October 10, 2012 Special Town Meeting – Warrant Articles
The 6 warrant articles for the October 10, 2012 Special Town Meeting are listed in the table below, original can be found here. The Special Town Meeting was called by a petition of more than 200 registered voters in Arlington, much to the displeasure of both the Board of Selectmen and some, vocal, Town Meeting Members. The voters petitioned Town Meeting to consider warrant article 3, to overturn the leaf blower ban. We will comment on each article, below, but focus on the non-leaf blower articles, since there is enough behind the scenes activities on the other articles to make for a long post already.
There are four columns in the table below; the number and (abbreviated) title for each article, the proponent (who initiated the article), the reviewer (Board of Selectmen, Redevelopment Board or the Finance Committee) and the result of the review (vote for/against color coded green – favorable, yellow for split decision, burnt orange for no action). Click on any article to jump to the section that details the comments by the reviewing board, any additional information that is available, the debate (when it occurs) from Town Meeting and our analysis.
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October 2012 Special Town Meeting Warrant Articles color coding: passed tabled defeated |
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| Title | Proponent | Reviewer | Recommend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – Reports of Boards and Committees | Moderator | None | None |
| 3 – Leaf Blowers (II) | Harrington | BoS | No Action |
| 4 – Amend FY2013 Budgets | Superintendent | FinCom | Accept |
| 5 – Collective Bargaining | Manager | FinCom | Accept |
| 6 – Thompson School | Manager | FinCom | Accept |
| 2 – Leaf Blowers (I) | Greeley | BoS | No Action |
ARTICLE 1 REPORTS OF BOARDS AND COMMITTEES
To receive, hear, and act upon the reports of boards, committees, and commissions; or
take any action related thereto.(Inserted at the request of the Town Moderator)
The Selectmen and the Finance Committee need to issue reports to the Special Town Meeting. However, as of the date of this post, no reports have been issued. This is a delaying tactic by elected officials to keep information out of the hands of Town Meeting, so that only a few players have all the information far in advance of the meeting, while the majority of Town Meeting and the average citizen is given pap in the form of the ambiguous warrant article language. After all, the Board met over a week ago and FinCom more than two weeks ago and neither plan to meet before the Special Town Meeting. A reasonable person would have expected that reports on four warrant articles would have been forthcoming at least a week in advance of the meeting.
That said, this article is necessary, because all of these reports are tabled and can be brought off the table at anytime during the meeting for reference, question or support for other warrant articles.
*******UPDATE*************
The Selectmen and Finance Committee reports have been released as of October 3, 2012.
ARTICLE 3 BYLAW AMENDMENT/LEAF BLOWERS (II)
To see if the Town will vote to amend the Town Bylaws to remove the seasonal restrictions on gas powered leaf blowers; or take any action related thereto.
(Inserted at the request of Stephen Harrington and 200 registered voters)
This citizen initiated article is the reason the Special Town Meeting was called and represents the request of more than 200 registered voters and reflects the will of more than 5,500 voters in the July 19 referendum who voted overwhelmingly to remove the seasonal restrictions on gas powered leaf blowers. Enough has been said on this issue, Town Meeting has a clear choice, they can either represent fairly the mandate handed to them by the citizens of Arlington in an historic vote, or not.
Since the Board of Selectmen saw fit, without any debate whatsoever, to vote no action unanimously, we expect a substitute motion, that stays within the scope of removing the ban, to be introduced at Town Meeting. It will be informative to watch elected officials try and kill the petition through procedure.
For those who had no chance to watch the farcical hearing at the Board of Selectmen, we include the video below. Note that the Board spends no time debating this article. Only Michael Ruderman speaks in opposition to overturning the ban.
Mr. Ruderman’s comments boiled down to simply this. When he was a child, Ruderman, his brothers and sister were forced every Saturday to rake leaves off their father’s acre or so property or they would not be allowed to go out on Saturday night. What Ruderman suggests is that labor saving, power tools be replaced by child labor under the threat of confinement. The obvious counter argument here is, stop forced child labor, allow the use of leaf blowers! Seriously, a work ethic can still be instilled in a child without needless labor that can be more efficiently done with a tool.
At the end of Mr. Ruderman’s comments, there was an interesting development. Watch as Selectman Diane Mahon nearly leaps out of her dress, making a motion of no action, even before Ruderman finishes speaking. Mahon is a known selfish elected official who uses her position to pay back those she personally dislikes. She apparently has a hard-on for the petitioner, since this is not the first time Mahon has cut a debate short that involves the petitioner, first at the annual town meeting for athletic safety equipment and now for an article reflecting the will of the people. Many think Mahon works for the common person in Arlington, but the reality is, she uses her power to exact retribution on those who don’t kowtow to her.
Curiouser and curiouser…
ARTICLE 4 AMENDMENTS TO FY2013 BUDGETS
To see if the Town will vote to revise various FY2013 appropriations previously voted by the 2012 Annual Town Meeting; or take any action related thereto.
(Inserted at the request of the Town Manager and the Superintendent of Schools)
This is by far the most interesting development being discussed at the Special Town Meeting. Note first, the innocuous language put in the warrant. An average citizen, upon receiving this warrant, would think, ho hum, just some random housecleaning by the Town and Schools. The language did not need to be so ambiguous, the Finance Committee has a specific request to Town Meeting that they voted on (at a September 13 meeting) almost a week before the warrant was open and almost two weeks before the warrant was issued. Of course, the Finance Committee has not issued their report yet, which makes us wonder what the officials in Arlington are up to here.
From what we can gather, a resident and parent of a kindergarten student, investigated why other towns, including Melrose and Lexington, had eliminated their kindergarten fees. What many people did not know was that Arlington charged $3,000 a year in kindergarten fees; see our post on kindergarten fees from January, 2012 describing this illegal tax. Well it turns out that by charging a kindergarten fee, the schools can only count each kindergarten student as 1/2 for purposes of enrollments. However, if you offer a full day program AND you don’t charge a fee, then you can count a kindergarten student enrolled in full day kindergarten as ’1′. The reason this matters is because enrollment numbers, due by October 1 of each calendar year are used in determining Chapter 70 Funding.
In Arlington, the APS had been charging parents about $970K as a fee for full day kindergarten in each of the last three years (and this year). By not charging a fee, the APS would receive $1.4M more each year in state aid through Chapter 70 funding. To be eligible for this funding in FY14, next year, the APS had to refund the kindergarten fee before October 1 of this year. The checks were sent out over the past two weeks, making 300+ families in Arlington very happy.
Now the APS administration, including the CFO, were made aware of this funding source in April of 2012 and the School Committee received a report in June of 2012 detailing the funding. However, there were no plans on using the additional Chapter 70 funding for FY14, since the APS budget was already set and the $3,000 kindergarten fees were in the process of being collected. In the beginning of September, the School Committee had no plans on refunding these fees and tapping the additional Chapter 70 funding until FY2015.
The petition for a Special Town Meeting forced the APS to re-assess their position and not three days after the STM petition was voted on by the Board of Selectmen, the Finance Committee and the APS met to put the refund and increased enrollment into action.
However, the APS does not have an extra million lying around (well they do, but that’s another story) and so they need to somehow fund the $970K in refunds. That’s where the Finance Committee comes in. They decided to piggyback on the Special Town Meeting and propose a warrant article to move the funds from the override stabilization fund into the APS budget for FY13, the 2012-2013 budget. The deal struck between the APS and FinCom chair Al Tosti is that the Town will boost their FY13 budget by $970K to provide money for the refunds. The $1.4M in increased Chapter 70 funding will then fund kindergarten operations ($970K) for the following years, the excess $430K will be used over the next two plus years to reimburse the override stabilization fund.
So why not address this issue straight on, it seems like such a win-win for the entire town? Why bother hiding all of these details from Town Meeting and residents through ambiguous language in the warrant article?
Three reasons. First, does the additional $970K in town funding become part of the APS’ base budget in calculating the Town’s appropriation? In other words, does the promised 3.5% increases over the next four or five years include this additional $970K or not? We are sure the schools would like the extra $970K applied as their base on a go forward basis. We believe that Town Meeting needs to make this clear that it does not.
Second, what happens to the additional $430K in additional Chapter 70 funding after the override stabilization fund has been reimbursed? Our understanding is the deal Al Tosti, Chair of the Finance Committee, struck with the schools is that the Town keeps the additional school aid funding for the town’s general fund, instead of using the additional funds to eliminate other fee based program like high school athletics.
But the most important reason to keep public discussion of this windfall to a minimum is one of incompetence.
The increased Chapter 70 funding begs the question, when did this funding become available? The APS is prepared to claim that the funding only started to become available in the past year or so, we have already heard this said in School Committee meetings. The truth is a bit harder to swallow. The enrollment based kindergarten foundation budget formula was adopted in 2007 for FY2008 as this Mass Department of Education document clearly shows, excerpt below:
If parents/guardians pay tuition for kindergartners to attend the optional second half of a full-day kindergarten program, they are counted as half-day pupils, with a foundation rate which is half of that assigned to full-day kindergarten.
This leads us to observe that the Arlington Public Schools have left more than $6M dollars in state aid on the table over the past five years. Diane Johnson, the school’s CFO and Kathy Bodie, the superintendent, have been incompetent in not following the regulations and eliminating the kindergarten fee in the past. I guess it was easier to merely demand an illegal tax, aka a kindergarten fee, than to do their jobs. As well, Finance Committee Chair Al Tosti has been bemoaning the loss in state aid that Arlington has suffered over the past ten years. While effective as an argument in pushing for overrides, we think it would have been a better use of the Finance Committee’s time to understand the components of state aid and ask why Arlington was being left behind. I guess it was easier to blame someone else (the state) instead of doing a better job.
Town Meeting Members also share a responsibility here. They have allowed Town Meeting, that should be responsible for all appropriations, to be fooled by insufficient reports, vague article wording and backroom deals between the Finance Committee and Town (school) departments.
These blunders and attempts to deflect criticism makes us wonder, how much more state aid is being left on the table? We are certain of one thing, Town Meeting will not be asking any of these questions of the unquestioned king of Arlington finance.
ARTICLE 5 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
To see if the Town will vote to fund any fiscal items in the event that any are contained in collective bargaining agreements between the Town and the following named collective bargaining units, and to fund for non-union, M Schedule, and elected officials’ salaries or fringe benefits, determine how the money shall be raised and expended; or take any action related thereto:
A. Local 680, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees;
B. Service Employees International Union (formerly NAGE);
C. Robbins Library Professional Association;
D. Local 1297, International Association of Firefighters;
E. Arlington Patrolmen’s Association;
F. Arlington Ranking Police Officers’ Association;
G. M Schedule and non-union employees; and
H. Full-time elected officials.(Inserted at the request of the Town Manager)
VOTED: That the Town hereby ratifies the following financial items in the collective bargaining agreements and memoranda of agreement with the following enumerated collective bargaining units and hereby approves the following financial items relating to non-union employees and full-time elected officials:
A. Local 680, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
(1) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(2) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013;
(3) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014;
(4) snow and ice incentive increase; and
(5) tool allowance increase
and that for this purpose the sum of $150,627.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager, provided that this vote shall be null and void unless the collective bargaining unit has ratified the collective bargaining agreement no later than October 9, 2012;B. Service Employees International Union
(1) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(2) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013;
(3) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014;
(4) snow and ice incentive; and
(5) pay for performance program
and that for this purpose the sum of $72,286.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager;C. Robbins Library Professional Association
(1) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(2) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013; and
(3) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014
and that for this purpose the sum of $15,453.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager;D. Local 1297, International Association of Firefighters
(1) a 2% general wage increase effective September 1, 2011;
(2) a 1% general wage increase effective January 1, 2012;
(3) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(4) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013;
(5) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014;
(6) EMT increases for FY13 and FY14; and
(7) purchase of promotional examination study guides and reimbursement of certain promotional examination costs and that for this purpose the sum of $91,591.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the May 7, 2012
Special Town Meeting under Warrant Article 3, and the sum of $250,240.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager, provided that this vote shall be null and void unless the collective bargaining unit has ratified both the memorandum of agreement and collective bargaining agreement no later than October 9, 2012;F. Arlington Ranking Police Officers’ Association
(1) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2011;
(2) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(3) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013;
(4) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014;
(5) staff assignment premiums; and
(6) clothing allowance increase
and that for this purpose the sum of $33,551.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the May 7, 2012 Special Town Meeting under Warrant Article 3, and the sum of $88,462.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager;G. M Schedule and Non-Union Employees
(1) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(2) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013; and
(3) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014;
and that for this purpose the sums of $50,395.00 (M Schedule) and $70,105.00 (nonunion), which are to be raised by the general tax and which have been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager; andH. Full-Time Elected Officials
(1) a 3% general wage increase effective July 1, 2012;
(2) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2013; and
(3) a 2.75% general wage increase effective July 1, 2014;
and that for this purpose the sum of $5,231.00, which is to be raised by the general tax and
which has been previously appropriated and set aside by vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 38, may be expended under the direction of the Town Manager; and that the Classification and Pay Plan be and hereby is amended accordingly.(11-0)COMMENT: The Town Manager and several of the Town’s employee unions have reached new collective bargaining agreements. Funding for these agreements was voted in the 2012 Annual Town Meeting and in the May 7, 2012 Special Town Meeting; this vote releases them into compensation payments. The agreements fall within the 3.5% budgetary growth constraints of the Town’s Long Range Plan. A more detailed analysis prepared by the Town Manager’s office is attached in Exhibit I.
ARTICLE 6 CAPITAL BUDGET/THOMPSON SCHOOL
To see if the Town will vote to appropriate a sum of money from the Sale of Real Estate Fund to defray the expense of reconstructing the Thompson Elementary School; or take any action related thereto.
(Inserted at the request of the Town Manager)
The Finance Committee finally released their report on October 3. The recommended vote and comments included below:
VOTED: That the sum of $2,873,671.74 be and hereby is appropriated from the Sale of Real Estate Fund to fund the reconstruction of the Thompson Elementary School located at 60 North Union Street. (11-0)
COMMENT: Releasing these funds at this time rather than at the Annual Town Meeting in 2013 can save the town tens of thousands of dollars in short-term borrowing interest expense.
Now the $5,000 expense of calling the special Town Meeting looks like a bargain, since this article alone saves the town tens of thousands of dollars.
ARTICLE 2 BYLAW AMENDMENT/LEAF BLOWERS (I)
To see if the Town will vote to amend Title V, Article 12 (“Noise Abatement”), of the Town Bylaws and/or to repeal or revise the vote of the 2012 Annual Town Meeting under Warrant Article 25 to modify, remove, or otherwise adjust any restrictions on the use of gas-powered leaf blowers; or take any action related thereto.
(Inserted by Kevin Greeley and no one else)
We don’t have much to say about this, on top of what we have already said. Greeley couldn’t even get the rest of the Board of Selectmen to vote in his very own article. Moreover, even Greeley’s committee members didn’t support this article. The only thing Greeley accomplished with his meddling was to waste Town Meeting’s time with a broad, ill defined, unsatisfactory article that could result in hours of useless debate. ‘Nuff said.
