##VIDEO ID:1ohK75d7GcA## e me and the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you okay so we have a lot to get through tonight so we'll start right out with the town accountant Darlene Luccia with the current uh fiscal year operating budget good evening everybody um tonight I'll start off with talking about where we we are on fiscal 25 revenues um this this year is okay thanks reporting um uh decline in a lot of our revenues most of the time that on reporting revenues um we're seeing increases in a lot of our our line items we are finally seeing a decline in our revenues so I think we're hting the The Slowdown period um the numbers I'm reporting tonight for revenues are actually through October so um we haven't finished closing out our November numbers yet but so these are through October 31st revenues through October uh were about 34.2% of our $162,000 million uh budget that is within our target range of 33% so we're you know within target range but if we look at the line items that make up our local receipts you'll see that some of those numbers are declining um the first one is motor vehicle excise tax uh collections are like 95% of our 5.99 million uh today we've we've um taken in about $540,000 and we've received commitments of about 103 for fiscal 25 this is a decrease of about just under $99,000 or 7.7% from the same year same time year a year ago so we're are starting to see now our decline in our motor vehicle excise um so we're thinking that the it's uh probably because of the uh maybe the interest rates Rising um seeing just a little bit of decline we won't really know what our a major commitment comes in January so we'll wait to see what that what that looks like in kind of trend and keep an eye on the trend um going forward on motor real excise but we are seeing a little bit of a decline in there uh the same thing with our local Ms tax revenues for first quarter uh we've seen a decrease from prior year of $133,000 or if it's 5.7% from the same quarter a year ago uh so even our meals taxes is is declining down um and again we'll monitor that over the next few fiscal years I mean I think hopefully during the holiday season we see people out enjoying our restaurants but we are seeing a decline in that line item also one line item that's actually doing well is our hotel and room occupancy we actually this is the highest amount we've ever seen collected uh We've for our first quarter increased just under $30,000 or 18.2% for the same quter but again we do we are housing um the hotels are housing um the homeless um so we're getting State monies in from that so that's probably why we probably have not seen a decline in that line item we also seen a decline this is probably the first time in a while too is building permits uh we're we're declined by about 24% from a year ago uh we're not seeing any large project activity do have a couple projects that are out there that haven't pulled permits yet so when those get when those projects do get pulled David hederson has a couple they haven't pulled those permits we'll see some increase there but just an overall building around town we're not seeing um any building projects also again I think with the cost of higher interest rates those creeping up people are probably slowing down with their building permits with their homes uh on the interest earnings investment we've actually increased 40% over the same period of last year but we need to be cautious there because we expect the trend to decline in future due to the lower interest Market interest rates since September the FED reservedly lowered the interest rates by 75% so we got to be careful there that even though we've had a percentage going forward we're probably going to see a decline in those in that interest rate from the Investments so again we'll monitor that closely uh tax revenue property tax revenue is is pretty much um the same from last year um so overall we're we're seeing a decline in a lot of these line ads that we haven't seen probably in the last 5 to eight years that I've been reporting this to you um so we're going to be cautious and we'll be monitoring this going forward on the expenditure side um again these you don't see any I don't see any major um issues with anybody or concerns with the departmental expenditures if you look through through the list and the percentages everybody should again be around the numbers that I gave that I'm giving you for expenditures are actually through November uh so we should be right around like under 40% spent if you look at the you'll see some landine items that are like 70% spent those are like our benefit lines it's because on July 1st we send out all of um we send out middle sus and a lot of stuff that go out July 1st we get discounts if we pay ahead so that's why that line item looks right off the bat that looks like that we've expended but we send out all of our money to Middle sex and to um benefits line items for that so that's why those those look a little skewed but everybody all the other departments I see no concerns uh nobody's none of the budget uh department heads have reached out to me for any budget concerns going forward for 25 uh what I do is just kind of give you the our two largest um Enterprise funds are sewer and storm water where they're at I don't see any issues going forward again with sewer and storm water the numbers that we' the revenue that they've collected for sewer through October is uh 2.4 million their expenditures is only 1.2 so they're well under um their expenditure their revenu that's coming in so I don't see any issues there um with storm water uh their revenues are just a little under but some bills have just gone out so they haven't come in to be paid yet uh talk talking with the with with the um with Christine Clancy but again they're just under a little over their their budget by $40,000 and they'll make that up when that Revenue comes in so there's no issues there in storm water what I'd like to do is just go through our special Revenue funds um these are funds that um if you see there we have like our our senior lunch program school lunch the revolving accounts any reserve for Appropriations and then other revenue and donations that are specific to what the donation is for uh starting with the the senior lunch program um they're they've done fine they you'll see there's these These funds they always have a carry forward balance that these balances at the end of the fiscal year do not close to the general fund they stay within the fund so they roll over so they started with $51,000 at this point they've got um just under $34,000 of balance um so there there's no issues there with the COA lunch uh the school lunch program um they started their fiscal year with um $4.1 million in their school lunch and at this point they um they're ending as of November I'm sorry these these numbers are through October um at the $2.5 million of um they are um you'll see that the the Top Line the top line items are the revenue the group are revenues and then where it has the expenditures the ones that become the five numbers are the expenditure line items uh revolving accounts again these are um accounts that rule from year to year they balances stay with the funds what is love of these balances are um our insurance accounts on the town side most of them are insurance accounts we have the um Community Gardens and and cultural Council uh the the sped circuit breaker for the school department um that's probably one of our largest funds under the revolving um their current balance for for circuit breaker is $3.7 million there um again the school department they have Adult Ed uh Child Care um you can see that those balances there's no issues with any of their balances they have healthy balances within those accounts so there's no no issues with of those um also under that revolving count the school department they do have specific activities in their school choice um accounts under their revolving that revolving account reserve for appropriation These funds are the funds that we vote at town meeting um we have if there's any sale of any property here or all of the sewer vements Capital Improvements these are things that we transfer from these funds to to the general fund to help subsidize the the general fund for sewer costs or anything like that so or for the debt so these are things you probably will see on a town meeting Warren article that moves over to the general fund to fund anything there and then the other Don revenue and donations these are all specific to what the donation is for so they can't be spent for anything else if um somebody wants to donate you know for the Fourth of July parade that money goes into that account and that's what the the money can be used it's used for and you can just kind of if you scan down those you see them a lot of them are planning board um and what they they are for specific reasons for for peir review if there's a peir review on riverneck or there's um a peir review on b r road or something like that these are specific to those projects and the money can only be spent for those projects um and I there's I have lots of Revenue accounts if you see that or donation accounts that are all specific for projects that we have within the town um and then the end of it there is with the same thing the school has those they have their transportation they have their athletic funds those are specific um in Student Activities and trills specific to the donations to those accounts so going forward and we're just going to really monitor the revenues um I'm really concerned about seeing these declines so we'll see how the how the fiscal year pans out we're only into the first quarter so I'll be back to uh report where we are we like probably six months in okay thank you any questions for Darlene before we move on okay all right next up is uh Finance director John soua with the proposed C uh fiscal 26 Capital Improvement plan good evening everyone so the capital planning committee um just completed its work the season last week and the and back in November the committee reviewed 22 projects totaling 6.46 million and we recommended at our last meeting to um approve to recommend the funding for 19 projects totaling 5.96 million this slide shows a breakout of them by functional area and you can see where the Investments are um the first um two for community services for the Council on Aging in the library that accounts for about about 18% of the plan next two groups for public safety for police and fire that accounts for about 9% of the total and then Public Works and public facilities accounts are just under 30% and then you can see school buildings uh accounts for about 46% of the plan so we'll take a next we on this slide we'll take a look at the um the financing of of of how this would work so all of the projects you can see uh total just over 5.9 million and then we have 27,000 just over that in recaptured funds and we may have mentioned this in Prior years but just as a re review um recaptured funds are funds that are left over from projects that were um approved in Prior years but the projects have been completed and sometimes there are small balances in those accounts that and so those come back and we can use those to uh Less on the amount that we need to borrow you can see that um 5.94 million would be uh borrowed with municipal bonds to finance this plan and then we'll take a little closer look at all these projects so the first one is um for 170,000 is to replace the senior center flooring uh that goes back to when the senior center was renovated in the late 80s that's 35 years old uh there's a number of condition issues there uh the next three projects are for for the public library the first is a repaving project for 365 5,000 uh that's to address some pavement and curbing issues in the a lot some address some safety concerns so that's to replace all the paving and curbing uh the next is a computer replacement for 60,000 that's to replace a number of the computer stations in the library both staff and those used by patrons to library and then this is the second phase of the HVAC system replacement for the library um you may have remember from last year that that was the first year that we had funded um 450,000 for the library um the the it's being it's going to be in the design process but it really needs um the whole system needs to be replaced because it goes back over 20 years and it's at the end of its life the next project involves the repaving of the rear parking lot for the police station for 405,000 um there's a replacement of a Command Staff vehicle uh an SUV type vehicle for just over 111,000 and then the next series of projects involveed Department of Public Works you can see there 375,000 for sidewalk improvements 425,000 for Road improvements plus see the DPW is replacing proposed to replace a mini excavator for 130,000 as well as a older 2003 sidewalk snow clearing um piece of equipment for 210,000 [Applause] and then um continuing uh the next few projects are for uh the facilities Municipal facilities uh there are two older pickup trucks that are proposed to be replaced uh 2010 Colorado and a 2008 Ranger uh was explained that at Capital planning that the idea is to replace those lighter duty trucks with a heavier duty pickup that's capable of um being used for snow plowing operations since we we have fewer and fewer contractors wanting to plow for the town and then um the next one involves um Ada improvements at uh number of parks playgrounds and open space areas the next project involves uh renovating six restrooms at the town office building for a cost of 180,000 and then from there we move into the um the public school building so the first one uh this actually is for $877,500 this involves multiple school buildings so what's proposed here is it's very similar to the project that was uh completed at McCarthy uh is to renovate and secure the front entryways for Four elementary schools as well as Parker Middle School also to conu construct a uh emergency egress stairway outside of our high school the next project involves a partial roof replacement at Center Elementary School for 130,000 and then the next project is uh for 60,000 is to replace the hot water heaters at South Row Elementary School uh that that has aged over the years and then the next project um you remember last year in the capital plan the design work was funded this is to fund $1 million for the partial roof replacement at mathy middle school and then the ne the last project uh includes 700,000 to replace four older boilers at McCarthy Middle School school so that gives you a summary of all the projects in the plan the total 5.96 million and then finally this um the next slide is just one that um you know as as we've said in P past years the amount of funding and the capital plan varies from year to year as well as the um you know this the allocation between General government and and in for in our public schools and so for the upcoming fiscal year uh you can see there from the slide that of the 5.96 million um school facilities uh that total of 2.76 million accounts for just over 46% of the total so it gives you some idea of the how the how the the funding is allocated so that kind of gives you overview of the whole plan if there's any questions i' be glad to answer answer those on on Capital I have a quick question sure um what percentage of the town town-owned buildings are school buildings so like if the money 40 whatever per is for Capital planning of it I think we have more buildings than anybody in the town yes that's the reason foot say the school department probably that much I knew I just wanted to see if it matched up with how much also employ the most that actually is lot of stuff School commit talk about that's important two to one I have a question but would go back I think to Darling question how do you account for um new revenue from taxes for completed construction so let's say that you know a house comes on with a full occupancy in the middle of a fiscal year how do you account for those additional revenues is that something already anticipated in the revenue stream so do you want me yeah I they I don't do the I don't get involved in the budgeting process sorry yeah that's okay that's join do the yeah so for the the under the work of the assessor's office what they would do is chumford a community that we we capture the growth through June 30th so basically all of the all of the growth that they see new construction whether it's homes commercial buildings they capture that up to June 30th and then they bring that forward for the uh you know for the upcoming for the fiscal year that we're in so they they would have had to complete all of their work they would have had to account for any new growth they go out and Survey all the work all the they go through all the building permits they come through those look for new growth and so they would have had to have seen that building constructed it be finished by June 30th if not like if it's if it's a big development that's in process like the one on Princeton Street they assign a factor to it so if it's 10% completed 20% completed they can capture some new growth for the town's revenues they just wouldn't be able to capture all of it but if it's under construction and in this budgeting process that's already anticipated yeah so our chair of the assesses wants to elaborate on anything to that since we have some I need to elaborate John you exactly what we do yeah exactly so essentially I think my question more is it's already anticipated in this yeah whatever the percentage of completion would be yes and and um and I'll Paul's uh presentation he'll he'll be talking about that can we get capital budget to fix that noise that's just a regular work order okay if there's no other questions for Paul I'm going to invite Denise pigeon from nooba Tech up here to give a presentation about nooba tech sure thank you so much good evening everyone thank you for the invitation I just want to say on behalf of nooba Valley Technical High School um it's a real honor to be invited to come here each each year for the tri board meeting um and I do appreciate it I feel like it's it's a wonderful opportunity for all of us to learn um so thank you for the invite I'm Denise pigeon I know there's a few new faces that here familiar faces new faces um I'm the superintendent of nishoba Valley tech and as you know you can go to the next slide um nishoba Tech is um it's your local high school that serves chapter 74 technical programming needs so we are your Vocational High School and and proud to be serving Chumps you can go to the next slide um I always like to share we have a very large school committee so they are not all here this evening but you do have several members that are present tonight um sitting right next to uh Pat who is one of them um Harrison is also with us in the audience and I know Lawrence has um has logged in online and jod is here as well um so very well represented by the town of chelsford in addition to that I did put a star next to the names of the folks that serve on our budget subcommittee because we do have such a large school committee we break out into subcommittees and chumford has always um had a very strong representation on our budget subcommittee so I just wanted to make sure that everybody in this room knew that next slide um again what do we do and and who are we again we serve your chapter 74 technical program needs for um the town of Chelmsford 47% of the students are enrolled in some sort of a construction or Transportation cluster program 31% of the students at NT are enrolled in health and services and 22% in Arts and Technology programs we offer 18 different technical programs that the students can elect between I also wanted to share that we are in another year of being able to offer a completely funded by the state program for adults at night and that is called the CTI initiative this is a real game Cher for people if there's someone who's unemployed or underemployed in the region the state is fully funding this program they would work with the local Mass hire and they um have the opportunity to participate in a 200 hour training program we're offering cohorts an automotive Plumbing CNC machine operator and electrical and these cohorts are ongoing so if you know anyone in the area that's interested please send them to our attention so that we can continue to run these programs when we talk about budget we have to talk about enrollment because the way the assessment works it's pretty much driven by enrollment enrollment by town so our enrollment trends at nooba Tech have been have been steadily increasing since 2018 we've been on an upward climb not at our highest enrollment ever but we have been climbing from last year to this year the increase is not as dramatic as last year but we've increased by seven district students overall um the story I know I've been sharing this with you for numerous years this is the third year in a row that we are not able to take in any school choice students because we are full in the grade n class um that's that has continued so as that has happened we've pretty much over the last few years um the the school choice enrollment has dropped down to I believe we have two uh school choice students in the building now um we also have no postgraduates when we're full we're full in terms of the enrollment by town uh up seven students overall U but interestingly the big increases in enrollment this year are falling on Two Towns so Peril is up 18 students this year and Westford is up 14 students this year and all of the other towns have actually had a slight decrease in enrollment um in terms of Chelmsford specifically we estimate 27.5% of our student student population for the FY 26 budget will be chelsford students which is down slightly from last year looking specifically at Chelmsford 210 students um down eight from last year again no postgraduates we are we are not at your historical enrollment High which is 313 students um but but we're still up in the in the 200 range where we where we have been for several years so budget drivers we are in the beginning process of creating our budget I think some of the messaging that I'll share with you today is probably not unlike what you're going to hear from the other school district as well as from the town I think we're all dealing with some uncertainty in terms of revenues from the state um funding V variables from the federal level in terms of Grants and what to expect from our federal grants we're also working on multi-year adjustment to reduce Reliance on one-time funds we have often used school choice to really support our budget but we have no more school choice students at this point so the revenue stream is not um going to be as available as it has been in the past we always put a good percentage of our excess and deficiency into our budget but again we don't want to rely on that year-over-year so that's something we're also taking into consideration the needs of students continue to increase health insurance is going to be a major cost for us this year we're anticipating um a significant increase in health insurance we have our contractual increases for our staff we are um we were able to settle our teachers contract last year so the teachers contract is set for three years but we are currently in negotiations with our custodial staff par professionals um custodians and secretaries costs for technical programs equipment materials continues to be a factor the cost hav seem to come back down and vendor costs and other fixed costs so a lot of just items that are pretty much out of our control capital I always like to follow the capital presentation because it makes me realize that we're focusing on all of the same things so we have an aging building it's over 50 years old we've done our best to try to keep the building up to as best quality as we can we have actually been able to do so by being very aggressive with outside grants and one-time grants we have been very fortunate to receive numerous Workforce skills Capital grants which are competitive in nature and that has allowed us to really renovate and expand our technical programs so some of you were able to visit our newest edition which was a 7,000 SQ foot addition to house our engineering Robotics and programming tech programs that was done completely by an outside Workforce skills Capital Grant we're also in the process of implementing another Grant to expand vet assisting and electrical and in addition to that Grant we are moving cosmetology and working on renovating cosmetology which has been taking a little longer than we would have liked but we're we're almost done we're nearing completion on that renovation and through our Capital plan we have been working on a multi-year phased project to replace our entire fire suppression system so our whole system needs to be replaced we are now looking to be able to implement the third phase of that project in the upcoming budget cycle in addition to that there are a lot of other needs that we are wrestling with we know we have some pretty large um vehicle purchases that are going to be needed in the next year or two we have three mini buses that need to be replaced we also have the remaining sections of the fire suppression system that we need to implement we need to replace all of our exterior doors in the coming in the coming years we have a SE one section of the roof we need to work on boilers our parking lot is is really hitting the point where it's going to need to be replaced we're looking at possibly doing the front portion and then the back parking lots in year set follow and then HVAC is really the very large expense that we're working on every time we've received a Workforce skills Capital Grant we've been strategic we've replaced the HVAC as part of the grant for that particular program but we have a very large building we have a lot of HVAC equipment and we don't yet have an HVAC Tech program to help us out at nooba Tech but it's something we're thinking about something we're thinking about so um looking ahead not necessarily an FY 26 but an FY 27 we are looking at our options to potentially go out with um some type of bonding to be able to really um accomplish some of these big significant items that we need to do that's not possible through the annual budget process so we're working on that um in terms of our process our next steps for us we're we're right in the middle of development of the budget we'll be presenting over numerous weeks to our budget subcommittee and then our full committee uh we work our timeline backwards based on our first town meeting which is going to actually be in March March 22nd is our first town meeting in Westford so our budget timeline Works backwards from there we have to vote our budget um no later than February 4th in order to meet our timelines and I'm glad to answer any questions just on westfi is there a a trend that's gone up is there any particular reason why the enrollment is going up their enrollment has gone up the last few years but they previously had had a dip in enrollment for a few years this is just what you see I don't think it's unusual to see up 510 students down 510 students I think it it depends on a whole range of of variables so there's no specific reason that it's going up not that I can speak to no okay any other questions I just want to say thank you well thank you you don't get to come to all the meetings but we thought we talk about you [Laughter] lot all good things watching their meeting reflexively thought it bad that's on you that's not okay I think we're part of one large team we definitely are thank you all right next up then is chood superintendent of schools Dr Jay Lang yeah good evening everyone um glad to be here as well uh just going to share a couple highlights on our current fiscal year uh 25 budget uh daring had kind of alluded to earlier but um fortunately for us as we were putting this budget together for the year um we had collective bargaining agreements in place with all of our employee unions um this was the third year of three-year contracts with just all of our unions with the exception of our custodians they're off cycle so we have one more year on their contract but they're a very small group of only 11 people um so good news was when we put this budget together we had contracts in place we knew exactly what we were going to be uh budgeting to um our contracts do expire so I'll talk about that later but we'll be going into contract negotiations with all of our big groups right in the first part of the year um with regard to our current fiscal year budget um our operating side is in good shape I really don't have any concerns at all with our salary accounts with any of our um expense accounts our grants and revolving funds all in good shape um not really seeing any issues at all with the fiscal um 25 budget and we also have started uh putting our fiscal 26 budget together we usually start at the end of October meeting with each of our uh schools to reconcile staff talk about um how they're doing this current year what their needs may be um going forward so what well underway with that and we have targeted our budget schedule has us putting out our recommended budget to the school committee um on Tuesday February uh 4th which is the first Tuesday in February so we're about a month and a half away from putting our recommended budget out um a couple of the slides that we have just historically always uh taken a look at as you know um desie it's not us but the department of Elementary and secondary education they actually determine which states that we're uh which states which school systems that we're most comparable with within uh the state and they do a number of analyses based on um student information staff demographics and information financial information and uh they just came up with our new uh comp so these are the communities that are most um similar to us and these are some different points that we just take a look at when we're putting our budget together each year and we typically report on what was new for us this year again most of the communities stay pretty similar um Newton popped in as a comparable for us uh this year so you'll see that they pretty much are at the top of the list within uh most categories but we always take a look at um our per pupil spending just to see how we are in line with districts and again we've always we've never tried to kind of be the very top we've never wanted to be the very bottom of any of these we traditionally look at these in kind of three sections you you got a top third a middle third a bottom third um on spending fiscal 23 is the year that was audited they're in the middle of doing all the fiscal 24 audits now so the data is a available from desie on fiscal 23 and you'll see um for some reason Easton on a couple of these slides um is having some difficulty with their reporting so Easton hasn't uh fully reported their slide information to desie and that hasn't been updated so they're just reported as not reported but um we are with regard to our comparable districts in the uh bottom third of spending per pupil at just over 16,99 uh based on the 23 data another point of comparison that we typically look at is our student teacher ratio um this again takes into consideration um not walking into a classroom you're not going to see 13.4 students in one teacher but globally how many teachers you actually employ in the school system divided by how many uh in District students you're educating and again this is more of a gauge just to be able to look against other communities and uh this is one we typically are in the middle or uh kind of the bottom third we actually did fall to the um the lowest of the uh comparable communities and uh the State on this particular slide um at 13.4 to1 I had done a report for the school committee at the last meeting to actually take a look at what our enrollments are in individual classes and I have to say at the elementary level you know we're pretty much between 20 and 22 23 for our K to two classrooms and then our guideline is up to about 25 when we hit uh middle school and high school um you'll certainly see some classes because when you get to the upper middle school and the high school it's a lot done by section so you're going to have some classes that have a few more some that have a few less but those are the averages we pretty much um move to one of the big issues which isn't going to come as a surprise to you we've talked about this for a few years um we are a little bit hamstring with regard to even if we wanted to aggressively lower class size we physically don't have the space within the schools to add additional um classrooms um kada basically six at this point we're maxed out um spacewise so we're utilizing every uh square foot of the buildings that we have we've been able to maintain all of our specials in designated classroom so our art and music and fizzed you know they have their own spaces there are some districts that have to take another step to say have those specials kind of be on a cart almost and be moving around the school because you physically need the room that they're in to have a regular classroom we haven't quite got to that point yet but um we are pretty much maxed out um K to five when you get to seventh and eighth grade and then the high school again because the rooms are a little bit more flexible um in an elementary class classroom you know it's the same teacher and the same kids in the same room all day but when you get to upper middle school and then the high school you know in a seven period day um a teacher is teaching five so you technically could rotate another teacher in for the other two uh sections it's not desirable but you could do that to have there be a little bit of space but uh this is something obviously we want to keep um track of because um it does affect all of our different um kind of ratings and rankings that come out when we're taking a look at our different uh different districts um as I mentioned we are going to be going going into uh teacher negotiations um this coming January right after the first of the year um average teacher salary is something obviously that's um you know kind of looked at among communities I know this is something our staff look at we are very um aggressive and I think attractive at the low end of our salary scales uh up to even steps you know entry up through five and six and what we tail off is towards the top end our top end of the scale tends to be lower than our geographical uh neighboring District as well as our comp districts and we have um somewhere between 45 and 48% of our staff are actually on top step so they are senior staff so when you have that many staff on the top step and the top step is actually low that's what's throwing these numbers are down so that is going to be something that I'm sure we're going to need to uh continue to dialogue about and address when we have negotiations coming um but when it comes to average teacher salary again this is all based off the audited financials so 23 was the last year that we have that data from the state um and we are in the bottom third on teacher salary in that category then when it comes uh what Dy takes a look at uh and you'll see we're in the mid pack here we're in the mid third um of districts when it talks about your required net School spending that's a metric that desie comes up with based on your enrollment um how much money you're actually supposed to be spending for what they term an adequate um education and you'll see all of the districts spend above 100% of the requirements so you're required to spend the the 100% % of your number everyone basically spends in excess of that and what your benchmarking is how much in excess of that are you spending and you'll see in Chelmsford um we're 33.6% in fiscal 23 over the requirement we're actually slightly higher than Statewide all districts U but you'll see again we're kind of in the middle of the P when it comes to um our comparable districts so again we try to be in the top third of the middle um this is one where're in the middle of the pack and as we look at fiscal 2 uh as uh Paul we'll talk about when we get into his slides um I think we've all kind of known fiscal 26 was going to be a um challenging year um overall um obviously it's going to be challenging very challenging for the school department going into the year um again without contracts in place and knowing we're going to have to be at the table negotiating um contracts um we were anticipating fiscal 26 was going to be pretty much a level service um year for the district we uh were not looking necessarily to add positions and programs and serves I think we've done a very good job over the last number of years actually aligning our district goals that came out of the Strategic plan to the budget so we've actually made some very good um investments in programs and servic in the district we're in a we're in a good place what we don't want to do is necessarily um go backwards and again it's just very difficult doing that going in a negotiating year so um our fixed costs for next year um again this is no uh new new people new services or programs just to maintain the existing Services we're provid providing this year um would be uh contract increase so that's obviously um a big line at I'm a little over a million and a half just to be able to have at the table when we're actually doing our negotiations we already have steps that have been negotiated in the various contracts obviously most notably um say teachers and Paris um those happen no matter what because they've already been uh bargained so that cost us about $800,000 we then have employees who are advancing themselves taking Advanced course workor they might have a master's degree they might be working towards say a kags degree or a doctor degree and things like that we call those Lane changes um so the staff have to actually notify Us in the fall if they're working on an advanced degree and then um we obviously that helps us to be able to budget for that but that cost is just under $150,000 in next year's uh budget and again that's a fixed cost uh we then have about $130,000 worth of um early retirement incentives so this is if staff tell us ahead of time if they're going to be retiring at the end of the school year they get an incentive that helps us obviously when it comes to budgeting as far as being able to assume a cost savings from a individual on the top step retiring and being replaced by uh we use an average of uh Master step three as an incoming staff member so there's a good you know approximately $30,000 Savings in most positions that we're budgeting we want to be able to to uh to get that number so so that certainly helps us but just you know coming out of the gate we're looking at about 2.6 million in just wage related items in the contract that are fixed costs for level service and then when we look at non-wage items we have several contracts uh that are in place for next year which is great because we know what they're going to be our big bus uh regular red Transportation contract is going up just over a quar million dollars um $229,000 we contract for 29 big buses that run uh three runs during the morning three runs in the afternoon obviously provide services to our um sports teams and clubs and whatnot we've specialized trans ation uh in District you'll see like some manyi Vehicles 7D Vans uh that move a lot of our special education population uh from home right to school and that contract has $171,000 increase for next year um we are anticipating um as always happens OSD is a state agency that regulates what the a of District tuitions that we pay to u schools so we're a member of actually Valley collaborative so if we send a student um who we can't address their needs in District to Valley collaborative there's a tuition we have to pay if they go to a private school there's a tuition we have to pay it it's all approved by the state uh but we know we're looking at approximately um a quar million dollars worth of sped tuition increases for our kids that are already in those schools as well as we have a couple of kids that are kind of in the pipeline right now figuring out if they require those types of schools um Paul will talk uh more eloquently than I can about the utility contracts and the increases that we're looking at for next year but that's basically just a figure that we've uh we plug plugged in to help with our um utility cost increases and then we have some random uh contracts for services much smaller level but we already have the contracts in place for next year that would add about $65,000 of value um to existing services for fiscal 26 so when you took take a look at our wage and non-wage um we're right around $3.5 million of um just actual fixed costs to um Supply the same services and programs that we're providing this current fiscal 25 as we look into fiscal 26 again for us when we're going into this um we do budget in the school department budget an allocation for raises because when the school committee is at the table negotiating um they can reach agreement and then Implement a raise I know on the uh Town side often that's negotiated and then comes as a separate act at town meeting uh that doesn't happen within school department so we do have that number actually included in the budget and that's a set aside for employee wage wages during negotiations so um more more to talk about later but um just wanted to kind of let you know where that number was coming from about 3.5 million just for our level service budget for next year okay any questions for Dr Lang just just comment you know I and appreciate that they put in this the slides showing that you know when it comes to what we're spending compared to other towns we're we're kind of at the bottom in terms of P per pupil and our teachers but if you had other slides showing academically you would find us worth towards the top more so we're getting a big bang for a buck um you know and this is just our comperable just looking at the uh per pupil um you know we're at 69 the state average is over 20,000 almost 21,000 so we're almost 3 4,000 less than the state average per pupil and we have 5,000 pupil so you know we're you know the money we're spending it we're spending it pretty effectively I think and um you know to continue to do that we need to continue to have those funds to do that um the other thing to point out is on that last slide you know as Dr pigeon said you know a lot of those items are out of control even without W raes wage increases raises we're still look looking at $ 1.9 to $2 million increase just on salary you know Lane changes and steps and all that stuff so you know when we look at numbers later proposals you know we're just look we're looking at you know without even negotiating a contract $1.9 to $2 million right there and then we have to negotiate with our our teachers which are you know 75% of the work force in town so yeah I do think and I don't want that to be you know stated because we have obviously produced reports around like finances and spending and things like that I do think the residents and um the schools and the staff really do get a very good return on the investment in education um we obviously don't get into the academic performance here but the uh the programs that we um provide um you know what you will see on our um again academic kind of standing is we are typically in the top third when it comes to uh looking at the data so um the town is getting a very good bang for its when it comes to education um we offer some excellent programs and Services I think the um what we hear constantly from our our parents and our um community in chum is that they appreciate what they what they receive in the in the schools and it's obviously something we want to continue to support and continue to provide at a high level Paul I'll turn it over to you okay thank you all right Paul's going to wrap things up and tell us where we go from here well it's it's getting worse from here um I just some opening comments um I mean things are just happening in real time our tax rate was approved today but so the numbers that you're going to see here and presented are final and accurate and and I will commend the assessors I mean they presented to the board about a month ago their projections and they were spot on uh and and and again just it just I think it's just symptomatic of the quality that we have in schools and the general government so forth I think we're all very proud of what we do and how efficiently we do it the big the big message is we're just being overwhelmed by outside factors part of that being inflation and then part of it being the state quite frankly um the other thing that happened out today is today the state released the draft guidelines for accessory dwelling units um in anticipation of the new law becoming effective February 2nd um they're having informational seminars in the week ahead as well as public hearings and we expect the draft regulations will be approved by um sometime in February around the implementation of the law uh this follows as you know the MBTA communities act uh which also drives is driving the state's goal and mission of producing additional housing units um what I can tell you about the we all know about the MBTA zoning perhaps that you know we we've adopted zoning we're we'll be submitting the end of this month for certification in accordance with the state deadline um and we're just sort of hiring out a few components of that but that's sort of on the horizon in coming as part of the state's Mission and then today with the Adu units basically the draft regulations almost affirm what the state law no surprise meant was basically you've got to accommodate accessory dwelling units uh and that's what the definition of reasonable is and some of the things are being clarified so for example someone said well is it only single family Zone districts no any any District in the community a community where single family homes are allowed by right are subject to the accessory dwelling unit bylaw and all those nuances and basically you have to provide reasonable regulations which basically means pretty much what your typical setbacks would be for a single family home you've got to provide why I mention that is that means in the future we're likely to be impacted as a community and a region in accordance with the state's Mission uh uh with additional units which create demands on Services Schools public safety public health and so forth um that's the big thing and then the big thing that's different now is is you know is sort of the inflationary environment that we're involved with um and this wasn't a total surprise me I remember releasing a report to all of you back last March a a threeyear projection of what was coming and then more recently at fall toown meeting our finance director John Souza gave a five-year Financial forecast uh and none of it has changed if anything it's gotten worse and I hate to be a harbinger of Doom and when I'm and I'm telling you when I'm when we're going to talk about revenues tonight I'm really trying to push it because I want to be credible with um with the community whether we're at the bargaining table or we're at the town meeting or at the board meetings or what have you we have to be credible uh and and and therefore you know I'm trying to do that um but it's coming from all sides even today and and not to pick on Nim Cog or anything else but the proposed assessment is going to be discussed next week at Nim Cog is an 8% increase in the assessment to the member communities not that that's going to break the town of chouns whether it's 8% or 4% but it it just just shows you the climate that's out there um as best that I can determine at this point in time uh and and I say at this point in time because similar to what Dr Lang suggested at the end of next month I've got to produce a budget U for for town meeting uh that'll then be reviewed by the finance committee uh and the town meeting rep and then hopefully allow us to operate in the upcoming year and certainly let's all acknowledge this is a period of tremendous uncertainty we got a new Administration going into Washington next month promising dramatic change um and nobody seems to know what inflation's going to do in the future and if there's anything that's different now than it's been in the last decades and I'll use the word decades because we haven't seen this as a country since the late 70s it's the inflationary aspect the problem is is that proposition two and a half isn't index to inflation and why that matters is 76% of the town's Revenue comes from the property tax okay so and that worked fine in the 80s and the 90s and even in the 2000s and the 2010s and so forth when inflation and you'll you'll see a slide soon on inflation but when inflation is running 20% four years or whatever metric you want to use in the current years three years four years five years whatever it doesn't match up and that's what's different we're not doing anything wrong in fact I was talking to Dr Lang Saturday uh we uh you have the same number of teachers in the CHC Public Schools teaching positions as you did 10 years ago with similar enrollment and you'll see stuff on the town side as well in terms of our Public Safety officers and Highway Department officials we we've not been bloating ourselves by any means it's there have been unique demands particularly from the from the pandemic on in terms of support servic mental health support services student support services that really were extraordinary on top of that inflation on top of it so to give an overview like what's different why are you so alarmed that's what's different today and and and and why I mentioned the state is is in the past state has been a partner a stronger partner I'll say this to the cities and towns and we know the problems of States dealing with with the MBTA service and operations again a issue of Housing and so forth we I just don't see that the state's going to come to our rescue um and so we we'll dive into it as best I can determine I'm seeing a budgetary shortfall of about $2.5 million and I've sent materials out uh to the to the boards here this evening as well as department heads over the last several weeks just to to introduce this and also familiarize it so forgive me if some of the stuff you're hearing tonight is repetitive to you but I'm also mindful that we may have an audience watching this for the first time and a sort of trying to put perspective because our biggest challenge what's different today is how do we reach people to get them to understand what we're dealing with those 36,000 people in our community who vote influence and everything else in our community it's hard to do now because there is no mainstream communication thing we we know our newspaper subscription is down tremendously we know people aren't as active on boards and committees and so forth and so that's our biggest challenges is reaching people people uh because people have busy lives and full demands so again looking at a budgetary shortfall of $2.5 million what's driving this are things beyond our control we talk about fixed costs we know and John sits on The Advisory Board from milex County Retirement System we've got extraordinary increases coming in our Retirement Board assessment that's a known we've seen just a a month ago the increase in the Medicare supplement plans for our retirees 19% for Medicare plus increases assessment plans um for medx to you know 30 almost 33% for an HMO Medicare Supplement Plan typical years we'd have 5% 4% and we know what's going we know what's driving it it's we can see what's happening in the healthc care industry in the state we saw what happened with the steuart hospitals and even if you put the steuart hospitals aside you see the struggles that are going on at any of the hospital hital in the state and the indust in the health insurance industry and that's driving up costs not to mention the demands on the health system in terms of emergency rooms and in terms of consumer demand for weight loss drugs and other prescription drugs that that are just been unprecedented and are quite expensive um we also affect as was noted earlier just our cost for labor contracted services and so forth are up just like the regular homeowner that's the best way I can relate to them is with the typical homeowner when they pick up the phone and say hey what does it cost to get a construction dumpster in my driveway to do a housing project or what does it cost for you know to to remodel my kitchen or what have you or what does it cost to go to the grocery store we've all seen it and the problem is the town of chelon as a government entity isn't immune from that and that's what makes it all all challenging um so we look the first component of this is trying to develop we get we need a revenue Target the whole purpose in the charter and the bylaw is for this meeting tonight is to a revenue estimate to allow the superintendent and me to go out and and develop a budget and that's what tonight's about so those major components are property tax state aid local receipts and then available funds and the big thing on state aid is I just don't see in it it it being a white horse running in to rescue it in the local receipts as darene mentioned are Challenge on top of that uh as was mentioned our labor agreements are are needed for the upcoming fiscal year um and again we just have a backlog of of infrastructure projects Capital Improvement projects John highlighted the the capital budget for this year of around $6 million do we know the requests in the upcoming years are almost 40 to 50% and even beyond that above that this year wasn't as much of a challenge just the way it fell out in terms of random years but we know we've got more roof projects coming we've got you know more more expensive vehicles and also the lead time for these things so when you're looking at a fir Tru now an average firet trucks over a million dollars a lad truck is approaching $2 million not to mention it takes you 36 months sometimes to get these equipment so you need the lead times you know we we we we I I hope nooba does do an HVAC program because when we when we went out and recently our Public Works director went out to bid for HVAC work you get no biders and it's not because the town isn't attractive in terms of paying our bills or having quality work it's because there just isn't the the workforce out there to do this and that's contributing to the inflation is the lack of of an adequate skilled labor force one thing I want to mention and and I have this slide here is about the draft strategic plan because we're right in the middle of developing a strategic plan for the community and what and we did get input in surveying for the communities and I think the most notable thing of that why I included this one slide on on a project that's in progress is it shows you the priorities which we've always had and hopefully will continue with and they asked about what are the most important things uh in the next strategic plan I.E what should chel be prioritizing in the five-year future infrastructure K through2 education smart efficient management of public funds Public Safety you know so we we're doing it right it's just the problem is how can we afford to continue to do it and and that's what we're going to discuss this evening here's my best estimate of revenues for the upcoming year it's 168.5 million this is not a conservative estimate uh and and I welcome your input and I'm fact at the end I'm GNA the end of the revenue component I'm going to ask for for for a vote and sense consensus from the boards this evening and and and and and we're open this is you know this is meant to be a collaborative process because we've all succeeded together and we want to continue to succeed and pull together to the betterment of the community but right now it we're looking at a budget growth of 3.38% okay the demands for level service are well beyond that the hurt what we just heard from the school department was 4.74% for their level service increase and so the problem is it's a simple math equation and the same thing on the general government side 3.38% doesn't fit into 4.7 or or otherwise and and the problem is this isn't a one-year anomaly oh if we could just smooth this thing over you know we'll be okay next year we can catch up and that's why I was doing the multi-year projections as you can see on this car slide you know um and we'll dive into it the main component as I said earlier over 76% is the property tax state aid is right behind that at at 13% local receipts at almost 8% and available funds at 2% why I mentioned that is Proposition two and a half constrains the property tax and and the point of showing the other numbers by percentages wise is even if you push keep pushing the state aid and look receipts it's not going to bail us out folks so whether it's a 3.2% increase in state area you push it to 3.5 or or your local receipts and you know 4.8% is it enough you know push it to five whatever that ain't gonna that ain't going to bail out the shortfall and that's why I'm so troubled and and really been wrestling with this thing for some time so let's just dive into the into it and I'm going to answer the question about the UMAS West development here's the property tax this this is the big enel a again 76 and a half% of our Revenue okay above the dotted line is is fact it's known as of today it's known that's our base Levy our two and a half% increase in our new growth and again you look at a small doesn't include excluded debt because that's separate and and it gets added on but it's not material anyway and again we have no control over it because it ties That service so the Baseline is when we go to upcoming fiscal year we have roughly $3.1 million we can assess in the 2 and a half% increase of our base Levy of 123.5 million that's a mathematical calculation I can do it you can do it everybody does it in fact the state does it on their website on the do if you want to see it that's a known number three 3, 88824 mathematically it's 2 and a half% above our current base Levy meaning non-excluded Levy of 123.5 million so that's known what isn't known is the new growth what we do know is two things we know our new growth history and then we know where new growth comes from building permits okay we just heard from daring a building permits are down I don't think that's a shock to anybody if you drive through the community you're not seeing the new construction or additions on homes or in commercial buildings that you would have seen three four whatever years ago but if you look at the new growth history this year was 1.5 million last year was 1.5 million the year before that in 23 was 1.7 the year before that 1.47 we can see what the trend is and again I can see in the building department in the permits so what I'm projecting for for the upcoming year two years is is $2 million you say wait a minutul how do you go from 1.5 million in recent years to 2 million of next two years and that's the UMass West Campus the 2 250 Princeton Street The traml Crow multif family departments out there we know going back to the permitting process everything else it was a million dollars of New Growth to the community right 396 luxury units and so forth what we don't know is when they're going to get occupancy which was John's answer earlier about well how does it get added to the levy so I basically spread it out $500,000 assuming that 6 months from now literally half the units will be the will be occupied and then the other half will probably be after July 1 which would fall into 27 because when they were recently before the app the developer was recently before the select board asking for permission to store propane and do indoor construction work this winter they pretty much told us it's one winter only so we know that it's going to be finished in the next you know year and plus or so we just don't know where it's going to be on June 30th so I basically using $2 million in in growth um beyond that I don't know of anything that's out there in terms of major development in the community that's that will hit our tax levy in rolls in the next six months and if anybody has those please share with me but there's nothing out there we're you know we're seeing some stuff go before the board of appeals and the planning board for some 40b projects you know a daycare facility on North roow which is as you know not very popular yeah there'll be a building perimet that comes with that when and if it gets through the appeals and gets done but that's not going to add to our growth um by this by six months from now so that so anyway so I'm using two million so again where's the 4.12% come from the 2 and half% increase and then the $2 million of New Growth gives us $5 million in property tax revenue so that's where you see the $4.3 million uh of of activity there we want to go back to the property tax bill as I said the tax rate was just approved today this is what it means the average home for the current tax year we're in right now is assessed at $634,500 the average single family home the tax was just approved at 1390 which means the average single family property tax bill is $882 you can see our ranking in the right hand side one would be the highest tax bill in the state you know Weston Carlile you know Sherburn Dover all that type of stuff as you can see last year we were 78 77 7 you can see we're around that late 7s Mark which actually is quite better than we were a decade ago um so people complain about taxes and Chumps that I say well where aren't they going up um and where you going to go to escape them in Eastern Massachusetts and so in 5 years the average single family bill because there's been a shift within this even as our ranking has fallen there's been a shift towards residential because residential is going up everywhere else in the state compared the commercial if you don't believe me just look what's going on in Boston right now where they're wrestling with the legislature trying to save residential taxpayers by shifting their commercial base and what looks like now going to be a feudal effort um it's because the values are there because of the demand for housing and you can see in five years the the average single family homeowner has paid 19.8% increase in taxes where if he just compounded two and a half% over five years it'd be 133% so obviously they're bearing a heav heavier burden any only way I can put it into hopefully a little more understandable term is if you take that $882 bill for the year and divide it over 12 months the average single family property owner is a cutting check to the town of shamet of $735 per month so that's that's the issue on the property tax state aid state aid again this slide is known state aid these are actual state aid numbers as you can see there's only two things to talk about in state aid the big drivers are Chapter 70 school aid and unrestricted General government Aid what used to be called Lottery Aid additional assistance those are the two big drivers you can see how the the other numbers just pale in comparison to them and a couple of them are offsets which which go are allocated like for the schools for the school choice tuition that just goes to them it's not part of the revenue base um and so it's it's significant here's the first one Chapter 70 we had that windfall in fiscal year 24 of 18% $2.18 million that was that was an anomaly and it's not going to happen again as we saw this year was down to 3.81 million uh you saw what was was before then um and so you know it's it's a concern going forward with the state's Revenue thing so what what I'm doing is is taking this data and saying okay if if our actual for 25 was 14.68% increase if let's let's let's move that up by 3% as as a discussion point for the next three years and I'll come to what why I use use 3% on the unrestricted General government Aid that's been more consistent 3% 3.2% 3.5% in recent years um it's a smaller number than Chapter 70 um so the prior Administration liked to index it to the growth in the state budget because it was an easier thing and they were less specific and benchmarked with the Chapter 70 that's you know there is a there is a chapter 7 funding law which they keep saying will be fully implemented but as I think we saw earlier we're likely not going to get windfall out of that unless the legislature again pushes up minimum contributions to all communities so I think a 3% is consistent with the unrestricted General government Aid so when I look at the aggregate I'm using a 3% figure of $22.5 million which is technically 3.21% if you want to use the most significant digits and why I did that is last week last Monday in fact the state holds its Revenue hearing much like we're doing this evening and they bring in their experts you know Mass Commission of Revenue the mass taxpayer Association and so forth others and they say well we need your forecast for what's the state budget going to grow in the upcoming fiscal year and the mass Commission of Revenue estimated at that meeting that the state revenues will increase by 1.9% to 3.1% above the forecast for the current fiscal year so when I land a 3% increase in state aid I think that's reasonable um I'm opening to hearing other thoughts if you think that that's not you know if that's just too conservative but that's why I chose 3% figing was at the top end of what the commissioner of Revenue is forecasting for the Statewide knowing that the state is dealing with some systemic structural budgetary shortfalls thank you um local receipts as as doly noted um local receipts are are a little bit cautious this year this is the budgeted local receipts for this year $12.5 million this was what was approved with the tax levy and so forth the state deliberately is conservative with local receipts um that's that's that's just the guidance other words when we go up in local receipts we have to provide written explanation as to why we're going up in an estimate and I guess what I'm preparing is for the year ahead is to actually start writing some written explanations here are the major contributors much like the state aid the major contributors are are listed here the big one is motor vehicle excise it's over 40% of our local receipts right now the budget is $5.9 Million last year we collected 6.1 the two years before that it was level at 5.7 and you can see before that the two years before that were 5.3 so again we've got to you know we got to be mindful of history and also be mindful of what's going on out there if you remember a year ago you couldn't get a used car and and and the price of a new cars skyrocketed that's now waned the you can buy a used car and you can actually get money off the sticker price like traditionally off for new cars and there're and some of the unfortunately some of the plants are are scaling back production and even doing some shutdowns brief shutdowns as you're seeing at Stanis and and Nissan and so forth um so that's a concern building permits I highlight them in yellow because you can see the the variance the large multif family residential developments caused these large variant in in permits so that's why you see the one here in 24 was the one for 255 prinson Street which was was well over a million dollars for that permit and then back in 21 that's going back to the units on um on on um Turnpike Road when we we had the major units thing there but when you pull that apart pull that out you know you're that's why our budget is 1.85 for the current year is which again is above the 1.5 N5 for 23 and about the eight of 22 it's because we don't see anything coming uh in terms of major projects we are seeing growth in the meals excise investment income as John and darling noted earlier it's it's dependent upon the the Federal Reserve and what's going on with Market rates because the town of Chet isn't an investor in mutual funds and in the market we are we are in a restricted investment which is basically tied to indexes with the Federal Reserve you know so when the when the when the rates go down the town's interest goes down that's why it was actually negative because John eston even if the bond the the notes and stuff don't mature he's got a mark to Market um so again that's why our estimate is 450 this year rooms XIs darly noted the highest ever because of the people in the hotels well it's not because tourism become so popular in the Marram Valley or in chelwood it's because of the Sheltering and what did the governor say last week she's she wants to like the previous governor she wants to go away from the shelter system now how effectively she be able to do that we don't know because um where are they going to put these people although we've seen them moderate their policy how they going to shelter people um and that's a concern um so that's what worries us about room excise the good news is on the room excise is is finally after a decade of being dorant they are renovating the old Rison Hotel into a hotel brand um so we we expect that will be open by the new fiscal year this summer so when we return to more traditional ways at least we'll have a traditional volume of Hotel space in the community um although there was going to be no function facility there because that's been permitted by the as an adult daycare so you're going to have basically holiday and Express on one side and then the other side where the rooms are you're going to have a hotel brand but there's no function Halls there's no Main Kitchen none of that other stuff that's all being converted to a um adult daycare um so that's that's the story so when you come back to well what's your local receipt estimate I'm pushing it up $13.1 million or 4.8% because I I just I think that's more realistic um because one thing we do see with local receipts like anything else is you get variance and waves in terms of things you don't see a unforeseen permit project coming in or the FED bumps up interest rates whatever so to sort of account for those uh estimates on on um local receipts when you when you see you know 13.1 well if you look if if it was the anomaly again appears to be 24 was 15 million because of that extraordinary permit but the years all around that are 12.5 12.4 11.7 12.8 10.8 I think 131 I think I could you know I I I can comfortably put that forward and then the last piece is available funds which is miscellaneous stuff as as Dian and John described these are are offset funds that go to provide benefits that that support Enterprise funds uh the peg access Enterprise fund Child Care Enterprise Fund in terms of the benefits of those employees that because that's part of our budget um and and the money that comes from the sewer Capital Improvement Fund in betterments that goes to pay the debt for the projects so again you can see the number is pretty consistent 3.8 3.8 3.7 so there's really no nothing there to to grab from so to come back to pull it all into one sheet that's how I get the .5 million I've been struggling I want to push pull this number higher but I also think we have to be responsible in terms of where we're going so again I think I've explained the property tax at 4.3 3.45% increase the state aid at 3.21% loc receipts at 4.8 it comes out to 5.5 million or 3.38 and so what I think I'm I'm seeking at the this point is is is an affirmation or if not a consensus on what number to use for for Revenue because we what we need a number to Target this um going ahead and I think as much as the expenditure side is dicey and we'll talk about that going and uncertain certainly the revenue side is a little more certain especially where three qus of your Revenue comes from the property tax so I'm going to stop there I'll answer any questions but mam chair I'd like some sense of discussion and consensus as to you know whether we're on the mark with this or or believe me if if if if where we'd like to go but I think this is a solid number in terms of what we would expect to see the budget for the upcoming fiscal year okay any questions comments Paul about this about this number I mean I guess I could start I I I know he's been doing this for a long time I I respect the way Paul worked so hard to come up with the number every year and um it's it's been so apparent that this has been troubling for him and Weighing on on him so much the past few months um so I would be supportive of this number I don't know if anybody else any has any questions concerns ideas mam chair sure uh I agree with with you and uh the town manager's overall logic in my opinion is unassailable as to how he gets to his final numbers if anything the 3.38% um and I'm a very conservative guy I'm a little concerned about that number but uh I would certainly say that I would not push that any more than it's been pushed but again the amount of effort that the town manager has put into this the amount of thought he's in the town for the last 6 months uh that that we were going to be at the place that we're at now so to all of us who have been listening this is not a surprise not at all um so I would absolutely support the uh the numbers that he's put forth anyone else now I don't question numbers at all does free cash come into play at any point if we find our in in a hole and so I don't just don't know enough about it so no no let me say this we will finish this fiscal year with free cash because as dowy noted we're running good this year and we're not under the same constraint this year so we you know we we will finish you know the tax rates approved the budgets will close out depending upon the severity of the winter again that that kind of helped us the last couple years with the free cash number um but the problem is you don't want to be building your budget on free cash and other one-time revenues because if you do you're going to be setting yourself up for a fall that give you an example the town of NAIC is looking at an $8 million override their budget's slightly larger than ours but within the same range because they ended up using arper monies and free cash to to to to carry their budget what so what I'm saying is you're going to have free cash at the end of this year but you you're not likely to have it it's not going to be mil it's not going to be 4 milon and you're not going to have it the next year and one of the reasons I am pushing this aggressively on the revenue thing is we have a cash Reserve in terms of stabilization fund and so forth that's that's healthy and strong and therefore that is our back stop you know but you you don't want to sit here and say oh what do you forecast the free cash to be and then how you know how do we offset it um it it you you think about it if you're talking $168 million budget 1% is $1.6 million okay so you can see the variance so when someone comes up with oh you got let's say we had a 2% variance in ter favorably you know that's only that's $3.2 million it sounds like a lot of money it is but it but but you got put in a perspective out of $168 million budget it isn't but you also have the perspective of going the other way and that did happen 20 years ago the town had a negative free cash um and quite frankly if the you know cuz remember we're trying to budget a period that's going to start 6 months from now and finish 18 months from now and goodness knows what the economy in the world's going to be like six months from now or 18 months from now given let's not come on let's call let's say what it is folks we're in an extraordinary time in terms of geopolitical Politics as well as the country's politics um as well as the diminishment of the one-time revenues that were coming from the federal government that aren't there anymore right the N money is not there the oper money is no longer there the Sheltering money is not there and yet the problems are and we don't know what inflation is going to be or where the economy is going so yeah that that's the long-winded way of saying No this budget doesn't put in free cash because one we don't know what it's going to be and we don't know the Perils of of what that what it's going to be like outside of that can I can I ask a follow-up question Diana leau school committee for those who don't know me it's my first time at one of these um I am wondering about mentioned something I was thinking about the stabilization fund I know at the most recent town meeting we we set aside additional amounts to from the free cash toward that stabilization fund what's the current value of our town stabilization fund just just over 15 million and what percentage of our Town's annual let's say projected budget is that it's less than 10% because our budget's 9.8% okay I hadn't done the yet um given that the typical recommendation for a stabilization fund is 5 to 7% of the town's annual budget is there any thought to in an extraordinary time like this considering using that to stabilize um the budget in a way that would support our being able to at least keep level services or close to level Services no first of all a policy is 5 to 10% not 5 to 7% is the guideline policy for cash reserves because we don't have any free cash we put all our free cash into the stabilization fund the problem is and we'll see it in the slid this isn't a one-year problem right this is not going to go away the same drivers that that we've heard about you will hear about in terms of the retirement assessment health insurance wages for contract that is not going to go away in one year if it was a oneye anomaly I would be the first one that say let's smooth it over but there's nothing that leads me to believe that that oh if we're sitting here a year from now well some of these other factors will Wayne you know we're not seeing it we we we see what what we see what communities are selling for contracts we we saw what just happened on the North Shore right they they they didn't get like a one-year boost they got they got 16% over four years in GLA they you these other communities were getting you know major increases that weren't just oneye issues of oh let's let's just address the shortfall we we also don't see any evidence of in the health insurance Market um we know the retirement assessment not only for this upcoming year but the following year uh and we know where that's trending so there's nothing that leads me to believe that oh we you know we've got a an extraordinary situation what we have is a a a a a structural deficit um and and so I I I just and the problem is if you do that then then your golf's gonna be that twice as big when you try to try to climb out of it because if you applied let's say you applied $2 million from the stabilization fund this year because you had a$2 million deficit or if next year the net is $4 million you then need $4 million to and then you just you just get tanked uh and you just can't come out of it uh and and then it then it affects the town because if we do go and build a new middle school project and then we have to go out and bond that and our bond rating is De decreased because of our lack of cash Holdings the town will pay for that in millions of dollars in debt service over the life of that project that would pale and compared to a short-term use of that cash happen with us I mean I've been with the town for almost 28 years and we did see a former Administration was using onetime Monies to fund the the general fund to fund the operating the operating cost and the town did have a downgrade to its um Bond rating which cost the town money than when we had to go out to borrow so that's that's it's a very slippery slope to be using your one time money as your your stabilization funds and your free cashes to fund your your operating cost I totally understand the logic of not using free cash toward recurring costs that makes sense to me but when I think about a stabilization fund and I think about the reality that although we can't predict where the next few years will go what I do keep hearing is that we have about two more years of projected High interest rates for example I'm I'm just wondering what the money is the stabilization fund is there for if not to make sure that we don't have to have larger class sizes in our schools or begin to consider which buildings can go without necessary repairs or any of the other cuts that would need to happen if we are looking at a reduction in our level budget I mean what's the what's the stabilization fund for that that's my question yeah yeah it seems like an easy go ahead go ahead Anita Anita I have real concern stabilization I think um we do anything drastic like TR like you will be hit Dow you want to put in a new school you cannot do this like you cannot touch the stabilization to make it flat it has to be you know you don't want to to any big jumps you don't want it to go down any big down we're heading into trying to get a big project buy into it touching the stabilization will have a negative effect that's what the market um mean cation should be for emergency we have a really bad snow year we have something that came up that we have you know we don't have it in and we need to do onetime emergency if not to fund operating expenses and we just need to be careful about that I really want to put in a new school here um and I certainly want to spend I don't want us to I mean you guys know I'm a big supporter of the schools I don't want to um pick in my from the schools I think it's really important I was actually kind of disappointed that we were on the bottom of how much we spend per student um but I really don't think that's the path for us to go down I don't think anybody's asking to go down that path literally we're just asking what would you use what would happen that would cause the town to use the stabilization fund one would be adverse litigation okay okay it's a good answer in other words a claim that came out um most Rec recent ones you've seen are these false imprisonments where where right now the mil town of milford's being sued because back 20 some odd years ago officers testified in the trial and then the family comes out and sues the community yes um for their damages over the imprisonment uh and communities don't have that coverage and the jury and there was a recent jury verdict in another Community where that was awarded that's a liability to the town um the more common things tend to be you know you have an adverse impact from from U snow snow and winter a natural disaster roof collapses those type of things ter one time type prod yeah that's what is it's meant to be you know that type of situation um where you know we you we've seen it happen you know where some severe weather events in the last couple years caused some devastating damages to some communities operations quick question if if if we were to use it a whole bit it would then reduce our borrowing it would affect our borrowing costs give me an idea of how much per year would be affected by the increase in borrowing cost so that you know when we think about just using it let's understand what we're doing through ourselves the interest rate it could be a fractional amount or a decimal amount in the interest rate but when you multiply it by 25 million over 20 years then you know I I again it's not that I want to give you an exact answer but I have to have the parameters of how much much we're talking for bonds and the interest rates I can give you some idea but point is it would reduce our Ian would increase our borrowing cost right over the long we would our rating would go down some is that fair State yes so if you if you were let's say we're doing a $200 million school project borrowing it over borrowing it over 30 years principal and interest payment you know your interest payment on that principle you divide the remember we pay level principle you divide the ched million over 30 years then you have the interest on that so A few basis you know points on that is really going to matter sure that's what I'm saying and and yeah you can say well it won't affect your operating but it's excluded debt you kind of pay it that's all I'm trying to point probably like a 10 to 20 basis point spread between Triple A and double yeah yeah so I mean that's that's material and that was why you know you you don't see you don't see communities like Westford when they failed their override they didn't go into their cash Reserve stabilization fund free cash you just don't see it happening because the the the credit markets and also you know the Department of Revenue will come in and start talking to you as well because they have they'll they'll start saying what are you doing and I I can tell you that's for a fact because what D described was I think it was my first month in office I I had a visit from the Department of Revenue who wanted to this is now 18 year plus years ago who wanted to discuss what was going on with the town's finances and what our plan was because we were downgraded and they was negative free cash and and you know it it was a case where they you know ultimately when you fall apart they put you in the receivership but we weren't going there but it was that kind of a cautionary thing saying you know you've got to turn this around what a turnar around the past 18 years have been huh yeah it's right I said that's why it's so troubling because I know what we've accomplished yeah and that's what that's what makes this so troubling uh as far as the the proposed increase at 3.38% and I agree with my feral board member that I'm concern I am conservative I am concerned about raising it any higher how does that compare the last year's average increase in the overall operating budget I know that the the the school size is 4.5 and the town size about 5.6 there 5.3 there about what was the average you recall call the number off hand the problem is is I don't know if you you have yeah the the problem is is when you aggregate everything on the recap sheet it's everything well that's that's the problem but yeah when if you if you look at the budget it was less than this because we had we less you know less growth and and and we had you know and our and our receipts were down so my sense was it was three and a I think I want to say three and a quarter I want to say three and a quarter is what is what comes to me from where we were a year ago when we were putting there so I think so I think we pushed it up from 3 and a qu to 3.4 yeah that's my that's my best recollection was three and a quarter good J yeah um just quickly on my hand as far as the revenue is concerned um I I think the projection is actually fine I don't have any issues with the revenue projection for me it's just like a bigger conversation probably later about how the expenses tie in and whatnot um I do think it's a good Revenue projection taking into consideration growth and things like that um as we talk about later the the the very difficult piece for me is um more a moment in time as far as um looking at reductions and just the climate that we're in going into negotiations of all years this is not a year for the school department to be looking at making a budget cut in reduction um and that you know that's the bigger conversation for uh for later and I know we get into executive session as well um coming out of Co you know we have not seen the level of need students um that we have ever had in the district we've had to add um you know some specialized staff uh to the district I know the town has as well and you know police feel this when they go out to response calls you know there's a level of um almost therapeutic and care services we have to provide now that we never had to provide previously all these things um cost money you know it's it's more the the budget reductions that are the uh the issue for me and we can certainly talk about that later but I I don't necessarily have a problem with the revenue uh projection it's how things all you know kind of play out in the end okay thank you oh um there's I I think Elaine's got a question we'll go to Elaine first I understand why you can't go into free cash that makes total sense what I don't understand is what do we do because you know when I've been broke as a individual person then as a young married and then as a lady with four kids you know um I could make beans and rice stretch how do we make our stuff stretch if I think once we settle on the revenue number we'll go into that discussion now and then have and have that discussion at the end of this meeting if you want because I think I want to put it into context move on I I agree yeah so did somebody else need need a question okay yeah on the budget um our oped contribution is there any flexibility of how much we put in yes left yes can we put in a half like how much would a half a percent like not anything drastic but to maybe I don't know from a I mean it's 1.5 million is our OPB allocation um so you know 10 10% to be $150,000 um so again it's a question of where where you where one wants to go with that and that you know that that is open for discussion we can have that discussion um as as we move for as we move forward um and we will I'm sure tonight later on okay are there any other questions on this uh the request for the vote to for the 168.5 million just to clap for what you're voting on this being the bottom yeah the target we're not voting on what we're going how we're going to get there no we we we'll have that discussion afterwards at least want to have a a basis point for discussion okay if no other questions how about somebody makes a motion I'll make a motion that we authorize the town manager to establish a fiscal year 26 operating budget Target funding level of 168.5 million second okay we have a motion in a second um since this since we have some people here remote uh it'll be a roll call vote so first we'll do the folks here in the room start with Dennis hi uh Diana hi Maria Susan I John hi David Hi Sam hi Jim hi I'm I George hi Steve hi Virginia hi okay and on on Zoom we have uh [Music] Aaron she okay let's skip over to Pat Maloney then I okay Anita I elain I Cynthia I okay and back to just sorry I'm sorry having okay I think I got everybody right so it is unanimous thank you very much right thank you mam Cher all right um thank that was the easy part now now we'll go to the hard part um okay these are the these are the big budget drivers um and I'm going to go walk through these but be see it's $8.4 million obviously we can't afford 8.4 million but it just gives you the basically the major components schools as we said 4.74% of 3.5 million 2 million for health insurance 12.6% middle sex retirement over a million dollar at 8.38% that's a known number General government employee compensation roughly 3% uh non-excluded Debt Service 686,000 a 99.62% solid waste recycling 3.8% under 165 Thea Tech I'm estimating a 4% increase of 160,000 and that's because I know our enrollment is going down relative to the district so our percentage went down so that's probably a little conservative but I think it's it's a round number and we'll get to that a little deeper Medicare tax is based on your payroll so that's 5% 62,000 and electricity natural gas supply 50,000 so let me dive into this a little further but again the point I want to emphasize is inflation and clearly this chart just tells you what's D this is Boston Consumer Price Index CPI for Boston and through September it's .4% they it's released every other month in the regional area so the Boston next Boston CPU through November won't come out till January that's why you only have through September but we know what it was in from the Census Bureau from the year before was 3.7 and then 22 of course was the high water mark of 7% 7.1 and then 3.3 and then you saw before then was the pre pandemic it was the 1.1 1.9 you know you we were around the the 2 to 3% level that's and and the expectation is that high inflation is going to continue for the next two years Jay did this earlier so I you know it just deemphasized most of the cost as was noted earlier are labor based uh because that's what the schools do they teach they're they're they're a service organization uh three so there's the schools 3.5 this gives you the sort of the threeyear back and perhaps three year forward based on what we use for the forecast last year's school budget increase was 4 .5% the year before that was 4.74% and the year before that was 3.84% um if I just carry forward 3.5% for the next two years which is probably Under reporting it you can see it's still over you know 4 and a half percent and then it goes down health insurance um again double digits I I mentioned it in the outset about what's happening to our Medicare what what when I was last visited about six weeks go from our health insur our claims are out running our premiums so that's why we're preparing for a 10% increase in our active employee plans that run up for renewal on July 1st we won't have those rates till February um but the news isn't there it's just because of the we we know all the issues that are driving Health Care from that I mentioned earlier so that's again I'm using you know why is it more than 10% if that's what you're saying it's because we're also being driven by increased enrollments for active employees and retirees um here's our graph of the subscribers I took the chart that John produced last at town meeting and then we update them for 25 as of November and you can see the trend is continuing we have 685 active employees on our health insurance and retirees we're at 990 so soon to hit a th000 so we're uring 1675 people but believe it or not for active employees we we we only provide benefits to about 61% of our active employees and of those active employees only about 2third of it take the family plan so so again this isn't sort of a worst case scenario this these are based on actuals but when you look at a family plan for our HMO for uh an active employee it's ridiculous right now it's $30,000 you add another 3,000 on top of that means the town share for the upcoming fiscal year is going to be almost $25,000 for employee who comes on forward with a family plan for retiree uh they're on a cal year which is why it's Cy not FY the premium for the calendar year that's starting in January is 3960 for The Med X2 plan if we add a 7 and a half% projected increase for calendar year 26 it goes up to 4237 the town pay 60% of that premium whereas we pay 75 for active employees it's $500 over $2,500 is the so again you got a thousand of those people at $2,500 you can see how the numbers come together 2.5 million I just sure go ahead sure yeah um on the previous slide when you said we have 60 plus per of employees who take the benefits so does 685 represent the employees who are the subscribers it's not just the total number of employees thank you exactly no these are subscribers uh middle sex retirement assessment this would solve our budget problems if we didn't have the unfunded retirement assessment because right now of the $12 million in premiums that we're paying this year to the retirement assessment 10 million of it is for the unfunded liability and that's not an exaggeration it's probably understating it slightly but it's that because the system is scheduled to be fully funded in 2037 36 36 which means we're a dozen years away from it uh but we're only about 52% funded John 53 yeah went up a little about 57 57 okay yeah the the and and so what they're telling us is John and I go to the meetings but John sits on the board he goes to the advisory meetings as well as the general meetings we can expect at least six and half% increases till 2032 33 right around there right around there so and that's just a minimum but what's happening is you're also being driven by your salaries and also by your longevity you know your Actuarial tables so that they go out and do two-year actuarials so so here we are the known in the bill we're going to be paying in July for the new fiscal year is$ 13,944 to the p P um and that's a million dollar increase or over 8.38% uh and again sadly about that over 10 million that's for the unfunded liability that has to be paid off by state law um in 2040 um now they tell you and it's true the typical pension is like $27,000 or something like that it's under $30,000 it's under $30,000 so it's not like they're you know these for the most part but what's happening is obviously the trend is going in the wrong direction and then again because it's a 2-year actual valuation we know the number for 27 it's 13,950 650 or 6.57% increase of $860,000 the one in 128 to me is just an estimate that's why I put the word estimate but I think it's realistic we have communities believe it or not in the retirement system that are being hit with double digit increases in their assessment this year over 10 so I think it's Stow is one of them and a few others so and again it's it's not because I want to make it clear it's not because they don't know how to invest their money the because of the middlex county issues a generation ago the state took all their money Investments and put it into the state public retirement investment board um and so it's being managed and the state has a great system track record so it's not that they they squander what they're doing it's the known costs of of what's out there and we're assessed by community so we're not even though we're in a county system it's not like we got a county rate they value chord and every other member unit whether it's the chord Housing Authority or the town of drait whatever everyone is evaluated individually based on your your um your your enrollments and your valuations so that's that's a known number those two numbers are known benefits and insurance and why this is driving it and this would be a big factor if the projected budget is 167.5 million and our benefits is 35 million in Insurance we're now going to be spending one out of every five do or 21% of it for benefits in Insurance five years ago we were spending 17.6% and you can see the numbers on the chart so that's what's driving us is you can see by these extraordinary increases that certainly overwhelm 2 and a half% increase in the levy plus growth this is the driver and it's out of our control it's a quote unquote fixed cost because we can't change the retirement system valuations and in terms of the benefits for health insurance we are we are we are at The Benchmark meaning the state guideline under health insurance reform of the benefit level so there's no place further down to go in terms of the state most subscribed Benchmark plan and although we contribute 75% for active employees and 60% for retirees that's not on the high end of the scale either when you see other communities um so this this is really a fixed cost government personnel as you can see it's a budget of 3% um again we gave a two we we budgeted a 2 and a half% annnual increase for the non-union employees obviously much like the school department you heard earlier we have step increases in our schedules and so forth um so that's that's what this is based upon here's the uh employee data for for for the the community between General government and school department um let me start on the general government side in 17 years since FIS fiscal year um 2008 we've roughly added one employee per year or 18.7 employees are 7% since fy8 why I use fy8 that's when I started okay it's a good enough basis point for me is anything else it also was pre pre-recession you may recall was a recession in 2009 where things dipped which is why you see 2010 at such a dramatically low level um and in the last five years we've added nine employees in the general government side or 3.6% um I'll get you know so that just sort of is what's what's going on on the general government side and I I'll go into it a little further in the school department the numbers have been higher um I mentioned earlier the number of teachers hasn't changed in a decade so if you went to go back 10 years right but the problem is and and Jay can speak and I can speak better it's not it's not the class size of the teachers it's all the support stuff right the clinical psychologists the par professionals the special ed instructors and so forth that you know and and as we noted earlier that's gotten so much worse since the pandemic we can't control that all we have to do is serve it and respond to it so there's the numbers there um this a little more detail on the general government Staffing levels we talked about this at the selectboard meeting last Monday night as you can see in the columns we haven't added essentially policeman a firefighter a highway worker in a decade uh and those are our big three departments um you know and I can tell you the population's gone up and the service calls have gone up but we haven't added um and Facilities we have added but that's because of the agent facilities and the care that we need for these buildings um you see library's been pretty dormant if not flat uh and in finance meaning the finance department accounting Umi uh collections assessing that's the finance department it's level staffed um so it's not like I've got Belo that I can come in and say oh prob just you know you didn't need that that you know this is what we have so as you can see where where it's gone facilities we've added um five years three three people in facilities health insurance two and a half I'm sorry Health Department two and a half Shelson Center for the Arts is plus two uh in fact it's probably going to go down one because when we had a full-time left I I required it be filled by a part by part-time people so it's actually going to be a plus one and then inspections because of the inspection volume and the zoning issues we've added there so where I'm telling you where I'm coming from is is you know I don't have much choice where I'm going to cut and the problem is it's going to affect Human Services on the general government side because the problem with cutting fire is is you got to do it in groups of four because you're running four compliments there these departments that you know it runs 24 hours a day seven days a week so I I you don't cut one firefighter because it it just Goofs up the shift configuration and so forth nor could I justify it anyway based on their call volume we know that commun is aging we know the medical calls are up significantly we know in the police side the mental health calls are a significant component where we're adding a mental health Clin condition to many of the calls and so forth um and and Highway you know we we've we've cut that in the past um that that's the biggest complaint we get of the conditions of the roads and the potholes and so forth um that's a struggle I have on the town side um but like I said the beauty of it is having been here 18 years I saw us go through the recession the Great Recession and so forth and we know what this means going forward it means people out the door it means reduced hours and reduced Services even though the taxpayer is going to pay more um you know that was why we we we closed fire stations back in the Great Recession of 2008 not because we wanted to it's because we had no choice um and the same thing we cut the library hours and these other things that's that's what it in sales because quite frankly I can't go into the accounting office with her four people because regardless we've got to pay bills regardless of what our budget is and she's got to be able to process payroll and vendor warrants that's not going to diminish same thing I've got to assess all the properties regardless of the financial conditions of the town in fact we're going into a reval year so we've got to have we got to be on our assessing same thing I'm going to have just as many tax bills water bills sewer bills um and and and I can just tell you you know it just goes like that way across the board what I have done is when there positions have come up that were a bit discretionary I haven't filled them so when we when we had a vacancy and the public safety officer um I didn't fill it when the health director got promoted I didn't allow her to hire an assistant Health director even though that's what her previous position was because we could see that this thing was coming and I didn't want to be hiring people and then laying them off in six months or a short time thereafter because that's not fair to the employee it's not fair to the town so when our business development director became our HR director because our HR Director retired I didn't backfill the business development director position not because it didn't have value to the community but because I just didn't see how we could sustain it um so that's the challenge uh going back to The non-excluded Debt Service as you noted that's not an insignificant number um because of the capital plans um and that's all affected by the interest by interest rates you say well that's grown a lot Paul well yeah we not only did the capital plans but we did the school kitchen projects at McCarthy and the high school those are all coming home to to onto our debt service which is why it's up over 10% but towards that if there's a question of well you've been out of control with Debt Service no that's not the case one is we have the needs in our facilities but more importantly on a quantitative basis it's not there so again if you look at our total debt service it's $10.4 million for the upcoming fiscal year as the percentage of our operating budget is 6.2% as a non-excluded debt which means our ability to revenue under two and a half meaning non-exempt from the two and a half tax limitation it's 4.7% which is which is less than half of the Benchmark that the town's policy says your non-exempt debt service you not exceed 10% of your general fund revenues so yeah we've had some growth in this number but it was warranted growth it also was necessitated by the ridiculous construction costs as well as the the Aging of our facilities but it's not out of line you know 4.7% of not excluded Debt Service of our operating budget is is not a bad place to be solid waste and recycling again that's varying based on tonnage what you're paying for there is the Tipping cost at the waste energy plant facility and the collection cost by the vendor which is competitively bid who who collects the trash and transports it those are fixed costs as you can imagine they're they're running around 4% um because of inflation um so there's not much there again it varies based upon your actual tonnage and then the Sha Tech again I noted our enrollment is decreasing from 28.8% to 27.5 so I carry a number of $4.2 million or roughly a 4% increase Medicare again that's just TIY a payroll I don't doubt whenever it's done that again 5% $62,000 again it's not material and then again electricity and natural gas just like we're seeing for residential homeowners and what we saw with our aggregation contract our three-year electricity contract expires in tomorrow December 10th um it went from 8.7 cents 7 cents per kilowatt hour to 12.05 cents you can you know you don't have to dive too much into the map to see it's almost you know it's over a 40% increase uh 37.4% increase roughly 30,000 on the general government side and I know it's affecting the schools because you have bigger buildings and more square footage and then the same thing is going to happen with our natural gas contract that expires in June 30th of this up current fiscal year our current rate is 4.78 per decm my optimistic projected new rate is 5.50 per decm I can tell you the market right now is 9 cents per decm the reason I'm not bidding it now is you don't want to bid natural gas in the wintertime what you want to do is hope you get a mild winter then increases the supplies of natural gas and liquefied natural gas so that's why we didn't move on that contract basically we will look at this contract in April and May and hope that we had a mild winter and if not we're just going to have to bid it anyway it's not as material because again we only use natural gas in the heating season primarily um so that's that's what's going on in natural gas so again I'm probably Under reporting what could happen on the gas side so again that brings you back to the 8.4 for the drivers now again the drivers not the entire budget it's just the drivers but you can see even you in the outer years you're still at over 4.6% for 27 and 28 if you use those assumptions that I was building it upon for three years so now we come to the Moment of Truth where do we go from here if it's 168.5 million of a revenue estimate and our fixed costs are 53.4 million that only leaves a balance of 114.5 million so then how do you what do we do how do we move forward in plan and budget going forward here's where I'm at because I don't have the vision into the school budget so I can't give you a number and saying oh this is fair that's fair and so forth um but what I do know is what's the current year budget for the school department and the general government departments and you can see it's roughly a 2:1 ratio school budget is 73.8 eight million the general government Department budgets are $38 million roughly two to one so if I look at the projected balance of 114.5 and I take the current Year's budget that of 112 million that leaves me a 2.5 balance and if I a portion It 2 to one or 6634 it it basically allows a 2.23% increase which isn't going to cut it I know on the school side it's probably $1.8 million below level service and the town side side is half or so a little less than that I think based on what we're we're seeing in terms of the target levels I I I don't like using formulas I've never used formulas on how you allocate Revenue usually when we're here at this table when years passed we're basically saying well based on our projections we'll we'll kind of be at level service and we'll pangle it we're we're like I said we're at a deficit of somewhere around2 and a half million dollars you know plus or minus couple hundred thousand let's say it's 2.3 I don't think it's more than two and a half million but again we don't have the certainties of contracts um but that's that's what that's what I've got folks um this isn't going to be pleasant there are two Choice well there are multiple there always choices the knee-jerk choice would be oh go explain this to the voters and ask them for an override ain't going to happen in my opinion I mean you you we can ask we tried this in the Great Recession when things were dire and it was defeated soundly the last operational override in the town of Champa was 1992 and yes the community has changed then and and so forth uh and they have passed debt exclusion since then including most recently last month um four projects and we've also lost that exclusions for projects such as the original fire station location the original DPW and so forth so I don't think going and and the reason I don't think it's viable is I think the residents are suffering just like we are the typical resident and I don't think we can go to them because they may say you're right we understand but can't do it so then the question comes what do we do what the select board asked the town side earlier and asked me as manager one of its goals was hey Paul can you look at our other Revenue things can you bump up your fees and charges and everything else and we did do that the board bumped up its its um licensing costs for Bor licenses we we looked at everything we looked up you know what I was charging the people to to rent space on on Sheen Farm I mean to that kind of detail we looked at every Department you know what we're charging for facilities and so forth those numbers are baked in enveloped into this estimate so we've done that I'm not going to tell the school department what to what to do with your things but we know and we we we the reason the town had bus fees and had extra CC fees and had you know all those other things was was not because they were enjoyable they liked it it was because it was it was a bad a bad choice among bad Alternatives and I'm not going to tell you how to do your business that's why you're electing you do your things and all I'm saying is is that that is a a part there's going to be multiple choices on this is what are we charging for fees and services uh and so forth um the other thing is you look at your discretionary funds um you know ding enumerated some of those earlier your school choice your you know we we know we set up re we know we set up um funds to for special education reserves and so forth um so that that that might be also part of the solution I think it's got to be almost like the all the above kind of an approach to get to where we want to be and I think even where we get to there we're not going to be happy with where we are but I I think it's that kind of a semblance now again things will change right this is a projection we don't know exactly what our Chapter 70 is going to be we don't know exactly what our new growth was going to be and I know in years past when things came in as recently as in July um when when we got extra chapter just uh 70 money one fiscal year from the Senate budget and it got enveloped into the final budget we basically went and told the school committee you know we're going to go to town meeting in the fall we're going to give you that money and we did so I mean so again it's not set in stone but the problem is is I think what Dr Lang and I have to do is we need we need a Target to plan around because what I can't have and it's not fair to the finance committee or to the community is I can't receive receive a a budget from department heads or from the school department at the end of January or February 4th and saying oh this is great but uh I'm I'm short you know two $2 million finance committee give me three days and and I'll and I'll come up with a solution you know to so that you can hold budget hearings and then prepare your work in in a in a matter of weeks to to to get the budget book out by the beginning of April so in the absence of anything and and and we've never I this is where I'm at and I'm going to stop talking now because I want to hear from you all of you in terms of how how do we pack this problem going forward because it is real but it also as I said earlier I don't think it's a temporary problem anyone have any comments they want to share at this time yeah I you know two CU obviously the you know a 1.65 million as I said before increase is not even going to cover our fix cost never mind we have to negotiate a contract in another month you know so we're going to go in there you know if if we didn't have negotiate contract we' probably would be able to have no problem and deal with but now now we going to go sit down at the table and say oh by the way we don't have any money um and then the other problem I have is you know I your formula I know you don't like formulas you know you have the schools basically absorbing 1.85 million out of a $2.5 million deficit at 75% so you're having the schools take on 75% of that deficit where you know we don't make up 75% of the budget you know just our budget alone is 45% if you want to put in you know the the Personnel you know the the the the health insurance all that maybe another 15% but we're not 75% of the you're asking us to take on 1.85 out of $2.5 million deficit no which is 75% of that deficit but see you looking at it from the other end of the equation the only thing I know for certain because I haven't seen your level budget is I know what your budget is today and I know what our I believe I understand what our revenue is going forward the question becomes the vagaries of level service and that's why I can't I I I chose not to do it that way Dennis is because that's that to me I don't know how to stand on that slope um and it's not it's not a criticism or or a question of anybody's Integrity or or authenticity but the problem is is how do I how do I go there because you know so do I include the do I include the business development manager position that is level was provided for in this budget no I didn't did I include the the other positions like the assistant Health director that's in this budget no I didn't because I didn't want to go into this well how do you define level service discussion um so that's why I didn't go there the difference and this is the key thing right what had happened in the Great Recession in 2009 and even happened in 2012 is when we when you were in a recession and people were out of work and and the economy was tanking the unions took zero they still talk about it right they took and we still talk about it and everybody did the non-union everybody else took zero no that's not the market today the market today is is quite different as we've seen that's the difference that's why this is so unusual compared to the past is because if you don't pay a competitive wage you're not going to retain employees uh and and you're not going to retract employees that's the challenge that we have as was noted early we have to be competitive with our labor market but the problem is is when they compare us the state does to nton and North Andover and and those communities we don't have the per capita income of the demographic of those commun and that's why that's I I I I hated that that data when it when I saw it and I was shocked as was a superintendent when you knowed Newton was at added I said oh great how did how did Newton become a because that's what's gonna be thrown at you I we know it we've seen it in other communities you don't you don't it's not realistic but we have to be competitive right look I just lost a police officer who we sent to the academy for six months we're doing field service training and he walked in last week to the to the chief of police and said here's my resignation I'm going to the town of Bedford for $2 more an hour $10 more an hour sorry yeah I'm and and you know what I can't do anything one because he's under a collective bargain agreement so I can't say hey what can we sit down and talk about this that's what we're dealing with and then prior to that a couple months ago we had a officer from a family in chelsford as Family Ties he went over to conquered and I know you're going to do the same you're having the same problems trying to hire science teachers Math teachers language teachers or retain them that's the reality out there the workforce is is more mobile and they're not as attached to the community um but that's the reality which is why I'm not saying here we're gonna Alpha zero to the employees we can't but it but so that's that's what makes us so difficult is you've got to provide a market wage that's competitive at the same time you don't have the revenue base to support that and everything else that comes with it um I don't know what the answer is Dennis I don't know what what what the answer is um and and so I I get all that I I don't I again I'm just doing Simple Math I'm just a chemistry teacher but you're asking us to take a $1.85 million cut right from what we we asked for M the deficit as a total is 2.5 million that you've already told us so you're asking us to take on 75% of that deficit which I don't think that's fair what do you think I don't know I'm not the town manager I'm not a you know I'm I'm just doing Simple Math you know and that's one of my concerns and you know we have some fixed cost within that 73 million we have our utilities in there we have our transportation in there too so you took that out of the other side and I'm not going I just want to make sure that you know that we look at all that right and the town does all the facilities so that's in the town side so to be fair what the town pays to maintain the school building if you want to go departmental wise it certainly outweighs your utility costs because the town side is absorbing all the facilities Department which is more than two-thirds driven to the schools so that's why I don't like getting into these conversations because they tend to get testy and they tend to get uh I don't mean no I'm not saying you're being testy but I'm saying because that's that's that's what happens when you start diving into it is it it it's it's just struggling and I can tell you this and John and you saw it in our numbers my department heads don't like seeing me at budget time because they say oh it's level service level Staffing again right for how many years and I had board members right who said the same thing we don't want you adding staff because we don't believe it's sustainable and it's not a knock on the on current or previous select board members but that's that's the man that we've been operating under and I know you've had the same thing on the school side because you've got different pressures but we have we have letters from our Public Safety officials and other testimony saying we think we're being put at risk because we're understaffed in terms of police and fire on the number of people that are put out on the road and so I I just want you to get the sense of the magnitude of what we're dealing with so so just a quick thing you me You' mentioned that um I'll whoever that is I apologize uh so you mentioned that you're not we're not willing to go to the town and ask for any adjustment in our tax Bas right so that's that's not my that's not my call to make so I think the thing is here is so you say something like I don't think it's likely of happening is what I said I I well we should be asking the town and we should be talking to the town and saying instead of playing this catchup all talk about free cash right why are we not talking to town saying we need help you're talking about $1.85 million in cuts and then one of the the comments you made is about fees well we can look at our fees I really believe that fees on student fees on parents are just an un there are just tax it's a tax on parents that the rest of the Town doesn't want to pay because public education is publicly funded so instead of looking at things like fees and cutting positions why aren't we going to the town and making the case that we need to make that we're underfunded and don't make enough tax revenue because because I don't think you'll get you'll get the vote I well you don't know until you go for it that's the thing you have to go for it that's you that's for you folks to decide that's I can't make that that's not my call I just don't think I don't think it's going to happen uh in terms of asking for an override ask okay Anita so um you know I understand that that going to the town asking them for an override probably not going to pass um I know but that being said I think um and I know people hated this before but I think the town has changed I mean we're one of those towns that pay for all our trash pickup full why don't we look at doing some sort of split or instead of you know all or nothing we do some sort of fee that maybe can help not cut the pick up the whole 2.5 but maybe pick up a million that at least it's not it's big cut we have to do um and it's painful but if we can maybe kind of find some split with it like I know personally me personally i' rather pay for trash pickup than take away services from the school or from the police or from my infrastructure as a citizen in this town I that's where I feel but I'm not everybody my mother that's the problem she's a senior citizen the the the challenge with the trash thing is going back to the 92 vote when that was adopted by the town they put language into the bylaw that said in the event the town would have uh charge a tax fee they that the O the override would be uh rescinded uh and I got people in the room who were here when that happened um what I what I can what I can tell you is the town of Westford thought they could sell an override last year and they fell fat on flat on their face and then I spoke to the manager today in Westford and they're not even going to ask this year we're not Westford we're chamford yeah but we don't have the we also don't have the the residential wealth that Westford has in terms of per capit income I don't know if wealth always connotes how willing folks are to make that vote I I don't know if I would make the assumption that because we have a lower income level on average than Westford our voters would be less likely to support no go ahead let's let's go in sequence I think Jay was next well Jim Jim go ahead no no go ahead here's my concern on an override vote um not not not least of the fact it's an override vote and it's failed all over and I know it's not chelsford that's other communities but we also have an msba project coming up it's going to require a large debt exclusion Absolut if we go for a vote to do an override for taxes and increase that the likelihood of succeeding on that msba vote dwindles even further and that I'm really concerned about that because we're welcomed finally into the program we're getting 53% reimbursement if we proceed yeah that's not going to exist again if we don't succeed on that vote and that is one of my main concerns about going for an override vote age yeah um I agree I I think we have to kind of pick and choose when we would even want to um do an override vote in in the I'm just saying in the scheme of things um we have to deal with this $2.5 million problem now y but $100 million problem to benefit a new school like two years from now because that vote is going to be within um two years I think um it's it's just unlikely to have a stack of multiple approvals so I just think we have to be kind of cautious on that I agree though but with the thing I'm saying is we're selling one of two things we're either trying to sell an override or we're selling Cuts right so we're going to people and saying hey we're going to lose positions and all that stuff you either way have to sell some kind of solution to the community and the community can be involved and we can ask them and say hey you're either going to lose services in these areas next year or we're going to have to look at it do understand I've been working on uh for seven years now on the new school project I'm very concerned not only about that but I'm also concerned about tariff increases on on product in the cost of the project itself in the next few years so I understand we're probably not going to do an override vote to try to fix this but either way we're selling to the public either you're losing a bunch of services right that's what we're going to sell we're not going to try to ask you for help or we have to sell an override and I think saying no outright no we don't want to look at it is kind of you know it's a solution and then people just don't want to evaluate it well we can't we can't do a we can't do a test override I mean that's kind of what you're proposing oh let's say our tax base has obviously been too low for a long time right so that means we've been under the tax I mean we should be we're at the levy at the I I understand how the L I've been here for a long time I got it but that's why you would pass an override to fix the budget long term so it's my opinion I'm a resident we should fix the town and stop just addressing the problem through Cuts okay Dave you had a comment I well Dave the mic turn usually I get in trouble doing this I'll M thank you no no Mike I mean if we wanted to test I mean how do you do that I don't timing wise I don't understand how you're able to go before the town and get a decision on something like that it'll be next year but be beyond that just to talk about it for a second of uh one is all the taxpayers in this town are facing some of the same issues and what 35% of our town Paul roughly is seniors who aren't getting additional uh salary increases okay if unless you want to talk about what Social Security is going to give them so I you know the likelihood that a tax it would pass and then You' then go for a school I mean I'm all of the school I'm in all the way but you know especially we we we're going to need it yeah so I I don't I just don't think that's the way to go and if you were to go that way you first ought to have work very hard at every possible other way of doing it and present that to the town saying look we did all this and it wasn't enough that would be and finally and then I'll quiet down the last thing is in whatever you do you got to look Beyond this one budget year and look at the next two out there because some sort of you know temporary fix for one year may create huge problems for the out years so look at the whole thing and whatever you try to do thank you you're welcome to any school committee meeting you want to come to sir thank you all right no I just wanted to touch for a couple seconds on the the recommendation I mean to Dennis's point for the school department to pick up a million N Out of the basically rounding up a million N Out of the 2.5 I think is um um not Equitable I don't know what is Equitable I think it's honestly hard to ask the select board and the school committee and the finance committee um you know where should the pain be kind of born because they don't know the nuts and bolts of the the budget and things like that I think that's something where we should probably sit down and really kind of look at EXA if this was going to be cut you know we have the better sense of what's Happening kind of townwide with operations and the Departments you know what is that impact of of this cut versus that cut and things along those lines um that's my two cents on just kind of how I think that happens I again I mentioned this going into this um I realized this was going to be a difficult um budget year we were thinking just more level service obviously not expanding um but a cut to the magnitude of a million and a half million n you know to the school side when we already again we we whether we like the communities or not they're the communities that we're going to get thrown in our faces you know we are the um highest class size and we're are basically second to the bottom when it comes to um teacher salaries on average it's not that we're going to be able to go into these negotiations and not um offer up a good um good and fair contract honestly to have our teachers be in line with with their uh with their peer communities um I struggle with this because I know you know the programs and services we've put in place over the last couple of years and the needs of the kids we have um I don't have the capacity to go cutting um basically General I'm locked in with my special ed costs those aren't costs that you can just go and cut so you know we're basically looking at cutting General Ed Services as opposed to special ed services and my general ed services are already the highest um class size is that we have districtwide that's where you have your wiggle room as a staff if we end up it's one of those things and when I first came to this district there was an issue with tuitions and things like that if you don't provide the services in District for kids which we've spent the last seven years building um the families are unhappy we can't defend ourselves when it goes to hearing those kids end up going out of district and costing two or three times what it would cost us to um educate them in in-house so some now again that's not going to rear its ugly head for a year or two but if you start diminishing those Services now you are going to be looking at in fiscal 26 27 28 um those cost is exceeding you know even what we're looking at now 1.9 million um because you start kind of tinkering with them or or trying to find different ways to cut them um certainly I think if I like I said earlier I didn't disagree with the revenue projection I think that's what it is yeah I think we could all hope that state revenue or state aid ends up coming through better than it is I don't think we can obviously wait for that but if it happened wonderful um but I think we should you know unfortunately over the next few weeks or so sit down and actually compare you know level service budgets to make sure we're actually talking the same and you know what would this cut on the school side mean versus this cut on the uh the town side um and figure out how it can be creative to to bridge this Gap it might not be bridged all the way it might be bridged in some way but I think it's it's hard to just when you look at the U the scale of the the reduction um you know one .9 again rounding up of the two coming from the schools um and then secondly I just don't know that this group with all the respect to this group I just don't know that you know what an individual cut would be in a particular school or a program compared to uh you know what Paul or I working together would be yeah it'd be like us going to town meeting and and and picking apart Paul's budget piece by piece and trying to pick out the whatever amount we would need some people I agree some people would oh absolutely I know some that would so I my my head was actually going in a similar Direction um I appreciate how hard that number is or the cuts are for the school system I also think that on your side you need to appreciate the difficulty on the government side either it's not like there's a whole lot of fat there and as Paul said things like our First Responders their Staffing hasn't increased in 10 to 25 years with the population increas and things like that so I I would like to see this be a much less defensive conversation um and I think if there's a starting point that's fine I would be in favor of having Jay and Paul go off and work that because I know there's a lot of sensitivity behind this too and it can't be brought to this forum or it shouldn't be and out of respect for you know thought processes and things and then if we need to get back together I was I know Paul you have to present a balanced budget by the end of January right we don't have a board meeting on the 13th we have another commitment that runs till 6:30 but like if if this body needed to get back together for some reason to give you guys okay that feels like it makes sense um while you look into the nuts and bolts I'd be okay with that I don't know I'm not trying to just like throw the stickiness back on you but I just don't know that we know enough to make a judicious decision I I agree I think we need to give them some time to come back this is what it looks like and then we can make decision right I agree yeah and then if we need a meeting I mean we may not even need a meeting we need a meeting we could Tena if we plan the 13th I know that's getting late for you but there's not much other calendar time left with the holiday everything I think it's important because another thing that we don't have when we're looking at the budget from the school side is we have no control over the amount of Revenue that comes into the town so for example Anita just mentioned uh raising uh having another tax quote unquote which is basically a fee on the collection of trash and so on that's not something we're going to have any control over at all all we're going to get is an allocation of whatever the money is that we can be granted in order to uh do our budget um I I think overall it would seem to me in future for planning for the future it's that Revenue that's going to have to increase because there's no question that costs are going to continue to go up somehow um they never come down so that's a bigger discussion for the town and what to do in terms of raising that Revenue uh it's going to have to be done at some point and faced period well what I can tell you is when when John assembled all the requests from the department heads and the the original deficit was verely 2.8 uh when because we had to keep a reserve for the collective bargaining on the town side because you're right under the state law as was mentioned earlier we provide all the funding to the school in their budget and you settle the contracts you're done we have I I'm prohibited to pre fund contracts so when you say the 1.9 versus the deficit it was originally 2.8 but what as I said earlier what we did on the town side is every dollar that I raise on the town Side by pushing up the local receipts from the town side from the license fees and everything else two out of three of those dollars go to the school department under this allocation okay and and even to the state aid if if whatever number we're using for state aid if if the school Department's getting twice as much funding as the town Department every dollar we pushed up two-thirds of that was going to the school department what I'll say again is you do have the ability to raise revenue it's a question of whether you choose to do that and and I know it's detestable and I don't like it either but you do charge a bus fee and if it's so detestable you should have eliminated it in its entirety oh I've been I've been trying no but my point is but that's thank you for bringing it up I've been trying I believe I believe firmly no no excuse me I believe firmly that that telling me that you don't want to go to the town and ask for money for money to make the taxes match match up but we're going to have to go raise revenues by paying charging a tax to parents directly we've been trying to reduce fees for like8 years now and I'm a parent and the parents so you guys don't want to deal with that in the rest of the town but you don't mind parents spending the money with their kids John all I can tell you is what I see other communities do across Massachusetts and all I can tell you is that it's a tax on parents it's a tax on users sure I think I think we're getting further aart and I think that's why U Virginia's idea was a pretty good one and if they can come to some kind of agreement without this town just getting more divided or becoming more divided because it's not very comfortable right now and I think it's only going to get worse so I would like to Second her motion she it wasn't close we'll take the motion yeah I would like to I don't think we have think so if we need a meeting we can schedule a meeting but God anybody on Zoom have a problem with that did the zoom people hear that did anyone have a problem with that okay just want to summarize what happened is that you want the people who crunch the money to Crunch the money some more and they come back to us with like more exact figures so we can decide I think they would come back if they need it right I mean it's possible we don't have to come back and approve how the how that's going to be uh separated out you know there'll be obviously reporting of that by the town manager and by the superintendent during the regular meetings yeah right I remember the last over I just want to say I'm sorry I don't know the gentleman's name I was here during the last a not on the finance committee just a just a parent who had a kid uh who was going to the wesland school and I tried to tell people hey both for the override both for the override both for the override and it was some anyone who was anything Pro um override was voted out the next time so I I understand since I'm not over remember that Sam of course Sam name but I remember and I I I you know pretty full-on soccer mom and it was was amazing when I would be at ball fields afterwards as the services got cut people whined and bitched that the services were cut and I'm like but you didn't vote for the override and they were like well it was going to be more money well you know got to come from somewhere and it was just it was kind of disappointed to find out how much people don't pay attention can I asked for some clarification please go ahead sure um so if we are to go ahead and put this back in Paul and Jay's hand what kind of time frame are we looking at to um uh hear some kind of report back uh knowing that the holidays are coming um and then leaving enough time because unless I'm hearing something different I heard Paul say like he wants help making these decisions and I don't think it's really fair if there are tough decisions now hopefully they'll come back in you know a week or two and say we figured it out but if we get to January 2nd and it's not figured out and there's tough decisions to be made I think just relying on Paul and Jay to make those decisions um um might not be in the best interest of the town so um I'd like to understand the time frame uh I'd like to understand if it's the will of these boards that they just go figure it out and we out of it um so um I guess I'm looking for some clarification and I'll start with Paul first just say what are you thinking well first thing I'm thinking it's not just going to be me if I'm going to the table I'm bringing my finance director and town accountant with me because no because I want people to understand it's not just my opinion uh and it it's although you know I I ultimately own responsibility between the three of us we work together collectively 18 years a piece and so I I just want you to know it's going to be a coordinated effort from people who are informed of what we're doing um the real to me the real the the real end point is we can't crowd the finance committee's budget review schedule which really is going to pick up in February right you know late you know which we've seen in Prior year yeah in February um the the governor will have her budget out on State budget out on January 22nd because by by state requirement she has to release a budget that why that matters to us is we will then get draft Cherry sheets day or two later based on the governor's proposed budget which will fill in some of the uncertainty in terms of the state aid now again she's not the final Arbiter of Chapter 70 everything else but it's the best early indicator that we can have uh on on on that component um so I mean I also need time and I think Jay is to talk to our respective department heads and principles and others about where we at so it's you know my sense I I think we do but my sense is it's probably a January discussion right before we can get into like really come up with some kind of a something to report back right I mean it's it's I I mean I would think we'd be working on it between now and probably the first second week in January and then you maybe have an update for this I know Virginia mentioned like a meeting in January I would think by mid mid January we'd be now we're not going to have the state aid as you indicated 22nd but I think is we'd at least be able to talk about all right if this happens here's a scenario what cuts could look like internally yeah um which I honestly think would be respectful to any of the people involved as well as opposed to having it be a public conversation right um I would think by mid January we can report back because you usually do your budget the last um Monday Monday in January do mine the 1st in February so it's still in line and then that still leaves the regular um finance committee meeting schedule for um things to be worked out but I yeah I just want to make sure because we need to have time like if they if we come back with a plan we I need to I'd like to get some s of sense of reaction because we all have to be in this thing together so you need to make sure the school committee's on board with your proposal and I need to make sure the select board's on board with with a plan so as much as you and I can work on it it doesn't end with us Jay that's what I'm saying is we need that time so again I think we can we can do this but like I said it is a tight frame so I agree we'll have discussions from now till first second week of January and then I think we we've got to you know sort of present something because I can't I can't violate the open meeting law and neither can you with our board saying yeah is that acceptable to you and so forth so at some point we almost need a reconvening to say hey you know the only thing I guess I don't fully understand is this is the first time I can remember where we're actually going to the boards to get their kind of sign off on the budget this is something that like on in the school committee policies um they basically act on the budget that I present to them in February and then it all gets played out through fi fincom and town meeting ultimately in April um you've I know you take information in from all sources but you usually do that and then you present your budget at the end of January but we've never had like this official kind of sign off of is this what we're all in agreement about well because because the one is this situation is extraordinary right we haven't dealt with uh but but also technically I own the budget that gets put on the floor of town meeting but it's really not fair to me to finalize that budget because I don't know what the school department budget is and and that's where the inconsistency is in the town's Charter and bylaws is basically the thing sort of arrive simultaneously as you noted I'm supposed to put out a budget at the end of January 90 days prior to the town meeting but yet the school department budget doesn't come out at the beginning of February and so it's like well I mean yes we we can be Consulting each other but if we you know I don't want a situation where look there's no way we're going to get out of this level service and I think the fact that it is so dramatic from Level service meaning it's significant the message that I've heard from the select board loud and clear over the recent years is yeah Paul we understand what the charter says we understand what the bylaws say but we want input into the budgeting process and I've heard and that's been in the goals of the select board so I'm trying to be mindful of that as you know in terms of you know of of what we're doing going forward because the title isn't mayor it's manager uh and and yeah I'll I'll perform the functions but I think the criticism that I get and have heard in the past from certain select boards is we didn't have enough input into the budgeting process and I know I've got long-term board members who are here who I think can attest to that and so Jay that sort of explains why am I being sort of you know DEA def deference to the select board and point he's making is not like a legitimate vote we've never voted John course I was in the middle of the sentence I was also in the middle of a sentence thank you go ahead so I haven't been here in past the way back years Paul but in recent years I think it's been input but visibility we haven't had the early visibility to know what's coming to try to help think about it so um it wasn't in terms of an approval context but going back to reconvening this body um and I was thinking the same thing again as Jay that we've never actually voted an approval my thought and reconvening was that it would be a continuation of this conversation to get you know the head nods and get some sense as to where at least these three committees stood and whether they had any other considerations before you've got to make your presentations by the end of January and early February I I don't know that I feel compelled that we have to vote on the budget we do that at town meeting but I think I was thinking it would be valuable both to the people sitting at this table and to you and Jay after you have some time to go work it to come back and continue the conversation and give you feedback whatever we have that was I don't I don't know how the rest of the people feel if they feel they need to vote but I wasn't thinking that way we had had great prior tri board meetings where we've had a vote as to whether or not we're proceeding with developing a balanced budget uh that has happened a couple of times in the past uh decade and this is a little bit more in depth because of the unique situation that we're dealing with with inflation and and the budgetary constraints and the revenue streams that were available to us and I do think it's important that there's a little bit more discussion and a little bit more input from us um I mean when we review We review per depart per Department uh in our review and we go through and we look at the numbers the numbers have really been baked in and established at that point we're looking at well not only what happened um with the development of the budget and we have a discussion usually with department heads individually uh about well what wasn't there what could have been there and and what we looking to have there I think this year I think it's very important for us all to have that discussion as early as possible because there's a lot that's going to be wanted that's not going to be met and we need to look at not only that but where we're going to make those where they're going to have to make those hard choices and we're going to have to review and approve those hard choices uh and so I think it's important that we we get our input in as early as possible this time around that's a good way of putting it um and just something else I would note that um you know uh Virginia mentioned the 13th I mean we don't have to meet on a Monday we could meet any other day of the week too um depending on schedules and depending on on what comes of the discussions and and where we need to go forward from that so I think we we can leave that up in the air for right now so Paul do you want to go to the executive session part of this do we want to have a date or do we just want to lift that F Well I yeah why don't we wait and see how how you and Jay do and if we can do it you know earlier towards the month there no people's calendars get full I know they do but I think this would be important enough that hopefully people would put aside other things and okay and make time you want me to make a motion yeah you ready to I will make a motion to adjourn to Executive session not to return to open session for the purpose of discussing strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the general government and school department employee labor unions okay we have a motion in a second I'll do a roll call vote again uh Dennis di hi hi Maria Susan hi John Dave Sam hi ior hi Virginia hi okay uh Aaron are you ready hi I'm ready I thank you good luck Pat Maloney take care hi Anita hi r hi and Cynthia I okay so we are going to go to Executive session um we just want to be sure everybody that's on Zoom is in a in a secure location where nobody's going to overhear what you what we have to say so should we stop the feed then me tell CH tell can we just take a two second break because um Pete's still got the second recording going and then I'll just tell them to cut the feed on Zoom so just two-minute break cut the feed on Zoom but they're still going to be able to join us not Tel media we have to cut off the CM feed Med okay got it all right hold on folks e e e e e