Sunapee Budget Advisory Committee (BAC)
Meeting Minutes
Meeting held on 03/27/15 at Abbott Library Smaller Meeting Room
Meeting called to order at 9:10 am
Attendees from Committee: Attendees from Public:
John Augustine, Chair Police Chief Dave Cahill
David Andrews
Don Bettencourt
Spec Bowers
Veronica Heinzen‐Hastings
Topics of Discussion
耀 Discussed John Augustine’s need to resign from the committee due to his
election to the Board of Selectmen (BOS) and the decision by the BOS that the
BAC should have no BOS representative as a member of the BAC.
耀 Don Bettencourt volunteered to become chair of the committee and was
unanimously approved.
耀 Reviewed status of each committee member’s term, discussed interest of
committee members whose terms are expiring in April in continuing on
committee, and brainstormed potential new committee members.
耀 Discussed priority items for committee to focus on in 2015.
耀 Listened to police chief Cahill’s reflections on messages gleaned from March
10th voting results and chief Cahill’s interest in working with the BAC to
identify opportunities.
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耀 Discussed the concept of developing spending‐related metrics for each
department and then using these metrics to enable comparison of Sunapee
departments to other towns (i.e., benchmarking).
耀 Discussed the Sunapee police department operations in order to identify the
key drivers of cost associated with running a police department (e.g.,
population, geographic area of coverage, composition & culture of the
community, number of calls for service, expectations of the public, proximity
of back‐up coverage).
Action and Follow‐up items
耀 Conduct one‐on‐one outreach to high potential candidates to solicit their
interest in joining the committee.
耀 Request that the town manager send an email blast announcing that the
committee is searching for new members.
耀 Review Sunapee teachers’ contract and teachers’ contracts from other towns.
耀 Conduct teachers’ contract comparative analysis in order to provide the
Sunapee school board with data & insights prior to new contract negotiations
that begin in the fall.
耀 Define key spending‐related performance metric(s) for police department,
collect required data, and conduct analysis. Share results with police chief,
solicit chief’s feedback, and fine‐tune analysis.
耀 Meet with other department leaders to identify cost drivers that will enable
definition of key spending‐related metrics for each department.
耀 Schedule meetings with the surrounding towns’ budget advisory committees
to discuss the benchmarking study and solicit their assistance in doing data
collection & analysis for their towns.
耀 Identify towns that have been highly proactive in managing their tax rate and
solicit meetings with the key individuals in those towns.
Meeting adjourned at 10:42 am.
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