HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-10-26 Finance Committee MinutesTown Manager Fidel Maltez, Town Accountant Sharon Angstrom, Mark
Dockser, Chris Haley, John O'Neil, Tom Wise, Sue Bottan, Dr. Mllaschewski,
Carla Nazarro, Erin Gaffen, Jackie McCarthy, Karen Herrick
Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Executive Assistant Caitlin Nocella
Topics of Discussion:
This meeting was held in person and remotely via Zoom.
Free Cash/ Budget Guidance Update
Town Accountant Sharon Angstrom noted last week FINCOM met and discussed free cash and voted to
use $3.28 M to keep a 3.75% operating budget increase. $700,000 would be used for Capital exclusively.
She has now begun building the salary predictions based on this guidance.
Reading ARPA Advisory Committee Update
Marianne Downing gave a presentation on RAAC. The Select Board formed the RAAC to give guidance to
on how to distribute over $7M in ARPA grant money the town received. The advisory committee is set
to sunset in December, and they have completed their work. They conducted surveys and heard
presentations and requests for the money. The full presentation with more details about the exact
requests and payouts can be found in the FINCOM packet on the Town website.
The School Committee called to order at 7:22 PM.
Jeanne Borawski thanked RAAC for all their work and Chris Haley thanked Marianne Downing specifically
for all her time and effort on the committee as well.
Reading Center for Active Living (ReCalc) Update
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RECEIVED
Town of Reading
Meeting Minutes
TOWN CLERK
READING, MA.
Ria
2323 JAN 19 AM 7:39
Board - Committee - Commission - Council:
Finance Committee
Date: 2022-10-26
Time: 7:00 PM
Building: School - Memorial High
Location: School Library
Address: 62 Oakland Road
Session: Open Session
Purpose: Financial Forum
Version: Final
Attendees: Members - Present:
Emily Sisson, Mark Zarrow, Joe
McDonagh, Jeanne Borawski, Marianne
Downing, Joe Carnahan
Members - Not Present:
Ed Ross, Geoffrey Coram
Others Present:
Town Manager Fidel Maltez, Town Accountant Sharon Angstrom, Mark
Dockser, Chris Haley, John O'Neil, Tom Wise, Sue Bottan, Dr. Mllaschewski,
Carla Nazarro, Erin Gaffen, Jackie McCarthy, Karen Herrick
Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Executive Assistant Caitlin Nocella
Topics of Discussion:
This meeting was held in person and remotely via Zoom.
Free Cash/ Budget Guidance Update
Town Accountant Sharon Angstrom noted last week FINCOM met and discussed free cash and voted to
use $3.28 M to keep a 3.75% operating budget increase. $700,000 would be used for Capital exclusively.
She has now begun building the salary predictions based on this guidance.
Reading ARPA Advisory Committee Update
Marianne Downing gave a presentation on RAAC. The Select Board formed the RAAC to give guidance to
on how to distribute over $7M in ARPA grant money the town received. The advisory committee is set
to sunset in December, and they have completed their work. They conducted surveys and heard
presentations and requests for the money. The full presentation with more details about the exact
requests and payouts can be found in the FINCOM packet on the Town website.
The School Committee called to order at 7:22 PM.
Jeanne Borawski thanked RAAC for all their work and Chris Haley thanked Marianne Downing specifically
for all her time and effort on the committee as well.
Reading Center for Active Living (ReCalc) Update
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John O'Neill, Chair of ReCalc, gave an update and presentation on ReCalc and their work thus far. You
can find the presentation in the FINCOM packet located on the town website.
The Select Board called to order at 7:43 PM.
Jean Delios then shared some preliminary results to the ReCalc survey. The presentation can be found in
the FINCOM packet on the town website.
Killam Funding & Reimbursement Discussion
Jeanne Borawski noted that at the last FINCOM meeting the committee voted unanimously to support
the use of $2.2M out of free cash to do a feasibility study in moving forward with the MSBA process.
Dr. Milaschewski was hoping to discuss what a presentation should look like to town meeting to explain
this process.
There are three scheduled tours of the Killam School for Town Meeting members and the first one was
held earlier tonight.
Susan Bottan gave a presentation on what they believe the presentation to Town Meeting should
include. This can be found in the FINCOM packet on the town website. They discussed, historically, how
the reimbursement process works.
Capital Improvement Committee Discussion
The current process in place includes the Town Manager driving the process. This Committee could
include members from various town boards to help with the priorities. It was noted staff still needs to
be driving this, but it would be helpful to have some outside input.
Marianne Downing noted this may need to be a Charter change for this to be a permanent committee.
They will need to consult counsel for how to create this board.
Tom Wise feels this can easily be accomplished with a designated financial forum about capital.
Mark Dockser feels this is not just a once-a-year meeting, this should be a year-round conversation.
Members agreed it would be helpful to hear from legal on their options and come back to this at a later
date as this would be for next calendar year at this point anyway.
Tom Wise moved to adjourn the School Committee at 30:16PM; with a second from Carla Nazzaro, the
motion passed unanimously.
Chris Haley moved to adjourn the Select Board at 10:16 PM; with a second from Karen Herrick, the
motion passed unanimously.
Marianne Downing moved to adjourn Finance Committee at 10:16PM. The motion was seconded by
Joe Carnahan and approved unanimously.
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