Advisory Committee Present: Christopher Slade
January 18, 2005 David Bosselait
Scott Powell
Wendy Rogers
Panny Gerken
David Lindsay
The Advisory Committee met at the Town Hall at 7:30 p.m.
TOWN ADMINISTRATOR, JODI ROSS – FY06 BUDGETS
122-Selectmen: The miscellaneous line item increased from $5,000 to $10,000. Town Secretary Linda Day stated that the miscellaneous account was used for the demolition of 440 South Bolton Road and various expenses including advertising for Moen property, RFP’s, etc. The Advisory Committee would like to note the miscellaneous line item as a potential area to scale and discuss at a later date. They would also like to see the advertising broken out of the miscellaneous line item.
151-Law Committee: Through October approximately $27,000 has been spent so far. The Advisory Committee asked that a legal RFP be done for Legal Counsel. Ms. Ross agreed to go out to bid and review quotes although she stated that there is a benefit to staying with Town Counsel. Let’s work a little longer utilizing present Town Counsel to our best advantage and at that point could look at legal services.
155-Computer (MIS/GIS): (includes for DPW, Library and Town Hall) Advisory Committee asked about backup of town hall computers. This will be double checked with Ed Sterling to understand how much he is backing up and if he has a list of all equipment and serial numbers.
$4,700 was budgeted for software licenses and backup software; $3,860 is for web site services including domain names and email charges. $3,500 is for 2 computers for Library.
The Committee asked Ms. Ross to check with Planning Board, Board of Appeals and Board of Health to see if they had started to request GIS compatible plans.
192-Town Hall: Heating and Electric was budgeted 10% over FY04. Postage has been increased due to request from Assessors for $1,000 for revaluation and anticipated increase in postage from $.37 to $.41. This account is basically level funded.
194-Insurances: This account was created to hold all insurance line items. The increases reflect a 10% increase for all line items. Ms. Ross has a meeting coming up to discuss the increase the disability of firefighters volunteers.
195-Town Reports: This budget is for one annual town meeting and two special town meetings along with the printing of the annual report. Also includes banner repairs and date changes.
293-Traffic Lights: 10% increase
424-Street Lights: 10% increase
Lindsay estimates decline of 1.1 % in the budgets above.
TOWN HALL OFFICE SPACE
With the proposed renovations of the Emerson School, the offices of Treasurer, Accountant and Building Inspector will have to be moved. Town Administrator Ross has been given a goal by the Board of Selectmen to relocate these three with the rest of the offices at the town hall. A short term proposal would be to move the relocatable or lease an office trailer and place on the property of the town hall. A long term proposal would be to do a small addition on the back of the town hall for meeting rooms with offices on the 1st and 2nd floor of the town hall. The addition was estimated at 500K which would cost each household approximately $33 per year.
The Advisory Committee was favorable to Ms. Ross exploring further and obtaining information on the cost of moving the relocatable and finding out the cost to rent a trailer.
Meeting adjourned.
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