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Minutes from Oct 21, meeting
October 23rd, 2009
BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING
October 21, 2009
Members present: Tom Gately, Carmine Fabrizio, Mike Shea, Jim Covey, Lori Hogan, Becki Pike and Bonnie Moroney.
7:05PM meeting brought to order by Tom Gately
Carmine motioned to accept the minutes from the Sept. 16th meeting, Jim second and it was passed.
Bonnie handed out spread sheets with the proposed Selectman’s budget, and proceeded to go over it.
She explained that the dept and committees had been asked to keep their budgets at a 0% or less and not to put in for any pay increases. The board had gone through each and there was a -3% to last years budget for the total.
Bonnie said that the column from each dept./committee reflected what they had asked for but that the Select Board had put in for a 3% increase in pay for the regular employees. She said that the board felt that as they employees had not gotten any increase last year that they would ask for a 3% for them this year.
Jim Covey asked where the board had gotten that %? Bonnie said it had just been what the board had decided. She said that most years they had been given a 5%, but due to the economy the board went with 3%.
Bonnie proceeded to go through the lines that the select board was responsible for besides the salaries.
Property Assessing went up to $32,000.00, due to the fact that we will be continuing on the next 25% of the town reappraisal and also an increase due to the fact that when a person put in for an abatement it requires the assessing company to go out adding another charge. She said that there had been quite a few that were done in 2009, so they were trying to assume that 2010 might be the same.
Legal would stay the same at $25,000.00
Retirement, FICA, Medicare, were not updated and she explained that the new % amounts were not in yet, so she would update the committee when the figures came in.
The Employee Insurance went from $142,263.00 to $163,602.00 due to an 14% increase.
She explained that the LGC was looking into other options for the Municipalities. And she also said tat the ladies in the office had done some checking of other towns and found that we were about the same as most all towns.
Becki, asked how many employees that we had on this, and Bonnie said she thought it was about 15.
Bonnie also explained that there were several employees that the salaries were spread out into more then one acct #, such as the highway dept. they had part of their pay in water dept, town building labor, rec. dept labor., and the Rena and Maryclare also had part of their wages were in other places such as Rena is in the PB and ZBA Secretary. She went on to explain that the were adding a Welfare Admin line this year, because there has been a lot of office hours used to for welfare issues, and the board felt this is something we needed to try to keep track of, as to much of this would be taking away from the office’s regular work.
Lori asked if the board was planning on making this a new position, and Bonnie said no, we just want to keep better track of it. Jim, said that it looked like we were hiding wages.
Bonnie, said that they had been doing it this way now for a couple of years and in the past we would be adding extra money to the budget that didn’t get used, because we had the full wage in one place but actually paid off of several acct #. It was stated that in the town report it gave a total of how much each employee made, so there is no hiding of anything.
Bonnie said that every year she has explained to people how they do this so that extra money was not added.
Electric and heating oil stayed the same, Bonnie said that Maryclare would be calling to see if there was going to be any increases in the elec. but that we had locked in for about the same per gal cost as 2009 for the fuel oil. She said this also included the street lights, that the board had kept the same price so far unless they hear of a % increase.
The town insurance will be going from $25,000.00 to $28,992.00 but she said that the worker’s comp amounts have not come in yet so she would update them as they arrived as well.
The Contingency stayed at $20,000.00 and the Dog stayed at $300.00. Bonnie mentioned that the Comstar amounts for 2010 had not come in yet, and that amount is split between the town and the fire dept. so she would let them know it that comes in with any changes.
She said that the property inspection line would stay at $6,000.00 and timber would stay at $1,000.00 but they had brought the Third Party down to $5,000.00, as this was meant to inspect businesses and there were probably not going to be to many new businesses, or changes in the existing ones. She said that Stan had asked to have a PI Training line added and $450.00 put in it. She said that Stan said there were classes that he needed to attend to stay up on all the changes, and that we would be splitting the cost with the other towns that Stan works for.
Bonnie said they kept the Memorial Day-Patriotic at the $500.00
Bonnie went on to explain that the board had changed some of the amounts under the water dept. as they are going to meet with the Highway/water dept and discuss how we are moving forward. We are hoping to go to the meters this year and in order to do so
The board feels that we need to have one person focused on that and helping with the other dept. and vs. for the others.
She said that had increased the clerical line as they feel at least for the first year, that this person knows how to use the wands for reading, will be making appointments, and doing the billing. It was asked how many times they would be billing, and Bonnie said that she thought 2 times, but wasn’t sure right now. She said that they would still need to go out and check readings and make sure the equipment was working properly.
Bonnie mentioned that under the Water Meter Software Support there was on dollar amount, and that was because Becki had just meant with the company who supports our system, and the ones we have are extremely out of date. But she didn’t have a price on what it would cost, so they had left it open until that information comes back. At that time it will be discussed by the board to weather it would be better to run it as a warrant.
But the board wanted to get a total budget amount for the water about the same as last year, so that the base for the water bills can be set off of that.
Jim said that he was hearing that groups of people were expecting a -10% in the total budget and he felt the board should have gotten it lower. Bonnie said that the board tries to see all the picture and what things need to be addressed each year to keep aspects of the town up and running properly. She said the reason for the one or two public budget meetings, and deliberative session and the voting was so the people can let the board know what they want, but in the mean time it’s the boards responsibility to keep things in the best possible shape and running as smoothly as possible.
Mike motioned to adjourn meeting at 8:15PM and Carmine second and it passed. Next meeting will be Oct 28th, 2009 7 PM
Jim will not be at the Oct 28th meeting and Tom will not be at the Nov. 4th meeting.