NOTTINGHAM BUDGET COMMITTEE MINUTES
SEPTEMBER 28, 2006
PUBLIC SESSION
APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE OCTOBER 26, 2006
PRESENT: ABSENT:
Mr. John Decker Ms. Gail Powell, Chair (Excused)
Mr. Kurt Duprey
Ms. Denise Blaha
Ms. Charlene Andersen
Mr. Bill Netishen, Selectmen's Representative
Mr. Chris Mills
Mr. Philip Fernald
Mr. Michael Koester
Mr. Chet Batchelder
Mr. Hal Rafter, Alternate School Board Representative
Mr. Koester called the meeting to order at 7:05pm and he explained that he was sitting as Chair because Ms. Powell had been unable to attend the meeting.
DISCUSSION OF MINUTES:
Mr. Koester said that the only comment he wanted to make was that he felt the Budget Committee should resist deferring approval of the minutes as much as possible.
Mr. Netishen said that there had been a lot of discussion of paperwork and he said that information including financial statements and expenditure reports had been emailed to him. He said that he would strongly suggest the Budget Committee get hard copies of such documents to the Town Office so that members could pick them up if they were having trouble with their computer or if for some other reason, they had a preference for the hard copy. He said that he felt it was the responsibility of the Budget Committee to have hard copies of their information available in the Town Offices in case they were needed.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion that the Budget Committee accept the minutes from the meeting of January 12, 2006 as amended. Mr. Decker seconded the motion. Mr. Batchelder, Mr. Decker, Mr. Duprey, Ms. Blaha, Mr. Fernald and Mr. Koester voted in favor of the motion. Ms. Andersen, Mr. Netishen, Mr. Rafter and Mr. Mills abstained from the motion. The motion passed 6-0 with 4 abstentions.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion that the Budget Committee accept the minutes from the meeting of January 19, 2006 as amended. Mr. Decker seconded the motion. Mr. Batchelder, Mr. Decker, Mr. Duprey, Ms. Blaha, Mr. Fernald and Mr. Koester voted in favor of the motion. Ms. Andersen, Mr. Netishen, Mr. Rafter and Mr. Mills abstained from the motion. The motion passed 6-0 with 4 abstentions.
Mr. Decker made a motion that the Budget Committee accept the minutes from the meeting of February 9, 2006 as written. Mr. Batchelder seconded the motion. Mr. Decker, Mr. Batchelder, Ms. Blaha, Mr. Fernald and Mr. Koester voted in favor of the motion. Ms. Andersen, Mr. Netishen, Mr. Rafter, Mr. Mills, and Mr. Duprey abstained from the motion. The motion passed 5-0 with 5 abstentions.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion that the Budget Committee accept the minutes from the meeting of July 13, 2006 as amended. Ms. Andersen seconded the motion. Mr. Batchelder, Ms. Andersen, Ms. Blaha, Mr. Fernald, Mr. Koester, and Mr. Mills voted in favor of the motion. Mr. Decker, Mr. Duprey, Mr. Netishen, and Mr. Rafter abstained from the motion. The motion passed 6-0 with 4 abstentions.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion that the Budget Committee defer approval on the minutes from the meeting of September 14, 2006. Mr. Netishen seconded the motion. Mr. Batchelder, Mr. Netishen, Ms. Andersen, Ms. Blaha, Mr. Fernald, Mr. Mills, Mr. Decker and Mr. Duprey voted in favor of the motion. Mr. Koester and Mr. Rafter abstained from the motion. The motion passed 8-0 with 2 abstentions.
Mr. Duprey said that he had not been aware that there was a meeting on September 14, 2006. He said that his email had been down for a while.
Mr. Decker made a motion that Mr. Duprey should be excused from the meeting on September 14, 2006 because he had not known about it. Ms. Blaha seconded that motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 10-0.
Mr. Koester asked that if any member of the Budget Committee knew their email was going to be down for any lengthy period of time they please contact the Chair. He said that it should be up to the individual members to let someone know if they were not getting the information that they needed.
Mr. Mills asked that any email sent to members of the Budget Committee state in the subject line that they were Budget Committee business.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER:
Mr. Koester said that the Budget Committee had talked about having someone be a communications officer. He said that it was his impression they wanted someone to be in charge of things like putting information in the town newsletter. Ms. Blaha said that she would be willing to be the communications officer but she said that she could not commit to being able to get any information ready for the October 5, 2006 newsletter deadline.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion to nominate Ms. Blaha as Budget Committee Communications Officer. Mr. Decker seconded that motion.
Ms. Blaha noted that she had found an online newspaper with articles about Nottingham in it. She said that the website address was www.forumhome.org.
Mr. Decker made a motion to close the nominations for Budget Committee Communications Officer. Mr. Duprey seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion.
The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the nomination of Ms. Blaha as Budget Committee Communications Officer. The motion passed 10-0.
Mr. Koester said that he felt the Budget Committee needed a bigger presence on the town website. Ms. Andersen said that she had asked for some information about that. She said that if the Budget Committee emailed their approved minutes to Ms. Seaverns in the Board of Selectmen's Office she would upload them to the town website. Ms. Blaha said that she would send that email to Ms. Seaverns.
MEMO TO SCHOOL BOARD FROM BUDGET COMMITTEE:
Mr. Rafter said that he wanted to address the memo containing their recommendations which the Budget Committee had written to the School Board. He said that the School Board had talked with Andrew Smith, the person from UNH who had come to help the School Board with their survey and Mr. Smith had recommended that the members of the School Board not call people in town directly and ask them survey questions. He said that according to Mr. Smith the only way that the School Board could assure that they did not get biased information was to have impartial people asking survey questions. He said that there was concern that people would either not be totally honest with School Board members or School Board members would want to talk to the people about the answers they gave to survey questions. He asked that the Budget
Committee change their recommendation from recommending that members of the School Board make telephone calls surveying people to a recommendation encouraging the School Board to survey the public for their input. He said that Ms. Powell had come to a School Board meeting and she had presented the memo from the Budget Committee but he said that when the memo was finalized it could certainly be sent again. Mr. Duprey said that he had examples of surveys from other schools that he had worked with. He said that he would bring them to a meeting so people could see them. Mr. Koester said that it was his impression that the idea of this memo was that the Budget Committee dress it up and send it as a formal letter to the School Board. Mr. Mills asked if the Budget Committee should know the costs based on the original contract which was currently in place. He noted that if the contract was passed by the voters than that would be a mute point but he said
that there would be expenses if the contract did not pass. Mr. Netishen said that any expenses from the contract currently in place would be a part of the school district proposed budget. He asked if the tentatively agreed upon Budget Committee schedule had been given to the School Board and whether they had found it to be agreeable. Mr. Decker said that he thought paragraph #3 of the memo which referred to the schedule should be kept as is. He said that the paragraph reinforced the idea that the Budget Committee would work collaboratively with the School Board. Mr. Netishen asked if the way the paragraph was written meant that the Budget Committee did not have confirmation on the proposed schedule from the School Board. Mr. Rafter said that the draft school budget would not be available on October 26, 2006 or November 2, 2006.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion to authorize the Budget Committee Chair to send a follow up memo to the School Board. Mr. Decker seconded the motion. Mr. Batchelder, Mr. Decker, Ms. Andersen, Ms. Blaha, Mr. Duprey, Mr. Fernald, Mr. Koester, Mr. Mills and Mr. Netishen voted in favor of the motion. Mr. Rafter abstained from the motion. The motion passed 9-0 with 1 abstention.
MEMO TO BOARD OF SELECTMEN FROM BUDGET COMMITTEE:
Mr. Koester read out loud the proposed memo to the Board of Selectmen from the Budget Committee.
Following are the contents of that memo:
BUDGET COMMITTEE DRAFT OF SUGGESTIONS TO THE BOARD OF SELECTMEN ON IMPROVING THE TOWN BUDGETING PROCESS
The Budget Committee is actively seeking ways to make the committee more efficient and effective in its interactions with the Board in the course of its necessary review of the town budget data and analyzes. It is hoped that both the Board (BOS) and the Budget Committee (BC) can work more closely to improve the upcoming process. To this end the BC has drawn up a list of suggestions that we would like to discuss with the BOS. We are aware that the BOS has already begun working in some of these areas.
1. Encourage BOS to do a special newsletter to inform voters on the budgeted items and warrant articles to be presented. It would help all voters if the budget data in this newsletter could be available in town several days before your public hearing. Hopefully an earlier read of the data and issues could encourage more voter interest and turnout at the public hearings. Right now most voters don't see copies of the budget until they actually show up to discuss it at the hearing. This could also help to restore voter's confidence in the data and analyzes being presented so that citizens don't feel they have to go out and publish more info themselves. This would also help the BC to have more informed hearings and improve our communication around the BC budget narratives with regard to the town budget and
warrant articles.
2. Have the BOS review all analyzes and data to assure that it is accurate, clear, up to date and formatted for easy public understanding before it is distributed to BC and the general public. Get as much info out of there as possible to anticipate the questions of the general public, and need to focus on the big picture more than the line by line approach.
Clearly identify the new expenses (whether there are one time expenses or will be ongoing and for how long). This is really important in respect to warrant articles and their tax impact. Continue to note fixed expenses, those that depend on contractual agreements, and past vs anticipated future revenue assumptions. Your budget work last year really improved and we appreciate your efforts to keep improving the system. We would like Charlie Brown to come before the Committee and show us what's new in his process this year.
3. Work with BC on BC meeting schedule so that budget data can get to BOS sooner. BC needs info to be reviewed and/or voted on to be given to members at least 4 days prior to meeting. It would help BC scheduling if we can meet with you or have Bill Netishen do that to iron out the schedule deadlines now, now later into the fall.
4. This year we plan to monitor the budget on a quarterly basis. We would like to work with you to see how soon you would be able to set it up so we can have these on an ongoing basis.
Mr. Duprey asked if this was the first time the Budget Committee had seen this memo. Mr. Decker said yes. Mr. Batchelder noted that even though the Budget Committee had not seen this memo before, it did mimic the memo to the School Board which the Budget Committee had already discussed. Ms. Blaha said that she felt she needed time to read this memo again.
Ms. Blaha made a motion to defer discussion on the Budget Committee memo to the Board of Selectmen until a future meeting. Mr. Decker seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 10-0.
DISCUSSION OF SCHEDULE:
Mr. Netishen said that he wanted to talk about the proposed Budget Committee schedule. Mr. Rafter noted that the draft school budget would not be available on October 26, 2006 or November 2, 2006. Mr. Koester suggested that the Budget Committee could meet on November 9, 2006 to get a first look at the draft school budget. Mr. Rafter noted that would be a very preliminary school budget. Mr. Batchelder said that the first meeting on any budget was the least critical one because there were always changes to the original draft version. Mr. Duprey asked if the Budget Committee wanted to switch the proposed agendas for November 16, 2006 and November 30, 2006. He noted that the Budget Committee had proposed discussing the school budget on November 16, 2006 and the town budget on November 30, 2006. Mr.
Batchelder said that he was concerned because he did not feel the Budget Committee would be prepared to vote on the budgets with the current schedule. He said that he felt there needed to be another week of reviewing both budgets. The Budget Committee had extensive discussion about getting a preliminary look at the town budget on November 16, 2006 and then discussing questions they had about their initial discussion of the school budget and then having another discussion of the school budget on November 30, 2006 before they asked questions about their initial review of the town budget and heard from the Library Trustees. The Budget Committee also decided to hold a workshop meeting on January 4, 2007. At the request of Mr. Netishen the meeting with the Town Department Heads was moved to December 21, 2006 from the initial proposed date of January 4, 2007. The Budget Committee also had extensive discussion and decided not to have a meeting on October 12,
2006. They decided that any proposed agenda items for that day, including watching a short power point presentation by Amy Plante should be put on the agenda for a meeting on October 26, 2006.
INFORMATION REQUEST FORMS:
Mr. Koester noted that this was on the agenda but he was not completely sure what Ms. Powell was looking for regarding this topic. Mr. Batchelder suggested that the Budget Committee table the topic until Ms. Powell was able to be present at a meeting.
SPECIALIZING:
Mr. Koester asked what part of the budgets members of the Committee wanted to specialize in. Mr. Netishen said that he felt any discussion about members of the committee specializing in certain parts of the budgets had been conceptual. He said that he felt it had been an idea and the committee had planned to discuss other ideas as well and no idea had come across as dominant at this point. Mr. Batchelder said that he felt it would be easier to split up the pieces of the budgets among the Budget Committee members after they had heard the budget presentations. Mr. Koester said that his only comment about using individual specialties to discuss the budget was that if the committee members split up the budget there would be a need for backup if a person who specialized in a certain area of the budget was not available
when that area was being discussed. Mr. Batchelder noted that splitting into specialties might be more relevant with the town budget than with the school budget. Ms. Blaha said that she was hesitant about the idea of splitting the budget areas into specialties. She said that she worried they were talking about adding a level of complexity to the process when they didn't have to. Mr. Decker asked whether having specialties involved each person doing research on a certain area of the budget. Mr. Mills said that it was his impression that Ms. Powell wanted each member of the Budget Committee to present some part of the budget at the Town Meeting. Mr. Koester suggested that the Budget Committee wait until at least November 9, 2006 to decide on whether each member would specialize in an area of the budget and if so they would talk about which members would specialize in what areas.
WORKSHOP:
Mr. Koester asked who had attended the workshop conference held for Budget Committee members from all over the area. Several people indicated that they had attended the event so Mr. Koester asked for their impressions. Mr. Mills said that he believed the workshop had been worthwhile. He said that he thought it had provided a good overview of the process. Mr. Netishen said that he had attended the workshop for the past 5 years and he said that this years workshop had less detail but it had provided a more broad outlook than previous workshops. He said that attending the workshop was the largest crowd that he had seen. Mr. Koester asked if the teachers of the workshop distinguished between SB2 and non SB2 towns and school districts. Mr. Netishen said yes but he said that most of the information was
about non SB2 towns. He said that there was very little discussion of school district budgets or of SB2 budgets. Mr. Decker said that the teachers had breezed over the topic of SB2. Ms. Andersen said that the workshop was useful and very beneficial to her. Mr. Decker said that he felt the workshop was very worthwhile. He said that this was the second time he had been to the workshop and he recommended it to anyone who had the opportunity to attend. Mr. Mills said that recent court decisions had been brought up at the workshop that would have an effect on the budget process in Nottingham. He did not elaborate.
CIP REPORT:
Mr. Decker said that the Capital Improvement Planning Committee had reports from all the departments and they would review those. Mr. Netishen noted that the next meeting of the Capital Improvement Planning Committee was October 17, 2006 and there would be a public information meeting on October 23, 2006.
OTHER:
Mr. Mills said that this wife had made the suggestion that it might be a good idea for the Budget Committee to ask interns from UNH to help them out. He said that he had spoken to Ms. Powell about this idea and she had indicated that it might be a good idea for the committee to look into doing something like that.
Mr. Rafter asked who would be the electronic file distributor for the Budget Committee. Mr. Koester said that he would remain in that role. Mr. Rafter asked if the Budget Committee wanted him to distribute documents electronically, drop off a hard copy at the Town Offices for Mr. Fernald and bring additional hard copies to the meeting. Mr. Decker suggested that all the hard copies be dropped off at the Town Offices in advance of the meetings so that any member of the Budget Committee who wanted them could pick them up.
Mr. Rafter said that the Dover High School tuition rate had decreased from the previous year. He said that the School Board had budgeted for an increase and no one could have expected a decrease. He said that there would be a surplus in that line. He said that the tuition rate for Coe-Brown had increased. He said that the difference was about $2,000. He said that would be a significant impact for the parents who had children at Coe-Brown. He said that parents who had more than one child there would be especially hard hit.
Mr. Rafter said that the new district accounting system was up and running. He said that the bookkeeper was still learning the system. He said that they had not figured out how to encumber non payroll lines yet. He said that the use of the new system was effective at the beginning of the fiscal year. He said that the Budget Committee might notice that as a result of the new accounting system the individual line numbers had changed.
Mr. Rafter gave the Budget Committee members copies of the unreserved fund balance.
Ms. Andersen noted the expenses and revenues for the town that had been provided to the members of the Budget Committee. She asked if the members were to consider those numbers their homework. Mr. Batchelder suggested that members look over those numbers and bring any questions about them to discuss at the meeting on October 26, 2006.
Ms. Blaha said that on October 3, 2006 at 7:00pm she would be speaking at the Town Library about climate change. She encouraged the public to attend.
Mr. Koester said that he was looking to get information in advance of meetings. He said that if the teacher contract was not ratified and provided to the Budget Committee 4 days prior to their vote on it than he would vote not to recommend it.
Mr. Decker made a motion to adjourn the meeting at approximately 9:30pm. Mr. Netishen seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 10-0.
Respectfully submitted,
Kelly Tivnan
Budget Committee Secretary
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