Tiverton canvassers vote petitioner budget invalid

School committee votes to take legal action

By Tom Killin Dalglish
Posted 5/3/17

TIVERTON — On the eve of Thursday’s Tiverton Financial Town Hearing (7 p.m. in the Middle School Cafetorium), there is no clarity as this paper goes to press about how many, or which, FY-18 budget or budgets, town voters will debate at the hearing, or choose from when they go to the ballot box at the Financial Town Referendum (FTR) on May 20.

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Tiverton canvassers vote petitioner budget invalid

School committee votes to take legal action

Posted

TIVERTON — On the eve of Thursday’s Tiverton Financial Town Hearing (7 p.m. in the Middle School Cafetorium), there is no clarity as this paper goes to press about how many, or which, FY-18 budget or budgets, town voters will debate at the hearing, or choose from when they go to the ballot box at the Financial Town Referendum (FTR) on May 20.
Last week it appeared voters might have two budgets to choose from at the FTR — one put forth by the budget committee and a second by four elector petitioners.
But then last Thursday, the board of canvassers, after a two-hour debate (see separate story), voted 3-0 to invalidate the petitioners' budget.
Minutes after that unanimous vote, Mike Burk submitted a complaint to the canvassers (see separate story), seeking to invalidate the budget committee's budget on grounds that it, too, had been invalidated by untimely filing.
Friday afternoon, the Tiverton School Committee voted unanimously to authorize its attorney Steven Robinson "to pursue all legal action necessary to ensure the petitioner budget appears on the ballot."
That decision drew immediate fire Sunday from the Tiverton Taxpayers Association which claimed that the school committee’s action could violate Section 1218 of the Town Charter which prohibits the use of school resources to influence the outcome of "an election, ballot question, or referendum."
The 3-0 vote by the canvassers came during the group's third (continued) meeting last week dealing with the validity and certification of competing FY-18 budgets proposed for the FTR.
The canvassers were acting Thursday on a complaint from Justin Katz, and were guided by legal advice from the Town Solicitor Anthony DeSisto.

Thursday's debate
The town hall debate Thursday, lasting two hours before a near-capacity audience, had nothing to do with money. Its focus was on whether the alternative budget, proposed by four elector petitioners missed deadlines and failed to qualify for the FTR ballot, and therefore missed a chance to go head-to-head with the budget proposed by the budget committee.
Offering that budget petition alternative were Sally A. Black and Dr. Jerome M. Larkin (both school committee members — Dr. Larkin is the committee chairman), and Joan Chabot and Randy Lebeau (both town council members — Ms. Chabot is council president).
"It's hard to really make a decision here," said Chairman Bobby Harris, when the time came for the three canvassers to vote. Mr. Harris made the motion to invalidate, and was joined in rejecting the petitioners' budget by Paul Amaral, and Jean Veegh (an alternate, who was voting because regular member DeEtta Moran had recused.
"It's incumbent upon us to follow the legal advice, as much as I don't like it," said Mr. Amaral.
He was referring to verbal and written advice given to the board by Town Solicitor Anthony DeSisto.
"The elector petition was not submitted in accordance with the requirements of the charter in a timely manner. For this reason, the elector petition is invalid [and] ... should not be forwarded to the Financial Town Referendum," Mr. DeSisto had opined.
"There are issues that are fatal to this petition," said Mr. DeSisto at the meeting. "No matter what decision you make," he told the board, "you may end up in court."

Why petition deemed invalid

From conversations with Town Clerk Nancy Mello and Mr. DeSisto after the Thursday meeting, it emerged that the petitioners' petition, with its signatures (over 95 tallied Friday by the clerk's office, when only 50 were required), had been filed before noon on Saturday, April 22, the clerk's deadline for the submission of petitions.
However, the petition was not accompanied by a docket or budget, as the charter required.
At 11:24 a.m. Saturday — before the noon deadline — Justin Katz, a member of the budget committee, filed with the clerk's office an "Elector Petition Complaint."
In it he claimed that the elector petition lacked the charter-required budget figures that are supposed to accompany the petition, or a statement remanding the budget to the budget committee.
Almost three hours after the Katz complaint was filed — at 2:47 p.m. Saturday, according to the clerk's records — a budget or docket came in by e-mail from Dr. Larkin.
As Mr. DeSisto said later, the elector petition was filed before noon with signatures, but without the required docket or remand language, and later — after noon — the docket was filed, but without the required signatures.
The canvassers' 3-0 vote left one budget standing — the budget committee's.
That, however, begged the question of why there even needed to be a Financial Town Hearing on May 4, or for that matter a FTR on May 20. Just one budget would be on the ballot.
"I think it is incumbent on this board to give the people a choice, if we are really to have a democratic (with a small "d") society," said Gayle Lawrence, in the lead-up to the canvassers' vote. A lack of choice "just seems wrong. Mr. Katz could go and cast a single ballot" at the FTR, on the only budget being proposed, "and that's it. That just seems wrong to me."

Dueling budgets: what's at stake

The petitioners say their intent "is to restore funding cut by the Tiverton Budget Committee from the original budget proposals made in January 2017 by the Tiverton Town Council and Tiverton School Committee."
The Budget Committee is proposing a total budget (for the schools and the town) of $49.4 million, and a proposed levy of $38.4 million. That's less than the elector petitioners, who are proposing a total budget of $49.7 million, and a proposed levy of $38.8 million.
In short, the petitioners would have appropriated $248,499 more to the schools, and $59,461 more to the town than the budget committee.
Budget committee cuts, the petitioners say, "were in funding to library services, the waste water treatment program, appropriations to community service organizations such as the Visiting Nurses Association, East Bay Community Action Program, Parents as Teachers and Newport County Women's Resources which provide the safety net for our most vulnerable citizens, the winter recreation program and the school department."

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