Officials decide on Town Meeting Articles
Published on October 22nd, 2003
STONEHAM, MA - With the warrant booklets already printed and set to be made available to the general public this Thursday afternoon, the town's Finance and Advisory Board and Board of Selectmen have made their recommendations on the 17 warrant articles for next Monday's October Town Meeting.
Financial Articles and a Professional Goofup
Both the Board of Selectmen and the Finance and Advisory Board have recommended favorable action on Articles One through Seven, which deal with the 2004 budget.
Of the more prominent money articles, Article Seven will request the townspeople to approve the use of nearly $1.6 million of $2.7 million in certified free cash to balance an approximate $1.9 million shortfall in the 2004 budget. The remaining $300,000 shortfall would be addressed through $200,000 released from the overlay surplus fund and additional revenues identified since May's Town Meeting.
When town officials planned the 2004 budget last spring, they purposely under funded $1.1 million in state charges with the intention of closing that gap this October with $950,000 in water and sewer surpluses and $150,000 from the sale of a town owned Atwood Avenue lot.
However, since that time, the Atwood Avenue sale has fallen through and the town has lost approximately $400,000 through unexpected state charges and cuts in state aid. Further complicating the fiscal picture, the town also requires an additional $185,898 for 2004 expenditures.
Article Seven will also ask the townspeople to amend their Article 18 vote made at May Town Meeting to reduce the town's overall 2004 budget from $55,109,502 to $53,585,774. According to Town Administrator David Berry and Finance and Advisory Board Chairman John Warren, the need to amend the May Town Meeting vote stems from a "professional goofup".
"We can throw that in the category of a professional goofup," said Warren. "What happened is when the Selectmen read the motion, the person who went up there was handed a scrap of paper and said, 'I move to appropriate $55 million for the budget'. They should have read $53 million instead. Before we could get to the microphone and say 'hey, can we have a time out here,' Town Meeting got dissolved," Warren explained.
The remaining $1.1 million left over in free cash will be utilized in Article Four, which seeks to transfer the money into the town's stabilization account. Traditionally funded at levels well over $1 million, the town's rainy day account dwindled to less than $300,000 after the town voted last May to utilize most of the fund to balance the 2004 budget. If Article Four passes, the stabilization account would contain $1,353,690.
Yet another fiscal article, Article Two will request Town Meeting to approve borrowing $620,000 that will address several middle school and high school repairs recently mandated by Building Inspector Gene Argiro.
Specifically, Argiro has ordered that the School Department repair the interior and exterior doors of the high school and middle school, replace missing ceiling tiles, and repair a leaky middle school roof by October 31. Without approval of the expenditures, Argiro has warned that the two schools could be denied an occupancy permit and closed down.
"As you know, over the past few years, the School Committee hasn't asked for a lot of money for capital repairs. As a result, the middle school and high school have suffered and so the time has come, so to speak," remarked School Committee Chairman Mark Grimaldi at last night's Board of Selectmen meeting.
Although Selectman Charlie Smith questioned whether the school system could address the repairs through the rental incomes received by leasing several school buildings, Superintendent Joseph Connelly told the board that the majority of those revenues are used to offset the school maintenance operating budget.
"For a number of years now, we have utilized the bulk of the rental income to offset the operating maintenance budget. What we do each year is reduce that by $180,000. We keep $15,000-$20,000 aside for emergency repairs to the East and North schools. So to answer your question, that money is not available for those costs," Connelly explained.
Town officials have suggested that the town float a 20-year bond to pay for the estimated $620,000 in repairs. According to Town Administrator David Berry, such a bond would annually cost the town approximately $25,000.
Land, Planning Board and Miscellaneous Articles
With the exception of three proposals, the Board of Selectmen voted to defer all other articles to the town departments that sponsored them.
However, the board did recommend favorable action on an article sponsored by Town Clerk John Hanright that would allow him to set reasonable fees for dog licenses, and two Board of Selectmen articles that would gift a parcel of land at 51 Montvale Avenue to the town and rezone a town-owned Emerald Court lot from the Educational to Residence A district.
While the Selectmen deferred from voting on articles sponsored by other departments, the Finance and Advisory Board has voted against one Conservation Commission article, and in favor of two Planning Board articles.
Specifically, the board voted against transferring a town-owned Atwood Avenue lot to the Conservation Commission because an affirmative vote would fiscally hurt the town.
"We don't want to give away any potential revenue. We got problems," Finance and Advisory Board member Ben Caggiano simply explained after his board voted unanimously against the article.
The Finance Board also voted in favor of two articles that would rezone 51 Montvale Avenue from the Residence B district to the Highway Business District and rezone 596 Main Street to the Residence B district, paving the way for an 11-unit condominium complex at the site of the Spot Pond Motel.
Although last Thursday night the Finance Board agreed to meet in force at last night's Board of Selectmen meeting to gather input regarding several warrant articles, only Warren was in attendance. At the close of the meeting, Warren appeared disheartened that the Selectmen did not ask for his board's opinion on the warrant articles.
"My sense last night [at the Finance Board meeting] is that the board wanted to support the Selectmen," commented Warren on the absence of his fellow coworkers.
"They didn't ask me to say anything...Apparently they had already made up their minds," the Chairman added, referring to the Selectmen's choice to ignore Warren during the meeting.
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