TIVERTON — With a majority (55.4%) of the the votes cast on the budget proposals, the FY17 budget proposed by petition by Justin Katz (Budget #2) prevailed at Saturday's Financial Town Referendum (FTR). The voting results were announced shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday night by Town Clerk Nancy Mello.
Of 2,199 total ballots cast on the three budget proposals, Mr. Katz's budget proposal (Budget #2) garnered 1,220 votes, the Town Budget Committee's budget (Budget #1) received 879 votes (40%), and Councilor Joe Sousa's budget (Budget #3) got 100 votes (4.5%).
In evident anticipation that the FTR outcome that did occur, might indeed occur — a win by one of the petitioner's budget proposals — Town Administrator Matt Wojcik had placed an announcement on the agenda fot the Town Council meeting of Monday, May 23.
That item concerns what will happen if there is no budget adopted by the time tax bills will have to be mailed out. The agenda item simply says "Delay on Mailing of Tax Bills to June 10."
What will happen next remains to be seen at this point.
Asked for comment about Saturday's results, Mr. Katz said, "Now, the Budget Committee, hopefully with deep involvement of the Town Council, will have to match the budget to the taxpayer's ability to pay. As I've been saying throughout this campaign, town officials start from the wrong place: what they think they need and want. After two years of sub-1% budgets winning at the FTR, this outcome was entirely predictable; what were they doing asking for 3.5%?"
Mr. Katz has said on a previous occasion that if his budget proposal wins, by its terms it "remands the line items to the Budget Committee."
This could mean that the Budget Committee must find an estimated $780,000 (the approximate difference between the Budget Committee's budget and the Katz budget) to cut from its own proposed budget, with no guidance from Mr. Katz's proposed budget itself as to where those cuts must or could possibly be made.
"Elections have consequences," said Councilor Joe Sousa on Sunday. "We have to live with the choice that was made. The Town Council and the Budget Committee, need to be leaders and make it work." Mr. Sousa's petition-proposed budget came in third.
It is not known at this time when, or whether, the budget committee will meet, or whether, if it seeks to do so, a quorum will be able to convene. There have been unconfirmed rumors that individual members of the budget committee might fail to attend, thus preventing a quorum from convening.
Nor has there been any announcement as to how long it will take for the budget committee to deliberate and make the cuts the Katz budget calls for, or what role the Town Council might be called upon to play, or when.
Please note: This story has been updated as of 11 a.m., Monday, May 23. An earlier version incorrectly used the total number of referendum ballots (2,383) as the basis for determining whether any of the three budgets on the ballot had received a majority vote. The correct number should have been the total votes cast (2,199) for just the three budgets on the ballot. We apologize for the error and any confusion caused.