Town Meeting and the Advisory Committee.

from the Association of Town Finance Committees handbook, which there is a link to on Templeton webpage under advisory committee.

With in that handbook is stated "Without finance committee independent review, the town meeting would be at a severe handicap in voting on financial matters when all of the recommendations are coming from one source.

Within that handbook, it also states: This does not mean the finance committee should

have an adversarial relationship with the select board

or town administrator. In fact, the finance committee

should develop a good working relationship with both.

At the end of the day, the job of the advisory committee is to look at the town budget and all other articles that relate to money and to give Town Meeting reasons to vote in favor of or reasons to vote no or even to pass on an article (s). To me, this requires more than yes or no and as our town bylaws state, it shall be in writing, a report to town meeting. Yes or no in a document prepared by town administrator, who does the work for the selectmen is not a report nor does it appear independent. Fiscal year 24 advisory budget shows $760.00 for office supplies, surely enough money to cover cost of producing a written report as directed by town meeting per town bylaws. Until that is done several years in a row, no pay for you!

 Let us talk Town Meeting in Templeton.

Our by-laws state Town Meeting times is our guidebook for the meeting.

Articles, page 67: Since the purpose of a warrant is to apprise the voters of the subject matter to be considered at the meeting, all that is necessary is for the article to include a sufficient description of the subject matter to provide the voters with substantial and intelligent notice of the nature of the business to be acted upon. The article need not contain details or "an accurate forecast of the precise action which the meeting will take."

On amending main motions: page 96, "The moderator must maintain a careful record of the motions that are pending and put them to a vote in the proper order. Action must be taken on every motion. A common fault is the failure to put a main motion to a vote after action on a hotly-debated motion to amend when it is clear that the only real question is whether the meeting desires the original or the amended form. The main motion, however must be put to a vote whether amended or not.

So, if a motion is before town meeting including a dollar figure and an amendment is proposed to change the dollar amount, either up or down, once that amendment on the dollar figure is voted on, then the original or main motion with the new dollar amount in place must be voted on. Just so there is no confusion on that in case this comes up at the next annual town meeting.

Again, this information comes from Town Meeting Times, which is the town's official guidebook for our town meeting.