Revamp of Crafts-Sheridan fund set for town meeting warrant

Staff Report

    GREENVILLE — The Greenville Board of Selectmen unanimously voted last week to add an article to the annual town meeting warrant to transfer management of the Crafts-Sheridan Education Fund to the Maine Community Foundation and to recommend passage of the article.
    Liana Kingsbury, the senior foundation officer for MCF, made a presentation to the board and explained the advantages of using their services.

    MCF manages endowment funds for more than 175 non-profit entities including two other education funds for the town of Greenville: the Louis Oakes Curriculum Trust Fund and the Louis Oakes Building Trust Fund, totaling approximately $300,000.
    The Crafts-Sheridan Education Fund balance is around $220,400. The money is used for graduates who pursued two or four-year degrees in nursing or a two-year degree in a professional trade.
    In a Feb.18 memo to the Board of Selectmen, Town Manager John Simko noted that the board has “drastically reduced the value of Crafts-Sheridan scholarships in recent years, going from a per-semester amount of $1,000 to just $250.”
    However, Simko added that “over the past 14 years – on average – only 57 percent of recipients follow through with the requirements to receive their scholarship awards.”
    Simko added that the current rate-of-return on the fund is only .35 percent, compared to the fairly-robust rates in the early 2000s. “If we could invest this principal in a higher-interest-earning fund, we would do justice to future graduating seniors seeking these funds for their post-secondary schooling,” Simko wrote.
    In other business discussed at last week’s meeting, a presentation was also made by Parker Madden from Runyon-Kersteen-Ouellette (RKO) of South Portland, the town’s auditing firm.
    According to minutes of the meeting, Madden presented a summary of the audit and answered questions from the town manager, selectmen, Union 60 Superintendent Beth Lorigan and members of the Greenville School Committee. There was much discussion, including how to best have the audit completed sooner next year.
    No action was taken, but selectmen agreed that the presentation was useful and the discussion beneficial. 
    In other action at the April 16 meeting, selectmen approved the renewal of the liquor license for Trailside Restaurant; appointed Steve Nason to fill open seats on the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Moosehead Sanitary District Board of Trustees; and set a special meeting for Wednesday, April 30 to consider the master lease for tenants in the Greenville business incubator building.
    Simko has been working with Steve Levesque from the Moosehead Lake Region Economic Development Corporation (MLREDC) to devise a master lease based on earlier agreements used for tenants in the incubator.
    MLREDC has offered to manage and market the building and share the proceeds from any lease of the premises with the town.
    At the selectmen’s request, Simko has inquired about current plans for improvements to the Lily Bay Road; and Mark Hume, the Region No. 3 engineer for the Maine Department of Transportation, has offered to meet with the board and town manager to discuss this further. Simko will contact him to set up a date for a meeting.
    The next regularly-scheduled Greenville Board of Selectmen’s meeting is Wednesday, May 7 at 6:30 p.m.