There were no surprises at the Annual Town Meeting at the middle school, with all 15 warrant articles passing by wide margins Monday night.
Town Moderator Joe Markey opened the meeting by saying this was the first meeting he could remember “without a hot-button topic.”
The meeting was so uneventful that the closest vote came on the introductory question used to test the electronic vote clickers, which asked if it was a “great night” for Town Meeting.
Residents said yes, 122-26.
The biggest piece of business was Article 6, which asked residents to approve the town’s proposed $65 million operating budget endorsed by both the Select Board and the Finance Committee. While the article was overwhelmingly approved, 149-23, a handful of residents expressed their concerns and objections.
Pat Campbell said she thought the 8 percent increase in Town Administrator Rob Dolan’s salary, bringing his salary to $212,500, was “excessive.”
Select Board member Phil Crawford explained that the proposed raise was a decision reached by the Select Board and Finance Committee after comparing Dolan’s salary with 15 comparable communities.
“We found that not only was he significantly underpaid compared to his counterparts, but we feel that Town Administrator Dolan is one of the finest in the Commonwealth,” Crawford said. “When we looked at the comparison towns, the range was anywhere from $210,000 to $225,000 so even with increase, he still was at the lower end of his peer group. But he was happy with that, we were happy with that, and we moved as a board to support that because it was very much deserved.”
Fellow board member Dick Dalton agreed with Crawford, saying “it’s the market rate that is at issue.”
“Whether it’s the town administrator, the police chief, the fire chief, the DPW director, you have to at one point pay at a rate to attract quality people,” said Dalton.
Residents also expressed concern about the $33,738,596 proposed school budget. Campbell questioned why school buses and maintenance ($3.7 million) are included in the DPW budget and not in the school budget. She said there are 15 buses that are consuming large amounts of diesel fuel and adding to greenhouse gasses.
“Maybe we should add that cost to the School Committee budget and maybe the School Committee will do something about it,” she said.
She said the schools are no longer providing town officials or residents annual line-item budgets.
“They are claiming they don’t have one, so how did our selectmen and our finance committee make a recommendation for the school budget if they don’t even know what went into the bottom line?” Campbell said. “I am going to go to our Commonwealth and to our senators as well to say that Lynnfield no longer has a line-item budget with which they can be more transparent with their citizens. This is a very serious problem.”
Following her remarks, Campbell was mildly applauded.
Superintendent of Schools Kristen Vogel did not attend the meeting. Resident Wallace MacKenzie asked if anyone from the Select Board, School Committee, Finance Committee, or Town Administrator’s office could speak to Campbell’s points. As no one offered to speak, Markey asked Dolan to speak.
Dolan said he has been through many budget processes in his life and has never seen a more transparent and open process than that of Lynnfield’s Town Meeting.
“I would never advocate for lack of transparency in this budget but our schools spend our money in a way that is purposeful for students and, I think we should be very proud of the budget we passed tonight,” Dolan said.
Article 7, the $2,880,929 capital budget, which Dolan described as “very robust” also passed by a large margin, 152-20. Major purchases include school technology ($250,000), two new police cruisers ($110,000), a new ambulance ($400,000) a new pumper truck ($800,000), $550,000 for roads (making a total of $1.2 million when state money is added), a Pillings Pond dredge feasibility assessment ($48,000), and improvements in the gym floors at the high school and middle school ($141,000).
One resident asked about the Pillings Pond feasibility study. Conservation Commission Chair Don Gentile said that half the pond was dredged in the 1990s, but the part near Bellevue Island is “filling itself in with sedimentation” and that “eventually it will fill in.”
“We are far away from asking to dredge,” Gentile said. “What we are asking is to determine the viability of the project.”
The only other article of interest was expected to be Article 13, an increase in town cemetery fees. That, too, passed by a wide margin, 143-9.
“We want to make sure we are in line with our neighbors and we found we are not,” Dolan said.
He added that the yes vote will increase opportunities for future expansion to assure there will be adequate space “for decades to come.”
The meeting ended with a laugh when a typo was discovered in the fee structure and Assistant Administrator Bob Curtin was asked to explain.
He chuckled and said “Mr. Curtin is responsible for everything in this town that’s bad.”
