Coordinator report February 26, 2015

After meeting two weeks in a row, we have few action items to address
for this meeting.

The snow and ice deficit two weeks ago was about $20,000. This week's
warrant shows that snow and ice is now $37,555 over budget. $77k is a
dollar on the tax rate.

Following up on the discussion about alternative ways to provide
education I had a discussion with Bernardston Selectboard chair who
notes that Erving is a good local example to study. Erving runs their
own elementary school and pays tuition to send their secondary school
children to GM District. In VT Vernon pays tuition to secondary school
options of Pioneer and Brattleboro Union. And Winchester NH runs their
own elementary school and sends secondary school students to Keene on
tuition. Bob Raymond thinks that Erving's case would be a good one to
study.

The MA Dept. of Revenue has issued its final 2014 Equalization Study and
determined that Warwick's assessed values are almost 5% lower than
market value and set our "estimated full value" at almost $81M where we
are using the value of about $77M for tax assessments. If our upcoming
revaluation reflects this change, other things being equal, it would
lower the tax rate and the town tax levy and individual bills would be
unaffected. This assessment study is what the state will use for means
tested financial assistance such as school aid. They say we are somewhat
wealthier than we think.

We have scheduled a Broadband Committee meeting to discuss the finances
of the FTTH (fiber to the home) project with Jim Drawe of WiredWest and
Joe Markarian of FRCOG on Tuesday March 10 at 6 pm. Jim has been
modeling the WW project and Joe who is a former employee of MA DOR is
working for the COG to assist towns to access this FTTH project. I will
post a Selectboard and a Finance Committee meeting for this date in time
in addition to the Broadband Committee meeting.