{"id":848,"date":"2010-11-03T23:55:20","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T03:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=848"},"modified":"2010-11-04T00:01:09","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T04:01:09","slug":"finance-committee-nov-3-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2010\/11\/finance-committee-nov-3-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance Committee Nov 3, 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black text is mostly objective,\u00c2\u00a0red text<\/span> is mostly subjective in nature.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chairman Allan Tosti opened the meeting and ran through the agenda.<\/p>\n

Article 5 – GIC Special Legislation – <\/strong>Deputy Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine\u00c2\u00a0explained that significant progress had been made on the GIC negotiations with the unions. He thinks the GIC legislation envisioned in the warrant article would have a negative effect at this point on progress, so he’s looking for a recommendation of no action. If the ongoing negotiations were to get stuck, there is still time to modify the recommendations. On questions, he noted that if the savings are larger than anticipated, the employees and town split the benefit. If the savings are smaller, the town swallows the cost. Moved for no report at this time, and passed unanimously. There’s a bit of subtlety here that FinCom voted no report at this time rather than no action. \u00c2\u00a0If anyone is paying close attention, what we’re saying is that we have an eagle eye on the current negotiations, and we want to keep our options open in case there is a last-minute collapse in negotiations like there was last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Article 4 – Stratton Project Adjustments. <\/strong>Since the last town meeting there have been some changes both up and down in cost that largely wash out. \u00c2\u00a0If there was no special town meeting, we’d be asked to approve Phase 2 in April. \u00c2\u00a0Instead, they want to advance the authorization to buy some capital items with long lead times from the summer to the winter, enabling them to get the project going sooner. The actual bonding of the money will still be next year, so the cost is the same; it’s just earlier authorization to get the long leadtime items rolling. \u00c2\u00a0After discussion, approved unanimously.<\/p>\n

Article 2 – Revising Budgets<\/strong> Tosti presented a draft motion that accepted the school department’s proposed reduction in budget, thereby resolving the FY10 deficit<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0It was discussed that the proposed school committee budget depends upon a 65% increase in non-taxpayer revenue (fees and offsets), $2.8 v $4.6 million; those areas are the same areas that failed to meet budget last year. \u00c2\u00a0It was noted that the proposed budget was actually $777,000 larger than last year. \u00c2\u00a0(See pages 16 an 17 of this PDF<\/a> from the CFO) It was also noted that there was no built-in reserve for either a failure to meet revenue targets or for managing the volatile special education budget. \u00c2\u00a0Overall, the budget appears to be very aggressive and very fragile – there is no place to adjust if revenue or expenditures miss their targets, and we know from last year that both are hard to predict. <\/span>Steve DeCourcey moved to reduce the school budget by an aditional $377,000, add that sum to the reserve fund, and\u00c2\u00a0strongly suggest the school department create the $400,000 reserve the CFO and Superintendant requested last year. \u00c2\u00a0The motion would have the effect of passing a budget that is the same size the original FY11 budget, plus a $400,000 reserve. \u00c2\u00a0There was an extended discussion about special education and the Bridge the Gap funds. \u00c2\u00a0Paul Bayer moved to reduce the school budget by $177,000 (that is, a budget $177k less than the school committee request, but a budget larger than DeCourcey’s cut of $400k), and put the $177,000 in the reserve fund, and appropriate $200,000 from tip fee stabilization fund to the reserve fund. There was an discussion about the three proposals. At first, I wasn’t in favor of additional cuts to the school budget, but I was partially won over by the discussion. \u00c2\u00a0First of all, it’s clear that the school department has been bad at budgeting and even worse at managing the budget as it proceeds; there is little faith that the newly proposed budget is better than past ones. Second, it seems likely to me that there will be another special education cost shock this year; we’ve seen so many that there is no reason to think this year will be different. \u00c2\u00a0We need to be ready for it. \u00c2\u00a0Third, I agreed that the Finance Committee needed to take leadership in school budgeting to prevent future overruns. \u00c2\u00a0We need a reserve, somewhere, to handle that. \u00c2\u00a0The reserve fund is, was, and will be available to the school department, but we need to increase it in size to be better prepared for special education cost fluctuations. <\/span>DeCourcey’s motion failed 3-12. Bayer’s motion was approved 12-5. It was noted, half in jest, that this proposal will be unpleasant for both the Superintendent (lower budget) and the Town Manager (use of one-time reserve money).<\/span><\/p>\n

We discussed the FinCom report to Town meeting \u00c2\u00a0We discussed the Power and Sullivan auditor report. We discussed the school department’s failure to disclose the deficit. We approved a general draft of the recommendations.<\/p>\n

Article 3 – Thompson School Land Swap –<\/strong> We discussed the proposal to swap the land at Thompson. \u00c2\u00a0There was discussion of the drastically increased risk of the option. \u00c2\u00a0The unlikeliness of success was discussed. \u00c2\u00a0The increased cost ($2m) was discussed. \u00c2\u00a0In general, the committee would prefer a different third option. Unanimous recommendation of no action.<\/p>\n

Article 6 –<\/strong> No action. We think Article 2’s recommendation covers this.<\/p>\n

We voted to transfer of $50,349 from the reserve fund to cover the unwelcome increase in payment to the retirement fund, caused by slow action of the state legislature.<\/p>\n

Approved minutes of 9\/22 and 11\/1.<\/p>\n

Adjourned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Black text is mostly objective,\u00c2\u00a0red text is mostly subjective in nature. Chairman Allan Tosti opened the meeting and ran through the agenda. Article 5 – GIC Special Legislation – Deputy Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine\u00c2\u00a0explained that significant progress had been made on the GIC negotiations with the unions. He thinks the GIC legislation envisioned in the […]<\/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-848","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\/848","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=848"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":852,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848\/revisions\/852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}