noting the time and the presence of a very thin Quorum uh I call this meeting of the act and finance committee to order um this is meeting is being broadcast and recorded by Acton TV if the one person sitting in the audience is also wishes to record it he should make himself known to the chair now um the first item is Citizens concerns and despite oh oh okay how's that for timing uh so noting that there are now citizens in the room I will open up the microphone to Citizens concerns or citizens questions observers all observers all very good okay so we will move on to the main purpose of this meeting which is the first run the point of view by way of a quick reminder we had discussed at the last meeting about potentially changing how the point of view is laid out uh we wanted to to to do two things with our point of view this current year and I wish Zoom would stop crashing out on me that's the second time that it's done that um we want to do two things with this point point of view this year one we want to have a clear narrative uh for when we present to the select board and the uh school committee but we also wanted to make sure that our point of view is as approachable as possible uh so we are going to keep a a uh PowerPoint format in the attempt to uh make sure that we are able to present to whoever will be kind enough to let us in um the previous year's point of view had gotten to north of 20 slides which I feel was made made it very difficult to present in under 10 minutes uh so my goal this year is to have the slid show part of this be 10 slides which are going to appear to be you know relatively light on on graphs and the and the whatnot uh so that we can speak to them quickly but I don't want the data to be lost so the the way I'm trying to pres trying to write this is we've got our you know eight main slides and then there's a call and response so there's the main slides but if somebody asks for the proof in the pudding or the underlying data uh the the correct appendix slide will correspond to the slides that that make our assertions there is the possibility that since um we did not have a uh subcommittee WR this because we did not want to have open meeting law violations there's the possibility that one voice may come through a little stronger on the this point of view than others and uh by all means feel free to uh add your add your uh points as we go along okay wanted to start with a very quick review of the most recent past the operating override last year was exceptionally close 37 votes out of 6290 is 37 according to the absolute final the posted number on May 2nd the official final Ros arts on the on the website is 37 the 45 that you're thinking of Sir is probably the 45 people who took a ballot and did not bother to vote on the topic of the override must be taken into account and given the respect it deserves as we plan for the current budget conversation as well as the near and longer term budget expectations and now let me try and get Zoom to stick with my sharing here please thank you guess I got to share the whole screen or it's going to just dump out okay recent past we had a dead exclusion that started to impact uh tax uh taxpayers in fiscal year 21 that's when the boardwalk campus and the north Acton fire station impacts started to hit the hit the bills reserves the last couple of years our Reserve use and our Reserve Landing has been excellent um the forecast is not quite as bright um but I want to take a moment to say even though saying the forecast is not quite as bright uh perhaps sounds like I'm being negative this was directly because we asked them to do it that way last year we specifically said we're already in for a major tax increase I'm we were fine with using a little more of the uh reserves to try and mitigate the large uh large increase uh in year-over-year taxes for the first time more than 15 years and I I I would give you a more accurate number but I ran out of data so uh I don't have I don't have uh ALG spreadsheets to go back more than 15 years but this is the most we've had in over 15 years highest we got about 10 years ago was just shy of a million uh so this is our largest uh amount of unused tax Lev reserves that we've had as long as I've been on the committee perhaps as long as you have sir perhaps you're right um and this is our favorite kind of rainy day Reserve because this is the money that sits in the taxpayer's pocket uh until it is absolutely needed and then lastly what does this all add up to this adds up to a tax increase increase that has up 38% over the last 7 years and we're going to I don't have the I have not created the call and response slide for this yet I'm taking the data specifically from the ALG spreadsheets uh showing what the average single family tax bill was I don't know why Zoom keeps crashing uh what the shows what the average single family tax bills were um what I intend on doing is Tak and since I'm now sharing my entire screen let's see if I can do this taking a look at the right inflation calculator I'm I'm sure there's going to be some tweaking on this one but a dollar spent in 2017 which is fiscal year 2018 so taking the fiscal year 2018 tax bill and comparing it to the fiscal year 25 tax bill and taking a dollar of government spend in 2017 the inflation on that government spend is 28% whereas the increase in our tax bill has been 38% that tells us clearly that our uh the the cost of our government has outpaced inflation whether or not we're okay with that is complet is part of what everyone has to decide when they make make their considerations at the at The Ballot Box and when it comes to what uh what items they vote for at town meeting I personally would contend that 50 almost 50% higher run rate than inflation shows that when inflation is high and we have to have an override that may be true but it also shows that when inflation was almost zero and we were still having three three and a half% increases year-over-year that perhaps there was a uh a uh an imbalance somewhere Mr noon looks like you would like to weigh in already yeah I want to quibble um I I mean to be perfectly accurate um most um inflation data wouldn't um include heavy Capital like building schools and fire stations which does go into that tax uh calculation um so yeah um we should probably back out the to the extent we did debt exclusions uh but it's still going to be I believe higher than the rate of and the good news is the only debt exclusion that we did since 2018 was the school and the fire station there that's it's it's $1 million that should be counted Mr jbo yeah one other question um if we're going to use 2017 or 2018 as the base which is you know you got to pick a base somewhere so I'm I'm I'm not quibbling with that um we also have to deal with the fact that in the middle of that world was the covid pandemic and all the weirdness that um that that triggered which was sort of extraordinary so it then becomes are we I mean even the Federal Reserve board couldn't give you a good answer on this one are we at the tail end of that inflationary Spike and is it coming back down and is it going to quote return to 2% 3% whatever uh going forward or are are we facing um similar inflationary pressures going forward so there's there's um we may be asked to defend why that base year and um aren't there other things going on very good point I was actually planning on putting in um putting in the 2018 number the 2021 number and the 2024 number so we have three way three way points the the most recent Waypoint but for now for when I was pulling this together over the weekend so I only got done the 2018 one starting with the farthest back that I was comfortable pulling but to that point I absolutely agree with you doing a onetime a one point in time snapshot is not accurate um so if the rest of the committee is comfortable with I was going to do 2018 FY 2018 fy21 FY 24 uh as the three closest point three points I was just curious if you could go back to the inflation calculator if you could just do the base year as 2020 instead of 2017 yes so I think that's when everything went crazy after 20120 it did so it's 21% in since 2020 yeah so previous year was 7% but if you look at the went from 2017 to 2020 %7 2020 and it would be 5% 6% 5.6% now during 2017 to 2020 our taxes did not go up 6% our taxes went up significantly more than I totally understand I think so yeah when I'm what I'm getting to is that this has been an accelerated period of inflation that has and everything in in the marketplace is always sticky it takes time to react to things and it this happen faster than the economy can handle which is why we were so willing to go for the override last year which is also why we were willing to have some unused tax Le capacity but it doesn't change the fact that did it crap out again it doesn't change the fact that uh this is something we need to plan to protect against in the near future yeah it crapped out again next time you have to print it out apparently next time I have to print it out so much for this computer okay so that's the recent past now we get into what are we going to argue about for this year are we going to do business as usual do normal 3 to 3.5% increase what about maybe not doing that for a change and putting some money aside uh for tomorrow so that we lower what we spend on any on this current year to try and protect out larger things that we know are coming down the pike um every year we talk about what percent increase are we going to recommend to the select board every year we talk about um the reserves the unused Levy capacity the debt exclusion so um what are we going to use in unused tax Lev capacity this year as I said we've got the largest we've ever had um I suspect we may have to use some of it this year but I would like to see it be as little as possible and I would also like it to like us to make sure that we're using it as a way of bridging to a more sustainable more sustainable rise in the future how much do we want to do in debt exclusion and I'm going to jump out here and say that the two slides that I absolutely kept the most from last year are uh here I got to clean up this from I think these two slides are were the best two slides in last year's presentation because they showed that when we took out the large borrowings for the boardwalk and for the north Acton fire station we had said and I know we I know we said it because I was the one that gave the speech we had said to the public that we knew we were asking them for an extra cost in the short term to take advantage of the msba time and to take advantage of the extremely historically low rates but that if they would look forward they would see that debt falls off and brings us back to about where we were in a fairly fairly short period of time it was three years of severe pain followed by another five years of a little more than they were before and then bring us back down to a regular level and so one of the things that I'm going to socialize with this committee now uh and might have to do once we have our full have our full compliment is maybe when we start doing this when we look at this presentation uh when we start giving this presentation one of the things that we say is we do not want to entertain debt until FY 29 when it comes back down the when it comes back down to uh the levels that we were at before that's not to say that the level that we were at uh for the last couple of years is historically high it's not um back 20 30 years ago when we to took out both the public safety facility and the uh junior high high school Renovations our debt was a greater percentage of our yearly spend then than it is now so I don't want to um I don't want to just look at that slide because it's only got a 20year time frame on it and make it sound like this is historically high it's not but it is high for the people who've only been here for 10 or 15 years um so present day uh how much do we want to do in debt exclusion would it not be would it not be wiser to wait for 20 FY 29 and or lower rates lower rates new rates are currently at what 4.4 for a municipal 5 coupon that's not horrible but it's not fantastic when the most you could reasonably expects to gain in a year as 3% as far as the first point the the three and three and a half% increase um as I look at our just our total compensation costs and by that I mean the town salaries and benefits plus the schools um salaries and benefits with a reduction for boxboro share and school Revenue mhm um we're still on the hook for a number that's something like 86% of our tax levy and compensation that's true um which means uh a relatively modest 4% increase in compensation cost eats up that 3% correct leaves room for zero um extra anything uh and I'm not sure compensation costs can be held to 4% because it includes Healthcare and and what pensions and things that typically have gone up more than that so um I don't know the the way you're presenting it is really an option you know if in in the real world you know with our compensation costs being what they are absent a number that's below 3% increase in compensation there is no room to do anything else without a tax increase or Cuts in in other places and that's a perfect Layin to the last bullet point on the slide which is now is the time for us to have a very long look at Cost cutting because I for one do not want to go through another override in the near future and by near future I'm not saying one or two years I'm saying more like five and if you look at if you go back to what the data shows us and we can go back and pull out the the capital bid um if you look at it the cost of our government is still going up faster than inflation which means that is taking a larger percentage of the citizens uh ability to pay and I am suggesting that but for 38 votes we'd be in a much different situation now and saying well I don't see how we can avoid a 4% increase uh I can tell you how we can avoid avoid a 4% increase we can bull ahead like we've been doing for the last 15 20 years where we got away with it for an exceptionally long period of time and a very large payout from a super fund site or we can pay attention to the fact that this is coming and we might not be as lucky next time around and we'll not have to worry about 4% increase we'll have to worry about what percentage of people we have to lay off immediately I know it sounds harsh Steve you seen you seen a little caught off guard by that but you also know me not caught off guard very good and it wasn't a super fun site it was a potential de cleared I stand corrected I stand corrected um well I was going to maybe wait till you went through all slides okay see if any optimism optimism crept into this thing um I would not hold your breath for op after that after that little speech I figured it it wasn't coming that the spoiler okay so that's uh the present day then um as a point of as a point of um style I'm curious to see if I cut out the next two bits to be did this take it cut out again the next slide is near future and the slide after that is longer future and I specifically tried to cut these two out because of the and I'm I'm I don't want to be craving about this but the finance committee has always been told that we have a long-term remit which in my mind is at least 10 years if not 30 whereas when I speak to elected officials um I am reminded that their term is three years tops and so the expectation what I'm worried about is making a making something that is is that PC I made by CR just curious this uh PC is brand new and I'm not used to it yet apparently don't get me started on crowd drke that's how I was five hours late coming home on Friday the airport Saturday Friday morning in Texas yep so the next the next uh slide I had was near future which had a 3 to 5e time frame trying to line up with the political realities of uh the of the um elected officials in town um and some of this as you can see has been stream of Consciousness this has not been preted up for final presentation at this was meant to be conversation provoking and I know that it takes us at least three meetings to go through a point of view anyway so I was just trying to get it all down for conversations purposes from the start in the near future do we want to take a couple of years to wait for inflation to come down a little bit get get rates back down to that 3.5 or lower do we not want to take that risk because you never know what the future will hold and uh who knows three years from now we may be looking at 4.43% on the the year note and we wishing we were back down those were the Glory Days that's uh that's something we we need to discuss one thing that we have discussed in the past and I would like to drive home this year is that I do not want the two Capital plans to be developed in a vacuum I would like there to be a 3 to fiveyear plan that is discussed uh amongst the amongst LG amongst the three major boards uh so that we know what's coming down the pipe for from both sides otherwise we run the risk of the last project brought forward is going to be is going to be the one that that gets starved out from from fundage um I don't want to suggest that doing this is like hurting cats but it's something that we've not accomplished in the past something I would love for us to start working towards for now um similarly I would I open to the concept of the municipal side doing what the school side did six years ago five five six years ago which was to take out a a well-timed loan and bundle together a bunch of smaller a bunch of smaller projects small medium projects uh and bang them all out at once with a fixed cost so that they knew exactly what their what their what their costs were going to be for the next number of years avoiding any postal step functions uh surprises to the taxpayer um and then in the near future so if this is our year for having conversations about what to about what we can C cut what costs we can cut then I would like to suggest that in the next three to five years we actually get those items implemented and unfortunately Christie has not made it to the last couple of meetings I know that the school committee has a subcommittee that's working on this um I need to spend more time on the municipal side to see how they're doing on it but yes this is something that I absolutely think we need to do because I do not want to be not only do I not want to be having override conversations in the next four or five years I have absolutely no intention currently of supporting an override in the next four or five years I think the only thing I would add to your near future thoughts is uh sources of revenue so we had talked at length about maybe selling some properties um when we're looking at the budget budget deficit and in a 3 to fiveyear plan you could have a very reasonable assessment of town assets and see if there's anything of anything that would be worthwhile to explore in selling and then any other ways of generating uh additional revenue for the town um I think in a 3 to 5e plan uh sources of revenue are the easier path than cost savings but you have to be realistic um because every town is looking to increase Revenue but I think yeah I think the asset review would be a a sound one to look at because I'm all for it yeah because we could you might be able to you know we talked about it at length you might be able to get some significant cash out of it to maybe fix a short-term problem so all for it for uh for on the short term but definitely do want to work on the cost curve moving forward but yes you're absolutely right and that was mentioned in the previous um previous meeting and thank you for bringing it back up and making sure I get it back in here yeah and chair yes yeah well in addition to the revenue Source Discovery um you know it's way early in the process but the economic development committee is trying to put together a master plan for uh Economic Development again that may not be completed in you know for another year but um if we're going to be looking that far out then the question I think we may want to weigh in on is um if we can find ways to uh increase um economic development that makes a whole lot of the other things more sustainable so which one should we support which one should we go back and push back on Etc so you know there there are other groups that I think we can we can discuss that with absolutely on the longer term so 5 10 20 years do we want to in the past we've been told we have to make policies the past we've been told we have to give guidance do we want to go down the path of trying to say that we don't want to be the 16th highest taxer in the Commonwealth anymore maybe we want to Target for the 25th or something along those lines do we want to start having the conversation about uh making a a setting a target for what we're willing to shoulder as a percentage of our median family income or is or or am I now too many years out and on on a limb that we do not wish to be on oh you're on a limb and you're too far out but you know I I work with a lot of different organizations and nobody and I mean nobody is doing 20-year plans um most of us are having difficulty doing three-year plans the 5-year plan is is is uh uh giggled at if if that ever comes up so one of the challenges that we have with our longer term is can you tell me what the inflation rate will be 20 years from now I'm going to push back on you and say nobody has a 20-year plan what did what did you do when you decided to take out a mortgage did you just say we're going to buy this house and life will be great and God will provide in 5 years or did you actually say no I actually have a plan for I'm going to pay this 30-year responsibility yeah part of the plan was I'm going to renegotiate when the rates come down to say that to say that uh planning 10 years out is is a a murky at best is 100% accurate to say that it therefore it shouldn't bother to be be done at all I push back on heavily because everybody who bought a house in this town the vast majority of people who bought a house in this town had at least a 10year plan on how they were going to pay their mortgage I don't think there were I don't think of the of the 5,000 Parcels in this town most people bought a threee three 35 arm I think most people probably bought a 25 20 25 30 year fixed no I I I totally agree and having bought back when um our economy when I bought had digital Equipment Corporation employing 20% of the people in this town the the traffic jam was going south the mayard I was headed up 495 to Wang or down 495 to data General none of those companies are around anymore so the whole notion if if you you talk about I wanted to plan 30 years in advance sure I had a plan was it um come anywhere close to reality no the world changed in between all that so so again yeah I I when you are working on shorter term I think we are on stronger ground when you work on longer term there may be guidance that we can provide because there are some things that you we can start steering in the right direction earlier rather than later but boy the the the number of assumptions that we are not in control of we can't control what the next employment uh Trends are are like we're lucky if we can we can U project inflation that far out boy that's that's that's hard Scott so in my professional experience uh aspirational goals for businesses are very important a lot of companies have their aspirational goal in their mission statement for the business it provides Direction and focus over the long term for a business um yes in the short run uh you have a lot of uh variables that you don't control um and you have a lot of generally speaking like Revenue goals or Revenue targets I see this as an aspirational Target longterm are are we are we are we a a community that wants to have highly taxed um people in the town or are we a community wants to strive to be more of the middle of the pack which I think is what you're that's how I'm reading it so I don't see this as an impossibility I see this as almost like a mission statement for town of what we want to be and what we want to focus on you know I would say you know we want to if I was spitballing we' want to be a a community that wants to that puts a lot of value in the education system and makes to support our schools while maintaining uh you know a reasonable tax burden on the population and providing an infrastructure for uh new business development and you know a good location for uh you know Community growth and things like that but like that's kind of how I view it and part of what I had in mind for this is do we want to be a 30 years from now do we want to be a city or do we want to still be a suburb because I believe decisions that we've made this year and in the coming two years will have bearing on that Mr noon um I kind of agree with Scott on aspirational goals um you know when I took out my first mortgage on my first house I wasn't thinking about how I was going to pay for it for the next 30 years I was confident that I would uh remain gainfully employed during that period of time uh and for me that's worked out sometimes it doesn't um as far as setting targets like tax burden I mean um if um if you want my short answer as to how we could lower that number it's simple tell people don't have kids because we spend a lot of money on our schools it's part of the reason why disproportionately high is if you remember the little 10 Community comparison I did last year we the highest percentage of our uh expenditures going to to education um so there's a lot of that that is difficult to control um do I think we can have an aspirational goal compared to uh what the tax burden should be versus our median family income perhaps that's a reasonable um thing to try and uh talk about um by the way what's your metric there is it tax rate or tax um we're we're uh depending on the Year we're 16th to 19th in the highest a um average single family tax bill as a percentage of medium inome um so um from DLS we can say we we would like that to be lower but then you know it depends on how incomes flow employment changes it also has zoning has bearing on this as well um what percentage of uh new uh of new structures are age limited for 55 plus what percentage of structures are are single family dwellings on a 1acre lot versus this habitat for which is going to absolutely have an impact on the number of students in the in the town well if you think we got an issue I see Governor Healey wants to turn the conquered prison into affordable housing that's that's 40 acres at least it's on that side of at least it's on that side of the Border um so um we do have bearing on this we do have we do have we do get to advise and consent to the to the town as to what we think is going to happen if we make these decisions now and if we don't have a 10 15E time frame on this and we just vote on every single vote zoning thing that comes along because oh GE Shucks the governor's demanding it again this year we're going to get ourselves overrun uh I'm not as pessimistic as you are I know you're not then again I have I've yet to see any optimism in this thing so alert you're not going to find any I I had a brief conversation with um Christine about the cost cutting initiative which probably Bears on this um and the gist of it and again I'll wait for her to be here because I know she's putting more effort into that um but the gist of it was uh we did need some kind of focus uh otherwise you don't know why am I cutting this cost and not that cost you know what what is the objective here um and and um among the things we discussed was um if we took uh again it's going to sound aspirational but you know maybe it is but if you took um you know acting as one of the um best communities to live in or one of the best suburbs to live in um in eastern Mass Massachusetts uh which is why people move here which is by why people you know uh stay here uh yeah um then you begin using that to ask questions to say okay if we spend more on X or we spend less on y does that make us um a more attractive Community a better place to live or again the challenge that we're going to have is um the classic challenge of connecting the dots if that's your big aspiration cool how do you get from here to there and it will be hard but you're right at some point we do need uh a point of view uh so that when we get into those conversations we can basically say you know we're trying to head in this aspirational direction does this get us there so in the interest of keeping the overall point of you short I went through yesterday today tomorrow and next year quote unquote uh and then move right into our concerns um our our concerns are that we might find ourselves back evening not bring over sooner than later U I have a nice red variable XX there we do not support do not support oping override for at least the next X years um do we want to do we want to try and the Govern that now or is that something we could not possibly hold to because I put five in there as as my starting point do we want to put a number in there but we want to leave yes that's a variable you're not NOS thank you very much i' put three so could we compromise and say 3 to five do not have um I'm against saying three to five because anytime you give a range anytime you give a range people will pick the lowest number or they will pick the highest number uh to suit their to suit their uh to suit their expectations well agenda I would prefer not to have to back off of our U recommendation in three years so a little flexibility might not be a bad idea for for example what exactly are we going to do if all of a sudden con and DPW show up at the exact same time that would be catastrophic um do you want to comment on the capital or do you want me to go through the rest of the slides Steve uh I was just going to give another history lesson um we once had that committee um what happened to it um superintendent left the um got it um but um yeah it was a committee it was made up of Select board the town manager a member from the select board I should say Town manager a member from the uh school committee superintendent Finance directors of both entities LG like LG like and the idea was to put together um a coordinated plan um in the meantime like I said we had a major shift in in Personnel um we got a new superintendent we got a new town manager and uh while I believe they talk there's no vehicle uh for coordination of capital do you think it's worth trying to resurrect that type of communication at this time um we only get as Citizens we only get one tax bill that's um and so some coordination has to happen very good Maybe not maybe not on every project but certainly the big ones other concerns growth without an understand understanding of possible consequences I it continues to eat at me that we asked specifically for some kind of guesstimate of impact for this last round of zoning changes and we were given absolutely no guesstimate um and I find that to be intolerable I find that to be malfeasance of of forecasting and I don't ever want to see it again so that's why I've been beating the drum of the uh per capita increase committee um but I also I was more polite and more kind at the special town meeting at this last town meeting than I feel I should have been I absolutely cannot believe multiple calls for some kind of basic input was left unanswered is the most polite way that I can put that um the next concern become a victim of our own success with regard to schools um there's a thought there there's something that's eating in the back of my brain but I do not know how to properly describe it so I may end up pulling this if I can't figure out how to put into better better terms what I'm thinking um something that Doug Tindle said to me eight years ago that I've just you know just now trying to trying to wrap my head around but there's there's something to that it's a pin in the pin in the dartboard for now um but there's something there yes what is wrt with regard to and then uh another concern is that we are we are one of nine voices uh with regard to Minute Man uh by no means do I want to be heavy-handed about you know who can go to Minute Man and not we're in the district we we're paying all the capital fees but God help us we you know they've been a budget Buster a couple of times in the last five years and uh while it is a rolling average and we're hopefully at the highest point that we're going to be for a couple of years uh the rolling average has caught up with us uh we absolutely have to stay on this they've got a new superintendent they seem to be allergic to staying the same size they seem to just want to build every year uh and we frankly we can't we can't have minute man take up that much more of our resources when we have when we have one in nine one out of nine voices on the topic agreed and I think the Boston Globe story this past week about and it wasn't Min man it was one of the other um votex um I think we we need to do a closer look on which students they're taking and which students they aren't um it it um it stuns me that um there are a lot of assumptions as to which student population voke teex in Massachusetts across the state are supposed to be uh helping and that may not actually be the case over the last decade so so I think you're right it's one of those things that falls to the bottom of everyone's to-do list and because of that um um groups with nine towns in them don't get the same scrutiny that groups with two towns in them do so uh I would agree with you there as for the victim of our own success um be careful because the alternative is oh then we want to be a failure like I said it was a placeholder haven't uh and and fortunately we're not in a situation where the minute the kids graduate the the the forell sign goes out the way that it was in years past um but I don't want to get back to that spot either um the good news is we do have some capacity in our schools now it it's the same by the same reason that we were able to say that since enrollment was falling um the um the amount of money spent on the school district can't can't go up at the same rate that it was in the past by that say the other edge of that sword is that there is capacity in the schools there is opportunity for more people uh with school age kids to come into town There's also you know what's not discussed here and will not be in this presentation at all is the fact that if boxboro continues to outpace us with the enrol E that is only that only flows to Acton's benefit over the next couple of years and it's already shown to be a good thing over the last two so something to remember as well so is that an example of population growth being a plus uh the population growth is in boxboro so it's a plus the population grows in conquer it's not my problem okay so this hasn't cut over yet has it supposed to switch the recommendations come on really hasn't done anything yet has it give me a second give me a second uh so looking at looking at the little so it's either the new laptop can't handle this internet or our acting public internet is cutting in and out because it's every time I look down my internet is dead and it's re it's re recapturing okay so this gets us to the recommendation slide this is the last of the of the talking slides the rest are the going to be the the supporting data slides after the fact again call and response uh we want to reiterate our policy um do we want to say get closer to the floor uh do we want to say 3 to 5 is fine but in reality for the near term we should be at 3% uh or if you're above 3% make sure that you have clearly earmarked why you're holding on these funds uh because you see something coming down the pipe because I do not want to have 8% tax increases anymore I we've had we've had a seven and an eight in the last 5 years and we can't I strongly Advocate that we not do that anymore now if that means we have a couple of 3.25 instead of 3.0 because we're looking forward to what's coming down the pipe and we know and we've got our eyes open about what's going on then I'm much more willing to say we're putting money aside for a rainy day or we're putting money aside for a rainy roof or we're putting money aside for a specific project then to say oh GE Shucks we've ignored this for so darn long there's nothing we can possibly do but we absolutely have to Fork over tens of millions of dollars for something it's not how I want to move things forward and I think as a committee we should be driving home the point that 8% tax increases are killers Rand so schools did this bunch of other on you know the town did this too is we established the stabilization funds mhm and this year when we came down to the big budget crunch we didn't touch the state we didn't touch them and those were paid those were funded preco we used we used some of them and I brought that up why aren't we using those funds that's what they're there for they're there for the Rainy Day St as hence stabilization and we haven't done anything to do that so we knew that we're going to need to be replacing the ladder truck we knew it was going to be $2 million roughly how much do we have in stabilization 2 million so instead we decid we're going to go and bond at a higher rate right we probably should have bonded three years ago and did this because the rates were low so I think we still need to add to stabilization fund so when we do have projects that come in the future we need new ambulance we have the 350k sitting in there or 400 whatever is the time and you pull out a stabilization yes you have to go to town meeting and get the 3/4s vote but okay I think it's 2/3 2/3 what what what whatever it is but we really need to understand what's sitting in stabilization now and why Town manager select board were reluctant to use it you know we didn't have to go and tax the citizens at the 6.6 if we pulled out two we would have been 4.6 or maybe we take a million out and have 5.6 or whatever whatever the numbers would have played out but I find it kind of disingenuous that we have money sitting in there that we're not utilize it and I would also I would also recommend that we look at not just the stabilization fund but clearly identify in the Enterprise and revolving funds I've been asking for the every time they come and give us the quarterly results and they say we've got x amount of money in free cash in in a given Enterprise fund when it starts getting to be 50 60 70% of the annual cost of annual expenditure of the fund I keep asking why do you have so much in there and the answer is well we might need to do some Capital thing in the future um that's fine but I don't want it to be a a we might need it if you're going to hold that kind of money in these funds explicitly call it out explicitly label it it should be we should if we know we're going to need a new fir truck in three years or five years and we're add we're letting the ambulance Enterprise fund float up tens 20s to $30,000 a year to plan for it that's fine but don't have this be dark puddles of money that we don't have full access into because if you take the stabilization and all the Enterprise funds yes we did not need to have the amount of override that we had it's part of the reason that the original $12.1 million ask was ludicrous and was not going to be entertained um did we squeeze everything out of it that we could have possibly proba was not an easy year but starting now do not come and say we've got 50% of next year's Revenue sitting in the Enterprise Fund in case we need it either tell us what you're going to what you're saving it for or you don't need it what is what I would like this committee to help deliver the message help recommend uh the message on did you get way in yeah um I I want to go back to your original premise because I think that then ties back to um your recommendations um it was an exceptionally close election we do need to note that we came that close and you know I I won't quibble on the exact number but um whether it's before the recount or after the recount whatever it was still way too close it was less than 1% and for us to avoid that over the next couple of years we do need to whether you call it tough love or fiscal scrutiny or whatever it is we do need to send a message that you know there's some structural things that we've got to change so there I'm with you I think that will get us where we as a community want to go and we may quibble as to we Zig here or zag there but you know what overall I I I see where you're headed with the overview and I see where you're you're uh coming down and yeah I might you know Wordsmith a thing or two here and there but you know what overall you're on the right track something no I'll let anybody else talk that wants sorry I want to only I yeah well that's you know we can confirm what the final recount is after the I mean the final recount vote no but I think what you're all saying is look at what I'm looking at you can look at what I'm looking at and why again I think we're we're all in agreement that it was razor thin razor thin vote way too close Okay so that is the Talking part of the presentation again we went through it slowly because we wanted to get feedback on every single slide my goal is to be able to present this in 10 minutes uh I wrote a a narrative version of this um which is absolutely lacking in optimism and and levity and even an introduction for that matter uh so it it uh definitely needs to be uh prettied up before we send it on over um and it did hit all of the points what is it need to be pretty up uh because I'm trying to uh influence people not just aggravate them ah really and it came to only a page I I think Christine Russell would be absolutely shocked that I uh was able to use that few a set of words to get all of my points across um is it true the whole whole page is one sentence no no there it actually is carved up into paragraphs that correspond to the slides shockingly enough is that single SPAC so you know are youing Space 9 9o fun you're not speaking softly and carrying a big stick I guess huh so um again this is the first round uh now that we've all seen it I can send it out via email so you can all come uh with your with your wordsmithing with your softening with your recommendations with your changes for the next meeting but I wanted to get something out there um and again trying to do two things I want to have a Word document that we deliver to the select board and the school committee and I want to have no more than 10 slides no more than 10 slides that have to be spoken to um all for if you want to add all kinds of things into the appendix because I absolutely believe in having the data to back it up by all means let's do it but when we go in front of the ptso and the rotary and the senior center and whatnot I want it to be 10 slides or less in the attempt of making it brief how does everyone feel about first pass uh not quite as optimistic as you would like Mr newon no um probably about 10 or 12 years ago um when I was one of the very few voices in town that was talking about funding OPB um I I um picked up the nickname in town is Dr Doom um I will now gladly pass that one over to you um given that this thing will get published this thing will get presented and and people beyond the select board and the school committee and staff will um listen or see it uh I think the very least we can do is start with um something we have often started with uh which was some reassuring comments that were not broke uh that we have a AAA Bond rating that we have a 99% tax uh collection that we have S reserves that we are um funded uh to a greater degree on OPB than most of our surrounding communities uh and um that nothing is broken except uh there's not a clear path forward as to how we keep doing this um and um some very good material here Steve's happy slide okay um I I might change it to say Steve's factual slide as opposed to Jason's opinions um but so it needs um happy PS okay we need to put some um context behind this it comes back you can talk all you want about setting up um you know putting money aside for future costs but uh as I pointed out earlier in the evening we can't fund even a 4% increase in compensation cost so where's the money going to come from to put a stabilization fund together for the next fire engine uh it's not there it won't be there um so um my view is more we have to start dealing with the reality of um Staffing levels um and I'm not saying we need to cut a whole bunch of people everywhere uh but if the cost per each individual keeps going up faster than 2 and a half% then the only way to get it back under control is have less individuals there may be better ways to do things um different approaches to to different levels of services uh wasn't so long ago Town didn't take credit cards or anything else um you know uh so there may be improvements I think historically when we when we look at Staffing levels of the probably the largest three groups of employees um School teachers policemen and firemen uh we don't find that we they are at a over staff level compared to benchmarks um so we are in a real dilemma as to how to proceed uh we're having difficulty controlling compensation costs um short answer to that is cut cut the number of people but then uh we're not overstaffed in many areas so how do we solve it's a dilemma and it's pretty hard to figure out where the solution is a cost savings initiative is a good idea uh it's the first thing we should be doing everybody should be looking at ways to do things either better uh cheaper however you want to characterize it um beyond that um yes we can set all the targets we want uh aspirational or cast in concrete but until we've solved our basic structural deficit problem it's all just words and the fact that you're what you brought up earlier and what you just readed right now is absolutely true the structure of how the current government government and schools are made at this time is unsustainable under prop two and a half and while I'm not under any delusion that we can stay within prop to and half for everything always and ever obviously we cannot but we just did this and we almost failed so we need to if we have a structural problem the sooner we admit we have a structural problem and start doing something about it the better because the inverse of saying we have a structural problem we can't do anything about it you're going to run into a brick wall of that override that does not pass and then you're not cutting a couple of people in a year you're cutting 10 20% correct so uh I don't I'm not forecasting Doom and Gloom but I'm saying if you stay on the business as usual as you are now you're not going to like the results in in in a couple of years so do something about it while you can while the cuts are may not be pleasant but they're not catastrophic so thematically I think that's the message that we should be sending and I'm hearing you that that did not come through in the presentation I will figure out how to make that am I alone on that anybody want to back me up on this I'll back you up on it I'll second that I'll second that and um uh let me tell you what I won't do um I spent a decade as a corporate speech writer for the CEOs of four different companies I've written these presentations I've written what you you're trying to put together so I'm not going to do this because that would be wrong this is our words not quote a speech that somebody writes but you're right in order to get invited to present it anywhere there are got to be audiences out there who have to say wait a second I I need to hear this point of view what what is it they're saying that will help me make a decision so what I would suggest as an old Wordsmith is that if you frame this as a we're going to try to provide guidance helpful guidance whatever you want to call it we're facing a series of decisions over the next couple of years you're going to have to do make three or four or five or six or seven key decisions um and here are the things that you're going to have to consider or we're going to find ourselves back facing another override vote we may face uh a no vote and we're going to be faced with a community that we're not as happy living in so there there there is a style or approach or tone or whatever you want to call it that basically says the audience here are our our taxpayers who are not happy paying higher taxes year after year if there are things we should be tackling now to avoid this kind of situation in the near future give me just one second to write down this note and then I will go to uh go to you uh not getting the point that structural is okay go ahead sorry about that s good um I'm just thinking back to last year's point of view and I felt like one of the objectives that I I feel like this is a very structural and functional point of view and I feel like one of the objectives that we had last year was an informative piece to it to help explain how we got the like the main point was how to get from point A to point B but then there was an informative piece to help explain to the population how we got from point A to point B as as we saw through the the budget process uh there was a lot of you know there's a lot of discussion about what was happening in the town and uh there was a lot of Need for in request for information in fact as a committee we provided a a detailed explanation of uh what was happening and I feel like if there's an ability for us in this in a very succinct and efficient way to to show from the 25 to 26 budget um what costs you can control and cost you can't control or things that are things that need that are in there that have to change or kind of just in a very simplistic way kind of show the change year-over-year because there's a lot as Steve was mentioning there's 80 86% of the of what's happening is is compensation and that's that's just going to roll forward the way it is and there's going to be some variation in that but then there's uh pieces that that could be changing or our additions I think just if there's a way for to simply just kind of show this is where we are this is where we're going and why which is I think what we did last year and a very you know try to succinctly say that so I have two I have room for two more slides I understand that that's what you're looking for I do not intend on being as instructive as we were last year last year we felt the need to educate on what an override was we we've in the past we've always had a slide or two on what prop two and a half is I'm I'm done with that um um everyone got a crash course and what this meant last year and at least 6,000 people went and voted so it's fresh in their mind doesn't mean we're not going to have to do something similar to that in another 5 six seven 10 years but this year I feel that we need to be a little more I hear you I've got I got two slides to grow to try and get explaining the tax code or explaining what an override is I was thinking more along the lines of um you want me to show the structural the structural problem more more succinctly right I get it yeah I think that's what I'm talking getting to and not re-explaining what we said last year about what the what the issues are yep Roland would you car way in or are you you good no I was just thinking of something too I mean you talking about you know the puddles of money here and there and one of them I was wondering was the parking lot uh revolving F and what's sitting there yep I think they all have to be looked at you know and we need to get a clearer picture and maybe that's I don't know if we need to lay that out in a in the point of view but well we've asked we've asked every time they've come and given us the quarterly review we said we'd love to know what you're holding on to that money for and we've been told yeah we'll get that we'll get that to you I'm done waiting you get it to us now it's in our point of view yeah I'm done waiting I think we need to you know that's we need to know that right other than that right now I really don't have any other comment yes you're all get to uh have this in your in your hands on your own computer and work with this at your own time Alison I did not mean to skip over you I was purposely saving you for last if you cared to weigh in being that you're on the new side then this is coming at you fast and furious I was not going to uh make you lead in anyway shape or form but I do feel the opportunity to to at least give you the opportunity to speak if you so desire well I certainly don't want to parade my ignorance but I probably will anyway y are just going to have to get used to it you're your second meeting there's no such thing as ignorance this is how you get up to speed please ask away I am curious if if we want an aspirational tone to this just sort of looking at comparable communities is there any space to do that and say like if we want to be like this community you know this is what they're dealing with or this community failed their override and this was the consequence or they've blown past their budget forecast and this was the consequence this these are the sorts of things they had to give up to sort of say like here's a mirror you know or a magic mirror to tell you what what your future could look like if if we failed to cut costs now these are the sorts of really tough decisions we're going to be making in the future when the override fails I don't know I'm I'm picturing a slide with a you know cut down the middle with the angel over one set of questions and the devil hanging over the other set of decisions are there communities where the over override failed and it had catastrophic consequences I have you know co-workers that were in communities where they said said the override failed but I don't really hear about you know I don't know personally what what has happened there but is would that be of interest to people that look at this presentation and think well okay the Doom and Gloom what is the consequence definitely definitely curious to see how Westford behaves come September well there there was actually a Boston Globe article on uh communities that passed or failed the override I don't I don't want to use the Boston Globe as our source material um and that's not what I'm suggesting but what I'm I'm saying is is that uh I know we don't want to go back and rehash who are our comparables but if we are going to hold ourselves up to those mirrors we want to pick mirrors we for example we don't want to pick a community where we don't see ourselves like that um we we need to take something that resonates so I would recommend maybe this is skinning two k cats with one what forget that's a bad metaphor um the communities in the minute man District are a good proxy that we may want to take a look at um um and interestingly enough there were a couple communities that used to be in the Min man District that opted out a couple seven well but but to me there is a case study there on saying okay some stayed in some opted out what happened what were the consequences do we want to go opt out with the other guys because they didn't see any downside or oh we don't want that downside we better find a way to work with the committies that are still in but you know that's one application but you're right it's it's like if I if I use conquered or I use subury um or I use you know you pick it uh it may resonate if I pick Andover and say we don't want to be like Andover do we it's like huh why who are they what's that so they sooner or later I think you're right but in in framing this we want to frame it in a way that um people will say oh you're right I don't want to be like X last year I just did some analysis in a Dr database um and what I use for comparables were were Bedford boxboro um Littleton Sudbury Westford Stow whan you know um like I had a couple of versions with different towns um you know I've seen I don't know how many lists of comparable studies uh over the years uh everybody picks a slightly different um group um but um I tend to think um they should be geographically near us uh not down on the Southshore not not that much closer to the city um you know the Mand group is fine except then you get Arlington and Lexington in there which probably not demographically are both different and both different from us um so um it's worth taking a look um at a lot of these things um if I had to pick a town that we were aspiring to be I don't think I could really come up with one we run the risk of what we p as what we're aspiring for may not be what the entire what the majority of the Town population right um is aspiring to be well I think we can aspire to be acon a better acon yes yeah yeah well no that's it by the way based on all the ratings that I've seen and shared with uh Christine we rank pretty well now we rank in the teens we're not like number one but we in terms of the best places to live in suburbs or communities there are different ways that they lump the towns we're at least at the upper end of the Spectrum which is not a bad place to be we generally rank a a minus a plus depending on the on the criteria there are one place where we ranked B and it was in uh police services which surprised me yeah um but you know um basically it's a good community so we can aspire to be us but but if we're going to use the you don't want to turn out like them you you need to be pretty clear as to who them is and have people say oh you're right they zigged we zagged we made the right choice there's there's a every single one of us found a reason to buy in Acton every single one of us came to this town for a reason and I don't think with the exception of Dean Charter I don't think there's been anyone in town government who's was here as a child um I could be wrong about that uh there's a reason why we're here um and I would hate for some of the decisions that we've made without any guesstimate of what the impact to be I would hate for that to change all the reasons that made Acton so attractive to us in the beginning and I am it is the second bullet point of my main concern because I do not like the direction we're going and I'm very concerned about it and so yes I am taking a 20year aspirational expectation of what I want this town which I moved to on purpose and invested in on purpose to be and I'm very concerned about where it's going and the other weins uh knowing that we're not going to solve this in our next meeting uh I do want everyone to take a deep dive on this in time for our next meeting uh speaking of aspirational goals that are probably un unachievable I would love to have this approved and finished two meetings from now which is wicked fast and would be perhaps a pipe dream but uh got to lay a marker out there somewhere is that September or when is two meetings the second meeting in August oh the second meeting okay okay uh I just did a quick check of my email I have not uh is would anybody else like to say anything else on the topic of the point of view or does everybody want to take some time to review it at their Leisure at home very good no later very good um at this time I do not have any minutes to review so we can skip that part of the agenda we're on on to um we're on to the Aon reports and I will admit I have not I've been out of town uh a week on vacation and then a week in a week at work so I have not I have not gotten any Le on reports Greg looks like you have something for us yeah there was um a meeting of the economic development committee on Friday by Zoom so I was able to attend even though I wasn't in town either um and um they are trying to come up with uh a list of long-term priorities so we're not the only ones who are trying to do the vision thing um and my guess is uh the select board has just uh adopted a series of short-term and long-term goals um and we may want to um look at both um I'm not familiar with what the planning board is working on so I you know that's not a group but that would be a third likely suspect of who's got plans for the future percolating that may impact all of the things that we're thinking about so who's got the planning board I don't know when's our next [Music] meeting I'll see what I can find out and uh not to be uh overly cautious Greg but please when you're interacting with the economic development committee please make sure that we are not looking at short-term costs with with high expectations in the future let's make sure that there's some clear Roi in what we're doing because I I want us to be very careful about what we invest in I understand first of all I'm not a full member so I don't get to vote on anything uh secondly they've had a huge turnover so most of the meeting was dealt with um um changing the the head so it was uh functional but the one I think big thing and again they didn't discuss it on Friday but I think the big thing looming on their Horizon is they got a grant they are beginning the process of doing their long-term study that I think will have impact now it hasn't started yet but watch that one like a hawk thank you any other Liaisons and Allison did we find a committee for you yet oh I think uh I think uh Christine and you might end up splitting either select Bard or school committee whichever one Christine wants to take on uh yeah Chris Christie sorry Christie don't have to precise if anyone yes maram um chair Cole I can't remember the exact dates of I maybe look at Mr noon if the health insurance trust met after the last fincom meeting and the request for the additional funding that might have been discussed at the last fincom meeting I'm trying to put a chronological um pattern here I think I remember and so the trust had requested an additional money from the town and the schools to which was discussed previous to even that last meeting knowing that we were going to have fiscal year 24 run out claims MH which is happening M and hence the request for that funding from the town and the schools which we're doing okay other than that um there's been no further reports um uh for the month of June on the health insurance Trust um I met with a new chair today to uh hand over the all important secret codes to doy share so he can do his job uh but I don't believe if there's he's planning to have a meeting until early August early August is upon us very quickly here he's got your contact information fantasting excellent okay uh with that double checking I didn't throw anything else on here and Miss Jones be assigned a committee or will that be discussed at another date we're we're going to give her at least another week before we uh assign her to a at least another meeting before we assign her to to leaon gota got to be got to got to be somewhat nice don't want to scare anybody off and then and um double-checking the calendar I believe we are next scheduled uh I'm going to have to double check this the 6 to the 13th oh I can't check it my internet is crashed okay I will uh send out an email reminding people on our next meeting is and with that I think it's the 13th you think it's the 13th I would the second second Tuesday that's what I thought just let me know in advance please believe so wish the internet didn't crash yeah okay uh assume it's the 18 uh the 13th I will uh email out confirmation that when I send the point of view which will go out either tonight or tomorrow morning with that I have yes Roland so just wondering if the Scouts in our audience tonight had any uh questions concerns any observations they'd like to uh share with the committee fair enough that's what I thought fair enough uh Allison uh we call upon you I'd like to make a motion to adjourn second non non- debatable all those in favor say I I anybody opposed and Dave's not here so we are adjourned