Great Barrington — After a relatively brief joint meeting with members of the Finance Committee on Monday, December 5, the Select Board approved several changes to the town’s budget-making policies and procedures for fiscal 2024. The changes to the existing policies and procedures were proposed and approved at previous meetings by the committee but still needed to be approved by the Select Board.
At the December 5 meeting, Committee Vice Chair Anne O’Dwyer said that the revisions were made taking into consideration the Select Board’s previous comments and concerns. O’Dwyer said that one of the changes includes adding the support of affordable housing as one of the town’s strategic priorities. Other changes include a section on the monitoring and handling of free cash reserves and stabilization funds and using the overall general fund reserves as part of a percentage of the town’s annual operating budget.
Towards the end of the book of policies and procedures, there is a section on other information and reports, which details a list of supplemental materials the Finance Committee and the Select Board may request from Town Manager Mark Pruhenski concerning town financial data.
Select Board Chairman Stephen Bannon said he did not understand why a list was needed. “I think what it should say is that the Town Manager, if asked by the Finance Committee or the Select Board, may provide certain documents that are relevant to this year’s budget,” Bannon said. “Putting a list down limits us because there may be other documents we might want, and we may not need some of these [documents].”
“We have three new members of the Finance Committee and who knows how many more new members we will have in the future,” O’Dwyer said. “It’s helpful for them to know what pieces of information are available.”
“I’m not going to support this, because I think it’s silly to put that on there,” Bannon said. “It’s asking the Town Manager and the office of the person who prepares the budget to have all of that available that they may or may not need. We only have four meetings [to deliberate on the budget], and they may not have time. I think it’s better if you just state ‘we may ask for additional documentation’ and that makes a lot more sense.”
Both Vice Chairman Leigh Davis and Select Board member Eric Gabriel agreed with Bannon. “It feels more educational than necessary,” Davis said. “Although I appreciate what you’re doing and the information that you are giving, I just have concerns about laying every single item out.”
“It’s not part of the policy, it is part of a summary of the process,” Finance Committee Chairman Philip Orenstein said.
“It’s in the policy, and that’s my only concern,” Bannon said. “And I understand that you say that these should be fairly easy to put together, I do appreciate that, but I do have concern that we’re just putting too much work on staff.”
Eventually, upon Bannon’s recommendation, the words “not limited to” when it comes to the documents that may be requested by the board and the committee were added to the draft.“There may be other things that we may ask for because of something that may have happened in the preceding six months coming up [to deliberating] the budget,” Bannon said. “I’m not going to put a stop to this [document]. I think you guys have put a lot of work into it and I think it’s a good document.”
The Select Board approved the change and then approved the meeting schedule proposed for the board and committee. The Select Board and Finance Committee are scheduled to hold joint meetings concerning the fiscal 2024 budget on February 28, March 1, March 7, and March 8, with each meeting at 6 p.m. A public hearing on the proposed fiscal 2024 budget is scheduled for March 22 at 6 p.m.
In other business: Town Manager Pruhenski announced that the town hired Raftelis of Natick to appraise the system owned by Housatonic Water Works for $34,000. Pruhenski said that the town will receive a report from Raftelis during its February 27 meeting.
In an email to The Berkshire Edge, Pruhenski wrote that he has spoken to Housatonic Water Works representatives, and they are aware that the appraisers will need access to the company’s treatment facilities.
Pruhenski added that the town has hired GOV-OS, from Austin, Texas, to assist with the town’s short-term rental compliance program. The town’s short-term rental bylaws are scheduled to go into effect in January. Pruhenski said that the company is in the process of creating for the town a custom application to track short-term rentals and a registration portal for “Great Barrington hosts that is user-friendly.” Pruhenski wrote in an email that the cost for the first year of the contract with the company is $18,000.
