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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTB Minutes 2014-10-27 Town Board Meeting Study Session Budget Discussion only October 27, 2014 Present: Herb Engman, Bill Goodman, Rod Howe, Tee Ann Hunter and Pat Leary via Facetime; Rich DePaolo and Eric Levine 5:00 p.m. Mr. Engman called to order at 4:36 p.m. and noted that we have had a request by Mr. Sutherland to address the board; the board agreed to grant the request. Kevin Sutherland, City of Ithaca Mr. Sutherland thanked the board for allowing him to speak and referred to the letter from the Mayor regarding the 50% reduction to the City Parks. Mr. Sutherland stated that he is here to respectfully request the same funding as 2014 and that some of the comments he has heard is that the Town would like assurances that meaningful discussions will take place and that the city won't just ask for funding again next year without some action being taken. He noted that the mayor has indicated in his letter to the board that he is willing to discuss options and Mr. Sutherland stated that he has been in contact with the County and the City departments to discuss what the recreation facilities will look like in the future. He stated that they need more time to work that out and come up with a solution and he would like to work with the town supervisor, city mayor and county administrator to start working more closely with some of the other municipalities to get more participation in funding or to move more of the park services to the county's responsibility. That being said, if the town could find a way to keep current funding in the budget that would give him the time to look at ways to move forward and work together. Mr. Sutherland said that one way to possibly hold the city accountable to starting real talks is to use some of our fund balance to cover the amount because then the city will know we can't come back again and simply ask for continued funding but funding this year will give us the time we need to get going. Ms. Hunter asked Mr. Sutherland why he came tonight instead of months ago when Mr. Engman sent the letter giving everyone a heads up that these cuts were under consideration. Mr. Sutherland responded that some conversations had started but due to other issues that came to the top, it became a lesser priority. He added that he has had a few conversations with the three stakeholders about what the future might look like but he hasn't had a chance to really meet and hash out details. Mr. Sutherland added that this is his first year on the job and a lot of his new responsibilities are redesigning the budget which is a huge undertaking and although he did see the initial comments that came out and the Youth Bureau made him aware pg1 of the proposed cuts, unfortunately he hadn't had time to focus on it until now. He thought that it was important to come to the board tonight and explain the delay and say his piece; asking for some time at current funding levels to work things out. Ms. Hunter added that her opinion, not necessarily others, but her opinion, is that our recreation is not ideally administered and the best of all possible worlds is to have a county recreation department. She thought there is money out there for studies on consolidation and shared service and asked if he thought the city and county would be interested in moving in that direction. Mr. Sutherland thought that might be one of the possibilities and if the town's funding is contingent on that type of study that would lend some urgency to the issue. Mr. Engman noted that Mr. Howe just sent out a link to funds that are being made available by the State for shared services and consolidation and that might be a possibility, especially for the transitional period which is often the most expensive part of any change. Dale Schumacher, resident and Executive Director of the Learning Web Mr. Schumacher echoed Mr. Sutherland's comments and also asked the board to reconsider cutting Youth Services and in particular, the Learning Web and the Joint Youth Commission (JYC). He stated that he hasn't come earlier because he thought this was in the hands of the JYC because as an agency, the Learning Web doesn't deal directly with the town so he didn't think it was his place but he thought what the town would be losing would be huge and he thought that it was fortunate for the young people in the JYC can participate in youth development programs and they hold it dearly that the town is in the rec partnership and JYC. They would welcome an opportunity to join in discussions moving forward but to lose half their funding would mean half the programs and half the youth served. Mr. Goodman asked if they get funding from others and Mr. Schumacher responded that funding comes through the Joint Youth Commission (JYC) so the Village of Lansing and Cayuga Heights and Mr. Engman gave the figure of$7,000 from the Village of Lansing but none from the Village of Cayuga Heights and there is some county money, about $40,000 for all the combined programs. The JYC makes the recommendations of how the money is to be used. Mr. Engman suggested a 15 minute recess for two members to arrive because they are expected after other commitments and these are important budget decisions. The rest of the board agreed. Mr. Engman stated that the numbers do need to be sent in to the state prior to adopting it so decisions have to be made and he was hoping to have them made tonight. pg2 Meeting reconvened at 5:15 p.m with the full board present Mr. Howe started the conversation by stating that he felt we need to have a well thought out process and develop a matrix on what we want to invest in for our community based agencies because he thought we didn't right now and some get funding from other sources and we need to know that in the decision making process. He added that he does feel the town has some obligation to fund some community based agencies. Mr. Howe proposed adding back$28K to City Parks, $5K for the Library, $2,500 for Lifelong, $1,500 for Human Services Coalition and $3K for Gadabout for a total of$40K and he proposed taking $20K from the Parks and Open Space line and $20K from what is set aside for the Forest Home Sidewalk in terms of our potential share if we get the grant. He thought there might be other options for places to take the money from but he did feel that if he is asking to put money back in he wants to find places to take it from. Mr. Engman asked Mr. Howe if he used a percentage in determining the amounts and Mr. Howe responded that he did not; it was more a wish to support the elderly services and it seemed that most wanted to support the youth programs and parks a bit more and that this illustrates that we need a more intentional process to determine support. Mr. Engman noted that a few years ago, prior to Mr. Howe's tenure, the town did do an in-depth review and discussion on the programs and invited each to address the board and explain their program. We did not do a matrix but we did do a review. Ms. Leary asked if it would affect our chances for getting the grant and Mr. Engman responded that he didn't know except that the reviewers could see that we have less set aside than what our matching commitment would be and Mr. Howe responded that he felt we have some flexibility in that we do not have a time frame for the grant. Mr. Engman thought the board should consider each individually. Brief discussion followed and other items were brought up for discussion. Mr. Levine spoke to the City Parks item saying that the proposal now is to cut our current contribution from $111K to $56K and Mr. Howe suggests cutting it by $28K instead and he is in favor of that but he wanted to talk about restoring the full amount because the City has offered to us that if we keep the current level they will give all the city resident discounts to town residents which Mr. Green has put a value of$38K on. So by putting some back, we may not get the direct benefit offered to our residents and this $200M budget does not have a lot that pg3 residents directly feel and we have the opportunity to do that by restoring the additional $38K and they will feel that when they go to pay for the services through the Youth Bureau. He thought it was good value for us. He appreciated Mr. Howe's gesture of restoring some funds but felt it should be restored fully to get the benefit offered. Ms. Leary stated that the idea of cutting the city parks and some of the others this year was to hit the pause button and see if a better arrangement could be worked out over the coming year. She was concerned about what would happen to the various agencies even in the one year... would it be so destructive in the one year that it will cause irreparable harm and she wondered if Mr. Howe's proposal is a good compromise. She asked what other board members thought. Mr. Engman responded that since it seems people really want to talk about the parks, we should get a motion on the table and debate it and then move on to other items and debate them. Mr. DePaolo asked if the board could instead look at the other side of the equation which is to Mr. Howe's point and if we could determine how much money there is that could be trimmed from other places before we put together our wish list which would keep us neutral in the levy. He thought it would be easier to find the money first. Ms. Hunter supported Mr. Levine in restoring the park funding stating that if she understood the Mr. Sutherland, he understands that there may be zero funding next year which Mr. Sutherland indicated he did. The parks is a priority for her and she wants to make sure that the city comes to the table because she has seen these types of things come along and not get to a meaningful point and she was willing to put the money away and not give it to the city until we had some sense that meaningful talks are underway. She went on to say that she would take the funds from the $160K for the reconfiguration of the Clerk and PEZ areas when we are cutting contributions to community services as a statement of priorities. She did not think that her constituents' priorities would be a reconfiguration over park and recreation services. There is $100K in one line, $45K in furniture that in and of itself would cover the park, and then there is $15K elsewhere for rugs and she thinks that in this year, where we have a real tight budget and want to stick to the tax cap, this would be the most sensible place to take it. Mr. DePaolo spoke to the topic and said he would modify Ms. Hunter's statement just a bit because during the last meeting, Mr. Solvig indicated that a fairly significant amount had been budgeted as a contingency in the project and the costs identified by the consultant was approximately$120K and we have $160K in the budget and he was willing to reduce the project pg4 by the amount of the contingency, the expense of the project and revisit the cost when and if additional funds are needed. He did not feel comfortable making tax payers pay for expenses that may not happen. He proposed reducing the expenditures for the project by$40K. Ms. Leary commented that Mr. Solvig had explained the contingency fund saying that in his experience these types of projects always run into overages and she wondered if we could deal with that next year if we reduce the cost of the project now. Ms. Leary asked Mr. Engman specifically; do we have to have the contingency fund in the 2015 budget? Mr. Engman responded that if costs went over we would have to reallocate money from fund balance. Mr. Engman added that he prefers to have the full amount before going out to get engineers and bids and the rest and he was in favor of moving forward with the full amount indicated. Mr. Engman went on to give some general comments saying that Ms. Leary's comments about disruption of services is something he thought about and so far he felt we have made out pretty well noting that if you look at TCAT, the county passed its increase in the mortgage tax and increased the TCAT budget by about $600K and that puts our$50K into perspective. But beyond that, Cornell has now allocated $1M over the next 3 years so they have a lot more money in their budget and although he wasn't sure how much our actions last year had to do with it, it shows that some programs at least have the capacity to go out and find other funds. He added that when TCAT met with TCCOG last month they stated that they knew we were under fiscal stress and the best place for them to go is to look at state and federal funding sources so he thought there is some indication that sometimes there are better places to go other than the Town of Ithaca for funding. Mr. Engman used a second example of the Coddington Road Community Center who voluntarily gave up their funding so we are finding out that in some cases the disruption may be none at all and if what Mr. Sutherland said is true and we can work with the city and county, maybe we can come up with a better allocation of monies for the destination parks throughout the county by having the costs spread out throughout the county instead of just the town of Ithaca. He said that that is his approach and in terms of priorities from constituents, he started looking into traffic and law enforcement issues a couple of years ago because that was one of the major concerns he has had from constituents and he found out that for about $50K we could probably contract with the Sheriff's office to get additional patrols in the town but we haven't had the money and the reason is we are giving our money away and some of the things he sees as priorities from our residents is law enforcement and traffic control and we haven't been able to touch those. That is the reason he has been saying that if someone else is willing to sacrifice and help out, then yes, we pg5 ought to consider that, but the Town of Ithaca can't be the checkbook for the entire community because we don't have that money anymore. Mr. Goodman made general comments also, saying that he has been fine with cutting the organizations' contributions in half and he is still fine with that but he would hope that if a majority wants to restore funding, especially for the city parks, that when we sign a new contract, whether it is in January or later because it takes more negotiations, that we put some strings on it because he would hate to see us restore all the funding to city parks and then go another year without anything happening about figuring out the future. He added that as we saw with TCAT this past year, we cut TCAT's allocation in half and then we decided that we would hold that and see if they were able to get other funding from other municipalities and here we are 10 months into the year and TCAT is just starting to talk to TCCOG members about figuring out what other municipalities can contribute. He thinks that if we simply restore the full funding we are going to just go another year and nothing will be done unless we put some conditions on the contract or some other effort to ensure that discussions happen. What he would ultimately like to see would to rather see that money put into our own parks and trails; we have needs for those and city residents use those as well as town residents and he prefers spending money on our infrastructure rather than putting it into the operational costs of the city infrastructure at the pool and ice skating rink. Ms. Hunter responded that she would like to ask other board members that if we reinstate this funding, because she agrees with Mr. Goodman that we need to force a discussion, and she would like to see funds not released until that happens, and she would like to reserve the right to retain the money if we make no progress so we can use it for our own recreation facility(s). She is hopeful that we could make some progress in an area that is really important to the county and we have been limping along in the county in terms of recreation. That being said, Ms. Hunter spoke the redesign project saying that if we really do go ahead with the redesign project, she feels there are some design flaws and it is important to retain the integrity of this old building. She sees some real problems with the plan and the use of the lobby and the space etc. and she would like that money to be put into a reserve so the board can revisit the plans and review them. She is uncomfortable allocating the money without the board being able to review the plans. Mr. Engman spoke saying that it seems the only way we are going to come to a decision is for somebody to move an amendment, and if you want contingencies, put that in the motion and go from there. He turned to Mr. Howe saying that he had the general idea and asked if he had a motion he would like to put forward. pg6 Mr. Howe moved to provide an additional $28K to the City Parks contribution to the City of Ithaca, seconded by Ms. Leary. Discussion on the motion Mr. Goodman stated that he is fine with all the cuts that we have proposed, but if we were putting money back in, he would prefer a motion that would have all of the additions and income sources proposed by Mr. Howe. He went on to say that even though he doesn't support putting money back in, if money was going to be put back in to the parks, he would like to see money go back in for the library and the seniors as well and would also want to know where we are taking that money from because he is not interested in raising the tax levy right now because he wants to stay under the tax cap and does not want to take more out of the fund balance than what we are proposing already. So on this motion, he stated that he would probably vote against it because he would like to see something that brings everything together; both where the money is coming from and all the organizations we are planning on putting it into so that he would know that the organizations he is interested in would be getting a little bit back as well as the parks. Mr. Levine proposed an amendment to restore the full amount to the City Parks because if we increase it by the $28K from Mr. Howe's motion we would be putting $38K right back into our taxpayers' pockets. He moved an amendment to the motion to restore full funding to the City Parks back to the original amount. Ms. Leary asked Mr. Howe if he used a percentage in his figuring and Mr. Howe said that basically it was 50% back rounded to even figures and Ms. Leary responded that she thought we had to reduce the amount by something to make a point, so she was in favor of the lower amount. Ms. Hunter said that if she is hearing Mr. Goodman correctly, he is saying that he will probably not vote for this because the amendment does not identify an offset and that he would like to see something about a revised MOU in the motion. Mr. Goodman responded that he did not need language in the amendment about conditions on the contract; that can be done in January and he didn't feel the need at this allocation stage. Mr. DePaolo made a general comment noting that Mr. Engman used the term "giving away" money but he thought the board should operate under the premise that the money is not being squandered in any case and that our residents are receiving some benefit for the money we are pg7 spending and the question that remains are whether or not those remain our priorities of not but he didn't think one could fairly say that we are giving the money away. These operations require money to run and some of that money has come through us. He felt that the discussion on the city parks comes down to whether or not you feel that the burden of funding the city parks, for lack of a better word, should be borne by taxpayers at large or should be borne by the families that use those services; whether you favor user fees or taxation as a way of doing this. He went on to say that he doesn't know about the demographics of the town to comment on how many households actually have individuals of an age who use the facilities but he would guess that it would be significant. He thought that at this point we probably can afford to fund the city parks and find the offsets to do it but he would only do so with contingents and with the understanding that we don't intend to do so next year and there would be a series of substantive discussions on how the facilities are managed. Mr. Engman spoke saying that yes, the city has promised a more significant discount for users from the town of Ithaca at the facilities, but it is the question of whether we are subsidizing a relatively small number of people compared to the amount of money involved. He said if you look at the figures, about 10,500 visitors from the town and county visited on the daily pass so about a third may be town, so about 400 users from the town and divide into $111K that's about several hundred dollars per class that we are subsidizing some families in the town of Ithaca so it is not cheap; some folks are getting a lot of benefit and other people are getting none whatsoever. It is the classic question of should people be paying for their own classes and recreation and educational programs or should it be tax-payer subsidized but the subsidy in this case is pretty substantial for each user in his calculations. Mr. Engman brought the board back to the amendment on the table to change the figure from $28K additional to $55,620K additional or the full amount. Mr. Engman asked if the board if there was any more discussion; vote was taken: Mr. Howe, no; Ms. Leary, no; Mr. Goodman, no; Mr. Engman, no; Mr. Levine, yes; Ms. Hunter, yes; Mr. DePaolo, yes. Amendment failed 4 to 3 Returned to the original motion of adding back $28K to the city parks Discussion Ms. Leary asked Mr. Howe if he would like to offer his original motion with all the amounts and offsets since Mr. Goodman seemed to indicate he was voting no because of the lack of offsets and Mr. Howe responded that the parks seems to be the big one and it would be cleaner to continue as stated. pg8 Ms. Hunter asked Mr. Goodman if he voted no because there was no revenue source and Mr. Goodman responded that it was not, he is not in favor of restoring the full amount and not really in favor of restoring any but he will consider restoring some. Mr. Levine commented that he is going to support the motion but he is disappointed that we are not going to get the discount for our residents that the city is offering to us but even with that, he thought some things— Mr. Solvig noted that Mr. Levine could make an amendment that any funds added be contingent on getting the discount because with the addition we would be giving $78K to the city parks— Mr. Levine understood that but he didn't want to make another amendment to the motion. Mr. DePaolo spoke to the motion and said that if you look at the equation, our residents will pay more with the lesser added funds than they would with the full addition. Mr. Engman called the vote: Mr. DePaolo, yes; Ms. Hunter, yes; Ms. Levine, yes; Mr. Engman, no; Mr. Goodman, no; Ms. Leary, yes; Mr. Howe, yes. Motion passed 5 to 2 The board moved to the Library allocation 2014 was $20K proposed 2015 is $10K and the motion is to add $5K back in for a total of$15K in 2015 Motion made by Mr. Howe to add $5K back to the proposed for a total of$15K in 2015, seconded by Mr. Levine Discussion Ms. Hunter stated that it was her understanding that the money we give allows them to stay open on Sundays and if that isn't enough, is there a tangible service that we can put into the MOU for those funds? Mr. Engman responded that he did not know the answer to that; the town gives more than the city to the library and the county is the largest contributor. He couldn't say what would happen but we could write something in the contract. Mr. Sutherland stated that the decrease would result in fewer Sundays open. Mr. Engman called for the vote: Mr. Howe, yes; Ms. Leary, yes; Mr. Goodman, no; Mr. Engman, no; Mr. Levine, yes; Ms. Hunter, yes and Mr. DePaolo, yes. Motion passed 5 to 2 The board moved to the Lifelong allocation Ms. Hunter moved that an addition of 2,500 be added to the allocation with Ms. Leary seconding. pg9 Discussion Mr. Goodman stated that he is very supportive of the senior programs and felt that he painted himself into a consistency corner because he had stated that he would not vote for things individually so he would have to vote no, but he did feel strongly that putting money back in for parks and library then the money should go back for senior services but he will vote no because he likes the funding source to be stated. Mr. DePaolo proposed an amendment to fully fund the senior services to the 2014 level because we have an abundance of senior housing and our senior population is growing and the amount of money we are talking about is relatively small and if we can't afford $11K for our entire seniors he doesn't know what we are spending money on and we should be ashamed. Mr. DePaolo expanded the amendment to all senior services. Mr. Howe withdrew his motion and Mr. DePaolo offered a new motion to restore $4,500 to Lifelong, $2,500 to Human Services Coalition and $6K to Gadabout for a total of$13K to be added back to the 2015 budget. Seconded by Ms. Leary Vote: Mr. Howe, yes; Ms. Leary, yes; Mr. Goodman, no; Mr. Engman, no; Mr. Levine, yes, Mr. DePaolo, yes and Ms. Hunter, yes. Motion passed 5 to 2 Mr. Engman noted that those were the only things listed by Mr. Howe and he asked if there were any other items to discuss. Ms. Hunter stated that she would like to see a full audit done of the justice offices and asked how much that would be. Discussion followed and it was decided that the most recent audit that found some concerns was done on staff that is no longer here and given that there is new staff, the town would wait and see what the next audit brings to see if something further might need to be done. Mr. DePaolo added that we should investigate the cost and there is nothing precluding us from doing it if we find it cost effective and Mr. Engman added that he didn't see anything major in the last audit and he was not alarmed. Mr. Engman turned back to the budget, noting that the board has added back$46K so the question is where are the funds coming from; other lines or the fund balance? Motion made by Mr. Howe to take $30K out of the Forest Home Walkway, knowing that we may have a vote mid-year if the grant comes through. Mr. Solvig noted that due to the large amount of fund balance that we are using, the board would have to remove $500K from fund pg10 balance before this amount made any difference. Unless you want to raise the tax levy and go over the tax cap. The variation doesn't matter. So the $46K will come out of fund balance. Mr. DePaolo asked for a summary of what Mr. Schumacher said regarding the Learning Web and Mr. Engman responded that he stated that they are doing good work and requested no decrease in funding. Mr. DePaolo followed that with it was his understanding that the number of youth served in 2013 was 112 served the county's portion was funding for 5 youth so he wanted to make sure that the board understood that the money the town provides is directly proportional to the number of town youth served; this is not a slush fund where the money goes into a pot and is spent as they see fit, we actually receive a certain number of apprenticeships for the money we provide. Mr. Engman responded that that was not his understanding but that our money helped fund their programs but there was no direct linkage between the two. Mr. DePaolo really thought there was a link and based on the last JYC meeting it was his distinct recollection that this reduction would correlate to the number of youths served. He would like to get some clarification on that and he would like to leave that open for the next meeting. Mr. Engman commented that it is promising that the people speaking tonight seem to be willing to talk about options because that has never happened before and every year we struggle to figure out what the funding is for and where the money comes from and goes to. It is bizarre how convoluted it is and he is hopeful we can finally get somewhere because in the past when he has mentioned trying to work on this issue there has been no interest from the county or the city so tonight's comments seem at least a little promising. Mr. Howe withdrew his motion for taking money from the Forest Home Walkway given the information supplied by Mr. Solvig. Mr. DePaolo asked Mr. Solvig for clarification on his comments regarding the implications on fund balance; the pros and cons of taking it out now... He asked if what he was saying is that for this appropriation to be made out of fund balance, it has no future bearing on the tax levy going forward? He didn't understand because it is money that we are spending. Mr. Solvig responded that we have the tax levy almost as far as we can take it and stay under the tax cap, so unless the board wants to go over the tax cap, anything that is appropriated is going to come out of fund balance. Mr. DePaolo responded that we could reduce other line items and Mr. Solvig responded $600K coming out of fund balance as opposed to $640k doesn't make a difference really. Mr. DePaolo responded that he thought we were on some kind of dangerous trajectory as far as the fund balance is concerned and Mr. Engman spoke up saying that we are pg11 and four years out, we are either going to have to dramatically increase taxes or dramatically cut programs. Mr. DePaolo rephrased saying that if some of the money we have just reinstated comes out of, for example, the town hall remodeling, does that have the same net impact as it would have if the amount was taken out of the Forest Home match? Isn't it different? One is money we don't know if we are going to spend and the other is money that we are saying we are going to spend. Mr. Solvig responded that he is trying to balance on-going expenditure with a one-time expenditure which has an effect on only the one year. He said we will be back next year talking about this again if the decision is made to continue funding the parks and other programs. Mr. DePaolo responded that it is also presumable that we will find something else next year that isn't worth $160K so in his mind, it is a question again of how you want to spend your money and he thought it was a legitimate discussion to have as to whether or not $160K is a reasonable amount of money to spend on remodeling town hall and to that end, he would like to explore the possibility of taking some of this money out of this appropriation. Mr. DePaolo stated that given the differential between the consultant's estimate and the amount that includes a 33% contingency, he proposed that the amount for the town hall remodel be reduced by the amount of the contingency which he figured at $46K by reducing $14K from contractual and $28K from furniture and $4K from fund balance for the town hall project. Mr. Levine seconded. Discussion Ms. Leary asked why we are taking it out of fund balance when things are coming out of fund balance anyway? The idea was to stay under the tax cap this year because we are so close but next year there are a lot more strings attached and we probably won't stay under and she felt that we would almost certainly have to raise taxes next year. Ms. Leary asked Mr. Engman and Mr. Solvig to explain what this would do to the project itself. Mr. Engman responded that taking money from fund balance does not affect the tax levy so we are still ok to stay under and he agrees that he is very skeptical about next year. As far as the whole project goes, he felt it was better to fund the whole thing up front so we know exactly what we have to work with. He did not think that cutting parts of it made sense because again, it is not just the reconstruction but the end product of a very long process of having a better way of serving the public. He urged the board to vote no because he thought we needed to do the project and we can take it from fund balance. pg12 Ms. Leary added that If we don't spend all of the contingency money it will simply remain in fund balance. She also did not think we should cut corners on the furniture line due to environmental concerns. Mr. Goodman stated that one way he has looked at this in the past is that we are looking at $600K this year and $300K we are giving to community organizations and now it is going to be about $350K with the changes tonight, and about S300K Into town hall with the boiler replacement and the renovation project and looking at the fund balance like our savings account, he is worried about using our savings for ongoing operation costs like the city park and pool but he doesn't have a problem using our savings for our own infrastructure. He thought it was a good idea to overestimate costs which will give us leeway when we work with the designs and we still have work to do before being able to get plans ready to go out to bid so allocating more is good. Mr. DePaolo responded by saying don't we always have the ability to spend what we need anyway? Isn't it just a question of whether we are going to load It up front or whether we wait to see if the money is actually needed at which point the money would come out of fund balance anyway. The money is going to come out of fund balance either way so the question Is whether you want to budget for a 33% contingency for a renovation that doesn't really affect our residents so much? To assume that if we don't budget for it now it's not going to be paid for later is not a correct assumption to go on; we pay for things out of fund balance all the time. It Is a question of whether we do It now or later and the big question is whether it has to happen at all. Ms. Hunter stated that this whole project has taken on a life of Its own and as Mr. Engman said when he started there was a silo mentality and there wasn't a lot of cooperation but that doesn't exist now. If everyone feels that there are still physical barriers preventing people from working together then that warrants a discussion. She went on to say that she is not impressed with the plans and doesn't feel there was an effort to work with the architectural Integrity of this building and an effort to work with staff or discussions regarding the lobby which Is left as an unused space with no connection to the rest of the building. She felt that we are constructing a sound-proof pod by inviting a lot of people into the Inner sanctum and then mitigating like crazy to combat the increase In the noise generated by that increase In noise and foot traffic. She did not think it has been well thought through. She was in favor of putting some money in reserve and then take a good look at the plans and take into account what the people who are going to work in this space say and not discount them. We seem to be saying that they have some self-serving objective in mind as they react to these plans but she feels that these people work very hard for the town and we need to value their input and we Pgl3 shouldn't misconstrue their comments as self-serving. Ms. Hunter went on to say that she felt we should take a more holistic look at the building at this point because if this Is done, it is going to cost a lot to go back and some long term thought about the building and whether or not we are making these reconfigurations instead of hiring a much needed person in the Zoning department so she thought this has become a myopic and hot button issue and it is very expensive project. She thought it does provide direct service to the community but it warrants some more discussion and we really need to look at the designs much more closely and she would hate to see us plow ahead with this particular design. She asked that the board, at the very least, reduce it to offset these expenditures and put it in reserve so that we really do have some say as It gets spent and we contract for these services because she thought if it was approved now the board will be out of the loop until it gets a 15 minute presentation and then asked to approve it. Mr. Engman responded that as Ms. Hunter said, all the department heads unanimously supports this as does the administrator for the town and we have had a competent consultant propose a concept and we have talked to all staff involved many times and it is time to fund it and get on with it because he agreed that it has taken on a life of its own but that is because it has dragged on for much longer than it should have in the first place. Vote was called on the motion to reduce the rehabilitation project as indicated; Mr. DePaolo, yes; Mr. Howe, no; Ms. Leary, no; Mr. Goodman, no; Mr. Engman, no; Mr. Levine, yes; Ms. Hunter yes. Motion failed 4 to 3. Mr. Engman asked if there were any further amendments for the budget; there were none. Motion made to adjourn at 6:50p.m. by Mr. Goodman, seconded by Mr. Howe. Submitted Paulette Terwilliger, Town Clerk Adopted November 10, 2014 pgl4