Advisory Committee Present: Robert Czekanski
March 13, 2012 Randy Dinjian
Terry Abdalian
Connie Benjamin
Mike Zelenkov
Naveen Rohatgi
The Advisory Committee met at the Town Hall at 7:00 p.m.
Present: David Lindsay, Board of Selectmen
ADVISORY COMMITTEE ANALYSIS
The Advisory Committee reviewed the weekly analysis spreadsheet prepared by Mr. Czekanski. The Advisory Committee agreed to include the $15,833 for a student to go to Assabet; $2,500 for a three year audit; $7,000 for water testing as a result of the Highway Department gasoline leak part of the operating budget; $3,000 for the tree replacement as an article on the warrant; and the FY12 Minuteman Vocational surcharge as an article in the warrant. This brings the revised available fund surplus to $526,891.
CAPITAL PROJECT RECOMMENDATIONS
Present: Fire Chief Mentzer
The Advisory Committee discussed the capital projects and whether they should be included in the warrant as articles or as part of the operating budget.
The Advisory Committee agreed to include the Replacement of Turnout Gear - $30,450; Replacement of SCBA - $148,000; Sugar Road Culvert – $100,000 in the warrant as articles and the two 20KW generators - $19,000 as part of the operating budget for a total of $550,450 which is a deficit of $23,559. The Fyfeshire Dam - $250,000 and the tree replacement - $3,000 are already included in the warrant as articles.
Fire Chief Mentzer stated that the grant availability notification for the replacement of the turnout gear and SCBA equipment would be announced in August of 2012. The Advisory Committee recommended that Fire Chief Mentzer wait until August to see if the Town receives the grants before making any purchases.
On a motion made by Dinjian and seconded by Zelenkov, the Advisory Committee voted to recommend to the Board of Selectmen that they sponsor an article for consideration at the Annual Town Meeting to authorize the borrowing outside of 2-1/2 for $307,000 for the air conditioning at the Florence Sawyer School. (Czekanski – no, Dinjian – yes, Abdalian – no, Benjamin – yes, Zelenkov – yes, Rohatgi – yes)
RESERVE FUND TRANSFER
Mr. Czekanski reminded the Advisory Committee of a previous discussion that took with Mr. Brown, DPW Director to restore money to his budget from the Advisory Committee Reserve Fund because he had used funds originally allocated for the Public Ways Safety Committee on other items necessary at the time. Mr. Brown recently informed Mr. Czekanski he has found the money within his budget and a transfer will not be required for FY12. There is also a balance of $11,350 in the article approved at the May 2011 Annual Town Meeting for the replacement of the town hall boiler. Mr. Czekanski recommended using the balance for the purchase of two fire station furnaces being requested by Mr. Brown. The other option would be to use the balance to reduce the deficit of $23,599 in the FY13 budget.
FREE CASH
The Advisory Committee discussed the level of free cash and agreed they were comfortable with free cash at $450,000 which left a surplus of $37,000 that the Advisory Committee agreed to give to the Department of Public Works for road improvements.
NASHOBA REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT (NRSD) BUDGET
Mr. Czekanski reported that the Lancaster Finance Committee has voted to reject the NRSD budget in its current form. Their feeling is that every year there has been at least at $500,000 surplus from the actual spent and that even with an additional $100,000 reduction from each community’s assessment the school district would still be operating with some level of excess funding.
TOWN’S INSURANCE PREMIUMS
Ms. Day reported that the Town’s insurance agent recommended a 5 to 10% increase in the premiums for FY13. The budget will be adjusted by 5% accordingly.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE STATEMENT
The Advisory Committee reviewed the draft statement prepared by Mr. Czekanski that will be published in the Annual Town Meeting warrant. Mr. Czekanski will make the recommended revisions for review at the next meeting.
MINUTES
Minutes of January 24 & 31, 2012 were deferred to next meeting.
On a motion made by Dinjian and seconded by Benjamin, the Advisory Committee voted to adjourn at 10:15 p.m. (Czekanski – yes, Dinjian – yes, Benjamin – yes, Abdalian – yes, Zelenkov – yes, Rohatgi – yes)
Respectfully submitted by Linda L. Day
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