Lenox Finance Committee Meeting
Date: October 3, 2012
Members Present: Lucy Kennedy (LK), Joe Nejaime (JN), Steve Pavlosky (SP), John Hillier (JH), Mark McKenna (MM) and Ed Lane from the Board of Selectman
Absent: Eric Vincelette and Chris Fenton
Meeting called to order at 6:00PM
LK opened with a summary of the Open Meeting Laws as per the March 24, 2011 guide (attached). Minutes need to be kept and presented within 10 days. Once approve, they should be forwarded to the Town Clerk to put on the website. No group e-mails with thoughts, opinions or feedback that would constitute a quorum discussion are allowed. Please respond only to the sender in the future. Each member must sign the certification on the final page of the attached guide on a bi-annual basis. Any member who has not already done so, please sign the last page and give to Marianne Duby.
Three (3) potential members were suggested to add to the finance committee. LK and JN will follow-up with those prospects and hope to fill the vacant seats.
JH and LK met with Jeff Vincent to discuss the short and long term capital needs of the DPW. The estimate provided was without back-up and simply an educated guess. The potential sewer agreement with Pittsfield is still an unknown, and it is important that capital costs are kept to those areas where Lenox would continue to benefit whether we end up working with Pittsfield in the long term or not. Also discussed regionalization, and Jeff noted that to do so, a regional sewer district and a regional water district would need to be set up. There would be significant upfront costs and it could be years before any potential cost savings were seen, but it is imperative that we start looking into this now and make a determination on how to proceed. It is clear we cannot continue status-quo.
Good discussion on the 10 year financial projection (Lenox Fiscal Checkup) that LK prepared (attached) and the list of items to discuss at future meeting with the Select Board and the School Committee as detailed by SP. Some of the more significant cost saving items include:
• The $1 million plus annual cost of school choice
• Combine superintendents for Lee & Lenox
• Push for a single town financial director on a single management system
• Regionalization, Rationalization and Privatization of schools, town departments, backroom employees and functions and public safety
The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday October 17 at 6pm with the BOS.
Meeting adjourned: 7:30PM
Respectively Submitted,
Mark McKenna, Secretary
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