Board of Finance: Interest Income, Flood Repairs, Future Development

Goshen’s Board of Finance met on Wednesday, July 26th for their monthly gathering. First Selectman Todd Carusillo also attended the meeting. The meeting began with Robert Valentine motioning to seat Board member alternate Russel Murdock. This was unanimously approved. Ned Bixler arrived late. Scott Tillman then motioned to approve June’s meeting minutes. Most members voted to approve the minutes while Bill Lane abstained since he wasn’t at last month’s meeting. The motion carried.

For Financial reports, the Board received and reviewed reports submitted by Debbie Franklin for June 2023. The Board asked Carusillo what the period of accruement was for the close to $30,000 of interest income that was moved to the Land Acquisition Fund. “It must have been for the year. It must have been,” responded Carusillo. Carusillo will check if the income was for the last fiscal year. Chairman Alan Walker then asked if the board budgeted interest and dividends for $5,000, where did the close to $182,000 shown in the report for Interest & Dividends Revenue-To-Date come from and what is the town getting on the Short-Term Investment Fund account?. “Right now it’s 5%,” Carusillo responded. “...I believe Matt [Sweet] told me we’ll get 5% on a bunch of our accounts right now.” Walker continued to inquire why the interest income didn’t add up to $182,000 since May’s income revenue was around $194,000 and the town somehow lost about $8,000 in revenue. Valentine clarified the town usually gains around $150,000 with 5% interest but that doesn’t include capital or non-recurring accounts. Carusillo will ask town Treasurer Matthew Sweet for a further detailed report to address these questions.

Valentine then motioned to add the tax collector’s report to the agenda. This was unanimously approved. Walker noted that the Board received, reviewed and approved of Tax Collector Rebecca Juchert-Derungs’ report as of June 30th, “And as usual, she’s doing a good job for us.”

Carsuillo then presented his First Selectman’s report. Invoices are still being worked on for repairs needed to town roads from flooding from heavy rainstorms earlier in July. “With the two storms that we had, we spent around $33,000 on gravel. Never mind overtime and double time for the guys,” Carusillo explained. “Hopefully, after everything’s tallied up, we’ll apply for FEMA or the state for some funds to take care of the rest of the costs ‘cause we got some paving to do. We got the big culvert on North Goshen Road still, which was on our list but got washed out so now we have a plan to… put two pipes in to handle a storm for the future like we just had of 11 inches and then 6 inches. So hopefully we can build something that can withstand weather in the future.” No new pavement has been conducted on any town roads since the storm and damage has only been repaired with gravel for the time being. Tillman asked to confirm whether or not the Meriden-based civil engineering company, Cardinal Engineering Associates, will review and report on damage done to culvert pipes. Carusillo confirmed that Cardinal will conduct the report. Repair costs are currently being charged to the Town Aid Road Fund but Carusillo hopes FEMA will match and cover those costs.

Carusillo continued his report by noting that he spoke with Region 6 officials and the town will soon receive checks totaling $247,500. Work is steadily continuing on the Holmes Road public access improvement project. In July, the Public Works Department spent $9,000 to rent an excavator, spent $7,500 for blasting, and spent around $3,000 on gravel. “We’re keeping the cost low with [what] our guys do on our own work,” Carusilo noted. “…[It’s] in pretty good shape right now where it’s passable. I think the guys that are doing the blasting were doing their final blasting yesterday.” It was originally estimated in June that the project would cost $20,000 but so far the town spent around $19,500 on Holmes Road. 

The meeting concluded with Tillman asking Carusillo if the purchased 13.84 property located along Route 4 will be able to host other building projects in the future. “There’s 13.8 acres of land. There’s probably around 5 and a half acres of that swamp so we probably have around 7 and a half acres of good land…,” Carusillo responded. “Right now we’re just focusing on one building. We don’t know what the future is gonna bring us. We don't know if we’re gonna have to put an addition on the building for [the] future or more buildings. Who knows?” The property was voted to be purchased for $200,000 to house the eventual new storage facility for the town’s Public Works and Fire Departments.