Only two members remain on Finance Committee as Millville’s fiscal picture deteriorates

By JOSEPH FITZGERALD

MILLVILLE — The Special Town Meeting scheduled to be held Monday is in jeopardy of being postponed due to a lack of members on the town's shrinking Finance Committee.

With the resignation of veteran Finance Committee Chairman Gerry Labonte last month and longtime member Leo Trottier effective Dec. 7, the board lacks a quorum — only members Mary Ryan and Sheri Delisle remain on the committee as of today. And there have been no meetings held in preparation for the town meeting slated to kick off at 7 p.m. Monday in the Millville Elementary School.
The resignations have left some residents wondering how the town can conduct business at the town meeting, especially on money-related articles, which are typically accompanied by recommendations from the Finance Committee.
When contacted Wednesday, Executive Secretary Helen Coffin directed all questions to Board of Selectmen Chairman Paul Savage, who did not return a phone call from The Call.
As for now, only two members are left on the Finance Committee, which cannot meet because a legal quorum is necessary to conduct a meeting. A legal quorum is three of the five committee members. The committee's fifth member, Steve Tringali, left the board over the summer to take a position on the Blackstone-Millville Regional School Committee.
Trottier, who’s resignation goes into effect Sunday, said Wednesday that he resigned because of professional reasons and a new job. Labonte said he didn’t want to get into specifics as to the reason why he resigned. “I’ve always said that I wouldn’t want to do this anymore if it ever got personal or political or if we, as a committee, were impeded from doing our jobs,” he said.
There has been speculation that one or more residents will get up at the meeting and call for a postponement of the meeting - or at the very least postponement of the money-related articles - until the three vacancies on the committee are filled.
The resignations of Labonte and Trottier follow the Board of Selectmen’s unanimous vote in October to deny the Finance Committee’s request to seek legal advise from the town’s attorney over issues related to the Fire Department budget.
Labonte said he wanted a legal clarification on Fire Chief John Mullaly’s stated opinion that the chief has the right to exceed his budget by any amount of money in order to run his department, an opinion Labonte says is not shared by the Finance Committee.
That issue seems to have arisen out of Mullaly’s request to allow Special Town Meeting voters to decide whether or not the town should approve spending $500,000 on a new fire truck.
The Finance Committee was not in favor of supporting the article and Town Accountant Marilyn Mathieu had suggested putting it off until the spring because of concerns the town didn’t have enough money to pay for it.
Despite those concerns, the selectmen voted 4 to 2 on Nov. 3 to allow Mullaly to seek bids for the truck and place the financial article for the vehicle on the warrant. Voting in favor were members Charlie Poulin, Jackie Lima and John Laura. Savage and board Vice Chairman Tom Petrowicz cast the dissenting votes.
Two months ago, Mathieu provided a financial report to the selectmen, in which the balance sheet that was submitted and certified showed the lowest amount of free cash since 1988 with only $161,000 left in stabilization.
In March, Labonte sounded an early warning about the town’s finances, saying the town had depleted non-recurring revenue which the town had used in previous years to balance the budget. In addition, the town this year also saw reductions in state aid; school funding obligations; a decline in excise revenue; and a $100,000 overage in the snow and ice budget.