Minutes
Town of Greenfield
Greenfield Town Offices, 7 Sawmill Road Greenfield, NH
Selectmen’s Meeting Minutes
Thursday, December February 2, 2012 – 6:30 pm
Board of Selectmen: Chairman, Aaron Kullgren; Selectwoman, Karen Day; Selectman, Robert Wimpory
Staff: Town Administrator Patt, Police Chief Giammarino, Officer Shea, Treasurer Heck
Public:
The meeting was called to order at 5:30 PM by Chairman Aaron Kullgren.
Documents for Approval/Review/Signature
The Selectmen reviewed and signed the following items:
A. Payroll Check Manifest
B. Payroll Checks
C. A/P Invoices
D. Approval of Selectmen Minutes
E. Preliminary Warrant – revised
F. Preliminary Budget – updated and revised
G. General Fund transfer from Recreation Revolving Account
5:30 PM: Selectmen’s Working Meeting: Town Warrant
The Selectmen began discussion on the Town Warrant, which will be presented on February 9th at 6:30PM. Chief Giammarino joined the meeting and brought Officer Shea for a photo for the Town Report. Chief Giammarino also notified the Board that the Police Department’s part-time wage expenses in January were much higher than he had anticipated. He asked the Board for some advice on how he could bring the part-time wage hours in line with his annual budget. Specifically he had some questions about the coverage and would the Board prefer he maintain the coverage that the Town has received to date or would they prefer that he have more call out hours to the State Police. The State Police cannot patrol Greenfield during call out hours; they have one car for most of Hillsborough County. The Board indicated that he should work with the Administrator to calculate the amount of budget in other line items that may be available.
The warrant review began and the Board was presented with an updated warrant with the changes from the last weeks meeting. This updated warrant also included language from town counsel on the wording for the warrants. During this review, Kyle Fontaine of North Pack Electrical Services stopped in to provide a quote on the generators that will appear on the warrant. Mr. Fontaine discussed the generator installation with the Board. He outlined the differences between a 30KW commercial grade standby generator and a 20KW air-cooled propane engine generator. Depending on the needs of the Town Offices; such as whether the building would be used for an emergency shelter, versus, keeping town government functions running in a major ice storm or other regional/local disaster, the cost of the generator could vary
significantly. Mr. Fontaine thought that the 20KW generator would be the best option for the Town Offices. The larger generator was not only more expensive than the warrant article sum, as he understood it, but his quote did not include the cost of installing the foundation (the pad) and the electrical cabling to the generator site. He understood that this was something that the Highway Department would work on to reduce the cost of the installation.
6:30 PM: Non-Public Meeting
Treasurer Katherine Heck approached the Board and requested a non-public meeting. Kullgren moved to adjourn the meeting to a non-public session under RSA 91-A:3II(c) Reputation. Day Seconded. The motion carried unanimously. The regular meeting was adjourned to a non-public session at 6:35 PM. A non-public session was held.
There were no decisions reached at the non-public meeting. The meeting reopened at 6:51 PM. A motion to seal the minutes was voted on and passed 3-0 on a roll call vote.
7:00 PM: Town Warrant Article Review
The warrant review continued. A comparison of the two-year budget was provided. The comparison showed that the departmental budgets were requesting more funds in 2012, but there were overdue projects or new services proposed that were resulting in the increases. Examples include: the Highway/DPW budget line item for Road Maintenance was increased from $60 thousand to $75 thousand, the Library was proposing new Saturday hours and budgeting additional monies to account for the cost of fuel oil; the total for the expanded hours and heating oil resulted in an $8,800 increase over 2011, the Police Department has requested an increase to its Part-Time Wage line, and the Recycling Department has certain Building Repairs and Maintenance that it would like to accomplish.
The bottom line from 2011 to 2012 was that expenses were up by approximately $79,000, with base line revenues increasing $12,000, resulting in a net increase of approximately $67,000. In this number is embedded the higher cost of a new health care plan, the result of Primex withdrawing from the health care market; in order to ensure that the Town would have sufficient funds available for potential health care increases, the budget reflects the higher cost of an 18-month program through LGC. The likelihood is that in the April-May time frame a lower costing yearly pool will be available. This could come from the Interlocal Trust and would maintain Harvard Pilgrim as the provider, or it could be that a ConVal LGC/Anthem plan will work. ConVal’s pricing appears to be more competitive than if the Town of Greenfield
contracted with LGC directly. The Administrator thought that there could be as much as $7000 in savings in the healthcare program by the time the decision needed to be made. The resulting $60,000 figure reflects an increase of 3.8% over last year’s operating budget. Chairman Kullgren noted that the Operations and Maintenance budget, which includes the Executive budget is down from last year by almost $10k ($618,508 vs. $608,182).
A discussion on the warrant articles was held. The warrants reflect the Board’s desire to accomplish certain goals in 2012. These include Road Reconstruction, funding of capital reserves for the Fire Department and the Highway Department, and the creation of an Assessment Capital Reserve. The Board was hoping to use a significant amount of fund balance to fund warrant articles. The warrant articles that would result in taxes included the Road Reconstruction, the Police Cruiser, and the Assessment CRF. The rest of the warrant articles would be covered by grants or fund balance. This includes the Fire Department Equipment Capital Reserve, the Highway Pickup, or, Highway Capital Reserve, the Code Red contract and the generators. Altogether Warrant Articles totaled $257,636. The total of articles that were to be raised
by taxation is $190,400. Of this amount a warrant article for $29,900 for Surveying and Engineering was discussed. The Board decided to table this warrant article because they wanted to limit the impact of new taxes on residents. The total to be raised by taxation therefore includes $160,500 ($125,000 Road Reconstruction plus $10,500 for Reassessment, plus $25,000 for a Police Cruiser).
A brief discussion of the impact of ConVal was held. A trial tax rate was calculated but without the ConVal numbers the impact of the warrant articles was inconclusive. It was noted that the vote on ConVal would take place the night before the budget hearing so it was conceivable that more information would be known prior to next Thursday’s meeting.
Adjournment
Kullgren moved to adjourn the meeting. Wimpory seconded. The motion carried unanimously.
The meeting adjourned at 9:45 PM
Respectfully Submitted:
Aaron Patt
Town Administrator
The minutes are final when approved and signed by the Board of Selectmen. A signed copy is on file in the Selectmen’s minutes.
_______________________ ________________________ ______________________
Aaron Kullgren, Chairman Robert Wimpory, Selectman Karen Day, Selectwoman
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