Charles W. MacRannolds

Charles W. MacRannolds was one of the longest-serving members of Billerica's Finance Committee, appointed by the moderator to it from 1953 to 1990 and serving as its chairman in the mid-1950s and again in the mid-1970s. He also chaired the Personnel Board from its creation in 1959 until about 1972, was a member of Town Meeting from 1961 to 1991, and was one of the first elected trustees of the town's new public library.

As chairman he signed the Finance Committee's reports for 1954 and 1955. He was also a member of the Elementary School Building Committee chaired by Henry F. Collins, which built the Eugene C. Vining School in the Nuttings Lake area. The superintendent reported that the school was ready for the fall of 1957 and that, with a federal grant of $108,800 and state reimbursement of $419,485, "the cost to the town is only $310,685."

The 1959 annual town meeting created a Personnel Board under Article 35, and MacRannolds became its chairman, with Stasia J. Rudgis as secretary. Each year he reported to town meeting on its studies of wages, salaries and fringe benefits for town employees and moved the salary schedule. Back in the Finance Committee chair in 1974 and 1975, he warned a special town meeting in April 1975 that the committee's figures would bring the tax rate to about $230 per thousand and that more spending could push it to $250. He was known for minority reports: he dissented on merging the treasurer and collector posts in 1978, urged town meeting to keep the garbage collection contract in 1981, and in 1984 argued that a private ambulance service could save the town about $200,000 a year.

In 1979 MacRannolds was one of the nine newly elected library trustees who organized the board of the town's new public library, and in 1980 he announced to town meeting that the new library would open on April 27 and asked for volunteers for a "Book Brigade" to carry the books over from the Bennett Public Library. He also represented the Finance Committee on the Energy Policy Committee from 1975 to 1985 and on the Town By-Laws Review Committee. He fell ill during the 1985 town meeting and was hospitalized, but remained on the Finance Committee until 1990. Charles W. MacRannolds died on March 15, 1991, and the 1991 town meeting read his record of service among its memorials.

References

1. Report of the Finance Committee, 1954 (signed Charles W. MacRannolds, Chairman)
2. Report of the Superintendent of Schools, 1957 (Vining School; Elementary School Building Committee incl. MacRannolds)
3. Committees, 1959 (Personnel Board, Art. 35: Charles W. MacRannolds, Chairman)
4. Annual town meeting, 1961 (MacRannolds reports for the Personnel Board)
5. Department photographs, 1972 (Finance Committee photo naming Charles MacRannolds)
6. Special town meeting, April 8, 1975 (Finance Committee Chairman MacRannolds on the tax rate)
7. Report of the Board of Trustees, Billerica Public Library, 1979 (first elected trustees incl. MacRannolds)
8. Annual town meeting, 1980 (MacRannolds announces library opening and Book Brigade)
9. Annual town meeting, 1984 (MacRannolds minority report on ambulance service)
10. Memoriams, 1991 town report (Charles W. MacRannolds, died March 15, 1991; list of offices)