Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 8/25/2021
GRANBY – The Selectboard discussed several significant bills facing the town of Granby during their Aug. 16 meeting.
Billing troubles
In a discussion during which Granby Town Administrator Christopher Martin proposed pausing applying for grants for which the town would be eligible, Selectboard Chair Jennifer Silva said it may be time to re-evaluate hiring a grant writer so as not to take up too much of his time with just proposals. Selectboard member Glen Sexton said he didn’t want the town to miss out on any potential grant opportunities, but suggested that Martin update the board in about three months concerning the ongoing grant projects at the time.
Martin went on to say that would work as three months from the time of the discussion would be “in budget season.” He said that while there was also “still a little bit of a learning curve,” there was also a current issue the town was facing regarding an unpaid bill and closed account. “One of the projects that we did under the Green Community was putting the lights on the second floor of the high school. While we had entered into a five-year contract to pay for that cost over a monthly amount over five years, somebody closed that account on me,” he said. “Now they want $86,000 of the unpaid balance of that work.”
Martin said he was trying to figure out who closed the account and was “a little perturbed about it.” When asked for clarification by Sexton, Martin said each month he had received a bill for $1,745.65, which was “one-sixtieth of our share of the cost to put in those energy-saving fixtures on the second floor of the high school.”
When asked what the town’s share of the project was, Martin said it was “about $90,000.” However, that did not take into account incentives offered by National Grid, which Martin explained raised the cost to about $130,000. He said the town entered into a 60-month repayment program, had been getting billed and was paying said bills. However, he said on Aug. 13 he received a bill which stated that was the final bill and $86,000 was owed by the town.
Martin explained that each meter in town was connected to an account that required payment to National Grid. “So the account we’re using to charge us back or pay for those energy costs was the flashing light account for the high school, the 20-mile an hour light. We were paying $1,700 a month, I budgeted it in my budget for FY21 (fiscal year 2021),” he said. “Then I get a bill for that account for that flashing light that says this is your final service bill, you now owe me $86,000.”
He said he was unsure if “they pulled the meter and turned the meter in.” If this were the case, he explained, it would “effectively close the account.” Upon clarification, Silva said unless the account was reopened they would be “stuck” with an $86,000 bill, which Martin said was the case. He said he’d contacted their state representative and was awaiting more information.
After some smaller updates, Martin said he’d also received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stating that the town owed $89,000 “in penalties and assessments.” He said, “All it said was for tax year 2017.” He said he had tried to call the IRS but had hit a wall and been hung up on by an automated machine. From there, he said he went online and looked up the notice number that had been sent to them. Martin explained, based on his research, the noticed the town had received, “notice CP-215” was for “failure to file tax forms.” He said he was still confused as to what it was, so he contacted a company for guidance, who informed him it was regarding the “10-94C and 10-95C [forms]” regarding the Affordable Care Act. He explained 2016 was the last time the town had filed paperwork.
He went on to explain that in 2017 the town purchased software that no longer generated the forms. “So we didn’t file, we didn’t think we had to file anymore because that was that time frame when [former President Donald] Trump was coming into office,” he said. “Well come to find out we are still considered a large employer under the Affordable Care Act. In order for us to go back and be compliant under that act, we need to file forms for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020. We could have $89,000, $90,000 worth of fines for each one of those years.”
Martin went on to say that the company he discussed the issue with could bring the town into compliance for $6,500 a year. “That would be about $26,000 over the four-year period of time,” he said.
Martin said he would “take the blame because it occurred under my watch, the forms not being filed,” and was asking the board for permission to enter into a contract with the company to take care of the issue. Sexton asked what the fee per year would go toward and Martin explained the company would take care of “all the filing requirements” so the only penalty the town may face would be for not filing on time. He added if the town wanted, the company also had a tax attorney who was a former IRS employee who would represent the town in front of the IRS for a fee of $3,000 per year “to try and get the penalty waived.”
Before approving Martin entering into a contract with the company, Silva questioned how they would prevent the situation from arising again in the future. Martin said moving forward he would put the fee for the company in the budget and ensure forms were always filed.
Town Hall Annex contract
The Selectboard continued to discuss the potential extension of renting the Town Hall Annex. Silva said during one of their previous meetings, they discussed moving the offices currently in the annex into the old library. At the time of the meeting, the town clerk, the town collector and the town assessor’s office were located in the Town Hall Annex. Town Clerk Kathy Kelly Regan was one of two of the employees who spoke in favor of the town renewing the contract and expressed concern about the air quality in the old library building.
Kelly Regan said she had previously worked in the building when early voting took place, calling it “musty.” She said, “I have concerns with the records that the town has refurbished over the years, which was over $33,000 worth of records that I would hate to see get compromised going into a building that doesn’t have the proper air quality.” She went on to explain that until the town had a building with a proper vault, she felt the documents should be kept in a building with dryer air quality.
She encouraged Selectboard members to “do a walk through” of the building as she felt the space was not adequate to store the number of records she would need to keep and maintain throughout the years until it came to the appropriate time frame where they could be disposed of. “If we move over to the old library, you’re going to have to rent a pod or something because the records have to be available to us as well,” she said.
Items that also need to be stored include election equipment, which she said would need more room to be stored than the library building would allow. She went on to express her feelings that the equipment might be damaged, similar to the documents, due to the air quality in the building. When Town Collector Nicole Menard asked if the board had considered a floor plan for the old library building should they need to move out of the Annex, Silva said that’s why the employees had been invited to the meeting.
“Well, that’s actually what we wanted you here for, was what you would need to move over. It really wasn’t a discussion of if you were moving over, but what you would need to move over,” she said. Kelly Regan said they would need rooms that were secure and could be locked to safeguard documents.
“You can’t just have partitions where somebody can push a wall over,” she said.
Sexton said that the point of the discussion was to see if the space at the old library was able to be utilized and would work for the offices. “We wanted to look at it as a possibility,” he said. “We’re not saying it’s going to work.”
Kelly Regan said she previously had a similar discussion with Selectboard members in 2015, and questioned why there had been no plan put in place since then. Menard then went on to say Selectboard members were welcome to visit the Annex to look at the space they required to store documents currently to assess if they felt like the old library building could be used similarly. Silva said the “end goal” was to have all town offices and services in the same building rather than spread out in several buildings.
Sexton went on to say the board was not “looking to move people just to move people,” but to see if the move would work and alleviate some of the costs the town currently has. Board of Assessors Clerk Gregg Leonard also spoke on the matter and said as someone who had been on the board for more than 20 years, he felt “where we’re at now is not really acceptable.” He said, “If the end goal is to get us all under one roof, I support anything that gets us there.” He also emphasized that “getting in and out of the annex is dangerous” and staying in the Annex would be a “dead end.”
When discussing the West Street School and the possibility of moving the offices into the vacant building, Silva said she had been in the building multiple times and there was no mold or “mustiness.” This led Kelly Regan to ask why the building had been vacated by the district, which Silva explained it no longer met the education standards required by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
In further discussion, Kelly Regan expressed her desire to renew the contract for renting the Annex for three more years and “figure it out.” However, Silva stated, “My fear is if we renew the contract for three more years, we’re going to end up in a 12-year situation. If we don’t have an end time frame to when we’ve got to get something done, this town is known to kick the can down the street.”
Special Town Meeting warrant
The board also addressed the warrant for the Special Town Meeting scheduled on Sept. 20. The meeting, which is slated for 7 p.m., will take place at the Granby Junior-Senior High School on State Street. Town Administrator Christopher Martin said on the warrant were articles including the following:
• To see if the town would appropriate $18,679 to fund tuition for a student to attend the Smith Vocational Agricultural High School.
• To see if the town would appropriate $5,000 to fund services for the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District services for FY21 by transferring money from available funds, transferring money from the stabilization fund or borrowing a bond.
• To see if the town will appropriate $18,761 to increase the town assessor’s personal services budget.
• To see if the town will authorize the Selectboard to contact their representative to file a home rule petition to establish a recall act for elected officials.
Martin explained that the tuition was to fund a student to attend the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School for a program that was not offered at the Pathfinder Regional Technical Vocational School. He also explained the need for additional funding for the assessor’s budget was due to the hiring of an additional staff member by the new assessor, which had not been allocated in the original FY21 budget. Ultimately, the Selectboard voted in favor of approving the town warrant.
Fire chief search
The board additionally discussed the search for a new fire chief, where requirements for the position posting were discussed. They went on to choose the specific language and requirements for the job description, where the listing would be posted and for how long the posting would be listed.
The board then discussed the salary range for the fire chief. Martin said currently it was listed at $90,000 for the year, however, when looking at similar job postings the salary range was between $100,000 and $135,000. Martin said while the listings he saw didn’t explicitly give the size of the community, if they wanted to advertise on a nationwide search they should have a competitive salary range. However, both Sexton and Silva said they would be okay with negotiating salary based on the experience of the candidate that was selected as fire chief.
“If the town of Monson has a fire chief and their fire chief is making $98[,000], why are we offering $110[,000]?” Sexton said. Ultimately, while they said the salary could be negotiated, the starting point for salary negotiations would be $95,000.