NOTTINGHAM BUDGET COMMITTEE MINUTES
DECEMBER 4, 2008
PUBLIC SESSION
APPROVED BY THE COMMITTEE DECEMBER 18, 2008
PRESENT: ABSENT:
Mr. Scott Curry, Vice-Chair Mr. John Decker, Chair (Excused)
Mr. Peter Bock, BOS Representative Ms. Amy Plante, School Board Rep. (Excused)
Ms. Donna Danis
Mr. Gene Reed
Mr. Chet Batchelder
Ms. Gail Powell
Ms. Charlene Andersen
Mr. Michael Koester
Mr. Kyle Barry (Arrived 7:45pm)
OTHERS PRESENT:
Mr. Charles Brown, Town Administrator
Mr. Bill Netishen, Board of Selectmen
Ms. Kelly Tivnan, Budget Committee Secretary
Mr. John Terninko
Mr. Curry acted as Chair with the absence of Mr. Decker.
Mr. Curry called the meeting to order at 7:03pm.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
Mr. Batchelder made a motion that the Budget Committee approve their minutes from the meeting of November 20, 2008. Mr. Bock seconded the motion.
Mr. Bock noted a misspelled word and Mr. Curry noted a typo.
Mr. Curry also pointed out an action item. He said the minutes had stated that the School Board would get the Budget Committee a copy of the high school enrollment numbers. He said that he just wanted to point that out as a reminder.
Mr. Batchelder made a motion that the Budget Committee approve their minutes from the meeting of November 20, 2008 with the amendments of fixing the misspelled word and the typo. Mr. Bock seconded the motion. Mr. Curry, Mr. Bock, Ms. Danis, Mr. Reed, Mr. Batchelder and Mr. Koester voted in favor of the motion. Ms. Andersen and Ms. Powell abstained from the motion. The motion passed 6-0 with 2 abstentions.
TOWN CLERK:
Also Present: Sandra Weston, Town Clerk
Ms. Weston presented her proposed budget to the Budget Committee. She said that she was asking for slight raises for herself and for the Deputy Town Clerk. She said that she had put in for raises of $2.50 per hour because it had been two years since the Town Clerk had received a raise and five years since the Deputy Town Clerk had received a raise. She said that the total cost to the budget from those raises would be less than $3,000.
Ms. Weston said that the number of vehicles being registered had increased.
Ms. Weston said that there was a postage decrease in the proposed budget because the Town Clerk's office did not send dog registrations by certified mail anymore.
Ms. Weston said that she did not need envelopes and she did not plan to order any.
Ms. Weston said that she had decreased the amount of money needed for printer service by $150.
Ms. Weston said that she would need stationary and invoices so she would need to order those.
Ms. Weston said that the office would need one printer cartridge for their laser printer. She said that those cartridges were expensive.
Ms. Weston said that the mileage line reflected one round trip to North Conway and one round trip to Concord for conferences. She said that she had proposed a slight increase in the mileage line.
Ms. Weston said that the costs for the office of the Town Clerk were covered by the revenue generated by the office of the Town Clerk.
Ms. Andersen asked whether the mileage reimbursement was .585? Mr. Brown said yes.
Ms. Weston said that the total Town Clerk budget for 2008 was $61,182 and she said that she had spent $54,000 so far. She said that since there was only one month left in the year she was going to come out under budget.
Mr. Bock asked if Ms. Weston thought that the economy was going to present an issue for people registering vehicles. Ms. Weston said that she had not seen an issue with vehicle registrations at this time. She said that many people registered their vehicles by mail and she also noted that registering vehicles is often a necessity for people. She also noted that older vehicles cost less to register.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Mr. Curry noted that the holiday party for Town Employees was scheduled for 12 noon on December 12, 2008. He said that members of all the town boards were invited and he said that if people were interested in going they should RSVP to Heidi or Marge in the office of the Board of Selectmen.
Mr. Curry said that the Budget Committee had received an invitation to participate in the School Board Building Committee. He said that he was not sure how many Budget Committee members could be a part of the committee. He asked if anyone was interested in representing the Budget Committee. Ms. Andersen asked if the committee met biweekly. Mr. Curry said yes and he said that they would start holding meetings in January of 2009. Ms. Andersen said that she was concerned about the time commitment. Ms. Danis said that she thought her husband had been considering applying to that committee and she said that they could not both do it. Mr. Reed suggested that the Budget Committee table the subject and give everyone notice of it so that they could think about it. He said that way they could assure that
everyone on the committee was aware of this opportunity before they chose someone to represent them.
Mr. Curry noted that the School Board Representative had been unable to attend this meeting. He said that the Budget Committee had not gotten copies of the School District default budget so he assumed that those were still forthcoming.
FIRE DEPARTMENT:
Also Present: Jaye Vilchock, Chief, Heidi Carlson, Deputy Chief
Other members of the Nottingham Fire/Rescue Department also present: Judi Thibault, Grace Russell, Bob Desrosiers, Sandy Vilchock, Wayne Purington, Nelson Thibault, Phil English, Josh Stevens, Dan Elliott, John Trumbull, Julie Leader, Kris Parece
Mr. Reed said that he would like to recuse himself from this discussion because of an affiliation with the Fire Department.
Chief Vilchock presented the proposed Fire Department budget. He said that the salaries for the full time staff had been increased by the 1.5% cost of living increase. He said that the salaries for the part time staff were staying the same at $11/hour.
Mr. Vilchock said that the costs of the service contracts were increasing by $400 to cover the cost of the defibrillator.
Mr. Vilchock said that the volunteers for the Fire Department had put in 8015 hours over 2008. He said that the math on that came out to them getting paid $3.74 per hour from the stipend.
Mr. Vilchock said that he was keeping the mileage budget the same.
Mr. Vilchock said that the cost for dispatch was going to decrease because the department was transferring their dispatch services to Rockingham County. He said that cost was covered by the county taxes and he said that the Fire Department was looking for increased performance from the new service.
Mr. Vilchock said that budget for the postage would be staying the same.
Mr. Vilchock said that the cost of medical supplies was now a part of the ambulance fund.
Mr. Vilchock said that the cost for the breathing apparatus would increase.
Mr. Vilchock said that the amount the Fire Department spent on dues would stay the same.
Mr. Vilchock said that the amount the Fire Department spent on publications would also stay the same. He said that the money was used for updates to the fire codes as well as fire prevention materials which were distributed to school children.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Fire Department would spend money on training and recertification.
Mr. Vilchock said that he had included in the proposed budget the same amount of money for protective gear that he had asked for the previous year. He said that protective gear for Emergency Medical Technicians cost $1300 a set and protective gear for a firefighter cost $1800 a set. He noted that these people were volunteers and it was very important that the department do everything they could to keep them safe.
Mr. Vilchock said that the fire department had to get some federally mandated vests so they could be seen in the dark.
Mr. Vilchock said that the cost of vaccinations and testing would remain the same.
Mr. Vilchock said that the uniform budget had been decreased by $1000. He said that the money for uniforms would be spent on Class A's which were worn for important occasions like funerals, uniforms for the full time firefighters and on shirts.
Mr. Vilchock said that the proposed budget for office supplies had been decreased and the proposed budget for office equipment had as well.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Board of Selectmen had reduced the Fire Department proposed budget for supplies and equipment by $2,000. He said that the Fire Department wanted to buy more hose, they wanted to buy more hand lights, they wanted to buy some equipment to help them fight chimney fires, they wanted hand tools to put into the ambulance and they wanted to find a replacement motor for their boat. He said that their boat was out of service. He said that they had problems with it during this past summer and they could no longer risk using the boat because it was unsafe. He said that with their boat out of service if there was a problem on the lake they would need to wait for a response.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Fire Department was going to defer getting a replacement motor for their forestry skid until 2010.
Mr. Vilchock said that the proposed budget for fuel had been increased because of the prices. He said that since prices were coming down he would look at that again but he said that since those prices fluctuated so much he didn't want to assume the price would stay low.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Board of Selectmen had decreased the proposed budget for Fire Department vehicle maintenance because they had decided that the Police Department would not be getting a new car. He said that since the Police Department would not be getting a new car, they would not be giving the Fire Department their old one and so the Fire Department would be keeping the car they currently used. He said that they would also be using the vehicle maintenance money because they had a head problem on Engine #2 and a pump problem on Engine #3.
Mr. Vilchock said that their amount for lease purchase would decrease to $0 because they were making the last payment on their tanker.
Mr. Vilchock said that the department was not planning to replace any cisterns. He said that the cost for signage would also decrease.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Fire Department had a frequency for their repeater but it had not been renewed.
Mr. Vilchock said that the cost for telephone had decreased. He said that part of the decrease was because of the removal of the old telephone line that was not used very often and he said that the other part of the decrease was because of optimization of the town telephone services by the Town Administrator.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Fire Department needed to have an internet connection because the internet was required for sending reports to the state.
Mr. Vilchock said that the money for miscellaneous covered food for the firefighters while they were at fire scenes.
Mr. Vilchock said that the money for hazardous materials paid for dues and risk mitigation. He said that it was important for the department to pay someone to clean up hazardous spills. He said that one incident where this was needed would cover the cost of the dues.
Mr. Vilchock said that amount in the proposed budget for forest fires had decreased.
Mr. Vilchock said that the amount in the proposed budget for matching grant funds had increased. He said that the Fire Department had applied for a Homeland Security grant. He said that the department continued to apply for these grants but he said that every year they were becoming harder and harder to get.
Mr. Curry asked whether the ambulance was self funding. Ms. Carlson said that the ambulance did not cost the taxpayers anything.
Mr. Vilchock said that their call volume had decreased for the early months of the year. He said that he tried to look at trends but he also said that it was not possible to predict things like emergencies. Ms. Powell said that her family had three ambulance calls over the past year. She said that she was very appreciative and very happy with how the department had responded.
FIRE TRUCK PRESENTATION:
Mr. Vilchock said that he would like to make a presentation on behalf of the Fire Department about their request for a new truck. Several members of the department set up a power point presentation to go along with what the Chief had to say.
Mr. Vilchock said that the Fire Department wanted the replacement of a fire engine. He said that this was being placed on a warrant article and the estimated cost of a new engine was $350,000.
Mr. Vilchock showed a slide giving the names of the committee members and one giving the specifications of the engine that the department would like to replace. He said that the current engine was from 1988. He said that it had been bought for about one third of the cost of an engine today. He showed pictures and said that the current engine had severe rust problems. He said that the goal was to replace fire engines within 20 years. He also said that there would be new emission standards in 2010 which would cause fire truck price increases. He said that several companies were opting out of the fire truck market because they were expensive to build and the demand for them was limited. He also said that the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) standards would change in 2009. He said that
those changes would mandate more things in fire trucks.
Ms. Powell asked how long it would take between order of a new fire truck and delivery of a new fire truck. Mr. Vilchock said that it would take between ten months and one year.
Mr. Vilchock showed slides of crash test results and he showed a slide of a sketch of the type of fire engine that the the Fire Department wanted. He said that the engine they wanted would carry more firefighters and it would have better maneuverability. He also said that the location of the pump would be changed in order to be easier for the firefighters.
Ms. Andersen asked whether the model of fire engine that the Fire Department wanted was wider than the current fire engine. Mr. Vilchock said yes. Ms. Andersen said that some people had narrow driveways and lived far from the road. She asked whether the proposed fire truck would be too wide to reach them. Mr. Vilchock said no. He said that the width of the fire truck would not prevent them from getting to fires.
Mr. Vilchock said that he had visited other departments and he had talked to other departments about their engines. He showed information about the turning radius of the vehicle they wanted. He said that the new vehicle should have a better turning radius than the current one.
Mr. Vilchock also showed crash pictures and talked about why it was important to have a safe fire engine. He explained the difference between a custom chassis versus a commercial chassis. He said that the custom chassis should have better visibility. He also said that the custom chassis should last 20-25 years as opposed to the commercial chassis which only had a life expectancy of up to 20 years. He said that the custom chassis had the advantage of being built specifically for a fire truck instead of for just a big truck. He said that the custom chassis would be better for safety. He said that as far as warrantees between the commercial and custom chassis, the custom chassis usually had longer warrantees.
Mr. Vilchock said that he was going to request the use of the money from the capital reserve fund. He said that he was also going to suggest that they enter into a lease/purchase agreement to help them get the new engine. He said that if they got a five year bond it would cost them $60,000 a year. He said that the town would be faced with these problems in the future as well unless they started to keep up an aggressive capital reserve program. He said that they would be looking for a replacement engine for their next oldest truck in 2015 and he said that the purchases would back up if they did not buy the replacement truck this year. He said that the current truck had been out of service 21 days during the past year.
Mr. Koester asked about the scrap value of the current fire engine. Mr. Vilchock said that they had received one offer for $15,000. Ms. Andersen asked about the capital reserve fund. Mr. Vilchock said that the town needed to put $50,000 per year into the fund to replace trucks. Mr. Curry asked whether the Fire Department had an inspection done on the current truck. Mr. Vilchock said that they had not had an inspection done beyond the mandatory state inspections. Ms. Danis asked what the fire engine would be used for. Mr. Vilchock said that it would respond to any fires. Ms. Danis asked what percentage of calls that would be. Mr. Vilchock said that the fire engine would roll for just about any calls. He said that the new engine would be the one that would carry the extrication tools
for auto accidents. He said that the engine would go on a high percentage of calls. He said that this engine would also help to set up the water for fire calls.
Ms. Danis asked what happened when their fire truck was out of service. Mr. Vilchock said that they needed to rely on automatic mutual aid. He said that was not the purpose behind mutual aid.
Ms. Danis said that the Fire Chief had given a good presentation. She said that voters would ask why the department needed this truck now. Mr. Vilchock said that the price would go up if they did not get this engine now. Mr. Barry asked about the price delta between the custom and commercial chassis. Mr. Vilchock said that it was only about $30,000.
Mr. Bock said that the Board of Selectmen had struggled with this. He said that they had decided to support it after spending time with the Fire Department. He said that the Board of Selectmen was concerned about the expenditure but he said that the Fire Department would present their need directly to the voters. Mr. Curry said that the majority of the Nottingham community supported the Fire Department. He said that they needed to look at long term versus short term gains. He asked whether the Fire Department had looked into the repair costs for the current truck. Ms. Powell said that she had two concerns. She asked whether they could time the order of the fire engine to between two budget cycles. She asked whether the pressure was on to order the truck in order to avoid waiting. Mr.
Netishen said that the timing of ordering the truck would not save the town money. He said that Nottingham had two full time firefighters. He said that he did not want to be putting volunteers in harms way. He said that he was very concerned that there would not be much improvement in the 2010 and 2011 economy. He said that he did not think there was any reason that anyone in the community shouldn't support the purchase of a new fire truck for their Fire Department. Mr. Batchelder said that Mr. Vilchock had talked about five or six year financing. He asked whether they could do more years. Ms. Carlson said that it would be possible to finance for seven years. She said that she would like to see the department get 25 years of usage from a new truck. She said that if they bought fire engines in seven year cycles there would always be a payment. Mr. Batchelder said that he would like to see the financing numbers for a six or
seven year bond.
Mr. Netishen said that there were other items on the warrant which would cost the town money. He said that the Board of Selectmen would look into the financing options for a new fire truck.
Mr. Koester said that there were a number of lines where the actuals were 75% of what had been budgeted. He asked whether that money could be reallocated to vehicle maintenance. Mr. Vilchock asked for an example of those lines. Mr. Koester noted salaries and training. Mr. Vilchock said that part of the training line was reimbursement to people who had spent their own money and they had some planned costs in that line. Mr. Koester said that he was concerned that they should move more money into the vehicle maintenance line if it was going to be at least a year before they would actually receive a replacement fire truck. Mr. Netishen said that some money had already been added to that vehicle maintenance line. He said that the Board of Selectmen had reduced the bottom line of the Fire Department
proposed budget by 10%.
Mr. Vilchock noted that the current fire engine had been bought in 1988 for $120,000.
LIBRARY:
Also Present: Laurie Legard, Library Board of Directors Chair, Rhoda Capron, Head Librarian, Joy Bicknell, Library Board of Directors
Ms. Legard presented the budget for the library. She said that the cost for the alarm system had increased because of the cost of monitoring and cleaning the smoke detectors.
Ms. Legard said that normally the library liked to spend a little more money on books each year but she said that they knew everyone in town was cutting back as much as they could so the library had decided to keep their budget for new books the same.
Ms. Legard said that the library used to have someone do their cleaning who had done a very good job. She said that the person had raised their rates so the library had decided to put the service out to bid. She said that had been a horrible experience. She said that the less expensive cleaning they had gotten through the bid had not been good quality and they had to let them go. She said that they had tried to make it work but they were consistently unsatisfied. She said that they had found a new person to do their cleaning. She said that the new person charged more but that they got what they paid for. She said that the person came in twice a week to clean and they worked a total of about 7 hours.
Ms. Legard said that they were keeping their budget for continuing education the same as it was last year.
Ms. Legard said that the library was trying to do without buying furniture because of the economy.
Ms. Legard said that the cost of automation had gone down because the library was now completely automated.
Ms. Legard said that the cost of magazines and newspapers had gone down because the library was only going to subscribe to one newspaper now. She said that in the past they had subscribed to two but one of them would no longer deliver to Nottingham so they had decided to cut their subscriptions to just one.
Ms. Legard said that there had been mold and maintenance issues. She also said that they had needed to get the building power washed.
Ms. Legard said that the cost of mileage covered employees going to conferences.
Ms. Legard said that the miscellaneous line covered when they needed to place an advertisement for a new employee or when they needed to do a background check on an employee or volunteer.
Ms. Legard said that the costs of postage and dues were remaining the same.
Ms. Legard said that the cost and amount of library programming would also remain the same.
Ms. Legard said that the budget for repairs and equipment in the library would remain the same.
Ms. Powell left the meeting at 9:05pm.
Ms. Legard said that for technology the library wanted to buy one computer. She said that the total technology costs were decreased though because of the automation.
Ms. Legard said that the technical support costs were down because the person who was doing that for them had donated a lot of time.
Ms. Legard said that the costs for movies would be the same as last year.
Mr. Batchelder asked how much the library paid for the internet. Ms. Capron said that the internet was provided free to public libraries by Comcast.
Mr. Curry asked what costs were still covered under the library automation line. Ms. Capron said that there were some annual fees which they had to pay to keep the automation system updated.
Ms. Legard said that the Library Trustees looked at each salary individually. She said that Ms. Capron had been the Head Librarian in Nottingham for 22 years. She said that in 2007 the range of salaries for that position in other comparable towns was $36,619-$59,000. She said that the Library Trustees had been working for years to raise Ms. Capron's salary to a level comparable to her levels of education and experience. She said that for several years they had been raising the salary 5% a year. She said that this year they had decided to raise it 4% because of the economy. She noted that she had made the job description of the Head Librarian available to the Budget Committee.
Ms. Legard said that the Assistant Librarian had a lot of responsibility. She said that they were going to raise that salary 5%.
Mr. Curry asked if there was a potential labor savings from the automation. Ms. Capron said that overall, yes, there would eventually be a labor savings because the staff would no longer need to do time consuming things like update the card catalog but she said that there always seemed to be things to fill the gap. She said that the staff always seemed to have more things expected of them.
Ms. Legard said that they wanted to give Library Assistant #1 a 1% raise because of the economy but she said that the employee in that position was doing a fine job.
Ms. Legard said that they wanted to give Library Assistant #2 a 2% raise also because of the economy but she said that employee planned and prepared story hour and she said that story hour was the most popular library program.
Ms. Legard said that the large percentage increase for the Library Aide reflected the minimum wage increases.
Ms. Legard said that the decrease in the line for the Preteen Summer/Sunday Assistant Librarian reflected a reduction in hours for the position.
Ms. Legard said that the Summer Reading Program employee would receive a 2% increase in salary. Ms. Capron noted that 2% equalled 26 cents per hour. Ms. Legard said that the summer reading program was a very popular program.
Ms. Legard said that the story hour assistant filled in when the regular person was unavailable.
Ms. Legard said that the Library Trustees were doing the best they could putting together a budget during these tough economic times. She said that the library employees did a good job. Ms. Andersen noted that if they added together the hours of all the part time positions they would almost get one full time position. Ms. Legard noted that some of the positions were created for students and she said that students were not usually willing or able to work full time.
Mr. Reed noted that a couple of people had been very generous to the library. Ms. Capron said that the library had received a significant amount of donations in memory of a local woman who had recently died. She said that they had talked to the family about what the money should be spent on and they had created a reading room and bought some furniture for it. She said that often donors specified exactly what they wanted their donations to be used for. She also said that they never knew how much money they would get in donations. She said that they tried to put the basics for running the library into their budget and then they used donations for the extras. She said that the donation money was kept in a separate account and it was self providing.
Ms. Capron said that the library had looked at their hours. She said that they had been open seven days a week which she said was a lot for a library of their size. She said that they had decided to close on Fridays so they were down to six days a week. She said that this change would lower their energy costs.
Mr. Reed asked whether the Board of Selectmen had looked at the library budget. Mr. Bock said yes. He said that the library was a separate entity run by the Library Board of Trustees and they were not required to go through the Board of Selectmen.
Ms. Capron reminded Nottingham residents that they needed to come into the library and get new library cards because of the automation.
HCPP GRANT COMMITTEE UPDATE:
Mr. Batchelder said that he had an update on the HCPP (Housing and Conservation Planning) Grant Committee. He said that the committee had recommended Mettee Planning and Consultants in Dover as the company they wanted to work with. He said that the Board of Selectmen had approved the choice and they had signed a contract with the company. He said that the HCPP Grant Committee had a meeting on December 15th with representatives from the company. Mr. Bock also noted that they had learned that there was no timeline that they needed to have their work completed by.
CIP COMMITTEE UPDATE:
Ms. Andersen gave an update on the Capital Improvement Plan Committee. She said that the new requests involved $1.3 million for a Recreation Department facility in 2010. She said that the school was also requesting an amount of $3.6 million. She said that amount would probably be increased. She said that they were in the data gathering stage now. She said that the school request for 2013 might disappear from the list though if the school made improvements sooner. She said that as far as Highway Department requests, there had been some shifts in which roads would be repaired but the amounts of money requested had stayed the same. She said that the next meeting of the Capital Improvement Plan Committee was on December 23, 2008 at 8:30am. She said that she would like to see the updated projected
school growth report put on the town website.
Ms. Danis said that there should be consistency among the growth reports. Mr. Batchelder said that was part of the purpose of the HCPP Committee and he said that much of that work should be completed by April of 2009.
Mr. Koester noted that the money for the Recreation Department facility would not be spent all at once. He said that the cost would likely be bonded over several years. Ms. Andersen said that there would need to be a meeting between the Recreation Department and the Capital Improvement Plan Committee.
Mr. Curry said that the Budget Committee had asked the School Board for estimates of the impact and they had always said that they were unknown. Ms. Andersen said that the Capital Improvement Plan Committee was given estimates of $180 per square foot for 20,099 feet. She also said that based on the new growth estimates they were changing that square footage to 24,299. Mr. Curry noted that in the past the School Board and the Budget Committee had not always had the best communication. He noted that the projected school enrollment figure for the 2017-2018 school year was 748 students.
Mr. Reed said that the building permits for new homes in Nottingham had decreased. He said that they were losing people. He said that there were 70 homes for sale in Nottingham and he said that he knew there had been foreclosures. He said that he did not know whether families would move into the empty homes. He said that he did not know if this situation would create a steady stream of new kids. He said that he had read several studies saying that women chose not to have children during economic downturns.
Mr. Batchelder said that he was impressed that the recent growth studies such as the Harman Report had been run using several models. He said that they had validated their information and backed into their numbers. Mr. Curry said that his concern was that growth actuals had stayed at about 4% for a decade and the growth numbers were projected to be 44% for the next decade. He said that didn't seem right to him. Ms. Andersen noted that the school was interested in keeping the class sizes at certain levels.
OTHER:
Mr. Curry said that his neighbor had submitted some questions to the Budget Committee based upon their reading of several sets of minutes. Ms. Andersen said that the email had been sent to Mr. Curry, herself, Ms. Danis and Mr. Reed. She said that it was basically a bunch of thoughts and questions that had come up while this person was reviewing Budget Committee minutes. Ms. Andersen, Ms. Danis and Mr. Reed all stated that they had sent no replies to this person. Mr. Curry said that he had sent no reply to the email or the questions. He said that by law, RSA 91:a, these questions should be handled in a public forum. He requested that the questions and comments be incorporated into the minutes so following are the questions from a member of the public.
Have a training session for those on Google Docs. ~We are now using it
for The Forum, and are using it. ~Have people go in and write down
questions as they use it and then let Scott answer via phone or email
to them. ~I to agree that this program is a little harder than most,
but once you understand it, it is a very useful program.
What are the amounts of the additional reimbursements for the project
that FEMA is supposed to give us? ~ If we only have received 68K, of
the 84,416, then will we be getting 16,416 to pay for the rest of the
amount?
What is the money amount for the loader if we bought it outright
compared to the total of the lease amount? ~How long is the lease for,
and what happens when the lease ends? ~Is there a mileage charge on
this lease?
Can't we see if we can get volunteers to build a salt shed, without
rooms for offices? And to get volunteers to paint the Old Town Hall
and Grange Building instead of paying labor for this? ~If not, can't
these two buildings be painted in a few more years?
What is Mortgage Research for? ~I don't understand this and what to
know what it is and why we use it and how much it costs.
Has anyone done a comparative study on how much mileage we pay to the
building inspector compared to the cost of buying him a car? ~What
kind of car would we buy? ~Will it be fuel efficient? ~Why does he
need a car? ~Many companies have been taking company cars away from
employees, this is an unneeded expense, and should not be even
considered.
What are the deductibles and co payments today for employee health
insurance? ~We need to find a plan that the co payments are higher to
bring down the costs and go to various companies that offer coverage
and not just to one or two for estimates.
Regarding the school board, we need to know how much money has been
spent on the current audit of the SAU 44 records, and how much that
will impact our tax rate. ~Or is this covered by some sort of
insurance policy? ~How much will the increase in the new
superintendent's salary will impact our tax rate, and if Ms. McGann
sues the district, is this covered an liability insurance policy or
will the three towns share in this expense too?
Because the cost of fuel is not a constant any more, the town should
not lock into any contract for the price of heating fuel. ~What was
the price that they locked into for the current contract? ~And even
though we think we can not get out of it, the Town Administrator
should write a letter to the heating oil company requesting that the
price be lowered, due to the change in the price. ~Especially if we
have been dealing with the same company year after year. ~This letter
should include copies to the budget committee members.
Why is the property liability insurance costs up, and have we looked
for a new company that would give us same coverage, but lower costs?
If the money that the school district is given back to the community,
how is that recorded? ~Are there detail records to show where the
money is coming from, and why it was over budgeted? ~And what happens
to this money that is given back?
What is ~mechanically wrong with the fire truck they want to replace?
Have them list the problems, with the cost, and then have that as a
comparison on the warrant article, or at least a discussion item with
the budget committee prior to placing purchasing a new engine on a
warrant article.
When did we get an assessing clerk? ~That was not part of the warrant
article of December 2007. ~And why wasn't the costs of the companies
being considered to replace Avitar brought to the Budget Committee so
the costs and what these companies were going to give for it, could be
discussed? ~Won't the Assessing costs go up when the we vote for
members of the Assessing Board? ~I thought these were paid positions?
Finally, there should be a fuel fund assistance program for those who
need help in the community? ~Although, I have heard there is one
already. ~Can anyone check into this to see if there is a fuel fund,
or if we can have one set up?
Mr. John Terninko said that he just wanted to make a couple of comments. He said that the Capital Improvement Plan Committee update was a nice document. He asked how the Capital Improvement Plan fit into the Master Plan and who was responsible for that. Mr. Curry said that responsibility fell on the Planning Board.
Mr. Terninko said that he wanted to know if the town learned from their mistakes.
Mr. Terninko also commented that there was a proven negative correlation between the price of homes and the number of kids. He said that people who spent a lot of money on their homes had fewer children.
Mr. Terninko said that there had been a great deal of effort made in the past to make the school building easy to expand. Mr. Batchelder said that he had been under the same impression but when he had gone to a recent meeting he had been told that there was swampland and other barriers to expanding the current building. Mr. Bock pointed out that the new Fire Department was in what would have been a prime spot for school expansion.
Mr. Batchelder asked if the Budget Committee could confirm that the remaining department heads would be able to speak with them at their meeting scheduled for December 11, 2008. Mr. Curry said that he would get confirmation of that.
Ms. Danis made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:10pm. Ms. Andersen seconded the motion. The present members of the Budget Committee voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 8-0.
Respectfully submitted,
Kelly Tivnan
Budget Committee Secretary
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