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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-03-13 Select Board Minutes NORTH ANDOVER SELECT BOARD MINUTES MARCH 13, 2025 Call To Order: Chair Brian Roache called the open meeting to order at 7:32PM in the Senior Center located at 481 Sutton Street North Andover. Select Board in Attendance: Chair Brian Roache, Janice Phillips, Laura Bates, Clerk Rosemary Smedile and David Kres were present Non-Board Members in Attendance: Town Manager Melissa Murphy-Rodrigues and Assistant Town Manager Laurie Burzlaff were present. JOINT MEETING WITH FINANCE COMMITTEE Town Manager FY26 Budget Presentation Melissa Murphy-Rodrigues and Dennis Keohane were present. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues presented the recommended FY26 budget. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the FY26 revenues. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the revenues for FY26 total $136 million. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated it is about a 6.74% increase and an $8.6 million increase from last year. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated there are four major revenue sources: property taxes, local receipts, state aid, and transfers. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the majority of the budget is made up of the tax levy and about 84% of the levy is residential. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed historical new growth. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they do anticipate a tight budget for the next few years. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated FY23, FY24, and FY25 were anomalies due to Amazon new growth coming on and the other years were more in line with what they typically forecast. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the FY26 new growth details. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the total estimated new growth is $1.3 million. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they know of one new industrial project which was the Extra Space Storage on Osgood Street, and they had a few small commercial projects and one new apartment building. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed expenditures. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they have seen large changes. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they budget for salary reserves for their unsettled contracts. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated in FY25, they included in that salary reserve the funds for the Middle School teachers. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated it has been transferred over to the Middle School budget for the education. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the breakdown of FY26 proposed budget expenditures. Ms. Kean asked why Greater Lawrence Tech was so high. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated last year it was budgeted low, and there were transfers made. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated their assessment has increased, and they do have more students. Ms. Kean asked if that was calculated as a cost per student that we pay an assessment to them. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes, they pay approximately 2% of the Greater Lawrence Tech budget, and for Essex Tech, they pay per student. Ms. Bates asked if they were guaranteed a certain number of seats at Greater Lawrence. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Ms. Kean asked if they were paying 2% to Greater Lawrence based on North Andover's population. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Mr. Roache asked if that was regardless of the enrollment. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Mr. Roache asked if the increase in benefits was largely out of their control. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues yes. Mr. Roache asked if they do a compensation program for someone who elects not to take insurance. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated when they initially joined they saw a huge savings, but post COVID it has not continued in that way. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the breakdowns about half schools and the other half is split by municipal employees and retirees. Ms. Bates asked if using GIC was still cheaper than doing it on their own. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they view data every three years and have it reviewed. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the FY26 proposed budget expenditures. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated it says 51% for the schools, but it is really 65% when employee benefits, debt service, and liability insurance are pulled out. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the estimated retirement assessment for FY26-FY30. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated it was a 9% increase this year. NORTH ANDOVER SELECT BOARD MINUTES MARCH 13, 2025 Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the residential impact of using the levy capacity. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated at the end of this budget as presented, they would have $1.5 million remaining in levy capacity. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the estimated impact on FY26 tax bills. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated utilizing the levy as they are now, it is a 6.10% estimated increase. Ms. Kean asked if this was for the average property in North Andover. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Ms. Allen asked what is the typical average amongst different towns and cities for tax bills. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues displayed a chart for single-family tax bills comparing North Andover's to its comp communities. Ms. Bates asked if that chart was more equalized than just looking at assessed values in tax rate. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the increase of municipal town employees over the years. Mr. O'Connell asked if this still had a positive impact on the budget. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they are all fairly new, but it has been positive. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the highlights and changes from FY25 to FY26. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the reductions and eliminations to get the budget within the capacity number. Ms. Allen asked what the total was for all of the eliminations. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated $1.3 million. Ms. Kean asked about the impact to Public Safety regarding the cuts. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated that in the long term, if they want to have the best operational department, they are going to need to fund these positions. Ms. Allen asked what areas Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues is most concerned about. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated operationally, they know they would operate better if they had more command staff at their Public Safety. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the things that are daunting is cutting $9,500 from special town meeting. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated cutting training is concerning so she has avoided cutting training for Public Safety. Mr. Roache asked if they are too far into it to make some of those decisions at this point. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated it does not hurt to look back and even make amendments. Mr. Roache asked regarding their goals, were they treated as sacrosanct in the budget. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated when they set a goal, they do their best to try to move them forward. Ms. Kean asked what Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues' feeling about the financial risk associated with these cuts. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the budget is sound, and it is in capacity. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated regarding the majority of the cuts, they went back and looked at five years of analysis. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated some of the cuts are riskier than others because they know they will have to come back. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues displayed a chart for the impact on taxpayers. Mr. O'Connell asked if these increases include any potential override. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated no. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they will no longer be charging for the Stevens Pond beach pass. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the sewer enterprise fund. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they have $5.8 million in retained earnings in the sewer enterprise fund. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the water enterprise fund. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they have $3.7 million in retained earnings. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the current reserves. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed free cash available after appropriation. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they are deficit spending around $700,000 on snow and ice. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated $3 million in free cash would remain moving into FY26. Mr. Roache asked if$1.9 million of capital allocation from free cash was going towards school capital projects. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes, but that does not include the $3.6 million from the capital stabilization. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated that Superintendent Lathrop and her team did a comprehensive Capital analysis of all of their buildings. Mr. Roahe asked if there was a lot of deferred maintenance. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated yes. Mr. O'Connell asked if this is something they have not done in the past. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated there were no building walkthroughs with every building principal before this year. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated Superintendent Lathrop conducted building walkthroughs with facilities and every building principal and did an analysis of what their needs are going to be. Mr. Chaney asked about preventive maintenance to the roadways. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they have preventive maintenance such as sale coding and other items similar to that in the regular operating budget. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they have developed a new pavement plan and did a regarding of all of the streets. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they will send both the Select Board and Finance Committee a list of the warrant NORTH ANDOVER SELECT BOARD MINUTES MARCH 13, 2025 articles. Ms. Bates asked if Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues could talk about levy capacity and the impacts to the Town's plans by using some of the levy. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues discussed the excess levy capacity and what amount was left in the levy over the years. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they captured the Amazon money and put it into the capital stabilization account or paid for one-time items. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the levy capacity clips back up in FY25 because that is when the TIFF goes into effect. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the plan was to bring approximately a million dollars of that back into the levy so that Amazon was paying for the Facilities Master Plan projects. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated the plan was to bring on the $5 million every two years. Mr. Keohane stated that this is an estimate which presumes a $350,000 of new growth. Mr. Roache asked if the new growth was an educated forecast based on historical data. Mr. Keohane stated yes. Mr. O'Connell stated it would impact taxpayers in the least painful way, but with the new recommended budget, this is going to increase taxes for taxpayers. Ms. Bates stated she wanted to reiterate that they did have a plan moving forward with the money. Mr. Roache asked if at the end of the next two cycles they no longer have that capacity, they will be on par with other communities who are struggling. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they do not use non-recurring funds to pay for recurring expenses. Ms. Kean asked Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues to explain the free cash available after appropriation and asked why there is nothing in the fire retro. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated they will not have a decision from the JMLC before Town Meeting therefore, she will calculate what she thinks it could possibly be. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated regarding binding arbitration, they are obligated to go to Town Meeting and support what the mediator puts forward. Ms. Kean asked when they believed this process to be done. Ms. Murphy-Rodrigues stated sometime in the summer. APPROVAL OF OPEN SESSION MINUTES OF MARCH 3 2025 MOTION: Ms. Phillips motioned to approve the Open Session minutes of March 3, 2025 as presented. Ms. Bates seconded. Motion approved 5-0. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Mr. Kres made a MOTION, seconded by Ms. Smedile to adjourn the Select Board meeting at 8:50PM. Motion approved 5-0. Respectfully submitted, Nicole Civitarese Executive Assistant NORTH ANDOVER SELECT BOARD MINUTES MARCH 13, 2025 Rosemary Connelly Smedile, Clerk of the Board Documents used at meeting Presentation Minutes from 3/3/25