It's a hot night. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everybody. We are about to start our June 25th board of finance meeting. we'll call that to order. And our first order of business is the pledge of allegiance. So, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America of America and to the republic for which it stands for it stands. One nation under God, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice. Justice for all. Okay. second order of business is public speak. So, as I call your name and go around, if you don't mind, just unmute yourself and say your thoughts. So, we'll start with let's see. Linda Fish. All set. Thanks. Thank you, Linda. Terry Smith, I'm all set. Joanne, thank you. You're welcome. Annette. Thank you. Chris Heracoli. Chris's death. No, I realize that I I noticed that at the other meetings they call everybody. Thank you. Val Bruno, all set Joanne. Thank you. Kathy Maldonado. All set. Thank you very much. we'll move on to number three on our agenda, which is changes or additions to our agenda this evening. Does anyone from the board have any changes or additions they'd like to to do? I can't hear you, Liz. I don't have anything. Sorry. Yeah, I I'm kind of on the fence. myself, I'm the one that added a couple items to this agenda because I think it's important that something that was discussed at a board of selectmen meeting and referenced a board of finance action that we talk
about it as a board. You know, because it was our action that was talked about or you know, discussed at that meeting. I think it's important that our board also weigh in on that. But I also think and I know we have our auditor here. Thank you, Michael, for joining us from Aony Sable and company I think it's called. so we're we're lucky to have him tonight. So we're probably going to bring up a couple things during that discussion of the audit too, but I definitely wanted to put it on our agenda because I think it's important that we discuss it as a board. Noticing that Bill and Mark aren't here. It might be better to have all of us talk about it. You agree with so I mean I may you all think so? I mean I think we can't have these discussions with half of us you know or not half but even missing two key members or two members of the board whether it was you know Go ahead, Kim. I'd like to make sure that we do discuss it tonight. Oh you want to? I'm happy to. I'm the one that put it on the agenda. We can discuss it, but I'd like to further discuss it some more, too. I just it's it's nonproductive if we as a group don't talk about things together. And I feel like when we hear it from second parties, it's not always the complete picture. But all right, then we'll keep it on the agenda and maybe bring it up again next month.
so that's all I have. Any other changes or deletions tonight? Okay, with that being said, we'll move on to number four of our agenda, which is our I retitled it because I think it's important. it was brought to my attention as audit review, but I think it's good for our minutes and notes to always have the year we're going to be discussing on there. So, it's our, you know, fiscal year 2024 town of Andover audit review, with Mahoney Sable and Company. And I'll turn the meeting over to Michael, who can present to us. I I wish Cheryl was here tonight. I appreciate that Chris is sitting in in herstead, but I think it's important to have our treasurer at these also in case any of us have direct questions, but here we are. So, Eric, I don't know if Michael
needs his presentation put up or whatever, but all set for you, Michael. Thank you. Mike, you should be able to share your presentation directly. All right, I will share now. Okay. And hopefully everyone can see the the presentation. All right. And then again, just as an introduction, my name is Mike Van Devener. I am a partner at Mahoney Sable ultimately responsible for overseeing the audit and issuing the reports. hopefully by now you've all received electronic copies of the reports that were issued in connection with the audit. I also have this presentation that will really provide an overview of the scope of work, the audit results, and then, it'll it'll include our required communications. and obviously I'm happy to answer any questions that, any of the board members may have. so with that, turning to slide two, as far as the
scope of work, really no changes from prior years. So, we did do an audit of the town's financial statements. we perform that audit in accordance with both the auditing standards issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as well as the government auditing standards issued by the government accountability office. in addition based on the level of federal and state funding that was received and expended by the town, we did perform both federal and state single audits. we also perform an agreed upon procedures engagement on the end ofear school year reports that are filed by the school district with the state of Connecticut Department of Education. So in connection with each of those services we issue reports. but we do also provide some non- audit services for the town. so we do assist in the preparation of the financial statement, the schedules of expenditures of federal
awards and state financial assistance as well as the related notes. we also assist in converting the town's governmental fund financial statements to the governmentwide financial statements. in order for the firm to be independent and be able to perform these services, management is required to oversee and and ultimately accept responsibilities for them. and Cheryl as the town treasurer has accepted responsibility for those non- audit services. in connection with the audit, we do issue a number of reports. in terms of the report on the financial statements, we did issue unmodified clean opinions on the town's financial statements. Again, an unmodified opinion is expressed when we've concluded that the financial statements are presented fairly in all material respects in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America and that is is established by the governmental accounting standards board. I do like to point out that our opinion does only provide reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from a material misstatement whether due to error or fraud. we do not test every transaction. there are significant estimates that are included in the financial statements. and therefore an audit cannot provide absolute assurance. but again reasonable assurance is still a very high level of assurance. in addition to the report on the financial statements, we also issue a report on compliance and on internal control over financial reporting. if you read this report, I just like to to clarify that we do not actually express an opinion on the town's compliance with laws and regulations or on the effectiveness of the town's internal patrols. essentially during the course of performing the audit, if we become aware of a material non-compliance with laws and regulations
or what we would consider to be a significant deficiency or material weakness in the town's internal controls, we're required to include it in this report. and again, we did not report any material non-compliance of laws and regulations. however, we did report certain findings related to the town's internal control over financial reporting. and then just to give a quick summary status update from the prior year audit findings because whenever we do a current year audit we always look at the prior year findings first. so in the prior year we did have three findings. the first one was a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting related to the school district's general ledger maintenance. based on the results of our audit this year, we determined that that finding was no longer necessary. and again, we did not repeat that finding in the current year. we also reported a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting related to the school district's bank and interfund reconciliations. Again, based on the results of our audit work this year, we did repeat that finding, but we lowered the severity of the finding from a material weakness to a significant efficiency. and again, that was based on the overall results. We saw some significant improvement in those reconciliations. we did have a few adjustments but they really only impacted the bank and the interfund accounts. they had no impact really on the on the board of education's expenditures. and therefore we only reported it as a significant deficiency this year rather than a material weakness. and then the last finding was a material weakness in
internal control over financial reporting related to the reconciliation of the towns and school districts general ledgers. we did repeat that as a material weakness in internal control over financial reporting in the current year and I'll provide some additional information on that finding on the next slide. so as I mentioned we did have some current year findings both that were repeated from the prior year. the first finding was a material weakness in internal control of financial reporting related to the reconciliation of the school district's general ledger with the towns. so just to to make it simple the town has historically tried to capture the activity of the school district within the town's general ledger. that process results in duplications of entries and sometimes those entries do not agree with each other. so my recommendation is that the town no longer record or attempt to record balances and activities that are already being accounted for on the school district's accounting system. so that should limit the the number of transactions that are being recorded and it should reduce the amount of reconciliation that needs to be done at year end. so again the recommendation moving forward would be that the town treasurer does not attempt to duplicate the school district's trial balance on the town's tribes. the second finding again a significant deficiency internal control over financial reporting on the bank and interfund reconciliations. again we did identify certain adjustments that were needed to reconcile the cash and
the interfund balances. again, those adjustments were really just balance sheet related. They didn't have an impact on the district's overall expenditures. so again, we continue to recommend that the school district perform their detailed monthly reconciliations and ensure that their financial information is complete and accurate. one of the issues that we did identify with the reconciliations is that there were some adjusting entries that were recorded after the reconciliations were done. so again, the recommendation there is that you just go back and update those reconciliations for any adjustments that may be recorded after they were initially performed. so Joan, I can pause here to see if anyone has any questions on the reported findings. I can continue through the presentation and then just open it up to questions at the end. you let me know what your preference is. Michael, I appreciate that. I was jotting down notes because I didn't know. So, I think I think that is good.
I think we should pause right here because I have a feeling some of the questions will come from some of the material you just covered. So, I'll open it up to the board. Does anyone have any questions to for Michael right now on the information he just went over? I can't see everyone, so I apologize if you're raising your hand or I have a quick question procedurally. I I don't know if this is a question for the auditor exactly, but does do we typically does the board of ed typically receive a presentation like this as well from our auditor or is it just Yeah, it's just the board of finance. Okay. just looking at, you know, some of the issues raised. It just seems like, you know, it's the BOE needs to know about this, too. I They will obviously, but it's one thing to be handed a report. It's another to hear it in a presentation. That's why I ask. Okay. Thanks. Caitlyn, I see that your hand is raised. I'm not sure if we're opening. I think we have to have the board of finance
ask these questions right now since it's our meeting. I know that I believe in regards to what Rob just said that the board of education receives the report as well. oh, okay. Sorry, trying to keep up with everything. I'm not used to always being the spokesperson. I wondered, and forgive me if this is going to sound so like elementary or whatever, are you, like you said, a lot of the problems I wrote down the trial balance and detailed monthly reconciliations being recorded afterwards. Are you recommending, Michael, that they we actually not break away? I I know that they have to be they have to come
together and everything has to match up because it's the town that gives you know that funds the money to run the educational system and and that. So are you saying that the town like Cheryl and and Chris are constantly trying to play catchup and match the records that are there because Yeah. I'm it's all coming back to me from prior years. So, so in in in my mind, the the town would account for any activities related to the school district that impacts the town's accounts. So, when the town is funding appropriations or if they receive you know funding for the board of education, obviously those will have some kind of of impact on the school district side as well. So, those things need to be reconciled. however, I I think what's been trying to be done in the past is you get to year end and you know, the town tries to duplicate the trial balance that the school district has already basically maintained. and therefore you can end up with trying to, you know, duplicate entries, if you will, two accounting systems. so I think the reconciliation can be done. and then again, I think it's important that the board of ed continue to provide the monthly financial information to the town to provide the trial balances to the town so they have that information. again, I just don't think they need to duplicate the entries on the system. No, thank you for explaining that further. I guess I was going to right because clearly now you feel and I know it's come up from board of finance members. I don't know if they're going to ask the questions themselves tonight or not, but they wish they could have a little bit more detailed
reporting, you know, of what goes into all of the lines, but are you feel when you go in and you're doing the audit of, you know, I know you see the town side and you work with the board of ed and their accounting software, are you feeling like you're seeing what you need to see there on their software or what you work with to reconcile? I mean, I work in a school myself, so I know the lines that we have in budgeting things, right? Yep. No, we see, you know, all of their information in their general ledger, all of their expenditures by line item. so all that information is available. Okay. Anyone else out there have any questions for Michael for what we've heard so far? I guess we're good so far. Thank you for that pause. Thank you. Continue. again we issue a number of reports. So in addition to those reports we did issue a federal single audit. and in this audit report we do actually express an opinion on the town's compliance with your major federal programs. So for fiscal year 2024 the total federal awards that were expended was approximately 1.5 million. the major program was the corona virus state and local recovery funds or the ARPA funds. we did issue unmodified clean opinions on compliance over that program. and we did not report any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses over grant compliance. that being said, during the course of performing our testing, we did identify an instance of non-compliance that we did report and it related to failure to file the
required annual compliance report in a timely manner. Again, that report was subsequently filed. but again it did not impact our opinion on the major program. The primary compliance requirement that is tested is allowable cost. again we had no issues with the allowable cost and therefore the failure to file that report did not attack impact our opinion. but again it was a required to be reported. in connection with the state single audit we issue a similar report for fiscal year 20 24. The total state financial assistance that were expended was approximately 2.6 million. Of that about 485,000 was considered non-exempt and subject to our audit work. the major school programs was the school readiness in competitive grant municipalities and the town a road grants. Again, we issued unmodified clean opinions on compliance over those programs and we did not report any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses over grant compliance. next. Yes, Joanne, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but since it's this one page, so were you surprised we didn't file the correct report on the federal side? You know, was it a big Sorry, looking at
this, it was be, you know, they didn't report in a timely manner, right? So, my my understanding was I think that the the the treasur was not aware of the requirement at the time. so again, when we performed our testing, we asked for the report. I think she realized at that point that it hadn't been filed. and then it was subsequently filed. So again, from a reporting perspective, it didn't really have an impact. It's not like you're going to lose funding because you didn't file the report timely. but it is a compliance requirement. So we do have an obligation to report it. Okay. Thank you. And and can I ask a question? So when you do have to report a finding, what does that mean for us? What does that mean for the town? You said it in this case it wouldn't affect any further funding, but what what what are the ramifications? So this is just a this this is a reportable instance of non-compliance. it did not have an impact on our major programs or our opinion. So if we modified our opinion, that's when you could have an impact from a federal award perspective. so again, there's this is more of justformational if you will. in terms
of the other findings, again, the town will continue to have to file a corre corrective action plan with the office of policy and management. and again could be subject to review by OPM as well. So are there any penalties imposed at all on this? No, there's no penalties. And I imagine, Michael, when these funds come in or grants that we get, federal funds, they come in with the sheet or whatever that you have to follow and you're given the reporting information. Sometimes they do, yeah, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you have to go out and find the information. Okay. so especially since these funds were passed through the state of Connecticut. so I'm sure there was a lot of information. but sometimes you have to kind of go through every bit of detail to identify, you know, the compliance requirements and so you're
saying it not all of them are the same then every single thing could be have different requirements for different reporting and Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Okay. No, thank you. One more question. So, you're saying that, a corrective action plan will have to be filed, correct? Correct. Is that something that's done by Cheryl, by our, finance person? So, that would be something that would be filed by Eric. Oh, by Eric. And Okay. So, he's aware of everything that needs to be done, right, Eric? Correct. And Eric, not to interrupt the maybe later on in our meeting you can explain maybe what this was so that you know in board open discussion we can talk about it like what might have happened or what it was relayed to you know what it was related to like how big of like which grant or whatever but we won't stop everything now but maybe later we can discuss that. Yep. So Joanne just just this this filing was related to the Corona virus state and local fiscal recovery funds. Okay. With this exact Thank you. Correct. Yep. All right. Now we know I didn't know if it you know each one was its own. Understood. Got it. Thank you. Yep. All right. So the next section just goes over your financial highlights. this slide goes over your general fund. Again, your original and final budgets did provide for the utilization of fund balance in the amount of 35,000 to balance revenues and expenditures. your actual change in fund balance was an increase of 372,000. so that did result in an overall favorable budgetary variance of about 47,000. again, revenues and other financing sources were approximately 227,000 more than budgeted. that was really driven by favorable collections on state aid
and interest on short-term investments. and then overall expenditures were about 625,000 less than budgeted with the education surplus transferred to the 2% non-lapsing fund as well as the school capital reserve fund. and so that's where the actual change in fund balance of 372 was derived. We might as well stop on this page if Could we just go back to that for one and I won't do this every page but the big No, that's okay. Items. That's why I'm here. Thank you. so just to understand like I had jotted notes before our meeting too noticing that so you're saying we had to use the 35,000 to balance revenues and expenditures. That was one part of it. And then I'm assuming 35. You know, when you add this up, there's 35 with the 407. So we really had a favorable budgetary, you know, surplus of 47617, but correct we needed 35,000 of that to balance other places. Okay. Yeah. So if just to try to explain it, so if everything came in as you budgeted, right, your fund balance would have gone down 35,000. instead you added 372 plus you didn't use the 35. So you end up with kind of a favorable variance of the 47,000. Thank you. Got it. And then of course Go ahead. Sorry. And then of course going down to the last you know what what's that word but the last designated thing of the the school surplus for the past year you know for that year for FY year ending 2024. So there was a lot of talk recently as you probably heard and we you know or it was brought up by our board of selectmen about the transfer that we did you know
into the school capital account now and I mean I go to all the meetings because I like to hear first thing you know things firsthand and I'll try I'm gonna ask my question briefly. I'm sure others have thoughts too. Now, I know that this was money that was, you know, in the budget and it was left over for LA, you know, I'm just talking in regular language. So, it had already been taxed. I know that was a big thing at our town meetings, too. You know, it had already been taxed. And we did vote as a board at the time to transfer. You know, they were going to do their 2% non-lapsing. Then we voted as a board when the the audit amount was done to let it get transferred into the AES capital reserve account because that would would have been used on some upcoming projects. There seems to be a lot of talk about that that maybe I know that the AES capital fund is a town, you know, it's held on the town, you know, side. it's in one of those funds that build yeartoear. We didn't put it back into the budget or anything like that. So, can you give us your overall opinion on what we did or if we were allowed to do what we did? Yep. So, so I am aware of the the discussion. so obviously I've kind of gone back and and looked at you know the procedure that was followed
to to approve the transfer of those funds. And so essentially you follow the same procedure for transferring funds to this to the AES capital fund that you would follow for the 2% non-lapsing fund. so again I was aware that they had requested the board of selectment had requested an opinion from the attorney and based on review of of his opinion and again I looked at the statutes and I also looked at the town's charter. So, in my view, it doesn't seem like the town charter addresses this specific issue. so from that perspective, I think you would revert to to state statutes. and although state statute doesn't specifically address this this fund, I think you could gain information from other sections of the statute. So for for example there's a statute for capital and non-recurring funds for municipalities and with a town meeting form of government the requirement is that the board of finance make a recommendation to town meeting and then town meeting ultimately approve the
transfer. so again, I think you know, you you would have to discuss internally. If that's something that you would would potentially want to, you know, self-correct. if the boards ultimately are are okay with it, then, you know, maybe it's it's moving forward. I saw the the attorney had made a recommendation to maybe adopt an ordinance to specifically address it. but again I think you know the issue probably relates to the fact that this is a newer fund and we also Michael just I mean it had been talked about publicly so often you know over the years it was very transparent not that that's we want to do the correct things that's why we're asking you for your you know opinion and I know it's been a hot ticket item at the board of selectman meeting and we listen to them and the only thing that we also were thinking about was or myself, speaking for myself, cuz going to all the different
meetings, it had been spoken about. It had been put up on, you know, put up at our town meeting. and I understand you're not here to to talk about the politics of it. We really do value your opinion and that's why I wish Cheryl was here too, not I understand people have to miss meetings. Just that that we're all together hearing the same things. I just feel like it's so important and that's why I make myself go to all these meetings so that I hear it firsthand and try to comprehend. yeah. So, I mean, it seems like it went up and and I've seen the town attorney give two different opinions that on the same subject and I'm not I think he's great. I think he's funny. I like listening to him. He's a great guy. So it's not being judgmental about him, but I've seen that dated that the Yeah, I mean it's difficult. Yeah, you can see it. You can see it at the federal level as well. you know, regulations, statutes, they are subject to interpretation. sometimes I review statutes and you know, I could see someone reading it three different ways. so again, I would typically recommend that you defer to your town attorney because ultimately he would be the one that would, you know, defend you in in any potential lawsuit. we
certainly don't want to get to that thing. You know, it wasn't done for those intentions or whatever. So, we are trying to get to the bottom of it. No, thank you for I have a question. go ahead. I know the board of selectmen did statement that they feel that it was done incorrectly the transfer and are you obligated as the as the auditor to correct that if the board of selectment states that it was done incorrectly or is it the board of finance that needs to make that determination or is it both? It it would be both. I mean the when we talk about financial statements, these are the town's financial statements and that includes all boards and town officials. So ultimately internally you you would have to make that determination and then we would come to you to do what needs to be done. Correct. Okay. And then you said we should default to whatever the town attorney you you suggest or would recommend, which is smart. because he covers all things, you know. yeah, because as you know, just to wrap it all up so that we don't talk about it for too too long because we'll talk about it again. It sounds like, you know, they did take a vote at the board of selectmen meeting the last time and like you had mentioned, they talked about maybe going forward, you know, because I think I don't I don't think they had the votes to do maybe
what they wanted to do and, you know, it was brought up that it's been talked about at town meetings and so there was a little bit of a gray area and even the town attorney was on the call, too. So, I guess we'll have to stay, you know, so he weighed in again. and people had plenty of questions. So, ultimately the board of finance for the town of Andover wants to do the right thing. So, we thought we were, you know, or had no idea with that. And the suggestion was where the money was going was a fund for the school. So, it seemed Yeah. So, we'll wait and see. Yeah. And and again, I understand this is kind of a new fund for the town. So procedurally again I I understand that the it was done you know in in good gest it's not something that I identified as as being an issue. so again once I became aware of it and kind of looked into it more again that would be you know my opinion you know being a town meeting form of government. and if you you know follow some of the other u examples within statute but again the the state you know it's one of the things for how they changed that process for the the 2% non-lapsing fund. so again that's a specific statute that they authorized that kind of overrode that process of of getting that legislative approval. and so I'm thinking that you probably can't apply that to the capital reserve fund unless it was specifically stated within the statute. Got it. Anyone else with questions on this issue? Okay, thank you so much for the time on that.
so the next slide goes over your governmental fund financial highlights. so overall the town reported combined ending fund balances of about 5.1 million. that was an increase of about 1.1 million from the prior year. again the about 1.8 million was in your general fund. So that was an overall increase of about 372,000. 180,000 of that had been assigned for use in your fiscal year 2025 budget. that left a remaining unassigned fund balance of about 1.6 6 million. that represents approximately 13.1% of your general fund budgetary appropriations and that was sufficient to cover just over a month and a half of your general fund budgetary expenditures. so again the recommendation from the GFOA is that municipalities maintain a reserve of approximately two months. so you are below that threshold. however you know you do need to kind of factor in some of your capital related reserves as well. because those could always be repurposed if needed in an emergency or those sorts of situations. So, the town was reporting an ending combined fund balance in the capital reserve funds of about 1.7 million. that was an increase of about 655,000 from the prior year and that's primarily driven from budgetary transfers to fund your various reserves. so again, those amounts are committed for for capital purposes. the town was reporting three deficits in fund balances. so there's a small deficit in the transportation transfer station shed repair. there's a $64,000 deficit in the equipment reserve fund and there was a $13,000 deficit in the building maintenance reserve fund. Again, based on my discussions with Eric, it was just a timing issue and and the transfers were being made in fiscal year 2025 to cover some of those those
deficits. and then all of the other funds of the town totaled approximately 1.5 million which was an increase of about 101,000 from the prior year. And again all of those amounts are either restricted or committed for various purposes. And again there are detailed schedules within the financial statements that show the activity for all of the town's individual funds. this last section just goes over our required communications. The first item here talks about our responsibility under the auditing standards. again although we assist in the preparation of the financial statements, they are the responsibility of the town. it's our responsibility to perform our procedures and express our opinions on those financial statements. in terms of the plan scope and timing the audit, again no changes in the overall scope of work. there were multiple expens extensions that were requested from OPM. those delays really resulted from a delay in the commencement of the audit. So
again, we're scheduled to perform the audit after the 1231 filing deadline. and then there were some additional delays in obtaining the required disclosure reports for the town's other post-employment benefits liability. so ultimately that extended the audit out probably another month, month and a half. in terms of significant audit findings, again there were no new accounting standards that were implemented that had a significant effect on the financial statements. the financial statements do include some significant estimates and judgments. those consist of estimated useful lives that are assigned to capital assets and then discount rates that are utilized to determine your net pension and OPED liabilities. Again, we did review those estimates. We did deem them to be reasonable and consistent with what other municipalities are utilizing. I'm happy to report that we had no significant difficulties encountered in dealing with management. we had no uncorrected misstatements. So any adjustments that were identified were proposed and reflected in the financial statements. we had no disagreements with management. we did obtain a management representation letter. Again, there were no unusual representations that were requested by us. and again if during the course of performing the audit we were unable to substantiate a transaction that we had selected for testing and we were relying on a
representation from management we would disclose that to you as the board. and again we're not aware of any management consultations with any other independent accountants. if there were consultations we would have to have a discussion with those accountants and we would have to make that communication to the board as well. so with that that concludes the the audit presentation and really covers the the results of the audit and the reports that were issued. I know we had talked about you know questions as we went along but again happy to answer your questions at any point in time. I have one more. Can you go back two slides? Two slides about the delays. do you have any recommendations like or can you clarify more where the delays like if there was a bottleneck where where it was and what can we do to yeah again Yep. So, so right now the town we we do schedule the audit to be performed on extension just from a capacity perspective. and just so the board is aware, I think over 50% of the municipalities in Connecticut file on extension. so there the, there's not enough governmental auditors, that have the experience to do the audits. there's really only, probably four or five firms that do the audits. and as a result, there's just not the capacity to get everybody filed by the 1231 deadline. so initially those extensions were as a result of the audit being scheduled on extension. and again OPM does not penalize a municipality for filing on extension until after the following fiscal year. So again if you didn't get your audit
issued by June 30th 2025 then that might be an issue for u for OPM. and that would typically be a result of not the auditor but probably issues within the audit itself. but again we had some additional delays due to the disclosure report from the actuary for the other post-employment benefit liability. the information I guess maybe wasn't provided to the actuary in in a timely manner. As a result, it took them longer to get the disclosure report back. So that's something I've already discussed with Eric for future years. so again, I I I don't think that should be an issue going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Michael, for that. I guess I had a follow-up question for Liz, just that I know that we are aware as a board that, you know, there aren't enough of the m the governmental auditors to go around and so we're on your schedule at a certain point. And then I it's been great to see that each year it's gotten done a little bit quicker. I understand that, you know, just the capacity of everything that has to be done. So, it's nice to hear, too. I think I I'm withholding tonight understanding that there's no penalties until after a full fiscal year behind. So, we're glad that we're on your schedule and then it's getting hopefully, you know, year after year that Cheryl's been involved with you and then it seems to be getting smoother. the one thing that you did have I think it involved estimates. Can we just go back real quick to that? I think it might be Do you feel like are you saying in our budget there's a lot of Okay. Estimates discount rates. Yeah. So I I should clarify. So the significant estimates
and judgments are really on on the full acral basis of accounting. So that's that's your governmentwide financial statements. Okay. so that does not impact your your budgets. that's some additional information that external users may use such as like bond rating companies or OPM to evaluate some of your liabilities, your long-term liabilities. but those don't have a direct impact on your fund financial statements or on your budget. Okay. Thanks. I didn't know if it involved us estimating too many. Got it. we have members of So, I want to ask our board of finance, a question. I have no problem with, it looks like Caitlyn, she's the board of ed, board chair, would like to ask the auditor a question. I have no problem with that. I mean, they're taking time out of their night to come join this meeting. So, is anybody opposed to any questions being asked since Michael's here? I think it's great that they're taking an interest in, you know, coming. So, obviously, they have an interest. Sorry, Caitlyn. But go ahead, Caitlyn. Go ahead, unmute yourself and ask your question for the auditor. Okay. Thank you again. I'm sorry. so I have a couple questions also. one is specifically about in terms of the town reconciliation on a monthly basis, what reporting are you are you recommending that the board of ed give to the town on a monthly basis? Is a summary report okay? Do you want bank statements? Like can you be specific on what we should be sending on a monthly
basis? Yeah. So my recommendation would be you know from a financial reporting perspective your you know your budget to actual reports that the board of education would receive. so again I know those are made available via the board of education minutes. but I think you know those can certainly be passed along to the town as well. I also think it's probably appropriate for the town business manager to provide the bank reconciliations and the trial balance on a monthly basis to to the town treasurer. again, it's kind of that oversight function, if you will. you know, so that's that's the information that I would recommend gets provided. Okay. So, so just to summarize that, you're saying like our our budgetary reports that those are already sent and then also bank account statements as well on a monthly basis. Is that what you're asking? To the to the town treasurer. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I think for the board of finance again I think just the the budget to actual reports would be sufficient. Okay. thank you. And then my other question is really in regards to this whole thing about the the capital fund for the school that was created. what happens with money at the end of our school year that we end up wanting to
transfer or to to possibly go into that capital account. to some degree if if we have money left over because we were able to pay for things with grants, it would greatly affect our budget for the future year if we have a giant capital project pending and we don't have enough money for it. Like we would have to put that in our next school year budget because we don't have a separate capital budget. So, I guess I'm I know Joanne and everyone's saying like we have to wait to see what we're going to end up doing, but I I just I just hope and I guess I'm asking for your opinion on what we should be doing regarding that because there's more ramifications about what happens to that money and how it affects a future budget. because we don't have a separate capital budget. Caitlyn, I don't mean to intercept. I mean, and Michael can answer that as well. I mean, we're asking his opinion on what's done with the balances and the accounting at the end of the year. I think it's going to be townwide. I, you know, again, I spoke publicly that I'm in favor of it because I understand there's a lot of projects that are coming up and I thought it was great that the money that was left over would be put in an account for that. I mean, I'll let him speak to it, but I don't want to get too far off of what we should do as a town. I don't know. You know, I we want to keep the subject tonight for asking questions about this audit. Yeah. you know, and as you know, because there's been a lot going on every single
town meeting things come up. So, but I'll I'll step away, but we want to kind of keep it the future. I mean, I just want to ask for the future like are and I just want to make sure that I'm hearing it correctly. You're you're recommending obviously to do what the town attorney says, but that board of finance would make a recommendation and then it would go to the town meeting to approve a transfer of excess money that is over the 2% in order to go to the capital fund. Oh, thank you for rephrasing. Now I understand what you're asking. I'm sorry. That's okay. I'm sorry. Can you just repeat that one more time? Sorry. Yeah. So, and I and I'm trying to paraphrase. So, I thought what you said was follow what the town attorney says, but basically that the board of finance like board of ed would ask board of finance and then board of finance would make a recommendation about what to do with that extra money to go to the capital fund and then if they said yes, then we would have a town meeting to approve the transfer of that money into the capital fund for the school. Correct. Okay. Yeah. And again, you know, there's 169 municipalities in the state of Connecticut. We do over you know, 25 municipalities and they all kind of handle it differently. So, I don't want to necessarily you know, tell you that you have to do it a
certain way. I mean, obviously, capital planning is important. a lot of towns, the board of education is part of the town's overall capital, improvement process, if you will, but we do have towns that have separate capital funds specifically for the board of education. so again, it's it's not necessarily, you know, you know, one size kind of fits all. Okay. Thank you very much. Hey, anyone else on the board of finance have any further questions about the audit? results from fiscal year 2024. All right, seeing none, Michael, thank you so much for your time tonight. it's been great watching things, you know, get streamlined, understanding things a little bit more. and appreciate, you know, you Yeah, I do think big I I Joan, I do think big picture this year's audit was much more efficient than than prior year's audit. again, I know we have findings that we've reported, but a lot of those findings were not as significant as the findings that were reported in the prior year. so again, I hope to see, you know, continued improvement. Great. We do too. As do we. Yes. Yeah. It's nice to hear that we're improving on multiple fronts. That's good. Right. And thanks for educating us too along the way because we definitely want to do things in the correct way and and all of that, too. So, we appreciate that. Okay. So, I think I think we're all set. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thanks for your time. Okay, everyone. so we'll move on. unless anyone, you know, we could discuss things later, but I mean, I think we all had the opportunity to ask the questions we wanted to, and and understand it a little better. And I
think it's important that we have this every year. I think we skipped a year. I remember going in person a couple years ago when you know trying to get an understanding of everything. All right. So moving on to number five, Eric. That would be your town administrator report. Sure. So I put the report in the packet. we are going to go through some employee transition both in public works and with the senior transportation drivers on top of the transitions that we're experiencing with the community center. So, we're in a period right now of a fair bit of employee turnover. are there other questions related to my report or things that you want me to go over? No, I saw it. I mean, you know me, I'm always going to ask this question and I'm sorry that you're losing employees at this time. I mean, I saw your thoughts that you were, are you going to follow just again, you're the boss, so I'm just asking the question, are you going to follow the procedure of the union? It sounds like you're not posting for a lead maintainer, the number three, you know, the level three. you want to promote the the gentleman that was a one to a two. I mean, I would just ask if you were even if in theory I understand it's all going to result in the same thing, but for the town since it's a job that I do, are you just posting the two so the gentleman would bid on the number two and that's how he's going to get promoted? No, I'm just promoting them to maintain it too with the permission of the board of selecting. Does that have to get like permission? I don't know. It just doesn't follow any
union ethics that I've ever been a part of. So, I just wanted to since you put it in our packet, I understand that's what's going to happen, but isn't there a procedure like So, or did the I do have a discussion scheduled with the union attorney on Monday, the asks me attorney. but there the town has the right to make a determination to promote an individual employer. There's nothing in the contract that says what the conditions are for promoting an employer or an employee in that realm. Part of the issue is Mark will be in charge of the public works department as of Friday. So I cannot have a maintainer one in charge of a department that only has maintainer twos plus him. So he is getting promoted to the same pay grade as the remaining maintainers that will in a sense work for him until an interim or a new public works supervisor is hired. So that's part of the rationale for it. He is by far the senior person I have in terms of experience even though he's only I understand you know from going to all the meetings he sounds like he's very qualified and you know no I just from a you gave us that in the packet and he is a union employee so I needed to ask that because it wasn't language that I'm familiar with so I feel like as the board of finance we just have to ask that question thank you that's my only question. the only other kind of things that are big news that will affect things is that the state of Connecticut is pushing the timeline for the long hill bridge replacement up that will begin next
April. So we are delaying the replacement of the Lake Road Bridge right near Basola for one year because we don't have the financial ability to manage both or the bandwidth frankly to manage both of those projects at once. So 2026 will be the long hill bridge replacement. 27 will be the replacement of the lake road bridge. Both those are scheduled for a one construction season project. the only other good news is we did get a legislative grant Oh yeah. in the next two years, $250,000 a year for two years. that is there to help pay for the recreational field improvements. So that's quite nice to see. That's huge. that takes some of the the burden off of funding that we got a series of other smaller grants recently from the Hartford Foundation for public giving. so that's about everything I have that's budget related as far as my report goes. Great job on that grant, Eric. yeah, if we were in executive session, I would talk more about that, but but yeah, I'm happy we got it and I really appreciate MD Ramen going back for us. on huge. Eric, can I ask you're talking about that's going to be used for where the playground and the pickle ball courts are coming because I thought we had for that already. We do have a different grant for that. now and I drove by the other day because I don't live far from there. and that's a little bit on delay right now clearly, right? I think you had said something in your report because public
works was going to be part of the Yeah. So, one of the things we're going to do with that is we're going to switch it from a self-managed project to using the Capitol Region Council of Government's EasyIQC purchasing program. which is a arrangement where the the the capital region goes out once a year for competitive bid across a range of construction categories. and they free bid by item. So they have an agreed on schedule of exactly what your costs are across most of the range of normal construction tasks. So when you come up to something, you know, that is already pre-bid. All you do is you sit down and work out with Gordian, who's the oversight group, and the contractor, exactly what the quantities of each thing you want, and then out pops the the bid for it. it's a program the state really likes. cuts down a lot on our management of it because you have the Gordian group who's already paid off essentially state funds to oversee some of these. so we're going to do that. That will probably increase our costs somewhat, frankly, because every general contractor, you know, has overhead and profit built into theirs. And if the town's not the general contractor, then we have to accept that. But since we have enough money to cover it, it's a lot smarter because we'll be able to get do it now. Frankly, with only three people left in public works,
we don't have the capacity to do it right now anyway. So, this is the only way we're getting it done anytime soon, if that makes sense. Got it. And what's have any questions for Eric? Yeah, I do. So, what's the timeline looking like? What's the timeline looking like for that, Eric? I would starting I'm guessing we're going to be in construction at some point in the fall. Not sure exactly when. Okay. I think we'll have a a reasonable contract hammered out in six or seven weeks and then you know we go through state approvals process which should go quicker because it's easy IQC and they deal with CHRO we don't have to deal with the commission on human rights and then we should be off and running and then we're just you know it's just dependent on how fast the contractor can get in there to the work. And you you mentioned we could get more information in executive session about these grants. Is that something worthwhile? If you want to talk about the legislative grant, we do that in executive session. is it is anybody else interested in that? I'm kind of interested in that. Well, I mean, I'd like to get through the rest of our agenda and then we could
maybe have a quick executive session at the end of the meeting. and because I just think it's important that we all the info and we don't have all of our members, but yeah, but I don't know able to add that. Eric, is that protocol? We should have added it at the beginning. You can add it. You can vote to go session at any time you want. So at the end you just make a motion to go into an executive state session. So we'll wait till we get through and then we'll make a motion at the end. All right. So I'm going to go ahead I just ask a quick question for just something about the the bridge project the long hill bridge. Eric your report says it got kind of moved up and stuff. Is that because the condition
the state was basically like look we're going to shut the bridge down if you don't do this now. Is that what happened? No, it's it's not that. It's that the state is worried about losing, you know, federal funds and everything they can push up, they will push up. Got it. and this one is unique in that it does not require any takings. and that means the state does not and the town does not have to acquire any land or any easements to make this happen because it's already got a wide enough rightway there. And because of that, they think they can punch this one up one year sooner than they expect. So, they fasttracked it. Okay, got it. Thanks. Yep. Can I also ask you can I also ask you, Eric, what is Easy IQC project? What does that mean? So, EasyIQC, and they're actually renaming it or rebranding it, but it's basically for instance, on a big construction project, you normally go out to bid. you do an RFP and you go out to RFP for the project, right? and then you know, you sit there, you interview six or seven companies, you make a decision what you want. EasyIQC is kind of like a pre-bid arrangement and by that I mean annually the Capital Region Council of Governments in the state, not just the capital region, all the regions go out in a combined RFP
and they competitively bid construction projects based on unit cost. And by unit cost, let's say you you were putting in sidewalks. a sidewalk would be so much money per square yard of material excavated, so much money per square yard of concrete, based on, you know, the unit amount you're putting in. So, by pre-bidding all of these and knowing what you're going to pay for each task and each quantity ahead of time, you're essentially pre-bidding the project. and it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the project and just cuts down on the time it takes to execute those. the town's done it before with the connectivity grant project and came in under budget on that one. Had real good success with that. New Britain just did their new public works facility, did a $25 million project through EasyIQC bidding. So, it's very popular. It's done in a lot of towns. It's just a way of doing something, that makes the logistics easier. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I guess we'll move on to if that's it
for Eric right now, we'll move on to old business number six. we'll go over the review of budget to actual fourth quarter review of overall budget trends. I don't know if anyone has any questions regarding the budget to actual for Eric. I was focusing on the audit so I didn't real I mean I did glance at it but yeah I don't myself have any questions but anybody feel free. So if you want a detailed rundown I had Chris run me the budget to actual as of today. we've probably had the last run of checks we're going to have before the July 1st. it will not include the last payroll and it does not include all of the the journal entries that Cheryl needs to put in. But the the bottom line is we're
fiscally solid. the majority of departments are under budget. There's there are some department departments as a whole that are over budget, but on average we're in pretty good shape. right now on the town side, there's about 330K under budget so far. However, we still have the 26th pay period to go. So, that will be about 50,000 in payroll, around 6,000 in MURF, around 9,000 in healthcare. We have a roughly $10,000 bill for elevator repair. so with those taken in, that gets us, the best guess right now is we're going to be underspent by about $250,000. That will come down further because, as you know, even though the fiscal year closes July 1, the bills that we get that are dated earlier than July 1, and they often trickle in in July, in the first week or so of August, will get paid out of last fiscal year. So, Eric, are you sorry, are you like you just said, and I understand that for the fiscal year ending July, June 30th, correct? Everything should be, you know,
ordered or services rendered in that fiscal year. So, are you and you just made a statement saying obviously those things it they shouldn't have a July 1 date on their invoice, right? Or a date before July 1, June 30th or earlier, right? Right. Okay. So, you're just saying you're expecting invoices for services and goods that were ordered to come in and then of course, right, we understand that the books won't totally be closed because you have to make all those adjustments and pay all those bills and whatever. Correct. Okay. Correct. And on the the revenue side, we're in pretty good shape right now. overall we're slightly less than as of when we did the last reconciliation. We were about $60,000 less in total revenue. but we're actively doing transfer station permits and that's not the last of what we're going to get out of the tax collector's office. So my guess is by the end of the year that's going to be pretty close to zero on revenues. Right now we're about point 0.5% under in the in our revenue forecast. So pretty good revenue forecast. so fiscally we're okay for last year. There's no there's no chance we're going to end up in the red, you know, for last year. Great. Sounds good. All right, without further questions on that, thank you for that because I know we have another item down below where we're going to talk about possible transfers or, you know, I don't even know if you're at that stage yet. But, moving on to item B, which is the check register. Any questions from anyone there? Yeah, I don't think we got the check
register. Sorry, I didn't I usually print it out. So, again, the focus was other things. so maybe we didn't even have it in our packet. So I would like you mentioned that report that Chris ran today. I mean, if you send it to us like in the next couple days, that would be great to just take a look at it ahead of time when you have time. All right, so moving on from the check register. No questions there. I did send you an email regarding the next item, which was the OSHA item C, OSHA update. I know we got the memo from you stating, you know, what the fines were going to be and it looks like you were able to negotiate or something and it looks like the fines are going to be half of what they should have been just in my quick math. But we Yeah, we got the fines down to about $2,100, which is fantastic for a municipality in multiple buildings. I I can tell you that, you know, most of our neighbors have paid fines that were more than an order of magnitude greater than that. So that's awesome as far as I looked through the minutes of some and you had you had forecasted that they could be very very high, you know, some of the numbers that were thrown out. So, yes, seeing 2,000, but I, you know, I'll take it up at another meeting, but I it would be great to see what they were the fines
were for. I mean, there was like, you know, they weren't obviously, and it's the board of select men's duty, not ours, to manage, you know, those kind of things. We're just the the money side of it. So, I just didn't see it saying what they were for. all of those are posted on the appropriate building. The town hall's violations are posted on the town hall's notice board. Public works is posted there. Library is posted there and transfer stations posted on theirs. got it. That's what OSHA wants. I know we always have to post OSHA. Okay. All right. Anyone have any questions about the fine to the OSHA update? I don't have any questions, but Eric, great job getting those fines down. Thank you. Yeah, I was pretty happy with that actually. Yeah, compared to that taxpayers. Yes, definitely. Okay, moving on to item number seven, new business. item A was the tax collector suspense report. Eric, do you have or does anyone have questions on it? I know it was in our packet and I know I mean just I need to just again praise our tax collector. Boy, she really has done some awesome work like since she's taken over with everything she's doing. I know it's not our job to do that but wow it's you know rolling along or maybe possible tax sales or you know so she's getting the taxes collected which is the main thing. Doing a great job. So, anyone questions on that? Okay, moving on to Okay, we're going on to new business under item B that I had
thought maybe we would strike, but I did put it on I've already spoken to it. Obviously, everyone, you know, was spoken about it tonight again that at a recent board of selectmen meeting or you know, the topic came up and Mr. Maguire had had mentioned that, you know, things weren't done correctly or, you know, brought it to the board of Select's attention. So, I wanted I was at that meeting. I spoke to it there. I mean, we we heard from our auditor tonight, which I think is good that he gives us some guidance. obviously, as the board of finance, we always want to do the correct things and follow. it just bothers me, I guess, that maybe there's been a couple contradictory opinions by the town
attorney of what we can do. But again, we have to do what we have to do. does anyone have any thoughts? You all wanted to keep this on the agenda. I guess the one question I did want to ask the board of finance straight, was this the first you heard of it or did any of you have concerns and possibly had gone to Mr. Maguire or did you bring it to this forum which is the board of finance forum? So anyone go ahead. I can only speak for myself in that you know if I thought this was the wrong procedure I wouldn't have done what I did you know working on this. I read the town attorney's opinion. it goes on for some length. and I got the gist of it. He thinks
we did the wrong thing. I get it. I on at the end of the day I don't want to be in a position where we as a board overstep or try to take on powers that we don't have. so that's I felt the whole thing was kind of unfortunate that it went you know came down that way. But if that's the take, you know, I guess the question that I have going forward becomes this. Is the appropriate procedure as we discussed tonight that we make a recommendation then we go to town meeting and do we have to have a separate town meeting for that or is it if we bless it and then the board of selectman blesses it, are we good? and that and you know when we looked at the backing way up when we looked at the charter provisions and the state statutes you know trying to figure out a process here I remember reading the state state statutes and feeling like they none of
them were directly on point. and the auditor I feel like kind of alluded to that. but I also admit I'm not a lawyer. I work with them all the time, but I'm not myself one. And it's entirely possible that I misinterpreted something or missed something that was key. So my gut reaction is, okay, if this isn't the process, then then we revise and that's fine by me. But it was a good faith effort. That's all. And I did not, you know, personally raise objections because I thought it was the right thing. So I thought we were doing okay. So that's that's from my perspective. That's all I've got. I totally agree with fraud. Same thing. We thought we were doing what we were supposed to be doing, but when it got to a point where there was an indication that it might have been done incorrectly, I want to do the right thing as well. So if we have to go to town meeting for it,
we'll have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where it stands or who makes that call or whatever. I we all want to do the right thing and I mean it was simply you know money that was going to be put in a fund to do work that's going to have to be done and paid by the taxpayers anyways eventually. So what I got out of tonight Liz and then I'll let you speak. what I got out of tonight was he sort someone clearly brought it to his attention and he's the auditor and that's good. I mean we all want the things to go right. like Rob said and all I said and I've spoke up in every meeting was just that this was so darn transparent because there were so many meetings like Rob, you and Shannon were talking about it.
We were trying to go to the board of selectmen and have it approved and then they didn't want any part of it. I mean, there's been multiple meetings, but again, none of that really matters now. We all know that it was all in good faith. The auditor said he thought it was, you know, trying to do a good thing or, you know, the right thing or, you know, it Yeah. So, again, everybody else say what they I don't know where this stands. I don't think they had a resolution at the other meeting. They had a vote with what they were going to do. So, Liz, do you want to Yeah. So my take on this is it it is unfortunate that there was so much talk about this throughout the year and that nobody suggested that maybe there's a step that we're missing. But my take on the way that it makes sense to me and that it needs to be handled is these are tax dollars that taxpayers have already or these are dollars that the taxpayers have already paid. So to me it makes sense. It's it's our job to fund the various accounts that need to get funded over the course of the year. So obviously these these things need to be taken care
of at the school. So this is no different than taking care of whatever the trucks and whatever that need to be funded for the town. So if that money goes back to the general fund, we then which would be the legal way to do it. We as the board of finance then properly make a decision how much some all partial how much of that money do we fund going forward for for that capital fund because obviously we have to budget for it and I think that's what the part that was missed is that it's our job to budget for it. and and I think maybe that's the part that was missed. And since that money, somebody stood up in the town budget meeting and even said that, you know, I've already paid money on those taxes or I already paid taxes on that money. which made sense to me and I'm probably not saying this right, but the point is regardless of of what happens with the money, it's our job to see that these capital projects get funded just like any other capital building in the town. So, we have to plan that during budget season anyways. Does that make sense? appreciate that comment. That meant a lot to me, too. The woman that spoke up said that the money had already been taxed and so that kind of changes my mind about using the fund balance every year to reduce people's taxes in general. you know, we like landed on that was a very good point she made, but I also thought I don't think we were having her get
reaxed by putting it in the AES capital fund because that's one of those standalone funds. I'm not supporting nor denying it. Made me feel good that she wouldn't get retaxed. I mean, people were trying to say, "Oh, they're putting it back in the budget." What bothers me is I think I'm going to have a whole new perspective on things of how much of the fund gen, you know, fund balance I want to use to decrease people's taxes because it is true this money that was a surplus has been taxed already on the taxpayers. We should use as much of that as possible to reduce future taxes for the people. Correct. So, correct. not even having anything to do with our
general. I'm with you, Liz, because like we stopped at 190 and listen, I was throwing all kinds of ideas out there. We put the 150 to reduce and then we added the 40 that should have been in the year before. So, we reduced by 190 this year. So, in my mind, I think I'm pro use as much as we can in the future just because of that woman's statement. It meant a lot to me. Yep. That's all. I don't Kim, you wanted this to be on the agenda moving forward to discuss. Did do you want to say something? no. I was just curious why it was back on the agenda, but it sounds like it's been covered. I appreciate all the comments. Thank you. Yeah. And Eric, do you know where we stand? I mean, that's all we can go. I mean, I wanted to have a, you know, I just think we needed to have a a discussion about it. I'm sure it'll be ongoing. Maybe it will affect how we budget in the future with things that are added. I don't I don't know. But what where do you feel like this stands right now, Eric? I thought at the board of selectman meeting it didn't pass to go to town meeting. I don't know. they did not have enough of a support to they did not vote to send it to town meeting. So at this point I I mean unless the board of finance recommended that it goes to town meeting it's kind of dead for what's happened so far. that doesn't mean, you know, and and from my perspective, our governing documents, our charter, you know, there's a lot of things in there that I think are vague. I'm
not sure I agree with the town's attorney's opinion on that, but I respect that he's the town attorney and I'm just the administrator and if he says water is green, then water his legal opinion is that water's green and I abide by it. you know, that's just the way it works. That's his responsibility as the town's attorney. So what I would suggest is that what you focus on is what to do going forward and come up with the policies and procedures, you know, to make this clear. And if that takes a town ordinance and going to a public meeting to establish an ordinance on how to do this, then do so. because I I will tell you that I'm still confused after doing this for six years about what is the exact procedure for getting a capital project through from soup to nuts. Do I go through CIP and then go to board of finance because the
board of selectman has to say on money that's already budgeted or do I go CIP, board of selectman, board of finance? There doesn't seem to be any real logic to and I've done it both ways in the past and the board of finance has de or the board of selectmen has definitely approved capital projects and gave me my marching orders to execute that without really asking the board of finance to because it was already budgeted money. So I think we got a lot of procedural work to figure out how to do it. I I would be much happier to have a clean roadmap of how this is done. you know, we have a capital a
a a spending policy and that's good, but it doesn't really explain what the process is to get to that spending. Sounds good. Eric, Rob, did you want to add something? Yeah, I mean, again, I would just say that, you know, on the one hand, you know, I would never advise us to ignore the advice of legal counsel. That's the whole point of having it. what I would say is that the question in my mind that was raised was is it really town meeting or is it a meeting of the minds between board of finance and board of selectment? and that's something I'd like to explore further. Maybe we can direct that question back to town council. because town meeting of course is a whole process of its own. It costs money to do. We have to set it up. we have to
get people there. and it's it's also, you know, could the board of selectment is the executive board of the town, right? We're we're just the finance board, but you know, they get to make a lot of decisions without having a meeting for a townwide meeting for everything. And so that's where I'm that's where I'm at is that's my question is can we solve this issue by having us recommend and board of selectment agreeing or disagreeing and then we go forward. That's my gut. But you know I it just struck me as difficult to manage if we have to do town meeting and therefore you know and
if it has to be an ordinance to make that all happen properly to comply with everything then so be it. and maybe that's then what we should push for. you know but I I'm trying to I'm just stepping back and thinking the practicality of this. How do we actually get this done? How do we actually on a day-to-day basis manage these projects and and make this work? And you know adding town meetings into the process. If it has to happen, if it's absolutely required, so be it. But you know, these boards are elected for a reason. You know, we you know, the boards get to make a lot of decisions. Why not this one is is the one that comes to mind. So that's just my thoughts. They're they're just kind of been percolating in my mind since I read the town attorney's opinion. just my take my two cents. We appreciate it because you spent the most time with Shannon trying to come up with procedures and everything, but maybe even if we had some kind of signed agreement, it wasn't going to hold up anyways, you know, based on we need to have an ordinance. So, I'm going to summarize it. I think we're gonna, you know, delay this to discuss next month again unless someone comes to us before that. they and maybe we should have a meeting with the board of select, maybe we should try to get another joint meeting together. Well, exactly. Well, we've done that before, too. But I, you know, so having attended the board of selectmen meeting and listening to it, seeing like Eric said, they didn't have the vote. There's nothing we're doing right now, but I
think it's healthy that we had a discussion that we want to have a process to follow. I think the board of ed members that would hear are here would appreciate that too. I mean yeah, there's no action at this point. a good healthy discussion. We all want to do the right thing. and we'll go from there. So, I'm going to move on to item C, which is I put that on there, too, because usually at this time of year, we're hearing about some possible transfers that might be upcoming. Eric, if it's too premature because you need to have balances and then Liz, did I did you need to did you want more on No. Well, someone has their hand up and there's a person named Ron. Ron. Yeah, that's Ron Langoy. Should he save it for for So, we'll
definitely get to hear your point at public speak if you don't mind. We generally don't open it to the public in the middle of the meetings. Okay. We can't Yeah, we'll look forward to hearing from you then. Thank you so much for being here. So, you know, thanks, Liz. moving on. Eric, should we wait until Cheryl and Chris? I know Chris has hung in there, too. have, you know, I I just brought up I don't know if you're going to have any major transfers that you're going to bring to us. We don't need the whole thing if there's going to be an official meeting, but so there will have to be a meeting and you will have to approve the fund transfers. Yeah. per the auditor, he's long said that we don't need to be leveling up at the individual line item. We only need to be department, you know, at the department level. currently, you know, at the department or at the ex the category level. Currently, it looks like we have 12. We're over in 12 categories, but most of them are not over significantly. so at some point, and we'll probably want to do it all at once, which means we'll do it in August once the official books close in August and any bill that we're going to pay off of that fiscal year, you know, has been required to be in. so we should be able to do it all in one shot at the August meeting. and that will be a Cherokee thing.
great. So, we'll wait till then. you gave us the overview on the balances or the possible surplus and what you anticipated. So, thank you for that. So, we'll move along to number eight, the approval of meeting minutes. hold on. Stop. The important thing was you guys have to officially appoint the auditor. Oh, did I I'm reading off my Yeah. So, we discussed this earlier around February, you know, I had said to the board that if you were going to consider changing auditors, we would have needed to go to RFP like January, February time frame. So we had time enough to make a decision before we have to report our choice at the time you elected not to do that. my recommendation is stay with Mahoney Sable. I'm involved with I guess four organizations that have to deal with state audits including the health district and Connecticut Conference of Municipalities has to do it as does Crag the Capital Region. and all of those organizations have been struggling to get auditing firms to do it. There's we kind of acknowledge that it's a statewide problem that we're very short auditors
overall. So I don't think we would save money and I think if we got on a new auditing firm we would be at the back of their list. which means we would probably be even later in the queue than we are with Mahoney Sable. So my recommendation for that. Yeah. Do we make motions to do that, Eric? Yeah, you would have to make a motion to reappoint Mahoney Sable. I made a motion to reappoint Mahoney Sable to continue the work that he's doing for the town of Andover. It looks like and I'm doing for the minutes and Rob England has second it. All those in favor for keeping Mahoney Sable as our town auditor say I. I. I. So it looks like Kim I. Okay. So it looks like the motion passes five to zero that we keep Money Sable as the auditor of record for the town of Andover. The only thing I'll add is I I remember discussions years back trying to f find different auditors and everything and you know I can only echo Eric's sentiments on this. they know us, they've been working with us. It it kind
of sucks to be locked into to one contractor for any particular project, but the alternatives are not better. And we're a small town. I just remember him saying like with Liz's question having the history of we're such a small town. Of course, they do their big customers first. They have to get to them and then they plot us in. Especially if there's not enough of them to go around. It's pretty hard to get, you know, boutique service when you're a town of our size and and there's already a crunch. So, it is what it is. Kind of you roll with it. I think we're Yeah. So, that that passed. So, we're all set with that. Eric, I can move on. Yep. Okay. So, moving on to number eight or approval of the meeting minutes. does anyone want to make a motion to accept the minutes from the January 22nd, 2025 regular meeting? I'll make the motion to accept those. Louise Goodwin makes the motion. Do I have a second of the motion? I'll second it. Liz Loach has seconded the motion. All in favor of the minutes being approved as written, say I. Hi. Hi, Kim. You're an I. I haven't had time to read them, so I'll stay for now.
Thank you. Okay, so the motion will pass with a four to zero one abstaining. Kim Persson has abstained on that. moving on. I'm going to gonna say I guess I'm well, I can't go out of order when we come to D. There's I don't think we're going to go forward with D, but anyone want to make a motion for the March 26th meeting minutes for approval? Yeah, I didn't have a chance to read that one. Does anyone have a problem with with just pushing these? Yeah, why don't we push the rest of them back? in May 7th. It was just an important meeting and there was a lot of like, you know, references to people who said different things. So, I just wanted to take time to just read it. so why don't if anyone doesn't object, I'd like to move these back, Eric, just one more month and I can let Kate know. So, we did approve the January 22nd, but we'll hold on the next three. We'll put those into old business for our next meeting. Yeah. Yeah. See that one? No. Thank you everybody for that. And now moving on to number nine, which is board open discussion. I don't know if anyone else
has any further discussion or any items they want to bring forward. Go ahead. I'll just mention one thing just to keep it in our minds. not, you know, anything big, but we talked about this a little bit with Eric, I think, in our last meeting in terms of where we feel our fund balance, our unexpended, unassigned fund balance ought to be, what our target should be given that technically we're below the state recommended level. I have my own thoughts on this. They're not set in stone by any stretch of the imagination. I've always been the sort of person who likes more savings than less. So, I love the idea of just a general sense of like why don't we try to pump that number up? But at some point, we should probably when we have probably all our members, talk about having a specific target that we should try to reach. And that's just something I think everybody should
just kind of keep in mind. Think about it. Think about what your own preferences are. taking into account that we in terms of what the the rainy day scenarios are for our town that we're not super floodprone or you know some of these other things that we do have pretty wellunded capital funds but at the same time we're well below not well below but we're below that two-month figure. So, do we want to shoot for 14 or 15 or whatever? You know, let's talk about that in a future meeting. Just that's my only thought for the moment. let's not lose sight of it and six months from now wake up and realize we never made a decision. Sounds good, Rob. Appreciate that. I mean, we also do have surpluses every year. Like you said, we do have the fund that funds that are there in the contingency, but definitely the auditor did point out that we're about
one point, you know, one and a half months funded or whatever. Yeah, we're like 1.6 and they want two and our contingency fund is tiny honestly. Oh yeah, you know, just like you said, or our small town, but we will. Yeah, thank you for bringing it. Anybody else have any open discussion items? Okay. Hearing none. I don't know of any correspondence under number 10. you know so we don't need to discuss that. So we'll move on to item 11 and we will bring it out for public speak again. Liz, I had a question. I wanted to make a motion for the executive session to hear Eric out. So maybe we could do the executive session after after public after public speak is what I'm thinking. Okay. Anyone else second that? I'll second that. Yeah. Okay. Liz Loach has made the motion to go into executive session after public speak and Louise Goodwin has seconded the motion. So we will do that after public speak. Okay. Moving on to number. Do we vote? Oh. Oh, sorry. I get I get quick at the end. Oh, can we vote on that? Yeah, I'm sure it'll be All those in favor say I Kim as well. So motion passes 50. We will go into executive session quickly.
Okay. number 11, public speak. Terry Smith, I'm all set. Thank you everybody. Welcome Valerie Bruno. I just want to say thank you for voting Mahoney and Sable in again as he alluded to. things are getting better on both sides. They've been super helpful in the years with our Edmonds software system and working with Terry and you know it they've really done a good job on both sides. So I'm glad you guys voted to keep them. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. let's see. and creme. Nothing at all. Thank you. Okay. Caitlyn Macintosh Greenhouse. I just wanted to say thank you guys for having him come for Mahoney and Sable tonight. just appreciate the review with the slide. was very informative. And then on on the front of of what we do with the capital fund and how we fund that and procedurally what happens I I really hope that we can come to some agreement in terms of what we do want to go ahead. just echoing other people's sentiments, it's frustrating that, you know, a person from your board and a person from our board spent over a year trying to come up with a tri board policy and then the board of selectmen did not want a part in it and now we need to change things again. So hopefully we can get it finalized somehow. Thank you. Thank you, Caitlyn Kathy Maldonado. Kathy, I'll come back to you one more time. I'm not sure if you're still with
us there. Ron, go ahead. Are you ready? Yes. thank you for having me speak. I was just listening to a few things. Eric is great. Sounds like it what he's doing. My concern with what he was saying where there's the the board of select ones can just go ahead and say for a capital budget go ahead and spend it because we already have the money reserved without talking to the board of finance really bothers me because it's like a husband not talking to his wife when you're going to spend some money not knowing that something else was already used for that or that got moved. I think the communication should be better between those two. when something's going to be spent and just, you know, just talking back and forth. Doesn't have to be a town meeting because the town appointed you guys to handle the finances. It's which is great. You guys do a fantastic job. I actually look at trying to maybe apply for that board of finance when it comes up. But, but I was just saying is the communication there I think should be a little bit better. And like Rob said, we don't have to have a town meeting all the time for stuff like that, but at least communication between when money is getting when money is going to get spent, the board of finance should be people that knowing where it's going to be coming out of what it's spent even though it was saved for that purpose. That's all. Thank you. Can Can I address something real quick if that's okay,
Joan? Yeah, go ahead. I just wanted to say, Ron, just so you know, you know, the capital projects all go through the capital improvement committee and the capital improvement committee includes representatives from all the boards. and I I am the board of finance rep on that. So, typically what happens is somebody, you know, there's a capital project that needs doing, it's brought before CIP, we ask our questions, what have you, and then we either bless it or don't. And then at that point I my job as liazison is to bring that to the attention of the board of finance. So on the one hand the board of selectman can still make their own decisions and do their own thing. But at the other hand I generally feel that we do a decent job of not having it be some sort of surprise expenditure from a capital account just because the money is there. we generally know what's coming down the pike and Eric is usually very informative in our meetings telling us what's going on and what's what's happening what's needs to be done. So on the one hand yes the board of selectman can haul off and do whatever but on the other hand we are not in the dark or anything. the process does work to keep us generally informed as to what's what's going on and and that's what the purpose of the CIP that's what it's there for basically. So just FYI it it it does work reasonably well in my opinion but that's just my take. Well yeah because Eric seems to be confused about which direction he's
looking for a clear direction to go to. Yeah. the the pro sort of the steps what are the what are the right what's the order that I understand and and he's not wrong about our charter that there there it is easy to read that charter and think to yourself gosh that could be clearer that's not wrong I I have been there myself I assure you all right well thank you for your your answer thank you Ron for taking the time and and your contributions we appreciate it Kathy Maldonado. All right. I think I'm Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Kathy. No, I'm all good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for attending. Thank you to everybody that took the time to come tonight. We always appreciate it. and I guess I'm not adjourning, I don't think. Right. We're going into executive session first, right? We get to then we'll adjourn after. Then we come back in. All right. everybody. I guess everybody else that you know the meeting is for all intents and purposes over because we're just going to come back and adjourn to this quick session. So, thank you for your time. Looks like So, the one thing you do have to do is since I'm not a board of finance member, if you want me in the in the executive session, you have to explicitly state that. Yeah, I think we would like to invite you into the executive session, Eric. I'm just saying it for the people doing inviting Eric Anderson, town manager into executive session with the board of finance. Okay, so we are coming out of executive se executive session at 8:55 and returning to our regular meeting at this time. And I move to ajourn.
And I second. Oh, I and I move to adjourn. can I have a vote on that or you second it? Is that okay? I second it. In favor. I I I I. So, the votes are five to zero. We will be adjourning. Everybody have a good evening. Take care. See you next month. The month after I forget.