Notes provided by: Colleen Kirby Cho

Budget and Revenue Task Force notes. These are not official minutes and are just what I understood from attending the meeting. I am responsible for any and all misunderstandings.

Budget and Revenue Task Force 6-7pm, 2nd floor Town Hall

Jack Hurd, Kevin Greeley, Diane Mahon, Rep. Anne Paulsen, Annie La Court, Jeff Thielman, Nate Levinson, Dave Adelson, Sue Sheffler, Sean Garballey, Al Tosti, Charlie Foskett, Brian Greeley, Nancy Galkowski, Brian Sullivan, Marie Krepelka, John Maher and several interested residents

1. Brian Sullivan presented a spread sheet with a long-range forecast for where Arlington's finances are headed out to the year 2011. I did not see a copy of this spreadsheet although I am sure it will be posted on the town website. The good news: this is great that the town is thinking 6 years out! We are in the black all the way out to 2011 using the assumptions given. Mr. Sullivan says we will need to be creative and cautious to make sure the reality is as positive, ie we are not "flush", this is a tight budget. It is assumed a 7% increase in State Aid for 2007 and 5% thereafter because it is thought State Revenues are going up. (I'm not sure this conservative enough given what we've seen over the past several years) The other assumption is that we will keep our growth/costs to 4% and our benefit costs at 7% as that is what was promised the taxpayers, however it is not clear the economy will aid in this (energy costs are a concern right now, health care costs still seem to be increasing across the country)

   Most of the Board of Selectmen and Superintendent Nate Levinson stated that they would keep to these 4% and 7% limits as that is part of the 5 year plan and indicated they would be thinking creatively. Selectwoman Diane Mahon thought the 7% limit should be looked at as a goal rather than a promise. This discussion was not completed.

2. Brian Sullivan also mentioned a report recently done by the MMA? that says that state funds to municipalities needs to be more stable and predictable and that mandates need to be addressed. He says this will be getting serious consideration this year at the state level.
3. Superintendent Nate Levenson thought the 4% and 7% promises were doable and reasonable, that they would be difficult to achieve but manageable and they seemed prudent. He and Supt. Levenson, Jeff Theilman, Rob Addelson, Suzanne Owayda, and AEA reps, Dave Blakely and Jack Duranceau attending a 2 day workshop this summer about interest based bargaining. According to Suzanne Owayda "it was a good chance for the negotiating teams to spend time together and hear at the same time a different way to negotiate contracts - I think we all look forward to putting the strategies we learned into practice." They have come up with an idea to keep health care costs affordable while ensuring quality health care. The proposal is to form a research team that will include representatives from all interested parties in town, plus an independent mediator and a health care expert, to do joint fact-finding to look at alternatives and tradeoffs in different policies so that all parties have the same information. This will be formally discussed with the various parties this month with the goal that the fact-finding process can start at the end of October. (This new approach is likely to benefit the town and its employees so I do applaud this effort.)
4. Rep. Anne Paulsen expressed concern about Additional Assistance funds from the State (which includes around $7M in needed funds for Arlington). She said it is our responsibility to keep our schools funded.
5. Kevin Greeley and committee have been looking into ways to restructure Town Government. There was some concern that his heading up this committee may be a conflict of interest. John Maher said there is a statute which states that as some of the committee members could be directly effected by restructuring that there is a conflict of interest for these members (although probably not for Kevin himself-depending on how the term "immediate family members" is interpreted) but that the BRTF could grant a waiver and still have these members serve if it was thought that the conflict was not egregious. In any case, Kevin decided to resign as chair of this committee and pass on the work they did to a new committee that volunteered to look at these recommendations: Al Tosti, Sue Sheffler and Annie LaCourt. Annie LaCourt expressed concern that we need more citizen involvement in this process. This will be discussed more at the next meeting.
6. The next meeting will be soon--not sure of the date.

Any and all corrections welcome. Colleen Kirby

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