PITTSFIELD BUDGET COMMITTEE
Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Opening:
The regular meeting of the Pittsfield Budget Committee was called to order at 7:03 pm on December 15, 2010 in Town Hall large meeting room by John Kidder.
Present:
Louis Houle, Bill Abbott, John Kidder, Mark Riel, David Menard, Lee Adams, Joan Osborne, Fred Hast, Helen Schiff, Helen Schoppmeyer, Paul Skowron Town Administrator.
A. Approval of Minutes
Vote to approve 10-0-3
B. Open Issues
C. New Business
Police Chief’s report: Budgets up a little primarily part time salaries and overtime. This will cover training of new part time positions and covering for court time etc. Station repairs has been over for repainting and repairs. One large repair was for replacement of bullet proof glass. Electricity budget number is down because of energy audit and changes of use in electricity. In dues and subscriptions $ 2,600.00 is for an association which will make available several officers from surrounding town if something significant arises. No new equipment this year. Overtime was high, but this was to fill full time positions for employees that were in deployment. Police special details: did you offer the proposal of $ 15,000. This is a plug in figure, ballpark. Why did contract dispatching go down? The number in the budget only represents half a year. The number will be equal to our budgeted number. There was a 2003 4 wheel drive with 80k miles which was due to be replaced but was decided not to be replaced and instead did some light body repair.

Fire Chief’s repot: Ambulance is broken down between discretionary expenses and non discretionary for wages and benefits dictated by union negotiations. There has been a 5% increase in a calls with 763 calls between fire and ambulance compared to last years 752. 60% of calls come in requests for ambulance, and severity of calls have been more serious. This increase is probably due to the economy, people not spending money on prescriptions or keep up homes. Fuel budget number is down due to a fuel conversion to kerosene. There were six major household fires this year, five of which were total losses. The goal in fire suppression is first saving of human life, next there is an evaluation of property protection. Then an evaluation is done whether to try and save the property or just protect neighbor’s property.
Paramedic intercepts is up about $ 4,000 by year end with Barnstead. There are no fitness requirements for the EMS department. If cross training were required there would be fitness requirements for the firefighting side of things. Chief has been requesting cross training between EMS and Fire. We will be acquiring a forest fire suppression vehicle which we received a $ 125,000 grant to replace. The 125k grant will cover 90% of the costs of replacement for this vehicle. We have an opportunity to acquire a command vehicle from concord that has about $ 6,000 in radio and lights. Currently the chief is using a 2001 former police cruiser that is two wheel drive that we acquired in 2001 with 100,000 miles. The old vehicle now has 129,000 miles and is not usable in snow and ice conditions. Currently when the weather is treacherous the chief uses his own personal vehicle. The new vehicle is a 2001 4×4 that has 109,000 miles on it. The water pump was just replaced by the town of Pittsfield.

Road agent (George): Tried to keep a flat budget. George would like to reduce the culverts line by $1,900.00 so that he has a level budget. Line 241 for overtime really all depends on volume of snow, but hard to budget. The number is low compared to previous years with lots of snow. Supplies account includes items such as parts and supplies. Considerations have been made to turn out every other street light, but other towns have turned them back on. There is welding equipment in the school that is not being used but we are still paying on. Major road project this year is wildwood drive but some of the projects from last year. The new truck that we ordered last year has not yet arrived. It is built but being held up for emissions. The appropriation to purchase the truck was not specific as to what vehicle. Attention was drawn to the fact that we are setting aside money to replace a truck that we do not have yet.

Waste water treatment: This year there will be some major repairs done in the big building. These monies are coming from the warrant articles money. Electricity bill has been up because they had to aerate the lagoons. They had many series of testing due to the aerating of the lagoons. We had several pumps that failed and needed replacing or rebuilding. Some questions have been raised about whether the money to replace the broken pumps from this year should come from line 61 which is 15% of sewer fund. Positions that were not filled last year are going to be filled this year. Currently we are in Phase II of repairs to waste water treatment. There is still some confusion about the funds going in and out of this waste water treatment upgrade. Last year we felt like something had gone wrong on this project when the people had to vote to appropriate more money for the completion of this project. On line 279 we have 50k of surplus money that we are planning to budget for again this year. Let us not encumber these moneys for some other purpose.
Public input: Have we looked into alternative energy. Could we incorporate these into current projects? Last year we talked with school board about alternative energy incorporated into gymnasium roof replacement. The Bow street lights are a waste of money. We should give George his flat budget. We should have a public policy about smoking at public facilities. The state may actually have a policy that we should be enforcing. It doesn’t look good that our fire chief is smoking out front of the fire station. In the past several years the monies for foot patrol has been removed.

D. Agenda for Next Meeting
School Budget
Paul is to look into obtaining stimulus funds from Concord to do some of our shovel ready projects.
Adjournment:
Meeting was adjourned at 9:11 pm by John Kidder. The next general meeting will be at 7:00 PM on January 5, 2011 in Town Hall meeting room.
Minutes submitted by: David M. Menard
Approved by: