Finance Committee Approves Funding For New Fire Truck And School Feasibility Study

A Few Takeaways From The Finance Committee Meeting Of January 19, 2022

Present
Voting members: Andrew Steinberg (chair, at large), Ellisha Walker (at large), Michele Miller and Cathy Schoen (District 1), Lynn Griesemer (District 2). Non-voting members: Robert Hegner, Bernard Kubiak, Matt Holloway.
Staff: Sean Mangano (finance director), Sonia Aldrich (comptroller). And Bill Kaizen (note taker)

This meeting was held on Zoom. The recording can be found here. The most recent posted minutes are from December 7, 2021. Finance Committee recordings are posted here and are up-to-date.

After electing a chair, Andrew Steinberg, and a vice chair, Cathy Schoen, the committee discussed the transition from 2021, an upcoming council retreat, regional school funding, the recent Four Towns meeting, and future agenda items. Subsequently, they discussed and approved proposals for additional funding for a new fire pumper truck ($187,000, bringing the total cost to $637,000) and a feasibility study for Wildwood and Fort River elementary schools ($280,000 bringing the total to $1,030,000), meeting times, the importance of all councilors understanding terminology related to finance and the town budget, and the budget process. 

The new pumper truck will have Zero-RPM technology which allows for the engine to be turned off when the truck is idling. The price of the truck is much greater than the original estimate given to the Town Council because of inflation and the addition of several features that will increase the trucks functionality and life span. These include a larger cab, a climate controlled EMS cabinet (allowing the truck to be used as an emergency first responder vehicle), a built in generator for ancillary equipment, a larger pumping capacity, and new safety enhancements.

Takeaways
Following are a few takeaways, shortened and edited for clarity, from the last part of the meeting, selected in the hope that readers will get a sense of the issues before the committee and the ways they are approached.

Cathy Schoen: “I want to strongly endorse what you’ve proposed [a presentation about town finance] and — to come back to this — I think it should be the whole council. We can figure out a way to do it. It’s not just the finance terms, but all of it. As you look forward five years or ten years, it has an impact on operating budgets, so it’s to understand how we’re funding capital [projects], what is debt. We need to carve out the time.”

Lynn Griesemer:  “I’d just like to add on to that we will definitely have to carve out that time, especially given the timeframe, in that the question of placing a debt exclusion on the ballot would be brought to this council. In addition, now the regional schools are asking for a larger chunk of money, and that’s going to have to be in the update of the financial model as well. I hear everything you’re saying [even though] we have to come back to it later [today].

[…]

Andrew Steinberg: “So we propose this [fundingfor a pump truck] coming from free cash instead of increasing the borrowing… My concern here is that — again, for the new members, there’s a lot of terms being thrown around right now about the differences between borrowing by bonds, by notes, and about what’s funded from borrowing and funded from free cash, and how they all tie together, and what might be reimbursed. 

“But debt exclusion, which is the amount of the override request [to] the voters, these are all topics we need to have the time and place to explain them, and sort of come to an understanding of whether those explanations should be just to the Finance Committee or whether other members on the council would like to have that kind of explanation also. [The Finance Committee makes recommendations, the Town Council votes.] 

“But I do recognize that there’s that whole level of complexity, and I apologize for the amount of these terms that are being thrown around without explanation and I recognize that if you have questions you feel you’d like to have answered now about any of this, or any explanation, don’t hesitate to ask, and Sean [Mangano] or Sonia [Aldrich] I’m sure will be able to respond.” 

[…]

“…there really wasn’t much added into the draft budget guidelines with respect to [community safety and reparations]. So whatever Paul and Sean are looking at now…those recommendations really haven’t been addressed. Maybe they’re not going to be addressed right now, and that’s OK — we’re working through a process — but I want to understand how we can have that conversation.” Michele Miller

Michele Miller: “If there are former (or current) town committees that have made recommendations or will be making recommendations, such as the Community Safety Working Group [CSWG] and the African Heritage Reparation Assembly [AHRA], how do those sorts of conversations get added to an agenda? Just being a newbie here, I’m sorry I don’t know the process and the way it works, so it would be helpful, not specifically to discuss those recommendations from those committees, but just to understand how the process works generally.”

Andrew Steinberg: “Some of that came up through the discussion of the [budget] guidelines [from the Town Council]… It needed to be fit into the larger scope of planning….We’ve had a detailed discussion and planning around CSWG and recommendations because they were built in at least for the first year.”

Cathy Schoen: “I was just gonna say that in general, Michelle, and I’ll use the Climate Action Committee, with a budget impact, as an example. They take it to Paul [Bockelman] and then we in finance can see it in a consolidated budget. We don’t deal [directly] with recommendations — they have to be worked in within the guidelines set. That’s been the general route, although there have been some exceptions.

“In finance…we have an overall policy-setting piece, but Paul has to bring us a budget that works. So that’s been the route, and then, for example, JCPC [Joint Capital Planning Committee], which is the capital place, issues like hybrid trucks and different kinds of solar or an allocation — they came as specific requests, often from departments and sometimes from residents, but we didn’t see them — it came through a process that came through the budget piece. We can talk a little bit more about that, maybe at the next meeting — but it’s been a routing through Paul because he’s got to make it fit. And the council sets the policy guidelines. But then there’s the reality of how much money we have.”

Michele Miller: “Thank you, OK.”

Lynn Griesemer: “I’m just going to set that in the context of a calendar. We’ve already done the initial fiscal…in November, and on the same night we had a public forum, and Michelle, I believe you made extensive comments at that public forum, and I hope you forward them to the full council and Paul. And with regard to the CSWG, that conversation has been ongoing now for awhile…the motion that was made.”

Michele Miller: “I appreciate that, that’s really helpful. We did make comments during the forum and then I did attend the finance committee following that, and watched — I think the second — meeting following that. And there really wasn’t too much of a discussion about the recommendations that the AHRA made.

“I know we’re working through a process here, and so it’s more about trying to understand how to actually get these conversations to happen when they need to happen, and the timing they need to happen in, and I know that they’re not easy conversations in that there’s so much demand on the budget, and I completely understand that.

“[But] there really wasn’t much added into the draft budget guidelines with respect to [CSWG and/or reparations]. So whatever Paul and Sean are looking at now…those recommendations really haven’t been addressed. Maybe they’re not going to be addressed right now, and that’s OK — we’re working through a process — but I want to understand how we can have that conversation. I want to make sure that in the case of reparations [that conversation takes place].” 

[…]

Steinberg: “So, here’s where I think we’re at as far as identifying items to try and include in the agenda over the next months, before we get to the very first crunch period, [such as] water and sewer [rates], how we establish rates and alternative mechanisms for establishing rates. Another is a bundle of parking issues… We want to make sure we get the Community Preservation Act [funding] done — there are recommendations from that committee and it has to go through finance to the council as the next steps.

“[We’ve] talked about making sure that we do some planning for the full council and the committee about how the capital planning process is going to work, and trying to explain a little bit more about how borrowing fits in, and working in terminology around borrowing so that we get everybody into the same place and understanding about those issues, and funding for some of the initiatives we talked about in addition to reparations, and CSWG, and there’s ECAC (did I miss anything)?”

[…]

“We’ve got a very tight budget, particularly with the capital projects and debt service coming online for big projects.”

Cathy Schoen

Schoen: “We’ve got a very tight budget, particularly with the capital projects and debt service coming online for big projects. What I had in mind [for an orientation] is a few pie chart kinds of things and then maybe a 20-minute presentation…an orientation. I did one in 2018 (just after I’d been elected) at our local district meeting, and I made it simple, just to show where the money comes from and where it goes.”

Griesemer: “Is this something you’re proposing for a finance committee meeting? Or is this something you’re asking [to be] on the agenda for the retreat?”

Schoen: “I had originally [thought about it] for the retreat but if we think we can’t do it there, we don’t have room for it…. 

But one of the things we’re supposed to be talking about at the retreat was our priorities, and to the extent that any of the priorities have dollar signs next to them, I’d like to make sure we’re doing it from a foundation of [knowledge]…. 

My original suggestion was focused on the retreat plan and if we just can’t do it that way, I would understand, but yes.”

Griesemer: “Let me look at that agenda. The other possibility is that this be part of the dedicated meeting [planned] for the full town council and with the public and our non-voting members — ‘All about finance’.”

Schoen: “And I think that’s fine, it’s just that with the retreat on the 12th — it’s just that I found that grounding really helpful for [us] to understand why we were faced with such hard choices. If I do this here, how does it impact something over there (unless I found someone who wanted to give me just a few million dollars)?”

Griesemer: “Got it. Thank you.”