Saugus selectman wants to eliminate finance committee

SAUGUS – If Selectman Michael Kelleher is making New Year’s resolutions, it is likely that eliminating the Finance Committee will make the list.”It’s an issue I’m not letting go of,” he said Friday.During a recent Charter Commission public hearing, Kelleher said among other changes he’d like to see in town government is the abolition of the Finance Committee. He said it was essentially passé, and he would like to see a Financial Review Board put in place instead.The review board, he explained, would issue quarterly reports on financial activity, offer ideas for generating revenue and savings, and provide a five to 10 year financial road map for the town.”This is broader and more global than Fin Com,” Kelleher said.Kelleher’s argument against the Finance Committee is that it is the only board, commission or committee that is appointed by one person and needs approval from no other body.That, he said, gives the committee a lot of power.”It serves no other purpose other than to be divisive,” he said. “It’s an obstructionist part of government . . . Town Meeting are smart people and will make decisions on their own.”But Finance Committee Chairman Robert Palleschi doesn’t see it quite the same way. The Finance Committee’s job is to hold public hearings with the Town Manager and departments and make recommendations on how the town budget should be funded.Palleschi said he feels the board is absolutely necessary because, without it, there would be no one to hold budget hearings or make recommendations for or against the manager’s budget.”The only people who have the ability to appropriate money is Town Meeting,” Palleschi said. “I’m sorry if they agree with us most of the time. If they don’t agree, they don’t have to vote (their recommendation).”For Town Moderator Robert Long, who sided with Palleschi, it’s all about checks and balances.By having the Finance Committee make recommendations based on the manager’s budget, Long said it gives another group of eyes keeping watch on the town.Kelleher said he thought having the Board of Selectmen as well as Finance Committee double checking the manager’s recommendations was less about checks and balances and more about useless layers of bureaucracy.”If anything, let it come to us after the Fin Com makes its recommendations,” he said. “There are all these layers we don’t need.”Long, however, called Kelleher’s ideas ridiculous.”When the Board of Selectmen abdicates its role, one of the checks and balances is missing,” Long said. “That’s really what it comes down to.”Kelleher said he felt it was less about abdicating a role and more about having a committee such as a Finance Review Board make objective recommendations.Kelleher said it also irks him that the Finance Committee often claims it is not their job to necessarily recommend how something is funded, yet it chose to find funding to keep the library open when it was threatened with closure last spring.”They pick and choose when they want to be forceful,” he said. “A group that powerful appointed by one person is not right. The best case scenario is it should just be eliminated.”