Finance Committee Meeting Minutes

 

Members                                   Absent                                      Other                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Shaun Galliher                         Russ Parks                      Bob Graves, Town Administrator                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Jim Chivers                               Tracey Lussier                     Earl Peck, Select Board Chair                

Bonnie Conner                                                                       Ray Huntoon, Select Board member

Mary Rice                                                                                Bart Collins, Select Board member

Heather Brown                                                                                Susan Rathbun, Police Chief

Candy Galeucia                                                                                Matt Goggin

Sarah Baumann

 

The meeting was opened at 6:32 pm. 

A motion was made and seconded to accept the minutes of the April 13, 2023 meeting as written.  The motion passed unanumously. 

Chairman Galliher went over some of the key issues in the Police Department Budget.  Chief Rathbun had requested to eliminate the line item for Tazers and required training because they may not be able to complete it until at least December, and possibly beyond that. She asked that that money be put toward Officers salary, effectively bumping it up to 8% and holding off on a raise for herself.  The Committee agreed with that.  Chairman Galliher also expained this to the Select Board as they have not, except  for Ray Huntoon, been attending any Budget hearings held by the Finance Committee.

Chairman Galliher also reported some figures that were not available at our last meeting.  Vocational list was corrected from 11 to 10, therefore reducing the Tuition costs.  However, there is one student on a wait list for Taconic so we most likely should include that Tuition just in case.  We have not had this situation in prior years and it is hard to budget for a “what if”.  Also, there are no other students scheduled to attend Taconic, therefore no Transportation cost bid on.  That would need to be worked out if that student is accepted in the future.

After lengthly explainations by Chairman Galliher and Bob Graves, a motion was made and seconded to approve for $597,084.00  General Government.  The motion passed unanimously.

Again, after going through the accounts, a motion was made and seconded to approve $614,487.00 for Public Safety.  The motion passed unanimously.

Also, after reviewing all accounts, a motion was made and seconded to approve the Education for $3,229,657.00.  The motion passed unanimously.  It is our intention to urge voters at the ATM to reject the School Budget as presented and force them to revisit and revise it by eliminating some costs.

 

 

 

Chairman Galliher explained how the Highway Budget was split with the Town, Water, Sewer 1, and Sewer 3.  Water and Sewer users are the only ones paying for that portion of the costs, not the general population.  A motion was made and seconded to approve the Public Works Budget for $571,717.00.  The motion passed unanimously.

A motion was made and seconded to approve the Sewer 1 budget for $84,200.00.  The motion passed unanimously.

Another motion was made and seconded to approve the Sewer 3 Budget for $175,607.00.  The motion passed unanimously.

A motion was made and seconded to approve the final Budget total for $6,514,907.00.00.  The motion passed unanimously.

Chairman Galliher reported there is approximately $301K in Free Cash and it will be allocated as follows;

      60K   -   New Cuiser

    155K   -   New Highway Truck

    $21,981.00  - to pay previous bills not submitted by the former Highway Supt.

         6K    - Transfer station shreader

The Committee and Select Board members discussed the pads  required under the Compactor and Shreader that was asked for by our hauler, Cassella.  Bob Graves would like to put this off one year for several reasons.  The pad was just completed during the landfil project and will need to be dug up to accommodate the Shreader.  A quote was requested from Maximillian, the Contractor on the landfil project, and it came in at 32K.  We all agree that it is too much money for this year, due to all our other pressing issues, and agreed to put it off to next year's Capital project.  He will explain this to Cassella in a letter and thinks they will be ok with it as long as we have a plan.

Winter Roads over run is well over what we expected.  We set aside 50K and it was over by $94,307.00.00 which included some expensive equipment repairs.  Chairman Galliher and Bob Graves will be working on where to get the excess money needed.  After May 1st, the law allows transfers between accounts for the remainder of the Fiscal year to June 30th.  The Fuel account is also expected to be over and will be paid out of the Reserve Fund.  There will be 38K left in Capital Stabilization after the funding allocated for the Fire Department Tanker and may be needed.  There is also money that will be left over in Summer Roads account this year, due to a Grant we had last year.  That also can be used for Winter Roads.

The funding for the Tanker was explained in detail for the Select Board.  The Finance Committee went over it at our last meeting.  After a discussion the Select Board seemed to agree.  They will need to schedule a meeting to vote on the final Budget, similar to what we have done at this meeting.

Everyone at this meeting discussed the line item of $15K for private roads.  Dalton has eliminated any work on private roads, and Becket never did any.  That amount will not be funded this year as it has not been used for several years, and was rolled over from previous years.  The people living on these roads have the responsibility to maintain them, not the rest of the Taxpayers.  

 

 

These private roads are not a “right of way” but all abutters own to the middle of the road they are on.  That amount will go towards the Winter Road overage.  It was noted that the Ashmere Lake Association is funding road rebuilding on some of their private roads.  This should be the case on all “private roads” in Town.  The people living on them knew they were “unaccepted Roads” when they bought their property.  There is a process to make the road up to code so it could be accepted by the Town.  Until that happens, it's the abutters responsibility to maintain and repair it.  It is unclear if a formal vote was ever taken on any maintenance of such roads and it seems more and more unaccepted roads have been simply added to the list over the years.  Taxpayer's who reside on accepted Town Roads should not have to pay for these private ways.  Some of these are in tough shape, nearly impassable with trees, banks and walls that narrow the passage considerably for the Highway trucks.

The Committee and Select Board members discussed the Police Chief Contract and that they need to meet and finalize it soon.  The Chief presented the figure she requested, but there is no signed Contact agreement to date and as far as we know, no meeting has been scheduled to negotiate it.  There is a deadline for posting the Warrant prior to the Atm which is on May 10, 2023 this year.

We will meet again next week to go over the Warrant Articles and vote on our Recommendations for each.

A motion was made and seconded to adjourn at  8:15 pm, the motion passed unanimously.  The next  meeting of this Committee is Thursday, April 27, 2023 at 6:30 pm in the downstairs Community room at Town Hall.  

Respectfully submitted,

 

Mary A. Rice, Secretary