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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2008-06-30 Finance Committee MinutesOF I?EgAI~ Town of Reading OEcEtVEO m U A16 Lowell Street SOWN G. LtV-1n ttaG.A. Reading, MA 01867-26f 639+7NCORQO~P 1004 , AUG FINANCE COMMITTEE Email: finance@ci.reading.ma.us Special Town Meeting - June 30, 2008 At their year-end meeting on June 25, 2008 the FinCom made the following recommendations to Town Meeting: Preamble FinCom was reminded that Committee recommendations were not provided to Town Meeting seven days in advance as specified by Reading Home Rule Charter. However, consistent with past rulings from Town Counsel, FinCom is providing these recommendations at this time in order to provide some guidance to Town Meeting. Although time constraints and availability of information made more timely recommendations difficult, the FinCom will commit to efforts to make future recommendations consistent with all requirements. Article 3 FinCom recommends Article 3 by a unanimous vote of 8-0-0. Article 3 updates the Capital Improvements Program and allows further discussion on Articles 9 and 10 at this Town Meeting. Article 4 FinCom recommends Article 4 by a unanimous vote of 8-0-0. This Article completes a few internal FY08 budget transfers without any use of free cash. The overtime requests for the work on the accounting system conversion were discussed as an area for improvement in developing overall project costs. This was in light of the fact that there have been multiple recent projects that had to be brought back to Town Meeting for additional funding versus original project estimates. The discussion included whether so-called "Force Account" estimates for having the costs of internal departments work should be included in the estimates for capital borrowing for projects. It should be noted that the cost included in the accounting project are not over budget at this time and will not be as a result of these requested changes but changes to the operating budget for areas that support the project are required to be brought to Town Meeting for approval. On the building maintenance costs, the FinCom received a briefing for the Facility Management team on the reasons for the cost increases and were pleased by the cost containment efforts that were being achieved particularly in the utility cost area. It should be noted that the Casualty Insurance offset was not the result of a cost reduction in insurance but a previously acknowledged FY08 budgeting error. Article 6 FinCom recommends Article 6 by a unanimous vote of 8-0-0. This Article rescinds some previous debt authorized for water main projects. The capital projects have been rearranged due to the MWRA buy-in, such that smaller water main repairs paid with cash are scheduled for the next few years, and debt financing will not be required. . Article 8 FinCom recommends Article 8 by a vote of 7-1-0. This Article establishes a revolving fund for Library Materials. Funds received from patrons for lost or damaged materials will be deposited into this revolving fund and will be directly available to the Library to purchase replacement materials. Presently, such funds are deposited to the General Fund. In recent years, these amounts have been $5200 (FY08); $6367 (FY07); and $5513 (FY06). ~ I - Article 9 FinCom recommends Article 9 by a unanimous vote of 8-0-0. This Article completes the MWRA full time buy-in and associated infrastructure work, including demolition of the Louanis Water Treatment Plant and construction of a disinfection system. Two years ago, Town Meeting approved their desire of a full-time MWRA membership, and the Town embarked on a trail that no other community had pursued. As such, Town Meeting was alerted to the fact that the June 2006 cost estimates may not be complete, and that no contingency was added to the approved $8.6 million debt authorization. The November 2007 $7.9 million buy-in costs to the MWRA were in fact about $100,000 higher when approval was finally granted. Additional requirements were added by the DEP to maintain an emergency water disinfection stand- by capability. These two facts helped drive the total cost up by an additional $450,000 - a figure that includes a contingency. Article 10 FinCom recommends Article 10 by a vote of 7-1-0. This Article supports the additional $86,350 funding requested for the Parker Middle School field project, and uses free cash as the funding source. There were considerable concerns expressed over the project coming in over the original budget. There was opinion expressed that the additional funding might be better spent on current prioritized needs versus a "nice to do" project that may have been pursued initially because there was money available from donations and state grants. The committee expressed empathy with that position but the consensus was that this project was previously committed to by all local approving parties for good and valid reasons and the current additional funding was not of an order of magnitude to warrant turning down the request for additional funds. The general opinion of the FinCom is that projects should riot be undertaken merely because there is a fraction of the cost donated by a private source but the project should be fully vetted through a thorough capital planning process. The FinCom was advised the Selectmen have recently developed policies to deal with the project donation approach to capital projects. FinCom will also be recommending that the field use fees be re-evaluated with an eye toward recovering some of the cost of the field improvements. The FinCom has also expressed the opinion as a result of this discussion the community needs a better approach to estimating project costs including carrying realistic contingency amounts, that can help make all the decision makers reach better informed conclusions on project merits.