SWAMPSCOTT ― At a special virtual Town Meeting on Monday evening, members will take a vote to partially offset the increase of the residents’ 2022 tax burden, fund improvement of pedestrian safety, and approve provisions for Collective Bargaining Agreements with certain town unions.
The Dec. 13 special Town Meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Zoom, which was decided by the Select Board for COVID-19 safety and state and local regulations compliance reasons on Dec. 2. Precinct caucuses will be held as separate Zoom sessions at 6:00pm.
Town Moderator Michael McClung will lead the meeting.
There are 12 articles on the agenda for 324 members of the representative Town Meeting from six precincts.
The members of the Town Meeting will vote on several financial articles, including amending various line items in the FY2022 budget as recommended by the Finance Committee, funding pedestrian safety infrastructure, funding provisions of collective-bargaining agreements between the Town of Swampscott and certain town unions from the free cash, and using the town’s financial reserves to offset some of the tax burden of the Swampscott residents.
“Right now we want to strike up a balance ensuring that we are doing the right investments but also coming up with funding strategies that help us deal with short-term and long-term responsibilities of the town,” said Sean R. Fitzgerald, town administrator.
The Select Board voted to approve a residential tax factor of .94 percent and a maximum commercial shift of 170 percent for the town’s fiscal year 2022 tax levy at a joint meeting with the Board of Assessors and Finance Committee on Dec. 1. This means that the average single-family tax bill will increase by $79 from the previous year to $9,078, and the average condo tax bill will be $5,508.
To offset a bigger tax increase and reduce water and sewer rates, the Town Meeting is asked to vote on transfers from free cash, retained earnings of the Water Enterprise Fund (in the amount of $90,000) and retained earnings of the Sewer Enterprise Fund (the sum of $190,000).
To improve pedestrian safety in the densely-populated town, the town administration would like to invest into configuration of streets and intersections identified in the completed traffic study.
The town has been in negotiations of collective-bargaining agreements with the librarian union, Department of Public Works union and administrative assistants union. The Select Board approved to set aside more than $67,000 for union wage increases on Dec. 6.
“It is our hope that we can successfully conclude these negotiations and ensure that these hard-working public employees get a cost-of-living increase,” said Fitzgerald. “A lot of attention is often focused on larger bargaining contracts in town, but these employees are equally indispensable and hard working.”
He praised the DPW for helping meet important public-safety priorities and the Swampscott Public Library for their community programming.
The Town Meeting will also decide whether to establish an enterprise fund for solid waste and recycling that will help offset town’s solid waste and recycling costs and support efforts to reduce waste generation and recycling-stream contamination. Moreover, the members of the Town Meeting will take a look at various general and zoning bylaws and vote to officially change the name of the Board of Selectmen to Select Board.
