Finance Committee Meeting Minutes 2/10/21
Lucy Prashkar and Peter Taylor of the 8 town regional school district planning board came to request a warrant article in the amount of $15k for project management, administrative support, outside consultants and outside legal counsel. The committee is applying for a grant which may lower this assessment.
5:30pm: Joint budget meeting with the select board
Grant writers recommendation to lower to $6k for FY22 was discussed. To date only $862.50 has been spent and the argument was made that we do not need to pay anyone to research available grants as most department heads receive regular emails of grants that are available. Steve suggested lowering it to only $7,500 for FY22.
Rebecca requested the Select Board to use zoom instead of gotomeeting as was requested at the all boards meeting. M. Noe pointed out that the cost for gotomeeting is much less expensive than zoom ($134/yr vs the $550 it would cost for 1 license for zoom, plus $150 for each additional license needed). It was pointed out that on zoom people can chat in the conversation box, and raise their hand which could not be done on go to meeting. Go to meeting is old technology, and the town committee members all requested it. Don said no – not even a vote
Computer software and supplies: Rebecca stated that in this day and age it was ridiculous to keep the policy of replacing 1/3 of the computers in town hall annually and shared that where she works they just update the ram and memory as needed for a couple hundred dollars. As we have the same IT person it was suggested that Melissa speak with Tom Roy. A motion was made to lower the amount for computers down to $2,000. The finance committee all voted yes.
Both the Finance Committee and the Select Board agreed to remove the line item for $752 for Berkshire Mental Health as the last time they invoiced for this money was back in FY15.
Both the Finance Committee and the Select Board agreed to remove the line item for $1,500 for Berkshire South as the last time they invoiced for this money was back in FY15. Rebecca stated (as she works for Berkshire South) that the program the money was being used for no longer exists.
Discussion ensued about the $71k placeholder for the library loan. Clarification will be sought from the Treasurer on whether this amount is interest only or if it includes an additional principle payment.
Jon S. then presented all with his summary findings on the proposed FY22 budget. Everyone agreed that they would like to have time to review the information provided by Jon prior to discussing the proposed special articles. The boards will meet again next Wednesday.
Adjourned at 6:30