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2004-09-20 SP MTG43 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 317 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING MTG. #43 SEPTEMBER 20, 2004 RES. 456-460 7:02 p.m. TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN ROGER BOOR COUNCILMAN JOHN STROUGH COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER MEMBERS ABSENT COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER TOWN OFFICIALS BUDGET OFFICER JENNIFER SWITZER Supervisor Stec-Opened the meeting – First, an Executive Session to interview Ethics Board Candidates Councilman Brewer and Strough will be present for the interviews, Councilman Boor will not be participating in the candidate interviews we expect him later in the evening, and Councilman Turner is out of town on vacation. 1.0 EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION CALLING FOR AN EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 456,2004 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury will enter into an Executive Session to interview candidates for the Ethics Board of the Town of Queensbury. th Duly adopted this 20 day of September, 2004 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner RESOLUTION ADJOURNING EXECUTIVE SESSION SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 318 RESOLUTION NO. 457, 2004 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. John Strough WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Executive Session and moves into Special Session. th Duly adopted this 20 day of September, 2004 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: Mr. Boor, Mr. Turner No action taken Councilman Boor has entered the meeting. 2.0 EMPIRE STATE FIRE CONSULTING LLC Supervisor Stec-Introduced Mr. Michael Murray of Empire State Fire Consulting LLC he had responded to an RFP for guiding us on composition of the towns apparatus fleet… Mr. Michael Murray- Professional Fire fighter for thirty five years Reviewed for the Board his employment history… and the history of the Empire State Fire Consulting LLC Supervisor Stec-The RFP was geared to apparatus, how would you conduct the over view? Mr. Murray-Would like to meet with the Chief Officers of the five fire companies and I will have a questionnaire for them and that will detail what I am looking for. The resources, the volume of calls, and do you have multiple calls…look into water sources… will travel with each Chief in his district…detailing the distance from the fire station to the longest boundary in each district, take into fact weather conditions etc. Spoke about functioning as a Town Unit… Will be reviewing each apparatus which will take an hour or two, will itemize every piece of equipment on the apparatus. Will also list recommendations on items that you may not have. Councilman Boor-Noted he wanted to review the proposal and review the scope of what we are looking for. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 319 Councilman Strough-Will review the RFP .. Councilman Brewer-Question how much time this will take? Mr. Murray-On my proposal I said one hundred hours, I based that on several trips up here to spend a half a day with the Chief riding the district, a day or two in every fire house, putting the data together and doing the research and coming up with recommendations. Approximately sixty days… Councilman Boor-Will the recommendations come to the Town Board and the Fire Captains? Mr. Murray-I would think by virtue of being hired by the Town I am going to give it to the Town. Councilman Boor-I would like the Fire Captains to know the leaning, in case you have missed something. Mr. Murray-If there are any questions after the town has looked at it I would be more than happy to come in and discuss it with the Chief Officers or the Managers of the Fire Companies or whatever. Councilman Boor-We are not going to do anything until we tapped all the Captains and Chiefs too. I want it to be all inclusive... Chief of Queensbury Central -Noted he encouraged the Town to do a study, it gives you some professional opinion if you will. When doing the apparatus study needs also to consider the man power… Mr. Murray-The survey will include your manpower strength the number of men you have in certain age groups between 18 and 30, between 30 and 40, 40 and 50 and over 50. Spoke on a proposal for another plan to centralize the operations. Supervisor Stec-Thank you for coming and we will be in touch with you. 3.0 BUDGET OVERVIEW Board reviewed several Capital Projects, such as Rush Pond Bike Trail. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer, a plan will have to be written for what you want to do … Supervisor Stec-The CIP is not an expense item in the budget. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer, it is reserved money that has been funded through the operating fund in a reserve to be used for Capital Projects, it will show up as a project expense rather than an operating expense. To spend that money it has to be part of your CIP plan, it has to be a project that you submit a proposal for and then there is a scoring … Councilman Strough-Spoke to the Board on alternate funding for the Bike Trail project. Trying to get SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 320 the three entities together, the School, the Queensbury Conservancy and the Town to review the proposals…Budget Officer -Ms. Switzer- the Town Board needs to formulate what the project costs are going to be and if there is more than one financing mechanism how much that will be and how much from the CIP. Once that is formulated we can create a Capital Project. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer-Reviewed the budgeting process with the Town Board…noted each budget was presented by the Department Head it was then reviewed line item by line item with the Supervisor…based upon spending trends, what will be needed in the future we made adjustments to their budgets. All personnel requests were left in for the Town Board to review…the Board Members will have copies of the budget for their review and when the Members of the Board have any individual questions for Department Managers they are encourage to ask said Manager. Supervisor Stec-I feel that more control on the budget could be gained if more work was done at the front end of the budget. We have met with every Department Head and gone over every single line item. Comptrollers Office noted that we have been over appropriating and coming in under budget and another recommendation that the Comptrollers Office had was to consolidate line items, she felt we had too high a level of detail that was unnecessary. Councilman Boor-Questioned if the million for the County was budgeted in? Supervisor Stec-That is in the budget. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer- Spoke to the Board regarding under budgeted revenues … Councilman Boor-What is the actual amount of unappropriated surplus? Ms. Switzer- It is four million but we have appropriated two million dollars this year to balance the budget so it is about six million. Councilman Boor-How are you using that with regards to the one million annual to Warren County? Where does that number come in on the bell curve? What is a healthy amount to have? Budget Officer Ms. Switzer-The million dollars is good for the next two to three years and having talked to Rob Lynch in Warren County in the Treasurer’s Office that is something that you can say for certain there is going to a million dollars left up there. If we get to next year and we are way under our budgets that is when you can always add an addendum onto that and if you want to leave an extra two hundred thousand dollars up there… SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 321 Councilman Boor-The thing I am having a hard time with is we do not go forward with some of the Capital Improvement Projects we are going to have more money than we know what to do with. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer-We have at the end of this year, three million dollars in the CIP, right now I do not have five hundred thousand in the budget to fund the CIP for 2005…Noted on the CIP list there is enough money to cover all the projects except the Recreation Center… Supervisor Stec-Purely General Fund Projects that you would not bond it worked out to a million five…that is one of the changes in my tentative budget was that I eliminated the half a million dollars for the CIP fund. Councilman Boor-We are in a wonderful position of having money, do we bump up what we leave at the County? Budget Officer Ms. Switzer-I think leaving it next year at a million dollars…that is one of my recommendations that sales tax issues is something that you need to revisit every year. Supervisor Stec-Regarding the Recreation Center, if the public votes to build the center, if you assume that you were going to borrow fifteen million dollars over a thirty year bond it was working out to principal and interest was eight or nine hundred thousand dollars a year, so the public will be given a choice between virtually guaranteeing the million dollar rebate or they will say forego the rebate and build the recreation center without instituting a property tax. We will know more about that when we get closer to the Rec. Center. … Any upgrades or requests for additional people I included them I did not cut any requested upgrades or new people it is in the budget. Jennifer has budgeted all the payrolls and benefits and all of the retirement, that is in the budget. Raises for everybody union and non union she has put in a contingency line like we have done in the past. Everything that we could think to put in the budget is in there. I told them that the goal that I had for the Department Heads was that I want to deliver to the Board something that I truly believe is an adoptable budget. I will deliver the tentative budget to you and I encourage you go though it and talk to the Department Heads about any questions that you have. We are still going to talk to most Department Heads for their personnel requests and if there is any thing that jumps off the page for anyone. We tried with each Department Head and actually we succeeded with the exception that any new personnel costs, upgrades or new people need to come to the full board but they are in the budget right now and we will talk to those Department Heads. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer-I know by Department the positions or upgrades that they are looking for. SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 322 Supervisor Stec-As far as upgrades or new positions the Board will make that decision. We wanted to leave the meetings with the Department Heads with a budget that they can live with and support…every single Department Head unanimously said yes I can live with the Supervisor’s Budget. Councilman Boor-Questioned if there was money in the budget for flowering plants for the corner of Bay and Quaker. Supervisor Stec-Yes. Councilman Strough-Two professional landscapers from the Friends of Hovey Pond offered for free to design that corner so it will be dramatic. Councilman Boor-I have got a vendor that will give us rock bottom prices. Supervisor Stec-I have had people say the same thing to me, it is just a matter of coordinating that job. Chuck put some color in there for now. Board reviewed the Budget Process… Councilman Strough-I can understand this concept, it sounds like a very good concept, I like your plan of doing this with the Department Heads during the day and so they are happy, I give you credit for that. We might get some more budget adjustments next year, that is to be expected with this plan. Budget Officer Ms. Switzer-That was a concern of the Managers was they said, we are going to have to move money around…we would rather have the budget tighter… Supervisor Stec-Spoke to the Board in regard to having fewer line items., Jennifer is looking to consolidate into fewer line items after the budget it adopted. The tentative budget is lower than last years adopted budget… RESOLUTION CALLING FOR AN EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 458 2004, INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby moves into an Executive Session to discuss Fire and EMS Contracts SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 323 and Budgets and Reorganization of the Community Development Department. Duly adopted this 20 day of September, 2004 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: Mr. Turner RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 459, 2004 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Executive Session. th Duly adopted this 20 day of September, 2004 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec NOES: None ABSENT: Mr. Turner NO ACTION TAKEN IN EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION ADJOURNING SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 460,2004 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Roger Boor RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Special Meeting of the Town Board. th Duly adopted this 20 day of September, 2004 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Boor, Mr. Strough, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Stec SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING 2004-09-20 MTG. 43 324 NOES: None ABSENT: Mr. Turner Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury