 |
Minutes - July 11.2002
Finance Committee
Present: Susan Brooks, Paul Giese, Mary Cancian, John Robinson (late), Al Schmerzler (late) and Pat Phillipps; absent: Robert Steinbrook. Also present Buckner Creel, ZBA
The FinCom's legal cost containment proposal was reviewed. Buck Creel, for the ZBA, expressed concern that the proposed policy was unnecessary, would be ineffective in curbing legal costs, and might be misunderstood by the general public and potential litigants. He stated that the Planning Board felt the same way, but they were not present. FinCom members responded with assurances that the proposed procedure was intended to provide it with better information so that it could in turn do better planning, particularly in reference to the Reserve Fund. The document is currently being revised for review by the Board of Selectmen, in the expectation that a joint policy will be finalized and implemented by the end of the summer.
Action: Complete the document revisions and get approval of the Board of Selectmen.
Resp: Susan - date: end of July
Susan reviewed the results of the Moderator's Budgeting Process review sessions. Four out of five improvement areas (improved coordination of budget development; providing budgeting context with background and comparative data; early development/ promulgation of Budget Guidelines; and extending forecasting into multiple year planning) are the principle responsibility of FinCom. The fifth item, articulating a Policy Agenda around which the budget is built (and getting public input), rests mainly with the Board of Selectmen. The committee will advance these initiatives as we're able (Please note summary document in the Moderator's June 28 memo). Pat inquired and Susan confirmed that the conversion of the Matrix used in the review sessions to a training tool has been
undertaken by herself and Bill Lytle with an expected delivery date of this fall.
A new component of the FinCom model, preliminarily called the Funds Available Analysis (FAA), was discussed and projected. When completed, it will be integrated with the existing Revenue, Budget and FreeCash components of the model and will be used in creating the Budget Guidelines. Several specific additions were suggested, e.g. adding NESWC and Minuteman Vo-Tech to the Non-Discretionary Costs and substituting Debt Service for Debt Exclusion expenditures. Based on the FAA, the Budget Guidelines will project permissible growth (or reduction) rates, by percentage, over the next three fiscal years for each of the budgeting agencies. These projections will form the basis upon which budgeting agencies will need to create their No Override Baseline budgets for FY04.
This fall's budgeting process, and negotiations about the size and composition of a possible Override, will proceed from this baseline. The preliminary June 25 Budget Guidelines will be re-drafted to reflect these points, taking care to specify which elements are considered Non-Discretionary costs.
Action: Complete the FAA component of the FinCom model; revise and send Budget Guidelines to budgeting agencies.
Resp: Paul and Susan and Tim Higgins - date: ASAP
In the Liaison reports, Pat reported not much result from the K8 Task Force yet, while they struggle with Survey data collection over the summer. JR reported on Tax Relief, describing several possibilities (including “freezing” the assessment of qualified seniors, and some “securitization” variation on this theme) other communities have tried and the importance of Tax Relief in keeping “empty nesters” in town and, ergo, school enrollment and future taxes down. We concluded that while more meaningful Tax Relief is an appropriate concern for the Finance Committee, the BoS should probably be in the driver s seat. JR will discuss possible approaches to the topic and leadership responsibilities with Gary Taylor. Al reported in
regards to the LS Building project that legislation extending the permissible bridge loan period an additional two years has been adopted; the SBAB will not, however, reimburse interest payments during the additional two years. The usefulness of appointing a FinCom liaison to MMA was discussed and it was agreed that it should be tried temporarily to find out how helpful it could be; JR agreed to serve, with Al as back-up. The Suburban Coalition was another group suggested for investigation.
The meeting was adjourned. The next meeting date was changed to Wednesday, July 31.
| |