all right good evening good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the lunenberg select board if you wouldn't mind being seated uh again good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting the lunberg select board today is Tuesday March the 26th please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right in accordance to the requirements of the meeting law please be advised this meeting is being recorded in broadcast live over the lunberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the lenberg aess YouTube channel after the meeting the agenda list all the 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 the open meeting a we're going to begin tonight with public comments from the board do we have any public comments this evening from the board I do um so I want want to address some comments that have come up recently at various committee meetings past past few weeks um I want to say first of all I believe that the process of this year's budget season has been transparent it's certainly not smooth nor pretty but it's a process um it it it needs to adapt as numbers are confirmed and the unknowns become known this budget season started with more unknowns than usual and a lot of lines the pr preliminary budgets are based on estimates because we we simply don't know the information at the start and creating these initial estimates is a really tricky thing right because if you your estimates are too high you end up having to come back and make cuts which is not pleasant for anybody so I think the town manager has the experience that allows her to make knowledgeable decisions regarding these initial estimates think back to last year although it wasn't a direct budget line item or budget related think back to the how uh the money was transferred to the overlay account to cover the property tax abatements that estimate ended up being pretty spoton and the town was able to pay out over a million dollars in abatements last year without an override I don't know how many towns could have been position to absorb such an unexpected hit like that secondly I'm not aware of anything that transpired this budget season that points to any intentionally shift uh or any plans to intentionally shift an unfair financial burden onto one particular Department I've had several discussions over the last month with the town manager the school committee chair superintendent to learn about the the various budget line items and to brainstorm and how to close the gap to the school's what we're calling the needs-based budget every single one of them expressed optimism and being able to close that Gap and I honestly feel that they and several others on the various committees shared that goal and we all pulling in the same direction and as a result of many of the unknowns finally becoming known a lot of discussions a lot of number crunching by a lot of people that initial 549,000 Gap to the needs spased budget has been closed now we've closed that Gap in what some people might consider a bit of an unconventional way using arpa funds but the point is that the collective we found a way to move and work together to move forward towards a solution and I think we shouldn't lose sight of that so while the Gap has been closed the school department as well as other departments in town have budgets that are still under significant strain this year which is why the prop 2 and a half override has been brought forward by the school committee now prop two and a half override is something that causes a lot of we'll call robust discussion disc um and that shouldn't shouldn't surprise anybody because it's it's not like we're trying to decide on what color to paint the library we're asking people to open their wallets to pay more money on their property tax or through an increase in their property tax I should say so there's no right or wrong answer there are very passionate people with strong opinions on both sides of the override question and it's a very personal decision for every voter so I firmly believe that no matter matter what happens regarding the override whether it passes or not our work is not done there are many departments in town with needs we have operating and capital budget needs we need to address salaries we have projects that will require borrowing and I can go on and on these things won't go away they won't go away if we ignore them and they're not going to get any easier if we delay addressing them the only way to make progress and to move forward in the best most responsible way we can is to do that together now I'm not saying after town meeting we all have to get together for a group hug cuz we all know no matter what happens there are going to be people who are happy and people who are not happy but no matter the outcome when it dust settles we have to be able to commit to work together to address the issues in town we cannot have an US versus them mentality if we want to successfully address the issues that lie ahead we need to be able to have difficult discussions make difficult decisions and make compromises to identify a longer term holistic plan for the town that we can all support so let's be careful with the words we use and except there will be times that people will need to agree to disagree and we have to be okay with that and willing to continue working together in order to make progress so toward that end I want to formally submit an action item um for the select board's first meeting after the town elections which I think is May 21st to discuss the formation of a task force that consists of representatives from all the key stakeholders to explore the big picture and longer term view of the financial situation across the town I strongly believe that we need to begin this effort as soon as possible so it can be part of the next budget season thank you thank you select M your comments are appreciated you have any other public comments from the bo I too so I want to much of what I was going to say was already said by by my fellow select board member m um but I will add to that just one thing um I remember in this town when there was a big Division and the US versus them that MMI alluded to uh actually existed and it took many years of working together to make sure that we could become unified again again and so it's really painful to watch commenters in a time of certainly passionate opinions not talk about the issues and resolving them so much as casting aspersions on motives of other people uh looking to assign blame and all those things that that drive people apart and make the solutions harder than easier I mean they're never easy to begin with in conditions like this they do say that uh extraordinary conditions don't create character they expose it and I think that's what we've seen in some regards and it's not helpful and you want to tell the people who are doing this that it's not helpful uh I hope they know who they are and it should be apparent that we should all work against the notion that there are two sides and that we're not a unified town I don't at for one moment uh close my eyes to the fact of what this the financial situation that's in front of us but hitting ourselves against each other certainly doesn't help and taking shots at leadership is one thing you want to you know publicly asale appointed and elected officials that's one thing but you when you take aim at employees who are doing everything they can and spending every hour that they can coming up with Solutions and running over numbers and numbers and numbers and scenarios and yet those are the people that are pointed out as villains uh and almost using that word those are not helpful so I would hope that we would refocus on getting to the solution shortterm and long term uh taking advantage of I think an excellent proposal by Miss empy to start a task force and really focus our energies on getting through these next few weeks and these budgets with the questions and the Articles and the ballot questions in front of us and really work on a solution and not on division thank you thank you Mr Alonzo your comments are also very much so appreciated on a very unrelated note I just want to say thank you uh I know that having a selectman via Zoom is not ideal and everyone was very patient with my remote participation and I also want to thank everyone who personally reached out to me over the 5 months expressing uh support and words of encouragement uh it made my experience a lot easier uh so I'm very grateful thank you again and I'm excited to be here in person and to get back in the swing of things so thank you thank you P I didn't come prepared to address any of what um and welcome back Caesar it's good to good to have you uh uh what Miss memy and Mr Alonzo said but I will just add on I mean um that I totally endorse the comments by both of them and uh particularly over these last four or five weeks the work of the there's been a lot of cross-pollination finance committee members have been attending and tuning into select board meetings and school committee meetings school committee meetings same to the other two committees select board finance and school committee um a lot of people working very very hard all people of Goodwill all of them regardless of where they've come out on these different positions this is a ton of work and I have to say just in terms of the comments I mean people that have been in a in the fight and I do commend the people that came forward and and uh as a general and and and really came out and fought for something that they were passionate about and thought and think is important and I agree that it is important important but I kind of was struck when I saw people saying you've been at this for six weeks you you know and and saying I'm exhausted I've been at this six weeks do that 52 weeks a year right that's school committee Finance select board and it does get more and less intense at times but every member of all of these and other boards too but and committees but every member of all three that I just named work very very hard and dedicate themselves to this town and give of their time and I mean not just not to complain I'm not complaining and speaking for myself when I own my own business a ton of earnings over the last three years tons given up and uh so we're not only not getting paid we're paying in many cases to be here um next what I was going to say uh sorry wrong sheet uh I want to thank everyone who did step forward to run for or an office at caucus I'm going to repeat what I reiterate what I say almost every year uh so I do commend everybody who stepped up the one thing I found disappointing and I always find disappointing is zero contested seats zero uh I I I hate that I really do and I and I'll go into my refrain my chorus that I say every time every seat at every level should be contested every time and I um would be saying that if I if I were running I I I the people on this board know that and and you know getting back to Mr Alonzo's commenters on on there are a lot of commenters out there and many of them are very constructive like the core group that organized very very constructive people but there are a lot of On The Fringe and everything there's a world of commenters but when it comes time to step up and put your hat in the ring and run for something it's crickets so I'm just asking you know uh I mean it might be too late for this cycle maybe somebody will be inspired to pull uh um uh nomination papers or run a Right End campaign uh it's just it's not healthy to not have contested seats uh and that's that's all thank you thank you my comments um you know this this morning when I went outside and I saw the uh the hostas starting to break surface you know I was reminded that spring is in the air uh that this is an opportunity for us to you know kind of find renewal in our lives and there are a lot of things I think and I my comment today is I I encourage all who can hear me you know while we may have tensions and and challenges in front of us um to reflect in all the many things in our lives for which we should be grateful um you know there's a lot of good relationships you there's a lot of good marriages uh out there um people are some many people are happy in their employment they feel a certain peace in their lives and you know each day I I tell my nephews each day is an opportunity to have the best day of your life and you know that's that's kind of how I approach my own existence and you know while we work through our challenges as has been articulated today and concerns to not lose sight of why we are even in this conversation to begin with which is that there's so much in our existence and in our lives for which we are grateful that we want to in many cases maintain that um continue that uh so let's let's be mindful of the positive the positives that we're that we encounter every single day um in our lives and do we have any that's it do we have any public comments from the public well if I may start with Mr oh I'm sorry um I'm GNA ask the town manager any public comments from the town manager I do thank you and I did not know what um slman M and Selman alanso were going to say tonight I wrote this on my own I would like to address public comments made at last week's finance committee meeting first I want to say I'm very cognizant of the fact that when you are in a public position especially the position of town manager it is expected that you will receive occasional criticism and need to have a thick skin I consider myself an even-tempered and thick-skinned person after almost two decades as a Municipal Employee however my comment tonight is to respond to what I believe was an attack on my character and called into question my integrity and how I have approached the budget including that the chairman and I orchestrated this outcome from the beginning and that the position the school is in is of my making am I responsible for school transportation cost Rising for out of District placement costs increasing that Esser funds are sunsetting that health insurance costs everywhere are rising am I the reason that towns across the state are having overrides I respect that every everyone has an opinion what people may not know about me is how much I value education and understand the critical impact it has on the lives of our residents and the impact it has on attracting people to relocate here some of the most beloved people in my life are Educators my mother worked as a par professional for 30 years three of my closest aunts were teachers and W a superintendent and my closest friends in the teaching profession when I graduated grad school and needed a job I worked in e8th grade as a behavioral problem teacher I have school and town government in my blood to insinuate that I have put the school in this position is inflammatory and doesn't acknowledge how much cooperation and collaboration there has been to get us to this point the superintendent the school committee chair the selectboard chair and I have been meeting or communicating weekly the discussions were all in good faith and everyone's objective was to work together to get to the needs based budget as a result the gap between the preliminary budget and the needs based budget has been closed this to me is a demonstration that we can work together to resolve problems this issue was solved through collaborative leaders leadership the budget process is an evolution when you start the budget process for the following year there are many knowns that unfortunately are not known until much later in the process such as state aid health insurance our retirement assessment the money Tech assessment and this year we had a midyear surprise of losing 40s funding that impacted our state aid most of these items are dictated by time frames we have no control over and we have to navigate and conservatively budget accordingly but such things like the sudden loss of 342,000 and state aid is unanticipated and impacts how the budget develops however much you plan there will always be unexpected items during the budget process that will affect the outcome part of the process as is as well is asking questions and vetting out the best use of our limited resources The Narrative that is put out there should not be one to cast blame and make attacks on one's character to be put on the record I certainly did not orchestrate this outcome or olude with the chairman and find it offensive that is the narrative being spun the school department is one of many departments within the town and my Approach will always be trying to balance needs of all Town departments and school department working together we can solve these issues by not falling victim to words that create divides thank you welcome do we have any public comments Mr passio Dave P's 56 wedding Street first thing I'd like to say if we were in British Parliament the last 20 minutes the gy would be saying here here so thank you for your comments uh those previous comments um I'm before you uh as I mentioned during at the end of the uh non-appointment hearing a week or two ago uh for the cemetery commission I apologize the packet is not put together the way I had hoped uh I couldn't get my hands on uh the 1979 articles um and their wordings but I did have a conversation with uh Town Council yesterday on this and half a dozen other things too um basically what we kind of came up with for a conclusion was that article 21 in 1979 created and this is a repeat and I'll do it as quick as I can uh this is sort of a repeat from uh what Mr wanzo reported created the U commission um and called out um chapter 40 chapter 40 section 8D um as being the uh chapter it was created under um and I apologize I don't have your your packet does not have those um 8D is at the bottom of the third page and it's entirety and what we've done since the beginning of this committee being created is Cherry Picked this section and I think created many of the problems like we have with other sections of our Charter and bylaws in that they contradict either Mass General law or they contradict themselves or or whatever um it came down to basically if the section if section 8D has not changed since 1979 we already accepted it in 1979 yes we have made some modifications to the number of members of the committee which is allowed in there because it left a range um but the section today if it's still the same as it was back then does speak to alternate members and um it also mentions uh Town manager being the one to select and then the select board ratifying that's covered in one of the I think it's the 2008 where it says the members will continue to be appointed by the select board I think that covers that little piece there um my proposal is one of two things either we uh clarify whether or not the section has changed since it was accepted in 79 in which case we already have a mechanism for alternate alternate members because we accepted the entire paragraph or um Town Council suggested a cleaner way would be to add the acceptance of it of this section in its entirety into the article for uh Town Meeting those are my comments thank you thank you Mr pasos we have any other public comments this evening um I think someone over to the right was Miss Lincoln thank you Debbie Lincoln 46 Hemlock Drive I am absolutely heartbroken to be here tonight because I promised myself with everything you've been through that I would never come here with anything negative and I first want to thank you all for all the hard work you've done on this budget process I cannot imagine what it's been like for you these last few months it's been horrible and I totally appreciate all the work you've been through thank you so so much but I found out this afternoon that the request from the Council on Aging for $ 6,648 42 to make a 19.5 hour employee to a benefited 24 hours has been removed from the budget and I just feel as though I as the COA chairman I just have to make a comment about that um with health insurance if she should take it which I really doubt she would that would be an additional $222,000 we have been getting the short shrift for a long time when we had our patio it came back um with the lowest Bid And The Pavilion was removed the sod was removed if you've been back there it's a beautiful beautiful site but it would not be if we had not had a donation of the Pavilion and the sod it would be cement and mud it's a beautiful spot not just for seniors but for the whole town we can have all kinds of events there we've been relying on donations and the Goodwill of folks for for our lunenberg adult activity center for a long time and I felt that this ask was very reasonable we tightened our belts we did not ask for anything that we did not really need it was proposed that we ask for some additional hours from part-time people that wasn't a reasonable request we really needed this person to become a benefited employee to help out our seniors for their lunch program I am heartbroken that this was taken out of the budget I imploring you to please try to find a way to make this work the suggestion was that we approach this again in November I will be heartbroken if you can't find a way to make this work I'm imploring you to please go back and see if you can find $664 for our seniors onethird of our population this is a home away from home where people can come and have Gourmet lunches for $5 from a super Chef um I promised you I would not come here with anything negative so again I want to thank you for all the hard work I understand that this is a terrible process for people to go through but this is not very much money and I'm sure we can find a way to make this work please do that these are important people this is one-third of our population and they deserve this and they deserve your consideration thank you so much thank you Miss Lincoln for that comment um as we we will we will discuss this later in the agenda um I I I want to clarify that when we offer benefit positions whether or not the employee takes the Ben benefit we have to allocate the funding of the benefit and so the request would be for the 28 648 do we have any other public comments this civil not sure if any of those opening remarks were directed at me or not but regardless I'm here to represent the group known as save our schools lunenberg we formed a legit uh ballot Campaign Committee as most of you know um I'd appreciate if you would call us out or talk directly if if that's what these opening comments were I'm here to read the statement that we submitted publicly on social media on our website and to many leaders within town government so these are on behalf of the group and not my personal comments however I do endorse them lunenberg friends and neighbors the past few weeks have been a whirlwind we thank those who analyze spreadsheets attended committee and town meetings wrote to our elected officials and asked questions of each other we've accomplished a tremendous amount in a brief period of time when drastic cuts to our school district were announced in January many passionate people were activated and many I add with many children and full-time jobs with the support of residents we attempted to understand and advocate for the best possible outcome a prop two and a half override became the logical solution since January the town manager and members of the select board found additional albe at one time sources of revenue adjusting the school budget from a 2.5% increase to a 5.4% increase is a Monumental effort and that was achieved over the course of the last few months and yet the budget remain s in deficit with 20 Staffing Cuts still planned for fy2 as far as we know no other Town dep Department faces such debilitating shortfalls through this process we've learned that other Town departments are also struggling to make ends meet as we just heard to fill Staffing positions to offer competitive wages in order to attract and retain talented employees we've heard various committees mention the need to broaden the override to include cross depart departmental needs and have the override be inclusive not just for the schools but for the entire town there are additional concerns that the current schools only override won't have long-term impact as it cannot comprehensively address future Financial shortfalls our Grassroots campaign to Pro to promote and override a ballot Campaign Committee known as save our schools lunenberg now recognizes that this year's override does not have the fundamental cross- departmental support and collaboration from our town from our leadership that it would need to succeed we urge our town and its residents to continue working together to build a comprehensive assessment of fiscal needs for all Town departments including our schools it is our firm belief that the town boards prefer FY 26 to be the year Lunenburg confronts its budgetary shortfalls both within the school department and throughout all our town departments we believe that alignment in this effort is the best way forward for our group as lunenberg SOS lunenberg supports the immediate creation of an override task force to research analyze and share lunenberg comprehensive budgetary situation and to provide actionable recommendations consisting of at a minimum representatives from the select board school committee stakeholders stakeholders from other Town departments finance committee and SOS Lunenburg the task force should engage all Town departments documenting their actual operational needs and core funding obstacles this collaboration would offer Holistic Solutions to save money consolidate expenses find competitive service providers and ultimately understand if an override is needed and if so what the scope and details of that override must be we do sincerely thank everyone who has devoted their time and effort into moving the needle for our kids and we look forward to your continued involvement in the discourse over the course of the next year we are eager to begin a townwide collaborative budget planning process and believe it is the correct strategy with the highest chance of success for lunenberg our most sincere thanks T.J Laughlin Tre chairman Mandy Gilman Treasurer Cil Kaufman member shashana moule member Anastasia gr Grady member and all of our SOS supporters at large thank you thank you for the public comment do we have any other public comments this evening hi I'm shashana mle I live at 139 Cove Road I got involved with the school budget process to support the music program in lunenberg public schools and since then I've attended dozens of public meetings learned a great deal about Municipal Finance since January engaged citizens including students parents and community members have accomplished a tremendous amount as was stated the proposed 2025 school budget is now we'll say 5% above the 2024 budget instead of 2.9% above um based on what I heard during those meetings and in discussions with other concerns citizens it's clear that the town's finances need a review this process will help us to understand if an override is needed and if so what the scope and details of that override must be my family has lived in lunenberg since 2010 and like most middle class families our home is our biggest asset in order to preserve the value of that asset lunenberg needs to use revenue from property taxes and all other available funding sources wisely to this end I support the creation of the task force budget committee however we're going to term it to analyze the operating and capital budget process and decide which Services gets funded and how we fund them thank you to everyone who has devoted their time and effort to moving the needle I look forward to everyone's continued involvement in the discourse over the next year please consider coming to the meeting that we're hosting tomorrow night at 7 at the library so that we can move forward together thank you thank you and do we have any other public comments this evening from the public does the board wish to make any additional public comments this evening I will say just one thing because the question was posed if my personal comments were directed at your organization and the answer is no thank you I should say mine weren't either I apprciate neither were mine yeah I I will just say that I did call out your group and said that I commend the core group so I did call you out uh I said it's people on the fringes and they're The Usual Suspects people you probably weren't even aware of but we've been aware of for years the very constructive people and my comment was about spraying and being positive and I think that was applicable to everyone but it wasn't targeted um but thank you for the question um thank you for the question civil I I think it's important for members of the board to be very direct um as we speak and make public comments and uh and I I think that um the comments this evening were very direct but they were just not directed in your direction thank for clarify all right um okay so we're going to go now to uh any announcements we have this evening um I do have an announcement um due to issues that we've been having with munus for tax bills they will be going out beyond the last day of March um they're being actively worked on with staff and Tyler Technologies who um owns munus so um they're resolving issues um but there's a process that needs to be followed to get to each different step of the billing process so I know you and I had talked about this before tonight would you mind just giving some clarity on on what exactly the problem is cuz everything was done so what's the problem with the print out so everything couldn't be officially done until the new values were accept to that the tax classification hearing on March 12th so after the tax rate was set that was submitted the following day um that gets certified then those valuations are are firm then the assessors work with vision who is the C Software System CU there's a download that needs to be done and bridged over to our economy software to create the tax bills so during that process there were errors coming up with uh different codes and parcel IDs that needed to be um dived deeper into Vision was phenomenal in their customer service um they were very responsive in all of the requests for additional files and to fix um the fixes that were needed so um also a patch was needed for munice um to make things run smoother on that end so right now everything's in the training module but every time um an issue occurs that it needs to be the training start over it needs to be refreshed and the patch needs to be done again so it's just a a process oriented um thing that needs to be gone through until all the errors are resolved so the summary is it's a software issue and we're working with the company who created and designed the software to resolve the issue right so whatever date the final date that get they get buil out um or mailed out by the printing company it's 30 days thereafter that they're due Mr chair of course if I may add to that I want to be clear because of the events of the last 12 months number one the board of assessors and our assessing company got the data completed in time so it is not on them it is the handshake between our Comm system that has all the data of all the property cards handing it off to our billing company that does the printing uh through munice that is where the problem is uh we've had problems with sewer billing with our munus system as have our neighbor cities of lemonster and Fitchburg and so while the town manager is not in a position or is too polite to say Vision had excellent customer support Tyler Technologies not so much so that is what we are focusing on we are aware of the problem as she said but I wanted to be clear where the issue is and and we are aware of it and we are trying to address it as best we can obviously we're not going to be ripping out our accounting system anytime soon so we have to go forward and we are reliant on them to work with us to fix the problem and that's where we are right now all right thank you any additional announcements no all right we should probably make some room uh for Mr cost in a chair hasn't even taken off his coat he's like he's waiting for a quick exit all right so we are joined this evening next on our agenda we're going to our 705 five appointment um so next on our agenda is our discussion with Town Council on the annual town meeting warn articles in proposition 2 and a half override um ballot questions so Adam Costa is the Town Council is Adam going to stay at that end of the table okay well does kind of need to be you for Consulting usually but I think we'll manage we'll just cross talk so we're joined by Adam Costa who's a Town Council um thank you Adam for being with us this evening and I know you running a little bit late but you end up being very early I'm sorry for which one right all right um and then we will in sequential order get to our next two meetings with the personel committee representative and planning board representative just to confirm with personnel and planning board did you guys post meetings for tonight either one of you I didn't think you did but I just want to confirm okay so we can get to you okay great all right so do want want me to introduce this or do you want to introduce this we asked attorney Costa to be here tonight because there's been a variety of questions surrounding the override the process um what if scenarios so to entertain those questions from the board and walk through that process and any potential um occurrences that may happen at town meeting and the response and the ballot uh question and how that would um impact the ballot okay so I I don't know if you want to just take it from there or if you want us to kind of go through the questions and ask them to um so I'm I'm really happy to do either uh I've had multiple conversations not just um with with Heather but with Town administrators and town managers in a lot of communities I I've been referring to 2024 as the year of the override um I'm sure some of those who are watching or who in ATT who are in attendance have um have seen some of the news stories um you know there was a there was a a town meeting in town of Westford um just the other night Drew 1,600 people they had to postpone it and they're now holding it in May and at the at the football field so um so it's uh this is a common occurrence in many communities so Heather and I have had many conversations about uh proposition 2 and a half in a general sense about the concept of an override about the sequencing of override uh versus um ballot question versus town meeting action or vice versa and about the various contingencies that can occur depending upon one passing the other failing um and the sequence in which that might occur so I can get into all those particular nightmare scenarios if you'd like or I can defer to you and and and the specific questions that the board might have about um about that process yep no um so I will Lou need to share an iPad with you this evening uh mine appears to be dead so I I think the the first is that we have some language here and um let me just I'm sorry Lou thank you thank you thank you all right let just open up myself thank you all right let me just get to so what I what I want to do is is get to the specific language that we have and um just confirm that our language is correct why am I blinking here this is March okay let me just get there no why am I just give me one moment here to pull this up okay which number is the override question it should be I don't know what off the top of my head all right I apologize for those in the room and those at home uh for the technical delays do we know which which number this article is yeah in the warrant a letter letter and it's h h okay so the first um Mr Costa I think that we want Clarity on is is in the proposed language that we have and I understand that you've worked with the town manager on this but we want to First confirm that the language that we are using in here and we're going to plug in first to clarify we did receive a revised number from the uh chair of the school committee in the amount of $948,000 $136 so again $948 136 so as it currently reads H to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate an additional sum of money um and and uh well I'll read it as written an additional sum of money to supplement the lunberg public schools operating budget for fiscal year 2025 contended upon the passage of a proposition two and a half ballot question or take any other action relative there to so the first question is we know that this that the language as written in math General law is very specific can you confirm with us um Adam that excuse me Costa that the language as written here tonight is appropriate and would you recommend any modifications such as the inclusion of the specific dollar amount uh so um so you're right in in saying that Mass general laws are very specific but they're very specific to ballot questions so and and I I I see that maybe some of you are looking at the same reference that I am it's the best reference that exists it's the state reference with respect to proposition two and a half but it's actually that the title of the guidance document is Proposition two and half ballot questions and the focus is entirely on ballot questions and very little is said about town meeting action well that's because the statute is very specific about the ballot question about the sequence in which the balance question the ballot question might occur about what happens if there's a passing versus a failing of that ballot question and in the actual statute itself the explicit language of the ballot question is included and you have no real option to alter or vary or modify that language except filling in the particulars like the name of your town the purpose for which the override is occurring and the dollar amount of their override but otherwise the form of the question is prescribed by Statute when it comes to town meeting warrant articles there is no prescription of specific language within Massachusetts general laws and so there are multiple different approaches and this is something that the town manager and I discussed uh going back several weeks ago how it could be done and there's no single right way to do it I suppose there are wrong ways to do it um but I've seen communities that have chosen to adopt um an override as part of a single warrant article where when you are viewing your traditional budget where you've got your um your segments and you've got your your departments within each segment and you've got your dollar amounts for each you can have an additional column that runs alongside that that would show the additional appropriation that would occur in the event that the override um vote passes at The Ballot Box um that's one approach um another approach but but the the risk that exists in that instance is you need to be very specific within the language of the motion and the vote on that warrant article that is going to be adopting your Omnibus budget that you're adopting the Baseline budget the First Column and that you're only adopting the second column or sometimes the third column if you have multiple valid questions one funding the schools one funding the town whatever the case may be I have one in another Community where there were multiple schools a Regional Technical district and then a Regional School District um you've got to be very specific in the language of your motion that you're approving the budget and you're only approving those contingencies in the event that the question passes at The Ballot Box otherwise you risk leaving town meeting with without having approved a budget which is problematic you'll need to convene again to approve the budget um another approach is to avoid maybe some of that confusion that might exist for some readers of the warrant and simply take the contingencies whether they be individual contingencies or a single contingency aligned with the overrides um and put those into separate warrant articles so you adopt an omnus budget like you always would and then the subsequent warrant article would be to appropriate an additional sum of X or Y or Z to fund the following additional services and you would then list what those additional items would be essentially the second column that you would have had if had you gone with the first option and then you could have an additional warrant article if you're having a second ballot question for a second override for a different purpose so either of those approaches works you just got to be very careful that it's crafted appropriately and that the motion is drafted also appropriately so that you're sure that you leave at a minimum town meeting with an adopted budget and that anything that is above and beyond that is contingent upon the passage of a question at The Ballot Box expressly says in the motion that it's contingent upon the passage of the ballot question do you recommend and I would assume that you would but do you recommend that we replace um an an additional sum of money um with this specific dollar amount so um so you certainly can this is this this is really a question of um of preference and it differs municipality to municipality I work in some municipalities where as a matter of practice when their when their warrants are issued they specify the dollar amounts for all the the Appropriations that are proposed for down meeting um that has not for many items I shouldn't say not for all items because certainly not for all items and maybe not even for the majority of items but for many items in lunberg that has not been your approach for budgetary items you often say to see if the town will vote to appropriate a sum of money and usually that's because at the stage in the process especially in a community in lunber like lunenberg where you're mailing the ballots or the the the warrants to every household um which doesn't occur in many municipalities you've got to get those to the printer it requires additional lead time you've got have your warrant finalized much earlier on in the process than you might otherwise have to and that being the case you're often so early on in that budgetary process you don't know the number or you want to provide yourselves with some flexibility with respect to the number and not be subject to arguments that the modifications amendments on the floor of town meeting are beyond the scope of the article so traditionally with many articles you've used that term a sum of money now I appreciate that when you're talking about additional Appropriations that will prompt an override um that's a sensitive topic U homeowners uh business owners those in the community are going to want to get a sense as to what it is um they'll see it on the ballot and but but that's going to occur later right um and so whether you want to include a dollar amount or not certainly you need a dollar amount in your motion because you need to appropriate an an an accurate sum but whether you want to include it in the warrant it's it's not obligatory that you include it it's really a matter of preference and it does differ from Community to community all right I would propose to my colleagues that we do include the dollar amount in the warrant um I don't have remaining questions but I just want to give the opportunity Unity to all members of the board and uh Lou if we can just go this way it might be easier Lou yeah thank you uh Mr Costa uh so to the extent possible generally speaking and I and I heard everything you just said to the extent possible the language of the warrant article should parallel the language of the ballot question but you seem to be saying it would be okay that if the warrant if the warrant article you it would be okay I'm not I I agree with uh Mr Jeff that just Strate you know it would be better to have that dollar amount in there but you could it would not be unacceptable if I hear you correctly to have the warrant article say a sum of money but the ballot question have this specific dollar amount that is correct the the one thing that's important important in terms of alignment between the Boward question and the warrant article is that the purpose for which the monies are being spent has to has to mirror one has to miror the other that's very specific that's actually in the guidance document I was referring to the purpose needs to be substantially the same but the statute requires in the ballot question that the dollar amount be included it does not require that for for the town meeting warrant article so that's a choice okay thank you any questions sure but just just to be clear and first of all through you Mr chair to the town manager when does the ballot get printed so actually that's um something attorney Costa brought up so the annual Town election ction um warrant is in the booklet that gets mailed out so that ballot question would be within the booklet at the time so that the board has to vote next Tuesday that's the last day to vote on the ballot wording and then I would submit our office would submit that letter to the town clerk's office um to be put on the ballot so so I would have two comments and somewhere in there is probably your question is that I think we need obviously when you make the motion it has to have a number but if you kept the number off and you in the printed warrant that got mailed to all residents it didn't and the number let's say the number changed so you'd have a different number on the warrant than you did on the ballot and the ballot passed and which one like what have you done at that point I you you had me about halfway through that that hypothetical so I know okay so here I I'll put it in particulars we put some of money the ballot question goes to a million dollars I'm just going to make it easy okay but the warrant booklet that gets mailed just as a sum of money okay and somewhere in the meantime we come up with that it's not a million dollars it's $950,000 or $900,000 on the warrant at town meeting so that passes with 900 but the ballot still has a million but if the if it passes have we raised 900,000 or have we raised a million you've raised a million but you've only appropriated the 900,000 okay so in order to conf even the question was confusing in order to avoid that I think we should come up with the same number and be accurate with that because that will be a nightmare to explain to people that that is how it works the best okay I I know this is outside the scope of a legal consideration but just from a strategic standpoint too it the idea of not on an override question not having the dollar amount in the uh in the warrant seems not wise think the majority of the board seems to be in agreement on that point yeah did you have more nope oh okay um I had the same question that uh Mr Alonzo had but can you comment on two things one is the sequence of events like all the scenarios let's assume the numbers on the Warren article and it's on the ballot and they match um you know article fails ballot fails okay both PS so on um the other question I had was can in the process of that maybe address what is possible to amend during town meeting on the floor I think it's nothing but I want to hear from you sure so um so certainly nothing there can be no Amendment at Town meeting as regards the ballot question right the ballot question is the ballot question so that number is not going to change in terms of the potential change to the levy limit to the dollar amount that's specified on the ballot which of course as I Now understand is actually printed in the town meeting warrant as well so that number will be available um with respect to town meeting action it's it's always a question of moderator discretion right so moderator and we have a there there there's Massachusetts general laws and and what they allow for and then there's Municipal custom and the way that your moderator operates and we've had these debates at Town meetings before about well can we can we adjust line items within the budget well what about uh adjusting uh in in in transferring monies between departments can we transfer money with nowhere specified to where it's going or where it's coming from so that we're essentially unbalancing what is otherwise a balanced budget um every Community deals with those sorts of things in a different way some communities will will allow residents to stand to the podium and to make floor amendments that will result in an unbalanced budget other communities won't allow that to occur and so could there be adjustments to um the number will sure but it can't be adjusted in such a way that it becomes inconsistent you you couldn't appropriate money that you don't have because the ballot the amount on the ballot question isn't isn't high enough you can't appropriate an extra an additional sum of $1.8 million if the ballot question only allowed for a raise of the ly Levy limit for an additional million and a half dollars of Revenue so you are boxed in a bit by the amount that's in on the on the ballot question but in terms of the the budget itself you can modify that to the extent that your custom is to allow that modification to occur I don't imagine the moderator would allow based on past history there to be adjustments within individual line items okay so is it fair to say you could amend down but not up not over the limit but you can amend you could amend down cor correct and I think if it's an education my my my recollection is that education is voted as a single item within the budget is it not so it's not you're not voting individual um individual subcategories within education so if right or the schools right so so if it's if if if the schools are single line item um and that's what the contingent appropriation would be for and that's its self-contained warrant article there there's an argument to be had that there's no adjusting whatsoever to that the same way that there wouldn't be in the in the Omnibus budget but again it's moderator discretion so so one of the things that I think the board has to consider um is you know if if we are encounter a circumstance in which the um the warant article fails but the ballot passes as I understand it the next action then could be for the select board to call a special town meeting to then try to redo the vote essentially that failed at town meeting am I correct in that and if so what is that timeline you you you are um for for those of you that are looking at the the guidance document it's appendix D which is about as clear as mud in terms of how it reads but um but but it but it's it's somewhat helpful but it takes a few readthrough to fully understand it so what you're talking about is uh and I know there's no benefit here for those who are in attendance but we're looking at column three this is on page 20 of the guidance document it's column three which and the only difference between these columns are the sequence so column one is election and then an appro ration column two is appropriation and then an election and column three which is the sequence we'd be talking about here is a contingent appropriation at town meeting an appropriation that's contingent upon an override followed by an election and that's an available option in in towns only not in cities and so when you look at what occurs here it talks about uh the El the appropriation gets made by town meeting that's step one step two is the election gets held um and it says the election deadline is uh September 15th for rations made at the annual town meeting if the question passes there's no further action required the appropriation has been validated by virtue of the fact that the question passed it then goes on to say if the question fails there's no further action required because the appropriation would just be null and void because it was subject to a contingency but it then says however the question may be presented at other elections but must be approved by September 15 for Appropriations that are made at an annual town meeting okay I'm I'm not not quite done so I don't think that was exactly the question but that's the sequence right so then the question becomes okay what happens if you follow that same sequence but the appropriation passes excuse me the appropriation fails but the ballot question passes well now you've essentially taken yourself and you've moved yourself into column number one on this chart told you it was about as clear as mud so in question number one you have the ability then so question one says the election gets held uh the the the question passes um but then you have the ability there um if the question passes and the appropriation fails the question's valid and if it's an override you have until the tax rate is set to appropriate for the same purpose so you could hold one two three however many more special Town meetings you wanted to go back to special town meeting and attempt to have that appropriation made in Reliance upon the bid question up until the tax rate is set the tax rate for the FIS that it's already set yes it's not set until the fall got it that's right the the the fiscal 25 tax rate got it got it I didn't see where you said appropriation fails and question passes I missed that it was appropriation passes and question fails okay I thought I heard the opposite no it it is question passes and appropriation fails oh there okay so I can't speak for future boards which we will have a future board after the election in May um but um I I it is not my intent to um as a member to get more than one bite at each opportunity so uh I have no desire for us to uh bring the question back before the town of one passes and one fails I think in my view both need to pass first opportunity and that's what I would encourage and I probably would be less inclined but there that would be a question for a future Point not for now so as we think about moving forward let's say and I just want to ask the same question ask but in Reverse so uh so let's say that the appropriation passes but the ballot fails what what action or course do we take then is it done is it Dead on Arrival no I I know the answer is no I'm so so so no if the appropriation passes but you go to The Ballot Box and the question fails you can go back to The Ballot Box again and again I'm not suggesting that you do these things to to your point um I would say in my experience more often than not municipalities won't make a second or third or fourth pass just in recognition whether it's an election or it's a special town meeting there's a cost associated with that especially in communities I I represent a few communities with 500 residents and they can call a special pretty inexpensively um community of 10 or 12,000 residents not so much so um so I recognize that there's cost but you have the ability to go back and and and put the question on a future election ballot okay but that question that has a timeline of SE September 15th September 15th that's correct yep it's 90 days if you do it at a special but we're not we're doing it an annual so it's September 15th okay so I think for tonight the action as I understand it I'm just pulling back up um the action is re regarding what we consider now to be article H in our warrant and I I am going to to the board I'm about to make a motion here so I move to submit and amend what is currently identified as article H to read as follows to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate $948,000 to supplement the lunenberg public schools operating budget for fiscal year 2025 contended upon the passage of a proposition to an a ballot question or take any other action relative there to Second all right any other discussion on this and again we are this is a motion to submit and amend any other discussion this is not to pick nits but is there a nonzero value after the decimal point or is it z0 z00 it is okay all right we have a motion in a second as many as are in favor please say I I I I I've been wanting to say that for a while those opposed no okay so we have um added to the warrant and amended uh article H now I understand that the school committee and I'm going to ask Brian to come forward here in a moment and Laura I understand that the school committee is meeting uh tomorrow and that there um may be some discussion on this dollar amount so the dollar amount as I understand it is looking at uh what was identified as the um needs-based budget and it's the difference between the needs-based budget and the level service budget minus the Esser plus the money that the select board has identified to go into arpa or be funded from arpa um so it is looking at that difference and then adding on uh the money that the select board has committed from arpa and my understanding is the purpose of that is the underlying number that gets raised and appropriated for the school budget that there is concern as I understand it from the school committee that if as it currently stands going to town meeting for a 4 point I believe it's 19% increase excuse me five I believe it's 4.54 4.44% roughly increase that they would prefer that to be 5.44 increase the reason being that it it affects their starting number next year and so right now in other words with the select board committing arpa funds to add into the school budget that what we are raising and appropriating is not fully a 5.44% increase and so their starting number next year I'm saying this a little differently will only reflect the 4.44 or so um because the arpa funds wouldn't be counted into it so my understanding is that the request for the override is that difference but it's also adding back in those funds that we've committed from arpa so that way their bottom line raises and Brian and Laura I see you here I want you to correct anything I just said wrong um and to give any clarification there as far as uh this is concerned and again Brian Leon and Laura brazowski Brian Vice chair chair of the school committee School Comm um I would I guess I would refer to the the superintendent and the the town manager on the specific numbers but I believe it was 5.34 okay yes thank you but everything else sounded great thank you yeah an 8.51% without the arpa funding for the Esser cut uh level service budget correct okay all right so I think we understand that well before you guys go anywhere does any member of the board have any questions for the representation of the school committee I will first ask is there a potential that the number will be adjusted tomorrow and if so we will need to get that information as soon as possible because we have to decide by uh April the 2nd our next meeting I can't say what what's going to happen specifically at the meeting but I will definitely let the chair know to reach out to you after our meeting do you want to give us more money but I don't see it as changing but we're just two people our our soonest meeting is Wednesday okay so we will get a communication and that way when we meet next week if we need to make any modifications we'll look to you to provide us with that number so we can modify it so it goes into the war okay and on the ballot question and on the ballot okay thank you Brian thank you Laura I think what's next then for us um as I'm understand it um attorney Costa is for the language on the ballot to be worked through with the town manager over the next week um it's again it's a pre- state formula and then next week we will have the opportunity to vote on that okay I I think that's right I think Heather and I have worked on that language so I think the language is ready to go except we need the dollar amount I think otherwise it's it's um again it follows more or less the form of the the prescription in the statute um and the purpose has already been specified so okay not a lot of work to be done but we do need the dollar amount all right so can I oh are you done course um so Mr Costa you know went through a couple of approaches where some M uh towns can have multiple columns you know budget and then with override and maybe they have more than overrides do we know what we're doing the approach that's on the just one just one number cuz the school number is only a one um appropriation number okay anyways if there were multiple departments within that proposition two and a half you're not going to have columns for this is what it is without this article H override you can do that as a an appendex um similar to the budget all right attorney any other members have any I will just comment I'm assuming although it doesn't have anything to do with the printed warrant book or the article I'm assuming when somebody says well what are you going to use it for they may want to see some kind of presentation from the schools about where that money is going but that is I'll leave that up to the school committee and the school department as a member of town meeting if I was in the audience I would want to know where the money would be used but not a requirement I would imag although this article is being submitted by the select board I think that there is a reasonable expectation that it will be presented by the school committee at town meeting is that the fair assumption by the majority of the board that to the school committe all right so we'll we'll we'll leave the question of the school committee to get back to us on uh their ability to present while we have Mr um attorney Costa here with us uh I want to provide an opportunity for the public who has any questions about the override or ballot process if you have any questions to ask the board or our uh the town's attorney please feel welcome to come forward now thank you Mr Costa I just want to make sure sorry Amanda Gilman 186 Reservoir Road thank you um I I'm sorry I should know to do that by now um so should the it not pass at town meeting but it passes on the ballot the select board could decide to have a a town a special town meeting to pass it again I I I understand if the select board which will be the newly elected board in May decides not to do that it will just die is there a time period that it has to that has to happen in I'm I just want to make sure I understand sure so it if it's going to happen it has to happen before the tax rate is set okay and that date is in the fall I don't know the exact date and I think it VAR it varies year to year um Mid November is when we have a special every year and the tax rate is set after that after that there appropriation changes at that town meeting CU we usually do have a special town meeting my understanding but it could H it could wait till that special town meeting if it was called and then right so the the the question then sort of becomes because you commented on it dying or does it die well I mean there's no Declaration of it it's dead right yes no I think things things die quietly sometimes in government but I just want I just wanted to make sure and it is my understanding that if a group of citizens wanted to ask for a town meeting at a second special town meeting there is a provision for that in our bylaws is that correct there is a provision in Statute in statute there there's a process and statute for request to be made for the calling of a special town meeting correct I'm not saying any of this would happen I'm just curious yeah it's a good question thank you you might not want to leave yet because I might confuse it what's the September 15th then that's when we had to that's for the other way around yeah oh that's for the other way around appr made but the ballot question fails I thought that's what Mandy asked no she asked the reverse I think I asked if the ballot question passed and it didn't pass fails yeah which is probably less likely but yeah yeah why would they make things simple I don't know I mean then what would we all do thank thank you Mandy do we have any other questions from the public just when I thought you were going to stump them never get stomped all right thank you Adam thank you attorney Costa not related to the override but I thought something came up last week that we had a question and while attorney cost was going to be here were you talking about the historical commission I don't know was it I know it's something I can't wellam said he's not in a rush so he will be I'm looking at Heather maybe Town manager remembers because no I do not recall but this was um the the agenda topic was for any questions related to more articles if you had any other questions are you here for the I think you're here for the duration correct yeah I'm not oh you are so thank you attorney thank thank you attorney Costa for the U assistance with that um are there any final questions for the board before we move to our 745 all right I just want to comment that when the town manager and I were working on this agenda she uh she listed the 745 is a 8:00 and she listed the 8:00 is an 8:30 and I'm like push that back there's going to be a quicker conversation all right let's go to our 7:45 meeting with the Personnel committee representative on the Personnel committee annual town meeting waren articles and to the town manager would you mind us refreshing us which number these or letter these are just one second I think it's I and J there's three articles so the letters we're noting tonight are going to change by the time they get to the booklet um uh there's usually they're just noted in the order they come in and then there's usually a organization of them so there's three articles that we have in front of us and to the my colleagues on the board we're looking at I j and k um and the i1 is the um amending the code of Lunenburg Chapter 70 schedule a in titer St admin plan J is um well the same thing one is for fiscal year 25 one's for fiscal year 24 and then the K uh is related to the sick Lea so if you wouldn't mind just kind of giving us an overview of why these articles are in front of us and I think the town manager is going to share them on the screen Wendy bertran 71 longw Drive um personel Committee Member so we were tasked with looking at as there is review um Pro the charter every three years looking at the salary grid we have I mean we we've come and spoken with you before so you know we've gone through this process so these um we went through many scenarios looking at different comps these um were what we felt um were in the best the best interest of you know finance and our giving our employees getting them to a much more competitive wage at all grades so FY 24 FY 25 and then I I'll talk sick leave in a moment okay so those were I you did receive those yes okay do you have questions for us does the board have any questions related to the proposed uh changes to the salary Administration plan as noted in uh what's currently identified as articles I and J I'm looking at a pay grid so I'm not looking at that but is that the positions being added let me just go I think the font's a little hard while we have a moment if I can ask the clerk would you mind reading I and me switch back over cuz I just closed it went to the grid myself all right so I to to see if the town will vote to amend the code of lunenberg Chapter 70 schedule a entitled salary Administration plan of the town in lunenberg for fiscal year 2025 as follows the position of library page to be assigned to grade two the position of Council on Aging meal site manager to be assigned to grade seven the position of Outreach coordinator to be assigned to grade eight the position of pack manager to be assigned to grade 12 the position of police executive assistant to be added and assigned to grade 10 to rename The Reserve officer position title to police Reserve officer or take any other action relative thereto all right and would you mind also reading Jay Jay to see if the town will vote to replace the current salary schedule in the code of lunenberg Chapter 70 section 7-8 DOA entitled salary Administration plan schedule a with a fiscal year 2024 salary schedule and fiscal year 2025 salary schedule as recommended by the Personnel committee which authorizes wage increases for fiscal year 2024 and fiscal year 2025 for permanent employees not covered by a collective bargaining unit agreement or individual contract and further transfer a sum of money from available funds to fund the wage increase for fiscal year 2024 and transfer a sum of money from available funds to fund the wage increases for fiscal year 2025 for salary Administration plan employees or take any other another action relative there too all right and so I know the board is looking at the grid um any questions from the board I do just quickly um I because I don't have both open at the same time I um that's that's too tricky for me um so I don't have the grid open but I have um article I open with regard to the Council on Aging meal site manager assign being assigned to grade seven does that whole discussion that happened earlier about whether that's going to be bumped up or not like impact does that play into this at all I don't think Wendy was here for that public comment okay I would I think that article I is just the positioning of the grades that has nothing to do with salaries it has to do with where the positions are on the grades that's why I asked J is the money one in effect placing it at a higher grade would obviously yes change indirectly it changes so but that was those positions were ones that we looked at within the comps and within their re their revised job descriptions and said these are not in the appropriate grade based on their job description and looking at similar positions in the comp the eight comp communities we looked at okay it was lower significantly yep so let me see if so even if let's just say hypothetically for a minute that a decision were made to fund that position as requested this this would not be this would not change the grade at all is what you're saying that job description well our recommendation is to bring it to a seven right okay all right I have one question any of the um change grade level changes in I did any of them go down or did are they're all bumped up okay they're all so all of them were up um so for example pack manager was between one and three grades where where it previously was at 11 below other department heads when we looked at the scope of scope of responsibility within their job um at at as well as where other department heads sat we at least felt that they needed to be that that position needed to be brought up with other department heads it shouldn't be lower than okay every other one so all the changes in I are all are all up everybody's up along those lines although it's a bump up did anyone have a net pay decrease though no okay no that wasn't that was not the goal at all all right so yeah I'm looking at the sap salary survey for fiscal year 24 spreadsheet the one that has all the comp analysis yep um and just to summarize based on what I see a lot of them are under the average and then it has a percentage for each role um so about like 80% of them are below the average and some of them like kind of significantly so from like 20% to like 36 37% does this a address that is it bringing these roles to the average yes and that was the goal was to get them to the median yes I mean not knowing other towns could be redoing their grids again I mean we have no way of knowing that but it does address that okay so that was the goal to be at least for all positions at the median and some some are higher and the other part is where folks are because we are changing steps as as well sort of getting rid of step one and putting another step on the end we're addressing a lot of those who were um employees who were already at TOP Step So Not only would they receive a cola but then also a step increase which hadn't happened for them in a long time okay so we're bringing them up to the median and then also having a 2.5 Cola on top of that too yes on top of yes both years awesome thank you so what Mr chair if I may y so what is the average increase in the FY 24 grid then it it varies grade to grade do you okay is there a chart that I would get that from I'm I'm presented with three spreadsheets here with no explanation so I'm asking for an explanation I'm Sue Andrews I live at 81 Horizon Island Road I'm on the committee and so in 24 we came to you last year and asked the grid to be changed by 2 and a half% because we weren't sure how this project was going to turnout and then as we looked at it and looked at the survey results and looked at the clerical Union results that just took place a little before this that we didn't do enough so when we changed the 24 and added this new amount to it it is in essence gave them another 3% perhaps it depends on where they were in the steps uh but uh it would give the 2 and A2 we put for the grid last year with your permission and the town meeting approved it and now this is asking you to do an additional almost 3% on top of it so it would be like 5 1 12% for last year and it'll be a 2 and 1 half% next year two and a half grid change but the Step increases if you know anything about compensation the step increases from 1 to two to 3 to eight we have eight steps are 3% lift so if you're at step two when you go to step three you get 3% when you go to step four you get get another 3% which happens once a year so if we change the grid by 2 and 1/2 and you get your step you could get 5 1/2% and everyone got that by us taking step one off and putting it on the other end so all those folks that are in positions where they were already at TOP Step they now were able to get that as well so that was how we worked to even things out more and and give folks more of a bump so am I correct in saying that since you took off step one and moved everybody over that give everybody 3% from what you just said and then in FY 25 you're gave them the 2.5 so everybody got five and a half at least is that correct correct yes at least yes the only people who don't Tom are the people who are sitting at step eight they are at the maximum of they're great we have a lot of employees at that that have been here very long long time and they're sitting at step eight all they would get is the change in the grid which is the two and a half unless their position bumped up a grid unless they position the five positions that we bumped up correct okay okay so if I was in if I was a person who occupied one of those this wouldn't be such a great day actually they all should feel very positive about the outcome I think we've moved it along and we've tried to to anticipate at 25 that we've moved them along enough so that we've made quite an impact the adjustment to 24 and then the increase to 25 so remember by dropping a grid and adding it to the top even the people who are sitting at the max this year have one more step that they'll be eligible for next year I think what would be helpful at the town meeting presentation is to identify um I think this is where Mr lonzo's going you can correct me to identif ify what the rate was when you started and what the rate is by position when you ended and I think maybe a an annual dollar amount maybe a helpful Target number because I think that will allow people to visually see kind of what we're doing here um because I think not everyone I know I've said a couple times before like the math ain't mathing but it's kind of a joke but not everyone understands math the way that those of us who are in it do and that kind of visualization of the numbers I think helps people get a better understanding mhm put words in your mouth Tom no no I mean I I I I guess my concern is that everybody's been talking about salaries and and again I know all the work that you guys put in uh into this so again I want to thank you for all that but if I was one of those people and two and a half in a world where inflation is more than two and a half then I'm not even treading water so as as a top level person you're actually losing ground and in a time where we're talking about salaries and adjustments to what people are making because the world went crazy over the past four years uh I want to make sure we keep good people and we don't lose them to other places and I want people to be be treat felt like they're being treated fairly in their jobs I mean I understand everybody thinks they should make more uh but I mean that most people are also pretty good at understanding what's fair mhm and I all those things balancing is important to me to make sure we have an appropriately paid for Workforce without losing people without breaking the bank on the town you know budgeting side which of course we already have strains on uh already so I mean it's not an easy position I that was something that we had the discussion about realistically how much would the town be will you know be willing to support because I it's it's not car blanch so I feel like we we went to the wall as much as we could well I would what I would say in that regard if I was in your role because I've said this to other departments too was like I I don't know that the Personnel committee and this is my personal belief I don't know that that would be your charge to see what the what the town should or could afford I think what the charge would be like what do you think in a Personnel world is fair in in the current market and then make a pitch to say this is what's fair and if we have to raise things to attract the right people and to attract good people then that's what it is and people can decide accordingly I think this tracks pretty well because the federal government just for their 24 years but fy2 24 they just announced a 5.2 adjustment because they have a very similar structure where they have grades and steps just like we do and so they recognized the federal government last year only did three% and this year they're doing 52 with an extra five points in case you live in a high District like San Francisco in New York City and you need something other than what you might need in Kansas and so we're following that track and even the state of Massachusetts just announced a 3% uh grid adjustment for their 24 so all of us are trying to struggle with the same thing to move them along a little more because most most municipalities last year did two and they've done two for the past three four five years so this gives us a little bit of an edge I think to go back in 24 and adjust up somewhat that gives them a lift and then going into 25 I think it gives them an additional lift so I think it puts us in a very good position if I may Mr chair through you to the town manager can have you what is the dollar amount impact on the the chart and this the grid that they're given to us that's on the bottom of that both charts um 24 which one is at the bottom of which one of the grids it's at recommended FY 24 and 25 grids okay so at the bottom of oh I'm on 25 at the bottom of 25 this I I was kind of confused about so there's total cost 1,458 and then there's less sewer Enterprise less pack so there sub their subtractions and then the total is 89,000 cuz there's certain Enterprises they pay for their indirect costs related to labor okay so the F1 FY 24 cost is $897 and 61 and then I think what we're seeing for the FY 25 cost and this is after the Enterprise um funds is $110,900 so $200,000 over the two years if you don't include the Enterprise employees right okay does the board have any remaining questions how many positions does this cover 85 s okay some are some of those are seasonal right and what was the if I may one last question what what was the reaction of the people covered under this did you hear from them the people the people covered under the salary admin plan I think the process has been difficult for them to understand how we move along so the probably the past month we've come to the final recognition so we haven't heard as much from them since I think that we finished the job descriptions and then we finished the survey and made an assessment about what we would recommend to you so um have they seen has this been distributed to all the members of the salary admin plan that I don't know the answer it wouldn't have been submitted I mean it's a public record so it would have right they could see it if they wanted to see it y the reason I ask I mean again because we make a parallel between union positions who would obviously see what they're being offered before they sign on you would one would think I would think at least that they would see this as it was being presented or at least at the same time that it would be sent to them so they could review it so I think there's an implied ask there if this could be communicated um to the employees so that way they're aware so we can get their comments or uh questions but I know that you know generally speaking we stick to a two and a half model on our general our 2% model to 2 and a half% model on the union negotiations to stay with what the town's able to raise and appropriate on an annual basis so um you know this is an improvement does the board have any remaining questions for the representation from the Personnel committee this is a basic one when you move up a grade you stay in the same step step doesn't change you just move you go to the nearest step uh that's up so you never lose money if you go to the next grade you would go to whatever the next step is that's appropriate so if you made you know $9.50 and you go to the next grade you'd make sure that whatever the step is it's more than $9.50 but it wouldn't be if you were a grade seven step eight you wouldn't go up to grade8 grade eight step the nearest the nearest step up from what you were making I guess I had assumed that for any one step as you go up in grades It Go the the dollar goes up it will so I can't imagine a Ser where you go up in steps I mean go up in grade keep the step the same that you would be going to a lower pay you would never go okay that's what okay you would never go you would go to the next whatever the highest is next highest step so let's say somebody was a step seven grade eight and they made $25 an hour just for round figures when you look at if we were going to move a position to grade eight because we felt like that's where it truly should be we look at the grade eight steps and the one closest above $25 would be where they would go oh so it I could see okay so I could see they could go down and step that's what's and still get more money but be in a higher grade yes but then that's going to give them more latitude over the next few years to continue but you wouldn't change grades unless two things happen either you change jobs or it gotass regraded right which is what we brought forward here and those were three positions and then we obviously had one coming out of the clerical Union that needed to be placed on the grid and on the clerical Union piece we really looked heavily at that there are several grades that correspond on the sap grid and we looked heavily at that our last two meetings to ensure because obviously we had the F what FY 25 and 26 would look like for the clerical so we really wanted to ensure that we were in line there because that was that was a true and very valid valid concern okay can I just uh just for clarification I want to make sure I heard it right FIS 24 you said drops two um steps off the plan and adds two steps on the end one one one one one they removed step one just one remove step one and everything and if you really looked at 24 one of the dilemmas we were faced with is we never wanted to pay below minimum wage even though municipalities can do that we didn't choose to do that and step one really was below minimum wage and we only had one job in there and it was the library page which is the high school children who come and work after school so we essentially thought that those we kind of re-evaluated them and said nobody should be at what one is really we wanted to always start higher than minimum wage and even we wanted to ensure we were above it because the state could tell us we're going up again so we wanted to try and be ahead of that which is why we went to, 1550 as the abute bottom and and were was the board unanimous in its decision on the votes uh as far as approving all this yes okay guys sorry the step confusion on one of these uh the recommended FY 24 FY 25 grids it says at the top FY 24 drop two steps I think that's the wrong one it's a one I don't know there's like three starts at 1550 that one starts yes 1550 m yeah so it took off one and two well I think we just want to start at, 1550 but Our intention was to just drop step one so there may be something that it's already taken off the grid and you just have a comment here because I think what you're saying is that previously it was below minimum wage we don't see anything below minimum wage so there must have been something along the way and then I I read this as a comment right okay well it is at the top of FY says fy4 drop two steps and then in fy2 it says drop step one that's true onstead on 25 okay so that's so the first here you Dro hands Town managers zo yeah on the back screen we don't see it all so the assistant Town manager Julie hi can you hear me okay we can okay perfect so for 24 yes we are dropping the first two steps current step three is currently 1,550 that is going to be the new starting point with the new proposed FY 24 grid then in fy2 we're dropping that step for every every grade and starting at that existing uh new step two so yes so essentially I just wanted to clarify we are dropping two steps FY 24 okay so what used to be step three three will now be step one got ity 24 and adds two on the back end y it makes sense y sorry and then for FY 25 you're adding in 2 and a half% cola and drop in a stop got it so that's where you're seeing the 1637 is the new stop okay any remaining questions from the board just a quick one one curiosity and I don't want to take a ton of time so if you don't know the answer what happens if the state passes a minimum wage that exceeds the lowest end of this grid well we would probably uh just assess if anyone was below that we have very few employees that sit in that grade at that lower level the and mostly they perhaps summer folks or so but we would uh probably at some whatever the next appropriate point is make a recommendation that they be given adjustment up but to be clear the municipality can pay below minimum wage correct it is and that's part of the reason we brought Library Pages up in our in the warrant article so at us at a grade two you're going to bypass that MH we hope that we've made enough of an adjustment to hold that for a little bit okay we have any other questions on these two articles before we go to k all right so I think I understand how K came about um so um do you want to speak to K want I speak to K so when we looked at our bi our B was brought to our attention um that um there really wasn't Equity there um and looking at other bargaining units in town particularly our schools um not being able to use any sick time for an a parental leave just wasn't where the world was at these days so um and there was uh an employee who came forward to us with concern about that so we sat and we looked at it we looked we looked at what the schools had um we looked at what other communities had um in in what we could see for contracts online so we were striving to give anyone taking parental leave the opportunity to use if they had it sick time in addition to um vacation and personal so I know that I reached out to the majority of the members of the Personnel committee to urge some action on this front um I think it it was pretty clear as we go through our bylaws that our bylaws actually read that you can't take sick time for the purpose of a birth of a child and I was floored shocked um that we have that and I'm like we need to we need to make some changes and we need to make them now um so I understand where this has come about because it's problematic language um and I do appreciate that there's a correction here I know that I was I I think I had in mind something a little less so I do want to just ask a couple questions so one of the things one of one of the analysis that was done was that you know commentary the state passes laws all the time that that they exempt the government from right uh they exempt themselves from open meeting law they ex exempt us from having to comply with minimum wage law um and they created a new you know Medical Leave Act and then they Exempted every municipality from from it so all the private companies have to do it but the municipalities don't um unless they choose to opt in so the general language as we look across the town I think the school district had the most generous um policy as I recall and their policy was 15 days if I remember correct ly something along that lines uh it may have been a little more than that for a non- birthing parent for a non- birthing parent um and so what it looks like is that what you've done here and the key language that you're modifying here is is and I'm going to read it if an employee becomes a parent with or without giving birth and then in parentheses EG because the employees spouse gives birth to a baby comma or the employee adopts a child period uh employees May access up to 8 weeks which is 40 days of sick leave however all other available acred time such as vacation and personal time must be exhausted first and my understanding is that that last portion mirrors what's in the state law as as it refers to the Family Medical Leave Act that you need to exhaust all your other time before you can then start utilizing sick time and part of that is for people who aren't aware if you leave a job your your sick time is not necessarily payable out to you but all your other time is so how did you land and on 8 weeks uh 40 days um it's according to if you have that amount in there it isn't all paid so that want to make that clear it isn't like we're paying them for eight weeks and I think it's kind of what the industry has gone to over the past couple of years to be much more uh open about that and U the I don't know what the state will do about disability for municipalities whether they'll change that law in the future or not so I think we just didn't see it before because no one ever came before us and said that language is really odd no one had a need to ask us to do it so we think that we provided a broad enough scope to last us a little while so the other question is in thinking of you know someone who has a child right where you're in Zombie Land for those first like you know three six months or so um you know and you're and you just went through all your time it could be a life ing event especially if it's your first child um what this does and and if I'm correct the way that employees accumulate time it's based on the calendar year is that correct um fiscal fiscal year excuse me fiscal year so if an employee for example uh were to be on leave based on start date say again based on start date based on start date benefited start so generally though if an employee uh if the acrs occur or get added to the account let's say their time off balance everything it's added about July 1st right roughly for most it's an acru so if they started mid year though they'd start the acral process and there's I think a six month um it's not just dumped in on July 1 okay it's AC every month so every month and that's what I want to get clarity on so if an employee is out on sick leave and they start acre vacation time how does this work do they have to then come off of sick leave and then burn through their vacation time to get back when sick leave so how will that work as you envision it with this change well I I think we have to keep in mind that that most employees who are in a position to start a family usually plan out you know they're planning out and they save their time they save their personal time or they save their sick time and and remember our school department doesn't necessarily have vacation time so so every Group whatever the group is the person will probably save so I think that the policy just kind of implies that if you have it you do this first and if they approve some more my guess is that it will be minimal and it won't drastically impact how we execute to that so if they have it at the end and they still need time off then they would use it I would guess do do you think it would be helpful and this is and this is where I'm going at the end of this sentence when it says however all other available crude times such as vacation and personal time must be exhausted first do you think it would be helpful to add in a another kind of verbiage here that just clarifies must be exhausted prior to the sick leave beginning so that way they can still acrew vacation time it wouldn't stop them AC crewing any vacation time I I'll we give that some thought and see if that okay yeah I think the question as I'm trying to dig into it the concern is really about how an employee maneuvers this you know 8 weeks is covering two months8 weeks is covering roughly two months um and if in that time you're still acre time off my only concern would be that you know someone is then going to be forced to use all that time to keep using the sick time in the current verbiage um I would assume that the town manager would not implement it that way but there may we may have a future Town manager who may read this differently right um so that's my only concern about the way it's worded but fully support this I think that as a community you know we depend upon people to have children um we need those children to have a good education and we need them to grow up um and and have jobs uh and so you know there's a whole process in how all this works and so harming the parental process uh which is what I think our current bylaw does I really appreciate that this is a appropriate remedy okay good and I when I think my colleagues I usually try not to go first but I know this was something near and dear to me and so I want to thank my colleagues for for forming some Grace here by kind of taking the first step here and the 40 days just to address that um we had we had a great deal of discussion about this three weeks is where our discussion began but if you look at FMLA someone could take 12 weeks without pay and our thought is if people actually have that time available but you know regardless of order of you know what I mean vacation sick I mean vacation personal and then sick why would we not want them to use that time and get paid for it if you're home with a new child you know not having income you know when you've got you know diapers to buy Etc is you know it it doesn't make us an attractive employer from the benefit side thank you any questions from the board yeah so the FMLA I think is it the same at every company I don't no I can speak for mine it's 60% pay for 12 weeks no only if you have your own personal to cover that yes it's unpaid by law is unpaid not PF so pfla is a little different P we don't pay into municipalities typically do not pay into pmla how long does it take to acrw 40 days of of sick time depends on depends on how long you've been here so your cruel rate is going to be different the longer you've been here and you can carry over a does isn't can you can you carry it over from year to year yes what the maximum what is the maximum you can ACR that's in the bylaw it's hard to keep every bargaining agreement and don't have separ I'm just assuming I'm just assuming it's greater than 40 days yeah okay cuz putting it in that you could use 40 days if you can't even get to 40 days would be kind of we yes if you have right but you can get there is the point yep and a combination somebody could be at a point where they have they've been here longer than 5 years so they have 3 weeks vacation they get their personal time so in the end the sick portion wouldn't necessarily be the 40 days the sick portion I mean it's written you can use 40 days of sick time after you've exhausted everything else I'm just saying I I I think I can't believe we haven't had it it's really kind of embarrassing have it came up yeah 1,200 hours I think total 1,00 yes so that's the most that s can crew is 12200 okay and and my math is not math in that quick the most something can Cru is 12200 hours 12200 hours so what does that come into I don't I don't live my life an hour how many days is that 40 hours 40 hours in a week so 30 30 business days so that's roughly six weeks or so right okay so in good planning vacation sick personal maybe you can map all that together and get time up enough time does the board have any remaining questions want to thank the Personnel committee present and the whole committee for all the work they've done thas here as well there is an open parenthesis in here I know missing it's kind of all right we will make sure that that yeah I noticed it too I to notice GL I wasn't the one I couldn't it was so if you guys are able to um I know that you guys would have to call a meeting pretty quick but if you're able to just um you know either um find a way to make THS at 5 perfect so if you can make an amendment to that parentheses issue and then if you can bring up the concern about the end language here so that way it's just a little clear that employees don't have to keep going back and forth that once they start the process they're in the process um that would be helpful good all right any other questions from the board uh just a quick thing as long as we're doing things like open parenthesis uh the the EG the EG that period is slid over and it needs a comma after the second in which one EG the example yeah this isn't the final draft no cost like are you guys really this yes yes we are I just wanted to say thank you as well to the personel committee and the assistant Town manager as well because I know all of you have spent a lot of time hours Beyond uh working hours um and you have your own jobs the personel commane too um so thank you and thank you to the assistant Town manager I want to extend that as well I know that this has been a lot of work and I really appreciate a especially on the sick time one cuz I think I called you guys over a weekend and you didn't have a lot of time to react Friday at 5:30 so I want to thank you for really uh taking this up and hearing uh the concern and getting this addressed and and ribboning this as well as the long work that went on and I also want to extend that thanks to Julie uh for her work with you guys as well thank you you thank you all right 8:00 time 8:00 Matt thank you for being patient with us this evening Mr brener um so we have uh a couple of Articles while Mr Briner comes forward and uh says his name and address I believe you're Northfield Road if I remember correctly um but while Mr br's coming forward he's going to speak to two articles that are rather lengthy uh and if you wouldn't mind just uh giving us an overview and in our booklets I think these are identified as what Z and AA if I'm correct no it's now y and z Y and Z so if you wouldn't mind uh Mr brener just explaining the purpose of these you don't need to go line by line but just the general gist absolutely um Matthew brener uh planning board chair do you need my address when I'm here as a chair as well no okay wasn't sure all right um so we've got two articles before you today one is water district one not water water sorry uh water supply Protection District the other is um battery battery solar arrays which aren't solar but are totally solar because that's how the state works now um so we're going to start with water because uh that we've talked about that right six months ago I came to y'all and or Adam and I did and we talked about the um about up updating our really really old water supply Protection District that went to town meeting a special town meeting in the fall great discussions got tabled to the spring we looked at it looked at some changes that would help um Mr Richard Harris our interim contract land use director had a bunch of really good input and the short version is the meat on this is exact is real similar to the meat that we all saw in the fall it's just been rearranged and we're bringing it forward as a new article because no one wants a five-page long Amendment at town meeting that's not going to help anyone understand what's going on um I the the kind of full overview is you know from scratch is our water supply Protection District bu laws are older than dirt takes about seven years to make some good soil and I think we're looking at 30 on that engineer engineering has changed uh technology has changed our understanding of the aquafer has changed in addition d uh DP has put out new maps uh period a few times a couple times at least in the past the water district said hey what about this as an updated bylaw got put down by the town we took that feedback and tried to put something together that would work for the town and in the end the big feedback at Springtown meeting it once after tons of public feedback was a lot of people saying I think we can be comfy with this but we really need more time to understand all right that's great time is a fair thing um well what we did then is Mr Harris did a line by line comparison between our current bylaw and the proposed to make sure we really understood what was changing because there was a question if we really did we did understand but now we know for sure um while doing that he looked at it and said maybe we could word some of this better and that's why there's some rearranging of the topics to hopefully make it more userfriendly um in the end as the bylaws currently presented this could change as the bylaws currently presented we're getting out of the Zone one business that's the 500 I think it's 500 400 feet 400 thank you around a p around a well head it can be lower than 400 feet but really for any Town any Town related well is going to be 400 ft okay if it's a small well with little draw could be as small as 200t radius um and as the bylaw presented now the town's getting out of that business because we've never really enforced anything there and it's not we're not the ones who are supposed to that's d uh D or D through the water district there's but that's their business they're the ones who control it and are supposed to address that great get us out of there um zone two BAS basically we're giving a whole bunch of rights back to land owners because engineering's awesome and gets better over time uh it used to be that we had to say look you can't have more than 15% imp permeable in this area otherwise we're going to really screw Zone to being the area that is directly recharging our aquafers let me say that um and back then if you covered more than 15% of that area with impermeable with stuff that water can't get through you're in trouble engineering's gotten better we have a much better understanding of how to get water into the ground and because of that we can say you can't do more than 15% in permeable unless you're taking specific steps to mitigate and get that water in the ground great zone three uh and there's a bunch of band uses that are I believe the same as the current band uses you can't have a automobile junkyard over directly over where water is going into aquafers cuz that's not good for drinking water as one example landfills large chemical storage uh what we did include this different from the model bylaw the state put in is we explicitly included language that allows residents to have the things residents normally have um because the model D language would not let you have a bucket of salt in your garage to th you could use salt on your walkway but you can't have a bucket of it so you can't have any but you're allowed to use it that's weird um so we um so we we included language specifically for things like common household chemicals like uh your like the gas you'd have for your lawn mower normal things um zone three used to have all the same bands as Zone to the input from the water district is that's not really necessary and there was some back and forth even at last night's uh planing board meeting about okay but is it okay to say you could have a landfill in Zone 3 for example uh and the actual answer is that all those uses that could be questionable in other parts of our bylaw not in the water not in this water section but other parts of our by bylaw are already approved by special permit only so we don't so the answer is we can still evaluate and make sure it makes sense uh Zone 3 I apologize is the area that water flows down to then recharge it doesn't go right into the aquafer but you know that's the that's the whole recharge that's the area where water water goes down the hill then goes into the ground in zone two um and this is basically just set up so that there's still plenty of review and it's and special permit is a subjective review we're allowed to look at it holistically you hear site plan approval a lot at um at planning board meetings that's like a checklist right you if you meet the requirements on paper as listed done s um special a special permit lets us look at it holistically let's let's us look at its broader impact on an area um and make sure it is appropriate so that's the changes from the current bylaw um now things that could pivot from here are some residents have come forward expressing concern because we're getting out of the Zone one business with absolutely no disrespect to anyone in the community cuz I get how we get here this is one of those moments I find hilarious about town government because we got in the original bylaw we got out of the Town one out of the Zone one business in part because people were so upset the town was legislating Zone one when it had no business doing that so we pull back and now the feedback is wait wait wait we actually want the town in here uh and now with some more discussion there's some residents who are concerned about protections that they theoretically have in zone one that it's not super clear we're actually removing anything and that's something we're going to do a little more research on because it it all comes back to the really this comes back to the well my the big concern for Zone one is the well at Hickory Hills where there's discussion about uh and I just got the paperwork on the way here I haven't had a chance to review it or run it by anyone yet about exactly how the easements function I believe there's some disagreement between those residents opinion and the Water District's opinion about how those function um believe I haven't gotten that confirmation but it sounds like it from the actions everyone's taking so I'm going to be real we could be looking at a change we may be getting back into Zone one we may not there there's just a little more to tease out there and whether or not truly necessary I'm going to be frank there might be a compromise to be reached to keep everyone happy even if not sometimes in bylaw crafting it's about what's technically right and sometimes you have something and go well it doesn't actually hurt it to have it in here and this helps people understand what's going on even if if it's not needed um so other than that this is here to improve like actually give land rights back to land owners while doing at least as good frankly I think better about protecting the environment than and our water supply than we were previously all right thank you Mr brener for that thorough update do we have any questions from the board related to it just just one at the end when you said this do me some other things you may tease out is that teasing out are you aiming for this town meeting to do that yeah the questions are very direct and focused um so for example there's people there there's a concern out there saying but the bylaw no longer says we're allowed to boat in zone one well first first of all it looks like Zone one doesn't apply on water so it seems questionable if we can allow boating because people don't normally need permission to use a rowboat on their yard but still worth looking at to be sure similarly um there are residents who are concerned about who feel that um by us removing Zone one we're removing a ban on building um it's my understanding third hand second third hand that the water district feels they can build there regardless so I have to have a couple conversations to tease out where everything are is frankly I may well uh hit up attorney Kasa office hours if that falls at a reasonable time frame for this because there might be a little nitty-gritty there but overall the resp response from the public was aside from Zone one people seem very comfortable with it and there's that zone one issue now if we have to return Zone one we have we have language for that pop it right back in if there is no need for Zone one we're going to get for us to be in zone one then we can get that confirmed as clearly as possible and bring that back to the constituency so I'm not going to I I'm just want to be very real about where we are in the public hearing process I don't want to come to you say oh everything's 100% and be like surprise there could be a change here but the only change we are foreseeing is to my understanding is about whether or not we're going to be regulating Zone one and that would be very little because again D actually has most of the control there if or all the control so I'm going to ask the same exact question again because I don't think I think I got you're looking to do that before town meeting yes okay because the reason I say that is because I've been for this I know the work this is now the third time this will have come up I would like to see this pass and I I know the arguments that go on and on about you know you know the small sections I just don't if anything changes after it is printed again I just I just pray that it doesn't start the same kind of circular discussion again amen uh no the goal is to get this key aspect figured out okay um I believe it's going to be from my understanding of the moving Parts I believe it's going to be more straightforward Than People worry it will be I haven't looked at this par but again uh there residents saying that there is a specific easement that is wildly different from any other easement in the state and that the whole approval was now if everything's really insanely different that could pivot everything I'm not sure that's the case but I have not had a chance to review what they've sent because I've had it for an hour and I was here with y'all so I mean if I can um comment on just reality for a moment yes if we think about um you know we had a site walk recently and it was regarding uh a water body and it was very well attended uh the most people I've ever seen in a sidewalk usually it's just Mr pasio and the select board um when we think about the you know the town meeting that we had to move to the high school um it was regarding water and people who live on or around water as relates to taxes and I think the one complaint we've receive really loudly um prior to that was related to the Conservation Commission also dealing with water um so my comment is that I think that the times that I've seen the most people come about is when we're talking about property on or around water so if if what the work is that needs to be done between now and town meeting is Zone one which specifically I'm sure is coming from residents in or around Hickory Hills with the well that's located there um do you think that a month is enough time to resolve all these concerns and would it be better to not have um another iteration of this that fails and to instead take more time to resolve those concerns or do you perceive that those concerns are not I perceive that no I perceive that these I don't want to say I perceive that these concerns are not concerns because they are I don't believe I believe they will be imminently addressable concerns either by being able to point to clear like explanation from people who understand the law saying this is why you're okay or if there is an issue by reinstituting control the town's control over Zone one I I can't speak for the board I can speak for myself I'm not a fan of putting Town control over Zone one if we shouldn't have it because I don't know that that's super helpful for anyone but if we do need it that's a different story and then we absolutely should well I guess what I'm trying to get a better understanding of is you guys are putting forward an article to go before the town while you're aware that uh a section of the population is concerned about specific language not being included or included so is is the move to put it on the warrant premature do you guys have more work to do that would take longer and is this something that should come up later I do not I believe that any that if there is a fix needed here it is very limited and very quick so I do not believe this is premature okay um it's I wish some of these concerns had been brought to us earlier in the process so that we could have had longer conversations but I don't think that I I mean that really from a because it would have been a little less stressful stpoint I believe we have plenty of time to address this because we're talking about an article that is 98 99% people seem to at this point be comfortable with there is one component that we can kind of effectively toggle if we need to to me that seems like a very reasonable fix requires a little more reading now I'll also be honest if it turns if it turns out this is wildly more complex than we thought I might have a different like if it turns out we really are unique in the state with a very bizarre set of circumstances and there's agreement on that I would probably have a different feeling I don't anticipate that being an issue but again I haven't I only just got that extra data so I even haven't had a chance to review it yet okay any other questions from the board all right you have another article article why yes um would you mind giving us a a a brief overview of what the purpose of article Y is as it relates to battery energy storage systems yes if we don't do it companies can tell us what to do I mean that if you want the real brief uh the state has said because battery storage systems are necessary for solar power to be functional on the grid they count as solar installations and get all the rights and benefits thereof and if you're not go Mr Franco you seem to have a question about that no no no I'm listening and um and frankly our feet are being very friend in a friendly way being put to the fire and a company has come in and they're before and they went to the zba and said hey you don't allow these systems right now in lunenberg and the state says you have to so we're going to appeal and I mean the writing's on the wall they they'll get it they can do what they want most is my understanding now but they've also turned to us and said hey we don't have to just force this we could actually work together and craft something that's good to the town and fair for the businesses in this area I am personally very hesitant When government and business decide to work together on Crafting legislation I I I will say that so far they have been exceedingly good corporate citizens they have given opinions Mr Harris has been exceedingly good expert in this field and he has done due diligence on behalf of the board um in terms of when he gets recommendations from them going to the appropriate experts within town and making sure that what's being shared with us flies but overall this legislation gives us some control over really a very fair amount of control over battery storage systems making sure that well they're going to help us and give smoothness to the grid while not being a problem for the town not being an eyesore not being a a noise issue and that's what this B uh this uh potential bylaw is about okay and it sounds similar to what was going on with the solar when solar got passed and everyone was trying to jump in really quickly before it was regulated cuz there's always predatory businesses you know I probably don't agree with you fully when it comes to the crafting of legislation not being um Private Business not being part of it I think it actually works better usually a lot of legislation is crafted by lobbyist um and and others people with unique and uh specific knowledge of an industry and sometimes that leads to better legislation um nonetheless it sounds like you know as you just to summarize as we're looking at it you start off with definitions so as you're using some language I know this has been a shift in the planning board over the last 10 years or show to really start defining things um and so you start off with definitions you go into the standards then you kind of go down with all the different systems where they're allow allowed to be there's modifications here the Ed tables and so clearly a lot of work has gone into getting to this point so that way as we move forward you know we're not stuck in a situation where someone could be um putting one of these systems in and then again it's bothering their neighbors or something that's something as we think of new technology that without the without regulation that would be treated differently than we would treat solar panels and other stuff if I may uh one key difference between this and our previous solar bylaw is we or our current solar bylaw is we've taken Lessons Learned From that about the rapid pace of technology and this has been very intentionally crafted to be Tech neutral to rely on standards by bodies that actually observe track and regulate these things to do things like instead of limiting by kilowatt hour limiting by uh footprint of the site or of the developed site because that's really what people care about and we're not going to get in that situation like now where 10 you know 10,000 what was it 10 kilowatt hour 10,000 whatever it is used to be huge and now you can throw it on your roof right but it's a large scale but only if it's on the ground that's the kind of stuff we're looking to avoid so we're not recrating this in two five 10 years do the board have any questions for Mr Bruner I do have one and that is I have not read all 13 pages of this bylaw so I would ask you I will but I I will ask you in your discussions has there been much public input or concern about any component of this that uh of which or to which we should pay particular attention there has been very L I cannot think of any uh just kind of freely offered public input where people have come in and said hey um the one second no we have Sol we've solicited opinions from officials in the town from groups in the town uh um green communities for example but no overall this is um there has not been a big public response about this at all okay thank you any remaining questions I do not okay thank you Mr brener thank you all right thank you all right so the only thing remaining on our agenda this evening is for the select board to review the annual T meeting warrn articles and vote and recommendations uh I'm assuming that we still have people here because they're waiting to see see how we're going to be voting all and discussion budget updates yes why don't we um why don't we actually just um go to number two so that way Mr Costa can uh can head home and be with his family if he needs to I don't think he needs to be here for number one so if we can just go to number two I'll turn to the town manager his family's going to be sleeping yeah I don't know if he needs wants to be here for number one either it's just a budget update if um that's up to to Mr Costa but um so um just to provide the board an update I know many of you are well aware of the conversations that we've been having um the chair and I with the school committee chair and the superintendent and um we have closed that Gap so we had a meeting on Monday the final Gap was approximately $4 $1,000 and I had been looking at local receipts as a way to close that Gap as you know my budgeting approach and um as history with Karen brochu as well we both have always agreed on this that we budget conservatively U purposely those revenues are elastic revenues uh they fluctuate over time um that's proven by the the data of um are estimated to actuals and um how they fluctuate but um when I did look back I'm comfortable with closing the Gap by that that amount um but I want to just forewarn this is not a fix you know that we should be looking at every time we need to look to close a budget Gap the more we rely on those funds and uh lessen that um those actual amounts the less we're going to have for Capital the less we're going to have for to put in our stabilization fund to address OPB um so and those are creating healthy Financial reserves for the town which also helps us when we need to go out to borrow which we have on the horizon so um I do want uh to put that disclaimer out there um this is not a be all and all fix for all our problems um the other updates um so uh unrelated um so as you know in the preliminary budget proposal there were various positions were with increases in hours um including the meal site manager that was referenced in public comment tonight the it administrative assistant position the rck director position um and the part-time assessor data collector position and a halfe position for the police department and due to recent um conversations with eel Harvey regarding our contract and the potential for it to significantly increase what they quoted when we had U met with them uh two weeks ago was that it's up to a 70% increase if we wanted to extend that contract so we are going to be putting out that contract or that out to bid to say what we do get for proposals but it's simultaneously we're looking at moving to a cart system because that would be less labor intensive for their business and um it may save the town money and all businesses in that the hauling business there are pretty much forcing the industry to go that that route there there's companies that won't even bid on towns that aren't using a tote cart system so um I wanted to make sure that we're prepared because we our contract um was up June 30th but we submitted a letter to extend the terms of our contract by 90 days so it our rate will be until the end of September but in the meantime we don't have a town meeting between typically between May and November we need to be prepared for what that impact is and we can't enter in a into a contract without an appropriation so what um I came I tried as best I could to work the numbers to make it all work but it just does not work we need to pull back on those hours and positions at this time to plan for that impact as well as the impact of the salary Administration plan um wage impact for fy2 okay so those total total dollar amounts that we talked about previously was like 195,000 is in that range correct 150,000 for those positions with health insurance so it would be eliminating All Those ads and reallocating $150,000 to trash it would no um so the only position that is retained in the budget right now is the part-time data collector position cuz I feel very strongly that's um a corrective action we need to take for that department and it's the financial backbone besides our finance office um and T getting tax bills out um to make sure we're getting our income um our revenue generated from the tax Lobby so and the grant writer the grant uh it's not a grant writing WR it's Grant service that can be used for any so that that is also in the the budget but it's not a position it's a line item um for that which we um I think there's consensus around that remaining in the budget based on the return on investment for that cost and um there's a minimal amount under the seasonal Cemetery um positions about $2,000 to add that uh to address the needs that department but that's doesn't affect benefits and it's very minuscule um so the reallocation is uh 100,000 to the solid waste line uh added 100,000 from free cash to the reserve fund which I normally that's not a practice um I endorse or have ever used but I think we're it should be earmarked for emergency only and if we go out to bid and we need to rely on that as an additional supplemental appropriation for the trash contract it's there if we need it um before the November town meeting and um the salary reserve line was at 100,000 but um based on the sap impact the wage impact at around 111 we also need to budget for the DPW Union negotiations that will be forthcoming this year um so that number I'm increasing to 155 okay questions to the town manager related to that update just one comment I understand all the adjust ments that she described both verbally here and in the sheet I will just say that if there is a way as we get closer the two the two things that in my mind would be the first to add back first of all I couldn't agree more with the Assessor's data collection line so the better data we get to keep our properties in line and not lose Revenue to people doing things and not being accounted for that is good money to to it'll more than pay for itself with the $5,000 so that would be the first one I hope would be put in and the uh issue made during public comment about the meal site manager would be the second because again it is a an area where some seniors and and there was a presentation yesterday uh given hosted by the board of assessors at the adult Activity Center that both uh Mr Franco and I attended and spoken regarding tax exemptions and abatements Etc and this is a vulnerable population and you know for that amount of money to give the assistance that is given there not only in the meal itself but in the social aspect of it I think is well taken so those are the hopefully those would be the two that we could find our way potentially to put back in those would be my high highest priorities to put back in I would just like to reiterate that you beat me to it Tom and um that's it I mean if there is no way there is no way but if there is a way those would be my priorities as well yeah I agree concur any other comments thoughts thank you to the town manager for the work you've done um you know ordinarily as these numbers come in you know money kind of moves around a little differently but we stand with the strain and focus this year um you know we make do with what we have do we have any other um questions related to the budget the last thing that we're going to be doing here is going by article by article to identify as many things that we can vote on uh for recommendations uh do we have any other things related to the budget this year next year Capital plan annual time meeting warrant okay so what we'll do is we'll go a through z um and um if the town manager puts them up on the screen so we don't have to read all of them out loud uh that will be helpful and then we'll kind of just go I know the town manager has her notes do you want are you taking them or do you want me to or do you want Caesar to um if Caesar can all right so the notes Caesar going to be by article whether or not we um vote to recommend or not recommend what that vote is or if we're saying that we want to wait till the next meeting or if we're deferring okay and I'm expecting that we're going to wait till next meeting for a couple of these things um so I'll start the process and any member who wants to defer at any time to say defer and in our pattern or tradition is generally to defer based on the the recommendation of a member Mr chair if I may do we not first need to take a vote on whether or not we are putting it online we should yes yep so do you want to make the motion uh cuz I'll make most of them tonight to make it easier can we make a Motions like the following to the extent that the board agrees we uh um recommend approval of a warrant article that also constitutes a vote to place it on the warrant I would say why don't we just go ahead and move to accept a through z onto the warrant that may be I okay want to make that's way too simple man all right I move to uh that the board Place uh articles A through Z on the town meeting warrant second any additional discussion all right um for the purpose tonight I'm going to say all in favor instead of as many as are in favor because that's easier to say all in favor please say I I those opposed no all have been accepted all right we're going to go one by one starting with a see the vote we hear um I move for the town to recommend approval of article a second um I I want to see for the board we have a motion and second any additional discussion all all in favor I I I those oppose no boards 5 to zero um article B see if the town will vote to authorize revolving funds for departments um boards committees agencies officers Etc as on the screen um I move for the board to recommend approval of article B second any additional discussion all in favor please say I I I those oppose no board is 5 to z c uh local Wetlands protection bylaw fees you want me to just another revolving fund right yes it is it's um it was discovered recently that there's a reference in the local Wetlands bylaw referencing a revolving fund that does not exist in our bylaws but we thought it' be good to have one since we reference it yeah and just for notes since last time we didn't have that dollar amount do we just want to say that 50,000 it's on the under okay um move for the board recommend approval of article C second additional discussion all right all in favor please say I I those oppos no board is 5 to zero d uh this is rais and appropriate available sums for prior expenses we don't have a number so we will wait till next meeting to see if we have an update on this one e um this is related to um the budget this is also likely going to be deferred but we'll wait till the next meeting on this one as well F uh town will vote to raise an appropriate borrow this is related to the capital plan um we do have those numbers but they're not here yet so let's hit F next week G uh appropriate transfer available sons of selling money to Def free the charges and expenses of the town for fisc year 25 to fix the salaries compensation of elected officials of the town uh and any other items including the budget of the Town manager uh I think we need to see the numbers on this one or do you are you able to that's the new budget that's the budget that's previous budget that's right um previous and current so we are we going to wait till next week H um this is see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate additional sum of money to supplement the this is the override question anyone want to make a positive motion on this one tonight I I would prefer to um I mean I want to see what comes finally comes out of the sausage the school committee sausage grinder I I my understanding was that the number is 94813 six it'll be confirmed tomorrow but I don't from what we heard tonight the numb is not going to move too much well then it doesn't hurt to wait till Tuesday so the board wants to wait till next week doesn't matter I mean I I I vote for it either way I thought they were going to discuss where the ex the extra um money was going to go okay will will your vote for recommendation change based on that additional information okay so we'll wait till next week I see if the town will vote to amend the code Chapter 70 schedule a entire salary admin plan is what we heard tonight I move for the board to recommend approval of article I second any additional discussion are all in favor please say I I I those oppose no board is 5 to zero and I Jay this is related to the salary admin plan the actual dollar amount I move for the board to record approve I would like to hold this till I just got the chart today so I'd like to at least review it before I vote on on right we'll wait for next week for I uh excuse me for J K this is related to sick leave um that we heard tonight I move for the board to rec and I will clarify that as a town manager noted tonight employees can increas 12200 hours that's approximately 6 months um but for K I think earlier I said 6 weeks but it's but it's six months so for K I move for the board to recommend approval of article K second second yeah I thought you wanted to have some language clarified at the end no did you not ask them we did we did thank you for that we will wait till next week on K UNC un second I unced that second was removed L this is related to um U available sums the sum of money foring the stabilization fund we need to get those dollar amounts so we'll wait till next week M this is related to 100,000 thank you we have 100,000 so we can move on L uh 's is Town vote to raise an appropriate uh roughly $100,000 the stabilization fund I move for the board to recomend approve article L second any additional discussion all in favor I I those opposed the board is 5 to zero M do we have a number for M special purpose stabilization 250,000 from free cash as okay as discussed um see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate uh for the special purpose stabilization fund 250,000 I move for the board to recommend approval of article M second any additional discussion all all in favor please say I I those oppose no board is 5 to Z um on MN this is related to OPB do we have the number for OPB yes it's in that CH it's one 87 all right 110 I think just just just we can pause I I'm sharing the screen already I would Lu all just for pause for a moment if you wouldn't mind just clarifying what I know we go through this every year what is OPB for some people at home and for our newer members benefit other post-employment benefits so it's a fund that we have um to that we dip into as needed all right and the amount was 187 187 110 if someone else can bring up the chart that's in the The Adjustment chart I move for the board to recommend approval of article n second any additional discussion all in favor please say I I I those oppos no board is 5 to zero oh see the town will vote to raise um we're looking for sewer Enterprise do we have the dollar amount for the sewer Enterprise for fy2 yes I'll we'll come back to O next week p p is 35 for the sewer capital reserve stabilization fund I move for the board to rec approval of article P second any additional discussion are all in favor please say I I I those oppose no the board's 5 to Z and P Q um this is related to Solid Waste Disposal fund we'll wait till next week till we have that number R is uh water Enterprise fund um we'll wait till next week we have that number s is the peg we'll wait till next week when we have that number t uh is related to the 10,000 of the cell of cemetery law I move for the board to recommend approval of article T second in additional discussion all in favor please say I I I those oppos no the board's unanimous 5 to Z on T you this is the town will vote to accept Master General law um which provides for additional real estate exemptions this is the presentation that we heard um I'll just go ahead and read it no the second one is presid so I'll goe and read it this is related to uh which provides for additional real estate exemptions for taxpayers who are granted personal exemptions on their domiciles under math journal Law chapter 59 Section 5 including certain blind persons veterans surviving spouses and seniors and to provide that the additional exemption shall be up to 50% of the personal exemption to be effective for exemptions granted for any fiscal year beginning on or after July the 1st 20224 and again this is for persons veterans and surviving spouses and seniors I believe we previously had information on this is the board prepared to make a recommendation on this tonight I move for the board direct this may change um depending on something the assessors are looking into right now so let's hold off to next week okay you could have interrupted me well he's trying to well you RAC it for I like we a cattle auction I think I bought on V all right so V we're coming back to as well w w is related to um reopt and accepting the provisions of chapter 20 of uh I'll go ahead and read this one this is also related to OPB I don't think we've have we had a presentation on W uh I've explained it um briefly so basically it's a section of uh changes were made to the section of Law and that were after the town originally adopted the OPB trust fund so this would align with the government standards to create a declaration of trust and Associated documents am I explaining that in a good way all right um through you Mr chair um so so you're you're explaining it correctly the the difference is in most instances where a statute changes and you've adopted the statute the changes affect you when they made amendments to this statute they said specifically that the old statute shall continue to apply unless you reopt it got it and this is something we're going through that process with the division of local services to look at updating our financial policies this is going to be something they recommend us do so we're getting ahead of that as well okay does the board need more time on W NOP move for the board to recommend approval of article W second any additional discussion all right all in favor please say I I I those oppose no the board is unanimous 5 to Z x this is related to um amending the code of lber chapter 12 entitled board's commissions and committees by adding a new article four uh there to this is related to the historical commission the article that was proposed by the select board um specifically I think the language came from selectman Alonzo I move for the board to reckman approval of of article X second an additional discussion yeah do we need to wait to clarify what the previous speaker brought up in public comment or no M Mr Paso since you're here I didn't hear the whole question did pass 56 Whiting stre have you had the opportunity to look at the byw that selectman Alonzo that the select board is proposing to it's in your packet obviously I have and and just for clarity um the bylaw as currently proposed do you have concerns with that language yes because I don't know 100% for sure after speaking with Town Council yesterday as to whether or not we need to reaccept the paragraph in Chapter 40 also in this article or if I have if I understood our conversation correctly yesterday if that section has not changed since 1979 then we've already accepted it in which case the verbiage in that paragraph I my understanding was should be in Force at this time correct please correct me if I'm wrong thank you through you Mr chair um so uh Mr Paso and I did have an opportunity to speak about this uh at some length yesterday and I'll be I'll be candid that was at about 3:00 or 400 p.m. and I've barely come up for air since then so I have not done any further research into the the questions that we left that meeting with but um the the short version is um the concerns and I I think I'm characterizing this correctly the concerns that Mr pasos raised are that that the statute's Fairly comprehensive in terms of its language um based upon Mr Alonzo's prior research which was was provided to me the the town previously accepted the statute but that was back in 1979 I don't know what the statute said in 1979 or whether it's been amended since then the current version of the statute um is more comprehensive than what's proposed here uh it includes certain references for example one thing Mr pasio pointed out is that it says in a community with a town manager form of government it's a town manager appointee subject to select board confirmation as opposed to a select board appointment um and so the question was would this bylaw provision conflict with what the statute requires or could we make an argument that maybe the statute that was adopted by the town back in 1979 was an earlier version of the statute which I have not yet been able to to to to research so to the extent the board is inclined to to not vote on a recommendation tonight I can certainly do that research and get an answer to the board before its next meeting thank you attorney Costa we will do that we'll pick this up for next week when if I may just very quickly the other piece that's in there obviously is the uh alternates um that we spoke about a week or or two ago and I did check uh apdc and Zoning Board of Appeals both have that in um their sections that we've adopted I'll leave it at that thank you thank you Mr pasio for um we will wait till next week on X for y and z um I believe the Board needs an opportunity to read this uh in total they come to about 20 Pages between the two um you know right now our booklets 28 pages and 20 of them is planning board and Mr chair I think the public hearing was continued so there could be additional modifications so we'll wait till next week on Wy I think the public hearing was April 8th yeah so it's going to be after year really if for both I move for the board to defer articles wiy to town meeting yeah second any additional discussion as many as are uh all in favor please say I I I those opposed no board has deferred to town meeting a recommendation on ynz okay all right so next week we will meet um again and we will finish the ones that we pushed off to next week um and then there will uh I fully expect that the board will be prepared to make a recommendation on I um which and this current iteration is the override question um what typically happens just just I'm commenting to the public mostly then to the board what typically happens is a couple of Articles get deferred to town meeting in which the information will not become available ailable until such a time that will be after the warrant gets printed and mailed um I will urge the board to make as many recommendations as possible and to defer as few as possible and then in this process then as we go through April we then come up once the finance committee makes their recommendations we end up coming with a consent calendar with with articles that we find to be pretty non objectionable and straightforward and should pass and then typically the process is that we identify them and then in the town meeting process the first thing one of the first things we do is um lump all them together and get them to bulk pass and then we focus on the controversial or articles that have a lot more uh engagement so do we we voted on the warrant article for the override correct what about the ballot question um we have next week so is that what we're going to do it next week yes yep because we need to see all the other things that are on the ballot anyway so we should have the draft there is one thing though so um I will note next week we should be pretty quick about it but last week we did receive from the register of Voters a request related to in-person voting so we do have to post that as a public hearing um that is was that the question I think that was the one so we do have to post it as a public hearing and we do have that scheduled to be next week um and so we will we're supposed to get clarification from the language because what we got presented was contradictory in itself I I apologize if I spoke with Town Council about it yesterday um so we do have to have the public hearing it'll be Tuesday um Annie is taking care of the notice Y and the board has to vote on the that the to opt out of the the mail um voting by mail so we're not doing voting by mail for the town election correct that's what you need to vote on at a public hearing yes right so but but you but if you did you only have to have a hearing if you're opting out I mean otherwise the default is you're in right that was what was confusing language okay so and the request is for us to opt out is for us not to allow early in-person voting uh and to not allow the the mail in voting and instead to defer back mail by mail the the did I incorrectly op out by mail vo out of the ma mailing voting yes correct not by um the early voting I thought it was early in person as well was the request no Mr Costa I don't know that I've actually seen the request but um but that should not that should not preep you from well can you comment on all right so we have a public hearing next week to go over that pull it up and it is changes to early voting by mail and iners early voting that's what I thought yeah I thought it was it doesn't change absente voting correct absentee voting is always permitted which is you have a Justified Reason by law this is really kind of reverting back to the prepandemic rules that we were operating under which was not allowing early inperson voting and voting by mail it would be absente te instead so the request is for us to opt out of this um you know I I want to I am inclined to support that request so I definitely want us to have the public hearing and then for us as a board to vote on it on whether or not we will support it or not there was some language concerns and Adam as you're looking at this there's some verbiage issues with how it was initially phrased to us and so they did have a no that's that's helpful um they did have a modification uh that came did the modification not go to the whole board that only come to me I didn't see anything I apologize it must have only come to me I will forward that to the rest of the board so so I'm just reading what I'm looking at I don't know who wrote it or what the sources there's some errors in it now well that that's fine I so I'm looking at the first reference so and I say this because the voting the early voting by male and the inperson early voting are two entirely different things that are governed by different statutes and so what I apped on and what I discussed with the town manager was what many communities have opted to do I shouldn't say many some communities which is to opt out of the early voting by mail and so that's because the votes act which was adopted a couple years ago um said that all communities are required to provide it unless the selectman conduct a public hearing and they opt out and so that's consistent with the language that's written here which says early voting by mail is not required for all elections and preliminaries it should say it shouldn't say not it should say should say early early voting by mail is required for all local elections unless the town opts out so that's what it should say in order to opt out of an early vote by mail for a local election I'm just reading the select board must hold a public hearing and a public roll call vote to not allow early vote by mail no later than 45 days before the date of the election that's accurate and that's what I discussed with the town manager but then it refers to um a separate section maybe it's within the votes act maybe it's not but it says the towns may choose to have inperson early voting to opt in to ear inperson early voting for Municipal elections at least two registers need to recommend it and the select board must then vote to authorize inperson early voting that's my understanding of it as well although I have not looked at that provision of the ACT recently but that's an opt-in provision so if you've already opted in then you've already opted in and you could reverse that vote but you're already in we haven't opted in then you're not in anyway so there may not be no vote required there if you're not currently offering it because it was never it was never voted got it okay for anyone who wasn't confused yeah when you said got it I was like no no I got it I follow that um so I will forward to the board the clarification that came in from the register voters I apologize that I didn't verify that you guys weren't on the CC line um and they will and they did provide that clarification and then Adam if you wouldn't mind just giving I think you said that opinion to us but if you wouldn't mind writing that opinion to us briefly that would be helpful so that way next week when we meet we we have clear guidance on what what it is that we're exped that's fine I've written the first part already it was sent to the town manager but I'll confirm the second part and I'll update it okay Mr chair if I may before Town Council hits his remote start on his car to do mine I'd like to go back to article V for a moment because I have a question regarding this uh my understanding uh and with so you know at at my encouragement and just for clarity for those who aren't following along r v is the I'm going to got it than okay so this is this is the one about uh uh decreasing the age of the exemptions for the uh under 41c from 70 to 65 uh that's what it currently says partially at my urging I know that there's now interest by this the board of assessors to also include the other thing that they considered which was raising the exemption amount from $750 to $1,000 ,000 so I assume they can come back and still do that or we can we can do that uh correct we can we you can alter the the warrant article up until the time that okay yeah but okay but it's not okay right so my question for you is this if we put that in there then it's a package right like if it's in one one uh warrant article either both or none happens uh once that's put back in can we bootstrap and actually divide that out into two different warles is that even an option to in other words to uh so that those Provisions could be considered separately and not risk both of them tanking I I if I can add to your question before you answered Adam I think the also other way of thinking of this is if they make an amendment to V can we also separate that Amendment that's what I'm getting at in other words I know we can't add a warrant article now just throw one on there but can we add something to into an existing article and then split that article the same thing as the first I think the answer was it's a different way of thinking about it it is but it's it's a maybe technical way around limitation yes I agree so my my my recommendation would be if you're anticipating um a couple of months before town meeting that there may be a desire before you've closed the warrant you asked me this question on the eve of town meeting I may give you you know I may try to find a solution for you that works with what I've got but when you tell me before you've closed the warrant that you've got one warrant article that you may want to actually divide into two warrant articles in the future and you want to know if you can do it I'm going to tell you the safer thing to do is place it as two warrant articles now the warrant's closed already but we haven't well the warrant's closed but it's your warrant as a select board so you can divide one article into 10 articles if you want to that's within your discretion it's always your warrant as a select board so you could con you could convert that if you chose to to two separate articles what I was going to say is and what the answer that I would give if you ask me this on the eve of town meeting would be moderator's discretion um the moderator can certainly buy for Kate a vote um moderators do things like this with some frequency they'll allow discussion to happen on two related articles and then you vote them separately this is a little different because you are voting components of the same warrant article possibly separately and that concerns me a bit um I have no issue with you amending the article that's on the floor to delete one piece of it or the other piece of it but then you're left with the piece you voted and the other piece is out and you can't vote that other piece unless the moderator were to determine that you can vote them separately but it's really still one article so it gives me some concern that when this gets to the attorney general they're going to say um that you were a bit too cute with how you went about it so my recommendation would be to place it as two separate sequential articles one changing the age and one changing the dollar amount um and again you can speak to the moderator in advance at our preown meeting as we do about it may make sense to discuss these consec collectively so that they're both read and then the discussion is on both articles but then when they're voted they're voted separately y okay that's clear clear to me yeah no I I think you're so yes we could do this strategy but it's the timing of the strategy your your strategy of putting it into a single article and then hoping that it can be voted in separate parts so you don't sort of throw the baby out with the bath water kind of kind of analogy I'm just concerned that the that the moderator may be uncomfortable with that it's not something we've ever done in Lunenburg before at least not in the years I've been here um and so trying those sort of unique things is is going to raise a red flag for the AG when they're looking over the votes at town meeting so let me just clarify no I I mean like literally sitting at this table like at like at uh 7:30 we add in this this other provision into V and then at 7 then take a vote on and then at 7:31 we take a vote to split it up into two articles I think what Adam's saying is is and this is my understanding as well is that we can add another article here okay and that the the board of assessors cannot but we can okay and and that if we're looking at you know the new W right which is the provision MH that that can just be added okay my opinion is and and you can disagree if I know this may not be custom but my opinion is consistently in all the communities that I represent that the you you you select opening and closing dates for the warrant um for your convenience there's no nothing in the law that requires that specifically for your convenience so that you can get the warrant out in a timely manner get it printed get it out to the households but it's always your warrant so until the moment when you vote to approve the full warrant you can add you could add entirely new articles on topics that were not even discussed prior to the close of the the warrant because per statute per 3910 it's your warrant okay okay Mr chair just to weigh in on this first of all to what Town Council has said I I wouldn't be in favor of that for something like this I know that we can do it but there's a difference between what you can do and what you should do and if we're going to tell people that it's closed there's no emergency in an emergency situation it's good to have that kind of power to be able to do it I don't think this Rises to that number two I don't understand M you know Mr Franco's concern because if we have two components that he wants to add and we add both of them into the current article somebody can always amend to remove one sure or not I mean so having two articles would just I mean just add another article to go through and I don't understand why what what it would do that one article couldn't do because you could remove one or both or change one or both at that time anyway and that would be an amendable vote that would be a separate vote not a separate article but it would be a separate vote sure is the board of assers going to meet between now and next Tuesday to give us an amendment on this article I don't actually know but I mean I we could just do it ourselves if we wanted to then it's submitted by a we then that changes who it's submitted by yeah well that's true yep I don't know if they're meeting I okay I can jack will probably get in his truck and come down what do let's if we can just talk what's the best approach as the board sees it to to handle this request that came up from the board during their conversation with us to let them come back again at another Future Point to amend the existing or to add an article I don't know how many people it would affect certainly we're changing one that would be substantial the age difference um that's my personal opinion but I'm not against as I said then I would be for it if they are for it I again I don't feel like meddling in an article submitted by another elected board uh if they want to come to us I'm in favor of it but I'm not willing to add it on our own I for me would it have an impact on the budget or would this also this affects the overlay and they've said it would be covered the the currently but if we added the extra however much would that also come out of overlay any exemptions and abatements come out of the overlay some I don't know what we don't know I don't have a dollar amount but it would have some yes to to your point Mr Alonzo now it's kind of like the other thing like instead of and and to yours Mr Jeff instead of amending and fiddling with an article that the board of assessors uh submitted we could just keep that one intact and add another article and and have it be our own article to say to reiterate something the Town Council said you could presumably and unless it would you think it was illegal I know you're going to say it's up to the moderator to some degree but if we if it was printed one way and we wanted to add if somebody amended to add the second criteria in would that be up to the town moderator or would that so that becomes a scope issue right um so so initially it's it's always up to the moderator experience in lunenberg is the moderator tends to confirm with me I have some concern about the scope there I understand it's the same exemption but um when you're adding in an entirely different basis for the exemption and it's not now monetary but it's it's age or it's not age but it's monetary it it changes changes the substance of the article I think so I'd be concerned yeah I know sorry wait to hear from the board of assessors let's wait I think we should wait to hear from the board of assessors okay and they can they have plenty of time to get back to us before next Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. so I I know several members are watching so as a side note I want to congratulate both of the newest members for putting their name up for reelection that was really oh both both uh Miss Cammer and Mr lefant excellent excellent that's good to hear and they've done such good work so far so all right um I think we are done with our supposedly abbreviated agenda tonight and I think I even took off action items and all this anyway all right upcoming meeting schedule so the board will be meeting next Tuesday uh April the 9th we will be skipping uh April 16th which is the week of school vacation uh and then we will meet again on April the 23rd um we have any public comments this evening from the town manager none thank you any public comments from the public Mr pasos then I did TJ have his hand up all right then TJ he Pao 56 Whiting Street um the earlier discussions that you had uh with the Personnel committee uh members um and their um move to try to mitigate the issue with uh sick weave and P vacation time um I think this is a good first step and a quick fix for something that needed to get fixed right away for a particular reason but I think it needs to have a deeper dive done into it uh Private Industry uses PTO paid time off and that paid time off you can use for any eligible EXC uh use including vacation time sick leave and I think there's a third one I can't remember what it is the only difference between the two or three that you can use that acrude time for is that you have to notify the employer uh with more notice for vacation time versus sick leave so on and so forth um I think the system is archaic what we have and I know this challenges because of collective bargaining agreements so on and so forth but I really think it needs to have a deep dive into that type of a program thank you thank you Mr pel TJ TJ Laughlin 207 Rolling Acres Road um going to be short you guys have all heard me talk too much of course but I just want to point something out that I think was important to point out um the town manager said something tonight that I was about the school budget that I was really uh happy about and agreed with her she didn't increase health insurance costs or Transportation costs or collaborative tuition costs she didn't she's right but neither did the superintendent or the chair of the school committee uh nor did that happened because the superintendent used Google Sheets and didn't use another budgeting tool right um but tonight was the first time I've heard recognition that those are actual problems across the many boards in town that need to recognize those as actual problems I thought that was refreshing actually um I would like to see the boards in town recognize these undeniable problems we face and because we didn't collectively together I actually think it does put the superintendent in a position to take the criticism you mentioned from The Fringe I think it puts her in that position quite often um and and it and it puts the override in the same light um and and the school budget as a whole not even just the override right um I think it's really important to to understand the override and the comments you mentioned in that light of of what does support or lack of support or recognition of the core problems recognition as core problems not recognition as a political Viewpoint or or message um but I am genuinely hoping that board member m ke's task force will get us there to that recog together I I really am you saw it in our letter it's a truth it's a true thing it wasn't just a message um I do wish we got there collectively months ago when the superintendent flagged it publicly with numbers backing it but that's okay here we are um and I also agree that saying positive is important that I keep hearing uh people talk about but I do think supporting our schools positively is important as well so I look forward to making progress uh for our town and our schools together thank you thank you TJ TJ I I need to I I have to say I'm so impressed with the group that we need to get you guys on a board or commission so you can keep stay Coffman 27 servic to the test so Mr Franco suggested that more stating your name again I did Civil cofman blue house really fast okay Mr Franco you really want more people to run for office make it so we can who here has kids in school right now they're in bed right now at my house because I have a partner who thinks that I'm right to come here and be exhausted and wake up at 5: and go to my full-time job you guys have the power to make it easier for us to be involved right now it's super hard these meetings are very long even though they're posted online it's hard for citizens to find out my husband couldn't I mean he's a very smart person he couldn't find the link and gave up like it's really hard to get involved in Lunenburg toown politics I I see that face it's yeah you should be able to find the agenda yeah and I'll teach him how to do that but it takes someone telling someone else how to do it it's not intuitive the website's a little clunky the calendar doesn't get updated until whenever so like you know if if I was going to go to a school committee meeting that's new I have to go to the lunenberg calendar which now thankfully Google and my browser knows that that's what I'm starting to type in when I put in Lu it shows me the calendar for Lunenburg I would love it if we talked about child care if we talked about meetings at different times if we talked about the chairs of our committees holding the members accountable to speak at reasonable lengths we as public speakers are kept to three minute length right where we're supposed to be we're supposed to be held accountable to a three minute time section right so let's do that for everyone let's democratize the process so I'm just saying like I would love to get more involved and and run for for an office if it would fit my life that's not what Lunenburg looks like anymore okay and I I hear people talking about 30% of the town are on fixed income that's an outdated statistic I'm a mom I'm a full-time working mom with kids in school who are little who I want to see before they go to bed who I want to see in the morning I'm not going to get to because I have to leave the house before they're awake tomorrow morning you could make it easier so there's that okay okay okay good night and you did open this C form so I am going to add that the last three people who were parents on this board exited for various reasons so it has not been a welcoming environment for parents on this board and you can talk about all three of them having different issues of maybe not getting along with people but that's a fact is you know the last three people who left at least some of the last three people who left this board were parents so I you know I think three is a trend any other public comments from the public I'm sorry I'm sorry for dragging this out I know we want to go home I'm so tired um Laura brazowski 21 Francis a I'm on the school committee but I'm here as Laura and not the school committee member um but I am going to again ask you guys to please support the override as a parent um we need money to run the schools we need enough money to run the schools it is hard to run the schools without enough money there were going to be drastic Cuts this year and I am so appreciative that we've kept it from being too drastic there's still going to be Cuts if the override doesn't pass so I am asking you as a parent I've got kids in the school system I am a citizen of lunenberg and I like living in a town with educated citizens and I know some of you graduated from lunenberg schools and are proud of that I think it's fair I think it would be fair to let the kids who are students now also have a chance to be proud to be students of lunberg having one year underfunded I mean we've been I'm so tired I'm sorry we've we've been lowf funded for a while having even one year waiting till next year while I think that next year we do need to do the task force and examine Town finances even one year makes a big difference in the life of a student that's one year where they're not getting all the support they need and they're not getting all the programming they need and they're not getting the teachers and they're not getting the staff that they need so I'm asking you guys again to please support the override your opinion matters a lot most of the objections I've heard from people who don't support the override is well the slack board doesn't support it you you know they've spoken out against it and I know that you guys haven't actually specifically said that but that's the attitude so I am begging you guys to please get behind the override and just help fund the schools for next year we will deal with the other stuff after the election and I cannot wait for a task force but I'm worried about next year so I'm begging you guys to please support the override thank you thank you have any additional public comments from the public anyone on Zoom um let's just check Zoom NOP anyone else all right any public comments on the board just an announcement that tomorrow there's school committee meeting and then on Thursday is the public hearing of the finance committee where they will go over every article so pack lunches dinners the last few have ended somewhere around 11 11:30ish so I'm assuming that I hope maybe it won't be that long but I think the planning board might have set a new record last night yeah it was almost four and a half hours I I I do want to take one comment we joke about the time and and and just to comment on some of the public comment you know we are bound by open meeting law so if we want to discuss things as a board it has to be in these meetings so the meetings are long because there's lots of things to discuss and that's just the fact so I mean we could adopt any law nobody can speak more than a minute and a half but you know what you wouldn't get a whole lot done because it some of it is in depth and it takes time and all of government takes time I mean so there is a certain component of it that is that is unaddressed in any length now some people certainly abuse it I'm not for adopting limits to people on elected or appointed bodies to speak at their own meetings because that would defeat the purpose of them being on that board but you know government takes time that's all I can say and sometimes at this time of year a lot of time any additional public comments yes uh I just want to um say that and I think I've signals this since the first meeting I showed up at which was the big one at the school now there may be people that are equally uh as concerned and I think there are but you would be very hard pressed to find somebody more in support of robust school funding than I and I think I've signaled that and I don't know who out in the public has is whose radio receiver is receiving the waves 180 degrees out of phase from what I've been signaling but um a couple of realistic concerns though these things do take time these are not simple things we can't just say hey what's so hard about an override an override is a major question and we as select board members we have to be thinking what is the impact on other people uh uh there's a lot of things to think about uh and I do have concerns and I expressed this last week at the school committee meeting that if an if an override is put through in a sort of Patchwork fashion to patch holes and it's put through too hastily will it be insufficient now I'm inclined to support this I mean because it's here it's in front of us it it there's a need for it but it is way less than perfect potentially I think an override in general needs to be more carefully planned and and it certainly if it if the if the if the word is go uh uh well regardless of what we say I mean we can we could even if we didn't recommend approval it's still on the warrant so you still have to message this thing um so uh I I you I just the concerns are is it not sufficient enough does and and if it's it's been so School focused does it it doesn't account necessarily for Town needs going into the future the the the so those are concerns that I have with in favor when I a vote in favor which I am inclined to do what but but uh voting against it of course creates an immediate blow to the schools as as has been outlined and that's not not something I want to do either I just wish there were more Runway there wasn't uh and I just I'm sure I'm not saying anything that people here aren't already thinking about but it's just something I think we all need to think about um and also uh and also that's another reason I mean I know there may be out in the public there may be frustration with a defaro on a decision until next week but as you saw with all those other articles we generally do not vote to put uh to to uh on recommendations when we don't have numbers even if we're pretty sure what those numbers numbers are going to be we got to have numbers so that's that's that's the reason for the deferral secondly just on a on a lighter side I just want to say that trash was never this complicated in North Jersey different families had different territories and you got who you got and that was it we were next to Staten Island where I grew up uh that's who we got same same family always always humorous Lou you know you know I want to also uh thank everyone for watching our meetings you know I if I can government service is always a sacrifice you know regardless as to whether or not people have kids everyone has a life um everyone has other responsibilities and duties and responsibilities um and so being here for for all members is a sacrifice but I want to highlight that we have a lot of boards that don't meet at 700 p.m. and that aren't the select board so you know we have a library that meets once a month um we have the semetary commission that meets once a month uh and they meet usually during the day uh there's a lot of different boards that actually meet during the day and there are several boards that typically meet for 30 minutes or an hour typically in our town I found that the school committee the planning board and the select board have the longest meetings school committee is covering a lot of ground um there's a lot of people who have to report uh we know that the planning board is digging into bylaws I was on the planning board uh our meetings were typically three and a half hours plus the 12 hours on the weekends for the site walks and reviewing all the material um and being on the select board is just a wide breath you know being in this role as I'm sure all members know that you know sometimes the meetings are the smallest part of the job um that it's a lot of time spent in conversations with a lot of people it's a lot of other meetings that we have to attend or walk but regardless everyone is here for a sacrifice and I definitely acknowledge that you know it is challenging more challenging for parents of young kids especially to be able to come out at night U be here at 700 p.m. but I just want to encourage um all to find away we know that I've learned over the years that a lot of people watch these meetings and I probably didn't know initially just how many people do watch these meetings um but a lot of people have them on in their house they they just hear them a lot of people are in tuned and I know that a couple years ago was really quiet and we're like how do we increase government participation I think a couple of us were saying when when when things are going wrong people will let you know um and I think that when people want to see change they want to see things improve um they they come out and let us know but timately you know to quote Gandhi and I think then Martin Luther King you know we have to be the change we want to see in this world um you know we all have to make sacrifices in many different ways and so the life that we want to have that better life that we can see out on the horizon you know it's not something that we have to that's just going to happen one day we have to make life you know we make life good my life is good because I made it good um and a lot of other people have helped me in my existence to get to where I'm at so I I comment on all this just to note that everyone here makes a sacrifice our meetings do run long sometimes and especially lately but we're all making a sacrifice and I want to thank all the members for their hard work um I know that to get to this point it's been a lot of work you know Caesar being out in you know training on fit artillery and shooting big guns and Wasing school committee meetings and planning board meetings and coming to school um select board meetings you know I mean we all find ways to incorporate it and of course the town manager um you know while she's been our town manager she's graduated one son from high school and she has another kid that's still young I mean Heather is a mom and something that we've said often is this job needs to be approachable to mothers too that it shouldn't just be a job for men that you know typically in a household women and men sometimes have different roles and different responsibilities every every marriage every relationship is different but if you are a mom regardless of whether or not you are the the typical um or the default parent or the non-default parent that all jobs all roles need to be open to all people no matter their Walk of Life so I want to extend a huge thanks to the town manager especially uh I know how much work you've put in uh you always do but I really enjoy working with you Heather and I you know publicly we never disagree but you know privately you and I do disagree sometimes um but you are a true joy to work with and I never question your commitment ever and I I get just as offended when I see the comments that are targeted and directed towards you they bother me cuz they undermine our government they undermine you know what is reasonable and you have consistently given us about 70 plus hours of week of work for the last you know what five six years at this seven years at this point um am I right seven years yeah and so over this time I mean it's been a huge sacrifice I know that we've had conversations where we' said Heather take your vacation um and so I just want to thank the town manager and all members of all boards for the service to our community thank you thanks is there a movement to adjourn I move to adjourn second any additional discussion all in favor I I all right the time is now 92 something and the select board is adjourned 9:21 102 something