Minutes
Town of Greenfield
Greenfield Town Offices, 7 Sawmill Road Greenfield, NH
Selectmen’s Meeting Minutes
Thursday, December February 9, 2012 – 6:30 pm
Board of Selectmen: Chairman, Aaron Kullgren; Selectwoman, Karen Day; Selectman, Robert Wimpory
Staff: Town Administrator Patt, Police Chief Giammarino, DPW Supervisor Murray, Treasurer Heck, Recycling Center Supervisor Burgess, Librarian Smith, Youth Services Readel, Building Inspector Hopkins, Library Trustee Brown, Library Trustee Grant, Library Trustee Dodge, Supervisor of the Checklist Dodge, Budget Advisory Committee Members Nickerson & Steer, Bookkeeper Shaw, Planning Board Chair Marshall, Emergency Management Director Gryval, Fire Chief Loren White, Conservation Commission Chair Irvin, Library Trustee Bascom, Planning Board member O’Connell
Public: Ken Paulsen, Sharon McNamara, Jim Grant, Stephen Chicoine, Adele Hale, Cliff Shaw, Gary Russell, Annette Brown, Albert Burtt, Conrad Dumas, Susan Moller, Christine Long, Marcia Davis, Linda Nickerson, George Ranier, John Matthias
The meeting was called to order at 6:30 PM by Selectwoman Karen Day. Chairman Kullgren joined the meeting later at 9PM.
Documents for Approval/Review/Signature
The Selectmen reviewed and signed the following items:
A. A/P Check Manifest
B. A/P Checks
C. A/P Invoices
D. Preliminary Warrant – revised
E. Preliminary Budget – updated and revised
6:30 PM: Public Hearing Town Warrant
The Public Hearing on the 2012 budget was opened and in the opening remarks it was noted that Chairman Aaron Kullgren would not be attending the meeting. In order to provide a framework for the budget discussion the Selectmen felt that a few minutes overview of the ConVal Deliberative Session by School Board Representative Gryval would be helpful. The floor was turned over to John Gryval to speak briefly on the previous night’s meeting.
Mr. Gryval indicated that it was his intention to convey the meeting, which lasted for five hours, in 10-12 minutes of discussion and would then answer questions from the floor. Mr. Gryval indicated he would cover each of the articles in the School warrant and include an indication of how he voted.
Article 1 was outlined as having been at issue during the previous year and included four million dollars to address issues of ADA compliance. The upgrades were outlined and Mr. Gryval indicated that he believes that it is necessary to address ADA compliance issues. In addition to the ADA compliance there was also a gymnasium floor and an athletic department suite. A committee that studied the compliance issues recommended a solution that was less expensive than the bond that was eventually put forth. As a result Mr. Gryval voted against the bond as he felt that the committee’s options were more suitable. He also felt that the interest on the bond over ten years was high. There would be $708,000 in interest during that time on four million dollars and Mr. Gryval felt the
school should wait a year and see if they could do the upgrades without borrowing money. A question from the floor about the enrollment figures was asked. The answer was that enrollment was down 24% and the middle schools are at 60% capacity. A question about the 2/3rds vote requirement was asked and the answer was that bonds have a different requirement to pass and a simple majority vote is not sufficient for a bond to pass.
Article 2 dealt with the ConVal budget, which Mr. Gryval did not support. The budget for the previous year was $43.7M and this year the projections are indicating that the budget will rise to $44.3M. Mr. Gryval felt that this level of increase, especially given the drop in enrollment, was excessive. Mr. Gryval felt that there were a lot of things that could have been cut from the budget.
On Article 3, Mr. Gryval explained that any monies left over in the budget would flow into a Capital Reserve Fund (CRF). This option has been in place in the past and Mr. Gryval agrees that this is a good way to handle surplus. He believes that there is approximately $236,000 in the reserve fund now. This article designates $100k for Special Ed.
On Article 4, Mr. Gryval characterized this as a sister article to Article 3. with another $100k for the Maintenance CRF.
Article 5 was characterized as a boilerplate for paying salaries for the School Board and officers.
Article 6 is to raise and appropriate $67,500 for a School Resource Officer. There was conversation on this article, with Mr. Gryval indicating that he was generally not in favor of having a uniformed officer at the school to deal with behavior or rule infractions. He indicated that a police officer has to act on the things he sees as part of his law enforcement responsibilities and this could result in the unfortunate instance of children receiving juvenile records when a better solution would be to have infractions dealt with at the school level. Mr. Gryval went on to say that it (a resource officer) changes the philosophy of the school. The article was included by petition and was not supported by the Board.
Article 7 is a petition article that was submitted and outlines the consolidation of the middle schools. Mr. Gryval indicated that this article would preserve each town’s elementary schools and that he was in favor of this article.
Article 8 is a boilerplate for accepting the reports of committees, auditors, agents and the like
Article 9 outlined the election of officers
During the question and answer session following Mr. Gryval’s remarks, there were several questions from people about the School Resource Officer. A question on whether the person could be a trained crisis response officer was asked. Mr. Burtt asked if the officer contemplated would be armed. It was noted by Mr. Gryval that article six had been voted down in previous years.
The conversation shifted to questions about the costs in the budget. Mr. Nickerson asked what was the cost of the Administration that is built into the budget. The general feeling being that the admin level of the school is much larger that is needed given the enrollment numbers. Mr. Brown asked if there was a flow chart on the income of the school. A general discussion of the high school followed. Comments from Mr. Gryval on the high school budget indicated that the cost of educating a child was far in excess of other districts. Selectman Wimpory said that he visited the school recently and was taken on a tour of the school. In the locker rooms there were a very large number of lockers that appeared to far exceed the number required for the children. The person guiding them was a student who told him that
they didn’t use the vast majority of the lockers, there were so many. Also the showers are gang showers and if one shower is turned on every shower is turned on. This seemed to be an enormous waste of money if they were billed for water usage but notwithstanding the cost, why did the school want to add a suite for the athletic department when the showers were so obviously in need of repair?
At 6:58 the conversation on the school budget was concluded. The Selectmen thanked Representative Gryval for his explanation on the school warrant articles. Selectwoman Day took up the 2012 Draft Town Warrant and began reading an overview of the Town’s budget. The first article was a repeat of last year’s warrant article to purchase generators, one for the Town office and one portable generator. Mr. Gryval was called on in his capacity of Emergency Management Director to explain the use of these funds. Mr. Gryval indicated that the funds in last years warrant were not expended, not because of any lack of effort or planning, but because the Town intends to use grant funds from the federal government and there was a lack of clarity at the State level on whether matching funds would be available.
At the end of last year it became apparent that the matching grant funds would be available, and in fact there could be as much as 2 and ½ times the amount of money available to match town funds. So the warrant was put on the budget again. It was noted that the generators would be paid for out of fund balance (given that the funds were appropriated the previous year) and would have no effect on taxation.
The next article on the draft warrant is to create an Assessment Capital Reserve and fund the CRF with $10,500.
To see if the town will vote to create an Assessment Capital Reserve Fund in order to fund the reappraisal of all real estate within the municipality every five years as directed under RSA 75:8-a, and to name the Board of Selectmen as agents to expend these funds, and in accordance with RSA Chapter 35, to raise and appropriate the sum of Ten Thousand, Five Hundred Dollars ($10,500) to be placed in said account
The Town has to reassess all the real estate within the municipality every five years under RSA 75:8-a. In previous years the Town had entered into a multi-year agreement with the assessing company and each year the Town paid a portion of the five year revaluation fee in advance, in order to reduce the cost of the revaluation in the 5th year. The assessing firm’s auditors had required the firm to change its business practice saying that it was not a good practice for the assessing firm to be a “bank” for municipalities. Therefore the assessing firm would no longer be able to provide a pre-payment service program. As a result the Town needs a capital reserve fund that it can budget savings into in order to keep the cost flat. A short discussion followed in which Al Burtt asked
about the assessors that were visiting properties as part of the statistical evaluation that is done every year. He asked if this meant that the homes visited would be reassessed at a higher rate while everyone else in town was at a reduced rate. The answer was that the statistical modeling was to ensure that the assessment data was kept at or above the 90th percentile, also according to RSA, and valuations would not change until the revaluation was done. The statistical evaluation was helpful in keeping the costs down, as a full revaluation costs in excess of $100,000 but a partial revaluation, as provided for Greenfield, costs between $40-$50k. The Capital Reserve Fund was to be created and funded over the next 3 years to help the Town afford the partial revaluation coming up in 2014.
The Recycling Budget was discussed.
To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of One Hundred Sixteen Thousand, Two Hundred Thirty Nine Dollars ($116,239) to support the Recycling Center.
There was discussion of the part time wages. This line item was up from last year. The explanation was that Supervisor Burgess had been looking to hire part time help for $8 per hour, which was the amount in the part-time wage line in 2011. She had been unable to find anyone who would be at the center reliably for that amount of money. She has one person now on Saturdays and that person sometimes is able to cover Fridays. Supervisor Burgess often works alone at the site and has been looking to fill time slots on Tuesday and Thursday and the additional part-time wages will hopefully allow her to do so.
The Administrator explained at this point that in this budget and in other departmental budgets the health line item was higher than expected and was included as a placeholder. The reason for this is because the Town’s provider of the health insurance pool for municipal employees, Primex, is leaving the market. The health provider that services the pool is Havard Pilgrim Health (HPH). HPH has reached out to another group to start and run their municipal pool so that they can continue to serve their municipal customers, but this group has not finalized all of the their filings with the State. As a result, for budgetary purposes, the Town has put healthcare numbers into the budget that it expects are higher than the actual cost of the plan it will eventually contract with. There are options in the
market through a HPH pool and also through ConVal’s contract at LGC that are less expensive than the budgetary numbers in the budget. There could be a savings in health insurance but that decision won’t be made until the April-May time frame.
Marianne Grant spoke about her experience at the recycling center recently. Supervisor Burgess was at the site alone at the end of a shift. The center does not have sufficient outside lighting and was extremely dark. Mrs. Grant suggested that it should be mandatory to have two people on site for safety reasons.
The next article was a $5000 appropriation for two grants from the Used Oil Grant Assistance Program.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of up to Five Thousand, Dollars ($5,000) for the purpose of expending funds that will be offset by the Used Oil Collection Grant Assistance Program, to purchase materials and/or obtain services to establish, improve, or operate a used oil collection center in accordance with the terms and conditions of Used Oil Collection Grants at the Recycling Center. This is for two reimbursement grants of up to $2500 each that will offset expenditures made by the Recycling Center”.
These grants are reimbursable grants, which means that monies spent within the parameters of the assistance program is reimbursed up to the award amount. The Town would be advised of the total amount of each grant award. Currently the center has one award from June 2011 to June 2012 of $2500 and Supervisor Burgess anticipates a second grant starting in July of 2012 for an additional $2500.
Article 6, reads:
“To see if the town will adopt a Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) Trash Disposal program at the Recycling Center and further to raise and appropriate the sum of up to Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000) for the purpose of establishing the PAYT program. PAYT has been shown to increase recycling and decrease the amount of trash tonnage at recycling centers. The Pay-As-You-Throw program will require residents to purchase trash bags for the purpose of increasing revenues at the Recycling Center.”
Neal Brown, the current chair of the Greenfield Recycling Center Volunteer group stood to describe the PAYT program. This program was originally suggested by the Budget Advisory Committee members Myron Steere and Norm Nickerson. The concern from the advisory committee was the perceived increase in the cost of the recycling center. Before the budget advisory committee was willing to entertain increases in the cost of the Recycling Center budget, the members wanted to implement programs that would help offset the center’s costs. The recycling center volunteers have taken on the task of educating residents on the benefits of the PAYT program. These include an increase in recycling, a reduction in the waste stream and the subsequent cost of trucking, an increase in recyclables and recycling revenues. The
PAYT program is envisioned to use large and small bags, which would be clear, have the town’s logo, and cost 1 dollar for the smaller 14 gallon bags and 2 dollars for the larger 33 gallon bags. The income from the bags would include approximately $62,000 from the bags, an increase $3300 in recyclables, and a decrease of $4000 in tipping fees.
This discussion turned to the question of when the program was contemplated to start. The answer was that it would most likely start Sept. 1 of 2012. This would give residents the chance to use up the old bags they have on hand and increase their recycling in an effort to minimize the cost of bags per household.
Article 7 is a follow on to the previous article. Article 7 creates a revolving fund that will keep the funds from the PAYT program separate from the general fund. The language in the article came under discussion. The language reads:
“If Article 6 passes, to see if the town will vote to adopt the provisions of RSA 31:95-H to create a revolving fund for the Pay-As-You-Throw program and to restrict the revenues from the Pay-As-You-Throw program to expenditures for the purpose of solid waste disposal, with such revenues and expenditures accounted for in a revolving fund to be known as the Recycling Center PAYT fund, separate from the General Fund, and further, to name the Board of Selectmen as agents to expend these funds. The town treasurer shall have custody of all moneys in the fund, and shall pay out the same only upon order of the Board of Selectmen for specific purposes related to PAYT and to offset Recycling Center expenses.”
There was a question about whether the language in the first sentence, referring to the purpose “of solid waste disposal” conflicted with the “specific purposes related to PAYT and to offset Recycling Center expenses”.
Al Burtt asked the question of whether the Town or the committee would be making an effort to educate people. In the short term, he said, if the program doesn’t start until September could the Town appropriate a smaller amount of money and then the following year put money back on the warrant for the purchase of new bags? Myron Steere explained that there is a minimum order from most of the companies that sell bags and in the case of the likely vendor there is a minimum order of 75 cases of bags. A question from the floor was asked with respect to how many of Greenfield’s residents, or households, actually use the Recycling Center. The answer from Supervisor Burgess was that as a rough sketch there are approximately 681 households in town and about 85% of the households use the center. Diane Boilard was
recognized. Ms. Boilard discussed some of the ramifications of starting the program in September and then said that in research that she has done on the usage of the Center there was a spike in the amount of recycling done in town. The town hit a peak in the 2005-2006 timeframe and has been going down since that time. The PAYT program encourages people to make an effort. Ms. Boilard said that there was $22 thousand in revenues this year but the revenues don’t actually provide the complete picture of what didn’t have to be hauled away. Recycling at the center reduces the need for tipping fees. In the most recent year this represented a savings of approximately $12, 000 and that combined there was roughly $34,000 in benefit back to the community.
At this point in the review Selectwoman Day indicated that the Board wanted to help department heads that start early have their budgets heard. Selectwoman Day skipped to article 12 and a discussion of the Highway budget.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Five Hundred Thirty Eight Thousand, Four Hundred Four Dollars ($538,404) to support the Highway Department.”
It was noted that the Road Reconstruction line item had been changed to Road Maintenance. The explanation followed that there was a separate article for road reconstruction and the money in this line item would be for fixing culverts, ditching and performing routine maintenance around town. It was noted by Conrad Dumas that the Highway budget, in the past, had been higher so that road reconstruction could be accomplished, but that at one point a significant reduction in this budget was pushed through in the interest of holding down taxes. Mr. Dumas felt that it made sense that you couldn’t hold the tax rate down forever and budgets like this one would have to eventually increase to deal with the roads as they aged.
A review of article 13 was read, which stated:
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Twenty Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000) for the purpose of purchasing a ¾ ton Pick-up Truck for the Department of Public Works. Funding is to be derived from fund balance. This article has no impact on taxes to be raised.”
A discussion on the benefits of the Highway Department purchasing a pick-up truck. It was noted that it is very costly in today’s terms to drive around the six and ten wheelers and that the department has instances when it needs to drive to neighboring towns to pick up parts, or to bring equipment to job sites. As a result the gas and the usage of the large vehicles for this work, or the use of the loader for snow plowing are much more expensive than if a smaller vehicle were used. A conversation about the size of the pick-up occurred with some people indicating that they objected to a ¾ ton truck and didn’t like the idea of using a ¾ ton truck for plowing. At the end of the conversation it was agreed that the article could be edited to read “to raise and appropriate the sum of Twenty
Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000) for the purpose of purchasing a Pick-up Truck for the Department of Public Works.” The article following 13 stipulates that if the pick-up truck is not approved at Town Meeting, the Selectmen would like the $25,000 to be placed in the Highway Equipment Capital Reserve Fund. As with article 13 the funding of the CRF would come from fund balance, which has no impact on taxes to be raised.
Article 15 is for Road Reconstruction:
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of One Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Dollars ($125,000) for the purpose of providing road reconstruction on Town roads.”
Supervisor Murray was asked to explain his thoughts on using funds from this article to fix and bring certain roads up to “drivable” condition. Supervisor Murray explained that while the Town looks into the possibility of bonding as a financial tool to pay for some of its pressing road reconstruction, he has settled on the idea of using a cold patch application to stabilize portions of Mountain Road and Slip Road. The cold patch application is applied in the same way that hot asphalt is rolled out but the size of the cold patch gravel is smaller and the product is not heated to the same degree as hot asphalt. Cod patch costs approximately $89,000 per mile compared to nearly twice that for hot asphalt. As a result of the composition the cold patch has more flexibility that normal hot tar once it’s laid
down. The result will be the ability to stabilize these particular road areas (6 tenths of a mile on Mountain Road, 6 tenths of a mile on Slip Road, and 2 tenths on Old Bennington Road). A question from the floor asked for clarification on whether this would be something that have to be torn up again in the future when its time to bond for reconstruction. Supervisor Murray indicated that the road reconstruction, which is quite costly with $191,000 needed for just one half of the open section of Mountain Road, will come later and will be put right over the top of the cold patch roads. The road reconstruction that the paving companies are recommending is to put a mesh down on the roads followed by gravel and the hot tar over the gravel. The gravel would likely be 12-18 inches and some work on the roads would be done ahead of reconstruction to deal with any stones or boulders in the road. But ideally the cold patch application would stabilize the roads first and provide an excellent
base to the future road reconstruction. In no way was it throwing money away as it could be looked at as providing an much better foundation to future reconstruction.
Article 8 deals with the Operation and Maintenance of the Town.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Six Hundred Eight Thousand, One Hundred Eighty Two Dollars ($608,182) to support the Operation and Maintenance of the Town.”
This warrant article encompasses 24 different departmental allocations. The total for this article was nearly $10,000 less than last year. A brief discussion on the Ambulance cost was held. It was noted that the bill from Peterborough was over $2000 less than last year. Chief White spoke and indicated that the cost of the service has been going down as the service picked up new subscribers and as a result it was likely that the costs would continue to decrease going forward.
Article 9 is similar to the warrant article last year for Code Red Services. This warrant article would pay for an extension of a year of service. The cost is $4211, the same as last year’s expenditure. The reason that this article did not get put into a departmental budget as a line item is because it actually affects several departments. As such it was deemed better to have it set apart from the departmental budgets. In this case the service will be paid out of fund balance, with no impact on taxes to be raised. It was noted that the service was not used in the preceding year and the program was good insurance against future emergency issues.
Article 10 is for the Fire Department.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Seventy Five Thousand, Six Hundred Eleven Dollars ($75,611) to support the Fire Department.”
There was very little discussion on the Fire Department budget. The Chief said that the new fire truck was working out and would serve the town for several years before they would need to revisit replacing their new-to-the-fire-department vehicle. Article 11 for an appropriation of $25,000 to be placed in the capital reserve fund for the Fire Department Equipment Capital Reserve Fund was discussed. It was noted that this article would be paid for out of fund balance with no impact on taxes to be raised. Peter Hopkins asked about the relative size of the Town’s fund balance. There was some discussion stemming from this question and the answer was that even with the fund balance contribution to offset warrant articles in 2012, there would still be some money left over that would contribute to fund balance. It was
estimated that once the warrant articles were accounted for that there would be approximately $400,000 of fund balance available for emergencies and to help cash flow. The Administrator and Treasurer agreed that the recommendations by the Department of Revenue Administration (DRA) was for approximately two full months of revenue inclusive of property taxes. The amount that the DRA recommended therefore was approximately $600,000 for Greenfield.
Article 16 covered the Stephenson Memorial Library’s request for $75,804.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Seventy Five Thousand, Eight Hundred Four Dollars ($75,804) to support the Stephenson Memorial Library.”
It was briefly noted that the reason for the increase in the library budget was so that the library could provide open hours on Saturday. There was no further discussion from the floor about the library.
Article 17 is for a new police cruiser.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Twenty Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000) for the purpose of purchasing and outfitting a Police Cruiser.”
Chief Giammarino stood to explain that the current car #2 was closing in on 150,000 miles and that it was not likely to make it through the end of the year. A discussion about the fact that a cruiser was replaced last year and wouldn’t purchasing one this year create a problem later on when it came time to try and stagger the purchase of vehicles. Chief Giammarino indicated that they had babied their cars to the best of their abilities and as a result they had gotten a long life from the vehicles. While some municipalities traded in their cars every four years he had been able to get twice as many years from the Town’s vehicles in the past. It was unfortunate to have to purchase a car this year but it couldn’t be avoided. Discussion of the Police Budget followed. The Police Budget is up from the previous
year in particular because of the increase in activity. There are 14 open criminal cases since the beginning of the year and some of the arrests have been significant. Conrad Dumas asked if there were sufficient funds in the budget for part-time wages given the increase in activity. Chief Giammarino indicated that he had looked at the line item at length and decided that it was not a good year to go to the taxpayers for raises for the part time police officers. The department’s corporal was out for several months early in the year on a health related issue and as a result the part timers had additional hours that they could work if they wanted. This had the effect of providing additional hours to the department.
The final article, article 19 was discussed.
“To see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate the sum of Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000) and deposit this amount in the existing Town Buildings Maintenance Capital Reserve Fund.”
The reason was that the Meeting House Steeple had been looked at by Robert Morgan and Co. and there are several areas that need repairs. There are rotten beams and planks that are part of the support structure for the bell tower. Robert Morgan Co provided a quote with a base price of just under $60,000 to do this work. The Selectmen felt that they couldn’t do all of the work in 2012 but that they wanted to put some money away so that they could contract to have some of the most pressing work accomplished in the bell tower. There is currently approximately $14,100 dollars in the capital reserve fund and the Board would like to be able to use up to $20,000 in 2012 to do the basic work inside the steeple. The cosmetics of the outside and the clock faces could be done at a later date. They suggested that there could be
grants to restore the steeple, as it is a historic building. The floor asked that the Administrator look for grants that could be used to restore the bell tower and the exterior of the steeple.
The Public Hearing closed shortly after the reading of warrant article 19. The Board indicated that they wanted to make a couple of changes to the wording on the articles. There were no substantive changes to the articles.
Adjournment
Kullgren moved to adjourn the meeting. Wimpory seconded. The motion carried unanimously.
The meeting adjourned at 10:45 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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