Second Referendum Vote On Budget Will Require A Petition

By Steve Bigham

A town meeting to vote on the newly revised town budget for 2000-01 will be held Monday, May 15, at the middle school auditorium. The outcome of that vote will be final unless residents petition beforehand to send the budget to a referendum. That petition must be filed with Town Clerk Cindy Simon by May 10.

According to the town charter, when a budget is approved at a town meeting, the action is final and not subject to a referendum. But, whenever a town meeting is called to vote upon a proposed annual budget, the budget may be brought to referendum by a petition signed by voters. The charter states that the total number of signatures required on the petition shall be five percent (643 voters) of the total number of eligible voters. The petition must be presented to the town clerk for validation of signatures no later than the close of business on the seventh day following announcement of the meeting in the town clerk’s office.

If all signatures are deemed valid, Mrs Simon will present them at the town meeting. The purpose of the town meeting would then become setting a date for the referendum. And, according to the charter, the referendum would have to be held within 10 days of the town meeting.

This process will continue until the budget is finally passed.

Town officials are hoping this year doesn’t turn out to be anything like 1991, when the budget failed four times before finally getting passed on July 17. On that date, the proposed budget was finally approved at a town meeting.

“We had to hold off on sending out the tax bills, recalled Mrs Simon. “There was more of an organized group against the budget back then than you have today. You had people that felt very strongly against the budget back then.”

In that year, the Legislative Council originally proposed a town budget which represented a three-mill or 10.7 percent increase in the budget. However, when all was said and done, the council ended up trimming the proposed increase down to 0.2 mills – a reduction of 2.8 mills.

Back in 1983, the town budget was not approved until August.

When the budget is not approved until after the beginning of the fiscal year, the town has to start borrowing money to run the government.