fiction and non-fiction

the books are plentiful, varied and reasonably priced at this year's Library Book Sale.



head on over to the DPW garage on Heyward St, Saturday from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.

Mobile post sent by shersteve using Utterli. Replies.

Franklin: follow the boxes

Franklin: follow the boxes, originally uploaded by shersteve.

Yes, follow the boxes to the Library Book Sale being held this year at the DPW garage on Heyward St.

Saturday 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Vote NO on Question 1

Financial Planning Committee 10/16/08

the collection of posts for the Financial Planning Committee meeting on Thursday 10/16/08

• Live reporting - continued
• Live reporting - Financial Planning Committee 10/1...

The "official" town minutes for this meeting can be found here

Live reporting - continued

Bartlett - we'll also need to show what the cuts were over the same time period to show what was done in order to make due.

Kelly - need to be consistent on the dates.

Bartlett - need to include the increases in road miles, students, teachers, buildings, etc.

Trahan - there should be substance to the information.

Ogden - growth and change in fees and other revenues that have come in to supplement the tax revenues

Kelly - the average tax bill needs to be looked at to put it into perspective.

Nutting - on the other hand, for all we have cut, people can still go to the library, get the streets plowed. Hard to say what the real impact is.

Bartlett - but we know now we can do this much longer, even to just stay the same. There isn't room to cut without significant changes.

Nutting - I'll come up with a list of things and you can add to it, or change it. I'll focus on the big picture.

Roche - I'd like to start digging into these numbers, like low medium and high for Fire/Police, etc.

Nutting - the salary is already set based upon the bargaining agreements.

Ogden - need to be caution about salary expectations and forecasts in that arena.

Hardesty - has a spreadsheet that shows the Town budgets in a declining order. Realistically this will help us focus as once you go lower than 6 budget lines, you are talking about 2% of the budget. Those as interesting as they are become not really material to the discussion.

Nutting - there is no game plan if Question 1 passes. If that passes, it will be chaos until the Legislature does something. It was on 8 years ago and got 45% of the vote.

Roche - Doug's building the model.
Nutting- I'll get the statistics.

Cameron - if our population has been flat for five years, we also need to remind them of that.

Nutting - you can give historical background, in 1993 there were 3200 students and now there are 6200 students.

Trahan - when do we get to the timeline?
Nutting - Budget to the Council probably in March.

Nutting - 80% of the HR rules are in the State, we don't get to control our destiny.

Roche - we are trying to show what the problem is, it is systemic.

Ogden - part of the problem is perceptual, the average citizen doesn't understand that we brought two buildings online and are going to need additional money to operate. The difference between capital and operational expenses.

Bartlett - I'll take a crack at the calendar.

Hardesty - the idea of level services needs to be defined to be consistent and easy to understand.

Bartlett - I have trouble with "level services" when used with education. You may say the same with the dollars but the education in the room is not the same "level".

Live reporting - Financial Planning Committee 10/16/08

Attending: Jim Roche, Roberta Trahan, Doug Hardesty, Jeff Nutting, Wayne Ogden, Miriam Goodman, Matt Kelly, Tina Powderly, Gwynne Wilschek, Deb Bartlett

Not Attending: Shannon Zollo, Steve Whalen,

Roche - What do you think of the announcement yesterday?

Nutting - I think we dodge a bullet with the Governor's moves yesterday. If they need to go deeper, I am not sure how we are going to avoid it. In comparison, health insurance was a non-issue years ago. It is not a rosy picture. Not new news but that's what it is.

Roche - we won't know revenue numbers for some time, but we will need to work up the expense side.

School Budget will be presented at the second meeting in November (11/20/08)

Roche - start with Jeff's model and tweak it with what we have heard?

Nutting - won't know what our debt will be until later as it is based upon 5% but if that changes, there'll be some adjustments. Some time late in March we go for the bonds to wrap up the Senior Center, Fire Station, etc. Approx. 18 million.

Roche - looking at the model where do we need to go?

Nutting - in FY 2010, the salary is in at 4% and that can come down. There will be pressure on the School Committee as they have been falling behind.

In 2002, the health insurance went into the School Budget moved from the Town budget.

Hardesty - take the assumptions that we have been hearing, explain with notations, low end, high end. Here is the diligence that we did around it. Some assumptions won't make a material difference, others will. To simplify, we can separate those out for the presentation. A hugh portion of the budget is salary, benefits, the people portion. From the Fire/Police we have some operational numbers, how many cars, vehicles you have help to determine how many people you need.

Nutting - Fixed costs increase, you heard Brutus and Mike. We'll need to explain where those are and why.

Bartlett - In the end, are we going to come with what the Town desires? and in that, what is it that the Town will bear?

Hardesty - We need to come up with the three options, say. Level service, high end and cutting. The numbers need to be factual with integrity.

Trahan - I am concerned that we may be coming up with numbers that may not be doing as much as we thought it would due to circumstances that have changed.

Nuting - how far back do we go? If we pick for example, FY 05 we know what salt was, we know what fuel was, so it can be simply explained. Everybody should be able to recognize those and see what the increases are.

"It seems like a win-win for everyone"

By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff

GHS

Posted Oct 16, 2008 @ 12:48 AM

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FRANKLIN —

Town Council voted unanimously last night to lease the historic Red Brick School to the Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School for one year.

The town will most likely rent the school for $1 and the cost of running the 11,650-square-foot, 175-year-old building, said Town Administrator Jeffrey D. Nutting, but the town and school have not yet negotiated.

"I've asked for a 10-year authorization, but they (the charter school's board of trustees) want to try it out for a year" and determine whether it fits them, Nutting said.

Charter school trustees worry about the safety of students and staff crossing through traffic at the intersection of Lincoln and Maple streets to get to the building, trustee President John Neas has said.

Read the full article in the Milford Daily News here