BLANDFORD – At Monday’s Select Board meeting, Selectman Andy Montanaro said the Finance Committee will not be recommending support of the new above-minimum assessment which has been reduced due to the approval of $630,000 in mitigation funds from the state in the Supplemental Budget signed by Governor Baker. Montanaro said the 6.5 percent increase the town passed at the last Special Town Meeting will be recommended, which is approximately $27,000 less than the new assessment. Blandford’s more than 8 percent increase is the highest among the Gateway district towns.
“We don’t believe they’ve been earnest in listening to us,” said Linda Smith, chairwoman of the Finance Committee.
She said the new assessment would require passage of an override vote, which has been rejected three times this year. Blandford will hold its next Special Town meeting on the new budget on Thursday, November 18.
“We are still short,” Smith said. “We gave them (Gateway) last May the dollar amount we could handle without an override.”
Three of the towns which had rejected the Gateway budget, Chester, Russell and Blandford, will be holding Special Town Meetings that week to vote on the new assessments. Huntington, which also rejected the previous budget, had approved an amount for the Gateway district which is in line with the new assessment, and will not hold a meeting.
During the meeting, the question was asked whether the receipt of the mitigation funds will allow the town to pay the promised 2.5 percent salary increases to employees, which had been frozen due to the uncertainty of Blandford’s share to Gateway. The increases total $7,000 for the town.
Also at issue is a town administrator, which had been included in the budget at $40,000 as a part-time position.
“I’m as anxious as I was to recruit a town administrator,” Montanaro said.
At the meeting, he asked for the process to be started.
A question was asked about how going forward with the position will look to town employees whose raises were held back.
“The town administrator already lost half a year’s pay, because he won’t be on until January,” Montanaro said.
“The raises were there, and the town administrator was budgeted for,” Smith said.
She said that she didn’t believe the school would redo the budget this year, and suggested the $20,000 available from the open administrator position be used.
Smith said that between herself and Finance Committee member Tony van Werkhooven, they were each putting in 20 hours a week, and acting as town administrators with three employees.
“Right now you have free help,” she said. “I would like to see if it’s possible to start with the $20,000. We could take $7,000 and pay our people.”
Montanaro asked if the Finance Committee could lay out all of the possible scenarios, and how the town could respond, so that the Select Board could say yes to the raises. The matter was tabled until the next meeting.
Earlier in the meeting, Selectman Bill Levakis expressed concern that town employees were taking vacations before the town’s books were closed.
“We need the accountant, town treasurer and tax collector while we’re trying to close the books,” he said.
Levakis said the Select Board is asking for notification from all departments, and suggested extending that notification to 14 days. A motion was made and passed.
“If we could have gotten the books closed by October 15 (the target date), this would have been moot,” Smith said.
She said next year they would have the books closed by that date.
“The reason why this is so arduous now is that we’re cleaning up the past sins,” she said.
One of Blandford’s past sins involved the Hiram Blair Road project, where a bridge washed out following Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, stranding some residents. Former Select Board chair Robert Nichols was fined $12,500 last week by the state ethics committee for directing a bid without disclosure to his own company, Berkshire Consulting.
“As far we’re concerned, he paid back the money that he took from the town,” Levakis said.
Levakis said the town received a check from Nichols for more than $12,000 in repayment following the investigation.
Levakis said the Hiram Blair Road project was completed.
“What we had to do, because of all the documents that were missing, was prepare a packet for FEMA for reimbursement,” he said.
Levakis said that because of the illegal actions, “We didn’t get all the money that we could have.”
The project in total cost the town over half a million dollars.
He added that the $12,500 fine imposed by the state on Nichols would not be going to the town.
