The Norwell Budget Battle Behind Closed Doors

In Norwell, the breaking point did not arrive in a meeting room in public view. It arrived in the form of a letter, an agenda item, and the quiet knock on the door from a Norwell Police officer with an official notice after weeks of mounting tension inside Town Hall.

When Donald Mauch resigned from his position as chair of the town's Capital Budget Committee on February 2, it marked the end of what he describes as months of effort to bring “unprecedented rigor and transparency” to Norwell's fiscal planning. It also capped a bitter dispute that exposed tensions between volunteer oversight boards and elected officials over the boundaries of independence, the definition of accountability, and the pressures facing Massachusetts communities as they navigate budget constraints.

The conflict began, ostensibly, over procedural questions: How many vendor quotes should be required for capital purchases? Can operating budget expenses be reclassified as capital items to avoid a tax override? But it escalated into allegations of unprofessional conduct, alleged demands for private assurances, and ultimately, the delivery of a removal hearing notice to Mauch's home by a uniformed police officer — a step that town officials defend as routine but that Mauch and law enforcement experts characterize as intimidation.

The story that emerges from interviews, emails, and meeting transcripts is one of competing visions of governance: Mauch and his committee members saw themselves as restoring substantive oversight to a body they believed had become a "rubber stamp." Some in town leadership, meanwhile, viewed the committee's new processes as overreach that threatened to derail the budget cycle during a critical year.

A Push for 'Unprecedented' Transparency

Mauch, a retired professional with decades of volunteer experience on town boards, took over as chair of the Capital Budget Committee with what he describes as missionary zeal. He developed detailed spreadsheets, prioritization matrices, and new protocols designed to bring what he called "unprecedented taxpayer transparency" to the town's capital planning process.

"For too long, the Capital Budget Committee was the poor stepchild of the fiscal oversight boards," Mauch said in an interview. "Department heads would come in, present their funding request, and members would sit there and say, 'Yep, okay, yep, okay.' That would be it."

His vice chair, Kimberly Dall, who now serves as acting chair, confirmed that the committee embraced Mauch's approach. "Strong capital planning requires rigor, transparency, and independent review," she said. "Don consistently advanced these tenets. We got a full asset inventory list for the first time. We're focused on multi-year capital forecasting."

Among Mauch's innovations were detailed tracking systems for police vehicles, using a hybrid metric of engine hours and mileage, and an 11-criterion prioritization grid that would automatically rank capital requests. The town administrator, Darleen Sullivan, noted that some of these ideas were strong and that she was excited to work collaboratively with Mauch. 

But some issues proved contentious: Mauch's insistence on three independent vendor quotes for all capital items, the committee's response when asked to prioritize approval of school technology purchases that had been moved from the operating budget to capital, and a reluctance to hold closed-door meetings with members of the town’s select board. 

“I’m quite sure that certain department heads who’ve grown accustomed to the rubber-stamp mentality continue to complain to Darleen and [Town Finance Director] Christine and to Mr. Smellie,” Mauch wrote to Dall in a January email. “If they’d just give us a break and let us do the job the taxpayers expect of us, we’d be fine.”

'Dirty Budgeting' and Budget Pressure

In May, Norwell voters rejected a $3.7 million tax override by a 3 percentage point margin. Without it, officials say, departments were forced to absorb rising costs without additional revenue, which led to staffing and service reductions.

This year, Norwell faces similar pressures. Like many Massachusetts communities, the town is constrained by Proposition 2½. And like many towns across the South Shore, Norwell is confronting dramatic increases in assessments for the Plymouth County Retirement Board. Officials say that they are trying to avoid advancing a tax override proposal for a relatively small school budget shortfall of $334,000, according to emails reviewed and discussions at public meetings. 

One solution: move some expenses from operating to capital. Police cruisers and school technology — iPads, laptops, a computer lab — items that had historically been funded through the annual operating budget, were shifted to capital requests.

Select Board Chair Peter Smellie acknowledges the approach is imperfect. "I refer to it as dirty budgeting," he said in an interview. "It's not how you should perfectly budget, but we're trying to get through." He said town finance officials have developed a five-year plan that will require an override in year three, but "if we do good discipline in the next two years," the town can delay that need.

On January 28, Smellie and McGrath requested a meeting with Mauch. According to multiple accounts, they wanted to discuss the committee's new processes and also sought assurances that the $150,000 technology request for the schools would be treated as a priority.

Mauch declined to provide those assurances. "Absolutely not," he recalls telling them. "That goes against everything we stand for in terms of transparency and accountability. Those items have to come through in a funding request before the entire capital budget committee, and we will weigh that request like we do all of the other requests."

He also refused to meet privately with select board members and town officials about the matter. "We would not meet in the town administrator's office to discuss it because it was inappropriate to be discussing it in the back room," Mauch said.

Smellie disputes Mauch's characterization. "We did not try to force votes," he said. "We told him we wanted to talk to him about why we think it's so important. But no, we did not say, you 100 percent need to vote for this."

After a lengthy email chain on January 28 that included Mauch, McGrath, Dall, and Sullivan, Smellie finally demanded a meeting. 

“So let it be written, so let it be done,” Smellie wrote to Mauch via email. That line is a famous phrase from the 1956 epic film The Ten Commandments. Pharaoh Ramesses II uses this line to emphasize his absolute power. Smellie also referred to the Capital Budget Committee as a “subservient” committee to the Select Board.

“If that is what it is - subservient - that’s the first time I’m ever hearing of something like that,” said Dall. 

On the budget front, Sullivan defended the decision to move technology expenses to a potential capital article. "I wouldn’t call these things tactics and a mystery shrouded to say that we’re trying to avoid an override," she said in an interview. "If you look even many years past, there are some things that have been paid for outside the operating budget, but it’s transparent because it’s going in front of the town meeting."

She acknowledged the technology items have a lifecycle of less than three years but said they qualify for capital treatment because the total request exceeds $25,000. "It’s okay to request funding for an item that you’re going to put in front of a town meeting and ask," she said. "They can say no. People can say yes or no to this."

In an interview, Dall noted that the policies adopted by the Capital Budget Committee required individual items to cost at least $25,000 and have a lifecycle of more than five years.

Personal Grievances Enter the Fray

As the dispute over process intensified, town officials raised concerns about Mauch's interactions with department heads.

According to Smellie, Mauch made comments during capital budget meetings the previous year that were "insulting" to the police and fire chiefs. Video of those meetings shows Mauch asking the fire chief what he needed to store in a command vehicle, remarking, "What do you need to store in there? Axes?" The chief apparently viewed that question as demeaning, according to both Mauch and Smellie. 

Mauch says the comment was innocent. "I could have said oxygen masks, defibrillators, but immediately axes came to my mind because you know how they put the tools and stuff like that," he explained. He said he also privately told the town administrator that he thought it was "rude" for a department head to fall asleep during a capital budget meeting, apparently referring to the fire chief.

Dall, the vice chair, said she never witnessed unprofessional behavior. "Never," she said when asked if Mauch was inappropriate with town employees. "I never saw it or experienced any type of words or actions by Don that were inappropriate."

On January 31, Smellie sent an email to Mauch acknowledging that he had asked for Mauch’s resignation earlier that day and that the request had been denied. “Per our discussion, here is the official invitation to attend a public agenda item scheduled for the Select Board’s February 4th meeting, where there will be an agenda item seeking your removal.”

A Uniformed Messenger

On February 2, Mauch received a formal email from Smellie inviting him to a public Select Board meeting on February 4 to discuss his potential removal from the committee. The reasons cited included "unwillingness to collaborate," "unbecoming and unprofessional conduct," and causing an advisory board liaison to resign.

About an hour after the email arrived, there was a knock at Mauch's door. A Norwell police officer stood on his doorstep, holding a copy of the same letter.

Smellie defends the decision. "Town counsel said that's not enough, you need to have it delivered in person as well to legally meet the 48-hour advance notice," he explained. "I was not going to ask a town employee to deliver it. It would have been improper for a select board member to deliver the letter. So I did, unfortunately, use the police department."

"If it was me and a police officer showed up on my doorstep to give me a note, I would be taken aback," Dall said.

Darren Stocker, a professor of Criminal Justice at Cape Cod Community College and retired police officer, agreed. 

“When the police show up at anyone's door, there's a potential that they're going to feel intimidated,” said Stocker. “And then to be handed a piece of paper that doesn't appear to have any kind of legal binding to it. It's outside the norm of what the police would normally do.”

"We use the police to deliver notices all the time," said Town Counsel Bob Galvin. "He's not there in his capacity to arrest somebody, but he or she is there in their official capacity to deliver something."

“I've never seen it before,” said Stocker. “I find it an unusual practice, if it is a practice itself or if this is a one-time incident.” 

Mauch also saw the police visit differently. In a Substack post published after his resignation, he wrote: "Perhaps the ultimate display of shameful governmental intimidation was directing a police officer to my home, to serve notice of my planned removal that had been emailed to me earlier in the day."

'Governance by Fear'

Mauch resigned later that day, ultimately deciding against attending the public hearing.

"After what my wife has been through putting up with all of this, after what I've been through, after all the hours I've put in, I thought, why am I wasting my time with these people?" he said. "Even if they decided to give me another chance, the enthusiasm's gone out of it."

In his Substack essay, titled "Horse Trading and the Death of Civic Integrity," Mauch wrote: "There is no ambiguity: this is governance by fear. Discipline by spectacle. Let this serve as a warning. If you step forward in Norwell, do not expect fairness."

Town officials reject that characterization. Smellie said he hoped the meeting would allow both sides to present their cases. "At the end of the day, he may convince all of us that we're full of crap or whatever you want, and he's right," Smellie said. "So, he would have had that chance."

“Mr. Smellie’s dogged persistence to tar and feather me in the public square exposes his and McGrath’s motives… political retribution at the expense of the good people of Norwell,” Mauch wrote in an email. 

Sullivan said she worked collaboratively with Mauch over many months, though she declined to characterize his approach as overstepping. "I’m always welcome to input and welcome to these things," she said. "We need to be open for feedback, and I’ll take any help and any expertise from a volunteer and a resident because we have a lot of talented, smart people in Norwell."

"I think Norwell does it right. I think we do a great job," Sullivan said. "It’s too bad" that questions have arisen about the town’s fiscal management. "We’re doing whatever we can do right now to be fiscally responsible and put forth articles that are transparent."

An Uncertain Future for Oversight

After Mauch’s resignation, committee member Kyle Fabrizio reached out to Mauch by email: "I've been disheartened to see the focus by our town officials on things other than the job and fiscal responsibility that the residents expect from them."

In the meantime, Dall has stepped into the role of acting chair.

The committee's February 9 meeting was canceled due to a lack of quorum. With the budget cycle deadline at the end of March approaching, the committee faces pressure to complete its work.

Dall said the committee remains committed to the principles Mauch championed. "Does his resignation change that? No, it does not," she said. "I believe that all of our members are committed to those principles."

But questions linger about what kind of oversight is appropriate — and whether Massachusetts towns, constrained by tax limits and facing growing expenses, can afford truly independent fiscal review when budgets are tight and political pressures run high.