Westport News

Present:    Lisa Arnold (LA), Bob McCarthy (BM), Warren Messier (WM), Tony Vieira (TV), Hugh Morton (HM), Tracy Priestner (TP), Jack Baughan (JB),Chuck Goldberg (CG), John Miller (JM)

1.    LA, Chair, opened the meeting at 6:00 pm with the traditional salute to the flag.

2.    Minutes:    CG made a motion and TP seconded it to approve the minutes of March 24th as presented.  The vote was unanimous.

3.     Budget Hearings:    

    a.    Dog Officer:    Ed Carreiro, Dog Officer, was in attendance to present his FY10 budget.  He started by saying that the budget was level-funded.  He was questioned regarding the fact that he doesn’t spend his whole budget each year.  He said he is on call 24/7.  Under the new system, he has contracted with Animal Control Law Enforcement of Fall River and if a dog is unclaimed after 10 days, they are adopted.  Before, they were euthanized.  

    b.    Harbor/State Boat Ramp:    Richie Earle, Harbormaster, was in attendance to speak about the FY10 budget for the above departments.  He said these are included in the Harbor Enterprise.  The fees for the ramp are set by the state.  He stated that the dredging would start back up by the end of May.  The revenue from boat excise tax is half for the general fund and half for the Municipal Waterways Fund.

    c.    Legal Department:    CG presented the legal budget to the committee.  He started by saying the current budget of $50k has already been spent plus.  There is an article on the Special Town Meeting warrant to cover the extra costs.  Mike Coughlin commented that their experiment with this budget failed and it should be restored to $100k per year as it was in previous fiscal years.  LA had some questions regarding the procedure of how cases are referred to counsel.  WM made a motion and TV seconded it to have MC and HM go to see Kopelman and Paige and discuss the current outstanding cases.  The vote was 8-1 in favor with CG voting no stating that this oversteps the Fincom role and undermines the BOS authority.

    d.    Life Insurance:    This was discussed once again since TP received some new numbers.  This budget is $2k increase over last year.  The cost is $1.08 month with a 50/50 match.  This is for a $4k policy with no cash balance.  A question was raised if we should go out to bid on a new policy since this one has been in effect for many years.

    e.    Health Insurance:    There have been two options that the BOS have presented to the various groups in town to vote on.  No information has been received back from those groups at this time.

    f.    Unemployment:    BM presented this budget to the Fincom.  This budget is driven by the legislature and lay offs.  The town is not expecting any layoffs at this time, but may in the future.  The bulk of the unemployment costs are school related.

4.    Annual Town Meeting:    (See attached for results of the votes per article.)  LA requested that we might have someone in to speak on Article 38 & 39.  
 
Adjournment and next meeting: There being no further business to come before this meeting, WM moved and TP seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:45pm.  The vote in favor was unanimous.   The next meeting will be April 14th at 7:00 pm.
                            
Respectfully submitted,
Nicole Botelho, Recording Secretary