Westport News

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

1.    TV, Chair, opened the meeting at 7:00 p.m. with the traditional salute to the flag.

2.    Superintendent of Schools:    Dr. Carlos Colley, Superintendent, was in attendance.  Also in attendance were Russell Kleber, Chairman of the School Committee, and Tim Harrenstein.  They were here to discuss the cuts the State has made to Chapter 70 funds and the effect it has on the FY10 school budget.  (See attached handout.)  Dr. Colley stated that so far, they have been able to absorb $44k of the cuts.  The schools will able to recover some of the cuts in State and Federal grants with the stimulus monies.  However, ½ the stimulus monies can be used for anything.  The other half can only be used for programs to benefit the children in the future; such as training staff to accommodate more Sped students in-house.  TP, JM, TV, Dr. Colley and Eric Larrivee met regarding the budget and are all willing to work together as a group on the budget.  Dr. Colley has established a budget timeline and will go by it.  TV suggested we look at transportation bids for longer years or smaller contractors; regionalization of services and working on keeping more Sped children in town.  Mr. Kleber said that Dr. Colley has already started to look deep into the school system and find problems or benefits and explain items, in detail, to the school committee members so there is a better understanding by all.  TV thanked Dr. Colley and the committee members for their time and presentation.

3.    Minutes:    The minutes of 7/14 were presented for approval.  WM made a motion and BM seconded the motion to approve the minutes as amended.  The vote was unanimous in favor.

4.    Board of Health:    BM started by handing out some letters to the committee.  (See attached.)  CB also had a handout regarding some research done on other towns compared to ours.  (See attached.)  He also had an application for a grant that would give us a person from UMASS to assist in research for the Transfer Station.  WM made a motion and TP seconded it to ask Mike Coughlin to write up the grant and send it in.  The vote was unanimous in favor.  MC was in attendance and was happy to do the paperwork for this grant.  TV ended much discussion on this subject stating that he did not want to address and readdress the Transfer Station audit as is.  He wanted to move on and have everyone come up with ideas on how to fix the problems and be able to present the ideas to the BOH at a future meeting.

5.    Legal:    BM and HM met with MC and Len Kopelman of Kopelman & Page.  (See attached.)  They felt that the meeting was very productive.  They have a form, which was approved by the BOS, to request any information from K&P through the BOS.  A suggestion was to have a Fincom rep at any BOS meeting that deals with litigation.  The Fincom feels it is necessary to have K&P come down and discuss the new policy with the department heads.

6.    Other:        The Town Accountant requested that the Fincom meetings start earlier than 7pm so that the meetings do not go too late.  Much discussion was regarding when people could make it to the meetings.  WM made a motion and TP seconded it to leave the meeting time at 7pm at least until budget crunch.  All were in favor.
            TV also reminded everyone that the Annual Meeting is on October 24th and everyone is encouraged to attend.
                            
 Adjournment and next meeting: There being no further business to come before this meeting, LA moved and BM seconded a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:00pm.  The vote in favor was unanimous.   The next meeting will be September 15th at 7:00 p.m.
                            
Respectfully submitted,
Nicole Botelho, Recording Secretary