Finances focus of Saugus Town Meeting

SAUGUS – A pair of articles in this year?s Annual Town Meeting Warrant will look to give Town Meeting members more oversight in town finances.Article 25 seeks to have the Finance Committee provide its report to Town Meeting 48 hours in advance of a vote while Article 26 seeks to create an audit committee made up of five Town Meeting members to analyze and evaluate selected appropriations and review financial statements or transactions of the town financial offices and annual financial statements.Read the warrant.Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian wrote the articles and said if passed, the audit committee will follow up on spending after appropriations are made.?Town Meeting needs to have some mechanism where members can find out how funds are spent and what happened,” said Manoogian. “This committee could follow through on things they see as important or Town Meeting can petition them to look at particular things.”Manoogian said the committee would be act separately from the Finance Committee.?Our Finance Committee wants to concentrate and make recommendations before Town Meeting spends money,” said Manoogian. “This body would be after. Clearly the Finance Committee does not monitor spending after Town Meeting votes.”Manoogian said if a similar body had been in place, the town would have likely have avoided the financial situation it is in now.?The whole thing with water and sewer, there were things that were raised before about how money was being spent and they were denied information and they couldn?t get access to documents,” said Manoogian.Town Meeting member Ann Devlin said she thought the was article is a good idea.?I think in light of what has recently been revealed it sounds like a good plan to me,” said Devlin. “The oversight is probably way overdue.”Not every Town Meeting member is on board with the article, however. George Moriello said the measure would be redundant.?We?re supposed to have a Finance Committee and we?re supposed to have selectmen ? it seems like three different groups doing it is a little overkill,” said Moriello. “What would we do with it?”Town Moderator Bob Long said he won?t bring up the articles until the Finance Committee can make a recommendations on them.?It?s financial in nature so I had not planned on bringing them up,” said Long. “I would think you would want to give (the Finance Committee) the benefit of wanting to discuss it. In some cases, I don?t think they can make that kind of a deadline.”Long also pointed a recent letter from the Department of Revenue requesting the town form an audit committee.?That?s one of the requirements to have the DOR give their blessing for our attempts to straighten our financial situation here,” said Long. “My understanding is the people on that three-man audit committee can?t be a member of any board or committee and have to be totally independent. It seems to be a conflict with what DOR is requiring.”Long said a vote for the articles could come up sometime later in May.Manoogian said his articles make sense because it will ensure Town Meeting members are always fully informed of what they?re voting on.?It?s in the best interest of the voters and taxpayers that their elected officials have an understanding of how much they?re being asked to spend before the evening of the spending,” said Manoogian.The first session of the Annual Town Meeting gets under way tonight at 7:30 p.m.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].