Financial Committee

of Lisbon/M.S.A.D. No. 75 RPC

 

Minutes

December 5, 2007

 

The Financial Sub-committee of the Lisbon/M.S.A.D. No. 75 Reorganization Planning Committee met during the break-out session of the Wednesday, December 5, 2007, meeting of the RPC at Mt. Ararat Middle School.

 

Committee members present were:  Elinor “Ellie” Multer, Chair; Martha Poliquin; and Jim Trusiani.  Not present were Roy Letourneau and Joanne Reinhart.

 

Also present were M.S.A.D. No. 75 Business Manager Ron Lavender; Lisbon Business Manager Catherine Messmer; M.S.A.D. No. 75 Special Education Director Patrick F. Moore; and Jay Bartner, RPC facilitator.

 

Lease-purchase agreements – Mr. Lavender noted that M.S.A.D. No. 75 has a lease-purchase arrangement with a financing company that involves a contract for energy-saving devices under which the cost of the contract is fully covered by energy savings.  Under the previous, accepted recommendation of the Financial Committee, this lease-purchase would also be passed on to the new RSU; however, the agreement is not contemplated under the language included in the language in the “Reorganization Plan” document offered by Drummond Woodsum – page 12.

 

Therefore, the Financial Committee recommends the following modification to the language shown:

 

Additionally, other bonds, notes and lease-purchase agreements issued by an SAU before the operative day of the region shall be assumed by the region, provided the SAU issued the bond, note or lease-purchase agreement in the normal course of its management of the schools for an essential purpose to replace its existing facilities and existing items of equipment that are not longer serviceable, or to keep them in normal operating condition, or to reduce operating costs.

 

The Committee understands that there will be additional lease-purchase agreements in place at both SAUs prior to the creation of the RSU covering school buses, copying machines, etc.

 

Agency, Scholarship, Special Revenue & Enterprise Funds (See attached lists.) – Mr. Lavender pointed out that M.S.A.D. No. 75 does not administer any scholarship funds, as these are all handled through the Brunswick Area Student Aid Fund.  In the category of Special Revenue Funds, no decision can be made at this time on the disposition of the various “title” grant funds.  These are federal funds, and their fate will depend on the outcome of discussions between the State and the U.S. Department of Education.

 

With regard to all the other funds, the Financial Committee makes the following recommendation:  That the funds be turned over to the new RSU with a stipulation that the current designated beneficiaries and other conditions governing these funds be retained.

 

Start-up Costs & Projected Savings – The Committee reviewed a preliminary projection of potential savings that could be realized through the creation of the RSU (see attached).  These are net figures, and much work remains to be done on this as the staffing requirements and other needs of the new RSU become clear.  Much will depend upon the development of a table of organization for the new unit.  The estimate is a work in progress.

 

The Committee also reviewed an initial list of items that would represent start-up costs for a new RSU (attached).  Mr. Lavender and Ms. Messmer agreed to try to attach dollar values to those items in time for the December 19th meeting.

 

There was discussion of the fact that these costs will need to be included in the FY ’09 budgets of the two SAUs, and a recommendation from the Committee will be needed as to the basis on which to allocate those costs between Lisbon and M.S.A.D. No. 75.  Mr. Lavender and Ms. Messmer will bring to the December 19th meeting information needed to calculate SAU shares of the start-up costs using three formulas for comparison – one based on student population, another based on town property valuations, and a third based 50% on student population and 50% on property valuation.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Elinor Multer

 

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