REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE
SEPTEMBER 7, 2016
A meeting of the Finance Committee was held on Wednesday, September 7, 2016, at 7:00 p.m. in the
Aldermanic Chamber.
Mayor Jim Donchess, Chair, presided.
Members of the Committee present: Alderman-at-Large Lori Wilshire
Alderman-at-Large Michael B. O’Brien
Alderman Benjamin M. Clemons
Alderman Ken Siegel
Members not in Attendance: Alderman-at-Large Mark S. Cookson, Vice Chair
Alderman June M. Caron
Also in Attendance: Alderman-at-Large David W. Deane
Mr. John L. Griffin, CFO
Mr. David G. Fredette, Treasurer/Tax Collector
Mr. Dan Kooken, Purchasing Manager
Mr. Derek Danielson, Sr. Financial Analyst & Operations Analyst
PUBLIC COMMENT - None
COMMUNICATIONS
From: John Griffin, Chief Financial Officer/Comptroller
Re: Pre-Approval to Enter into Contracts with 3“ Party Suppliers for Natural Gas & Electricity
Supplies
MOTION BY ALDERMAN SIEGEL TO ACCEPT, PLACE ON FILE AND PRE-APPROVE THE CITY TO
COMPETITIVELY SOLICIT AND ENTER INTO THREE AGREEMENTS FOR NATURAL GAS AND
ELECTRICITY
ON THE QUESTION
Mr. John Griffin, CFO
As you may know Mr. Chair, for the last several years; about six to seven years we have been procuring the
supply of natural gas and electricity from third party suppliers with the objective of beating the default rate from
Eversource and now Liberty Utilities. Mr. Danielson has taken the laboring more since he began reporting to
me in in working with the broker’s and third party suppliers to secure favorable pricing. We have also most
recently tried to work with the school department to get additional buying power and that has worked
effectively. At this time they are interested in the results of this particular request. They are looking for price
certainty, maybe on a three year time horizon as well as the budget certainty. We are looking for maybe a little
bit of different things because we have the two dams that may provide some value from a net (inaudible.) We
are still working through those numbers but Mr. Danielson can talk about the magnitude of the savings and the
reason why we are asking for pre-approval.
Mr. Derek Danielson, Sr. Financial Analyst & Operations Analyst
The magnitude of the savings is for the electricity side of things in the general fund we’ve saved $500,000
we’ve saved since fiscal 2008 and at the same time we’ve been able to keep the budget stable and not have to
deal with price fluctuations as utilities go in for rate cases and increase or decrease their cost of service that
we may not have budgeted for because we can’t predict the future. On the natural gas side we have saved
