Meeting transcript
Budget Public Hearing and Special Meeting Budget Workshop
April 26, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Okay, thank you everybody. I'd like to welcome you to the Town of Andover public hearing for the budget for the fiscal year twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four. For those of you who have been following, we've spent a lot of time putting this budget draft together. The Board of Selectmen, the various departments, the school personnel, and of course here at the Board of Finance. This is on top of the regular meetings and budget workshops. This is an opportunity for anybody to provide any input that you'd like on the draft budget. This is not the final budget yet that will be presented to the town, although our expectation is that following this hearing we will have a regular Board of Finance meeting at which we will finalize a budget to be presented to the town meeting on May 2, which is coming up pretty quick. That's Tuesday. So hopefully you'll all attend there. So we'll call this meeting to order. To begin with and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So in order to start, thought it might be helpful for me to cover a few of the key changes to this year's budget. I'm not going to spend a lot of time going line by line, but I thought it would help to
kind of cover the things that are changing significantly from last year, and again I'm not going to spend a lot of time, I'm going to go through it pretty quick, but if you do have questions afterwards then you know we'll entertain public comment. Looks like I can share now, Eric. I hope so.
Alright, very good. You should be seeing the budget spreadsheet now. So what I'm going to focus on are the things that have changed significantly from last year, either structurally or in terms of the dollars figures. I'm not going to spend any time or anything, for example, less than $10,000 just because we'd be through a lot of items here, and there are some things that moved such as the benefits moved from one area of the budget to another, so that kind of creates some differences that you might not otherwise want to bother with. It really doesn't change the overall picture. So the first thing are the education budgets. This is where we had some big changes. Of course, this is a big part of our annual budget. We are fortunate this year in that Andover's percentage of students in the RAM district have declined, has declined due to just the percentage of students. Therefore, our levy from the RAM district declined, so we are going to be about $533,000
less compared to last year. So this is one of these things that we're happy to take this change because it won't always be the case that there will be years in the future when our percentage of students at the district will be higher, so that's good news for us this year, gives us a little more flexibility in our budget. The next line is the Andover Education System budget. This is the district budget for the Andover Elementary School, sorry. The total change there is about 182,000. This is about a 4% requested increase from the Board of Ed, okay, and they obviously held their own workshops and meetings separately, okay. We've got about a 14,000 look almost $15,000 reduction in the treasurer clerk wages. This is just really a restructuring a little bit of the way the job was done,
So I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that. And some of these items are total so you really don't need to, you know, they're just totals for the department. If you see me blowing by some big numbers, that's just a total for the department. Okay and a lot of them have to do with the benefits so they really are not again benefits just moved to a different location so nothing really talk about. One big item that is different this year is the Board of Selectmen and followed by the Board of Finance both heard fairly compelling arguments that the town should employ a part time town planner. There are a lot of good reasons for this. I'm not going to get into them now, but we decided that the Board of Selectmen's recommendation to fund this position at $36,000 per year. It's a position we did not have last year. We thought that that was well worth it, so I would encourage you to go back and review the meetings. That were all recorded where the rationale was given for that. We think that this will pay for itself in intangible and tangible benefits to the town, so that's why we've included it here. Scrolling down a little further, hopefully I'm not giving you vertigo, we've got about a $14,000
reduction in the transfer station cost because we're not going to do a brush pile removal this year. Tend to alternate years for that so that's going to be off this year on again next year. Okay, resident state trooper. Okay, this is a big line item for us. It's a fairly significant cost, but the town has repeatedly voted to keep that state trooper in the budget. So it's a big big item, but the fortunate thing is that we estimate that next year the budget from the state for the resident trooper is going to be about $30,000 less than we had budgeted for this year, So that's a good thing for us. It's nothing we control. They assign who they assign, and, the costs are kind of given to us after the fact,
but we are pretty confident that that's a safe number, so we'll take that out of the budget this year. Okay, so now we're going down to some of our capital funds. This again is fairly significant line items for our budget, but they are things that we need to fund. So the first line item here that I'd highlight is a fire engine fund, tanker fund, so this is an additional $45,000 and it says fire engine fund tanker, but strictly designated really for the vehicle. There's a new vehicle that the fire department is going to need to replace their existing equipment. They've got two aging pieces of equipment that are well beyond their current life. We've got to look at replacing them, and the plan is to replace them with one single piece of equipment. But it's about $1,000,000 expense. We need to start putting money away for it now, and I'll talk more about it at the budget hearing and what the intent is in terms of going forward with the vehicle purchase there. We've also got about a 25,000 in increase to to the equipment fund their public works fund some of the HVAC upgrades and other things we need about $80,000 into the road improvement fund and about $160,000 less on the Bunker Hill Bridge Fund, and we're basically out of the woods on that one and Eric can talk more at some point if somebody has specific questions on that.
The building maintenance fund this is one of the funds that we use for general building maintenance etc, so we've got to take care of some museum renovations, We've also are trying to want to fund bleacher replacements for the Andover Elementary School. So just because the question may come up, why are we funding that here? The answer is that those bleachers get used As much for Community activities and town activities as they do for the school, so we just felt that that was appropriate the school was utilized or the town and Community events, the rec Commission etc were utilizing those bleachers on a pretty regular basis and just felt that it made sense to include that here so
that's why we have that increase. Okay, so that's those are the specific line items just to go to the summary so I'm going to start actually with the summary of the entities so just to summarize Andover elementary school is looking for about a 4.5%. Increase it depends on you know how you round that the ram we're looking at about a 10% decrease the town budget separately is looking at about a 2.9% increase. We are not using any of our fund balance. This is kind of the contingency fund, if you will, that we have as a backup for our financial needs. We have used that pretty aggressively over the last several years, but as we've been warning in many, you know, multiple repeated budget meetings, this is not something that we could continue. We need to have that fund intact for unexpected emergencies, and it truly needs to be an emergency type situation. Okay, the total by taxation to be raised with this after the revenue sources is about a point 8% increase, so there's a slight increase in the taxation this year. What does that mean in the mill rate when you do the mill rate calculation basically the mill rate is actually going down about 1.22%
so if we have an increase in taxes why is the mill rate going down well it's simple the property taxes, the property values have gone up, so you apply the mill rate times the property values which have been increased to get the cover the amount of taxation required to cover this budget. So that's kind of the the overall picture. I'm going to stop sharing now and I will open the floor to public comment or input. Just as a reminder, we are would like you to keep your comments fairly direct and to the point. Try not to repeat something if somebody else has said it, but if you have something to add by all means try to keep your comments fairly short and we don't really intend for this to be a question and answer session so much, but of course if we can clarify anything we will do our best to do that without extending it. This is your opportunity to speak, so Eric would you like to go around and offer opportunity
to everyone on the call in order?
Certainly, so I'm gonna go by my order. So first up on my list is Elaine Bucard.
Hi, I just want to express my thanks that you guys definitely kept the part time town planner in because being chairman of EDC and having no planner in town, there's not much we can do. We're excited that you put it in there and I was reading through all the minutes, the past minutes, and I know the proposal was for 28,000. I pleasantly see 66, 36,000 there, because that would be more than ten to twenty hours a week that we were talking about that we needed. And I'm also pleased to see that we are going to at least be able to have one large welcome to Andrew Oversign funded this year. So we can go ahead and do that. Next year we'll be looking for a couple of smaller border signs at the Coventry and the Columbia border on Route 6. But, you know, I'll take I'll take what I can get. But, thank you very much for all your work and and listening to us. Thank you, Elaine. Okay next up on my screen is Anne Kerme.
Just here listening thank you very much. Okay after that is Catherine Magalbi Lewis. You're on mute Catherine. You're on mute, Catherine.
Okay, let's try this again. Can you hear me? Yep. I was late coming into this, so I missed the whole beginning. Will there be time afterwards for questions or anything?
Well, if you have questions you could ask them now. This is really just an opportunity to do that, but I missed the whole beginning so I don't know what was said. I just kind of went through the major changes in the budget line items. I didn't really go through the budget line by line. It was just to cover the key things, anything that used the guideline at $10,000 up or down. We kind of went through that.
Go ahead, I'll just listen. Thank you. Okay, thanks. Okay, next up is Diane Grenier.
That would be me. Thank you very much for all your hard work for the whole committee. I can see that you worked very hard, and I appreciate it. It looks like something I may be able to afford to be able to stay here in town. So, you. Also, thank you very much for having a Zoom meeting. That I would hope more people would have attended, such as the way it is. But just my own personal pet peeve, I'd like to just throw it out there, is when we have committee meetings like this that are Zoom, I would really think that it's appropriate that the committee members turn on their video so that we can see the faces, who you are and what your reactions are. There's nothing like eyeball to eyeball to find out. See who's rolling their eyes who's pulling their hair out and, you know, that whole interaction is is missed when we don't have a real meeting. And I think it's appropriate and I would like to see that in the future for any meeting. It should be board members or participants should have their video on if they can, you know. That's it. Thank you. K. Thank you, Diane. K. Thank you, Robert. Okay. Next up on my screen, Jed Larson.
Well, hello, and again, thanks to the Board of Finance for all the hard work putting together the budget. And I just want to voice my appreciation for the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance in support of the town planner. I think that, as we discussed earlier, something very important to the future of the town, and I'm really pleased to see that we got that in the budget this year. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next up, Julia's iPhone. Julia Havel.
Thank you also for all your hard work and putting this budget together. It looks very good and great that we won't have a big increase like all the towns around us this year. I know that approval was given to transfer money for the construction of the community center, but I didn't see that reflected in the budget. Where is that money?
So for the for the community center, the primary funding source fortunately is going to be use of the federal funds, the ARPA funds. We also moved in having a moment I can't remember exactly now. We also funded, I think in the just the general building fund or some money for furnishings and appliances, etc. In there. So the large for the for the most part, the fund the funding to actually build the building for the community center is out to kind of outside of the budget. It's going to be directly used to the ARPA funds that are already going to be in the funding in the fund balances that we have in the town finances right now. Eric, did I state that clearly, I think? That is correct. Yeah. Trying to remember exactly where we put the money for the the additional material but I think it was in the building main fund for the.
That is that is money that is already been set aside in previous years.
Oh, right. Yeah, and we just allocated it right. Yeah, so that money that money is actually in this not in this year's budget. Already had it in in the funds.
Right. It's in the mixed use building fund, right? Correct. Yeah, it's just sitting there. We kind of just hand marked it, but we didn't. I don't think we actually moved it. Right.
Yeah, didn't move it. We actually have a zero contribution to the Multi Use Building Fund this year because we have it all covered already. Okay, right. Thanks for the reminder. It's been a week.
Okay, thank you very much. That's where it is then. Yeah. And how much was there in the fund that's been allocated years ago? Is it there was originally 500 in that thousand.
We're below that now. I think we had 825 left. Was that about So
there's currently sitting in the fund about $450,000. However, by the tenth, the town has already earmarked at a public hearing about $750,000 for the senior transportation garage. So if you take that off the list, the remaining roughly $320,000 is what's spendable in that account, of which probably half, maybe a little less than half, the Board of Finance has indicated you're willing to spend on furnishing the community center.
Right, so we'll still have a balance in there for needs that we haven't foreseen yet. Okay, thank you. Thanks Eric. Okay, next up on my list, Paula King. I'm all set. No comment. Thank you. Okay. Next up on the list, Smith T.
Hi. I'm just here to support the Board of Education's, budget for next year. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. Next up on the list, superintendent Bruno. I'm all set, Eric. Thank you.
Okay. Now it's possible I missed somebody. If I did, please speak up now because you keep jumping around in my order, so it's hard to keep track. Think Jerry Cremay joined.
No, I was just gonna say Jerry Cremay as well.
Okay, sorry about that. Jerry, you're next. That's okay. I'm easy to miss.
Thank you to the Board of Finance for your work and all the hours and effort you put into the budget. And I'm just here to listen and pay attention. Diane, the picture is for you. I'm not crazy about the way I look in the film, but I turned it on for you, Diane. So thanks to all of you for all your work.
Thank you, Jerry. Okay, I guess we've gone around. Everyone's had an opportunity to speak. I'm going to give one last opportunity for the public hearing portion of this meeting. If anybody has any further questions after the comments we've heard, now would be your opportunity to ask them or provide more input. Otherwise, we will adjourn and we'll move on to the regular Board of Finance meeting. I do have a question.
When you've gone ahead and and got the budget itself all figured out for what you're going to present on May 2, will that be posted up on the town website for us to grab? And where will it be posted?
Yeah, typically we provide a section on the website specifically pointing to all the budget documents and Eric, would presume that we would do the same again this year.
Yes, I think if you looked on the website right now you would be able to find the budget.
Elaine, it's under the whole. There's a topic that says budget under government, I believe, and I think they just recently within the last week put this this budget that we're discussing on there. I don't think it was up there before that.
Okay, that link didn't take me directly to it, but maybe for the Board of Finance.
If you just type in the little search bar budget and hit go, you'll find it.
Along with a lot of other stuff. Yeah. So the fiscal year 2020 yeah. Okay. So I think you have twenty twenty, twenty twenty four budget. There is a page for it. Probably ought to put a link on the front page for that, Eric, if possible. Yeah, that would be helpful because that's kind of what I was doing.
I was putting in budget and that just brings up a whole bunch of stuff. Then I said, okay, 2324 budget, and that brought up some minutes and stuff like that and I'm like, I just want to see the budget.
What it's worth, I just popped a link in the chat. Should be able to if you're on the, you have the ability to do that, you can probably click on there and take you to that page. Thank you, Mark. Welcome. Okay, other questions or input?
So Mark, I'll say this while it's in the public portion. I sent you the updated budget information from Council of Small Towns. The Appropriation Commission did make a few changes that are relevant to the town of Andover, but I also caution you all that that's not really set in stone. That's just what came out of the appropriation commission. But if that holds, that should net the town roughly an additional $60,000 in income for ECS, which would be nice.
Yeah, that would be great. So yeah, will be a topic of discussion at our regular meeting and we decide whether we're confident enough to add that into the budget to be presented to the town next week or not. Okay, if we have no further comment or input or questions, I look for the Board of Finance members to make a motion to adjourn. Public hearing. Make a motion. So move.
Okay. Louise, you move. Ravi, you're seconding? Sure, I'll second. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, hearing none, we will adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much. Board of Finance members do you want five before we start a regular meeting or are we okay to go roll right in? I'm good. I'm okay.
Okay, alright let's go ahead and we will call to order the regular meeting for the Board of Finance, so I will call to order. It is 07:26 on Wednesday, April 26, so we'll recite the Pledge of Allegiance again. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic United The Of States Of Of Of America America and the All right, thank you. It's kind So of a little bit of sense of deja vu. Our first agenda item is public speak. Do we have any comment from the public? Just go right on and speak out. Only looks like we have a few folks left. Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to agenda item number three, which is additions, deletions or changes to the agenda. Does anybody have any proposed additions, deletions or changes?
I have a question mark. I know we weren't sent a packet, but I guess I can call up the agenda in front of me. Are we going to have a discussion? I'm thinking of possibly deleting the purchasing policy discussion this evening. I don't know if everyone's ready for that. I don't Is have
the draft policy on financial reports? Yeah so that's agenda item. What I got here. My apologies.
No sorry I can just share real quick so that's agenda item. For see I mean we can we can delete it or just not take action out of Either one works.
Yeah, what I unless I guess maybe we should. I agree now I understand I, you know, I'm not ready to take action. You know, I saw it on there. We didn't get a packet this time because I knew this was mostly a budget focused meeting. So depending what everyone else I I guess we can leave it on there and decide not to take action. You know, It's probably easier. Gives us more time Yeah, exactly. Thank you. That was my
Okay. Any other comments on additions or deletions? Yes, Linda?
Hi. I noticed, I don't know, for the last couple of meetings, and it's not on this one either, we haven't approved any of our minutes for I don't know when was the last time, so maybe we should put it on our next meeting.
Yeah, I think we were gonna just, yeah, maybe do it. Okay, good point. All right.
We had an issue when we were the minutes for some reason we pulled it off of there and I guess we just never put it back on.
Yeah, there was there was something to do with the minutes. Maybe they weren't correct. Think the correct minutes I think weren't attached or the date was that was that we didn't have them. But that's a good point Linda. Thanks for bringing that up. Will need to take care of that. May's meeting that will be something we'll have to make sure we get on there. Any other additions or deletions or changes discussion? Okay, let's move on to agenda item 4A, which is old business. So we have 4A a motion to approve a budget for the May 2 townwide budget meeting. So I don't know if everyone had a chance to read the email that Eric sent out earlier.
This is from what it costs is the committee of small towns Eric, is that what it is? Correct. Yeah, so the upshot is that it looks like the legislature is going to fund the educational cost sharing that will link you know at a level that will increase our revenue by about $60,000 in Eric's summary here. Then you also had a comment here about two culverts were submitting to the local bridge funding program, but that really doesn't change our budget for today, correct?
Correct, all that does make it more likely that we could actually do the work and will actually be accepted.
Sorry Yeah. Mark, just to understand what you're saying, you're talking about the culverts can't change our budget, right? That part?
So we're putting, if you remember in the capital funds, we're putting away money in the, you know, bridge and culvert fund. Sure. But that is contingent on us getting accepted into the state local bridge program, which has been underfunded for a while. So, a lot of the applications for that don't get accepted. So, this budget funds doubles the funding for that, making it more likely that one of our bridges will actually be accepted into the program and we can do it.
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure, like Mark was going down the list, Mark, you're not saying that we can't consider the educational, the ECS money, correct? The 60,000 you're talking We can absolutely add it in. Yeah. Yeah,
no, I don't think. Yeah, because I definitely, I know.
Yeah, it's just the other the other things are just more about capital expenditure funding that you know is there, and I think it's true the low SIP grant too and the other trip grant stuff, any of that that comes in Eric would really just fund capital projects, right, that we're already targeting. So we're having that funding would not necessarily change our budget for this year. Right.
Except for the educational cost share. Exactly. As you know, I responded to that earlier. Fair enough. Don't want to interrupt you though. When you're done with your, then I was just gonna make my cause for adding it in.
Yeah, I mean, that's really the only thing that I just wanted to make sure everyone had seen that. Yeah. Go ahead, Joanne. Do you want to go ahead and comment on Yeah, I was
happy to see that in doing a little research today and then talking to people that I know. I feel pretty confident, you know, because they're even talking about the two years of adding, I think Eric had said, or whatever, the 60,000 back in that we had deducted because we weren't sure, which, you know, would be great for the town this year, you know, for a lot of reasons. It's just going to raise our revenue. It'll lower the mill rate a little bit. We are looking to have a lot of things, you know, coming our way in the future, so we also raised a couple of the funds a little bit this year and we're not using contingency money. So those are kind of the things I'm factoring my thoughts on with going ahead. If anyone thinks this is a gamble, I don't feel like it's too big of a stretch with the information that I was able to read and the information that's out there,
but we do have those two fall back ons with not using any contingency or possibly being able to transfer money if there's a couple things that aren't adding up at the end or shortcomings. So that's my thoughts. I'd love to do whatever I need to do to make a motion to add it back in and then see where our budget is after that. Oh, feel free to make that motion.
I'd like to make a motion to add $60,000 back in that line there, which is the that you're highlighting with the ECS funds to bring our funding level is the word with what it was last year. My screen smaller, so it's hard for me to see exactly what the next Yeah,
so the current dollar value, yeah, if you don't have it in front of you, I know it's kind of small, it's easy, it's hard to see, but the current funding is $1,941,647 so Joanne is proposing adding 60,000 to that figure. That would take it to just about $2,000,000 a little over $2,000,000
Mark, I think you could safely just set it to the value in the twenty twenty two-twenty three budget, because that's what they mean when they say level funding. Okay. We retain that funding which is an extra 3,000 basis. Correct yeah that would make sense.
Then I guess Joanne if I could restate your motion, you're making a motion to revise the educational cost sharing fund revenue line to the amount in the twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three budget, which is $2,004,782 Yes. Correct.
Anybody like to second that motion? Linda, are you seconding? Okay, you're still on mute, but okay, do we have any discussion?
I just need a, oh go ahead, you go ahead Rob. Go ahead, Rob. So
just to to be clear, this is not a done deal at the state level. We are with every the signs are pointing in this direction, but it hasn't actually been done yet, right? Correct. That gives me purpose. Until the governor signs the signs the budget. I I don't I don't love plugging in revenue that we're not sure of.
That's my take. And I I was just gonna add, Rob, that I would never make a motion without this without doing a lot of research on it after Eric sent his, you know, information to us because it was all positive. Why I would not want to, why I don't want to not put this in, because we are talking 60,000, is, you know, I realize that normally I would never do that. But with them coming out with a press release and stating this already, knowing that ESSER funds are going away from school systems next year and everybody's already scrambling in their school systems because maybe not Andover because it's tiny, but in the school system that I work in, they fund a lot of things with Esser. There is a slight, panic for all the things they brought in with the funds that are going to go away or have to ask the towns for. So again, I'm no expert, but I don't see the state taking more away now and then taking those other funds away. Again, I'm no expert. I just feel confident. I feel like that because we didn't use any contingency and we didn't, we really funded some of those funds very high that we would have the money to cover some shortfalls. Again, I'm putting it out there. I'm on the board for a reason. I do my research. I take the time. I go to meetings. Set, you know, I don't just say things without saying them, so I understand if you're, you know, if I can't convince you all to, you know, vote this in, but
I'm here for a reason and I want to try.
So just to just to kind of clarify the status of this, so this this budget has been approved by the Appropriations and Finance Committee, so typically when it gets through that committee I think it's a fairly safe bet. You know, just given the makeup of the legislature and kind of what's happened in the past, I kind of doubt that that would that's likely to change by the legislature as a whole. It's possible, but you know that would be kind of my take on it. I'm in favor of it, so it's always a risk, right, until you get the final thing, but we've taken similar risks in reducing things like the state trooper budget allocation, etc. So you know it's it's I think we have to do our best guess with a reasonable level of margin for safety and then you know go from there. That's my position I think.
And also this is a year I feel that there's so much inflation. Know, I think we did a really nice budget. I think we're very reasonable. People are happy that we're bringing in different pieces and it just happened on a year that the RAM levy was down. So there was, you know, there was some room there. Yeah. So I don't I don't think it's too big of a risk either, but, I'll stand back now. I definitely hope that we can add it back in because I don't want the taxpayers to bear this money if we're going to get it from the state, really.
Well, we're kind of going to the excess, you know, so we'd have it for next year. If it, if we ended up with some surplus this year, would mean we would have maybe a little bit of margin for next year. So I don't think it would be totally going to waste, but.
No, but I know we have a lot of big things that are gonna come that might raise it in years to come. So I'm always forward thinking too. So if we can do anything to keep things, you know, I've, you know, like, well, I can't talk about, we're talking about this issue. But yeah, I just would like to, I feel like everything that you said, the two of us combined, I don't think we'll be disappointed. I think this is a safe risk. Is a risk I'm willing to put out there to hopefully save the taxpayers this year in this budget.
Other comments or questions? Okay, hearing none, guess we'll call for a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, motion passes. We'll leave it at twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three funding at $2,004,782 Okay, do we have any other further motions or questions or discussion over the budget as it is currently? I do have another topic I'd like to ask. How
confident, I mean, I know we've been away, how confident are we, And I know we've done a good job. We've made decisions on different line items. I know Eric is coming back. Are we confident that the information that's on here is correct? I know the decisions we made. I think I'm more interested in the salary lines. So I will bring up the question. For instance, I was looking at the public work salaries today, and there's just one big block of the number, which is understandable, which connects to another spreadsheet. So for instance, I realized that the public work supervisor is receiving a 4% raise this time. On our spreadsheet somewhere, it includes him having a 4% on the little tab. It referenced 5%, which was the original starting point that was brought forward to the Board of Selectmen. So I just wanna make sure we're accurate with those little, you know, if we're sending this board, if this particular budget spreadsheet through tonight, just wanna make sure that all the little cleanup is done and we're confident in those things. I don't know if that's a you question mark because I know you've been changing it and Eric has too. I haven't changed any of that of those. Oh, okay.
So the only thing I I I changed to update to clarify was the I think the town clerk salary, okay?
So just like those little things that we saw, you know, that they feed into the MRF payment and just a little, I don't know if that's something that can be cleaned up later or we have to just make sure everything's, you know, set if we're moving it forward tonight.
Yeah, it's, I guess the question that what I would ask is you know we I think we've gone through it pretty closely so I would hate to hold it up for something that might be a thousand dollar differential one way or the other you know.
It's a good question to ask but yeah just the little tweaks that I saw here and there so I just want to make sure we're as close to you know and I didn't hear Eric if he feels like it's you know all there too so. Thank you.
I spent a bunch of time today reviewing the budget. I mean, to be honest, when I look at it objectively, the only thing that I'm still a little unsure we've got right, and I think we can absorb it other ways, if we have to is I had hoped the Board of Finance would have a discussion with, you know, the town treasurer, you know, about what the expectations were going forward for her and what kind of salary that or what we would need to put aside for that. My suspicion is $15,000 is somewhat low. She and I have had some conversations about that, but I honestly don't know what a reasonable and it there's some things that could change that pretty dramatically based on, you know, kind of what the expectations are. So, of all the things in the budget, that's the only thing that I really have significant concerns with. But I think it's a small enough dollar variation that we could absorb it if we had to out of contingency.
Eric, I appreciate you bringing that up. I've talked to Cheryl a couple of times, you know, when there was interviews going on with the finance committee and different little things. She did, you know, and it's never been brought up in one of our meetings, but I'm happy to share because we had other conversations. And probably she thought the salary was slightly low for that. I know we have, like you said, the $15,000 set aside. But I think, like you said, it's going to have to be a conversation of what, you know, the board is select. I don't know who's the governing body that will decide exactly how many hours they want. Cheryl came in and did a great job with, it seems, with getting everything together. And she has answers, and the finance department is running now. But at least it's I feel like she told me the once a week thing. There'd be like a once a week, they come in the office, and, you know, they're the one that's reconciling things. So that is a good conversation to have. And I did speak to her about that,
but it seems like it's close enough to this budget. Again, don't want to share too much, and I didn't act in any kind of capacity, we just were talking about other things.
That's fine, yeah, it's helpful. Yeah. Okay, yeah, that's good input, thanks Eric. As long as you have some level of confidence that we could absorb it through transfers and tightening up elsewhere if needed, I'm
okay with it. I think it is a little light potentially, but At least it's on the record and it's out there that, yeah.
Other questions considerations or motions from the board. Anybody like to make a motion that this is the budget we adopt to present for the town meeting on Tuesday?
Can we calculate what the totals are going to be? Will we be able to see that or?
Right here, so you mean the mill rate and the taxation rate? Okay, so you did add in no, that's all I added in 60,000 in for the educational cost That was the only change we've made so far, so that takes the total expenditures to 12,480,713. We have an estimated revenue that went up slightly at 2,490,532, no fund balance, standard amount for exemptions and abatements leaving a total of 9,955,181 to be raised by taxes based on the current grand list that takes us to about a mill rate of 31.33, which is a reduction of 1.84%.
Thank you, Mark. I just couldn't see it on the screen. Once
you scrolled up, I saw everything. Fortunately, I have it right in front of me.
Yeah, of course. It's straightforward. I'll make the motion to accept this budget to present it to the May 2 meeting.
Okay. Do we have a second? Second. Okay. Brian seconds. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Do we have any abstentions? Very good, so moved. Thank you everybody. Okay so moving on to our next agenda item, review of budget to actual. Eric I'm not sure if you put this in there or what this was but know we don't have anything in our packet to look we don't have a packet to look at.
Right. I was hoping that Cheryl would have that prepared, and be able to get that, to my admin assistant while I was off on vacation. She did not, as most of you know, you know, she's just coming out of tax season, so Cheryl was was quite a bit behind. There is no budget to actual for you to review, and my apologies for that. However, for this year, financially, we're in pretty good shape. I don't see any things that are going to be significant issues. It looks like we're tracking budget wise very well. Okay. Good.
Joanne? Just a quick question. Eric, since we're in the financial part, in speaking to Cheryl, did she give a timeline of how long and I know we've discussed it before, I apologize for not remembering. How long she will, how long on her current contract that she was hired on will she be with the town of Andover?
You know, at this point, it's still fairly open ended. I think the agreement we have just specified essentially what she would get paid, you know, as an hourly rate and for which tasks. We don't really necessarily have an end date, but now that we've pretty much gotten the last audit through and straight, we're basically, we had discussion today with Samantha who's in Mike who are our chief auditors. They're pretty happy with the audit they're basically wrapped up with the audit, there are. Essentially, three items that we still have to provide them. But there's nothing that's nothing material at this point. So the only thing that's going to be a delay is the town uses Hooker and Holcomb as an actuary. And unfortunately, Hooker and Holcomb's request to us for information went to Sherry Holmes' email address. And so we never sent them the information
four or five months ago when we should have, till the auditor asked us where it was. So we're we've gotten them the information now, but we've gotta wait for the actuary to finish because they they've gotta calculate the cost of benefits and a few other things, which goes into the final audit. But at this point, it looks like we're about two weeks away from a draft audit report, but we know essentially what's in the audit report. So, we're in reasonable shape with the audit, if that makes sense.
So then, sorry, just follow-up, she would finish up in that capacity and then start the discussions about staying on, I imagine?
Well, we, when we initially agreed to bring Cheryl on, there was the understanding that she would be on for at least that budget cycle and the next budget cycle. So the assumption is that through next year's audit, will continue to retain Cheryl in that same capacity. And then the question becomes, what do we do after that? Do we try to keep her on as a consulting treasurer or do we try to hire a different treasurer? Okay, thank you, Eric.
Eric, I just have one thing. There was an email from Terry Smith asking about the ACH transfer that that can handle.
Yeah, we've got a problem with that right now and I'm not sure what. We made the transfers originally around the tenth of this month and none of our ACHs went through. So we've had issues with, both Andover and RAM and our MRF benefits, you know, are all relatively unhappy. We attempted to resubmit them today. For some reason, it's not going through. We have a call into the bank to try to figure it out. It looks like I we we have we essentially have a a two person, you know, with two factor authentication and Christina produces them and then I approve them. And that's happening and then it gets flagged with some kind of message that there's additional approvals needed, which there are not because I am the approver. And we don't know, we've got an inquiry into the bank, hoping we solve that in the next, hoping we solve it tomorrow.
But that is an ongoing issue at the moment. Okay, so you guys are on top of it, just not resolved yet? Correct. Okay. All right, thanks. Anything else for Eric while we're talking about finance, etc? Okay, I guess we'll move on to agenda item 4C, which is the draft review, review of the draft of the policy and financial reports. So Joanne had suggested she wasn't prepared to discuss this further tonight. I'm totally good with letting this go to the next meeting. We can't keep putting it off indefinitely, but we've had a lot going on so I think that's okay. Anybody have any other anything else to add to that? Different thoughts?
So I may have a revised one at the next meeting to consider. I had a long conversation today with Mike, the auditor, about kind of what, you know, so the question I asked was, we reconcile completely separately, you know, and what are the financial controls that the town would have in place if we did that? And I asked him to give me essentially what would be a minimalist set of information from the Board of Education that would allow for separate reconciliation with financial controls. So, he said he would think about that and get back to me. So, that's all I have because, you know, we're frankly just not getting the information from AES. So, so,
you know, that's where we're at. Okay. Alright. Yeah. I mean, if possible, I don't know if you'll have an opportunity if possible. I was getting it before the meeting itself. If not, we can just, you know, take time to discuss it but I know it takes time to put those together so we'll see what we got. Okay anybody else on the on that financial reporting policy? Okay, so hearing nothing, we'll move on to new business. This is agenda item five. We have nothing listed. We did not make any additions. Therefore, we will move on to agenda item six, which is the administrator's report. Eric, I know you've been on vacation. I hope you had a good one. I don't know if you have anything to add to what we've already talked about today.
No, there's a bunch of grants that we're still waiting on. I did find out there were a huge number of submissions to the rec rails grant program. So, I haven't, they haven't announced anything, but, you know, the success rate for that grant, I'm guessing is fairly low. I'm cautiously optimistic about the trip grant. We don't have anything back from DOT, but the fact that they basically doubled the funding for the next few years, And it's all going to be based off the same grant submission that we already had. That's pretty encouraging. So that's basically what I have. And that's it. Then the only other question I had for you as a group, and also potentially the board of selectmen is we did get a note from Kerma, which is the town's insurance company, that they will, because we've had a pretty good track record the last three years, they will give us essentially a three year rate stabilization offer, which is what they've done in the past. But when we get that from them, we have to in turn agree that we're not going to go out and competitively bid it during that three year period. So I don't think that's something we need to discuss tonight, but we probably should discuss that and sign that before the start of the next fiscal year because we're in the last year of that of our existing three year increment.
Wasn't there some kind of timeline where we had to sign that by?
It's a good question. I thought we had it I'm trying to remember you had sent something out. Fiscal year for that. I can review that. Okay.
I don't think we need to take action now. Have any questions for Eric?
I was just going to ask if Eric, the next meeting, if we do have like a number, and you I know you will do this, but I just want to ask out loud if we could have the packet, you know, a few days ahead of time. I'm sure we're going to get back to bit. You know, if everything goes well with the budget, we'll be having to consider, you know, new items. So if we could get it a few days early so that we can prepare ahead of time and for things like if we're going to think about the karma thing or the policy on purchasing. Thanks. Yep.
Yeah, I just looked, I just found the document that you'd gotten from Kerma from the underwriters and I don't see anything on a quick look that has any timeline where we have to sign it. So maybe I was just thinking a little longer term. Okay, so if you've got nothing more for Eric, we'll move on to agenda item seven, which is liaison reports. So I don't know, Rob, do have anything from CIP?
Not at this time. Nothing new? Nothing that I can think of. Nope, I don't I don't think we had
the meeting last one. Yeah, so last discussion alright. Anybody else?
I was just gonna follow-up with Rob. So there was not a C, you know, a CI whatever CIP meeting, you know, with discussions about any of the the trucks or the purchases, so none of that.
Has it already been through you? No CIP this month. I was just double checking. Yep.
So, yeah, I would have hoped that if we had gotten anything further from the fire commission on pricing and lease options and whatnot, that we would have gotten that through Eric anyway. Right. But, yeah, Fred canceled the meeting because there were there was no agenda items. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to double check my emails there before I answered your question. No problem. I don't trust my own memory anymore.
Understandable, we all have that time to time. So if we have no other liaison reports, we'll move on to agenda item eight, which is board open discussion. Does anybody have anything else to bring before the board? Have a question. Go ahead, Louise. Louise.
Just curious, since the pandemic is coming to an end, are we gonna continue the Zoom meetings or are we gonna start going face to face or no at the committee at the town hall? For the purpose of the board of finance meetings? Yeah, for the for any any of the meetings that we have now, know, the board of finance, board of education, all of them.
I think the Board of Ed is meeting in person some of the other committees maybe you know I have mixed feelings about it. There is something to be said and you know I think actually Diane Granier had made a point about you know what you get and get in person. But frankly I think we get better attendance to the zoom meetings, so you know I don't feel any strong compulsion to change it to an in person it's certainly much easier for most of us to do a an online meeting and most people you know have adopted or you know I think found that ability to
you know get online if they need to it's always a little disconcerting to me because you always wonder about those who may not have access or feel comfortable with the technology, but You know if you move it in person, there are people who have mobility problems or people who don't have transportation or people who have small children or. Have somebody they're taking care of that may not be able to easily make a meeting it's going to be potentially two to three hours long. So my view I would keep it virtual meetings. I think it's convenient for the public in general. Mean it's it's recorded you can look at the recordings you don't have to go you know find community channel recordings or YouTube or something like that, the links are there. So that's kind of my take on it.
I'm a fan of the Zoom meetings continuing. I mean, if it changes in the future where, you know, it's mandatory or they make rulings on what towns are, it is convenient when you when you're when you are working outside of the home and and busy all day and all busy. Yeah. Yeah. So it this this does make it nice, but. That's that's my take on it. Just to clarify next Tuesday's in person and that was my follow-up. Yeah,
if you want to vote at the town meetings, you have to, and I would hope you all want to vote. We need to show up in person.
I'm gonna do my level best, but I may end up having to, you know, I haven't my 13 year old could probably hold the fork at the house while I go and deal with the meeting. If it doesn't go too long, we'll see. Don't think I think the days of me convincing them to tag along are over. I remember that transition period well. I'm
happy to get past that. Stick some food in front of them and head over to town hall and hope for the best, I think is my plan. This is your opportunity to impress upon them your civic duty. So yeah, know. I know.
Being on the board, but see how much fun governance is. Right. Okay thanks. Other comments or questions?
Just logistics for the you know just going to ask you the logistics what time we should arrive, know that kind of thing but good question. Mean, don't think
for most of us you really need to arrive more than I would say you know ten minutes in advance is probably fine, you know, I mean five is doable, but remember there's often a little bit of a line back in. You have to show your ID if you're going to vote. I'll probably be there well in advance to make sure that the technology is working and that we can present and etc. So I'll be working over the weekend probably with Eric this week and maybe we'll have it done before the weekend but you know we'll put together a standard budget presentation and go over it as we have in the past. Okay. So and I see Valerie and Jerry and Ron you know the school I presume will make their selves available and talk about talk about their spending in the same same way that they normally do. So.
So if anybody wants to see what it looks like if you do a meeting that is a hybrid meeting with the town's OWL recording camera. If you looked on the town's YouTube channel for the last Planning and Zoning Commission regular meeting, you could see what it looks like and how it works. If you're going to do a, you know, in person where not everybody's there in person.
Thanks Eric. I've tuned into a few of the board of Ed meetings because I think they do that as well because they're in person and they have it on zoom too. My only drawback with doing that they do per. I'm sure they can all hear well there. I sometimes have trouble hearing the people that are speaking and discussing things. So that was my experience with the hybrid. It's hard to hear if someone has a loud, voice, but if someone's a little bit soft spoken, it's really hard to hear. Other comments or discussion?
I would say right now the majority of the multi town meetings that I go to are hybrid. Everything from Eastern Highland Health District, as well as most of the Capital Region Council of Governments, you know, are, you know, a lot of them are hybrid. So it functions well. I mean, there is a learning curve like anything else, just like there was with Zoom. So, it's doable, but it doesn't make sense unless, you know, a bunch of the board is likely to be there in person. You know, it certainly doesn't make sense to set up just a single person there, and then everybody else on Zoom. Okay.
Other comments or questions? Okay, hearing none, we've found our next agenda item is correspondence. We don't have any correspondence to share that I'm aware of. Next item would be public speak. Eric, you want to offer that final opportunity for the public to speak?
Sure, I'll go from my screen on down. First one up, Mrs. Legaldi Lewis. All set. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Next up, Diane Brenier.
Here I am. I'm delighted that you're deciding to go Zoom. And just for point, library accommodates me and the zoom when the rest of them are all at the at in person, and there was there was a problem on hearing. And what they've done is buy a better microphone.
Yeah, wondered about that. Yeah, you might have to have a dedicated microphone for the audience or anybody who's participating.
So actually, haven't tried it. We'll try it Monday night, but hopefully that that that was gonna solve the problem. But I personally, I'm liking the Zoom meetings. So thank you. And I like to have to see all your faces. Nobody seems to be rolling their eyes or having any issues. And thank you. All right. Thanks, Anne. Okay. Next up, Jerry Cremay.
No, just to thank you to Mark Brinker and Board of Finance members. Thank you for all the time you put in. And your vote, I acknowledge that you're volunteers, and you give freely to the town. And we appreciate that. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jerry. Next up, Julia Havel.
Okay, I'm all set. Thanks. I've enjoyed this Zoom session, but I am glad that Monday night will be I mean, Tuesday night will be in person. Thank you. Okay.
And last up that I can see is superintendent Bruno. I'm all set. Thanks. Thank you, Valerie. K. Is there anybody I missed?
Doesn't look like it's me. Okay, so that concludes public speak. Last item on our agenda is adjournment. Would anybody like to make a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn.
Okay, Ram, thank you. I'll second it. Joanne seconds. Thank you. Any discussion? All right, hearing none, I'll take a vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, hearing none, I will work on updating and just kind of cleaning up the spreadsheet, taking off the highlights, etc. We'll send that around and share that with you and we'll work on the presentation for Tuesday's meeting. If anybody has any input or questions or anything, let me know. If I can get it done in time, I will send it out to you in advance to get your input. Hopefully it'll be pretty straightforward. We started to get make a habit of this thing. But each one's a little different, a little new. We'll take it in. One thing that we're going to have to make sure that we cover, and Eric, know you'll probably remember, but I'll say it anyway, is that we need to state our intention to fund the fire apparatus and sign a contract for said vehicle once we have competitive quotes etc. So that's clear part of the of the capital spending plan for the town so it's just part of the normal presentation but just make sure that that's clear.
And I think we just make the best guess right on the on the cost there Mark, like $1.17, $1.18 something a year is our best guess right now. I'm sorry. Say that again. It's alright. We're just gonna throw we're gonna give them our best guess right now in terms of the least costing that we have, you know, in hand. I think it was $1.17 or $1.18 a year. We just tell them, look, it's $1.20 ish. We don't have Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Would make sense. Yeah. That's all. Sorry to interrupt. Yep. No. It's okay.
Okay, I guess with that being said, those are just kind of some housekeeping details for next week. Doesn't really pertain to this week's meeting, but we will adjourn this meeting. Thank you everybody. Thank you. I appreciate the hard work.