Select Board work session 9/4 and future meetings

The Budget Director, Mr Iacaponi, updated the Select Board on the status of departmental turn backs from FY08. I want to first caution that the state DOR has not certified these numbers and there may be some change after the DOR review. However, the final results should be close to these amounts. The total amount of the unspent funds from FY08 will be in the neighborhood of $1.9 million. The breakdown of which accounts those funds were ...

... received from is:

Health Insurance - $521K primarily due to a large number of employees choosing PPO and HMO plans over more expensive plans

Unemployment benefits- $178K there were fewer claims against the town than anticipated.

Police Department- $148K

DPW Highway Department - $127K Some positions were eliminated in this department

DPW Construction Department- $125K due to ability to charge expense and manpower to Chapter 90 projects

DPW Engineering- $74K Due to charges from this department to enterprise and Chapter 90 projects

School Department - $300K This is a Reserve Fund transfer from July that was unspent and returned to the town.

Future meetings
The Select Board agreed to meet at 5:30PM on Monday, 9-8, for a work session to discuss and vote on personnel issues. This session will precede our public meeting at 6:30PM. Mr. Iacaponi will present the FY08 turn backs along with the projected FY09 and future budget adjustments. One item of note is that the current year and future year revenue projections have been revised downward at the behest of the state DOR.
Some Select Board members will attend the Finance Committee meeting on Thursday, 9-11 at 7PM where Mr. Iacaponi will present the town's financials to that committee.

The Select Board will meet for a workshop session on September 18 at 4PM to discuss and update the Policies and Objectives document that was developed in 9/07. I find this document woefully inadequate as a planning document as it is basically a list of possible cost cutting measures. In my view, what is lacking is a statement of what the ultimate goal is. I will propose that the goal we are seeking is for the town to have a budget which is sustainable as soon as possible. As I have framed it before, the rate of growth of expenditures must be reconciled with the rate of growth of revenue. Beyond tasking the town administrators with that charge, I think the role of the board is to provide policy direction in the form of which departmental budgets have priority over others.