In the context of small-town municipal affairs, what the Barrington Town Council did last week was shocking. With one seat vacant and one member absent, a three-person council voted unanimously to ignore the will of the voters.

The council’s approval of revisions to the 2026-2027 town budget occurred two months after Barrington held its first-in-history Financial Town Referendum, typically called the FTR. The FTR replaced the FTM (Financial Town Meeting), which had been the penultimate step in Barrington’s annual budgeting process for as long as any Barrington resident has been living here.

Every year, voters would gather in person, listen to presentations about the new spending plans, and vote yay or nay on the proposals. Over time, folks began to feel that the 350 people showing up to the one-night FTM wielded too much power, and that town and schools budgets were too vulnerable to the influence of small majorities. So Barrington changed it, ending more than a century of practice.

The new FTR is also the final step in the budgeting process, but it is markedly different. It is more similar to a November election, with a full day of in-person voting with paper ballots. 

Barrington town leadership drafted and approved the rules for the new budgeting process. They gave voters the ability to alter specific line items within the town budget. They empowered voters with the authority to shape town spending in ways they never could before. Then they had their eyes opened when one resident realized she could wield enormous power over the town budget in ways not anticipated.

Fearful that her proposed cuts (to spending increases) might actually happen, they launched a haphazard public relations campaign, which included a mailer to every Barrington home. The loud message was: Please come out and vote! (and protect our spending plans.)

Șo people did. Nearly 1,700 of them showed up to vote, many of them standing in a long line that snaked through the Town Hall, for a chance to cast individual votes on 36 different budget amendments.

When it was all said and done, most were approved. Voters carved $253,000 from the town spending plan. It was a 1% cut to the municipal operating budget, a .2% reduction to overall taxpayer spending.

The way town leaders responded seemed excessive. There was much worry and consternation, plus immediate steps to alter the FTR rules (presumably to prevent such an outcome from happening again so easily).

Before returning to what the council did last Monday night, consider what nearly 1,700 people did on May 27. Given the choice, they chose to spend less money in taxes. Given the choice, they favored public safety and public works, over town planning and town finance.

In other words, they had the power, and they exercised it wisely. They sent a clear message about how much money to spend, and how to spend it.

Then came last Monday night. Asked to approve a list of budget maneuvers submitted by Town Manager Phil Hervey, the three-person council of Braxton Cloutier, Jordan Jancosek and Kerry O’Neill voted unanimously in favor. Many of the moves were a direct counter-response to FTR votes.

One can reasonably ask if the council even has the power to override town votes. After all, charter changes, bond votes and council seats all go before the voters, and those votes are always the highest authority on the matter. Yet the 2026-2027 town budget went before voters, and now much of their authority has been stripped away.

The optics are terrible for a council that has shown a noticeable lean in favor of town administration over town residents.