Minutes: Finance Committee Meeting -- Thursday, May 16, 2002
Attending: Susan Brooks, Paul Giese, Mary Cancian, Pat Phillips, Al Schmerzler, Robert Steinbrook
1. A Reserve Fund Transfer (RFT) of $8000 was approved for unforeseen costs associated with a required though pro forma assessment (during cell tower installation) of possible fuel release at DPW site. Reserve Fund Balance after deducting $8K = $174K. Future possible RFT requests are Unempl. Ins ($7.5K), additional Legal expenditure ($20K) and possible Public Safety requirements during 02 ($40K). These will be investigated, refined and discussed at the next meeting.
Action: Updated RFT requests and explanations
Resp: Susan and Paul
Date: June 25
2. Reviewed an approach for the Finance Committee which would provide due caution and broader boards and town approval to affect (and hopefully to retard) large legal expenditures by various boards. Al Schmerzler will write a first draft for review and adjustments by Committee.
Action: Draft of process for reviewing potential, large legal expenditures before incurring cost
Resp: Al, then Susan and Paul, then Committee
Date: June 25
3. Discussed the initial results of the Budget Process Meeting of Town Boards on May 8. FinCom inputs included:
Starting the process with better (a) background data and (b) comparative town statistics. Mary Cancian will talk to Gary Taylor and Paul Marsh and make some suggestions at next meeting.
Action: (a) Suggest types of background data that could be useful e.g. localized CPI, state budget
trends, enrollment forecasts, etc. and (b) list interesting comparative statistics across comparable towns that might be helpful, e.g. expenditures per person/student, major operating budget breakdowns, expenditure trends, etc. which might be useful to initiate and carry through the budgeting process.
Resp: Mary
Date: June 25
Guidelines established and communicated to the boards. The FinCom s policy for next year is for initial budgets to be “revenue driven,” i.e. limited by funds available rather than driven by needs. Guidelines derived from FinCom revenue projections would create a Baseline (no override) Budget. Next, negotiations and board-wide discussion would result in an Adjusted (override) Budget with FinCom approval. Additional requests by individual boards could be pursued in town meeting, but will not have FinCom blessing. Mary Cancian will draft some wording re these guidelines, which eventually will be provided to the boards. This would be helpful to have before the Budget Process follow-up meeting of June 13.
Action: budgeting process guidelines statement
Resp: Mary
Date: June 13
Better and continuous communications to the town. After some discussion, communications was determined to be primarily from the FinCom to the boards and public on what s happening to the budget, in the process and why. Mary Cancian to initiate a list of possible topics for future consideration.
Action: List of budget process topics for articles, public meetings and website broadcasting
Resp: Mary
Date: June 25
5. Pat Phillips reported on the K-8 Task Force (TF). The TF is finalizing a survey which will be used to collect data from comparable towns to enable meaningful comparisons with Lincoln s K-8 figures. The TF meets every Tuesday @ 7:30PM and the meetings are open to all. The FinCom will closely monitor the TF efforts and results and Susan and Paul (and anyone else interested) will periodically attend the meetings with Pat.
The meeting was adjourned. The next scheduled meeting will be Tuesday, June 25.
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