Should members of the Barrington Town Council have the power to approve the town budget, if officials are unable to hold a financial town meeting?

That is what Barrington voters are deciding when they head into the polls this year.

In fact, Barrington voters are facing six ballot questions this fall — one state question and five town questions. The state question asks voters to decide if "Providence Plantations" should be eliminated from the state's name.

The local questions are mainly focused on clarifying language in certain ordinances or eliminating outdated ordinances, but the fifth local question, if passed, would extend budget approval powers to the town council in the case of an emergency.

That is nearly what happened this summer, as Barrington grappled to balance crowd size restrictions and social distancing requirements imposed by the governor's emergency orders with the need to conduct its annual financial town meeting.

Barrington officials eventually held the FTM outdoors in mid-July, with residents and town leaders spread out across Victory Field at the high school. But Barrington Town Council President Michael Carroll said the community was fortunate to find a way to make the in-person event work.

"When our Barrington forebearers designed the financial town meeting, they didn't take into account the situations we've been dealing with the past year with the pandemic," Mr. Carroll said.

The council president said the town charter requires the budget be approved by residents at a financial town meeting. There is no mechanism, Mr. Carroll said, allowing for budget approval without a financial town meeting, which is why the council has proposed the change.

"This is kind of a 'break-glass-in-case-of-emergency' sort of thing… this proposal," Mr. Carroll said.

"We were fortunate enough this year… that we were able to hold an outdoor meeting. We don't know what's going to happen in the future."

Mr. Carroll said this change would be partnered with a series of requirements for it to be allowable — the governor needs to have declared a state of emergency; the town needs to have declared a state of emergency; and conditions must be such that holding an in-person financial town meeting would violate the governor's orders.

In addition, the council would be limited to a 2 percent increase over the existing budget.

"I believe it's important to have a backup to the financial town meeting, when we cannot have a financial town meeting," Mr. Carroll added.

Prior to approving a town budget, the council members would be required to complete a thorough procedure — meeting (likely online) with members of the town's Committee on Appropriations to discuss the proposed budget, and also taking input from residents.

"Those are things you can do virtually," Mr. Carroll said, adding that holding a vote online and allowing for amendments to the budget present challenges for a virtual FTM.

The council president recommended people approve all the ballot questions.

Deserving review

Former Town Moderator and longtime Barrington resident Julia Califano believes it would better to hold off on the proposed change until a charter review commission has the opportunity to review it.

"I just think this is very substantive, and feel like it should be reviewed," said Ms. Califano, who has also served as town council president and led the charter review commission in 2004.

"This may be the right decision," Ms. Califano said, referring to granting budget-approval powers to the council. "But this is happening without a great deal of public input and without people being aware of it."

Ms. Califano said the town had earlier granted officials additional powers — she mentioned the emergency fund established after a sewer line broke years ago and the town needed to allocate substantial funding at short notice to repair it. She said Barrington voters continue to approve that power year after year, although it has not been used since.

"That has never happened again," Ms. Califano said.

The former town moderator said voters need to think twice before heading into the polls.

"I think people, they go in and vote, and in Barrington they take it very seriously," she said. "But in this case, they might not know what it means."

Mr. Carroll said the change — if approved by voters this fall — could still be included for further review by the next charter review commission. That group is scheduled to begin its work in 2024. Mr. Carroll said he would support sending the change to the charter commission.

Not meeting the needs

Barrington Town Council member Jacob Brier said he will not vote in favor of the ballot question extending budget-approval powers to the council.

"This proposed charter change was shared later than the others on which we voted," Mr. Brier wrote in an email to the Barrington Times. "It was proposed and discussed at a Special Meeting held in late June for the purpose of discussing racism in Barrington, though the topic is entirely separate, and relates to our budget approval process."

Mr. Brier said he was voting against the ballot question because "it doesn't best meet the needs of the community." He said that before granting the council the power to approve the budget and "removing the opportunity for voters to have a say," officials should try to conduct a remote financial town meeting or a remote budget referendum.

Mr. Brier also said he was concerned with the provision limiting the budget increase to 2 percent.

"While ideally we should strive for low increases anyway, we have had many recent years during which the town approved budgets close to the 4 percent state maximum," Mr. Brier wrote. "This year, during a pandemic state of emergency with high unemployment, the people at the FTM voted for a budget increase of more than 2 percent, because that is what is needed to support the services our community wants, deserves and needs. And, they added money to the budget at the FTM."