Town Office Building January 13, 2014
Selectmen’s Conference Room 5:15 P.M.
First Selectman Mailhos called the meeting to order at 5:25 P.M. with Selectmen Kowalyshyn & Blessington, Business Manager Donna Latincsics and Town Treasurer, Tish Ignatowicz.
Donna presented the second run (#1.2) of the draft budget. The following budgets have been submitted by departments and are incorporated:
Selectmen’s budget is up $3,000 (2.6%).
Accounting services is down $1,275 (-0.7%).
Assessor’s office is up $2,153 (2.4%).
Revenue Collector is down $1,709 (-2.3%).
Town Counsel will remain flat (keep the same as last year).
Mowing, catch basin cleaning and road maintenance will remain flat.
Consulting Engineering and the Cemetery Association will also remain flat.
The Town Office Building and Old Town Hall Maintenance, chip seal and snow budget are still under review. Donna Latincsics offered the Board a suggestion on how to prepare the snow budget. She put together three methods to help calculate the budget:
Method 1 is based on the 5 year average using 13-14 applied prices (total: $186,396);
Method #2 budget same as 12-13 what was approved – no adjustments: (total: $169,542);
Method 3 is a 5 year average of actual expenditures (total: $187,465);
Selectman Blessington stated that it is tough because you cannot predict what the weather is going to be like for the next year. The Selectmen agreed to go with the 5 year average of Method #1, which will take the expenditures and current-year unit pricing into account.
The Transfer Station budget will remain flat; however we will be getting a new bulk and trash contract soon. The electronic recycling might go up. Selectman Kowalyshyn suggested holding electronic recycling drives, similar to what Tolland does; (it is free to residents and is held once or twice per month). She will look into it to see if it is something we can do here and perhaps will save some money.
The accrued sick fund will be increased by $5,000 as suggested by the auditor. We currently do not have enough to supplement the liability (similar to the pension fund).
The dog fund was discussed. First Selectman Mailhos stated that she had a discussion with Chief Littell from Tolland today to explore the idea of regionalizing our Animal Control service with them. (Currently, our Animal Control Officer also works in Tolland). The details would need to be discussed. First Selectman Mailhos stated that there are many details that would need to be discussed and negotiated and obviously we would only do it if we save money and our level of service is maintained. Selectman Blessington warned that when you regionalize with another town, they end up raising the costs and we end up having to pay more, regardless whether we can afford it or not. First Selectman Mailhos noted that other towns have tried to regionalize and it was not favorable.
Selectman Blessington added he does not want to lose our Animal Control Officer. First Selectman Mailhos agreed and stated that she will talk more with Tolland to get the details of what they are looking for and perhaps we can negotiate on a per capita basis. The Selectmen discussed how happy they are with the way things are currently. First Selectman Mailhos also noted that we cannot afford more at this time but will look into it further and if there is a way to make it work, she is for it.
First Selectman Mailhos stated that she is also going to talk to our Building Official more this week and discuss regionalization for his hours and salary with the town of Bolton as well.
Donna noted that the Land Use Office has also added the assistant zoning agent position to their budget. It will be discussed at a later meeting.
Region 19 is projecting a $49,000 increase. Preliminary runs show the Board of Education K-8 could be looking at a $92,000 decrease.
There are still a lot of unknown numbers at this time, but there are not a lot of large numbers added to the budget (with the exception of the land use salary line item).
The meeting was adjourned at 6:34 P.M.
Respectfully submitted,
Robin Campbell
Robin Campbell
Administrative Assistant
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