##VIDEO ID:jrG1b_tADyo## yeah that was all right good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the lunenberg select board today is Tuesday December 17th the last scheduled meeting of the year please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al 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 in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the lunenberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the lunenberg access YouTube channel after the meeting the agenda lists 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 law we're going to begin tonight with public comments are there any public comments from the board no no um this is probably more of an announcement but I want to just make the community remind the community that the municipal building design committee uh meets on the first and third Monday of each month um we've been meeting for the last several months um and now we are working with an architectural team as we work on designing the new town hall so I just want to again invite any member of the public to attend uh these meetings are unique and that we do um uh have the public participate at any point in time during the meeting and so you can ask questions you can get involved in the conversation and discussion um but again I do encourage uh anyone to attend we we recently went through an iteration um looking at uh some initial kind of Design Concepts so we are are pretty uh in depth in that process uh and our next meeting in January uh will be another revision uh in in the mid January the same thing so if there's anything uh again that you have any interest uh in being able to participate please do these are conducted remotely um and there's a zoom link to be able to attend and encourage all members of the community 5:30 uh 1 and third Monday of each month thank you thank you are there any public comments from the public all right seeing none move on to announcements I don't have any tonight are there any announcements Communications from other boards I also don't have any and I don't see anyone here that isn't scheduled to be here all right so we'll move on to uh our scheduled meetings and up first we have an introduction of Deb goodsell our new Council on Aging director so I had uh the opportunity to meet our new Council on Aging director last week I'm excited to welcome her here tonight I'm sure she'll do a great job uh and Debbie if you want to come up too I know you probably have something you'd like to say as well so Deb if you'd like uh to introduce yourself you can hi my name is Debbie Goodell and I'm coming to you from Clinton Council on Aging and Sue and I have kind of LED parallel Council on Aging lives over the last 10 years and I'm very excited to be coming here and and getting to to Phil Sue's eight and a half size eight and a half shoes six and a half oh six and a half sorry my mistake so um just I'm glad to be here thank you thank you so Debbie and I like she says uh We've crossed paths for the past 10 years um we've shared many program ideas I can't think of a better person to take over this job she's really good at what she does and I know she's going to do a great job here and um I want to thank the hiring committee because they did a great job picking her and she's not going to disappoint you at all so first of all she has a great name can't get better than that but um I was just a fly on the wall in the hiring process but Julie turned to me and she said apparently I should never play poker because she turned around and said to me you were beaming through this whole process so I don't have to ask you what you thought and I am so delighted to welcome the other Deb to this team she's going to be an amazing asset I cannot speak highly enough of her and we've already had a couple conversations and I cannot wait for her to join us I'm so sad to see Sue leaving but the Bittersweet is made sweet now by Deb joining us so and I have S cell number so I know soon it'll be suoh whoo oh that's what that's what I'm hearing I don't know January's pajama month for me so don't call I do not think so but I think that um we're going to let Sue enjoy her wine and she's not going to have a lot of worries so I know I won't Deb's going to be great did you bring anybody to bring down the expectations because because because they they've set them up here the best you can do is hit them you want somebody to lower them a little bit yeah it'll be fine we'll be fine well welcome to lunenberg Deb we're so excited to have you here here are there any other comments from the board no welcome aboard I mean with glowing recommendations like that we look forward to having you on board thanks it'll be great well we can't welcome our new Council on Aging director without properly thanking and recognizing our outgoing Council on Aging director so sue I have a proclamation to read for you whereas Susan B Dy started working for the council aging as the administrative assistant in 1996 and was elevated to interim director and then director in August of 2015 and whereas under her management the center improved and expanded the services the center provides by expanding hours from 4 days to 5 days a week including evenings and adding hours and elevating salaries for her staff and whereas she oversaw many improvements to the center including the introduction of the memory Cafe the eagle scout walkway construction the expansion and Improvement of the senior newsletter the completion of the backyard patio and entry gate the installation of a new road sign providing directions to the center and after much advocacy the purchase and installation of a new generator making the center is seasonal cooling and heating place for those in need and whereas during her tenure the name of the center was changed from the eagle house Senior Center to the lunenberg adult activity center and many new and Innovative programs were initiated such as are you okay pickle ball the volunteer recognition ceremony community garden boxes tap dancing intergenerational programs the annual tea party the century club and the weekly film program and whereas during her tenure as director she elevated the lunenberg adult Activity Center to be the gem of the town and the home away from home to hundreds of seniors and whereas her work and advocacy gained her the respect of her staff and the Elder community in town and improve the health and wellness of senior citizens in the town of lunenberg now therefore be it proclaimed that the lunenberg select board hereby recognizes Susan B DY for advocacy and community building which has improved the services the town of lunenberg provides and has greatly increased the quality of life for senior citizens and in town as such the lunenberg select board hereby declares December 30th to be golden age day in the town of Lunenburg to remember and honor the contributions of Susan B D to the town of lunenberg and to celebrate the senior community may seniors and residents of the town of lunenberg gather at the lunenberg adult Activity Center to celebrate her contributions for years to come thank you you know how much I love and I can't take credit for all of those things gotta where's the Press no we don't thank you open all right we oh beautiful what a lovely group here perfect thank you conrat now you have something to read while you have your wine all right thank you Deb for coming in tonight it was so nice to meet you and I'm glad the community got to meet you as well I look forward to working with you and congratulations Sue thank you for everything all right up next we have a presentation uh regarding the town manager screening committee status so I'll welcome up Tim Murphy the chair chair of the committee and John petran as well for an update on their search I hope we do as well with our screening as you guys did with your screening me too yeah same so thank you for having us here tonight and uh Tim was the chair of the committee so I just want to thank you first for the committee we uh was a very good committee uh Tom represented the board uh we also had Tim Tom Peter beardmore uh Chris Berard and Matthew brener and they worked very very well as a team um and uh so we finished the work at the screening level um and so now we're before the uh select board to move forward with the process so this started several months ago um with Community Paradigm John petran and um we were hired to assist the town you know with the search and so I've spoken to you know all of you uh by Zoom basically um and we met with many department heads and various folks and put together uh the um a position statement we did a recruitment um and we received the applications and the uh committee interviewed six people um and so uh after that they I think are excited to um uh present three finalists uh to the board um uh for final interview so we'll be ready for that so at this stage we're not announcing finalists because we're in uh the reference and background checks so as we had talked about with our firm we do uh references on all finalists not just the finalists uh in the end so that you have an understanding prior to you know um uh your interviews as to these candidates so we are in a process of doing uh the reference of background checks on the three finalists we'll be ready to present those uh the week prior to uh so we always do it a week ahead of the interviews and you'll have uh the information from us as to the finalists their resumés their cover letters and a report from us um you know as to uh these reviews that go out so with scheduled um originally we had set aside uh two nights uh in case it was going to be four but it is three candidates so Snow Yeah so we're available um you know um we had said January 14th and 15th was uh the original dates we worked with uh with Carter so uh hopefully you'll be ready for interviews on January 14th um uh to interview the three finalists and then um you've got a couple of decisions to make from there you know you are looking to make the appointment the same night um you you know which again it's a half and half some boards you know are ready to make the appointments the same night some want the opportunity to think about it um I always say don't think about it too long because candidates get you know itchy you know at that piece so you could say um you know uh make appointments the same night or you've set aside two nights already so you have an opportunity to have a second meeting if you're ready for it you can schedule the 14th for interviews and an appointment and see where you are you know but then also have the backup date of the 15th in the back pocket you know if you're not ready at that point um a couple of things uh to get ready for uh for the interviews um one is the set of questions you'd like to ask so I can work through the chair and then uh through the committee send you some suggested questions you know uh to take a look at the second is how do you want to ask the questions uh sometimes the board wants to ask the questions sometimes you leave it up to me to you know ask the questions and the screening committee usually it's a screening committee it's always with you know um you know our firm doing the question asking and they saw how we do that you know going through so U maybe Tom has an opinion you know for the board on that uh but that's a decision you know you need to make is how do you want to process uh the interviews that night are we doing one hour interviews which is kind of the norm um and what time can we start you know all that type of stuff um um uh with that so then the last thing I would suggest is you be ready you know for that period to figure out the next step which is the contract so um the contract is a negotiation that you need to do with whoever you choose uh going forward and um who is going to be your bargaining team uh to meet with the candidates that selected so um that's only the beginning selecting the candidate you know finalist is only the beginning the next step is coming to an agreement and you know does does the board have you know uh in mind we advertise the salary as a plus or minus now it's up to you to decide the plus or minus you know um you know at that point in time and then what the rest of the contract is going to look like uh you obviously have um a legal counsel uh labor councel and Mark Terry uh you know who can certainly assist you know with that process if needed but you should maybe be ready in advance you know for that so that you can get going right away um you know once your candidate you know is selected and you can then have your team ready to negotiate with that candidate and try to get it done in the shortest amount of time frame one thing you have to remember is some you know depending who's selected you know some people have notice periods you know that they have to give uh prior to you know um uh being able to move forward it's not always just a two- week period like you know in other positions sometimes it's up to two months but just to keep that in mind um as you go forward so um I think that's just the you know the grand overview uh Tim Tom have I Paradigm was great to work with so I was suggest to you that is let them take some of the lead uh you're all smart people but you know this is what they do and they know how they do it and uh they were excellent to work with the um really felt like we needed the a firm to help us recruit because this a tough market right now and and locally where we are you know we're not going to attract as many people you know from long distances unless they want to relocate so um you know as you go through it you know lean on them this is what they do it came extremely highly recommended and uh it has proved to be well worth the money spent oh thank you I would agree and I would say that uh from the interviewing process we let John ask the questions but we were able to ask follow-up questions which is good it kept the pace going and uh so that was that worked out well I think we should be ready with you know a contract at least a a structure of a contract and fill in the blanks just so we're not doing that from scratch and also I think that we should do I mean we we should use the 14th and 15th because we don't want it to last long once people's names are public and they're out looking they're you know people get cold feet or yeah other people get snatched up because they're maybe interviewing for other places so we want to strike quickly when we started this process the market was very light you know when we began this process in the August September all of a sudden I've gotten two calls today you know um just you know about people you know with openings and the market has heated up tremendously in the last uh two months um it was the slowest year we've seen up until October and uh now it's looking like it's going to be one of the busiest years just in general you know as how many openings are out there and right now I've never seen so many openings at one time as there are you know right now and some of the others that are coming open so you got a couple towns you know um you know right in your area you know that we weren't talking about in August and uh September as being open but they're open now um so just I I think it's just wise to you're on a path stay on the path and and your timing is there so yep all right so it sounds like you're suggesting that we figure out a couple of things the first is whether or not we want to allow you pretty much to conduct the interview and then have us sort of ask follow-up questions and still be engaged where you're sort of leading it y okay I don't have a problem with that at all especially if you know you guys were on the committee and went through that and if you guys are recommending it then and let me just say it's your interview you know so if you want to ask followups it's not about asking my permission or anything let just jump in you know so we keep it you know pretty you know um it was you know pretty lowkey was very informal well I think with each candidate I had different questions I wanted to ask based upon their background based upon their experiences when we had the last time we did a town manager select uh screening committee we had set questions we asked of each candidate the exact same questions so we could compare and contrast so that was a different way to approach it but I like the uh the looseness of where we could just jump in because different candidates have different questions you know the follow-ups are different based on their may be helpful is if you submitted to the board the questions that were asked I I made a list of all the ones from the sheet that you did ask the most just so they know but some of them may want to hear those again or they may want to hear other ones I think it should be up to the board what at least what the the potential questions are so that's a good point Tom what I always do is I always submit the rubric that we used uh plus a suggestion of where to go uh so they'll see the rub you know cuz we had that three-page rubric we used they'll see that you know and um and you know you can see where we were and you know that is a little more loose because that you know um there were questions but there were follow-ups and depending where we were you know um uh but we pretty much stuck to the path all the way through um uh some candidates you know depending on their background if someone had a strong background in one area we didn't stick about asking you know from their area um we made sure they understood it other areas that they didn't have as much background we we you know delved into a little bit more but the questions you'll be ask and I'll I'll send you the questions uh so you can see uh to get into it all right thank you so what do you guys think about that letting him sort of take the lead on the interviews Renee yeah I think that's that's good I can I ask a question about the interview process did the candidates give a presentation to the screening committee was that part gave a written written um uh letter about something that they've written in the past and then they spoke to it and explained it not not a not a formal presentation so they they submitted a writing sample and then explained it uh so no there was no presentation well that will they do the same for us that's I would like that that would be my an actual presentation well yeah some rather than just exp not not 45 you know no but then but then we need a little bit more time you know than one hour you know so you need an hour for the questions you know to to get a sense if a presentation on top you should add 15 minutes then you know uh you know to the interview um you know so we can talk about that you know so if you as chair want to work you know and and decide how that goes we've got time to you know to uh decide that um but we'll you know we can certainly work that in that's your choice that's what we had to do is work with you but you fit it into an hour when the screening committee did it yes and only one person went over and that was by four minutes we were I mean it was it was four cuz I was looking at the clock I was looking straight at the clock no no John I mean that's the that's the good thing about having somebody present the questions because while we're intent on listening to the answers he's looking at the time and so we'll try to move it along I mean again keeping it professional but I mean it it worked better that way and also so many times when when people who aren't used to interviewing interview people they have long lead-ins about they have to set up the whole scenario and it takes 15 minutes I'm like Oh my it just get you have a question that's the biggest thing when when others are interviewing is sometimes there's too much information and too much personal you know uh info going across and you know I do this on a regular basis and and as I think they saw my system is pretty even ke you know going through um and I'm you know I'm not giv a lot of background they they were supposed to do their homework prior to uh you know for the background they should be answering based on their knowledge base as well as a little bit of information you know as to lunenberg what did they learn you know about the community I think what what you might need to do though is clarify for them what we mean by presentation yeah absolutely because none of them really made a presentation I didn't feel but I think a present I'm with at this stage I I'm with Miss empy I think that a presentation would be good but you got to keep it to five slides or less I want a quick presentation of something I would like to see slides I I think you know that's something that this person is going to be doing a lot in terms of keeping it short like you said but I think a presentation would be good to see that skill set keep being a presentation short is nice too yeah short and sweet but that's fine being that skill set I think is important I agree with some slides yeah so if we can schedule it maybe an hour and 15 minutes per okay you know and so that's why starting at 7 is not a good time you know to start when you're looking at that cuz you're going to be tired you know by the time you get to the last candidate I always recommend starting at 4:00 or 5 you know if you can um you know getting through uh the evening that way you know almost everybody is you know in in a fresher mode uh to get it through so we did three interviews each night and started at 6 and that worked out fine so six would be the latest if we can start at 5:30 it would be great because we're going to go an hour and 15 minutes but you know again you want to end around 9:30ish not really much later well how early can you guys be available on the 14th for the interviews well the four we're talking January I'm just looking at the dates yep janary 14th not the 14th and the 15th for early hours right right yeah so the early hours would just be the 14 I could do one day early but not yeah cuz we'll just do one day for interview yes exactly and if you need the decision you can do it at a 7 o'clock time frame you know yeah um the next night so and what I was thinking too when we were scheduling this I thought it was good to set aside two days in the case that we had four candidates but if we didn't we could interviews on the 14th and then meet again on the 15th which I think would be a good idea yeah nobody wants to deliberate after first of all if you deliberate right after the person who you interviewed last has the that edge up M because they're the last people to speak and you know you want you want to be able to mull over your notes and things like that so I would agree with that yeah and that obviously we can just do at 7 like we normally do so on Tuesday the 14th are you guys going to be able to come in a little early like it's 5 2 early five would be too early 5:30 would be the earliest I 530 yeah 5:30 I can do 5:30 I can do 5:30 yeah Michael Ray yeah all right so go with 5:30 all right so do 5:30 uh 6 whatever that 6:45 and then 7 uh 8:00 about 4 hours about right yeah having trouble weon have it's pass my bed gotv you're going to do it here we did we did one of our meetings one of our interviews over at the high school it was very very effective this is not I'll tell you this is not I was going to bring that up could be in this room and be at the table or or the sedic room at the library I think that's a nicer room yeah a yeah and do that for sitting down you know got to be recorded yeah they they have the unlike we had the luxury of doing it in executive so do you think there' be public attendance do you think they may there needs to there need the ability of yeah so we need to have some space typically you have a couple of people and and most of what I but people do watch it so having the you know uh the capability of being live on TV is is key you know so gotcha we're going to do it live then there aren't many rooms then this room so we can work I can work with K you can work with and and figure you know you we don't have to decide that immediately we'll figure it out you know so we can figure that out you guys can you know uh mul it over as to the best location but again being a little bit more comfortable than this is uh you know is makes for a better interview right I was going to bring that up and see what people thought so it's I like the Congressional grilling I haven't stood at a Podium like this in a long time so go ahead yeah I mean a couple thoughts so I do think that a sit down is obviously more comfortable but I I do think the town manager is in a position where they have to present a lot and I I do see the value in them standing at a Podium for an hour because town meeting is many hours and they're standing at a Podium uh and I think that that's a good representation for the board so I'm kind of either way on it normally in an interview uh I do think there's a lot of value in the people who are you have to work with being able to ask questions because you can kind of get that interplay and this case I think the way that you framed it the fact that our meetings are recorded you know any candidate has likely watched several of our meetings already prior to coming I think get a good feel for personality so I think that what you're presenting makes a lot of sense you know so I'm I haven't said too much because I'm just in agreement with all that's being said and you can have the podium set up for the actual presentation question you know but you know having a candidate you know comfortable you know uh because it's a now he's been through it I've been through it in a public setting it it's it's a little difficult when you're Ving for that job you are not the town manager here here yet you're Ving for the job something on the table you want the candidate a little bit comfortable you know in doing so so I it sounds like we're going to be getting some questions from you over the next excuse me shortly for us to kind of look at and we'll probably talk about it in January looks like we have one meeting U prior to these interviews um I think it would also be helpful for members of the public um to be able to submit questions uh to us for us to consider asking um you know I'm sure that there may be some pressing questions that some residents at home want to make sure get asked um but I think it would be helpful my opinion is is also giving the public these couple of weeks to find a way to submit questions so long as they're submitting them to the board for consideration and being considered prior to no problem okay yeah I mean to anyone watching if you have questions you can submit them to me and we can add it to the list um so let's go back to the presentation do we want to just say any sort of topic you want how do we want to present that part of it to the candidates I'm fine with any Municipal related topic yeah MH I don't want somebody to give me a cooking re sure what I did on my summer vacation do you have a suggestion on that I mean should we narrow it you or you think um it's the first time we've done it that way I'll come up with something and send it to Carter for consideration but I think basically you know uh something that they've presented in the past you know um you know something as to a r structure or something you know that has points and counterpoints and basically consideration it it's almost submitting to the board to consider so it's a proposal for the board to consider I think is probably the best way to do it and I like the idea of having them maybe be up and presenting at the podium for the presentation and then maybe us all moving down there you kind of see both sure and I I would probably say I mean all all the candidates I think would have done presentations of some kind of a town meeting so they could have an article that was already done that they could explain I agree with you a new presentation right something they already well how would we know was presentation well I mean all three candidates have good Municipal experience you know so um um it's not going to be an issue uh I think it'll be them figuring out which one they're going to choose right uh to submit all right cool well I think we've covered everything that you've asked so far right is there anything else that I'm missing no so um if you can just settle you know the whole thing of the negotiation as well as you know the the parameters of the contract to get it moving once you're going I think that'll get things going you know after the fact um and um I think we've covered everything else so I'll send um questions and um um you know um come up with you know some framework of the presentation uh no problem and um I think I would say the second evening you'd want to you'd want to make sure that you have listed an executive session if we choose a candidate so we can talk about contract negotiations about what we want to offer okay on the second night and I was going to ask you mentioned like a bargaining team normally that's just the entire board right would we do anything you can't do that it's almost never the entire board usually because because at that point you've got a you've got a you know an issue with open meeting law and um uh pieces so usually it's two members of the board um with you know um potentially an administrative you know person you know uh sitting in or you know usually not but in this case right uh you can get advice from Council prior too if you need to the last two that were done I was I think I was I was part of one and I was the sole one on one so it's just a matter of negotiating with the person and bringing it back to the board I mean exactly person who's negotiating is just knows what I mean like we do with collective bargaining we know what we're asking and what we're looking for and then they go and present it and they get counters and they bring it back and you know then they bring it the whole the whole board the whole board votes on yeah anyone interested in doing that I am yeah Tom sure okay okay all right we can discuss that more but all right anything else no um at this point um again I want to thank the committee they you know their work is done you know uh the screening committee and they were excellent to work with so I just want to make sure you know they get uh you know uh due recognition you know um we they don't always have to have a screening committee to start that usually they start right with the board so we were just a different process for them to have to deal with the whole idea of doing presentations to you can hear them say h you know we don't usually do that so we're doing things a little bit differently but that's good that's lunenberg for you yeah having a scening committee I think is helpful all right cool thank you very much John are there any other questions while we I want I want to thank John for running a a great and and the chair for running a really good committee I think we stayed on task on schedule we we were all skeptical about the number of candidates we got got but it turned out to be very fruitful I think because the the three that we'll be interviewing would be are very good candidates and just a final note uh they've been sworn that you know the other candidates will never be released it's confident it was confidential process the only candidates that will ever be talked about from the committee will be the three finalists um so the others stay in confidence uh which is the way these processes work um uh you know going forward but um so was a pleasure was very difficult keeping the chair inct in line a couple of times you know we all managed to you know keep it going you know at the meetings all right well thank you so much John thank you Tim thank you all for your work thank you all right thank you all right up next we have a presentation on the fy2 24 year end so I'll invite Ezekiel up good evening hello everyone I'm just going to get your presentation up real quick I like your slide background oh thank you I got to thank Microsoft for suggest animations too oh Massachusetts got messed up this all right that used to drive me crazy when I would make a presentation then I'd come here and present it and it would look different it look totally different once again yeah it's F me so so chain just let me know because all I'm going to try to keep up in front of me all right um so we have the FY 24 un audited uh year end financials um the second slide we have just a table of contents we'll be going over um Revenue overview there's 5year comparison uh revenues by category uh expenditure overview expenditures fiveyear comparison budget versus actuals by Department and just some other reports I'll go over quickly I won't go into details trust funds opep and special Revenue funds uh all right for side before you start just for as a disclaimer only because this clearly catches my eye for those people at home watching this on the screen sure our finance director did not choose those fonts those fonts are just because they're unavailable on whatever the displaying computer is so just in case somebody saying like what in the world who uses Courier yeah oh no the I already leaned over I'm like looking at that I'm like oh my God no that looks like a ransom note yeah well good font recognition by the way good eyesight well I in that field so that's why it catches my eye like immediately looks a lot better it's like the original font all right so we have total re revenues collected uh 48.3 n million uh achieving 10 1.4% of the budget um projection investment income was a stand out at 414,000 which is 484 per above projection showcasing excellent returns this is um you know apparent of the current market that we're in right now so there was nothing we did this is just because the market is this is the market is just away wow 484 that's great yeah all right so next slide if we have questions through the chair we have questions should we hold them till the end sure you can go ahead it's up to you slow me down if you have questions throughout the presentation you can ask that's fine yeah you can jump right on okay um so one of the things that I uh and I it's I'm looking at the revenue slide strictly the revenue slide but I I I've looked through this already so I know it's coming up um one of the things you know we went through an override last year because we needed another million dollars um and then based on how much money we budgeted um it resulted in a I believe a $2.5 million surplus is that roughly correct uh 2.2 free cash yes yep um so had we not have done that override we would have had a $1.2 million correct which would have been consistent with the previous years correct um so when you're noting that the revenue collected is is 1.4% above the projected Revenue um yes is is this getting into that Surplus um what is what's the dollar value I guess of 1.4% uh I can probably do the math here so on the next slide we have the comparison by year but the but if you look at the actual year- to-day budget and I can actually give you the detail okay at another time I didn't include the actual detailed budget this is more an over review pres presentation but the um budgeted uh Revenue um I think the previous Town manager had always mentioned the projections were conservative um so I think it's consistent that year over- year we collect more Revenue based than what we budgeted for um so if you look at the next slide which is the five-year comparison on here uh you will see the budget versus actuals and then um the previous years and then the um the comparison the variances so other than fiscal year 203 there's been a surplus every year so that goes with my previous statement that the typical budget um cycle in lunenberg it seems in the past has been extremely conservative which I think coming into this new cycle maybe that could be adjusted to be more reflect more actual that make sense it does okay uh let's see well you'd have to talk to the pros and cons of doing that which there are both so before we say we wanted to get right on the penny yes we'd want to know what are the risks and what are the rewards if for doing and not doing that correct correct so that's why you know like I said we could start the conversation how to get closer but I wouldn't um do a baseline comparison based on last year because a lot of things change year over- year but you can certainly certainly uh look at the trend and try to project out yeah something a little bit closer to the Target yeah I I think my comment on this one is just you know it's it's it's from a resident Viewpoint you know as we look through these finances and as people at home are digesting what this means I don't think it's lost on anyone you know especially when they get their new tax bills and we heard that it's going to be a roughly $427 increase on average per household and then they see well the town had a surplus of you know couple million dollarss you know you know I I think in some of this we have to kind of uh as as we get the information I'm asking the question so that way it gets out there in the public that you know we engage in this conservative budgeting process because anything can happen in a fiscal year we can suddenly lose Revenue things we can have a pandemic you know anything could occur and and so despite the conservative budgeting processes or or in light of it you know it's important for us to maintain that or we've historically maintained that and that's why we're in a situation where you know we're not willing to tap into that too heavily absolutely all right absolutely any other questions no um let's see next slide is the receipts by category here um we have local receipts again uperform estimated by 124% uh 6.94 million ed student uh Department Revenue um exceeded projections 249 per investment income again um is a standout we have state aid um 96% of estimates with full funding for Chapter 70 and unrestricted local government Aid uh with the state aid that could be a timing issue as well as we close out fiscal year 24 in June they still had um some items to be PID in July which flowed into the next year so it's 100% is just the timing of when the fiscal year closes any questions here I just have a I think I'm a little lost on what SL we're on sure you were mentioning State a so I went up to the revenue state aid slide are we there before expenditures or I thought we were still on the slide with receipts by category it was local receipts here is that slide slide duplicated the local receipts by category no there's a continued slide it continues so like some of them um let's see some of them I think some of the categories repeat actually no yeah yeah yeah it's it's repeated in there yeah I'm looking at the what slide is this five and seven five and seven it's a duplicate it is a duplicate okay get that's that's my mistake sorry although it's not a complete the percent well the numbers are different is different so let me slide five has 10.4% in the bottom right which is percent collected I think there so Slide Five sorry Slide Five is all receipts by category uhhuh slide seven is the local receipts by category so Slide Five includes the local receipt but it has everything else right so side it's just the local receipt separated out so they're not duplicate sorry though okay the laptop screen is small so it's okay together ah okay does that make sense I okay think although I guess some of them just are all local receipts because the numbers are the same yeah the majority are okay all right so with that being said we have the local receipts here we have just an um next slide we have just an overview uh total receipts collected 6.9 million Department of Revenue schools just um restating what I previously said uh investment income motor vehicle ex excise has exceeded 113% State assessments at 51% penalties interest at 10.9% the miscellaneous non- recurring it's 18 9.1% do you know what that is what miscellaneous non this is well this is this up again the miscellaneous not recurring um so it depends on what's Happening through the fiscal year so it's not the same every year I tried going back to FY the budget task force or FY 1516 I had to dig in more deep but for this year in particular it includes like um things like um like any new construction if there's a sale of bonds any investment income that's unrealized gain goes into that category it's still in that 200,000 yeah range no was like that was what the estimate was but the actual was 407,000 yeah for miscellaneous non recurring yeah okay good next slide we have you're slide ahead of me that's the local receipts um broken out uh we were just talking about and then the next slide we have the total revenue so this here is just a state aid total state aid collected 10.2 million State Old Land 70 uh at 99% Chapter 70 100% uh charted tuition at 76% and unrestricted at 100% so that charted tuition is that that Gap is that timing piece that needs to be that we receive in July however it's it's fy2 24 income anticipated so 100% here means 100% of what we estimated estimated right yeah those are pretty targeted based on because the state sends out a cherry sheet yeah yeah so those are pretty much straight on okay all right next slide it's uh same as the previous slide sure well on this slide actually sure I see at the very bottom is where smart growth got zeroed out because we didn't get any last year do you know are we applying do we have any indication about whether our eligibility is to get that reinstated this year we did apply this year it's coming I haven't heard back as if it would be awarded but we went through the process with the Assessors for the application that they go through that was I want to say September October early October y September October y thank you did we apply I mean I know that we understood that we didn't get the money last year but did we apply last year oh yeah it got denied yeah I I some again some formula thing that nobody explain you know that was my understanding as well I was just asking if zel had any different knowledge on that I don't know about the last year but yeah okay any questions before we move on to expenditures okay um all right so we have total expenditures through fiscal year 2024 46 M 46,4 63,000 96.7% of the Target total remaining was 1.5 million um actual expenditures were 1.78% less than fiscal year 23 and here we the next slide we have the fiveyear comparison by year and the change over by fiscal year so just so I'm clear on how I'm reading this sure um um budget wise we've increased the budget year-over-year but the difference between fiscal year 23 and fisc year 24 is that we actually expended less money in fiscal year 24 than we did in fisc year 23 correct that was largely if I if I had guessed because that was the that was the year of the tax issue and we had $1.5 million less to spend that year yeah there were um this past year FIS schal year 24 total um Pro total abatements process for the closeout I don't have it in here but it's 255,000 compared to the actual average is 150 so there's actually an extra 100,000 um abated properties for fiscal year 20 23 compared to the average between 20 24 and 21 and those that's the tax issue there yeah I thought that number was closer to 1.3 million mhm well the total no in FY 23 it's 1.4 million got it but in FY 24 is 255,000 so if you take out the outlier the average is 150,000 got it right so here next slide we have the uh budget versus actuals by Department uh departments um you know they knew it was a tight year this year so there's they were conserv conservative in their spending um I assume a lot of this also sorry to cut you off be salaries too for salaries too I was just going to say there there were a lot of vacancies this year with would led to the to the cost savings you would say um I don't anticipate as we backfill um positions going forward um let's see let's see so um some key highlights here we have the reserve fund at remaining balance at 35,000 um Building Department salaries you'll see it's 89% um utilization because of the Staffing um one area of Target I have a particular concern you may not see this in the overview just the Fire Fire Department salaries um they the overtime utilization they may May or not um need another position that's just by looking at the the overtime um I'm just concerned of burnout but that's beyond my my role you can see it in the numbers MH I mean to that point um my understanding is that you know we run the Department fire department with uh um three two-day shifts with a per DM day so what you're saying is that looking at the overtime budget given how high it is and I know it's high is that if there was uh an additional staff member not necessarily on shift but available that that would probably be more cost effective than uh continuing the overtime Trend and it might be beneficial to the staff as well who are constantly being called in well that's been well that's been clearly signal to us yeah oh they they've yeah they've been very clear about communicating that they want to hold another shift add it but it seems as if you know there's a need for conversation about um something that's cost effective um you know maybe the start of that conversation could be the reduction of overtime could be what sorry I miss that could be the reduction of the overtime could be the start of that conversation of possibly adding another shift because the cost would just flip to the actual person instead of um overbearing the staff roughly I mean in dollars do you roughly know how much money we're talking about in overtime expenditures um I don't have the det to that level in front of me but I can certainly send you that thank you we're talking about fy2 5 year to date or 24 24 close out for I know we are overall but we're we're talking about burnout and overtime this still continuing into this year correct so yeah all right um let's see so again as we look through these next slide it's trust funds but just one more thing about the Departments um just as we look at the next budget fiscal cycle again um have the Departments look at their their shortages instead whether if they've had staffing needs if they had positions that were vacant um look at the overtime you know Public Safety in particular um but just kind of take a closer look at that maybe I don't know what's been done in previous here but just I would take a deep dive to see what the needs are okay um let's see here lost my position here all right any questions before we move on to trust all right so these report reports here the trust reserve and other funds are come from directly from Bartholomew um are holding these reports I did not build there directly from them so you can see here um on slide 14 you'll see our stabilization fund balances uh we have our regular stabilization fund at 2.9 Million um sorry 2.9 Million who uh we've received a 66,000 um gain we also have a sewer capital reserve our health insurance and our opep stabilization fund balances they all seem pretty healthy at this point given the market as well I have a question on the trust funds sure so in a couple of minutes um we're going to hear a presentation from the bud task force and one of their um requests is going to be related to the consolidation of of some of these um so my question is um you know when we when I when I work with the library uh trustees to be able to get engaged in you know um managing their own Investments one of the things that came up was that they needed to kind of look through every single fund that was created um and what the parameters or restrictions were on them so you know as we look at this I mean you know several of these funds you know stabilization funds are you know created by the town but when we look at some of the other funds that are here the uh conservation scholarship miscellaneous um do we have restrictions on these funds in terms of how the money is intended to be invested that would conflict with consolidation or that would conflict with the prudent investor um so for example you have the cemetery funds STS they they they each have that Mass General law behind them conservation funds as well they you'd have to look deeply into the bequest depending on what the trust is set up for the same thing with the scholarship as well um looking back at the scholarships you may be able to consolidate consolidate those depending on if they have a similar um mission for each one um but that's more conversation with the school department I wouldn't have that kind of information um looking at the miscellaneous funds I'm sure we can consolidate those um actually don't know exactly what they are for I just know that numbers behind but we I had actually had a conversation with our um treasure collector about um possibly consolidating with the meetings from the budget task force and you know we were waiting we had agreed upon waiting for the new town manager to come aboard to update our fiscal um our investment policy in order to consolidate those funds we can uh certainly look at uh Banks who have a better interest rate and try to get everything Consolidated as much as possible I think it'll be easier and more streamlined for everybody as well yeah I I think what I heard from the library comparatively they were in this model where the funds were being invested by the town and uh rather than getting 2.33% I think last year they got like 16 or 15 or 16% so it's pretty substantial um you know and and it's a really good request we haven't heard it formally but we will soon but I think it's just important to note you know what are the restrictions because it sounds great but if someone bequeath you know some monies to the town and said you know but it must be an you know I don't know how people Beque typically um but I just I I understand that again working with the library some people do put restrictions on how they want the money to be grown yeah absolutely I have a question about the stabilization funds don't we have a a spe a capital St special stabilization fund the special purpose do special purpose yes that's not in here we keep that it's it's a regular one of our the bank accounts that's managed within our general fund okay thank you yeah I was going to ask about that that's not separated out just misleading because it says stabilization funds yeah any other questions do you have an idea of how much is in there so out of curiosity since I don't have the number in front of me I can I pull between 1.7 and $2 million I think any other no uh next slide is our opep trust fund our sewer and opep um valuation so current marker value for opv is 1.4 million and the sewer is at 5,000 uh 5 million sorry how much should we contribute to OPB each year um what percent is it depending on what's the retained earnings on the sewer I I don't have that but I can absolutely get that as well I can provide a follow-up report to the board and the next slide I don't plan on going over these numbers in particular that's special Revenue funds um you can see all the revolving funds and um grants and things like that that we have um this is more of a request that came from from from the finance committee to include those numbers so if you have any particular questions you know as you look through these I don't know if you already have but um I can address those I will say in here we have the FEMA covid funds currently in deficit by 36,000 um I think that was over spent a couple years ago um um that this did not come out of a free cash we're not the only Community DLS had published a report out saying that a lot of communities have an overage in this account so typically if you have an overage if your special Revenue funds it comes off of your free cash balance calculation this mine in particular I highlighted it out um this 36,000 did not come off of our free cash but we'll have to address it at some point um it's not money that will go away so how that we'll have to talk about that a later date let them ask for it when they need it yeah just let's sit there yeah that's a lot of special Revenue funds wow yeah we have there's a lot of accounts there a re revolving accounts there's a lot of Grants there's you know a lot of special accounts you know police fire detail custodians emergency preparedness things like that as well so with that being said again our free cash was at 2.27 million and our tax rate has been approved at 1436 $436 I do have a question uh so we had estimated because of the what we had not expended to be like 1.5 million but our free cash came in at 2.3 million yeah that's not change that comes out of the sofa no so how did we not calculate that by the tune of 800 900,000 uh that's my mistake when I was projecting out the calculation my first year doing this I just I missed a line and part of the calculation I corrected it going forward so we get a close I just wanted to make sure that no if you if you're aware of it good that yeah that was that was my calculation I had been given out the 1 point 7 or 1 1.5 number and that was just me okay thank you any other questions um no questions but e i I think you've uh really grown into this role uh I think you know what I hear from many um elected officials um and staff is that you know you've made yourself available to kind of resolve some some conflicts um and you really you know just stepped in the role and and and I think you've been the person we need the community needed so I just want to thank you uh for the work that you've done uh for having you know you have a good team downstairs um and you know I think the morale in your department seems to be you know improving I think your assistant is great yes yes so I just want to thank you and your team for the work that you guys are doing thank you appreciate it I second that Ezekiel thank you thank you I enjoy working with you and I know you're doing a great job all right thank you everyone all right thanks stop this all right up next we have a joint meeting with the budget task force for a status update and executive summary hello everyone Mr chair I'd like to address the committee but first I'd like to compliment my great Jeff's on getting the memo about sweaters I have a purple one that's really similar to um so first of all uh I just want to thank uh Renee for having the idea to do this and getting everybody organized one of the things that's nice is when Renee says can somebody volunteer there's like a line of people so uh you were kind of volun told yeah yeah as was e there's a lot of people told me we should do this but anyway um one of the things that I I take away from this is the fact that there are a lot of people in town who really care and that's an important thing if there aren't people that care if there aren't people that are willing to work hard if there aren't people that are willing to volunteer their time after their workday ends none of this would have happened uh in particular the people that work at the school Dr Burnham Dr Gilson Ezekiel Carter they were really helpful um people from the union were super helpful Mary foil um and uh Brad mcamera and Christos all gave us really good insightful information um the assessor the assessor was incredibly helpful in explaining Arcane bits of Municipal law and taxes uh but all the volunteers were just really really great they were willing to chip in so that's that's the good news the bad news is that I think that the town has some real Financial issues on the horizon and if we don't deal with them they will cause critical problems in the town um the three things that stood out to us as we went through this process as problems were the limitations placed on us in terms of raising revenue by prop two and a half the vacancies in town caused by a lack of competitive employment compensation packages and then what could only be described as a morass of Arcane processes and procedures for Town accounting some of the stuff that happened was like just it's like mystifying like I I couldn't even explain how it would go about but one of the things that Carter pointed out and I think it's helpful to have Carter's insights here because he's seen it from town to town to town is that we have this really complex set of uh really complex chart of accounts and you know like I run my own business and like the chart of accounts is where we start and if we don't have a handle on that then it's hard to figure out how much we're paying out the other thing that was really problematic was there are certain things that just sort of appear and then disappear without any explanation from like where they came from or where they went to and it's not small stuff uh one of the things that Rene found when we were going through this is that there's this generically titled non-recurring miscellaneous revenue and sometimes it was $300,000 and then sometimes it was zero and it just went away way and we we can't really get a good explanation of like where it came from what it was and why it stopped um and that's all really really deeply disconcerting uh the prop two and a half stuff is probably the most important thing and I think it just shows that we're sort of up against the wall because at the time that we are looking at like the last four or five years inflation has been really high and inflation has actually outstripped what we could possibly raise because of limitations placed on us by prop two and a half and so what's happening is in real spending dollar cents we're actually reducing funding for the town at a time when the costs are going up so you know 2 and a half% increase when the rate of inflation is 1.23% which it was in 2020 that's fine but the next year it was 4.7% 8% 4.2% the projection for this year is that it's going to be somewhere above uh 2.7% if we can't even keep Pace with inflation then we are in real sense spending less when everything is costing more and that just doesn't work um the other thing that came to our attention is the fact that the safety valve that a lot of communities use uh some of them are comp towns but often times it was towns that were more affluent than we are we don't use the safety valve which is an override uh so for example when we're looking at comparable towns the town of Weston uses an override I think every year for like the past 10 or 15 years and I understand we are not Weston but going the other way and essentially having it happen only twice in you know the past 30 years means that we kind of have made a deal with the devil in terms of funding because of inflation we are spending real doll less real dollars and everything is costing more and the only way out of it that the state law provides we're not taking it and and that's a that's a real problem all of the proposals that we've come up with and there are 20 not 21 there was a typo all of the proposals we've we've gathered together some of them will generate money some of them will save us money some of us some of them will help defay costs that we're going to incur anyway but it does not and this is my opinion not the opinion of the budget task force does not seem to me that we will be able to make up the Gap that we need to make up for and that leads to the second problem which is our competitive our our open positions because of a lack of competitive compensation packages we are not paying people in town enough for what they do and if we continue to do that they will leave because they can go someplace else and do the same job for more money and then that starts another cycle of people who are not qualified or necessarily experienced in doing this job being forced to stretch to cover the new tasks that are now vacant because people have gone someplace else and they get overworked they are underpaid and then they will leave if you've looked at if you look at the the memo it has a bunch of people that were missing the town finance director and town account were missing the land use director the principal assessor the conservation administrator the facilities director the DPW director the school business manager these are critical positions in every town these are people that help make sure that taxpayers dollars are well used and watched carefully and they are not there if we do not have the people manning these positions then we are essentially not doing what we are supposed to do with the money we are given from the taxpayers we need those people there and we are not paying them enough to retain them so for example when uh Mike Cassidy left the school as the school business manager he left for a town that was it was not in our comparables in terms of Desy but it would have been in our comparables in terms of the Town comparisons because the two comp lists were one generated by the department of Elementary and secondary education and then another one generated to compare municipalities it was not in our comp for desie because it was too small but it was in our comp for the town he left for a position that basically paid the same as our superintendent even though it was one step down on the ladder another sign that we have like real problems prior to the current CBA being signed if you looked at the desie comps our teachers were either last or second to last in every every important step along the way in terms of uh longevity there was one place where we did really well which is a teacher that's hired for their first year that has no experience and does not have any uh additional education that position because of the requirements that Desi imposes on teachers is almost never filled you will have like one or two of those a year because teachers now have to get Advanced degrees after 5 years it's just it's almost like you know the one place we did well was a place that no one ever gets hired into um all of that means that we've got a problem from the funding part a problem from the people running town government part but then when you get to the actual part of how you administer things in town government it is really really difficult to make sense of things as I mentioned CH uh the charter of accounts problem that Carter pointed out that seems like a major issue um the way in which we use munus strikes me as crazy uh the munus version that we have is no longer supported by I mean you all know this no longer supported by updates and it is currently on a server as opposed to the cloud uh if the server goes down or something else goes down the software goes down we can't make it work which is why we are so we know like we're we're fighting to fix the computer at the same time that we're trying to close the books and that those two things can't really happen at the same time um we do not have a standardized way of town departments reporting their financials and so it's hard to really compare apples to oranges and it's also difficult to process if you're somebody who is new on the job and you get a report from the police department and then a report from the Department of Public Works and they don't look or sound similar at all it's hard to figure out like how like whose house is really on fire and who's doing fine if they're not the same we can't do that the other thing that we noticed is that there is a lot of extra work that's being done so for example when you have a purchase order for the school it must first get approved by the school business manager and then it is shipped up to town where people in town also approve it and then it's shipped back to the school business manager this is like three times more effort than is needed and at least twice as many people as needed and so there's a lot of things that we could do to consolidate those roles and mean and that would mean that even if there were gaps in in critical positions we would we wouldn't have people doing all of this extra work which then stretches them out too much and makes them want to leave so all of these things are sort of tied together and you know one of the things I learned when I first started working was in Small organizations like town government I worked at the public defender attrition causes more attrition and I think we're at that point where because we don't have the funding we don't have the employment packages and then they don't have the employment packages people leave and because so many people are leaving all of these things that should be standardized in terms of town finance are just catch as catch can and so instead of going back and figuring out whether this vendor belongs under this category in the chart of accounts they just create a new one or instead of figuring out how to do this process according to you know best practices they just say well I'm going to look at it you'll look at it and then we'll both decide and it's just not something that is conducive to efficient government and so to that end we had 20 recommendations two of which have already been approved by town meeting so we had proposed them and then they got approved before we could actually conclude uh the number one thing that we had talked about and the ranking is based on you know the amount of Revenue the amount of need and then like how easy is it to implement the number one recommendation is the Consol validate Town Town accounts when we looked at it at at the budget task force it was stunning it was not like we have one or two or five or 10 we had dozens of accounts some with like a dollar in them some of which were earning no money at all in interest it was as if the town had decided to put a bunch of money in folders cans and just St St store them in the basement like that's all we were doing we were not using any of the features of actually having a bank hold our money and so one of the things that we talked about and this has got to be it's got to be something that we do because we're losing money by not doing it is we've got to consolidate those accounts and make sure that we do so in a way that provides the highest yield when we talk to the people in uh that advise the town on investments they talk to us about The Prudent investor Rule and when The Prudent investor rule was adopted last month it seems like this is a great time because we're going to have to reexamine all of these things and while we're doing that let's put all of our money in places that make more money cuz right now we are not doing that and it makes no sense it's just it's like I said it's the equivalent of putting them in folders cans downstairs um the second thing that we talked about and this is a cost this is not going to save us any money but it is clear to me I think it's clear to Renee Izzy also agrees Carter I think agrees as well we need to have a more thorough audit than what is done on an annual basis there are certain things that like no amount of work or attention can figure out they are just inscrutable parts of our books that for some reason we just tolerate it and I I don't know why we would do that um you know Rene's missing $300,000 seems like a pretty good sign that there are things that we are missing and if we are going to eventually go to the taxpayer and ask them to either do adopt the CPA which I'll get to in a second or uh override I think we owe it to them to make sure that we have you know done the accounting equivalent of check in every one of the couch cushions right now I don't think we can say that so I that's something that would be a cost but it is it is our number two priority and it would be number one but the uh the first thing the consolidating accounts is free so we should just do that it's free money this one is in terms of importance is second only to that and it's only second because the other one like I said is literally free money um we need to make sure number three recommendation is implementation of The Prudent investor rule that was passed the town uh meeting it could generate a substantial amount of money and while it is not as risk-free as the consolidation of accounts The Prudent investor rule is not like go have some you know math guys bet on stuff at Vegas it's still pretty conservative I mean it's more liberal than what the old rule was but it is a reliable way to generate more money and not implementing it correctly could cost us a lot of money we do have a lot of money in these accounts I mean I think Carter had mentioned last night it was something like 27 to $30 million we should be able to generate some real interest in that if we use The Prudent investor rule tools um the fourth one is one that we've talked that the town has talked about before but I think it is clear after going through the budget task force process and talking to each different group of people that have some connection with the town whether it was the building people or it was the assessor or it was the unions that we need need another lever to try to generate revenue and the lever that is the state gives us besides property tax is the CPA and the CPA does a bunch of different things that I think align with what the town needs we are going to spend an enormous amount of money on Ritter on this building on dealing with the building stock in general and we're going to do that one way or the other the CPA would just allow us to recoup some of that cost the levers that it gives us are much more finely tuned than other levers I'll get to the split tax rate in a minute but it gives us the ability to set exemptions to set floors so that you know we're not hitting seniors too hard one of the things that Dave passio said at our very first meeting was you need to figure out a way to do this and do this equitably and the CPA really fits the bill in terms of doing this equitably because we can set the search charge we don't have to wallet people with a big increase because we can control what exemptions there are we can make sure that it's tuned to prevent the impact from being disproportionate for one group of people which we can't do with a split tax rate and I'll get to that in a second this is like the one place I'm going to rant um the CPA will help us with Marshall Park it will help us with the building stock and I think that you know having affordable housing is a laudable goal no matter what and those are the three things that it would require us to spend money on since we're going to do two of those things anyway we may as well try to get some of that money back um one of the fifth recommendation was pursuing green grants for the HVAC installs at the primary school and the uh Turkey Hill those can generate real money and it will be money that we get back on something we're going to do anyway if you look at the information that was presented 5 years ago when I joined school committee the number of days that are air condition days is increasing dramatically every year it is not going down and these Primary School especially it's bad because it was built with the idea of having air conditioning and then the town cheaped out and didn't do it so we have the worst of Both Worlds we do not have Windows that open and allow for lots of ventilation because they wanted to build it with air conditioning mind but then we didn't put in the air conditioning so it just it's not a great Building without air conditioning and these green grants would allow us to recapture some of the money we would spend um an ackwood one of the two citizens that made comments brought forward an idea that I believe that Michael you had talked about regarding the leasing the land the solar uh leasing the land for the town dump to a solar provider um that could generate real money if you look at the towns that have done this it is real money and as long as we are simply Leasing and not building we do not assume any of the maintenance it's basically just a way to collect money building on that and getting the permits that will be complicated but if we have a private entity do that then we don't inherit anywhere near as much of the risk or the cost um we'd also talked about putting uh Lots on the school parking lot this would probably have to be done differently if we could find a private uh party that would be willing to do that that might work but it's it may be that the town would have to do that Fitchburg my understanding is that they are doing this right now in I forget I think it's the high school but they are doing this if you drive into Boston you'll notice that they did the same thing for the parking lots for MCI Cedar Junction it is something that has a lot of benefits in terms of generating these credits which is not a one toone equivalents with money but it will help us offset some of the costs and at the same time it will provide some covering so like you don't have to shovel your car out in the middle of middle of winter um the Brooks house lease that was past the town meeting uh the hope is that that would be able to generate some revenue and at the same time save some costs because we wouldn't be doing the maintenance um I think Carter's already presented this did you present it last time the town trash policy my understanding is that when we adopted recycling the recycling was free and now it is a cost and we at least need to tell the people in the town you are you are subsidizing this we told we told you at the start it was free now it's not do you want to keep doing this and whether or not it's worth it I don't know but I think that because it's such a large cost we need to rethink whether or not we're doing it we should make a conscious Choice one way or the other either yes or no but not talking about it and not deciding means that we're making the choice by Fiat and that never works well uh there is a a potential to recoup some money by declaring certain towns in the town uh chapter uh eligible for chapter 90 funding I will be very candid I Tred to read the statute I tried to listen I have no idea what this means I think it just means that like there's maintenance that will be done and if they qu qualifying roads we can recoup some of the costs for the maintenance um Brian Leighton the chair of the school committee proposed uh idea for a high deductible Health Plan uh if anybody has a job I'm sure you're aware of this basically it's a way of getting a uh cheaper cost in your health care with the possibility that you might have to pay more as a deductible um if we can get the PEC to adopt that there may be some younger people or some healthy like health nut people that think that this is a good idea I'm skeptical this will raise a lot of money but at least having the option there's no cost to having the option and if one person takes it it's a little bit of a savings um the other thing that uh we talked about in terms of health insurance and this was brought to me my attention by Mary foil was the current way in which we do health insurance buyouts is kind of baffling uh in order to qualify you have to first be in and then get out and the amount of money you get paid to get out is like a pittance and so it's strange the town does it this way every private business that I know does not go to them their new employees and say please join and then we'll kick you out they just say don't join and we'll bribe you not to right and that seems to be a very effective market-based way to tell people if you can get health care other where other in another place do that instead of doing it here um the next two recommendations are both streamlining these are not going to save us any money they will save our employees time the payroll and purchasing goes back to the thing I talk about with the school and the town and then the standardized workflow uh for Town finances this is also something I mentioned before which is the way in which we do our reporting just doesn't make a whole lot of sense it's not consistent from place to place we also need to we really need to have somebody go through and prune down our chart of accounts it is really like I I don't know what everybody does here but when I sit down with my law partner and we go through our chart of accounts which we do every single time we pay ourselves we are scrupulous to make sure we're not adding new things because when you add new things it becomes very difficult to figure out what you're actually spending you know if you're paying you know 10 pennies out to 10 people that's one thing if you're paying 10 pennies out to a hundred different people it just becomes very very difficult so we need to have a better workflow in terms of our finances um the 16th recommendation is something the school committee is already doing we're undertaking a review of the solar contracts they are up this year and they were not as uh productive as we hoped and so we're trying to figure out if there's a way to leverage the solar panels we have and get a new lease and not adopt them as town properties so that we have to do maintenance and upkeep um pH the next two recommendations are very similar they are to create a review process for school fees and town fees we have not raised town uh school fees in a very very long time like pre pandemic and the fees are really just to make certain projects and activities and teams self-sustaining no one's getting rich on the athletic fees or the activity fees we're basically just trying to give the people who do the coaching and do the management of you know the theater projects just give them a little bit more money uh as you know it they're almost always either people who are teachers in the district or teachers elsewhere that have kids in the district and so helping make sure that they're compensated means that we keep having all of these activities for kids to participate in one of the things that the school committee I think is most proud of is that we have like 50% participation at the high school level in some kind of activity or sport in a small town when you have 50% participation that means when you graduate you're going to know everybody in your class you know when my son did the float this year he met a bunch of people that he had never met because he's a run and so now he knows you know three times as many people and I I'm I'm certain by the time he graduates he will have had some substantive interaction with everybody in his class and those connections are really really valuable so increasing the activity fee helps make that possible and that is a really really good thing uh for the town same thing is true with Town fees we need to create a process to regularly review them we just don't have this mechanism one of the things that helps in the school district is that we can tie the fees to the free lunch status and that's a way to like make it more parsimonious when you distribute the cost I don't know how the town would do that but we need to have some regular review of fees if for no other reason than to do what Carter said last night which is just to give people heads up like this is going to be more expensive next year or it's this you know like this fee is going to happen and please budget for it if we don't do it on an annual basis it just tends to get left on the back burn and it's never going to be a ton of money but if it's a little bit of money distributed equitably that's ultimately the best thing that we could offer you as a recommendation uh Carter had an idea about warrant delivery and in thinking through how we did this at school committee the last two years I think it's just something that we absolutely have to do his proposal was basically to make it so that the warrant is delivered electronically and then if you need a print copy you can come and get one and this does two things number one it reduces the cost because there won't be as many printings and mailings but it also means that we don't have to put the date for all of the proposals to be so early you know I think that when we send it out to the printer it has to be 6 weeks before town meeting and unfortunately 6 weeks before May town meeting is awfully close to the day in which everybody gets Healthcare information and then all the Committees in town have to process the impacts of the healthc Care information on their budget and then get their warrants out in a really really short time span this past year when the town when the school committee did this it was really really close we had everything done for the budget for probably two or three meetings and we're just waiting on that nugget of bad news or good news from the healthcare people and without the pressure that we have because it needs to go to printer we' get like two more weeks maybe three more weeks and essentially everybody would get one more meeting and we'd have that information more processed and more digested before we go in front of the town and ask them to spend money uh the next one was to consolidate town and school snow removal and ground maintenance um I know this has been proposed a couple different times one of the concerns that Dr Burnham had brought up was because this happens especially in the morning simultaneously it's unlikely to save any money in terms of people right because if you have let's just say for really simplistic example you have two people doing snow removal on the roads and then you have four people doing snow removal or three people doing snow removal at each of the schools it's not like you're going to be able to get rid of those three people at the school and put them on the roads because they're going to have to be doing it like I said especially in the morning at the same time so if there is some possibility of a savings it would have to be in just you know having one less department head or whatever but I don't think we're going to have a huge savings from this I also think and this is something that as parent I think about I think that parents might get a little grumpy especially if because we're trying to do all this stuff with one department at the same time we have instead of cancellations we have like one or two hour delays like one or two hour delays are just horrible they're the worst like the kids are grumpy cuz they thought they were getting a whole day off the parents are grumpy because they have to go in late to work and so I'm really hesitant to think that this one is going to be a great recommendation but I think it's worth talking about and running the numbers and then the last one is the split tax rate which I think is just I I I can't see how it's going to work we do not have the industrial base the commercial base to make it work especially when there are no levers to pull on the business side you have the world's largest corporation the largest corporation in history in town and it will be taxed at the same rate as the place where I get my inspection sticker that has like three employees it if there was more Nuance to the split tax rate and we could tax more to bigger companies it might be worth it but the savings I think Carter did the numbers the savings were just really minuscule for residents and it was a punch in the gut for every business I you know like if we could T if we could make Walmart pay all our taxes I'd be super happy but that isn't going to happen and so at this point you know we put it in there because we did a lot of work Evan created a a wonderful like saber metric quality presentation about all the numbers and no matter how we crunched it we just couldn't get it to the point where it would be worthwhile we need either we either need to have more businesses or we need to to have more Nuance in the way in which we can oppose business taxes when we met with the assessor board it was very clear from them that there was nothing we could do they're just going to get taxed the same percentage no matter what and if that's the case I just I can't see it being worthwhile but I put it in there so that we would have it if anybody has any questions I'm happy to take questions uh I will tell you do not ask me about chapter 90 I have no idea well thank you so much I mean this was so thorough and the amount of recommendations here and how you formatted all of it it's really great so thank you for this report Rene you can start if you want well I want to start by thanking Tony he was fantastic amazing chair did so much work eie you don't even know how I mean I I sent an email to eie on Sunday asking a question not expecting a response I think it was 10 minutes and I got a response same thing with Dr Burnham Dr gillson Carter was involved Heather was involved in the beginning and and Evan um did a lot of his Evan thing yeah um that we all know Evan's good at doing um so I just it it was five months like exactly basically um and I just I mean so many people gave so many so much time and effort to to look in this and it's I mean I think we got done what we could get done right um but uh yeah I just want to publicly I thanked them last night but I want to thank them again in this this form because um Tony did a did a lot that's it everyone else but Tony wrote the whole summary basically you watched the one with the assessor did a lot of ranting about Walmart drives me crazy there were some entertaining recordings out there for sure I'll thank you for the effort and and all the time because I know the time of takes to coate this and review this and especially from people coming from all different walks of life that don't have the inner workings of the town government in mind and to learn that is just a a real steep incline a greased steep incline to begin with so I I thank you for that I mean I I have to say that you know most of these being a fincom person and being on the board for many years are not a surprise to me that they're on here yeah um you know if I had to summarize cuz I and and please let me know if this is an accurate or inaccurate characterization but the ultimate conclusion of your report is we don't take in enough money correct and most of the money that we're looking to take in would be from residence yes okay that's right because that right and so this is something I've been flying for a long time it's good to see a totally different board and a totally different committee look at this but you know the prop two and a half structural problem it's a deal with the devil yeah like no I've been say I've been saying if if we had recordings back then I would say go see them because I've said it then and I I push for the two overrides that failed because I said the same thing I push for two CPAs I I was part of the Committees that try to do that twice so I feel for everything in here believe me you know I think that one of the things that we've had like a shift in how we view taxes in this country and I think that you know like if you look at like quotes about taxes from the turn of the 20th century the 19th to the 20th century you know uh we've had we have a lot of people very smart people you know Oliver wend Holmes said the taxes are the price of civilization and I think that we could use with less taxes but I also think that more than less taxes there needs to be some autonomy for municipalities like we are basically given you know the scraps from the table by the state and like we're like tinkering around with like what percentage of scraps we get but it's just scraps you know like if we had the one thing that I think is just an Abomination and it's obviously a sign of the fact that you know politics is owned by business that we cannot have a variation in the split tax rate dependent on the size of the corporation like why on Earth are we doing that why on Earth are the people of this town the people of this state and this people of this country letting corporations set their own tax rates it's crazy we don't do that with people it's it's bananas sorry that was my well that was not a rant trust me that was not the rant that I was just like crazy mad but you know what you going to do can I just add I mean other things I so one yes we don't take in enough money but there's we've been missing out on opportunities to get money the The Prudent investment I mean when you look at at at the investment Revenue like over time M we are way behind where other towns like yes everyone had down years and I think 20 and and then everyone bounced back and lunenberg like down here um like you saw E's report tonight was it 400% and that was doing nothing imagine if we had invested um so that was one and CPA was eye openening for me yeah um that's another way to get to get money um and then the other eyeopener for me was I mean we've no secret we've had turnover you know E's been here less than a year Dr Gilson's been here maybe 6 months I don't even know I mean turn over in key positions and coming in and and trying to find things I mean the accounts that e he's try to look through and dig through it's we're asking questions and nobody sitting at the table knows the answer because the people who knew the answer are not in the building anymore y well I mean one of the things that so like miscellaneous non-recurring I mean I've I've asked for this for years and years when when something is presented as the budget when when the town manager puts together the budget if there are things that are abnormal like there was there were times when health insurance got shifted from schools outside of schools or back in schools and they made a big difference on the line item and I'm like you got to put a footnote to have a narrative why this changed because in five years time or seven years time somebody's going to look back at this and everybody's going to change and all the players and all the Committees and all the employees are change and exactly the question you're asking is going to be asked why did this happen waited $300,000 ago for miscellaneous non-recurring revenue and I'm sure there's a reason but nobody wrote down the reason because at the time that it was important they knew it but for posterity for review for analysis no longer there and it's very frustrating I agree it is it's about half a million dollars dropped like a cliff in 2016 and has been down and that's why the financial the the audit yeah we've got to have somebody who knows how to rank so high because we're like look at this yeah I think you guys did some really awesome work I look at this you know from a couple different lenses both as a prior employee um as a resident as a parent to kids in the school district um a lot of the things that you're coming up with just thinking from my my staff perspective are things that a lot of us internally were advocating for a change for a long time that I'm not even sure ever really got outside of of the internal staff so it's great to see that a lot of these things are really being uncovered or being brought forward um you know the charts of accounts the different things that were happening um have been known internally for a while at the lower levels um so it's nice to see from that perspective that it's getting brought forward you guys did an immense amount of work and do we do a good job in representing the problem I think you did a fantastic job I no I I really think this is fantastic and i' I've watched not all but most of you guys' meetings and I think you know you guys have all done there were some very depressing meetings immense amount of work here um and I I I think it's a great step forward I like you know the plan I don't really know how we move forward with all of these things I think they're great suggestions um obviously as a resident I'm a single mom I have three kids I don't want to see my taxes go up but that's the reality they have to we have to look at overrides we you've already stated it all but I'm in in full agreement um with the challenges that you brought up and with the plans that you've identified so thank you so much for all of your work and Renee and everyone else that has but that that you know all the work you guys did is great and it's edifying to know that the things that we found were things that people in the town government knew right because if you come at it from two different directions and you end at the same spot it's probably the right spot yeah yep so thank you that was helpful um I agree with all the comments said previously um first you know I did catch a couple of your meetings I think that the camaraderie that the membership had with each other was obvious and clear uh it was it was somewhat of an informal tone and I think it really allowed you guys as a team to gel uh and then really kind of dig into a lot of these details um I really think that the product that you've presented tonight is excellent um and and it's really clear I think that uh sitting in this board you know I think the image from all the details that have come out over the last several months is very different than I think the picture that's been painted for the last several years um and so I think it's really good um to as as just noted by selan Moore it's really good that some of these things many of the things that are in here are things that were quietly known um but but now are Are You Know spoken out loud I I really want to highlight a couple things that I think are positives here um the solar plan uh I've been saying this before I ran for office uh that this is a way to make money um you know in my profession we put solar panels up all the time because it offsets your electric bill the the most cost effective way to do this is to actually buy the panels you know these companies that lease they make money by being that middleman sure um and I did watch that meeting I was like I really need to go to their next meeting in Comm and I sent uh selectman m a quick text message um because we have a solar field there's a solar field within my portfolio and we lease it out and so I get get the comparatives of what is it what are we making when we're leasing it versus what are we making when it's when we own it when I would say it's it's it's exponential it's exponential um and and the the more money that gets made off of solar is when you make that initial capital investment uh and then you receive the revenue and then you hire a company to do your maintenance that that cost of the maintenance of the solar panels for the most part they just sit there and they get sunlight and you don't they don't need a lot of maintenance for the most part it's like the wiring in your house right it's not very frequent that you need to replace the wiring in your house so for the most part they sit there but every now and then some of the technical components will go wrong in terms of communication devices uh and so you know a couple thousand dollars a year generally is the maintenance contract versus the tens or hundreds of thousands you'd be paying to the company who would own them if you're leasing or if you have a leasing arrangement with them um you know as we think about Municipal Building design and and you know one of the things that is going to come up is solar panels on a parking lot that if you're going to build a parking lot it makes the most sense um to put solar panels on them it offsets your electrical costs period and the schools have great sunlight coming into their parking lots there's a lot of money to be made and when we think about money made a penny made you know it's a penny saved we currently get electric bills and so every every every bit of know energy you can generate from the Sun it just offsets your cost somewhere else and there's always a return on investment and that Roi with solar generally is 8 to 10 years U and they last for usually 25 and so usually you know over your 8 to 10 year life cycle you go into with the mindset that you get your replacement devices as well uh in that cycle uh and and cost overtime as we know with solar uh come down so I really like the proposals about the solar you know the one thing at the very end that you know I can't not comment on is is the tax rate yeah that you know I've said this in our meeting but I'll say it to you as a member you know we have to we have to operate regionally when it comes to tax rates I know that every individual Community gets to set their own but we do have to have a regional mindset about it um you know when we look at comparable communities it's intersections it's roads it's transportation that really that really drives where businesses want to be and so where businesses want to be again roads just Transportation intersections um when you have the communities like that like air like I know it's been mentioned before like Maynard um uh other other communities that again have those intersections have those common roads you can get that split tax rate because businesses want to be there um whereas in communities like Lunenburg you know we Fitchburg has a flat rate you know lier has a flat rate everyone from Air to Garder has a flat rate north of route two so we become the one outlier we lose business which means we lose that that slice small slice of Revenue so I do think that that's nonviable we can say for another day my full disag agreement with you over whether or not small businesses should be taxed differently than large businesses uh I don't think we should be taxing people's success um but that's neither here nor there I do think that the overall I would agree Walmart has stopped being a person I think that the Supreme Court's been pretty clear that corporations are essentially people but that's neither here nor there I think that the uh the other thing about the warrant delivery again all these things I think are great Concepts uh and even as you presented the tax rate thing you seem to concede in your present that it's really not a viable option the one thing that I'd be really interested in looking into and it's not a long money is this warrant delivery um I think that we have a history here in our town of really of people wanting to have that physical paper but you know when I did caming door to-door and I talked to Residents most people said that the only that the only time they hear from the town is you know once or twice a year when we mail them these things and it goes straight into the recycling bin they don't even open it um and like it's such a waste of such a waste of money why they waste my money entries say again entries entries broadly speaking though I think that as we think about moving forward one of the things that I think is hard for people to understand is is how cost has grown um when we talk about inflation I think people get that but but when you really get into the underlyings here we're talking about a lot of healthc care costs of skyrocketing and and what are the controls that can come there and then for the average person living in town that's been here for 30 40 years kids are through the school syst system they their mindset they don't receive a lot of services from the community right so you know I think people have a general mindset if you want more money at ofy give me more product and so it is hard I think people understand inflation if it's paired with their um with their own job increases but you know if you're on limited income if you're on Social Security if you're on welfare if you're on any kind of community you know support if you're on a fixed income in the sense of fixed income being retirement income and you don't have a lot of savings there the tax increases become really heavy to Bear uh and so going to that person who's on that that fixed income that's only goes up 2% only goes up 2.1% and you're asking them to do an override care doesn't matter at that point it's about the bottom line um you know and and the lever we have that lever of doing an override people don't like overrides I mean you know and are you and I just want to get a Clarity on that one are you suggesting in that that I've gone to our legislators and I've said 2 and half% is not enough when you account for health insurance we need to have it close to three I've said that but are you suggesting here today that we need to just be in the business and in the practice of doing overrides more regularly no okay I do not think that the Weston model would be sustainable here but I think that there is a middle ground between the Weston model and our model and moving closer to that middle ground will help make up for some of the systemic deficiencies that the Town faces it's not that you need to do it all the time but you can't be afraid of doing it because I think that what people in town especially people on fixed income are going to realize is that when their costs go up the towns costs also go up it's not like we go and get our paper from a special place that charges less because we're a town they're going to understand inflation in general and I think that like with the school last time the last year's override that was one where you know Dr Burnham's did nine different budgets down to like different colored markers in the elementary school we knew what our costs were and it wasn't going to work we were looking at you know catastrophic cuts and so if it's between catastrophic Cuts in town services that affect everyone including people on fixed income or an override then I think we got to adopt an override but I don't think it's it's we do not have enough wealth in this town to do what Weston does it's simply to say that there is some place in the middle we can modulate between two one every 15 years and 15 every every single year yeah and you know it's it's a question of where is the pain and I think that while we are not I think that we are there I think that you know maybe it's a couple years away before we have like catastroph Ric problems and and I don't know what the answer is because all of these suggestions even if we were able to implement all of them and we were able to get like the return on investment for the solar like you talked about I still don't think it will cover what we need to have absent an override and so maybe like one every 5 years or S years or 10 years not two and 30 years okay does that make sense it makes perfect sense I think my my only my last comment that you were talking I thought of this I was going to say it earlier and uh then I'll shut up here the the growth in the town in terms of departments um you know one of the things that I hear frequently from the crowd that does not have children in the school system uh is they don't understand why the school department budget has doubled um over the last 15 18 years or so while the student body population has decreased and whereas when you look at all the other departments in town uh they have essentially an increase in customers sure um and and roughly a 30% increase in customers I I think that some analysis is needed and here's where I'm going with it it seems as if most most or or nearly all of the school costs are Justified but I think that when we have legislators that stand in front of us that represent us and they pass things in the state house that then add cost to us without providing us with money you when we say unfunded mandates it's too broad but when you say hey in 2018 when desie did or as I recently heard desie did something that doubled the paperwork for IEPs and as you know when desie did this this has led to a direct result or this is the impact of this and having that kind of cost Association to it how do we find ourselves uh as a community based on the work you did in the position where we can identify these unfunded cost increases as they occur so that way we can hold people accountable for giving them to us so there's two things I I I think we say first of all finding unfunded mandates at the school is really easy because that's basically all they ever are the grants that are available to the schools either as competitive grants or non-competitive grants are relatively limited but most of the things that we have to do like the e911 cost that had nothing to do with education we just happen to have a lot of kids in the same place and so we have to do this e911 thing it's not like they're getting a new textbook or a new computer or they're were adding a subject it had nothing to do with education it's just by based on the fact that we are you know housing a lot of kids in the same spot so I think finding unfunded mandates is actually pretty easy Dr Gilson actually did this one of the things that we did when we were preparing the expenses pre presentation the town side and the school side both did revenue and expenses when we did the expenses she generated a list of unfunded mandates I could send it to you it's in the folder there's like there's like two dozen of them the other thing that I would explain to Citizens about why the cost of Education increases while the population of students doesn't it has to do with the Supreme Court's determination that everybody in the United States is entitled to a free appropriate public education and if you look at the way in which that requirement has been interpreted schools are now educating kids that have much more intensive needs than they did in the ' 50s 60s '70s and 80s when the fape requirement was handed down by the US Supreme Court it fundamentally altered who gets educated and where and that is ultimately a cost that the town Bears there is a way and we've talked to the legislators about fixing this and having having costs defrayed by the the state but when a person who moves into town has a child that has really intensive needs even if they never go to our school based on the US Supreme Court requirement for free appropriate public education and the costs associated with essentially providing healthare at the same time that you provide education those costs are enormous they are staggering and we have no way to Abate them no way to prepare for them no way to alter them whatever happens when somebody moves into town and we have to do a you know a very costly out of District placement or they need intensive superv intensive Services here we have to absorb that cost there is no other Town Department that has to do that we do not have a constitutional mandate for police we do not have a constitutional mandate for fire we do not have a constitutional mandate for Department of Public Works there is a constitutional mandate that shapes our obligations for the town and how we educate children and because of that it is expensive and it will always increase in cost to the tune of hundreds of thousands potentially so basic so basically a solution would be if the state were able to cap out how much communities um have to expend to meet the um constitutional obligations and then were to supplement that difference if that cap were 100 grand for example and the state were to pick up the tab for everything beyond that would that resolve many of those concerns it would resolve some of them but I think a better solution would be to have students that have a certain level of of need group together and have the state negotiate and bargain the costs for those kids to be educated irrespective of where they live because what happens now is towns have an incentive to try to keep everybody in District as much as possible and it's good for the kids both the kids that have the needs and the kids that have less needs it's good for them to be in the same classroom but it's also good financially and so when the kids that can't be placed in the district get placed outside the district if those costs were something that were not dependent on the onesies and twosies in lunenberg or the five or 10 in Fitchburg but all of those people were organized into one group so that the state had more bargaining power we just don't have the bargaining power I mean if you look at some of the places where these kids go they are extremely sophisticated extreme expensive placements and we only have like one kid there it's not like you know we can do a whole lot but if you look at how like you can negotiate prices for medication the more people you pull together the bigger the group The more leverage they have and while the cap might work it won't prevent that shock to the system that happens when somebody moves into town and so I think a better solution and Juliana hansam would know way better than I would but having looked at this from both in terms of representing kids that have special needs and being on the school committee and having kids in school I think the better idea would be to have the state work together to negotiate their rates because we just don't have the the ability to do that both in terms of Leverage and in terms of wherewithal I mean there are dozens of placements and you know it's it's a very difficult process but if you want to know why public education is so expensive it is because we have a mandate and that mandate means that we have to educate everybody it's the reason why the post office has a more difficult time delivering packages than UPS UPS can say you live on an island off the coast of Maine I'm not delivering your package post office can't do that and we are in the same position I hope that answers your question thank you for being so thorough and and and uh helping out the folks at home thank you can you talk a little more about the specifics of the CPA looking through all the data and it was interesting just combing through it and seeing what the matches were like not a lot of communities get the full match or even close to it I was trying to figure out exactly how that match is calculated but I couldn't really find any information on that so and Renee knows more than I do Carter knows more than I do but just to break it down from what I understand there is a two round process yeah I didn't understand any of yeah so in order to get to the second round you have to be using the 3% search charge if you get to the second round you have the 3% search charge you are eligible for up to 100% match but even a lot of the communities that have that 3% search charge don't get to that point correct and the reason why is because the mechanism of funding so the way that the CPA is funded is it is the money that funds CPA is generated by revenues from the registry of deeds right and so the pool is you know a relatively similar siiz pool and the more towns that join the less each town can possibly get but in order to hit that maximum number you have to have a as a minimum requirement a necessary but not sufficient requirement is that you have the 3% search charge after that figuring out who in that pool of 3% search charge towns gets it it becomes very complicated so it looked like there was a base match of 20% that's at least what I saw is that correct cuz I don't it's is variable like this year was 18% the lowest I've seen is 133% so that varies even year to year depending it depends on the the bucket of money they have and the number of communities it's up to 200 communities now I know I was going to say there are a lot of communities that have adopted it now all 25 and I I confirmed this after Carter said it all 25 that did it in the first wave still do it like 20 years later it is something we should do it is free money for the town we spend a nickel to make a dime we're going to spend this money on these these buildings anyway if we do not do this it's like having everybody in town make luminaries full of cash and lighting them on fire it makes no sense we should definitely do the CPA yeah I mean it's like a 401k like if you have that if you have a match through your employer and you just decide I'm not even going to contribute at all to it right missing out on free money it is missing out on free money especially looking down the road at the big projects yes that we're talking about that are would be eligible and the town decides so you say okay we want to use x amount of CPA funds towards Marshall Park that goes to town Town decides how to spend the money so it's in control of the town to decide how that money is spent now that can be a good thing and a bad thing cuz depending on how it goes so a couple more questions about this so can you talk about what that money can go towards there's like certain categories it all works so you get a pool of money matching funds from the state in order to be qualified you have to spend it in at least 10% in one of three buckets so the first bucket is U like Capital project historical preservation of buildings the second is Parks and then the third is affordable housing okay and so what one thing that can happen and it wasn't clear to me until I went through and read all the literature on you can save the money you don't have to spend 10% every year so like if you wanted to do an affordable housing project you could find somebody who's building affordable housing and you could say like you know we're going to contribute some amount of money do this as a you know we'll help you we'll give you a grant to do this and we'll save up the money for three years so that it's a meaningful amount of money for a property developer you can do that but you have to spend it you have to spend at least at least 10% in those three buckets okay and that that's it just 10% of it for any combination of those three buckets no no no 10% in each in each Buck okay that makes more sense and how do the personal exemptions work exactly so there are a number I think there are five they're four or five I think I'm I thought three or four okay so let's take the average say four um there is an exemption for uh people of a certain age there is an exemption for uh property value so essentially the first $100,000 is not counted and then there are two other exemptions that deal with people who have you know unusual finances or you know like what we talked about before people have fixed income so it is actually a much more nuanced mechanism than say like the split tax rate right yeah you can fine-tune it a lot more yes and you can fine-tune it in a way that makes sense for your town if you look at the list of towns the 200 communities that get CPA funding very few few of them give all of the exemptions um but if you know like if it's something that works for your town you can do them all you know one of the towns that I looked at was uh the gentleman that wrote The Diary of the Wimpy Kid planville it is a very small town it's it's a little bit smaller than us but it has a lot of the same issues where we have like a group of people that have kids going to school and a group of people that have really no school related issues at all and the way that they did it is you know you know it was part of a town process the town had meetings they talked about what they wanted the exemptions to be and the law gives you the ability to tailor the exemptions to fit your population so I I you know like compared to the other levers that we have to pull on this one seems to be one that's geared towards equity and I think that's really important if you know like your Michael Ray your point about going to the people who are on a fixed income if we can go to them and say look this sear charge is not going to have the same impact on you as it would everybody else in fact your impact is going to be so much less so you're going to be exempt entirely that seems to be much more palatable than something like the split tax rate where we would go to Walmart and be like you get 7% then we go to the guy who's employing like one other person and be like you're also paying 7% it just seems ridiculous it's definitely more palatable than an override too correct yeah correct I think it's I think it's more palatable than an override because you know know I think that there is a natural reticence on the part of a population to not want to do the override right like they don't want to get in the habit of doing the override because then it seems like the citizens of the town are bailing people out when you know something goes ay as opposed to a response to a dire need if you have the search charge the search charge is understandable it has real exemptions that have real impacts on people and then it generates money to help supplement money we are already spending it is a much better deal than I think the override would be so I didn't do this looking through the spreadsheet I guess I could have but do you have an idea of just like what the average matches are it's because the the percentage match varies from year to year like this really really hard to determine um you know like there are some towns that very consistently get that 100% I wouldn't say they're always the same but you know if there's like a a group of like 40 towns that have gotten it you know 20 of those towns get it on a regular basis so sometimes are just very good at making their application appealing to the people that dull out the money um but I I don't think it's consistent enough to say like what the average payout is you could do it by year you could do the average payout by year on the website but I don't think they break it down by the average total for the entire lifetime of the the unless they've changed it I mean there's no application to it I mean it's it's a formula it's a very mapped out formula by how much you collect and what is the percentage of the sech charge one two or three but you can do it in half but you know anywhere up to three and what exemptions you do and you know all those things so once you're in it you're in what happens at the other end you just put in how much money they collected and you you got a number that comes out that's what you get yeah and I think one of the things you know we last talked about this during the pandemic and was proposed to come before the town and I remember we we decided not to move forward with it on the warrant because there was a lot of concern about how the how the pandemic was going to affect everyone um but I mean at the end of the day you know if the town has to spend a hundred bucks we still got to spend the hundred bucks right the question is is the state giv us 10% are they giving us 133% are they giving us you know 25% are they are they going to match us on you know 100% you know or or let me rephrase that if we have to spend 100 bucks it still has to get spent are we spending 50 cents and the state are spending throwing in 50 cents or are we spending 80 cents and the state's throwing in 20 cents or are we spending 90 cents and the state's throwing in 10 10 cents but the alternative is we're still on the hook for 100% so the option of having the CPA is it's complete makes total sense I completely support it you know it's a onetime 3% increase for the most part because then it carries through right you you kind of it's there right going forward so it's not a 3% increase every year it's a one time 3% increase know and then it just stays there and and and but what it means not a 3% tax increase no no no be very careful because people wildly misunderstood that those are two very different things yeah know I understand how the 3% works that it's not it doesn't have to be 3% it could be less could be one could be one and a half you need 5% to qualify here's the way I would think of it and this is the way I explained it every night my wife and I go for a walk and I we talk about our day and you talk about we every time he talk about it every walk what every single walk and I said it's like this if like when we upgraded our heating system at home we could do it in August or we could do it in September those are the windows we got if we did it in August we got a rebate from the state if we did it in September we didn't that's the CPA do you want to do it when you get a rebate or do you not that's it and it seems like to me that this is a no-brainer like it's just a no-brainer well again we I hope the demographics have changed because this everything the passion you're bringing to was exactly what we brought we would been one of the first we would have been one of the first 10 to 15 towns that did it and I I I wince when I think that we would have had Millions several million dollars that we gave away that could have come 100% match because it was 100% match for the first 15 years of this yeah I mean so it was it was um voted down in 2002 and 2007 mhm I I will just point out one thing Mandy Gilman got a lot of people organized Mandy Syble TJ they got an override done and everybody told them it would not happen so I do not thinkone I did tell them it was possible a lot of people a lot of people told them it would not happen but I will tell you this it is a different generation of people in town and those people are passionate organized skillful smart if there is a group of people that can get it done it is that I I don't know if they would consider me part of that generation but that generation of people can get it done I mean when we had kids come to the school committee we had kids organiz themselves to come and talk about the value of the music program to come and talk about the value of Education I think that we are dealing with a much more engaged body politic than we had 10 or 15 or 20 years ago and I think that if there's anything that comes from the polarization of our politics in this country that's a good thing it is the fact that people are more engaged so I know that I should not be hopeful and I know that Copus is still pushing his Rock but I think that that this could happen this time I really do we get again I I I I I disagree with the fact that people were less engaged then because the votes back then were tremendously higher than they were in this over override but I will say the demographics of the town has substantially changed demographics have changed I'm say that override worked I don't want to that's but that's okay you want to oversimplify that's fine with me that's not that's not what you said you said people were more engaged now they not more engaged now yeah I I I want to draw a distinction I appreciate your comment but I think there's a difference between sophisticated Advocates and then generally people who are engaged in the process oh sure we have a lot of vacant es we see a lot of lack of Engagement but we have very sophisticated Advocates um so I just want to draw the distinction there and I hope that some of the Advocates can become more engaged in the things that don't directly impact them and their families as as many of us have to do I completely agree okay I I to be to be clear Tom I I'm just teasing a little bit but winning makes a big difference all right so I by the way I continue to be saddened that we did not fund solar Fields with arpa funds because I think think that would have been a great investment um you mentioned and I didn't realize you guys did this you said that you looked at other communities that have done this yes as he did okay did Terri and that they are making a lot of money I'm just wonder I haven't seen this data um we have the data at right yes it's okay it exists somewhere that I see it is a substantial amount of money yeah a 25 acre solo Farm if you lease it out on the lowend you're going to generate about 100 80 100 Grand a year um 50 yeah but when you own those solar panels and then sell the electricity you're talking closer to 2 to 300,000 2 to 250 a year for 25 acres solar farm roughly and so there's a lot of I mean and then you multiply that by 25 years it's a lot of money to be made um and so you know of course the easier way like I said is leasing but the other thing is when you think about like the the parking lots again free money we are we already have the open space so there there is a lot of anything that we can do to offset cost you know if something has an Roi eight nine years on it but it offsets long-term operational costs it's a no-brainer and I think that as we go through some of this you know there's probably a need to change some of our bylaws that require the incorporation of energy efficient um building processes um you know or or systems to be incorporated into all plans because when we look at the schools and we see all that open parking lot if we just would have put solar panels on it and we were going to borrow all that money um you know the building cost would be lower and that's funding that could be used for program programmatic needs in the community needs in the community so I think we just have to think about things in that kind of how do we do this in the smartest way and instead of being fearful that hey I'm trying to keep the dollar amount as low as possible it's it's all projects must incorporate solar canopies on parking lots sure you know something blanket like that you know then then it's just understood at that point of it's just part of the cost yeah well it's it for questions for me but I think you guys have started several many very good conversations in this product this report that you guys have outputed is just incredible I mean it's so organized there's so much in it so thank you very much for all the work just to mention go back to something Tom said Tom was very wise when he pointed out the fact that the problem is when people leave they don't know what things were and so what we tried to do in the report is every time there was a some something that had like a specific mention I tried to make sure that it it is linked back to the meeting where we said it so we don't lose this right I don't want to lose it like we did work let's make sure that we have a conversation where everybody knows what the terms mean and Dr Burnham did all the minutes Dr Burnham did all the minutes up to date and I also especially just want to thank the staff members who served on this task force and I know we all have jobs but you know it's a lot to do a 9 to5 and then stay around in town to maybe I don't know how long your meetings typically went but you know potentially 8 9 10 p.m. no no no no we got done by 8 we were all right well we started at 6 though yeah yeah yeah so thank you very much all right Carter do you want to add anything to the conversation you were like fly in the wall quiet I I think they did quite a bit of work um I would only correct one thing the CPA is about debt exclusions not over rides yeah U and now I would suggest that the community not let this gather on the dust on the Shelf yep totally so next steps on this I mean can we I know it's a lot of information to digest today and and I appreciate you know the conversations we've had clearly it's engaged us on many different areas um but it seems as if this may be something that we need to kind of keep re-approaching especially as we head into the warrant coming up soon so that way some of the these things are low hanging fruit oh super low hanging like the consolidation of investment accounts we just need to do that no action is required other than yeah saying Ezekiel please make this happen please make this happen I think I mentioned earlier too as a new town manager comes to board we're going to look at our investment policy and try to renew that because I don't know what's the last time it's been looked at but you I need to get a little closer like I mentioned earlier you know our investment policy needs to be reviewed I don't know when the last time it's been updated but uh it looks like it's been quite a while so along with this pred investment we just consolidating all the accounts and making sure what makes sense to the town yield the highest income as much as possible year to year and that should be looked at yearly it shouldn't be like one document we look at this year and then it disappears it should be every year you should be reviewing that and we're meeting with fincom on Thursday oh cool oh good the same so this document was finalized last night yeah like at 9:30 yeah I sent it out Carter interestingly what I he saying about reviewing it every year in the other state that I work in it is statute it is required by law that every year you review that investment uh management policy uh the other thing though is it's not just about consolidating the accounts so you have fewer accounts it is about actively securing bids from Banks who want your business I think that we all become uh a little comfortable with the the bank that we're dealing with um you know in another situation it is truly a local bank it's a small local four or five branch bank and one of them's right down the street you can walk to it of course the larger Banks right across the street it's the same basically another 15 steps uh and the investment yield that the larger bank will give us uh Upon Our 10 12 million that we have that goes through those accounts on a regular basis uh on any given time you know like you you've got 55 million we've got 30 plus million uh will be uh in the quarter of a million dollar range uh and what that took was uh the finance director uh as Izzy has said we need to look at the way we do things and calling in the two Banks and saying what will you pay us and oh when the interest rate goes up what are you going to do to our compensating balance requirements and how are my fee structure going to look like um so I think that it's it's not just bringing down the number of accounts it's not just you know annually doing that recheck on the investment policy of was there a change in the law no okay all we got to do is change the date it is about periodically um as many of us do maybe we periodically call a couple insurance companies or we you know can we refinance the house um I think it is just like the revenue uh looking at that as you did with ambulance fees here it is about putting these things on a schedule and up it's year three and yes we love our bank but I wonder who might be a good bank to do continue to do business with all right well I think these conversations are definitely going to continue I know I need some more time to really digest this but I think a lot of these recommendations may turn into agenda items that we talk about even more and maybe I'll continue to invite you in so we can talk about them so thank you very much you're welcome I'm happy to spar about taxes y great all right thank you so much thank you all right Ezekiel since you're here um why don't we just do the um quarter 1 fy2 ambulance writeoffs sure in our drive we we have the cover sheet but I didn't see the remaining documents I'm sorry what do you mean and the right off we have like the email that just it's a q no it's there q1 FY 25 amance right right yep okay thanks we should have an a collectible review document with a list I don't know if you've received that yep we have I I believe that's there yep it is I see it now so um so everything within this document is up for collections it's um right off sorry except for this first line of $940 62 C so the total right off amount the net is $ 26,38 68 um this not inclusive of what we've already written off this is um all new balances that um that were uncollectible again these will go to a separate collection company they just written off our books as U our receivables however as the revenue gets collected if it does get collected we still receive that income so it's not lost Revenue is just getting written off our books just want to make that clear what is the age of most of these before you you you attempt to write them off the books so let's see here the age we just did this over the summer yeah it was we've done this a couple times so was my understanding that we've done pretty much everything in the past so I thought just by looking at this that this was more recent this is more recent um I don't have the age unfortunately it's not how quickly do we write things off our books I mean that we we're trying to get to this every quarter as a as a request from the previously because previously I think the first one we did when I came aboard it's been a couple years yeah it went no that one was huge I yeah so the last one these are we're going to do this every quarter yes okay that's the that's the expectation are any of the patients here property owners that we can lean I think we had that conversation recently um there's been no um both both myself and CH solivan had reached out and there's no president of that being done and we can't find a law where um that's the case where we can do that we had reached out to we I I don't know if we've reached out to legal but we we can to get a clarification on that yeah that would be helpful I mean you know I don't want to penalize the people who own homes versus those who don't but if every quarter were writing off 26 27 ,000 people have appreciable assets that we know of then I think we need to lean those appreciable assets okay um and most people will just pay the bill rather than paying the fees that come with all the leans and everything else correct and just to clarify again just because we're writing it off the books you guys obviously the debt is still being pursued corre attempt to collect correct but you can't collect medical is this isn't this considered medical debt it is medical debt yeah so it doesn't show up from people's credit reports now so I mean there's really you have to pay you don't have to pretty much it's basically like it's optional I mean I hate to say it but I mean we've kind of created that it's optional now yeah sure so the only way you're really going to force one to pay is they have the insurance that covers it or if you hit an asset of theirs yeah any other questions about this is there a motion to write off the quarter 1 fy2 ambulance uncollectible bills as presented so move in just for the record in the amount of$ 26,38 68 thank you seconded right y any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppose no the motion passes unanimously okay thank you thanks I think this is a record we've had you in for like three things tonight yeah okay thank you once a quarter yeah have a good night great thank you all right those are all our meetings so now we'll go into the interim Town manager report well I'm actually surprised is he was able to get as much done as he got last week was I spent quite a bit of time with him and the finance team both on the uh uh decision of um foreclosure uh on those several parcels and then uh Revenue projections as we try to put those together um uh so uh we also spent time looking at the uh budget request format there were number of folks who expressed some concerns particularly the schools about using the clear gov so we're going to take a look at at whether or not a standard uh spreadsheet might be an easier way for people uh to put their information in and then we would put it into uh munice once it's finally approved uh with the tax rate in hand the data files did go to the printer this week uh and we expect the tax bills to go out uh this week hopefully they'll be out Friday early next week um at the latest but certainly um much more comfortably in line with timelines and expectations the Ritter building roof contractor uh has informed us he is comfortable with his coat and we're proceeding to bring him under contract uh and with the alternate it's a little bit under the capital budget uh and we've looked now at the capital budgets for three years in a row and we think there's enough room uh within that uh the DPW FL project continues and the roof project began uh they started stripping it we did find um a little bit of rot we've got to deal with but it's less than $11,000 so far uh I don't know what kind of progress they made today um great day out there hopefully we'll have a few more of those um but the contract looks to be able to to stay uh on on time and on budget uh I did have an extended conversation with the school superintendent uh and the business manager um uh one of the good things about uh car phones is you can drive for hours and keep working um but the bids for the Turkey Hill school fire alarm uh came in substantially above their budget uh they had 260 left to work with the bid alone came in at 322 uh we have engineering on top of that for oversight of the project uh and then possible contingency um and I'll speak to the possibilities when we get to the arpa uh it's complicated a little bit uh by the fact that um they have some bids for other projects that come in on Friday within your FY 25 capital budget so if those projects come in less they can apply that um Delta to the project that's over if they come in over the question then becomes can they do the projects at all can they split them apart so it's um it remains a bit of a moving Target I'm afraid all these capital projects and the arpa uh the contract for brigh eyes Boys Club Girls Club finalized um I did get back the food pantry contract this week um and as I say the main wrinkle uh in arpa um is those school projects and getting contracts for the cultural Council artists sorry to just interrupt real quick it was my understanding that that was already closed out didn't we talk about that what the artist The Artisan schools well they were I I they my understanding and I think the interim Town manager poked his head into their meeting one evening um was that they had everything lined up and they they had they they were getting or had the contracts for the artists but I I'm assuming and please tell me if I'm WR I think I think it is you know the world that I live in of what's a commitment and the world of what they live in is a commitment and they said well you know that the schools have all that well the schools did but they were proposals from various artists of programs to put on no one had yet put ink on paper for a real contract gotcha that is the challenge okay um because I've got to have those signed contracts by December 31 but uh Dr Burnham you know did step in and say just you know cultural Council connect with my um you know uh uh arts and enrichment people and we'll we'll get this done so I want to thank her for that and I I I'm sure we can do it now that we've really sort of understand what each side was talking about um and again I I thank Dr Burnham for for taking that on a bit uh with recruitment uh you know with active recruitment does continue for the uh pack videographers and the assistant to the Sewer business manager uh we did have interviews on the police officer uh I'm awaiting for the report uh from the interview team and then of course the background checks and the like um and then um you know an appointment date uh depending upon theem and the network uh administrator um that tax bill as I've told you will be going out with a flyer in it for volunteers uh for our various commissions ranging from the agricultural commission uh to the Conservation Commission um that cultural Council we just spoke about which uh takes that Arts Lottery money that comes through from the state uh and programs that out uh to enrich and offer programs for the community uh the Personnel committee remains uh without a quorum um and this list will be on the the website as as well so I didn't feel very productive because we were so concentrating on you know a few very few tasks um the afternoon Tuesday meetings with uh Chris Ruth uh today we had uh Chris Julie um uh and we had I don't know if I have any of them with me but uh Izzy and carara put together you know a much nicer spreadsheet of the projects so we can understand exactly how each one is flowed and I could actually look at them as a collection of projects as opposed to Simply account numbers um and um you know with the new chart of accounts I think I don't know if I mentioned but Iz he had a slightly different approach than I had frankly I think it works fine and will work well for you uh but this um gives you a ability to look at all the projects in a year and now a project manager can sit across from Chris or public works or police in a staff meeting or whatever just walk down them what's the status where are we um so uh this this I think is a considerable uh Improvement um like I said I I don't necessarily feel real productive last week happy to answer any questions about it I think when we get to the arpa conversation it'll be a little bit more productive for you yeah any questions nope all right thanks Carter I did convince uh Miss DH to engage in an exit interview on pack with me um I have a funny feeling it's more of an interview than an exit interview yeah it'll be a nice conversation I will learn a lot and I think the community will yeah I look forward to watching it all right thanks all right so moving on to Old business we have licens renewals that we still need to get to so if you open up the folder the first file you see is 2025 CV that's common Vic so those are the licenses that we didn't vote on last week the ones that we um identified so we can start there all of these were confirmed to be paid they're all set um not sure exactly what happened but that's fine um so same process as last week if we want to go through them so I can just go through them one by one and then if there's any that you want to put to the side or ask any questions about just interrupt me so lunenberg Diner um yep common Vic these are all common vict so I'll just say the name ilno restaurant and Catering Shady Point Beach and Campground Dunkin Donuts on 451 massav Dunkin Donuts on 400 electric AV lunenberg gas and Market Dunkin Donuts on 134 lemster Shirley Road and whum gas service any issues with any of those are we good to renew is there a motion to renew move to renew all the common vitler licenses as R second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppos no motion passes unanimously all right and then we have we also have our miscellaneous licenses here as well so same thing I'll just read them out Smoke Stack roosters weekday entertainment Bedrock Bar and Grill weekday entertainment Bedrock Bar and Grill jukebox license Red Rock Bar and Grill automatic Amusement license whum gas service automatic Amusement license Baker's whum variety automatic amusements like automatic Amusement license three of them Lake View Club automatic Amusement license Lake View driving range base license American Graffiti jukebox license bad Larry's jukebox license Lake View Club jukebox license bad Larry's weekday entertainment and Ill Forno restaurant and Catering weekday entertainment any issues with any of those I have a question about what a base license even is as do I and I've asked three people it and no one seems to know that I've asked I'll pull up our policies real quick yeah I don't I don't know that this a good explanation which explains why it's $63 right it should be in 74 C just to make it rounded off to be the most obnoxious thing in the world right I knew someone was going to bring it up so that's why I didn't ask um page 83 page 83 I have all right do we want to vote on the rest of them while we consult our policies I can read it okay sure go ahead section 4.11 BAS license General operation of establishments such as bowling alley golf driving range drive-in theater Amusement Center these establishments also require licenses for daily and Sunday operation base licenses shall expire annually and fees shall be in accordance with the current fee schedule all applicants must submit a quy form with application application shall be forwarded to the building official and Board of Health for recommendation okay so it was a lack of creativity in the name of the license yeah clearly all right thank you very much Amanda for referencing that I move we renew all the licenses all the miscellaneous licenses as read by the chair second any additional discussion I have a question with that definition of base license we had that um and and I I'm sure it's up here somewhere what is what is the name of that business that came before us for that driving range and they were looking for an alcohol license as well the indoor range that's an indoor range that would that would be an automatic amus okay yeah okay did we already go through that with the alcohol this year I don't I don't recall that anyway nothing to do with this motion since as Tom just explained sure no that's a good question I I'll follow up on that one all right okay motion's been made and seconded those in favor say I I I those opposed no the motion passes unanimously yeah thank you for bringing that up um I'm trying to remember I know they were on Summer Street right yeah they're on Summer Street but but it's not in the um yeah previous week either yeah cuz we didn't do any of these miscellaneous the only one we have was American Graffiti on summer right um okay yeah I'll look into that thank you all right all right cool thank you very much artha want to just start with the fire alarms Carter uh actually what I'd like to do is there's four items I'd like to bring to your attention they're highlighted in yellow if you uh have your spreadsheet open um the first is is I'm looking to boost the amount on the uh staff payroll and it challenges and the main reason is that we still don't have a network administrator and so we have suar covering what much of what a network administrator would do for us um and we have Cara kind of coordinating a lot of that uh and souer as you can well imagine costs more per hour than a network Administration even with a full Burden rate uh the next one if we go down how much do you want to increase it by about 12,000 okay yeah what I've been doing is um uh you know as the account is in trouble I transfer some of the salary uh from the network administrator over but it's only going to carry me so far okay um the next one down and again I've highlighted this in yellow uh the DPW we did go ahead um and move those dollars to the tree removal to have that internal uh contingency that we talked about possibly needing um if we in fact use all the arpa then great we've saved 25,000 if we need it someplace else then we can uh transfer it within the operating budget and again I'm going to ask you for each of these so how much did you add to this to get the 4 um this one we added 23 okay uh because we um kept the contract uh under 50,000 from that $10 to $50,000 uh range on the 30b procurement and I realize I don't have to keep asking you because the next column says how much was previously committed I did no no that's that's okay it's okay um I think it's good for folks you know to know what what we're doing here uh the next one is the town hall Capital cost overrun uh We've applied 32,500 which would leave about a $10,000 contingency um within the capital budget itself you had 60,000 in change for the um uh for the roof uh and um by applying the arpa and doing some other things we're able to keep that to 325 we'd originally thought we might have to apply as much as 55,000 to some of these projects um but at this point we're looking at 325 but that contract has been signed uh we've met with the contractor um Chris has arranged to get the mortar tested so the mix is the the same um as what we're using now Turkey Hill fire alarm overrun I've just put question marks in there because uh frankly um until they get their bids on Friday I don't know is there you know keep your fingers crossed is does that bid come in a little bit lower and we can wash those together uh they're in FY 24 there's not a lot of wiggle room in there there is in some of the other room years but I can't move from year to year I can move within the year as I understand it but not year to year um so uh they're 6 Too Short um on the base bid and how much of a contingency would they possibly $25,000 short on the engineer that's 8 which makes 87 MH we only have have 83 left and we've got about 83 left which means um if we commit some some numbers these things that they will continue to be a little bit elastic over the next couple weeks here uh but if we set aside that 82 for potential uh this school project um I still have to figure out how to get it done CU they won't have the contract signed in time so I'm afraid Mr Lonzo I'll have to do my shell game of putting it into the school budget someplace so they can then you know move their operating money over to cover it um they are pretty comfortable they're not going to have a contractor challenge but you just you you never know MH um so my suggestion at this point is that we um leave that 80 threeyear change uh there for potentially assisting the school projects um pending what happens on Friday uh and if everything works great they might not need it if it doesn't we we've got to figure out what in fact they can do if those budget bids come in so high on Friday fire alarm was a capital project that was approved the town meeting right correct okay so if that doesn't get done they could potentially raise the money we could try to raise the money at town meeting on May I don't know why those are what I'm saying is that the fact that it came in over doesn't free up any arpa money that we had already assigned so so we could put this money potentially anywhere you have your bids now it's considered a a a safety issue for the children no I I'm I'm on the capital planning committee I want the thing to happen right I also don't you know again my same thing I came back to all the time I don't want to not have ARA money in uh well you know so we got a couple of things that could happen here Friday it is conceivable the projects could come in below estimate yep and then that Delta would be available towards this project we would assist them in closing the Gap and then whatever's left I'll pay on a truck or something okay we'll we'll do that the other possibility is a much worse picture which is that the bids come in considerably higher they can't undertake those projects at all and now they have that project money sitting there which can go towards Turkey Hill and then they can come back uh at the annual town meeting they can go back to the capital committee and say here's what happened can we get on that list for the annual town meeting of uh 2025 M um well we just finalized our list so that part that part probably not happening um but I mean that is a potential yep that might close the gap also um I just don't know until we get those bids in hand and on Friday so I'm just trying to understand what that would mean if we do allocate this money towards that and then I don't know they don't need it they have those other projects that could cover it since this is our last meeting before the end of the year what would we do in that case you would trust your town manager and then kick the hell out of him if you didn't like what he did all right I I don't know what else to say yeah no it's it's your last meeting we've still got a number of wild cards sitting out there um I think we've tried to do our very very best to ensure that you don't lose any of the dollars mhm um and we can't use these to pay back the 36 on the FEMA and the covid cares uh grants um I I guess I'm asking for the flexibility uh and your understanding um and I'll report to you when I know what happens and not likely or not a pleasant scenario we could also call a meeting I know yeah the Monday before you know on the 30th MH to just have a five-minute meeting to say hey we can allocate I i' prefer not to do that yeah if we have to we will be a zoom meeting regardless even be a zoom oh it yeah no I'm definitely tracking that um all right so you're thinking that we could apply the remainder other than those other items to that Capital project in schools instead of the if if needed and I think we recognized early on that given how many of the capital projects were turning out to be short of funds yeah uh when they weren't available within the capital budgets perhaps we would use this to backfill that that Gap I think that was approved I have no problem with that and then last the last ditch area if there's extra money is just putting to the vehicles that we've already done so that would make sense I'm okay with that yeah I am too I mean so it should then the motion if you're willing to entertain it should the motion be to for us to um delegate our authority to commit to the town manager the remaining 83,000 some change of funds and then that resolves the concern and allows him to kind of move forward as discussed and we'll pick this up in Jan January with kind of how it all ironed out I'm I'm fine I I'd rather not I'd rather not give a whole detailed list but I will be unhappy if what was chosen is not on the list we just decided yeah so yeah you can give the flexibility I think I I trust harder to I mean at this point I'm looking for the flexibility on this last 802 or 83 I am asking you to understand some of these numbers may still I don't know I had something come in 233 below budget and something come in 2500 above budget all right does anyone want to make a motion to that extent then I would make a motion that we uh entrust the last 83,000 plus dollar that remained in arpa to be committed to the interim Town manager pending opening of uh bids this Friday for the school and possible allocation to the school and otherwise to commit anything else as he sees fit as we have discussed at this board second and a report back and to report back second any additional discussion those in favor say I I I those oppose no the motion passes unanimously all right any other discussion on arpa all right well thank you again Carter I know it was a tremendous effort to get all of this under contract and all the purchases reimbursed and everything so well again I just want to say it's it's I delegate they do a great job um but thank you for the kind thoughts all right moving on seller hold 531 Reser Reservoir Road and 56 car Avenue um so last week it was my understanding that we were sort of all in agreement that we could sell 56 car Avenue and potentially hold on to 531 Reservoir Road flip flop or did I get I you're right I did get the the the wrong way my apologies other way around um Carter I believe you have some more information on this too so um I owe you a full primer on exactly what this new law is and how it's working it's going to take me a little while to write that up but in simplest terms for the decision that is facing you tonight when you get the Foreclosure if you think you want want to keep the land you must inform the property owner within 14 days so there's not a lot of time if this thing goes to foreclosure goes through the court lawyer gets it you got 14 days to notify the owner as to whether or not you want to keep it as part of that process you must have a formal appraisal done so there's an expense and there's a time uh challenge then if the appraisal comes back and let's say the appraisal comes back at let me just use a number for illustration $500,000 and the taxes penalties Interest come to $127,000 you have to to have the difference to pay to the property owner so what the lawyer is basically saying because this was the first time around with this is do you want this one to go to foreclosure now you don't ever have to take it to foreclosure you can wait until you have CPA or until you have a means of dealing with so these these properties have not been foreclosed they have not been foreclosed upon okay I think the question that I have then is first on the 56 car um I have a question about are there any approved development Plans by the planning board or zba for that property I believe the answer is yes uh and so I would like to know um that that's my only question do we have approved development plans and the reason why I asked that is if you have approved development plans and you choose in the town where to choose to not foreclose um the land value even though we may get it apprais at a certain amount becomes more valuable because you can sell the property with those approved plans um they have not expired they hav forever I don't think they've there are there are inforced plans I think that that plan had expired okay if we can just we should find out yeah confirm that I don't think we should make any decision today because it's the holidays and since we haven't foreclosed and I don't think foreclosure court is going to be rubber stamping things like presidential pardons that are coming up uh so like like candy I think we can we have time yeah we're on the same page about that all right anything else on that um there other property that you were not necessarily interested in retaining can we submit that to one to foreclosure at this point in 531 res my understanding was there was only one of the two that you might right be interested in retaining I'm fine with releasing Reservoir I did want to ask if we wanted to vote on that one tonight yes all right Renee yeah you're good with that all right is there a motion then for that I move for the uh select board to authorize forclosure uh and the sale a 531 Reservoir Road not for we don't want to foreclose right no for reservoir for Reservoir Road we do oh we do want and dispose of sell it no no that means we want to hold the Foreclosure we don't want to foreclose so you've got the 11 the motion hold on I just want to make sure I'm understanding correctly you you you got the 11 plus acre parcel that kind of sits in amongst um my understanding is that that's the one you thought you might want to that's 56 C then you've got the other one that's a couple of acres and it's got a very long pork chop leg if you goes in and I can't remember which one is which so the res we don't want to own it so therefore we don't want to foreclose it we no we have to foreclose order we want to foreclose it so you can sell it yeah the other one we're holding on to we don't want to for for close to so okay I get it all right for close for close and sell yes yes so right now they owe us the money we can foreclose so the motion would then be to for close and then eventual sell yeah all right so I'll make that motion uh I move for the select board to authorize uh uh tax totle for closure of 531 Reservoir Road and authorize the eventual sale uh of set of property second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those opposed no the motion passes unanimously only c i I still have some residuals Tony SK and brinie rant in me I mean granted about this stupid ruling I mean this is like the most ridiculous ruling ever like be delinquent on your taxes and if the town sells it you get the money anyway so wow windfall for me for not doing anything and being delinquent on taxes you know for whatever amount I'm delinquent on yeah but you get to charge them all your fees and time and nothing it's very significant pay your taxes or your property gets taken way was a lot better yeah yeah the other property was all the way back to 2007 so it's you know it's a long time to not pay yeah anything that's what I mean yeah very long time all right host Community agreement we don't have that tonight uh discussion on annual climate survey policy do we want to talk about that tonight no no all right cool same with select board and tile manager goal setting process pass over that for the new year current business we already did that one and then comparison communities for wage and other studies Carter I'll let you talk to that so um the reasoning that this is in front of you is my understanding is that uh previously the staff would determine what they thought were were comparables and they would use them and for whatever reason I am struggling to open up this bloody Drive um okay bear with me one moment it's my belief that we should present to you the communities we're going to use so that when the data comes in the discussion is about the data and not necessarily why did you use that Community or why did you use uh this community now um there's all different kinds of ways to look at this you know population uh equalized value road miles density you could create a spreadsheet that really would lead you down many many rabbit holes but how do most people decide how far uh where they want to work how far are they willing to drive that's our simpli istic approach to this uh the average in Massachusetts is 30 minutes uh out this way as you get a little bit more rural it can become 45 minutes so um Julie looked at the communities that were within 45 minutes of us um for those communities that were uh less than 5,000 people um our belief is that they don't have the same uh amount of resources as we have they don't have the work perhaps the interesting work challenges we might have so we thought that those would come off the list uh for some communities that might be within the 45 minutes but we're so considerably bigger Worcester Shrewsberry we just we just didn't think that they would be our competitors now there are three communities um that uh you know you might you might talk about well you know gardener Fitchburg lemonster different form of government um Fitchburg and lemonster considerably more um uh population but I would suggest that at below the department head level you know at the clerk in the Treasure collector's office uh at the um uh Outreach worker in the Council on Aging uh at the truck driver and DPW at the police officer level they are comparable they are our competition we have seen that too we have hadlo it's our suggestion that we do use those communities but not at the department head level at the department head level they're so much larger have such a different degree of complexity um no disrespect to any of our department heads but I don't think that you can compare our chief of police here to the chief of police in Fitchburg or lemonster let's say so we kind of think think that they're all comparable except at the department head level those three communities are not comparable uh this is it's kind of a simplistic approach like I say you could create all kinds of of comparables um and drive yourself crazy we thought this simplistic approach might work happy to talk with you about any of the communities anything that is uh you know that sort of bluish I guess uh striped is not on the list I have some thoughts um you know again this is I think another positive step forward being part of the negotiating team um when I took over for Linda carrier in 2017 when I went from the DPW over to the police department um and as well as helping Heather with the police department negotiations on the other side um this is long overdue you know we were I know you mentioned that some town some Town staff were proposing different towns but the towns essentially from the negotiating table came from came from the town side they didn't come from the unions um and we would propose different towns and it was always oh you know they make more money they have more ta well that doesn't matter to the staff what you know I went to conquered because it pays more money essentially it's a best there was a lot more that went into that um but I think this is a great start toward getting or retaining our employees we can't just look at comparable towns to lunenberg because we're not going to get or um retain our staff so thank you for doing this this initiative whether it came from Julia or from you I think it's great um and long overdue it's it's it's a team effort she was tasked with doing it we talked through lots of different approaches um and this is the end result of that that effort I'm assuming I mean there's one thing that's to me the missing and I think it's or or badly badly represented here so the fact of the tax rat so of course tax rates are absolutely positively I wish we would stop using them irrelevant to anything tax rates mean absolutely nothing it it does what we should have instead is the average tax bill because if we're going to compare ourselves to conquered we should just pack up the bags and go because we're not going to compete with what they can pay and if people can go and we have examples of people who have gone we ain't going to to pay enough to compete with conqu you know when Mr SC is talking about people like West towns like Weston passing overrides anything they want in conquer they pay in cash the people probably pay their taxes in cash you know over there and I have this I have this on good like money is not an obstacle in conqur so that to me is not a comparable town we should choose something that's within 25 plus or minus percent of what our average tax bill is for the average home and say I mean I'm just using a number it could be 30% but we can't otherwise we'd be choosing Weston and Welsley and you know I can think of some other ones it just wouldn't be fair to put them in so I think that list that tax rate should be rep replaced by average tax bill we can do that let me just suggest that there is an additional step that you can look at um in one Community we used what we called an affordability ratio we took the average family tax bill and we divided it by the median family income that's fine and that gave us an idea of how much of that median family's income assuming they owned the house and assuming it was the average bill they were paying and in that one Community we found uh that they were actually only paying around 3.6% of their income in taxes whereas everyone else we were looking at was up into the 7% right so those I mean I didn't choose something more complicated because you indicated that you could get yourself into some rat I didn't want to go into that Rat's Nest no no but obviously there are very much fairer ways to look at you are suggesting uh one very simp I'm not going to say simplistic but clear simple well but yeah right but just like 45 minutes is what I'm suggesting is that we not go down I mean there are some folks that try to figure out every single you know category no I think what you just said average tax bill for the average or the not even not the average what the median income is and doing that ratio I think is would be an important wealth Factor yeah I agree Tom but I think um I don't think it hurts to see towns like Conger well I agree we obviously cannot pay the same salary rates I don't think it hurts to look at them even if we're even if they're outliers like we know we can't compare having that additional data that you just talked about but I still don't think it hurts because the reality is they still are competitive communities regardless of whether we can obtain that that same level you know of pay or not obviously we know we can't but I don't think it hurts to look at it well yeah as a comparable I think you could look that if that were if that were the case there there would be nothing you wouldn't look at then because it would be nice to see what lots of people do uh I don't think it's competitive only because that's what the title of this is that those aren't competitive towns they compete for people but we can't compete on salary I they they compete for recruiting people and they compete for retaining people is it doesn't just have to be salary too you can look at the benefit packages because that something that when I was on the negotiating team you know you're looking at the package as a whole doesn't have to just be salary because there are things other communities like conquer do that are much less expensive to the town that we could potentially look at in our cbas or in the sap versus just salary when you're limiting it to just salary well I I didn't mean I mean when I we're using salary interchangeable with the total the whole B the total benefit package that's really what I mean and maybe we should that because most people right they their eyes glaze open maybe we should relabel as not comparison or competitive but you know labor market area towns I mean which is what that's really what we're talking about yeah I I will say though I think when you start doing that it it loses the meaning to the general public right I mean if if you for example the library trustees need to get this in order to be able to do you know their work if we started calling it you know labor something or I think comparable competitive Community is about as clear as it can be it tells everyone what we're trying to do here I don't recommend a language change just to soften the impact I I I agree with what um I'm in between the two of you I I I I but I'm a in agreement with Tom uh I think that conquer should be removed I hear what you're saying uh we' lost a staff member to conquer um we you know it is 40 something minutes away it is certainly commutable from lunenberg but we know that conquer will consistently be on the upper echelon of any comparable uh that we're doing uh I I don't know if for example when I met with the liers I mentioned this previously you know just for purposes they threw in like Nantucket um and a couple of other towns just to kind of see those outliers and how ridiculous it was compared to what we were I don't have a problem with someone throwing that in with conquered just to have an idea but to me I don't think that we should be trying to actively compete uh with conquered I don't think I I do think that we are going to need to actively compete with the cities around us when we lose staff to them I hear what you're saying Amanda but I I I just think I I I like the list overwhelmingly the one outlier to me is conquered because conquered really has appealed to the Boston Market um that you know if you're in Boston conquered could be a very appealing place to work in the Bellmont area Arlington I mean there's so many communities that are way outside of the range of Lunenburg that that conquer is comparable to and I don't think conquer is looking at Lunenburg yeah I mean I'm not I'm not specifically saying conquered when I was I I say conquered because because it's my you know it's obviously my other frame of reference that's where I work and I think they do a lot of things very well honestly aside from pay and I've brought some of those things forward but I mean yeah if you're looking town hall to town hall but Acton is right next door to conquer why is conquer different than Acton their budget and the way they pay their employees is very similar same thing you know overall regardless of whether we're moving one town or not I don't I don't care I think it's fine I just I think this is a much better approach regardless of whether we remov conquered or we don't I'm not that you know stuck on it um I'm fine with keeping conquered in if we have if we have that factor that we talked about if we have a wealth factor that shows to everybody hey we're just be aware that if you're going to point to them that I'm going to point to another factor of them too okay that's a great approach what I would suggest is that um we start with this list we'll bring uh it back with the other Factor um and then uh the board can react to that and should we get any responses from those communities the board's not comfortable with we'll simply not use them okay um and then take a formal vote because I would frankly we're behind on getting this out and I would like to get it out um given the need to prepare budget think about sap enter neg negotiations if that approach is agreeable with the board I I would go that way y yeah it's agreeable to me yep me as well okay thank you folks thank you for doing this so well again I just elate every time I thank you it's because you are here it's also implicitly thanking the team as well yeah all right I know Julie worked on this and um so with our approval I know that the library has been waiting for this so we can uh provide it to them so that way they have comparables again I sat in their meeting and I I looked at some of the towns they were looking at and I was like I think we might want to n a little bit too much yeah no this makes one thing I was going to say though about conquered you made the um point that they're in a separate Market that it you know compete it's more sort like the Boston area I was just going to say that Boston is creeping out further and further west and and I've mentioned this before but you know it's becoming incredibly relevant I'm I'm on the Committees with mass development runs devons on these committees with the housing plans I mean devans was the only community in Massachusetts that had a housing cap of how many homes you're allowed to build it just got eliminated so we are in process of planning for no less than 500 up to a th000 units to come online in the next within the next seven years wow um that is going to have a humongous impact when you think about companies like Commonwealth Fusion which is out of devans they have a th000 employees now their average salary is 13 some something, a year that's a lot of people in North Central Mass that need a place to live um and so it is going to have an impact um on us you know we already see the impact of Bristol Meers squid but there's more development so we when you have that industrial Hub that's a town away with 10,000 people working there now and high-paying jobs um it's we're going to feel it here we're going to feel it so I agree that we are going to become more we start introducing that kind of Boston money into North Central Mass we're going to feel in our town too because it comes with higher expectations and and services that you expect yeah totally for sure yeah for sure all right moving on minutes warrants action items we don't have any minutes tonight I don't believe we have any warrants either do we no no all right action items all right um I actually do have one oh yes and I sent an email um do you have a running list Carter of how many public records requests we've been receiving and how much time is being allocated staff is is is doing it just in general we have been logging the requests we have not been logging the amount of time and I think that that would be a good addition to the record that we and if you could share that with us so we could see sure um that I think that would be helpful because that seems to be an um an increasing burden on our staff and to know where that is uh would be helpful uh in some communities I've put it up on the web I've then been asked take it down um but I think the public has the right to see who's asking yeah I think the public should know that we're getting daily Freedom of Information Act request from a resident I I do I I think the public has the right to know that every single day our staff are spending time on one resident's Freedom of Information Act request every day there they're not always formal requests but there is generally at least one length communication each day M yeah so I think you know I sent an email Mar if you had a chance to I I didn't get a chance to really review it but I did skim through it and I think you're spot on yeah as do I so thank you for bringing that up Amanda all right committee reports um school committee meets tomorrow night and that's all so Town manager screening committee you heard from today so we finish that and then we those that list of three will come to this this board uh Capital planning met Monday yesterday and finalized our list sent it to the interim Town manager and that is all ranked and is available and that is that I don't have an update for the master plan steering committee um other than last week and the economic development committee is meeting on this Thursday the 19th I won't be able to be there but I will watch it and report back at next meeting um Municipal Building design committee we met last night um and we had our um we're really impressed um you know we've we've been under contract with this team now for two weeks and we went over the first um presentation of kind of a layout that they're that they proposed I will say um you know in their process certainly with the presented was was not very palatable by the committee um but what what it was was an opportunity for us to explore a lot of these options and kind of weigh into them about how we want the site to work how we want the building to operate um and so we really covered a lot of ground uh in last night but uh it's quite impressive um with the technology that that the architectural firm is using um to be able to kind of come up with these renderings the plans that they have I saw it it's really cool it is it is and uh you know being able to do it I will say additionally and I want to mention this I I I did call Steve Walker and let him know I was going to let the make the board aware of this um pack so I I I've kind of given some highlight into this previously um and and I am looking for some guidance from this board um tonight on this subject because the municipal building design committee is Created from this board the subject of pack um in the in the vision we were planning that pack was going to be accounted for in TC pasos and and anything that we do there which is not in this phase of how we're trying to move forward yet um and we assume the building had several more years in it uh and that it may be accommodated at the Turkey Hill bottom line is um the information we've received from Chris Ruth um kind of um puts a lot of concerns the deteriorating condition of TC pasos which then kind of escalates um packs um the need to accommodate pack sooner the general sentiment on the Minal building design committee is that the overwhelming public response that we received related to Pac is that the public is not interested in in and in Premier space being built uh for pack Studios um there is agreement for there to be a control room that's provided for pack um but there is not agreement on the studio space where and where are you getting this from from the committee or from from the committee okay so I met Comm doesn't believe the committee Municipal buing design committee I did meet with pack uh I expressed to them some of the concerns they provided a reduced space needs request of roughly 14 uh 25,400 sare ft um however their request is 2700 Square ft when we think about this new build I mean it is growing in size um you know but the footprint of this new building is first floor is roughly you know 3 to 4,000 square ft uh it's going to be a little bigger than I think we had initially thought going into it but we're still Within in our threshold cuz we're using high dollar estimates but the Pack building would essentially be the same footprint um of what this new town hall will be and and and I think that's not being received very well from Municipal Building design of how of the size of it um and then the cost of it um and so the architect is kind of moving forward with planning to break off it as a separate building but I want to get some guidance from this board about pack in particular um it is a bit of a pivot from where we have been we have not we did not go into this RFP we did not go into this process with pack in mind um but now pack is in mind I need guidance on how far we should be going to accommodate pack um or or should we defer to the committee's majority on this well they need a studio it's an essential service not to mention all the equipment that is in there that needs to be properly cared for in a location that's safe so when I will say that agree storage when when we talk about square footage storage capacity uh is being accounted for uh that's not a lot of square footage it's I can pull it up but it's about 2 to 300 um the capacity to edit um the software what's being called a control room that's about 300 Square ft um roughly looking through their request the core of it which the municipal building design committees in agreement with the core it's a much lower request what what is eating up a a lot of square footage is new studio space that doesn't currently exist and isn't being replicated it's new studio space it's booths for um podcasts which are kind of isolated um booths for podcasting that's that that is becomes a new feature so I guess the question is should the municipal building design accommodate some and I think some of the comments that were made from the municipal building design committee uh were that you know the meetings that are televised that the ability to get a meeting that's televised recorded produced and online the square footage need for that is only about 300 ft or 200 and and the programming the additional programs that pack does um the municipal building design opinion as expressed by several members is that the viewership is too low to Warrant that kind of money on building a new building so the guidance from the board is do we lean into pack pack believe strongly that they're going to be that they are the way that they keep the community connected they are advocating heavily to be accommodated for the this the municipal building design committee is split and we're split with a slight majority saying don't accommodate pack but we're split well I'll I'll just say like I completely disagree that the viewership is too low you know you have to keep into consideration there's also Facebook right A lot of people watch our meetings and videos on YouTube I don't have cable it's not the town meeting portion it's the additional content that every they want to do podcast yeah podcasts that's that's one thing that I could say okay maybe they need to just find a way to do podcasts in the studio that we can accommodate instead of having a separate location for that that part I didn't understand or hear initially but I did I watched the meeting and I'd be curious to hear what the actual request is versus what they really what they're doing now versus what they're requesting because it it does seem crazy that maybe that's the wrong word because I I am fully in support of them if money wasn't an issue but if we're talking about building a building that is the same size as a new town hall for needs that are that are new they seem more like wants not needs and it's not that I don't support it I do but I think that that should almost that should be a separate project that is vetted to see if the town wants to support essentially I don't even know if it's doubling but whatever it is that pack is trying to accomplish which again I support them I think that's a great lofty goal but that seems very different from what they're currently doing it seems more like a want versus a need based on what I watched in the meeting and again I had I haven't seen all their actual ask but I'm not sure that I would support a want versus a need without it going to to the people to decide that I agree for any additional space to support new services but they definitely need a studio at a bare minimum in my opinion how much space do do they have now they currently have um a little less than 2,000 square ft but it's based on the existing classroom sizes so some of these you know if you see their new space they have one classroom a thousand square feet now that's really the the up in their Studio primary space th square feet and then they're using another thousand square feet for uh some other things um but so this would be an increase but again the existing classroom sizes at TC passal are th000 square F feet so you know and is is it the best utilized space no I think a th000 square feet is being efficiently utilized and and maybe a thousand is not being efficiently utilized they've been able to pair their request down to again 1400 but should we try to accommodate that 1400 between 1400 and 2700 or do we keep it in our original plan which is to address it in the next phase of this has it ever been explored to have a shared studio with surrounding towns that's not within the municipal building design committee no but just pack has pack looked I mean because every town has their own local a question for Pac yeah I would like to hear from pack I mean I'm if that's the biggest like space need of a nice full comfy Studio maybe it makes sense to have a a regional area exact the limitations on pack is U are that they don't they they don't want to be in Brooks house they don't because it Creeks they don't want to be in this building because it Creeks um you know I think we've communicated that you can go on top of the floor to eliminate the creaking um but that's still too much of a concern and and they're not interested so it really has become a standalone site something Chris Ruth mentioned and I want to publicly say is that there is is some appeal to 925 massav um yeah and you know it's that is beyond the scope of what we are working on with Taylor and station yes yes I just was like wait what it's beyond the scope of what we're working on with Taylor and burns we can't ask them to look at that property but if they were to figure out the square footage of a building and kind of get the general layout of it within this concept and and we were to know the square footage of what's available on that property it becomes a cut and paste and so we could get some of that developed here but for a future site the problem becomes if you know we do have some sort of catastrophic failure that Chris is talking about you know at at TCP then what do we do with pack in the meantime if we're not accounting for it in the new building well then what so it's becomes a and pack specifically does not want to be in the new building they do not want to be in copy they want to be connected to they might not have to have I mean we might need a fall back maybe we have an A in a we're we're going to renovate this building right correct I hope the floors don't Creek after the renovation is done I mean I think uh you might get some creaking I would say that at where I stand is I want to hear from pack about what yep what they are currently using what they need what they want and make all those distinctions at the very floor basement level I would say they they should not get less than the space they already occupy yeah so I think that would have to be accommodated for I can invite them in if we want to talk to them yeah yeah and that would be helpful all right all right and I'd like to know if 925 would be big enough yeah we can at least explore in my opinion I don't see an issue that's a hard property to to sell I it's it's a hard yeah that's a ways out that's not a that's not a quick right none of this is well that's true guess like what what about the food pantry so the food pantry is in a part of the building that is not having the water infiltration uh that is and there's funding available to replace a portion of that roof and I think that the guidance or the the thought process from from Chris rof is that it was initially planned to be in the middle of the building and that they he would rather spend the money on the front portion of the building that is currently utilized uh instead I thought it was beyond the roof that was the issue I thought there was also heating issues it's multiple issues furn issues furnace boilers it's it's a lot of stuff I mean it's the clock is ticking no the Clock Was ticking the years ago years ago years we hit and it's about to go off again the clock was that's why to say it's outside of the scope I mean it's at a point where the urgency I think it definitely is your scope so the committee's well it 9:25 is not in our scope but oh sure but again the committee's phasing of this was that pack the town clerk storage the food pantry and all the other functions that happen in the front wing of TC pasos would not be addressed in Turkey in in town hall uh Ritter or the new town or the New Town Hall so that they would was not part of this plan that's why the ask is do we now bring pack over into this and so if the plan is to meet with them I can provide the board with the presentation that they provided to me that goes over their space needs request uh what it initially was what their parown request was there I will note that there are some factual errors on their slides um so maybe we give them the chance I like them to present it and then you canut whatever errors they make in their presentation but can for I'm saying I'm going to for it to you but there's some factual errors in the slides CU it talks about like Turkey Hill and we never talked to them about Turkey Hill we just mentioned Loosely that that was the vision well talking about this after talking about the prop two and a half structural deficit and the CPA as you know these all brought start up these are all things that are ages old ages all we just keep having the same conversation yeah and you know what it takes the town to move on these things I been doing this for a long time I still don't get it I don't know what motivates them to move on these things all right all right thank you very much and I don't have a committee report none of my committees have met this week since our last meeting upcoming meetings we will not meet until January 7th unless there's some arpa emergency that requires uh a meeting but I don't think that's going to happen fortunately uh and then January 14th for our town manager interviews and also January 15th as well public comment is there any public comment from the interim Town manager I just want to wish everyone a safe healthy and happy holiday same to you we'll get back at it after Christmas all right any public comment from the public Mr Bowen can everybody hear me okay uh it's very quiet so you'll just have to speak up a little bit okay well let me yell yep I don't like to do that too often but um I just wanted to say um I'd like to thank Ezekiel um for his work uh Mr chairman you're correct um Ezekiel has gone above and beyond considering the pay level that he's at um to be able to provide this town with a resource of skill um that we haven't seen here and um I'm quite grateful for that he has been always open to the public he's a been an avid person to be able to communicate with the public with regard to things regarding the finances of the town he returns phone calls uh he's uh an excellent excellent employee and it was an excellent uh choice for this board to be able to um uh ratify his uh his position and have him hired and I think he was hired under Heather um before um Carter came uh I'd also like to thank Mr scull brini um I'm grateful that actually he's on the school committee I'm also grateful that he's on the budget task force and Renee as well um I can't say enough about the work that you guys have been doing with regard to that but I'm going to say something that's a little bit unpopular unfortunately so Mr skull and brany um I think that you're wrong about uh Weston's plan uh as well as if you compare that to dover's plan um of how they operate and manage their town okay I think that we are quite in comparison to both of them I know we keep looking at Maynard and I think that we're looking at mayard in the wrong precept Maynard has a lot of commercial and uh uh uh places as opposed to to residential and M it is not uh a comparable town to us uh we don't uh we don't have a divided tax bracket um like mayor does okay where the corporations pay more money than the are residents so that being said um I think that Mr scull is a little bit off on the Western's plan okay and that we can't afford every year and ually a 5.5% tax increase in this town and I know that may sound unpopular and that's almost double of what the two and A2 was designed for but when 2 and A2 was designed under Reagan two and a half was designed as a benchmark it allowed for the override okay but every town was not going to be able to afford their uh their needs on 2 and a half% but minimum needs would be 2 and a half% and I think we've gotten into a mantra of 2 and a half percent is just where we have to be we have to stay within budget at 2 and a half% and that's where people's mentality are and I think that is a cause for our elected officials to sit there and say that no that is not where it's at so that tax increase of 2 and a half% for uh fixed income folks in town is going to be a problem which I end I'm fully understanding of that okay and in order to protect these folks we have done that uh where we can say that if you have an annuity and a pension and social security payments not like state or federal employees don't have Social Security payments that they can be scheduled out of having to pay uh extra tax in the portion of those people within town are so small compared to the portion of the people in town that make a minimum of an average of $125,000 a year per property owner uh this town doesn't seem to have a problem being able to afford a 5.5% increase every year so that being said um to exempt folks who are not paying into Social Security you know those folks are losing $16 to $1,800 a month in income but they're compensated for uh uh you know they're compensated for their annuity and their pension but when they pass what do their children they take their property four or five acres they sell it to a developer put six six homes on it and they collect the money and they disappear so the reality is is that sending a 5.5% tax against people is definitely not a problem and it shouldn't be a problem that would be an average of roughly about $132 additional uh per taxpayer per month to be able to one pull the state out at $10 million a year which is zill highlighted Mr B you've gone on for over three minutes do you want to at least wrap it up soon yeah sure so that $132 a month paid for for a couple of years would not only keep our $2 million of cplus money it would also keep us with the state out of our business and we would fund and finance ourselves just like Weston and Dober does they keep the state out of their business the other issue is is that the superintendent needs to exercise her you know her discretion okay on these kids on these IEPs okay she can knock these kids down to a 504 plan okay which limits the I APS she's not doing that she has that discretion as the Dey to do all right Mr Bowen I'm sorry but I'm going to cut you off I gave you about five minutes all right okay and I'm and and I'm just saying is that you need to you know cut that off to be able to limit the expense for the school because some of the kids that are on iing all right is there any public comment from the board uh no just wish everyone happy healthy holidays and happy New Year ditto doesn't say it doesn't have the holiday cheer when you say ditto but I don't want to keep saying it right here here that's probably better yes oh ho there's more coming down all right is there a motion to adjourn so moved second any additional discussion those in favor say I I I those opposed no it is 10:35 p.m. and the select board is adjourned I hope everyone has a merry Christmas happy h holidays I wish you all um a great New Year and we will see you in 2025 all right have a good night everyone