Special Town Meeting called in Saugus

SAUGUS – The selectmen have called for a special Town Meeting where members will be asked to approve about $700,000 in expenditures but they have yet to set the warrant.The board approved holding the meeting Monday Jan. 28 and agreed to keep the warrant open for Town Manager Andrew Bisignani until today. Bisignani said he was still working on the final articles and needed a few days to put them together.After the meeting Bisignani said he would be seeking a total of $340,000 in overtime for the police and fire departments along with $30,000 for dispatcher overtime. Coupled with the $330,000 needed to fund the teachers’ contract Town Meeting members are looking at about $700,000 in expenses.Bisignani said he expects the funding for the articles to come from additional growth that was calculated at the end of the year and the anticipated surplus from the Group Insurance Commission. Typically additional growth realized at the end of the calendar year is applied to the next fiscal year but Bisignani said the budget is too tight to do that this time.”We’ve got about $360,000 in additional growth,” he said.Bisignani said he expected the growth to cover the teachers’ contact while the Public Safety request would be covered through a transfer from additional funds. That would be the $370,000 it has been estimated the town would save through employee enrollment into the GIC, the state’s health plan.”If Town Meeting approves the funding our budget will technically be in balance and we’ll be in the position to set a tax rate,” Bisignani said.The town will still have to borrow roughly $10 million. Bisignani said since the tax bills haven’t gone out they won’t roll in until about May and the town has bills, such as payroll and debt service, due long before then.”Regardless of setting the rate we’re still broke now,” he said.Selectman Stephen Horlick joined his colleagues in approving the request for the meeting but chided Bisignani for not getting the warrant articles to the board sooner.”I would like to look at the articles,” he said. “If you know you have a Town Meeting coming up it would be nice if you gave us at least a week’s notice.”When it comes to special Town Meetings Bisignani generally asks that the warrant be held open a few days while he finalizes articles. Horlick said the request to call the meeting and close the warrant except for the manager at the same time is also not fair to anyone else who might want to put an article on the warrant.Bisignani said he has no problem getting the articles to board members in advance for the annual meeting in the spring but it can be tricky at other times.”Usually the issues are time sensitive,” he said. “If I had (the articles) this evening I would give them too you. If I had them last week I would have given them to you.”Bisignani said with the financial situation of the town things unfold quickly and numbers change daily but he would try and respect Horlick’s request in the future.