##VIDEO ID:ANUoemGBx5s## afternoon everyone today is September 10th 2024 at 4M this is the meeting of the rate review committee meeting this meeting of the air rate Review Committee will be held in person at the location provided on this notice members of the public are welcome to attend this inperson meeting please note that while an option for remote attendance and or 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 the proceedings by joining Zoom meeting ID number 828 8571 8742 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 approve the minutes you have a second second okay all those in favor I and chair says I meeting minutes are approved all right so first on the agenda is the review and discussion of the transfer station study recommendation I've written kind of couple of notes that we had talked about in the meeting minutes to make sure that we have the answers to those questions so who wants to start so Madam chair maybe I and I think I have a similar list um maybe one of the things we could start with through you is I know Barbara looked at the question of the subsidy as well as the issue of Enterprise fund versus general fund so I know she has some handouts so maybe bar would start with that one and then we'll go to the others on the list sure okay so regarding the subsidy um I did just print out early this morning the history of the subsidy and it kind of shows that it started off very high about 350,000 and then it decreased over the years and then I kind of noticed it would decrease for a couple years and then it would pop back up I think as we were you know dwindling our rchain earnings is my educated guess on that and um this year for fiscal 25 we have budgeted 180,000 for the general fund subsidy uh and I just want to point out that the indirect costs are 134 658 so we really kind of have a net amount of 45342 that hits the tax levy because we have to with an Enterprise you have to show the transparency of all the things that are paid out of the general fund that are for things that uh incorporate the storm water I mean I'm sorry the solid waste Enterprise like employees their middle six County assessments their Medicare their employer share of the insurance so I just wanted to point that out and as you mentioned before Janice I did a quick calculation and just taking the the general fund subsidy of 180,000 it's 0.943 of the omnus budget it is not something that is going to hurt the town in my opinion we've been doing this all right along with us right um and clarification so in this you have the 134 indirect expenses is that part of the 569 budget expense excuse me it is okay I see what you were looking at okay so the indirect expenses are part of the expense budget and then the general fund Subs is yeah I just want to make sure so was y so it is accounted for in that 569 um so I guess this brings me to the review of talking about about whether we want to keep it as an Enterprise fund or go back to the general fund um so just to give you some basic information we can put it back to the general fund of course it takes an act of legislative vote and you have to preset a date and then what would happen is you'd have to close out the Enterprise fund and you'd close out your um your assets your liabilities date everything goes out to the J fund so it would you'd lose the transparency that we have established right now so your revenues would become part of general fund revenues versus them directly being shown to offset Solid Waste expenses so that to me would be the negative going back to have the other thing is just to keep in mind even though our revenues would increase if we for the fiscal year we go back to if we went back to having it in a general fund your expenses would also increase so you're going to have this percentage and this visual of this large price this budg so just keep that in mind okay so keeping the Enterprise fund I person I personally think we are fine and would vote okay um on this 180,000 that you have for the general fund subsidy is that at the 094 or whatever you just quoted yes that's for the current fiscal 25 budget that percentage for the fiscal 25 that was just started so so if we went to a say for example we went to a full 1% okay what would that be I'm just curious this we doing it to the anous budget so just it would add on another okay compare it to the start first establish what was that number 189 would only be an increase of 9,000 all right the 189 61 perfect that's that's negligible yeah so that's negligible um okay um all right so that answered the question as far as the Enterprise fund which is good it's kind of thank you that's we've been trying to get the answer to that question for a few years now and now it's finally like been answered so you know so I appreciate that um all right so what is else on the um on the study that we were talking about now I if we go with just like what's in the order of like the last meeting minutes if we use that as kind of our guide of our check off okay okay it' probably be clearer so after we discussed the Enterprise fund uh as to whether or not to keep it then we started talking about um you know the rate model and also the bag costs uh compared to other transfer stations and we noticed you know the cost of our bags was huge um that being said we also did notice that how we keep our transfer station the hours that we keep our transfer station open are different than on other accounts was there isn't it Harvard it's only open like one one day a week yeah Harvard yeah Wednesday and Saturday but it's only like four hours one day and six the other yeah 10 total yeah so we yeah we've been we've definitely been open for the weekends for that long been that long you know um so it wouldn't okay so um that being said we talked about about also the alternate alternative C on page four of the memo which I wish I had the bag cost could be reduced with 6 to 8% increase on the permit fees which we'll discuss you have it in on the pack yet because that's okay thank you all right I saw the minutes and I was like okay oh that's good so thank you that um sorry all right so page yeah so page four uh yeah but the bag costs are more of a budgetary item than the permits are because the bag costs are a monthly and we buy how many in a bag five five in a bagag in a bag right so that can be depending on what size bag that can be a pretty hefty price um that is Incorporated in the monthly budget whereas the transfer station because it's once a year you know it falls into your budget a little differently you know so I think that that's something to think so I I convinc me but I'm not in favor ra again I'm not the final say so we don't have to worry about that um now you said there was a perception of paying for bags up every couple of weeks I don't understand what you were saying I read that and I'm sure it made sense when you said that at the time but this perception paying for bags every couple of weeks I think it depends on the household yeah you know um I think probably for most households the five bags doesn't definitely would right yeah like I'm a family of four and I use medium bags hard we use one per weekend so I'm there once in a month I buy like two mules they last me two to three months but it depends right like if you're had a bigger household or if you're even smaller right often you buy them okay and then you would factored that we had two 33 gallon bags a week would be $40 in bags a year I'm reading that in the me minutes I'm like I don't yeah I don't know how that how you came up with that because I'm like that doesn't make sense well that would be $40 here no so hold it 33 gallon bags are is a medium bags are the that's the medium 33 oh the 33 are Med yeah 15 $10 that should be $40 a month so $40 month 400 yeah that makes sense yeah so yeah I mean one me so the mediumsized bags added myself earlier this we those are okay um I usually fit four to five kitchen bags okay so the mediumsized ones so that's yeah those are pretty those are yeah you can stuff them pretty good so that's so that actually works out but that's two and two yeah so you said it's 40 in a month yeah that was I was going five two bags a week though I was going to yeah the extreme of was not a we no it's not weight it's yeah just what you can fit in it yeah so my family of we do one bag of we typically unless it's a Christmas week or something um I know we just SC me a minutes but do we need to clarify did he say month at time or year it's per month okay yeah okay and if there's no objection I'll just make that change I do not object that on that so it's 40 yeah thank you which you know depending on a household that that's a lot you know um yeah mean that I'm looking this two adults and two children but you've got more children and in my case I sometimes have my uh you know empty the trash in the house and go out to my workshop and throw more stuff in there so um yeah I mean it's that's just going to be 260 minimum yeah so it's 365 all right um we had also talked about how employees using black bag bags and the public thinking they're subverting the use of transfer station bags so it was discussed and you were asked to do an operation change yeah so I sent out a note and ask ask people to no longer put it through the front there to go in the back the back the black bags okay so so that's in motion okay good because that'll help believe it or not that will help because if people don't see if if it truly was the employees bringing these black bags then that will alleviate that concern that you know somebody's getting away for something right so and then if we start seeing black bags appear then we'll know okay wait a minute this is not the employees and we need to do more enforcement okay all right great thank you um oh yes I you know I meant to check the website before I came here um so of course we had approved a few years back uh Devon's residents being able to get a permit and of course they say no one has which we also established that when people were calling in saying hey I don't live in air can I get a permit they were getting a no and that was the end of the conversation so it within the realm of possibility that it was a devons resident and since they didn't say Well I'm devons I vote in there or anything like that that maybe information wasn't being given out correctly because there was no follow okay so that being said um but it wasn't on the website to say hey Devin's residence to you know our you know vote air or whatever like that if you want to get a permit you can get a permit so have we ever updated the website so I haven't done that I'll make sure it gets done yeah I mean and then I'll and I'll bring it up tomorrow at our Devon jurisdiction meeting um you might get one you might get nobody but at the same time since we did approve it there should be a note to saying to people that they can do that so we'll have to think of how we check that like how we check for delates vo a vehicle it's like we use the voter registration they registered in air yeah we've had to do it once and unfortunately the person was not registered yeah so again I mean probably not get anybody but you know we did approve it so we at least should have it listed somewhere um oh okay so I had asked about um a one day pass um so we so let me back up so the the qu the situation was with respect to issue of selling permits and bags onite at a kiosk we all know that there were going to be all sorts of problems and even if you have Mas kiosk you still need to have somebody know how to fix it when it jams okay um which we all know those can be a headache um so then it would be a convenience factor for a couple of days of on-site sales so it was then like well what about an a one- day pass and could people bring the receipt and show that as hey here is my one day pass so can you go online to get the one day pass print out a receipt and then show that if someone asks so I I still need to look further into that one I haven't done that yet okay um I'll just say maybe I mean it's because usually we check make sure they're an a resident and all those things but if we if we put it online um I got to think about it and talk with Pam and how that how it would work that yeah would that would be awesome though to be able to do it on your phone so I'm sure you can make that as long as we can because I mean we buy our permits online and everything and then they get mailed to us I would think that you know we can then say Okay I want to do the one day pass versus trying to get over to the DPW to get that one day pass because you know sometimes you get up on a Saturday morning and you're like I need that one day pass yeah and uh then that would help alleviate that and they could stick it in their window you know hey this is one day pass or something or like you said show it on the phone if anyone ask oh no here I have it yeah you know and then that person if they really want to make a stink they just follow up with Town Hall the next day or something yeah so there's always one yeah I'll look into that I didn't get to sorry let me just bring that out to a bigger picture so I can I can get my D my um transfer station sticker online you order it online you order online and then what it's fail to us okay all right I'm just throwing this out for in General because one thing I'm hearing is you know with the one day pass and other stuff you know it's hard to do you know we had we're doing taking cash into transfer station so what I was thinking and maybe Robert and barber is that are we looking townwide to using some more online payment systems for other services we pretty much have everything online okay yeah yeah so um water bill everything's done online you can do it yeah the tough thing sometimes we have with um residents or customers is that the convenience fee for the credit cards get pushed on to them so sometimes they want to still pay with cash or check so they don't get hit with okay when we say pay online is it like you know where I can go into an app and just pay something get a go show my app and stuff or is it you go to website you go to the Department of whatever so for example maybe you want to buy pay your water bill you know um or your taxes that's a good one because that's what I use okay so I'll go to you know to pay my taxes uh online and so you can create an account and then it's like yep okay here you are as far as Yep this is the car you're paying for this is the trailer you're paying for and then you boom boom boom and you pay for it all online just with your debit card or credit card or credit card right so but the but the one day permits have been going on for years okay so this is somebody who who doesn't use the transfer station on a regular basis so we do what one day permits right now oh yeah yeah it's going on for years yeah so but it's you have to like you have to know like on you know at least Friday before you're going to use it that weekend to get over to the DPW to pick up your one- day pass right right now if you're at work and you haven't had a chance to get over to the DPW before it closes you can't go that that next day or even on Sunday okay so if we sell it online and then at least have some type of a receipt that gets in the email or something that a person can show if someone asks wait a minute we know you don't have a permit oh no if you check Town Hall instituted for the one day permit right and so that way so that way you don't have to worry about it you know if you six o'clock at night you're like crap I was supposed to go to the DPW today to get my permit then you can do that okay so that's your so right perfect lead in this what we're I was seeing is that so what would so what you're talking about is a more easy to use payment system right my would we have any use for an easier use payment system for other Town Services I guess that's what was getting that yeah so in other words instead of just getting an easy to use payment system just for this purposes we could use just Peggy back on top what we got now right right because we do everything it's pretty much everything is done online as far as payments wise before the transportation in particular what we do is we take motor vehicle equipment and Pam uploads that and that's how we check with our res Vehicles garage to so I I wonder if we could do a menu item where the would also right that's what we have to fill that Gap check the thing is is if person if the per if if the person has living in air and their car is garaged in air even getting the one- day permit it's already going to check it yeah that's why I wondered if we could somehow add that as an item with the where we accept them online with unip for the regular ones that cross check you one day permit that also and I yeah so now I was sort of jumping ahead people that move so you use some software that does that right yeah yeah unip or something so B would you maybe as a homework assign let's look into that one day yeah I'm just coming from if we yep got something that could be used for more things than it's more POS but yeah so like the conveyance fee that's so the con that can be annoying it can be annoying um the E check in my opinion is a better option because it's cheaper than mailing a check if you have it debited right out of your check right but that's if somebody's kind of like scheduled that you know created an account um which they could still do that if they you know it's not going to hurt them by creating an account through the town they they want to use it they use it if they don't want to use it they don't use it they have overseas that too yeah so okay so yeah let's look into that thanks thanks for your patience sometimes I don't explain things all right okay so then we talked about the hours it was recommended two recommendations or no I'm not going to say recommendation two ideas because they didn't really like recommend anything but two ideas one would be um having I think it was like 11 to 7 yeah on Wednesday and then you could have like the whatever 7 to 11 on Tuesday Mornings if you wanted to increase the ex so so to avoid the overtime okay is they they gave the idea of you know like swapping that out I don't know how that will affect the Wednesday morning users um but I do think we need to address this whole you know overtime thing um yeah so so they had a proposed there was two options one was so Saturday Sunday stay the same 7 to3 both days Wednesday right now it's 7 to7 proposed Wednesday changes to 11: to 7 and that eliminates your overtime the other one you're mentioning in Janice was do 7 to 11 on Tuesday and then 3 to 7 on Wednesday no longer have any evening hours 3 to seven would be an evening hour oh I guess oh sorry disregard that last part um yeah so that one's a little hard um for operations Mondays and Tuesdays are good to have blocked off for the uh vendors to be coming right but I was curious that the fact that they mentioned that for Tuesday did they see something you know did they see something for like that Tuesday morning that it wouldn't impact your vendors um I talked to him about it and I mentioned that this could be an issue I said you know it's an idea and I and I talked to Andrew too at Jacksonville form it up there right right right and I I think it'll it would impact the vendors because some days they'll come on the Monday it's good to have those lag days especially there's so many things they're actually removing the oil the Black Earth the Organics cardboard site going trash so it it really having that whole day is good I know they do the Mondays they predominant will take clean up and move the brush down to the brush down um sometimes I moves into Tuesday days too but I think keeping the safety the way it is having those two days is a better in my opinion a better way to move forward um but I there was nothing from talking to them about that they noticed that would you know not impact the operation it was really more you know I told this is what we do I talked to because they didn't they haven't seen enough the operation to know that that we possibly impact or not those hours right yeah what was their car count for Wednesday um oh and did they do enough data like did they do enough days to kind of get us you know a recent you know a decent um so I mean icture yeah there is it's in the their memo there's some numbers in there but I think that would be a good idea if I had like a traffic counter up there see what you get from those that Wednesdays especially what are you getting Wednesday morning if we're going to move a l seven I think we should do that we should do our own based proposed right yeah rather than just some hand counts leave something out like that for a couple months yeah yeah because I mean if you look if you look at this when they did the April 17th and May 2nd that's a lot of cars going from 3 to seven well that I mean think that's the thing about Wednesdays you get's the evening that's the to me the evening hours was the uh the knat part about having be goes in on Wednesday it's 7 I know that there are quite a few people who have like the evening hours yeah but you know but this is only showing us the evening hours but if you're looking at this that's a lot of 25 cars came through 3 to 4: p.m. and then 25 cars came through 4 to 5: p.m. 28 cars 5 to 6 19 six to seven I'm sorry you that week is vacation week so still that's still a lot of cars vacation week are not because the following week was not a vacation week 3 to 4 was 28 4 to 5 was 24 5 to 6 was 17 6 to 7 for 14 so being your vacation week really didn't impact it too much that's probably when you think about we sell about 1,300 tickets a year and say the top number at April 17th probably adds up to 100 cars so that's you know almost 10% of the users going into that hour you know right but what well what that's telling me is that there are a lot of people that want those hours when I look at that yeah so I think yeah I think putting a counter out and getting some more data especially outside these hours yes understand would be better yeah so I see three three things and three assignments I'll follow with respect to the hours so I think the first thing is we need to and we may not we won't have that answer today but one we need to figure out the best are ability what is the best powers which ties into number two as Janice and Dan brought up I think number two if we can do our own count Dan and get some more data that would help and the third thing that I I don't disagree with we've heard loud and clear is the issue of the mandatory you know overtime I will deal with that with Dan with the select board because that contract is actually up now and um with the board we got to make that we'll make that change so there's that that piece um which there has been concerned about it was done last time we need to cor correct that so I think I think if we could get some more how not to put you on the spot but to put you on the spot so how soon do you think we could set up the traffic count um probably next week or the week after is if we could get that data for the when I say now for the fall like say October we you know have another meeting with that data we have that data yeah we use that expanded data to figure out we know this is a great experiment anyhow but figure out the best our ability what would be the optimal hours and then the contract's going to come up we'll deal with the overtime piece which should be situational as opposed to mandatory was what I had you know in my notes and at least that would be I think the first step I'm not questioning the data they did but I think if we can expand that it would be helpful Yeah well yeah because they're pretty much doing only the three to seven in this and we kind of need a little bit more um and I think what Kurt said the evening hours I have heard too granted anecdotic but people do like the convenience of the evening hours if they're not weekend folks yeah it it does it especially because then it frees up your weekend you know I mean there are plenty of times when it's like I didn't go to the transportation on Wednesday now I got to do it on the weekend and we were going to do this and this and that so I think summertime too when the weekends are booked I'd like to see like on like Sundays oh it can be pretty oh yeah weekends oh yeah oh yeah it can be curiosity you can be nut honestly honestly there are things that you need to understand don't touch the shed and you better be really careful in changing those hours on a weekend oh yeah I wasn't suggesting that okay well I'm just you know let you know just and don't touch the radio for go s don't touch sorry yeah oh yeah oh yeah it just yeah touch that shed or tou sh touch that sh those shed or change those weekend hours and boy people that you've never seen before will come out of the woodwork so it we we take our transfer station very seriously and we want it the way we want it we're not going to settle for anything less so I am I am the den of the swap show Okay um that okay and then there was one other thing I was just wondering because we were talking about uh like the conditions up there for the employees and everything they are out in the in the weather all the time is there anything we I know they've got that trailer and everything but they also have to be outside I know sometimes they'll have like you know a little heater put on in the shed but is there anything we can do um to improve it a little better and and or do they want it I mean you know I don't they could be fine the way it is I think they're fine you know I talk to them and they they're fine and they R it but um obviously it would be it would be nice if there was some you know a little more comfortable scenario especially your monitoring right bags or or recycling so you know what can we do oh just throwing it out there because it just popped into my head like if there was like a little shelter or something that needed to be built something like that maybe a voice popped in my head for I'll talk to I can work with the see where they're I mean yeah they well I mean the last couple Winters have been pretty mild but you know snow or is that part of the Chann they do that they clean up the station they're responsible the station and they help PL streets that's true station's open they're working there in the streets but if it's a big event station's closed there seen okay all right I think I think that covered what I saw in the minutes that I wanted to oh so have you we been having a senior tax work off yeah so uh there's been a gentleman Keith Becker he's been going parttime on weekends and monitoring bags and Andrew said everyone loves him he do he Mak a lot of friends but he's yeah he's been up there monitoring doing his work so he's probably going to be there into the fall for another month or two till he gets all its hours cool yeah so Mr Nobody wants it right so okay um I think that was kind of my updates from the notes um so we still have a couple things we're going to look at which is good can I bring up something that has sort of occurred to me as we talked and it's actually I think going to lead into because what we're looking at is with the rate scenarios which we were going to get into next yeah right right this is my my my op is you know the per annual permit increase value increases this is I'm surprised that this didn't come up you BR and brush so in other words I mean I'm noticing especially now with ball coming up and everything folks we got we hand a lot of yard degree and brush out there right okay um and what I'm just thinking about is not everybody takes advantage of that in other words you know in other words I've got a big yard clean up I'm going to do and I was like I was actually talking to a contractor about him doing and he quoted me I'm like no I'm going to take it up to the transfer station and uh and I was realizing that boy I get that's covered in my annual permit it's a good deal and that's why a lot of people get a one- day pass okay so that's I guess that's typ of stuff okay so that we do so my where I was leading is at that are we covering that yard debris brush cost um that we're covering through the annual permit because we don't charge a bag and then if anybody's using it above and beyond they can yeah to get access you need the one day pass if you didn't have the annual pass yeah that's how it's configured so what my I'm thinking is that as we look again we'll get into this further as we start balancing annual permits going up you know raising cost annual permits versus bags is maybe I'm just because of this thing leaning more towards the annual permit because I get a lot more for my with my annual permit I get you know yard waste the recycling all included and any Cas it's just something you consider and then raising that we wouldn't have to raise bags that just just that was my thinking there just because I'm I'm thinking that we want to be careful about raising the bag pie again those bag piece they're terrible okay that may be a good segue to the next well we still haven't really I mean I know we talked about the transfer station and how it's being used in other towns but we still haven't really talked about the huge discrepancy in bag prices so um with the other towns but okay all right so all right now this is we're not making a decision tonight we're discussing this um as far as the permit so um but yeah is chair just said it's just an initial discussion no decision today we have additional meetings I I did ask Dan to just prepare a memo and that's a memo to sort of facilitate the discussion as to where we are um as of right now with things um again open for to do and discussion but maybe Dan do you want to just give a very quick highlight of the key points yeah okay so I um I updated all the data in the solid waste Fe model with FY 24 actual revenue and expenses um the amount of bags we sold last year all the variables which we used to Trend and project to fy2 um and so looking at the memo we can run through but basically we have our fy2 Solid Waste budget 569 th000 and then for revenues side from the stickers and bags we have the tax levy that's the subsidy and that's set from town meeting in April set that at 180,000 that's what's been authorized retained earnings were authorized at the town meeting 36,0 996 and then the expected revenue from a few other items so lease recycling items L is just around 30,000 so doing a um math here the revenue required from the permit stickers and you paid to throw bags is about 322,000 so then going to page two so when you plug the FY 25 numbers into the model we come out with the current rates would generate $39,375 so it's about $133,000 under what sales revenue need it's shown at the bottom of the table and down in the important notes below the reasons I see this happening compared to FY 24 our bag sale Trends were slightly down compared to previous years so I basically use an average of the past three years of bag sales large medium small and that's and that's what we used to project what we expect for FY 25 um so that lowered the revenue we'd be getting from our bag was a little bit probably 10 or 15,000 probably right around what we would need um and the number of permits sold have been pretty level in the past several years so those projections are close to level so the bag sale Trends were down um the other thing is the subsidy and retained earnings those are lower than we had last year so we don't have as much in that pot to um to to use toward our sales revenue um and then I a positive note that helped us the FY 25 Solid Waste budget is lower than FY 24 by approximately 30,000 brought it with me a few of the things so one of one of the things was the capital item came off the driveway paving and the other is our recycling commodities prices have been more favorable So based on the trends of the past few years I lower the budget um so those are the main drivers what's that to well that is true you know we I was looking at it earlier we probably used to get around 4,000 bulk around $4,000 in our bulk item Revenue but now we're getting more like 10 to 13,000 so it's it's it's not black and white because it's bulked in with our Revenue that we get put a right kind of situational too you know yeah right like how how much people are disposing items but so that's kind of where it's sitting right now I didn't do any deeper dive or any recommendations on that end um further in the memo factors impacting transfer station rates these are the same as last year just our Solid Waste Disposal costs are still pretty high recycling um disposal has been better um the Commodities markets more favorable general costs due to inflation and then what we decide for our Levy or for our subsidy um I also put in this was something that came up during the meeting the uh consultant but the private huler comparison and so I did reach out to Prime disposal and I I heard through the gra line they're like the cheapest around um so you can see in here they're about they're $50 per month for 96 gallon trash and like like weekly pick up that's 600 per year I didn't do any crazy calculations uh from the transfer station side of things if you were to be a transfer station user I just did kind of what what I mentioned before what I use in my town it's very similar it's the same bag size so I I if it was me living in there I'd be paying about 365 a year using the transfer station but obviously it depends on how many bags people use right which could average out to about $30 a month yeah but still right so and I think too that that would be like a good blurred you know coming up in the months like you know this is how much you pay for prime a month this is how much you pay for the transfer station am good Market um you know and to kind of put that a little clearer so oh I'm sorry just one other thing right before I got here I was looking for some fiscal information from other towns and this is way back in 2022 I did a comparison of air to Harvard Littleton Spencer and gron all four of those towns are using the general fund they don't use an Enterprise fund only air does but I was able to find a good breakdown of littleton's um uh uh general fund budget and their total budget for FY 24 was around $458,000 but that doesn't include indirect cost and there's no debt included in there otherwise they seem to have I haven't shown this to Barber yet but I I just found it I'll send it to you but they seem to have similar expenses to us so you know if they had those Cs and they'd probably have a very similar budget tuss around 569 th000 so you know being in the general fund where they are um everything kind of goes into the Omnibus bug when you set the rate for the stickers and bags and things it's not as cut and dry as the way we see it being the price so I think that so that kind of ties back to what do we want to do for a subsidy so long long story short it's hard to describe what their subsidy is but they're probably subsidizing more than we are if they costs if they're bag sticker B sticker prices are lower but I just want to point that out and I can share this I I just got proud of the as all right question how is money being put into the retained funds where's it coming from so rain earnings yeah it's similar to free cash it's the Enterprise funds free cash so it what we do is we budget an amount to help for a conservative budget every year if it's not used it can stre back into R right right right I understand that but at some point in time we had to say we were going to put umy amount of percentage into this Enterprise fund to create that retained earning yeah so I think when you look at the very beginning of the history when we have these large subsidies that's probably where you were having some money left over to start building your retainers back when we were doing a 500,000 $550,000 subsidy it was probably coming from the tax Lund which is I think a very normal process when you're establishing an Enterprise fund and it's um actually I did check with the go on that and it is it is normal to fund you know for the beginning of an Enterprise fund to have it funded from the tax yeah yeah but that's I don't not found I don't think you're answering my question oh at least not to where I can understand we have an Enterprise fund doesn't matter what Enterprise fund somewhere along the line we as a town said this is a percentage of whatever that we're going to put into this fund this fund and this fund okay so if I gave you $5 how much of that $5 are you putting into Solid Waste Enterprise so I don't know exactly how they planned it back when they started well that's what I'm that's what I'm asking does is that does that need to be fixed and and maybe maybe we're maybe I'm not being clear maybe I'm not understanding I'm I'm starting to get confuse myself now if if if you have $5 that that's how much the town's brought in and you've got to now DIY it up between all your funds there is a percentage in there so so much percentage would go into solid waste so much percentage would go into water so much perent would go into sewer so if the percentage is 0.5 should it be 6 so I'm not sure if I know how to answer that I I can say what we try to do is budget our expenses and our revenues conservatively so that hopefully there's more Revenue than expenses and that left over is what goes into your at the end of the if you have um at the very beginning when you're establishing the Enterprise fund there was probably a estimated budget done for the first few years and they probably raised that on the tax okay um based on educated um information on costs all right okay I think okay I think I'm back that again I think so okay yeah yeah sometimes you get lost it can be yeah and we have for the Enterprise for the Sol for the transportation F yeah so for fiscal 23 is what we use to budet fiscal 25 every take earnings was 8,9 we don't have fisal 24s yet we're just in the process and I can tell you we budgeted fiscal 24 to use $45,000 of the retain earnings and we did not have I what was the amount you just said the retained earnings balance right for FY 23 yep 8,091 that would have been what we used for budgeting fiscal 25 and we're talking about using 36,000 for from the retained earnings of that 134 you just mentioned so the 128,000 is is is that number is going to change WE Post fisal 24 and my estimation my current estimates are that it will come back over 132,000 plus um based on current estimated numbers well what I'm saying is if we have enough in retained earnings can we use more of retained earnings so we could can we use like 50,000 of retained earnings we could which would help bring back down a little bit of the revenue from the permit and then if we did a full one % of the tax levy um so we did that making it to 189 622 that would bring down the revenue required from permit sticker stickers and pay as you go grow to 312 and then if you up the retained earnings a little bit to I'm just throwing out numbers here okay to 50 that you know was approximately another 13,000 that could bring it down to 299 just I get what you're saying to use more offset the budget do we have you know in the policy for this Solid Waste is there a go theice water so I know in water and sewer we have yeah because I know we do that a lot with water and sewer there have been times when we've not had a rate increase for water because we used the retain ear so sewer we're not able to do that yet we're getting there few more years few more years so I don't know if we can change these numbers tax levy andain 25 right the town meeting already appropriate that but I I we were speaking Yeah we were as the committee look to the Future budgets I can't way we've done it this no mean need a set for now you can't go above 180,000 can't do any more than we raise it are we did we re oh we did it like a year or so ago the the town meeting voted to fund the uh Solid Waste budget with 180,000 of subsidy and 3696 of rain was warrant Artic yeah that was approved you're saying but I know we talked about it and we did increase it a little bit a year or two ago after town meeting so now I'm confused I don't know if it was after town meeting well yeah because this when we start talking about transfit station w because we talked about the the Le the the retained earnings and the tax levy and everything yeah I don't I don't think we went above like 19879 was up 24 subsidy I remember thinking we can go up to that number do we want to go up to that number so for future years thinking more from fisal 26 as we budget process to look at re changer the year coming up the year coming because yeah and that's kind of like what do we want the committee what's the committee want the subsidy to be do we want it to subsidize more so that we bring down those back prices I think that's still kind of the question we need to answer I mean right now I think we're dealing with with this and with what we got we the 322,000 I don't we can't any higher retainer right fiscal 25 I I bed I was thinking for fiscal 26 if we were went for a future we could choose to yeah increase those things when we how do we set those numbers nowadays there like a Le have a set which how much we're going to subsidize the how much we're yeah so there some which formula plug in and we estimate the remainder of the year's Revenue based on like you do for the past three to five years we going to be and we're competing with the town is competing budget with other budgets like School especially last year I'm with cost's a build in different expenses and then project out expenses to try to the indirect costs as well okay but I think it'd be it'll be interesting if I could kind of get a number how much yeah in here try to get a number out of it just to summarize something so one things as we're just doing this discussion here I think yeah I think we're on the same page it's like we are two things the town is um subsidizing the transfer station so in other words right has been for and um and again the question is how do we keep so there's that and then we're also using we can use retained earnings towards that um and that's what sort of what your let's look at more of that angle and then the last thing is that we get the rest of the money from the actual fees permits bags what you pay as you go what have you and I think part of the takeaway is that we want to keep that as low as possible um the one thing I was thinking about is as far as the subsidy and I'm sort of hearing is between the lines is that I just made some notes Here the subsidy is a I I feel is a good thing that the town subsidizes the transfer station um you know it's nice you know um sewer water we don't subsidize they pay completely they you go and we do a minimal subsidy for the ambulance um and what I'm just seeing as far as if justifying that is 40% of the town people use transfer station so that's a good reason for that um these are just some quick talking points is why the town subsidizing transfer station is a good thing is that 40% of the Town uses it so it's a popular Town thing to have um one thing that I've always realized is there's less private contractor traffic we didn't have any transfer station like we have enough garbage trucks going through town there would have to be if if we didn't have the transfer station and we had a townwide thing there would be probably one contractor yeah this and half the town would be complaining because it wasn't the contractor that they PID but you know even this keeps private contractor down traffic down so it's a good thing there obviously the recycling thing and then you know when I first talked about the yard debris and brush it's like GE we getting enough money for that I was just thinking that's a good thing because it keeps the town nice looking people keep their yards clean hey I got a place I can put this um keeps it KN and I was just thinking with mosquitoes and everything Eastern e one people keeping their yards clean in need is a valuable thing to have from a health perspective so and then the biggest one is that it's cheaper so any case I just thought you know it's worth the town subsidizing that and when we subsidize it it keeps your bag rates and the other rates down you keep them low real quick I just add all these other towns I mentioned they're all in the general part I'm sure they're subsidizing to a certain level it's hard for us it's easy to see how much it is we're taking it from General Enterprise yeah well all the cost what we're including the the indirect costs there putting them somewhere else in their budget yeah right yeah yeah and I I just just I like the fact that we have the Enterprise funds because it is I'm able to look real quickly and say Hey you know again sewer and water we pay our way ambulance we pretty much pay their way except for a little bit and then you know we pay a little bit more for transportation but all the pluses to me that way it's a good thing I guess my takeway is that you know you know we may not have to because when I was first looking that is like I was think again I was like boy we should definitely increase the regular permit um what do we at now 10 105 for regular 60 for C 30 for day if we did not increase anything we'd have like at least if I'm counting right the $133,000 short ball yeah we would and this is all modeled so even if say we just didn't do anything didn't increase anything maybe it turns out we didn't need 322 we only need 39 but then I also could turn we go for Reserve fund transfer to cover that in R here you know so but yeah 13 Grand is what we would look to get out of the permits and bags $13,000 question why don't we look at using more of retained earnings for the future I mean if you're telling me I'm just going to use numbers for my example that I have 12 20,000 in retained earnings why can't I use 50 instead of the 36 to to help with the out of-pocket expenses it's just that for a res we didn't talk we we kind we don't know the number we should have in there but the slush fund for emergency type of deal I guess is why you want to what emergency so if the loader were to break tomorrow and we in a new loader I guess you know what let's be honest if the broke tomorrow you'd be in front of the select board going we need money we need money right now because there wouldn't be enough right I mean it's not like the water in sure we have significant infrastructure the infrastructure up there have the build I'm just saying you know it would be an additional 14,000 but I think that is a question you still have least based on the numbers I just used 80,000 and like said we don't have our fiscal 24 returned earnings yet so as we go into budget for fisal 26 that could be decision we could make to I mean I think it's something we should look at I think it's something we should look at because you know we're we're asking the resident to pay more and more and more because we're doing the whole you know well in case it rains I and the state has shown us that it could pour and they don't care so you know um we can look at it we could also like you mentioned increase how much we subsidize as well for fiscal 26 I don't think we'll have to well going forward but it's just I follow the existing model what's the official name of the SL there not a it's retain it's it's retain earnings okay but this is this is the amount of money that we keep in balance that just grows each year it's like a saving yeah the savings got okay what I think that's what I was asking what was the balance up in that for fiscal 23 year end which is what we the number we used when we budgeted fiscal 25 the balance was 8191 earnings actually grow each year so it actually decreased from FAL 22 to 23 um which is why in 24 increased the subsidy a little bit how did you increase oh never mind never mind never mind mind mind budget no I I was hearing something else corrected myself kind working with data behind to budget own so we don't have the results of the retain ears yet 20 too early I just don't know how sustainable it is too you can just keep drawing out of it drawing out of it drawing out of it and it's just well that that's that's the question whether it is sustainable use more that would be the decision well I think that it should be T I think it should be done maybe once in a while I mean we're pretty much doing the same amount as far as the um retained earnings every year and all I'm saying is that maybe you know once we could go a little higher but to let me ask you this okay we we decided everything we're going to use re chain earnings we've taken a little bit out of that and your front loader dies and you need more money you come in front of the board in the thcom to say hey we need so much money from a reserve fund transfer what account would you be asking for from that from so the reserve account that we have for the general budget is for the general another in don't know what just happened here but it's me I don't know what just so you're telling me there's not enough money and retained earnings you're going to come to the board to ask for more money so you pay for front loader in your were're taking the money out of retain wasn't enough in the operating wow when you come in to take more money to appropriate additional in your operating budget you're taking okay that's where I just went into a parallel un like wow so that I think that was the way I worded the question I think so that one where were okay okay all right so if we did change if we didn't increase anything worst case scenario we'd have to do a reserve fund trans which I'm not saying I I I want to do I'm just wondering yeah yeah as the model and we're thinking that maybe now in I don't my two sense it's just my two I don't think we want to do anything with the bank we already have a challenge with the B I think we want to try I mean I know we're not making a decision at this meeting but I think for sort of a homework assignment for the next meeting one we could look at a couple of scenarios with with the subsidy and the retain earnings um so back up so the status quo all things being equal if we did nothing for the sake of discussion it' be about $133,000 short formal S as a which if we came into a 13 $1,000 shortfall scenario all things being equal as a reserve fund or whatever and it would come from that retained ear right um because we're only going to use 37,000 I rounded up from retained earnings yeah and we have a shortfall and you come in to do a res Reserve fund transfer see I get way too the weeds and it gets me myself confused you're going to take the money out of the retainer because you have because we've already authorized how much taken out of retainer right I wa right so what I myself so what I think we should do for the next meeting is one have what I'm going to call Roberts worth a status quo scenario so all things being equal based on Dan nowal there'd be a $133,000 short follow PR if we did not that you know that would be just a continuation of last year then the second option and there may be a couple of scenarios for this is okay what if we did something with the returned retained earnings you know so we don't have to increase on the perer bag side so we'll call it the retain earnings scenario the third one would be the subsidy scenario we'll call it in other words with the subsidy piece and then the fourth scenario would be if you raised the permits slash the bags and just Robert's two cents or three cents I think we should stay away at a minimum from the bags that's just and when was the last time we raised the permit roughly and I'm not advocating that for today too but that would be two years ago yeah so scenario one is the status quo which we sort of have from Dan in other words if we do nothing is about $133,000 short scenario two is between Dan and barber looking at what could we do with the retained earnings to mitigate that scenario three the subsidy and then the fourth scenario would be what we'll call a rate recommendation um we should obviously just look at that it's just a recommendation and my contribution to that is stay away from the bags well this fifth option of decreasing the bag prices and increasing the permit oh yeah I threw that in there bot oh yeah all right that be number six would you have to decrease by a dollar the bags you'd have to increase the permit by I'm assuming that's 25 the regular yeah regular seniori yeah and what's the five single day one day pass yeah yeah Ian we're g to put everything just on the table for the sake of this when do the solar lease come up for I have to look 20 year probably another what at least 12 years or so it's get something from the recycling committee what's recycling items SL Linens so that's the the um yellow bins there that accept clothing and they pay us rent to put those yeah we get paid yeah yeah okay and those actually probably they don't generate a lot but now since the textile ban by n maybe getting more out of but it's not very really another thing we could we could add but it may cause a seismic shift is swap shed admission Fe Jam years ago I came up with an idea that you could have another entrance to the swap so people can get to the swap on non public days yep so what if we in terms of for the next meeting why don't we look at the why don't we get those what I'll call those six scenarios on a piece of paper as they say and flesh them out further for the committee to look at and then we have some homework assignments from the first part of the meeting on the study few you need I'll all right I'm going to ask the question that I let's see how well you do with this dancer this year when did you look to go in front of the board to talk about this and then put the permits on for sale um ideally we get them out for sale in November so then we're ahead before the holidays we start selling so we're not jammed operation you're not going for the October this time okay remember they tried to go to October okay I think last year we what middle of November yeah yeah and that worked well that would be a good so so let's say then uh so the board meets in November their last meeting would that month would be November 19th and the first meeting would normally be the the fifth but let's put the caveat as the presidential election so the board will but let's just say that's right the board will have to pick a different data just for the sake of argument so would you want to be trying for that first meeting or that second meeting and then you could basically have everything up for sale right away yeah so yeah what that sounds good November 19 or the first one I preferably the first no okay probably should start put that on yeah put that for discussion by the board um so that being said when do we want to meet next you guys want meet Cas today is the November 10th September Tuesday do you guys want to meet on the 24th two weeks or um it doesn't happen on a Tuesday just we tend to do it on a Tuesday or do you want to push it out till like sept uh October 1st yeah that would be better October 1 going on okay we have a sting no I know you can just checking I'm fine so October 1st at 4 okay and we'll have what we'll call the detail for the six scenarios and we'll organize it so it's clear six the six potential scenarios for discussion and then I'll go I've got the list here of the followup on on the study which I think is mostly all right going forward we can't call it a s we can't call it retained that's it the only verbage we're going to use all right that it make a motion for adjournment I'll make a motion to adjourn one second all in favor CH say I thank you very much