Chapter 44

Section 43. The director shall annually require the auditor or other accounting officer of each city and town to submit schedules to provide for uniform returns giving detailed statements of all receipts classified by sources, and all payments classified by objects, for its last …

Section 44. The commissioner of revenue may obtain and compile statistics about the financial affairs of cities and towns and other information of public interest pertaining to municipal affairs. Such statistics and other information the commissioner deems relevant may be publish…

Section 45. The director may require the attendance of witnesses and the production of books and documents, and may examine witnesses under oath in the same manner as in the superior court.

Section 46A. The director may, if conditions appear to the director to warrant it, review the accounts and financial transactions and affairs of a city or town, or of any department, board, commission or officer thereof. For the purpose of conducting the review, the director may …

Section 47. No further sinking funds for the payment of debt shall be established by any city, town or district, but cities and towns shall contribute to every sinking fund established prior to May twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred and thirteen, and districts shall contribute to ev…

Section 48. The sinking fund commissioners shall have charge of all sinking funds intrusted to them by the city, town or district, and shall invest and reinvest, in the name of the board, all amounts contributed thereto and the income thereof as it accrues, in the particular bond…

Section 49. If, when bonds payable from the sinking fund become due, the sinking fund commissioners of a city hold any other bonds of the city not due and payable, which have been stamped as the property of said sinking fund and are not negotiable, they shall so certify to the ma…

Section 52. A county, city, town or district, or any domestic corporation, which shall have issued any bond, note or certificate of indebtedness payable to bearer, held by the sinking fund commissioners of any city, town or district, shall, at the request of such commissioners, i…

Section 53. All moneys received by any city, town or district officer or department, except as otherwise provided by special acts and except fees provided for by statute, shall be paid by such officers or department upon their receipt into the city, town or district treasury. Any…

Section 53A. An officer or department of any city or town, or of any regional school or other district, may accept grants or gifts of funds from the federal government and from a charitable foundation, a private corporation, or an individual, or from the commonwealth, a county or…

Section 53B. Any sums allotted and paid by the commonwealth to a city, town or district as a contribution towards the cost of a useful public works project, the state's share of the cost of which project was financed from the proceeds of a loan issued by such city, town or distri…

Section 53C. All money received by a city, town or district as compensation for work performed by one of its employees on an off-duty work detail which is related to such employee's regular employment or for special detail work performed by persons where such detail is not relate…

Section 53D. Notwithstanding the provisions of section fifty-three, any city or town which accepts the provisions of this section may establish in the city or town treasury a revolving fund which shall be kept separate and apart from all other monies by the treasurer and in which…

Section 53E. Notwithstanding the provisions of section fifty-three, a city or town which accepts the provisions of this section may specify when making an appropriation for the annual ordinary operating costs of any agency, board, department or office of said city or town that su…

Section 53F. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, a treasurer or collector of a city, town or district is authorized to enter into written agreements for a period not to exceed three years, with banking institutions having their principal offices in the com…

Section 53G. Notwithstanding section 53, any city or town that provides by rules promulgated under section 9 or 12 of chapter 40A, section 21 of chapter 40B, section 81Q of chapter 41 or section 31 of chapter 111, or by rules promulgated by a conservation commission established b…

Section 53H. Notwithstanding the provisions of section fifty-three, any city, town, district, regional refuse disposal district or regional school district issuing bonds or notes may rebate to the federal government, without further appropriation, any amount deemed necessary by t…

Section 53I. A city or town, for the celebration of the two hundredth, two hundred and fiftieth, three hundredth and three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its settlement or incorporation, and for the celebration of any semicentennial anniversary occurring thereafter, or for o…

Section 53J. Notwithstanding sections 53 and 53F1/2, in any city, town or district that borrows money to pay for improvements for which betterments or special assessments are assessed, revenues from such betterments and assessments, including interest charged thereon, shall be re…

Section 53K. Notwithstanding section 53, any city or town may, upon the approval of its chief executive officer, establish in the treasury of the city or town a separate revenue account into which shall be deposited the monies received from: (i) a party under a host agreement or …

Section 54. (a) Trust funds, including cemetery perpetual care funds, unless otherwise provided or directed by the donor of the funds, shall be deposited in: a trust company, co-operative bank or savings bank, if the trust company or bank is organized or exists under the laws of …

Section 55. A city, town, or district or regional school district shall not at any one time have on deposit in a bank or trust company or banking company an amount exceeding sixty per cent of the capital and surplus of such bank or trust company or banking company, unless satisfa…

Section 55A. A city, town, district or regional school district officer receiving public money and lawfully and in good faith and in the exercise of due care depositing the public money in a trust company, co-operative bank or savings bank, if the trust company or bank is organiz…

Section 55B. All moneys held in the name of a city, town, district or regional school district or any other account under the jurisdiction of a city, town, district, or regional school district or officer thereof, which are not required to be kept liquid for purposes of distribut…

Section 55C. (a) Notwithstanding section 53 or any other general or special law to the contrary, a city or town that accepts this section may establish a trust to be known as the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund, in this section called the trust. The purpose of the trust i…

Section 56. The fiscal year of all towns of the commonwealth shall begin with July first and end with the following June thirtieth, and the returns made to the director under section forty-three shall show the financial condition of the town at the close of business on June thirt…

Section 56A. The fiscal year of all cities of the commonwealth shall begin with July first and end with the following June thirtieth, notwithstanding the provisions of their respective charters, and the returns made to the director under section forty-three shall show the financi…

Section 57. A city or town owing debts incurred in aid of a railroad corporation shall annually raise by taxation an amount sufficient, with the income, if any, derived from its stock or securities, to pay the interest on such debts.

Section 58. No city or town shall pay a bill incurred by any official thereof for wines, liquors or cigars.

Section 59. The supreme judicial or superior court, by mandamus or other appropriate remedy, at law or in equity, upon the suit or petition of the attorney general or of the mayor, or of one or more taxable inhabitants of a city, town or district authorized by law to incur debt, …

Section 6. Cities and towns may, by a majority vote, incur debt for temporary loans for the payment of land damages or any proportion of the general expenses of altering a grade crossing which they are required primarily to pay, or any proportion of the expense of constructing a …

Section 60. A town treasurer or a treasurer of a district, who violates any provision of sections twenty-three to twenty-five, inclusive, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars.

Section 61. A county, city, town, district or corporation which neglects or refuses to issue a bond, note or certificate in accordance with section fifty-two when requested so to do by the sinking fund commissioners of any city, town or district shall be subject to a penalty of n…

Section 62. Any city, town or district officer who knowingly violates, or authorizes or directs any official or employee to violate, any provision of this chapter, or any other provision of general law relating to the incurring of liability or expenditure of public funds on accou…

Section 63. Whenever the proceeds of the sale or other disposal of real estate, including the taking by eminent domain by another governmental unit, but other than that acquired through tax title foreclosure, by a city, town, or district, exceed five hundred dollars, the same sha…

Section 63A. Whenever in any fiscal year a town, which term, as used in this section, shall include a city, shall sell any real estate, the board or officer executing the deed therefor in the name and behalf of the town shall, as a condition precedent to the power to deliver such…

Section 64. Any town or city having unpaid bills of previous fiscal years which may be legally unenforceable due to the insufficiency of an appropriation in the fiscal year in which such bills were incurred may, in the case of a town, at an annual meeting by a four fifths vote, o…

Section 65. In any city which accepts this section by vote of the city council, with the approval of the mayor, and in any town which accepts this section at a town meeting, advances of pay may be made to any officer or employee thereof in advance of his regular vacation to the e…

Section 66. In any city having a plan E or plan D charter with the approval of the city manager, in any other city with the approval of the mayor, and in towns with the approval of the selectmen, advances may be made to any officer or employee thereof in anticipation of necessary…

Section 67. The treasurer of any city or town, on behalf of the city or town, may contract with an employee to defer a portion of that employee's compensation and may, for the purposes of funding a deferred compensation program for said employee, established in accordance with th…

Section 67A. The treasurer of any city or town, on behalf of the city or town, may contract with an employee to make contributions for and in the name of such employee, from amounts otherwise payable to the employee as current compensation, to an Individual Retirement Account (''…

Section 68. Whenever a city, town or district votes to grant a salary increase to all or any of its employees, such increase may be retroactive to a date not earlier than the beginning of the fiscal year prior to the date of such vote.

Section 69. If a check or electronic funds transfer in payment of a municipal or district service rendered or fee or charge imposed is not duly paid, there may, in addition to any other penalty provided by law, be imposed on the person who tendered such check or electronic funds …

Section 6A. If a city, town or district has been allotted a grant by the federal government, the commonwealth, or any agency or department of either, or by any body politic or public instrumentality of the commonwealth, or similar entity, for any purpose for which the city, town …