02/15/2024 FINANCE COMMITTEE Minutes

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Finance Committee Minutes February 15, 2024 County Retirement increased by 13.1%. Mr. Collins stated that this number will go down as there is an early st payment reduction and the Town always pays it by July 1. He went on to state that the current recommended budget includes reclassification of 2 part-time positions to full-time and also adding full-time employees in the DPW and the Police Department. He said that these positions should satisfy all mission critical needs to maintain department operations except for the Wastewater Department which will be a separate item unto itself once the Town is operational. Mr. Collins stated that he has met with the School Department and adjustments are still being considered. He said that he feels comfortable in saying, after meeting with the Finance Team, that they will not be looking for an override for FY25 but he does not see any way possible not to be seeing one in FY26 when the Town gets to the point of Wastewater being online and to maintain the services that we have now. The Capital Improvement Program Committee is recommending $7,600,634 for FY25 which is reduced from the original request of $9,457,840. This reduction includes an outstanding matter involving window security film at the schools. There is a concern that the film has a detrimental impact on radio communications and a test is th expected to take place on February 20 once they have the results they will be meeting with CIP and go from there. Mr. McKelvey inquired as to how they were able to achieve a $1.6m reduction in the Operating Budget. Dawn Thayer responded that there were several Departments that they made adjustments in. One being, they had a couple of retirements and also have some upcoming retirements of top stepped employees. They will be replaced with lower stepped employees creating a savings in some of the salaries. She reported that there was a $232,000 reduction in Health Insurance due to a change in the number of enrollees. The original estimated increase was 10% and it came in at 8%. Unemployment claims decreased by $20,000. Insurance premiums were reduced by $159,000 based on more accurate figures. The Temporary Interest is being reduced by about $75,000 after the Treasurer fine-tuned it. And, a large portion of the proposed reductions are the recommended School reductions. Mr. Collins said that a large portion is the Sewer Project. The Town is saving $400,000 by budgeting for a half year versus an entire year. He reminded the Committee that this is a temporary budget decrease. When asked if the Wastewater Department will continue to oversee Wastewater Operations, Mr. Collins responded that his anticipated plan is that the Superintendent will continue to oversee contracted services and will have an assistant. Mr. McKelvey asked Mr. Collins to give a breakdown of CIP. Mr. Collins said that out of DPW there is $703,127 all coming from Capital Stabilization. The Transfer Station, $26,000 coming from a DEP Grand and Capital Stabilization. Fire Department, $615,000 from ambulance receipts and Capital Stabilization. IT, $100,000 all from MCAT Funds. DNR, $338,007 Capital Stabilization. Planning and Construction, $5,300,500 of which $100,000 for the School window film, $47,500 for flooring replacement, $25,000 for Security Camera/DVR replacement, $128,000 for fire alarm system upgrades, $70,000 DNR Shellfish Propagation upgrades is all coming from Capital Stabilization. Additionally, $$80,000 for a DPW masonry wall restoration is coming from re-authorized existing funds, $2,700,000 for the PD station 2