# finance-committee — 21 documents, concatenated for reading and search # # This is a CONVENIENCE BUNDLE, not a source. Every document below is # published separately and byte-identically; cite the individual file, # whose path is given in each header, rather than this bundle. # Index of all boards: https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/minutes/INDEX.txt # The town's own scanned original is linked per document. ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-01-10-agenda-2164.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-01-10 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-01-10-agenda-2164.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_01102019-2164 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on January 10, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Review status of member projects, budget dashboard led by George Martin 4. Review terminology and definitions for web site inclusion 5. Review last year's Warrant Letter; discuss format. 6. Committee/Department updates 7. Minutes 8. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 9. Public Comment 10. Next Meetings • January 24, 2019 11. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-01-10-minutes-2164.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-01-10 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-01-10-minutes-2164.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_01102019-2164 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman Hannah Anderson, Secretary 978.582.4139 FAX 978.582.4148 Jay Simeone George Martin Marc Luescher Lunenburg Finance Committee 01-10-19 Michelle Walton Location: Town Hall Present: Terri Burchfield, John Henshaw, Hannah Anderson, Michelle Walton, Marc Luescher, George Martin, Jay Simeone Absent: none Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM. 1. Open Meeting: 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. 2. Communications: Public Comment: Carol Archambault, 662 Page Street- Carol addressed how she attended a forum sponsored by 11 local school superintendents (including Lunenburg) describing the need for reform in the allocation of Chapter 70 funds. At the moment the formula to allocate Chapter 70 funds is 20 years old. The Senate, House, and Governor have made bills to blend into one to formulate a new Chapter 70 funding formula. From what Carol understood, it looked like more money would be coming to Lunenburg IF one of those funds came through. *The URL recording of this meeting is listed below under attachments* New Communications: Terri read the Open Space and Recreation Plan letter of support to the committee and asked for any changes needed be spoken now so she can make them. 3. Review status of member projects, budget dashboard led by George Martin Skipped 4. Review terminology and definitions for web site inclusion Skipped ===PAGE 2=== Michelle noted that she really liked how the 2018 Finance Committee Report listed out the highlights/changes by bullet points. Terri said we can continue to do that. Michelle noted that this was especially great for town members that are not always paying attention to the town government, but it was easy to understand if you are not following along. 6. Committee/Department updates Committee Public Access Cable-Marc Capital Planning-John H. Dept. of Public Works - John H Department updates 1. CPC voted to recommend ATM approve 11 project requests 1,607 k. 2. Capital Planning Process: a. Spreadsheet worked well b. Capital Priority score: Collins Center scoring matrix from Heather 1. Organized in categories: Asset life, Cost reduction, Effect on revenues/efficiency, asset management. Improve Town services. 2. Lot of overlap with current spreadsheet, and additions-e.g. effect on revenues and expenses. 3. IMO needs simplification. 4. Next: Working on a summary to circulate to Heather and CPC. Touch base with Police, Fire, DPW w/ proposed changes. 1. Snow & Ice budget $257,000. YTD this week $121,149. 2. Summer Street: Town Expenses: $11,592. COA - John H Library- Michelle W. Police Dept - Marc Martha Moore is retiring at the end of March. Martha and the board are struggling to understand how much money they have to spend of all of the money put into Bartholomew and how can they access it. Michelle needs to know how she can help them with this. Karen Brochu said she would send Michelle all the information and believes that the principle is non- expendable, but the interest is. Karen also said Martha should work with the treasurer. Having a hard time to get to find people, even volunteers for the Police Department. ===PAGE 3=== a lot of work to help with costs but they cannot do any of the electronic work which needs to be done through the factory. Currently he has one paramedic in training from the new hires, so far $17K of that training has been covered but he will need more funding if something else comes up. As of January 1, 2019, Chief Sullivan has spent 60% of his overtime budget, 43% of that is just for firefighters and the rest went to EMTs. FY20 he is expecting to be above target request for the overtime funding and also for repairs. He did receive a grant this year for education for the public schools and senior center for $7500. Schools - Hannah Monty Tech - Hannah Green Comm Task Force-Jay Sewer Commission -Jay Charter Review Comm - Terri Reviewed the work of the Charter Review Committee, the Public Hearing, and the changes being brought forward. Of most interest was the change in the language regarding Finance Committee appointments to require that appointees be registered voters. The Charter Review Committee discussed the change and the current status of having a member unable to register to vote. The consensus was that Terri would go back to the Charter Review Committee and express to them that while there seems a preference that members be registered voters, we have not seen a detriment having a member who is not. Terri also asked folks if they felt a particular way after thinking about it and wanted to write her, she would bring those thoughts forward. 7. Minutes 8. none Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports ClearGov 2018-2019 needs more adjusting for data and will not open until it is updated correctly. Budgets were sent out. Departments will be meeting with Heather soon. ===PAGE 4=== until Heather, town manager, came in read the charter and pointed out this is the public Hearing for the town meeting. We can raise the question if people have questions about those things to have someone available to answer those, but we don't necessarily need them to have a full presentation on it. John mentioned to have it put on the agenda at the 1.24.19 meeting as to if we would have one or two public hearing meetings. There was mention it needed to be figured out by February, so Michelle mentioned to add it to the 2.7.19 meeting instead to give more time for the FinCom to discuss having more than one Public Hearing. 9. Public Comment None 10. Next Meetings • January 24, 2019 11. Adjournment John made a motion to adjourn. Marc seconded the motion. The committee approved the motion 7-0 at 9:08pm Submitted by: Hannah Anderson Attachments: https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/yycCAZPbONN3zj205qio- YFMNC43NjCG/media/405218?autostart=true&showtabssearch=true LFC Support Letter(doc.) ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-01-24-agenda-2165.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-01-24 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-01-24-agenda-2165.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_01242019-2165 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on January 24, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Town Manager presents 5 Year Financial Forecast & Capital Plan recommendation 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • February 14, 2019 Town Manager Budget Presentation • February 21, 2019 Department presentations begin 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-01-24-minutes-2165.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-01-24 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-01-24-minutes-2165.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_01242019-2165 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== Terri Burchfield, Chairman John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman Lunenburg, MA 01462-0135 978.582.4139 FAX 978.582.4148 Hannah Anderson, Secretary Jay Simeone George Martin Lunenburg Finance Committee 01-24-19 Marc Luescher Michelle Walton Location: Town Hall Present: Terri Burchfield, John Henshaw, Hannah Anderson, Michelle Walton, Marc Luescher, Jay Simeone, George Martin Absent: Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM. 1. Open Meeting: The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. This meeting is being recorded and televised for re- broadcast on the Lunenburg Public Access cable channel. 2. Communications: Public Comment: Hannah Anderson, January 26'h the Lunenburg PTO is hosting a Skate Party at Roll on America, tickets are $10 which include admission, skate rental, a slice of pizza, a small soft drink, and 10 game tokens. On February 10th the PTO will be hosting a private screening of Lego Movie 2 at Cinema World in Fitchburg. Doors open at 9am, movie starts at 9:30am, and tickets are $6.50 each. Tickets are presale only. There is also a save the date for April 6*, 2019 for Parents Night Out which is a fundraiser and will be held at the Townsend Ridge Country Club. I also want to say thank you to the Dragonfly Garden Café for hosting the PTO's Come and Go fundraiser on December 21st, 2018 as well as thank you to our wonderful town volunteers, Officer McNamara and his comfort dog Hank, Chief Sullivan, Chief Marino, Board of Selectman- Phyllis Luck, Lunenburg Public Library's- Debbie Laffond, Lunenburg Public Schools- Camilla Thompson, Sewer Commission- Joseph Anderson, and Honorary Eagle House Representative- Marie Burchfield for all reading and hanging out with the public, so thank you. New Communications: none 3. Town Manager presents 5 year Financial Forecast & Capital Plan recommendation There are two packets and the Town Manager started with the Financial Forecast presentation. *Five Year Financial Forecast Presentation is attached to these minutes* On slide 8, Terri clarified under the Stabilization Fund Account "Deposit Free Cash in the amount of 5%" it's not that we are depositing free cash in the amount of 5% but we are depositing Free Cash to maintain 5%. ===PAGE 2=== recent past, the new growth has exceeded that by some fifteen hundred thousand dollars. John wanted to make sure that was part of the consumer approach for projecting revenue. Town Manager said yes. John then asked, "It's not an indication that we should expect new growth to decline necessarily? Town Manager said no and explained that looking at the trend's new growth between 360K-487K, last year was around 472K, but it is so market base and economy based the approach to be conservative is the wise for the town in case the economy changes and we don't see as much building occur. John then asked that we would not be surprised if there is some upside to that and Heather confirmed that they check in with the assessors frequently and especially closer to Special Town Meeting in the Fall right before Free Cash is certified when we are finalizing if any changes need to be made to make sure we are on target. Terri asked if there was a way to know the split on new growth between new construction and what was rehab, renovations, ect.? Town Manager answered no. John asked to look at slide 13 about the state aid schools and his understanding from a couple of meetings ago, 1.10.2019 Chapter 70 formula discussion, John left the meeting from 1.10.2019 with the impression that Lunenburg would be getting an upside or status quo in which case there is a possibility of getting a little more state aid then what is in the forecast here. Town Manager agreed with John as to what is in the forecast. Heather said yes, because the governor proposal is already $200K more for Lunenburg FY20. There will be a 2.7% increase in unrestricted general government and a 2.7% increase in Chapter 70. John then asked to look at slide 20 on the Retirement Assessment. The retirement assessment plan is to be 10% Increase per year which would be a doubling of that every 7 years then? Town Manager agreed that is it significant and strictly based on historical trends. How much of that is driven by an increase in cost per retiree? And how much of that is driven by the increased number of retirees? The point of this question is that if we have people driven by more retirees then they will be paid their retirements but they will also be replaced by people presumably earning less from the town. So maybe some silver lining? Town Manager stated that in 2032 the unfunded liability will be fully funded and that is a large part of our assessment is because that was a mandate years back that we had to fund the unfunded portion and that will have a drop off. A lot of towns are planning to put that drop off into OPEB. John also asked when the pavement plan would be ending. Heather said after the bonds are issued and then the pavement plan goes out 15 years. George asked about last Falls Free Cash surplus, Town Manager said we have 1.5 million in Free Cash. George asked if it is being earmarked for other things that we are not seeing in this presentation. Town Manager let him know that it will be part of her capital plan that she will be presenting and the other part is in the financial forecast which is $100K for stabilization, $200K for the special purpose stabilization, and $150K for OPEB account. Dave Passios, 56 Whiting Street, "through you I would like to get the three new positions so I can get the designation right as they are prescribed." Town Manager responded with a fire fighter, police officer, a parks director position, and an assistant town manager. Terri asked about the big drop in 2022 & 2023 is attributable to what? Will be answered later in the meeting. Karen Brochu commented near the end of the meeting, from FY22-FY23 there is approximately a $50K reduction in our regular debt services, made up of many different things, Turkey Hill Middle school parking lot, high school ADA access, Turkey Hill Middle School bleachers, Elementary school restroom repairs, and high school asbestos abatement, that drops off in 2023. From 23-24 our regular debt services drops off about $120K and that's because the DPW renovations will be paid in full in 2023. And our excludable debt from FY23-24 drops by a million dollars and that represents the payoff of the primary school and safety buildings. Town Manager presented the Capital Plan. ===PAGE 3=== facilities, recreation, so long term plans for the town in all those areas which should inform your Capital Plan as well, what the needs of the town are. Since that hasn't updated in so long, the planning board should high a consultant or facilitator to review the sections that have been done and whether they need to be updated or whether they are looking to implement portions of that to help with that process, in a sense be used for. Terri clarified the cost for the fuel tanks at the DPW is really $330K, so the $110K, has it been spent or is it available? Town Manager answered, no, it was a capital article in a previous capital plan, has not been expended. Terri clarified that the $110K does not also exist in the Capital line in this document plan and Town Manager agreed. Terri asked for the town manager to speak on the $167K in unexpended capital would be from? She was told $130K asbestos abatement that were funds from FY19 state budget, $25K is from the police department because they were able to get their finger print machine free of charge from the state, and there are other minor lines that can be closed out were those previous capital articles were not fully expended. John asked if we would zero out our unexpended line or capital so we would not have a balance on the unexpended capital going forward? Town manager said no we do, this is what we know to be used but there are projects that haven't been fully expended, for example the $110K for the fuel tanks. There may be more projects closed out by town meeting that we may be able to use for future use. John clarified that projects closing out means we may have some extra money laying around that could help us. Terri asked if Capital Planning Committee would take on the expenses of Vertex. Town Manager said she would like Capital Planning Committee to take on all known costs and repairs that are qualified as a capital expenditure should be on the plan regardless if we are going to fund them or not. As of right now the Board of Selectman has been having workshops t make a plan for the five buildings but those decisions still need to be made. George asked if there are any other fuel tanks in the town that need to be removed? Town Manager said none that she knows of. Terri asked if there is a life span on fuel tanks? Jack, director of the DPW, answered they are past their 25- year life span but they have leak monitors and nothing is leaking so far. Dave Passios, 56 Whiting Street, asked to go back to engine fours page first and asked why we are not been eligible for the grant money that we have gone after. Town Manager explained that we need to have more trucks in our fleet that are younger. Dave asked if our fleet is much younger than what most other fire departments are running with in the state? The town manager answered, no, the opposite, our fleet is too old for the grant. I can't answer definitively but from what I understand, the federal requirements for this grant require a newly aged fleet to qualify for the grant. It was agreed to wait for Chief Sullivan in a couple of weeks to bring that question back instead of speculating. Dave wanted to point out that he believes we are borrowing roughly $400k that we hoped not to be borrowing at all and if we go back to look at the records of town meeting then there was a very good possibility that we would not have to borrow for that truck. Town manager explained that the $130K was not specifically stated that that money would go towards not borrowing. At a couple finance meetings, the possibility of not having to amend the May town meeting vote because we had such a large infuse of Certified Free Cash, that we could possibly amend the vote at this upcoming town meeting so we didn't have to borrow. Since then, reviewing our budget, our resources, the large expenditures that we are facing for the replacement of the engine truck and the ambulance, looking out for our ten year period on the horizon as well for projects that we will have to borrow for eventually, the decision was made not to amend that but keep that vote because if we have to borrow a year down the road that interest rate is projected to only increase versus for the ladder truck that would be borrowed for at a lower rate. We are also able to pay for all these costs without borrowing for ===PAGE 4=== *Five Year Financial Capital Plan is attached to these minutes* 4. Committee/Department Updates Committee Public Access Cable-Marc Capital Planning-John H. Dept. of Public Works - John H COA - John H Library- Michelle W. Police Dept - Marc Fire Dept - George Schools - Hannah Department updates Working on the priority score sheet to get a relative scale of importance of the Capital request going forward. FY20 Superintends proposed budget is online at lunenburgschools.net under the heading district news and information. Community forums on the school department budget are scheduled for this Monday on January 28t at the Eagle House from 1:30-2:30pm and at the LMHS trom 6-/pm in the LMS collaborative room. The superintendent forum, the tale of our ten districts, is also online. Preschool and Kindergarten lottery registration is also online at lunenburgschools.net Monty Tech - Hannah Green Comm Task Force-Jay Sewer Commission —Jay Charter Review Comm - Terri Recommends watching the Lunenburg public access channel to watch the meeting. 5. Minutes John motion to accept the minutes of January 10, 2019. Marc Second. Voted 7-0 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings ===PAGE 5=== 8.31pm Submitted by: Hannah Anderson Attachments: Town of Lunenburg Financial Forecast Presentation Town of Lunenburg Capital Investment Plan Presentation ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-02-14-agenda-2166.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-02-14 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-02-14-agenda-2166.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02142019-2166 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, February 14, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Town Manager presents 2020 Budget 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • February 21, 2019 Department presentations begin • February 28, 2019 Department presentations 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-02-14-minutes-2166.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-02-14 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-02-14-minutes-2166.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_02142019-2166 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== Terri Burchfield, Chairman John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman Hannah Anderson, Secretary Jay Simeone George Martin Lunenburg Finance Committee 02-14-19 Marc Luescher Michelle Walton On Location: Town Hall Present: Terri Burchfield, John Henshaw, Michelle Walton, Marc Luescher, George Martin Absent: Hannah Anderson, Jay Simeone Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM. Jack Rodriquenz, DPW Director. Chief Sullivan, Fire Department. Chief Marino, Police Department. Lunenburg, MA 01462-0135 978.582.4139 FAX 978.582.4148 1. Open Meeting: The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. This meeting is being recorded and televised for re- broadcast on the Lunenburg Public Access cable channel. 2. Communications: Public Comment: none New Communications: none 3. Town Manager presents 2020 Budget Heather Lemieux, Town Manager, presents the Town of Lunenburg FY20 Budget Recommendation. *attached at the bottom of these minutes* When speaking on the FY2020 Expenditures- Less Discretionary & Discretionary, Terri asked, "To confirm, we are not borrowing for engine 4?" which was answered by the town manager that we would not be for Capital but for FY20 yes. Questions from the committee: George asked about the assistant town manager position, asking if the $60K would also include benefits and health insurance or if the amount only included salary. Heather confirmed this only covered salary and noted that if it is benefited with health care then it would be an additional $24k. Terri asked about the ===PAGE 2=== pick up those roles? Heather responded that dealing with HR issues take quite a large amount of time to clear up which would give her more free time to take on more tasks and responsibilities. Michelle asked what the requirements for this position would be to get the amount of salary amount offered? Heather answerea, Municiple experience in HR would be preterrea. Michelle then askea, why the position is being called An Assistant Town Manager if this sounds more like a HR position? Heather answered that she could see this position also helping with assisting with procurement, packages that need to be put together, templates for contracts, insurance requirements, but the bid specification piece is that there are always the needs for assistance and that's time consuming, and other special projects that person can do outside of HR. John had an observance he wanted to make, he said there are three full-time equivalents in this budget, fulltime police officer, fulltime fire fighters, the town manager/HR position and the fourth would be part-time as a recreational manager. He went on to pull away from the positions available. John noticed the large increase in Free Cash from FY19 to FY20, he asked what that was attributed too and if it was a one-time hit or is it a new level? Town manager answered that it was a one time, and she would not expect it again next year. The estimated receipts came in lower than the actual and the unexpended balance of all the department accounts helped as well as the auction and tax title sale that was held earlier this year. John confirmed that would not reoccur next year. John clarified that he thought he heard Heather say she would be spending more time on Tax Title, so to keep it a little more current than we had? Heather responded, our level of funding for Tax Title, it takes a significant amount of money to pay the Tax Title attorney to move properties to Tax Title in the foreclosure process so $8k is the fees with that. To address and move more through so we can get the off our books and uncollected taxes back, I would recommend to increase that amount if we had enough to do that. John then noted the part of the presentation that related to the increased calls at the police and fire departments, which is related to the population increase. He then asked if we should be looking at this with the school department as well. Heather said she cannot answer for the school but believes there is a spike in the K and 1st grade classes but we would need to talk to them about that. Terri then asked what we should do about the ten-year plan? Are we on track, or if we are not on track? Heather said at the moment we are on track. Questions from the Floor: Dave Rogers, 82 Highland Street, first question, can you explain in more detail about the Over Time for the Fire Department? I thought I heard you say we would not be getting a person but instead we would be paying Over Time, is that correct? Chief Sullivan answered, basically our Over Time, up until two years ago, we had three full-timers, when they were on their days off, there were no people to run it but the Pier Diem shifts so the amount of OT in the budget was basically just for call back. A year ago, we added one position so with the schedule everyone's works that allows one person on a day off any given day. The full-timers have first refusal on a shift coverage so that increased slightly. Now that we have two people, we cover 6 days a week, 24/6, any given day there are more people off duty to take that OT. To cover those shifts properly we were nowhere near well-funded for. Currently we cover about 60% of shifts coverage with full- timers and the other 40% with Pier Diem. Like the Police, it goes to the career person first and if they don't want it then it goes to the Pier Diem personnel so that's basically where the cost has come. When we increase the staffing, that was one thing that wasn't cost, we budgeted for the two new people. We didn't have to catch up for the existing four staff and that's where this is coming into play. Plus, there is additional OT for shift coverage for the people in paramedic school while they attend class or their clinical time because we need to cover their shifts as well. Mr. Rogers, Chief when will we get to a full-time fire person and be able to cut back at the OT? At a two people shift, I don't see that anytime soon, we have to fill person for person with only two on. We have one person for extra days, that's a pier diem to give us three ===PAGE 3=== Mr. Rogers, the other question 1 have, deal with the actuary that came in and said we owe mega millions to OPE, how much do we owe? And How much are we going to contribute to that? Heather, the actual was around but more than $40 million and we are going to contribute $150K to put towards OPEB. Last year the town, between the finance committee and the Selectman, decided to take 10% of our previous years certified Free Cash to put towards OPEB. Mr. Rogers, I have some real trepidations about that, and the trepidations I have are founded on the facts that I don't see how we are going to come up with $40 Million to take care of this. And having said that, we are allocating $150K that we could use in other places for that expense. My suggestion is to look at this long and hard and remember the directive from the BOS or FinCom, whomever, that would free up money that we would use. Forty million is a crazy figure, so my recommendation is for us to look at that. Mr. Rogers, last question has to do with Capital Plan, as it pertains to the $220K and I would like someone to explain that in detail please. Terri, before we continue onto the Capital Plan, I do want to address the OPE discussion. And for anyone that is not clear on what OPEB is, it is the other post-employment benefits aside from retirement costs so that would typically be Health Insurance. As the actuary sat here and presented, and to add it use to be $60 million but due to plan changes or something, it has come down, it's a ridiculous number, but it is also something that would not come due on a particular Thursday or year down the road. It's basically going to be over a period of time that the liability is going to exist. I think that with the bonding question that comes up, I think with planning Turkey Hill coming up with an issue, the notion that as the bonding question goes, my own take on it is that we have a liability and we are either taking it seriously or not and a bonding agent is going to look to see if we are going to take the liability seriously. This year, was a particular anomaly, that we have $150K to put there in the first place. Another piece of me would like to revisit the policy as to see when we can take the money out. At what point is it a critical enough issue. If you look at the current retiree health costs, and what we are paying this year, it's over $1.5 million for people that no longer even work in the town. I think trying to address the liability as to one day maybe we won't have a lot of Free Cash to play with one day and we will be pulling some out. It doesn't have to sit there until we get to $40 million. But it is a liability and something that the employees of the town are relying on and we are in a position that we need to follow through on. Heather, and as going through a bond rating process before, it was one of the things brought up as well as a number of other things. Are you planning for the town? Terri, and just say, maybe one day we can revisit this again as the debt starts to come down, and bring it even lower because I think that's one of the other issues we have. So, if we were using Free Cash to put into OPEB I would be looking at it to relieve some of the debt. John, for those here and for those in the TV audience, one of the issues we struggled with when putting it together is how long do we set it to be sufficiently prudent and how at the same time avoid tying the hands of Heather and others in the town that may end up turning their backs on a good deal in debt because of the policy. Having their hands forced as it wore, so that was the struggle. Our debt limits is similar to other Mr. Jack Rodriquenz, DPW Director, I am here to present some soid and detailed numbers for the $220K in the Capital Plan for the two new Fuel tanks. We have an inground 10k gallon gasoline tank, and an inground 5k gallon diesel tank. They are monitored and no leaks but there are insurance issues at this time so it's time to get them out of the ground and replaced before there is an emergency. In fact, Terri, I misspoke at the last meeting. I said they are fiberglass but these are steel wall tanks that are above the ground. What we are looking to do the first year, was to take on the whole job ourselves, handle it, manage the job, looking for the best deal on excavating the tanks, get the best deal on purchasing the tanks, doing most or all the work we could do and that came to $110-$120K. After speaking with the town manager, we decided to get it engineered due to liability, and flammability involved, and thought it would be a time draw ===PAGE 4=== done in house, we have a Mass DEP Storm Water report that needs to be done by the engineer, a site Storm Water Management Plan, a Geotechnical Investigation, specifications about what the tanks are, what shape are they in, what's in them, what's residual before they get shipped out and of course the actual shipping. That's roughly about an estimated $20k - $25k. So that and to take them out of the ground it would be roughly estimated at $50K. I'm going to propose is two, 2k gallon tanks. Going higher in size means we have a limited footprint so going with the smaller ones we can use them in the same place, in the same foot print, and look to be frugal and keep them at 2000 gallons a piece and get deliveries as needed. There are many other items that need to be taken care of like, electricity, venting, monitoring, etc. Final You need to have a contingency in this kind of plan. Questions: John, does this price include a back-up generator? Mr. Rodriquenz, we have a generator. Just needs some wiring, John, why two tanks? Why not one? Is it a safety issue or a back-up issue? Mr. Rodriquenz, I saw two tanks but it's actually one large tank with a double wall steel petition in the middle. they call it two 4K gallon tanks but technically its one 8K gallon tank. Marc, how much diesel do we need per week? I'm a bit worried on how long 2k gallons will last. Mr. Rodriquenz, it's actually not how much diesel per week to your concern, it's how much gas per week. I don't have an exact number but the police use approximately 500 gallons a week so we will need a monthly fill on gas. As far as diesel goes, that's why there is a 10k gasoline tank and 5k diesel tank, we don't use the diesel that much until this time of year. But I can get you those numbers. George, what's the life expectancy of the solution? And is there any price advantages to getting buik delivery rather than pump fuel? Mr. Rodriquenz, Im not clear, this is in bulk. George, right but is there a price savings that you can get? Mr. Rodriquenz, of course we don't buy it every day but there's a market price and we get a percentage below the daily price, we don't pay tax, for convenience we work with the people and typically order 500 or 3000 gallons because we guarantee "X" amount each year and our bid would go by that. George, so over time that's sort of how you pay for it? Mr. Rodriquenz, well we don't know any other way but there is a WEX program that is a card program, and every person in the staff has a card, so I would take it to a designated station, it's easier to get gas than it is diesel fuel, and I would just use the card like you would a credit card at Cumberland Farms. I would have to pay the tax then I would have to apply for reimbursement. I just got into it this week so I am still reading on it. George, what's the life expectancy of this? Mr. Rodriquenz, I'm guess, the ones I looked into it today, I want to say 50 years. Chief Sullivan, backs what Mr. Rodriquenz says about the reliability of having the fuel tanks. Out of the sending one of his trucks 10-11 minutes away or worse, out of town. Going to use a regular station with the WEX program means having to go to a station that may be out of fuel because everyone is going to those stations as well in cases of emergencies like the ice storm of 2008. This isn't just for the Fire Department but for the Police and DPW so it makes more sense to have one. Chief Marino, his situation is a little more challenging because his guys are patrolling 24/7. State troopers use cards because they are all over the state, a lot of them are not close to home. Their duty stations or barracks might be far from where they are. In the 2008 storm, the gas station on 13 and 2A couldn't get ===PAGE 5=== asked now they like i. Everyone sala they like it. me ten went to te auditing department r the city or Fitchburg, and they all said they liked it as well. Mr. Rogers, wants to know why we would replicate what we have and increase our environmental exposure when we could save $60-$280K. Terri, I think any cross- benefit analysis is going to concern the fire or police and the concerns of the town. Also using this service, what's the added benefit to having something in here rather than the alternative? Marc, from a risk management point of view what is holding Lunenburg from having both? The WEX cards for regular fill ups and the tanks for back-ups? There is a fee but it's a minimal fee. Terri, I don't think the question is if it costs anything but rather the potential costs of what's the contract for the gas versus the cost per gallon through the WEX program. Because if we are buying under market for the tanks and market for the WEX plus tax then it would be interesting to see. Mr. Rogers, Cumberland Farms also has a club, if you are a member then you can save .10 cents per gallon. I think this is something to really think about as well when it comes to the environment. George, did this go through Capital Planning? John, it did a few weeks ago but before Mr. Rogers presented any of this information. We already know we have to remove the two fuel tanks because they are 30 years old and near the end of their life. It's going to cost about $50K to remove the tanks and replace the hole then the engineering, the total project would be roughly $220K. $170K sounds like a lot of money, but say it lasts 50 years, you divide $170k by 50 and roughly get $3400 per year, so it's like over the life of the asset, it's just not that much money for the safety benefit. Mr. Rodgers, for the record this is when I exit, I brought you my information and now it is up to you all to figure out what you want to do with it. 4. Committee/Department updates Public Access Cable-Marc - Martee Capital Planning-John H. Dept. of Public Works - John H Department updates 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 Emailed the committee the vehicle maintenance report. 5. Minutes Marc makes a motion to accept the minutes from January 9th. John Second. Vote 5-0 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports None 7. Public Comment ===PAGE 6=== 9. Adjournment John motion to adjourn. Marc second. Vote 5-0 Submitted by: Hannah Anderson Attachments: • FY20 Budget Message & Proposal • FY20 Preliminary Omnibus Budget : FV20 Line item Budget FY20 Preliminary Budget Revenue Expense Sheet ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-02-21-agenda-2167.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-02-21 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-02-21-agenda-2167.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02212019-2167 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, February 21, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Council on Aging • Library • Land Use 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • February 28, 2019 Department presentations • March 7, 2019 Department presentations 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-02-28-agenda-2163.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-02-28 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-02-28-agenda-2163.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_02282019-2163 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, February 28, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Fire Department • Police Department • Board of Health 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • March 7, 2019 Department presentations • March 14, 2019 Department presentations 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-02-28-minutes-2163.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-02-28 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-02-28-minutes-2163.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_02282019-2163 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman Hannah Anderson, Secretary 978.582.4139 FAX 978.582.4148 Jay Simeone George Martin Marc Luescher Lunenburg Finance Committee 02-28-19 Michelle Walton Location: Town Hall Present: Terri Burchfield, John Henshaw, Hannah Anderson, Michelle Walton, George Martin, Jay Simeone Absent: Marc Luescher Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM. 1. Open Meeting: The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. This meeting is being recorded and televised for re-broadcast on the Lunenburg Public Access cable channel. 2. Communications: Public Comment: None New Communications: Passed a copy f the Beacon to the committee for review Received a report in the mail from the Mosquito Control board about a proposed budget amount that has increased from FY19 but will not be discussed at this meeting as it has not been looked over yet. 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Fire Department Chief Sullivan Presented his budget. *attached below* Terri- On the slide Understanding of OT, when setting the budget and putting the figure in, what you are saying is if I have 6 employees and I'm anticipating that there are going to be this many vacation days, this many holidays, this many sick days, then I'm assuming all of that is going to be ===PAGE 2=== potentially. Terri, and probably greater? Chief, it's possible. My thought is that you could see that, the other advantages they have of the Pier Diems, they don't get forced to work and they can be offered to a Pier Diem because somebody has to stay and it works for them as well too. Questions from the Committee Hannah, on slide 12, you have safety education from K-3d grade, is there anything preventing you from going to the higher grades? Chief, no, that's what we have applied for, we have done that in years past, we didn't get the return that we got with the younger kids. The researchers found with the younger kids you can impress it on them a little more, they're not 10 feet tall and bullet proof when they are getting old. Hannah, on slide 26, you said you had two paramedics that withdrew from the training? Chief, when we opened the positions up, we had two paramedics apply and they both withdrew, they couldn't take the pay scale. One was going to be taking a significant pay cut, one took a job with another department that was paying significantly more. Hannah, and then you said that with the two people that it's in the guidelines taht they have to become paramedics. Chief, we worked out an agreement with them with the union when we hired them that required that they obtain their paramedic training. Hannah, is that in a contract? Chief, it's an agreement that if they flunked out or left within three-years they would have to pay back the cost of the training. John, the total responses that you graph, they are in a pretty narrow range annually from 2014- 2018 over a five-year span, give or take 50-70 responses around 1800, but at the same time there is a fairly significant growth for calls in more dense Rogers Way like Tri-Town landing and so for the two to be consistent, that means the rest of the town must have declined puzzles me. Chief, some of the response you see are new growth and a lot of that has to do with inspections, and if you see the graphs, they do track the different types of calls and what you see is emergency calls usually start off low and inspections are high. As the developments are fully built out you will see the inspections drop off usually, some of the fire responses drop off because some of the bugs are worked out of the fire alarms, dust and smoke detectors, things like that, but what we see is with the multi-family developments the emergency medical calls continue to rise. John, if in fact they keep generating calls at the rate they have been recently, do we have a new higher range and what is the consequence for you guys? Chief, for us we still see the increased EMS calls, when I look at the runs over the last 20 years what you generally see is an increase and they will level off for a while and then they will increase again. Last year was a little slower than years before, this month has started off very busy when traditionally it is our slowest month of the John, you spent a lot of time talking about the new paramedic hires, in a subsequent chart, you said 2-3 more paramedics to get the 24/7 coverage which is what as a town we really want to go to. Is that 2-3 more in addition to the ones we are hiring in training? Chief, correct. The 5-year plan called for a total staff of 9 eventually, and that would put a paramedic on 24/7 and in best case scenario a second medical on during the day time. Terri, just for clarification, is Rogers Way not an over 50 years community? Chief, it is not, it is a 40B. That's the new building going down at Tri-Town, that would be over 55. Tri-Town is the only one not built out all the way. ===PAGE 3=== different salary schedule. Terri, going back to the EMS calls, of the 900+ that we are listed, are you responding to what we responded to or the number that may have been outsourced? Chief, that would include all the calls, I think a handful of those might have been outsourced with both our ambulances may have been tied up. I don't have those broken out but the number is low, at least for transport, we still use other services for paramedic. Terri, but the 900 would also include paramedic calls? Chief, they would include all the transports we would call on, motor vehicle accidents, any type of rescue situation, drownings, entrapments, they include well-being checks in case a life line alarm went off, lift assist, out of the 900 about 70% of those we handle in town. Terri, and we are able to handle those in town? Chief, generally with the two ambulances. Terri, how does that tie into fees, are you able to collect on your fees? Chief, I don't have the number in front of me right now, we do fairly well with the agency we use, there are always some that come to the Board of Selectman with uncollectable that go back quite a way. It's about 64% Medicare/Medicaid in town which is a different fund rate, that's a set rate versus a private insurance. Which is one of the reasons why if we go paramedic, we could increase our rates but it's not enough to make it an enterprise fund. It would offset our costs in that. George, I'm looking at the 5-year capital plan, I don't see any replacements for ambulances. Chief, not until 2026. This year currently we have one new ambulance coming and that will become our front-line truck and handle 85% of the calls. The existing back up truck would handle the other 15% of the calls. That's how we rotate them around. The next large apparatus would be 2028 that would be the 2008 pumper would be 20 years old at that point. Hannah, is the ladder truck on the 5-year plan? Chief, it's on order, its already passed. Hannah, I just didn't know if it changes with the years being backordered. Chief, no, once it's ordered, it's ordered. Michelle, on the paramedic training slide you made reference to a license? Chiet, yes right now we are licensed to operate at the advanced EMT level, to go paramedic there is process we would have to go through the state to increase our licensing level to provide paramedic care because they would be providing different forms of medication and things like that. There is not a huge increase on that, technically we are already running an advanced life support license at the advanced level but the state treats that similar to cost lives to a paramedic license. The bigger increase there if I were to have one, would probably be our medical direction fee. We have to work through a medical group under a doctor license to do that. We currently pay about $5K for that, I would participate when we finally do it, that would go up. Michelle, is there any financial benefit to having that license? More eligible for a grant or anything like that? Chief, not in that respect, I mean we would have to have it to operate at the paramedic level, when we operate at the level right now, we are paying out approximately $60K each year to other services for their paramedic, we want to keep that money, plus most of this was in my last year's presentation. We would see more of the revenue stay here, there are a few more calls right now that would go without a paramedic just because they are not available. Again, it won't completely pay for itself but it would offset our cost for having the staff, not just for the ambulance but to also have the fire staff in the event of an emergency. Questions from the Public ===PAGE 4=== to stay. Chief, it's a three-year cycle that they would have to stay after their certification. Carl Luck, 50 Sunset Lane, on the paramedic, for outside training EMS is in the budget, right? Chief, right now it's not in the budget but I am paying it with the budget, we've had many discussions, Mrs. Lemieux and I, it's not budgeted but we are making it work. Mr. Luck, it's in the -Y20 budget though, right? Chief, yes. Mr, Luck, it really raises an important question though, what is the real total cost of bringing an EMS up to a paramedic versus increasing our rates maybe, because they are in great demand, but maybe we need to be more competitive. Chief, with our current scale it would cost $5K more a person to hire a paramedic at the entry level versus a basic. Mr. Luck, but that wasn't enough it sounded so its $20K to train them up so I think we need to look at the rate scale and see if we can bring them up to level because the other problem, we will have is, we will spend all this money training and then they will be at a salary level that towns around us will come grab them so I think we need to take a hard look at not only trying to hire paramedics instead of EMS's but to look at the total cost in what the salary ranges are because we need to be competitive. I have this feeling this is a crazy way to go. George, Chief to Mr. Luck's comments, are you restricted by the contract that runs out? Chief, we have the pay scale in the contract, a paramedic is approximately 10% over a basic firefighter. In terms of numbers from step to step, it's about a $5K difference, but the pay scales that are out there are still significantly more than ours. Geroge, so those new rates will need to be reviewed when 2020 comes around? Something to consider. Terri, one of the reasons I asked when the. contracts were up because I assume it would be in the next one or this one to cover. Chief, I believe it's the end of June 2020. • Police Department Chief Marino and Amanda Moore presented his budget *attached below* Questions from the Committee Hannah, how well do you feel that having dispatch in Nashoba is compared to having it in town, you are looking for more weekend coverage for the front desk, so I imagine that means dispatch would also be open for you all during that weekend time, right? Chief, I was never in favor with it when it started in opposition with it when it happened. Hannah, I wasn't hear when that all happened so I was just wondering if this is something better to bring it back into to town or if it is better out of town? Chief, I hear a lot of out sourcing this, out sourcing that, well out sourcing to me is not the answer to anything in public safety. In public safety we need to have access and control over a lot of things because of what we do. It was nice having access and control over that but it's not happening anymore and I am opposed to it. The state wanted to fund the PABS down, and it's not easy to fund 351 PSABS, I get it, it's expensive. But there is no trade off when it comes to public safety issues. Terri, I believe the move related to an unfunded mandate type thing, that you were going to have to have two people on at one time, so basically you always needed to have two dispatchers on at a time? Chief, correct double the amount, you are right. That's part of what drove it, the EMD system requires to have two dispatchers on at the same time because if someone walked in and needed CPR then you couldn't drop what you were doing to help them. ===PAGE 5=== he have? Chief, Jerry only has a couple years left in them. That too will need to be something to think about and that's about $7K. Hank, our certified therapy dog, we do not own or pay for him. John, about the software program, the above target is $3720, is that the annual fee? Amanda, yes. John, will that fee be anticipated to go up? Amanda, we don't have any anticipations for it this year but we only have a contract for one year. So, in theory it could go up? John, are there future anticipated savings? Could it pay for itself? Amanda, it helps free up time for people to do other things but there already lots of other things for people to be doing. John, that's kind of where 1 am going, if it would help the police department cover all the other things you have to do in a town that's increasing size for population, to have an indirect value of helping you do what you have to do with the available resources you have? Chief, Yes that's the reason for it. To help save time for my men to be out in their cars instead of running back and forth doing paperwork and making calls when they could be on the road. John, the problem is, it's difficult to quantify the savings then, but there are savings? Chief, only in time, it helps Amanda greatly but it also puts them on the road. I want them doing police work not clerical work. I want them out in the cars. What we are trying to do is get the guys in uniforms on the road and help Amanda to be able to get more done. Questions from the Public Carl Luck, 50 Sunset Lane, DTS that's for $3,700? In the police budget, it's $9k under target so I don't know why we cannot fund the $3,700 item. Terri, we will not be able to find that tonight but we will address it as the overall budget. Mr. Luck, the additional officer is a patrol man line item? Chief, yes. Mr. Luck, holiday pay is on a different line item, is there something unique about holiday pay? Amanda, the holiday pay is usually when an officer takes one day off like a vacation day or uses it as an extra day pay while working. Usually they take another day off as a vacation day, it's like another OT line where another person is used to fill that the shift and that is where it is paid out of. Mr. Luck, the educational incentive, $5K, can you explain that? Amanda, if they have a associates, bachelors, or masters, they receive as part of their pay in a lump sum payment that they get. Assoicates is around $2K and the higher the degree the higher the pay. • Board of Health Geroge, Chairman of BOH, needs one more day added to help run the office as the current time is 4. Committee/Department updates Committee Public Access Cable-Marc Capital Planning-John H. Dept. of Public Works - John H Department updates ===PAGE 6=== Fire Dept - George Schools - Hannah Monty Tech - Hannah Green Comm Task Force-Jay Sewer Commission -Jay Charter Review Comm - Terri next fall due to manufacturing. Charter review committee was supposed to have their public hearing last night but due to the weather it was canceled so it will be held next Wednesday night at 7pm in this room. 5. Minutes No minutes for review. 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports Town Manager, the Nashoba Valley assessment estimated at $186K was $189,076,40 Health insurance number came in and decreased 2.45% and this will positively impact the schools budget. 7. Public Comment Dave Passios, 56 Whiting Street, last year during the process of going the paramedic route with EMS, this year also there were questions asked about the 900+ calls being tracked and both years we have received the answer that we don't really track those. I think that's a travesty, the information is so important as to us making informed decisions as to how much money we put into paramedic programs. We potentially could have paramedics doing house to hospital transfers, we don't know who many numbers are these calls, because we don't get the break downs every year of that raw number. I really believe that data is very important, I'm not saying we don't go in the direction or parame that direction. direction of paramedics, I just think we should have more data to look at to help us understand Terri, over the next few weeks this is a good time to really think about what we put into the report for the warrant. A question came up for costs, for those budgets that rely heavily on external resources of revenue, what would happen on if those resources disappeared, and I didn't know if you wanted to speak to that at all? Michelle, sure, the library is a good example of it, where they have basic operating costs covered by the Friends of the Library, and if that funding should ever go away, they are not mandated to spend that money, and we would be on the hook for that and if we don't have a clear picture to what funds are being spent outside of our budget we could have some exposure unknown expenses. I think we need a clear understanding of what is in not on their budget but being paid by outside sources that we might have to fund in the future. 8. Next Meetings ===PAGE 7=== Submitted by: Hannah Anderson Attachments: Fire Department Budget Presentation Police Budget Narrative RECEIVED & FILED APR 09 2019 LUNENBURG TOWN CLERK OFFICE ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-07-agenda-2168.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-07 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-07-agenda-2168.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03072019-2168 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, March 7, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Monty Tech • Sewer Commission 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • March 14, 2019 Department presentations • March 21, 2019 Department presentations 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-07-minutes-2168.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-07 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-07-minutes-2168.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03072019-2168 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman Hannah Anderson, Secretary Jay Simeone George Martin Marc Luescher Lunenburg Finance Committee 03-07-19 Michelle Walton Location: Town Hall Present: Terri Burchfield, Hannah Anderson, Michelle Walton, George Martin, Jay Simeone, Marc Luescher Absent: John Henshaw Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM. 978.582.4139 FAX 978.582.4148 1. Open Meeting: The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. This meeting is being recorded and televised for re- broadcast on the Lunenburg Public Access cable channel. 2. Communications • Public Comment Phyllis Luck, 50 Sunset Lane, concerned with gaps in the budget process. Hopes to start a conversation about how those gaps can be filled. For example, on 2.14.2019 FinCom meeting the Town Manager presented her Preliminary Budget and in that budget was two new hires, an assistant town manager, and a recreation director. In her almost 5 years of being a sitting member on the Board of Selectman, she has never heard the need for these positions ever discussed or mentioned. At the next FinCom meeting, Mrs. Luck happen to mention to the FinCom chair that these new positions were a complete surprise to her. The FinCom chair replied that FinCom assumed the Preliminary Budget had already been discussed by the BOS prior to the presentation. Mrs. Luck conquers that is a logical assumption but unfortunately an incorrect one. Mrs. Luck agrees with the FinCom chair that the Preliminary Budget should be discussed with the BOS prior to its presentation to FinCom. It's a process issue and one that needs to be resolved. She suggests that FinCom and BOS should hold a workshop after town meeting to review the budget process to take a look at lessons learned and fill the holes that you can drive a truck through. Finance Chair replied with a clarification, that she didn't think the budget would be shared with BOS but the budget priorities would be shared with BOS and that would be something the BOS would set. In terms of the budget presentation, preliminary budget, and budget process, we are not finished until March 28th , and with the way MGL works, she believes that the budget is presented to the Finance Committee, and maybe it's looking at a schedule so the BOS, town, and ===PAGE 2=== VIL CIT add a firefighter in there as well, last year. Mrs. Luck noted that adding a firefighter was going on through the whole process. FinCom Chair agreed but still there is nothing finished until it is finished at Town Meeting. But I will also reiterate that yes, the BOS should be talking about what they see are the priorities of the town. And that you would hope that, and that is what we are looking at, that the budget represents the priorities of the town, and as we hear from all the individual departments, that's one of the things we are taking into consideration, is how are those priorities expressed. I will take what you say but I basically think the message from FinCom's perspective is that's a BOS issue. Mrs. Luck, if I was sitting on the Finance Committee and I had heard that presentation, I would have assumed things like hires would have already been discussed. It wasn't the level of questioning but rather that it hasn't been discussed at all. George noted to Mrs. Luck cors, Ins and that the Chairman of the BOS was at that budget presentation and he did not list any concerns and what George read into the actions of this was that the Town Manager reports to the Selectman so they must be on top of this and that's a mistake he made on his part. Mrs. Luck, responded that is where she is going with this, If she were in the FinComs seat then she would assume it was already decided that this was the BOS priority, and that's exactly why she thinks that is a flaw in the process. • New Communications None at the moment 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Monty Tech Presented their budget which is attached at the bottom. Questions from the Committee Hannah- After your 50-year assessment, do you plan to have your students do the work like they did with the vet building? It will depend on what the work is, if it is wiring or plumbing then yes absolutely, we vitalize them as much as we can. Do you plan to change the knowledge of what grades are assessed since it do not include Kindergarten as one of those grades in Lunenburg, in the future, do you see that as something you want to include? No, I think it has been working, as long as it stays consistent with the other communities, we are still basing it off the same criteria's that we always have. Terri- Maybe that question goes to how far out do the district agreements go? I assume we do grades 1-12 because it is part of the agreement, and the agreement lasts year to year or has it been a standing agreement since the day it started? It has been the standing agreement. George- Do you know what the foundation enrollment was in 2018, FY18 for Lunenburg? Yes I do, if you look in the big budget book, you can start in the back, page 22, it's a foundation enrollment history which has 2018 back to 1994. Terri- So our total assessment is 783,987, foundation enrollments is 74, which is the actual students attending? Foundation enrollment is actually pupils enrolled at Monty Tech, School choice pupils, or Chapter 70pm program, but I will say Lunenburg has 72 students at Monty Tech and 2 are school choice. ===PAGE 3=== So, the towns assess per pupil 10,594 would be the number that would go with whatever that number is under the foundation enrollment? Yes, I break that up so you can really see what your towns paying for per pupil from the tax base. Marc- My only worry was that the proposed transportation, it decreased from 90 which isn't typical, so is that normal? It was funded at the same amount but we recently attended a meeting that had legislatures and state reps there that were advocating for school spending. IN THE law, STATUE, it says that the legislature would fund regional transportation at 100% but then it has the term subject to appropriation in there which is why we have never been funded 100%. George- when making the new building, does each town in the district vote on that building? Yes, if we are going to go out for a bond issuance, we would need 100% approval. So out of the 18 towns, every single town would have to approve that? Yes. Questions from the Public Mrs. Cammer 304 Lancaster Ave, how do they determine the quota for Lunenburg? Approximately how much chapter 70 funding is spent per student at Monty Tech? The quota is determined on slide 24, Community Enroliment, we asked the Superintendent's Office for a count of all students grades 1-12, no matter where they attend. The answer was 1,715 pupils. Based on that number, against all the other numbers based in the Monty Tech district (18 towns) which ended up being 24,724 total pupils. We divide Lunenbura into that total number to see what percentage Lunenburg is, and in this case, we got 6.94% as Lunenburg's representation in that number. To answer the chapter 70 question, we would want to move to the next sheet called, Community Assessments. How Chapter 70 in a simplified formula works is that the state would take the first blue column 24,908,048 and subtract column number 1, that's required minimum contribution. The first column represents the number of pupils in each town, times the $16,898 per pupil that we are required to sminimally spend next school year. They take that and subtract what they say they want the communities to contribute towards that number. So, in Lunenburg's case, the state says Mont Tech is to spend $1,250,472. Of that we expect Lunenburg to be able to pay $710,370 and the simply take the difference of those two numbers and the difference is what Monty Tech gets on behalf of George- In your student counts by town, does that include home schooling and private schooling? It does, under the school attending children number. • Sewer Commission Presented their Budget Questions from the Committee Michelle- The slide that said the parcels of access available are 1200, and the connected are 800, does that mean there are only 400 available or is it the whole 1200? Mr. Luck, No, it means that living along current lines there are areas we could extend too, but living along because they have the right because they paid the betterments to connect, there are 400. So, 400 haven't connected. George- The 1/3 that have elected not to connect, have they been hit with a betterment assessment? Mr. Luck, Yes, that's why they are allowed to connect. ===PAGE 4=== Marc- the Fitchburg rates have gone up quite dramatically, and they might continue to go up over the next 6 years? Mr. Luck, Yeah, the Fitchburg rates went up a few years ago, they're being forced by the state to spend a lot of money to separate their storm water from their sewage. And those costs come down to us through the rates. They had to take out another big loan, and they decided at that point that rather than death by a thousand cuts they would raise the rates back then by 20% or 30% that had to be absorbed in one year. And that was supposed to cover for 5 years so it must have been 7 years ago because that 5-year projection, they managed to not change the rate again for 7 years. Seven years was a couple years ago and they had to make the same decision and it was either going to be 32% or 8% every year kind of a thing and they went for the 8% a year so that 8% is what it's going to be until the end of that agreement. Terri- of the 400 that haven't joined yet, do you know if they would be Fitchburg or Leominster? Mr. Luck, I would say it is less than ¼ of those that would have to connect to Fitchburg, and maybe way less than that. Marc- looking at the cost we paid for Leominster and Fitchburg, I think it will be very difficult for you to keep your budget at the same level next year, it's pretty much impossible. Mr. Luck, I think we can keep it that way for next year but a year after that it is going to come up. We are thinking of a way to rearrange some of our Lunenburg homes to pump out to Leominster but keeping it cost effectively has been a challenge. It's like a $400 million to a $450 million-dollar project to change from there to there. George- Are these systems based on where you live, is that where you go to Fitchburg or Leominster based on the shortest points? Mr. Luck, no, the way we laid it out was by needs. So, everything in the current plan is laid out by sewer, and everything it already predesigned on paper to go to Fitchburg or Leominster. We were able to shift a little from Fitchburg to Leominster on paper but otherwise it is pretty well determined where it will be going. Where does storm drain water go, once it's in the catch basin? Mr. Luck, you would have to ask our Storm Water Task Force, I think it goes in the rivers and lakes. Michelle- when talking about the meters you want to install, who would pay for those meters? Mr. Luck, those have always been installed and paid for by the home owner. George- do these plants have devices that read the inflow into their systems? Mr. Luck, we have three places that the waste water exits Lunenburg, there are meters at all of our outlets. Are they using our data to figure out what our bills should be? Mr. Luck, yes currently Fitchburg is but Leominster, not really. Marc- I can understand the case for irrigation systems, but what about all the homes with pools? Mr. Luck, we actually have a process that the homeowner comes and fills out a pool filling application, we will deduct that from their bill as well. Questions from the Public None this evening. 4. Committee/Department updates. Committee Department updates Public Access Cable-Marc Capital Planning-John H. ===PAGE 5=== Sewer Commission -Jay Charter Review Comm - Terri 5. Minutes Marc motion to approve minutes 2.14.2019, Hannah second, 6-0 vote. 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports Town Manager, on the revenue side, I will be meeting with the regional assessor next week to discuss the estimate of new growth and whether we need to adjust that number. The sewer indirect costs were reduced on the revenue side by $2294. This was due to a decrease in health insurance. On the expenditure side, the rates for health insurance for active employees decreased by 2.45% which equated to a reduction of $64,165 from the Preliminary Budget number. The any Budget numer. ereased dispatch assessment increased by $3,076.40 over the Preliminary Budget number. The detail software for the Police Department should have been included in the police department bottom line for the $3720, so that's now in there. The Library budget is being adjusted by $450 for certain expense lines to fund them at the requested amounts. Monty Tech decreases by $60,624 from the estimate used in the Preliminary Budget estimate. The assessing software to increase this year around $13K. Overall this is a decrease in expenditures around $104K. George- recently we heard a proposal for a new fuel tank at the DPW, there was talk of going back and reviewing what was planned and approved by the Capital Planning Committee, do you know who ownership of that and how much effort is going into that? Town Manager- There is a lot of effort right now, to examine the alternative that was brought up, the DPW Director, Police Chief, Fire Chief, and Town Manager are all putting something together so we will have that for an update. As far as detailed costs I do have those now from the DPW Director so I will forward those along as soon as possible. Terri, right Michelle and John have also been looking into different numbers, they are basically looking to not overlap what you're doing so I know John is going to check in with you, if he hasn't already. George, Do you know is anyone will be working with Conservation due to the stream outback? Town Manager, they would get involved in the project and a big component of the engineering costs is dedicated to putting all the safeguards in place to have no impact on the wetlands. Hannah- You said you're meeting with the Superintendent Monday to finalize numbers or is that to add to their possible budget or take away? Town Manager, That's what we are going to discuss, there level of service budget versus their proposed budget with all the changes that we have with what we are aware of. Terri- Next week our presentations are the Schools and DPW 7, Public Comment None 8. Next Meetings • March 14, 2019 Department presentations • March 21, 2019 Department presentations 9. Adjournment ===PAGE 6=== Sewer Budget Presentation MAY 15 2019 LUNENBURG TOWN CLERK OFFICE ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-14-agenda-2169.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-14 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-14-agenda-2169.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03142019-2169 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, March 14, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Dept. of Public Works • Public Schools 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • March 21, 2019 Department presentations • March 28, 2019 Public Hearing 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-14-minutes-2169.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-14 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-14-minutes-2169.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03142019-2169 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== John Henshaw, Vice-Chairman Hannah Anderson, Secretary Jay Simeone George Martin Marc Luescher Lunenburg Finance Committee 03-14-19 Michelle Walton Location: Town Hall Present: Terri Burchfield, Hannah Anderson, Michelle Walton, John Henshaw, Jay Simeone, Marc Luescher Absent: George Martin Guest: Heather Lemieux, TM. 978.582.4139 FAX 978.582.4148 RECEIVED & FILED MAY 09 2019 LUNENBURG TOWN CLERK OFFICE 1. Open Meeting: The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm. This meeting is being recorded and televised for re- broadcast on the Lunenburg Public Access cable channel. 2. Communications • Public Comment Carl Luck, 50 Sunset Lane- In the process tonight, are questions asked in the presentation or at the end of the presentation? Terri- At the end of the presentation. Carl- I have concerns about the town budget and review process, every year for at least the past 10 years, the Sewer Commissions first step in the budget process is to get the year to date actuals for each of the budgeted line items. This is a critical input to move forward to establish a new budget, taking account how we are doing against prior years plan so we can learn and approve the line item allocations and accuracy, of the following years plan. This has served us well and continues to do so. At the town level however, I have yet to see the year to date actual and the prior year's actual. It is very difficult to know where each departments budget was actually spent. Or what I being requested or what is being requested is actually needed. As some of you know, all too well, I have recently become very familiar with the Towns Charter, to this point, the Charter clearly states in section 6-5 "the proposed budget shall be arranged to show the actual and estimated incomes and expenditures the previous, current, and ensuing fiscal years". Perhaps this information is avallable to the Finance Committee in which case pernaps you or the town Manager could make copies available to the public before the review and the hearing process is complete. If this document doesn't exist, or available, 1 am at a loss of how the department heads, town manager, finance committee, or public can do a critical review of the budget. As you can imagine, I have quite a bit of historical information in my file and did find such a document from October 2015 that the finance ===PAGE 2=== 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Department of Public Works Jack Rodriquenz, DPW Director, presented his budget. *Please see attachment* Questions Committee: Terri- Clarification on open space plan, would the Parks supervisor be tasked with working with the open space group? Jack- He's going to be tasked to do a prioritized list of things that will be established by the Town Manager and Park Commission. At that position you are only allowed to work 20 hours a week, as a temporary employee, so I could not tell you right now what the expanse or the scope of his service would be. Terri- And the period of time, where you say temporary or? Jack- Obviously being a park, he or she would be working Spring to Fall. This position hasn't even been okayed sort of speak, we are working on developing a job description, I hope I can have more information for you as it Michelle- Along with the position to the parks, is there any possible increase to revenue by better management of the parks by getting fees, not only collected but billing fees? Jack- Yes. The park commission that we have now and the past few years, have been very dedicated and aggressive and have actually made some progress. The well intention of the people of the past, had less of an interest and didn't get as much done. Those fees either were not charged or were not charged enough. The beach is a perfect example of that, those folks that are working over there for $7/hour or something, so we had to get the staff up, and on a parallel track we had to raise the fees which I don't think has ever been raised. So, we are just seeing the process now of looking at expenditures versus revenue but we are taking into, is the school going to start getting involved? You know the schools are the biggest users of Marshall Park, up until this point they have been able to use it with no fees. Zero fees. Historically they may be asked to pay something, similarly with the basketball court, the little league, the Phillies Semi-Pro, Babe Ruth league, so scheduling, and if you are going to charge a fee and bring in some revenue then you need to know when that field is available. That's the point. The commission will set the fees and policies, but at least one thing one person will do is the scheduling to make sure the windows are open for the school, the little league is going to get those windows, then we can charge them per person, per hour, per game, however the commission which in their responsibility chooses to do it. So yes, looking revenues, keeping an eye on revenues, and some people don't send a check, they forget, but we will be tracking that money. Definitely. Definite yes to your answer. Michelle- For the vehicle Maintenace, is there an established schedule for the vehicle Maintenace or is it more as a crisis comes up, we handle it? Jack- We instituted a software, very elementary software package down there that tracks everything we do on every vehicle. The parts we use it for reference, the size filter, what we do, the mileage, hours working om the equipment, and like they do, we have stickers on cruisers that says look at it at such and such time. The unfortunately thin about it was, it not like the police lack in any co-operation, it's just not what they do. You get in your car and you might look at it, but they get in their car, turn the key, and they are going to do what they need to do. And they do it and i don't so I don't know what it's like. So, we remind them, if we can, and if the car is available hey will bring it in so that kind of messes up the schedule. The fire is a little more dedicated to the schedule because they are fire truck, even though they are equally or more important, they are not out 2 ===PAGE 3=== on a strict schedule? No more than yes, but will it help you achieve what you need on a monthly or quarterly schedule? Absolutely. Michelle- The outsource position that said for a project manager type of position, is that a permanent position or just a temporary 5-year position? Jack- That would not be a town employee, sorry if I didn't describe that. That would be a private organization. Michelle- Okay, now long are you thinking? Jack- I don't know we've done it one way. It wasn't until 5 years ago that we took over the responsibility of the buildings, there was never anyone and maybe that's why the buildings are the way they were but we think right now because of the availability of the people in the workforce and what they would demand, in a kind sense demand, and what the union which is our scale on what they are willing to pay them, we can't make up that gap. So, we are going to sub contract that to an organization that does that professionally, has a whole stable of people, and we are going to begin that. I am hoping I'm optimistic that it will work because I don't think the gap on what we can pay people and what people that can do all of this will ever close significantly enough for us to get a person in house that can do that. I would rather have an employee, but then again, you call somebody and you outsource, they're there or they have somebody that is there, they don't have two weeks' vacation and this and that. You pick up the phone and you're working on an a la carte menu and they are there for you. The longevity of it, I guess would be to be determined. Marc- On an average snow day, how much does it cost us? Jack- There is no average, because every storm is different, and I will tell you why. We talk about snow, ice, rain, that might be a 30 hour episode, and we might get about this much, *hold up his hand to show 5-6 inches or so of what snow would be, and minimizes the size to about an inch or two of what ice would be*, the ice is what kills you. We could get 6-8 inches of snow, you plow it, you salt it, you're done. So, it's the duration, with a duration there is more time for the subcontractors, its's more of your overtime, its more material, it's more wear and tear on the steel and on the pavement, so I guess I'm not going to give you a very good answer to that. Certainly, not right now, I could come up with an average a year but I could not give you an average storm. I honestly do not believe there is an average storm. John- In a previous meeting we had, you were changing the mixture of sand and salt you were using on the roads, and just driving down the roads around Lunenburg the last couple of weeks I have noticed the relative absents of sand on them, is that going to reduce costs in cleaning the roads subsequently after the Winter season is over? Or is it a non-issue? Jack- It's definitely an issue, but it's an issue for costs and beyond costs. When I first started here, all they would use was the sand out of that landfill area, no salt, all sand. Then they started weening in the salt so when I started the mixture was no salt or one salt to 7 buckets of sand. I saw that and knew that was not the way to go, so each year incrementally we broke it down, and broke it down, and the last couple years we got it to a 1 to 1 or a 2 to 1 salt to sand, and in the last couple of years we would send trucks out with just salt alone. A little scary for me because it's not unusual for the state to call up and ask us if we have any sand to do certain hills, like A coming up to the high school, route 13 going up to Wal-Mart were the trucks get started, we have areas in town that get no sun, so I'm a little anxious about doing it but this year we made the leap and did not use any sand. We used a littie more salt but no salt. Of course, sand is less expensive but to the point of your question, it will make a huge difference, it will decrease the sweeping time and decrease the amount of silt that gets into the catch basins or brooks wherever its going which is part of the storm water challenge and also the cleaning of the basins. Hoping next year to go to a green material where the salt is treated with a calcium or chemicals that turn it green, and what that does, it lowers the point to which it is active because right now at 20 degrees and the salt is useless and you don't want to put sand over ice because it insulates it. So, to answer your question, we went from this much sand *gesturing a lot* to this much sand *gesturing zero* which is none. John- The custodian/MTC maintenance salaries under facilities/grounds had been tracking in the mid 40's, 3 ===PAGE 4=== but I can tell you definitively that number $1.5 million is what we have done so far on the full season starting in project year 2017 and project year 2018. So, it might have been misrepresented in the slide, 2016 was a lower year and we probably only spent about $900K so on the next two years we are up to about a $1.5 million, and $1.7 in the next year. Carl- So that's not the total. Jack- No that's not the total, the debt exclusion is $4 million, a million dollars a year, and just in recent conversation with the Town Accountant and the Town Manager, and I didn't say this, but we are not only under budget to finish those roads but we are ahead of schedule. I'm not going to tell you how much we are going to have left over, that's the cardinal sin, if we have any left over, but to justify to say we are ahead of schedule, way ahead of schedule and under budget to that point of those roadways and what we anticipated to spend. Carl- The $500K you put up, are we on track with that for the storm water piece of it? Jack- I made a detailed presentation on that, I think you were away, on the expenditures against that $500K and if memory serves me, we've got like somewhere between the high $70 to low $90's on that. Carl- Okay I can take a look at that, so on the line item budgets the first thing that jumps out at me when I looked, almost everything in the line items is literally exactly or close to exactly as the year before. And in some items, it is the same as 2013 to the dollar, and that's just kind of a red flag for me, how can every line item be the same as it was year after year after year and that's what brought me to like to see what the actuals are because I don't believe the actuals are the same year after year. Some are like $28K, traffic and signs are $28,253 every year, and just from a budgeting, I have done a lot of budgeting and that just catches your eye. Jack- You've done a lot of budgeting but you have never done any Municiple budgeting have you? Carl- I really don't see a lot of difference there. The drainage is $18K every year since 2013, is that different from storm water management things? Jack- The last word from the Town Manager and Town Accountant as we dissected it out this debt exclusion went along. Before the exclusion happened, es that $18K went to drainage related materials and if I have a target number I meet that target number do not go over, maybe ball park a little from this account or that, but this is my 24th or 25" budget, I've never over expended, so maybe getting those numbers the same means is that we are pretty good at getting those numbers and expending to tat number and stopping expenditures. In terms to your question about the drainage, some of that drainage would go toward areas in the pavement management because it can, other material of that might go to other areas because not all drainage has to do with the pavement management plan although we concentrate on that because that's where the energy is, paving. Carl- Under the Storm Water Management, the $100K that's in there, that's unfortunate because that wasn't expected to be in the budget, its $60K more than you had expected, from my understanding, that is basically all engineering so are we spending $100K for studies or are we going to be able to get some work done with that or do we hope the $100K gets reduced? It's next year's contract it's not all released. Jack- It's not all engineering, there are tasks related to the engineering, it's going to be run by the engineer, there are going to be checking out falls. Carl- It's engineering by the definition of procurement because we are not going out to bid. Jack- maybe I can get you a better description on that. Carl- So there is no separate money for the doing tasks? Jack- Nope. Carl- So if we want any money, we need to get it out of that $100K, so we need to figure out how to get that money down. Jack- That as not unexpected, we knew, I knew 5-years before we were going to spend $100K a year on storm water and I brought that to the Town before there was a Storm Water Tasks Force, so that comes as no surprise to me. We didn't plan well, and the folks in charge of doing that were obviously tasked with doing other things so it didn't get done. Has to be a self-funded operation fully. Carl- The Traffic Sign and Devices, this is a $28K line item, it's like $17,500 for lines in the roads, which i am very interested in, the new paved roads are wonderful but we seem to have lost the lines, so this $17,500 is for the lines we are painting? Jack- Yes, the lines we are painting, the roads, the handicap parking, the parking spaces, anything white around town. Carl- So you think we will see lines on the roads anytime soon? Jack- We are now doing roads on a rotation and obviously if something has faded more quickly, which often happens with 4. ===PAGE 5=== Gil Gulliv actions now and is there money in here somewhere to address those? Jack- There is money in there somewhere, there are no open actions right now, we just had our inspection done, and next year we will be looking at revising the emergency action plan. We are on a rotating plan. One year we do inspections and the next year we revise the emergency plan. The money that is in there for that does not get touched unless we need it so that money is table-marked for compliance with the Shirley Damn with the division of dam safety because if we give it back we will not see it. • Public Schools Dr. Burnham, Superintendent of Schools, presented their budget. *Please see attachment* Questions Committee: Hannah- Did you say you are trying to get a grant to pay for salary? Dr. Burnham- So we have Title 1 funding, it's an entitlement grant, we will get the grant, we have to write a proposal on how to spend the money but every year we are allotted an amount of funds through Title 1, we have been advised we will receive a $30K reduction to the Title money compared to the Title money we received this year. I have to take a look at what actually comes in July, sometimes they warn us the cuts are coming and sometimes they are not as severe as they caution that they will be. We prepare based on the information that they provide us, so we are acting now based on the notion that we will be $30K less in that grant line but we will see in July. If there is a way possible to fund that literacy coach position, even if it is a part-time funding then we are going to look at that. John- Your budget request is $21,029,000 compared to the Town Managers Target Budget $20,695,000 with a difference of 334,000 increase over that, you made a compelling case as to why you need that money. The question is simple, if the additional money is not forth coming, how would you make adjustments to your plans to accommodate the towns availability to pay? Dr. Burnham- So you see the budget cuts that were proposed and you see the impacts, some of the impacts mean my administrative team will be picking up some of the responsibility for areas that have been cut, the greatest impact you will see is some shift in increase in class size at the High School for some courses such as our Advisory Program, our Foreign Language classes, etc. John- I guess I asked the question poorly, could you reshow me what the consequences are and is there a way to mitigate consequences of those reductions in say staff positions under your plan, is there a way to mitigate the effects without increasing your budget? Dr. Burnham-We spent hours and hours, literally, multiple meting sessions for hours, pouring over the options and the choices you see presented to you this evening are the options that have the least impact to students. There are other options that would have had a greater impact on students, this is the best we can move forward at this time with the smallest amount of negative impact for our students. There is really not any good way to mitigate what you see in those impact statements. John- You talked about Virtual Highschool at the higher grades, how does that work and is that a program that can be translated to the lower grades or not? Dr. Burnham- Virtual High School is limited to high school, there are other options we can take a look at outside Virtual High School, we've just recently started to explore some of those options and they can translate down to the Primary grade level. We are not in any position to move forward in that regard in anyway because essentially that is not face to face learning, it is totally online learning and it would not be my recommendation to move to that model of learning in the early grades. It is more appropriate for the middle and high school, but 5 ===PAGE 6=== Michelle- It looks like a big jump this year, is the way the budget is written this year or what you are proposing, does it put us in a better position next year and in the years to come to not have this regular increase or more than what we would have expected for an increase? Dr. Burnham- As far as a budget proposal? Michelle- Yes. Dr. Burnham- No, in all honesty you saw the list of needs we identified in our original work back in November, we took many positions off the list, because we know at the time we were budgeting with a guideline of an 8% increase in our health insurance, so that was a factor because every position you have to factor in the health insurance cost as well. That full list of positions that we started this process with, factoring in that 8% for health insurance, would have been an ask from the School Department of an 8% increase and that is not at all feasible or really doable in any way, so that is when we prioritized this list. What do we have to have for the next year? Example on tat have to have list, is 1st grade teacher, we currently have five 15 grade teachers. I currently have 6 Kindergarten teachers with a class size of 25 each. If those 6 Kindergarten classes move forward to five 15 grade classrooms, those classes automatically are going to go to 30 in a classroom. Given that and tie trot at that we kerg historically , at would now mean would have 32 students in each grade grade classroom. That is not educationally sound. That can't happen. So, we have to find a way to put that 15* grade teacher in, that is why that position stayed within this budget, it was in the original proposed. It is in the 2.5% budget as well. The same need exists for the central office support. Over time you know, in response to budget crisis in the past, with the economic collapse in example over a decade ago, budget cuts for positions elimination, but the responsibilities are increasing, there are constantly new responsibilities coming for tracking data, reporting data, etc. from the Department of Education. More responsibilities, less people. People are jugging the work, honestly in some cases, the work of three people and mistakes are made. Then you have man hours lost to correct the mistakes, it not efficient and it's not timely so that is a position we absolutely have to have in order to have an efficient operation. The Para Professional, they are not brand-new positions, they are positions that have been acquired and are currently temporary and are being paid out of the substitute account but they are employees that we need to carry because students I.E.P's (Individual Education Plan) now call for that position for their support. Can't continue to carry them as day to day subs when I need the to report to work every day so that "new" position is just going to be carried into the salary position of the report. Michelle- I just want to make sure I asked the question correctly; I understand in this budget cycle you are looking for an increase that is above what the Town Manager is recommending. Are we going to go through this again in the next budget cycle? Dr. Burnham- Likely, unless there are new needs that are identified between now and next November, the next big need I have will be to restore a curriculum director type role. The district has been without somebody to lead curriculum in the district since 2012, I think. That's really the nuts and bolts of what we do day in and day out, curriculum, instruction, professional development, all of that work is vilely important. It's not as important as the need for a 1s grade teacher which is why it is not in this year's budget requests. You will likely see that position in a budget when I come back next year. Michelle- And the same level of increase in the entire budget? Dr. Burnham- I can't say that, I really don't know, I can tell you that I continue to learn the ways in which the district is operating. There is some high level of conversations that need to be had mainly at the middle school and high school around course offerings, course pathways, if there are different was that we can approach the instructional model. Potentially with some reorganization there can be reductions in FTE (Full Time Employees) that can offset the increases that I am asking for. I don't know if they would be a completely be a net zero. I can't say that I wouldn't be asking for some bit of an increase, but you have my word that I will do my best to find those places that we can to cut the cost to have those increases in. 6 ===PAGE 7=== being a high school teacher myself, I would say the best place to increase sizes in the classroom would be the high school. Marc- Okay, thank you. Hannah- I have a question but it is actually for Town Manager, the 2.5% that you recommend, is it because in the charter we voted on not going above 2.5% for taxes or? Town Manager- No, starting in December when the budget is sent out departments were sent target budgets, it was all to balance the budget at that point and time with the revenues that we knew that we projected at that time. Public: Carl Luck, 50 Sunset Lane- I have a question not particular to the school's budget but impact upon the Town particularly OPEB, of the adds, how many new adds are there with full benefits? Michael Cassidy (Business Manager/HR Manager)- Of all the new budgeted full-time positions, we had a portion of those positions that we budgeted benefits. Just knowing the percentage, the % of para professionals I applied that to new positions and for the new teacher I automatically applied some insurance to that position. Carl- I'm not worried about the cost because the cost is ail in your school; I am trying to track the OPEB impacts which is just how many full-time benefit people will be added there that will show up in our OPEB liability. Is there a number, was it 1, 2, 3, 4? Michael Cassidy- I believe there was probably around 4. 4. Committee/Department updates. Committee Public Access Cable-Marc Capital Planning-John H. Dept. of Public Works - John H Department updates Following up on the conversation relative to the fuel tanks and I have collected the data on the gallons of gasoline and diesel collected for the last 3-4 FY's and I am getting at what cost we paid for buying in bulk relative to the pump price, and I have one more thing to follow up on, the pump price of premium. 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 5. Minutes John Motioned to accept the minutes of 2.28.2019 Hannah Second. Vote 6-0. 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7 ===PAGE 8=== now for several months, we have a 4.x number and 2.5 number, which number is the recommendation of the Superintendent and School Committee today? Heather Sroka, our next meeting in in April. Terri- Okay, at this point then just because there are people watching that can't hear a thing that is coming from over there, is it sounds like basically based on some of the information that has come forward, it sounds like that the School Committee will be meeting in April to further adjust the budget as it is. And I'm sure at this point, do you have an idea of what the gap is between the Town Budget and the Schools? Dr. Burnham- It's approximately $334,000. Terri- Is that of the level service budget or what is asked? Dr. Burnham- It's the in between from my recommended 4.2% budget and the Town Managers 2.5% budget. Terri- Okay. Did that answer your question? Peter- It did but it raised another one, which is you just pointed out that the Finance Committee is making your budget recommendations on March 26? Terri- March 28th for the warrant articles that are going to Town Meeting. At that time, the Town Manager will present the numbers that will be part of the recommendation at Town Meeting. Finance Committee will at that time vote to make any recommendations or make any movements, there may be movements that are suggested at the interim. The process is, at the Public Hearing, action will be taken for the Finance Committee to makes its recommendation to Town Meeting. Peter- Okay, maybe I am the only person in the room that sees things a little out of sorts here as far as order, so is it appropriate for the Town Manager and the Finance Committee to make a recommendation on the overall budget without a recommendation from the School Department budget from the School Committee and Superintendent? Because so far, we don't have one, we have an explanation of line items but we don't have an explanation on a budget. Terri- I don't know whether it makes sense but, basically that is how the schedule is going to go based on how the School Committee is going to be meeting and when we have the Public Hearing. The Public Hearing is by charter and bylaw required to be when it is. Peter- I understand. Is this a normal course of procedure? Terri- Yes. Whether or not they have had their additional recommendations prior to our Public Hearing, might have changed over time, but basically the procedure the way it does go. And again, there are going to be meetings between the Town Manager and the Schools going right up until that night. Peter- I understand that, I am fairly familiar with the process although I find this one a little bit concerning, somewhat to do with the schedule of events as they have occurred of the course of the last several months. School Department explained it that of their goals of the School Committee are late forward, the last was is the communication and collaboration. And it sounds like there has been a lot of communication and collaboration amongst the School Department, the individual members of the School Committee, and the administration, but there has not been a lot of communication and collaboration between the public and the parents about the much effects of a 2.5% budget. That's fairly new information. It was published in a letter It was theshedi and ter from the Town Manager that came out in the Ledger in February, there was a rumor that came out the weekend before last that the Foreign Language and extracurricular activities were about to be cut in the School Department, and discussed openly at a School Committee meeting, I believe for the first tie openly, last Wednesday. There has not been a large discussion amongst the parents and the community at large of the effects of what is going to happen in this town when these funding decisions take place. We are looking at a new assistant Town Manager, we are looking at new operations person in the School Department, we have a Lunenburg Middle/High School that as two principles in it, and I believe 5 gym teachers and we are cutting our Foreign Language program, we are going to have one spoken language in the Lunenburg schools, no language in the middle school, no after school extracurricular activities in the high school, and I believe this needs some scrutiny, think it needs some leadership on the School Committee to go out there and fight for more money. 7% in one department, 9% in another department, 11% in another department, 8 ===PAGE 9=== there is such a thing from the School Department as a level service buget because I saw one thing from a slide that was not touched on and first would like to know what a level service budget is from one year to another? And my last comment, I can get that from them, I think a lot of the things that I heard from the School Department at the School Committee meeting last week have a lot to do with the curriculum that I would have to agree with the previous speaker. You would think you would involve a lot more from the parents. Someone that doesn't have children in the school or children at all, I am still concerned that curriculum choices such as the reduction of one spoken language, that was the one that was probably the most startling in a School Department and school district that prides itself on being out there teaching a broad range of subjects, broad range of not just sciences and math's, but the arts, and language, and cultures as well. That struck me, you would think that reduction of that type would be discussed really early on and have a lot of input from the all players, not just the School Committee and School Department. So just three comments to think to consider and I will take the answers from my level service question from my seat. Dr. Burnham- As a point of clarification, it's not that there will be no clubs at the high school, we will have to reduce the number of clubs offered at the high school but there will stll be clubs running. Additionally, we are not eliminating down to one language being offered, next year we will still have a French offering for students currently on the French track, they will be able to continue that advanced track as far as they would like to take it including all the way to A.P. French. We will still have an offering of Spanish and Latin in our Foreign Language program. And really, we have seen an increase in the registrations for our Latin offering, which is why currently it is a stronger area of interest for our students. It's not that we are wishing to eliminate curriculum options but we will gradually phase this out, we will follow the students that are in it. I am happy to having discussions about retaining perhaps French I and French II but nothing beyond that eventually. We just cannot sustain the three languages that are currently being offered based on student interest and registration for the courses. As far as a level service budget we didn't get down into the details of that because essentially that means we keep exactly what we have nothing more. That percentage increase, quite frankly, is currently below the 2.5% target. So, to have a discussion about the service budget, it just doesn't make sense, it does not give us what we need. Honestly, the target budget will give us more of what we need, but even to hit that target budget, to get the additional positions that are needed, we have to make reductions and adjustments elsewhere. And there is just not enough room in supply lines and other expenses to recover that kind of a gap, over $300K. The operational budgets are honestly very lean. We don't have a lot of wiggle room. I'm a little bit nervous at what to anticipate for that Kindergarten class coming in. If we need that the Kindergarten classroom, it's not in this budget. So, it's as lean as we can get it to the 2.5%. It's not what I would recommend, it is not that I am requesting. That's the target that we have to live with. Those are the cuts that we would recommend. Again, to have the least negative impact to students, they will still have curriculum offerings, they will still have athletics, we are not cutting athletics, we are not cutting the arts. We are still scaling down in one language but still they have choices. Hannah- You are scaling down to Latin and Spanish, am I under the impression that it is one teacher that does both? I have a high schooler so I don't get all the information all the time correct but trying to understand it. Dr. Burnham- So this is the nature of things that get a little tricky, we have some teachers, Foreign Language teachers that have licenses in multiple languages. It's one of those things where you have a teacher of Math you have a Math license, you don't have an Algebra I license, Geometry license, a Calculus license. In the Foreign Languages, you have to be licensed in a particular language, we have some that have multiple licenses. They can teach Spanish and French. We have one teacher that is licensed in 9 ===PAGE 10=== to say t again here and am going to keep saying It, because i don't feel as if it is being conveyed enough, it's not just what I feel, but my current students feel, and it's what my past students feel when they discovered that my program, our program in Lunenburg, which has been in Lunenburg for decades and decades and decades is being dismantled. Are the numbers lower? Yes, they are. And I was talking to somebody else, also a long time Lunenburg resident, that had heard about it and I said Yes, it's being phased out and she said that's terrible, I went to Acton schools and I took Russian and in my senior year we had a class of four and we just had the most amazing experience in a Russian class of four. I realize there are incredible budgetary demands at the lower levels; I am not saying that those should not be met. It's absurd to have a class of thirty 1st graders in one classroom. I do not know how money can be changed and reallocated but I am going to say a few things about not just the Foreign Language program but some things that are being affected that made a huge difference to kids. The first is advisory, we instituted that purpose for our accreditation through NEAS because we needed to address the social and emotional needs of our students, it has been a wonderful experience in most advisories and we are coming up for an accreditation process and we are going to take that away. Which we put in place specifically to satisfy the demands of the NEASC committee. In the goals that we put up in the beginning of the Lunenburg Public Schools, we want to offer a well-rounded education, that should include choices for students and I have a problem with looking at languages and saying because it is not the most popular, we should take it away. Because when you are a child, as any parent would know, your child has certain interest and you want to try to expose them to as many things as possible so they can grow into directions that maybe they had never considered. By offering three languages, student get that possibility. They can grow in ways that they had never expected. To look at French numbers and say, they are the lowest numbers so that program has to go is just devaluing to the kid's experiences that have happened for years and years and years. The schools need more money. This is a program that I think needs to be preserved. It's been here for decades. We are losing a Foreign Language teacher that is a full-time Spanish teacher from Uruguay, she's a native speaker, she's young, energetic, fantastic, and we are losing her and increasing class sizes in all Spanish classes. These kinds of cuts may be small numerically have a small impact but they have a ripple effect. It's going to decimate our program. We have two languages and one of which isn't spoken. Okay so Latin numbers are growing, that's fantastic, I'm sorry it's a different kind of a skill to read Latin and transiate Latin, but try speaking it. That's a skill that is valuable. But these are skills that are extremely important to a well-rounded student should be. We should be the district that preserves these kinds of choices for our kids. Thank you. Tom Alonzo-wanted to publicly apologize to the School Committee because they did have handouts for their slides. Carl Luck, 50 Sunset Lane- I would like to go back to my starting public comment and formally requests at least a copy of the towns budget with expenses to date on the line items, I got to believe that at least exists somewhere and I would like to request a copy of that for the towns budget at least. Terri- Karen Brochu will be posting that on the Towns Website. Marc- I am in a lucky position that I get to speaks four different languages. Yes, I learned it the hard way because my parents moved me to a country that I didn't speak. It was like, here's the school, it starts at 7am on Monday, have fun. I need to say it was an interesting but great experience. I can leverage all my languages only on a daily basis. In the job I am an IT, it helps a lot to address people in the language that they want to be spoken too. I still struggle with the Canadian French but that's something different. But I 10 ===PAGE 11=== 9. Adjournment Hannah made a motion at 9:50pm. John second. Vote 6-0 Attachments: DPW Line Item Lunenburg Public School Line Item 11 ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-19-agenda-2155.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-19 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-19-agenda-2155.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03192019-2155 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 7:10 PM Town Hall AGENDA Joint meeting with Board of Selectmen to hear the 2018 Audit Report. ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-21-agenda-2170.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-21 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-21-agenda-2170.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03212019-2170 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, March 21, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Department 2020 Budget Presentations • Public Access Committee • Administration, Unclassified, Debt Service (includes financial adviser D. Eisenthal) • Other Monied Articles 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • March 28, 2019 Public Hearing 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-03-28-agenda-2159.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-03-28 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-03-28-agenda-2159.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03282019-2159 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE 6:15 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Hear from Public Access Cable 4. Open Public Hearing on Town Meeting Warrant Articles 5. Close Public Hearing and Deliberate/vote Recommendations 6. Tow n Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings April 11, 2019 9. Adjournment Meeting and Public Hearing Thursday, March 28, 2019 ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-04-25-agenda-2171.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-04-25 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-04-25-agenda-2171.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_04252019-2171 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, April 25, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Review warrant articles- address remaining questions/positions on items 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • May 4, 2019 Town Meeting • May 9, 2019 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-04-25-minutes-2171.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-04-25 KIND : minutes OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-04-25-minutes-2171.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_04252019-2171 ======================================================================================== ===OCR macOS Vision=== ===PAGE 1=== 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. ===PAGE 2=== 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 ===PAGE 3=== 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. ===PAGE 4=== 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 ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-05-09-agenda-2156.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-05-09 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-05-09-agenda-2156.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05092019-2156 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, May 9, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • New Communications 3. Review Town Meeting 4. Committee/Department updates 5. Minutes 6. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 7. Public Comment 8. Next Meetings • May 23, 2019 • June 13, 2019 9. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-05-23-agenda-2160.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-05-23 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-05-23-agenda-2160.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_05232019-2160 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, May 23, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment • Welcome new members 3. Review Recommendation Criteria led by John 4. Mass Municipal Association report led by Michelle 5. Discuss Committee Reorganization 6. Committee/Department updates 7. Minutes 8. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 9. Public Comment 10. Next Meetings • June 13, 2019 11. Adjournment ======================================================================================== DOCUMENT : 2019-06-13-agenda-2144.txt BOARD : finance-committee DATE : 2019-06-13 KIND : agenda OUR COPY : https://lunenburgbudgetproject.org/docs/minutes/text/finance-committee/2019-06-13-agenda-2144.txt TOWN PDF : https://www.lunenburgma.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_06132019-2144 ======================================================================================== ===PAGE 1=== NOTICE of FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING on Thursday, June 13, 2019 7:00 PM Town Hall AGENDA 1. Open meeting 2. Communications • Public Comment 3. Discuss Committee Reorganization 4. Begin review of fiscal policies 5. Committee/Department updates/assignments 6. Minutes 7. Town Manager/Financial Officer Reports 8. Public Comment 9. Next Meetings • July 11, 2019 10. Adjournment