Executive Board members present: Patricia Tucker, CTC, President, presiding; First Vice President Cynthia Torsey, CTC; Treasurer Joyce McGee, CTC; Secretary Brenda LaPointe, CTC; Legislative Committee Chairman Jill Hadaway, CTC; Public Relations Director and Certification Committee Chairman Kathy Seaver, CTC; Education Committee Chairman Cheryl-Ann Bolouk, CTC; Workshop Coordinator Joseph Wiggett, CTC; and Director At Large, Joan Porter, CTC.

Members Absent:  Second Vice President Rhoda Quint, CTC; Convention Coordinator Desiree Mahurin, CTC.

Guests:  George West, Honorary member.

President Patricia Tucker called the meeting to order at 9:35 a.m.

Approval of Minutes
Minutes from the previous Executive Board meeting were the first agenda item to be reviewed.  No corrections to the draft were made.  Joan Porter made a motion to accept the minutes of the February 14, 2008 meeting as presented.  Cynthia Torsey 2nd the motion and it passed by unanimous voice vote.

Corrrespondence 
First things first, Happy Birthday to Kathy (Seaver)!

1.  Pat received an e-mail from Carol Donavan stating Theresa Upton (Nelson) would be replacing Jane Wright as Coordinator in Cheshire County.

2.  Both Kathy and Pat received word about the passing of Madelynn Faist’s (Barrington) twin sister.  A card will be sent from the Association acknowledging her loss.

3.  Brenda and Joyce noted receiving a thank you note from Kelli Skehan (Ossipee) for the donation made to the Veteran’s Memorial Moving Wall in memory of her husband.

4.  A Message from George was passed around for all to read.  He thanked everyone for the numerous cards and messages of encouragement and gave an update on his condition (A copy of this note is attached.)

Pat said she also received an e-mail from Cheryl saying that she would have to leave early today.  This remark thus prompted the transition into the report portion of the agenda.

Reports

Education Committee Report
Cheryl reported the Spring Workshops are all set.  At their last meeting the Education Committee set up all of the various speaking assignments for each workshop.  The only place where they have fallen short is in Concord where the only one scheduled to assist with the lien presentation is Kathy.  Kathy suggested asking Pam Seaver as she has done it with her in the past.  Presenters for Cash Controls will be Barbara Reid (in all locations) with Ruth in Concord and Hampton; and Rhoda in Littleton.  Cheryl said that some of the people on the committee are not comfortable with speaking so they will have an outline of what to say to go along with the slides.  Barbara Reid has prepared a Power Point presentation prepared for her part of the program, but will be unable to use it in Marlborough because the facility is unable to accommodate the set up.

Moving on  to the fall convention, Cheryl handed out a tentative agenda (attached).   She noted only a few changes to the program – Thursday morning has the vendor introductions first with a vendor break mid-morning.  User groups will be Thursday afternoon.  The title/theme for the session is “A Day in the Life of a Tax Collector”.  Friday morning will have a legislative update along with some other subject, not confirmed yet but expected to be either credit card issues or the technical aspects of foreclosure.  (The mention of the words “credit cards” led to a lengthy discussion on various vendors and other untraditional payment methods.) 

Cheryl denoted only a couple of loose ends left to tie up; one of them being Gerri King’s contract.  She asked about Bernie Campbell and his wife – is it okay to invite them for Wednesday and Thursday again this year?  The answer was, “Yes”.

The only other item Cheryl had to discuss was the sample RFP for Mortgagee Search that was put up on the website.  She received a number of e-mails and calls after the information was made public.  People seem to be confused about the intent of the sample so she thinks some clarification might be necessary.  Jill agreed and said she also received some e-mails concerning the sample.  People seem to think this is something new that is required.   Jill told people that the RFP is only if you are going out to bid and it can be modified to meet each town’s needs.  Kathy concurred and said that the RSA’s are quite clear about who needs to be notified but the sample RFP goes above and beyond the statutes.  When all was said and done Cheryl was charged with drafting a statement helping to clarify the RFP sample.  The statement will be forwarded to Brenda for distribution and posting on the website.

A surprise guest briefly interrupted the flow of the meeting.  George West slowly made his way into the meeting room and was greeted with a heartfelt round of applause.  Once seated he said he was “getting along pretty well but not up to full speed yet.”  Besides being bored at home he made the journey out just to see Joe and make sure everything is straight with the Concord workshop. 

Treasurer’s Report
Joyce handed out the latest copy of the Treasurer’s Report and said the most activity this last period has come from money for the upcoming workshops.  Not a lot of revenue yet but things will begin to pick up during the next couple of weeks.  She noted a couple of vouchers that need to be signed, including one from LGC for one of the workshops.  Joe confirmed that the LGC invoice is the deposit for the Hampton workshop.  Other account activity includes income of $2,000.00 transferred from the PDIP account into checking.  All things considered the finances are still in pretty good shape.

A couple of people recently called Joyce with questions regarding the tax lien procedure asking if there has been any change to the fee schedule.  The listing on the website is from last year and needs to be updated.  Kathy said the problem with the one on the website is that it is a condensed version and not quite as clear as the one that is handed out.    

Another question Joyce recently fielded is relative to purging old lien records.  There is a lot of confusion about how much of the old information to retain.  For example, once the taxes have been paid does a copy of the notice and certified receipts still need to be kept on file and if so, for how long.   Jill said the problem is that the committee’s intent was to retain the information for the properties permanently only if they are deeded.  This somehow translated in the rules to all notices and pertinent information has to be kept permanently.  When the committee meets again this is something she plans to bring up and hopefully clarify.  In the meantime, the question remains, “What can legitimately be eliminated.”  Pat said that some clearer explanation or at the very least recommendations need to be offered to help people out.  Kathy gave an example of how she keeps the information intact by retaining the certified slips and a copy of the notice in a separate notebook for easy reference.   With this type of set up she plans on keeping the certified slips forever – a choice she made consciously when originally setting up the files in this manner.   Jill advised keeping everything that goes with parcels that are deeded.  Other people offered suggestions about how they keep their records.  Pat asked Cheryl to include a recommendation list with the materials for the Spring Workshops.  This subject matter will tie in nicely with the scheduled lien presentation and might help to answer many of the recent questions.

Finally, Joyce was happy to report that Kathy recently spoke to Maurice and found out the old Treasurer’s records (with the missing tax identification number) are in the storage unit.  After the weather breaks and the unit is again accessible the information will be retrieved.

Certification Committee Report
Kathy reported all is going well with Certification.  The only bump in the road is that there is a new contact person at the Hampton Inn which could mean some of the old issues will have to be resolved again.  The committee is scheduled to meet this afternoon and will be working on finalizing more details.

On another subject, for the New Collectors Workshop Kathy is working on revising the MS-61 presentation that was originally done by Plodzik personnel at the convention several years ago.  The printed version will have examples and go through a years worth of figures; everything from warrants to liens and deeds.  She is sending a copy of the draft to several people for input and to make sure everything is up to par.  Kathy hopes to be able to have the printout presented in a bound booklet.  Right now the aim is to be able to have a reference manual for new collectors.  In the future the material can be adapted for use at a workshop or convention session.  Joe asked if the material was available on a disk.  Kathy said it can be put on disk; in fact not a bad idea to make the material easily accessible.   Kathy asked permission to have the booklet bound.  Everyone was enthusiastically in favor of the project and granted permission for her to present the materials in whatever manner she deems suitable.

Legislative
Jill was pleased to report that most of the bills the Association has been concerned about were voted ITL; including veteran’s bills.

SB 457 - relative to granting a credit to all veterans honorably discharged, is still in committee.   The Association’s bill asking for changes to RSA 80 has passed the House.  The cross over date to continue to go forward with this piece of legislation is March 20th; Jill expects the bill to go through in tact.

There is still one bill (HB 1283- relative to temporary deferral of property taxes based on income) that is being watched closely.  The House has decided to send this one to interim study so it could just sit there and never come out or it could come out in another form.  Jill’s impression is that this one was chosen as a “token” to see if it could be resurrected in some constructive manner.  Long term it would not be in the best interest of the towns especially since it seemed to be one of the most confusing deferral programs.

HB 1307 – making technical corrections to town audit and reporting requirements stands to make a law out of ½ % that we are required to be within on our warrants.  Jill testified in favor of this bill along with Barbara Robinson.  Most likely it will pass with no further changes.  When this bill does go through the Association will have to stress to members the importance of the change and remind them to make sure warrants fall within the required percentage before bills are sent.  The law will be specific and say that tax bills can not be sent out if not within the set guidelines.

HB 1442 – relative to the taxation of farm buildings and land under farm buildings, is a bill to be concerned about.  The process appears to be similar to land use change tax but when you take a closer look at the bill it reads more like the old tax sale procedure.  The bill was voted OTP so Jill contacted Betsy Patten to make her aware of the concerns.  While awaiting response from Betsy Jill got in touch with Judy Silva at LGC just to make sure the concerns were warranted.  Judy agreed.  Since it is now too late to change the bill in the House it will need to be tackled at the Senate level.  Jill is hoping to convince Betsy to come forward and support the change so that it will have a chance at passing.

HB 1486 – enabling municipalities to establish term limits for elected officials was voted ITL.

SB 508 – allowing Treasurers to make deposits weekly, has been laid on the table and mostly likely won’t be acted upon.  It should have been voted ITL, but this is probably the next best thing.  Although this bill could have helped a few of the smaller towns there are others that it could have really hurt.  Barbara Reid has talked to Jill about this particular bill and expressed real reservations because there is a possibility that it could be misconstrued to mean that deposits can only be made weekly – not exactly the original intent. 

George asked Jill if the new Municipal and County Committee has been supportive of the Association.  Jill replied that the committee has been very good about listening to our point of view.  She attributed the good working relationship to the Chairman of the committee as well as the members.  George was pleased to hear all is going well and attributed the success to the respect that our organization has garnered over the years.  

Pat asked Jill if she was mentoring anyone to step up and take her place for whenever she decides she has had enough.  Jill said she still has a couple of years to go yet but will be looking to bring someone else in when the time comes.  There are a lot of good people on the legislative committee right now who are willing to lend support.  The biggest hurtle is to find people who are willing to testify.  Being in close proximity to the State House is a must but also having the backing of ones community is also important.

Workshop Coordinator
Joe reported that everything is all set to go as far as the facilities for the Workshops.  There are still a few audio-visual hurdles to overcome but other than that things are all set.   He suggested giving a bigger donation to the places where the costs are less because of the wide variation in prices.  This idea had first been broached at the last meeting and was generally considered to be okay.

Joe Wiggett made a motion to make a donation of $200.00 to both the Marlborough and Littleton workshop locations.  Joyce McGee seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous voice vote.

Jill will be picking up the packets at LGC for the Marlborough workshop.  Pat was given two checks for payments due in Marlborough.

Convention Coordinator’s Report
Desiree was not in attendance so the Convention Coordinator’s Report will be postponed until the May meeting.

Historic Committee
George West referred to the letter he addressed to the Association and gave a brief update on Helen’s recent progress.  They both have been totally overwhelmed and touched by the number of cards and letters received.  A warm thank you was extended to all.

He asked how things went at everyone’s town meetings.  No big changes were reported.  As a general observation he offered that it seems to be things are becoming more difficult.    The same goes for accounting firms.  With the new criteria for audits municipalities can expect the average cost to go up.  Many companies have even had to drop some clients due to time constraints.  He feels that the process is strangling the overall efficiency and will most likely have some dire consequences in the end.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 a.m.

Next meeting – Thursday, May 8th,   9:30 a.m. at Plodzik and Sanderson offices.

Respectfully submitted,

Brenda L. LaPointe, CTC
NHTCA Secretary

New Hampshire Tax Collectors' Association

TREASURER'S REPORT