Town of Lyme
Budget Committee
Wednesday
November 6th, 2007
7:00PM
Selectmen’s Office
Approved November 27th , 2007~
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Present at this meeting: Selectmen: Richard Jones & Simon Carr. Budget Committee Members: Josh Kilham, Jeff Lehmann, Freda Swan, Gibb Cornwell, acting Chair Dave Caffry.~ School Board Representative: Kathy McGowan. Police Chief: Pauline Field. Staff: Administrative Assistant Carole Bont, Bookkeeper/Scribe Dina Cutting & Tax Collector Joanne Coburn. ~
Mr. Caffry announced that Mr. Brannen, Mrs. Glenshaw and Mr. Rountree could not be at tonight’s meeting. ~
The meeting was called to order at 7:00pm by acting Chair Caffry.~
Mr. Caffry reviewed the agenda for tonight’s meeting. Department heads will be presenting their proposed 2008 budget requests. ~
1) Mr. Cornwell moved to approve the minutes of the October 30th, 2007 meeting. Seconded by Mr. Jones.~ Corrections were offered, strike the sentence in paragraph 6 concerning Hanover.~ The motion was voted unanimously in favor. ~
2) Tax Collector: Mrs. Coburn reported the only increase in the Tax Collector 2008 proposed budget is the Deputy Tax Collector’s salary. The request is to increase the Deputy Tax Collector to $800.00; this is a $200.00 increase. Mrs. Coburn asked for this increase last year and did not get it so she is back with this request. The Deputy Tax Collector takes in money, takes phone calls & figures interest any time the Tax Collector is not in the office. On Wednesdays and Fridays during tax season, the Deputy takes in a considerable amount of tax money. This job has to be done by a bonded person.~ Mrs. Jenks is meticulous and good at it. This is a big responsibility and we are lucky to have this position and Mrs. Jenks to do it. This job enables the Town to accommodate its taxpayers better. The
taxpayers would not be happy if they only had Mondays from 10:00am-12:00pm to pay taxes. ~
3) Police: Chief Field reviewed the proposed budget handout. The total increase, excluding wages and benefits is 2.8%.~
· The Police Department is in good shape with equipment; they received grants and were able to purchase computer software and other equipment in the last few years.~
· The Animal Control Officer has retired this year. Chief Field will not be filling this position. The present officers can handle this work. They do need to leave a little money in the line because the Upper Valley Humane Society will still need to be paid for stray animals.
· Wage line: The part-time officer has 500 hours in the 2008 proposed budget. As of 12/27/2007, the part-time officer has worked 311 hours. In addition to the part-time officer, this department has 2 full-time officers. Officer O’Keefe has 75 hours of overtime and Chief Field has 50 hours of overtime requested in the 2008 budget. Last year, the overtime was 100 hours for both full time officers.~ Chief Field has added $1,000.00 for detail officers. This was a significant expense this year during the April storm. The total overtime for the 2007 year is 251.5, 94 hours of this overtime was highway safety grant money that the town received as reimbursements from the
state. There were questions pertaining to the proposed increase in wages for the Police Department. Mr. Jones stated that the Selectmen had not reviewed any wage and salary requests at this time. It is not appropriate to ask what employees’ wages will be at this time. Some department requests are standard and some are more, including merit raises. The Selectmen have not decided on any wages. Chief Field did explain that the part-time office works for other towns and the going rate is $16.00. Chief Field is requesting this wage go from $14.00 to $16.00 in order to be competitive. This worker is very good and we should be comparable to other towns. She noted at this time that increasing the part-time officers hours should help cut down on the overtime required for the full-time officers.
· Chief Field reported that the new facility is working well. There have been many positive comments and the community seems to like it. When asked if Chief Field felt this was a permanent place for the Police Department, she explained that this location is easy to work out of but the Police Department would go anywhere the town decided.
· The Police Department is requesting funds from the Computer Capitol Reserve Fund. It was confirmed that the Police Department computers have been included in the fund plan. The police vehicle computers will need to be added in also.
Comments were made that this is the fastest growing budget; since 2004 it has increased 45%. The Chief and the Selectmen need to show what we are getting for our money. Chief Field noted the statistic show that injuries due to vehicular accidents have reduced considerably from 2000 to 2007. It was noted these are the kinds of facts the Budget Committee would like to hear. Chief Field was asked to get these figures together and bring them back to the Budget Committee. It was explained that the administrative duties of the Police Department are very different than they were prior to 2000. Required policies have been developed & written, and accident reports are readily available for insurance purposes. These are all important documents to have in case of any legal actions against the Police Department.
It was noted that if you take out the $15,000.00 for the rent & utilities, the proposed budget is actually reduced $8,000.00 not including wages & benefits. ~
4) Administrative budget: Ms. Bont reviewed the various budget lines in the memo.
· Lot merger: Ms. Bont described the possible lot mergers issue. The Planning Board needs to make a decision on this before the Town will know whether the additional funds will need to be in the 2008 budget. The impact of this is huge on the assessing office. Lots will need to be separated, new lots created, tax maps changed, and all the data will need to be entered in the vision program. Ms. Bont calculated for every day Ms. Calder (Assessor) works, Ms. Garrity (Assessing clerk) will need to work 2. A conservative guess for this work to be competed is 2 weeks for Ms. Calder and 2 weeks, plus 20 hours for Ms. Garrity. Ms. Bont is requesting $40,356.00 for the Assessing
Clerk’s wages without the merge. If the merge is necessary, it will be an additional $2,829.00 for Ms. Garrity. As soon as the Planning Board makes the decision, we can adjust these numbers. Ms. Bont reviewed Diana Calder, the Assessor’s job. It is a 2-part job. She does pick ups which are driven by the number of permits the town receives. These funds come from the operating budget. The second part is doing the revaluations of town property. The funds for this part come from the Capital Reserve Fund. For Ms. Calder’s part of the lot merger, we will need to put $2,000.00 back in the operating budget. The total impact of the lot merger, if necessary will be $4,800.00 to the Assessing Department’s wages.
· The audit amount increased 3%.
· Timber Tax Consultant: Mrs. Cutting explained that this increased due to the April storm. Normally the town has 20-25 intent to cuts; this year, so far we have 68. The town receives revenues from the regular timber cuts. The Selectmen are abating most of the timber cuts from the April storm.
· Utility Appraiser: The Town has just hired an appraiser for utilities. There are very few appraisers who do utilities and the estimated cost for this budget expense is $3,500.00.
· Town Band Stand electricity: This is way up due to the holiday lights on the Common. There was a new service put in and new lights put up. A timer will be put on these lights to try and conserve energy.
· Insurance: Mrs. Cutting explained the town has moved all insurance to one company. This is through the Local Government Center. We will have property liability, workers compensation, health, dental, & unemployment with the one group. Making this change will save the town an estimated amount of at least $2,800.00.~ The property liability is up because of the new fire equipment truck, police cruiser and the new highway truck coming. Because we went to this package we will be saving 2% on property liability insurance. The package also includes a discount for the TRIM program. You must follow and meet certain criteria i.e. Safety committee, employee training, safety
work shops etc. to qualify for this program. Most of these requirements are already being met by the town departments.
· Public Safety: this is a 4% increase. It is hard to estimate this. The Town of Hanover is on a different fiscal year and they do not have their figures yet. This was their best guess.
· Ambulance: This is out of Hanover and the fiscal year plays a roll in this estimate. We are not planning on a significant increase.
Followed was a discussion concerning the lot mergers. The Planning Board will be holding a meeting Thursday evening to discuss this topic and get feedback from the community. The Budget Committee was urged to attend this meeting to understand the issue. ~
4) Mrs. McGowan asked if anyone had ever looked at the individual department numbers to calculate the percent increases. The School Board has done this in the past and it was very helpful to compare by departments. Could we do some kind of an analysis on the historical numbers to see how much each department has increased in the past 5 years? Mr. Jones explained that this is something the office staff cannot do. It would have to be done during the month leading up to the budget process when everyone is too busy with the present budget. Mrs. Cutting offered to send Mrs. McGowan budget numbers from the past 5 years. Mrs. McGowan will see if she can come up with a historical review for the Budget Committee. ~
There being no further business at 8:05 pm, Mr. Jones moved to adjourn. Seconded by Mr. Kilham. Voted unanimously in favor. ~
Respectfully Submitted, ~
Dina Cutting~
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