##VIDEO ID:NR3aVu8ChXg## e good evening everyone um I will hello call meeting to order at 7 pm and I will start reading the script um all right so this is our script for remotely conducted open meetings um as a preliminary matter this is Jillian parast I am the chair of the finance committee please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present present and can hear me uh members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative um Nathan yes Nathaniel yes Linda yes uh Mel yes okay um all right so that's all our members um I believe that Katie is not joining us tonight um and maybe Peter will be coming shortly thereafter um so I will go on to uh the introduction so um good evening this open meeting of the finance committee is being conducted via Zoom speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comment um the committee would uh let's do so let's see um please note that while an option for remote attendance and our participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public this meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless required by law accordingly Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you so please take care not to screen share your computer anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording this meeting is being recorded and will uh later be posted to the wabm YouTube channel for people that are not able to make the meeting tonight all the meeting materials are on board dos um for this meeting um unless I note otherwise and we will now turn to the agenda all right um yeah so I think our first topic um um before we jump in is um just to say hello and welcome to our new member I know we sort of said hello and welcome at the um joint board meeting but a warm welcome to the meeting to the to the commit thank you very much and thank you for um getting sworn in so everything is official um and there are voting privileges now so it's exciting so we are we are a full team now uh which is great um all right so um I guess as one of the welcomes to the committee um so Katie's not on tonight Katie is the vice chair um and Linda is our secretary scribe what would you would you do you have a preference for title doesn't matter uh matter doesn't matter to me clerk secretary scribe writer Down official official notetaker much appreciated I very much appreciate those skills so thank you for those um awesome and um you've I think met the rest of the committee as well so um Nathan and Nathaniel are also on the committee so um and if you have any questions about how fincom Works um I know a couple members are new to just feel free to reach out and interrupt at any time during the process sounds good okay um all right so now I'm going to officially turn to the first meeting uh topic which is talking about the joint board meeting which we had on July 30th um so that was the meeting that was between all of the various different town boards um and I think it went pretty well um but I can also open the floor up if there's any particular comments we do have some nice notes that um Linda took at the meeting um that we'll also go over as well but I think it was good to come together and talk as various boards to so we're not um siloed and we all sort of have an idea of the different things that are happening the presentation by um Doug and also the the capital planning committee the whole all of the committee was was quite nice to give us an overview of all the major capital projects um and also some of the things that I wasn't necessarily thinking about that were on my radar like the storm water and other considerations that are sort of in between Enterprise funds and other yeah please um so just um I guess just logistically so were the notes for that meeting um did we get emailed those I think there was one that was like minutes is that the same thing as um those notes yeah so there should be and um I'm gonna bring them up right now actually too um as we're talking about them um so okay gotcha so um Linda nicely shared two two different um meeting notes so I think one was from the 22nd which is one of our normal meetings um and the 30th which was the joint meeting so um we had the presentation by the capital committee and then we sort of had this nice open discussion um where we were talking about PRI setting priorities for the town um and things that are up and coming for um that the different boards and committees um see coming in the next several years um so yeah and I think um I think in the future some of the the planning and the spreadsheets that you're doing um Nathan might help a lot of these discussions I think and a lot of the boards and I wanted to let you know that they've expressed interest in in sort of this this spreadsheet and they've requested different scenarios which is sort of why I reached out to you in between meetings and said you know oh some committees were interested in XYZ so thanks for um taking the time to look over that spreadsheet and that's something we can jump into as one of our next topics too but I will stop talking and um if any other members have any comments or things you'd like to talk about in terms of the meeting please go ahead Jill have you heard about um any plans for for the next quad board meeting I have not yet so I haven't gotten any emails saying this is when we're going to schedule it I think everyone right now is focusing on the the special town meeting and making sure all the Articles get submitted by oh boy when is it I think they're due like like the week last week this week I thought it was last week August six August 6 was for the ballot the ballot okay yeah and then the I think this week is the actual articles for like um printing in the warrant uh so do do we know if anything got submitted for like the ballot that is a great question so no nothing was submitted for the ballot um the school committee did bring so my understanding is to get on the ballot it has to go to the select board and they have to vote to approve it to go on the ballot um and the school committee presented uh the bleachers one of the bleacher options um for the ballot and how they recommended to write it on there it didn't include a price it was um it was language that was recommended by the lawyers um or or Council I guess the school council um so this um this was actually it had to pass with two3 majority of the select board and it did not so it will not be included on the November ballot um so my understanding is that it can still go as an article to special town meeting um and if it is voted at special town meeting in the affirmative then within 90 days they'll have to be a um like a special ballot like a special I don't know what the right English word is but there'll be like a separate ballot Just for this question like about school bleachers or you know the override for the senior center or whatever topic it might be um and it sounded like organizing something like that would cost not a lot of money it would be somewhere around $33,000 so um it'll still be an additional cost to the town people but it's honestly less than I thought it would be um and that would cover the pole workers and the mail ballot mail and ballots too but Greg said he get me like a more concrete number but that's like a ballpark yeah and sitting on the senior center committee as a lia's on they were hoping to get on the warrant and a ballot but it's not going to happen and it was very clear from the Quad board meeting and the select board that they weren't going to uh entertain an over an an override so they're going to have to defer so how does that work exactly because that's that's what I took from the Quad board meeting as well but I thought that um the select board's position was that they did not have to schedule something within 90 days and they could like hunt it until the spring um even if it was voted for at in the special town meeting um so shouldn't that also be the case with the senior center that if there's an article and it's voted for in the affir in the affirmative that they would have to schedule something or are they not even entertaining an article right my understanding on the senior center committee is they're they're appointed by the select board so the select board would have to approve at both both things where the bleachers the school committee it's sponsored by the school committee um the senior center committee can't um like sponsor an article because they're they're just working for the select board um so what was the result of the do you know what the result of the RFI was sorry is this getting too far um I'm trying to think um I don't know that we know was gonna come out on Friday I can give you what I know about it is that there was a delay I believe that they delayed the RFI additional couple weeks maybe until this week or next week to allow ow for um they viewed a couple different places at Mill and Maine and some other places um and they wanted that additional time to be able to get those rfis in for all the places they looked at yeah so and I think that's potentially why it didn't um make it this round yeah and I can say just from I went to see a couple of the places and when you lease the lease costs look favorable but it's not like moving into an apartment some of the places we looked at had literally no floors No Ceilings no bathrooms so the fit out cost would be substantial so what they were trying to do is extend the RFI to find some place that's close to move in ready which would really reduce the the fit out costs of a of a place sorry just some a basic question from um what exactly is an RFI sorry it's a requ for information and what they wanted to do is to the senior center committee wanted to in drafting a warrant article they needed some baseline measure to know how much money do we need if we wanted to lease a property so an RFI just says here's like it was very V pretty vague like five to 7,000 square feet right five five years with some options um certain certain characteristics that they wanted and just give us information so it's not binding to the owner of the property not binding to the town but it would give the committee enough information to make a reasonable proposal at Town Meeting of what they what they would need for the budget gotcha thank you and then then once if it passed then they would have to go to a a more rigorous RFP request for proposal and that would that would start by then the town would say okay we have the money it would start start being binding on everyone okay gotcha five years seems like kind of a short amount of time for me is there a reason why the uh COA is looking at five years instead of like 25 or 30 years well it's a it's a big discussion in the senior center committee Nathan is um they looked at five years with some options to renew um and I think they're you know they're we're they're putting together a report to the select Board and they'll talk one of the big issues is which I think we'll have to look at very closely is the leas build decision um there's some people who feel that in the longterm um leasing may not be in our best interest because you're really going to be at the um in the long term you don't know what what landlords are going to do right could they sell sell the building and you know evict everyone or which happened before when Mill and Main I forget what was it before Clock Tower Place the senior center got kicked out when they um when they sold so um but but but I think as a finance committee we'll have to look very closely at that to to the lease bill and I'm I believe I'm not too sure but I I'm not sure if towns are allowed to lease for very long long periods of time I think there may be a limit to how long towns can lease real estate but I'm not too sure but I think there may be a limit is that a limit on the lease that's signed or is that a limit on leasing in general meaning like could we renew our lease indefinitely or after not yeah those are great questions I'll I'll try to research that more but I'm not sure that A Town Without a home petition can I think there's a threshold of how long you can lease um something so you can't lease in you know and I think there's I will look yeah I will look into that that's a really big difference in that equation just looking at you know leasing versus building and purchasing because the cost of that lease eventually turns into the cost of building yeah inevitably right you have a timer and that timer is looming so that's a that's a pretty big difference when it comes to the discussion and I think the the report I've read some drafts so we'll see it we'll see it very shortly um and so you can so you'll be able to see that leas build option and that's something that we'll have we'll be facing not this fall but Mo hopefully in the spring um so it's not but is it going to cause any problems that the votes will happen in the we just had the RFI um even if it's extended but the vote's not gonna happen till the spring yeah it could cause some problems because things even even the RFI from the RFI to the RFP if if it had gone we had thought October release the RFP in January or so um even in that brief time things you know what's the deal at the RFI doesn't bind anybody and you know you you don't know about the the leasing Market could get bet more favorable for the town less favorable the space that you kind of looked at thought was you know kind of suitable in terms of parking accessibility moving ready might might not be available so yeah it's not ideal um but I do actually have a question on that joint meeting I know it wasn't there and I'm halfway through it I did not realize how long it was when I started it today it's a three hour and 20 minute recording um I'm getting caught up on a lot of the issues in general but this there's these two numbers that were thrown around some email correspondents that I was reading earlier today as well 100 million and 50 million and those weren't necessarily touched on at least in the first half of the joint meeting is there any way I can get a really brief refresher or not really refresher introduction and probably helpful for you kill too to have any idea like I know the water is 100 million for drinking and that's a pretty big deal and I think it's incredibly important but I don't know anything about where that number is coming from and what exactly it's doing yeah so that's a great question we have a lot of our capital projects we have one single access to it through an account um that I can figure out how to share with you if you want to look at it online but there's a website called clear go and on this clear Go website um I'm trying to like figure out how to pull it up while we're talking but it outlines every single Capital project and every single um storm water project and that that's where those two numbers come from so I think the 100 is for all of the capital projects and the 50 was for the storm water which is different than capital and that's almost like that's almost like a wish list um like they're all necessary things but that 150 is like everything that every Department told Capital planning and like submitted to clear GL gov is like possible things that they wanted to have like funded um how flushed out are those so like for I guess maybe this will help me here for for me in my work we'll have different departments submit this kind of stuff but it's not flushed in the slightest it's absolutely just wish lists with people who don't necessarily know how to pull a budget together making up numbers of what they think and then we have our own wish list which is very flushed out but we only plan a year or two in advance because you know we're getting our funding from uh DOD and above and there's a lot of rules behind it so any idea where the level of these numbers are coming from our yeah so that's a great question so this is from last year I actually don't have access to the 25 yet but I did request it so they they break it out based on if it's a vehicle or equipment or if the capital is a roadway or if it's a building or if it's other equipment um the water and sewer stuff um is the Enterprise fund stuff but it's also captured here to give you an idea of how much that stuff can you click one of those yeah sure sorry this is like getting very heavily into my personal realm very quickly so grabing my attention yeah so this the all of them will have a description and tell you exactly where this is happening and then it'll give you an idea of how much the construction and Engineering costs are between them at least that's how this works for this one and then um there's also other tabs here which I honestly haven't explored too much but if I look on something that's say like a piece of equipment instead um it'll have the person who's requesting it so this is like a different department and then it'll say like how long it should potentially last for if it'll be you know sort of if it's new or if it'll be used and if it's a replacement or if there's like a rental instead and it gives you the idea of the potential costs and um so some of these are a little more filled out than others depending on like where it is on this dashboard but and this is something I can get people access to yeah I'd like access to that it seems that a lot of this is a generally good idea but some of it is probably very wild guesswork so good to know right uh can somebody speak to the the Enterprise funds um and like what how does an Enterprise fund work and like why are we talk why are the sewer and water projects bracketed off under that you mean why are they in this Capital plan spreadsheet I mean like literally what is an Enterprise fund so oh the Enterprise funds the water and sewer is Enterprise funds so you pay a water bill and a sewer bill and that bill should cover everything that has to do with water and sewer storm water storm drain is not in there because it's like a different thing um it's not water and sewer it's like making sure the water run offs in the street are proper or whatever I guess so it's not necessarily directly related to your ability for your house to get water and sewer so it's not in that Enterprise fund but they are potentially talking about making at a separate Enterprise fund gotta um they're also talking about making the trash an Enterprise fund which might actually be an article at this special town meeting but I'm getting ahead of myself that's our next topic just sort of um a Fallout question um just like I guess what like separates like an an Enterprise fund from like like a a normal funds if there if there is such a thing sorry yeah so there's sort of two two general buckets we usually talk about in finance uh committee there's the general fund the general fund is like your budget that covers for every everything that has to do with the town like the schools the um you know the snow and ice removal it has it it covers a lot of things like that the Enterprise fund is in our town right now is just water and sewer so anything that has to do with the water pipes or the sewer pipes should be fixed the money should come out of that fund okay and the town staff who support that should be paid from that fund does the fund sourcing come from two different uh streams then so when we're looking at the general fund yeah that's that's the you know property taxes and then when we look at the Enterprise fund that's our water sewer taxes Etc and then I guess in the F we might also have uh storm water and trash taxes in Theory Y okay in theory yep so they should be separate piles of money but they're all coming from the town's person so it's something I'm trying to think about holistically too because at the end of the day the people who live here have to pay the taxes they have to pay the water bills you know all that stuff if if they want that service so I mean my understanding is when you pay your water bill you're paying a little extra at which they budget in the water rates so they're saving money to to fix the wells do the do the you know um operations upgrades to the water system and it kind of builds so they're building they're able to save that money instead of the operating fund which after the end of the year goes away the Enterprise fund they can build up that balance over the years until they have a big project and they can draw from it so the the leftover money goes into savings account pardon they can also get grants too yeah yeah yeah specific for it yeah all right any other um questions feedback or discussion about the joint meeting all right uh I'm not hearing any since we're sort of talking about topics from that I might actually suggest that we sorry um just um super quickly um and this could be like a larger topic um but there was just like a lot of discussion about the at the Joint meeting about like the golf course and I was just sort of wondering like maybe an over broad question but like what role exactly would with the finance committee play in in that whole area um so we we don't have any sovereignty over the golf course okay um it is an asset that's that's within this town um so it is something that the town owns um and it is something that does need maintenance so this is I think why it came up as a topic because there is a roof and other improvements that could potentially um make it a more attractive place for functions I think the seniors are potentially uh working out of there right now and they're looking for potentially new places so it's um it's sort of like a town assets so I think that's why it was brought up at the meeting but it does need um some TLC so we're sort of trying to balance all the other Assets in town that also need attention right um and it was one thing that came up you know do we want to have a golf course what purpose does the golf course serve etc etc so it's not um I think the money that is generated from it is not offset all the costs right now so the town is supplementing so that was I think a topic for discussion gotcha thank you nikelle did you have any like thoughts on the golf course in particular um my honestly my my biggest question with the golf course which um Jillian just answered was like whether it was sort of a like a net revenue generator and I guess it's it's a loss making thing right now which seems pretty bad I guess yeah well except that except that I think what people we're talking about too is two parts of the golf course the land which is in conservation so it has a value that's not like golf fees and fixing the roof right but and I think that was part of why the town bought it is for to preserve the open land um and then you have the clubhouse that's a little bit of that the town also seems to own there was some discussion about where do we own the parking lot the clubhouse the land of the golf course right um yeah but right now with the building and such disrepair they really can't do events there so that they we do generate some revenue from the golf course every year we're putting into a savings account but it's not enough to even I mean it would I forget how many years it would take the building would be falling down by the time we paid for the repairs right at that rate $50,000 a year yeah my understanding is that any net goes back to the repair and maintenance of the building and the in the grounds so it's not necessarily a revenue builder for the other accounts okay all right um great so I was thinking we might um pause for the future planning topic for one minute and maybe just since we're talking about special town meeting we just jump to topic number three and just dive into special town meeting um currently so um so I did want to bring up I did also learn so I know that we talked a bit about overrides and exclusions and potential things for different articles so and I did want to bring to the attention um Linda since you acting as a as a liaison to the senior center is that um my understanding and the email that I got from Greg and from Town Council is that if we pass an article asking for an operational override that for that year whatever money so say it was like $200,000 or something we want an operational override for the senior center to rent something the subsequent years that money is not guaranteed or it's not earmarked which I thought was confusing um yeah that's my understanding Jillian is it's not earmarked but it goes into the levy limit and that each subsequent year the levy limit goes up by 2 and a half percent so it's not just like any other line item it's not guaranteed but it it it does increase the levy limit in perpetuity so if you pass an operational override that 200,000 stays and grows at two and a half% but you're right they could change it to schools fire department whatever you how much of a conc sorry I was gonna say how much of a concern is it to I mean clearly the idea is to make sure it is earmarked but the town would have a legal obligation to fill whatever term of lease was signed so whether it's earmarked or not once we get it the first time at the very least throughout to the end of that first lease term it would be a safe assumption the town would be honoring it it's just at the end of that lease is when you need to be you know yes we have an option renew but we no longer have the earmarked for that and thus the town could say no yeah I'm not sure with Nathaniel is is with government leases if you have a you didn't fund it I'm not sure if there's a way out but we I'd have we'd have to look at that in a in a government lease if you have like a non-appropriation Escape Clause um but and I think it's important to note too that after the five years it's not like that comes out of our TA the taxes it'll just be there forever yep yep can you do a negative yes you can do an underride yep so you could always in theory just you could do an under the other way once it's done and undo it quote unquote not that governments necessarily love giving back money once they have it but in theory I have never heard taxes go down but that's a lovely Theory um yeah so um so I did want to I did want to mention that so I currently only have one article draft from the CPC which I can bring up in a moment but my understanding of the potential articles that might be coming which I don't have other drafts for are amending the general fund fy2 budget so that'll reflect the state budget Revenue adjustments and that's pretty typical or routine a special town meeting is to have a an amendment article to the general fund um there is um potentially the debt exclusion funding to borrow for the bleacher facilities um so that would be sponsored by the schools um like I said that'll currently not be on the November ballot um so debt exclusions always have to be at special town meeting I think they pass by a two-third secret majority and then they also have a ballot question that will'll have to also pass um so that could potentially be if it is passed a special town meeting um we have to be after so I've invited the schools to come next time so I know Natasha is our Lea's on and she's also here tonight um so thanks for coming Natasha but um I know that we'll we'll talk more about that next time too um so I think they're they're doing the article at um the school board this week or next week so and once that's voted on we'll have more information s my audio video just decided to like it's like really slow loading can you hear me okay yeah that's why I turned mine off too so okay uh yeah thank you I just wanted to I know we've had some back and forth um the school committee is going to be um meeting Thursday and and so we'll have some some draft article language to put forth um the one thing that to is I don't know if helpful but um last week is this a good time just to give a quick update or I don't know I'm sorry yeah that would be great we're talking about the special town meeting article so yeah much appreciate yeah no also the CPC so the CPC we went to their meeting last week and they um agreed that they were well they had previously voted that they were not going to do a bond for anything so that eliminated um CPC funds towards the bleacher project but um they are poised to vote at their next meeting possibly on what kind of award they will have for the project um the challenge is I guess some members were not comfortable with uh the balance in the different Reserve funds that they have to to vote on an amount at so they talked about anything from like 150 to maybe 300,000 um so this is a quite a large um possibility of what that funding option would be um the other issue is because it's kind of getting close in the deadline for articles they wouldn't have that number um they wouldn't be able to vote before the articles are due to um to special town meeting um they would be voting at annual town meeting so it would be possible that they would approve the project and have a funding source but it would still need an allocation at annual town meeting but it would be helpful which um Mary and I convey to them to at least get some understanding of support because then we can you know communicate um you know for the public the the overall project cost because whatever whatever they provide we would be bonding we would not be needing to bond for that full amount so if we are at 750 um I'm sorry 750 seats for the bleacher project um and it's 3.3 so it would just kind of bring it down further from from there ideally okay and they're so they're talking about potentially there's they're not talking about bonding through CPC this would be more of like a one-time allocation type thing yes there's there their typical process um would yeah just awarding a fund um they have the updated information for what um they they were looking at just like the bleacher so they would be like towards the bleacher I think is instead of looking at the overall project because they would want to make sure it's you know CPC eligible um yeah expenses so I think they were looking at the the the estimates for the the bleachers themselves um to base their um award off of so I think um I'll be going to their next they meet the first and third Wednesday of every month so I'll go to their next meeting I think uh Kevin was on vacation and so they just weren't able to really get a good handle on the closing year balances and if that was really um what they could allocate further okay I had just sort of a maybe a relatively trivial question um just from the the information about the the school bleachers that you had sent out by email um earlier um there was um like a total cost that was given in May um for both the 750 and the 950 and then there was also a total cost um given in August for the 950 so I was just wondering like was there a total cost given in August for like the 750 or did it just like remain this the same um or so the 750 would um if you look at the just the difference um they have a couple of different lines for additional design costs that happened between May so um we'll get like it I think it brought down because every time we go back to ask our we have we get charge more for design so that's where um between are technically they fulfilled their contract they've been working kind of like more of an ad hoc anytime we go back to have them you know recalculate U CPC asked us you know looking at 350 seats and you know I think it was clear that the school was has no appetite of going below 750 but I think 750 is um where um folks are the most comfortable with um so I I would look at the number in May with the 750 and I imagine and this hasn't been worked out yet exactly that it would um it would include include those additional design costs that fell over okay gotcha yeah thank you because everything else was pretty much the same um the only thing that might change in the future is um escalation costs of the project so you know um the the the estimates are assuming that funding would be secured in the fall if funding gets delayed again to go back to Spring then the cost you know will go which is the same thing that happened for when we were looking at the spring last year because we went through this last year and the um the select board um because our Our Town election happens before um annual town meeting in the spring um the selectboard selectboard wanted to have the town meeting before so that you can kind of inform the public and people would have more information before they're going to the ballot so now if we're kind of waiting back to the spring again it kind of reverts back to that um backwards process a bit unless we call you know another election and what Jillian was mentioning earlier my understanding is is along those same lines where the select board um after the vote at town meeting if it passes by a 2third then the select board has another opportunity there to 90 days to call um a special town meeting and to put forward a ballot so I think the school will be hoping that maybe with a little bit more information and discussion at town meeting that that could present as an opportunity okay um as well thank you very much welcome all right um so I think we'll have um the school committee come as our Our Guest next time on the 26th um which we appreciate because I I think that's is that the first day of school that'll be a busy day right yeah yeah you mentioned about maybe the 19th doing a possible meeting but I don't know if that still yeah so that's something I need to open to the floor and ask the rest of the group here is if you want to add another meeting to our schedule next Monday um I don't know what people's schedules are like we would need at least four of us uh to be available on what date is that 19th 19th Monday yeah so if we want to try to have an ad hoc meeting there would that would that be at 7 p.m as well yes to look at we'd have an warant yeah I can do it but would we have a warrant article from the school committee do you think yes we'll be voting on it wedn on Thursday so um ideally that's what that's what we because the 26 we can we can make work but it's the first day teachers are back um at school and I know Brian um it'll be a very long day for him so we're hoping at at in the evening it has like a barbecue for some students so we're just trying to figure out what would kind of what works better for everybody and then if we need to come back at some point if there's some other outstanding questions you know still able to come back on the 26 so you know things aren't able to get resolved or someone you know we can make it work okay yeah so so what I'm sort of am I Meed no okay um so what I'm hearing is that a meeting on the 19th um is possible for the finance committee okay um so we could potentially make that uh short uh meeting focused on on this topic the special town meeting topic uh and the schools in particular so is that okay Natasha I can send that out to be posted later this week that would be that would be great okay so that's preferred over the 26 sounds good yes and I will um um I can send I mean a draft article that hasn't been voted before Thursday just so you can kind of see something so everyone you know but it it won't be voted on until Thursday so I whatever is easy I don't want to conf over complicate the situation but um if it helps to have a little bit more you know an extra day of what context might be there might be missing some like the sponsor comments might be updated or something later but just to the language of the article probably won't change much yeah I'm I I personally think as one member that that could be helpful for me just to be able to review it ahead of time um and I'll make it clear and you could like plaster the big draft letters over it if you want or I could make the watermark that that that's awesome thank you okay I'll get something over then on tomorrow and then more of a final one on on Friday because we'll meet on Thursday night so it'll be Friday aw thanks for your flexibility yeah no worries I I mean whatever thank you for thank you for your flexibility for adding for next week I appreciate it but jul Julian what's the deadline for our comments for the October town meeting because we might not have to push could we push it back the other way our comments are due on September 4th oh oh ouch okay never mind yeah so we are technically I think it's September 3rd um oh no wait I'm sorry I'm looking at my notes here it's September 2nd so um I asked we maybe like but yeah be rough can't the other way so Natasha would be they'd have a little more time to finish it yeah okay I think what may happen just in the past um so we'll have a version that the school committee votes on and in the past they've authorized me to amend because in between now and later on there might be changes you know more information people want different explanation of different things and so that's where that sponsor comment so usually the school committee would authorize me to amend it you know based on feedback um but we would want to make sure we get it voted on because I the select board um they vote on the warrant when do Julian do you have that at I do they vote on September 3D which is why I was like oh wait I think our stuff is De sooner so um yeah which means they need to get to them like that Friday before exactly yeah so if and I mean we can do what we've done in the past and if we would have to on the floor of special town meeting we would have to I don't know if we'd have to read our full recommendation but we would say at least a yes or no um and provide a print out at the at the meeting so it's ideal if we can do it where it's printed so the town's people have more ability to read it ahead of the meeting um but for some reason this year it just seems really tight and like by the time like we get the draft articles and when our comments are due and I told Greg that I was like we don't even have like two meetings I mean we we have two meetings now because we just made an ad hoc meeting but um it's pretty rough this year for special town meeting I don't know why um okay great um so will we have I guess we won't even have the final text of all of the warrant articles next week right um I'm hoping that we'll at least have all of the drafts that have been submitted because the drafts the drafts are due for submission this week okay so my understanding is that August 13 is the approximate submission deadline for the special town meeting articles um but I think it's I think it's this Friday so so like is the actual but next week at the ad hoc meeting we won't even be able to vote on any of the articles because they'll still be drafts we should be able to vote on the school one potentially because that would have been voted on by the school board yes I would say that for the school one specifically yeah once we vote on it that is our like we're submitting it there might be an edit to to clarify or if there's new information like an example if the CPC you know votes at their meeting of what that you know we might want to add some language into you know the sponsor comments or something to reflect something to help inform the public but um the ask will likely not be any different and I believe um it's 45 days for the special town meeting right Jillian that they legally by Charter have to be submitted to the select board so I I know Greg's on vacation this week um I think this is his like comfy week of when his his internal deadline I think I don't know I just have the he gave me like a bunch of dates in a list um of when things are due so it said August 13 was the approximate deadline like how long does it take um you guys kind of like usually to put all the recommendations together is that is like a is a September 2nd deadline like feasible for the committee like how long does it usually take I guess it's my question so it depends on how many articles there are and I'm a little worried because I don't know how many many articles there's going to be okay so um I have an idea that it seems like from what I'm aware of there's maybe going to be like five or six articles okay which I think might be doable um for annual Town meetings sometimes we have like 30 or 40 articles it's a lot yeah are we but it's not gonna be like that here okay can we next week have even if it's not like an official vote like a discussion indicating which way we might be leaning on so those drafts so that we can like divvy out like who's going to write the recommendation and they and we have at least an idea of whether we're recommending yes or no and then we can vote to confirm it the following week yes that would be ideal if it's possible so I'm I'm I feel like I'm a little bit at loss um right now because I only have one CPC article to present to you all tonight for consideration so that I literally forwarded I think 30 minutes before this meeting started so um it's pretty new for me too and I can pull it up to show you um if my computer is going to cooperate here so my understanding is this is the final article let's see me share so this is for the appropriations of the CPC fund so in the annual town meeting we voted on you know different Reserve funds and things like that and this is one of um the community pres preservation fund they are doing projects that will benefit the community and preserve um aspects of it so these are their Appropriations that they're recommending for this special town meeting so just these come from the real estate check that are charge um just a basic question sorry um for the reserve funds like the kind we're sort of discussing here are those like part of the general fund or are those like separate funds they are part of the general fund um so in the annual town meeting we vote to take a portion of that general fund and to put this put it in this preservation fund okay so um for some parts of it um there's different there's different pieces to this puzzle so this one this in particular is coming from a real estate S sech charge okay so like this is money that can't be that can't be used for other purposes okay um I have a very basic basic level question here so our our herview I suppose is to look at this and then let the town know what the our committee believes the town should or shouldn't do is it our job to determine if like using the $20,000 for the preservation of this water trout is that our job to determine if that's even appropriate use of their funds or do we just trust that they can do this so our our main purpose is we have to make as you know we have to vote and make re recommendations on every single article that comes forward to give the taxpayers information and to be able to make informed decisions so we're supposed to be that independent quote unquote Watchdog um it's not it's not necessarily our job to tell other committees how they should be appropriating their funds um we can certainly make comments if you think that there are other historic or open space um or other community things so I think the CPC is unique in that it will allocate These funds based on the applications that it gets right guc I don't think my question was clear then I'm not I'm not concerned about how they're using that 20,000 in the sense of I think there's something better if they said I want to put this 20,000 towards the installation of a fire hydrant I'd be fairly confident in saying that that 20,000 can't be used for the installation of fire hydrant it should come from a different source is it our job to determine that or do we trust that the money being presented here in these kinds of articles are being used appropriately does that make sense now if we notice something glaring like that I I think certainly comment on like I mean I don't yeah yeah I remember one example we had like funding from our Reserve account and it was supposed to be for emergency things and this was like you kind of knew this was coming and we I think we did approve it but it was like you really knew it's not an emergency you knew this was coming so I think we should we do have in athani oversight into the appropriateness of the expenditures okay interesting um and I guess I'll just jump ahead with a thought here when I read this at first and I don't know if this is also part of our prview but I thought that this was asking for 1.5% real estate surcharge at first and I was like that's a lot and then that doesn't equal $28,000 and I was just sitting there thinking huh none of this makes sense and then I read it more carefully and I kind of came to it so when you scroll down and it says fincom comments is that a place where like we're allowed to just add a clarification or would this be something that we would like say hey CPC we recommend you change your verbiage just slightly to say that this 1.5% search charge already exists and the funds are already there we're just trying to use the money it it would be like the former because this is AR these comments are like mailed out to all of the voters in town and it's like our statement to the people who are going to be showing up at town meeting whether they should vote for or against it okay so we can clarify that we don't necessarily tell CPC to change theirs yeah so like for the comments for like the um I I wrote comments on CPC like reserve fund stuff in the spring and like I added some clarifying information like you know we've had we've been doing this since we voted for it in like 2006 you know 10% of it has to go to this this and the other thing um yeah so it's but we can also just WR say like yes this is we we approve this is a legitimate use of these funds um it can be as like simple or complex as we want thank you but last year I remember we we read comments and they had like percentage changes that our math didn't add their math and we sent right email for and they changed their comments so I think if we if this isn't clear we could just say you know would you like to change your comments because we have plenty of time for that I mean they may or might not do it but um yeah I mean I can I can send to the chair and just say you know we we might recommend you say that in this first sentence that this comes from like an existing real estate search charge and this is only for part of that money or something yeah I just had like a a clarification question um when it says um partial State match I'm assuming that means like money that the the the state um government is giving to the town just like do we know like what proportion of like the the total that would be or no not from the text where is that phrase sorry um at the end of the first sentence of the comments by the sponsor partial State match oh okay is that is that something that like we would need to know or is that like not relevant information for us or this right so yeah that's that's a great question I think it's a little more clear at annual town meeting because in their article they talk about what they do with the 1.5% tax and how the state matches x amount of it which I don't remember off the top of my head um but like so like we as residents put in that percentage but then the state also puts in some money too but I don't know what that is off St my head so I can ask a clarifier for that if we want to know that for our comments okay is is that some I'm since I I maybe I'm not super familiar like is that something that like generally speaking like would we want to know for just like the purposes of our comments like how much the state is contributing to like a reserve F or is that something that we don't really yeah we can we can definitely ask okay gotcha thank you me I think like our our job is to like inform the public right so we think that that'd be like clarifying if like the average person in town is gonna want have that information and I think the fact that you're interested in it means that there would be interest in it that's definitely something we could put in yeah gotcha and if you're confused I'm sure someone else questions too so like if you have a question I'm sure someone else does so I think there's never a dumb question so okay gotcha thank you all right um okay if there's any other questions or comments on this article I can send um a message or a clarifier to the CPC they said they would be happy to um answer any questions we have so um if you if anyone wants any additional information about these um improvements then I'm happy to get that uh additional information so I'll ask them about the match and I'll ask them about potentially making that first sentence a little more clarified I'll just add I'm I'm watering that trough this week while someone's on vacation because it's planted by the community gardeners and it's a heavy heavy big thing and that's the cost I think of moving this is big lift to move it and they feel that um uh to sell the fire station if that Historic Landmark wasn't there was in a more permanent place it would actually help financially help the town to you know as they're disposing of that property so but anyway yeah it's got some pretty flowers in it now and been watering it for this week and next so nice and it's I mean you can't even move the thing the thing is so big and so heavy and there's about I think there's four around town of these big watering troughs I I don't know the whole history of it but there's yeah back when it was like you know horse cart like going through the center of town there one at the beginning of the way and one at the other end I think by like the bike path by the by the mill yeah and I guess there's two others I'm not sure where they are yeah all right um if there's no additional questions here I would say that I'll get those clarifiers we don't have to vote on this tonight um but this is this is the current draft of the article that I have right now so this is the only article I have a draft of right now so um if I feel like that's enough information is this the part where I would say I motion for a vote or is that out of order it's not out of order I would be comfortable voting for this now um if that's allowed and get it out of the way because it doesn't seem like an enormous big deal here and it seems that they're using the funds appropriately so and their funds exist as well they're not asking for money from start they're just moving money from a fund to purpose is my understanding yeah the tricky part is that I don't know what this article is called yet so usually you would say I motion to approve articles I don't know what numbered it um okay that's fine we can put it off I was just curious how that procedurally works but that's good information for me uh I I guess I have a question uh I because I'm looking at the town meeting um from May and at that time time I believe they had $45,000 in the historic preservation Reserve um which I think they I think they spent on the alumni Fieldhouse study um maybe they maybe they moved more into that Reserve fund and I'm just like missing it from their budgeted Reserve but like I wasn't aware they had that money like in the historic preservation Reserve fund um I mean that sounds like what you were saying they were asking Kevin for was what was their balance yeah we should probably wait and see what their balance is I mean like they have the money from their budgeted Reserve I I just like that might not be like an my vote on this I don't think would change on that is just a little nitpicky thing I want to have like I want to know the answer to I guess okay so you're you're question is how much money is remaining in these Reserve funds after these proposed transfers and if that's something that's depleted every year or if it carries over yeah okay I'm also wondering about the June 2026 date now that I'm looking at it because should it should it be June 2025 did uh because they're going forward another whole year above it mentions an extension of up to one year so I'm assuming yeah at their discretion yeah at their discretion so that would be up to one year past but now we're going into FY 26 okay would that be the end of so is that June 30th 2026 would be the end of FY 26 now we're in fy2 but maybe they need 18 months to do this would that yeah my understanding is that's why they say extension of up to one year and that's why it doesn't say June 2025 it says 2026 I'm just sort of for my own um for my own understanding when it says at the end of each of those to Appropriations when it says being returned to their funding source does that just refer to putting what's unspent in the reserve fund back into the the general fund then so if it's not spent so say they don't spend the $20,000 for moving this water trough whatever they don't spend would be returned back to the historic preservation fund okay I understand thank you T yeah okay all right so I got my questions written down here and I'll send those off to them to ask uh additional clarifiers stop sharing great [Music] um okay so that is that's that's all I got right now for articles um I would uh are there any other topics people want to talk about for special town meeting at this time all right um I'm not hearing any so I would um I would propose that we jump Back to the Future planning and scenario discussions um since Nathan made a really great spreadsheet um I don't know if you want to share it if you have permission to share it or if I need to figure out how to give you permission um you have the host has disabled participants screen sharing okay I will the host will figure this out all right I will make you a host uh don't hang the call up okay okay so here's the uh can everybody see that pretty well uh I am en biging my screen because I am old all right perfect cool so um he so Jill had sent me like uh a number of scenarios to add the model and so they're on the additional tabs this is like the blank one um this is like the basic with no changes um here is with a school budget override at the beg in for FY 26 of $800,000 um so that would be like that's the type where it gets added in it's like an ongoing expense and it gets added to like the Baseline of our uh of our taxes um so by you know FY 28 we would have have 60,000 in revenue and 57.8 in expenses compared to here where if we don't do it this is where we wind up um and it would allow our school budget if it grows as expected to go let's see here um I guess we just need this line um as is uh we're expecting the school budget to be 25.8 in FY 28 and with that [Music] override oh I'm not actually putting it under the education budget um because I have it in a general space um I'm putting into General government well I guess it would stay the same it would be 26.6 million I don't know I it would it make sense [Music] to does does that work for this future plan should I like I like the flexibility of um putting new debts under like General government expenses um the but the problem is if it's so that I can you know because then we can just plug in whatever we want here um and it gets added incorrectly uh but one drawback is it doesn't if if we know that there's like certain increases coming up and for like the school doesn't get like folded into into that yeah that's just an open open thought as I'm like working on on the spreadsheet feel like anything specific enough like that you just change it specifically for that one in yeah I think I think that makes sense because in theory those shouldn't be unless it's the you know if that's what it always then then it should be flipped where it ties in appropriately the first time and then anything that's not we specifically pull out yeah But whichever way is more common is the one that you should just have it run by default and the other one you just manually input I guess which might be more complicated you know five 10 years on when someone else is looking at this but yeah instructions get attached along the way cool all right um but uh one I mean one thing about that is if we're not building anything and then we have that you know added to the Baseline of the revenue I mean this is It's kind of just like playing with numbers but I like seeing that it gets us below 10% of our budget is budgeted towards Debt Service by uh FY 28 uh it's just kind of like a magic number that's that's stuck in my head now um the next scenario was what would happen if we did the 750 seat bleacher project um and and it had a debt issuance of 3.3 million um in in FY 26 uh I believe we it was 15-year terms is what uh CPC was talking about the quad board meeting at 3.5% interest um so that would look like this um compared to the Bas line um our our expenses are expected to be 57 million in FY 28 here here's like 57 it adds about $300,000 a year uh for debt servicing um and and it would push us from about like 10.5% of the budget going to debt servicing to 11% um a senior center lease starting in FY 27 is the next model um and Jill you you mentioned a 300,000 I'm not sure if that's really what we're looking for but that's what I I plugged in here yeah um I mean it's it's it's going to be anywhere is around 150 but then there's going to be other operational costs you got to pay electric so that's good that's not out of the ballpark Nathan yeah uh so that's like again that's like an it's an override so that gets added to the base tax revenue as well um then this one is for a DPW garage so if we don't do anything else um and I'm putting this as far out on this model as I had because I don't I don't think we're planning on doing this in the next like couple years um so assuming we started in FY 28 um and it's a 24 million doll project uh I had 3.5% interest for 30 years because I think that's what CPC mentioned at the at the quad board um that would be let's see here that would add like $1.3 million of Debt Service per year and that would push us up above 12% Debt Service and it would increase our you know the total revenue um to from like taxes and everything to like $59 million as opposed to like right now it's less than 58 million and then this is um the last Model this is if we if we uh do $800,000 for school budget override I also threw in like a $54,000 for like bleacher rentals instead of a build I guess we're already paying for that so it wouldn't actually be like an additional override but I know it's it's in there anyway um 300,000 for a senior center starting in FY 27 and then uh 24 million for the new DPW Garage in FY 28 and that's what this looks like so that'd be like um tax taxes going up to like $62 million instead of just under 58 so it's like it's a lot of expenses and it puts our debt service up above 12% it puts it near 12% so Nathan sometimes it's saying 11.5 but then like right now it says 11.5 and how did you get to the 12% I was about to ask similar question that one has 11.85 more something significantly more costs being added in it and then the DPW garage alone is oh I see because we're because we're adding more we're adding our denominator is getting bigger oh it's going to the top denominator is getting bigger yeah because we're overriding overrides make the uh Debt Service go down a little bit yeah right exactly the same speed there Linda you and I I just had like a a clarification question I guess um is there like a particular percentage um quantity of like The Debt Service that's like a hard limit um or is 10% more like is that like a Target or is that more like a limit um sorry I that's this question no I think that's a really good question uh and I was trying to figure that out from the um what was that document that got circulated last year Jill on like our Town's like uh credit like the Moody's like credit rating um yes it was a the credit reading or the bond scores so yeah did I had a lot of trouble parsing that document do you have it handy sorry you broke up are you asking if I have it handy [Music] yeah how good my search is while you look for that do we know what other Town's debt service is yeah through there's through MMA we can um or division of local Services they'll look at Debt Service in other towns does anyone know any numbers I I'd just be curious to see that I mean I know that Nathan's been using this 10% number but is a great question for nil to know is that like I mean my own personal Debt Service number is a little bit higher than 10% so you know is it do we run the town like you know you run your own personal budget is it Etc those kinds of thoughts are would be interesting to see if you know other towns are at 40 50 60% maybe 10% is not you know such a hard limit or such a hard concept to try to be at but that doesn't necessarily need to be answered right now it's just curious so the factors that could um lead to a downgrade of our uh of our like credit rating is a significant increase in Leverage to around 350% of Revenue or above um or a decline in available reserves to around 10% of Revenue or below and I I I I don't it would does anyone know what that means off hand like it would take me a minute to like try to parse that um I I heard I've heard the term leverage before in like in school I think it's um it's it's like you're well maybe I shouldn't try and answer that but it's like like like debt that you already have you're kind of like borrowing from something vaguely like that but I see if I can I mean I'm looking at the division of local services in an FY 23 general fund debt as percent of total budget for all the three 351 towns was 6.95% so going up to 12 would be more but we could um do we have chat I could post the do we have chat no we don't have chat we don't have chat okay I can't post it in the chat but if you look at Massachusetts division of local Services um and look at um oh wait that might just be Abington never mind I thought it was looking at everyone never mind that was aington so leverag is when you like um invest money that you've borrowed and you're expecting the return on the investment to be like more than what you have to pay back with what you borrow so all right I I'm gonna I want to figure out give me back that host host tools I reclaim a there it is I got it so I didn't find that document so this is um I do have a document that was prepared um by the select board by Jeff um Jeff took a bunch of towns that are um so he he went to the DLS website I think and did kind of what Lind is doing and made a spreadsheet out of it um and he figured out what our neighbors what mayard our peers in our state average for Debt Service per capita so this is a little different this isn't percentages um then mayard is here in this mustard yellow color so um so we we're higher already so this is um yeah due to the Green Meadow which hasn't really hit our fully hit the tax books yet um this is this is something that Jeff made so at for a budget subcommittee meeting back in February so this is something of his his make um going on that DLS website and um sort of making what he understood would be peers um to mayard um and this is something that has been posted uh on board docs but I can also send that if this is of interest um trying to see yeah that that that was the the main um so it's looking at the different funds so the general fund and this is looking like without um these are the expenditures so and he's sort of just trying to compare in general what what's going on but I think there was some complications potentially with the school systems that were chosen as peers there was other ways we could look at that too but right now we're just looking to understand Debt Service which should be Debt Service so but it's funny the DLS website does Express things slightly differently uh and a lot of times it's per capita instead of per like a percent um what's a um we some similar towns like I'm I'm just like poking around on the DLS website and you know conquered has a list yeah this this similar town the pier ones that he made this was some kind of list that he made up I think with he talked to someone at DLS so um he was weighing them based on population their budget all these factors in this little box here um so this is I don't think something that's offered directly on the website this is sort of a by I looked up conquer for example fway 25 it looks like their Debt Service expense is projected to be 3.79 of the total general fund budget so they do make significantly more though in taxes so the percentages might not be as applicable but it's still matters I think I see Acton um a couple year like I have FY 23 is like the most recent report on DLS and it was like just under 3% um yeah I just Googled it and it brought me to the conquer website itself so if you Google for acon you probably get the fi25 or 24 data or whatever town you put in I just skipped Els because I was clicking so many buttons and they couldn't find it for the life of me lunenberg has been above has been around 11% and is now at like 10% now being two years ago D DLS like it's not fully up to date but there's a drop down and I can just like check different towns yeah and it's also important to note if you're GNA look at DLS and mayard the way that the budget is put on DLS is slightly different than say in your spreadsheet Nathan the way that they break certain pieces of the budget is um it's slightly different from my understanding so like the line items might be combined on DLS where in our spreadsheet they might be St looks to be 6% to of Harvard is around 11% but very few towns are over 10 I mean maybe 15 or 15 towns or over 10 or over yeah and I mean I think we wanted to keep close to that number to keep our positive or good Bond rating because the higher your bond rating is the more expense you'll be if you have to bond something like bleachers or whatever we're going to bond in the future I got something here so I have a you want to share screen I can make you host again sure okay [Music] all right so here's DLS and this is sorted like every town from uh Debt Service as a percentage of budget um so of 351 towns you know it's just the top oh however many this is what is yeah what happened there and total outstanding debt is zero do they like go do they declare bankruptcy or something what happened there um but yeah there's towns with like more outstanding debt than we have but we're we'd be way up here good to know I'm also reading from our find our own Town Financial policy document and it says that the town will attempt to maintain a long-term debt schedule such that at least 50% of its outstanding principle will be paid within 10 years so that might be another metric because if we've already have Green Meadow and if we add bleachers and um DPW garage um and the Green Meadow is long so I don't think we'll have 50% of our outstanding principle within 10 years isn't Green Meadow 30 years yeah yeah so that's already we're gonna I mean this is just our policy that definitely answers my question I I'm fully team Nathan now with this 10% number so awesome great discussion I love to hear it uh and I really appreciate you taking the time to put some numbers on there so we can play around with them thanks for that Nathan yeah and I would love I mean I I guess I'm waiting on Peter I think but um I I'd love to get the more specific numbers for fy2 as soon as those are available so I can start updating this bring us into the present and Nathan were you able to add Green Meadow in I know I did so here's some um so some limitations uh this is only out like four years so in term so like principal interest when stuff is falling out of principal oh thanks Jill um so I have Debt Service here should that be Prince of H um for previous years you know they it's lists exactly how much principle was left you know see it going down over time um theoretically you can see you can see the interest that we're paying going down you can see the amount that's going to principle going up um uh I added green Meta School in here and that's why it's highlighted green because I don't have the current numbers um and it's just part part of the way this model works is it just kind of like assumes that a line item stays the same every year unless I put in a change so if I knew that they'll we'd be paying like 5% more in the principal next year year and the year after and the year after I can do that um but that doesn't really work for like paying down debts um especially if they started at different times like and that's something I want to add a whole bunch more columns and kind of like manually set the rates at and it seems like that should be available and and without that we can't really answer if we're going to be paying half of our principle in 10 years yeah uh looks like has a question I think you're muted if trying oh y sorry uh yeah I um so I don't know how this fits into anything else Jill but the I know we're getting reimbursements continually from the msba um from the Grant and I wasn't sure how those were going to be if they're going to be allocated or into a stabilization account or if those are funds that are different because it looks like I think this is part of that extra you know that difference that happened in December that they the pricing changed and I just know that I got an email in last month about a grant payment for $20 and something thousand but I don't know where that goes and if that if you had heard if that's going to be an an article to to get put into an um a stabilization account yeah I think that's a good question I was trying to get numbers for the spreadsheet just based on what like in the spreadsheet we don't capture the other grants and stuff that the school gets we just sort of capture what comes out of the general fund and what gets put to the schools so I was just trying to capture here and I don't know like Nathan said if it's going to be the final number but that number that he highlighted nicely in green is my understanding of like an estimate of what the school will cost every year but I think the first year won't be as expensive because like you said there's the sort of the building costs and stuff like that and the ramp up and then every year afterwards it'll be some set number and that was the estimate that that I had gotten so I don't know if there's like a better one that's updated but I don't think I personally as one member of the committee I don't think we were I don't Envision we would track the reimbursement we would just be interested in the costs that would come out of the general fund like okay I know it's a certain percentage all the time right well this this is that's what I'm not really clear about and um I'll I'll ask Mary just to confirm so the the payment that July 29th was $286,000 um and it says the payment for Grant payment totaling you know relating to the Green Meadow project um and it it just goes to an account I just wasn't sure if there is an account that's just like going to continue to get these reimbursements that's kind of like a holding account that is just needing to be allocated and is that funds that could be used to um offset what your you know what we might be going to debt exclusion for for some of these projects I don't know um in that case because I would say I imagine it would be an opportunity depending on how much they are continuing to come in but could it fund something on its own because they're not small amounts I mean I think whatever we get for that has to go directly towards the school I don't think we can re repurpose the funds and Nathan you have 3 million for Green Meadow that's based on 80 the 80 million that the debt exclusion the principal and interest no um that's based on I don't remember where I got that number from uh Jill did you just say that you you sent that number to me is like the the first year um that was a number that Greg had in one of his projection like his I think it was the fy2 budget draft or something that he sent around for the budget subcommittee meeting but I I don't know I don't think that's a finalized number so I think it's also good to highlight it just to see like what actually is that number yeah because number off by the gr yeah that's what I was wondering because the number got reduced in December by that you know they recalculated something or other and I that was after the debt exclusion we're get rur more yeah right so um I think that means we were going to not need a bond for the the 80 or whatever that was or so that's where I'm just trying to figure out what that picture looks like because I'm far from understanding it but that's could be a potential big chunk and bringing down whatever that the debt services for that school if we're not you know what if the bonding amount is different because of that additional reimbursement yeah that could potentially Bring Down The Debt Service it won't change any deficit we have because it's obviously all of it would be taken in and spent for the same thing so it's a net zero between revenue and expenses but it could impact The Debt Service that's a good point I just had a a super basic clarification question um and this might have been mentioned earlier I'm so sorry but just for that Debt Service as a percentage um row is that just as a percentage of like the town's total budget or or of the general fund or I guess just what exactly is the denominator there yeah so what I'm doing here is I'm taking R 226 divided by R 226 so I'm taking total the total of The Debt Service so that's all the principal and all the interest plus whatever I'm modeling here um divided by the expenditures total total expenses okay got which includes yeah which includes de service which is correct okay yes all right thank you right and I'm I'm also like hoping people can like poke a lot of holes in this because like I put this together partially as like a way of like trying to like understand how Stuff how in town Works um because I'm like new to finance committee uh since last year uh so I don't I don't know for sure that like I I think that I think this is largely cor correct but I don't think it's like precisely correct um so any I'm like I would be very excited to hear about any problems you find with it and any ways to uh fix it further um certainly this this one I say would wouldn't be a suggestion but just like another kind of a clarification for me but when we were looking at the the DLS um Debt Service percentages earlier is that like calculated in is the is the denominator that DLS had is that also like total expenses for their towns basically um or so I know noticed that um okay so so I have here in previous years theoretically this is correct theoretically this is 100% correct um for expenditures in FY 23 uh I calculated our debt service to be 7.8% and I'm looking at the uh DLS page from mayard in a separate window that what they have is for 2023 they had 7.15 but they had 7.8 in fy22 where I had it up at like 8.4 and I don't see any year where it was 8.4 according to DLS so take that I mean I think that could certainly be like you know you guys are still like you're both still like calculating it the same way but they might like come up with a different number for total expenses but those I don't know those numbers seem close enough to me that they it could probably be calc the same way so um Jill do you think you could ask I'm not even sure who to ask exactly like the town accountant maybe um for more information on I believe these are some of these it look like they've already been paid off but like any any outstanding debt that we're paying um like the interest in the principal and whether there's like a schedule going out for the next well like 30 years I guess uh in if it includes the green met school so you you want a spreadsheet just with Debt Service like the the major line item yeah like just kind of like the schedule of how like the interest and the principal is getting like paid down um because I want I want to make sure that this matches is up to it and I want to be able to like add a bunch of columns going out if we're like looking at new projects that we're going to be paying down for like you know 15 years or something so you you're requesting it for like the last five years in the future 10 years or is there some range um I kind of want to know when every debt is going to get paid down I mean like any would be helpful but like if if that's a if that's readily available I'd like to have it okay so we're calculating future projections up to FY 28 yeah like CPC knows when certain things are gonna get paid down I didn't add it into this spreadsheet but I think because I don't think it went far enough but they said that like the library was going to this this was going to be paid off in a couple years in FY 28 or 29 um that was there like one little bright happy news in the middle of their presentation um so I'd like to know when like the rest of these will be paid off as well sure all right uh do you have any other future planning topics we' like to talk about tonight regarding this spreadsheet or otherwise I don't um I just not sure if it procedurally hurts anything but I'm going have to jump off at nine um I actually have a it's my birthday and my birthday dinner will be ready soon happy birthday to spend more time here but if there's anything that procedurally might need me before 9 o'clock we might want to get to that okay um let's um let's do I'm going to take Coast back let's do voting on the minutes then all right so I have here these are the draft minutes for July 30th so we did kind of go over these a little bit before um this is the quad board meeting I think right yeah this is the quad board meeting yep so um are there any comments or questions about these or would we like to entertain a motion to approve I move to approve these minutes all right so Nathan moves to approve the minutes of July 30th as written uh I will second uh is there any further questions or discussions no all right so I will take a roll call vote you can either vote Yes you can vote no or you can vote to abstain uh all right so uh Nathan yes Nathaniel abstain Linda yes uh n yes uh I am also a yes so that's four yeses and one obain um I'm going to open the other minutes here so that was the minutes of the 30th so I'll open the minutes of the 22nd so those the minutes of the 30th have been approved um share all right so these were the minutes of the 22nd [Music] um this was where we did a the end of the year budget updates and we did the reserved um the budget transfers um so this is where we voted to approve the budget transfers as Greg um Greg and Kevin came to the meeting um to present we had a discussion about the board meeting that that we The Joint board meeting uh we talked about the spreadsheet the future planning spreadsheet um we also talked about liaison roll I move to approve the July 22nd meeting minutes say shown I second all right we got a first we got a second do we have any other discussions comments nope all right uh so I will stop sharing um so I will take a roll call vote now uh Linda yes Nathan yes Nathaniel yes Mel obain since I wasn't on the committee at the time of that meeting okay uh and I am a yes so um that is once again four yeses one obain great all right yeah so I think um the only other topics tonight are um talking about updates from chairs and other members uh and also our next meeting future planning so our next meeting will be on the 19th um and I will send out um the zoom planner with that once I get that back from Greg um and I'll post that hopefully tomorrow um the other topics tonight we did get a citizen email which I posted on our um on board dos um talking about the feedback from the Quad board meeting uh from Joshua Morris um talking about his um feelings about the meeting and some recommendations so that posted on board dos and I um believe I also circulated it um I also shared with you all planning updates we got a planning director email uh it was an update about Regional Housing Services um and we also got a quite a few memos about the water capacity and housing production updates from DPW so um that is something I wanted to draw attention to because there's been two I think at least two developments that the town has had to say I'm sorry we can't develop them because we don't have water to supply to these um proposed projects so um that's something to keep in mind as we're doing some future planning that we may have challenges getting additional Revenue into the town um through growth because we're we're having less opportunities for growth I think until we kind of address some of these infrastructure um challenges I just wanted to put that on everyone's radar we don't have to solve that problem tonight but does anyone have a quick answer to the idea if we have any timeline for projected water improvements any idea of any you know concept plans or anything anything to work or is that just far out right now it was like 2029 or like 2031 from that report right where they could Implement all like the recycling that they were going to do I my take away too was the the diversion from the quab and water basin is the most probable yeah and I know in the past we've had White's Pond as well but the challenge is getting the water from the pond into our pipes so but I think that's something that that um the DPW director is is very well aware of and is advocating not only on the local level but also the state and federal level too so that would require some some grants that that would be quite a large cost something that wouldn't be supported just by Enterprise funds okay I have other questions on this but in the interest of my timear adust them another time okay yeah and in future meetings so like after we get all our recommendations in for the STM this is I also like to invite the heads of the different departments especially if we're having questions or there are you know challenges that are coming up with certain things um and we have invited him in the past so I think there's quite a few things we could talk to him about um so that's something we can maybe do in um like September or later in the year but those um let's see if I had any other updates here um those are my main updates um we also did get um Kate Hogan did secure and confirmed that Maynard will receive $50,000 for the senior programming and operational costs in the fy2 budget so that was signed into law by the governor and the state legislature so um did want to let you know about that um we did also have an offer from a different Hogan um they offered to design from the school um is it Mary D I'm embarrassed I didn't write down her name Mar yes thank you um she did offer to use her she's um very skilled with Design Services so she offered for free if anyone in the town um Wanted uh to put together an information sheet for the voters to get the word out so um in the past the finance committee has made like a summary sheet um I don't know if we'll get to be able to do that this year for the special town meeting but um I think it's something we've done in in potentially the past for the annual town meeting where we sort of put out like a not like a report but more of like a statement saying like this is where the town is these are the potential challenges and things like that um and you know to basically to inform the voters some some statistics with graphs and things that are digestible so I did want to sort of just put that in people's brains that we might have H A Champion that can help us make something prettier and not just you know a spreadsheet table because I don't have a lot of skills but sounds like she does Jill would you be or anybody uh does anybody have like a copy of one of those from previous years that we've sent out I'd kind of like to take a look at it so that we and then like you know talk about it at a future meeting um because that sounds like something that'd be really beneficial uh to revive yeah and that's something that I was hoping to start Reviving so um I will try to find one I know if I can't find one I know Peter will be able to find one so one of us will be able to find one um I'll put that on on my list too yeah so I think that's all my updates does anyone else have any updates from any other boards or um that you're on or um liaisoning too just um speaking um of the liaison stuff um I know that that you had sent out like a spreadsheet um about all of the like liaison roles and I think like the it was the economic development committee that was marked as nun um even though I'm like pretty new that's something that I would be willing to do if like you guys would like want me or or need me to do that so I I'd be happy to to to serve in that role if that was that's a great one I did that one last year and they you really keep up to date with what's happening in the town it's very important they've got a great group of people would be a great thing all right yeah no I definit they only meet in the problem I have they only meet in person that's the that's that was my problem right um I think it's on like Thursday mornings well I think it's in they changed it to the afternoon it used to be like 7 am 8 am but it was in the afternoon but it's a great group and the the plan the head of planning is there I I every time I went I learned so much it's really would be really great if we had a representation there and I think you'd enjoy it yeah no um if I could just if you possibly get like details on exactly you know what day and time they meet but i' I'd certainly be happy to to do that um if I could get that that detail sure um let's see they meet 3: to 4:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of the month okay that I think um I'm starting like a a new job in um the the first week of September but I it's like hybrid so I could reasonably see myself doing that certainly at least until um that point and I can I I most likely would be able to so if I can be signed up by or past yeah in the past um so like for example being a liaison doesn't necessarily mean you have to go to every single meeting either it can also mean that like you sort of just send an email to the chair and to say you know if there's anything pressing that you think the fincom should know about please let me know or definitely um something like that um so and you know I'm also saying this too for the benefit of the other people on the call who are also liais on to other things like you don't have to go to every single meeting um you know if you are looking at the minutes and you're sort of keeping an idea of what might potentially be talked about or if there's something you're really pressed about you want to go and just because you're not a liaison doesn't mean that you're prohibited from going to other Town meetings right so um yeah so that's just something I wanted to throw out there so definitely but yeah that's something that at certainly at the present moment that I can I can I can do so um if there's anything you need me to do to sign up or if there's any procedure I'm able to sure I'll um I'll uh I'll update it I'll update this sprad sheeet okay great do any other members have any other topics for us this evening all right I am not hearing any we voted on all the minutes and we checked all the boxes um Linda will you be sending the minutes to the clerk or is that something I will yep and will you send the recording or I could send the recording but I don't know how to get the link to it nope I'll take care of that okay all right thank you thank you all right sounds great um all right would we like to make a motion to adjourn at 8:59 p.m. I'll make the motion to adour awesome need a second I'll second all right we got a first we got a second no further discussion I'll take roll call vote okay uh Linda yes uh Nathan yes Nathaniel yep h n yes I am also a yes thank you everyone for coming tonight and I'll send around the agenda for next Monday thank you bye bye bye