March 22, 2016 Minutes

Meeting date:

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Westport Finance Committee (Fincom)

Meeting Minutes

Westport Town Hall

March 22, 2016

Present: Shana Shufelt (SS), Dick Brewer (DB), Gary Carreiro (GC), Charles “Buzzy” Baron (BB), Hugh Morton (HM), Bob McCarthy (BM), Mark Carney (MC)

Absent: Tracy Priestner (TP), Karen Powell (KP)

Attending: Terry Provencal (TA)

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

Minutes: Tabled til next meeting in order to get started on budget hearings

Reports:

Administrator: None

School Building: None

Accountant: None

Liaison:

FY17 Budgets:

Board of Health: John Colletti, Chair of the BOH, Karl Santos and Jim Walsh, Senior Health Agent, were in attendance to present the budget. They went over a brief overview of the submitted narrative. They have over 50 restaurants that the part time agent is in charge of not counting seasonal establishments. They now only cover animals if there are rabies involved. The FY17 request was $269,110 and the BOS approved $268,454. The small change is in the number of days for hourly employees from 262 to 261.

Transfer Station: John Colletti, Chair of the BOH, Karl Santos and Jim Walsh, Senior Health Agent, were in attendance to present the budget. They went over a brief overview of the submitted narrative. Approximately 1/3 of all households in Westport use the Transfer Station. The FY17 request was $241,852 and the BOS approved $230,500. The decrease is because of a 2-yr contract to set lower tipping fees. Jim stated that the Transfer Station is running more smoothly by separating the recyclables and getting the maximum price for them. The Landfill was closed in 1998 and we have to monitor it for 30 years. There is an article for $15k to transfer from receipts reserved to cover these costs but John said that we could forgo this since he feels there is enough left in a previous article to cover FY17 since the costs have gone down. Article 6 is to revoke the previous vote to make the Transfer Station an Enterprise Fund. Pass or fail of this article will have a direct effect on Article 7 and 21. If it passes, the budget will need to be included in Article 7 and if it fails, the budget is included in Article 21. The consensus is that nothing will be gained by making the Transfer Station an Enterprise Fund. This subject will be revisited at a later date after some analysis by BB.

Cemetery: Andrew Motta, Foreman, was in attendance to present the FY17 budget. There is an increase in the budget for purchases of grave boxes which he chronicled in his presentation. There are 36 cemeteries that fall under perpetual care with 2 main ones and the one at the point. He detailed his plan for seasonal perpetual care help to cover the 20 weeks allowed by law for seasonal employees except that his season for perpetual care is 29 weeks. He also explained a new venture in stocking grave boxes to make the job more streamlined.

Highway: Chris Gonsalves, Surveyor, and Apryl Oliveira, Clerk, were in present to discuss the FY17 budget. Chris wants to higher a foreman but his budget was cut by that amount. He also has two seasonal workers. Otherwise, his budget is level. There is a request on the Town meeting warrant for a roof, possibly funded by Chapter 90 and a truck to upgrade his aging fleet.

Snow & Ice: Chris Gonsalves, Surveyor, and Apryl Oliveira, Clerk, were in present to discuss the FY17 budget. The BOS has increased this budget to $125k to try to come up with a more reasonable amount of expense and less deficit spending each year. They have already been approved for $100k of deficit spending this year bringing FY16 total to $175k hoping there are no more storms this year. The $100k is scheduled to be taken from an existing article for Injured on Duty that is not being used.

Reserve Fund Transfer:

Carol Borden, Tax Collecotr, has made two requests from the Reserve Fund. The first is in the amount of $2,195 to pay postage for the excise tax bills because the vendor made an error which resulted in higher postage costs. Much discussion ensued that the vendor should have been responsible for the extra postage since it was their error. DB motioned and GC seconded to approve the transfer. The vote was 5-2 in opposition of the transfer, therefore no transfer was made. The second was for $3,105 to cover additional payroll for the full-time clerk and seasonal help and any additional overtime also for the extra mailing of real estate tax bills. HM motioned and BM seconded to approve the transfer. The vote was unanimous in favor.

Adjournment and next meeting: There being no further business to come before this meeting, a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:25 p.m. was made by GC and seconded by DB and the vote in favor was unanimous. The next regularly scheduled meeting will be on March 29th at 7 p.m. at the Westport Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Nicole Botelho, Recording Clerk