##VIDEO ID:JdfLD2MvIRA## e e e e okay noting the time and the presence of a quorum I call this meeting of the act and finance committee to order um normally we start with uh citizens concerns but seeing that we will do we will have a Citizens concern in just a minute I would like to take the opportunity to make some introductions because our committee has uh has got some new faces around the table um and so figure might as well make sure to make introductions um so Karin HTH uh was the first through the door as our first associate uh associate member uh so welcome and I'm sure we'll have a chance to catch up with everyone in the evening um then uh just going around the table for for because some people are still a little a little newer than others Allison Jones uh Christy Anderson didn't even didn't confuse your name this time so we're good yep appreciate that Steve noon Adam NY and Dr gang Chen uh so uh uh gang is our new our newest associate member we are now a full compliment of uh voting members and Associate members and on the screen is uh Greg jarbo and we're waiting on a couple other members um one of whom said he was going to be here via VIA remotely but he's not has not arrived yet and uh Mr suvin did tell me he was going to be a little late tonight and there's a dog in the there's dog on the TV screen okay so with that as a quick introductions uh we're at our full compliment and I will uh yield the floor to Citizen citizens concern hello sir hi uh I'm David Martin I live on High Street and uh um I'm I'm really uh information that's relevant between the select board and the finance committee um in in July the select board included a new DPW facility and in its short-term goals unanimously supporting having an article in next year's town meeting at your last meeting uh fincom unanimously uh supported including a a point of view provision to not have any excluded debt until 2029 when other excluded debt falls off the draft POV does not explicitly mention the new DPW facility I'll note that the exclud uh that excluded debt falls off in FY 26 and I'll also note that payments for a new facility would not likely hit tax bills until a couple years after project approval a town meeting um there are significant health and safety issues with the current DPW facility it's a crisis waiting to happen the DPW staff doing excellent work on many projects across town it's unreasonable to expect them to operate in the old uh the 55-year-old facility um into the next decade it's Al it's not prudent to wait for inflation to increase the cost of a new facility even more a new facility would significantly improve uh productivity helping us make uh efficient use of operational budgets currently time is wasted working around the limitations of the old facility a new facility helps to relieve our DPW hiring problems as well current currently the locker rooms are for for men are inadequate but for women are non-existent uh we know this has deterred potential candidates over the next months we'll have more presentations and discussions about the DPW facility in the past some fincom members have supported a new DPW facility and others have not hopefully we'll be able to agree on a plan to take the town meeting thank you thank you very much seeing no other citizens oh Roland's here excellent um we will then move on to the next point of the agenda which is the cost cutting task force which um yeah if you're not hardwired something changed if you're not hardwired you're going to get bounced off every couple of minutes so all right here why don't you switch to this side and you can hardwire in if you've got your adapter okay well good luck so uh turning the floor over to Christy Anderson for the cost cutting time course um my task for tonight was to bring a charge to the committee for review and hopeful approval and then I have come up with a bunch of other details that I think uh it would be great if we reach decisions on so that we could move forward with getting this formed as quickly as possible and recruiting commit uh task force members the charge as I have identified based on our last disc previous discussions is first of all to identify short medium and longrange cost cutting opportunities based on Broad Community input um also to promote a public discussion of services and the related spending relative to tax impact and Community affordability and then the charge finally is to present the results to both the finance committee and the select board um I have some questions about some of these but initial Impressions please Steve um how do you expect to get broad Community input participation that comes up later we're just talking about charge right now okay okay um so my question at this level was in discussing discussing the present who to present to do we want to also present to other community boards such as the senior center or Council on Aging tsos um the regional school committee sorry I'm trying to my inclination is no um I think it'd be great to have the information out there um but I don't I'm worried about where we draw the line some people feeling excluded Etc but please tell me if you think that's not something to be concerned about Steve what am I the only one talking tonight um you're right it but if you go out and solicit input from the community you raise the expectation that you'll get back to them um so back to my other question depending on how you think you know you're going to get the community input you need a mechanism to get back to the the people that gave you the input whether it's going and make a presentation or or sending them a report or something hold on I take a note on that um please make sure I Circle back around to this when we get to discussing that later um so assuming that charge sounds good to all of you or those three charges um thought about deliverables first of all being a slid show presentation um just of the short medium and long- range cost cutting measures identified if any are in any of those categories we're going to find something hopefully um supported by the cost cutting task force a written report documenting Community feedback I think it would be good to have as a part of public record the feedback that we get from the various ways that we get feedback and I think all of this would be supported well by having a task force website to include the committee charge contact information for the committee members the member selection process meeting schedule and agendas meeting minutes and any presentations and reports final products D can you sorry I was get busy trying to get Dave in can you go over that last bit one more time yes so I I recommend a task force website to include the charge for the committee task force I'm not sure which to call it um contact information for the group committee members the member selection process meetings schedules and agendas meeting minutes and any presentations and reports created okay so again this C becomes part of the public record um and then at the last meeting Jason was discussing the makeup of the task force current idea that I I believe we came to last time was having the chair be a finance committee member I'm currently in charge of that unless they're appointed done thank you um and then out of elected appointed officials we would have one school Committee Member specifically from Acton bubur School Committee Member would not be eligible um a select board member we were discussing whether we wanted two finance committee members including the chair so one additional finance committee member was how I understood that part of a discussion um we can come back to that in a second um a town staff member and a school staff member we have to decide how those people are chosen um and then a series of community members including two renters two parents two retirees and two business owners that brings us to a task force membership of 14 um with the note that the chair will never be a tiebreaker so if if the community cannot agree on something uh it goes back to the task for if the task force cannot agree on something um other than by one vote it will go back to the task force do we want to have a structural super super majority expectation we've got a 14 member committee do we want to make sure that things pass by at least 10 or do we not want to go down that path and just sort of at your discretion since you're going to be running this if you feel that something is too contentious to to to even approach um wider adoption that you would pull it anyway I would like that authority to be reviewable by bencom after the meetings Okay this committee could then send me back saying no actually how does everyone feel about that are we come with that knowing that uh you know knowing that the whole purpose of this is to drive a you know what while none of this is going to be easy we do have to find some common ground um and we have to we have to be able to have some things that we can agree upon so that we can move forward so are we comfortable with Christy having a wide latitude no one seems to be saying no has a concerned look on his face Adam do you have a concerned look on your face or we just meet Christmas reading microphone I was shaking my head and saying that no I don't have any problem with that yeah sorry very good okay okay um for the town and School staff should they be voting members they are part of the community in that they are employed by the town but do not necessarily live here which every other member of the committee will live here what about the business owner the business owner might not live here as well good point the business owner is a taxpayer and that comes up later on yes I suspect a town employee might be a conflict of interest because decisions might affect their potential jobs same thing with a same thing with a school uh School School employee employee so it makes it difficult for anybody who's receiving a paycheck off of our taxes we don't need to include these people in the committee it was a recommendation I don't know I think we do ourselves a disservice not to give them a seat at the table at least from the speaking perspective if if we want to make sure there is no uh worry of conflict of interest perhaps taking away voting rights is the great way of doing it but I don't I think I think we would do ourselves a disservice if we don't give them a seat at the table to present their point of view and to be able to Advocate on their on on their constituents point you other thoughts Scot I don't necessarily have an issue with a school committee or a someone like that voting because it sounds like there'll be we're talking about staff not school committee members staff staff I don't have an issue with staff voting because uh we're we just previously discussed potentially a super majority but then if there's a you know there's a closeness in vote it may be coming back to finance committee for discussion so I think sometimes when people vote they're you know the truth of what they're thinking comes out you know on things so I think I don't necessarily have an issue with staff voting I I want to clarify one thing there um it's not that it will come back to the finance committee if there isn't agreement it will go back to the task force to debate yes task force sorry terminology is slow today Adam perhaps by vetting those members to find only employees that are also taxpayers of the town of Acton and then they would only need to recuse themselves from any vote that specifically affects their own employment I would think is that too narrow and ask do we don't do we know if we have anybody if we have enough people to choose from for that I know of people who have retired who are down okay um but I I would not say in any way that I know the majority of the staff um do we have a question about whether this is putting staff members in a difficult position relative to their boss and any things they might agree to being employed by the town they're unlikely to take unpopular viewpoints and might very well be extremely Limited in what they feel comfortable well that's part of the reason why this must not be a consensus driven Steve well on the one hand yeah that you could put town or School employee in an awkward position on the other hand if you don't have them um involved you're going to um lack a lot of expertise and you'll have to work probably three times as hard to get information um I've worked on committees that had Town employees um I don't I don't think it's a problem uh do we have if say the superintendent and the town manager decided they wanted to be a part of this would we have an issue with that do we care at which level these employees are no I don't think we care um I would ask Maryann what she thinks since your HR as well as Finance uh well to quickly answer the question if there are employees who are also residents of Acton there are on the town side I believe also on the school side so Adam to your question and your thought um and I think also that um just like Steve you had mentioned as like any committee I'm thinking of the health insurance trust and other committees that there are employees who sit on that and and and more so to like you said to provide information data um because we are closer and can hold the information and share it so uh if at a minimum is to provide the information that the task force is looking for and we we always know that who we report to we communicate internally no matter what uh do they tend to be voting members um the health insurance trust there is a voting member yes on both town and school the treasurer sits thank you CR did you have um my concern with having the town manager Andor the superintendent um on as voting members of a committee is that they already hold such hold so much influence over boards you know their respective boards that they would they don't I think that having people from The Trenches would that would hopefully feel free to give their opinions would be um we'd get better feedback better input um because I think that town manager and superintendent are thinking of like like maybe too big picture I don't imagine they're both very busy I don't imagine they have any interest in this but I wanted to discuss it before it potentially came up um actually we'll start with Roland can you get on the mic so the head of the teachers union who presented to us last year is it acting resident so there are a number of teachers that are acting res that will come up later we're still just on the town staff I I have questions about this where I think you're specifically going I'm not going anywhere hm I'm not going anywhere oh okay the the other question I did have and I don't know if you address this already is how long do you expect this committee to last that comes later on in my my notes also you're just you're so ahead of me Adam yeah I was just going to say if you make the number one qualifier that all of the members need to be taxpayers in the town of act and um that also would exclude I think both the superintendent and the town man I believe they're both and I think that's a good uh point to have I was going to suggest that we actually let the uh Tom Andre and the superintendent be the appointing authority for that one slot each I think that sounds good General thumbs up thumbs down other thoughts gr wouldn't that be wouldn't you run the risk of basically having them put people on the committee that will just espouse their views and independent feedback they would have to be an acting taxpayer so they have that counterbalancing y um I think that is true of anyone frankly who works for the town or the school yeah that they are to some degree held accountable yeah for that I just wonder if they would be I do appreciate the idea that they would get they'd be likely toly with someone who has knowledge in areas we might be discussing as maram was saying for for communication hey Greg sorry about that no problem I was just waiting um question um if I recall from the last meeting you were talking about having uh perhaps a couple of tenants would they be considered taxpayers or yes they will but um I just want to get through the staff first I have simp ring point I have questions when we get there exactly about that and overlap uh anything on the staff or who should be appointing them okay um I'm currently going to go with appointed by the manager and superintendent Town manager and superintendent with the stipulation that they be but they all I have now added all members must be acting taxpayers got it which allows the business owners to live out of town but still have a clearly have a stake in the town Adam can I just play Devil's Advocate on this point and say wouldn't it be better to put out a request sort of like oftentimes when town the town has various committees they put out a request to Town members and to all the various committees saying is anybody interested in being on this committee please contact so and so yes the idea being that then perhaps you get enough candidates that you can vet them and hopefully pick the candidates that are actually the most interested in who can commit to the most States yes so currently we're just discussing staff who I would not expect to identify themselves in that process oh you don't think we would get staff members to volunteer in that same way or well I think I don't no I would like I would like that technique to be used for the other members I think it should be used for the entire committee that would be my Playing devil's advocate I would think that would be the methodology for the entire committee people need to volunteer now that doesn't mean that people won't volunt told volunteer but um it certainly precludes the appoint ability of a single person okay sorry I mean my thoughts on the the town and School staff is that we asked this town manager and superintended to give us a few names and we'll pick one of them um I mean we're going to have to do that through some of the other I mean yeah yes we will so let them pick some people and your committee can choose okay who they think they like best so I think that then begs the question if somebody wants if somebody is nominated for appointment versus somebody else who steps forward and asks or volunteers to be on the committee um would we then turn down somebody who's volunteering so the um the vetting process needs to be yes and defined yes and I I get to that at the end of this discussion rather at the beginning um or later on after we Define the roles how do we actually pick who people are so should we T table this for a little bit for for and you go through the rest that you have to say and then you can Circle back okay U so the school staff would have one member we have not decided how chosen we then look to community members how do we want to choose these people we have the two points there two renters two parents we have to decide if they have to have children at AB specifically could they be just non-school aged um and does it matter if they are rers or homeowners how much do we want to let the demographics overlap the engineer me doesn't want them to because I think it simplifies the message just have them being I mean but then it's got to be your renter or homeowner so Mana there is my my having not done this before I don't know whether we're going to be begging people to join this committee or if we're going to be fending them off with a stick so I I I really just don't know which way it's going to go um I I I fear judging how from how hard it is sometimes to get some of these volunteer committees filled I fear that this is going to be harder to fill than than we had originally would have hoped but then again this is something new something novel after a time of great trial and tribulation so maybe maybe there is more interest than we normally would have seen so I honestly don't know which way it's going to go I also do like the idea of trying to keep the categories uh as discreet as possible um but we might have to be a little flexible on that if we have a hard time getting volunteers you know if we've got 10 PE 10 10 people buying for each of the slots then then then my preference is that we keep it as clean as as possible as discreet as possible but as I said if we're having a hard time getting eight people to join a 14 person committee maybe we don't get to be choosers K how many it's 14 members total you said what if you say something like 12 to 14 with no less than two renters so that you you know that say if you get a School employee who's a renter a town a business owner that you don't have it renters over represented but you have some minimum number but then like gets back to like if you have a hard time getting 14 volunteers you know you could settle for 12 as long as you have that representation across the other groups thoughts thank you reasonable okay um and then mean we'd have to decide where I like the 12 to 14 makes the number more flexible we'd have to decide where representation could change I don't have a thought on that oh thank you please I'm sorry I'm tending so you had 14 with the two renters if you go down to if you go to 12 you just remove the two renters as a specific category um I thought you said we wanted to make sure to have at least two renters yes with at least two renters with at least two renters okay but they could fall under the parents retirees or business owner category but we have to have at least two renters to move forward good I like that I understand now thank you okay thank you um and then how are all these people chosen uh I propose that we put it an application this is what the school committee is doing um how we find these people I don't know um but that it would include um details that I think would be helpful for us to know or the PR's name clearly the length of time they have been in town um which category they fall into I will I think we'll keep renter on at this point and and it's and check all that apply yeah check all that apply renter parent retiree and business owner and of course their contact information a brief paragraph of the reason of interest in the task force membership and potentially meeting availability based on a discussion we will have later Adam to join other committees in the town There's an actual Town vetting committee will we be required to vet through that committee no I don't believe so just and similarly the select board will not need to appoint members to this um I will confirm with the town manager but there has got to be some structure in which we can do this on our own otherwise things change because we are an independent body from from that side we'll find out um does that sound or any application details you'd like to have added or removed um so thank you Christie the two parents did you say that they must be a schoolage children in the ab school system no we did not um get any feelings on that my inclination is no they just need to I'm sorry parents of school aged or younger I wouldn't say parents of kids who are off in college or like Steve's grown children who went to AB would not make he's going to LS actually um you could very simply just say school age grade 12 or below or sorry children grade grade 12 or below Gren could we you know stipulate that there like if there's two parents that we don't have two parents of just preschoolers or two parents of just 17y old something so you get again that broader input um for parents age of children for parents the age of their children yeah so that like we spread it out if we're going to have two parents have one that maybe it's got a teenager and one that's got a Elementary or younger or something so we don't we don't need to codify that we can make sure that's part of our Private Selection criteria when we if we get 10 applicants we'll make a choice to make sure to have it be from two different strata of the educ we want that to be on the application the L we put on the applic well yes do we want on the application yes do we want it on the uh written criteria of of the of the makeup of the board no because that's just handcuffing ourselves okay so we're saying children um grade 12 and under was that somebody said it works and just to confirm would they also be required to be attending the ab school system or a charter school or they live in Acton but they go to private school um I think that's an important question I had yes reallyand so I mean like my son goes to Minuteman we only have one kid so I mean you now you don't want to exclude people like that in town either says they're School AG kids I think if they're in town if they live in town and they're parents then it might be very interesting to hear why somebody's not in AB or man um I also suspect we'll probably get more applicants that are in the AB School District but I definitely do you know considering how much we spend on minute man and considering that we do have students in out of District uh out of District placements I think we should leave it open to taxpayers okay and it we'll see we'll see who who we get uh who we get from an application perspective I don't think we should put our thumb on the scales one way or the other um and then retirees they will either be homeowners or rent renters so we'll just find out which they are um and make sure we have at least two renters somewhere in this mix and are you going to be the final appointing authority or did you want me to do it so you have possible deniability I would like you to do it I I will be glad to do it so I have entire deniability um excuse me for business owners doesn't matter if they live in town because they are taxpayers regardless of where they live I don't care where they live if they pay taxes in town and they're business owners in this town they can do in my opinion and I can be overruled by the committee um we're trying to get the interests of these different groups we're not trying to fence it in now for business owners they don't necessarily own the space they work in they do then indirectly pay uh taxes as renters do we care about that do we want to make representation across those renters don't pay direct direct taxes either so no okay we do not care we do not care in my opinion I agree okay thank you I'm sorry uh I believe Maran wanted to say something Maran please oh no thank you thank you very much um so other question that I have going back to the retirees is that because we don't have a um two seniors group is that a retiree could be 38 39 years old a retiree could be 78 79 years old so are we looking for seniors versus retirees are both I think seniors that's an excellent question Medicare age I don't think that any of the categories include people like me whose kids are out of college but I'm not a senior and I'm not retired so and you're not a business owner I'm not a business owner I'm not a renter so like I wouldn't fall into any of the categories you can be a fincom volunteer done sorry I just there's a lot of I happen to know a lot of people in the same boat right now so just maybe for that senior group maybe it'd be like to none of the above none of the above basically yeah you can use the ARP definition of anybody over 50 yeah as of June I don't like that description anymore well having removed two renters do we want to have we've not removed two renters we're still we are still making absolutely sure we have two renters we have two renters having removed it from one of our community member categories do we want to change that those two people to something else Adam I like the I think it was the suggestion of stipulating children but then saying goal would be to try to have like one from each school age category we could say two members over the age of 50 and then have the goal to have like a 50 to Medicare age and somebody Medicare age and above or two people Medicare age and above whatever the committee's goal would be and then you fill it with whatever volunteers you get um you're looking at me like I like I spoke different language thinking did I explain that right I think you did I'm trying to figure out how un Earth to them choose these people and not have all these bizar overlapping CRS thrown me for Loop by very correctly pointing out that we've excluded so we can say um sorry let me say it more succinctly the category would be two members age 50 plus to apply and the goal would be we'd try to fill it with one person between 50 and Medicare age and one person above Medicare age if that's our goal or we'd pick what the goal would be but the category for application would be 50 plus but would they be 50 plus without kids I like what are you basing oh that's a good point okay so it could be 50 plus without without School AG CH you could say you could qualify and say 50 plus without school age children but then um you might also have a crossover member who fits into that category but then also fits the school age I don't know the you need to cast the the net as broadly as possible you can use the selection process once you have a bunch of candidates to narrow it down is to exactly what you want but you don't want to have so many conditions uh as you're looking for people that you um don't get a big enough selection I I mostly for um credibility of this task force want to have very clearly delineated membership or these are the categories we are looking for uh was my desire here in um gang you had something to say yes thank you so if we make the catalog race too detailed or there too many of these with that kind of make people more difficult for them to apply they look at the the all the cat and thinking about where they belong to or whether they well that's they don't belong to the application would say check as many as apply right so so my so so I'm thinking that because what we want to do is to have to get get more inclusive get more representation are we able to just ask them to apply and then there will be a process of maybe picking uh from uh a pool to to to to to improve the representation yes and the question is how do we make sure that what are all the groups we want to make sure we include in in our establishment so even they don't fit any in any of these boxes they can still apply yes yes and well and the question is do we have boxes that would fit K pointed out we don't have boxes that would fit everyone so at the risk of making this bigger and I'm I'm already afraid of the size of the subcommittee at the risk of making this bigger do we have do we get specific on the retirees and say we expect them to be truly retired and then have a last category of Citizen at large which doesn't require any necessary thing other than they be selected by us GR so you might not even want to specify retiree because there are people in this town who can't retire mhm so my so just like seniors like I think doing it by age would be better than specifying retiree so if we put two at large then then we need to raise the age for the two retire for the two for the two we'll call them seniors seniors sorry so two 60 plus and two at large or am I now making this committee too big no we Karan got us down to 12 12 to 14 when this weally be up to this could be 14 to 16 no you just got it I took out renters it was simply two parents two seniors two business owners make sure at least two of those people are renters MH so we'll now replace the previously existing renters with citizens at large which really means doesn't fit in other categories correct Adam I really like um gang point that we don't want the committee to fail for a lack of being able to fill all the buckets maybe the criteria should be as simple as taxpayers period Then when you appoint the committee we would have defined goals of our goal is to have representation in each of these or as close as possible and then you fill it with what you get but that process would all be public so that at least then it's scrutin did you have M on Steve or did you have something to say no had wrong I had on before he talked actually but um I was I was going to um agree with Karen that um I met every definition of a senior before I retired so okay I have no idea what we're doing now um regarding community members is this is there a way we want to say this is an idealist and we will take what we end up with this is at income's discretion what the final makeup is I'm trying to avoid it being too much at our discretion that's what my hope here was because I I don't want to be seen as putting my thumbs on the scale too much that's why I like the idea of having a couple of buckets that we have to fill um I don't mind having a an at large spot for a couple of spots um in case we are in case we are handcuffed by by people not neatly fitting into these different buckets that we have but certainly when it comes down to trying to you know if we have a list of 20 people 20 20 interested volun TI and we get 14 slots or 12 slots um without there being a a clear reason for wanting to add or exclude someone than we're seen as being too precious in our choices so that's why I liked the idea of having the buckets from the start that is why we have them currently in this list um I'm going to say we go for optimistic and revisit this if it becomes an issue that we can canot get enough people to fill the buckets we have So currently as listed two citizens at large two parents with children grade 12 and under two seniors age 60 plus and two business owners does not matter if they live in town as long as the business is in town I'm sorry with at least two of these members being renters does a business owner renter count as a renter if it's a discreet spot for the business yeah well I was going to say what would be an Indiscreet spot but that's not the correct word how do you mean if it's a sole proprietor running out of their apartment not a like West Side creary that's that's a that's a different thing because that's a that is a taxable parcel in town that's a discreet business and and that's what you mean by discreet dist yes okay so just to clarify what you're saying is that if you a business owner who qualifies as the business owner but they're also a renter for their own personal residence in town that would also qualify them as a as being a renter in the bucket I don't I want it to be because I want to try and make sure to have a a I want to make sure that the business Community is fully uh represented and for example Shel is a sole proprietor you know that you know you know exactly which which office she does her business out of would would she qualify as a a business owner on that one I would say no because she's not paying a separate tax for the business so I want to make sure that somebody is paying a t paying as a b specifically as a business owner not you know running a a sole proprietor or a super small shop out of their otherwise resident I want to make sure to get the business side fully represented that's why I want it to be if they're a renter and they have a discret spot in town that they you know if they're they run some other business and they've got a storefront that qualifies but if it's a renter who was a sole proprietor out of their rental space in my opinion that's not enough of a cross-section of the business community and I would like to make sure that we're that we enforce that yeah I mean they should be on the tax role for the business correct to qualify for business but I think the original question you had was about which renters oh I just I was trying to ask my mind the business owners would be either in a retail or commercial space I had not thought about people working out of their home and I don't want that for the business for the business slot I agree now if someone is a renter and has a uh storefront in town separate and discreet from their rental residents then they absolutely qualify yes in my opinion I had no idea this was going to be this complicated oh believe me so would the Unicorn then be the business owner with the child of school age who rents who's 60 plus and who's 60 plus yes yes so we're saying for business owners they do not need to live in town but um they must work in a residential or commercial space designated residential commercial space I'm sorry retail or commercial space if I may ask a question if you qualify on more than one criteria do you get weighted voting no okay now now you're just being now you're just being funny I will write that down one vote per person yes one vote per person no no weighted voting I don't want only for one cl do want any Challengers um okay um okay so that is the makeup one vote per person that brings us to a total test for membership of 14 and as I said before the chair will not be a tiebreaker any votes resulting in a tie without the chair's vote will be debated further are you entertaining questions from the from the floor today sure our first volunteers thank you did you see the look of fear in her eyes Alysa nickel um I'm wondering I may have missed it because I came in late are you requiring the members of this committee to be citizens or just residents or business owners just residents or taxpayers taxpayers okay taxpaying being a you can be a taxpayer as a renter and you can be a non-citizen and service on the committee yes okay awesome but I will put that explicitly in here do we have to about legal ramification or do we care um I presume that given this is a non-binding yeah absolutely everything this task force does that there are not any uh concerns about non- voters being active yeah I certainly would not have a problem with a non-citizen being part of this committee and by non voters I mean um non-citizens people who cannot vote in town meeting please so I was just looking back at my notes from last time and there was I think we were considering allowing the select board to send more than one member and so just I'm not saying that they should but I just we're talking about the the citizen members wanted to kind of make sure I have this right my count that there would be three from the finance committee yeah we we adjusted that in my notes we just did that down to two from the finance committee and one from the school committee and one from the scho okay if you would like to argue for something different oh I just want to make sure I got my numbers right we did discuss that at one point yeah okay um if that sounds good we'll move on to the next thing that we need to um did you have something k no okay so that I saw a hand okay meeting Logistics uh okay yes my recommendation is that we plan to have the first meeting in October hopefully that is not drastically overly optimistic um that in October there will be two meetings to design the course of action and set up listening session goals I'll get into what listening sessions are later because there's a million questions around that um and process no that the second meeting will involve processing initial feedback from feedback heard in the input from the initial listening session did that make sense everyone please what is a quorum for a committee of this size Quorum is uh majority so it would be eight okay just just like a straight up eight we don't have to have certain members attend I'm just thinking on on the timeline if it's tight for some people and you know we only get eight but like the select board member can't attend and I would also like to suggest that we have this be I like this suggestion that I heard at the select board last night it' be a quorum be half plus one of the currently appointed n number of the committee okay because if we are having if we've not yet filled all the seats okay we don't want to be screwed because we can't get to eight because we've only appointed six people okay that addresses the concern because it's agressive it should be it should be half plus you know more than half or in a even number half plus one um of the currently appointed number of voting members please go ahead Mr R there there's wording for that from Council which is not exactly what Jason said I will send it to you thank you one second um okay and then from there November and December will involve meeting once a month in recognition of the busy holidays vacation period Etc then there will continue to be once a month meetings through April or as needed there will be two meetings in May um one of which is to debrief after town meeting with an eye towards changes to recommendations based on um votes taken at town meeting and I would propose that our goal is to finalize and approve approve a report and presentation um by the end of May to be presented to the select board and the finance committee in June with the recognition then that we are talking about medium and long-term changes which then comes into some existential questions about how long the committee we think task force should be in existence and what we think would happen at the end of it would the idea be that some um direction or guidance was provided that then got passed on to the finance committee to advise us in our work would this test Force continue around for another year will it have or will we have room to extend it if we think that that would be in the best use Roland I think you'd want to extend it as needed beyond June right depending on what direction it takes you know and how at that point you produce a report you you present it to the stakeholders right then what happens after that I don't know yes my only concern about having it be open-ended is if we were thinking of it from a volunteer perspective you don't want to have someone go I'll never know when this is going to be over I I think it would be in our better interest to say we will either be done the first week of June you know the the sunset occurs the minute you present your finalized report or we say it it'll be you know the you know first meeting in September which allows for a couple of meetings of feedback from having gone to school committee and select board and so I I my preference actually is to say is to Sunset it when they finalize the report because that's what that's what we've charging them to do is to give us recommendations to give give us guidance so once that report is finalized and once they present it to the overall finance committee I believe that should be the mark that the work is done one second Steve you were a part of something like this once before how was that um well I believe in sunsetting most committees um where you'll go at the end of this is a set of recommendations but the um your task force does not have the power to implement any of them so it going to have to transition at the end of whatever June into an implementation team and that will mostly be made up of town Andor School Employees yeah and the finance committee's role would then become monitoring the implementation so now I would say if you make your June deadline it's over and I selected June because it gets hard to get people to do things over the summer lots of people travel Mar so quick question um Christy you had mentioned finalize a report in May to be presented to the select board in fincom in June yes um any presentation to the school committee or to this that is another question um that we discussed back at the very beginning come up with an answer so if I may yes please I think that the task force should should present to us and if we like if we accept the presentation if we respect we accept the report it then becomes our responsibility to turn around and present it to the select board and the school committee as the results of our subcommittee's task force I don't want them to be on the hook to have to present all the different entities this is something that we've put together and we've given them a charge for they respond to us okay got did I see your hand Greg I can't hear you I was asking if you had your hand up no I did not okay again thank you so uh as most task force dismissed when the report is finalized and here I think so if the report is finalized in May uh I think keeping the task force uh as a function of uh like there are certain things that's not clear in the report there are certain number that we don't know where that's from or certain uh proposal that's not clear we have somebody to ask so uh in in that in in that with that consideration maybe that's thinking about like after that report is finalized do we have time to or do we need to look at that and then if itness no question then that's the point when the the task force is dismissed so if I may are you suggesting that they present to us in May and then just give us time to read and then uh in June we we have them with us for the last for the short the last meeting if there's anything that we need to finalize at that time we do live um and then we officially accept and thank them officially accept their report and thank them for their service at the first meeting in June does that work for for the time frame that you're thinking of I think that will work if if if we have that capacity in June to to to read and to meet I mean um have having been through 10 meeting season a number of times my recommendation is to um move that second meeting to June still give a presentation in June and have a second meeting okay in June rather than we usually in the school and everyone is pretty yeah Burn by the end of May okay so potentially you know no later than no later than June 30th for the final meeting yeah I like s of that okay done uh may ask a tactical question are we going to be in a position to s out our call for volunteers well how are we going to do that and when are we going to do that that's a great question the sooner the better if we're going to be meeting in October we're not there yet um I'm sorry if this is too much there's a lot of details in this I want to make sure we got feedback no this is good this is what this is what we're trying to do we're trying to Hash this out this is definitely and this is not something we can do behind closed doors so it has to be done in this public back and forth fashion so the next step is we've chosen how often we will meet then it becomes a question of times um based on discussion with Mr Cole my recommendation is that we plan on these meetings to happen on weekend mornings this increases the likelihood that parents can make it they are more likely to have help with child care um commuters do not have to deal with staying up late the night before getting somewhere or rushing back there also is the cat which can be used to transport for to and from meetings for anyone who requires that level of help and we do acknowledge that this is more burden on the staff but being that there's only two staff members and 12 citizens we would appreciate that uh we appreciate that going above and beyond because there have been too many too many meetings that occur that impact people's ability to do their to do their main business I'm hearing silence which I'm going to take his extreme support for what I've said do we have to worry about any religious problems on a Saturday morning meeting that's what I was afraid of yeah I think weekends you can exclude one or another group if they're observant it's the only time that you can get parents and workers this the weekends can it be part of the application process to ask what what the day preference is to ask if people have a day when they absolutely cannot do it because of an observance we can absolutely make that part of the uh application process um actually Maran can you help with this are there any town meeting rooms available on weekends or are we limited to what we can get from the the library there could be rooms available okay mhm thank you um cuz it would have been a lot harder if we were just based on what the library can give us um so what I hear is we're going to go with weekends hopefully mornings and put it on the applicate put it on the application okay one second the location please go oh Adam please sorry I'm very wordy tonight I I want Solutions not problems here sorry I'm throwing another problem at you I'm not the lawyer in the room but by asking about um date preferences if you mention observance you're asking people to declare religion which might be unethical to ask in the application process so you have to be careful how you word that would it be acceptable to say do you have any objection would you be able to would you be able to make a Saturday morning meeting okay depending on the location of these meetings um it is I think almost entirely likely that we will not be able to have it streamed on act and TV I I I think it's highly unlikely that we will so that's going to limit public viewership and I don't know how hard it will be to get a room where we can do hybrid meetings let us back to back to Maryanne any chance of getting this room on Saturday mornings I don't know for sure that's something that I can ask and it is just one of many rooms that I don't understand I I not I don't understand I don't know of anything that would exclude room 204 and allow other rooms so I will find out for sure thank and ask that question I just know because Town Hall isn't openo on weekends it's um we'd like to know I think in part how much of a difficulty it's causing it would cause sure like for example is that there were um uh folks who do work on the weekends and there and depending on the member who is attending um we have access with our fobs and so we've worked that out before for night meetings and weekends where we've had to be here and um for folks like I'm thinking like most of you will remember budget Saturday and it was held on a Saturday so before we Saturday on a Thursday right so it's it's it's it's been done before so I don't see why not but I will ask okay thank you um my inclination then is that uh the meetings be in person at least the first two and then we have to see what depending on location whether we can have hybrid meetings so that's a little bit of a to be determined level uh would we like to allow online citizen participation yes we're all about trying to win that's my feeling we're all about trying the whole purpose of this is to get as much feedback as possible so my inclination is yes to as open and uh available as possible and for me ideally the first two meetings in which members are present I think there should still be online participation possible for Citizens sure okay is there anything you can think of that I'm missing that jumped out at you about meeting dates times and other meeting details Greg yeah one other option um particularly as you're looking for uh space uh might be the acting TV facility um um and and and and that may then also facilitate your being able to um you know do Zoom meetings um if if for some reason the town hall is not available I I considered that unfortunately that is not on the shuttle route and I specifically wanted to make it so that uh members and any attendees could didn't have to have transportation good point but thank you okay listening sessions um in my mind this is public forums in which people have a chance to tell us I don't know at this point I'm sorry my brain has gotten tired uh what would we Define listening sessions as I know in my mind people would show up and tell us what they care about for the services what the burdens are on them relative to taxes what things they would be willing to get up uh give up or cannot believe that we spend money on um but as I say it now I feel like maybe we'd have like three people yelling at us that wouldn't be very helpful so we're definitely going to have to have a survey which is uh easier to be done anonymously and it's easier to say that you're against something when it's not being done in public in front of your neighbors um my only but I do believe we should have listing sessions I do believe it should be open yeah my concern is that you're only going to get Pro specific items at the listening sessions um so I don't almost I almost wonder if for everything that you say that you're for you have to be able to say something that you're willing to cut just to try and try and say you know we can't we cannot have this become a Litany of everyone's specific sacred cow because if it does we're never going to get anything cut good I think with the recent override I think there's a lot of people that would be advocating for some cuts that that's my hope and and who would be willing to come home forward and discuss it I would love this I hope so I would just love to be more of a community discussion that we tend to have people get in their silos yeah I don't think it would be one-sided though is all I'm saying oh that'd be wonderful I hope not um okay so I guess first go ahead Greg are you just waving yeah um if you want and you know it's optional um I spoke at a workshop last week and one of the other speakers uh was uh an expert in um surveys and had done surveys in New Hampshire of um like the one we're discussing and I have his slides I could certainly share them because one of the things that he he wrestled with which you've already wrestled with which I think is is is you know the key issue is if you're going to do a survey to validate uh what you're hearing uh you want to have um statistically uh significant representation of many different segments in town um that's the key to getting valid survey versus you know the people who happen to volunteer to take it uh on a particular weekend or whatever so I can I can share that if you want or if it's premature I can save it for later please do that'd be wonderful um so oh please can uh so so it's difficult to get a representative sample with a survey because depends on who respond to your survey is that possible to do like like maybe focus group or something to we will be able to like get a group of people and then so my hope is to kind of reach that by a survey and listening sessions just get anyone who is willing to talk to us in different forums yeah to come forward right thank you does yeah okay okay um I can give you ideas for my my thoughts around scheduling but still not about the specific format of the listing sessions uh first of all we have a question around task force attendance um should these simply be viewed listening sessions as finance committee Events maybe just events with a few Representative members of various things I believe a public forum is different from a meeting and does not require a quorum or minutes which would be great to not have to think about um I suspect it's also more of a challenge to get task force volunteers are you coming to educate me David please do if if I may uh so first of all if this input is viewed by a majority of finance committee members it's you have oml issues unless it's a real meeting right you do you mean VI watched on TV if anybody on the finance committee says anything in this meeting that is viewed by a majority of the finance committee you violated oml unless it's a finance committee meeting I'm I'm still trying to get out my imagination was it could be me and two other people sitting up here people would talk so and then at the end the finance committee would get a report none of those people were from the finance committee listening that's okay so the finance committee could not attend to the public for that's correct aw um so least that's my view and we need to be a little careful here it's possible that the um select board may need to bless this me this new committee this task force um uh there's nothing in the town Charter which allows the finance committee to constitute a committee except for a subcommittee of itself so you there's no question that you can constitute a subcommittee of yourself um on your own the subcommittee would only be our that's correct and soers of so I suspect that this may need to be blessed by the the select board as the executive branch of town government so um uh we I I can find out that' be one this this week and and let you know what the the legal requirements are that'd be wonderful thank you but I I think just for if you're if you have the listening sessions um they probably have to be meetings as well meetings of somebody's right because they the the oml law makes exceptions for public meetings right if you have certain deliberation in the context of a public meeting that's in the subject of that public meeting so for example we could have three select board members here we only have two at the moment but if we we could have three here um and because this is a public meeting and if we're only talking about the stuff that you guys are talking about that's allowed under oml um uh but uh the there it has to be somebody's meeting to have any transfer of uh um information from one from a a majority of the of the finance committee so we need to just be be careful there right even if you're if you're the list the the person listening right if you said oh that's a good point that's the Liberation even if I am the only any Comm unless you're not allowing any other finance committee members to view it we're back to view and I'm sorry this feels a little like a legal argument no because you you'd have to be completely quiet right this is a this is a um this one of the key aspects of oml is whether it's in the um the subject of uh your board right so you guys can all go out to bar and discuss your vacations and that's not covered BYL but everything that's discussed in the listening session is within the context of the finance committee right so if you make the smallest remark like that's a good point you are now expressing your opinion viewed by the entire um fi finance committee um that's a violation or viewed by this task force yes now how do you then handle someone being a member of both the task force and the finance committee that that that's the the exception that you're allowed to attend another public body right so we can have a majority of the FI the select board could attend this meeting and as long as we're just discussing stuff in that's about this meeting that's okay if we were discussing stuff that is not Finance related that's not okay so it sounds like these listening groups would have to have a majority of the subcommittee presid it needs a majority of something yes or they become fincom then you'd have to get a majority of the fincon members yes yes you need five fincon members or eight of these um okay you think you'd be better off getting a majority of the subcommittee yes we'll have to see whether that is possible um thank you I'm sorry I need to take notes on this take a time while you're taking notes we've gotten at least one comment in um via email that's probably worth noting um which is that apparently we have about 5,000 citizens in Acton who are over UH 60 years of age and so one of the things we may want to just double check is that our representation um uh particularly of uh uh people of that age breakdown is representative well we currently have two seniors listed as being 60 plus we're not looking to get into proportional representation across groups that that will be impossible to do yeah but that that then may be more of an issue than if we do a survey to make sure that we get U more proportional representation my feeling at the end of the day is with a survey is that we get it out to people and if people choose to answer it I we we can't force people and I'm not going to We could decide that a survey results are just too small to work with but okay so a quorum of the task course will need to attend any listening sessions oml does apply I recommend them okay so if the if I hear um the comment correctly I think the the the concern is about in influencing what people say right um like uh but the reasoning section should be the purpose of it is just to collect ideas to take notes to is not to make any decision the problem being that you can accidentally effectively deliberate that's what David was saying about if you say oh that's a good idea it's it's the sort of thing that could just slip out so right so is that possible to to resolve that or to better handle that by saying that whoever organized those listening sections should only ask questions but not respond no no any response this is I think this happen a lot in other situations where you just thereare to listen to clect opinions rather than influencing how many listening sessions are we talking about four get a majority the subcommittee yeah I think it's it's too hard to unintentionally run a foul and it's a problem thanks um so my recommendations are one each October November December and January I suspect October is being overly optimistic and I recommend that every other meeting alternate week nights and week and weekend mornings to try to hit as much broad availability Jason I thought we said everything was on the weekends listening sessions listening session be some in the evening some of the weekends fine yes um for these I would recommend that we get televised Lo locations that can have can be televised and of course have remote participation and that is what I have so from a purely tactical perspective we need to get an answer from the select board right away if we can do this yes secondly we have to get the call for volunteers at the door as soon as possible so those become the immediate the immediate action items M you guys meeting again next Monday this the earliest we can hope to get y if we need them then the early as we could possibly hope I I believe next Monday is Labor Day holiday that's why we're looking at the 9th yep thank you I actually have a question about input of Town Council so for something like this would Town Council be expected or could they be asked to provide input because yes absolutely okay because I just am imagining a subcommittee recommending cuts that actually are not possible right because we're like legally required to have something and the subcommittee can recommend whatever they want because there is no teeth behind it so it it then becomes the job select board Town management Etc to review okay potential changes and then ideally that would be translated back in a public for okay yeah yeah we might not be a bad idea for us if we getting getting close to do a ask for an hour off the retainer and make sure that uh we're we're on the right track here yeah that's what I'm worried about yeah we try to avoid ways that might require us to spend them a lawyer money just the town's money on the lure but we're not we're not shy about asking if we're unsure Chris yes thank you so much a um one last question is that um at the August 13th meeting we were talking about the um School side is calling it a budget task force and I don't know if this is a similar type of um action and is this name still going to be the cost cutting task for that is a good question it currently is defined as the cost cutting task force um recording in progress the definition the the charge of the budget task force the school committee has is actually much more limited um that is specifically around the elementary school budget and my understanding of the time frame is much shorter like its focus is a shorter time frame I might be wrong about that but their their um final definition that they agreed on was not entirely what I had been expecting so then this the goal of this one is really cost cutting so cost cutting task force I believe okay right because uh we're trying to trying to get Mr wellinghoff to step up and be the um the sole person a subcommittee of one it's not a subcommittee to be the leaz on to the uh town to the municipal side for looking at any properties that we might be able to sell and any warant articles that that we could recoup so he is the he is strictly the revenue side which we decided we want to go after but this this subcommittee is strictly the expense side is it just this just the municipal yes okay the school committee has their own I know but like gu you said it's very limited in much more short term and I would think that there'll be people coming that have thoughts about that side of it too and I will do my very best to shut down discussion that is not in the realm of anything we can do anything about um is there anything anyone would like to see added to this we've been doing this long enough that my brain is a little done um the finance committee should be put in for our raise we just doubled your salary yep is there anything else you'd like to discuss on this topic at this time or do you need a break I I do need a break but I have nothing else we have discussed everything on my list that brings us to the next item unfortunately is right when I'm having a hard time talking I think my allergies have started early this season okay so everyone should have received the point of view the latest point of view uh proposed final draft um I'm not going to read all the verbiage that I read last time because I believe we've been through it a couple of times now but I want to make sure that we uh that we are in agreement with where things stand and uh ideally uh if if all goes well I would love to have a a vote on this yet to today um I will go through this please to make this interactive um with Steve's suggestion oh this is not catching up with me at all what am I doing wrong Excuse me while I try and share the screen again I'm even hardwired this time so it shouldn't have dumped me out like that I know what's going on for for for oh boy this is not doing what it's supposed to do I'm trying to but I'm having an extremely hard time getting a stable internet connection I'm trying to go to share. zoom. us so that I can hit my so that I can in that's what I'm trying to do so I'm trying to do but if I can't get a stable internet connection I can't get anything to work Jason I downloaded your PowerPoint and I can try to present it from here since I'm already on Zoom that works please share your screen and fire it up and we'll see hang we'll see how many edits you made without uh sending them to me actually I made no edits because I liked it I know that's they come as a shocking surprise little wonders never cease I yeah it's great I appreciate you going ahead and sharing let's yeah I'm gonna I'm GNA try now hold on share screen thank you we can see it got it so go ahead and fire up the slideshow and bring us to the first one which is the all as well and this is the strengths of the town so these are all the things that we are proud of these are all things that have been attracted us to the town this is um part of what what part of what we're trying to strengthen preserve and uh and enhance along on the next slide hey hold on quick on that one yes Dave you know the statement proof of consistent excellent Financial judgment where does that come from from the uh perhaps we to change the word judgment to execution um I was using that from the uh town finance uh finance department not the finance committee but the town finance department being recognized every year for excellence in financial reporting so we can either say we can either say proof of consistent excellent financial reporting or proof of consistent excellent Financial execution if you don't like the word judgment yes Roland yeah I don't want to be too cute and I I appreciate you know the work that's been done here so far on this it might be better to say like Town recognized for you know excellence in financial reporting or or whatever the specific ter techology is rather than excellent Financial judgment that's a kind of an ambiguous statement and I'm only nagging on this because it's it's an opening statement in this presentation which is one of the more engaging parts of it and so it rather than saying something like this you know Town recognized for you know consistent Financial Excellence or something like that which sounds more like an award rather than judgment understood so we'll change it to reporting I'm fine with that any other changes on the slide Mr Noy look like you're ready to speak oh sorry Roland had his hand up first so the word parcel I think should be property on the second bullet oh it's actually under 99% Plus on time tax payments sure I don't know that there's a legal distinction between the two but if you're more comfortable with because you could have you have car ex you have Auto excise tax right yeah and that's a piece of property you're paying on it's not a parcel of land okay now and if you have a a shed on your property you're paying you pay a tax on that too so that's my point good with that thank you Adam sorry I had cut you off no super super minor but I don't think rating on the next bullet needs to be capitalized just to be consistent with all your other bullets okay any other changes on this slide ready to move along on great set of services um again like really ambiguous and if you say hey Town employees do we have a great set of services are like yes we do hey I was trying I'm trying to be optimistic here I was accused of being super D so I'm trying to make this as a upfront and happy as I possibly can so hey Dave I insisted on one slide of good news the rest of it you won't find me I I would you could even strip out the last bullet and a half um but that's just my view about I'll stop here I'd rather leave it in if unless it's violently objected to I have one last comment go ahead so what do you mean by two discrete educational paths for our students AB minute man is also a charter that's not necess you that's we have we have zero control over we have no no voting apparatus no representation in the Char schools at all okay we have no we have no we don't get an assess from it it's just something that gets paid this is what we have the ability to to to give feedback and recommendation to got it and I was told I couldn't have ab and minute man because people didn't like mm R vhts you can say traditional vocational but you know whatever okay next slide please Greg okay so this is the recent past slide and um want to make absolutely sure we stress the very first bullet that the last ballot vote was too close for comfort um and listening to some of the other conversations around town people perhaps are not as putting as much emphasis on just how close that was um in my opinion so I want to make sure that we point it out um also do just this is also a just the facts slide de exclusion uh started hitting the hitting the taxpayers in fy21 these are the state of the reserves this is the new unused tax levy capacity um that we're at and the major change on this slide from the last time you saw it is I'd had a single data point I can if I can get my laptop to work I can show you the spreadsheet that uh generated the the small chart at the bottom uh but the important thing the important point that I want to drive home is that if we use inflation which is has been used in a whole bunch of meetings in the last year if we use inflation as why we have to see some increases in why we had to have the override and why things change and why prop two and a half is a problem that's a a fine thing to say right up until you realize that the cost of the services that the the Blended cost of all the services is out stripping inflation now I did take into account Mr noon your point that well hey large this includes some large Capital Investments but then again that's life you got to buy a car every so often that's a large capital investment you can't just discount it and not have it be part of your overall for any one-year term absolutely it should be should be pulled out perhaps for any three-year term it should be pulled out as well but when you look at longer term and I actually have the full spreadsheet going back 14 years um it gets even more dower even more Divergent between what uh inflation has done and and inflation is a standin for the ability of the taxpayer to to um for for what what kind of a burden that can be can be shouldered uh and just from a straight cost of goods and services the cost of the goods and services that we're receiving now are far out stripping inflation and I want this to be very clear in this slide so I'll let you guys talk while I take one more crack at this thing because I think I know what's wrong what does everyone think of the the chart at the bottom I Greg I took your direct 15 and 10 year approach I was going to do 147 and 11 just because trying to keep in touch with a three-year uh uh election cycle in town but uh I went with 15 and 10 at your recommendation yeah I'm I'm totally on board this is um it one of the comments that I'm going to make I might as well make now is you know we we we started this process two meetings ago farther apart we're we're now on the same page in fact I would argue we're on the same paragraph I'm I'm really happy with um the fact that you you listened hard you made the adjustments and building a consensus is a difficult process and kudos to you I this this represents um um something I can stand behind and say I fully support I'm going to assume you have read the future slide which is the one where I rejected the most number of your suggestions yeah yeah yeah I I I didn't expect to get everything but I had to throw some stuff in there fair enough fair [Music] enough uh let's see I believe I've solved my networking problem give me just a minute here one more one more try to get this to join because I and yes I I I I I have read the whole thing so yes and I'm on board with us part of the reason why I'm going to rip uh sharing away from you is because when we get to the very end we I do have I do have some input that I need to request from the committee regard to that I'll I'll stop sharing with regard to that uh with regard to that spreadsheet in particular Alison looks like you're fixing to say something yeah I'm just looking at the last bullet where it says cost of services should it be the increas in cost is out stripping inflation sure is that the right comparison I just I kept reading it and thinking there's something missing but I don't it's late I don't know if it's just me so you're saying increase in cost yeah I'm keeping everything capitalized on this one okay then J Jason yes on unused Levy capacity yes we've had that in the past since I've been on the committee we had I when we used a third a third a third there's around a million it was it was at 900,000 and it went down very quickly yeah so this is the largest we've had in this the largest we've had in 15 years yeah this says the first time and over so it sounds like we never had unused Levy capacity before um this the first time in over 15 years we've had 1.2 million in unused Levy capacity yeah and and I'm not questioning the amount I'm just saying by saying it's the first time over 15 years it sounds like we haven't had on years Levy capacity in the recent past you can say it's the largest amount we've had in over 15 years just want to make it a little clear yikes never type when people are watching channel you're in Christine she's she was much better at this than I will ever be okay okay then speaking of the recent hold on I I did have an edit on that last one so I think you're right that this operating override the first bullet is is the most important here you know some of the rest of this like the debt exclusion and stuff is just sort of recapping history and I think the operating override should you know is something that's right there on everybody's mind um that happened this year um I I would have three bullets underneath that one is saying you know Town approved the override of X um in 2024 um override passed at the ballot by 5050 um and then finally you could say the first override measure at the ballot in I think it was 19 years or whatever so the the point isn't in my view on the slide isn't all these other items like debt exclusion and like reserves last couple years have been excellent like these statements are are just nice sort of talking points but there's an opportunity here to emphasize to the town that you know the override essentially lost by a few votes or or or passed by a few votes rather could have lost bu a few votes um that there's probably likely little tolerance in town for another override and then two slides from now I think you know you have it in the conclusion and you could segue to the cost cutting task force you know it's it's unlikely that another override would pass the bottom bullet here you know the finance committee is chairing a cost cutting you know committee to evaluate how to proactively address future shortfalls rather than reactively so um well this is just my view and I'm just speaking for myself but y so underneath operating override let me address that sorry what let me address that so in the speaker's notes there is definitely more time spent on the operating override speaking part of this than than that's on the slide but if you if you look at the recent past the the current and the near future they all have call and response where I hit all of the points so there is these categories have hit call and response across the across the points so and that's fine so that's why I do have it this way right right yeah so we're on slide two and then you know I I just pick on a couple things but like the reserves last couple of years have been excellent forecast not as bright you know in the next sentence like you you could cut those out completely because they're not really telling the audience anything and if they're going to have this presentation in front of them at a PTO meeting or you know a women League of Voters meeting you know it could just say reserves you know have been stable but deficits will you know we expect deficits or whatever um but underneath override it's like the second slide you know first bullet it's a way to actually capture what happened in town this year at that ballot vote um and it's lost completely in his presentation because it says last ballot vote was too close for comfort oh yeah okay all right well what what else dead exclusion oh Boardwalk Campus North act fire station I get it um you know like it's just a I understand where you're coming from but I I purposely am making sure to hit each of the buckets here for the call and response of how we move forward as well because if I don't mention the debt exclusion here I don't set up the the capital projects line for the future I don't set up one of our main recommendations which is that we do not want to have so I I I don't want to go too far down the path of I mean we're going to beat the beat the dead horse of the of how close the operating override was but I don't want to have this how verbally like when you when you sit with nobody's going to be listening they're going to be like at a PTO meeting they're going to look at what's in front of them and you know not be listening to what you're saying and there's no like takeaway from it and um and so my my point though is you could use that as a springboard to the cost cutting committee which I get the layout I get absolutely what you're saying about the layout of the presentation and the flow which is completely important the cost cutting the cost cutting is the cost cutting committee should absolutely not be on the recent past because it's not something we've already done so that's why it's on the near future slide sure absolutely but the point here would be to lay the groundwork for the cost cring committee as you could say the ballot vote was 5050 there's no appetite for another override as far as the ballot is concerned to meeting of course there is um but then later on given there's no support for at the ballot we feel it's proactive to address this with the cost cutting committee and you could say volunteers welcome or whatever um this just my two cents I know a lot of Works already even put into this so I I I don't want to belabor the point so hold those points and I'll come back to you in a couple of slides and you tell me if I've still if I'm still missing it cuz this is meant to be a just the facts slide from from the recent past this is history this is not this this can't be changed then I want to drive home the concept yes if just the facts I think I agree with Dave a little bit about that first bullet just say instead of saying too close for comfort because that implies I think uh sentiment let just say like 0.7% it passed by 0.7% I support that as well third I think it's more meaningful to people if you say 44 votes or yeah 44 votes and then in parentheses 0.7% I think that's the most impactful thing that this presentation can say is that that ballot in by the way I forget the numbers but I I think it was 6,300 people or something like that voted it is 44 probably the greatest ballot turnout in two decades does that meet does that meet the recommend okay from there I back up this statement about the tax bill hitting in fiscal year 21 by pointing it out right here I ALS I also back up and and this is where I start to lay hang a lantern on FY 29 which is when our previous long-term debt obligations are done Mr uh Mr Martin the fallof in FY 26 I don't know what you're talking about you said it last T night and you said it today and I'm not seeing it in the chart excuse me we should make sure that this chart is correct because I think it may not be um the ALG model shows the debt falling off this year so um and nothing falling off in 29 so um I would if if you're going to base it on the ALG model this is definitely wrong but um we should confirm the excluded debt obligations in their remaining time this is the chart that we used last year uh well then it then it would have been wrong last year yes uh Mr Martin I'm looking at the 32524 LG model which tab is the the the the the main tab yep there used to be a tab outlining actually Mar no the main tab line 14 column e yep is the last year is this year thank you let me ask go ahead um Maran there used to be a tab in the ALG spreadsheet outlining excluded debt all of the projects yes not not in the new model there that's that's what I I just realized it is not in the new model is there a way to get that information it's it's on the front it's all on the front it's on the front yes okay thank you on the front page and then you'll see the names so it looks like we have to review this uh slide I would question why it changed yeah just because it was moved from one tab to a different tab um and this is what we used last year I did not touch this slide yeah that's we've been using the same information for several years now yeah so we'll double check it but but so from there we go into the present day and this is where you know what do we what do we do every year in ALG we talk about what what are we going to set are we going to tax the max at 2.5 plus New Growth we talk about unused tax living capacity we talk about whether or not there's going to be an override or a debt exclusion um so I'm I've got this explicit call and response of what we're what we saw in the recent past and what we're focusing on today and I'm leading the leading the horse to water to that the bolded point at the bottom here which is you just dodged the bullet last year are you sure you don't want to start making some changes now and laying the ground work now is the cost cutting initiatives including specifically the finance committee cost uh cost task force cost reduction task force so it's it's it is in how you present it it's absolutely in how you present it but I'm trying to have there be the the different topics that we always have to address every time we have a con every time we sit down and have a conversation in ALG and while I'm aware of the fact that this particular presentation will also be shared with the pto's um I don't want to have five bullets about how close the how close the ballot vote was when I'm G to come back to it on this slide and say you you business as usual is coasting towards failure that is going to hit people pretty hard and if the summation of this slide is restructure a planned way or do it in an emergency when your next override fails because if you come and you'll see in the recommendations we specifically say hold off on the overrides as long as POS possible so that's why I'm structured it the way that I did I hear you Mr LOF um I would say it's important to actually have a full presentation of of the words are which I did last week last meeting but I did not do tonight yes Mr Noy um I would like to see us move away from statements of conjecture and more towards statements of fact similar to what we just did on the previous slide where instead of saying we're coasting towards failure you know make the statement that if we do the business as usual year X we're going to need another override be specific in that way we can't be that specific because we don't know what's what's going to be the result of the school uh cost the school budget task force we don't know if there's going to be another surprise somewhere else I do not want to try and say there absolutely will have to be an override on date X because it can't stay stay behind that specific date I what what I am saying is that what I am saying is that business as usual is coasting towards another inevitable override in the near future which is why I specifically say this is an unsustainable model yet and but the electorate has is not enthusiastic about an override we're probably not going to be able to pass another one in the near future but surely we could put an envelope on it we can put them in a minimum M Max on we think we would hit another override don't call me and then and then on the next line put sort of map to success the map to success is we need to start cutting cost that's what the next that's the next my apologies Mr noon what's what's current ALG plan show for 2027 is it 7 or n million shortfall well there you go that's why you can't fact the current ALG forecast is for $79 million f shortfall i just it becomes more powerful because it's less an opinion yeah say um business as usual doesn't include any savings from the from the school's uh budget task force right which is part of the reason why I'm trying to say right but but you're saying that you saying that you didn't want to put a date on it because we don't know what savings they'll come up with but that's not part of the business as usual know what I mean so which which is why we're goting them to start doing a better job but I think I just I'm just agreeing with the other folks I think you can put an envelope around when they would like if nothing changes we're looking at another override in FY 27 or whatever it is there is no way we're going to be able to pick a specific year I'm not do I'm not going to fall into that trap there because we can't do it we can't can't plan that we can say this is what the shortfall is in the oute but there's no way you can tell me right now we're guaranteed to have an override in the X State yes uh go ahead Greg and then you Steve yeah you you you may have the um solution in your bullets already so um I agree that business unusual you know we can't continue the way we're going that makes sense the coting towards failure is what the debate is why don't we just say that's an unsustainable model and move your third bullet uh up um there and then use your third bullet to say look the electric is not going to be enthusiastic about future overrides and again you know when are the future overrides don't know but they're not let's put it this way whether it's two years out three years out four years out nobody's going to be enthusiastic about them you could say first override vote in 19 years passed at 5050 I hear you go ahead Mr noon I was just going to go back to the point there's a there's an analy plan that was in the warrant that has a number at the bottom so we can put that we can put that in the slide right here we'll put that right there I'll look it up do okay so what's the uh what's the shortfall for so it goes out three years right so we are looking at fiscal year 28 if FY 28 cuz we're we're budgeting FY 26 at this time uh shf for fiscal year FY 28 is 3, 27,485 that's it I thought it was much worse than that last I saw hold on a second let me make sure I'm in the right yes this is the a plan the most recent plan so yes uh let's just look at what was in the warrant okay I'll look it up thank you looking I'm looking at the position line so fiscal year 28 so what was published in the warrant is 3,646 708 yes um I looked at the 20 the last year's ALG plan and the one from the previous year the um model from the previous year which has a separate debt exclusion tag tab has the junior high senior high debt running out in 2029 and the current model has it ending um this year is the last year payment so we'll have to find out why there's that yeah that 3 years makes a big difference yes and I was going off of the data that we had so if that's changed I need to know why well we will track down why okay I have to figure out how to make this fit on the slide okay near future what are the not you done with that last slide we're done with that last slide for now I got to pretty it up and make sure that it's it's fits on the page and we got to validate just one one last thought for me on it real quick um you know the terminology is would you rather restructure in a planned way um I think it could be rephrased um to like something like proactively evaluate how to resolve this challenge or reactively after a failed override or something like that it's a lot of restructure just it's kind of a difficult word I think for for people to get the arms around it but if you use proactive and reactive it can be um a little easier to understand um my my suggestion was you just say proactively evaluate how to resolve this challenge or reactively apture a failed override my my personal view is that's a lot of words that third sub Bullet at the top under business as usual should just say last ballot vote pass 5050 period um it is a fact and it's the rest of this is like not enthusiastic about overrides or whatever like just State the fact 50 l b past 50/50 then you save a line too Dave if I could be a nitpicker for a sec it was um close to 50 to 49.3 there were whatever you want to call it 0.7% I'm trying to avoid all this and just talk that's fine say 50.1 versus 49.9 or whatever but you know yeah Roland since we still here um I'd get rid of we have on the one how much Levy just have 1.2 million and then on the one above it looking at ALG $3.6 million yeah just say projected $3.6 million shortfall ALG projected is that a projected ALG that's a stupid question does that 3.6 include the unloved tax capacity being some of it being used yes okay yes uh for the last bullet point I would say would you rather change any planned way or after I failed the ride well it's a nice way to to to give a shout out to the cost cutting committee too which is which is the bullet directly beforehand yeah but I mean you could say you know what what was just said or you can say and then you could say after that you know fincom Ching cost cutting committee or cost cutting committee established something profound you know that just lets people know that we're engaged and you could even say you know volunteers welcome or something like that I think we I would prefer we leave we don't use this as an advertisement for our other subcommittee I believe this has to stand on its own would rather change in a planned way or react I agree or react after a failed override he just State the fact here last override pass by hair we've already stated the fact another override is a highrisk v is it's a highrisk venture it's a highrisk proposition where's a where's a comma you don't like and highis proposition Adam we don't have to belabor it here but I think you can take those last two bullet points and combine them into one and make a more positive statement something to the effect of a cost the cost cutting committee will uh can achieve this without having to deal with anyway something to look at and work on just reducing it to one bullet so the reason why I had it as two separate bullets is because and the reason why the final bullet is the only thing in the presentation that is bold more than anything else is that that line is the single greatest takeaway from this presentation in my opinion so we've everything leading up to this line has been Preamble predicate letting us know where we came from this the predicament we find ourselves in and I'm trying to have this line land as the do it now or do it at the edge of a knife which which would you prefer Scott I hate making edits but the line that you're trying to emphasize um it's not really a bullet you leave your bullets gone down you take the bullet point you just leave it on the bottom as a statement so it's not a it's not a subart of your bullet point you highlight it as a in as a comment below your text box box things and it's it stands out by itself that way the way you have it it's just that it's not a bullet because it's it doesn't follow any L the ground or it's just as you said it's a statement on the whole slide so you just do it as a statement however you want to write it I liked your previous wording better I I didn't have an issue with your word I'm just saying it just you just drop it and don't make it a f Point yeah I had a similar suggestion I would leave the wording and you could if you just change the bullet Choice like go under home up up at the top and you could choose different bullets like some something else to punctuate a little bit better like yeah right under there like the arrows are the the ones down to the left there I don't know I personally like those a little bit better yeah it's just my view doesn't seem you want to go to the left does it uh you can do it just select the text make it a text box drop it in you can move whatever you want drop it in a text box you can form it however you want it's be outside of your you just insert a text box drop it in the middle of it and then you can form it however you want will float [Laughter] let's our text box yeah draw a text box I hear you yeah to draw your text I hear you yeah have you tried turning it off and back on again yes um recognizing the need or the desire to publish this as soon as possible we are I believe we are not going to finalize this tonight because we don't have that dead exclusion numers sorted out so simple edits like this that we all agree on could be handled offline if you prefer okay your choice editor's choice so we will move on and can I make one last comment no go ahead I'd suggest we move away from you and your and towards more towards us and we because we're all in this together should we all [Music] hands okay I'll fix the formatting of that later what do we have on this side [Applause] hearing none I don't have any problems with anything on this slide but on the next slide I'm the work to rebalance between school and Municipal budgets I wonder if that should be a nearer term objective then five plus years out so I'd love to see it happen quickly but nothing happens quickly in government so what we're trying to do what I'm trying to make sure that we drive home on the near future is that we you know if we identify something and we can and and we can start you start moving on it great you know that's why I do right from this right on this slide I have Implement plans for these cost savings but um I understand if you're saying that the on this next slide which which point the last one it's the last bull last we can't do that in two years I mean there's no way we can do that in two years this is this this is a 10 to 15 year process of rebalancing the population in town so I don't see how we could possibly get it done in two to five two to five years okay I'll just say that in the 10 years like you had the chart up there at the table before showing the last 10 years um you know in that time the population of actin has gone up by about 3% while our student population has gone down by about 12% so the the population is Shifting and if we wait another five years it just keeps shifting more I I understand but I don't see how we can make a I don't see how we're going to do that in two years but you're talk we're talking about the split 3366 split basically is that what you're refering to here no no I'm talking about the percentage of the percentage of uh people in town who go to the schools versus versus the overall versus the overall population so more that's more the uh you know we got 50 8 84% of 5,300 students in this town and we've got a population of 26,000 that's what we have to work to rebalance okay I guess then so the Bullet says work to rebalance between school and Municipal budgets so that to me sounds like the split you're talking about the 3366 split yeah I thought you were talking about what Karen is saying uh my recollection having run the numbers last year is that the balance is right now at if you consider minute man in the school district it's actually at the we're very close to the 3366 split but I I can't find those numbers in front of me I don't want to codify 3366 any way shape perform I don't want to get anywhere near that in this slide no I don't want I mean I don't want to be I would be happy that it's not cified I listened to the last meeting that you folks held it held and it sounded like I I think somebody used the word it's like an unwritten law so so this this bullet actually was what came out of the I believe is what came out of our the victim of our own success um line yes and the purpose of the thrust of that line is that if all we do is maintain academic excellence and then all we do is open up more um population density then eventually we're going to reach an absolute Breaking Point um so I'm not I'm much more concerned about how do we how do we protect the school district from becoming overrun and that's why I was that's why the bottom line is the more interesting line from my perspective because we were trying to we need to rebalance the the input from the the the resources from from the requirements if if we if in another 10 years because if you look at if you look at the um student population in if you look at enrollment over the last 30 years it's exceptionally sinusal like any other good way function um it wasn't that long ago it was when I first joined the committee 10 years ago that there was h cry because there was absolutely no room in the high school and kids were sitting on radiators or sitting on their book bags if we get back to that exact same environment again and we have not we do not have um the ability to pay for that level of enrollment we will eventually break the system and we will break one of the main things that has has attracted to the best of my knowledge 90 plus% of everyone who's ever moved to this town so so what I what I'm trying to drive on home on this point is that we we cannot let the proportion of houses that and I'm trying to be very careful not to not to use use illegal words here we have to be very careful to make sure that the the re the the the thing that attracts everyone to acting is the quality of our schools if we end up breaking it because we overrun the school district without being able to pay for it we're going to it's going to collapse J you were going to say something sorry I thought you were raising your hand Adam I wonder why we need to make a statement at all about rebalancing the budgets if we don't have a specific goal nor a specific measure to quantify it well I'm trying what I'm trying to say is two slides ago we made made it very clear that the current path is unsustainable so what I'm trying to say is one of the ways not we we can do one of two things we can either pay less for the resources that we're receiving which is exceptionally unlikely to happen in in large measure or we can try and ask for a little less of those things a little less of what we're what we have to do and the single most expensive thing in town is a student yeah but I don't see with that how that equates to rebalancing something without a goal or a target for rebalancing it that's why it's part of the vision statement again I was told I couldn't have I couldn't have things in the longer term Visions longer term line because you can't have a crystal ball and there's no way to have it have anything hard you know fact-based evidence in 5 years out because the municipal budgets are so so squishy so what I'm trying to do here is point out we are aware of the fact that if we maintain this imbalance in services and wants we're going to collapse the system go ahead Christie um I I would say more that we are trying to maintain the balance between the school and the municipal budgets so that the town stays affordable to all residents I would I would argue it's already imbalance that's why we're in a that's why we're in an unsustainable level that's why we have to work to rebalance it in the longer term cuz if you if if we keep doing what we've been doing for the last 15 years we're going to we're going to have a failed override in the next three to five years I I think you want to come at it from the perspective of saying that we want to keep you're attempting to make a somewhat subtle argument in one line um I think you will get more traction if you point out that we are attempting to make act in affordable for all residents so how would you have me reward this well I you didn't like what I said top top level bullet or bottom level do you mean by rebalance like you say rebalance sounds like you want to change something I do so what do you want to you want to shift more to the schools show some numbers yeah you don't want to change something you want to make sure that it doesn't become further unbalanced but in what direction that's my point there's no there's no quantifiable thing here to make this statement So reading from the words it's like you um trying to re balancing between schools and the municip people but uh are you saying that we're just trying to balancing school budget and uh Municipal budget not between these two then you can do it by feeling rid of the the word viory if that's what you try to mean so you were saying work to keep to maintain affordability just work to with do you want me to go on with that work to maintain affordability then that leave the bottom line is now hanging because it doesn't explain where I got how I got there you repeat the Bullet From Above underneath in hands because you say Foster and affordable affordable you're saying affordable twice on the same slide if you do that on the bottom bullet repeat I would change that to um not maintain but uh achieve sustainability there we go yes Christie um this is a good place to point out I believe that um the cost of growth needs to be considered uh um I thought I had that in here could remind me of that in two minutes remind me of that in two minutes I'm sorry this is budgetary sustainability or tax sustainability not environmental what I was thinking of it in terms of yeah Revenue versus expense we've said we've established that we're not unsustainable so as a long-term goal we want to achieve sustainability current it's possible that works yes uh my thought initially with fiscal sustainability was that we were looking at it um for taxpayers and that we were specifically trying to call out um as I mentioned as a citizen as our last meeting I am concerned about my ability to afford retiring here in the direction that the taxes are going and the potential changes um that would increase those well isn't that inherent in make in getting to fiscal sustainability because the the if if you're unable to pay your taxes then or if or too many people are unable to afford their taxes or if too many people decide to cut and run at the when the kids graduate from high school then then it is not fiscally sustainable uh I have heard the what I would view as cold perspective that that's time for me to sell my house and move somewhere cheaper so we're trying to but we're I I I would argue that it's in the working to achieve fiscal sustainability is what you're what we're trying to do here we're trying not to force people out but still be able to maintain everything that we liked about liked that attracted us to this town to begin with if if you're saying it's not explicit enough in this in this bullet we can work on that but I would say it's implicitly in there if there's how would you how would you how would you focus this more to what you're looking at to what you're looking for honestly it's late enough that I cannot to acheve fiscal Smith very well right now chrisy are you thinking something more like fiscal sustainability without raising taxes kind of a comment because you can get to fiscal sustainability by just raising the taxes no no you can't well that it gets to his point you can't because then it will fall apart fiscal unsustainability is tax increases if we continue to let our expenses grow faster than our revenue does it only means tax increases so you had said Mr wellinghoff in particular had said that we weren't driving home the point that another override would likely fail it's our number one concern is that another override would likely fail furthermore we're saying we don't support an operating override without structural change first what Adam I don't want to be too picky but could we change the word we do not support to we do not recommend only from the standpoint that recommend would be a term we would use in public meeting and we said we wouldn't sub we wouldn't recommend one last year but we all supported one didn't we well last year I last year I supported one you come this year there's no way in hell I'm you're going to support one I don't know we said last year I mean there comes a time where maybe you have to support it which we had to support it last year that's the only reason I'm arguing that maybe we should use fine with the word recommend versus support that's that's a distinction L of difference in my opinion that's fine yes I apologize I the whole purpose of this is to try and get it done as much as possible so don't apiz saying that additional dead exclusions are unaffordable we're not complaining about the current ones true uh Greg Dave any comments on this or do we go to the next one I'm I'm fine with us it just says at this time do you envision a time when more debt exclusions will be affordable yes when we've when we've lost I would remove when we paid off will we paid off all the ones all the ones we're looking that we're paying off now then it becomes more affordable I have a question about the and it was on a previous slide too about the Minuteman costs um so they have a brand new building we don't anticipate any new debt exclusion from them for quite a while right that that debt exclusion that's there that's from paying off the building yes so right now aren't the cost increases really just because more students are going there yes now well over the last couple of years we over the last couple over the last 5 years we keep having debt exclusions we they keep taking out bonds they keep get keep getting piled on that should be over now okay should be go ahead um we are almost styed in that's our our tuition is based on a 5-year rolling average of population which is vastly increased we have hit our limit on number of students unless other towns decide to stop um and there has been a sizable budgetary increase as they get everything established because it's a new school building and they've changed the program some so so the the changes aren't only from that but that hopefully is all leveling out and it has been bad it has been the the increases the the year-over-year increases on the M man side have been absolutely eye popping but because it is a rolling threee average it should start to level off and should start to get better now that said even last year Dave Martin and I were at a meeting of their superintendent who was talking about well since we're already at capacity let's add some more buildings and uh I I believe uh I believe that was was met with a resounding no thank you m niichel would you like to speak thank you I just have a question about the second to the last bullet what does monitor turnover mean is that in staff or residents I'll be I'll be more clear does that does that mean that we are right now monitoring that I know that we print the sales in the annual report but what kind of monitoring has the finance committee done we have hit or miss in the last 10 years we have tried to do some level of prognostication about about what this is going to do to enrollment um and it's not something we've done on our regular basis it's not part of what we present every year but it is something that we have uh asked for reports unfortunately last time I did it was Brian Brian uh McMullen so so that's that's been a little while now um so that is something that we we have done in the past and we need we probably need to do a better job of moving forward what do you mean this will do to enrollment real estate turnover will do to enrollment yes yes okay but but we've seen the number of houses in Acton increase and the school enrollment go down yes and again 10 years ago we were bursting at the scenes so we have to start figuring out how to do a better job of uh of projecting enrollment otherwise we're going to get caught completely off guard at some point so our projected enrollment from all of the presentations from the district were that it was going to go up a little bit for the elementary and middle school kind of come down from the high school and basically be level for the next 10 years and I know that that projections for like population growth and School enrollment have been less than accurate that's what we're looking at exactly with the data that we have right okay so I I for one don't believe that this committee should just take that analysis at face value I think we should be doing our own they have been less than when they when they miss the projections they've been coming in low so when they say they're going to be stable I think it's going to keep going lower and I think that it's inherent upon us to actually start paying a closer attention to the amount of real estate turnover because when we when I first joined the committee and there was a great housing bust the number of transactions was exceedingly low and there were there was not the replenishment of people moving out once our kids graduated and then people moving in when they had when they were five when their kids were 5 years old they were 6 months pregnant so now now that things have changed the result because that Cycle's over we did see uh we did see we in within the last 10 years we've been an absolute Max so we need to we need to make sure we are having an independent view of what these numbers can be because we also run the risk not immediately probably not in the next two not probably not in the next two or three years and fortunately boxb seems to be growing faster than we are so the cost shift of boxb has been been two act in betterment in the last three years I believe it was certainly the last two but we have to be we have to be aware of the possibility that we could we could this trend could change and we need to be aware of what that means to us as taxpayers if it does because if we go right back to the enrollment that we had 10 years ago we're in in big trouble we're in big trouble yes Christie uh anecdotally I can think of seven houses quite near here that have sold in the last two years that have either very small children or are people who are very likely to have children soon I can think of one that was bought by a retiree and that's within basically a block or two I've here so I I have concern about a large population growth um of school aged children coming that would probably be in the next five years and also we did not get any estimate and I realized I had to pull this out of the presentation because I was told I was fighting last year's battle but we got absolutely no projection result of the M MBTA law and the zoning changes that we've done Y and so the chance you know we cannot count on continued uh enrollment decline you cannot if you bank on it I know looks what what's the thing the past returns are not indicate of a future right I get all that so we don't know but like I said there like the trends have been as Alyssa said we've had all this growth in town north Acton you know all over town and yet we have a thousand fewer students than we did 15 years ago it's you know and it's exceptionally sinusal and we may be looking at the trough well I've I mean like we've all lived here for a long time I'm Trev B this table and I haven't seen the other side of the sign curve I've just seen it I saw it peak in 200 nine or eight and it's been going down ever since I don't know how I mean I've lived in districts where they closed down a school I'm just saying like I you know we talk about the split between the town and the and the schools like there's there you talk about a Breaking Point there's a Breaking Point the other way too that we can't just keep throwing the same amount of money or the same proportion of our budgets at the school while their needs go down and you know like while the taxes have gone up 50% in 10 years the per people spending has gone up 65 I hear you but we we're we're doing we'll get to that level of concern when we're when we're into the present year budget right now we're doing the overall POV do you s do you have something else you wish to say please please so I just I want to caution um all of you about anecdotally talking about what you see and what you know and what you hear in town because chrisy I've heard you say um a couple of times that folks have are moving in with young children and I absolutely true I believe you um and I know you're seeing that in my neighborhood the past four folks that have moved in one of them has children and they're not young they're like you know Middle School age um the other three so 75% of the houses um one of them has an adult autistic son uh one of them their kids are flown grown and flown and the other one they have a Chihuahua and and no kids so so for me I'm seen not a lot of kids moving in and as Kena said our you know our enrollment has gone down significantly so I think we need to look at those hard numbers instead of what we see and you know somebody told me oh look there's a graduation sign and then there's the for sale sign that went up and and then you know he like sent me a message and said go look at this house I know the people who live there and the mom they got a divorce the mom is now at neok so she's still living in Acton they're both still in Acton so now actually this one family has two homes in Acton instead of one so I just caution everybody to think about like what your personal experience is why you moved to Acton um cuz I CU I see here you know the this is like why most people mve to Acton I didn't move to Acton because of the schools I homeschooled my kids but I'm in a very small minority so I can't look at it through my experience but I've spoken with a lot of people over the last few years some people are moving here because it's green some people are moving here because they're tired of living in the city where there's construction all the time some people are moving out here because there's there well that was before Kelly's Corner started um they're moving out here because the air is cleaner they they're moving out here because they're downsizing so people move to Acton for a lot of different reasons it's we're not seeing housing is increased I hear what you're say people are coming in here with school children and I I think we need to look at data so I'm glad that you're looking at real estate turnover and actually looking at numbers and and I just urge you all not to rely on anecdotal it's really hard to do right you see what you experienc when I was pregnant I saw pregnant women everywhere just I bought a new Prius I saw Prius is everywhere so just keep it in mind that's all I'm saying thanks anyone else okay on to the recommendation slide which got too big for one slide I had to break it into two any comments on this one yes recent past tax increases seems like there's one too many there I'd probably take out past very good did I just so I do want to make a point here I I I do want to make a specific point here uh the select board spent a good amount of time this this will come up during the liaison report but the select board spent a good amount of time last night talking about in preparation for ALG and should we use unused tax L capacity at all or not and I do want to reiterate what I argued last year on ALG which was I allow for the possibility to get from where we are now to where we need to be might require some short-term cost short-term restructuring short-term whatever to get from where we are to where we need to be so while I don't want to I absolutely do not want unused tax level capacity to just be another way of delaying for a year or two the next override because they're using that as a short-term as a short-term plug I am not necessarily against use of unused tax Lev capacity next year if it is part of a direct path to a restructuring is that clear I think that highlights my point of the difference between recommending something and supporting something with good NE necessary evidence so does is that are we all in agreement that that's the position of the committee on use of unused tax capacity that it's not just a way of staving off an override for a year it's a use it if it's to a specific goal yes Christie I need to look back at the minutes for ALG but I recall um being open to the current model which has a use of $400,000 this year and unus tax levy capacity to balance out the higher than normal use a free cash last year in an attempt to offset a an expected lower than usual turn back and keep our free cash reserves up higher get our free tax free tax free cash balance at the 3% number yes fair enough Adam uh the second bullet and the second topic um I'd be more specific and state that an override has a Perpetual exponential impact on taxpayers yeah just the facts man Perpetual compounding it's not exponential it doesn't go up a factor of 10 still compound a small we good with this one yes we will verify the debt chart because there's clearly a discrepancy that that must be remedied so we'll hold off on the on this top recommendation the debt chart I was looking at is the data that we've been looking at for years so I'm very very curious to see why there's a discrepancy there go ahead uh we could word that as until the junior high school senior high school debt is retired let's solve for it at our next meeting and be done with it okay a new comprehensive plan um and this is where I told you to put a pin in it and this is where I needed the pinned reminder should not be done in a vacuum of operating cost costs must take into account availability account resources such as water what else water capacity yep go ahead I'm sorry I'd like to make a distinct um separation here between sewer capacity which is infrastructure water is in fact a limited research similar to land there we don't make enough under the current system there is no plan as I know it to attempt to recharge our aquafers and it is unclear to the water district since they have been unable to get information about expected growth um how that growth would fit into their current plans that have to be negotiated with the state on drawing water from our current must take into account sustainability of limited resources thank you in the past our Reserve policy has been 3 to 5% I am not recommending we change the reserve policy now I think leaving it at the same verbage that we've done for 5 six years is a good idea but I think we should recommend that it should be closer to the 3% a total spend unless they're starting to earmark things because I'm not against saying we know we're going to need another ambulance or we know we're going to need another fire truck or we know we're going to do X Y andz project and as a result we're holding however many hundreds of thousands of dollars over and above the uh 3% because we know exactly what we plan on doing with the the reason why I haven't we haven't seen that accounting yet and until we do um that's why I say it has to be identified uh also we need to have an open conversation about maybe we need to start using some of this stabilization fund because we're holding $2 million worth of dead money when our when our taxation is going up fast inflation it's part of what what we're trying to stabilize against yes Mr B that's exactly why we have the stabilization fund right we know we're going to need we have the one for Capital right we know we need a new $2.1 million ladder truck that's now we were told last night it's going to take four years but that's why we established that stabilization fund back six years ago maybe a little bit longer now and we have that money sitting there and we should be using that stabilization funds new ambulance new fire trucks things like that that's why we put money into there we also need to come up with a mechanism to replenish those as well so I I don't know how to do that right now it's the replenishment that's exceptionally hard right and that's but there's also an argument to be made of if we're already 11% off of inflation if we're already hot then we're doing something wrong maybe we need to stabilize now and not have that safety layer because if they're spending money because they have a safety layer maybe we have to take away the net so it becomes a little more uh a little more risky to do your your to do your Highwire act yeah that's my arent last year was to use some stabilization we didn't use it okay any other comments on this last recommendation slide okay and then I did put in this chart which goes back 14 years and I have the I have the full spreadsheet which points which does bring up the one thing that I absolutely need the committee's input on I'm going to stop sharing for a split second because this is my work laptop and I'm going to if I could end up in the wrong spot that would be bad go ahead um formatting wise the labels of the lines took me a little bit toin and maybe it's just cuz my brain is slow at this time of night but if you could make the labels maybe be next to the lines so it was e to tell what they were or not uh I will see what I can do um not great at making the charts but let me see what I can do there we go there there and there we go let's make sure this crops up properly okay so what I need your help with in particular is whether or not I have to offset these years so the inflation chart is obviously on a calendar year because that's how they that's how they do it and we have the the joy of having our year our our fiscal year start smack dab in the middle of the calendar year so what I'm since our fy2 started halfway through 24 I counted the budget the the new amount of the average single family tax bill that was approved in May of 2024 as I compared it because that's the fy2 number hits in in 2024 do I need to skew this entire row one way or the other or is this the right mashup of the dates first of all does the question make sense close enough the question makes sense thank you so Adam is either very tired or he's sick of me he says it's close enough uh I'll look to Steve for a little input here technically you should take um 50% of the tax levy or single family tax bill and you know make fiscal year columns that actually compareed to calendar years so calendar year 14 fy14 would be half of fiscal year 14 and half of fiscal year 15 do I think it will make any perceptible difference not in the in the graph no I don't and is it Mis can I be accused of be being misleading by use by doing it in this manner can I credibly be accused of okay credibly sorry I have to add that have to add that last word so I'm sensing that this is okay from this side of the table go ahead I think it's fine okay transparent just be transparent so that's why I'm trying to hang a light on this is what I'm doing and why I'm doing it this way so so I so I should probably throw in a a line of description on the on that last slide very good I will do that yes Christie if you would like I'm happy to do the math to adjust this I I don't want us to do that because then we we will have to do redo that every subsequent time of doing this and Andor God forbid we forget to do it one year or make an error so if this is again I think if if we're looking at a single one-year data point then that then it could be Germaine but as soon as we get into a 5 year 10 year 14-year chart yeah it's aages out it comes out in the wall okay my vote is to leave it as is very good okay so on this slide here I need to add something I need to make the you want me to make the these description lines bigger I personally would love them to be text boxes over the lines oh I can do that just up there I can do that and on the on the blue line you want to spell all cumulative because you have it spell out on the red line well it's because it's what got brought in automatically from the chart I'm sorry that raises a good point um we were recommended by some I think Commission on disability people to make lines not be colors but different patterns like triangles and squares Etc so someone who is color blind like me can differentiate okay got it uh on the chart on the chart add text boxes K raises a good point that if you're on the graph it matters I hear you and or change to dash dots for line charts chart lines okay so the only thing that we have not landed on tonight the only thing we absolutely have to go back and research is this debt chart so other than the debt chart which we have to go back Roland other than the debt chart that we absolutely have to go back and make sure we have 100% agreement on because there's discrepancy between us and what the select board says other than that and do you trust me to make the last little uh cosmetic adjustments to this presentation I will bring it back uh at the next meeting yes with the with the chart any other things we should discuss at this time with regard to point of view Steve I'm sorry we're not going to have it done by the holiday oh well that would have been the record I was trying trust me I was trying the other record I think is December so I I still have I still have I still have a I still have a chance here okay so we're going to say that we're done with point of view at this point for this meeting I do not have minutes again I need to go back can figure out why I'm was broken on my part for not for not getting those to me liaison reports who wishes to start on leis on reports Christie I I would like to give the majority of the report for the school committee next time um but highlights are that uh or the main highlight that I would mention here is that the task force structure for their um budget task force was approved by the school committee with the exception of the dates because they are currently designed to almost entirely overlap their meetings um that we're going back to see how much finagling is possible has they have a consultant hired to lead these meetings fair enough Greg your hand is raised yeah um the um Economic Development Committee um is reviewing a document on on a hazard mitigation in town it is a really long comprehensive document um so I just want to alert everyone to that it's it's um I I know we are looking at uh water as one of the resources um but um there's probably a lot of information uh in that uh report that we're going to want to be aware of as well we we may even want our own um meeting about it fair enough any other Liaisons okay last night the select board met things I would like to draw to the committee's attention um the habitat for all survey is still open I find that interesting I find that very interesting uh two new firefighter EMTs were swor in on Monday uh the first the next big Public Works building committee meeting or maybe this the first one of the Public Works building committee meeting is on going to be on the 2 on September 26th in this room they have declared that they want to bring a plan for the full building to the next town next town meeting um so by all means please everyone be aware of that yes Steve is there a working go Testament I I don't know something in close enough in the tens of millions category the last number I saw was 30 million the last public I think that was obsolete the last time they looked that was closer to 40 I thought I do not wish to comment I uh so I don't know how we can get so excited about building something if we don't know what it might cost I suspect that it would be important for someone to be there on the 26th Adam you have worked this in the past is this something wish to continue to work yeah and I believe I'm supposed to be on that committee and I will reach out to Dean charer who the chair if it's the same microphone oh sorry yes I'll take care of that okay okay uh other things there was a long conversation about recycling stickers but I'm just going to leave that being uh arpa it's important to point out that I believe we have a deadline at the end of the the end of this calendar year um they are they are shuffling some money around to make sure to leave no money on the table um I I I think we might want to ask for a final recap on on arpa I don't think we want to insert ourselves between now and the end of the year um I think we should just encourage them to make sure that they leave no money on the table and then come give us a a final uh recap uh in in January if that's acceptable to the rest of the committee um there was a presentation very late in the day um second to last item uh which is the budget process for the new for the new year uh they did the town manager did lay out a couple of dates that I want to bring to everyone's attention um budget Saturday on a on a Tuesday is going to be uh on 113 uh sorry uh 1114 115 and 121 it's going to be some combination of two out of three of those dates being that it's in January we have to pay attention we have to worry about storms I think it's great that he's already try sort of trying to plan around it um I do think it's important that we get our point of view over them nice and early this year because they're definitely trying to uh get things moving at least one select board member said she couldn't believe we were talking about uh about the budget uh in in August so I thought that was fun uh let's see the other so uh Revenue number Al although there is no free cash uh free cash estimate this time and we have to wait for it to be you know audited etc etc the revenue side is looking about 1.7 7 million to the good uh and the um the expense side is looking pretty much exactly flat so there is the possibility of a lower than usual overall turn back uh we will we will obviously wait for a more a a more official number uh but the the worry of being over the five 5% free cash uh uh free cash limit is is that worry has been removed the the the main concern is making sure that we're we stay above the 3% number 70,000 in change yeah that's that's that's strictly on the uh on the um expense side the the revenue side was 1.7 million to the good so uh let's see what else do I want to say on this uh fire truck is being just it's going to take four years to take delivery um and they did something last night that I've never seen before they they specifically said that the fire truck will have a useful lifespan of 15 years period I do hope that the bond we took out as 15 years or less there their Hope was to to have it before four years but yeah I mean when he told us originally it was three years last time and he's shocked it was four so does anyone have any idea why they explicitly declared 15 years is that to hamstring the future or is that to declare uh to be able to have some kind of uh resale value at the end of it all it's usually because we live in the Northeast and everything rots up here um that is how long it is considered a capital expense by state law is my understanding and um estimated useful life so that's the purpose of declaring that is so that we can amortise over a 15year period okay and then the last part of the select board meeting last night was a conversation about ALG again multiple members of ALG did not want to touch unused tax levy capacity at this time one of whom specifically said I don't want to touch on use tax L capacity because I want to make sure there's as much room in the taxpayers budget as possible for a new DP W building um there's not that much on say indeed indeed and I think that's everything that I need to report from last night are there any other leas on reports okay so at this time gang and so I going to start by saying Karen you dodged the bullet gang as the newest member of the finance committee the last person whove been sworn in it is it is our normal hazing ritual that you as the newest member of the committee are the one who we turn to when we are tired and the day is over and we wish to go home and we ask you to please make a motion motion to ad second second all uh because we have remote remote attendees this vote has to be a roll call vote uh Allison I Christie I I'm an i Scott I Steve I Adam I Roland I Dave wellinghoff hi and Greg hi the meeting is adjourned thank you all