good evening um welcome to the town of air finance committee meeting on Thursday April 18th at 6 PM this is Kurt fres Kowski chairman of the finance committee um this is a hybrid meeting the meeting of the finance committee will be held in person at the location provided on this notice members of the public are welcome to attend this in person meeting please note that while an option for remote attendance Andor participation via 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 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 to proceedings by joining Zoom meeting ID 8608 7771 1519 or by calling 92925 6099 for additional information about remote participation please contact Carly antonellis assistant Town manager at ATM a.m. us or 978-772-4864 praly Eric shekman and Jin hung um Andrew cely has not been able to meet uh make it unfortunately and Bob France will be joining us by Zoom but we do have a quarum with the three in attendance here um the first item on the agenda is the review and approval of the March 21 meeting minutes and um are there any addition questions on that no can I have a motion I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from March 21st 2024 I second okay uh all those in favor I I I I and uh Bob has not left us yet so the three in attendance say I and um Eric we do have the minutes from March 27th jit meeting um should we just why don't we just go ahead and approve uh review and approve those for the record also sure do we need to make a motion to add it to the agenda so yes if yeah let's do that first yes if you could do that please or uh I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda to add the approval of the meeting minutes from the March 27th meeting second that all those in favor I I I um so the we're are going to review and approve the meeting minutes from the March 10 27th joint select and finance committee meeting so the uh this these minutes are a quick uh summary of the finance committee joining that uh meeting and the full minutes of that meeting can be found under the Selectmen um so uh I will actually make a motion to approve those minutes yeah we're already there yes uh so I will second your motion okay and all those in favor I I I okay three votes that is approved okay thank you very much okay um moving on we uh first item on the agenda is uh the fiscal FY 2025 budget review uh we have done most of that uh we did have one question come up um on the uh debt principle and interest and I asked Barbara Tierney to join us just to give us a quick uh education piece on that uh would you like to join in marar sure so um I understand that the interest percentage increase on the fiscal 25 budget is it seems like a large increase the reason is is back in fiscal 22 the accountant at the time Consolidated the principal and interest payments into one budget line and then during fiscal 23 and then 24 and now 25 we've we've redistributed those um amounts between interest and principal so what I ask you to do is look at the full the bottom line of the budget increase which is actually 11.33% versus those individual interest and principal lines because we're just getting back into flowing through um having things in those separated out again so I did um bring this I'm just going to bear with me one second you can share this if you like yes please and let me figure out I just got to remember how to share um bear with me share so this is what you have in front of you right here so as you can see I just went back a few years and even though in 22 on on the budget it says zero for the budgeted interest we actually paid 223,000 in interest that year and 23 on that budget document cuz we were just starting to you know re separate the interest from the principal even though it says 80,000 um we actually paid PA 182 so one one thing I will point out is if you see from 22 to 23 we did have a a significant decrease where a lot of our debt fell off or you know finished being paid and we because of covid there had been such a stall in projects that we didn't have the normal replacement that you would normally have and so it went down to the 887 and now we're kind of really getting back up to our normal standards and I'll show you one other item bear with me I don't if I can do it this way so this is the other um one I was providing for you if you look I know it's hard to see and it's big but the top line is a general fund so you know in 22 we were at 1 Point almost 1.3 million 21 1 Point almost 1.2 so historically our debt service has been well over a million dollars it was just this this um you know unprecedented time that we had the debt fall off and it it didn't get replaced like normal and uh just to uh if you could just sort of yeah you can see so those are principal and interest entries and we see there that it wasn't yeah properly well yeah so when we did the 23 budget and the 22 budget they had the prior Town accountant had Consolidated it into one line and then now here's us um you know bringing it back out but so because of that on the budget document it looks like this 44% increase in interest but it it's it's just a little skewed but we're getting back to normal um does that make sense yes yes yeah any questions uh Eric or Jim no yeah so I know you've seen this with some other uh budgets where it looked like minuses and it it was the same thing the the accountant had Consolidated C general ledger numbers for budgeting purposes and we're kind of re-expanding back out so let me ask you a question so in the previous years when it was just one number the debt was properly reported it was just not shown as principle and interest right on here it was not yeah and then now it is being properly now we're pulling that out and then the last thing I'll mention to you is every year we have to estimate some interest and some debt because you know we're we're we're budgeting now for a year and a half from now um You June 30th of 25 so any estimated debt does go in the interest line it's just the normal uh procedure for budgeting debt that you're estimated will go there so okay a little high yeah very good thank you very very much Barbara stop sharing I am going to open this particular item at any public comment or questions okay seeing none um thank you Barbara okay um and we will move on to the next item in the agenda sure I'm just going to stay here in Cas with the zoom oh okay good thank you appreciate that um so uh the next item on our agenda is the town meeting which is going to be next Monday April 22nd at 700 p.m. or is it I yes seven okay good yeah make so um we uh I'm going to sort of cover the outside committee updates the only outside committee update is the by board which met uh earlier uh this week and uh or late last week and again just discussed uh the essentially the uh nuts and bolts of the town meeting and the one thing as far as we're concerned is that we are uh finance committee will be joining the Selectmen select board excuse me on the stage and um uh I'm going to throw this out for the committee's consideration at this point I and Andrew cely will be um on the stage representing the finance committee if and I just want to unless Eric and Jin you're welcome to join us or join us in the audience oh I well I'll be there anyway so I can I can join you on stage if that's okay doesn't matter to me that's fine all right cool all right so then we'll have three of us on stage and JY we all I'm fine sitting in the audience the one the one honest person in the group okay well very good then so for next Monday then it'll be uh Kurt Andrew and Eric uh on the stage for the uh town meeting and again I uh touched on the outside committee updates which was only the by board um and the next item is the are scheduling our meetings now we have been meeting on the second first and third Thursdays of the month now that we are going into May and the town meeting is done what I would like to throw out to the group what I was considering uh for our consideration is if we would want to do for starting in May and through uh the summer one meeting a month and if we can choose either the first or third Thursday that sounds fun to me I don't really have much of preference of which Thursday I was going to say do we want to do the third Thursday just simply because we're on the third Thursday now that way it's essentially a month away 6:14 p.m. I like that okay all right um can I have so then we're looking at uh the meetings for um May June July and August will be on the uh third Thursday of the month at 6 o' at Town Hall um can I get uh and I will add to that um we will September we will look at resuming the 1 and 3D two months two meetings a month uh as we begin to get into the next uh budget season MH and then also I think we should just mention that uh if if need be we can uh have extra meetings needed if it needed did you say May June July and August or just May June July uh May June July and August yeah anyone like to make a motion on that or if I I will go I if can I make the motion on that I believe yeah so I will make a motion then that we will be meeting on the third Thursday of the month for the months of May June July and August and uh resuming the our previous schedule of the 1 and the third starting in Mondays of the excuse me Thursdays of the month starting in September I move that seconded okay all those in favor I I and I we have three voting and I so moved and passed okay um that's all we have on our agenda um anything else JY or Eric that we should discuss before we nope not for me all right uh I'd like to open it for public comments okay um having none uh I think the meeting we've covered every items on the uh agenda yeah sounds good like to take Andrew's role and uh I I guess I propose to adjin the meeting you make a motion to I make a motion to adjo the meeting seconded okay so uh all those in favor of adjourning the meeting as of 6:17 p.m. Thursday April 18th I I and I the meeting is adjourned as of 6:18 p.m. thank you very much