Meeting transcript
BOF Regular Meeting
May 27, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
If you have a flag, great. You don't, we'll just go ahead and start. Ready? But thank you, Eric. Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America To the Republic, which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you.
I'll let that drop there. Hey Rob. I see Rob's joined us good. Rob just FYI Dave you it's not going to be on today looks like we have everybody here. So it means we call to order. We'll have the pledge of allegiance. Amanda, did you see my email about the agenda that you'd sent out versus the one on the packet?
Yes. I apologize for that. I sent an email back that Sorry. One on the website is correct. Eileen thought that she was going to be able to send her suspense book, but, she could not. Okay. So that is not on the agenda.
Okay. Alright, that's good. No problem. Okay. Excuse me here. Okay, so the next item would be public speak.
Okay, so first up we have Rochelle Strempel. No, thank you. Not tonight. Okay, thank you. Looks like the only other person we have on is Joanne Hebert. Thank you. Okay, thank you.
Okay, so hearing no more public speaking, we'll go on to additions in July, excuse me, additions and deletions of the agenda items. This is item number three on your agenda. Does anybody have any additions or deletions to the agenda? All right, hearing none, I guess we can move on. Item number four on the meeting agenda is the town administrators report COVID-nineteen response, Eric.
Okay, so I just want to touch on a couple relatively, know, nothing super important. For those of you who are interested, the town's roadwork plan is on the town's website. It's a little hard to find, but it is there. The second item of interest is the town has formally been accepted by the state and federal government into the eightytwenty bridge program for replacing Bunker Hill Bridge. So we or I opted to utilize a program where the state retains the essentially the design authority for the bridge as opposed to the town. And the reason is we just don't have the staff to do a really good job in using that program
has for the most part shaved a year or two off of the design phase of the project and will get us to construction faster. The other advantage is the state pays the cost of the design. So we were fortunate to be able to get into that program. It was not offered originally a couple of years ago when the town first tried to go this route. So the state has assigned the project to close Jensen and Miller as a consulting engineer. So, and I'm in contact with the engineer that's assigned to our project. So we are making progress on that again. And when this budget is adopted, there will be a pool of money that we're gonna allocate for this in the budget. As I've hinted to already, we've done a fair amount of work lately on redoing the electrical system in the Public Works Building. We're very fortunate that Lenco Electric comped us about 130 of labor and a bunch of materials. So I was quite happy to get that in. And what that has allowed me to do is also do some masonry work that that building needed. One of the problems we've had pretty much forever is that there's no rear like personnel door, you know, so either you're using an overhead, know, a 10 foot wide huge overhead door to get out the back of the building, or you're just walking all the way around to the front. So we're going to put a pedestrian,
you know, person door in, which we should have done years ago for OSHA compliance anyway. The other thing is that we have looked pretty hard at using a program called EZIQC for the Connectivity Grant Project. So that is something that is administered through Capital Regional Council of Governments. And basically what they do is they have a consultant that will both a kind of construction management consultant and also a general contractor that has a set price schedule by task for doing the work. So we've looked at that, it's well within the budget that we have for the federal money and we're also going to be able to include one of the library's priorities which is redoing the ramp up to the front entrance and the step up to the front entrance of the library and redoing the railing which has been welded a couple times and has some problems. So basically the project came in, the connectivity portion came in a little bit under budget. So what we're doing is we're taking the difference because it's use it or lose it, it's state money. And we're also gonna do the two things that the library wanted, which us to do out of capital improvement this year, which is the front handicapped access in the stairs and fix the railing. So that looks like that's gonna come out really well for us. Town hall, we've got a couple small to medium sized projects going right now. I've been getting yelled at pretty steadily since I've been on this job for not having the flagpole out in front of the building lit. And I get it, it is a federal requirement. You need to either take your flag down every night or light it. So I got a couple quotes in from the local electricians to see,
and we should be able to slide that in in this year's budget with what we have existing. The IT upgrade to the town hall is going relatively well. The firewalls are in place and the new server is installed up and running. And we are successfully backing up all our data, you know, on a regular schedule now, which we had not been prior to this, you know, since the dawn of the town of Andover. So I'm quite happy with that. We are looking at figuring out how to jump the next part of that project, which is to get the fiber connection switched from cable to fiber and also start looking at the VoIP phone systems. So those are ongoing. We also, Kurt will probably tell you that the tanker is on the way. We should have our fire department tanker within, you know, a month and a half or so. Kurt, you can give any updates you got on that. The update I have is the truck is complete.
We are doing our virtual final inspection on Friday at 2PM at the fire station with the sales representative. So we should have it, I would say, within probably two weeks. Excellent.
We'll be able we'll be able to see you with an invoice once I get it from New England Fire.
Excellent. The other thing I wanted to say is we you guys approved some transfers from the the town snow plow budget last month. We purchased the material handling arm for our loader, which is good because we're about to use that in several days for the transfer station rebuilding. And CIP also agreed to recommend the purchase of a material spreader for the back of one of the plow trucks, as well as a basically heavy duty blower unit for the front of our small tractor, which is a little Steiner. It's up to this point, it's been set up specifically as a mower, but that unit will also take a large scale blower. So since we're, it does not look like we're going to be able to buy a roadside mower, which we would have bought with the blower unit, Instead of being able to do that for the next couple of years, we're gonna plan on using the small Steiner with the large blower attachment.
Those both look like they're gonna be able to be purchased this year with existing money. So there doesn't seem to be any issues with that. The last item is the transfer station upgrade and rebuilding will start on June 1. They're cutting the power to the compactors in the old shed June 1 and starting to disassemble everything. We're hoping to have the majority of that project done in a month, and at least some of the compactors back up and running around July 1. So unfortunately for roughly a month, we're gonna go without bulky waste because we're only gonna be able to use half the side and we're gonna need to use the open containers for trash and recycling. So there's already been a little bit of negative feedback about that, but there's not really, you know, without increasing the cost, right, bringing in temporary power, you know, and trying to relocate, you know, one of the compactors to the other side and plug it in. There's just not really a practical way to get around it. So
that's pretty much it in terms of what's going on in the town financially, that you guys need to be aware of unless you have any questions for me. Mark, you're muted.
Thank you. I said I don't have any questions other than curious about what that blower is usually used for.
It's usually used for just wherever you want a super heavy duty leaf, you know, vehicle mounted leaf blower. You know, sides of the roads, trails, if we had it right now, we'd certainly be using it prepping for, you know, for chip sealing roads to blow the roads off. Right now we don't really have one that's capable of doing that so we're just sweeping but it would it would be used for that pretty regularly and then used to blow off the trails you know in the spring and the fall to get all the organic matter off trail surface so those are the two major roads and trails.
Okay thank you. Anybody have any other questions for Eric? Okay, hearing none, I guess we'll go to agenda item five, which is the treasurer's report. Barbara?
Yes. The audit is complete. And I'm still waiting for a clean copy on electronic copy that isn't stamped draft and Eric reminded me today that that still hasn't been received. I thought maybe they were waiting for payment but that was taken care of last week. Eric, you were cc'd in on my email and you didn't hear anything back. I take it.
I did not and I had separately emailed Michael about that. You do. Great. Already like last Yeah. So I I don't know what the issue is. We have a copy that appears to be complete but you know we want the one that's they're fine willing to bless and That's not stamped.
Will try calling him. He's not really available by phone. Generally email is better than leaving voicemail, but I'll just keep on him. And as soon as I have it, I'll send it out to everyone. And then along the same line, I had mentioned a presentation by Michael on the audit. And if you are meeting in, What month are we in? Okay, we're still in May. If you're meeting in and he is available depending on what's on your agenda, if it's a easy agenda, would you like me to check with him? See if he can. Absolutely.
He doesn't have to appear in person, obviously, so we can work I it out
will definitely make him aware of that then. Budget summary. You have those in your packet. Eric and I continue to pour through those department by department, line by line, looking for money to reallocate. I've been contacting people, getting feedback, making notes, getting a lot of notes together about what is not gonna be used. The big budgets were elections and registrar. So talked to Wally, got a list of things, money he knows he's not using, several thousand dollars that we will reallocate. And I also talked to Kathy of senior transportation. And that had quite a bit of money left in because they discontinued that program in March. Other ones I've been sending emails to, I'm looking for things where there's like $1,000 or a $2,000 expense that looks like it may not be spent or kind of a cumulative in the in the in a budget that exceeds $1,000 So I've sent out some more emails yesterday and today to people just asking them to get back to me. Let me know if they have invoices to pay or anything they think they're going to be spending. Otherwise, Eric and I are going to start to make a list and then have that ready we hope for the finance, sorry, selectman meeting. If not, we can do it in July. We don't have to do it in June. We can do it in July but we can do those reallocations So we get the money spent in this fiscal year. Questions about that?
Is there a particular goal with the spending if we're trying to clean this up? Mean, Eric, have something? To- Is there a particular goal with this spending that we're doing? Are we trying to just clean up some things, Eric? Are trying to find the money for a thing of something in particular, is this just a general exercise and cleanup?
So part of it is just a general exercise and cleanup. Part of it is reallocating to the areas where we are still over in our budget right now. And the third thing is to be able to hopefully add to some of the capital funds that we have. Because in some cases, like for instance, I know the transfer station project is going to go over budget what's authorized this year. And it's going to go over budget because when CIP originally allocated the money, they were not anticipating any major electrical work, you know, and that's about $35,000 So that's a really big oops. Everything else other than electrical would have fit under the original budget, but we just, CIP was not anticipating that. So part of it is to free up money for that project.
And the second is just because we are definitely, you know, compared to where we wanted to be, not really funding the roadwork at the level we wanted and the other capital funds. By having made capital funds and assigning them already, we can transfer excess money directly into the capital fund and then it essentially rolls over the next year and it's spendable, you know, whenever we need it. So that's where I'm going with this is try to accomplish the stuff we know we had to some of the things we know we were cutting out of next year's budget because we pulled way back in the budget and basically front load as much of that on this year's budget as we can.
Yeah, so it's a mechanism to not have that money flow in and have the fund balance because you've been doing a good job or working toward getting your fund balance at a reasonable percentage. So it's a mechanism to set the money aside without having to go through the the other process which would be to reallocate it out of fund balance because that would take town meetings. So this is Eric says, let's get into some funds so it's spendable as it's needed. And along that same line, the revenue, which I'm going to talk about next, If you look at the report running way ahead of budgeted, so that is going to be contributing to your fund balance as well. And so I'm even more interested in kind of just moderating that flow into fund balance because it's possible to do it on the expense side if things can be reallocated to a fund so it's available to spend because it will roll over. So just looking at the revenue report, I just brought mine up in my system. Just some highlights I want to mention. If you look at education cost sharing,
it's in the middle of page two. We have received everything we are going to from the state. We've gotten our three payments and we are in excess of $134,000 there. So, there isn't anything in revenue that's really running under what was budgeted. Town clerk money is always a good source of revenue and that's coming in heavily. Is that a question?
I think you just got an echo, Barbara. For those of you following along on the PDF file, it's actually page 15 on the packet file that she's referring to. Educational cost sharing is right in the middle, number two nineteen.
Thanks, Mark. So of all the things that were budgeted in revenue, everything is really running very, very positive. And the only thing that's gonna come up short and it's not gonna really make a big difference is transfer station receipts because they come in kind of split June, July. So the money that has come in, there was 36,000 budgeted, 22,700 has come in, so that would have come in last July. We would have anticipated more money this June, but nothing will be coming in because that whole program has been put on hold for sixty days. But that deficit of 13,000 in that line item is not going to make a big difference because so many of the other line items are running over. Had a conversation with the tax collector. The third, I'm sorry, fourth quarter payments for this year, which were due April, April collections. She said there wasn't a real difference in collections for this year, last year, and May and June are not heavy collection months. So I would anticipate that tax collections are going to be healthy When everything is put together in the in the financial statements, I think you're still going to have a pretty
pretty good flow, pretty good positive flow to fund balance between taxes, revenue and even residual expenditures. That's it for revenue expenditures unless there are questions. And then just moving on to TAR spending. I think I mentioned this at an earlier meeting, we did get the two TAR payments. I don't think they're reflected in your report because I think that report was printed before the we got the TAR money posted to our accounting system, but that was it was what was budgeted, and I wanna say a 190,000 went into your TAR fund. And that's it. We don't have any over expenditure request. The over expenditure report is in your packet. Again, being close to the close of the year, we're looking at what we have to reallocate to cover those overages and it's all part of the reallocation that Eric and I are working on.
Right. I just want to inject one thing. You know, the one area that we are going over again more than we would like right now is we had switched to using Hebron, the town of Hebron Parks and Recs for all our athletic field maintenance because we were having a lot of problems with our previous and basically what we were doing before is we had a cost sharing agreement with somebody who used our field and then we were going to do it differently this year. We were going to take over the maintenance and then charge them But obviously since we're not letting them use the field, we're not charging them. So we're about $8,000 short on revenue for that and but we still have to pay for the field maintenance. So we are going to go over quite a pretty significant chunk in field maintenance,
but that should be easy to cover out of, you know, contingency. We have plenty of money available to cover it. So that's the only one that's not really on your list. I got the bill from them you know late this afternoon so so I wasn't going to do up the paperwork for today you know without and just spring it on you. So we'll spring it on you next month.
Yeah, that was the other thing I was going to mention too, is we haven't even touched the 50,000 in contingency. Anything I've looked at to reallocate to cover shortages hasn't even begun to touch that 50,000. So you're going to be a bit, you know, flush with funds again, which is a good position to be in. That's it for me. Eric, do have anything else to add to that? No, I think that pretty well covers it.
Item number six is budget transfers supplemental appropriations 6A. Did you say we do not have anything? Nothing. Okay,
moving along item 6B over expenditure requests and also nothing, correct? Not at this time. Okay. So we'll move on to item seven, which is just kind of here as a placeholder. This is the governor's executive order basically relative to the production of the budget this year. And I don't know, Eric, if want to recap this process? Think we've kind of gone over it ad nauseam, but The essentially,
only thing I would say that has changed is between this month and the last month, the governor came out with executive order seven JJ. And all that said was basically, hey, when I first told you that it was the board of, you know, the finance that was gonna have to pass the budget and you were gonna have to do it without a public vote, I meant it. That was basically his bottom, the other executive order basically said, what I told you the first time is correct and quit trying to weasel out of it and do something else. So we're basically in a place where you have the authority and also the obligation to pass a budget and set a mill rate.
All right. Anybody have any questions or comments on that? All right. Hearing none, I guess we'll move on to item number eight, is new business. Going back over to the budget here or packet agenda, just to make sure I'm on the right thing. Feedback from the town's budget Google site. Amanda's shared everything, so we didn't really have much that came up in addition to last couple of days. There's one or two items that I think came up. I think these have been dispersed to the Board of Finance. Just kind of reiterating some of the things we've heard already. There was a comment, felt that we should cut more from the school budget. There was a comment that felt that we should cut less, especially given the fact that they weren't sure what kind of expenditures they would, you know, we might have to put into place to accommodate any COVID related actions in order that might be taken to open the schools. Does anybody have any comments about the feedback we've received so far?
I'll just chime in and say I got the same feedback from, you know, about the cut that we made during our marathon meeting. We made like a small additional cut, if you remember, to get to a nice round 4% reduction for AES. And you know I got a little pushback from that in another venue and so I you know I basically promised that tonight I would at least raise the possibility of putting that back in. So FYI I'll be making a motion to that effect at some point.
Any other input or comments? Nothing else from the board? Go ahead, Eric.
So I was just gonna say you all should have received an email, one earlier from me today or yesterday, and then a reiteration from Mark Brinker. One of the outstanding issues that we had was the request from the fire department to increase the line item that takes care of physicals for the fire department. Now, one thing I would note is that yes, they are definitely under budget this year, but if you think about it, from the time we told them, okay, we have the money, you can go ahead and, you know, do a bunch of physicals this spring, we're not in a position where we can get the fire department physicals. So that money will essentially go unspent this year, simply because right now we're not doing, they're still not really doing discretionary procedures. We might sometime later in June be able to get some of the fire department members in this year. Basically what the fire chief Ron Mike had asked for was that total line item to go up to $5,000 and I looked at what the town's reasonable expenditures are for physicals and that number for the town side of it is about $1,000. The Board of Finance had already made a decision at one of your previous meetings you had motioned
to put that money in the fire department's budget not in the town general budget. So one of the motions I gave you essentially did that and you have a couple options depending on whether you agree with increasing that line item or not. And that's pretty much all I had other than on the recommendation of Barbara Griffin, we said it would be smarter instead of leaving the line item for the software transition to put that in basically its own capital fund or separate fund as opposed to leaving it as a line item where it was. So but that doesn't have any monetary, that's just an accounting issue.
Okay thanks Eric. Hopefully everybody had a chance to review those suggested motions. Again those are just suggestions to just provide some of the framework and structure for the language that we might use if somebody wants to move or make a motion along those lines. So that's really what that is. So I'd like to address, I guess, the point that Eric raised first about the fire department and we did agree that we wanted to move that budget amount budgeted amount for the fire department physicals into the fire department budget I think everybody was okay with that The real question I think before us then, if right on that, that everybody is comfortable with it and we won't talk about it, is do we increase the amount that was originally requested? And I think it goes from is it 2,000 to 5,000, Eric?
Think currently we budget for combined between town and fire department, we budgeted $2,500 Ronnie Mike asked that total number to go up to $5,000 Of that $5,000 roughly $1,000 would be spent on the downside and roughly 4,000 would be spent on the fire department side. Okay.
If I can comment, Mark, on that, and we discussed it at the Board of Fire Commissioners prior to Chief Mike making the request. That account has always been underfunded, both by the town and us, when the town took over all all of the physicals, both for the town crew and the fire department. The increase, the reason for the increase is because of an increase in membership, which you know is no, that's something that we really needed badly. Good, thank Of course, as members. So that's the reason why we asked for the increase originally for up to the $5,000 is for the increase in membership.
I've also understood that it was a little difficult sometimes to get the previous administration actually approved going out and getting the physicals done in some cases. Correct.
Correct. So that's another reason it would have been underspent or lower. All right, thanks Kurt. Other board members, you have questions or comments about the increased amount? Okay hearing none I mean I'll say generally I'm in favor of this it seems like that's a reasonable request The fire department provided some rationale for it at Eric's request. They put it together. They explained it. Kurt just added a little bit to there. Mean, we kinda knew that already. Think that was in the original explanation for the additional increase request. Mark, would a motion be in order?
It would, can go ahead and do that. If you want, could either motion, you know, the motions that Eric suggested around the, you know, with his motions that he put in there, he suggested combining everything after we kind of discussed the budget in total, but we certainly could motion that individually, yeah.
I'd like to make a motion on at least on the behalf of the fire department that the requested funds for physicals will be allocated.
So we're talking we're looking at if we look at the thing Eric put out and that you edited, Mark, possible motion number one is that it looks like a two parter reducing one line item and increasing another.
Am I reading that right? Yes, that's correct. What that does is it gets the fire department's physicals outside of the town's physical line item. It transfers that money to essentially what's controlled by the Board of Fire Commissioners and it increases it the total spending by $2,000 That's what that right that first two lines. Alright so why don't we go ahead?
I guess the first part I can make it this two parter.
Go ahead, Mark. What? So I was gonna say the other part of that suggested motion was to make that transition from the software from an expense line to a fund line.
That's, you know, that's I mean, know, one motion is two motions. It doesn't really matter. Really matter.
I was just trying to do it kind of formally. So I can make a motion that we do two things reduce line item zero one dash zero one four one dash two eight zero physicals from 3,000 to 1,000 and the second part is to increase item 100Dash04Dash0401Dash800 from $136,650 to $140,650.
Which I think was what Kurt was trying to basically do. Is that correct, Yes.
Yes. I was just reading I was just doing it for the record. That's all. Okay. Alright. Just wanted to clarify there. So Kurt think that's what you're
so we'll we'll list Kurt as the providing that motion. Is that what you wanted to motion, Kurt? Yes. I'll second it then. All right. And Rob seconds it. We have any further discussion from the board members? Okay. Hearing none, let's go ahead and take a vote. I'll go around my screen. Diane? Aye. Rob? Aye. Louise? Aye. Kurt? Thank you, Robin. Aye. Okay.
Linda? Aye. Okay. And I'll also vote aye. Vote passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you, Kurt. Thank you, Rob. Okay. So we'll make that change in the budget. All right. So the next item that was also brought before us is a suggestion to change the software line item from $30,000 I believe is an expense item to create a capital fund for software transition to accommodate the new software, the new financial software that's going to be needed for the town. Does anybody have any discussion over that?
Seems to make sense to me and make it capital. Absolutely,
it should make sense to make it a capital fund. I would agree with that. Any further discussion? Okay, anybody want to make a motion?
Sure, I'll move that we reduce the software transition from 30,000 to zero in the operating budget and create a capital fund likewise for $30,000 instead. I'll second that.
Thank you Louise. Any further discussion? Okay let's take a vote Diane. Aye. Rob? Aye. Linda? Aye. Louise? Aye. And Kurt? Aye.
All of them also vote aye. So that's also passes unanimously. Okay. So those two things together are some of the two key things we wanted to address based on prior conversations and suggestions from the town treasurer, which really kind of takes us back to the budget in total. And I think Rob, you said something you wanted to make a statement and possibly make a motion about.
Right. So I've heard some concern about the additional, I believe it was 13,600 we cut in our April meeting. It was kind of an arbitrary thing, we were kind of rounding their budget to a 4% decrease. And, you know, got a little pushback on that. Having thought that through it's it's, it's not a huge amount of money one way or the other but as a result of that conversation I basically decided that I was going to re raise that issue and so what I was going do is I'll make a motion that we restore that 13.6 to the AES line item to the budget and then let's chat about it. Okay do I have a second on that motion? I will second Rob's motion. Okay, Kurt seconds. Okay, so let's have some discussion.
I'll just add one thing that the concern that was raised to me and maybe the same that was on the feedback, didn't actually double check the website but it was basically you know do they need a para, do they need you know an extra to whatever the requirements that are going to come down for reopening are there's a certain amount of uncertainty to that and there was concern that you know we reduce their flexibility a little that's all and I think I think part of it is also just the feeling that they had worked real hard to get down to the number they got to and then we kind of took another whack at them.
Yeah I think that that's a it's a fair statement it wasn't a very big whack. You know, and then part of negotiating is coming into a position I I personally voted against reducing the AES budget further because I thought they did a pretty good job. But my personal position now is that we made that decision then. It's absolutely fair to bring it back up based on the feedback we've received, but we've gotten a lot of feedback on both sides of that issue. I'm comfortable with where it landed in the last meeting, so I personally probably would not be in favor of making any changes at this time.
And I kind of follow, feel the same as Mark does on that. And plus we don't know what the surplus is gonna be for the education coming out of this year.
Is that still up in the air a bit? We still So have a
I had that conversation with Laura and briefly with Sally, and they're basically doing the same thing that we're doing because they're coming into a fairly uncertain budgetary time. They are front loading every expense they can, you know, and offloading, you know, basically their intention is they don't think the Board of Finance is going to allow them their 2% give back anyway, to be put in their equivalent of the, town contingency fund. So their intention is to spend what they have in this year's budget to try to front load as much expense as they can for next year. So I wouldn't anticipate us getting much back from the school this year.
There's a part of me that understands that thinking, I'm not sure it's a wise use of the funds. Hope they use the money wisely, I guess is what I would say. We all know that times are gonna be a little uncertain, so anything left over, I mean, we did not provide that money. We did not allow them to keep that money this year, but it was for a specific reason. They just didn't provide any rationale for keeping the money, in my view. We asked for some reasoning and we weren't really provided any solid reasoning or any rationale why that money would be needed. And I think that, in my opinion, had they done so, I would have certainly considered it. So next year isn't the same as this year. Now, I could easily see them needing that money for various things given the uncertain times. My personal view is I'm not sure that that was a wise choice on their part, but I understand why they did it, I guess.
Well, seconded Rob's motion because as you know, I voted no for the increase when we took the vote. Based on the fact that I felt that they had cut what was requested of them, you know, from us, and I think they did their due diligence in, in, in getting to that, to that, that number. I think the $13,000 cut to bring it to 4% was just really, really picking at it. And, you know, that's basically my, my reason. I, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a rebuilding year for them, Superintendent, who knows what's going happen with the principal who's trying to be the co superintendent. We have a committee going through shared services or whatever else for AES. So I think it's a, you know, it's a huge year coming up for the the school in general. And that's basically my reason.
Okay. Any other comment or input from other board members? Louise, Linda?
I'm happy with the budget the way it is. We worked hard to get it here and I'm I don't know I'm happy with the way it is
I echo that too because that was a tough meeting the last meeting to get it down to that and I hate to see it turn around
I just have one point of information. If you did put that back in the budget, the estimated mill rate with that back in the budget would be 35.66 for whatever it's worth.
Okay. It's always good to know. Any further discussion on this issue? Okay, I propose we vote on the motion. Again, going around my screen, Diane? No. Rob? Yes. Linda? No. Louise? No. Okay. Kurt? Yes.
I'm gonna vote no also. Where does that leave us I think that leaves us for four to two. Motion fails. Is turned down okay all right thank you guys I think it was absolutely worth talking about and considering Okay, further discussion on the budget as it stands before us given our last meeting. Anybody have anything else they'd like to bring up, point out, change? Hearing nothing, somebody want to make a motion about adopting the budget as proposed? I'll make the motion to adopt it as proposed. You, Regent. Anybody want to second? I'll second. Okay. Diane seconds. Further discussion?
So just as a clarification we are adopting a budget with a total budget including ram of $12,535,376 which will result in a mill rate of 35.61. That is what's up for discussion. Correct, that's what I have. And what was the increase on that again Eric? The resulting mill rate would be 35.61.
Oh, you want to know the The increase from last year. Year to year. Dollars or percent or one mill point 77%. 1.77?
Yes, correct. 1.77% mill rate increase. And the total change in taxation would be $255,000 no wait never mind ignore that last statement that was incorrect. I'm saying that's all that's basically a mill.
Right no that's incorrect that was yeah ignore that statement.
Okay. So Any further discussion? We went through it line by line by line last meeting, but we have another thirty days and a little bit more feedback under our belts. I personally don't see any reason to change what we've done. Anybody else have any comments? Going once, going twice. Well, I guess let's go ahead and vote. Diane? Aye. Rob? Aye. Linda?
Aye. Louise? Aye. Kurt? Aye. And I'll also vote aye. So that passes unanimously to adopt the budget as proposed. Total amount of $12,535,376 or the resulting mill rate of 35.61, which I think Eric calculated to hear Barbara said 1.77% increase over last year. And that's a tough one. You, board. Isn't an easy I know when we had a lot bigger plans for this year, but things being what they are, I think we did what we needed to do. Okay.
The thing the next item that people have brought up or been brought before us is the idea of establishing some capital reserve funds for the purposes of managing the work that needs to be done next year. We had some proposed language. But of course, this is where we were actually discussed this. I mean, to me personally setting up these funds makes a lot of sense. Just provides the not only the guidance, but also the mechanism by which the town employees are you know set to do what we've asked them to do so to me it makes sense. Any discussion or comments on that. Would anybody like to make a motion? Usually the chair doesn't make a motion but I will in this case. According to Robert's rules but I'll say that I'm gonna I'll make a motion to establish a capital reserve funds as follows for the next fiscal year. First, a fund entitled Bunker Hill Bridge replacement fund for the purposes of utilizing the federal local bridge replacement program to replace this aging Bunker Hill Bridge. Secondly, fund entitled Building Town Building Maintenance Fund for the purpose of creating permanent fund for maintenance of town buildings and structures. Third, a fund entitled Roadwork Fund for the purpose of creating a permanent fund for the maintenance paving and reconstruction of town roads. Fourth, a fund entitled Tree Removal Fund for the purposes of creating a permanent fund for the trimming and removal of trees
that are safety hazards on the town roads. Five, a fund entitled Bridge and Culvert purposes of creating a permanent fund for the maintenance, evaluation, engineering, and replacement of bridges and culverts that do not qualify for state or federal funding. Lastly, a fund entitled The Connectivity Grant fund for for the purposes of creating a permanent fund for money received from the state of Connecticut DOT connectivity grant. Further, I would propose in this motion that is the intention of the Board of Finance that money placed in these special funds shall be considered budgeted in the year they're placed in the funds and therefore they are spendable without requiring a separate town meeting. That is the motion before us. Does anybody want to second that motion?
I'll second. I'll go ahead. Louise seconds. Thank Any discussion or questions about this?
The last bit about, you know, spending without spending from the funds without a town meeting, we're sure that's not going get any pushback on that from anyone.
I think that's for the charter, this is kind of the thing we have to do it's been designated by the board of finance per the fund guidelines. That's kind of what I was asking yep. Yeah Eric you want to comment on that further?
Yeah so that was a long question in a series of legal interpretations that I asked from the town's attorney because we realize it's kind of burdensome and expensive to go back to a town meeting every time you want to buy something but if you don't put them in capital funds, then everything automatically runs to fund balance at the end of the year. So projects as they often do that bridge years, you have a hard time dealing with unless you make them special revenue funds or capital reserve funds, basically. So, if as long as in your budget statement you state right up front that we are putting the money into these funds in this budget cycle with the intent to spend them, you've essentially allocated it and budgeted it and therefore you can spend without going to down meeting. That is his interpretation of our charter.
Okay. If that makes sense. Yep, that's what I was asking. I just wanted to make sure it was square with that. Okay. Yeah, the town
of Andover, the fund policy that was adopted back in 2016 by the Board of Finance, You know, one of the one of the statements there is that the Board of Finance determines assignments by way of formal resolution on behalf of the town to document the town's intent to use available resources for specific purposes. The applicable assignments do not require formal meeting approval. Review of assignments will be performed by the Board of Finance at regularly scheduled meetings. So that is kind of where some of that comes from as well. I think I remember that.
I was just gonna make a comment too. It's really clean. And Adrian had mentioned this to me, and I think it was the way you would set up a garage fund and that multi use building fund when you do it through the budgeting process, meets the requirements for the finance board approval. And because step two would ordinarily be that this budget would be approved by your legislative body. Everything is very clean. So just all of these funds are in your budget. And so you're just kind of voting on on the allocation of these. So except for the connectivity grant, which will not appear in the budget because there are no town funds
for that. So that will just be set up off to the side. It will appear in the financial statements, but it will never appear in the budgets. The rest are all right in the budget. So they're they're very visible. The whole thing is very clean. And I know there was that back and forth this afternoon and I started to look at what you did, Mark, and also just to the financial statements. Right now, they're all in a part of the budget labeled fund transfers because the money will be moved from the budget into these individual funds, whether they're set up as capital reserve or special revenue or minor funds. That's kind of like I'll probably have a discussion with the auditor about just actually how to pigeonhole them. But that's just a bookkeeping function. But otherwise, it looks very clean. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, just questioned whether it was capital reserve fund because something like tree work is, know, looking at the different fund definitions, there really isn't one that easily accommodates this. That's, you know, special revenue funds have a very specific purpose for my reading. Right. I think probably the way we're doing it is the right way. Are we proposing So
Mark, funds that we just discussed, these are temporary funds?
Well, it's just a way to establish this fund and finance it going forward. There's nothing that says we can't make fund transfers if we decide we really don't need of those funds in a particular line item. Mean, that would just be a fund transfer to some other
budgetary line item. Correct, Derek and Barbara? That's something the Board of Selectmen would be able to do. So you've established the funds. And just back to that question about how to categorize them, I started looking through the financial statements. And for example, there's a section in the in the financials called non major capital project fund, and the Times Farm Bridge happens to be there. So how I really couldn't make heads nor tails of how this is categorized. So I know it even was predated Mahoney stable because all of these funds were set up before they part of the financial statement presentation. But right now they're just listed in your budget all as fund transfers. So just move them out of the expense and move them into a fund. And then from there it'll go into the financial statements and presumably some rational manner.
So, and Kirk, to answer your question, the advantage of those funds is they don't go away at the end of the year. So if like for instance the road and culvert fund or the existing fire department equipment fund, if we put money in that you know, we understand that not everything that gets spent this year, not every dime will be spent this year. For instance, if by some reason we only did $30,000 worth of tree removal this year, then the fund would be sitting there at the beginning of the next capital year with $20,000 in it, but it would still be available for use. Just gives us the flexibility to spend it kind of when we need it without constantly going back to town meeting, you know.
But basically my question is what happens when all the tree works done, all the culverts works done, you've paved every road in town. You know, I understand that they're gonna be long standing funds, but there has to doesn't there have to be an end to it some sometime? They can be closed out anytime, anytime. Okay, that's my question.
Anytime the the finance board may wanna make a recommendation to the board of selectmen. We just don't spend money here anymore and they the money could be transferred to another another fund.
Sure. Wouldn't wouldn't have to fund it every year either. We just Correct.
It's still a little different than say the fire engine fund, the town equipment fund, meaning the dump trucks and plows and things like that, and also the, you know, our community centersenior center fund. Those they don't fall in the same category, do they?
They're they they are. They follow the same pattern. Okay. They exist to be spent and some of the funds you add to, you know, like equipment funds, you may continue to add money, buy something, but keep the fund open because you're, you know, you're constantly funding the next piece of equipment or some of these if they just come to a useful end or then they can be closed out. Right. And that's something even the auditors would encourage you to do if, you know, you just don't want them sitting in your financials year after year. Right. And and Kirk, just so that you know, we're gonna have a motion for the board of selectmen
because the board of selectmen is the entity that can close out a fund and dispose of the money in the fund through a fund transfer or reassign it back to the unexpended fund balance. So what we are going to do is we are going to motion for the Board of Selectmen to get rid of some of the funds that we just don't think we need right now. There's still money in an AES expansion fund. We're kicking all that money back out. We are stripping away the all but about 15,000, maybe $20,000 out of the what's left in the Times Farm Bridge Fund. And we're getting rid of the library, the new library fund because we've, accepted the fact that we're not building a new library anytime in the next forty years. So we are doing that. We are going back and taking, we took a look at every fund we have and funds that we don't think we're going to be using. Oh, and we're getting rid of the public works building improvement fund because we're putting that money in the town wide
building improvement fund essentially. So we are going back through in stripping and getting rid of as many of the unused and unnecessary funds as we can.
The haunting of the previous administrations is soon to come to a close?
You know, there's a lot there there's a lot of money we're repurposing that were socked away in places where it really just wasn't being utilized probably at the time it was put there They were anticipating using it but you know that time is over. Okay, thank you.
Good question, Kurt. Other questions, comments from the board? All right, hearing none, I'm going to call for a vote. Diane? Aye. Robb. Aye. Linda. Aye. Louise. Aye. Kurt. Aye.
I also vote aye that motion passes unanimously to create the funds as stated and declares their intent to be used for the reasons stated. Okay. Thank you guys. All right. Any further discussion on the town budget or any ideas or motions before the board? Okay, hearing none, I guess we'll move on to item number nine, the approval of the meeting minutes for prior meetings. We have three meetings we need to review the minutes and approve. 9A is the Wednesday, 04/22/2020 regular meeting minutes. Anybody want to make a motion to approve those meetings? I motion.
Motions to approve the meeting minutes for the twenty second, April 22. Anybody second that motion? Second.
Rob seconds. Thank you. Okay, we'll take a discussion. Hearing none, I'll call for a vote. Diane? Aye. Rob? Aye. Linda? Aye. Louise? Aye. Kurt? Aye.
Okay, and I'll vote aye also. Motion passes unanimously. Move on to Item 9B, Wednesday, 04/29/2020 special meeting minutes.
I have a motion to approve those minutes. I move we approve the minutes for the twenty ninth. Rob moves to approve. Second. Second. Diane got it.
Diane seconds the motion. Any discussion? Okay, hearing none, we'll go ahead for a vote. Diane? Aye. Rob? Aye. Linda? Aye. Louise. Aye. And Kurt. Aye. I also vote aye. That passes unanimously. Move on to item 9C, which is the approval of the meeting minutes for Wednesday, May 6. Do have a motion to approve? I'll make the motion.
Luis motions to approve the for meeting May 6. Do I have a second? I second.
Rob seconds. Any discussion? No. Go ahead and take a vote. Diane? Aye. Rob? Aye. Linda? Aye. Luis? Aye.
And Kurt? Aye. I'll also vote aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Item 10 is liaison reports. I don't have anything from the software committee or anything. Linda, do you have any updates on the on the Not
really. They're trying to do their best with the situation and the social workers are still seeing their students, you know, virtually just like everybody and They admit they have a meeting Monday night. So it's kind of hard when you are meetings of meeting and the board of finance meetings are almost a month apart. Yeah. So yeah it's Tuesday so
okay. So one quick note on that, did last week finally adopt a budget. That budget was exactly what is in our budget, which is why I didn't really mention that. They just they had been there were some holdouts in the town of Marlborough with adopting it. They finally decided to get on board, but since we had already budgeted for that exact amount we didn't really discuss it earlier.
Good point thanks Garik for the clarification. Anybody have anything else to add? Okay, I guess we'll move to item 11, which is the board open discussion. Is there anything else the board would like to discuss? Anything to bring forward?
Hi. Go ahead, Linda. I just want to mention that leading up to this meeting, I didn't receive any emails from anybody. The only information I got about this town meeting is I went on the town website today. I haven't gotten any emails for weeks. On your Andover email or on your personal the Andover email.
Okay. Linda uses her personal email and I was having trouble getting through to her. So what I'm gonna do is send them from our town Gmail account. Is that do you have a Yahoo account? No. It's a Comcast account.
Comcast. You know, we were having problems with Comcast not too long ago and the problems turned out to be mostly on the Comcast end surprisingly enough because we have like we have a real hard time emailing anybody with the Yahoo account. We are finally got got agreement from the board of selectmen to transition the town to office 365. So I suspect within the next couple of months we will have a reliable email provider for the town which we really don't now. So if you didn't get it Linda I'm sorry you might check with Comcast though because in cases where we had problems with Comcast
we the problems turned out to be at your end not at our end. Okay but I just so you know I did look in my junk files I got before I delete that so it wasn't sure though there and the other thing I wanted to mention is I thought the parade was great Good. Enjoyed the parade.
Ahead. Linda, you didn't get an email from me today? No. Really? Okay. Because I saw the one that Amanda had sent. I didn't see your personal email on it, so I forwarded that along with what I updated. So, yeah, something's going on. Okay. On the same issue,
up until recently, or at least for a certain stretch, I was getting emails in both my personal account and the town account and like Linda I did get I do check the town account just not as often as my personal and I did have the emails in my town account for this this meeting but zero in my personal account I have a Gmail account.
So what I've been doing is blind copying all the personal emails. So maybe that's one of the issues. I'm not sure. But from now on, is it okay if I just send it out to both?
Just CC it yeah that's fine you know you don't have to bcc me but yeah just it was odd because I got a pop up reminder because I plugged it into my phone and went oh my god there's a meeting tonight I had completely forgot because the passage of time is shot right now. So but no I like Linda if I hadn't set up that town account I wouldn't have gotten any of this stuff so
I don't We know may want to look just as a thought for this going forward is setting up I don't know if there's something that the town or the IT people can help people with but on the town accounts I'm pretty sure you can set up automatic forwarding So that might be something that we end up helping people do. It will mean that they'll get duplicate emails, but they're gonna get them anyway, probably. So, you know, I think that that might be one way to get around it. I might play around with that and see. That's a great point, Mark, and I apologize.
I've had email troubles too. I am right now with my attachments. I know a lot of people are, so I think we're all hoping with the transition, things will be better, and some of these things will just go away, some of the issues.
Okay. Fingers crossed. Okay. Kurt, you were starting to say something earlier.
Yeah. You had a thought for next budget season, which should be fantastic, I'm sure. We have our rep, Stephanie Bancroft, like I mentioned last meeting, is our new RAM Board of Education Chairwoman. She's from town here, know her very well. Dave Gustanian is resigning from the board, so we'll get a new member, guess. Four or five plus people have come forward that want to represent our second spot. But I just want to make a note that next year, come budget time, we really get them involved in our Graham discussions so that there's no questions, you know, between us, the Board of Selectmen, and any anything else. They're more than willing to share. And so I said, especially now with Stephanie, who was the secretary now being the chairwoman to discuss. So there's no surprises or anything else when we start talking about RAM next year. That's just a
point I wanted to make. Yeah, that's a good point. And I think Eric made the point earlier in the budget discussions about the need to have the people in town speak up and participate, which didn't seem to be happening as much would probably be helpful or be in our interest so. Correct. Any other items anybody wants to bring up questions or concerns or thoughts?
Thank you all for your efforts for this pretty long, grueling budget season.
You're welcome. Thank you, Eric. Thank you, Amanda, Barbara. Okay, hearing no more board open discussion, we'll move on to agenda item 12, which again is our second session of public participation, public speak. Amanda, you want to go around?
Okay, so first up we have Rochelle Strempel. Nothing, thank you. You. Joanne Habert?
Yeah, I'll say a couple words. I don't want to be the Debbie Downer, but I just wanted to state for the record that it would have been highly disappointed if you had all you know gone back and added money back into the board event budget you know it took such a hard long meeting just to get it to that point and let's not forget they had a huge you know surplus this year where they're able to fund $60,000 of next year's budget items with this year's money. I mean, I realized we have COVID, but I think they were going to, you know, they paid down a lot of their bills and they were still gonna have a surplus. So I just kind of wanna since I do take the time to go to all these meetings, RAM, Board of
Ved, I am a little bit disappointed that there's not carryover that like all of the information isn't always there for all of you that are making decisions and at different points. But again let's not forget they had a surplus they're gonna be okay I think they'll do okay without that extra 13,000 so thank goodness you guys didn't do that and just one other thing that would be really great as someone that does listen into everything on the town side because you're gonna be doing some reallocating because of, you know, there's money left over and plenty of things to fund, I know, and that will go to good use. It would be nice to have a total on that so we could get, like, is it a 100,000 left over is it 50,000 yeah other than that thank you let's get a little more facts okay thank you Joanne
Thank you, Julian. Jenny Morell? No, thank you. Thank you. Melissa Lateska? All set, thank you. Diane, is that you?
Diane Grant? Yeah, that would be me. Yes. Thank you. I have nothing really to add. Just thank you to everybody. I know this was a bad year for the budget and I think you guys did a great job and thank you all very much for all your efforts thank you Diane thank you
and Jerry Crum. Anne and Jerry, are you there? Michelle, I know you're from the Journal Inquirer. Did you want to participate in public speak? I'm all set. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I think that's it. Mark, you're muted again. Mark, you're
I just unmuted you. I'm all clear now. I'm laughing at myself because I do this about four times a day for business and I guess I'm just still getting the hang of it. So I just wanted to say that that concludes the end of our agenda items that we have listed, anything we need to take action on. I personally would like to thank the Board of Finance members, Eric, Amanda, Barbara, the Board of Selectmen, and all the public who have contributed to this process. It's not what we wanted to do this year. It's been tough at times. There's been disagreement and discussion, but it's been positive and professional, and I think we all appreciate that. So thank you, everybody. And with that, I think we can probably conclude if anybody wants to make a motion for adjournment.
Before that, I'd like to note that you're such a great facilitator, Mark. I appreciate and I think the whole board appreciates what you've brought to the table. Thank you Louise. I definitely appreciate it.
Me too. Great meetings too. I didn't want to do it. Thanks Mark.
With that I'd like to make a motion to adjourn
second thank you Louise thank you Rob motion to adjourn I'm gonna presume that we've already had a discussion on this and go around. Diane? Aye.
Okay. I'm trying to keep the same order, but you guys moved around on my screen. Rob, yeah. Linda? Aye. Okay. Louise. Aye. Kurt. Aye.
Okay. I'll also vote aye. I think that's everybody. Motion passes and that concludes our meeting. Thank you very much.