MONSON FINANCE COMMITTEE MINUTES JANUARY 23, 2012
Present: Peter Fimognari, Jim Pennington, Bob Margerison, Gerry Brayton, Christine Edwards, Kurt Kaiser, Brenda Payette (Administrative Assistant), Deborah Mahar (Town Accountant), Gretchen Neggers (Town Administrator)
Absent: Bob Finnegan, William Dominguez, Maureen O’Sullivan
The meeting was convened at 7:00pm
Ms. Edwards made a motion to accept the minutes of the 9/12/2011 meeting; Mr. Fimognari SECONDED and SO VOTED.
Ms. Edwards made a motion to accept the minutes of the 11/14/2011 meeting; Mr. Fimognari SECONDED and SO VOTED.
CORRESPONDENCE:
- Request for Transfer from the Reserve Fund:
- Dated: 1/19/2012
- Amount requested: $525.00
- Appropriation Account: Town Accountant Expenses
- Present balance in appropriation: $472.02
- Used for the following purpose: Payment of mileage for meetings attended, postage for tornado reimbursement requests, postage for debt documents, and replacement of desk top calculator.
- Expenditure is unforeseen for following reasons: An increase in the number of meetings this year for various reasons, many documents that needed to be mailed to FEMA and/or MEMA, and one of the calculators in the office began to malfunction.
Mr. Fimognari made a motion to transfer $525.00 from the Reserve Fund to the Town Accountant Expenses; Ms. Edwards SECONDED and SO VOTED.
OLD BUSINESS / NEW BUSINESS:
No meetings attended.
Ms. Mahar gave an update on the Tornado Damage:
Received $2.8 million from FEMA. Will be paying Asbrit the vendor that removed the debris.
Received from FEMA and MEMA: $4,929,000.00
Received from Insurance Company: $200,000.00
Waiting on Federal Highway money.
Town temporarily borrowed $700,000.00 that is due next week and will be paid off.
The town so far is responsible for about $180,000.00.
Ms. Mahar gave an update on the October storm:
The bills so far: $2.9 million
If FEMA reimburses 75% the towns responsible for $742,000.00
Ms. Mahar went to a meeting on Friday to start the application process; they still have not heard anything from the state.
Ms. Neggers gave an update on the status of Town Hall:
Meeting next week with the insurance company; looking to keep the Town Hall in the same location.
Budget FY2013:
- Ms. Mahar gave some revenue projections:
- Available for current levy increase of $434,000.00 =
- $73,000 in new growth + 2% + override.
- Local receipts-level funded
- Already in excess of $100,000 in building permits
- Level funded state aid
- Less interest being paid on Middle School
- Ambulance
With budget requests- shortfall so far $160,000.00 (without using any free cash)
$163,000.00 available in free cash.
- Ms. Neggers spoke about not using any free cash, Mr. Pennington asked where it would go if not used; she said it would get closed out to next year’s budget.
Discussion about the approach to FY13 department budgets:
- Mr. Pennington asked FinCom members to think about the approach they would like to take regarding the budgets. He is looking for feedback from the members to begin prioritizing at the next meeting.
- Different comments made by FinCom members:
- Inviting Department Heads to come in and have a say about their submitted budgets.
- Questioned the line by line micro-managing approach.
- Mentioned that maybe the Board of Selectmen need to look at combining departments.
- Some FinCom members were not in agreement with that thought.
- It was suggested to have a meeting the FinCom and Board of Selectmen, Ms. Neggers and Ms. Mahar to have a discussion about combing departments-is there money to be saved-is this something the town wants to look into.
- It was agreed that Ms. Payette would contact the Board of Selectmen to see about a joint meeting to discuss the FY13 budget. Proposed dates February 13, 14, 27 or 28. Where they would join FinCom meeting or FinCom would join their meeting.
- FinCom members wanted to invite Mr. Morrell, Highway Department and Ms. Morrell, Town Clerk to the next FinCom meeting on February 6, 2012 to have them give an overview of their budget and discuss some line items that showed an increase from last year. Ms. Payette will follow up with this request.
The next scheduled meeting of the Finance Committee is:
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 7:00pm.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:30pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Brenda I. Payette
Administrative Assistant to the Finance Committee
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