Personal contracts with the town

At Monday's Select Board meeting, the chairman of the Personnel Board noted that there is no benefit to the town to having personal contracts with so many employees. I agree. The problem now is that there is no administrative framework to provide an alternative at this time. Our personnel bylaws do not have a salary scale for the employees now with contracts and the bylaws contain benefits which the Personnel Board does not favor. As I noted at the meeting, there are ..........

........6 contracts which have already lapsed including that of the Police Chief. The Chief is one of the handful of employees who are allowed by statute to have multi-year contracts. Four additional employees have contracts which expire at the end of this fiscal year, June 30. I think the Select Board has the duty to take up these contracts now that we have heard from the Personnel Board. Until we have a bylaw change to set up the proper administrative framework, the Select Board should offer single year contracts to those with lapsed contracts (except the Police Chief). The terms will have to be negotiated but I would include the Personnel Board recommendation of no Cost of Living Adjustment, merit based increase, and transitioning to Paid Time Off rather than sick leave and personal days. This last may be problematic because we have to decide how to deal with the accumulated sick time that employees are carrying forward now. Still, I feel the Select Board must deal with the matter soon in fairness to the affected employees. We have heard from the Personnel Board. It is time to act on the lapsed contracts. The Select Board also needs to get moving on a Personnel Bylaw revision to provide the needed framework to eliminate these contracts except as allowed by law.
Click here to read on!

Select Board working session April 30th

The Select Board will have a working session tomorrow, April 29th at 4PM in Room 301 of the Town Hall. Click here to read on!

Select Board meeting tonight, April 28

There is a Select Board meeting tonight at 6:30 PM in Room 304 of the Town Hall. Link to the agenda here. The Personnel Board will be presenting an update. The DPW will present information on recycling and the Pay As You Throw program. The Privatization Task Force will .....

.....have a update on their preliminary findings. Our Grant Program Manager will present regarding the use of CPC funding for Administration of Housing Rehabilitation Program.
Other items are appointment of Mr. Whalley to the Housing Authority following the resignation of Ms Tetrault, consideration of various licenses, and approval of road blockages for utility work.
Click here to read on!

Select Board working session

Several items of note from the Select Board working sessions from the past weeks.

The Select Board voted to transfer responsibility and funding for the traffic supervisors, whoo direct traffic at the schools, to the School Committee. This transfer will allow the town to avoid paying $20,000 in unemployment benefits to these employees during periods when the schools are not in session. The Police Department will continue to supervise and train the supervisors and will cover some of the related expenses, such as clothing allowances.

Many town employees have been selecting an HMO plan rather than the full Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan which has resulted in savings on the town's health care access health care providers in RI as well as Massachusetts. This was not possible under the old HMO and was a roadblock to some selecting the plan.spending. The town has arranged to go with HMO Blue NE which allows the employees to......
......access health care providers in RI as well as Massachusetts. This was not possible under the old HMO and was a roadblock to some selecting the plan.

Since the town has established a Solid Waste enterprise fund, the DPW was forwarded bills for trash removal to the schools and municipal buildings.

The South Dartmouth Firefighters Association is soliciting donations for a Labor Day fireworks display at Round Hill. The goal is $20,000. Send donations to:
South Dartmouth Firefighters Association
Fire District No. 1
PO Box 87056
S. Dartmouth, MA 02748
Contact John Foster or Peter Andrade @ 508-990-1786 for further information.

Ms. Doreen Tetrault has resigned from the Dartmouth Housing Authority and the Authority has asked for an interim appointment of Mr. Wayne Whalley to take her seat.

The town has been approached by developers for the moribund Lincoln Park development about building apartments on the site for UMass Dartmouth students.
Click here to read on!

Override bonanza!

Those who have been reading here know that I have maintained that override passage or not, some changes have to be made in our town. See my posts here or here, for example. Now that a few of the override questions passed, some town departments are ready to spend the whole amount next year. This is a horrible idea in my opinion and I will not support it as a Select Board member. I would like to see the town cut the rate of growth of expenditure by 1% this year and next. That would address our so-called structural deficit. Note that I am talking about the rate of growth being cut, not the absolute number of the appropriations. Even a 1% cut in the rate of growth of spending represents a 4% increase in spending. As is often the case when government spending is the topic, "cuts" are actually reductions in the increases.
Having been ready to lay off virtually the entire workforce in the Highway Department, the DPW now can't find a single person who is not indispensable. The school department is talking up the idea of getting Town Meeting to float a bond to pay for their textbooks. (Who pays the principal and interest on the note? The taxpayers!)The Library Board of Trustees has gone one better and has decided to spend the override funds that they feel are their due before a budget is approved or ......
...... the funds appropriated! The Library Trustees have taken it upon themselves to contract with the Library Director for a 3% pay increase for the year as well as a Cost of Living adjustment. I am sure we will hear about that 3% increase from every other employee whose contract is up and the bargaining units as well. Not a great way to start when you are looking for concessions from employees. The Library Trustees are also counting chickens before they have hatched. Their letter to the Select Board indicates that they are going to fill 3 "vacancies" before July 1, 2008. They just can't wait to get the budget approved or the money appropriated.
My view is that there are no vacancies in any town department. Every new employee is just that, new. New salary, new benefit cost, new pension liabilities. Apparently some town departments have no thought of how they will fund these increases next year. Another override? I won't be voting to put it on the ballot!
The taxpayers have done their part and voted to pay more taxes than the automatic 2-1/2% that they are faced with every year. It is time for the town departments to pony up something as well. Everyone is going to have to share in the sacrifices, employees and taxpayers, schools and town. If we have one department or the other going off on their own and making plans to spend at the expense of other departments, we will have a mess. That's not fair and I will use my vote on the Select Board to oppose such plans. We need to cut the rate of growth of expenditures to a sustainable level. That means departments are going to get less than their budget requests. That's what I am looking to accomplish on the Select Board. What do you think? Respond in comments below.
Click here to read on!

Select Board working session today, April 25

There is a working session of the Select Board today at 3PM in Room 301 of the Town Hall. The COA and library departments will be there to talk about the FY09 budget. I may not be able to attend since I am not sure I can get off work.

I have been quite busy this week and have not had time to post much. I will get back to posting more this week. Update on last week's working session will be posted tomorrow.
Click here to read on!

Select Board working session-Friday

There is a Select Board working session on Friday at 3PM in Room 301 of the Town Hall.
The agenda is a meeting with the Board of Public Works and then the Police Chief on the FY09 budget and future plans. There will also be an executive session of the Board to discuss ongoing litigation. Click here to read on!

Budget Priority worksheet

A word about what this spreadsheet shows. This second sheet has rankings of 11, 21-24, 31-34, 41-44. We will seek to reduce spending with all those rankings with 4 in the ones place first, regardless of the number in the tens place. For example a 34 for the DPW Engineering will be looked at first, just like the 44 assigned to the Town Agent. Since both end with a 4 they are the first areas where we will seek to reduce. For information about the numbers in the tens place, see this post.

The remainder of the list is below


I apologize for the poor quality but I have yet to figure out how to import portions of spreadsheets to the postings.
Click here to read on!

Select Board prioritzation list

I'm having trouble formatting the spreadsheet. It's late and I have to be up early so here is what you get for tonight. I'll figure it out and clean it up tomorrow

Mandated Expenses :Amount: Priority :
Accountant Overhead ($101,799.00) 2
Ambulance ($293,000.00) 2
Annual Audit ($31,000.00) 1
Banking Services ($20,000.00) 2
Bristol Aggie ($12,000.00) 1
Census Expense ($3,372.00) 1
Colectors Overhead ($81,563.20) 2
Collectors bond ($2,875.00) 1
Collectors Lease ($14,394.00) 2
Communications ($110,000.00) 2
Computer Maintenance Contracts ($130,000.00) 2
Computer Services Overhead ($141,058.40) 2
DPW Admin ($260,478.00) 4
DPW Engineering ($241,740.00) 4
DPW-Construction Division ($362,516.00) 4
Election Expense ($38,100.00) 1
GNBVTHS ($2,068,055.00) 1
Group Health Ins ($5,122,965.00) 1
Interest & Debt ($5,744,829.00) 1
Liability Insurance ($781,880.00) 1
Library Override ( Operating ) > $89,874.00 3
Pensions & Retirement ($3,380,224.00) 1
Police Department - Expenses ($663,235.00) 2
Police Department - Salary ($4,514,459.00) 2
Police off. Medical ($750,000.00) 1
Police Override ( 7 Officers ) $520,160.00 3
Refuse District ($144,761.00) 2
Reserve Fund ($600,000.00) 4
School Appropriation ($33,011,574.00) 1
Snow & Ice ($45,000.00) 2
Street Lights ($135,000.00) 3
Tax Title ($30,000.00) 1
Traffic Lights ($24,000.00) 2
Treasurer bond ($875.00) 1
Treasurer Overhead ($232,178.00) 2
Unemployment/Medicare ($688,225.00) 1
Utilities Reserve ($150,000.00) 1
Veterans ($237,133.00) 1
Workers Comp ($521,620.00) 1
Total Mandates > ($60,044,874.60)
UPDATE The last number in each line is the mandate class that I talked about in this post This number (1-4) does not reflect importance but rather why these funds are mandated Click here to read on!

Select Board working meeting notes

The Select Board had a working session this afternoon. The first item discussed was not on the agenda but Mr. Jim Collins was nominated by Mr. Carney to be the interim Veteran's Agent when our current agent, Shawn Goldstein, takes a new job with the VA. Mr. Collins had previously been the Veteran's Agent and will fill in until a new agent is hired. Mr. Collins has declined taking the position full time. The Select Board approved his appointment unanimously. He will be paid at the current agent's hourly rate for the time being. I spoke with Mr Silvia, who is on the Veteran's Advisory Board, this evening. He said they will take up the matter of a replacement at their next meeting.
Then on to the agenda which was the Fiscal Year 09 (FY09) budget. The Select Board (SB) members at the Finance Committee meeting last Thursday wanted to meet and prioritize the budget before discussing it with the Finance Committee. Here is the method we used to do so. There are 3 sheets to the worksheet we used. The first is for mandated costs and makes up over 80% of the budget. We, the SB, agreed to this nomenclature for the mandate classes. If you would like a copy of the spreadsheet, send me an email to pokanoketlax@hotmail.com and I will email it back to you. I haven't figured out how to post it here yet. If you know how I can do it, tell me on comments or at the email above.

At the FinCom, we agreed to a classification method as follows for these mandates.
Mandate Classes
1- Required by law
2-Required by operational needs of town
3-Override earmark
4-Required by policy decision of SB
As an example, the Bristol Aggie spending is required, so it gets a 1, Accountant overhead is required to operate town departments, so it is assigned a 2, the library override amount is earmarked and gets a 3, and police salaries are mandated by Select Board decision, assign that a 4.

We first reviewed these mandate classes and agreed after a few changes on all.

The second sheet shows the budget broken down by department roughly equivalent to Schedule A that is presented to Town Meeting. The first digit corresponds to the mandate class from the first page. If the category had components of two or more mandate class, the mandate class assigned is the lowest. For example, the town accountant has statutory mandates(1), override mandates (3), and Select Board discretionary spending (4), so it is assigned the lowest mandate class of the three (4) as a first digit.
The second digit is the ranking that you would assign as a priority to that item within it’s mandate class. (1 being the highest and 4 being the lowest) As an example, if the spending is included in an override earmark and you feel it has high priority, it would be assigned a 3 as a first digit (override earmark mandate class) and a 1 for a second digit. The ranking is entered as 31.

The third sheet is miscellaneous items and follows the same methodology as the second page

We were going through that exercise when it became clear that we would have to talk about why we were doing the classification. The override question which passed was presented to the voters as level service funding the town for a single year. Another question would have provided added funds for future years beyond FY09. That question failed. Some felt the voters expected no cuts and others felt that the town would not approve another override for FY10 unless the SB took action to reduce spending this year. After discussion, it was agreed that opportunities to cut spending would be taken despite any representation before the vote. The SB proceeded to set priorities for each item. I will post those here soon.
We also decided that the target for reduction in the budget was 1% of spending or about $680,000. As is often the case when talking about reductions in spending by government(town, state or federal), we are not talking about actual reductions in the dollars spent but reduction in the increases proposed. The "reduction" target is 1% of the 5% increase, actually a 4% increase in dollars spent. This represents about half of the disparity between the rate of growth of expenditures (5%) and the rate of growth of revenue(3%). I think it is a good start.
Some of the departments which may see reductions in their requests are governed by separate boards and committees. We agreed to ask them to meet with the SB in the next couple weeks to discuss how to go about these reductions. Among those who will be asked to meet are the Library Trustees, the DPW board, the Police Chief, and the Council on Ageing. Click here to read on!

Select Board meeting Monday, April 14th

The Select Board will have a working session meeting on Monday, April 14th at 3 PM in Room 301 of Town Hall. The agenda is the FY09 budget. The meeting is open to the public. Click here to read on!

Finance Committee meeting

The Select Board and Finance Committee met jointly on Thursday with an agenda of prioritizing the FY09 budget spending. The meeting started with a discussion of the method to use to assign a priority. After some discussion, a method was adopted and agreed to by the participants. The majority of the Select Board felt that their board should take a first crack at setting the priorities and then bring it to the Finance Committee for discussion. So that item was tabled and discussion moved on to capital expenditure items.
Again the library roof was the main topic. All agreed that the roof was a top item since leakage can cause damage to the structure underneath the membrane. The Budget Director indicated that the town has some bonding capacity and may be able to do the roof without increasing the current bond expense. All agreed that was worth pursuing. The discussion turned to town vehicles for police and inspectors. A suggestion was made that these one time purchases be made using monies returned at the end of FY08 by the departments, certified as free cash, which could be appropriated at the Fall Town Meeting. I like the idea of using one time revenue for one time purchases.
There was also discussion about using the utility reserve account for energy conservation projects such as new air handler motors at the town hall. Another idea that I think has merit nad should be explored further. Click here to read on!

Veteran's agent leaving

Dartmouth's Veteran's agent, Shawn Goldstein, has found employment with the VA in Providence and will be leaving our town employment soon. Some have suggested that this service is one that could be shared between towns. You can find the laws about Veteran's agent here. I think that Westport has a vacancy in their Veteran's agent position. What do you think about that?
Good luck to Shawn in his future endeavor. He worked hard and expanded the reach of our program significantly. Click here to read on!

Fire District costs

At the last Select Board working session on Friday, April 4, we discussed charging Dartmouth's Fire Districts for some of the services the town currently provides at no charge. These include dispatch costs and assessing and collecting the fire district levies. The Prudential Committees from the districts will be invited to discuss this with the Select Board. Since the fire districts will probably raise their levy (your property tax)to cover these costs, the result is a tax hike for property owners. How do you feel about charging the districts for these services? It will provide revenue to the town but at the cost of higher fire district levies. There has been no discussion, of which I am aware, of the cost to the districts (or the revenue generated). Leave your thoughts in comments below. Click here to read on!

Finance Committee agenda and vacancy

Here is the agenda for the Finance Committee meeting on
Thursday, April 10, 7PM.
The meeting will be at Town Hall, Room 315, not the old Town Hall on Russell's Mills Road. The Select Board will be in attendance as well.

FINANCE COMMITTEE AGENDA 4/10/08

7:00 PM Pledge of Allegiance
7:05 PM Long-range Sustainable Plan Discussion with Select Board to include the following topics:
-Budget Prioritization
-Capital Improvement Plan
-Policy Concerning Future Use of Targeted Overrides
- Contract Steps and Budget Implications of Personnel Issues
9:00 PM Adjourn
Schedule A will be available.

Curt Brown has posted news of an opening on the Finance Committee when the terms of three members expire at the end of Town Meeting in June. Stewart Washburn, a long time member (12 years I think), will not seek reappointment. Send a letter and resume to the Town Meeting moderator, Steve Sharek, if you are interested in serving on the Finance Committee. Click here for a description of the role of the Finance Committee.
Here is the address:
Mr. Steve Sharek
25 Ricketson St.
Dartmouth, Ma 02747 Click here to read on!

First Select Board meeting

I attended my first meetings as a Selectman yesterday. Agenda here.

At a workshop session, the Director of Budget and Finance passed out a draft budget for FY09 that reflected the override amounts passed during the April 1 election. I am still reviewing the numbers. For those who have been following closely, the revision 7 budget is the one that we looked at. There have been a couple revisions after 7 but this one was closest to the override result and was the one passed out.

The Select Board also discussed what to do about capital improvements since that question failed in the election. Of particular concern is the library roof. Also needed are new police cruisers and cars for building inspectors. Since some past debts are nearing the end of our payment, there may be some opportunity to borrow and get these items done within the budget.
Another item discussed was the hiring of a labor negotiator for upcoming union contracts. The Board decided to proceed with further interviews and will schedule perspective firms or individuals to meet with the Board soon.

The public meeting went quickly. Joe Michaud was nominated and unanimously approved as chairman. Bob Carney will continue as vice chair. Two residential wind turbines were approved in the Select Board's capacity as a special permitting authority for those devices. There were no really substantive issues before the Board and we concluded our business. A request for No Parking signs on Andersen Way was tabled until the Board reviews a plan for the area in question.

I have been contacted by several citizens who have asked if we can get the community together and help to clean, paint and otherwise improve the appearance at some of our schools. While I have yet to broach this with the superintendent and school committee, I think it is an excellent idea and one which builds our sense of community while helping provide a better environment for the children. I have some work to do before this comes to fruition but will stay engaged in the effort going forward. Click here to read on!

Pictures on the header

I change the pictures at the header occasionally and have featured Syracuse lacrosse and some interesting planes. This weekend Cornell and Harvard played at Gillette Stadium and the pictures from Lax.com were fantastic. This one I liked because I always tell my youth players to focus on the ball carrier's bottom hand.
Our youth program had their first games of the year yesterday and it was a good day of lacrosse despite the cool temperatures and wind. The girl's teams won their games and the boy's teams lost. But everyone had fun and learned something more about the game.
Special thanks to Joe Vieira and his wife and those who set up the concession stand. Hot food and hot drinks were much appreciated yesterday. Click here to read on!

Select Board agenda for April 7

Checked the town website and the agenda for the Monday Select Board meeting has not been posted, so here it is.
There will be a working session on the FY 09 budget at 4:30PM. This is open to the public

5:30 PM EXECUTIVE Session
6:30 PM Commence Public meeting, Pledge of Allegiance, Moment of Silence, Signing of Warrrant
Reorganization of the Board
Appointments
6:30PM Application for Stackhouse Club for a Special One Day, all alcohol license, for June 13, June 28, and July 11-13
6:35PM Hearing-Petition by NStar for 3 pole locations
6:40PM Discussion with Selctman Carney on Friends of the Dartmouth Veterans
6:45PM Appointment with Round the Bend farm for approval of a 10KW wind turbine
7:00PM Appointment with Mr Newell Thomas for approval of a 10KW wind turbine
New Business
A.Petition by NStar to disturb and obstruct 1178 & 1180 Tucker Road
B.Renewal for Dockside Ice Cram for a common victualers license
C.Letter of Resignation for Beverly Quintin on the COA board
D. Memo from David Hickox, DPW, on status of FY08 Recycling and Solid Waste Tonnage in New Bedford and Dartmouth
E.News article on closing telecom tax loophole
F. Letter from Officer Vieira on posting "No Parking" signs on Andersen Way
G.Letter from Mass DOT regarding highway sweeping
H.Appointment of SRPEDD and JTPG representatives for Dartmouth

Question or comments? Let me know in the comments below. Click here to read on!

Select Board meeting schedule

The Select Board budget working session for this afternoon at 3PM has been canceled. The Select Board will meet for a working session before the Monday meeting. That will start at 4:30PM, Monday April 7th. Click here to read on!

How to set our priorities?

I have advocated that we set our town's spending priorities from highest to lowest, spend on the highest and hold steady, reduce or eliminate the lowest. That brings us to the practical side of the question. How to determine what those priorities are? I have to admit that I was surprised that the town voted to provide additional funds to the library. That indicates that they felt it had a higher priority than I would have assigned. One way for me to find out what people feel are a priority is for you to comment here and tell me. I will try in the next few days and weeks to post on the budgets of each department and I ask for your input. I am talking about the genral government departments and not the schools. Please feel free to comment on the schools here but that discussion is really for the School Committee. I have posted here about how the town budget is prepared and enacted and here about how it is done for the schools.
For information on how our tax levy and tax rate are related, split tax rates, overrides and capital exclusions see this post.
The work going forward is going to be difficult and contentious. Let's try to keep the discussion to the financial situation and leave aside the personal. According to the latest projection from the Finance Committee. our FY 10 shortfall will be about $1.3 million. If we can reduce expenses by $650,000 this year in FY09 and carry that forward to FY10, we may not need another override for FY10. That's our goal as I see it. Leave your take in comments. Click here to read on!

Meeting schedule

The Finance Committee will meet tonight, April 3, at 7PM at the old Town Hall on Russell's Mills Road. Here is the agenda for that meeting.

7:00 PM Pledge of Allegiance
7:05 PM Planning Board Articles
7:45 PM -Revision of Schedule to Town Meeting
-Discussion of Possible Public Hearing
-Discussion of Joint Select Board/FinCom Budget Priority Meeting
8:15 PM Implications of Override on Budget – Where do we go from here?
-Implications of Capital Improvement question failing
-Library Roof
-Sustainable budget
9:00 PM Adjourn

There will be a working session of the Select Board at the Town Hall on Slocum Road at 3:10PM Friday afternoon, April 4

The Agenda is the FY09 budget. Click here to read on!

Thank you! I am humbled

I want to thank those who helped me run for Select Board. You know who you are. I will be contacting you personally to say, thanks. To the voters of Dartmouth who supported my successful run for the Select Board, thank you for your vote. I am humbled by your confidence in me and I will do all that I can to live up to your expectations.
I have said here that we have difficult work ahead of us. I hope that our community can set aside our past differences and come together in co-operation and compromise to move our town forward to a brighter future. If we embrace our common interests and join together, we can overcome our present troubles and become a stronger, better community. Thanks again. Click here to read on!

Need transportation to vote?

If you need transportation to the polls, call 774-274-7738 and I'll see if I can arrange it. If you would like to hold a sign for me at a polling place, call that number too. Thanks to all the great people who helped me and supported me along the way to this election day. Click here to read on!