Town of Charlotte
Board of Selectmen
Minutes
Monday, January 19, 2004
7:00 PM, Charlotte Town
Hall
Jennifer Steele Cole
Eleanor Russell
OTHERS: Dean
Bloch (Select board Assistant)
Peter
Coleman
Robert
Mack
Jane
Peter
Hazel
Prindle
Ellen
Russell
Nancy
Sabin
Eric
Van Vlandren
Bill
Yacavoni
Jocelyn
Bolick (clerk)
The meeting was called to order at 7:00
pm.
The items on the agenda were as
follows:
Adjustment
to Agenda / Approve Minutes for January 12, 2004 / Public Discussion / Warning
for Town Meeting (including discussion of creation of reserve fund & terms
for some Town positions) / VELCO – discussion of submission of herbicide report
/ Budget discussion (including Intramurals, Land Maintenance & Salaries) /
Town Auditor – questions & answers / Bills and Warrants / Adjournment
Adjustment to Agenda
None.
Approve Minutes for January 12, 2004
Motion made
by Eleanor Russell, seconded by Jennie Cole:
“To approve the select board
meeting minutes with corrections for January 12th, 2004”.
Vote: all in
favor.
On page 1, change “Diana Micargo” to
“Diana McCargo”.
On page 2 under VHCB letter, change
“support a housing commission” to “support affordable housing”.
On page 3, under VELCO – contracts
for expert witnesses, remove “Jennie said they have emailed questions to
Torben”, and add “Torben has received questions …”.
On page 4, under VELCO – contracts
for expert witnesses, change “has VELCO every …” to “has VELCO ever …”.
On page 5, under Warning for Town
Meeting, change “signatures was obtained” to “signatures are obtained”.
On page 6, under POW WOW, change
“Ellie said another is exposure for the children…” to “Ellie said another
advantage is exposure for the children…”.
On page 8, under Clark Hinsdale III,
change motion “Open Space Agreement between George W. Reynolds and Merry Lynn
V. Reynolds…” to “Open Space Agreement between the town of Charlotte and George
W. and Merry Lynn V. Reynolds …”.
Public Discussion
Jennie had a
VELCO NRP update handout. She will get
a quote on bulk mailing the handout to the residents of Charlotte. The hope is that it will generate letter
writing to the Public Service Board.
Warning for Town Meeting (including
discussion of creation of reserve fund & terms for some Town positions)
The Rec
Commission (Robin Reid) is working on a motion for spending money out of the
rec fee fund. Mary Mead is working on a
motion for allowing the use of voting machines. Debbie Ramsdell is working on a motion supporting a publicly
financed universal health care system.
The
constable articles have been split into two separate articles. The Australian ballot article is the one
that changes from an elected position to an appointed position.
Discussion
centered on the wording of the motion for the reserve fund. Charlie is concerned that it will create a
chunk of money that is easier to spend because it is sitting there. Ellie feels that the board would have fiscal
discipline. It would be for something
like putting a new roof on the building.
It’s a fair way of spreading the cost out over several years, rather
than hitting the taxpayers in one year.
If it passes, next year there would be money coming out of the town hall
maintenance line item or somewhere similar and put into the reserve fund.
Nancy Sabin
asked about the upper limit of $50,000 – she thought it was too small of a
number. Ellie said they can turn around
and ask the voters to increase it if it’s not large enough, but they would
start out small.
The warning
needs to be finished within the next day or two; the final budget number should
be available then also.
VELCO – discussion of submission of
herbicide report
Dean
believes the herbicide report was sent with the Conservation Commission endorsement. He feels they sent it in with a cover
letter. Jennie wanted to know if the
report could be used as a resource, or as a response to testimony. Dean said he hasn’t seen any linkage to the
testimony. He stated it raises some
interesting issues – state statutes seem to deal with surface water, but not
really with wetlands. There are some
interesting holes in state law that point out issues that need to be resolved.
Ellie
doesn’t see any harm in supporting the report.
Motion made
by Eleanor Russell, seconded by Jennie Cole:
“Move to send a letter to the Public Service Board to indicate our
endorsement of the report by Sylvia Knight regarding the use of herbicides on
the VELCO right-of-way”.
Vote: all in
favor.
Budget discussion (including Intramurals,
Land Maintenance & Salaries)
Expenses – Land
Maintenance: Charlie said some of the categories in the
bids were a little mixed up. The town
beach mowing was added last year. Some
of the items were combined with the ball park field and land maintenance line
items, so that had to be straightened out.
It is $500 for raking the trails ($3000 for the year) and $3000 for
putting wood chips on the hiking trails.
Nancy asked
why the town doesn’t mow to the ditch.
Dean said it wasn’t town property – it’s a wetland. Nancy asked about the cost of printing the
lister’s report; Charlie said it is expensed at $1100.
Expenses – Salaries:
Motion made
by Eleanor Russell, seconded by Jennie Cole:
“To go into executive
session to discuss salaries”.
Vote: all in favor.
Motion made
by Eleanor Russell, seconded by Jennifer Cole:
“To come out of executive session”.
Vote: all in
favor.
There will
be a $1/day added to the park security line item under Town Lands. Otherwise, there is a 3% raise across the board
for everybody.
Expenses – Intramurals:
Ellen Russell stated that 5 people took advantage of the scholarships in
soccer, and 3 people in basketball.
There is more money budgeted for scholarship than what will be
needed. Ellie said we’re still in our
infancy with this program. She asked
about a salary increase for Laura. Ellen
said she doesn’t have all the information yet to do that. She will sit down with Laura next week to
discuss duties, etc., and see how time can be saved. The coach’s salaries for lacrosse have all come from Gregg
Beldock. Although the lacrosse program
is most in debt, Gregg has fundraisers.
Some of the
money from the rec fee fund will be used to put an age-appropriate play
structure down at the beach or improving the railroad track field. They do not want to use the rec fee fund to
support intramurals. They will actively
try to raise money to buy T-shirts for each sport.
Ellie feels
we haven’t gotten the wrinkles out of the 3 sport program yet, so it would be
better to not try and expand to other sports at this time. This year, they spent about $400 on
free-standing hoops for the smaller children, but they were cumbersome and
difficult to set up. They would like to
purchase other free standing hoops.
Nancy Sabin
asked about the coordinators salary.
Why was someone coordinating 260 children being paid the same salary as
someone coordinating 85 children? Ellen
said it’s a learning process – it’s a year long position, and they just split
it evenly among the 3 sports. It skews
the position. Nancy asked if there is
lacrosse at CVU; yes, the activity is after school. Nancy wondered how much the taxpayer is going to be interested in
paying to sustain this budget. What
would we be paying if the town did not pay it but the school did?
Charlie
suggested taking out the lacrosse coach’s salary (they can fundraise), the
T-shirts (hope for business sponsorship), and the $5000 program
development. This would save $10,850. Ellen did not feel comfortable with those
cuts. If you took out the capital
improvements, and you are now breaking even.
This gives you opportunities for fundraising and advertising.
Ellie said
they bought into an existing program, not a program that was going to add bells
and whistles. Charlie feels the select
board can take the position that they’re providing a great coordinator and
participation by the Rec Commission.
But they have to break even.
Peter Coleman asked what was taken out of the school budget – Charlie
said $4747.
Ellen said
the program is not the same program that was taken over from the school. Perhaps the Rec Commission may vote to give
the program back to the school. She
feels the commission did not take over the program to keep it the same – there
have been a lot of improvements. Ellie
said the voters will have to decide.
The board
would like to get it down to $4747, since that is what is cost them last
time. Ellie said an inflationary
increase would bring it up to $5000.
Ellie
suggested getting a sponsor for the T-shirts; if you don’t get a sponsor then
charge a higher fee.
The revenues
are $12,830. Charlie likes the idea of
the program paying for itself – the fall back position is that the coordinators
salary be paid by the town and the revenues must be covered by the income from
the program. Set Laura’s salary at
$4800, and have revenues and expenses zero each other out.
CVFRS Budget:
Motion made
by Eleanor Russell, seconded by Jennie Cole:
“To approve an anticipation note for the
purpose of purchasing a pumper truck at a level of $402,000 to the Chittenden
Bank at 1.75% per annum”.
Vote: all in
favor.
The other
rates that were offered were 2.46% and 2.25%.
Eric Van
Vlandren came to talk about the CVFRS budget.
They budget $3000 for bookkeeping services (Linda Foote). If they hire an administrative person, they
would most likely transfer those services (and those dollars) to the
administrative person. That would bring
the $10,000 administrator position down to $7,000.
Peter
Coleman asked Eric about a complete laundry list of the equipment that is going
onto the new pumper truck and the dollars associated with them. Eric said they may not know the dollars yet
since that will be a competitive bidding process also. Peter asked how CVFRS is talking about a
flat budget, yet they received $72,000 in grants. If you add that to the budget, it isn’t flat! Eric said he’s referring to next year’s
budget when he’s talking about level funding.
Town Auditor – questions &
answers
The 3 town
auditors came to help go through the report: Hazel Prindle, Nancy Sabin and Jane
Peter. Also present was Bill Yacavoni, an
independent auditor.
The Conservation
Fund currently adds 2 cents to the tax rate every year for 10 years. Discussion centered on whether it should be shown
in the budget as an expense and voted on every year. Nancy and Bill both feel it should be voted on annually. Charlie said the article to authorize up to
2 cents on the tax rate was approved by the town in 1996.
Bill said
the audit went very well. The town ended
the year with an $85,234 surplus. $50,000
was already given back to reduce taxes.
The town started the year with a $38,000 surplus and has a $45,000
surplus for the current year alone.
The revenues
were up $112,000 over budget. The
expenditures were up over $66,000 this year, but the bulk of that was the legal
fees. The other big expenditure was the
miscellaneous line item under select men – shutters for the fire department and
the sewer project. The county tax went
up $11,000. That was a lot – it went up
around 40%. The select board got a
letter stating it will go up again this year.
Bill said
there are no funds in the town with deficit problems. He needs a few more bank statements to finish up the fire
department. Bill also wanted to mention
the segregation of duties – it happens a lot in small towns since the treasurer
is the bookkeeper. Having one person
doing all the duties opens you up to potential problems. There are all sorts of ways to minimize the
risk – make sure someone else looks at all the bank statements; make sure the
auditors come in every quarter and look at all the checks over $500, get a
receipt system for cash, etc.
Hazel
suggested writing a report explaining why the legal fees for the select board
were $52,000.
Bills and Warrants
Signed as
appropriate.
Adjournment
Next meeting: Monday,
February 9th at 7 PM.
Motion made by Eleanor Russell, seconded by Jennifer Cole:
“To adjourn the select board meeting”.
Vote: all in
favor. Meeting adjourned at 10:10 PM.
Minutes respectfully submitted by Jocelyn
Bolick.