HomeMy Public PortalAbout20090406 - Appropriations Committee - Meeting MinutesTown of Hopkinton Appropriation Committee (AC)
Minutes of Meeting on Monday April 6, 2009 Town Hall, Lower Level, Main St., Hopkinton, MA
In attendance:
Stuart Cowart Ron Eldridge Mary Lou Haroian
Joe Karner
Joe Lavin
Heidi Kriger Clayton Carlisle
Chairman Karner called the meeting to order at 6:35 pm.
Ron moved and Joe seconded a motion to accept the minutes of our 3/31 meeting. The motion passed unanimously.
In order to begin discussion of the FY 2010 budget, Ron moved and Stuart seconded a motion to
approve the budget as written in the Town Meeting handbook dated 3/31/2009 3:15 pm for $59,737,728.66. The motion was tabled.
Heidi noted that in a weekly meeting with representatives from the School Committee (SC), the
Board of Selectmen (BOS), the Appropriation Committee, and the Town Manager, Geoff
McDonald, Director of Finance for the Hopkinton School System, stated that all federal stimulus dollars would be going directly to the School Department, rather than flowing through the General Fund. As a result of this, Heidi drafted a letter to the SC informing them that the
appropriation for the School Department in the recently published Town Meeting Booklet would
be reduced by the amount of the stimulus dollars and by the $7,000 in savings realized as a result
of granting 1 ½% raises to all of the non-union personnel in the School Department. Joe reported on a recent meeting with Clayton, Heidi, Maureen Dwinnell, Dr. Duffy and Mary
Rose DeGroot concerning the appropriate accounting treatment of the $1 million of free cash
certified at the end of FY 2008. Clayton recommends that $250K of this money be transferred
into the stabilization fund, leaving the remainder to offset any tax increase necessitated by budget shortfalls that may present themselves at the Special Town Meeting in the fall. Clayton recommends this approach because of the uncertainty surrounding a number of budgeted
amounts, including 1. the state cherry sheet, 2. details of the federal stimulus dollars, 3.
proposed meals tax revenues, 4. disputed Telco monies, 5. savings realized as a result of
various recently instituted cost saving measures and 6. the amount of certified free cash at the end of FY 2009. All of the aforementioned uncertainties should be resolved before the fall STM is convened. Members of the AC questioned the recommended dollar amount of the transfer to
the stabilization fund, and suggested perhaps increasing it to $500 or $600K. The AC requested
that Chairman Karner discuss the treatment of free cash with Clayton in an effort to determine
his reasoning for his proposed allocation.
Clayton reported a reduction of approximately $300k in the originally quoted amount for health
insurance from Harvard Pilgrim for FY 2010. When confronted with the Town’s interest in moving its insurance to the West Suburban Health Consortium, Harvard reconsidered and ultimately reduced its quote for covering the cost of health insurance for the Town.
In response to the AC’s request at our last meeting, Heidi distributed revised copies of the Town
Meeting Booklet that were amended to include a column calculating the difference between the FY 2009 appropriated amounts and the FY 2010 recommended amounts, with a brief explanation of significant differences. Heidi also distributed an overall analysis of the differences between
the FY 2009 and FY 2010 budgets.
Clayton presented a request to transfer $20,000 from the reserve fund to legal expense to cover the cost of legal bills in hand for the months of January and February. The legal account is currently depleted. Clayton noted that there will be more legal expense incurred in the remaining
4 months of the year, but that a good portion of those bills will be allocated to various warrant
articles and thus funded by those articles. Clayton indicated that there is likely to be another
request to transfer money from the reserve fund to the legal expense account before the fiscal year is over. The Committee asked about the adequacy of the controls surrounding legal expenses, and was assured by Clayton that procedures are in place to monitor and control these
expenses on a timely basis. BOS Chairman Brian Herr noted that one reason for the overrun in
the legal expense line item was the significant expense incurred when the previous Town
Manager was asked to resign. Stuart moved and Ron seconded a motion to transfer $20,000 from the reserve fund account (line
0115) to the legal expense account (line # 0010). The motion passed unanimously.
Chairman Karner discussed the timing of visits from article sponsors and voting on articles. Joe will be asking article sponsors to appear at our next two meetings.
Ron moved and Stuart seconded a motion to adjourn at 9:05 pm