Meeting transcript
Board of Finance Regular Meeting Part 1
February 22, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Yep. Great. Okay. Thank you, everybody. Welcome to the 02/22/2023 Board of Finance regular meeting. I will call this meeting to order and we'll recite the pledge of allegiance. Ready? I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Our next agenda item is public speak. Do we have any members of the public that would care to speak and address the Board of Finance? Anybody would care to just go ahead and unmute yourself and just speak up and we'll Eric will take us in part and just let us know. Okay, hearing none, I guess the first next thing we'll do, we're going to alter this a little bit. We did not have any discussion on your agenda item specifically for adding or changing the agenda? So Linda, you said you had an item you wanted to add.
Right, I want to go over the budget. They had their presentation for the Oversight Committee this afternoon.
Okay, do you want to make a motion then to add a new item under new business, this would be item six C, which would be the HM. Oversight committee meeting.
Yeah, so just present the information from that. Right. So Linda's making a motion to add a new business agenda item 6C which would be review of the executive. What exactly is it? Oversight committee meeting. Oversight committee meeting. I'll second that Okay, you. And so Louise seconds. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye.
Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. Motion passes. We'll add that as Item 6C. Any other additions, deletions, or changes to the agenda? Okay, hearing none.
Excuse me, Marcus. Joey, I'm sorry. I'm having a lot of computer trouble today, so I apologize for being late. I guess if I'm allowed to address this, I just wanna ask a question on our new business with discussing the candidates for the open board of finance position. And and like you said, are am I to understand that we are voting on a member tonight or are we just opening, you know, we have a candidate that has submitted, which is great. We're gonna meet him. I see that he's in attendance. Are we We need to make a statement now of whether choosing tonight or not, or we can discuss that when we get to. We can discuss it when when we get to that point.
We're not required to vote. We had only one candidate express interest, so, I think it prudent to, to meet the candidate and give us an opportunity to ask him any questions. At that time, we'll can choose to go into executive session, at which point we can discuss whether, we would seek the candidate, request additional candidates, you know, to further the process or what we choose to do. So it can be any of the above. We're not obligated to make a selection today.
Right, and it's just it's the way it was worded on the agenda. Just wanted to make sure I understood.
Thank Yeah, it does say to select the board member, but it's not technically required.
And my only thought to this saying it out loud is only because it was such a short time and I'm glad that we have a person present and interested so thank you. Okay,
Other points about the agenda? Okay. Hearing none, we'll go on to the town administrator's report. Eric, the floor is yours.
Alrighty. So I threw an administrative report in the packet. I'm not going to go over most of the stuff because you've had it to read. We did submit a trip grant application for roadwork over on the Northern side of town. There were, my understanding is the CROG received eight applications of which, so they have to approve basically four to send on to the DOT. So, don't know yet whether we're even going to get out of the first stage, but hopefully we will. And that's one's ongoing. There will be a grant submitted next week for a rec trails grant. That's the one that we also approved at town meeting. So far, we've had a pretty mild winter, so we haven't spent a whole lot in public works over time or in the salt budget. So that has been, good. We, it looks like starting
next week or the week after they'll be drilling the holes in Long Hill Road for the design of the pilings for the replacement bridge at Long Hill Road. So hopefully that will take place in a week or two and get that stage out of the way, because that kind of holds up the 30% design stage of that. We still have the full amount of the American Rescue Act funding designated for the community center. So, that we had another contractor meeting today. We are pushing it, but it looks like we should be successful in keeping that total budget under a million dollars, which will keep us from having to pay prevailing wage. So, that's certainly our intention. I have given my first draft of the budget to the Board of Selectmen. The Board of Selectmen is holding their first budget meeting tomorrow. So, have one scheduled on the twenty third, the twenty seventh, March 6, March 13. And it is their intention,
at least at this point, to finalize their cut of the budget on the thirteenth and get it in the hands of the Board of Finance. They did reserve the twentieth, three twenty also if they hadn't reached a conclusion by then. But the goal is to get the budget in your hands basically on March 14, which gives you, you know, six weeks or so before you have to consider any kind of meeting. I am planning on going on vacation from April 19 to the twenty fifth. I'm trying to schedule that because it gets me through most of the budget process. So, both Board of Selectmen
and Board of Finance will have made most of their decisions. But before we get into the actual town meeting portion, because that's variable. So, you got to figure, you know, depending on how bad the budget year goes sometime between May and the end of June, I'm pretty much committed to being around the town. So I'm planning on getting away for a week before that happens. I assume you're not going ice boating this week. I will not be ice boating, unfortunately. Maybe next year, I'm hoping. I'm just being a black dick. Yeah. You're not the only person that's expressed that concern. Let's see. So my suggestion is the Board of Finance starts considering dates in March and April and pen in now when you want the budget, the Board of Finance's budget meetings to be. And then, as much guidance as you give me ahead of time as to what you want to have presented and when
would be helpful. That's basically it for my report, unless you all have specific questions for me.
Any questions for Eric? Okay, well, hearing none, I guess we will go on to the next item, which is the standing item we'll have for a while, which is our draft budget. The agenda item under there is the budget meeting schedule. So that is a good segue into what we have to do here. So Eric, thanks for clarifying that that was the Board of Selectmen's schedule that was listed in our packet, although it was a little confusing because the thirteenth said March 3 rather than the thirteenth, so a typo there kind of just the dates were out of whack and I couldn't couldn't really figure that out. Oh sorry about that. It's quite alright, so this is the Board of Selectmen's meeting they plan to have the budget available for us on the thirteenth. Which means and so looking back at last year and just throwing this out there for the Board of Finance, typically what we did is every week we set up a meeting once we had the budget in hand. We set up a meeting every week through the month of March into April to review and discuss the budget every Wednesday at seven p. M. So basically keeping the same timeframe as the same date of the week and the time as our normally scheduled meetings because that seemed to work best for everyone. I would propose that we do the same if we were to follow that logically from the Board of Selectmen's schedule, we would have a meeting maybe starting potentially the March 15, which would be the first couple of days after they plan to release the budget. If they don't, we could always cancel that meeting.
The twenty second, we have a regular Board of Finance meeting and we're including a presentation from the RAM board, and then followed by the twenty ninth April 5, April 12, and then April 19, but at some point we also need to schedule that town budget hearing and Eric I was looking over the budget plan that I think you had shared December maybe and it wasn't really clear to me but you were talking about maybe having the town budget hearing instead of twenty nine-twenty four of April, but at the same time I think there was concern that if we didn't pass the budget on to the, you know, pass the recommended budget by the twenty fourth then we wouldn't be able to have the town budget meeting on May 1 which was your original original plan. So that would mean we would have to have the town budget hearing prior to the twenty fourth.
Yes, you could certainly do it. I mean, you can do it kind of whenever you want. And remember too, you don't have to, you certainly can, considering the last few years, there have been very little commentary actually received by the board of finance at those meetings. There's nothing that says you can't adopt and at that same, you know, in other words, do one public hearing and then immediately send it to the town meeting. You know, you certainly have that right if you so choose. You know, you don't in other words, you don't need two meetings if you don't want it.
Yep. That's certainly a possibility. I'm looking at the calendar. Our regularly scheduled meeting would be the twenty sixth. Now, you know, we could certainly, but we would need to do the twenty fourth, you're saying really to get the have the town meeting scheduled for May 1, assuming we could agree on a budget to be passed on.
I mean, ideally, you know, if you want to do it. So the, the thing about doing it that way is it gives you the maximum number of chances to fail before you have to set a bill rate without, And that's kind of a defensive move. Sure. You don't have to do that if you don't want to. You know? But that does give you the maximum number of days possible.
So, I mean, we could bump our regular meeting up a week, right, to the nineteenth and then do the hearing on the twenty fourth?
Or we could just do the hearing on the nineteenth. Oh yeah, sorry. Yeah, good point. Yeah, and then and then we could just do it that you know, have it have it that way. There's nothing saying it has to be on a Monday or Tuesday or anything else. Yeah. So I guess, yep. Sorry, I'm done. You know, I guess what I would suggest then is that we tentatively schedule budget workshop meetings March 15, March 22 is our regular meeting, March 29, April 5, April 12, and then the budget hearing on the nineteenth. And then you're saying Eric that really, and I agree with this as far as I know, as long as it's on the agenda, there's no reason we couldn't vote to pass that budget on to the town meeting, right? Correct. Mark? Yeah. Sorry
that I can't appear. It's hard to just break in. I do like the idea of starting our budget meetings on the fifteenth. That's perfect after Board of Selectman. Sometimes I think we get going too soon. The only drawback I have with that is we just, you know, we have no idea what kind of budget we're gonna get. It could be something that does bring forth a lot of opinions from the public. You know so it's just putting a lot of eggs in one basket to have it hear from the public you know whether there's a lot of good or bad either way you know for again you know and not having enough time to really rationalize
That's my thought. It doesn't give us time to contemplate the budget for a little bit to decide, know, to factor in what the public brings to the table. Unless they come to meetings and offer some suggestions then, but I know that the process for our town is to hear the public. That that's my only thing. I'm not opposed. I get the time crunch and everything, But I I think a lot of times I find being on this committee for a couple years we're anticipating so much ahead of time. You know, I think maybe we should just let the process play out if if we're able to send it we can. If not, you know we're always like okay well then they might not like this or they you know I think we have to kind of go through the process to see how it goes this year. You proposing something alternative Joanne?
I don't have a calendar in front of me just because I'm having so many computer problems. That's all I'm saying is. The regular. You know whatever was proposed, I feel like we're pushing it up. Is that correct in order to get to that May 1 meeting? So I guess.
Always do have meetings that early, you know that time. Well, we don't have to decide on the town meeting yet.
Yeah, I feel like we're always yeah way ahead of. I think the idea is to give us the flexibility that if we can get it in and get that done, you know, get that meeting from May 1, that's great. Right.
Gotcha, I guess I'm always listening with the ear thinking we're making the decision. So we're just taking suggestions. Yeah, I'm all for starting our budget meetings the fifteenth, you know, getting making sure we get the presentation, you know, get this. I see that members of the school board are on the meeting tonight, making sure we get lined up to have them present to us or at least go over their budget if they don't mind doing that. We have Ram lined up and take it from them.
Yeah, so I think our goal for tonight should be simply to schedule the budget workshop meetings so that we can plan our lives around it and our work around it. You know I'm happy to make a motion Mark if you know. Yeah, I think that's fine. The actual hearing does not need to be scheduled just yet, I think. Would, we can always change that or vote in one of our working meetings. We certainly have time to do that. And the town budget meeting does not need to be scheduled so. Makes sense. And
for the record, important milestone that you have to hit for the charter is in the first ten business days of May, which would be between May 2 and May 13, you have to have a, you know, the first town wide budget meeting. That's your that's your really. Right. You know, first target. Then depending on whether that passes or fails, everything adjusts from that.
Right. So, And I think the schedule Mark laid out, which I'm going to make a motion on right now, tease us up to hit that window and maybe even sneak in under that window if we're able to, but it doesn't mean that we can't adjust. So I move that we have Board of Finance meetings March 15, March 22, March 29, April fifth, twelfth, nineteenth. I second that.
Any discussion further? We can always change this. This just gives us a preliminary schedule to work with. It puts some meetings on the calendar. We can cancel them, we can add them if we need to.
Okay, so I just have one question for the board then. Are you anticipating these will be all on Zoom or these will be hybrid or these will be in person? I would anticipate Zoom unless somebody feels differently. I'm
happy to do Zoom too. The only thing I could think of that we might want to do we want, we could consider if we're going to do a hybrid meeting, say on the April 19 meeting, we want to do our town. Sorry, I forget what it's called. Presentation budget hearing. We could do that one hybrid if we wanted to if we thought that that would get more public engagement. But the rest of them, would say zoom.
And hearing is just an opportunity for residents to voice, you know, voice their input really. There's no presentation necessarily required. We will have gone through a lot of workshops. We can have the draft budget available for them but there won't be any large formal presentation or discussion. Okay, any more discussion over the proposed budget workshop schedule? Hearing none, call for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion passes. Thank you, everybody. All right. Let's move on then to old business. Item 5A is the fiscal year twenty one-twenty two audit status and update on the Town Finance Department. Eric, you want to cover that? So
yeah, we're still actually tracking fairly well. Cheryl was in here for
pretty much half the day yesterday. So we have given her the capital asset inventory for the town minus one, item, or one department, and we have given them, pretty much all the information she needs. We sat down, we discussed. There were some questions about some of the various different funds and how the funds map into the audit. So I spent a bunch of time with her addressing that. We have pretty much made the conversion to QuickBooks at this point in the finance office. We did have a slight hiccup because we ordered checks that were QuickBooks stock, but we didn't have them printed with the town's account number on them. So we have to separately print them before they, we use them, which is a slight noise, but we have a workaround for that. Other than that, we, we should be on track to turn it over to the auditor within the next couple of weeks. So, we're pretty close at this point. Other questions from the board regarding that?
Okay, doesn't sound like it. How's your, your staff searching going?
Not great. So we did a lineup for candidates to interview. Only one of the four actions showed up. Which has been kind of interesting. You know, over the last year, we've had a super high fraction of no shows, even when you confirm they're going to be there, which, you know, you know, it's a good job market when people don't even bother to tell you they're not showing up for their interview. So we've, since then, we've gotten four more candidates. We're switching stream real quick and we're, we're just basically doing a phone interview right away. And then scheduling them just to gauge interest to kind of weed them out. So we're not. One of the problems we're having obviously with Indeed is you get a lot of people that are tire kickers that aren't really all that serious and just aren't showing up. So we're working to address that, but we certainly don't have a candidate lined up at the moment.
Okay. All right. Well, disappointing, but that's the way it goes I guess these days. Any other questions for Eric on those topics?
Yeah, oh, am I allowed to comment on that at all? Absolutely, Of course. Thank you, Eric. So I did volunteer to be on the committee and I, you know, have a big interest in getting a good person. They do all, what's interesting is all the candidates do look good on paper, which is key. Know, we're hopeful that the next batch, you know, with the pre screening calls, engaging the level of interest rather than just, you know, maybe some emails or something back and forth. So we're hopeful. I mean there's there at least there's interest in the position. I want to be a little more positive than Eric makes it sound. Mean it sounds like there's you know steady interest you just gotta kind of like he said find the right candidate so the search goes on.
All right, thanks guys. Any other questions or comments? Okay, we will move on to new business then. This is item 6A. So we have one candidate, Brian Briggs. Thank you for attending tonight, Brian. Brian had submitted a letter of interest, which I believe went to the entire board. I hope you all got that and had a chance to kind of read through it. We did not receive any other letters of interest. So that's Brian is our only candidate at this time so typically Brian what we do is just give you a few minutes to kind of introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about you and you know kind of your background, and then the Board of Finance members can ask any questions that they may have and you get an opportunity to answer. Welcome, why don't you go ahead and give us elevator speech? All right, thanks Mark. Hello everyone. A little more than that if you like. All right,
Hello everyone. Thanks for taking the time to hear me. So my name is Brian and I've lived in Andover for fourteen years. I moved to Connecticut fifteen years ago and once we moved here it was a great place to live and wonderful place to raise our children and I really enjoy it here. Currently I am a health teacher. I'm endorsed in physical education and I hope to teach more physical education soon. But that's a little bit about my background and. Yeah, I also coach coach Andover and the school that I work at in Wyndham. Yeah, and that's about it about me personally. But yeah, as far as the Board of Finance, know, I've always been a strong proponent of community support and would love to be a member of the Board of Finance. Okay. Thank you. Board members, have any questions for Brian?
I have a question for Brian. Sure. I apologize that I can't come through. This computer is crazy. But Brian, have you followed through the years the process of the budget and what the Board of Finance does? Yes.
Sorry, I had trouble hearing. But yes, have. I've been to a few budget meetings, some of them recently and in the past. Okay.
I have a question. Go ahead Louise. Hi Brian. What do you feel is the most important aspect of the Board of Finance? Most important like mission statement or?
Most importantly, I would say, you know, just be open to the community and also to all the parties involved and listen to everybody and try to do your best to, you know, listen to everybody and then come up with, you know, the budget and stuff like that, you know, other parts of the budget, you know. And, you know, I can't say that I know everything about the budget, but I strive to learn. I mean about the Board of Finance, but I strive to learn as much as possible and you know, I'm a quick learner. Open minded and you know, I think that would be a great fit for the board.
Okay, thank you. Okay. We a lot of us have come to the board of finance with very with little experience in it and we've grown and you don't need too much experience. Mean you need it's nice to see a little of a little bit of everybody in there. Everyone has their own little aspects and points to pick out. So it's not really, you have to have a lot of finance background. It's more of teamwork,
basically listening and teamwork and things like that. So thank you. I totally agree and I you know I've had previous experience on boards, board of rec, Andover basketball boards and boards at my school. So you know, I know what it takes to, you know, be part of a team and group dynamics, how group dynamics work. You know, I think that's super important to work together on the board. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Other question? I
had another question. I hope I come through. Do you have the obviously we're getting into our busy season, as you saw with getting our schedule together. Do you I have mean, you wouldn't have obviously put your name in if you didn't think you have the time, but we're here to ask you questions. So do you feel No, like no. I was listening to the schedule really. I'm sorry. No, you're fine. And
I could totally make every meeting and you know, would definitely make it a priority to be on the board. Okay. Thank you.
Other questions for Brian? Okay, I think the fact that he said he's been to a couple of budget meetings and still wants to be at the Board of Finance speaks to at least courage, if nothing else. So I would propose that if nobody has any other questions for Brian that we could move into executive session to discuss our next steps. Of course it'd be great to have four or five or six qualified candidates, but we're fortunate to give people step up and volunteer as to this. Thanks Brian. If you can hang tight, we'll, know, if you choose, but we'll move to executive session. So Eric, you want to explain how this works? Basically, the recording will stop. The public will be moved into a holding room, I believe, and then we'll resume
once we're complete. That's correct. Okay. Alright. So any members of the public, if you'd like to stay on the meeting