Section 8: Charter commission; rules and regulations; personnel; funds; receipts and expenditures; office space and facilities; taxation and borrowing
Section 8. (a) A charter commission may adopt rules governing the conduct of its meetings and proceedings and may employ such legal, research, clerical or other employees, who shall not be subject to the provisions of chapter thirty-one, or consultants as its account may permit. In addition to funds made available by a city or town the charter commission account may receive funds from any other source, public or private, provided, however, that no contribution of more than five dollars shall be accepted from any source other than the city or town unless the name and address of the person or agency making the contribution, the amount of the contribution and the conditions or stipulations as to its receipt or use, if any, are disclosed in a writing filed with the city or town clerk. The consent of a charter commission to any such condition or stipulation shall not be binding upon a city or town. Within thirty days after submission of its final report the charter commission shall file with the city or town clerk a complete account of all its receipts and expenditures for public inspection. Any balance remaining in its account shall be credited to the city's or town's surplus revenue account.
(b) Each city or town shall provide its charter commission, free of charge, with suitable office space and with reasonable access to other facilities for holding public hearings, may contribute clerical and other assistance to such commission, and shall permit it to consult with and obtain advice and information from city or town officers and employees during ordinary working hours. Within twenty days after the election of a charter commission, the city or town treasurer shall credit to the account of the charter commission, with or without appropriation, the sum of two thousand dollars in a town of less than twelve thousand inhabitants, the sum of five thousand dollars in a city or town of twelve thousand or more but less than fifty thousand inhabitants, the sum of seven thousand five hundred dollars in a city or town of fifty thousand or more but less than one hundred thousand inhabitants and the sum of ten thousand dollars in any other city or town. Such sum shall be provided by taxation in the manner set forth in section twenty-three of chapter fifty-nine if payment is made prior to the fixing of the annual tax rate, and otherwise shall be provided by transfer by the treasurer from available funds or by borrowing in the manner and for the period provided in the case of final judgments under section seven of chapter forty-four, and subject to all other applicable provisions of said chapter forty-four except that such borrowing may be authorized by the city treasurer and city manager, if any, otherwise the mayor of the city and by the town treasurer and board of selectmen of a town. A city or town may appropriate such additional funds for its charter commission as is deemed necessary.