Newport
The decision means Tuesday’s Town Meeting ballot vote will proceed as scheduled.
“The amended article doesn’t address the specific purpose of the initial version, which was to determine whether town employees should pay toward their health insurance premium,” Tucker wrote in his six-page ruling. “But it doesn’t eliminate the prior ‘textual subject matter’ because it maintains the subject of the health insurance plan and its ‘lesser cost to the employee.’ The request for a preliminary injunction is denied.”
Citing a court decision involving the town of Deerfield, N.H., Tucker said state law only prohibits amendments of “textual subject matter,” not “amendments that may change the intent or purpose sought to be achieved by the article’s drafter.”
Concerned Taxpayers of Sunapee, through its attorney, had alleged in a 33-page complaint that the amended wording removed the relevant subject matter of the original petition and therefore was in violation of state law.
The advisory-only petition article originally asked voters whether town employees should contribute more than “zero percent toward the cost of their health insurance premiums.”
In exchange for a higher deductible, of which the town will pay half, town employees pay zero in premiums under the new plan. The article was amended, and approved, at the deliberative session to ask if employees and taxpayers should share in the savings of the lower cost health insurance plan.
“While we are disappointed in the ruling, we also accomplished the larger goal of letting the voters know that the selectmen, without the knowledge or consent of the taxpayer, have forced the taxpayer to incur 100 percent of the cost of all town employee health premiums,” Carolyn Cole, attorney for Concerned Taxpayers of Sunapee, said in an email.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
