##VIDEO ID:AP7Ovo2NmjM## noting the time in the presence of Quorum I call this meeting of the act and finance committee to order uh this meeting is being recorded by Acton TV if anyone else any of our two esteemed elected officials are recording this they're supposed to let themselves be known to the chair at this time uh please note this is a uh hybrid meeting with it with two of our members uh dialing in remotely via Zoom so we will have to take all votes um as roll call we not be able to do voice votes no problem with that we'll move to the first item which is public participation I see no one rushing to the microphone so uh that becomes once again one of our fastest articles uh fastest items on our agenda at this point we're going to move into the task force uh to what we were calling previously the uh cost cutting task force uh you'll see that the agenda item has changed somewhat to say Task Force versus focus group I'd like to explain why there is a distinction uh at the at our last meeting our our select board liaison informed us that uh the finance committee does not have the authority under Town Charter to appoint members to a to a committee um I guess I probably should have known that but I was still sent for a loop on that one and had to think that through and then I did want to have a chance to talk to Christie about it uh as this is something that she has been leading up uh I'm going to let her go through briefly the uh pros and cons of each and then if unless you want me to and then um we'll have a conversation as a committee as to which way we would like to go um I'm probably going to defer to Christy's point of view on this but rather than just one or two people making a decision so with that as the Preamble being that U we cannot do what we discussed in our last meeting I'll I'll hand it over to Christie and let her describe where we stand so if we were to have the task force we designed um we would require asking the select Bo to make a committee they could edit the charge Etc I'm sure we could come up with a charge everyone was happy with in that way um ANS up it's a lot more work we have different meetings which have to have different minutes Etc I believe we can get effectively the same results by setting up a focus group which we could take applications for um with the Committee Member similar um pretty much exactly as we had discussed previously but rather than them attending meetings and working directly with us we would invite them to our meetings in the same way that we have discussions with people who come and speak to us or to ask questions finance department Etc um we would invite the focus group members to come join us in that way this would require us to have a quorum of the finance committee available to attend session or a subcommittee that we create or a subcommittee that we create um to attend the listing sessions I am inclined that there should be a quorum of us at least listening to those anyhow just because this is what we want to be hearing to be making our decisions yes Jason so my understanding is that if we go the focus group route there were going to be three things that we try and accomplish one is listing sessions one is public general public participation sessions and the last one being a survey yes and these are all things we're talking about if we go the task force group previously discussed right um so if we go the focus group route I think having wide openen public participation should be done on on a night that we have a full finance committee but in the interest of trying to get as many focus group possibilities as we possibly can I would like to have a statutory uh not SE story a temporary subcommittee of three so that as long as we have two members present we can have focus groups a smaller size um my view of the intention of the focus group was more to let us we will have collated the listening session information we have and then present them with here are the problems we're hearing do you have ideas here's what we have for ideas Etc that would again I think that should be with everyone I'm concerned with trying to find that many times with five people but okay oh I think the listening sessions the list the the the wide listening sessions need to be in front of the whole committee yes the smaller focus groups so I would recommend for the focus groups that um as much as possible they we do them as part of our meetings okay can we Define listening versus Focus so uh I thought that a uh listening session would just be a wide open call to anyone please you know I believe you used to refer to it Mr noon as open mic night uh whereas a focus group would be you know either proactively reaching out or hearing from people who say they're interested in weighing in and saying let's meet Saturday at noon or let's meet you know Thursday at 5: in a group of 810 810 15 whatever however many people we can get in a in a in a smaller group to have a to ask a set of questions that we then bring back the results to the wider finance committee for that's what I was thinking but yeah I defer to you I had been thinking of pairing that down to the public members we had discussed having for the task force and having them be just appointed by us as a representative group there's no appointing invited invited yes invited invited to be a part of the focus group and um if possible attend our meeting so over and got to hear and be a part of the discussion well another approach would be um say going to the Council on agent going to the uh economic development committee and asking for representatives to come but also having that being anybody anybody from that segment who wants to attend that session can attend that session um we do the same thing with ptso if we want to go for parents um I don't I I don't think I entirely follow that you're saying go to these groups and ask for people who would like to be part of the focus group well or just go talk say ask the UDC um to nominate a couple people who would come talk to us about the subject but on that night you could invite anybody who's interested in that particular aspect to come um I'm concerned about the focus groups and that it'll be a small group of people um it may or may not be open to the public um so there is there was there any is there any problem objection with us doing what we did with the ptso and the Council on Aging Etc and having two members go to those different meetings and ask to be invited to to you know have a quick have a quick conversation and after 20 minutes take the summary of what we heard from those different groups and bring them back would that be something you'd be willing to entertain too we've certainly done that in the past to talk about the point of view um and um yeah you could do that as well only this time instead of coming with coming with the answers we come with the questions I would do that separate from a focus group okay I would like to have a group of people with whom we can have a more detailed conversation than just so you're thinking the focus group is people who come to every meeting that they possibly can no who come to the meetings we invite them to I mean maybe once a month sort of thing it doesn't need to be a a a group of people of off whom we bounce ideas but who have enough of a background because they've been a part of this as long as we don't stumble across kind of appearing to have appointed them got to leave it open yes got to leave it open um I believe we can select we can invite people to be a part of it it it doesn't need to be just whoever shows up and a focus group not just in open General Mee I think we need to be careful to make sure to leave it open when we do but yes by all means oh it would be open it would be public meeting good okay I'm on board okay thank you my understanding of the task force as we discussed last um two weeks ago is that this task force will organize some ways to collect opinions including listening sections public participation and Survey M and then they will also um put together a summary of all this and will be a deliverable such as a summary or report my understanding of focus group is more like participating uh being in part of the listening section express your opinions and be heard not necessarily having the um uh the capacity to um um collect um information from various ways or summarize them correct that work would would be the part of the finance committee or a subcommittee of the finance committee so we are scaling probably uh by changing the name from public uh from task force to focus School SC back yeah well yes not entirely because I think the the N by calling it focus group might indic but we're still doing the project we're right now discussing having a focus group element to it I would say rather than describing the scaling back we merely changing the um the rout of authority the legal structure if we stuck with the if we stuck with the task force that we tried to do last week the root of authority would have to be the select board because they're the only ones that are allowed to make appointments by calling it a focus group and by maintaining control over all the meetings ourselves the root of authority remains with the finance committee that's right thank you for the clarification but we're still planning on doing subst the same thing we're still trying to get to as many people as we can we still want to hear from as many people as we can and we still hope to come to some synthesis of actionable recommendations that we can return to uh to The Wider to The Wider government so the finance committee will do this summary of this um opinions and this information correct all right thoughts ideas does anyone have a reference is there anyone here who would prefer that we take this to the select board and ask them to create a a uh temporary short-term subcommittee of the select board in with the intended goals that we laid out last last time or would we prefer to be the root of authority ourselves and do it predominantly ourselves I we would still rely upon some Town resources such as I'd like to post the survey through the town I would like to post meeting not meeting um notices through the town things along those lines but a much lighter touch on the responsibility of the select board and on the town staff for example we won't have Town staff that have to stay late or come in on weekends because we'll be doing it uh under our own authority if that makes sense so I would like to get a sense of the Committees so please feel free to share how are we picking the people on the focus groups same way we were going to before they submit an application chosen by our chair I believe I don't think we can do that I think we need to just say this is an open Forum please let us know if you want to be part of this focus group I will check into that I believe we can okay and I think I specifically would like the focus group to be weighted the way we designed it representative okay we can certainly invite people to give testimony that's kind of how I'm like visual realizing how this would happen that we have like certain groups of people that everyone of course is invited to give testimony but if there are certain uh groups within Town whose opinion we definitely want we just you know I don't know if this there's a reminder one sit on inviting them to to write down their testimony and come and present it then we can make sure those voices are heard U I'm trying to talk about two things and I think I'm not expressing it well or it's getting a little lost we have listening sessions everyone should be invited everyone should come um and then we have a focus group with whom we have more of an ongoing conversation about what we're hearing and um off whom we can bounce ideas about cost cutting things that come up Etc from our listening sessions so focus group different from listening sessions but all part of this new idea rather than a task force did I get that okay I think that's also a question about um of um whether we have the capacity to to do that uh within the uh finance committee because if this studs in say like September October and then goes to June then besid this uh standing byly meeting uh this subcommittee waiting the finance committee we also need to do all these meetings and then with um uh go attend all these meetings and uh uh and do take notes and summarize that we we have the capacity of two appointing two or three people regularly to do this that is why I would like to not have a subcommittee but keep it as our committee all this is doing is adding four meetings that a quorum of this committee needs to attend which are the listening sessions um other than that I recommend we have the focus group come and meet with us as part of our normal sessions this is of course dependent on our chair agreeing to adding that to some agendas I'm fine with adding it to the agenda this is no problem does that Steve maybe I'm being dense okay um sounds to me like the focus group becomes uh what we're calling the task force before only we're calling them by a different name but they're still going to be recurring involvement and are they participating in deliberation with us we are presenting ideas to them they are giving us feedback as much as that's deliberation um um the no that's the example I got was as if we invited the finance department to give a bring a few people here to answer questions for us we would invite them to come speak at one of our public meetings and answer some questions for us okay could I ask David to clarify yeah sure um Mr Martin would you mind helping clarify this here because I want to make sure I understood you correctly so to me a focus group is someone you as a group of people you interact with you ask questions of like if if we change this town service how would this affect you and the people who are business people in town would answer one way the people who are renters in town would answer answer another way the people or parents might answer another way and then you can talk about another service and say if we you know as part of cost cutting if we change this service to something else and get the back and forth whereas the listen sessions are just like uh a hearing right we we're you know um people come and say this is this is what's important to me I don't want to cut this I don't think this is necessary I think we should get rid of that um whatever you know uh things that they want to tell you guys unsolicited so um so you know how you manage the deliberations with the focus group I think is up to you guys right uh you know how much back and forth there is I think there was some concern that I'm hearing from Steve maybe I'm feeling Den tonight about us being allowed to pick people for this I I think you can definitely pick people in this you're allowed to investigate anything you want in town right so um if you want to get a particular set of people that you want to bounce ideas off of I think that's up to you um I don't I don't see a problem with that and I presume if they are meeting with us as part of our public meeting there's no difficulty with the deliberation because it's no absolutely not that's right as long as it's an open meeting yeah you can talk about anything that's on the agenda does and and you just have a broad agenda item does that answer your concerns Steve not entirely um I just see us creating a um sub group of residents uh who have more sway or on the committee than others and I don't know that I'm in favor of that how is that different from what we would have had with the task force because it would have been a committee um and I would have thought they would have been um screened um sworn all that other stuff that committees are well that these people would be no they can they You Can Be You Can Be screened you can't be sworn can't be sworn because they're not no but they can be screened but you you you can definitely have criteria especially I mean last time you guys put together explicit criteria and so you can use that as a judgment Factor you can you know have um a little bit more wordage there to to say that do you have some discretion in in the you know the in the people you have as part of the focus group they would have no vote they would help us be educated on our ideas they would have no vote they would have influence though yes more influen than most which is why it has to be open always because other others could show up and voice a disagreement right focus group yeah so I again I I I used the when Christy and I were talking beforehand I I Ed the example of you getting particular Town staff because you want to know particular things to me that's no different right um you're just uh getting particular people that you uh you believe have the information that you want and you want to have a conversation with them so I I think you can screen do do anything it's all a public process right so I I don't see that there's any um um issue in that way right if you have four people who are renters apply and you feel you can only take two of them then um uh you just choose to on whatever criteria you want thank you Steve well first I want to know where Greg is um second um what's the difference why are we why are we screening people you know if four renters apply why don't we let all of them participate I don't I don't want to be accused of handpicking a bunch of people uh that will be an echo chamber for the fincom I want to get people who are actually paying enough attention over a period of time to provide us with informed feedback which will not happen if it's whoever happens to show up or if it's whoever happens to show up and we get the same gadflies who show up to many of the public meetings they'll come anyway yes they will but we can by having a selection process ensure some degree of dver and ensure that the point of views that we want or not point of views the um profiles we want to hear from voice if there are other people who would like to speak also they're entirely welcome to these are open meetings we can make sure to have public comment at the end of these um specific agenda items if the chair would allow that if that would simplify things absolutely I'm I'm from all all feedback we can get that's all purpose of this is as much feedback as possible okay do you want to say that in the mic I give up um I would love to discuss further um with you offline what your concerns are and see if we can come up with that so the inflection point that we have to choose now is do we want to do this under our Authority or do we want to go to the select board so I'd like a quick round the table Scott sorry I think it should be um you know as you described the focus group under the def finance committee authori versus the select board I think that gives us a better path thank you gang I agree as well okay Allison I agree as long as we can nail down what our limitations are you know making sure that we're not getting into appointment and understanding yeah I I definitely do not want to you know accidentally trip over any you know bylaws or town treasure rules I definitely do not want to uh run a fou of that Steve no I agree Roland same I know how christe feels Karen I agree Greg I I I agree it should be a finance committee um entity and if we have to work within those constraints so be it Dave yeah same and you know to a lesser extent it it's like the finance is is appointed by the town moderator so there's that Independence and you know the finance committee doing this on its own is is more of a in the spirit of that thank you well that's unanimous chrisy that's more work on you fair enough okay do you have anything else to say on this topic or do you you want to come back at the next meeting with next steps I'd like to come back at the next meeting and uh at the next meeting I would like to um have a draft of what we want to put on on the town website or put out through a municipal monthly or whatever so that we can start the all call for what we're trying to do here if that's not too much to ask from you out the next meeting thank you okay now I'm going to try and share my content this time without dropping internet I actually made sure to check this time that I was hardwired in just have to join the meeting again and we'll move into the point of view okay proposed final draft take two first slide has not changed Dave I I heard you loud and clear that you wanted Precision in that first line so I went with precision and the line that we're going to use the statement of fact that we're going to use is that 50.3% of the people who showed up to vote that day voted in favor of the override I think it is then safe to say that that is as close to as as close a margin as as could have been is as close to comfortable as could possibly be considered comfortable and even then is probably can't be considered comfortable Dave you had the hardest you were the most vocal on this slide uh at our last meeting does this do what you wanted it to do I think it's great it's very specific it's very tightly worded and um and probably most importantly in my mind it's very early in the presentation and so um I I think this is this is this is very good in my view slide two and it's the only thing that's in Red so definitely trying to catch people's eyes Okay uh nothing changed on the debt exclusion line the reserve line the unused tax levy line um and again this this uh 10-year uh inflation chart we U you'll see in the appendix again but this is something that I definitely want us to uh know and be able to speak to Yes um would you object to making that 50.3% be in bold it's a little hard to differentiate it because the text is brown it will also make it stand out if someone is looking at a print out that is in black and white does that work any other changes on this slide sorry I have a question um about the under unused tax levy and you say it's the best kind of rainy day Reserve yes it's not really in reserves it's it's like the ability to raise ta taxes without letting giving people a choice so which word would you use instead of Reserve um I don't know if I ex said taxpayers might not think it's the best kind oh it's it's the best kind because it sits in the taxpayer's pocket oh I see what you're saying it's it's in your pocket for as long as possible okay so um best kind of rainy day source of source of Revenue source of then maybe just say that like a dash say like it's remains in the taxpayers bank accounts until needed or something something like that I I didn't pick that up but you that I think I have it in the speaking in the speaking notes but I will I'm happy to uh be explicit about it stays in taxpayer pocket I thought you meant it was like best kind that we can we can rate it without town meeting no asking anybody you can't do anything with it until it's voted at town meeting okay thanks you know it is bring up a good point is you could get into a side discussion over what is an unused tax levy I mean to most audiences it probably would involve a little bit of explaining um I'm happy to you know move on and I appreciate another revision of this I'm just thinking that you know to to most folks it may not be clear what unused tax levy is does this satisfy your yeah thanks comment I think you capitalize it's an added just a capitalized town meeting I think technically no because I'm not talking about the town meeting I'm talking about some town meeting so according to White it should be uh it should be lowercase okay any other change any other comments on this yes gang how about um until la not until town meeting because it's it's not clear what that means and if you people still feel uncomfortable um we can put um R rainy day Reserve in uh quotation um because until the explanation I didn't know that there was actually not a reserve it is something that we have not left yet uh unused tax levy does not require anything at town meeting apart from people approving the budget that uses it it is an appropriation okay it when you call it out like that to me it it falls under the category of the various Appropriations that require a specific vote at time meeting it it's not called out in the budget at town meeting I mean you have to be pay a fair amount of attention it's not part of the motion or in the uh warrant description it is part of the budget appropriation so it needs an appropriation at Town it needs some kind of appropriation at the town meeting but not it it's not a separate item that's true but I'm expecting people to have some concept of what on tax levy capacity is or we can speak to what it is okay I would take also rainy day out of reserve it is simply a reserve it's it's not like it will be used some next year it's not because it's going to be a rainy day it will most likely ALG is currently the current ALG model plans on using some of it um Greg and Dave I can't see your hands when I'm in presentation mode so if you have something to say just uh just uh pipe it pipe in okay okay um yeah my apologies I got um banished to the back porch so I've got the mute on so you don't hear the cars going by but yes you're you're fine okay the main change on this slide is the last line we I was told to make it bold and short and to the point uh I chose not to go with red because I was trying to save that for the 50.0 3 uh made this as big as I could to make it fit in the slide and tried to cut out all thepress words I could does this capture the the spirit of what we're trying to say to the appro the the appropriating it entities yes any other changes to the slide is that 3.6 million the number from the most Regent thank you yes it is double checked it this afternoon in the projected ALG for all on FY 28 okay I do not believe I made any changes to the slide I should have put oh I did I changed I called it from the district to absd again I think that should be easy enough to explain to the citizens of this town the slide put to bed okay the bullet point on this slide that needed to be fully reworked is the last one and again I run the risk of trying to be trying to hold two thoughts in one line and use a a brevity of words but one of the things that I've heard constantly is you we cannot live within prop two and a half that that's just you something we can do short term but over any 10year period of time it is highly unlikely to be able to live within prop two and a half and I'm actually I kind of agree with that statement that 2 and a half is a little tight especially over any decent historic period of time what I do want to drive home is that we we should at least be living within inflation other for if we're not living within inflation then we are saying the amount of money that we spend on this part of our of our cost of living is growing faster than our than than is expected expected to be recouped through our salaries and our outside income so I it's possible I'm accused of trying to do two two thoughts in one here in that Top Line and I'm definitely trying to get your uh your absolutely accurate uh opinion Christie about making sure that the citizens affordability has to be in in play here which is what I'm trying to accomplish in the uh uh Brown orange sub bullet uh but those are the only things that I changed on this slide does this does this make it clearer what we're trying to say which is yeah we understand that on any one given year we have a prop two and a half item that we have to stay with in constraint of but I would like us to realize that over a longer period of time we really do need to stay within inflation lest we start outstripping the citizens ability to pay Greg I see your hand I'll get come to you in just a second I'm looking at the table first to see if anyone at the table has any comments or changes that they wish to make on this slide I just have one suggestion I'm wondering if you would consider taking the second set of bullets that starts with enhanced and move that up above because it's just broader you know what I mean like I understand okay thanks anyone got any objection to that Steve and going to suggest any words but uh your last Point uh well it is possible to stay within uh 25% for long periods of time because we did it uh from 2006 to 2024 however um we had some wind at our back we had reserves um from the old neswick project we had other money coming in uh and during most of that period of time we totally neglected uh our buildings we didn't build a new building uh during most of that period so your your overall concept is correct if if you're going to maintain your infrastructure uh it's pretty difficult to stay within two and a half per. that is the exactly the argument I made at the school Capital Improvement uh pro project and definitely beat that beat that horse to death but at the same time I also feel that we need to stay below inflation or at least within within your shot of it please um but most of what we spend is compensation based and compensation based is at least going to move there in lies there in lies the Crux of the structural problem that we need the two entities to start addressing um like I said I'm not going to argue with the wording but um when somebody says what we did the answer is yeah but we neglected a lot I I think that's absolutely accurate statement I completely agree with you Mr jaro you had your hand raised yeah it um it's a word smithing thing that I'm not GNA um worry about but um when you say faster than the Citizen's ability to afford it um um in some cases um there are people who are paying taxes and acting who aren't citizens um and includes the business owners so it's it's a u if you put taxpayers there oh yeah you just did it okay then that's clear apostrophy one to yeah do not believe I made any change to the slide you fourth PLL pullet point be impact on the district so of for the district we good on this one is that is that a capital I on independently or should be small oh nope okay sorry silence is golden I'm sorry it's killing me either operating expenses or operations but not operating main thing I changed on this slide if you'll notice I pulled out the debt chart that was on slide three previously because we did hear back from the school that and Steve you are absolutely right as of a refund financing in 2014 the last of the high uh sen the senior high school debt will be uh paid off during this current fiscal year so that does bring the outstanding excluded debts to just and I say just in air quotes uh the boardwalk campus the north Acton fire department and the 8 n 13 17 rounds of bonding that the init man school has done um that said I do not feel that we should be postp that we should be immediately having backto back uh overrides and yes I understand that a debt exclusion is a debt exclusion but it's an override By Any Other Name it is raising of taxes over and above 2 and a half% plus New Growth so while I conveniently tried to use the debt falloff as a convenient excuse of why we should not even be entertaining it this year uh even with that situation being delayed even that sorry with that situation being resolved and we theoretically having more of a capacity for taxation for taking on new for taking on new debt I think it's first of all I think it's politically ill advised uh and secondly I just think it's just unconscionable to have two overrides one year after the next so I this this top bullet used to say postpone until you know no no debt exclusions until FY 29 uh now I'm being a little more open-ended about it uh but I'm you know let me be clear I'm against the DPW because it's way too large independent of that statement completely independent of thatat statement I think it's politically ill advised to do an override two years in a row so this is why I changed this top Hull it Steve you're the first to chime in well it's it's not a wash uh the junior high senior high debt is going to free up million four something like that but a 30 to $40 million DPW is going to add much more than that so there is going to be an increase to the taxpayer s um and it it's somebody pointed out earlier it'll it'll occur in a year when we're already showing a deficit on the ALG plan so um unfortunately um where we had a date in mind before now all the dates are the same can't say 29 anymore and I did ask and and we're going we're going to revisit this exact topic when we get to the ALG Lea onl let me be very clear about that but um when we vote on our or when we vote to approve this point of view um I definitely would like to get a sense of the committee on if we are all in agreement that this is not the year to have yet another override in the form of adet exclusion are you shaking your head that you don't agree uh Scott or are you shaking your head that I'm agreeing with you okay so you're shaking your head that two overrides year after year is ill advised I'm just looking forward to your motion Mr chairman we'll get there uh uh Greg Greg has his hand up Greg yeah I I I agree with you and I think you also made a point on an earlier slide about we'd like to see some um two to five year plan as opposed to let's put together a one-year plan so I I think we're still on Solid Ground even if the um even if the one slide went away thank you I I the point of view conversation is easier than the very pointed question I'm going to ask during the ALG uh during the ALG Le aison okay uh any other comments on this slide I'm kind of excited because there's only 11 slides and this could mean that we're 90% of the way through it okay oh I missed miss one I must uh wait no I did uh there was a there was a line that I put there was a line I put in here earlier I want to make sure I find it yes uh okay near future okay this is the other line I knew it was in here somewhere I just didn't call it out when we were there um I tried to highlight it but I was in presentation mode uh under how much in debt exclusion the second bullet point is a new bullet point refill of debt is not an automatic right just because some debt has rolled off of uh has has gone off the the books it does not mean that the other entities have the ability right away to say well you weren't you you you paying X in in excluded debt last year it's should be no problem for you to pay X plus whatever or even x minus whatever in the following year the the the fixed term of the debt exclusion is the fixed term of the debt exclusion it is not a right to refill the minute it gets done so I missed that I had missed that I changed that point earlier okay holy cow uh I did also have the one slide which is the quote unquote appendix I didn't figure out how to do dots and dashes as was asked of me but I did figure out how to do squares and squares and diamonds to make it to make it clear of the two different things for when this gets printed in black and white I believe this does meet the ADA requirements for graphs because it's got two separate separate visual cues for the for the graph yes Greg hope we approve this point of view we have a motion on the floor I was going a nitpick on this slide though I haven't nitpicked on any uh okay let's uh I haven't heard a second yet so let's go with some nitpicking Steve uh your horizontal access needs to have a bigger font and your um blue diamonds need to be as big as your red squares second I disagree wholeheartedly for the sake of finishing this presentation would you accept a a statement that I will do my best to to meet that requirement and would ask you to vote in approval of this statement with on the faith that I will take another crack at it I have total trust in you Mr chairman okay can't figure it out I can send me the chart I'll do it we have uh it's already been moved and seconded uh Dave seconded it I heard it over over the over the over the wire I seconded the font change oh okay I'll second the motion okay so for the PE the the poor folks who have to take notes and create the meetings on meeting minutes on this Greg moved and Roland seconded approving this point view with the stipulation that the chair will do his best to make this chart in the appendix even more readable and with that we will have to take a roll call vote we're going to start on the phone Dave all Greg I Scott I gang I Alison I Steve I Roland I Christie I I Ken I sorry gang and King and I had you vote even though it doesn't matter I apologize we'll try not to do that next time and I of course vote I having written a significant portion of this okay congratulations we have our point of view I will note that it is the first meeting in September I'm pretty happy with that we I believe this is I believe this is the earliest we've ever had it done which gives us plenty of time for um Outreach to the ptso Council on Aging uh any cultural uh organizations in town for our newer members we proactively go out and ask ask to be invited which I realize is in oxymoron but we ask to be invited to these various groups some choose to invite us some choose to ignore us um as is their right uh if we are invited we ask for two volunteers we don't want to send any one loan member of finance committee out on their own L they get eaten a live or L they say something that cannot be verified as the rest of the committee so we'd like to have two people go to each of these meetings um there will be there will be um um if we are invited to a place you'll you'll get an email right away saying hey look at your calendar and come prepared at the next meeting to say if you can volunteer to present the point of view or not uh this is obviously completely optional but if if every ptso and every organization in town takes us up on it we're going to need some we're going to need some volunteer hours last year because we didn't get our point of view done until four weeks before town meeting sad to say we did not present it once except to the select board um and uh Scott and I will be presenting to the select board and uh chrisy and I will be presenting to the school committee since you're the is under the school committee the great news is the school at least one member of the school committee has already seen it and has heard our our very very fine attention to of versus 4 and other items within the within the point of view excellent I will change this to final save it and post it once you correct slide once I correct the chart make it pop excellent okay ALG review is the next item on our agenda let me call up my notes and I will also ask Scott if he has anything to well first I'll ask him to correct me uh if I if I say something inacurate and then I will let him weigh in on his comments as well come on uh I guess I should start by saying who the new members are since this was the first meeting of the new year uh um on the school side it's still Peter light and Sher Matthews from the administration uh uh perspective from this uh from the school committee members uh Tori is still has is coming back for a Repeat Performance and um y chin or Lucian is the other member of the school committee on the town side it's uh Town manager and uh and MaryAnn who we are all getting to know very well coming to our meetings thank you very much for being harly ason uh from the select board side is uh Dean Charter and Fran Arsenal uh and that's everybody and Bart is back for his 38th year as our moderator even though he moved out of town in the last Millennium in the last Millennium so uh our thanks to Barton uh let's see the school uh School side uh preliminary close out for FY 24 was $468,000 to the good on Revenue was primarily investment driven uh e and D is going to be is at 2.1 million at the start of the year which is 1.8% of the total budget which is below our recommended Target of three and and safely below the state mandatory uh ceiling of five um it is important to note that this uh uh 2.1 million is after a June adjustment that required another uh $400,000 to uh deal with uh extraordinary uh health insurance trust uh runout payments um that was voted on as a as a late late in the season adjustment uh but this this 2.1 million or 1.8% of of total budget is the real starting number it's it's where things kick off uh on the town side the FY 24 closeout again was hit heavily by uh health insurance trust um there were hiring and spending freezes but they covered the they covered the whole of the U of the of the hit no pun intended um and that left with merely $70,000 unspent on the expenses side uh and they're very happy that it was still a positive number um or since it can't be a red number they're actually quite happy that it's a positive number that's not zero on the revenue Side motor excise tax was to the good as was investment um and that was to the good to the tune of 1.7 million they also went back uh and did a scrub of the most recent years uh warn articles and they found a quar of million dollars they were able to recoup a quarter million dollars from that the overall turnback is just about $2 million with the caveat that it hasn't gone through state certification Etc we should have it back in October I believe I I believe that was the number that was reiterated at last night's select board meeting um so about $2 million turnback total which is very good considering the surprise that we had last year um nobody neither neither entity wanted to make any comment about fiscal year 25 being that it's merely September it was merely what September second uh and I don't even think school had started or yeah school had had that was like day two of school day three of school so nobody wanted to say anything about fiscal year 25 at this time um I will say that with regard to uh recouping um previous year's uh warrant articles the town manager uh does not expect to see any more uh any anything else to be recouped of course all for double-checking um the LA longest part of the conversation during the entire meeting was around the what's the word I'm looking for the norm the uh the the common way of doing things the precedent the pre the 30 plus year precedent on ALG which is that if you're going to ask for any kind of override at all you're supposed to have done it at the previous year's town meeting and you absolutely should Clare it by the by the end of October in ALG and this brings us to what I suspect will be a sticking point what will be our first serious challenge of the new of the New Year this is at least the third meeting that finance committee has had since the start of the the the year we start our we start our year as soon as town meeting is over where we have said we are not interested in having a debt exclusion for the ppw being that ALG has to be a consensus-driven organization it's possible for Scott and myself to say no and then we will not get to consensus if the select board chooses to continue to demand it so while it's easy to say in the point of view we do not want to have a debt debt override a debt exclusion the much more pressing conversation and one that I need to have with all the other members of ALG as soon as I possibly can but with no more than two of them in between Al one any one ALG meeting lest I run a foul of open meeting laws is are we going to hold the line on this and potentially have the first ever ALG not getting to consensus on arguably not the most most important thing the most important thing of course is the budget but arguably the second most important topic that can come up at ALG so we just had during the point of view we just had a conversation where everyone said yeah no we're good we don't want to have dead override are we willing to hold the line potentially just the two of us if we can get no other subscribers looking at you Maryann maybe you want to join in and help break the deadlock on that one you do not have to reply right now um do we care strongly enough about this I personally do there's also the very real possibility that if we hold the line and take it to town meeting remember a a debt exclusion is a two-thirds vote which is a pretty high Bara High bar to clear especially the year after a uh operating override that passed by again in red 50.3% Christy you had your hand rais you're the first one I saw I've been around this block twice in going into Deb exclusion I have always known long before this point how much money is being asked for I have not heard any of those details so from my perspective this feels really rushed unless I've somehow missed a whole bunch of stuff over the summer when I was sick um so yes I'm very comfortable personally I don't I don't have the information to give any sort of agreement to it in addition you're not thinking this is the right timing if you're given a ballpark number on September 26 which is the night that they're presenting the which is the night the DPW working group or building building committee presents their presents their first public uh Declaration of what they wish to do is that still is that still a little a little tight for you or is that something that you'd be comfortable with reconciling between now and the first Monday of May I remember the spring before the fall town meeting to vote for the fire station Deb having had multiple discussions about what the fire station was going to contain and what it was going to cost um haven't had anywhere near that and I'm not willing to give in a handwavy number with so little information to agree to it I would also remind people who may not have been through that the number for the north Acton fire station changed at the absolute last minute much to my continued disapproval and if a similar occurred on this DPW building would be in the $65 to70 million range Steve well in the long history of ALG I can only speak for about 25 years of the 37 you get you get props for that sir you get props for that this is certainly not this I think this is the earliest you asking that question because usually these uh disputes come out much later in the process uh in the past as far as fincom is concerned um we've always held our initial position until somebody shows us a reason to come off of it uh right now um I haven't seen anything that would make me want to support DPW building at this stage um I didn't like the last version of it I didn't like the version before that um so um at this point um my advice to you to Scott and to the whole committee is we hold our position until somebody convinces us uh otherwise as far as taking ALG to the Limit I've seen it go to the night I've seen it go to 659 on the first night of town meeting before we reach consensus so I'm I'm not in a rush okay my understanding is that the the October U unspoken sort of agreement was just for the specific purpose of making sure that if we're if we're going to get to an override we all need to be rowing in the same direction and coming to us in February say they come to us you know first week of March with an absolutely perfect plan that we can't possibly have a problem with that gives us zero time to socialize it with the public so that's why my understanding is that we had set this October deadline saying if you can't if you don't have your ducks in a row by the end of October we don't believe you're going to get you're we don't believe you're going to be able to cross the finish line so we're not we're not interested in playing is that accurate it was October based on an April town meeting could probably go a little later at this point but last year's um we let go to override we went too late and I had um people calling me the night before uh the election who um used to be on this committee who used to be teachers and you know AC in and they still didn't think they knew enough about what was going on so the educational process was uh I guess barely enough to get it P but it wasn't nearly good enough uh in my opinion so I think um the later we go with with these details um the harder it gets um to make the uh the point that you need to do it um nobody's going to just M the fact that the current DPW building is H um the question is what do we need uh and have we taken a good look at possible other ways to approach the services part of what we're talking about cost cutting um you know do we have to build something are we talking 48,000 Square ft um you at whatever it is $600 a square foot or you know so um no I think um as far as my advice to the committee is we hold our position until somebody shows us some facts that we can support do we use Thanksgiving as a trip wire if they don't have it done if they don't have it if they don't have our buyin by Thanksgiving they're not going to have our buyin this year I if we leave the door open there going to be the well we'll get you that information in a month we'll get you that information the next meeting and then we find ourselves right up against town meeting and well it's too late to change your mind now right we've all heard that before too well like I said there was the time we went right up to they were waiting for us to come to the stage before we made consensus um so um two problems was was setting a hard date we haven't seen any budgets for the year I mean we don't know if we I mean we're currently showing about a $1.7 million deficit before um now this wouldn't affect the deficit but it would affect taxes yes it would um so if you got a the regular two and a half you had another million 7 and another 2 million uh of debt service on of that now we're talking a five or 6% tax ik no yeah and I don't that you know then that in my mind puts everything up down meeting question good not just this you know this one item you know I'm getting on a soap box but I look at the closeness of the last override vote um as a our taxes are too high vote not anything specific about any particular part of the town uh but simply that people think their taxes are too high and so I'm low to try and up their taxes again in the next year Greg I believe you're next yeah I I agree with Steve and in terms of um the ALG I um I was there when we created it I was on the board of selectman at at that time and the part of the reason we created it was because prop toly no provision for how we should go about implementing it within towns because we were doing away with an old concept called fiscal autonomy and now we were working Within A New Concept called prop two and a half and so not every Community has an ALG we do it's certainly worked well over the years but there is nothing in law there may be lots of interesting precedents by now but it's a political entity and so to the extent that you can hold your ground and make your case make it because I agree I think we are on Solid Ground and Steve's right this is not the time to go back to say oh you know we had a 45 vote margin last time let's see if we can get something passed again no this is not that time so um I I think if we hold firm the other side I think we'll see the wisdom of our point of view I am booed and bolstered by uh by these comments um Scott is there anything that I missed or is there anything that you heard at ALG that I have not uh that I have not uh relay to our committee uh I don't think so honestly I I did take some notes in my haste um to make it to the meeting and get home I brought my fantasy football notebook so if you want to know the preferred draft order um if you're drafting a team uh post start of the season I have plenty of information I I think I heard you say you're taking taking the over under on what I uh a Deb exclusion with a two-thirds vot of town meeting on first week Monday in May would be so I'm disappointed I Gra the wrong notebook but I had some notes in my other one CHR um I've been very dismayed in the past to hear the town manager especially but also the select board a few times say that we've had multiple years or a long time period over which to express an opinion especially an opinion on something that they would like us to support that we do not which we have chosen to not give an opinion on until all of the detail were there I am very concerned that this DPW is going to be another well we've been working on it for years and they haven't said no so you know it's too late for them to come back and say no now um that I would love it if you all at ALG would nip that in the bud because I will not accept that and for me it's a hard no they need to now prove to me otherwise there is no benefit of the debt left is it accurate for me to say that this is our third meeting in a row where we have unanimously said we are not interested in uh in voting for The DPW am I would would anyone disagree with that statement Maryann as our uh representative to the town is that clear that we have zero interest in supporting a debt exclusion for the D DPW this year you are making that clear and Mr Martin selectman Martin I'm going to have to ask you the exact same question is it are we crystal clear on position at this time no I I I I heard what you said yeah um Ju Just to uh be clear that um uh if we voted for a DPW building a town meeting um it wouldn't hit people's taxes probably till FY 28 so um just depends on when you take got the first Bond understood could be FY 27 that would probably be the earliest it could be FY 26 because you take the bond out you have you have six-month grace period from when you from when you float it so if you take it out before before the end of January it will hit in FY 26 so it could hit in FY 26 that's why it matters I don't think that that that I don't think that's that's likely and it's likely I think to go the other way the projected deficit in 27 is even worse at least give you a year between the more years the better Allison I would just say that I'm I'm open to hearing more information I'm open to being convinced I'm not convinced with the information I have right now so I I agree with you but I would listen to more information yeah I I find myself in the weird position of of knowing that we have to do something with the DPW building but I'm not on board with a $40 million building I am not on board with the size and scale that was last discussed um I've also not seen other than a million dollar spent in feasibility I've not seen the analysis that says why anything other than what they proposed last time is what they're going to continue to push forward with this time I'm open to being surprised on September 26th when I hear the latest and greatest I will also be very saddened if it is the same presentation as last time adjusted for escalation well I would guess I mean uh we did authorize a million dollars um at the moment uh I'm still looking at stuff that's three years old trying to figure out where this thing is uh I've seen nothing of the million dollars um heard nothing uh heard round numbers uh that I've heard for three or four years so the town manager has announced that uh September 26th is the is a large and important meeting on this DPW topic I unfortunately will not be able to attend it because I'll be coming back from out of town but I would I would strongly encourage as many finance committee members as possible to please attend it's also my my uh plan to call the town manager or whomever he may decide to send in his stad to give us as detailed a presentation as possible regard to the dvw and to hear not only our initial concerns but to be the point person for questions that we generate shortly after that meeting and that will be in one of our October meetings September 20 that doesn't make sense that's a Thursday I believe that's the day that they said is there a special meeting for it or is it it's it's a uh it's a I'll look it up but I believe it's a public forum on it's the DPW building committee's first Major meeting uh got the right date no I don't I thought you were saying it was going to be at a select word meeting I believe you're right September 26th it's a it's the DPW building committee's kickoff big meeting I believe it's the September 26 I'll double check well can we get a preview on the 24th I can certainly make that request I doubt that they are going to know a lot more on the 26th they would know on the 24th but I won't be here on the 26th anyway I'll be remote so somebody else is gonna have to run that meeting okay let me see if I let me just take a real quick look it's not on the calendar yet but I could have sworn that was the date that they declared we will uh I will double check it okay that is the end of the ALG review uh unfortunately due to vacations and the craziness that is back to school uh I do not have meetings to share at this time I apologize uh to the committee that I that we do not have the uh minutes to review at this time liaison reports um I just did ALG um Christie do you have a school committee to report out the school committee has been considering leasing land to towerco they're one of the biggest providers of of cell towers they want to put one behind the public um the administration building because there is almost no cell coverage over there this was a big issue during the microburst because the the emergency lines went down the the hard lines to the schools and because there's lack of cell coverage it was very hard for the administration to get information out to parents that if you had a kid they kept everyone late for it um and it was it was pretty late getting the messages out about that so they would like to improve that um there's been some public concern about health adverse health risks health risks from having uh Towers so close to um buildings with children in them and other adults Etc so they are going to look into that further hoping to take a vote at the next school committee meeting nothing else I think of financial interest going on there any other leaz on reports I did not uh get to the select board meeting last night the water district meeting go ahead so I think the only thing that's really relevant is they did discuss the MW which is the yeah I don't remember we know what it is it's the resource that's what the r stands for um so I think that they are going to be drafting an intra Municipal agreement agreement yeah um regarding a study to to to look into I think with six five or six other towns uh the cost of I guess joining the NW is essentially what the study would look at so it's something that mayard is motivated to do and so I think that there were between us and Maine are four other towns six total that we looking at engaging stantech I think is the name of the the company to um and then share the cost of of having that report generated so I think that $75,000 may have been allocated to studying the feasibility of joining and so obviously the cost would be much lower if we did it with mayard and other towns so but still significant I believe when they brought this to us 15 years ago it was a TENS of millions of dollars approach goad yeah it means basically a water line probably up the median of 495 from um Weston or someplace like that did they discuss costs around that because I attended a meeting last year in which they did some of this so the NW had estimated $1.1 billion the total cost of the project but they believe that there was some mention of either federal or state funding that would go towards was that inclusive of the payin we have to do like that you kind of have to anti into the system last time they were talking about that being waved they didn't discuss that in detail at this point they were really just focusing on you know whether they wanted to move forward with working with mayor to to actually get the the feasibility of the study done yeah um and last time I heard them talk about it it it wasn't an all or nothing regarding our water supply that there would be the option of keeping our pumps also online they didn't discuss that I mean they at the earlier in the meeting they did talk about the work that's being done on the pasas um facility that's being built at each of the different locations and that's still moving forward and I assume that we would still be able to treat the water that comes in if MW isn't treating it yeah right now MW does not have BS right that's and I I reviewed that as well because they do a lot of other treatments and testing but that's conspicuously absent from the list so I assume that the water would still we would still treat it ourselves and why would we use our own sources if it's also going into the treatment system but I'm not um knowledgeable about the topic myself um but that seemed to be the only thing relevant to finance related matters that they're going to move forward with studying that possibility any other Le on reports okay uh we need to have a quick convers so the next meeting is in two weeks so that's the uh 24th uh but we need to have a conversation about the two meetings in November October I thought you wanted to do the November ones you're going to do the October we're going to do the October 1's a little late but we're going to need to move but I figur we need to talk so uh for October we're going to have we're going to start late on our two meetings we're going to start at 8:00 inste instead of 7:30 yes so yep so we're meeting on the 24th normal time then the 6th sorry the 8th and the 22nd of October we're going to start at 8:00 rather than 7:30 to allow Christie to attend the school committee's um what are they calling it not a task for Budget yes budget task force their version of the cost cutting cost cutting uh committee um then for the two meetings in November those also coincide with um with meetings of of the school uh cost-saving measures so uh I would like to get everyone's take on moving the Tuesday the 12th up a little bit to Tuesday the 5th sort of swapping those two weeks to free chrisy up to be able to go to both of the meetings without having to race across town to get to them just a um quick FYI only that is election day so it's just an an FYI Tuesday November 5th okay uh this room is not in use during that as a part part of election activities correct it's usually not very good um if this room is already booked I will find another room for us to meet at um lers are of course always being acting TV because they seem to be very accommodating and very willing to help us if we happen to be in trouble on rooms um would people rather move the first or the second of the meetings in November my take is to move the first go from the 12th to the 5th does anyone have any strous objection to it and then the meeting the second meeting the meeting on the 26th so is Thanksgiving the 28th yes it okay so how about we move the Tuesday the 22nd to Tuesday the 19th just sort of shift the two meetings in November up a week to stay away from Thanksgiving and to allow for maximum meeting coverage I not seeing anyone who's super unhappy about it I will make the room reservation request tomorrow I believe that covers all of the agenda items unless there's something that somebody else would like to bring up okay with nothing else to be brought up our lonely eyes turn to gang and ask him for his end of day responsibilities thank you for the um motion to second that was gang saying yes and Roland saying saying second Greg I Dave I Scott i g i Allison I Steve I Roland I Chris I Ken I and I say I we are adjourned thank you all