Westport News

Present:    Lisa Arnold (LA), Bob McCarthy (BM), Warren Messier (WM), Tony Vieira (TV), Hugh Morton (HM), Tracy Priestner (TP), Jack Baughan (JB)
Absent:    Chuck Goldberg (CG), John Miller (JM)

1.     LA, Chair, opened the meeting at 7:00 pm with the traditional salute to the flag.

2.    Thank You Letters:
JB and LA read the letters to the committee.  TV made a motion to send the letters of thanks to Jane Loos and Paul Schmid with changes.  HM seconded the motion and all were in favor.

3.     Financial Update from BOS:
Mike Coughlin was in attendance to present the financial update from the BOS.  He said that they remain optimistic.  He said that FY09 was in good shape to date with departments watching their spending.  The hiring freeze is in place with two departments looking for dispensation.  The BOS formalized their negotiating teams.  He said that he would be in attendance at the blackboard in April with proposed cuts from the BOS.  He said there were three serious financial issues.  (1) Workforce-trying to avoid layoffs by not adding payroll.
(2) Other staffing models such as shared staff and consolidating departments.
(3) Employees’ vision of more to come.
One big problem is that Town Meeting can override the recommendations of the Fincom.

4.    Budget Hearings:
a.    Landfill/Transfer Station:    Dr. John Colletti and Sean Leach, Board of Health, was in attendance and presented the proposed FY10 budget for the Landfill/Transfer Station.  Dr. Colletti started by saying that the bottom has dropped out of the market for recyclables and that they were going to have to start paying to get rid of recyclables but it looks like the market is changing and that may not happen.  They spoke of the audit done by Roselli, Clark & Associates.  Fincom said they didn’t have a copy and Mr. Leach said they would get a copy to the Fincom.  They also said they don’t agree with raising fees because they feel they would lose people.  They also said that the landfill monitoring would be decreased from 4 times a year to once a year.  There is also a possibility of a 16% increase in tipping fees for FY10.

b.    Board of Health:        Dr. John Colletti and Sean Leach, Board of Health, was in attendance and presented the proposed FY10 budget for the Board of Health.  The Fincom was looking for actual figures for comparison.  Mr. Leach thought those figures was on the budgets submitted, but they weren’t.  The Fincom asked if they would be willing to come back with the figures.  They said they would if necessary.

c.    Nursing Department:        Dr. John Colletti and Sean Leach, Board of Health, was in attendance and presented the proposed FY10 budget for the Nursing Department.  The committee questioned if the state requires us to have a Town nurse.  

d.    Library:    Sue Branco, Librarian, was in attendance and presented the proposed FY10 budget for the Library.  She started by saying the small revenue was generated from fees, materials lost, overdue books, lost library cards, etc.  State aid was around $17,000.00.  This was only distributed as long as you met the state mandated amounts.  This was detailed in a handout from Sue.  (See attached.)  Sue stated that right now we are in full compliance with the state mandates so we receive the full aid.  They participate in a group-purchasing program, which is statewide, that keeps costs low.  They have a contingency fund in place for construction overages.  They also have many trust funds that help with some of the purchasing of books and supplies for the library, which keeps the town contribution low.

6.    Other:    
LA distributed an updated schedule of hearings going forward.  She did mention this was subject to change since some departments weren’t confirmed yet.

Adjournment and next meeting:  There being no further business to come before this meeting, WM moved and BM seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:35pm.  The vote in favor was unanimous.   The next meeting will be March 10th at 6:30 pm.
                            

Respectfully submitted,
Nicole Botelho, Recording Secretary