Adams Town Meeting OKs $19M Fiscal 2025 Budget; Glen Articles Trigger Debate
Town Meeting member John Cowie held five articles for further discussion during Monday's annual town meeting.
One hundred and six of the 150 town meeting members, enough for a quorum, attended the annual town meeting held in the Memorial Building.
All articles passed overwhelmingly, most unanimously, but several sparked some discussion and explanations when held by Town Meeting member John Cowie and Selectman Joseph Nowak, particularly those related to the Greylock Glen.
Adams uses a consent calendar, or the grouping of articles by topic, to be voted on at once. Any town meeting member can call for one or more articles to be held out of the vote for further discussion.
The town budget totals $18,830,525, up 3.49 percent, or $634,334, over this year. The proposed operating budget is $9,845,854, up $286,172, or 2.95 percent, and includes expenses for utilities, repairs, maintenance, supplies, services and programming, and a significant investment in technology.
The Hoosac Valley Regional School District assessment to the town is $6,345,380, of which $662,000 is the annual payment on the high school building project. The assessment to the Northern Berkshire Regional Vocational School District (McCann Technical School) is $1,063,774.
The warrant also had a long list of spending articles from stabilization, free cash and other accounts; a bylaw requiring dogs be leashed; and the creation of two funds — a sewer enterprise fund and a Greylock Glen revolving fund — that raised questions from town meeting members.
Nowak, sitting with the other Board of Selectmen members, said he'd worked a long time to put together a "packet" but didn't want to proceed because he didn't want to told it didn't pertain to the article at hand — Article 23 that would establish a revolving fund to accept rental fees from the Greylock Glen for use in maintenance and repairs.
"I'm not going to bring it out to the public. Because our town is getting to the point, if it already is there, that there is no transparency whatsoever. And now I'm going to stop there," he said.
Chair John Duval, however, asked him to be more specific in his accusations since he'd already voted for this as a selectman.
Nowak said his problem was that the town administrator would have spending authority over the fund — like he has on the nine other revolving funds the town has.
"Now we're going to vote to allow our town administrator to oversee the revolving funds of Greylock Glen, the biggest project this town has seen in a long time," he said. "And I think this is a town of Adams project."
He questioned what had happened to the proposed Greylock Glen commission and said that was what he had been researching. Town Meeting member Diane Parsons also asked why the commission was never established to scattered applause.
The commission, approved as a home-rule petition by town meeting in 2019, had died in committee last summer and needed to be rewritten, particularly the makeup of the commission.
Duval said a commission will be eventually set up but right now the project is moving forward with Town Hall in charge after nothing had materialized in the last 75 years.
Green compared it to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, in which the city of North Adams was very involved in the beginning but has now been able to step back.
"When it became self-sustaining, or marginally self-sustaining, eventually the commission was created," he said. "There's been a lot of discussion about financial control. If a commission is created town meeting loses financial control over Greylock Glen expenditures, there would be no reason for the revolving account. There would be no reason to discuss it. ...
"Accountability rests with the town staff, with the Select Board ... the intent of the mission is to allow it to be a self-sustaining, self-managing enterprise. When that day comes there will be no discussion with this body about Greylock, it will be completely independent and at that time, there should not one dime of taxpayer dollars going to it."
Selectwoman Christine Hoyt read from the town charter that the town administrator is the chief fiscal officer and is entrusted with the day-to-day operations of the town. She also pointed out that Town Administrator Jay Green and the town's Finance Director Crystal Wojcik were state-certified public purchasing officials, and the Board of Selectmen is not.
"The individuals at the end of this table have and do work for the town of Adams knowing what the general laws are and working for the select board," she said.
Duval said this new revolving account would operate the same as the others, such as the Adams Visitor Center. These accounts do have expenditure limits ranging from $5,000 to $90,000 and Town Meeting member Craig Corrigan asked why the new account did not. Green explained that the account has not been established and the Glen Outdoor Center isn't open, so there is data yet on how much it will take — or how much may go out in bills.
Much the same questions came up over establishment of the sewer enterprise fund and if those numbers would be hidden from town meeting. Green said the expenses out of the enterprise fund would show up exactly the same way as in this warrant: as line items showing operations, personnel and capital expenditures.
Cowie also pressed Hoosac Valley Superintendent Aaron Dean on the school budget and how the new pathways programs were helping educate the students. Twice a point of order was called that the questioning was off topic. Cowie tried to say it was about the budget but Town Moderator Myra Wilk said curriculum questions were best directed to the School Committee, not town meeting.
He also questioned health insurance for the new Greylock Glen director in Article 5, voted for it, and then tried to reopen it after finding out the wage negotiations with Department of Public Works union was not in the compensation plan. Nowak seconded his motion but town meeting loudly rejected reopening the question. He withdrew his hold on the McCann budget because no one from the school administration was there and on Article 24, which authorizes $80,000 from the Economic Development Fund to pay the Glen director's salary.
Town meeting gave a standing ovation to retiring Town Counsel Edmund St. John III and Green announced that the town report was dedicated to Kumar, the town's first K9 who died last year.
Tags: adams_budget, annual town meeting, fiscal 2025, Greylock Glen, town meeting 2024,
