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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-12-6 Finance Committee Minutes TOWN OF NORTH ANDOVER FINANCE COMMITTEE Meeting Minutes Meeting Date December 6, 2016 Meeting Location: School Administration Building 566 Main Street Bill Callahan, BC, Chairman X Sasha Weinreich, SW X Jennifer Goldman, JG, Vice Chair Divya Bhatnagar, DB X Karin Blake, KB X Angela Ciofolo, AC X Thomas Ringler, TR X Chris Nobile, CN X Timothy Tschirhart, X Liz Gerron, LG 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. Non Finance Committee Members in attendance -Andrew Maylor(Maylor) Town Manager -Jennifer Price (Price) Superintendent NERSHEM Personnel Policies Discussion with Andrew Ma for and Jennifer Price Discussion starts on or about 6:49pm/000:05 on video time BC: This will be a general discussion to look at the bigger picture items, since we have a bit more time. At this particular time of the year we are not focused on the FY 17, 18 and 19 Budget, so we have the time to look at the bigger picture items that we don't have time to talk about once we get into detail. We can look at how we are spending money and how we can be even smarter. The Town buys labor and sells services and the price for those services have a cap. We as a committee thought this discussion would be a useful exercise and how we can best employ our resources. BC: Commented that the School Department employs the most. 1 December 6,2016 Maylor: Spoke of shared services with Information Technology and Facilities. This evolved over time and spoke of services that make sense to combine. Everything is worth a try, but not everything is a success. Price: spoke of the concerns, cost and issues with using a fire wall protection that could handle the mass traffic coming from the school. It is extremely expensive to do, but it was Christopher McClure that said that we do not need to protect every kid's device. We should only protect what we need. Routers were put in at the Fire Station. This was a much cheaper solution and saved us over $200,000. This is money that we can use on more Chrome Books and infrastructure for our kids. Price: We are ahead of most schools because we transferred to Google. Price: Also commented on the fact that we can buy 3-4 Chrome Books for the price of 1 Mac. Maylor: Stated that IT people are idea people. The schools transition to Google helped the municipal IT folks see if it made sense for the municipal side to go to Google, in the long run it made sense. It is not an exact match to the school side, but it is a benefit and helpful to the municipal side. KB: Do Chrome Books leave the school? Price: Responded no they do not leave the school with the students, but spoke of a program at the library where they use Chrome Books (21)to teach girls to code. The Library is hosting it. When the Chrome Books are not being used on Monday Night they can be checked out. Price: Spoke of the newly hired shared Legal Counsel, and spoke of how well it is working and stated that it is also a savings. SW: Have you had to use any outside counsel? Price: Yes we have used outside counsel. The Legal Counsel we hired does not have an expertise in special education. For specialty areas we use outside counsel. Maylor: went on to answer SW's question stating that in the 6 weeks that we have hired the Legal Counsel, Suzanne Egan, we have not incurred any expenses in outside legal costs (as of today). Price: stated that one of the decisions that they had made last year did not make sense, and that was in payroll. Municipality's payrolls are far different then the school's side payroll. The needs of school sides are different from municipalities. We tried to make it work, but it was not working. The nature of a school is very different from an office. 2 December 6,2016 Price: went on to say that you will see in our budget presentation we are going to go back to a school payroll person. KB: asked of the TIPS Program. Price: Responded we have kept a number of students in district and have brought some back to district. The challenge is to keep kids in the district. In keeping kids in district we need to have the appropriate staff. Price: Spoke of how they have made great strides with children on the autism spectrum, and how they hired Behavior Technician Aids (BTA)that actually go into the classroom with some of these children. Price: Also spoke of the home services that go to the home with kids with disabilities. Price: stated that Maylor has been very supportive, and stated that it is a cost in the beginning, but will reap rewards in the end. Price commented that it will cost us in the end, if it is not done correctly in the beginning. SW: In terms of HR(Human Resources); what are we doing to attract and keep the best talent? Maylor: Spoke of the hiring process and that the expectations are to pay reasonable wages. We try to understand the market and do salary studies. We make sure we are in the range to remain competitive. Maylor: Commented on the benefits of having a GIC Health insurance and how the employees are offered choices in health insurance. The GIC has saved the Town money. Price: Commented that the teacher's salaries are right in the middle. Price: Went on to say, that the most important element for the achievement of kids are quality teachers. You need to take care of your people (teachers) and also show your teachers that you care about them. If we ask our teachers to take care of our kids, we need to take care of our teachers. Price: Spoke of the hiring practice in recruiting a teacher. Any teacher who may be considered for hire must do a demo lesson in front of adults and the second round of the hiring process would be to give a lesson in front of kids. Price: Spoke of"Professional Teacher's Status"that happens after the 4t' year of teaching. It is a bit more protection for the teacher. Some teachers make it to the 4 year, "Professional Teacher's Status", while others do not. It is a symbolic message to the teachers that made it. BC: Asked of outsourcing. Maylor: Responded that trash is out sourced, street pavement, water main replacement or installation, elevators, plumbing maintenance, craftsmen, 60% of snow operations, some of our 3 December 6,2016 buildings have outsourced custodians, street lights and traffic signal maintenance, and some engineering services are outsourced. Maylor spoke of the savings and benefits of outsourcing. Price: Stated that they do not outsource the cafeteria(at the school), it is in the black, so it does not make any sense to outsource, since it is running in a positive cash flow. Maylor: When we contract a service in most cases (for trades) we are subject to pay prevailing wages. The state tells us what we must pay. BC: Asked of the trade off, of part time and full time employees, and how is the town evaluating that in a way of controlling expenses? Maylor: Responded that most municipalities by style are not redundant in jobs, we usually have 1 person for each position. We are not 10 people deep in each department as an organization. When a position is open we evaluate that job and the market and sometimes look to see if we can reduce it, we evaluate the options. The library is a good example of having part-time employees this allows more flexibility, since the library is opened much longer. Maylor: spoke of the cost benefits of health insurance and the savings. BC and the Board: Thanked Price and Maylor, they all agreed that this was very enlightening and productive. Discussion starts on or about 8:16pm/087:00 on video time BC: Praises TR on the PowerPoint Presentation that he submitted to the Committee. 1 think we should have TR make a run through his presentation. TR: Stated that he wished he had the information as far back as 2005, but he only had the information to go into this presentation for 2014 - 2017. TR: explained each page to the Committee and what each page and graph meant. KB: Was surprised when looking at page 2 of the presentation, the graph showed an increase of hires in the school personnel from 2011-2013. CN: Explained what some of the factors accountable for the increase. CN: Stated that his recollection during his time with the School Committee was possibly related to building some services. 4 December 6,2016 TR: Stated that this is just a general budget and does not include Enterprise.No surprise that it is Personnel, and is roughly about 68% of the budget (page 3). TR: Spoke of any increases and decreases, breakdown of salaries and benefits within the presentation. TR: Commented on the 30% of the cost of the high share of overtime (and others) of Public Safety (page 7) The Committee discussed overtime, combining jobs, outsourcing and the costs and savings. TR: Commented on the amount of departments_ KB: Suggested that we revisit and spend more time with this presentation that TR submitted at another meeting. Discussion starts on or about 9:14pm/143:00 on video time BC: Suggested that we postpone the minutes until the next meeting. TT: Made a motion to postpone reviewing the minutes until the next meeting. CN: Second the motion All were in favor. Adjournment Discussion starts on or about 9:15pm/143:27 on video time TT: Made a motion to adjourn CN: Second the motion All in Favor *Minutes November 1st,2016 *Minutes October 18th,2016 *Analysis of Headcount and Personnel Expenses Town of North Andover (TR) --------------------------------------------------------------- * Hard copy/also on Google drive 5 December 6,2016