Meeting transcript
Board of Finance - Regular Meeting
August 25, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Three
of our members are on vacation so I'm glad we're able to get a quorum. We do have several things on the agenda today. Hopefully nothing super controversial and we may want to table things but we'll see. Okay. So I'll call the meeting to order or recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty justice proud.
Thank you okay. On the wrong page here let's get to the agenda first agenda item is public speak does anybody have any public comments. Okay, hearing none. Let's move on to item three, which is our auditor presentation. Michael, welcome. I appreciate you coming today. And the floor is yours.
Alright, well thank you very much. Again, my name is Mike Van Diebenter and I am a partner at Mahomes stable and ultimately responsible for overseeing the audit work for the town's fiscal year twenty twenty audit in issuing the reports on behalf of the firm. So hopefully everybody has seen a copy of the financial statements and single audit reports. My presentation will ultimately provide an overview of the work that was performed, the reports that were issued. I'll provide some overall high level financial highlights, and then certainly we'll answer any questions that any of you may have. At this point, I'm going to share my screen and actually share the presentation that I'll run through. Right, can everybody see the presentation at this point? Yep. All right, perfect.
All right, so as far as the scope of work was performed, again, we did perform an audit of the town's financial statements. Performed that audit in accordance with both the auditing standards issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts, as well as the government auditing standards issued by the Government Accountability Office. In addition, based on the level of state funding that was received, we were also required to perform a state single audit. And that audit was performed in accordance with the State Single Audit Act. In addition to the audits, we also perform agreed upon procedures on the end of school year reports that are provided by the school district to the Department of Education. Again, those procedures are required by the state of Connecticut Department of Education. In addition to those attest services, we do also perform a number of non audit services for the town. So again, we do assist in the preparation of the financial statements as well as the schedule of expenditures of state financial assistance in related notes. In addition, we also assist in converting your governmental fund financial statements to your government wide financial statements. In terms of the audit reports that were issued, again, the main report is your report on the financial statements. We did issue unmodified clean opinions on your financial statements. Again, an unmodified opinion provides reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from a material misstatement,
whether due to error or fraud, and that they've been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in The United States. So again, our opinion does cover multiple statements within your financial statements, it covers your governmental activities, each of your major governmental funds, which includes your general fund, as well as your capital reserve funds. And then we express an opinion on what's considered to be the aggregate remaining fund information. And that includes all of your non major special revenue capital projects, a grant permanent private purpose trust and agency funds. So again, a lot of information is included in the financial statements. But ultimately, we issued an opinion that basically tells an external user that you can rely on that information when reviewing the financial statements. In connection with the state single audit, we do issue a report on compliance and on internal control at the state financial assistance level. So here we are actually expressing an opinion on the town's compliance with your major state programs. For fiscal year 2020, the total state financial assistance that was expended by the town was approximately 2,500,000. The majority of that is considered exempt from our testing the portion which was not was about 398,000. Your major programs were the town aid road program, and your school readiness program. Again, we issued unmodified clean opinions on your compliance over those programs. And we did not identify any findings that were required to again be reported.
Again, for both the Town Aid Road program and school readiness program, the major compliance requirement is allowable costs. So again, we're testing costs that are charged these grants to determine that they're allowed. In addition, we also issue a report on compliance and on internal control over financial reporting. Unlike the previous two reports, I do like to point out that we do not actually express an opinion on the town's effectiveness of your internal control, nor do we express an opinion on the town's compliance with regulations that actually doesn't fall within the scope of the audit. Essentially, during the course of performing the audit, if we became aware of or identified what we consider to be a material non compliance of a law regulation. And again, that non compliance would have a have to have a direct immaterial impact on your financial statements, meaning it could result in a loss, or a material weakness or significant deficiency in your internal control, were required to include it in this in this report. So again, we did end up reporting three significant deficiencies in internal controls. And again, a significant deficiency is a deficiency in internal control that merits the attention of those charged with governance. So again, from a Board of Finance perspective, we felt that each of these items should be reported. Ultimately, the town is required to complete a corrective action plan and follow-up on these findings. So again, the first deficiency that was reported was a true significant deficiency in internal control over financial reporting. Again, do want to point out this is this is a repeat finding from the prior year. And I do expect that this would be a finding that will ultimately get reported in connection with your fiscal year twenty twenty one audit,
as this will ultimately get addressed in connection with your implementation of your new accounting system, which didn't occur until 07/01/2021. So again, the condition is that your accounting structure really is not properly set up within the general ledger system. As a result, manual reconciliations are required in order to provide the necessary information for financial reporting purposes. Ultimately, the recommendation is to overhaul your accounting system and no longer utilize balance sheet accounts to actually record revenues and expenditures relating to your governmental funds. So again, this is something that is being addressed in connection with your conversion to the new system. The next item here was a reporting of a significant deficiency in internal control over ACH disbursements. I do know that the board was aware of the transaction where an ACH fraud was perpetrated, whereby a vendor payment was made to a fraudulent bank account.
Again, although this was not specifically identified as part of the audit procedures, it still does represent a reportable finding. So again, we do recommend that the town implement procedures that require authentication and independent verification of vendor bank information. Authentication should be obtained by requiring the vendor to provide a check, deposit slip and or old banking information, and ultimately contacting the vendor to verify the information on hand. So unfortunately, with the increase in electronic banking, in general, we have seen this type of fraud occurring pretty commonly within businesses and governments. And it's not just restricted to vendor payments, direct deposits for employees. So again, it's really important to kind of tighten up those controls, changing in any banking information should ultimately be verified in email should not be relied upon as that main correspondence.
And then the last item here that we had was a deficiency in internal control over payroll. Again, this was identified by the town, it wasn't identified as part of the audit process, but still represents a reportable finding, where an employee was paid an incorrect rate during the year. So again, we recommend the pay rate documentation form be utilized to document every employee's pay. That form should ultimately be reviewed and approved by an appropriate town official and should be maintained in their employee records. And then again, an appropriate town official should periodically perform a document or review of all payroll records to verify that pay rates agree with employee record. So again, I know both of these items were the board was aware of, and ultimately they've been addressed, but they do still represent findings in connection with the audit. Any questions as far as the overall reporting before I move on to the financial highlights? Okay, so again, just giving you some overall financial highlights. Again, there's a lot of financial information included in the financial statements. Again, well over 100 pages of information. So certainly if you have any specific questions, I'm happy to answer those at any point in time. But in terms of your overall financial highlights, this first slide goes over your general fund on a budgetary basis. So again, your original budget did provide for the utilization of fund balance in the amount of 976,000 to balance your revenues and expenditures. Your final budget did include additional appropriations of 240,000.
So that did result in a plan use of fund balance in the amount of about 1,200,000, your actual change in fund balance for the year was a decrease of 1,069,433. And so that resulted in overall favorable budgetary variance of 146,000. So again, if you if you plan to use 1.2, and you only use the million, then you're actually returning a small amount to your unassigned fund balance. Overall, your actual revenues were approximately 95,000 more than budgeted, and that really was generated by a revenue surplus driven by favorable collections on your current year property taxes. And then again, your actual expenditures were approximately 45,000 less than budgeted, and there were budgetary surpluses across all departments at the end of the year. This next slide goes over your governmental fund financial highlights. So this includes your general fund on a GAAP basis, as well as your capital reserve funds, all of your special revenue and other governmental funds. Your combined ending fund balances totaled approximately 4,400,000. So again, that was a decrease of about 335,000 from the prior year. Of the 4,400,000 to about 2,000,000 just over 2,000,000 was your fund balance in your general fund, again, was a decrease of 1,069,433 from the prior year. And again, that was driven by the plan use of your fund balance Of the 2,000,000 of your fund balance in the general fund four fifteen had been assigned for use in your fiscal year twenty twenty one budget. And so that left the remainder of $1,636,894
as your unassigned fund balance, which would be available for appropriation. So that represents about 13.1% of your fiscal year twenty twenty one General Fund budgetary expenditure appropriations, which again is sufficient to cover about one point five months of your overall General Fund budgetary expenditures. So again, I think in fiscal year eighteen, you had a very high percentage of fund balance, you have brought that down by offsetting your increases in taxes. And right now, as of June 30, you had about 13% available in your unassigned fund balance. In terms of your capital reserve fund that had a ending fund balance of about 1,500,000, which was an increase of about 713,000 from the prior year, That increase was really generated by a budgetary transfers from the general fund. So you've appropriated money from the general fund for specific projects. And so those are included in your capital reserve funds. Those amounts are committed for specific purposes. And then all of your other funds had a fund balance of about 850,000, which is an increase of about 22,000. And again, those amounts are also restricted or committed for various purposes. So again, the positive thing is you had no negative fund balances that would ultimately impact your general fund budget. So before we move on to our required communications, again, just a brief highlight of your financials.
Certainly if identified anything that I thought was of significance or concern from a financial perspective, would include it in these highlights. All right, so the last section is our required communications. And again, these communications are required by our auditing standards. The first item here talks about our responsibility under our auditing standards. Although we do assist in the preparation of the financial statements, they are the responsibility of management, all of the information included in the financial statements ultimately came from the town. Again, it's our responsibility to perform our audit procedures and express an opinion on those financial statements. In terms of the overall plan scope and timing of the audits, again, no changes in the overall scope of work that was performed. Again, multiple extensions were required from OPM. Delays in issuing the audit were attributed to really delay in the commencement of audit field work due to scheduling constraints. Additional delays were resulted as a result of transition of key town personnel. And again, there were some additional delays resulting from having to perform the audit work remotely this past year due to the COVID-nineteen pandemic. The positive thing is we've already been out to start our planning for the fiscal year twenty one audit. And right now we have that scheduled so that it can be performed
in your financial statements can ultimately be issued by the end of the year. Again, that is contingent upon ultimately the closeout of the of the town's books and records. But from a from a firm perspective, we have been able to move your timing into our normal business season. In terms of significant audit findings, we do look at your accounting policies and practices. One of the important things that we typically will point out is any implementation of any new accounting standards. So there were no new accounting standards that were ultimately implemented by the town. The GASB did issue a statement which postponed the effective date of certain authoritative guidance. And so that resulted in a postponement of the majority of GASB standards by at least one year in response to the pandemic. So again, no new standards were implemented in your fiscal year 2020 financials. Difficulties that were encountered in performing the audit really just related to the timing issues and the delays that were previously discussed. Again, ultimately everything that we requested from the town was provided to us so that we could perform our audit work. There were no uncorrected misstatements. Any adjustments that were identified in connection where the audit were posed and recorded by the town. There were no disagreements with management during the course of performing the audits. We do obtain a management representation letter. Again, there was nothing unusual that we required management to represent to in that letter. So again, for example, if we were unable to substantiate a transaction, and we relied on the representation of management, that would be a specific representation that we would communicate to you. Again, we weren't aware of any consultations by management with any other independent accounts. So that includes all of our required communications.
Again, happy to answer any questions that you may have. And just again, to note, if you do have any questions at any point in time, you can just filter those through Sherry or Eric and I'll make sure that I respond to you.
Okay, thank you very much, Michael. Any questions for Michael? Because the board were generally aware of some of the findings, as you mentioned, and we'll probably talk with Eric a little more about that and sherry. Okay, nothing for Michael. Okay. Yeah.
All right, thank you guys, I appreciate it. Thank you. Take care. Appreciate it. Okay.
We'll move on to item number four on the agenda, which is additions or deletions of any of the agenda items. Does anybody have anything to offer? Okay, hearing none, guess we'll go on to item five which is the town administrators report. Eric, do want to bring it up to date?
I don't have a ton of stuff. I'm sorry, I did not realize Sherry wasn't going to be on the meeting until just I know she's been kind of tearing her hair out at the school lately, trying to catch up with the accounting that's necessary for the school. You know, we are a bit delayed in that for sure. The only thing I wanted to talk about a little bit is I sent a note to both the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance, because there's a bunch of things that are hitting us all at once right now, really early in the year in a very lean budget. And I just want to make sure that you guys are aware of it. Number one, MRF, which is the employee retirement fund run by the state, changed the relative portion of the town's contribution to the fund effective when the state's fiscal budget hit. So, basically as of July, although they say they notified us earlier, but certainly not early enough to get incorporated in the budget. So that's going to be a change an extra somewhere around $9,000 that the town has to kick in. And we're also going to end up spending some extra money on the animal control officer.
He frankly is unhappy with the town for something, well, for his job, but also for something unrelated because he's got some permits he needs to get from the town that he's not being super successful getting so far. So, we counter offered him because he kind of resigned. He ultimately didn't accept it. So, I've been searching and trying to get, you know, it as a shared service with another town. It is possible we'll be able to work it out as a shared service with Hebron, but that's going to be more expensive than what we pay for now by the time we end up doing it. I don't know how much, that's still an ongoing negotiation between the finance department of Hebron and myself at the moment. So, the other thing is that the Board of Selectmen made a decision not to include salary increases for the MEIU members originally. I don't know what the reason was. Think probably because they thought it would give them more leverage when it came time to bargain. But the reality is they're going to end up getting salary increases. And so that's going to be about $3,000 or so that was never budgeted. And that wasn't budgeted because board of selectmen decided not to budget for it. We also had some significant damage once again to our irrigation system at the field. It took a pretty good lightning strike. We'll get the majority of that back.
And we'll get it back because we, you know, we filed an insurance claim initially. That's probably going to end up only going to be 1,000 or 1,000 or 2,000, depending on what our deductible is for that type of claim. The long and the short of it is we've already chewed up, you know, somewhere around $20,000 of our contingency fund, you know, and it's, it's flipping August. So, I'm nervous about that. And we ran into a pretty good expense that we weren't anticipating because of the repair of the all the repairs to town roads after that tropical storm about a month ago. That's probably looking at our materials bills, we probably spent about 10,000 in materials, and the rest was labor on the part of the town crew. For reference that was probably about three weeks worth of work by the full crew to put the roads and shoulders back into condition after that last after that storm. And in addition, we spent probably somewhere, and I don't have all the receipts at this point, but we spent somewhere probably around, you know, between 8 and $10,000 on the repair of the Bunker Hill Bridge, which that we will take directly out of the bridge and culvert fund. So fortunately we have money for that. We're diverting it from other things we could be doing with it but but it's right in the right in the sweet spot for what that fund is. But, you know, we're gonna we're spend a bunch of money for that. The good news is we should reopen that bridge tomorrow, at least on one lane, which will be a welcome relief for a lot of people and take a lot of pressure off me.
The other thing we're going to face is that the Board of Education does not seem to be too excited about. When we adopted Edmunds software, the total bill was around $32,000 And the Board of Education paid the first half of it. And they were originally pretty much in agreement that they were going to pay the whole cost of it. But they've kind of balked at that a little bit since their budget got shrunk so dramatically. And I think they would very much like the town paid for that. But again, that's an unbudgeted expense. And with that, that puts us somewhere around $36,000 into our contingency fund. You know, and again, it's August. So, just trying to be fully transparent on letting you know that we're facing that right now. I'm not sure we necessarily have any alternatives with it. I told Sherry I was not gonna authorize paying 16,000 from the town's end without either the board of selectmen or the board of finance making the decision that they're willing to do that,
just because it affects our budget. So that's pretty much what I have. Unless you have specific questions, at least it's related to the Board of Finance. Open it up for questions to Eric.
It's a little disconcerting. I do have questions. I don't know if you guys can hear me. I've been having a lot of computer trouble tonight. I'm trying to make sure. Yep. Can hear you just fine.
Okay. So I apologize when the auditor guy was on, I was gonna ask a question, but I just couldn't get there. Will we get a copy of, because I was trying to, my first year and that document that he had that little, you know, the bullet points, for the most part, I get it, but it'd be nice to just take a look at it again. I don't think we were sent that, were we?
The PowerPoint presentation? No, I don't think so. Yeah, it's just an overview of everything.
And so because one of the statements that was made and what I was going to ask was the discrepancy with an employee salary last year. I think was that yours Eric? It was mine. I remember Mercy, I've been here for a year. Okay.
So, yeah, yes. I was definitely that material and you know and we caught it internally. Yeah.
You know and we did catch one other one for Richard Vegan. You know a couple months into his employment. You know we were reviewing them all and I realized they had put in the wrong rate for him they had never transferred his rate when he went from a temporary employee to a permanent employee and we corrected it and back paid him. So we do review that.
Can I just ask who does that? Like who would have been reviewing it the past year? It's caught and I know it's fixed and paid back, but I just wondered what was the checks and balances?
So usually what happens is, I sit down in this case this year I sat down with Sherry and Marina, and we went over all the union contracts, you know, because most of them spell out the exact pay raise. And there were a couple where it's a little questionable because, you know, we're still struggling with one of the unions we don't actually have a contract at this point, but both the union and us have agreed on the wage increase for this year. So, just so we make the employees whole we've given them that at this point. So we gave it to them as of July 1.
But how many years are the contracts? Usually for three. Typically the three year contracts. I've had to wait like three years for a contract sometime, and that's fine. I mean, whatever Andover does, I'll learn. So you gave them, even though there's no contract, you guys went ahead and gave them the raise for this year.
Yes, because we had a letter between us and the union stating we were both, what we gave them was what we had told the union in our initial bargaining position we felt was appropriate for the year. So it matched what the board of selectmen agreed as a starting point for negotiations. So it didn't seem too controversial.
Yeah, I mean, it's a small town, I'll get it. Yep. Then, so that's fine. And then one other question, just so that I understand it, I've had questions to you before about MRF. I know that the town contributes a significant amount and it's a good bonus for the employees. We've talked about that. When they, I don't know of other towns that contribute that much, you know, I've talked about it, but do employees pay in, like for myself, my retirement is like 6% out of my pay other To as a town our town employees, I know they get a big chunk from the town, you know, here in the budget, but what is the percentage that like a town employee pays into birth? I think they're at 2.95%
right now, but we don't have any control over that. Right. Birth is what it is. And, you know, that's, it's a common source and I've had a bunch of conversations with our labor attorney about this. You know, part of the problem we have is you basically have to be all in Murph, or you have to break it and basically go through litigation, break it. A number of towns have have decided that for new employees, they were not going to offer Murph to new employees, which is something the Board of Selectmen was somewhat interested in doing.
A bunch of suggestions but I don't think you can. I can. Well, everyone in and then start something that could save the town money. That was my thing I was but I don't think you can right or go ahead. Right. No, the only thing you could do is you basically,
you would have to just cancel Murph for all employees. Right. And then you would have to litigate over the breakup, essentially. Several towns who thought they could just stop not provide new employees Murph are have been in litigation for multiple years. The state in Murph are are basically fighting them tooth and nail in the courts right now. And at least our labor attorney says he does not. He thinks that original agreements are tight enough that the towns are going to end up losing although enough of them are pissed at MRF that they're willing to you know run up legal fees to to try to break it So it's kind of a crazy thing. I mean, like personally, I think
that I personally am much more comfortable with a four zero one ks and just a town contribution to that which is what I asked in my personal contract, but the town can't do that because if the town did that it would have to be in addition to Murph, because they can't opt any individual out of Murph even if the employee doesn't want it.
So it's a I read it all, it's solid. Have to, I mean, because I was researching the heck out of that, you know I sent a billion emails before I made BLF because I thought it was a lot of money and maybe there could be a savings for new employees, not anybody that's there. I would never advocate for that. I wanna make that clear. I'd wanna grandfather everybody in and then save money when I was sending, but you can't, I read every little thing. It seems like you're, you have to be all in. Yeah.
And that's something the town's going to have to consider going forward because Murph's getting more expensive as a percentage, you know, every year because it's a defined benefit plan. And it basically depends on how good their investments go, how much they charge the, the towns. And while at one point the state was somewhat, you know, underwriting it and they're basically, they're not really unlike the teachers retirement crowd, they're not underwriting that at all.
Are the school administrators only in Marks? I know teachers have their own thing. Are the school administrators included in your MRF at all or no? That's not a question I can answer.
Okay. I think they're part of the retirement board, teachers retirement board.
Yeah, I knew that's a little bit but I wasn't sure about the admins, know, the superintendent,
but I know they can't be in the teachers retirement thing, so they may be MRFs, those two may be MRFs.
The reason I said that is at one of the meetings I heard Val talking about it so and she seemed to again I don't want to take up too much of the time but MRF was addressed tonight so I appreciate that And I'm glad to hear you because I thought with the big chunk that the town pays, I was hoping that the employees get a lot out of that then. But it doesn't I don't know. I don't know the payout. You know, I mean
so I have two fundamental issues with MRF. You know, my first is that, you know, even though I work for the government and essentially, I don't necessarily trust it. And I would much rather invest my own money than rely on a government entity to hold my money and dole it out to me when I retire. You know, in all my life I've been in, even when I was a state employee, I never had anything other than a four zero one ks batch. You know, so for me, there's a comfort level. But the other thing I think you do have to realize that for a lot of employees,
you know, you take the whole range of employees, a town is likely to have, you know, for a lot of them that aren't that savvy, a defined benefits plan, you know, is a really good perk in the sense that it gives you the assurance that if you work, you know, twenty, thirty, forty years for a town at the end of it, you're going to be able to retire comfortably. And there's some definite benefits that, you know, and the other thing is like, for instance, our public works supervisor, he would not have come to Andover if we were not a Murph Town, because frankly, although he's, we're probably the fourth town he's worked for,
he's always gone from Murph Town Murph town Murph Town. So he's got thirty something years of that built up. And so that is a pop, a very, know, that is a big advantage to that. The downside is that it's just expensive. Know, and then my trust issues are my own, I guess. Thank you. Any other questions for Eric?
I have a question. Yep. Go ahead, Louise. Is there any way of recouping any of the storm damage on the roads by any type of government or state funding out there?
There was no most of what we suffered wasn't this last storm, it was the storm before, and there was no storm declaration at the state level. So the answer to that is no, as far as I know, there's no possibility. And frankly, the paperwork and the documentation involved in getting, if there was anything, it would have come through FEMA. And what you have to do to document for FEMA is incredibly daunting. In fact, the year before for Isaiah, you know, we just made the decision as a town. There was just no way. We weren't going to get enough money to justify how much time it was going to take to get the money,
which sounds kind of crazy. It's bad. All right, thank you.
Any other questions for Eric? Okay, thanks Eric. Next up we would have the finance department report. Unfortunately, Sherry couldn't be with us tonight. I don't know, Eric, if you have anything particular to cover there.
I don't. I know we were really hoping by this point to have all the final budget transfers and there's not many left, but there are a few. We shore up all the accounts for the stuff that came in kind of after the fact. We don't have that, you know, which is a little unfortunate because we kind of needed that closed this year completely. Michael could start in on the audit, but we should have that. I'm hoping we'll have that in the next week or two. I know Sherry started working on it, but she's just not finished with it.
Okay, we do have the financial statements in the documents. Anybody have any particular questions or concerns? Okay, I didn't see anything after brief read okay. We're not just we don't have any budget transfers or over expenditure requests correct Eric Correct.
Okay, we'll move on to item eight, which is old business software transition, chart of accounts draft. I don't know that there's anything we really need to address there, but I don't know if anybody on the board has any questions or you know, Diane had said she had some questions, but I don't know if they ever actually came up or if Sherry answered those for her. Yeah, we Not on today, but We discussed some questions at the last meeting.
The big change from the very first draft of the chart of accounts was to do what we agreed to do right from the beginning, which is separate out basically benefits separately and put them in each. So essentially self assign them to each department. So we know what the fractional costs are for each department.
Yeah, I think which we all agreed with generally. Anybody have any other questions on the software or chart of accounts? Think we can probably close that item. Okay.
Alright. 8b is the audit status. Well, Eric, don't know you have any more comments when you talk about the new audit commencing but
Yeah, the only thing I would say about the new audit is that they have given us the list of documentation. So, what they do initially is they first look at all the expenditures that we've made and reported for the year, and then they pull out a representative sample across the range of accounts, the range of funds in the range of transactions from big to little, and they say okay pull out everything and then ask us you know questions like who authorized that, you know, the salt bid, did you, you know, where did that salt bid come from, you know, and so we've given them all that documentation which is one of the first things they do to review. And part of that review is to just make sure that we are following our own internal policies and the Board of Finance policies. So that there, we've given them all that and now they're working on that. The next big thing that has to happen is we've got to close out the fiscal year, and then they can make all the financial statements and start it. So, the good news is, you know, the audit is started, you know, five months earlier than well, more like seven months earlier than it did last year. So we're already much ahead of the game. And I think Michael has every intention of getting us an audit by the close of the calendar year, which means we won't need an extension and we'll have it in hand to make budget decisions next year, which is always the goal.
Yep, that's great. Any questions for Eric on the audit status? When do you expect to close the year, Eric?
Well, I know we were hoping to close it like several days after this meeting. Once we had the final transactions to the board. I've got to talk to Sherry and see whether that pushes us back a whole month, or whether we can come up with an alternative. We can close it, because I think technically you as a board have to authorize the transfer the transfers. Maybe we could do a quick special meeting as soon as Sherry's ready, just long enough to authorize that so we can close the year. But I would have to talk to Sherry before I gave you any term.
Okay. I'd be open to that. I'd like to see the books closed, of course, just like you guys would and get the audit commenced. We just need for better for board members to agree on a short meeting, hopefully, And some. Usually agreeable date okay good. Any more questions for Eric on the audit status. Okay hc is a Community senior Center building Committee and that I think has been typically Diane reporting on that. She's not here tonight. I don't know if Eric, if you or anyone else has any input.
Sure, I can tell you we put out an RFP seeking a engineering firm to do the survey. We got four bids back, of which three were kind of reasonable and fairly comparable. We offered all of them, the option to provide essentially some architectural services as part of the quote as an additional item. The committee has kind of come up with one kind of their preferred, but asked me to reach back out to the second lowest that so we had apples to apples comparison with the two lowest vendors, they didn't give me the name of an architectural firm they worked with, I have contacted them and requested a proposal. I haven't gotten it yet but I'm hoping by the board of next board of selectman meeting, you know I have a full packet, I already have the recommendation for the committee. You know, one of the things I, I had talked to you about as a board before,
because ultimately it is you that sets fiscal policy. Is it still not totally clear to me what the approval process for expenditures, like in this case, the Board of Finance and the Board of in the Board of Selectmen have put forward a budget with money specifically to do the design work for the community center, and have set a budget of 50,000. Now, what we would be spending is less than that. And the question becomes, we've satisfied our procedure by putting out an RFP and competitively bidding it. And we have a committee that has recommended a choice. But do I have the authority to go ahead and say yes and tell that vendor go for it and write a contract. Does the Board of Finance have to approve it? Does the Board of Selectmen have to approve it? And I honestly don't know. And I think it's the Board of Finance that ultimately makes the policy of how that all works. So I would ask you, you know, over the next six months or a year to let's really start thinking about, you know, how we do this. And I don't care if I have to go to all three boards and get approval from all three boards. I guess I will. But, you know, you tell me what what the procedure is you want to do for that. You know what obviously this is just the design phase,
you know we're nowhere near approving the building of a community center. It just, you know, the do we spend the money that you've already allocated for the design of this for the design of this.
Okay. Interesting. Yeah, that's is that is something that's gonna have to be visited and I thought for a while we need to review and probably tighten up a lot of these policies and that's gonna be some work and the charter is fairly vague on some of this stuff. It doesn't necessarily provide a lot of guidance, but that's probably not a bad thing. But what we do need to do is have more clear policies. And I know we've got them on over expenditures and some other things, but we probably need to tighten this up pretty tight. Action for future meetings and or a committee to get together and start looking at financial and fiscal policies and bring this together in one document that we're going to have and everybody's going to have available. Know Eric had some concerns about credit card use policy a while back and how was that being applied and that ought to be rolled into this etc. Okay. Anything anybody have any other questions for Eric on that? Thanks Eric Veterans Park when you Veterans Monument Park updates.
No major updates for that other than Jerry is still fundraising for that, and the Board of Selectmen have agreed to the addition of a small monument called the Soldiers Cross at that location, which Jerry Jerry actually already has the funds raised for that. Although he's still collecting donations. That's in the works, but that's probably eight months out by the time we get the thing built by the foundry and shipped here and get the base and all that. So that's all I've got for that at this point. You said the Board of Selectmen has approved it? The Board of Selectmen approved it. Okay.
Other questions on that? Okay. Old business item eight f affordable housing plan RFQ. I'm sorry. It jumped to eve, just building and land use department online permitting system. I mean, we've talked about this quite a bit. I don't think there's anything new on that unless you have something new, Eric. No, we're good. I don't need to discuss that unless you have So unless somebody has any specific questions on it, let's remove that from the old business, call it closed. Okay. Sounds good. We could probably do that with the Veterans Monument Park updates to unless we expect there's additional work is going to be pending, we would need to get involved in it's kind of nice hearing about it, but I don't know that we need to get involved in having an agenda item.
Okay, eight F is the affordable housing plan RFQ.
That RFQ closes on September 1, so we'll have proposals to evaluate. We did get a grant from the state. We just got notified last week that we had an acceptance. So we got a $9,500 state grant. Unfortunately, they, they then asked for a second approval by the Board of Selectmen so they, they have to do another formal resolution accepting the grant, which is kind of ironic, because they had to sign a resolution, allowing me to put in for the grant two months ago. So, but it's the state that's just the way it works. We got the grant, we're going be able to pay for the, the affordable housing plan. Out of that grant exclusively so it shouldn't trip anything that the Board of Finance needs to do. We've done an RFQ for it. So we've met our purchasing policy on that one by putting out a competitive application. So shouldn't be anything else you need to deal with from that. Okay.
Okay item I guess it would be in the packet it's a little off it's just 8 a but again or seven a again but. Actually be eight I guess would be eight gs Eastern highlands health district funding request Sure. Talked about that already, but yeah.
Yeah, so basically, and the Board of Selectmen has approved spending the money from the American Rescue Plan, you know, their funding request. I don't know whether you want to ratify it or you want us to just pay it or what you want to do. It's about $1,200 Basically what happened is they incurred a bunch of extra expenses, obviously because of COVID. And one of the expenses was rental facility where they were giving the majority of the vaccinations at, you know, and I'm on the board of directors for Eastern Highlands Health District. The reason we agreed to the, the requesting the funds from individual towns is because the town of Mansfield because Eastern Highlands Health District, essentially, it's not run, it's its own separate organization, but they subcontract the town of Mansfield for logistical support help, like they use their finance director for the town of Mansfield, their employees are of the town of Mansfield's health plan. You know, just because they're too small to be a completely standalone entity. Mansfield paid about $120,000 out of their original COVID relief fund and passed that through to the Eastern Highlands Health District. What they didn't want to do is get stuck with the bill for the the rental facility rental at the same time. So they asked all the other towns to contribute,
which I think is completely appropriate because it benefited all towns. So our hit on that is around $1,200 It's not a big fee.
I would suggest we just pay it and move on. Yeah, I mean, don't know that you technically need the Board of Finance's approval on that, but what we might do is just maybe somebody make a motion to just have a resolution for the board of finance to ratify that the or to agree that the board of selection or the town administrator should go ahead and make that payment to the Eastern Highlands Health District for the request. I mean, I'm okay with that. Anybody have any questions or concerns about that? Anybody wanna make a motion on the board?
I'll make it, I'm new at this. Do I have to state it? Do I have to say exactly what it is? Yeah, Nadeer does. Just say, I motion that we
authorize the town administrator to make the payment to the Eastern Highlands Health District for the request. Thank you. Yes, that. That we authorize to pay Eastern Highlands their $1,200 go ahead and second that.
Okay, thank you, Joanne. Thank you, Rob seconds. Discussion? Okay, we'll have a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none the motion passes. Thank you. Make it clean that way for you Eric. Thank you. Okay and now item 7B which is the funding for the one hundred seventy fifth anniversary committee. I'll call on Paula King you had brought this before the board last time and I know we were, we had some questions about how to implement that and you guys have kind of gone down the path so why don't you explain what you've done I we needed to discuss it at a board meeting we just can't could do it by email and stuff because of access
information so. Yeah, no, I understand. Thank you. And Catherine Lewis is on the call today too. So she can answer any questions that come up. So last month, I came, I came before the board and I said that this committee is looking to open an account. They've been meeting and working hard on this event that's coming up and they needed starter money in this account. And so I talked with Sherry after your meeting last month and she talked with the auditor and what was decided was, you know, the account's gonna be opened with one of the committee members because it just, that's gonna give them the options they were looking for. And Sherry is gonna reconcile anything that's needed. So they're gonna keep great records and they have forms and everything put together. So I'm just coming before the board tonight to say, know, I hope we can get them their money to get the account opened because they're going to start getting things printed and fundraising to cover the costs of the event. And I'm sure Catherine can explain this way better than I can. So like I said, month the way we left it, we were gonna talk to the auditor because we hadn't heard back from him. Did and Sherri advised us from the auditor saying if one of the committee members opened it up personally, that would be fine and she would reconcile it but we're also looking for money to put in the account to get them started. So Catherine, did I leave anything out or how'd I do?
You're muted my friend.
Now am I okay? Yes. Said it was horrible. Were great. Thank you. You know you were great. I guess our our main issue too is with the town doesn't have that we have is that we already I already created the Facebook for us and we want very much to have a donation link with donor box or whatever on there. So that the big thing is that hopefully we won't even have to touch the money you give us. But we might we might have to do some startup things on our own, but we're hoping that we can send letters and emails and put on our web Facebook page. Here, this is what we're doing. These are the list of events. Would you like to sponsor these? And if you'd rather do money, then you can do it directly into this onto the Facebook page onto the donor link which you go right into the account. And I am more than willing to say yes I have forms for people if they're donating money if they're donating equipment if they're doing whatever it is. I've, I've got everything. And I, you know, I'm more than willing to let anybody whoever wants to. Don't know review the the books or whatever to do so I'm, I just want to do it quickly because we really need to start getting the letters out there to people to start donating.
I had a bunch of questions that I sent over to Sherry. I'm blanking on your questions, Catherine, but Sherry's been wrapped up with her
info at the school. Yep, I'm sorry. I had questions. Damn, I can go find them. I had questions like, do we need a tax ID number? I know that when I was studying to set up the donor box, the donor link on the Facebook page, It asked me for certain things and I I don't have them. And it said if I didn't have this either tax ID number or something to put my social security in. I'm not doing that. So I had a list of, okay, this is what it's asking for. I don't know. I don't know. Are we considered nonprofit? I didn't even know how to label it. I don't know if we're considered nonprofit. I would just consider an organization. And again, is it tax exempt? If people donate money, are they tax exempt?
Don't know. These are questions I still have. Yeah, probably have to the example that she got that status. That's a pretty big step but your nonprofit, I guess you're just not a organized nonprofit. That's a pretty big thing. Okay, so I guess what you're asking us to do is authorize the $500 in seed money and now with does that technically I guess that goes to the committee and it will be in your saying you won't need it to, you may not need it, is it going to come back to the town? I'm not really understanding. That's, you know what, that's my other, that was one of my other questions. If we have money
let's say that you give the $500 we have it as that startup we're gonna let's say go probably just going to go to KeyBank because it's right around the corner open it as end over 175th and myself and probably Linda Armstrong will take care of it. But if we don't use that money, how do we give that money back to you? Was another question. Do we donate it? Do we know donated to the food pantry? Do we give it back to the town? So there was little small questions like that we needed answers to. Yeah, we'll figure that out later.
Anybody else on the board have questions. My personal feeling is that it sounds like it's reasonably set up, I mean sherry has some oversight to this, I think that it'd be appropriate for her to give a report on time to time just saying yeah that balance this is part of her monthly audit or whatever that she does and as long as we have that it's not a huge amount of money I don't see much issue with this. Else have any comments or input.
I just I'm sorry, I have a question so who do I talk to or get whatever kind of number it is or whatever I need for that the to set up the donor box.
I think that's Sherry. Gotta wait. Yeah, we have to wait to hear back from her. And Eric, I think you said September 1 is when they're done with that reporting that she's tied up with. Is that correct?
Yeah, I mean, are, it will slack a little bit after September 1, but they do have a pretty heavy workload. I mean, part of the reason, so basically what the auditor said is, you know, there's kind of two modes. If it's going to be a town checking account, it comes under the auspices of the town has to be set up as a fund. And then we have to go through our normal payment procedures, you know, which is you submit a purchase rack. I sign off on it initially. They cut a check. It gets signed by myself and the superintendent, you know, which is what we do for everything. And there's no question it's a hassle.
What the auditor basically said is that the 170 fifth is kind of its own standalone organization, You can simply write them a check like you write any other entity a check as long as you know a board agrees to it and at that point it's it's just a payment that the town makes essentially through a vendor. And then what happens after that nobody really cares. You know, so it doesn't require that same level of accounting that it would. If it was a town entity, which is why she prefers or the auditor prefers to do it that way. Yeah.
The the downside, though, is that you're not gonna be able to use the town's tax ID codes for that. It's gonna have somebody's gonna have to put that under their own personal checking account with their Social Security number is my guess, or, you know, you guys will have to, you know, get a tax ID number as a formal organization, which is not particularly difficult. You just have to you can apply for it on the federal website, but I don't know what the implications are as an organization.
You know, is your You know what? I never I never went and asked now that I'm thinking of it and talking about it with you, I never actually asked donut box. Now, when it's something like this, when it's a it's an organization for events or whatever, what do you do? So, I can do that as well and and get back to him to any value over that.
But it sounds like this is really, as Eric has described, basically, that it's there isn't even really a need for an accounting. I mean, we would like to see an accounting, obviously, to know that our money was spent, but I think we'll see that just in the results. So I don't I'm not as concerned about that. Okay. Anybody else on the board? Comments? Questions? Somebody would like to make a motion to authorize the payment of $500 to the hundred seventy fifth anniversary committee? Oh, I will.
Sorry. It doesn't quite work like that. Oh, never mind. I'll make the motion.
Okay, so Louise is making the motion to authorize funding for the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary committee in the amount of $500 Anybody want to second that? Okay, Rob. Rob seconds. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Paula, thank you, Catherine. Thanks very much. Thank you all. I'll mute me now.
And so what's the timeframe when can Catherine come down and take care of that? Is she going to see Sherry? Is she going to see Eric? What's?
So the very first thing is submit a quick blurb from the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary commission, making the request and stating that the Board of Finance at their meeting on the twenty fifth authorized it. And then the next time we cut checks from the town, we'll cut a check. But what you'll need is you'll need, you should need. The question is who's, who's, who does it get cut to? Because if you already had a bank account set up, we would cut it directly to the bank account. But short of that, you're gonna have to ask the bank who the check gets made out to, so we can fund the initial deposit through that or else you're gonna have to put $50 or whatever into the account first and then go back to set up the account and then we know who we're writing the check to.
Okay, I'll do that I'll go and I'll just open up up my own money and it's no big deal, whatever it takes and then I'll tell them this is coming. Perfect. You say I need a form though, Eric, that I have to write to you I'm sorry I didn't get that. So you just have to, it's like with any authorization,
you're, you're essentially billing us for this. So you need something from the one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary, say requesting that the town pays them $500 to
start their account. That's needed it back up for the financial records. Got it. Yep. Okay.
All right. Thank you so much. Thank you guys. Thank you guys. Thank you. We'll do our best to support you there. Appreciate it.
So moving on to agenda item eight which is new business discuss and act upon the following which is the RAM multi use turf field. I think if you're a resident of Andover you probably saw the mailer they put out and they also hosted some informational sessions which I have not viewed yet personally because I've been super busy with work but I don't my sense of this, we had a little bit of a discussion at our last meeting and there were some ideas about you know possibly having some presentations done by some of the RAM folks directly to the people in the town of Andover, but thinking that that probably would make sense closer to the time of the actual vote which will be in November. So I don't know, there's some documentation in our packet.
Anybody and we only have four members here too out of seven so I'm a little hesitant to take major action on this but I do think it makes sense if anybody has any comments or questions or concerns.
Like you, I haven't had a chance to look at the presentations yet. Been pretty swamped too. I started out with admittedly, and I still have obviously, because I haven't looked at any of this stuff. I started out with a kind of a bias against it for reasons I think Kurt's expressed and others have expressed, you know, just the basic fact that our own budget is under such pressure. And this looks like a want, not a need. But I do think that I need to sit down at some point, schedule some time and actually look at their presentation, but. You know, there's a really good case for it somehow costing less over time to do this than to continue in what we have with what we have currently. I don't see how this makes sense.
Yeah I think you actually described my own personal view on it at this point pretty closely. I also generally have concerns about certain projects intended benefit a very small amount of the school population. And maybe I could be convinced otherwise, but you know, frankly, I'm somebody who was involved in high school and college sports. So I benefited from it, but I'm not sure that, you know, makes it a wise investment on the part of a community. But again, I'm going to try to keep an open mind on it, of read the information that I haven't read up to date. I
attended the Board of Selectmen meeting listening to the presentation and I thought it wasn't very prepared. And based on what I heard, it doesn't seem to be a cost savings. If anything, it's kind of going to be a wash except it would be an additional $3,000,000 to set it up. So unless they have other things they're going to be talking about, you know, changing that or explaining it in a better way. I don't feel it's a very good recommendation at all for the town, for any of the town. Just my feeling.
Louise, I was just going to add that I was able to listen to the board of selectmen meeting and then one of the presentations last week. Admittedly like Robert, really my first thought was it's just so much money and I had my biases too with it especially coming after all of the budget meetings, the tough budget meetings that every town has gone through. And then it's just popping up on the radar seemingly. But I have to be fair, like I'm gonna be on all issues. I mean, I'm a huge sports fan, like I said, but that's not what I'm talking about. I feel a little bit different than Louise. I feel like they made some valid points.
It doesn't mean that, you know, but I also like that our select men come to the meeting ready to go. That's what I like. I like you've got to, if you're gonna be on a board, and this is not, this is what I try to do. So I feel like Adrian and they were all able to ask a lot of questions. So again, as I put it on in the background in my busy work life right now too, I work in a school, so I listened to it and, you know, I learned a lot. So they definitely make some points, but this is where I stand. I understand something has to be done. There's drainage issues, which again, our board of selectmen asked a lot of questions to why are we not taking care of the drainage issues before you put in a field. So I learned a lot there. My personal feeling is it's like any of us that are doing budgeting, like, and if I was gonna buy a new house, I would want maybe a million dollar house. I can't afford that. So my reasonability is gonna come in to trying to give the students at ran and everybody that needs something. You know, do whatever's needed, but I don't agree with and I don't have it in front of me because it's been a busy day, maybe 3 and a half million Eric something like that. Think it's a 3 and a half million dollar project, thank you, versus our
board of selectmen brought up some alternatives where, and maybe Kurt had brought this up too, can't remember, you know, a redone grass field or something, and you know, all of the, everything being done dug out, get better drainage, all of those good building things that you have to do for maybe in the tone of 800,000. Again, lot, I think a lot has to be studied. I do understand that whole, like Robert or Mark had said, a small amount of people were gonna be up against, you know, a lot of signatures and a lot of people coming out to just vote, you know, people that are into the athletics and they do make some good points that it could be community use and all that kind of thing. But it's a big price tag when our budgets are, you know, it's just where you wanna spend your money. Yeah, it would be a nice thing for the town and for RAM, but again, we all can't have million dollar houses, so we gotta do the best we can with the budgets we have. That's my feeling after listening to two, you know, the presentations.
Good. Sounds like the board of selectmen meetings worth reviewing that. I learned a lot. Okay. Yeah.
And I was thankful for a lot of the questions that Adrian brought up because they kind of changed the format where the public speak was gonna be. It was before the presentation. I would figure it would have been better to have it the normal way so people could question it, but quite frankly, Adrian brought up all the questions that I would have brought up and all the concerns as well.
I found it kind of amusing that they were showing some pictures of a tiny little bit of water on the edge of one of their fields and claiming, and I thought maybe we should send them some pictures of our entire athletic field three feet underwater and talk about, you know, these are waterfalls. This
is what a real drainage issue looks like. This is what, you know, storm water looks like when it rains. And refer them to their own public works department rather the Hebron people who help with our fields. I Yeah. I don't know. Look, this is this is sort of a dumb layperson perspective but I drive by Ram all the time. And drop pick it up, drop it off my kids at gymnastics down in Hebron and it's like those fields look great from the road at least I understand that that's a I'm just driving by I'm just seeing them out in the corner of my eye but you gotta be kidding me. You know and we have this ongoing issue and we did, I admit when we put in our fields and we had to track around it and we had, we realized we had design flaw, we did have to change course. So I'm not unpersuaded, it's a high bar for 3 and a half million bucks. And we're not talking about hiring a math teacher here. Again, my own personal bias, it's not academics. I'm not trying to disrespect that sports are an important part
of things, but the core mission is the academic side. And we're not even talking about that, we're talking about a field you know, and I don't even think they're in that bad shape. So I will look at the stuff at some point when I have a chance,
but it's gonna have to clear a real high bar for me. Please don't take that as a knock when I said that, I just wanted to speak to it because I feel the same way. And then when you go to the informational meetings, they have all, and I know I'm on speaker about whatever, they're gonna hear this if they wanted to, but there's all the coaches and every time that I go to a meeting of Ram, I like both sides. Like I just said to you guys, they made a good point. I mean, everybody wants that. You want that for your kids, for your athletes, but I feel like Ram meetings, there's never any, you know, it's all one way. So the one that I listened to, I believe was on the nineteenth, that was the second one, maybe a Thursday night, I think that was the date, and they had all the coaches there, they had everybody, you would think that the students were like in poverty and it just makes me cringe. You know, I do work in a different district where maybe I do see a little of that. Listen, I'm thankful that my children went through this whole system. They're all doing great and I'm sure yours will too but
again, a definite want instead of a need. Like how you said that. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And it's about priorities and so what we do all the time on this board is trying to juggle that. Right. We have finite resources. So you know I've the last time I went and actually personally attended some RIM board of ed budget meetings it was years and years ago, Adri and I went together and it was certainly an experience where we appeared to be the only people raising any objections whatsoever and it was very weird. It was deeply weird. It was a very different experience than going to any meeting for Andover.
And they've had money there too. Like again, this year in the budget season, they had extra money that if they wanted to put some of it aside for anything, you know, those kinds of fields too are gonna require equipment. I haven't studied the budget yet, but it's gonna need different kinds of equipment too, as I've been told by household members here to keep up with and different things. It's gonna be, I don't know if it's just 3 and a half million. Yeah,
there aren't a lot of large projects that end up on budget or under budget. Down payment, is that what you said Eric? Pave it. Pavin toughen the kids up David.
Well my feeling generally is that we should consider this at the next board meeting and get the input from the other board members that aren't here, hopefully, we'll have a time to kind of review this a little more a little more detail. And then you know, there may be things we choose to do, such as were discussed at the last meeting, you know we have maybe request some additional information we. Can ask them to you know come and present I know they you know they kind of did already, but I think for 3 and a half million dollars they can spend some time trying to sell this. And they really think the values there, they need to make that case, and if they can't make the case, then I think you know the as the board, it probably be who's just to make you know come, you know. Have a resolution or some common ground make a statement that we agree upon if if we can agree upon such a statement. That if if we do, I think, have a cohesive opinion on this that might make such statement and and or even potentially publish a letter to the town of Andover is you know, making our position known again assuming that we come to some position reasonably as a board, you know I don't want it to be a four to three vote and we put some quick you know. Way lopsided thing that three to four board members don't agree with, but you know I think there's a good chance will come to something and if we don't then then fine I think the fact that we. We run it through the mill as it were and ask the right questions and make sure as a town we do
our best to do our due diligence and make the information available to the residents and ask the right questions. It's probably about as much as we can do. Hey, Mark.
I'd like to piggyback on that. Sorry. Oh, go ahead, Louie. Sorry.
I just have a question about as far as it going to referendum, is it the same way that we did it with the town budget? We have a hearing and the people that are at the hearing determine
whether or vote determine whether it goes to referendum to the three towns? No, think that's a special procedure for the budget in particular for the charter. This is just going to go on the ballot as I understand it. It's a one shot deal, I think. And what I wanted to piggyback on before what Mark was saying, regardless of
us taking a strong position as a board one way or the other, which I actually don't think it's going to be too hard for us to have a meeting of the minds on this. But if even if we don't raising awareness of the vote itself needs to be done. Absolutely. This is an off cycle kind of thing and you're gonna get without a concerted effort you're gonna get turnout that is probably going to horrify everyone on this meeting. You know, a situation where a couple 100 voters decide the whole thing across multiple towns.
Remember too, that this is municipal, that's municipal elections for most towns. So they're going to get the town of end up struggle to get any kind of reasonable voter turnout.
The other two towns will not because it will be done with their standard municipal elections, right? Not that those are the highest turnout things ever but it's definitely a boost compared to us. And we already have the situation in the past the dynamic has always been that if Hebron wanted something the only way it could stop is if Marlborough and Andover mobilize And if we don't, it gets passed. So that's my main concern from just a PR perspective. People need to be aware it's coming and they need to show up and vote how they vote, whatever but a lot of people I think it's not gonna be on their radar unless we put it there. Right, thank you. You're exactly right.
Good point, yep. Because they're gonna mobilize their unit. Everyone that was at that nineteenth meeting, they're already mobilizing and hitting their towns and their lacrosse and their all of their athletes. It's pretty scary to me, you know,
with the I haven't seen any emails yet but you know, well, back when I had a kid in the Little League that I think was run largely out of here, Brent. We used to get, you know, Emails saying, you know, support the budget, this and that, you know, very overtly political kind of stuff. And they were completely open about. So I would not be at all surprised if all those email lists get hit with, hey, come out, vote support our field. So, you know. Absolutely. When you have a low turnout situation, we either counter that or we get steamrolled.
Like when it's out there and then all the letters to the editor and everything, you know, just gotta try. So yeah,
well you know we keep it clean but we got to get people to pay attention if we can.
Okay, well we can continue discussing if there's anything else or we I think could also move on and I think we should take it up next month, hopefully when more of our members are available and get a broader consensus. And again, hopefully we'll spend some more time having analyzed the proposal. Anybody have anything else on this topic they want to talk about today? I'm all set.
Okay, hearing no more. Let's go on to agenda item nine, which is the approval of the meeting minutes from Wednesday, July 28, meeting minutes. I don't know if anybody wants to make a motion to approve those. I'll make a motion to approve them. Okay, Louise, motions to approve. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Joanne second, thank you. Any discussion? Okay, I'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Hearing none, the motion passes. We'll move on to agenda item 10, which is our liaison reports. I don't know if we have any. Rob, anything from CIPC?
CIPL last meeting was canceled. So and the prior one I missed, so apologies, but I got nothing for you. Okay. No worries.
Thank you. Diane took a good as a senior center, but we've already had a pretty good discussion of that right now. I think that's all we have open right now. Go ahead, Eric. As far as CIP, CIP at the meeting before last, Correct.
The ignore that, ignore what I was about to say. The next big thing that CIP is going to deal with is public works with support from myself is going to recommend that we consider purchasing a small excavator for public works with the public works capital fund. There's, there's easily enough money in the fund to purchase it at this point. We've been kind of discussing that and, and part of what's changed our minds a little bit on that is just the amount of drainage work we have to do town wide And thinking that, know, we really started looking at what it's what we've been spending when we rent machines, you know, and we're really looking at three to four months of rent in a year. And by the time we do that, you know, if we, basically purchased it and paid it off over a three year period or purchased it outright, we basically paid the cost of the machine in about three years of rental anyway. So it just doesn't make sense to continue renting. So, that will go through CIP and then it will probably end up coming to board of finance for review, we're still putting together all the documentation, you know, and making sure we have multiple, you know, manufacturers. And we know what our cost basis is for everybody. Just to let you know that that will be coming down the pike and you will see that at some point in the next couple of months.
Okay, good. Thanks, Eric. Okay, let's move on to agenda item 11 which is board open discussion. There anything else that one of any of the members would like to bring before the board. One
thing, Mark, it's just really quickly that I was thinking about from the audit discussion. I can't remember if we talked about it before. The fact that our fund balance is a little higher than I thought we were gonna hit on expended fund balance up to 13%. And so just kind of going forward what we want to do about that if anything, you know, this is one of those things where I'm always pulled in two directions where on the one hand I understand that the targets 10% and this and that. And we were up in the 20s and it was putting a target on us. Now at 13, I kind of struggle to imagine that put some big target on us. And I'd personally like to keep a higher fund balance, higher reserve. So the question is whether we want to target, continue to target 10% and then therefore spend it down some more or try to hold the line where we are. It's just something to kind of think about going into the next budget cycle. I mean, we have a month now to just kind of ponder that and where we're going to be at. You know, what our capital needs are. But you know, that's that's that was a little bit of found money, I think.
Not really because remember that audit was for not this year that just closed. Was my fault. The year before. Well my We already took a really big chunk out of that last year and then probably every dime this year. So, I would suspect if you looked at where we are currently, know, we're back to pretty much straight out 10% right now. All right my fault complete misconception take it all back okay too bad so sad. Would love to find an extra 150,000
just lying around. That would be wonderful but okay my fault I apologize. No no worries.
Too bad I know I had my moment of optimism and look at you just crushed it like pulling jacket
out out of the closet finding a $20 bill in there And Eric's just like, nope.
Sorry, I didn't mean to rain on your parade, but I figured I'd That's what we pay you for buddy. That's right.
Reality is what you have to deal with. Finger and blitz and I guess it's gonna come back and bite you. Yeah. All right. Anything else before the board? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to agenda item 12, which is public speak. Do we have anybody who wants to add anything to public speak? We've lost most of our public audience at least the live audience. Okay, next agenda item is adjournment when anybody like to make a motion to adjourn. I'll make the motion to adjourn.
Louise makes the motion to adjourn. Second? I'll second. All right, thanks Rob. Rob seconds. Any discussion? Descension in the ranks? Okay. Take a vote all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much everybody and enjoy what's left of your summer. Stay cool.