Franklin County commissioners will meet Thursday with lawyers to review legal options over a disagreement about who has final legal authority over the county’s annual spending plan.

County Commissioner Tom Saviello said Tuesday that the conflict developed when commissioners attempted to restore $87,841 the Budget Advisory Committee cut earlier this year. The cuts eliminated stipends paid to county commissioners in lieu of health insurance, removed a part-time administrative position in the treasurer’s office, and reduced a small amount of funding planned to record Sandy River watershed forums.

“We have a letter from the county attorney that explains the statute very clearly,” Saviello told the Farmington Select Board. “If the adopted budget is changed by the county commissioners, the advisory committee may reject that by a two-thirds vote. Those actions are final and not subject to further action by either the county commissioners or the advisory committee. That’s not pretty gray to me. That’s pretty black and white.”

Saviello said the advisory committee’s reductions were not arbitrary but followed several months of questioning salary structures, administrative capacity and new benefit costs.

“The budget has increased dramatically, about $5 million in three years,” he said. “I am not here to explain those increases because this is my first year, but I couldn’t get answers on how salaries were determined and I couldn’t get answers when the committee asked either.”

When the commissioners voted 4-1 to reinstate the stipends and the part-time position, the Budget Advisory Committee rejected the change by an 8-3 vote, meeting the statutory two-thirds requirement and placing the committee’s adopted version into effect. The legal opinion subsequently advised commissioners that restoring those items through internal transfers or contingency funds would conflict with the statute and legislative intent.

“If the money is cut as a specific line item, you cannot fill that money back up,” Saviello said. “A vote to withhold a specific line item does not constitute an emergency that justifies a transfer.”

Commissioners questioned whether personnel policy, which provides a 35% stipend for elected officials in lieu of health insurance, overrides the committee’s final action, since the policy has not been amended. Saviello said the legal interpretation is straightforward. “County policy does not trump state law,” he said.

Saviello said he personally stopped accepting his stipend on July 1 after receiving the legal guidance, while other commissioners continued to do so. The matter remains under legal review, and commissioners are scheduled to meet again Thursday with counsel.

He said the statute governing the county budget dates to 1991 and was updated in 2023 to change how representatives are appointed to the committee and to require a three-fifths vote by commissioners to alter the advisory committee’s proposed spending plan.

“The opportunity was there in 2023 to change it if you thought the language was archaic,” Saviello said. “None of the other parts of the statute were changed.”

Saviello also said the county’s budget process is more rigid than most municipal or organizational structures, where management can shift funds between line items as needs change during the year. “This is not how most of us would typically manage a department,” he said. “But that is what the statute says.”

County officials confirmed that once the Budget Advisory Committee adopts the annual spending plan after a public hearing and later rejects commissioner changes by a two-thirds vote, that decision becomes final under current statute. Commissioners cannot later restore a cut line item by reallocating or shifting funds from other departments, and legal counsel advised that doing so would conflict with legislative intent. The county is currently operating under the Budget Advisory Committee’s adopted budget without adjustments to reinstate stipends.