Meeting transcript
Select Board of Finance- Special Meeting Budget Workshop Part 2
April 18, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay, very good. We have everyone back in from the waiting room. Thank you for being patient. We had a discussion with Carol and then we moved here to the waiting room and had a Board of Finance discussion regarding her salary. In the interest of just making this clean, I am going to make a motion regarding the budget in front of the Board. I am going to make a motion that we bifurcate the town clerk salary into two line items. The first line item is 100 seventeen-one 151,000, town clerk salary. I motion that we change that to proposed $55,000 per year, and we will add an additional line item for a town clerk supplemental salary of $6,000 per year. And this is going to be designated solely for candidates with at least ten years of experience in the highly similar town clerk position. So that's the motion before the board. Does anybody want to second?
I'll second it. Okay. Heard Louise first. Thank you. Do we have any further discussion with the board? Okay. Hearing none, I'm going to call for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, hearing none, guess we'll move on to the next item. So just to obviously this is should make this clear that for Carol given her tenure with the town, that this would increase her salary to $61,000 per year in the current budget. Makes it a little awkward in terms of maybe how the payroll is allocated, but I think that it's clear if we state it that way. We'll have to work out the management with payroll, etcetera, and Eric further.
Eric? I'm sorry for interrupting. Would just like to say thank you very much. Okay.
Thank you, Carol. Appreciate it. Okay. Okay. So I just want to make sure I've got this correct. You're under town clerk salary. You're gonna do you wanna call it additional salary. What was the exact title?
Supplemental. I'm gonna share my screen. I'm gonna try anyway. There you go. Are you guys seeing it? Yep. Okay. So what we have here is this is the original town clerk salary line item. So we've got a proposed base salary of 55,000 per year And then we want to add a line item for a supplemental salary for candidates with at least ten years of experience in a similar position of $6,000 per year. Okay. And you said alright. So with account clerk, we go to
effect. I mean, budget. Okay. That's all I needed. Thank you. K. Just wanted to understand what you're doing.
Understanding is a good thing. All right, so we'll go ahead and move on to additional agenda items. Had sent around to each of you on the elections. In fact, I can just go ahead and continue sharing this, guess, talk about it. On the elections line item, we had this thirty two thousand five hundred seventy five. We were concerned that the registrars may have under budgeted if we actually do have to go to early voting. I did reach out to Linda who reached out to Wally. They spoke about it and they replied that they didn't feel like they needed additional money. They thought if anything, depending on how things roll out, if they don't do early voting in the way that they had thought there might actually be a lower cost than this budget line item. So that's what we got from them. Any questions? Okay. Never removed my highlights, so just need to figure out how to attach the share thing here. Okay. And I think that those were all of the main tasks that we had allotted to ourselves for this particular session, but that is by no means the final word on the budget. Does anybody else have any other line items that they want to address?
I was just kicking something around. I want to just raise it. I don't have a specific plan for I just wanted to I was looking at our capital fund for this year, the capital fund expenditures that are in the budget. And I was pleased, you know, they are all most of them are up a little bit. It's a good year to do that, I feel. I know I've mentioned this before. I think it's a good year for us to maybe catch up a bit. The one thing I just wanna quickly ask Eric is I I noticed the tree fund is flat, I think, at at 50. Or how are doing on the trees? Are we good
with that amount? We can always spend more money. I knew you were gonna say that.
Know, I think 50,000 works, but part of the reason it works is we've established a really good relationship with Eversource. With Eversource, right. And, you know, we're getting, we're just really stretching that 50,000 a lot. We're being able to do a lot. The only thing that's come up recently is, you know, we've used public works the last, they've been spending quite a bit of time between the town and school properties. There's a bunch of dead ash that, you know, that tree was Jay Tuttle, identified that was right. It's kind of on the border between town property and school property. And, you know, well, it's technically all town property, but he, he came to me and said, basically, look, this has to come down. It's right on the edge of the playground. You can see one tree already fell already. They're all dead. These got to come down. So, we kind of retask public works this week because it was spring break. And we're going to basically put about five,
well, three guys times five days or four days working there to deal with trees. Now that comes out of our regular public works budget. However, the tricky part is the upper part of the playground, has a series of dead trees and dead limbs reaching over the playground, but they're not ones that public works can cut safely because of their location. So, know, basically what Jay told the superintendent is, hey, you're going to have to phone me up, You're going to have to bring in tenant. It's probably going to take at least three days. You got to budget $4,500 for that. And she had a little bit of a, she was unclear that she was capable of doing that given her existing budget. So if you were going to bump up anything on trees, I would say you would do it and then earmark a specific amount to that portion. It wouldn't have to be a big amount. I I think 50,000 would be reasonable
given all the other things we have to do. Okay.
Does that answer your question? It absolutely answered my question. I I, you know, I I was just looking each of the funds and, you know, we're doing a good job, I feel like, of kicking some of these up a bit. And I just saw the trees was flat, and you just gave me, like, chapter and verse, I think, on the situation. I'm content. I just wanted to check on it. That's all. And bridging culverts were good too would be the other one that was flat.
Yeah. So I what I think is going to happen, so we are in the next six weeks going to submit applications to the state local bridge program to replace two culverts, the one on. Hutchinson Road and the culvert on Lake Road at the solar now I don't know whether either of those will get funded by the state. Just because the legislature right now is debating putting a lot more money into the local bridge program, because last time around, have had like three times as many applications as they had funding available to meet the state match. If they do that, and we got both of them approved, you know, we might have to move a little money around. If we only get one approved, we have the budget now to do it. And I suspect we'd likely only get one approved given how many requests there are and what the backlog is.
So, I guess the answer is that fund could always use money. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, you know, we have three that are three, you know, good sized culverts that are kind of in failure mode. But culverts fortunately, they tend to fail slowly. So, it's not like you're going to come in one day and it's going to be gone. Unless you had a massive rain event. You know, we may end up having to do, it's not out of the question that we would have to do on Lake Road, what we did on Hutchinson for a couple of years, which is neck it down to one lane, because the downstream headwall is falling off and is starting to grow. But, so I guess what I would say is, yes, that fund could use more money. But I think given the budget and how much we're putting in capital, you know, I think it's okay. Okay. Okay, other questions or comments?
Sir? Yep, Joanna? I came in at the tail end of the conversation. I know I sent an email. You guys were discussing the difference in the amounts, the bottom line of the budget, the 5,400. Did we have a resolution of that or we're just not sure? No, we
haven't resolved that. So we decided to use for the purposes of today's meeting, we'll use the budget that I sent out at the end of last week. Okay. The total required number didn't change, but the taxation number is off for some reason. Yeah. So there's a formula differential or something we just need to update. I'll take a look at that or at some point we'll get that corrected before our next meeting and get it out to everybody for sure. So other,
yep, go ahead. Second question was, did we hear back from the fire commission with any other quotes or are we even getting into that tonight? I don't know if That's I think our one big remaining item and we haven't, to my knowledge, we haven't had any more information.
No, we, there's not any more information at this point. And I mean, understand that they still intend, well, have to for our purchasing policy. I mean, they will have to officially send this out as an RFP. And they will have to do their due diligence on finance sources. So, we're not anywhere near pulling the trigger on ordering one of these yet. All they're doing is deciding whether it's something that's acceptable to the Board of Finance and public to even do. So, it's, yeah. Okay.
But we'll need to make that decision as part of our budget funding for this year, really. Know, we, I think we left the fund alone pending potential additional information and we have it at $100,000 I think for the fire truck fund. And so I guess the question ended up being if we were going to try to make this work, they were going to need 110,000,
maybe 80, I can't remember the exact number. If memory serves, it was like 117 a year probably for ten years. Okay.
So we were gonna do that. Was in the teens, Mark. It was in the teens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, and the other thing to keep in mind is
they are going, they will have other capital expenses. Right. So, I mean, I do think that that is underfunded today. If your intention is to, you know, to put in the budget message that you intend to sign a contract for a new fire truck along those outlines.
Yeah, I mean, we would need to fund and I think you'd identified it about $60,000 of additional capital expense that would, you know, for SCBA gear, etcetera, the other things that they were going to need over, you know, that we would need to fund that payment on top of whatever that would be. The one question we had kind of open was per that original quote, you know, we were not going to have to make that first payment until August 2025. So it kind of or August 2024, which is the next budget year. So that kind of gets us off the hook for this year, but we can we need to identify that. We as Eric said, we need to identify that to the town.
That yeah. That was the thing is that we didn't actually need money in this budget technically,
you know, to do that contract. Right. But That being said question was to whether we wanna decide for it. Do we wanna take some of the pain this year, you know, maybe bump it up, you know, $10.20 grand to at least start moving in the right direction.
Yeah. I mean, I personally wouldn't Nobody likes a big surprise if they were Right. I'd love to chip away now, but you know, we can get into that at a later, you know, later meeting, maybe we'll have a little more info, maybe not. Well,
just in terms of timing, next week is our budget hearing.
No, we're getting that close. A week from tomorrow. Yeah.
So it doesn't mean we can't make changes before we go to town meeting, but I think it would certainly, unless there's a compelling reason, it's in our best interest to have a pretty close to final budget for the budget hearing.
I'm kind of on the other side of the fence with that, since we added a couple other things this year that were unintended. You know, this is just a general statement with looking how far I said this last time how far Ram came down. The school did go up, you know, quite a bit. We hadn't talked about that, but I'm that's not a bother to me at all because I feel like for a lot of years we've really nitpicked away at their budget. So this could be the year that we just kind of say we trust it. I'm just going to make that blanket statement since we haven't said anything and you're talking about the school. Yeah, am I allowed? I'm just doing an overall statement because our year is, you know, in years past I might have been a little more nitpicky knowing that we just have so many things we're trying to, you know, it's I think it's like 182,000 of a bump up. Hopefully with you know the one less student that they have to outplace plus purchasing the senior vehicle that will somehow help transportation to the school in the future. Maybe we'll see that back next year. So again, all I was saying is I'd be. I would rather kind of sit stay where we sit right now rather because I feel like we did bump some of the funds up. The roadwork fund, I think is up a little bit from, you know,
so I'd I'd kinda like to keep it a little bit steady or knowing we're gonna have more payments next year with the trucks that we're purchasing. Nothing goes down. So that's my overall of, you know, throwing more in the fire. Try, you know, I just rather take that poison next year.
Any other thoughts on that matter? Louise, Linda, Brian, thoughts about the fire equipment fund? You know, in my view, kind of based on what I'm hearing from the board, that's really the last thing we need to address if we choose to address it at all based on what we know today. Anybody like to make a motion regarding it?
Sure. What the heck? We are at a 100 now. So, you know, again, my feeling is putting aside is good with but with respect to Joanna, will I'll reduce the amount I was gonna ask to bump. I'll move that we bump it up to $1.25 instead of the $1.50 I originally was thinking. We'll do 01:25 and see if anybody else will come along with me on that. How's that? I'll second that.
Thank you, Brian. Okay. Thanks. K. And, again, the other thing I wanna say about that, by the way, is Yep. We're not really I mean, yes, we're spending the money in a sense, but we're putting it in Mhmm. Savings. It's a little different than, you know, spending the money on something, you know, just just because, that sort of thought. It's it's really just to try to smooth out My concern is, you know, what if we have a rougher budget year next year, and then we're we're up against it, and then we've got this lease payment. So that's just my thinking. K. So what did you said $1.25. $1.25.
That just for the purposes of context, that would take our current mill rate is about estimated given the changes we've made tonight at about 31.45, that is a 1.46%, about 1.5% decrease from the current budget. So it's actually a reduction in the mill rate. If we're to make those changes, go to 125. Should be negligible.
Sometimes we get surprised. Yeah. It'll be a reduction in the mill rate of about 1.2%. What does that come out to? 31 what? 31.53 would be the new mill rate. The new number. Yeah.
And what was last year's number? Thirty thirty one point nine one. Thank you for the context. Yeah, my overall view was just I know that we have so many things coming down the pike with the senior center, the trucks. Yeah, you know that if this year with the 500, you know that Ram we were lucky enough to to not to to have like a little savings this year because I know the other years you know. Yeah. We're gonna be building it up again. So that's all.
Yeah. It's just funny. We're looking at the exact same things. We're just coming at it I know. Coming at it a different way. I know. Because that is exactly my thinking too and why I want to do this so. You know to me I look at it the same. Linda, Louise, questions, comments, I like things the way they are. K. Louise? Yep. I agree as well. Okay.
Wait. Does that mean team Joanne? No. I'm kidding, Rob. I'm just I
just mean for this one issue. I wanna get pom poms out now. So
just keeping it the way it is, I just want to clarify, I was being funny. My feeling is we should increase it. I think
125 is a little bit rich. It really isn't for but again, taking into account the fact that we've added these other things. Well we have a motion on the floor to increase it to $125,000 from $100,000 Any further discussion? Mm-mm. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Nay. Who's
voting against? Need Joanna's against. Are we talking about, what did you say? You're raising it to $1.25.
This is my motion on the floor to raise the increase of the fire fire engine fund from $100,000 to $125,000
Yeah. I'm pretty sure Louise is muted, but I think she was a no. Right? Yeah. Well, Linda, I'm gonna go roll call because it's confusing here.
So, Louise, you were a no? I no. I agreed with what Rob said. Oh, honestly, you were a yes. Five. Well, everybody's a yes, but don't we, Anne? Okay.
Okay. I'm gonna okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna vote yes too because I like that better than flat. So okay. I guess that motion carries. All right, 125 ks. Again, just for context, will change our mill rate to 31.53, which is a slight decrease to 1.2%, assuming we've got all these other things correct. Again, we'll verify and compare it to the one that Cheryl sent around as well. Okay, do we have further discussion on the budget? I got nothing else.
Mark, my question, next week will come to our public hearing, right? Our public hearing first. Now Eric will be putting that on the social media like letting them will be advertising that it is a public hearing because we do want to hear from them and I know it's been a relatively quiet season and then we have more discussion. Correct, Mark? Well, we'll listen to them. Then we will have our. So I guess it's important that we and we will. We'll have our final numbers, whatever the changes were tonight, and hopefully I'm going to kind of look at it too, see if I can find where that change is and yeah. Yeah, I think that the
process next week, it's really a budget hearing, isn't necessarily a budget workshop. So what I would typically do, think, or suggest we do in this situation is present the highlights, we'll just say, okay, this is our summary of expenditures, this is our summary of revenues, these are the key items that made significant changes that the board changed from the Board of Selectmen's budget, and this is our final number. And then it's really very, very brief, I think. And then it's really about listening to any public comment at that point. And, you know, Eric, go ahead.
So I just wanted to say a couple of things real quick. I did, because I knew next week was the budget hearing, and I wanted to get it in the River East before that, I did have a conversation with Mike at the River East and highlighted the fact that next meeting was the budget workshop. And I sent him a copy of the budget as it was before today. And I said that's still preliminary, but this is still fairly close. There may be changes between now and the budget meeting. So, so they can at least start publicizing that. We'll publicize it on social media, and we'll try to get it up on the town's website, and announce it.
Did we I I apologize, guys. We do we have the town budget meeting date locked in? I didn't have it in my calendar, my phone. Said it preliminarily,
but I don't I'd have to go check and see where it was. So is it first week of May, Eric? We do. The board of selectmen, on my recommendation, which
turned out to be slightly problematic, set it for May 2. Okay. Reason that's
problematic is that is also the date of the RAM referendum. But I think that's actually a good thing because we typically have incredibly low turnout at the RAM referendum. And I think it's actually a good thing to be able to say, Hey, Come to the town budget meeting and, oh, while you're at it, walk right next door and vote on the RAM budget too. And you get a two for, and we only tie up one one day to do it. My only question with that would be timing. Our budget meetings are usually at 07:00.
Polls close. So it will be both vote before and then come in. Right? Yes. Correct. Yeah. Correct.
And I did check with the registrars and the town clerk. That is doable. They can, because we have two registrars and two assistant registrars, we can split and meet our legal requirements. The only thing I was thinking later that was a little unfair and it didn't occur to me at the time I was brainstorming this was that there may be a couple of the registrars that would have liked to vote on the budget that will be working at the polls during the event. So that is a downside to that. But I kind of think the upsides outweigh the downsides. And getting people to come two days in a row has always proved hard for us. So I think this might be an advantage.
So if the budget doesn't pass or passes by two votes or one vote, then we'll know that we probably should have changed. Clearly it is what it is. So I think we're all set. And just to kind of clarify further the schedule, the twentieth, which is a week from tomorrow is our public hearing. We have one more meeting before the town budget meeting and that is a regularly scheduled town of Andover Board of Finance meeting set for Wednesday the twenty sixth. So we will have a meeting that Wednesday. Hopefully, you know, we won't have any major Debates drama changes at that point we rubber stamp what we've already done or make minor changes depending on what the board decides, and then we go to town meeting on the second and. Then we see where that goes.
Yeah. But it does give us that that opportunity to have a meeting after the public hearing. If if we do surprisingly get a bunch of feedback, we can we can digest it and come back and and do a meeting. It's not like we need to do a tack it on at the end after the public hearing and scramble. So it's nice to have we don't need to add any more meetings. So Believe me. I'm with you. I know you all are.
There's also nothing that says after the budget meeting or after the public hearing, when you reconvene the meeting that you couldn't show, depending on what you had for feedback that you couldn't, you know, vote to send that to public meeting right then and there. Because if you did that, that gives the town clerk more time, you know, to, to meet the requirements for, you know, notice and stuff like that. Okay.
That's good to know. So if we're real comfortable with that after the hearing, you know, we can drop a meeting and just go for it. Yeah. Yep.
Yep. Obviously, I will not be at the next meeting. I will be on vacation. So good luck with it. I can certainly answer any questions up through Tuesday of next week that you may have. We come back in one Yeah, piece
definitely. No injuries this time. Are the logistics of managing the running the meeting gonna be then if you're not running the meeting, Eric?
So I think I would just provide you the login info as the host. Okay. And then you can run the meeting kind of at your, you know, at your leisure. I mean, honestly, the only thing I do is I hit start the meeting on the app and then I hit start record and then I hit stop record. So it's not, you know, it's not particularly bonus.
As I just found out tonight. Yeah. It's manual. Right. Yeah. The only thing that would be difficult is
you will have to admit people in one by one from the waiting room. So, what I would do in the case, because you may have public coming in during the meeting, I would keep up the window. Participants window. Yep. Right. The participants window so you can kind of visually track that. Yeah. Then waiting room is at the top. So okay. Right. And if you did have somebody that was disturbing the meeting or causing a problem, you can just simply eject him directly from the meeting using that same icon. And then, as long as you don't let them back in, they're not a problem. Unlike before, we've, by, by doing this for settings, you give yourself the option to do it. You know, the only other thing you have to do is it makes it somewhat more difficult to share screens, but not for you as the host. For you, you don't have to do anything because you automatically have the capability for yourself to share screens. Got it. You would have to go in and give somebody permission. You hit the share screen icon at the bottom and allow a participant to share screen if you chose.
I see there. Okay, got it. K. Alright. Anybody have anything further? K. Anybody wanna make a motion to adjourn? I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay. Thank you, Louise. Do I have a second? Second. I mean, we can still talk this time. I don't wanna cut a chore for anybody. Any further discussion? Nope. Okay all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay well if I don't get that by rattlesnake I'll see you guys next week. Almost stepped on the trail yesterday So I'll use that as a background.
No step on snake. This is these are basic instructions. Have a great week.
Have a Have a great week. We'll see you. Take care. Alright. Bye. Thanks, guys. Bye.