February 9, 2016 Minutes

Meeting date:

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Westport Finance Committee (Fincom)

Meeting Minutes

Westport Town Hall

February 9, 2016

Present: Shana Shufelt (SS), Dick Brewer (DB), Gary Carreiro (GC), Charles “Buzzy” Baron (BB), Bob McCarthy (BM), Tracy Priestner (TP)

Absent: Mark Carney (MC), Hugh Morton (HM), Karen Powell (KP)

Attending: Tim King (TK), Town Administrator

SS, Chair, opened the meeting at 7:00 p.m. with the traditional salute to the flag.

Minutes:

01/16 was presented for approval. BB motioned and GC seconded to approve as presented. The vote was unanimous in favor.

Reports:

Administrator: TK stated that the Governor made his first round budget cherry sheet numbers and it is very similar to FY16. The school budget came in much higher than initially anticipated. He is working to settle the firefighter contract. He sees no hard issues with FY17 contracts with any of the unions. There is no money set aside in the FY17 budget for contract negotiations.

School Building: The committee is holding an informal question and answer session on Feb 17th at 10am and the regular meeting is Feb 24th at 5pm.

Accountant: She stated she is still analyzing the information from TK and will report at the next meeting.

DB reported on CIPC that it has increased from $621k to $700k due to a request from the Highway Department for a new truck but they are looking into Chapter 90 money.

FY17 Budgets:

Assessors: Bob Grillo and Steve Medeiros were in attendance to present the Assessors budget for FY17. It is level with an increase for employee retirement. They are thinking of combining the Assistant Assessor position and the Office Manager position when the retirement occurs. They also presented an article for the Annual Town Meeting for $40k for reval work necessary for the state. The state is in today for the first round of investigation for setting the tax rate. This was held up because of the change of Assistant Assessor from employee to contractor.

Personnel: The FY17 budget is $290 which covers dues to MMPA and some office supplies.

Moderator: The FY17 budget is level and the Moderator has not received a salary yet this year and has not asked for any expense reimbursements in years.

BOS: The only increase in the budget is for the new website and travel.

Legal: The legal budget for FY17 is decreased from FY16 due to less lawsuits being filed and old lawsuits coming to an end.

ConCom: The FY17 budget differs greatly between what was submitted to what TK is suggesting due to wanting to actually name the wetland fund as a funding source for the budgets. Concom shows only the general fund budget and the rest being out of the revolving account. BM asked about the electric car and why the travel for the Concom agent is so high. TK was going to analyze and report back. The Fincom would also like more clarification on actual expenses since not all are in the general fund. Also questions arose as to why the agent is not using the electric car.

Town Farm: BB read a great narrative from Geraldine Milham. The budget is small and we receive over $10k in rent.

FinCom: The budget is level with the bulk being salary for the secretary and printing of the town meeting warrants. There are no more stipends in the budget.

Town Hall/Annex: The big change in the budget is the moving of professional services back to personnel services.

Property Ins: The FY17 budget has a slight increase due to increase in rates. Most of the budget is spent in the first month due to discounts for paying upfront.

Town Reports: The budget is $200 to print the handful of reports asked for otherwise it is online now.

Adjournment and next meeting: There being no further business to come before this meeting, a motion to adjourn the meeting at 8:05 p.m. was made by TP and seconded by BB and the vote in favor was unanimous. The next regularly scheduled meeting will be on February 23rd at 7 p.m. at the Westport Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Nicole Botelho, Recording Clerk