Templeton Financial matters;  Dispatch

From board of selectmen meeting on February 10, 2014:

Regionalization with Gardner~Dispatch Mr. Bennett stated that this issue was voted on in the spring and was voted down. He brought it up again because he thought it would save the Town about $90,000.00 Ms. Haley Brooks mentioned the she spoke to Chief Whitaker with questions about this and wanted him to speak about it. Chief Whitaker spoke and explained that with the grants that he gets annually, the total cost to taxpayers is on $36,896.00, which would only normally pay for maybe one employee. He stated that he believes Gardner wants to get Templeton to regionalize with them because they want to get more grant funds. He stated that the dispatchers in Templeton give excellent service and provide a lot more services than any other local community. Several people in the audience agreed that the service the Town gets is worth keeping dispatch services here and not regionalizing. Chief Whitaker stated that he was not told about this and he found out by the Phillipston Police Chief calling him about it because he had heard about it being on the agenda. The Chief brought documents to support the numbers and as well as the issues other communities have when regionalizing. Templeton is saving almost $120,000.00 by getting the grants from the State, so there is no reason to regionalize and lose services. Templeton is currently under contract with Phillipston.

Where does the money go???

Annual Town Meeting of 2012, article 35,
 communication commission wages (dispatch) is for $222,995.00.

Annual Town Meeting of 2013, article 9,
  communication commission wages is for $210,504.00.

Annual Town Meeting of 2014, article 5,
  communication commission wages is for $190,000.00.

Annual Town Meeting of 2015, article 5,
  communication commission wages is for $250,000.00.

So once this money is appropriated at Town Meeting and Phillipston pays their $54,104.00 and Templeton gets a grant for $119,204.00, where does that money go? It appears that it was and still is a shell game of moving money around to make it appear that every thing is fine, but as was reported at the last selectmen meeting, here on this blog and finally in The Gardner News, all is not fine, as with a bank account that was apparently not dealt with correctly. We will have to wait for an anticipated fall special town meeting to see. Will there be more transfers next year at the annual town meeting? This is something to consider while being asked to take on a 50 million dollar debt load for 10, 20 or 30 years.

The Town of Barre was spending close to $200,000.00 a year for dispatch before becoming part of a four town regional system and now the cost to the taxpayers is $96,000.00 in February 2014 dollars.

On another note, back in 2012 Annual Town  Meeting, article 29, which is about Templeton long term debt, a $1,163,724.00 amount to cover principal and interest was partially paid from Templeton municipal water enterprise fund in the amount of $466,608.00. Perhaps there was something to that line at the beginning of the third paragraph in a letter to the select board dated January 9, 2014, "with respect to fiscal matters generally, under general law, chapter 164, light plants are not separate legal entities and need the approval of their municipality' legislative bodies (town meeting) to borrow. Probably before it was gobbled up by MMWEC, in my opinion of course.

Jeff Bennett