NOTTINGHAM BUDGET COMMITTEE MINUTES
OCTOBER 9, 2008
PUBLIC SESSION
APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE OCTOBER 23, 2008
PRESENT: ABSENT:
Mr. John Decker, Chair Ms. Gail Powell (Excused)
Mr. Peter Bock, Board of Selectmen Representative Ms. Charlene Andersen (Excused)
Mr. Chet Batchelder Ms. Amy Plante, School Board (Excused)
Mr. Scott Curry
Ms. Donna Danis
Mr. Michael Koester
Mr. Kyle Barry (arrived 8:00pm)
OTHERS PRESENT:
Mr. Charles Brown, Town Administrator
Mr. Gene Reed
Ms. Kelly Tivnan, Budget Committee Secretary
The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:07pm.
MINUTES:
Mr. Batchelder made a motion to approve the minutes from the Budget Committee meeting of September 11, 2008. Mr. Curry seconded the motion.
The Budget Committee discussed a few small changes to the minutes.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion to approve the minutes from the Budget Committee meeting of September 11, 2008 as amended. Mr. Curry seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 6-0.
NEW MEMBER APPOINTMENT:
Mr. Decker introduced Mr. Reed and said that he was interested in filling the position on the Budget Committee which had been vacated by Mr. Fernald.
Mr. Reed introduced himself and said that he was a resident of Nottingham and he was retired. He said that he had once been a Vice-President of Aircraft Maintenance so he had managed budgets before and he had experience doing that.
Mr. Curry made a motion that the Budget Committee appoint Gene Reed as a member of the committee until the March election. Mr. Batchelder seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 6-0.
TOWN BUDGET PRESENTATION:
REVENUES:
Mr. Brown noted that he had only given the Budget Committee estimated revenues. He said that they would change.
Mr. Brown said that the tax rate had not been set yet.
Mr. Brown said that the entire amount from the Land Use Change Tax now went into the conservation fund.
Mr. Brown said that building permit revenues were down.
Mr. Brown noted that interest on investments might be down because of the recent turmoil in the stock market.
Mr. Curry asked about a FEMA reimbursement. Mr. Brown said that information was included in one of the draft proposed warrant articles. He said that they had received $68,000 and they had applied for a one year extension to finish the project. He said that they would need to pay a total of $84,416. He said that they would receive additional reimbursements after the project was complete.
PROPOSED WARRANT ARTICLES:
Mr. Brown said that the proposed warrant articles were a very rough draft. He said that the town had come in under budget on their last three bridge projects. He said that they were waiting to see if their grant was approved to help them fix the Back Creek Road Bridge.
Mr. Curry asked about something titled "Special Revenue Funds." Mr. Brown said that those funds were related to expenses of running the ambulance. He said that they had already been spent.
Mr. Brown said that they planned to budget less than they had the previous year for road construction projects. He said that there was less area on Deerfield Road that would need to be fixed this year. Mr. Koester said he wasn't sure that Nottingham was keeping up with the need as far as road maintenance was concerned. He said that he felt they should either contract out road projects to catch up on them if they were behind or they should increase the size of their Highway Department. Mr. Bock asked Mr. Koester to give an example of where the town was not keeping up with the need for road maintenance. Mr. Koester said that he had not seen the Capital Improvement Plan so he was not sure what was on it but he said that repair projects on Kennard Road and Garland Road had not even been started. Mr. Bock said
that he was empathetic but he was concerned about financing more road projects. He noted that there had been several expensive floods which had hit Nottingham and the national economy was facing difficult economic times which were being felt by people in Nottingham. Mr. Brown said that the final section of Deerfield Road would be completed. He said that the residents of Garland Road had objected to road work being done there. He said that it would be much more expensive to do more road work. He said that things also changed from year to year and that had an effect on what road work was done. He said that the idea of doing more road projects would need to be hashed out with the Board of Selectmen. He said that the Road Agent had been trying to do better with the shim and seal coating each year.
Mr. Brown said that the article to add money to the Highway Department Capital Reserve Fund was with the purpose of trying to keep a nest egg so there wouldn't be such a hit to the taxpayers during the rough years.
Mr. Brown said that the Road Agent had switched his request for a backhoe to a request for a loader. He said that there would be a municipal funding clause in the lease for the loader. Mr. Reed asked by how much the lease would increase the purchase price. Mr. Brown said that they had a 4% interest rate and the amounts for a lease or purchase agreement would be about the same. Mr. Reed noted that interest rates were rising. Mr. Brown said that he still thought that they were talking about "six of one, half dozen of the other" in terms of the difference between a lease and purchase price. He said that the Highway Department loader was used constantly and was getting tired. He said that it cost a lot of money in repairs.
Mr. Brown said that the proposed warrant articles included one for a salt shed because it had been in the Capital Improvement Plan. Mr. Curry said that he thought they could hold off on that purchase in these tough economic times. Mr. Brown noted that the price quoted for the salt shed was so high because the plan had originally been for a large building which included two lean to's which would be used for purposes like office space. Mr. Decker said that he knew there were environmental concerns about the location of the current salt shed and he stated that those were legitimate concerns but he said that the cost in this proposed warrant article was a lot of money and he said that economic times were tough.
Mr. Brown said that they had $11,000 that they wanted to transfer into the account which would be used for ambulance maintenance, supplies, fuel, etc.
Mr. Brown said that they wanted to spend $350,000 on a new fire truck. Mr. Curry said that he thought they should wait on that. Mr. Brown said that their current fire truck was from 1988. Mr. Decker asked how many fire trucks Nottingham had. Mr. Brown said that they had two engines and one tanker.
Mr. Brown said that there was a proposed warrant article which would buy a car for the Building Inspector. He said that the purchase had been a part of the Capital Improvement Plan. He said that they would see where it went because the Board of Selectmen would probably eliminate some of these proposed warrant articles.
Mr. Brown said that the Capital Improvement Plan also included doing some maintenance to the Old Town Hall and Grange buildings. He said that because it had been in the Capital Improvement Plan, he had included a proposed warrant article to that effect. He said that estimates they had received in 2002 said that the costs for painting the outside of those buildings would be between $4,500 and $18,000. He said that the number they were looking for on that would most likely change.
EXPENSES:
Mr. Brown said that the Highway Department was watching their numbers closely. He said that they had been holding back on some things in order to make sure they had enough money left to pay for fuel costs.
Mr. Curry asked about money spent on mortgage research. Mr. Brown said that involved lien notices and deeds. He said that the biggest expenses incurred by the town in that line always occurred at the end of the year. He said that the rates to pay the person who did the mortgage research would increase in 2009 and he said that they expected there to be more activity in that area in 2009 as well.
Mr. Brown said that all of the town departments had been working hard to stay within their budget bottom lines.
Mr. Curry asked if any of this information could be put into an electronic format. Mr. Brown said that he was not sure.
Mr. Brown said that he had not heard a response from the Board of Selectmen regarding employee Cost of Living Increases or Merit Increases yet.
Mr. Brown said that he had spoken with several companies about employee health insurance. He said that he would not be able to get estimates on health insurance costs this early in the budget season.
Mr. Brown said that the town had changed their telephone provider and they were changing their dispatch service. He said that they were trying to cut in as many places as possible.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT CENTER WORKSHOP:
Mr. Decker said that he had attended the Local Government Center workshop and he had gotten a lot out of it. He said that it was a great refresher. Ms. Danis said that she had learned a lot about warrant articles. Mr. Koester said that he had learned the Budget Committee vote tally could now be put on the warrant if the voters adopted that RSA. He said that he would like them to get more information about this for future years. Mr. Batchelder said that the Budget Committee should discuss this possible change and then send it to the Board of Selectmen if they were interested in getting the question on to the warrant.
GOOGLE DOCS:
Mr. Curry said that all but one of the Budget Committee members had logged in to Google Docs. He said that he had drafted a one page document as a draft Google Docs policy. He said that he wanted to thank people who had made comments on the policy. Mr. Decker said that he thought the policy was a great test because he had discussion points that he wanted to bring up about the policy and he hadn't been sure what comments would be appropriate for him to post on Google Docs. Mr. Curry noted that the document you see first when you look for a document is the latest version. Mr. Bock said that it needed to be made clear to people that the use of Google Docs by the Budget Committee was not hiding anything. He said that as Chair, Mr. Decker should speak about this at the Town Meeting. Ms. Danis said that
she found Google Docs to be very complicated. She said that she did not feel it facilitated discussion and she felt that it could make things harder instead of easier. Mr. Decker asked whether the Budget Committee could post their own information into the town website. Mr. Bock commented that there was a committee in place to work with Comcast. He said that as an example there was at least one open public access channel (Channel 13) and there was a possibility that there were others available. He said that he hoped they could eventually use the channel as a site. He said that the Board of Selectmen was committed to solving access with a new contract. Mr. Decker said that he had heard rumors that someone at the school wanted to have a spelling bee televised but it was the same night as a Budget Committee meeting. He said that the people had voted to have the Budget Committee meetings televised. He said that he wondered if
eventually the additional public access channel could be used for that type of thing. Mr. Koester said that he had problems looking at previous versions of documents on Google Docs. Mr. Decker said that they might want to just partially implement the Google Docs idea and use it only for meeting minutes.
SCHOOL BOARD REPORT:
Mr. Decker said that the School Board had been unable to send a representative to their meeting that night. He said that the next School Board meeting would be on October 15, 2008. He said that more time line information as far as the school proposed budgets should be available after that time. He said that Ms. Plante had promised she could distribute the School District Financials at the October 23, 2008 Budget Committee Meeting.
HCPP (HOUSING AND CONSERVATION PLANNING PROGRAM) COMMITTEE REPORT:
Mr. Batchelder said that there had been a meeting of the HCPP Grant Committee. He said that their first meeting had been about identifying the role of their committee. He said that the committee was made up of members who had been appointed by the Board of Selectmen. He said that the committee would report back up through the Conservation Commission. He said that so far the HCPP Grant Committee was just getting organized. He said that they would meet on Monday nights. Mr. Decker asked if there was anyone appointed to the HCPP Grant Committee from the general public. Mr. Batchelder said that everyone on the committee represented the public but they were all members of other committees.
CIP REPORT:
Mr. Decker said that the capital improvement plan request letters had gone out to the department heads.
SCHOOL EXPANSION MEETING:
Mr. Decker said that he had been to a meeting where it was stated that the study which had been commissioned by the School Board had found that Nottingham School had plenty of student capacity. He said that most of the shortcomings in the Nottingham School involved storage. He said that the School Board would take the findings of the study under advisement. Mr. Batchelder said that he had also attended the same meeting and he had been surprised by the limited ability that they had to expand the Nottingham School. He noted that they had a limited ability to expand because of the location of wetlands. Mr. Decker said that when the school was built there had been a plan for an addition of four classrooms. He said that they found out that those four classrooms had been built on to the school right at the
beginning so they were no longer an option. He said that there was some area off the library where they could expand. Mr. Batchelder said that he felt the information in the study commissioned by the School Board had been sort of light weight. He said that there should have been some more engineering information included. Mr. Decker agreed.
OTHER:
Mr. Curry said that he wanted to welcome Mr. Reed to the Budget Committee.
Mr. Curry said that he wanted to thank everyone for their feedback regarding Google Docs.
Mr. Koester asked whether the minutes could include line numbering. Ms. Tivnan said that she would look and see whether her word processing program would allow it.
Mr. Decker reminded the Budget Committee members that their next meeting would be held on Thursday October 23, 2008 at 7:00pm. He said that there would be a lot of discussion about school district related topics.
Mr. Curry made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:10pm. Mr. Bock seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 7-0.
Respectfully submitted,
Kelly Tivnan
Budget Committee Secretary
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