so I will call the uh town of a executive by board to order for Thursday April 11th 2024 in accordance with the provisions of chapter 2 the acts of 2023 suspending certain Provisions the open meeting Law Public bodies otherwise governed by the open meeting law are temporary relieved from the requirement that meetings be held in public places open and physically accessible to the public so long as measures are taken to ensure public access to the bations through adequate alternative means this meeting will be live on Zoom public May participate only by joining Zoom meeting ID number 854 0032 4335 or by calling 92920 5699 additional information about the remote participation please contact Carly anelis assistant Tom manager ATM air period ma period us or 978 77282 to0 extension 100 prior to the meeting excellent thank you everyone um welcome to the meeting uh so looks like we have a good agenda last meeting before uh Spring Town meeting and also my last meeting as um member of the executive by board so I will miss you guys first item on the agenda is review and approval of the previous meeting minutes from March 14th any changes or edits to that no I'll make a motion to approve the minutes I'll second that all right thank you roll call the vote Miss antonellis hi Mr F Kowski hi Miss Tierney hi Miss Cooper hi and Mr poman oh M pom and Mr sorry thank you I uh chair says I minutes are [Music] approved uh moving on next item is the fy2020 budget and 2024 annual town meeting updates Mr chair um first of all uh congratulations on your last buyboard meeting perhaps and also congratulations on your creation of this brain child many many many moons ago uh which has served the town well so thank you for your continued service um in terms of the budget and town meeting updates from my perspective just real quick we're in uh excellent shape uh as everyone knows the select board uh approved the warrant on April 2nd which included the finance committee's um positions on the financial articles the warrant was officially posted on April 5th um throughout Town including on the website uh if you go to the website um the town meeting uh website is activated um um and we're populating each of the Articles we have links to the appropriate uh supporting documents as you move through the Articles uh specifically when you get to article uh four which is the Omnibus budget um it will take you to the full budget page uh Cindy has started the articles of the day which each day we're featuring a couple of the articles with a sort of a summary synopsis of what the Articles do and again linking to to further information uh Carly had the um digital budget book um was activated um as well um which is the link is available on the town manager page the fincom page uh the budget page and and throughout so that's available the warrant also indicates when you get to the Enterprise articles it references uh the web page to go to for the digital uh budget book uh we also received the annual Town report report uh just the other day came in um hard copies uh will be in your boxes and Kurt there'll be hard copy in the fincom mailbox and Cindy uh by tomorrow should be posting the annual Town report in digital format on the town's uh website so in terms of the fy2 budget and the town meeting um I think we're in excellent shape I want to thank everybody in this group as well as the fincom and the select board and the Departments as always a lot of work goes into this from November right up until um town meeting on April 22nd so um through you Mr chair unless Barbara or Carly or Carrie or anybody has any other updates on um the budget for town meeting I think we're in good shape coming up on April 22nd and we'll talk about the presentation in just a minute thank you I have no further up okay all right any questions or comments from the rest of the board no all right um then why don't we move on to the presentation for the 2025 budget for town meeting okay um so Mr chairman uh members of the by board so obviously um at town meeting and all of you are familiar with this the plan is I met with the moderator um yesterday when we get to the Omnibus article um the plan will be for the article to be uh moved and seconded uh by the select board and then um before we get before he gets into reading down through the budget line items where he asks people to say pass or hold for things they have questions on I'm going to move in second the article so it's on the floor and then go to a brief um presentation on the budget uh you know 10 10 to 15 minutes tops as we've done before um and that's what we wanted to just discuss um this afternoon as far as content and and who would like um to do what um and looking back what we have previously done more or less is we've had basically seven slides um the first one has been the budget strengths which BAS basically shows um the capital and stabilization amounts the amount of free cash basically that strength slide we've used in both of the budget forums then we have a second slide which is that balanced budget slide which on one hand and shows revenues and then the other side shows the expenditures and that it's it's basically a a condensed version of the budget tieout uh sheet so um you can see the balanced budget then the third slide has been the usually the the pi graphs that we break down the revenue and the general fund expenditures to show those um in graphical form then there's another slide specifically on the Omnibus Revenue that breaks down the various Revenue you know categories and in percentages and then the fifth slide is the omnus expenses which does a similar thing breaking down the major expenses the sixth slide we've usually used is the operating budget by category and this is a slide we've used at the second budget Forum on the 27th we've used that to show really would to show the expenditure by category but really to highlight the fact that uh 75% of the Omnibus budget as we all know is uh personnel and Personnel benefits and it breaks that out and I know that Barbara since the second Forum if many of you are call Mr Curran asked for a further breakout on the public safety um piece into fire and police and I know that Barbara has put that together um since then and then the last slide uh was sort of the major budget drivers um in the Omnibus budget and it's sort of a good ending slide because it'll sort of highlight or trigger hopefully when they do the line by line review so of the major you know items in the budget then historically we used to put a slide obviously about the schools but as everybody knows and I confirmed this again with the moderator um last night is that both schools under their respective articles are going to do a 10-minute presentation just on the fy2 budget for their respective schools so I don't obviously we don't need to put that in here so those were the topics that I was going to sort of tee up for the presentation but wanted to ask that by board a if there's some additional things we should touch upon if some of these things I mentioned maybe we shouldn't um so just looking for any any feedback uh on that and then after the presentation um the moderator is then going to go um through the lines on the budget and then open it up to questions and so forth at that point right any questions or comments from the board no um I think seven pages is uh a good length I don't want to don't think we want to go any longer so and it sounds like it includes everything we have in the past for the most part which is excellent y all right um okay um anything else on the presentation no okay I'm good oh the only question I had Robert you mentioned um the further breakdown did you want that further breakdown on that slide or just stick with because I did send or Carly sent um his request you know just to him I'll give you my two cents but I'm open to whatever other folks want to do I would say that we have that slide ready for a town meeting I say we stick to the to the format we normally use which breaks it out as Public Safety but we know I we could do it either way I guess we could add that added detail and just have it there or we just have it ready for when if and when the question comes up so it's e what do you think I mean I'm open to suggestions I think he's the only one that asked for it and I emailed it to him already so we'll just I we just have it teed up okay as a just in case okay yeah it sounds good yeah I don't think there's need to present it because one person asked at a select board meeting but have it available if necessary sounds like we're all on the same page and then um if I could Mr CH just briefly if there isn't anything else on the Omnibus presentation I just want to as everybody always point out we will have so there will be additional um slides and material uh for the budget and for articles that will be loaded um if we need them or or if they're asked for so please know that like when we get to the both of the capital articles all departments have their respective slides um for that they know that they're not all going to just automatically present usually the DPW does give a brief uh snapshot because he has the liant share of capital but we will have all of that information ready we do anticipate for example there may be questions on under Capital which is both article 10 and article 11 um questions about the ambulance for example the chief does have a couple of slid es um prepared um for that uh so as we move through the warrant on some of these various uh topics um please know that we have all of the material prepared in in article 24 for example which is the acquisition of the Sandy Pond um acquisition of 71 Sandy Pond we will have a brief presentation um prepared uh for that article um and there are a few other throughout the warrant that will be ready to go okay um Robert yeah so on the um 71 Sandy Pond Road um there was there's been some uh there was a posting on uh the Facebook page and uh that was uh it brought up uh someone posted how it was being funded and um can everyone hear me y okay uh and then that and they me this person mentioned CPC uh I forget the three that and of course then the responses were what's CPC blah blah blah blah any case long story short do you have I make sure you have an explanation of what the three funding sources are and how those are funded because it's the seeds been planted and it's I'm sure that will be a a question no excellent point I'm glad you brought that up and great minds think alike so in this presentation there will be a specific funding slide that just does that and just to update everybody since we last met so 350,000 um will be CPC from open space that's pretty straightforward and that's one of the functions of article 24 is specifically that what has happened since we last met and remember we went through all of those different recommendations um when the select board met after the um buy board uh they ended up voting um to use first um any available arpa funds and and Curt to your point the slide we're going to explain all of this to use any available Opa funds first and if there was any remaining balance then to go to the udag um we actually actually have a meeting right after this on that issue um in the article is written there's that flexibility uh we believe that we won't be a we won't need to use any of the udag um for um the acquisition and that's how the motion was done by the board to go to oper first and then if needed and the reason being so we did pay the Minuteman noova uh invoice that we talked about last time that was 300 and something thousand from arpa there was a consider there was still enough arpa left we thought to cover most of the 350,000 we just found out just a couple days ago the D we get a grant for the remember the clear well project that Dan had we authorized oper funds for we now got grant funding for that which has freed up I think about another 160,000 in Opera so what I'm getting at is we won't need to go to the udag um to to fund any of 7 one Sandy Pond um but to answer your question which is an excellent one there will be a very clear slide for town meeting and in the presentation that walks everybody through the funding so but what I what I again I'm going from this Facebook post and the comments on but I think it's realistic to beware of it is then the questions came up what's CPC money oh it's your tax money um so maybe if we can have again either included or at the ready explaining that CPC and they did bring up the fact that it's a 3% search charge so again the reaction was oh it is our tax money but maybe um again CPC is again either have it there or at already um yes there this is CPC is a result of a 3% serve tax and I think here's the key is these funds to be are raised for and you could probably phrase it better than I or Scott for these exact purposes ex correct I mean uh T things that benefit the town yep am I correct in and that's I'm with you this is a great use of this is exactly what CPC funds are for agreed and that'll be the plan yeah yeah because I I just I be and I'll just finish I know I'm going on too long but I just don't want us to get all a sudden side draged off to the side with the whole discussion of CPC y yeah that's understandable I it's a very good suggestion yeah good point and we will be ready thanks um anything else for town meeting no in general okay just tell all your friends to be there we need at least 50 people for the Quorum but even with like up on the stage in the town employees don't we usually hit like 25 or 30 just with that yes true I think we'll be okay yeah I do too uh so the next item on the agenda is the scheduling of the next meeting um so I will defer what uh Mr chair through you um we will we will miss you but you can always join us as they out public meetings what we usually do is why don't we after town meeting on April 2 second and so forth usually we let take a brief breather I will um unless we we can set a a meeting specific but usually what we do is let a couple weeks go and then schedule you know the the next meeting um I think uh we should discuss maybe with the fincom and in the select board you know some potential um um topics I think one of the things that we could talk about um would be the digital budget book and the cleargov platform as we continue to play with it but I would propose that we just um uh get through town meeting and then uh look to reconvene in the near future but if folks want to set the May meeting we can we can do that as well I'm fine with waiting and Scott it's been a u pleasure being on this board with you sorry to see you go yeah thank you I appreciate it it's been a great working with everyone um met some wonderful people over the years um and yeah it's been great working with everyone and getting to know everyone so thank you very much all right um so that was the last item on the agenda I'll open up to any other questions or comments before we adjourn for the afternoon no all right I'll take a motion for adjournment then I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting at uh 2:24 PM second I'll second thank you roll call Miss TIY I Mr frosi I M Mr he sely hi Mr poman hi Miss Cooper hi and Miss antonellis I and the chair says I we are Jour thanks everyone for your time this afternoon