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John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman
Hannah Anderson, Secretary
Jay Simeone
George Martin
Marc Luescher
Michelle Walton
Lunenburg Finance Committee
04-25-19
Location: Town Hall
Present: Terri Burchfield, John Henshaw, Hannah Anderson, Michelle Walton, Jay Simeone
Absent: Marc Luescher, George Martin
Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM.
978.582.4139
FAX 978.582.4148
1. Open Meeting:
2. Communications:
Public Comment:
The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. This meeting is not being recorded and
televised for re-broadcast on the Lunenburg Public Access cable channel.
Carol Archambault, 662 Page Street- School Committee sent out a proclamation to the Joint
Committee on Education and Governor and urge anyone that would like to share their opinion on
the lack of education funding to so the same.
John Henshaw- Is this a general trend throughout the commonwealth or just Lunenburg? Carol
replied that the School Committees and Teacher Associations are doing what they can to get the
joint committee to move on the legislation this year instead pf presenting and sitting on it. The
state School Committee board has not taken that position so it was felt that the Lunenburg School
Committee do so and she stated that the Lunenburg Teacher Association was plannig on doing the
*Letter is in Attachments*
New Communications:
Terri announced that the bathrooms are unavailable as construction is underway in Town Hall.
3. Review warrant articles- address remaining questions/positions on items
Article 34 of the Town Warrant brought on some discussion as the Finance Committee thought to
take an action of recommends disapproval but after more discussion, they decided to stay with the
position of defer as they felt more information was needed from Parks Commision, ZBA, and
possibly DPW.
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Dept. of Public Works - John H
COA - John H
Library- Michelle W.
Police Dept - Marc
Fire Dept - George
Schools - Hannah
Monty Tech - Hannah
Green Comm Task Force-Jay
Sewer Commission -Jay
Charter Review Comm - Terri
Land Acquistion Committee - Terri
Met the night before. They will be going out to the
property on Northfield Rd over the weekend to look at
it and discussing this at their next meeting. The
purpose of purchasing this land would be for
conservation, if they decide to purchase it.
5. Minutes
3.14.19 John made a motion to recommend approval, Jay second. Vote 5-0
4.11.19 John made a motion to recommend approval, Michelle second. Vote 5-0
6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports
Town Manager is going over articles that did not have a final number for expenses.
Article 4- Prior year expense was $500.
Article 5-taking $5,286 from the veterans benefits and full amount from the reserve fund of $75K
to pay for the deficit of snow removal which is $64,655 and vehicle maintenance from the fire
department for the repair that had to be done this year which was $15,631.
Dave Rogers, 82 Highland, would like to make sure that the veterans that would be affected by
this amount of money coming from the veteran's benefits would be okay with the amount taken
and able to survive on the amount they would be receiving. The town manager and Karen Brochu,
town accountant, assured Mr. Rogers that this was an amount that was agreed on with minimal
impact on our veterans.
Article 6, Capital Plan, remains the same, however, Jen Benson was able to secure $160K as an ear
mark in state budget which still needs to be signed off by the governor but it would pay for ½ of
the fuel tank project.
Dave Rogers, 82 Highland, it is my impression that 50% of the cost could come from this money,
so if that happens we should raise and appropriate the $220K, because we don't know, and when
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the current tanks are within so many feet of wetlands that it is required to have bumpers and
engineering to make sure the brook is not harmed. Mr. Rogers strongly believes that the cost of
this project could be smaller, as well as the tanks or divided tank, should be larger to save on
delivery charges.
Jen Benson was also able to ear mark $100K for the self-contained breathing apparatus for the Fire
Department, again this goes through the state budget process and approval. School Committee
approved the 3% budget increase.
Mr. Rogers. 82 Highland, is there a chance that when this is all settled out that there could be
more money coming back to the Town of Lunenburg? And if so, what happens then? Town
Manager- There is always that chance and it would be distributed at the Special Fall Town Meeting.
Mr. Rogers would like to know if there is more money coming in than planned for would all the left-
over money go to the schools or to all the departments? John answered that speaking
hypothetically, that yes, we would have to decide on how to divide the pot and be very careful
about how to divide it up. Mr. Rogers wanted to specify that if Chapter 70 came back with more,
would that Chapter 70 money go back directly to the schools? The Finance Commitee believes that
70c come back with ves that
if that was the case, the School Committee would write a warrant article for the Special Fall Town
Meeting to allocate that money to them. Karen Brochu noted that if the town votes on the 3% for
the schools at Annual Town Meeting, then they have now met their level funding from the town
and therefore do not have to be given any money at Special Town Meeting. Michelle asked once
extra money comes in, how do we get the public involved to talk about it? Town Manager
answered that there is a recap in the late summer/early fall. Mr. Rogers asked what would happen
if nothing was done with the money that came in. Karen Brochu answered that we would nave
created X amount of dollars in levy capacity. Jay wanted to know if there is access levy capacity
could we 1) can we offset taxes with it or 2) put it towards debt? Karen- if you are going to put it
towards debt that would be a budget adjustment requiring a warrant article. Town Manager- and
offset taxes means you wouldn't be taxing to the levy.
Article 8, Salary Administration Plan, voted to recommend a 2% cost of living adjustment to the
SAP adjustment schedule for FY20, FY21, & FY22 and that's budgeted within our FY20. John- is
that 2% on top of step increases? Town manager- yes. Jay- how do they go to the next grade?
Town Manager- whatever your title is, has an associated grade, but if you are talking steps then its
every year, annually.
Article 37, there was a question about the PILOT last meeting so Town Manager addressed it. How
the calculation works. This article allows he selectman to negotiate into a PILOT with Borrego. The
last PILOT was Nexxiant which was a rate of $7 per Kilowatt and then escalated 2.5% every year
after the 20-year agreement.
Terri would like to know how many acres of land does the town have that is not taxed? Hoping to
have an answer at our next meeting.
1. Public Comment
Terri reached out to Stephen Hase, Dean Tran, and Jen Benson to schedule some kind of
informational presentation for us and those in town that would be interested to talk about the
interrelationship of the town and state funding and how that works.
Eagle house will be selling raffle tickets for the Redsox game before the Town Meeting.
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5-0 at 8:20pm
Submitted by: Hannah Anderson
Attachments:
School Committee proclamation to the Joint Committee on Education and Governor
RECEIVED & FILED
MAY 15 2019
LUNENBURG TOWN
CLERK OFFICE