Special Town Meeting Approves $3 Million Appropriation

The town of Walpole voted to approve the appropriation of $3 million from an override that was passed in June, at the high school Monday night.

The $3 million will go to several departments in town, $2.5 million of which will help to close the school system’s budget gap.

The funds will be distributed the following way:

Walpole Public Schools - $2,500,000

Building Maintenance Personnel Services - $92,166

Police Department Personnel Services - $45,379

Parks Department Personnel Services - $87,175

Employee Benefits Expenses - $275,280

A quorum of 76 Town Meeting representatives was in attendance at about 7:36 p.m. when Moderator Jon Rockwood began the meeting.

The only article on the warrant came with some debate as several residents offered substitute motions and even questioned the legality of the meeting.

Not Without Debate

Rockwood began the meeting with an announcement regarding the Finance Committee and the Town Charter.

Rockwood said that the Finance Committee tried to hold the last of three scheduled public hearings Thursday, July 19, which did not have a quorum, and therefore could not officially be considered a public hearing. The Finance Committee then held a public hearing Monday, July 23, with a quorum, immediately before the Special Town Meeting.

According to the town charter and state town meeting laws, Rockwood said, the Finance Committee could not hold an official public hearing less than three days prior to a session of Town Meeting.

However, Rockwood cited Young v. Town of Westport a court ruling from 1939, which reads as follows:

“A by-law of a town, adopted pursuant to G.L. (Ter. Ed.) c. 39, Section 16, in substance constituting a finance committee to consider and report 'after giving one or more public hearings thereon,' as to any article in a warrant for a town meeting concerning appropriation or expenditure of money or disposal of town property, was merely directory to the committee as to the holding of a public hearing; and the mere fact that the committee failed to hold such a hearing did not render invalid a vote of the town making an appropriation.”

Rockwood said that the Finance Committee has only an advisory role and therefore holding the public hearing less than three days prior to Town Meeting does not render the vote of the appropriation invalid.

Several residents voiced their concerns about the legality of moving forward with the Town Meeting. However, with further clarification from Town Counsel, Rockwood continued to move the meeting along.

A number of residents also offered substitute motions, including one to push the date of the Special Town Meeting back, another to return the article back to committee and another to change the distribution of the funds within the article.

All substitute motions were voted down.

Schools Close Budget Gap

After the meeting, Walpole Schools Superintendent Lincoln Lynch said he was “pleased with the results.”

“I think it affirms the vote for the override that took place, June 2. I’m thrilled for the students of Walpole and the positive impact it will have on the kids’ education," he said.

He also talked about the impact he expects the override funds to provide to the school system.

“It means that the majority of our classes will be less than 25 [students-per-class], we will maintain our foreign language programs – specifically for middle school, we’ll be able to reinstate some of the AP courses we’ve lost and we’ll have up-to-date instructional materials,” said Lynch. “We’ll be able to provide a competitive education development for all our kids.”

Town Administrator Michael Boynton said after the meeting that the democratic process worked.

“Clearly it avoids a major problem in the school department right off the bat, plus, it begins to get us back to a position where we were before the major cuts in 2004, before we had major cuts again in 2009, so slowly but surely we’re starting to make some recovery on that. This is just preserving at this point,” Boynton said. “We made a systematic presentation since the budget process began as to what the needs of the town were and tonight the Town Meeting members recognized the needs and moved us on.”