Androscoggin CountyMainePopulation 4,262Sourced from U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, 2013-2024
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Select Board Meeting ~ February 14, 2023

2023-02-14 · Select Board · 1:57:17 · watch on YouTube →

The Select Board met on February 14, 2023 with all five members present. It signed a consent agreement covering a setback violation at 10 Wingate Farm Road so a house sale could proceed, while agreeing the town needs a written procedure for such cases because other residents have been put through the planning board and engineering costs for the same problem. Marc Roy of Barry Talbot Royer spent much of the meeting describing an outsourced accounts payable and payroll service, and the board agreed to take it up again the following week. The board then took its formal votes on the budget, adopting the Budget Committee's operating and capital figures except for the Public Works capital reserve, which it kept at $100,000 against the committee's $50,000, on a 4-1 vote with Richard George opposed. It matched the committee at $230,000 of undesignated funds to offset taxes, approved the remaining budget articles, and went into executive session on the town manager's probation period.

Who was there. The town's written minutes record these people present: Kevin Nadeau (Chair), Richard George (Vice-Chair), Todd Beaulieu, Joe Tomm, Josh Klein-Golden, Jerry Douglass (Town Manager). Names in this summary are checked against that list.

What was discussed

  1. 0:01
    Call to order and agenda amendment

    Kevin Nadeau called the meeting to order with all board members present. On Josh Klein-Golden's suggestion the consent agreement was moved up the agenda so the town clerk, who has to notarise it, would not have to wait through the meeting.

  2. 0:01
    Setback consent agreement, 10 Wingate Farm Road

    A resident selling their house found on a mortgage inspection that it sits about 42 feet from the road rather than 50, roughly eight feet into the setback, with the porch about three feet over. The consent agreement is a no-action agreement so that a future neighbour cannot raise it with the board of appeals.

  3. 0:01
    Need for a written procedure

    Richard George said other residents with setback problems have had to go to the planning board, pay for resurveys, engineers and attorneys, and that the code enforcement officer's letter of no action exceeds his authority. He and others asked that a procedure be worked out with George and the code officer setting out when such a case goes to the board of appeals and when it does not.

  4. 5:22
    Fees and how it happened

    Members questioned how a house in a planned neighbourhood came to be sited inside the setback, and whether the $200 fee covered the town's costs including legal review. They agreed not to hold up this case but to look at a fee schedule item for documents needing counsel's review.

  5. 5:22
    Public comment

    No one came forward for public comment.

  6. 5:22
    Outsourced accounts payable and payroll

    Marc Roy of Barry Talbot Royer, a Falmouth CPA firm, described a service the firm has offered to towns and schools for about six years, covering accounts payable and payroll processing on a fixed annual fee that rises about 3 percent a year. He said the firm also helps with budgeting, capital planning and financing questions.

  7. 16:38
    Why the service exists, and the AP workflow

    Marc Roy said small and medium towns cannot pay enough to hire qualified municipal accountants, so auditors end up proposing the same adjustments year after year and effectively auditing their own work. He described the workflow: departments code and initial invoices, the town scans them to SharePoint, his staff prepare the warrant and send it for signature, then cut the checks.

  8. 22:02
    Software, security and data ownership

    The town would keep Trio for the property tax and cash receipting modules but could drop the budgetary and payroll modules, each said to cost around a thousand dollars a year. The firm uses Microsoft 365 and SharePoint with servers in two locations, remotes into Trio using Splashtop, and holds the town's data in QuickBooks with PDF and Excel files that can be handed back.

  9. 27:34
    What stays with the town

    Marc Roy said the town must still have its statutory treasurer, who makes the payment decisions, and at least one person to collect time cards and scan documents. He put the ramp-up at two to three months depending on complexity and staff willingness.

  10. 32:46
    Controls and payroll liabilities

    Trio data would be imported into QuickBooks at go-live, and the town would send an Excel list of invoices alongside the scans so nothing is missed. The firm handles direct deposit through Intuit, remits federal and state payroll taxes, and pays liabilities such as Maine Municipal Employees Health Trust and MainePERS; the checks remain the town's.

  11. 38:21
    Signing the warrant and payroll frequency

    Members noted the board must sign the warrant in a public meeting unless it adopts a policy allowing otherwise, and Marc Roy said other towns print, sign and scan back or use DocuSign. Josh Klein-Golden noted the town runs weekly payroll; Marc Roy said bi-weekly would cost less because it is half the work.

  12. 43:29
    Capital financing planning

    Kevin Nadeau said the town has a capital schedule from department heads but no financing plan for it. Marc Roy described building the schedule into a cash flow tool and raising a level amount each year so reserves absorb the spikes, using Greenville as an example, and recommended positive pay at the bank as the single most useful control.

  13. 48:47
    Fiscal year change and start date

    Asked about the town's possible move from a calendar year to a July to June fiscal year and the loss of full prior-year actuals, Marc Roy said he provides annualised projections and updates them through budget season. He said he could not begin before May 1 and is staggering three towns, taking whichever commits first, with go-live a couple of months after starting.

  14. 54:00
    Town manager's report

    Jerry Douglass reported pipes burst at the Eureka Center during the cold snap with limited damage, now repaired, and members discussed heat tape or space heaters for the next deep cold. He also reported the audit under way, with the auditor returning Thursday, a report possibly within a month, and a request to speak with a board member as the auditor does each year.

  15. 59:11
    Clerk's absence and vital records

    A member noted the town clerk is out next week and vital records will not be issued, and asked that this be posted on the door as well as in the news blast and on the website, since it falls in school vacation week.

  16. 59:11
    Where the board and budget committee differ

    Kevin Nadeau walked through the differences. The Budget Committee cut $15,000 from administration by removing the contingency line and half the election payroll line, added $16,000 to public works for Calvin's late amended request mainly for fuel, and added about $20,000 to solid waste after recalculating it as six months at the 2022 rate and six months at the 2023 rate. It also recommended $50,000 rather than $100,000 for the public works capital reserve and $230,000 rather than $200,000 of undesignated funds.

  17. 1:04:46
    A single recommendation to town meeting

    Jerry Douglass had argued that the board and the budget committee should go to town meeting in full alignment, since the two bodies are closer to the numbers than a town meeting floor can be. The board discussed whether to match the committee or take variances to the floor.

  18. 1:04:46
    River Park sign and assigned funds

    The $1,500 for a sign at River Park had been taken out by the board because it was to come from a designated fund, and the budget committee put it back in. The board agreed the assigned fund transfer could be set at the $9,380 figure so the sign is funded without raising the money.

  19. 1:10:40
    The contingency line

    Jerry Douglass said most municipal budgets carry a contingency line and described having to pay an accountant out of the legal line when he found bank statements were not being reconciled. Members suggested renaming the line legal and professional services, and noted MMA's (?) recommended articles include a single town-wide contingency article which would be cheaper than building contingency into every line.

  20. 1:10:40
    Town office hours

    Asked whether the office could be open more, Jerry Douglass said the plan is to open Wednesdays, with staff working 36 hours and window time going from the current 27.5 hours to 32.

  21. 1:16:26
    Public works capital reserve

    Joe Tomm argued for keeping the $100,000, saying equipment costs are not falling and that stopping now means asking for two or three hundred thousand in a few years. Kevin Nadeau said the item ranked near the bottom of the CIP list and that without a financing plan the number is a guess, but that operating differences could be defended on town meeting floor in a way this one could not.

  22. 1:21:57
    Figures behind the reserve argument

    Members noted a large public works truck is expected around 2026 at $280,000 or more, and that the last plow truck rose from about $190,000 to about $220,000. Todd Beaulieu pointed out that one article draws $50,000 out of the public works reserve for the stream crossing while another puts money back in, so a $50,000 contribution leaves the balance flat.

  23. 1:27:02
    Motion on the budget

    After discussion of the current reserve balance, Josh Klein-Golden moved to adopt the Budget Committee's operating and capital expenditure recommendations with the exception of the public works capital reserve, which the board would keep at $100,000, seconded by Joe Tomm.

  24. 1:32:24
    Whether the two committees should agree

    Milton Simon, the budget committee chair, said he had disagreed with his own committee, and questioned whether two committees created to build a budget should aim for the same conclusion rather than giving townspeople options. Others said matching numbers reads better on the floor where the difference cannot be clearly explained.

  25. 1:37:57
    Calvin's capital plan

    Members noted Calvin's plan puts about $100,000 into the reserve every two years and funds the schedule through 2026, and that it rests on replacement ages and mileage rather than a financing analysis. Kevin Nadeau said the purpose of a reserve is to smooth taxation across years rather than to save the full purchase price.

  26. 1:43:28
    Undesignated funds and tax impact

    The board discussed matching the committee's $230,000, noting a further roughly $22,000 comes out of undesignated to cover 2022 overspending in solid waste and the fire department. The county assessment is running close to a 13 percent increase and the school around 3 to 4.5 percent, but with valuation increases the board expects a flat or near-flat mill rate, and the unassigned fund balance would stay above $1.6 million, around 16 percent.

  27. 1:48:46
    Remaining budget articles

    The board voted on the rest of its recommendations in one motion: yes on the two 2022 overspending articles, yes on all capital budget articles with the assessing market valuation reserve at $60,000 and public works reserve at $100,000, the $230,000 from unassigned fund balance toward taxation, use of intergovernmental revenues, $9,380 from recreation and $52,000 from telecommunications, and funding debt service.

  28. 1:48:46
    Ordinance change process

    The first public hearing on the proposed land use ordinance changes is February 15, with the language having been on the website for over two weeks. The planning board will then consider any changes and bring the language to the board on the 28th, where the board's role is to accept or reject rather than edit, since editing would take it outside the public hearing process.

  29. 1:54:41
    Consent agenda, meetings and executive session

    The board accepted the consent agenda. Upcoming: the public hearing February 15, a second pre-town meeting public hearing expected around March 15 to be confirmed, and select board meetings February 28 and March 14 at the town office. The board then went into executive session on the town manager's six-month probation period, which ended about a week earlier.

What was decided

An outcome reads "unclear" where the recording does not state it plainly. The recogniser drops short words, and "the motion does not carry" is one missing word from its opposite.

Motions the minutes record

The town's own written account of what was decided, taken from bosmeetingminutes_021423.txt. It owes nothing to the recording or to a model: the clerk typed it, with the vote. Where the summary above claims a decision this list does not carry, the summary is the part to doubt.

Worth knowing

Motion language found in the transcript

Located by pattern matching, with no model involved: "I move that", "I'll second", "all those in favour". This is an independent check on the summary above: 3 passages of motion language, against 8 decisions summarised.

Show the 3 passages

Elsewhere

← 2023-01-24 Select Board2023-02-28 Select Board →All meetings

Source & method

Town of Durham meeting recordings, YouTube auto-captions, and the town's written minutes
Captions cleaned into timestamped transcripts; topics and motions found by pattern matching; summaries written by a language model and required to cite the second each item begins. Every name attached to speech is checked against the attendance list in the minutes, and marked (?) where no record confirms it
https://www.youtube.com/@durhammaine/videos
Summary written by claude-opus-5. Attendance from bosmeetingminutes_021423.txt.
Data as of 25 August 2026 (the date of the newest recorded meeting in the index); retrieved 2 September 2026.