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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-11-2004 TOWN OF GROTON – MINUTES OF TOWN BOARD MEETING TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2004, 7:30 PM AT THE TOWN HALL, 101 CONGER BOULEVARD Those present: Glenn E. Morey, Supervisor Ellard L. Sovocool, Councilman Donald F. Scheffler, Councilman Sheldon C. Clark, Councilman Richard B. Gamel, Councilman Victoria Monty, Attorney for the Town Also present: Liz Brennan, Tena McClary, John Norman, Kate Hackett, April Scheffler MOVED by Councilman Scheffler, seconded by Councilman Gamel, to approve the minutes of the April 13, 2004 meeting as presented. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. General Fund Claim Numbers 110-141 of the in the amount of $27,874.68 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Sovocool, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, to approve the General Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Highway Fund Claim Numbers 75-101of the in the amount of $49,270.27 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Clark, seconded by Councilman Gamel, to approve the Highway Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Special Grant (HUD) Fund Claim Numbers338-342 of the in the amount of $23,443.76 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Gamel, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, to approve the HUD bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Town Board Meeting Page 2 May 11, 2004 Monthly Reports: Elizabeth Brennan, Bookkeeper/Highway Clerk – You’ve got the listing of revenues and expenditures and the bank balances. We have one transfer this month. RESOLUTION #59 – 2004 BUDGET TRANSFER MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Clark Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED , that the Town Board does hereby approve the following transfer of funds: General Fund – Town Wide: From: Contingency A1990.4……………………… $1,316.44 To: Insurance, Contractual A1910.4…………… 1,316.44 George R. Senter, Sr., Code Enforcement Officer – Absent Richard C. Case, Jr., Highway Superintendent – Absent April L. Scheffler, Town Clerk/Tax Collector – (Submitted her monthly Town Clerk and Tax Collector reports for the Board’s review.) I have talked to the veterinarians about doing the spay/neuter clinic and we are still working on that. Part of our dog problems in West Groton has been taken care of. Nathan Winograd from the SPCA really worked with us on that. All of the dogs are vaccinated. I talked to some other towns about how they are doing their dog enumeration. Most of them are doing $2.00 a dog plus mileage. Lansing did it just on a voucher. They didn’t have a contract or anything. Dryden is working on a contract. I don’t know where you want to go with that but there are more and more unlicensed dogs out there. Supervisor Morey – All right, let’s move forward. If it’s $2.00 do we have an estimate on what it’s going to cost. Clerk Scheffler – I don’t know how many were counted on half of it before, off the top of my head. Tena looked up how many are licensed. Tena McClary - The were 1244 dogs that are actually licensed. Clerk Scheffler – All right, there’s 1200 that are actually licensed and we were running about 40% of the dogs counted that weren’t licensed. So, 2000 dogs, that’s going to cost you $4,000 plus mileage. Lansing said that the $5.00 surcharge covered the cost. Supervisor Morey – Great. This is $2.00 a dog that isn’t license right now? Clerk Scheffler – No, it’s every dog counted. $2.00 for every dog counted, plus mileage. Councilman Sovocool – Didn’t we have the SPCA do it years ago? Town Board Meeting Page 3 May 11, 2004 Clerk Scheffler – Yes, and they counted about half of them. The counted something like 600 dogs. They didn’t even catch all the ones that were licensed. Supervisor Morey – All right. Can you get a sample of the contract from the other people? Clerk Scheffler – Dryden is still working on it. Bambi seemed to think that you would be liable for some insurance even if you hired an independent person. We should check with our insurance agent. Nobody is going to go out and buy $500 of insurance to do a 2, 3, or 4,000- dollar job. Councilman Scheffler – That’s something we should look into. Clerk Scheffler – We really need to get moving and do something. Supervisor Morey – Get moving. Try to get a contract and submit it to the Board. We’ll approve it and get it going or look at it and take action on it. Clerk Scheffler – Okay. The last thing I have is that Tena has worked for us for over 6 months now and she doing a really good job. I’d like to raise her pay to $10.00. There’s money in the budget and that would put her up to what the other deputies would be making. Supervisor Morey – Comments, questions? RESOLUTION #60 – PAY RAISE FOR TENA McCLARY MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve a pay raise for Tena McClary, Deputy Town Clerk, to $10.00 per hour effective at the beginning of the next pay period, May 23, 2004. Victoria Monty, Attorney for the Town – I notice that you have on the agenda, the employee handbook. Fran and I looked this over and we had one question for you. A discussion took place on wording in one section and it was clarified to everyone’s satisfaction. John Norman and A. D. Dawson, Town Justices – Submitted their monthly report for the Board’s review. Councilman Donald Scheffler, as Recreation Coordinator – We met last Tuesday and did not have a quorum so we just had a discussion. We have noticed that we seem to be getting more cooperation from different people around town and the school and businesses, so I think people are realizing that we’re there now. Supervisor Morey – Employee handbook. How this came about was that the insurance company this year requested the employee handbook and this is something that I’ve been Town Board Meeting Page 4 May 11, 2004 wanting to do for the last couple of years and Colleen’s been wanting to do it in the past and I know April’s been very anxious to have this done too. There’s a couple things about the handbook that I want to point out. First of all the second paragraph on page one is recognition that the Town of Groton recognizes the Town of Groton Highway Association as the sole and exclusive representative of the employees of the Town of Groton Highway Department. All employees’ benefits and conditions will be generated in a separate agreement on an annual basis. This means they’re going to carry on the same way they always have and they will have their separate agreement and this handbook is not part of that agreement. In the employee definitions, I thought it was very important to distinguish between the four categories of full time employee, part time employee, appointed position and what an elected official is and their rights are as an employee here at the Town of Groton. On page two, most of the benefits for the full time employees were extended from the highway commitment so basically we have the same agreement right straight across. There’s a couple of things, the incentive program that has never been a part of the Town Hall employees and I want to make sure that they get the same benefit because I thought it was a great idea. The holidays are about the same. On page 3, under bereavement, it is actually personal time in the highway employees. And basically I also added grandparents, grandchildren, parents-in-law, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, things like that which weren’t in the other agreement. And I extended one day of day off for aunts and uncles and cousins because we’ve got some employees whose grandparents are still alive. We have employees here that have grandchildren that a couple years ago, there was never any of these situations. In the employee handbook I tried to bring up modern day thoughts, conditions such as military leave of absence, volunteer firefighters, emergency medical technician leave, non harassment policy, the use of electronic communication and what it’s here for, the use of private vehicles and I said that the current rate would be set at the annual meeting. I also had to put down something on weapons on the job. They had a good laugh on that out in the highway department. Also, infectious control procedures, that’s very important to us; drug-free workplace policy, which is standard in the highway department; and disciplinary action because we never really had one. So, that’s the employee handbook. We’ve been working on it for the last couple of months so I’d like to present that to the Board for approval. Clerk Scheffler pointed out a few corrections that needed to be made. RESOLUTION #61 – APPROVE EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve the Town of Groton Employee Handbook. Kate Hackett, County Planning – Presented the Tompkins County Aquifer Study Program developed to educate people about the importance of groundwater, develop a more comprehensive approach to water resources management, gain a better understanding and develop a protection program. The program was initiated in the 1990’s when the County hired USGS to develop a map of aquifers in the county. A needs assessment was done which looked at the available information, where the gaps were and how to fill in those information gaps. There were 17 needs assessments identified in Tompkins County, including the Owasco Valley. Town Board Meeting Page 5 May 11, 2004 This has all evolved into a Capital Program to provide Federal and County assistance to municipalities who wish to pursue these programs. Funding formula for cost: 30% USGS, 35% municipal, 35% County. The purpose of the program is to understand the water quality, the aquifer shape and yield, direction of groundwater flow, interaction of groundwater and surface water, and information on how to protect the aquifer and minimize contamination. Current studies taking place are Upper Six Mile Creek and Willseyville Creek in the Town of Caroline and the Virgil Creek in the Town of Dryden. Ms. Hackett passed out copies of the needs assessment for the Owasco Valley aquifer. She described the different phases and costs if the Town of Groton were to consider further assessments of the aquifer. The County feels that this is important to offer this assistance to the Town since the Owasco Valley aquifer is high on the list and a prime source of drinking water. Ms. Hackett described in more detail the Dryden and Caroline projects. Supervisor Morey asked if this was another way to find fault with the farmers and Ms. Hackett replied that it was not in any way an attempt to point a finger at any one specific land use activity. Supervisor Morey asked when they would need an answer from the Town and she answered that it would be needed by year-end. Supervisor Morey – Lewie and I had a meeting on Monday with Better Homes of Tompkins County. Our small cities grant is coming due at the end of June. We can get an extension, but it th would be time consuming. We have to have the money spent by June 30 or lose to it. What would happen is that we would pay all the bills to all the contractors, after they’ve been approved through Better Homes of Tompkins County and have the final approval at the end of it. We do prepayments on our telephone, electric, gas and things like that. Councilman Scheffler – This is all on pre-approved…….. Supervisor Morey – Yes, they have to be finished and inspected and all the contractors know th they have to be done by June 15 and invoiced by then. RESOLUTION #62 – APPROVE PREPAYMENT OF BILLS ASSOCIATED WITH SMALL CITIES GRANT MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve the prepayment of bills, not to exceed $48,000.00, prior to the July Town Board meeting that are associated with the Small Cities Block Grant terminating on June 30, 2004. RESOLUTION #63 – APPOVE CONTRACT WITH AUDITORS MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve the 2004 Contract with Kirby, Beals and Maier to audit the financial statements for the Town of Groton for the year ending 2003 in the amount of $4,700.00 Town Board Meeting Page 6 May 11, 2004 RESOLUTION #64 – HIRE CORTLAND CLEANING SERVICE MOVED by Councilman Gamel, seconded by Supervisor Morey Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board does hereby approve the hiring of Cortland Cleaning Service to clean all the carpeted areas and strip and wax or seal all ceramic and vinyl floors in the amount of $595.00. Announcements: Municipal Officials Association Meeting – May 18, 6PM at the Ichabod Planning Board Meeting – May 20, 7PM Thank you letter from Barbara Exton for flowers sent to Richard Exton funeral Grievance Day – May 14, 3-6 PM Clean-up Day – May 15 Coffee with the Editors – May 18 There being no further business, Councilman Sovocool moved to adjourn, seconded by Councilman Clark, at 8:25 PM. April L. Scheffler Town Clerk