First it was annual town meeting in 2013, town meeting voted to move Templeton to a town administrator and then in 2014 annual town meeting, the voters spoke again with article #20
CHANGE TO THE TOWN BUDGET PROCESS
To see if the Town will vote to change Article IV “Advisory Committee,” Section 4 of the Town By-Laws to read:
“It shall be duty of the Town Administrator in conjunction with the BOS to consider expenditures and develop a budget for the ensuing fiscal year of the several boards, officers and committees of the town, as prepared by them in such form and detail as prescribed by the Town Administrator.”; or take any other action relative thereto. Submitted by the Board of Selectmen
On a substitute motion duly made and seconded the Town voted that Article III “Town Officers“ of the Town By-laws be herby amended:
4. “It shall be duty of the Town Administrator in conjunction with the BOS to consider expenditures and develop a budget for the ensuing fiscal year of the several boards, officers and committees of the town, as prepared by them in such form and detail as prescribed by the Town Administrator.”
Passed Unanimously/May 19th @ 8:38pm
This is when town meeting voted to have a town administrator with the board of selectmen put together the budget rather than the advisory committee. The role of the advisory committee was changed by a town meeting vote!
AB Comments:
The Advisory Board fully supports a change to the town budget process, however, the wording and placement of this suggested by-law change ( replacing an article that deals with the
Advisory Board with text that relates strictly to the BOS and Town Administrator) does not seem to make sense and therefore the Advisory Board cannot support the article.
"The advisory committee states they fully support a change to the budget process but not the original warrant article; hence the substitute motion and passage of said motion and the resulting change to the budget process.
Thats "How" it was done by Templeton. The law CH 39 sec 16 doesn't say "TA by bylaw may submit", it says Selectman (elected officials) so are we just assuming?
ReplyDeleteExcuse me? Wasn't something else happening right around here, hmmmmmmm, oh ya, this was the group who thought changing accounting software midyear was a good idea.............
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much of this was based on not performing an audit, having no available free cash due to said lacking audit.
Sometimes people vote on what is presented assuming the legality of the item. By the way, Congratulations to all select board members on the new job duties as Park Commissioners!
Until the municipal modernization act of 2016, much of which took effect November 2016 and most of the rest took effect later, while a couple of things happened before November. The thing that you refer to happened a year before the 2014 town meeting vote, The 2014 town meeting vote where the role of advisory took place in my opinion because of the budget snafu beginning at annual town meeting 2013. Back to muni modernization act, prior to passage of that act, towns were not required to have yearly audits, DOR had much oversight before that. One of the things that happened as a result of the act was towns gained a bit of autonomy from DOR and in return, they were then required to have yearly audits by independent audit firms. Regarding software, town got itself in that situation in part by allowing a contract accountant to utilize his own software rather than one of a couple "standard" software applications used by most other towns. When the accountant left, he gave the town a year of operation after which time it would be shut down. It was a perfect storm and in a way, it was a good thing because it pulled back the curtains on many other issues in town (burn it down and rise from the ashes better) On the so called substitution, per MGL, selectmen can give authority to a designee, usually a T/A or manager, but they still have responsibility, which is why selectmen have to vote to approve budget and warrant. In the end, advisory stated they supported a change in budget process, they now don't like the process, oops, maybe should have thought that one through more. Like it or not, policy belongs to the selectmen, town by laws have selectmen oversee legal affairs, financial affairs, debt, weekly warrant (payment of town bills) contracts, etc. Perhaps advisory could now work on the directive from town meeting, give a written report explaining some of those warrant articles, the funding, where the money comes from, explain what an omnibus budget is and what it allows versus a line item budget. Bear says time for ball and he does not advise, he directs!
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