it is 7 o'clock I like to open the meeting and uh first thing we always do is read the agenda at 7 we have a community input and I'm going to remind everybody about the rules again one minute limit um you have to identify yourself with your address if you haven't identified yourself beforehand before the meeting um appointments and resignations 7:15 uh we will have transfer station action committee at 7:45 budget discussion 9:15 unspent Bond proceeds reappropriation vote a 9:20 a TA report 9:35 minutes and warrants 9:40 Leon reports 9:45 Cemetery deeds and at 9:50 another session Community input so is there anybody in the room that wants to offer Community input no uh anybody online I don't think I see any I don't know who that person is on the left yeah hi Kate this is John lavry hi John hi I have comments but I sorry my camera's messed up well we all got your email and we got your latest one as well and that has been circulated to the board and it will be put um um didn't coming time for the to be put included in the packet but it will be included in the minutes okay I think the way you told me this works is that during the public common section of the the budget you would ask people that if they wanted to speak yes I will do that as well okay I'm out of here then I mean I'm I'll shut up back later okay see you later um can we get the volume of that oh okay thank you I don't know we don't have anybody talking now so I can talk if you want to for a second is that okay no well it's I think the problem uh John is on our and okay you want me to do like a one two three test the the people on Zoom are faint when they speak in the in the zoom hi David hello okay we're going to move along to appointments just don't like you John would you like me to make a motion that that is not a public statement yes strike that from the minutes okay yes I I value his input we are at uh our 705 appointments and resignations portion of our agenda and Barney has offered to make the motions I would make a motion to move uh to appoint Billy Joe Kelly guess we're not doing street address at the moment as a member of the youth commission term to end June 30th 2026 how um okay so normally we did do that and that would be in the normally we have that as it is stone lane sorry just streets and it and 148 Greystone Lane okay Greystone and it's so Billy Joe Kelly 148 Greystone Lane as a member of the youth commission a term to end June 30th 2026 want me to make the second one as well sure and move to appoint Brook McIntosh of 303 Russell Street thank you 303 Rutland Street Russ Russell Russ Russell sorry Russell Street as a member of the youth commission with a term to end June 30th 2026 second okay I believe is there there was a thing from um Peggy that she actually checked checks checks that so maybe we don't need to have those anymore in our motions I'm just spe probably confir straighten out that Kink but that's fine okay um I there was a motion a second any comments questions all right all those in favor I right that was unanimous thank you 715 boy we're moving Trucking here um transfer station action committee well come on down ran could you bring up the slides yes Jack it's we are a few minutes early few minutes early and I we thought other people were joining us I I actually know of one person who said told me at least he was going to come at 7: um let us do uh some Cemetery Deeds then sorry no problem it's all right you can you on you don't have to move Cemetery Deeds um is there an a motion to transfer land in the public burial ground of the Green Cemetery um described as deed 817 lot d45 Graves 1 2 and 3 to Karen James rumore who was a former resident so moved there a second second um all those in favor I okay I'm going to pass these down for Signature does anybody need a pen or shall I pass a pen with it good I got the you have a pen and I'll get usually it's Nathan that needs one so you might have to pass your pen in that's fine okay um thank you you're welcome minutes maybe we could do one of them at least one of the minutes we'll do the minutes [Music] sure do the um that go more than one I'm Sor February 26th and March 12th you want to do them separately yes because uh February 26th there was redo yeah okay oh no that was the land use Summit and then in there's a third set of minutes too which isn't on the motion but right yeah so I can move that the select board um approve the meeting minutes as presented or amended for February 26 2024 which was the land use Summit is there a second second were there any amends no all those in favor I I that was unanimous and I can I'll move that we approve the select board meeting minutes for March 12th 2024 is that the second set or the first set that's the second one in the packet and then we had a third set that came out afternoon yeah separately or yesterday morning I can't remember when they on that you had fixed you had okay so so this is for the March 12 12 I guess that would have been our last meeting yeah our last meeting so Barney you just made the motion I just made the motion yep David did you second that I did I can I'll second okay these are for signing so I do have a comment on that one oh you did okay H March 12th yeah okay it's I think it's fine regret and does a great job it's just it's a little when the Mike hanour thing it's like all this string of stuff and I'll meet you for lunch it's like a lot of stuff in there wait you're doing it for lunch is that what you said no I mean in the minutes is like a whole string of email stuff right email for lunch and I think make it smaller like just to the thing he wants to say cuz H well I know but we have been um including written comments in the minutes maybe it should be not included like that it should be appended at the end I me it's a whole string of stuff it's like you took the whole email and the whole thing but really the thing he wants to say is up IOP we'll have Lun together yeah we'll do that it's like those back and forth instead of doing the whole email right so what we can ask richen to do is to just say see you know attachment that that well do you feel like we in that case not this one particularly but that if somebody sent because the thing about email is you got like all this history yeah do we feel the need in complete reporting to always put the entire thing even when we know what they really mean is the most recent interchange because people sloppily don't cut off right they we all do it I do it to too lazy you just reply all and then it's got everything H you know as a practice could we take that editorial privilege or do you feel we need to if they have it in the whole string we got to the whole string I think it would really boil down to what is the content of that whole string right I mean if it's just so we might have coffee yeah and then who makes the determination a good question I mean I don't have a position I'm just pointing out that you lose the threat of what he's trying to say because there's so much stuff in there yeah I totally get what you're saying yeah it's just hard to figure out where where where do we draw the line I I have another Point relative to that or related to that on the zba we used to always take comment prior to the the meetings and if there's written comment it went into our packages or whatever and I actually think that's a really good practice because then you know if a person can't speak or whatever and you could have a cut off time you could say within 48 hours or whatever up to that point we we published or we put those in our packages so that we all see them and the public sees them too um rather than just putting them in the minutes afterwards isn't that what we do like well we haven't been I'm thinking of you know and specifically there's one that came out this week with John LA lavry and you know putting stuff like that in I think is helpful because it ensures that everyone John wrote a specific to an issue to an issue or a set of issues actually and then Ryan said he may not show up he's actually here but despite our attempts to mute him that's a joke John it's a joke John and um I lost the train so I thought in your note you said I'm going to put it in its entirety into the packet right into the minutes into the minutes so it would show up as okay in the is it in the packet can the public see it or only when the minutes come out only when the minutes come out so it's kind of after the fact I just like it because I want to make sure that everyone on the select board and everyone in the public who's interested in our packet sees what the public when would you like to see them when the minutes come out or know when the packet comes out but anything Friday I mean you have a cut off I agree anything that should go in the packet and maybe it's its own section just like public comment or whatever well also though anything that we discuss or is presented here tonight or in any meeting whether it was in the packet or not needs to be attached to exactly a minute okay so in this case I mean I don't really care it's just stylistically it actually works to their detriment or Mike's detriment because there's extra noise in there that's not really relevant so I don't care but maybe Kate's compromises the best that these things should be appended it also sounds like we're in agreement that if we could have them uh in time to go out in the packet that they that would be a good thing as well they go out the com yeah anybody that sent any information in but he actually didn't right produced if we're going if we're going to discuss it then I think it should go in the packet right but if somebody this is the case where we've just discussed it so well now it's in so now now we have to I think if somebody just emails us something before it doesn't necessarily have to no sorry I meant relevant to the agenda it's something that related to the agenda yeah something we're going if we're going to discuss what is sent then it should go in the package okay so I'm hearing so there's there's different type of correspondents you receive so there's a lot of people who want to get on the agenda there's a lot of people have something to tell you and there's some people that want to do public input the public input like I want this to be part of the record is is rare and usually comes to you during the meeting right so we're trying to balance sending it to you it just there's nothing wrong with putting it in the package just I'm not sure that was the intent of the people who sent it necessarily A lot of the times they're just trying to get on the agenda for something and we send that to you and say hey is this something so there's I mean there's kind of three different things right yeah somebody in public comment raises their hand and says I want to speak and they speak that's or that's yeah in the transcript and and does Gretchen transcribe those in the written yeah but I'm trying to limit how long people can speak people used to come and read lengthy right um yeah no you're right things and I said well okay you can write your lengthy thing give me a bullet point that's case two case two is like Mike gave us a statement or right he didn't read it into the record so if you're listening to the recording of this meeting or partici you don't know what he did right that gets entered or pended into the minutes and we're saying maybe it shouldn't be in the body the minutes maybe it should be an addend I think it should be an aend so that's good then the third thing is not to take his name in vain but the John Lavery case where he says ahead of time yes I might not be there here's what I want to be said I guess you treat that sort of like the second one right yes it goes into an appendix and so and so said there's a final case which is rare I think where somebody does send something ahead of time and you the chair decide that that actually is something we want to take up in the meeting it's usually we wouldn't do that we would take it up in a subsequent meeting where then it would need to be part of the packet is that a fair summary or I would send it as part of the packet for discussion as to whether we want to put that on a future agenda I think that would be more the case right okay so I think in the case of this so we can leave this one go it doesn't matter but in the future that sounds like a good practice I hope you listen all right not to interrupt but um Aubrey's joined us she's back hey we up Baby Aubrey welcome back thing a little bit of time to get him hold on oh I can't put him on camera right now he's uh decided he doesn't like to join the meeting right now okay I feel that [Music] way start him young get him used to these night meetings okay all right well thank you for Kate for taking the time to talk about that all right so we can I'm done with my com you're done with your comments all those in favor of approving those minutes you I am fine with it yeah I am I all right and we'll take the minutes of oh he's abstaining Iain you obain okay uh we'll take your last that last set um later later okay so minutes minus one okay person who and welcome station push back up Ryan [Music] yeah and we there just do today and go to the second slide so we're here today to talk about three things um we started a dialogue couple about a month ago actually on the Black Earth subsidy and so we'd like to conclude that and see if we can determine a subsidy for fy4 for um and then more importantly tonight is to talk about transfer station recommendation for immediate enforcement uh strict enforcement very soon and then more broadly talk about a change to the transportation regulations and procedures uh hopefully to take effect by July 1 so if you go to the next slide uh Ryan on Black Earth I've tried to simplify this I'm basically focusing on fy2 24 uh we have enough money in Tac budget and donation from ESC to do um 60 something clients and we'd like to do 125 we've only got three months left in this fiscal year so um setting that at 125 as being a practical limit and what we can really accomplish which requires 20 a subsidy of 2,196 in this fiscal year and that's what we're asking for um go ahead how many have done it so far uh we really haven't started the big first campaign is the ESC event in April 27th there were 20 folks who'd signed up previously who they were going to carry forward if they still live in town some many do and so that you we may have 20 there but you know they sounded it a couple years ago so they may may not want to continue to sign up but our big event is the Su stainability today we're going to have two tables one in on the town common as part of the event going to also have a table at transfer station because a lot more folks go there so we're going to try and really uh hone in on that on that day and that's when we really get a handle on how easy your heart is going to be so uh if we get 125 folks this fiscal year that should save us $4,000 in FY 25 and more than pay for any subsidy next year year um and likewise if we got like half the folks next year in the first half we should save money in the second half so really next year there shouldn't be an incremental expense um it's just a question of cash flow if you will um but this year we got to start up and that's you know practically we're not going to get 125 clients in three months we wouldn't think and if we do then we can we'll deal with that that would be a good problem to have um so that's really what we're asking last time we got cut off there were some questions outstanding so really it's a question if you folks have any questions you'd like to ask us about it so just be certain it's $36 one time it's a one time fee that's right so there is money you have the money for 24 already right uh no we have money for 64 residents between us and ESC oh so you're asking for extra money in 24 $2,196 and it may not be needed that's I know where does that come from it would come from your expense line what's my expense line select War's expense line hey we didn't know it okay and then 25 you say we could delay till June but isn't it the now time to budget for it yeah the the issue for 25 in my mind is the really it's not going to increase it's not going to result in a budgetary expense it's an accounting issue we don't have a line which we can take money out and put it in so revolver basically so what Ryan wanted to originally was he wanted to have a one and a half year experiment so he wanted to kind of Finance the first year and a half and see what happens and then back D their budget you know I I don't think we need to have that I really don't but so so the uh FY 25 uh request which is 6300 that's what we would need if but see if we don't get 125 we would need if what we want to get another if we got 125 this year and we want toal 24 correct and by by July 1 and we want to get 175 Target next year that's what we need addition to the 125 that's right that's what we need to cover that if if we were to continue to offer the subsidy correct but we could choose not to offer the sub the subsid is in the worst case we don't offer the subsid next year and it's a it's an encouragement to go ahead and get signed up if you want to get the subsidy starting FY 25 because what does Black Earth need what are they saying they need to go ahead 50 50 yeah okay so it's a little bit of a chicken or egg yes because we need to budget now for fy2 so we don't have the opportunity to know how well it's going to work except not really because if we get those 125 customers now we're going to save $4,000 approximately in the fy2 budget because those folks will all be on stream July 1 and $30 a client roughly say savings per year if we get if we do Target 175 folks let's say we get half in the get them uniformly literally throughout the year you're going to get the ones who sign up in July you're going to get 11 months of savings so practically speaking if we get these 300 people DPW is going to receive you they're going to gain funds not lose funds the issue is we don't have a mechanism for accounting for that right now they save because less Solid Waste yeah exactly you're taking I mean if you got 175 people you're taking you know 70 tons out of solid waste that's I me real money and that's every year by the way so it's not saving next year but okay so again I'm kind of all right so we could out of our budget we could give you 2,000 bucks and you could go off and try to do it and the message is to everybody sign up now and you get the subsidy wait till June 1 you don't know you don't know or July one rather and then for the budgeting purpose of 25 you're saying it's sort of cost neutral so I think tell we actually see a reduction in the costs right or and or if they offer the subsidy I I guess I that's right if we we could choose not to off the subsidy we're in budgeting now to your point so I don't know what do we do I'm okay with 24 we got the money great but I I don't understand the action requests for 25 well there's really no action request on our part for 25 we're just asking for 24 yeah okay I'm just flagging that there's a potential but I think it can handle ask for money right and um just so clarify for me um and so without the subsidy what is it that a resident would pay to sign up with black Earth say starting in July well they don't pay they don't pay anything up front they get a reduced monthly fee for six months so they would pay $20 a month instead of 14 per month pay a monthly for the first six months $36 gotta but so somebody's signing up July 1 if we if we if the town wasn't subsidizing anything they would be $20 a month right $20 a month instead of 14 that's right over six mon unless there's a if you know if we really are successful get you get way more than 50 people a couple hundred now their rates begin to creep down got it so got it okay I mean I'm comfortable going ahead with the 2100 for FY 24 um I just want to be clear that we're we're not taking action we're not agreeing to anything for FY 25 by right this that needs to memorialized yeah the only way I think that we could take care of that would be if we decided to do it it's got to come out of the existing DPW budget but I mean there's no guarantee that we're actually saving that much money we may get more people in town I mean Ryan what what impact would it have on the DPW budget if we were to say the the FY 25 6300 if if it were were needed if if we weren't um reducing the cost um faster than we were paying out the subsidy or what would the impact be on the DPW budget they could they could overrun a line uh especially on the transportation side but um for the risk of 6,000 for given the size of our budget I think it's worth trying I think this is the type of so you would put a line item for the subsidy or you would just assume it take them at their word and say it's so there's there are some variables in the DPW budget whether they need vehicle repairs how much snow and ice comes so we can reserve 6,000 just in case and then if we have to make a decision between repairs and this then we we would go to the fincom and beg essentially but um I agree that this is this is a best case scenario if we get two to 300 people to sign up and to use the transfer station less I I do think it would be cost neutral and it's worth trying worst case we're down 6,000 and we don't do it again in FY 26 yeah but it's we need to reduce costs for waste no I I agree with all that I'm just I'm hearing two different mechanisms one is you could just without data we just take take them at their word reduce whatever the Tipping fee or whatever we pay for solid waste by 6,000 create a line item for this for 6,000 that's a budget neutral the risk is they overrun them tipping fee category and they got to pull money from somewhere or you could have this catchall reserve and park it in that and make a trade right is that the two different things no I mean the mechanism is is fairly simple okay as long as we don't overrun it by six grand the major thing is we are not increasing their budget by 6300 and we're not finding it elsewhere but but that decision as to whether or not we would even want the sub would happen later okay we could still decide we're not doing it we're not doing the 6300 so there's no DPW budget issue right at all we may not have that many people right yeah when when is the when are the Tipping fees renegotiated that was quite a while ago is that a a year thing or five Bo that was I don't know but I okay I'll get back to you on there all right so do we need a motion on this it's not going to be good we probably do right yeah okay some care to make a motion to authorize um the expenditure of are you just you need 24 two different things right 2196 so I move that the uh we approve the um request for FY 24 U for $2,196 to support the Black Earth subsidy there second you know you to know to to transfer from the select boards account we don't need to need to say that no we don't no we haven't usually second so into submission yeah so um I guess I'm going to make my statement after we vote because I don't want it to be Associated I don't want it to seem like I'm associating it with what the transfer station is doing but I'd like to make a statement after this okay uh any further discussion all those in favor I that was unanimous okay so um I I think this is good um what I want to make sure though is that kind of in the future um we know like throughout the year what all the Committees are wanting to do we know what their priorities are and everything so that we're not doing something like this just before budget in a year because it it really does get get to the thing that we always talk about which is whatever comes up gets gets the funding whereas other people with good ideas may have not even brought it up um so I think I think we just need to be really really careful about doing these in the future and and making sure that it's it is baked into the budget right so that well I mean that's just I agree with that and that's that's sort of a segue to the 25 request right in other words they're saying well maybe maybe not we're saying okay if we agree with it let's put it in you never have you don't have to spend what you put in but you should put in what you think you might spend right right yeah and and or there's a process you know there's a a really well-known process through which people make these requests that leverages it against other priorities that we may have had so that we're not just spending $2100 right that maybe we would have decided some other way of spending that money right okay okay great Point all right do we need a motion for the fy2 we're not because we're not doing anything we aren't okay okay okay the the next two topics are kind of address as an overview together um last year we had an interesting year um overall it was a good year we had 1590 tons down again from the prior year however we mentioning that midy year uh things flipped all of 2022 and half of 2023 we were dropping 12 15 Tons a month versus the prior Year all of a sudden July one had flipped and went the other way we're increasing 125 tons a month and we scratch our heads of what why was that happening and we came up with some theories which proved out not to be true a very wet summer making the waste heavier um waning of the transfer station action committee event the October before none of those fit the data and I don't know how we missed it but it it was very obvious what happened last May June Carrie Davis retired and uh the enforcement environment also changed after that the three people most associated with enforcement which were Gary who was at Transportation a lot Chris Serene and Tom are all gone now and uh the trans the enforcement in Prior years would I would describe as uneven and by that I mean it didn't treat all residents equally and that's wrong and for example I mean I'm sure I have a rental car and I drive in there they know me they're going to let me dump without a sticker um some other resident they they might recognize and may not let do that and those things used to happen uh I chatt with Ryan about uh you know what's because we now are pretty convinced that it's a changing the enforcement environment the other thing that's happened is Gretchen now is doing the stickers she is doing a fantastic job with that and a much more thorough job than has ever been done and has uncovered all sorts of unique situations like kimbles and West business requesting a sticker on their on their on their car and believe it or not some of these things used to be granted so um looking at all that we're now convinced that that increases the enforcement environment and therefore um some some shortcomings in the regulations are pointed out which we' like to erect but those are going to take some time to do coupled with some operating procedure changes and we feel a need to address enforcement immediately so what's happened already is um uh the transport station as of uh March 16th started notifying residents of strict enforcement is coming April 2nd and uh so they've been stopping every car that does not have a current sticker telling them you got to get one in the next two weeks and by the way they normally do that um every year because this is current policy what they don't normally do after that is then start strict enforcement and we're Tac has voted that we would like support to start strict enforcement in the following way a two-e grace period so come April 2nd if somebody still shows up without a sticker once more the DPW attendant will go to them and say hey we're now into the strict enforce period we're going to give you two more weeks until April 16th but then we're really going to not allow you to to dump and and uh and and so there we on April 16th you no sticker no access if I show up a tack member no sticker no access you're going to get rejected so Washi so that so we're looking for select board support for that and then if that happens Ryan and Jim will enforce that um in the longer term The Selective enforcement if you will enabled us to address a bunch of problems for example suppose you have a rental car and and you know you had body work and your car's in the shop for a month you should be you know if you're a sticker resident you ought to be able to dump your trash greton has uncovered some circumstances where a disabled person uses a caretaker to take their trash uh in they get vetted through the council and aging so there's a bunch of special circumstances not anticipated by the regulation which were handled by The Selective enforcement so we've come up with a a placard system in the longer thing where basically a temporary one month placard be issued for someone with a rental car a temporary a 3-month temporary for caretaker these would also be vetted to a process through town hall so to handle those exceptions which were handled informally before but inequitably where some residents would get them and some would not so what we're looking for tonight is two things one uh to support the concept of strict enforcement which may produce some pain I mean typically um there has been conflict on the at the transportation periodically sometimes involving the police usually having to do with someone not having a sticker uh but you know now there'll be an issue there so that's that's what we're looking for in the short term because you know you may start to hear complaints about that we think if if we don't do this we're talking about 15 12 15 Tons a month until we do solve the problem and roughly it cost a $2,000 a month to the town um so that's the strict enforcement thing if you go to the next slide Ryan so um yeah so that's kind of I just kind of walked through that let's go to the next one all right so in terms of the transfer station before we talk about the strict enforcement in the short term let's talk about the longer range plan um basically there there's several elements to it um one is to modify the transtion regulation to handle all these special cases so there is a copy of the new proposed regulation which has green and red things and you notice that the major addition to it is at the end which has Provisions for uh rental cars temporary PL rate if you will a caretaker for a disabled person a financial hardship situation and then a catch all if there's other special circumstances arise we haven't contemplated where we could do that the basic idea is that the issue issuer of stickers the regular issuer would not handle special cases they would just buy and sell stickers part of this is we proposing that be given back to police dispatch and so we'll talk about why that is the case in a minute but basically if if it's anything other than a regular sticker from an identified resident it would go to the town hall designated employee which currently is greten to adjudicate and hand out you know one of these placards or something um in terms of implementing this there are several gaing items we've already begun the P public education because the DPW staff is out there doing it we've had article in lit than mosquito City in the woods so that's already begun um we obviously need to get the regulation approved by the select board because doesn't take effect until we do um we do have an inum placard solution which I I got to go through with Gretch and I've BR it off Ryan have Tac vote on it in April 3D but we have a solution for that which is solve these special cases the one thing that cannot be put in place very quickly is the police dispatch Brian Ryan said basically he thinks July 1 is the earliest that police could pick that up and that's really important because if you're turning someone away Saturday morning they can't go to town hall and get a sticker and so they're not going to be happy about that but you know they've had two a half months to get it so you know it's but uh you know if the police are doing it then they could you could just send them down to police station a mile away get your sticker and all is good so the sooner we can get that the sooner the better it is in in that regard so in terms of the other aspects of the general regulation um Gran pointed out for example in the very first sentence we had to WR intended and so when when she was had a commercial user come up with wanting a sticker um she felt she could not not give it to him because the word intended is not was not strong enough you know I mean the intended implies we'd like you to behave like this but it just like we intend you don't get the red light but if you do you know that's not the language so anyway intended is gone that's the first change we made um we very specifically said no Comm there's a a line simple one sentence eliminating no commercial waste is acceptable um go ahead so I want to ask you about that so what about like ferns in town and they have commercial waste how do they then dis well they don't use us right now anyway what happens now commercially is again it's an uneven situation most of the commercial entities do not put their send their ways to the transportation they use commercial things as our regulation currently calls them to do but a few have gone away with it a few a few do a few do and I'm not going to mention them here but and that's wrong I mean either we do or we don't and and right now we do for some and not for others and historically I don't I know how that's happened but that's that's been the history so a business in town would need to haul it have it in use commercial yeah so I mean ferns kimbles Insurance technology these folks vast majority of them have their own services that they pay for for commercial waste and and that's so we're just clarifying that that's always been the intent but now now I want to make it clear that that's just to dive into that a little bit further I can see why some of the the larger commercial some of the larger commercial commercial entities may use trash holders and or you know like that but some smaller ones who may have property who are praying paying property tax and buy a sticker um you know because we're not talking about like the construction like construction debris or things like that we're talking about like bringing trash bags no we're talking it's it's all of it there are there are commercial construction companies in town who basically are bringing commercial trash to the transfer station right so I can see making a distinction about like construction debris and things like that but um you know the Rollins Insurance Agency can't you know has to do a holler or I'm just trying to think of other you know small commercial in we we try we tried to come up with a line of what was okay to do and it's a very slippery slope we we could not Define that um a line which was which which you know which clarified as to who could do what and when so I mean we certainly could attempt to do that but we we couldn't come up with that so it's a very slippery slope uhuh um now you know historically um there are very small businesses who primarily produce paper and cardboard and typically the town is made makes money still makes money on cardwood lose a little on paper about Break Even so you know that kind of you incidental activity no one's going to enforce that but um if a commercial business produces goods in that in that in that process gener Ates trash that's really commercial trash I mean that's not how are you going to how are you going to determine that I I was thinking some of the local you know contractors in town and if they pull in and they say I'm a resident dayare Center and and here's my my boards and stuff I just was working on my house no system is perfect I mean obviously you put you're putting stuff in in op bags so folks folks are not supposed to it's illegal to put recyclables in the trash yet we know you know 10% 20% going in there so one you know without inspection which we're not proposing we do it's not not cost effective you're not going to enforce everything it's a question of having rules where you can you know start there's always an honor System aspect I mean the fact you don't throw aluminum cans and glass bottles is an honor System use it a p bag and you get away with it no no one's going to inspect that and by the way the state doesn't expect you to inspect that the state understands that that's part of the game ultimately they do inspect our trash going into the you know on a random basis going into the incinerator and there you can get rejected we've never been rejected for excess recyclables in the trash we've been rejected for radiation is cost you know if we're trying to reduce cost we're trying to you know reduce the amount of waste going in yeah I think the the emphasis and and I think it's clear in the regulation the emphasis is on the transfer station is for residential trash right okay as opposed to Commercial and they're not going to make any effort you know they're not trying to make it hard for folks but it's there's some obviously commercial activity right now which is yes the problem yeah the end of that first sentence says it right it's the use of Carlile residence for trash and recycling which originates in residences located in carile due to normal household that's the current regulation that's the current regulation that's what I'm saying that's and by the way almost every town local town has that that word yeah okay so in terms of most of the changes are relatively small we added firearms and boats to to forbid material because one person bought a whole boat in last summer so that added in um two tons wow um and it was you know Jim said it's not on the list I couldn't say no so uh and the other thing we did is we put a limit of two stickers per residents and where they can apply for more reason is somebody requested eight and they got eight I have five for the price of one it's again the the key there is that if if you want more than two you're going to have to go to greten and explain it and then you know some people have a third child with a car you know whatever they want to do as long as it's not commercial yeah so yeah so I mean so I I do have five that's fine probably own too many cars but um that's fine I've got kids that have the car and it's registered in my name and I want them to be able to go to the there are about I got the numbers there's about um about half the town has one sticker about another 35% has two stickers and about 25 to 30 folks have three or more stickers it's fairly small but you know again if they're for non-commercial purposes they'll be able to get one from gr how do we know like like I mean it's just more money right you know if it's if it's just another sticker for the same household so what what's going to happen is you're going to go to I'll give you an example a res a resident went to Gretchen who asked for a lot of stickers and she talked to them about that what they wanted for was clear to her that in her mind this was not about having a couple of kids you want a g stickers it was other other than that and so she's going to make a determination that you if it's if you just have a couple more cars but it's still residential use and it's you're not increasing the kind of trash you're bring to trash she'll do it but if if she says I again I I could through all sorts of exceptions she's found out but there's there's all special cases but uh okay so if it's for residential household trash You' be fine okay so it's not really a limit of two stickers it's you can get two stickers you can get more than two you can get two without anything right you can get more than two if you talk to Gretchen right that's right what we're trying to do is we're trying to set a regulation which makes it easy for Gretchen and the DPW to do that which is normal and then when there are special cases to handle to to restrict that to handling Gretchen not the police dispatch because there has been an issue historically with how stickers have been issued and there there's been serious problems there and so we need to separate out the issuance of an easy sticker from a special case requires more handling okay so then I just think it we need to have that whole exception process in here in the process it is yeah it's the the last the this if we go to the identific the sticker section well no there's there we could there's four exceptions at the very end of the document they're all put together four four paragraphs there's um uh Autos a disabled auto the disability of a person there's the financial hardship and then the other catchall category is the one that would cover the stickers and things like that and there may be a few other cases of that nature okay but it specifically says a third sticker um I'm just thinking if if somebody didn't feel that they couldn't tell somebody they couldn't come in with commercial because of the word intent if this you know if this is only three then somebody whoever is doing this says no you can only have one extra one where are you seeing only three sentence last paragraph May request issuance of a sticker issuance of additional stickers may be requested rather than a third going a sticker I see just add additional stickers add additional stickers okay yeah that's the intention of that yeah that's the maybe that's I think that's a pretty good change yeah that's fine I think that's good yeah okay I would say having listened to 1,200 of these being purchased in the last three months the exceptions that you're trying to rule out with this policy are glaringly obvious and I think a lot of people when they're looking at this policy picture the way they go to the transfer station that's not the person that's going to be is is not going to be hemmed up in this process it's not strict enforcement on people who use it it's it's people who are who who are costing the town thousands of dollars because they have multiple stickers um and and that needs to stop yeah but it's not the resident who has uh their college student coming home that we looking to say no you can't have that on your that's not what we're doing it's it's um very difficult to enforce once the stickers are given at the at the transfer station to say this is commercial trash versus not even though the employees know that that there are hundreds of dollars worth of dumping going on that that they can't stop so if the intent of the transfer station is to allow anyone to dump anything then the more you make it the the easier that is if it's to allow residents to do what they need to do then tight actually helps most residents yeah and I'm I'm totally supportive of that as long as we're not precluding the exceptions from being made yeah I mean our intent here is we've tried we' tried to identify the exceptions we're aware of I'm sure we've missed some you know you know we happen to be aware of the disability one because Gretchen had a case where someone came in with a caretaker you know two weeks ago and and handle it I mean she made an excellent decision in that process did it and we've added in here I'm sure there some other special cases we haven't considered and and you know those will that's dealt with fourth clause and if it's if it's a broad enough case we may come back and add want to add a paragraph there well the nice thing is this policies we can change it right yeah okay we're um five minutes over time um I do have one question though and that is about Massachusetts state law prohibits recyclable items from being disposed of in household waste what are the consequences if you do I mean that that's just a restatement put a restatement of law but that's I mean the consequences typically right now there are no consequences the only consequences are to the town if as a result of Resident Behavior we had a load rejected at the incinerator then there's consequences we're going to have to take that load back here dump it on the floor and fix it so and it's a real we have never had that all right and the only other thing is um down to the uh in the second section transfer station identification identification sticker you do say bumper driver side but in the first paragraph it says it has to be permanently a fixed to the front bumper but you don't say where and I I think it would be a repeating there say on the front bumper on the driver's side okay so that people don't have to look you know because if they only read that part they might put it on the other side and I was actually going to suggest one change to that language here based upon our thought is that next year we we might see if we could move to a window sticker to get away from the placard thing potentially and so what I was going to suggest we add to that is or um an alternative display that's acceptable to the you know to the DPW because that may change otherwise we'll have to re revise this next year and that's not a problem not a big deal but I think that's I think I think that that would be fine because I know that some people don't want to put the sticker on their bumper and they want it so they put it up on their window right well what's already happened for the in strict enforcement um when Jim uh started the enforcement process last a couple weeks ago he flagged that he said this is going to be a real problem if we don't let folks do it because some have already taking their stickers and fix it to a pla card and can't put it in their bumper so what we agreed in the meanwhile was that we would uh support you know a placard either their placard or our placard in the strict enforcement phase but we don't want to put that in regulation because that's something we do want encourage that okay but you'd like to make that uh addition you just mentioned to this current proposed set of regulations okay I mean you is that I'm proposing yeah proposing what I hear and are are we voting on this tonight or we this is yeah I great good yeah so the so your amendment is um whereever it says uh must have an identification sticker fixed to the front bumper that first sentence under transfer station ID sticker right you would put uh a phrase in there that says or or display in an alternate manner as defined by the DBW yeah okay okay and that's that is covered under our motion here so if somebody would like to make that motion I just wanted to say so the strict enforcement um I me know until very recently you know at the beginning of the year around March the police actually used to be out at the end and you know I can remember more than one year when I'd drive up there and I'd go whoop and I'd turn around I go I go to the police station and the nice thing is that you I could buy it right at the police station um but so that that strict enforcement shouldn't be new to people who have been around for a little while but what's going to be bad is the police station because now you have all your stuff in the car and you can't just ZIP down to Station that's why the soon soon as we get the police involved the better but you know it's it is what it is okay so I'm happy to or somebody else want to make the motion which should did you have something okay go uh I move that we uh accept the transfer station regulations and policies amendments as presented uh and in the packet with the uh additional Amendment as suggested by Tom Bala you want me to do yeah that's it okay great is there a second second further discussion all those in favor I all right and we've already done the thank you thank you everyone thank you okay great and so we do have your support for the strict enforcement you just want to make sure that yes okay great excellent thanks much okay let go 25 budget discussion so fincom you come and open your meeting everyone hi hi hi there another riveting meeting yes um so I just want to go ahead and open your meeting I would like to open the meeting for uh the finance committee if we could have a roll call of people in attendance starting with those on the phone please uh leang here Bernstein here kacho here Linsky here meeting is open okay um I just want to notify everybody that this is a public input session which we're hold holding Joy so that um when we get to various places I'll be asking for public input as well okay perfect all right want's to start to get back to the do you want to you want Brian or Lynn to start us off um the budget as we discussed in the last meeting would you want to bring that up or do you want okay I can just kind of give you some highlights from the conversation that we had this week um there were three items uh to note uh that have come back from our last meeting and the first one was around um which I probably most of you have seen it was a memo from the Board of Health um requesting that um they were having difficulty in reducing the budg as we had recommended however there was a um it was a I want to say Revelation but they do have an additional 7K in hauling fees that they had that would go into their revolving funding fee 5 to six ly five to six five to six okay sorry 5 to 6,000 of it's called a hauling fee is that correct yeah there was several identified fees yeah and they're not fees that have any direct expense related to them so the um so that we had two options one is to either take it directly out of the revolving fund that money would go into the revolving fund and come out anyway or just put that full five to six into the general fund and then just have them have their makeup for their overrun from those fees so from our perspective From thom's perspective we recommend that that's what we do that money goes into general fund and apply their overrun and whatever the additional f monies that are available will just go against the operating budget so that was item number one uh does that sorry l so if we do it that way then they come in at the 3% or well they overrun the 3% but net to the town it's it's a net that's right yep that's exactly right I'm sorry so that does then bring them i' love let me help the actual operating budget will be the one they originally submitted requested okay right so it's it's higher than the three than what we what we wanted but they're going to give money back it's going to be Revenue it'll be Revenue so it has the same effect okay overall gotta and will we track that year over year so they we already receiving this Revenue they're just giving you it back but the Baseline sets higher and so next year maybe that's where Nathan's going y next year that means peanuts but next year say it's another Year we're expecting that same amount of money back no not necessarily exactly let's say next year they come in at three let's say next year we do the same thing everybody's got to be three they come in at three no give backs but they've set the Baseline somewhat higher yeah right so there's no way to claw that back I mean that's that's there well unless we track it well well but 3% $5,000 is sort of in the noise so yeah 3% of 5,000 right 15 so right I and you're thinking this is a good way to go no it's 5000 what was you're thinking on B well the rationale was you didn't if they were reluctant which I'm not quite sure but if they were reluctant to take that money out of their evolving fund that would have an impact on the operating budget and it didn't make sense where we have funds available that we can tap into why would we increase our operating budget would ultimately impacts the tax so that was really um I have some other thoughts that I will share with you around the revolving funds and how this impacts the operting budget going forward that I'd like you to all consider for the future and for the future as well um the next one is uh COA and um the COA um had felt like they had underprojected their budget a bit and um wanted to change it however we're recommending that we keep the budget as is if they end up having it's this small overrun it could be around 3,000 I think so um it was a it was money that I had identified as a potential for cuts not that they're an underrun so I think they're going to come in 3,000 less less than what they projected so last year you increased the council and aging driving wages by $1,000 um I I don't think they'll hit that and I made the point to fincon that there are four gift accounts that could backfill in case that did go over four COA gift accounts correct yes so we're just recommending to hold what they've projected up which will be a little obviously less than what we they had anticipating and again you know worst case scenario there's a couple options here one they have several gift accounts that can tap into it's not a lot of money and two which we've had in the past if we needed to make a transfer we would deal with that but there is there is money we can so there's no need to so their budget as submitted is in line I would suggest cutting it by 3,000 for the driver's wages what do you cut then the the transportation driver Wages that's what we're talking about I see and and you're saying yes that's what the fin com thinks we should do cut that Transportation line okay Grand we feel pretty comfortable like Ryan said we should be able to meet that easily and if not if there is that overrun they go is plenty of resources gotta to make that so we're not going to cut service if this is a problem okay but the little blurb here in the narrative says we do not have confirmation from cahs that they can offset the 3K is that what does that mean they haven't identified it or they don't think they can do it it means I was asked to identify places in the budget this is a place um right but they themselves don't is this guided discovery of us to them like to teach them how to do it or do they truly not know whether they have I haven't discussed it with them I didn't know if this was something that you would support well let's say we support it but then there's some educ my commentary after this bringing the exact point up okay all right um and sorry just so at the end of all this we're going to you produced a budget that change is reflected that reduction is in that little budget that's at the end yes okay all right thank you got it the third piece is as we all know is the uh conquered con Carl High School right so I'm happy to say I think everybody's kind of followed the progress here we've made some really good strides we're very aligned with them they're great to work with the board as well we all uh this is really a beginning I think this is a beginning of the way we should be doing this moving forward um we've we've had several disc discussions with conquered and with um with the school as well they have come back with which I'm assuming all of you have seen that memo that outlines why they cannot dig any deeper into their pockets um they're taking a huge chunk out of end money and they don't they're not comfortable taking that so we feel that it is just prudent to have one more conversation with them um we're shooting for next Tuesday to do a virtual with them to dig a lot a little deeper into asking a few more questions so where we are with the budget right now is we have not made any reductions so the assumption is with the with the budget correct me wrong that we're going to look at that there is no more reductions in that budget until we see what happens on Tuesday I don't have high expectations but I think it's prudent to do that we need to press the issue I think it's our responsibility that is the second highest budget for the town and we need to be asking more questions we need to be digging a little deeper and so this is really kind of the beginning um so that's where we're at on the on the high school but okay a couple different things so this has really nothing to do with the amenities building that's sort of a Sear this is operating all right so you say we're at the beginning of the process but we're actually at the end of the process in terms of the fiscal well when I say beginning of the process David I mean the relationship okay this is the first year multi-year this so you're okay I think this is a we have just started the momentum this is just the beginning I think there's a lot of there's a lot of traction in aligning ourselves but are we aligning ourselves with the regional school committee the regional Administration the conquered fincom or all of the above or what who are we ideally in Nirvana all of the above but I think they themselves or not I mean correct coming out of the gate I'm what I saw this year was there was a lot of alignment between fincom and a lot of alignment between the select board in conquered in conquered okay right but against the wishes of the regional right so that's although I have to say that with with us coming on board I have seen a little more uh attitude of reconciliation I they do it's not that they don't want they you're talking about is they need school school committee and the administration and the administration so the the school committee and the administration are more or less aligned right absolutely I was like here right well not totally they weren't on the amenity building school committee and the school administration work pretty closely yeah you didn't mean the town Administration I didn't say the town Administration no I was thinking the school side line up it's like here the school side pretty much lines up and then we pretty much line up and then we have some kind of negotiation so that's probably parallel down there you're saying we're sort of lining up with the town side select for in because I I mean I think that's personally I think that's the way to do it because it's very hard having served in those committees at the region it's pretty hard for the minority member to get much leverage on the school side I historically historically but you know in retrospect I mean this is my last year and I I feel very I feel like um we really lost a lot of time I think that if we had gotten into this much earlier there is strength and numbers and even you know we're not you know we are still almost we're in 8,000 we're $8 million of that budget so we have a say and we should be able to ask the questions and if we don't agree we don't we don't necessarily have to go along with it and I think that's really important I think we have to be present we have to be there and we have to show solidarity to really move this forward and conquered although they're a bigger town they are faced with the exact same issues we're faced with they haven't put any money in their infrastructure they're looking at much larger expenditures than we are in terms of facilities they are in the same boat we are but on a much larger scale right but I you know I agree with everything you're saying I'm just want to be clear the leverage comes through the town of conquered the town of conquered faces the same budgetary pressures that all the small communities come off face we talk about it all the time the school and I don't I I love the schools and the school committees and I think they have a fine educational product but they don't have to collect the tax bill right so the the the pain point is not quite they everybody recognizes Phil philosophically that you have to be budgetary conscious and everybody tries but at the end of the day if the teachers say raise their hand and say we need X the school committees committees including our tend to say yeah okay I agree you need X it's for us and our counterparts in conquer to say wait a minute that's great but there's a trade like if you do that we have to say no to the next dump truck or something right we the ones that have to make that trade so I agree with you I think that the way we because you said something we don't actually legally have that much leverage on the operating budget despite the fact they were 8 million that's so sad so if we're going to get advocacy it's through that pressure point of the that their Town saying No this is too much and you know from my own experience that goes back to 20089 10 where we were really in Dire Straits it was a tough call because we were in a tougher situation than conquered was and they kind of listened to us but sort of but I think if we're all in the same situation now it's it I agree with you it's a much stronger play and that is the right way to do it and so great I mean I think uh yeah I mean I'm I really think I mean Kate was really a big proponent of it and they were thrilled I mean fin the fincom and slip board were thrilled we were part of it like they couldn't be more welcome so it's really a good start to that's very good good to hear okay anyway so you didn't mention the fourth thing though which is our own schools because they've also made a trade right yes yes and that was really that and that's the other piece of this too is that everybody really has stepped up to the plate and you know our school has really made a great effort they really sharpened their pen pencils and they really did a good job I have to say I really commend them and they really worked very well Victor is the liaison worked tirelessly with him and they really wanted to make it happen um not Victor Victor I was gonna say sorry sorry Victor the other the other Victor um they really wanted to you know make it work without compromising any services so I really have to commend J and St yeah and their school committee and just so that people are clear yes it's a somewhat parallel situation to uh Board of Health fund well in that they're making a reduction they're giving through the school lunch fund taking out some benefits so their their budget line over line may not show the full you know reduction but to the town coffers in net down to the 3% because thanks to Ryan who identified it we're utilizing an underspent school lunch fund to fund some of the benefits of the school lunch workers so that's a town pickup right is that I say that right yeah just at the beginning of these conversations but this is something as a committee we really hope that you will take under very serious advisement and that is the concept that we have in this town of several and I'm going to call them they're not all called this but I'm going to call it revolving funds and we're not picking on any departments at all but the reality is many departments have this money the these are fun these are these are accounts that just keep growing and growing and growing they are they are not what they're supposed to be meaning money in and money out some of them have very large sums of money at the end of the at the end of the fiscal year they're not being utilized and what's happening is because that money is not tapped at all we are looking at the operating budgets and we're increasing monies and yeah you could say that some of these might at the end of the day have 5,000 here and 6,000 there but when you add that up that could translate to one one and a half% of taxpayer increases and at the end of the day this money is not Department money this money is the town money and it belongs to the taxpayers and I strongly I think you can probably tell I'm strongly against having these funds for a few reasons one is it we are not H we don't have full transparency of all the money that the town has number one number two we don't also have full transparency to all the operating budgets because what's happening sometimes in some cases are people are using that money to supplement their own budgets but are they isn't it more the opposite case that they're not using them we're trying to push them to use them right for the most part they're not but in some cases they are they are using it they might be to increase hours for somebody whatever the case may be there are some accounts where money is being used and leveraged for that the other piece of this too is that when they have access to funds like that they are making decisions that may not be aligned with the town so for example if somebody has a very large amount of money they may make a unilateral decision to purchase something Capital which is not priority so it really is deluding our ability to fully manage the town finances so I'll stop there but this is something that's always been something I have never supported first day coming in go ahead because I well I was just going to ask so what what would be the appropriate change if we wanted to um not have this situation going forward so the appropriate change would be and this is not the case for every every single fund Ryan has more knowledge than I do but for the ones that it is applicable to that money would just go into the general fund at the end of the fiscal year you mean when it's whatever is there goes into the well that's one way to do it we there's a couple of ways to slice this right one is you could cap if you wanted to keep the revolving funds you could cap it so they only have so much at the end of the year the other option is that you completely abolish those and the money goes right into the general fund usage for the town the the reason why we have those fees is to recoup the cost of managing the process right that's the concept so so if we're not doing that so I mean would it make sense to have it but account for it and it it is what pays for the operating budget for that department and therefore we can set those fees based upon how much it's actually costing us great Point that's exactly right Nathan because what that does is it pushes the envelope and gives transparency there have been some I know that there are some departments where fees just haven't even been touched for years and that's exactly what it brings out is the transparency of if you're using an outside service but you've got an offset fee you're able to calibrate that and say wait a minute we need to increase these fees you know for the money is there but I guess it might be a Ryan question is there a statutory imperative that you you have to create a revolver like a 53 and a half or can we let's say reccom I mean they get you know Camp fees and then they pay counselors like my kids so could we statutorily say No Holly put all the camp fees all the expenses into your operating budget and by the way all the checks go to town of Carl and it's just extra revenue for us or do you have to create this little revolver of course the answer depends um Department to department but in most cases there isn't a statutory requirement there is not so the planning board for example they take in fees and permits in order to engage with developers and contractors so we hold the money in escrow in order to protect the town in the board of Health's case they are taking in funds um and then paying our contracted engineers in order in order to do I yeah so you don't have to contract engineer you could have your own engineer you could no I right but you don't I mean what I'm asking is you don't have to create a separate fund you could as long as you're tracking you can track internally right you don't need a fund to track right right yeah it would seem to me like the transparency is important and I think that you know so I completely agree with you it's just how how we implement it if we have the fees coming in that's not money that throughout the year that department can choose to spend in a particular way it shouldn't be that's money that we use to offset the cost of that that department and if the fees outweigh the cost of the department then we're charging too much if it's not enough then it doesn't necessarily mean we increase the fee um but you know that's one way to try to offset that but if we just take all the money and we put it into the general fund and we don't account at all for where it came from and what it's cting us for each of those departments I think it's we're you know number one is going to we're going to the transparency but we're also not going to learn anything but you don't have you can account for it you don't need a whole fund to do that you just do items on I'm not suggesting nobody's suggesting to just take the money and not account for it right right yeah it's not like it's when we say go into the general fund it gets earmarked just like an expenditure right if the Board of Health has an expenditure in concom we know where those expenditures are coming from the same thing Revenue so it's almost like separate pnls right but what I'm suggesting is that that revenue for that use is directly offsetting in the operating budget for that department at budget time right that's the analysis you run but I think you said it correctly and so did Lynn it's like a little p&l cost center so Board of Health or Board of Health says you know it's costing me this much and by the way I'm generating this much revenue so the net cost of the town is X you track all that at the end of the year you say well gee you didn't collect your true cost related to that were less than what you collected you need to adjust your fees or the other way and okay fine but but there's never a case where we don't having collected the fees we cover the cost regardless I mean we can change it each year but we don't we don't say to some guy who put in $1,000 for something sorry it costs more we need more from you he paid his fee so he gets it so I agree with you and then that would eliminate this little extra gate right and it would allow us more flexibility so as long as there's not a statutory thing I think that's a great idea I also don't think we necessarily have to collect all the cost of a department in fees because it is also a service offers right I think I'm not saying it has to be neutral we to your point we may make a you know decision that we say again I'll use summer camp that we don't want to charge the residents the full cost of summer camp we subsidize it effect right like we don't charge residents the full cost of the transfer station exactly exactly right that's a good example so the the council and aging transportation is a is a great case study in this and um in no way am I suggesting that that's not a great service that we provide or that we should cut our it's just an example so we pay an assessment to L Regional L Regional gives us basically that that money back in order to to operate so we ran out of those funds in January so then the town starts to pay for for those transportation services which is the 19,000 that you increased in wages plus the transportation manager so we take on 30 40% of those fees um the the other side of it is we we don't charge for that service and I'm not saying we should but you can and a lot of people offset with fees those costs there's also a transportation gift account and then um other funds that people pay into in order to provide senior services so there is many ways to pay for senior transportation and many policy decisions in that um the town has chosen to just completely subsidize it without well there is a $20 donation for for certain services but those services are are decided by the town and the only control over it is the budget process right but you brought up another good point which is when you get to gift accounts yeah you can't tell if I want to write a check to cohs to pay for the van you don't I don't want that getting thrown into the pot of paying for the big salaries of the select board right so I think so my only my only this is my recommendation to the town is that those gift accounts be used as back stops so if you budget tighter Y and take more risk on and you overrun then you have those accounts to make sure the service runs and then you can adjust your budget instead of just accumulating money in that account you use it as a way to pencil right so I think that's a fair point and that's kind of where you're going with everything is say hey departments look at all these balance sheet surpluses you have if I mean that's what we talked about over the last few months right if you're going to I mean there's a lot of ways to do it but the way we sort of adopted here this year was the thing is 3% if you want to spend more than 3% please come back with a plan to use yes other sources of money to get to close G which they kind of did right so the net is so that this is great I'm glad that the conversation started this a lot of work for that but I think this is really going to be I don't want to say Game Changer but I think this is going to be significant in terms of just the whole budgeting process and the complete transparency of the upbring budget y so the net of everything that we've discussed today Ryan keeping honest here landed it around 31 yeah so just so you can visualize it the you've seen this before but these are all of the the cuts that people made um the the recommendation was from this board in the fincom to get to 3% or to look at accounts where there are revolving or other sources of revenue that you could tap um so there are a few departments here that were under that 3% but had money to give back and we talked to them about it and and they did so the um the revenue this is the school lunch account they're giving back to the uh health insurance so we reduced that that budget or increased the revenue however you want to look at it transfer station which has I don't think you took that vote tonight that tonight they increased um did Nas offer that up in there recommending it's not a proposal yet about the sticker fee is it going to yeah but wouldn't be affected till January 25 anyway right we it would be a half a year is it a sorry for the div verion but is that a select board boat or me so that is a potential vote that has been discussed by the tsac and then the um the other cuts which I know are not Insel but you've seen them before uh here is the Board of Health they were asked to find 5,000 they end up giving 6,000 back and found Revenue that showed up and then this was the Council on Aging discussion so total that is 23 37,000 is in cuts which brings the deficit to around 30,000 which is a number you've heard before so that we were hoping that would be coming from the high school because if they brought their overall budget down to the 3% that conquered asked for it would be about 25,000 coming to us so these bottom tabs all of those uh changes were made in the department level which translated to this budget request which is 3.07% increase here you'll see the 6,000 for Board of Health so we took that out of expense and put it in Revenue uh put transfer stick or Revenue in there too in here yep for half a year so that's the 20,000 increase there correct that's half year for like half year starting January of 25 yes well that's that's increasing it from what to what and house one state a is deci yeah the we have a number we have a number I've heard Target 25 to 45 house one state a is higher than you originally no much lower lower lower so that's not good but that's a real number from the governor's budget that could go up or down depending on how the budget goes in fact the um Regional School in their memo stated that they lost Revenue what really happened was they projected Revenue high and state came in lower and then that created the deficit so 84,000 they didn't lose money they just overprojected it so the so we're at 3.1 here in the is that right 3.1 3.1 is the end of where do we think like Capital items and everything would come in that's in addition to this 3.1 right so the I can show you that so Capital would not affect the tax rate if you use the the free cash plan so you would be using excess reserves for Capital so that would be would that be able to be continued in future years or next year would we have to cover what we had offset this year so the idea is that the revenues are projected and the expenses are projected in a way to generate around 500,000 in free cash which would be above and beyond your 12% um and then anything excess of that would also be used to offset capital so you have been generating around 500,000 a year uh pretty consistently the more you cut into your budget and the more you over project your revenues the smaller that P gets it's all connected as you're pointing out yeah so the capital plan articles assuming that each one of these is to your liking would be 650 for capital in the Departments uh this fire engine debt would be authorized but would not hit the operating budget for probably a couple years given the the backlog and then the MFC article which is a capital article under the mfc's control is 510,000 you have 74,500 in warrant article requests in the current warrant was bog house repairs that high thought no it's bog and house repairs oh bog and house repairs yes so the trade there was the 12,000 you saw come out of the kcom budget went into that article but it's 10 grand or something for the house right that was what we talked about so yeah is that is that right what's in that 10,000 is 10,000 and the remainder is for kcom maintenance correct yeah so the um operating budget has 100,000 free cash the capital plan is 1.1 million you saw the 745 in warrant articles for a total use of 1.28 five million which um puts you at 12.83% Reserve to operating budget which gives you an an additional 300,000 to what I'm recommending put in capital stabilization for either future Capital to offset any needs or to offset the cost of any future buildings that might be authorized or not and that's just again we've had this conversation that's sort of contrary to Lynn's philosophy so we're creating a little pool of money that's not General dedicated pool but you like it because it has a purpose well everything has a purpose SCH so I don't so I don't think that's true so there are revolving accounts where we say it is perfectly fine that you have 50,000 here what is your plan for it and there are some who can describe a plan and there's some who cannot it doesn't mean there's not a purpose they just haven't articulated the purpose well that's the definition of a purpose theosophy is put everything in the big bucket it's just a piggy bank just have line item tracking in the 21st century we don't want to everything speak for the fincom but there has been talks about using reserves offset future tax impact and they believe the best way to do that is to decrease the cost of the big Capital that's coming by creating this fund by Saving this money for that purpose SM it out over the future makes total sense yeah uh okay so not included in this figure this 300,000 is is whatever is left from the MFC articles which would be somewhere between 0 and 200,000 by the end of the year closer to 200,000 and Zer meaning unspent unspent and um the the unspent bond proceeds that we've been discussing is about 200,000 so you have somewhere between zero and 400,000 that will be added to this that will go to this one that will go to free cash oh go to free cash so this would be an excess of your reserve Target assuming next year you'd have another chance that would make that number better higher yeah yes so to answer your question shortterm 2 to three years I do not see a problem funding our Capital plan and with some fiscal discipline I think that extends 5 to 10 years but big ifs though but if you were to is this a town meaning vote to create this stabilization you already have it you just have zero dollars in it right so do we but you said if we had to vote tomorrow and we said we want to put 300,000 000 into it we have a vote then 300,000 goes in if suddenly we liberate these other unspent funds that would be a next year vote to put more of it in right correct yes so if if everyone maths right and everything falls into place which never happens you would generate somewhere between 3 to 500,000 and then you'd have this 2 to 400,000 and that would become your your Capital uh fund for next year I like it as you keep going on you started at 0 to 400 now you're at two to 400 let's keep talking trying to be realistic not unell but not oversell but the close out of those unspent funds you you did you determine that the project is either over or never got done they are over so normally anyway that rolls into doesn't it normally anyway roll back into the so you'll love you'll love statute but by Statute if you um appropriate for bonding purposes and don't spend it you the only way to do that is to un to undo it so you have to do it at town meeting so it's not like a capital article that you're done and it just rolls into free cash you have to you have to physically do it which is why the auditor said you should and Kelly's been working on it so you physically do it but you don't necessarily have to I think I agree with it's a good idea but if you decided you had money for a building and it's done you don't have to put that Surplus to another building you could use it for or something once you have that vote you can do anything with it kind of you have to use it for debt and it has to be of similar life you do have to use it for debt okay all right so you can't go to free cash anyway you couldn't anyway you can well if Cynthia is kind to me launder it through the legal channels which is to pay down long-term debt which is completely legal check debt two councils and then you'll see in the capital article it'll say appropriate from free cash x amount and 100 1,000 to be reappropriated from unspent bonds and that will wash into free cash okay got it What's the timing of the unlevering of the you or the unwinding of those 2 to 400 or Z to 400 so there is no time but the auditor said it's very I mean is it between now and time meeting or something you already did half of it okay and then in your last meeting and then U the the one the 101 has to be a town meeting so it'll be a town meeting okay this is a lot of really good work yeah we're just the backup singers right team effort it was yeah it was a really good team so do we vot a when do we vote a final budget then or first of all um we're going to invite some public input on this presentation okay before we uh discuss further so public input J no public input over here online John did you have some questions you wanted to ask this is your chance this is this is yes your moment me John lavry or some other John you yeah the John lavry uh I have three um but I'm not sure that they might be in the warrant as opposed to in this part but I'll just uh I'll start off with the a question about the police building I um have been following that as best I can through what's published and sat in on the last meeting you guys have put a $3 million cap on the cost of that renovation it's in the warrant at $3 million uh but as I said in my note to you guys sitting on the meeting and just doing some simple math it looks like they're round only8 or $900,000 over that $3 million Mark and they're just getting started okay well we don't hav had a present respond to that or I should just go on and make the other two John we haven't had a presentation from that committee so I'm we're not going to uh comment on that but thanks for that input we'll certainly look into okay are they presenting are they presenting tonight no yeah I didn't know because there's no budget numbers available um it is in their in their charge to update you um as soon as possible right when they start running into cost overruns right so I'm I just letting you know next uh I wanted to raise that flag as early as possible uh should I go on to the other two or I don't know if anybody else just Nathan had a problem question yeah so when when would they be presenting to us because if if they're if in my opinion if they're going over 3 million and they're or or if they're at 3 million they're changing the nature of what was already in it that's a hard stop for me as because that was very clear Direction um you know so it it would be a real shame if if it so close to town meeting that we we couldn't do anything or we had to spend more money in order to get what we wanted in order to get it by town meeting so I think if they're varying from the 3 million um we should know that right away I think we need to invite them soon to find that out or unless you have some were't they given pretty clear instructions so they they have not predicted that this is over 3 million this is John's math which John is good at math but um they they have not identified 800,000 more in new costs this is not a thing we kind of set them up say you have to make trades to stay in cap right but you have to stay in the cab yeah right and you can't make trades that substantially alter what we're expecting from the $3 million right it's not like they could say well we're not going to have a sell right okay so we should just put that on for up update soon yeah okay all right the other two issues John what did you have for us uh for the fire department I I when I first read that article I thought the decision on a new fire engine was three years off because that's when we're going to get it um if we order it now and so I I thought we had time to discuss that but it's not really right you're going to have to make that decision now um and it's kind of caught up also in the police station renovation and I mean sorry the fire station renovation and what we want from our fire department as a whole so uhoh running out of I'm running out of juice so I did talk to Brian at length he was great in responding to my questions and where I've come down on this request for the uh new engine is yeah I'm a supporter um we need it and we're not going to save any money and it might even cost us more if we wait on ordering it oh so that's a fromo yeah that leaves a lot of discussion open on uh the police station I mean the fire station building Remodel and the charge if you will for the fire department as a whole some of that I included in my note in the questions and a lot of that Brian has responded to and we do have that on our agenda for a couple of weeks from yes y okay what's on the agenda tow review scope for the fire department yeah okay was that two and three the last one is the B house the B house I can't get off that easy German do I go are you ready for that one too yeah yeah yes can't hear you all right I'm just going to go ahead you cut me off uh so I first brought this to your attention a year ago almost to the day and roughly the same kind of meeting where I just in the public comment section I said we have a problem here and we really need to get our hands around it and um uh uh solve it and the problem being the legal issues at the CR at the cranberry Bo specific specifically the B house so some things happen but that was never resolved and you know I just add I work through a lot of records for the B house it's really clear to me there are as many regulations violated there by having it occupied as there are regulatory bodies in town they've broken them all and on top of that uh as has pointed out several times now it's in violation of the conservation law in Massachusetts to have anybody living in that building and he got that from Town Council and so now you have Ryan and me mainly me shouting it know it's illegal to have people living in that building I don't really care what happens five years now I don't care what the fiveyear plan is or the 10year plan or the two-year plan you have a legal problem right now and I think the only question you should be asking is how do we fix that you shouldn't be talking about funding you shouldn't be talking about doing more repairs you shouldn't be talking about any of that stuff you should be talking how to fix the legal problem and I shouldn't have to say anything more on that topic and I'm not tonight except Mr Mell I'm going to make you a promise I'm not going to come back before the select board unless I'm invited or someone tells me it's I need to to talk about the bog house again this is it I'm done okay thank you you welcome all right any other any other input okay so we still have some more things on this uh agenda item we have have uh reviewing of the ballot questions unless you and the warrant uh in some budget so the um David asked when do we approve the budget so the remaining questions are is 3.11% close enough to Target to approve uh the fincom did I won't speak for them because they're right there but did say that that's close enough for them um correct so that's a question can I ask a clarifying question so is the 3.11 includes the effect of the reduction of benefits that the school takes from its pot and these other little pots it's all in that so the 3.11 is a real all-in number then yes it's an it's an estimate as I've caveat it a few times but that is our best estimate based on this year's tax rate yeah and Does it include any unknowns about that we may still have about health insurance it does not ah the 1% thing right we have to oh yeah I mean it does include some some other items on this list that that could change it so uh we talked about the high school we talked about Board of Health we talked about Council and aging um just to make sure that that you understand the 55,000 that's in the long-term debt we're recommending that that transfers to the maintenance line in order to fund um onetime things so uh admin support which is currently funded by the MFC Warren article and then a back stop for any of the MFC articles in large Capital so it's in the budget it's being held so that we can continue to borrow at the rate we're borrowing and plan but there is no dedicated borrow for that 55,000 this year I am recommending that if you cut it it'll go away forever and you won't get it back so instead of cutting it move it to solve Capital issues uh for one year until the borrowing for the fire truck or other items begin and then you can roll it back in that way so I know it's a little bit of a shell game but um so what does that mean for the fiscal 25 it means nothing except I want you to know about it being transparent well okay but I still don't understand it so we're not spending it you will be but for one time things so it's not going to increase our base it's not okay promise I just kidding kind of and and the Gap is so the Gap if we really wanted to get to a number that starts with a two the Gap is 30 Kish right yes yeah and the health insurance 1% is 14K that's in and the cola that's 2.25 is in in okay okay okay so then um there's a health insurance conversation and a cola conversation so I would like to show you something that was requested of me so I while you're doing that so what's currently in the budget is a 1% increase in the employer contribution but only for existing employees not the retirees they have already been taken out of this we just straight 1% oh okay all right so this is the um presentation about health insurance yeah it's an ey chart but I can try to make it bigger all right so we have 188 employees on the town's health insurance 100 active and 88 retirees of those retirees 73 are Medicare so this is of as of December so these numbers change every month so I just I picked a point in time that I had available today I can get you mark That's good uh of those 88 73 were Medicare eligible which means they pay for Medicare and we pay much less for them 16 or 15 of them are active retirees meaning they are still on the early retirees who are not eligible yet for Medicare but will be eventually uh so most of those folks are are close to Medicare age and we're carrying them under the act of insurance and we have to by law so for the Medicare retirees so these are the straight retirees the 73 that are me Medicare eligible um we pay 26,000 monthly and 315,000 annually which is split between the employee and the town so the town pays 179,000 of that and the employees pick up1 135 ,000 of it that's the 57 or 56 this is a 57% this year's numbers not next year's numbers so this isn't exact yeah okay got it but I still want to so 1% increase cut or whatever is around $1,800 for that class of employee for the aggregate all total aggregate yep so it would increase the town's cost by $1,800 by $1800 plus the 9% % increase but I don't want to get to yeah it's around 1,800 okay the active retirees so these are folks that are not Medicare eligible uh same exercise 1% is around 14 or500 it's only 15 people so it's 100 yes 100 it's a much more expensive yeah yeah right and then our active employees are obviously the biggest hit in terms of we care about them but their cost so 1% is around 10,000 okay that's how you got your 14k and your M stu okay 18 then yeah it's about 14k okay yeah so this is if you went up 1% and everybody went up 1% to 57 what has been discussed here and and recommended is do you want to continue to to bring retirees with with you we are recommending that it would be a pretty big Life Hit to an active retiree I'm calling them active retire it's different shape those are the medic non-medicare eligible pretty active hit to them to to bring them down or to not carry them uh for the retirees it is it is still a hit but it is less because most of their we're not saying not carry them we're just saying not keep moving the inreased share or the reduction in their share so by Statute you have to be 50/50 with everybody because of the what you passed um you do not have to continue everybody the same yeah right so if you dropped retirees to 55 and had actives at 57 you would save around $3,800 but I mean it's our goal is to get to 6040 right for the actives yes so we have to look at this in the context of a multi plan are we going to begin separating those that did their service we're capping them out at 5743 or whatever and that's that it's not just a this year decision right no I think well we're talking about capping maybe just the Medicare retiree because the Medicare and the active premedic well you can do them separately separate them out you you can do any of those and the the Medicare and um Lynn was on the committee with they're very pleased and we're not really particularly pushing um for that they're because they're policy covers everything they don't have deductibles they don't have any um so we don't need to we don't need to don't generous there well yeah it's not as big a hit for them um but you say hit like we're taking something away we're actually improving we're improving or declining to improve right right they would stay even or again right my understanding broadly is yeah as a retention tool yes and to stay on par with other towns in a competitive employment situation we decided a year or two ago that we would try to be better and get to 6040 and we didn't want to do it all in one fell s so we said let's staircase it up so that's great we all bought into that not to be I don't want to be harsh about it but retention is not an issue with your retirees right they're retired so we have a plan and if it's generous enough it's generous enough we're not taking anything away I agree with you I meant yeah so a lever you PLL that I'm not suggesting which is why I'm saying increase or decrease is you could bring retirees or anybody down to 50 well that would be a true takeaway right and it would save hearing that it would save $144,000 which is a year well you could actually give it to the active members and give them 2% instead of 1% if you were to do that well anyway I guess my feeling is we should cap off the retirees and continue on right where they are now continue on the staircase away from anybody what' you say Nathan I don't think we take things away no we shouldn't take things away we can stop giving them more but right yeah anyway that would be my recommendation just begin the bifurcation don't get fooled by 1800 and 14400 because it'll be a few more years of that it adds up just say okay we've done that part and now current guys now the question then becomes when current folks move into the retired re folks do they carry their 6040 or they drop back down to the retire what would happen they would go to the retiree split yeah yeah 57 yeah yeah it is what it is you know um yeah so they would just need to know now right that that's going to happen right right because then that's planning it's and it also might impact somebody's decision about whether to retire before their Medicare eligible right they might decide to stay in longer yeah depending on the cost to them yeah but knowing ahead of time yeah that's the key part because right now they're planning on what 56% is that what it is now that's what they get to it is 56 yes right now they're planning on 56 so if it's 56 when they retire that's what they've been planning on right right okay so are we going to make this decision tonight I mean are you do you feel ready to make the decision tonight that would be great great excellent so the what I'm hearing is the proposal would be to cap the retirees at 5640 which is where they are today 44 sorry 5644 thank you um and to continue with a 1% increase to 5745 43 the other direction um for our active employees with no differentiation among the retirees between the over and under 65 okay just want to be clear can I have that motion meaning that somebody who's getting 57 this year if they retire next year it's going to 56 that's correct as well y well year after next because this year they're getting 56 they're different they're no longer active they're reti right so next year they'll get 57 as an active and then the year after that if they they would go back to 56 yeah okay yes all right so uh do I have a motion to that effect so moved and do I have a second second all those um any further discussion all those in favor I I okay you have your decision okay so keep the budget as at the 3.11% well you we just reded it a little we just reduced it we reduced it by smid CU you don't have 5,000 4 5,000 right 4 5,000 I guess I want to go back to the 3.11 discussion I I mean there is signaling value in finding that extra now 25k or 26k and getting to 2.99 in terms of the person an individual's tax bill it's kind of in the noise right but it's a it's a signaling that we're trying very hard to get now again and I'm not saying it to push it I just is there psychological benefit to 2.99 versus 3.11 sufficient that we go scrub and wire brush ourselves 30 so everything we've done so far is supposed to not have an impact on Services correct so if we were to try and find more is the argument that we are going to lose services to the town possibly no can I can I comment yeah no I mean you could just take 30k more out of free cash they could do that we have we have it we just we don't want to spend it because we want to we wanted to put 30k less into the reserve fund so just you know it's not a bad idea I don't think the 2.99 of course the 2.99 is the operate the effect of that's the operating there's still the other pieces there will be the other pieces but at least like I say I agree with you doing it you're just you're just taking money you already have we're not cutting no but I mean listen we live this world to the tax the tax rate currently but we're not building up what we're talking about for the future so we're we're just you know kicking the cans point a little bit we pulled that lever in year and we had a discussion earlier about using free cash and having it more be a lever oh you need microphone more be a lever for kind of emergency times as opposed to just Optics towards the project right no I don't disagree I was I wasn't really thinking of using free cash I was thinking I'm actually finding 30k of cuts but it's you like we we live in this little ecosystem a lot of us have been in this ecosystem for a lot of years right so we're pretty fastled with what we just talked about most people have no idea right I'm just saying when you present a budget at town meeting and the operating budget is under three it sends a message now who pays attention I don't know most people actually since we're the kind of town we are they probably look at their tax bill say Welles I think you're confusing the operating budget being under three or the tax rate will not that will not be under so this was the tax bill the 3.11 is tax bill right I think it's the other way it's the average tax bill it is the average ta Bill wow so for the to support the operating support support the not the total no but their total tax doesn't break out all the other stuff right right this is support the operating the portion of the operating budget towards the tax bill I think that that's that's where I have a problem with this right it's like 3.11 okay but what's the actual number right if we look at the warrant articles and everything what is the act I don't think we could decide 3.1 one is make difference until we look at the impact of let me you may make a valid point but the town the town themselves will choose to fund those those are different right the operating budget we create and we present to the town with due diligence we we we scrubed everything to save you money right your choice if you want to spend money for X Y and Z you're going to vote on it you don't want it you don't get it yeah I understand that I think though what what we could probably do better and I know we do it a little bit is just in each War article say this is what the impact on your tax bill is right this is this is going to cost the average taxpayer $50 more a a year or you know it's like because they're making that decision in a vacuum right now because they're thinking 3.11 they may not even understand that that's actually additional that they're voting for and so we should be very clear in each warrant article you know you voted this is three word in each town meeting you you have already voted 3.11% tax increase if you vote this one it's going to be this much additional if you Mo vote this one it's going to be this much additional so that they have the knowledge they need as to what the impact is going to be on them so so none of the Articles here do that so the an example of where that was true is the um MFC article from a couple years ago you raised an appropriated taxes $750,000 for the MFC article so that directly impacted taxes for the the capital the way that it's being recommended here and we talked about it on fincom it's using your town reserves in order to fund it so the capital article did have an impact on taxes you generated free cash and now you're essentially using it to to give it back without increasing the taxes you could give it back to just lower the tax rate and there's other ways to give it back you're doing it for for Capital the only articles where there would be a budgetary impact are the firet TRU which would which we are creating that 55,000 in space in order to fund so that's kind of neutral and then the police department is a straight debt exclusion it's a that's a direct tax those are the ones I think that deserve the Nathan treatment then they but that but that almost makes it seem like you know if if it doesn't make it free right it almost makes it seem like well why wouldn't I vote for the warrant article because it's not going to cost me anything I think still having like a cost might be but it's pretty complicated to explain what's really going on and the two issues I I have three issues and I'm not saying it's a bad idea I just want to give you my three issues issue one is if you start that process once you start it you prob PA to do it all the time and now you get a whole another layer of people saying well wait a minute maybe it's not worth 50 bucks a year I don't want that you know you know you you're you're going to it may be the right thing and I like this true democracy but you're going to take people who parachute in after not having any background other than what they got that day and they're just going to focus on that and it's going to be kind of a different dialogue the second thing is I'm looking at like the war article for Capital we put the 650,000 or whatever is a chunk now we could say that 650,000 represents you know $85 on your tax bill or whatever but it's like 12 items do we now get into well how much is this one how much is this one you know each single line item and then the third one is this my third concern is the very complicated to really be accurate it's a fairly complicated discussion right but I guess I guess what Brian just said maybe I misunderstood what was being said it sounds to me like the answer is yes 3.11 is the increase including the warn articles except for the police station except for the police and the fire truck what about the gis warrant article and the Kenbury bog and the bog house warrant articles as constructed currently it's all coming from free cash or excess above 12% okay yeah and I guess that has already been taxed that was already taxed and appropriated and you're holding it so the idea is that you have a plan for that extra or you give it back right so then the question really is is 3.11 that's how much it's going to cost other the police station and the fire truck is that an okay increase so the fire truck I'm sorry to be so a nerd so the fire truck is built into the operating budget as long as you hold that debt capacity so I know it sounds like a shell game but that is a placeholder for the fire Tru so there is no but if not a fir truck that placeholder would be there for something else right if you're on a collision course as your charts have suggested that some future date when Mr Modell is no longer a select board member hopefully we run out of ceiling and then those trades make a difference right yes so that you know so um Scott triola last year summed it up better than I ever did he said if you don't have a plan for this excess then you should give it back right right so another this is like a total theoretical but you could you could have nothing cost anything this year and give all the free cash back and have no reserves which is right no one would ever say you should do that right and then you could start taxing people for each particular item right or you can create a capital plan with a funding mechanism and build trust that that's the best way to use the taxpayer dollars but I I've said for a while now if you're above 12% you should have a plan for it because that's too much to hold and tax people okay so other than the $3 million only $3 million police station right so that is in that's a Deb exclusion it's a you're going to tax above 2 and a half no but it's going to be more in the tax I think what Nathan say is correct right it's going to be if we pass it it will be at some year reflected in an increase in the tax bill above the 3.11 or something I I'm I'm getting uncomfortable with this 3.11 because there's an error bar on that and it is plus or minus is 3.11 plus or minus probably 022 so you know uh it's because of Revenue because they estimates so it's built off of this is going to drive you guys bananas no it is no that's not true yes it's average tax bill I know but I'm saying that's an average but but the dollar figure it represents has not got an error bar just let me show you how it's built so the Brian built me this tax rate tool so we're calculating the average tax bill based off of the fy2 24 tax rate a lot goes into a tax rate so the new growth rate plus any shifts in the assessment will actually calculate the average tax bill so what we're trying to do is estimate what this budget decision is going to do to the average tax bill as it exists today but if all the variables come in the way they did this year this budget would actually come in at like 2.9 s right so it's within the average range it could go the other way too so let maybe let me ask a different thing if you were just to align the operating budget year-over-year compared with last year what's the what's the math increase of that 3.0 7 3.07 yes okay that I mean I'm actually I kind of agree with you k i I'm less comfortable with the average tax bill than I am with hey we can't the average is like you have a big house you have a little house you have a deck house I don't know but year-over-year budget A to B we kept it under three very I would say that's a good thing to say like we kept it under three and to Mark's point or maybe it was yeah I think it was this is what we work hard to do and then these other choices are there for you yes without getting too detailed that's a simple message I think people could relate to so 007 that's that's really in why don't we drive it out find it and drive it out of there oh 007 yeah oh well already below because we just saved 5,000 right yeah we already say five so it's not much just find it somewhere and take it out of somebody's budget we we just as he said we just did we just did the INS INS that was 5K right there well that's 5K but that's not an I don't know going to cut your salary take it out of that big select board budget right so this is not not to like suck up to Lynn but this is Lynn's point is everybody's cut except for the for the Regional School yeah so $8 million of our budget if you can go to battle this week and get it how much you need now 25,000 that's what you're going for 25,000 all right so go going all right what does that work out to be as a percentage of their budget so the 25,000 is one a coffee it's like what they spend at Starbucks about what is 150,000 no it's no from the whole budget for us to get 25,000 100 100 100 we're like 30 25% yeah yeah but you don't actually need that well we shouldn't say that if they're listening we need it but the fact is now we're down but anyway my point my point is it's a nice again they won't care we say 3.07 it probably won't matter but it's a good strong message like we're working hard to we hear you I mean the one of the I don't know if it's common but a complaint is we don't take it seriously enough right we're happy to pass along tax increases and that's not true we work pretty hard to not do that well considering we started even much higher yeah much higher and we said no we really want 3% okay so I'm I'm happy I'm okay okay but back okay you were just saying you weren't well because he he was talking about the 3.1 i' like to see if we could it I'd love the 2.99 but if for the budget for the budget for the budet just not get into the average tax bill and average tax bill is a spir in the budget 2024 versus 2025 the Delta is three right I like that and if it's 3.07 it's it's fine but it's just not quite as okay but you cannot and by the way that is not a problem you can solve with free cash no that is a real cut service it's not a shell game it's just we just did this or or you could take I've seen quite a few things come here that are essentially multi-year you're doing things like this is fun we're funding this for 3 years okay so funded the first year little 0.007% less yeah right yeah okay I mean the gis comes to mind kind of kind of asking for money for multiple years but that's not in the that's not in the operating budget you see well okay well what it would mean is we're really not doing the 6200 for the compost T well that's that's a huge part of that number 6200 well we're not that's not in the budget 6200 that's what I'm saying it's we're clearly not doing that right we're not doing that other things like that they're funding themselves right yeah right right anyway I think we okay have we Weeden this to death yet I think so yeah we've beaten an hour ago we do the cola conversation that's the next one yeah we should do on we should list wait I just want to be sure that any decisions that needed to be made weren't just question uh have been that we're clear on what the decision was so the the decision that we needed to make was is a 3.11 as it has now shaken out because of we we have a 3.08 budget increase right is that acceptable to us can we live with that yeah and I'm going to okay yes although we very much like to see the um if we could shake a little out i' be happy but yes well that's but that's not in our control unfor the school is not under control so when do we have to finally make any final tweak well can I wait till we have a school discussion so we know if they went anywhere with it well okay we could I mean that's coming up if I haven't got a confirmation but if it comes up on Tuesday y um we've got our public hearing set for 17th so we're starting to really bum up against that would mean you would would get together are we meeting next week again right yes we are not on the budget but not on the budget but we could we could but we'd have a meeting two the following Tuesday though two weeks from tonight would be our next meeting April the 9th yeah it's not that it's not doable we just be cutting it close because we got to put our presentation together for the public heing we haven't said that in stone so the question I guess so the question on the table is do we want to cut our services in order to get to the 3% you are here maybe Ryan and finom is here to represent that that even a dollar less than this is a service cut I mean that's what I'm hearing but I don't believe it I don't even think we need to go there I mean I think I I I think that there's so you could cut your legal budget you could cut yeah you just make an assumption of something and you cut it by 5K and you're done you are if you run over you we know we handle that right you the truth is we run a surplus of we're conservative enough that we run a surplus of free cash every year and so budget transfer time if somebody's over we move money in and we still generally run it we're talking about I think less than 10K 10K it's 25k no it's not it was 25k when it was 3.11 it was 25 30k 30 but then we took off retirees I don't know I mean you could do the math but I'm just it's 25 to get to 2.99 it's okay whatever all right know again not to go too long on this but your comment about our legal budget um that's not a bad place to look at just one example which I had no idea was the case until just recently that um you know we're with the we're members of the um Community preservation Coalition and while they don't have um uh lawyers on staff they have have years and years and years of experience of working with communities around all these questions that come up about uh Grant applications we didn't consult them at all in this process this last six months I I didn't know that existed nobody we it kind of fell off the radar screen when Luke you know stepped down I didn't even know nobody knew we were members of this Coalition I don't know how much we spent on legal fees this year talking to council about all the different questions we had about C PC issues I don't know what the savings would be but I do think we will spend less on legal counsil next year for advice around CPA questions because we'll be able to go to this Coalition first we pay a membership of I think it's $2,000 so that's in that's already in the budget but um we don't pay anything in addition that we get rid of that and yeah I think we've gone through this process yeah this is my opinion we've gone through this process a lot of really really smart people put a lot of effort into this we set the bar at 3% um it's now right around 3.1% um it's $25,000 I don't I think let's just move on I think we hit it $25,000 over is great if we can save it I I would be some saying some you know it's it's like that $225,000 we've spent on things that have come up throughout the year that we could just just be more diligent at not doing um and you know I think we're spending a lot of time on $25,000 to cut from the budget to get to a 2.99 number um we could just be so much better throughout the year I think that's my thought but we are we actually are again we generate a free cash Surplus almost every single year which means we are better we UND spend what we what we lose is the signaling value we we won't get that back they won't remember that we were diligent during the year I'm looking at oped we have 215 why not 200,000 like what's the magic of 215 it's just this cutting but that's cutting another goal that we sent right I mean throughout the year we can you know what what happens is throughout the year we give money to a department because they come and they say something and that gets baked into the budget that we are now dealing with this year we should be better I agree with you have to be better at that I'm I'm certain we've done $25,000 worth of that we just did no no you're right you're right but on the other side of the Ledger we've underspent things we have in the I guarant I would bet you a drink at your favorite establishment next year that there'll be things in this budget that we approve that we will not spend that we will not spend right and it will be a substantial amount right but that's going to impact all those other formulas and numbers that we were presting I said enough I I'm happy to go along with 3.1 I I think we miss a little opportunity but that's fine all right but I think it's a compelling point to raise to the conquer they need to put some skin in the game right so that's the message and everybody's welcome to join us okay on Tuesday and and I have I did a send that message to our to car representatives to this to the Regional School Board that school that everybody in this town in every Department went took their budgets down to 3% right and the only is their year-over-year region the region is 3.89 I think without debt it's 357 I believe was it without because that 100 when they with that it's like in the twos yeah with sorry which is what is you mean our portion no no talking about their their increase so oh sorry schools yeah well because their debts going down because they're right yeah but you have to do this before debt so okay what I what I asked the school committee members was to ask the administration to look at reducing their budget you know what would they need to reduce to get it to 3% overall from year to year without debt yeah 3.08 is that what you got no 3.8 that's what I he I thought it was 3.8 yeah okay and it's it's 3.8 of a lot of money right all right yeah okay okay all right so we will do our best so thank you we're good we're good thank you for the we're good we're done leave it we're we're leaving it right everybody yeah hands up we're leaving and hoping for a miracle okay good all right Cola Cola well I I'm just going to launch right out um yeah um I think the 2.25 um is a good number our uh unions when we bargained with um with the police Union anyway um accepted a townwide call but with a floor of 2.25 the school CP uh CPS School are are um their last contract in fact they are the ones that suggested why why are we spending all this time talking about a quarter of a percent you know we and beating it to death why don't we just do a town you know go on with the townwide Cora Cola and we I thought it was a good idea Victor was on the negotiating team he thought it was a good idea but then he got replaced by Jim anyway it was kind of in between negotiators and it we didn't have we didn't settle that but Victor and I then brought that idea to the police and we kind of so that's the way we want to move things along and that's how we'd like to move things along um so I would uh not like to give our employees less than 2.25 I agree so I'm good with that I'm good with that so but I just want to clarify who an employee is the non- bargaining unit nonar yes okay so it's not all employees so what yeah well no because the teachers uh first of all are not our employees well they are well they are but you police are right in the so police are a union dispatch a union everyone else is nonunion except and then the school is a whole different right yeah so all non-un employees would get 2.25% yes so everyone on the wage scale in the warrant and this is in the budget Y and this is part of our employee retention you know going forward like is this the reason we have that as a 2.25 why is it 2.25 yeah well I mean to match the floor contracts and other right similarly situated the the schools all the employees in the schools are at two this year so there this is a year after several 2.2 FS right correct yeah yeah so as Kate points out it's sort of an artifact of uh prior negotiations let's say yeah and going forward we probably have to do some other things but yeah we don't want to talk about that now I don't think we want to say though I mean so you were saying that your discussion here was that last year it was 2.2 and the year before was 2.25 I don't remember for the school no for last year was three but we didn't have the step that was introduced last year okay the year before I wasn't here but I can look it up okay all right and I m i misheard so yeah I'll shut up the point is to standardize it across yeah right I think so right and in the long run I think I like that where all the employees bargaining unit are all the bargaining units agree to this deal like the like we go with the town we go with what the town goes yeah I mean for too long we've been I feel balancing our budgets on the backs of the non-bargaining employees and I don't think I wouldn't go that far but I would say we try We should strive to treat the non-bargaining unit employees as if they were in a bargaining unit yes that's why I asked about is it a retention thing because we've talked a lot about that how difficult it is to get employees I I say it's an equity with a small e personally cuz I think I mean I we felt this very acutely at the school side you know you have a custodian who's working hard at a lower wage perhaps but he's working just as hard as a teacher who has the benefit of a bargaining unit you know fair is fair right I mean they should get the same rate of increase as if they had bargained for it that's kind of an equity issue in my opinion and I would say the same here town next to the police or whatever mhm so I support the 2.25 yeah I again I just I thought that this had a relation to you know we Brian has brought up one of our biggest challenges is attracting employees here and so having this in place is one of the mechanisms in which we can you know retain attract and retain employees and we're trying to do that in thoughtful way going forward right so I'm asking is this a part of that or is it not is it just yes and no I'd say again if somebody's say deciding between Carl and Westford and says well Westford has two and a half or 3% for the last four years we're not trying to in my opinion we're not trying to be comp like if you look at the health care split discussion we just had that is a competitive landscape where they absolutely look at what the other towns match I can't speak to what the other towns do for Cola and I'm again personally just speaking for me not actually that interested in what the other I mean somewhat but not really trying to match what other towns do for Cola I'm much more concerned about the internal carile Equity where all employees are working hard some are lucky enough let's say or have the benefit of a bargaining unit others don't but they shouldn't be treated less fairly because they're not part of a bargain yeah yeah so by saying 2.25 then everybody who works for carile except for the school Union employees will be getting 2.25 yeah and non-union well and their non-union School takes the same thing that right they'll treat their non-union as their teachers are Trea the teacher okay so they've budgeted for everyone to have the same in the schools so they will all get whatever they contract says yeah but in there have been years where they would have gotten a higher percentage than the town so that sort of evens out that that's okay with and in the long run if we can move to the Kate system that also goes away then everybody will be we're I think we're on the Kate system for everything but the schools right yes yeah and the schools are going to get two I that's true but don't forget they get pretty generous steps yeah many of them but then we also now have a we have our own it's not as generous no it's not as generous but right we now have based on what we passed at town meeting a year ago right we have a new yes wage structure as well that allows for a merit increase just want to make sure I understand exactly what the question is the question is is 2.5 what we want to give or is2 2.25 yes what is is that what we want to give or do we want to give give less or do we want to give more just want to know you have to set it right so right now in the budget it's 2.25 2.25 I need your approval and I'm in favor of that two what are you looking at Travis I was just curious on the finance committee I mean if you had weighed in on that at all as far as you put it at 2.25 obviously so I mean my feeling is I mean I'm aligned with Kate's philosophy and that's why I felt it was also fair and David brings up a good point it's really an equity issue too and it's been something that from year to year has really been a struggle and I think with so it's been kind of a multipronged effort meaning with Ryan putting in these um these step increases I think really brings people more into parity and bringing the health insurance up a little bit and then having that Equity of the colas kind of all falling together really I think rounds this up very nicely it makes us attractive and for good or bad I mean one of the reasons why we're struggling with some of these increases is we have seen about a significant amount of people coming onto Healthcare now some of those are new workers but again we are attracting the right people in that's again that's just my opinion you know like you guys and if you feel different so that was the rational that helps okay yeah I probably 2.25 y okay all right you're good to go with 2.25 all right the warrant a lot of this has been covered already so consent agenda Town reports salaries of elected officials so the town clerk salary is to the wage scale now so all the decisions that were made will equal out to that number in a way that I can explain at town meeting if asked the Actuarial study of OPB is one of the warrant articles listed part of the the free cash usage that was discussed allowing real estate tax exemptions is something you've already approved allowing us to spend chapter 90 is something I think you continue to approve peg this is the use of uh the Comcast funds in order order to provide the service that people are watching on now and uh other Capital Investments article 8 this is where you would have your discussion about um either authorizing a new subtracting a revolving fund or uh you do set annually the limits here so there will be a chart in the Motions this is how much can be spent from those revolving funds maybe what we need is be how much can be kept in each ref you know that's not statutory that's local so okay got it okay okay article 9 we just discussed so this would be updated to it is updated here to include 2.25 make sure that's accurate and then the classifications so uh we have made some in inseason changes but they've all been communicated to you so this is a known chart one example part-time police officers were not on the chart we did add them they are non-union employees that's the police assistant is that what it's called No I see above it oh below it I grade five okay so we have three types of part-time officers which should go away in the next five years as post comes in and takes away certain requirements for part-time officers deputy chief right that decision was made this year so that was added operating budget we spent a lot of time on that that'll show up here we go through that again good uh the Capital Equipment article is here with all of its components the MFC article will be here we can add detail as required or or asked during the Motions the fire engine borrow so this would be to authorize that borrowing and then eventually it would become part of the operating budget revoking the opioid settlement stabilization fund and creating a special Revenue fund is a special gift from the state we have to do [Laughter] that uh this is in here as a placeholder in case you want to do the capital stabilization move it can also be taken out and that money would just remain in free cash you've had a presentation and discussions on the gis program this is Standalone Warren article for the town to review funding would come from free cash the cranberry bog and cranberry bog house maintenance that's the 265 uh you will note in my note to you that the MFC did discuss this and voted to recommend to you that 10,000 for the bog house be moved to their warrant article and the 165 stay for the kcom um they believe that it is under their Charter to do that maintenance and they said explicitly that they would work with Warren and um the consom to make sure that it was done to standard but they wanted to oversee it as part of facilities so this change then yes this would change the number here a real quick question the recommendations there are just to placeholder right we haven't yeah yeah I'm sorry so that was just to build this warrant yeah if that makes sense uh police station renovation so this is your warrant article to renovate the police station and who would make that presentation a committee or the Chief or uh it likely be a team effort okay I would want to see everyone up there to discuss it and have pieces of that to show unity and then uh the CPA annual articles so motion one this is uh numbers that need to be need to be changed in order to um capture the current funding but uh it will be important to note that there is 30 ,000 the admin and that will include a analysis of the bog house so there's 20,000 in there for that and that will be called out did I did I miss in the last meeting um kind of an overview of what was going on with CPA or have we not had that yet most of the Articles were discussed last week okay or previously yeah previously um and then so this one is a motion two is for the Water Analysis is of the cranberry box this was the compromise with the petitioners to look at water flow and other impacts of that Dam and make sure that the recommendations are tied to a hydrological study and that's it's appropriate for the cranberry bog motion three is $50,000 for rental assistance from cohs you got a individual presentation about this 56675 for uh fixing the Bob and other ADA Compliant entrances at Benfield so this number is still not still not there and the whole proposal is still not there um if we can't get it done then obviously would be pulled but we're trying to get this together to get a good analysis to the CPC we do think we will get something to them by April 2nd so they can decide whether or not to include this and then 30,000 for um another water study of the Greeno Dam Area then the only remaining articles are the two citizens petitions these are still on here they have to be on on here by law the petitioners are working to try and designature these but they have to get the exact signatures that went on it to get it off so this is a okay Town Council this is not any employee that made they can withdraw at the meeting right so you can just pass over at the meeting but it might stay on the warrant okay you can't remove it without yeah and those are the Articles so we've trimmed it down quite a bit right have a couple followup questions wait a second sorry never mind oh go ahead so just um three things I guess the article 8 the revolving fund you said you're going to make a chart are we going to look at back to our earlier discussion like how much is unspent what do they project to spend and how much we would authorize are we going to get that you can look at it but it's not part of this warrant article so you only set what are we going to be voting on in the warrant article then the limits so how much they can spend in a year which is based on what what they anticipate needing yes so once you authorize the revolving fund then all you can do is set the L but isn't that compounding the problem we have should can't you authorize a lower level if you feel they've got unspent funds in there you can but that would change the total that doesn't it would just change how much they could spend but isn't that the point oh no no you want them to spend okay well we want them to spend it on the things that are supposed to be spent on no they do but if they have a balance it it doesn't acknowledge that they right they spend what they spend right okay and then the second thing is uh question is in the wage and class chart I didn't see the seniors you guys in there aren't you on that chart as well CA police chief and so forth anyone with a contract is not is not on there okay so that's me the fire chief the police chief okay and um then the last question I have is this bog house article 17 so everybody has to I mean MFC is saying it really should be part of our budget we're going to take on fixing the B house kcom says what I have a meeting with Thursday good I was just going to say so the of that 265 that's in here that's going to drop by 10 which will then go to MFC which is going to cover I understand that and the rest of the money is for M for cranberry bog maintenance I understand all that the house no no I'm talking about the house the 10K oh okay I'm saying kcom has not agreed to that it's a question of who has control of the funding right you do right okay so it should go to one of our department con is kcom elected or appointed no they're appointed they're they're us to the MFC so right and so again just to make sure we're clear and in light of John laver's comments a little bit um we went through this and we said the most important thing right now is to make sure it's safe right so that's our mission is to make it safe other missions we may have but yeah that's our mission I want to and not necessarily safe for the tenants we want safe period period right and and and then I guess the question is now for us do we support the NF MFC in giving them the control of that 10 we should decide that right giving them responsibility for that maintenance that 10K right that 10K yeah well what did the MSC have to say let's start with the MSC member here well the MFC was I think supportive of taking it on as a responsibility right needed authority to do so okay um I just want to make sure are is the 10K was that settled as a board here I think it was in a meeting a couple meetings ago or maybe it was last meeting okay because I thought we talked about it but I don't know we we'd have kind of formally agreed or yeah and there was quite a bit of back and forth about the minutes for that meeting around that piece and you'll see in the final version that um GRE shared with us that and I listened to the recording again I don't know and I think Gretchen did too we said we s we didn't take a motion but we did have the discussion Nathan made the suggestion let's say you know $10,000 just to do the the um repairs based on safety and that's what we agreed to without a formal vote so if we yeah have to be more careful about these formal votes so which I'm trying to be doing so that we really memorialize what what was agreed formal vote comes when we vote support another support of the warrant articles right yeah so okay any other questions about the warrant great let's move on to the ballot questions we are running out of time We've ran out of town long time ago should we oh yeah you probably want to huh because you not really money we hang out that's that's a separate thing okay is that good yeah that's good oh wait excuse me uh do you have anything to say about the unspent bond proceeds I we'll have to vote on that yep well I'm will the fincom be interested in that is what I'm asking they were and they're supportive well do you want I guess the question is do you want to close your meeting before or after that particular discussion we have on our agenda do that next and then come back to the ballot all right let's do that next then and we'll come back to the ballot questions okay okay Choice uh just to I can do this in under a minute but longer if necessary so the town un borrowed money to do projects and then spent less than it borrowed so that excess money by Statute needs to be reappropriated anything under 50,000 can be appropriated by the town's executive which is you anything over 50,000 has to be reappropriated at town meeting so the list on the right is stuff that we're asking you tonight to reappropriate to long-term debt uh the number on the left will go under the capital article in the town meeting warrant for a total of around 95 96,000 around $200,000 in proceeds that will for all intents and purposes turned into free cash so your vote tonight is for all the all of the items that no longer have a purpose but we borrowed for and we have into an account to go into the long-term debt payment so you're going to pay for long-term debt but we already paid for most a long-term debt so that'll turn into a deficit account and then we'll wash the free cash that's the right right and or the left hand the right hand so I have it up here in the motion 94,000 y okay so tell me about the mechanics of the left the 101 so only town meeting can reappropriate that so in the capital article it'll say to reappropriate 101 from this date plus free cash in order to fund the following list and what will it fund the capital the capital any capital $510,000 capital article so it was a school project so we're saying it's going to fund the wastewater treatment plant okay stuff okay so in other words the 510 or isn't it 650 I thought whatever it is whatever it is will actually be 100K less at the end of the day and then that also so it's only the approval cycle that's different the mechanism of washing to free cash is the same right okay because you won't use as much so you'll have it okay with the exception of the top one there knowing how much some of the things were it's pretty impressive how close yeah the estimate was right yeah yeah okay can I have a motion then please I move to the the select board vote pursuant to General legislature c44 section 20 to authorize the payment of indebtedness specifically the long-term debt line in the town's operating budget with the transfer application of unspent proceeds of borrowing for certain completed projects which are not in excess of 50,000 as identified in the packet okay um would the fincom like to weigh in with an opinion about that or advice we are suppor okay all right any discussion further discussion here all those in favor I I great now you can close your meeting thank you I'd like to have have a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second roll call please Bernstein yes yes is Victor still there Victor you there I see you excuse you can close it without him it might have been him trying to call him by phone but I was worried about Zoom he was he was trying to call him by phone sorry okay I didn't let him in meeting close all right are thank you everyone thank you very much Lyn how many are rolling off you and Victor no you're the only one okay how many years nine you did the nine yeah you rock let here for nine nine year think on them you thank youy I know it was done it's been done hopefully I caused a lot of trouble thank you very much for uh yeah all your work thank guys just saw the email from the the text I in a waiting room for 20 minutes sorry it was an unidentified number I thought it was spam okay sorry be too careful all right all right three ballot questions um that I can explain rather quickly so assuming you want to exclude the fire department debt which I am recommending you do then it does require a ballot y yeah um if the town says no Then I think you have your so it gives the I mean besides the fact that it's excluded that it also gives the town taxpayers a second look at that expenditure not just the group that shows up to town meeting which is probably a good thing since I think it's good because it's been discussed and it fits into a plan and if they don't want it they don't want it will there be an amount in the uh ballot question yes okay and then the second one this is still being finalized but the second one is the uh police station yep same thing and then the third one is the town clerk uh moving to an appointed position yeah and we should probably be starting to do some Outreach and education again about this particular one so that people getting to the battle box not knowing a darn thing about it well we really if we're supporting all three we should do Outreach on all three yeah because it's a different constituency then show up at town meeting yep okay that's just it just wanted you to see them so that you know they're coming yeah ta report oh good I'm up again yeah little late I'm sorry okay um we already talked about the cubicle project that'll begin in May uh I am digitizing the executive records so these records go back to 2013 it's 35 boxes of Records being being digitized so that we can actually know what's in there rather than having it sit in the vault that starts tomorrow um this is arpa funded I do not think I will use all the records management money despite wanting to so some of that's going to be returned to arpa which will be a future discussion we regret to reform everyone that Juniper Friedman uh resigned from her position simply was not a fit she was a lovely person and um it was great to get to know her but uh we are we are looking at other options for that position we also o had and sent an offer to a heavy equipment operator who worked in a different Community uh we almost had a signed offer but it was the health insurance splits that that um that caused the employee not to come we did offer another step or two to try and overcome it and it just wasn't enough um so I'm only saying that to back up the um discussion that you had earlier that that it is indeed a thing we talked about the budget length so I can skip this section also town meeting um we finalized the postcard we made it bright green and we going I going to say because this looks like a death a funeral announcement for the FL so it is it is bright green and it'll show up in people's uh boxes we are very serious that we will hand deliver warrants we are going to put uh information everywhere to include an advertisement in the mosquito we will bring a warrant to your house if you want one and I am going to deliver a signed one to John Bal timee because he likes to write in the margins and he told me that last year the uh also we'll put it at the police station the gleon public library in the town hall Lobby so it'll be everywhere we're just not sending out the 1800 uh we're targeting people who who specifically want a printed warrant I am looking for your approval for the tour deure uh the American Diabetes Association England chapter is requesting permission to conduct their cycling event both Chiefs are uh in approval and we'll support this event around 500 people will be coming through the town on bikes Sunday August 18th 2024 you want this motion right now right now yes please I move to approve the request of the New England chapter of the American Diabetes Association for use of town roads during the annual tour to cure on August 18th 2024 between 7:00 a. and 4pm second I have to say this is the most organized thing this the information they give you beforehand uh all those in favor I I I okay thank you that was the DPW trailer sprinkler system done right did it um total diligence by the MFC Jim Hall was a rockstar and the contractor and designer we had for this were were top- notot so it was expensive but it's done and we can now use that for its intended purpose the dog park is back out to bid the smaller but quaint and nice dog park is out to bid the Cory Auditorium lighting our hero over here so we started Contracting with barbazon this week and contracted with G GD to start U building the electrical construction design So based on this final EC design we'll either hire an in-house electrician or rebid the final design which will be um under what we what we have gotten for bid so far we are sure there is a chance that this project will require additional funding so we are asking that the select board consider uh using arpa to fund this Gap 20 to 40,000 much much depends on the bids 20 to 40,000 20 to 40 how much AR do we have left 20 to 40 I don't have that at the tip of my fingers well but uh having a meeting uh next Monday so I can get that information yes we I'll add a quick note we've been working a lot with the schools uh to their credit on using that school lunch fund that we've we' decided to really dig into uh they are going to move some of their capital projects that work arpa funded to this account which should free up some more arpa so there's more arpa coming between my records management and the schools the schools are going to ask that you support the the Corey project with that with that move but it's not required well uh Julie and I re revamped really Julie Julie revamped the Greeno Barn procurement package and that should go out to bid this week as well so we again we think it was an admin error and we think that project is still going to be fine we got good bids for our recreational Mowing and fertilizing contracts um Michael Hightower won this bid he's been doing it for a couple years he's an excellent contractor he won both bids and we did a threee so we've locked in three years of competitive pricing good hey uh Ryan on the uh Greeno so would that come up will that be in time for voting in a town meeting this do we have to vote the Greeno cuz we already voted it we just have to make sure it comes in under the 200 we voted 200 which okay two bids came in a 200 they just didn't put in the zeros so we we feel confident and we've paired them up maybe make them A Team all right um I'm notifying you have several signs the conquered Community chess sign will be out there advertising their Millennium fund campaign and the youth commission will be advertising their events in the rotary and the gleon public library is advertising their short story contest which I plan un winning upcoming discussion points um I am not on military leave and it has been pushed to June due to my old man illness Ryan before you move on do we have to move I see this other motion about the national brain tumor Society ride yes if you want to you want a motion on that take that on this the time sure I would move uh that we approve the request of the national brain tumor Society ride for use of town roads for their annual bike ride on May 19th 2024 second okay thank you discussion all those in favor I that's unanimous all right uh budget discussions April 9th will be your last chance to make your any recommendations you want on the warrant of course you can put on the warrant that you'll make recommendations at town meeting and um we just have to print it so April 9th is the last day to sign it April 23rd that would be your last chance to make those recommendations or your last meeting before uh the town meeting there also be a budget hearing do we have a date for that Lynn uh yeah April 17th but depending but I think we can keep it to April 17th I haven't formally posted it yet but that's where we're at so I will I will confirm on Tuesday how's that is that okay yep so we'll build we've got a we've got a place for April 17th that'll be the dry run of the budget presentation for town meeting M all right ESC is coming to town next uh April 2nd which is your next meeting time to they will be um talking about their work plan and their climate leader presentation you have a full hour to talk with them as that'll lead into your goals discussion so I plan on giving you a quick report on my goals where I've hit and where I've come short and we are suggesting and I'll send this out again that you review the select board goals and have comments ready for the goals discussion on April 2nd to make that a productive session so where you think uh you have succeeded as a board and where you've fallen short uh I think each person laying that out would be a very productive session I'm sorry April 2nd that's next Tuesday that's a week from tonight right I can't be there well now not going well poo on you okay um well but but you but Nathan regardless if you could write us you know give us some written input about how you feel we did with the the goals that would be really helpful we would yeah and just to follow up on that I think it would be um if if the rest of us are willing um I know it's it would need to be done by the end of this week but I think it would be helpful if we each took the select board goals as well as the TA goals um but did our own short um review and notes on it uh and and provided that to the Town Administrator so it could go out in the packet at the end of this week so that it be done by Thursday yeah I I won't make that deadline I won't either I can tell you that right now those of us with day jobs I don't think we'll make it okay well we typically send the the packet out on Fridays um I don't know if that's doable or even um by Monday um I just you know I've talked about this before I think that's where I'm supposed to be the the more we think through things in advance of the meeting and the more that we are able to I don't disagree I mean because we did talk about this two what is it you're looking for well tell me specifically what you want well let I'll just get take myself for an example so I'm going through the sustainability goal I think we look to the ESC to provide us with their update right because it's really but the others I look at the uh what was it Financial what was it Financial you don't need to go like I didn't mean that way I meant maybe more one level up from that granularity you want us to grade what we did or you want us to talk about what we want I think we look at what we said we were going to do what our goals were and okay yeah how do we do on it right your analysis of what we actually got done and then as a second part of that what what what should we now be doing going forward and so then that would be curated by Gretchen or Ryan into a table or what's or no or maybe even just our comments are sent out to everybody as they are in the packet so we can each see what the other people said so we don't spend time doing it at the meeting yeah yeah so we can focus on the things where we're all in agreement or the things where we're you know and if we all right and if we don't meet the deadline we cannot circulate it no we can't we can't circulate it in advance we have to only bring our only choice is we can send it to Ryan right circulate it to each other and then no but you could I mean we could do the pread let me just ask Gretchen sends us stuff all the time that's like late break news and we read it right right so why can't we just get it to gret and by the end of the weekend and she can push out and we can read it I would be able to do it I will try to call in on Tuesday yeah so and then I mean the only drawback is it's not in the packet but eventually it will be in the packet right and we're not soliciting public input specifically on our goals right right so I don't I don't see why we need to make the packet deadline does that work for folks if we said by the end of the weekend and then Gretchen could send something out to people on Monday well you have it or you don't I mean right I want to try but I to to that end I have some really busy things coming up and I was wondering can you send tomorrow the information that exactly you want me to are you looking at me yeah well you brought this up AR we can have the TA but but just you know the exact documents you want me to look at because rather than hunting through so easy to say this is what you want me to do and I'll do it right we have that meeting we'll meet tomorrow and I'll send it up tomorrow I I can't meet tomorrow I we we'll do that tomorrow okay you'll be you tomorrow very easy I know I know I have it on my desk so it's not a come on folks we can do this you can do it okay I didn't know I didn't know about so right I don't know how that happened but um I wasn't at the last as a related thing um what we and as Christina if Christina is still there um talking about the ESC goals um because the our goals are you know we have ESC goals we asked the ESC to take responsibility for so um that's we're going to want to be reviewing those and getting their report on how they Barney already said we got on those right y yeah asking for ESC to provide us with a review that hopefully we get in advance I just say in the future if there's like a special meeting or a special need when that meeting is decided um any any input like this needed should be said at the same time because we've lost a week right well I think we did actually when we set this meeting because it was we did I think Christina knows about it already so I may I may I confirm yes uh we I've already sent in um a sort of state of the ESC report uh which includes um um where we stand in relation to your goals and um what our goals are as well so that that's already uh submitted okay great thanks Christina thank your point we could do a better job and one other um you and everyone know one other thing I think would be helpful um Ryan if you're comfortable with this in terms of your goals I know yours did not include this specifically but I I think it be really worthwhile to hear from you about um the implementation of the staff evaluations that we discussed last year and implementing for this year and not not specifics about specific people but just where are you in that process how many department heads have had those evaluations how many have done them with their staff are we on track for being able to use those um how people have done meeting their goals by the end of this fiscal year as a way to decide whether or not people are getting those Merit raises I I think that would be a worthwhile thing to to hear from you about too excellent two more I will do that thank you two more um updates and things for you to think about so the the fire station conceptual design is is going to come back to you pretty quickly not your meeting on the 2nd or the 9th but the 23rd but still thinking about ways to make sure that you're communicating to potential designers what you want their design to look like prior to them submitting bids will make it more successful so this could include total cost it can include um any considerations that you want in terms of modu or stick you know whatever um all of those things put into the RFQ makes it very clear and signals to people that that's what you want and then the designer selection committee can can pick that person so that's what that discussion is about um nothing really new except your final thoughts on the goals and then road maintenance plan so Jim Julie and I met with with Niche to uh discuss the road surface plan you will get a two-year plan it is based off your feedback from that it's based off the equity roads as we talked about and then the $500,000 investment then you will get after a more expanded plan sometime this summer so 5 to 10 years rather than just the two but we want to put the two out to bid and then talk about the longer term plan and then roll that into the capital plan as a more real number than the 300 we're carrying right now cuz I hear you that 500 is the Target and then there's a lot that's a lot coming to you yeah so for staff recognition I do want to recognize I know she works for me directly but but Gretchen so um she does a lot you know she does a lot but I just want to talk about what she's done lately so Aubrey and I were both scheduled to be out of the office so Gretchen took a lot of additional responsibilities in training turns out that I was here which is probably more of a hindrance to her but she took on a lot serving as the off office Point person she also balanced additional duties recently with the CPC the MFC and the tmsc and she's handling literally hundreds of transfer station sticker purchases um hundreds of people come in to buy these which we want but she's taking those all on individually um also with senior worker she never complains when my schedule adjusted she just keeps adding to her workload she communicates she cares she calls me old sometimes that's fine and much of the town has literally been running on uh gret and shoulders lately so um if she wants to be a Town Administrator someday I think I think she definitely could be probably could be now so we'll just keep her as long as we've got her and appreciate her for what she does very good some you dates of Interest coming up March 29th is uh the election caucus that's Friday that's Friday the special meeting on April 2nd uh Aubrey will be in the office next week which is a point of interest you have your two regular meetings I am out of state uh April 12th to the 19th but I will be able to communicate and probably watching the public budget hearing from aago and then the annual town meeting is made May 13th May 29th is the town election and then that rescheduled military leave is June 8th to the 22nd so good timing for the town bad timing to be in El Paso so it takes a little bit of stress off and the draft agenda uh we just discussed so climate leader in ESC and then um select board and ta goals your entire agenda on the 9th will be about recommending approving or not the warrant to make sure that that is final and signed that night so that should be the yes basically the only item right right thank you uh we have one set of minutes um that needs to be finished up that was the one that was sent separately right yes right I thought it was an improvement personally um was the minutes from the 27th February 27th yeah right Barney you want to make that um motion since you're the one that um I move that we approve the um minutes for the select board meeting on February 27th 2024 as um written in the email we received from gret and galmore today yesterday yesterday yesterday is there a second second any further discussion so I have one minor thing so in this community input section uh Reed warned each commentator when their time was up etc etc commentators continue to speak they were warned again when they continued to when they continue to erup interrupt the board placed them in the virtual waiting room but is it not the case that we put everybody in the virtual we did not we only put them in the disruptive the disruptive people okay that's right okay all right then I'm fine thanks okay any further discussion all those in favor I I any that's it okay all right uh any Lea on reports uh I do brief okay so we met again the um town meeting task force yeah so we had good yeah it's going great so um we got a lot of good ideas we're I think I mentioned last time we're sort of bucketing things right now we're kind of focused on this town meeting and things we can do on this town meeting and then uh in the summer we'll take on the longer term things so on the short-term stuff a couple of things to note um one is and I'll say it to everybody publicly but certainly to you guys Outreach to your whole circle show up to I mean we need to drum up more interest one of the things that's related to that we mentioned which is having I don't know if it's a hearing or maybe it's a focal group to to explain the issues that we're covering one of the ideas and again I need to be refreshed on what the rules are but sandwich boards or other signs somebody's making we're going to make signs that's not just the QR code which you certainly can take a picture of the QR code and you get the warrant article but the warrant article presents pretty dry like just like bullet points these are the things town meeting is going to cover like to like the police station right we're going to discuss the police station like to try to get people to understand what it is we're sort of a briefing document well not even so much as a document like a poster just say bullet points like around town got so I we got to work on getting I mean we have them and I guess we go through the same approval process right can we post them like at the transfer station we don't need approval for that okay only at The Rotary you need approval um at The Rotary the school the school's going to too much information on it cuz people have no no no it's not it's not a complicated thing well the rotary is probably a bad example transfer stations schools ferns Library places you know we we'll figure out where to place them um a couple of people have volunteered actually to do these little Snippets of they like a Tik Tock video really MH one is I think Mark agreed he's going to he's not here now but he was going to do or Lynn's going to do like explaining the budget process like a one minute clip cool and just post it on social media and there's a few other of those that uh Deepa is going to do one on I forget something but just things she's relating her experience and generating interest in the playground right things they worked on and all the people that are younger than us which is most of the people have much more access to those interesting Technologies so it's I think it's going to be pretty uh pretty good to start some of that good good uh my idea which I have to um check in with Betsy on but I would like to just as like I may have mentioned this last time just like the mosquito thanks its donors in a p page J just thank all the people like have the list of attendees of to meeting after and just thank them you know just have a list sort of public shaming in a little way but you know reverse yeah reverse shame the left-handed copul left-handed sh so shaming one of the things I and this is a chart that I think um de or somebody's going to put out given that we only get 5% attendance if you don't go you are seeding your vote to 20 19 people are seeding their vote to the one who decides to go yes and by not going you are seeding your vote we are a and this is a message maybe you can promulgate through your own channels we are effectively a one- day legislature that's what town meeting is we are the legislature of the town for that day and if you don't go you're not part of the legislature you're seeding that control to somebody else not of your choosing it's not like the right like the representative one where you choose who's going right whoever shows up they get 20 vot they bring 20 votes with them to vote the way they want to vote so any yeah that's a very good point right good and that that actually is one that should be right so well that's something we we we are going to yeah make a little yeah press release I think cynth were you in the were you in our meeting cythia are you there no I wasn't sorry somebody I thought there was somebody from the paper okay okay anyway that's what I got thanks great excellent good anybody else all right um Community input there's nobody in the room so anybody online who would like to have the the last word m no Kate I'm good thank you Allan's here though he's on the police station renovation committee I don't know if he sat through the discussion we had earlier you could ask him he's not chair or vice chair so he can't uh speak for the committee but he can speak for himself yeah he Alan yeah I you wanted to know about cost and uh we're we're going to get that uh we have a meeting next week and we'll that uh information is supposed to be available to us at that time and not much before that unfortunately great glad you're on that Alan thanks okay anybody else all right I'm ready for a uh motion for a so moved second