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 6:30 pm with the traditional salute to the flag.

2.    Minutes:    CG made a motion and BM seconded it to approve the minutes of March 17th as presented.  The vote was unanimous.

3.    Transfer:    A transfer was presented to move $500 for the Finance Committee from the Reserve Fund to Personnel Services.  TV made the motion to approve this transfer.  JB seconded the motion and all were in favor.

4.     Budget Hearings:    LA posed a question to the committee if the scheduled hearing with the school department should be postponed to a later date.  There is much uncertainty regarding the budget cuts that the House and Senate will make to the Governors’ budget and she felt it might be better to wait to make any decisions on the school budget.  After much discussion, and based on the fact that the Superintendent and the School Committee were in attendance, the Fincom voted unanimously to proceed with the School Department presentation.  They did decide, based on any cuts made, that the School Department would possibly be asked to come before the Fincom again to discuss those cuts.

    a.    School Department:    Linda Galton, Superintendent, was in attendance to present the FY10 budget for the School Department.  She started by saying that the budget was level-funded except for any contractual obligations that were necessary.  

    b.    Regional Schools:    Debra Kenney, Business Manager, from Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School was in attendance to speak about the FY10 budget for Diman and the assessment due from the Town of Westport.  She said we have a decrease in students for the upcoming school year.  Also, the reason the budget for FY09 is short is because the transportation cost is not included in the original assessment.  (See attached.)

    c.    Historical Commission:    Sharon Connors was in attendance to speak about the FY10 budget for the Historical Commission.  This is a level funded budget.  She gave the committee a handout listing the good work the commission has been doing.
 
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 9:35pm.  The vote in favor was unanimous.   The next meeting will be April 2nd at 6:00 pm.
                            
Respectfully submitted,
Nicole Botelho, Recording Secretary