Fire Chief Hired and budget woes unresolved

Fire Chief Hired and budget woes unresolved

Sterling Fire Lt. Kevin Grebinar was appointed as the new Templeton Fire Chief at Monday's Selectmen meeting. This appointment was made after a split 3-2 vote.

Welcome aboard, Chief!

In other business, the advisory committee has identified a number of budgetary issues that need attention:

KNOWN FINANCIAL ISSUES

FY17 Budget

·       Over stated revenues

1.     15-20K new growth

2.     Excise tax 60-100K

·       Salary and wage account over spent

1.     35k Budgeted

2.     55k spent approx.

·       Over payment on long term debt of 87,500 which needs to come out of FY17 budget

·       Approx. Total of 165,000 to 185,000 needs to be reduced from Budget passed at ATM

·       2% raise given to most employees effective in July, even to those who had received large raises in FY17 budget passed at ATM

·       Chart of accounts and FY17 budget document both have accounts listed on one but not on the other which could cause a possible unaccounted finances on the BvA

·       Chart of accounts does not have account numbers for encumbered items

Sewage issue

·       60-80K of FY16 Sewage bills were not encumbered and will have to be paid from FY17 budget which could cause a potential deficit in the FY17 budget passed at ATM in FY17 sewage budget

Pending issues

·       FY13,14,15 & 16 still need to be audited

·       FY13 impacted by FY12 end of year balances (question as to if FY12 was closed out?)

·       FY13 Schedule A was not filed with DOR (Why?) How was tax rates set without it being filed?

·       FY13 deficit 1,045,471.19  Impacts any free cash from FY14,15 or 16

·       Potential of deficits in FY14, 15 etc.  ?

·       NO BOND RATING

1.     Impacts towns ability to borrow  money for any projects

2.     Recent issue obtaining BAN for water project

3.     Can potential effect Sewage borrowing for their project

4.     If no bond rating by the time borrowing needed for Police and new elementary school it could affect these also

·       Debt exclusion for police station of approx., 975,000 to be split between 2 years has a projected TAX impact of approx. 1.00 per thousand

1.     Borrowing rate unknown could be from 3.5% to 5% depending on bond rating

·       Debt exclusion for new elementary school of Approx. 24,500,000 for 28 years could have a TAX impact of 2.49 to 2.95 per thousand depending on the interest rate of 3.5% to 5% or more depending on bond rating.

·       Bond rating impacted by audits and town unable to seek rating until all audits completed sometime in calendar year 2017 at the earliest.

·       Bond rating also requires 7 items to be in place (these items were presented to BOS on July 11, 2016 in presentation given by Advisory committee.

  

It remains to be seen what will happen to ALS service in Templeton. Will Templeton be able to retain the Advanced Life Support ambulance service without a very large cash infusion from the tax payers? Where will the money come from?

Will the selectmen chose to raid the stabilization account to fund operating expenses? Will the selectmen chose to inflate new growth and excise taxes to try to cover the shortfalls? Will the selectmen review the budget to actuals to ensure departments will not overspend their accounts?