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2000-11-09 SP SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING NOVEMBER 9, 2000 7:04 P.M. MTG. #50 RES. 450-452 TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR DENNIS BROWER COUNCILMAN JAMES MARTIN COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER COUNCILMAN DANIEL STEC COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER TOWN OFFICIALS COMPTROLLER HENRY HESS HIGHWAY SUPT. RICK MISSIT A DEPUTY HIGHWAY SUPT. MIKE TRAVIS WATER/WASTE WATER SUPT. RALPH VANDUSEN DEPUTY WASTEWATER SUPT. MIKE SHAW QUEENSBURY CENTER-DIRECTOR KATHLEEN KATHY BUILDING AND GROUNDS-CHUCK RICE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT -CHRIS ROUND LANDFILL SUPERINTENDENT -JAMES COUGHLIN ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF RECREATION-STEVE LOVERING TOWN ASSESSOR-HELEN OTTE SUPERVISOR DENNIS BROWER-Opened the Meeting PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE LED BY COUNCILMAN TIM BREWER PUBLIC HEARING 2001 TOWN BUDGET NOTICE SHOWN HEARING OPENED SUPERVISOR BROWER-I would like to introduce the Town Comptroller Henry Hess who will make our budget presentation this evening. COMPTROLLER HENRY HESS (slide show presentation)-Good evening, I don't really think I need to introduce myself I think everybody here knows who I am. This is a very informal greeting, I have a very informal meeting, it looks like we have two members of the public, it is the first time I have ever been in a room with this many people that half the population, half the public population has been my wife, but Mr. Tucker and Phyllis I guess are the only two members of the public everybody else are internal. But, let me tell you something, that is fine with me, I would like to see more interest from the public, I think this is an important event for them but none the less, if the meeting only serves to share the effect of the budget and the contents of the budget and the context of the budget among management and the policy makers, then I guess that serves a purpose after all. So, even though it is just a very close knit group with not many outsiders I think we should make the most of it and see what, maybe the things you might not have noticed in the budget on your own. The Town Board Members have a handout of all the slides. Everybody else should be able to see them and in fact if Tim and Dan cannot see well enough, there are seats across the way. Maybe we should have set up a little differently, but I think we will be all right. This is my fourth budget presentation for the Town. I am pleased to be able to present an overview of the 2001 Preliminary Budget. If anybody doesn't have a budget, I am sure most of you do, there is one on the table. The whole budget as you all know is about this big, about three hundred and some pages, what you deal with is a summary that complies with the requirements of disclosure with all, although we do provide the clerk's office a copy of the full budget worksheet, as I like to call them for public review, all the information that you need to evaluate the spending plan is in the abbreviated version and the information that I am going to provide tonight. The slides that we are going to review as usual are not identical to what you are going to see there, but rather they summarize and focus your attention on different aspects of the budget. When we get to the final, the punch line as I like to call it, the pink sheet and yours is not pink, I think the second one in your page there was not copied on pink but when you get to the pink sheet, that is where the punch line of the budget is because it summarizes all the revenues and all the appropriations and the tax rates, it is the most important page and we will work our way down to that. But, before we get to that there are really a number of things that you just need to know about, the spending plan for the Town at this time including how it was arrived at. I need to get started, Dennis said I only had three hours, I think I added by ten just in case. COUNCILMAN BREWER-The last two hours, you will be talking by yourself. COMPTROLLER HESS-You are not going to hang around for the slides of my last vacation, are you? Ok. I have brought a few along. What I would like to do, most people here are not going to have questions but to the extent that you do, you may, if there is something relevant to what we are talking about at the time please bring it up. Generally what works best is, if we run through this thing and then if there is a multitude of questions about policies or programs or whatever, get to the end and then we will talk about them at that time. The brain trust here is significant tonight, we have got probably one of the greatest brain trusts, the top ninety-five percent of the country or even the world, here in terms of the people that can answer questions between the department managers on programs, myself on finances and the Town Board on policies that went into developing the budget. With that said, lets just start out here and take a look at what we see as the, the discussions that went into developing the budget this year. Can everybody see that? Is it blurry? Should I turn something off? It is always a problem because I need to read at the same time... As the board has been meeting and not just at it's budget meetings, but as the Board meets through out the year and especially this is a new board you know we all know you have four members that are, that are developing a stratagem of their own and a lot of discussions have taken place about what the emphasis will be for this year and next year and of course this is the first budget, it is unfortunate that we don't have four year terms, it went down, they get to vote on a budget that they get to implement one time, next year, this is it. So, this is the first budget they actually have control over that they will get to implement. But the conflicting budgetary goal that we talk about in terms of how do you develop a budget, reduce the dollar budget, decrease services and effectiveness of what the town does, that is in red, the colors here are significant. That really wasn't what this board focused on. Hold the dollar line, is the next step up, we just, spending and where it is now. Limit dollar increases across the board, you cannot increase more than two percent to two and a half or three percent. Really, what this board throughout, not just as budget discussion but it is discussions in terms of the services it wants to provide, over the next year at least and on into the future, assuming that we all get to sit together. What we are going to do is actively identify needs and then address them, and dollars will become a concern once we identify the need. Lets do it the most efficient way. But the theme of the budget really is lets identify needs and address them. Five people sitting around a table, you can imagine they all see the same need, you have four different wards. But, none the less there is a consensus on some of the needs and there is individual preferences on some of the needs but all of them in some way or another have been addressed in putting this document together. This sheet really shows what I call the development need and this board has a strong emphasis on talking about the development of the town, promote and prepare for economic growth, prepare for residential growth, deal with roads and drainage, recreational facilities, expand, plan expand and maintain them. This is not intended to be a complete list but a fairly accurate sampling. How do we get those, how does this budget deal with them, it provides for, they look very hard at planning, there is a new position in planning, I am not sure, we are not sure how that is going to be filled yet but there is a position in planning that the town sees a need for that. Engineering, there is specific budget appropriations to provide for engineering needs. QEDC, support the Queensbury Economic Development Corp., doing a great job for the Town, after some years of hiatus we have a new one, the board has provided, has continued to provide as they did last year administrative and project funds. Warren and Washington Industrial Park Sewer, the town is the leader in developing that and actually taking lead agency is the right thing to do but they are going to take the lead in getting that done. Town wide sewer and water expansion, we are going to talk in a few minutes about a capital improvement plan but the capital improvement plan is nominated not necessarily in terms of number of projects but in terms of dollar magnitude of projects to address the water and sewer needs throughout the town. Sidewalks and Community Beautification, and here we are getting down to long term capital improvement planning, that is something that we have been talking about for a few years in taking an active role in developing a plan, this year we have nearly fifty projects, I have lost track of them, because I have not looked at it for a week or so, we have nearly fifty projects on a capital improvement plan. Some of which have high priority, some of which are down the list, quite a ways down. That will be adopted probably before yearend. Some preliminary form of a qualifying capital improvement plan will be adopted this year and right now we expect that two million dollars in fund balance or somewhere in that range will be funded, will be appropriated for reserve to provide seed money to institute the capital improvement plan. That does not mean that any particular project will be implemented but it provides seed money to provide, to get some of the projects done with cash, to provide grant money, to apply for grants, for others to provide seed money for bonding in areas where we have long term benefit and long term pay back. So, capital improvement plan although not part of the numbers that you are looking at here in terms of the budget, it is an important part of the towns overall goal for next year in terms of its spending plan. It is still not a complete list but some of the other ones that have less to do with development but still items that are very important to the operation of the town keeping abreast of technology, the town has, is instituting a, and Chris has worked very hard on it, a GIS, the Geographic Information System that is going to be important to a lot of departments in the town, that is up and coming. The Town this year has committed to hiring a computer technology manager, in fact there is one that has been offered the job and has accepted and we expect to have him on board this year. That is an expense, and it is needed to keep abreast of the technology because we are a technology driven town. Environmental Concerns, we talk about the hazardous materials day, that is going to be run in Jim's department next year. A year and a half ago we implemented the free removal from refrigeration to comply with the law and just good environmental procedures and it takes money to do that. That is in the budget and it is identified in the budget for that reason, they are not miscellaneous expenses, these are identified as primary concerns that we need to address. Public Safety, the Town has created the position of Deputy Fire Marshal and filled it. Employees Salary Integrity, it has been an important discussion for the board this year, they are still working on that but there is money established in the budget to try to establish integrity relative to the established compensation schedule for staff. Stabilizing the town tax rate, not an easy topic to resolve but right now the budget papers you are looking at show a tax rate that is still nineteen and a half percent, stabilized from last year. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Nineteen and a half cents. COMPTROLLER HESS-Nineteen and a half cents, and maintenance of the town's physical health is not, it is last on the list, first on mine but it is there and it is maintaining fund balances, sound financial management, efficient operation management, economic growth, things that it takes to make sure that the financial health of the town is continued. You got a budget in front of you, you are not going to see the whole thing but if you got a budget in front of you, you are not going to see any of them, you got a budget in front of you, what this page does, this sununarizes the first six pages, excuse me, the final six pages, the last six pages in your handout, this is a summary of those pages. I mean there is, what that does, it takes all the funds and shows the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, finance, it takes every department and breaks down what we are going to spend in our various functions and you know, that is important and you have in front of you and certainly this should trigger some questions maybe from some of you but in a nutshell this summarizes the same data. What we measure on this, if you look down the right side and similar information is on the sheet you have there, if you look down the sides here and you say ok, where are the blips, I mean what we show here is a six point nine percent or seven percent increase in spending in the general fund, how did we arrive at that? When you go up and you say well there are minus increases or decreases you might call them in some of the departments and so you look at the significant ones. In the finance department, which consists pretty much ofDarleen's, mine and Helen's and couple other small purchasing, couple other small things, seven point six percent which is above the average, pretty much driven by some needs that are in the assessor's department this year. Fifteen point two percent in shared services, primarily although there are a number of things in there that are going to buildings and other departments but pretty much driven by the new position of Computer Technology Manager and our shared computer technology department. Thirteen point eight percent in special items. That is always a variable because that includes the Board's contingency and a number of items go in there one of which is projected salary increases for those people that are not under contract which salaries have not been adopted next year. Fourteen and a half percent in public safety, you talk again that was fire marshal, that is the primary driver of that particular increase. Fifty point three percent in transportation, last year you will recall there was not a budget appropriation for Deputy Highway Superintendent and that has been restored and that effects the budget this year and the board's appropriation to continue sidewalk installation and maintenance through out the town, with the other area there. Ten point seven is above average in Culture and Recreation there is a new position in parks this year, contracted services with our non-profits that you will see a little later we will show that and some money put into beautification drives the fifteen point four percent there. The nineteen point five percent in employee benefits is primarily health insurance and disability and to some degree worker comp., which I will talk about in a couple of minutes. Not because there is an increase in cost in workers comp., but because we are covering some old liability there. It comes down to an average spending increase of six point nine in the general funds. Throughout the other funds, the average for all the other funds is eleven point eight percent and town wide we have an average spending increase of nearly ten percent. The two significant ones down here in the other areas are water and wastewater, pretty much driven by new positions and projects that they anticipate completing and we talked a few minutes ago about the priority of getting those, of spending money in those areas and getting ready for the growth. That is reflected in this eighteen and fifteen percent increases and then the nine point four percent of solid waste is pretty much the environmental, additional environmental money is being spent on those concerns. This is the kind of sheet that you know these guys that work in accounting and with numbers love to see, it will probably boor you to death but it is one of the things that we are required to show you. The law says that when you do a budget presentation in public we need to show the public how money is being spent by function as opposed to by department or by fund. This breaks it down by function and it really is revealing, you know it is very easy to say that town wide our personnel expense is twenty seven point five percent, excuse me twenty seven point five percent of our total expense, our total net expenses. When we pull out of this colunm over here, interfund transfers, we pull that out because that would really, that would double the expense, we move the money from one fund and put it in another and then we spend it to vendors or to other sources from another fund. So, we pulled it out and we are dealing with this net appropriation account. Twenty-seven or nearly twenty-eight percent of our personnel expenses of our town expenses is in personnel. Twelve point one percent is in employee benefits or forty-four actually, depending on how you measure it, whether you are measuring it, a couple ways you will see a couple of conflicting numbers, they are not widely conflicting but nearly forty-four, forty-five percent of our, is our fringe benefit ratio this year. That is pretty staggering but this is what that reveals. Self insurance, we have a function there, it looks like a big number but we will talk about workers comp in a few minutes and that is what is driving, setting up a reserve to cover all the old claims that have been out there since prior to January 1st, 2000. Emergency Services, thirteen point two percent of the budget, four point three percent increase, equipment contractual services, debt service which is ...in a town this size and the net appropriation getting down to a net change in appropriations across the town of about eight point three percent. From the slide that we just saw, personnel is about the biggest thing on there. About the biggest expenditure, personnel and fringe benefits together, single biggest item. So, we focus on that and just look to see where, how does that work out. What we look at, as fringe benefit when they say our ratio is forty or nearly about forty- five, forty-four point one percent and it shows down here at the bottom corner, I only break this out by different departments or by different funds, if you will and show you the total because you see most of the expenses are pretty consistent, one percent from. . retirement that is about our rate. Social Security is seven point six five, so it is going to be that. Worker Comp varies this year because of past experience and we are setting up the reserves and trying to plan our best although we do not have the exact numbers we are trying our best to show workers comp liability to turn back to the fund to the department that generated an old claim. So, we have a couple of things we now, where we used to be with the county and all we got was a bill and no break down, now we are rated by risk, meaning that somebody who works with tools outside we pay a higher rate for than somebody who works behind a desk and has less risk of injury. So, we are able to use those numbers to try to appropriate our workers comp and you will see that there is a big difference between the rates in workers comp rated to the risk of the employees doing the work. Less than half a percent for disability insurance, health insurance is wide, all across the board. You will see a level of twenty-one percent and a high or nearly forty percent and the reason for that is we based it on the most recent census that we have had, that will change this year. We have had a dramatic increase in health insurance rates especially in the matrix program, it decreased in the PPO incidentally, an increase in the HMO the town pays for across the board. But what the variance in numbers between the departments reflects is the number of people within each of those departments that take the highest priced plan that costs the town the most money. This is not a judgement, this is just a fact that typically our outside workers will use, the water district and the highway are the highest in cost because they have the highest people that use the Matrix, the most expensive plan. I expect that to change somewhat this year because we distributed cost sheets today that show the Matrix cost going up significantly and I think some of these people will re-look at that and revalue that for their own cost and maybe they will save some money and the town will save some money, but our budget forecast is based on our current census. Getting back to the overall impact, forty-four point one percent of wages is what our fringe benefit ratio is this year. As part of the required budget things, we have to publish when we publish the budget and go to hearing, we have to disclose what the board has determined what the elected officials salary is next year. This is the disclosure on that, you have six different positions, four councilpersons, two justices and all the others are occupied by one person, you can see the 2000 annual salary, what we are changing it, what the 2001 annual salary would be and you multiply across the number of people filling those positions, you can see the cost is going up four percent. Money we spend for services we do not provide and hire other people to do, in other words. The town is not equipped to do but they see the services as important to the members of our community. This is a traditional list, there is no additions this year, it is the same list, maybe some of the numbers have changed a bit, we have put a few dollars into veterans services through the American Legion and they have something they do with that, it's a parade, I am not sure what they do and we support this, the Mountainside Free Library, the Hyde Collection and a number of the other organizations that have made requests and been on the list for years. The costs has gone up this year, approximately ten percent, nine point five percent because of increases that were requested and granted, there were a lot of increases requested that were not granted or were not granted to the extent that they were, that the organizations requested. Last year the rate went up thirty-nine percent primarily because there were two units added. Little League and Snowmobile Club, last year it went up thirty-nine percent, this year it is going up about ten percent with no additional organizations on the list. The only graph you are going to see tonight. This is it. Talked to you about revenues, people are not much concerned about revenues except when you get down to, what are you going to get out of sales tax, or out of property taxes, I have already let the cat out of the bag on that one, I have already told you it is nineteen and half cents but it is important for you to see where the rest of the money comes from. Sales tax still provides sixty-Osix percent or two thirds of the towns operating money. That is not just money that is spent from the general fund, as you will see in a couple of minutes, this money is also diverted off to go to a couple other operating funds, if you will. But, sixty-six percent of the money of the revenue of the town, other than special taxing districts will come from sales tax. We have six percent from mortgage tax which is pretty significant, a lot of property transactions in this town. Six percent of mortgage tax, only four percent of the revenue will come from property tax which is pretty consistent with what it has been in prior years. Two percent of our revenue for town sponsored districts comes from cemetery, highway generates a percent of their own without over and above what the town funds for highway operations. Jim generates six percent of the towns funds out of the solid waste transfer stations. Other sources, other sources, permits, user fees, grants, earnings on investments, anything that we cannot categorize that really don't have the significance of their own. I would like to mention there is something that does have a significance of their own and I think next year I will probably break this out, because it is becoming more significant and I think it is something that we should feel good about. It is earnings on investment. In the year 2000 we estimated, we budgeted three hundred and five thousand dollars earned from investments. We have excellent relationships with our bank, not just relationships with our bank, we have an excellent agreement with our bank which assures that every dollar the town has in the bank earns at least five or approximately five and a quarter percent, I will say five and a quarter this year, the earning curve has turned a bit and every dollar we have in the bank earns a little bit higher than that. Almost every dollar we have in the bank earns that, that is gross and it is net because we do not get charged for checks and we do not get charged for service fees or paying.. . everything is done for us for basically free, why, because our low bank balance this year will be nine million dollars. High balance will be about seventeen million dollars. We are a good customer for the bank, we do not make unusual bans, we use electronic banking, we have a good department, we don't make unusual demands of the bank and we are good depositors. However, three hundred and five thousand dollars is a good return on that when you are considering you make five percent. Last year once the budget was passed and the interest rates started to come around a little bit, I told the board I think we are going to be able to improve that by forty thousand dollars next year, by going into a conservative investment program. When I say investments, I am talking only about CD's and if you have ever been in my office, we have the Wall Street Journal, we chart that every day, we watch the markets and I cannot say that we have a lot of technology involved in that but we apply what we know to make sure we get fairly good rates. I say we have increased that by forty thousand dollars or about fifteen percent the fact is right now we are on track to increase that about sixty thousand dollars. Some of that having to do with rate increases, because we are earning right now about six and a half percent on CD's but some of it using the timing of placing the CD's and consolidating funds from all our departments. So, I think next year we are talking about, next year having earnings probably over four hundred thousand dollars. So, that will have a wedge of its own there. Not be an insignificant. One of the things we try to do this time of year and we do it with relatively good success, one of the reasons we are able to be successful is because we have good fund balances to work with and the margin of error can be pretty ... and you do not look foolish if you do make a mistake. But, we need that calculated, what are our surpluses going to be for the year. We know in May what our adjusted fund balances are for the prior year, we have the order of command and they are tacked on. We look back and see what our success was at measuring that and we have a good degree of success. We are within five percent usually of our adjusted estimates at year end, when that comes along, so we do a good job on that. But, at this time of year it is a little tougher to do so we have to calculate a couple of things. What did we estimate our expenditures are going to be, what do we think we are really going to spend. What did we estimate our revenues from different sources to be and what are they really going to be. What is going to be our calculated estimate for the end of the year and the reason that is important is because some of that money needs to go back to lower taxes if that is the case, so that we can measure as to how much of that can we appropriate to our next years operation. In other words, what is spendable and what isn't. One of the things that is very important to me and the position that I hold with the town is the credit rating for the town, we are not in the credit markets, we do not borrow a lot of money but we still need to be ready to and we have an A2 credit rating which is exceptional for a town of this size and one of the reasons that we are able to maintain that is because we watch the financial health, two other major factors, there are a number of factors that influence that but the financial health in terms of surplus and what I call pure safety factor which is really a fund balance as expressed as a percentage. But the financial health in terms of fund balance, our level of debt, our level of debt service and our tax rates. The town has excellent financial health, it has excellent credit ratings, but this shows you what we think our fund balance will be, you will see when we get to the final page here in just a few minutes what the, how we use this appropriated 2001 fund balance to influence what the tax rates will be next year and then we measure on this sheet what the un-appropriated balance would be and what that equates to in terms of a safety factor. The safety factor meaning the un-appropriated fund balance divided by next years budget for that particular fund. Two qualifications I have to make to this sheet, at the top you see the general fund of forty-five point two percent, we expect that the Town Board will probably adopt a capital improvement plan and I think we are going to be prepared to recommend a couple million dollars in reserve to seed that plan from the fund balance which will bring the fund balance down around two million dollars, which is still well over twenty percent, twenty-two, twenty-three percent. To be honest with you, I think this number could be a little conservative, it probably is going to be twenty-five, twenty-six percent by the time it is done. But, we are going to be able to take two million dollars, put it into a capital ... and still maintain a very healthy fund balance in the general fund. The only other qualification I need to make has to do with Queensbury Water, at fifty-nine point four percent safety factor there, there are some transactions that have taken place lately that have not been finalized and I have to qualify that and say there has been a couple of projects approved lately that were not budgeted in last year that have been adopted with the assumption money is going to be borrowed but we do not have adequate borrowing resolutions or there is imprecise funding for those at this point, so I have to say I do not know what the effect of that is going to be on the fund balance because it looks like it will probably, that will be effected but I just do not know how it is going to be yet. None the less, it is still going to be a very healthy fund balance out there, it is just, we have some accounting questions to how that is going to equate. I wish I could tell you that I felt that everything was one hundred percent and it is close and there is no alarm here, I think that we do have a couple of situations that we have to watch carefully in terms of financial trending. One situation is in the early stages and I am not proposing or suggesting that there is any emergency situation or that we need to do a knee jerk reaction but I think one is in the early stages, we have to watch it for the next year or so and decide on an operating strategy to make sure it does not get out of hand. The other is growing by leaps and bounds and it needs review next year and perhaps some effort toward re-mediation. Jim usually does not get a slide of his own but here again I do not want to imply that this is a desperate situation but we have got, what we have at the landfill with the solid waste is we have been nmning off from the fund balance, a very healthy fund balance, it was derived over the years when they were closing the landfill, when they closed the landfill we had reserves and we still have a significant reserve up there that is untouchable for a while. So, it is not that we do not have reserves for any solid waste department but it untouchable for operation except for the maintenance of the covered landfill. But, what we have here is a situation where the budgeted operating deficit for the landfill is increasing one hundred and forty three percent, and I think you know, this year, if this deficit materializes the way it has been budgeted and I have no reason why to think it won't, the fund balance in that department will be depleted virtually and will require significant more tax payer dollars to support it. That is not a judgement of saying that it shouldn't be put there to support it but I think you need to be aware of that because we are not going to have, this year for the first time, we are budgeting fifty thousand dollar subsidy support to balance the budget for the solid waste operation. Last year we did not have to, we had enough appropriated fund balance to cover it, this year we have some to cover it and we will leave a small amount, we never deplete a fund balance entirely because there are just certain things you need money for but this is bringing it down to the bear bones. We are budgeting fifty thousand dollars, keep in mind however that the board is consciously decided that it is going to have these environmental things done so this is not a value judgement that we are placing on that, this is just a statement off act that the change in deficiency next year is around thirty-five thousand dollars and the, which is one hundred and forty-four percent change from what it was last year. COUNCILMAN BREWER-Can I interrupt for just one second about the landfill, is that, the way I understand it, we will apply for a grant from the state and get it back. COMPTROLLER HESS-That has been budgeted, this is net of any revenue we are going to get from that. The other one is the cemetery fund and here again, it is just a matter of making an awareness, I think we are getting to a situation now where this is the first year that the Town's contribution to the cemetery exceeds the revenue they generate from operations. In other words, for every hundred dollars that somebody spends at the cemetery for services in terms of buying the lot or information or for burial service, the town taxpayer is putting in a hundred and five to a hundred and... dollars, subsidizing the services out there. As you can see the town is supporting that to the tune of fifty-seven percent and the percent of operating revenue the town generates is one hundred and thirty-one, a hundred and thirty ..comes from the town. Two hundred and twenty thousand from taxes, a hundred and seventy from operations, I really believe to put that into terms that you will understand, it is two hundred dollars for every burial or cremation that takes place using that as a guide line, the tax payer contributes two hundred dollars. I think that needs to be examined and we have to look, and I am not saying that we should not operate a crematory or cemetery, I think if we are going to be in that business we have to look at the fundamentals of operating that business and decide how to bring it more into line. Property taxes to be raised, this is what the two of you showed up for. This is just a brief summary of the property taxes that are going to be raised from all the taxing districts in the town, not by each individual taxing district but broken down by types of districts such as lighting, all the lighting districts together, the waste water districts and the water districts together, when we get to the final page you will see it broken down individually. So, this is just intended to be a summary. Dollar change in general operations is ten thousand dollars but maintains the same tax rate. Emergency Services, the amount to be raised is up almost eleven percent. You will notice when you look back at other sheets, emergency services, I believe the spending is up around four percent this year but getting back to what we talked about in fund balances, they do not have a fund balance to draw from. Prior years, we have had a fund balance between the appropriation that we made last year and the money that we dug into the fund balance this year that necessarily wasn't anticipated at this time last year, the fund balance is at a point where it cannot support the spending increase so taxes are going to absorb that. Lighting Districts are up eight point six percent, nobody is alarmed over that except the people that live in Fort Amherst, they will see a significant increase because you may remember, those of you that work with the town several years ago, the town experienced a windfall from an audit that was done in lighting districts and NIMO had overcharged us for years and we got a lot of money back. Most of the lighting districts are operating off from that surplus. We still have a tax rate in all the districts, we are living off the surplus, two things have happened in Fort Amherst, a small district in the south end, first of all, we ran out of surplus, we ran out of the fund balance and we also found that NIMO had made another mistake, we are going to get a refund back from that but it is not going to washout so they are going to go into a full tax situation for the first time, in a number of years. Wastewater districts amount to be received by taxes, up around seven percent and the water district is up around seven percent and the water district is up a small two point two one percent. This is the only sheet you are going to see that is nearly identical to the one you have in your packets, probably if you have a packet that has colored pages in it, it is probably the second page the pink one. If you have sheets that are not colored, it is probably the third one, then at the top it says budget summary and tax rates and this is, we really need to have that because all you can see here is the whole numbers. But this is the same sheet we use every year and this summarizes the budget in it's entirety. First column stating what the appropriations will be, it shows, in two or three lines down it shows what the subsidy with the general fund is going to be for the towns that rely on the general fund for subsidy there are three of them, cemetery fund, the highway fund which is a non revenue generating fund and the solid waste fund which is a revenue generating fund. Those three departments use two million nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars next year and we show that on here and then we go down and show the appropriations and the revenues for each of the funds we break out in colunm four, the numerical colunm four from the left the appropriated fund balance that we are able to appropriate from surplus or from fund balance, this years surplus or prior years fund balance and then the fifth colunm is the amount to be raised by taxes. This is just a detailed breakdown of the number, you have a colunm you saw just a few minutes ago. .the amount to be raised by taxes, the next colunm is the estimated tax rate and then when you go over to the next colunm it compares it to what the tax rate was last year and the final two colunms show you that the numeric and the percent difference between the tax rates. Except that I mentioned the Fort Amherst taxes are going up two hundred and seventy percent up there because of the things we talked about, it puts it into a full tax situation but other than that, emergency services, the tax rate went up eight point five percent and everything else is pretty much where it was last year. One of the goals, remember we talked about earlier, one is tax stabilization and to the extent that it can be achieved it was achieved. There were places where it just couldn't be, Shore Colony Water has got an unusual situation out there and Ralph will have to talk to those people about it and I am sure you are already aware of it, they are aware of, Fort Amherst, other than that, across the town except for emergency services, the taxes have been held stable. One of the things that happened this past year and I know that it was sort of run by the board just a little bit but it is still worth the town board and my fears here seeing the effects of what we did last year at this time in terms of workers compo This is sort of a break down. I have had requests several times, what are we saving, what does it cost, what were our premiums last year against the premiums this years. It is not that easy, the calculation but I would like to give you some assurance that the Town really has benefited or will from the change in workers compo The history we had with when we were self insuring, these are the percent of increases we were incurring over the past seven years or what we occurred over six years and it would have been this year. As you can see, our premium this year with self insurance would have been two hundred and ninety- two thousand, almost two hundred and ninety-three thousand dollars. What we did, we went out and totally insured and when you talk about whole insurance, this distinction between that and self insurance and I like to say this and you can criticize me if you do not agree with it, self insurance is no insurance, self insurance simply means you are going to pay the bills as they come in. That is no insurance at all. Full insurance means that you pay, you share a risk with somebody, you pay your premium and whatever happens after that you are free. . . that is really what we have done. So, we now are fully insured with the State Fund, are premiums net out to about two hundred and twenty-six thousand dollars, this year we are about sixty-six thousand dollars less than they would have been had we paid it to here. Two factors, those two extenuating circumstances to that calculation to the sixty-six thousand. First of all, any claims paid into this yellow section we can forget because they will be paid for by State Fund. So, is we had a tragedy, other than feeling bad for the person that experienced it State Fund picks it up if they have to pay the person for fifty years. Under the old plan we paid this but we were obligated for every claim, next year if there were claims on old claims we had to pay them on and off, it got added to our premium but the risk never went away. We were self insured, or not insured, if you will so it never went away. So, that is one of the major distinctions. The other extenuating circumstances that effect what we did is that when we left our self insurance and we went to full insurance on January 1st we had these old claims sitting out there that we had to do something with. We were still on the hook for that. There was a lot of talk at the time as to what those claims valued out as, we had an estimate from the administrator of our fund at that time that said we want a million two, that is what it is going to take to pay those out. It was a tough thing but we went out and got a couple of different evaluators come in and look them over and the estimates came in somewhere around five hundred thousand dollars.. . five hundred five fifty. But, some subjectivity but a lot of objectivity in that calculation, but anyway we got to a point now and we are ten months into the assumption of these claims, pay this but we still have to payoff these old claims that are valued right now at four hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars and that is pretty conservative. We think it is going to be less, we are getting good claims management, we are knocking those claims off faster than we were in the past, that number is coming down a little bit as time goes on and we think by this time next year it will be a lot lower than that. None the less, we will be able to four ninety-five, that is what the value of the claims were. We signed a contract with the company to administer those claims for the life of them for eight thousand dollars. Of those claims until we get them to a new administrator, one hundred and twenty-two thousand is paid on them and once that was paid, we received back from the county as our pay in reserve thirty-seven thousand. So the net estimate value of those claims when we took them over in July was around three hundred and forty-five thousand dollars and if you divide that by the sixty-six, we are going to save this year, this suggests that we have a five point two year pay back or break even. Now the payback is really greater than that because we are now fully insured, we are not going to have ongoing liability for claims but we are also under a state premium calculation so the state can raise the premiums or they can lower the premiums. I am not sure when they will do that but they can raise the premiums on it but we know what the premiums are. They are rated by classification code. Somebody who drives a truck pays a certain premium. We know what those things are and these kinds of rates are unheard of they just cannot occur. We can increase our payroll by fifty percent and have fifty percent increase but this cannot occur on a stable payroll. So, the most we see it growing is the percentage of our payroll plus five percent. So, if our payroll grows ten percent or goes up ten percent plus five percent, it's the most that it could conceivably go up. That is a harsh statement, it is probably, there are circumstances that it could go up more, but we feel very comfortable with that number. So, when you compare a five percent increase to what we had experienced in the past and we think the payback period is going to be a lot less than five point two years, especially when we see this number decrease. So, that really was a very sound move, I defend it, I still think it was the greatest thing we have done and for other reasons because we are also getting better claims management, there are a number of other factors internal within the town that we are just experiencing better, a much better, less injuries, we have a great safety function. We have had some changes where we were concentrated with a lot of injuries in highway, that has been brought under control to a great deal, we are managing our claims internally, in other words using first aid, using first aid funds to cut some of these claims as opposed to taking them to workers comp, we did not have that option in the past. So, we are going to develop, after two years under this plan, we will have an experience modification and we fully expect our experience modification will be one or better one or lower which means that our premiums will actually go down after two years rather and go up. Why I point this out and it is a long explanation, what was the effect of this workers comp, this worker comp change that we did? But I would like to show you that what we have done this year and one of the reasons the numbers on this self insurance and worker comp are higher than what you might expect, higher than you will see them in the future, we wanted to put this behind us, we saw this as a good year to do that. Future boards, this board, should not be burdened in the future with claims that occurred in 1999 or before, indeed if we had been fully insured back then they would not have been because they would have been paid by the insurance company and none of us would have had that burden. To put that burden behind us once and for all, what we have done this year is we have fully covered, here is the estimated value of those claims and here is what we have in reserve after this budget is adopted to cover those claims, three hundred and forty-four thousand dollars. Now, is this going to balance, that should be unless there is a catastrophe in the old claims, this should self liquidate itself and no future provision will have to be made. What we did last year, the board in contemplation of going to full insurance, the board last year set up one hundred thousand dollars reserve, we also said in last years budget ten thousand dollar addition in for that, two hundred and ten. In this years budget, under the self insurance fund you are going to see one hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars, seven thousand for disability insurance, one hundred and thirty set aside for future claims, future payments against those old workers comp claims and in this years operating budget appropriation we put a hundred and four thousand dollars over and above our premium to State Fund. Like I say, an accounting manipulation for reason I cannot quite remember now but there is a reason for it, you know why we split the two hundred and thirty- four thousand dollars of it we split it. There are two hundred thirty-four thousand dollars in this years budget that will fully fund all claims and put that behind us once and for all. So, even though the pay back is five years, it is now fully covered. With all that said, that is the budget, we have covered revenues to some small degree we have covered expenditures and functions and if any body has any questions, Pliney or Phyllis, out of all the people that are at this, I will be glad to field them and pass them to either department managers if they have to do with programs, I will answer if it has to do with finances and I will defer to the Town Board if it has to do with policies employed in developing this sound budget. MR. PLINEY TUCKER-Going back to appropriations to Little League for fifteen thousand dollars, I believe when that was made originally that fifty percent of that fund was to reduce the fees for the kid to join little league, is that still the situation? COMPTROLLER HESS-That bill was just approved, when that contract was passed last January we turned it over to the Recreation Department for administering and it took quite a long time for the Little League to submit their bills to us, yes, they did reduce the, I can get the exact number. MR. PLINEY TUCKER-I think it was half... COMPTROLLER HESS-They did meet, they just submitted documentation that supported that, they did achieve that and that the rest of the money was spent on expenses that qualified as safety enhancements for the kids, so yes that was done. In fact that was just paid today, as a matter of fact. MR. PLINEY TUCKER-The five thousand dollars for the snowmobile club if I remember correctly and I may be off a little bit on the figures it was originally either a two or three year deal that the Town was going to give them this money to buy a new groomer because the county, was it two years, does that end now or is this something that is going to .. COUNCILMAN STEC-As far as I know this is just the second year, that is it, they may come back, but we will talk about it then. MR. PLINEY TUCKER-The other one is on your emergency services, I know I have got some information on it, could you explain why it has gone up, what they are trying to do? SUPERVISOR BROWER-We approved the purchase of, lease or purchase of one vehicle per fire and ems squad in the town which equated to eight vehicles. MR. PLINEY TUCKER-In addition to what they have now? COUNCILMAN BREWER-No, that is what we did with their contracts when we negotiated their contracts. COUNCILMAN STEC-Back in February, that is as a result of the contracts from February. MR. PLINEY TUCKER-You are just funding it now in next years budget? COUNCILMAN STEC-Basically what happened was we had three year contracts that we negotiated in February and two year contracts with the three ems squads and essentially they all came in February and made their pitch for new equipment that they wanted, new projects that they wanted to undertake and one of the new parts of the reason why the fire and ems rate has gone up or the spending has gone up, as Dennis started to mention is the appropriation that we allowed for these cars but as Dennis pointed out that is eight squads times six thousand dollars that is forty-eight thousand dollars of an increase but certainly that is not the whole ten percent increase that Henry just went over. But there are some other things that they wanted just putting aside for new vehicles and stuff like that, that are on the schedule. Just basically that was an adjustment that was made in the contracts, they took effect this year, we covered what we could out of fund balances which is part of the reason why fund balances went down in the fire and ems and then next year and the year after our fire contracts will be made up largely in taxes. COMPTROLLER HESS-Just to explain a little bit you will notice spending is actually increased about four percent in fire and ems, taxes are going up what, about ten percent, there are two reasons, one is it the board made a decision last year on what to budget for, the contracts were not set when the contract negotiations fell into place, more was spent in them than was appropriated. So, we dug into the fund balance ..difference but this years budget has to account for two years increases because it wasn't budgeted last year and we have another increase next year. So, this years budget really accommodates two years of increase and because we spent the fund balance this year covering last years increase there was not fund balance to draw from. COUNCILMAN MARTIN-We went into the year without a contract for last year so we had to make up, and there were equipment purchases that needed to be made, there was some things that were not attended to in prior years for whatever reason and they got caught up. SUPERVISOR BROWER-Thanked all for their attention.. . Hearing closed. RESOLUTION CALLING FOR EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 450. 2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. James Martin WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby moves into Executive Session to discuss non union salaries. Duly adopted this 9th day of November, 2000 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None RESOLUTION ADJOURNING EXECUTIVE SESSION RESOLUTION NO. 451.2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. James Martin RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury here by adjourns its Executive Session. Duly adopted this 9th day of November, 2000 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Turner, Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None No action taken. RESOLUTION ADJOURNING TOWN BOARD MEETING RESOLUTION NO. 452.2000 INTRODUCED BY: Mr. Theodore Turner WHO MOVED FOR ITS ADOPTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Tim Brewer RESOLVED, that the Town Board of the Town of Queensbury hereby adjourns its Regular Town Board Meeting. Duly adopted this 9th day of November, 2000 by the following vote: AYES: Mr. Stec, Mr. Brewer, Mr. Martin, Mr. Turner, Mr. Brower NOES: None ABSENT: None Respectfully, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury