##VIDEO ID:cR7aV1Lmxeg## welcome to the finance committee meeting of the town of air for Wednesday September 25th 2024 at 6 PM this is Kurt fres cowsky chairman um this this is a hybrid meeting this meeting of the finance committee will be held in person at the location provided on this notice member of the public are welcome to attend this inperson meeting please note that while an option for remote attendance Andor participation VI Zoom is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting hearing will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law members of the public with a particular interest in a specific item on this agenda should make plans for in-person versus virtual attendance accordingly this meeting will be live on Zoom the public May access the proceedings by joining Zoom meeting ID number 8608 8777519121 for additional information about remote participation please contact Carly antonellis assistant Town manager at ATM a.m. us or 978-772-4864 um we've got a short meeting tonight we're going to look at um four articles for the warrant for the special excuse me the fall town meeting on October 28th um we I am going to uh open the meeting first for public comments um and uh that we're going to go down and look at the Articles and then the committee will um vote on the Articles to recommend not recommend or no position um and those will be uh Set uh in the warrant for the meeting on uh October 28th um so uh I do want to do take one uh other procedural note is anticipation of the vote uh currently there are four members of the committee here uh myself Kurt Paskowski Eric sekman Bob France and Jin Hong so we have four folks here and we do have a quarum so okay um as I mentioned we'll first open uh public comment um by the way before I as we go through the warrant articles of our discussion if there are other public comments I will allow those also but to start off with are there any public comments to begin okay okay okay all right hearing none um we'll move on and what I'd like to do is um I will read the article um we'll have a discussion with the uh uh committee and then uh take the uh vote on that so article one adoption of GLC 44 section 54b Das prudent investment rule to see if the town will vote to accept the provision of GLC 44 section 54b to allow Town trust funds to be invested in accordance with GL c203 C the so-called prudent investment rule or take any other action there on or relative there to questions discussion good evening hey Dan hello Dan Dan question okay no no no questions uh or comments at this time okay so having uh hearing uh uh no discussion or comments I'm going to uh pull the uh um committee um Jen yes I'll approve it okay yes I yeah I support it okay Eric recommend yes okay Bob recommend and Kurt rowski recommend yes so we we have a majority of four so we will recommend thank you Mr chair yes just for the record I would make it a motion and um have they voted on should we try that again okay I'd like to make a motion um I guess to recommend article one uh adoption of GLC 44 section 54b prudent investment rule changes I second that all in favor I right I I I okay yes so um motion uh made seconded and four I votes thank you thank you car article two recent unissued borrowing balances to see if the town will vote to resend the following amounts that have been authorized to be Borrowed by votes at previous Town meetings as listed herein which are no longer needed for the purposes for which they are initially approved the the items are project police radio coverage Improvement project approved October TW town meeting approval October 24th 2016 Article 5 unused balance $66 sweep street sweeper May 8th 2017 Article 13 unused unissued balance 2,185 department vehicle approved a town meeting May 14th 2018 Article 13 unissued balance $631 hooklift truck town meeting approval May 14 2018 Article 13 unissued balance 1,13 $1,013 or take any other action relative there too any discussion questions on this I'm assuming that this I mean I I really don't have a problem with resending uh money but I'm assuming it's that we approved a certain amount of money to buy something and it just cost a little less than that exactly y yeah you know when the uh departments request Capital items we're going on estimates these actually a pretty good numbers um but yeah so it's just the authorization that's outstanding and for us to close it's just clean up for our books yep thank you sure great thank you Carly okay um I will make a motion to uh recommend article two resend unissued borrowing balances excuse me Mr chair yes it's I'm sorry to bother um but I thought you were taking questions on individual articles as you went along oh please uh let me know what you have just housekeeping yes um the four items certainly the police radio coverage was a police department uh request I'm guessing maybe Carly can clarify the last three street sweeper Department well maybe I can't department vehicle and hooklift truck I was going to say maybe they're all DPW but I would expect the warrant article to list the line item from which those borrow articles are being rescinded okay one second we'll check on that with see if we have an answer here and if not that's fine I think there's plenty of time before October 28 whatever that the warrant has to be approved but it should specify so um Mr chair if I may the street sweeper in the hooklift trucked are DPW for sure um obviously police is police but I'll look into that department vehicle I'm not sure off the top of my head uh which one that is okay so if we can have that added added y the warrant yeah that would be good housekeeping okay thank you good thank you Pauline any other uh questions from the public okay um so let me start this again um I Mo I'm making a motion to recommend article two resend unissued borrowing balances seconded all those in favor I I I I and we have I so we have four eyes and uh so we recommend article two okay so the last two articles um I'm going to are uh dealing with the storm water utility Enterprise fund but we'll go through them one at a time um article three storm water utility Enterprise fund to see if the town will vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts general laws chapter 44 section 53f and 1 12 for the purpose of establishing a stormwater utility fee fund as an Enterprise fund of the Town effective fiscal year 20126 or take any action therein or relation there to though um for the committee do we have any questions discussions yes yeah Dan um uh under the in information or explanatory note it says that the ER the um what is it the eru is 300 Square ft I think that is that a typo so yeah through you Mr chair sorry I apologize for my attire I came right from my son's baseball practice um so the the sentence reads um the fee is assessed upon all properties with more than 300 ft of impervious surfaces am I reading the same one are yes it's in the explanatory not right so no that is correct so all properties with more than 300 ft of impervious surfaces would be subject to the the fee okay yeah all right and then um see that so make sure I got the same one okay all right yeah so just for my own information what is an theu what's the equivalent of an eru it's what is it 3,200 sare ft of impervious area and that was developed by the the work group um based it's basically it's the median square footage of impervious area of your typical single family residential property in air and that's kind of the you know one of the standards that practice that has been done When developing These funds okay yeah just as a sort of you we talk about the the size the 3200 and whatnot is that all the definition of it is that all being put into this or how how does that work as far as where it goes in so rules it is not set in stone so the work groups work are recommendations so as you can tell the Articles don't have any numbers in them they don't have any regulations Associated specifically with them so would it would do would be to authorize the select board to set the regulations and set set the rates very similar to our water and sewer funds so it would go through the process of the rate Review Committee in the select board before there was before you know the recommendation of the work group is the $95 per year for a single family residential and the regulations and credit policy but you know that would have to also go through the the rate review and board for final approval um are there any questions from the public uh yes oh yes I like to come up than um my name is Kathy H and um I own the Sha Valley Express hi cath which is just a little bit down the street mhm and um I was not aware of and I don't think a lot of the small businesses were aware of a meeting that they had I mean I have concerns because it's going to be a really big hit for me being a small business and I didn't know I just wanted a little bit more clarification on what I'm what I'm going to be looking at that's all um we didn't know about it I didn't know about it I would have been at the meeting to at least get myself informed Med I'm just doing a crash course and learning this now so yeah um would you like to sure yeah this is Dan Van Scout DPW director so I'm I'm in the work group um and so we did have a business meeting with some of the higher paying businesses in town and what we could do we could specifically look at your business and we have a property viewer online to see you know what the fee would end up being where did you say you were on the shova valley Express cha Valley Express oh okay all right yeah so that's something we could um specifically look at and I could go through with you what the uh how that was determined on on my property with right with the um right specific the impervious area and what what the the property viewer looks like in the calculation yeah okay all right yeah cuz I I was just concerned because I think a lot of small businesses weren't aware of this okay like I said I'm just doing a you know educating myself now so okay and it hasn't been finalized yet no it hasn't it's subject to study by right the committee yeah right it would be like it would go well it would go right now it's right it would it's heading toward town meeting the work group has done basically presented to the select board here's what we recommend select board says okay let's send it to the people for town meeting so the work group did a lot of Outreach but obviously you know we're not going to get everybody we're trying our best but um yeah we apologize for that but um but we could if you want to I could give you my information you could sure um afterwards okay could thank you appreciate with that with that question in mind it might be helpful whether it be not now obviously but if there's additional meetings or when we get to town meeting or something or something gets brought up to sort of have a some kind of comparison of you know this is maybe what the average cuz we can't list every single size or value property the average residential unit pays towards what goes into the general fund now for these projects and then likewise businesses right based on you know based on that tax rate and whatnot versus this is what it would be going forward I know it would probably be easier with residences than businesses but just something to help people kind of get a grasp of rather than saying so I'm just getting taxed more money as a okay so I'm going from here to here so there's something for people to actually see and and right you know yeah definitely we've done the analysis for um Residential Properties and that was kind of before we were at the $95 fee but we got kind of the rough idea of that but businesses is a little hard it's kind of great because it's based on the impervious area so it's going to be kind of different for all of them um but you know we could um look at maybe having a few examples or or or or something along those lines yeah okay I appreciate it thank you okay I just like to add um Bob up go ahead um so we did have what the public Hearing in June and then you met with the um as you mentioned the commercial folks I think in August and St um but Kathy if you go out to and I'm sure Dan will give you act show you where this is everything on the town website under DPW um is then there is storm water utilities and there's actual a link which has all of the presentations that Dan has done at the meetings and things and I found them pretty almost too detailed um so that's a good starting point also um a lot of information on the actual studies that were done and then um then more details as far as um how businesses are affected and everything so again I'm going I'll leave the details to Dan he's the expert all right thank you thanks for your time oh thank you very much so so uh Pauline did you have a question oh Kurt no question sorry Dan thanks for staying there um so first I want to clarify something I just heard the warrant article for October 28th is only to establish the Enterprise fund not the regulations am I correct on that yes that's the way it is written all right because I have a number of questions on the regulations and I will only ask one tonight Kathy has already approached you with my biggest concern which is and Dan as you know this um from our Communications this last couple days I'm concerned that small businesses know nothing about the five or six I communicated with today and yesterday never heard anything and they're all genuinely concerned Kathy is a resident so she gets to vote most of the others do not so it's up to us taxpayers to determine their outcome the small business's outcome on that note the what I read in the regulations and I realize that's not a subject for town meeting but I think it's something this finance committee really needs to look at and Kurt I'm just going to say this the members of the committee need to look at what you looked at because they see at least one of the members seems to not know that there are so many regulations depending on what type of business or property you own I for forgive me I don't remember my elementary school math but how much how many acres is 3200 square ft Dan I'm sure you know .1 it's not much not that much yeah oh 300 3 well then then small businesses have a lot at stake here at $95 per 3200 sare ft as a resident I have no concerns I'll give you $200 if it will help but I am genuinely concerned for the taxpayers for our small businesses and as the finance committee you all have that responsibility all taxpayers whether residents or not so I if you're only adopting the regul uh the existence of an Enterprise fund tonight fine but we really need to involve the small businesses in this whole process so the big question I have is on the regulations the draft regulations the sius that were all well not all but most present on August first cpf and Moors and Noya and Kat SP and the railroad um they all probably have storm water management protocols in place or certainly can afford to install them to uptain a 50% credit what happens to the other 50% and who pays it so may I yes so that's already factored into the work groups consideration of the rates there's a um a 7% reduction in fee that we factored in which covers um it's pretty conservative value that we used um to cover you know a negative amount in that in those um basically the revenue we'd receive from the rates then minus that credit so it has been considered already um as we initially embark on this um and I would you know I would add for the the business meeting we did invite those with the most significant impacts you know there was up to 30 to 40 that were invited and I want to say was anyone with over a $3,000 fee um so we really were trying to get those who would be hit the most with it um we will you know the work group is going to meet again and perhaps we want to do a little more Outreach um before we before we get all the way there um you know as from what I'm learning tonight um and I'd mentioned the 3200 ft that's based on impervious area so not just a lot size it's the impervious area on that lot absolutely thank you Dan I'm sorry I misspoke about 3,200 square ft I don't have nearly that much on my property which is why it doesn't bother me as a resident only but these small businesses are our life blood and I'll just leave it at that um I I did not discern that there was a factor built in for the other 50% in the documents I read um so if you can point that out to me maybe next week I'd be happy but if tonight's vote is only to authorize the Enterprise fund I have no objection just just we're not we're not actually authorizing anything we're not this is not town meeting understand you're authorizing it on the warrant or let me rephrase you are recommending I was a member of the finance committee for 12 years I understand that but you're saying you're saying authoriz speaking and I apologize okay you're speaking incorrectly so I wanted to make sure that it was correct for the record I admit I am misspeaking you are recommending only something for the warrant okay thank thank you thank you Paulie thank you Dan for that clarification um any other discussions questions on article three for the no motion motion to approve or to recommend um article three the stormw water utility Enterprise fund be recommended for um the inclusion on the warrant questions uh I second that okay all those in favor I I I I we have four eyes from the group uh so we uh will re recommend article three on the town warrant okay we're going to move on to Article 4 I will read that article four storm water utility fee Collections abatements and leans to see if the town will vote to accept the provisions of Massachusetts general laws General excuse me chapter 83 section 16a to 16 F inclusive which statutes provide for a method of collection of storm water utility rates or take any action thereon or in relation there to um I'll just make a quick um comment on this and then open it for the committee discussion and then public uh discussion um from what I understand uh this is with article three we're authorizing again recommending and I do I do want to throw in that we are in the where we are in the process is the fincom is looking at these articles making recommendations on next Tuesday correct me if I'm wrong Carly uh at the select board meeting the select board will then vote on these uh articles and then the Articles will be subject to vote at the town meeting on October 28th so okay okay so just just sort of a clarification on the process there um so uh back to my original thoughts storm article three is to authorize the fund in itself uh and then article four is the funding mechanism for the Enterprise fund would that be correct Dan Carly yes okay so I just want to uh throw that so um Bob Eric or JY questions comments discussion no one well no I I have um you know as Dan said um we're essentially authorizing the recommendation to um funding to to funding mechanism but not what the actual rates are or anything at this point so correct Jen did you have a question comment uh no I don't okay so no I know I did want want to take a moment to thank you Jen for being invol involved with the storm water utility funds group over the last few months he've spent a lot of time on that I appreciate that um we all said Thank you Jen oh my pleasure I learned a lot any questions or comments from the the public okay all right having Set uh let's go ahead and uh I can do this one okay make a motion to recommend article four the storm water utility fee Collections abatements and leans as written okay um I second that all those in favor I I I and myself Kurt I we have four eyes from the members present so we will uh re uh recommend this article on the town warrant okay that is the four items that we have for this evening um this I don't think we have anything else on our agenda all right no uh do I have a motion for adjournment a motion that we adjourn the meeting I will second it okay um all uh we have a motion a second to adjourn the meeting at uh 6:32 p.m. all those in favor I i i i i the meeting is adjourned as of 6:32 p.m. thank you very much for everyone