Selectmen, Town Administrator and Sewer Department:

from the 2009 financial review from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue:

Centralize the Collection of Taxes, Fees and Other Charges As a matter of sound financial management practice, those responsible for determining payments due the town should not also be charged with collecting those payments. Therefore, we recommend that officials separate responsibility for creating the commitment that authorizes the collection of taxes, fees or other charges due the municipality from the collection function. Presently, the light & water plant and sewer department create a commitment, and, at the same time, are responsible for receiving payments. This approach may require that personnel currently operating elsewhere be reallocated to the collector’s office in order to process the additional customer volume.

Note: No mention of billing, only collecting!


from 2010 Independent Audit report from Melanson Heath & Company:

Improve segregation of duties in Sewer department

The Sewer Dept. is now responsible for collecting customer receipts. Because of the small size of the dept., one clerk is responsible for performing all aspects of customer billing, collections, receipt postings, abatement/adjustment postings, and reconciliations to the Town's general ledger. This results in a lack of segregation of duties and increases the risk of errors or irregularities occurring and going undetected.

We recommend the Town segregate duties by transferring collection responsibilities to the Tax Collector's office. We also recommend the Sewer Dept.'s detail sewer receivables continue to be reconciled with the Town Accountant's general ledger, and that this reconciliation be documented on a form signed by both the Sewer clerk and Town accountant. This will result in an improved segregation of duties and improved documented oversight.

Note: No mention of billing.

Board of Selectmen meeting of April 2, 2018:

Selectmen Brooks asks if the sewer dept. quarterly bill collections were moved to the town collectors office, can the sewer department enterprise fund be billed for that work and could those dollars help the town's general fund budget. Could the current town hall staff handle the additional work?

Selectmen Caplis stated yes to charging sewer dept. enterprise fund for work, yes to those dollars helping town general fund and no to could the current staff handle the extra work.

Town Administrator Terenzini stated he disagreed with selectmen Caplis on staff levels.

Note: This was about moving collections to the collectors office. One other question was regarding to any possible savings to sewer users. Nothing about billing.


On first look, this seems to point out that selectmen do not have control of Sewer dept. and neither does the Town Administrator. If they did, this move would surely have already been completed. There is an elected entity of Sewer Commissioners. Since one of the impasses seem to be concerning pay raises for non-union sewer dept. employees, that do not come from taxation, but rather an enterprise fund, where all costs are paid for from fees, it seems like selectmen should instruct the Town Administrator and town accountant to process and allow these raises to be made and then some progress could be made on the collection front.

The only item involved is moving of collections of quarterly sewer billing to the Town Treasurer/Collector office. There appears no need for any employee reductions at the Sewer dept., nor any other control over sewer issues by the selectmen or town administrator. The retained earnings of the Sewer dept. and Sewer betterment are not funds to be raided by the selectmen to bolster the Town general fund expenditure items. But as selectmen Brooks stated, or asked, can these monies help the general fund budget? It is the money the selectmen are after, not efficiency, not a financial report, not an audit report, just more money.

from a time long long ago: oops

from minutes of 10/11/2016 - board of selectmen

Present: John Caplis, Diane Brooks, Doug Morrison, John Columbus as well as Carter Terenzini/town administrator

h) Action RE: Codification of Ordinances~ Ms. Haley Brooks made a motion to move forward with the codification of the bylaws with Unicode and authorize the Chairman of the Board to sign the contract. Mr. Morrison seconded the motion. The vote was 4 yes.



from minutes of  11/14/2016 - board of selectmen

Present: John Caplis, Diane Brooks, Doug Morrison, John Columbus , Julie Richard as well as Carter Terenzini/town administrator.

3. Minutes ~ Ms. Haley Brooks made a motion to approve the minutes of 10.11.16. Ms. Richard seconded the motion. The vote was 5 yes. Ms. Haley Brooks made a motion to approve the minutes of 10.24.16. Ms. Richard seconded the motion. The vote was 5 yes.


When questioned, Town Administrator Carter Terenzini responded as:

1. Yes; In error, Ms. Haley Brooks motioned for Unicode and no-one caught it at the time.  However, the paperwork forming the submission was for General Code;

So, the selectmen voted to have a contract signed by the chairman of the board of selectmen with unicode, but the chair signed a contract with a different firm. Since that is not what the board voted on, is that contract valid? Town Administrator is the chief procurement officer for Templeton.

Well, who knows, the selectmen still maintain they were correct in asking for money to buy a dump body for a 1984 Mack ten wheeler and then said they thought it best to buy a new dump truck with, ignoring a town meeting vote. Again, stop trying to manage the Advisory Committee and the Sewer department and get your house in order. Read and discuss, check what you are voting on and more importantly, do the right thing.

Watched the January 9, 2019 board of selectmen meeting. 

Online documents show a transfer from intergovernmental to various departments.

shown sub-fund number for intergovernmental as 120-000-51-5600-0000. However, if you checked the expenditure report, you would find the sub-fund number is 120-000-56-5600-0000. You would also find that the town meeting article giving  authority or the funds to do this transfer is listed as article 18 of the May 2018 annual town meeting. That article created the stabilization fund within the sewer department. It was actually article 21 where these funds were appropriated. In stating you are being transparent, the information needs to be correct. Perhaps less time spent trying to manage the Advisory Committee and more time spent, discussing, checking facts and ensuring the information put forth is correct and honest would be time well spent.

from the town administrator weekly report:

*protective services = full time ambulance employees.

Assessor: This week brings us back to a full work week and somewhat back to “normal”. Office traffic and phone calls have been steady with inquiries regarding the tax rate and property valuations on the recent 3rd & 4th quarter tax bill mailings. Residents are being reminded that the 3rd & 4th quarter bills not only show this increase, but they also make up for what was not assessed on the 1st & 2nd quarters. The reason for the tax increase was for the override funding protective services. Valuation increases are due to sales in town beyond asking prices during the calendar year 2017. This has been the trend for the last two years and you will most likely see this continue with increasing sale prices and the new school and police debt to be coming on the tax roll when the town goes out to borrow. Residents who have not filed for an exemption for FY19 still have time to file before March 31st and when approved, will be reflected on the 4th quarter tax bills. Applications must be filed yearly. Any residents applying for an abatement will need to get an application from the Assessor office and return it with proper documentation no later than February 4th. I have been sketching and adding information on property record cards for new construction with supplemental bills going out shortly for these. Field work done late last summer, and fall is also being recorded to property cards. Board of Assessors held their monthly meeting on Tuesday and follow-up work was done. FY2020 budget was discussed and the Board expressed concerns that will be addressed with the Town Administrator. I have been working with Vision to closeout values for FY2019. I attended the department head meeting Thursday morning and met with Carter to review FY2020 budget requests.

Your property increased in value and so your tax bill might also increase.

FITCHBURG – Lamenting their districts’ inability to keep up with mounting financial obligations, representatives from nearly a dozen school districts in the region at a public forum Tuesday night called on the state to finally overhaul its public education funding formula for the first time in 25 years.

About 100 people were in the audience for the event, which was one of three such public forums the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents organized across the state Tuesday night in an effort to bring attention to school systems’ campaign for more education aid. School officials at the Fitchburg forum said a couple more events will be held during this budget season as well.

Hosted at Fitchburg State University, Tuesday’s Central Massachusetts forum drew school administrators and school committee members from the Worcester, Fitchburg, Leominster, Gardner, Clinton, Framingham, Lunenberg, Winchendon, Ayer-Shirley, and Ashburnham-Westminster school systems.

Part of the novelty of the event, some officials pointed out, is that it’s not often such a disparate collection of towns and cities come together united on a single issue.

“It takes a while for everybody to get on the same page,” said Leominster Mayor Dean Mazzarella. But in the case of public school funding, he added, “if your community isn’t impacted yet, it will be.”

In the case of the assembled communities at the Fitchburg forum, the inadequacy of the state’s current foundation formula – the system that determines what each district should be spending to operate – has already led to hard choices, officials said. Gardner Superintendent Mark Pellegrino, for instance, said it was only the mayor’s dive into the city’s stabilization funds this year that allowed the district to avoid a major deficit – a move that only “put off the inevitable,” he added, once that $600,000 shortfall re-emerges in the district’s next fiscal budget.

“We’re moving money around to do the best we can with the little that we have,” he said.

But many school systems “are now at a breaking point,” said Leominster Superintendent Paula Deacon, who described her district’s current predicament as “reverse Robin Hood syndrome ... who are we going to take from this year” in one part of the budget to fund one of the other parts?

Tuesday’s forum focused specifically on the foundation formula’s under-calculation of the cost districts currently incur to provide health insurance and offer special education services – two of the four key areas in the foundation formula a special state commission recommended updating in 2015. According to a presentation put together by Brian Allen, the Worcester schools’ chief financial and operations officer, the districts represented in Fitchburg – subtracting Ashburnham-Westminster and replacing it with Webster – combined spent $174 million above what the foundation formula says they should have spent in fiscal 2017 on those two categories.

That gap existed even after many of those districts changed their employees’ health benefits, putting more of the cost burden on the plan-holders, as well as created new special education programming to cut down on the number of students having to be placed in expensive out-of-district programs.

“There’s really nowhere to go from here,” Worcester Superintendent Maureen Binienda said.

By fully implementing the 2015 recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission, however, Mr. Allen said the 10 districts together would receive $117 million in additional annual state aid.

The problem in recent years, however, has been organizing the political will to commit to that much additional spending, which statewide would amount to more than $1 billion in new aid for public schools. But while the Legislature’s latest effort to come up with a comprehensive bill fell short at the session deadline this past summer, lawmakers at Tuesday’s forum said they are hopeful they can finally reach an agreement this year.

“I’m optimistic this time around we’ll have enough time to pass something ... and I’m hoping that something is 100 percent funded,” said state Sen. Dean Tran, R-Fitchburg, who mentioned lawmakers plan to unveil their newest legislation on the foundation formula, called the Promise Act, Wednesday.

In the meantime, school officials called on the audience, which included other elected officials, teachers and parents, to continue to put pressure on their local lawmakers to support the effort to revamp the school aid formula.

Two local communities that have turned to accounting services rather than a town employee.
This demonstrates a move (s) to save tax dollars, provide same service and cut down on future taxpayer funding obligations; retirement and health insurance - OPEB. It may have impact on other future costs such as unemployment insurance rates and workers comp. costs.

Ashburnham, MA - current tax rate of $22.55 per thousand (from tax recap sheet - fy2019)

Accounting service costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$54,000.00
Audit costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $18,000.00
MA municipal accounting dues . . . . . . . . . . . .  .  $     200.00
Office supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$     500.00
Business travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  ..  .  . $     750.00


Hubbardston, MA - current tax rate of $15.22 per thousand (from tax recap sheet - fy2019)

Accounting service costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$42,000.00
Audit costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $19,000.00
Office supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$     200.00

Templeton has a town employee as an accountant.

Templeton, MA - current tax rate of $17.24 per thousand (from tax recap sheet - fy2019)

Accountant salary costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $68,414.00
assistant accountant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $17,813.00
employee support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..  $  2,500.00
Audit costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $28,000.00
Office supplies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$     500.00

*employee support includes MA municipal accounting dues, business travel, etc.

While this only demonstrates one department, it does show that doing business in a different way or taking another approach, it may be possible to provide same service without a tax increase and without cutting service. This differs from the current philosophy or commentary currently coming from the Templeton selectmen office, which has been so far "either we increase taxes or we cut services." It really comes down to how high do taxes have to get before towns people ask the question; is there a different way to do things?


The above information takes some time to find, but it can be checked out.

There are other options other than raise taxes or cut services;
Do business in a different way.

from town website of Ashburnham, MA:
procurement - bid
FY18-04- Accounting Services
Available date: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 @ 11am
Opening date: NEW DUE DATE - Monday, March 12th @ 4pm--- due to inclement weather on 8th
Thursday, March 8, 2018 @ 4pm