Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
Northborough Town Administrator John Coderre, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation Executive Vice President Doug Howgate and Needham Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick will speak at the Association of Town Finance Committees’s Annual Meeting.
All local finance committee members are invited to the Association of Town Finance Committees’s Annual Meeting on Nov. 5 at the Sharon Community Center.
The meeting will feature four educational workshops, running concurrently during two time slots.
The first session will feature “Finance Committee and Budgeting 101” with Northborough Town Administrator John Coderre covering the basics for new members, and a session on climate change and sustainability initiatives.
The second session will feature “The Great Resignation and How It Affects Your OPEB Liability,” led by Arlington Town Manager Sandy Pooler and Jim Powers, CPA, of Powers and Sullivan; and a workshop taking a closer look at the assessing function and the ways it affects municipal finance, led by Westborough Chief Assessor Jonathan Steinberg.
Following lunch, Doug Howgate, who will become the president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation early next year, will lead a general session on the overall economic outlook and its impact on municipal budgets. The session will be interactive, with opportunities for questions. Howgate has served as executive vice president at the Taxpayers Foundation since 2020.
Needham Town Manager Kate Fitzpatrick will open the meeting with a presentation on resiliency, sharing insights on her own resiliency journey spanning 25 years in local government. Her crowd-sourced poem, “We Long for a City Where We Go Hard on the Issues and Easy on the People,” has become nationally recognized.
The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. and end at 3 p.m. The cost is $55 for dues-paying ATFC finance committee members and $65 for nonmember finance committee members and all other local officials.
All local officials may attend. Online registration and a detailed agenda are available on www.mma.org.
The MMA is requiring attendees of in-person meetings to show proof of being fully vaccinated for COVID (card, photo or QR code). Exemptions are allowed with a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours. Masks are optional. These safety protocols are subject to change based on the latest public health data and guidance.