um but you know generally kind of going through the the agenda items here about what we've done to date uh what are the what are the issues with the cover now um what have we looked at and then essentially where where we're recommending that the the time goes here um just to be clear this um the funds for this are coming from an e mar so we obviously just sat some very tough budget discussion there is an E mark set aside for this for this part not the entire project no right so this part of the project and there should be some left over for the next part and we'll get in into more detail on that later yeah thank you for yes you're welcome um so for everyone who's uh not familiar with Dr grass Brook it's it's right up the road on Main Street M Street kind of does The Jug Handle around the mil Pond there in drbrook flows from the West to the east acrossing the so back last year U we had a small contract with town to uh pick up where the previous t engineer had left off um with with thist and basically what we found is that this helt is in po condition and we'll go over some of the more details about that and it really needs to be replaced um in the in the near ter so we we looked at some options which will which we kind of rehash with you guys um but the the initial assessment was that there's no real uh biological or historic Road Blocks permitting repl here um another key takeway is although this is in the feaa flood zone there's no base flood elevations um so there you know there's some you know obviously we can't increase the flood elevations but there's L strent requirements here from few Mon and U at the at the time the initial feedback we received from the town was that um you know complete replacement with a with a larger structure uh that we're going to go through option three calling it The Aluminum box covered option we have photos of what that looks like that was the preferred option um it is a cost- effective structure it provides a 50-year service life obviously um service life and and structure cost are are linked to the HP so um this is still a long service life with a cost effective structure um after that the town did appli for a grant for uh design and construction however this project was not selected um however luckily as they pointed out the town did receive a $250,000 earmark from the state for design and construction purposes um so what we prepared uh for Jason previously is a scoping fee to basically design and assist the town with the bid uh bidding for this project and as theyve alluded to there there's will the excise funds that would can go towards construction obviously it's it would not be enough to fund both design and construction so we you know part of our soope that he will talk about is looking into some brand options um the big the key takeaway and uh which we'll go into about about why we're going to design it certain ways is we we want this to be uh quote unquote chapter 85 ready um chapter 85 is the is the process that Mt uses to ensure that Municipal bridges are built to certain standards um so obviously with MBT involved there's a lot more stringent requirements especially on documentation so obviously you know from our our due diligence perspective we would never design anything that's substandard or unsafe but to play with the rules with Master T you have certain boxes to check which has a cost implication to that um so a little bit about the Culvert it's a corrugated metal pipe uh there's there's thousands and thousands of these across the Northeast they went in quick and easy um all the way you know from the 40s and 50s all the way up to you know the '90s they still go in on occasion but these are not structures that are recommended because they have low service life and they're not um often they're hydraulically undersized and they're not um they're not environmentally friendly for stream Crossing of sediment and and fish and other aquatic organisms um what stands out about this one is the photo on the top left there's some holes along the bottom of the covert uh the center hole is a bit hard to see at it but there's a large hole in the bottom of the Culvert um that's called the invert and it's basically peeling up um and then for anyone who's familiar with the site there's quite a lot of eaver activity on the Upstream side so that this does do for the small opening this does get plugged fairly regularly and I know that your your Highway staff need go out and attempt to this quite often so um and then you know that the upstream and downstream head walls they're they're dry stack stone masonry so they're very serviceable they they provide long service life but over time they do have settlement they do um you know the soil behind the wall comes out when it rains and and you get some movement some deformation um so generally the overall what we would assume what we uh our our opinion of this cover is is in four serious condition um that I will cave out that that's in comparison to a new structure so there's no you know we didn't have any concerns about load carrying capacity or pushing traffic one way or the other you know this is just in comparison to an existing brly bridge for condition um I'll go through these really quick because this is also part of what we looked at um we did we did kind of do conceptual analysis of three options um the first option is slip lining so that's basically put a new pipe inside the old pipe is the 20,000 foot view of that um it's fairly cheap to do it provides a relatively long service life um but there's a couple of issues um obviously when you're putting a pipe in a pipe you're reducing your your opening so you're not meeting your environmental regulations you're making flooding worse um and you're you're kind of upsetting the appli with FEMA about the flood maps you know you you would have an upstream rise associated with this unless you did something else like install a bypass CT um this is unlikely to get Mass chapter 85 uh funding because it's not a that they would recommend for longterm s um we we'll talk more Dave will talk a lot more about grants but this is not an MP action Grant not that as well yeah and just quickly on that while we're here um MVP action Grant does require that we meet stream Crossing uh General standards and with that chances are we have to also meet chapter 85 review option two was kind of go with that replace in kind um like I mentioned these corg metal pipes they still go in um they the materials are a little bit better uh this is a photograph of an aluminum as opposed to Steel so you're not going to have the same level of corrosion um you're going to get a 50-year service life but it really doesn't improve your environmental hydraulic or the beaver situation um this is a structure that Nast would potentially approve through chap 35 but one of the big things that will'll go into is is their um is scour so during a flood event you might have the channel U you know migrate of erosion and especially the depth of scour and if you don't put the bottom of that pipe below the 10 scour depth that's that's kind of a game over for Mass so really hard to mitigate this for scour so again not not something that we that we were in favor of um the last option like I said is aluminum box covert um this has a lot of advantages over the other two it's it's still cost effective it's still going to give you that your service life but you can size this to um to open up the crossing um there for all the environmentally conscious folks uh the mass DPR has their stream procing uh guidelines which we'll go into a little bit more detail but that's basically to have a nice wide structure that can accommodate um accommodate the channel have natural banks on both sides so you have aquatic organism passage anthian all that all that jazz um this is a structure that is a Mas kind of approved structure for the bridge manual it's easier to mitigate for scour um and this would be eligible for for all the grants that we're looking at this photo it doesn't show it this is just a sample photo but one of the one of the the asks from the town was to make a bit more aesthetically pleasing so um there are some Coatings that we can do to not have it be that shiny aluminum finish yeah U like more of a brown um so that's what we're we're going to specifi but this is generally the feel of what you'll of what we're recommending um so it won't be like the stone facade that it is now no sort of like like The Rustic G okay um the other options which we discussed at length with the town but we haven't really pursued is more of like the traditional concrete structures a box f a rigid frame or the other Crossing on Main Street which is a stand structure uh those do offer a much longer service life 75 years minimum but associated with that is is quite a a larger price tag and um you know Dave will go into that about some of the limitations on the grant funding but um from a dollar perspective but we wanted to provide something that um could be funded with with Grant limits that are available this is just a nice handy slide that Mas publishes about about their stream processing guidelines I won't go into you know everything in in so much specifics but they do want you to have a structure that's wider than the channel um and has that natural bottom and and what we're specifying would need all these requirements um sorry again kind of a small slide with a lot of red but one of the things that drives the cost on daiz of the design engineering is is what I've highlighted in red um like I said previously we want to make sure that our design meets with the imor that you have want to make sure that our design is going to be eligible for all these grants so we need to ensure that we're going to meet all these NGL the masteral law check5 reviews and basically everything in red is is things that we would we would normally uh do anyway it's just once you get MX involved that cost goes up more and especially I'll that column on the on the right um the hydraulic report the geotechnical report um those they have a very prescriptive me me and they want to see they want to see you do it their way and that the cost just like Joe was saying if we do a lot of the stuff anyway but when they they want it done their way now we have to XYZ it's the nature of the pie Stu it is what it is so turn over to Dave to kind of talk about what's available for some grants construction Yeah so basically the Construction Grants require that you have a design in hand and the permits in hand as as well so where we have the ear Mark we figured we can get through the first step of actually having that design and much of the permitting process together so that if it needs to sit on the shelf for a while because there you can't make any of the matches that may be required you have a design that's ready to go and then you can go ahead and say okay we're looking for the construction money um so that's the first part is we get through this we have the design ready if we don't if we wait one of the things we talked about before is if we wait and try to get design money try and get a grant for design you know then it sits the problem becomes worse just like everything else the more you wait the long the bigger the problem becomes so we get the design out of the way now it's okay let's apply for this grant or that Grant or the other Grant or all three grants on an annual basis till we get one a lot of these grants you can apply for more than one Grant as well of course there's cost associated with that because there's different tweaks and whatnot we'd have to do but you can apply for multiple grants so there's a Dr covert replacement Municipal assistance grant right there that's the one we're talking about we originally looked at applying for that one in the um in the beginning and we realized the cost do the extra um chapter 85 work and uh to get the stream Crossing guidelines in place we'd scaled back and said okay what can we do what Grant can we could apply apply for without doing those extra steps and that's the bottom Grant we see there the rural and small town Development Fund we applied for last year and unfortunately we did not get um all these are competitive grants so there were points that we just missed out on you know and other communities went out on even though we had the size of the community was the right size yeah they're all looking for other terms we talked about today development you're going to serve development you're going to serve this you have an environmental justice population so on and so forth yeah just didn't have the other boxes to check so we lost out on that try again mixure yeah exactly so with the de Culvert the award is anywhere from 25,000 to 40,000 so we if we found a structure that fell within those criteria um we could get the full the full cover full coverage of that Grant there's no match required um except for the balance of the project cost so if you have a $600,000 culvert they'll award up to 400,000 and then you have to raise 200,000 the other thing they they um put in their their stipulations is if it's over 400,000 you have a you can stipulate why you can't make that difference they may consider you but obviously it's more favorable if you you have the the percentage there the MVP action Grant um that's anywhere from 25,000 to 3 million um the match is now 10% it used to be 25 I know when I first talked about MVP with the town we talked about 25% even as recently as our last meeting it was 25% when I online today I saw that actually reduced it down to to 10% so that's favorable um and that's one of our biggest um potentials for getting the whole project funded um again you maximize your dollar amount or again find something that fits within the budget we have and say okay we can come up with this solution with this much left the earmark or some other funds to represent the 10% you know if we have $50,000 left then that's a $500,000 project that we can do at what point can we apply for the MP we can apply so the MVP actually goes out twice a year but we haven't quite completed our right so we'll be eligible at I believe will'll be eligible if not in June after we submit after we get approval which should be July or August so they'd be I think a September round or October round we can apply for or definitely um in March April for next year yeah um this's Municipal small bridge program which we can't apply for um because it's not considered a bridge currently but this would be eligible in 50 years or so when it becomes a bridge if we if we make the spin 10t or wider it's between 10 and 20 ft and now falls under the municipal small bridge program but um there's a lot of money just got pumped into that right is that part of like the infrastructure yes yeah and again as i' mentioned before we applied for the RO in small town Development Fund we got denied this past year that's anywhere from 50 to $500,000 the match is uh 10% plus you get special consideration if you can match so you don't have to match but if you match anywhere from 10% or more they'll look at your project more favorably again that one doesn't require streaming Crossing standards or the chapter 85 review yeah but if we focus on that again we miss out on these other potential gr opportunities and other ones that we haven't looked at yet I looked at the themea brick program the problem with femur brick is um I can't remember what brick stands for but um building resilient infrastructure and I think something like that yeah and communities or something I believe you um the problem there is that you have to show repeated issues so if this is if this was a cul that was continually failing not because of a beaver problem but because every storm had overtopped you could say okay you know we we've already had to do other mitigation actions here yeah we're constantly over topping this this bridge in 25 years storm events forget about the 100e storm event then FEMA you can take advantage of the FEMA funds and again there may be other funds out there but these are the ones that are um most currently available um so the conclusions uh so we've written a scope and fee for design and bid uh for this option through aluminum box CT um that would be like like we talked about be consistent with all these Grant applications in the future um the total fee is 191,000 and change 192 and again I want to reiterate that that that's that's out of the earmark that the town has uh from the state um and I did a quick breakdown because that is a large number and um we you know there's some we can talk about how we got there based on this breakdown and and a lot of it is you know 32,000 specific to that you know meeting that Nas chapter 85 effort um make that a little breakdown there too of what what the added costs are associated with that um another major task is we have close to 20,000 just in permitting and for anyone who's familiar with the the massachusett permitting process there's a lot of public involvement there's a lot of comcom involvement there's multiple meetings there's uh developing the permits there's a site walk so all of that kind of kind of adds up um there's other costs associated with field survey um money we budgeted for public Outreach money we specifically budgeted because this is an E mark into helping write grants and then um money for helping the town administer a public vid service um we've structured the contract those actual cost that means if there's savings like if we if we don't uh need certain costs from environmental permitting that's you know returned to the town um this number is the quotequote Cadillac option it's to is to take all the services and and run with them based on all of our experience with with similar structures um which is basically how we arrived at that number so um that's kind of all we had we the last kind of questions to comments I can go back to any slide if there's further questions about so your 192 number is draw is oil cameras all in number right and in that number are design project Administration and project management okay uh not constru project management but not Construction constru not project management so and then let me ask a tech question right because I've had some experience with this over the years is there any issue with the w because it's an aluminum cover right I know it's going to get coated with something right are there any issues and I'm not familiar with I used aluminum col covers on jogging trails okay are there any issues with the pH of the water being acidic and attacking the aluminum the issues that we run into and I'm a certified bird inspector and I've done lots of these bird inspections is not the water that it's sitting in generally it's the salt water getting in from the roadway and interacting with the Aggregates and the the stones in the in the roadway fill um one way we mitigate around that is by putting in impervious membrane so not painting it with the coating but putting in a like a shoot membranes over the back okay so it's going to have some sort of a a shield Yeah so basically you install it you start you start to back f with some of your materials and then you trying to think it's not poly you know a poly tarp that's not the it's it's similar to that but it's a lot more rugged and you kind of drap that over that way when any water comes through the pavement it's hitting that and running off it's so it's what it is that what is used often sometimes with septic systems that like membrane that to prevent water well I mean I've seen it in some in other Town SE some designs where they've had to elevate it and you're too close to the Wetland they put this 41 mil member to prevent it from breaking out of the stone walls and it directs it to go forces the water go down so it's that sort of same material similar yeah instead of yeah it sheds it away yeah and so my other question would be being an aluminum C R are there any ongoing routine maintenance costs that are typically not seen with the pre-cast C that's a very good question um besides the what I would say is like the roadway upkeep which is kind of already in the budget um you know what we would recommend is um is like a a bial inspections every two years someone comes out and look at it I know that the state the state manages all of the the ferally fund Fally you know all their Bridges they come out and inspect I know that they've been looking at a lot of these towns they their bris which are those 10 to 20 foot structures so that's something that you can you know we can hopefully get you guys on that inspection the what I would say is what you want to be on the lookout for I can go back to the um so those you can kind of see it I don't know if I get the laser it doesn't really show on the left hand side of the photo you see a horizontal aluminum um so what that is is uh these are just sheets there's no there's no um structural element to them so the way that they stand up is um there's a rod that goes in and out of the in out of the page into the back fill and it it attaches to dead man anchor so that's typically on when I've inspected these you'll see over time some tipping of those um just as you get some movement some settlement um but generally they're advertised to be low maintenance what would be involved in repairing something that you can just pull that replace that piece right you have to excavate the road and reset those dead Manors again I in my experience I've never seen one that's out enough that would warrant that yeah and so just just so I weing this like let's let's is this C coming in and being bolted up is it a bolt up connection or is it one piece or aluminum welding what's it yeah so it's boled bed connection I can't I don't have a big picture of that um it really depends on on what the contractor wants to do because this is not the same structure but you'll see this is everything is bolted in there swing it into place so I would imagine that they could do that for the for the arch shape and then they would they would stand up these these vertical panels SE separately or they could just build it essentially piece by piece it's up to the contractor um field decision field decision equipment decision um what is the water doing um water diversion water diversion get a dry summer what the roadway condition is ultimately I think the best case scenario here would be to be able to divert traffic uh down Mill so the the the other that was another challenge with trying to get the grant funding is when the grant becomes available um timing isn't great ideal condition would be do this right when school ends yeah and just close the road there and then get it done over three months and then have it open late August early September we've done this before we did a bridge replacement we went through some of the was closed right after school but they were ready I think the end of middle of September something I just say the beauty of this is there's no there's no forming of concrete there's no curing of concrete quick um we do have a line item uh so the the we have Aline items to work with the town as well as mass NH and the City of Nash onour routes so the the hope is to use m road as a street street as sorry stre as the for stre as the for for local traffic um obviously that's not um desirable for truck traffic so we'd be working with obviously 113 in Massachusetts and 111a in New Hampshire so we have all those contacts um and we have line items in there to help establish what a truck detour route would look like he's from natur 10 minutes from here right um we can't one of the things we looked at originally too was whether we could not whether not we could get this on the tip just like um the first section of 113 and we can't because that section of Road believe it or not and I'm still in in disbelief of this Main Street from Pleasant Street uh up to 111 isn't isn't a major arterial so you have 113 which is the main road l l Road Westford Street and gron Street are your major arterials this one isn't considered it and I I looked at the traffic data it's old traffic data I imagine when they do the next set of traffic data we might be able to talk to ncog and say can we get this included do we have enough because again you're connecting 11a to I agree you know again I I talked to the the previous um transportation manager and said how is this not on here and I pointed out you know here's what we're connecting we said yeah I don't understand it either but it's right now it's currently not so we don't we can't take advantage of that we can't put it on the tip and get State funds for that at least not now but again with an upgrade to making it you know between 10 and 20 ft now comes a MK B yeah hopefully we can get the upgrade to the road and then it becomes recognized to get to fun and I'll read the motion I have no questions I it's I'll move to approve task order number 32 with oil amount of $11,992 for cost the design and Engineering of the joint grass Brook Culvert replacement project and authorize the chair to sign the task order on behalf of the board second second all in favor thank you thank you thanks for sitting for the other part too oh it's important to see see these um these conversations I understand absolutely it's nice the money set aside so those listening at home it's money already encumbered emphasize encumbered it's already been done talk about that right up front for the money love that laptop I just unloaded mine just got me an upgrade a lot smaller wheels for that hold on I'm we can't hear you so it does yeah it's cool okay going back are we ready to go on here we'll go back to item number five which is in report dedication so we were going to have a discussion on setting criteria for this I would table that for yeah we're not ready to do this I'm tuck it out so I'll say it first so the hours we if we table this are we impacting do we want is there a way we even need to we don't we are not obligated to dedicate the count to anybody there's no obligation and you know there are some very nice people that have lived in town that have passed away and have done some work to the town but you know are they wor they I hate to say the but you know I think R just winging it and say hey all right well you know this was a nice person we should dedicate we should establish a little bit more of a criteria on who who whose name gets put in the book what if you charge memorials and monuments with it that would be you I know and Joe yeah but I mean then then it committee should be a little more inut than it's been I think so the what I'm hearing is Jason that we're going to wave P dedicated this so no dedication for this year and then moving forward will come up with criteria how how do you qualify that do we need a motion um annual town meeting warrant discussion so I have a draft this is very much a draft um it does doesn't require a lot of discussion unless there are questions I just wanted to get the board a draft warrant for annual time meeting um some of these may come up but this I just wanted to make sure you were informed at this point of where we were at um there's a meeting of the CPC on the 17 that um a lot of these yeah articles are going to be um discussed but their placeold I mean a lot of these are placeholders right now um so unless you have any questions you can kind of take a look and feel free to reach out if you have if there's anything you think that's missing that should be added what yeah so the one thing that we mentioned this earlier was I don't we didn't talk about this before but Article 19 I think is a really interesting article to be proposing on here but we haven't discussed this as a board all no is fine no yeah these are this is like I said this is dra this is a suggested article you might remember this did come up at one of the select board meetings a little while ago and it allows the town to basically have a donation option on tax to go into a trust that can then be used to offset tax increases for seniors or disabled persons then I mean just my 10,000 viewers there a lot of mechanics behind the scen how to make that work so if you were to have it as an article how for asks what's the functionality of it might close J or something explain how that works I read thing it works I mean it's it's I like the concept though I think it's a great idea I think that we might get asked as to how this thing functions well during Co we had an application for those that need like assistance with bills I know we never had anyone really take us up on it but maybe we could sort of model it oh we' set up money aside yeah we had set money aside but like no one ever applied for it so it might be an we the reason we never really had the criteria established for the process of that that was the rub but we had an application for it didn't we no no it never went it never got off the launch [Music] pad and we never we never did I thought he got one from I thought he got one from Ox town I remember that was it yeah it never Manifest this is the same thing it's just like that one right because they do a little special they have a a a dispensation for their elderly folks so they down so there's models out there but to Ron's point I guess it's you get a question on the floor it's kind of I mean some of this is kind of chicken it would create a committee to administer the fund yeah and the fund would be responsible on law to create criteria M to administer the funds and to Awards yeah so like there's some but I can I'm happy to put something together yeah I would just I would just walk that CR a little bit more so it's better understood because you know it's we did go through this with offer all that we didn't give anybody a buck no one no one ever came there wasn't there was no process in place we it just it just sat there I mean J Dean may have some for the veterans assistant stuff too maybe the models out there um yeah most most of the time they don't were you going to do some we talked about the um bylaw for this town elections changing the hours oh okay um article 18 draft placeold yeah it is what about the land on allall Street wasn't that a parel of that oh that was being donated to the town yeah because that because that I believe my understanding is that would be for conservation purposes okay it doesn't me to go to cool okay all right we all with that um yeah there a lot of CPA stuff yeah good money that we have the only source and some of these have not been reviewed or approved by sequency again they they out all in pretty straightforward yeah you ready to move on okay article eight excuse me agenda item eight appointment of Kate MCN to the master plan implementation committee brim dno to the board of registrars and Barney radel to uh Insurance advisory committee motion uh I move to appoint Bren dno to the board of registers for attm to expire on June 30th 2027 gate mcnut to the master plan implementation committee for attor to expire on June 30th 2024 and Bonnie madeli to Insurance advisory committee for ter to expire on June 30th 2024 second all fav thank you for your service IT contract amendment I have no issue with this so as we transition to the new Regional dispat Center M the Patriot need some access to our um it structure yeah and so in order to do that our current vendor just their concern with hey we open up some access to these folks we don't want to be held liable for something that they essentially cause so because of that they have drafted it's their draft they have drafted um I have sent it to our town C for um unfortunately he wasn't able he didn't never before this meeting so you can either wait till the next meeting to approve or you can condition the approval subject to his to town council's review comments and approval it's up to you one do you know why he needs access I mean probably what do he need access to there's a lot of stuff doing now the computer systems and phone systems are actually have an actual business line we can talk to everybody Poli Department all the other F departments um and then directly they can they'll actually be able to handle a lot of our business calls so he's trying to get that Network up running can't do unless he gets permission from our and you may you also may remember part of the um part of the discussion initially with Patriot was that they are actually bring on an additional IT professional yeah as additional staff member for them and that at some point I don't know that it will be immediate but at some point they would like to transition fully to um provide it support to our Public Safety police okay um I think that transition will take time but ultimately um I as long as things go the way we think they're going to go all of that responsibility may be transitioned to P this isn't just this isn't just anybody over a patriot this is just STS director pretty high level right of for free and this is going to help him get us further need to go he's getting hung up all over the place with our let's do it yeah so I'll move to approve the proposed contract contct Amendment with umbrell technology subject to review comments and approval from the Town Council and authorize the chair to sign the contract Amendment on behalf of the board with the first review by the Town Council of dille all in favor I'm okay with technically I'm not okay with it because he's going to have access to our mail Ser I like it or not yeah they're they're part of government and it's an extension and I I I mean the amount of attention we've received in the last few months is more than we've received probi to for he's got so I'm okay my concern there is a significant amount of it destruction going on right now over now there and it's just it's so huge it's blow your mind the trucking company up in Manchester New can't ship anything because someone happed into their computers the other day and locked up all their phone number they don't know what's going where and that's this stuff's going on all the time it's not in the news and I don't want to put some of it is I just want to be careful not to put us in that position because we gave away some and I like David St what David says is David David says is David says and dve not around I don't know well I will I will tell you this I I just had a conversation with um um you might remember we got a $30,000 Grant from contact and um he just he just completed that project of transition transitioning us to new servers um and he said unequivocally we are in a better position than we've been since you because of the made to our it infrastructure we are much better a we could use it I mean to the chief's point we need to modernize some of our systems here so it's you know with caution keep going forward and these are important things right so any other items you guys want to talk about toour second second all fav all right thank you --------- 5:00 we get started here um for the board of selectman meeting today SE septor April 9th um meet this for S meeting is called to order our agenda for this evening will be a public comment section approval of meeting minutes from two prior meetings a discussion regarding the FY 2025 budget annual report dedication annual town meeting warrant discussion a discussion regarding joint grass Brook culbert um appointment of Kate mcnut and Bren dno and Bonney rodelli to some various committees IT contract Amendment and uh topics not reasonably anticipated so with that being said we'll go up to item number two public comment it's a general discussion for those who haven't been here before it's a general discussion it's kind of whatever you want to talk about anybody yes to do anything formal no okay I just really want to Advocate that we consider highly that you all consider highly I know every person that's going to be cut is an important person to our town but I feel that we're in a place where we absolutely need admin that as we move forward it's so complex what's going on administrator we're just pie and invaluable two cents in keeping that all right anyone else and so just um just as a point of reference before we take her question um this meeting is also a joint meeting finance committee AKA Advisory Board they do not yet have Quorum so their meeting is not called to order right I'm sorry go ahead um so I just want to my own that I know cuts are going to have to be made that we in a really um but I just want to make an argument to limit the impact of schools as much as possible I know a whole lot of to be cut on but as much as possible we can please try to preserve some amount of money that's going to the schools as I understand it from all the presentations interventionists um which counts as an administrative role people schools are top too much Administration part of that is intervention are people that deal with population before kids are required to get Services if we cut those into we are going to have more kids that that slip behind and need services and may not be able to provide those services and we're going to end upay more District tuition outside it's going to be shortsighted because we're going to end up it's end up costing more okay thank you anyone else just a call The Advisory Board order Advisory Board is called to order and the joint meeting is is in process anyone else with comments all right uh approval of meeting minutes from 3224 and the 32624 meeting Jer I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from March 12th and March 26 2024 all in favor I next item is the FY 25 operating can I just I just want to add to what she was saying I just want to clarify that we have as a board and I believe with the select we have zero power how School spends their money line by line where strictly looking at how much money we can afford to give them and it's up to them how they're going to disperse it absolutely absolutely just and yeah I mean that's I think most people understand maybe not all but um the town provides a bucket of money we end up going through some negotiations as to what that dollar amount would be and settle on a number and to the extent that is the select boards um involvement we as a rule you know interventionists or par professionals we don't we don't we just don't it's up to the school district to call that out yeah it's still one bucket of money one bucket of money it's hard to lose sight of that I'm not sure it's a bucket anymore I think it's maybe a pay one budget item we have no control over okay um so annual we excuse me um 2025 annual operating budget discussion Mr Jason and do we are we going to have um Mark he's on Y and so we're going to have with us the T of manager from town of gron Mark Dad and you see him over there in the corner Mark welcome thank you for having me it's pleasure okay Jason okay thank you so I'm just going to kind of run through some updated information based on the override election outcome um so we can go to the next slide so first as we know um last Tuesday the override request failed um we had great turnout so congratulations to the town for coming out in strong numbers to vote um it makes our life the result makes our lives a little more difficult than I hope but it's great that so many people came out and vote voted um just so you know I believe it's still the case that the school committee is meeting I know they're meeting tomorrow I believe that their goal tomorrow night is to approve their budget so no pressure but I think their vote is contingent on our vote on the select boards and advisory boards both on um on their assessment is that still the case okay next slide so first start with the only good news we have um budgetarily so um as we all know we started the budget process far what we typically do as uh that process moved along we did get some um news and some numbers did change um to the good um some very recently so health insurance we plan for a 5% increase our actual increase is a 2.2% increase general liability insurance we plan for a 10% increase that actually believe it or not excuse me our general liability insurance assessment is being reduced year over year and then the assessment we received from great little Tech has um reduced substantially um and we just we just level funded that from last year so um so it's been reduced substantially based on enrollment so all together we uh that equates to approximately $78,000 of savings which is great news better than nothing better than nothing there's blood in this rock yes for sure so both um Tomy maner Bron and myself have been giving presentations about this budget over the last several months and both of us had had presented on different scenarios if the if the override failed um my presentation is mostly going to be focused on the Dunstable scenarios that we presented um based on conversations with the town of gr and the school district um there was General consensus I'd say that those are the scenarios that we should focus on frankly because the conod cannot afford the scenarios that the town of Bren was running just that it would it would put additional pressure on on the town side budget um when we're already feeling substantial pressure so um the scenarios that the town of dunable had presented was one assigned our new available Revenue 6535 65 to the schools 35% to the town proportionately assign the bottom line deficit 65 to the schools 35 to the town and and then the the last and probably least desirable option for both sides is um for one side or the other to cover the entire deficit so the result of those scenarios of course if the school district took on the entire deficit the town side would be balanced um scenario two which is um proportionately assigning the the um New available Revenue 65 to the schools 35 to the town the towns side deficit is just shy $75,000 if we took the overall the underlying deficit and assign that 6535 the towns side deficit would be $243,000 just for context what's the typical Municipal approach in Massachusetts it's generally the 65 35 me if you were to Ballpark proportion yeah more often it's not I don't know if this will but my exper based on my experience this is it's about where it usually okay Li may you know I brought in 6040 yeah or 6535 okay these are the grotten scenarios so I just I I did run these numbers just so you can see it um they uh reduce the scenarios they was 1640 assigning the underlying deficit if they were to fund it at that level the town of dun would have a $432,000 deficit the town of Gren also R in a scenario where they um assigned 74% of the deficits of the schools that's based on a level funded townside budget in that scenario we have a $370,000 def so I put some math to each one of the scenarios this first scenario is not easy to read and I apologize for that but this is essentially the town we know what the impact of scenario one if the school absorbs the entire deficit we don't we're balanced but if we were to absorb the entire $694,000 these are the type of cuts we be talking about these are likely the recommendations that I would be forced to provide it would be you know obviously not restoring the police officer position not having any perdm firefighter coverage it would be reducing my position it would be closing the library it would be um reducing the entire Senior Services budget um we would have and also have to get rid of um salary lines in Board of Health planning Conservation Commission and the custodian of town would essentially turn this building into a casket yeah I mean for lack of a better term and no one's recommending this um I make that clear this is the last thing I'd recommend um but just so everyone understands if we were to absorb the entire deficit these are the type of decisions we'd be forced to make so scenario two is the new available Revenue assignment in that case um as I stated earlier we have $774,000 deficit and frankly that would be covered by the savings that we've experienced so um if we were to choose scenario two one option would be um to count sorry account for those savings um like I said health insurance general liability assessment rate aable Tech that equates to 7 $8,000 we would be balanced with a little a spare and that budget includes the restoration of the police officer position and the scenario three $243,000 deficit um to make this work we would need to cut we wouldn't be able to restore the police officer position or the prum firefighter position we' have to cut about $8,000 from the library um the town administrative training line by 4,000 and then 20,000 out of Paving and Highway and 5,000 out of fresh signs and Min that would get you to $164,000 reduction that including the savings we're already experien and get you to 243,000 so this slide just shows the uh increases that the gr for Regional School District assessment would see under each scenario as well as the budget increases on the municipal operations so scenario one on the town side would remain the same would remain as we present it all throughout because we wouldn't have to make any changes scenario two would reduce the increase to 2.42% in scenario we need to cut actually our budget overall would go by 1.18% on the school side scenario one their assessment goes up less than 2% um if now that's if they absorb all of the deficit scenario 2 is 2.8 scenario 3 is 5% inre so I also wanted to include forecast information for 26 and 27 because all throughout this process we've been looking at this as a multi we know this is not the oneyear problem this is a multi-year financial problem it's a structural problem and if we view it in terms of one year at a time we are never going to fix the problem it's just just the truth so when considering these scenarios I also R numbers for 26 and 27 um the gr and dun Regional School District assessment increases are based on numbers that were provided to me by um the business office on the school district and um the budget increases are based on what we've been using as Baseline projections throughout at we presented two months ago it's the same same thing we're presenting now so scenario two so scenarios don't impact really the municipal projected increases but they do impact the quable school district so scenario scenario 2 for 26 um the percent increase is 7 and2 scenario 3 is 6 and2 on the town side it's 2.6 and then FY 27 scenario 2 is 8.8 scenario 3 is 8.8 as well for the Regional School District and for town it's 2.6 though it is important to recognize you know Dr cheston's finishing up and there'll be a new superintendent so you know she's finished up her time there and done a lot of work so a new superintendent could bring other ideas so it's worth at least acknowledging that yeah yeah so based on those projections the scenario um two and three and I have focused on those because scenario one is just I don't want to me it doesn't make sense so I I didn't even go for any of those um so these are the deficits we're running in 26 and 27 um it's basically no different than this year than 25 it's the same almost identical situation slightly less so um so when we're making a decision on how we're going to fund fy2 if we're not considering these out years then we're not I don't think we're doing doing our job properly so that's why I went through the process of kind of trying to forecast the best the best I could um so other considerations um I just wanted to point out some of these fy2 relies on $100,000 of free cash less less than um the current FY 24 fiscal year it also um includes $120,000 of capital expenses that we've included under the tax levy in the tax levy and um and also I just want and Mark May if I Mark may be able to add some color to this if um if I get anything I mess anything up but obviously just like we always say you know the town of Bron's assessment impacts Town Gable the reverse is is true as well and so um based on kind of our initial discussions and the fact that they've asked the town of vable and I actually appreciate I should I should note that that they've really been working with us and want to make sure that whatever we do we can afford to the best of our ability so I think both Town brought in the whole district for that um having said that the scenario is we have a much less than what BR can actually afford more than what we can afford so what that does is actually provide um some excess capacity it flip it flips it so town of Gren actually has some capacity within their tax to fund more based on our CS so because of that it the amount is approximately $620,000 that they have under their tax so because of that um Mark is working now on um auctions I guess kind of investigating options on whether or not he can either or the town of gron can either make a one- Time donation Grant or gift of some kind in that amount or somewhere near that amount to help at least an fy2 relieve some of the pressure um on the overall reduction of the assessment for the school district if you're there Mark if I got anything wrong or you have any more that you want to add you got it you got it 100% right you got a 100% right Jason and I will let you know the Town Council has told me that if we into a grant agreement with the district we can provide a one-time gift of funds to the district so that is absolutely something that can happen Okay but that's only a oneye excess capacity for GR if I recollect if I'm remember it correctly yeah you're right K 100% correct so the so the discussion with Mark with Sher and la and the school committee so my concern with that is obvious so if they if Bron um is able to give give and is approved to provide that payment as a one-time payment if that in FY 26 just kind of moves into the assessment yeah and then you know the percent increas is on the larg assessment yeah that creates on day one about $140,000 whole for us because we're not M we wouldn't be matching it for 25 so we have we've had conversations back and forth about okay that's that's not super helpful to us either for FY 26 so what we discussed is using the one time for one time um so sadly you know what can I okay I don't want to speak out of turn um okay so what we've um what we've talked about is um using a onetime grant sadly for unemployment costs because hopefully we won't be absorbed we have have unemployment ongoing unemployment right and um and then for the past mitigation the purchase of water that they're required to do until the Project's up run it using it for that one time cost as well so kind of aligning the onetime cost with the onetime revenue so that it's not um part of the annual assessment moving forward um so that's the that's the plan as I'm understanding right now yeah still the recognition that they could put that money in stabilization to reduce their deficit the following year right I mean like that would be the proper budget practices save themselves from themselves down the road I guess it's saving us it's I mean it's saving if they are if they weren't to use it for unemployment say then they'd have to dig deeper into operations 500 Grand cut basically so there would be moving it around um so I I put a recommendation together based on some conversations um I've had with some of you um and I don't love it it's it's definitely not the favorite my favorite thing I've done since I've been here but um but I think looking at it in a threeyear window does require us to acknowledge that we don't have enough money to support our expensive right now St and we're not going to have enough money to support our expenses in 26 and over the last two I've been here a year and a half both budget Cycles um we've gone and ask for overides and both um we tried different approaches to those overrides and the community has clearly said that they don't want to pay more than two and a half allows and so I think from a planning perspective we need to be um prepared for that and we need to plan for that basically so what my suggestion is and um if you don't agree I'm you know no I'm 100% okay with that but my suggestion is from a long from a um threeyear standpoint at least we should fund the school district at scenario two levels um which is the revenue assignment creates a $774,000 deficit for the time um that and I say that for two two reasons one it is a lower assessment but two because as long as that onetime gift is able to happen for one time Grant was able to happen the difference between scenario 2 and three is not huge and so it either scenario affects the school district in a similar moment so because of that I suggest funing the school district assess at the scenario two levels but I also suggest making the reductions necessary to balance on the scen scenario three and then based on those reductions to reduce our Reliance on free cash by the amount we cut which is 164696 so combination of two and three yeah so that would be not returning the police officer or the peran firefighter correct yep and then like Library energy supplies reduction in Highway Paving Town Administrator training this sort of stuff throughout the municipal budget basically yeah okay but based on production based on projections that's not going to be enough right so I think we need you know understanding that we've been told similarly to what you're saying Jason I agree with you we've been voted down twice I'm not interested in getting slapped in the face again I'm not sure anyone else is you know but I kind of akin to that based upon the time and energy we put forward uh to be able to develop the best possible budget for our town we continue to get told Bel um so we need a long term fix I believe the not reinstating the positions that we just discussed with the police in fire which is horrible to say I hate even bringing it up it doesn't provide us with the the long term we're already in 26 with deeper opportunities to be able to do that I think through the budget cycle we did we had just recently discussed that we went through that you know the biggest thing was talking about um R reducing our expenditures while increasing our Revenue uh both short shortterm and long term I know this is an extreme scenario but obviously it's highlighted prevalently there in multiple scenarios is that we do have a building that does uh you know does cost quite a bit to our town and could provide some of some relief further down the road in shortterm obviously scenario 2 works but I think in the longterm situation I think we need to be looking at um resoning uh the library closing it selling the building and finding a business that wants to move in I think that provides us with a reduction in a reduction in budget you know cost um it also increases our short-term revenue and our long-term Revenue by finding that right position it's uh a right opportunity I think this is an opportunity for us to make it through 26 and start to get ourselves in a position to potentially be able to get somewhere into 27 as right now as we sit we just saw the numbers 26 is we're back passing again and my guess is we're going to be told no again and we're going to be in think in this in this scenario we plan accordingly we don't restore the positions that's nobody wants that mean that we want but nobody seems to want fund and then you know find a way to increase short-term and longterm Revenue I think that that option provides both and just to add to that is we're not talking fy2 with the library we're saying FY 26 would be a possibility would be to to do that right yeah I believe we have to re Z I believe it's zoned as business right now but reone it as a as a business it's an opportunity it's a town own facility and uh the dispatching of that facility provides onetime funding that probably gets us through FY 26 and long-term funding with potential Revenue grow from our increased taxes whatever business Mak Mo in there Mr Simmons um scenario to um did I understand that correctly that scenario two would even with the extra savings that we were experiencing and um that that would not allow us to hire back our missing police officer and firefighter and you know the stuff that is cut last year if we're if we're to look at fy2 in a and block out any impacts to anything else at 26 27 and Beyond if we're just looking at 25 if we go with scenario to we have enough funding to fund to restore the police officer and the per firefighter and we'll get rid of them in 26 because we can't afford it and that's I people don't want to hear it I get it that's the reality we can't we will be laying off the fire the police officer in6 going beyond that just will then be paying more again because now we have to pay for the Uno right increases our budgetary cost in 26 because we will not be able to fund it we already know we've asked twice now for to be able to fund the police in the fire department we be told no we were told slightly no the first time and then we were told how fundamentally I would just like to say all of you any of you folks that are here tonight who voted against this override uh I'd like to hear your ideas on what you think how you think this should play out are you just happy with with the uh the fact that we are now be in comment she was asking for comments yes ask two two questions one I know for my company when we budget we budget for one year only we can forast but they don't make decisions on anything further than a your own because there's so much incy we're going into election presal election which could have huge impacts so I get where yes we want future years but I don't think we want to make decisions number one number two is there a possibility to based on your information understanding this correctly could we do because there were some of us who wanted to be able to fund mici is that still possibility to do it small just speaking forly advis we have no interest in I I think if you so the the answer to the question yes there is a possibility to do that but there's not a lot of energy of enthusiasm from the varing board and I don't know I guess we're probably in the same position to um to try that again and then just to kind of give you an overall comment I I I agree the years change from year to year and forecasting of of a budget is always done with historical data and you know we can't you know Corporate America if I needed if Corporate America if I needed money I'd go to my boss and say I need $100,000 I need a million dollars and he is why and we either get it or we won't get it or we do something we don't have that here this this is Municipal County and you tax ly and that's it there's no no aspiration to go get money from something to do something with it but my point with that is that it does change from year to year and the Dynamics of the town changes a little bit here and there but based on the historical data that he has he's forecasted that position in 26 in 26 and you know that even the year after that it continues to slide um and at some point it's going to need a correction I just that's you have you have to remember too that oh sorry saying if we do bring back those positions and then we get voted down again because another ride will be required if we want to continue to fund those those positions and we're not able to do that we will then increased our cost our unemployment unemployment benefits to losing that position again so it may be short term everyone's happy that they got their way right the school budget got cut and you know and and police and fire still here but we'll be literally we'll be digging ourselves a deeper dick is what we're seeing from 26 by having unemployment benefits that we have to pay out to those people because we won't be able to afford it and we we do have assessments that are still going to be in the situation that are are going to be larger than what we're going to be able to afford in 207 it also makes it very difficult for these departments to have a fluctuating Workforce below them um the pressure that is put on both the fire chief and the F Chief to think that this year I have this many people next year we're going to lose them and it's going to cost more and for the fire chief the same thing you know he came in with the level of staff and that been reduced and it's just exceptionally stressful it's not particularly safe for the employees or the general public it's um very frustrating situation to not be able to think this out a couple years ahead it's just just not the appropriate way to I believe it's our charge to be planning forward towards the future of the Town not just the next 6 months well I I would I would also add that we like since I've been on theis board we have been planning based on years out it you know it's not like we just looked at this year and you know we haven't we haven't asked for an override for several years until last year and there was a lot of discussion around whether or not we should delay it another year and the fact that we knew the school issue is coming is the reason why we did that because we want to make it clear that we need some extra money to help fund municipal voted down you also planned I mean like the town administrator's office The Advisory Board the select board other boards spent a lot of goodwi and time and energy I think both sides really did if you really step back like you know the people in favor of it was there's a lot of passion in the town and people against it showed a lot of passion as well so we're truly taking what 47% of the town was registered voters is telling us to do like that's not lost on me it wasn't lost on me last year when the override lost six votes and I was really frustrated about that but you know 120 vote difference is pretty clear that the town does not want their taxes to exceed a certain level and they are okay with potentially the fundamental risks that that opens us up to as a town for this year and for future planning so we as this board sort of have to take those marching orders like that's because we're we're beginning to we have run out of ideas um I'll call them back um we have run out of ideas for like generating short-term Revenue like we it take we have a couple new committees that are going to act on it but that's not an overnight solution and really there aren't many Municipal overnight Solutions in general like that's just not how that's not the nature of how it works yeah Tiffany I have two questions um does anybody know if when we you know basically lose our fire department and have a very small Police Department if that affects our home insurance we're at the highest rate already F like overall broadly speaking so you won't see much of a change and what is the cost to run the library it's about 180ish 200,000 200 200ish yeah I was looking at couple 200ish plus the Consortium yeah the cons and just for the record if my daughter hears about this idea idea one more so just f up on that talk about closing the library um I just think it's important to before you make a decision like that look at how many people use that as a resource versus and I'm on Parks and re I'm saying this if you cut parks direct budget to zero and use the ability to care for larger field and you know low the Town Center you know maybe it's something else that needs to be looked at so there's a lot of people that enjoy the library there's a lot of people that enjoy larger fields and the ability to have Sumer concerts with Port body and trash but maybe that's something else that needs to get looked at you know yeah I mean as you know as my own individual brain here speaking of myself like I find it really hard to say we have a really functional library and we don't have two police officers on shift together or like two firefighters on shift together to make sure we're safe like having a library is a this won't sound right so forgive me like isn't that's a privilege like having Public Safety is a right that we all anticipate if I snap my leg and I need help from the fire and I agree and that's why I'm saying that resources like field and know plac that that department yes gentleman in the back yes sir is it possible running on the line that you're saying is to just separate the line items so we can vot as a town you know maybe we just override just the police department or maybe just the fire department or just the souls and just have have it line on and broke down with the dollar amounts next to it so that way you can really hear because I think a lot of people from the town they want this department they want the extra position I think sto at darl the other night you know he's worried about being by himself out there he got to get CPR and I'm sympathetic to that I was against it I voted no but um that doesn't mean I voted no for everybody I was just specifically the school system I think the school needs to work within the budget that's that's is it possible to the end of the day there's still money that we will owe to the school so if you allart the budget and only choose to pay certain line items that doesn't mean we're not obligated to still pay for it so by not voting for those things doesn't allow us any way to have the money to pay our obligations so that doesn't improve our situation just Bri the point too is we we own a lot as you know a lot of property a lot of land is it possible does anybody not the library but I me getting rid of this taking land there's a lot of land that is held and it's held under article 97 and is open space held as open space on purpose that was approved by Town residents in town meetings over many many years and it's land that is not available to be used to sold for building purposes all of it not every part of it but there is a sign taking in amount of land that is held either um owned by the Conservation Commission owned by the rural land trust that is in um agricultural protection that is a town forest or um have conservation restrictions there are many different instruments that are protecting this land right and it they have been specifically designated to be held as open space not to be developed so those properties are not on the table but not not all of them do you is there is there a list that we can get together absolutely there's a list yeah and that's what the land use committee is supposed to be reviewing and I'm sure they're going to be coming to some of these same conclusions that all of this land that you see that you're driving around is just not owned by the town and open game so and so one last thing to note on that it just pushes the problem so if the average building lot's 200k in town and you get onetime funds it doesn't generate a reoccurring Revenue stream it just it just gives us 200 ,000 more potentially this year but then you're 200k short the following year I think everything you're saying right now is temporary fix so even selling the library temporary fix it's not yeah because the library is a reoccurring expense and provid associated with that with building in the business district Alan channy I'm on the uh land committee ER and the we've gone through and as Leah says open space open 97 is simply off the table uh the U some people confuse the land Properties Des number of people think trust is part of town or something it is not private fishing game same deal 97 land so the number of parcels the town owns which are not protected in that manner um is about 20 um half of those are tiny or wet or both uh it turns out that there were only are only two or three Parcels that the town might look at as a granted one shot deal to raise a b money um but uh in uh those cases there is no strong feel yet on the committee that they should be sold because of potential future uses for which they were bought and will be needed down the road probably um so the bottom line is um I think we might find the committee saying um no uh Town property is not a way to either in the short or long term solve our financial problems I will point out one thing that is that I mentioned this once before in a meeting um the town is selling water to pepp now PE is going to be doing about $10 million worth of improvement to our infrastructure to enable them to use our the water and down the road for us uh once that is used up in terms of their paying they will simply pay for our water um that water is available because we have one of the best public water supplies in terms of quality and M in the state and it is protected by up a little over 500 Acres of open space uh there's still some more Parcels which need to be acquired to finish that po but that resource is tremendously valuable and there it's fairly well protected more was wasn't that voted down I believe PE didn't they didn't because because we didn't answer in time and they they want to have with the project you would have to speak with the Water Commission get the most recent update information still live absolutely they have water but wateran that's and that's what pretty good job at so far and we're very lucky to have that unid okay so we I'm sorry I'm sorry I just want to say that keep hearing this underr code can we do line can't we separate out Town that's what happened last year and didn't pass where people get this confidence I think it's just a lot of shter chatter that is confusing the issue and is really taking up our time that's number one and number two I hate the thought of not having a public library that is a place where kids don't have the money to buy books and people who want look at the jobs and a whole host of things happen in librar however we are very fortunate to have just over the bridge the tsoro library which is extremely friendly to all of us from always has been and we also have access to the rotten Library I don't like that as an alternative but I think what you're saying J is appropriate and you know I hate it these are the consequences of not passing the override period and none of us like it none of us like it believe me I hate I hate even recommending it just as much it's not something I want to do I think it's part of what as part of the great the fabric of our community here but there's it's unfortunate when we're just we're out of spot we we've run out of like spots like the blood that squeeze from The Rock like we found a couple drops because we're fortunate that other people came back with with reductions in cost it wasn't you know we we we've tried like hell obviously Jason's done an amazing job with what he's done over the last couple years here year and a half here but uh it's a it's unfortunate but we have to find ways to reduce recurring costs we have to find a ways to re to we need short-term money and we need long-term money I think the tax revenue is long-term money you know from from a business shortterm money is getting rid of property understanding a lot of the property is protected so we have to look for areas that are not um and then you know this is a spot that already has a a building on site that I'm sure would be Val to somebody working Plumbing septic all the rest of stuff so it would be an opportunity for somebody to be able to move in and find an appropriate business there which increases our Revenue which is I believe some of the things that we brought up we've had multiple uh discussions with regard to you know regard to our budget and finding other ways to do it obviously we were told pretty loudly I think that night that we don't want to look at the removing ourselves from the the Regional School District I think there's a whole bunch of other articles that would even have to before we even consider doing that um but um you know we saw the reaction there and we heard what people said and know we've heard us here in stated we've heard what people said twice now at the ballot and as much as we want to look at the reasons why things are they are the way they are we've done everything we can here in town to reduce our costs uh to um find ways to make it happen and unfortunately we're down to you know I think I use the term you know devastating to our town if we didn't have the override we don't have the override it's kind of hurt it's also going to hurt the school for like the the the changes in faculty staff and all those other departments like this is across the board like I think that's you know just emphasizing that point like it's going to be unfortunate for the municipal side but equally so for our youngest residents like and that's the consequences for that like I heard what Kelly said like are like they're huge and they were during Co if you look at that in a vacuum just that shift in public Health policy was crazy and it had consequences that we're dealing with now as a result so we're just going to magnetize that now like we're just gonna it's not really a plan like I it's it's a it's uh it's an unfortunate way the the community has let us know that they don't feel they can afford to pay the taxes and I I wish there was a better solution I wish I won Powerball and I could just pay for it myself like I glad they do that bu a PowerAll ticket so but the othero just and kind talking about all the different things that are being thrown about band vot online there is that the state is not going to throw on their red cape and come save us that is not going to happen and they look at our average annual household income and they say you can afford it stop lying to yourselves you can afford it or it's developed like Senator kenned is like start developing he fundamentally told us that at a budget form he's like get some development going and I was like well sir you know I wish that wasn't the way but there they don't look they do not look at us as some that's literally what he said town around us has load of development and they're in the same they don't have money either you know they all need that's standing with all you guys when he said it he literally said get some development that was when we went to yeah I was like all right but that's not a tomorrow Solution that's four years down the road hold on a second hold on a second gentlemen in the back you've had your hand raised there for just question do you know how much re on the library million how much that's going to bring to the to 200,000 tax revenue year 100,000 the net savings from not operating the library reoccurring savings and then the discussion point is that the lbrary would get sold as you know as a commercial space which would generate I mean the lbrary isn't paying taxes right now so going to get a revenue stream on a reoccurring basis from those real estate taxes is it $16 it' be it'd be tough to forecast that because you'd have to have I think CBA would have to change the zoning of the lot first and foremost yeah so what's that $112,000 in real estate taxes like we have only one tax rate in town so exactly it's not it's half a child if you really want to fundamentally look at it it's half a child at the school 100,000 I'm sorry 200,000 making about minus the 35k in unemployment I mean you really want to play all the math out put they would be yeah none of us will add it's not even something I it does everything that we need something to do hang on got nikk [Music] question yeah I mean that's how the dissolution of that will occur will be out in the future there a little bit but I just plenty of room to put the uh put the boxes then that by the post yeah that's a good place for um I just I want to clarify a lot of information that's out there about the line by line budget scenarios and the fact that when you get to town meeting is not just a bunch of numbers that were thrown out there it's a negotiation there a negotiation with the town's bar is a negotiation with the school committee to discuss what you know what funding is needed what we can agree on by making changes to that at town meeting you're you're you're creating a bigger problem later on because we could then be forced to fund the school at a different rate based on what the what the school and the town of BR have decided not necessarily what we could afford right I mean that's the I I don't I I hear a lot of people saying that they should we should just cut the school but it's not that easy it's a Regional School System you cut the school then Gros has to agree to cut at the same rate at the same amount and they could then Force us to do it with super town meeting it's never been we've never had to have a super town meeting but it doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen further down the road AB not the same am yeah three times it makes me very worried by doing a line by doing you know the reason why we don't propose that is because we you know we're kind of at the mercy broughten in a way um and I you know I don't want to see that happen yes Sue could you go to the forecast slide for 26 or 27 so the cost that we're carrying for the police officer is 81 $81,000 so we went to town meeting and said you know we want to fund the police office position for $81,000 so let's go for an override for $81,000 and fund that position and it passed so we can raise the levy $81,000 more than the 10 on Two and a Half those are the scenario look at the increases in 27 so we have $87,000 more for one year 881 81 thank you 81 ,000 in one year and then we're looking at 7587 or or even on our side 124 it doesn't it it's the math doesn't work it doesn't solve our problem by any stretch so again it's looking at 25 and saying yeah we fund the police officer are we going to ask for an override for police officer position every fa why would you need to you an override is contracts is an addition to the right but it's one year the sameet it's only given us $81,000 additional we need seven we need that number that's what I'm saying P for the police officer from but we still have a deficit going forward but the underlying issue is we still can't even if we get that position for 25 right the following problem is still we still have a 500 I mean that's not the deficit those are just the increases but the projected deficit is 500 so great we can take off $81,000 of the 500 we still have a $400,000 deficit now what let's cut the let's cut the other police position but we'll fun the other one with be over it doesn't work it's not it doesn't work you can do you can play those games all day long it doesn't work alen chain yeah U before you hang your hat on selling the library I think the zba would have nothing to do with it um in terms of resoning uh for business that would be a town meeting decision I would assume would have to and um I believe uh um zoning change requires two of the town meeting and I can guarantee you that there will be some pretty passionate opposition to sell the library so you want to take those things into account I'm sure you it's toe decision yeah we have to do that with the on the highway garage Pro several years ago Highway on it did uh because the idea there is that if the town gets a different Highway garage and the current Highway garage functions but it's not glamous um then and since the retail property next store is already own business uh it would make it a we would be wanting to sell that property and would make attractive thing Market okay none of those things app did you look at for Streeter on Street those the uh three um probably simply because the money CPC affing [Music] return they're designated with a specific purpose like the mud mud district is yeah what's the designation for those affordable housing affordable behind the that right would happen this soon no no there was no recommendation at all it's it's it's looked at as a scenario but it's looked at as a scenario it's got some reality to it and however it works out I don't know but the library has been Li been the cross before number of years back and it was you know it was trimmed back brow back um you know it's um you know what doing we can advocate for I think library to me any it's a sanctuary people go there to read book newspaper you know sit there and meditate I you know you see that all the time in there the functionality of that building other than just going there and borrow a book um it's used for a lot of the seniors meet there they have their lunches and and little presentations and stuff and it's a very comfortable environment there parking there for everyone and it worked out sweet the town boots there parking lot was big enough used to voting us should be here um you know we've seen that parking lot full on voting day um so it's worked out well for us and it's a painful option for us but it's an option that's probably get some reality to it Town Center District stops right at the library back home believe in so that could be extended and get you drink our sorrows away I guess I know we are just having discussion every said that we my my portion of that of response to again I don't want to see the library go away but if we don't want to pay more and we don't want to reduce cost I'm kind of confused that means we're not going to function get to the point we have a budg so if we can't pay more and we can't reduce costs we can't afford anything that we're doing so it it's broken just that's we have a broken budget we need to pass another override pass over get to where we collect Revenue to support all these things that everybody wants right but if we were to if it's not the library say it's the water field if it's not the water field maybe it's something else but we go towards all these different things okay we have an imp passion group that's going to want to say that okay well we can't reduce costs there we can't reduce and you're left with the one people that literally can't do anything that are there're supposed to be there for us to help us and that's to cut police and fire and that is AB I can't even believe you know that we would we would look at that of you know options as to further decimate what is already an underfunded uh two groups of people so we've got to come to some reality that either we're going to vote for it and we're going to pass it or we're not going to and we have to reduce costs which a reality has to S I agree with that gentleman in the back I'm sorry I miss the first part so I apologize dis information um so Ken you did mention that the first well overwhelmingly compared to and um I know you also said that didn't want to go back to community to see if go one a one year over so what do you think was the difference what do you what would make the six turn 120 what do you think driver was with that why would a huge the the number it was 300K ballpark compared to compared to 2.1 over three years does that to that you could have more success with one year but that's the the the point is like that's this year's bucket of money and then next year based on that projection that we're looking at for the school deficit you're still short you know if we if we added 300K to this year it would just turn the deficit into 300 less next year but we still need we still need another override it's just not bringing in enough seems like that is something would be the same as other op money the other you know sort of thought to that and I agree I you know if it were a short-term solution sure that'd be great but for Chief frell and chief wh like trying to hire for one year it's almost impossible takes a year to hire yeah cuz like so like you know the morale in these departments is already low it's low in this like we're trying here all emails it would be nice from know feelings one one I still think one all all it's going to do is delay one more year the ultimate point which is that we need more money and I I personally don't want to have I mean I I got on the advis board to stop the every year override I I I wanted to be able to plan my family finances and I wanted to say okay the Town probably needs an override once every five years that was my goal and we're we're there and it failed and now we we I mean I have zero interest in even entertaining the idea of another override this year or even next year I think we're pass that at this point and I think I the impression I get is that BR gets it and that even the school is getting it which is why they're here which is why gr's listening and they're asking us what can we afford as a town as opposed to them telling us that they can afford this much money we need to figure it out they're telling us how much money can we afford to give the schools right now and um because both towns overwhelmingly especially in Ron rejected the idea of an override and that's realistically where we would be able I guess our Municipal side would of the house would be covered but the school is going to be still receive the same level of uh level of cuts because we failed by 10% whatever it was the gr failed by 60% I believe the number was yeah so I mean uh the message wasle I I hear you I just you know we're we're kicking the can which which is uh Tiffany I think something need to be said though about you know my I would yes I'm assing good portion of the people who voted no did it in hopes of we can try this again and we can go for less and maybe we'll make it one year but I think what people are forgetting is that the 10 or 12 or however many Volunteers in this town that committed countless hours of their personal time away from families away from other commitments they don't want to do it again they've done it twice it's failed twice they don't so what you're asking is for people who have already committed countless hours to just do it again I mean we the point was given to us very clearly that people don't want an override that that was the that was the message that has been given to us that was the message that was given and broughten and that that's something we have to consider I mean if we can guarantee that an override would pass we would do it but you can't build a whole budget again expecting you know a twoo loss or a 200 Point loss it's just there's a there is a lot that goes into it and it's not just simply picking one line on and saying okay well let's fund this as theyve all [Music] explain but the the three whatever we needed last year is seven this year so next year it's going to be another increase and it's the number is not going to get smaller it's unfortunate I hate to say that it's just it's not I mean unless we cut people you cut expenses the number not going to get no understand I I'm just trying to just further explain that this it unless we reduce our cost or increase Revenue it's just going to it's a multi just going to continue to multiply but the thing too is that you know our Municipal side if you break it down our Municipal side growth stays pretty close to the 2 and half% growth it's maybe what three it's not huge it's sustainable I'm not trashing the schools but we all know that that assessment was exceedingly Beyond bar so when you look at it and person opinion not opinion anybody else here I think part of the no vote initiative was in a way to tell the schools reduce your number and they've given us countless citations explaining as to why they can't and I get it they have significant number of fixed costs that they have no control over 7 67% of your budget is you know employees and benefits and whatnot which is controlled by Union negotiations so you know unless the school budget can stay within the Realms of the 3% growth we are going to be in this position forever we are never we are chasing the drivon it's just not going to happen and if you know so the only way to fix the budget is to tell the schools you can't raise your assessment more than 3% is that possible I highly doubt it right so you know that's the really frustrating part about it is we have no control over the largest line item in our budget and the only way that we can even consider trying to pay for that is by cutting the municipal side which is as thin as it can possibly be right now so the override is the only option gentlemen in the back people don't want to do it it's clear there is no line right that's that's across the board I think that message is really clear there is no line so we can talk about raising money by selling the library are there any other properties aside from town hall that that the town owns that can sell aside from open land like any other buildings any other structures anything that can be reson for there's a million ideas but you need business in time you need some some business in the businesses aren't going to be bringing in more taxes there isn't a variable tax levy based on Commercial versus residential it's all the same rate right so it would have to be like a Walmart with even it would be enough if we split the tax rate so that the tax the business is paid you still can't Levy more than two and a half% all it would do is shift the burden from residents to it doesn't right we split it however we would so that's not bringing more Revenue into the town I'm saying for Town owned buildings if there's any other Town own buildings aside from this in the in the library is there any any other [Music] structures school you can't do anything well there is we do have a we do have a couple of committees that are in place and they're charge is to look at that and come forward with recommendations that um are realistic kind a pable and so that group is in process of working through this and you know they they they've got all of the data that they need and they've got significant resources in that group so to answer your question more specifically is we're going to you know in the next couple or three months that group will come forward with some sort of recommendation as far as buildings that you know the town's not in the real estate business got the library the fire station police station Highway garage there isn't a lot of real estate in time the fire station too that's falling down that's falling down that needs $300,000 in emergency repairs all we don't have the funding to Mr you I'm sorry you raised an interesting point because he pointed out that the problem is that the curve of the rising School costs right outpaces the curve that the town can can raise so even if we passed the override in six years we would have exactly the same power exactly yes so correct now there is this concept of bending curve right long-term planning requires if if the curve is like this and you don't have a plan to bend it down that oh no it's not it's not it's just it's it's just going to be keep you're going to keep deal I think you raised a you know a fundamental point that the curve of the school has to be de if it doesn't then but the flaw at Education costs is they get more expensive yeah I know but like it's so then since you're delaying the first grader in 11th grade is going to need potentially more expensive care than they would in first and second grade yeah so rid's what's the point always you know rais taxes or bend the curve and how we bend the curve that's you know that's that's an interesting discussion well it's really it's and I know we've been talking about this for a while but it's the for two years in a row we've been told what the public wants and what they want their Community to be like that's really what this vote was a line of like people want the community to have modest first respon under care and police and fire and a school system to bring its costs down like that's what it was a vote on and it's what people spoke up and want their Community to be and now we're going to deal with the consequences of it well I think it's not they wanted reduced emergency response they wanted the emergency response but not paper but like that's a reduction but but that's reduction like [Music] everybody still a r2,000 educ and they don't I think that it's not proper to characteriz it that way you know to pain a single brush in our community that's not a good way of doing this is all was the's three years of tax plain and simple to me know that's how I interet this this was not for Community but that's what a vote is it's your right to decide what you want it's your it's your decision yeah how else can you define it like yeah absolutely that's aely systemic problem is the curve yes that that is that we we don't have a plan to outp it even with this even if if the vote passed would be in the same vote in Su well one thing that would reduce our assessment a little bit is to have fewer children in the school right so that will drop so I was painting with a weird BR I mean so we have to make a vote on something here did you have a I want to make sure everybody gets a question Tiffany did you have another question or comment okay I just want to put a here large ofers District who are ons and needles and every day walking in not knowing what decision to be going and who's going to geted and that position got lost a young teacher and now move over to this school and that's it's really agonizing right now and I think just keep pushing this school the school 70% is you know the teachers and those teachers went through hell during and they Dre learn how to teach a whole whole new way on computers and they did it and they did it successfully under the leadership of dress who does things I don't always like that great job and I think that you really need to not keep knocking this those teachers are not making a lot of money they are not making a lot of money and they are doing what the state requires so whether we like it or not it's not the schools that we went to 20 years ago it's not 50 years ago we don't light classrooms with candles we don't write on Sate inore we don't do it on paper we have to have kids who are capable to function in the [Music] 21st I know where I am but I don't know and it that demand is something we need to acknowledge and stop  this is we are going to suffer as we did in 2008 when a whole chunk of people had to be on programs had to be removed and theyve never come back ever what we're doing now we don't know if this will ever come back so let's take this seriously let's not point to this one and to that one and that we're all doing the best we can but it's not the school's fault it's not the teacher's fault and let's just stop that I don't think anybody blame the teachers I think it's the administration no I'm just say don't even blame them they have they have jobs that you don't know you don't know everything you do not neither do I the truth okay do we have here Jason do you have a question it's je I'm sorry it's all right um so I just want to point out I I'm the chair of the economic devel commit I appreciate your ideas you know we need to do something if you have pass come me we have extra slot did you get my I but I just want to point out I have the daughter and half she goes to library all but my wife to me today don't have time do anything the place I live Services everybody enjoys and I reached out to dozens at least a dozen young parents like listen like pay for kindergart goes in the library there problems with the school situ my wife we're not have a good school I have my backyard people heree that's World Liv and it's just so frustrating to me that we're in this situation for those who would know that's how I feel I don't only have comments one thing I'll say is to The Advisory Board I I send email Jason all the time like hey maybe we can do this whole thing I think in the Govern budget they're allowing like a little increase to ex tax I know that's not a longterm solution but you know a little bit keep coming up with small ideas and I welcome anyone else not all right no other questions comments I'm going to ask for a motion uh so I'll move to recommend the uh fiscal year 2025 Gren dun Regional School District assessment at an amount of [Music] 7,962 156 to be presented to the residents of the town of duno at the annual town meeting on Tuesday May 13 2024 second second all in favor all right okay yes 79 62156 okay all right we're going to move along here don't so are we no I I I if you if you want to adjourn board and and just hang on there's going to be some further discussion here on the 13 Million number just so that you have leave it I just go ahead so just from there the scenario two that he proposed yes is what and either way that was the scenario that we were going to fund the school with the recommendations that he made regarding Cuts is is that a further discussion or yep okay that's why we're holding we're going to hold this that $13 million number is going to be held until we can socialize more better where these cuts are going to be coming from and get volumes from everybody before we just go off and say here it is to BL there's going to be some more work that we're going leg work we got to do to bring this thing and make some sense out of it and try to give it some sanity as best as we can okay that's that's so um Mr RA are I mean we are not doing Dr Laura so if I can just say one thing so tomorrow night the school committee will'll be discussing the overall bottom line number but it will not be until April 24th that we will be presenting again but what the what the reductions will be however if anybody wants a preview of Coming Attractions they can go to the February 14th meeting that we had with the school committee it's going to look pretty similar there will be some savings and ructions but but those reductions will not be discussed at the school comme okay all right so you guys going to adjourn you're welcome to say we would we love the company we don't get this many people at with a moment of exence all right so I'm going to just um are you serving aloh the library nonalc right Che water bottle take a minute a two minute recess here recess [Music] approve uh yeah let me that