this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers all right we're going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for May 23rd 2024 at 6 1: p.m. if we could start by standing and saying the Pledge of Allegiance please of the United States America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and Justice thank you thank you okay welcome welcome all right so thank you everybody um we have a few announcements to start with here we'll have some uh anybody here for citizen speak I think the two that are here are for the agenda so we'll assume there's nobody else out here for citizen speak um but I will take advantage of do a couple of announcements so first of all uh thanks to Joy Piper for being on the select board for three years and her term has ended and she decided to pursue other things um but we much appreciate her time with us on the select board and we welcome Cindy Palmer as our new member on the select board um barely the ink is dry but thank you can I can I say one thing you may thank you everyone who supported my writing candidacy and more importantly to know this is truly an honor and if you're listening let's remember that there's always opportunity in our town to run for boards and committees or be appointed uh and uh this is something that's truly valuable to our town those are my words thank you very good if I might add my thanks to both Joy and to Cindy for stepping up Joy's been wonderful to work with and she's gotten an addition to her young family and so she really does have other things on her plate correct okay thank you Cindy yeah good and so since um since we last met um just a couple of announcements here so thanks everybody who turned out for town meeting on May 7th we had uh I think around 130 people more or less uh which was not too bad uh given given the evening we'd always like to see more more people come out to town meeting and then uh this week a couple of days ago we had the town vote Town elections and by my counts it looks like it was around 375 people so quite a few more people turned out for the election and thank you for for doing that either in person or by mail and vote um two other announcements we have uh if you didn't pick it up uh a few days ago the annual Town report for 2023 is out in hard copy there's a few hard copies you can pick them up right in front of the treasurer's office but it's also online so it's been online for a few days uh so the annual Town report for 2023 just go to our town website and look for reports and plans or or type in uh annual Town report and you'll get the electronic version of that we only print a handful of of hard copies these days uh and then lastly we have our Memorial Day Parade coming up which um is going to be going on uh the American Legions folks are organizing this and it's going to be as usual starting at nor School at 9:00 or take off at 9:00 so be there earlier to get lined up and we will march on down to the cemetery for uh a beer ceremony and then come on down to town hall for the final part of the ceremony so we really hope we'll see everybody out if you're not in the parade stand by on the roadside and wave us on and welcome everybody to to join us in okay all right I think that's it for announcements uh under appointments and resignations I just want to make one correction or one addition I think we didn't uh do a complete um announcement the other day when we voted on this at our little uh meeting prior to the town meeting so just a note uh for Maryann Carrasco for the Democratic Southampton Democratic town committee uh she's the Democratic representative to fill the vacancy on the board of registar and what we did not have was a correct um expiration date so just to note that her term is to expire March 31st 2027 so that's just just to put that in in formal notice and then we have with us tonight uh thus Todd Cory uh who would like to be appointed to the historical commission and that would be a term to expire June 30th 20127 and so Todd since you're here would you mind just come on up and saying a couple words so just uh tell us who you are what street you live on and why you're kind of interested and yeah I just kind of point that at you a little bit there you go um dadus Cory I live on pmer road I've lived in town for my entire life not that long but for minute this town means a great deal to me not just personally but ancestrally I've had family that have lived here for most of the last 100 years I'm very interested in the town's history local history in general and part of the commission I think I could be an asset in both preservation and education out said history mhm great well thank you for stepping up I know the historical commission has been looking for some new members so it's great so thank you for for stepping up for that so um with that would anybody like to make a motion to I'd like to move that we nominate thaddus Corey to the historical commission with a term to expire June 30th 2027 all right motion made can I have a second please second second by John okay all those in favor hi hi all right that's it so you'll get a letter from the uh Town administrator's office and uh you'll need to catch up with the um assistant town clerk next week sometime just to get sworn in okay but that's that's it very good all right thank you very much all right appreciate your stopping in and U coming here tonight too to at least introduce yourself so much appreciated you guys have a good evening all right thank you very much all right next up uh Town Administrator report Scott you want to pick up on that all right so um there's going to be a special election on uh June 25th on on last Friday the select board uh voted in favor of uh putting to the voters a debt exclusion vote for the purchase of land at 117 to 125 College Highway um for the V the VoIP uh everything's been submitted the menu and the uh recordings um so TRX has received it and are working on it um there's just actually one comp usion is we're trying to figure out what the actual primary number of town hall is um so some people have always used the town administrator's office but if you use that in the uh menu that we're doing you're just going to go into endless loop because you're going to be continuing to the call so we need a new entrance number I essentially so okay and so this is for the auto attendant part of the Voiceover IP right so so hopefully folks when when you dial in sometime in the near future uh you'll be able to either uh just put in an extension number you'll get a choice of extensions or whatever you if you know who you're trying to trying to reach right so the assessors or the Board of Health or whomever right okay great because right now it's kind of a little bit of a mystery sometimes so yeah we'll try to make that a little bit more user friendly and available to you good thanks uh the ATA job has been posted and we're receiving applications um and I mentioned earlier that the cboard Microsoft 365 accounts we're transitioning the old new members and you should have within like maybe a day or two hopefully um the upgrade accounts to have access to all the files in the shared folders any will know like if it's working uh we'll get an email or something okay thanks yep um the fy22 audit uh I distributed the drafts um as well the finance team met and we're starting to work on the draft responses uh the auditor uh is willing to come in and and go over everything a little bit more detail um in one of the next upcoming meetings uh the scenic roads uh the first land use team met um on T Wednesday I believe uh one of the topics that we started discussing was the status of uh Scenic roads in the town um how you know what's our current status where should we be uh what's our action plan moving forward uh there's a lot of work to be done yeah uh I met with uh Maya who's our insurance carrier uh with Randall um mostly their risk management team for this first one uh but there's also there's a lot of opportunity that we're kind of missing out on in Maya because of the rewards programs that they offer so there's a really robust training schedule that they offer from latter safety training to mental health awareness to um I mean it runs everything uh office safety uh and if you just do the courses a lot of them are online some are Regional uh you can get a percentage off um so last year we had zeros across the board except for like I think we got a0 25% rate reduction on our workers comp uh but it can be a pretty good percentage off uh like we can get up to 7% off of our um public safety insurance if our police officers do a certain amount of training oh well so so we're going to start pushing that a little bit great and then I'm going to meet with the um other side of Maya just to talk about um the current state of our insurance and what assets are being covered right now make sure we're all up to date and covered so um College Highway uh Steven was able to give a tour to the uh Senior Center building committee on Monday I believe um yep and I think it was pretty successful the uh Vadar is moving forward uh all the information has been submitted and processed by Vadar from the real estate taxes to the motor vehicle excise taxes um next step is we're going to start having to schedule some training and verification of the data and going through everything uh that'll be happening over the next month uh we hope to have the um the big training session probably early like middle of June um we just have to get everyone loaded all the software uh and everything functional so the idea is this would go live July 1st is that right uh it's partially live now with like the motor vehicle oh really okay MH um but for daily stuff it's going to be by live July 1st uh June 25th voting um I'm working with the Town Clerk and and the assistant town clerk uh to finalize everything for 5th uh ballots have been ordered as of a couple hours ago I believe uh so those will be on the way um and the town accountant has scheduled uh the schedule or submitted the schedule a to the DLS for uh for review and hopefully approval okay and maybe just a couple words of clarification for new people as well as people listing what some of these things are schu is just um it's basically our expenditures and revenues that we have to submit to the state so they have to approve it and look through close out 23 which were due September 30th of last year y yeah so I I have a question this part of our close out exercise for 23 yeah yes John on the fiscal 22 audit when um Markham comes in to present the finings to us I would suggest that we hold a joint session with the finance committee correct I would too yeah okay I think that's a great idea um I know they don't tend to uh meet on the same night so we might have to figure that out we would be meeting our next um I mean I'd rather do this sooner rather than later because this is already so late um but but I think if we let them know it's going to be a Tuesday and it's you know right after citizens speak yep you know they don't have to stay for the whole meeting sure no put it up early yeah so we have our next meetings would be on June 4th and June 18th so I can reach out to the chair and or you can whichever and uh I'll be glad to reach out and send her an email see if we can get finance committee in involved here when you you mentioned the finance team in your report Scott though not to be confusing that is you've got you've you've assembled the finance team now so we actually have a finance team that's going to meet regularly with you so you want to explain that just we are the financial Avengers um yeah uh no it's myself Bradley Town accountant uh Jennifer the uh Treasurer and we're going to be expanding it to the assessor as well MH perfect no I think that's great that's that's something I think to um have more cross communication among departments in the town hall I think will be great idea so good okay any other questions of Scott yes remind me what V VoIP is I I don't know what that stand for voice over Internet Protocol is it is that the P provider okay provider and then um I attempted to research this unsuccessfully but in a override proposition to and a half debt exclusion what is what is required for that to pass um is there like 50% like just a simple majority or 2/3 and is it of the people who vote or the total number of registered voters uh simple majority of the people who vote okay thank you very much okay all right how about then we'll move into some select board reports anybody have reports John anything from your committee liaison um sure so uh nothing new on finance since we've completed the budget and that's passed the uh PPP met um and their items will be coming up later on tonight so I don't have to go into that right now the um uh Capital committee has not met since our last meeting and the schools we are we had a a long um executive session last night for multiple hours um trying to finalize the um negotiations with the interim superintendent um as everybody not necessarily everybody knows but everybody should be aware that June 30th is the last day for our current superintendent July 14th is the last day for our building our business administrator um we did receive a communication last night from the business administrator um at this point he does not anticipate being able to close out the year before he's gone and at this point there is no succession plan in in place so I'm sure we'll be hearing from Desi about next steps and deal with that and the um the munin company or whatever they they are done at the end of May oh they're gone already oh they're done oh wow right because without part of their caveat to extend their contract was to have a business administrator in place and we missed that deadline so good thing is there's $240,000 in the budget to handle whoever the next replacement team coming in to to triage that um but I would imagine that we're going to have a repeat year to with uh no free cash certification because we're not going to be able to square up those books between North Hampshire Regional and us so good news is we don't really have to change anything here on the town side because yeah we don't expect to get anything done early anyways we we did get a an email today from from DLS about the excessive deficiency 118,000 Which is far below the five so 188 or no end certification for everybody is uh the amount of money that Hampshire Regional as a Regional School District so grades 7 through 12 had in their budget that didn't get spent if it's they can keep anything under 5% of the budget everything above 5% has to come back to the communities um this is they're a 20 or what $12.5 million budget so they're going to keep 100% of that money and that all goes into the Hampshire Regional High School school committee's Authority so it was 188,000 was it yeah I believe so yeah something like that okay does it automatically drop into a reserve account no but that's one of the reasons why they asked us to pass that Capital yeah project Capital stabilization fund Capital yes thank you y good okay anything uh Stephen any committees liaison um I don't know besides the ones I've missed I apologize to Cindy I missed the assessors on Tuesday I wasn't expecting any meetings on Election Day I can do a little on that when you will and and I'll leave open phas for you and I'll leave planning for Dan except that uh I will say that continuing on um my um ad hoc um self-initiated um support of the acquisition of 125 College Highway um not only did I lead the Senior Center building committee members on a tour on Monday tomorrow afternoon thanks Stan tomorrow afternoon at 1:30 beginning here at Town building where we'll meet our Town Administrator Scott and then do a brief site visit with an affordable housing partner nonprofit organiz organization that's already active in our town called wayfinders and we'll see the CEO and one of his uh real estate staff to talk about what um the next 5 years looks like to them in terms of developing affordable housing and then we can bridge to see if there's any Common Ground can we or have we invited anybody from the U housing authority to join you oh it's a not an official meeting of the Housing Authority but Sierra has selected the participation okay good just so that they're included here I think we want to oh oh absolutely this is just next iteration and nobody's excluded so whoever wants to step up next sure that's fine I'm very very wel happy I know they'd had some initial meetings with with wayfinders for a different property alog together so that's good well that's right and we really need to redirect because those are apples and oranges entir indeed uh and there are other nonprofits that uh we're not meaning to exclude I've um met with several uh affordable housing um CEOs and real estate staff over the last couple of years they each have their own profile of type of project and Geographic range so um while wayfinders was not a good match for a single family house on College Highway it remains to be seen whether they there's good interest in this larger property okay very good thank you Dan uh yeah I think the most important one to talk about this technology committee we put up a survey on the town website about um the internet in town um we wanted to get a feel for uh people's uh how much they willing to pay for different levels of service uh relating to fiber um along with the fiber uh initiative we um we had re had sent out some clarification questions to the two possible Partners in the two surrounding communities and they've gone back to us I haven't had a chance to read it but I know it's in my email um Dan yes help me out please just keep louder yeah okay a little bit just in the room itself the in here not great yeah it's okay um so I don't know we sent out a survey on on to the web page um the other part of of of getting those responses back is I reached out to the to to specifically Doug on the finance committee because we have to start building up the business case and understanding what makes makes the most Financial sense to the town and how to going about to to rolling out and and getting fiber in place because it's it's a it's it's large expenditure but I think we all feel it's worth it so we will start crunching the numbers there um on other committees I'd say there's it basically business as usual on the Conservation Commission so we reviewed some some uh Wetlands uh surveys and planning board was also uh normal um and tomorrow we have the I have myself and Sierra are going the Walk of the the College Highway property great just one thing on UNC conom have they I know with the um one of their resignations with Lexi resigning have they put it in new Treasurer now that was one of the things she brought U that that Britney Taylor brought up is that we need someone to step up at as treasure we're I think that's a real struggle um right now with I mean I'm a little concerned really because I know that Jacob mentioned that at the end of his term he's not going to be renewing so I so folks we need we need some conservation people to step up and uh try to think about you know those of you that may especially have an interest in in conservation or even an environmental science background whatever will help and I think we've we've gotten a couple of new members or one recently hael right um but as we Aon member and and you know it just it's a really really important Commission in town it really serves in a really important function uh it's a state mandated commission um so we really are putting out a a plea for anybody who's got the interest to please step up and contact Dan or contact Britney Taylor uh and uh make yourselves known much appreciate it thank you very much for bringing that up okay Cindy want to do a little bit on open space and assessors or sure not really an official uh lay on haven't gotten my assignments yet but I am a member of the board of assessors and the good news is that uh uh we have now a principal assessor at 24 hours per week who's really been able to uh add extra hours in terms of organization of the office things have quieted down a little bit and we're talking about the the cyclical inspections that are required not to say they haven't been done but we're organizing for that um there is an opening on the board of assessors the one of the people um chose not to um stand for re-election again if somebody has an interest I we'd love to at least give them an opportunity to attend a meeting and talk about this um it's a very important job Board of assessors they're all important um and uh please uh feel free to contact the assessor's office with questions there um as for the open space committee we met very recently this this recent week uh and um we are doing a couple of things we are accepting people who um own properties that might want to at least find out what their options are for conservation we've been talking to a few people we keep it very confidential because they're just inquiring at this point um we also have continued to stay in touch with um cro Land Trust regarding the mountain Waters projects that's coming up a little bit later on the agenda and um finally uh we are establishing our goals for 2024 kind of already in May but one thing that we're aware of is the open space and Recreation plan uh well it's 3 years away that three years can clip along rather quickly so we're trying to put our arms around some of the requirements to rewrite the that so we're not just blindsided in the last few months so that's for that and you'll speak about public safety building committee because you're the liing from that right sure okay I usually do more Grant stuff but that's okay okay well if you want I'll just say and I I unfortunately was not around for a few different meetings uh because I was um previously occupied but uh the public safety building committee has continued to complete the working with the um Consulting Group called hkt Architects to um finalize the um feasibility study and um it's it's approaching the end and we're very pleased with the way it's going but we have a lot of work ahead and of course you mentioned the election on uh June 25th for the land acquisition and that's really important First Step find out more about what that's about and uh ask questions um but uh things have moved along pretty well and we're still involved with citizen engagement and and doing our part for the completion of the feasibility study which I'm sure will be available and on the website once completed we're we're pleased to know that a lot of people are asking questions yep and just following up on that thanks to those that came out over the weekend too um last weekend there were some to tours especially some at the police station but several tours at the fire station I believe I heard that there were seven different tour groups that came through and some 35 people uh did take advantage of doing an in-person tour at the fire and police stations to really get a a real feel uh personal feel for what it's like uh in addition to having watched the video online so much appreciate everybody uh starting to get more informed about that um great all right so on my side just to follow up on a couple things uh tying in both to a little bit of Cindy and Stevens um as a Le on to the Senior Center building committee uh they will be meeting in the coming week uh to talk about what their thoughts are for uh potential sites for the future Senior Center uh they've at least had an exposure now to the land on on College Highway to get a sense of what that looks like to them and so when they'll they'll be meeting and uh most likely discussing some of those options and in terms of what they like and don't like and what they think about it but we we'll know more about that by I think the end of next week probably I'm forgetting the date that they actually meet but I'm thinking it's the 4th offand um the bylaws Review Committee uh those of you may have seen it uh the uh the draft bylaw for tag sales is on the website and we've asked people to jump in and send an email with any comments and questions uh there are emails just to the bylaw review um group at the uh Town Administrator sorry at the town of South hampton.gov us um just to get input from the citizens and we'll decide if we pursue that by law or not um and then today was Grant day pretty much uh have spent time working uh with the grant committee uh the ad hoc Grant committee and the Council on Aging to put forth a proposal for a uh Senior Center modernization Grant uh and that was submitted before the deadline and Rick Quest is about $199,000 and uh we were will be working with the historical commission uh certainly as of Monday to turn around a Grant application for uh probably I guess I will say it's going to be mostly repointing of the mortar the brick on um the Old Town Hall um there's a grant possibility out there um and this one we've estimated at about a 990,000 request and so um Grant committee will be working with members of the historical commission to turn that one around uh deadline is June 14th on that one um we should be hearing about the mass Trails Grant by the end of June and hopefully that assistance to Firefighters Grant in another month or so as well so the grant committee's been busy it seems like there's a lot of things kind of coming up um there's been a couple of other things about um Ada accessibility uh for municipal buildings especially town hall and Scott and I've have been trying to figure that one out because we do have a partial Grant already for our own self- evaluation of ADA accessibility of town hall and this one might be able to get us some actual equipment so we're going to I'm going to dig into that a little bit more uh over the weekend or Monday and uh what else this seems just to be a grant season I think right now there's a lot of things kind of popping up out of out of the blue here um cost efficiencies committees uh met this week and we'll continue to meet in another month or so uh' been having interesting discussions just trying to talk a little bit more um with the um random was there from the um highway department but representing the transfer station talking a little bit more of some of the ideas and strategies around uh managing the transfer station and how to make that more cost effective uh and so we probably need to take a look at that um if not at this meeting because I didn't go back and take a look at that but maybe at our next meeting we just need to just double check um what we're doing because there will be some changes in fees going forward for the new fiscal year and then lastly just I'll put in a plug because I know people have seen it for the Water Commission there's a survey online for those of us that have got Town water please go on and get that done uh I know there was some issues in terms of the QR code that was incorrect but I believe they've corrected that now um so just take a look there should be a paper copy in your mail if nothing else but I know they wanted photos as well of the waterline as it's in your house so they can tell what kind of piping and so forth you have um so just lots of things kind of stirring around in that regard okay I think that's enough for now yes Stephen um if this is coordination Administration time I will be absent the week of well the first week of June okay 34 five okay so someone for the warrant on the 4th okay I'll miss the meeting of this board on the 4th and the planning board if it follows through on the 5th and it may have a continued public hearing I don't know um is anybody else out on the 4th off hand everybody else here June yeah June 4th a holiday or something so there's another week before we get to June correct yeah but we were on an off schedule we should have met two days ago right but because of the election yeah but was heard something I wanted to make sure you were oriented oh yeah no we'll meet on the 4th but that will be our meeting normally that will be our meeting where now that we've got a re reimagine divor oh won be there I will be here don't don't let Cindy through the the that time is when we we Shuffle uh or reelect officers of the uh select board and then when you give four more committee assignments and then uh talk about liaison assignments and before that meeting I know we've talked a little bit about how to how to manage our liaison assignments and I think last year you know we tried successfully or not to those of us that were already on a committee became the liais on so we weren't you know we were kind of already going to that meeting we didn't have to necessarily go to many more meetings and so we we may need to shuffle that around now that we've got some different players here I forgot to report the Franklin Regional Transportation authority advisory committee met this afternoon at 4:00 and I voted to affirm uh the budget for the coming year oh now why is Southampton involved with Franklin because one of their buses is on our Council of Aging program so are you not theate Pioneer Valley is another question wasn't able to that okay so there's that and while we're on Transportation unsolicited um gratitude from citizen to the highway department I travel Fulmer Road very often perhaps too often um and whoever drives the Town Road grater is a Precision oper Ator I've never seen such Immaculate care of gravel road separating the Organics crowning the road smoothing the potholes and it wasn't evident to me that there was any new material involved oh and the um gutters on the sides absolutely smooth I've never seen anything like it thank you good all right okay well I think that's it for all of our select board reports can can I ask a very quick question if we are a member of a committee a voting member can we still be a laay from the select board that's my question yes okay that's it yeah we've been trying to yeah we we'll talk about that we've been trying to minimize so that we we don't have 50,000 meetings to go to and we we may just take a look too at the Committees that we are liaz on to and these have all been committees where we felt like you know there's been important work going on that people you know people meet frequently we need to to actually be there so uh to report back um so we have on our new business uh krl's approval of the mountain one of the Mountain Water CRS we'll skip over that until the C representative comes and we'll move on to Thomas irn who's here to talk to us about paint stewardship for Massachusetts and if we can give you maybe 10 minutes morning have to speak and ask questions okay that's fine we just have a busy agenda tonight so thank you I can see that and you have some hand a new handout for you yeah and I'll be referring to some of those items as we go through the presentation introduce who you are where you from Etc good evening and thank you for this opportunity to speak about paint stewardship the bill presently being considered by our legislator my name is Tom Irwin I live at 54 Central LA in Dalton Mass and I'm a retired chemical engineer and primary care physician while I was a member of the Dalton waste management recycling committee we were dealing with the same daunting waste crisis that Southampton faces um no plant fill having to haul our waste out of state and dealing with rapidly ever increasing hauling cost and tipping fees and we were looking for a solution after a careful study of ways to address this issue paint stewardship seemed like the perfect first step and after confirming it was working well in the eyes of consumers and retailers in Vermont New York and Connecticut uh I became an advocate for this law Statewide recognizing that just because I wanted it for Dalton that didn't work I had to do everybody or nobody paint stewardship is a program where unwanted paint can be returned to any participating paint retail store any day they're open without a disposal cloth and without regard for where the paint was purchased it also doesn't care what state you live in the program is voluntary for retailers and for transfer stations as you can see in your second uh page of your handout retailers of Vermont and the bold print freely come and go from the program as suits their business the cost to Consumers is going to be 75 cents to a dollar per gallon fee paid at the time of purchase it'll be $1.75 rather than 375 for 5 gallons of paint they're not trying to make a profit they're trying to break even so that's paid when you purchase the paint actually correct no other cost for the entire lifetime of the paint mhm the collected paint is hauled reprocessing plants uh re Blended to like new condition and put in new cans and sold for at most 50% of the original cost of the paint the oilbased paints though some can be reprocessed the vast majority of that is hauled to the southeastern United States to cement plants where they have advanced scrubbing system so there's almost no pollution and it's burned as a co- fuel in process of making cement this program has been working well in 11 States including our neighboring states of uh Connecticut Rhode Island Maine Vermont and New York the resolution being requested tonight is consistent with the state's plans there is no arm to as highlighted in your third exhibit the MMA is a supporter that is their testimony to the INR committee on June 12th of 20123 your fourth exhibit is the uh Residential Waste section of the mass DP 2030 Solid Waste master plan and you'll note that epr in general and paint stewardship in particular are called out as as as contributors to moving the state towards the goal of zero waste a particular note this master plan using 2018 as a baseline calls for a 30% reduction in total Solid Waste 2030 and a 90% reduction by 2050 without product stewardship I cannot imagine how that would be possible in addition to State comfortingly there is Broad support paint manufacturers and paint retailers who along with citizens group and state agencies crafted the law over a course of 6 years are clearly in support of the product that they generated there are 3,000 Massachusetts residents that signed petitions including 92% of 735 people dropping off items at household hazardous waste days in uh Western Massachusetts last year uh and there are an embarrassingly large number of Massachusetts residents bringing their unwanted pain to our neighboring states all of these people clearly support the law in our legislature we enjoy having 28 representatives and 12 Senators sponsor or co-sponsor this legislation from both sides of the aisle there are 59 municipalities to date that have passed supportive resolutions or um supported endorsements with more expected soon you may ask can we wait can we think about this more implementing robust product stewardship programs that can comprehensively address our needs Beyond just paint including the much larger items like mattresses packaging solar panels electronics and lithium car batteries will take a minimum of 15 to 20 years of concerted effort to implement at the state level therefore really unfortunately there's no time to wait our Collective interests are best served by starting the journey now with support for the first step paint stewardship and in regard to the ask Ways and Means the house Ways and Means legislators have commented that significant min support through 40 resolutions by mid April was critical to demonstrate sufficient Municipal priority to compel serious consideration of pain stewardship by Ways and Means fortunately since we have 59 already you can know that we achiev that 40 but Ways and Means has yet to consider pain stewardship hence to further improve the odds as we must that this bill is not only seriously considered but also favorably viewed we must take advantage of the opportunity to well seed 40 resolutions with as many additional resolutions as we can before the end of June is upon us therefore with this need in mind and since Southampton residents will appreciate this Law And since this law will save Southampton all municipalities money and since reducing Solid Waste is critical to our future tonight I respectfully request the Southampton select board add their valued endorsement of paint stor chip by passing the supportive resolution being considered this evening thank you for your attention and your consideration of this request I'll be delighted to answer any questions good thank you I'm sure there will be some so just a just a recap a little bit so this has been um circulating around just this past year or how long has this been in front of the legislature now I love this story cuz I knew zero about all this before I began this journey MH uh began in 2010 10 oh wow so this is the seventh session of the legislature that uh this uh particular bill has been brought before them and you might then ask well why has it taken so long why hasn't it passed this bill will only save $3 million annually and uh that's you know small great money for you and I but it's small money for the state so that is they don't find that compelling and before um this Grassroots this year's Grassroots effort began and there many communities are now informed about this there was really no knowledge so there was no public outcry MH in the absence of a finan driver and in absence of a social driver um it moved nowhere and I'm assuming what happens now if I'm correct is it anybody that if you don't use your own if you don't use up all your paint or give it to somebody else to use before throwing it away most people I would assume would either leave the cover off let it just dry up and then you go dump it over at the transfer station or whatever right yes um drying out in in in simple form drying out your latex is the only way of disposal at this particular point in time right um if you have less than 50% of a can of latex drying it out is not too arduous you can throw some kitty litter in there you can go to your hardware store and get an additive to throw into it that'll Harden it up and all that kind of stuff but if you have over two-thirds of a can it's going to be a your act to God there isn't enough kitty You Can't Stuff enough kitty litter into the can to get it to dry out so you're kidding yourself you can go and get a piece of cardboard and start painting it onto the cardboard and you know do it that way or our neighboring states will take it and so a lot of the retailers have actually signed on to this already and are willing to to do this recycling program um we have a letter from the U leadership of obusan Hardware um that says that this passes they're in great um there's a um uh Hardware CH or a paint chain uh just outside of Boston has 19 stores the decor group um they have uh sent a letter to the legislature saying that they strongly endorse this uh Sherman Williams has a standing thing that if a state passes this law uh unless in extreme cases where they have extremely small Store with only one employee their stores will universally uh be collection points for this I have spoken to many Ace Hardware Stores True Value hardware stores and I can say from personal conversations that these places are excited about the opportunity and for One Good Reason um Home Depot Lowe's and Walmart will not take they say no thank you in General on taking the paint unless it's like oops nobody else around I've got to do it all right so what that means is that all that paint that was purchased at those large stores has got to come into the small stores and they love the extra foot traffic so it's a win for everybody interesting okay other questions go I just want to follow up on that um so if I had a gallon no paint of froze and I had to dispose of it this is my life in Maine and I went to if I could find it Lowe's in Maine not in North Conway they'd blow me off despite the fact that Maine has a program in place um it is the responsibility of those stores that volunteer to be collection points to take the paint back if they have not volunteered to be a collection point they do not have the obligation to take back so it's not like um the bottle deposit and a mandatory participation um it's not mandatory for a store to participate the the fee will be mandatory and if they if they're not a collection point they will still have to charge the 75 C fee right my original question was who opposes this you said apathy or lack of Mo I don't want to be not heard um there is one group The retailers Association of Massachusetts that has uh indicated that they are not necessarily in favor of this and if you take a look at are your fifth or sixth page of your handout it'll be the objections of that particular group with my rejoiner to their their concerns one thing that they point out is is that they're very concerned that this particular um stewardship law is going to lead to other stewardship laws based on the waste crisis we've got my God I hope so um but that said I have their concern at heart which is if it gets down to the dollar store where they're going to have 50 items in the store that are all going to have product stewardship things we got to think about that because we don't want to dump on you know a store that's going to have 50 stewardship items in it um but for things like paint That's onesie solar panels lithium car batteries you know tires um these are onesies this is not going to be a a burden to any uh retailer at all I think you've done a really comprehensive job of responding uh to the potential questions then we kind of all asked them I'm wholeheartedly in favor of this I absolutely am appalled at what we have to do in our wonderful country to destroy the stuff then we are doing that all the time and I'm a big advocate of free cycle and Craigslist and I put stuff on my curb all the time with a free sign on it not paint but you know and it it's it might be paint but I think this is really really important and I do believe that our Municipal costs for our landfill have gone up a lot used to be you could recycle certain things and you can't do that anymore uh like you know plastic bottles and things like that things have absolutely changed um if it leads to other uh things mattresses and I used to work in the medical care industry I'll tell you there's a major amount of waste there right doctor so um therefore um I hope it leads to other things for certain cuz we we really have to do a better job so I'm prepared thank you very much for your support and I will add I will be back um I didn't say that correctly I'll be back in one year with mattresses huh oh great next session that's what I'm going for uh yeah I had two I had two questions or one question one comment um the question is you mentioned that latex paints of a certain amount that's still in the in the in the can you combine them back to together to like reuse them did you say something along those lines oh no if you have a small amount in the can it's easy to put in cat litter and things to dry it out see that's what you're saying thr the rules are they want the original can original label original paint you know still liquid cuz if they do they can take that they segregate it out once it gets the reprocessing plant and then batch it up and reprocess it yep and that's why they need the original label and the original C I thought you were talking about some programs I've heard about in like San Francisco where they'll combine cans of paint together and make them available to the public uh small no it's this is this is a little bit different what I have heard and I expect and the paint care which is the name of the nonprofit created by the paint manufacturers to manage this whole program also does a swap shop free you know thing kind where you have you know like it at um uh most often saon at transfer stations where people plunk down gallons of paint and then put some nobody you know it's every Saturday so people say I'm going to go to down on Saturday I'm going to look over and see oh there's the color that I'm missing for the little piece of the corner of my garage or whatever um there we can anticipate that that kind of thing is going to happen which is a further great uh great thing so could you just summarize again so this this paint will be remixed and made available for sale again at 50 at most 50% of the original cost if you go on we have we are fortunate in this state to have um a company called recol located in hand over Massachusetts out by wayth that reprocesses latex pay and they're looking forward to this law hopefully that they they it's a bidding process to be included but they're hoping that they can win the bid and U you know get even en large thing and so forth and so on but they take the they're going to take the latex and they will reblend it they will put it into their own cans if you go on to Amazon and look for recolor you can see the cost of the cans mhm and you'll see wow 35 bucks for a can of paint that probably cost 70 when bought it for when brought it new yeah the comment I wanted to add is I think it's for our towns fellow towns people I think it's important to note our neighboring communities Al there's there's a long list of other Massachusetts communities just the ones that are are abing us basically I want to to let people make people aware of who have have um voted to support this um including East Hampton Westfield Holy Oak Northampton uh chape um to name a few few and a lot of towns too lot of these little towns right there yeah I I just I tried to identify the ones that are are close with with the um what is there something else from from the land um what do I say transfer station point of view on here I know our our Highway superintendent transfer station manager goes out for grants for recycling dividend kind of Grants and we get some money back because of the amount of things that we are recycling with this Fe into some kind of credit for Southampton or some extra funds for for us because we are involved in a recycling program like this um what the way the way it benefits you primarily is is that when it comes to household hazardous waste days you've got a kick in RDP money that RDP money doesn't need to be kicked in anymore cuz you it'll all be covered by this program so you'll be able to use the RDP money for other things weld up that uh 30 30 yard dumpster needs a little attention you know buy another shed whatever it is you need mhm anybody else have any questions Stephen John anybody would you like a motion sport cuz right strong I guess is that what we're looking for tonight is to actually take a vote on this and say that we'd like to sign I'll entertain a motion uh I move that we vote to support the resolution of paint stship legislation as presented in the packet by Thomas Irwin I second all right any further discussion John anything no I'm fine all right are we ready to to vote um yes or no okay all those in favor say I please I I I I all those say n no okay vote is 4 to one thank you thank you very much I would just clarify I'm just voting no because I I not a firm believer of approving something 60 seconds after we heard it so um had we had time to ponder and maybe do research independently not that I doubt anything you said but um to do a little factchecking I probably would have supported this in the end but I don't like being presented something and being asked to vote on it 5 minutes later okay that's all I get that I did read through uh the material in advance and I guess I'm an old man uh well 35 years ago when I was in the executive office and the first solid waste management plan came along product stewardship was and remains a big issue more than 30 years conceptually I'm there but I'm not an old man and I I work full-time during the day there we go all right very good thank point taken all right thank you um just an administrative detail um we were will be me meting excuse me we will be meeting with the speaker of the house on June 5th so if I were to have a signed copy it's in a PDF type format that would be perfect I'll print that and put it in a binder that I'll be giving to the speaker we'll work with Scott to get that done great thank you very much thanks for coming thank you all right thanks have a good night thank you okay next up uh let's talk about the ceral land trust um the approval and signature of one of the amount Waters project CRS and uh I think we we have two copies in our package but it's actually the same one it was it was copied twice so go ahead Bridget introduce yourself again pull that microphone down where you need to be there thank you hi everyone Bridget likely C land Jess I apologize if I was late I had 7 o'clock in my head it's my fourth evening meeting this week so it's better right um but yes I'm here tonight um about one of the mountain Waters Acquisitions um and the conservation restriction that goes with this so this is for the towns um acquisition of the garingal property um that's 156 52 Acres uh the 156 Acres um which uh the town is granting a conservation restriction pending tonight to castal land trust um as a stipulation of the use of CPA funding as part of this acquisition um and so the Conservation Commission um has already reviewed this state approved draft of the CR um and uh have given it their vote of approval and are working on signatures now and so now we're coming to the select board to ask for your final approval and signature on this and could you just give us a couple um couple features so so this will be open to the public for yes so this conservation restriction guarantees Public Access um and passive recreational activity as part of that uh the conservation restriction also allows for parking area to allow for that Public Access um should the concom wish to place that in the future there's existing trails and wood roads on the land but allows for both the maintenance of the existing trails and future trails should the concom wish to incorporate that as well um Timber management activity is also allowed on the land if that's a source of revenue for the town in the future they would like to pursue they'd have to have a forest plan exactly yep um and this is the property up on just so that the listing public knows this is up on fmer road is that correct mhm and it extends into but does not apply for this into Westampton correct correct so yes um garfinkle land there's a parsel in Westampton which Cal Land Trust will be acquiring Mass Autobon is going to be holding CR we're hoping that they can work in tandem is also guaranteeing Public Access and so um over all over 200 acre Conservation Area that will come out of this so this is just a land in Southampton obviously exactly okay now did I hear you mentioned something about trails and concom having to manage the trails so is that what I heard or no um so there are existing Trails there and so the CR allows for them to be maintained as they currently exist exist and if the concom wants to go beyond you know just the trails as they are now they can build more or you know improve the infrastructure of the current Trails I'm just I'm just worried just because of the short short staffing of the concom to have yet another conservation property where they might feel obligated to have to do something with Trail work so and very specific to this point given that the Kestrel will acquire the property in Westampton and I personally have not walked into Westampton I've walked these Trails I think maybe I went to West Hampton didn't know it but um what can we expect from Kestrel regarding developing more Trails I know you have Trail experts in at Kestrel and uh and I asked this on behalf of the conser I'm not a member of the Conservation Commission but I I I know that we are we are really working hard to find volunteers to work on trail maintenance as well as building expecting this to have come along and so what can we expect from Kestrel regarding um developing of new trails or commenting on the existing Trails some of which are I think there's been a lot of hvv traffic over up there in in past years Etc yeah absolutely so um C Land Trust in the short term at least is going to treat the trails more as a a remote recreational access area just because the nature of the land itself um where it it's more an involved process to hike to that area but uh we do have uh full-time staff dedicated to Trails right now as well as robust volunteer um Trail committee uh and so should the Town express interest in developing that eror further I'm sure KRA will be more than happy to sit down with the town and um come up with ideas for at least you know basic maintenance if not further development and sorry chis can I ask one more um so um I'm wondering where are are are ATVs going to continue to be involved there because do know that people have used those Trails for years so the conservation restrictions for both parts in Westampton and Southampton prohibits motorized vehicles unless as an accessibility or an emergency access issue so ATVs will no longer be permitted as a recreational activity um and obviously that's something that can't just you know go away in the short term but something we'd work towards together hopefully in terms of postage and making each other aware of you know that restriction and how to manage that over the long term appropriate signage and so exactly yep and what about uh dog walking dog walking is permitted okay and I I I know I I raised the question with you earlier today about hunting at this point this document is silent on Hunting correct yeah so the CR does not expressly prohibit hunting so that means at the moment you know hunting is permitted accordance with local and state laws um but it's also up to the concom in the future if they need to put parameters around hunting or for SA you know no longer permit hunting in which case they would then need to to post explicitly that hunting is not allowed but with the guarantee of public access at the moment you know hunting is allowed in accordance with local and state laws so if there is any kind of dispute of something who's who's kind of in charge is it Kestrel or concom who has the authority to uh enforce anything in terms of the towns land the concom has the authority over management um of those activities since the CR is is silent on Hunting okay so it's not up to Castel to enforce any activities that are allowed but we're granting the CR2 krol right yes okay okay so that means they're going to be there'll be a periodic evaluation by the land Steward of kestrel krol annually will monitor the land and make sure it's in accordance with the conservation restriction okay and again just remind us again on the on the funding of this this was something I think that we had approved at town meeting last year yes um so a portion of CPA funds is going towards this acquisition um but then the remainder is privately raised funds um that the Cel raised on behalf for the town to acquire this property and it fits in with the the mountain Waters the state Grant though no State Grant funds are going to this specific um acquisition it's serving as match to the rest of the Acquisitions that the town will be doing in the future did you read this closely Steven because I know you only through the chair any if you're entertaining questions through the chair yes could I ask Stephen a question because he he raised the questions at open space committee could we find out if Stephen has read and is comfortable with the way through I have read this conservation restriction in detail and I also requested a copy of the draft Baseline documentation I reviewed that in detail yeah good what I did not get Madam chair is an invitation from our conservation agent to assist him in the review of this nor notice of any of the process although publicly posted um I reviewed the most recent concom meeting um on tape and I was surprised because I thought it was their first hearing of this conservation restriction at the brevity of the presentation and as much as I support this enthusiastically uh tonight we've touched on some of the details that the town wants to understand fully and manage responsibly going forward so I want to thank Kestrel uh for providing me a sort of exp partite opportunity to review this m yeah okay and if you want any more on that my question to cestro or my clarification for the select board the town will be the owner M krol will ensure that we manage the land for conservation purposes as detailed in this forever binding document public access is required Improvement of Public Access is not required and by and large the granular issues and they're very important to us are up to us the town acting through its concom to develop a management plan that would guide that in concert with our neighbors in west camp kol and the aabon society uh any Hunters that are looking for the oton society property in Westboro or Westampton will be carrying their guns through is that true Southampton so there are issues here to the question raised by the chair there's no obligation for us to go and improve Trails there will be no specific financial obligation but because we have volunteers kol as volunteers as well as Professional Resources I fully and enthusiastically Embrace this as you knew I would but you have to read the detail and motorized vehicles is the one thing that I see that is clearly prohibited that needs to be acknowledged and understood by us as repres atives of the town and then it needs to be carried forward in a collaborative process of enforcement with all the other land owners that is the only way in my professional experience that motor vehicle trespass is ever reduced and I do have experience Marboro Sudbury Hudson in taming a very large multi-jurisdictional compy Conservation area where the headlines read State Police give up so um this is not thankfully at that level but these are forever commitments that the town is entering into and I would like to reiterate my offer of professional review Castrol is amazing they are absolutely up to date with the current model and have run it through the state review already which is no mean fee it's backed up to a fairly well not only that I'm not sure the state reviews the Baseline documentation the Baseline documentation is also thoroughly up to standard and correlates this Madam chair is our evidentiary record that must be maintained by the town in perpetuity so we can measure our performance against the original state and it is crackerjack and I commend C well that was going to be one of my questions I would like to have us have a copy of the Baseline report for our files usually in other CRS that we've approved the Baseline report is really where a lot of the detail is and the the flavor is in terms of what this property is all about so if you wouldn't mind getting a absolutely to us you know just by email that would be fine it should be part of the overall report that goes right along with this CR for our F not for the future the town's obligation and we've been provided a service by krro MH y so at this point tonight you said concom has already approved their portion so you're looking for the select board to approve the CR it's not ready yet for a purchase and sale or is it approaching that it's approaching that yeah the attorneys are talking now and so we're hoping if not by the end of this week then early next week that will be ready so the idea is to maybe get it finalized before the end of the fiscal year or correct yes yeah the state Grant deadline is for the end of the fiscal years all right and so I think the current proposed closing date for the acquisition is June 25th okay um so if we approve the CR tonight that gives us time to get it back to the state for the secretary signature of the EA okay which is needed in order to record the CR at the time of closing of the purchase okay all right other questions yeah yeah so the just to clarify um when the comment about dog walking would be allowed do they have to be leashed it's up to us I think that goes in with the town guidelines town so right and and the all of this land prior to well maybe even right now is privately on none of it is Town property prior to this correct it's all been in private ownership up to this point enrolled in chapter it's not been enrolled in chapter I'm sorry no that's okay I'm sorry and then and um while it's been in private ownership ATV use has been allowed it's been in uh the owner does not live locally or even in the State uh they live in New York City and so I think it's gone without their awareness and this is one particular property correct that we're talking about okay okay mhm okay um and if we go ahead and vote on this tonight we don't have this needs to be notorized so is that okay to do the notorized bring my notary stamp but you know I could notor I mean scar we don't I mean normally we would have our town clerk here at the meeting to notarize at the same time the assistant in the Assessor's Office is also a notary right but we won't still be able to do it until next week is that that's fine yeah we're waiting on I think another set of signatures as well still so okay well we can we can work on that for next week so but at this point in time I think we're ready if we would somebody would like to entertain a mo or I'll entertain a motion rather to um should move forward with the approval of the conservation restriction on this property you can do it you this is your thing this is the town's thing this is a great opportunity for the town I move that we um uh we the select board U approve the conservation restriction on said properties as noted in this uh Grant of conservation restriction before us on former Road second by Steven any further discussion yes yes so I am going to support this but I'm only doing so because the the town has already voted to support it so I am just executing their wishes regardless of my personal belief and feelings on this MH okay all right so with that all those in favor I I I okay any Nays all right hearing none the motion is approved and we will approve the conservation restriction great thank you so much um I have a any more to come we look forward to cooperating with you to expedite these through a tortured process thank you um got a few more that need to come eventually over the next year eventually yes all the other ones will be coming as part of fy2 for this grant so we have some time there um but yeah we'll be moving things along for certain very good um and I have an updated signature page cuz we needed to add cind onto this names out right yeah so pass that on to Scott and then we'll get that all tidied up and uh we'll get it back to you next week so thanks for coming in and explaining this thank chair for indulging my lecture answering our questions that's great and just note as you mentioned there will be a forthcoming discussion about um the purchase and sale and the deed itself for the actual purchase sure okay yeah yeah and but if you would also just send the um the Baseline report around that'd be great thank you very much thanks we do a signing thing later on so we'll get it all organized later yep all right thank you much all right let us move on so true okay Scott you want to pick up uh guess our first one on the list here thank you Bridget thank you um Colin Center classification compensation study update got your br so the Colin Center report in South Anton has been ongoing for about two years now um one of the things is 95% of it has been done uh without my involvement so I'm kind of coming in on this at the the tail end uh so I'm not going to go into in-depth detail of the actual colins report itself um but I did read the final report and look at some of the background information and uh before we move forward with it I think it's um worthwhile to explore some of the questions I had some of the red flags um to make everyone kind of aware of it um because this is going to have a long-term effect for the town if we don't get it right then we're going to lose people if we get it wrong then we're going to be paying too much and our compensation survey will be off uh so it's important to get this right because it's going to be year after year and we're talking tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars so looking at a a Compensation Plan methodology uh there's a couple components that you always want to look at uh the first one is comparable municipalities or organizations and depending where you are is it could be other public entities such as like UMass ammer or colleges or nonprofits that that may also take from the same talent pool as municipalities uh job descriptions have have to be accurate and well thought out and updated uh if you don't have good job description job descriptions you're not going to be able to go through the process and properly evaluate everything uh the compensation structure and ranking system so I'll mention later on but you have to decide what type of compensation structure you're looking at are you just looking at a market rate are you looking at steps are you looking at uh ranges are you looking at Merit only pay um contractual and then you have to look at the ranking system so most municip IP alties and the federal government state government use a point factor system but there's other types of systems as well and there's hybrid uh you have to establish strong goals and what you're trying to accomplish with the compensation study it's not just a matter of getting a bunch of Statistics into a Excel sheet and looking at the end result and just implementing it you have to figure out what what you want to accomplish and then you have to educate everyone you have to educate the public you have to educate the employees you have to make sure that there's a strong Foundation to move forward so that you maintain the Compensation Plan year after year and that it succeeds past any type of turnover so the first thing is comparable communities are doing a market analysis uh the first thing I always say is market analysis shouldn't be the only Benchmark but it plays part of it it all really depends on other factors you can have a market analysis but there's a difference between hiring a planner for the city of Cambridge or or the town of Brookline versus the town of r obviously a planner in those types of communities are going to have a much bigger influence and effect on the entire governmental structure than you know a town of Rutland uh just because of the huge amount of development and impact that it has uh the other thing is some positions are similar some most positions are not so there there's little differences between positions there's there's very few uh Apples to Apples positions in municipal government you know Library director might be a more apples apples position Health director things like that that um but then you have like you know planning directors and building Commissioners and town administrators and all these other positions and each one is a little bit unique to the community you need to have the expertise in each of those to really do a comparison and then how do you determine which communities are really comparable is it size is it population is it where it's located socio economic data is it the budget is it the school system uh there's a hundred different categories that you can pick from but what's really the best way to determine that so the regional standard for doing compensation studies uh throughout New England is really using location and population and those are self-explanatory uh but per capita income average single family tax bill and eqv and what do these really tell you about the community well they can actually tell you a lot so an average single family tax bill shares a lot of information about the community if it's a higher average single family tax bill versus one that might be lower the lower might have a combination of commercial industrial properties have a split tax rate uh it might have a lot of multif family houses so that's a indicator of what the community could be so gov HR which which does a lot of compensation plans they use a a point factor system and they and they weigh it out so population per capita income eqv and they also use like total assess value as well so this is their their methodology HRS Human Resources Services which also does uh quite a few uh they use the equalized value per capita population median family income and then they look a little bit further into form a government structure in the organizations excuse me Scott these are other nonprofit organizations distinct from the Colin right uh for for profit they're for-profit providing the same services that the university Colin Center provided us exactly thank you so I was curious to see how um the calling center used their analysis to get the comparable communities that were listed and the response was that they use um the regional location method where you have Southampton and you have one layer of towns and then you expand it and you have another layer towns and that is how they determine the uh the comparables so these are the comparables that they uh put forward um I I don't agree with that assessment and I don't agree with that method all one of the ones that's interesting Gran is often the one that we're compared with all the time and that's obviously missing on that one right and look where it is yeah it's that big yeah Gap right there so you're saying that the circle method they they've kind of put us in a circle and then just kind of done a radius all around us just so they they did reach out to Conway grany mountgomery West Springfield and West Hampton which I wouldn't even use those either uh mountgomery has a population of 838 West Springfield is a mayl form of government which is significantly bigger with a completely different tax base uh mountgomery and West Hampton are both under 2,000 people um gry is an ideal comparable as you mentioned um but one of the things was that even if you don't get the request so I get survey requests all the time I may not answer them but when you're paying $244,000 to have a compensation side you can get information just from a public records request within 30 days it it's not the polite way to do it cuz you like to keep colleagues but having comparing Montgomery to grany when you're doing the analysis you need grany there's you've got to get that information no matter what uh cuz that's that's a one-on-one you know Apples to Apples comparison that that is vital to it um some of the information is available online uh we didn't receive actual salaries so when you're looking at salaries there's a difference between just the the minimum and the maximum if you have steps you progress to the maximum but if you have ranges you generally want generally you're in the middle of the range and the minimum and the maximum don't matter as much if we're just basing all of our information on the minimum and the maximum and that calculating you know whether it's steps or ranges or a combination of both that's going to have an effect on on the study and obviously grany wasn't um included in that what I find interesting on that last slide is they didn't even know how to spell the towns that they reached out to so I I did a quick analysis and this is just off of the DLS website using the the three main categories and um if you look at this Southampton is in yellow uh organized by single family tax bill we're right in the middle and it gives us about 15 if you look at income per capita um you know we're again right in the middle probably on a little bit higher end and these are also communities in Hampshire hamton County between 2,000 and 20,000 and the eqv was also very similar if you sort it out uh it comes right in the middle what's eqv again uh equal um equalized yeah all all equalized uh value so it's all the taxable um property in a community was a little surprised by Hadley but I I suspect it might have to do with some of the more commercial commercial some of the farm equipment expensive norfield isfield Hadley today announced that the the mall is going into bankruptcy they may be changing their eqps so there there's a lot of different things but when you look when when you do the you know the how many of the three categories are actually there we come up with pretty good list of comparables um low and East L meow I probably wouldn't put them in they're a little bit of an outlier and that's just based on local knowledge even though they technically could fit in that and that's something that you know the local knowledge contributes to a Compensation Plan so back to the the slide so the industry standard versus the Colon Center you know about 50% of what I would use aligned with the Colin Center the the red are ones that uh don't match and the green are ones that do match so they included Goan as one of our comparables mhm that too seems about as likely as Montgomery and it does have an impact on the results you know you're not talking about hundreds of data points uh you're not you know doing 351 towns of Massachusetts you're really dealing with very small minute segments so you you have to get you have to get it right or you at least have to take the statistical approach and throw out any you know differences or highs and lows and go through it that way um now I haven't I've just been emailing the the Colin Center I haven't had a in-depth conversation with him yet so I could be off face but um for example just to show you how you really need to do a comparison to not only your community but the communities that you're getting the information from Scott could you do that in slideshow mode so we get about 25 thank you there so this is just um The Building Commissioner survey uh I'm not going to go into the detail but the data that they gathered from am was 3754 an hour the data that they gathered from H was 5214 an hour and our maximum hour rate is 3753 one of the things that CAU my attention is how come Amis is so much lower than Holio and equal almost equal to ours that doesn't make sense because am is is pretty on spot with their compensation and they're constantly doing comp studies and they've made a big investment in those things so if you look at a little bit further the Colin Center used Building Commissioner but I suspect they took the building inspector job because they am does have a Building Commissioner which is a 9 position and that is a higher salary so say when you compare that with hoo who has a Building Commissioner they have the salary of 94903 divided by the 1820 which is 35 hours a week and it comes to 5214 so that comes to the same but the problem was I I noticed looking at the hoo website was two things it's a unionized position on steps and then it's from 2022 so if you're using this information with the average increase of Municipal coal as being about 2 and a half to 3% and you implement it next year you're 6 to 9% are already back to square one so you need upto-date information so if the question is are we comparing building inspectors or are we comparing building Commissioners and that matters so if you look at the left side which is ammer uh the building commissioner this is their their directory or their structure um quite a few people they have administrative staff it's a little bit different and the job of ammer is a little bit different you have UMass you have the colleges you have a lot of multif family housing compared to Southampton where you know it's it's you know some industrial some cultur uh IND agricultural but also you know mostly single family homes and then you have um hoo on the right side which is the Building Commissioner and hoo is very different when you're a Building Commissioner too you have 500,000 foot factories abandoned you have a downtown more commercialized more industrialized a lot more multif family housing well and this just hold on for a second so this right side if I'm understanding this the right side would be a listing of all the staff that the Building Commissioner supervises as well okay so here what we've got right we had a building inspector got his certification and became the Building Commissioner and then we've got part-time Electrical Plumbing and whomever inspector so he's got a two or three people that sort of report to him on a contract basis but that's a totally different thing than a than a we're not looking at Apples to Apples as Collins suggested we are and it took two years to produce this not on multiple axes not comparable towns not comparable positions not the right point in the range of salaries so this is a little bit more comforable prepared very well and you're finish yeah go ahead and finish then we get so what was included in the in the report was Southwick and South Hadley and those are a little bit more closer comparable communities and this is their Staffing structure Southwick has a lot of you know part-timers and on calls that they just put in there but it's mostly just a core group of two or three people you know their hourly maximum rate which again I wouldn't even use but is 39.86 which is a lot Clos to our $37 South Hadley same thing you know they have a Building Commissioner they do have a clerk but they have weights and measures electrical plumbing inspector very similar to our our um our format but you notice who the Building Commissioner is in South Atley and you will see his name over under the building commissioner's office in hoyo I mean it's small from here but I'm pretty sure that that's last name is Cody Cody I can't see South Hatley Building Commissioner it's in red and right there he's part-time building official first David Cody yeah Daman is first name is last name c t and c o d y yeah I'm telling you it's the same person he's a good he's a good friend of mine he was the commissioner in hoyo went to South Hadley but the South The hoyo Building Commissioner doesn't have the licenses need so he stays on parttime and collects another salary over there to be the commissioner of record mhm nice job if you can get it well I'm just saying to the point of it's not apples and apples and you know well and again it's a legitimately hard analysis but Scott's getting a hell of a lot closer than Colin so yeah go ahead keep go so so the next thing you have to decide is you know what kind of structure are you actually going to do and you can have steps which is traditionally for non-exempt employees you can have ranges and fill in anywhere in between you can have Merit based so a lot some towns actually do have completely Merit based increases or you can do a hybrid and one one of the things I do want to mention is you know Colin are in their um scale they put exempt with non-exempt employees which I'm not in favor of you really have to sort those out and keep those different I think we were correct me from wrong but I think we were kind of aiming toward ranges if I'm not mistaken uh you know we were kind of looking for a range and trying to get people toward toward the median point that was sort of our Theory when we started but yeah what do we have here could so this is just the ammer structure so they use steps could you make it a little bigger sorry is it possible there you go and and you know depending on the amount of steps too that you want to use so it's a little ranges I I like ranges a little bit more just because it gives you flexibility but you have to really nail down the compensation structure steps every year you progress through a step so on and so forth so it's not a bad system I not my preference um the next one is like well we used to used to use a uh range and that was for our exempt employees and we would use the midpoint which somebody Wesley's making $241,000 yeah that's Max yeah that's the max don't don't I can I can tell you the school salary skip just skip right along here and then like Needum for example is an example of the hybrid structure and this is also one of the reasons why you don't just use a high and a low because their upper GR a good half of it is Merit range so they have a a step system up to a merit range and then you go through the Merit range at a maximum so very few people would actually ever reach that maximum and and need them so you also have to figure out what your your goals are what are you trying to accomplish you have to figure out what benchmarks you're going to use how you're going to maintain it um do you match Mark at midpoint are you aiming below midpoint are you aiming above midpoint or Market uh one of the local examples of you know finding out the goals was ammer to and maybe about 10 years ago they decided to be a quote employer of choice so every year when they do their compensation survey they're aiming for a 75th percentile not 50th or market rate so this is what their um their strategy was and ammer had really good goals retain establish rational compensation and classification structure maintain pay ranges provide employees with the basic understanding of principles keep employees informed of the compensation make sure that it's compliance with state and federal law that their pay structure is moving forward with the effective date of new employees as well as taking grandfathering and employees and maintain other employee you know structures like longevity and health insurance programs so I I sent you the I sent you a couple different comparables I sent you the Callin Center report the back of just a final report uh I sent you a couple from HRS I sent you a couple from gov HR uh there was a couple more that I was going to include I had to pull out but um I also sent you the original PowerPoint of uh am that amers did in 2013 which I thought kind of laid out a lot of the the basic steps for that um you know so we're kind of in a position where do we accept the call and CER report do we do we go back and bring them in and I could be way off I could I again I was wasn't here for 95% of it I could be completely off and they have a methodology that's well spot on they weren't here and I think I think in all honesty if I can just jump in to to my knowledge you know we wanted to get the plan done but we didn't have a whole lot of say in defining the methodology I mean that all had happened you know with the previous Town Administrator and Collins to negotiate how that would look and given that Collins has been you know one of the leading groups and we had three three entities I believe and we we chose Collins uh out of the three that put in their proposal so we could go back to look at the actual proposal of how they you know talked about their approach there which if I'll get that to you if you don't have it handy um so that would be one thing to look at but once they started we really didn't have much of a much of an input I I do know that job descriptions that exist existed that exist um were sent over to Collins and then they came backwards to the actual employees and the town department heads to go through and make their comments andh you know changes whatever and then those all went back to to Collins but um so I I know I I started this whole campaign just over three years ago now um because this this this uh wage equ um equality was the primary reason I even decided to run for the selectboard so I feel differently Now with uh um Scott here but I think we thank the Collins Pat them on the head and sent them on their way uh we don't need them I think uh Scott's already demonstrated that he has he has a fundamental understanding of this um I for I mean I oversee our our wage analysis and scales at work and I reset it every year and we do the 65% tile we want to be slightly above the midrange cuz the mid-range that's not the employee we want we want somebody that's a little better we're not going to pay the 100% And every year it gets readjusted and then everyone's depending on what bucket you're in what job you're doing give or take you have your regular base pay there we do make an adjustment for longevity and we weigh it two different ways longevity with the company and longevity in the same position right um you could move around different positions Within company correct and ie you're being promoted up sure right so you should get credit for the entire company and do you work on a step basis or no it's it's the it's the here's the range where's the 65 percentile and then the only adjustment from there is based on you know 65 percentile but if you're in your initial year you haven't hit your 90 days yet right you're going to be a little below that but if you're at the 65 and you've got uh 5 years or so you're going to be so much above cuz in theory if if you're continuing to be we also do annual reviews and uh 6-month reviews so you got to be hitting all those marks that's the key that's missing that's the second piece that's missing here at the town in order to do this because then we do and again private sector is different than public sector but you've already mentioned it in the budget where at former places youve worked there's been a pool of money set aside for merit increases but that only works if you tie it to documented wellestablished reviews that can be defended against or oh it's cuz you're the favorite you bring the Town Administrator an apple every Monday so I would suggest next steps is that um I be I think it'd be great to do as a joint session but if everybody doesn't want to I think we refer this to finance with with the town administrator's help and uh I'm happy to stay on this even if somebody else wants to be the finance of the aison to take what's here now and and start to work on it and come up with some sort of solid package to come back back questions just cuz I'm new we are we do do we do required evaluations or uh performance reviews in this town is there a consistent handbook I don't know how many but is it done is it enforced is it is there is there training around how to do them do we have documentation is it just like yes I really like so and so and she shows up every day there's a performance form performance evaluation form that people are supposed to use okay but we have such it's enforced how well it's done on time how thorough it is but we have a lot of different entities in this town right for example the library staff reports to the director of the library and yet other offices report through eventually to the Town Administrator and we have unions we don't have unions for every yeah so this this report excl one more thing we have that I'm hearing about is that for example the senior center has been successful in getting grants and has been able to pay what some people view as a compfortable position higher because they bet grants this is what I'm hearing and why the heck is that happening you know what I'm saying so there's and then some people we have longevity in some of our employees and we we like so and so VAR we've got a real mixture in town hall okay let's but but this report yeah only applies to the nonunion non employ um so longevity where we it it's been contractually negotiated through the UN contract so yeah at this point in time that's what they were supposed to have done so at this I don't know if you have another slide there but you've reached out and had email exchanges with them but um do you think it's worth a I mean to my knowledge from what you had checked today we have not paid anything on this to my knowledge oh the state paid it huh the the the the the state has paid it on our behalf it was a grant through the D through the divisional yes it was it was Community compact Grant yeah Compu right which comes from the state we don't we don't cut a check we signed a contract for it right which that goes to the state and the state cuts the the state funds them the money's never going to flow through our treasury okay well maybe so okay I just know that I saw the contract that we signed so yeah and it was 24 correct and so the state allocated that portion of the grant to the benefit of Southampton but paid it directly to the Collins insute because that would be worth double cheing on that that would be worth a just a query and double check yeah yeah and and and I I just one my last comment here I personally think this should be a black mark against us ever using the cins Institute going forward yeah D so I would like ask ask it this way of you Scott what you what you've shown us and what you want to do with the role and your experience I think I would like to empower you to to own this and my question what do you want to take as the next steps cuz you next step um what can we do to help you what yeah what what do you need for resources to Y to really help the first part is just getting what the select board in the town how they want to form the compensation you know what system works best for Southampton is the primary objective and you know like Needum system may not work well Wellsley chickabees Westampton you know so it has to be deciding how we want to do it and what's reasonable and maintainable over the long term m uh the other thing is getting a process in place getting a procedure where you can evaluate positions so if job descriptions change or if you add new positions or if you combine positions you need to be able to have a neutral system like a point factor system to be able to grade them put them into the compensation U scale and have faith everyone has faith in that system um the the third thing is just Gathering the information and the data compensation surveys it's it's a little little bit science and it's a little bit art so you need to have a little bit of each of those you know getting the information is easy and putting into the spreadsheet but it is timec consuming and having to track down people and you know comparing Grandy looking at each position okay why is the building department so much should we keep the information or not how does it compare what's the structure is it in inspectional Services where you have a person overreaching everything or does the Building Commissioner also oversees zoning and zba and health inspection and things like that or code enforcement and how much does that play in comparison to Southampton and how much do you really need to do that and then the fourth is is just making sure our job descriptions I haven't reviewed all the job descriptions from cinon here yet I do know that anecdotally some people just didn't put a lot of time and effort into them um and that's concerning because the job descriptions need to reflect how you scale them so your whatever system you use usually job job descriptions are written to that um whether you use the hay System point factor system it doesn't really matter but the basis of the job descriptions influence that um so um next any interns anywhere I I I I see that Scott is expert in this area and has laid out the issues for us but it is complex and while he's teased apart a couple examples he can't do it for 75 employees or whatever we have yeah so how forward in a reasonable time we're talking about 18 people thank you we're talk this impacts 18 employees these is the nonunion people covered under ppb this is not the school it's not the police department it's not the highway department except for the clerk over there and it is not the uh yeah that's it and it's not the fire department cuz they're paid on call it's the people that are in this building the clerk at the DPW DPW or transfer station well the transfer station employee that's on and our new clerk for the police fire that's it those are the only employees impacts in the library library right that's it thank you um yeah I'm sure yeah if if it's 18 I'll believe you I felt like there were more job descriptions floating around at the time when they were passing them around but I don't know that for sure well but we I mean how many open positions do we have because because the last time we did this exercise nobody had faith it would work so they didn't do the the job descriptions and it's a starting point because we've dragged our feet and our predecessors have dragged their feet and the first place to cut during the budget crisis instead of really digging in like we dug in this year on everything was don't give out raises to the nonunion people we'll catch up we'll catch up now our wages are down here we have mass vacancies over 50% of our highway department has been empty for well over six years we cannot afford to Kick the Can further down the road and and we can yell and scream at colins all we want they're not going to come off Beacon Hill and come down here and do this for us now different Town Administrator before us did not have the capacity to handle this this is Scott's background now yes there's work to be done bring in the finance committee we have a brand new fully engaged finance committee who I I can suspect that one of them might really want to dig into this and help volunteer that might be a good idea I mean my my only concern I mean and I don't I don't disagree no no I don't disagree and obviously Scott you know your background in HR certainly is is is showing itself but I think you know with everything else that has to happen on a daily basis in town hall my fear is I mean I don't know if you were to take this on are we talking sort of this blinders on just focus on this for a month what are we talking about I mean my my fear is that if we said Scott take it on we've got so many other irons in the fire and so many other things happening but can we deal with on a daily basis that you if you get an hour or two on a day to focus on this you'd be lucky it was my my observation of the workload here right now without taking this on as the project for for the New Town Administrator not saying that he's not capable but I'm just I'm just trying to figure out reality and you know your time better than anybody else but after a couple months you've got a sense of what what happens on a weekly basis here I mean I would do 50 to 60 positions a year in wle just do a compar comparative analysis to 15 towns but that was an established system that I inherited right so not making the system that part is the easy part Gathering the information putting it in and that's just a spreadsheet use over and over um the timec consuming part is figuring out what we want to do as a community and figuring out what the best way to do it is um and getting all the stakeholders in um then you know the other concern is I mean the good thing is I'm relatively new um but if someone doesn't get a raise or gets a higher raise they might say oh that's just Scott's favorite so it's always good to have some third parties to verify the information yeah well I think the idea of having somebody or may not the not the entire finance committee but see if there's a couple of volunteers that might want to work work with you on and I mean I think that could be an easier load to sort of divide up tasks and you know right as far as what direction we want to go in and what we want to do I think I think we limit it to to 11 people the five select board members the Town Administrator and the five Finance folks and we put together this package and then we go out and we educate I also think we're going to have to educate the staff who have been expecting this these increases come out because this is what's hold everything sitting in the PPP waiting for this to come out and honest ly if if if the answer is it's going to take 4 months to do it then it's 4 months but it has got to get done before the budget and I don't know what the alternative is because Union contracts are going to be coming up again so if we go through all that again and and those Collective baring groups all get their increases which they're going to they're not going to ask for zeros well the main one coming up is highway right now but they're not going to accept a zero oh yeah right so they're going to so again the non-union people the ones that we R to keep this building going are going to get passed over once again right right got to make this a priority right so if I might I hear some policy stuff like Community goal setting Where do we want to be in the range of s and and yet um to implement that we need kind of a deep dive and upgrade on job descriptions and ensure that there is an evaluation system in place at least next year this time and and and then how do you compare because this person is doing part of this title and part of that title and so it is technically complex I like the idea of drawing on the finance committee for maybe some of the more technical details this board for the policy stuff but like printer jams on the computer station I want to protect our Town Administrator from from having to solve those problems yeah yeah so I mean and I do think the end result is we have to revisit a part-time HR person in this town I mean we relied on Pioneer Valley and that whole thing and that R our hands yeah we were part of this pvpc and identify that and that kind of you and uh Francine were part of that it kind of fell on deaf ears it never really turned into any realistic thing we wanted a part-time person based here to be shared with a few other town the rest just want pay as they needed they didn't want to again you know no knowing Scott's background do we make do we take that those job responsibilities on a part-time level make that H part of his job find other things within his job to pull out and then go find a part-time person over there there's we're playing with a new deck of cards right now right we have new different assets to that we can deploy but I'm in favor of what you just said John the second option and I would love put from Scott but if there's some particular area paper jamming being one that he could download to somebody else and some of that's because he a has the background B has already grabbed onto the problem and but a lot of there's been I I will say for my observation there's more delegation happening now than I saw in two or three years I mean it's also I don't know where it is right now whether Bradley has it or Scott has it but the you know again the the direction from this board was to get the CPO over to Bradley yeah so that was one of the big things that dragged at down a lot having to deal with that that should already be or in process of getting off Scott's plate good so and he needs to give us input on that Chris just said she's concerned that your job is so very demanding and do you have enough hours in the week to do the job you have let alone take on more of this that is a question I I really couldn't answer that for another for a little while longer cuz I jumped on during the busiest time of year town meeting land Acquisitions Grant programs everything so I really haven't cracked the HR part of it to be honest with you uh but I think there's a lot of ways that we can do things more efficiently uh like procurement um that could that could make it possible to do more in the HR functions um like reviewing the Personnel policies with the PB PPP B um and figuring that out and well so I I mean just don't spend a lot of time on that because one of my next motions is to work towards eliminating that bylaw and remove cuz PPP is only there because we passed the bylaw cuz we don't have an HR function so if we were to put a dedicated HR person in there then you don't need a committee that's 50% staffed with employees that will benefit from this compensation state which which is why I'm suggesting Finance where it's more neutral yeah so at this point in time I mean I this has been a good good eye opener and a good presentation Scott I think um it certainly explains the delay and it it certainly does and and now I kind of get it yeah so I think maybe we don't have a a final decision per se tonight but I mean let's let's talk let's reach out to the finance committee and see if there's somebody who would like to work on this and then when we get together on the fourth maybe we have some more clear ideas about how we can could we go one step further could we ask finance committee to meet to take up this topic and get the same presentation that we got because present this to the if we if we go further and deci we want toage an outside resource we're going to need money and they're going to control that Pur string until May okay that's a good point so yeah so that let's make that a next step to to reach out to finance and see if we can set up a meeting with you and finance committee to sort of present the same thing to them so that they're on the same page and then with that they can we can work on a joint meeting I think that's a good idea so I do too good well thank you for putting that together I now I I it's more clear in terms of some of your hesitancy on uh on this when you received it so thank you for uh this is this must have been a really hard one Scott to have to deal with so early in your tenure because no I mean I just I just through the presentation I just did today but uh I've been looking at it and just trying to get get at it and very professional just just trying to understand what you're seeing though I mean I think that's the challenge I mean we can sit here and look at that same information and not really you know grasp the the nuances that I think you've pulled out very clearly here so well and we figured out Way Forward rather than just saying this thing is of no use well I think we all agree this is a high priority we want to get it done it's got to be done before the next budget cycle we put money aside for uh you know adjusting wages as we go along here so this is not going off the radar screen this is still remaining a top priority you just have to approach it in a little bit different it must fashion yeah then would also again I'm sure it's probably already happening so I don't need to say this but I will say it but um Scott if you could just make sure that you're addressing it with the department heads and opening the communications this is where the select board is now and you know cuz again right y good all right well thanks for that good good discussion on that so while we're there let's go into the next Hot Hot Topic here the uh uh 2022 draft audit report uh so you've sent that around we we're not going to go into lengthy discussion tonight because what we normally do will to invite in the um the auditor to actually do a presentation of it um but you want to give us maybe a couple of the highlights of things that there's been no audit response yet right is that correct right so we still have that to do or you and Bradley work on that usually um so I think if you look at the um one of the the more important things in the report there's a lot of lot of pages and a lot of very dry stuff um no pun intended but it's like reading like watching paint try pretty much but the management letter which kind of gives us some of the goals that we need to respond to and kind of start thinking about which is the um improve controls over cash reconciliation receipts and receivables I I think everyone pretty much already knows knows that that's one of the major issues in getting upto-date receivables and expenditures and not having to wait months uh especially during like budget process but you know they recommended nothing more than you know 6 weeks out as as a goal and I think that we we can obtain that with with some with some changes um the budget Control process which is something I wanted to address um in the future we I started talking to the department EDS today and with the finance team about doing you know some purchase order systems and figuring out ways to better control that um that was a recommendation that come out of the cost efficiencies committee was to we have some sort of a fledgling purchase order system or purchase order but we've never really implemented it it's like let's put it in play so yeah okay and then the third one is just adopting an oped Declaration of trust which we we were going to try to do last town meeting but it just got a little bit too late and we weren't able to fully vet everything um that's the that's that's the management letter those are some of the goals that we have to kind of address but um and so this this OPB trust declaration this is this is written policies and so forth about how we manage the the uh right it's adop there's a mgl for it jafor yeah yeah yeah but there's decisions that need to be made and it has very heavy consequences should you make the wrong decision in like right now there's no way in the world I would ever vote to support that mhm because of who who's overseeing and and things of that nature and and yeah it would need some I think it would need some tweaking but I haven't seen the draft that you're proposing so oh I don't think there is a it sounded like we had one to try and get in the last to meeting oh the op oh JY had proposed it so we kind we kind of rushing around and I didn't have time to review everything and put everything into place so I said we can't do it yeah so I I would just um control over cash reconciliations I would not yeah but on the OPB trust I would not want to see the first draft come from the folks that are actually managing the money right now because I do not believe that's an arms link transaction and while I have nothing against Bolam mule and and what they do the um their version is written to benefit them as the adviser so we should have an just like the audit an independent party say this is the version of advisor you comply with it m okay so good point yeah but I think they you know they did bring out our our two main weaknesses in terms of just the the reconciliation of receipts and receivables where sure when they came and did their field work we were quite a bit behind um and a lot of that has to do with Staffing and Staffing is driven by wages and the these positions all fall under this report yes but at that particular time Staffing was here but not for a consecutive 365 day one no that's just that twoe period they showed up a little bit better than that but anyway but internal you know internal controls I mean just things being you know put into the general ledger and double-checking things that are approved at town meeting and assure that they're recorded correctly I mean all that kind of stuff I guess a little bit concerned I didn't understand one of the comments here about the amounts recorded in the general ledger for the transfer station and I think it was the water department too didn't agree to the tax recap I mean certain things were not figured in when we did the tax rate somehow is that how I'm understanding this so I mean I think there's you know internal controls that are really lacking here somewhere that need to be seriously improved so um we can have more time to go through this but what would be anybody's thought about and seeing you're not going to be here on the 4th could we try to see if the um auditor might be available on the 18th would that work for people if possibly to see if they could come in and present to us I will be you won't be here okay um other than that it would be into July probably I think the 18 is is sufficient notice and Al and just a reminder to ask Finance yeah right to joint do it joint with Finance if if they're available after that we get into July it would be the 2nd and the 16th and the 30th of July I I also wouldn't be opposed of just having a a special meeting just for this that would be like an one hour window yeah the audit just have an audit discussion on another night not necessarily a Tuesday night just an audit meeting with the uh someone the Auditors with the auditor and and the finance committee joint in I think that would be a good idea I think so let's let's talk about possible dates on that that would be different from our regular select board meeting okay would it be too much to have the auditors we're we're talking about Finance plus select board M yep and the auditor and the auditor so Auditors for one agenda item and then Scott's update about where we are on the colins report and wages is that too much to bite off in one night or can we segregate that follow up with Scott's yeah first conceptually they're real different yeah first I think Scott's got to try and catch up with finance and present the same thing to them Oh I thought that was joint okay separate yeah in terms of the the Collins report to present the same overview I think to the finance committee I think that but I think what what Ste Stephen may be may have been alluding to in the event that that can't happen beforehand could then that happen immediately following the auditor once so so it's only one night they have to come in if they can't get in before then for the Pres and for us all together and to sort of motivate them yeah okay we can see what what works out the best so are any uh Town employees who are affected by the audit or perhaps data's not been provided fully or correctly should they be a part of the meeting I'm specifically no no no this is this is still an internal document that we haven't even okay they've been part of the process of preparing the financials and correcting in discussion session kind of meeting or is this would that be an open meeting that would be an open meeting as far as I know I mean I mean it wouldn't be unusual are you talking about the audit the audit yeah it wouldn't be unusual to ask the treasurer and the town accountant to be here in case a question comes up or the principal they can yeah they can certainly be here I mean yes but I don't know that they're yeah I mean they would be involved in working with Scott to put answers to the questions that are being proposed by the auditor okay but those draft questions haven't even been started yet so at some point when you have your Finance meeting your Finance team meeting I assume you're going to go through this with those three individuals as well okay so but I think it's really important to get the finance committee involved and but let me clarify um my experience not in government but in nonprofit organizations is that none of Staff including the CEO are present and it's the governing board that has private conversation with the auditor and I think that would augur for an executive session but I'm new so correct well so the the report out from the Auditors needs to be done in a public setting because public funds were used to produce it and it's about public funds however there could be there could be a um we'd have to verify with with either Town Council attorne general office could be an exclusion to allow the executive body to go into executive session with the auditor to ask the single question that you're supposed to ask is there anything that we should know that you don't want to tell us in public M um okay that's the idea yeah thank you okay well we'll work on on getting some scheduling done on this okay all right so we at least have that in and then where are we there are they working yet on the FY 23 audit no because we just closed the books right but they will be we'd already signed that that audit letter way back when so they should be able to starting back be starting on 23 right okay any other questions on audits yeah John nothing no no okay all right move on uh green communities Grant update Scott yeah this is another one you've beening down we've made some movement on the library lighting system um almost there but surprisingly two days ago we got approval full approval for the North School uh proposal that was the H H controls the HVAC controls I still have to I have to talk to Derek just to make sure everything's finalized and and do the contract and figure out what the next steps are but then we're still waiting on the um Town Hall Town Hall stuff we haven't heard anything and I think there um and is it police station no I thought Highway had an HVAC system or something I forget what the fourth one was thought it was the police station that could be wrong but anyway so there's four that yeah had been submitted in but we've had to have the eversource update the Energy Efficiency part and re revalue what it's going to cost to actually Implement them but it looks like two out of the four are somewh moving almost almost being approved and this again for folks listening this is where we had gotten a green communities Grant back right before any of us started on select boards or back in early 18 I believe um and $38,000 and so we are able to put forward projects to use that amount of money and so there were four projects among several others that had come in that we had looked at for Energy savings in our municipal buildings and these four fit in with that envelope um and hopefully these will get through the final stages and we'll be able to actually Implement these very quickly so that's good news at least all right um how about just uh preparation for the Vadar Financial software transition which you started talking about a little bit but what's what's happening there a little bit um so we've we've got most of the data uh the next step is actually getting the the employees and all the users involved and getting the training done um I'm still unfamiliar with it so I'm kind of in the the dark along with that I've been waiting for it actually get downloaded uh but they will use Citrix to download everything as more of a web- based software so people can use it remotely you don't have to really install much onto the computer um I also have to meet with um Mar or Mike just to figure out exactly what we purchased uh so there's different modules that you can purchase I know that I thought we purchased the purchase order system but we didn't so um just to figure out exactly what we bought from Vadar uh and what the costs are um okay yeah is set the purchase order system you're were talking about previously that would well that would be an autom that would be a module of it which maybe we didn't purchase at time okay yeah I think we had a manual purchase order system at some point but we hadn't even actually been using that okay um that's been part of our challenge I think so um so theoretically things are starting to move along that line and and people are getting prepared for that and this is going to allow just to recap part of this I believe is going to be more um shall we say cost efficient more employee productivity enhanced maybe because a lot less is going to have to be done by paper and carding paper around a lot more is going to be automated in terms of turning in vouchers and receipts and stuff it's only as good as we use it and it's going to be a learning curve I I mean I've been in communities where we've had munus which is very similar and we've been paying for modules that we never used like like applicant tracking or um permit tracking software uh that's all available but if you don't get everything on board yeah it doesn't doesn't work so it has to be everyone's got to buy everyone's got to learn to use it um and that's going to take a little bit of more time while everyone kind of Transitions okay all right but again if there's a plan to help make that transition in training that'll be good go ahead oh I I have a question which uh is basically for the for the Committees say does this change anything for if the committee say the committee chair has to purchase something like say the parks has to buy something for the parks would they would it changed the way they would buy things so so I got an email um a couple weeks ago about fertilizer um and I had no clue it's about $3,000 worth of fertilizer uh and there's there's not a written way to do it so department heads should know it but like like boards and commissions they change over so there has to be a way for them to do it so I was able to just fill up the forms and submit it and we almost had 3,000 lb of fertilizer delivered uh to your desk yeah thankfully I caught it because um the freight company called up and said ready to deliver it um H so but that I just use that as an example that we don't have a system in place that people can follow easily now if you buy pens and pencils that's one thing but you know $3,000 worth of fertilizer should be a procedure where yeah we have the vendor number and and have them set up if we do it every year it should be an easy way to do it and we have everything stored so we don't have to continuously Do It um and if the parks changes over they should be able to pick it up and do it themselves with a simple checklist yeah I just like to say I think that's great just being on a number of committees in town that's one of the things is always pretty nebulous to people it's like okay we need to purchase whatever it is how do we do that well you know and I think that's that's a that's a good point I think it's something that you know ought to be fairly routine but doesn't seem to exist I think it's just a basic sop at at every committee level you know and board level of you know how do you do X you know and I don't think they really exist especially when there are no staff assigned yeah and yeah exactly but I mean given the turnover you know I mean you know and even even if it's every couple years I mean there's so much change that there ought to be something that people can hang their head on and understand how how to do something and I think we we can improve that as well as we go forward okay after the wage study huh after the wage study yes indeed okay all right guys uh moving on uh revenue and expense report for 2024 I think we got something from Bradley but again that if I'm not mistaken that was only updated through February yeah was it yeah so I mean it's so we know even if we wanted to react to something that that yeah we're we're missing four months worth of data yeah and I guess what I don't totally understand is that I think at some point right around the town meeting time we got something from Bradley saying okay 23 is finally closed 22 no no 23 books are closed and he had put in the carryover money the carryover funds for like you know other revenues and revolving funds and whatever else but now this report that we saw doesn't seem to have that in there so I guess I'm a little confused in terms of what what the revenue report is cuz if we that's that's one of the big frustrations I think with many of the Committees that do have a revolving fund or have other revenue or have grant money or or whatever it may be that they never know what their their starting point is you know um so I think we just have to be more clear in terms of that and maybe you know maybe at our next meeting we'll see if we have more of a catchup we've usually been looking at revenue and expense at the end of every month but maybe you know if if there's some catchup being done now you know maybe in our early June meeting we might have Bradley just come in and talk to us about the revenue and expense reports um just to understand what's what's happening but I know there's 3 is closed then he has ending numbers that he should be able to put into the 24 because those columns have been empty all year right right which would then bring everything up all right we've collected X but what what was our starting number expense number where are we yeah yeah and I think we we had seen that um but then then this report kind of reverted to the the one where it's blank on the revenue side so that's where I was confused about we'll try to track down some of these things yeah okie dokie all right so um well my my buddy over here just walked out the door but he'll be back so guys um want to jump to any other business we can do any other business I've got something go ahead so it's come to my attention for some re not for some reason because I'm easily uh available U but last Friday a we week ago Friday nights a couple of my constituents and different residents on pomoy metal Road decided to start calling me back to back with questions that I couldn't answer so I would like to um get the the committee's permission to initiate an email to get answers on behalf of The Sight board but first of all um the question and concern is that uh along the pomoy metal Road there appears to be a A-Frame Fox Earth cabin that's available for rent from Airbnb fine I don't have any issue with that um I notice it has a ouse based on their pictures that run is situated by the property line near the river um it's got electricity it looks very well built um so my my I guess my general questions are is this even permitted by our existing zoning laws zoning laws was a building permit pulled and if it was okay that's great because if you got the permit then it's covered by the zoning um the ouse which looks again it all looks of high quality is that inspected by the Board of Health or not I don't know these answers to it but then fourthly and most importantly to me this is the only one available on Airbnb if you search town of South amp that airb this is the only proper that's going to come up and again I it looks great um and it's reasonably priced and it has electricity so again tells me permits were pulled so I just want to validate all this cuz I need to get back to the cons ents that are very concerned about this property for some of them there is a um there's a a sir tax that the town can opt into like we do for the meals tax like we do for we actually in January 1st 1986 the town approved a rooms tax of 4% and it's on the books don't really know where our motel or hotel is in town however that tax also applies to b&bs um if we have any of those in town so but we have to take a separate vote to put in this this U short-term rental tax which can be up to 6% 0 to 6 now I would say and I also did a search and I can take the screenshots and send it to everybody if if if you don't want to take me my word but all the I looked at all the surrounding communities from us with the exception of West Hampton everyone's got 6% on the room tax we're at four so we should move that to six and we should at the very least have a discussion whether or not we want to implement this optional tax on short-term rentals CU I'd rather do it now while it there appears to only be one when there's not very many before there's hundreds of them and two as a a um I've said this often times when when Paul has come in from the zoning board you know I I am a huge advocate for stand alone secondary buildings that can be used for housing in this community right now I believe it has to be attached no yeah yeah I'm pretty sure it still has to be attached right so so Paul demon came in and he he corrected himself in on that that you could have a secondary building he yeah then he sent the email says it has to be attached because the final vote hasn't been taken to allow but it's in the process but but at either rate yeah okay right but at either rate I I think we should be able to do that because I mean I could Envision building a smaller house on just use me as an example on my property that an elder parent could go into that's right and then be able to take care of um so it's part of a bigger picture I and there's also on the DLS website which I had sent previously to to our former Town Administrator the town can request a list of all these properties that are out there and as long as there are more than three prop properties in town the DLS will give us the list if there's less than three it's it's considered confidential they wrote back that we're less than three well can I just update a couple things number one I don't think we always capture the airbnbs or the because I happen to know of circumstances granted third hand of situations where people were renting out rooms Etc on a short-term basis okay secondly there was a a a bed and breakfast in our town and one of our select boards currently lives in that building and um SBO members so I think that historically there were more you know rooms that could have been rented through a a bed and breakfast but more importantly this is really big this is important that we address this and get our arms R and capture the tax and well and my last question is do is the assessor's office aware of this cuz again if you if they pull the permit I would assume that everything fell through so can I back up for a second and can I ask what is the concern of the abutters well they were come to the attention of anybody because late one night in order to access this particular part property this location you actually drive along um a dirt path that rides along the abutters and you show up to a gate and somebody from behind the gate came out opened it and then this car got in and drove all the way back to the it was 10:00 at night out of state plates wow there's more curiosity than anything but of course then they out looking yeah and there's this beautiful a a frame payment and I'm I told him I would look into it cuz they're like how is this even possible I'm like well if they pulled the permits in it Zone I mean every so the communication I want is just out to those Department can you just confirm this this is and if identify where the holes are and if if they pulled the permits and they got the inspections and it's on the Assessor's card and whether or not we do this short-term rental tax is separate at least I can get back and say they complied with everything yeah I think there's two separate issues the short ter rental going forward I I don't disagree with you that we ought to at least look at that now that that's an option for municipalities to really take advantage of and do it before we get overloaded with all sorts of people maybe you know flooding in but is it something that maybe Scott you could just check in with the Building Commissioner and the assessors and just look at the records and just get get that known and then pass that information back so that we can you know that's if you want me to go through the TA I I'll draft the list of questions I'll send it to Scott to get the so at Le at least I can get the answers for what I told them I would do for followup and get back to them I think that would be the way to go I can tell you that Ron can answer some of those questions some of the questions he's currently researching and the Board of Health is reviewing the ouse right now and the type of toilet and how it's disposed of so so that sounds to me like that it wasn't done prior to and it's been listed for since 2017 could be one of those is it one of those composting toilets yeah I think so look look at that picture oh I mean yeah it might be yes we know there's no septic or anything like that to us have to look it up on the internet um so I was going to say that this was an issue that may many a few years ago back we we talked about short-term rental rentals in in the planning board at the time we have a lot more um bylaws that we had been working on as you know from all the updates we've been bringing to to the town meeting um but it's definitely something that we as a town would would bring forward through the planning board so that's where that bylaw would be added for short-term rentals and and and everything related to that so yeah it was interesting if we look back then we didn't have any so now we have one so over the course of the years we've we've grown so and and again you know I'm I'm I'm not opposed to anybody doing this I just let's let's put a process in place that needs to be followed so again everything and then selfishly let's make sure the town recognizes all the revenue that is that it's entitled to for this I think the thing is if you want to accelerate it past this year since we already have a full book of activities that we are working with with our with our consultant to the planning board that we would have to somehow fund the planning board more for the specific issue if you want to accelerate it in this in this uh calendar or the fiscal year with the with our current which which piece the the accessory dwelling got a that got passed shortterm or short-term rental both so the short-term rental would be a new one perhaps but the accessory dwelling got got through that meeting right last no December it's a special special permit um they can be attached shall be permitted only upon issuance of a site plan um detached accessories can be permitted only on issuance of a special permit so you can have both detached right and that was in an effort to add more affordable housing town that was one of the initiatives we took so yeah I think we can I would say getting the short-term rentals so accessory accessory dwellings that's working its way through the the process it's already a bylaw it's there oh okay it's approved so we're good there the next one is the is the uh the short-term rentals which I think we can just say we would prioritize as as on the planning board correct and then simultaneously because the these votes on this tax can only take effect on January 1st ah right so and the language is there with the DLS when we're ready for it we just have to pick a number between Z and six and let's just go for six and at the same time modify our our rooms from 4% to 6% because now that's the cap and we can pass those and have those take effect and then the the ability to actually build them will come along afterwards once it get something in place already right I do all right so let's let's keep that as a pending issue and put it back on our agenda and keep keep keep not losing that all right all right I'm going to backtrack for a second we were waiting for Stephen so I do have one request I think at one point in time we talked that we were pretty much when we have been um out of our arpa money we've we've really handed out all of the arpa money that we had available and we've been waiting for money to come back in which is starting to flow in a little bit um from the um um storm water Culvert Grant I think we're going to be seeing some of that fairly soon um but we do have some projects that have finished and have a little bit of extra money left over so in your package you had a page four yeah you've got it up on your screen um this spreadsheet um and this is what I went through with Bradley so this is the list of projects that had been approved and then in the current balance column which is in green if you've got it on your screen we identified projects that were done with and then the amount of money that is remaining so with that we came up to a total of 33,2 that is available to be um obligated again for something and just a reminder that any funds that come back in and get possibly reflowed and re obligated that all has to be done before the end of December this year re obligated that's the last time to re obligate reprogram any money for arpa still have two years to spend it to 20 to 26 okay so that's where we are so that's the backdrop on this so the question came up and it was a question that stepen had brought up earlier on and through the planning board and Board of Health about the idea of looking at developing a feasibility study for possibly putting a sewer line Trump sewer line along the railway The Greenway as we were doing the design work and so forth with that with tyin Bond and see if we could tie into East Hampton and through Steven's efforts we got a proposal in from tyan Bond and we started looking at a grant for that the amount at the time was around 29,000 we were looking at the on stop Grant which is this bigger program estate program it's a bit onerous honestly for the smaller amount of money um that we might need and so at the grant committee level and talking with Stephen and the tiin bond folks we decided to take a look and see if there was another source of funding which is what led me to take a look at arpa money so just to say that we do have a proposal and I'll let Stephen talk about it for a minute um a new proposal has come in from uh tyan bond which uh is going to be 30,700 uh and this would be for you've got the um actual proposal also in your package and ARA application um to actually carry out this sewer trunk study to see the feasibility of possibly uh both the capacity of East Hampton but also where it made sense to do this in Southampton so see you want to add a couple more comments and well I think you've covered it exceedingly well uh one of the things that um the planning board the Board of Health looked at is that um because we rely on on-site septic disposal for residences single family and multif family plus all of our businesses with a few exceptions um we're very limited as to the density of development that we can accommodate and looking at the town's anticipated purchase of 117 to 125 College Highway that's in the neighborhood that is all already quite densely developed with single and multifam and Commercial some of those systems already in trouble after years but also our aspirations for fully utilizing the new property um would be better served if we had Advanced treatment one option is connecting to the East Hampton sewer and Route 10 goes there East Hampton has a sewer main Route 10 it's full it's full with contribution from a handful of Southampton businesses in the Big Y Red Rocks Plaza area six or eight different connections there going to the main street main um for us the terar up Main Street all the way down here uh would be Untold disruption and um complication with the state because the state highway as compared to the greenway where we already have substantial engineering done the geophysical engineering and the new question is in addition to a recreational trail can a sewer line be accommodated that's the nature of the study and so the service area would really be the area that is uh intended to facilitate the town's use of the proposed acquisition and to alleviate problems right along Route 10 in that half mile section from what is the the Green Brier multif family um out to the Pomeroy Meadow intersection so it picks up a main intersection in town it picks up a section of the most densely neighborhood most densely settled neighborhood where the town's invested in sidewalks and crosswalks uh in addition to our aspirations for affordable housing and new property we would provide some relief to existing Comm commercial businesses and enhance prospects for future attracting bus commercial development and I'll leave it there unless there questions so that's basically it and so the The Proposal is is there from uh Ty Bond as our on call Engineers to do this um feasibility study as they're working on the design work of the greenway and so the request for arpa money is for $3,700 so if anybody is so inclined to with this or if you have further questions we can try to answer that my knowledge there's no other arpa money no other arpa requests that have come in at all um and I think like I say I think we will have more money to come in at some point in time once this culbert study starts um um getting Reed so I'll make that motion so we can proceed to discussion discussion okay second Dan okay discussion y further discussion questions um I'm reading the services not included in the scope um is this going to leave us looking for some of these services to be paid for as well without money to pay for it I'm just wonder I mean not to say it's not a good idea because it's a great idea just wondering in front of me what service Give an example topographical detail survey geotechnical field investigation environmental review I I will we be getting an answer and being told but we didn't give you XYZ yes and there and and the reason I bring that up is because of the issues that came up with the site for the senior center where time passed and then they discovered Wetland delineations issues right one of those outstanding questions just to expand on your concern is um how the town might proceed to perfect its legal right to do such a thing okay our current ownership rights in the greenway are under a rail bank agreement and for the explicit purpose of providing recreational access and that the right away is available for reactivation of a rail line the legal question is not going to be addressed by the uh Consulting Engineers and some of the issues uh the detail issues will not be addressed in a feasibility study we wouldn't go to a very expensive full-blown design until we had a sense of both of Is it feasible to go parallel and separately uh the legal question and does and does eastampton even have capacity and whatever to to well and I could update you on our in treaties with East Hampton but they are um they're on the telephone line with us yeah so I mean I think there's you know there's this is not intended to be the a real Design This is just is something feasible to even think about then we've got I got a little flavor for this the other day so but I there are issues who will not be addressed in a feasibility stage okay okay John you had a question yeah so the um the request is for 33,700 and we've identified 33,200 no it's it's up two so the the the new request came in at 30,00 700 oh 30,000 okay 30 30 so but I I I question I have to raise the question respectfully that I don't believe these numbers because the very first line item we spent that money we spent that was for the um the um f it's the FICA payroll tax it is it it was never charged to arpa it got charged out of some other account apparently cuz all that Bradley had has on his records is the premium pay records the FICA was paid but it was paid out of the the regular FICA account that so was that overdrawn at the end I don't know so this is I mean this is I'm going to go on my tangent again this is why we need the timely financials because this was 22 we specifically added in the FICA to make that happen and then it it doesn't get spent so okay if it didn't get spent it's here but my God if we can't get the financials in order around here then we're looking at data from two fiscal years ago and saying oh that's available well and this now with the audit that ought to be able to be picked up with the audit report maybe that we just got I don't know but I mean yeah I mean this is this predates you know Bradley and and everybody else and so however it got paid I don't know but yes you're right we did put in money for the F and that didn't get used according to Bradley he has no record of paying it out of his arpa funds at all the AR accounts rather we can double check it again if you want to are we share it got paid are we going to get a bill from the government well I'm just no that's right you that's a right question so if the assertion is based on the records that he has available to him these are Surplus okay but I would argue that's only half of the case well then we have to go back to the treasurer and find out that the payment that went with the arp we know when the AR when the premium pay money was was was given when when it was paid out and we'd have to just double check how the FICO was handled at that point in time which we ought to be able to find out through the treasures office we can find that out well no I'm just it's another example no I agree of where we sit here and we harp about we got to get these financials in order and order we got to get this staff in place and right now yes what's the answer going to be well we're short staffed okay but to your point you raised earlier Chris there was a point when they everyone was fully staffed so y I mean I'll be glad to go back and we can you know we're going to meet again in another 10 days I mean well I don't want to I don't want to hold this up I'm just saying it it I'd like to be able to sit here when numbers are given to me by by individuals in key positions that I can look at it and not within 30 seconds find what I believe to be an error right I mean we yeah understood that's my point Y okay in the meantime I would be glad to go back and track that down though just to confirm it for everybody and I'll do that next week just do that yeah I mean and again I'm comfortable moving this forward because there's other reimbursement money that's going to be coming back in so even even if that ends up being an error we can find another $3,200 within that group yeah can I ask one more question because I'm new so you mentioned it a moment ago that some of the arpa um awards were not fully used because they didn't need to be um the project changed or somehow do we have any sense and I know we have a while to spend it down do we have any sense of how much money might be coming back because they weren't there's not going to be lots there's going to be one Grant in particular that comes to my mind which is the storm water Culvert Grant yep you mentioned that yeah and that's one where we had to obligate the full amount of the money okay even though we were going to be reimbursed like $85,000 okay so I'm going to say it's around 85,000 I'm pretty comfortable with beyond that I don't know out a thousand and they might be able to but there may be some savings because we got some State money through Senator vas's office for the public safety building so there may something left over there you know so we're there's stuff but until things start spending a little bit more the bigger ticket items I mean unfortunately you know the water M got spent I'm pretty sure most of that got spent already so they haven't invoiced us yet it's still sitting here as a Ballance there's two there was half of it was spent oh I was looking at the $108,000 I think 180 I think half of it was spent already though but according to the spreadsheet zero and zero 59 and 180 neither one of them have any charges against them yet according to this spreadsheet right oh they have no charges against them correct but neither are we calling on that to not I agree but it's to the point if the chair is convinced something's been spent and it's we're not reflected here how can we have faith no good point good and we have to make a decision I would assume signed those warrants I would assume that that would have been uh certainly invoice long long time ago for the first stage of the water main on Route 10 I can't imagine that that hasn't been invoiced okay good point why don't we will Vadar support these kinds of crosswalk accounting responsibilities for grant money well it I don't know quite yet it's complex it is yeah no good point John thank you well certainly I support the use and it I have confidence that there is available funds but I share John's concern that some of the detail may not track well let's let's go back let me let me go back with Bradley we'll double check his his records in terms of what's been spent let's hold this off until the 4th it's only 10 days away it's not going to make a break in you pocket my vote yeah okay yeah no let's let's I'm I'm fine to table this until the fourth and and I'll come back with a um more definitive spreadsheet if that those you pointed out one hole that I I think I'm pretty sure on and I don't know why there isn't any invoicing for the water M so I'm sure they're going to use it all I doubt there's any money left over from that I I would highly doubt that but okay so I'll I'll bring it back on the fourth if everybody's okay with that okay yes all right good thank you moving on um we have a motion other there was a motion in a second we didn't vote um yeah so now we need table okay so yeah or postpone it yeah motion withdraw motion withdrawn okay there it is all set yep yep okay old business uh don't know this this is these are actions so we we've heard about the Voiceover IP the storm water utility study is something we have to work on that was another one where they had come in with a price that was too high M um the underground tank is still on there just for something to keep in mind we haven't got anything happening with but my question on that is I don't know if it came up Scott when you met with Maya did they talk about what our increase is going to be on that thing on the on the tanking yeah that was the I only met with the risk management side so I'm going to be talk with the accountant side just so you know I think last year it was what an 18 or 22% increase on that policy itself I want to say about 18 oh that sounds about right yeah yeah so we we'll certainly keep that on on the list the one I want to add to that um we need to um activate the hazard mitigation Plan update process now that we have a fire chief uh the fire chief is the lead team team leader of that and that's supposed to be facilitated by pvpc um so we need to get that underway um and that was the main one I'm thinking of right now I think there's probably something else but let's add that on an old business one okay moving on we have one PCF motion to approve PCF for Ryan Holmes Police Department restricted part-time private detail $69 per hour second all right we have a little discussion little discussion on that is there is a carve out within the collective bargaining agreement that off that allows for a retired police officer who retired from the Southampton Police Department to return for the purposes of detail work only the $69 is the detail rate which is set he M he or she while under this status must independently cover all costs associated with maintaining their certification their firearms license uh uniform uniform Etc um this there and and this uh the ranking goes first it's full-time officers then you're part-time then then you go to your in town retired people and then to outside communities come yep okay so this is um that less than the outside rate that is the out that's what we charge first oh I'm sorry if we had to um rent a cop from a neighbor that's the same rate thank you same rate yeah so this allows a former police officer in town to be retired to be reemployed retired in good standing okay but to reemployed but only for police detail work correct y okay so we have a motion we have a second I'm sorry Ste Ste did okay any questions Al favor hi any Nam you guys got to vote all all right oh there you go okay I think the motion passes 5 Z okay if there's no no objection uh I would like to make a motion to take up the entire next package sure I think we can do that um just read them clearly so that we we've got a bunch of uh one day motion to approve one day wine and malt for the Southampton fire department at conut Park May 25th of 24 noon to 3:00 p.m. for a uh Southampton Fire Department barbecue one day wine and malt for Gerald Dean bresnahan conut Park May 31st 2024 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. graduation party a one-day wine and malt for Christina Hamill on for the benefit of UMass 5 College Credit Union at conet Park June 1st 2024 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. for an employee picnic a one-day wine and malt for Judith far farar far conet Park June 19th 2024 noon to 6:00 p.m. graduation party a one-day wine and malt for Pamela Gaspar conet Park June 22nd 2024 noon to 8:00 p.m. birthday party and lastly a one-day wine and malt for Philip vogle and Ann Taylor Cony Park June 29th 2024 1: p.m. to 8:00 p.m. for a Jack and Jill party and Tyler second okay motion by John second by Stephen all right and looking at all the paperwork they've got their park permits they've paid their checks everything looked in order in terms of the backup uh information here so all those in favor I all right so all those approved as R so that's 1 2 3 4 5 six different uh licenses and permits okay thank you and then Steven warrant please yes the following warrants have been processed since the last report w 24-4 2 in the amount of $ 68,7 46.76 that's a regular treasury warrant P 24- 43 the amount of 323,000 $398 51 that's a payroll treasury warrant payroll deduction warrant follows pd24 d43 the amount $52,900 20 another payroll deduction warrant PD 24- 43a the amount is $2,568 58 next treasury warrant W 24-44 the amount is 1,849 8573 payroll treasury warrant p2445 the amount is 3 27,35 of12 next is the payroll deduction warrant PD 24-25 PD 2445 the amount is 52,000 44742 finally treasury warrant w446 the amount is $243,200 okay good do anybody have any particular questions on some SP um expenses if you do just for Cindy's benefit especially um we don't expect Steph to necessarily know what all these little receipts are even though he does look at them and see them but if if anybody does ever have questions on things I would just suggest that we bring it to Scott's attention and then Scott will dig into the background paperwork one I just would like us to keep our eyes on because we are getting to that point of the fiscal year is just our KP law one I'm seeing several KP law invoices on these um these warrants for different things for us for Board of Health for various other yes um entities so I just want to be careful that we're so question there can people like the Board of Health go directly to KP law without going through the no they go through Scott go through Scott everybody goes through Scott nobody approaches the board of uh the KP directly so that's that's just one that just is one it's always a challenge for us so just to keep an eye on that okay all right we have two sets of minutes to approve we do we have to make a vote on this no no just reporting out he's just reporting sign he's already he's already signed them appr I move to approve the minutes of April 16th 2024 and April 23 2024 okay motion stepen second by John anybody find any commentary here anything everything looks okay I'm I'm just I didn't actually go back and look but I'm assuming the Amendments that we made yeah there were a couple at the last meeting there were a couple of Corrections I think that I see a couple of them yes they look like they in here okay so I believe so yep okay um with that could I have a vote please all those in favor I I abstain okay four and one abstention thank you all right that's taken care of um I think we do have still February minutes somehow they got dropped in the in the mix um so we do need to just check with Katherine and see if we got the February minutes coming in um pending items I don't know if there's anything more I know there's been work on the East Street uh the U Engineers have been out there working on various surveying things on the closing roads yeah doing all that kind of stuff so that's happening um Scott you already reported on the Green community Grant and also the fact that the assistant accountant recruitment is underway and you've got some applications coming coming in at least which is a good sign and just for just a comment on that yeah Franklin Regional Transit Authority can you imagine how big was their budget $5 million something bigger than that sure their CEO has been doing their accountant for many months because they don't have enough money to hire a person I mean they have they have the funds just like we do in so many accounts mhm but at the wage offered there's no one available mhm yeah yeah and they can't get bus drivers but that's really off topic are are they waiting on a wage report from colins perhaps must be okay I knew that was coming so just just just a piggy bag on that since he brought up the f frta um there's out you know the pvta uh for the remainder of the fiscal year it's free busing all through hampon County know say hey that's enough you no kidding it's free busting but they can't adjust the wage to get somebody to oversee the fiscal responsibility it's it's a it's more of a policy choice but the budget I heard from Franklin that to reinstate Fair collection after the covid pause they'd be installing all new technology and the first year would be a flat out loss yeah okay all right I will take a just notes uh next select board meeting June 4th and June 18th uh and uh as Scott mentioned um special election on June 25th from 12: to 8:00 p.m. and you'll be hearing more and more about that over the next week or two okay so with that I'll take a motion to adjourn so moved second all right all those I all right we are adjourned at 8:45 and please don't leave until you sign whatever you're supposed to sign so oh dear all the those permits we just approved e