09 15 2008


	Town of Moultonborough 6 Holland Street • Post Office Box 139 Moultonborough, N.H. 03254 (603) 476-2347 Advisory Budget Committee Minutes September 15, 2008 Members Present: Jean Beadle (Chairman); Gary Haracz (Vice Chairman); Ed Marudzinski; Karel Crawford (Selectboard); Kathy Garry (School Board) Members Excused: [none] Others Present: Peter Jensen The meeting on Monday, 9/15/08 was called to order at 4:10 PM. Ed made a motion to approve the Meeting Minutes from 9/4/08. Gary seconded. The motion carried unanimously. The purpose of the meeting was to 1. Review the Committee’s actionable items per it’s charge, 2. To agree on an approach for accomplishing it’s charge, 3. Clarify its responsibilities to the taxpayer and role as related to the Library 4. To identify guidelines and benchmarks relevant to the Committee’s work. Issues raised and discussed by members were: • The need to establish the level and structure of reporting the committee will produce. It was felt this should be accomplished as soon as possible. The Committee agreed a good starting point for this would be the Committee member’s visits with the School and Town departments to discuss their budget development processes. • The need to meet and clarify the Committees role with the Library. It was pointed out that the Committee’s charge does not include making recommendations on the Library Budget though it does include reviewing the Library Budget. • The need to meet with other committees whose recommendations might have impact to the budget. • The importance of “staying out of the weeds” when reviewing budgets so as to avoid a workload that might compromise the Committee’s effectiveness. Also discussed were reasons that might trigger more detailed review in specific areas if warranted. • It will be helpful to understand what sections of the budgets are driven by contractual agreements or other obligations. • Some of the typical high level expectations of Town departments at the beginning of their budget development process. • Why the Town’s budget process would typically have a much larger number of warrant articles than that of the School District. • The need to begin reviewing strategies for managing Quality of Education if the school’s enrollment declines as some forecasts suggest. • The general scope and availability of Town revenue numbers. Action items: 1. Ed will contact the Library to schedule a meeting. 2. Jean will contact the Superintendent of Schools to schedule visits with School District departments – Sept 24 was selected from list of available dates provided. 3. The Committee tentatively scheduled its next meeting for Sept 25th, 2008, in the Town’s Municipal building conference room at 4:00 PM. 4. Jean will contact the Town Administrator to confirm availability of the Town’s meeting room for the next meeting and to get a list of available dates for the committee to meet with the different Town departments. Ed made a Motion to adjourn the meeting. Gary seconded the motion. The Meeting adjourned at 5:20 PM Respectively submitted, Jean Beadle Chair, ABC Committee 9/17/2008