Massachusetts Town Meeting - Budgets and Process in One Small New England Town Dealing with Proposition 2 1/2

I've just come back from my town's semi annual Town Meeting. In New England, the Town meeting form of local government is common in smaller towns. Some towns have modified versions, but the general theme is that each town will have a charter or bylaws that describe how Town Meeting is run.

A Town Meeting is both an event to be attended ("I went to the town meeting.") and a law making entity ("Town Meeting approved the budget.")

My town has something called an "open town meeting" where all the voters in town gather and vote on articles of a warrant presented to the community. Other towns will have representative town meetings where "Town Meeting Members" are elected to represent the voters. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has specific rules governing the town meeting as it relates to the size of the community: Towns with fewer than 12,000 residents cannot have a city form of government and towns with fewer than 6,000 must have an open town meeting. My town is larger than 6,000 and fewer than 12,000, although in all honesty, my understanding is that the population is bumped up to over 7,000 only because of the minimum security prison on the outskirts of town. The largest town in Massachusetts, Framingham, has a population of 65,060 as of 2005 and has a representative town meeting.

The warrant the Town meeting votes on lists a meeting's time, place, and agenda. A warrant is also known as a warning. A Town Meeting's action is not valid unless the subject was listed on the warrant.

One of the responsibilities of town meeting is to vote on budgets and municipal salaries. On tonight's warrant there were 44 different articles on which we, the voters, were asked to vote. Some are mundane (creating a revolving account for Parks & Recreation Department) - there were approximately 10 articles that were bundled together for purposes of time tonight. Others though require thoughtful consideration and debate.

Two articles were on the budget: one article asked Town meeting to approve a town budget, the second asked to approve a budget contingent that would be enacted if the Town votes for what is called a "Proposition 2 ½ Override."