Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Regular Meeting
January 26, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Let's go ahead and we'll call this meeting to order. Thank you, Amanda. Thank you, everybody, for joining our first meeting of 2022. Haven't been to the last one because of travel so it's still catching up to a lot of things that's going on with this and the school budget. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Welcome to the budget season. First order of business is a call to order and the Pledge of Allegiance. Let's go ahead and we'll say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all. Thank you. Agenda item number two is a public speak session. Do we have any members of the public who want to speak? Amanda, do you want to go around? Call on people. Of course, alright. First up we have Liz Loketch.
Good job on that, Amanda. Thank you. I'm all set for now. Thanks. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Liz. Actually, that might be all we have Okay. For the public. Okay. It's Brenda's with Brendan is from Ahm. Ahm. Okay.
Very good. Thank you. You guys are still members of the public. You could speak now if you wanted. But hearing nothing else, we'll go ahead and move on to agenda item number three, additions and deletions to the agenda items. Do we have any additions or deletions to the agenda items? Okay, no additions or deletions to the agenda. We'll move on to item four, which is the budget. And I understand you guys are going to present or discuss the budget. Were Amanda did distribute this previously. Do you need us to display it or would you like to show it, Tressa?
It's up to you. I can I can definitely show it? Let me just pull up. Yeah. I can show it. It's probably not gonna be as pretty as yours because mine's from the Excel. I think we had sent you guys the PDF version, but it should work just fine. I just I just wanna start off before I actually put the numbers up on, just kind of give you a snapshot of where has been this past year, specifically in just addressing a lot of the mental health challenges that have come up due to COVID. So to give you a quick snapshot, it has been tough and our staff are working many hours, whether it's our school based staff
that is assigned to Andover, whether it's our middle and high school, full timers that are at the schools, you know, as well as our outpatient therapists at you know, we're constantly on a waiting list for youth and families. And what we're finding that COVID has caused is not just the increased volume for mental health resources and assistance, complexity has also increased. And what I mean by that is, prior to COVID, we would have youth coming on to AHM for therapy maybe once a month or every other week. We had a few students that maybe were coming weekly. And what we're now finding is based on, you know, just increased anxiety, depression. You know, we have students- Who lives in Minnesota? Students that could possibly be contemplating, you know, self harm, you know, those students now are possibly, you know, coming for therapy two times a week. We have more students that are coming weekly. And so it's this volume, as well as complexity and frequency that we're just really trying our best to help students and families navigate. And it's, it's not something that I see going away anytime soon. I think my staff and I were really hoping that this year with the return to school that, you know, the mental health needs would kind of, you know, level out or maybe even improve, but we are actually finding the opposite. And, you know, we just continually are seeing more and more folks coming to us for
help, whether it's again, through the schools or through outpatient clinic. So that's just kind of to give you a snapshot of where we are, but, you know, I give our staff all the credit in the world because they have, you know, been amazing in being creative on, you know, even during times where we've had to shut down, or maybe just recently with responding to the Omicron variant, you know, taking patients on telehealth, just to make sure we're providing them with the consistency of services that they really need at this time. So that's where we're at. We continue to still offer our programs through our family resource center. So we have quite a few families involved with our play and learn groups. We're happy to say that we've, been able to keep our preschool program at Kinderama going even through COVID. So those are all just wonderful things because our goal really is to keep students and families engaged and together.
So with that, I'm going to share our budget for next year. And what I'm here to present to you tonight is the the Andover municipal contribution. And so that is on if I scroll down here, the municipal contributions are highlighted in yellow, and those are determined by a formula that our oversight committee had put together last year. And you know that the formula is based on two numbers, school enrollment, as well as town population. And those two numbers are averaged together, and then it is percentage out between the three towns. So for next year, you know, it's about a two and a half percent increase. And so you can see there Andover's portion of the total municipal line item. As far as HMs budget goes, you know, we do see an increase in our budget. We're excited and honored to be the recipients of a directed local funds grant. This was a grant that Senator Kathy Austin was able to secure for our region. She had come to back in about around this time around February of last year to talk to us about the challenges we were seeing in the four pounds that we serve and just come at, you know, some of the challenges that we thought we were going to have in the future.
And obviously a lot of that conversation was around mental health. So she was able to secure a grant that we will have for two years. And what that grant will be contributing toward is trainings for our staff to help them really understand the trauma and anxiety and depression that our town people are experiencing and how we can, you know, better serve them in new therapeutic approaches to help them with the issues that we're dealing with. It's also going to serve in training, at least 10 community members in the QPR gatekeeper training. QPR stands for question, persuade, and refer. It's a suicide prevention training. And so we've been doing a lot of those trainings myself and our clinical director, but Megan and I can't do them all. So, you know, we're gonna take a portion of that grant money to train more people. So that grant money is really looking to build our capacity to be able to help more people. And so a lot of these trainings are, you know, one time and once folks are certified, we can then use them to go out into the community and teach these courses. We also used a portion of the funds to purchase laptops for our staff. You know, when COVID
first hit us, we were not prepared to move our staff to working at home and telehealth for our clients. So this grant has provided us with the resources so we can have all of our clinicians with laptops, have them with secured platforms that they can safely run their telehealth appointments if we're in that position. So that is that is where we are. I mean, I can definitely if if you have any questions, I know you all, you know, have the the information in the full packet. But I am excited, like I said, to have these, these enhancement and COVID response grants that we can provide more services to the four towns we serve with, you know, a minimal increase to the municipal line item budgets. I think, know, the value that the towns are going to be receiving, especially when it comes to increased supports, you know, is something we're really proud of at the I don't know, Brendan, you want to add anything or if anybody has questions?
I think you summed it up pretty well. What we're looking for tonight is a vote on the $92,000 amount.
This is Daikin Schochette. I just have one question. You were just talking about that grant that you got. Is that grant in these new numbers for this fiscal for next fiscal year? Yes. So which
item is under that foundations trust item? Let me just go back up, and I can tell you exactly what number it falls under. It actually falls under 4,450. The state government under government grants is where that grant falls under. I've seen that budget change of about $90,000 there. Oh, Okay. Okay. Thanks.
It's trust if I could ask you a question that you mentioned that a lot of that was going to support technology and stuff and maybe I missed it but your biggest increase in the budget is. Well, you have contractor services is one of two also significant increase in salaries and wages, you just increased staffing due to the workload. What's any specific?
Yeah, so some of the contractor resources again, those are things to help us build the capacity within on getting these mental health initiatives and supports in place. We did contract Tom Steen, he's going to be doing the QPR train the trainers. He's also going to be helping us put together a postvention plan for the four towns. So that would be a town, you know, four town plan that we could activate if God forbid there was a a tragedy within our towns that, you know, kind of crossed over town line, felt we needed to reach out to family members and community members to support them during that time of grief. So again, that's an investment that, you know, is kind of like a one time thing that is going to help us in the future. As far as increases in salary, we did add a full time therapist to next year's budget. So we did use a little bit of the grant money to get that therapist going, but we know that that will be offset by that therapist coming in and being able to take insurance and we'll, you know, level out.
Okay. And with the. Is this a one time grant or is there a possibility that this would be continued in multiple years or just kind of depends on conditions to the state budget or what? Yeah, you know, that's a really good question.
You know, it is COVID money siphoning down from the Fed. So we had it, you know, we know we have it next year for the twenty two-twenty three year. I think as far as, you know, this COVID response money that's coming through, you know, the states and the towns and the municipalities, you know, I'm not sure if that will be renewed. I think as far as, you know, the challenges of mental health, I don't think that those are gonna go away, you know, anytime soon. So that's why when we had this opportunity, we really wanted to look at how we could build the capacity and the supports now with the resources that we have, and really making an investment and and knowing that if this money was to all of a sudden disappear, we would still have the the education and the training to continue on forward. Additional questions from the board? Okay,
hey Mark, it's Joanne Hebert. I just have one thanks trust us such such a needed service and and you know I work in a school system myself so I realize you know all the good work that I know you must be doing with the students of the towns and especially I mean I think all of us thought it would be one year and it's you know going on to and and just in our school I see it in the kids every day so thank you for all that you guys do. It's so important and I know it's draining work too. I just wondered overall I and I forget I've listened to meetings before. Do you have an idea of the number of staff members you now have there at So
we have we we have 26 staff members that's you know full and part time. And then we have, know, a number of board volunteers that, you know, help us to make decisions for the organization, as well as help out at our fundraisers, our community events. Know, our board right now is 23 members. So yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful for the contributions of our board because, as you can see, our budget is well over a million dollars and our board does an amazing job of helping us run amazing and successful fundraisers to help us balance this budget. On, you know, whether it's our golf tournament, our concerts, our online auctions, our board members do an amazing job coming through and helping. And that's, you know, I am so grateful for that, because if it wasn't for their contributions, this budget would look a lot different.
Okay, thank you. That's a lot of work you're all undertaking right now in these times. So with 26 staff members and every, you know, your volunteers, it's it's a lot. I know. So thanks again. Hi, you're welcome. It's an honor.
Additional questions or comments from the Board of Finance? Just noting this is about a 4% increase over last year. It's about 3,450 think about $3,500 even. Normally what we would do would be to move this to own line item. The Board of Finance, I think our options are to table this for the next meeting. Somebody could make a motion to approve this, or we could not make a motion and continue on our agenda. Anybody from the board have any comment or input?
I'm okay with just continuing with our agenda and keeping this when we get to our budget workshops more so when we get more detail on the budget and see how this number plugs in. I
agree with that. I don't know if we have enough to really say yes or no.
My comment, Mark, I just wanted to ask, I think this moved all, like I know it used to be divided between the town and the school had part of the budget. Is it all now on the town line item? Whole Yes.
Thank you. Yeah, that was a change that was made, I think, in the last fiscal year. So there was a conversion that took place so that it all went to the town instead of split between the town and the school just for ease of administrative reasons, if nothing else. And the budgets were adjusted accordingly.
I'm Okay with waiting too. I mean, I think ultimately I'm going to be in favor of it just from everything that but I mean, I know maybe we're not supposed to comment now, but that's my opinion.
No, I think it's fine to comment now. I mean, I tend to agree. I mean, I think your comments are well taken that there's a lot going on. Anybody who's been anywhere near schools or community services knows that there's a big demand out there. It has not been easy the last couple of years.
All right. Okay. But I'd like to thank Tressa for her you know, for talking to us tonight and explaining the budget stuff, but I agree too. Let's wait till we can find out during our workshops of where we're going to be. It's going be a tough year no matter what. Any
additional input from the board? Okay, Tressa and Brendan, your presentation and your input and answering the questions. I think we probably got most of it covered. If anybody has any additional, we'll come back to you by email or however and let you know, then we can, we'll discuss it again in our subsequent meetings.
All right, sounds good. Yeah, if any of you have any further questions, please feel free You call or email me and I'll be more than happy to provide y'all with whatever information you need.
Okay, thanks very much. Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and roll into agenda item number five, the town administrators report. Think although I'm not sure that everyone's aware that Eric is off this week, so he won't be here to give the report. I don't know if you had a chance to skim through it. It is in the packet. I didn't see anything that we necessarily needed to, talk directly to. Anybody have any comments or input on that? It's worth reading if you haven't read Eric's report. A lot of it is just kind of his comments on the current budget status, Some of the things that are affected. There are some key accounts overtime,
some maintenance stuff, other things that are affecting the current status of the finances. So it may not have much value for us to get into the weeds on these right now, but I do think it's worth reading if you haven't had a chance to read those yet. Just just things that are going to be operationally or affect our budget that we're going to have to just deal with as the budget year goes on. Are you referring to Eric's
board of finance notes on the current budget and that he put in the packet?
Yes, the administrators report there's in the packet itself. He just got a couple of pages where he just sort of summarizes.
So the question I don't know if anybody's gonna know because I don't think we have anybody from finance on doing. No. No.
So this change for funding for Murph that he put in item one Yeah. Is that the admin fee, or is that the retirement payout paying in to the retirement fund? Because the admin fee we in the current budget now is 3 k. So
Doesn't say. I think we're gonna have to have 10, but it's So we don't know. Answer that question now. Because I if it was the admin fee, that's a big increase. But if it's an additional 8,000 on top of a 96,000 we're paying into the MERF Fund now. Mean
okay. Well, I mean, for me, when I read through it, kind of the operative, sentence here is near the end where he said, we are going to have to work to keep the overall budget in the black, but I think it will be okay. We're going to have to, you know, hope that not, know, we don't get a ton of extra overtime, a lot of storms, things like that. Of course, Friday is a big question. But, you know, it doesn't sound like we're in serious trouble anywhere.
We kind of really don't know because I kind of went through our expenditure reports and things like that, and there's I have a lot of questions. So, you know, and I just don't know where the numbers are coming from because they're not tracking the way I think they should track. But I could not know everything that goes on behind the scenes. So that's what I don't know. I
think there's another budget. Isn't there a board of ed budget tonight workshop, I know Diane.
But I thought Sherri was going to come to our meeting because No, I understand.
Disappointed that that one's tonight because that's the one they were discussing salary and positions and staffing, whereas I could have missed some of the other ones I would have. Mean, know they record it so I'm sure I'll listen to it.
And I, when I can't remember who it was that I spoke with about it, they made it sound as if it was, you know, there wasn't gonna be a lot of discussion about some of the stuff is already out there and it wasn't clear to me there's going be a lot of individual specific discussion on that I really don't know.
Eventually I know right so yeah I thought maybe that's where Sherry was.
Well, originally that was kind of what we had heard that she may need to be a part of that and then last I heard, it sounded like she probably could attend our meeting. Apparently that's not happening. So we may have to just, again, table out of this discussion review until next meeting.
We want to, and I'm jumping the gun, so look at this expenditure report and I can just like highlight some things that I think are out of whack, but I don't know. Take
that in time if we could and just agenda wise. Does anybody have any questions or comments on Eric's report from the packet? Hearing none, and the finance department report, there's a town budget summary, revenue summary, town aid road spending, the over expenditure reports. Guess we can kind of take those as a whole. I don't have, you know, haven't looked into stuff in detail yet, but, I don't have anything specific that I would point out or be super concerned about. But Diane, you got a couple questions or comments?
So if you look at the expenditure report, now we have a percentage use column and now we're missing the current expense, monthly expense column. And I think we need that. Because otherwise you don't know what is getting booked every month that impacts the year to date because it's missing. But one of the things that sticks out is the selectman salary is $4,800 and it says it's 90% expended. There's no way it could be 96% expended when we're only 50% through the fiscal year. That's wrong. They haven't taken all their salaries yet. That's wrong. Well, they cut them a lump chuck. I don't know how that's done. Oh, they did. Because at the board of selectmen meeting, they said nobody's taking their salaries, really.
Right.
So, you know or they've only taken, what, 50% of it. Do you what I mean? They haven't taken almost 100%. So I don't know what's going on with that. So I thought that was kind of crazy. Okay.
And then if you go down on that same report to the auditor section, the annual audit for the auditor. Yeah.
So it's, you know, still in the middle of the page. What We budgeted $33,000 and we expended $22,000 We have an $11,000 balance. I don't know what's going on with this number because last month, our year to date expense paid for the auditor was $30,737 in the last month's detail. So why did it change? I know it may have something to do with negotiating the fee with them, but we paid them 30. So I don't know if this is for last year. It is not this year's audit, so why is it booked in here? Do you know what I mean? You know how we had the problem last year with the ACH problem and that had something to do with them. And I know we worked on trying to not pay a 100% of the bill, but that was in last fiscal years. So I don't know if this is booked wrong.
Well, I think any I may be completely off base, but I would think any recompense would probably not be of something that they would have booked in last fiscal year because we didn't know whether we were gonna get it or not. Right?
Well, we had budgeted for it, so I don't know. We just didn't pay the bill probably last year. So are we Put it this way. In last month's report for November, for the expenses for November, it shows we paid $30,000 Okay. Now, here's December, it says it's '22.
It's an open question. So the question is, did we get some a reimbursement of some sort and what was it tied to?
You know. Or is there something wrong with the report? Or explain it because I'm trying to, I wanna make sure that we're not, that we're accounting for it properly because if it was an expense from last year, we really shouldn't be booking it this year We're going to have to pay that bill this year. We don't want to double whammy ourselves. So I don't know. That's just the question. There's an ongoing issue in the tax collector section. It's at the top of page two. We're over by $6,500 This has been out there for two months. I went back and looked in our previous budgets and pretty much we've always budgeted that $8,000 range, 8,000. So I don't know why we're over. Everybody is trying to explain it from what I heard on a board selectman meeting that it was generating the bills cost the money and then mailing the bills cost the money. And we didn't properly account for postage. But I could not find in any previous budget where we paid postage out of. In what account?
Previously, yes. So this number is the same number we paid in 2021. Do you know what I mean? So why are we over this year? So our actual expenses for that number has been the same. This is the first year it's popped into this big number that's over and everybody's trying to explain it away as something to do with billing. So that's up in the air and we need a better explanation of that because we don't know what it is. I thought they would have figured it out by now. So I have some things. I'm on page three now. And I'm looking at the old town hall section, which is the second section down, building maintenance. Says year to date expense is $2,449 Last month, expended was $4,643 I don't know why it would go down.
Could it be budget transfer? No, budget transfers would just cover any overage.
Right, they would have to come to us for a transfer. Do you know what mean? Right. So No. Ultimately, to to a certain point.
So so I don't know if we're at 98% of budget. Do you know what I mean? So and I can't recall any major repairs in the old town hall. Did that have anything to do with what Jerry Wright was doing over there? I I think it did, Diane.
So maybe there's something there. They they did a lot of the electrical over there, and they changed So we did an electrical panel in that building, I believe. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
And who knows where the the what budget it come out of?
Right. So that's up in the air. So I'm going down on that bottom page three, I'm looking at the town office building section, I'm looking at payroll service. It only says we're 24% expended. So I don't know how that seemed very low for me this far in the year. I would assume payroll service would either be a monthly bill, quarterly bill. I don't know. I know it's not an annual bill because we've got money being charged in there already.
Yeah, can see monthly, but I don't know. I don't know. So, you know.
So those are the kind of things like when you go into the page four into the employee benefits section, which is the section on the bottom, we have unemployment and health insurance at 32% expended seems pretty low. Are we behind on posting that stuff? Do you know what I mean? It shouldn't be that low at this time of the year.
Yeah, especially for the unemployment. I mean, the health insurance could be somebody waiving benefits, but I'm not sure about where the unemployment comp would come from.
You would think those are, to me, those are monthly numbers. Those are posted monthly. So, did we not get December's number posted when we got this report? Do you know what mean? So, we don't have accurate information. I don't know. And so there's a couple other numbers that are low. That was kind of And then I'm not going to bore you guys with any of the things. I just wanted explanations. Another thing that I thought was really funny. So I'm in the public works. I'm on page six, the public works department section, diesel for public works. It says we've expended year to date $17.90 dollars or 13% years. Last month, the expense was $3,600 in that category. So I don't know what changed there. And then when you go to fuel for public works, It says $4,036 year to date expended. Well, that's the same number as last month. To me, I'm thinking fuel that's gasoline, it should change every month.
We're running trucks and equipment and things like that. So I don't know.
They've only got one gasoline dump truck. That's the new one they bought, and they have to buy that at one of the local stations. The rest of it's all diesel,
And it's used to in the oven. So this fuel would be, to me, gasoline. Right? So if we're running that truck, it should change every month. Right? It depends. I don't know if they use a fleet card or something like that to charge it. It could be just a monthly billing cycle timing wise. But I don't know. So
I think I've done Or does the fire department use a fleet card for the fuel? Or how do you guys No. No. We have each vehicle has a fob assigned to it.
And then but the bills don't come, you know. Least they haven't come, you know, on schedule basically and out of the diesel fuel we use the least, you know, their buses and your dump trucks are going to use more than us. Yeah, I was just wondering if they work off the same billing type arrangement.
So it could just be a timing with the bill is what I was saying. Right, right. That's what I would Which Which is often a long time.
So then on page seven and we're into that ground care and mowing. We've spent mowing ground care. We've spent $5,131 year to date. Last month, that number was $12,631 as an expense.
All right, something's not right then. You know, I don't know what's happening. Either things were misclassified and got reclassified or something's going on, you know, through adjustments but.
And then I'm not going to bore you with everything but I want to show you one thing that's really cookie so I don't know. It's on page 10. It's in the library section. We have an adopted budget of 26 to 89 expended year to date fourteen seven forty fifty. I'm sorry which which one
Library dues and fees. Library dues and fees. So that $14,000 expense was there last month. So why is the balance 27 and not $11,000 That it's a negative number now. Either there's some big credit in there, but what would they get a credit for at the library? Twenty six minuteus 14 should be 11 for remaining balance. Hi. I'm on the library board and that's news to me too. So, there's some looks really good. That's right.
Looks can be deceiving Linda. What's the reality. Yeah, something's not right.
That's not right. Yeah, so there's so there's a lot of things in the financial report that
we're not getting accurate information. I don't know about the rest of your members but I mean, we have a we have a finance director and we have an assistant finance director. And, you know, I would think if there was a conflict of meetings like this, like tonight between us and the school board, that if if Sherry can't make our meeting, then maybe her assistant should make our meeting. But, I mean, she's a she's on top she gotta be on top of the same records as Sherry. She she does a lot of a lot of the, input, you know, on the budget. I don't know. Thoughts? Those are mine.
I think we need somebody here and this report, I mean, we can't really tell where we stand. We're six months into the fiscal year. No. And we really don't know where we are. No.
And Diane, you have brought up things before and you're right, I'm taking a look at this and I've looked at various things too. Wasn't there the first report that she generated for us? Was there a fourth column? Because I'm starting to miss, you know, I do kind of wanna see the monthly. I'll have to look back in my notes, but I thought there was one that gave us an extra column you know now we get the extended year to date but because of your memory you're you know letting us know hey last month it was this or that. I want to see the new you know what was generated. I
thought there was an additional column that now. Right, this is the first month we don't have the current column because we got the percent column. Right. Off of this report from what we had before we had the current column and we had the expended column. We don't really use that expended function on the town side like the school does. Right.
I don't know. We definitely need that current column because we need to see what's posting every month so we can see if something that should be posting monthly didn't show up or something is, you know. What I'm missing, I think what I look at in my job and in the school, have an encumbered, we have a lot more and I think I've brought that up before because of the purchase order system we encumber a lot more so it's just helpful because you see okay that's out there and you know you can try to piece it together but I'm with you I'm missing something here that's not
and it's obviously not making sense a lot of the time. I would give up that encumbered column for having the current column because we don't really book encumbered expenses on the town side.
Right, encumbered just helps me know that it's already used too. Right. You know, it's sort of the same thing, percent used, yep, it's spoken for, we've got a purchase order, it's encumbered. And another thing now since Kurt broached Marina, I just wanted to bring up too. I was curious and this is something we can talk about with Eric. I felt bad and I don't know who does it, but I hope that it's not Eric having to post all the things in the spreadsheet for the budget. You know, I felt like last night's meeting Diane, maybe they were saying that Eric and Sherry were filling the spreadsheet.
Kind of like Kurt said we have two full time people now in the finance department. I just hope that one of them is able to do that. Maybe I'm wrong so.
Well we should be as being good managers, be bringing Marina into the, not that we may give her budgets, but we should be educating her about the budget process along so she gets the benefit of the experience from going through this. So she learns from this. And, you know, she may not have to do it, but, you know, if you've got people building that spreadsheet by hand, there better be somebody else coming behind them and double checking their work because I don't care. I cannot input a spreadsheet without making a mistake. You know, when you're doing your own work, it's easy to fat finger a number and it's not like we're importing it in and just, you know.
Right and I understand that Eric will provide the data you know and be the guy at the top maybe I just was hoping that poor guy is just so busy in the town you know overseeing all the departments and hopefully overseeing and again maybe this isn't a forum for that but it's just a thought since we have the two finance people couple when I go to these meetings sometimes I'm like oh my gosh I hope they're doing it you know Eric sends them the thing and they just put in the figures but maybe not
I know this question has come up at the Board of Selectmen's meeting too. I didn't listen in this past week, but I know last month they were talking about, you know, they had a lot of questions about the budget and where they stood, and there was nobody there to answer their questions either.
Well, what happened at their budget workshop yesterday, because I listened to that, you know, they tried to do some work on the budget, but without Eric being there, and a lot of the information wasn't current information, so nobody could take any information and do anything with it. So it was kind of like a meeting that we got a few things done, but not anything near that they would normally kind of want to go through. And of course, we haven't even seen that budget sheet yet. They have that spreadsheet, but I think the context in it is that some of the items still weren't correct in it. We couldn't do much.
Sounds like there's a lot of work to be done followed up on here. Yeah,
Louise. Mark? Yeah, I want to make a comment. I think Diane, you had a question about the MRF. I believe the MRF is the pension and under the employee benefits section, says the adopted budget was like 95,000, but they've already used 31, almost 32,000. No, I don't, I mean, they only have 63 left.
Well, and I don't know if that increases for this year or next fiscal year that Eric was talking in that. What page are you on, Louise? Page four. It would be page four.
Benefits towards the end. I see the administration fee being 3,000. That's for them to do the plan, the benefits up above. I mean, the 32,000, what time period is that for?
Did they? I don't know. Is through December 30. So 33% is low on the retirement because we probably should be posting monthly into that. Right, exactly. So I don't know why that number is so low. Right. Okay. Hey Louise.
I'm glad you got that. I just found Eric's thing when Mark asked the questions about MRF. I'm seeing that first sentence in his thing saying change in funding for MRF, it's gonna increase approximately $8,000 next year. I just was shuffling through my papers when Mark was asking and I couldn't find it. MRF already is all of the town salaries and then about 14% goes into MRF from the town. Those are things I uncovered last year when I was trying to look for savings with retirement plans and different things. And they'll never get away from MRF, you know, because it's all or nothing. You can't grandfather people into Murph, you know they wanna keep you once they have a town or you know because I went through all of that but I'm curious so whatever our salaries in the town add up to now, you know $500 or whatever times 14 percent, that's a huge amount on the town that we put in. So it's a great benefit for town workers when we talk about the negatives and the employees don't, you know always get the same compensation
it's a wonderful benefit. I think they contribute about 2% and our town puts in 14% you know if you make a $100 it's 14,000, right? So it's, you know, right off the top. But I'm curious, it'll be interesting for Eric to address where this extra 8,000. Maybe he's just talking about in salary increases
and that's the difference. I think he also mentioned prior that that is part of the union contract. So maybe it has something to do with a union contract increase or something. True. Yeah. Yeah. I think you can't change that.
Think you're right on that and I think once is joined to you know once you're in there it's, you know, you're, it is what it is kind of thing. The challenge is Diane pointed out it still looks like it's under built right so there's there's really two questions like okay what is that impact really what is that over budget protecting where is that coming from. And if that's the case, it should be even higher than 50% currently. If we're really booking that. So, why are we why are we only booked at 32%? So, again, think there are questions that Eric and Sherry are going have to address. Okay.
And I'll just make one comment just so everybody knows this report that we have for expenditures was run January 5. This is the same report that went to the Board of Selectment. Our meeting is the last week of the month. If for some reason, because of holidays and everything, a lot of things weren't booked, we should not have run the report for Board of Finance that early. They should have run the report towards the middle to the middle of the month so we could get more accurate information. Because you know, if we had a lot of things outstanding because we have people out on holidays and things like that, I don't think it was critical for the Board of Selectmen to have a report, but for us to have, because we have that three week buffer to the previous month, so we should be able to get more up to date information. If
that's in fact what's going on here, if there's something different, then we need to figure that out. I know. We're speculating. We don't know. Right. I know. It could be that it was booked or just a booking booking challenge, trying to get everything closed. The books closed on the year end, and then that happens. Right? So that's not year end for them. Month end. Yeah. Month end. Right. That year end. It was year end. I'm sure we wouldn't get anything accurate. So, you know, Diane, since I can't type, are you keeping a record of these, these notes.
I know I have all my notes that I've scribbled all over these reports so I think we might want to put some bills. Maybe send a message to Eric and CC, Sherry or. We put my questions all in. We
had some concerns over the reports that we had were given for our meeting. These things seem out of whack. Can you please be prepared to address them at the next meeting?
And the thing that the reason I found a lot of this stuff is because we didn't have a current calm, I went back and looked at last month's report to say, well, what did we pay last month? And what did it go up this month? And then I found discrepancy. Went the wrong direction. Right? Yeah. Right. And I was like, oh, crap. It's getting worse. So Okay.
Alright. I have one more issue. Go ahead, Under the auditor actuary, the annual audit, I see that it's 22,000 versus
the adaptive budget of three Can you give a page number and account number so we can follow-up? Page
one. Page one, right. And that's under where it says auditor actuary annual services, 10,001. Yeah. Okay. I know we changed auditors and I guess they had funded it for 33,000 is that because what we paid the prior year.
Oh, so I'll tell you that $22,000 that says we expended year to date last month, that number was $30,737 So I don't know what's going on in that account. So it went down for it changed from last month to this month and it went down, which doesn't seem logical. Oh,
yeah, that was one we were talking about earlier we thought maybe some kind of rebate or something. Right. I know we negotiated that bill with them for last year's payments that got misdirected. Yeah. Right.
Alright. Because I based it on that check that I see for Sobel. What's his name? Mahoney. It's Sobel. Yes. Yeah.
Okay. So that's a question up in the air. We don't know. Another one. Okay. And then I guess we don't know the status of the current audit because we really would like some numbers.
Alright. Anything else we should look at or talk about here? There's a lot of little glitchy things, but I'm not gonna bore everybody with it. Any other questions for the board or comments?
One other comment I just want to raise. We get a system generated custom revenue report, and then somebody does a hand typed detailed revenue report updated that's in our packet. They have the exact same numbers on them. The only thing different is on the report that somebody's prepared for us, they're showing us the current taxes collected by month rather than as in a total by that report. So I don't find this very useful. I don't know why we're doing duplicate work if somebody's doing something manually. This report is yeah. But it's all in this report, in the custom revenue report. The same numbers are there. Actually, custom revenue report has more numbers in there, which is interesting. Realistically, our town clerk fees were doing really great. We're getting a ton of fees in. In our building department, we're almost at budget. So we've got, you know, we're gonna have more revenue than what we thought.
Kurt, I saw something that's probably up your alley. It's on the fuel under the oil old firehouse, $3.24. That's a heck of a discount. I guess the budget was 1,000. You know what that's They're in at a contract rate. Probably, they're still heating it for the buses. But it's $3.24. The old town hall? No. No. The old firehouse. Firehouse. In
the branch building. Shouldn't it be more than that? Oh, fuel oil, 3.24. I
would suggest with all the new found room at Public Works, I was in there this past week for the first time in a long time. It seems like there's enough room for the buses to go in there somewhere. That probably killed me for saying that, but the place is wide open and it's bright, they're lighting, they're painting the walls, the whole nine yards down there. It's worth going down and take a look at. So and I still feel the best thing can happen to Center Street is to knock that building down and get it out of there and spell the lot. I wonder if we can get a grant. The old the old firehouse, maybe Center Road? Yeah, the old firehouse and they are I guess they are knocking down the old store right across the street now. Yeah, there's there's actually something in the budget workbook.
Eric had put together recommending that we budget for the demolition of that building. I think if I'm remembering properly. Well, the demolition across the street, so they might as well do do them both at once. Save us some money. Maybe. You throw stuff in the dumpster there.
Yeah. Okay. I I don't know, Louise, about that that number. It's just I would say they were locked in on on probably filling that tank a few times. The place is full of holes, so it's gotta be heating off and running all the time.
Oh, I mean, we could have oil bills that have never gotten posted yet. True. Yeah. That's probably what's happening.
Yeah. Eric would know more than anybody else. Electricity bill is
over, but we know that electric rates have gone up so.
Right. Okay, other questions before we move on? We have a lot of questions on this, and we need to feel like we're getting good accurate information here. Right now, don't know. I I don't based on what Taya has brought up, but just some things to figure out for our next meeting for sure.
Are we okay to go on to budget? Go ahead, Diane. I'm thinking when we get to our budget workshops, you know, how when we have that spreadsheet, we have our year to date expended. I really rely on that number. And I don't want to get a budget book where our year to date spent is behind or not accurate because I compare it to what we actually spent last year, where are we this year to look at next year because that's those three numbers are key to kind of figuring out where we're going. And if we don't get accurate updated, you know, at least through the end of January, by the time we get that a bunch of Agreed.
Well, you know, personally, I like to see it on December 31 and all the data accurate as of that. Right. Just because it's an easy way to tell where are we on target you know the numbers 50% I appreciate would be playing the variances and go from there but yeah we we need to make sure that it's just current. Everything's booked. Everything's right through at least December 31. Alright,
further comments. Okay, let's move on to agenda item seven which is the budget transfers and over expenditure reports. One thing that actually does explain I guess a little bit of what we were looking at earlier about the postage there is an over expenditure request or listed here that needs to be discussed and approved. If you see the two yellow highlighted items this the first one there is for the truck body repair. Eric's not here to explain it, but he does explain it in his town report that he you know they had to do some some body repair he wanted to move the some funds from the capital account to to maintenance the board of selectman told him no so now it's in an over expenditure report at this point. So there's not formally a request here I don't know Eric's not here we should table this or we should we could vote on this and just take action on it. Board of Selectmen has already approved this over expenditure but because of the amount, the original AT was $18.05. They want to add additional amount of $10,000
Well, that's public work. So that's public works vehicle maintenance. Yeah. So
so right now, according to the current expenditure report for December, whether it's right or wrong, I don't know. It says we're over the balance is negative $1,300 about.
So it says we budget '22 we spent twenty three three. I don't know if that $10,000 repairs in that number or not. It is well if you if you read this town budget report I just scrolled up to it here. It says, item six is we are already significantly overspend in public works vehicle maintenance about 10,000 of this. My term over expense is the repair of truck body for truck number seven at 2,000 and five international plow truck this is initially expected to be taken from capital and was not budgeted for in maintenance. We're able to minimize the cost of this by doing some of the work ourselves and getting a good deal on the welding I requested board of selectmen to authorize for the finance to transfer the money from the capital fund, and they refused. Approved the overage instead, since we are only one half the way through the year we are going to be way over on maintenance, I would estimate we will be at least $15,000
over by the end of the year, we are dealing with large increases in parts costs, So even doing our own wrenching, it is expensive. So that's his explanation of the overexpenditure. He had expected to take this from capital. The Board of Selectmen instead asked that he do this as an overexpenditure in the expense account for that department.
Right now that balance in that account is a negative $1,325 if this report is right. So it's not a whole lot of money we have to do anything with right yet.
But I think he's, I think he's expecting a lot more, you know, There's gonna be more costs. Yeah. More costs throughout the thing. Just, just an explanation of what happened is originally they were, right, why it was capital was it was gonna be a whole, a whole entire brand new truck body. Right, right. And, and putting in, putting a new truck body on an old truck just didn't really make sense to a lot of us on CIP. So basically they, they looked at having, you know, Zach Zito, the new fellow down there, actually all all three public works guys, including Jay, to look at it and get in some welding and some steel, and you know they they had to stuff out some of the special welding, but they did save the town a lot of money for that, but they just, instead of taking it out of capital, he had to take it out of his expense, I mean, the
maintenance expense. So I'm all for putting the money back in because they're gonna, maybe right now we just do the $1,300 like Diane's saying for now, but keep it in the back of your mind that if they go over some more, that's what it's gonna be.
Any additional expenditures are likely to use to take over that amount more and more and more. They're going to have five more months of expenditures. Right. True. So I think our choices here are either vote to approve the over expenditure, table it for next week when. Expenditure what $1,300
No, no, no. They requested an additional $10,000 to be to be put back into that account. But from where?
Well, that's the question at the end we have to end up, it has to be taken from somewhere. Right. That's kind of the point he was making in his in his report is that he thinks that will be okay by the end of the year, but it's going to be we're going to have to be very careful, because he said there are some areas that are going to continue to be under under expensed. So I think it's totally appropriate to wait till next week next next month when we talk to him. And just say, know where, where do you expect that we're going to be able to cover these over expenditures
and see what he you know where he points to and just make sure that we're comfortable with that I think that's totally appropriate. It's also okay I think if we wanted to go ahead and we want to make a motion to approve this over expenditure and then we'll just have to watch it closely. But you know we could do either. But
it's a future over expenditure. Do know what I mean? It's not an over expenditure now.
Right. What we're trying to do is align the line item budget with what the expectation is going to be closer to the end of the year. So we're not doing this every month. I did where we would get the money from, though, to approve it. Well, then in that case, then it would be better to talk to him and find out where he thinks we're going to be under budget
and where we cover it from because that's really what's going to happen, right? Didn't didn't the slip and give them some direction on on where it should come from? I don't know why
they didn't want it to come out of capital. I can't remember that meeting. Because we had put money in there to purchase that body. Right. So that money is there. And were they just hung up because it's not a capital expense? I think so. Technically under the definition. It
could be, or it could be just wanting to apply a little fiscal pressure. Right. Hey, let's see if we can make this work. That's a possibility too.
Because also we're gonna be over more on the snow because Eric said in his report too that our snow removal is $15,000 and he says we're up to nine ks even though it doesn't show on our report. So I think he factored in the storms that happened in January. Yeah. I
also recall a large, a long discussion on the fact that there was a lot of overtime expended on the monument project by our public works guys. Right. Had to get everything done before the, before they could seed. Well, they had electricians working there and the landscapers and So everybody our guys and equipment worked some overtime there. And he was, you know, He had a lot of lot of discussion on that, but I think Scott person helped him out with that quite a bit because he was there the whole time, so.
Lot going on in public works as far as their numbers. Yeah.
So again, I think it kind of leads us to, know, we need to either take action or, or table these, these requests. You know, think it's totally fine and appropriate to pull this off until the next meeting and then, and then have Eric kind of fill us in on the details.
But rather. Yeah, my perspective push it off another month.
Yeah, leave it open to anyone on the board who wants to make a motion to vote on the over expenditure now. Nobody chooses to do so we'll move on to the next item.
I'd rather table it a month too. If we could, you know, I don't think one month is gonna harm. I don't think it causes any jeopardy right now. Yeah. I think Eric would have said so.
Was important. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe next month we'll get, Eric and Sherry here, so it'd be a home run. Better buy a lottery ticket that day. Yeah, for sure.
All right, well let's go on to the next item. The next item is actually relative to the item we were talking about earlier we're talking about the budget or the expenditure report. This is the equipment maintenance for the tax collector so the explanation here is that you know the original budget was at 59 additional requests is for 6,124. And what the explanation here is that the actual average is about $500 The rest is postage. It appears that in the past we credited some of these costs elsewhere. So in other words, what I think they're saying is that postage costs. In the past were allocated to different accounts than this one, personally, I think that if there if this is postage, we need to have an account that says postage. It shouldn't say equipment maintenance. But that's
a topic for the
finance manager and the town manager. I went to last year's budget to try and look for where postage would have been paid out of for the time. Couldn't find anything. So I don't quite think we have all the facts before we can make a decision on this. I really want to know what happened and why.
Yeah, I agree. This is definitely one I would be in favor of until we get more information.
And I'd like to establish a postage account. I think that's just justified.
Hopefully going forward we can. Yeah. And why is it called equipment maintenance if it's generating the bills and mailing them out? Has nothing to do with equipment maintenance.
They needed a place to put it at some point they put it in there didn't want to change the list count structure to you know to me, if it's as significant there should be a postage account, you know.
We could Sounds good. Label it. Yeah. Exactly what happens so we can understand it better before we figure out approving an overage.
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, we're probably going to have to prove the over expenditure because I will also say that if this is postage, I'm much more comfortable having a one account, even if this is a postage and spread out over five accounts where we don't know what it is, or even two accounts, There's a reason we have an accounting system so we know what we're spending money on. A little more clear yeah we can't get down to the nth degree of granularity, but I think that's one that probably makes sense, my opinion. So I guess I will ask if any board member wants to make a motion to to vote on you these over expenditures if not we'll move on in our agenda. Okay hearing none we'll move on to item eight on the agenda, this is old business. The first item is a Community senior Center building committee, I think this is just a reporting opportunity.
I can give you an update on that. Yeah, go ahead. So we had our meeting last week with the architect and everybody again on the second version of the plan, of the site plan and the location of the building. So he took all our input. He owes us back a final plan, which should hopefully be here for our February meeting. And then that should be it. That plan should be it. The budget should be fine tuned a little bit, and then we should be ready to go to bid for the construction and the design phase on that. I mean, the biggest task that we've given them is that we want the building to stand a million dollars. I heard on the board of select and budget meeting last night that some of the initiatives they want, some of the members want to put on the table is using that America relief funds to build the community center with that. So it would not be a tax implication to anybody in town and to just get that building done. They kind of want to bake it into the budget this year. So think, so once we get the final site plan and the budget, some point in the spring, we're going to have to, and it's going to be how politically we want to do it with the town, giving them the information so they can have input, but it's not going to change anything because we're not raising taxes to build it. So,
you know, it's just keeping them up to having a meeting and, you know, trying to get some information for them to see. Well, it's still part of the budget there right now. It's gonna be in the budget, so it'll be voted on with the budget. Right. Ideally how This won't be a separate prefer on them or Right. Something. So it's moving along. The design looks good. It's not a grandiose building, but it'll service our needs. And we need to get a building up and then go from there. Okay, good.
All right, does anybody have any other questions or comments from Diane's report? Okay, the other item we have is eight B which is town hall electrical upgrades there's no explanation here I'm not sure if there's anything we can take action on here.
Last thing I knew that Eric had updated the Board of Selectmen is he's really still getting bids in. It was hard. It's hard nailing people down to get billed bids.
Yeah, you know. Anybody have any other input on that or should we move on? Hearing nothing, we'll move on to item nine, which is new business. 9A is the Recreation Commission request for safety vests. I realized looking at this earlier, wasn't I don't think you guys all had this. So there was a request that came in from Jeff Murray. I'll read it to the board. I'm not sure would really need to be something that we approve but I think we can, we can definitely vote to approve it and whether it's required or not that way it's there we can decide not to but the request is from Jeff Murray and the message was addressed to just Diane and I guess, and it says six months ago, the Selectman requested $1,200 be transferred out of the general fund and allocated to a rec commission account number to be created. This money was deposited into the town's account because the wreck Commission did not have a line item to put it in. Funds came from running and cycling events held in town with the money intended to go for recreation we would like to buy some safety vests to give out to residents to help with pedestrian safety would like a portion of these funds to do so, can you please make accommodation at the next meeting. I think the account wasn't you know, I think it was deposited if I deposited it at the town's account, I think he was referring to the bank account. So it wasn't really clear that it was an account versus
versus just like General fund. It went into the so his donations went into general fund, and no one ever did anything to create that donations account for the rec commission. Right. So the money could be transferred into there. So that's what we need in an account. We need the money moved over there. Yeah. Well, I think he just wants approval for the expenditure. You know, well, wants us to approve it, create an account because we don't have an account for that now.
It's it's not really clear to me that that's what he's asking. I think you may be right, but we can't just create an account. I mean, that would obviously have to be something that Sherry would have to work with in the system.
And I don't know what that they've had for this coming up budget is to create a donation Create a cash. A lot of donations in the town, and we need a place to put it to the right places.
Right. But there's also this immediate sense that they want to use some of this money for safety vests for pedestrians.
So, Mark, I think you're right, Mark, because Jeff had a lot of lot to say on. There was a Facebook gone back and forth thread about that, and he had asked Okay. You know, would people be interested if there was money allocated for this for safety? So I think he's asking. It sounds like he's asking for us to approve that. But again, not a 100% sure.
Yeah. I think, I think that that's right we if we may, you know, need may need to have an account creative but I don't think that's something we can do outside of the budget year we probably need to do that as part of the budget as a line item in the budget that's gets voted on by the town. But from a approval of a dispersion of funds point, you know, don't have any problem voting to in favor of this but I'm not really sure procedurally where this falls in. Well, let's let's let's find out. I
can make a motion to approve just request to fund the cost for the vest out of and I guess out of the general fund because there's no other account for it to come out because his money went in there and never got moved to where it was supposed to be so he could use it. Maybe up to an amount up to and including $1,200.16 or $1,200.100 dollars Okay, yep, I see that. I'll second that.
Okay, so Diane's made the motion to the Board of Finance to approve that the Rec Commission be granted the opportunity to spend up to and including $1,200 from the general fund to fund safety vest to give out to residents for the help of pedestrian safety. Kurt has seconded it. Summarize that well. Yes.
Okay. All right. Do we have further questions or discussions? None. Any abstentions? Also none. It sounds like the motion passes seven-zero-zero. All right. Thank you. Very good. Okay, item 9B on the new business agenda is twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three proposed town budget. Well, it is that time of year, isn't it? So it looks like what we have here is at least a fairly large excerpt from the budget book that Eric put together. Again, reading. I've skimmed it through pretty well. It's not super long, but it does kind of give you an overview of some of his thoughts on the budget, where we would end up where we should, how we should think about the budget for the twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three fiscal year. Does anybody have any comments or questions?
I would caution when you read through Eric's document because it's a document that he started last year. So some of the information is last year's information is not all updated yet, but the gist is putting together this budget book and how it will look is, it'll be kind of nice to have a compact and all.
Yeah, agreed I noticed when I was reading through the original budget book separately that there are some hanging sentences and stuff that didn't quite get finished and yeah I think it's dated November so I don't know if that's really the last time he touched it or not, but I have to say it's got the outlines in the makings of a very useful document. I think it'd be very helpful for for not only for us and the Board of Selectmen, but in particularly for the residents who, you know, don't have the time to sit there and go through everybody's meetings and listen and try to understand all the nuances of this, how we do things. It's got not only the kind of a project based overview and a spending based overview, but it has a pretty good overview of what the whole process is for the budget. So if somebody coming new into town,
I would give them the caveat that Diane just stated, and also say this isn't quite finished, here's a nice way to, you know, it's a nice overview so you kind of understand how this all works.
The board of selectmen last night and their budget workshop did ask for the public works department to put together a work plan. So because they they're requesting some add to staff and things like that, so they want them to, so the community can see what their plans are to spend the money in. So that would be something that we could add into that. Because in order to support, just to build a stronger case to support their request from staff additions.
Makes a lot of sense. Todd, any other comments on this?
I had one, and I've had this short discussion with Eric about that, and we're going to probably take it up a notch through capital improvements. But rolling stock right now trucks. Whether it be dump trucks, fire engines, pickup trucks, cars, you name it, are going up terribly high on costs. An average fire truck right now yearly is going up 65 to $70,000 per year right now, and like a like a dump truck cabin chassis are two years out if you order one. In between there, there'll be price increases on that even. It's going to need to take a very, very close look at trying to grab something now because it's going to be two years before you get it and have to pay for it anyway, the way they're going. To do some proper planning, and I think, you know, that's that's something that Kaplan Provence is going to have to take on. We can discuss it more there, but just to give everybody an idea of where it's going, it's just commodity surcharges are being or monthly. You know, anybody that follows it and watches it. It's it's it's crazy.
Yeah, it's it is crazy. You're right. I mean, of my responsibilities at work is supply chain and logistics. And Oh, boy. You know, yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. And we're, you know, we're trying to buy electronic components and scrounged. And you all read and you know, watch the news or hear the reports. It's, it's insane. Fifty weeks plus, I'm getting, we get weekly report, messages from our vendors about price increases. And we all know once it goes up, it doesn't tend to come down. Comes down right now. We're gonna all be in trouble because that's a depression, but that's another story.
Another interesting piece of information as a budget meeting with the board of select when they were talking about the Bunker Hill Bridge, because we're going into the design for that and everything. And our share of the cost was pegged at 400,000. Well, I now think it's gonna be 600. Oh, yeah. Easily. Because of the increasing costs and everything like that. So the state has been kind of, you know, coming back to us, I guess, because I guess it was a meeting with the engineers in the state and everything.
So that's another double whammy for us to worry about coming down the pipe. That's yeah so that's a that's a really good example Diana what you're talking about about this document not being quite up to date, because in this in this excerpt, he still is talking about 400,000 for the Bunker Hill Bridge. And if it's a 200,000 boy, that's that's a big difference, it's a big difference, right?
Mark, I also was I just wanted to bring up one thing. Also, it looks like something hopefully we'll all be aware of and get a lot of information is it does seem like Eric is going to be requesting a lot of new staff changes in this budget you know so things like what you just brought up with the you know the higher price for the for the bridge and all of that I mean I think they're going to be and we'll we'll hear his presentation but it was out there for the public and we are having open discussion they'll be asking for additional personnel in public works I know they're talking about you know adding hours to different people you know so we'll just all have to I just want to get the information and it was brought up too and just duties and you know job responsibilities because having witnessed things the last couple of years with the new positions that came on just with the finance office you know two full time people so I just think it's good to have all of the background information and you know why he thinks it's needed and and such because it will be a big expense going forward if we add the people on you know if it's needed but I just want to have a lot of information presented to us and I think they'll take care of that at board of selectmen meetings
and they'll be voting yes or no and then we just kind of get it So I I don't know where we stand in that, but it'll it'll affect the budget tremendously.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good point. We're gonna have to watch it closely and understand it well. A lot of work this year.
Yeah. Okay, other comments on the budget before we move on?
Meetings are on the calendar, I think. Hopefully we won't need all six.
Yeah, let's hope not. Okay, let's move on to agenda item 10 which is the approval of the meeting minutes from Wednesday 12/15/2021. Anybody want to make a motion to approve those meeting minutes. I'll make a motion to approve them.
Louise motion is to approve the minutes from Wednesday, 12/15/2021. Any second? I'll second it. Thanks, Rob. Okay. Any discussion? Okay, hearing none, let's go ahead and have a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? I'll abstain since I wasn't at the meeting, so thank you motion passes six zero one. Okay, we'll move on to agenda item 11 which is liaison reports. We have anything from the capital improvements planning Commission and we already heard a little bit from from Curt and anybody else want to report on any other departments are they're working with. Nothing in particular? Nope. Okay, can move on then. 12 is board open discussion.
I want to talk about financial reporting. Go for it. And our lack of it. So, I kind of put together a high level list of what I thought we should have. And basically, I'll just kind of give you a summary. I think we need a revenue report, detailed expense report that has the current month and the percent expended. I wanna see detail on all those funds that we have, that we put money into every year, what we paid out of those funds and for what every year. We should be seeing reporting on our funds. I also think we should see a report of everything that goes in and out of the general fund only because I think there's things that come in and out of there that we don't know anything about, grants and stuff like that, to make sure all of our grant money is accounted for. You know, we have so much of that stuff off the books and it's all got to come on the books and we got to have all that information from budget this year.
And, you know, it's good. Like in this report that we got this packet, we got the check register. I think we got that because the board of selectmen asked for that. So we just got their package, basically. So no one created a package for us. So, you know, having the check register is interesting because you see how anomalies, if you see anything that, you know, pops out. But I just want the information and I want it up to date and I just want it to work so we can know where we're at. And, you know, I don't know if we, at this point in time, should put a formal request together and say, this is what we need and put it out there to Sherry and put it in writing. I don't know. Anybody's thoughts?
You had shared some of your bullet points with me earlier, Diane, and I agree with that. Think it just makes sense. I definitely agree with stuff coming out of general funds because those are always dangerous, Anything that's a miscellaneous account, You don't have a category for what's really going in and out of there.
We Last have to do year when we got that first America relief payment, I can remember being at a border select meeting and someone asking who got the money yet, nobody knew. And then all of a sudden it showed up later on because, oh, we looked at the bank account. It's in there already. Yeah. I remember that. I remember that. I'm like, god. We were talking about thousand dollars, and we didn't know. Yeah. I remember that.
I was like, you know, so it's things like that. You know?
I think it's not not not that what we need. It's what we want.
What we want. I mean That's what it's gonna be. That's what it's
Things are gonna be tight. It's gonna be a tough budget year. We don't have the information to make the right decisions. We're, Who wants to make a decision based on a guess? And we should really know where the money is going and what it's being spent on. I
do think that, I agree with you, As I've said, I do think I'm just gonna make two comments. One is that I think we need to be respectful of the amount of time that Eric and Sherry are going to be plowing into this whole process this, the next few months. So I get it that they're going to be busy. But we need to ask and we need to kind of make it it clear then allow them the time to do it, Because it's going to take time. That's fine, I get it. And then the second thing I would say also is that it will be a lot smoother if we give them a pretty detailed definition of what. So in other words, can we put together a spreadsheet with the headers or even a list of table headers and say, this is the kind of thing we're thinking of. You know, can you take a run at it and see what see what you can do with for us? And you've kind of done that with your with your outline that you had said to me earlier, Diane, right? I but it's just kind of off the top of my head, you know, I don't even know what's possible with the accounting system that we purchased. I just want to make sure we're getting a return on our investment on that. We're
supposed to get better reporting. We're six months into that. We shouldn't be having these kind of fundamental problems. We have an audit finding out there and it's not a minor one. It's a major audit finding for not having those fund balances set up properly. And it's been out there for two years now. And part our response for fixing that is we're going to implement that change with our new accounting system. I don't even know if we've created those fund accounts yet. I don't think so. And we should. We shouldn't go into next year saying, oh, we still didn't do it. I mean. So nobody, you just got to get it done. Yep.
So Especially, you know, I think we're gonna I think Eric wanted to make a have the road improvement fund and the town aid road funds combined because that's Yeah. He's got a note in there about that. So So, you know, that'll get rid of one fund that we wouldn't have to set up if we combine those.
Any other comments or input on that topic? It's an important one. Okay. You know, I would suggest, Diane maybe flesh that out a little bit, you know, maybe, you know, take another look at what you sent me and you can send that around to the board and then we could, you know, forward that on to Eric or at least then Sherry and then I'll take that document. I'll update it up, try to put a little bit more detail around it and then send it out to everybody for your comment.
Then we can see if we're all on the same page and if it all will work for what we need. Yeah, put it in a memo. We can put it in a memo because
can comment about the questionable items and then I don't wanna say questionable, but the items of concern in the in the expenditure report that don't really make sense because they change month to month in Miami. But anyway, I
want to make sure that we get those answers next meeting if we can. I want to ask everybody's opinion on this. When I see this expenditure report, and we have this percent column, I think we should be also have a document coming from Sherry, a report from Sherry of because she should be reviewing this every month and she should be identifying the variances and anomalies and giving us the explanations before we have to go through and ask and then she doesn't know because she's got to go look it up. Do I mean I just. And then that's exactly what I was going to say because I just think. I put out and nobody looks at except us. It's just gonna be the in the chain.
If there are discrepancies and if you are sending a report to a board for review, you would think you would, and maybe she does, and this is not meant to be, you know, critical. It just means how we all operate in our own jobs, that if you review something that you're sending to a meeting and you notice some things like Diane does, she's really good at pointing out every month, I see them too, that there isn't a memo, even if she pokes fun and says, Diane, just for you, you know, she knows Diane's got a question just so that we have some explanations ahead of time. I've been to meeting after meeting that Diane has asked this and so you would think and it is true another thing that bothers me a little bit even if the exact answer isn't known all of the things that I work with in my daily day like if someone asks me a question about it I'm able to kind of give some kind of answer. I might not have the exact figure
but time after time it's like she says she'll write it down and she has to check. So that's all I would hope that some of these things you know you're kind of familiar with and might be able to answer a question or two on the spot even if it's general.
And another thing we should be concerned about, and I'll just bring this up because I did not know this. When we purchased the software, it sits on a server. Right now, the software is sitting on the school server. It's not on the town server. So the entire, you know, financial software for the town is sitting somewhere else. I just wanna make sure that it is being backed up when we have access to that data, if there's any issue, because we didn't buy the cyber insurance and we did not, you know, we get a ransomware attack or things like that. We need to be able to restore. I have no idea when we set that up, how that's working.
That's a very good question and it's a fair question and we should ask it. What's the backup and disaster recovery plan?
Right. Because you really ought to have one, you know, doesn't that- Because all towns are getting hit, we're gonna get hit sooner or later. Well, it could just be a failure of the server, right? I mean Right. You know, how is it being stored, right? So And I don't know anything about how the school network is set up. I know the town did a lot of work to get ours straightened out and to do, you know, daily backups and things, but I don't know what goes on at the school.
Good question. Think it's a good one for next meeting. Other open discussion items? Well, I've got one. I'll go ahead and just a heads up. I got an email yesterday from Jerry Kermay or a letter, I should say, from the school district. Kermay signed it. It was just a courtesy letter for the Board of Finance. Dated January 22, I will share this with you I'll send it around because I don't think any of you got it think was just addressed to me. So that's a January 2022 Board of Education meeting our board of Ed voted to approve using money from the 2% non lapsing account to cover the cost of an unexpected special education outplacement. I know the Board of Finance is aware we have this expenses superintendent Bruno did express this when we asked to make a deposit into the counter in the early fall surplus funds from last fiscal year total estimated amount for this child is $89,910 I am cc ing Sherry Holmes Finance Director to be sure proper protocols followed. I know that isn't necessary for the Board of Finance to act or approve it at the meeting but I wanted to be sure that your board is abreast of this transaction. Have attached a copy of the board of ed meeting and it's from the record. I'll submit this you guys, I just wanted to share that with you. Appreciate it that
they gave us a heads up on that.
The question I have is that I and I was on that meeting when they approved that and held the discussion on that. So when they were asking for their excess funds, did we do that in the fall sometime? I can't remember what month. We gave them, I think like $44,000 and some change to bring their non lapsing account up to 200 ks. So the other portion I don't know is did the piece for the town, the excess for the town ever get transferred to us? It's a good it would be a Sherry question.
Right. So I don't know that if I remember correctly, they had 200 in that so it seems like that the money got moved to their non lapsing account. I that they ended up
spending money though. So, that they ended up not having a surplus that they originally thought they would.
I think this was, I'll have to go back to the news. I think the total excess was $68,000
They wanted the whole thing. And we said, no, you can have 44 to bring your non lapsing up to 200 and the rest goes back to the town. Yeah, I do think that that's accurate that that's what we approved. I think what the ultimate transaction may have been is that they ended up not having surplus funds because they ended up spending.
This is this year's money from the audit that's not closed. But remember it was the month we were going over closing out the books for the final year, but this hasn't been audited yet.
Right. But it was from the last fiscal year. It's done on on a fiscal year Right.
But it was 68 after they spent the 78, they spent 78 in May of Okay. That 6 Maybe right. Yeah. And then this was when July was closed down, fiscal year end was closed down. I think the final number, remember they came to us for a general number and we said, well, get your everything accounting wise and get the books closed and tell us what the exact number was. Then we acted on the exact number, is from what I remember. They were only shorted about $20,000 from what they originally asked for. Right. So I just wanna make sure that that money came to the town and that they transferred their 44 into their non lapsing. I'm assuming they did because Sherry made a comment that the balance in that account was 2,000 on that board of ed meeting because I was on that one. So,
and that is we're going to have, you know, big outplacement bills next budget year. Yeah, which is one of the concerns, right?
I only comment with that was brought up at that meeting too, that it kind of was early in the year to get into the non lapsing account. You know a couple board members spoke to that. Mean I don't know. So it was a little bit of an issue that it probably didn't need to be done so quickly. They should have seen how the rest of their budget went for the year saw if there was any leftover funds and then yeah maybe addressed it then but it's it's done. Just normally school systems don't do things like this in January. So, Oh, this is yeah. Oh, you mean the replacement.
Well just well they could run the deficit and they just don't know where the budget is because right now the school budget is if you look at their numbers it's only expanded to 37%. Well that's accurate or not you know. Right.
We don't know. Yeah and not that it couldn't be done and probably will need to be done but maybe the figure would have been a little less if they move things around but it's it's done but there was a little bit of you know debate. Okay. Any other general comments or discussion?
My takeaway is I'll probably put together a document with all the questions on the expenditure report and then a summary of what we need as a board for finance. I'll just get that out to everybody and then we'll just go from there. Yeah, that'd be great, Diane. Thank you.
Okay, if there's no further open discussion, we'll move on to our next agenda item, is public speak. Doesn't look like we have any members of the public attending the meeting any longer. Bored everybody to death.
They saw it was going be a boring meeting. All right, no drama here, let's move on. Let's move on to agenda item 14, which is adjournment. Does anybody wanna make a motion to adjourn? I make the motion to adjourn the meeting. Okay, do I have a motion to adjourn? I'll second it. Okay, I guess, yeah. Do we second any discussion? That's okay, go for it.
Right. Hearing no discussion, we'll go ahead and take a vote. All those in favor of adjournment, aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Any abstentions? Gosh. No. Okay. Motion passes. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you, appreciate your time. It's good to see you all again. I wish you a happy New Year, and Thank you. Let's, get some good rest and relaxation as we enter our busy budget season coming up. Okay. Thank you very much, Amanda.