Back to Advisory Committee Minutes
March 11, 2010 Meeting Minutes
Hingham Town Hall
Present: Committee Members Seelen, Manning, Asher, Dwyer, Eldredge, Ellison, Farrell, Friedman, Innis, Johnson, Lauter, MacCune, Marwill, Mooradian, O’Meara
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1. Call to order
Chair Jerry Seelen called the Advisory Committee meeting to order at 7:12 PM.
2. Approval of Minutes for March 9th
The Committee reviewed and unanimously approved the minutes for March 9th 2010, as amended.
3. Warrant Articles
The following proposed Warrant articles were reviewed and voted.
# Proposed Article Committee Vote
3 Committee Reports Affirmative – Unanimous, as revised
17 By-Law: False Alarms Affirmative – Unanimous, as revised
21 By-Law: Warrant Distribution No Action – Unanimous
The revised Comments for the following previously-voted Warrant articles were reviewed and approved.
• Eliminate Administrative Positions
• Selectmen, Five-Member Board
• Special Legislation – Veterans’ Assistance Tax-Bill Check-off
The Committee recommended that, in future, all articles display the requesting individual or organization.
4. School Budget Presentation, Deliberation, and Vote
Joining the Board of Selectmen meeting already in progress, the Committee heard a brief presentation from School Committee Chair Christine Smith regarding a proposed treatment of Federal stimulus education grant funds and Warrant Article 6 appropriations.
Chair Jerry Seelen indicated that he had asked the four School Committee liaisons to meet on March 10th in order to fashion a starting point or points for deliberation of the Education budget by the full Committee. Three of the liaison put forward a ‘majority’ recommendation, and the remaining liaison crafted a ‘minority’ recommendation as a result of that meeting. The respective recommendations were presented as follows.
Dennis Friedman described the components and rationale for the ‘majority’ recommendation of $36,226,170, highlighting that:
• the amount represented a ~0.69% reduction ($252,600) from the FY10 budget of $36,478,853
• the recommended amount would be sourced both from funds appropriated by Town Meeting and ARRA/IDEA funds not appropriated by Town Meeting
• $466,000 would be made available for operating-override tax-impact offset to honor the intent of the March 25th, 2009 Stimulus Money Statement
• $300,000 would be contributed to Fund Balance.
Amy Farrell presented the ‘minority’ recommendation of $36,426,176, with the following differences from the majority recommendation:
• the amount represented a ~0.14% reduction ($52,677) from the FY10 budget of $36,478,853
• $100,000 would be contributed to Fund Balance.
A motion to amend the majority recommendation of $36,226,170 to $36,426,176 passed by a vote of 8 to 7, with the Chair casting the deciding vote in favor.
The amended motion for FY11 Education funding of $36,426,176 then also passed by a vote of 8 to 7, with the Chair casting the deciding vote in favor. Following meeting adjournment, Committee members Asher, Eldredge, Friedman, Lauter, Manning, and Marwill asked to be recorded as voting against the motion.
5. General Business
The Committee will next meet at 7:00 PM on Tuesday, March 16th.
6. Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 10:40 PM.
Respectfully submitted,
Jonathan R. Asher, Secretary