Finance Committee Meeting Minutes
Buckland Finance Committee Minutes
March 2, 2020
Meeting called to order at the Buckland Town Library, Buckland MA, 7 p.m.
Committee members present: Karen Blom, Ciara Hayden, Larry Langford, Raymond Lanza-Weil, Paula Consolo. Ben Murray arrives at 7:07 p.m.
Others: Town Administrator Heather Butler arrives at 7:07 p.m.
Karen moves to accept the minutes from Feb. 17; Raymond seconds. Unanimously accepted.
Karen moves to accept the minutes from Feb. 26 joint meeting with the selectboard; Larry seconds. Unanimously accepted.
Ben and Heather arrive.
Philosophical discussion on the levy limit and whether or not the committee should push the budget to the limit by putting more dollars in stabilization rather than “leaving some dollars on the table” to keep the tax rate slightly lower.
Budget discussion, line by line
Line 18: Administrators Expense is doubled so that Heather has enough money for incidentals. Heather explains that this line item has been underfunded in the past.
Line 22: Treasure/Collector expense is up 40%. Committee needs to see a revised Treasurer/Collector budget showing FY20 appropriated numbers rather than FY20 requested numbers. We’d like to see the difference between what was appropriated last year and what is being requested this year. Heather will make this request. Meanwhile, this number was dropped to $13,210 as a placeholder until we get the new info from the Treasurer/Collector.
FRCOG: Heather will find out why the accountant is up 16%. We’d like to know what the COLA is for their employees. What percentage increase will they receive?
Line 41: Town Hall Communications is up 41% and we’d like to know why?
Line 50: Town Clerk salary is down because the new person will not get longevity or a COLA on the current salary.
Line 57: Auditor is down because 3 consecutive audits were done, and now we are back to every other year. This will be $8,000 per year, but we have a balance in that account and need only $3,000 this year.
Line 77: Animal Control Expense is down because it is now billed to our FRCOG expense; however, it is not zero because FRCOG does not do wild animals.
Line 80: Tree Warden Expense is down to keep the number closer to the actual spending. Over-budgeted in the past.
Line 104: Landfill monitoring is up $5,000 because we are still working on fixing the cap, which was damaged by the mowing.
Line 106: Block Grant Expense is down because this was one of the items voted on at Town Meeting last year but not fully funded. Dollars have accrued in this, so Heather feels she doesn’t need more here at this time.
Line 119: Senior Center budget was up due in part to increase of health insurance. Director is leaving but the health insurance increase will stay, so the budget stays up.
Line 128: Buckland Library is up just 1.4% but service budget is down. Considering the increase to Arms Library, Paula would like the committee to consider level-funding this budget, which would add just a little over $400. To be discussed at the next meeting.
Line 148: No increase in health insurance! Big plus.
Decided to put $30,000 in general stabilization, which brings us to just $17,000 under the levy on our Revenue/Expense report.
No meeting next Monday, March 9.
Next meeting is Monday, March 16, at Buckland Town Hall.
Raymond leaves at 9:12 p.m.
Meeting is adjourned at 9:13 p.m.
Respectfully submitted by Paula Consolo
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Karen Blom