Back to Advisory Committee Minutes
January 12, 2010
Hingham Town Hall
Present: Committee Members Seelen, Manning, Asher, Dwyer, Eldredge, Ellison, Farrell, Friedman, Innis, Johnson, Lauter, Marwill, Mooradian, O’Meara
____________________________________________________________________
1. Call to order
Chair Jerry Seelen called the Advisory Committee meeting to order at 7:35 PM.
2. Approval of Minutes for December 15th
The Committee reviewed and unanimously approved the minutes for December 15th.
3. Financial and Budget Update
The Chair summarized the previous week’s Board of Selectmen votes on the FY11 budget. All Municipal (non-School) department budgets except those for the Selectmen were approved. These approvals included:
• Payment of the OPEB full prefunding of the Unfunded Actuarial Liability totaling $905K
• A ~$100K decrease in the requested Fire Department budget reduction to help retain the four firefighters necessary to keep Torrent Station open
• Regionalized public-safety dispatch center savings of ~$200K
Jerry informed the Committee that at the Board of Selectmen meeting, Chair Laura Burns had presented a budget-balancing proposal incorporating the following elements:
• Funding capital at $1M rather than $2M
• Implementing a Transfer Station fee to produce new revenue of $1.2M
• Funding General Fund Balance reserves using new revenue sources totaling $500K
Regarding the General Fund Balance, Jerry noted that for FY02, the Town budget was ~$49.9M and the General Fund Balance was ~$12.2M (24.3%). For FY09, the Town budget was ~$80M and the General Fund Balance was ~$7.1M (8.9%). The ~$5.1M drawdown during that seven-year period has been used primarily to fund capital and snow & ice.
In summary, the Municipal budget cuts total $1.17M and accommodate ~$123.1K of contractual step-increases for the ~343 non-School FTE’s.
The FY11 proposed School budget must address ~$600K of contractual step/degree increases for ~500 FTE’s. The School budget must also address the FY10 SPED circuit-breaker cut of ~$462K announced in October, 2009.
With regard to FY10, Finance Director Ted Alexiades expressed concern about the current-year budget, given the possibility of further State-aid cuts as well as possible shortfalls in excise-tax receipts and interest revenue.
In response to the suggestion that the Committee refrain from voting individual departmental budgets until the revenue picture is better understood, the Chair signaled agreement. March 8th is the currently-scheduled date for the School Committee’s vote on the School Department budget.
4. Budget Hearings
The Committee heard FY11 budget presentations from the following departments:
Department |
% Change from FY10 |
Comments |
Land Use Group
|
-8.42% |
Primary savings realized by leaving Building Department Deputy Commissioner position unfilled |
Town Clerk |
-5.08% |
Savings realized by instituting 13 unpaid furlough days/employee |
Elections |
+116.38% |
$17.3K extra cost due to State primary and State election, as well as Town election |
Town Meetings |
-5.47% |
Committee recommendation: Consider audio-visual equipment purchase to reduce annual $7.8K rental/lease cost for Town Meetings and Celebrations |
Bare Cove Park |
-6.32% |
Friends of Bare Cove Park raise funds through contributions and annual road race to offset budget expenses |
Town Hall |
-5.17% |
|
GAR Hall |
+4.89% |
|
Legal Services |
+21.62% |
The Committee discussed alternatives for more purposeful management of the Legal Service budget |
5. Reserve Fund Transfers
Citing State Department of Revenue guidelines for a Tax Rate Reserve, Finance Director Ted Alexiades requested that the Committee set aside $75K of its $833K FY10 Reserve Fund to meet the DOR minimum of $400K; historically, $225K has been sufficient to satisfy annual abatement and exemption requests.
The Committee agreed with this request, reducing the FY10 Reserve Fund available for Transfer Requests to $758K.
6. General Business
• Dick Innis summarized the November, 2009 Supreme Judicial Court suit brought by a District Attorney against the Wayland School Committee for violations of the Open Meeting Law.
The SJC ruled that emails sent to School Committee members by the School Committee Chairman—requesting comments pertaining to the Superintendent’s performance evaluation—prior to an open meeting constituted a deliberation that violated the OML. “Governmental bodies may not circumvent the requirements of the open meeting law by conducting deliberations via private messages, whether electronically, in person, over the telephone, or in any other form.”
The Chair reminded the Committee that failure to adhere to the OML might result in heavy fines and loss of public confidence in the policy-making body.
• The Chair informed the Committee that in-house development of an Advisory Committee web page has been initiated in order to facilitate better two-way communication with the Town citizenry.
7. Adjourn
The Committee meeting adjourned at 10:32 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Jonathan R. Asher, Secretary