SWAMPSCOTT — A special Town Meeting opens Monday night at 7 at Swampscott High School with a brief warrant heavily focused on town finances.
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald said a number of reductions to the FY18 budget are being recommended with the warrant articles and it would be the first time in modern memory that the town has made a mid-year budget reduction.
The second article will feature the Board of Selectmen giving a special report on the financial position of the town, including a discussion of FY18 real estate tax rate setting and the FY19 budget process.
Fitzgerald said the town is moving toward a zero-based budgeting philosophy and the goal is to have budgets that are a little tighter. He said the selectmen want to focus on making Swampscott’s tax rate a priority; the goal is to keep the budget as tight as possible and keep a tax rate that is fair and reasonable.
Fitzgerald said town officials are trying to get a handle on short and long-term fiduciary responsibilities, which are important to the selectmen and the Finance Committee. He said part of this Town Meeting will involve a question and answer discussion with its members on town finances.
In one of the only non-financial related articles on the warrant, Town Meeting members will be asked to vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts General Law Chapter 90 Section 18B, “which would allow the selectmen to establish designated “safety zones” with a speed limit of 20 mph on, at or near any way in the town that is not a state highway, and if a state highway, with the approval of the Department of Transportation.”
Approval of article eight would allow the town to directly set special 20 mph zones without state review and approval. Fitzgerald said safety zones would be where there is the most pedestrian traffic, with the change aimed at focusing on pedestrian safety.
Because Swampscott is one of the mostly densely settled towns in Massachusetts and one of the smallest towns in the state in terms of geography, Fitzgerald said it is important to get a handle on speed. He said the requested change relates to a Town Meeting warrant article approved this past spring that established a town speed limit of 25 mph.
Article three, which Fitzgerald described as a housekeeping item, will ask Town Meeting members to approve the transfer of $3,323.95 from available funds to pay unpaid bills from prior years’ expenditures.
The article allows the town to pay for services it budgeted for and purchased in FY17, but vendor invoices for those services were not processed until after the close of the fiscal year. Funds would be allocated from free cash to pay those bills.
Fitzgerald said article five is important because it deals with how the town would use premiums earned with the sale of bonds, and allows the town to take advantage of some language in the Municipal Modernization bill, signed into law by the Baker-Polito administration last year.
Article five “reflects changes in the law that allow using premiums earned on the sale of bonds to be allocated toward the projects that are being funded, thereby reducing the amount needed to borrow. This is new statutory language that was recently changed in accordance with the Municipal Modernization Act.”
The full special Town Meeting eight-article warrant is available on the town’s website.
