Finance Committee Meeting 9/20/2012

I attended the Finance Committee on 9/20/2012 and here's what I saw.

Radios for Maint dept.  Their current radios become obselete in Jan 2013, so this request makes sense.  Further, new ones are mobile vs vehicle mounted, so we can expect better response times in case of emergency.  I support new radios for the Maint dpt.  I would like us to revisit cell phones and the standards in which we deploy them.  I think we should factor in these new radios as we analyze cell usage and need.

Land Line telephone contract with Cincinnati Bell.  While I support 60 month contracts to maximize savings, the group converged on 36 months which is still a nice savings.  The group felt like flexibility in changing suppliers on month 37 was desirable if necessary.  While I'd rather save more, I'm ok with this.  I would like to see Joe S's reco to revisit phone hardware (and maybe cell service too) in 2013 or 2014.

Utility Aggregation.  The group continues to support Opt In (less discount, more autonomy to the resident) vs Opt Out.  Again, I would rather save more, but this should result in substantial energy savings for the Village and those who choose to take advantage.  We're reaching out to Anderson, Terrace Park and Newtown to see if further scale/bundling might be possible.  More work needs to be done on Aggregation before a Council reco.

Cortney