Town of Halifax, Vermont
SPECIAL MEETING MINUTES
December 8, 2012

Call to Order

A special meeting of the Selectboard began at 9:03 am at the Town office. Board members in attendance were Edee Edwards and Earl Holtz.  Lewis Sumner was absent. Members of the public present were Jessica Bruno, Brad Rafus, Bill Moore, Christina Moore (arrived at 9:37am) and Justin Berry (arrived at 11:25am).

FY2014 Budget

The purpose of the meeting was to update the town budget for FY14.

The Selectboard discussed each line item of the budget in detail. A DRAFT of their work can be found in the attached document. Only part of the budget has been completed in draft form. The Selectboard will meet again on Saturday December 15, 2012 at 9:00am to continue working on the budget. The Selectboard discussed portions of the highway budget.

Items that were noted:

-Acct 7220 Health Insurance- the premium did not increase.

-Acct 7280 Advertisements- our purchasing policy states that the town use a newspaper of general circulation. We should compare rates for the Commons, Deerfield Valley News and the Reformer.

-Acct 7290 Bonus- a policy should be created for disbursement.

-Acct 9700 Payroll Taxes- clarify town versus highway portions of SS and Medicare.

-Acct 7330 suggest Dow change the name from Telephone to Communications.

-Acct 7340 Repairs and Maintenance- need to discuss demolishing the old garage and storage issues.

-Acct 7450 Construction Other- the AllState checks in this account should be re-classified to acct 7461 Road Surfacing SRA.

There was a general discussion regarding the appropriation of funding and re-appropriating funds to reserve accounts.

Moore presented information concerning a potential surplus of funds due to FEMA/State reimbursements. Several ideas were discussed such as using part of that money to restructure our highway work week to 40 hours, or rebuilding the town’s infrastructure to handle another issue like Irene. No decisions were made.

There was a discussion about adding Hall Road culverts to the hazard mitigation grant application. The Selectboard will need to think about setting precedence when a landowner fixes a road that is not up to specifications and then the town then taking responsibility for those culverts.

The meeting adjourned at 12:28pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Jessica Bruno

Selectboard Secretary