"it is the library's slowest day"

By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff

GHS

Posted Apr 30, 2009 @ 12:23 AM

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FRANKLIN —

This year's budget crunch will mean the public library will be closed on Fridays beginning the first week of July, but no staff members will lose their jobs, Town Administrator Jeffrey Nutting told the Finance Committee last night.

Following the hearing, Library Director Felicia Oti left with a big smile - most likely, Nutting said, due to the fact that the library got a better deal than anyone had expected.

Initially, he and Oti feared the library would have to lay off staff and reduce hours even further - possibly leaving the library open only three or four days a week.

Friday was chosen because it is the library's slowest day, Oti said. Monday, then Saturday, are the busiest days, she said.

The library avoided layoffs because the union volunteered to defer salary increases, one employee asked to reduce her hours from 35 to 18 per week, the assistant director's hours were cut from 35 to 15, and because two people retired, Nutting said. Those positions will not be filled.

Read the full article on the Library budget in the Milford Daily News here

Slidecast: Strategic Plan Overview (audio)

The Strategic Planning Overview is now available as a slide cast. The slide show has been synchronized with audio to create a complete listening and viewing experience.

This was the presentation to the Town Council on Wednesday, April 15th.

Strategic Planning Process Overview (audio) 4/15/09

View more presentations from Steve Sherlock.

The slidecast without audio is available here

If you have any questions, you can contact me via email (see link on right column) or via a comment.

Updated the survey is available here

FY 2010 Budget schedule

The Town website has not been updated with agendas or meeting minutes for the current series of the Finance Committee FY 2010 budget hearings. During the meeting Wednesday 4/29/09, I was able to confirm that:

There was a budget hearing on Tuesday 4/28/09 that covered the Police, Fire, Planning and Recreation budgets.

The meeting currently scheduled for next Tuesday 5/5/09 will review the School Dept, Tri-County, and IT budgets to complete the FY 2010 hearings.

The committee has their regular meeting scheduled for the first Tuesday in June at which, depending upon the State revenue numbers, they may be able to vote on the final FY 2010 budget.

If that happens, the Town Council is scheduled to do their budget hearings on June 10th and 11th. Worse case, the Town Council may need to meet on June 24th to finalize a balanced budget before June 30th.

This schedule is subject to change. The State revenue numbers are still very fluid.

Finance Committee 04/29/09

The collection of live reports for the Finance Committee meeting of Wednesday 4/29/09 are located here:

• Live reporting - Enterprise Funds
• Live reporting - DPW Street lights
• Live reporting - DPW Highway
• Live reporting - Facilities
• Live reporting - Finance Committee 04/29/09 (Library)
  

Live reporting - Enterprise Funds

Cantoreggi

157 miles of water pipe
the business is heavily regulated, EPA, etc.

Water rate had not increased in years. It did increase due to our conservation success, we are selling less but the infrastructure has not decreased and still needs to be maintained.

Chemical cost have been increasing, part of the treatment we do is pH.

$155,000 to 500,000 in the last year, due to the cost of the fluoride chemical

Roche - storm water regulations, how may that bite us?
Cantorregi - storm water monitoring for the whole system and what you can do with it. The Charles River basin catches the run off, into the Charles, then into the ocean. Ideally the water should go into the ground to replenish our aquifer. we have to do a lot more mapping, a lot more testing. Franklin, Bellingham, Milford are targeted for special planning for commercial buildings where they would be required for anything at two acres. The rest of the state is at five acres.

motion for solid waste - approved
motion for sewer - approved
motion for water - approved

Live reporting - DPW Street lights

DPW Street Lights - Acct 424

Nutting have made great savings to own and maintain our street lights, it used to be about 200,000 and this year we are only 140,000.

Roche - this is electricity?
Nutting - this is all, electricity, repair, and maintenance. We added the school parking lot and wall unit lights. We anticipate additional savings there.

Nutting - this budget should stay relatively stable. The only unknown is in some subdivisions, the street lights were not put in underground with the proper conduit, so a backhoe is sometimes needed.

Nutting - we have a committee that reviews street light criteria so we have a lot less than some other places. Not having to turn off the lights would require paying the electric company. If we wanted to shut them off, we can do so. We have about 1600 street lights.

Cantoreggi - We have a contract with the Police to survey the lights and report which ones are out. They are already out and about around the town.

Live reporting - DPW Highway

DPW Highway - Acct 440

Robert A. Cantoreggi

The DPW budget does reflect a personnel wage freeze for FY 2010.
We did not replace a person from last year.
We do supplement our force with part timers as needed
Storm water is big, we are working on that constantly.

We have been working on increasing the Snow and Ice budget to get it more realistic. This year is still low (600,000) and less than what we actually spent (1.2 million).

Road overlays come from Chapter 90 and not from the town
Stimulus money has not come down to us yet, we do have shovel ready projects.

Roche - what does it cost to pave a mile of road?
Cantoreggi - It is hard to say, it depends upon what we do with the road, to rebuild it up, or to just repave it.

Union St - mile estimated (fill in amount later)
Nutting - we have no drainage money, no sidewalk money, we want to put in 2 million and we would still be short. This is our highest need to maintain the roads. we don't have any money in the budget to maintain our roads.

Cantoreggi - There will be a huge bubble of roads over the next 15 years as they roads age and fall apart. We are doing band-aid patching and that is not going to help us.

Cantoreggi - Chapter 90 put some money in that, that is shovel ready, none of the money has come through.
Nutting - 2 Billion came to the State and there were 29 Billion requests for that money. The State has a huge list of projects and I don't know how they are going to decide.

Roche - Down $233,000 from last year
Nutting - we are going to centralize the inventory of the school furniture. Right now it is each building. A principal may be asking for something that is down the road at another school.

Motion to approve - passed