Board of Finance

001forget you're batting over 400 don't change good evening everyone today is Wednesday April 10th 2019 I call this regular meeting of the Board of Finance to order if everyone could join me for the pledge okay as per usual on our regular meetings we have public comment do we have any members of the public that would like to give comment yes ma'am name and address for the record please and rank was there anyone else besides betsy McIlvain one to seven Long Meadow Hill Road I'm also chairman of the library board which is why I'm here tonight to reinforce something I said it your public hearing on the budget or which I'm sorry there were not a lot more people from town to come to hear it the library budget proposed this year had some significant additions

002very logical additions to what is in our budget the Social Security for our employees and moving of a $10,000 or small capital item out of your capital budget where it belongs into our operating budget that increased our budget by fifty six thousand dollars in order to I think make the optics of that rise in our budget look not quite so bad you eliminated the Board of Selectmen in the Board of Finance both eliminated $41,000 out of the portion of our budget which is not salaries even though you know that you can't specifically target one area but that's where it was I'd like to ask you again to put all if not most of that $41,000 back into our budget it's it's money we would use to heaven forbid get the building cleaned one more day

003a week we have public restrooms that are not cleaned every day and we need better and more cleaning services we need a delivery service to to speed books back and forth between our library and others we simply need a little more money because everybody's cost has gone up so I hope that you can look at least at that part of our budget and return that $41,000 to the budget thank you thank you see no one else will have on a communication of course Honda's receive receive communication from Ron Jaffe enriches Eluga the next item is the approval of the minutes from the previous minute meetings I'd like to make a motion that we approve special meeting minutes from the March 12th 14th 18th 19th and 20th heating's and the regular Board of Finance meeting on

004march 13th well second discussion on the minutes as they've been presented okay hearing none all those in favor of the motion and you gave us a night sir how are you guys okay so first the update Greg Dombrowski gave us an update at the Board of Selectmen meeting on the streetscapes phase one came in under budget and we just applied for the refund from the state from the grant that's moving afford very handily our phase two we're doing this summer and that will go from the funeral home down to the art that also we have the funding for that 75% is a grant we do have an issue with phase two no I'm sorry an issue with phase three which you know we also have a grant for we're gonna use lots of money the

005state is changing their standards on lots of so in the first phase you know we did granite Kirby we did the brick we did the nice light poles some some upgrades and I'm not going crazy to some upgrades to make it look really nice they're saying now they will not pay for allow any of that to be paid for with the grant because quote it's not in your downtown area and my argument is going to be it connects directly to every other phase phase one two and three and it is in our commercial downtown which ares airport with the dry cleaners and the physical therapy place across the street so we're gonna make that argument in talking to West cog it's become evident that a number of towns are having the exact same problem not

006specifically not allowing granite curbs but similar problems where they are trying to cut back on the scope it is imperative that we have one design for our downtown you have to have that homogeneous look otherwise it's gonna look like hell now we're not talking you know millions of dollars here this is a one point 1.3 million dollar project so we're going to fight them if I have to we'll go to the state I talked to uh Susan bison what's this morning on this and if we can't get satisfaction working with Westcott and the lots of people then will escalate it we prefer not to cuz we got to work with these guys all the time and they're usually very good but they have some new management in place and so we need that for both

007antes war two we don't want to lose our entire design so we'll work through that on the school project I was just talking to Colette before the meeting I met with the chairman of the municipal building committee Paul check Oh last week we're in 100% agreement they are going to have to go out to RFP for an architect to meet the state grant requirements and that's okay they can do that and well we are going to be the plan calls for the budget calls for an owners agent which Paul agrees should be hired and we both agree that we're going to have great them bow ski do be the town's clerk of the works just making sure we have all the documentation we need in order to ensure that we can get the reimbursement from

008the state and avoid the problem we had with the high school where 10 years later they're asking for 7 million dollars are we will be burdening Greg with FEMA and with streetscape and with you know FEMA is pretty much our side of FEMA is pretty much winding down we have a meeting tomorrow yeah meeting every two weeks with them um well Greg would tell me Steve I can't think I can't do this and also the school projects is gonna ramp up slowly will be well finished with FEMA before he really gets into doing that so I'm comfortable you know he's got the skill sets and doesn't reach out and it's very detail-oriented and you know he goes through many reads all 400 pages of a grant which is not easy to do so we'll do

009that on FEMA we're again progressing slowly FEMA moves at the speed of FEMA the one difference now and I think I may have mentioned this to you guys before is you know we had 72 different fire companies come and respond to help broke feel that they originally told us we could not apply for any reimbursement for any of those because we didn't have a mutual aid agreement with each of those 72 towns okay they've changed their mind and we can apply for the use of the trucks and the personnel that could be upwards of $300,000 but the problem is we have to get each of those companies to give us all the details who came when they came which equipment came now most of them know it they know the equipment and the people but

010they may be a little soft on what times like that so the fire companies that are going out and talking to them to see if we can get that information from them and anything we can get is gravy for us doesn't go to them know what my suggestion would be no it comes to the town of Brookfield believe it or not is to make a donation to each of those fire companies in the amount that we receive I think that's that's what mutual aid is supposed to be this is going to be money from this from the federal government and I think the fair thing to do is to send that money through those guys they spent a lot of money some of them came 100 miles 72 different towns responded there's only two different

011companies probably 65 times so I think that's the thing to do so there were three divided by 72 I'm sorry no it would do it based on how many hours they were there so someone with us for two days some will leave us for 12 hours some did very so but we'll know that once they send that to us as you know the teachers pension is out officially yeah pretty much no they come until the legislature closes down it's never completely official but we think we're 99% sure they're not going to put in it I mean they will not I think it'll come back up I wouldn't be surprised if we see her in the next few years and I think it's inevitable so we should plan for that and just on the town side

012at the behest of Brookfield cares and Robin Montgomery we're going to put in place the process of putting in an ordinance to outlaw of vaping sales of vaping equipment on years of age these 18 year olds are - the use of vaping honey Ridgefield just had to put in vaping detectors in their high school it's rampant and it's growing and from what I've read vaping is much more addictive much more quickly than smoking so our I know the state is looking at this but in case the state does nothing I don't want this stuff sold allow the sale of this stuff and book deal to people under 21 you get that break you know not many seventeen year olds know a 21 year old who's gonna buy them vaping equipment so we think it might

013be a small stake in the ground to help address this problem because it's Collette it's like 40% of kids in high school of tried vaping something like that it's a huge number where and it's yeah it's even the 12 the middle schools and I was at a drug symposium this morning with Robyn Montgomery over at what's gone and they had a great speaker the first speaker and he got up and he said if you start smoking right or using marijuana in middle school you have three times the chance of becoming addicted to other drugs in your adult oh then someone who was 21 and started smoking or smoking marijuana so catching him early and stopping it early it makes a huge difference because their minds are not fully developed and it creates a dependency so

014there's lots of interesting stuff on that and that's it for me questions comments concerns repressed like first any update on the destruction of the building in four corners some yes the Board of Selectmen did agree to extend by six months they start date for Brookfield village to start right we did not make any other changes to the agreement our thinking was that if you know book millage into town entered into agreement about five years ago four and a half five years ago that was agreed upon after a couple years of negotiation and they called for them to build two buildings three storeys with commercial on the first floor now they want to change that they wanted to go to one building and we said no they wanted to take put Apartments on the ground floor

015and that doesn't even meet our zoning and I don't think zoning would pass on it but my opinion and I think the whole board's opinion is while we understand that Brookfield Village has constraints and problems and issues you entered into an agreement fully aware of everything that was going on bro feel nothing new has happened on Brookfield side that would that we would say okay you can't do it so we're gonna ask Brookfield Village to hold to their agreement with the exception of giving him an additional six months and we also that's conditioned upon then taking those two buildings sounds subway in the mother earth so if hope he was gonna be done last November right right they asked me well we'll do it when we start construction on the new buildings I said that's

016not acceptable I want those building sounds if they don't I'm gonna take him before the blight panel I want those buildings now we all want those buildings and they just look like hell in my opinion on the dry cleaners and Station Road is there any further no we're gonna think we have them before the blight Committee the lawyer for the lawyer for the owner has requested a hearing and we have no problem if he comes in but he was they were supposed to by ordinance requested here within 30 days of them being cited they came to us like 65 days later so our goal is we'll work with you if you'll work with us but they don't seem to be doing anything so we're continuing the process on the blight and the ordinance and the

017fines we also have a question into the state Mirman we have the grant to do the remediation studying on 20 station and we said to them there's money left over we'd like to knock these buildings down they said no we prefer that you test surrounding wells which we did for everyone who was interested in doing that and there is still money left in the original grant so I'm going to the state and ask them can we use that towards knocking these builders down the problem with these buildings we believe there's asbestos and there's also dangerous chemicals so knocking these buildings down it's not a 5,000 dollar job where you get a backhoe in and just knock the building down you have to remediate you have so it's gonna be expensive to do a proper what's

018the final conclusion of a blight citation where the owner absolutely does not cooperate can you seize the building eventually whoa no what we can do is we put a lien on their property and when the property is sold then we can collect our lien we did that with one property about four months ago that had liens going full I mean white pines going back for eighteen months and we got a check from the mortgage company for $35,000 when they sold the property the blight panel is working really well we have at least six or seven properties that are getting cleaned up one is on whiskey near Road if you drive down with skinny road you can see the difference this gentleman's you bought the property he's cleaning it up we're not finding him if you

019do what we ask you and clean up your progress our goal is not to make money our goal is to get these properties clean up so it's it's a it's a process of John and it takes months and I understand people get upset when they you know send in a letter saying this is blighted but you have to give people an opportunity to respond to remediate the situation and if they're working with us we'll work with them and give them some time up that with the subway mother property that they'd at least agreed to maintain the land yeah good enough okay moving on to the report of our finance director all right that just going through the get that on the screen but going through the revenue and that the expenditures the on the revenue

020who we are still cleaning that up we haven't had time to and to work on that but this is where we stand on the government grants a friend from the state there have been no changes since September 19th estimate of the final numbers that were on target with receiving everything that we should except for we didn't get the second payment of town aid Road that was due in January they just had a meeting last week that a review with the new governor the bonding for that was delayed so they the state had a meeting last week it was approved we should see in the next few weeks that the other money that we're expecting education cost-sharing the last 50% that comes in April on April 30th is when they send it the a low sip

021we've applied for the reimbursement for the low sip we have a hundred and twenty three thousand in our budget we had some extra money from a prior year were expecting to get a hundred and ninety four thousand dollars on that that and then the grants for municipal projects they did clarify that that comes in June and it's estimated June 30th so that is on target with respect to the expenses that right now we think that we're going to be right on target there's no revenues that are supposed to be significantly over or significantly under that we can at this time we've collected 98.4% of our revenues the expenditures we've got a more detailed projection that you received from Ginny or Virginia Center to Sean and Sean sent it to the others that so we're expecting

022to come in where we budgeted that we've had one additional appropriation for in July for metal poles for for the lights we've got budget concerns that were currently addressing we've mentioned conversion costs that as we've gone through that we've had a lot of attorney fees and we're actually meeting separately on that this week to talk about what the costs are how we're going to contain them going forward do we need them all just to make sure that we all understand what the costs are on the conversion that some of the things and Steve might be able to talk more to this yeah when we did the conversion you know we thought that we would have our attorney review them the MassMutual documentation right and then we move the assets over but it turns out with

023each union there are different things in each of their contracts that area from the other unions and we're trying to get to one pension plan for everybody so our attorneys had to look at every single one of those agreements and then make adjustments within the agreements we have in place with mass mutual it's been a long arduous you can imagine how thick these things are process but I think it's important too since we're making this transition to do it right from the beginning to get everything clean and properly so it's costing us a little more money interestingly enough I read this morning our previous custodian and investment advisors at Wells Fargo just got out of the business they sold their business to principal in Des Moines so let me jump in here this has been

024a crime this is why when we had that meeting I said do we have all the answers are we doing something ahead of time do we have all the costs we got torreón payback sixty-three thousand dollars and now we're sitting there saying it's costing us more money all this shows me as we didn't understand the scope of the work before we jumped we didn't understand what we had to do what the costs were to make a statement for us to approve money we approved money to pay for this we approved X amount of dollars and when you come to us with a project that you say is gonna be X amount of dollars we should have the full scope and we talked about this having full scopes not to come back and say extra money

025cuz we didn't understand what was going on to me makes no sense to me because we should understand when we make this type of change and we said we're gonna make a change here's the benefits it's gonna cost us X amount of dollars we should be sitting here six months later saying oh we didn't understand any of tourney's fees we didn't understand the scope of the work we didn't understand the full project of this cuz that's what happened we had it we disagreed on this point I I see your point the sixty three thousand is a separate subject but the only way we know that we have problems is when the lawyers actually start looking at it we didn't actually realize that these were all different we just didn't I'm sorry I'm not an expert

026on pension contracts right so as soon as we found out now we're telling you we have an issue here thankfully this is a one-time thing Eagle fees legal fees because we have to have all these contracts reviewed agree with you Glen probably we should have we should have if we don't we didn't think this was going to be super expensive go on to our attorney and said hey here's what we're doing what do you estimate the cost will they my guess is so they would have given us an estimate this is less and what we're actually paying because there is significantly more work being done and was originally anticipated so I I agree with what is the true cost then of this the jus cost we have a meeting later this week that where we're

027going to talk about it where we're going to talk about what did we think going into it we've got our back chairmen and the HR director there but it's a lot of money but originally we spoke sixty three thousand dollars that's a number we talked about sixty three thousand dollars that was a fee and not told there would be a pay back within six months because we would that's to make the points in blah blah blah and now we're looking at it's double the cost than what it sounds like more than happen you're mixing up a fee from oil versus leasing of a projects the project the six thousand was simply for a fee from voice though they had nothing to do with legal I agree you know we thought we can fit it within

028our budget but we can't we're gonna be over on that one the original what was it going to the attorneys and asking them to estimate the number of hours involved or was this somehow the possible so that's what we're gonna find out at our meeting that because we're get we have two different parties saying two different things so we're all going to be in the same room to find that out yes yes we're just trying to catch up correct that yep there's no what the estimate is and where it's gonna come from correct so that is our biggest concern in the in the budget that we have parks over time that we're working on trying to narrow that down that when we ask them for estimates we were still in snow season March and then

029the FEMA and karma there's some things that we thought we would have to be paid by FEMA but they can be reimbursed from the insurance so the total is good there's the allocation between the FEMA and the kurma line we've got update where things are posted we've given you a detailed projection of where we think we're going to to land at June 30th you had it in the email receiver so just going through this worksheet that on the left hand side is the budget on the right hand side is the actual that what we've got on the actual is we start with the amount expended to date purchase orders that are outstanding that those are our commitments that that we know about and we've met with every department to try and go through the the

030adjustments we had I thought there might be more but there was one thing that needed to be reclassified to a different account of payable payroll what we found out was our payroll isn't set up appropriately that the way we budget for payroll and the way we have been posting actual in all the years don't match that so that one department might for example there's there's people that are just posted to wrong departments so we've gone through each of the departments that happened in two cases overtime sometimes is being posted to the regular salaries will also make the regular salaries out of line that sometimes that someone if they're an interim which were now in the next year's budget we're calling sporadic we would think we would post them next year to sporadic but this year

031they're posting them to non-union so we're trying to clean all that up so that the actual categories match the budget so that's what the payroll reclassification czar that the projected is what they think they're going to spend to the end of the year and just a little bit of an idea of how we got to that number that whether it was a detailed estimate or whether we just are using that they think they're going to spend at all that which gives us our projected annual if you look at the left-hand side we've got the original appropriation the second column is items that have already been approved to be transferred the column with it says number one on the top of it were within the department that where they're moving an overage maybe in mileage and

032taking it from office supplies that can be approved and was approved by the selectmen the column in number two we did a big payroll analysis that Glenn had initiated the questions for where we saw that some of the numbers in the and the budget didn't tie out to the what they should have at that in hindsight so there's interim department transfers to clean that up so that the budget is what it should be the that is pretty much taking its care of itself with overages and underages except that we took the 5500 if you approve it the 5500 from payroll contingencies I think that was for the contingency for the CSEA Union that we didn't post the retro to that line we posted it up to the actual so we want to move that up

033to the actual and then it doesn't balance by $1200 so that 1273 and we did put that to health insurance because we think it is an error that in the beginning balance so that is transferred number two transfers number three are also between departments and these are just in the normal course of doing the budget that some departments needed more money and we tried to find it from other departments that didn't need enough money we didn't take any money from health insurance we this is what you would have expected from from us as the number three and then transfer number four that there were some errors in the beginning budget the health insurance was one but they went both directions that and so transfer number two number four is trying to adjust for those that

034one thing that I'll point out in transfer number four if it's approved by you the town would be funding a hundred percent of the social security for the library just to make sure that we have the full story that you funded them fifty-five thousand for an earlier error in 2016 you're funding them forty two thousand if you approve this for Social Security so you have added ninety seven thousand to them you didn't subtract forty one you moved it twenty five to spend out of the special revenue fund contingent on their revenue so you did only cut sixteen so I just want to make sure that all that is grouped together here that this does include you spending you funding a hundred percent of that Social Security any questions on the transfers any concerns any questions

035on let's say start with the the ones within the payroll that you've seen that one before you've seen the those adjustments before the numbers in green for column that says number three at the top those are things hmm those are things that we've talked about before that and I've tried to make little notes that the line item for my salary is over but that wasn't a vacation payout as I was thinking how could that be over that it was a vacation payout for the prior controller that the land use between buildings and and land-use planning are just they kind of share a budget and make it right for here the see other ones that we haven't talked about it you took a vacation payout liability what liabilities do we have out there now currently I

036mean you carry over so much vacation right so there's employees that how many employees have over the amount they can take that we're liable for if they were to leave employees can only carry over vacations into the following quarter following year-end if they don't use it they lose it mine week so this was only a one week payout for the old controller it wasn't like yeah she had earned the vacation but we just we paid her she's there's no liabilities out there I'm everyone else there are some liabilities out there yes that there's a week that you can carry over last year there was more because some of the people couldn't take their vacations because of this right so we extended it an extra three months because we asked people to stay in and work

037after the storm and so people couldn't take vacation that they were entitled to so we extended the time that they could take but if they were to leave they can't take that with them not unless they earn it alright there's a limited amount of favor if they've got it that there is some in the financial statements we talked about compensated absences we don't have it divided between Board of Ed in town but it is that's the enterprise for us to say it's $4,000 no that's WPC n that the education sounds much higher than $4,000 yeah yes time they can carry vacation time I believe there's eight hundred and four thousand in total between town and Board of Ed includes vacation and sick but I can get you an allocation of that you did because some

038people can carry hundred sick days I think I'm not sure what the board of its policy is on you had asked me about that before on the different policies and so I've got from the Board of Ed Terry their HR director gave me an a spreadsheet that and I just have to add the Board of Ed so the townsite just go through the contracts and add the townsite for what all the different benefits are cuz we never include that any budget process these liabilities they can pop up any time they could they're usually not significant that and there's to be honest in the government there's not a lot of people then that leave the government that defined benefit pension plan there's not a lot of people to leave yes and then the last column are

039just the things that the ups and downs that we talked about the sewer assessment at the town there's still a little bit of money left in there that we want to sweep out it would cover we're sweet money out of there short-term financing was under was had more money than it needed and health insurance had more money than it needed the ones that had less money the sewer use for the town that we pay to bills a year for sewer use and this is part of the the confusion with the town has a budget for sewer use and Parks and Rec have the budget for utilities and the Parks and Rec sewer use didn't seem to fit in either one of those budgets postage we've talked about library social security we've talked about throwing up

040all the the bond interest and banned interest and then the town's Social Security is under budgeted and I believe the reason for that is that we have about two hundred and ten thousand dollars a year that gets paid through the recreation self-sustaining fund and that's two hundred and ten thousand dollars of salaries they've never been allocated any money for their salaries well we didn't have it in the general fund budget either so that's my guess on part of what what the issue there so those are ones that we want you to consider because I'm sort of confused how could we pay people would not pay people we pay them with their Social Security if you were to add up the budget and add up and again I don't I'm just guessing what happened if you

041were to add up all the salaries last year in the general fund and multiply that set by seven point six five percent you would get a number but in the general fund Social Security expense there's also Social Security expense for Parks and Recreation that self self-sustaining fund not exactly self-sustaining if we pay their Social Security but that's what we've always done that so that's what part of the issue is so a social security and then we have additional addition because we match if the employee pays seven point six five percent to be budgeted and we pay seven point six five fifteen point three should be yeah budgeted Marsha is saying on the Parks and Rec salary through there they are out their fund right it didn't include a budget for the seven point six five

042the town has to pay about 14 pounds correct and and it's always it's never been paid out of that fund it's been paid out of the general fund these oversight so blow me away we have a salary this should be basic Maxim yeah I get so lost at work pay in a paycheck and a paycheck is coming out of the pound why can't we get that math right cuz that's basic math to me that is basic basic math we pay in a paycheck it should be seven point six five we should be talking about overages entourages or anything like that it should be a set number I was like blowing me away we're sitting here saying we got this liability because we didn't pay Social Security we got the library we didn't pay Social Security

043it's like this isn't something we know this isn't no this isn't something that just comes up this is something it goes with a picture correct oh it's an errand these are basic numbers Shawn it's basic math if you have a movie that's a salary of six whatever the numbers there why are we missing these ladies 1920 okay I gotta help something yeah you know yes Kimberly was here for about a year and a half and these were missed yeah yes they were made in the past and we're getting better I agree but every meeting we talk about something new that was missed it shows where were we where were we let's think about it this way where are we now compared to three years ago and we are in 1,000 and Replace yes it were

044mistakes me yes but we are not hiding them we're coming to you we're showing them to you we're saying what we're doing to address them and we will not have those mistakes in the future you know as we go through this Marsha goes through this I'm not going to not tell you guys about these problems and these issues in our job Marsha nice job is to make sure that the town stays within budget and we will do that but we are going to tell you about these problems and issues and how we're addressing them and and the I'm just surmising what the what there was that and there the other half is firefighters that that's not if someone let's say she took the budget and she pulled the coding for salaries which starts with a

0455100 well we've got the firefighters a hundred and fifty thousand dollars not in a 5100 and that's why a part of this thing is cleaning up the trial balance cleaning up the the uniform chart of accounts so that we can use the computer to give us these numbers as opposed to so much that we're doing we annually are we have been doing manually in the past can I just ask back to the Parks and Rec pit we don't have a revenue line item for Parks and Rec I mean you've mentioned that their salary is kind of self-sustaining because the revenue from the program so why don't we have them separate it out like I don't that they're separated out if you look in the financial statement they're a different fund they're not in the general

046fund that they're a different column kind of like they're on page 94 of your financial statements that let's see what like education grants they're not they don't go through the general fund or the cafeteria doesn't go through the general fund so they're a separate column so we wouldn't see them in you wouldn't see them in the budget correct that it's just that Social Security on those wages has to be someplace budget that either we have it on our books I'd like to change that going forward next to that the twenty one budget because if we think that the Parks and Rec fund let's say it earns two hundred thousand right in fees and then they pay two hundred thousand well if you don't have that Social Security in there that we have to pay then

047that fund is underwater by fourteen thousand something so they should either increase their fees or make sure that the program's pay for themselves because you can't have it eating away fourteen thousand dollars a year and it's just a different future it's a different treatment between the the like the police outside services they have to pay their own social security but the the library pays their own social Social Security that that but if this is really self-sustaining should they pay their own Social Security that so that is the budget things that you've received oh you're gonna go in the next combat sorry I was going to move on to the senior center stuff so it's so before you do that I'm sorry on the the last column the budget transfers between departments - I know you've

048talked about health insurance before but I I need refreshers on every single time the source of the two hundred forty seven thousand dollars that's available to be transferred out of that line on all these other things what is Wayne again what um so them and again I'm just taking the documents that I have trying to figure out what might have happened that it looks like the employee copay wasn't subtracted that and and I can honestly see how that happened we used to be self-insured the copay used to be posted against the self insurance fund when they trued up the numbers they said oh that there it is moved it and it might have been after the the budget was done but but it says it's the copay so that's co-pays that were I'm so so

049you withhold from people's checks that a portion and the budget appears to be the gross pay that the consultant gave us a number and but that's a total of the premiums and you would have co-pays that surprise reduce that but one night of a curtain saw for sure tuned at the employees paid co-payments in the self-insured program as well so would that have been something that everybody contributes 18% basically except for the police say contribute 19% of their salary against health insurance it's not co-pays when they go to the doctor no no that's what I talked about they paid a premium they paid a portion of the premium ploys every year they pay it and they're self-insured so would you have a better a revenue that would have brought in there yes regardless of the

050moving self insure it insured there still should have been a number yes that should have been moved in regardless if you were self insured or not self insure so it's not a product of going from self insurance no no it's a product that we didn't move the money period it's a product of what nice that expect that revenue was there from right boys right to offset with the health insurance but you were saying how it's to self-insure to this it's Italy a product though we didn't recognize the revenue not a matter we changed the insurances it's am i right we didn't recognize the co-pays from the payroll check correct that the co-pays from the payroll check were programmed to go into this fund so that when you're looking at the general ledger in the general

051fund my guess is that they just didn't weren't recognized when they probably when the audit was done they said hey this self insurance this risk assessment fund has got a bunch of revenue in it from co-pays that belongs over here and again these are just my guesses of what might have might have happened and then this is kind of related that the senior center we've talked about this before and I gave you a budget adjustment form and then it got lost in the budget adjustment mess that that the Senior Center does programs and they have a budget for programs that is they have a budget for programs of $19,000 as a net expense that so what has been happening is that they post the budget they post the expenses to the expense let's say it's

052a yoga class or at the cooking class whatever seniors do they post the expenses for the instructors and then the revenue that comes in they net with that amount so it's a 19,000 costs to the town for those expenses that I would like to see that gross so we can see this is how much revenue came in this is how much expenses come in and for all the categories modeled the modified accrual basis of accounting is supposed to show the flow of cash coming in and going out you start netting things together and you're losing information and we're doing that the Board of Ed is starting to show theirs and would like to do it on our side too so we had a salsa on the police grant right we put the full revenue from

053the being a little expense from the grant it's just and and the reason it came up besides that it has to be done but the reason one of the things that for the accounting system we're requiring everyone to do purchase orders now they can't do a purchase order if they haven't earned the revenue and they can't earn the revenue is again to a purchase order for more than nine line items so we were having problems with that so the we would like to show it gross which would be increased revenue by twenty three thousand increase expenses by twenty three thousand and so we talked about that back in January that and then like Glen we're finding out stuff as we move along that there's so with a trip account that trip but not an account

054that the seniors do trips in addition to programs the trips are all done by the town by the town personnel but the money doesn't come through the town they have every department has like a Friends group that but this is really ours and we should have and it makes a profit that and we should have that in our books so that's about $50,000 a year revenue and expenses that so we find out about this and so for the rest of the year it might be thirty thousand we were looking to increase them by thirty thousand of revenue and thirty thousand of expenses in talking with the town attorney we can only add forty thousand to that line item so we don't want you to approve the thirty thousand addition that for trips we want to

055put it into our books net it until June 30th so we still have control of it and then gross-up next year's budget for the trips that but whatever we do we want to take it in-house that so they would have we could really see the extent of the Senior Center that they're pulling in twenty three thousand revenue for programs and having forty one thousand of expenses for programs fifty thousand dollars of revenue for trips fifty thousand dollars of expenses for trips and we're just trying to match it with our budget requirements the [Music] so we want to approve the 23,000 for programs that we've had on the table we don't want to approve the 30000 for trips until we'll do something about that next year does that make sense the and if you say oh

056I just don't want to deal with any of this we could always not deal with it until next year we already have the the programs grossed up in next year's budget we don't have the trips grossed up in next year's budget if you want to just wait we can keep it gross on our internal management reporting and then the budget to actual and the audit we net it together until we add it into the if you don't want to play with the budget we can we can adapt what would you like to do do that yeah well we need to net we need to net the trips for the rest of this year because we can only do an additional appropriation to their budget for forty forty thousand no more than forty thousand a year

057so that's why we're talking about netting the trips for the rest of this year but having control over the cash and then addressing it in the next year so leaving it as is for now and then July first start to gross it up so if gross revenue gross expense so the trips we thought for the rest of this year was thirty thousand for a whole year it's fifty thousand so no because we're doing the twenty three and the twenty three and the 30 would be fifty three and we can only go to forty so for that document we want to cross out the thirty let me find my page on budget adjustments number two number one that number one we feel the court is like meant for that so you don't have to it changes

058so I have the board aside you're not putting this transfers number one for those transfers number one are all with within departments that Oh number sorry that that's on this one it says number two on the handwritten all right so it's columns yes excuse me it says there's yes because the number one is only needs approval from the Board of Selectmen though the details are here we're asking you to look at two three and four so number three I'm also lost on the numbers here this one that is in that has number three at the top of the page we don't want to ask for the the one it's in red it says 30,000 of revenue or two senior trip expense we cut costs here so all right so three quarters of the way down

059the page that thirty thousand that's offset by revenue we don't want to ask for we're gonna talk about it next year when we add it that makes this whole thing equal correct we're just trying to pull all these things together we would like to address at some point a policy of what these friends groups that there's probably in some places too close of a relationship between the friends and the the town that not every department knows who is liable for which bill and and we need to separate our employees and and our stuff it's great to have the friends or to make sure that they're an arm's length transaction and there's probably three or four departments that have friends we've got money the only money that's left is in the health insurance and we've got

060to see where we stand on on those other two items the are the recreation or it's not record its rounds parks over time which I don't think is going to be significant and the legal fees which I do think are gonna be significant even more confusing what was the sewage number final positive net in our budget and what was the final health insurance net in our budget because we're talking six hundred thousand dollars at one point and now we're talking 243 on the health side and we're only talking 300 what was the number what what did we not account for on the water so she Asian side that was a positive in our favor and what did we not account for on the employee contributions on the insurance in our favor starting over because these

061numbers now we're talking there's you talk six hundred thousand dollars a few months ago now we're talking we don't have any money left then are the surplus in this current budget so what are the numbers yes that in the health insurance is on page six of the schedule that we would have 250 as about 450 was would be the amount that is was an excess well about 1200 would be used up if you approve that the payroll Corrections 450,000 within 400 what was the water number and the water number was a hundred and let me just find that so if you look at page six that you have we're asking to use we have a hundred about two hundred thousand in the last column that would still be available we're asking to use 250 to

062cover errors in the other direction and then the 1000 what do we do with the first 200 the first 200 we are looking to correct make corrections to interest in debt that it's it's on the summary is on the one that says number four at the top so basically if we didn't have this 450 in this one thirty-six hundred thousand dollars we missed the boat pipe at least four five hundred thousand on this past budget but know that that there is the other direction to that there that sewer use was under budget postage was under budget social security for the library was under budget thank you miss another question if we didn't have this six hundred thousand dollars and we made errors on where would we be right now we'd be a four hundred thousand

063to the bat to the budget well that's why we tried to divide that's why we tried to divide the errors into a separate column that going both ways to offset each other you had asked us to do that at the way I didn't ask us to offset each other you'd asked us not to use them for write our every day transfers we had talked about was to keep this 450 in a separate category and not touch it basically what we talked about as it should have been to the taxpayers back to the taxpayers basically except they spend the money that we shouldn't have had we shouldn't have had the code of employees coinsurance money that should have been brought in is money that the town should have never had in their coffers to spend it

064should have never been there it was an error made by all of us including the Board of Finance and yet now we're spending this money but we're spending it we're not giving it back but we're reclassifying it to cover errors go in the other direction but we're spending it it wasn't approved really in our budget process because we told the town we for every dollar in a budget process we didn't bring in a big chunk of revenue $450,000 it's not a small number and in this process so it's not a small number in a nineteen million dollar budget $450,000 and now we're spending it right now we're spending when that really we didn't have that money to spend it really wasn't powers to spend if we had the properly accounted for something that we should

065have known we should have known we had a payroll you know deduction from health insurance that's a known this is money that should have been accounted for and yet we're spending it now the taxpayers dollars when it should be their money we should've been in the budget well if we let's say we that wasn't that 450 was not that mistake was not made yes we now be asking you for more money because there were errors in under budgeting other lines that needed to be budgeted for and we just we go after iteration after iteration and get better and better and better at getting these budgets right and so there would have been if we didn't have that money we would have been coming to the board and saying listen this is the expenses that we

066have they were miscalculated in the last budget we have to pay them please give us X amount 250 275 thousand so in a normal process of at least in my career you have a budget and you have your over in some and your under and others and then you make the corrections you need I agree with you we want it perfect from the get-go we want it as close and perfection as possible but I don't think you're ever gonna find a year that that happens because there's too many variables this this isn't this is a big variable Steve this isn't like we miss our whole dress we've corrected it but we didn't really address it Steve what we did is we spent it we didn't address it as far as if I go to the

067bank an ATM and I asked for a hundred bucks and they give me a thousand bucks I don't get to keep the nine hundred I got to give back the nine hundred and basically we did that to the taxpayers we absolutely did not a fair analogy so we over budgeted here and the under budgeted yeah absolutely now we could have told the town we're giving everybody you know a thousand bucks because we're over budget here but then we're gonna be coming to you tomorrow but then how do we live with a budget what is a budget guideline then how do we live within budget the Board of Ed couldn't do this the Board of Ed if we gave money they couldn't come back they got to get it right well how they could they could

068they could say we within their budget we were wrong here we were wrong there I don't and it's more than I thought it was gonna be so I'm taking it from someplace else but we should have this is something I said I don't think it's right I spending this money I really don't believe it's it's right in my well so it's gonna be spent either can you spend out of that line there's gonna be spent out another one it's gonna be spent that that amount of money is going to be spent it's just a matter of what a whole line it's it's gonna be spent yeah now what we did do what we did do we made sure that it wasn't the basis for the increases that we were looking at in the next year's

069budget we made sure of that that we we use the correct starting point going forward but either paid paid out of this lineup a doubt it but eyeliner take out a journalist goddess men our basic goal here is we have total budget about 19 million we have to stay under budget but we didn't we didn't control the budget that's what I'm trying to say we didn't I try a secret you can't disagree we have an extra six hundred thousand and revenue Steve we had six hundred thousand dollars action we have expenses in the other line guys okay all right I don't think this is gonna know that that I think we've let you know everything we know so the and we had said we would come to you come to you quarterly and of course

070we're gonna meet with the departments that we're working very hard to make sure they all use purchase orders aren't buying things and doing the purchase orders later because we need to come in on budget at the end of the year that so the departments and aren't using purchase orders but just as getting escalated to to meetings with them to shutting them off and other things that whatever we can do you had asked about the capital project status that we had the Board of Selectmen approve an additional fund a new fund for the elementary school that thank you that a new fund for the elementary school so all the revenue and expenditures would be segregated for it by itself that there's two projects in the project accounting and we were told we had the free project

071accounting that didn't do as much come to find out the Board of Ed has a full module and is sharing it with us so we are going to set up a meeting to figure out how we're going to account for this project I've done this in the past that I'd like to take the budget and use the AIA forms that the American Institute of Architects forms so that if there's a private purchase order we can change order we can see it clearly on our own accounting system Kevin is that munis training now and as excited about all that he has learned about the full module that our goal on these projects is our goal for all of this is first to pull the general fund up that we're pretty tight as far as time so

072we've done next year we've done last year and we've had a pull forward the general fund to give make sure we've got at all the balance sheets and things proper and then we want to have everything by 5:31 balanced and all the other funds have the schedule of expenditures just like you saw in the audits that are divided by projects have that to 5:31 so it's just a small task to bring it to 6:30 because again we're trying to get done by August 31st that any questions on any of that so both sides of the house are ready to put all their projects current spend spend to go original budget yes we have it in the other module and the town does all the capital projects so even the school things it's the town that's

073accounting for them and so right now we have them there just as a one line that's the case why did we go to Ken to see what projects so in the module is the actual that what Ken had is what his plans were what he's made commitments for as far as that that they had earmarked this they're going to spend it on a B or C in that some of those old years we don't have the detail of it just said whisking year and so we don't know what it was Kinnear that and we wouldn't and they have a whole process of going through their Facilities Committee so we wouldn't say it would be able to say you know what we were going to take your windows away from you that we would know how

074much they spent on the windows but we so that's where the changes so this will just be used by Kevin and you and our yeah and to get reports and in it will be used by them that they have Dan Caldwell and we have asked that he have permission to go in and review the projects and be able to do purchase orders because I guess in the past that we didn't let them touch our side but we're happy to share as much information as we can so the one version of the capital project truth correct so that was the status of the module itself but is is there anything we need to know about the current projects the current projects that know that we think we're in good shape we don't that they all have

075budgets so they're not allowed to do purchase orders that we're trying to drill in that don't do it don't send us a request without a purchase order that they are being stopped by by putting purchase orders and so the controls are working that so we're not concerned about any of them we have an old project for still River Greenway that has a lot of litigation and we're hoping to maybe get some more money out of that one that but we have to get we don't know if we'll be able to do that or not from the old from the original Stillwater Greenway project we're working with the attorney and and the state and the original still River Greenway project the contractor and one of their subs got into a fight and dragged the town into

076it and so we've had to expend some legal expense on getting this cleared up so that we get our full reimbursement from the state we filed for the state it is now agreed upon who's gonna pay you and what amounts so that'll stop but we it's done but it's not agreed upon that the state that we've got money coming from the state and that's what we're working on as to to try to do that good now for the first time this is like a pilot if you will we have a set of financials from the Board of Education we thought this would be a good way to go through this end which we have to do before on a monthly basis in any sea one that empty their budgets and we're addressing I didn't want

077to here on this one and most of these are idly than falling for white sheet they're not just brand new this time you're seeing them off for the first time they just wipe it all off here I would say that [Music] does any of this have an impact on how you see your next year's budget does everyone see value and getting these financials month after month is it just our paper we want to take some time to absorb this I think it's valuable like for last year when the special ed costs came in you know the sooner the board's know about that the better we can be educated and understand it so that we can address it so I think it's a very good idea what's on the front page here is this all ratified

078by the full Board of Ed or this is strictly just an accounting exercise Finance Committee asked Ken to start preparing especially if you are releasing them and perhaps we won't be here on occasion and it's more clarifying so if someone from the board of it can't make it then we did have some interest was that interest pursued or that was just well I addressed it to use alright Bob brought up against having someone from the finance I win all the meetings I think was 5:30 on a Monday and you will meet the first Wednesday and may May first is Wednesday so you are technically before we do so you will get two months worth but we will still be me that first one okay hopefully it's not kind of trash with a committee to revise

079starting times okay I wanted to ask you on this summary what is the net result of these numbers does this net to zero okay it will institute the spending freeze as long as we have to to make sure that it gets to zero or as close I mean either under or right okay all right I appreciate the fact that we'll have a chance to do this I'm wondering if monthly is but I almost feel like it's on the first Monday of everything and then they are approved the consent agenda at our Board of that meetings okay so technically they're public knowledge we just gotta keep s economy and we're packin amphitheaters it's not anything it's terrific explanation um romantic question the salary retirements leaves because these five hundred fifty mm I don't remember the number

080of beat I know I get that part of that spend increased but I don't recall that that line item was that high like the number of her retirements and whatnot was just it was it wasn't good there were more retirements this year than we anticipate next year we usually do analyze three maybe four depending on what level it is this this fiscal year now you know Stevie's came in much higher than that next year we're not seeing that trend where we'll hope to get that this also includes a maintenance mechanic position that need to ended up in the other way this year because for the word took that and that is going forth to next year because we're just speeding up keeping it open enough going extra slow you don't once twice three times thank

081you okay I think that wraps up everything that was under the finance director universalize Marshall is there anything else um no just if you want I don't know if you - make a motion to approve or disapprove okay our reporting committee is not with us tonight the audit has wrapped up as we seen all right of the old business to note the first item of new business was presented in our packet the police department is looking to utilize their outside service fund stable is there anything yeah the rough they do go in to be refurbished the maintenance facility I mentioned a number of things that they thought should be done the windows need to be replaced some other equipment there's some repairs they have to do I thought the J about this at some length

082and it does not seem to make sense to either of us to do 60% of the job do it right so it'll last for 10 years and it is coming from the police outside services myself the Board of Selectmen unanimous and said you know what new way to do this is to do it the right way any questions I move that the Board of Finance approved the recommendation of the Board of Selectmen that the town appropriate an additional amount of $13,000 from the outside Police Department outside Services fund director Oh fit paint and equip the 2007 model f-350 ambulance to serve the operational needs of the police department scuba team further discussion seeing none all those in favor of table gave us a high high motion carries Philo now Nestle changes her mind we can

083circle back to budget transfer requests related to the 2018-19 so we went through all of those transfers we identified one specifically that's not necessary anymore I don't have dare I ask any additional questions comments concerns my way through this boy I love that the Board of Finance approved the proposed FY 2018 2019 timer for budget adjustments with the exception of the $30,000 related to senior center trip expense and $30,000 trip revenue all those in favor of the motion on the table em to keep my 10 hi hi opposed nay all right now we did have a public hearing last week yeah the budget that we proposed to the town petkins was lacking I'll say it to be nice there were some familiar faces there thank you very much from being there I think we had

084less than a dozen folks there that weren't members of various boards or committees or commissions and talents oh okay was there anything that anyone wanted to discuss on that before we move this budget forward to Town Meeting there is one thing I before we discussed the teacher salary we right now it looks like the teacher salary is not going to be part there is much attention teachers pension sorry it's Italy but I talked to the town attorney today and I communicated this to Shawn late this afternoon the Board of Finance if they make final determination that the teacher pension is not going to be charged to us you have until we publish the final budget in the newspaper to make adjustments 27 yes and that's about $132,000 that we have in the bunny 626 that

085you might want to consider taking yeah can we see Masha can we just see what it would look like if we took on integer 232 until well Marcia's team that up I think I'm of the opinion that until we get a firm no from the legislature that that's not there I think they conservative thing to do with you to leave it in there and happen already advertised as what it is the legislature do we know what their schedule is I'll double-check tomorrow and send you guys enough unless we get a firm no on that I don't want to you know yeah I don't want to come up with something that we took out with before it's embarrassing if it's poor practice this is a lot less than a couple of years ago with that $450,000

086three years ago I just thought we'd show you what it would do they don't bring quickly when the air drop what can you tell us is what were worried 29 104 and what would the percentage increase three 2.63 - point 8 7 vs. - ok sir okay so let's say that does happen does anyone have the appetite to make any other changes to the budget I'll start I don't I think where we are is sound I'll agree I mean I appreciate everybody who spoke with you the four people who spoke last week and that's even spoke today I think that everything that was brought up I feel I feel that we discussed in simpler detail as a board there was nothing new no new information and you know people were arguing for their for their

087desires which was good both adding or subtracting and I think that we took all that into consideration we deliberated in enlarge so comfortable yep no I think I agree with Dan 100% I think both of the ports didn't yes did a really good job going through the detail particularly on the downside still painful at times but it's what needs to be done so I agree with that all right then I'll read this long over there I move that the Board of Finance finalized for Town Meeting the 2019 2020 town of Brookfield budget by accepting total expenditures in the amount of seventy thousand fifty seventy million fifty-seven thousand thirty one dollars to include Board of Education budget in the amount of forty four million six thousand six hundred ninety two dollars allocation of teachers retirement you

088know 130 thousand two hundred twenty two dollars town operating budget in the amount of eighteen million eight hundred forty three thousand nine hundred nineteen dollars capital projects and other related in the amount of 1 million eight hundred sixty three thousand nine hundred twenty-five dollars and debt service in the amount of five million two hundred twelve thousand two hundred seventy three dollars which represents a change a proposed change in the mill rate of zero point eight one or two point eight seven percent from two twenty eight point thirty three two 29.1 for as reference in the reattached 2019 2020 time of Brookfield budget summary further discussion all those in favor indicate by state aye aye motion carries 5-0 I thought you were saying those from memory not nearly as impressed is another right there did that

089yesterday just for this I suppose does anyone have anything else they would like to bring before the board at this time [Music] I say we have a new member of the public with us would anyone like to make public comment at this time all right did I make a motion that we adjourn I'll second [Music]