LIVERMORE FALLS — Tempers flared Monday night when some Budget Committee members argued with a selectman over the committee’s rights to examine financial issues and make recommendations to voters.

Budget Committee Chairman Scott Roberts brought up a letter the panel submitted to the select board in December.

“The Budget Committee unanimously believes that the chair, with the tacit approval of the board has acted” contrary to both the letter and spirit of the 2006 policy which brought the Budget Committee into being and which has governed its subsequent actions, the committee’s letter states.

“His refusal to allow the interim town manager to assist us in our research and his insistence that the committee can only act on what the board allows makes the Budget Committee a mere creature of the board,” according to the letter.

Roberts said the Budget Committee is hamstrung and unable to accomplish its tasks, as they are outlined in the 2006 policy.

Select board Chairman Bill Demaray said he asked the town attorney to review the policy and e-mails that have been going back and forth since early December among Roberts, interim Town Manager Kristal Flagg and Demaray.

The Budget Committee is not supposed to make its own budget or propose to eliminate departments unless selectmen ask them to look into matters, Demaray said. The attorney’s opinion will be shared with the committee.

The appointed committee is supposed to make recommendations on the selectmen’s proposed budget and advise them on how to make it better, he said. The committee is a division of the Board, Demaray said.

It appears the Budget Committee had previously requested a former town manager to have a town manager of a different town come in to talk to them about contracting out snow removal. Flagg said there had been nothing done on the committee’s request and they asked her to do the same. She spoke to Demaray, who said he knew nothing about it.

Flagg was uncomfortable with asking the other town manager to come in without the board’s approval.

In an executive session on a discussion on what her duties as interim town manager are in December, the Budget Committee’s request came up, Demaray said.

It was a consensus of the board through discussion, he said, that Flagg or the committee not waste their time looking into doing away with the Highway Department. There are no minutes to the meeting and no action was taken, he said.

Selectman Alphonso Barker said he did not remember the board reaching a consensus.

Demaray also said neither the board nor Flagg have refused them any financial information. It is public information and available, he said.

Committee members requested a copy of a draft budget for 2011-12 left by a previous manager and monthly financial reports. That information will be made available.

Selectman Louise Chabot said she has no problem with the committee looking into ways to save the town money. They would bring that information to the board and they would see if it was something they wanted to do, she said.

According to the Budget Committee Policy, the committee has the powers and duties to review and make recommendations on the annual operating budget, make recommendations on annual capital expenditures and make recommendations on supplemental appropriations and expenditures, all as proposed by selectmen and town manager.

Roberts said the fourth paragraph under powers and duties gives the Budget Committee the right to look into ways to make the town run more efficiently and save taxpayers’ money.

That paragraph states that the Committee shall be able to make other recommendations on fiscal matters as it may deem advisable.

The committee’s authority is advisory only, the policy states. It also requires municipal officers and town manager to cooperate with and provide the committee with information that may be necessary to enable it to carry out its duties.

Roberts and other committee members argued that the panel needs to review all departments and budgets to find a way to reduce the budget and the $21 tax rate per $1,000 of property valuation and revenue continues decline.

Committee member John Ross said the more people that look at the figures the better the budget for the town and taxpayers will be.

“The people don’t want to strip the town of all of its services,” Demaray said. Townspeople want services at an affordable cost, he said.

It is up to the voters to make those decisions, Ross said.

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