Board of Selectmen Meeting
March 1st, 2010
By Jay Shenk
More bad employment numbers, new legal representation, more budget work, and interesting questions during the recess
Attending the meeting were John Fairbanks and Laila Michaud. Nick Hay was not at the meeting.
Ken Burstall, Chairman of the Advisory Board, started the meeting with a presentation of the current employment situation for Westminster, according to Department of Labor and Workforce Development statistics. It’s not a pretty picture, as unemployment is continuing to climb, for workers ‘able to collect’ or ‘no longer able to collect’ unemployment insurance. The number of people ‘under employed’, meaning they are working fewer hours or making less money than previously, is also climbing, but at least that moderates the straight unemployment numbers. In total, about 18% of workers in Westminster are unemployed while over 25% are either unemployed or making less that they were at their prior job.
The Massachusetts Department of Labor also supplied a more fuzzy number, in an attempt to put this into more human terms—they said that, including retirees, 1 in every 5 families is having trouble putting food on the table.
The current Advisory Board estimate for the upcoming budget year (called the 2011 budget, which runs from 7/2010 through 6/2011) is that the town will have to raise approximately $141,000. On a budget of about $11,000,000 that doesn’t sound so bad, but unfortunately it does not include cost of living increases (COLA), job reclassification raises, increases to the school budget, and any increases to salaries resulting from union negotiations. As a wild card, this budget number also includes a projected figure of $500,000 in state aid, a number the Governor is saying will be higher but the Department of Revenue thinks may be optimistic. So, next year’s town budget remains a moving target, making the process of coming up with a budget difficult on everyone, particularly the Advisory Board and the Selectmen.
A few comments on budget discussions: Tom Maeder and John Fairbanks had a discussion that went back and forth a number of times regarding cost of living increases, with Tom asking that they be tied to something concrete like the consumer price index (the CPI), and John insisting that they already were tied to something concrete, and that the COLA amounts were determined by the town Personnel Board. Tom pointed out that the CPI went down this past year, yet COLA always went up. Then, it turned out that the COLA number everyone was working with was just for non-union employees, which led into a discussion on how to make that more clear. The underlying current in this discussion was that everyone is devoting a lot of effort to the town budget, and people are getting frustrated as it hasn’t come to a resolution yet thanks to the many large unknowns.
Speaking of unknowns, the next article up for consideration was funding the deficit spending on snow plowing by the DPW. For the benefit of us who didn’t know this, which included me, John Fairbanks explained that in Massachusetts there are two accounts that are allowed to be funded this way—they can spend into a deficit situation, and then be funded after the fact. Those two accounts are snow removal and court judgments, both of which are inherently unpredictable. This is why snow removal budgets are nearly always underestimated.
It was also noted that the budget did include a $5,000 increase for town legal representation. NOTE: although not mentioned at the Selectmen’s meeting, the town has switched its legal representation. Alan Seewald, of Seewald, Jankowski & Spencer, P.C, based in Amherst, is no longer retained by Westminster for legal advice and representation, and has been replaced by Kopelman & Paige from Boston on an interim basis. Kopelman & Paige specializes in municipal law and is considered a top flight legal firm.
Next came some more budget review: At this meeting two remaining departments presented their budgets, the Council on Aging and the Cemetery Commission. Both were somewhat discombobulated regarding the budgeting process. The Cemetery Commission spent a large part of their time defending their inability to cut costs 2% since they actually make money for the town --last year the cost of burials and cremations was less than the cost of performing those functions, making the town a profit of about $6,150; and because their costs are pretty much dependent upon their workload, which is unpredictable.
In other words, the more they spend the more revenue they generate for the town, so cutting costs is counterproductive. Then, at the end of their presentation, Stan Skamarycz brought up that they’d reviewed rates charged for burials against other towns, and our rates are quite low, so they are proposing raising rates 50%, which of course will make our cemeteries even more profitable. The Selectmen seemed fine with the budget.
Similarly, the Council on Aging, which has a fairly small budget, spent considerable time pointing out that they needed an additional $2,000 to cover in-state travel, but there was confusion over which budget, 2010 or 2011, was being discussed. My take on this was that it was both years, since the 2011 is based on actual in 2010.
At this point Don Barry got going about how the Selectmen shouldn’t be budgeting for the Council on Aging, or some portion of their budget, because the budget is reimbursed by MART. Since this situation is similar to state aid to schools—the state supplies some of the funds, but we still need to include it in the budget, this particular argument accomplished nothing but end the budgeting portion of the meeting sooner, and it was left that Sue Fisher would meet with Ken Burstall from the Advisory Board to get the numbers correct. Overall, there really was no dispute over the budget itself.
There was a brief discussion about how Bud Taylor would have to resign from the Advisory Board to take over his new position on the Planning Board, should he win that election, a likely outcome as he’s running unopposed. Regret was expressed about losing Bud from the Advisory Board, but Bud is excited to get onto the Planning Board as it dovetails nicely with what he is doing as Chair of the Mixed Use Overlay Commission.
At this point the Board recessed until 8:00pm, when the Personnel Board was scheduled to meet with the Selectmen.
As the recess began, two interesting questions came up from the audience: First, the Board was asked about whether the town still planned to take the properties at the end of South Street—the Morris residence and the old ‘eyesore’ garage. This question was in light of previous discussion and a recommendation from the Advisory Board not to take the property, since it was no longer needed for the South Street intersection project. John Fairbanks fielded the question, and here’s what I got out of the answer, which was somewhat hard to hear—the engineering study is just 75% complete, so no decision can be made yet, and if it turns out we don’t need to take the property, it may be brought back to town meeting.
I have two comments here: I think that the reason for the 75% status is that the town originally engineered a plan that required the town take the two properties. This was sent to the state for approval, and the state, in the midst of the budget crisis, did not approve the plans as submitted and instead down-scaled the scope of the project, so that the properties are no longer needed. The town is now in the process of having their engineering firm look at the state plans, and thus the 25% of the project plan still not complete.
There also are rumors swirling around about why the town would want to acquire the properties regardless of whether they’re needed for this project—in particular, the Morris house is adjacent to our Town Hall, so it could allow for future growth of town related departments. The reason for acquiring the garage is most likely purely to clean up that end of town.
The second question during the recess concerned the layover station, and whether the town was stuck with the location submitted by the MRPC for the TIGER Grant, which was then approved. It’s definitely worth reading Bud Taylor’s editorial on this, as he claims that the Selectmen’s objection to the currently proposed location was deliberately left off the application. That’s a serious charge, if true.
In any event, Laila Michaud fielded this question, and was well prepared, having with her three large photos of the area that are now available for display in Town Hall. Laila luckily has a lengthy and good relationship with the MRPC, and my overall impression is that it might be possible to locate the layover station elsewhere without compromising the entire plan, particularly the commuter rail station, Wachusett Station.
After the recess, we heard from the Personnel Board. They had these recommendations:
1. All stipends still be eliminated, although out-of-pocket expenses should be reimbursed. An exception they noted is the Tree Warden, who is not just on a committee but around town doing things—his stipend is more like a salary. The Tree Warden also is already reimbursed for mileage.
2. Performance reviews were recommended for levels 13 and up, a group which includes just four positions—The head of DPW, the Police Chief, the Fire Chief, and the Town Coordinator/Administrator. The point of these reviews would be to let these top town employees know how they are doing and what they are expected to be doing (their goals). These goals might very well be just what they are doing now, but it would be formalized, and there was no mention of moving to a pay for performance compensation model.
3. The Board recommended that Karen Murphy’s title change from Town Coordinator to Town Administrator, as that more accurately reflects what she does. This was also recommended by another audit, performed by the Massachusetts DOR. The Town Manager position/title was not recommended, as that result in the department heads reporting directly to Karen rather that the Board of Selectmen. A Town Manager position also typically pays well, and the change from Coordinator to Administrator does not carry any automatic salary adjustment.
Ed Simoncini from the Board of Health was not particularly happy with the ‘no stipend’ recommendation, not so much because of the outcome, but because he and his board had put a lot of time into preparing a report about all the duties they now had, including some they’d inherited from the State Department of Environmental Protection (again, thanks to the state budget crisis); and it appeared that no one had read the report. In fact, I wasn’t too sure that the Personnel Board had ever even received the report. Steve Hemman from the Personnel Board was extremely reasonable about the whole thing, and offered to meet with Ed at any time, a meeting I’m sure they will have. All was resolved amicably, although whether the Board of Health will get stipends is unknown.