yeah yours is here 27th it is I emailed it at 4:41 Tuesday afterno you are [Laughter] brutal if my computer ever starts maybe we'll start the meeting actually I'm going to try to pull up green communities because sometimes the browsers don't pull it up right yeah are we actually live right now and on air yes oh cuz we're not online right now we're not on Zoom as a chance Dave all the hot mic stuff if you want that's okay I said my pece Monday Tuesday night do you hear it was there I didn't see a select board posting no oh I did it I did it at parks oh no I haven't seen the parks meeting yet directed at I saw that I watched it today do you think it was appropriate well we're live so there's a lot of things going on talk later quiet in quiet in here there's so many people here problem is we're we're already out on the net no I know I'm just but you can't get online oh I'm just waiting for my computer to start it was about a million degrees when I took it out of my bag so it's clearly unhappy that's what I get for using my work computer nope definitely not there Dave are you able to get into the meeting into our meeting um I haven't tried to tell you the truth yet cuz if you can run it then I can just oh you you you expect me to be that you're the only one well I guess J could technically do it I'm into looking for the agenda got as far as the agenda then I didn't bother going any further let's see that's Facebook must be Zoom right there [Music] do okay [Music] I did make it in oh excellent Heidi are you able to hear us yes I am Evan would you mind making Dave the host sure will thanks a lot thanks you're welcome have a good night you too thank you thank you all right are we all set in the booth now just going to go with yes can you just start the recording Dave top left corner I think maybe recording in progress there we go thank you very much all right it is 7:04 p.m. on Thursday June 27th and I apologize for calling it late but I'm calling the finance committee meeting to order my computer is still restarting so Mr pasos is currently running our zoom in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast over the lunenberg public access Channel and on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the lunenberg access YouTube channel after the meeting this meeting will be held in person at the location provided on this notice members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting please note that while an option for remote attendance Andor participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law members of the public with particular interest in any specific item on this agenda should make plans for in-person versus virtual attendance accordingly the following information is provided for members of the public that would like to participate in the meeting remotely to participate remotely from a computer please use the link below to join the public meeting webinar from a telephone dial the toll-free number 88847591 3627 4720 this agenda lists all topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair votes may be taken as a result of these discussions not all items listed May in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by open meeting law you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands Nation God indivisible with liberty and justice for all is there any announcements from the committee this evening all right well I'm finally get on my computer are there any public comment from the public do we have any public online Dave I lost the screen for Zoom when it went out all there was was myself and pack okay any public comment from the committee this evening yes go right ahead there two kind of FYI items I follow some of the house bills in Sentinel and Enterprise there were two bills in there related to this MBTA communities act uh one of them was a a waiver for towns and cities that had met their 40b um criteria threshold and the second one was related also to um towns that they had mobile homes uh to count towards your 40b count and both of these house bills uh both our our Representatives Scot Margaret scotdale and mikmik and pretty much the majority of all the representatives voted no against both of them so and the second item is also out the S all reading that a $25 million Federal grant funding uh they call it the raise the uh raise program rebuilding American infrastructure with stabil sustainability and Equity uh having to do with um investments in surface Transportation infrastructure that have a significant impact on local or Regional impact so Gardener is getting 1.25 million and was it Salem and never to get any money but a $25 million Federal grant funding program that's available does it say when that's available through or if they're doing multiple rounds of Grant raising I'm not sure probably does but all right thank you very much any other public comment yeah the only other thing I'll bring up um and it's just something that uh I've had in the back of my mind and I think I brought up during the tail end of the budget season and I'm following up uh to see if there's a process that we can move forward with uh in the state of Massachusetts uh I reached out to my contact at Senator cronin's office uh to inquire about whether the senator might be on board with uh sponsoring a bill or tying it onto a an existing bill that's in process to to uh allow cities and towns in the state of Massachusetts to assess a personal uh in uh excuse me a local income tax uh for that process to be allowed to happen in this state the legislature has to do legislation that allows the city and towns to do home rule petitions uh so it it's an extensive process in probably is 2 to 3 years once it starts there was an attempt in 2007 uh in Boston it was it went into committee and it stayed there and died um so I haven't heard back from Senator cronin's office yet but I am still going to pursue that thank you keep us updated please any other public comment all right we have no Finance director report this evening our finance director is not feeling well so he is home sick um it's not on the agenda cuz I forgot to put it on there but our town manager is on vacation this week so I took it off uh so we do not have a town manager report as well um if it's okay with the rest of the committee I would like to kind of flip-flop new business and old business um because I have member of the public here that's involved in the meeting with rep Scarsdale so I wanted to see if we could have that conversation first and then just go back through MH okay so moving down to Old business the last item is our meeting with rep Scarsdale her first middle sex district and desie officials to discuss the school budget issues that are before the state um she has settled on a date of the 19th of July from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at gron Town Hall um I will be out of the country so I've asked Chris if he's available he said he can be available um so we will at least have one of the two of us there um at least at the table I I believe it's kind of meant to be kept small at the table but I don't see any reason why the rest of the members of the finance committee that want to attend can't attend um I reached out to Mr Leighton and Mr nzo and both of them are in agreement about setting a preliminary letter to uh rep Scarsdale to give a list um that I I actually have already distributed to the the committee and with Miss Gilman as well um from the school depart or school committee specifically and I kind of wanted to start at least talking about that list and then going through and seeing if there's other items as well the school committee um Brian is out of office he's on vacation until July 11th so he said he's open to to a conversation but we may have to go through uh Mr scol brini the vice chair and Caesar said he's happy to put it on at any time as well so I think it's probably going to be a letter that kind of comes together either between us and this either on our end or on the school committee end or from the general public as well um and then we'll just kind of all sign off on it once we're in agreement but I don't think there's much that we really need to do Beyond come up with a a bulleted list um let me pull that up okay so again just to kind of prelim or give a background on this a little bit more um rep Scarsdale is trying to start a Coalition in the rural portion of the state a more rural portion of the state specifically obviously her first middle sex district and then any other districts around um and she wants to start small within her District meeting with uh School members school committee school department members Finance members and select board members and administrative members as well plus a couple members of the public and of those uh I think six District or six towns after that and with desie as well in order to kind of start the process of of identifying what's not working or what needs to be changed or what we can do to address the lack of funding in more rural towns or in non Regional rural towns like lunenberg um following this meeting she is planning to take the conversation out to the 200 20 districts and have a larger meeting across the state that received either minimum Aid or were considered hold harmless we fell into the minimum Aid category we were out of the hold harmless category um but she wants to address that because if we're if it's if if over 2third of the districts are minimum Aid or or hold harmless it doesn't seem like it's working in terms of increasing because we're getting less than inflationary increases on a yearly basis I believe this year we we increased by 1.1% so far below inflation um so the list that the school committee has put together uh includes bus bidding process State funding specifically an inflation Rider to Chapter 70 revenue from the Millionaire's tax a need for increased local funding and overrides a focus on Lunenburg which is unique in a sea of regionals when I was talking about the regionalization and lunenberg being its own District rationale for funding through the through a lunenberg lens smart growth loss of funding and then the everpresent UNF funded mandates so I would um like to invite Mandy Gilman up as well she has been pivotal in starting this conversation with rep Scarsdale and is actually one of the first people to be invited to the conversation hi everyone um for those of you who don't know me my name's Mandy Gilman I'm the vice president of the PTO in town but my professional career includes um I have been a lobbyist for the last 10 years for different providers payers did mental health and addiction lobbying I worked for Senator Flanigan for a while um state senator Flanigan who was before Senator Cronin and before Senator Tran um so I number one am very involved and invested because of children in the system but also uh feel like I can offer my professional um advice and professional help um to help the town sort of crystallize what we're asking for so um I have a little bit of advice that I would love to share with the group um I think a letter is excellent I think that's a great place to start um I think the list looks great i' be happy to offer to help you write the letter or you know give you some feedback or whatever just because this is something I used to do all the time in my job um the thing I would say is there's going to be a lot of people at this meeting so even if we go into the meeting with 8 to 10 things we want to be concerned about I think as a group I would recommend that the Lunenburg crew has like two things we want to talk about right and that really we focus on those two things um my professional opinion is that legislators hear one to two things and that's what they can focus on right there's a and I mean you all this is this is some of it's common sense you know but I think it's just good to reiterate right that like if we go in there with 15 things then we're going in with nothing you know like we having it in writing is good I think she should see everything we have in writing the entire list but going in and talking to her my opinion would be whoever's in the meeting we should recommend it and shouldn't be me someone in the town official you know a town official or someone who's on the an official committee kind of speaking for everyone instead of um in because she may have an opportunity to let people speak in the meaning I think we should look organized and be like we nominate whether it's the superintendent or the town manager whoever uh you know Mr noo whoever it is is to say you know we've met these are the two things we want to put on your radar right these are um and I actually think the top two that you mentioned are really great ones um I've talked a little bit to Mr skull BR on uh you know not at the school committee meeting but on the phone and he had a recommendation for like a regulatory change that might work to help with bus contracts um so we can talk about that specifically if you'd like you know I just think that could be something that um busing costs my understanding and you guys look at the numbers is a huge huge issue um and there's not any competition so there's nowhere else to go um so that's that's definitely a consideration and I think also just the fact that there's 220 towns that like you said didn't get you know enough money and really just focusing on that like the chapter something of the Chapter 70 formula that was redone a few years ago is not working for Rural communities and I think she knows that I mean I think we're lucky she's pulling together this group I think she understands that politically in her and I don't speak for her but my my professional opinion would be that she luckily understands I mean it's her entire District did not get much Chapter 70 funding at all increases so she she knows that this is definitely an issue for all communities um the last thing I would just say is I do think it's in we need to continue to say to her we are a non-regional school she is wonderful and I I do think she has like a lot of uh you know passion for the the project and things like that um and everyone else in her district is a regional school and you know she comes from a Regional School District so just naturally your mind you know she served on the select Board of a Regional School District naturally her mind goes to being a Regional School District right um and just reiterating that to her every time we speak to her I think is not a bad thing right you know whenever we write to her as a reminder we are not a Regional School we do not get Regional School transportation funding I say that to her literally every time I talk to or you know if if we got Regional School transportation funding I you would know better than I how much our our transportation cost but I mean that would be a few hundred, $30,000 $930,000 right so if we were getting reimbursed at 75% of that which is what Regional Schools get generally you know we would have another $750,000 to spend on schools um there's your override there's the override right I mean that is that is a significant amount of money lunenberg isn't getting and um you know I the squeaky gets the grece I said to Evan um when I was talking to him this spring about something you know something I've done in the past is I've done presentations to at people about how to be a good Advocate you know I don't want to tell people stuff they already know but I have a lot of materials like I think as a town the place I think this committee understandably does not want to overspend and the best way not to do that is to get more State money I think you all know that but like I think we need to be organized and really aggressive right about how we're we're pulling down more State money and the schools Chapter 70 is like the biggest one so so I don't you any questions I want to add anything but that's my five minute pitch thank you um I I do real quickly just want to make sure we're on the record um I miss I Believe Miss cor Miss um mistakenly said during the budget season that we were a hold harmless District which we are not a hold harmless District I was corrected thankfully by the school department and school committee because of the student Opportunity Act it actually raised us out of hold harmless and put us into minimum eight doesn't give us a ton more money yeah but we get a little bit more money so I think we got $96,000 more last year instead of nothing did some school districts got nothing it has no well hold harmless gives you a minuscule increas like a tiny bit more okay yeah so this is something I I mean I wasn't a Chapter 70 expert I don't think anyone is oh my gosh it's so confusing I watched a video on the mass municipal actually it was pretty interesting for someone like me who's kind of interested in this stuff um but even that was pretty confusing about how the formula is is planned I mean that's something we could think about so you know when you Lobby a legislator the more specific your asked the better I mean if we could I think this is ambitious for two weeks from now but if we could say the thing that needs to be changed in the formula is you know you need to take the formula and you need to look at like inflation is a great example but instead of saying to the representative you should fix the formula about inflation paid lobbyists gets paid to say how that's going to happen right and the town doesn't have that right which I get that but like that's why people are successful because then you say to the representative the way you're going to fix the problem right is you're going to change this number in the formula and you're going to add it this way right and the problem is chapter 7 is so complicated um but I think if a few of us got in a room and looked at it we might be able to come up with something maybe even in August right like cuz she I think my understanding is her timeline would be right obviously not for this school cycle possibly for next budget cycle um the legislature will reconvene in January there will be new chairs you know there'll be all new the stuff but she might even file a bill at that point if there was a bill to change it um but I think we're we know we're we're aiming for next year's budget um so I would open it up to the committee for thoughts questions as I've been sitting here listening and and I understand that the subjects that you just discussed are the biggest drain on on our budget y or biggest challenges on our budget is on the school side yep uh but one of my frustrations when I see the pr bursts come out of Boston oh we passed this funding bill and that funding bill and this for infrastructure and all this other stuff but the only ones eligible for it are lower income Community cities and communities I I think it's proven that we need to communicate that the people in the middle are suffering also I think that's a great idea so one of the things when I worked in the legislature and now it was like 15 years ago but Gateway cities were like a huge focus of um and you've probably heard this right that that state invested a lot of money in Gateway cities and they had specific criteria that sort of I think it was the Patrick Administration set up like you had to be a certain population and you know you're and it was based on basically Old Mill cities right that were losing population and what could we invest in them um and when I worked for Senator Flanigan she would be immensely frustrated because Gardner didn't fall and she represented Gardner and it didn't fall into this category right so we worked a lot on that like Fitchburg and lemonster did but Gardner didn't um I think rep Scarsdale has the idea that rural communities like Lunenburg and like Gren and dunable and even these places that she represents are our own category so I would recommend we think about that from like a from a storytelling perspective right like how are we telling a story of communities like Lunenburg right and maybe that's not something that she can fix in a year right but how are we setting an agenda like if I was you were my client I would say that how are we setting an agenda to think about rural communities and I wouldn't even say I don't know if I would refer to lunenberg as a rural community but I wouldn't call it a bedroom community I think thinking about that and then thinking about other communities are kind of like Lunenburg um setting up connections with other Finance committees and other school committees and other select boards which I think the mass Municipal Association does a pretty good job at but they have a lot of very diverse communities right they have a hard time representing everyone I mean the more diverse you get when you run Association like that the harder it is to actually do your job um so I would recommend I think that's something I would be happy to help you with like you know I live here I work here I love this town um because I think that's something that we could definitely push and we could talk to Senator Cronin and rep kushar because I don't want to waste them they are both very all three of them I will say this from a professional standpoint very well-liked very well respected in Boston so that's a good thing you know we want to use them yep definitely thank you any have other thoughts question what what's the history of chapter 7 do you know when no I mean when it's been a long time so it uh I know I'm being taped so God I'll probably be wrong but my understanding is right there was a lawsuit against the state that low-income communities were not getting the same the the kids in low-income communities were not getting funded and this was like the 80s you know they were not getting the same education in cities and towns they that communities that were able to contribute more money right to their education base so that's kind of where the Chapter 70 formula came from it's been redone a few times it was redone maybe I want to say three years ago it it was it was pretty recently um and so that's what this problem really has stemmed from is that actually uh I think they were putting more money into other like low-income communities again and trying to re um balance the formula and I would say this is an unintended consequence right this is not I I wouldn't I don't know that the legislators who created the formula knew this was going to happen so soon right that there was going to be all these communities that didn't get as much money and the only good news here is that there's a lot of towns that are really mad about this so I do see like if you had said to me two years ago professionally will they touch the Chapter 70 formula I would have said I think that's a high bar they literally just did it you know it took 10 years last time to change it but with 222 or 220 communities that didn't get more money I actually think probably there is an appetite maybe to make some changes so that that's a good thing um I think it'll be tricky though because the student Opportunity Act is in year four of six yes it's it's a phas in right so that is definitely um an issue so one of the things maybe you can answer this so during the during the budget debate uh Senator Cronin and a few other people were telling me there was a uh a minimum Aid increase per student so basically that probably was that was the whole Timeless communities or was that the do you know no it was everyone it was the per people spending was increased from $50 to $100 or something right so basically every student the town got $50 extra even if the formula didn't allow it so on the floor of the Senate and the house and they're still working on their budget they did increase that so that but you know if you take $50 times how many students are there in lunenberg I think it's ,600 it wasn't much it's not really that much money you know um you know I think the other place that I would look at is the cherry sheet for everything um when you're lobbying again specific wise if you look at the cherry sheet the different pots of money and I know we lost that smart growth money this year which was really disappointing I don't know enough about it I just know that we lost it um but those are the areas that they can a legislator can really affect in the budget like right away right if there's a bucket of money that's coming to you through the cherry sheet that is an area that's primed to say to a legislator we want more money in the special ed you know line item or in I mean unrestricted govern obviously unrestricted government Aid whatever they call it now AG yeah an acronym yeah it's a great acronym so um you know that's the thing I think putting more stuff in writing which is a long process but is something that I think legislators respond to and I always tell people the squeaky wheel gets the grease um you know I mean when you do this as your work like you're reaching out to people all the time and you're always kind and helpful and you know like whatever but it's always like hey did we do that hey how's that going you know what other information can I get you can I help you think about this another way you know um which all of you have full-time jobs so that's not easy to do but you know everyone who does this work in town does besides the town manager so it's not easy but I I I think that's where we need to go just do it while we're at work that's all exactly well our bosses are paying us right luckily my husband's my boss exactly um as far as the smart growth goes uh it was a student count out of the um smart growth apartments and yes we lost I think two or three students and that brought us below the limit it brought you below the limit but we were one of two towns that have ever received money for smart growth apparently really I think it was us and Lincoln I believe it's a significant amount of money right yeah I I I think you're right but I had also heard that we got knocked off and there was a new community coming on oh that came on uh at the uh Association of Finance committees we talked about that briefly um but yeah it very few communities had uh applied and and even reached that income coming in um so I mean we were fortunate and the answer from Sean Cronin in the Department of Public Services when he asked is anything being looked at in regards to what happened to lunberg and he said at this point flat out no yeah that was a few months ago but I don't see we're going to don't think we're going to see much movement probably aren't going to see that many no cuz it's a simple calculation if you fall below the number you're it's it didn't Chapter 70 also they'll work into that calculation so with our bump in Chapter 70 that also kind of played into it a little bit I thought I had heard it's possible that's part of it it's I don't know how this the smart growth calculation is done I just know that it was a it was simply down to the number of people number of students that were in that Community MH um it's why grant money is sorry I didn't mean to interrupt it's why grant money is so hard and why even though Chapter 70 is a big lift it's like even in my opinion if we got more Chapter 70 money that would help all the across the whole budget right I mean obviously the schools want that money but that also you know it does it affects the entire town budget right so but it it is a big it's a big it's it's a big pot that's the other problem like when the when the legislature moves to change the the formula sort of like you never know the unintended consquences right um but yeah I I I personally still think we should be pushing on transportation funding I've gotten no traction but I just personally feel like it's unfair to our kids in lunenberg it wasn't their choice not to regionalize so why are other school districts getting paid for their busing and we aren't right you know that would make a big difference well it's also going to get a lot worse because our bus contract ends this year right it's going to go up it increased contractually contractually a little under $100,000 this past year to the fy2 and then next year when D is the only company that we have bid yeah they have full Authority and they've already they've already stated that they will not remove a bus from our from our contract right I know because the superintendent during the whole budget debate I remember her saying really trying to get us down one bus right so save that money I said absolutely not and what are you going to do about it so Mr scull brin's suggestion I did look at his his bill or it's not even a bill his is a regulatory change he thinks that if the RMV or do has to inspect the buses and they have to give them certification if they require some bidding information that that would at least require companies like d to go out and get other bids and and it would compete so in that sense if that's what we're going to ask for I think we should push with them this isn't even a bill you don't even have to do anything in a bill this is a regulatory change that the um DMV could do or RMV could do um and so in that example what I would say next is we would ask so if we present that ex idea to the representative and she's interested then I think we should ask the representative to meet with us and meet with do at the same time right and say this is something my town is really interested in um that's what I would advise like that we you know then we say okay if if the Reps on board if we could even get um both reps or Senator Cronin all of us to meet with do about it or RVE um or we could go as a town to go meet with them but I don't know that that would work you know in order for it to be a regulatory change though it's got to be across the state still I mean oh yeah so so other towns so then what you would do is right so say we got our reps on board and they were like this is something we think would be a good change um we could do a letter I think you had said there's finance committee like a group of finance committee people who meet together that covers all cities and towns across one of you could write an email or to the whole list serve or whatever and say this is a regulatory change we're pushing our legislator to do um contact your legislator and ask them to one thing we could ask rep Scarsdale to do is put together a letter and ask other legislators to sign on so one way they do that is so if we get rep garsdale on board um and she writes a letter to dot or the RMV or whoever you know whoever the regulatory body is then you email all the other Finance directors tell them ask your legislator to sign on so then if rep Scarsdale sends this letter this is all hypothetical right but if she sends this letter and she gets 10 or 15 of her colleagues around the state to sign on that might be a way to get the arm to think about it or look at it right so that's the kind of stuff that it takes work but I'm happy to help with it um yeah it was definitely frustrating to uh hear the business manager from mon Tech say that they're they're working with three or four busing bus companies for their contracts yes I mean that flored me because that just brings it I mean they have to be competitive when they bid right I mean that's what Mr BR was telling me cuz again I'm not as deep in the details but he was telling me about how it's just really there's no competition um I've told the story and I'll be very brief with it but many years ago when I was still in the school system um a local group got together and did their homework and drove all the roots and so on and so forth and they put forth a proposal that was two buses less than the previous contract people kept saying oh you can't do it you can't do it we said yes we've we've run the numbers and we've done the homework they got the contract in the town State a sizable amount of money yeah well I thought it was interesting when the superintendent during because I went to obviously a lot of meetings during the override stuff she said she has encouraged the uh athletic director to look into other options because I which I think is smart because the athletic director you know the buses go and they just sit there for hours um even in my kids are going to a summer program and surely this summer and they used the buses and it went up considerably and I'm pretty sure that's why right that the buses went up that it's not that the staff is getting paid more it's that it costs more money for them to bust the kids to the swimming you know swimming places and stuff so I mean that would be a huge help the other idea I had on that which this is a little bit out of a little bit wacky Mr Waters but so for 766 schools which are special EDS a specific type of special ed schools OSD which is the operational services division is a regulatory agency and they actually set the OSD rates so schools that are special ed schools they can't just charge whatever they want they there's a rate I don't actually know enough about how the rate is set but there's a state agency that says your rate can go up 2 and a half% each year something like that so there is a precedent for the state to regulate vendors School vendors that need to work with schools so I don't know I think that could be something if the bus companies had to get their rates approved by OSD it's kind of a wacky idea but I don't know it would be if there is precedent for it we could if if Mrs if rep scar still didn't like the idea about the regulations we could try that too mhm I could find the OSD information about that that would be pretty easy it's 766 schools I think I think that would be helpful as well yeah I'm happy to do that for you so how do we feel about cutting it down to two main topics rather than just uh two four six eight of them not not not removing all eight but at least kind of a top two to push for yeah it's kind of like coming up with talking points for you know political uh absolutely that's exactly what I would say so yeah I I totally agree with that and and just make sure that the overall ask I.E the complete list is not either not communicated or thrown in the trash barel you know push push that agenda with the complete list but the talking points for the public meetings and stuff are the three most important two or three most yeah three would be fine I think you know it just definitely top right top things and I don't think you I don't think you have to walk away from putting it in the letter I don't want you to think that I just think vocally you know I do Wonder though with the busing conversation because we are the only District that is not regionalized how that's going to be for a conversation with five other to five other towns do you recall on the email she sent us what exactly so uh the representative did send an email to the group that's invited to the meeting I I for I think I forwarded it to the committee you guys might have seen it I know I'm on the mic she she said something specific about busing she wanted to talk about so maybe we should make sure we're responding to what she I feel like it was the original meeting in mind I think yes so this is what she sent for topics Regional School District transportation but then she wrote in a parenthesis affs five or six towns uh five of six towns but she wrote not receiving 100% reimbursement no bid contracts could desie administer contracts right um a seat for every child I don't know what that means what she's referring to do you what is it a seat for every child not sure and then she wrote Bus requirements for K through 12 for regionals only mandated K through six for comprehension com comprehensive comprehensive sorry that se for every child is familiar to me but I don't remember if it was a regulation that came out or yeah or exactly what it is yeah and and I think it does affect how you calculate how many buses you need but I'm not sure um and who's eligible for busing so something I might suggest to you Mr Waters and most possible Mr newow and how and the group from the to is to send an email back to rep Scarsdale and say thank you for inviting us to this meeting we're looking forward to hearing about all the things on your list is it possible we could talk about the stuff that affects all six towns first I'm a little afraid like if they start on the Regional School transportation conversation and the meeting is only two hours we'll spend two hours talking about Regional School transportation so I think maybe making a point before sorry before the meeting um while we welcome a conversation about School transportation because it is something that affects us as well you know we would really like to make sure we have a discussion on hold harmless minimum required contribution Etc um and then you could even say like no bid contracts that affects us as well so I mean one of the things she's saying is that Regional Schools don't get 100% reimbursement they usually get whatever the legislature sets somewhere between 75 and 90% but I heard what but I used to be told when I worked in the legislature the reason they don't want to give a 100% reimbursement is then the bus companies would just continue to go up because if they know the regional schools are getting 100% reimbursement I mean it's it's even less pressure on them you know because they're they're just getting State money and that's probably one of the driving factors for more than one bus company working with the regional districts rather than individuals that's a great it's a great point right more people bidding on the regional contracts why why should we bother with u one town that's not going to get the state funding where we can go to a regional district and and know that they're going to get 75 to 90% so I mean that's something your your colleagues on the school committee is also like before the budget process next year I was going to recommend to Mr scull brini and Mr Leon that maybe reaching out to other non-real schools and coordinating a letter to to all their legislators cuz there are other non-regional schools out there you know but them using their connections through other school committees to um maybe put something together in January before the budget process even starts you know that's like a a standard request to meet with your legislature about how non-regional schools don't get any money I'm sure there's other I can't think of any around here but well AOL right Winchendon they're not regionalized um lemonster Fitchburg I mean they don't get any money um for you know for transportation but they're getting a lot of Chapter 70 money they're getting a lot of Chapter 70 money so someone like AAL or uh or winchington or something like that might be bet more just more comparable yeah you know but I won't put that on your list I'll put it on Tony's list I am curious to know how many different school districts there are in the state of Massachusetts that are not regionalized what the ratio would be it is a good question and I think um and how many of those are towns versus cities yeah like how many towns because cities do get more Chapter 70 money that's just you know because of the formula whatever so yeah I want to look into that now we're almost there for that population yeah want to be part of the the switch you want to go to city government I'd want to talk to framing first and see what their challenges oh my goodness but framingham's the largest they were the largest town in the Commonwealth my husband's actually from Framingham so they flipped over to a city didn't they did they did they changed to a city but they were the largest town in in the Commonwealth for a long long time yeah I mean we have the numbers already we could switch to a a a counselor system but well I saw an official number that was not high enough you're not a fan of town meeting Mr pasos we wouldn't get to go to we wouldn't get to go to town meeting anymore if uh if we didn't it was only like 5600 people I thought it was a really low bar for for to switch to town government I mean to switch to city government yeah it's a low number for switching to representative town government but city is like 12,000 I don't think we're origin were officially uh 12,000 I saw a number that was 118 or something like that yeah I I I yes I I think you're right it is it's at least representatives for town meeting right which were well beyond that number yeah yeah some towns do I mean I know just cuz my husband's from Framingham I know they used to have representative town meeting before before that which is interesting um so I do know one comment I want to make is I know that the open meeting law prevents some conversation like prevents more collaboration than I sort of anticipated when I started getting involved with town government I'm not always sure it's the best I understand the concept but um so I'm more than willing to come tomor meetings if that's a helpful way to participate um just because I know there's rules about what we can talk what you all can talk about together as long as you're emailing three or fewer yeah you're fine three members of One committee wellow three members of this committee it has to be below a quorum okay so can I email up break one member of the select like all the people who are coming to this meeting could be who could be one member of the select board one member of the finance committee one member of I mean I don't know actually who's going to be there but whoever was on this invitation that I'm okay with yes and you can send an email to the full committee you just can't then have correspondence back and forth guys can reply and stuff right we'd have to reply individually versus reply all okay and your replies would then have to go to that person or whoever replied as well and some chairs prefer that it goes to the chair and they disseminate it to the committee so yeah you'll find you'll find out after you send the first one or two I just like that entirely cuz then I forget who I've what I've sent and what I haven't s any of you have seen me around town the last few months I'm not shy so people tell me you know what to do or where to go so but I really do want to help so I you know I I feel very committed to this town I'm not ready to run for office I don't I have little kids I don't have the time commitment to do the kind of work you guys are doing and I really respect that but I you know I want to help so that was actually going to be one of my last suggestions was has nothing to do with school funding but I know they're looking for a new town manager and uh it seems like a lot of the Town committees that are formed include like the longterm the short-term committees are formed with members of every other committee and I want to put in a vote for maybe you should let a lay person be on some of those committees maybe there are people in town maybe not me but other people who could commit a shorter period of time to a committee like for example if they were hiring a town manager and they you want to have one finance committee one school committee one select board I don't know how you'd choose the last person I guess that would be you know but like someone who was a shortterm right maybe someone who can't commit to one night a week for the rest of their lives but you know could come for a five Monon period and attend regularly so I I just put that out there I was going to send select board an email too keep that in mind and and send it in in a as a suggestion when we move forward with uh seating and a uh Charter Review Committee that's like that's it's coming down the pipe that's the exact kind of Comm that to happen exactly that think someone may contribute to but maybe doesn't want to be on a committee that runs you know for two years or three years the limitations most of the limitations are written within the charter and that's why that um you don't have members of the public on these two committees that are going to replace the town manager because it's specifically listed in there who's on those committees oh that's good to know I didn't read the chart stret this conversation out just a little bit further yeah um I've been looking into and I I told the uh search committee that I would make some contacts up in New Hampshire uh the city of town of Lancaster New Hampshire which is the county seat for Coos County um was without a town manager for I believe seven or eight months they just hired a new town manager and interestingly enough in their uh regulations their search committee is one town employee and the rest were all members of the public with specific Specialties mhm so you know not always a good idea right and part of that because they don't you know part of it is because their form of government up there is a bit different uh you don't have as many committees like we do uh in the town of lunenberg and Massachusetts but uh it opened it up to more of the public for many things yeah and I just think encouraging people to be involved in government is important and sometimes it's daunting to think about it like long-term commitment but maybe on a short-term commitment for example my mom is serving on the 300th committee or whatever and I think she likes she's excited to do that and also that's like a time you know like I know that's like a few years but you know it's leading up to one thing right and I think that's like a good way to be involved and then it's over for another 100 years right yeah for another hundred years or 50 or 50 exactly she's very excited about it so Mr Gray just to catch you up we are completely out of order yeah sorry about that talking about the conversation with rep's Carsdale and my name is Mandy Gilman I was invited to the meeting because I'm uh I'm the vice president of the PT in town so I wanted to coordinate with folks so that we're not asking for different things and she'll be at the meeting as well with yeah I'll be at the meeting so any other thoughts or conversation about this for now no I think we stretched it out as far as it could that's fine I appreciate all of you thank you so much for your work send me an email or call me very much alive yeah appreciate it thank you Miss Gil so I think it would be helpful then to to I think at least discuss what individually our kind of topics are that we want to push for at least that we want to recommend to push for that I can then bring to the school committee and to the the select board to kind of get their take I agree I think we should still put all 10 there are other ones that are not this list I'm happy to add those as well or we can certainly discuss them but I do at least want to make sure that we are the finance committee has their kind of top two that we're putting forward M let me pull it back up again as I said earlier I I don't know how we properly spin it but I I think we need to start the dialogue of you know you're bringing all these spending bills out of uh out of the legislature and you're supporting again like I said underperforming in lower inome communities and and leaving the ones in the middle such as lunenberg uh out in the cold as far as I'm concerned with their infrastructure funding bills and things like that yeah we qualify for some of them but at the end of the day we come out with 2% of the you know total amount appropriated within that bill because of a formular that penalizes us for our affluence or however you want to put it so why don't we then go down the line do you have the list in front of you by any chance I do not I've been trying to keep uh Zoom open because it closed on me twice you that to us yep I did uh I mean from my perspective I'm fine with the uh you know biggest two priorities in the on the school side which as uh Mandy mentioned Chapter 70 affects the whole town so uh definitely on board with that and the busing that that's more our local issue than it is for the other communities but it still needs to be you know we need to push that that issue and get some help to get out of the situation we're in now with the uh lack of competition and so on okay would you then go so it's listed on here as state funding at inflation right under Chapter 70 are you more interested in kind of looking at Chapter 70 to try and find a specific lever to mess with or kind of going at it more for saying we need to just add this because there isn't an inflationary portion to Chapter 70 or do you want to stay non-specific and just say Chapter 70 good point I mean the easy way is to just say Chapter 70 but that's not the why and how yeah um I mean where she brought it Forward I I think the uh the adjustment you know agree with her on the cost of living adjustment or whatever she's proposing that piece maybe we we uh get on board with that piece that she brought to us okay and if you remember too when we met with our delegation uh I think a couple of different times there were uh comments made that until the student Opportunity Act gets through the next couple of years there's um not a lot of appetite for changing Chapter 70 but I think the the conversation needs to start now cuz it's going to take that long to make the changes anyway and rep Scarsdale has reiterated that after the fact as well to read directly um that there isn't much appetite for doing anything the Chapter 70 while the student Opportunity Act is still only 2third of the way through it's rolling out process I'm just going to add I I think that talking about like some sort of an inflation Rider then or something is a good idea because that way she can argue to the powers that be this isn't changing the structure of ch 70 right this we understand you want a 2E you want to see how this pushes out but you have to help my communities in in the um in the interim right like an inflationary or something of that sort would at least allow the legislators who formulated the New Chapter 70 to still claim victory sorry I mean interrupt and bring it across as it was an unanticipated exactly uh strain because of the inflation that we've seen over the past five years that's what I would absolutely right okay right this Russell have any top two that you would go after you're kind of supporting more I would also just do the the first two okay busing in the inflation Rider Mr gr do you have any idea what we're talking about with this list um I do remember I don't have it in front of me but I just emailed it again to to everyone just the list specifically from the school department or school committee um and miss miss Gilman's suggestion was to send the entire list in a letter but to go to the meeting with two that we want to push rather than trying to push 10 right I agree with the busing as from what we heard from from everybody from the school committee and and others that and it's not just us as other towns too to me the most important thing is that our representative is is one voice however there are a lot of communities like us who if you just read the news or look what's going on are going through the same thing we are so they have Representatives who might not be our rep and so there's going to be more pressure from those people so what are the things that they are going to be pushing for we should be pushing for too because we'll be able to get a the mass the right amount of mass because it takes pressure from the Hender lands is probably going to be hard but I think we can do it so busing in the in the inflation um you know maybe it might be a less of a a less of a problem over the next few years as you know if inflation goes back down we don't know yet but if it does then it'll be an issue but it's it's also a long-term problem mhm if um but I think that uh I think we would we have I I I think it would be good for our representative to to find out what other communities are focusing on and if they're focusing on those things and we think they're important that we should all o do it so that's that's the other thing I would I would say and this I mentioned this at the start of the meeting um she is intending to do that already she's starting with her six districts within the first middle sex district and then in the fall she's going to invite all 220 districts that were minimum a districts to have a large scale conversation to try and form some type of a coalition to then bring forward to the legislature to do exactly that to kind of speak with more Authority and and more ideally more power all right they if they can get some kind of uh you know 20 or 30 or 50 Representatives who all are speaking the same Minds they'll have a lot more power than if our two in our town our two people just are saying something so that's important M thank you at least that's what I heard in history class in High School Mr Simone yeah yeah I would say yeah the top two top two as well yeah the bus bidding process and state funding and then um smart growth funding busing and smart growth no busing the state funding Rider and then for third smart growth got it and I would have to I'd have to agree as well I think bu is going to be critical um of our $32.7 million school budget this year which included Chapter 70 but doesn't include the override I realize our busing was about a million dollars of that so that's it's 132 of it but it's still it's still a chunk and it's going to go up and up and up um and it would be nice to get 75% of that back or even 25% of that back I don't think that's an unrealistic ask um an inflation I I'm curious to to see and I need to go back through the Chapter 70 calculation to make sure there isn't an inflation portion that's not directly built into the calculation but is sort of at the starting point of I'm not sure if they take last year and apply a inflationary increase and then go through the process I'm not sure I just want to make sure before we send a letter out that says hey do something you're already doing well since we're getting the in most towns get the the calculations are irrelevant we just get the the the um default number anyway so it's um maybe it should be part of the default number right our one our $96,000 should then have a whatever the right State's inflation or or federal inflation calculation was on top of that yeah one thing I think we could consider and I'd be happy to help you with is I uh Mrs Areno or Miss had mentioned she had talked to a woman who works at the mass school committee Association or someone very involved there who might be able to help us pinpoint exactly what instead of us you're very good at math I am not so like you know clowning around with the formula you know maybe she could give us a suggestion the other expertise we could ask Mary foil actually who runs the teachers union in town the MTA just has a lot of resources um and they have a lot of expertise in of these things maybe she could point us in the direction of someone who could like take a look at our formula and you know and give us a real concrete suggestion is the other agreed yes yeah she it was Tracy from uh the Massachusetts Association of school I've heard Tracy's name before I don't know her but I I think she would be someone good to reach out to she wrote a great email so yeah exactly I've heard her name before in the legislature so I now trust her implicitly exactly Mandy we've supposedly had chapter 7 70 explained to us as a committee at least I think at least three times we have a top top to bottom over the past five years and we still don't totally understand I watched this presentation it was great presentation quite good but I can't remember single bit of it right now I watched it a few weeks ago and I was like oh I get it yeah I got it for the just before our meeting with the committee and then it's gone yeah it's gone now so okay um so I will I'll send the note off to uh Miss tarz and Mr Menard as well just to make sure that we're kind of all on the same page and let them know what the idea is and then I will reach out to I guess Mr SCH brini and Mr leonin since Mr Mr leighton's on vacation for a little while um and then he I was going to try to meet with uh Mr nzo and Mr Leon before our repres our representative meetings the week of the 11th but if he's back on the 11th that's going to kind of be our our next meeting is that day um so I would like to at least get something kind of down um I'm not sure when the next school committee meeting is but I believe the next select board meeting is going to be after not sure if they're meeting this coming Tuesday or not school committee have one I think they have one on the calendar for next week they met yesterday oh yesterday so they're done till September aren't they they might be okay well they can always do a straw poll um I'm happy to help you draft if that's helpful and then that would be wonderful cuz I can do math I can't do words obviously you guys would all but I I'll I'll write you a sort of what I think it should look like that would be great thank you um and I'm not sure if the select board is meeting on the 2nd but I would expect them to probably meet on the 9th which would nth is the next meeting okay so then we could meet on the 11th and that gives us the 15 that gives us kind of that week to really finish it and send it out beforehand because I'd like to send it a week in advance if possible and then send it again all right before we close that out any more conversation on the meeting with rep Scarsdale Mr Gray it is um the 19th July 19th from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the gron Town Hall and they didn't say that we can't have every member of the finance committee there they just invited the chairs of the Departments so I don't see any reason why everyone else can't go I think as it was suggested before even if we do all decide to attend or a percentage of US other than the chair uh that the chair is going to be the one speaking for should be the one speaking for the commission unless it's decided in a couple more meetings that it's going to be shrunk down to even less than that like maybe the select board chair or whatever I think it'll depend depend upon whether or not we do have a unified document that we're sending forward right I agree counter to what we did with the legislature in the spring I'd like to actually have an agreed upon list that all departments are that are presenting um put together yep so I I since I miss this is this going to be multiple all all her all her towns it'll be six towns um there she's inviting Finance chairs um select board chairs school committee chairs School superintendents um Town managers and I believe Poss and I think school Finance directors um and random and like and and Mandy and and also Desi officials as well yeah okay for two hours it's going to be tough if we have more PE would that be counterproductive have more people there is there going to be like a stage where people all those people are going to be there and then other people can watch or like are are like Community people there allowed to be there and sit around or the room is TBD from the last email it's just at the gron Town Hall which I've never been to um I have a feeling it's going to be limited to to speaking with whomever is actually on the invitation list but I don't think there's any reason why we can't have other members there but it's just we would have to convene a meeting if we have a quorum we we can be the gallery that's booing or chea exactly um it just made me think of that's a great question Mr Gray when you send if you end up taking my advice and sending miss scarel an email about you know not maybe focusing on the Regional Schools First another thing you might want to say to her is lunenberg would like to be as prepared as possible what can we expect are the Desi officials going to present are you expecting um each town to make a um statement you know I just think it would be good to kind of know because there going to be a lot of people there I think is what I'm right you know there's going to be a lot of people wonder if that's going to be counterproductive of having a lot of people a lot everybody wants to talk everybody wants to say something and that's exactly the best way to get I would think that she that's why I do think writing a letter is important um and Mr I'm sorry you missed the beginning but I used to be a lobbyist I am actually still a register lobbyist so I do this work a lot that's why I'm here giving I guess advice um I think putting a letter together is important before the meeting because there are going to be a lot of people there so if for some reason we don't get you know that she doesn't get to what we are we've already at least weighed in like this is and I would CC the Desy officials on the email on the letter because they're going to be there um and then that's why I think we should have a unified voice but I have no I don't really know what to expect I haven't been to a meeting my boss never had a meeting like this this is actually very brave of her honestly to have all these people in one room with the Desy officials I think one thing I would absolutely say is rep scar still does not screw around she we should be very happy that she is actively there are a lot of legislators God bless them um you know throughout my career there's all types of legislators I'll just leave it at that right I mean she is really here to fix this problem so we should take advantage of that fre thank you sorry I keep getting off no that's okay eventually you'll end up on a stage yeah no thank you don't all right any more discussion on this topic for tonight at least okay I will send something around then after I reach out to um the school school committee and the select board just to make sure just kind of give them an update and just make sure that they're okay with the same thing and then I will rely on Miss Gilman for writing a fancy letter you guys have letterhead right we'll put on your letter I can send you what goes on what somebody made who knows how long ago for us I don't know what it is all right uh going backwards to new business so the first one we have on here is to review the budget process and suggestions for improvement so I'm I was literally just pulling off of our list that we had kind of organized into A's and B's and C's and this was these were the top two so my intention is to kind of have these sit on here and move down to Old business until we decide that we're either done with them or dropping them um I don't have a direct plan for this I just kind of wanted to open up and see where the conversation heads and then we can start funneling down um I think we're sort of all in agreement for the most part that the budget process is a little bit too compressed and backend heavy um for what needs to be done to actually get a holistic and and appropriate view of the Budget prior to town meeting that subject was broached in the uh Capital planning meeting uh week or two ago uh Chris would have probably reported that when he if he was here tonight um and that's their frustration too because they're there uh don't feel that there is enough time for them to vet the projects properly and uh you know a couple years in a row there's been some feeling with different members including myself when I was still on there that you know I'm not sure we got the priorities right because we were so rushed mhm you know so there there is conversation the challenge one of the big challenges is that the the search committee is hoping now they're just hoping they have no idea how long this is going to take but they're hoping to wrap up and be able to hire a town manager in less than six months talking trying targeting four months um be fantastic if it if it works because obviously we're going to have a a new town manager coming in right in the heart of the beginning of uh budget season well in our intrm town manager position is only offered at a 3-month position and last I heard which was as of yesterday no one has applied for that so yeah I don't know if that it down the road or in effect 6 months if need be but can be extended right right right it it can be extended to another 3 months but 6 months from today is is December 27th right which is not a good time to start yep 3 months from today is still tough um with cap planning though I guess as they do not have to choose the number of projects that apply to the final list where is the budgetary pressure for them budgetary pressure is built into the charter and the tasks of the Town manager to bring forward particular reports numbers so on and so forth on a set schedule okay um so that's that's what pushes it back so early um okay and I don't remember the dates you know it gets printed out every year and I okay I forget it every year so it's because the town because the charter requires the the capital planning committee to have a finalized list to be able to present the town manager for her to or for them to put into their budget but that scenario there was a little bit of push back uh between couple of the members in in that conversation as to so you know there was a rationale that the schedule on the surface didn't make sense why it was compressed that or pushed that early into the process where it doesn't really get finalized for another 3 or four months after Capital planning's done with it so I I think there's going to be some conversation back and forth about that yeah I mean couldn't you simply just have tiers and say we have a $500,000 tier we have a million dollar tier we have a $2 million tier and the town manager can just work off of the tiers with their budgeting and what falls into there is up to the capital planning committee is it gets done with that at the end of the year well the the the pro the planning process up to well the planning process is not supposed to include numbers mhm cost cost of projects and so on and so forth but it's supposed to look at the project itself and where it fits in the priority of the list of all projects so uh I remember a number of years back that they prioritize the projects with either no numbers attached to them or very preliminary numbers attached to them and then once that was set up then the numbers got attached to them and then it fell into whatever we had available for that year but that's the thing it's that's I guess that ask goes to two other questions one why does the town manager then get to reorganize what the capital planning committee did Charter but why that's all I can say why all I can say is Charter that's why we need to seat a committee and we need to go through every paragraph of that Charter and reorganize this town and get the charter to spell out what this town needs not what the charter says right because that just negates the purpose of the other other than being sort of a fact finding committee to bring forward to the town manager here's a list of things now you go and do what you want and it doesn't matter anyways as well because the number at the end is not set until much later in the process so it doesn't matter what so the the the pressure should not be on the capital planning committee at that point it should be by the the end of the year first you know end of the first quart end of February something like that I I don't think anybody on that committee would argue with that at all okay so that would take out at least one portion of it but that doesn't make our job any easier right but the whole process either needs to happen expeditiously which it hasn't for the last two years has been delays every inch of the way M or it needs to be pushed up earlier to leave room for the unanticipated delays so that you're not up against a deadline every single time you're trying to do something and and trying to have a public hearing um the same day that the final budget is presented or you know those types of things it just that's not the way to do business obviously or public hearing 3 days before our report is due right doesn't give us a chance to even meet before yep um as it stands do we have any idea how many it's too bad we don't have the finance director here do we have any idea how many budgets are done on spreadsheets versus on some Municipal budgeting software I have no idea I I have no idea I thought we we were told that they don't have software other than spreadsheet cuz that was on my list of things to talk about for the for the committee is that there should both uh the school and town budget should be on some software the same software and um just too easy to make mistakes but well it's not that's not only that with with software you're going to end up with audit Trails right yeah which is critical as I'm sure they have they have routin well what if this happens well you can put in scenarios and okay this happens and it'll change all the appropriate things if you set it up right so to me that would be an EAS one of the things I think for us is that it's like a oneshot deal the DPW comes in and says herey here's here's our budget uh could they come in earlier with well this is so far how we're doing this year MH and this is what we think we're going to be looking for next year and they don't present per se a budget for us to approve but to give us sense of well you know what we thought we were going to be able to do all this stuff but because of X Y and Z this is what's happening oh okay so now we know and uh here's our expectations for next year and we might question that well you know you want to do all that but really our biggest problem is this and have a discussion so it's not all one and done then they come back later on and uh give us their full budget after the U the town manager for this year will be the interim Town manager probably has a has a say in it and uh to me that way we get more wax at it and it don't they don't have to be and again I don't want them to be spending three months putting together a presentation for us it should be you know something they can do fairly easy and and and educate us on what's going on and then we're the more educated we are the better we'll be able to make ask good questions wow at least attempt it right well uh where is our C the other the other piece of the budgeting process that we used to work through when we were on schedule would budgeting was that the town manager's proposed budget would come out early enough so that uh individual department heads came back to us or that was their first first round with us actually uh you know talking about the budget that's proposed by the town manager and justifying why they had certain things they were hoping the town manager would put back in and looking basically looking for our support for those items above and beyond the town manager's proposed budget we haven't had time we haven't been able to do that at least last year and I believe the year before um because everything gets compressed into such a short period of time then you get a real good look at the needs of the individual departments after they know what they assume they're getting and come before us and plead for you know these these particular things are are really near and dear to us or should be near and dear to the town because because of this reason mhm that's how you go into town meeting with a support for a budget uh because it's all been vetted out before you go to the town meeting for so looking at our budget calendar for fy2 the capital Improvement planning forms are are issued to departments were by sept member 11th after that December 4th is when the capital planning committee reviews all requests and begins prioritizing what was that date December 4th December 4th and then by January 2nd they have finalized recommendations to provide the town manager so so basically they have one month one month so four meetings at best and and the budget process Tim uh you know terminating in town meeting is 5 months later the department budget requests were due to the town manager on January 4th that seems incredibly late M mhm only 6 months into the budget but we should have forecasting at this point point I mean by 6 months we should be able to see are we on track have we spent 50% of our budget or where are we overend get from the finance director we should be get the actuals quarterly right to see where we're at agreed and that should help or more often if we need to and that should help kind of Drive are you going to need to push more into this line for next year or you going to be able to pull back from this line next year at least get some preliminary stuff yeah yeah we had none of that in this last cycle no none of it we we I mean the fourth quarter is closing on Monday or or on Sunday and we haven't seen anything on the third quarter no and as I said in a previous meeting quarter 2 closed out had some red flags yep so we don't know where the where that went from there through the third quarter and we're already closing out the fourth quarter all right so the next one was on the 18th of January that's when we were supposed to hear our 5-year Financial forecasts from the town manager which we're still waiting on and then February SE February 5th um we get the town manager's budget summary is sent to the lunenberg ledger to be published February 13th and 15th is the town manager's recommendation presentation and then we start reviewing on the the next week and we meet weekly through the end of February through all of March and we meet a couple times a week at the end of March so from February 15th until March 21st we are meeting constantly and that's fine if we have all the information that we need to go over during that time period but I see I still don't think it is because our we get the school Department's budget the school committee Budget on the on March 20th or 21st actually usually it's the the the Thursday because they're voting on it the the Wednesday before I don't know how they can get that to us any quicker but if if and I'm not sure how we can move this back cuz that's one of the biggest ones because we need to be able to really dig through that if that's going to be 50% of our budget yeah well it it comes back to the question as to why towns like uh gron and dunable and and I think even towns can have their Town meetings to vote their budgets one to two months before we do and we keep being we keep getting told that well you there's too many variables well they deal with it why can't we I I think it all comes down to forecasting yeah it it's we have no forecast we have no idea where we're going we have historical Trends but we don't have for some reason we don't have the ability to project out yeah which is not a hard thing to do yeah um and and the more you have to project out the more the necessity for what we've already got in place and those are accounts to protect ourselves against un unexpected expenses like the reserve account uh special purpose stabilization all the stabilization accounts and stuff that's why those are there MH because if if you're setting your budget with even more variables than you have in the past then that's where that money is going to need to come from at at the last minute to make the adjustments on town meeting floor to cover it I mean the process is in place we're just not using it and if I was going to write software to run the depart run the budget for a town I would have it do all sorts of iterative calculations for the historical data the historical just pick a department the dpw's um gasoline budget what they spent year over year and then project out and then as you fill in the next year it goes back and says okay how's my Trend do I need to adjust my actual my forecasting and you should be able to have that done for 5 years and print it on a daily basis yeah it it I can't that's the only other way that I could think that they're doing it as well is that they have it's not just forecasting it's how their forecasting is done so somebody can go up to it the finance director can go and just hit print and here's every Department here's what we think they're going to need and I'm sure you can do constraining for growth and inflation and it's out there but we're still in the 19th century I would I would argue 17th um so yes we our last presentation is done on the 21st of March and then we have our public hearing the week after on the 28th and then 5 days later our report is due it's there isn't going to be a way to have that reasonable so I I I'm I'd like to be able to bring forward by the end of this this discussion not tonight's discussion but the end of the discussion with the with the finance committee on this sort of a list of suggestions or recommendations or even if we could look into software packages or whatnot and say look here's what Gren does or here's what other towns are doing and here's how they're doing it the towns that do have their their Town meetings in March and run on the same fiscal calendar how are they able to do it without failing miserably um any other thoughts for this one for this evening works for me it's already getting late thought this was going to be a quick one all right the second one is consolidation of services and departments and I think if anything having a new town manager come on might actually be the perfect time to to suggest this um so again the same idea with this I intend to keep it in the old business and kind of refer back to it and just do some research over the summer to see what other towns are doing other if there are other towns that have separate dpws or separate facilities or or whatnot um and ones that don't and start you know communicating with our our peers essentially yeah and seeing what else what other people are doing um yeah to move the town forward that really needs to be analyzed and there needs to be some moves made uh as we know um you know we're we've already had dialogue that push PES back against it but I think we're going to find as we reach out to other cities and towns that are already doing it differently that we're going to find that it makes sense to do certain things a different way and that's why I think this town is ready for restructuring top to bottom um in the way it does business 365 days a year MH um consolidation is not going to save us money it's probably going to cost us money but the problem is that we have held back on the growth of our ability growing our ability to deal with what needs to get done in this town on a day-to-day basis by holding back on on hiring and expanding departments and creating efficiencies and consolidating such as a very simple one and and there's a lot of moving pieces to it but as we've seen with the facilities department now the new contract for groundskeeping for the town's property starts on July 1 and over the last two or three years that has pulled in to that one contract more and more properties you know all the parks um and uh other areas that uh were being maintained other ways whether it be by DPW workers or whatever but it's all under a single contract and a single umbrella so that there's efficiencies there when a company bids an annual um agreement to do stuff like that it's almost always cheap it's got to be cheaper than Breaking that up into five different uh I'm not going to say five different contracts but doing part of it with Contract Services and then having staff on payroll uh pushing your oped expenses and all that stuff up uh if you're contracted you know what your cost is and you got a rough idea what your cost is going to be going forward MH I mean you you can create a three-year contract even and know exactly what you're going to be spending for groundskeeping or some aspect of facilities operations or whatever that gives you a three-year loed in number or damn close to walked in number so then your forecasting gets much easier uh the work gets done mhm and um I I don't know it it it just makes so much sense that I don't know why this push back against it except that there's turf wars I have noticed that the the arguments that I've heard are just I don't want that yeah that's the argument that I basically we've always done it this way and I don't want that right it's hard that's going to be put in the closet change is always hard yep and I mean I'm not I don't know what they I mean I think someone should look a group should look into it and obviously see what kind of improved Services reduction of costs both capital and operating cost um and all that but um it might be hard but that doesn't mean you don't do it to me it you you just need to look at it and um there's a few of them in town and I think we should push for that I I think part of the budget task force should be to to look at that that should be you know other than getting software hiring getting and also um that I mean those are the two biggest ones I can think of yep yeah I'm planning on bringing that up with the budget if if it's if it's not part up by um SEL select person m key I'm planning to push a consolidation study for sure and like I said I I in in my mind I don't see it eliminating positions I see it actually creating a need to add positions mhm uh but we're very we've held back for so long that that needs to happen you know we kind of went through the budget season and and more said well the town's not in great shape but we don't need an override but we don't need an override because we don't have the structure that we should have that's the only reason we didn't need an override if you look at our or charts outside of the the fire department and the police department it's basically department head and then a single tier and then maybe two people down and that's basically it which that's not you can run it you can't just have a ton of managers right it it's it's there's nothing else to manage at that point um I think the big one for me is going to be having a single Consolidated Health Care line so that we're not so that when we hear from department heads saying we'd like to increase hours for this position or we would like to add a new position for this here's the budgetary impact some departments know what it's going to cost with the healthcare because it's in their lines the schools and some departments have no idea what it's going to cost with the healthcare and I that's that's not how we should be being presented with new salary increases I think it should simply just be this is the bottom line and then we have here's the healthcare impact as well mhm um I don't know if that's a charter thing why the healthc care is in the school department budget it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever I know that our largest health insurance line but it's still paid out of the same it's one bill that's paid right townwide it's not the school's bill and the town's bill yeah um I also just what came out of last year's budget process I also truly feel that the conversion from a non benefited position to something benefited the jump should be to a minimum of 36 hours I don't think we should be playing this game of adding five or six hours to a position which you know as we discussed kicks in all of those costs whether they take them or not they have to be budgeted uh move it to that 36 hour or whatever that window is that we do for 4 day week uh people um and I think the town over the long run will get more out of each one of those positions as they grown from non-benefited to benefited positions adding one or two hours uh jumping them into that next stage the town's really not gaining anything yeah it's really important I believe that all of the positions in town need to be oriented towards the needs of the Town not the needs of the person in that position mhm that's extremely important I mean you you got to have some compassion yes I I understand that but the end of the day the job descriptions need to be what the town needs not not what fits a person that happens to be in that position or is going to come into that position it's a if it's a full-time position does it have to be salary or can we pay hourly at fulltime I can't answer that question well usually managerial is salary right and you get to exempt or non-exempt basically right right and that's I don't know how it side well they've been talking about even trying to move move that around a bit too so in the private sector or in the well well the private sector which the the government says oh this person is a supervisor even though they don't supervise anybody but you know then they get to work 90 hours a week and make less than minimum wage or something so you know they there's all sorts of games that they can play but I think there's some regs I'm not sure about if cities and towns if they're different than the private sector mhm because then I wonder if going to that idea where if you're saying okay this person's working 15 hours a week and we want to move them up to you know a benefited position it jumps to 36 hours but if they're being paid hourly and they only work 25 hours a week with a maximum of 36 hours a week then you're never going to hit your ceiling that you went that you you budgeted for which then you have money to return back at the end right versus oh shoot we have this this person's a salaried position making X number of dollars per year but they're that's houred at 36 hours but they're only working 20 hours a week I don't know if that's an option also if you do some consolidation then you have more people in the department and that changes how you manage hours and all that so I think you know it's when there's one person doing one thing and then they need need five more hours to do it because of the you know then it goes from you know 17 now to 20 three you know well if there was five people to in in the department then they could figure out a way to get that work done MH and as you mentioned you know if I only have one employee then what am I really I don't have a lot of options mhm if I have six then I I can say oh we we're going to focus on that problem at the school and then we'll worry about then I I have all those people working on that then I can go and deal with the town hall we can go back being open 5 days a week I think that's a I don't yeah it'll be interesting when we bring on a to a new town manager as to what that person's taking is on 4 day week versus 5-day week in a municipality uh I'm not sure that it's a fair question to ask of them in the first six months but but maybe I I mean if they've had experience with it in another town or city or town then you know that's that's something that could be a plus and I hope that we bring in a manager that is ready to bring their management skills to the table and not be afraid that this isn't the way you've done it in the past but this is the way I manage things as long as it for the time being stays within the realm of the charter M I hope we get a strong manager that comes in and and does the things that need to be done for our town to function properly because we're not functioning properly now on almost all levels my personal opinion they haven't received any interim Town manager applications yet Dave yeah that that that tells you that uh the more we talk about the fact that we're uh we're in a deep hole Yeah the more Miss Gilman that that the more that people don't even out of retirement for six months don't want to deal with it yeah I mean I I I feel that every single day it's like God there's a lot of things that need to be done but I'm not ready to dive into this stuff I'm I'm on the other end yeah okay any other discussion on this one for tonight I think we're good for now my plan is to kind of pull together notes as we're going through these and create little documents for them that we can kind of add on to or remove from and have sort of working documents and hopefully they lead somewhere worst case they end up in the trash but yeah maybe not maybe they'll get stuck in a folder somewhere I think on another night when we if if we have a a very light schedule and we have a full committee here that we might kick all that around again and and drill down a little further and see you know kind of talk out scenarios and get them down as a document that we also pass on to the study committee y that you know this is what we foresee as prudent moves to consolidate uh we haven't vetted the issues or so on and so forth but this is just our our first round that's exctly this is what we came up with that's exactly what my thought was yep same idea I I have a feeling that the budget uh Review Committee will be there you know we'll we'll be talking about as this going on you'll be presenting hey this is what we talked about and uh we can throw in our two cents and you can go back to the committee and say hey this is what you know here are some better ideas because the more heads the better and also you know if you're just the one person in there Rec recognizing it it also things get done better with fewer people but more heads thinking about it and then having a little not input but just a say or sometimes you just kind of say oh that's I never thought of that yeah I think what I I'm still kind of wrestling with how I want to handle that um because I think the budget task force is intimately tied to the finance committee and should be I I think should have input from the finance committee as well not just from a single representative of the finance committee so I I think whether that results in just um sort of a document that gets submitted to the finance committee on a weekly or however often the budget task force is meeting that we can then discuss at our meeting that can then be kind of brought forward so we have this kind kind of recycling back through the information to readdress it um I haven't given it too much thought but I I do want to make sure that we have you know the committee's the committee has an opportunity to discuss the same stuff that the budget task force is discussing because it's sort of our job as well all right back to Old business again I don't think we're going to have too much of an update on the town manager search committee representative other than it's still I could give you a little if you don't mind I I did attend the meeting I didn't actually talk to Tim yet right so um and I was going to make it in public comment but I'll do it now where it's a agenda item um and and I'll just be very short and brief because uh I want to make sure get it wrong so um but anyway they they had a very good discussion um Tim Murphy has been through two of these in the past in his years as a moderator so he brought packets of information from especially the last round when Heather was hired uh and shared that with the committee and they they reviewed that back and forth didn't read the whole document but it went through that process um they are meeting aggressively over the next few weeks to finalize their document to be to advertise the position and uh as I said earlier very optimistically they're shooting for four to five months but they really don't know um if that's going to work out or not um I think I had one other point but I can't think of what it was right at the moment um oh I I was just going to state for The public's information that all meetings are public meetings of that committee they will be posted just like all our other meetings on the Boon board out front on the uh town website on the calendar and they will all be available through Zoom unless there's an electronic problem so and they and they did vote or or decide or in agreement that they will have public comment um allowed good during at some point of the meeting I don't remember if this is the beginning of the end but um I just wanted to get that out to the public so that you know if you want to keep up with where that process is uh how it's progressing you can actually see the meetings that'll be recorded and they'll be available up on YouTube excellent very good to hear all right on to the budget task force uh we officially have a budget task force now the select board did vote to create one so I'm not alone um miss m key is the select board representative um Mr scullen brini is the school committee representative and uh Miss brazowski is the alternate if the meetings take place during the day and he's in court she'll step in for the school committee um I believe I oh I may not have forwarded this and I apologize I I thought I had forwarded the budget task force charge to the committee you did okay thank [Music] goodness um but they did put together Miss memy did put together a document for the charge of the budget task force um and it's pretty aggressive it calls for a recommendation and presenting of its fi or present presentation of its findings and recommendation to the school board the finance committee and the school committee the select board excuse me the finance committee and the school committee no later than December 31st of this year so that's going to be a busy meeting um there are three sections to it the first one is a general section where it's being charged with recommend ing scenarios for a 3 to 5e sustainable fiscal plan for the town of lunenberg which I think will help to address our um budget process I hope um it defines a sustainable fiscal plan as a financial forecast that uses realistic assumptions for re revenue and expenditure growth that allow the town to provide services that meet residents expectations and meet ongoing expenditure obligations through regularly occurring revenues um the second one is the tasks and responsibilities and there's a number of them I'll just go through them really quickly to collect data on revenue and expenditures historical Trends and project future estimates based on Trends and various assumptions that's what I'm hoping will be able to be used for our departments and planning out what we're going to need for the next fiscal year benchmarking Municipal and school performance programs expenditures and revenues with comparable municipalities that is going to be a ni May um there's a lot of good information on Desi's website but to find a compare there's so many different categories to compare to find a peer municipality is going to be very difficult so I I I hope we'll be able to find at least one or two um to examine potential Revenue sources overrides and exclusions under prop two and a half as well as non- tax and non override Revenue sources in compliance with the town Financial policy including costs feasibility potential savings and other impact of potential adoption and implementation Cuts in service Contracting out of services as well as other measures uh evaluate strategies to properly staff Municipal and school operations while managing growth and personal costs so I think that's going to incorporate the consolidation portion analyze Capital Project funding needs and impacts including long-term capital projects include both operational and capital budgets and the in the fiscal plan recommendations and lastly assess the impact and any increase taxes and fees will have on taxpayers and residents including the tax impact of debt exclusions related to large capital projects under consideration uh the last portion is just the membership and meetings it is going to be a seven member Task Force One member of the select board one member of the school committee one member of the finance committee the town manager the school superintendent the town finance director and the school Finance director as well um we don't have a town manager correct so it's currently a six-member committee actually it won't be a full seven six member committee until I think July 1st when the I think July 1st is when the school um Finance director starts as well so it's currently a five member committee uh all members have uh voting Powers there is no set time for um when and where we're going to meet uh but there will be your standard chair Vice chair and Clerk and then there'll be meet uh minutes and it will be recorded and whatnot and that was basically it that's the overall charge I assume it's on the website by now but if it's not we should probably get it up on the website um miss m is going to reach out uh I was me I was talking with her today she's going to reach out in the next day or so to start doing a straw poll for when we can meet so I'm hoping it's going to be pretty soon because 6 months is going to come really quickly this a lot of work well you always got Friday Saturday or Sunday I I encourage you to to try that on my side of the on my family and see how well that goes I will very quickly no longer be on the finance commit coming from a a retired resident whose children are you know in their 30s and um yes I understand I really do we can meet at the soccer field that's what we'll do we'll set up cameras um but I am encouraged and um I'm hoping we'll have some public interaction as well well is is this going to be a public are they going to be meeting in public in like like is that what they're going to be doing her last note says that the recording of minutes and votes of all meetings as prescribed by open meeting law and copies of the minute she'll be submitted to the c town clerk but it does she didn't say anything about where the meetings are going to be held I mean I'm assuming if it's open meeting law it's going to have to be if it's going to be recorded be an open meeting absolutely yeah um but I think until we have a chair and until we've established kind of the framework right I can't imagine they're not going to have some type of public comment or public interaction I think it's pretty critical maybe not at the beginning while they're still kind of figuring out what the heck they're going to do but I will certainly push for having public conversation that'll help keep it under three and a half hours well Mr if Mr scull brini is on it it's he's going to push for under an hour which I love it's going to be great uh let's see we have already gone through the last item with rep Scarsdale so that just brings us down to minutes uh Danielle had sent out one set of minutes from June 13th uh we already did I believe May 23rd last week yes we did May 23rd last week so we are just on uh the meeting the minutes from June 13th has anyone I've read them I don't know if anyone else has I have too okay happy i' make a motion we approve the minutes of June 13th as presented second any further discussion all in favor of approving minutes of June 13th I I opposed we are five to nothing unanimous excellent committee reports want to go down the line Mr pasos um let's see green communities has not met since uh we last met uh we were scheduled for Monday but I do not see anything up on the town calendar so I'm guessing the uh agenda didn't get sent in or something I haven't sorted that out yet um we are we have set up a pretty aggressive schedule to make sure that we're not up against deadlines in October um I've been doing a little bit of leg work behind the scenes with Mr heee um in regards to the mini split project and working uh with Kelly Brown to sort out how we bring that proposal forward through green communities versus how it's actually happening um and there are ways to make it work so that we can um we've got a a good potential at least at this point to get green communities funding that could cover most if not all of phase two but that's still up in the air because the data hasn't been vetted yet um facilities director is also working on a few smaller projects uh Mr he has one or two that uh might fit in there if we have some money left over from the original from the first asked for the bigger project um so we're committed to putting in a application in the fall in October I think it's October 17th I think is the deadline um and try to maximize out to the uh full amount that we're in were able to U ask for in that uh Grant round okay um so yeah that's that's pretty much where we're at with that all right any committee reports Mr Russell no no Mr Gray Mr Simone yeah I've listened to a couple on YouTube but I haven't retained anything to write down the report they driving when I'm listening to them y tough to write that down uh I only have mine aren't actual really committee reports but I did I meant to bring this up at the top of the meeting um I reached out to uh Bill Bernard for the DPW to discuss the chapter 90 funding and invite him to come to the T our our our um one of our meetings and I presented to him all of our dates the two in July the two in August and the two in September he said he should be able to make any one of those dates so um does anyone have a preference for meeting with DPW earlier in the summer versus later in the summer whatever works okay perfect um I also reached out to the cemetery commission um to invite uh them as well I received a message back from Miss yasco um that they are going to have she's going to have it on their agenda for the next meeting in July she wants to bring it up to them first and have a discussion before she actually brings it over this way she said she's happy to come and talk to to us though um but because of their meeting she's going to suggest either the August or September meetings for us just so they have a time to do that she also suggested that we invite uh our town finance director Ezekiel as he's going to have a lot more knowledge of the funds and rules and the regulations rounting or pertaining to the town's accounting policies as I was asking about the sale of cemetery plots fund and how the Investments are done with that and wanted to talk about you know using interest only and whatnot and then other um investment strategies of that they're utilizing and then she also rep recommended inviting attorney Costa because he'll have a deeper understanding of the state level rules and regulations for this stuff as well so does anybody have any preference for I haven't responded back yet I wanted to wait until I talk to the committee before I I yeah sent out back I think that suggestion of the three people coming if if we can pull that off is prudent uh because then any questions are well how does this work or how does that work with those three people here they'll be able to answer it as you said from from all aspects from the financial side from the legal side and from the cemetery commissioner side so I I I think that's the way to do it because it's you know we have these conversations and we don't have the many times we don't have the expert knowledge we're just kicking around thoughts and that's I presented it to her as saying I wanted to have a sort of a stake in the mud that we could report back to and say this is where you want to go if you have questions about it here's the discussion and we can we can kind of point to it there so if we can have it all in one meeting I I agree yep um she did say that she would prefer to just to you know have her come by herself so that way we don't have to actually it's not a joint meeting or anything like that but just have kind of a discussion with her directly um any other thoughts on on this I don't think we need the lawyer there okay it's costing money come doesn't cost us anything why not cuz he's onet it's covered under our retainers well if it's not cost cost of anything I'm okay with it we're paying for it I'll make sure to put that in the email that I send back as long as it's covered under after me come up a list of questions sending but no I agree completely I pay the city yet Jay Jay I don't disagree with you if there was going to be an extra invoice yeah I agree it should be covered under the retainer but I I'm not sure if that to what extent his retainer is included for just beyond town meeting there may be a requirement for the town manager to approve okay his attendance I I'm not sure exactly how that works but okay how much is left in the retainer that's a good point too it hasn't gone up in the last few years I've noticed as well so maybe we're not maybe we should invite him end of the year well we'll be in the New Year by then yeah okay so I'll respond to both of them then and um set those meetings up and we can kind of go forward with those too um I think those were our four main topics for the summer um so I'll start uh funneling those through as well once we get those other than that I have no other um committee reports the school committee did meet last night I did not watch it I enjoyed not watching a meeting um but I did I did send a message off to miss arshambo and she let me know who the uh the representative for the budget task force was going to be so that's the only reason why I know but I will go back and watch their meeting as well so I'll have something report next time uh any topics for future meetings yes I have a request I don't know what this falls under but I would like to hear well I would like to have the our facilities director give us uh reports at our meetings similar the way this facilities direct for the school reports of the school committee I know facilities runs he attends Parks and Recreation meetings on a regular basis he was at the parks um the other night uh infrastructure is one of our biggest issues and I would like to hear directly from the facilities director regarding other infrastructure issues I don't like in third party information do you want to have that become a reoccurring meeting yes I like that be on our agenda has facilities director report s Town manager and finance director reports okay app pleas send him a note as as a followup to the uh review we did of our um accounts invested uh that list that myen sent to us I'd like an updated snapshot of that uh and see if we see the same things we saw the last time we reviewed it okay to uh you know see if we need to uh maybe reiterate our recommendations a second time I think that might be a good topic for the budget task force as well if that if we're going to look into revenues I mean that's an income generation portion right there if we're investing better and just spending off of the interest I think that's a good one to put the only reason I bring it up is because you know the the library was very clear as to was it library or was it pack no it must have been Library uh that their adjustment of their Investments has yielded them a sizable amount of uh interest income and I'm hearing that there's another entity that's trying to do that and is running into a stone wall okay um so I'd like to see if any changes have been made through our suggestions or concerns that we weren't making anywhere near what we should be mhm um and you know for every six months we let that ride that's potentially four or five% of whatever that principal amount is uh you know every 6 months or so so it it it's sizable money that we're talking millions of dollars that we have invested yeah across many different split up against a whole bunch of different accounts earning pidley right and and again that's you know I I think we'd be extremely fortunate if we come up with a new town manager that is uh very strong in finance and management um I hope we do that's what we need we need somebody who can you know both sides is strong at the financial side of it and strong at the management side or somebody who's demonstrated they can bring in people around them to make that happen and and that's in all my training as a manager over the years in private sector that was a key point that was pushed in every single seminar you know don't think that you're going to be able to do it all by yourself but bring people around you that can do it mhm I wonder if we might want to reach out to Ezekiel then as well we haven't really he's he's been catch getting up to speed right but we haven't really started kind of tapping into his knowledge basee or his expertise or whatnot I I genuinely do not know how far his expertise goes into strategies and whatnot sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you the the only reason I I presented it this way is that it's the town treasurer's realm mhm you know so yes eo's expertise will probably help in the discussion but it it's I I don't know how deep his responsibilities delve delve into the actual investment versus reporting the results of the investment is it the treasurer's respons I thought the treasurer's responsibility advisor that's where I would go would be more the financial adviser of the town because I don't I I don't know if the the treasurer or the the the um collector is is responsible for that investment as well well you've got a collector and you have a Treasurer they two different director aren the same person though they're the same person but they are two different responsibilities okay but I would yeah I would I would think be the finance director would be responsible for Investments right with the financial advisor okay and again maybe we don't have the responsibilities the division of responsibilities clear and and if nothing else we get clarification of that to me it makes sense it would be like the finance director because he would he or she would be the one who knows the cash flow needs and you know so if you're going to tear your Investments and so on so you can make sure you have the money available MH when you need it that's the person who would know best well it's also how it affects the budget how much you know that income is how much of that's part of the budget okay yeah I'm curious to know how much of this is also tied into the financial policy of the town and what we already have set up I I genuinely don't know either if there's already I I'm sure it's probably not in the charter it's not going to be that that granular but the select board's Financial policy I haven't been through that in too long probably but as my ween said that you know that list they were uh Reserve funds uh stabilization funds trust funds and and there are limitations on many of those that are different for each account but as Mr manard brought up when we were reviewing that list that some of the ones with the big dollar amounts in them were still sitting at 1 point something per or under 1% Y and we never got a clear answer as to were those by Statute limited to be that in that type of investment or not and and again if we sit on it for another year then we've lost thousands of dollars again that's potential interest income right okay I will happily bring this forward as well realizing that I I think I put in the calendar or in the um in the important dates I think I put the wrong date and I just want to double check for my to make sure that it because I wrote that the meeting with rep Scarsdale is on the 12th and I will be here on the 12th so I don't think I got that right I just want to make sure okay so that is an error on my part the important dates it is not September it's not July 12th it is July 19th from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. so that's the next important dat coming up um and I'll have I'll send a note out and have some more clarification on that before our next meeting so we don't have to wait for two weeks other than that we are scheduled to have a meeting on the 11th and the 25th is anybody not going to be here for any of those meetings of July 11th July 11th and July 25th yes either one of those dates if I'm not in town I'll be on Zoom okay all right we'll plan to Hope I think I should be here both of them if anything changes let me know we have since we have seven people now we can we can actually afford to have one or two not here uh with that is there any public com comment from the public is there any public I don't see any public okay um yeah go ahead any public comment from the committee I've got two things left on my list here um anybody that watched the uh select board meeting from I believe three weeks ago I made a public comment as a citizen and taxpayer in town they were um they had discussed their uh still outstanding unappropriated arer funding during that meeting and at the end of the meeting I had a list that I had pulled from the um 10-year Capital list that was circulated in the early Capital planning uh process and imployed them to really take a look at uh a number of the small projects in there basically infrastr structure projects that will either stop the degradation of one of our public buildings IE the uh public safety building where the roof repair did not make the uh cut for uh Capital planning they got a roof leaking over there that's damaging the facade over the office area and the longer that goes the more damage and the more cost it's going to be and I think it was a $60 price T $60,000 price tag and they're they're working with somewhere in the realm of $300,000 in unappropriated Opera funds um there were a couple other projects and unfortunately I didn't bring the list with me um but my list total $280,000 of four projects that could potentially help move forward um with engineering in for a future project um and get a couple of these infrastructure things small dollar amounts um to get them off the books uh with arpa money rather than um tax revenue monies um I think one of them actually was the uh boys and girls club uh floor the floor uh second floor uh and I made this comment at the meeting I said you know my 60th class reunion was two years ago and we toured that building and that floor was atrocious two years ago the carpet on the stairs leading up to the second floor had tears in it you hook your foot on it you're going to roll down the stairs if it's still in that condition you know we need to get that done for $30,000 you know or or that's the estimate anyway um so I I made that pitch again it's totally up to the uh select board as to how they end up spending that additional money there's still uh more and more concern as to the definition of committed funds and um I just hope at the end of the day the federal government doesn't come down with what may be the definition and that means contracted yep uh so they're you know starting to a of the members any anyway are getting nervous that you know we got to stop messing around with you know uh pet projects that can't possibly be finished within that time frame or at least contracted within that time frame and do something substit that brings us forward and into a better condition after the money's spent and beyond that if the if the contracted if it's a $200,000 appropriation from the select board board and they have a contract for $100,000 for phase one and they're committed for phase two do we lose $100,000 then yeah and there's a lot of questions with that yeah yeah there still are I I mean it boils down to it sounds like that if you have a shovel ready project and you can get it uh out to bid and contracted by the end of this year and completed by the end of next year that's the safest way to spend that money to make sure it's gone because after the end of this year we can't take leftover money or take money back like we did from the school projects and reallocate it y it's gone you know if if we don't spend it uh one way or another or have it committed properly we lose it m so and and one of our select board members has said multiple times that there better not be a single penny left unappropriated so you know they're aware but they they keep I don't know revolving committing uncommit committing uncommit and and it's going to come back to bite us if we don't get buckled down to it um the last item I have is a continuation of my uh beginning of the meeting uh public comment about my Outreach to Senator cronin's office and I did this purposely because I I know there's at least a handful of people that I know that either watch tonight or will see this tape in the future and say oh god there he goes he's he's proposing legislation that will allow the town to attack us even more well I just want people to know that that is not my intent what I'm looking for is the ability to be able to implement a local income tax but at the same time and this could be done with no changes to prop two and a half but at the same time reduce the percentage that we increase our budget by under two and a half by some given amount and flip it over to a percentage of uh local income tax and what that accomplishes is that it shifts some of the burden of of the revenue needs of the Town away from our fixed income seniors and our young famili is trying to move into town and survive on on Lower salaries so uh it it's kind of a shifting not I personally am not looking to tax the people of lunenberg more I'm just looking for mechanism where we can shift the burden and still have the same same amount of Revenue so I wanted to make that clear but I wanted to let people sit through the meeting and and be all fired up that I'm proposing more taxes it's maybe one of the few times you and I agree on taxes Dave I like that idea and it is done in other states it's just that Massachusetts for one reason or another and I don't know the history uh somebody attempted it in 17 and it's never been brought up again lobbying yeah any other public comment from the committee all right happily entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn a second scared me for a second any discussion all those in favor I all right 9:23 p.m. we are adjourned thank you very much everyone have a great night thank you don't forget to leave the meeting Dave since you're running it [Music] oh I'll leave it open for the next 14 hours fine um make it look really good on YouTube what do I have to do just exit out just exit out oh yeah for