===PAGE 1=== Lunenburg Finance Committee Meeting Minutes Bilotta Meeting Room Lunenburg Town Hall April 11, 2024 Present Members: Chair Evan Watters, Vice Chair Chris Menard, C lerk Tiffaney Tavares, Board Member Tom Gray, Board Member Dave Passios, Board Member Jean Russell (Zoom), Board Member Jay Simeone 1. Call to Order T he meeting opened at 7:00 PM . 2. Pledge of Allegiance 3. Announcements There were no announcements. 4. P ublic Comment Evan Watters states the Boys and Girls Club is inquiring if the Finance Committee will be putting a team together for Are You Smarter Than Our 6th Graders. 5. Town Manager Report There were no reports from the Town Manager. 6. Finance Director Report There were no reports from the Finance Director. Ezequiel Ayala states he is currently reviewing the primary quarterly reports. Once completed they will be provided to the Select Board then the Finance Committee the following week. 7. New Business a. FinCom Report for Warrant Review Evan Watters a nd Tiffaney Tavares provided an update d report with the 10 bullet points and ha s addressed everything aside from 40S , the hiring freeze, and the increase in waste removal. The Committee reviewed and adjusted the document titled Lunenburg Finance Committee Annual Report for FY 25. Evan Watters will review the numbers and then email the document to each member individually. Chris Menard believes there needs to be more time than a week between the hearing and when the report is due. ===PAGE 2=== 8. Old Business a. FY25 Budget Discussion There was no discussion about the FY 25 budget. b. FY25 Override Discussion There was no discussion about the FY 25 override. c. Votes on Recommendations for Warrant Articles There are 2 articles (Article 4 & Article 5) that the Committee is currently def erred. Article 4 : A rticle to see if the town will vote to raise, appropriate or transfer funds from a sum of money for payment of prior years ’ expenses . Heather Lemieux provided the total of $1,994. 55. There was a m otion to recommend approval for A rticle 4 by Chris Menard, seconded by Dave Passios. Unanimous approval 6-0 with 1 member absent. Article 5 : Article to transfer from available funds all sums of money necessary to amend the amounts voted for the town ’s FY 24 budget from the reserve fund. Heather Lemieux states the snow and ice numbers from the last snowstorm totaled $ 226,000 . The T own M anager recommends that money come out of the reserve fund that currently has $ 275, 0 00 . There will be a minimum amount as well for the salary reserve to make that supplemental amount that will be needed for FY 24 . Chri s Menard questions if the reserve account is the account that is voted on and Heather Lemieux confirms. Chris M enard recommends that someone should come to the Finance Committee and ask them to transfer from the reserve account to avoid having the warrant article. For these reasons Chris Menard votes no as a recommendation. The Committee agrees to remain deferred on A rticle 5 . 9. Minutes The Committee has not reviewed the minutes so this will be added to the next meeting ’s agenda. Chris Menard states there are a few meeting minutes that can ’t be found. Evan Watters is planning to address this issue at a later date . 10. Committee Reports ===PAGE 3=== Chris Menard states the Parks Committee has met and is planning a clean-up day at the town beach and building. The volunteer events are provided on the recreation department ’s webpage with sign up ability. If anyone wants to clean up roads, you can go to the DPW to get a slightly different yellow bag . Dave P assios attended the A ssociation of T own F inance C ommittee meeting and there was a discussion about smart growth. Dave Passios asked Senator Jim Crowley what was going on with smart growth and was told nothing is being done at this point. There was also a discussion about the proposed changes to the Municipal Empowerment Act . Dave Passios provided that presentation to the Committee. Evan Watters states the Master Plan Steering Committee met. They discussed a report that was last completed in 2002. Evan Watters states that the needs of the town then were almost identical to what they are now. 30% of the project s that were suggested have been completed . The remaining were either started and not finished or not started at all . Eva n Watters states the Board of H ealth met and came out with new regulations that will drop the parts down to about 4 parts per trillion. This means we are failing on several of ou r w e lls and water services for those that are on public water supply. There will be a financial impact for residents who are on public water. 11. Topics for Future Meetings Evan Watters started a list of topics to be discussed. 12. Upcoming Meetings: a. 4/25/2024 – T entative M eeting b. 5/4/2024 – Annual Town Meeting 13. Important Dates: a. 5/18/2024 – Annual Town Election 14. Public Comment Evan Watters and Tom Gray plan on being in attendance on April 26 th from 7PM-9PM for Are You Smarter Than Our 6 th Grader s. There were no public comments. ===PAGE 4=== 15. Adjour n There was a motion to adjourn by Chris Menard , seconded by Dave Passios . The meeting closed at 9:28 PM.