Brattleboro Representative Town Meeting members should try an experiment. The body should form a Warrant Committee for a trial period of one year and see how it goes.
What’s a Warrant Committee?
When Bob Gannett brought Representative Town Meeting to Brattleboro, his experience with it began in Milton, MA. And in Milton, Town Meeting Representatives have a much bigger role in setting the agenda and budget to be voted on. Representatives elect a 15 person Warrant Committee to decide what articles will be warned.
When the Town prepares a preliminary budget, it goes to the Selectboard, which gives it to the Warrant Committee. The Warrant Committee then reports on and recommends a budget and tax rate.
In Milton, it takes 10 registered voters to put an issue on the Warrant for Annual Town Meeting. Town departments, boards, and committees can place items on the Warrant as well.
Why would the Warrant Committee be a good experiment? Three reasons.
First, it would be interesting to see what happens when Representatives are given more control and authority. Giving Representatives a greater role in setting the agenda and budget might lead to different outcomes. It could make local democracy even more direct. Fifteen or more reps would see budget requests and decide what appropriations are necessary, without the filter of a five member Selectboard.
Second, the selectboard would be relieved of the heavy holiday workload of budgets. The selectboard could spend more time and energy on policy, rather than budgets. They might get more done by distributing the workload this way.
Third, those desiring an impact on the budget would be more inclined to run as a Town Meeting Representative, so they could volunteer for or be appointed to the Warrant Committee. Voters might then take more interest in who the elect to serve if the results mattered more. And if 10 voters were allowed to get something on the agenda, the problems and confusion of advisory motions at the end of the meeting might be dispensed with.
Fourth is that more Town Meeting Representatives would be required to pay closer attention to the operation of the town throughout the year.
Last, but not least, is that it probably wouldn’t be that hard to give it a try. Town Departments would still prepare budgets and the Town manager would still compile them. Instead of meeting with the selectboard, though, budget meetings would be with the Warrant Committee. The Warrant Committee would give the informational sessions to fellow members each year.
Giving the Warrant Committee a try is perhaps the least invasive way I can think of attempt to improve RTM. RTM still excludes the majority of voters, in my view, but this might shift the balance so that those who are able to participate in Representative Town Meeting have a greater role and more meaningful responsibility.
Here’s how Milton, MA has it written up in their Charter:
THE WARRANT COMMITTEE
Section 1. The Town shall have an advisory committee to be known as the Warrant Committee consisting of fifteen legal voters of the Town. On or before the fifth day of July in each year the Moderator shall appoint fifteen members to the Warrant Committee each of whom shall serve for a term of one year beginning on the fifth day of July in the year of the appointment.
Section 2. The Warrant Committee shall, prior to the fifteenth day of July in each year, meet, at the call of the member thereof first named, for organization by the choice of a chairman and secretary. And they shall meet thereafter from time to time as they may deem advisable.
a. They shall have the power to fill vacancies in their number by vote, attested copy of which shall be sent by the secretary to the Town Clerk.
Section 3. It shall be the duty of the Warrant Committee to inform themselves concerning those affairs and interest of the Town, the subject-matter of which is generally included in the warrants for its Town meeting; and the officers of the Town shall, upon their request, furnish them with facts, figures, and any other information pertaining to their several departments; provided, however, that any such information may be withheld when, in the opinion of the officer or board of officers so requested, the communication thereof might injuriously affect the interests
of the Town or its citizens.Section 4. The Warrant Committee 112 shall consider the various articles in the warrants for all the Town Meetings held during the period for which they were appointed including the various articles in the warrant for the annual Town Meeting next after their appointment; they shall also consider all questions submitted to the voters of the Town at any meeting, excluding State elections; and they shall report in print before all such meetings their estimates and recommendations for the action of the Town. Copies of such reports shall be left at the dwelling houses in the Town at least four days before the day set for consideration of the various articles in the warrant considered by them and at least four days before the day upon which the voters are to consider questions submitted to them at any meeting.
a. On or before December first of each year each board, committee or officer of the Town shall file with the Selectmen, who shall transmit the same to the Warrant Committee, a preliminary budget, with a statement in detail of the appropriation or appropriations recommended by such board, committee or officer for the work under its or his charge for the ensuing year, with a final copy of said budget due to the Warrant Committee by January thirty- first.
b. The Warrant Committee shall include in its report of recommendations for the annual Town Meeting a statement setting forth the total appropriations so requested, the appropriations recommended, and the totals of such appropriations requested and recommended, and an estimate of the tax rate for the ensuing year if such recommendations are adopted. The copies of such reports may be combined with the warrants of the Selectmen for publication and delivery as provided in Section 1 of Chapter 2.
ACTIVATING RTM
Thank you very much for your attention to this, Chris. Control of the agenda is the exact thing that Brattleboro Common Sense (BCS) has been advocating for several years. Perhaps we will emulate the Milton text as you suggest at Representative Town Meeting (RTM) next Saturday.
The activation of RTM is a systemic issue. The selectboard controls the RTM agenda and regards RTM basically as an assistant that provides votes on the selectboard’s proposals. So, the board provides no time in the RTM agenda for RTM to make its own proposals, and if there is any time at all, it is at the end of a long meeting, when members are tired and want to go home. As a result RTM meets only once a year to do the selectboard’s bidding and is seen as an event, instead of being respected as a branch of government. The obvious remedy would be RTM meeting more frequently through the year. We believe that other important proposals will necessarily flow from this.
The town charter says Representative Town Meeting “. . . is a guiding body for the town and a source of ideas, proposals and comments,. . .” A GUIDING body for the town! This is the important and neglected purpose of 140 RTM members, whose guidance is needed to address the challenges of the day.
When (BCS) first brought attention to this at RTM in 2014 there was little interest. Now RTM has a more curious kind of member and in the last two years more have attended BCS meetings about activating the RTM. (Look for an article about it in the Reformer this coming week.) People who want an active resonsible RTM are in touch through BCS: info@BrattleboroCommonSense.org 802 490 9363. Thank you again for this important reporting and research, Chris.
Ballot Article Committee Vs. Finance Committee
I would propose calling this a Ballot Article Committee, as “warrant” if often associated with arrests. Because “warrant” has diverse connotations for multiple contexts, changing the name into a more exact understanding can help public accessibility to participate. Communicating intentions to people is so vital to successful organizing, and committee name alterations/modernization are useful and common practices. (When is the Honor Roll Committee gonna revise to the Memorial/Monument Committee so people know what they do, without timely investigation? Most People I have asked assume the Honor Roll Committee is for Student Scholastic concerns.
I appreciate the statement that in Milton, “10 registered voters can put an issue on the Warrant for Annual Town Meeting”. That is fantastic compared to the 5% and 10% of voters the Brattleboro Charter requires to warn ballot articles. By enabling public electorate minorities to be present in direct democracy, we can at least start documenting evidence of political movement initiatives that may have been neglected by a majority.
“The selectboard could spend more time and energy on policy, rather than budgets.”
I would not limit this committee to only budget recommendations, which is what People in the finance committee do. Why not expand to include policies into a Ballot Article Committee?
“Third, those desiring an impact on the budget would be more inclined to run as a Town Meeting Representative, so they could volunteer for or be appointed to the Warrant Committee”
I have been advocating for positions to be paid and elected to counter elitist nepotism.
“Voters might then take more interest in who the elect to serve if the results mattered more. ”
Constituents should have equally counted votes to Representatives.
“Giving the Warrant Committee a try is perhaps the least invasive way I can think of attempt to improve RTM”
Milktoast says what?
“Section 1. The Town shall have an advisory committee to be known as the Warrant Committee consisting of fifteen legal voters of the Town.”
Excluding people from voting based on qualification biases like citizen status, felony history, age, and other discriminations is tragic suffrage .
“On or before the fifth day of July in each year the Moderator shall appoint fifteen members to the Warrant Committee each of whom shall serve for a term of one year beginning on the fifth day of July in the year of the appointment. ”
Moderators are an oppressive and unnecessary abuse of authority.
Ballot Articles and Monuments
“Milktoast says what?” : ) (A more invasive path for RTM would be to kill it off and replace it with something better…. I’ve never heard a really good reason for why anyone in town who wants to show up at Town Meeting and fully participate/vote shouldn’t be able to. I’ve searched for this answer, too…)
I find the “warrant” terminology to be confusing, too, but thought I’d use it here since it is what they called it in Milton. I accept the friendly amendment to change it to something else. (The Honor Roll one took me a while to figure out, too…)
Hmmm
I hear this got a bit of traction…. but that there is a claim that it is prohibited by statute.
I’m pretty sure RTM can form a committee. And this was in the original model Gannett was copying. And if there needs to be a change to the Charter, so be it. It’s a living document that can be amended. Especially in attempts to improve democracy.
Other RTM towns do it.
This would be healthy and give people a reason vote for reps. “Are you good with budgets?”
Experiment! Try forming it and going through the whole process, but not “officially” accepting the results year one. Do it to see what happens, in parallel.
One more thought
If the objection is that an RTM committee can’t warn articles, then this could be set up so that the committee does all of the work and hands it over to the Selectboard for them to officially warn.
Not hard. A matter of wanting to do it, or not.