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Minutes from the Oct. 20th meeting.

October 24th, 2010

BUDGET COMMITTEE MEETING
Oct. 20, 2010

Members present: Tom Gately, Jim Covey, Lori Hogan, Carmine Fabrizio, Becky Pike and Mike Shea and Bonnie Moroney

Guests: Mark Catalano, Nancy Metigay, Linda Dowling, Chief John Trammell, Eric Bergum, Roberta McGee, Frank Maturo, Al Strasser and Joan Kaprf

Meeting called to order at 7:12 by Lori

Roll call taken for members, all present.

Tom motioned to approve the Sept.15th minutes, Carmine second and it passed.


Old business:

Surveys – Lori passed out the results that she had put together from the surveys. One was the results from the multiple choice questions separating out the question number, and the percentages of voter vs. non-voter and total number.

She then passed out graphs and pie charts that she had made-up to reflect the Voter vs. non-voter response, family size for voters, years lived in Carroll, concerns affecting household, most important – 10/11, Number of employees, and current operating budget
opinion.

She had hoped to have the part done with the work questions, but the ones with the key word phrase of all the questions was taking more time then she had planned, but she was working on them.

Mark felt that if we did another survey that we should write at the beginning that we want to hear from all voters and non residence.

Eric suggested that we have a graph for the residence and the non residence together.
Lori asked what the committee felt that we should do. It was felt that they should be combined in order to get the picture of the totals. After several suggestions, she said she would make the changes, and did the committee want her to then just send the results out to the select board, or did they want to see them first. Jim asked if it could be sent electronically to the members for them to look at first. She said most but not the work questions, it would be too much.

Lori said that the committee had the response that Joan had requested in writing from Sue about the water dept. budget, and if Joan didn’t mind she would make a copy of it and give it to Joan, rather then reading it in this meeting.

New business:

Presentation of the Select board’s proposed 2011 budget.

Bonnie asked to first read the statement “This is a continued meeting for the final vote from the Select board”. She explained that the board was unable to complete the budget Monday evening, so they would vote to accept what they had put together after discussion.

Bonnie handed out the first budget to the committee. Mark said that he had hoped to get the budget down 10% before presenting it to the budget committee, but he is asked that the budget committee please try to take it down the rest of the way to make it a 10 % decrease, as the board was able to take it down just under 5%.

Mark spoke of perceptions that many people in town have and where some of them come from. He used three or four employees and the amounts reflected in the town report for their wages. He said there have not been any raises in 3 years and that is true in one respect, but one employee we have a 14% increase from the one year and a 12% the following year and last year was a 2%. He also went over the % or 3 other employees.

He said that the base pay did not change from one year to the next but what did add to the increase was it was a combination of detail work and over time. The detail work has no impact on the budget or the taxes. These are services that the town bills whoever asks for detail services and the money goes into a revolving account and they are paid from that.

Jim asked if the employees had asked for a raise this year. Bonnie said that some had asked for 4%, but that the board would like to ask for a 3% across the board raise, as they
Have not had one in 3 years and 2011 would make 4.

Mark said that the board would like to give merit raises and had started the plan in motion by doing evaluations for all the dept heads during the year, but had not gotten with the dept heads to have them evaluate their employees. He said that we are looking to implement that procedure in the coming year.

It was suggested that the select board can come back with how they want to do the increases for each employee vs. an across the board raise.

Mark asked it the budget committee had the dept heads come to the budget meeting every month. Lori said no we go over the budget at each meeting and if there is an issue we wish to address with a dept head we ask them to come to the next meeting.

Mark wants to present the possibility of better infrastructure of the water dept., separating it out of the budget. Bonnie explained that we have already separated it out of the budget.

There were questions about the bond and who is paying that now. Bonnie said that she would ask Maryclare and get more clarification.

Bonnie made a motion for the Select board to accept the proposed 2011 budget with a 3%
Pay increase for the employees, but with the ability to change the wages from one employee to another. Mark second and it was passed.

Bonnie handed out the budget that showed the 3% increase and asked the committee to follow with that one while the Select board presented the budget.

Town Officers
The budget reflected a 3% increase for the Town Clerk/Tax Collector and PT Deputy Town Clerk, but the total on the deputy had been cut so the bottom line was a decrease of
$1,026.00.

Election & Registration
The board had not made any changes to this from what the Moderator had presented to the board, with had a $1,300 decrease.

Financial Administration
The board too the tax map down to $4,000.00 from the proposed $5,000.00
Office equipment from $3,000 down to $1,000.
Postage down to $3200 and telephone down to $2400. leaving that total an increase of $959.00 from 2010

Property Assessing
The board decided to take that amount down to $10,000. and run two warrant articles, giving the voters a chance to complete the accessing of the town by 2011 vs. 2012. The board explained that we had many people complaining about the assessed values, and so we felt that the public should make the decision. One warrant would be for $54,000 and the other would be $24,000. for the price of one year instead to keep it on the schedule it’s presently on.

Legal expense
The board took that down to $18,000.00 as most of the cases that we were aware of have been taken are of for the most part.

Personnel Administration
This should reflect a 3% increase for retirement, FICA and Medicare, but didn’t reflect that, so Bonnie will check with Maryclare. Bonnie said that we have not heard about any increased for Employee insurance.

Planning board.
The board took Code enforcement officer down to $1.00 as there is going to be a warrant article run to have the Planning Board funding pay for this.
The board also too the master plan from $1,000 down to $500.00
Leaving the planning board at $1134.00 less than 2010.

Board of Adjustment
It was mentioned that the secretary was taken down $500.00 so that salary balance needed to be moved to 01-4150.10-111 Selectman’s Office Staff, as that was part of that salary.
The rest was left the way the Board of Adjustment had presented it to the board, with a $70.00 increase.

General Government Buildings.
The board took the Janitor down to $5700.00
The Town Building labor and recreation are labor needed to subtracted from the Highway dept salaries, as this was part of their total.
The Contract labor was taken down to $2,000.00
Heating oil down to $22,000.00
Repairs & Maint. Town Bldgs was decreased to $20,000.00
Janitor Supplies down to $800.00
Leaving the bottom line $14,800.00 less.

Cemeteries were not adjusted from what was presented to the board, $350 less then the 2010 budget.

Insurance the prices are not in yet, so the ones on the budget are the proposed amounts.

Other General Gov’t

The board too the Contingency down to $5,000.00 giving that line a $15,000 decrease.

Police Dept.

The board took the Overtime down to $15,000.00
Gasoline down to $10,000.00
Uniform cleaning down to $1,200.00
And the Miscellaneous down to $1,000.00
Leaving a $5,539.00 increase with the proposed raises included.

Fire Dept.
The board took overtime down to $15,000.00
FD Equipment supplies down to $850.00
Ambulance repair down to $3,500.00
Gasoline down to $5,500.00
Clothing down to $2,000.00
And Protective clothing down to $3,750.00
Leaving an increase of $6643.00 but that included the full payment of the $65,000.00 on the fire truck as we took the lesser one last year.

Property Inspections
The board again took the Property Inspections down to $1.00 as this salary is included in the warrant to use the Planning Board Fund to pay this salary.
Timber inspection was taken down to $500.00
Third party inspections was lowered down to $1,000.00
Leaving a $7,499.00 decrease from 2010.

Emergency Management was left as had been presented to the board with a $1697.00 decrease.

Highway department
There needs to be some adjusting of the salary lines as they are also in other places on the budget, but the board worked on some other lines.
Shop Expense & tools down to $500.00
Highway Maint. Gravel down to $3, 00.00
Gasoline/Diesel down to $7,000.00
And the board added two lines
Supplies for $100.
Street signs & Posts foe $200.00
Leaving a $19784.60 decrease from the 2010 budget.

Street lighting was left alone, we have not heard from the power company about any increase this year.

Solid waste
The board took the proposed budget increases down to the 3% that the board is proposing.
It was discussed that the tires line was actually the container lease to the board changed that line to $1.00 and increased the Container lease line to $2,800.00
The Electricity line was found to have an incorrect amount, so that was changed to $1,800.00
We added a clothing allowance line for $750.00
And brought the Misc down to $500.00
Leaving a $1,106.00 increase from the 2010 budget.

Public Assistance
There were no changes from what the Health Officer presented to the board but it was noted that the WEL Admin had been lowered to $3,000, so the difference of $1,000 needed to be moved back to the Selectmen’s Office Staff salary line as it is part of the salary.
Leaving $1025.00 less then the 2010 budget.

Parks and Recreation
The board decided not to make any changes to this budget that was presented to the board that had gone down $13,115.00 from the 2010 budget.

Library
The board didn’t change anything on the library as it was $323.00 less then the 2010 budget with the pay increase included.

Patriotic Purposes was left at $500.00

Culture
The board took the beautification down to $800.00
And the Town Entertainment down to $1700.00
Leaving a decrease of $500.00 from the 2010 budget.

Conservation Commission
The board made no changes on that from the proposed budget presented to the board.

Water Distribution and Treatment
The board made no changes to the proposed budget presented to the board.

Lori asked we could get the requested items from the Sept 15th meeting from Maryclare for next weeks meeting.
Lori requested that a column be added to the Employee spread sheet showing the last date that each employee received a pay increase.

She also mentioned that Jeff had offered to provide information of calls by the time of day, etc.

It was discussed when the 2 Public Budget Meetings were going to take place. It was decided that Tuesday Jan 11th would be to present the proposed 2011 budget, and Wednesday Jan. 12th would be for the Money Warrants and Revenue Summery, plus anything else that needed to be completed or voted on.

Jan. 5th at 7PM will, be the Planning Meeting unless we have extra time on the meeting Dec. 15th , then we may have time to do it then and not meet on the 5th.
Jan. 19th we need to meet to go over the sign the MS7.

Carmine motioned to adjourn the meeting at 9:22PM Tom second and it passed.

Town of Carroll, New Hampshire ®2024