{"id":782,"date":"2010-05-18T03:15:28","date_gmt":"2010-05-18T07:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=782"},"modified":"2010-05-24T11:51:47","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T15:51:47","slug":"town-meeting-10-session-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/town-meeting-10-session-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Town Meeting \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc10 Session 7"},"content":{"rendered":"

I take notes during Town Meeting. They are not official in any way. As I listen to people speak, I type notes. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that, at times, I mishear or misunderstand the speaker, but my notes represent what I hear at the time. I then publish the notes every night after the meeting. I do go back and make a few edits as errors are pointed out to me.<\/em><\/p>\n

I do not try to reproduce my entire notes for this online version. Sometimes I relay a quote from a specific speaker. Most of the time I only summarize the discussion. At points I give a purely personal opinion; those are clearly labeled like this: Personal note<\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

There were an unusually large number of protesters outside Town Hall. \u00c2\u00a0My quick scan was that they were composed mostly of school traffic supervisors who were demanding their jobs be restored to the budget and union members who were opposed to the special legislation about the GIC.<\/p>\n

The Finance Committee met at 7:30 and discussed a new vote for Article 58 for Minuteman\u00c2\u00a0Feasibility\u00c2\u00a0Study. \u00c2\u00a0A short history: Minuteman’s infrastructure needs a major renovation, and that requires bonding the money. Ordinary operating budgets require only 2\/3 of the 16 member towns approve the budget, but a bond requires unanimous consent of all towns. \u00c2\u00a0That gives Arlington leverage that it doesn’t usually have. \u00c2\u00a0This year, Minuteman is seeking to bond $700,000 for a feasibility study. \u00c2\u00a0The Finance Committee reviewed the proposal and the early estimates of what a full renovation would cost, considered what it knew about the state of Minuteman’s enrollment numbers, and recommended a vote of no action. \u00c2\u00a0Since then the Minuteman Superintendent and Town Manager Brian Sullivan have met with the head of the Mass School Building Authority (MSBA) and the proposal has changed. \u00c2\u00a0In the current version, Minuteman agrees to do an enrollment study and<\/strong> have a task force study the regional agreement that defines the school. \u00c2\u00a0Tonight, after several nights of debate, the Finance Committee unanimously agreed to endorse the feasibility study provided the Superintendent formally commits to the enrollment study, the task force, and several other conditions. The spending will be limited to $125,000 or so until those conditions are met. \u00c2\u00a0The Superintendent has indicated that he will do so in writing. \u00c2\u00a0The vote that we now intend to recommend to Town Meeting is here<\/a>, and was passed out to all Town Meeting Members tonight.<\/p>\n

The Meeting opened at 8:01. Very punctual! Good work Mr. Moderator!<\/p>\n

Charlie Gallagher played the The Star-Spangled Banner on the piano.<\/p>\n

Moderator John Leone was congratulated and applauded on his wedding this past weekend.<\/p>\n

Al Tosti announced that Finance Committee had taken a new vote on the Minuteman request for capital spending for a feasibility study (as I described above).<\/p>\n

Article 3 <\/strong>was taken off the table.
\nJane Howard gave the Vision 2020 report. She reviewed the activities and output of the committee. Josh Lobel gave a\u00c2\u00a0brief\u00c2\u00a0tour of the way the data can be\u00c2\u00a0viewed\u00c2\u00a0online.
\nArticle 3 is tabled.<\/p>\n

Article 27 – GIC Home Rule Legislation<\/strong>. Selectman Diane Mahon said that the Selectmen had heard the issue again today, and asked for a postponement to May 19. John Maher is opposed to postponement; he noted that the article has been on the warrant since January and there has been plenty of time for the Selectmen to get it ready. Al Tosti says that the discussion will be faster if we have an actual report from the board, and that we should postpone because it will be faster in the long run. On questions from other speakers, Diane Mahon indicated that there were discussions and some progress might be made by May 19. \u00c2\u00a0I’m very dubious of this statement. \u00c2\u00a0There’s no dialog going on that I know of; the issue will be unchanged on Wednesday, we just might have a Selectmen vote by then. <\/span>Charlie Foskett noted that with the 48 hours written notice rule, we wouldn’t be able to consider a Selectmen motion on the 19th, because they don’t have a decision yet. By a vote of 119-49 it was postponed.<\/p>\n

Article 28 – <\/strong>Tabled. again. This was an error, I think. \u00c2\u00a0We’d already re-tabled this on Wednesday<\/a>, and nothing had taken it off the table.<\/span><\/p>\n

Article 52 – Budgets<\/strong>. Alan Tosti noted a couple of typos in the report. \u00c2\u00a0He said that the budget is balanced, but contingent on a several pieces of legislation, including the pension reform bill and the actual state budget.<\/p>\n

School Committee Chair Joe Curro introduced the school’s budget. He described it as a budget of tradeoffs, and talked about the affects it will have. \u00c2\u00a0Superintendent Bodie had a presentation ready as well, but the moderator asked her to wait until the actual school budget is discussed.<\/p>\n

The moderator then read through each budget number, and if someone had a question the budget was “held” for discussion. Many budgets were held. One of the interesting budgets that sailed through was the Assessors’ budget. \u00c2\u00a0The budget includes a reduction in pay for the Assessors from $5200 to $4900. \u00c2\u00a0That is significant because it gets them under $5000, and they therefore do not qualify for retirement benefits under Gov. Patrick’s pension reform. \u00c2\u00a0The Assessors should be commended on making that change.<\/span><\/p>\n

Budget 1 – Finance Committee<\/strong> Ed Trembley asked how much the town pays for consultants. Town Manager Sullivan says $50,000 or so, plus ones in the capital budget. Superintendent Bodie says special ed has many, and other than that a few thousand. \u00c2\u00a0I think that both the Town Manager and the Superintendent reported lower numbers off the top of their heads than would come out in deeper investigation. \u00c2\u00a0On the manager’s side, I think information technology, youth services, and planning combine for a higher number. \u00c2\u00a0That said, I think it’s generally done wisely. \u00c2\u00a0There are certain tasks and questions that require specialized knowledge, and when those come up infrequently, it makes more sense to contract the work than to maintain a staff member.<\/span><\/p>\n

Budget 2 – Town Manager. <\/strong> Janice Weber asked questions on the web manager (a part time job) and management analyst (currently a college intern).<\/p>\n

Budget 5 – Information Technology<\/strong>. Janice Brodman of Precinct 15 asked several questions about the town’s spending on GIS (geographic information systems) and whether it was a smart budget priority. \u00c2\u00a0 IT Director David Good – definitely. Town Manager Sullivan – agreed. All departments touch maps. He\u00c2\u00a0explained\u00c2\u00a0that it will increase productivity in the long run – that’s the key point. Selectman \u00c2\u00a0Annie LaCourt explains how everything touches the map, and this is the path to efficiency and communication. It was noted that the maps could be used for 40B calculation and for town website. I followed up afterwards during the break to talk more about this. \u00c2\u00a0The town already has several GIS systems, and we need to coordinate and integrate them for efficiency. \u00c2\u00a0I think this is an important and smart budget priority. <\/span> Another question about why is web content manager not under IT? Answer: it’s about communication, not technology. \u00c2\u00a0Does the town use open source software? Yes, some, but not much.<\/p>\n

Budget 7 – Treasurer.<\/strong> Treasurer Stephen Gilligan moved an amendment to his budget. \u00c2\u00a0 He wanted to change wages from $544,316 to $554,316 and expenses from $101,454 to $98,954, for a net increase of about $7500. He said that without the change his office will not have the resources to deal with peak volumes or emergencies. He said that it might lead to missing the tax deadline and force short-term borrowing. \u00c2\u00a0Dean Carman spoke for the Finance Committee and explained the reasoning for the committee’s recommendation. \u00c2\u00a0He talked about the changes in the treasurer’s office, like the addition of a lockbox service, and how that should lead to a need for less overtime. \u00c2\u00a0Several speakers asked questions about online bill pay, including Alan Jones. He noted that the town still doesn’t support payment by credit card, and that even payment by e-check was currently unavailable. \u00c2\u00a0There were questions about the town’s Integrated Collection System (ICS) and how much it cost. \u00c2\u00a0This is where things go a little bit muddled – it wasn’t clear on some of the questions and answers if they were referring to the full ICS system or just the online bill portion of ICS. <\/span>Gilligan said that the use of the \u00c2\u00a0lockbox doesn’t affect overtime expenditures. \u00c2\u00a0A speaker in favor of online bill pay got a laugh by saying “I would be in favor of bill pay for DOS – just let me do it.” \u00c2\u00a0Speakers noted that it was a lot of discussion for a $7500 difference. \u00c2\u00a0Town Manager Sullivan maintained his distance from the online bill pay system, noting that it was run entirely by the treasurer. \u00c2\u00a0He said that if it was in his department, it would have been done by now. Debate was terminated.<\/p>\n

I think it was obvious to everyone in town meeting that this was a political argument, a spat between the Finance Committee and the Treasurer. <\/span><\/p>\n

In general, I avoid fights like this because they don’t move the town forward. \u00c2\u00a0It’s generally better to reach a quiet compromise and revisit whatever issue it is at a future date. \u00c2\u00a0In this case the Treasurer has chosen to make several public statements on town meeting floor that are inaccurate. \u00c2\u00a0I believe that the town is better served in this case by correcting those statements. \u00c2\u00a0The resulting conflict is regrettable.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Finance Committee doesn’t manage departments or dictate how departments should work, but we do give advice to departments, and at times we lean on them to take certain actions when we think the case for those actions is particularly compelling. \u00c2\u00a0For years, the Finance Committee has been leaning on the Treasurer’s office to take advantage of technology and operate more efficiently. \u00c2\u00a0One of the points we made in the past was that the office need not process all of the tax payments by hand, but it could use a lockbox instead. \u00c2\u00a0That way, the town could reduce overtime expenditures. \u00c2\u00a0Eventually, the treasurer instituted the lockbox and reduced the number of pieces of mail handled by his office at tax time by tens of thousands each year. \u00c2\u00a0But, his budget requests didn’t go down – they continued to go up. \u00c2\u00a0That is the root of the debate that spilled out onto the Town Meeting floor tonight.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a number of points that I offer as fact:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The treasurer refused to meet with the Finance Committee this year. <\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Every non-school budget authority (Selectmen, Town Clerk, Treasurer, Assessors) was asked by the Town Manager to come up with some cuts to handle this year’s deficit. \u00c2\u00a0The Treasurer did not. \u00c2\u00a0When we proposed cuts, he did not offer other options or suggestions. \u00c2\u00a0The cuts we proposed are the ones indicated in the Finance Committee’s report.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Despite years of development, it is still impossible to pay your tax bill online using a credit card. \u00c2\u00a0The website has credit card logos on it, but if you fill out the information, you get an error message. \u00c2\u00a0If you remember your license plate, you can see the bill pay page <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. The long saga of online bill pay development has included such gaffes as putting up a website that asked for bank account numbers but did not use HTTPS (encrypted web pages) for the page content and using an architecture that permitted Google and other search engines to index payment histories. \u00c2\u00a0During the implementation the Treasurer repeatedly rejected the advice of the Information Technology Advisory Committee (that I’m also a member of).<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. During Town Meeting, the Treasurer said that supporting ICS cost $10,000 per year. \u00c2\u00a0It’s not clear whether he meant the full ICS system or the online bill pay. \u00c2\u00a0Regardless, the town spends well in excess of that to support the full ICS system, and has paid consultants more than $100,000 in the development of the online bill pay system.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    There are a number of statements that aren’t facts, but follow quite closely:<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. It’s frustrating to me that the Treasurer feels the need to take his budget debate to the Town Meeting floor without trying to resolve it with the Finance Committee first. It’s his perogative as an elected official, but it’s frustrating that he’s uninterested in working within the process. \u00c2\u00a0If he had chosen to meet beforehand and discuss his budget priorities, this entire debate would have been avoided.<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. I continue to believe that the treasurer’s office could run more efficiently with the adoption of new technology. \u00c2\u00a0Capital funds are available for changes that result in more efficient town operations. <\/span><\/li>\n
    3. There are things he said on the floor of town meeting tonight in regard to the lockbox to the website that are in direct conflict with statements he has made in my presence in the past. \u00c2\u00a0They directly conflict with other statements he’s made in public about the efficiencies derived from the lockbox.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In the end, this is all about a very small fraction of the budget, and Town Meeting will vote the budget as it sees fit. <\/span><\/p>\n

      We took a break, but I didn’t time it tonight.<\/p>\n

      Budget 10 – Legal<\/strong>. Joe Tully asked questions about the pending lawsuit against the town. \u00c2\u00a0It was answered that if the town lost a judgement it would likely pay out of reserves and\/or pay the amount over a couple of years. \u00c2\u00a0Mr. Ciano through questions found out that some of the lawsuit was capped by law at $100,000, but other parts were not.<\/p>\n

      Budget 13 – Parking<\/strong>. Paul Schlictman argued that we’re not getting enough in parking revenues. He compared Arlington’s $425,000 to Brookline’s $4-plus million dollars in parking revenues. \u00c2\u00a0Police Chief Fred Ryan in answer to a question said that we’re getting what we pay for, we don’t staff enough for stronger enforcement. Several speakers suggested that the FinCom report should include a breakout of revenues and expenses for parking. I agree – I’ll work to get that in next year’s report as an appendix. <\/span>There was further discussion both in favor of and against a more aggressive parking revenue strategy. There were discussion on the nuances of cost of enforcement, safety issues, supporting local businesses, and short-term parking turnover versus long term parking.<\/p>\n

      Budget 14 – Planning and Community Development. <\/strong> There was a question about a state assessment. Question about lower salaries\/higher expenses that was answered.<\/p>\n

      Budget 17 – Department of Public Works (DPW).<\/strong> Ed Trembley asked how many tons of salt did we dump on the streets last year? The answer was 8000 tons of salt for $600,000. Trembley says we should use less salt and it would be OK have more snow on the flatter roads; this was echoed by later speakers. \u00c2\u00a0There was \u00c2\u00a0discussion about whether people would be willing to tolerate more snow pack on the roads and spend less in salt. \u00c2\u00a0PAYT was discussed. It was asked why raise the snow and ice budget this year? The answer was that it’s painful to fight the deficit spending each year – it’s easier to manage when the deficit is smaller. \u00c2\u00a0Adam Auster asked why are we funding this rather more money for the schools. \u00c2\u00a0He moved an amendment to change “other expenses” from $538,655 change to $430,000 and change snow and ice from $471,830 to \u00c2\u00a0$410,000. \u00c2\u00a0He argued this should be a lower priority than schools. \u00c2\u00a0 Dean Carmen explained that there was less money for managing the deficit than there was last year. \u00c2\u00a0Dean’s point was a bit nuanced, and I’m not sure how much it came through. \u00c2\u00a0When there is an open position in the DPW (or any other town-side position), the manager is likely to hold that position open rather than hire immediately. \u00c2\u00a0One of the side effects of this is that there is unspent salary money. \u00c2\u00a0That money is then used against accounts in deficit – like snow and ice. \u00c2\u00a0As the town’s budget shrinks, there is less of that money available to cover things like snow and ice deficits<\/span>. \u00c2\u00a0Al Tosti noted that we’ve been working to fix this snow and ice budget year after year – it’s not new. \u00c2\u00a0Town Manager Sullivan notes that “other expenses” budget was increased because DPW director said he needed it, and reduced the number of employees to fund it. I rose and spoke to this point, saying two things (and forgetting a third). \u00c2\u00a0First, the other expenses line is not about snow and ice. \u00c2\u00a0The other expenses went up because the DPW director said that he had too many people and not enough supplies to fix the roads – he cut people and increased supplies. \u00c2\u00a0If we cut the supplies, then we’re being wasteful in our salaries. \u00c2\u00a0I repeated the statement that we have to pay for snow and ice no matter what. \u00c2\u00a0Reducing that budget just means that we have to pay the overrun from somewhere else. \u00c2\u00a0The third point, that I forgot at the podium was this: if we really want to reduce snow and ice expenditures, we need to follow a path similar to the one Mr. Trembley opened with. \u00c2\u00a0We need to ask the board of selectmen and the manager and the DPW director to spend less on salt, live with icier roads, and then remember that we made that request when it comes election time.<\/span> Debate was terminated.<\/p>\n

      We adjourned for the night, with budgets waiting for us on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I take notes during Town Meeting. They are not official in any way. As I listen to people speak, I type notes. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure that, at times, I mishear or misunderstand the speaker, but my notes represent what I hear at the time. I then publish the notes every night after the meeting. I do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arlington","category-town-meeting-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions\/790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}