SWAMPSCOTT – The Finance Committee reviewed and voted on nine Special Town Meeting draft warrant articles on Monday regarding future funds use. Although the committee made some decisions, more votes need to be made by other town boards and in future meetings.
Article one was about relocating funds for salary reserves, a total of $93,810 from article four, which is composed of the admin union, DPW, Police and library. $66,480 would go to the admin union, $32,639 to the DPW, $45,085 for the police, and $9606 for library. There was an additional $36,239.72 for the non-union cost of living increases. The committee voted yes on article one.
Articles two, three and six needed future discussion and were deferred to vote on future meetings. Articles eight and nine were not financial articles so the Finance Committee did not need to vote on those two articles. Those would be decided by the Planning board and Select board. Articles five and seven were approved at the meeting.
Eric Hartmann, Chair of the Finance Committee did not feel like voting on Article four until they had a sense of the free cash balance. The definition of free cash from a town’s wallet is the amount of a community’s funds that are unrestricted and available for appropriation, according to MA Department of Revenue, and is a revenue source that results from the calculation. Because of the unknown free cash balance, the committee did not vote on Article four.
