Select Board Minutes

Minutes of the meeting of 5/1/19

Meeting Opened at: 9am

Select Board Members Present: Kenneth Basler and Donald Coburn

Also in attendance: Justin Cole, Derek Geser, Kathryn Roberts, Julio Rodriguez

Justin Cole, Baystate Municipal Accounting Services came in to update the Board on the following:

• Introduce Derek Geser, he will be our new Accountant and will be replacing Justin in the office on the 3^rd Wednesday of each month in addition to any other meetings that may require Baystate’s attendance.
• Justin suggested reevaluating the onsite time to make it the most beneficial for staff.  We will begin working on this over the next few months.
• Justin explained the calculations of the cost of living adjustments on the town meeting warrant appear to be larger than the 2% being offered.
  • All the hourly rates went up by exactly 2% and the FY19 hourly rates were used as the base rate.
  • Elected official are paid an annual rate rather than an hourly and the 2% is added directly onto the annual rate.
  • The other factor that influences the calculations is the number of hours worked in a work week for the position and the number of work days in a fiscal year.  The 2 “extra” working days because of the 52.4 work weeks is .78888% rounded up to the appearance of an additional .8% COLA.
• Policies & Procedures: Justin has provided the Board with a draft copy to formally accept to be consistent with general laws, procedures and best practices.  Relevant department heads will be given a copy to provide suggested edits over the next few months.  Members of the sb should do likewise, he said
• Discussion ensued about the Hampshire Council of Governments dissolving.  The HCOG is diligently working on seamlessly transferring all the existing contracts over to another existing purchasing group.  Don suggested that Justin alternatively pursue assignment of the contract from HCG to his company.  He indicated he would do that if HCG could not transfer our contract to another purchasing group.
• Update on the auction on town owned properties:  The auctioneer has been reaching out to the Assessor and the Building Inspector for more information on the properties.  The process is moving along.

Miscellaneous Items Reviewed:

• Kathryn Roberts came in as a courtesy to let the Board know that the Bidwell House will be passing out fliers outside of town meeting with permission from the Moderator.
• Kenn suggested that Melissa's arbitrator/mediation request be postponed to next week when we have the new Board.  Don asserted that he will not participate in any form of mediation or arbitration as he does not feel there is any reconciliation possible so long as Melissa and Kenn are unwilling to apologize publicly. 
• M. Noe provided the annual “cheat sheets’ for articles on the warrant and the Board reviewed which articles they anticipate there might be questions on.  M. Noe also provided a draft of a handout for town meeting to help explain some of the budget items in article 3.
• M. Noe informed the Board that she passed the most recent procurement training.  Discussion ensued about the future appointment.  Don asserted that the town does not need a procurement officer, Kenn disagreed.  The appointment will be placed on the next agenda for discussion with the new Board.

A motion was made and unanimously approved to adjourn the meeting at: 10:30am

Submitted by:

Melissa Noe, Administrative Assistant

Approved by:

Monterey Select Board

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