e everybody's here oh I know I think I know where Leslie is waiting for the sunset want the meeting to be done in time for the sunset can everybody here can you hear me Howard where's Howard oh Howard's not here oh shoot guess we need Howard well he's got a minute yeah hi David hi VY how are you I'm I'm well thank you how are you doing David I'm fine L how are you good give Sandy our love thank you we're all down in Westfield for our granddaughter's birthday party oh nice how old oh she's 11 oh nice they grow up fast don't they yeah 11 going on 40 talking back and everything huh I've got eight going on 18 yeah yeah oh here's Howard and George I'm just gonna for safety sake make you co-host lesie do you need to be co-host don't know how I'm not sure I do either it's just so if I crash you guys can continue with that going right yeah the it continues anyway but I don't know how hi Howard don't think he has there he goes connecting to audio there are he muted yeah and he's muted I wish the mute button could be used outside of Zoom just mute somebody well that would be nice yeah I bet teachers would like to do that oh yes one of the solutions is to screen your phone calls how de muted I guess I didn't need a sign did I we got to come up with a symbol for that that we can all use to much nice Sunshine out there well I can hear you so I can hear you so you just tell me and it'll work yeah that was me okay fine um okay so since we're all here uh I'm going to open the meeting in attendance are board members George aritis and April Stein chairman Howard spner assessor David Burgess assessors Clerk Leslie Bracebridge and Town Administrator Becky torus um the first item on the agenda is to approve the meeting minutes from May 1 has everybody had a chance to look at them and does anybody have any questions or or comments about them no okay they look fine me to accept them okay did you just move to accept them I couldn't yeah I'm mooving then somebody I second all right I second I vote I say I okay the motion passes um the second item on the agenda is to uh review and approve the accountant reports there are uh I believe two reports for U motor vehicle abatements from May and from June um anybody have any questions or comments about those no seems pretty straightforward okay I move that we accept them I'll second okay I vote I is I and sign I okay the motion passes the third item on the agenda is to um review the prel there are three review the three preliminary tax commitments these are uh preliminary commitments for Real uh real estate taxes personal property and um CPA assess ments all of them are preliminary because we're waiting on the tax rate to be set on the fall um I have a question about this which is the it looks like the commitments are written to uh include the um the the tax due for the entire fiscal year uh am I wrong about you're wrong commitment are R to commit only the amount that we're comenting which is about half the taxes from last year okay okay because I okay because I thought the number was two uh the number on the real commitment I looked like was like two and a half million or something and I thought that was the total amount am I wrong no no you're wrong it's closer to five I'm wrong right okay it's 5.5 for fiscal 24 okay fiscal 26 yeah fiscal 25 is gonna be 5.5 so it's lower than that yeah oh okay okay fine so I'm wrong about that and I'm sorry um does anybody have any questions or comments about preliminary commitments Howard I just want to understand this so I understand what the commitment is um but why are we doing half a year now I would I would think that we would do it like quarterly for each quarterly billing or what's the logic well we're quarter we are quarter billing but we send out two bills at a time uh so we still we only it twice a year and June and then December so that's why it's happy your commitment your 10 at the minute and that's the way it'll always be okay that makes sense I probably asked this question a year ago next year I remember ask no guar okay anything else on them okay um I move that we approve the the three preliminary commitments um um I'm just still looking at so is that is that the case for all of these then yes what you're looking at only 50% of last year's uh actual net taxes after abatements and exemption oh right right okay okay so uh anything else on these things nope okay um I move that we accept accept and approve the three preliminary commitments uh I I'll second that okay I vote I over I I okay the motion passes uh the fourth item on the agenda is to approve the third um motor vehicle excise tax commitment which is for Leslie how much is that for uh 9,783 do7 okay that seemed a little high for third commitment am I wrong about that well is it on you I would I would have also commented on the uh abatement report that these numbers are getting higher and higher both the the uh commitments and the abatements as people buy new vehicles the okay they're approaching almost ,000 some people for their new vehicles W okay okay yeah so okay it's a word to the wise who can't afford $1,000 for an excise tax that you should buy an older vehicle remember this class this is the hidden Cass this this is the budgeting class I just got my I just got my new car on Friday yeah what what was yours do we dare ask well it's a super reester so it's going to be about 800 a year for the first year that's not horrible 100 year no 800 that is it'll last forever well no we only leas them for three years at a time I don't want we bother with M them tell me more good plan yes okay so um I move that we approve the third motor vehicle commitment I'll second okay great let's change thing right you'll change things up a little um gets so boring um okay I vote I I say andin I okay uh the motion passes um the next item on the agenda is to review and approve the remaining chapter 61 applications um which as I understand it would only be chapter 61b Leslie do we have any actually we do not at the time that I had to create the agenda I still was working on a complete chart for chapter 61 cheex chapter 61a chapter 61b everything is in order everybody has applied that needed to apply there's nothing left but I I wasn't sure if there were any laggers at the time of that I put it on the agenda just in case I didn't realize I didn't realize you gotten all caught up yeah was right moments before I left on vacation and I'm so happy to start the new year done with the old year okay took a few M midnighters but she did it no one one one it was 11:30 wow it hasn't been it was Kevin that asked me to make this chart and I've been trying to catch up ever since but it's done and now it's just a matter of updating each year and it should very nice in the future so it was a good investment in your time yeah if it it's nice to have this chart we're ready for the 2028 fiveyear review that's the first thing they said they wanted to look at in our files in 23 let's see your chapter files oh sure you said what that's what you want to see and right they were very kind and generous okay um oh so we don't have a motion the next item on the agenda is to review and approve the overlay release um so in the minutes from the last meeting um there was a notation that said Becky was gonna talk to Gail about it Beck did you have a chance okaye my bad well I did talk with Gail and she said well it's really too late anyway because um the the years essentially over so there would be no use for the money anyway so David probably can tell everybody where that money goes if we release it or if we should just keep it I don't know that's more Becky and George if you want to relase the free um the general fund you can but I mean most times we Rel for specific item yeah if the money were released does it just go into free cash and and just carry over until FY fy2 goes the general fund uh har or sense to keep it for the next Revel as we were doing before when it goes in the general fund won't it be certified as a part of free cash but that my understand you have you could certify you could vote it into free cash if you wanted to or take it out general fund in the free cash and now it's certified so but take it takes an action to put something from General funding the free cash I more than a uh Assessor's boat I don't think so you ask if we if you want to appropriate the over U the overlay Act access to free cash that's fine well I always kind of thought general fund and free cash were I wouldn't say interchangeable because the budget's also mixed in but when the budget's closed out aren't the excess amounts in general fund from the fiscal year transferred to free cash by the accountant when she certifies you generally yes yes so it's the timing it's what time year you need to get it into the free cash or but you David as you said you the assessors if they had a need like uh revalve they could you could um appropriate it for that purpose right no we could ask you if we could appropriate it for that purpose have to ask the town meeting if you could appropriate it for those purposes we'd need a warn article in other words yeah right but we've been funding that through the budget I as far as I know we have adequate funds for reval right we do for the ends I don't know what we've got for the um fiveyear certification I can check that and get back to the next meeting oh yeah I'm not too concerned about it I guess my only question is do we need I mean if we leave the Bal if we transfer this and put our balance to 36,000 is that adequate for the things we need I know from the finance committee that we're we're budgeting for reval every year and we're rolling that you know that's growing so I'm pretty sure we have $ 32,610 well remember you've got to wait out for the um collector and the accountant to say there's nothing outstanding over and above the amount of the overlay that's left they have to make sure they've got enough money to cover anything that's outstanding so if they've already closed out their books then that's good got it if there so if there was anything on the books if there was something that wasn't resolved they'd have to keep it until that point yeah but I imagine by now all the 22s have either been paid off or are they're in a tax title so they're all removed okay I I think the question I think the question is um is there you know I know I know virtually nothing about town finance okay um Becky knows Becky and George obviously know a lot more is there anything about town finance that require that that says that we should do this so that we should we that we should move the money as opposed to just leaving it in overlay reason well we always we left it until such same as we needed it and then transferred it yeah so Howard I think the way I'd answer your question is if we don't need it here anymore then it from a finance point of view we want it to go into free cash that'll give us flexibility for you know future needs um and and of course anything that's um dispersed from free cash has to be approved by the town so that's correct but free cash free cash just carries over from one fiscal year to the next right yeah we're always in essence well we we've been spending a lot of free cash in the last couple years in the library project we put a lot of uh funds aside so our um even I think we'll see a lower free cash number this year than we have for a while uh which would speak to the fact that maybe it would be a good thing to have um the assessors release it at this point okay good yes okay and um Gail gave us a number that is like 52,000 something which apparently 673 which appar which apparently is the total that was appropriated for the overlay fund over a period of years from something like fy8 to fy22 I'm not looking at it right now so that's probably not quite right but and she says that leaves a balance of $36,250 should suffice okay okay I have a question I have two questions about that one is um sorry uh the money for the overlay account the money that goes into the overlay account I didn't see when I looked at the fy2 budget I didn't see a line for that there was it looked like nothing was being appropriated for the overlay account in fy2 it wasn't um it wasn't okay so nothing okay and the second question is right I shouldn't say that well we account for it in the revenue side of the budget don't we Becky in other words we estimate how much money we're going to raise from property taxes and we increase that by $440,000 because we add the overlay knowing that we need to collect an extra 40,000 because 40,000 might not actually be collectible if I just made sense there 40 40,000 is is you're quite correct it's collected underneath the cap but it shows up on page two of the recap sheet is aign by itself and then it's added into the total budget so it's it's under the Caps you're good so it is counted for in our budget yeah so what is accounted for Howard it's just not necessarily shown in the operating budget it's on the revenue side as a reduction of our total revenue but the but the total amount of the T sorry the total amount of money in the overlay account is going to increase during fy2 by some mechanism other than a okay other than a budget thingy okay it's a revenue thingy okay fine okay so so the what I was curious about is because um in Gail's memo she said that um if we release the 52,000 we're still going to have 36,000 that's right which would which would imply that there's a total of 88,000 in the overlay account all right she's leaving that 36,000 there because obviously not all the 23 or 24 taxes have been collected yet so she has to leave enough on there for the outstanding taxes to be left she's not going to zero out the uh the overlay until she closes the books on the U outstanding taxes go ahead so the the way so this the way that the overlay account is going to be funded is through real estate taxes like they're going to be siphoned off a little bit that's right is that that's what Dave that's when I said Revenue thingy and everybody said yeah that's what you meant right yeah essentially essentially another way to look at it is the amount of money we need to raise to cover the budget um some of it we know might not be collectible might not be collected so we add 40,000 to that amount and so it raises the tax rate slightly but then it gives us a buffer for those $40,000 that we might not collect and then when we do collect them the excess goes into the overlay is that the deal if the overlay doesn't get used and then we make a transfer to move it into the general fund that's correct yeah it doesn't disappear but that years because from what I'm understanding is this 36,000 represents bills that have not yet been paid for f23 and FY 24 yes that's correct okay doesn't it also represent what we might need for abatements or not that 30 that 36 but this year's 40 yes yes [Music] the ab in the mean testing right yeah no not one of now the means testing is different oh that's right thank you yes good that's right I forgot we we built that in the tax rate we add a couple cents to it right right right okay um so does any so Leslie started this off by saying that Gail saying that talked to Gail and that Gail had said we're so close to the end of the fiscal year that there's no point to this that's what Leslie said at the beginning of all this right I didn't understand what she was saying though okay that's fine because I I didn't understand what she wrote so that's okay was trying to say that if you were gonna use it for a project you might as well save it for next year because you know we aren't going to have another town meeting annual town meeting until next year where you could appropriate it for something I think so that's what she was saying too but thank you Becky for voicing always appropriate you could always appropriate it at the fall time meeting if you had to do you have full having a full what full town meeting well we've been having we've been having a January Town meetings yeah we've been having special Town meetings okay well then you but they're special they're not say it again David you could do it at a special time meeting yeah so I think is if you voted it tonight the town meeting can't take action for you know nine months or six months so you might as well wait till you know a a special town meeting or an annual town meeting is coming up okay so there's there's no in that in postponing this I would say leave it alone in April you there I mean can't hear you oh I'm sorry so there's no harm in postponing any transfer right right I mean I think for a while we were like a decade worth that that were sitting there that didn't get transferred um okay well I the only thing I would say about that is I wouldn't mind having it in free cash I know but you have to be able to complete the action I think right yeah David that's I mean it sounds like if if the money is actually needed at a free cash we're going to know it well in advance because there's going to be a warrant Artic we're going to know about a warrant article a few months before the town meeting actually has to vote on it we can move the money if we need to well the warrant article if we didn't if bcom didn't know the funds were available they wouldn't do a warrant article for money they wouldn't just assume oh we know it's sitting there we'll just have them move it they they wouldn't do that would only because George and April might tell them but normally not a link to to George will probably forget by the time we get around to that okay fine and um let's get okay in that I like the IDE of putting free cash now we just then we can see our free cash balance and we make our decisions by how much we have but that's okay it's you know no let's do it let's do it now let's make life easy for for fincom yes no yes yes okay especially because fincom because fincom is sitting here okay well Becky is Howard could I ask one David one question please so if after the assessors take their vote for it actually go to go into free cash it has to go to town meeting it all depends how the time how you want a word do you want to word it as um a direct move under free cash or under the general fund could we vote just to pause this right now well not to make the CH the transfer right now well then you would just not do anything right I I I don't understand why we don't want to do that though yeah why would you not want to do that in the year when you're going to be desperate for free free cash right right I mean if we don't need it in the overlay then let's put it in free cash where we have flexibility use it for any various things that may come up not necessarily Capital items but also dealing with P or the fire station for that matter yeah you know either long the money is there you can always transfer any you want to like I said I just don't know if I'll remember that in the future and then you should go ahead and do it no that's I mean I honestly I mean it's you know we look at our source of funds as being the we can borrow we can use stabilization Capital stabilization or free cash or the operating budget and nobody's thinking about this pot of money over here and it's not really something that we've historically used that way now for I would say go ahead and do it then okay so technical question Gail's memo says Please Release money uh from the overlay to the general fund yeah okay and so all right George before you go any further we're four days away from the end of the fiscal year so so that money is going to be accessed just the way that U George said it would be so it's going to end up in free cash anyway okay it'll once it goes into the general fund at the end of the year it will automatically transfer to free cash yeah she'll take it out and put okay fine okay fine um so let's do this yes yes okay I move that uh we release $ 52,6 7373 from the over account to the general fund I'll second that okay I vote I I and Stein okay just out of curiosity everything um now that we does this basically account for uh somebody moves a number from one column in a book to a different column in a book or one column in a computer to a different column in a computer is that basically everything that happens yeah you're just Chang yes yes okay there's no actual like no money actually moves in a bank from one thing to another thing it's just it's it's all bookkeeping okay yeah what was the number one more time Howard 52,700 673 737373 thank you and you'll have it in the attachments of this meeting too great that's what I thought but I was lazy sorry okay um I'm sorry okay any topics that we haven't anticipated uh anything that we need to do Leslie that you that we didn't talk about yet not that I'm aware of okay okay um so we need to schedule our next meeting yes we do Leslie when's our Mi when do we want to do I was gonna ask David I think every other month is fine unless David has an idea that we should be doing every month not the one not for the summer any end September fine okay um I okay August I have I have scheduling issues in August um both the 14th and the 21st are out um say September yeah Wednesday after Labor Day or uh Labor Day is sorry uh SE sorry I'm so lost 28th for laor day is the second to Fourth uh let me make sure we're not giving holidays too David did you suggest the end of September that's what I thought I heard I actually suggested September but the end of September is probably fine The Summer's The Summer's quiet folks I know that's I know that September 4th is going to work for me but and I'm not sure uh well I think David said we don't need to meet that early uh could you do it by Zoom if it was another time Howard uh I'm sorry which uh well everything's a zoom we're we're doing everything by Zoom right we're not moving to in person readings are we not yet so how would the 18th be H September that looks good I was just checking the Jewish holidays are little late they're in October this year that's good yeah okay R starts October 3rd yeah it's far enough away for me that my calendar is wide open um I see sorry I'm just trying to figure out my schedule a little bit um oh sorry sorry sorry uh okay September as near as I can tell right now the 11th and the 25th are fine and the 18th probably isn't that's from what I can tell right now um so the the 11th or the 25th yeah uh the 11th is probably I'm more sure about um so why don't we set it for the 11th how does that feel to you David you've that's fine with me okay okay next meeting is Wednesday September 11th at 6:30 p.m yay sounds good okay perfect 911 I know I was thinking that want to say it that didn't click I didn't think of that it took me a minute too I guess that's a good sign okay yeah that's funny 23 years it's been 24 what year was that 2001 yeah 23 years wow seems like yesterday oh anyway yes okay well thank you thank you guys move to adjourn somebody I move that we adjourn second and I'll third okay I vote iett I and Stein I okay good night everybody see you and good night everyone it was great to see you all have a good vacation Leslie yes Leslie you deserve it enjoying it yes bye bye April knows oh yes good night good night