Selectmen approve financial articles for Town Meeting warrant

SAUGUS – Town Manager Scott Crabtree may have been dressed as The Riddler, but he was all business when he met with the Board of Selectmen Halloween night.The group met quickly, adjourning their meeting after a half hour, but it set the Special Town Meeting date for Monday, Nov. 18 and the tax classification hearing for the day after, Tuesday, Nov. 19.Crabtree said this was to ensure that the money was set to be appropriated in all the right places before the Saugus Board of Assessors set the tax rate, which would allow the Department of Revenue to certify it in the first week of December.Crabtree submitted financially based eight articles for the Special Town Meeting. Most were to settle accounts from the previous year, but Crabtree proudly submitted one to re-create a stabilization fund for capital items in Saugus, the first created in 20 years, he said. As a second part to that item, Crabtree proposed $150,000 be put in that new account, which he said was leftover from a debt service payment for the Belmonte Middle School.Selectmen unanimously passed both motions so the stabilization fund could be placed on the Special Town Meeting warrant. “I think it?s smart, said Selectman Debra Panetta in Crabtree?s creation of the account.Crabtree also proposed that the town vote to appropriate $174,000 to reserve for recommendations for the Department of Public Works made by the consultant from the University of Massachusetts, Boston Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management, who presented a 100-page report at the last meeting of the board. The consultant, Rob Haley, recommended four hires, some more immediate than others, and software that would allow the department to better track their operations.Crabtree said the reccomendations were not being put in place just yet, but he wanted to reserve the funds for “implementing over the next fiscal year.”The motion passed, as did the others, and will be on the warrant for Special Town Meeting Nov. 18.