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Date: 5/16/2023
WARREN — The town had its Annual and Special Town Meetings at Quaboag Regional Middle High School on May 9.
Town Administrator James Ferrera said he thought the number of voters attending the meeting was up from 2023, estimating that around 150 voters attended last year and 200 were there this year.
Special Town Meeting
There were 11 articles on the Special Town Meeting warrant.
Of these, all passed but Article 10. Article 10 requests to transfer $2,488.89 to pay a previous fiscal year invoice to Civicplus for website hosting services, and was recommended by the Finance Committee.
According to Ferrera, some of the reasoning behind the refusal to pass this article was a citizen message to the town of sorts. Ferrera said residents were concerned the bill was overdue and should have been paid well before the 2024 Annual Town Meeting, and showed their insistence on timely paying of such bills and avoiding oversights by voting the article down.
Annual Town Meeting
There were 34 articles on the Annual Town Meeting warrant. All passed but Articles 4, 5, 6 and 10.
Articles 4 and 5 were both citizens petitions and directly related to one another.
Article 4 requested a vote to move the Planning Board secretary in conjunction with the Building Department secretary from grade C-3 to grade A-1 starting in FY24.
Article 5 requested a vote to move the Building Department secretary in conjunction with the Planning Board secretary from grade C-3 to grade A-1 starting FY24.
This would raise the hourly rate from $18.36 per hour at the current C-3 position to $22.31 per hour as an A-1 position. Currently, one individual does each of these jobs and is employed part-time at each, for a combination that reaches full-time requirements.
Ferrera said this article is problematic in several ways, and said these reasons are probably the cause for its rejection. Ferrera said the individual is “circumventing an established process” through which that person receives a raise if enough people vote for them, rather than the process of determining a pay increase based on personnel matters such as employee performance evaluation, input from employee’s supervisors, and so on.
Ferrera pointed out that if approved, the article would potentially be setting a dangerous precedent for the future where if a person were to gather and convince enough people to vote for them to receive more money from their town employment, it would be out of the town’s jurisdiction whether the employee is eligible for a raise and the town would not have financial say as to whether the raise was even feasible in the budget.
Neither article passed nor was recommended by the Finance Committee.
Article 6 was submitted by the Board of Selectmen for a second time after having a similar article voted down at the 2023 meeting. It pursues the creation of a new Facilities Maintenance Manager position for the town. The position would be a grade BM-2 and the article asks for funds of $50,918 for wage compensation. A copy of the job description, Attachment A on the warrant, lists compensation as being in a range from $50,919 to $68,432.
The Finance Committee did not recommend this article pass, and it did not by majority vote.
Ferrera said the article did not pass by a small margin last year, but the margin grew significantly this year. This year resident’s taxes went up, Ferrera said, and proposed that people may be more cautious or conscientious about spending than they were in the past.
Article 8 outlined the town’s FY24 operating budget and passed by majority vote.
The total governmental operating budget, that is, without the addition of an allotment of vocational education money the town is responsible for, is $6.2 million.
The governmental operating budget for FY23 was $6.08 million The FY24 budget increased by $125,215.37. Ferrera said the driving force behind this increase is utility costs being more expensive, and insurances.
Article10 was to determine if the town would vote to raise and appropriate a number of sums of money for the FY24 Quaboag Regional School District budget.
Quaboag requested an above minimum contribution of $1.25 million from the town of Warren, and an above minimum contribution of $878,842 from the town of West Brookfield.
The Warren Board of Selectmen had set the town’s above minimum contribution to the school district at $110,000, a far cry from Quaboag’s desired sum. Ferrera explained, “The above minimum contribution is determined by the selectmen, who decided the schools continue to use one time revenues to balance their budget, which is a problematic approach to budgeting.”
Ferrera said Quaboag has asked for big increases each year for several years now, and that the Board of Selectmen was sending a clear message to the school district that it is not healthy to operate its budget as such. Ferrera also said the entire Board of Selectmen voted the article down, and that residents are becoming concerned about the school budget.
Because this article did not pass, another Special Town Meeting will be required to again vote on Quaboag’s financial requests. Ferrera said the district has two options, one of making modifications to the request, or keeping it the same.
On Quaboag’s end, a School Committee meeting is a required step, and at that meeting the decision will be made as to how the district is going to approach the issue.
Upon receipt from the district that this meeting has occurred and a decision has been made for the town to vote on, the town has 45 days to host a Special Town Meeting where the voters decide to accept or reject the proposed sum of money Quaboag has decided to ask of the town. Should this new budget be rejected by the voters in Warren, there is a process where the issue goes to a district wide meeting, and then to the state who will take over the decisions, if a conclusion is not reached.