Monday, June 6, 2016, Selectmen meeting.

The first item to come up at the beginning of the meeting was the written Policies & Procedures of the selectmen not being followed with regards to a special BOS meeting, that is out of the normal meeting rotation.

From the temporary part time town administrator was the statement that the schedule A of fiscal year 2015 has finally been submitted and accepted.

The audit of fiscal year 2013 has been held up again by a request of an actuarial study of retirement costs to the town with regards to Worcester County retirement system. Once again people were told that the work would begin this Thursday. It was also stated that apparently some bad things were found by way of looking at past audit work. It was stated by the temporary part time town administrator that there was "some bad work with incomplete information" on past audits by way of the firm that did the past audits of the town. I believe the last audit (s) done for Templeton was by Heath Melanson Co. and if you go looking at say the Town of Saugus, you will find that firm was involved with some financial issues in that town's audit.

Selectmen were to sign a letter to send to Boston so the issue with the special Town meeting held in March 2016 that was not posted for the proper number of days.

With regards to using stabilization funds for police and fire department, this was to replace bullet resistant vests for police and air packs for fire. After some discussion and suggestion from Jeff Bennett, the vests for police may be paid for out of the selectmen office expense account, since Town meeting was told that the selectmen are the superior department and they could use funds from the selectmen office expense to cover expenses at the end of year. I posed that question and or suggestion to avoid the selectmen from tapping into the little savings the town has, which is about $140,000.00.

There is a proposed joint meeting dat of either July 12 or July 19, 2016 with Advisory Committee and BOS. Some subjects brought up for this meeting were goals of both boards for the budget and fiscal and or budget responsibility.

The police chief informed the BOS that Templeton has applied for a technology grant in the amount of $181,000.00 to be used for technology upgrades which would be used for both Templeton and Phillipston police and fire departments.  The selectmen were also informed by the police chief that he is in the process of applying for  a "Federal cop grant" which could be used to pay 75% of an officer's salary fro 3 years and the amount of the grant is $282,361.00. That seems to indicate that for three years, you could have another police officer with the town picking up 1/4 of the salary and presumably benefits.

Fire department had that 70 - 75% 0f ALS ambulance calls were being met by Templeton Ambulance.

Highway had to sweep some roads and areas multiple times because they began street sweeping before winter was done. It looks nice so go sweep sand and then it snows and more sand put down so go sweep again, adding to the total cost of doing that evolution. Seems like a policy needs to be developed for that with a hard start time. Better to wait rather than do it two or three times.

It was also stated that all people who work in town hall put in 40 hours per week so I think that needs to be checked on by way of office visits on different days and times of the week.

Presently there are no funds for any work on Scout Hall.

Action on a Town Administrator; apparently the temporary part time town administrator has a 6 month clause in is agreement with the town and the selectmen will use an agency in a search for a new full time town administrator. The Collins Institute was mentioned as the one of choice but selectmen said they will inquire with other firms.

There was some discussion on a new office within town hall, apparently there were/are plans to put a wall up in the current BOS office to create a new office space. A point of discussion was why this was not at least talked about at an open meeting, for no other reason tthan to be transparent with the spending of public money.

posted by Jeff bennett