BERNARDSTON — In a speedy, less than 10-minute Special Town Meeting last week, residents unanimously approved the two articles on the warrant, including reimbursing Marshall’s Country Store for a $76,950 overpayment for trash bags.
When asked how it was possible the store overpaid, Selectboard Chair Brian Keir said that an agreement was made with the previous owner many years ago that the store would pay double for trash bags to pay off money that was owed. Throughout changes in town administration and store ownership, the tradition continued without notice, even after the trash bag debt was fully paid.
“The previous owners to Jesse and Amber [Snow], they had gotten in arrears … on trash bag purchases, previous to the current Highway Department as well. So to get them out of that debt, any time [the Highway Department] would bring them one case of bags, [the store owners] would write a check for two,” Keir explained at Thursday’s Special Town Meeting. “That process continued when Jesse and Amber purchased it. They didn’t know they were paying two for one. The current highway crew didn’t know they were paying two for one until an employee at the store, who was getting ready to retire, asked Jesse if he could purchase a case of trash bags before he retired. … So Jesse said, ‘Yeah, we’d better count a case of trash bags just to see how many are in there.’ And the math didn’t add up.
“The case cost them $450. They were writing a check for $900 every time we brought them a case. So they did that for two and a half years,” Keir continued.
After the overpayment was discovered, Keir said the store owners met with the Selectboard, Highway Department and town administrator to determine how much was overpaid. To reimburse them for overpayments in this fiscal year, the town is giving the store a few dozen cases of free trash bags, but state law makes paying bills or reimbursing overpayments from previous fiscal years more difficult.
He said the Finance Committee did more research with state officials, while the town administrator and treasurer went through inventory and the accounts to ensure everything was accounted for, and it was determined the town could reimburse the store for the nearly $77,000 overpayment in previous years by using some of its available free cash.
Keir added that safeguards have been put in place to prevent such overpayments from happening again, and a bigger “paper trail” keeping track of sales.
Voters unanimously approved the article, as well as Article 1, which sought to use free cash to pay a $774 Amazon bill from the previous fiscal year.
