welcome everyone today is March 2nd 2024 it is 4:30 p.m. is there a motion to call the meet for select meeting to order show moves second all those in favor this meeting is being audio and video recorded pleas rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands indivisible withy jusice for all first thing M agenda gentlemen is to approve the minutes of February 20th 2024 regular meeting motion to approve second all those in favor I motion passes new business there's a an appointment every year for the board of selectman Representative to sered commission um member appointment is there a motion to appoint Mr Kelly the Town Administrator as a board of selectman's Representative to sered so moved second all those in favor congratulations Mr Kelly thank you be a sured expert before we know the uh we got some ambulance abatements from Chief fallen again gentlemen I'll only disclose the Run number so run number 22-27 4854 in the amount of $2,252 the motion to aate so mov second all those in favor all run number 23-1 19423 in the amount of $2,745 motion to aay second all those in favor and run number 23215 804 in the amount of $454 191 motion to aate Second all those in favor very good work is comp procedures pretty straightforward Mr Kelly you want to give a quick update on this or uh we asked the folks from who are is our insurer it's a group Insurance uh Mo mostly uh with towns and school districts it's where we went for a better price they have some changes in procedures from what we were doing in the past under Maya and they've met with staff they even sent a board member down to meet with staff uh and Tanya went to training and Sydney will be going to training and the next training uh meeting uh Kathy will have to go from the superintendent's office and it is bringing us up to date as far as all of their computer programs and how we report everything electronically and how they track cases and I just uh ask the board to vote to accept Mega's procedures as the town's procedures is there a motion second all those in favor storm water bylaw review so there's been a a new update from our ms4 engineer firm conico I'm not going to get into too many details gentl Mr Kelly's done um a couple of changes in his Red Line the yellows uh update from carico I haven't reviewed them yet but I asked for the updated version that was sent over there's a new article that's added article four um on our request last meeting with Mr McHugh for a provision um on basins and things of the like for large scale solar f um solar panels um that the article four is a little bit vague and it kind of just I think it hits on everything I know what through the ms4 the storm water handbook it's already a standard as Mr McHugh alluded to but he added a provision there and I know that um Mr Kelly's probably made a a red line I see a red line version so he might have just added in some different language one sentencers to make sure it's clear um I'll review that Mr Kelly's going to have a meeting with Mr Francois from planning and Ryan from concom the chairman of conservation and the guest Board of Health which I don't know what they have to do with anything storm water related but so have you and see what's up and review some changes and get back to the board so if gentlemen want to review that VW and the changes and see what your what your pleasure is on it and if you're all right with with the changes the new red line version the one that's in our book is not a good version um you didn't did you put a new one in mras in cuz I have mine outside of my book here yep so he's got a new version you have a new version so if you want to look over the language change some of the little provisional changes Mr Kelly's added in that would be fine and we'll take it up at our next meeting you'll be meeting before that Mr Kelly with the other gentlemen and if there's any input on the uh where the question mark is as far as uh a size determin it please get it to me so we in in our discussions make any changes there everything else is pretty much uh mature under the Mr Gasper's uh pushing us along to make sure that uh it's very specific how it applies to the solar Fields mhm so the question box I think Mr Kelly the only ones that you're referring to is Page 17 correct okay very good all right next uh we'll jump right into the budgets I asked Mr Kelly to throw he's going to meet with fincom tomorrow um to go through some budgets and he separated them out in group A and B Mr Kell you want to describe what group A and B is to the board before we proceed sure uh at as you can see what I've done is group a is typical as far as the energy or utility line Group B I've removed the energy or utility line from certain of the budgets and are looking to centralize that in one budgetary line in the uh Town building similar to what we did with the custodial line okay we can get into that conversation once we get to one of those budgets so I could probably I mean we got fincom it's flat Reserve fund flat Town moderator flat Legal Services flat soil board Mr chairman yes sir just so you know yeah right now in legal services we're running a 22,616 deficit in legal and we've not expended any money out of land court and tax title yeah I figured we're in deficit we being further in deficit before the end of the year sealers and weights and measures I did so board flat sealers weights and measures flat do we even have somebody for a salary for that Mr K yeah okay that one's flat it's a tiny budget it's only $1,169 and it's uh they've already done one set of inspections miscellaneous account flat Regional which is basically housing pnas it's 100 bucks um Buzzard Bay Coalition I would imagine that is right let's be back cu it's two different things and then Regional a commission that's surf yeah Regional assessment that's that's Ser that last one right yep right so you know anything I will say Mr Kelly on on this spreadsheet the math in 2023 and 24 are wrong they don't add up I know okay it's just the last it was confusion when I was looking at the numbers and I'm like what's wrong here uh appeals board flat Animal Control flat I will add that in if we ratify a contract with the Steel Workers Union um subject to change on a salary line item we can either do it there or you can do it in the article approving the mo MOA whichever the board wants no matter what it's an expense the increase from the taxation so doesn't we'll figure that out forough it's flat uh forestry is up a bit um a lot more tree cutting with all the dead trees and we obviously if you're doing a little bit more tree cutting it's basically $24,500 budget which is nothing um there's a little bit more in police details because if you're going to do more tree cutting you would need more police details modest increase this Mr chairman in the forestry we've also asked ever source to provide us with their schedule of treat trimming and where they're going to be doing tree work so they uh because that was at a request to the tree warden so he knows where the where they're going so he doesn't go there yeah good idea makes sense so cemeteries flat veteran services flat there a question on the benefits that's reimbursable correct 75% the year after the library we have them in in library is in actually two sections it's in a in B A has the utility amount in B has it removed right so and the numbers are all over the now and I've done some research on on this and I I don't know why everything at the library is run on electric including the heating system through I guess those wall units but they got a a whopping Energy bill over there and it's unfortunate and can we do Sol it depends on how big the bill is the other issue over there they run like 1,200 bucks a month is if we remove the utility energy line from the library and move it to a Consolidated budget then we have to make sure that number B hits the state minimum so the library keeps the certification so I did that math already too and I wor I worked with Elizabeth and it does yeah I did the I did the math on it to make sure that's called a Maz to make sure we me m which is the calculation is the last 3 years divided by three multipli by 1.025 and that tells you what your new minimum new budget needs to be the following year um so I did that math the question that I have is with the energy is we we're getting charged in 2024 11 cents and it says increase from 9 to 17 per watt with the new bills at 11 cents I we're in that aggregation we should be locked in for 3 years so what's why is it saying 19 or 18 cents in energy cuz right now in the budget season we're in every penny matters and that's a huge number across the board we're in negotiations right now on how far down we can get that item this was put in at the beginning when the First Energy numbers came in we're still in negotiations with energy we should be able to bring it down to that amount cuz I know the bills now are set at that number it's a big difference oh yeah so the only the only problem CU right now the only one that we really have this with is library and if you jump to B gentlemen there's another Library one I know we have EMA but that EMA Jamie EMA yeah EMA Emergency Management but if you jump to the other one the only I guess the question that I have Mr Kelly is why we did this with janitorial services last year pulling it from people's budgets why are we doing it with Energy electric why can't we just leave it in in everybody's budget instead of pulling it out we're we're in negotiations right now with the utility I understand that I what what does it do by taking it and blocking it into town buildings we might be classified different I can I can either brief the board in executive session or I can brief the board individually on that okay the only the only concern well it's a reality it's not a concern you can't take out the full energy line item out of the library for the simple fact that there's another utility being paid for out of their energy line item which is water so you need to leave $400 in the energy line item in this other proposal will you take it right out you need to leave energy there so you don't start screwing up a county with new line items all I would say is leave 400 bucks because right now they run about 65 70 bucks a quarter and any kind of increase we'll have a small buffer of like 50 75 bucks so if we the board were to approve taking it out and put in one central location um you need to leave $400 in energy for the library you get it so you just can't be zero it's going to be something else and I know it's foolish in all our municipal buildings they pull water or sewer out of energy it should probably just be utilities and of energy but instead of recreating a wheel we'll leave it at that so it it doesn't the budget is what the budget is I mean you looking at a bunch of different numbers I guess right the total pulling the energy out we would end up still meaning ma MH with the energy coming out we're actually about a few ,000 bucks above it by my calculation so we still meet ma as Mr Kelly alluded to earlier Elizabeth worked with us on the library director worked with us on both budgets so it's just a we'll have to retake this back up at a later date the library anything with energy in if we once we figure that out but not either here or there um the budgets call it relatively flat depending on which way here we go P flat Emergency Management same concept I mean it's a change with the energy line item um we'd have to look and see what's actually electric because now you're talking about a building that's either run on propane natural gas or oil and that isn't a double on energy right it's uh so we have to pull off natural gas is included in in the uh uh consolidation contract now okay we'll have to have another conversation on that later but that's the deal and then you I guess you have EMA and and B yep you do I don't have em and B no I'm sorry don't oh it's the first P it's the first page of B so whatever it's 5 grand 5 grand 5 grand but you got three different scenarios CB a that was uh my request to the fire chief to give me three uh uh the first request a is the one that I was looking at as being our first until we see all of the other Cuts all right and then again we already discussed Library same thing happening with uh Recreation it's really PX and Recreation P's got its own little budget but we've already gone through that so Recreation is where they carry their energy line for the park department so it's basically the same thing and you would have to imagine Pac is probably the same as library right all all electric not I don't think the heat there in other words right just pretty much a sum of spring summer fall operation you don't have heated ball fields right it's just mostly lighting and correct so I would have to imagine that a large percentage of recreation is well matter of fact it might all be um electric so we'll figure we'll figure that out historical we'll figure that out because that's I think oil so all of that energy is not just electric so we'll have to figure out the moving pieces to to calculate energy line items and that's pretty much it in a nutshell most of them are Level funded is just a little bit of the the shifting around energy bills and whether we're not going to go on the one umbrella on the town buildings for negotiations with whatever firm we're doing that with but we'll have that conversation individually with Mr Mr Kelly so that's pretty much it for that we and then we'll have the bigger budgets in the next meetings again through all of our budgets cuz we're a little bit behind the curve Mr Kelly want to go through the process a little bit different this year but it's up to the board of selectman to do budgets so we're trying to move it as fast as we can now Mr Kelly Town administrators oh town meeting articles you ain't got anything different to discuss with town meeting articles the uh only uh article major article that is going to be added other than placeholders for Collective barging agreements is uh an articles uh to for borrowing on the slen street project it's a placeholder uh similar to the one we did for the ambulance in the past because of uh our work with the county when our second application goes in mhm but just to cover ourselves uh and we've received wording from uh the attorneys on protecting ourselves as far as the biding process goes okay so you've gotten that from what we said to them M did we get that over of current to wood would and Cur for the bid specs uh language yes okay I believe so we also uh we get it over to DPW and all just want to make sure and the other the only other thing for mention about articles but we we did the it's not a bond the band for the school roof and then we talked about that coming up if is that coming up in November so we don't have to do an article to take from solar Revenue fund now we do it in the fall 10 as long as we get it done in late October still can before the band is due and you still can pay some down and you still have another year a couple years on the B you can keep rolling it over if you want right but we said we want to pay down the principal on that right there like 400 Grand that we're going to take from solar Revenue to knock that project cost down so we ain't paying so much an interest right yep and we're paying interest now on and and the that's a terrible deal the it's a mil1 120,000 yeah and we're paying 36,6 125 in interest right that's why you want to pay down the principal so you knock down that interest payment right all right so we can wait on that article is what you're saying right that that would be a good article for the fall okay um nothing else Gentleman on the Tom me Warren Town Administrator report uh as far as town meeting goes I met with the uh moderator and the Town Clerk and uh we are on time with all of our Milestones uh the town moderator and I and discussion came up with the fact that I will send the Motions to Town Council at the same time I send the warrant that way we won't have to wait an exorbitant time for the Motions to come back after the war's approved okay and we're looking to have the warrant on the April 30th for the board to approve the final warrant and then it goes to the newspaper and printer the first week in May that's that's only a week for Council to have it okay almost 2/3 of the articles are the articles that are there every year yeah I was going to say we we don't need them to look at that stuff right I mean that's all boiler plate stuff we've done in the past so that's already been and the article on the uh uh the budget he only needs to look at the motion okay all right so selectman's announcements Mr War anything I do not have anything today Mr inkley I do not either yeah I had a conversation with the chairman of the zoning board of appeals and some confusion I don't know where it's coming from didn't get into the details with Mr Brown but I assured him that this meeting room will be available on the 3D and fourth Tuesday of every month for their meetings at 6:30 p.m. so um I I told them even if the board of Selectmen a me thought we still met on Mondays I said no we mean on Tuesdays I said but neither here or there you start at 6:30 we usually start the latest at 4:30 I don't like to run a meeting more than 90 minutes at Max 2 hours I said so the rum as far as I'm concerned is is all yours on Tuesdays in fincom usually as the Wednesday nights they were looking for it on the 16th when you're going to be doing the budget that's all right I'll stop my meeting at four that week I think it might take a long time you got uh both the budget and the warrant article I think he might have did advertising already on we can move quick so we'll figure out what we need to figure out if we're all prepared and we can submit questions ahead of time we need to look at the budgets and figure out what what the hell we're doing we're we're a little bit late because of the process this year the way you wanted to go but we'll figure it out all right so that's that on the 16th we will meet at 4 p.m. we have two executive sessions first one is executive session on the general Law chapter 30A subsection 21 A2 to conduct strategy sessions and operations for negotiations with non-union Personnel let conduct bargaining sessions of contract negotiations with non-union Personnel police chief the second is executive session on the general Law chapter 38 subsection 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation assistant Town accountant if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares the board will not return to public session at the inclusion of executive session is there a motion so move second all those in favor I roll call vote Mr inkley yes Mr wner yes and I am a yes we are now an executive session