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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1999-11-04TB 11-4 -99 • „ • . DRY DEN BUDGET HEARING & TOWN BOARD M NOVEMBER 49 1999 Supv Schug opened the public hearing and board meeting at 6:35 p.m. Board members and guests participated in a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. Present: Cl Ronald Beck, Cl Thomas Hatfield, Cl Charles Hatfield, Cl Grantham and Supervisor James Schug, Supv Schug - Our first order of business is to go over any budget changes that we have. Chris Clauson has some information to present to us. C Clauson - Presented information to the Board supporting his request for an increase in salary for the justices. Included were salaries of other courts in Tompkins County as reported in the Ithaca Journal, a copy of the Court's quarterly activities as reported to the State Comptroller and information from the Village of Horseheads Court (has a caseload similar to the Town of Dryden). In 1998 the Village of Horseheads had 2,031 cases. The Town of Dryden's caseload for 1998 was 3,928. The Horseheads judges receive $18,026 each. Judge Clauson believes the caseload in Dryden is twice the number in Horseheads, yet the Horseheads judges get paid twice the amount the Dryden judges receive. Invited Board members to visit the Court. Supv Schug - Has checked for approximate hours. The Town in Court). C Clauson - Court cases fo the Board's time and anything the with a couple of Town Clerks for judges' salaries and asked of Ithaca justice will make $11,213 for next year (20 hours r 1999 will exceed the number handled in 1998. Appreciates Board can do for them will be appreciated. Joe Valentinelli - Believes he has proved himself and believes his salary should be equal to the other justice. Enjoys doing the job and feels that the Board is only aware of the Court held on Monday and Wednesday mornings, not the times they are called out in the middle of the night and early hours of the morning. Between the two judges they usually receive 2 or 3 phone calls a night. On weekends or holidays it is much more. Supv Schug - Asked for recommendations from the Board. Chris had asked to be brought to $15,000. Cl T Hatfield - Asked J Valentinelli if there were any restrictions that needed to be considered and there were not. Asked how our case loads compared with others in Tompkins County, Supv Schug -They didn't check. I checked on salaries and approximate hours. Maybe because the State Police are out here and with the Village Police we have a heavier load. We also have the greatest number of young people of any Town in the County (information from Youth Bureau), but I don't know hour much trouble we have with youngsters, not that they are the biggest problem. C Clauson - By no means. OAR told us that we have just become the busiest Court in the County besides the Ithaca City Court. They have a full time judge and a part time judge. Cl Beck - Asked if the case load between the two judges was equal and C Clauson thought that was more or less the case. P'agc 1 of 22 1 ,v TB 114 -99 Cl T Hatfield - Feels that $14,000 was a fair salary. It is a substantial increase and seems to fit where we are going. Let's try that as a number and if it is within the parameters of the budget see how that works. Cl Beck - What was the number of work hours for the Town of Ithaca? Supv Schug - 20 hours according to the clerk. Cl Beck - And our case load is way above that. Supv Schug - Do you have any problem with $14,000? Cl C Hatfield - No. Cl Grantham - Not so far. You say the Town of Ithaca works about 20 hours per week and what are your hours roughly? C Clauson - 25 each. We could easily have a fixll time judge in the Town of Dryden. Cl T Hatfield - Do we have hours from Lansing or Groton? Supv Schug - The Town of Lansing pays their judge this year a proposed $11,213 and they have about 15 hours. Groton has $7,552 and they have about 15 hours. Ithaca pays $12,318, is going up to that for 20 hours. Cl Beck - If you figure the hours and percentage that puts $14,000 as a pretty good number. Cl Grantham - Yeah, okay. Cl T Hatfield - That seems a reasonable place to go. Supv Schug - The two court clerks were also put in for a heavy raise since the Judges wages were increased, as were Dianne, Henry not so much, Nita Baldwin. Bambi Hollenbeck has a change in her hours, so she's getting a change, and Kevin is doing the mapping so he is getting a pretty fair increase. Cl Grantham - What are all the increases? Supv Schug - In the Court under the justices, Ryan and Smiley. Cl Grantham - So they're getting 3`Yo, is that right? Supv Schug - They're getting more than that. Cl C Hatfield - 3% brought them to $31,900. Supv Schug - My tentative budget was 3 %, but the judges are getting a much bigger percentage. Cl Grantham - You are saying how much for Jean Ryan? Supv Schug - $34,100. Last year it was $31,000. Rzige 2 of 22 ,A 1 TB 114 99 Cl T Hatfield - About 10"/0. ® Supv Schug - Debbie Smiley will be the same, about 10%. The preliminary budget is what we have in front of us now. The tentative budget was my budget 1 proposed to you people at the end of September. Cl Beck - Maybe we haven't got that Jim. The Board did not have a copy of the preliminary budget. Cl Beck - We can fill in the changes. Cl Grantham - Are there a lot of changes? Supv Schug - No. Okay, Ryan will be $34,100 and Smiley will be $25,250. Cl Grantham - How did you justify this increase? Supv Schug - The 10% increase? Because of what the judges' got. Joe got about 500/0 and Chris got 20"/0. Cl Grantham - Have their hours increased? Supv Schug - No, their workload is increasing. As a matter of fact down here we are putting a half a person to start training. Cl Grantham - Where is that listed? ® Supv Schug - Personal part time. It was zero and now it is $10,420. Approximately a half time person. Cl Grantham - I think we need new copies of that current budget. What else has changed in it? Supv Schug apologized and copies were made of the pages that had changes. There is a half time person in records management. Cl Grantham - I guess I have a hard time justifying a roughly 10% increase for two employees because the justice got it, especially when we are adding a half time position that will take some of their work load. Supv Schug - It is a part time person right now, but the other half of the part time is going to be in the records management department., handling the records management for mostly court material. So everybody knows, Jean Ryan is talking about retiring within a year. When she retires hopefully well have this part time person who will be in a position to take Jean's place when she leaves. Cl C Hatfield - When Jean left and she stepped up, we'd back her off quite a little, right? Supv Schug - Jean's been here a long time and doesn't hold back with working. She works all kinds of hours. The other young lady in there refuses to work any overtime. When it was night Court Jean worked the night court and she does BZA and Planning Board. We'd like • to have the part time person do that also, Page 3 0l' 22 TB 11 -4 -99 Cl Grantham - I like to give raises as much as anyone else, but we are actually reducing their workload by getting a half time person. 0 C1 Beck - Jim, are you suggesting increasing Jean's salary because she has been spending all this time at meetings essentially without compensation? Supv $chug - She can put in for it but she never does? Cl Beck - So it is almost a back pay or reinstatement of services or something? That is a pretty substantial increase. Supv Schug - 10%, but you gave the Judges one hell of an increase also. Cl Grantham- But we asked for justification about increased workload, and in comparison .... Supv $chug - I'll say one thing. For five minutes of a judge's time, they spend an hour and half of their time doing the paper work. If you don't believe it, come in and watch them. J Valentinelli - I have come up here to arraign somebody on a Sunday afternoon, and Jean is here. I have come up here on a holiday like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and she is in here. I have come up here at 7 or 8 at night, and she is still here. Those secretaries do yeoman work. They work their tails off. Cl Grantham - However, when we go to the public with this, we need to be able to justify giving someone a 109/6 raise, and it has to be... J Valentinelh - I understand totally. Let the public come up here and see what is going 0 on. Cl Grantham - They are not going to come up and see. When we had this budget workshop, we asked Chris to document in writing his reasons for your increases, and Bambi the same thing. I don't think it is an unreasonable request to have some justification that will withstand public scrutiny. If you give someone a 10% increase, that is huge. Especially when at the same time you are hiring a half time person to help reduce that workload and Jean won't be doing night meetings with the minutes anymore. I know that Jean works like a dog, I know she does. And I know all these people do and I don't have any problem with that and I don't have any problem with that. J Valentinelh - You are saying the public is the problem. Cl Grantham - Yes, we have to justify this. And just saying they work real hard ... J Valentinelh - I don't know how you would do that, with the public. Supv Schug - So far the only public here is Ron's wife and Mark, who wants to get involved and know what is going on. Joe works here, and the two young ladies from the press. Cl Beck - There is not too much concern. Supv Schug - We've done right by the people in cutting the taxes again this year. We watch our money, and a lot of this is coming on the backs of people who work here. If you don't want to give them a raise, fine, don't.. Cl Grantham - I think we need to justify it. • Page 4 of 22 TB 11 -4 -99 • Supv Schug - For my mind, 1 think a 109/6 raise for those ladies is justified. 'They have lived with 3% for the last five or six years. Before that it was 4% or 5 %. They've never had a raise this big. Cl T Hatfield - You need to do this realistically without destroying the moral of your key employees, giving raises for increased work load, which is justifiable, for the judges and turn around and say well, your work load hasn't gone up over the same period of time. We know for a fact that it has. Every case that comes through here those ladies touch. It's an absolute truism. I don't have a problem with a substantially larger raise than what is in this tentative budget. Cl Beck - From what Jim said, if in fact they are putting out way more than what they have been and they've been getting 3% like everyone else gets, if you guys who know what is happening can say to me that these people have been putting out a lot more effort in the length of time, then that's okay. But because one person gets a justified increase based on workload, then go ahead and give someone else a raise, I don't buy that either. Cl C Hatfield - I don't either. Cl Beck - But if you are saying okay, their workload is increased, but they didn't come to us and holler about it., then I think there is some justification in doing this. If Jim, who probably knows the situation way better than us, feels that is in the ballpark, well that's alright with me. If you destroy the moral, and you lose one or two key people out of this office, then you see what the hell is going to happen. You won't have a clue what is going on here and it will take you two or three years to get back in, and if that is not worth 10° /u then.... I know what happens when you lose a key person. The couple thousand you're talking about isn't ® worth anything. Deb is right. You've got to have a reason for doing this. You just can't hand somebody that money for no reason, but I think you've got the reason. Cl T Hatfield - That's right. I don't think we do this superfluously or without cause. But how you can argue that you increase the justices on a workload and then turn around and say that the clerks don't have the same workload experiences, that's counterintuitive. Cl Grantham - Except that we are adding a half time position and another half time position who will be in records management and who will primarily be doing that filing and straightening, so the half time position that goes with the Justice ... B Hollenbeck - But the records management position will be temporary. Cl Grantham - But you can't put the records maintenance on this half time Justice position because you are going to be having that person work half time in records management and half time with the Justices. So not only are you giving these people a 10% increase, but you are also adding a half time position on top of it. Somehow you've got to come up with hours worked and so on that show that that is justified, that there is two and a half positions worth of hours being worked and that they are working harder during that time, or something. Cl T Hatfield - That was already talked about. There are two and a half positions being worked and they are behind. Cl C Hatfield - I'm sure if they had to they could come up with it. Cl Beck - If you asked Jean to submit every hour of back pay that she didn't ask for is over the last two or three years, you'd probably have quite a few there. If that's in fact how it works. I wasn't aware of it. I assumed they were paid for the time they put in. Page 5 of 22 TB 1 1-4 -99 Supv Schug - Okay, let's move on. Supervisor is $8,9001 Cl T Hatfield - Well, every time we 've had a change and we started this a couple of years ago with Bambi and before that with Joe, we 've had an adjustment for change in personnel. Are we going to continue that policy? What did the do with the other two when we had a change? Supv Schug - 131/o Cl C Hatfield - Went back 13/0. Supv Schug - This came about because when Chris Clauson took over for Judge Sweetland it was an emergency and fell through the cracks. He did the same thing Ed Sweetland did and he was here for 20 years. Cl T Hatfield - We 've got Caroline at $5,500, Dryden at $8,900, Enfield at $5,200, Groton at $8,500, Ulysses is $6,200, Ithaca at $30,000, Lansing at $16,000 and Danby at $1.0,000. Cl C Hatfield - Tfyou roll it back 13 %, that's about $7,500. Cl T Hatfield - Yeah, about $7,700 in round numbers, a little less than that. I don't see how we can't do the same. We reduced the Highway Superintendent over the last two or three years from $42,000 down to $35,000. That was a substantial reduction. Supv Schug - Do you want to change that to $7,500? $7,700? Cl Beck - $7,743 is exactly 13 %. Cl T Hatfield - $7,743 sounds good to me. Cl Grantham - Explain your reasoning again. Cl T Hatfield - The reason is our policy as a Board over the last five or six years years, since Chris Clauson who stepped in an emergency, every time there has been a changed in elected officials, including Joe Valentinelh, Bambi, over the time we've had a reduction and it has been 13% each time. I think we if we are going to be consistent, that is the question. Cl Grantham - What you are recommending for secretary/ bookkeeper is a nearly 25% increase over the tentative 2000 budget? Supv Schug - The tentative was $33,000. I don't know how it got to $41,450. Cl T Hatfield - Is it an elevated position or something? Cl Grantham - It's Dianne McFall's position. And how do you even justify 109/6? Supv Schug - Well, she puts in an awful lot of hours with payroll and whatever. I don't Cl Grantham - A 10"/6 increase in hours? That is a big increase, and I don't think we can just go giving increases like that without justifying it. Cl C Hatfield - She'd move from $32,200 up to $35,400, instead of $41,000? Page 6 of 22 TB 114 -99 • Supv Schug - Yeah. Cl Beck - You think that's a typo Jim? Supv Schug - I think so. Cl Grantham - I don't even know how you can justify a 10" /o increase. Supv Schug - You're going to give it to the two law clerks and the judges. C1 Grantham - I don't think be S %. Cl that is the way to justify increases in salaries. Because everybody else got it, unless it is a cost of living increase that is across the board. Supv Schug - Cost of living is 3% and that's what they've been getting. Cl Grantham - Right, and to me across the board cost of living is justifiable and you don't have to go position by position, but when you do large increases like that you can't justify it be saying everybody else got it. Supv Schug - You want to cut it back to $331200? Cl Grantham - Yeah, I think so. Supv Schug - What does everybody else say? If she leaves, Mark is going to be up to his ass in alligators. It's up to you guys. ® Cl T Hatfield - You've got a pretty important resource there when it comes to information. Supv Schug - She runs the office. $33,200. You are the Board. Cl Beck - You're the administrator and if you are telling us the position is... Supv Schug - It's not worth what is here, but it is worth 8- 10" /0. If you want to leave it at 3 %, then fine. C1 T Hatfield - I think we do have an important issue and we need to address that. If she were to leave I don't think you would find a qualified replacement for that amount of money. You might, you might now. I know the market out there is pretty aggressive for people with her skills. That's the other side of the coin. There are opportunities for turnover and what Deb is saying is that we're reached that plateau, that's as high as you should pay. I don't know, I don't think I agree with that exactly, but I'm hearing what she's saying. Cl C Hatfield - What would S% do? Cl Beck - $1,610 would be S %. Cl T Hatfield - $34,810. I could live with that. Cl Grantham - The current salary isn't $33,200. The current salary is $32,200. Cl Beck - $33,810 would be the figure. ® Supv Schug - Everything else stays the same. Down below is Bambi for Receiver of Taxes going to a full time job. $6,300 to $10,400. Page 7 of 22 TB 114-99 Cl T Hatfield - As we discussed the other day. • Supv Schug - Records Management. Part of that is from the grant and the other half a person. There are some employee benefits now. B Hollenbeck - No, I think the employee benefits listed there go along with the first line. That is grant money, the $144 and the $1,800. Supv Schug - The town clerk goes from $14,700 tentative to $17,000. Cl Grantham - And this is based on the change in raising it to 40 hours per week, plus a five percent increase in rate. Or a 3% increase in rate? Supv Schug - About 3 %. Public Works, Tom, is that where you wanted to make a change? We dropped that down to $1.00 when we got to the point of trying to get that to be a separate position. It has to stay with the highway superintendent. Cl T Hatfield - I recommend that we put that into the $2,000 category to cover the effort and the work that's got to be done in public works. Cl Grantham - I thought we just talked about that last time and everybody said no, leave it at $1,00. We talked about it in October. What is the Highway Superintendent making? Supv Schug - $35,000. Cl Grantham - On mine it still says tentative $6,679. Supv Schug - At our last meeting we changed that Deb, and I'm sorry that she didn't do • a sheet for you... Cl Grantham - That's why I'm asking. I think we need a new sheet. Supv Schug - I apologize. Cl C Hatfield - That's going to be Jack's. job. Cl T Hatfield - Right. Now he's making $38,150, and we're got the Superintendent's salary at $35,000 and if we put the public works at $2,000 it will be $37,000 so he'll be taking a cut in pay, which is fine. He's a new elected official. Supv Schug - Jack, you plan to work full time I take it. J Bush - With a cut in pay? Yes, I couldn't keep up if I didn't. Cl T Hatfield - That makes sense I think. Supv Schug - Nothing has changed from the tentative to the preliminary on page 4. Nothing's changed on page 5. Page 6 is the same as it was. Dog control is for paying the SPCA. There is a $9,000 increase over last year for enumeration. That comes every two years by State law. Cl Grantham - That's your page what? Cl Beck - Our 7. • Page 8 of 22 TB 11-4 -99 Supv Schug - Page 7 doesn't change. You have a new page 8. In Mapping there are changes. That is Kevin, I had it at $1,500 so that is changed. Equipment is $1,500. Contractual is $1,000 and service is $3,000. Cl Grantham - I want to go back to highway for a minute. There is $10,400 for secretary. That position hasn't been filled for a while, right? Supv Schug - That's why it was cut back to that. Jack and his partner now that things are settled are going to consider a part time person to answer phone and do some of the paperwork. But that is up to him, it's his department. We left the money in for it. Like any other money, if he'd like to spend it, it's in the coffers. We're agoni izng through this. Does anybody have any questions on the overall budget that they'd like to ask? Mike Hattery - Is this a budget session on which you are soliciting public comment? Supv Schug - Absolutely. Cl Grantham - It is a public hearing. M Hattery - I can wait until you get to it. It's the town wide highway budget. Supv Schug - What's your question? M Hattery - It's not a question. It is a comment, or something I would ask you to consider. I know all of you except Ron. Ron, I'm a Village Trustee for the Village of Dryden, Mike Hattery. All of you are interested in aligning public costs so that people use for services • pay for services and that people that pay for services use services. It's kind of a simple principal. It is my understanding that most of the items, except for bridges, that you've included in the town wide portion of the highway budget are for town roads only. Bridges is a responsibility that you have through the Village and the Town and you join in the payment of bridges with the Village. I would like to ask you to consider moving those expenses that are for town highways only, which would be the remaining other than bridge in the town wide highway fund to town outside. Supv Schug - Does the Village feel as though they are paying for equipment? Is that the idea? Is that what the problem is? Cl Grantham - It sounds like it. Supv Schug - On a town wide basis? M Hattery - The point I was making was that the only expenditure there that pertains to Village roads and streets is bridges. So I would like you to consider moving all those expenses that are just for town roads to the town outside portion of the budget. And I understand there would be some expenditure that went with that as well because of the sales tax distribution. It would probably go back into the town outside portion as well. Supv Schug - So you understand, if we move the expenses we will also move the revenue. We took the sales tax and we took the town outside budget and brought it to zero. You'll see it here on the top sheet. Total town outside under town outside assessment is $442,373,590. Total town wide is $498,755,694. All the sales tax that comes in is credited to highway and everything is covered by sales tax. There is some left over and that goes into • townwide. It was either give you guys the credit or send it back to the County. As far as I'm Page 9 of 22 TB 11-4 -99 concerned the two Villages are as a big a part of the Town as anybody else and rather than give it back to the County, we gave it to the two Villages. 0 M Hattery - Let me understand this. What you mean is the excess over, by law you tape all your sales tax, apply it to the town outside village portion of the budget. Then the excess, at your option, you can put in the town wide. So it is reducing the town wide rate. It is not really directly going to the Village, but it impacts the Village tax rate. I understand that. Is that what you are saying? Supv Schug - Yes. M Hattery - It isn't like it comes to the Villages. It reduces the town outside village, or the town wide tax rate. So it affects Village taxpayers. I understand that. M Hattery - What I'm saying is that even, if I understand your budget practices, if you moved all of the highway functions that are really town outside village functions (everything but bridge) to the town outside village highway budget and you took the sales tax with it, which would be appropriate because you have more expenditures there now and you wouldn't have as much available to put back into the town wide. If there was a roughly proportionate amount out of the other revenues that were kept in the fund (the other revenues are interest on deposit based on the fund, use of money, property, interest on fund balance) I think there would be a substantial reduction to Village property owners. I did some back of the envelope calculations and I think it would be like a 34% decrease for Village property owners. I am not asking you to decrease highway expenditures at all because I know it is an important area, but to move those things which are expenditures for town roads to the town outside village portion. Cl T Hatfield - To follow your argument, you're saying the village residents get no benefit at all from town roads? • M Hattery - Oh no, they do. And town taxpayers get benefits from our expenditures. I am not asking for any decrease in cooperation. This aligns payment with the principal of those who pay get the benefit and those who benefit pay. Cl T Hatfield - To follow your logic, as long as the Village residents don't ever use the town highway outside the Village, then it would make sense that they may no contribution toward town taxes for roads. M Hattery - You could use that argument with the Village of Cayuga Heights or City of Cortland, as well. That logic doesn't follow. If you were saying 5010 of town roads are connectors with other population centers so that village residents had to drive on town roads to get to work, etc, sure I would agree with you. But that is not the case. I think village residents use town roads for roughly the same reason that town residents use village roads, to get to property. Town roads are not major connectors to take people to places. Otherwise, your argument would be a good one. Cl Grantham - And you are suggesting taking the sales tax with it. M Hattery - I am asking that you consider it. Like I said I did some back of the envelope and it looks to me like village taxpayers would benefit from this alignment of those who benefit pay. Supv Schug - The general town wide is $660,000. Highway town wide is $280,000. And then the general outside, the highway outside and the town outside is really zero. S Page 10 of 22 TB 11-4 -99 M Hattery - Right, the outside rates are currently zero, and 1 didn't calculate how those ® would change if you made the adjustment. But I would assume you would also take that sales tax. Supv Schug - There is only so much of that you can use, and we are using all the sales tax to bring all the outside to zero, ... M Hattery - Sure. Supv Schug - Which benefits you, it benefits the Village. The tax rate is... M Hattery - I'm not sure that I agree with that. That a zero town outside village rate benefits village taxpayers. It benefits town outside village taxpayers. But I am not arguing with the way you handled the sales tax. I think that is the way it is supposed to be by law. I am asking you to consider what I suggested. Supv Schug - Well get ahold of Dianne and go over it before we accept this budget and see what we can do. M Hattery - I am not saying it is the best option, but based on my back of the envelope calculations, it looks that way to me. Supv Schug - That's fine. This is the place to talk about it, and we will. You want to take $280,000 to come out of the village, and only put the bridge portion in. M Hattery - Only put the bridge portion in the town wide highway. Everything else would be basically expenditures for town outside. Cl Grantham - So move whatever amount of the $280,000 out of highway town wide to highway outside. M Hattery - That is the residual. If you take total expenditures and subtract off revenues and unexpended fund balance. I'm saying if you go to the actual town wide fund, there is around $240,000 in the copy of the budget I have in bridges. I'm assuming that on top of that you have your fringes which are allocated at the end of the budget and then it looks to me like it is about 30%, so my guess is it would around $252,000. That is about 16% of what you currently have in the town wide and I'm assuming that if you kept about 16"/0 of your interest on fund balance in the fund... Supv Schug- 1S to 20. M Hattery - If it is about 16%, and that's about how much, assuming you continue your budget practices using fund balances. So I came out that that would leave a total town outside highway of about $184,000 which is a $95,000 reduction, about 34 1/1o. Supv Schug - I don't think it works that way, but we'll sure get the answer before the budget is adopted. M Hattery - Thanks for hearing me out. Supv Schug - No problem. That's what this is all about. Does anybody else have anything they would like to bring up? (No one did.) Research stays the same, as it was budgeted. • Cl T Hatfield - That's for stuff that's in process right? Page 11 of 22 TB 11-4-99 Cl C Hatfield - Is that the one he had a question on? • Supv Schug - Mark made a big thing about this and the reason it is called research is because that's what the State says to call it. It really isn't research. It is preliminary engineering work. Once a water or sewer district gets adopted we get reimbursed. Garbage disposal is for the highway department. Cemeteries doesn't change, neither do Home and Community Service, the Learning Web, etc. Benefits is the same. Estimated town wide A hasn't changed. It's a best guess of what they'll be. Transfer to capital $140,000, that stays the same. That's pretty much the only changes going down the list. Those were the only things we talked about, payroll changes. Any specific questions? (none) The cover page will be revised. It will be changed a little bit, but the overall percent of tax reduction this year for the general fund will be 8.88 %. The tax rate will go to $1.885. That's a pretty nice increase. We try to keep the special districts with minimal changes using some fund balance. The fire tax is going up because we don't have a big reserve for therm. The changes that we put in with the judges' salaries and the change with Bambi and the part time help brought it from 9.9 to 8.1 %. Cl T Hatfield - And that will go up further because we just eliminated by my calculations $8,797 from the budget. The reduction will be a little bigger. Supv Schug - Any other questions or comments we can help you with? M Varvayanis - Can we go back to research? You've got $410,000? Supv Schug - I was explaining that to you. You looked like you were asleep so I stopped talking. Research is for water and sewer, engineering districts. Once the district is formed people in that district pay back to the town. It's like a loan for those people. And that is what this is. That's why when you asked me what research vas, $400,000 off the cuff, I couldn't answer you. I couldn't remember what it was. It really doesn't affect the budget a lot as long as the water and sewer districts come about. It used to be the County would pay 50% of those, loan us 50% and the Town would pay 50 0/o. And then when the district came about, the water or sewer district paid back the town and the County the same way. Cl Grantham - Well, it does affect taxpayers in town either way. If the study is done and the district isn't formed the whole town pays the bill for the study. If the district is formed the taxpayers in the district pay the taxes. And so it costs taxpayers in the town either way. Cl C Hatfield - We haven't spent money on a water district that wasn't formed have we? Cl Grantham - We spent money on Yellow Barn Drainage. Cl C Hatfield - That wasn't a water district. Supv Schug - We tried to get that back from the County and that didn't work either. Cl Grantham - I'm just saying that you can't say it doesn't cost taxpayers. It costs different taxpayers different amounts depending on what happens. Supv Schug - Deb, everything costs money. And you're right, until it gets paid back to the district, it's going to cost the town money. But how would you say we get the map, plan and report for a water district or sewer district from an engineering company if we didn't upfront the money. Cl Grantham - I'm not questioning the practice. I'm saying that no matter what it costs • taxpayers in the town money. Page 12 of 22 7 4B 11 -4 -99 • Cl Beck - Those who benefit pay the cost, unless it's not formed like in the case of Yellow Barn, Supv Schug - And now that we are starting to get some grant money for Project Impact, we can leverage other money, and hopefully Mark does that, so we can get that back and form the Yellow Barn district, fix the Malepe's ditch along their creek, and fix Chen's property. I think the Chen's situation can be solved because the problem is coming from the top of the hill. They were worried about losing their wall. Cl C Hatfield - But if you look at that wall, they let brush grow up in it and fill it anyway. That's partly his responsibility, but if the whole thing is updated, it could solve all the problems. Cl Beck - What is the procedure now? Will we get copies of the tentative that we were looking at tonight eventually? Supv Schug - You'll get a copy of this with all these changes that are here in place. You'll all have a copy of it. You should have had a copy tonight. I apologize. You'll have a chance to look at the budget before Tuesday night, and then well adopt it at that time unless you want to change something else. Cl Grantham - Are you also going to get us some kind of picture of what would happen if we adopted Mike Hattery's suggestion so we can think about that? Supv Schug - Yes. I'm sure the Village does not come out on the short end of the stick. I just don't know exactly how it works, but we will have that information come Monday • afternoon or Tuesday morning so that we can answer Mike's question realistically. It would have been nice if he had called earlier today and asked that question. We would have had the proper answer for him. It's not always easy to sit here and try to figure out when someone else does a lot of that work exactly what happens to it. We had a bid on the Gator. We said we'd put a minimum bid of $6,500.00 and we got a bid of $6,505.05. We only had one bid on it, from Richard Bailey. RESOLUTION # 189 - ACCEPT GATOR BID Cl C Hatfield offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board hereby accepts the bid of $6505.05 from Richard Bailey for the John Deere Gator, and the Supervisor is authorized to execute the documents necessary to effect the transfer. Cl T Hatfield Roll Call Vote Cl Beck Yes Cl T Hatfield Yes Cl C Hatfield Yes Cl Grantham Yes Supv Schug - There is one parcel on Baker Hill and when the water and sewer district was formed it was included. The gentlemen really has no access to get to the pipes. It's parcel #52 -1 -28. We need to relieve that parcel from the water and sewer charges for the year 2000. The parcel is kind of tucked back up in a corner. Page 13 of 22 TB 11 -4 -99 RESOLUTION #190 - RELIEVE PARCEL #52 -1 -28 FROM WATER AND SEWER ASSESSMENTS FOR 2000 Cl T Hatfield offered the following resolution and asked for its adoption: RESOLVED, that this Town Board relieve parcel #52 -1 -28 from water and sewer assessments (Turkey Hill Water & Sewer Districts) for the year 2000. 2nd Cl Beck Roll Call Vote Cl Beck Yes Cl T Hatfield Yes Cl C Hatfield Yes Cl Grantham Yes Supv Schug - Tom would like to approve the letter to the attorneys. Cl Grantham - This is your draft dated October 21? Cl T Hatfield - Yes. Cl Grantham - I have some comments on it. Cl T Hatfield - And if we are going to get this rolling, we need to move. I'd like to beef this up a little bit, get Dianne to get it on letterhead. I think it should be signed by each of us. We need to address the issue of advertising if we are going to advertise. We 've got about 55 or 55 days left in the year. Cl Grantham - I have a suggestion for rewriting part of the first paragraph. The second paragraph should just be listed as something that we request. (copies of Cl Grantham's comments were distributed) The second paragraph can be listed on the second page. We need to state that this is a one year contract, can be renewed annually, can renegotiate rates each year, the way that we do now. We won't necessarily bid it out again, although we could Cl T Hatfield - I think this is the kind of thing we need to do periodically, but not necessarily every year. Cl Grantham - We need to tell them that this is a one year contract and we renew the contract annually and renegotiate rates. We need to tell them that up front. On the second page, the list of information requested, number 5 I said provide details of disciplinary within the last three years. Cl T Hatfield - I don't know why we would want to know about only the last three years. Cl Grantham - The reason I did that is because with the engineering contract I have been talking with Paul Jennette who works at Cornell now as an engineer, but did work for Stearns & Wheler until recently, and he said that an engineering firm wouldn't give you that. Give them a time limit of the last two or three years and they'll respond. If you just have a blanket, they won't. That's why I put it in there. I'm not sold on it for this purpose. The complete listing of standard rates for categories of personnel was what I put for number six and for number seven, disclose local practice, local business and personal interests. Cl Beck - What do you mean by local practice? i Page 14 of 22 TH 11-4 -99 Cl Grantham - What interests do they have in town. Do they have a practice in the • Town of Dryden, or do they have a business in the Town of Dryden, do they own property in the Town of Dryden. Change local to Town of Dryden if you want. Cl T Hatfield - I struggle with that other than for curiosity's sake. I don't see how that is relevant to professional services. Collectively we try to encourage the expenditure of Town monies within the Town. That is always our first choice given competitive bid practices and State requirements and the Town's procurement policy. If you disclose local practice, it depends on where the address of the office is. Local business and personal interests, especially attorneys have an obligation to disclose any possible conflicts of interests. Failure to do so is an ethics breach and subject to all sorts of violations. Cl Grantham - I'd like to have them disclose those things up front. The reason that I brought this whole bid process up back in the winter was because of the information about Mahlon Perkins suing County, Town, Village for additional money for the appraisal value of his land. I do not see how an attorney who is working for a municipality on one hand and having a legal dispute with the municipality can be objective about the municipality's best interests and I think that we need to look at that. Cl T Hatfield - Did you read the judge's findings and did you read the information that he gave us? Cl Grantham - I read the whole thing Tom. I think he had personal interests in an issue that was partly Town and also Village and County. Cl T Hatfield - And from day one he had nothing to do with that at Jim Schug's request. We had other local counsel from the Town of Dryden to represent this Town for the entire ... Cl Grantham - I understand that, I want to know... Cl T Hatfield - Explain to me why that is a conflict of interest. Cl Grantham - I want to know up front. Cl T Hatfield - We knew up front on that. That's the reason he did that. Cl Grantham - Why do you object to knowing up front about that? Cl T Hatfield - I don't. But I got to tell you something. We are going to get information upon information upon information from at least three local attorneys, because all three are on the list. I don't know that we need to know this in order to evaluate their ability to provide us with professional services. That's what I'm questioning. Cl Grantham - I think we do. Cl Beck - I don't think it's any of our damn business who the attorney is representing in this area. That's a client-privileged information. Cl Grantham - They don't have to say the client. They say I have a practice in Town or I have a business or whatever. Cl Beck - We know that without asking them probably, don't we? • Cl Grantham - Well, I don't. Maybe you do. I don't know them personally. I want it on paper. Page 15 of 22 TB 11-4 -99 Cl T Hatfield - I don't have a problem with asking them if they have an interest in other local businesses. If that's what you're asking, I agree with you. Do you have a partnership relationship, a stockholder relationship, or some other interest other than your practice in the community. That's fine, and that's for anybody. I don't care if they live in Syracuse, they can still have a business interest in the town. Cl Grantham - Right. If they have clients in town, I want to know that they have clients in town. I do not need to know who those clients are. If they are part owner of a business or own a business or something like that I want to know that. I do not need a list of their confidential client files. Supv Schug - I don't know though, because you used that as an excuse with the A -1 project., or somebody did. Brought up that he encouraged the board to ask A -k to get another acre of land for parking and it happened to be that he got it from a client of Mahlon's and that was the reason Mahlon was pushing for that to happen, so that his client could lease or rent an acre of his land. So in that case, you would want to know, and he would have to step down if he had ever done anything for anybody. He made out Ron's Last Will and Testament, so that means he can't talk about work on the Beck Farm. Maybe we should have an attorney from Syracuse or Buffalo or whatever, I don't know. Cl Grantham - Or Homer or Cortland. Cl C Hatfield - There are three lawyers in Town. You know they do business in the Town of Dryden or they wouldn't be here. Cl T Hatfield - They wouldn't be in business very long if they didn't have local practice. Cl C Hatfield - And if they'd been here as long as the rest of us, most people have used them at one time or other. Cl Beck - For my book, you get better service from that kind of a person who is familiar with the local area than someone who knows nothing about what is happening here other than what he can deduct on a certain specific case. Cl C Hatfield - You're talldng about Mahlon's practice out there, it was eminent domain, taken away from him, and he has the same rights as any other citizen. Cl Grantham - As a citizen he has that right, absolutely. Cl T Hatfield - And as town attorney he gives up his rights as a citizen? Cl Grantham - No, I'm saying that the Town has the right to know what those interests are so that we can know whether the attorney is representing the Town objectively or not. Cl T Hatfield - I would prefer to put the oneness on them, as the profession does, and say if you've got a conflict, no matter what the issue is, you recuse yourself. I do that, and he has to do that, and anybody that sits at this table. Any of us has to do that. Cl Beck - You find that funny do you, Mark? M Varvayanis - Yes, I have to say that I do. Cl Beck - You've got a strange sense of humor then. Page 16 of 22 T8 11-4 -99 Supv Schug - What did he say? isCl Beck - He's laughing at the fact that anybody would have to recuse himself. M Varvayanis - No, I'm not laughing that you think that. I'm laughing that you are saying that because well, you know why. Cl C Hatfield - No, tell us. M Varvayanis - I made that an issue of the campaign, and most people in the Town Weed with me. Cl C Hatfield - Tell us again. M Varvayanis - I don't want to get into a fight with you people. Cl Grantham - So, are you all saying that you object to having this number seven in this list? Cl T Hatfield - I object to the way it is worded right now. I want to know if a guy's got a local practice. I don't mind asking that question. I suspect you are going to find everybody you send this to has business in this town. I do want to know whether or not they have other business interests. Cl Beck - I think that's it needs to be reworded. Interest in other local businesses, or conducts a practice of law in the community or something Chats... • Cl Grantham - Okay, that's fine. Cl T Hatfield - Those kinds of questions are fine, but this is a shocker. Cl Beck - I didn't really understand what you wanted. Cl Grantham - Then reword it. Cl Beck - And on the standard rates for categories of personnel, are you talking about engineering on that one? Cl Grantham - Same thing. I don't know how they do it, if they charge for paralegal services separately or if that is rolled in. Cl T Hatfield - I have no problem with that. Supv Schug - And the bigger the office, the more diverse it may be. Cl Grantham - What was recommended to me was not to say key personnel, which is the way I started off with the engineering because then they could tie it to an individual, but to tie it to a category of personnel. So attorney rather than this particular attorney, paralegal rather than this particular paralegal, so they have to give us a rate for a category that would apply no matter which attorney or which paralegal was doing it. Supv Schug - Engineers put down the list of people and what they charge for them. • Cl C Hatfield - That's covered right in this second paragraph here. Page 17 of 22 T8 11-4 -99 Cl Grantham - I was saying categories of personnel. Cl C Hatfield - Structure fee dealing with the relationship between various duties and responsibilities. That's what you're talking about isn't it? Cl Grantham - Right, categories of personnel, not individuals. So what I'm saying is if they have three attorneys and one of them they charge less per for hour for his work, and they put that one down and then later they come back and say well the guy who did the work charges more for his hours. But if you say for the category of work then they are locked into that no matter who does it. And maybe that is not an issue with attorneys, but it is with engineers. Supv Schug - But most of our engineering is we tell them what %re are looking for and they figure what they are going to have to do and they give us a bid not to exceed. So if they get to the point where they have to exceed it, you have to realize on map, plan and reports, if they do those, they'll give you a real bargain on that hopefully with the thought that down the road they are going to get the engineering portion of it, which is ten percent of a half a million dollar job. So they bid low on some things, and whatever. Tom is rewriting the letter, so let me go over something the Fire Department Just handed me. The Dryden fire station has a problem with their budding, with asbestos in the ceiling. They designed the building years ago and the doors in the back of the fire Ball have no air lock. When you open the door the wind blows in. They want to fix the roof because it is leaking. They want to add on ten feet to the building across the back and put in new windows because their utility costs are high. They are talking about construction costs of $325,000. They have $150,000 in their contingency fund, which is for the building. They would like to get the work done. It's way too late to ask the Town to put it in the budget. We will probably end up paying for it anyhow through our monies that we give them for having the service. The only • thing I can think of doing, and it would be up to the Board, is see if you want to take money out of contingency or whatever with a permissive referendum and loan it to them at a low interest rate or something so they can get the work done now, and pay us back over three to five years, eight years. They have been putting away for that type of thing, but that firehouse is at least 20 years old. The ambulance section is new and was done properly. Remember, when Varna wanted to put their new fire station up, we had to tell them that they had to do it on their own. The only thing we've ever done with the fire companies is help them with our crew when they pave. They buy the blacktop and our crew puts it down. I told them I would bring this to you tonight to have you think about how we could work something out for them, if we can. Cl Beck - They would use their fund raising activities and attempt to pay us back a loan over a period of time, and we have to go through a referendum process to do that? Supv Schug - I think so, I'll have to check with Mahlon. Cl Beck - I know my district certainly does. We have to have a referendum to float a bond and. Supv Schug - But I'm talking about loaning town money to them, and we're getting five percent, maybe you want to loan it to them at the same rate we get at the bank. What's going to happen is they pay it back over five or six or ten years, out of $138,000 that we currently give Neptune, they have some of that set aside in reserve, part. of it for -a couple years in- building reserve, to fix the asbestos and windows. They'll do all the windows and take care of the addition. is Page 18 of 22 TB 11 -4 -99 Cl Beck - The asbestos is in the ceiling? • Supv Schug - Ceiling tiles and floor tiles. Of course that has to be disposed of. They did the right thing and went out and got an engineer, Egner, to do that for them. Cl C Hatfield - They'll do the windows in the whole building? Supv Schug - As I understand it. Pointed out new entrance area, coatroom, storage on the floor plan. I'll try to see if I can get Mahlon to give us an opinion on doing that, and it's up to the Board whether or not you want to try and help them out. Cl T Hatfield - Is everybody in agreement with Deb's suggestion that we just have Jim sign this? Cl C Grantham - I just didn't think it was necessary for everyone to sign. It'd be quicker if he just signed it and copied it to us. Cl T Hatfield - We can get one for engineers and one for attorneys and if we have Jim sign it we can take one last look at it on Tuesday night. He can sign it and send it. Doesn't make any difference to me. Cl Grantham - Sounds fine to me. Bambi just handed out what I worked on for the engineering thing. Charlie suggested that we make them look pretty much the same. So I did. I included my justification there and I wrote a letter and modeled it after Tom's, but I changed the second paragraph just talking about the contract. Supv Schug - When you're ready, give that to Dianne. I don't have anything else. Why don't you leave it with the supervisor's signature, only because if you decide you want to change something that Dianne types up for the lawyer or the engineer, you can change it. Not only that, you've got a real list of people to send those out to. That's going to be a job all by itself without having to try and get everybody to come back in and sign everything. Cl T Hatfield - The only suggestion I have would be to give them to December 10. It would give them one more week because it will be Tuesday night before we get these things out of here. It gives them an extra week, that's all. I think we'll get a better response if we give them a little more time. We could almost give them to the 13th. Cl Grantham - Okay, so I was saying committee reviews pool of applicants, delivers final list to town board members on the 10th and then town board sets dates to interview the finalists. We could just say give the finalist list to Town Board members on the 14th. Is that what you want to do? Cl T Hatfield - I think that works. The 14th is a regularly scheduled meeting. That gives them to the 13th. We're going to get this rolling next week. That gives them the better part of a month to work and respond. Cl Grantham - We need a few days to look at it between. Cl T Hatfield - Well if we get it on the 14th 22nd. You're saying do the interviews on the Cl Grantham - We need a deadline for bids and then we need the committee to look at applications. The committee needs a couple of days to do that before recommending a list of finalists to the Board. Then we have to conduct the interviews and I thought we should Page 19 of 22 TB 11-4 -99 recommend out of the finalists who should get the contract before the end of December so that board members would have it to look at before the organizational meeting. • Cl T Hatfield - I agree with what you are saying. Cl Grantham - What if we get them on the 10th. Cl T Hatfield - My original thought was the 10th. I think we have to stick with that. Cl Grantham - And then the 10th to the 13th... Cl T Hatfield - We've got to the 14th and the committees can make recommendations at that point. I think everybody on the board should get all of them because it is going to be a committee of the whole. Cl Grantham - That's fine. I think they should too. Cl T Hatfield - By the 14th we can have some recommendations and we can schedule who we want to interview on the 22nd and get a final request for the contract. Cl Grantham - I had interviews spread over the 15th to the 21st. Cl T Hatfield - So we want to make this December 10 in this letter, that is the main thing. We can figure out the rest of it when we get going. Cl Grantham - All right. Cl T Hatfield - So if you're satisfied, its December 10 instead of the 6th, and then the December 22 date probably works. 0 Cl Grantham - Yes. Cl Beck - So our January meeting is when? C1 T Hatfield - Somewhere in the first week of January. Cl Grantham - I think its five days or seven days. Cl T Hatfield - Probably the sixth or seventh. Cl Grantham - We have to do it in the first five days or seven days don't we? Cl T Hatfield - We'll have to check on that, five or seven. The third is the first business day of the year. Cl Grantham - That's when we usually do it. It doesn't matter, except for how late we can go. Cl T Hatfield - Regarding meetings next year, do we want to stay with Tuesday nights? We need to bring that up. Cl Grantham - I think we should. Page 20 of 22 T8 11 -4-99 Cl T Hatfield - We never get George Totman here. I think he conflicts with the Groton Board on Tuesday nights. I would not be opposed to moving to Monday or Wednesday to avoid that. Cl Grantham - People are used to when it is. I don't think we should change it. Cl T Hatfield - Asked Clerk to check with county representatives to see what nights they would be available. Cl C Hatfield - Do we send the same letter to the attorneys and engineers? Cl Grantham - My letter is pretty specific to engineers. Cl T Hatfield - it's two different letters. The only question we haven't addressed is do we advertise this? Cl Grantham - Yes, I thought we decided that. Cl T Hatfield - On what basis? Cl Grantham - A legal notice, the way we usually do. Cl T Hatfield - So we have to publish the whole thing that incorporates what they have to respond with. B Hollenbeck - I think you can ask that they contact us for specifics. Cl Grantham - I think its okay to do that. With a bid process the specs aren't advertised. We should say that we are reviewing the contract for attorney services and the contract for engineering services. Cl T Hatfield - I don't think you want to use the word contract. We are reviewing legal services and reviewing engineering services. We hire them based on... Cl Grantham - That's fine. Cl T Hatfield - because we don't have a contract, I don't believe. Cl Grantham - Well, we do with Mahlon. It's a form of a contract because he gives us his rates. Cl T Hatfield - And we contract with him for certain things for a fixed fee and other things are outside that, so we have a written agreement with him as to what it is included in the fee and what is included in the hourly. Cl Grantham - And basically it is the same thing here. There is an hourly rate that we agree to and Cl T Hatfield - But we don't have a contract. Cl Grantham - I think that's a form of a contract, but if you don't want to call it that, that's fine. Pagc 21 of 22 TB 114 -99 Cl T Hatfield - I just raised the issue. For the legal notice just call it reviewing the services. If you are interested in being a provider of such services and if you are qualified, • please contact the Town Clerk for specifics. Cl Grantham - Okay, so Dianne can type those up and bring them to us for Tuesday and we can take one last look at both of them. Cl T Hatfield - Absolutely. Cl Beck - Should we run it by Mahlon to see what it does by posting a legal notice? Cl Grantham - Distributed poster regarding Dryden Teen Day. Cl T Hatfield - Was pleased with the article regarding Teen Day in the Journal today. One of the complaints we had last time was that there just wasn't enough information out there. Cl Grantham - Jenn Rosenthal has done tons of advertising for this. There are tons of posters in the schools, posted and distributed to health classes. Both schools, Ithaca and Dryden. She has postered like crazy, had press releases, and I've been giving these to the community associations as well. They have gone to churches and she has done talks for all these people as well. She is going to have about 25 social service providers with tables of information here. She has all these free prizes donated and the more tables they go to the more chances they get in the drawing for the prizes. I think it will be different this time around. I glad she was able to take this on. On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m. Res�p�ectfully submitted, - Bambi L. Hollenbeck Town Clerk Page 22 of 22 Cl T Hatfield - That's sort of what I was concerned with, how we word it. I think we ought to run it by Mahlon, frankly, in advance. We don't have to wait until Tuesday right. We ought to be able to get this thing done Tuesday. Cl Grantham - Distributed poster regarding Dryden Teen Day. Cl T Hatfield - Was pleased with the article regarding Teen Day in the Journal today. One of the complaints we had last time was that there just wasn't enough information out there. Cl Grantham - Jenn Rosenthal has done tons of advertising for this. There are tons of posters in the schools, posted and distributed to health classes. Both schools, Ithaca and Dryden. She has postered like crazy, had press releases, and I've been giving these to the community associations as well. They have gone to churches and she has done talks for all these people as well. She is going to have about 25 social service providers with tables of information here. She has all these free prizes donated and the more tables they go to the more chances they get in the drawing for the prizes. I think it will be different this time around. I glad she was able to take this on. On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, the meeting was adjourned at 8:45 p.m. Res�p�ectfully submitted, - Bambi L. Hollenbeck Town Clerk Page 22 of 22