SEEKONK — There will be two fall town meetings this year: The regular, annual fall Town Meeting on Monday, Nov. 3, and a Special Town Meeting on Saturday, Nov. 8, to vote solely on whether to fund the new contracts for school employees.

The Board of Selectmen last night set the dates for the two separate meetings. The Nov. 3 meeting will be held at 7 p.m. and the Nov. 8 meeting will be held at 4 p.m. The locations will be determined in the coming weeks. The warrant for the regular Town Meeting opens today and closes next Tuesday.

School supporters had petitioned for the Special Town Meeting for the purpose, as the petition states, “of funding the collective bargaining units negotiated between the Seekonk School Committee and all the bargaining units with the Seekonk school district.”

But the petition includes no wording on a dollar figure or on a source of funding for the employees’ contracts, and the selectmen — with member John Whelan opposed — declined to write a warrant motion for the School Department or to add separate Town Meeting questions for funding of each collective bargaining agreement.

Selectman Michael H. Brady, particularly, was adamant against approving anything but the petition’s exact wording on the Special Town Meeting warrant.

“It’s extending an olive branch,” Whelan suggested.

“No,” Brady retorted. “It’s not.”

Brady noted that the selectmen have required other petitioners to craft their own warrant motions.

“Do they not have their own legal counsel?” he asked rhetorically about the school district. “Do they not have their own full-time staff? I don’t think we should be doing this… I want what’s on there. What the petition says is what goes on the warrant.”

Brady went further, criticizing some School Committee members for being related to School Department employees. (School board members abstained from voting on contracts that benefit their relatives.)

And Brady rejected the notion that town officials don’t support local education. For the roughly $500,000 the School Department returned to the town’s coffers in unspent cash over the last three years, voters and the selectmen supported giving the schools more than $1.2 million for capital projects, Brady said. School officials have said that they returned the dollars under the understanding that it would be set aside to pay for salary increases.

“When we’re told we don’t fund the schools, we don’t do enough for the schools — I’m tired of it,” Brady said. “I’m really sick and tired of it. Let’s look at the numbers. Let’s look at the facts. They say, ‘We could have spent it [the surplus funds.] You know what I say? Spend it… They made the decision to turn the money back [to the town] for [employee] raises rather than to spend it for textbooks and buses.”

Whelan urged Brady to cooperate with school officials or else face a “stacked” special meeting with more angry people.

“We tried to work this out,” Brady said. “I don’t feel like I have to try anymore. I was elected to represent this town. Yes, my son is in the schools. That’s 2,100 people [in the schools] and they’re important to me, but so are the other 12,000 people who live here.

“I will work together, but I’m not going to be a whipping boy anymore. I have had it.”

The School Committee last month approved new three-year contracts with the Seekonk Educators Association and four other bargaining units that include 3½-percent salary increases this year.

The selectmen and Schools Supt. Emile Chevrette have disagreed on just how much the contracts will cost. Chevrette said the contracts for all unionized school district employees will cost just under $2.1 million over three years, but town officials said it will be more like $2.4 million — far beyond the $1.2 million the selectmen have said the town can afford on all new contracts, school- and town-wise.

Chevrette has said the school district will need $557,000 this fiscal year to finance the contracts. But the School Department’s current-year budget does not include money for pay raises, thus the need for voters’ approval to draw the money from the town’s unspent “free cash.” If residents reject the expenditure, the school district will have to renegotiate.

mwims@projo.com