NORTHFIELD — A question to limit municipal spending in the upcoming fiscal year may be put to a vote at the May 6 Annual Town Meeting.
But after learning that the wording of the warrant article is not legally sound, the resident who wrote and submitted it no longer wants to endorse it. It is not yet known if the article can be withdrawn from the warrant, or if it will be passed over at Town Meeting.
The article was submitted by Northfield resident Brian Bordner and publicized on 01360tax.org, the website of the Northfield Taxpayers Association, a group unaffiliated with Northfield’s town government, and of which Bordner serves as the chairman, according to the website.
The intended purpose of the article was to put a $7.5 million limit on the town’s expenditures for the year of July 2019 to June 2020, according to a letter by Bordner posted on the website.
The town’s budget this year was about $8.6 million, Town Administrator Andrea Llamas said. The amount that will be proposed at Annual Town Meeting has not been finalized, but Llamas expects no major increases.
The legal problem with the proposal, Llamas said, is that it applies only to the “bottom-line,” sum total of the town’s budget. While it is possible to alter the proposed budget in a town meeting by changing individual lines in the budget, a limit cannot simply be imposed on the bottom-line number, she said.
“To just say, ‘Spend less,’ is not a direction to the town that can be implemented,” Llamas said.
Bordner, having learned of the legal problem with the article, now wants to withdraw it, he said at a Selectboard meeting Monday. But because Town Administrator Llamas is away from her office for the week, it is not known what legal mechanisms are available. If the article can’t be withdrawn, it can at least be passed over at Town Meeting, Selectboard Chairwoman Tracy Rogers said.
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 ex 261.