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The Westport Housing Authority met to review and approve its state-mandated Annual Plan, receive the management agent's operational report, and examine year-end financial forms for the fiscal year ending June 30. The management agent outlined the background of the Annual Plan, which incorporated feedback from a July 15 public hearing regarding board terms and property maintenance, before the board voted unanimously to adopt the plan. The board received an update on operations and staffing, including the introduction of Roxanne Gunter as the new part-time administrative assistant through Alpha temporary services following Chrysanne's retirement, which allows the office to restore Monday through Thursday operating hours (9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.). The authority reported 100% occupancy across its 48 units and announced plans to mail out a 25-question resident satisfaction survey to evaluate maintenance responsiveness and tenant satisfaction. The management agent also explained how the state's centralized CHAMP system governs tenant selection and prevents placement favoritism. Finally, the board reviewed the year-end financial and reporting filings. Maintenance mechanic David was reported as the authority's sole direct employee on the Top Five Compensation form. The Tenant Accounts Receivable report showed $303,540 in total rent billed with $10,461 in uncollected receivables. The financial report reflected a strong year with reserves at 73%, operating income of $356,579 against $316,196 in expenses, resulting in an operating surplus of roughly $40,000 and an ending operating reserve of $125,765. Board members signed the required filings, set their next meeting for September 16 at 10:00 a.m., and adjourned.
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to a budget to the capital plan and so forth. And we we have to give the we have to give opportunities to residents to comment or anybody from the public to comment as well. Uh any board members have have any questions they you know they can ask. So it basically is a review of what the housing authority has already done and it's kind of a plan for the future kind of a lot of it is
0:29boilerplate. So every year it kind of rolls over into the new plan. Uh the only thing that changes each year are the budget and the capital plan. Um so in the in the case of the Westport annual plan um it was a little different this year because normally this is considered in the month of April. Uh uh EOHLC the executive office of housing was was updating their their software this this spring. So they were not ready
1:03to have this at that time. So, housing authorities with a June 30th year end, which West Court is, uh, were given an extension to to submit by July 31st. Um, there's a little bit of, you know, disagreement on that because it's very difficult in the summertime particularly to get forums of board members together for whatever reason, vacations or whatever. But um so we we did have we did have the public hearing
1:37back on July 15th. There were some comments that I'm going to be incorporating into the plan. A couple of board members were here. Pauline was here. Liz was here. A couple of comments that I will be including in the commentary piece when this gets uploaded. Um so so the next step in the process really is to the chairman could through the chair. Could you could you could the uh administrator just uh sort
2:04of highlight the comments? What what what the feedback was?
2:08Well, I I can I can turn it over to Pauline on that. She she had a little um the she had comments about the board terms were not uh were not updated. Uh and that's because at the time um we hadn't gone into we had not gone into cap to update it. Since then they've been updated. Uh Pauline also mentioned some some maintenance issues around the property that need to be addressed. Some
2:36of those can be addressed through the capital plan. Others can be addressed simply through normal expenditures of either operating income or reserves. Um, so I I I think that the um that that the issues that were raised by Pauline have been addressed or will be addressed as part of this plan or will be addressed um uh separately as part of uh just just normal maintenance.
3:09Um and again there's a lot of if you look at this annual plan it's a it's a lot of paper unfortunately. Um but I mean it's a very um you know it's a very comprehensive plan. All housing authorities are expected to submit one.
3:26Um but it outlines our our maintenance plans, our you know preventative maintenance plan. Um our our capital plan, what our budget is presently even though we're already in for the next fiscal year. Um, and this was this whole thing was promulgated. I think I may have explained this last year. Um, there was a move of foot by uh by Governor Patrick when he was in office to regionalize all the housing authorities
3:58in the state.
4:00There was a lot of push back on that at the time from local boards who wanted to maintain control of their agencies. Um so due to the push back on it, he backed off on the regionalization concept, but um he didn't just back off. He wanted something in return. So what housing authorities need needed to do, what they agreed to do was have all agencies perform an annual plan that is that is
4:28subject to public review and that's available on the uh the executive office of housing website. So, as an example, if you're, you know, whatever, if you're not doing anything on a Saturday, if it's raining out or something and you want to go on the Executive Office of Housing website, you can pull up all the annual plans for all 243 agencies in the state and read about any one of them if
4:56you wish. So, um, so just in the in the, uh, you know, the overall chronology, um, this had to be sent over to town hall for posting, which it was back in May. The board had to get a copy of it, which they did back in May. We had the public hearing in July. Uh, we we would have approved it last month, but we had a little bit of a of a meeting kic last
5:25month. So I informed the executive office of housing that uh this was this was going to be late. They said they understood. So we just have to attach a note that due to the lack of a quorum uh the plan was not able to have been submitted by July 31st. We so we got the extension. Uh so it'll it'll be duly noted. Um but you know we we did spend
5:49some time on this with both the capital people and the and the tech people and uh we're very confident that you know it's a good plan once again and I would just ask that it be adopted.
6:02Is there anything other than that we should be known any changes?
6:07No.
6:08No. I think it's pretty much think it's fairly straightforward. And again, if you if anybody and and I say this all the time to residents and to the board, if you you know, if you know, if you pull this out and you read it and you have a question about some verbiage or about something that's in the plan, you can always contact me and I'll be happy to spend as much time with you as
6:31you want answering whatever question you have.
6:33Okay.
6:34All right.
6:36Is there any further questions?
6:38I'm sorry.
6:39Any questions?
6:40No question.
6:43All right. Is there a motion to approve?
6:46So moved.
6:47Second.
6:48All in favor?
6:50I hear none. It's approved. Hearing nothing.
6:55Thank you. Okay. All right. I'm going just address the camera for a minute. Um just to let everybody know we are on on on video camera for the meeting. Okay.
7:08Thank you very much. All right. Moving on. Okay. Uh just to give you a brief management agent report on page 16 in your board packet is just uh is just five bullet points that I just wanted to cover quickly and then I'll move into the year end forms. Um, I just want to um uh say a warm welcome to uh Roxanne Gunter. Uh, she is our new part-time administrative assistant in our office.
7:36Okay.
7:37Um, if the if the residents remember, if the board remembers, Chrysanne did did retire officially again. So, um, she's no longer with us, but we were able to bring on Roxanne. Um she she is a a temporary employee uh through the alpha temporary service. Um it's our intention. She's off to I mean it's only been it's only been the first week. She started on Monday. Um and the good news
8:05was she came back on Tuesday. That's always good. So she wasn't scared off or anything. So uh um she's going to be working um Monday through Thursday. And that second bullet point on my report, the office hours modification, uh Chris Anne had requested uh before the wintertime started that she she cut back to only two days a week and Adelora would cover the third the uh third day. So we did a little bit of you
8:37know research on phone calls and work order requests and we did find out that we were able to close the office on Mondays.
8:46Now that Roxan is here though and there's no restriction, we're going to reopen the office on Mondays. So the office hours again will be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 9:30 to 1:30. So that's good news there. Um we have a full house. There's no vacancies. Uh which is great for, you know, rental revenue. Um nobody is uh uh nobody has given their intent to vacate. So, we
9:15don't have any 30-day notices. Uh, we do have one resident that is um apparently in a rehab facility. Uh, so we're we're monitoring that. We we're assuming he's coming back, but we don't we don't know officials. Um, I just wanted to um bring to your attention that that fourth bullet point, resident surveys being mailed out, there's a memo that I put in front of you which was not included in
9:45your board packet. Um, every every few years the executive office of housing does a does a resident survey to get input from residents on what they like about the housing authority, what they don't like about the housing authority, how responsive maintenance is, and so forth. Well, it's been a while since a survey has gone out. And I've also heard feedback from residents that uh they don't remember
10:14ever getting one ever.
10:16And some of them have been here for quite some time. So I was told that it was every 3 years they send one out, but a lot of long-term residents here don't remember getting it. So what we are going to do is we are going to send out the actual survey on our own to all. We're going to mail it out to them and it's going to be it's like a
10:40it's like a you know 25 question you know survey. uh you know, have you ever had a no heat call? Uh you know, if so, how long did it take to resolve? Um how do what's your opinion about, you know, maintenance? What's your opinion about the office staff? How responsive are people? How satisfied are you to live here? So, those surveys, um I have Sarah working on them at the Adelaro
11:08office. I believe they're going out in the mail the start of next week. So residents will have an opportunity to actually take the survey that the state sends out. And what we'll do is we'll, you know, we'll give it a we'll give it several weeks. We'll we'll get the responses in and then we're going to tabulate them very similar to the way the state does. And then I'm going to present those results to the board based
11:35upon I'll give you the actual survey results so you can see what residents are saying about the housing authority.
11:43So and we can talk about that. We can talk about what's what works and what doesn't work.
11:48I'm sorry. I know it's not comments but I'm not staying cuz I didn't think Val was in but she said so I'm going to leave. But is that going to be not going to the state? It's going to be coming back to you. It's It's not coming from the state. It's coming from from me from the Westport Housing Authority.
12:05And is it anonymous?
12:06Oh, yeah. Of course it is. Yeah.
12:08And it would be And it would be in the best interest as many surveys that you can get back, right?
12:14Because when typically when you do surveys, a lot of people don't don't fill them up.
12:19Right. Interestingly enough, we had the same issue up at the Sharon Housing Authority. People were saying, "I don't remember getting one." So, we did this.
12:27We the board instructed me, can you mail this survey out to people? So, we did.
12:33We actually got a it was a was like a 60% response rate, which is very which is very good.
12:40So, we were So, you know, it's this is 48 apartments.
12:44So, if we can if we can get 30 people to answer the survey, I think that that'll be be a good a good representation of what people think.
12:52Okay. So, I'm sorry. I got to interrupt. One more thing. Is the walkers crew local?
13:00Local. You don't have to tell me where she lives, but is she local?
13:03She lives in Swansea.
13:04Oh, good. So, she's close.
13:06Yep.
13:06You don't have to worry about her not making it in or anything.
13:09Yep. She's got a lot of administrative experience. I should have said this initially. She she uh she comes to us from the Naval War College. She works she worked at the Naval War College for a number of years. and she she was just looking to kind of you know unwind a little bit and um you know I don't so she's you know she's in a good position and it's our intention uh if she if she
13:33so if she so desires and if it works out with us we're going to bring her on it as you know on as a permanent employee once the the contract with the temp agency uh you know wants out.
13:46Thank you.
13:47So you're very welcome. Nice seeing you.
13:50Uh so that's that's really all for my uh my update there. I do the only other thing I had is the year end forms.
14:01Yeah, those are in front of you. Um I just want to go through this briefly. Um and it's it's the last bit of my report.
14:12Um, every year we have to have the board sign off on the year end results or the year end the year end form. So, um, you have a you have a form here that is the top five compensation form. Okay. Now, in some larger housing authorities where there's a lot lot of employees, you're going to see five five job classifications there with the salary that that the housing authority paid
14:41out. Here at Westport, there's only one full there's only one employee technically cuz our administrative team is an Adelaro staff. So, the only the only Westport housing maintenance uh employee is David.
14:57So his uh his job classification position and his salary are listed there. I'm required to divulge that to the board. That's a public he's a public employee. So his salary is is a public record. So that his salary that he was paid is listed there. Um the second um bit of information is the tenant accounts receivable form. That's this individual sheet that says it says tenant accounts receivable right on it.
15:29And the easiest way to read this is if you go down to the bottom um you will see you will see questions two and three. It says rent charged yearto date. So, in the last fiscal year, we charged we charged residents a total of $33,540 in rent. Of that $33,540, we did not collect $10,461 of that. So that so essentially what that means is the um that uh that 10,461 is monies that residents still owe us.
16:20Now um it might be that people move out, you know, owing us money. If that's the case, I'll have to look into that. And then at our next meeting or before the end of the of the calendar year, I will do what's what's called a write off.
16:38We'll make it we always make attempts to collect any monies that are owed to us.
16:44If you are an existing resident and you owe us money for either you're behind in your rent or maybe you paid half a month along the way, we will try to enter into a a repayment agreement that is that is palatable for you. We understand that, you know, money is tight and uh it's always our intention. If somebody owes rental, you know, monies, we always work with them to catch them up. It's never
17:13our intention. In fact, since I've been here, um since I've been here, we have evicted we have evicted two individuals, but it was not due to non-payment of rent. It was due to lease violations. So the residents here are very very good.
17:30They're very very good about paying their rent. They're very diligent. Uh like on the first of the month or no later than the than the fourth of the month when the social security comes in, the rent is always is always in the box.
17:45We never have an issue usually with uh with folks paying rent.
17:49Some of this goes back a number of months.
17:52So we're just catching up, but we are on top of that. And really when you think about, you know, a a total rent charge of 303,000 and change to have, you know, to have a small balance of 10,000, that's that's fairly good. So, we're we're on top of that. And then the last year end report is the the report that you are all familiar with. It's the uh it's the financial report. Yeah.
18:21All right. And this is as of June 30th.
18:24Yeah. So this is the this is it. This is how we ended the year. So um I mean I can't say enough positive things. Our reserves are at 73%. Very very strong.
18:37Y um our rents came in um uh you know you know over budget. Our admin expenses were low. um our maintenance even even with the with the snowstorms our our our maintenance came in very good. Um if you if you if you recall um some of that is due to the fact that uh we had we had our maintenance person that was out for a number of weeks on a on a workers's comp
19:06matter. But um so that that was paid by workers comp, not not by the housing authority.
19:13Uh so our maintenance expenses were uh 5% uh uh 4% below budget. Um utilities were a little high. Not not really uh surprising there. Um but we you know we can monitor that. Um, but if you go to the last page of the financial report, you'll see you'll see something called the um beginning operating reserve.
19:44Mhm.
19:45So, our operating reserve, which was essentially money in the bank at the start of the fiscal year, totaled 85,382.
19:55Uh we had we had operating income for the whole year of 356,579.
20:05We had operating expenses of $316,196 which leaves which means that for a you know budgetary explanation um we had about a $40,000 profit for the year for 40 thou we we you know we came out $40,000 ahead. So you can see that our new operating reserve heading into the new fiscal year is 125,765.
20:41That's essentially money that we have in the bank. So was a good year. Um and I have no reason to expect that the year that we are in right now, the current fiscal year that began July 1st is going to be any different.
20:57Then let's spend some money.
20:59Huh?
20:59Then let's spend some money.
21:00I agree. we have that flexibility now that we can do that and uh Pauline's been very good about identifying certain things um you know around the property that that need that need addressing.
21:13Paul, can can you can you reconcile the the $125,000 figure with the with the third uh set of numbers that that seems to say current oper current operating reserve has that has has gone an additional 19,000 negative that is that is something called OPED and that is that is that is money off the books.
21:41I got it. I got it. Thanks. And it's kind of tough to explain, but I got it.
21:46Yeah. It doesn't have anything to do with operation to it that way. But it has to be accounted for, right?
21:52My my question that I'm just curious more than anything when you list your employees and you got we just got the maintenance mechanic.
22:05Is there a state law that requires their rate of pay rate of pay.
22:16We we are obligated to disclose what the top five compensated people of the housing authorities are. This is something new.
22:27If you remember, I want to say I'm going back about 17 or 18 years. Liz, you might remember this. There was a there was a situation at um at a housing authority in the greater Boston area, Chelsea.
22:43Well, I wasn't going to say it, but yeah. um where the uh there was a lot of shenanigans going on where the executive director was um he was identifying himself at he was the executive director but he was also the the IT director and he was the property he was the director of property management and he was claiming all these salaries for himself. So he made like he made like $600,000 in a year which was
23:16basically not the way any of this is intended. So there was a lot he was arrested and he went he went to prison and the whole the whole board was removed by the state because they weren't doing their their proper oversight. So as a result of that, housing authorities every year are required to to divulge who these indiv you know, well, I'm I'm not I you know, I'm not required to to
23:43tell you who that is, but we all know who it is. as one person but we we are required to divulge the names and the salaries of our top five highest paid employees and that doesn't include the the vict the the people with adore you and and the other people well it doesn't include it well when I submit the borrow information it will it'll it'll have my information there and Christine's but for Westport all
24:11they want to know is for the individuals that work for the Westport Housing Authority who are the top five highly compensated individuals. We only have one employee, so that's the employee that's on the list.
24:25Okay.
24:26Yeah. Thank you.
24:28So, um, so all I would need is I have a couple of signatures here, um, just to go around. I need Tim to sign where it says chair and then I just need the other folks to sign two forms. Liz, I just had a question. Sure.
24:46When you're talking about getting rents, rentals, you say you've been very good. Your tenants have been good. Everything's coming in. Do you not on your time but um a few years ago um there were people in an apartment that should not have been there.
25:17They were there because of a um a relative.
25:23Okay.
25:25Have you ever come into that situation?
25:30Uh I I can't say that it never it never has occurred before. The good news is with with the CHAMP system as it now is has been rolled out. It's virtually impossible to do that now because everything is centralized. If we have if somebody moves out of here and we have a vacant, okay, we we go into our system into our main system and we pull a list and the list might have 25 people on it.
26:01So and and the list can be any number of people we want. We can pull a list of 50. We can pull 100 people for that for that matter. But what we have to do is we have to take them in the order in which they applied.
26:14Okay? If somebody lives, you know, if somebody lives in the town of Westport, they get a they get a local preference.
26:23So they they'll, you know, they'll go ahead of somebody that does not live in Westport. If somebody is homeless through no fault of their own, they get a preference. It's the olden days are pretty much gone where, you know, the mayor calls up and says, "Hey, you know, I got my, you know, I got my brother-in-law that needs a place to live. Can you get him in? can you get him in? And um
26:48you know if you said sorry mayor uh no I can't do that then then suddenly stuff starts starts happening around the housing authority like you get cited for you know trash issues and things like that. I I have never had that in my housing authorities and I I deal with a mayor up in Attabaro and she's very supportive and very helpful and you know residents will reach out to her saying
27:18you know hey I've got this maintenance thing that I can't seem to resolve.
27:22She's she will she'll call me she'll email me and says Paul you know Mrs. So and so called me can you take care of it? She has never once said to me, "Can you help out this person?"
27:35And if she did, I would simply remind her that I can't do that anymore because of the way the system is set up now.
27:45That we have to we have to take people off the list in the order in which they apply. So, not saying that it hasn't happened here, but it hasn't. Uh but people don't understand that and they'll still come to you saying you know can I get so and so in if that does happen what I will simply say is they are free to apply and I'll give them the website and then and then
28:15if they want to follow up with me a couple of three months down the road and say hey where's my where's you know where's my sister-in-law on the list I can tell them that but I can't I I can't say, "You know what? Um, you know, so and so just gave their 30-day notice. I'll I'll I'll move something around and fit them in." I can't do that anymore. Why? Because everything's computerized. And when I house somebody
28:44on on the list on the list pull, we have to put that in the system, what what their ID number is, what the list pull was, and then there's everything that goes with that. There's there's landlord verifications. There's a whole host of things. It's that's why, you know, well, you know, the good news about the olden days was you could, you know, you could move somebody out. Dave could go in and paint the place really
29:11quick and clean it up and you could have a new person in there within 3 weeks.
29:16It's not that easy anymore. Sometimes apartments now sit vacant for two months or more because we have to qualify an applicant and it's it's a lot harder now to to house somebody.
29:30That's why any other housing commissioners before us did not like that.
29:37Right. I understand.
29:40Okay. Thank you.
29:41So, I'm just passing that. We don't have to approve any of this, but I just need you to sign sign sign of one of the X's not not with the chair right yeah right there that's good and uh so those will be coming around and uh Mr. Chairman, I believe that's that's all I have.
30:00Okay. So, there's nothing else on the old visions, nothing under new business.
30:05Just the uh next the next meeting. Um I'll just let everybody know now so so they can look at their calendars. Um the next meeting will be Wednesday, September 16th.
30:24And if if anybody if anybody knows that they can't make it, you can just let me know.
30:32Speaking, my family does my birthday. That's 2 days before.
30:35Oh, okay. All right.
30:37But I'm over the hill.
30:40Okay.
30:40You said Wednesday the 16th.
30:42Wednesday the September 16th at 10:00 a.m.
30:45Yeah.
30:4616th.
30:48Yeah.
30:49Okay, Liz.
30:51Yeah. Okay. All right. The next thing uh comment from the board members and uh I did have a comment now I can't think of uh I I don't know I lost it. Sorry. I mean, if you you know, if you think of it, you can always comment. I had a comment something.
31:17I guess I'm getting um is there any comment from other is there any u comments from the residents?
31:35No comments from the residents?
31:37No.
31:37No comments from the community.
31:40Okay, good. Um, what was we just talking about before we get into under new business or old business? What the last thing we talked about?
31:52Uh, we we were talking about the uh the year the year end forms, the uh the year end submissions and before that was the annual plan.
32:01Huh?
32:03Chair. Nope.
32:05Anyway, he was remembering something and he didn't remember what it was.
32:10That's all right. I I'm sure. I'm sure.
32:12No big deal. All right. Is there a motion to adjourn?
32:16So move.
32:17Second.
32:18Second.
32:19All in favor?
32:20I So move. Okay,