By Theron Larkins
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — The Northern Maine Development Commission held their regular executive board of directors meeting on Aug. 14 in the NMDC board room.
The meeting began with Executive Director Robert Clark addressing some old business regarding the appointment of Larry Duchette of Turner to the Commission’s executive board, which was mistakenly left off the ballot at the annual executive board meeting taking place on June 26.
“Larry was supposed to be on the ballot at the annual meeting, but he was left off that ballot for some reason,” said Clark. “He was going to be elected to a one-year term, ending in June of 2015. What we want to do in the interim is have the board make the appointment of Mr. Duchette to a one-year term on the executive board.”
The board made a motion to approve the appointment of Duchette which was passed unanimously.
The next item on the agenda was the acceptance of the agency-wide revenue and expenditure statement for the period ending June 30, 2014, as well as the report of the Finance/Audit Committee, which was intended to have met prior to the executive board meeting to discuss the employee compensation for the 2014-15 fiscal year. NMDC director of operations Ruby Bradbury stated that the Committee has received compensation adjustments for the prior five years and met prior to the board meeting to make a recommendation for compensation adjustments for the current fiscal year, however that section of the agenda item had to be postponed to a later date because the Committee has not yet been able to meet.
Bradbury began her report by apologizing for not having the financial report for July, but the report was just finished earlier that morning, and could not be ready for the 3 p.m. meeting. The report Bradbury did present to the board was for the month of June, which was also the last month of the previous fiscal year.
“As far as I know, there were no adjustments made by the auditor,” said Bradbury. “It’s been a nice clean audit so far.”
Bradbury explained there were also very few changes to the agency-wide revenue and expenditure report. While going over the expenditures, Bradbury explained in the report that in the federal grants category, NMDC had the EDA investing in the Manufacturing Communities Partnership as well as the USDA IMCP grant that started on Oct. 1. Regarding state grants, NMDC was not awarded the TIT grant for $50,000 the Commission had previously applied for.
“As far as municipal dues are concerned, I’m happy to report that Danforth and Nashville Plantation have paid the dues in full,” said Bradbury. “We also reclassified the Rest Area Maintenance Project income of $46,560 from state grants to contract services.”
“We have budgeted $87,658 under the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program. Companies are reluctant to contract for services with the current state of the economy,” said Bradbury. “Since the budget amendment we are now handling loans for Madawaska and the Washington/Hancock Community Agency Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP). Thus, we are earning more in fees than anticipated.”
In the other income category, Bradbury explained that NMDC has unanticipated income for the Area 2 Tiger Grant for $10,366 and the Household Hazardous Waste Collection grant of $2,852.
“We received $110,000, which will be a pass through. This was a fine assessed by Maine Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) and will be paid to the town of Washburn for their damn project,” said Bradbury. “We had anticipated the Rural Business Opportunity Grant (RBOG) Business Entrepreneur Pilot Program to have been granted a no-cost extension. Instead, it was unencumbered and $20,561 in expenses had to come from unrestricted funds.”
“As you can see, Aroostook Partnership for Progress (APP) income is slightly above the benchmark,” said Bradbury. “This is the time of year we start seeing investors renew their membership in APP. The negative income for this month is due to checks coming in and being posted to cash and not against the receivables. This was due to checks coming from different company names then who we had invoiced.”
The total revenues for the period ending June, 30 are $7,383,401 representing 89.9 percent or 10.1 percentage points below NMDC’s benchmark.
“As far as expenditures, I had previously indicated that I did not think salaries fringe would be going over budget, but NMDC has to make every attempt possible to try and keep staff on, while seeking other means of funding, and unfortunately we couldn’t do this without going over the projected budget,” said Bradbury.
Total expenses for the period ending June 30 were $7,175,964 or 92.3 percent of NMDC’s budgeted expenses or 7.7 percentage points below their benchmark.
“This gives us and Agency Balance of $207,437,” said Bradbury. “However, $292,563 of our fund balance has been used to make up the $500,000 that is dedicated to the World Acadian Congress.”
There were also a number of new appointments to be announced at the meeting. First, it was announced that Gary Marquis the new superintendent of the Caribou Recreation Department, who recently replaced longtime supt. Kathy Mazzuchelli, will also take her place on the Aroostook County Tourism (ACT) board. The recommendation was made by the ACT board, and was approved unanimously. Marquis was also unanimously voted to replace Mazzuchelli on the Community Guided Planning and Zoning Steering Committee.
Lastly, Angela Oechslie was appointed as the new Workforce Coordinator at NMDC, which is a new position created as part of the Economic and Workforce Development Department. Executive Director Clark explained that Oechslie’s job will now cover the five-county area of Aroostook, Washington, Hancock, Penobscot and Piscataquis counties, and represents two local workforce areas, the Aroostook Washington Workforce Investment Area and the Tri-County Workforce Investment Area.
“Under the direction of the executive director, the workforce coordinator position will assist the executive director by providing professional support, coordination and administrative services for program development, budgeting, contract development, monitoring and assessment of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) programs,” said Clark. “The workforce coordinator will assist the executive director by providing support for annual monitoring visits, coordinating events, building and maintaining the websites for two LWIBs, formally documenting meeting minutes and assist in all matters related to partnership development.”
“Work will also include providing input into recommendations for the Tri-County Workforce Investment Board (TCWIB) and the Aroostook Washington Workforce Investment Board (AWWIB) in areas such as service strategy, design and operation, memoranda of understanding, evaluation and monitoring and other duties needed as related to the workforce development needs of both workforce areas. The position is permanent and full-time,” said Clark.
