Prudential Committee – April 25 2016 – meeting minutes

Cotuit Fire District
Prudential Committee
25 April 2016

Fran :
5 o’clock so I’m going to call the Cotuit Fire District Prudential Committee Meeting of April 25th, 2016 to order. Could we have introductions starting with the treasurer?

Michael:
Michael Daly, treasurer.

Laurie:
Laurie Hadley, Prudential Committee.

Fran :
Fran Parks, Prudential.

Stan :
Stan Goldstein, Prudential.

Charlie:
Charlie Eager, clerk.

Fran :
Thank you. Any public comment? No public comment.

Fran :
Is anyone recording? Amy Kates is recording. All right. I’ll do the 2016 warrant.

Michael:
The clerk has a draft and I have a new version of what we have been working on. I think if we work the two documents one to the next we can solidify the warrant.

Laurie:
We have to make our recommendations tonight, is that correct?

Michael:
No, you just have to get a warrant done tonight so Charlie can get a warrant in process to post. Unless you do your recommendations in the warrant … Is that what they do?

Laurie:
Yes.

Michael:
Okay. We may need to do some recommendations at the district meeting.

Laurie:
That’s fine.

Michael:
Let’s talk article 3. 1 and 2 are the standard ones, Charlie? Is that a fair statement? 1 … 2 … Yeah. 2 is impacted when we get into article 4. Article 1 is the reports, that’s all set to go. Article 2, as long as you’re not going to recommend any raises, is good to go. Raises for elected officials.

Laurie:
No.

Michael:
Okay. 2 seems to be …

Laurie:
It’s a labor of love, Mike.

Michael:
You’re telling me. All right. Article 3. Nothing has changed in the work paper we’re working with tonight. I think you pretty much had agreed you’re safe going down to 30,000 from the previous.

Laurie:
Correct.

Michael:
Article 3 seems to be in order. It’s raise and appropriate will be the motion but it allows versatility of a motion in the way it’s written, so that’s fine. Let’s go inside into page 4 of article 4. At the very top we just agreed there were going to be no changes to that very top line item. Now, the next one we had discussed but you haven’t actually acted on, has added to it a maximum of $40,000 for salaries for a treasury official. If you’re good with that then that’s going to flow down into the total you’re going to recommend and vote for this article.

We’re pretty good down to the [crosstalk 00:04:08] treasury services line and that basically has 40 hours of training in it so that we can give you transition. THat’s what we had said we would do. If you want that you leave it, if you don’t want that you can back that out. Our contract requires us to close the books for this year, which means basically once the department is in [inaudible 00:04:37], we’ll button everything up, prepare the financial statements, and turn them over to you guys.

Stan :
Mike? Could you just back up what you were talking about the $40,000 for treasurer? Tell me a little bit more about that. I guess I didn’t understand that.

Michael:
If you’re going to hire a person to be your treasurer then that line has to have salaries on it.

Stan :
Which line are you talking about? I missed that.

Michael:
The salary and wages treasury.

Stan :
66?

Michael:
The one in yellow.

Stan :
Okay.

Michael:
The yellow ones are the ones that we need to kind of hash through. That’s a change that’s going to move it from a service up to a salary. We’re a little bit behind for some crossover services. We hadn’t really finalized the website. We talked about it last time. It’s basically level-funded at the contract amount that exists, so you’re okay with that?

Fran :
Yeah, I think we need to do that.

Michael:
Okay. Then I think we’re good down to the insurance. I’m still chasing insurance. At this point the numbers in there are my best estimates. The quotes are coming from multiple sources and I’m also endeavoring to get a single source quote for everything. I’m curious after we adjourn if we could talk for a second because I’m curious what you have from the work you did last year in hand. It can minimize what I’m going to do on this.

Basically, the general property and liability is modestly being increased by the carrier. That’s most of the property and casualty. The other piece of the property and casualty is, this building is insured in a separate policy. They will quote us at least to bring it onto the policy where everything else is. I’m still waiting for a quote for the renewal for that policy.

Because the carriers are all quoting me in PNC total I just dropped a total in there. The vehicles are included in that 947. All of the big carrier coverages included their estimate and a reasonable increase on the cost for this building, which I would think that if we could get it combined would actually come down, not go up. So that’s how we get to that number, and I think we’d be fine if we went forward with that number. I wish I had more in hand. Vehicles has just been combing over that
line for this presentation.

Workers comp is also provided for everyone in the district except the firefighters, and actually the fire commissioners for some reason have this accident and sickness coverage as well, which we’ll talk about at some point as we go through renewal. That policy has had basically no deductible and it’s been hammered very aggressively this year. The carrier no longer wants to write the policy the way it’s been written. They will quote us with a deductible, which I’ve incorporated here.
With the deductible change comes a premium reduction. The workers comp I’m still waiting for a quote from the same person who insures this building, so I’ve modestly adjusted the price of the workers comp for this year and put it in that estimate. I’ve put in the estimate that they gave us for the premium for the sickness and accident. Now it seems kind of silly that because you have a bad claims experience you have a budget reduction, but in reality you do. Because you carry in your fire budget 100% of the cost of the missing, injured, sick employees the insurance doesn’t fuel your budget. Insurance is unbudgeted revenue into the income statement during the course of the year, so at the end of the year any recoveries the district receives flow down into fund balance and in effect push up the free cash.
What’s going to happen is you’re going to have a lower cost of insurance. If there is no claims, that’s fine. No change because you don’t have any increase cost of expense. You should have a turn back of overtime from the fire budget. If you do have claims, your overtime is going to deal with the cost of that and your deductible is going to kick in and you may not get any recoveries at all. You may have folks get hurt but [inaudible 00:10:00] reach. I think that what we’re going to find in the renewal proposal is going to be a 5,000 deductible and a 4 week ownership. The claim would kick in day one of the 5th week, like day 29. I’ll solidify this as the renewals go but for the budgeting purposes we have the number that they’re going to give us.

I don’t think we can go better shopping an find a better coverage. In fact, this carrier has both districts, treasury, and I think they’re a good provider. It’s unfortunate that the claims have driven the change but I think you’re just going to be picking up some self-insurances, really is all you’re going to be doing, which may have an advantage financially given the probability of claims going down given the high activity this year. It’s probably the best year to be self-insuring is the post high claims year.

That’s what’s happening there. I think we’re good if we vote this budget with these numbers in it. I think we’ll be fine. There may be modest changes when it actually all shakes down but I think we’ve got enough in there to cover us.

Unemployment we took down, we don’t have any experience there. Payroll taxes is good. I think that brings us to that budget, which is now down by about 8, 8.25% for fiscal 17 off of fiscal 16. I think the number we have here Charlie would be what goes in there and page 5 spreads it into the motion for you. Page 5 of my worksheet would spread it into the motion. 32775. 75 … See the changes on page … This change since the last version was issued, okay? Your draft, article 4 needs to say what’s on page this, 5 of 15. We’re going to change 758 to 75850 for salary and wages. 291625 is going to be 244925. Everybody understand what we’re doing here? Okay.
Article 4. You good, Charlie?

Charlie:
Yes.

Michael:
Now article 5, article 5 as we turn to page 6 of the spreadsheet has a yellow place over it. It’s just called contract negotiations for the time being. We need to insert a number into this budget that correlates with the third year expenses associated with the negotiations that have been agreed to. Until the call came in we were working on this. I believe the numbers are close but I don’t have the numbers tonight. So, we can drop these numbers in tomorrow and get them to Charlie, or we can just put an article in the warrant to see if the district will vote a sum of money, and until we get a final fire budget requested.
The call is yours and the clerk’s. It’s really up to you. The motion is all framed up with the pieces, the article is actually the way it’s written. We could just change it to see if the district would vote to raise an appropriate transfer and appropriate a sum of money and then the motion would have this part in it.

Laurie:
I have no problem with doing it that way. We’ve done it that way many times in the past.

Michael:
It’s your warrant, certainly do-able. Then the recommendation would be made at district meeting.

Fran :
I think that’s fine.

Michael:
You good with that, Charlie?

Charlie:
Yes.

Michael:
All right. As soon as we get this we’ll circulate a version 5 and we’ll get this article up to date and we’ll get you that data.
Article 6 and 7 should be okay, Charlie, because nothing has changed. The 50,000 … It’s got transfer, and we’re going to do a free cash transfer, so that one is good to go. Everybody is good with that article.

Article 7, 26,000 raise and appropriate, transfer and appropriate, and we’re going to use free cash so that article is good to go.
Article 8 is water and that’s not change so article 8 we just need to see if it puts to page 9. Maintenance. Let’s see. Salary is 301593, 26 for the service connections. 268650. With a total appropriation of 596243, so that one is good to go. Everybody is good with article 8?

Fran :
I have a question. I forgot what you told us were the percentage raises. Do you remember?

Michael:
They’re right there. Page 8 of your spreadsheet. Each line is showing its own performance change. You have a 4% on the first line, about a 3% on the second line, and a little over 5% on the third line, and a 1.75, almost 2% on the overtime.

Fran :
Okay. Thank you.

Stan :
Do we have any justification on the line item for the office manager? The raise of 5.1%?

Michael:
No. The chairman didn’t get into it the night he was here. You do not have a paying classification schedule for what I would call non-aligned employees. You have a bargaining unit that has a paying classification schedule that’s being altered through negotiations. Everybody else has no range. If the position were in a bargaining unit or a paying classification plan, generally years 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, maybe 6, 10 in teaching unions, is a step raise. [inaudible 00:17:20]. The individual has been on the job, I want to say this is the second year. It would have started July 1 a year ago and now this is July 1, so almost the end of two years. I would say there is some kind of step logic and cost of living in that, but you could ask the commissioner.

Stan :
I’d like to see some justification for that.

Michael:
Okay. You can approve this article the way it’s written article 8, and present it in here or you could do the same thing. You could do a sum of money and recommendation to be made at district meeting. If you recommend it at the higher level and you want to amend, you make the motion in effect so you can bring a motion to the floor that wouldn’t necessarily have the same amount. The reason with trying to be important about the numbers is district meeting can’t go above what’s in there so you got to make sure you’re high enough. The commissioner has requested that number, so if you put that in and you want to move a lower amount to the floor then the debate can be pushed up your lower amount if you want to do it that way. If you think that … If you don’t get an adequate explanation I guess would you be your alternative.

Laurie:
That looks like a large percentage but it’s not.

Michael:
Yes, we heard that the last time too. Little dollars doesn’t matter. The percentage is still the percentage. It’s a little dollars thing.

Fran :
But that’s more than anybody else in the district would be getting, including the firefighters.

Laurie:
Much more.

Michael:
Except those that are getting steps because of their early entry level status. That’s why I’m used to seeing that in the early steps of municipal employees. It doesn’t jump off at me as much. You also have some new lower level employees so I would have expected that the labor force would have gone up more than it did because …

Laurie:
I think theirs are tied to their certificate [crosstalk 00:19:38].

Michael:
Could be, could be. They may have some, but I would think there would be steps and evaluations for those folks as well. I would have expected to see it hopping up a little bit more, but again, you have the time to spend with the commissioners. You can do another workshop meeting if you want between now and then. You need to get your ducks in order as to who’s making what motions and what your final motions are going to be by the end of your next meeting because it’s just before the district meeting. You’ve got time to work through what your recommendations are going to be. What you’re really doing here is putting in the warrant, what the upside limits of what you’re allowing onto the warrant are, in my mind.

Anyway, that article 8 is as printed if you’re good, Charlie is good. If not, we need to change it.

Laurie:
I think historically the water from the beginning has always given higher raises than the fire department, but also the fire department gets a lot of perks that the water department doesn’t have.

Michael:
Are we putting the article forward like this, or?

Laurie:
That’s just my comment.

Fran :
I think I’d like to speak to the water commissioners again about it.

Michael:
You want to go with a sum of money or you want to go with these numbers and then work from that? That’s the point.

Stan :
Go with these numbers and work from that because we can go down.

Michael:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You can go down. That’s the point. You need to vote amongst yourselves. You’re voting these articles onto the warrant.

Fran :
Okay. Do we need a motion to change that?

Michael:
As long as it’s going to be as written we’re going to tell Charlie yes. If you’ve got consensus you don’t need to take votes in my world.

Fran :
Okay. As written.

Michael:
We’re good, Charlie. Article 8 7. Motion to follow. Article 9. Article 9 is the new public buildings article. It’s been that way now for a couple of years. It’s down about 20%, 21%. Some of it’s due to the fact that the insurance is wound out, but repairs are down, heating is down. You’ve sort of hammered this place into much better shape. This also has to handle anything that goes forward on High Street. This budget is in pretty good shape. The chairman did get you to, an email and we’ve moved up article 11 to 25, so Charlie got that. The 5 is still article 10 and the budget is still 18985 as presented at the last meeting. There is no yellow on here. I didn’t think you wanted to change anything.

I think these three articles, 9, 10, and 11, are good as in the book and as written in the warrant. 9, 10, and 11. Okay?

Fran :
Yeah, I think the only, the problem we might have is if we have another huge snowy winter because I expect that whoever we get to plow next, it’d be more expensive than the previous.

Michael:
You’ve got cushion and you’ve got a reserve fund. Snow and ice is a traditional challenge to governments, and that’s what reserve funds are good for. If you’re okay, we’ll bless 9, 10, and 11 in this draft.

Stan :
Question. My understanding is if you go over on a snow budget you can carry that over into the next fiscal year?

Michael:
We don’t have a snow budget.

Stan :
We don’t have that?

Michael:
We’re not a city. No. City and town, yes. They can deficit spend with a vote of the finance committee and, in the cities, the council, and the board of selectmen in the town and the finance committee. Then you have to deal with it. It either goes on your next year’s tax levee or you back fill it from available funds in the current year. We don’t have that privilege. We don’t technically have a snow and ice. We’ve got a grounds maintenance. Bring in the volunteers and the shovels.

12. 12 is the street lights, and I believe that you’re all good with. It’s down again, almost 25% and the warrant article reconciles to our budget books. I think we’re all set with that one.

13, same thing. You’ve debated and voted the library recommended amount. We’re going to put that in the article, so 13 toes back to the budget book on article 13.

14. I haven’t touched 14 in the two interim versions since our last version, but we have finally had out USDA application be accepted by the federal government, which means that we’re going to get something. They have made the engineers rewrite several sections of application. We have fought to bloody stubs with the Dunn’s people to get a Dunn and Brad Street number that works in the federal system. As of this week we have been told by the feds we’re in. The application is done, so now it’s just a matter of how long it takes them to tell us what they’re going to do for us.

Stan :
Any estimate? They give you any estimate as to when we might hear?

Michael:
I exchanged conversation … We don’t ask them for things like that. That’s just crazy. The engineer and I exchanged emails saying we kind of agreed that 3 weeks seems like it may be a reasonable time frame. The reason I’m bringing it up is because this work paper that we’re looking at on page 13 that is article 14, is built on a lot of assumptions that are tied to that. I also have … I know that the land trust hasn’t bothered you. They haven’t bothered me. They self-funded and I’m sure they would love to get the closing done. We did do our own internal authority for that and then we also did most of the free cash left on tanks. The tanks, just because of the mild winter, the tank has moved faster than the cash flow had estimated.

Laurie:
Been working Sundays until 8 o’clock at night.

Michael:
I have a bill we need to pay and so I’m going to have to pay that. I’m optimistic that as soon as the feds say go we can get some money and get everything squared away. This is the best budget I can put together with the estimates right now. I think it’s a fair and reasonable budget and when you issue debt you can usually make it work with what you have to work with in the first year either by making it go longer or shorter or faster or slower. Some of them are fixed, which is fine, but I have loaded up the debt budget. It’s up 42.5%, which is driving the levee this year, but I think it’s fair and reasonable and it assumes a considerable amount of federal grant money, tune of about $500,00, and we end up issuing about a two million dollar loan, so we’ll see what happens.

The alternative, again, would have been to do a sum of money article and let it mature a little bit more and make the recommendation at the district meeting. I think it’s fine. I’d say we just go with this and hope that we don’t spend that much money next year. Okay.

Charlie, let’s see. We’re good with article 14 as printed in the draft warrant. Maybe by the district meeting we can announce a grant loan.

Fran :
That’d be nice.

Michael:
Okay. I didn’t give you a new budget work paper because nothing has changed. This budget is still the same as last week and it’s going to be a combination of funding sources. I vote to raise and appropriate and/or transfer and appropriate the sum of. The sum is correct. We’ll be doing both raising and appropriating and transferring and appropriating, so that one is all set.

Then 25,000 to raise and appropriate and/or transfer and we’re going to use free cash so that’s good to go there, the way article 16 is written.
Article 17, you all got a copy of. Charlie, looks good. This is a housekeeping article we talked about a little bit so now you’re getting your first peek at it. We’re going to go to district meeting and ask them to rescind actions taken under article 19 of the 2014 annual meeting and article 1 of the January 15 special meeting to revoke the portion of the debt authority that we’re not going to use. That’s pretty straightforward.

Article 18. We’ve kind of got the same problem for the next two that I have for the article in the annual warrant. Article 18 is a prior department salary and wages for the retro. I would note, and you can see on the cover page of the spreadsheet, actually it’s in the interior, article 17, 18, and 19 are fiscal 16 actions for this district meeting alone.

We can do actions at any meeting for any fiscal year. The only thing we can’t do at this district meeting relative to 16 is tax. The tax rate has been set. Everything that’s been voted in 16 has to have an available funding source. Article 17 doesn’t require any funding. It’s just a rescinding of debt. Article 18 is going to be a transfer from free cash, the sum of something to the fiscal 16 … Strike the ‘to the’ second set right after ‘fiscal 16.’ I might have given you bad language, Charlie. Fiscal 16 strike ‘to the,’ so we’re going ‘to the fiscal 16 fire department salary and wages budget.’ To pay for the fiscal year 15 and fiscal year 16 payroll costs associated with the 3 year contract negotiated with the firefighters union.

As we had discussed previously, the statute prohibits funding of contracts back further than the beginning of the prior fiscal year. This article is in order, it’s lawful, it puts in the current year’s budge the funds necessary to pay for the cost associated with last year’s contract and the current year’s contract. Come June 30 all of that’s behind the district. The article we just talked about, article 4, was the amount that’s going to be costing us associated with 17. We’re going to amend the 17, we’re going to amend 16 here, I’m going to use free cash to pay that amount.

Then, article 19 and the [inaudible 00:32:29] still maturing that number when he left an the call. To see if the district will vote in fiscal 16 to transfer some sum of money from the remaining balance in article 7 of last May’s annual district meeting. That truck has come in under budget, its stabilization fund money and I’d like to get as much of it back into stabilization at this meeting. If nothing else, for window dressing the balance sheet at the end of the year, the stabilization fund will be a little bit higher. They were working on that number as of today as well.

Is that okay, Charlie, the way it’s printed with the $0? Or, I think we should put to transfer a sum of money.

Charlie:
Money for both of those?

Michael:
Yeah, because we don’t have a hard figure to drop in, so where the dollar sign 00, six 0s, dot 00 is in article 18, just put in ‘a sum of money,’ and where it says dollar sign 00,000.00 put in ‘a sum of money,’ and the chief will get those to the board and will probably at your next meeting, or you can schedule another workshop meeting to button this all up. It probably would be good to get it done before the village association meeting because they were expecting us to show up with pretty solid number, right? I’m not sure what that, I don’t have that date in my head.

Fran :
17th.

Michael:
Okay, so we may want to do a meeting prior to that meeting because I know these numbers will be ready in the next 4 or 5 days, certainly early next week.
So that is 19. That completes …

Stan :
I just have a technical question going back to 17. Is it really necessary to rescind an amount where we spent less than was authorized?

Michael:
It’s not … You have a stain on your balance sheet. Your legislative body has voted to authorize debt. Until the legislative body votes to disallow that authority it just sits there. We have accounts called loans authorized, and loans authorized and unissued on our balance sheet. It’s part of our long term indebtedness presentation. It says to the investment community, “Haha, it ain’t time. We can put this debt on the street.” When I get the legislative body to vote it I take it off the balance sheet. It’s gone. It’s a very important transaction that we must do.

That ties out my schedule through 19. The rest I would defer to the board and the clerk. I’m checking out at this point. I’ll let you guys work down the rest of this warrant.

Charlie:
Now is the financial committee bringing forth the bylaw changes

Laurie:
We gave the bylaw committee the authority to do it years ago. I don’t know if that’s ever been changed. Might as well put them in under the prudential committee.

Charlie:
Okay, so I’ll put .

Laurie:
I’ll type up a pass out sheet with the present bylaws so that it’ll be a little bit clearer than it has been in the past.

Fran :
That’s exactly what I was going to say. The problem with this is it doesn’t tell you what it was.

Michael:
Right. Can I make a suggestion even though I checked out?

Fran :
Sure.

Michael:
I think it should say to see if the district would vote to delete article 5, section 6 of the Cotuit bylaws in its entirety. All of them.

Laurie:
I was going to tell Charlie after the meeting.

Michael:
Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to step on your feet.

Charlie:
OK

Michael:
I know. So, they’re all good? They’re the way you guys voted them and so forth?

Laurie:
Yes.

Michael:
All right. Then I would say you’ve pretty much got a working draft of the warrent anyway. If you want to float it tomorrow and send me a copy or tonight if you go home and stay up late. Whatever. I’ll look at it. I’m around the office tomorrow.

Charlie:
Okay.

Michael:
As soon as I get the chief’s numbers I’ll boil up another iteration and circulate that to the board. I did just want to spend a little bit of time on page 2 of this worksheet before you finish up the warrant.

As it sits right now the only thing we have to do is drop in that salary adjustment in article 4 for the fire department. If you look at what’s going on on the revenue side, which is page 2 of the warrant schedule, the funding from free cash won’t affect the levee. The levee is up just under 1% at this very point in time with this warrant as we just built it, missing one item.

Laurie:
Fire?

Michael:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, once that drops in the next time you see this you’ll see your levee impact I think pretty close, because anything they change is on the floor isn’t going to amount to much I can’t imagine. Right now we’re under 1% increasing the levee so we’re just waiting on that last number. Okay?

Fran :
Sounds good. Do you think that’s going to take it over 2.5?

Michael:
Yes. Yeah, I think it’s going to take it over.

Fran :
Like 4?

Michael:
I could drop some numbers in if you want but I’m seeing some of the preliminary numbers and I think we had a good budget. We’ll see how we make out. It’s what it is. Everything else is pretty tight.

Fran :
Well, but 2 is retro, that’s quite a bit.

Michael:
Yeah, and you’re really funding that out of free cash so you’re not … Because you’re technically should have reserved for 1650, closed down the fund equity. 17 has got the load of the 3 years left though so whatever it is in year one it’s double in year two and it’s triple in year 3 and year 3 is the one we have to add in here. If you have numbers in your head by year then triple it and there you go.

Stan :
Do we have any kind of schedule as to what the servicing or the debt is going to be like for the next 5 years? An estimate of that?

Michael:
Yes.

Stan :
What page is that on?

Michael:
I didn’t present it. I’ve got to range the line down. I usually range it down because I present it on … It’ll be on page 13. It’s down below but I just didn’t range it for this print, but I can show you what’s general government and what’s water works. I just broke it out by department for the presentation because it’s so fictitious that really to build a schedule is … Basically High Street property is the general government cost you see on page 13. Everything else is the water works. It probably will … The way we fund on the federal level, it’s a longer term so it’s not as impactive. It spreads the burden out over, makes it more equitable across a greater burden of tax payers, so I’ve used 30 years but that’s why I said earlier they will give us 40 years. We may take that and that will soften that up. That’s why I said the number I’ve presented here is a soft number. I don’t know. I think it’s high enough to be competent for what you’re going to need and I’d like to try to beat it down.

I don’t think I did a detailed schedule. I have it down below but I don’t think it’s matured. I’ll mature it for your next meeting. You’ve got what you need to know right there. I know what you’re talking about.

Stan :
Because at the municipal level, I’ve just been becoming familiar with the fact that we pay principal now each year. Rather than getting a note or a bond that just gets we’ll pay it at the end when it matures.

Michael:
Every bond we sell has, every year we’re paying off, it’s … A bond we sell, it’s a combination of multiple bonds within a bond so if we sell a million dollar bond, in 10 years we pay it down a million a year, we sell one year bonds, and those go, we sell two year bonds and they go, we sell three year, four year, five year, six year, seven year, eight year, nine year, and ten year. It’s not like you buy your house and you pay a mortgage but we finance it that way. We can do a fixed cost. We don’t usually do that. It costs more money over the life of the debt, but we can do that because sometimes people feel comfortable voting for that. This is … Basically the first year it would go down from there.

Stan :
Okay.

Michael:
What you’re seeing. It’s loaded for basically a full year. It won’t happen. We’re all good there. You can move down the agenda.

Fran :
Thank you, Mike.

Michael:
You’re welcome.

Fran :
Next item on the agenda is advertising the treasurer’s position.

Laurie:
I gave you copies of … This would be the ad. It’s not much different from the last one except we changed the date that we want to receive these applications by.

Fran :
I guess what we need to discuss …

Laurie:
I also need to know whether you want it sent to the fire district’s box or your own personal email.

Fran :
Send it to the fire district’s box.

Laurie:
This is what will be on the website and there are some changes. I made a lot of changes that would clarify.

Fran :
From Mike?

Laurie:
Yes.

Fran :
Okay. Where do you propose besides the Cape Cod Times and …

Laurie:
You gave me the thing for the …

Fran :
Mass treasurers.

Laurie:
Yes.

Fran :
Should we do off Cape Newspapers?

Michael:
Should be able to put in The Beacon or put it up in the MMA. We’re not a member but my firm is. I could probably, if they’re buggers about it.

Fran :
Yeah, that’s not MMA.

Michael:
No, the Mass Municipal Association website.

Laurie:
If I get you a copy you can …

Michael:
I’ll try, yeah.

Laurie:
Okay.

Michael:
I don’t know why they wouldn’t They like people to go to their website. People go there looking for work.

Fran :
What’s The Beacon?

Michael:
The Beacon is the MMA’s magazine.

Fran :
Okay.

Michael:
Monthly to their membership. That you would have to pay a classified ad, but if that’s something you wanted to do I think I could … I run an ad in it every month because I’m a member, so I could put another ad in too for you if you wanted to. Just gets it out there.

Laurie:
I’ll email you tomorrow.

Fran :
When do we want to schedule … Use for deadlines?

Laurie:
If we get it … When do you want it to run in the Cape Cod Times? Starting Friday?

Fran :
Friday, the 6th of May?

Laurie:
No, no. Friday, whatever is the next Friday.

Stan :
That’d be the twenty …

Fran :
Ninth. The 29th. Run it for two weeks? Is that long enough?

Laurie:
Whole weeks? Okay.

Fran :
No, not whole weeks but …

Laurie:
Two weekends. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Fran :
Yeah, what did you do last time, do you remember?

Laurie:
I have no idea. You ask me what I did 5 minutes ago I can’t tell you.

Fran :
That’d be Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That’s be 6 times. That should be sufficient, don’t you think?

Laurie:
Yes

Fran :
What do we want to use for deadlines for receiving them?

Laurie:
Well, let’s see. You want to have the person at the board meeting in June to have a little overlap.

Stan :
End of May?

Laurie:
If we’re going to run it for two weekends, what’s the dates on the second weekend?

Fran :
The first weekend is April 30th and May 1st. The second weekend is May 7th and 8th.

Laurie:
So the 6th, 7th, and 8th, right? Friday, Saturday, Sunday, right?

Fran :
Right. 29, 30, 31, yep. Do you want to have the deadline …

Laurie:
By [crosstalk 00:46:08] the 15th? Is that too late?

Fran :
That’s a Sunday. The 16th? It’s either Friday the 13th or the 16th.

Laurie:
Let’s do the 16th. That’s smart. Let superstition into this.

Fran :
We can review those at our next meeting on the 23rd. Do we want to … Mike, did you say, I’m sorry, did you say we should have another meeting prior to, in a couple of weeks?

Michael:
Yeah, I think if you’re willing I think it would be good to get your motions nailed down, and ideally if you want to go to the Village Association meeting in …

Laurie:
Sounds like we know what we’re talking about.

Michael:
That’s a good way to put it.

Stan :
23rd. We have the district election is on the 24th and the district meeting is on the 25th, and you wanted to do something on the 23rd?

Fran :
Our regular meeting is on the 23rd.

Michael:
You could finish up your business but it puts pressure on that meeting. She’s looking for something before that which would be great.

Fran :
The 9th?

Michael:
The chief just advised me he’ll have the numbers, we’ll have the numbers [inaudible 00:47:14].

Charlie:
I have the numbers but I just want to look at them before I give them to you.

Fran :
Do you want to do the 9th?

Laurie:
May 9th?

Fran :
May 9th.

Laurie:
Yeah, sure.

Stan :
What are we doing on the 9th?

Fran :
Firming up the warrant.

Stan :
The warrant, okay.

Michael:
Yeah, you’ll be working on motions. The warrant is finished pretty much tonight. Now, Charlie, you’re just going to proceed to post it?

Charlie:
Yep.

Michael:
Okay. Then …

Charlie:
You’re not going to make any recommendations prior to [inaudible 00:47:56]?

Michael:
They’ll do that at the 9th. We can give …

Laurie:
When do we have to have the warrant posted? Excuse me, Mike.

Charlie:
7 days prior.

Michael:
Right. We could actually hold off and vote a warrant that night. Get the chief’s numbers dropped in instead of doing these and then put your recommendations in there. Invite the water board in to deal with what you want to deal with before you put your final numbers on for that article. I would say we could be calling it, finishing the warrant if we’re going to button it up that night, then you’ve still go time to post it adequately. Okay.

Fran :
Okay, the 9th at 5 o’clock.

Michael:
Yeah. We’re only finishing up a handful of figures in the articles and that way you can allocate who’s making which motion that night. Sounds fair.

Fran :
All set, Charlie?

Charlie:
Yep.

Fran :
Okay. Ms. Hadley, Mr. Goldstein, did you get a chance to look at the minutes from our last meeting?

Laurie:
Yes.

Stan :
Yes, I did. Looked okay to me. Motion that we accept the minutes from, when was it?

Fran :
The 11th of April.

Laurie:
Second.

Fran :
All in favor?

Laurie:
I.

Stan :
I.

Fran :
I. Okay. All accepted. Motion to adjourn.

Laurie:
I move we adjourn.

Stan :
Second.

Fran :
All in favor? I so moved.

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