EG Voters to Consider Eliminating the FTM, Road Bonds, Charter Fixes, in Local Ballot Questions

East Greenwich voters will contend with four local ballot questions when they take to the polls on Tuesday.

Question 8 is arguably the most significant of the questions as it calls for a substantial change to the town’s annual budgeting process.

The question reads “Should the Charter be amended to eliminate the Financial Town Meeting and to extend the time within which the Town Council must adopt an annual budget?”

The town hasn’t had the minimum quorum of 250 registered voters show up for a FTM in several years. This year, just 35 people came to the meeting. In 2012, just 54 attended.

East Greenwich would join other communities like South Kingstown, which abolished their FTM several years ago in favor of a budget process that begins with the town manager presenting the budget to the Town Council in the spring. The council then hosts a series of public hearings before making final amendments and voting to approve a final budget before the June 30 fiscal deadline.

The FTM has slowly been phased out across Rhode Island since the adoption of the Home Rule Amendment to the Constitution t more than 60 years ago. According to a 2013 report by the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance, just 16 of the state’s 39 communities including East Greenwich still had FTMs as of 2012 and just 1.2 percent of registered voters actually attended a FTM.

Question 9, “Should the Charter be amended to provide for a Town Fire Department now that the East Greenwich Fire District has been acquired by the Town?” follows the town’s absorption of the East Greenwich Fire District in 2013.

Question 10 consists of “minor, non-substantive errors” in the Town Charter and Question 11 would authorize the issuance up no more than $2 million in bonds for road repairs, sidewalk repairs and landscaping and drainage work in the town.