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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFCMeetingMinutes_01.12.16 ,, TOWN OF NORTH ANDOVER FINANCE COMMITTEE Meeting Minutes Meeting Date January 12, 2016 Meeting Location: Police Station Community Meeting Room, CTO 6:45 Bill Callahan, BC Chairman X Susan Almono, SA X Donald Elliot, DE Vice Chair X Timothy Tschirhart, TT X Karin Blake, KB X Liz Gerron, LG Thomas Ringler, TR X Angela Ciofolo, AC X Chris Nobile, CN X Jennifer Goldman, JG X Non Fincom Members in Attendance Steve Foster (Foster), Facility Manager Chris McClure (McClure), IT Director Ray Santilli (Santilli). Assistant Town Manager Note: All FINCOM votes are subject to change upon receipt of new information. Note: Documents used in this meeting are listed in Document Table, herein. Agenda A, Facilities BC: Welcomed Steve Foster, Director of Facilities Foster: introduced himself to the Committee and stated that he is looking forward to 2017. In front of you is the current budget and it is a continuation of efforts of funding for capital improvement repairs for both previous and current. Foster included repairs such as roofs, HVAC, boilers, water heaters, light saver systems and other types of repairs. Foster: you will see a high concentration of roofing items. Foster directed everyone to page 20 of the CIP booklet. Foster: spoke of the roofs needing repair and especially the library roof. This roof at the library needs to be replaced (library has a failed flat roof system and needs to be replaced). Foster spoke of the $111,000 plus money that was set aside from prior years that will go towards the repair of this roof. Behind that cost would be the mechanical, plumbing, and roof top units. Foster: went on to speak of the continuance of monitoring and frequent inspections of all our 1 January 12, 2016 buildings. We keep track by watching and reading all the maintenance reports both internally and externally. It helps us identify items that need to be repaired and done immediately. KB: Asked how many buildings on your list? Foster: Responded that we have 20 buildings, just shy of a million square feet. CN: Can there be an impact when we have a tough Winter? Foster: Could make roofs deteriorate, sidings take a beating. Santilli: Foster has a general guideline of priorities, but if something comes up unexpectedly, winters could make an unexpected change. Sometimes items that are on the list to be repaired get deferred to take care of more important issues that are in need of repair. Santilli: stated that Foster has 2 pots of money, one is a small pot of money coming from his operating budget and the other is from CIP. What he does not use from the CIP gets carried over from one year to the next year. If everything falls into place, Foster will do what he needs to do on his prioritized list with the $225,000. Foster: stated we do try not to change structure in any great way, but we do like to provide enough pitch on a roof system to have water runoff to drain. Santilli: Interjected, sometimes that is not always possible. BC: Asked how much did you spend last year and what did you carry over? Foster: responded that he put aside $150,000 that will be added to the $110,000 that will go toward the roof repairs. KB: That is part CPI and part CPA. Santilli: Responded that is correct. TT: Asked if the $150,000 (the carryover from last year) and the money for this year mean that we will spend $375,000? Foster: Yes $375,000 is what we are possibly looking at. Some of it will be put towards the library roof. Santillicost about $800,000 to fix the roof over a period of time (it will not be done all at once). KB and BC: Spoke at separate times of spreadsheets and requested a list of future facility projects in rank order list. SA: Asked if he does any hands on repairs? Foster: Responded that no it is all outsourced. Santilli: Added that we have many different contracts on hand if needed. TR: Asked of Esco, something that was discussed last year stating that he remembered that we had some long discussions on this, and the impact on facilities along with energy efficiency. 2 January 12, 2016 Santilli: Responded we are done and we are in our guaranteed phases. Foster: We just past our 1 year anniversary with them and we are on target with our savings goal. We receive a quarterly report provided to us by Ameresco. This report is an excellent way to help keep our savings on track and in line. KB: Asked if all the buildings are on Esco? Santilli responded almost all of them. Roof repairs are not Esco, it is an energy savings. BC: This was a great follow up for future planning. Santilli: we will work on the future Facilities rank order list for the second and third year, but I want you all to know it will be a very general list. BC: Thank you Steve. Agenda A, Information Technology BC: Welcomed Chris McClure, Director of IT. McClure will give us an overview; he will talk of his transition here and what he found and what he is looking for in the next year. McClure: By way of introduction, I will try and answer a few of the questions during the presentation that JG sent to me. It has almost been a year that I have been here and so far I have been impressed with the Town as a whole. It is very well managed, especially IT. Of course there is always room for improvement. McClure: It is less about the Capital, IT is more about becoming more operating utility based. McClure: also spoke of the power of the Cloud. McClure; Stated for him it is more about keeping things simple. McClure: this year is to increase the fiber networking and connecting. This fiber network includes such places such , and Emergency Management. Simultaneously connecting Bradford Towers and working with fiber radio digital repeaters. McClure: the thing that he is most proud of is the strengthened IT Network system he has had with the school and the increase of collaborative projects. The Focus on Networks will remain and as much as we can put into the Cloud, will remain. McClure: for the MUNIS Accounting System he has worked with accounts payable, general ledgers, budgeting payments, to make it a success. McClure: Commented that we will not be going with using the permitting side from Munis. McClure: Stated that we will be launching Google Apps for Governments in about a month. It 3 January 12, 2016 cost us about a $100.00 a year per user. McClure: Not everything is ready to go in the Cloud, such as the phone system. Munis is a Cloud Based system. McClure: The network being the most critical component, it connects us to each other and to the Cloud and enables us to work together. We are in pretty good shape network wise. McClure: spoke of the phone system (Cisco) and although it is in good shape it will reach its life expectancy by FY2021. Over the next 5 years we will evaluate and review and should plan for upgrades and possible replacements. McClure felt that based on past projects it should not exceed $100,000 We are getting rid of the Drop Box and will be replaced by Google Drive this year. McClure: spoke of Laser Fiche and how it stores and indexes permanent documents. It is sort of like a database. McClure: every technology needs to benefit the public and to be transparent to the public. Google is a powerful way to communicate (it helps push out information to the public) and transforms efficiency. McClure: stated that we have contingency plans in case Google ever goes out of business. We do not put all our eggs in one basket. CN: Commented that it is stunning to see the difference in 3 years stating that his middle school child is using technology and Google. Getting them ready for the world once they leave school, it is powerful. Where does North Andover stand among other schools? McClure: responded back stating that he has a philosophy on this and stated that each community is its own community. We make sure North Andover gets what they want and need. North Andover cares about what they care about. It is what they value and what they feel is important. McClure said that his job is to make sure that North Andover is not to get behind in technology. McClure: What bility of a 1 night town meeting. Professionally I think North Andover is doing fine. McClure: stated that North Andover has pretty good overall wireless penetration. McClure: also spoke of Tritech, a data conversion and merge for The Fire and Police Department. Referencing the quote on page 83 (CIP Booklet). BC: Thank you Chris B. Municipal Contracts BC: Next topic, I will turn it over to Don Elliot. 4 January 12, 2016 BC: Stated that he noticed when doing some reading early in the fall, that the firefighter's contract was renewed. In 2010 that Town Meeting took a vote and it passed. BC: read the following, Article 25. Procedure for Funding of Collective Bargaining Agreements. Voted (YES91; NO62) to instruct the North Andover Finance Committee to request that the Board of Selectmen add a warrant article or articles to every annual town meeting, which will enable town meeting to approve or disapprove the funding of successor collective bargaining agreements settled and unfunded during the prior twelve months as specified under Mass General Laws chapter 150E, section 7(b). Such warrant article will provide for each contract to be voted on independently. BC: stating that he wants to stop there, stating that this has been passed and that he does not believe that these contracts have shown up on Town Meeting Warrants. Don Elliot was part of this committee and came in at the at the tail end BC: Told the Committee that this is worth a discussion. This is a discussion that will not be finished tonight. Our role is an advisory role where we can vote to ask the BOS to take action or no action to put it on the warrant or not. ndth DE: Stated that he looked up some old minutes from the 22 and 29 of January 2009 . The Town has the obligation to vote on funding for contracts. With that being said DE passed out the minutes. DE: In my own personnel opinion there were some anxieties over contractual stuff regarding municipal collective bargaining contracts, that they were going to keep marching on. The Town could not afford that. They wanted more disclosure, the two 2009 meetings that were most important were probably January 22nd and January 29th. BC: Here is how I imagine that the warrant article vision is going. We meet in May, we vote on the town budget and most salaries are negotiated with the Collective Bargaining contracts and how it works. Salaries are negotiated with the appropriate people, the Town Manager and BOS, and then from there they are approved and ratified, but not funded and Town Meeting has the ultimate say. The next fiscal year will include the salaries Santilli: Negotiations are not a public record until the contract is ratified. Santilli: Went on to explain that Town Meeting does not have the authority to negotiate a contract. Santilli: gave the Finance Committee members examples of how part of collective bargaining is not something you can put a dollar amount on. Santilli: commented that a document or contract becomes transparent once it is ratified. Santilli: quoted the Town Manager stating that the decisions we make today have to be sustainable in the future. Example if I give everyone a 4% raise and layoff people, that is not sustainability. BC: We don't make changes that would increase our pension liabilities. Our pension system is underfunded 5 January 12, 2016 SA: We are here as a watchdog and would like more information and get involved to some extent, but we don't want to take it all the way to Town Meeting to be examining the whole contract. Agenda C, Adjournment 8:50 DE: Made a motion to adjourn CN: Second the motion All were in favor Document Table SUBJECT FROM TO 1.Capital Improvement Plan General Fund (2017-2021) Town Manager Fincom 2.Minutes from the Fincom Meeting from 29 January 2009 Donald Elliot Fincom 3. Minutes from the Fincom Meeting from 22 January 2009 Donald Elliot Fincom 6 January 12, 2016