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1998-11-05 SPECIAL TOWN BOARD MEETING NOVEMBER 5, 1998 7:00 P.M. MTG.#58 TOWN BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT SUPERVISOR FRED CHAMPAGNE COUNCILMAN RICHARD MERRILL COUNCILMAN DOUGLAS IRISH COUNCILMAN PLINEY TUCKER TOWN BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT COUNCILMAN THEODORE TURNER CONTROLLER HENRY HESS PRINCIPAL ACCOUNT CLERK KATE DUBOIS COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY COORDINATOR MIKE SHAW WATER SUPERINTENDENT RALPH VANDUSEN DEPUTY WASTEWATER SUPT. MIKE SHAW HIGHWAY SUPERINTENDENT PAUL H. NAYLOR DEPUTY HIGHWAY SUPT. RICK MISSIT A TOWN HISTORIAN MARIL YN VANDYKE PINE VIEW CEMETERY SUPT. RODNEY MOSHER RECREATION DIRECTOR HARRY HANSEN SOLID WASTE SUPT. JIM COUGHLIN TOWN COUNSEL MARK SCHACHNER BUILDING AND GROUNDS SUPT. CHUCK RICE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CHRIS ROUND ASSESSOR HELEN OTTE QSBY. CENTER COORDINATOR KATHLEEN KATHE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE LED BY SUPERVISOR CHAMPANGE PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE SHOWN PROPOSED 1999 BUDGET Supervisor Champagne-Opened the Meeting I know that the Controllers Office along with his staff has certainly spent considerable time and energy and everything really that goes with preparing for tonight's meeting, unfortunately I would have hoped that we had a larger crowd but I just want to say to each of you and certainly to your total staff Henry you have done an outstanding job. I had the opportunity to preview a few of the bits of the presentation yesterday and it's remarkable how well this has been put together. I just want to say thank you again before we get started. So, with that said rather than trying to steal any of your thunder or to interfere with anything you have to say or see I want to let you go. Controller Hess-Thank you. The press needs to here that ..of the town not very many people this is the budget we deal with for those of you that are not familiar with it. It is a little bit different than the size packet that we are handing out here tonight, if you do not have one incidentally there are budgets here for you to see. This is the budget with all the worksheets that we deal with, it is quite comprehensive in scope. We need to cut the lights down. I would like to welcome everybody first of all, introduce myself if you do not know, I am Henry Hess I am the Controller for the town. I also am going to introduce Kate DuBois she is one of the major talents behind the presentation tonight, the contractor for the presentation the accountant for the town. Bill Shaw is also here, he is the Computer Technology Coordinator I refer to him as the Chief Office stress reliever when computer problems arise he is the facilitator of this presentation and together they are here really they are the tool kit, because if this things breaks down I am in trouble and they know how to keep me going. I also want to welcome the Department Managers who will be available to answer any question that come up during the meeting or after the meeting or to be able to chat with anybody who is interested about what happens in their departments. We are using a slightly new technology, last years presentation we did it with over heads this year it is very similar the technology is a little bit different we are renting this machine by the hour I would like to add, so I want to get in and out of here pretty quick. I we get out of here by eleven then we keep the costs down. Supervisor Champagne-Eight. Controller Hess-Eight. This is where we are, if you are in the wrong room ACC is across the way they have class rooms over there they have different topics, but this is the place tonight where you are going to learn about the Town of Queensbury and how the budget is going to operate for 1999. Our budget process starts early in Queensbury in fact really it never quite ends. We start when the new budget goes in place in January it is sometime in January in February where people start thinking, Managers start thinking about what am I going to do next year? The second phase of that is how can I really operate more efficiently this year and I use quotes, within the budget that we have in place. Within the budget this is important because as you are going to see later we do pretty well with that. Most Departments do generate some type of a surplus at year end. So, we do work within the budget almost uniformly though out the Town. In July the budget work get serious. We ask all Departments to we send forms out we ask them to evaluate their spending for the first half of the year and give us a heads up as to changes that are going to take place in their spending patterns for the second half of the year. We really find it is important to us to know what the spending patterns are going to be what needs are going to change it tells us a lot and it also makes the managers aware of their needs early if they have to look at it and the end of September we actually take those numbers we update them ourselves from computer records and we start projecting year end revenues and expenditures by department and by fund. In mid August we collect from every department their wish list we call it. It is really, that is an unfair way to say it, it is their request list for the next year. I say it is an unfair way to say it, we call it as wish list jokingly but the Department Managers have been here with the Town for a long time, they really wish for things that are practical. This years budget, I do not think there were two or three items that were really not, that were requested that were not included in the final budget. We strive and I think I said this before and I will say it again, we strive to maximize or minimize incrementalization in the budget process and maximize line by line justification. I would like to think that the Town of Queensbury's Budget is zero based budget and to the extent possible it is. But, as you and I both know government isn't quick to change direction so many expenses are just incremental by their nature in government and we simply adjust them for an inflation factor. But even where incremental inflation is appropriate we still require that the nature of each expense be justified. I will give you an example, telephone expenses, are broken down in three major categories, actual telephone service, maintenance contracts and other repairs and maintenance. Three major categories and they are probably others but just to give you an example. We do not increase total phone related expenses by a inflation factor such as two or three percent. We take each one of those categories and we look at the cost for next year and we actually pole our vendors and decide how much is maintenance contracts going to go up how much is other services and maintenance going to go up how much for repairs, reconfigurations and phone service going to go up and by reviewing our total charges against our local charges and whatever. So, we really look at even our incremental parts of our budget on a line by line zero based basis to the extent that, that is possible. Why is it important? It is important so that we can categorize things in our general ledger so we can administer expenditures in accordance with the boards original spending plan as approved. A budget transfer from phone service for an example to phone maintenance requires an explanation from the Department Manager who is requesting it before it is approved and effective. So, they just don't, you don't have the freedom to just say well I am going to spend some of my phone maintenance money on some phone service or vice versa you have to apply for a transfer and it has to be justified and that is an important factor and I will tell you why. Our phone and just continue to use the phone as an example, our phone expenses in the Town are roughly fifty thousand dollars a year. The exposure in mixing appropriations or moving appropriations between phone expenses is in the thousands of dollars. But, if you take and extrapolate that across our whole budget the exposure is millions of dollars, so budgeting is a crucial part of our financial management throughout the year. I have said that and I showed you a budget list, two hundred and fifty some pages long, the appropriation portion of the budget two hundred and fifty eight or nine pages long. The official budget as it is published is we condense it down it is around six pages. It is easy to follow it is easy to see a lot of people can get, not necessarily the detail they need from it for managing their department but the public can get the detail it needs for evaluating our efficiency. But, we still require in the Town we still with, every department deals with all the pages for their budget if it is two hundred and fifty pages and we deal, the accounting department deals with approximately one thousand account codes. The budget when it starts out it is called a requested budget when the department managers make up their requests we call it a requested budget it then progresses through to a tentative budget a preliminary budget an amended preliminary budget and finally into an adopted budget. We publish this document once for each of those times sometimes a couple times during the couple of months that we are compiling the budget. Right now we are working with the amended preliminary budget it is what you have on the table and what you have in your hand and it what I am going to try and summarize for you today. When we start the budget process with the board before we get to the department, the initial sheets out to the Department Managers we will sit with the Board and say what goals do you have this year. And there are generally some specific goals we will talk about but generally we deal with at that early stage in July we are talking about goals in general. And some of them are fairly boiler plate but they are worth mentioning. One is to maintain quality of services, the Town has come to expect it and that is an important thing to consider, so they said maintain quality services. If you are going to cut services let us know and let us know why. Find ways to become more efficient. This years specific goals in that regard had to do with purchasing, increased bidding, automation, consolidation of efforts, consolidation of labor, find ways to become more efficient. Improve controls and accountability. Auditing and Purchasing and Fleet Management. You are going to hear a little bit more about that in the next few minutes, but there are three goals three specific goals that fell under the general heading of improved controls and accountability. And finally the one that makes my heart flutter you know is maintain financial health. What is the long term financial health of the town. If we were to sit and play word games about this I guess we could throw a lot of words back and forth and you know Jeopardy type questions but, I think of it in terms of four major ways that we do that for the Town of Queensbury. One is by maintaining reasonable adequate fund balances the other is by establishing reserves for future capital and long term needs, tax stabilization making sure that we plan ahead for changes in revenue or expenses that might fluctuate taxes unduly and effect the public we would like to minimize that and third or excuse me fourth is to maintain a bond rating, maintain a borrowing power. Although we do not use it we are quite a bit under, we under utilize our debt we have a Moody's rating of A2, the Town has a borrowing capacity of around eighty million dollars and right now we have qualifying debt against that eighty million dollars of less than a quarter of a million dollars. So, if you want to sense of how healthy your town is I think that is a fair one. The specific budget items, a lot of what we do in the Town I said is incremental but there are specific items every year that are non-incremental, they are one time major changes things that we have to look for and plan for specifically. In 1999 we are planning for a purchasing manager and a fleet manager. The town has a spending plan which you are going to see here in a few minutes of around, nearly sixteen million dollars and when you break out the payroll, and you break out the debt service you have got approximately seven and a half million dollars, slightly over seven and a half million dollars that is purchase in goods and services in contractual and equipment accounts, it is just what it comes down to. Seven point six million dollars. One percent of that if we were able to save one percent of seven point six million dollars that is seventy-six thousand dollars, well within the realm of possibility and the well I think a well justified expense to go out and hire a purchasing person the additional benefit of that from my perspective, we are running a seventeen million dollar government here and we need to bring control, we are at the verge where we have to watch the controls we have on purchasing and it is just part of our normal overhead costs. Here is a case where it is time to do it we believe and it is also cost justifiable. The second half of that is the fleet manager the person that has been budgeted will be seventy five percent purchasing twenty five percent fleet management. The Town has a fleet of one hundred vehicles, fifty approximately of which are in highway and fifty are outside of highway. We are looking for somebody to sort of bring that together and help us manage that a little better. There is an aquatic supervisor in the budget, the second new position, there are two in the budget this year, that is the second one that is a position and that is for the Recreation Department, I understand that, that is a net cost of approximately thirteen thousand dollars to put a full time aquatic supervisor in the budget with a savings that will come from other areas. A lot of people have heard about the year two thousand compliance and what is going to happen to the computer system. You met Bill just a little while ago and Bill has been working very hard this year on getting us, doing a number of things for us, bring us up to speed in a lot of ways and one of the ways is year two thousand compliance. The Town has been very fortunate to be able to do a lot of the things that needs doing anyway, updating its network, upgrading it software from old DOS based systems to graphic user interfaces and take advantage of the timing to do that, that also complies with Y2K, so we are really getting two bangs for the buck in a case like that. But we still have a ways to go, the budget that you are looking at includes about fifty thousand dollars more to complete that task. Now, that all won't be necessary for Y2K compliance we are taking advantage of some of it to do some incidental upgrades that will ease that process but are not totally necessary but it is necessary to bring us into the next phase. It was only a couple of years ago the town was very dependent, in fact in some departments we are still very much dependent on old DOS software. We progress from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95, many of us are using Windows 98 and we are on the verge of thinking about Windows 2000, it is not far down the road. And, you just cannot move fast enough to get through there, so this is fifty thousand dollars in the budget hopefully we will finish that project for us. Another specific need this year is intermunicipal sale of water, a lot has been read about that, we have three neighboring municipalities that Queensbury is dealing with, Moreau, Hudson Falls, and Glens Falls, different stages of negotiations, different stages of agreement but we project that sometime before the end of 1999 that water will be flowing to one of those municipalities and we provided in the budget the funds, the resources necessary to do that. There is a major expense in the budget for water and wastewater to provide an additional required storage building out there. So, that is a major concern, a major expense in the budget this year. A Highway Paver is in the budget I think we are replacing a 1983 Paul, you said, is that what it is 1983, one Highway Tandem Truck in the budget mid eighties truck if I am not mistaken there is one of those in the budget. One, two pieces of equipment for highway and elsewhere in the town we have eight other vehicles out of a fleet of forty nine, eight other vehicles that are due for replacement this year. They are accounted for in the budget, they are all the major items. Major Appropriations, What I have done is taken the budget and sort of broken it into two categories, somewhat traditional not for an accounting point of view but somewhat traditional from a way you can measure the effect they have on taxes. I took the Highway Fund the General Fund and the Fire Protection Fund and grouped them together as the meat, that is what I consider the meat of the budget, it is two thirds of the appropriations and I just sort of listed them down so you can see the relative impact they have on the spending plan for the town. Out of a total of about nine and a half million dollars worth of appropriations Highway and Transportation represents around thirty one percent of that, Fire and Ambulance represents around twenty two percent of that distant third comes a number of items, payroll taxes, employee benefits, shared services. Shared services are for example, Building and Grounds, Chuck Rice's Department. Central phone system, central data processing, shared services are items that we really can, that we can't buy them independently by Department so we have to buy them as a group and one person takes care of everybody and that, the State allows us to record them as shared services without allocating them out. Staff, are things like legal services, engineering and personnel, cultural and recreation are obviously Parks and Recreation, the Historian and a few other small minor services that we engage in. Finance includes the Controllers Office the Clerk and the Assessor. Home and Community Services is pretty much Chris Round's Department, Zoning and Planning. Miscellaneous expenses, it says, there is really one item in there that is more than miscellaneous but it could not be categorized anyplace else. Every year the Town has contingencies for known and unknown expenses. A good part of that this year is for known and unknown expenses, almost all of that amount would be represented by a contingency fund to cover things that we know about but cannot allocate at this time or a normal amount that is just repetitive from year to year for things that we do not know about and you have to be prepared for. Then you start dipping down into the small, almost insignificant but worth mentioning that I think are very important functions that just don't cost a lot. The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government, we are talking about the Supervisor the Town Board and the Judges Offices, the Court system. Public Safety and Health is around three percent that is primarily Fire Marshal, Animal Control and the Health Officer. Now, we do include on here a transfer to Cemetery fund although we account for the Cemetery Fund separately and you will see that in a minute, the Cemetery is not self sustaining although we would like it to be the fact of the matter is Pine View can be self sustaining and I think at some time we will get it there but Pine View also provides services to other town cemeteries that the Town needs to support, it cannot generate enough income to maintain those other cemeteries. So, there will always be some level of support I would expect in this category for cemetery services. A small amount here for capital projects, for general insurance I will make a note here on general insurance, that is down substantially, we bid that last year or just before the end of last year and that is down about twenty one percent from what it was prior to our bidding that. And then talking about the financial health and the debt of the town a very small portion, thirty six thousand dollars out of a total budget of nine and a half million dollars for general debt service. How do we pay for that same number nine and half million dollars and here is where the money comes from no surprise, we are sales tax funded in this town. Our revenue in next years budget we are projecting about four and half percent and that's a conservative estimate it would be higher, it is higher this year, accounts are generally conservative people so we on the conservative side. We estimate about forty seven, forty eight percent of our revenue next year will be sales tax generated. Less than twenty five percent, less than twenty four percent will be property tax generated, thirteen percent will come from appropriated fund balance a million three, almost a million three will come from appropriated fund balance. Let me step back to the tax issue just a minute, and just show you although this is not the most important thing that you will see tonight it is interesting for you to see how we take the tax level that we are deriving for general town purposes and allocating it. There is a total of two million three and I told you we are going to raise some for Cemetery, this the two million two that you see up here, we take all the fire and ambulance service, you take that from taxes, that is a taxing district that raises their own taxes and no other source of income other than revenue from earnings if there is any surplus funds on the account, so that is basically all taxes, the rest of it goes toward funding the Highway portion. So, that is all of the taxes in the general fund are being used for a small portion for Cemetery, thirteen percent for Highway and eighty six of the taxes raised locally are for the fire district. So, that is where the money is going. Going back up to the top of the page again, like I said we have got about a million three in appropriated fund balance, State Aids, Sales Tax our sales and service charges, misc. taxes and fees, interest earnings all account for just about fifteen percent or a very small portion of our budget. But, sales tax is where our money comes from. You can see that the trend has been that way for the past eleven years. Starting back to 1988 and although the trend is not uniform it is consistent, it does not go up a half of a percent each year but it goes up an average of a half of a percent a year since 1988 or there about. We project this year that our eighty one percent of the total town revenue for general fund, this is general fund, has nothing to do with the operating fund, eighty one percent of the general fund revenue will be from sales tax in 1988. It was about, it averaged around seventy two to seventy four percent in 1988 and in 1998 it will be eighty one percent. So, it is nice progression and we are becoming more dependent on that. Sort of puts to rest I would hope you know, you hear people say well, I hate to see it go into sales taxes you really should do something else with it because the more you raise the more you spend and I think this slide demonstrates that is just not the case. If that were the case we would be generating other revenue sources to keep that a constant amount and that is not the case, we are not, we do not spend the sales taxes and raise the other to keep it balanced. We really take full advantage of the sales tax revenue that we have to minimize the property taxes on the home owner. For those of you that like pictures there it is on a different form. Here is the other third of the budget, we have dealt with two thirds of it the other third really comes down to the Cemetery fund, Solid Waste Fund, are two primary operating funds, Jim Coughlin and Rodney Mosher's funds they represent small amounts in their own way but very significant in terms of the operation. Jim's fund has required for a number of years no tax dollars to support it, we look ahead into future years and we worry about that a little bit, we need to take some steps to counter some things that are happening, that have to do with disposal of trash, but right now and for the past several years that has not been a worry we are well prepared for this year for 1999, we are well prepared for the year two thousand by that time we will have a plan in place to hopefully keep that off the tax roll. Cemetery, I explained why we have a tax assessment toward the cemetery fund that really has mostly to do with I think we need to look at the rate structure to some degree but mostly it has to do with maintaining cemeteries that have no revenue sources as a town service. Lighting Districts, a very small part of our budget, one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars are just what they are, they do benefit as I will show you in a couple of minutes they do benefit, hardly any taxes in those districts but actually they are being taxed at about fifty percent of expenses now because of refunds that we received from a couple of years ago from Nimo for over billing for a number of years but that is a very small part of the budget it doesn't make or break anybody's tax bill nor does it make or break the town. Sewer and Water are significant I think the thing I would like to point out regarding the sewer and water has to do with the debt service and the property taxes, according to accounting principal and I guess probably some regulations for some other reasons, the debt service the inter structure and the capital cost for those two functions are supposed to be borne by taxpayers in those districts. The operating and maintenance costs are supposed to be borne by the users of the service in those districts, basically. We almost achieve that in the sewer department there is a very slight differential so that is almost on target, water is not quite there yet. Weare moving toward that and one of the ways we are moving toward that is the sale of water to neighboring municipalities. You know, you hear about the complicated transactions that are taking place and it has to do with buy in and transmission cost and what have you. The buy in, when we sell, when the town sells a capacity from its water plant that capacity sale will reduce our debt service portion and excuse me, reduce the property taxes that it takes to service the debt service portion of this balance sheet and it will bring that into balance. At the same time as we sell water the increase volume will bring down the incremental costs of producing water for everybody and lower the tax rate. So, when that occurs and that is why it is such a high priority with the Town Board when that occurs two things are going to result from it. One the cost of water is going to come down to the user and secondly the taxes are going to come down for those in the district because it is going to we are going to have another source of revenue to off set the property taxes to cover the debt service. The other, one things on here I will mention, for those of you who see it, there is one item up here it looks, other revenue it is a pretty big number. One hundred and forty four thousand this is the Cemeteries this is the full amount of the transfer that the Cemetery gets from the general fund, it is about one hundred forty thousand dollars, that we share in sales tax revenue with the Cemetery fund to support their operation. By function, payroll and payroll related expenses represent about forty percent, over thirty eight percent of the town budget. Debt service and this is total town, general fund and all funds inclusive, operating fund, highway fund, general fund, cemetery fund approximately thirty eight percent. About thirteen percent is represented by debt service this is really the significant number that has become a concern. It is about almost fifty percent of the town budget or about seven million five hundred thousand dollars that we worry about that is being spent in goods and services and I do not want to use the word worry, we do not really worry about it but it is an area that needs additional control and that is the area that we are looking to consolidate purchasing of centralized purchasing. That is the number we are looking at that is a large share of the budget it is almost half the budget and that is what we are trying to bring together. This is one of the sheets, as you notice, I haven't shown you anything that you had in your budget packet yet, we make these up because you know you can read those yourself so we make up other analysis that I think are important to point out things that are important for you to notice so that is what you have on your sheet. You do not really have to refer to it what I want to show you that this is one that you can take home and look at again if you need to. I am just going to go down and sununarize this for you by category. First of all the general town wide operation here is the two thirds again. This is the summary of the budget the appropriations are around ten million dollars, non tax revenues about eight million five hundred thousand dollars a good portion of that is that four and a half million dollars in sales tax. Weare going to appropriate a fund balance of a million two to that the amount to be raised by property tax is three hundred and twenty six percent. The revenue to support that part of the budget is eighty five percent from non tax revenues twelve percent from appropriated fund balance slightly over three percent from property taxes to support your general town operation, slightly more than three percent. Fire is one hundred percent funded by taxes, there is small portion of appropriated fund balances this year and we also earn a little bit on surplus funds in that but it is primarily all supported by property taxes. This supports five fire companies and an average although none of them get three hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, it is an average of three twenty five for five of them and three EMS squads at an average of one hundred and forty five thousand dollars. That is where that money goes. Lighting District, here again you will notice that the total appropriations we are only taxing for about half that and the reason is we are trying to eat up the fund balances that generated from a few years ago from years of over charges by Nimo. Honest mistake I am sure, we hired an Albany firm which we now have on staff once again it has been a few years so we are going back and re-auditing that again. But, audit them and received thousand and thousand of dollars in refunds mostly to the benefit of the lighting districts, so the lighting districts are down substantially. Sewer Districts, the main thing about the sewer district is the debt service related to the amount to be raised by taxes as you can see you have these two items, there is seventy hundred and fifty thousand dollars those three items are the amount to be raised by taxes and debt service is around, I think in another area, around seven hundred and six thousand dollars. It is almost self sustaining the way it should be. Virtually all O&M costs in the sewer district, virtually all O&M costs are being paid for by the user only a very small part is being paid for by tax collection. In the water districts, you have a very healthy water district in this town, and for a couple of reasons. One it is very well fUll, it was very well conceived, it was very well fUll, it has very good financing which was improved on this year and I am sure you all have read the story about how we saved a million two or something, the Town Board saved a million two, it actually turned out better than that and I will explain that to you. What has happened over a period of the next sixteen years you are going to save approximately a million two a million three in debt service costs. The debt service on water for 1999 will be down approximately two hundred and two thousand dollars from what it was this current year. A major contributor to that was the re-financing we did this year. So, you are saving money in that regard. What you are going to see next year and we really have not allocated this out yet, because decisions have to be made but there is also a windfall from that. In that financing we were able to recover some expenses the town had put out that it did not think it was going to get back in terms of re-financing. So, there is some additional help in there that we have yet to measure and decide how to do with it and could very well have a beneficial impact in next year tax bill as well. Totals, you do not see much down there, I will tell you that appropriated fund balance totals across the town about eleven and a half percent almost twelve percent of the appropriations so the spending plan next year one eighth of that will be covered by appropriated fund balance. It will not be raised in taxes or any other revenue source and that the amount to be raised by taxes is around, is nearly twenty eight percent of the total appropriations the trend is good, last year it was thirty and a half percent so this year we are raising twenty eight percent of appropriations through taxes down from thirty and a half percent last year. When you come to a presentation like this you know the question always is well tell me what my taxes are going to be. This is what you came for this is where the taxes are. This is, you have a pink sheet and I will be honest with you the pink sheet that you have in your packet maybe different than the one you have on the screen. I published this three times in the last three days it is not an official part of the document that we have to file as far as taxes, because these are estimates that summarizes what the appropriations are they are entirely accurate we have pin pointed what the appropriated fund balance is going to be we know what the amount to be raised by taxes we also tried to tell you what your tax rate is going to be and how it compares with last year. Unfortunately that is jelly for a while, so you are looking at the most current sheet it was just revised today and it may be slightly different from the one that you have in your packet, it maybe slightly than the one I generate next week but it is pretty close. The condensing it down just so that you can see the columns are really relevant to what you are interested in, the yellow column is the 1999 estimated tax rate, for general town tax we estimate that to be this year point one nine eight, nineteen point eight cents per thousand down from twenty two point four cents last year or about almost a twelve percent decrease, eleven point six percent decrease. Fire protection is down very slightly, sewer districts are down eighteen percent in one district, eight percent in another, and the water districts are down substantially. Seven and a half, excuse me, seven point seven percent in the Queensbury Consolidated and as a result of the consolidation of the West Glens Falls District into Queensbury, West Glens Falls will pick up the Queensbury Consolidated rate and experience a nine point one percent decrease in water district tax in 1999. We take a lot of pride in managing the fund balance in the Town of Queensbury, I do, it is one of the things that I think one of the primary considerations of my job because I have a very lasting effect you know, it carries forward from year to year. This is the kind of sheet we use to do that and I am not going to read that to you or even try to explain that but it is an exercise that I consider to be very important in maintaining the long term financial health of the town. It helps us to achieve tax stabilization, and maintain the over all financial health in terms of creditor confidence, borrower ability and to be honest with you prestige. I think there is a certain amount of prestige that goes along with having a healthy town with good reserves. Condensing this sheet down just a little bit so that you do not have all the numbers to look at, what is really important on here are the unappropriated fund balance column, this is what we estimate will be left in fund balance after next year spending plan is put into practice? In other words on January 1st we estimate that will be the fund balances and I think they are conservative estimates generally especially in the general fund and a couple of the other funds I think they are conservative, they if you look back at the history again what was estimated and what actually came about generally the Town has faired pretty well with that. It is a safe thing to do. But if these estimates were to hold you can see that the general fund is going to have almost, excuse me, a forty percent fund balance, very healthy. Maybe a little higher than it needs to be but you have a very viable town in a growth mode and it is not unrealistic. I target the offering funds and general fund I target twenty five to thirty, thirty five percent as being where it should be. This is slightly higher than that and well justified, I think. Transfer Station you will see is sixteen and a half percent, high on appropriated fund balances in the lighting districts resulting from the Nimo transaction that I told you about, water, Queensbury water twenty eight point six percent we estimate that to be somewhere around twenty nine percent very health, I target that to be somewhere between twenty five and thirty it is right in the middle there, just where it should be for a growth oriented and sound water district. Total unspecified reserves at the end of the year we look at about five point three million dollars. I would like to equate that down to what does that mean, what are those numbers mean and to me they mean they present a safety factor and the safety factor is nothing magical you simply take the unappropriated fund balance divide it into next year budget then come up with a percent and it sort of tells you what percent of next years operation could you fund from your fund balance. In the general fund about forty percent. The lighting districts you could fund about a year and three months if you had to. The sewer districts over half a year and the water fund about a third of the year. Your over all health safety factor for the Town if a very very healthy thirty percent where we project it to be. I still consider that a conservative estimate. So, you should feel that this budget is lowering taxes but it is also maintaining a very healthy district. When all that is said we started out with a list of goals, specific and general that we dealt with and we talked about what we tried to accomplish here and we have achieved, we spent fifty thousand dollars and we think next year we are going to achieve the Y2K compliance, not an insignificant feet. If you look around the companies and the towns around that are worrying about Y2K compliance we have it well under control so it is not insignificant please do not take it lightly it is really very important. This budget does establish centralized fleet management it provides budgeting a person to do that. This budget does establish the centralized purchasing management system and a person to administer it. Getting back to where do they fit in, they fit into controls, management and controls both of these goals that we are achieving fulfill that. Maintain and approve public services, it does that, maintains it across the board and improves it in some areas in ways we haven't talked about in one area the way it improves it is in Harry's Department he is adding a staff person out there that will greatly enhance the services that we offer to the public. Certainly maintains sufficient reserves, the fund balance it accomplishes that and the one item that was on that wasn't on the original list it was not a goal when we started but we got it anyway. We lowered the town taxes after all of that, lowered the town taxes. Before I relinquish the floor back to the Supervisor for questions and comments, I want to thank each of you for your attendance and your attention. I want to spend, again a my thanks to Bill for help with the presentation and most deservedly I want to extend a very special thanks to Kate, thanks a lot. Supervisor Champagne-Henry do you want to stand up there and take these questions for me? Ok. The floor is yours, again anyone have any questions? That is our purpose for being here this evening. Come right to the mic if you would please, make it easier, we will get it on record. Thanks Dennis. Mr. Dennis Brower, Warren County Supervisor-Dennis Brower, Queensbury, just a question on the unappropriated fund balance in each of those accounts, that's is what is under budget? Controller Hess-That is an amount that will be left in an unspecified reserve if you will, I am going to use the terms loosely here because the term reserve probably has a more significant meaning. But, it is money that we could have applied to reduce taxes, it is a savings account that we could have used to fund next years budget and elected not to, to have a savings account for future needs either for tax stabilization or for growth potential or for anyone of a number of reasons, that is what it is. Supervisor Champagne-So it is a carry over in money for example in the general fund it is actually carry over money that we are not using to appropriate fund balance, if you appropriate part of that fund balance back to the part you subtract from the total fund balance that other portion obviously rolls over into the next year. What did we say, we average thirty percent is that the number? Controller Hess-Thirty percent, we are applying what did we say over two million one of fund balance to reduce taxes or against next year budget but we are with holding back five million dollars and not applying that toward next years budget. Warren County Supervisor Brower-What is your projected current fund balance? Controller Hess-For year end? This is across all the funds, Supervisor Champagne-Five million dollars. Controller Hess-I will tell you just what it was. Supervisor Champagne-a third, around five million dollars. Controller Hess-Yea, around five million dollars, five million dollars is what our unappropriated fund balance will be. Now, I will tell you that, the Board will be making decisions between now and year end regarding how to use some of that fund balance. We have some things facing us, and there are some other reserves out there that we have to deal with, we, so the Board has some other decisions to make that aren't necessarily part of the budget process but maybe help to reserve some of those fund balances for specific needs and we will be dealing with that. Warren County Supervisor Brower-Thank you. Supervisor Champagne-Anyone else? Controller Hess-Hi, Betty. Supervisor Champagne-I think that is why you might be confused on fund balance is the County, is the question that I asked up there of the accounting office the County has absolutely no idea of what their fund balances are, at the end of this year they it is like an unknown. They are not able to compute what the balance might be in un-spent funds that is what it really amounts to, it is un-spent funds. Government unlike business you know you budget relatively low on your revenue and you budget kind of high on your appropriations and at the end of the year you are lucky if you have a pretty substantial balance and really that is government budgeting, can I say that in all honestly, Henry for the most part? Mrs. Betty Monahan-Not questions, some comments, the first place I think one of the best things Queensbury ever did was when we went to the controller. I wish the County would take a page from our book. Supervisor Champagne-We are working on it, believe me we are working on it. Mrs. Monahan-I hope so, I really hope so, and Henry my compliments to you. Controller Hess-Thank you. Mrs. Monahan-I am glad to see that the fire tax is still going on its downward trend. I do not much care whether my taxes go down that .025 or whatever it is now, because of some things I would like to see this town do and maybe it is in the budget. Anything that I am saying is not to reflect on any department head because they can only do what they are given the man power with the technical skills and the money to do. But, I am having a little problem with the way we are letting our plant look. The outside of these buildings need cleaning there is either dirt or mildew streaks on them, I do not, that is not the image I want my town to present to people coming into this town or the people living here or businesses we are trying to come to town. I am looking at this ceiling, tiles that need to be replaced, I am looking at the folding doors when they are closed and the wall with the rubber coming off. I was by a Town of Queensbury vehicle the other day in traffic I looked down, rust on the side that was not too bad when it pulled ahead of me there were holes in it, rust spots. I really do not want that image, guys. I would rather have you take my two and a half cents or what ever it is you are going to save and keep this town the way it should be. In the olds days we had a saving, a stitch in times saves nine, what you do not repair today is going to cost the people of this Town a lot more to repair in the future. It is fine to say that you are keeping taxes down but somebody is going to be sitting in that seat and picking up these problems that you are not doing now. I am looking outside at planting that needs pruning, your .... is growing over the windows, I do not know what you have given Harry this year to update his playground and recreation areas, but if you look at our playground equipment we are way behind of other areas of the country. I am looking at carpets that need replacing, we have a lot of land in Queensbury's inventory for recreation that we are not doing anything with. I see concrete work that needs working on. It is not going to be too long before you are going to have to do something about this floor in this room. So, all I am saying to you please keep this town a town that looks vibrant and alert, I appreciate a stable tax but I would also rather than have it go down would like to see this town be the kind that we can be proud of and we can show it to our visitors. We need this if we are going to be in competition, I mean I have come from areas in the traveling that I have done, where the amount of money they put in to the visual appeal of their town is fantastic. It worked for them, it worked for them in getting tourism it worked for them in getting industry. These things are important now, I heard one official talk about beautification and business and what it does to bring business into the area. So, thanks for a job well done, but please keep the plant looking the way it ought to. Supervisor Champagne-Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Barbara? Ms. Barbara Bennett-Barbara Bennett, Queensbury The budget I have I picked up last week so I do not know how that one compares. Controller Hess-I think there was a page change, take a new, very minor changes. There will be no significant differences. Mrs. Bennett-I have written it up according to this one anyway. When I heard that Henry Hess was going to be our controller I was delighted and I told the Supervisor so if he remembers. Supervisor Champagne-I remember. Mrs. Bennett-At the board meetings you tend to be knowledgeable and capable and you seem to get along with all board members but I must say that I am disappointed in the format that you use in your budget. I do read budgets, the library, the school board the town and the county. I would ask you a couple of questions first. Give me a couple of examples of non-taxable revenue. Controller Hess-Non tax revenue? Mrs. Bennett-Yes. Controller Hess-Non tax revenue might be well, first of all, when I say non tax we are talking about non property tax, so sales tax would be a non tax revenue, sales of licenses, for permits for building, building permits, dog license, interest and earnings on investments, state aids. Supervisor Champagne-Mortgage tax. Controller Hess-Mortgage tax, those types of things, any, and there are variety of them, there are probably two or three dozen other sources of revenue, most of them minor, that I call non-tax because when I use the word non tax, non property tax. Ms. Bennett-West Glens Falls Water District, offhand it seems to be like they went off Glens Falls Water last year and then to Queensbury Water last year? Water Supt.VanDusen-Four to five years ago. Ms. Bennett-At any rate in the budget it is a blank, there are no funds in the budget. Controller Hess-For West Glens Falls, because this year the water district was consolidated into the Queensbury Consolidated District, so the funds or the revenues and the expenses are combined with Queensbury this year and that section is blank. I left the section in there because it was necessary, our computer system required to show so I could compare the tax, the tax change that, that district would expenence. Ms. Bennett-In the expenses the last colunm is the 1998 budget, the last colunm in the photo copy machines doesn't pick up only a couple of the numbers as far as that goes, but I like that colunm I would like that colunm in the revenue section and it isn't there so that you could compare the revenue with last years. Controller Hess-You know revenue is, revenues are estimated revenues a budget is appropriation budget, what the board approves it approves a spending plan and we have to show how we expect to achieve the revenues to meet that spending plan. The revenues them self is not part of the budget. I can show you the difference in the revenues, and perhaps it would be a good idea, it is not required part of the budget reporting but it is a good question and I will give it some consideration. It is a little hard because there are . . . some major swmgs III revenue. Ms. Bennett-But you do have something in last years budget that would be matching colunm. Controller Hess-Yes. I wouldn't show you against last years budgeted revenues I would only show you against last years actual revenues because budgeted revenues aren't, don't have nearly the scientific criteria for estimating them that we have for that we do for appropriations. But I would compare them to actual revenues for prior year. Ms. Bennett-To me this is not a readable budget. It does not look like any other budget I have looked at and if you got a hold of a calculator in your hand or a pencil and paper that is not reading the budget you figure it everybody else reads it and you should be able to look at it and maybe you will have to add two figures in your head or maybe you will have to subtract two but when you have to add two figures carry the what you added in your head and subtract it to another figures to get the fund balance that is not a readable budget. That is what you have here you add the appropriated fund balance with the non taxable revenues and you subtract what you get from the appropriations to get the amount raised by taxes. Now, that is not readable for anybody. Controller Hess-I understand what you are saying, I guess what we try to do and I will be honest with you I do not really publish that budget expecting that it will be audited by the general public. I expect them to look at it as a source of information. You are right if you are trying to cross foot that budget and re- calculate it to make sure I am right, that is a problem. You would have a problem with any of my documents in that way. I will apologize for that but they are correct and if you want to sit down and you want to come in and look at them more carefully I can provide you much more detail. Ms. Bennett-I did it with a pencil but Controller Hess-And it did come out, right? Ms. Bennett-This is the main document that comes out it is the document that the board should refer to it is the document that the public has to refer to and if they cannot pick it up any time during the year to find something but have to go ask you or go to research your other book, then it is not a readable budget as far as I am concerned. So, for that reason I did not care for that. I was hoping that there would be and this is more or less directed to the Board that they would sit down and get together and set up a budget format for the Town of Queensbury something that you will use every year and that will consistently the same sit -up and then at budget time hand it to whoever the controller is and say this is our format you work the figures. We have had like three controllers in four years and everyone one of them wings it. They Supervisor Champagne-Wings it? Ms. Bennett-Yea. They put in there own, they did it their own way. Supervisor Champagne-Barbara, allow me to call on Kate if you will, Kate has been here since mankind, have we really made that, my experience is that the sheets that I am looking at this year at least the summary sheet. Mrs. Kate DuBois-The summary sheets I think, that Henry came up with I think are actually easier to read. Supervisor Champagne-I guess that would be Mrs. DuBois-If you look at your budget page ... it is much easier to read then all of this, it gives you the departments, the town board, town justice, it gives you what they are spending, what they budgeted for their personnel, they budgeted for equipment, for contractual and then others, the debt service, employee benefits so it is very easy to read if you read these pages here you really get a good picture of what the town is doing and the cover sheet has changed a little bit but that is the basic cover sheet since I have been here that we have used to calculate the taxes, the amount to be raised by taxes and the appropriated fund balances. . . Supervisor Champagne-I guess Barbara, what I would encourage you to do and Henry does a real fine job of this you come on in and sit down with him or sit down with the two of us and I would love to go through the budget with you to see, our goal obviously is to present a readable budget an understandable budget one that the average Joe on the street can fully understand. That is our goal. If there is something in here that is lacking that gets that message across and you can kind of bring that to the front I am sure Henry and I would and the rest of the Board would be more than willing to try and work that through with you. You know you make an excellent scout for scouting out those kinds of things, I have known you long enough to appreciate your skill in being able to do that. So, a phone call would set something up and it would make our job easier because obviously that is our goal. Ms. Bennett -Actually you have to sit down yourself and work the figures around to see what procedure he is using to start with. Supervisor Champagne-Now, let me tell you how this all, well right from the beginning you know the department heads come in with their requests sheet this happens way back in July and August, we get a request from the department heads, if it is over a certain amount they have to spell out the justification as to why they want this particular piece of equipment or storage garage or whatever they have to have. Then Henry works the numbers thorough on all of his scratch sheets and his computer spread sheets he works the numbers through, I get the first copy of that. The Supervisor's budget comes to me mid September Henry is that correct, sometime in September and I go, this becomes the Supervisor's budget. I go thorough that and I do my thing with it ok, it is all well established it is all coordinated here is 1998 expenses here is 1999 projected expenses I look at what we are spending in 98, I look at what we are projecting in 99 over on the right hand side he shows me the plus or minus for that particular line item beyond that in another colunm it is the percentage of increase or decrease, man to me that is the most beautiful map I wish I could do that with my home budgeting. So, as I work that through and believe me I red lined some items as you well know when my budget first went in it was scary I had cut out some major expenses and rightfully so that is the Supervisor's privilege and at that point it goes back to Henry he works through my budget and he shows what was originally requested by the department heads he shows what I had approved at that point and again the adds, subtracts and the percentages plus or minus are all added in. The department head takes a look at that and then as I said it comes back now to the full board the department heads come in they meet with the full board they justify their numbers and the full board puts their stamp of approval on it and it goes back to Henry and he reworks it, and then he reworks it again and he re-works it again. And then we come up with something here that you know, again, I felt very comfortable with, I was matter of fact I was rather proud of the presentation that is being forwarded here in the budget in the printed page certainly as well as the media presentation so, if there is something lacking and that goes for anyone here tonight you know, department heads or whom ever we want to make sure that what goes out to the public is readable and understandable and do whatever we can to make that happen. Ms. Bennett-Well, he does have, when he works them horizontally on page he does have a break down on like the water fund and the water district and so forth on other separate pages as far as that goes. Another thing is I noticed you favor percentages on the file and so forth you like to show what percentage of a budget each item is. I am more interested in seeing what the figure was for last year as compared to the figure of this year. Controller Hess- I cannot say that I am the most interested in showing that I know that a lot of people are very interested in seeing that it shows them a ratio you know the number of a hundred thousand could be a lot or it could be a little but if you express that in terms of a ratio it gives people you know a scope of magnitude. So it is not a preference I have I just think it is a traditional way of showing it, it gives people a scope of magnitude but your point about referring comparing them to prior years is well taken and we will try to incorporate part of that. Ms. Bennett-That is basically what I have, it is up to you and I know you are involved in figures and so forth which is a different thing from me or somebody else looking at them and it needs to be as simple to read as possible because we are not as well trained as you are. But, I have a complaint to the Board Supervisor Champagne-On the budget? Ms. Bennett-Well, yes. I read in the paper that you board members have health insurance with is one hundred percent medical a hundred percent dental one hundred percent prescriptions your eye glasses are paid for and you have a fifty dollar deductible. Nobody else has medical like that and you are part time workers. You do not pay your, you don't give your part time workers any health insurance and you are taking the best health insurance that exists. Councilman lrish-I do not think anybody up here is taking it. Ms. Bennett-And I know Councilman Irish-There is only one member that has health insurance. Supervisor Champagne-I do not think any of these board members here including myself! do not take the town health insurance. Councilman Irish-It was made available as town policy if at some point in time they decided they would make that available for elected officials, but nobody up here has taken advantage of that. Supervisor Champagne-Barbara the other mention I want to make is that health insurance is a negotiable item and obviously the union has some pretty strong feelings as to the type of insurance that they feel entitled to. I cannot say anymore, but I would like to, go ahead. Ms. Bennett-I know you got an extra twelve hundred dollars for not taking it. Supervisor Champagne-Pardon? Ms. Bennett-I said don't you get an extra Supervisor Champagne-Yep. I do. Councilman Irish-Again, not all of us takes advantage of that. Supervisor Champagne-Why we take the twelve hundred we are saving like, Henry, eight thousand? Controller Hess-Yea, it is over seven, the cost of the policy is around eighty four hundred dollars. Supervisor Champagne-If I were to take it, it would be about an eight thousand dollar ticket. Ms. Bennett-But you see the Board Members when I look at Board members a lot of them are retired, they are on pensions and they have got health insurance from their companies and the ones that aren't they are already working full time and they have health insurance currently. Councilman Merrill-It has been pointed out, I do not take it and I don't take the in-lieu of and I don't think anyone else here does so. We do recognize your point. Ms. Bennett-But, I know that this Board didn't establish it. Supervisor Champagne-No. It has been in the works since before I came so it has been there for a good six years anyway and beyond that. Ms. Bennett-But it seems to me like if it is available to you, you should pay, you should give your part time workers health insurance, if it is a serious part time job established as always a part time job then give them some form of health insurance if it is not a you know here to day and gone tomorrow job. And I wanted to see you set an example because all of these employers are breaking their jobs down, working full time jobs down into part time job so they do not have to pay benefits. That is a popular thing and I would like to set, have you set an example and give a long time part time worker some form or health insurance. Or cancels the Town Boards. Supervisor Champagne-Ok. We will take that under consideration. Ms. DuBois-1 would like to clarify it is not one hundred percent that was a mis-statement in the paper it is an eighty percent coverage, it is eighty-twenty and that is the indemnity the matrix plan and there is two HMO plans that are out there but that was a mis-statement in the paper it an 80-20 plan not one hundred percent. Ms. Bennett-Well eighty percent is what most of them are now. Supervisor Champagne-Yea, definitely. Ms. Bennett-I was surprised when I saw one hundred percent and fifty dollar deductible except on your dental is long history most of them have much higher deductible. Supervisor Champagne-You are absolutely, your absolutely right. Ms. Bennett-Well, anyway, so much for my complaints and you have done a lot of work on the budget I know. Supervisor Champagne-Thank you very much. Are there any other first rounders lets see if we have got any other first rounders. I guess you are it. Warren County Supervisor Dennis Brower-Dennis Brower, again, Queensbury I did want to compliment you on your presentation and also on the work that you have been doing the past year for the town. Councilman Tucker-He is not going to go to the County. Supv. Brower-Pardon? Councilman Tucker-He is not going to go to the County we are going to keep him. Warren County Supervisor Brower-Oh, ok. One question that I have got and it seems to be apparent in your presentation but I wanted to ask you the question because it is hard to tell, according to what I have seen in here solid waste revenue thorough user fees doesn't quite cover the budget, but there seems to be a wide ranging misunderstanding or lack of knowledge as to, does Queensbury make money on its solid waste disposal? Is it a profit, do we generate a great deal of profit? Over and above expenses? Or if that not true because I have heard both scenarios and I do not know what is true. Controller Hess-I do not know what a great deal means I will tell you that it is better than break even and it has been for several years. I mean it has generated a fund balance it has not be subsidized by the taxes so when you talk about users fees the sale of scrap and other sources, Jim can tell you better what they are but that, it has been running at a surplus a small surplus for several years. We project it to have a surplus at year end at seventh some thousand dollar range. We are fearful of that for next year because we did not, we consciously decided to defer a decision on how to handle an increase in fee at the burn plant and since we had the fund balance we are going to weigh that out as it occurs. But for the past several years the transfer stations are doing better than break even. Supv. Brower-So, that non appropriated fund that was there was basically the small project that Controller Hess-Yes, exactly. We have not either siphoned from that nor added to it from taxpayers. Supervisor Champagne-Dennis, before you go beyond that, let me just add that last year or this year Jim we replaced a transmission in the front end loader to the tune of about twenty thousand dollars so that seventy four thousand dollars with the heavy equipment and the building renovations we see that as a fund balance but really it is a capital project that sits out there if and when we need it to do the kind of repair and maintenance in particular the building we did trailer removal over the so those dollars are coming in I would not call them profit I would rather think of them as capital project dollars that will be applied to those kinds of things. Controller Hess-That is a good point if we were on a true accrual basis or a commercial accounting system which, with accruals and with capitalization and depreciation he probably would be running at break even or less but because you are on cash basis we can most years show them at a profit or better. Warren County Supervisor Brower-And we had a comment earlier about the condition of a car that was on the road, that Town of Queensbury car it is kind of full I just happen to think the other day I happened to see a Queensbury car it was a brand new Taurus Wagon and you know it was pretty fancy, and I got thinking gee, I just retired my ten year old Saab with three hundred thousand five hundred fifty five miles on it and I am working on a car now a ninety three with one hundred and twenty nine thousand miles on it and I am going, you know, I think the shape of the town fleet is pretty danm good, compared to a lot of Queensbury taxpayers including myself. So, I do not think the state of our fleet is in disrepair whatsoever and if it happened to be a couple of years older it wouldn't really bother me. Controller Hess-The fact is our fleet is aging out and I will tell you this and we are looking for a way to improve the fleet because we spend a little bit more in repairs and have a little bit more inconvenience from repairs than we need. But, the fact is the new car you see on the road when you see a new one you can bet it replaced a twelve year old rusted out rust bucket. We do not buy used cars to replace old cars we buy new ones so you are going to see a new one once in a while all right. Warren County Supervisor Brower-There is a schedule... Well they have got to be operating and they got to be reliable I think that is the key because that is what I used in my own efforts if it is a good car and looks decent and it runs good, run it into the ground. Controller Hess-And that works a lot when you are dealing with business, certainly the way we are, we look at it in another way, when we have forty nine vehicles out there non highway vehicles we are looking at models that tell what the cost is, what the residual value is at the end of a number of miles or number of years or a number of service units or someway and are trying to put together a model that tells us what is the most efficient use of a car. Warren County Supervisor Brower-You also buy them under state contract, so you get tremendous pricing anyway. Controller Hess-We get good pricing. Warren Coutny Supervisor Brower-Many times it pays to replace a car more frequently when you have got state contracts because they are like twelve thousand as opposed to what a consumer might pay eighteen or nineteen thousand for, the same model. Thank you. Supervisor Champagne-Jim? Solid Waste Facility Manager James Coughlin-I wasn't going to talk but after Dennis talked I would like to explain a couple of things. The transfer station we runs a small profit Supervisor Champagne-Do you want to introduce yourself there so we have got you on record. Solid Waste Facility Manager James Coughlin-Jim Coughlin Solid Waste Facility Operator The profit is going to be gone in a couple of years because of the County raising the tonnage factor at the burn plant from fifty five dollars to sixty nine dollars which is fourteen dollars a ton increase. This is going to mean another forty two thousand dollars more expense per year approximately with the transfer station. It is just something that they start January 1st. 1999 so what small little profit we have after you do away with that forty two thousand added onto it there will not be any small profit in two years. Councilman Irish-There might not be a burn plant in two years, so. Controller Hess-I would like to make one more added comment to this not because I was waiting for somebody to ask the question and nobody did and one of the Councilman said, look, if nobody ask the question will you at least bring it up anyway and clear the air of this issue. So, I am going to do that. It was a publicized issue in the paper a couple of days ago and it is sensitive one having to deal with compensation for elected officials. What they did this year you know it is a sensitive issue and I think one, that they are sensitive to in their own right and we sat round the table when it came time to make that decision and last year all elected officials and we are not just talking about just the policy maker, what I call the legislative, executive and judicial branches but also the Town Clerk and the Highway Superintendent. Last year there was no raises given because they just did not feel that it was the right thing to do this year when, there were no raises taken I should say. This year they asked the Controller to do a quick evaluation, it was done a little too late to do a well thought out and well researched evaluation they asked me to do some kind of evaluation to come up with some kind of a plan that would try to keep salaries for elected officials at a reasonable level until we come up with some long term plan to see where they should be. So, I was given that assignment and I came back, salaries that were approved by the Board for themselves were exactly as recommended by the Controller. I will just like to give you and primarily for John's benefit because John is going to explain it to the big masses that are not here tonight, but basically a little rational for how I came up with the numbers I did. If you start with the Supervisor and look at towns our size I do not have a big cross section of what a Supervisor should be making in a town our size from across the state but I can look at it from what he makes in relationship to the highest paid executives in the Town in which he works. Our Supervisor is number sixth on the list, sixth down from the top he makes, there are five people that make more than our Supervisor and if you take the top ten people and divide it by ten he makes almost dead center so he is at the average of the top ten people that doesn't seem unreasonable to me and I made a recommendation to place this salary to keep it right at where that is. When you look at the town councilmen without a better guideline to go by this year, but having some guidelines from other towns more than I had for a Supervisor, I looked at the four of them and said gee, if you add the four salaries together it looks like maybe other towns tried to on part time positions tried to pay their, tried to pay four council people basically a sum of what their Supervisor makes and if you add the sum of those together it is almost to the dollar what the Supervisor makes and that seems like a very reasonable salary for those kinds of people in fact I think it is under, actually if I had my drothers and I would do some more research all indicators are that maybe council persons that, although they are called part time they are in the town hall virtually every day really are entitled to a salary more than we are paying them. I also went under the premise when I look at the other salaries and I did not use as much strategy with the Highway Superintendent or the Town Clerk because that requires an evaluation and I am not prepared to do. So, we just said look, if everybody is going to get around that range we should do that and I recommended those salaries and the Board adopted them. I went into the research that they gave me with a couple of premises, one is that raises can be excessive only if the salaries are high to start with, I did not find that to be the case. I found that the salaries were fair and not excessive so certainly the raises that I was recommending could not be excessive. I went into it with the belief that Queensbury residents don't expect its civil servants, elected, appointed or civil service to view their job as charity work that they should be fairly compensated for it. And that and maybe there is another reason there, we are in the middle of a negotiation year with CSEA and every year about this time the non civil service or the non CSEA people look at their salaries and the selfish reason perhaps out there representing the other people in our town is that Council people are probably better able to deal fairly with the people employed by the town when they feel like they are being treated fairly themselves. So, if you want to know the criteria that went into my recommendations, that is it. I feel that the public deserves an explanation because it is making judgements on town board members, electing, or voting themselves increases that really were recommended with some thought given to them by its Controller. Supervisor Champagne-Anyone else? Seeing no one taking advantage of the mic, Henry again thank you so much and for your staff, certainly Kate who worked diligently in pulling these together it is a long haul it is a fun time it is an exciting time most of the time. So, anything more for any of the Board Members? Councilman lrish-I would, also would like to take the opportunity to thank all the directors of the different departments and Henry and Kate and Bill this is the first budget that I have been through with the Town and I think that the prep work that was done before we actually got the ..ofthe budget was superb and really made our job almost something that we did not have to do so as tight as Fred is two coats of paint and everything else I think that the budget came off very well and I think everybody did a super job and I have said it to Fred and a couple other people I really truly believe that Henry Hess above anything else makes this Board look good. So, I said that to you tonight Henry, I appreciate the work that you do for us thank you. Supervisor Champagne-Ok, with that said anything more from other Board Members? Councilman Tucker-No, I guess he said it all as usual. Supervisor Champagne-With that said. It is twenty after eight I looked up the minutes of last year and we ended the meeting last year at about eight ten so we have given you about ten minutes more of valuable time with the Town you are welcome to stay and chat, do whatever you need to do to get more information on the budget. I will close the public hearing at this point. Thank you again very much. Respectfully submitted, Miss Darleen M. Dougher Town Clerk-Queensbury