2012-12-10 finance committee with commentary

2012-12-10 Finance Committee Meeting

Commentary by Mike Russo, Town resident

January 23rcd, 2013

00:03:40
Didn't make it to the Village Board meeting tonight but I listened to a bit of the 12/10 FC meeting where the committee reviews their final figures "to make sure everything ... is copasetic." At 4:07, Sally says

"... Nancy and I on Friday added complete footnotes, so that the explanation for what we did is there."

The brief single sentences in the Notes column of the Expenditures spreadsheet is supposed to be 'complete footnotes' and apparently adequate explanations. We know that Sally and Nancy have worked with professional-grade reports for years, so how could they possibly think that these brief phrases are 'complete' footnotes (aside from the fact that technically they aren't footnotes at all)?


00:05:40
Committee reviews the group of lines represented by A1340.1 Budget, A1325.1 Treasurer's Office, and A1430.1 Personnel/Payroll, which jointly show a savings of $68,935. Dave questions this, asking:

"that's sufficient to handle all of that operation?"Sally: "yep"Nancy: "yeah, it's just moving their bodies into this office..."Dave: "...all I'm questioning is, you know -- trying to be devil's advocate a little bit, okay -- we're talking about total savings of ... $67,000 between that combination..."

The exchange continues and Nancy suggests breaking out the contractual costs because that would explain help the difference, but Sally and Dave say no, that'll make it more confusing. [though actually it would help].  Nancy then says:

 "because their actual salaries, per Susan, are covered in that $74,000"Dave: "okay"

Had they actually looked at the contractual expenses associated with those lines, they would have seen that all combined contractual doesn't COME CLOSE to adding up to $68,935 in savings -- in fact, it's only about $4,000 each for town and village. So what about the other $60,000? How many of those bookkeeper bodies are not being moved into the new office, but are actually going to be pink slipped?

Note about Dave Lent: In the videos I've watched, Dave often questions things, but he doesn't stay with it -- he ends up just consenting. I wish he had looked deeper when he thought the numbers didn't make sense, because his instincts were correct. His role in the FC committee was more facilitative -- that is, until the FC committee presented its findings when he unfortunately was willing to be front man for their sketchy work. In a different work group, without Susan and especially Sally driving hard for deep savings, I think Dave would have reached more sound conclusions.


01:55:00
Question: Can the sewer #6 situation be effectively and cost-efficiently solved in any other way than through consolidation? Perhaps there is significant cost savings with that aspect. This topic was discussed at the FC 12/3 meeting at 1h55m.