This meeting of the Bourne Finance Committee, held on February 9, 2026, covered a range of topics including proposed fee increases, capital requests for dredging, fire department equipment, and sewer infrastructure, as well as budget updates revealing significant potential shortfalls. The committee also discussed proposed zoning articles and debated the appropriate role of the finance committee at town meeting. No formal votes were taken on the presented items, but the committee agreed to reschedule a March meeting due to lack of quorum.
Okay. Excuse me, being seven o'clock, we'll call the finance committee meeting to order. If anyone in the audience is recording or video taping, they need to acknowledge such this time. Use of flash photography during finance committee meetings is prohibited. If anyone from the public wishes to access the meeting, they could do so by call in the following conference line. 1929, 2056. Zoom meeting ID 859-5106 4466 password can come all capitals FIN C O M. The Zoom chat will not be monitored. Participants who wish to speak must raise the hand icon until the chair asks them to unmute all items with the meeting agenda subject to deliberation of votes. And first item is the next item is any absent members, which we have none. So is the town clerk here. Hi, um, I'm going to be presenting on behalf of the town clerk. Um he doesn't feel comfortable doing uh the presentation over Zoom, if that's okay with the committee. Yes. So you don't have many items, and do you know the plate in the agenda? Yes. Okay. Um would anyone object to hearing item five next? No objection. No meeting. Thank you. Okay, you can go ahead. Um so at a meeting uh with department heads, the budget was discussed. Um and at the Marlene suggested that we look at fees. Um I immediately went back to the office and took a look at the two main fees that come into the town club's office. Uh the first being dog licensing, because January is the month that we expect everybody to come in and license their dogs. Um the only information I could find was that the um the last time it came up was in 2005, was when they added a late fee. But that fee, the the main fee for dog licensing hasn't in hasn't been increased since before that time. I couldn't actually find the date that it was set. So we're talking 20 plus years ago was when the fees were were last looked at. Um and so I I just looked at where I spoke with Hannah from the DNR and conferred with her about it, and we felt it was reasonable to increase the fees um first paid and muted dogs up to ten dollars, and um for intact dogs um for it to be fifteen dollars. Um we are not gonna increase the late fees. We are not planning to increase the um uh the violation fees, all of that would come through DNR. Um this is just increasing that initial um fee from seven dollars to ten or from ten dollars to fifteen. Okay, thank you. Any discussion on dog license fees? Okay, next vital records fees. So the second thing was to look at record fees. Again, I looked at when they were last increased um at the last date that we had was uh from 2011. At that time, they were increased to ten dollars per copy. Um I also regularly the Mass Town Clarks Association um reaches out and surveys other town clerks to find out how much they're charging in their towns. People do it so that they can keep on top of fees, so we don't not see a huge variance between the towns. Um and it seemed reasonable between Barry and I for us to increase again from ten to fifteen dollars for a basic certificate or birth certificate, a marriage certificate, or a death certificate, and then also without it's sort of an increase, but it's not when people come in to get married, they have to file an attention when they do that. Oftentimes they have an expectation that they're going to get a copy of the marriage certificate as part of that. That isn't how it happens now, so they have to come back and request a copy of the certificate. What I'm what we're proposing is that um when people come in and pay for that marriage attention, they pay for the first marriage certificate as well. So that one would be increasing from 25 dollars, which is as it can't up to 40 dollars, but of course it will increase it will include that certificate, which would have cost them 15 dollars either way. Thank you. Any discussion or questions on vital records fees? So yeah, just a quick question.