Peterson: Who Pays and Who Gets Town Services for Free?

Who should pay for special services from the town and who should get them for free? 

This is the question raised by MEMO’s pending application to permit Medfield Day. This is the issue because the town provides to MEMO the services of the Medfield police and DPW employees that in turn both allow Medfield Day to occur and get cleaned up. The town does not charge for those services, even though MEMO makes enough money from Medfield Day to pay.

The questions I have raised are ones about essential fairness, first, what groups should pay the town for the cost of loaned town employees and second, whether the town does this for all groups. If the town does not give free town services to all groups who ask, as I suspect, then is it fair to provide free services for one group and not for another? And how does the town decide which groups get the town employees to work for them for free and which groups have to pay?

I estimate the cost to the town of the overtime for the town employees who work to make Medfield Day happen at about $3,000 to $5,000.  MEMO does not pay for those town services, so the town is effectively subsidizing MEMO’s Medfield Day by that amount. The amount is not large, but the principle is.

MEMO is not a charity, it is an association of businesses, akin to a chamber of commerce, whose stated purpose is to promote its member businesses. There is no question that MEMO is a great organization and that it runs great events for the town, at little or no cost. It was those great services to the town that caused me to become a MEMO member – that and the fact that getting eight dinners a year for the $100 membership fee was a bargain.

The issue is whether any group, including MEMO, should pay its fair share of the costs when it costs the town money for the group to put on its events. The last year I ran Medfield Day, about six years ago, MEMO made a profit of $18,000 from the event and at the time, MEMO members suggested using those profits to promote their member businesses.

I have questioned whether the Medfield Day profits, that are only as large as they are because the town pays to provide MEMO with free labor, should be allowed to get plowed back into the MEMO member businesses or the subsidized dinners, or would it just be more fair to the town for MEMO to pay for whatever town services it uses.

At the last the , we voted 2-1 to permit Medfield Day without charging MEMO for town services. I voted against it because I feel Medfield Day should be revenue neutral for the town – the town should continue to provide the services and MEMO should reimburse the town for the cost of those services. I am told the vote cannot stand because of conflict of interest issues, so we will vote again Tuesday, Aug. 2.

At the Aug. 2 selectmen meeting, I am looking to learn how our town departments determine which groups may get free services, which do not, and how is that determination made.