{"id":839,"date":"2010-11-01T23:51:44","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T03:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=839"},"modified":"2010-11-01T23:52:40","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T03:52:40","slug":"fincom-nov-1-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/fincom-nov-1-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance Committee November 1, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black text is mostly objective,\u00c2\u00a0red text<\/span> is mostly subjective in nature. <\/em>I’m in a hurry tonight, and these notes are more “raw” than usual. \u00c2\u00a0Please ask questions in the comments, and I’ll go into more details. <\/em><\/p>\n

Note that we did not finish our business tonight, and we will meet again on Wednesday at 7:30 in the 2nd floor of Town Hall. \u00c2\u00a0We had a 2.5 hour hearing tonight and didn’t vote on a single article. \u00c2\u00a0I think this points to a 2-night Special Town Meeting. \u00c2\u00a0If FinComm needs 2 nights, Town Meeting probably will too.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chairman Allan Tosti gave an agenda review.<\/p>\n

Article 2 – Budgets<\/strong> – School Committee Chairman Joe Curro opened. \u00c2\u00a0The MASBO report on the illegal expenditure over budget just came this weekend; the School Committee has not reviewed it yet. \u00c2\u00a0The budget subcommittee, Leba Heigham, Kirsi Allison-Ampe, and Jeff Theilman, is reviewing it. \u00c2\u00a0The report was given to FinCom.<\/p>\n

Superintendant Bodie reported that School Committee has approved the revised FY11 budget. She spoke about avoiding the problem in the future. One important part is to have better tracking of where we are.<\/p>\n

CFO Diane Johnson was next. FY10 was both over expenses and under revenue. Tracking system was insufficient – worked in good days but not in bad. She reviewed the new way of looking at the budget. The first way is by cost center. There were two other ways, but printed copies of the other two views were not available. \u00c2\u00a0 The budget summary number was also not available in printed form. (budget detail<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0revenue detail for FY10 and FY11<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0the presentation given at School Committee<\/a>)<\/p>\n

There was a questions about FY10 actuals. Johnson says that she can’t reconcile FY10 actuals v FY11 budget because of the change in the chart of accounts. There was a question about the FY10 overages and how it is displayed. \u00c2\u00a0I asked about the presentation to Town Meeting. \u00c2\u00a0The presentation has been discussed, but not written. \u00c2\u00a0I’m disappointed, again, by the presentation from the School Department. \u00c2\u00a0The handouts provided were incomplete and confusing. The amount of money being requested was not in writing. \u00c2\u00a0We are two weeks away from Town Meeting, and there is not yet a draft of the presentation to be seen. \u00c2\u00a0The level of preparation was insufficient. \u00c2\u00a0In a situation like this, you’d expect the opposite – over preparation, and certainty that every t was crossed and every i was dotted. \u00c2\u00a0I’m concerned that Town Meeting will be lost in a sea of confusion, and it will take us days to get to a resolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was another, stronger request to see FY10 broken out by category. Again, the school department said that it couldn’t provide it. \u00c2\u00a0Paraphrasing Steve DeCourcey: “You said in the 2010 presentation that you would spend $45 million. You’ve provided a report that details $38 million in expenses from the general fund. There’s another $7 million in grants, fees etc. \u00c2\u00a0How come you can’t show how you spent the other $7 million?” \u00c2\u00a0Steve makes an excellent point. \u00c2\u00a0I’ve talked it over with a few finance professionals, and they all answer the same thing. \u00c2\u00a0“Changing the chart of accounts is hard, but there’s always a way to generate that report. \u00c2\u00a0Even if you have to stay up late with Excel.” \u00c2\u00a0It is incredibly frustrating that 4 months after the fiscal year closed, we still can’t generate good reporting.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tosti pointed out some of the numbers that may be accurate, but because of the way they are phrased, don’t seem to match. For instance, the School Committee voted a budget, and Town Meeting voted a 2nd budget that was different. The Town Meeting number is the one that matters, it’s the appropriation – so use that one, not the School Committee number.<\/p>\n

Johnson reviewed the confidence level in each line of the fees, revenues, and offsets.<\/p>\n

When asked how conservative the budget was. Johnson reported that revenue was conservative, but has come in better than expected over the summer. She said the reserves for this year were insufficient. If another few special ed kids move in, we’d notice it and make a change. That might involve cuts.<\/p>\n

There was significant discussion about the Powers and Sullivan audit report, and that the School Committee needs to include the recommendations in its deliberation.<\/p>\n

Gordon Jamieson via phone to discuss Article 6. He thinks we should have a reserve fund on the order of $1-$1.25 million. \u00c2\u00a0He did not offer a basis for the number. \u00c2\u00a0He thinks we should use the current reserves and appropriate them into a school-wide reserve fund. Despite repeated prodding, he didn’t have a specific suggestion. There was discussion about whether the School Department could make requests against the annual reserve fund. The general opinion was that it could. I’m still confused by what Gordon was trying to accomplish. \u00c2\u00a0There was no proposal, just that we should “assess risks between now and the 15th.” \u00c2\u00a0In the\u00c2\u00a0absence\u00c2\u00a0of a proposal, there’s not much for us to vote on.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Article 3 – Thompson Land Swap –<\/strong> Jeff Theilman went through the Thompson rebuild presentation. He reviewed the MSBA process. The School Committee is seeking to keep a land swap at Thompson as an option. There were rough estimates of cost of the three options: $32M on option 1 – addition w\/renovation (total back $14.9M). $32.9 option 2 – tear down and rebuild, same place (total back of $15M). $33.9M on option 3 – build on the fields, then tear down and rebuild a park, (with $15.3 back). On and 1 and 2, tack on $500k+ for relocation of students.<\/p>\n

There were sharp questions about whether this really is a viable option – it’s expensive and more risky. There were questions about drainage. \u00c2\u00a0I asked what happens if Town Meeting votes no. \u00c2\u00a0The answer isn’t clear. \u00c2\u00a0After further questions, they probably go to the MSBA with a weakened third choice.<\/p>\n

I asked for the actual language of the vote – it was not yet available. \u00c2\u00a0We need it in order to vote on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday we’ll discuss Articles 4 and 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black text is mostly objective,\u00c2\u00a0red text is mostly subjective in nature. I’m in a hurry tonight, and these notes are more “raw” than usual. \u00c2\u00a0Please ask questions in the comments, and I’ll go into more details. Note that we did not finish our business tonight, and we will meet again on Wednesday at 7:30 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arlington","category-finance-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839","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=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}