Financial Town Meeting Fails To Field Quorum - Again

One hour after the start of the Financial Town Meeting at the East Greenwich High School Tuesday night, moderator Jim Patti announced only 69 people were present, far short of the 250 needed for a quorum,  declared the budget and warrant items adopted and adjourned the meeting.

That’s been the process for the last six years and former Town Council President Marilyn Kiesel thinks the town should question again the expense, time and effort it takes to hold the meeting.

Another former council president, Carl Hoyer, said he was terribly disappointed by the apathy of taxpayers. “I believe in the grassroots FTM process,” he said, “but when only 69 people show up I become a realist and say it’s time to abolish it.”

School Committee Chairperson Deidre Gifford says there are two ways to look at the low attendance. One that they aren’t interested anymore or two, that they are happy with the way the budget process is going.

“We’ve offered to get rid of the meeting, and people don’t seem to want to,” she said. “I think they want to leave the option open in case there is a rogue town council or school committee some year they want to rein in.”

Current Town Council President Michael Isaac agreed with Gifford and said there have been years when controversial issues have brought people out. He said he think it is time to look at how the town meeting has evolved because the meeting is not the same as when it was conceived. While it does provide a check on the budget, he said, there are a lot of factors putting constraints on people’s time and perhaps it is something to take a look at over the next couple of years.

While waiting the mandatory one hour to see if a quorum would show up, Isaacs and Gifford detailed the $47,448,275 budget for fiscal 2012, which is an increase of 5.77 percent over the current year. Ninety two percent, or $43,955,091, of the budget will come from property taxes, with the rest coming from state aid and various fees.

For taxpayers that means an assessment of $17.79 per thousand, an increase of 54 cents from the current levy of $17.25.

Isaacs said most of the increase is due to debt service for school building and improvement projects approved by voters in recent years, including the Swift Community Center, the new Police Station, the new Cole Middle School, the EGHS fields and other school-related work.

Other contributing factors are an increase in health insurance costs due to a bad claims year and the end of a two-year employee salary freeze.

Looking ahead, Isaacs said the town will continue to pursue consolidation opportunities and shared services with schools and other municipalities.

Isaacs repeated concerns for the 2013 budget, anticipating a higher debt service number when long term bonds for the school building project kick in and potential much higher pension costs for the town and schools because of the State’s actuarial changes.  Town Manager Bill Sequino said pension costs could go up by more than 2 million dollars.

In detailing the school’s $32,561,927 share of the budget, Gifford said the 2.3 percent increase came from salary increases and increased costs for special education. She commended the staff for cooperating in picking up a share of health care costs.

Isaacs reminded the audience they also pay fire taxes and the financial meeting for the Fire District will be held this coming Monday, June 20,  at 7:30pm in the Swift Community Center.