Saturday, August 23, 2025

 Templeton town meeting votes a single dollar amount for each department, it is up to department heads to spend those dollars wisely. If town meeting wants more control, they would have to vote in a line item budget, which would require amending previous town meeting votes, changing a few policies and in the end, could cost money if there were an increase in special town meetings to transfer money around. Always the details that drive the train.

Friday, August 15, 2025

 Survey question; town bylaw / policy - no charge for public records. Yes or no?

Paper, ink, computers, printers, copiers, people producing or getting the information are already all paid for, no reason to pay twice.
What is the cost for copies of public records; what about electronic records?
Absent a specifically identified statute or regulation, an RAO may charge no more than $0.05 per page for single and double-sided black and white paper copies or computer printouts. There is no longer a separate charge for police or fire reports, or for computer printouts.
The Public Records Law and its Regulations apply to all Massachusetts government records, regardless of form, and regardless of the location of the
records.
Provision of public records in electronic form is preferred where available. An RAO is not permitted to assess a copying fee for electronic records. The $0.05 fee applies only to paper copies of records.
Public records that are of great interest to a large number of people must be readily available within the office of the RAO and should be provided at a minimum cost, if any. Examples include minutes of board meetings, town meeting documents, warrants, street lists and municipal financial documents.
Many of these records are required to be placed on the RAO’s website.
An RAO may charge and recover a fee for the time spent searching, redacting, photocopying and refiling a record.
Municipalities with a population of 20,000 and under are permitted to charge
for the first two hours of time spent searching for, compiling, segregating, redacting and reproducing a requested record.
The hourly rate may not be greater than the prorated hourly wage of the lowest paid employee who is capable of performing the task. Generally, an RAO is not permitted to charge an hourly rate in excess of $25.00 per hour to search for records. Municipal RAOs may petition the Supervisor for permission to charge a fee in excess of $25.00.

Saturday, August 9, 2025

 The overlay is raised bthe assessors in thannual tax levas a reservfoabatements and exemptions.  MGL c. 59, secs. 2325 an 70ACurrently, there is a separate overlay reserve accounfoeach fiscayear to coveproperty taabatements anexemptiongranted bthassessors or ordered bthe Appellate TaBoard for just thafiscal year.

The Municipal Modernization Act creates a single overlay reserve to cover the costs opotentiaabatements or exemptiongrantebthe assessors or ordered bthe Appellate TaBoard for anfiscal year. With a single overlay reservemunicipalitiemanoavoid deficits which formerloccurrewheamounts abateoexempteexceeded thbalance in thoverlaaccount for thaparticular year. The single overlay takeeffecon November 7, 2016No locaaction is neededAothadate, all balances in all overlaaccounts wilbmerged into a single overlaaccount, thbalancfowhich mabe chargefoabatements or exemptiongrantefoanfiscal year. Locaassessors, however, will stilneed to review, apart of each yearbudgeand tax rate process, whetheaadditionaamounneeds to be raisethayear foaddition tthe single overlaaccount.



DOR Code
Municipality
Fiscal Year
Overlay Appropriation
Total Levy
Overlay as a % of Total Levy
294
Templeton
2021
313,292
12,276,184
2.55%
294
Templeton
2022
234,466
12,740,880
1.84%
294
Templeton
2023
225,774
12,935,986
1.75%
294
Templeton
2024
143,641
13,526,437
1.06%
294
Templeton
2025
140,749
14,086,053
1.00%

Friday, August 8, 2025

 Town meeting hypothetical article;

Yes or No?
To see if the town will vote to amend prior article, senior tax work off program.
To see if the Town will vote to amend Article 4 of the May 13, 2017, Annual Town Meeting, as shown below:
from “The Senior Tax Work-Off Program, for taxpayers over 60 years of age, shall provide a maximum abatement of Five-Hundred Dollars ($500.00) for each participant earned at an hourly rate as the Board of Selectmen shall, from time to time, set as the minimum wage of the Town in compliance with statute; said abatement(s) to be paid from the Assessor’s Overlay account.”
To “The Senior Tax Work-Off Program, for taxpayers over 60 years of age, shall provide a maximum abatement set by the select board, per M.G.L. c 59, section 5K, in consultation with council on aging, for each participant, earned at an hourly rate set as the minimum wage of the Town in compliance with statute; said abatement(s) to be paid from the Assessor’s Overlay account.”

There is over $700,000.00 in the overlay fund (and it was explained to the SB that it is planned to add $130,000.00 more to the overlay fund) now, as a senior and a member of the board, I would be in favor of an amount of not less than $1500.00 per senior, with work assigned by SB/council on aging. There are many things seniors can/could do, the list is long, and there are seniors in Templeton who are more than capable of helping the town out as well as themselves. Consider this as an unofficial survey.

 BARRE — Voters in Barre handily rejected a proposed $540,000 Proposition 2½ override in a townwide election Tuesday, Aug. 5.

According to unofficial results the town posted online, the measure failed 798-154.

There were 952 ballots cast, which represents about a fifth of the town’s 4,369 registered voters.

The vote, which town officials said would lead to cuts in services including the police, comes after Town Meeting voters in June, by a 133-67 vote, approved the expenditures that would have flowed from a “yes” vote.

The Telegram & Gazette has reached out to members of the town’s three-person Board of Selectmen for comment.

At Town Meeting, officials said the override, which would have raised property taxes by $255 a year on the median $359,000 home in town, was needed to avoid cuts in services.

The town’s police chief, James Sabourin — who was recently appointed interim town administrator — said the cuts would amount to an 11% decrease in his budget; the fire chief told residents he expected the town to lose its fire inspector.

Sabourin told the T&G Aug. 6 that he expects the cuts to lead to the loss of the town’s school resource officer, as well as about a $17,000 cut from his overtime budget.

That will hinder the ability to backfill shifts should officers be out sick or on vacation, he said, and may lead to situations in which the department only has one officer on at times overnight.

Monday, July 28, 2025

 The Montachusett Veterans Outreach Center has launched a new website, making it easier for veterans to access services, according to a community announcement.

The Barre Savings Charitable Foundation provided funding for the website, which was developed by Gardner-based InConcert Web Solutions. The site is now fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and accessible via computer, tablet and phone. It also features an active veterans event calendar, downloadable housing applications and easily navigable service pages.

The MVOC has served homeless and high-risk veterans throughout North Central Massachusetts for over 40 years. Its previous website had remained unchanged for over a decade due to funding restrictions and capacity restraints.

Saturday, July 26, 2025

 The State Ethics Commission has issued a formal advisory opinion that explains how the state’s conflict-of-interest law (Ch. 268A) applies to municipal employees who solicit donations or engage in fundraising on behalf of the municipality where the persons and entities approached for a donation may have business dealings with the municipality or its agencies or employees.

In general, sections 3 and 23(b)(2) of Chapter 268A prohibit public employees from soliciting anything of substantial value from anyone with whom the public employee has official business dealings.

As discussed in the advisory opinion (EC-COI-12), however, a municipal employee may solicit donations to a municipal entity from persons and entities with whom he, or other municipal employees, has or expects to have official dealings, consistent with Chapter 268A, provided that all of the following are true:

1. The solicitation is carried out in accordance with Chapter 44, Section 53A, which authorizes acceptance of gifts by municipal employees on behalf of the municipality, and, by implication, authorizes the solicitation of gifts.

2. The solicitation is not made in circumstances that are inherently coercive because the person or entity solicited may be directly and significantly affected by a pending or anticipated decision of the same municipality.

3. No overt pressure is exerted in connection with any such solicitation.

4. The municipality and its employees apply objective standards in all dealings with persons and entities who are solicited and do not favor those who give or disfavor those who do not.

5. The municipal employee principally responsible for making such solicitations discloses publicly and in writing the names of those solicited, pursuant to Chapter 268A, Section 23(b)(3).