Charter Commissioners Debate Finance Board’s Future

By John Voket

The local Charter Revision Commission spent most of its meeting Tuesday discussing issues related to the budget process, focusing intensely on the practices and role of the Board of Finance in relation to the Board of Education.

Commissioner Joan Plouffe reasserted concerns she introduced early on in the review process about complexities of the budget cycle.

“I’ve said it before, this whole budget process is too divisive as it is. It’s bad for the town,” Ms Plouffe said.

Commissioner Guy Howard suggested that the process becomes confusing to taxpayers, and that budgets would be more likely to pass if there was immediate and comprehensive consensus on budget figures among town officials who are most involved in the process.

“If everyone, the Board of Ed, the Legislative Council, the Board of Finance and the Board of Selectmen were in concert, and it was a jointly understood budget, I bet it would be a 99 percent dunk-shot that it would go,” Mr Howard said. “There’s a certain amount of divisiveness and rooting for their side projects that when it comes to voting time it’s us versus them.”

Ms Plouffe said the way the process is set up contributes to the divisiveness.

“The more hearings, the more meetings and the more rounds of cut after cut after cut, the divisiveness gets worse. It’s not good for the town and it does everyone a terrible disservice,” she said. “I want to streamline the process.”

Commissioner LeReine Frampton reminded her fellow commissioners that the idea of eliminating at least one public hearing in the process had already been introduced. But Mr Howard said eliminating one hearing would provide a Band-aid to a process he believes “is broken.”

“My sense is it has a lot to do with how the various groups are relating, or not relating, to each other,” he said. “The fact that the Board of Finance won’t go to Board of Education meetings and the Board of Education isn’t providing information the way the finance board wants it…so they’re going to keep batting it back and forth until they run out of time and we’re going to get a budget referendum that’s going to get turned down.”

Mr Howard said he believes that many of the budget aspects would be more acceptable if key officials were collaborating earlier on in the discussion processes.

“I see the working relationship as so flawed that the frustration level grows at each meeting,” he said.

Ms Plouffe referenced comments made by school board member Andrew Buzzi at an earlier meeting, suggesting the Board of Finance duties should be returned to an expanded Legislative Council.

“If we were to absorb them back into the Legislative Council, make them elected separately, you’ve given the Board of Finance their accountability; if the budget fails it goes back to the Board of Finance, and at the same time you have one set of hearings and one set of deliberations,” she said. “We killing two birds with one stone, the process is streamlined, and we’re getting better functioning out of our groups.”

Mr Howard said the separate finance board members are creating “tremendous complications” that plague the budget process.

“If they can’t play nice, should we force them into the same sandbox?” he asked. “How come the Board of Finance won’t come to Board of Ed meetings? The Board of Ed continuously invites the Board of Finance to their meetings and they won’t go. They have to have their own meeting and have the Board of Ed come to them.”

Mr Howard said he has seen the same situations in the business world.

“You can get people who are [angry with] each other who will not meet, but they’re going to get fired,” Mr Howard said. “But because of our election process, a group can establish a warring camp and not move from it, and we’re seeing that. Do we have to legislate their specific sandboxes, or can we go back to the process? It’s the passions regarding the issues and a bunch of personality conflicts that are keeping this from happening.”

Mr Howard suggested the Charter Commission could “force the Board of Finance to have a liaison,” to the Board of Education. He then noted a lack of statutory reference between a finance board’s responsibilities and the Capital Improvement planning process.

Mr Hemingway countered saying some of the statutes are simply guidelines, while others compel municipalities to perform certain functions despite charter provisions.

“Where do the statutes [specifically state] the powers?” Mr Howard asked. “[How] did the Board of Finance take over the CIP? They did it in a set of internally generated rules that were endorsed by the council. But I don’t see any statutes that allow the council to do that.”

He said the finance board rules of operation are “self defined things they feel good about to get control.”

“We have to be careful about the authority the Board of Finance has over defining their own set of rules. It may seem really good to them, and may feel good to the voter, but a lot of people don’t know what [the rules] are, I don’t find a place where they are published,” Mr Howard said. “I’m probably the first one to ask the question.”

He said the relationship and issues between the Board of Finance and the Board of Education are a significant concern.

“That’s because nobody ever asked the school board the hard questions before,” Ms Frampton said.

Mr Howard said he did not understand why questions were frequently being asked of the school board so late in the decisionmaking process.

“What I’m seeing is a fair amount of grandstanding that is not productive; tends to be ego-driven, and is done when it’s allowed to be done. There are a lot of interpersonal dynamics involved in creating that power, and the Board of Finance has done a masterful job at doing it. I’m not suggesting they are doing anything illegal, but if you want to become the central authority because you think everything is a mess, that’s how you do it,” Mr Howard said.

He said the charter panel needs to focus on the mechanics of how the finance board gets its power.

“If these steps were being taken by people who really wanted to solve the issue, instead of slapping someone who hasn’t answered to them, the invitations to participate early on would be appealing,” Mr Howard said. “I’ve not seen anyone in that capacity participate with the Board of Ed.”

Mr Howard asked how the charter panel could compel the finance board to help the Board of Education organize materials and make presentations.

“The whole idea is to help the Board of Ed before stuff comes to the Board of Finance. Maybe we have to legislate that there is a finance representative or two, who have to go to all the working meetings of the Board of Ed. Now this would only be if Elaine wanted it,” Mr Howard said, referring to school board chairman Elaine McClure.

“You don’t think that would make the issue worse?” Ms Frampton asked.

Mr Howard said getting the two boards together in collaboration would be in the best interests of the town.

“As a voter, the fact that this isn’t happening, I’m still swallowing the bile that’s coming up. I can be angry about the personalities, but we have to get a process here that’s going to encourage this to work,” he said. “How do we get these guys to play together? We have a situation that is broken.”

Ms Plouffe agreed, saying she often hears from other residents that they believe the budget process is designed to exclude people.

After further discussion, Mr Hemingway asked for a motion to continue discussion on the budget and finance board at the next meeting and to introduce discussion on the Capital Improvement Plan process next Tuesday.