Shutesbury Finance Committee
Minutes from 4/1/2003 meeting at Town Hall
APPROVED MINUTES
Present: Chair Eric Stocker, members Al Beswick, Nancy Beswick, Narda Wakoluk, and Steve Hasbrouck (recording minutes). Also attending at various times were Patrick Callahan, David Ames, Joe Jacobs, Ralph Armstrong, Leslie Bracebridge, Walter Tibbetts, Gus Sayer, Marianne Jorgensen, and Becky Torres.
We started the meeting at 7:05 PM.
We reviewed the agenda for the evening. Gus Sayer, superintendent of the Amherst Schools, would be arriving at 8:30 to explain the Regional School budget. There is an idea afloat to put a pyramid of overrides to the town. One would fund the full 19% increase we have in our regional assessment, one would fund half that. We want to hear from Gus Sayer what his fallback plan is if his budget doesn’t get approved by at least three of the four towns. We also noted Walter Tibbetts, the fire chief, was coming in at 8:00. We signed the letter to the citizens explaining the severity of the fiscal situation facing the state and, therefore, the town.
The minutes of the 3/18 meeting were approved with one amendment.
David Ames said negotiations with the elementary school teachers could be characterized as proceeding at a snail’s pace. Everyone seems to be waiting to hear what the budget numbers proposed by the legislature will be.
There is a meeting on April 9th with other small towns to discuss the Regional School’s budget. Pelham, in particular, feels they cannot afford their assessment and are looking for other towns, particularly Shutesbury, to help join them in voting down the budget as proposed. We will be meeting April 8th with the School Committee to review their elementary budget which they will finalize on the 9th. We have sent a letter to the School Committee asking them to cut $100,000 from their budget compared to last year’s number.
We then spent time going over the warrants and deciding our position. We started at Article 17, and recommended the following articles;
-Article 17, standard language involving accepting and spending the Chapter 90 money;
-Article 18, accepting the Capital Planning five-year plan and providing funds for the FY 2004 portion;
-Article19, putting $30,000 in the Fin. Comm. Reserve Fund EXPLICITLY for Elementary School Out-of-District placement Special Ed. costs;
-Article 21, necessary to set up an override vote;
-Article 22, necessary to pass the budget;
-Article 23, necessary to pay our town officials;
-Articles 24, 25, and 25A (on our copies), involving language concerning tax abate-ments;and
-Article 28, authorizing the revolving funds.
We had a long discussion on Article 27, an article about leaving the Franklin County Cooperative Inspection Program (FCCIP). We talked about the cost savings vs. hiring someone to be our building inspector on a part-time basis. Since we couldn’t reach consensus, we withheld stating a position at this time. At 8:10, Walter Tibbetts showed up.
Walter said he could cut some money from the Shutesbury Fire Department budget. He proceeded to explain to us how he could save a total of $1,215 from the Equipment, Expense, and Fuel line items. He then told us that he wants to go for a FEMA grant that would enable him to swap the chassis on the rescue vehicle for a sturdier one and use the current chassis for a brush vehicle. The town would need to put up 10% of the cost of the project. If we get the grant, it would cover the other 90%. He is meeting with a representative that could help him get an estimate on the cost of the project. Walter roughly estimates the total cost at about $80,000. The grant application is due April 11th. We told him we support the project and the 10% required of the town would be part of the Capital Planning money. We thanked Walter for his help in cutting his budget.
Gus Sayer and Marianne Jorgensen arrived at 8:30. Gus said the Region has already cut $1,000,000 from the initial budget which results in a budget .3% higher than last year. The only increases are in SPED, the raises teachers are owed contractually, and the utilities. They have already cut out 34 positions. If the regional towns did not vote the budget and asked for another $1,000,000 in cuts, Gus said he would have to lay off another 30 teachers and we couldn’t run the school at this level. Class sizes would rise to 27 per class (figuring off the top of his head). There was talk about the Ed Reform act, the way assessments were calculated, how transportation costs and vocational costs might end up going back to the towns to pay on their own, and the original regional agreement between the four towns. It was a pretty depressing picture being painted. He acknowledged having assessments increase from a low of 19% to a high of 47% is difficult for the towns. He hopes the budget passes. Gus left at 9:30.
We then talked about the April 9th meeting and what we wanted to say to the other towns. We seemed to lean towards proposing just one override to Shutesbury for the full amount needed to fund the regional budget. Nancy thought a pyramid override, one for the full amount, one for half, was a good idea. She didn’t feel comfortable going to the April 9th meeting and telling Pelham that was what we were going to do no matter what they said. We said we would go to the meeting and listen to what others have to say. We have not made a final decision about the override issue yet.
We set up the schedule for the April 8th meeting. We will see Tim Hunting at 7:00, Charlie Bray at 7:30, and the School Committee at 8:00. We still want to go over the proposed budget line by line. We will try to do that at the April 8th meeting, time permitting. If all goes well, our last meeting before Town Meeting will be on April 15th. We voted to adjourn at 10:25.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve Hasbrouck