ANDOVER—During the Jan. 26 selectmen’s meeting, school board members Paula Lee and Peter Coolidge requested the purchase of the school copier that the school is currently borrowing.

The copier is a Konica Minolta from BEU and the price for the copier and a service agreement is $6,330.

Selectman Jim Adler made a motion to approve the purchase, while Selectman Keith Farrington said he approved of the purchase, but questioned where the money would come from.

Farrington asked “Can the school budget absorb the $6,000 somewhere in their budget without us borrowing the money to buy it?”

Williams said the school didn’t budget for a $6,300 copier, and Coolidge said they didn’t know they’d get such a nice copier to start with, but Coolidge said he thought the money may be under the administration budget.

Secretary Hope Peterson questioned “If the school hasn’t run through a full year yet how do we know they aren’t going to come across something else?” Farrington agreed that they didn’t know if there would be other expenses.

School board member Williams said her opinion was “If we can’t get the money from capital expense, from the bond money, then we’ll have to put it on the budget in June for 2016-17, because there isn’t the money this year.”

Following the discussion, a decision was made to use some of the funds from the balance of the $200,000 bond the town took out earlier this year upon the school’s separation from S.A.D. 44.

Adler made motion to move forward with the purchase of the copier and Farrington seconded the motion, with all voting in favor to authorize the purchase of the copier.

Other business discussed was town clerk Melinda Averill questioning what was being done about the shredding of the town’s paperwork and documents. She suggested that if the article regarding the shredding doesn’t pass “Could the high-school kids come in to do the shredding because I know they have to do community hours?”

Farrington said “Let’s see if it passes.” Farrington noted that part of the issue is someone has to sort the paperwork. Treasurer Barbara Simmons said she was thinking the paperwork would be burned, but the kids could go through the boxes and pull out all the stuff that can’t be shredded. Adler said “I personally want to see if it passes, since the reason we’re shredding it is because we don’t want it out there.”

Following some discussion on whether or not the paperwork would need to be sorted before shredding or burning, both Adler and Farrington said they would wait to see if the article regarding shredding of the paperwork passes.

Adler said “I agree with Keith, let’s see if it passes and if it doesn’t we’ll go to plan B.”

And Farrington added “I think that should be approved by the board; we’ll need guidance and that should be approved by the board.”

Averill also brought up the issue of the cornerstones for the cemetery. She requested that the cornerstones be set in place at the cemetery before the customer purchases the plot.

She said “The cornerstones are not getting put in and it’s really a hassle.” She asked if the board would o.k. a policy that she could charge $500 for the cornerstones on top of the cemetery fee.

Farrington said “I think the problem is we’ve got to have some kind of regulation, saying ‘this is how it’s gonna work’, not to just say we’re gonna charge the people $500.”

Adler asked if the townspeople are allowed to put their own cornerstones in. Averill said “Yes, but nobody does.” Farrington said some kind of regulation was needed, such as an ordinance, and Adler asked if they could do an article.

Farrington said that the problem with articles is that they don’t follow year after year, so an ordinance is needed, but that an article was needed first to pass an ordinance. Adler ended the discussion saying that an article could be written up for the cornerstones issue.

The Town Report Cover contest will result in three winning pictures for grades K-5. Adler noted that the kids did a really good job on the contest. He said he’d purchase the pizza for the kids and Farrington offered to split the cost with him.

The board also voted to pay CN Brown $1,563.68, MMA Workers Comp $3,885.60, M&M Employee Health Trust $1,352.16, and Eastern Salt $4,364.97.

Selectmen Jane Rich was absent from the meeting.

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net

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