Last month Milton Town Clerk Susan Galvin published the absentee lists from last May’s Town Meeting. The following brief analysis is based on that data. Of the 10 precincts in town precincts 8 and 7 had the highest rate of absenteeism. Town Meeting which stretched over 4 days saw that absenteeism rise from 15% on day 1 to 27% on day 4. The overall percentage of absenteeism for Town Meeting was 21%.
A spreadsheet has been constructed that collates the data published by the Town Clerk. You can find it here. It contains total absences by day, absentee member lists by precinct and by day, and calculates additional data points based on that. Names in yellow are members who missed 3 sessions; members in red missed all 4 sessions. The source data can be found on the Town Clerk’s web page here.
Precincts 8 & 7 had the highest level of absenteeism with 21% and 15% respectively. Precinct 3 had the best attendance record with an absentee percentage of 3%. Precinct 3 was also the only precinct that had no chronic absentees. A chronic absentee is a member who missed 3 or more session.
The overall percentage of absenteeism, 21%, was derived by dividing the total absentees (239) by perfect attendance (279 members *4 days).
This raises more questions than it answers. Why does P8 have such a high rate of absentees? How does this compare to previous years? Is this a spike up? down? or consistent with past years?
Is it a number to be concerned about? Town Meeting Member Mary McNamara has spoken of her concerns regarding attendance and the number of town meeting seats that go uncontested. Ms. McNamara is also a member of the Government Study Committee. The committee has looked at the size of town meeting but chosen for now not to make any recommendations to change its composition or size. There will likely be a article at fall Town Meeting, based on a recommendation from the committee, that tasks the Town Clerk with making substantive efforts to encourage residents to run for town meeting. You can find the Government Study Committee’s report here.