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Advisory Committee
June 17, 2009 Meeting Minutes

Present:  Committee Members Lauter, Seelen, Asher, Dwyer, Eldredge, Ellison, Farrell, Friedman, Innis, MacCune, Manning, Marwill, Mooradian, O’Meara
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• Call to order

Chair Irma Lauter called the Advisory Committee meeting to order at 7:05 PM.

• Approval of minutes for April 27 and June 2, 2009

The Committee reviewed and approved minutes from the meetings on April 27th and June 2nd 2009.

• Town Property Discussion with Selectmen

Selectmen Laura Burns, John Riley, and Bruce Rabuffo each presented their current thoughts regarding Town property that might be ready to sell by Town Meeting 2010. 
The following are representative comments by the Selectmen and the Committee:

• Most of the vacant Town-owned parcels are undevelopable
• It was suggested that Town Planner Katy Lacy might be the source of a shorter listing omitting undevelopable parcels.
• It’s probably time for another facility study to update the 1990 version
• Such a study might best be commissioned as the first official act of a permanent Building Committee, which could also take responsibility for the Town’s entire building and field inventory.
• There’s reluctance to sell Town property to increase reserves in the short-term only to face potential subsequent repurchase as the Town’s population grows
• We need to examine our own needs first before deciding to sell.
• The possibility of sharing resources across Town departments should be explored.
• Particular properties may be suitable for revenue-producing leases between the Town and commercial developers.

• Budget Update and Financial Policy Discussion

FY09 Finish
Town Finance Director Ted Alexiades informed the Committee that the mandatory 2% turn-back within the FY09 budget has been accomplished without layoffs.  While FY09 building-permit, investment income, and motor-vehicle excise revenues are all less than projected, property tax collections remain strong.
Moody’s Rating and Outlook
Ted also reviewed the salient points of the Jun 2009 Moody’s Investor Service outlook.  Moody’s has assigned a MIG 1 rating for the $12.1M of six-month Bond Anticipation Notes offered on June 9th, affirming the Town’s current Aaa rating. 
However, Moody’s has revised the Town’s outlook to ‘negative’ based on the significant erosion of reserves since 2002 and the continuing use of free cash to balance budgets each fiscal year.  Ted believes that this negative outlook is very likely to result in a rating downgrade within 18-36 months unless the Town stabilizes and adds to—rather than further depletes—reserves and resumes funding capital at normal levels.
Ted does not expect Moody’s negative outlook to impact the planned issuance of ~$38M of long-term debt in the September-October timeframe.
Budget Process and Financial Policy Issues
Jerry Seelen presented a draft Budget Process and Financial Policy Issues summary, which documents a number of finance-related issues that have been raised at various Committee meetings throughout FY09.
These items will be discussed—and possibly voted on—once Committee meetings resume in the autumn. 
Additional items for consideration should be forwarded to Jerry.
Reserve Fund and Intra-Department Transfers
The Committee reviewed and voted to approve the following transfers from the Reserve Fund:

• $124,804 to Legal Services
• $62,757 to Veterans’ Services Benefits
• $493.88 to Celebrations
• $7,405 to Contributory Retirement

• $7,089 to Hersey House Expenses
• approved with one abstention
• $1,735 to Building Expenses
• approved with Mary Jane O’Meara requesting to be recorded as voting ‘nay’
• $6,500 to Selectmen Expenses
• $8,751 to Accounting Expenses

The Chair informed the Committee that the remaining FY09 Reserve Fund Transfer and Intra-Department Transfer requests will be addressed at the Committee’s July 8th meeting.

• Cable Discussion

The Cable TV Advisory Committee returned to address some of the Committee questions raised during its initial presentation on June 2nd.
The following points were made during the ensuing discussion:

• Comcast’s current Norwell cable TV studio will cease operation and its equipment inventory will be conveyed to the Town in early July, 2009.
• 30% of Hingham households do not subscribe to cable.
• The Cable TV Advisory Committee envisions three service-level options for the Town:
• Low.  Broadcast of pre-recorded DVD content, costing ~$11K of capital expense and ~$40K annual operating cost.
• Middle.  Pay another town for access to an existing studio at a cost of ~$125K/year
• A studio would be required to produce content.
• High.  Build studios and obtain outside revenue through sponsorships or collaborations with other towns.
• The Board of Selectmen will obtain a second legal opinion regarding use of the estimated $329K/year average operating revenue to be received by the Town under the agreements with Comcast and Verizon.  Additionally:
• $627.5K would be received for capital expenditures over 8 years.
• $3.5K-$4.3K would be received annually for the Town’s General Fund from a $0.50 charge per cable subscriber.
• All proposed funding is derived from a pass-through to ratepayers of a 4.5% increase in the Franchise-Related Cost line-item on their monthly bills
• Cable TV Advisory Committee members opined that ratepayers’ total monthly bills might or might not increase.
• Some Advisory Committee members suggested that the imposition of what could be viewed as a non-deductible tax increase should be submitted to Town Meeting for consideration
• A non-binding straw-poll of the Committee’s 13 voting members regarding the need for Town Meeting consideration was evenly distributed across ‘Yes,’ ‘Not Sure,’ and ‘No.’
• There was general agreement that some sort of public forum to solicit input would be of value before a final decision was taken regarding which option to pursue.
• General Business
• Dave Ellison informed the Committee that the Town hopes to close on the Cushing property within two weeks and that the Mobil station clean-up is on budget.
• Dennis Friedman said that as of June 2nd, the new elementary school contingency contained $1,000,300 with 89% of the work complete.  There is $737K of unexpended funds for the Plymouth River and Foster renovations not accounting for items taken out of scope.
• Report of the Nominating Committee and Election of Officers

The Nominating Committee consisting of the Chair, Dave Ellison, and Dick Innis reported out a proposed slate of officers for FY10:

• Jerry Seelen for Chairman
• Jack Manning for Vice Chairman
• Jon Asher for Secretary

The Committee voted unanimously to approve the proposed slate.

• Adjourn

The meeting was first adjourned at 11:08 PM. 
At the request of members of the public, the meeting was re-convened at 11:20 PM. 
Questions were posed regarding the Committee’s position with respect to the action of some of its members in the perceived sponsorship of a potential warrant article.  Additionally, the question of a possible process violation by the Advisory Committee as a whole was raised. 
There was much discussion about these issues, and the Committee reached no formal conclusions.  Incoming Chair, Jerry Seelen, affirmed, however, that the annual review of the Advisory Committee Rules would, this year, involve the gathering of ‘second opinions’ to address any ambiguities and rules needing further definition.
The meeting was finally adjourned at 11:50 PM.

Respectfully submitted,  
Jonathan R. Asher, Secretary