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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - AC - 02/15/2018 Town of Cohasset Advisory Committee Minutes, February 15, 2018 Place: Town Hall—Basement Meeting Room Attendees John Chapman Paul Carlson Michael Dick Richard Fitzpatrick Leland Jenkins Helene Lieb Ralph Tulio 7:05 p.m.—Meeting was called to order. January 18,2018 minutes were approved 5-0, 2 no vote due to late arrival. The approval for the February 8,2015 minutes is deferred for the next meeting on March 1, 2018 to allow members time to review. 7:08 p.m.—John C.recognized Sam Wakeman, Capital Budget Committee to update the committee on the 10-year Capital Plan. There was some confusion as to which document is the right one for discussion. The committee decided to postpone the update until Chris Senior had a chance to make copies for the committee. 7:23 p.m.—John C.recognized Don Piatt(Town Finance Director) to review the recent changes in OPEB. Don P. discussed OPEB footnotes from the FYI CAFR and explained the new GASB pronouncements (GASB 74 & 75) which changed the OPEB liability calculations and reporting requirements. The change in calculation will affect FYI financial statements. • John C. mentioned that health insurance continues to rise and the risk increases in conjunction to the number of employees retiring. • Paul C. added that it would be a good idea to contribute more to OPEB now to lessen the exposure in the future. • Chris Senior further explained there are two options the town is taking: 1. "Pay as you go"—assume the liability on the same year of employee entering retirement. 2. "Pre-pay"the projected liability by paying into the fund. • Rich F. stated that ideal scenario is to increase the annual accrual amount to a higher amount, which will serve as a cushion. Rich ask what that number should be. Don P. will have to run some what-if projection to estimate what that number will be. • Paul C. suggested leaving the calculations to the OPEB committee. • The Advisory Committee later discussed that the committee should have a liaison to the OPEB committee. Paul C. volunteered. • Mike D. motioned to nominate Paul as liaison to the OPEB committee. John C. second. Vote was 6-0, 1 no vote due to early departure. 7:55 p.m.—John C.recognized Sam Wakeman back to the floor to resume update on the 10-year Capital plan. Sam mentioned this is the first time that the town embarked in soliciting a 10-year expense projection from each department in an effort to compile a 10-year consolidated capital plan. With that, Capital Budget committee has Advisory Committee Minutes—February 15,2018 Page 1 of 3 not had the chance to digest the information. There will be several iterations of the existing document(handed to each Advisory committee member) in the very near future as the committee refines the information. • Rich F. asked if CBC can analyze historical departmental expenses for recurring expense patterns not listed on the department's 10-year expense projections. Of course, these expense patterns have to be qualified as a capital budget item. • Sam W. raised the question, "who is responsible for amending the Capital Plan?"Answer is to be worked out among the CBC, Town Manager, and BOS. • Mike D. asked Chris S. if the town have some sort of a maintenance fund to cover non-capital expenses —Yes. • Leland J. asked if the town's departmental heads keep a"property book"just like the military. Chris S mentioned some keep a similar log but not all. • Sam W.'s wish list is to see the town adapting an asset management program in the near future. This program will ease the management, reporting and budgeting accuracy in future years. • Chris S. mentioned that the town is looking for a financial management program that includes the asset management piece. 8:20 p.m. —John C. recognized Brian Joyce to present the FYI Public Works Budget. • There will be a total of$112.1K(3.9%) increase to the budget. • $88.7K of the $112.1K is due to a payroll increase relating to an additional field engineer that will have cross-functional role between Public Works and two other departments. Public Works department will absorb the full payroll despite of the shared role between two other departments. The department receiving the shared benefit will issue credit for the hours spent. However, the credit will go towards the General fund instead of Public Works. • The town received $3,300 grant money from the state to convert the street lightings to LEDs. LED lighting is currently being tested on Depot Court for residence to choose which coloration (warm vs. bright white) will be best. However, the town owns 511 of the 800 streetlights. Brian will have to explore what to do with the 300 not owned. • The $8K expected increase pertains to Facilities. The Transfer Station's glass crusher vendor located in western MA went out of business. Therefore, the town will have to find other ways to dispose of the glass received at the transfer station. Possible option is to recycle glass by crushing it ourselves and include it as an ingredient to paving. However, Facilities currently does not have the necessary equipment to crush the glass. • John C. raised the question on road improvements. Brian mentioned they perform 2 to 2 %2 miles of road improvements per year on their 20-year road improvement plan. • Rich F. asked if the town is responsible for any subsequent road repair for in-adequate patches made by the utility companies. Brian said there is a 5-year warranty and that he will go back to the utility company for repair work when warranted. Brian will inspect the road Rich F. mentioned. • Mike D. added a request to repair parking lots deemed public. He also mentioned(and Brian agrees) that a road maintenance fund is a good idea. Road improvements are currently budgeted at $250K annually but needs $450K. 8:58 p.m. —John C. recognized Ron Menard and Chris Senior to present the IT Budget along with the General Government budget. Nothing out of the ordinary and no warrant articles forthcoming from IT. Ron mentioned the budget is broken down into 2 areas: Municipal (software related) and Infrastructure. Currently 2.5 FTE is Advisory Committee Minutes—February 15,2018 Page 2 of 3 funded by the school. FYI will increase a total of$66K ($35K for Municipal & $31K for infrastructure). Targeted capital projects for FYI revolve around: 1. Security Audit 2. Geospatial Data Collection 3. Surveillance systems 4. Electronic Document Management(EDM) • Ralph T. asked the status of the Electronic Document Management project. The town approved an initial $50K for initial software and consulting) during Special Town Meeting. Ron said the consultation is in process but is still in the discovery stages. Ralph T. mentioned the importance of a well-defined objective for this project since the town appears to have a need for a collaborative EDM with workflow in addition to document archiving and retrieval. • Chris and Ron said they would set up town email accounts for all Advisory Committee members. This will enable us to use OneDrive to share documents and collaborate. • John C. also wants training on the Microsoft One Drive and asked Ron to offer a training video and/or a set of training sessions for members of the various committees who will be accessing this drive. Due to the lateness, John C. wants to continue the rest of the general government budget during the March 1, 2018 Advisory meeting. 9:30 p.m. —Chris S. provided the Warrant Status update in addition to excerpts of what was voted on the last BOS meeting. • Upcoming Citizen based warrant items: 1. Town ban on plastic bags. 2. The Citizens petition for a change in the Harbor Committee (by law) seeks to add 2 permanent seats,one for Cohasset Maritime Institute and one for Cohasset Center for Student Coastal Research • BOS accept the change in the towns posting of speed limits • Maximum $8M of debt exclusion for the proposed funding plan for town hall. • Zoning and General ban on retail sale of Marijuana. • Waiver of excise tax on retired veterans and/or surviving spouse of veterans. John mentioned that the Collective bargaining discussion will be one of the topic of discussion on March 1, 2018 advisory meeting. 10:03 p.m. —Meeting adjourned. 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