Budget committee adopts procedural changes, accepts resignation and opens vacancy
Summary
The committee voted to add language requiring the chair to ensure new members receive policies, to require SAU-assigned email addresses for committee correspondence, to clarify liaison contact language, to adopt a vacancy-filling procedure and to accept a resignation from Mackenzie Murphy; the committee set a tentative interview date of July 29 at 6 p.m.
During a multi-item policies-and-procedures review, the committee approved several administrative changes intended to improve transparency and records management and accepted a member's resignation.
After discussion about an earlier motion to provide policies to new members, the committee agreed to add a responsibility for the chair to ensure new members receive the committee's policies and procedures prior to their first meeting (motion and second, SEG 1956-1960). Members then considered a motion that all committee correspondence be conducted using SAU-assigned email addresses to facilitate archiving and right-to-know compliance; the motion was seconded and approved by show of hands (SEG 1994-2032). Members discussed how IT would provision addresses and noted a potential name-collision issue with student accounts.
The committee debated a social-media policy and minutes-posting timing and then took up a motion to change the standard meeting start time for public meetings from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. (for the October-February schedule). The motion passed with the understanding that the chair and staff would confirm room and Merrimack TV availability (SEG 2364-2376, SEG 2429-2431).
A member proposed a small wording change to the liaison-team section (moving the word "only" to the front of a phrase to clarify that only liaison team leads contact department heads). That motion was seconded and approved (SEG 2455-2490).
On vacancies, the committee voted to add instructions to policies and procedures about filling vacancies, favoring a process of advertising a vacancy, accepting letters of interest, interviewing candidates and appointing a replacement; members discussed alternative approaches such as appointing the next-highest vote-getter under certain time windows (SEG 2579-2581, SEG 2869-2879). The committee accepted Mackenzie Murphy's resignation unanimously and agreed to advertise the vacancy and tentatively hold interviews at a July 29 meeting at 6 p.m. (SEG 2666-2678, SEG 3009-3079).
What happens next: The clerk (Pat) will post the vacancy and IT will provision SAU email accounts for new members; the committee scheduled follow-up discussions and candidate interviews at a future meeting.
