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George Martin
Cindy Testa
Lunenburg Finance Committee
Minutes 08-10-17
Location:
Present:
Absent:
Guest:
Town Hall
Terri Burchfield, Jay Simeone, John Henshaw, Hannah Anderson, George Martin
Mark Erickson, Cindy Testa
Karen Brochu - Town Accountant,
1. Chairman called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. Non televised
2. Comments:
a.
Public: None
b. New Communications:
•
Public Hearings: Planning Board - August 14". 675 Reservoir Rd. August 28, 994 Northfield Rd.
• Charter review committee: The Finance committee has two seats on the committee. Terri Burchfield and Mark
Brickson to sit on the Charter Review Committee. The Charter is reviewed every ten years and has nine
members.
•
The Chair circulated the Beacon newsletter
3. Town Manager/Town Accountant report and discussion:
Town Accountant: All transfers that needed to be done were able to be done internally with out
the 4453B authorization that requires the FinCom signatures by the Town Manager.
Karen gave an overview of the year end appropriations and expenditures.
Total revenues for FY17 were 1.07% more than what our revenue estimates were.
Some of the highlights are:
Collected 16.36% more in local receipts than estimated. One of the major increases came form
motor vehicle excise at $253,604 more than estimated
Miscellaneous non reoccurring revenues $156k more than what was budgeted. Mostly due the
water betterment's from Meadow Woods trailer park. $62,781. This is a one time occurrence.
Taxes collected are at 99.02% of the Levy. Even though its $241K less than what the Levy
estimate was, we received $96K in tax lien revenue that was not accounted for in the estimate.
State aid: Received $50,285 more than estimated. Majority of increase is Charter School tuition
On the expenditures side, we expended and or encumbered 99.49% of budgeted expenditures.
$358,084 in appropriations close outs. But we also paid $170,787 more than our State
assessment figure, of which the majority was because of Choice and Charter school tuition
adjustment for students that go out of district. After discussion with the School committee, they
made some budget adjustments to compensate for the differences in revenues and expenditures
to balance the budget at the end of the year.
The snow deficit was able to be covered.
Free cash is estimated at $800K for this year.
The Town will be holding an auction to auction off five parcels of land on August 29th 2017 for
tax title.
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constrict the TM ability to borrow funds, but also be financialiy responsible to the tax payers.
There is an emergency clause in the policy for unintended circumstances in the event there may
be a need to exceed the limit. For instance, the ice storm from several years ago. However the
amount of debt that exceeds the limit should be paid down as quickly as possible.
Karen commented that the BOS is having a workshop to discuss the Municipal buildings. The TM
and Karen are working on trying to see what they could fit into the debt schedule that will meet
the guide lines of the debt policy. Karen also wanted to be able to clarify the policy for the Towns
Financial advisers should they question the policy.
5. Review of minutes: None
6. Committee and Department Updates:
Committee/Department
Public Access Cable-Teri
Capital Planning-John H.
Update
In process of streamlining the Capital Plan process for departments and the
committee itself. So far they have constructed a spreadsheet that bring
together two streams of information on Capital Improvement request. Met
with TM regarding Collins Center for public management process as used
by the Town of Barre. The TM is goal is to replicate the process as is
practical for the Town. Committee to meet on August 15th to review the
process. The TM would like to broaden the capital projects the committee
looks at to include land and enterprise tunds.
Dept. of Public Works-John H.
COA - Cindy.
Library Terri
Police Dept - John H
Fire Dept - George
Met with Chief Sullivan. One question the committee had from the last
meeting was about the life expectancy of the truck if more funds are put
into repairs. A new replacement truck would take up to 2 years for delivery.
1 The Town insurance rates are up for review. This is the first review in 12
years. Condition of the equipment will factor in to the review. The Chief
will be soliciting bids for pump repair.
Schools - Hannah
Monty Tech - Hannah
Green Comm Task Force-Jay
Sewer Commission Task Force
School Bidg. Comm. - Mark
Building Reuse - Mark
7. Ongoing business:
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Submitted by Jay Simeone
Attachments (1): FY17 Fourth quarter revenues/expenditures report from the Town Accountant
https://lunenburgportal.additionnetworks.net/imp/view.php?actionID=view attach&id=2&muid=%7B5
%7DINBOX485&view token=1yVsNNpKdxGXwiQXbqy2tu7&uniq=1510018705840