MONSON FINANCE COMMITTEE MARCH 14, 2011
Present: Jim Pennington, Maureen O’Sullivan, Peter Fimognari, Bob Margerison, Gerry Brayton, Christine Edwards, Brenda Payette (Administrative Assistant), Deborah Mahar (Finance Director), Ed Harrison (Board of Selectmen), Dr. Richard Smith (Board of Selectmen) Paul Lovell (Cemetery Department), Timothy Pascale (Parks and Recreation), John Morrell (Highway Department)
Absent: Bob Finnegan, William Dominguez,
The meeting was convened at 6:54pm
A motion was made to accept the minutes of the 10/4/2010 meeting; it was SECONDED and SO VOTED with Ms. Edwards abstaining.
A motion was made to accept the minutes of the 10/18/2010 meeting; it was SECONDED and SO VOTED with Ms. Edwards abstaining.
A motion was made to accept the minutes of the 3/7/2011 meeting; it was SECONDED and SO VOTED with Ms. Edwards abstaining.
CORRESPONDENCE:
- A Transfer to allow the Highway Department to deficit spend an additional $50,000 for snow and ice removal.
- Motion was made to allow the Highway Department to deficit spend an additional $50,000 for snow and ice removal, it was SECONDED with the following discussion:
- Present Balance: $25,130.14
- Bills not yet paid: $39,251.45
- Discussion ended and SO VOTED.
- Fiscal 2012 Projections spreadsheet from Ms. Mahar dated 3/14/2011.
MEETINGS ATTENDED BY MEMBERS:
OLD BUSINESS / NEW BUSINESS:
7pm Budget discussions with Paul Lovell (Cemetery Department), Timothy Pascale (Parks and Recreation), John Morrell (Highway Department:
- Mr. Pennington started the conversation by thanking the departments for coming. He said that FinCom wants to gather information and discuss department budgets with the potential of combining the departments and what would it look like.
- Key points from the discussion:
- The departments are already working together and pulling resources.
Don’t feel it would save the town any money by combining the three departments. If they did combine, the town would have to hire one person to oversee all three and that would cost a lot of money.
Asked FinCom to have an open mind and to be careful for thinking a DPW Department would be better than having three separate departments.
All three departments have been cut and this is making it difficult for them to do their jobs. If someone is out sick or on vacation, the other departments try to help out as much as possible.
The equipment they use is different. ie: the mowers the cemetery use are smaller than what the Parks and Recreation use.
It was asked if the three departments could combine some job duties to result in some cost savings.
- They said they already try to do that whenever they can. Some job duties require them to use different equipment.
- A lot of time is spent mowing fields and keeping the cemeteries looking good. The fields require different mowing schedules according to what sport is being played.
- It was talked about if it was cost effective having directors spending a lot of their time mowing grass.
- To recap the discussion:
- One part was focused on combing workers among the three departments and
- The other part was the possibility of cutting some services or significantly reducing them. The big challenge to keep in mind is prioritizing and looking at what services are important and what the town can’t do without.
- The discussion ended at 8:20pm.
- Ms. Mahar gave an insurance update:
- Ms. Mahar and Ms. Neggers met with IAC today for 2 ½ hours. Looking at a 16.5% increase, not good news.
Agenda items for next meeting:
Work on setting priorities before going to Board of Selectmen meeting.
Continue to review department budgets received.
The next scheduled meeting of the Finance Committee is:
Monday, March 21, 2011 at 6:45pm.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:00pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Brenda I. Payette
Administrative Assistant to the Finance Committee
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