I am going to call the meeting of the mayard uh town of finance committee to order at 7:01 p.m um so as a preliminary matter this is Julian past I am the chair of the committee please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me Members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative Linda yes Nathan yes Katie yes Peter yes Pia can you hear us okay T all right maybe some technical difficulties all right so I'll go through um so we also have um some special guests tonight as well um so we have some special guests from the aset schools um so I know Ernest is here uh tonight to talk with us so can you hear us okay tonight yes I can excellent thank you for coming um and then I see we also have some other guests tonight are they would you like to introduce them as well or sure um we have our your our esteemed colleague from uh Main er uh who's been serving on the school committee uh District school committee Pam rener who's the mayard representative uh we also have our director of business operations Maria Silva joining us as well excellent thank you so much everyone for coming we really appreciate having the opportunity to talk with you tonight um so I'm going to go through and finish reading this uh remote meeting script and then we'll jump into our agenda so um this um this open meeting of the finance committee is being conducted via Zoom speakers in the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comment um the committee um uh the committee um please note that while this option is being provided for remote attendance and our participation as a courtesy to the public the meeting hearing will not be suspended um or terminated if techn olcal problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless otherwise 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 you broadcast may be captured by this recording this meeting is currently being recorded and it will be later posted to the wavm YouTube channel for people who are unable to attend the meeting in person um for meeting materials you can find all of our supported uh documents on boarddocs um and that is linked through the town website under the finance committee uh web page um we recommend that you follow along on the agenda as posted on board docs unless I note otherwise um we are now turning to the first item on the agenda before I do please permit me to cover some ground rules for Effective and clear conduct of our business and to assure accurate meeting minutes uh I will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they conclude the remarks we can take feedback on questions from Members um please remember to mute your computer when you are not speaking and please speak in a clear way that helps generate accurate minutes um and that that is the script so thanks for bearing with me through it um I feel like I should make a recording so I have to read it every week but that's okay um so I think uh our first item on the agenda of course is talking to you all about the budget um and also um we'd like to learn a little bit about the article that's being proposed as well at the annual town meeting um and if you would like I can give you the permission uh on Zoom to be able to share your screen or I can pull up the slides that you've shared whatever you prefer yeah share screen would be great I have it all queued up all right so I will allow you to do that it should show up on the bottom of your screen now excellent how's that look can you see the front of our budget plan so say as budget plan okay let me just uh I'm just going to make my make your folks Windows a little bit bigger so I can put you on the other side so I can see it okay well good evening and welcome uh well I should say good evening and thank you uh once again it's a privilege to uh come before you um for the main finance committee as well as uh the community of mayard uh we thank you for your continued support of asbet over the past 50 years yes we're celebrating our 50th Anniversary this year uh as I mentioned Pam reneger has been serving as your school committee representative uh for the past number of years and has done an outstanding job uh representing the town of uh mayard um in developing our budget uh and over the past several years with the finance committee we have talked about some uh challenges that have been happening and occurring over the past couple years and part of that challenge is the reduction of the amount of the amount of aod District students that aset has been taking um what that means is that we have a greater interest in aset uh from our IND District communities uh in FY 24 this current school year we have zero AO District students in our building we're filled completely in the freshman class with all in District students so that's um a direct correlation to what you've seen happening with the budget uh and we'll kind of talk about that as we go just as a quick snapshot uh a total number of students for mayard as of the October 1st uh numbers that's when we basically set our enrollment number and our any calculation for state aid is based on that October 1 number each year we have 65 students as of October uh one that's a decrease of three students from mayard and the assessment that we originally had given back in December uh was a 1,395 961 uh estimate the assessment that we're going to present to you tonight is actually 7 $ 6,748 less uh so the assessment you'll see is a 1, [Music] 39,239 but we'll kind of roll through the uh slides and if you folks have um any questions just stop me Midstream and we'll go ahead and answer those questions on the Fly U the other thing that we've always shared and it generally was generated by Mr stone that was used to be on the finance committee he always wanted to know what the breakdown of our freshman and whether or not they got their first or second choice and I'm happy to tell you that uh two students of the the 17 that you had listed only two got their second choice the remainder of them got their first choice so it's always a high percentage for those folks getting into uh Fields they're asking for um this is basically the superintendent's welcome it's a letter that's in our larger budget book um you f i don't know if you folks can see this but this is going to be oh I Disappeared let's see we'll try that again well you can't really see it because of the way my thing is but when we come to town mayard meeting we have a budget book that has some more graphs and some more information about our programs um in this presentation it just kind of gets right down to the nuts and bolts but basically our fy2 budget is an 8 and a half% increase over FY 24 uh you'll see that it reflects the cost of living adjustments and required obligations and it's a 2,137 1140 increase and we can explain on the next page how that rolls out um we have two positions that are Grant funded that were part of Essa that are being brought back into the operational budget and we do have three additional Staffing positions that we're looking to add in this budget uh we're in the we're going to be moving into the fifth and final year of our transportation contract with a budgeted increase of 2.8% um and the one thing I can tell you is with Harvard Pilgrim healthc care uh we haven't settled on a a percentage increase yet but basically what we're seeing is that it's at at a 10% or higher um we're hoping over the next couple of weeks we'll have a a concrete number on healthare um I will share that the uh costs for health care for our folks in the dist District anyone hired prior to July 1 2019 it's a 7525 split and anyone hired after that date it is a 7030 split so uh there's more of a um cost share on the employee uh we are in the third we're going to be moving in FY 25 into the third and final year of a three-year teacher contract uh so we we will be opening negotiations next year to move into fy20 six but it wouldn't affect this year's budget um the last thing obviously is we have a stabilization fund that we're looking to create uh and we can kind of get into that in the last page um but there is an allocation of $250,000 for Capital Improvement expenditures uh as we decrease our reliability in out of District tuition and uh potential Grant fund funds uh any questions so far okay I'm going to move right along so on the next page um these are the fast facts so overall we've had 48 additional students in District um as I mentioned mayard you went down by three students so this isn't reflected um to you but what it shows is it gives us an increase in our Chapter 70 funding um it has increased the minimum local contribution in some communities um and then the regional transportation rate um when the Regional Schools were built they had made somewhat of a promise to to fund 100% of a regional transportation reimbursement but they have two words after that statement that says if appropriated by the state legislature it has never been at 100% this year and this year alone it's been at 95% which is the highest it's ever been it's been as low as 60 uh and in the governor's numbers that she came out with was about 80 % so we're actually seeing a decrease of $6,196 for our transportation reimbursement rate uh which any funds that that's reduced those funds or that assessment gets bored by Our member communities so we're seeing an increase in our budget of a 1.8 million you know 1.88 5447 just in our state uh Aid and funding and what's required from that uh minimum local contribution um and if you remember the figure I just shared with you on the previous page it was a 2.1 so it's really refective of that $250,000 that's really the only difference um that you know is beyond what the state is requiring us to have these are the topics that we're going to kind of cover in here just real quickly um our budget drivers we've seen an increase of our multilanguage language Learners it's used to be elel learners English language Learners Ells and now desie has gone with mlls uh and student with disabilities we've seen our percentage of students requiring special education services decrease however the number of services that they're requiring has increased for those uh lesser amount of students um with assabet uh it's maintaining appropriate class sizes in co-taught ratios we are a full inclusion school so um even though we have a very high special education rate of 24% in our population um in our academic classes there are co-taught classes so you have an academic or a core teacher in that class and you would have a special education teacher in there as well in the vocational of the technical programs the percentage of students in those programs that requiring special uh Education Services could be as high as 60 or 70% because we do not discriminate as to whether or not the student student gets into a CTE program based on their educational needs um we have uh as you know as we're running a Korean technical school um inflation of consumables or cost of materials uh has an impact on the budget I can share with you if anybody's doing any building and you're looking to buy sheetrock it's going to be increasing within uh by 20% in the next couple of weeks based on the what the supplier has shared with us so if you need to go get cheet rock it might be beneficial so go get it rather quickly um as I mentioned this budget meets all contractual obligations and mo moves Us close to Staffing levels and service levels based on student needs prior to covid uh and the capital Improvement funds as we rely on out of District tuition as we rely Less on aod District tuition so our staffing adjustments as I mentioned these are three new positions uh a par professional in special education an athletic trainer and the elective instructor is going to be either uh fad health teacher or potentially art teacher depending upon um how the program of studies and what courses students select so this is the elective teacher probably won't be determined until the May June time frame um but it is built into this budget here are the enrollment changes across the district uh you can see manard is the fourth one down starting from the left to the right as you read um you you can see that Grade 9 17 grade 10 13 20 15 so on so forth for a a total budget of 65 students last year it was 68 as of October 1 2022 um so you can see that there's a difference of minus three students you do not happen to have any postsecondary but I will point out to the bottom leftand First Column under grade nine you'll see the four zeros there that's the indication that we have no a district students that are coming into um the district for uh grade nine into the FY 25 so sure sorry can I just ask a question on that for one second certainly um just to understand is that is the no outof District students driven by a lack of availability or a lack of Interest or so actually we have we have an abundance of interest in asbet in in 2015 when I started our IND District applications only numbered about 167 currently uh last year we haven't got the final numbers for this year the numbers so far for in District they've generally run about 453 applications in District and about 157 out of District so we have about 600 applications for 300 spots obviously 300 spots if we have that interest in our our IND District in Our member communities we have to take those IND District member Community students first based on the regional agreement um and then anybody after that 300 basically are put on a wait list uh with the chance of potential hope that they would get in if any of those spots were to open so yeah we have an abundance of uh uh interest from in District yep can I ask to followup do you allocate the number of slots per town so does Mayor get a certain number of slot spots or how do you allocate the 300 spots so in the regional agreement there is no allocation of spots for member communities um when asit decided to take Equity into the lens of folks getting into the admissions process to make sure that all students have the opportunity to apply and get into as ofit uh what we did was because there was no allocation and because we were fearful that our larger communities of malor and Hudson would potentially swallow up all of the spots um we created a based it was actually based on the renovation project we took the three years prior enrollment of the each community and we got an average so basically what we have is a minimum number of spots for the communities so that way we know all all communities have a number of spots to have kids to get in students to get in um but that they couldn't be swallowed up by our largest two communities and it changes each year based on the enrollment of the past we look at the past three years so if Maynards goes up then your the number of minimum spots would increase if somewhat it goes down it may it may decrease by a couple students but there was always availability for member communities and then if we don't fill them in the first uh pull I mean this year we have you know this 305 so you'll see there's no AO District um so we don't have any general type um process for that but it's all pulled by the communities when we meet that minimum quot and then that's how the slots are allocated okay thank you any other questions on that or okay moving along so our statutory method of assessment is the uh we use the stat atory method of assessment which basically is the minimum local contribution and then on top of that it's the above minimum contribution as required which includes uh Transportation Capital Debt Service other Capital costs um and any other costs that are required in net School spending and we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go um what is um sorry that's okay sorry can I ask I pardon um sorry I just want to suggest your framing for this um particularly um I was looking at the assessments and the enrollment and the price per student from town to town varies quite a bit um and mayard seems to be on the more expensive side of that so as we talk about this can you keep that in mind that that's something I'm going to want to come back to Y um and just you know it's an explanation of why you know malbro is like 10K and mayor's paying 15 or 16k yep I'm gonna I'll get into it when we get into the following slides yep so basically the the uh mlc is your is the aggregate wealth model it's based on your community uh it's it is a uh formula that the state puts out and if we were all sitting in a room it would probably and it was on an Excel spreadsheet it would probably wrap around the room three or four times uh again this is beyond what as of it this is what the state deals and sends to us as well as uh you know the Chapter 70 Foundation formula of what we're going to be getting from the state um and basically the aggregate wealth is based on your 50% property wealth and 50% local income wealth so as you know as each communities differ that plays a major role into what your minimum local contribution looks like and I'll share that on the next couple of slides uh again the governor's budget was released in January 20 uh 25th of 2024 uh and then there's some things that you could potentially click on if you wanted to get more in depth um this is aset Valley's um Chapter 70 summary so each school district has this available that uh communities could look at mayard has one as well that you could pull up it will show you what FY 24 to 25 is it gives you all of the almost like a tax form on the Le hand side of that document so you can see the breakdown I generally stick to the right side because it's a comparison of 24 and 25 so as a whole for aset as I mentioned our enrollment increased by 48 students it was 971 students in FY 24 and then A9 So based on that the foundation budget went up 1.8 N1 uh 1, 89158 uh the required District C contribution which is basically um what our communities are paying right that went up as well uh the chapter 78 we're getting 9,832 n968 from the from the state uh and then our required net School spending every school is has a requirement um based on their community of what they're supposed to be spending to educate each par particular student that's the net School spending so for as ofit we're at Foundation which is 100% our budget tends to be 100 or 101% I have a slide which will show you and it's it's it's actually right here um and I haven't given gotten an updated slide yet but if you look so the past couple of years because we had been budgeting um so close we were actually below net School spending now desie will allow you to do that but then the next following two years you need to to catch up so in FY 24 we actually had to spend a little bit more in order to meet that 100% net School spending which is not born by the towns but if I look at mayard which is the fourth one down you can see that they're required for FY 23 they were required to spend 100 they were required 163.5 per of net School spending however what was spent for mayard was 185. one% so you folks were 22% above what desie is requiring you to spend on education which is a great thing it's a fabulous thing to happen that you're investing educational dollars the only point I would make there is that asit always at the very bare minimum and that has been because we've had the ability to utilize out of District tuition money however that is going away as our a district kids are no longer being enrolled in the district so I just want to give that to a heads up for the finance committee that you're going to start to see us above that 100 101 you know per net School spending so question okay the numbers I'm sorry this is Peter I'm jumping in sorry if people are trying to but okay um the numbers you're presenting here are for mayard public schools not that's not the technical school right that's that's Mard public school all of our communities are on the top as down other vocational schools yep go back one screen sure um so the reference to Foundation budget of the 23323 yeah um are you saying that that state requires you to spend that the the required net School spending y the 23, 323,000 is the net School spending that we're required to spend and then we have the above minimum assessment that's also required which is transportation Capital debt things of that nature y so if you looked at mayard or any school district they would have the same uh layout on the department of Ed but wait so I'm sorry I may not be being clear and I really want to be crystal clear on this you're saying the state won't allow us to spend less than the 23 323 correct and I'll show you an example of that when and that just happens to align with I mean you talk about your budget drivers you're adding two positions that were Grant funded into the operating budget yeah and so so here's the interesting thing that we do state requirement leaves room for that yeah so here's here's the thing that we do at asbit that may not be done by other communities or other school districts we look at what our operational revenue is going to be and then we build the budget to that we don't build this fictitious budget that's above and beyond and then trying to fit the revenue to that so we we actually look and see and estimate what the revenue that we're going to be taking in and then we build the budget reverse engineer it so to speak to meet what the state requirement is okay and so you know if we were to do less than that like say let's say mayard you know or Our Town said hey we're not going to support this budget we're going to vote it down I'm going to actually show you that the only thing that that Maynard would save if you didn't V vote this budget was $15,000 and I'll show you that in in a slide coming out which is the capital fund which is the 250,000 yeah your share of the 250,000 capital Y okay so we it may become clearer as we move along any other questions and I'll just I'll go stop at this slide because this is the next one so this this is basically your minimum local contribution this is directly from the Department uh from the state we just put it in a cleaner version to look at if you look at mayard fourth one down 68 and 24 65 and 25 minus 3 your FY 24 contribution was 1, 12253 to your FY 25 contribution is 1,624 59 and it's an increase of 39,00 927 now I know you're probably thinking how potentially can that be because we lost three students enrollment is not the only thing directly tied to this uh chart that you're seeing this is what's part of the aggregate wealth model so whether you've had either the the median the wealth the median uh income wage income went up in mayard or you had some businesses that came into town that cost you know property and stuff that went up that was more fa able that all comes into play um with the minimum local contribution so this is again this is directly from the state this isn't something that asbit does we basically plug and play these numbers we look at them when they're uh released we copy them we paste them and put them in this chart and that's where they are um and if you look you know for example I was just in uh self bro uh and I know it's not your community but they had an addition addition three students and it was an additional $73,000 right and as Peter mentioned that malro it seems like they're cost per pupil is really low it's because of the number of students they have they have 565 students and as you can see for 55 more students you know they're on this they got 827,000 more that they got to pay and if you were to you know do the math on that it just doesn't it wouldn't equal up to yours why you're getting a $39,000 hit or addition when you're getting minus three students it's just based on the aggregate wealth model uh and how it runs through the foundation formula so um that's the difference on minimal local contribution and this slide actually which I've been calling the money slide kind of brings all of the things together to look at in a snapshot so you'll see mayard forth from the from the left right in the middle of the column there towards Foundation that should that's the 1,00 1,624 59 the net busing if you look far to the right the 58326 that's the difference of a contract that we have with the busing company minus what we're getting from the state which is 760,000 is a 58326 uh balance that then gets split amongst our seven communities and because mayard is is got 6.4 of the enrollment share their cost for busing is 37,2 7 the opep trust in the past we were doing 35,000 last year we went to 50,000 this year we decided to go to 75 because in order to meet a $21 million um uh liability we'll never get there at 35,000 so we've been slowly bumping it up 25 uh that's at 75 so Mage share of that is the 4,784 and the capital Improvement fund is that 250 um that's 15,942 that's mayard share and I'll come back to that uh the long-term set Debt Service that you see 198 816 that is Maynard's share of the renovation project that was approved in 2013 at the time it was a three-year rolling average and whatever that percentage was for the debt service schedule SCH remains for the the 30 years of the project and I have a slide that will show that so basically in the blue the first two in the yellow and in the gray right are the things that the state says that you're required to pay as part of net School spending the 15,942 is the only component of that uh number that potentially you wouldn't have to pay um in your assessment but the total assessment includes including that 15947 947 is 1,319 2113 um so that would be the total assessment for Maynard uh for f25 1, 319 213 anybody have questions on this page and why is our our proportion of the long-term Debt Service seems high higher than the others is it they all set on the same formula so it's all Bas proportional and actually I can come back to that slide but let me go into the next couple and it will explain it for you completely so in FY 25 um the principal and interest on the capital debt assessment that's for the renovation project um we borrowed 27 million in fy16 the project actually came in at 29 million the district took the additional 2 million and paid that off through a ban that was paid off last December so we have $1.1 million payment in principal in an interest of 65787 which is a reduction every year of 55,000 um and that's based on a three-year enrollment average so uh that gets paid twice a year let me just find my mouse here I lost it all right so the debt assessment at the time the project was approved Maynard's percentage was 11.31% that was the three-year average in 2013 that you had for enrollment so that's the percentage that stays for the life of the debt assessment over the life of the of the debt for the renovation project so you can see the other folks at that snapshot in time may have had lower enrollment numbers at the time so they will remain regardless if they go up or down they'll always be at that percentage uh if I go to the next slide you can actually see where mayard is again uh one two three four from the right um and you'll see that it gives you all the way to 2042 as to what your percentage for the debt Ser service payment is going to be and we're on year nine of that Debt Service payment and again I wasn't here in 20133 when this all took place I think though at least the administration was thoughtful that in doing it in the manner in which they did um they allowed communities to be able to budget obviously if your enrollment dips below what you had for three-year average here it's not always a positive thing but it also beats inflationary type percentages right that could have you through the roof um if they had not done this process this way so either you look like you have a question sorry I have a couple um and I'm sorry I don't mean to be riding this but this is a hey it's should it's your role different than it's been other years so um if you could go back a couple of slides just as a quick question the enrollment showed two people as out of District in Maynard can you just exp or school choice in mayard oh okay what that is I didn't actually see that but so what happens is um as ofet itself not participate in school choice however if we have a student that's enrolled here that for whatever their personal reasons U may have to deal with a situation involving DCF or homelessness or some type of placement um which is would Beyond which would be beyond the scope of what aset controls if a student is in DCF care DCF has the ability to place that student wherever that student is now being um housed okay so there could have been a student that originally was in mayard that was coming to asbet and then all a sudden for some reason that student was put into DCF care or some type of care uh and then the state was involved the state then found housing for that student somewhere let's just say habil Mass right right if that student is now housed in hail and was at a vocational school in malor that student would then be placed at the at the Vocational School in hail which is Whittier and then ask of it um and and then what happens is it's still counted on your foundation because that was the original residence where the student was that's their primary Resident was Maynard the state then says okay because you're in um hail that we're shifting school choice funds to hail to help educate that student so it's just the way in reporting but it is technically still a maiden resident that's there is the student attending school at aset or in hail so the student the student was originally attending school here at as but then during the course you know of their time here at asbet may have been placed into State custody or care and at that point based on the situation may have been moved out of the area and moved to wherever there was a residential bed available and If if it happens to be in hail in Boston Dorchester uh greater New Bedford we don't have control that's the state wherever they have a bet available that's where they put the student and then their next priority besides having them reside somewhere is to get them into an educational setting okay comparable to where they were so they're probably at Whittier they're they were an but now that's just an that's just an example I I I know couldn't tell you exactly where and it wouldn't really matter where the two students in Mard do a lot of the times it's it's almost a puzzle for us because the communication isn't always there and then they show up in the on the these numbers that the state gives us and then we have to go backwards and then meet with folks to find out exactly what happened so we we know there is a situation with the student but we're not always told as to where the student lands okay y any other question I got to sorry a couple more but uh uh on the issue of what we could theoretically cut from the budget um you outlined the capital fund but we could also cut the 75k OPB back to 35k or nope nope that's no those are all required by no the any whatever the op is that's what's required by the state if the district is saying hey we've upu the OPB there's no way to cut that cost back to 35 um it's rely the 15,942 that you would be looking at would be the only savings if you would to not vote the budget at town meeting but I'm sorry why cannot the why is the state requiring the district to do 75 or what's the deal with that yeah well no the state's not requiring but basically what happens is when the district is in order to try and meet the OPB liability right we're trying to get to a point where you know we can make some type of Headway I think our trust fund right now has $545,000 towards the OPB $21 million liability um obviously we're not we're not there we're not there for 25 or 50 years um not and won't be the time I'm still here that we'll get the OPB liability uh but but the OPB piece itself basically what the school district um uh votes on a little bit different I think probably than the municipalities whatever that figure is that's what the this what the towns are uh responsible for okay yep um and then I'm sorry I want to delve go back a little bit to the cost per student sure um and you know I vaguely get the you know wealth calculation that you're talking about but um to put a finer point on it you're saying or I'm saying and tell me if I'm wrong so manard pays more per student because it's a wealthier community that's yeah that's defined by whatever state this thing whatever state that's part of the uh yep part of the calculation yep y but I'm sorry that's really all the calculation right or well well that's part of it the number of students you have and then whatever the Chapter 70 Foundation money right those are all things that play into that total figure espe and and the above assessment right so all those things tie into that figure into your when you're looking at enrollment costs um you know you're you're paying for students to be Bust from mayor to aset so that additional cost of 37,2 7 um of that 583 296 which is the difference of our contract from what the state is actually allocating to us we haven't got the slide yet but it's above yeah no I'm not I'm sorry I'm not including the above minimum stuff I'm just saying based on that minimum local contribution yep and the chap Foundation which is the state Foundation money that they give us those are the two things that would tie into um I mean if you're trying to go cost per pupil it would be all inclusive of all all of the total amount right stuff is small but yeah just for other members of the committee then um so Malboro pays $1,913 again just based on that minimum the blue section of this slide mayor's at 16300 um there are towns higher North borrow and South borrow South borrow is 185 North bror is 18 uh just to give other members an idea of where we fall um okay thank you yeah good to move on okay so here's the it's okay here's the revenue plan as I mentioned this is how we build our budget uh and basically the numbers are just kind of re um reestablished uh from the section we just went through you'll see under fy2 that's the 9,832 968 that that's the aid from the state Chapter 70 uh you'll see Maynard's portion there of the 1,624 59 with that increase of 39,9 127 each of the seven communities are listed there uh we are applying 450,000 of excess and deficiency as part of this Revenue plan that's the end uh basically that schools have the ability to keep up to 5% of their total budget in a budget year to help offset costs into the next fiscal year so so for FY 25 we're allocating 450,000 um the interest income um it's 150,000 so we've increased that by 50,000 the Medicaid reimbursement is based on Medicaid reimbursement that we can build back for services that students need um and obviously that's not a guarantee it depends on the students that are in the building and what services they are receiving in order to get Medicaid reimbursement so we decreased that by 5,000 so the 675,000 total that we're applying to the asit district um as from the asit district towards Revenue plan the Regional School transportation has the seven 760,50 that I mentioned um reduction from last year um so then the difference of that 583 was what um gets cost aside to the towns that's where those additional costs are mayor 25675 and then our overall balance of the budget is 27 m425 514 which is an 8 and a half% now one of the things that I can share is that I mentioned that we're relying Less on autod District tuition last year or this current year we've applied 2.5 million of AIT District tuition obviously with having no AIT District kids coming in this year that number has been decreasing each over the past number of years and if you were to go back and look at presentations at one point when I started aset it was applying about $5.5 million of out of District tuition and the reason we were able to do that and your assessments were so low is because there were less students that were from in District uh in aset at one point in time 30 3% of the student population at assabet was outed District students so what does that mean for you folks that means your assessment was potentially 33% less because you had you know our our total overall out of uh in District population was just less by 33% so as we're moving out and taking in less out of District tuition we're decreasing that so from FY 24 to 25 we've red reduced it by 800,000 uh to a 1.7 million uh dollars that we'll be applying so 1.5 of it is going to health insurance and 200,000 to electricity and I can um kind of share a little bit more with you here so you can see that so you can see in the insurance of active employees and retirees right they're rather low for our district size so that's where the 1.5 will be um 200,000 comes out of the the operational and is is part of the operational in maintenance um but you'll see that's had a significant increase part of that is the 250 in capital Improvement uh and then the other uh part of that increase is for a uh phone system uh we have a phone system and we have a camera safety system that both need to be updated uh so we're looking to do that part of operational and maintenance uh the other piece that's a large jump of these uh C categories is in the 2000 series under function you'll see that the there's a quite a large jump but that includes the three additional positions it also includes steps and levels for our teachers uh as well as the cost of living adjustments across the board for all uh employees in the district okay those are the two main real categories um that have the largest increases there questions on that slide okay so question any other questions on the budget we kind of move to St sorry that's okay yes no can we stay on this for a little bit sure um so the expenses covered by aod District tuition I'm sorry you saying that for FY 24 the total outed District tuition we received was 2.5 million in 24 yeah no that's the amount that's the amount that we applied to um the FY 24 budget generally sorry where's the so generally what happens without a district tuition um students pay uh it's a it's a rate set by the commissioner okay and the in gen this year I think it's 18,000 and some change um students do not have busing that's included in that and we do not include special education services in that figure so we collect the money it's twice a year um the communities that send their students here have to set up their own transportation and they're responsible to pay that um we've applied um 2.5 million of the total intake of out of District tuition um into the fy2 24 budget and then for FY 25 it's 1.7 million where's the rest of the AED District tuition go yeah so the rest of the AED District tuition stays in a revolving account that's an out of District account um and basically for contingency uh and just like Maynard um in order to operate the school you know we only get paid twice a year but in order to operate the school starting in September you know we don't bill out until November so the money that's in the out out of District uh tuition account helps operate the school until we get funding to basically replace it okay yeah um what is the total I FY 24 I guess out of District tuition uh I don't have that number I can probably ask Maria if she knows that number she's on the call and I guess the same question for what your bud I can I can get it for you in like two seconds I could just tell you what our first half was I want to say it was 1.3 million so we're anticipating about 2.6 million um for fy4 but let me just I'm going to pull it up real quick and just get a number for you of what our Revenue was um thank you Maria you're welcome yeah it was 1.3 1,312 614 that includes our first half of the added District tuition but it also includes um the special ed cost for a few of the out of District communities um the second half will be um without the special ed cost but it's about 1.3 million as well so it's about 2.6 million in fy2 24 that we're receiving for out of District tuition which will decrease next year because we don't have any added District students coming in right okay but it's roughly 2.6 million of income and you know you're allocating 2.5 million to the budget correct okay okay thank you um and I'm sorry I want to go back and ask just one question on the number of students getting in from mayard and you talked about the you know starting to to reserve some slots for Maynard I guess is one way to say it um but I think mayard in just trying to find it now so Maynard had 17 kids in grade nine can you say how many applied from Maynard or how many didn't get in from Maynard I I don't have that information handy but I can get you that information so it in some instances uh let me go back to enrollment 17 is the number that we're here as of October 1 2023 that's when all the enrollment Foundation uh that's how all the data starts it's based on your enrollment numbers for each Community as of October one every year so 17 is what it was in grade nine you could have had potentially um I I'll make up a number 24 students apply and maybe seven didn't get in but but they were on a wait list um you could have had 19 slots allotted but only had 17 students apply right so there's a couple different scenarios I don't have them at my fingertips but I can get that for your for your committee luckily the director of pupil Personnel uh is Miss Alisia Bergh house and she resides in the town of mayard so I'm sure she'll be happy to get that for me all right I would be interested in yeah I don't know what that's going to say I I mean off the top of my head I would say if Maynard is paying 11% of capital based on prior enrollment and I know that is a three-year average of a few years ago right now we're at you know five and a half percent based on grade nine yep I would hope there'd be enough slots for mayor kids and I be very parochial about it um I it probably doesn't directly enter the calculation but at some point that becomes an issue I think um okay um sorry thank you very much for answering my questions um that's what I got that's what we're here for um so for the stabilization fund uh as I mentioned um and I just want to put up so basically Al what Mass General law six uh 7116 G and a half um basically allows Regional Regional School Districts not just vocational but Regional School Districts to establish a stabilization fund uh the stabilization fund that we're looking to establish is for Capital Improvement and for Capital Equipment costs um obviously as you can imagine as I mentioned operating a vocational school uh all schools are expensive based on the facilities right and electricity aset tends to open at 7 in the morning and doesn't close till 10:00 at night we consider ourselves a community resource and through um our daytime secondary education for high school students and then um afternoon Sports and activities and uh some adult ed type uh activities in the afternoon as well as our after dark program which also includes our Technical Institute uh which we operate for unemployed or underemployed um members of the community to get back to a living wage um we have this uh need that once was a Reliance on aod District tuition for all of these years um and potentially grant funding nther neither are of which are sustainable ways in which we should budget so we're trying to take a preemptive and proactive approach um to basically uh not have any type of Life Safety type issues come up and then have a large Bill borne by Our member communities so I can give you an example so the our renovation project and Natasha I see you have your hand up so I'll if I I'll just finish my thought and then we can you asked you a question so um when the renovation took place it was basically um health and safety they did sprinkler systems throughout they did it was green energy all new Windows Doors roof um sprinklers throughout um boiler heater system um but it didn't address the full um aspect of the facility the grounds uh and the 50-year-old building obviously I know there are schools across the state that are looking at the same type of issues uh here at aset you know we've got our roadways and driveways that need replacement and or repatching um you know it's we looked prior to covid what the cost of that would be it was about 800 900,000 we then got you know estimates after covid and it was anywhere between 1.4 to 1.6 million to have our roadways and parking lots done um so part of the issue too is that with Capital Equipment with a vocational school um you know we we're trying to provide an education to students that it's of high quality that when they go out into the workforce they' have used the latest technology so aset's been lucky in that we've been receiving grants through the workforce skills grants um option and also through Career and Technical initiative grants which is the nighttime option um so that cost hasn't been borne by Our member communities the other thing that I'm happy to say and I think it's uh uh kudos to ask a it in the 50 years of its existence the only time that it went for a capital project to Our member communities was when the renovation project happened in 2013 so 50 years of existence and we've never gone for Capital and we've always had that out of District tuition fund to help offset Capital offset member Community assessments um so basically the creation of the stabilization fund which is through Mass General law will allow us to have up to 5% of the budget in this um stabilization fund that each year could be built up until it got to that Max Capacity that we could do some type of small but significant Capital Improvement or look to make a capital equipment purchase and when I say Capital Equipment we're talking $25,000 or more with a lifespan of 10 years or more you know this isn't we're buying hand tools or things of that nature it's not to buy supplies for our shops that's part of the operational budget um and the only thing that I will share with you that is a example based on my experience U is a true example and I'm trying to avoid this here through aset I was once um an employee with the minman Regional School District I was there for 19 years I was a welding teacher worked my way up the ladder became principal uh and and while I was in that role um aset as you know had an aging building uh at one point in time they had a fire chief come in they had a brand new fire chief the long-term fire chief retired and for years said this section of the trades Hall which was basically all the hard trades at at Minuteman um that you just had to put fire resistant paint on the wooden walls that were there right well the new Fire Chief came in and basically said look this area can't be operated you going to shut it down and you need to correct and put up the appropriate walls so basically what happened is if you can't have it fixed by Monday you've got to cut the power to that part of the building that's what happened they cut the power as a minute man had to go to dcam and ask for all kinds of emergency leeway um and there was a bill of $453,000 that was basically delivered to the at the time 16 member communities to help pay for that portion of the building um to be retrofit so it was up the standard or code of which that fire chief wanted to have happen what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to avoid a situation like that um with the establishment of this stabilization fund because if we have this fund and something like that were to happen um basically the oversight of that stabilization fund is through our regional school committee um they would have to have uh two-thirds vote of because it's budgetary um and they would have oversight as to where the money was spent from the stabilization fund from the standpoint of it being created uh it basically has to be approved by all of our communities by 2third of Our member communities it's a simple majority vote and town meeting um and then once that's voted and it's established the committee has oversight the one thing that I have been sharing with communities is it's we're not establishing a fund and then you never know what's going to happen with it I intend to make presentations with a slide about the stabilization fund so you can see exactly what kind of money is in that fund and then if we do any kind of uh projects or purchases of equipment the communities would see where that money is going to so that's really the purpose of the stabilization fund as I looked at our seven communities um these are the stabilization funds that exist in all of our municipalities this was the latest data as of fy22 and as you can see mayard has 2,259 430 based on the snapshot when I looked at this but the thing is as a Regional School even though we're an extension of your Town's Public School system right because back in 1966 our seven member communities voted to say let's have Minute Man provide the Career and Technical education opportunities to the students in our communities um in a large plethora right we have 16 available CTE programs um I know that mayard has the one chapter 74 uh TV radio broadcasting which is spectacular um but in for but in order for you folks to to operate 15 more chapter 74 programs it's going to cost a lot more than what the assessment of 1.3 million um in your operational budget to do that the establishment of the stabilization is basically a security blanket so we don't have to go back to our member communities and still be fiscally responsible in what we do for the budget so I know Natasha has a question I hope I can answer it Yes actually I um Jillian is this okay if I ask a question um it's about the stabilization account yeah of course okay okay um so I was uh just just to confirm um the establishment of this account then also allows for the you mentioned this but I just wanted to make sure I understood the process for funding the account on an annual basis so it's up to 5% of the advate aggregate of um of the total amount for each member town is that correct it's no it would be it would be a uh 5% of the overall operating budget for the previous school year okay and then that would be that would be divided um or proportionately to how you're doing how is that formula to divide that amount so so as in the operational bud under the capital Improvement fund that 250,000 that's that's how it's imp portioned based on what your enrollment is for that particular year so so the thing with the op with the capital Improvement fund let's say the let's say the esta if you're looking at just if maybe if we can go just say it was an existence right now and you're looking at the numbers that you have right now I guess my question is two part one what would that look like right now with the current numbers you have and two is the process just to confirm that this would be another request to fund an additional line part of your annual budget request to the town so it would be your assessment your um your Capital Improvement and then there would be an additional funding of that allocation no to fund the stabilization well actually sorry can I can we phrase it another way and say how are you planning to fund the stabilization fund okay so good great questions um so basically as you can see on the slide the capital Improvement fund right whether the stabilization fund is approved or not we've built the 250,000 into the operational budget basically what's that what that means is if if the stabilization fund were not to be approved this year we would have to spend that 250,000 this year in fy2 all right so it doesn't allow us to build it up to work on some of the larger like the roadways of a 1.4 million or 1.3 million the roadways and parking lots we would spend the 250,000 in smaller Capital Improvements or Capital Equipment purchases and but the but the process is we're looking to have the 250,000 in per year and that would go towards the stabilization fund it's not an it's not a whole separate cost and what I can tell you is there are some Regional agreements our regional agreement doesn't have Capital explicitly broken out but there are some Regional School Districts such as shaen locational technical that in their Regional agreement you have the operational budget and then they have a whole separate section just for Capital that 10% whatever 10% of the actual budget is that's an additional assessment to the member communities so every year shaen has an OP let's just say it's 25 mil but we don't have that no we don't have it so we're we're basically instead of but instead of splitting 2.5 million like shaen does every year we're just looking to basically get 250 250,000 to establish so your plan to fund it is to use the 250 correct um the total operating budget is 27 million roughly correct or where is [Music] so I'm down more right 27 and some change okay and that puts the the possible stabilization fund at about 1.4 million at at its capacity at its capacity okay what about the E what about the E EXs and deficiency Revenue access and deficiency go go ahead I'm sorry so will that be diverted to the capital stabilization fund no excess and deficiency has a whole set of rules in which you need to follow um in use of that excess and deficiency and generally the rules are is that it needs to be applied towards the next school Year's Revenue plan okay so only what we what get specifically allocated from a line like that 250 line is what's going to go into the stabilization fund that is correct yep yep okay sorry Natasha I didn't mean to cut you off but no no I I just wanted to make sure yeah a little bit I just wanted to confirm because when I was reading just the the letter of the law about it and that's what I want to it it just leaves it open for it sounds like what your process is is one thing but it leaves it open for how you may I guess ask for it or how it's funded on an annual basis and so it says may be funded in any year include in its annual budget for deposit into the stabilization not to exceed 5% of the aggregate amount a portioned to the member municipality so I guess that was my question is that the annual the annual amount the aggregate annual amount is that total amount for the operating yes it would be the the annual amount aggregate amount of the operating and it's not 250,000 per community be up to 5% of that amount and then that would be well it's 5% the it's the 5% is the maximum allowable limit that we could have in that account so I'm I'm just thinking like worst case scenario the way the way that the law works you could have it at one point and then fund it and then maybe not fund it for a couple of years you know if you don't if you don't needed it right but right let's say Sayed that 5% total on an ongoing basis so if you wanted to it up until one point you're allowed up to 5% for that which is the operating budget and that would be the 27 million and then the formula that you use to um to divy that would be what you normally use for the to determine the allocation or the assessment for each member town right but obviously if it's if we're collecting and we're at the capacity I wouldn't be assessing you to 250 250,000 because I can't put any more into that account right so but 250 is not what you're tied to like it could be it would be could be right you're not tied that yeah it could go up it could go it could go up it could go down um I think you know we we've tried historically so I've been with aset now nine years and for nine years I've had the budget pass unanimously in all seven communities right and part of that is because our adherence to the net School spending and not having some you know we could be at 125% or 110% but we're at 1.1 1.2% right part of that is because of it's allowed us because of a of District tuition to be at that level right um could it potentially go up it could go up beyond the one point you know one one uh 100% or 1.1 that we've normally been operating at but we're mindful that we have seven communities that we we're um we feel as though we're fiscally responsible as well we know the challenges that your communities are dealing with um we try to take care of everything in District and not to add any additional cost to communities um and we try to give back to communities right there are several um I believe you have a new Turf project that you're looking to add no no no Turf okay well I want to make sure we're clear on the project because it's word yeah t bleacher project for now yes Stadium I should say a stadium project with bleachers and whatever the whatever material is y um but that could be something that as a bit through the skill set of our students not necessarily the bleachers but your field houses or your ticketing booths things of that nature um when we put our turf field in our folks did the ticketing booth in the Fieldhouse that we use to store stuff so you know we're more than willing to help with Community type projects to Offset you know uh labor costs through the use of our students who will have real world experiential learning um on the job um in their community so they can have some pride as well uh and that way you're only paying for the cost of supplies for the community uh we've done that in the past we've done it for some of your organization like the Boys and Girls Club um I believe I'm not sure if they did it in the police department that may have been Hudson but we're currently in Southboro putting an addition on the senior center for sou bro town of South bro um and we've got some projects you know kind of all over even in in malb so you know anytime that uh and I mentioned that with Greg Johnson that anytime we could be a help you know to offset some of those costs um you know we want to have you folks see your education dollars at work with our students working in the community I have a quick question on the logistics of if this fund is instated um could you explain a little bit about how it can actually be spent is this a stabilization fund that would require a town Vote or is it sort of voted through the board of the school yep so sure so for the establishment of the stabilization fund it has to go to all of our seven communities right first it had to start with a vote of the school committee who establish the warrant article language that you see on that page uh right here down at the bottom um and then basically us getting it out to the seven member communities that's what's put in the town warrant um and by a simple majority of the Town meetings but twoth thirds of Our member communities five out of seven would have to vote it um would have to vote approval of it in order for it to be established the governance based on Mass General law if you would to click on that top link I believe it's live um on the one I shared with you um says that the government sits with the Regional School Board um and basically just like any uh Financial or budgetary that's two-thirds of the members of the school board that have to approve any kind of um uh purchases through that stabilization fund the only way in which or the way to keep you folks informed or the towns informed is through the process of the budgeting uh in which I would again present any kind of plans or costs that were associated or approved by the school committee uh for that stabilization fund each year I may come before you and say Here's the stabilization fund that was you know if we if we were to fast forward a year to next year here's the stabilization fund that was approved and here sits the $250,000 that was also part of the operational budget that's been put into that fund and that's it you know the the um you you know could there be a circumstance where we had an emergency piece of equipment that goes down that we would need to purchase or fix maybe the amounts now 200,000 instead of 250 based on you know equipment needs for the shops if we don't have operational money to do it or we didn't get grant funding for it so there could be some of that that happens but um again it would have to be $225,000 or more if it was a piece of equipment and it would have to have a lifespan of 10 years or more in order for us to do anything out of that stabilization fund for equipment I hope that answers your question thank I think Linda yeah I just had a question um uh previously I I think you said it was 2015 we did that you did some big Capital Improvement that we're now paying 11% for 20 what was the process there did all the member towns did you have a c sort of a a bond Bill like like we did for our Green Meadows School something like that and all the member towns agree at that point so that would be the alternative to a a capital stabilization fund would you would have to do some kind of a bonding override so for so for the 2013 vote is when it went Town meetings y um basically we had uh identified or put in a feasibility study we were put into the msba process that they would um I want to say it was I think it was 53% that they covered and then our towns were going to be responsible for the remainder basically when we went through that project um that was a project um that all seven communities had to agree on in order for it to pass and again that project was based on a $62 million price tag um and so if let's say you know we we were asked about our capacity and we take 300 students we're just under 1,200 total students here at aset um I looked at a potential addition of 70,000 square feet to add to aset and this was right before Co it was going to be an additional $50 million and I knew for down sure that there was no way I was going back to the communities to get them to pay for a $50 million on top of the you know current renov project that they're already paying so that's not an option U but yeah that would be basically that's when the percentages that you saw on that Capital debt assessment part of that process was agreement that there would be a three point a uh three-year average at the time in which the project was voted that would remain for the life of The Debt Service payments regardless if your percentage went up or went down yep on the stabilization fund there's no real percentages that are tied to that like that except the 5% maximum limit that you could be at sorry Jill I I just want to make sure Linda got her question answered actually before I jumped in yeah no that's fine thank you jillan um I have a quick question about the article itself is this something say that the spons usually there sponsor comments or sort of um explaining about the article and the potential impacts um that's something I haven't seen yet for this article is is that something that I missed that you all I thought I had sent something to Greg um and I I didn't put it on my slide because generally it you know I'm explaining it so I just thought it was repetitive but yeah we have a little basically um a little blurb as to what I can send to to you folks and I'll resend it to Greg because that would be great obviously it must have got lost but yeah but it's been uh pretty much we were just in South bro and West bro and it got approved in both of those communities um the and it was sponsored by the select board so uh I don't know what I did with everybody I just lost all you oh there you are I hit something on my screen and everybody disappeared uh so Westboro and select uh Southboro has already approved uh the stabilization fund and rfy 25 budget just because they have early Town meetings but yes I can get you that little um blurb that sponsor comments that goes with that thanks so much that's appreciate it I I do believe too that I have a scheduled uh presentation with the select board on April 2nd um just just so this FKS you folks know awesome thank you for sharing that information yeah all right and that completes our presentation unless you folks have any other questions for us um sorry it's not so much a question but um I I didn't say this during the discussion on the budget um I mean just I'm sure you get it you know um but I just have to explicitly State um I am concerned about the overall increase in the budget for as of it um you know based on what you're presenting I it may well be that's required by the state and there's no choice in the matter but I can't help but note that the asset bit budget is going up you know close to 8 and a half% and we're not able to do that for mayard public schools and I don't it's not necessarily one against the other but it can't help but enter into my mind um that you know that's the situation we're in um and that's the reality we're facing so I just have to note that and you know would ex would hope that future budgets are not G to be in the eight and a half percent range so so so what I can yeah no I I completely hear you and I I think you know if I go back to that if I went back to the slide that showed you with the 1.8 right so that just that 1.8 slide if you if I can just share that one more time with you let's see if I can find it here and and maybe this will help um uh let's see right here this slide right here okay so I had mentioned that our budget was increasing 2,371 140 that's on this slide right here you can kind of see it I just highlighted it right that's the that's the eight and a half percent So based on the 48 additional IND District students right the state is saying that in your chapter after 70 funding they're going to give us an additional 738,000 035 for the minimum local contributions because the 48 students come from our IND District communities right and again I I wish I could explain that formula to you about minimum local contribution but it's basically 50% wealth and 50% median income uh 50 aggregate wealth model 50% we Ag and 50% um wealth in the community what they're saying is it's a 1.1 1,1 53,54 increase based on those 48 students and even on your minus three students there were some variables that happened in Maynard that the state said hey you should be paying an additional 39,000 from what you paid the year prior even though you have three less kids and then the transportation piece you know so with these figures that you see just on this slide 1. 1885 447 is beyond aset's ability to change we cannot do anything to change these numbers that's what the state is basically sharing with us unless we violate our regional agreement and we violate state regulations and not let any indust any more industri kids come in which I'm not willing to do because as a superintendent I have a license that I've have got to you know uphold and and maintain um so what I can tell you is this trend will probably continue for the next two years as we have uh if I go if I went to the enrollment slide you would see just quickly in the Junior and senior years here that in the Junior and senior years you can see we've got a few in sophomore right so we're always going to have a few students from out of District that most these folks have transferred in in sophomore year all right the 3933 or they were part of or they may have been part of the process so we'll always have a small handful of out of District kids because even our IND District kids at times move out of district and if they're going into 11th grade whatever town they go to they're like you know what we don't want to have you leave your high school education with two more years to go or you're a senior they're not going to force them to leave the asbet so they sign off and that Community pays at that point when they move out of Maynard you're not you folks aren't responsible for them right but for the next two years grade 11 and 12 you'll see there's some pretty significant numbers of out of District kids that are taking up spots right when June comes the uh let's see 56 66 students from out of District that's listed under grade 12 those 66 students will be gone in June which means there's another potential of freshman coming in right that the IND District student population then increases by 66 students and then the same thing will happen in grade 11 so we've got two more years of this trend happening and I know some of you folks have just joined the or you have I don't know how long you've been on the finance committee but there are some new faces um that I have not seen before um but I have been speaking about this trend even prior to the establishment of a stabilization fund probably four years ago I started a five that this trend was happening because we've seen our increasing numbers of industri kids um and it's for various reasons as to why that's happening you know on the news you know folks are saying hey you don't necessarily need to go to directly to college anymore right you can do Y and Z you can go to Vocational School um during covid you know we happen to have the ability as a singular district with very large spaces to have kids come back in during covid uh September of the covid Year 2020 right and believe it or not that made our our enrollment increase because parents wanted kids back in schools so we so our freshman numbers kind of went through the roof um between vocational schools who had brought our kids and were able to come in on an every other week based on their technical programs uh and the other educational institutions were you know uh parochial schools as well so so you know that Trend basically that first slide I showed you was what the state was saying hey this is what we're going to fund you through chapter 78 and then your minimum local contribution this is what it is the $251,000 Delta that's really you're really in the capital Improvement fund and like I said of all the things that would be the only thing potentially that we would cut for the budget we're we're literally I know it doesn't look like it when you see an 8 and a half perc increase but we're really at a Bare Bones budget uh and the other thing I didn't mention when I mentioned special ed because we get Regional Transportation reimbursement we do not have the ability to access any circuit breaker money for special education services that's one factor that we are not able to uh access so I see Natasha has her hand up I can wait until I don't know I know fincom this is primarily that for them I just add a question about the positions but Peter I don't know if you were finished no um thank you for the explanation I get it um doesn't change line numbers as I look at them though so but uh okay thank you yeah Maria I don't know if you had a followup to my I do I just have I mean I think Peter's question is super valid um and very fair and like Ernie explained this is a trend that's going to happen for the next two years um the other factor in this trend is that we're also taking more IND District kids which means the transportation cost is going to rise um fy2 is our last year of the transportation contract and from what I hear from other business officials um in the Community is that um those rates are going to go up significantly from what we had prior to um covid so that's going to be another Factor that's going to be a little bit you know it's going to shift a little bit and so I think it's just good to prepare and kind of get an understanding of all the factors involved um but I think to Ernie's point is we are pretty much out of bare bones of like what's required um and you know Maynard's numbers could go up and hopefully they will um but they will come with a higher assessment in various you know um from transportation and just the minimum local contribution so I think it's I think it's good for you guys to be prepared um to explain that or I mean we can explain it as well but to the board itself or the town itself so um I think it's a very good question and I think it's a very fair concern um it's very valid and um we're very well aware of it and we know we have to tread really slowly because the numbers are shifting significantly in a way that is kind of beyond our our control because we're having more industry kids um so I just wanted to I had two questions and then maybe a comment um uh first question was as as you're on this theme right now that's talking about um preparing and and Maria was really really helpful I think for you to convey some of those Trends I wonder if when you think about how to when we talk about how to prepare I think if any way you can articulate that to um the community in a more um targeted way I think would be helpful so when we talk about like for Manor Public School like we can say our Trends are are looking at this but people who don't look at your budget and and see that on an ongoing basis you know maybe like twice a year for like our residents or whatever that might be I think when you make mention of of tying the two points where lower in District like the correlations lower in dist or lower out of District students means higher assessments because we're accepting more in like that I think you need to almost connect those pieces a little bit more um clearly to communicate like the transportation do you um is all of Transportation covered or do you set rates where um because I know that mayor can have rates and we've you know we've done analysis on an annual basis of you know Transportation costs are certainly High across the board for every you know any any Community um but has there been opportunities to increase rates of what you to the to users or whatever that might be like for multiple students or how is that how has that been reviewed on an annual basis or do you not charge any any transportation we don't TR we don't charge Transportation rates to like individuals themselves um it's just through our assessments through the member communities um and then the other question I did get recently was like how much do we charge per student which we also don't do it's based on the percentage of students um and then we take our full Transportation expenses reduce what we anticipate for reimbursement and then you know divy it out across the communities um which like I said it it will increase as well over the next couple of years and then hopefully it will Plateau um like in 202 FY 28 we should see kind of like the trend the numbers won't be as drastic but like to Natasha's Point basically you you're saying that your assessment subsidizes the full Transportation cost for for families whatever is not reimbursed by the state correct correct so and I guess my my my question just in followup to to that point is that I think because Transportation costs or so does anything prohibit you from charging a fee because I know manard and we're a small town we still charge a fee for families we know that we subsidize a lot from our operating budget so it's not really we don't pass on the full cost to families but we certainly it's not a free service across the board because it does so I'm just curious are you able to evaluate the because it's going to be going up um are you restricted to not being able to charge any fee yeah so I I'll take that to Ernie yeah I'll take that because um Maria has been with us for three years now right coming up in three years um but yeah it's it's been a conversation that when I first came into as AIT um I had actually looked at a couple different things um and that was transportation and special education on whether or not uh even special education should have some alak cart based on the communities and based on the students coming from those communities so that all communities aren't being born the costs completely across the board uh and the other but the question on Transportation is they had already felt that basically a student that's made a decision to come to aset um they shouldn't have additional cost because they're basically paying in time in which they're on the bus to get here um back and forth that that would kind of put some undue uh um pressure on the on the students and the families uh obviously comments that we hear tonight and from our finance committee meetings and our select board meetings I will bring back to the committee to talk about some of the concerns and obviously Pam um she was on the call I'm not sure if she still is but um we will you know I'll bring that up to the committee that that been a concern that maybe with the rising Transportation cost there should be some um I mean every like you know Standalone District or even regionalized they've had to reassess because one it's just getting drivers is also you know a challenge but um the costs are just going up and so from they some some Services some towns no longer do service you know within a certain um location you know proximity to the school they won't even offer it because it's just you know the availability so I'm just curious if there's some type of analysis that um assabet has done or can do that looks at what your member towns are actually charging for bus fees locally like for themselves and what other vocational schools are um potentially charging their um their residents as well because I know you know Charter Schools certainly charge quite a bit $2,000 or whatever I mean that's amsa and that they're in marbor but I know it's a little different but just to give you a context and they charge that they pass the full cost onto families per per student so it does feel like mayard isn't able to to absorb the full cost so it does feel a little bit disproportionate that um you know we're having to assess the full cost even though that's not a service we can even provide ourselves in our own town and we're a lot smaller so that's one one feedback I I'd want to pass on or just question if you do have some data on that I think that would be helpful to circulate um this particular one actually the Staffing a letic trainer if you could um speak to uh that and the elective instructor um a little bit about what the decision was about these particular roles I know the athletic trainer in particular um and I and I I know certainly in no way you know this is a this has been hard Manor's been asking for this position in our own district for a couple of years and so I wanted to understand I would love for us to be able to build it into our own budget so I'm just curious on you know what the thought process is that you're building it into your budget and what the cost savings that you know what the decision is um that you feel that it's necessary at this point and then what the a role for the um athletic instructor versus um um a um a counselor might be what are the difference in in that regard sure so the athletic trainer one of the things that we've had uh obviously um like I had mentioned with Co we were in person and we were creating cohorts and we didn't have any sports the entire year until the spring session we had had a athletic trainer that was like part teacher athletic trainer that was on staff um what we found is that we can't it's difficult to find somebody that will do it on a halftime basis like that yeah and so we even tried to look at Contracting athletic trainers uh we have been surviving by hiring EMTs um however the only thing an EMT can do at a game in which games that an athletic trainer is required or some type of emergency Personnel the only thing an EMT can say is if you're hurt or not hurt and whether or not you should be going in the ambulance or not they can't tape a a student up they can't help with exercises or stretching or PT or whatever that type of stuff would a prep at all so that's where we saw the need and it's been a couple of years and since we've had the athletic trainer um we think that um you know full we we trying to put it as a fulltime so that way it's a little bit more enticing um that somebody would P pick it up um I think um one of the athletic trainers we had before was like a part-time mom so she was pretty much home all day and then was able to get out of the house in the afternoon and on the weekends and it worked but then of course um she was going to become a mom again and it was going to be too much so she had to step away so uh so that was the reasoning behind the athletic trainer it's just you can't find contractors to do it um and nor can you have the effectiveness of an athletic trainer for our sports that require it if you're not using an athletic trainer and you're using an EMT the elective instructor we had at one point in time four fizzed in health teachers um we have two at this point in time so the so the elective instructor and we also had two art teachers at one time and so we have we have been living um with um the potential of um strained F fed type classes so obviously if we are um looking to make sure we meet the needs of what the requirements are to the state we'd be looking at potential health fed um and then I had mentioned also with the art instructor um but we wouldn't know that because basically for us fizzed we do it in the upper grades as electives but in the Freshman senior freshman sophomore years they're required um but electives the the troubling thing with f with u Jim it's required but there's no time component that's attached to JY yeah we went through this recently with the same thing about I'm sure you did as much as we want to just you know as much as we don't like the regulations that kind of bind us at this point in time we'd like them to give some guidance that says make it a 100 hours or you know some there are some some schools I know they they take the kids out and they walk around the track one day one day the entire year and they call a gym um it's not like it was years ago so we we'll make that determination based on the student um requests that we get for their scheduling for next year and that generally gets done in the May time frame so we don't have a determination of is it a bized health teacher or is it going to be an art teacher at this point we've been handling the art piece with other Educators that have an interest in art and have some skill set but they're teaching less than the 20% as desie allows them to teach an additional period uh to El at some of the art class sizes thank you so much I just wanted to just also thank you I know that you guys do a lot there and you have a lot of people on stakeholders so appreciate the work that you do thank you great questions tonight great questions all right any other questions or comments from the committee all right I think I'm I'm not hearing any so um we would like to thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to come and talk to us about the budget and also the article um would greatly appreciate if you could forward those comments um on the article sometime in the next couple weeks yeah um we have to supply the thom's comments by April 9th so we can get it before then it be much appreciated yeah my my plan will be to get it to you before the end of the week one more thing to than you much check off my list so all right well in closing once again thank you all for your time uh as as always it's a pleasure to come before you and uh we thank you and the community of mayard for their continued support thank you thank you so much thank you very much thank you folks have a good night have a great night thank you good night so um I think we'll spend the rest of the meeting um talking about the annual town meeting articles um so discussing those if there's any that we are prepared to vote on uh we can do so we have right now we have one more meeting uh until our comments are due so we have a meeting expected on April 8th um we could potentially add one on April 1st if we think we need it um The Challenge I'm bringing up the I have a bunch of windows open here so the challenge is that we have a lot of Articles so if we look on board docks let's see if I can share my screen um we have a all the way to I think it's AC so there's there's quite a few art Arles uh this time around um I also shared with you in the email as well the um free cash updated free cash analysis from Greg um and this fincom article Excel sheet was sort of the from our last meeting we talked about who would be uh taking a stab at that first draft of the written article I I included our written comments from 23 from last year so you can sort of see what had been written in the dra to get an idea of the language um that might be helpful for our first draft and I started making draft comments um for fy2 24 here and the last the last one um which I can pull up so and these these are all on board docs so sometimes it's easier to look at these so all of these should have been sent with the sponsor comments to Greg but we do not have all of them yet um the citizens petition should have come in last week I have not heard that there have been any for this ATM um but Greg has been away so I'll follow up with him um and right now the our deadline that we're running up against is this having our written recommendations and our votes for the printed warrant to be like included as a handout at the meeting by by April 9th um so I can bring up a I can bring up the spreadsheet or I can bring up the Excel sheet um so this is can I uh can I ask a clarifying thing yes okay so I was going through the Articles compared to the list um it correct me if I'm long or I'm somehow missing it but we don't have an article yet for the free cash for operating budget for the general fund budget um we don't have an article for the transfer for ambulance receipts yet we don't have an article for revolving funds yet nope there's the question about an extra CPC article but we don't have language on that yet I just got a new they're requesting for that has been that was included in the email I don't know what number it is so I just called it I2 because um that was their other so you think I just there is a draft of that somewhere there is I can open it okay uh they're basically asking to extend funds that had been given in a prior year because they have to spend it within a certain amount of time um and we have we have no article yet on the msba reimbursement transfer no no and nothing on rooster prohibition oh my God correct we have none of these AR just checking I think this is like the latest since I've been on the committee for several years this is the latest that we've not had some of these very important key articles and I just I'm not entirely sure and I've been pushing back on Greg being like we have a single meeting and you haven't given us any of these drafts of any of these articles for us to review to vote and make comments on and ask questions so um I'm pushing back saying that that April 9th deadline is pretty unreasonable yeah but one of the things we can push back on is they should spend you know I don't know what it would be but another 300 bucks and print the warrant later this idea that they have such a ridiculously early deadline for the warrant you know is all about oh we have to send it to the printer a month ahead of time I mean anybody can print something overnight at Staples nowadays so so I find this a somewhat ridiculous argument and I think it may be this year Greg's got to suck it up and send the uh warrant out later so you know I don't know what other people think but but I think that's you got to communicate that to him as the chair saying this is just nuts and there's no earthly reason you need comments to be printed you know basically a month and a half before town meeting um anyway sorry I but then our next meeting I tell them too but um tell the select board also um this is crazy yep I mirror your sentiments I agree feels really rushed and then our comments might not be thoughtful because we're like rushed to get them through right and I mean we're we're tasked with you know doing diligence on these articles and how can we do diligence on them if we them right right and then part of it is main opinion I mean the comments are important but our recommendation should be the you know overriding thing you know we haven't really even seen the final budget yet that's the most important thing and we're supposed to make a recommendation so um when is your hearing normally when do you have that scheduled think May 13th May in May yeah May 13th will be the always the week before town meeting right okay yep but thank you Jillian this spreadsheet though is super helpful and I want to thank you for it I know I emailed you today who's doing what again I think I emailed in that email there was probably like 20 or 30 files because each article is different thing so um that's also why I put a link to boarddocs because for me it's easier to look at it on board dos yeah I agree as an email attachment yeah but thank you for putting it together no worries so this is this is sort of what we talked about last time um and we also got three new articles that I've never seen before and I don't actually have the articles I just have the names of them um about transfer of certain monies between funds um so this I wanted to flag for everyone's notice too this was sort of in the list but I don't um those are things that I just shared with that past email so um um there's also three new articles here so we did get um drafts of those with um sponsor comments so so there's there's quite a few articles there's like 30 articles and for some reason the debt exclusion is still here here but my understanding is that goes to the STM so not this town meeting so you really different than AC those seem like the same article to me the water retained earnings um they are two different articles yeah okay sorry yep so U is to put 500,000 in basically a you know Reserve fund and then AC must be to spend actual stuff on projects yeah so um so I took this spreadsheet that we talked about last time I put it into this comment thing um so this is this is sort of how we've written comments in the past um usually as the committee we would either say recommends or does not recommend um when we vote and then there'll be like a sentence under it so in the past some of these routine ones the sentence has been pretty similar in the past years we can always update it if we want um but for example the town report acceptance is this is an annual procedural article to accept reports from various Town committees so it can be short and crisp like that that and that would be our sponsor comment so um you know for example I think the one of the things that was in there was um the salary Administration plan so you and I can bring all these articles up but um and these are things that I started to write some of the ones that I was looking at um and we can use we can use this we can't use it as a live document because then that would be considered um violating open meeting law like one document that we could all access at the same time um but this is something you can use to write in your part um or write your part in a separate document and that's totally fine and I can circulate it to the rest of the committee um in between meetings um some of them were going to write live like the general fund budget but I don't have the article yet um so we could potentially go through the Articles we do have the discuss them as a committee and just go down the list um like are people familiar enough with the articles that we could potentially vote on some is what I'm at what I'm asking for a feeling from the committee tonight because we have about 30 articles yes yeah I think we should too I agree and is it possible do we have to vote on each one single or can we group them like they do at town meeting or is it just easier to vote on each one we can group I think it's easier to vote on each one okay since we'll have to make comments on each one I think I agree with that but can I suggest we not focus as much on the comments right now and go through them more um because I mean a lot of the comment you know some of the easy stuff he just copyed from last year and then the med runs people that's what I to do yeah um okay and then yep no sorry I was gonna start and recom make make a motion that we recommend control a but I cannot do that if you want to wait if you're no that's fine I'm thinking of the logistics in terms of our written comments or at least our notes I think we take down who motions who seconds and then we don't necessarily have to record in each individual person just the number of yes NOS does that make sense with English I'm getting really tired I actually thought we did have to I mean if it's a 70 vote obviously not but I thought we had [Music] to you know having the minutes who voted against if that was the case that the remote um attend the remote meeting stuff requires a roll call vote for this stuff I think that roll call has to be in the minutes okay that was my clarifying question If the roll call includes the name of the person who votes one way or the other yeah I don't think we need to name everybody on you know I think if we well presuming somewhat but I think if we name those people who vote against the routine stuff that would be fine then it'll be obvious but I wouldn't expect there'll be many votes against it I'm not sure that that's what we've done in the past um but that is acceptable since it does say roll call vote in the in the zoom proo uh sheet here okay all right so Peter has made a motion to accept article a to recommend article a sorry but re recommend okay yep uh I will make a second to recommend is there any further discussion or comments on the town report acceptance do people know what this is people are looking for flexed yeah uh this is an article that allows various committees to report to town meeting about their status there may be some report from the bleacher committee there may be some report from the Green Meadow committee this article allows town meeting to hear these reports okay cool thanks and I see our comments last year were this is an annual procedural article to accept reports from various Town committee probably had that but that's what we said correct recommended y um I I think I I got a little bit thrown uh Peter when you were talking about how we don't have like we don't have the budget yet and like we don't have this thing and that thing and I was just one thinking oh we don't have the reports yet but this is literally to accept them at the town meeting this isn't something where we're missing anything right correct okay thanks all right uh any further clarify in questions every question is a lovely question and I appreciate them all right so uh I will take a roll call vote to recommend um Katie yes Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes Kia yes and I am also a yes uh and I don't think C's on the call so that is a 60 who recommend okay and motion did we get Linda yes I voted yes sorry okay just taking my notes um I'd make a motion to recommend uh control B the obsolete equipment I will this is another okay this is another procedural one it just allows the select board uh or the town manager potentially to dispose of and sell obsolute equipment um at various times we've asked for a report on how much was sold in the prior year and the number is most often zero and you know always under a thousand I I um moved to approve I I moved to recommend so we had Peter recommend oh sorry I'll second the I I second so Nathan has already seconded it oh sorry I'm behind that's okay um all right so Peter made the first motion Nathan recommen uh seconded it so we're into the votes now okay um so Katie yes Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes fesia yes I am also a yes so that is also 60 all right um I'll make a motion to recommend Control G the FY 2025 salary Administration plan what letter is that sorry D I think that's the salary admin ban yep D is in dog oh sorry I'm like wait a minute we just did B okay um so this well actually perhaps I should allow a second if anybody wants to second that I will second this I will second [Music] um most um Town salaries or payment of wages are governed by either a Union contract or a specific contract with the individual AKA The Town Administrator or police chief um there are a few part-time people that are paid you know according to this schedule um and it basically just gets legislative Authority for the range of what we're paying people and I think in this table like in the sponsors comments it says the the veteran Agent salary increased I think the minimum and maximums are the same from last year um but I didn't have a chance to double check I'm I'm just looking at last year's and it's the same except for the veterans agent okay thanks for that clarification all right so sorry I heard that Peter has recommended and Katie has seconded and we jumped into discussion is there any further discussion or questions all right hearing none I will also so take a roll call vote to recommend uh control article d uh Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes Ka yes kadia yes all right I am also a yes so that is also 60 okay we do not have the general fund yet we do not have pre-certified cash yet uh we do not have ambulance receipts yet um yep we don't have G yet either so we don't have uh the revolving funds we do have H so H is the CPA budget um I'll make a motion to that we recommend control h all right so Peter has made a motion that we recommend I will second that motion for control h all right and Katie has seconded is there any discussion or comments on this article um just as a refresher this is the TIC Le that allocates money raised by the CPA search charge in 2025 it doesn't actually fund any specific projects except for payment of that long-term debt which is the golf course um but really it just puts money into Reserve funds which are then later spent out of um probably in a separate article with the CPC does specific projects yes the next article is the one where they they spend it so I I see my name is uh for like writing the comments for this in the next one so I want to make sure I understand this fully uh so this [Music] is this is like a this is like revenues but not where they're being appropriated it's being appropriated into those Reserve funds okay and and where is it coming from 1% and put it comes from our little extra taxes that we pay every three months and the only difference from last year is the interest went down from 9700 to 74 and then the rest of the that difference went to budgeted Reserve okay but this is this so this is annual this one and the next one are both like annual all um y this is more routine than the next one um but just the 45,000 each for historic open space and community housing is required by state law we have to put 10% and then the rest of it just goes into this budgeted Reserve gotcha okay and the comments from the FY 23 which is on board docs should also be helpful in writing our sponsor comments for this part and they don't have to be perfect when you write the sponsor comments it's it's something that we can start and discuss at the next meeting cool thanks all right uh julan why does it say under appropriation 132 400 is that the sum of the the top three things 132 400 yes okay okay thank you okay so um Peter has Peter first yep yep any additional comments or questions no okay uh so I will take a roll call vote to recommend article H Linda yes Nathan yes Peter Yesa yes who am I missing Katie yes okay and me I am also a yes so that is also 60 okay all right I so this is the appropriation one so this is where they are recommending to spend out of that budget um The Reserve fund for specific projects so there is a specific process where people sort of fill out um a request to access these funds they go for before the um the CPA they or sorry the CPC and they talk about the project and the CPC does a very thorough job of sort of vetting and going over that project and all of the different projects they have to sort of come to what they recommend in this article to ask fund for that year these are the things that were recommended for this year from the CPC and their process although I would note that well two the 50,000 for the alumni Fieldhouse study is a real project I suspect the 12,000 for the regional housing for membership dues you know is somebody proposed that the other two are really just transfers to other Reserve funds so to speak um they get spent by other people um and don't actually require town meeting approval I don't believe either um and would allow you know either something in the affordable housing or Conservation Area to happen faster by having the money in those specific trust funds as opposed to staying in the CPC trust funds yeah I'm looking at last year they did 200,000 for Manor affordable housing trust which is similar to this year 90 and last year they did 11900 for the membership that's about the same and last year they did conquered Circle door replacement they did the conservation trust fund that was the same they did real Road playground design and the bleacher $200,000 for the bleacher study the last year the appropriation was much bigger it was 556 900 and I my understanding of these funds is that they don't expire necessarily so like they don't have to spend a certain amount of money every year in this appropriation part in this article and are we anticipating that that once the bleacher fund becomes more um specific that potentially there could be more coming from them for that project in that fiscal year or not they could bring an article to the STM um I think Natasha might know I think her hand is raised it's hard for me to see with all my windows open yes yes that is that is correct so we will be um we will be seeking an out of cycle approval from the CPC for um an amended application that will be submitting to the CPC by July 1st and so um at special town meeting we we hope to see another appropriation regarding that project which is a little different than usual and might be why I'm guessing they have not allocated a larger amount at this point right thank you Natasha yeah although kind of the amounts are similar except for the 200,000 of the leers that were you know waiting fall on right okay so this is this is the article presented in front of us and we can't necessarily stipulate what might be in the fall but uh it's sort of our our duty to either recommend or not recommend this appropriation in article I I'll I'll make a motion to approve article I I'll second is that Linda yep okay so Nathan has moved Linda has seconded to recommend article or control article I is there any further discussions or questions hearing none I will take a roll call vote um yes Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes Katie yes I am also a yes so that is 60 all right um I'm not sure what control number this oh shoot it didn't open it uh I have to shop stop sharing and actually open a word file um all right Peter if it doesn't have an article number or letter yet should I skip over it you think for voting tonight um so this is this is the article I don't know what I'm calling it I too because I'm not exactly sure but this was in your email sorry I I don't have this yet okay sorry um not C so this is voting to extend the deadline of the so back in fiscal year 2020 there was um an appropriation of $50,000 um so it has to be used within a certain amount of time or it goes back into the reserve fund um so this article is asking to extend that time um what's the status of the project has has it started at all or um um I assume this will enable I'm not entirely sure so my understanding is that there's $2,000 left on the project so they're not going to use all 50,000 that will go back whatever they don't use goes back um but this is this is the this is very hot off the presses so to speak I just got this pretty recently should we ask for clarification um from CPC on that so the clarification of the CPC is wondering when the project will be completed well I sorry I didn't hear someone got cut off yeah I I would say what's the status has it been started is it in contract where where is it and when is it proposed to be done well it says to pay for work completed yeah it was yeah no it says there's 30,000 that was unspent and this is to pay a $2,000 bill and we're only extending it through June of 20 or July of 2024 so they can't really do much more with this except pay the three $2,000 bill but that doesn't mean that it's done it says the work completed after the original end date so yeah it doesn't definitely mean that the work is complete completed no I guess not Natasha yeah I I I I only add because that we had the we had the rec Commission in front of us um a couple months ago and this got brought up um they did a study of the front field in front of the high school the school department was not part of the agreement to did the study but they've already done the work it was just a study itself they've um they have the rec commission has the study already and now they just need to pay I believe the bill there's not a project planned yet for the study I think they just needed to they were looking to do um what a field might they wanted to redo that for a field and they had to get what was underneath the ground and all that um done so there was just a report that came out of the study for my understanding and then they just now have to pay oh okay right thanks for that clarification and that's sort of that that is what's outlined here too design study plans and other expenses related to doesn't necessarily say the work itself but this was a a Rec commission um project so I guess if it doesn't really say that here but for your awareness I think it was it was the rcom working in in tandem with the DPW to coordinate that okay would the Comm like me to follow up with further clarification with the CPC or do we feel that there additional outstanding questions uh I'd be fine recommending this personally for just for myself I would to so Peter if you first I would second uh I'll wait if if other people want to wait on doing a recommendation I'm happy to wait though can um this one is unassigned can the person who's assigned to write the our comments get in touch with the rec commission is that allowed say you want you now we have to write our our our reasoning and we want to just verify that our thinking is true yes yeah okay so we can that's allowed okay I mean I guess this the the amount of 50,000 was already approved by annual town meeting and this is just like extending the timeline so I I don't have any objection to voting on this now and it's a difference of $2,000 right yeah okay I'm just always concerned about projects that they say are going to be done at a certain date and then uh before that date comes perhaps they will need more funds but it's just a study so yeah okay okay all right based on that then I will make a motion that we recommend the uh amendment to community preservation Reserve article and I will make a motion to second potentially I to I I have no idea what it's called that's just Jill's shorthand so all right uh a motion has been made and seconded uh is there any further disc discussion questions concerns that's fine all right hearing none I will take a roll call vote uh kadisha yes Linda yes Peter yes Nathan yes uh Katie yes I am also a yes that is 60 um is there anyone that would like to volunteer to pick up this this is not an assigned article for someone to write a draft comment on uh I can do it if you want I'm I think I'm on the lighter side that was laste all right uh I'm gonna stop sharing so I can go back to the Articles all right okay so we have uh we don't have article K do what we do sewer Enterprise budget um so this is for the sewer Enterprise fund budget so this is control article k um this is an increase of 3.9% over last year's budget uh and the increase is a result of inflation and this is detailing each of the line items so Katie shouldn't this be the FY this is exactly the same as last year so and it says the fy2 24 budget so I don't think this is right it's exactly the same number what's wrong something's wrong here oh you're right it does say it mentions 25 but it on the bottom it's exactly the same numbers and it's and then you just that it's an increase Linda I'm glad that you are double-checking everything well I got the warrant up from last year so I can see what we're doing all right so that must be a typo I'll ask Greg about that all right is is article L the same um wait one second um sorry can we go back to K for a second yeah um so I think the article is mdra and the total revenues number is wrong but the fy20 oh right do it's exactly the same numbers as last oh no it isn't that's one number is different the expenses are different yep you're right it last year was 3305 the top number is the same and the bottom number maybe it should just say total fy2 budget but yes so I think the 2024 should say 2025 the total revenues should be the 3816 number but given this I'd say we should wait till we get an updated one but yeah I think the numbers are probably right except for the total revenues and the description of the budget the year of the budget all right okay so l l has an even more interesting typo we're in fy22 Jesus H it's a good thing we're going through this well Linda did you notice the warant from last year let me was also the fy22 oh which we didn't even notice last year um but the numbers are different um this 299 what's it say this is so this one's up s amount this one's up almost 10 11% almost well the warrant last year said it was the FY 24 budget so that the last year was right yeah and those numbers are different all right do we have any additional questions on this um budget I assume we can't vote to recommend or not recommend until we get a updated article without typos but my understanding is a lot of this comes from the debt service for the new well or upgrades I mean well 4A yeah I mean if any budget needs to be increasing it's the water Enterprise budget yeah and it ex it always exactly balances right what comes in is what goes out it should be that's why on the other article there must be a typo on K CU they weren't the same numbers uh here and here so um if there's no questions I'll move to the next article and I'll ask Greg to get an updated one for us okay l M I don't think we have an M we have a Tre I did also just get sponsor comments for this um so this is to it's a bylaw a proposed bylaw to protect the public shade trees in the town um so it goes in and talking about you know um different features of the tree what is a town tree um how they can be properly pruned and um things like that so they don't become damaged um so um let me let me get the sponsor comments because those I literally just got like right before this meeting so I don't even think I forwarded them to you all um all right so let's see oh no too big uh so basically this is to protect the trees um it follows the same guidelines as similar towns um we talked to Justin so Justin is Manner tree Warden um and he said that he helped them or consulted with them on this bylaw and that he was he found it to be agreeable um this is recommended by the tree committee so so this would be a brand new chapter into the bylaws my understanding is there is not currently a shade tree public shade tree article that protects the mainor town trees so generally these are the ones that are planted uh sort of in front of houses on the sidewalk or another down owned areas but there are no funds attached to this there are currently no funds there are as the tree Ward and Justin does have a fund every year that is used if there's say like a tree falls down and needs to be cut or it's encroaching on the wires there is a fund um from my recollection attached to that um um but I don't think this bylaw proposes any changes in that fund but wait there's nothing there's nothing in here about examples of what counts and what doesn't count well shade tree versus non shade Trace maybe public versus not public [Music] ah in the in the bylaw or in this this statement um the bylaw to me is somewhat confusing and certainly you know some examples of you know some specific examples would really help so a public shade tree is all trees within a public way or on the boundaries thereof shall be public shade trees uh the definition K if you drop down um which I don't know what the heck that means I also think it's it's confusingly worded however it is part of like the Massachusetts General uh law it's it's like literally just copied from that so it's it's a a restatement of state law yeah I mean I yeah I I'm not comfortable with this one which I'm sure it's just me being stupid and hung up on it but I also feel like the other ones putting out the article they should specify some of this stuff it makes perfectly sense for somebody to say wait does this mean I can't cut down the tree in front of my house I can't answer that based on this so you are asking for um a big a more clear k the public shade tree what is a shade public Trad Tre yeah what is it cover and then you know what does it mean does it mean I got to get Justin to come over and cut my tree down for me and secondly does it mean I now can make Justin take care of the tree in my front yard um and then you know what's the idea of the cost of the town because all of a sudden all these trees on people's in people's yards become public shade trees Peter as many trees as we've seen come down on our loop I think there's been like 30 trees in the last month um but I think that's a good point and the the age of trees um is I think it's becoming a thing though that people might be asking that same question I think it has something to do with your property line if it's public or private right yeah because yeah because I've had a tree in front of my house I don't have sidewalks but that tree was lean beginning to lean on um electric and cable and we had somebody from DM um Public Works come by and they cut it down yeah or cut it back rather so because it was I didn't have to pay for a private company because it was a a city tree so it I there there should be some clarification there that says something about personal property line or public property line and that's the difference between a public shade tree and your private trees yeah I mean this is just the kind of thing town meeting goes nuts over to if anybody remember is the thing about we tried to do a fence bylaw that got crazy um because people started asking really specific questions that nobody knew the answer to Is this verbage 100% from the state if it is then we should just accept it as is but that would be the question well we don't have to accept it and just because the state wrote it doesn't mean I like it I mean modeling the bylaw on state language but um we're not required to have this bylaw can we ask for clarification from Justin I have the um I have the contact information of the um the person the chair of the tree committee so I can send a message to them I mean I can also CC Justin too so my understanding is we're we want want to know what is a public shade tree personal versus public property line is not clear from the definition can you explain and potential cost of impact um can you also ask for some specific examples um which I know it's it's not like I want to pick out a tree but you know is it you know all trees within 10 feet of a road or are I just don't know what counts yeah what counts as a public shade tree so I just worry if we ask for the definition they're going to come back and say oh it's defined right there here's the definition and it just doesn't tell me what trees Rec covered and what aren't Julian can you ask them for their sponsor comments too because they must have a a reason yeah why they're doing this I do have them so yeah I'll um I can share them on the screen they're not on the same document which makes me juggle screens here okay so it sounds like the free committee was not an official committee which I didn't get from that reading of the bylaw either okay and we qualify for funding okay yeah I mean my personal thinking Jullian I would have a short lease with this one either they you know come up with some really good stuff in the next five days or we just vote it down screw it I mean it really ticks me off that people would put a article like this up without a much more comprehensive effort to explain it nope sorry I had to switch my headset can you hear me yeah yep sorry did you hear my rant or but I part of it and then my battery died but Justin was much in favor of this I thought he was very involved yeah Justin said that this is a re this is just a statement of what he's already he's already doing all this stuff because he's required to by state law and he sees this as this is the Outreach and explaining at town meeting like what he is doing as the tree Warden sorry I mean I'm just getting old and crotchy maybe um I had two in front of my house and it took my neighbor blowing up and dying to a gas League to get them removed so I share some Crotched about town trees too all right well can we leave it that we'll you know ask for some more information on this yeah okay all right so um uh I'll reach out so I think Nathan you had signed up for that so I'll see see you on that email um all right control oh I don't have any rooster article so P has been removed uh Q is the debt exclusion for the bleachers which has mve to the STM r R okay R is the stabilization fund for assabet which we've talked about today um we don't have the sponsor comments yet I would recommend that we wait until we get the sponsor comments for that um are there any other questions on that article we would like to discuss it up probably [Music] this is the article I have right now um so I don't have any sponsored comments yet this is for the stabilization fund that we talked about um did were all the questions answered tonight all right I'll take that silence as a yep so um so once I get the comments back we can talk about it this at the next meeting um and make our recommendation and vote does that sound acceptable to everyone that sounds good yes right um way too many windows open all right so uh waiting on sponsor comments we did get uh s which is the golf course transfer receipts um so this is transferring the sum of the receipts to pay for Capital Improvements on the golf course they misspelled mayard in the title yep they good catch um is this sorry is this like the regular like procedural um like the routine thing that happens at every town meeting of just like moving it from one account to another or is this paying for a specific Improvement um it is a new routine article that I believe started last year um the 55,000 is essentially the town's profit from the golf course um which I really seems low we should actually maybe clarify that it it's $50,000 minimum in the contract and then we get a share of like golf revenues and banquet revenues which I guess only amounts to 5,000 um in so this has been going on for in the range of 10 years um and it had been this kind of more casual thing where the golf course would spend the money and then say they were deducting it from from our share last year Justin moved to more formalize this and have them turn over the full amount to the town and then have the town spend the money on doing Capital Improvements so it is kind of routine but it's new routine gotcha um the other thing I mean we could spend this 55,000 elsewhere you know the golf course needs way more than 55,000 a year um and you know who knows what we're going to do about that but we could also say no you don't get any money whatsoever and we want to spend the 55,000 on you know crossing guards or I don't know what whatever else we want to and spend nothing more on the roof um but at this point we're kind of going on this path of well whatever we get out of the golf course we put back into the golf course uh we're not putting extra money in but we are putting some back in clearly so um anyway that's yeah as a from the meeting with Justin like all of the money that we've earned from the golf course has gone back into repairing it and it's like slowly beening yeah so we're not spending enough to keep it up doing that $55,000 is not $770,000 I don't know that would so does it we got to 215,000 oh yeah that seems like a lot of money to have bu up yeah last year it was 175,000 and they added 56,000 which would bring it to 231 so they spent some money because now it's down to 215 this doesn't make any sense to me because if they're waiting to add 50,000 a year to get to 770 the building will be uh the rof will have fallen in by then so why isn't the town because the building is owned by the town correct the golf course is totally owned by the it's just it's just run by that company why isn't the town putting in a capital allocation for the building I think it's been discussed but we have very limited Capital money and I'm not sure there'd be a lot of support for spending 500,000 on the golf course but is there a purpose putting the 50,000 away if it likely will never build to be enough to put to use interesting question yeah I mean at this rate by the time they get to 770 it'll be a million and a half the cost well that's not our that's not our question to decide right so well no it is a little bit I mean if we think it's silly to keep putting money in this because we'll never get there then I think that's a valid question it is on the um that clear Go website that the capital planning committee is using the roof is on that list I don't know where on the rank list it is but um we do have access to that now I don't remember off top my head now is this this location like excuse me like Green Meadow was where it needs a new roof but it also just needs to be a new building that's if that if that makes sense like will the roof you know prolong the life of the building by a significant amount or is it you know to the point where that's just like a Band-Aid that's a very good question yep all right I think it's somewhat complicated if we can put a new building on it because part of this golf course was paid for with CPC funding the community preservation funds as like an open area but I'm not well versed in the history I mean I think that's probably true but I think the bigger deal would be I mean God help the person that goes to town meeting just do a debt override for the golf course to build a new Clubhouse um I just don't see that Senior Center well that I think that's an interesting thought the recreation center just instead of being a golf course just for the golf just for golfing be a recreation center I don't know not a lot of parking there though as a total aside and I know it's late but is anybody driven by Atkinson pool in Sudbury that's an amazing looking place I can't wait to swim there I used to use their pool and yeah it it looks amazing so far yeah I did a tour of the new Senior Center there it was great all right so it sounds like for this article we have questions on uh asking Justin the money goes back into repairing it traditionally but just clarifying if uh is the purpose always to put that to something that we won't necessarily build up towards like is that really going to extend the life of the building or should we those are good questions yeah yeah and I remembered because here they're saying we're they can't get event Revenue because the roof is falling down so who wants to have their wedding there and he mentioned that right if you really fix it up it might be a good investment they mentioned Southboro did that to their golf course they fix it up and they get a lot of revenue from it yep that's all about what we want to put in and put in to get out yeah all right any additional comments or questions on article s about the manard golf course um all right so that's s uh T is the retain earnings transfer all right let's see so what the heck so my understanding is this is transferring it to an account that Justin and uh the select board can pull from without having to do a town vote if there's an emergency expense like a pipe explodes or something yes so that's my understanding um for this transfer and is the dollar amount pretty standard compared to last year it's the same it's the same although in our comments um we say article would use 200 100,000 of the and then it has an amount 84113 of the sewer routine earnings to establish a reserve fund that number for this year is 728 th000 okay we know that from the other article uh we know that from the free cash certification that chillian had forwarded okay we get the free cash certification for free cash for the general fund and for retained earnings for the water Enterprise and the sewer Enterprise okay thank you all right do we have any other questions on this one or do we feel confident in voting on this one I know it's getting late and that we're all fasing so I think this one is pretty black and white yeah yeah I agree so I will move to um recommend control T I'll second all right so Katie um motioned and kadia seconded all right any further uh discussion comments questions no okay uh I will take a roll call vote Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes Katie yes Gia yes I am also a yes all right that's 60 all right right oh get out of here [Music] right um then we have that but for water so this is um a larger sum but for a similar purpose um so this would be specifically for water um and the public drinking water system so not the sewer part and just for reference the retained earnings were 1.33 million this is a lot bigger than last year it was 990,000 that probably is somewhat governed by what was available in retain last year so just for reference Justin's talked about this a little bit that his goal is to build up retained earnings over time and it will kind of roll forward so ideally we would spend none of this 500,000 that we're putting in reserve fund and then all of this plus you know some other unspent money will show up next year in water Enterprise retained earnings and we may be able to even Reserve more um I imagine the difference between the 1.1 million and this 500,000 will show up in a separate article as water Capital expenses I think he's got to do something with it all right um is the committee comfortable with this or would you like me to reach out to ask why it's bigger than last year I mean the infrastructure is aging so are we comfortable with it being he said it was 1.3 million that's like a signicant more percent than T was so I'm wondering if last year it was because it says water Enterprise retain earnings improvements but this one is actually and they bought a truck but this one is actually different I think it is different sorry no last year was 500,000 it was it was the same yeah I was looking at a different a different transfer this is the same yep that there was a couple of transfers from this okay what are they trying to build the reserve fund up to I think he is talking about 5% of the overall budget which um sewer I feel it's an amount we will never reach right it's like millions of no I I think I have the numbers wrong I mean the overall budget is just about 2.7 million and last year the balance in the the retained earnings was one 1, 94,000 yeah so I don't know Nathan to answer your question I don't know what he's trying to build it up too would we expect another uh half million appropriation next year yeah yes but it's it essentially is the same half million it it's not that we're adding half a million to any fund it's that we're establishing a half a million dollar Reserve fund just for this fiscal year if it goes unspent it then flows into retained earnings so I think the real comparison number is last year it was 1.09 four million of retained earnings and this year it's 1.33 of retained earnings gotcha which is pretty much the same um I I would be fine voting on this and I'll make a motion but I don't want to if people other people aren't that's totally fine I would be fine yep all right I'm gonna make a motion then to uh sorry can you slide up just slightly Jullian sorry I forgot what control letter we're on uh you uh I'm making a motion then that we recomend men control U for water retained earnings transfer I will second the motion to recommend control [Music] U did we lose Jullian maybe H so I am back I had to use uh the facility so I heard that um Peter recommended and second yes yes is there any further discussion no no right uh so let's see take a roll call vote um Kia yes Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes Katie yes I am also a yes all right so that is for article [Music] U all right um Z so this is um this is the article that is amending the um the bylaw about the site plan approval for building in the water supply Protection District um so my understanding of this article it is to clarify the zoning bylaws or zbl um in the town for development near toown Water Supplies um so I believe that passing of this article will make the bylaw more specific for requirements of this quote unquote site plan approval process for development within this district and it'll be more specific um about what zone in that District are required to go before the zoning board to get the site plan approval so adding in more specific language for example are there any questions on this particular article or comments this seems to just streamline things and you know the planning board is you know sponsoring it so I I'm okay going ahead with this yeah we also had Justin come and talk about it as well he said this is makes it more clarifying so I don't recall he had concerns either I will make a motion to recommend article control number V a second all right so Nathan recommended Linda seconded do we have any additional discussion comments Etc all right hearing none I will take a roll call vote Linda yes Nathan yes Peter yes pija yes Katie yes uh I am also a yes all right um sorry Jullian I I'll do whatever you want to do um is there anything else we need to do tonight um no I think we should just do this and I'm wondering if it's worth before it gets too late roaching the idea of an April 1 meeting you would mentioned but you know so if we would like we could take a a stroll paw there we [Laughter] go I would be free April 1 yes I would too okay all right so um the focus will be on the ATM articles and I'll try to get all of those from Greg um and at that point do we want to have our the ones were assigned to um potential drafts for those ones at that point if that's possible that would be excellent so that's why I'm trying to run through the article sort of break neck so you know if we recommend or we don't recommend right but obviously some of the articles can't recommend or not because we just haven't gotten them or we still have outstanding questions so all right so I'll schedule a meet on April 1 uh and I'll make the focus ATM articles thanks for that uh speaking in terms of scheduling there's also a proposed tri board meeting on June 11th at 6:30 p.m. that's a two Tuesday um supposedly it would be in person and also remote and the proposal is for the tri board meeting to have a focus on Capital planning oh it would be the select board the finance committee and the school committee and the capital planning committee is that something that might also fit people's schedules um it doesn't fit mine we're in Colorado hiking coming back that night so I won't be able to make it that Tuesday but I hope you have a lovely time that sounds I know I'm sounds great yeah I will I will be here Jillian okay I'll be here I believe I'll be here I assume I'll be there also but have to wait till we're closer too so you said June 11th at 7 6:30 right June 11th at 6:30 yep 6:30 okay yeah I can attend okay thank you um yeah so that was the other chair notes I had the only other business I had was that we do have a request from our Reserve fund from um fire chief oh God for fixing a ladder truck so um I did forward that but it is not it's not an immediate uh we don't have to do that tonight so um I just wanted to bring it to your attention so generally how it works it goes before the select board first so it hasn't gone to them yet um and then we can talk about it later uh after we do the ATM stuff so they're going to pay for it from their own funds right now which will make a deficit um and then they would propose if we approve it that they would use the reserve fund to replenish that um request so that's right here the reserve fund for latter three so um they're requesting $50,000 so that's an estimate and they're going to go bid out three different vendors so I just wanted to put on people's radar uh we don't have to come to any decision about that today but um that's something that is being requested and I can um invite Chief Lawless to a future meeting perhaps after April 8th um when we um because I think right now we're pretty crunched with the ATM stuff so outside of the ATM article those were the only other updates I had for today um I I will quickly say I was on a Green Meadow um sorry my video's off me um I was on a I want my video sorry having issues but anyway I was on a Green Meadow building committee today and what took a lot of the um conversation up is that now they potentially want to move playground around um from one location of the schematic design to another location which because K through 3 and it's it's the students that would use the K through 3 playground and I guess when they enter the playground they're usually coming from the cafeteria or certain spots of the school and where they then will have to get to the playground is a um a hike um or they'll they'll have to it's not super convenient and so there's a proposal to change that but then that brought up discussion that that could be an extremely expensive change um and so they voted on um funds to fund a study about it more because depending on the the cost of it maybe they won't want to do anything but um but that's now just a discussion so nothing has been decided or voted on other than to spend some money on a team to study it but so that that was kind of a a financial update that came from from them today okay thanks for sharing yeah all right um do we want to keep plugging through these articles or do we want to say it's 10:20 we're done and we'll pick up I'll send out the draft I've been writing and April 1 yeah I would vote to wait and just as we start to get into the accessory dwelling unit and I mean there's some media articles we still need to talk about and seems to me kind of late but sounds good to me is there a motion perhaps to adjourn then I will make a motion to adjourn our meeting on um March 25th um at 10:19 all right K's made a motion who's gonna second it I'll second and the second it all right there's no further discussion I will take a roll call vote Nathan yes Padia Yesa yes Peter yes kti yes all right thanks everyone for staying late tonight I will send out that uh meeting agenda for April 1