##VIDEO ID:kuk2_pVjaAY## off my I gotes this is my good morning to the Joint uh select board finance committee budget meeting for February 1st we have a long agenda this morning Chaos Agent we're going to meet with Conservation Commission Board of Health Cemetery police dispatch player DPW and then we'll talk about capital and the operating budgets and hopefully around 12:30 uh adjournment um finance committee has a quum we're in session board has a forum we're in session Ryan Jim anything before we start just just a I just to say a quick reminder our annual town meeting is scheduled for Tuesday May 6th in the election is the following Saturday May 10th so also part of our prodad schedule so ready you go conservation Amy good morning add on okay so I'll just just uh di we in based on the the slides the major accomplishments we have uh for the past uh last year were all the the basic public meetings perat um instruction site reviews meeting going out and meeting with um with Property Owners uh Webster Woods was a big one although frankly I've got this big Grant sitting on my desk that never actually got submitted so I don't take a lot of credit for that um the Cloverdale ada8 Trail um is like 99% finished and also other boardwalks like at Hartwell and a couple at the oill esar site um we moved ahead with the invasive plant species management and education we did almost a panic but trial run for a dumpster for the um invasive species disposal which is about $11,000 um I'm not sure if we'd be able to keep that up or not but we can certainly keep that on the list uh there were five weed Warrior vents for training and pulling of invasive species um uh and also some invasive species treatment in Cloverdale Browns Woods M Hill Long Lake um and I coordinated the one here at the library and all the site walls and inspections so the department goals is um to maintain the Staffing at 85 um where that 85 came from is is Tim and I are actually 65 but the administrative assistant that used to be in the land use budget it's now been split between myself and the Board of Health so that's that's 85 um keep up with the uh the Wetland regulations we're hoping to get a tree removal policy done for work in the buffer zone as opposed to townwide and getting more filing directions for people who are coming in for a tree removal or for a duck some of the the stuff that's very specific but sometimes compete for the property owners uh open space goal uh management improvements including the invasives uh land acquisition and protection which is always on there and coordination with the various volunteers uh boards and departments uh that we work with pretty routinely and keeping up with the public education which a lot of times we do in uh in context with the conservation trust the budget request uh you see there um the main reason two reasons it's actually ended up being an increase from last year is because we have the office coordinator in there for the 30,000 so that's half her salary um and uh $5,000 was also added uh both for this current fiscal year and next next fiscal year um while we sort out whether or not you might need we might need Professional Services I.E me coming back or or somebody else coming back part time to get things uh moving along and I was that the last slide it is and that's the big overload let to start off saying uh Amy's retiring at the end of this month right end of this month end of this month 26 days thank you thank you for everything you've done had a lot to accomplish in 26 days in the years you've been here so than thank you for that um so the transition to Tim is all set is that it it's it's been gone on ongoing for a while um and I think this month we'll we'll really be diving into it even more so but you know he he's been here for a while so he knows how things operate and he literally knows how the Xerox machine works so huge sometimes that's a big should I use the words you copy your yeah I would I would say Steve we've had a concerted effort over the last couple years of sort of facilitating this transition because hiring into this role is very challenging to do to hire someone qualified so hiring at an entry level and training was our our best approach we started that a few years AG so I actually would like to see the um conservation department the assistant agent go to a full-time position and the conservation take on more of the clean Lakes responsibility um I think it would be I mean Tim has basically been the liaison to a certain extent paid partially by water I believe for the past couple years and um to retain him we pretty much had to go to a fulltime to make the position work um more attractive so I'm I'm worried that we're going to a have trouble fing the assistant position and B we have the hole on the clean lake side that we should probably figure out so if we were to budget for a full-time agent do you have roughly what we would be asking for in the Delta and is this a reasonable request from us to you to take on that responsibility with additional help uh let me take a shot at answering the second question first and see what Amy has to say I think conceptually in long term you're moving in the right direction right like there's not a lot of daylight really between clean lakes and conservation we have a more regulatory requirement um I I think short term there will be challenges in doing that and if you're willing to make the budget available one of the things I would ask you to do is think about where the right place to put that budget is and what I mean by that is in the short term um particularly as we transition to Tim leading the department he's also going to be the point of contact for clean lakes and I worry a little bit about are we going to overburden him with someone who's we just talked about difficulty hiring that position we're going to overburden him with a an assistant who's very green who still needs a lot of training I think directionally you're in the right direction we haven't contemplated how exactly that would look and I think if you were willing to make the budget available you might also look at does that person also could that person also be funded through the water department right like what what the right Avenue is so that we fully support them and we achieve the objectives we want sort of out of the gate it will be a challenge no doubt that said bringing the assistant position up from 25 hours to 40 hours does make it easier to hire but we may be looking to hire a higher sort of more qualified person for that I would also note there's there's one fly in the O here which is that the assistant position has been posted so I I don't think it's anything we can't resolve but we would need to think about that too any what any initial thoughts on this correct it's it's it's it's hard to say you know frankly I I think on the surface it it looks like there's a not a lot of daylight between the two but but the clean Lakes um my understanding is going to be a lot more uh setting up contracts and vendors and monitoring those things um as opposed to the regulatory side of things I don't think there's necessarily a conflict there because you know I go to the concom to permanent Boardwalk um but it's it's kind of a different set of skills um and I also when when the sour kind of came up in the last week or two I wasn't clear um how many hours clean Lakes might need or if it's sometimes seasonal um that uh sometimes a year it might they might need 16 20 hours a week um others they might need need almost zero and that kind of fluctuation if if we have to fill it and say oh you're scanning for the next 20 hours this week um gets problematic so I I think it it it just needs a lot of pen to paper to figure out what who needs what and how will be offered you retirement gig no thank you no thank you uh I mean some towns uh conservation and planning will share a person and I know sometimes that can be a little difficult because you're either you either know more about conservation or you know more about planning so but they have to work it out and and that is uh person dependent not necessarily what's on the the job list but you have to find the right person Mark to your question about what what would the budget implication be shooting from the hip and I may not be using exact right numbers we're talking $25,000 get give her a take I realized but just not give her take but we could give you a more precise number with just with due respect um that's not something obviously that was planned for and I think with Tim coming in as long as we're willing to give him the resources he needs transitionally um but I think it's something we have to plan for Pride to right now well Tim has effectively been the agent for the clean leaks up to this point and now if he's no longer the agent for the clean leaks we don't have one right right and we're not budgeting for one well it wasn't part of their well it wasn't part of theirs because it's been paid by the water department and we don't know we haven't seen the water department budget to say are they continuing to pay for someone and if so does that affect what you're posting for now I mean there's all these moving parts that are like organizations that aren't necessarily talking to each other and seeing the whole big picture which I think is sort of a good um analogy or whatever you want to call it illustration of the issue for clean lakes in general um is that they're trying to coordinate between multiple silos to try to get their mission accomplished I think the more that we can try to yeah centralize that the better and the more effective they're going to be sort of Orphans yeah well the Board of Health even kind of stumps into this a little bit too correct with water right and then parks and wreck because of the Long Lake and the beach so if we can um if I Mr chairman um and the select board and finance committee if um Ryan and I will can uh can offer some suggestions uh uh we'll we'll have an offline conversation on how we can help try and uh bring this together and and and solve the issue in the more immediate immediate need and then uh make the necessary investment going forward okay understood what needs to be done here and I think Mr Tre you you have a commitment from us to to help solve that sort of from a technical perspective right like what is the um what are the technical needs of the role I think is partly what needs to be defined right like when I said I don't see a lot of daylight I mean that in the in the context of people with the same uh let's say degree and so on I think Amy is right there there is a different set of administrative capabilities but we should be clear about what those roles are I think someone in conservation could do it um but it also could be someone through water okay land acquisition that was the only other thing are there any anything you see in short term I I know wasn't on here besides Land Management is the budget but any any I know we're taking pieces off of the orchard obviously um over the next probably few years but what in general outside of that do you anything right at me on the horizon that we're I don't I there's one partial I want yeah yeah I don't think there's anything immediately on the horizon with with the the giant asteris that I always give you which is so much of what we look to conserve as a function of what's available and in our experience it is not put ourselves in the town in a good position to start to say hey we'd really like to acquire this pie piece of private property that no one has expressed they're willing to sell that said one thing and Steve I think you've been pushing this idea for a long time and starting to come around to this idea we've been working with Sudbury Valley trustees who's put together a a tool to really evaluate properties across the entirety of cber Valley trustees footprint but that includes Littleton for their conservation value and one of the things that I'd really like to ask the assistant agent to sort of take some responsibility for once we get him or her on board is um bringing that tool to bear for Littleton right to to weigh in on a more local level there because I think one of the things we've heard from the finance committee is that uh I'll disagree with you on this but I I see your point that we have never seen a piece of conservation land that we didn't think was worth acquiring and this will at least provide some objective metrics against that so um I I expect next time we're in front of you at a minimum we will be bringing up the sbur valley trustees tool and if we're able to do it with sort of more local inputs that that's even better it will be a an objective measure that side going back to Gary's question nothing immediately on the horizon that we anticipate but I I will add to that also that um historically the conservation trust has done a lot of the property tracking Browns Wood's a perfect example they they've been talking that family I 10 or 20 years um and and they kind of kept track every year or two they touch base um and I think that might be falling to the Wayside a little bit um as people newer to the town are coming into the trust um so that's that's a potential Gap there um and I've also been working with uh the assessors planning board parks and wreck we went through every town own piece of property um and have preliminary recommendations about yeah that should stay in conservation yeah no I really don't want that and you know maybe that's a better for water department maybe that's better for housing kind of issue um which is all on paper and at some point we'll be mostly when the assessor department has time be coming back in front of you okay any else from any I'm actually before we go throw this out there we keep talking about um you know putting money aside for when the Webster land comes up or you know we're never prepared for when that parcel becomes available and we've talked about I know this this isn't really the year for us to have the extra cash to be putting aside into a reserve fund um specifically to purchase land and that's we got a lot of feedback not criticizing uh our actions for not having that kind of a a resource available to us I know that we we try to lean on CPA funds um but if we I think if we can get in the habit of saving the digging our W before we before we need it um I think could be beneficial just just to throw it and and I would think in that regard even if you don't increase the percentage of the CPA if you do it through that you get the matching right um right I mean if if that's a a goal of yours it's certainly something that we I'm I'm not hazarding a guess that you would support doing that um we've understood that this year is particularly challenging in a budget context and so haven't tried to ask for the moon and the sun just try to keep it top of mind that's all so so Chuck I do think that there's one or two departments uh and projects that are looking for all of our extra money oh yeah I've got the lists but but it I mean after you know another five or 10 or 15 years the budget should get e see sure when we're all gone 10 20 yeah after Amy retires things will get much better absolutely I always I spend less than I get in so you know good with conservation thank you thank you thank you very much thank you again Amy Amy thank you morning Francis all yours okay um hello everybody um so major accomplishments for the calendar year um in preparation for July 1 we've gone from paper to completely electronic everything is all set up in open gov um so we be paper free um during this past year we reviewed all our Board of Health regulations and we have made amendments to keep up to date with current standards and we have also created new regulations um to help guide our operations uh we have also sent out op survey uh We've gathered the data it's now being compiled into a presentation and shortly we'll be making a comprehensive spending plan ideas for the town to spend that opiate settlement funds for our goals for the next year um right now we're working on a community health needs assessment this would be the first time that the town has conducted a community health needs assessment essentially the goal of this assessment is understanding the health priorities and concerns for the communities where the gaps are where we should focus our efforts on public health education and programming um once we gather all that data going into the next year after we'll be able to build kind of a guide map for what initiatives and what programming should be included as we look into future budgets and future allocations um one of our key goals for next year is to be certified as an immunization site the town has never had status as an immunization site this is critical for any type of emergency response or any emerging pandemic that might come um the town would be able to quickly activate with its certain team as volunteers and we'd be able to stand up any clinics or Emergency Operations that might be required within the town um we do not have any capital budget request at this time next slide uh we also do not have a 5-year Capital plan at this time um to highlight in the budget we are requesting A3 FTE public health nurse this will be shared with the town of Aton um they will it's a full-time position for AC and they assume the rest of the hours as part of the agreement we can increase the hours of the public health nurse in Littleton in future years um there's also a quest for a halftime health inspector speak yeah yeah um as part of this the um health inspector has been removed from the request uh our projected 5 y as we grow as there's new construction as there's a lot more housing as the population we somewhat hit a boom um we're going to need to increase those effs looking at a potentially full-time health inspector and a full-time health nurse Francis one of the things that I know the finance committee has been concerned about is so July 1st theer goes away and you're by yourself and you want to take vacation time well you get sick what is plant moving forward uh that's a good question um you know this past year is about setting up making sure that we are ready to go on July 1st and I feel pretty confident about that but like you said there's no cont continuity plan in place there's no succession plan in place um I think it's critical for a town especially of this size and that's going to show a lot of growth in the next couple years um my argument be that this department is no longer longer just a department of inspections the goal of setting up this department instead of having a regional agreement is to focus on all aspects of Public Health so we're talking about emergency response we're talking about chronic disease prevention we're talking about mental health support we're talking about environmental health Protections in all um you know obviously there's a lot of crossover you mentioned conservation that may have not been typically done in the past so Board of Health is going to be reaching into a lot of avenues and working across departments to become more integrated in the community and all these things take time the goal is to build a department that touches all aspects of Public Health and fulfills all mandates and allows Litton to have Readiness in all areas covid-19 showed the need for a staff department and mind you it's not a question of when there'll be another pandemic it's a question of when uh so you know we're looking at new zoonotic diseases you're looking a bird flu in the eyes who knows how that can mutate and go person to person at any point um you know mental health is a growing concern you read about it all the time in the news um especially amongst Youth and we need to be able to address and respond appropriately we also need to be friends with our neighbors um and Future Health departments because we need to be involved in the region we need to be able to build Partnerships such as the nurse um so unless spending that time developing those relationships um we're going to go backwards and as I said before currently there's no continuity plan so if something happens to me uh obviously I can't go on vacation but um there's no one to feel that void and I think the argument is that Littleton has passed one town onep person departments I don't think we have any other oneperson departments in town and that just kind of tells you something right there you know you're at the population uh growth rate where it's just not feasible um and also if I would leave the problem is that you're going to lose institutional knowledge that has been built over the past year so as soon as I would leave I would have to be out for something no one can pick that up and then they have to learn and go back to the beginning so that takes time as well so I mean if you look at all those things in one context it's not enough time for one person to do inspections and all the rest and if you want to do this right you really do need to have this in place now and that's just my argument on my side so that's a little so I am not disagreeing that we will need all of those things over time and probably couldn't need them now but we know we have an immediate need to replace what we're getting from Thea right um we made a conscious effort to separate from nooba and when we did this we said we needed a plan in place for um for if you were sick or something happened so that we would know that July 1st if you're out on an extended leave we still have the services that we are mandated to require not all of the extra things that you're wanting to provide but how are we going to provide the things that were mandated to on July 1st if you're out on vacation or you're out sick or I think it's the argument of the continuity plan um you know I've built relationships with all of our neighbors and right now we can work with all of them and if something happened yes they would probably just step in and help out where needed um but without doing something formally and committing to something you're not going to be able to achieve that no matter what that's what we've been asking for we've been asking for anou for a year and it's not aiming at you in this right it's the Board of Health committed to it that they would have anou in place prior to Doomsday and it's not sounds like it's not here um so I feel bad I understand that I that's not something that a health department would typically have in place that's not an agreement I mean most health department staff in other towns are not going to say no we're not going to commit to some kind of partial agreement where you're not going to commit to any services and no benefits and it's just going to be beneficial to one employee I've never seen that done before I don't think that's a thing um we can certainly ask it of a community and I'm sure that they' be open to something but the town and the department will say what do we get in return for this really and what's the cost going to be I mean it could be minimal at most so why should the time um be going out of its way to serve another town for minimal dollars that doesn't really benefit their town at all I mean it almost sounds like we're describing a mutual Aid situation but if it goes both ways it's not just if Francis is a department one how much reciprocity can we offer is what on TC do we do this with the cemetery um for a while when when you were uh basically one deep did you you set up agreements with other towns to uh we did not we talked with u Paul B Jon who's a private landscape contractor and we had him at the ready and thankfully we never had to actually anything about it that would be the question is there private building contract building department does building department a perfect example of regulatory is a veterans agent it happens in smaller communities where someone is on vacation like that and that is predetermined and and they hop back and forth I think we've seen it more I agree with you but we've seen it more with u like you said the building the building inspector okay but what is the plan right I mean I think we we I we've done this right as far as we said we're going to stagger us off of MOBA give us time obviously for you to to hire you and get you acquainted about it's that that next piece that it it was actually extended a year too we had to basically beg to go back to for yeah get the one year extend we have board Health member in sitting in the back would you like to come up Dan it's l in the back of the room we can so certain we have some questions and we've worked with Town administrator's office looking at how do we identify a true mou that as a board of health we can't establish an m with another community that really is coming from the select board and the town administrator's office I admit I have some questions as well of how best to do that sounds like you asked a question to secretary commissioner I will ask the question back to the board of Other M for plumbing inspector electrical inspector Other M with our communities for those I see some hot we them sh them I think it's handshake with to be honest I mean okay so there has been no formal conversation with the Board of Health in the town administrator's office for an IMA anou with another Community or anything to that to that effect there was a general professional courtesy that uh a neighboring town would be there on you know in the event that something is needed okay so um we are we're more than happy if you if you would like to engage us now with trying to identify a neighboring Community to do that happy to do that never been asked I I me we're waiting till four months before the showa leaves we've had three years to get this done and we've been asking for 3 years and we still don't have something in place and this I I I don't know what we're going to do Francis you're just going to live here from now on that's it so I if then we will then the office we will make it a priority and I will absolutely work with Francis starting today of identifying which community that he feels in his profession his professional opinion would be best suited to help in the event vacations illness so on and so forth so we will make that uh we will absolutely make that a priority to to move forward ASAP to do that um also I you don't want to update the the uh the select board and the thei finance committee Ryan and I have met and uh with members of the Board of Health just uh this past week in regards to uh sustainable investments in the department going forward in the Board of Health and that's the way not being here really just at the very tail end of of the budget hearings last year starting um it's my understanding that it was going to be cost neutral revenue is going to offset expenses as as the department grows well um one of the things that we were made aware of the other day is there is a new established set of of uh fees that have been implemented and so we would like the and uh so we had explained to the to the to the members of the Board of Health we would like to be able to sit down and have that kind of an evaluation and examine the stuff of the the applicability and and anything because we haven't we haven't seen anything yet and I will say Francis made he came to our office three times advocating for the for the necessary investment now Beyond any any data but as I as Ryan and I explained to the to the Board of Health we are completely data driven and we absolutely we can't go based upon assumptions on on Revenue forecasting you know in this situation because it's volatile and we are going to so we had said you have we have a year so this time next year we'll be in a better position because we'll have based upon the determined fees that you want that they're proposing that they've already implemented and the revenues that is going to that's going to result from that we we will be able to see there will be a track record in data that says okay here is compared to what was proposed and assumed to real data and then we will make the sustainable Investments recommending going forward I'm not going to do it on excuse me to the Board of Health when was that spe schedule implemented was it when was it implemented six months give or cake so do we have six months data anywhere that shows what the revenue is that you've collected in the last four to 6 months um we can certainly do that um it can be challenging sometimes to get those figures from mova um we do have a projected revenue from the Board of Health that was provided um so we do have projected numbers we can try to work in the show on getting real numbers uh for sure um but but if if the schedule was implemented 6 months ago somebody must be collecting that nooba is still collecting we we can't collect until nooba is gone we set noob's fees though yeah I well we in theory we can we've been trying that for about 20 years so that so if you go back to one slide you had a request in for this year correct the session and now okay right so the request was for3 public health nurse okay and that was right and we were sharing and that was already in the conversation and from my update that I provided the select board uh Town Council has has provide is going to provide recommendations on uh that IMA for that health nurse with active okay so the I mean historically when we look at I mean it's a it's a wish certainly that we come right out of the gate and have enough income from these from inspections and things like that we could talk about the ambulances supporting themselves the ALS it didn't work right out of the gate and it took several years for that to to be realized where okay now it it's getting closer to an offset um I'm a little bit more concerned about health positions obviously like everybody in here should so I don't know if we can fully rely on waiting for that data I mean we we might we'll get a year of data but what if that data doesn't show that it can support two full-time positions in the health department well but that's a decision that you will all have to make at that point the problem in my mind Gary is theyve had three years to come up with a plan to do this I know and and we haven't seen anything we can I we can I guess squabble about that later but I just want to make sure we're at a position now coming July where yes if you are out on leave we don't have a plan so we I guess we need a plan of some some what's the augmentation plan if if something happens to you even if you're out for extended period of time I mean these things um one one person departments are difficult and it's and it's not it's a growing Town um obviously if you go a little bit West of here there's a whole a bunch of them one uh one deeps but um when it comes to the public health side I think we have to we're going to have to budget to get ahead of this whether it's a part-time situation until we get the data that we need or come up or unless the Board of Health can get together and have a have a different plan I I just don't see how this isn't I I agree with you I sat in the budget meetings for the last few years and this is something that we knew was coming and we we we extended the show for that purpose um but I this is not this isn't a comfortable feeling I have at all you mentioned the bird flu especially with that right there in our faces we know what it's starting to do and starting to um move into the human population so I'm not comfortable either from so from a health standpoint should we have a backup in there absolutely but this is another question of us throwing money at a problem where we looking for somebody to manage things and it's been 3 years of not managing this issue it's known it's been coming for three years now at least three years maybe more because I was still treasur at the time so remember those days so so so I I I see both your points and I absolutely see we have to move forward because your your point about the next pandemic is is soon and the thing I'll just say to to to Gary is where and suppor of Steve is this is not the first time we've said wow we had a plan we had an agreement it didn't happen and then we're faced with the crisis and then we say well we have to deal with the crisis we never seem to go back and do the Lessons Learned of how do we make sure this doesn't happen all right the the the next time you know I I just want us to yes we deal with the immediate crisis sure put out the fire but then you figure out you know why did the fire start so I want us has I'm not sure even when we would do this but we've got to stop this cycle well I think we're ahead of we're still ahead of this this not we are not much but I'm saying there there is a situation where okay if the if the decision is we have to have a a 20h hour or 19-hour non-benefit El eligible position to help assist in this for a while if that's the Band-Aid that's the Band-Aid but we just need something I I this is well this health inspector wasn't presented as this halftime wasn't presented as the solution to the problem and it wouldn't be a solution to the problem either because July 1st we're out and we're not hiring someone for July 1st so we still have a gap no matter what this budget go doesn't go into effect till July 1 they can't spend the money until then the the other thing is is over the past few years and it took us two plus years to find Francis how are we going to find a part-time person non non-benefit eligible and say come work for Littleton cuz so one option um we could potentially explore is that Jim gy have M show us says that he would fill that position if it was desirable for the halftime inspector rate well there you go there's a solution I mean that what's the excuse me if I may through the chairs What's the timing on that he's still employed he would do it as part of his just general agreements of everyday work we're not with Michelle but we have a contract just like it with any other Town that's another IMA with him individually he's a personal contractor for contractor that's those are just discussions I think this is something we have to this is has has the transition with with Nichelle been it's been very good um Jim is a professional he's very helpful and he doesn't hold anything back so it's been very easy to be able to build and learn where the gaps are at the same time and he's been here long enough where he knows where the gaps are and where the bodies are buried and and this solution with with Jim filling that role is with is the board looking at that as a solution potential solution I can't speak for the board as totally as an individual member this is the first I've heard of that as an option group I can't respond you be Happ that frers do you think this would work with knowing Jim's schedule uh knowing Jim and his schedule and knowing what he brings to the table I think it's a good solution um you know he's has 35 years of knowledge and everything and he has so far been a good partner in anything so I would assume that that benefit would extend how many communities is Jim responsible for however um well so total they're responsible for I believe 15 towns but they also have multiple people covering that so how many towns Jim does I'm not exactly sure okay so just just so I'm clear in my mind I was thinking Jim's going to do something like on a 1099 basis and we're hiring Jim but we're not we're hiring the showa and Jim would be person responsible fulfilling that that need okay all right so they might give us anyone we would just make it's clear that's Jim and Jim is the only one that we have right now in town okay I think um if we I guess if we could just the next time you meet if this could go on your agenda just to you guys are the Professionals in this maybe you guys have your group maybe some ideas come forward that we didn't think of I think point it would help us a lot I certainly think you know short term we're a bit of a handshake agreement already working with act and other communities again back to my my first question was other formal m us with other communities for other similar roles with building inspe Electrical Plumbing Cemetery that just nurse H nurse well but just for others that similar place of we have one individual who can do electrical inspecting if they're out on vacation or sick or injured is there other formal m us with other agencies to fill that gap or is it a handshake mutually kind of just so we're aware that we're Apples to Apples um I definitely we need that that continuity we have some handshaking car definitely established one yeah it's different we'll um we'll absolutely uh make this a priority and we'll be on the select board agenda on February 10th with a resolution okay I've got a possibly much simpler question sure um under Professional Services there's um uh just under 40,000 just tell me what that's so that is for the nurse um s and benefits with Acton okay okay see simple question no thank you Francis appreciates it thank you guys okay thank you nice have weall that nursing service well well I mean Mark you're the one who always for there's a year where you whacked everybody on uh or pinged everyone on Pro Services yes yes thanks thanks thank you thank you good luck good morning again everybody are you on every board not every board um good morning again um Andrew samarco here for the cemetery commission uh with me today is superintendent Thomas Bailey um in the audience morning everybody thanks for your time in the audience I have fellow commissioner Carolyn Mueller and assistant superintendent Ian heern we are in session for the cemetery commission uh as a joint meeting uh so we're here to present to you and we go ahead and get started so uh for the cemetery Department um in terms of major accomplishments other than performing our uh regular mission of assisting families working with Funeral Directors performing burials and uh work like that uh we were very proud this year to uh officially complete the first phase of ceter expansion along Sullivan Way it's about an acre piece of land and in October those lots were made available for purchase uh to the public uh we were very low on grave spaces prior to the completion of that project so we're very happy to to see that come online uh we were also able this year to do a fourth phase of historic gravestone preservation through the CPC um at West Lawn uh we actually just appli for a fifth phase that got approve by CPC that'll be on the warrant before the springtime meeting so we're very excited about keeping that uh program going uh we were able to do a lot of tree maintenance uh Hazard tree removal at the cemetery this year which was really good there were a lot of uh dangerous trees that posed a risk to Public Safety and uh we're very happy to get uh those down uh and at the same time replace them with uh perhaps less hazardous varieties of trees and pollinator friendly shrs as well um we're also a this year in in August to hold public hearing to uh upgrade our uh fee and service schedule so we're now able to do uh burials on Saturday afternoons we have a lovely uh Cemetery Department cany that families and funeral homes can use uh and we were able to up certain fees modestly to meet our operational needs uh such as uh like your average grave lot went from $1,000 to ,50 so it was a very modest raise but we thought it was appropriate comparing our fees to other towns while at the same time not hurting the people that we serve uh how many faces are there to the historic bravestone preservation you know in the initial assessment that was performed at westl Cemetery alone there were roughly I believe 247 gravestones identified in that assessment as needing priority uh preservation work and we've had this program go going now for so we're on our fifth phase starting this summer if we get approved at town meeting uh we did nine the first year and right around 20 uh for the last couple of fiscal years so or calendar years rather so we're we're getting there it's uh it's an ongoing pro project but it's hard to say how many phases it'll be in totality between uh wlon and the old buing ground but it's one of our top priorities to to keep that project going and right um so that's all great work very much appreciate it but um is there any chance to look at the grants from Mass historical commission um I I know those grants are available ab and then then we can leave money in the CPC not that it's a huge withdrawal but um might give you more money to go for other things absolutely and we're always open to looking to other funding sources because like you said CPC money is precious and we try to conserve it whenever possible um especially for historic resources um but yeah we have looked at ious grants in the past and we'll continue to do so uh but we have a great partnership with the historical commission and the community preservation committee and as long as we can keep that going and you know supplement it with other outside funds absolutely thanks it does fall into that right Mass store yeah it would okay some may even fall into Federal frankly po especially the old burying ground yeah there there are all kinds of you know great grants out there yeah so we'll um we'll continue to look into those as well uh for Department goals for the upcoming fiscal year uh we we're going to continue maintaining our grounds building and Equipment uh we're going to begin prescribed improvements to the cemetery Administrative Building uh once we receive our um proposals from our RFP that'll be going out to do that work um our building is from 1993 and uh currently needs quite a bit of work but we haven't yet identified in totality what we're looking at so this RP will be a a great step forward uh you guys actually gave us the money for that in the last fiscal year and uh hoping to get that RFP out within the next couple of months uh to then use it as our guide to in place to come in and do the work uh we're also looking to develop a ProActive Management plan for uh shrub and tree health and to add additional trees specifically pollinator uh friendly trees um at the cemetery uh as of right now we're trying to be proactive acted but we're not arborists so when a tree starts to fail we don't want to cut trees down whenever we can but when they pose a risk to the public that's when we have to take action so we're hoping to kind of flip things when it comes to the grounds where if we can catch a tree that's perhaps failing in health we want to be able to prevent it from dying and becoming a hazard and then having to take it down cuz we love our our big you know old historic trees up there um we're also looking to once again continue the historic grave Zone reservation on site and at the old bearing ground uh with our Partnerships uh so in terms of upcoming Capital requests uh we did include uh CPC uh historic graestone preservation once again um and then our administr building improvements once we get that RFD back we don't yet have any numbers um unfortunately for this upcoming fiscal year so it's hard to say whether or not we would start the improvements towards the end of this year or wait until fy2 of when we get the rfps back and wind up picking somebody to uh to do that work uh so unfortunately that is kind of left open at the moment can can I ask a question I mean I seem to recall basically that same statement a year ago so about about the building and that it was not weather tied and so it was degrading and I'm just I'm I this has been as once is blur for all of us but I'm just sort of surprised that it's still absolutely yeah so we um there were H snags in getting an RFP together and online um the RP hasn't officially been put out for proposals as of yet um but we are trying to push that forward to get um the art uh sorry the conditions assessment done to then figure out what exactly in the wide range of things that's wrong with the building I actually get that done but absolutely totally agree and I'd like to add we did what we could to improve the perim drain which seems to have stopped the worst of the leaking it has to rain hard for it to leak in there now it still will if it rain sometimes it does rain hard but the typical rain event it doesn't leak in there every time anymore said every said every do England house owner Tom has Eric been down to look at the building um he has so yeah so he that that's also part of it and trying to understand what we can do to kind of do some of the interm work uh um until such a point that more long-term uh issues are addressed as as Xander mentioned in the RP so yeah that's it's part of the mix of of things that so is the RFP expected to be back in time to support an article for this may town meeting or no so so it's so the much like um you know what what new DPW is doing and assessing what you know what they for new bill building we'd have to do the same something similar but for the conditions of the existing building so we don't anticipate anything and as they and as they pointed out uh we're not going to have anything in the fy2 26 budget we're going to work on what what those what the perspective is develop some costs and and figure out what we're going to do after that but it's but what they're flagging for you is that it likely will be an expense for fy2 meeting article or next yeah the the timing is probably not going to work out for that Fred so for either the the May or or the fall but we're going to try to again you know as as we said Eric's there worked in the drain we're doing what we can to you know it's it's the structurally believe the building to be sound this is really just um some of the other um you know app the mitigation effort so far but um we are coming up on the bird nesting season and we've already got 28 holes on the building probably going to have 50 by the time we get to to this so okay I I will say just to give kudos to TC and to Ian um they they've done a lot themselves in from an interior standpoint from a customer facing or a public facing um it's it's much brighter in there now I think you replace ceiling tiles and done new LED lights lwd think the board have done a good job of what they've got but it's it's again to the birds burrowing and it's a little frustrating every time we patch a hole they just make a new one right next to it there's more of them than us great location for Birds down there okay good um Andrew and are you working with the shade tree committee at all have you Leed with them for the um um we did get and we did get trees from them okay great which was which was great and great appreciate it and they can help with your um plan for your future plantings as well they have a list of trees that they absolutely particularly in our new section we really want a diverse uh selection of trees and shrubs up here to support pollinators and uh other Wildlife well at the same time enhancing the beauty of the cemetery so it is one of our top priorities and that's great and she TR is a great asset to the town for that yeah thank you I do have to say that the one of the words on the slide that you had before proactive it's a word that we hardly ever hear oh yeah we try what what does it com I was going to ask him what the meaning was I looked it up quick we try we try but yeah a lot of stuff is reactionary unfortunately but uh we try to make do with what we have a lot of times and uh whether we can be proactive and piix something before it becomes a major problem that's absolutely what we're aiming to do um so for the upcoming uh 5year Capital plan for the cemetery um like I said said previously we really do want to keep the uh historic gravestone preservation um as a top priority um over the next couple of fiscal years um in FY 26 most likely just FY 27 uh because as Ryan pointed out it's going to be very challenging to get something on uh on the record for building improvements once we get that assessment back um we are hoping to in FY 27 at a minimum uh get some of that work done as outlined in the assessment once it comes back um in FY 7 as well we would like to reintroduce the proposal to replace our department truck um we've been floating it around for the last couple fiscal years it's a truck that was built in 2012 2012 and uh it's Andrew can I interrupt so that actually is in the FY 26 of this change when we talk we did we did actually bumped that out you bumped it out okay $82,000 in savings mark it down okay thank you um and we did um essentially look at the overall count budget and figuring that out okay okay so it's on the current list but we'll put it off okay given the deficit we said what are our top priorities how can we get by and the truck is an immediate need but we can probably get by another fiscal year but next year uh expect to see it on the the official listing um and then in FY 28 um we had been eyeing uh a mini excavator to perform a lot of our uh our work on the grounds uh with greater demand for grave spaces the tighter the graves are placed especially in the new section and you can't get big equipment into a lot of those areas unfortunately so a mini excavator would really allow us to perform a lot of that work within those tight combines so it is something that we're we're looking at um nothing concrete no uh estimates you know obtained at this point but it is something that the town will need it's in the Fairly near near future as uh as uh grave spaces get Tighter and Tighter well we really appreciate your being sensitive to the budget needs and I know you just said you can't do estimates but any even order magnitude on those three capital items and and I know that's impossible yeah the truck replacement they had down is 82,000 um the excavator depending on we got two different quotes for that one was 80 something one was 100,000 and the building you can't know and the building you can't know building it's tough cuz it could be a number of things unfortunately uh but yeah we're hoping to get more concrete numbers in the the driv just try just trying to have order man what's coming down the road but thank you so just for clarity in the 10-year Capital plan those things are earlier the truck and the excavator and the building not the truck is was was pushed out that's different than the conversation right right right I understand that but the building isn't in there even as well right it's the same thing we just said like we can't you know we couldn't come come up with a number it's the same issue we had with the DPW building to be able to have a sense of it and Mr yanley is going to talk a little bit about that later but uh you know so it's it's uh it's it's the issue you have in trying to Capital plan in terms of having a sense of like you know just really not knowing the scope of what those are it needs to be on there but but they need to be on I mean even if they're not on the list if it's been ask for yeah there needs to be something on there for all of these things because we can't tell we don't know yeah it might be zero so I don't know so you know that's what that you you you keep saying that but that's part of the problem is that I can't predict the future so I mean it's it's to say that Mark I I we've had this conversation we're going to have a lot of conversation about this later but it's very difficult to understand what it is when we don't know what the nature of it of what the problem is or what those costs are so right but we can still have a there's a place over here for on the planet yeah okay and I'm thinking we're just saying a confidence interval you know the the excavator H 80 to 100 okay you know the building I don't know 100,000 to a million I mean I don't know I mean but if you just have confidence in FS to give us a any sense honestly for the how hard that is honestly for the things like the buildings we have no confidence in I would throw out a billion dollars right so there's something on there know I know when something so you know it's ridiculous and it you know we're not going to spend it but you can see that the plan is there right make that work when you look at the number it's just a billion it's a capital plan it's not thank you everyone you just need a number in there something you need something to say in 2027 we're going to do this building and it's going to cost something we don't know what it is so let's make it ridiculously large so you can see that that thing's coming up if you look at the 10e plan now you don't even see that it's on there because we don't know what the number is so we can't throw any number on it that's the problem right I get it I just might pick a number like 100,000 that at least might be but but it but that gives that could get you a good start through whatever the worst problem is yeah if you pick a number like 100,000 that's what people are going to think that it is so I don't really yeah yeah yeah and then when it's not 100,000 you're going to say TC why is that building a million not 100,000 you gave us the wrong number I've had a good run uh so in terms of our um upcoming operating budget for FY 26 um in terms of Staff members we do have our superintendent assistant superintendent and within the last couple of years we've been very lucky to have a seasonal staff member to replace the ground steeper position that was full-time previously to uh support TCN um in terms of wages we're looking at about uh 172,0 $ 30 uh $39 with approximately 12,000 and change for the seasonal uh uh individual that would be ideally in place from sometime in May perhaps early May to the early fall we're projecting um and they would be on a a parttime uh fluctuating schedule depending on uh the individual's availability and our needs and then in terms of expenses um we did go up a tad bit to $31,200 and that does mainly uh capture uh technological um expenses Rising for things like mapping of grave Lots um in particular and as well as expenses for um uniforms for staff previously we didn't actually have uniforms uh for our staff members and now uh we have very professional looking uniforms that they wear for uh funerals and other um um operations at the cemetery example an example yeah um so we very professional prom so uh in total we're looking at about $23,660 uh for staff uh salaries as well as expenses so on your salary line item uh your budget for the uh seasonal worker is down substantially from the year before did you just not use them or you're re reassessing or so initially we did think that we would require more money to get that seasonal person online and to kind of push them through the entire season that we anticipate needing them uh we did crunch some numbers with Ryan and uh determined that for our needs this upcoming fiscal year we believe that 12,000 would be sufficient based on the number like you said uh that was left over from previously but I had the same reaction initially like is that going to get us through but after crunching some numbers we did determine that that would work and especially we again there's a deficit in town we're certainly sensitive to that and we want to be able to work with what we have and and not come back to you guys for a crazy amount of money that we don't wind up needing so we did determine that that would be suitable NTC uses um the senior workof program as well right yes that has been great yep we really got currently we got three really good ones it's been a blessing and when we sat down and discuss it the benefit there is they don't leave the second week in August to back to school so he's actually getting as long as we m that's great and so if it's a rainy day and you don't have anything you can really keep them busy with you just tell them exactly that they're happy with it and they go whe they're there when we need them and when we don't they're not there and they show up when the wife wants them out of so we're experence we're very uh very happy where the budget stands as of right now um but looking forward to you know FY 26 through 30 uh everything's gone up materials um outside services that we have to hire um so we anticipate needing about a 3% increase um expenses starting at y27 uh again we try to be very conservative in our estimates and to keep costs slow uh for the taxpayers um but our budget over the last 10 years has been fairly static and with minimal um increases uh as uh we pointed out but um we're hoping to keep things low and look forward to working with you yeah and and your to and your expense line is only 312 so it's so carry on oh thank you we got a great staff and you know they work really well with what you know was given to them and we're just very lucky thank you can I a question on the expenses though of course um you talked about needing a vehicle but you didn't increase your vehicle uh maintenance did did you not spend it all this year is that why you think the same will be sufficient um or not tracking to we came real close but we are about halfway through and we've used about half of the the initial uh allotment so barring any unforeseen Hara we're going to we're going to make it okay and then office supplies increased substantially not that it's a big dollar amount is that you tracking to go over budget this year yeah so with um everything going have from toner to paper uh we did feel that that was the necessary increase I believe we raised it up by about $1,000 was it um 700 700 so we did feel that that was justified um overall and not you haven't gone you're not tracking to go over but you're just anticipating with price inrees that you will yeah I think that'll get us to the end of the fiscal year okay um and if need be perhaps next fiscal year if we do run over a little bit you know we come back but we do try to keep those costs slow okay thank you perfect thank you everybody thank you just of the chairs I point out we're about a half hour behind schedule nothing new for us but anything we can do to keep this moving uhen Chief you got a minute and a half I got you train the standard not the time long say okay thanks all set thanks for coming yeah we'll save time just say no he's asking for good morning thank you very much for having me today uh I'd like to introduce Lieutenant Doug Landry behind me and deputy chief Jeff Patterson who you guys all both know um major accomplishments for the Department this year FBI leader award uh a big accomplishment for us we um we received the award uh basically the leader award is uh every supervisor has uh the trilogy which is uh 3 40-hour classes is first one's supervisor second one's command the third one's executive level um all of our staff senior staff uh sergeant and above now have it are now all certified um thanks to the school we were able to add a new body uh we added a second SRO uh we worked out atou with the schools uh and they're going to assist us with this uh second SRO position which allowed us to backfill a um Junior officer that's in the academy right now um which allowed me not to put in for that next officer this year like we wanted to uh Grant award this is um this is really good for us um officer elas Abu has worked uh tirelessly with Administrative Assistant Kim Murphy Lieutenant Landry and deputy chief Patterson to get us over $234,000 in Grants this year Alone um one was to replace the K9 truck um one was to outfit and be proactive and get body cameras before the state mandated it um and every officer was issued a body camera um how's excuse me may can you speak to or actually Lieutenant Landry's in charge of the program so I'll I'll you that just seeing how that's going and how it's been received yeah of course uh early on in 2024 throughout that winter we were awarded the grant so we looked at all the manufacturers and looked at the different options and we went with Motorola um it's a good company great product for us they've been extremely helpful for the launch of the the program uh all the officers in Patrol and special services wear the body cameras we did our initial training early 2024 throughout the winter uh got the system set up in the department so you'll see our officers out there wearing their body cameras on their outermost ging now um if you'll if there's a red light on it's active and we've developed prior to the deployment we worked on a policy so we took the state's model policy as well as area municipalities and kind of looked at Best Practices across the country for body cameras and we we made it our own for Littleton so policy was developed put out training was done on the cameras themselves with M roler as a partner and it's been extremely successful um you'll again see our officers wear them on the street her policy they're going to introduce themselves they're going to tell you everything's being recorded when it's tactically safe right they might run into a situation and handle what they have to in a dynamic situation and then eventually when it makes sense be like yeah just okay I know I get that everything is being recorded and they're going to give you that but on a basic start car stop it's Lieutenant Landry good afternoon everything here is being audio video recorded and you know what no one cares like they just like I think people just assume everything's being recorded anyways now and we've had great success with it you know we use it for our own training um we encourage our officers to watch their videos uh we encourage our supervisors to debrief calls with our officers and and kind of get that um after action type of debrief and and to learn from what we're doing so we're using it for training we're using it for accountability we're we're using it for complaints uh the rudess complaints uh that I receive in my office I'm easily able to go to my desk pull up the video and watch the video with any complaint that comes in and uh and it it's really helped us and uh we've seen a a drastic decrease and the complaints um training accountability it's it's it's been a great program I'm happy to answer any questions but it's it's been good for us for sure how's the reception been by by TR the folks that wear yeah they like it it's uh you know what um we definitely weren't hiding anything before we're we're excited to show the quality of work that we're doing out there in Littleton um if anybody wants to see the videos a big part of this that we have found is speaking to it is is a lot that came with it with public records so executive administrator Kim Murphy and myself as the administrator for the uh the program anytime someone wants a public records request body camera is now involved with that so in redacting our regular reports um now we're spending a decent amount of time doing watching these videos frame by frame redacting anything from those videos so there's some uh some work involved with that some time that it takes for sure but the the officers themselves liking the product and it's helping just just in information gathering you know we're not missing things that we can when we're doing our report we're documenting we're doing investigations um they can look back at the video and it's really helpful I love that benefit I from accountability side has this been baked into the CVA the collective baring agreement like uh they're working on that that's in in the process I I know yeah but it is the last contract and we're trying to work it through this contract now um obviously you know where the steps we're at right now with this contract so Chief you're actually your Grant award number is actually not not real time because of couple recent Awards correct correct yeah we just just yesterday I advised the board we received another $67,000 um for CIT and aak training which is critical incident training and how to response and defuse situations um um it's probably one of the largest I think in the state of most of the towns we were we were one of the highest um so again one of the few one one of the few was I believe it was only 10 15 maybe so yeah we um it's been going really well um another Grant was the Maya heart start uh it was a grant that we um contracted with a company called Sigma they came in and did 80% of the department uh it's a full body scan um they did a um blood lip blood lipid panel uh to see where you at they did a whole cardiac um up break on you they did a one-on-one session um for Healthy nutrition eating uh obviously officers working dispatchers working the schedule that we have the nights weekends holidays uh eating habits aren't always the greatest um motivation is not always the greatest either you know those highs and lows so it was um for those that wanted it we applied for it we received it and uh the grant was was uh what paid for it and I can personally say for myself it was it was eye opening and it gave us a lot of um new tools for us to use to keep a healthy lifestyle uh last one on here is a blue voice it was a it's an app-based policy app based application so every officer has it on their phone or their tablet and basically it uploads all of ours uh policy procedures Town bylaws uh criminal law motiv vehicle law all on this app you push a button and you tell what you're looking for and it gives you 5 to 10 different articles to for you to research um it's it's amazing um you know just pushing the app and say dog bite and it gives you all the town bylaw for it the state law for it it just the whole list that goes right straight down um we again receive that on the gr uh Department goals for FY 26 uh if you remember last year I was giving Capital money to upgrade our Dispatch Center for e901 we've had some complications there we think everything's worked out so it's going to be a big goal for this year is to get that integrated into our dispatch console um reclassify our administrative assistant position I've been working with uh to administrator Doug in regards to this uh Kim now is doing a lot more than just an administrative assistant within our department um between records requests Internal Affairs complaints that we has she has to work with uh um payroll for police dispatch civilians um billing receiving um procurement and it's really nice having the grants but somebody has to maintain and keep track of the money in and out and uh it's it's a big job so we'll work uh in regards to compensation classification study and hopefully did that reclassified um we're going to look to do a community resource officer when adding a body we're going to um try to assign somebody to this position and I think one of our what we've been lacking recently we've noticed is that all the extra things we're doing like today is shred day we should have an officer assigned to Council on Aging that we can actually know that all the stuff is going on make sure the Department's aware of it um we do a couple officers get involved in it but it's not a priority for one officer that may the Lea on for that so in the business business Community as well as you know that the businesses in this town are are um are increasing quite a bit and we need to have one officer that's going to be the liaison for the business Community to get back to the department and be that bridge the gap uh drone program right now we've been sharing the Drone with the lwd uh we're looking to try to find a grant to uh buy purchase our own drone this year uh we do have two people people two officers in our department that have gone to the certification class I believe one is certified now um officer Michelle and the other is working on his certification as well um drone program it's in law enforcement um it's it's really come a long ways um searching looking for people in the woods uh different locations that you really can't get to to see what's behind there or what's on top of there um it's it's very beneficial um so I think we're going to try to to find a grant for that obviously I know the situation we're in budget wise so it wasn't something I was going to ask for a capital request um we're looking to increase our civilian traffic regulator program I'm not sure if you've seen all of our ctrs out there we had some hired and they left us so um we will this is proved to be beneficial I believe uh Deputy can correct if I'm wrong at one day last year we had 19 19 of all of our own officers dispatches ctrs out there working we didn't have to go out of town and there was 19 actual detail Road details that were out there that day and we kept it all within our own town so it's not an officer coming from air or peol or westf or Acton it was one of our own that actually here in this town those are some of our goals capital budget um we're going to stay with our typical two U Mark cruises coming on board we've been doing this plan this program now for before I was the chief um replace two cars per year keeps our maintenance budget at a minimum right now we look this morning the two cars we're going to replace I believe we're about onethird of our maintenance budget have been spent on those two cruises so it's time are there are we at the point where we're replacing the hybrids or are we still replacing full gas no these will be the last two this will bring us to six full-time hybrids six hybrids at this point in time and then will it be and then everything will be hybrids or we still I think we still have one still have one in the truck right I think we'll still have two two and then two trucks we're getting there uh update all sworn offices ballistic vests as you know the the bulletproof vests have a ballistic vest has a 5year life expectancy uh I put in the number of 35,000 in there we're actually going to be trying to find more GR grant money to get that but the grant money that we receive for that will be a reimbursement Grant through a bvp which we've dealt with before you're not guaranteed the money you're not guaranteed the grant but I'm pretty confident we'll get at least half back so and then the last one on here um I put it on there every year for the Last 5 Years seal coat the police station as you know that the parking lot's 12 years old we've uh We've crack sealed it a couple times we've sealed it uh this year we're going to work with uh uh Steve yanley in regards to trying to do a micro seal on top of it um if the capital gets approved we think that money that's a good idea friend um FY 26 ta Capital budgets uh that's $25,000 our total Capital request question about the vehicles um I fell asleep for a minute there um apologies I was doing something um you you're trading them in yes so is there more value in that than us reusing them the question has been asked about repurposing them um we after we talked the other day in regards to our conversation U we can definitely repurpose them to the town I don't think it's very beneficial to us to do that um a cruiser runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week whether it's stopping cars or if it's just on the side of the road monitoring traffic um the money that we've put into these cruises already I just don't think it's a very wise idea for us to repurpose them so it's more value on the TR but if if the town wishes it's a lot better for us to repurpose the detectives cars for the town cuz they're not the mark cars being used on the road constantly MH these two cars that we have right now um have had consistent one of them has been service this year over a dozen times for electrical problems electrical problems as you probably know some Vehicles they just sit there and hunt to try and find it and they change Parts um the other car that's probably been out of service seven or eight times um for electrical and fuel issues and stuff like that so these two I wouldn't recommend the town repurpose but we can we were at uh breakfast the showa Valley Tech uh yesterday morning and Charlie Ellis um offered the services of the students there for things like cruises to to fix sorry they can't fix fire engines but they can lease fix cruises and even trucks at DPW so oil they put the offer yeah they put the offer out there so just you know make an appointment with the school and get it there it may take a little bit longer we've used them for lot of the body work and when we've repurposed cars before we've used them to do the painting and paint them all black and stuff we haven't really used them for mechanical stuff that's something also we can keep in mind for our other vehicles as well so thanks to Charlie for that they do a good job with body workor for sure yeah and as you're aware uh detective Sergeant P Fernandez is now assigned to the de so we are going to have some forfeiture money coming back so we can probably use that for vehicle forat as well you mentioned sorry uh you mentioned the detectives cars might be an option for reuse when are they up right now next year we have one that's probably due to be replaced possibly next year thank you yeah I think we should definitely do it stay on the if those are the ones we can use absolutely do it absolutely not necessarily advocating we do it this year but I know Welsley now has a full electric patrol car and we should keep our eye on those coming going forward yeah I mean if you want to give me the money to replace the detective car now I'll be more than glad to go on electric detective car and for it off we're moving on they they have a fully electric just trying to be proactive Steve a question given that the uh you know we don't keep the the patrol cars that long just because they get so much use and it seems like these two vehicles you're talking about maybe were problematic from the start I mean not from the start it's just been the past year and a half okay it's getting up around I want to ask a vague question about warranties because then you know uh I don't know if there's possible to get warranties on on Cruisers but you know if something is having you know six or seven or eight similar issues on a two or three year old vehicle they're they're four to five years old 2018 they pass the warranty okay thank you operating budget I'm sorry go for is your you want to talk about your Capital plan of this oh the capital plan for the 5 year going year right we're going to obviously stick with the vehicle replacement program it's been working really well it keeps our vehicle maintenance cost down uh ballistic vest we know in 5 years we have to plan for that again uh it's a given um so it's really it's it's running there's nothing major in our Capital request going forward next year in the next 5 to 10 years except for the building which that doesn't fall under my per it falls under pmbc so and Ryan where are we where are you covering the uh rework that's probably going to have to be done to my favorite subject to leaks right so uh spending some money so we we have a we have a contractor set up um who will be do working with our architect to take a look at um the source of the leaks we were actually trying to do that before the cold weather came in but we thought it would be better to wait until the spring um there actually um is still funding that we haven't cleared out for um the base project for when when we initially did the the waterproofing so um when we get the report back on um you know from the from the penetrations and source and then try to come up with a plan from that we know we'll have a baseline that we can work with and see what that what that would be but uh obviously you know it's something that's got to be a priority to make sure we take care of U because it's yeah the last half million we spent didn't fix it so getting next half million I'm sure will be much better half million anymore at 750 Department operating budget for the police department uh no major highlights contractual obligations is still unknown at this time as we're still in negotiations with the police Union um wages you'll see in front of you 2.6 and then the expenses are 281,000 dispatch communications center just real quick before I I had a question in your in the narrative in your budget there's this uh line that says the department can now back fill the shift that will be open due to officers being on vacation or Si leave those that are below three officers on the road um could you just elaborate on what you mean by Canal fill does this mean like we were short staff before and we can do everything without you think that's overtime what what I was trying to get to and I I should have been a little more clear instead of having order in situations we're going to have enough bodies where we're not going to to be forcing officers in where we're going to have the bodies now about 20 4 now so it'll be uh 23 so it'll be more fluid to fill so you feel like you're fully staffed and you don't have to rely on overtime as much and so on at this time yes once we have the officer out of the Academy I think we're in really good shape okay thank you you're welcome um dispatch Communication Center uh where you have uh no Personnel or expense changes at this time um contractual obligations raised up the wages a little bit um most of the expenses come out of the police department expenses for their because their hous in the same building we just have some minor expenses [Applause] there Animal Control um well I have more questions on dispatch too yeah go ahead um so um just looking at the dispatch budget your wages versus your overtime you're like 25% of your wage you're spending 25% in in overtime so if we looked at whether we should be doing this as paying overtime or changing the Staffing so right now right now we have uh the Staffing was is two bodies uh per shift except for the midnight shift um obviously there has to be two bodies on at all time so we do have to fill it uh if we were to fill a third another body which would give us nine that ninth person would then be uh assigned to the midnight shift so you have two bodies there so we could alleviate some overtime there I have it in my later slides that our goal for next year is to hire the n9th dispatcher which would fill that void um right now with the dispatch supervisor we're trying to cut some overtime by having the dispatch supervisor work the shift if there's really nothing much going on at this point so yeah I see what you're saying and I it is planned for FY 27 okay thank you mes uh so animal control so as you're aware we used to share animal control with uh three different towns um boxboro and Bolton and ourselves um we no longer share Animal Control Animal Control falls under um my department at this point in time and when I say that um we have contracted with uh ACO tower philis Tower to work directly for us as a prdm employee 18 hours a week um works out to be$ 25,7 $379 a year and as expenses goes we don't know exactly what the expenses are going to be whether it's cing or if it's um testing or the or um termination or any of supplies she may need in regards to that so we put the $10,000 there that keeps us under what we were actually doing with we sharing with box bro and Bolton so the the the money there is at 30 basically 35,000 which keeps us under I believe we're at 40,000 prior years so uh projected for 27 to 31 one more patrol officer which will give us a total of 25 sworn one more Communications officer which will give us the 24-hour coverage also backfilling uh some of the overtime which we could probably take a decrease on that and then one of the big things is one part-time records Clerk maybe 16 hours a week uh to handle the um Surge and all the public records requests that have been coming along can you give rough estimates on which years you would expect these over those 5year periods patrol office and Communications officer FY 27 part-time clerk FY 27 so it's a onee twoyear plan pretty much yeah Chief I know in the past you talked about to um potentially moving to a two Lieutenant type structur is that your thoughts changed on that uh right now our our administrative team is working very well together and uh the way we have it set up in this ranking structure is doing really well so thank you thanks questions comments concerns again if anyone would like to come down and see how the body cameras are actually worked feel free to contact me and come on down thank you do you have like a bloopers Rael huh was real actually you don't want to see that can you live stream right I don't want to see that all serious no thank you all serious um thank you for obviously being aware of tight budget and um it's moderate asks and something that we two Cruisers we knew were coming that kind of know that on a rolling basis so um appreciate your willing us to be a team player and help us get through this absolutely thank you yeah I really love that you kept saying and we need this and we're getting a grant we need this and we're getting a grant i i i my hack goes off to Alias and and lieutenant and and Kim they they've really been working hard in getting the grants um getting the grants are tough It's when you get the Grant and monitoring the grant the money that comes in the money that goes out the hours it that's on Kim so that's her tracking um but she's worked really well with the aliens to take care of that and a little side to make sure that the schedule is working as well and I just remember I mean we talked I talked earlier about things that we have sort of not done or dro the well but you know we've been over the years looking at more grants and we it's so that's something that the town as a whole is doing well nice to point something out like gr thanks thank enjo rest Kudos again with the awards and training appreciate it yeah if you want to see the body cameras in action just speed Chief we hope that discussion of level budget didn't stress you out everything stress sorry while I set up all my stuff here just in case used to be able to memorize everything just doesn't work like that anymore gets worse I can't wait for that so if I sit here and I and I look like I'm having a stroke it's all right I'll go away in a minute and have you're ready Chief all right well thank you everybody um I'd like to actually start with uh thanking everybody obviously um this is the first six seven months I guess now of of being back here in Littleton and has really been awesome from uh everybody on on each of the boards to uh Mr dougen uh and Ryan they've been awesome so very much appreciate um all of that um pH mut Chief thank you I appreciate that um so major accomplishments you scratched the B bottom of the barrel and got me U that's accomplishment number one um so we filled eight vacancies since I've been here um as everybody knows one of the major challenges in the fire department over the last few years has been a very consistent turnover in the organization and we're very hopeful that through a change in the atmosphere a change in the culture that we're going to be retaining employees um and while hiring eight employees may sound simple right now there is an absolute void in the number of uh firefighter EMTs and paramedics that are available around the state so um I give credit to uh the deputy and the lieutenants for really going out and finding people to apply bringing them in uh and I'm very happy to say that come Monday we we will be fully staffed for probably the first time in four or five years um so that is uh really a huge accomplishment for the organization um also we replaced uh the old k 11 which was a 2010 pickup truck that was actually being held together with duct tape um that's not a joke um one Fender was being held on with duct tape so that was replaced uh just a couple months ago uh with a new pickup truck um certainly uh makes our life easier when it comes to emergency responses moving equipment around town and and doing a lot of the the day-to-day activity so that was um while again seemingly a small thing it uh was big in the overall organizational impact see I didn't bring my glasses here's one of the interesting things about these slides my eyes don't work great white on red so we use white on red because I didn't think it's through you can make this black and white so that's why it's in front of me because while I can do this and see it it's not the best way to to operate here so some of the goals in uh 2026 that we're looking at looking at is uh replacing some of our updated apparatus we're going to get into uh that a little bit later in the the presentation uh one of the things that we've done um very quickly is evaluate everything we're doing how we're doing it um and whether we have the funding mechanisms to uh appropriately um deal with these challenges I think a lot of people have probably heard at this point that apparatus has been one of our major challenges um when I work with new Fire Chiefs one of the things that I say is you will get a major challenge within the first month of being there that nobody will see coming um mine was every truck having a major breakdown so um we've spent in excess of 100,000 close to $150,000 just in repairs in the last 6 months and these aren't we're replacing a light bulb here we're replacing a light bulb there we are pulling engines or Motors out of the engines um we are completely re vamping suspensions in these trucks um there's been just um major breakdown after a major breakdown I felt like for a period of time every time I'd call Jim I just go guess what broke today and uh I I think it was getting a little bit old for both me and him that we were having these these discussions so that became one of our top priorities is how can we update our Fleet um so that we're not having these maj major breakdowns we got to the point where we needed to start borrowing apparatus from other communities in order to ensure the safety of our community so um truly we got into um a crisis and we were able to dig our way out of it uh over time but we're still um susceptible to having those continued breakdowns if we're not if we're not careful um so that sort of goes into our maintenance program we're revamping our entire maintenance program ensuring oil changes are happening when they when they should be ensuring that everything is getting greased uh greased on an appropriate time frame and making sure that we're dealing things when they're little and inexpensive rather than waiting until we have a massive failure that costs 10 times as much so um I will give credit to the deputy he has been on top of that for the last for the last 6 months some days I feel like that's all he is doing is is ensuring the the operational Readiness of our vehicles um so we're looking at our uh data management and integration so data management has been one of our challenges where we're going into some of the older systems that were originally written in the late '90s um that we are still using today and um I think everybody can agree that technology has changed just a tiny bit since the late 9s um and we can better leverage our management uh our data management system so that we can provide not only our Personnel uh internal to the department but everybody in the community and everybody sitting in front of me uh with upto-date and accurate data um and our biggest one is is continuing to Foster organizational growth we're doing this through uh not only growing our organization um and the scope of our organization but growing each person down to the individual level helping them realize their personal goals and helping them get there so our original capital budgets request uh the first one the big dollar one we'll actually get to so I'm not going to go into that right now um there's a specific slide just for that one cuz that number is somewhat Hefty um a couple other things we are looking at uh Chief's vehicle the vehicle I'm using right now is um not adequate for the mission that I need to fulfill within the community as both for fire chief and as Emergency Management um it lacks technology to communicate with um some of the other departments such as the police department I can only communicate with dispatch I cannot talk to Chief perard directly on his channel through my vehicle so there's some significant limitations there um in terms of our ability to track resources on a given incident we lack that as well so in a major incident tracking our people understanding what they're doing and why they're doing it is incredibly important right now we're still doing it on paper which I've never had paper crash however it's very inefficient especially when it's raining um so we're looking at that um the chief's vehicle next you'll see it's not on there the technology hasn't quite caught up to what I want to do um so I'm actually removing that from uh from this fiscal year a lot of our power equipment is due for replacement um a lot of the uh equipment that we're currently using I bought many years ago um and it's sustaining failures on a regular basis um our chainsaws certainly have had better days they not exactly used under the homeowner conditions of Outback cutting firewood they're used under conditions where um they absolutely take a beating in doing that we looked at um Alternatives and one of the Alternatives is this is an opportunity to switch out everything or nearly everything uh that currently runs on gas with battery powered um equipment so this goes all the way from Jaws of Life to chainsaws to cut off saws um what else was there there was a couple others um pieces of equipment um so we um made sure that we integrated that component of it rather than just replace what we have replace what we have but also upgrade the technology that's driving it excuse me Jake on you're comfortable that the electric equipment is rugged enough to stand up to what you guys do I I know everything shift but you know has it got to that point where it's really you know industrial grade equipment yeah so I think it has we've actually had um battery powered saws for a few years um and there's one great advantage to a battery powered saw that I found um I've personally used them inside a burning building where an internal combustion engine it's not going to run there's no a you don't want to bring the gasoline with you but B there's no Oxygen to run it um so there's some distinct advantages um when it comes to that and that technology as you're aware that changes by the day so that's great as long as long as it's industrial at this at this point you know I know we all we all got electric drills and that kind of stuff but um I didn't know that taking that next step yeah some of our jaws of life are already actually running on on battery power um that technolog is about 10 years old at this point so that's definitely gone through multiple generations and and um to your point the original ones absolutely did not stand up to it U the newer versions are are probably more rugged than the old um hydraulically driven ones um and then the following one is the the training Tower and we just pop to the next slide Ryan um so the training Tower U behind the building one of the drawback to it uh when it was originally built is some of the windows that we use for training were put in locations that risk injury if we use them so you can see on the pictures in front of you you have a a couple Windows here one is completely blocked by a stairwell um we have definitely had a few people try to go through that window and hit their head pretty hard on uh that stairwell the other one if you go in through the window you land at the very top of a set of stairs and um that risk management is something that we obviously do on a daily basis 24 hours a day um we need to manage this risk um when it comes to to training that really dictates how we operate on a real emergency scene so we need to make sure we manage the the risk that allows us to to train so what would happen is these windows would move uh 2 to 3 ft depending on um there's actually three three windows that would move um but they would move 2 to 3 ft is the the idea here so the TA revives Capital added it or took it out so it was in it was in the last one um it was those three of the three being kept yep these are the three that are kept after they revised and and the vehicle had been looked for upon the chief's request yep that's a safety issue so okay yeah absolutely is um so the the next piece the big uh ticket item on the capital request is replacement of engine one so as we uh did a very indepth review of engine one um it was due for a refurb last year it is a 2012 uh vehicle um typically you expect a truck to last say 12 to 15 years at this point um if you go back far enough it was 20 to 25 years however we're not the same small town that we that we were um 20 years ago um so um engine one is one of our trucks that had truly um massive issues when it came to the motor um the suspension the pump um all those components so the refurb that was allocated last year year or the money for the refurb that was allocated last year was almost $100,000 under what needed to be done so in order to accomplish that refurb we were going to have to come back um to another town meeting and at some point it becomes throwing good money after bad um and from all uh the years of experience that I've certainly had with vehicles and replacing vehicles that was the case with this truck getting an additional $100,000 was not going to extend the life um of the truck significantly enough in my opinion to um to justify that additional expense um when you look at the the picture right here this is one of the trucks and unfortunately I think the picture probably um isn't great on the presentation looks great in front of me on a piece of paper but um there's significant damage to the inside of the motor on this truck that has been um has been corrected but there's only so many times that you can dismantle a motor uh recore it out and um um and put it back into service so this particular truck ended up with the turbo which um provides the the oxygen provides the air to the motor the turbo was ingested into the motor at one point um the veins of it so you had free metal floating around in a motor that's not supposed to be there it did incredible damage um the pump on this truck is also while it passed its testing this year it was on the verge of failure um so we can expect within the next 2 years that that pump will not pass its its test and that'll be about another 30,000 $30 to $40,000 overhaul at this juncture so um another significant expense uh that will result um be a result of a failure um unfortunately fire apparatus the cost of them has gone up pretty consistently around 7% for the last few years we're hoping that slows down and kind of lands between 3 and 7% if you look at a 10-year average it's between 3 and 7% but the last 3 years has been right around that 7% Mark um in terms of the um annual increase in a truck so when you start to look at hey if we push it down the road that inflation is going to add up really really quick on us um and another thing that we're still waiting on is going to be an increased cost that's coming um as a result of new federal regulations um related to emissions one of the things we did look at is hey is an electric fire Tru a viable option at this point and the technology for that is simply not quite at a point where we would be confident in making that switch over so um not something that we that we really wanted to uh to jump into or investigate too much especially when you're looking at another half million uh on top of that 1.3 to get there um so we're using that 1.3 million hoping that we are going to come in less than that we're continuing to refine uh the needs of the community um against the cost of the truck um so I would anticipate that it does in fact come down but from where I'm sitting today I think maintaining the 1.3 is a good conservative way to kind of estimate where we're going to be and the lead times at this point so lead times are upwards of 2 to 3 years so um as we go forward we need to be proactive in looking at hey oh I used that word and didn't even think about it um we need to be proactive in looking at um hey when are trucks going to be replaced and having that 2 to 3 years window factored into that entire process um you didn't have to go back very far and it was 12 to 16 months was a pretty average delivery on a fire truck um and there's a myriad of reasons why one is uh private Equity that got involved in fire apparatus that's a whole different debate um that these times uh these build times just kind of got dragged out on us I have a question yeah absolutely um I wrote down a couple things the it's obviously the the days of the fire engines rusting out before the engines is probably long gone as far as Littleton as a community is concerned but um is 10 to 12 years is that a is that going to be the new normal um as opposed to the 20 year 25 year life of a a vehicle then um is this engine itself is it is it the engine did we when this when the concept or when we were building this vehicle out did we sacrifice um anything that maybe we could have got a better engine when you were you know that's one of the things that I always concerned of when we're talking about okay let's cut down let's get this budget down under I worry about those things being a significant um issue later on when we hit the the 8 n 10e Mark is it the engine that's giving away because it wasn't the best engine that we could get for that vehicle right um yeah and it's funny because an engine for an engine so I always have to be very careful and say a motor in the engine motor I'm sorry yeah motor oh trust me all the time he's going which one are you talking about the motor in the engine um so in terms of when this truck was specifically designed I can speak to that directly because I was here when when that was uh when that happened I was actually the the inim chief when it was delivered um so it needed to fit in the old building um in the front of the old building so where my car and the deputy's car um currently reside it had to fit in there so we needed to make concessions in terms of the height of the vehicle and the width of the vehicle as soon as you constrain those two things that now changes which motor you can put into it it changes which uh suspension you put under it um so um that is one of the things that when I put a committee together to start looking at vehicles and what we need to to specifically replace them with I said look we want a motor that is aired on the side of caution so maybe a little bit bigger than we have historically done and the same thing with the suspension so that they're are more um more rugged vehicle so absolutely something that that we have factored into that thank you so um just look I mean just looking at your plan here you're basically asking for not even counting the ambulances it's a million dollars of vehicles a year for the next 5 years is that yeah yeah so looking at the condition of of vehicles um we really um as bad as it sounds we burned the capital plan and start it over ideally what is the uh the best Avenue move moving forward um so we started with that blank piece of paper and said all right the condition of the vehicles the build times um all those different factors how does this actually play out in the overall capital budget over the next few years um and this taking an aggressive approach to vehicle replacement and simultaneously maintaining those Vehicles is Paramount into increasing that longevity um and you said 10 to 12 years we're looking at 12 to 15 I think um as long as we're able to aggressively maintain the vehicles um which is something that is near and dear to me is making sure that everything's missioned ready so with engine one did um um did we spend everything that we allocated to do the upgrade you said you needed another $100,000 to the complete but we spent so we've been spending that to maintain and keep that truck on the road so it hasn't been used in its entirety no um but it is getting used to correct some of these major issues to hopefully buy us the time to um to replace that vehicle so that's hoping to extend its life till 27 basically when the new one would arrive correct yeah gu so what's your confidence that it doesn't go belly up theux before the new truck comes in I guess is where marks going that's my best answer on that one um um yeah I mean we're we're hopeful that through the through our new uh maint maintenance programs that we can do that um yeah I can't say that I'm with 100% confidence that we're going to get there we are we are investigating sorry Brian we we are investigating um some sped up processes to get trucks in so utilizing a um uh a demo truck that's close to our specification um they only produce a few of those a year so essentially you're in a lottery to get that um you know we may be able to slide into one of those spots that would kick our production time down to probably closer to two years instead of three um if we're fortunate enough to get into uh one of those slots but that's absolutely not a guarantee but again to Gary's Point um we shouldn't in order to save a 10 or 12 months on the lead time we shouldn't give up on the specifications because you know if we we bought a pig and a poke before we don't want to do it again want a piece of equipment that you're comfortable it's going to last us to 10 or 12 or whatever number of years I believe it should last absolutely yeah completely agree with you on that project so so so to that point although on all the the years covered by this side we're averaging about million you know a year per vehicle would I be correct in saying that 31 onward like we can guess that but that that that spend might go down as we've replace the vehicles an hour into their lifetime yes if I understood your question correctly um yeah over time hopefully the the cost of the cost of Maintenance um that replacement schedule becomes something that actually saves money rather than creating more issues one of the um one of the things we're also looking at if you look out to 20 um 30 you see a replacement um I'm going to tell you that that's uh a placeholder there um so that's an electric uh fir Tru uh electric engine out in 2030 however as we continue to make evaluations of of the department that request may change uh to a different type of vehicle that doesn't compromise our insurance rating scores um but allows us greater flexibility at a reduced cost um so while I will keep that number there for the time being there's also we'll say it's a 50/50 again that when we get closer to that time frame that I come in and say all right we're going to cut that by $800,000 at this point so um we're still investigating that very very early in the process to to make any guarantees there yeah basically I just trying to get at that it feels like we're facing a bubble and not just on them I mean we're going to have to replace periodically but we've got sort of a bubble of needing Replacements in the next couple years yes so if I read between the lines on what you said on the replacing the engine 2 in 2030 with potentially something else why wouldn't we be doing that for Engine 2 in 2027 and is there a reason we're not thinking of it in a shorter term rather than 5 years out uh it's a capability issue so if we're part of it is contingent upon ensuring that we have two solid vehicles that meet the needs of the community that's kind of the key that opens up that opportunity down street the other way doesn't necessarily work unless we compress the entire replacement schedule into a 2-year time frame um so you're looking at three vehicles virtually simultaneously at that point um so that's an important uh consideration that we have to to pull in again it's a multi-use vehicle so it's called a I'm going to say it's a type three engine which is different than the type ones which is what we're talking about with engine one and engine uh two engine 4 is type three classification smaller vehicle that has capabilities to fight a fire if it shows up uh we'll say a house fire if it shows up but it's geared a little bit more towards a multi-roll uh being able to access some of our open lands to deal with brush fires a little bit better so that what occurred in in California doesn't happen here um I will tell you that um making that switch that's looking at that's factoring in also climate change and how that's going to impact what our mission becomes um so we're sort of predicting what the future holds in terms of um the service demands that we have yeah just to play Devil's Advocate this though if you're requesting a vehicle in 27 that's going to be delivered in 29 right you're already well out on that so the 2030 vehicle would be thinking what we're doing in 2032 right so you already have a long Gap in the plan even if it's something you're requesting in 27 and as we all remember from the fall the brush fires were much closer this year than California so yes AB absolutely so yeah it's a we shouldn't necessarily be waiting for 2032 to have a better plan forers locally if that's what those vehicles are or something we should be Mark just your point a a a vehicle that we order now even if it takes a couple years to to develop is going to be based on this year's technology just like just like we it's on a date by the time we get it but but just like we didn't want the first generation of electric um saws we don't want to necessarily gen one of electric fire trucks you know let's let's be the second Chanel yes yeah um yeah but your your point is well taken is that and that's factored into this plan originally this was not on for 2030 our first Renditions we had it in 31 uh 32 we actually pulled it back for the very reason that you were that you were talking about so I appreciate I was actually commending you for looking for something potentially different for Engine 4 but I think the whole concept is we probably should be reevaluating exactly what we need right and what we anticipate we need on every one of these engines as they come up and not just say oh because it was type two last time we're going to buy another type two and you know let's be more proactive and think outside of the box rather than this is the way it's always been done so I keep hearing that proactive word I like it um before we leave Capital we talk about the ambulances good that was my next one good yeah so um ambulance Replacements um as everybody knows um ambulance receipts um is always hopefully the primary driver to that uh what we're seeing um in terms of the use of ambulances and the wear and tear that's occurring especially I don't know if anybody knows this but a hospital closed um um in terms too soon too soon um in terms of uh the usage that we're seeing the ambulance that's now only 2 years old um is already around the 100,000 Mark we know once we hit 150 to 170,000 mil that our repair costs go through the roof at that point um you can look back historically and just it's sort of like somebody goes all right start paying more than that um very common um issue that occurs so we've been very aggressive in our Capital plan in replacing ambulances every 3 to 4 years um they are similarly experiencing longer build times than ever before not the 3 years that you see with fire trucks but previously you were looking at 8 to 9 months for an ambulance delivery you're out to 18ish months at this point so their delivery time is also uh doubled over the last few years um so ambulance replac again hopefully we're doing that out of ambulance receipts and what I will tell you is that um we went over some of the ambulance receipt numbers with uh with Fred with Steve with Brian and Jim uh just the other day um and that U mechanism looks very sustainable moving forward so um I don't know if you have a different thought of what we looked at for numers Steve but I was pretty happy with it I was very happy with it cuz it's all right then I'm very happy you're plan that was the plan to have the receipts cover the cost of the ambulance and it looks like you're on track so um so we're again very happy with um with what we're seeing there so we have a good sustainable plan moving forward um the only Potential Threat is that if all of a sudden regulations change and insurance changes um I always throw that out there when we talk about ambulance receipts because there's forces that are outside of our control typically at the at the federal level so um rarely does it happen but it's still a threat well the threat is different makeup of our boards that receip money now looks into different pot and doesn't go directly to pay for the ambulance that's a possibility too or is that by regulation has to go to that's that's one of the worries that I've move it in there we we we put it into the ambulance replenishment in other words that that could be something so we codify that there's a couple other things dealing with the school and and stuff that we hear later on that we may need to uh cify within the policiy policies maybe an appendix or something it's doing two things it's subsidizing the fire budget the 2 and half million bucks a year that comes right off the top and what's left over is build in the ambulance replacement for so just thinking about that a half million dollar bill that ambulance to cover and then we've taken that into account and the number the chief has looked at so on the ambulance um another potential is are we going to be needing an ambulance three right we have one and two right are we going to need to have three running rather than two running so I think the potential is there but it's not something that at this point that I put a lot of brain power uh into um you know I think that by the time we're in next year's budget that's going to be we'll have a clear understanding of hey at what threshold will we need that 308 bance and that will also come one with head another company involved that's four more more receipts four more ALS we get those people from right now don't don't give any ideas I'm just we're going to become a region I'm always AF Frid is um all right so the operating budget um operating budget just like the capital budget we started from scratch and rebuilt the budget because one of the things um being newish to town I guess is how I'll have to put it um I need to understand where all the pieces are how it all works um and where our our our threats and liabilities uh exists within the budget so we put together a budget and presented a budget um initially so that everybody understood kind of where um where we are coming from so we went through uh reassessed uh overtime the um the amount of liability that is on the books between vacation training um personal time Family Medical Leave people going to the academy um just a myriad of different things um we looked at our call out wages how those all work um and compared that a little bit to historical use I will tell you that our call out wages is absolutely our most volatile um line item because it's driven by emergencies if I could predict emergencies I would be a millionaire I'd probably be a billionaire if I predict emergencies um but we unfortunately can't predict we can't say hey on Friday we're going to hire a couple extra people in because that's when the emergency is coming it's going to land when it when it lands um and we greatly expanded um the needs of the F looking again at the age of the equipment um what's had to be done what's a reasonable predictor of of future um expenses on the the Fleet Maintenance side with that I understand that that was a massive increase and I think I started our conversation off with I understand this is a massive increase um but again I needed to understand and I needed other folks to understand hey here's here's what the budget looks like completely uh built out so working uh with Ryan and Jim we um we did Make Some Cuts to that to um factor in not filling certain shifts uh when folks are out um re-evaluated um our call back procedures and how those are done and applied um holding off on a few uh purchases that we need to be making in terms of uh past free gear there are some grants that are available that we're going to be pursuing to hopefully um um fill in that Gap um and same thing with our um our radios um that's the wrong which one's up here radi oh all right you're good okay my side says something different than the one up there by one by one word in front of like that's not right but you have the right one um so our Communications devices a lot of those are old a lot of those have been through two and three vehicles um so they cannot even communicate with with other area some other Area fire departments and our Police Department um sort of important in emergency situations being able to do that can you I'm sorry can you show the numbers on the previous slide I just don't know what so we lowered the salaries by 50,000 and the expenses by about 90 yep y yeah so a lot of that um um expenses side was looking at the opportunity of leveraging Grants um in order to make sure that we're uh able to replace uh the gear and stuff so one of our challenges we have is kind of that replacement of gear but Lu isn't the pfast free gear being mandated by I mean I thought the state just passed a law or there is a law now that says we have to do that so we have we have to purchase it we don't have to replace what we have so anything that's currently in stock we can continue to use that until it expires it all expires at 10 years at 10 years um it cannot be recertified it goes back or gets recycled um back into how I don't know what they do with it they recycle it um but New Gear we cannot purchase uh as of next spring uh I thought they also put a cap on how long you could use the P gear as well outside of the 10 years is that not so it's not a cap it's what people are discovering through usage that the past free gear is not nearly as rugged no no I mean I thought there was a limit to like they said and all the gear had to be P free in the department by a date as well so I don't believe so okay yeah what um that information was out there um there's some ambiguity in some of the guidance that was put out from uh from the state um I'm I'm pretty sure at the MMA conference they were talking about pushing that even accelerating the past free stuff as part of the part of the MMA Charter then Stu the business being more yeah yeah I think that so one of the challenges there's there's only two companies that actually make the the P pass free material and one of them said hey we we can't make this so they stopped um so you're seeing huge issues that um you can't get it mandates that can't be met right yeah un it really it ited to an unfunded mandate correct um and it on the manufacturing side it couldn't be met either they probably could use a what's that they could put aestus in I mean years ago that was the case I think we still have uh a set of uh asbest gloves are not in service or or used I think they're in a display thing it's a set of asbest gloves just don't chew yeah no they don't taste good anyway and and and and you said the new gear doesn't last as long that's what they're finding um yeah it's it's there's not a lot of research into it it's literally a a usage based one of the where the p is is in the water repellency of the gear which also converts over to absorbing things like uh carcinogens gasoline you name it um so what happens is that if it gets exposed to gasoline we'll say um that gear Wicks it up and it doesn't release it I personally don't want to wear something that's full of gasoline into a burning environment seems counterintuitive uh I [Music] mean probably done worse but uh just doesn't seem like a good plan for longevity um so yeah those are the challenges that they're they're currently tackling um so as we look forward um the projected needs as the community grows um as the assessment of whether we need a 30 a third ambulance a 30th ambulance that'd be interesting a third ambulance uh comes into into view um our staffing will likely have to change with that um obviously we all know that the that the community is changing that the call volume is constantly changing this year we had a 6.7% increase in our overall call volume that's about double the uh normal year-over-year increase in terms of uh of call increases regionally the the increase was actually even much higher so we were we were on the lower end of um of those increases this year how much of that increase is tied to the Emon emergency up on the the point so 100 of of those calls is tied directly to um to urgent care so um you know when you look at um that factor it absolutely um you know a business in town does have that that impact on us absolutely good do you have any statistics on the number of calls that are to like 495 versus actual Littleton so um no but I can get that for you um it's not something I have right here um so 495 I mean two weeks ago we had a little snowstorm and that represented seven calls in two hours um so it's we're definitely on 495 quite a bit um one of the interesting statistics we do have is that about a third of the time when we have Personnel committed to a call we have another call on top of it so we're committed in multiple places simultaneously um and then about 10% of the time we have three or more simultaneous calls going on so um as we look to the Future having you know taking that proactive look look of hey how are we factoring into um the need for redundancy has to be one of our major uh components to to decision making um operating is Fleet up updates I'm not going to go into that anymore unless people want me to talk more about that um a second deputy chief when we look at uh the number of uh often times unfunded mandates but uh regulations that are coming down in terms of uh OSHA safety compliance we we truly need somebody who is focused on ensuring that we are trained and meeting those standards um with OSHA's um kind of new um influence on on the fire service we have to react to that um and the second Deputy certainly focuses on that um the fire prevention aspect as the community grows more and more fire prevention activities and Community risk reduction activities are needed um and it will help us sustain uh the operational excellence that we're that we're shooting for um and another piece is is climate change adaptation right as we look to the Future uh the fire service is consistently changing we're reacting to um the environment around us however you want to define environment uh but climate change is absolutely changing what we do and how we deal with many things whether it's uh battery powered storage systems to electric vehicles to the increase in wildfires that we saw um over 4,000 Acres burned this fall which is absolutely unprecedented in the state of Massachusetts um interesting it is something that I have been preaching for years is coming um and I think that this is the tip of the iceberg this wasn't this this year is a taste test of what's coming I think bigger more aggressive more difficult to deal with fires are in our future no might not be next year it might be 2 or three years down the road it might be 10 years down the road uh but it is coming um there's no doubt about that and as we get into the spring we're still in a drought as much as it's snowing today we're in a drought condition and um this spring could be very very interesting Statewide so same question the for the when do you anticipate needing these positions so I don't think I have a great I think it's going to depend on that um the development of the town so I'm not going to commit to anything at this juncture I'm not going to say that you know oh well it's definitely going to be 5 years down the road the change in the community is certainly going to be the driving the driving fact we have a lot of projects that are on the horizon um and each of those bring their own individual challenges to the organization um some of the ones uh you know if we see something like a nursing home or uh elderly housing or some combination of those two things obviously much greater impact than if we put a warehouse in warehouses are typically going to generate 10 to 12 calls a year nursing home elderly housing Assisted Living other types of medical facilities much much higher our rate of usage so I think that that's um that's a moving Target I think at this point and you had 48 positions plus the second Deputy what order would you rank what is most likely to be first of those I'm sorry what was the first the second Deputy or the new firefighters which priority priority oh prioritize those too I got you sorry my apologies um I would say that most likely it's going to be the firefighters would probably come in first unless some new regulations land in our lap that we're not seeing on the horizon yet um I don't know if anybody knows this but a hospital closed so just a couple impacts uh and I won't spend a lot of time on on this slide but I think it was something that uh we were certainly talking about um and it's worth getting some of the information out um as everybody knows the showa Clos with really no notice very early on in the fiscal year gave us no time to react um but we needed to adapt to the new normal um we only had about 30 days to establish hey what's the new normal going to look like and react the best we could to that um so initially what we looked at is ensuring that both ambulances are staffed all the time that became a very important factor because we anticipated longer wait times at the hospitals which we are now seeing we were lucky that in the month of September it was one of the slowest medical months uh region wide so we ended up with a little bit of time a little bit of extra time to to adapt to some of the the new situations that we're getting put in front of us as we come forward to January and going into February with cold flu covid season um we're now seeing weight times at the hospitals approaching that 1 hour Mark um and that's significant because those weight times um they add up they take ambulances and people out of service for much more extended times so on average when we look at uh the last um several months of the NOA closure we're seeing about a 7 minute average increase in the total wait time 7 minutes is relatively small or I think everybody can agree with that however when we multiply that out by 1,300 instances of 7 minutes that number starts to become much bigger it starts to take up more time more resources more money for um for the community um and present uh greater challenges on a regional scale so one thing that happens is typically it's not one town that gets busy at a time everybody gets busy at the same time stars align we don't know why uh we're going Mutual Aid to places uh such as Shirley that we have never been to with an ambulance uh previously because they're having to reach now that far out to find an ambulance um we're reaching out more to our neighbors as well um because of this stacking issue that's that's occurring the good news is hopefully everybody heard that uh UMass has stepped up and they're going to hopefully be opening a satellite emergency facility in the nooba region where that's going to be is still um unknown but they will be building a new facility um that is something that's going to take 18 months about um after allocation of the land they're going to put it on so they don't have the land yet that's obviously a process to to locate it and purchase it 18 months of build time that's on the best case scenario realistically we have to weather another 30 months of a storm here I think is is the message that needs to go out um you know and hopefully 30 months is the the high end of that so we're working with the state U who to this point has uh given 200 $50,000 to eight communities um in the nooba region for expenses we're using those to actually cut back on some of the capital uh future Capital needs by purchasing things such as new stretchers uh ventilators a whole host of of higher priced uh equipment that is due for replacement that now we're able to utilize those State funds to replace rather than putting them into the capital budget so we're fortunate um on that side it also will um allow us to utilize some of that that state money for any potential overages when it comes to the use of medical supplies as we're seeing more patients as we're committed longer to Medical calls we're using more uh more supplies on on each call because we are not handing over care for an extended period of time so utilizing the state funds for that uh helps to offset the uh the expense side of things um one of the big things that we're that we're working on is um 9.6 million for 13 communities in the nooba region um a vast majority of communities are overex expending on their wage side and this is focused purely on the wage side of things not the expenses side um so for example for us um our overtime budget is is currently um 117 11 16.9% spent for this fiscal year part of that is driven by openings that we had again I spoke about having eight openings but part of it is driven by um an overtime budget that was not sufficient to um to deal with this uh new crisis so we're working with many state entities uh Jim and I had the the pleasure I guess we'll call it pleasure of meeting with uh the Senate uh the Senate weighs and means chairman uh last uh Wednesday uh in Boston um it was a great meeting um while he acknowledges that state funding is tight um he seemed optimistic that that relief is on the way so for us um $700,000 split over the current fiscal year and the next fiscal year um after that time frame we're in a different uh we're in a different mode I suppose excuse me when you say the current that's FY 25 correct so so 25 and 26 would be the two allocations for and is that and I know we we talked about this a little bit but that's the calendar year 25 not the fiscal year yep okay yep it would be our it would be based on our fiscal year so it would all line with with um our operations um or our budgets I should say would just about get you to the new the new emergency facility hopefully it's but yeah hopefully it'll it'll get there um you know we'll see um just very very quick the satellite emergency facility is a full service emergency department so if anybody is like oh well it's just another Urgent Care it is not it is it is just like going to an emergency department that you name what hospital in the state and what percentage of your calls normally would go to n so prior to the closure about 40 uh 42 is that something right 42% of our calls went to calls went to so order of your calls are driving this 42 Crazy M almost half 42 42% oh I'm sorry I thought you said 22 that's a lot y okay so you said you're over spent your overtime budget for 177% so far this year but part of that was due to under spending on the Staffing side so what is your budget actually running this year versus projected so yeah so our staffing is uh our regular Staffing hold on I made a note the first time I've actually had to go to my notes so I appreciate the uh the question um so we've spent $241,000 in overtime however um out of the $25,000 000 um however on the uh full-time salaries U we're only at 49% so that represents about a $93,000 offset the other way so while we are overspent in that we are um UND spent um on that other side so we are we are monitoring the the offsets that do uh that do exist so so you're 93 under on the other side you so you're going to you're basically going to come out as a wash or pretty close right that's what we're shooting for but we'll see what happens I can't predict the future way no if they're fully staffed now then their overtime me should be their overtime budget should become more on over over time no but they're fully staff so they shouldn't have to be using overtime from but we talked we we we've talked about this you hire a firefighter and then there's they don't jump on the truck immedately there's all this training time yeah there will be training time so we know that for instance the four people um that just started they're going to be off to the academy um when you look at a total liability standpoint there's um there's quite a bit of liability in terms of uh time off um typical sick time usage training uh for other folks so you know it would be nice to say that it's absolutely going to fall under it and we're going to do our best to curve that um but there's a lot of factors in there there's not just a a single um piece of data that we're looking at there's hundreds right and if the 350 comes through then we should be we should be in should be fine y so if you were I mean this is kind of revisionist history but if you were fully staffed at the beginning of the year you do you believe you'd be running an overtime deficit it now with the current overtime budget we would be we would not be in deficit in the grand scheme of things but as the rate of usage it would probably be still close again because of those those known liabilities I think what he saying is if you if you started this year with fully staffed and fully trained MH yeah which it's a hypothetical given that given that would you expect that you would have needed more in your overtime budget than was originally allocated by the end of the fiscal year likely yes compared to what was and what percentage over would you have expected probably a third or more I mean we had a hospital closed during the years right that's yeah yeah and you know going into the next fiscal year um we have some kind of known challenges that are coming down the pipe with folks training we know we have somebody who's going on military leave you know we have babies coming uh to new families um or young families in the department so um you know things that things that are right now for fortunate they're predictable those aren't even land with any unpredictable costs that that could land so um we certainly have some some challenges over the next year in terms of filling positions any questions yep one one Mark Jer you just talked a lot about wanting to be more aggressive with vehicle maintenance and then with the repair cost but yet your pay and maintenance budget went down um so one of the things that that we had talked about um so years ago there there was a separate line for maintenance um just there's two things that are kind of happening there one is use of some of that state money for ambulance um maintenance um and also getting the new ambulance which hopefully we have within the next few months puts a lot of Maintenance onto warranty okay um so we that's sort of a a predictable one of yes we still have to do oil changes the headlight goes out we got to deal with that but um so we have those factors that are going into it um and a lot of it is again that preventative maintenance preventative maintenance certainly um cost less to do than repairs so you're expecting more preventative maintenance and less repairs yes okay exactly yeah so you're going to spend more on the duct tape yeah yep we're going to get the like double-sided duct tape it's way easier you can stick tools to it and stuff okay I got a few things um first of all the training Towers just baffles me I that the fact that that was even constructed without being caught until now and obviously there's been work arounds to mitigate risk up to this point so in light of where we're at financially although I see it as a a risk I'm sure it's been mitigated for the past seven years now yeah so I just think it's something like think that the U seal coating of the the the police station it's one of those things that we could we could live without it's only 18 Grand but it's 18 grand um with regards to the power equipment um I think it was two years ago that we got our first you mentioned Brian we were kind of hesitant to be the the Gen one adapters you know the early adapters um for the um electric jaws of life but I think it was two years ago that we got two of them is that correct yeah uh um oh one of them is older than that so we're actually on our third generation of Electric Tools um one of the engines has the set you're referring to shortly before that we had a grant that we got another set those two are sisters call them and then the generation before that was like the second gen and it's still couldn't keep up the batteries now they run off the wall commercial and they are far more efficient as long as the battery stays good but those Replacements are a lot less money than some of the aftermarket like we have lights that the batteries are $700 these are a lot cheaper but they're much more efficient which is not much different than I think Fred mentioned that we all have a cordless drill and the one that we got today versus the one that we've had in our tool backs for 10 years it's definitely been some improvements um so I I just I'm going to go back to something that I've said literally since I've been sitting in the seat doing super SA is we need an asset list so that when you come and show us you know engine one's this engine two is that it we'll have that roster we'll know that yeah we bought Engine 4 in 2003 whatever the numbers are right um but it it also good if we have the assets I mean any any privately run business has asset tags for every piece of equipment and I'm not saying it's just should be true for the fire department I think it needs to be true for every department so that we can do an audit internally and we'll will be able to speculate you know the the building department needs to have a new vehicle we can anticipate needing that in budget FY 28 or um snowblower for the town hall is 15 years old we should we can start looking at that if we have that full asset list and I'm saying this as much to to Jim and Ryan as I'm saying it to to to you guys but I know that specifically I've asked um for at least the engines and the equipment that we have we know there's boats down there it's our boat on one of the one of the requests for 2029 28 something like that um rescue boat um if if we have that and we know um I mean I I know I pushed back a couple years ago with Car 2 was just Car 2 was just replaced right before that there was another pickup truck that was also bailing wire and duct tape um that was the one that we used to plow the um the spraw the spawn spraw that's what we just replaced okay yeah um and I pushed back on that a couple years ago saying well we we never had that it was a gift so it's great that we've been able to use it but the the case was made for it and if we we funded it um and now we've had it we've got it um but I think that if we can have a a full picture of what our inventory is of our equipment um it's going to help us collectively in any decision um especially capital decisions but almost exclusively Capital decisions so just on that I think Diane Dickerson is working or has a vehicle list now CU they the um they're working with that for the green communities and the sustainability and replacement policies for that but I don't I don't know how I think it's more or less complete but or how inclusive it is I don't know list exists it's just but it's primarily focused on vehicles there a few other miscellaneous pieces like boats and that I think it's really we can throw a number on there anything over X we'd like to see an asset I mean obviously 20,000 I I don't know make a number yeah I I wouldn't get that I mean I'm sure that Nancy has asset tags on every piece of sure technology that we have out there so that she can track it and it's no different for again a snowblower a Jaws of light K12 Whatever It Whatever the piece of equipment happens to be yeah so um if I could just um add something on to that so part part of our data management that we're working on um actually has the ability to QR tag every piece of equipment we have right because in terms of the assets um the smaller say a nozzle something that's smaller we don't necessarily have great tracking for that so that's something that we're actively working on so that hopefully next year I can sit there and go you want to know how much hoses on all the trucks combined here we go um so agree yeah I mean it's it's and we're we're certainly um trying to be proactive on I can tell you it's not a big brother thing but it kind of is but it's also going to benefit all of us it's going to benefit you because you're going to know what you have what you need if you look at your mro budget you're going to know what you need for maintenance parent operation and um you know you have a a crib with spare parts nozzles you know whatever certain tools that you need whenever it happens to be PB Bar whatever um sorry could I to your point um if we're going to do this can we try to coordinate so that the if the police department is tagging their stuff they're using the same system that the fire department is ETC so that we're not trying to get six different systems to talk to each other is that a fire like is that like a software that's built specifically for so we're building out our software for that right now um it is a Firebase software um so he's that's part of everything every one of his days build the asset is it it's a QR code though is it QR is it or is it a UPC so that's that's an option the biggest the biggest thing we were looking at is having an Assets in inventory list that I could find sure that's not um carbon copy paper so we um we're going through and building it right now I'm going to know shortly if the QR code is the way to go or if it's just the actual asset on the truck it also gives me the ability to Pro prog the maintenance reminders he was talking about so so I think the ask is can you work with the other departments to see if we can get one system that works across even if it's kind of clui for the other departments in some way if we can find a way to get everyone on the same system I'm sure the highway and police have the same thing that they need to know when their vehicles need to be you know oil changed and whatever and it would be nice to have a system rather than 20 of them like there's all all these different systems for track your pet right yeah but all the scanners can scan the chip so it doesn't it's not that you all have to buy the exact same Software System but if the actual tag itself is using is a universal type of identifier then that would be helpful I'm she's not saying get a pet dep down on on your budget you have preceptor compensation what is that so the preceptor is when we have a new paramedic we tie a senior paramedic to um to those new Medics to ensure that they're meeting not only departmental but state requirements in terms of their training their check offs before we before we uh let them fly on their own so to speak nurses do the same thing that's it's in the contract too I just didn't know um it was new and um you talk in the narrative about incre you know increasing training but the training budget went down by 23% is so the part of the increase in training um is actually um contractual uh new contractual obligations that is in the overtime when it's for the full-time people so it went down and up in two different categories uh simultaneously so um so does it go down yes does it in fact go down no okay and in uh and in your I can money the water I I know you said you're fully staffed but I'm trying to looking through your open positions and there's one that's listed as being vacant that is like 130 130,000 versus everything else being in the 70 we saw that yesterday um it's a valid question that we have to look into a little bit more cuz I yeah cuz if I'm new applicant I want that position yeah this isn't our this isn't the CH we're here for your interview right have a series of questions we're going to it's been a while since I've pulled the hose but Che that could be the prior Che it might be it sounds about but it actually if you work out the numbers it actually is counted in the I mean it adds up to the budget the 1.9 the 1.9 and what's going for there were a lot of moving Parts on that but we didn't look into that so prior Chief we were carrying that I bet but yeah but that means there should be money somewhere right well no so there's there's two vacancies there one's being filled Monday yeah so there names for all those they start M so the two vacancies are no longer vacancies there's no there's no career Ken's point there must be if if that number's off we we probably have somewhere in the vicinity we'll look into Grand get back to you can you put a UPC code on all the people here well if we can chip if we can chip pets let's chip employees um anything else for the I do have a couple else's so I'm still not sure that I'm com I mean the overtime budget seems uh the increase seems really high as 75% right 74% I mean we last year we took overtime and converted into salary people and now we're going back and adding back the overtime and I understand that you're we're running lean on overtime this year but it seems now like we're basically going full circle back to where we were we hired all these people and yet we haven't saved on our overtime budget that I I think that's because and we we brought this up last year but somehow we brought it up without it actually getting concretized that um there's there's the lag there's a lag in I mean last year when we factored this when we talked about this we didn't factor in great you hire these people you can't use them until they're through the academy and then the closing of hospital I think those are the two factors but but they'll be through the academy before this disc year starts so right that's yeah that's one piece of the their their training so their training will be uh they will have additional training Downstream as well I I'm not I'm not arguing that the overtime budget should be neutral I'm arguing that 75% is a huge jump in our overtime budget um after we basically did the comparable change last year in the salary budget and that we should revisit whether it should be a 30% increase or what the number really should be because 75% seems extremely generous given where we were um and you mentioned like you know we' potentially be hiring more people in the future right if we're going you know you had four to eight on your plan where where's our break even point we were supposed to be break even when we hired these people we're obviously not what what's the end here where we're actually in a stable situation that makes more sense going forward so when I took the uh the liability that's on the table how much vacation folks use their average use of sick time personal time training time Etc that number came out to 402,000 of known liability without them going into their Banks so these are we are only looking at actual time earned not any of the liability that exists from previous years that's been rolled over so our liability is realistically over half a million now I don't think anybody's going to I don't think everybody's going to turn around and go hey we're going to use all the vacation we have on the boooks realistically that's not going to happen um so when you look at that that number that 402,000 of actual usage um that we've that we've seen year over year and this was actually accidentally verified um because we put our numbers together and said all right here's what we think the number should be and for a moment I said wow I messed this up really bad I came out $150,000 higher than or more than $150,000 higher than I should have and what had occurred I I was looking at a wrong number our usage the previous several fiscal years of overtime was over 400,000 so so what it did is it validated the fact that our math did in fact work um so looking at that looking at the savings of having those additional people is uh you know it's 50 maybe $60,000 um in the actual overtime um we were very quickly able to to work with Ryan and Jim and settle that back to to about that uh $350,000 Mark so if we fill everything we're up well in excess of the $400,000 month undoubtedly um the 350,000 accounts for a lot of our known risks coming up into the next year um and we were comfortable with um you know with moving even though it goes up significantly we really under the current situations we shouldn't be settling back and saying all right well we're going to take an ambulance out of service in order to stay under that that overtime right but what we were sold last year is if we went to five people for shift right you could safely staff the department at four people for shift so we wouldn't be less likely to call in someone and need less overtime right so what's the right number so that we can determine that at four people per shift is it this is the amount over over time you need or or is it less right or what's I mean all the police have in their presentation said how many people they needed on staff at a time right and we need the same type of things so that you can um I mean I have them Satur on these Finance meetings to know that this is the number that we need to safely budget these things it just seems we were told one thing last year and it's now a different thing and I know you didn't tell it to his last year I'm not blaming you for it but blame SE we're going back and for well yeah we we we're going back and forth and like you said like you're going to ask for more people so when you ask for more people in the future does that I mean the overtime numbers are going to go down and then we're going to be back in the same situation where we're ping ponging between these accounts yeah so I hear I hear absolutely um what you're saying our minimum that we absolutely have to have is for what I will tell you is that more often um especially with us 6% increase or 6.7% increase coupled with our additional time on task that fifth person is becoming more and more important by the Deb um so with with the number that we now have put forward that's comfortable for ensuring that we have the four the four folks on um knowing what we have for the potential risks coming up in the next year with with time off from military time uh young families a few of which we know are having babies uh come the summertime there's a lot of risk out there um that we have to be prepared for if we drop below four we're taking an name it's out of service um and we do not want to do that no more babies you have nothing that's one SOL at all for the potential 350 I understand not counting your chickens before they show up but um if that money doesn't show up I would expect every fireman in the state of Massachusetts to be encircling the state house to get that money so from my perspective you're going to get something whether it's 300 or 200 or whatever um and with that money I would expect that you would spend the state money first absolutely and be able to peel back what would be in your budget in effect um so you might still have to be over the 300 but you've got an extra 200 or you have an extra 300 coming from the state so if you spend the state State money I would expect at the end of the year you'd have some money to turn back to the town if if I can make a make a you know on those same lines if I can make a suggestion I think a good checks and balances if you want to put in place that if the if the select board and the finance committee identifies a particular amount and you take that amount with in continuing your thought and transfer it into the into the the the TA budget so that will sit there idle and then and then that will be the area which we could absolutely work from and make that determination of whether because that way the state money comes in and we guarantee in the state money gets paid get gets utilized first but if we if it doesn't come in or if a lesser amount comes in now we're in a position where we can we can collectively re-evaluate the level of of investment into the overtime budget based upon I I would make this the suggestion of stabiliz we can do that or stabilization either way before we finalize the budget going to the printers if we get the money in we come up with an amount we put it to the finance committee Reserve fund that way it gets controlled in our end and it's not just the transfere out or yours or whatever no it's fine but it just if it if it's available then I think we can manage it if it's not I I still think it's high but will end TR to leave it in the budget somewhere yeah because of the uncertainty I I think what we're saying is is important for everybody to realize we have five people per Shi and we should be Staffing to four we're just now getting fully staffed so we really don't have the experience of them we haven't operated under a fully staffed version and I don't know how many years I think it in my view and Fred's View Brian's view as we sat down with you um twice in the past couple of weeks we're we're not going to push back on you but we expect you to manage that money and we know you can and we know you will but we are going to be looking absolutely I wouldn't expect you not to look so just to your slide is up this steeve okay so so if we get this money from the state it's going into the reserve fund to be transferred or or we're putting into the fire cuz now their overtime basically goes to $700 in the fire dep upon it would go it would go directly to it needs it needs to be correct me if I'm wrong it needs to be spent on quote salaries yep so it should go into his budget right and we should monitor it and the that money should be spent down before we spend down the overtime budget right so why paying out of a grant you pay the salaries out of the grant you reduce his fire budget accordingly so why wouldn't we reduce his fire budget now and give it put it into the but we don't know how much is overtime is either we can what I'm saying is we can take your overtime down to Flat fund it move it over to your reserve fund if we don't get the grant then you can move it back and he can't spend I mean then he doesn't but I think let's let's I mean we we expect we expect to correct me wrong expect to get the answer on the grant before we have to print the budget book you know but there's a there's an upcoming meeting that's that's in the process being scheduled Administration and finance and it's a whole different level of of um confirming the need and identifying uh the cost benefit anal Anis the whole nine yards and that's something the chief and I talk offline in preparation for that from my experience with dealing withf in a it's it's daunting so it's all I can say is I would love to say yes but I don't want to overcommit to that so so but but I'm saying we can still hold off a little bit on I mean I think conceptually we're on on at least a similar page and let's hold off and see as events unfolds a little bit I think that's a that's a good sign suggestion um briyan but we also have to keep in mind that we may have identified a process internally f as the funds come in but we don't know what those stipulations are going to be that's going to the conditions are going to be on there so they may say okay sure here's the his amount of funding but it's under the following conditions we don't I don't know that so I don't want to over speculate and and automatically having us determine how it first used last used or anything um but the only flexibility that the chief has really advocated for with that consistently has been because some communities need it as an a to be able to attract new firefighters because they don't have anybody to call back we in some communities and we've got a full compliment we're needing it for that overtime because we're at 117 120% um so that's the real flexibility we're looking for but who knows what ANF will to picking up on what you just said it if they put a string on it yes that says you could you only use this if you're overspending well we're already at that well then what we should do is level fund to work level fund his overtime budget put that money somewhere else if it comes in he will overspend much more quickly than he would if he had the 350 or whatever the number is right yep so we can take more advantage of the state funding more easily that way but you determining so I I think I think we should circle the wagons here a little bit offline and figure out not to cut you but to figure out what the opportunity would be going forward because the last thing I think we want to do is leave State money on the table right trying to guess what strings that they might it doesn't matter but that's the point is it doesn't matter we can say we can effectively cut his budget and move it into the fin into your budget and at any point you can move it back right whereas if we give it to him you can't claw it back later right it's easier to go from your direct side to his from his side to yours might I suggest for the interested time we can come back to this this really gets into the details I'm sure we'll work it through the finance committee figure out what's s the best way that right as long as the money is there for him that's all any of us care about so if that's the easiest route then consider it okay at the end of the day it's about the the level of service and ensuring that we're able to have two ambulances available for the town at all times yeah okay I made a list to talk about after thank you thank you thank you no problem thank you as Steve's coming up I like to point out we're about an hour and a half I'm going I'm going I'm going to bring up a point to that because I've been doing this now for I don't know 10 years we used to have an hour set for each one of these departments and this was an all day Affair yeah we did lunch we broke for lunch we did a working lunch and it ran if it ran till three or four so be it we knew it and if it got if if a department came in and did it in a half hour fantastic we got out early this has to be an all day thing every time we do this it's longer than we expect and I I said it earlier in the meeting I'll bring up a military term train the standard not to time I don't want to be restricted on time when we're dealing with a $70 million budget because we we set up a an unrealistic schedule today this is an unrealistic schedule I I can tell you I no expectations that we were going to be out here at 12:30 no but I think I figured I figured three man we're having department heads come in on their day off and they're here hours after I see going through these quickly and and getting what we need to do but then our discussion afterward is going to be I mean Steve alone is about 30 slides true I know we've got you know Chuck had about five more questions to ask the fire department so well to stop that I mean it's just it doesn't necessarily you know like that Ste this is this is part of that this is part of the process too so it isn't intended to answer every question the process used to be we would leave here today Saturday with a balanced budget and we could all celebrate the victory without with a couple little tweaks not how fast we can get through the presentations and that that's still my expectation Gary is you I just uh I I hear Absolut it's not I mean I kind knew my day was going to be here I just it's unfortunate that's all I know some like Steve's an hour and a half starting an hour and a half past when when he should have started I think it's because the schedule was unrealistic okay let's get into it Steve we're taking away from your time yeah we're going to break from my time was over an hour I'll get you right back back on schedule I just need a cou uh a little bit more uh in some uh materials and uh two extra hours for the people in the transer station all right cool see and we're done going by the way anyway thank you for having me um so uh just some of the accomplishments over the last year um big stuff anyway uh reconstruction Heartwell La Lawrence Street uh Jillian way um and then continued work with the pavement preservation program that started some years ago we did uh a double micr surface in the whole mwani neighborhood uh and then uh some cape cealing on uh four or five different cuer saacs around town um all the necessary documents for the Foster Street the phase one project that's currently under construction um got all that paperwork settled so do is funding the construction on that 2-year time frame and overall it's about a $6 million construction project um continuing with the storm water compliance through the the federal regulations for uh the phase two program the ms4 program and also the asset management grant that we got for the storm water system about a year and a half ago uh we've been did a lot of work this past summer we're going to uh do some more work in the spring and then hopefully have um that system set up uh later on in the fall the ongoing uh landfill compliance uh that's been happening just this past week I did receive word from D that they have accepted our kind of modified plan so our uh sampling and and such will come back in some areas so hopefully uh save us a little bit of money going forward on that to more of a standard kind of annual uh testing and sampling and monitoring as opposed to quarterly like we had been doing and then lastly just around town uh you see new street signs going up here there got the town seal on them comply with the current standard in the mutcd Retro reflectivity they call it you know it's that kind of that Prismatic um look been updating some stop signs and some other regulatory signs around as we go but um there something that that needs to be done to maintain compliance with that um for the upcoming year uh Russell Street's big one going to going to get into that this summer um get that rebuil get new sidewalk done uh from King Street to the 295 over pass uh I'd like to uh complete us inventory of the sidewalks in town uh as well as all the Ada ramps uh something that would that would keep us in compliance with the regulation for that um then I know what I have for uh ada8 ramps are they just pinous asphalt are they concrete with a tactile pad that type of thing and we can come up with a plan going forward um to do some work on that uh payment management uh update uh for that program the field work is done I have a meeting coming up this week uh to discuss some of my finances to try to so we can break it out into a 5year plan uh going forward uh and then look at a lot of the work that's been done once that all gets complete I'll be to the board for a presentation and then lastly uh we got the we did uh sign contract for some renovation work at the Frog Pond over by Long Lake uh a lot of that engineering work is ongoing now uh with the hope for uh summertime construction uh Capital uh this year here I go my couple of trucks uh a medium duty uh truck replacement it's a one tonon truck you in uh all facets of work that the department does uh the price we received off State bid uh soup theut so it shows up all I have to do is put a sticker on the door is uh 115,000 um catch basing clean a truck 390,000 um some of that uh and I could probably talk for 4 hours on the heavyduty diesel emissions regulations that have come in uh I have to do some different things to be able to buy a diesel a heavy duty diesel truck uh basically I have to put a snow plow on this where I wouldn't if I didn't have to so it's going to cost me almost $25,000 extra uh cuz I have to stretch the front frame and then have all the extra Hydraulics and stuff um and I also have to petition deep and get a waiver uh because the only things that are exempt from that are fire trucks and ambulances so light and water is going to kind of run into this I was talking to Nick the other day and I'm going to run into it on and I only have a couple of specialty Vehicles right the catch phasing truck would be one and the rolloff uh truck would be another one um but I have to get I cannot buy one if I don't put a snow PL on so yeah I have all the paperwork right here from ma the whole thing brought it just in case but we'll be here literally till 4:00 going through that so let's get into it yeah good bedtime reading um but turn around time that's curious and the last thing on the list is a uh another compactor for the transfer station uh and to just touch on the thought with that briefly uh I want to try to streamline the recycling um into compact is you know we still this is going to blow everybody's brain I say all the time you know we put aluminum here we put plastic here we put cardboard there we put glass over here we you know we used to separate milk jugs back in the day I take the recycling to a single stream facility and it's all separate you know so when I go with a 40 yard container full of aluminum cans it weighs 6 lb you know if I'm throwing that in a compactor with plastics and stuff we can be crushing I can get I can better utilize my staff time and the truck time trips instead of making you know three four five trips to b r The Far Side of b r the old Boston gold plant used to be Feld Purity Supreme plant way back when uh is where waste managements recycling facilities so I can make maybe a couple trips a week you know three trips maybe I'll still probably keep cardboard separate but that's the thought right is that I'll have four compactors plus the cardboard compactor and I can have I can set it up with two aisles I can have trash and recycling and trash and recycling right try to just consolidate everything as a you or I concur oh my God yes you know I know I have to have a whole public education program that you can throw everything in the same thing together but again just to just to try to make my life easier so this isn't replacing a compactor and it's the uh basically it's where the mattress container is now where we'll move some things around but it's it's more or less set up for it um so it's good I don't have to do anything other than really running electrical to it um but again here's just some pictures the the medium duty truck that's truck 7 it's a 2012 uh it's got about 80 a little more than 85,000 miles on it again used in All Phases of of work that we do the next one is the catch Basin truck uh that cabin chassis is a 19 1993 nice God uh that it's probably 10 12 years ago uh I think the town had funded maybe even longer than that they did uh some rehab work to it uh the catch Basin setup so the dump body and the crane and all that stuff is a is a 2000 we kind of have morphed This Together uh over the past year the catch Basin setup even though stco is still the national leader in these setups that's so old we couldn't get parts for the clamshell so we uh mged I guess I'll say a plow piston you know some sheet stock and made it work um so you talk about lead times on these vehicles you know most recently the truck when I first came in the door here the F750 that was approved at Springtown meeting of 22 uh I just got a couple of months ago so you know and now it's at Madigan's doing the 9mon weight down there for plow and sander and dump water uh but just to get the cabin chassis was 2 years so uh the lead again and I'll Echo what was said before me uh it makes you rethink a little bit how you have to plan because we you used to be able you know regular dump truck with a snowplow on it you could get 12 months uh it's just not not the case uh so you have to kind of I don't want to use the key phrase of the day but you have to think ahead a little bit go Marx all again that's just you can see the kind of the to the right of the photo there that's the back of the container we use for mattresses so that's where that other compactor would go uh Steve can I jump in real quick a minute um do you do um is it North Haven oil undercoating for any of the trucks you get a lot of get a lot of miles or lot of use years out of the trucks are they oil undercoated so we use uh fluid film it's similar type of thing um you know you get up north they use old motor oil or bar and chain oil you know spray it underneath and uh but we use fluid film you know and that does help yeah um you as opposed to crawling around on the ground getting up under it with a you know high pressure hose trying to knock stuff off but the fluid film does definitely help yeah smells like no good but yeah all right just from a preventative maintenance standpoint I think it's invaluable I mean more and more private vehicle owners are doing that especially with trucks done it as well yeah so yeah no Abol everybody knows I've got a whole Fleet in my front yard and they've all been sprayed so I'm thinking of it's good enough for the dast boy the dast fleet why I hope that we're using it on these pieces of equipment are much more expensive yep no absolutely thank you sorry to interrupt uh and this is um just looking out over the next few years Capital uh I'd like to purchase a wheeled excavator uh next year uh we the last two summers we have rented a machine uh for construction season but I think it's it's probably worth purchasing one uh replacing the mechanics truck which which is a 2008 uh next year um irrigation at Whitfield with the with the project going through parking W now that the baseball field will be all redone um or at least the infield in the back stops and some fencing and stuff but so the timing would be the same line no I would come in the following you let them okay um do their fence work and then I can pull irrigation through and do a little work to that pump cuz still works fine that's the one spot in town that never dries up right there so uh it's it's decent water um but we could add irrigation and then uh with the thought of possibly expanding over to inside the track to the future date um replacement of a sidewalk machine uh another probably replacement of a compactor at the transfer station they're getting old field MOA you know back replacement then just continuing on with you know sort of the rotation of trucks the the big trucks thankfully Are all uh fairly decent you see the last one on there is a heavy duty truck and that's truck 13 that is also a 1993 Mac so you know we're uh the town before me has has done you know a very good job of keeping this stuff obviously you know a truck that Sands and salts and runs gravel and plows and everything else uh to be probably that truck will 40 years old when it gets replaced so and frankly the equipment looks good too you want to have a little pride in the stuff and so it's a it's a consistent year-over-year three to 4 to 500,000 in equipment year by year so yeah I mean it's it's fairly consistent makes it easier to plan so is there a reason to do the Wicken field irrigation so far after they're doing it rather than at the same time and and the if you're going to do the track I mean the tracks on the plan Capital plan as well to be resurfaced so is there a reason to do it after rather than in conjunction to me it's just the way it's and sitting in some of those meetings uh for the courts in the ball field they're going to try to kind of cram that in during summer um you know without school I think just timing wise it just we be better served if I did it the following summer okay and and this might be more of a question for Ryan is this something that would fall under the cash budget or the CPC budget what the irrigation um I thought we did Wells under CPC or we talked about I don't know what they existing yeah we we can we can look into that I know Steve's already done a few it's going to allow us to reduce our operating budget in terms of water demand so uh we could look at that too for next year and there's no other Wells we're looking at for Fields currently I think you've done a few already yeah we put the one at Kerper I'm going to be doing the one at the common there was a little bit of hold up with the one in the common um but the the well at ker we pulling almost 100 gallons a minute um it's great so I can uh the return on investment is huge I think they only the next one possibly uh would be the high school Fields um irrigation is all in there obviously you just need a well uh but that gets into the conversation with that is the discharge site for sure and then if we're that's recharging ground water and I'm pulling it back so there we got a little bit of homework to do on that um if even something like that would be allowed uh but that would be the big the big one um just to touch on this a little bit uh because it'll be it'll be coming uh our DPW facility uh last year we funded the feasibility study uh try to come in uh take a look at what we have what we need uh contracted with Weston and Samson um they're kind of the leader in the Northeast um for Public Work facilities and worked with them in chord uh brought them in here uh we are probably 80% uh through the study at this point so really what they did was they came in looked at our current space um needs and deficiencies that we currently have like I have things outside I have I have things at light and Waters uh property at parley Lumber you know it leaving things outside excuse me uh is not ideal uh you know it takes the it cuts down on your life span of the equipment um they they took a look at what we currently have for employees Vehicles you know how things are stored where things are stored that type of thing uh and then is going through the process uh look basically they they plug it into a matrix right they know I have X number of employees and it's so much Swifty so much facility you know facility needs for for that but then if we potentially add you know another person in Parks another person in Highway you know someone uh in engineering or something uh they need office space we need extra walk that type of thing uh and then equipment do we need you know in the future if we're going to get this or equipment's going to Vehicles will kind of stay the same um and then other things that we don't have currently like I we wash trucks outside I don't have an internal wash bay um so you know when it's we're out all night Chandon and Sol what's the first thing you want to do you want to rinse you know to what Chuck was saying earlier you want to uh get a lot of that material off you don't want salt sitting up in the frame rails you want to rinse them so I got guys crawling around in the parking lot you know which that's no good uh if you think does the current site that we're on does it work uh you know we've looked at kind of we got three sort of options for the current site I'll say this now and you'll hear more when we do a presentation when the study's done it's not ideal at all um basically because of how it kind of squeezed off to one side from Light and Water and we're kind of in the corn it's just it's not ideal uh and then you know potential for a new location we've kind kind of looked at a few different properties try to stick to commercial areas uh We've looked at empty pieces uh if there's a possibility of something with a building that could be repurposed I know that's a popular thing chord did it um I think boxboro did it um at one point town of Holden was looking at a a warehouse building you know C with be bought a 96,000 ft Warehouse you know it's full now believe it or not um but that was the way to go and it's all stuff like that is time right the piece of property has to come up that um so just going forward a little bit uh next few weeks I do anticipate a draft report after that I'll get with uh administrator dougen and assistant administrator ferara and and discuss it and then we'll be to the uh select board uh kind of bolded it and underlined it so everybody understands it it's early in preliminary but you know the the program numbers uh assuming all new come in at 40 to 45 million uh you know that's office space facilities mechanics Bay vehicle storage you know material storage uh new salt shed so everything about land purchase there is a there is a uh some soft cost in N Land um that number did have fuel Island and stuff but the since that I've cut that out cuz the fuel Island would obviously just stay where it is uh there's no reason to build another fuel Island um lot of there's a lot uh that's involved with it and again it'll get as we get further and get the presentations uh I think people will understand that number I'm sure Facebook's already bouncing around right oh my God this my Mo but um we have all the backup data from the communities that have recently built or are in the process of building facilities uh and they're they're confident in these numbers so again once we get the final uh report happy to do the presentation and have more discussion um operating budget really uh pretty much you know stayed in my Lane uh just went up a little bit you know marginal increases on a few of line items for parts and supplies and materials cuz you know the cost of everything is kind of ticked up a little bit and the one thing I really want to do uh is make the transfer station employees 40 hours a week they're currently 38 uh if they go to yeah I I don't know either um but if they go to 40 then all of my people are 4 days uh 40 hours uh it just it cleans everything up everybody's the same it makes life a lot simpler and it's it's fairly and i' you know we've had the discussions internally everybody down the shop is on board with it uh so there won't be any any issue there uh and the thought is you know there's there's always stuff to do at the transfer station you know um so if they if we work it out that they come in a little early or they you know it's really a half an hour a day right 15 minutes earlier 15 minutes later Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Saturday y still y so um but really uh everything else is was kind of level funded um when I look at just you know tools equipment and supplies vehicle repair um I did go up a little bit on police details and some of the drivers have my you know my guys are now 10 hours a day so if I go over 8 hours the detail gets a bump so uh a little bit there and plus with the you know possible new contract with the police not knowing uh what the detail rates will be little bit in roadway supplies um but everything else is more or less uh level Fund in in the um in the book The Ark and park staff wages went down substantially so my understanding uh with that was that was the line that when the contract was settled last spring that was the line where all the overages were or the the new contract funding was dumped right it went well I it went from 122 and 24 to 306 back on to 183 so I just it's right one of these that's bouncing all over so I think Steve's right I think that's what made that so we're just hiding okay thank you any questions any questions Steve Steve is is um 179 Taylor Street the mot Depot is that they pretty much shut down the one that's inside the ramp because they used to be a trail and there still a trail there but they don't use it the one across the street that's fenced in that has the wooden bottom I don't think it's a salt shed the salt shed down by spec Pond um is that something that they've abandoned uh do you know if they use it at all no they still run out of it do they yeah do you see people MD out of there it's right near your house it's the police trap from there I know that where the shed is yeah they yeah they still run out of there I think they don't use the shed on on air road to run route two they come out of that I know okay I had just I just haven't seen any any activity down there so I didn't know if that was something we could do some was trading with the state yeah the state usually doesn't give away land that's typically not right uh sidewalk sidewalk ada8 plan uh inventory I know we're doing a through the um disability commission we're we're funding an ADA study on all our is could that be part of it or not I we're not we're not going to fund that we're going to go through the state resources there but if that something that could grab this separate well no it's completely separate because it's like it's specifying Town owned Town own buildings and stuff like that okay yeah so I would just do this with internal staff okay oh I see it's basically just driving the road and then you know you know sidewalk type curbing type if any you know it's it's K God B it's Granite curb slope Granite curb and then when you get to um a curb ramp what's the type is it just asphalt is it concrete with the tactile pad you then it's just for my M right then we can develop a plan to to bring everything because current s is concrete with the pass okay so so I think I hit you up on this one before but complete streets and updating the priority plan and if we're going after complete streets funding for Russell Street yep so I can apply for um complete streets funding for Russell Street uh the next cycle I think they have to be in the end of February and then funding becomes or the awards are in April I think um that's usually a twice a year cycle so we can certainly apply and and um so everyone's aware Steve was at a BAC meeting a month or so ago and BAC offer to help with updating complete streets prioritization in other ples anything else to Steve oh uh lastly operating just looking out towards the future again you know the the cost of doing business goes up right as fuel goes up as fall prices go up um you know parts are you know increases uh that type of thing um Personnel wise uh there is need as the Comm you know you hear it everybody before me right the community grows you know in the past few years what is the town added you know uh derky farm coopa farm you know uh so right there's a few miles a road you know anide walking you know Drainage Systems detention funds all this stuff we need to maintain so that you know you purchase more property Indian Hill you know there'll be new Fields coming um with school projects and the like so you know additional need I know you go back to park studies that were done and it should be six and a half or seven people and that was the reason that you know they went from two to three so you know we have but we do different things to try to work but eventually you know we do need help um you know I'd like to add somebody that could can work with me you know as an engineer or an assistant to me to help you know the like you say there's complete Street Grants there's all kinds of other grants you know in amongst the course of the day those things take a a lot of time so some you know and then ultimately another mechanic um a lot of the drive at the mechanic would be you know if we're fortunate enough to get a new facility you know I can have a a a much better mechanics area uh and then there's the thought of do we you know maybe work on some of the other department stuff um we kind of do now in a pinch like we've worked on the uh old Cruisers that are the building users and things like that um we did the tires on the brush truck for the fire department um you know the old military truck that they have when you know the brush fires were everywhere they go out with the truck and the tires are all dry roded so you know my guys were able to get the tires they bought the tires and everything but we were able to help get it on cuz there military truck they have internal air systems and all this other stuff so my mechanic think is for military so that worked out pretty good but you know that's I know that's a lot of towns try to do that consolidate you know we wouldn't be working on fire trucks or anything like that but you know admin Vehicles cruises you know we change oil brakes things like that ultimately you know you save a little bit of money um and then ultimately going forward the big you know the elephant in the room is the facility so but we we'll have more discussions on that going forward ignoring the elephant I'll ask you the same question I've asked everyone else and when do you when would you anticipate those hires wa which of those five years so to me um a lot of it's tough cuz I don't have room now to put anybody else you know uh for the knock on stuff for the first time since I've been here 3 years we're fully staffed you know we've been fully staff since Labor Day uh so when I get a couple of sum of kids you know I'm running out of chairs I don't have any Locker space for anybody else I certainly don't have any office space so if I was going to hire a you know someone else as like an engineer or something they'd be working out of the conference room um mechanic I could probably hire um so I I would you know see how the talk about the facility shake out and then I'd really come up with a plan going forward cuz if I was to put put two extra people in the workforce I don't have space for them I really don't and I know there's a lot of state and potentially Federal projects going on around with the 495 bridge and Beaverbrook and the Beaverbrook and then you know what other rol is doing and all of this and how much of your time does that take and does it do you need help on managing or do you anticipate needing help on that front so with those projects it's really just attending meetings uh especially like the bridge deck 495 or the um the culbert if you want to call it that uh by the police station uh it's just attending given local opinion um we're not involved with funding we not involved with construction design any of that so it's just kind of being the local eyes on the project when you get into projects like fosta Street the um roundabout that's taking forever at Beaver Brook Road those do take up a lot of time but they come in bunches like all of a sudden it's like a solid 3 days and then he might not do anything for a few weeks you know um but it's those it's the funding programs right so like Foster Street is in the tip program so the town funds design has to acquire any RightWay um things like that so we're you know we probably spend total a half million dollars but you're getting a roughly 6 Mill million construction project my question was more are you going to need help in your department as more and more of these projects seem to be materializing in town cuz I don't know that those three hires necessarily help maybe the town engineer helps cover the well that would be the point of the Eng thank you anyone else quick on the junior mechanic um is that a position that could be filled with um Co-op kids out of nelch they have you know if it truly is a junior mechanic they're probably doing the oil changes the tires the whatever they'd be working as an extra pair of hands for your senior mechanic do you see any likelihood that you could do that use a you know a call that kid out of the tech I guess honest to be perfectly honest i' never thought of something like that um coming from a large municipality you know with with four mechanics so um right now we just you know witer time when it's a little slower out on the road we give them a second set of hands to help uh you know do different things um but there's a there's a need for a well there will be a need I guess I should say for a full-time second set of hands in there especially if I do get a new um facility with a new mechanic setup will we we could bring in other Department's Vehicles mhm um that's we looking at just something that yeah no I guess honestly I know uh like was discussed earlier they uh people send stuff to the show but Tech it used to be like The Body Shop really they would paint all the old Cruisers they did it for J through um thank you no good Ken you have anything no thanks Steve thank you thank you Steve how about we uh take like a 15minute break or so yes pleas hope you make it home for dinner it's almost breakfast time on Sunday he welcome back part two of our budget meeting for FY 26 and we're in the operating budget status update this so y so before we get into Steve just uh your update just to give everybody um little kind of a an update since the budget was U was published as a reminder the budget is a balanced budget so as Steve has reminded us multiple times whatever we uh whatever we add we have to make Subs Cuts so just to provide folks with a quick update on things that we're still keeping an eye on and things that will likely change for the final budget and what will be presented at the uh May 6 town meeting uh first thing is uh we've taken another look at our workers compensation line item uh we received a mid-year audit uh which um basically takes a look at uh how many employees we have and where things um stand uh based on that and where our Trends are going we think we might uh we're going to have to probably add about 30,000 uh dollars there uh in terms of state aid house one was released um a little uh over a week ago uh we budgeted 1% and looks like our increase is about 3.58% so uh there's a little bit more money uh and revenue there on that side uh next up is noova Technical High School we budgeted five % um the actual assessment was released on Friday uh that some of you had attended it's actually $41,000 uh roughly less than what we budgeted and uh so we have that working to our advantage um one of the real big uh factors that we have in any budget is our Healthcare line item so at the Maya conference which was a couple weeks back um they announced what they do is they announ announc a range for our healthc care based on the initial conversations that we had in the proposed FY 26 budget it was a uh we're budgeting a 15% premium for active employees and a 17.5% increase for retirees the range is uh released by Maya is somewhere between 9.92 and 19.9 to uh so um based upon our experience uh to date uh that um you know that might be um uh we may be on the higher range of that so it's something we're keeping an eye on uh we'll have a final figure um presented to us uh in the uh mid-February to late February time frame but um you know it could be a significant U adjustment potentially couple hundred U maybe a couple hundred thousand maybe even higher so so it's another thing we're keeping a close close eye on in terms of where we're at uh last thing and this was something that came up at um I believe Karen you had mentioned at um last uh I don't know if it's a budget meeting or select board meeting starting to all blend together this week I I so uh but to put money into the select board budget to account for uh administrative wages for a recording secretary for the charter committee as they begin their work so these are all variables the the budget is a um continually changing and and and U uh continual things that we were looking at but these are the big items that we wanted to bring to your attention that we're seeing as active um and U will um be adjusted as we as we finalize the budget are you suggesting the healthcare is over or under budgeted uh I think right now in terms of what uh what we've targeted uh we are looking it's looking to be higher so at this point than what we budgeted than what the budget is right and that's that's Jerry that's with a 15% increase and one of the it's it's amazing and this is the highest this range is is the highest I've ever seen Maya go to um there are you know a number of factors uh that are going into it but um it is one of the things my pride itself is is is really reducing and controlling those rates there are nonprofit for you know for municipalities and groups like um lwdd and you know light light light plants and such as but it this is um I think Jim and I talked about like this is the highest we've seen and even talking to our agents the highest she's seen too so but no bigger range too than typically they estimate I 10% High um you they usually it's usually a little bit narrower too so it it gives you a sense of the just um the flux and the uncertainty that they're experiencing so you're right mine up 18% M so give you an idea looking at this whole page it looks like it's a wash yeah potentially yeah the health in the best case of wash I mean I looked at that 178 and I like oh yeah it's like no it's gone is that 178 gross on the revenue side or is it net ass it's it's net that's net good good so it's net of the expense expenses so yeah we went through all of that to make sure that we were presenting the net but that is just the governor's proposal right and that and that can change too but typically by the time we actually set the budget maybe we'll have the next version like the house version maybe but typically uh you don't see a yeah typically once the governor's number you you if anything it goes a little higher but we've also occasionally seen it you know change so it's it's fluid like all of these things are are you know in terms of our targets you know change a little bit but again we've presented the a a a balanced budget these are the factors that um you know that that are still at play course as we close things up what would a what would a 2% Health Care increase do on top of the 15 roughly so you're talking you know potentially like you're looking at maybe another couple hundred thousand so yeah so so it is a wash at best in best scenario at best at best there's there there's no relief here for us no no that's but it's uh you know but none of this is abnormal in the sense of things that you know that we we see at this stage of the of the game and um you know pluses and minuses so and when do you hope to have a healthcare number uh we will for the final budget so that that should be presented uh to us and all of the community these specific numbers based upon their run rates in the mid-February to late February time frame that's going to sync some communities I think I was I was just speaking with Michelle they were saying Michelle lives in in chelsford and they think they're going to be on the higher side of that and just you know obviously a much bigger budget but uh somewhere of this in just just the increase from year to year about $3 million do I think is breast almost four okay right so which is again a much bigger budget but it's um you know it's it's a big change from what you have to doal so Jamie Eldridge put out a a bill for Medicare for all in Massachusetts and there's a calculator that's out there for municipalities to to put in all their information about their budget and see what the Delta would be if it if this bill were to pass um I think it's worth our time time to go ahead and and complete that form and do a do that quick analysis and see whether it's whether we want to get behind it as a town it's on his website yeah it's called um it's at Mass care.org okay okay thanks yeah all right so that's where we are with our operating budget and then in terms of the capital status update um this is just a reminder of what's actually in the budget so uh this is what was presented um so you'll see components on this such as the cemetery truck replacement which um TC so generously uh pushed that off to U another uh another year um elements in here also uh there's it's basically all of the mix of fire police parks and wreck and again this is what's in your budget so the total uh Capital plan with funding via the CPC preash and capital stabilization is a capital plan of about 2.7 million right can you back up one slide please M the chief's vehicle is in 2027 right right so that's the next that that's yeah that so this is what was presented I'm sorry yeah yeah so this is what was presented and what we're going to show next is um where we go in so fire chief vehicle there it is right there right there so uh so uh the fire chief is deferring his vehicle to FY 27 the uh Long Lake dock Phase 2 is we're moving that to the CPC these are all suggestions uh to give due credit to Fred and Steve for pushing this along not too and uh really the um the major change that we're seeing on the capital budget and I think Steve you had provided a little overview of this but that the uh during the last school budget update but that basically the school is now U committing to uh take on more for their own Capital items so that we can the money that the town otherwise would have been spending on those Capital items via free cash will now go to the school building stabilization fund and allow us savings that we can now put toward uh what we know the Shaker Lane uh school which Steve is going to talk more about um later on in this but the key items that were in the initial budget that will then uh be taken off or covered by the school so they're still happening just going to be funded through the schools uh is the uh replacement of um HVAC Rooftop at the middle school the Russell Street playground uh which I think they were going to fund through um uh money in the tigers den uh U fund and then uh the track renovation at $160,000 so um what this would be what the proposal here would be is the uh schools have um they would be putting forward uh I think it's $120,000 uh that they would be contributing to CPC plus an additional 40,000 which is monies they've received from um the local track uh nonprofit they would then put all that money into the CPC so that we can get our matching amount for the CPC and then um have the project essentially funded uh through the CPC and not on or not out of free right you vetted the 160 with uh Steve Mark so he because when we sat down they were only talking the 120 they weren't talking the other 40 but I just want to make sure they already have the other 40 in an account they I know they have it but have they committed to roll it out to the project is my only question that's you know that's my understanding Fred that um I think you know you know this is all relatively new but I think uh what's good is you know the meetings that you participated in we talked the gym sat down and talked to the schools we think that part of this is all part of an effort of what we're going to do and Steve is going to hit on later and talk about how we plan I was in that meeting also and I I just want to make sure that there Communications afterward we've made that point to okay okay great super okay so um so uh the total reduced free cash capital is 390,000 plus the uh amount that uh the vehicle uh that that um the cemetery um because I just learned about that during this meeting that they wanted to put that up so you could take the uh 390,000 and add I think the roughly 82,000 that uh for that as well so that's where we are on the capital side of things uh in terms of uh that uh so just to recap based upon our financial policy we've had available roughly $1.6 million in uh available uh Capital Project funding um then in terms of um actual capital projects was about 9007 again you're going to minus you're going to subtract out the uh $882,000 which means that roughly $661,000 is available so this is an increase from I wanted to note that this is an increase from when we provide our January 21st update um that uh that it's it's a bump up of 390,000 and that has to do with uh the schools making their commitment to this plan that um again Steve is going to talk about here so um so we you know again this is a dynamic process we're continuing to um update this even this morning you saw that update about the the vehicle but um this is the by taking these measures this is how we're saving for our future needs okay so that's uh that's basically where we are with our operating capital and uh now I will turn it over to Steve uh so um he can provide his update on reserves and Capital project as so one of the things that as we were talking about shake elene and how we were going to fund it um I know Fred's been talking to me a lot about this and Brian you mentioned it at the last meeting is something that that Mark has been asking for as some type of plan um I promised I would look at the capital plant as it was submitted by departments how we're going to f it um do we have the ability to fund it with cash what's the level of borrowings we need to do and how does it affect the operating bud we're going to look at all that and I hope you don't get bored with all the numbers because there's a lot of sheets and numbers here but we're going to look at all that how it affects our reserves and we're going to look at the latest impacts of shake Elaine and potential impacts I have other major projects it's basically the DPW facility that we'll be talking about so when we talk about reserves for Capital we have those these four buckets that we deal with free cash um for the most part it's the unappropriated income unspent expenditures there's some other accounts that go into that but for the most part that's what free cash is we have Capital stabilization that savings account we have our debt exclusion stabilization which pays for the excluded debt we're using inside Levy money we've been doing that for about s years now and new last year was our school building stabilization fund putting funds aside mainly for Shaker Lane um to bring down construction costs so this is really small on the chart but this is our Capital plan for um that was given to us by our dep Department that'ss it's $ 33.8 million the only thing that is missing from this plan that we heard about this morning was um the cemetery building so there's nothing in here for the cemetery um so we can factor that in at some point and what I did is I took the capital plan that Ryan submitted and I signed funding sources to each of the items going out for the 10 years and the Top Line funding with free cash so that's money that's available to us in the current fiscal year from the certified free cash levels um that's 8.7 million over the 10year cycle some items that we won't be having to deal with the CPC and revolving fund aspect of it that's outside of our budget Capital stabilization that's our savings account we have a couple of things that going directly towards that we don't have to deal with ambulance as we heard from the fire chief our receipts should take care of that I've assigned some things to debt some short-term debt some long-term debt and there different ways we can deal with that but there's debt involved here of 7.3 million msba I refer to that those are the three School roups in the boiler our assumptions in here is that we we go to msba there'll be a 60/40 split um this is the gross number when we look at the funding uh we'll talk about the net number and then school choice is what Ryan just talked about is items that the school department is committing to fund over the next 7 years or whatever it is that's listed up 2.7 million but the school to set to commit to that was huge for us not only for the town but for the shakan project and and we'll see that when we get into a little bit of Shaka numbers the effect that that's had on how we can bring that cost down to the taxpayer and so youve just a question before you go this in this spending includes all the fire trucks yep um but it doesn't include Shaker or the um DPW building no cuz that's excluded debt so that's okay thank you yes yep by the way the DPW facility in 45 million would have to be a debt exclusion no surprises there okay and your your assumption is that msba is going to fund us three years in a row which Pro and and we'll talk about that our Alternatives I I do deal with some Alternatives even every other year they see litted on their three years in their other way okay y understood so we talk about the the first component which is the biggest component is free cash and we hear about that number and and you know we can say the State Certified $10 million of free cash that doesn't mean we get to spend $10 million because our policy says we need to keep 7.5% basically in reserve okay and there's a reason that we do that and maybe we'll see that when we talk about the free cash estimates later on so moving forward I look back at the last four certifications from the state and the new component the new free cash component of it average $6.2 million the lowest piece of it was 4.5 million so for this assumption I used the 4 1 half million for the next few years and lowered it as we went forward so I think I did 4 a quarter and then down to 4 million um out to fy4 and we still have that 7 and 1 half% policy limit sorry Steve yep why assume a decrease because my assumption there would be there'd be more pressure from the operating budget that we'd have to increase our um leaking in of the revenue stream which is the biggest supplier of free cash for us so the more and we saw that last year we originally had 700,000 coming out of the income piece right we increased our Revenue stream that would have impacted our free cash for this year and we were to bring that number down to a reasonable number so okay gotta that was the the reason I did that I figured there'd be some pressure on the operating budget by that time makes sense I think I think that's totally reasonable and appropriate because I mean how many departments that we've seen in the last couple of days didn't say that they needed more Personnel yeah no not wanted but needed y so the other thing that that I did was speaking to the operating budget I said there'd be a 5% increase in the operating budget each year it's just over 4% this year so I fig 5% going forward which means that that 75% grows each year by that 5% and the chart here shows that so the green line is the 75% of an increasing operating budget and the purple line is what we get to spend from free cash and you see that's decreased so if I'm keeping the $4 million level a piece of that 4 million that we're getting in each time has to go up to that 75% so we're actually funding less out of free cash as we move forward so that's a pressure that we need to yep be aware of yeah thank you okay lots of numbers this is the sheet that Robin and Kim in the treasurer's office deal with um I extracted did a lot of things and don't have to worry Brian we got uh some highlights here coming up top two lines beginning balance beginning balance on that Top Line is simply the ending balance from the previous year that's the 7 1 12% we're keeping so the second line that new free cash that comes in that 4 and2 to 4 million decreasing is what we have to work with Okay y so when the state comes in and says you know you have $10.5 million in free cash like the or 10.2 in FY 27 we can only spend that 45 million that we get new in a given year and you can see in that that bottom the total uses is always less than what is coming in in that new free cash by the amount that we're putting aside in that 75% y okay y how do we spend that 4 million bucks or 4 a half million bucks policy says we put $100,000 away in general stabilization each year policy well not policy but our practice on the next slide Ryan is that we're funding our existing debt exclusion stabilization plan so this covers the old items police station Russell Street middle school that's the only things that are left so these deposits over the next four years satisfy that plan that we have in place so we're not changing that plan and after those four years have they paid off they're gone but this is accelerating payment on these um so the tax pay will be the last two years but we haven't changed these estimates going in okay and see just one question that the 100,000 for stabilization that's policy but it's also it has to be a certain percentage of the the total budget as well doesn't it so one of the changes that we did in the policy so we have that 5% limit and we're over the 5% and members of the committee wanted a contribution whether it was a token contribution or not to boost that number up and that's what that 100,000 we are over the 5% limit right now yeah okay cool okay another couple of lines is is how we fund Capital that first capital line that's that's not Noti there that starting with the 9007 588 that's the number that ran showed for this year's Capital plan we would decrease the cemetery truck by that and probably increase Capital stabilization and see when we get to Capital stabilization why I'm saying put it to cap stab cap stab is just our savings account that we have for future purchases uh the next one School building stabilization you jumped ahead one right which one there we go oh sorry okay School building stabilization this is what we said um or at least what I said moving forward was a minimum of a million dollar a year so you can see our million dollar turned into $2 million this year just by um the school contribution which is a big piece of this and some extra fun that we had from things that we had anticipated beond the capital plan that we moved out of the capital plan so you can see that it's 2 million this year a million4 and a million 65,000 that's anything over that million is directly because of the school department yep okay next piece is what I talked about before is we fund Capital uh we fund the school building stabilization until Construction put that money toward the construction cost and then stop putting money aside in the debt exclusion stabilization account for shakol Lane and now I added for the DPW building because from our point of view we really shouldn't be treating those two projects any differently and we'll see when we talk about those two projects we're treating them exactly the same as we move forward okay and again over that million dollars on the Shaker Lane line is because of the school department and then in the out years actually anything over 500,000 on the Shaker Lane line at that point in time is because of the school department so you can see a million 360 in that first year there we're only putting in 500 they're doing the rest yep absolutely okay y so it's what the contribution is critical to this project taking all those deposits the deposits and all the uses we still maintain a 75% policy limit so we're able to fund a lot of things so what are we funding here we go into cap Stave and again the first line is the balances next slide there we go the balances then we have the deposits coming in which came in from free cash and this last is the uses first two numbers are the fire engines that Steele talked about today paying cash for the two fire engines the next three are the school roofs and the boiler at the 60% now granted we don't know what the cost of those are they could go up they could go down Steve says he had um people look at look at and price it out with an escalation in there so this is what we have to go by for right now but he's still so this is the 400 plus 800 uh 4 million plus the 800,000 yeah what you get in there okay yeah okay and just one other point too but for for the msba program we were saying a 60/40 split this is separate from the school building authority so it would be um there's a separate program that they have for roof Replacements boiler Replacements building tightening so there may be a potential for us in terms of when we put this application together there may be a benefit to bring it all together into one application and see what what that brings us Charlie yesterday at the breakfast was talking about an accelerated accelerated CLE that comes in every 2 years yeah that's what that's what this is that's what this would be great so if you would ask me if you go back on on mhm if you asked me 4 months ago 3 months ago would we be able to handle all those things with cash I would have said you were crazy but we can as long as it's with these numbers to the extent that those roots go over then we'd have to start talking about some piece of that as being dead where if where if they don't if they don't give us the matches cuz that's not well that's a given yes yeah yeah it would it would be that so go down one right okay we'll talk about a little bit more of this this debt but there's been some some of the capital plan that I'm funding with short-term debt so Bank anticipation notes that short-term debt paying The Debt Service out of our cash out of our savings account so it's not affecting the operating budget we'll see what items those are in a little while but it goes down to 925,000 fy3 so we have a $900,000 basic cushion right there in case the roofs come in higher msba doesn't cover something to the extent that we're thinking there's still a little cushion there okay okay so that's something to keep an eye on but to the extent that we undercut that $4 million estimate in free cash we can certainly put more money into cap Stave to help with any of these shortfalls we may have on the roofs because I I would think our goal is to minimize debt whenever we can yeah and we say positive yep that's okay next is the school building stabilization we stop with the balances we started the account last year that 1.1 million uh we're talking about putting money in next couple of slides Ryan from the free cash those three years up front the numbers we just pulled from that free cash estimate and then in FY 29 for construction costs we're taking $6 million out of this account we would wipe whatever balance there is I use the 6 million to to show yeah a couple of weeks ago that number was $4,180 th000 we're now up to $6 million to reduce construction cost by so this isn't the short-term ban you're going to have to take out this is actually the actual overall this is the so the 6 million you come off the 74 million comes off the top of the construction cost which decreases the short-term borrowing we have to do because we' have that money shortterm borrowing we would use the short-term money that we put up as last so use the state's money you use the stabilization money and then you borrow the rest and that's all up to Robin she's got it what do you feel like doing million here million there hold M you're want to fire a trck so the last component is the that exclusion stabilization account St starting off with our balances the next slide shows the deposits going in for our existing debt if you want to go up one there you go and then the next slide shows the withdrawals for those existing debt services so FY 30 and 31 those two numbers there completely cover excluded debt for those prior projects so it's out of the taxpayers tax bills at that point in time using inside Levy money to fund that this is the money coming in from free cash for the two projects and this is the money that we be sending out of this account to help with The Debt Service um and decrease the taxpayers impact at that point in time so what have we talked about so far so we talked about conservative estimate on on our free cash and we're covering 8.8 million over the 10 years out of cash payments of our Capital plan cap stab is we're funding both fire engines and 60% of the roofs in the boiler in cash and we're covering $12.6 million in items from from the that Capital plan on those things so in total we're funding $21.4 million out of the $38 million in cash without borrowing a Deb which is huge School building stabilization we've increased that from 4.1 million up to 6 million that's what we're going to cover for construction costs and we have debt exclusion stabilization that we're going to cover some of the Deb for shakeline in DPW now we're talking about what debt are we going to need to cover and again the only thing I didn't we don't have the cemetery facility in here CU we didn't have a number for it but as you can see later on I did add something that isn't in the Capo PL too so for beans in the next slide Ryan for bands that were going to issue engine four which is what steel talked about going out into FY 30 it was two lead twoyear lead time you place the debt in a place where you don't have to cover it right away we wouldn't have to place the debt and pay something until FY 33 and I figured a 5e ban for that and we can pay that off the second no the second piece would be the dog park that's sitting there for parking wreck threeyear being at that point in time and the reason we're issuing a ban for that is because if you remember the cap stab number was down to 900,000 in that year so there's no way we could have funded the dog park had a little bit of a cushion for the roofs so we'll be in that over 3 years have have we agreed that we want to do that project I'm not saying I agree with these things on the capital plan I'm covering what's in the capital plan okay cuz they they suggested a dog park and a pool well in the Fay Park renovation in the long-term debt Ryan okay I mean to to that point Brian I mean the the fire chief said we need two solid vehicles to adequate adequately serve the community so there's 1 2 3 4 plus the latter truck is five I mean and and we need to make a decision like that that was part of the something we the discussion that we had with the chief is you get to that point and insurance regulations change do you go for three fire engines do you stick with two of the engines and then the replacement time could be shortened a little cuz you're using them more there's not three in the rotation there's two so that's a decision that we need to talk about when that time comes is cost benefit of those we can't put enough all the all the equipment that we have we don't have enough people at the firehouse to roll them mhm so and I'll just go back to that that almost all of these things are almost non-discretionary I mean you have to have them as much as i' love a dog park in a pool I don't put those in that must have category you can say that have a lot of the equipment that's on on the list but again I'm just doing what the Departments have requested can we fund those things which was basically your initial question right yep okay so that's what we're doing okay long-term debt we're talking about a pool that is on the list for 2.9 Million the addition that I put on here is the town hall buildup with $3 million I don't know the time frame we're talking maybe an accelerated um phas In from from sell on how we're going to do this I have noide idea what the cost is but I knew there was something that was coming I put it in for $3 million and the F par renovation for $1.7 million these would be 10year bonds that we would issue these things out of is the town hall build out for the building across the parking lot Shad Street it would be for a new town hall facility 3 million build if it were at 550 King Street and the shell was delivered to us the buildout would be more than 3 million but that's it's an adorable number thank you it's just a placeholder it's it's absolutely so make it a billion so going back one Ryan one sec so out of all that long-term debt whatever we place in long-term debt whether it's you know 10 million for a town hall build out or or Fay Park is gone what whatever we say the long-term debt that we place is going to affect the operating budget and the only relief we have of that is what we can pay out of our cap stab which starts to build up in after 2030 after it hits that low number it starts to build a little up but we certainly can't swing this Debt Service here so this would have an operating budget impact anything that we borrow longterm for St if you have any assumption here 550k no no as far as Revenue no so that's a good so that yeah so this is very conservative it's very conservative that's what yeah so this is all basically things that are on the book The Books right now okay so if it just got back to what IBM was paying you're not even counting that you're counting as it stands today well that's that's operating budget so right could could that piece of it help that yeah absolutely yes Steve have you considered at all that the possibility that the like dark Park um pool could be uh dead exclusion so we'll talk about that when we get to couple more slides okay did you do a sensitivity dog dogol yeah much the shallow I'd I'd say man just since we're doing Shaker just put a pool in the new Shaker oh my God stop it we're already dirty let's get this no no that's the thing I mean I'm sort of kidding but you know you know what's what's 10 million you know 110 million 120 million no B deal was it was 2.9 or 3.9 2.9 wasn't it 2.9 that's that's what uh penre put in there9 oh we get it from Namco so I'm finishing up on Capital we used the 10-year plan that that department heads gave us we funded 21.4 million in free cash and stabilization money in cash 7.3 in debt and we have two projects that we added the DPW facility and the town hall buildout green million for the town hall Builder that's there is going to be long-term debt so that's operating budget impact DPW 45 million is going to have to be a debt exclusion so right now the only we out of that 33 million in the capital plan the thing where impacting the operating budget part is at the most what it looks like right now is a million dollars in the heaviest years which is out into the early 30 and we're paying a million 8 KN this year for the sewer true which we hopefully won't be still paying in 3 or four years so thatan that's in the operating budget so just you so to keep that in the back here in mind as well so so to go along with that if that number starts to come down and we start spending it somewhere else that's not going to help us with this so we need to be smart and cognizant of what happens when that debt service starts to come down do we push it aside somewhere else in cap Stave maybe to help pay for that stuff that would be the smart thing that's only The Debt Service the operating budget for the sewer system we're on the hook for continuing to be on the hook for The major portion of that until they get to up around 100,000 gallons a day so I asked Nick to put together his guesstimation as to what buildings are likely to come on when and when he thinks he'll get close to the 100,000 gallons so we can begin to hopefully cut back on what we're paying the town is paying for the operating budget uh for the sour system so everybody here stop byy another bank trust use the bathroom leave the water running but but but Fred to your to your point eventually it's going to come down but the last bunch of years it's just gone up and up and up very steeply and don't we expect that to continue for at least the next couple of years the SE cost oh yeah best yes this this year would be the the the highest it's that's to come really okay all right just just from the debt schedules that's all so we're still 100% responsible for it but the number comes down slowly wait which part are you talking about the debt part or the operational part of the sewer system debt and what about the operational piece it's going to go up until like FR said until the flows are there okay just just that's I'm sure you have CU you're incredibly thorough but I mean that's just another pressure on the operating budget the next few years absolutely absolutely so it it may be that the debt coming down and the operating going up we may have to balance those two for a while so that we won't have the full quote 1.8 coming off the operating budget and then as 550 is built out a little maybe they both start to come down and we have the money available for what so you have to balance that project I don't they we're just kind of giggling talking about shakeer Lane but the there's absolutely no plan whatsoever or possibility of reuse of part of the shake Lane facility even with the new facility going up as a school or no there any like Town Offices part of it quarter of it so you have to touch it for you touch the building you do Ada comp 8 compliance and okay I just and Code Compliance yeah yeah did all right I was saying you've been through the build you know how difficult that would be even to put a fire suppression system in there it was would be difficult well you wouldn't take the whole building it would literally cut yeah enormous amount gu's going a wicked big SW off yeah battery power just thinking it cost to build everything is so expensive and I hate seeing brick buildings get knocked down feel like so there is I don't want to bring that up I don't want to so there is an alternative potential in like there's money in the Shaker Lane project to rip down the building but we could turn it over to Mass Housing Development and they could be putting in affordable housing there at their cost but then you putting traffic on a in school property I was think there's a different issue with that that we have I was thinking more of town we we need space continued space for whatever and remember to the plan currently that's also would be used for additional field space too is part of that's true too yeah do we cuz we're losing a field in the back do we have any idea um Steve mentioned there was some soft soft numbers in there for purchasing plan do we have any idea where that is because is there room to put Highway in the town offices adjacent to one another like at one point we pipe dream but we were hoping to do some sort of land swap with ban and and maybe put a campus next to or behind Acton Toyota there's obviously land there Fe Kimble's price is a little bit ridiculous but I'm sure it hasn't come down but if there was a piece of land that he was looking at and there's the possibility to put if if you're doing a building it's it's a lot easier to do a bigger building than this to do we've learned it we we built this we built that we're going to do something with this we get Indian H so we we've done this piece meal thing all over the place uh we did it at at Russell Street school with the renovation then we did the track and then we did the alumni we did the parking I just like we just did everything under one project would save a ton of money I I I think to to something that M was bringing up all along through this process is having a plan so these things are Rel leased on paper now MH yeah and then we start mixing and matching the pieces and and seeing how it affects this moving forward it it's a start it's more than we've done in the past so yeah I mean absolutely your point makes great sense if we could find that that piece of yeah yeah so so Chuck we could have a dog pool DPW Hospital have you m Pap for the whole thing on quarter all right shake aan so it uh fall town meeting we told the town or I told the town um yeah don't pull us into this I know that this wasn't going to be cheap and we used estimates that very conservative in nature the 6% coupon the full 74.7 million single tax rate um CM at risk okay then we came out at told the to 1850 the exact number 1842 62 um decreasing as we went along then we came back I came back um later on another month or so later couple of months so let's be a a little bit more realistic with the assumptions um still conservative but better 5% coupon we're going to receive some premium 5 million we brought down the net bond to 69.7 we said oh by the way we have a split tax rate not a single tax rate what's the impact to the resident at that point and then okay at the time we had $1.1 million in stabilization we said we were going to put million dollar a year away so we thought we would have 4.1 million at the end we're actually going to contribute between 26 and 28 an additional 4.8 million to stabilization brings us to the 6 million that we showed so a $74 million B project cost basic net gets decreased by 5 million for the premium 6 million for stabilization which means now we're borrowing 63.7 million and at 63.7 the impact of the residence is now $995 a long way from the 1850 that we said at town meeting which is the number that's around town right now the this go back one second Ryan this takes the assumptions up through construction that we're able to put that money into the the uh School building stabilization fund and the debt exclusion after the fact so after construction's done and we switch this in FY 29 to the debt exclusion stabilization we'd be committing $10.7 million in inside Levy M money over X number of years to get us to this point and what it basically does when it's all said and done it brings 11% of the project inside the levy with the remainder going to the taxpayer and of that $10 million 10.7 10 is our $500,000 the other the 700 is the school contribution um yes it's a combination of the town and the school right yes but it's mainly the town side mainly the 500,000 for the for the town 500 over 20 years is okay okay and we talk about DPW all we have to go on is this estimate of 45 million that's sitting out there they have no idea when we're talking worst case would have put it um in the exact Vine year is wor talking about Shaker I took the second worst course and said it's going to happen the year after Shaker but the impact on that it was the same kind of assumptions 5% coupon premium goes down because of the size of the bond to about $3 million so we're at 42 million and the big reveal Ryan next slide $655 first year again for year for the resident to 1500 and we're at 1649 in FY 39 so we're right back to where we started good news is we're getting two buildings for the price of one here you go see so that Sil linep 125 a month to your tax bill for both buildings yeah about 125 a month so the on the Dead exclusion again this is the 500,000 from the town going out we're still treating these projects the same because 11% is being funded inside the levy through our Deb exclusion stabilization so we're not treating either project except for that up upfront construction costs any differently so we'll be asking a lot of the tax taxpayer and to show that we've kind of done this before this is all the times we've gone to the taxpayer in the past 25 years see like good luck and if we start looking at fy4 when this all started we were A+ Community with a negative outlook so our finances look totally different today than they did then our certified free cash in fy4 was 400,000 that's not the new free cash coming in that is the total certified free cash remember those days we're talking about 11.5 million in FY 26 so our turnaround has been huge to get there what we did and and this is what the finance committee pushed in those years back then and Fred can certainly weigh in um we stopped borrowing because borrowing was killing us and we did everything as a capital exclusion for those 5 years um we had two fail fy6 and fy10 failed and in those years when they failed we didn't buy anything we did nothing cuz we couldn't afford him during that time we also asked the town twice for oper operational over guards the first one a small one that was for the library the second one million5 that's directly related to the high school high school debt service came on it was inside the lby project um we had tried to save some money but as you can see our finances were totally different back then it lasted one year and we couldn't afford it after that cuz the debt service was all over $2 million a year we had an operational override for a million5 simply because no offense to the select board this current select board but the select board back then would not allow us to put this they wouldn't put on the ballot as an exclusion so operational overrides are the gift that keeps on giving that million five has turned into 2.6 million in this year's budget because it's been compounding at 2 and a half% so over the 22 years the town has given us an extra $ 45.5 million because of this million and a half override so essentially we've paid for the high school twice with this These funds and we've spent it we've taken it in and we've spent it right along during that same time coming out of 05 we we're still doing the capital exclusions we had three major projects eight in a row granted the cost of those things are nowhere near what we're looking at now but you know 15 18 years ago costs are all relative so it was big big numbers back then we have the Middle School the police station and Russell Street Middle School failed the first time came back a second time and passed and then two years in a row we had overrides for the police station and Russell Street uh the Russell Street Track to show you how our finances changed through this whole thing Russell Street Track was voted as a debt exclusion but we paid for at 100% within the levy and we came out of this in in 14 with a AAA rating with a stable Outlook from S&P and that's where we've stayed ever s so we've jumped on the backs of the taxpayer quite a bit in that time period I think I think there was 11 things in 10 years that we asked the taxpayer for that they agreed to um three things that they didn't the costs have gone up 1,000% and costs have gone up 1,000% and we're going to be relying if these two projects move forward we're going to be relying on the taxpayer to step up once again but at least it won't be an operational override at least there'll be dead exclusion overrun and and that's why you hear Fred and I keep in Brian too cuz he Liv through this was we want to control that operating budget because you can see the impact have having to go through an operational override it's huge on the community and you forget about it after that first year that's 45 million that we've raised i' say we can use it things would look a lot different if we didn't have that right now but um it's a big impact whereas the Deb excl usion comes in and goes away once the debt is done like we're going be seeing with the middle school police station Russ street that debt will be gone in fy3 right and Steve i' Say i' say this is a great analysis and and we did go to the taxpayers a bunch but we also replaced feels like most of the buildings in town I mean you know most of the schools got either massive Renovations or brand new police fire you know um I mean we've this you Library so we've done we've G to the town a bunch but we've done a lot of things that had to happen I I think you know just talking about all this um I know you brought up a pool or the the park or the dog park those are things that um they do have a direct effect on the mentality you know people see what what do we have in our community what things because a lot of people aren't going to get to use Shake l so I think having those things on our calendar as things that are we're actually planning for are huge for a community they're like cultural things that I think um we have to we don't want to lose sight of that because I mean it's great to have good schools and good obviously safety and all the all the Emergency Management but to have those things people that those things are noticed in the community you know I know where all the dog parks are in the surrounding towns I you know I know you know who has public pools which is basically nobody anymore but um those things oh absolutely I mean I'm I still get pissed off that I have to pay to go use Long Lake it's 5 minutes from my house when I'm just walking there that's just so back to Steve's point on the 45 million that paid that we raised on this operational that paid for the high school it also effectively paid for the fire station the library and the senior center right that one operational override covered is why we could do all of those things without dead exclusion overrides MH true but that's not a reason to do it again I'm not do another operation override you saw that the effect that uh neighboring towns had last year when they went for overrides y very few P I watched those meetings I know yeah it's not it's not it's not pretty would it be at the front room for those so I'm certainly not saying that that the fact that we haven't asked taxpayer in 10 11 years for something that justifies asking twice again for this amount of money but it shows that we have leaned on the taxpayer and the taxpayers stood up at that point in time so Steve did you um back at the way back at the beginning you said the average free cash was in the $6 million range mhm and you use four m did you do a sensitivity on say plugging 5 million instead of 4 million and what that would and you know adding another four or five million to the uh debt stabilization or the school stabilization would do it would obviously you know Drive the numbers in the qu correct direction but I I think that in the short term if if say next year instead of 4 million we did get six million say came in it's figuring out I think at that point in time some combination of the of the two you the cap Stave if we feel comfortable with these roof numbers mhm you know it depends on on that basically that's the Big Driver if you have the extra you put at the cap stab you lessen the impact of the debt that you're going to have to do which frees up you know the the operating budget it's figuring out as we get closer what what the right amount is probably in the short term it's it's cap Stave until we're certain of those things just because it goes down to that 900,000 in fy3 that's cutting it pretty close no I agree this is a a good slide I don't know you might is this one you show at town meeting is it worth it yeah this this is an amazing this is our our our excluded debt if we don't do the two big projects absolutely so if we as it stands right now this is what the impact of excluded debt is to our neighboring towns and these are the towns we use to compare taxes with so we'd be zero come fy3 however with shoane with the DPW building we're probably going up to around $5 million at that point in time between the two buildings so be towards the top of this list so it it's a huge jump and it's you know $600 for the two buildings and and we go back to when when the I mean first of all amazing job good board um but back when it was you know8 1800 we thought oh my God you know that's going to be an unbelievably hard sell and you did all this amazing work to get it down and then DPW brought it back up um I don't know I mean I me from my point of view you know we as I was talking with with Karen just before we can't encourage the town in any way we can't publicly come out and say go for a town it's it's it's against the law for us to do that we present the facts and we discuss the facts and it's up to the taxpayer to basically say what they what they're going to do when they vote right but but but it's it's it's our job to try to make it a as palatable as possible as palatable as possible and it's just it's just 995 and 665 this is this is the payments per year is what you're proposing not the total debt right the payment per year that's that's what hits the tax levy from excluded yes so with that good news I I think what comes out of this is putting these two buildings aside we're pretty good with with capital and and things that we want to do and what's been presented right now from our department heads um you know whether we say okay this this isn't going to pass or this moves out I mean that's how we move these blocks around over time sure but it gives this a start and that's what you wanted as a start and and Steve I know it's not Capital so I can defer this but on the operating budget side I mean it seems like we're going to have to be adding bodies I mean I understand your point about having department heads manage their their personnel but you know we've seen so many requests for for new FTE you know in in all the department and we're going to have to say it probably going to have to say yes to some of them and it's just the pressure that there was a lot but F now can finish with with capital and we get into the oper because there's a lot of moving Parts with that so sure sure I guess for Capital purposes is there anything in the capital plan that's was presented by Ryan that 900,000 less the 82 for we go back I mean was there any department head that really had an issue with you that you had to say no and they were upset about that we we don't know about no they they were very respectful understood the the challenges and um didn't like the answer but no everyone was they they were Cooperative very much so so currently it sounds like the critical needs of the town are being met that's important I mean I think hiring three fire getting three on the core which has never happened core services on that place yeah yeah I should say the core are we okay with galin and the things that were so for the school projects I I don't think we're going to take any questions Rob for the school projects it's from our point of view is we don't really care how they fund that whether it's through their operating budget whether it's through the school choice money whether it's through their uh um Tiger Den funds for the for the Russell Street playground that's up to them to to figure that um how they're going to do that that was a suggestion for example that Robin came up with at a tiger St they have a lot of money you remember that cheet that school department gave us you look at tigers den that's a lot of reserve for Tiger Den they could certainly handle the 555,000 so from our point of view we really don't care where they take that money from it's not coming out of the town's pocket and we can put that to the stabilization fund so it's things it's little things like that that I'll put I I'll put one caveat to that we don't care how they fund it but we're not going to see that project so if they don't do something that is on their list they're not going to come back in five years and say oh town you want to fund this and say no that was part of our agreement we've already spent that money I mean we have to be cognizant of that so with with this up there and um mean I've already raised the question about the uh the power equipment I've raised the question about the tower um you know there's obviously risk mitigation that's put in been put in place since that building opened with Windows covered by stairing Wells and whatnot um so they just have I assume they have adapted the training although Chief did say that somebody bumped their head so maybe they haven't helmets we're helmets um but I mean with that asset list that I was talking about if we knew that you know achieve two solid vehicles to meet the needs of our community um if we've got engine one Engine 2 engine 3 engine 4 and Ladder one we've got the The Rush truck and we we've we've got a lot of pieces of equipment is is taking engine one offline for a year if it needs to run it for as long as we can get whatever life we can out of it and just have to lean I get your point about well if we if we're running the other three trucks more then they're going to depreciate more quickly but I mean $1.3 million is a big nut mhm um and that's that's a pretty quick impact to our capital budget this year so so just just think for a second I mean we're authorizing the payment of 1.3 we're not spending that for another two years until we take delivery semantics kind of Ste it is but at least we're getting the use of that money and we're we're earning the income on that money that's invested so yeah but I mean if we're going to make Cuts we're going to make Cuts oh absolutely um you know I I I could make an argument for the training Tower Improvement just keep putting risk mitigation in place the power equipment I think Chief the deputy gave a reasonable explanation for needing that equipment to be replaced uh maybe maybe half of that can you know maybe they only need $25,000 worth of Power Equipment um the the seal coding of the line scrapping of the police department uh if that's something the chief can work out with Steve yanley and you know kind of keep crack sealing it and keeping it going uh this 20 grand we can we can pull back I just I I realize that people have sharpened the pencils and and taking stuff out and and tried to uh meet us with the leanest budget that they could but this if we if we need to make Huts we need to make huts and I think that technically we don't because this is balanced but um it's kind of Antics too because we could if we made Cuts then we'd have more money in our whether it's free cash or Capital stabilization that we wouldn't have to use to spend on whatever we decided not to fund this year sorry oh I was just going to say I think it's balanced we need to keep in mind that it's balanced based on conservative assumptions rightly so right I'm not critiquing that whatsoever but you know last year we was a lean year and it was based on conservative numbers and we came out in a good place head of where we thought we would be um and so while I agree that we shouldn't count on that I I think it might argue against additional Cuts yeah I on on on the other hand there's again without getting political there's so much uncertainty at the at the federal level I can I can't imagine we won't be impacted by that I think we already are Rec sended for now um yeah so so I guess the element of uncertainty is already here right I guess I guess what I'm saying is our job on this side of the table is you know risk mitigation and uncertainty makes us be more afraid of risk and I think that the I I think the federal uncertainty would lead me to want to be even more conservative fair I guess it's just talk I you know I would like to see see what that actually means I mean you know what I mean we're just saying the uncertainty well what is it giv us a number and we don't have that right so I guess if you're nervous about what could happen then we could say that really at any given time my comfort level with the largest budget item on here being 2 years out is I have to believe Littleton we said it all along we're in a we're we're at at our low point and in 2 years we're going to have a much clearer picture of what our Our Town common is going to look like what the revenue from that going to look like so I think it buys us two years time if you said that engine is going to be done now or if they work I'm kind of glad that they're taking a little longer to build in this regard don't don't let that play to the fire station they wer like any of those guys but I I'm a little more comfortable knowing that we don't have to deal with that for a couple of years um the larger dead and I know you're being you scrutinize us these l every year and that's we need that and I think I think everybody here did and I know the the Frontline full-timers had you know we the first through the door to get get hit with this but um and you're not going to have it for three years so yeah and that's the SC it makes me nervous we're not going to have that engine for 3 years we still have we're not going to have that engine for three years no that's what I say we have to bet that engine one can I wasn't joking when I said raise his Budget on Duck to because we'll end up there's going to be something else going with one of those Fred is that we've got engine two that they're looking at for next year for 1.4 um engine three is where was engine three and 30 30 yes that was engine four that's engine four engine three in the danger of doing engines back to back is they going to fall apart at the same time we're in a mess right now and I think we just need to do that so I I'm with you Fred I'm honestly I'm okay with engine one this year I'm not sure I'm okay with engine two next year right cuz there's three fire engines in 5 years that seems like we're not staggering them properly we need to figure out how to buy you know buy one every five years not every not three and five years right we need to figure out some other plan because this might work but then in 10 years we're going to be 15 years we're going to be back in this exact same position where we're asking for a lot of money in in a very short period of time that we're going to have trouble with we as we asked for the 5year plan it's important to see this but you're right we have we have to treat it as our two groups every year scrutinize this list that can really and and so I'm okay I don't care if they replace engine one or engine two this year but you need a new engine obviously those two are something's going right we need one right you're not going to necessarily convince me that we need one this year and one next year but you can convince me that you need one of those two and then we figure something else out but but if but if that's the pleasure of the board your board needs to be working with them through Jim to either convince you that he really needs it or what does he need to spend to keep it going for another 3 years right I mean we shouldn't just have a conversation here and then when he comes in next year we smack him up the side of the head and say no that that's that's should concern I mean this is a new Chief this is a new Chief this is his assessment I expect him to be a long-term Chief in Littleton so I think you know I'm I'm glad we we saw we see this assessment and I if we can work if we can work out a better plan for the engines or if all of a sudden grant money becomes available and things who knows what happens over these 5 years but I'm glad he did this assessment um how we play it it's going to largely depend on what our financials really are next year and honestly I'd like to know like when we buy an engine one in 20126 when we're replacing it right I want to know when the next engine one comes online they plan cuz that's plan is a 15E plan yeah yeah that's I would mention I think it's I think we have to count on a 10 to 12 year plan now with these engines our call volume is off the hook with how they're just not built the same way and they're not built the same way I mean you look at our the military vehicle they have for the brush that'll probably drive for another 100 years I mean it's just a TI is a tank right the tire everything's falling off it but that's just not the case and I I don't expect that to change but our volume is up so much and that that we can Pro we can guarantee is not going to go down there's not going to be this everybody all of a sudden gets healthy or right well the interesting thing is that we I I feel like we have a pretty decent handle on the call volume and the number of multiple calls that are simultaneous M calls on the ambulance side I will say for myself I have less understanding of that on the fire side you know I I mean we heard okay you know uh 30% of the time both ambulances are out and make another ambulance I know nothing about fire but you know I assume that you don't necessarily need two or three engines for every fire but again what do I know about that and it's so like what what percentage of the calls happen when one engine is out and you need the other engine I I think it's I would like to get more educated on that it follow I mean we I've been educated I think we we've gone down and we've talked but you know the fire engine follows the ambulance you know every call and that's a lot of that has to do um with having bodies on scene especially but I know Chiefs looked at this and looked at other other ways to have a Chase vehicle so that it you know puts a little less you know wear and tear on the the fire engines but also um let's be honest our roads haven't helped these fire engines I mean these are huge Vehicles oh yeah so but but just to play doubles Advocate on that bit I was at a seminar where they um they I used to trans uh some hospitals transport uh mental health patients between facilities in an ambulance so they found out they can outfit a Suburban um for much less right a $100,000 Suburban versus a $500,000 ambulance and um to do the same work right so there should be a new we need to look at our mode of operations to see do we really need to send a fire engine on every call right for an ambulance or is there something else we could do maybe instead of sending in you know 1.3 million fire truck we send a $300,000 vehicle that we can replace you know times we have to buy it yeah so we need to I'm not the expert on that and you know we're counting on the experts to come up with something and the risk mitigation there so yeah I I very much appreciate this list I I I love having this this a great slide because we have a great line of sight um but I liken it to you you go in you buy a you buy a home and it's you know you have the home inspection and Steel's come in as the new Chief he's done an assessment this is what he feels needs to be done which I respect his professional opinion the reason we hired him um I just think that as a new homeowner when I didn't anytime I've moved into a new home I had all these Grand plans for I'm going to replace this I'm going to replace this I'm going to replace this and eventually I get the most of it um this is I won't call it a wish list because I think it's a little more vetted than a wish list but I I don't know that Mark I like your assessment of you know I could I could swallow engine won this year um but would have a a tough a time to hear pretty pretty compelling argument for Engine 2 next year and maybe maybe it means we put money we done we talked about the ambulance stabilization fund or vehicle stabilization fund and maybe we commit a little bit more to that or cuz these things aren't getting any cheaper let's let's reel it back into this year cuz I know we could talk a yeah looking at this list I'm like so is the consensus engine one for this year is good and ask Jim and Ryan to go back and start discussions about engine two for next year and alternatives to that is that basically what you we've got we've gotten quotes on engine one yeah Chief too yep I mean I know s with Chief he would like both engines this year that so that's that's the mindset his evaluation when he came in right two fire engines this year that cuz I I asked him the straight question what what do you feel after assessing everything and that was his answer I mean that's so staggering them I think in in the chief's mind is is tough and now you know we've just got to be careful every year we kick that down what are we doing and you know what are we doing service costs and downtime and and things like that but let's hey think outside the box I think he'll continue to do that too so Ryan can we go back to the capital list for this year again this is the proposed not all of these pieces are on this is what's in your in your they took out the Su so does anyone have on on this slide does anyone have any issues with any thing that's been requested that they think should be kicked to a future year the cemet cemetery truck was already kicked so right I love the fact that the compactor is going to be savings by implementing that we're going to save money I would thought that a lot more money just keep in mind that something is going to come back for the cemetery building right and whether that's in next year's budget or right well that's that that's the reason there now we now we're weighing a new building there against the fire engine are we kicking the fire engine out the next year or is there some other big item we kicking out that might maybe that fills the who knows building the way he was talking it seemed like new from what Eric is saying this ising something that's fixable for us okay I think so so sorry Garr that the 's cemeter fixable yeah yeah it s it's sounded more when I talked to TC up um it was some renovations to a point where they wanted to be a comfortable space for a family to come in and have a right now it's starting to get to a place where it's not really rece it's not a lot of the COS they've done the conference room his office the whole lobby area is much better than than it was yeah oh no they've done a nice job in in PR to the uh light department they've stepped up with I on the board so they' paid for a lot of Maintenance that wasn't P done so right so I guess the soon we get that number out there the this is page two of the plan so we already deeply debated the the engine one the Chiefs Vehicles was kicked um is there a list of the power equipment that was the it's just kind of is there's going to be some saws maybe some Jaws you the don't up the other side I just I I I mean it's 45 46 Grand and I'll go with you know consensus but I would like to see quotes I'd like to see you know what what are we buying for 45 Grand I mean does a does a jaw jaws of L does that cost 8 Grand does it cost three grand and and you know where are we buying them from you have history with them have they you'd like an itemize like maybe to jump on what Chuck saying the 250 that they get in from the state for this year that they spend by December 31st is that all committed right now is that something that the buying equipment that maybe they really don't need to replace and they could replace this power equipment instead but but but some of the big ticket items like like the stretchers they said those are item they when we talked the other day the three of us stuck with them the other day all the items that they wanted to spend that 250 seemed like items that were expiring or that they really needed and also ambulance based I think that's an important distinction as well that it that it's based upon getting transporting that's medical related as opposed to these items which are not right you might be able you might be able to stretch some of them because jaws of life get somebody out of a car they're going into there's got to be a definition so toas the question we didn't have the money from the state would be we be replacing that equipment or some other equipment you know right I just want to go back to the cemetery building for a minute they talked about it's not infiltrating water as much as before can absolutely imagine someone going in and inspecting and saying oh my God the previous infiltration undermined or whatever ruined bill so so don't be don't be surprised if it comes in b yeah yep um I just I mean Mark you you typically will look for whether it's an itemized you know what is Professional Services so I kind of have the same feeling I think that's on the we can get that we can get that for um you mentioned the the parking lot I'm the police I'm ENT I can see it both ways I mean both both the tower improvements and the parking lot I think could could be pushed out and the talent improvements too I think he said remove the Windows and relocate them could they just leave those windows and not use them and just install another window just don't use those for the training maybe they could put in a window for $7,000 and just not use those as opposed to remove those and replace them yeah I small money but I you know I just is that something MCH can do don't want to waste no masonry Department over there that that to your point Chuck this does get you saying why would you build something and design something oh my God to begin with and why hasn't anybody said something about this day one it's the new homeowner that went in and he took a look around and he did an inspection he's the old homeowner if you yeah he was he here for the 10 years ago well not but but Steve how many times have we done that I mean with the high School the auditorium uh the the the ramps on the to in the auditorium weren't Ada combined how how the hell did that ever go through you know they were too steep it's like this this this is the thing the over the lack of oversight is just kind of Staggering it's a much better ven you to watch a show at though because of that pitch I'm comfortable with the the sealant because there's got to be a value to seeing that on this Capital item list every year for the Last 5 Years that's one of those items I'm like that's a visual that I'm like okay let's get this done cuz he keeps and I think the chief keeps bringing it back because he's trying to extend the useful life get creative with it and and he also was willing when we first talked about it it was just a seal coat and so Jim and I talked to him about it saying okay well let's go talk to DBW see what else maybe you do something like a micros surf micro uh planting that might be even better for what you need that that's what the the chief is committ to and working with Steve and finding the optimum solution such that we don't have to replace the entire parking lot as as soon again not going to die on the hill for an $18,000 Improvement to the Tower or a $20,000 um seal coat but I do feel as though it's something that we can we can sacrifice but again consensus if we feel as though we should do it and the dock rep placements coming out of free cash we can't get that item no that's uh that's going to go to CPC that's one of the other items that are going to be coming out was on the other one so what about the van that's the so they already have money set aside this is to supplement what's already been provided I think was the 2022 pH yeah so this is would be supplementing this is the at the end of the dock I believe oh no no it's about the van van oh sorry so there's not funds available like the COA got grant money or there's not other things are wor that money's yeah no no and then as Ryan was saying the price went from 20 something thousand now it's but to buy the same vehicle now it's 60 60 well they had the money before and they didn't have enough correct and that's why they're and so they nothing's happened this gets them to enough 24 right because the first time two years ago they asked for money and didn't have enough so the money's been sitting there at waiting for us to I thought 67 last yeah yeah and right and this supplement the supplements they can buy 12 passenger van so I remember Elicia talking about her pricing it out and seeing what some of those would be like and it was it slowed down for a while remember what she said she said it slowed down for a while a hard time getting it but now think it's opened up a little bit so we've got a van we've got a cruiser what other vehicles like passenger vehicles anything else but the prc's van is going to be shared with the building department yeah I'm just I mean yeah right back um I'll I'll I'll get to where I'm going but so in terms of passenger vehicles we've got the chief's vehicle is gone right correct so we've got the cruiser and the replacement van or school bus is there anything else there some trucks DPW and stuff dpw's got a truck cemeter and the cemetery's got the cemetery the cemeter said no take it all that's right that's what he was okay mhm so how feasible is it to bundle that procurement since the RO off the state to bid L yeah but like is there any way for us to not like I assume that we're saying who's you know who who would like to sell us a van is there any way to say who would like to sell a Savanah Cruiser and a but even you know to J point we typically buy all of that on um on the state contract so they're pre uh pre-negotiated prices that are already discounted that um that are reflected there so and the ones you'd go to for the van might not necessarily be the ones that you would go to for the DPW so it's not just one uh one uniform thing so it's it's a good thought it's just that is you know practically it's it's kind of all private sector would absolutely be doing that yeah I mean I feel like we you know we we have multiple Vehicles every year and we're doing them peace meal but if that's the way it's got to be done that's the way it's got to be done and then on the last page are the school items that are coming off because the school is going either the school is going to be taken care of little thing you know fruit basket it's lot cheaper than that I'm I'm comfortable uh with the list so I mean this is you know we'll get back at it next year and we'll look at the next list and see we can scrutinize it again I think this is this I we we have a plan plan is put together so comfortable with this year and the marching orders is to look at the engine next year and Y over the next few months come up with a alternative or justification that 1.3 we just spent 1.6 on a tower and and engines 1 point it's I'm good with it but that's where we're going it's they're not coming down I know that again would like to see all that supporting documentation can get you that yeah already asked him for it thank you all right um so we a capital yeah we repeat up operational operation operating budget T them all anybody keep the list of things that no more kids things they heard that they would like to discuss about cutting or things that they heard that they'd like to discuss about adding well once again I'll remind everybody we have a balanced budget so any additions we need Cuts or suggestions for cuts I mean everything that I've heard my biggest concern right now is the Board of Health a situation where we know what happens when that department becomes Ultra critical it things ramp up really quickly and if we don't have a resource because somebody's out sick or on a long injury or something I definitely want that track because I think the Board of Health should have thought of that yeah true and so is as Jim said to I think like we got there's things that we need to get back to you so we'll so working with the board of yeah we were talking about Board of Health and then we're talking about maybe putting money back but you were saying like we're going to come up with an update to the board at that at the next exactly so well we'll have a for the February 10th we'll have uh you know a clear we will have a direction of what how we're going to do with come July 1st with the event he is he is out we'll also look at um also confirming looping back and confirming the speculation of the jim/ nooba relationship as that as that goes but we'll also be able to expand internally uh and have the conversation on how we could potentially close that gap for right now with um in particular areas that I want to make make sure we want to make sure it's we can do it and it's legal yeah right before I say yeah so we just off on anything they offering us a two we allart person I mean what is that yeah but the other thing is that was reiterated I forget the gentleman's name that said it but he said that they had instituted the new fee structure right and has nooba been in on that new fee structure if they have certainly then the last four to 6 months history ought to give you a run rate versus this Nirvana that they presented I would almost I can't imagine that they have been collecting anything beyond what they what they've been the levels that they been collecting before but that would be a data point to go back to the for health I think he's mistaken I don't think we set the fees for nooba I think nooba sets the fees for Thea so so that just gives us another data point that the Board of Health doesn't know what they're doing seat up for again another data point that what I'm sorry Fred that the Board of Health doesn't know what they're doing I I won't say where I heard the number but I've I have heard that Michela collect CED $94,000 for Littleton accounts last year total total and what health is estimating and the thing that I saw 220,000 in Revenue we heard half of that did you you heard 45,000 52 52 is now the time when I thr a brick in the mix and abolutely it would it be fun here we go um in light of the capital plan um and some of the uphill climbs that we think are ahead of us I think I think the select Board needs to consider professionalizing our communication services and getting somebody in I don't know whether it's a consultant I I feel like we did this last year but luckily the that's been handled by the sustainability committee but you know whether it's a consultant whether it's somebody who's part-time whether we can share with somebody else um one of the lessons that I learned at MMA and I think that we're we've all been learning in trial by fire by doing what we do is it a clear and proactive communication plan is isn't a luxury it's critical and I think we need to consider setting aside some money for that for the at least the next year where we've got major expenditures coming that need that are going to require a lot of that guy that was a everybody get up and leave um that are going to require a lot of education and it and it can't you know the newsletter's great um our meetings are great but it's going to take more than than a newsletter article to educate the public on the upcoming budget items I think so I would just like us to consider that see if we can find some money somewhere something amen especially because you know the the the the number of folks who can watch these these meetings you know goes down I don't know you know I can eventually watch them when it's on YouTube but there's a lot of people in that boat people cut the cord yeah know that's true people cut the cord we've got to go to where they are and they're not budget they're not watching this can't imagine why to to to throw in another sort of similar rent just for operating I mean and not just this meeting but this meeting and S of the last meeting you know I heard the following departments say that they needed bodies Finance admin COA concom health library School of fire police and DPW all saying that they need it not wanted but needed to do in FTS to do their mission um and that's that's a that's a lot of FTE but it it doesn't feel it doesn't feel extra I mean so I I don't know how we I don't know how we handle you know another half dozen ftes or a dozen ftes over the next year or two but I think we have to well some some of it was was when you start the fire slide it was 4 to8 personnel and that was his first priority I mean we just hired four people over there and we were told that was going to be adequate absolutely to cut down on the over time and that was the Staffing that we needed in order to serve the community right police do police is uh this playing this police got a body this year it sounded like he's a back-ended body for this year but this seemed like a five more of a fiveyear wasn't as much of a next year last year next year they want yeah FY 27 these were these were I was just writing down Department that said they needed folks in FY 27 you know not not not in this year's budget although some of them some of them do I mean are you looking at 10 bodies between now and fy3 million dollars yeah this year we're adding a library and HR the school had four um inclusive with the SR s so yeah the four was inclusive with the SRO right and the the schools for they offset some and kudos to them for for all that but I'm just I'm just saying you know Steve I I absolutely hear you on you know the cost of personnel but we are a growing town and I mean I remember Jim I pushed back on one of the items you know two nights ago and you said well we got to do it and I hear that but on some of these things it's like you know go back back to the you know uh Elder Services feel like got to do it so it's just yeah but we don't know we don't know what Elder Services needs but we know what HR needs okay but we will we will know and we we've right yeah so I'm I'm I'm not saying allocate the money this I'm not I'm not saying hey let's allocate six more FTS today I'm just saying as we're projecting we could easily need another six next year yep so you're you want to build it into our assumptions I want us to be thinking about it so that next year we're not oh my God yeah I mean I let's we don't have to beat around this we we're we have a 10 person expectation over the next 5 years this time's going to grow Personnel wise that's is that conservative I think it's very conservative yeah okay so let's say it doesn't what number is it 10 over the next three years 10 over the next three fire asked for between five and n yeah plus the deputy so four four to eight plus the deputy so you're with Benefits you know you're a million you're over a million they almost 15 with that many people right I mean so know those things may be coming what have you heard for this year that you of an absolute need that's not in the budget that you heard a compelling topic about go ahead here the the the thing I'm I'm really trying to get to is we've talked about um and and Steve I'm sort of in awe of the plan you've come up with to save us like oh I'm Steve I've saved us 5 million here I've saved million here I'm just in awe that you able to to pull that off and you're talking about that we're putting this money you know out of operating so we can put it in caps in in very the various stabilization all I'm saying is that I suspect we're going to have with these 10 more bodies or so that pressure on the operating budget will make it far more difficult to contribute to our stabilization funds yeah well so so rule number one find the finance committee 101 free cash onetime Revenue doesn't leak into the operating budget so we may have feel a little bit more comfortable about the capital plan for the next 10 years the operating budget is still going to f pressure and I as much as I'd like the way this process has changed and I don't think I would change it but we kind of lose fact of the site that Ryan and Jim started with a $4 million deficit and they did the heavy lifting and we're coming back and saying oh this is you know a balanced budget and we don't see the things that they really cut and and had their meetings out so we kind of lose that impact but there's a huge impact so it's maybe 4 million bucks this year were next year is no no better what is it $3 to $4 million next year too and you start adding bodies and adding bodies that 4 million turns into 5 million and the only relief would be if there's some coming with 550 but then you have to Discount that on whatever this Tiff is going to be that's I mean I don't that's the look at it we don't even know do any of us see the 10 million I mean 10 million the 10 bodies going away the Dozen bodies going away in other words next year they're going to say we don't need that anymore I mean right so we know it's coming we have to bake it bake it in no I you know when I when I came on I my my feeling is our greatest resource period our people that are are operating in our town right do I think that that four to eight people on the fire department when when he submitting a budget that shows an increase in overtime and he's fully staffed and has four per SC and has and has the ability to take the fight prevention officer and throw him on a shift during the day even believe that shouldn't we be treating this the same way we're treating the capital plan right where we've got a dog park and we don't know whether we're actually going to go with the dog park or not but it's on the plan and so I think Gary's point and and that's what Robin has in in her thing is is the future operating budget with a lot of these things baked in so to Karen's point I think we can treat these as wish items going forward right and if you know when he comes back in 27 or 28 and wants another firefighter we can scrutinize it more then but we don't have to sit here and debate whether we're hiring four firefighters in 28 now right we know we know bodies are coming and we need to try and keep the number of bodies we hire to a reasonable level so that the keep the reasonable pressure so we should be going back to are the bodies we're hiring this year reasonable do we need do we need something different do we need fewer more well Jim and Ryan have the pulse of that well that's yes and and and and Steve thank you for for for starting that out I mean we have the department had sitting across from us over the course of many weeks and the budget message is you you know we're looking at level service and moving forward bring what you would like your wish list so we have vetted the entire thing and brought forward to you or approved brought forward to you what we think is the most critical components of that okay y but now they're giving another platform to basically say oh but we still need this person this person this person after we've already done that which just muddies we ask for that though I so and I and I get that but you're you're you're I think I rely on your pulse of and what do they need right now because if you came out and said we absolutely need x correct this a hold of a conversation but and that's what I did with HR start with HR put the HR assistant director on on I think so the table do we need HR I I think we do I'm on the personal advisory committee I see what that office is dealing with I see how and I said before we ripped it out of the finance and HR together we didn't know how these two departments were going to land um if we want HR to operate how we want it to or we expect it to we need we we need another individual in there if if that sounds like it needs to be an assistant then I I believe that to be true so I I'll just go one step further and say that every hire that we've projected for this year I agree with right um I have and actually I will go back that I think Liz is going to need other staff and I fully understand why she's not asking for one now but I fully expect she's going to should be at a finance committee meeting you know July 15th and say I need another body please and you know actually I I have no problem with her coming to us and saying that but I feel as a manager we need her to evaluate building and the services that she's providing right let let her take a first track I perfectly fine with that too the only hour I um will Advocate that we should take the assistant conservation agent from 25 hours to fulltime that because I think we need someone to do more for the clean Lakes it's already a benefited position so it's not like we're adding benefits we're just adding ours and I think this is something between losing Amy's experience and taking on clean Lakes I think it's money well spent I'll come up with the cuts I I think clean Lakes is a bigger issue than just adding a person that I agreed listening to to is that John is that listening to John the other day and he was pretty scattered and he's got $300,000 to spend and with I I know he's appointed by the select board as far as the rest of the committee but how much oversight does the select board give them in that spending of the 300,000 what's the plan are they just we need there's some weeds growing in this Lake we need to take care of them is there an ongoing plan and I think your point about shifting that to conservation agent would alleviate some of that cuz then you could say okay he has a plan to do that but I as much as that that commission is probably well-meaning I don't think they at least they haven't proven to me that there's a game plan on what they want to get to and he's got 300,000 he said he's having trouble spending this year's bucket of money that he has it's not the first time I yeah so I I think there needs to be some guidance there right so I'd like to more professionalize that by moving it under conservation get them to agree that this is something that the assistant conservation agent would take on add the hours makes the job more likely to be filled more attractive and we can move the budget under them and get something out of it and more oversight and accountability I I I agree that that may be the longterm plan but there needs to be some planning mechanism to get there CU you're dealing with an independent board right now or semi-independent we don't have a job just I like to see the job description that currently exists and how that's going to be expanded upon because I'm none of that I'm sure is on there it 10 hours a week that's going to give to clean legs is it what's the CU an assistant conservation is is basically acts on behalf right when that you know we're talking taking this position from 25 to 40 hours is 16 $20,000 something think it's not right no I I I would like to see I agree with you on the I like to see the Jim and Ryan come up with some kind of plan and talking with conservation how are you going to integrate these things AG talking with clean Lakes what can you you know share with them and can you take direction from conservation that way so it may not be something for this year but something we strive at for next year I think it will make it easier for conservation this year CU I think they're going to have a really hard time filling that that position at 25 hours so I think if we did it for this year it will make I think conservation's going to have a hard time if we don't do it for this year well they they said they posted it so let's let's see what they get and maybe they'll get somebody that's got experience from another Community leg want to but with the in the back of our minds be thinking if if they don't get a pool that we feel meets the need the ability to Pivot to a full-time position that would include some other job description I will also argue that we I hate hiring someone for 25 hours we do so why would happens yeah well we're hiring a benefit position for someone that's working three days a week right it's in that I don't like hiring someone for 19 hours and I don't think for 25 right it's the wrong it's the wrong message so I understand that well 19 completely different I hate that that's all we can do not benefit eligible I understand that wish we had dozens of them yes no it makes us I mean if you got people that want to works you get oh I think there's a good point I mean for paying for the benefits to pay for that for somebody who's only going to be there 25 hours a week seems kind that might be exactly who we get that applies it might be somebody that's looking to do three days a week or you know it might be I don't know that it is it's already posted so it's like let's run with it but have the ability none of us like to higher mid year but well he made a case that it will be 40 or it needs to be 40 and I don't know what I don't even know what your guys's feeling is on it what what was your right now what's the what's the temperature in the room for you think that they need another 40 hour assistant right well if soon as Amy leaves I guess well I mean obviously to unravel the the complications that are surrounding clean Lakes you know it could be something that would be a wise a wise investment uh but uh that would have to be there's yeah there's but the board the Board needs to uh the clean legs committee needs to uh you know have a unfortunately there's been no oversight or guidance let's say there's no guidance for them for for forever so they've done the best they can with what with what they have and and it's just a bunch of very very passionate individuals there so I think there has to be more of a of a conscious effort to understand the that they have to understand their role and how the process works and we did that this year by introducing them to the process and we just need to you know move forward but so want sure the answer is I it's it would be a a wise investment so we have an HR Deputy HR Director conservation agent Mo moving 15 hours to the right that's 25,000 was the estimate that was there for that position um have a teen librarian for 55,000 and the transfer station is 7,000 that was just moving them from 38 to 40 hours 40 hours as long as the Union's okay with that I don't have a problem so the the one what was the one before that team librarian liian he presented this to us about a year ago too that this was probably something when he presented it sounded like a very important need that they enormous amount of teenss now come up here are in there and fr's right you don't want to be standing out in front of that hot coco machine at 2 in the afternoon it's and I asked that the question to Sam is as long as we have the ability to move that teen librarian to other areas of the library that they're not solely a teen librarian he said yes so that's good I have less of a problem with it frustrating is are job descriptions unique to that are they are all I'm trying to think the library they everyone do pretty much everything we that comfortable with a a teen librarian as well I I don't I don't we don't know enough of the operations and we we rely on Sam Sam's input and uh if you know they were on an island by themselves for a while I think the the thinking with Steve too is if um you know what what what what Sam talked about was that between the hours of say three and five they've got a huge influx of kids and you know we understand that and and that uh but what we would hope is that is as Steve pointed out that that that individual could work those other hours such that at the other position which is the adult librarian that maybe he wouldn't need to come back next year kind of evaluate what the mix of uses with the teen librarian for that window and and some other uses would hopefully mitigate what his needs are overall he mentioned the the that he's pulling somebody off of the desk to do reference work and this teen librarian could be the person that fills that Gap I'm fine with that um the thing the other piece that's in here is the police executive assistant 402 to up grade the grade of that position I think from what the chief said is that's gone right that's that is going uh that's going to be recognized in the class of comp right so we should take at least that little piece out of the budget Robin that 4,000 that's there for 218 26 yeah won't be for 26 the compant class study will take care of that none of that is worked into here right we just went through the comping class yes yesterday um to approve the the plan and everything and how that's going to go forward and and the advisory committee talked about those admin staff people right she she's she's doing the um all the foyer requests and all that she no there but a great increases in the way to handle it right the issue right the issue there was the position is greated we have an issue all our admin assistants probably need to be upgraded to admin 1 2 and three or something like that where we have a a ladder of admins right now just throwing the blanket admin really hurt some of the positions because some have a lot more responsibility than others so we need to have I think the plan is when they when the Callin Center is the one they doing this come in and do right they'll they'll have a better idea of how I think we're lucky to have both her and Michael the fight bar they're no they're invaluable I think MH I just think it was I'm don't saying that the work is invaluable it's it's you bump this grade then fire is going to be into The Advisory Board the next meeting and say we want our that's why I think this comp comp stud is going to help us a lot with those positions that should take care of it mhm right is is that you're understanding also yes so I had two things that I thought we could also you know we're looking for money uh Diane mentioned the election police detail was she basically kept that flat but there's really um much less election police requirement since we're not doing the early inperson voting so we could go back and cut money from there I don't know what the number is cuz she'd have to present he's right something more along we can we can follow up with her what that should um and I also wrote down that we gave a lot of money for this for Patriots Day again and we unclear whether that was still necessary for this yeah well that's already taken care of for this this year what do you what do you right so we gave an extra money last year's budget for this year's Patriot state was like $4,000 something dollars and it's replicated in their budget for 26 um okay and probably should go right back down to what it was yeah y okay okay this is historical commission yeah yeah s historical or under Patriots St I'm not sure which it is but okay we'll look at that is J still running that he was doing for a while he was doing the pay St event um one of the things that I have on the list is clean Lake stabilization fund um in talking with had a conversation with Rob before he left he had talked with John and John really didn't understand the whole stabilization fund thing when I said to him you have a six-month window and he agreed he didn't understand what we were saying or I was saying so they don't really want to do the stabilization rout anymore he talked about taking Park and Rex and I know Rob is speaking for the clean Lakes committee but they would take the money they're going to get from Park and wreck maybe set up a revolving fund and handle it that way so they have access to those funds so the 15 would basically go away okay but the 10,000 we put in the bud 10,000 is in the budget still the budget come to some agreement with the park and recre commission as what that Revenue source is so again this is through Rob so if you could follow up with John you want to yeah what sorry I was if we could move the money to whatever Department we say wherever clean Lakes is going to live whether it's condation to keep it in the one spot so it doesn't well the the 15 wasn't in the budget so no there's 10 in the Water Department the DBW yeah so that's that still stays yeah but but if it's decided before the book is published that we're going to hire the conservation agent and they're going to start managing clean LS then let's move that line item into their budget so that it's not I hate when things move around because then it makes it very hard to track the history of it right now this is year one so nothing really so let's talk about that for a second so that operating budget was water for what what John said it was two projects that they had at 5,000 each if I remember correctly if we're going to move this under conservation should that 10,000 instead be used for paying the salary of that part-time person to full-time and let them decide what projects they're going to work on okay with that I'm okay with that I don't know what makes we'll kind of put card I we you don't have the assistant that's going to be in charge of this yet right so I don't know I think we're a year a year right you're right how does par my ignorance here but how does the funding for clean Lakes work if light if water department give gives $100,000 to clean lakes that they they indirectly give it they pay all the bills so the money stays with the water department it doesn't go to commun because of certain things that they can't okay so okay so it doesn't so it doesn't go into an account that then dumps to free cash it sits in the water but it's just a commitment by water to pay the bill up to that level for certain things so where's the other 200,000 that they planning on CPC okay so CPC is an article so it's in an article and that can sit in the article in perpetuity it doesn't dump into free cash at the end of the year okay and I don't I don't personally think that's a sustainable model I I don't we don't I don't think it's sustainable at all coming you don't want to count on CPC every year for a certain funding source that we know it's going to happen that's not what it's designed yeah and CPC is uneasy with it as well so we got to have we have to have an reabilitation we got to have an end date here another plan so I think that should be discussions next year on okay how we're going to fund Town Council we're going to definitely engage Town Council and it's their word and that's that's the way you know yes it's maintenance and no it's maintenance and well and different towns interpret that I mean westf say it's maintenance and they're done Care West didn't say it was maintenance for 5 10 years then they said it was maintenance so I think we've got a few years first you know they're talking about herbicide an herbicidal treatment project that's not maintenance and then they're talking about moving over to Eco harvesting well that's not maintenance cuz it's the first time they're doing you Reclamation is one thing but if you go back every two years then it's difficult to defend at some point it it starts being maintenance but I think we've got a couple years reading apparently they're stalled now because the state is telling them they need a a a shallow dredging permit rather than just a harvesting permit yes Steve to clarify so what we're saying is is that there that we got to check with clean Lakes but we're thinking the clean Lakes are no longer going to be asking for stabilization fund at town meeting but would instead be asking for revolving fund of which the funds or the additional fee at long at Long Lake would uh from Parkson Rec would go into that fund for their for their use thereafter again indirectly through Rob that's what that's okay but we need to check on that verify what's that about 15,000 so that's that would be gone I know that's there but we need to check with but we never had that in the budget to be it was going to be stabilization so that's that's what we need to which order have came out of free Cas right so what was yeah right so and what was the other thing you had for you had another thing that you wanted to either cut or was there something else I thought we were going to that over to uh pay foration hours so now why don't you to speak to what you said this morning about EHS well I was hoping that um so the the connect fee Liz asked for 20,000 but it's actually 27,000 so if that slide at the beginning if we ended up having a little bit of surplus with the health insurance I was suggesting that we fully fund the 27,000 and that cuz she has to take the 7,000 from her um formula grant that she could use to pay for other things when she gets into the building so if she had to hire some you know other teachers for different things or or whatever um she have you know she have that money to play with instead of putting into the connect fees so that's if if we end up with extra at the end yeah she didn't ask for it but I think it would give her a little bit more of a cushion for the unknown um and I I think consensus Wise from all of us um this side is if Liz after she moves into the building goes to Jim and Ryan and says I need somebody then we're willing to use the reserve fund to fund that position but I think management wise we need to let her find that out for us yeah I agree with that and I'm totally cool with that since it has the first part well like we did it we're not using emergency fund but with the library we know we were going to need it a full-time team no but here we are but can I bring up can I can we uh hit the rewind button on a couple things please so help me understand please so we're not doing the 15,000 for the for the clean L and the stabilization but we need to confirm that you need to confirm that getting a not from the clean likes committee so no I'm no because John fome stabilization account 15,000 and then the 10,000 from what and this again this is coming through Rob John really didn't understand the workings of a stabilization account and that he had to go back to town meeting to spend the money okay he he thought we 15,000 and he could just spend it he could just spend it so that's why they switching to a revolving Fund in putting parck and Rec Revenue into the revolving fund so they can have some funny money that they could access easily and doesn't go away at the end of the it doesn't go away okay so my conversation with John just to confirm what Rob has said and I have confirmed with John the the the night after after the presentation when you said when you asked him Steve you know you've got to go to town meeting in order to be able to to get this and I as I my conversation with John that evening was okay the stabilization account is that's you put money in there to build up okay so that's that's a good area to because it's a lot harder to use it and you know you can't do that off the cuff yep no I understand and there was another Gentleman on the clean La committee standing right there I said so you should look at that as you kind of like your savings account and then look at your other funding sources to actually you know do that completely understood that I think it's my fault cuz I didn't understand I knew they didn't want it in a expense line item and I told them they needed a stabilization and I should have told them they it is youring yes all right you'll never give you another chance J for I saw the opening Fred but but again confirm with with John again this is coming through Rob that I have confirmed with John Rob had a conversation with them after the fact again this is coming from Robert of all the meeting him not to be here you would so I met Rob came to office hours yesterday and said what he did uh which um yeah said the same thing that they they want to use a revolving fund not a stabilization fund again this is coming through you think you're talking a million dollar now St if it is the stabilization account then made to make some cut somewhere whether it's reducing that that um Capital stabilization number or working it into our budget so it's a line item out of out of raising appropriate that funds it every year this is an ongoing thing I in which case we don't have the money to do that in the operating Bud right now because we have a balanced budget okay hey so surprise what's that surprise yeah exactly so this is where I'm so the clean Lakes committee is part of now of trying to shepher them through the process budget process right and then getting understanding the overall the impacts and you know they it's my suggestion I have had the conversation with two people with the with clean links after the meeting that they presented the other night I appreciate sincerely respect Rob's input and his assessment of everything but I this is the this that's that's the communication I had from the chair of the clean leags committee right that's why if you could Circle back with him and confirm all these things that we which I did after the meeting is my point then leave Rob talk to him after after after after after after after so re reconfirm can I ask a question yes I I shall if there's um if they move to the or if they don't move to a revolving account and they keep with the stabilization account idea but they also but there is money coming in from fees through parks and wreck that money goes into where and how what are the restrictions if any on how they will spend it yeah we we never talked about where that money would be yeah you could do both you could establish a stabilization fund and a revolving fund so they access to it just probably be still revolving anyway we want to establish this so that they can have regular access I guess I would take baby steps with them hearing that they have trouble spending funds is yes let's do the revolving fund whatever the P Commissioners decide to add to the AES to to give to clean Lakes put into revolving fund see how it operates so are you also saying that the the ultimately the 25,000 that was identified for clean Lakes is no longer 25,000 there wasn't 25,000 identified there was there was there was 15 to go into the stabilization account and 10 that's sat in the DPW account D there's 10 for the operating budget that's in the budget DP that's the 10 that's in DPW right man right the 15 was something extra that's not anywhere here right Ryan you never accounted for the 15 anyway yeah but you know what we talked about was looking at other you know doing something like a just a transfer from free cash for that so but which would decrease a cap state but we' just add an 82,000 I mean what whatever guys I mean like we'll talk with we'll talk with the long like people come rather not a stabilization fund with 15,000 that's all so we have work with the 10,000 budget which is new to you work with the money you're going to get from p and wreck which is new to you you have the water Department's money which is should be the same thing you've been getting and come back next year an emergency come to finance committee have the select board call them in every once in a while to talk about planning and what this spending right it's new so this whole thing is new we just they have to get on our cycle and if we revisit next year that they need a stabilization we can revisit it okay the other rewind that I that I was referring to is the in the police budget for the admin for the extras for the extra responsibilities that have been added on there the $4,000 so am I understanding that was a grade increase right happen that was the original proposal grade 11 Step five which but that was original proposal but that has been changed because we're looking at the class and comp we're also uh recognizing the X amount of dollars given in a in a in a form of a stien in a temporary basis okay so that's whatever you think that number needs to be reduced by whatever so it's not a stien for $4,000 we're talking about is it yeah it would be yes yes yes Jesus I mean it it could be called a records Clerk stip I I would rather not a stien just give her a step job or is oh well I think it's both if you give a step you give a s a and they go through the compant class and they get extra points on I'm not saying do this oh okay I'm saying that you this wasn't about never about a increas this was about a gr increase that was denied by the personal advisory committee say here a work this is that money is still here for a grade increase okay to a grade 11 Step five $1,000 at the at the at the time of print okay but that has that that has changed we um and then just identifying a temporary of um dipen while the the the class and comp is being done once the class and comp is being done and then then that position goes in goes goes there and what that equates to in a dollar amount whether it's 2,000 3,000 600 whatever it may be I hear what saying L and so give it back I mean I was personel committee for many years yes and Gary and I have talked about this is the use of stiens and right you give somebody this $4,000 stien to do this function the job gets graded differently because of that function and then all of a sudden that stien does not go away or this or the the grade increase that this person is getting doesn't fit the the match the yeah so so what do you do you don't take money away from somebody I would rather to solve the problem because if if the chief really wants to give this person extra money for the extra job just give them a step increase that then that would come in front of us you give them a step increase they're going to get extra extra funds they're going to get extra funds on the raise that they get next year it may not be $4,000 it may be something less but they're going to get something and it doesn't kill the comp and class study because you don't have somebody already is an outlier on what these other departments do can DPW come back to us and say our admin does procurement they should get a procurement stip in now well that's what happens because then the fire chief is going to come back and say the same thing so I think there's a couple things that make this an outlier right one is that the records um request part part of the job is changed because of a change that was acknowledged in the Union contract but for the police right they started wearing cameras and that was acknowledged as needing a pay bump because there was a change in circumstances so for the administrative assistant there was a consumate change in her working circumstances that is not being addressed at all at this time and to say that you need to wait until things until you know the class in comp study is done which is a maybe for her right and contingent and we'll see where it comes in for in the meantime they're performing at that level they so the STI I hear exactly say cam but they're performing they're performing at a level that is in their job description right now no they're doing extra they're doing extra work than what the job description says different work how can it be they doing extra work but it's different change work conditions what the job is no longer an admin system so the job what the job is they need a new job description it needs to be regraded they tried that in a field at the Personnel advisory committee so then why are I'm saying it's in here as if it was done I think Robin can add something color to this just keep in mind in his slide he's also asked for turn position in the future specifically for records requests so is it going to live with her or is it going to get this she's also there to hire a part to do the work if it's already gone to the personel why are we talking because it's in the right now okay it's already got to why is it even there then it came for a grade grade upgrade and personel advisory committee did not approve the grade upgrade then why that that would have been a skue for the rest of the so we have don't we don't we hold on don't we don't we defer to to them for this isn't that their whole function this kind of thing I think the chief thought that was the easiest way or the best way to do it he he he's doing this for retention purposes did the job description that you guys reviewed give him a step increase sorry it the job description did not get upgraded the the scoring did not when it was scored out the the majority of the you know we do an average of all every one grade that it did not equate to the next grade up so what would a step increase amount to so a step I mean a step increase I don't think what's a step increase 2,000 a year whatever 2 and a half% is yeah um of the current salary but we got to be careful with those too but I just that'd be for a retention but we could say that about anybody that's doing extra work I I'm more concerned with th this position right now yes we're going to comp comp study we we have told colins they they said we need 10 months we said no you'll have it done by September 30th that way we can get anything we you know anything we need ready for town meeting in November so little things like this come up but if the chief is worried that we could lose a position by then I I mean he can advocate for a step increase but that's that's a slippery slope when we're talking about other you know what's that say everybody else you know per pay equity which is dangerous that's why the the what to your point Steve it's what you had proposed saying you know understand the chief understands that it's going to the the the the final compensation is going to lie where that where that schedule Falls in where the position falls in the schedule and if that position falls into the schedule that okay the adjustment is 2,000 or 3,000 that's the salary mhm that's so the so the so the 4,000 is a temporary placeholder for retention and moving forward and wherever that may fall that's where it falls yeah I I would I would look at it a little differently they could come out ahead of the game you give them a step increase or two-step increase whatever it is for the short-term retention when you do a comp and class study and the grade changes you go to the the the step on the grade where you get an increase they'd be two steps ahead of where they would normally be okay they could come out way ahead of this $4,000 sement in the long run so Gary how would that work out with personal advisor I I just think that if you're going to leave the 4,000 in the budget what's the harm on leaving it in there okay because if this does get graded out and now we now in November or it it doesn't have to wait for a special town meeting for to be act to to do anything because we're we're allowed to change grades throughout the year I that's changing we're changing the boff to be able to do that than so I I think the personal advisory committee graded the position that came to us and it did not grade out at the next grade that's all I can I mean there's nothing else did did when you guys graded it did it have this quote extra work in it that's why it went there if it did then and I'm with Brian got it it's ridiculous well are running the Asylum it's not a it's not a perfect system uh Fred I take exception to that comment no way we need we need it's it's retention I I totally understand it and the easiest way to solve it would be a step but we don't have way we don't have a good clean policy on how we do double step steps right it's so and until we have one I have a really hard time supporting double steps right cuz then what happens when you know the fire admin says I'm doing extra work too I should get double step that's the problem so it's problem whenever you're talking about these these types of things absolutely I don't see anything wrong with leaving in the budget because it can't be spent when it's in the budget because we haven't upgraded the job they they can't pay her the admin more money when it's in the budget it's just gonna it's in there as a statement No it's in there it's in the salary line it's in the salary line so if we leave it in there it's going to fall through unless unless we do something else but the the intent with that line was to pay them a stien for that correct not as presented and just and just make it with Steve that I'm not I don't want stiens for anything so ha well the chief the chief temporary the Chiefs have the there no such thing as a temporary yes there is in in my world there is temporary so what happens when we give the Steve's right what happens if we give this $4,000 temporary St and the gr the thing comes back and it's graded now at a $1,500 increase then we're going to give them a pay cut no that's but that's that was the understanding it's nothing that was the understanding then it's not much of a retention policy when we're giving them a pay cut next year because we've there's there's a there's a there's a there's a confidence level to the fact that it will it will reflect appropriately I have no confidence in that or the Personnel advisory committee would have rided it that way we just not necessar I believe so when any promotions now and this is going up for town meeting we'll have a 10 minimum of a 10% when you get promoted you're going to at least get 10% of your sality so Le one C increases two you know whatever go away so it'll be a 10% increase if the employee truly gets promoted now the person advisor committee didn't have we weren't creating a new position some of the board was very uncomfortable creating a new position it doesn't exist in town this business I think it was business manager correct that's gpw so it still got slotted into admin assistant and we don't have like I said we don't have an admin assistant one two or three we have admin assistant and we the person committee can't give a step or that's not in charge that's only select so we we're right back at square one the stien now my understanding is the chief give stiens uh for accreditation manager you get the stien you're the accreditation manager this year you get a stien it can be pulled back next year if you know Jeff Patterson no longer is the now that's in Jeff's contract Lieutenant Landry is the accreditation there I'm saying doesn't have to be I'm just saying the stiens can be utilized in a way that the chief feels necessary you're a custodian's clerk there's a it doesn't change your grade but we're going to give you a $500 stien because we recognize there's a a lot to that you're doing something beyond your job description and the chief is allowed to create whatever stiens you want no so no but I I just I think this job will be gr at higher I we just I can't speak for the rest of the the committee I just know um it some graded it as a higher position some grade a low but the average score put it on you know how that works put it at the same grade very high end of the current grade just it didn't it didn't bump over so but but but B isn't isn't the the idea that this extra work is going to be moved over to the the new part-time position so it really is doing no okay well some of because it's that's that was that was future a future request okay so if this is if if the if the future request responsibilities is added onto the EA that goes away it doesn't what's that nothing ever goes away we'll regrade it but they won't get graded low yeah if you're taking responsibil no no no no that that that ask for a half for a part-time wage person will go away no it won't because he said he needs to to the hours yeah well I think this this I think we're going going down a road of um two separate things this probably doesn't belong in this in this form I think this is a recognition issue for this year right yes and a retention issue I think let's let's get together select board we can meet and figure out if we can strategize on how to appropriately deal with this that's outside of um outside of promotion which we can't do um great I think that's the only way because it is a retention issue and you're right you don't want to lose good employees because they've been misgraded but I can't say that they've been misgraded I'm just saying we're under the confines of a system that we're trying to get a com study to change and we it's going to happen but it's not going to happen till the end of of time if it's a one time add a boy or add a girl for doing the extra mile that's there's got to be a mechanism what employee in town can you say that oh you're really not doing as much work as as this m yeah that's it's not fair to the we got a bigger budget to worry about here and it's um dinner time so but this individual procurement all the procurement we called it in it's being delivered now more than and you've gr and you've graded it yeah I know so are we done beating this one want to move on to the next one I guess but and you can next one you control the stien right there's a stiping that's well not we're leaving the 4,000 in so we can discuss if is an appropriate way to to recognize leave it there job car please I think the the easiest and fairest thing is Step increase and we'll trust trust the Town Administrator Give an example ping wck I know you guys gave a stien to the pcket oh no not you guys Commissioners gave a stien to the p and wck people for CPR CPR is in every single one of their job descriptions yet they got a stien for it why I I I don't understand let us work with Chief we'll work with Chief on an appropriate way it bonuses that's what it was it was bonuses okay that's where we were like no back to the point of look at all the look at those look at those two over there I mean unbelievable give them that a second M take Monday Tuesday off point of view I'm not a select board person so I can't say talk about this but hack and recommission should not be able to change salary like that and give stiens or bonuses or whatever you want to call it but approval of the board of Select affecting salaries perod it's budet exactly agree change of governance even before that happens Jim it's it's shouldn't have that Authority correct because then the health could say oh this is what we we going to take in $220,000 of fees this year right Francis you're going to get a nice sing from us really we and don't oh just as a reminder to everybody that there is the uh there is the um the detailed audit that's going to that's going to take place with with pox and wreck and all that kind of stuff come May is when the outside auditor is available right so um since theou was drafted and and and the select B would was instrumental in making that happen after years of in an absence then um I wanted to make sure that under under the administration and the select board's watch the fact that we don't want to get eight years down the road and have someone go what happened we want to understand where we are right now yeah absolutely so I want to reduce the fire overtime budget I want to move the money into the finance Reserve fund the 75% increase is too much if we're asking the state for money it looks like we're flush with cash in the fire department and we don't have trouble funding it so let's reduce it to either level funded or a 10% increase and move the rest over the understanding when the hard transfer is that transfer is that what I'm s it's a yeah zero back to the money on the budget just move the money over to the finance Reserve fund and then then they can request it when he needs it and if we get the money from the state we don't have a problem where we're you know spending the money everyone had a great idea you ask her if that works if that can happen explain to me what you want to do the the fire fire overtime went up 75 74 something per. but the budget didn't change the overtime you don't want to move the overtime line item the overtime line item went up three $153,000 talk about what you requested yes okay take that number take that 153 or some percentage of it and put it into the reserve f i I'm not a fan of that what would you propose the the my my thought process was sparked by Jim's comment if there are strings attached to the 350,000 that come in that's no wait a minute that you can only spend it once you've already spent your budget then let's level fund or close to level fund that piece of the budget so we can spend State money first more quickly the money doesn't come in it's not moving then then then then Zer then set the item to to to zero I mean I I I I I disagree I think Fred you're you're anticipating a very very specific outcome from the state what's the what's the harm what's what's the danger of doing it even if you get State money it's coming out of a separate fund anyways it's never going to get the it doesn't to the finance Reserve it just means he could still overspend that line and at the end we're doing the transfer at the end of the year like snow and ice the the expense is still going to be the same in the end and it's most likely on a reimbursement right we're not getting to check with 350 and have fun it's probably a reimbursement but we don't know that yet that's that's the only thing I would I'll bet on that no I agree with you the money just still over that line item I'm sorry you can still overspend the line item which true up before the end of the year out of the reserve fund correct or the state money one or the other yeah that's how you can't deficit spend overtime just snow and ice he's already said he overspend it by 17% this year we we as long as we chew up snow and ice you don't have to True up have S ice you raise it in the next year you can't overspend any other light item oh the next year you always want to sett but you always settle it with your free cash at the end of the year you make a transfer to to settle that up at town meeting to so does deserve it so we don't need to do that because we reserve the money we're getting getting goofy that I'm I'm in the minority that's okay but I I I disagree Mar but carry on take up 152 yeah so is that is that we going to do yeah okay sock mod good yeah you okay that your objection is duly noted I came from a movie I can't remember so loyally is there anything else that we have so we have so we have two additions still on the tail of 25,000 conservation part time fulltime 7 ,000 for EHS and we have no funding for these yet what are we doing and we have communications money we don't know what it is the nebulous communication yeah but all that's covered about Cemetery truck so the 7,000 from EHS was easy that was if when the numbers at the end if we end up uh with the health insurance coming out better than we expect or extra money with that direction and if the health insurance goes the other way just we got to come back anyway right so I think I think I think we've done what we can do for now and uh same thing you could say the same thing with the uh conservation pres well the conservation We There are there is money we can cut from Diane's budget and the Patriots Day we just don't know what those amounts necessarily are didn't they say they they budgeted more for uh Professional Services so that and maybe am would you know come back on a part-time basis for not parttime but as a consultant for a bit so right yes yes so they're they put in a $5,000 budget for Amy with a part-time person so with a $25 person but I think we can I not I think we could offset the conservation agent with the cuts to the election details and the Patriots Day I think that will come pretty close to that um I don't know where we're paying for the communications person from then necessarily but just as a reminder on the conservation too I think we were going to check with with with them too because if you remember Chase was like well I don't know job description and everything else so it's just if you could maybe give us a little time I me to uh to work that through yeah I mean I mean the the the the insurance is plus or minus a couple $100,000 I'm not going to sweat $7,000 right now until we figure out until we get that we know there I mean and we know there's going to be other pieces let like go so trying to go for more Precision than avilable right now so I guess the question we're not no one's against those those things okay so that's that's most important right now so is there anything any other list that people have that we haven't talked about I mean these are things that will come back once we get better numbers from y the cherry sheet health insurance we'll meet one more time before we go to print yes okay it won't be all day does health insurance ever go down everybody going next Saturday no doesn't never it's cute yeah yeah that's cute single okay have watching ERS guys we're all set thank you