Since Town resident Steve Drury went in front of the Templeton Board of Selectmen to speak about an item on a property tax bill and a lien from Templeton light dept. After some research, there are a couple MGL that seem to make the lien an appropriate action. It did remind me of when the Templeton dept. began program of AMI or so called "smart" electric meters. I got a light bill and noticed a .75 cent increase in customer service charge, so I sent email to the general manager  of light department; below is initial email, answer received and then the latest email in my selectmen email box. Pretty interesting stuff with different explanations of the service charge.

From: jeff bennett <j_bennett506@hotmail.com>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2018 7:58 AM
To: John Driscoll <jdriscoll@templetonlight.com>
Subject: light bill

John,

Just got my latest light bill which also contained a letter informing of the new remote read meters. Also stated this will eliminate the need for trucks and drivers going out to physically read all electric meters. My question is, how many employees will be let go in this effort and how many fewer trucks will light customers have to support now? That is, what is the dollar amount regarding operation costs that will be saved by switching to remote read meters. Seems like a win all the way around, fewer employees, fewer trucks equaling less fuel and other associated maintenance or operational costs.

Trying to analyze relationship of fewer trucks , employees, less fuel and increase in customer bill increase of .75 cents per month. Also, I noticed light bill is mailed from a New Jersey zip code. I assume this is a billing service, so is there a way to receive bill electronically and save the mailing / paper costs? I still wish to pay in person, but interested in any way to possibly save more to off sett things like employee costs (insurance, retirement, etc.) that we have little control of.

thank you in advance, regards;

Jeff Bennett 

The answer I received from Templeton light:

From: John Driscoll <jdriscoll@templetonlight.com>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2018 1:27 PM
To: jeff bennett <j_bennett506@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: light bill

Jeff,

No TMLWP employees were eliminated due to our moving forward with the new AMI system.  We had a meter technician being compensated with wages and benefits since 1984 who was retirement-eligible in 2016.  We simply did not fill this position since we estimated wage/benefit costs for a new meter technician hired in 2016 retiring in 2048 at (north of) $6,000,000.  The installation costs for this AMI system will come in around $800,000 and in total should only cost TMLWP $2,000,000 in total over its 20-year useful lifespan.  We still have a meter technician vehicle and likely will for the remainder of 2018 till all of our 3,550 electric meters have been changed out.  Once they are there will be no need for this vehicle; we may hold onto it for travel to classes, seminars and/or training but it will not be replaced when it goes.

The additional $0.75 in monthly customer charges for our residential customers was to pay for their portion of the $900,000 total AMI system installation cost.  Commercial customers had their monthly customer charges increase by $1.75 and industrial by $2.25.  Savings to electric customers cannot be realized till the whole system is up and running.  At present we are looking at a 9-year payback term on the system and an 11% return-on-investment.  At Year 9 we will re-evaluate our $3.75 monthly customer charge.

The electric bills mailed to our customers are mailed from Billtrust in NJ, and although we now have multiple bill pay options for electric customers (cash, check, money order, credit/debit card over the phone, credit/debit card online, ACH thru TMLWP, ACH thru UniBank/UniPay) we do not send electronic bills to our customers.  We still use the USPS to deliver all customer bills and I am not sure when this will change, if it changes at all.  If we do decide one day to email customers their bills it would likley be thru Billtrust OR Invoice Cloud.

John M Driscoll

General Manager

The latest email from Templeton light - notice what is stated now regarding customer service charge:

John Driscoll <jdriscoll@templetonlight.com>

Mon 2/10/2020 1:07 PM

·        

Good Afternoon to All,

I apologize for taking so long to respond to any of this Steve Drury matter over our AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) system, as the issue did start out of our office.

We completed our total AMI system installation in town as of December 2018, and I don’t recall how many AMI Opt-Out customers we had at that time, but we currently have 8 residential electric customers who have opted out of an AMI meter and instead are being metered with a non-AMI device.  At the onset, each of these customers had to pay a one-time non-AMI meter fee of $125, which was only 50% of the non-AMI meter’s actual cost of $250.  The Light Commission was trying to be fair to those who wished to opt out, so a 50/50% split on paying for the meter that they wanted and we did not seemed fair.  This non-AMI meter has all of the same measurement functionality as the regular AMI meters do, less any meter data propogation/RF abilities.  In addition to the customer being responsible for the $125 fee they would also be subject to a higher monthly customer charge than other residential customers were.  Our residential AMI electric customers pay a monthly customer charge of $3.75, a fixed charge that is not tied to KWH consumption, but rather to the light department’s monthly cost of reading the customer’s meter, procesing a bill, mailing a bill and finally processing a payment.  With the AMI system the cost of actually reading the customer’s meter is almost $0, but this is not the case with the 8 non-AMI Opt-Out customers.  In the calendar year 2020 these 8 customers will pay a higher monthly customer charge of $17.12.  The additional $13.37 paid to the light department was designed to cover the cost of our sending a utility lineman to each of these 8 residences 12 times per year to manually retrieve meter data so that we may process them an electric bill here.  Of these 8 AMI Opt-Out customers we have an average distance of 3.6 miles to travel from 86 Bridge St to each of the 8 locations and back, so we feel that the $13.37 extra per month is justified here.  This is almost 346 miles of extra driving per year to read only 8 electric meters.

It is important to know that all 8 of our AMI Opt-Out customers were treated the same and were told that if at any subsequent time they wished to “Opt-In”, we would accommodate them free of charge.  And although most of them did not like the $125 meter fee or the higher monthly charges going forward, most of them understood why we needed to do it this way.  Most of them.

Steve Drury has come to several light commissioners meetings here over the last year to express his disdain for both the meter fee and the extra monthly charges, and he has often cited chapter and verse portions of the Massachusetts General Laws which are not applicable to the matter at hand.  He has also mentioned bills at the Statehouse which, should they become law, would prohibit utilities from charging opt-out customers such as these anything extra and such expenses would simply be rolled into that utility’s electric cost-of-service.  This kind of mentality is why Templeton electric customers paid 12.79¢ per KWH ($90 per month) in 2019 while National Grid (Gardner/Hubbardston/Phillipston/Royalston/Winchendon) electric customers paid 24.61¢ per KWH ($172 per month).

As far as the lien goes that we had the Town place on the property at #18 Drury Ln, we are well within our rights as a municipal light department to ask the Town to place such a lien.  Our alternative would have been to wait until April 15, 2020 when the state-imposed moratorium on electric shut-offs ends and turn off electric service to #18 Drury Ln for non-payment of utility bills.  I assume that nobody on this email list would have wanted this as an alternative.

If anyone requires any more information from the light department on this Drury matter please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

Thank you.

John M Driscoll

General Manager

So, as you can read, your customer service charge at Templeton light either pays for the cost of the so called smart meters or for reading, creating and sending bill. My question is simply, which is it? If I ask the same question, I should get the same answer; but, Templeton light is government.

Ah, the ghosts of town meeting past:
ATM 2018 (for FY2019) article 21
On a motion duly made and seconded the Town voted to appropriate the sum of Eight Million, Two Hundred Twenty Thousand, Two Hundred Ninety Eight Dollars and no cents ($8,220,298.00) for the operations of General Government for Fiscal Year 2019, and to meet said appropriation with a transfer of Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars and No Cents ($250,000.00) from the Ambulance receipts reserved for appropriation, anticipated receipts, and
the balance from taxation.

Article 24, May ATM 2018:
To see if the Town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Four Hundred Seventy Thousand Two Hundred Forty Six Dollars and No Cents, ($470,246.00), subject to the successful passage of a Proposition 2 ½ Over-Ride, so-called, for supplemental appropriations to the FY 2019 Operating Budget for the following departments:

Fire/EMS $290,740
Police $23,000
Insurance & Benefits $133,890
Highway $15,000
Snow & Ice $7,616

Or take any other action related thereto.
Submitted by the Board of Selectmen
Majority Vote Required

On a motion duly made and seconded the Town voted to raise and appropriate the sum of Four Hundred Seventy Thousand Two Hundred Forty Six Dollars and No Cents, ($470,246.00), for
supplemental appropriations to the FY 2019 Operating Budget for the following departments:

So, a total town budget (spending) of $8,690,544.00 for the operation of the general government of Templeton.

May 2019 ATM, article 26:

On a motion duly made and seconded the town voted to appropriate the sum of Nine Million SixHundred Ninety Thousand Two Hundred Seventy Four Dollars and no cents ($9,690,274.00) for the operations of General Government for Fiscal Year 2020, and to meet said appropriation with
a transfer of Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars and No Cents ($250,000.00) from the Ambulance receipts reserved for appropriation, anticipated receipts, and the balance from
taxation.

So, in fiscal year 2019, Templeton needed $8,690,544.00 to run town and the next year, fiscal 2020, Templeton needed $9,690,274.00 to run the town. The increase of $999,730.00, say one million dollars, a 10% jump from one year to the next; the articles state "for the general government of Templeton." The Advisory Committee stated in it's recommendations to town meeting there was a 10% increase in the town budget, over the previous fiscal year, I mean the numbers do not lie. So how did selectmen say that was not correct, when asked by a town resident if the Advisory Committee's statement was correct?

This information is all on the record, either in print or on TCTV.

Assistant Treasurer/Collector: Part-Time flexible schedule position (19+/- hrs/wk over four days) responsible for processing real-estate and excise taxes as well as other receivables, and performing all general duties within the office and acting as the Treasurer/Collector in the absence of the same. Requires an Associate’s degree in Accounting or Business and three years of administrative support and bookkeeping experience or an equivalent of education and experience.
Preference is given to those with experience in a front-line customer service.

Submit application letter, resume, and standard Town application form available at www.templetonma.gov (click on Paid, Volunteer and Contract Opportunities) or
Town Hall to Carter Terenzini, Town Administrator,
160 Patriots Rd, PO Box 620, East Templeton, MA 01438.
The position will be open until filled.
The Town of Templeton is an EOE. 

Rating Action: Moody's upgrades Templeton, MA GOs to Aa3

28 Jan 2020 New York, January 28, 2020 -- Moody's Investors Service has upgraded to Aa3 from A1 the rating of the town of Templeton, Massachusetts's outstanding general obligation unlimited tax (GOULT) bonds. Additionally, Moody's assigns a Aa3 rating to the town's $9 million General Obligation Municipal Purpose Loan of 2020 Bonds.

RATINGS RATIONALE The upgrade to Aa3 reflects the significant improvement in the town's financial position over the past several years as management has improved its budgeting process to reflect more realistic targets leading to surpluses in each of the last five years. Additionally, the rating reflects a limited size tax base, an elevated but affordable debt burden, average pension liability, and low OPEB liability.

RATINGS OUTLOOK Moody's does not usually assign outlooks to local government credits with this amount of debt outstanding.
FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO AN UPGRADE -
Significant improvements to the tax base including resident wealth and incomes -
Sustained improvement in reserve levels -
Reduction of debt burden
FACTORS THAT COULD LEAD TO A DOWNGRADE -
Significant decline in the tax base -
Significant drop in reserves

a 2018 report from Washington DC based Institute on taxation and Economic Policy:

22. Massachusetts

> Effective tax rate for top 1% of earners: 6.5%
> Effective tax rate for middle 20% of earners: 9.3% (22nd lowest)
> Avg. income for top 1%: $2.51 million (2nd highest)
> State & local tax revenue from sales taxes: 13.8% (9th lowest)
> State & local tax revenue from income taxes: 32.7% (6th highest)

from Templeton special town meeting October 26, 2004:

Article 6 To see if the Town will vote to accept the amended Regional Agreement for the Narragansett Regional School District of Templeton/Phillipston, a copy of which is available for review in the Templeton Town Clerk’s office, or to take any other action relative thereto. 

On a motion duly made and seconded the Town voted to accept the amended Regional Agreement for the Narragansett Regional School District of Templeton/Phillipston, a copy of which is available for review in the Templeton Town Clerk’s office as well as available to voters in a handout adjacent to the Special Town Meeting warrants. Passed Unanimously @ 7:18

Although this happened in calendar year 2004, the STM happened in FY2005 (July 1, 2004 - June 30, 2005) the STM is found in the 2005 annual town report, page 140.

I would be willing to try, but . . . Trust??

One way to fund road work:

Lastly, amendments in 2003 to Ch. 40, Sec 5b allow a municipality to establish special purpose stabilization funds and to build balances in them through a type of override, which also has characteristics of a debt exclusion. Through initial approval, by twothirds vote, of town meeting (and the selectmen), a city council or a town council, a referendum can be placed before the voters asking whether to raise tax revenue, by majority vote, above Proposition 2½ limits for the purpose of the stabilization fund. In succeeding years, solely through an annual vote of the selectmen, city council or town council, the override can be continued, lowered or deferred entirely and resumed, or not, in a later year. Like an override, the additional tax can continue year-after-year without town-wide or city-wide referendum votes beyond the year of inception and, each year, the amount available to be raised increases by 2½ percent. However, like an exclusion under Proposition 2½, the levy limit increase need not be permanent. It can be discontinued in any year.

Combine this with chapter 90 money and possible CDBG grants and free cash, the town could make progress on paving / road infrastructure improvements that directly affect taxpayers / residents. A choice has to be made by town meeting and selectmen if we are going to continue piece meal or really do something for town residents. Good roads often equals to better condition and less dollars regarding snow / ice removal. Your choice, all I can do is try to get a consensus from select board to put this before voters. Simple overrides have been presented in the past and failed, I want to try something different.

I also want roads / infrastructure on capital plan, including water and sewer, drains, etc. as they are things that belong to the town, whether light & water commissioners agree or not.