I'll call the meeting to order at 7:01 and I will start reading the remote script here so uh as a preliminary matter this is Jillian Prendergast I am the chair of the finance committee please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me uh members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative um Katie yes Peter yes yes maybe she's still connecting can you hear us Kadija all right we will come back then um ah great thanks for confirming appreciate it I always sign on these calls and I'm on triple double mute all right um so I'll go through the rest of the open meeting script um so good evening this is a meeting of the um mayard finance committee it is being conducted via Zoom um we will all be participating remotely uh and I may allow for the public to provide comments um please note that while the option for remote attendance and or participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting SL hearing uh will not be suspended or terminated if technological uh problems interrupt the visual broadcast to individual in attendees unless otherwise required by law accordingly Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and also hear you um please take care not to screen share your computer anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording this meeting is currently being recorded uh and will also be posted by wavm uh at a later date to YouTube so thank you w amm uh all meeting materials can be found on board docs um unless otherwise noted and we will now turn to the agenda um all right great so the agenda today um so thank you uh all for having the meeting last week uh in my absence uh I was away at a work conference and I forgot that in California the time zone is three hours different so this meeting was still during work hours so um sorry about that so but I heard that you all were very productive um so thanks uh Katie for forwarding all the materials I forwarded everything to Greg um so we should have the so the first topic on the agenda is um talking about the ATM so this is my ATM update to everyone um so all of the M all of our votes and our written recommendations um were due on Friday last week on the 19th so this will be included in the printed warrant so for my understanding we will have all of them in there except three articles um so that is great so uh we have a new and when we were voting on it it was called article e so that's the general fund budget so we did have we did have a comment on there and a vote we will have to revote it because on 4:16 the select board changed the allocation of the money in the different categories um so we will we'll need to revote article e um and my understanding is tonight we will also vote AA and ab which were about the the cemetery and I think other than that I got Cav's comment um for article o about the roosters uh so I think every other article should be covered so great job uh if you would like I can pull up the new article uh it's a little confusing I don't actually have what the numbers are for all the Articles because they're being formatted right now but the article that we will need to revote for the general fund budget is called article six in the items that I sent you before um and AA and ab um Nathan kindly provided a comment um to me based on some updated information you all talked about last week so I can also pull those up um so we can go let's um article number might be a little bit complicated so let me pull up uh I'll pull that article up for us all article six and I'm trying to pull up the old one as well article okay let's see all right I'll share my screen so we can see everything at once so article six and this is so article e is what we voted on last time and these were the allocations this is the new article um which has everything in the same order uh but the numbers here here are slightly different so the employee benefit number has been slightly changed um the general government number is slightly changed so these slight changes are oops so the these are the the very specific changes so I ask grade for explanation so it is updated because um of updated asate numbers that we got so the assessment is less so he's adjusting it to put money in for these specific items into the different large line items so they are increases to other parts of the budget Jullian when he says a capital planning module is a module a line item or Mo or no that's a specific piece of software from oh it's a soft CLE track Capital requests okay thank you yep but note the reestablishment of the capital projects account only 50k but that's a pretty good one been fighting for that for a while sorry Peter can you can you explain what that means uh that we will have a finally have a line in the operating budget for Capital expenses now you know what we'll use it on isn't you know completely clear but um you know right now we mostly do Capital either by financing it with debt uh an override or something or from free cash and this will give us some flexibility you know probably should be a lot bigger in the ideal world but at least it's some amount that's going to Capital um just out of the operating budget yeah so this is and I can share just this new article so this is basically you can't see me pointing at my screen but it is basically um because of this change here so the change in the aspit numbers so the assessment came in lower for it from the original article e that we actually voted on and then that's how they allocated this change of about $74,000 I'll stop sharing and I'll share just the new updated article itself then it's it's in big so this um the sponsor comments on this are always pretty limited they always just see C appendix a um which you know goes through each of the line items more specifically and this is the general description that I got from Greg so Peter do you know how we how do how do we do we have to vote to cancel a vote or do we vote to uphold a vote I've never had to revote an article after it's been amended yeah I think we just go ahead and recommend this article I I mean I I'll make a motion that we recommend article six I will second the motion to recommend article six okay Peter first Katy second is um is there any further discussion on article number six which is the appropriation uh we already wrote comments for the previous version of this and we can probably use the same comments right yeah so I'll share I'm going to pull them up right now so this is currently what we had last time so I will last time we voted seven to zero but um so right now there's a motion this second and then this is what sorry it's in yellow I'll make it not yellow so it's easy to read um so the total cost I'll just double triple check that it's the same number yep so the total number does not change um and this is this is what we wrote so it sort of says you know this is what it is um we did originally have a comment in here about how the school department was planning to draw on various reserve and resolving funds um if we would like to keep that in there I wasn't sure if that was discussed at the last meeting or not I would like to keep it in I think it's still relevant okay Peter do you think we should add a line about the um the capital projects the new capital projects line I mean I I up to other I I don't think it's that significant I mean it's nice but it's only 50,000 so it's not and likely we're going to it next year in all likelihoods but I love the I love the positivity Peter is great sorry man I'm a realist but if if people want to we can I mean it um but I don't I don't think it's that significant um myself so I have a question the money that we voted for the golf course that Justin said was to put in a fund to eventually replace the roof right why is that or how is that not eligible for Capital funds or or is it I mean the the roof replacement at the golf course um so that article is a separate article that sets up essentially kind of a capital fund for the golf course I think you know Justin and Greg and you know likely my feeling too is there would not be a lot of support for trying to f Capital at the golf course from money besides money from the golf course so I mean we could go to free cash and say let's spend 700,000 on the golf course roof but all those other projects wouldn't get funded then and I'm not sure there'd be a lot of support for that okay um I mean we could do a two and a half override to do the roof at the golf course no I'm well I'm just trying to figure out like there's a capital project here and a capital project there you know what I'm I mean it seems yeah okay okay sorry the golf course what well yeah I'm I'm just it's it's just a I don't know just an odd question I guess if it helps um to put it in context the capital Capal planning committee has that software that is in this new article number six that um the Clear G software is something that they're starting to use to track all of the capital needs of the whole town and prioritize them um okay and you know have them on and start to say you know this year we should do this one this year we should do that one like and start planning for the next I think they said five years is is ideally what they were looking for uh hoping to have them come and talk to us at some point when they're um really settled into their cycle so we were talking about sometime in like the summer maybe during um or before or after the tri board meeting that's coming up in June I think it's June no um I I did log into clear gov and take it is in the list of capital projects they have $1 million um in there but it's not like ranked or anything yeah and that's something that wasn't clear to me because I know they have like an old school spreadsheet where each of the members of the committee sort of rank uh all the different projects so they rank them for things like safety um you know meeting the master plan there's like a whole sort of checklist that they have um to get this like score but I didn't see it on clear go so that was something I wanted to talk to them about how they're going to go forward with that and this 50,000 will disappear after this year I think this is in the operating budget so either they somebody spends it or uh either somebody spends it or it would come back as free cash free cash yeah but it won't be like a savings account like is the golf course the golf one yeah correct or the capital stabilization fund yep okay so I have I have a a motion to recommend this and we sort of talked about the wording here um do we have further discussion on what we'd like to say in our comments or otherwise all right are we ready to hold a vote then for uh this this article here all right all right so uh so we're going to do a roll call vote then so the roll call vote is to recommend uh article number six which is the general fund budget which was updated by the select board on 416 uh so I will uh Katie yes Peter yes Linda Yesa yes Nathan yes Kevin yes all right that that was a yes I I am also a yes um so that uh that is 70 for yeses uh all right that is uh seven zero great okay um and then the next article is AA and ab let's see this is way too many windows open today all right so AA and ab has to do with the um Cemetery AA is specifically about transferring the sale of graves for improvements and maintenance so um this is one where I wrote the comments for and I was trying to follow up with Greg on I I raised questions out like our last meeting um because this isn't something that we vote on every year um I found it in like two Town meetings out like the last like five years or so and it was for smaller amounts of money and just transferring into one account each time uh so this just seemed like a large amount of money um and it's transferring into two different accounts and I just was hoping for some like clarification uh because I want to just copy over what we did before but I didn't find like a neat you know like the exact same thing um and Greg eventually got the like the like the three different accounts and like their last five years of history and I was expecting to see like a very clear like this $50,000 transferred out you know and the last fiscal year and then it appears in the other account and I just I I had trouble following it and probably doesn't really matter that much um it seems pretty routine uh I don't know if anybody else had a chance to like look at the account information that he sent over um and I was able to make more sense of it than I was sorry I'm talking with mute on uh I can pull up the where was so I think you're talking about these um these accounts right where he sent you the information about the sales and the revenues and the balances and things yeah yeah so there's the sale of cemetery lots and then half of is being transferred into um an expenditure account and half of it is being transferred into a non-expendable happening before in these five years um and yeah it's just it probably isn't a big thing didn't I wasn't I don't want to like waste Greg's time just like following up and following up and just so I could like satisfy my curiosity um but I still don't fully understand it that's where I'm at um they're all sideways but um but this is from 2023 to 2024 yeah my understanding from what I remember is that one of these is like a long ter longterm or Perpetual fund and it's supposed to like grow and you're supposed to use the growth of that fund to like offset the cost but it never it it isn't always enough um and then the DPW is doing the maintenance now there's not set separate ground Crews just for the cemetery so some of it has to be transferred to them but I don't I'm not sure I thought I thought these were pretty routine almost every year but it sounds like they weren't in the last couple I I didn't find any anything Sim I didn't find uh similar things in the warrants for town meeting um but yeah um sorry I can't shed more light I'm not super familiar with this um a little bummed Greg wouldn't spend a little more effort TR to answer the question though um it may be Justin is the one to ask um I feel Justin talked to us before in a previous year about this I think it was Justin I remember that right before the town meeting last year but and he explained it but I don't remember exactly yeah yeah sorry yeah I mean if there's outstanding questions here we don't necessarily have to vote on it tonight because it's not going to make the prince of Warrant anyway like we can still ask questions we'll just have to vote on it and make our recommendations at our next meeting um instead I mean I I'd be happy like voting on this um I just I just don't fully understand it and that like bothers me uh but it you know I want to be taken care of and the money's got to be in the right account account in order to do that yeah I mean one this is the expenditure account so you can spend from this the other one is the trust account so that that's supposed to grow the funds that's why there's two you can't actually spend it out of the trust account so it sounds like the total account the total I'm looking at both of them here is half of this number this number yes so he's putting he's putting equal he's putting equal into the expenditure one and then in equal amount into the trust account which is article AB so if you want I can send a message to Greg and Justin about these two articles and have them answer them at the next meeting we have if there outstanding questions so my sense is from just looking at the Articles and um it is likely that the money builds up in the um sale of graves receipts account until we transfer it and so it may be that we don't transfer it every year but just periodically transfer it out of that receipts account um and then I I don't know what we've done in the past but you know for this case for this year we're doing half of it into this Perpetual care expenditure account that they then you know will pay to mow this thing cemetery and then the other half of it into the trust account which is I don't know how we spend we will periodically I guess if we have no money take money out of this to then care for the cemetery too I don't know what's triggering us to do it this year and why we didn't do it last year um I don't know if there were a lot of sales actually what was the receipts thing yeah I remember last year Peter on that note that I think sales were down last year and that was a discussion because it was a weird discussion um but yeah that that fluctuates a lot yeah because I can see I switched the slide so I could see them better and last year that the revenue was 2500 and that was the lowest before it was 6,800 11,000 10,000 8500 and you can see the balances were going up up up so in 2020 we zeroed it out in 2021 2022 huh so actually from the stuff Greg sent it looks like we do zero it out every year yeah well I'm thinking that's what page one through five of the PDF says mhm so it shows fy20 fy21 fy22 FY 23 and FY 24 the sale you know the cash from the sale of cemetery lots and then it getting zeroed out and transferred where do you see the transfer well I'm thinking it's the negative number the undesignated fund balance Sal Cemetery so you know on page five it shows us a negative 1119 one more page although this shows a two so in this case it would be the negative - 113 well it still has the starting the ending balance is the starting balance for the next year oh okay I'm sorry yep yep yep so wait 20 um and then what seems strange to me was that uh if you go down to the Perpetual care um Expendable account um there's re there's like positive Revenue in fy20 fy21 um in the last two years but in fy22 there's like a lot of money goes out of it all at once and I'm not sure what that means either one of these years I'm pretty sure that the fund like the Port switched over to the DPW but I don't remember what year it was uh okay and I guess a large amount is like $112,000 so whatever but it's uh it was different than the other years so that stuck out to me but yeah I was I was basically just I was expecting to see like a like a $50,000 like debit from like one account and a $50,000 credit to another account based on uh last year's town meeting and that might be you know the revenue um for Perpetual care Expendable was 60,000 in change so if they you know 50,000 was from the town meeting transfer and that's being counted as Revenue State count and then there's another like $10,000 or so of like regular Revenue I don't know where that money comes from um but I can I can like make make a story for it I just I just wish it were a little bit more obvious what was what was going on yeah but if we don't understand it then it's hard to say how we're supposed to explain it in comments can we ask Justin to come to our next meeting yep I'm sure it'll just take him 10 minutes um Jillian it might make sense though to ask him first you know does he know and is he the one who can explain this oh yeah come and say I don't really know I don't know right yeah um so what what are our questions though do you specifically what's going on I mean I it would be to explain what's the reports that Greg sent you know what do these reports show and how does it tie to the article that we're being asked to recommend okay so like in the email chain where I was asking Greg about this um he talked to the he emailed Our Town accountant Kevin Peterson and he's the one who forwarded this information and he said let me know if you need more detail and I can provide um so he might need we could just like ask Greg okay okay all right so what I'm hearing is for AA and ab we have additional questions uh so we're not necessarily going to vote on those today so let's see um I think for the ATM the only other question I have so are currently our next schedule meeting is on May let me double check I think it's the 13th yeah so our next scheduled meeting is on May 13th I wanted to like have a straw poll If people could come because that would also be our public hearing uh yes I can come okay which for me guess yeah May 13th so our next meeting will be on the 13th I don't so that would be our public hearing and we could also vote on article AA and ab at that meeting I'll be able to be there Jill okay I can attend all right so that's a quorum so that's good uh if anyone can't attend I guess let me know um but it sounds it sounds like that's an all right date for everyone to have our public hearing and also to that'll honestly probably take most of the time of the meeting because it'll be quite long uh there's a lot of Articles um all right does anyone else have any topics for the ATM that I might have missed from the last last meeting I think that was all the articles that we had left to talk about all right I am not hearing anything uh so I guess we can move on from the ATM topic um and go on to some of our next topics yep I heard it so no maybe okay um okay so one of the other topics I wanted to bring up today was um the main fire department they requested a reserve fund transfer so we currently have uh based on our notes most of the reserve fund is currently uh intact so our Reserve fund balance is um 2, uh 20,34 dollars words so let me share um [Music] $234,300 the mayor fire department is requesting um it is absolutely tiny it's so small so this was um voted on and approved by the select board at their prior meeting or not voted on but the recommended to come before the finance committee um so this was presented to the select board at one of their last meetings um and they are the fire department is requesting $50,000 out of our remaining 230 Kish um to repair a ladder uh on one of their fire trucks or to repair the ladder truck there's some kind of a spring that's on the ladder and the document that I sent so it's a 19 page document talks about that um and also for the tires so in this this article goes this um request goes into the different questions and concerns they have about the truck itself um and why they're requesting the $50,000 um it's difficult they don't have an EXA exact amount um for that but this is an estimate based on that and they will they said they will vote it out to three different vendors um or the latter will need to go to three different vendors for this repair um and that's why it's not an exact amount at the current time and that's why it's an estimation um so can you explain that note that says the turnout of the station is going to be a tire issue going forward that last second to last paragraph last sentence yep yeah so um I yes um so the the um where my understanding is that the radius of the turn that they have to make is creating a bit more wear on the tires than they expected which is explained somewhere in here or maybe was in an email um pictures of the different things um yeah these are just pictures but my understanding from the email is that the turning radius that the trucks have to take to get in and out of the Baye um is creating perhaps some uneven tire wear on the engines on the on the fire engines on the trucks Oh this is a request I wanted to bring to the committee to see if there are questions about it if you would like me to invite the fire chief uh to one of our future meetings to talk about it um but and I did also ask about some of these Springs that are on the I think it was the springs that are on the ladder itself um and it sounds like that they are at their end of their life expectancy so they're they haven't been replaced in seven years um so they said that this replacement is to do it about every seven years which is exactly where they are with that ladder truck um so and going forward to answer your question they think that instead of doing it every seven years which is what it currently is around right now it might be sooner because of the turning radius at the fire station that we have but all they can do is monitor at this point because they're not entirely sure so that's why they mentioned the turning radius here to keep it in mind for future to see if it will cause uh repairs necessary for more often than every seven years yep so I I just have one question because the point of the reserve fund is for unexpected expenses so if they knew that the Springs were at the end of the life why is the replacement of these Springs an unexpected expense yep that is a fair question that is also the question I have so yeah I think you know I'm inclined to just go ahead and give them the transfer but to include with that after the fact and admonishment that like hey if you have Springs at the end of the life you need to budget for that or you need to talk to the capital planning committee and let them know um that these Springs are going to fail uh because that would be you know I think this is like the first time but if this were be repeated then that's starting to become a pattern um hopefully we won't have to wait for seven years for the you know I mean hopefully we can wait seven years before the pattern gets repeated but I think we should you know have a note that says like hey you know this is not really an unexpected expense you knew that they were at the end of their life um so next time could we like budget for this uh instead of doing a emergency I mean this is the whole point like the reserve fund is supposed to be for emergencies um not for um expenses that you could see coming down the road all right all right does the committee have any further questions that you'd like me to pass along to the fire chief or have the fire chief come talk to us about any part of this request yeah I just think we need to have a note that says like you know it's it's borderline and we'll give you this freebie but this is you know next time this is don't wait to do a reserve fund transfer they really need to budget for this kind of stuff all right and there's I don't think there's anything we can do about the turning radius of since we put the fire station there I I mean not unless we try to buy more land from the mill maybe I don't know or or get an at least get an easement from the mill but I mean there's significant construction there like they had this nice stone wall leading down um but people had questions about the turning radius before but I I'm I'm willing to give them that one and say like okay the wear and the tires yeah you could not exactly expect that to happen the way it did but maybe we could talk as you said maybe we could talk to the mill and get a get a a lean on on the mill for them to let us expand that turn radius there's a big retaining wall so they would have to yeah somehow get more land yeah down off the retaining wall so all right um yep so do do we have any do you want me to bring do we have any pressing to talk to the fire chief about this or do we feel comfortable about this request to vote on on it ourselves um as I said I'm fine um voting on the request I just think we need to have a a little bit of a conversation after the fact that you know do better next time uh kind of sort of conversation that can mostly happen by email def yes I will I can include that in um with this document so basically how it works is if we do vote for this and approve it then I would sign this and send a signed copy back to Greg and then the money would be transferred out of our account um if there's still additional discussions or things we want to talk to the fire chief about to learn more then I can invite her to a future meeting um so the way Greg explained it to me was that they overspent the account or they used emergency funding for it so this will sort of backfill in um um the money that's been spent so it it's not currently holding up emergency repairs to critical Town equipment and I I oh there was one other thing I noticed there's a negative amount um so is is is Greg utilizing some sort of debt instrument to um maintain that negative balance or is that like an internal debt to like some other Fund in town that is within the the fire chiefs account itself so there's a line item for fire um r&m for their vehicles which is is r&m routine and maintenance I forget Peter uh repair and maintenance repair there you go that's the r things but for Cav's thing yeah it's more an internal thing that you know we have money because we haven't paid all of FY 24 salaries yet for instance um so it's more an internal deficit all right so do we feel comfortable voting on approving for this I mean I can I can motion to recommend if you'd like me to do so I'll second okay so is that Linda yep okay is there any further discussions or questions or comments on this Reserve fund transfer request nope all right hearing none I will take a roll call vote so the roll call vote is to recommend Katie yes Peter yes Linda yes D you yes Nathan yes Gavin sorry I think that was a yes I didn't actually hear what you said K oh um that was a yes thank you uh I am also a yes um so that is 70 all right so I will um I will get this signed and get it back um I will get this back to Greg so uh I haven't done one of these Peter I haven't done one of these in a while I just fill in I don't have to do I fill in the the roll call vote like the number Vote or I just say approved yeah I I think I I used to just say 60 or 70 whatever it was okay all right thank you okie dokie great so I take that great okay um so now our um so we did have updates and future planning discussions on here but 100% honest I haven't worked on that model since uh we started doing the ATM articles so um I'll leave I'll leave it open in case anyone else has any future models or planning that you would like to discuss tonight I was I was focusing on the ATM to make sure it got done nope all right I worked on oh you did Nathan okay I have worked on my version since the last time we talked but not recently and I'm not even I'd have to dig it up okay yeah no worries so I figure usually when I start working on these it's more after the ATM because it's just such a such an event that uh it pulls away from the other topics on the agenda but we will have we will have some time at the tri board meeting coming up which I haven't gotten a confirmation on the date yet I'm assuming that'll probably go out in like next month um so I will prepare like a short summary of some of the planning that we've been doing so my understanding is we're going to focus a lot on the capital um the capital needs of the town there so all all the board will be there including uh the capital board and I think they'll be playing a role a large role in that so um but I know that some so some um our terms are changing in the upcoming fiscal year here so I did also want to bring up that um Pia and Katie your term ends in August 2024 are you guys going to renew for the finance committee this year coming up um sorry Jill I think it would be June right or did you just misspeak oh June yeah I don't know why I said August sorry that's wrong are they threeyear terms what how twoe terms June one I think there's three um they are three-year term terms unless uh a member was appointed to fill the unexpired term of someone who resigned in which case I think they'd be appointed for one to two years depending on what's left um yeah I think that's how I started right I I just started last what March March or April so I've just been a year so that that was a question of mine am I supposed to is it definitely a year or is that my choice or how does that work um yeah it would depend on theat yeah it's on the website it would depend on the seat you were appointed to yeah unexpired term of you know Ken esterbrook or somebody that it could be that you were just on you know appointed for a year to fill that remainder of you know his threeyear slot um right that's what it says a year yep yeah yeah so the typical terms are three years yeah so that must be the case so then I mean it really is I think if you just you know send a note to Dick Downey um the moderator who's the appointing authority and say You' like like to I mean I think he'll start asking come May or post or to yeah so I'm I'm asking because the clerk is asking because they're going to advertise open positions on committees at the town meeting um so I just wanted to make sure if you do want to renew or if you don't want to renew I can be like we are completely full or there vacancies or you know and if other people on the committee are thinking of ending their term not at the the end of their term also that's uh just let me know so um yeah but generally how the procedure works is you just you let dick know and then I think you just have to find the paperwork one more time with the Town Clerk and then I don't know swear you in I guess um or extend the swearing in since you've already done that to be on the committee currently um so it's a little bit of paperwork I'm still in the deciding phase do I have till June okay okay yeah you don't you don't have to decide right now so um but I did just want to put it on on your both of your Radars since the the term will be ending soon so um yep okay um great so that is that is that topic um yeah okay um so I will ask Justin and Greg to come or I will ask Justin and Greg about the two articles I will send in the fire truck article so I mean I think unless there's future discussions there's we're on to the routine agenda um and Jullian I I emailed you on renewal so just so you have okay thank you yeah great um okay so I do have for approval of Prior minutes and prior meetings I do have two um two different meeting notes uh that you all forward me so thanks for that we will start with the one that's open right now so we got the March 25th notes that I'm am currently sharing so um this is when the asbit school came yeah and I did did these very after the fact so please correct anything that's off in them this is from 325 I'm looking at the notes I took too I thought we only had 14 manard students 65 seems like a lot maybe that's in all four grades oh maybe I think that I think I just wrot down for the new stud yep okay at 8:46 we close our discussion with asit and every at 10:40 something was a long one yeah I know I know how to share um screens now so people won't accidentally do that Greg showed me after the meeting so I was like thank you um great and then we talked about all the different articles that we voted on I to I didn't know what to call I feel at that time it was I2 but yeah should we should we add a post meeting note here with the the actual it was um would that hit our notes on the next meeting though that no we can modify the minutes yeah I just approval so that was Article AF the leasing of the ambulance right right wait was it right one two I thought it was the CPC one wasn't that the one CPC away my [Music] not to extend that's a a d the extension of the request fund for the CBC yes yeah because I was the community preservation fund Appropriations and then they submitted yeah okay was I Just Called It Up was to extend the deadline for the planning project yeah was I to right and I don't know what number I do we even know what number it is now I don't know I I asked for numbers and they just I didn't get them so okay yeah letters um actually as long as we're editing then I think we can just edit we don't have to do it as a post meeting note or anything but um um a there we should probably change to control a just to be consistent right okay yeah that works okay all right there any further modifications or comments on the meeting minutes for March 25th is there a I will make a motion to approve the minutes from March 25th 2024 uh second by Peter approve Peter seconded all right all right so we will take a roll call vote um Katie yes Peter yes Linda yes D yes Nathan yes Kevin yes all right so uh and I am also a yes so uh these minutes have been approved um as amended all right so I'll will send those to the clerk uh there is one other set of minutes here someplace Julian while you pull those up I wanted to make a note last week we um I was or the last meeting I was able to pull it up we ran it fine but I I wasn't the host um and that it was we we discussed all the things I was going to share so it was fine but because I wasn't the host I never got a recording you know like a finished recording of it so I'm not sure where that went in the world just yeah that's okay so basically you can use the information from Greg to sign into Zoom the website and if you sign into the zoom website um it actually has the post recordings there so when I send the recording for tonight I'll also send the recording from last time too great all right okay so thanks thanks for letting me know about that I forgot about that um and the other thing was Katie couldn't share her screen is there anything we would do if you're not here Jillian I believe that was the case the whole meeting Katie was it was and last time we did it I was able to share and like there was no problem logging in you know I I didn't have to have a code or anything but I just got sh when you yeah so if you want to sign in as the host you sign in on the zoom website using the information that Greg gives you and then in there you go to the meetings Tab and then you go join the meeting from the zoom website when you're signed in and then you'll sign in as the administrator okay okay I could have missed a step in that um and It's Tricky we can't um they don't want to allow anyone who joins to be able to share screens because they've had some um right I forget what it's called the thees like malicious actors sharing things they're not supposed to share yeah um yeah so I probably opened the meeting in a not proper way as my guess yeah if you just open the zoom link it won't realize that you're actually the host so I think you have to log into the zoom website first okay all right make a mental note for next time we did good though I was really impressed by what we were able to do without screen sharing I read a lot got so much so much done I'm very thankful um okay so these These are the notes from April 1 that I I was presented here um so this is where we were talking about um some of the articles for the ATM and we have we're talking about planning for the next meeting Linda you're so thorough they're beautiful are there any discussion or comments on the note from April 1 I will make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from April 1st 2024 I'll second okay great I will stop sharing so I can take roll call v um Katie yes Peter yes Linda yes I saw I think I saw you say yes but you're still muted so sorry I didn't hear you CIA yes thank you uh Nathan yes Kevin oh I think I had a similar problem with you Kevin sorry I saw you say yes but I didn't hear it yes he thank you uh and I am also a yes so this is also why I don't have my camera on because it could be a delay on my side so um okay so we have approved uh the minutes from April 1st so the that was I think all the minutes I had for this time um okay save that so um and I think we're just on to updates from chairs and members and also the future meeting planning um so on uh just updates from my side May 13th will be our public hearing um it will be virtual I'll I'm going to double check with Greg um if I need to post it in any special way other than the way we normally post it I don't think so um check yeah I don't believe I had I ever did yeah because it's not we're not it's not like a select board public hearing where they're doing we're doing like some kind of a rate thing or something where it has to be in the newspaper too so um but I'll to post that soon after this meeting so thanks for everyone's flexibility I thought I thought before I came back from my work break that I also posted or my work uh trip that I also posted this meeting which is why last week on Thursday almost I was like oh no I need to get this meeting posted for Monday so um thanks everyone for your flexibility for coming today um I think it'll be it'll be nice to have this um this meeting accomplished once it goes through so yeah so I think uh in terms of updates I don't necessarily have any other updates I will start working on the the financial future planning now that we have um a updated article general fund article I can also plug those numbers in assuming that they might get approved at the town meeting um for the upcoming fiscal year um and update those numbers or at least see how close they are using the prediction spreadsheet um you also see how we did I think we were pretty close which is me um yeah and uh the only other things I did have to update us on was um we did get our bond rating from Moody so Greg I forwarded that around to everyone on the committee um and if you are interested to learn more about it there's also I can also share a link with uh here but um basically let's see I can share the screen we were assigned an aa3 rating so this is um this is to give you an idea of the rating and what what does that mean uh those just were letters to me so um and this is let's see so if you look at Moody's rating scale so we we got a aa3 so like AAA is the highest you can get uh a c is like something you don't want to get so this is like an idea of the letters that are in the scale so um our our obligations are high quality and are subject to low credit risk and then we got three so my understanding is this is how it works you get the letter and you get the number and uh we have an acceptable ability to pay short-term obligations um so this is uh and the document that uh I shared and was also posted on board dos gives you an idea of you know and it talks a little bit more about that you know about how much is available reserves equal to revenue and things like that and that's how they come up with this Bond um so and then it it talks about what could upgrade or downgrade the rating um you know and that's sort of what the rest of this um report goes into and all the le le about how you know they're not responsible for XYZ so but I just want to let you know this is this is the current rating we have and I'm assuming or understanding that this is also with the new uh school I think Greg's notee was that the uh the this assessment is based on things before the new loan for the school takes effect okay yeah okay so um that's that's to just give you an idea of um of that I don't remember seeing what it was in the past personally but I might have missed it I it the language was it maintained it so I thought it was the same that we didn't go up or down I thought Greg had hoped we would get a better rating but yeah I mean I don't recall it ever being yeah go ahead petd nothing I just I think it is the same as we had before um yeah and then I think the only other update that I got was a uh um updated house Ways and Means um proposal so that I don't know if they talked about this at the budget meeting maybe maybe not but um I think we've had a budget meeting and I mean this is going to change several times be the house proposal there'll be a senate proposal and it won't be settled till you know well into July most likely yeah yep so that that is all uh all the updates I had for today I don't know if any other members have any updates on other boards that youa is on to or otherwise I'll say the senior center committee is very active and now we're um um visiting other senior centers to look at their their finances how they how they built them um or least that we uh some people went to Acton which is a leas facility tomorrow I'm going to Lun lunberg which is one of the our peer towns the same population almost The Identical budget as mayor um to look at their facility um and programs and Staffing so um they should have something to the select board we don't have a final date but they're moving along pretty rapidly and is that report coming out soon from Yes uh actually the report is will be coming out in the fall they the they finished the surveys and that the town had a very good response rate over 25% of the seniors responded and right now they're doing focus group with key informant so they met with say the chief of police the chief the fire chief um the Town Administrator on on different issues they're having a focus group with seniors um I was in a focus group because I'm the finance committee liaison of um to the group and other um other Town boards were on that focus group so then the Su so the sort of the data collection will be finished in the spring they do the data analysis in the Summer and the report will come out in the fall which would be probably good timing with the senior Senior Center committee's work on making recommendations to the to the select board and is that different from the um is aren't you getting a report from a university as well like on the the that was the report that I was talking about so that that was with the surveys and the um focus groups is the UMass survey then the senior center committee is also doing work on um just information gathering from peer towns in terms of budgets and what size of facility and what what um how they you know how they um manage to do this so um and they're doing a real estate subgroup and a financing subgroup but that's the senior center committee okay so they're kind of running in in parallel but two two different um efforts that'll help help inform that decision and planning okay great thank you for that update all right do any of the other members have any updates or comments that you would like to have the floor all right not I'm not hearing any um so for us tonight this might be a quick meeting which which might be a blessing since there's been so many extra meetings recently to make sure we got our most of our comments and and votes in before the printing of the warrant so thanks thanks everyone for your crunch time there appreciate it uh all right great so I have my marching orders here I will give us additional information on AA and ab uh and submit some of these other additional articles here um yeah so if there's if there's no further comments or discussions it will entertain a motion to adjourn 8:23 a record [Music] America there's been a lot of 10 o'clock meetings recently so I feel like this has an OD yeah I'll I'll move to adjourn and I will second I beat you Peter that's fine all right all right so Katie beat you so that's the Katie seconded uh any further comments or discussion caring none I will take a roll call vote to adjourn Katie yes Peter yes Linda yes K yes Nathan yes Gavin yes all right I am also a yes so thanks everyone have a good night