Budget Oversight
Subcommittee Meeting Minutes
March 08, 2006
The budget oversight
subcommittee met on March 8, 2006 at the SAU building. Members present were Neil Moriarty, Dick Bauries, and Jane Fortson.
Administrators present: Ken Dassau, Larry Biron and Dave Hodgdon. Public:
Keith Frazier
Public Comment: Keith Frasier questioned the number of budget
committee members on the oversight committee and how many would constitute a
quorum. He also asked that with the school
board having a finance committee wasn’t the budget oversight committee
redundant? N. Moriarty responded that
the RSA’s state that one of the requirements of the
budget committee was to monitor the budget.
N. Moriarty further stated that the effectiveness/usefulness of this
subcommittee was a topic for the discussion on the agenda for later in the
meeting.
Minutes
from the February 8th meeting were approved with an amendment to state that the
budget oversight committee members felt that the charging of the trailer and
install costs to Cutler and the High School to the private tuitions line of the
SPED accounts were inappropriate. (L. Biron had stated he did not think it inappropriate. Subject to the amendment the minutes were
unanimously approved.
L. Biron and K. Dassau updated the
committee on the tuition/expense worksheets.
The changes to the worksheets were discussed; among them is an increase
in expenses for $10,000, for the teacher tuitions this had been in the adopted
budget for 30,000 rather than the 40,000 it should have been. There was also a projected increase for a
SPED aide for the Wilcox program as new student moved in requiring an
aide. There was a projected decrease in
public/private tuition of approximately $50,000 to help offset these increased
expenditures. With these changes taken
into consideration the amount of projected over expenditure, comprised of an
expense overrun of $305,460 (as of March 1, 2006) and the 2004-2005 deficit of
$210,147 is $515,607. The expected
tuitions district wide and trust fund transfers to offset this amount are
currently projected as $1,030,472, for a net amount of $514,865.
L. Biron stated that the future projection of aides at
Discussion
of when the $60,000 from the maintenance trust fund would be pulled out for use
to offset the septic costs. L. Biron stated that this is usually done in April and would
be by action of the School Board.
The
committee again discussed the charging of electrical costs in ’04-’05 incurred
for inputting the trailer at Cutler to SPED accounts. The budget oversight committee members felt
that charging this to private tuitions in the SPED accounts was not
appropriate. For the trailer put in at
the high school in the ’05-’06 year, the amounts were backed out of Private
tuitions in SPED and charged to a separate line in the SPED accounts that was
budgeted at 0, and will therefore be overspent in the ’05-’06 budget.
No unusual
expenditures were expected in the next month.
The committee was informed that the insurance rates for the district
would be set in May, and that to date the usage history for the district was in
good shape, this may help when the rates are set in May.
The
subcommittee discussed the value of having the subcommittee over the past
several months, as to whether it has been useful or not. Committee members felt that it had been useful,
but cited the need to stay on track and not get off topic.
L. Biron stated that the retirement pay in the default budget
was low and would have to be looked at if the proposed budget is not supported
by the voters.
There were
no closing public comments.
The date
for the next meeting is April 12th at 9:30 am in the SAU building.
Respectfully
submitted,
Jane
Fortson