Town of Lyme
Budget Committee
Town Office
January 8, 2003
7:00pm Approved January 15, 2003
Present at this meeting; Selectman: Richard Jones, and Michael Hinsley(arrived at 8:30), Budget Committee Members: Gibb Cornwell, Mike Smith, Jeff Lehmann, Josh Kilham, Barney Brannen, George Palmer, Earl Strout, Wayne Tullar, Dick Justice,School Board representative: Manton Copeland,Lazlo Bardos, Jesse Seaman, Principal, Gerry Clancey, and Superintendent, Gordon Schnare,Administrative Assistant: Carole Bont, Community member: Pete Bleyler, Spectator reporter: Mary Murray, and Scribe: Dina Cutting.
The meeting was called to order at 7:00pm by Chair Smith.
Chair Smith explained that the sense of the Budget Committee was to discuss the Town budget first and try to wrap that up. Then they can focus on the School budget.
1) Mr. Jones moved to except the minutes of the December 11, 2002 meeting. Seconded by Mr. Cornwell. There being no corrections the motion was voted unanimously in favor.
2) Chair Smith opened the floor for any comments at this time. Mr. Strout expressed concern over whether the Budget Committee is really doing what they should be. The job of the Budget Committee is not to micro manage the budget line by line. Both the Selectmen and the School Board put allot of work into the budget proposals. He recommended the Budget Committee look at these budgets from a bottom line amount based on what the Town can afford.
3) Mr. Jones passed out the budget notes and proposed (revised)budget with changes from the last meeting. Column J is the revised budget and column K is the difference between the last proposed budget and this revised one. The police budget was missing the miscellaneous line $500.00. The Independence Day line was not included in operating expenses $6,500.00. The corrections and changes total a $7,000.00 increase to the total appropriations. There were some new budget lines added. Because of the reductions in this budget the department heads wished to have their own budget lines for expenses attributed to meetings and seminars, phone, supplies, and postage. The changes do not change the total appropriations for these departments, it has been only redistributed to each
department differently. The Library Trustees voted to not include the non-approprited trust fund expenditures in their regular budget. They would like to have a separate money warrant article for the purpose. The budget proposed tonight will be with the $8,000.00 taken out of the operating budget and revenues are reduced by $8,000.00 also. Wayne Tullar will be speaking to this request later in the meeting. Mr. Jones reviewed the 2002 budget. 95% of the budget is spent to date, with a few bills left to pay in 2002.
4) Budget discussion: Voting the budget as a bottom line figure was discussed again. It was the sense of the Budget Committee to vote the bottom line. A $62,000.00 increase would be a 0-1% increase in taxes. Followed was a discussion on whether it made sense to vote the town budget before discussing the school. There maybe some information in the school budget that would be an impact on the town budget. The procedure of the Budget Committee votes, meetings and public hearings was reviewed. It was noted that all votes could be changed by a Budget Committee member making a motion at anytime during these meetings. Followed was a discussion on the increase in hours for the town office employees, addition of the Town Clerk benefits, and the possibility of cutting the increase in
hours in half to help save in the budget. It was the sense of the Budget Committee to vote on the bottom line of the Town Budget at this time. Mr. Justice suggested this vote wait until after the school discussion.
Line 369 TOTAL OPERATING EXPENSE: Mr. Palmer moved line 369 at $1,470,271.00 Total Operating Expenses. Seconded by Mr. Jones. Followed was a brief discussion about cutting more money from this line. The motion was voted 10 in favor, 1 apposed (Mr. Justice).
Line 433 CURRENT YEAR APPROPRIATIONS: Mr. Brannen moved line 433 at $ 1,89.071.00 Current year Appropriations. Seconded by Mr. Cornwell. Voted 10 in favor, 1 apposed (Mr. Justice).
5) School Budget discussion: Mr. Bardos requested the discussion concerning the agreement with Hanover High school be first.
A) High School agreement of Memorandum: Mr. Seaman, Chair of the High school Committee presented the memorandum of understanding to the Budget Committee. Mr. Seaman reviewed the hand out and explained how this agreement will work. The following points were explained and discussed, enrollment guarantees, tuition rates, renewal of this memorandum of understanding. The Budget Committee thanked Mr. Seaman for his presentation. At this time Mr. Copland took over the High School presentation. The projections for Lyme student enrollments at Hanover high school were discussed. It was noted that this agreement is only good if the bond passes in Hanover although they will except this year 8th grade class no matter what. Questions were asked concerning what would happen if we had more students that spaces. It was
noted that the agreement states siblings and children of Dresden teachers have priority then it would go to a lottery for the other students. The School Board will be holding a public forum on this topic on January 21, 2003. It was noted at this time that the final decision will be up to the school board. This agreement does not have to be voted on by the town.
B) Teacher Negotiations:Mr. Bardos refereed to the hand out and reviewed the topics on the budget proposal. Teacher Negotiations, a three year contract has been negotiated. This includes a 3.5% increase, some language in the contract was cleaned up. Refer to sheet in noted books. The question of how can we justify this kind of raise for the teachers and not the town employees. It was noted for clarification that the motion for the town employees was for them to get half this year and half next year. Mr. Bardos explained that our teachers are behind area towns, we also have a very senior staff. We need to be concerned with the bottom of the pay scale so we can attract new teachers when we start loosing our senior staff members. Some Committee member noted there concern for people in town
on fixed incomes or only cost of living raises.
C) Retirements: Mr. Liss will be retiring this year. The school board plans to cover his position by reassigning some teachers and increasing a part-time teacher to full-time. This will reduce the total by 0.5FTE. The school board has been noticed of two other teachers that will be retiring next year.
D) Health Insurance: Health Insurance has increased 7.8%. The administration will be looking elce where to see if they can come up with a better price. It was noted we also provide health insurance for retired teachers.
E) Bus Contract: The bus contract was put out to bid. Only 2 out of 7 companies bid on this contract. There is not allot of competition in this area. This will be a $10,000.00 increase from last years line.
F) High School Costs: The School Board expect the tuition at Hanover to increase 9%, the tuition at Thetford to increase 7.4%. There are three fewer high school student this year (98 students). The total High School expenses will be an increase of 2.2%.
G) Special Education: It was noted that 13% of the budget is special education costs. The state does reimburse the town for some of these costs. The School Board will not be requesting any money be put into the capital fund. It was discussed that the trust fund was set up to level things out. Followed was a discussion on the pros and cons of using some of this money to lower the overall budget increase. It was felt by the School Board that this fund should be used for emergencies during the school year.
H) Revenue Considerations: The School Board projects the amount to be raised by taxes for the school will increase by 12%. Three main factors contribute to this: No withdrawal from the high school trust fund, a surplus from last year, and the reduction in the adequacy grant.
I) Followed was a discussion concerning the tax increase, Lyme being $180,000.00 away from being a donor town, how the adequacy grant is figured and leveling the tax rate. It was noted that if the Town and School budgets are left the way they are now it would be an increase of 2.75%. At this time the sense of the Budget Committee was to not start going through all the appropriations at this later hour. Come back next week and start fresh.
At 9:05 Mr. Palmer mover to adjourn. Seconded by Mr. Jones. Motion was voted unanimously in favor.
Reminder Next Meeting Wednesday January 15, 2003 7:00 pm at the Town Offices.
Respectfully Submitted,
Dina Cutting
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