Plans made now will impact 2013 budget

FALLS VILLAGE — The Board of Finance, at the request of the Board of Education, voted to establish a Lee H. Kellogg School technology reserve account with a recommended appropriation of $26,389. The decision was made at the regular monthly Board of Finance meeting Monday, Dec. 10. The board also voted to recommend using $18,000 from the technology fund to buy computers and software for the school.Both items will be on the call for the spring town meeting to vote on the school and town proposed spending plans.Auditor Mike Zemaitis gave the board a draft of the report for the 2011-12 fiscal year. He cautioned the report is not quite complete, but the draft report indicates the town has $5.5 million in net assets; $3.7 million in capital assets (buildings, roads, equipment, water department); and $1.6 million in unrestricted net assets, i.e., money that can be spent.The uncommitted amount in the “unrestricted net assets” category is $673,000 — the town’s surplus, in layman’s terms.Zemaitis said that figure represents 14.4 percent of total town spending. “That’s a very strong fund balance,” he said. “The picture is bright.”Zemaitis said that property taxes make up almost 80 percent of town revenue.First Selectman Pat Mechare asked if real estate conveyance taxes are significant. Zemaitis said the returns were inconsistent — $6,500 one year, $18,000 the next.On the expense side of the ledger, Zemaitis said that education takes up 69 percent of the town’s spending.The Board of Selectmen, meeting after the finance board, approved two resolutions. One was to approve the Northwestern Connecticut Council of Governments (COG) seeking a grant to buy a materials screener — a large piece of equipment useful for highway crews — to be shared among the COG towns.The second was to contribute to a Northwestern Connecticut Planning Collaborative effort to create a regional economic development coordinator position. Jocelyn Ayer of the collaborative said that the idea is to seek a grant of around $170,000 to establish the position, do site analyses of vacant commercial properties, and work on promotion and marketing.She said the collaborative asked the eight member towns for $2,000 apiece, which she said would make the grant application more competitive. As of Dec. 13, seven of the towns had approved the request. Ayer said she had not yet received a response from North Canaan.The six Region One towns — Cornwall, Falls Village, Kent, North Canaan, Sharon and Salisbury — plus Norfolk and Goshen are in the collaborative.