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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2011-11-01 TOWN OF GROTON -MINUTES OF TOWN BOARD MEETING PUBLIC HEARING ON 2012 PRELIMINARY BUDGET PUBLIC HEARING ON 2012 GROTON FIRE AND AMBULANCE BUDGETS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2011 AT 7:30 PM THE TOWN HALL, 101 CONGER BOULEVARD Those present: Glenn E. Morey, Supervisor Ellard L. Sovocool, Councilman Donald F. Scheffler, Councilman Richard B. Gamel, Councilman Sheldon C. Clark, Councilman Victoria Monty, Attorney for the Town Also present: Lee Shurtleff, Lester Coit, Dyan Lombardi, Greg Weiland, Mike Morris, Gary Coats, Charles Rankin, Richard C. Case, Jr., April Scheffler. PUBLIC HEARING ON 2012 PRELIMINARY BUDGET Supervisor Morey moved to open the Public Hearing on the 2012 Preliminary Budget, seconded by Councilman Gamel, at 7:30 PM. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey The Public Notice was read by the Town Clerk as duly published in the Town's legal paper, the Groton Independent, on October 19, 2011 and additionally in the Freeville Shopper. Supervisor Morey - For most of September I was in New York City waiting for a lung transplant for my son. Unfortunately this did not turn out the way that we had hoped. Ben passed away October 1st. So, I'd like to take this opportunity tonight to thank the Board and the department heads for putting the budget together in my absence. This year's budget will increase one cent (rate per thousand of assessment). This is a very tight budget and the Board and department heads have worked very hard to keep their needs to a minimum. Some of the increased costs that the Board had to contend with were fire and ambulance, retirement, insurance, and youth services. During our final review, looking for ways to cut the budget, we looked for ways to decrease costs and increase efficiency. The line items identified would severely affect the future of the Town of Groton. The budget is tight and I don't think anybody is completely happy with the budget or even comfortable. They made extreme decisions and the end result is what we present to you tonight. One of the most difficult decisions was on raises. I'm happy to report that everybody did get a raise. The Board and Supervisor did not receive any raises at all. Our biggest challenge this year concerns the 2% cap. After completing the New York State Tax Cap Levy Calculation Table, which includes allowances for pilot programs, which is payment in lieu of taxes, and growth factors, we Town Board Minutes Page 2 November 1,2011 were allowed to budget additionally over $33,000. This year's budget increased just a little over $6,000 from last year. So, let's look at bottom lines of the budget. Our budget is broken into two parts, Part A, which is Town Wide and includes the Village, Part by is Part Town, which excludes the Village of Groton. These sections are divided between Town Wide Machinery, which is DA and Part Town Roads, which is DB. In the General Fund Town Wide the amount to be raised by taxes is $393,954.00; Part Town is $138,062.00; the DA Highway Fund Town Wide is $580,750.00; the DB Highway Part Town is $247,425.00. This makes the total amount to be raised by taxes $1,360,191.00. When we do the calculation we divide what we need by the total assessment of the Town. In the A part it's $3.91 and the B part is $2.27 with a combination of $6.19 for the rate. If you looked at it since 2004, I gave a listing of where the tax rate was and where it is today. The McLean Lights, Peruville Lights, Groton Fire and McLean Fire are listed below. The overall assessment for the Town increased from $416,719,266.00 to $418,121,234.00. Supervisor Morey asked if anyone from the public wished to speak and no one did. Supervisor Morey moved to close the Public Hearing on the 2012 Preliminary Budget, seconded by Councilman Gamel, at 7:40 PM. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey Supervisor Morey moved to open the Public Hearing on the 2012 Preliminary Groton Fire and Ambulance Budgets, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, at 7:40 PM. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey PUBLIC HEARING ON 2012 PRELIMINARY FIRE & AMBULANCE BUDGETS Lee Shurtleff - I'm past chief and board member and I'm here with Chief Lester Coit, our chief for the last several years. We'd like to give you a little overview of the requests that came in this year and a sense of what our long term priorities are with the Department. What we've done in crafting the budget for the year 2012 compared to 2011, our revised estimate showed an entire budget for the Department, including all fire and ambulance contracts, outside revenue sources and expenditures of $401,00.00. The budget for 2012 is $10,000.00 higher at $411,000.00. But we have put in a zero increase request to both the Village and the Town for the next year. I'll come back to that in just a minute. The difference is the commitment that's been made by the Board of Wardens and members of the Department to increase the amount of fundraising to put toward the Capital Fund for eventual replacement of the building. We felt it important that in this time of fiscal austerity that we put a little further effort into it and a little further commitment to provide some relief to the taxpayers who support us. Thus it's a goal to raise a minimum of $10,000.00, and hopefully more than that, through a variety of means to move towards a building replacement/reconstruction project. Our budget this year really revolved around three very general polls. One was from a revenue standpoint: no increase. Understanding the challenges that both the Town and Village are facing with the property tax cap and other increased expenses. The second was a strategy to augment our ambulance service coverage. As you know, we are facing challenges that are industry-wide, if you can call it that. The biggest area that is a concern for us, and a concern in many areas, is advanced life support and the ability to provide that on an ongoing 24 hours a day basis. What we've been able Town Board Minutes Page 3 November 1,2011 to do, working within the budget that we have and looking at fundraising opportunities, is to set aside a fairly healthy contingency fund, raised by 500 over last year, to provide for the higher end of advanced life support help that will augment what the Village works with us for providing during the daytime hours. We've added three people to the payrolls who are spending time working with the volunteers in providing that. For the time being we've set aside the discussion of the billing for service issues because of a number of issues that came to light and the fact that the revenue estimates that we were looking at and the changes in the structure that would accompany it, administrative costs, and so on, were more than what we were able to pursue at this point. So, we're going to do what we can to work within the budget and the appropriations and see if we can build that core and work with some of the neighboring departments and we'll see how that evolves. We're pretty confident that we're coming up with a plan that should provide for sustainability of that service. The third area of goal is the consolidation of our fleet. We're looking at some long term plans for equipment replacement, realizing that there's an increased use of mutual aid and ways that we may be able to streamline the equipment that we've got. This in turn lends toward our future building plans. Is there a way to streamline those as well and shrink those as well and find an effective long range solution? Just a few items, when you look at that $400,000.00 figure, just to give you what types of expenses we're facing every year, we have an equipment replacement plan of $50,000.00 a year. When you look at the cost of replacing an engine, we have to maintain at least two for insurance organization rating purposes. If you fall below a certain equipment capacity, pumping capability, what have you, if you don't meet National Fire Protection Standards, all those factors together can have an effect on your taxpayers in another way in that their insurance premiums, especially commercial fire insurance, can rise significantly if we don't keep within that rating. So, that means that we have to keep the equipment on a regular evolution and within 15 to 20 years, replace those vehicles and keep them to an NFPA Standards. An engine today is costing in the neighborhood of $400,000.00. So, if you look at that, two of them in the period of 20 years, it kind of gives you an idea of how much you've got to be setting aside to do that replacement. Ambulances, we're getting about eight years total. With two rigs we're trying to keep to a plan that alternates them every four years. One every four years with the full life of an ambulance being eight years. It's getting a little tighter with the amount of mileage that we're putting on them. If we go beyond the eight year period we're finding that the maintenance costs are absolutely killing us. So, we've adopted a strategy to try to keep that over-turn going. Fuel costs are in the neighborhood annually of about $14,000.00. Our insurance costs before we even turn a wheel on the first day of the year are $70,000.00 plus, and our Workers Compensation, provided through the Village, but as part of our overall budget is in the neighborhood of $40,000.00 now. That actually, compared to a lot of other departments, is a lower cost because of our casualty rate, or lack thereof. Emergency Medical Services Contingency, $90,000.00; Equipment Fund, outside of apparatus, $30,000.00. For us to equip a firefighter today, to give him a turn-out coat, pants, helmet, boots, gloves, that total envelope, not including the air-pack, is in the neighborhood of $1,500.00 per person. With 35-40 firefighters who are doing interior firefighting or some type of structural, you have to turn that equipment over to stay within standards and to be safe. There is a lot of wear and tear on them every five to seven years. Building and equipment maintenance, we have a building that's quite old and requires a lot of maintenance. The Village works very closely with us on it, but that in itself is about a $50,000.00 a year expense. EMS supplies, we're responding to roughly 700 ambulance calls a year and we're transporting between 400 and 450, and that results in a supplies cost for all the Town Board Minutes Page 4 November 1,2011 equipment and so on that goes with it. Those are kind of the major areas of consideration. One thing that I'd like to point out to you, back a few years ago when I was Chief, we maintained our fire contract request in the neighborhood of 95 -99 cents per thousand. That was our goal; never broke a dollar, I don't think, in all the years we've been contracting with the Town. Over the last few years we haven't followed that approach. We've asked for what we thought we needed to get through the year and we're down from that 99 cents a thousand to 81 cents a thousand on the Town contract and I think we've worked very hard to work within our means. We know that we have a lot of long-term expenses and we know that in order to stay in the ambulance business is going to take a 100%o effort and it may be expensive to do so, but our request to you this year to maintain the contracts where they are. Supervisor Morey - Any questions from the Board? Councilman Gamel - Just out of curiosity, what's your goal on the new location, or timeline? Five years, ten years, sooner, later? Mr. Shurtleff - We would hope somewhere in the next five years, if not sooner. Part of that comes back to getting a long term capital program, and determining the amount of equipment. We're in a tight spot there, location-wise, but by the same token there's probably no better location from the standpoint of access to the members and the length of response to any area of the district. So, we're kind of caught. In some ways we'd like to be able to move to another area and be able to expand but finding one that doesn't take the taxable land off the roles or isn't in a flood plan or doesn't remove you a distance from your volunteers, is a challenge. We're looking as seriously as we can at the renovation of the building, knowing that a 50-year old building has its limitations. In the end we have to do the analysis of is it worth retrofitting or trying to do something new. One of the things that we are considering, the ladder truck is probably not going to be replaced. There's a number of others in the area and we're probably better suited to an engine replacement that would take on some of those rescue capabilities that carry the ladders. So, that changes the configuration of the amount of space that you need for the building. The other consideration, just in thinking about that, is that if we are going to be adding staffing or looking for those volunteers that will come in from other areas and spend time with us, we really need facilities, bunking facilities, a comfortable environment where people can spend the night and have decent amenities to work with and that's something that we lack right now. So, that factors into how we would construct a building plan. We like the Village electric costs too. Supervisor Morey moved to close the Public Hearing, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, at 8:50 pm. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey Town Board Minutes Page 5 November 1,2011 RETURN TO REGULAR SESSION RESOLUTION #11-076 - ADOPTION OF 2012 BUDGET MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Gamel Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby adopts the Town of Groton Budget for Fiscal Year 2012 as presented. RESOLUTION #11-077 - APPROVE 2012 FIRE AND AMBULANCE BUDGETS MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves the Groton Fire and Ambulance Budgets for the Fiscal Year 2012 as presented. RESOLUTION #11-078 - EXTEND TIME TO PAY TAXES FOR SENIOR CITIZENS MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that pursuant to Section 925(b) of New York State Real Property Tax Law, the Town Board hereby grants an extension of five business days to pay taxes without penalty or interest to senior citizens who receive an exemption on their principal residence under either Section 425 or 467 of Real Property Tax Law. The extension of five business days shall make the due date February 6, 2012 for such taxes, and be it further RESOLVED, that the Town Board directs the Tax Collector to mail a notice of said extension of time with the tax bills. MOVED by Councilman Gamel, seconded by Councilman Clark, to approve the minutes of the Octoberl 1, 2011 meeting as presented. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Claim Numbers 324 - 338 of the General Fund in the amount of $26,103.07 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Gamel, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, to approve the General Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Town Board Minutes Page 6 November 1,2011 Claim Numbers 172-188 of the Highway Fund in the amount of $116,788.23 were presented for audit. MOVED by Councilman Clark, seconded by Councilman Sovocool, to approve the Highway Bills for payment. Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey. Monthly Reports: Charles Ranking, Bookkeeper - Submitted monthly reports for the Board's review and requested 2011 Budget Transfers. The tax cap, I'll mention that and some comments on the budget. Every local government is required to file the information even if they don't exceed the cap. It was filed with the State on Friday, so you are in compliance. You had a pretty good margin. Your actual cap turned out to about 2.77% by the time you added in the growth factors and the retirement offset, so obviously it wasn't necessary for you to adopt a local law to override. The good news about that is some of the surplus, you can roll over into next year, so if something happens and you get closer to the cap next year, you have a little more cushion because you didn't go over this year. So, we're in compliance and you are way under. RESOLUTION #11-079 - 2011 BUDGET TRANSFER MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Gamel Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves the following 2011 Budget Transfer: General Fund - Town Wide: From: Contingency, Al 990.4 $ 2,050.00 Buildings, Personal Services, Al 620.1 .1,000.00 Buildings, Contractual, A1620.4 4,000.00 Unallocated Insurance, Contractual, A1910.4 4,350.00 To: Bookkeeper, Personal Services, A1220.12 $11,400.00 RESOLUTION #11-080 - 2011 BUDGET TRANSFER MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Sovocool Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves the following 2011 Budget Transfer: General Fund-Town Wide: From: Town Clerk, Contractual, A1410.4 $ 683.97 Town Clerk, Restore Records, A1410.41 153.02 Town Clerk, Records Management, A1410.42 1,500.00 Control of Dogs, Dog Expense, A3510.42 500.00 To: Town Clerk, Equipment, A1410.2 $2,836.99 Town Board Minutes Page 7 November 1,2011 RESOLUTION #11-081 - 2011 BUDGET TRANSFER MOVED by Supervisor Morey, seconded by Councilman Scheffler Ayes - Sovocool, Scheffler, Gamel, Clark, Morey RESOLVED, that the Town Board hereby approves the following 2011 Budget Transfer: Highway Fund - Part Town: From: General Repairs, Contractual, DB5110.4 $5,000.00 To: General Repairs, Personal Services, DB51 10.1 $5,000.00 Gary Coats, Code/Fire Enforcement Officer - Submitted monthly reports for the Board's review. A training class for Planning and Zoning Boards was recently held at TC3 and was attended by nine of Groton's different board members. Mr. Coats told the Board that he had met with a woman from ISO last summer and had recently received her report which downgraded Groton's rating from a 5 to a 4. Reasons given included "not following the Model Code" which was not clearly defined. Mr. Coats has responded to her that he follows New York State Code and our local code, which are the only codes that he is authorized to follow. He will provide an in depth report on the subject next month. Richard C. Case, Jr., Highway Superintendent - The Highway Department is changing over to the winter operation. We received the 1-ton truck that we ordered back in April. We are still waiting on the truck that you approved for purchase pending permissive referendum. April has advertised and that will probably be another 20 days to go on that. We are presently putting shoulders on Cemetery Lane and still buying materials. We're going to be close, but we're close every year. That project over there, we're using bank-run gravel because it's so deep and I'm hoping it will give us the structure to hold up with the farm traffic that's using that road. The other section of Cemetery Lane, from Stevens Road to Church Street, if you look at that, it looks narrow as you come through there, but we actually gained four feet, and we'll get shoulders on that as we go on. Supervisor Morey- Are the plows on yet? Mr. Case - We have three trucks that are ready to go. Sand and salt, we have a small pile mixed up. All the sand is in and that's reflected in the bills. April L. Scheffler, RMC, Town Clerk/Tax Collector - Submitted preliminary monthly report and Country Acres Pet Services report. Country Acres had asked how the Board liked new the report format and had the Clerk had told them that it was a little complicated and she thought the Board would probably prefer the old format. The Board agreed. Victoria Monty, Attorney for the Town - Had nothing to report. Town Justices were not present. Councilman Donald Scheffler, as Recreation Coordinator- Had nothing to report. Town Board Minutes Page 8 November 1,2011 Supervisor Morey offered Privilege of the Floor, but no on wished to speak. Announcements: ➢ Planning Board, November 17t" at 7:30 pm ➢ Zoning Board of Appeals is planning on rescheduling ➢ Groton Business Association, November 16'" at American Legion; Superintendent of Schools will be speaking There being no further business, Councilman Sovocool moved to adjourn, seconded by Councilman Scheffler, at8:15 pm. Unanimous. April L. Scheffler, RMC Town Clerk