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1 Selectmen's Meeting - 2 - January 16, 1979 Senator Rotondi hoped the state would turn to itself and talk about the way in which it operates its shop and runs its budget; about agencies and their growth, welfare fraud; that's part of the whole deal. The municipal association is going to have a special obligation this year to make sure they are monitoring the situation and getting input from every- body. Chairman Battin said that she is a member of the Governor's Local Advisory Committee and, at a recent meeting, he said that all monies cities and towns receive from new -development was going to be mandated to be applied to reduce the tax rate. We could not use it to pay for services, and this narrows the amounts we can work with. Mr. Hoffman, School Committee, stated that when you talk about cap- ping school expenditures, you are flying in the face of the concept of fiscal autonomy. Mrs. Battin added that there are two bills filed both by the Special Commission on State Mandated programs and the Local Government Caucus about full funding of .mandates. Board members expressed concern about the impact on Lexington and Mr. Crain said that the concept assumes everything has been done as it should in the past and the future is controllable. When we confront the horrendous situation on unfunded pensions, liabilities on the state level and the local level, solid waste, energy costs that are completely out of control, we are beginning to understand the implications of it. The philosophy and basic concept of capping just doesn't make sense. Mr. Hutchinson agreed and hope that some freedom is given to those at the local level to decide how much they want to spend, and capping is not the answer. Depending upon the way legislation is written, there could be an:effect'<of approximately $1 million on the FY 80 budget. The sanitary landfill was discussed and Mr. Hutchinson said there will be a broad article' in the warrant enabling the Selectmen to commit the tonnage, and Northeast seems to be the one. This seems to be the only longterm viable solution and we are planning to be out of the landfill fusiness in the next couple of years or a little longer. Eventually, it would seem that resource recovery is the way to go and the private sector is geared to handle this. Mr. Busa felt that some of the landfills could be extended and this could mean a substantial savings for some of the municipalities. Maybe some of the leachate could be filtered or cleaned up. Chairman Battin said that there other bills were important to the Municipal Associations, (1) Review and comment on human services projects: if a project is going to come into a local community, the chief executive would be notified and there would be the opportunity, if desired, to re- view and comment on it. (2) The sick pay buy-back has been filed, and that is something they feel strongly about. Mr. Hutchinson said there has been a legal ruling that sick pay - and I believe it relates to the school system - can now be computed as part of your retirement level. It does have an effect on retirement benefits, so there is a long-term cost as well. Mrs. Battin said the bill would correct that. (3) Binding and compulsory arbitration. This bill would be coming before Senator Rotondi. Yz3