[Music] 2024 do I have a motion to open second all in favor we are open uh rise for this Pledge of Allegiance please to the flag of the United States of America the repblic it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you uh this meeting is being audio and video recorded okay so on the the main thing on the agenda tonight that we're going to cover is going to be four Reserve fund transfers uh before we start that I want to have our Town Administrator Mr Kelly give us a a budget update as to where we stand right now Mr chairman and for you to the committee the budget Outlook is still very Bleak we started out at about 2,400,000 in deficit we are down to after Mr Gasper and myself have gone through 20 plus budgets cutting where we can uh we are down to approximately 2 million uh we have not dealt with education at all of that 2 million deficit education is 1.1 4 million uh our non departmental joint accounts uh major is retirement and health insurance in those accounts uh health insurance alone is going up uh originally we thought it would go up some somewhere between 200 and 220,000 we've got it down to 160 and that's negotiating with the insurance company as far as the other parts of government you're looking at Human Services we have a cut so that it's 39,000 below level funding from last year so a negative 39,000 culture and recreation a positive 15,000 and this is includes all of the collective bargaining raises Public Works we have a large uh increase in camass we're still looking at some of the positions and the expenses there public safety as you know they settled the Police contract that's an extremely large amount that'll be the last budget we go through Mr Gasper and I and general government has an increase of somewhere between 50 to $75,000 that's all of your other agencies that you see here in town hall paring way Etc and that includes all collective bargaining raises uh we're going to need help from the schools we met with Old Colony last night uh we definitely did a deep dive into the budget uh in our discussion uh Mr gasar found a one-time cost that we might be able to take out of the operating budget that can help us substantially uh it was a gem of a find on his part uh it is uh not a Rosy year but even if we increase Revenue a couple hundred th000 unless a Kush school department substantially Cuts their budget to uh a 300 to $375,000 increase there's no way we're going to approach a balance budget and originally they had asked for it was what 1.2 or 1.3 increase 1.2 that was the preliminary starting point um and if you look at other towns in the area uh some of the 495 towns started out with a $5 million deficit per town they are kind of multiple positions in town government some of them are closing their police departments third shift and uh they're uh laying off anywhere from six to a dozen education positions we're trying we're trying to not eliminate positions but maybe go half time I know for the majority of the town government positions you can't eliminate positions there's one or two people in the entire division since we're such a small correct we don't have that luxury like some of these large towns out there of of laying off people it's just not feasible for us and if you lay if you lay people off you may them good or you even go half time with someone they're eligible for unemployment for that other half time so you have to do three entities to get the benefit for two it's been my experience you lay people up you may not get them back MH and then you face with a whole new series of problems and we're still fighting to fill some of the positions we have vacant now look I mean it's part of it's a result of a well a horrible economy right for the last four years uh and the state spending a billion and a half on illegal immigrants yeah so it's it'll get them into May and then after that they got a need you combine you combine that those factors and you know no more um government money coming in right like the co money that was coming cuz that that that was such a false sense of security and that kind of buffered how bad the economy was and how it continues to how it continued to be U but now that's all gone now this is really showing uh how bad things really are and you you can't you can't make it up I mean it's just it is what it is right uh I said this before the only variable we can control is what we spend and you know I you know when we had our joint meeting a few weeks ago I think I I brought up the fact that I don't know if it was three four years ago town meeting I think the school added like eight full-time positions and then since then there's been another four um approximately um those are a lot of positions to add and there's consequences to that um well financially our joint meeting they said that they enr is actually down so if the enrollment is down I don't understand why we find the need to add these these exra position position well and you have some non-teaching positions that are getting very big salaries with benefits and I'm sorry that's I'm not going to I I still think some of those things are are a luxury um it I'll stick to I'll stick to that I said it and I'll say it again and I'll say it over again some those positions are are are luxury positions I mean you have you have mentors for what firsttime teachers um we have coaches in there it's like it's it's like when is it going to stop how many people do we need in the school department educate these kids that aren't actually a science teacher an English teacher a math teacher and I get it sometimes you need some power professionals okay that's and you know but they're not teachers no right they should not be teaching classes I just I I I don't agree with having to have coaches teach teachers and these teachers are Highly Educated they went to school got their degree um you know everybody starts off at a certain point and you get better as you go along the more experience you get that's it's like with anything with any profession right I mean I didn't have a coach my it field you're really lot of professors you'll have a mentor right you have mentors um but why why can't a why can't a vice principal act as a mentor yeah and and help and help out teachers that need help you know I mean in times like this um private sector businesses have to do more with less and it's it's going to have to be the same thing in in the public sector otherwise people's property taxes in this town are going to get so high that people aren going to be able to live here anymore and it's already get to that point as a matter frankly um but you're limited in how much you can go up in property taxes well right and that's as far as the rate the rate versus the value the real problem here is you're looking at an average between 800,000 and a million increase in Revenue every year that you've you've had and part of that has been contributed to by the fact that the investment income included just banking some of the federal money that is earmarked for uh infrastructure repair so you're not going to have that investment interest money coming in in the future Yeah so basically what we you have now is just going to keep and you you've been spending about a million two additional a year and you have uh Revenue that's somewhere around the 800 to 900,000 so at some point you're going to have to put the brakes on whether or not the state is putting money in or I I've already uh I've already told the board June and July we're going to be looking at uh every fee and permit price in the town versus the towns around here and if that goes up that will probably fill the gap of your investment interest income when the infrastructure money is actually spent but it isn't going to increase your overall Revenue mhm so it's time to tighten the bill yeah there's no doubt it has to be done um so you going to keep getting worse this isn't going to stop this no and the problem at this at the state and I've said this at a couple meetings already is they're running huge deficits with the state pension fund $35 billion right now yep um opab is another big one 16 million in change um and then you know throw on uh funding uh illegal immigration and they've and from what I heard the governor's already committed to another billion for next next fiscal year towards that so how's that going to help how's that going to help our town the towns and the cities in this in this Commonwealth I mean this state is is is out of control I it's it's laugh it's laughable when I hear some of these State politicians at a high level say they looking forward to another four years of of Biden in office and I just I'm like are you kidding me and I'm not afraid to say it I mean it's his economic policies are horrible and it start what happens we have problems at the top and they trickle down to the state level and you know we're right there with California and New York as far as the the level of insanity when it comes to spending I mean it's just it it really is out of control I don't even know what the answer is anymore I mean the only thing we can control is what we spend and then if depart if departments they're not going to care what we're going to say they're going to go and try and do what they want on the town meeting floor and we already know that um but you can't pass anything other than a balanced budget so if there's only x amount of dollars there it and you either you have a department takes up and you have a department that takes up almost 60% % of the total Town's budget so that's that's where that's where most of the the flexibility has to come from right that's where all the overages coming from in terms of year- on-year increase majority of it takes up 60% and what's the C the I mean what do you think was going to happen when you added 12 to 14 positions over the last 3 to four years what did you think was going to happen to your budget right and it's not going to get any better next year as far as Revenue you can count on your local receipts and your taxation if you're going to rely on the state that's only approximately 25% of your Revenue I venture to say that based on what he's saying that they looking for another a billion dollars for no but so 34 3/4 of your revenue is local receipts or taxation I'm saying coming from the state if they're talking another billion dollars we'll be in the same boat next year course yeah well whether you rely on the state or not 3/4 of year revenue is Taxation and local receipts they are not going to go up that much taxation is limited 22% right plus new GR grow local receipts are are you're looking at that's about 10% of your actual Revenue so how do you so some of these cities and towns could try to increase their local receipts by going up on the excise tax right because the governor has given the authority to to but that that's small it's small but it's still something I mean that's so the thing that drives me nuts is that's what their solution is to a lot of this stuff let's come up with new taxes that we can create so this spending just right let's let's not control spending let's let's find a new tax that we can you know slap on people but let's say for discussion purposes you get $100,000 on a local excise tax well if you got a million doll deficit $100,000 is just spitting in the wind it's belt tightening and you're going to have to keep it for at least another year after that until things clarify because even if you do fees and uh permit increases it's going to take a year to collect that to catch up where you're going to be able then to predict and the the new growth number that's not going to dramatically increase no um you know even even right even if there is a change uh in November uh at the federal level that's that's not going to it's not going to happen right the interest rates won't go They're not going to they're not going to go down uh to the historic lows that they were before they can't now because you know the economy has been so so bad um I mean part of the part the the big part of the problem is the energy sector right I mean look at all these budgets I look at all these budgets and I'm looking at the line items I'm like why is this budget up so I just I go to energy it's almost doubled a lot a lot of these but we've actually gone through those bills and we've been s uh Mr Gasper and the board has been successful in talking to the energy providers and we've gone from almost double to approximately 30 to 40% increase it's the transmission fees that's what bu it's not the producing it's the delivery and the transmission well it's just well that's what happens when you shut off the fossil fuel industry right I mean what do you what do you think's going to happen and then you take the Strategic reserves and bring them down to a historic low so there's like nothing in there sell them off cheap and then buy them back twice as a bunch yeah makes a lot of sense let's just have or let's just have gigantic turbines everywhere where and and and solar panels on everything let's just do that I don't even begin on solar panels the project at the school on the parking lot is cancelled the company's pulled up because they can't get connectivity to the grid the grid doesn't have the connectivity many even connect solar when it comes when it and that's I'm not just picking on the school for that that's just in general with this whole green stuff right I mean it's yeah it's good to think about this stuff but at the same time you shouldn't you shouldn't shut off the spet that that's hurting people you know financially how they right a lot of noise too I don't I'm glad I don't live near one but I of energy it takes to produce it where they get actually makes less energy one of the things laste but that was for the one that they get credits for so they don't pay electric bill it's fiberglass that's different from the one but mean the blades are not recyclable nothing on them is is recyclable well just we going to get a heartburn after all aren't we I was yeah I wasn't going to rant tonight but I'm sorry that it's hard not to it's it's hard not to when we're presented with information like this and we we have this huge deficit that that we're that we're facing right and I mean our concern is all the residents in this town and how it's going to impact their households and their ability to run their household financially let's hope they show up come down meeting that's right so I mean every tax paying resident in this town uh should show up at this this year's town meeting um unfortunately we probably have 20 people that are watching the the broadcast in the meeting because otherwise we'll be crying later probably all right let's let's get in we're going to take up the uh the four Reserve fund transfers that we got to take care of so we'll start with um Police Department the phone system the phone system went down we have taken the old phone system junked it they are now in the town phone system MH and so we just had to buy some phones that would connect have the work done and now we're all one system not two systems that has nothing to do with the 911 no that's just internal yeah yeah how many police chief was talking about how they were constantly going down they couldn't be repaired anymore right there was so so outdated parts weren't available for it I'd like to point out that the phone system is just the phone system alone is $3,900 so yeah so the total of this the total of this transfer is $584 which would come out of the reserve fund and it's going you know to the police department for the new phone system what do we have in there do we know the reserve fund if we approve these uh I think the only previous one I'd have to go up and get up but off the top my head but the only previous one we've done is I think we still have a decent balance yeah it's I think at least 80 yeah yeah it's it's yep that's to be paid I made a motion so we got we got a motion in a second all in favor I okay motion passes can have a police spot without phones yeah it's kind of important right and it's not a surprise the police chief told us that all the details on it it needed to get done one all right next one is technology so coming from the reserve Fund in the amount of $1,694 and 10 cents would be for a new email hosting service so the previous email provider could no longer provide their services with this new provider the town will be provided with enhance enhanced Service uh this cost brings uh this organization to $874 and the FY 25 budget will need this to be accounted for um I can expand on this a little bit sure um so I have a little bit of insight so basically the town's emails provider um notified the town last month that their email service was being shut that down so the town is now subscribed to the Microsoft 365 um product um which includes um the office packages for um all the heads full-time staff I believe and then his email accounts for the people that are not all time so there's some benefits to this um transition is pretty smooth it's every it's it's a service that everybody uses for the most part on towns us yeah I mean businesses it brings us into 21st really did they say why the previous provider could not to the best of my knowledge they were retiring out of the business yeah oh so so this basically puts it on par to what other businesses and towns and stuff were we on a contract with them is there any do we get any money back no no no think I rent to own yeah yeah your own Ma are motion a second all in favor I no one's opposed sorry this motion passes unanimously next one is from the board of selectman and so coming out of the reserve fund two separate uh line items they're both for the same thing different years so annual annual report 2021 artwork and printing uh for $460 in the annual report 202 2 artwork and printing for $4,290 for a total of $835 as we transitioned with staff and had part and part-time staff after Lisa left and we're catching up right and we're just making sure that every year the annual report will be there for those years and uh part of it also was we changed printer uh to get uh a constant product I think it's the best way to describe it consistent yeah and quality continuity make a motion second motion second all in favor anyone opposed um I apologize that we didn't catch up uh up until now but as you know we're playing catchup in a number of offices town offices that we don't have staff in when do we do that was 21 and 22 when do we get 23s done it's a calendar yeah the annual report is calendar year I don't know why they do that but that's the way it is so you got to wait for 20 three to be over all the everything to be closed and then they start writing be nice if we could have squeezed it into this year's budget the last transfer is for the town clerk's office it's for a new yeah it's called a Martin Yale folding machine so this is the town clerk's office's folding machine no longer works and has become obsolete so this folding machine will uh increase efficiency with the annual mailings and elections uh it's in the amount of $1,295 I make a motion second all in favor anyone opposed I mean we were at one point they were using staff time to fold stuff yeah I we we talked about this maybe a month ago so doesn't make sense to pay somebody by the hour when a machine can do it so much more efficiently I disagree to some degree just uh to add to our budget WS the post office is going up a nickel so that 73 cents let's hope let's hope people fill out their mail and ballots properly yeah so we're not uh you know having a lot of redus don't get redu get thrown out um so I you know we were planning on starting our budget deliberations tonight going through all the uh so-called easy budgets but those we want to reserve those if let's say the budget's 15,000 and we want to take yeah 500 out of it would like to have that opportunity yeah so the board of selectman needs a little bit more time we're we're rolling coins is what we're doing trying to find savings yeah I hope that gets out to the town rolling coins none of these Anonymous posts on social media about finding money have it somewhere I was looking at some of the budgets you know earlier today and I came across the miscellaneous budget and um they had the celebrations line item in there so I noticed that one of them was like cut pretty significantly and I'm like well this is probably what's going to have to happen you know you we got to find every dollar we can right so if you don't see a building decorated as much during the holidays that's probably going to be why right I mean it's we're scraping by here so with the time frame that we're facing do you think it's a a possibility that we may have to maybe schedule more than just a Wednesday night it's a possibility we'll get the town budgets done and we'll take them down as far as we can but at that point if the schools don't take down budgets if we had to meet if we had to meet twice in a week yeah I mean I'm fine long as you have what 48 hours right to post um I mean I don't think anybody wants to meet on a Friday night I mean unless Pete's going to bring another gourmet meal I'm available I'll cook I don't mind doing it C you're bringing the corners right yeahia with that if you feed them they will be here maybe that's what we need to do for town meeting right can we I make a motion we fit somewhere in the budget some food for Refreshments for no we ask we ask for donations everybody bring arms for the poor that's going to raise our five to many budget up yeah I mean could we do like a Tuesday Thursday instead of a Wednesday I mean would that be easy for people I can't do it on Tuesday I'm all we're meeting um Monday on the budg as long as we have a quum here uh during the day yeah so I think next so next week obviously I'm not going to be around um but if if we could if you wanted to meet and we go through the what you call the level funded easy budgets and we've cut stuff out of there there's only so far you can go before you just have to turn around and say all right then you have to eliminate that budget totally I mean if it's a $8,000 budget you can't cut it without looking at and saying maybe you have to eliminate it or eliminate it for this year yeah it's a slippery slope cuz once you're there yeah cuz now you started there so let me just look at my phone my calend are here just for dates and stuff so so you have to have everything ready for print by May 6 right so if we met if we met next week next Wednesday like we normally would on the 24th um that following week would be the week where we'd have to potentially get two meetings in if we could if we need to so you talking the week of the so let's say let's say next Wednesday could I next Wednesday present all of the typical articles for the warrant and all th those type of budgets we just talked toed yeah yeah yeah and then get those out of the way and you guys you guys can take up a vote on all those get those done and then you're saving Public Safety and education for the last the last meeting which I you know I'll be here for that one and uh the collective bargaining articles and we were also uh submitting a uh local meals tax article again I'm trying that again how much I mean 100,000 so here we go you know another T let's tax well every town around here yeah I've heard it yeah every single one do says in in the whole area we're the only one how much revenue is that going to generate approximately about 100,000 okay well all from purpose for that is r no anybody who comes from out of town the purpose for that is for oped correct the meal tax no this is a on top of the state meal tax this would go to the town yeah it would go it would go as uh tax revenue from the state 30th and second the Tuesday Thursday for me personally I would rather do two meetings rather than one a long one I agree with you EAS just two two more meetings two meetings rather than if we had do two in a week I'd rather do two in a week and one very long one well I think next week if you guys can get through we'll do the 24th next week if you can get through all the easy stuff and the Articles then the only thing left is going to be the school budget police what else and the DPW it really is Cass is the the live how can you how can you reduce that you can't you can't so that's so you could actually vote on Cass next week mhm you know um Here's my thought is there this a chance we might need to have the time why don't we schedule that Tuesday Thursday the 30th and the 2 and if we come to find out we don't need both of them we can always cancel one but at least they enough time for her to put notifications out and for us to plan okay slman might meet cuz that's a Tuesday on Tuesdays when meet upstairs the 30th or the second they're meeting on the 30th yeah so they're already meeting on the 30th so they meet on the 30th right which would give us a second for anything that they may finalize on that but I'm just saying if we if we schedule the two meetings like we're talking about at least they're on record we can plan around it and if we don't need it we cancel one of them off yeah if we do need it it's already there and you got you guys are going to go through quite a bit between now and next Wednesday right oh we're meeting on Monday on a lot of the budget right so so you're going to have a lot of the stuff narrowed down we'll have all of we'll have all of the budgets that are there's no room to go any further done M all right so as long as the budget still exists you know if I don't know what you're going to do if uh cuz the board of Selectmen has to submit a balanced budget to town meeting so I don't know what you're going to do uh if the school does not cooperate if the school doesn't cooperate the selectman still have to make the final decision whether the school likes it or not right y if we timately it'll go down to the vot I mean that's why we need them to show up but I mean if we can't cut anything else out without losing complete Services then they've got no choice at that point we will at the end of this uh fiscal year present a balanced budget it probably won't be to anyone's liking but we'll present it to the voters a balanced budget you know and we'll let the cards fall where they will and well that's that's all that's what we're going to have to do yeah and uh it's not going to be to our Ling either that's the the killer everybody seems to think that no they think I mean we're I think people forget that we're all residents in this town and our taxes go up like everybody else exactly I mean we're volunteering our time for the betterment of the town and the residents that live in it y um we're not trying to hurt anybody or it's it is what it is we look at the numbers and if if it looks like you know an apartment spending too much money we're going to call it out yeah like it or not I mean that's that's what we're supposed to do all right so going back to uh meeting dates 24th so next Wednesday the 24th for sure mhm um and then we could like Pete suggested 10 you know 30th and then you know the 2nd May 2nd um I know I can't make the second but I'm just one person so okay but I mean if you got if if if you get through a lot of stuff this coming week and then come next week There's you get through most of it then we might be done just do one day on the on the 20 on the what date was that the 30th 30 we might we might not even need it May 2nd anyway right so it'll be done on April 30th so it's either that we just we take the chance and we just keep it on May 1st um I mean I don't know how many hours it's going to take to if we have if we have two budgets we have the school budget and Public Safety I mean how long are we going to deliberate on those things I mean when we're down to that point there isn't really isn't going to be much delation to do there's probably not going to be much because we're going to know how much we're of a deficit we're facing at that point yep so do we know the school committee wise like what they having another bud I I've been blind as on going through the townsite I mean hopefully school committee is going to I'm just thinking if anything changes you know the so Board of selectman's meeting on the 30th you know they they may finalize a couple things on that date if we're meeting on the same date we're not going to be privy to that information well Jamie should be anyway no he he'll be meeting with the board no the board only four to 6 oh okay 6:30 at the latest it's it could it could be uh a perfect schedule I me one yeah for to the other okay so that's that's what we're gonna do so Kathy we'll have that that May 2nd Date as like a a you can put like a question mark next to that because we don't know if we're going to necessarily need it so the next two meeting dates would be Wednesday April 24th and then Tuesday April 30th but if we could have on the 24th a lineup of the budgets that we know that we'll be able Monday I have didn't send a list over to Kathy yeah if you can send out the email with the attachment of all the budg so the so the fincom members know all right I got to make sure I bring these budgets with me because these are the ones we're doing tonight and just keep it simple that way how well right Mr St jeene not those bugs are all going to be changed and altered we're going to need new ones you know what I mean they've already changed what we have no I know so this we'll uh we'll send each Department's budget individually and then a recap sheets that'll be helpful mhm yes I'm okay with PDFs that's all right no I meant we'll just you know each Department's budget just like they submitted it we'll submit one of those and then we'll have a recap of the different parts of government General government Human Services on the top like a cover sheet and then uh I'll hopefully be able to if there's not a lot of changes fill out the you know the warrant budget which you know is salaries expense M for the two years [Music] mhm cuz we'll just while we're in the meeting we'll just have the laptops up under uh does anybody have any old business under new business I was I happened to be watching the uh the board of selectman's meeting from yesterday and it looks like we're going to be getting a new fin M um there was someone had some interest and a gentleman by the name of Christopher Dio um has been appointed to the finance committee so that's going to round out our committee we'll have a full compliment of members um which is good so that's a good thing we haven't had a full compliment of fin our finance committee in a long time it's been numerous years so so that's a good thing and hey the more volunteers the better is he baldheaded yeah I don't I don't know if he's uh I don't know the status of his hair unless you're a female I mean well Eric's got a full head of here he's I you know I could do a sympathetic shave and just you know summertime is let him l a t a t I'll get one of those uh the con head things and put it over my head H You' look good in we yeah we already covered the next meeting date so we're good you had new business I had a question oh okay and it's just some because it's been up it was something I had asked in um selectman gasar and said he was going to have you work on it see if there was any movement with the beach sticker in Fair Haven we are in discussions right now so for those that are watch it was up on social media we have a reciprocal agreement with edford but we haven't with Fair Haven even though we have started combining some of our services between towns we're looking to for Fair Haven with the resident rates at the golf course and uh Beach stickers and shellfish permits from Fair Haven excent CU I know their Beach stickers are limited they go on sale in a couple of weeks and it's well they LA are limited as far as how many people you can put on the golf course at any one time motion to adjourn second all in favor we are adjourned [Music]