The Barrington Town Council will hold a special meeting tonight, Thursday, April 23, focused on proposed budget amendments. 

According to Barrington Town Clerk Stephanie Bernardo, the town had received 30 budget amendment petition forms as of Thursday morning. The deadline to submit a budget amendment is April 27 at 4 p.m.

One of the budget amendments was filed by the Barrington School Committee. It calls for $278,100 to be put back into the schools’ requested increase. (The Barrington Committee on Appropriations made two cuts to the school department’s proposed budget increase. The first was a $556,000 reduction, and the second was for $278,100.)

Barrington resident Robin Bacon submitted an amendment calling: “No tax increase approved for this budget may be increased thereafter for a period no less than three years.”

And Barrington resident Janine Wolf submitted 28 amendments. If approved by taxpayers at the May 27 financial town referendum, the amendments would reduce the municipal budget increase by about $303,000. 

“I am interested to see if the wording I chose makes it to the ballot because the wording is essential to understanding the point of the proposed change,” Wolf wrote in a message to the Barrington Times. “For example, some of the amounts that the town forcibly takes from us, they turn around and donate to charities of their choice. This is preposterous and insulting.”

Wolf’s proposed amendments would reduce a wide variety of line items in the municipal budget, ranging from reductions in “Agency Support” for groups such as the Barrington Preservation Society and Eastern RI Conservation District, to salary increase reductions for different municipal departments. 

Wolf submitted the proposed amendments on Tuesday, April 21. On Thursday afternoon, Wolf received an email from the town indication that officials had rejected two of her proposed amendments. She wrote that she is appealing one rejection and resubmitting the other. 

In her message to the Times, Wolf wrote: “The changes to the charter do not match the words that they had the voters vote on in 2024, nor do they match the discussions had on the topic. The charter was modified in 2024 to allow them to paraphrase changes, and they did so deceptively if you ask me. At the time these changes were going in, I complained at the TC (town council) meeting that the draft changes to the charter were not matching what had been discussed. And now we are in a preposterous situation wherein we are expected to go to the polls when the only option is ‘Approve.’

“This ‘Approve only’ option was NEVER mentioned in either the Charter Commission discussions or the Town Council discussions that took place around the conversion to a Financial Town Referendum.”

The new FTR format dictates residents’ options for proposing budget changes. Taxpayers can submit proposed amendments of less than $50,000 one month before the financial town referendum. Taxpayers can also submit proposed amendments of more than $50,000, but they need to also collect 2,856 signatures from registered Barrington voters. The same one month deadline exists for larger amendments. 

The Barrington Town Council and the Barrington School Committee can also submit proposed amendments to the budget, following a majority vote. The two boards do not have the same signature requirement for amendments that exceed $50,000.