

In hopes of showing how things can workout in municipal government with regards to taxes;

the following email may shed some light and perhaps lead to a question or two.

Date: January 5, 2016 at 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: a few questions

All -

In an attempt to coordinate the work the Abrahams accounting firm and our auditors, I asked Mark Abrahams to set up a conference call with Matthew Hunt, CPA, of Clifton Larson Allen, our auditors.  During that call, the auditors informed us that they will require not only an accurate general ledger but also subsidiary ledgers for revenue and expenditures.  What this means, for example, is that instead of providing an accurate accounting of the total of motor vehicle taxes collected in FY'2013, we are also being required to provide a subsidiary revenue ledger with all accruals of motor vehicle taxes during the fiscal year.  This is requiring more work and is consuming more time.  A similar subsidiary ledger is being required for expenditures.  

At this point, the auditors are coming to the Town offices at the end of this month, and we expect that they can begin the audit for Fiscal '13.  The Abrahams group has one person working daily in the Accounting office and one person working 1-2 days per week.  The FY'13 cash book is complete, and work begins today on the FY'14 cash book.

Regarding taxes, there are two reasons for the $0,17 rate reduction: 

 1) There was $99,000 in new growth;

 2) the MSBA reimbursement of $175,000 was used to reduce the amount of debt service on the second $500,000 for elementary school design instead of going to the general fund and becoming free cash.  This was required by the DOR Springfield Office.  

So, if we have lower new growth than the previous year and without an MSBA reimbursement to reduce the debt load, what will happen when setting the next tax rate set?

I also have to question the MSBA item because if I remember correctly, we had a special town meeting in MArch 2016, and this email date is January 2016. Up until the March meeting, the $500,000.00 was on paper borrowed by the school district. Yep, there is still alot of shuffing going on in ole Templeton with regards to money.

Jeff Bennett