Notes provided by: Colleen Kirby

Notes from Budget and Revenue Task Force Meeting of 3/15/2004 6pm
2nd floor Hearing Room Town Hall

these are not official minutes

Attendees (partial list as I did not recognize several participants and there weren't introductions): Kevin Greeley, Jack Hurd, Kathleen Dias, Diane Mahon, Charlie Lyons, Suzanne Owayda, Rob Adelson, Marie Krepelka, John Maher, Nancy Galkowski, Brian Sullivan, Charlie Foskett, Al Tosti and I think 2 others from Fin Com. and maybe a couple of others plus many interested members of the public (and Roberto from the Advocate)

Basically Al Tosti presented a detailed look at the budget from the Finance Committee with many portions already approved by departments dated 14-Mar-04 (sorry I don't have a scanner). This was not a work done solely by the Fin Com but includes input from various departments. This budget does not include any health care givebacks but does include 3% raises for all employees although union negotiations are not completed. The bottom line is that we are looking at a $3.8M deficit.

Charlie Lyons pointed out that state monies we are receiving are the exact same dollar figure as we got last year and they are not returning any of the $3.2M we lost from the state two years ago. He also pointed out that as raises are a $3.6M item including all employees (I wasn't certain if he meant both FY04 and FY05 raises or just FY05 raises) that if we gave no raises we would have a balanced budget. Al Tosti agreed on the figures used in this discussion. Charlie also opined that the idea of allowing the unions to join together for coalition bargaining would be foolhardy as then 70% of employees would have to agree to any changes. He also pointed out that only 2-3 communities in the state do this.

• It was discussed that there are a few different ways to solve our $3.8M budget deficit (listed in no particular order):
• budget cuts in services (which mainly would mean loss of employees
• budget cuts by not giving raises and/or changing employee benefits (depends on contract negotiations which is not something the BoS is responsible for as I understand it-although as there are a couple of mediation sessions coming up in the next few weeks maybe there will be some sense on whether negotiations are close to being settled)
• trash fee
• override
• more use of reserves (there is a home rule petition asking for be able to use insurance fund money for other purposes; there may be a way to use more from the stabilization fund; maybe we could use some more from free cash)
  Many if not all of these remedies will be discussed at the next BRTF meeting in two weeks on March 29th.

Al Tosti said the Finance Committee would like feedback and recommendations and that they need a several year plan.

Someone said we may have no money for raises but our employees deserve a raise. Some one else said that we could maybe implement a trash user fee but if we don't make sure that employee benefits plus raises are no higher every year than the maximum of $2M in new revenue we generate each year then we will be seeing deficits every year. And this would not be fiscally prudent.

The idea of taking a pension fund holiday for a year was brought up but Charlie Foskett said this was not a good idea since the deadline for the pension fund wasn't extended, so you'd end up paying in quicker the following year which wouldn't help us out at all. Charlie Lyons did ask again about the possibility of extending our deadline for fully funding the pension fund out closer to the maximum deadline of 2028 if the retirement board will allow it.

Charlie Lyons said we are in a zero sum financial situation. Kevin Greeley said it's unrealistic not to offer pay raises. Suzanne Owayda pointed out that last year the school system had to reduce many of its services (and increased user fees) and yet our trash services haven't declined, we still have unlimited trash pickup without any user fees.

These are my notes, taken to best of my ability and are no way official minutes or notes of any of the boards or individuals sited in my report. If I got anything wrong please let me know and I'll fix them.

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