TOWN OF AVON ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES STUDY COMMITTEE
AVON TOWN HALL SELECTMEN’S CHAMBER BUILDING I
MINUTES
APRIL 15, 2009
I. CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:00PM by Chairperson Mark Zacchio in the Avon Town Hall Selectmen’s Chamber Building I. Members present: Chairperson Mark Zacchio, Board of Education member William Stokesbury, Board of Finance member Thomas Gugliotti and Town Manager Philip K. Schenck, Jr. Members absent: Superintendent of Schools Dr. Richard Kisiel. Also in attendance were Assistant Town Manager Blythe Robinson, resident Flo Stahl, and Matrix CG representative Vice President Alan Pennington.
II. COMMUNICATIONS FROM AUDIENCE
Ms. Stahl requested to save her comments for the end of the meeting.
III. COMMUNICATION FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Chairperson Mark Zacchio relayed the news that Town Council member William Shea was in the hospital and should return home by Monday.
IV. MINUTES OF PRECEDING MEETING: March 9, 2009
Mr. Stokesbury motioned, Mr. Schenck seconded and all agreed to accept the March 9, 2009 minutes as written. Mr. Gugliotti abstained from the vote because of his absence from that meeting. Dr. Kisiel was absent.
V. OLD BUSINESS: APPROVAL OF INVOICES, REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DRAFT REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS
Assistant Town Manager Blythe Robinson recommended payment of Matrix's two recent invoices #3 and #4 in the amounts of $12,568.75 and $2,448.13 respectively. Mr. Gugliotti motioned, Mr. Stokesbury seconded and all agreed to process for payment the two Matrix invoices. None abstained.
Chairperson Zacchio wished to accomplish two things at this meeting: 1) present final discussions for the report and 2) discuss how the committee will present the report to the various Boards. Mr. Pennington pointed out a few changes made to the report from the last meeting. He included amounts (estimated cost/saving) to the recommendations such as approximately $100,000.00 to upgrade the Town's ADMINS financial system to the Windows version, $40,000.00 for the implementation of a time & attendance software system for the Town and in the long term $100-$200,000.00 cost to have both entities on the same system, and also included a high to low priority rating to them. Mr. Stokesbury shared his concerns about which governmental accounting reporting format was needed versus what the State BOE required. Mr. Schenck
reminded him that it was more a matter of timeliness in getting the information to the Town for conversion into the GAP format. Mr. Stokesbury said that this issue was being addressed, which Mr. Schenck concurred had probably come about simply by a lack of BOE personnel to do the tasks in a timely fashion in the past.
Mr. Pennington continued with an overview of their recommendations such as keeping finance functions within the finance department, by having human resources take care of pay rate changes, and taking the Finance Director out of the IT support role by delegating this function to lower level staff. Mr. Stokesbury added that Mr. Pennington's point is that the Town and the Board of Education is running very thin with staff and needs more "bodies" as it were. Mr. Pennington said the Town has done a lot with part-time workers and cross-training. Mr. Pennington posed: how does staff grow with the growth of expectations? He is doing his job by looking long term and where the needs were most critical. From his point of view, he felt the Town and BOE had done a lot of the joint efforts already. Mr. Schenck said that
perhaps the contractual IT used now could eventually be made into a full-time staff person. Mr. Stokesbury added that the IT component on the BOE side would only increase due to added technological learning needs.
Mr. Pennington recommended long term adding an HR person to the BOE side. Mr. Stokesbury strongly suggested that such a hire have a background in a school system. Mr. Pennington felt a smooth transition from private to public could be accomplished and didn't see a choice from the private sector to be insurmountable.
Mr. Pennington continued with savings recommendations on the Facilities and Grounds side. The BOE asked him to look at the cost comparison of the present maintenance system to in-house part-time vs. contractual, vs. mostly contractual with some in-house full time supervisors. He found contracting out entirely to save $6-800,000.00, contracting out partially to save between $2-325,000.00 and just part-time in-house a savings of about $430,000.00. Chairperson Zacchio agreed with Mr. Pennington that all part-time would create problems of supervision, training and retention of employees. Even with the greater control of service and the cost savings, Mr. Pennington doesn't recommend this option. Mr. Stokesbury remarked that the district had not had good experience contracting out this service and that he has yet to see a success
story. He also said every school building is used every night and the custodial staff are town employees looking out for that activity and locking up. The BOE's key issue will remain safety of staff and personnel.
Chairperson Mark Zacchio reminded the group that these are recommendations that will be presented to the various Boards for their consideration, whether acted on in a timely fashion or prioritized over time. He asked Mr. Pennington to work on the format (i.e. truncated words) because the report will have a wide distribution. Mr. Schenck recommended listing the tasks by priority rather than by departments as an appendix. He added that we would soon begin to put together next year's budget. Mr. Gugliotti suggested changing the word "eliminate" to "reduce" the number of persons required to sign off on checks on page 71. He also liked the recommendations chart and thought it a tool that could be used for several years to come. Chairperson Mark Zacchio had hoped that tonight's meeting would serve as
final comments so that Mr. Pennington could prepare for presentation purposes. Ms. Robinson said that it had been sent to other staff for any additional comments as well.
Mr. Stokesbury had additional statute information from Mr. Franzi to give to Mr. Pennington. He relayed Dr. Kisiel's addressing the timeliness of the BOE's financial reporting. Ms. Robinson spoke of the framework she and the Town Attorney have been working on to create a single purchasing policy for having the Town and BOE address joint procurements.
Mr. Stokesbury expressed his concerns with real cost savings or better service delivery in combining grounds maintenance staff. He said it would immediately result in raises as the Town side was paid more. Mr. Schenck said you had to analyze the real costs which included wages with pensions vs. higher wages with no pensions. Mr. Stokesbury concurred. Ms. Robinson interjected to consider the cost savings of the shared and more efficient use of equipment. Mr. Stokesbury pointed out several errors of which personnel report to which supervisor. The issue of paper checks is a matter of collective bargaining, that much of what the BOE does is determined by collective bargaining by statute. His biggest concern in combining the financial management with the Town was that the BOE would lose its control over
its budget, reminding all that the BOE was beholden to the State mandates and statutes. Would a change from the status quo violate statutory obligation? Mr. Pennington countered that the BOE would not lose control of its budget at all, that the recommendations were to manage process and not decision making. His recommendations would not affect where money is spent. It would change the way checks were cut, or purchase orders were processed, or payroll was done.
Mr. Schenck suggested presenting the report at the next Town Council meeting to ask for their recommendations as to how to proceed with it. He felt the interaction of all three Boards with the report and Mr. Pennington would be useful. Mr. Gugliotti thinks this will be a diagnostic tool to be used for years to come. He reminded everyone that the Town Council's acceptance of the report did not mean endorsement.
Ms. Stahl asked for clarification of the process of acceptance; that would the appearance on the Town Council's agenda lead to a rejection and then shelving of the report and at what point would the public see the report. Mr. Zacchio said it would become a public document when the Town Council accepted it. He said it would be available at the Library or on the Town website. Mr. Schenck added that an announcement could be made on the website that said the report was available. Mr. Stokesbury clarified that the Town Council's acceptance was of the report, not necessarily the recommendations. Ms. Stahl said the view out there was the study would provide cost savings. She added that the study really did a fabulous job of looking at only 20% of the budget and asked Mr. Pennington if not he or did he know of organizations
that looked at the education side of a municipality's expenditures for how the money is spent. He answered that his organization did not but knew of others that did.
VI. NEW BUSINESS
Ms. Robinson will get the final report from Mr. Pennington and distribute it to the members. The next meeting will be determined after the Town Council meets May 7th.
VII. ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Zacchio motioned, Mr. Schenck seconded and all agreed to adjourn the meeting at 8:45 PM. None abstained.
Respectfully submitted:
Chairperson Mark Zacchio
Attest: Susan Gatcomb, Clerk
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