Dukes County Commission
Minutes
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
4 p.m.
Oak Bluffs Public Library
Commissioner Present: Tristan Israel, Lenny Jason, Les Leland, Melinda Loberg and Tom Hallahan.
Not present: Carlene Gatting –Chair, John Alley
County Staff present: Russell H. Smith – County Manager, Martina Thornton – Ex. Assistant to County Manager, Noreen Mavro Flanders – County Treasurer, Sarah Kuh – Vineyard Health Care Access Program Director, T.J. Hegarty – Integrated Pest Management Director (left early).
Others: Skipper Manter – member of the County Advisory Board (left early), Kathy Burton – Oak Bluffs Selectman, Cathy Goudy – Oak Bluffs Fin. Com.
1. Meeting was called to order at 4:15 PM
2. Minutes
2-15-08 – postponed to the next meeting
Melinda/ Lenny moved to approve the Minutes of 6-9-2010 meeting. So voted. In favor: Tristan, Lenny, Melinda. Abstained: Tom, Les. Motion does not carry.
Tom/Melinda moved to approve the Minutes of 6-23-2010 meeting. So voted. All in favor.
Melinda/Tom moved to approve the Minutes of 6-29-2010 meeting. So voted. All in favor.
3. Resolution regarding distribution of Deed’s Excise Tax Fund
Russell explained that this was recommended by the auditor and the resolution will make sure that the revenue from the Deed’s Excise Tax Fund will be distributed 60% to the County, 40% to the Registry of Deeds and will be presented at the next meeting.
4. Personnel Committee Report – Melinda said that they met that morning and discussed the cost of moved all county employees to the next step as asked by the County Advisory Board and what would the cost be. Russell and Martina explained a spreadsheet distributed to demonstrate the calculations to give a projection on how much it would cost to move employees from being “whole” to the next higher step on the new pay scale at their anniversary date. Martina explained that the biggest difference is that when the budget was put together Sarah Kuh was working 35 hours per week and she budgeted for the same for FY2011. She was recently approved to work 40 hours per week and so her budget would increase to cover the extra hours. The second warrant article put before the towns by Vineyard Health Care Access program
was not included in the budget as it was not voted on at that time. Now all towns voted it and Sarah has extra money to increase her hours. Tom asked what change in her office made her increase her hours. Sarah said she was working 40 hours before and originally the cost was part of grants that she received. The grants ended and she was planning on increasing her hours to 40 as of January but the money was not there to do it. Tristan asked that originally we were not planning to move people until next year and why do we want to spend more money this year. Lenny said that according to the Personnel Bylaws we have to give a step increase if the employee gets a favorable evaluation. Lenny asked to finalize the numbers and to put before them what was budgeted and what additional funds they need to approve.
Melinda asked for amendment of the Resolution regarding the creation of the County Personnel Board to change the term “full-time” as it excludes some permanent county employees.
Melinda/Lenny moved to change in the Resolution regarding creation of Personnel Board the word “full-time” by “all county employees except seasonal or temporary”. So voted. All in favor.
Tom asked if someone from the Airport employees could be the employee representative to the Personnel Board as some of these employees are union and not subject to the Personnel Bylaws. Tristan asked the Personnel Sub-committee to look into it.
5. Public Hearing on the FY2011 County Budget
There were no amendments to the Airport Budget. Russell said that the Airport is planning to do the 75-25 change as a budget amendment in the future.
Amendments to the County Budget – Vineyard Health Care Access Program’s budget will increase by the second warrant article voted on in all island towns in the total amount of $61,136 – increase in revenue and expenditure. Melinda asked if this amendment could be worked into the whole county budget and present the final budget version to the Commissioners in two weeks. Tristan asked to reschedule the public hearing on County Budget with set time.
6. County Manager’s Report
Courthouse – venting fan will be installed in the Courtroom. It was part of the roofing contract and it was removed, by which we saved $22K and hired other contractor to install it for about $6K.
Owen Little Way – the Town of Tisbury is planning to re-grade the parking lot and put a bio swale up against the existing fence to collect the rain water as shown on the drawing.
Animal Shelter Fundraiser is this Friday from 5 -7pm at Bev and Mort Fearey’s house in Edgartown and the County Commissioners are invited. Melinda will attend.
Big Bridge – tomorrow morning there will be a protective railing installed – County buys the material from the State fund for the beach protection and the towns of Oak Bluffs and Edgartown provide the labor, the total cost will be about $1,000.
County fuel bid – will end on July 23rd, so far we handed out 4 applications.
MSPCA subdivided the property into two lots and submitted the plans to the Planning Board. They do not need approval for the subdivision. We are being told that the back lot will stay as the island-wide shelter and they are planning to sell the front lot to the veterinarian who is renting the building now. The front lot would include the old Ms. Foot’s house. Tristan asked if this is not in contrary with the wishes of Ms. Foot. Russell explained that Ms. Foot deeded the property to the MSPCA with no conditions. She then in her will said that the property shall be for the use for the animals here, but by then the property was already owned by MSPCA. Russell did argue that the intent was clear and we had lawyer who was on the Animal Shelter Board look into.
Lenny/Tom moved to have the county counsel look into this matter. So voted. All in favor.
Lenny asked what is the minimum lot size and if the property could be divided into 3 lots and for Russell to find out.
7. Old Business
FY2010 Budget - Noreen informed that as of now we are $25K in black and we still have another month of parking fees to come in and another month of Cape & Islands' License Plates and $16K for allocation of overhead from the Airport. Overall the license plates will be about $8K over, the alarm fees about 7K over, the overall Registry fees are $25K over, the copy fees went down by 25% due to the fact that the records are on-line and people are printing it at home. We also received the 4th quarter of the courthouse rent and extra on administration fees.
FY2011 – Noreen asked to authorize her to borrow in anticipation of revenue up to $400K for FY2011 (half of the tax we receive from the towns). Tristan said that all money we received from the towns except for about $20K goes towards the unfunded liabilities.
Melinda/Tom moved to authorize the Treasurer to borrow in anticipation of revenue up to $400K for fiscal year 2011. So voted. All in favor.
Lenny asked when we will know how much we have left in the unreserved fund balance after the end of FY2010. Noreen said that we are starting the audit next week and should be done by the end of September. Noreen said that Standard and Poor wants to know if the County Commissioners have policies on how much to keep in our reserve fund. Tristan said that the County Advisory Board recommended we have $100K in the reserve fund. Noreen said that this is not a formal resolution or policy and she recommends we adopt one. Tristan asked Noreen to prepare the policy and present it for discussion to the County Commissioners. Russell added that it was also a recommendation by the auditor.
Tristan asked if Russell looked into the grant writing and if he could come back with some information regarding this.
Adjournment:
Lenny/Melinda moved to adjourn the meeting at 5.23p.m. All in favor.
Respectfully Submitted by:
______________________________
JOSEPH E. SOLLITTO JR., Clerk of the Courts
Documents presented at the meeting and part of the official records:
- Agenda
- FY2011 Proposed Budget
- Calculation worksheet to move employees to next step on new pay scale
- Copy of Resolution #01-2010
- Owen Little Way parking area project drawing
- Subdivision Plan for MPSCA lot
- Letter from T.J. Hegarty to the County Manager dated July 13, 2010 – regarding meeting on July 14th
- Letter from T.J. Hegarty to the County Manager dated July 13, 2010 – regarding longevity bonus
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