BOARD OF FINANCE
SPECIAL MEETING
APRIL 2, 2019
Page 1 of 4
DRAFT
Attendance: Chairman
John Grabowski, Sally Hauser, Katie Erickson, Sharon Huxley, Betsy Thornquist
Visitors: First
Selectwoman Derrylyn Gorski, Sheila Lane, Roderick White, Fran Doba, Clark
Hurlburt
Chairman Grabowski called the meeting of the Board of
Finance to order at 7:06 p.m. The
meeting was held in the Selectmen’s Conference Room of the Bethany Town Hall.
BUDGET 2019-20
The Board reviewed each line item of the budget with Sheila
and noted a few changes from the last presentation. Workmen’s Compensation Insurance was reduced
by 10% because of a good record.
Liability insurance remained flat.
The Board wanted to add a comment to the Land Use line (377)
to clarify the salary increase for Land Use Administrative Assistant.
The Board questioned how many Town Hall Computers would be
replaced? There will be twenty-six new
replacements.
The Board determined that $100,000 would be put into the
Land Acquisition Fund for fiscal year 2019-20.
Chairman Grabowski reports that Amity Regional has a surplus
of $292,599 at this time for fiscal year 2018-19. Unlike other years when the surplus was
returned to the Towns proportionately, they may use it for repairs before the
end of the fiscal year.
CAPITAL EXPENDITURES PLAN
Items listed on the 2019-20 request list are the 6 yard dump
truck with plow, pumper/rescue truck, generator for Town Hall, repair to the
Annex, wheel chair ramp repair at Town Hall, Alarm Monitoring & Hardware
upgrades at school, generator for Town Hall and repaving of the Town Hall and
School parking areas.
The Board discussed the bond issue for road repair. The pros and cons of putting the paving of
Town Hall and School parking areas in the bond issue or taking it out of the
General Fund balance was discussed. No
decision was made at this time.
ANNEX REPAIR
Roderick White was present to answer questions about the
Annex repair and generator for Town Hall.
Rod feels that $20,000 would put the annex in useable condition for Park
and Recreation’s use for this summer.
PCB removal in the windows will cost approximately $10,000. If the building was to be torn down, PCB
removal would have to be done anyway for the environment. It was suggested that the Public Hearing
address the matter with regards to total renovation which would cost about
$235,000 to $250,000. The complete
renovation would include putting in handy-capped bathrooms. Since
the building could be used for programs for camp this summer with minimal
changes, a motion was moved by Sharon Huxley to authorize taking $10, 120 from
Contingency Fund toward this project. Betsy
Thornquist seconded the motion. The vote
taken was unanimous
LETTER TO THE
BOARD FROM FIRST SELECTWOMAN GORSKI
The following
letter was discussed by the Board members:
.
36.9- Current mill rate
36.4- Use fund balance to reduce mill rate by .5, balance
the budget and pave parking lots out of Capital Fund- fund balance reduced to
15.34%
35.9- Use fund balance to reduce mill rate and balance the
budget, but put paving of parking lots in the road bond.
Current(36.9)____36.4_______ 35.9___
1. Ranch, 1680 sq.
ft.- 3 Bedrooms, 2½ Baths on 1.5 acres.
Appraised value: $299,309/Assessed value: $209,520 $ 7,731 $ 7,627 $
7,522
2. Colonial, 3164 sq. ft.- 4
Bedrooms, 3 Baths on 2.5 acres.
Appraised value: $441,597/Assessed value: $309,120 $11,407 $11,255 $11,097
3. Colonial, 4176 sq. ft.- 4
Bedrooms, 3½ Baths on 2.2 acres. Appraised value: $554,414/Assessed value:
$388,090 $14,321 $14,126 $13,932
4. Cape, 4460 sq. ft.- 4 Bedrooms, 4 Baths on 2.85 acres. Appraised value:
$620,339/Assessed value: $434,240
$16,023 $15,806 $15,589
MEMO
April 2, 2019
To: Chairman John Grabowski and members of
the Board of Finance
From: Derrylyn Gorski, First Selectman
Re: FY 2019-2020 Budget
Finance Manager
Sheila Lane has provided the BOF with the budget scenarios as requested- using
the fund balance to balance the FY 19-20 Budget and using the fund balance to
balance the FY 19-20 Budget AND to pave the BCS and Town Hall parking lots,
bringing the fund balance to 18.66% and 16.49% respectively.
As I said at your
meeting last week, I believe we should use the fund balance to reduce the mill
rate. When we decided to keep the fund
balance higher than our Financial Policy of 10%-14% the Boards of Selectmen and
Finance did that jointly because of the uncertainty of then Gov. Malloy’s
proposal to pass Teachers Retirement System (TRS) liabilities as well as normal
costs to the municipalities. His
proposal would have billed Bethany $774,000 to fund TRS. That threat no longer exists.
Gov. Lamont’s
original proposal was for municipalities to pay 25% of the pension costs for
current teachers earning the state median teacher salary of approximately
$77,000. Bethany’s teachers earn
approximately $75,000. That impact to Bethany would have been $42,000 in FY20
and $87,000 in FY21- a far cry from Gov. Malloy’s $774,000.
That proposal was
amended in Committee and there is no longer a proposal to pass on the TRS to
the municipalities.
With the parking
lots’ paving costs in the road bond, reducing the mill rate by 1 mill- from
36.9 mills to 35.9 mills would leave the fund balance at 16.3%, still higher
than our policy.
Adding the parking
lots paving costs as a capital item paid out of the fund balance, you could
still reduce the mill rate by .5mill- from 36.9 to 36.4 leaving a fund balance
of 15.34%.
Adding the parking
lots paving costs as a capital item paid out of the fund balance, you could
still reduce the mill rate by .5mill- from 36.9 to 36.4 leaving a fund balance
of 15.34%.
BUDGET RECOMMENDATION FOR THE BUDGET HEARING
The Board of Finance
modified a few budget line items. Sally Huyser then moved to approve the
Expenditure side of the budget at $24,005,828 and the Revenue side of the
budget at $23,772,531. Betsy Thornquist
seconded the motion. The vote taken was
unanimous.
SCHOOL AND TOWN HALL PAVING
The Board discussed
paving of the School and Town Hall parking lots in this fiscal year, by taking
the funding from the General Fund rather than including it in the Road Bond
project, since the balance in the General Fund is 20.4% of budget. It is estimated that the total cost for the
project would be $446,540,000. At the
conclusion of discussion Sharon Huxley moved to transfer $447,000 from the
General Fund to the Capital Expenditure Fund so that paving could begin before
the end of the fiscal year. The motion
was seconded by Sally Huyser. The vote
taken was unanimous.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Chairman Grabowski
called for a motion of approval for the minutes of March 26, 2019. The motion of approval was moved by Sharon
Huxley and seconded by Sally Huyser.
Sharon Huxley then modified the minutes as follows:
It was the consensus of the Board of Finance
that the salary for the possible extra teacher, that may be needed for next
year at the Community School, if the enrollment increases much more, should be
put in the Contingency Fund so that the bottom line of the Elementary School
budget does not increase if it is not needed.
The amended minutes
were then accepted on a vote of three yes votes and two abstentions those of
Betsy Thornquist and Katie Erickson.
FINANCE DIRECTOR
Sheila Lane spoke to
the Board regarding the financial package she has chosen for the bookkeeping
system. The package will cost approximately
$20,785 for the software. There is
$7,406 in the Capital
Fund toward this
purchase. The Town would need to
appropriate $14,000 to make this purchase possible. Betsy Thornquist moved to take $14,000 out of
the Contingency Fund to purchase a financial computer package for the Town. The motion was seconded by Katie
Erickson. The vote taken was unanimous.
OLD SCHOOL HOUSE REPAIRS
The Old School House
is needing some repair. The estimated
cost of repair is $6,000. This request
was submitted by the Elementary School as a Capital Expenditure for next fiscal
year. The request is under $10,000, which usually is the cutting off line to be
classified as a Capital project.
Following discussion Sally Huyser moved a motion to take $6,000 from the
Contingency Fund during this fiscal year to repair the Old School House. Sharon Huxley seconded he motion. The vote taken was unanimous.
ADJOURNMENT
Adjournment was
called at 9:00 p.m. after a motion was moved by Sally Huyser and seconded by
Betsy Thornquist. The vote taken was
unanimous.
Respectfully
submitted,
June
G. Riley
Clerk,
Board of Finance
