Another S.N.A.F.U.?

MAcciard said...

Publius, please accept this as an article submission.

Another S.N.A.F.U.?

I finally had time to watch the budget committee public hearing, and I was surprised to see that they did not discuss, and disclose any of the petitioned warrant articles! I know there is at least 1 petitioned warrant article submitted that is a "money warrant article". Yet they did not discuss this.

RSA 32:5 clearly states;

32:5 Budget Preparation. –
I. The governing body, or the budget committee if there is one, shall hold at least one public hearing on each budget, not later than 25 days before each annual or special meeting, public notice of which shall be given at least 7 days in advance, and after the conclusion of public testimony shall finalize the budget to be submitted to the legislative body. Public hearings on bonds and notes in excess of $100,000 shall be held in accordance with RSA 33:8-a, I. Days shall be counted in accordance with RSA 21:35.
II. All purposes and amounts of appropriations to be included in the budget or special warrant articles shall be disclosed or discussed at the final hearing. The governing body or budget committee shall not thereafter insert, in any budget column or special warrant article, an additional amount or purpose of appropriation which was not disclosed or discussed at that hearing, without first holding one or more public hearings on supplemental budget requests for town or district expenditures.

This would mean that the article can not be legally placed on the warrant, as it was not discussed at the public hearing.

RSA 39:3 also states;

39:3 Articles. – Upon the written application of 25 or more registered voters or 2 percent of the registered voters in town, whichever is less, although in no event shall fewer than 10 registered voters be sufficient, presented to the selectmen or one of them not later than the fifth Tuesday before the day prescribed for an annual meeting, the selectmen shall insert in their warrant for such meeting the petitioned article with only such minor textual changes as may be required.

This compels the town to insert the warrant article. Now RSA 39:3 also states that the right to have an article inserted SHALL not be infringed upon by the provisions of RSA chapter 32, and THAT may be the town's way out of this mess, But someone should surely look into why this wasn't presented at the budget committee public hearing. It could be that Russ did not give the committee all of the warrant articles as has happened the last two years, I don't know, but these types of issues should not happen.