##VIDEO ID:WmbBK3fJypk## [Music] he [Music] good evening welcome to the warning committee uh today's January 21st 2025 uh Karen can you please call the role sure we have Tom Caldwell Steve ryes on Zoom Lori Connelly Elizabeth Dylan Jay funling Peter man juliia Maxwell Aman nagasi on zoom and Ronald siia on Zoom so you have a quum okay thank you so uh let's get started um so uh members of the committee um the February special town meeting uh is bearing down on us um this week uh just in terms of scheduling this week we're going to be meeting uh tomorrow and Thursday uh tomorrow we be speaking to Town Council uh concerning liquor licenses Town liability issues on Thursday we're going to be having schools come in to discuss their three articles uh including Cunningham school again the addition to the member of the school committee um uh addition to member of the school building committee and also the appropriation for the the um the mass School building project um so I expect votes um kind of like to line this up for maybe voting on the school project on Thursday maybe addressing the liquor license and other um um liquor issues uh with the town tomorrow and maybe get some votes in on some of our more uh some of what I would suggest some of the easier uh articles that we have um I have gotten some signals from um the select Board of the Town Administrator that there could be couple more articles coming our way I know you've seen the planning board we've discussed that expect to see that in February I think there is still the possibility of another uh zoning bylaw and potentially maybe a Citizens petition I don't know um but the citizens petition is something I think we'll you know always keep an eye out for um no matter what meeting um because they do come up at least once a year so uh that's just in terms of future scheduling for this week I think we can get through basically all the Articles as written um you know if we have to go longer if the discussions are extended so be it but um I think we're going to be meeting up right through um to the February town meeting date so got a lot of work to do so I just like to kick the meeting off I'd like to maybe just start a discussion but an appropriation from the peg access Enterprise fund and uh that would be in the new draft warrant is right after the moderators uh comments or where the moderator's comments would be so it's to see if the town will uh vote to appropriate $60,000 from the peg access Enterprise fund to uh Peg access Inc for the purposes of equipping the meeting room at the former fire headquarters building to support public educational and governmental access Cable Television services and to act on anything related there to um so that's the first article I'd like to open the discussion out to any members here in person or on Zoom Liz no um no my understanding is that this money comes from a fund that's like already kind of allocated in the town budget so it can't really be used for anything other than specific purposes such as this one um I think that the comments that we had from our friends at Milton access made a lot of sense to me in terms of kind of amortising over time and how long this project would sort of see us through um and so I thought it made sense from like an overall budgetary standpoint I think we can do this without having to be concerned about where the money is coming from because it's already exists and has been a portion to this a little bit broader than this but specific purpose and can't be used for other things so anyone else like to to weigh in on the new building and the peg access so I reached out to Nick because I thought the same thing um that Liz just described that the money is already there let's just do it yeah um thank you but he also had made a comment about the fact that the funds coming in from Comcast and RCN are declining and what used to be you know 50,000 60,000 is down to 38 ,000 so that will continue to decline so that was a concern for me he did um and I said you know we can use the room can we not use the fire headquarters room today he said we could the issue is it can't be televised so if we wanted to meet there we couldn't because we're not able to be televised um and I said well you know what's up with the BL room can we no longer use the BL room going offline he said it could possibly be repurposed so there is some reasons why there are some reasons why we would still want to do it the Comcast contract is not up for renegotiation until 29 so there's some time um this Enterprise fund is what does fund I believe matv so it will ultimately become a cost to the town again you know in my oh my gosh we have a 10 and a half million dollar deficit that we're looking at do we want to spend the money if we do have access to the blot room when we have all these other issues that are just going to get worse depending upon whether or not the override passes um there's just a lot of projects in town and should we save the money because at some point it's going to run out but that could be 10 years 15 years you know so I'm still a little no I appreciate anyone else that 60,000 was primarily for equipment room has have been built out to this point so it's really mostly equipment installation yeah and and to allow for it to be televised right right and it is and there is money it's not like it's hitting the budget but at some point in time we will run out of that money in the fund the you the Enterprise fund for Peg access will run out of money because we won't have the cable companies funding it any longer is the expectation oh Li yeah no I totally see what you're saying Lori I think that for me the fact that they're looking to spend 60,000 out of the 420,000 that's in there and when we spoke to Mr Milano that $60,000 took us two years um to earn and then the project would have a 10 to 15 year lifespan so I think that that's correct investing the money now where I get what you're saying that like eventually we're going to run out um but I think we'll be able to make back the money in the next couple years even with that diminishment then we would then spend so I don't think it's another thing that we're going to spend in the next like five years since the project will last 10 to 15 I think we'll more than make the money back up even with the diminishment over time of people like me who no offense to Cable have given up on their cable Al together and only do streaming so right and and that's where it's going right so can I ask a question Lori maybe Jay I don't know or anyone else was the that I I sent out a table about the peg access and and just the revenue streams um there was uh just recall I think it was a couple of time me years ago there was amount removed right was that to fund the broad brand band Broadband for the in for the institutional and we saw a drop right from like 750 to like 400 or so um I'm I'm very just in terms of a comment about this project I think it's like they've done so much work and and they've spent a a lot of money it's like you know let's let's see it through right and make it like a really nice place and let's like not stop um and you know I'm very happy I I like how they you know restored a historical building and they did like a good job I mean it's really it looks really nice but to Lor's Point too like I I just think it's um it's good for the town to know where this money comes from what it's being used for and um just be mindful I think of you know that at a certain point it may end um and then you know we have to fund and and I don't think it would be for a while but think it's important that the town knows that you know this really isn't a huge slush fund to draw from all the time but I certainly think that the 60,000 is an appropriate amount I think to really kind of see see this thing through um that's just my two cents and my understanding is there's a a need for more meeting space in town um so to me you know this is a means to an end um to take advantage of the construction and the the new space we have and to allow more access to more meetings for the public um to be televised you know I as a working parent find that very helpful um and so to me the more meetings that can be televised the better so I think it's a win around for a relatively low budget line item yeah I mean 60,000 is a lot you know if another department would say you know we could do a lot with that so it's not it's not a small money amount for the town but I think it's very money well spent in this [Music]  I just add to that that's probably not going to get cheaper if we no no it won't and that's that's another excellent point that absolutely I'm still dealing in $1 1998 when I went to college you know so but no that's that's an excellent point I appreciate oh Brian hi sorry yeah sorry I'm delayed on this I just had a question on this project um I mean I'm in favor of doing it but it seemed like $60,000 was a lot of money to spend to just to wire and put cameras into a room um is it is Comcast the only do we have to only go through them to do this could we get another quote I don't know if we're I don't know if Comcast is gonna wire it I don't I don't know who actually does that no we we didn't we didn't ask about the Contracting Brian and who would be the ones who would complete the project yeah I didn't think of it till after it just doesn't seem like kind of a lot just to do wiring and stuff but that's my only two cents but I think the project I'm in favor of it but anybody have an idea share I think it's it's an old building if they're I mean they' they already done renovation maybe they have already wir pre-wired or potentially wired or left Channel or other wires that they might be able to run if not then yeah I could see 60,000 yeah a good number yeah I can only and and just to follow up I can only speak to personal like professionally like we we've engaged in Tech upgrades my work and it is not cheap it it is it is sometimes shocking uh how much it costs but uh in terms of this amount for this project I can't speak specifically to it Jay yeah I mean as far as that goes short of having our friends in the other room come speak to us which maybe they want to uh it's like every other line item in the budget that we have to sort of trust that it's being spent appropriately we have you know multiple layers in town hall looking at how our money is spent and you know I'm fine with trusting it's being spent appropriately if it you know if they're asking for 60,000 ends up costing 40,000 I assume that's what they'll end up spending uh I guess for the bigger picture I feel like we're talking about two questions here one is should we spend $60,000 from this fund to upgrade the room and I agree it's not it's not play money it's not Monopoly money it's real money um and then there's the question of is this fund going to dwindle eventually or not I'm looking at what you sent us and I'm a little bit confused by it because it's saying you know we've got 5,000 cable subscribers in town 50 cents each gives us $2,500 I don't know if that's per month even if that's per month that's $30,000 and when I look at last year's warrant last year's warrant said a 50,000 sorry half a million dollar uh appropriation from the pay access Enterprise fund you know I we've got to be honest I don't I'm a little embarrassed because I'm a third-year warrant Committee Member and I've never looked at what is the pay access ENT price fond how much is going in how much is going out do we have a certain number of full-time employees do we have a certain number of part-time employees I don't know so maybe these are all good things to dig into as part of the annual warrant um because I'm embarrassed I don't know that no J those are all great questions and I think when when I left here the other night I mean I was thinking about that right like yeah like how many you know how many employees are there like what yeah if the cable bills are providing $30,000 a year here but spending half a million that's not even the right order of magnitude something's not lining up there okay I think that would be a good topic to bring up Jay um please remind me the general government committee is on the case well Jay I appreciate it and I think you know it is it is something good to think about and I know looking at the numbers the 50 per you know I I questions about that myself about how that worked out but um go government study committee does anybody have anything else to' like to add or uh just in terms of the the room renovation the fire station the appropriation no no hands Steve R Steve ryes hey how are you guys sorry I couldn't be there tonight travel one um I Jay don't feel bad I I I agree with you I'm looking at this too you know it's there's a lot of information there but I I do have questions because I I thought I recalled some of these monies for Peg getting shifted um for different things before so I've got questions for that I am interested to understand more about what they're doing for that room I think it's important to have these spaces built out especially since we've invested the Monies to renovate that I'm just curious to see what's going to go in there um yeah I mean that's just a general comment thank you Steve any other comments questions concerns regarding Peg appropriation okay I don't see any other hands raised or um to make a comment or have any questions um have we exhausted the topic because if if we have a curious if anyone had a motion well I had another question sorry sure my only thing my only thing would be do we have a sense where and I think the answer is no but do we have a sense of where we expect the cable subscribers to level off so I assume someone will maybe not always and forever but will subscribe to Cable even when most people stop so is there a point at which it will kind of level off and then we will still have whatever that money is because if I were just you know a town meeting member and not in the warrant committee my first question would have been have you done some modeling to see how much money is going to be left over the course of you know sort of what Lori was talking about and then where is the anticipation in terms of people subscribing and where does that sort of access meet so there is going to be a point and I am you know now that Lori mentions it I am curious where we see ourselves sort of is it going to be 10 years 20 years 30 I know nobody can predict the future with streaming and all that but there has to be a point where it will level off and those are the people that are firmly committed to cable and we don't really anticipate it to drop below that and then we can see sort of what amount of money that we're working with and I don't know that we can do that today but I agree we're probably not going to have $420,000 in there forever I think what's going to happen um looking into the future and moving to streaming you still need an internet and that's being provided by the same people who are providing right now your cable so as people drop off and go to streaming two things probably going to happen um internet service prices going to go up I know FiOS is coming in I heard mixed results but I think it's going to be a long process and then for the businesses I'm just going to suddenly Go GE everybody's not using a service anymore for those who are continuing to use it uh and will be there forever as you say um $150 or $200 a month can become $300 a month and $400 a month and if just are addicted to Cable you're going to pay more for it and hopefully on the basis of the contract which I have not seeing uh with the town uh if we're getting a percentage of the revenue that's coming as opposed to you know who's watching um HBO um then I there should be a balancing of Revenue I don't see the revenue going to zero it's going to it's going to fall off entry a little bit but then prices will go up and if I were on a percentage basis I would imagine it be do just as well didn't Nick say it was like that $ five fee you pay yeah on the cable bill it's like a f whatever it was it's like $4.95 or $5 that is the money that we're getting so it's like a flat again it might be the contract with Comcast but that's the fee and he also mentioned the FD FCC will be involved in you know what's going on so there are many factors involved and I so I was just curious about it um but to your point back to the 60,000 for the equipment I think we have the money it's not affecting the operating budget and yeah we should build out the space so it can be fully functional so Chay as you're looking into this it would be great to get a look at the contract that we have with the providers and I think if it's the $5 fee $5 regardless of how much you're paying and that's the community charge if you're a as subscriber so it's not like a percentage of your bill right it's just basically if you're a [Music] subscriber yeah oh no go ahead Ron Ron hi uh my only comment was you know I think we could do economic analysis on this for me I I don't know if it would be material because H how this fund gets replenished over a 10-year period I I I just don't know I mean we're trying to make a decision on updating one room unless I can see what the opportunity the the opportunity cost of doing like what were the other Alternatives and I don't think we've been presented with other options you know that are maybe more needy I think we're just deciding this one single space uh maybe as a longer term project we could do the economic analysis or we can have someone do it it just cost time and money but uh if we can get like a list of all the different projects and all the different potential projects then we can rank order them but I just don't think we have that kind of information today and we need to take a vote on this so I would just caution not to overanalyze because I don't think we have those resources thank you Ron thank you any other comments I I I want to violate what our what our colleague just said I want to overanalyze it but but just briefly overanalyze J um do it just thinking that the way this you know 10 years ago there were 7200 subscribers that's probably about the number of households that's probably everybody was paying five I don't know 50 cents a month $5 a month I'm not sure my point is this money was always coming out of the pockets of the people who live in Milton and I can't predict the future maybe it'll come out of the pockets of people who live in Milton through their property taxes instead of their cable bill um I guess I jumped right to the punch line there so you know if it stop starts dwindling and we have to pay for it through the General Revenue it's not like oh it used to be free Magic money and now we have to pay for it it's yeah but but I do agree with what our just said I think there's the big picture and the small picture on the small picture I think I'm ready to vote yeah excellent points Liz just to what you said earlier Tom I think uh this particular town meeting I think there's going to be a lot of discussion of the overall budget sort of to Allison's point of the last meeting and I think that depending on how we vote I really think that we need to spell out in the comments sort of where the money is coming from so that people can see sort of what we talked about which is this is a specific fund used for specific purposes that's using a small percentage of it um because with the potential override and all of that I think there's going to be a lot of questions about exactly what we're spending money on For What and so just being kind of cognizant of that discussion I think it will be helpful for town meeting members to see you know that we took all of that into account and had really thoughtful discussions about those issues and you know those should be reflected in the comment you know um not just the discussion but you know the origin of the article and you know um what's its purpose you know and then obviously you know educating town meeting helping them have that discussion you know raising a point and giving them a little you know F or so they can you know hopefully ask the questions and and have a debate but no I agree I think this year more than ever you know um so if there AR any more questions or comments I'd hear a motion if somebody would like to make [Music] one maybe more senior member of our comme I'll make the next one yeah I I'll I'll move that that we recommend the town vote to appropriate $660,000 from pay access Enterprise fund to imp access Inc as is drafted in the uh and the document we got for Mr Milano I could read it word for word but there going to be more coming up and so I want to set a precedent of saying look at the document yeah look at the document so this is an unnumbered article it's in our draft warrant to see if the town will appropriate a motion that Jay just made um is yet to be seconded uh to appropriate $60,000 from the peg access Enterprise fund for the purposes of equipping the meeting room in the former fire headquarters building to support public educational governmental access Cable Television services and to act on anything relating there to Is there a second to Jay's motion second Julia second um okay put it to a vote Karen okay uh Steve ryes yes Lori yes yes Liz yes Jay yes uh Allison has declined to be a panelist I just invited her again so I I'm not not sure uh Allison no she's still an attendee um Julia yes Peter yes Brian yes Aman yes Ron yes Tom yes the motion carries it's unanimous congratulations warrant committee the first official Act of this fiscal year isn't it an exciting thank you all I appreciate it so one down um so given what I said in the the beginning of the meeting um right now I'd like to have a discussion about lead service line in the town and the conversations we had with Miss Fernandez the other day and some of the additional information that was sent to you a little bit late but nonetheless sent just regarding that project and remember one was removed um so uh this is uh to see what sum of money the town will vote to appropriate and to provide Capital needs to the for the town's water system uh including cost incidental and related there too and to authorize a select board on behalf of the town to apply for and use federal state MW or other funds for this purpose to see how much appropriation shall be raised whether by borrowing under applicable provisions of law or otherwise and to act on anything related there to this is the appropriation of $17 million for the purpose of uh financing the town's lead service line investigations and Replacements and all in incidental costs uh to do to meet that appropriation the treasure with the approval of the select board is authorized to borrow 1.7 million under and pursu to chapter 44 um section eight of the general laws and also to issue bonds um etc etc um and any forgoing Appropriations from the MW so that is the article i' like to discuss $ 1.7 million appropriation um to address our l pipes in the town um this is obviously there are going to be some federal requirements in the future regarding this work and uh the town is looking to get ahead of it so uh anybody like to comment on our lead pipe work Liz thank you well I have a question about the rounding so we have this nice budget that's all spelled out and it has a contingency of 10% and then that amounts to close to 1 Point a little over 1.66 and then we rounded up to 1.7 and if anybody wanted to just hand me $35,000 I would gladly take it but is it common that we have like we have to have a rounded number because given the money issues that we're all you know sort of staring down at in the town save the 35,000 I mean I know it's it's appropriating so they don't necessarily need to spend it but I feel like like a goldfish in a bowl the larger it is the bigger you become you know and so I would say maybe the one point we don't have to be so exact 1.66 375 but closer to 1.66 without the rounding up because there's already a contingency built in anyone like to speak to that J yeah um we're not supposed to touch microphones but I can't help it um yeah I guess I'd like to say I share your feeling for a lot of the budget line items I think a lot of the budget line items they should have a little cushion I think they have have a little more cushion than they need to I'm less concerned about this one because it's going to be borrowing if it hit the annual operating budget I think there are a lot of things in the annual operating budget that you know we tight and yet we still have padding on line item after line item um but this is not going to hit this is we're going to be borrowed going to issue bonds that's not even going to hit this year's budget we'll know what we're going to spend at some point in the future and then they'll say okay and those bonds will be I don't know 20 gear bonds at this interest rate and they'll put an estimate in the debt servicing mine item but not this year so I'm what I'm saying is I'm a little more okay with they being padding in something we're going to borrow because that's not going to hit the budget until we have a little better idea of how much we're going to borrow so all that is to say I hear what you're saying I'm a little more okay with this because it's a debt funded item and I hope I made sense as to why I'm okay with that I concur and this is mandated over a 10 year period essentially yes Lori you had a question I don't mean I'm not looking to put you on spot you had a question just about the breakdown oh I was I was trying to get to the 17 remember when we we took the numbers and then she added in um you know she did basically what I was trying to do but had design permitting and bidding support the police details she had a number of other components that are related to it so which made sense because I couldn't get to the 17 with the hard numbers that she gave us so it was the incidental cost that it's just all the other pieces that we will encounter when we do the project okay Bri Brian yeah my question is uh well it's 1663 um since we get 25% back is it really are we really appropriating the 1.7 or 75% of that since it's a 25% grant that is correct I wonder if we have to appropriate the total amount because we don't have the grant award but I don't know that was my understanding for what it's worth that we had to appropriate the full amount and then we get the 25 back and then that would go where the extra money goes well but then again back to point when we go to borrow we're only borrowing what we need does that makes that makes sense right yeah but Liz I I prove the I like the the f I mean I mean it's no Jay's explanation is very helpful I am not ignorant of the fact that even if we borrow it it has to be paid back somehow someway someday um however it is helpful that information and Brian's point about the fact that it will actually be less than that because we will be getting a grant and I believe the loan was we know the interest on that is like interest free for interest free yeah um has anyone else checked this math and had it not up is that in the largest spreadsheet yeah the one that um uh Marina sent through no sorry the um the email that you sent us from Marina that she originally sent on Friday the 17th I'm just putting it in a spreadsheet and trying to make sure that I understand it and I am not getting the same numbers so um like the subtotal that she has listed of a, 331,000 um does not at first I thought oh well maybe she's not adding in the 85,000 for design permitting and bidding support um but even then I get 1, 31,500 if I do add in the 85,00 ,000 I get 13985 so then regardless that throws off the contingency 10% number and then I'm unclear what the 15% for the construction services is 15% of what exactly so any I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if other people had looked at this and not quite gotten the same numbers see with her calcul yeah yeah you're not wrong okay so it's a 67 500 she's not including that's the LSL replacement from program oh okay I don't know why but I just that's how it shaks out well maybe is that the portion that is Reimers from program maybe that is the grant program so she's not so maybe she's deducting that already that's 28% of the $234,000 okay so that's like roughly 25 oh okay yeah so that makes okay more sense okay okay so then the 15% is of the subtotal yes okay okay all right thank you Jay and so the 17 or 1663 is really what we're going to be paying not right yeah with the 25% removed not that minus the 25% it's that and we'll get a zero as well um which which fits with the um sorry which fits with the recommended article because the recommended article says borrow 1.7 million uh and in addition to the foregoing appropriation May accept grants or gifts from MW so I was just wondering about that wording so we spend $1.7 million and in addition to that we accept yeah and if you add back in the 67500 then you're at 1731 so I can see the rounding up to 1,700 what was what was that F on them um if you add back in the 75 67,500 to the total you're at 1,731 250 so I can see why they rounded up to the 1.7 okay thank you is everyone satisfied with the numbers no I appreciate that Julie very much I'm more comfortable with the 1.7 okay just when you thought you had to figure it out right I like the other night I'm like I feel so so good about this um but I appreciate you speaking up very much anybody have anything else to'd like to speak to this this is it this is gonna this is a mandatory program right and and it's LED want to that right you know um pet you have anything more you yeah I think the only issue uh is the the unknown you know we started with a bigger number and then suddenly you know 3 months later it's 45% of that and you really wonder how much of the unknowns are really in fact LED uh and I just wish there was a way that uh you wouldn't have to drill as many tests Etc to figure that out um and I'm old enough to remember meter readers coming to check by water yeah um would have been nice to say by the way just check and see if the pipe's coming in or copper you know not let um but you know I'm sure that the process is the process that's the money we have to spend to do the right thing I remember the meter readers when I was a kid coming with the flashlight got it my mom used to let me show them where I was I was all excited you're not that B old um but no it it you know I'm sure it's something a lot of people don't think about in town either you know something that though you turn on the spigot the water comes out you know but um the numbers look Square on this um I appreciate Miss Fernandez and her work and our team digging through the old books to try to figure this out um yeah I don't have any further I don't have any questions or concerns about this um beyond what was discussed anybody any motion motion to vote on article unnumbered as of yet but the second one in the draft okay warrant so far um gotta scroll to it [Music] it's not the second one thank you um to appropriate um $1.7 million for the purpose of financing the town's Le service line investigations and Replacements including costs incidental and related there too do I need to read no you're good do I have a second on that second by Peter um okay open it up for a vote thank you Karen Steve yes Lori yes Elizabeth yes Jay yes Julia yes Peter yes Brian yes Aman yes yes Ron yes motion carries oh Tom I'm sorry yes sorry youan I'm here also sorry Andrew oh Andrew joined us I'm sorry Andrew yes okay still you know this okay great okay move right [Applause] along I think we should talk about senior means tested tax exemptions how do we feel about that well I have a question about that sure so in the draft warrant that we got those two things that I brought up in d are highlighted and then the thing about excessive a assets that a lot of other people brought up are highlighted so who highlighted that and what's the status that would be the Town Administrator who for us highlighted those things thank you to him and these are things that have been pointed out yep these are things that have been pointed out for us but if there's an that's really kind of my understanding generally of why those were from a procedural standpoint if it turned out to be that our recommendation was to modify that or that we would vote no because that should be modified by the select board or how would we go about doing that in this case because he said should we wish that the select board make that change etc etc he could take that back to him them I mean because I just don't think that we got clarity about those three points yet so well these are things that we can discuss with Mr Milano um the select board is meeting and the changes would come from them uh we can make recommendations to town meeting but they can address it on the floor if they wanted to uh you know we suggest new or additional language but you know this is the warrant as we receive it so it would either be a change in the select from the select board's perspective or we would recommend to town meeting that the town meeting make a change well procedurally how do you do that you vote no you vote that you would vote Yes were amended we would vote uh we would vote um it would be kind of like a yes no vote you know we approve the spirit of the article but we would recommend that town meeting make the following changes and we would highlight those changes in the comment in the comment but I'm going to ask you again so here as we're about to vote how would you indicate that if that were your vote I put it in the comment no but when you say yes or no right now she's saying as an individual as an individual person how would you express that oh you would say no oh you would say no okay um because these are kind of conditions precedent on qualifying for the thing so like if you know I would think it the the vote would be no fair yeah I'm not I'm not sure if I'm understanding you or there may be a different way to go about this I mean I've seen in the past not since I've been on the warrant committee but there have been know proposed articles written in the not bold text and then the warrant committee's recommendation and the Bold text slightly different so uh one thing we could do if you're okay with this Mr chair is we could say because what we what we vote on is the Bold text and we could say you know I make a motion to recommend a town meeting and we read off this word for word or we take it as written but say oh and change this word to that word and change this word to that word so we could have a warrant committee recommendation which is different than what's proposed by the select board um now between now and town meeting if we're you know at odds with a select board that's a recipe for Anarchy so hopefully they get on board with us but uh since the select board isn't meeting until the 28th which is a week from now and we want hammer things out before then if possible um if you agree Mr chair I I think it would be appropriate within the rules that we run these meetings to uh I mean I don't know what the I don't know if it'd be two ways they could go one person could make the motion and the motion could just be different that might be the easiest another a person could make a motion for exactly this word for word and then someone else could make a Amendment and we could vote on that Amendment um I think if if you were saying that our recommendation should be the town vote no I think we have other options oh and I don't know if that's what you're saying or I didn't articulate it as well but um are we ready to I mean we can discuss this so would be we be ready to vote on this this evening well I just don't understand how I'm supposed to vote given my confusion is the only thing okay Tom had a couple of questions sure um I'm just curious about the language and I'm I'm sure there is a I'm sure it makes sense to somebody else that been uh deeply involved in it but uh why is it uh the language qualified as one or more natural persons and meaning is it can it be more than two by the way that um the way I read it could be two or more could be more than two people that uh jointly on the property and in section two paragraph a is it clear that both parties or every party has has to have received the circuit breaker income tax credit can anyone answer that question no I think my understanding I'll jump in my understanding is they have to this this is a state law the circuit breaker and they have to qualify for that that's what that is referencing so if they get the circuit breaker then they can get this and we're going to we're to match or semi that that that I understand but the way it the the paragraph is worded um both paragraph A and B is worded um it could mean that the qualifying parcel is owned by more than two people and the bigger concern that I have and and that that question is more of a question mark bigger concern I have is the way section 2A is worded it's not clear to me that um if one party one owner let's say Brian and I own own the property together we're obviously not married or domestic Partners but um one of us qualifies for the circuit breaker income tax credit and the other does not doesn't it's not clear to me the way this Ed that it's disqualifying yeah I think the intent is that it would be married C married couple that owns a house but you're right I mean it could be like three siblings that own a house but if they all qualify I guess what happens if two of them qualify but one doesn't well that's the point so if one owns it the one that doesn't uh happens to have the $3 million a year of income then I don't think this is intended to cover that situation and one might argue that yes it could be corrected by the board of assessors who may deny an application um but that puts a burden on them to review each and every single application with theine to com so I just I'm I'm do the process and I just want to make sure how clear we need to be in the language in order to avoid inadvertently creating loopholes that were never intended good point I think I think it's a good question we do have multiple lawyers on this war committee um I happen to be a lawyer too but I think we can all interpret things differently the way I would read this is the word is or so it would be occupied by one natural person who who blah blah blah or more than one natural person who blah blah blah so if you have one person and it's a group of three let's say I think as long as at least one person qualifies or has applied and received the circuit breaker income tax credit I think they would meet the requirements of this language because you have or language here if if it said you can have one who meets this requirement or more and each of the people in the more group each of them has to qualify then that's different by I think we'd be reading language reading more into the language than than it's really here that is my non-legal opinion by that by that thank then this it's not really intended to cover that situation let's say they have three parties one of which received a circuit breaker taxing credit and the other two siblings are particularly well off then that's not the point of this this amendment right what we're trying to do is make sure that people that have lived in their homes for at least 10 years can can stay in their homes and not be priced out um well can can I just answer yeah yeah sure I I don't know that we know the exact intent but there could be a situation where a parent and child jointly own a property and the parent may qualify but the child may not I guess because maybe the child's still working and they have income I I don't know that we would exclude them because the parent in theory has still been living in this town and paying taxes if they own real estate so I I I I don't know I think we can each have different intents we can each want something different I don't know if we have agreed that that should be excluded I I have my personal opinion whether I should be included or not but I don't know if we need to all agree that that's the intent of the the I think they have to meet the state qualification and then there's a first at least one of them uh the issue of one or two I think could be then brought down to the board of assessors who has the right of rejecting any application that comes through for excessive assets which would include maybe in the case we mentioned somebody's qualified somebody isn't because they're making too much money there a breaker there for that I don't know how many of I think the majority of the situations would be as the LA has intended to help elderly folks with h whose income might be limited so my understanding based on the way it's written is that not everybody who owns an occupies it has to apply for and receive the circuit breaker because just looking at the mass law seems like to get the circuit breaker you have to be 65 or older and then our provision B says it could be single person 65 in order that person would maybe be eligible for the circuit breaker or jointly by one or more so long as one is 65 or older and then everybody else is 60 the people in between 60 and 64 wouldn't necessarily be eligible so I think discrimination as to exess assets what and it's very arit it doesn't say what it is is a million dollars two million 10 million or two homes but O'Brien I don't see that language in the state law when I looked at it um and I don't know I think I would think we should take it out because now you're making a question on something and uh gonna come up with a lot of questions that it could be trouble down the road maybe 20 years from now some question it it'll be all over the place but I don't know why we would try to add like another qualifier on it and I would just go with what the state does and it's just let it makes it less complicated for this town also that's my two cense if it and I'd like to hear a discussion on it if you think so maybe we can make that recommendation to take it out but but people think it should be left in that's fine Mr chair can I ask Brian to repeat the beginning of what he said Brian I I missed the start of what you said can you yeah why Wess isn't great here um gee article G it looks like it was inserted by the town of Milton and I think it's going to create problems down the road and it I don't believe that's in the state law so I would recommend taking it out take one out accessive assets g g as in um girl it's in yeah Mr chair okay I would like to agree wholeheartedly with Brian you you you took the words out of my mouth um I could elaborate but for now I'll just say I agree with you Brian okay I would like to see G removed thanks elaborate should I elaborate yeah elaborate help it's G to help us I think I'll I'll basically say what what Brian said but maybe with better uh Wireless connectivity um so the state law the state law um section 6K of chapter 62 of the general laws which I read for the first time during a warrant committee meeting last week so I'm now an expert on it um it it looks at people who are you know over a certain age and under a certain Financial level and gives them it's not about homeowners it's about homeowners or renters and it gives them a reduction in their income in their income tax I believe uh so to my mind if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts looks at people and says if you meet a b and maybe C then you get x amount off your income taxes if that's good enough for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to give a knock off their income taxes then for financial purposes that's good enough for me to say the town of Milton will give you a account on your uh property taxes too as far as I'm concerned that would be the starting point we could start by just having an article that says if you get that you get reduced property taxes but we're not saying that we're saying extra things we're saying also well you have to own the house because we're talking property tax and we're saying also um this thing we were just talking about like if your your roommate has to be older than 60 or whatever um and a couple other things and then the thing about the you have to own or live here for at least 10 consecutive years we're adding that so we're starting at a pretty good Baseline which is just what the state law is and then we're adding things but I don't think we need to really add the the board of assessors and I don't mean to make it sound like they'll be arbitrary or unfair in any way but I don't think we need to have them looking at people's assets and decide if they're no the state the Commonwealth says you get a discount on your income tax but we've decided you're too wealthy to get this discount here so that's my I I would like to also agree with my colleague to strike G entirely and this well I wanted to go back to the point I was making before so my understanding based on the way that it's written is that not everybody who lives or owns the owns a house has to be eligible for the circuit breaker because if they had to be it wouldn't have par paragh B saying that everybody has to be 60 or older because you have to be 65 or older to qualify for the circuit breaker so I think Ron's point is well taken that probably the way that it should be read paragraph a is that it's own and occupied by one or more persons and only one of those persons needs to qualify and receive the circuit breaker income tax I think it's a little bit confusingly written to Andrew's Point um then I also have some questions sort of to what well I agree with the point about excessive assets because the excess of assets I mean if you look at the actual statute it includes a real deep dive as Jay was saying into all your capital gains and whether you have you know public assistance and all of this stuff and so I don't know what an excessive asset would be separate and apart from what the Commonwealth looks into um so I think it goes to people's expectation that one would expect that they would be able to get this benefit but I take the point that you could be a person who has a child or a sibling who aged 60 or older who has multiple millions of dollars in a bank account and you yourself are eligible for the circuit breaker apply for it receive it and then you own this house partly with your very rich relative or friend whatever and but you'd be getting the tax benefit you know not necessarily them so I guess it just depends on what the intent is oh um can I follow up on that sure just a point of clarification um I think this article is different than the individual tax situation because whether it's a single person or uh a couple taxes uh the circuit breaker uh would would be a true uh income test because U they would be assuming most likely be sharing U most likely either one or separately being income tested um as opposed to uh three random people um potentially owning a property uh in this case I think what the state does for tax purposes is different than limiting it strictly to a property tax situation U so I'm less concerned about G being in there uh because in the event that there is somebody's manipulating something and utilizing a loophole uh Board of assessors can take the risk U that they deny the application and it gets litigated but knowing that there are people who make a living of uh dealing with the batement U professionally uh in order to uh sort of manipulate loopholes I I I am I am concerned about the vague sort of vague language in here uh and that it doesn't really specify who the owners are and whether it doesn't account for a situation where somebody one it like you could have uh parent that is owns 1% of the property and somebody well off that is uh owns 99% of the property and as long as they're both over 60 uh and one person qualified for a circuit breaker then by by the word of the law or the the way this they would qualify and how many people are actually going to take advantage of I don't really know but I think if you get a draft language you could make it a little cleaner than that and in addition too further to that point only one of the joint applicants has to be domiciled and own the real property in Milton so you could have a situation where well I find that to be a little bit actually has to be owned or and occupied by one or N More natural persons then it says it has to be the domicile of the taxpayer then it says only one of the joint applicants has to be living there well in any event I think you could have a situation where um the rich party only lives there like a portion of the year and doesn't really live there at all all and then you're benefiting an out of milon person with this tax benefit because only one of them has to live there for the previous 10 years you know so if you have this Rich 60-year-old child or whatever relative and they own 99% of the property and they've lived there you know one out of the past 10 years the applicant could be their less well-off parent also over 60 and own 1% of the property and have lived in Milton and both parties are getting the benefit sort of further to Andre point which may not be really what we're intending the select board is intending to do so I think C is is a current requirement the qualifying parcel is a domicile of the taxpayers it doesn't say five years ago or six years it just says that's today then right today and then d means they need to have lived at some residence in this town over 10 years so people moved I think that's why you have two two different closets here one one's a over 10 years and one is a current president that's how rich person lives there today but they haven't lived there for the past 10 years they're more elderly parent who owns 1% of the property has lived there the whole time but the rich child who owns 99% is getting the tax benefit too and they've only lived in mil in a brief amount of time now that we're telling everybody how to dodge through the loopholes get the loopholes right but yeah you I guess if you want to have your elderly less well-off parent move in and buy 1% there's your I mean it's pretty limited the number of weight that the number of people that could yeah sort of game this but it can be game nonetheless so if people aren't too concerned about it I I won't be either but I I just think if you get draft an article that can be more precise to eliminate those situation to put a dollar value on it again I'm just glancing at the law right now it looks like the Commonwealth gives you up to $1,500 and the the what the town will give you it says will be determined by the select board but does anyone recall did Mr Milano say it' be half or all of like between 100% of what the state would give so we're talking at most $1,500 so one of our colleagues and I apologize I forget who said now there are people out there who sell their services to tell you how to get more out of tax code I don't know how much you're going to pay an advisor to save $1,500 on your taxes you don't get out of bed for that amount so um good point yeah I I keep thinking we're talking about an edge case and how many of those are there but you know not zero you're right a 60-year old child and a 85y old parent could qualify for this um you're you're right yeah that's the only reason I like G I mean it gives um something discretion rather than trying to gra this into 40 paragraph section to eliminate those edge cases but I also agree that to Brian's point this is and your point that it's G is very vague this one I feel feel like I'm taking the bar exam with all of this again two it also doesn't really elay my thoughts from before about section D not being written in a way that really in so I think I'm in favor of providing this tax break in general to our senior citizens or very important to Milton the D concerns me because the having to be domiciled and owning a property for at least 10 consecutive years doesn't take into account my fear that people may have lived here for 30 years contributed to the community had to move away for one or two years for whatever reason come back and then the clock resets and so particularly with our older community members you know you could have to go live someplace for a year um because of you know you have to move in with your family because health concerns or whatever to help raise your grandchildren something and it resets just like that even though you've been a contributor and a big part of the Melton Community for so long so if that's the intent fine but I would have liked to see a broader en capsulation of all of our senior citizens personally but I'm not the select board so yeah the idea of domicile is very interesting isn't it yeah like so if you go live somewhere say Florida for health reasons or to help your mom out what's your intention you're GNA always return to Massachusetts in your house in Milton so you never really leave maybe in the first place maybe I would say no I don't know tell your primary residence your your driver's license essentially it's where you have the intention to it's where you taxes yeah it's where you lay your head there are so many court cases about that about your doile though said very interesting very fuzzy concept but I don't know I mean are we yeah I I mean for one thing are we moving on to this topic without having really have we settled the financial topic no I was just called on Wednesday okay okay sorry um so for yeah yeah I I think I suggested our last meeting changing the word and to the word or because that would it would not it would not solve the case where someone moves away and sells their house and moves to Florida for two years and moves back it wouldn't solve that case but I don't think you're going to solve that case what would that be somebody coming and saying don't you remember I used to live here um but if you have have or then if they move away for a year or two but continue owning this place maybe they rent it out then they move back that would solve that and it would also solve the issue of renters as well as other edge cases that I mentioned at our other meeting you know we want renters to feel like equally valuable members of our community and if someone rents and then buys a place and retires here so I was suggesting changing and to or I'll throw that out to see what people think Liz or others I I'm not clear why we would need to do that because we're not really concerned about renters right this is for property tax exemption well my thought was if someone rents here for a long time and then buys a house around when they retire and you may say that may never happen and it may never happen but that would be the idea or the other another example I gave last time was like clergy if clergy is living in um Church owned house until the day they retire and then they buy a property in Milton to retire in they did not own until they buy their retirement property in Milton you know again edge cases but or you said Milton Academy teachers that that was my third example Milton Academy teachers living on campus then buying Place yeah I think but I don't think they're entitled to live in the town I mean that really I've always interpreted this as protecting homeowners who have owned a home in town and is now older does not have have the income to support the rising property tax rates to and I was gonna say the Andrew's point is like I think it's like you paid into the town for decades like you you've paid in you you've written those checks now you've hit 65 now going to get a break right as opposed to a land you know paying a landlord all that money uh and it's also obviously I think to Andrew's point to kind of help seniors stay in their home where they maybe raised a family or Liv their whole life but that's just uh Judah but I think to Jay's Point um you know there's there's often a a huge focus on homeowners in this town and as uh a former renter myself you know you know that your rent is what's being calculated into your rent are the owner's property taxes so you are in a way paying into the town just like an owner would be so I think to Jay's point if you have lived here for whatever you know we're going to say the requirement is 10 years and in those last two years you bought you were able to buy a home um and you are 65 or older I guess I I like what Jay is proposing as a way of honoring those contributions to the town even if you weren't I mean we all know home ownership is a privilege in so many ways so to sort of penalize people um who have lived here for an extended period of time and contributed to the town because they weren't able to afford to buy a home until later in life feels questionable to me you haven't paid as much in as a homeowner if you rent you pay a fraction of what a homeowner pays in property tax how so if your rent has been so your mortgage is 3,000 a month if you own the home if you're rent you're paying 500 a month when I rented my property I made sure that all of my my mortgage and my taxes were covered by the rent I charged my renters well that's you I'm just saying just generally well I don't think anyone's renting their home at a loss oh no certainly not I'm just saying that you haven't paid as much into the town Levy if you rent as opposed to own it but I'm that's but I'm not sure I agree with that statement because how have they not if they are paying the landlord enough money to cover the landlord's mortgage and ta and property taxes um I'm just thinking it's more of out of pocket you like what if you contributed to the town out of your own pocket as opposed to a landlord you've contributed the landlord's portion of taxes to the town the landlords but like what's coming you know what I mean I I just think like what's your investment into the town I think if you own a home you're just paying more well their investment in the town is the whatever they uh anyone else who's a homeowner owner invests in the town you know they put their kids in the schools they work in the businesses they spend money in the town so I don't think home ownership is the only measurement of what you can contribute to the town well yeah I'm just talking no and I don't think anybody's discounting that but I think what the the the use case that I support is that this article helps longterm homeowners in the town stay in their homes and not get pushed out because of rising Rising property values that all of a sudden makes what used to be affordable unaffordable and the unfortunate reality is that people on fixed incomes regardless to whether property taxes are rising or not may or may not get priced out of the homes that they they grew up in because they no longer support taxes on their property without a a salary um but what we can protect are situations where property taxes are rising 10% a year or whatever whatever and somebody that has owned their home for a long period of time no finds themselves in a situation where they no longer can support that Liz is next so two things I will note that the Massachusetts circuit breaker does include renters so we are now choosing to take those people out again not the select board so that's an intentional decision that they're making to take the renters out um my concern with making it be and again is the fact that you could be a person who owns the property has to move away and then the board of assessor says you weren't domiciled here because you lived in Florida for five years you've still owned the property you grew up there you lived there the whole entire time you could be a person who didn't live here for you had the property for 30 years then you moved for a few years then you came back and lived here 9 years sorry doesn't cut it even though you have nearly 40 Years of Living in and contributing to Milton if it were me I'd change it to or and then say that you have to live in Milton for 10 of the last 20 years or something like that just to account for those people because I can also see a situation in which we're not giving the benefits to some of our senior citizens who could be priced out but who have owned a home and contributed in that particular way now I do think to Julia's point this is the decision that we just have to recognize is different than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who also provides the circuit breaker to renters making a note that they you know deserve this tax break as well here we're saying no to that only for homeowners and that's a decision that we're making so however people feel about that fine but it is ignoring that part of our community For Better or Worse um but I would change it to or I think the thing about that is if you say doas out or own a residential unit of property it could just be someone who doesn't live in their property and is just you know like an Airbnb but something to that effect where you just you know are kind of a landlord that lives someplace else and you're getting the benefit of it um without living in the property so I almost think that that's part of what they were trying to counteract but I just feel like the language of D brings up so many questions about what the select board could be meaning in the intent that I'm not really sure where to go with that because I don't know from them what is your intent here what are you trying to do and we can think of a lot of ways to wiggle around it and I think that you know to Andrew's point the language is a little vague yeah I I agree with Andrew that I in I see the intent to keep folks who are older and on fixed income and uh dealing with increased cost to keep them in their homes by giving them a small amount of tax break uh and I I see the the renters issue for me is is uh handled by the state with it's circuit breaker because it's giving back income that it takes in we take in real estate taxes if you're not paying real estate taxes what have we got to give you uh it's the states taking care of that it isn't it isn't the town of Milton's responsibility to hand renters uh a break at this point I I just don't see it I think the the purpose and it'd be nice if I get first year uh I'd like to know this more about the sponsor of of this I'm assuming it was the select wood who basically offered this I also assume be good to find out that this is offered before any override or additional taxes that are coming to soften the blow and essentially get some more votes from Seniors who might otherwise say this would be the last draw for me and now I'm going to have to leave again my suspicions is that's why that's here and I think that's why it's that that's the way it's written and um I'll open that up to further discussion but I think it's fairly straightforward anybody one of the things I could propose so that we don't go around in circles tonight is that we actually tighten up the language of this section and then um whether it's part of G or paragraph H uh give the board some degree of discretion in an appealed process to make sure that we have not inadvertently excluded people that this is intended to support so right now G is just to allow the board of assessors to deny applications and I think what I'm hearing is to deny or actually override a failure to meet one of these qualifications is that what the proposal is yeah either leave in G well I get proposal is it close any of sort of the edge cases leaving maybe tighten up G and has an additional paragraph allow the board of assessors to create an appeals process that the board of assessors to some degree to make sure that we it follows the spirit of that this we're not excluding people from the spirit of the of the the article I I would just worry that that could create a burden on the board of assessors to review a lot of applicants who may think that they want to qualify but don't meet the requirements I think the goal of setting out requirements is people should be clearly know either fall within this or I don't um I actually I think there was a comment earlier to strike g i I actually like having some oversight because I worry that this law this is not a 2-year tax evad this is not three years this is as long as you meet a through F and you own a property we're giving you a sizable decrease in your property tax that you know we're also trying to be fiscally sound I mean property tax is vital for for this town so I I would suggest we keep G and maybe hopefully the board of assessors can share what that policy for approvals will be I think maybe that would make us feel more comfortable so it's not arbitrary I can't imagine it would be arbitrary but they haven't done it yet so we'd have to trust that they will create rules that are rational and you know make sense but laor so a couple things I wonder if the board of assessors has even seen this and if they could comment on it um and Karen has Judy jumped on by any chance I would think she would jump in here if she she has not um I feel like Judy has done a lot of she has background work on this and would be beneficial to hear from [Music] her I'm alsoa um I also had a note from when Mr Milano came in that the idea with this would be go hand in hand with an override and we talked about would it be more prudent to come after that override did or did not happen and the thought was that the leg we have to ask the legislature and the legisl approval might not come in time um I had a question if it could be written to have as a you know conditioned president that the override would happen because otherwise we're kind of hamstringing our elves to give this tax benefit without necessarily knowing that there will be an override that passes so just based on the fact that Mr Milano said that the idea would be that they would go hand inand without knowing what's going to happen with thatx I can't predict the future to have this be yes you're definitely going to get this tax benefit going forward and not saying provided that the town of Milton approves an override to have that as a condition precedent it wouldn't go hand inand with an override otherwise necessarily so that was just one thing I wanted to bring up so would that be a proposed amendment to say the the beginning of this build to say subject to the override happening blah blah blah that's what people wanted to do that's just something that he mentioned and I know that we're very focused on I think that our senior citizen should get all the support they can I do but considering that we're very focused on the budget um in this particular year because he said the idea of the select board would be that it would go hand inand with the override where we don't know that the override will actually wind up being approved it might make sense to have that language added I'm just trying to think of all the things Tom actually Jay you said $1,500 was the maximum uh at the circuit breaker is that correct I mean that's what I said if you trust my quick overview of all so we're talking about between 50 $750 and $1,500 is a a tax break for people who are in the town who own property who now qualify for the circuit breaker the percentage of those households we have any sense of what that might be can I just get a clarification um we're talking about property taxes and circuit breaker is sort of a guideline um for income tax credits that is also happens to be used for property taxes or renters and in certain cases but in our case we're just talking about property taxes and there's no actual limit on what the credit can be other than 50% of some large value right yeah between 50 and okay you're right Andrew you're right I stand correct it could be 50% of the tax itself taxes property tax so it could be 50% of a $30,000 there was a limit right you were right it was 50% of the circuit circuit breaker tax that's right sorry yeah that's what n said section three lays it out Andrew yeah that's right oh sorry that somewhere so it's it some some sense of what how much money we're talking about it's probably in the same vein as the money we were talking about for the $60,000 approval we get have lawyer's change this and I'm sure that we get the $60,000 very quickly I would love to hear from Judy she's GNA be joining us oh is she oh good yeah actually Karen can you keep an eye open here she is 11 out she's here hey Judy are you there you're on mute Judy okay okay well we wait for Judy L I found the number and answer this question so there were 415 filers so we anticipated that it would be between 140 to 200 people Nick I said that at one meeting back on October 28 Liz will you repeat that yes like C said on October 28th well there are 450 people that could be applicable for that but not everybody actually Winds of apply yeah so he said it was anticipated between 140 to 200 people so I don't know multiply that by whatever we just talked about was 50% of the total you could get right so my notes from when Nick was in said that the maximum credit was 2730 so I don't know how that correlates to the 1500 from the state law so that's another that's a follow-up question what did you say Lori it was the maximum credit M was 2730 2730 MH for that Nick was for credit for the circuit breaker with the from an income standpoint no from um from us I think and because we're doing 50% to start hopefully because that's not clear um it would be approximately 1300 per household property a 200 households yeah $250,000 he had used I think notes from another Community I don't remember if it was him was it him a few different I'm gonna try and re I'm gonna try and relaunch um this this audio is not working see Tom will let me go we think we can hear Judy say hello oh you can yeah yes we got you okay ask Tom if you or ask anyone if they can hear me through my computer we can hear you oh okay I'm I apologize to everyone um about uh forgetting this meeting today um so this was a u subject that I got really into and just for the record um anyone new joining us from home um I did um check in with the town hall to see if there was um an Ethics um consideration due to the fact that I am a senior citizen in this town however it is determined that I am not eligible for either of the senior programs in our town nor the state um circuit break attx so the um housekeeping is now done done a lot of research on um this program and I did have an interview with Nick Conor one day and we really hashed it out and um in our I'll just and stop me because I can't see any of you I just talking to a plank computer um um there are two programs in have so stop me if you've already heard all this one has been on part of our bylaws for at least 12 years and that is a work program the um the cap of income is very low it's around 48,000 um per per an individual and most of the appc app ANS to that program um meet that don't it obviously meet under the 48,000 a year which again is a rather low number um it is run by the COA it's administered by the COA applications go to the COA you're required to work a certain amount of hours per year in a town Department you get a check for that 15 um that $15 an hour you get a pay stub which um you know takes out money for that goes into the retirement fund fed federal taxes state taxes and fer I guess whatever else and the actual you get the you get the stub you get the pay stub and um explaining all of this and the actual check goes to the town Treasurer and it's applied to your tax bill so when you get your it's like a payment you get a regular tax bill um your work off um becomes um part of your tax payment so you if you're if you're just silly number if your tax payment was $11,000 and you ended up with $500 from this work program now you still owe the town $500 out of your own personal um finances now this new thing um at first to be honest I was somewhat skeptical of it and then the more I looked into it I am okay with it it's this new program which is um actually in other towns in Nick Connor and Nick Milano um have both gone to talk to people in person in other towns this new program will be managed by the assessor's office so you will apply and the assessors will determine it will have a cut off date if you do not apply by um um you know a certain date during the summer so the assessors can go over um um how the tax bills are going to be put out every year and we all if we're watching our tax bills um those of us in town and many other towns I have come to find out each year they are reassessing your property and they are bringing that assessment up to just a hair under the two and a half per. so every year here in this town we are reassessed which um brings us as I said up to the two and a half and uh so every year we're paying more taxes uh because of this assessment plan that Milton as well as other towns do lately um so it's a never ending cycle of increasing taxes and now with um some pretty major overrides on the horizon whether they pass or not is another story um for another day but um this program um you have to be eligible for the mass circuit breaker in order to apply for this program there's no other way in and so you have to turn in your taxes your tax returns to show that you were um and then and I kind of like this aspect of the program that Nick and Nick are um helping to put forth for our town is that they're going to look at assets and they're not going to f tune if you you have you know 20,000 down at uh I don't know what's a local bank Citizens Bank um what they're looking for is how much other property you have which basically indicates in a way and I'm I'm on board with this I'm looking for this type of assessment asset is if you have a cape anywhere I mean if you I know down the cape right everyone everyone seems to have something down the cape um if you have another property anywhere either in the state or out of state that somewhat implies that you um I I do agree with this maybe you should if you can't pay your taxes maybe you should think about ditching your excess property because this is a property relief for the property you have in town um so I am in agreement with that I don't think you should have to um bring in all your bank statements um to show that you have you know $40,000 in some bank account um but that'll also show on your um tax returns right in a way because if if you are getting you know a million dollars from your billion doll um investment account then that would be showing up wouldn't qualify I'm sorry to interrupt you wouldn't have qualified for the senior tax um from the state if that was from the state so there that's again when the issue of assets was brought up and and there was some concern and rightly so that you you could have a lot of money in investment and be using this to sort of U reduce your tax bill but a lot of these figures are going to show up through your tax returns um so there are two different programs one will automatically reduce your taxes via your eligibility through the state the other you must work for um the the assessed value of a property using the state circuit breaker is 1,172 th000 and in this town um that's not a hard number to reach considering our property values so being a senior myself um and that being my peer group and engaging with my peer group down at the um Senior Center I can honestly say that there are people that would meet this criteria they're living in a home that they bought I don't know let's just say in the 70s and suddenly now they're sitting in a home that's worth over a million dollars through no fault of their own it's just the way the market has rolled and so in a way way they've become house poor again as how I speak about it in my peer group they're holding on to an a they're in an asset that um is you know two commas in it yet their income can barely their taxes are based on that asset and so whereas they can a senior could you know we all pay the same price for but anas down at the store um but this would give some relief to this um this unintended consequence of having a property that is just outrageously assessed um did Judy like all of our properties J now I I think the numbers are going to be low because you cannot be a renter where the state circuit breaker takes in renters and that may be as getting relief on the circuit breaker so this is truly for property owners and um Nick and I talked a lot about seniors um staying in their homes and not going to you know a an age restricted community uh property and um as I it was a good conversation and I said you know seniors you know sometimes are just reluctant to to go into a new environment a new living environment whether it be good for them or not um and I use it we know where the light switches are in the dark where we are we're just familiar with our homes and we many seniors just want to ride it out for as long as they can in this setting that they're familiar with hey Judy Judy this is Tom can I can I uh ask you a question yeah oh please because I seem to be rambling now Judy what do you think of the section g that gives the board of assessors some oversight over this whole process what what's your opinion given the work you've done on this I I can't see it because I don't know why my computer screws up oops sorry messes up all the time I can't see it say it to me the oversight is being done by the assessor's office right yes they approve the application they can deny the application if they find the U applicant has excessive assets or places them outside um of the intended recipients of the exemp like what do you feel about that oversight provision of the assessors kind of um right I feel again that I don't know and I did not go over this a lot with Nick Connor because he and Nick Milano went to Wakefield and had a had a long meeting with um the assessor Department out there and how the assessors would do this from what I understand this is when you fill out the applic you have to indicate whether you have other property now could someone not tell the truth I don't know how they would do that I I did not ask that question Tom are you voting tonight I maybe maybe Judy but Brian uh Brian has has had his hand up okay Brian I'm listening thanks um I'm going to I'm going to repeat what I said before which is something I don't want to do but it makes me even more believing of this now like if you have millions of dollars in assets somewhere you're not going to qualify because you're going to be taking income from those assets so you'll never qualify with the circuit break to begin with an all likelihood if you have a second house in the cap and you're making you know hardly any money you probably can't afford the taxes on both houses to begin with and you probably would sell it is my suspicion um but good for you if you can keep both on a really low income because you're going to be be paying at least 20 to $30,000 a year in taxes I think we're over complicating this and I think we should just stick with the states that whole Jeep even makes me more convinced we're overco complicating it and we should just um stick with the state's um LW and if you qualify we'll give you the credit because I think we're adding stuff that's just going to be waste of time that would never it's not going to mean anything in the end my opinion Brian could I um respond yes um until 2023 I had assets out of the state in property you would never know that from my state income tax most likely those assets no longer are with me um they have been disposed of um but that wouldn't show up I don't believe on my state won't it won taxes NOP because how would it but you had to pay I assume you paid property taxes on that right I pay them to the State of Arizona yeah and I I don't know why but eventually sold it but well I did yeah and but I don't recall anything I did out there transferring over to my state taxes I could be wrong but you're right um and unless you knew like there were people you know in the town that knew oh I'm heading to Arizona so I mean it was no big secret I mean it wasn't in the milon to times but it wasn't anything I tried to hide that I had this what you would call Asset um so I I I understand people's trepidation here about assets that can't be found I mean it's it's a normal thing I think to worry about if we're giving money to somebody that's hiding money somewhere um it's just human nature however how many people are going to do that maybe one gets through the cracks I think that can happen when you file your taxes I think it can happen when you apply for anything you could conveniently leave out information that oh I you know I don't know I I think I'm going to believe that people that apply for this circuit breaker are being honest when they go to the town and because now remember you're face to face in a way with the assessor's office and I don't know maybe I'm naive but I believe that we're not going to find a whole lot of fraud in this program because once again we live in town and word gets out oh where are you going Brian oh I'm heading to the cape this weekend and then somehow or rather I don't know in casual conversation even you may let it out that you get a tax right care when everyone's going nuts when um the overrides take place in that their taxes are going up way more than 2 and a half% and the year after the override takes expect you can count on being reassessed again because it's the new way of towns getting money when they're having troubles with overr thank you Judy does anyone else have anything else they'd like to say Liz yeah very thank you Judy um while we were thinking of the amount of money that this would cost I reminded myself looking back in my notes that this is a tax burden shift and point I don't have it open anymore but oh yeah I do um section five provides that it nothing will be granted each year nothing will be granted until the Department of Revenue certifies the amount and that that amount is raised is covered by the burden shift so it's not coming out of the town's budget per se everybody that owns property is going to pay and if it can't cover it it doesn't happen so um forgot about that until I rad it thank you or I knew about it but yeah Jay yeah yeah please following up on that I I did some quick back of the envelope math uh it the G is going to be shifted to everybody else so let's say 100 seniors get it let's say they get the maximum amount of 1,500 each that's $150,000 that's you know we collect about $100 million in taxes every year so that's about 0.15% with numbers that small you can just add them up to the average uh the average homeowner and what they pay and I think if 100 seniors sign up and get the maximum benefit the average homeowner will pay an extra $18 per per year which I think is what I spent on lunch today so yeah Nick said it would be at most like $30 per person oh he already said that okay that's about how much I dinner so it's it's pouring a pouring a bucket into Turner's Pond and you know seeing how the level changes doesn't but is still increases the taxes for the majority yeah at the benefit of a minority so I think we should acknowledge that and for a good cause but yeah you know we're talking about increased taxes anyway so we're you know I wouldn't it's not a huge amount but I wouldn't say it's meaningless there could be families that 30 bucks could be yeah something they don't they don't want to pay and those tend to build right on each other 30 bucks here 50 bucks here but good Tom I I can't regulate my audio okay I would like to concur um with that any raise in anyone's taxes it just compounds it um although this won't each year it'll be a different number dependent on how many people apply and how much percentage of the 2730 the select board is going to authorize whether it be 50% 6 0% 100% um and every year and that's why there's a deadline for this program into the assessor's office because they have to computate how how everyone's taxes will be impacted by the amount that's going to go to this bylaw this program so every year it's going to be different if it's $30 per excuse me total property taxes minus the applicants to this program um but it could be $30 this year it could be $15 the year after every year it it's going to change based on the number of applicants and the percentage of the 2730 the select board is going to allow thank you that makes sense yeah um thank you Judy okay so I think we have some ideas I think we've talked it through I know there might be some a question or two outstanding but anybody want to vocalize what they like to see happen with this anybody have any thoughts about the article as it stands changes anything yeah um I I think J agrees but I would I don't know if I how to do this but would I make a motion I would strike um article G and may just make it um the same as the state law that would be my recommendation are we taking so the I think the board of assessors or somebody to have some control over voting up or down on an application if we take G out is there any other place where that happens I don't see it I I don't believe so no I I I think there has to be over oversight by somebody in the town because we're dealing the town assets I think the board of assessors makes sense what the language uh is going to be I believe to others but somebody's got to take a look at these applications and go thumbs up or thumbs down Andrew Andrew I am in favor of having some oversight to this program yeah Andrew yeah if we're not changing um tightening up the language in section to then I would just I would prefer to leave leave it as is with Gan please would we vote on this proposed amendment you know chair yeah J how would we like to how would we like to do it Jay made a [Music] suggestion I mean I I don't want to one thing is someone at the warrant committee could propose we adopt this unchanged and then we could move to an amendment and vote on that Amendment that's certainly one way to do it do you have a comment first before the more of a question yeah I I mean I feel like there have been a number of different issues um raised in different pieces of this article as written so would it and I don't know if this is proper procedure but could we go through and vote on different potential changes before we then vote on the final version of it never done it that way before I'm just I'm really if we're if we're not voting for how it's written now then I'm unclear how we get to yeah what we are voting on that incorporates or doesn't all of the various potential changes that have been proposed tonight that's how it works on the floor of town meeting you know you bring up the full article and then somebody says I want to amend it in this way the group votes yes or no I want to amend it in this other way group votes yes or no then once those amendments are done you vote on the final thing as amended oh I was just going to say I'd love to have a follow-up conversation with Nick and with the board of assessors but if you want to vote I would i' probably vote the way they wrote it because they've done their homework and vote it as it is a thought process if we vote on changing anything doesn't it have to be um re redone by the select board I'm confused help me out you vote you would vote to um recommend the town approve the article with possible changes to what whatever the changes are that's what your vote would say and then you'd explain your reason for changing and your comment and probably done the way Jay would say someone would move to approve the article and then someone move to amend amend amend yeah so in that case what's printed in light font in the warrant would be slightly different than what's printed in bold font what's in the warrant and what's in bold would go to town meeting as town meeting starting point of discussion and hopefully between now and then we would talk with the select board and the select board would agree with us and it would all go smoothly or maybe the select board would convince us uh why we're wrong and we would still all agree and that would still go smoothly um Julia I think I'm in agreement with Lori that there there was a lot of I heard a lot tonight of you know we don't know what the intention was so it would it be helpful to get more clarification on some of these um some of this language from the people who were involved in writing it Andor the people who are going to potentially be charged with um enforcing it or um approving applications before we start messing with the language ourselves I think that might be a good idea Liz well I had hoped that we would have had some information about at least these highlighted things and since we don't would it be appropriate to for you to email Mr moano maybe other people I don't know but at least Mr Milano and say these are the three things we still don't you know or five or 10 many things that we still don't have clarity about and if he could sort of explain to us someone in the SBO I don't know what the intent was sure um because I think that if it's between vote no and this does not happen or accept it the way that it is okay then you can vote based on that but if we have the opportunity to strengthen some of the language get rid of some of the vagueness the select board can say no that's not what we wanted to do that's fine but if it's something that hasn't been considered maybe it could be considered um I do trust that you know they wrote this and thought about all the contingencies and whatever but if we're having these questions then everybody on the floor of town meeting is going to have a lot of these questions so I think to the extent that we can answer those questions in advance through some back and forth discussions with the select board or Mr Milano I think that would save everybody time a town meeting and um kind of answer a lot of those questions in advance I think that would be good sure I agree with Lori was my long-winded way of how are people feeling about that Ron sure I mean I I'm getting the feeling that people aren't comfortable there's a lot of questions and this language questions and intention um Jay I'll play Devil's Advocate I mean it's it sure it's hard to argue against let spend more time and get more information but just play Devil's Advocate when Mr Milano was in here I I I think I'm quoting him and saying well we saw the wording that worked at other towns and this is the wording that worked at other towns so I don't know if we're going to get more than that um and I know we're sort of talking about the process but to talk about one of the subjects that we're actually talking about um the select board last year looked at uh historic district and decided that the language sort of wasn't fully B baked enough and one was because one reason was because it was sort of vague as to who was going to do what and how are they going to enforce it and what were they going to enforce and when I read G right here what I read is trust the board of assessors to do the right thing and I do trust the board of assessors but I'd rather not put that in law I I'd rather I I don't like just saying well the board of assessors has the final say I I don't feel comfortable with that and so yeah if it's going to be this language you know if it's going to be include G or strikeout g i we you know we've just talked and some people want a some people want an oversight and some people don't and okay I've I've said my piece thank you appreciate Steve yes thank you um I agree it seems like uh some more information needs to be had here I'm listening to the commentary it's a lot of questions it was a lot for me to take in I guess pretty much dominated by lawyers on our our board here but there's a lot of information coming out it but I mean there's a lot of questions I have too and I honestly I I have a problem with just moving forward saying well it's only x amount of dollars more considering we're looking at how our real estate taxes keep climbing and that's been articulated earlier and I think at some point we need to take a mature look at it and figure out how are we going to ask these questions this this is going to be a an added burden to the taxpayers on top of what's coming down the pike right and there's not a whole lot of commercial property out there to offset all this so I I mean I think it's be great to ask more questions um I appreciate U the members who asked for more time and more insights on this it I think it would be helpful for me as well okay Steve and Tom um perhaps I think Nick Conor is the per the person at our town Hall that is 100% involved in this and again um they went and talked to the assessor Department in Wakefield because they apparently help another smaller town I I kind of lost that part of the conversation but um they they are paying attention to how other towns run this through their assess her department so I don't know just an idea okay if Nick could come in Nick Connor could come in not that Nick Milano doesn't know this but um oh thanks JY so my feeling is we got to bring some more people in Julie is that okay okay um it may not be till the beginning of next week and we're good with that yeah meaning we don't have a recommendation in the warrant going to print it would be a warrant would or would not it would because it's the end of next week yeah if they come in if they can't come in we just vote I guess yeah we have to address it um the next couple of nights but the warrant's not the draft isn't due for a little while now we still have some time I thought it was going to print the 28th no we said the week at the 28th which really starts in the 27th just that week so do we have that full week and he probably has a little buffer there was a little wiggle room there is you know we don't want to right we don't want to wait but I mean we could hear from Nick uh you know we could hear uh tomorrow we're gonna have Town Council in um I can see if maybe Nick can put something together for us for Thursday but that's also schools but we could carve out a teeny bit of time um to have maybe Nick and Mr Collins come in if they can addresses maybe even Mr Milano could come in tomorrow Thursday you mean two days from now Thursday yes I think if you email them these questions maybe that could Target the discussion so we're not talking through all the history yeah so I can do that yeah even can zoom in as opposed to yeah so I'll reach out to him I I'll see what he can do for us just to answer some of these questions the highlighted language G um renters you know approxim approximate cost per taxpayer per year Andrew's point of one or more taxpayers who the or I like's or that doesn't Andrew had the one or more taxpayers who did each of them have to be the elderly parent with the wealthy 61y old child they could be siblings all over we can property with anybody of those the time frame too five of 10 years could be more forgiving than 10 consecutive years that's another one I think 10 of 20 whatever number 15 okay and there's a difference between the state says 1500 is the total credit but I I wrote down that he had said the maximum credit was 2 7:30 so we should figure out do you want us to email you well I will but I didn't know if anybody I didn't know if I sense you can I ask can I ask a question about that sure Steve hey sorry um and I didn't see this on if I missed it I apologize um does a taxpayer have to apply for this every year or they are they locked into this for as long until it gets reviewed what's is what's the uh is there an expiry on this is the 12 months is it more it is a one-year program Steve each year you need to reapply gotcha um because each year you do taxes and maybe there's one year that you do not qualify for the circuit breaker and then the next year you do I I don't know how that would work out at the state level um and so each year and also you it you have to get get your taxes done on time to apply for this there's no extensions um and and to Liz comment about yes we can own property with anyone we want when we age however um I I wonder how and we should put that down as a question because say um I well you could own property with your spouse because then the circuit breaker is um based on income tax filing but if I own this here's a good question I I didn't think of if I owned a property with Liz I put her on the D to my house thank you we have no Financial connections at all via state income taxes right I I wonder how that would work that I think correct I think in an odd strange way um because in in in estate planning which is a good financial advisor will advise any if you're a good one not to put your children on the D to your house it creates a problem along the way which I not going to go into however um I wonder how that works that's so in a way ined way here's an odd thing well if you have rental income obviously it shows up on your tax returns but if you are declaring assets or there's some sort of measure of assets your your the value ascribed to you is your ownership percentage so you and I owned a million dollar property together we own half million dollars of property in milon right and each of us would be well if we rented it each of us would be liable and are we depreciating it gets complicated doesn't itad that's why I find the language um problematic that it is not very clear on whether it's one multiple people and how many people how it should be clearly clearly spelled out that I think if you go to the mass do and look up circuit breaker you can um click on an application an actual schedule that you have to fill out that goes with your taxes uh schedule whatever whatever and um because I did look at it and there is a provision um there about trust if you own the trust you need if your house is in trust you have to be you have to be you know the trustee or the it's complicated and you have to fill out this whole application to it's like schedule I don't know I forget what it's called um it's not here on this note it's on the pal note somewhere else um and and so they do provide for if your house is in trust okay um but you could be any age to have your house in trust this just is applying to seniors because of the nature of this tax is it any um it can't be in a trust that you can't okay hey Judy yeah we're going to um I I appreciate the the comments um and I'd ask that just everyone here I I'm going to give Nick as many questions that I have please recall what you want to ask and what you want to know we're gonna get one shot at this okay we got a vote we got to write a comment um so um I think uh just at this point I I will get that information forward we have um liquor license tomorrow we can always talk about this more tomorrow okay everything's on the agenda but we have Town Council coming in trying to deal with the licenses uh the articles concerning the liquor Provisions um we can always go back if we have energy to discuss more and then we have schools and I'll be able to work something out I'm sure with the Town Administrator to come in and address this more I'm just trying to be cognizant of the time and then our next several weeks list do you want us to email you you the questions it would be really nice if you could I just collect them and I just put them to Nick like I did the liquor questions it would be nice or just just make sure you ask him when he's here in the room um but I don't know I'm kind of thinking we we kind of tap for the night um I'm gonna be signing some comments tomorrow um just moving forward we're just going to kind of need some help in getting these all together and just the last last minute uh we can talk about that tomorrow um you know I'd like to maybe get some first year people some seconde people there's a third-year person who wants to write one on their own that's fine but um I just like um some of the newer people to be more involved um you know Jay Jay volunteered me for a comment my first year that was nice of me it was very nice of do and you know it was stressful we had a very short time meeting but it was an excellent process and you know I really took the time to figure out how to do them and I was much much better position to help the chair um during the U the the regular town meeting know Lori helped out and a bunch of other people and um be a good thing so we we can talk about a little bit more of that tomorrow but please email me your comments about this anything else for um Mr Milano that pertains to this tomorrow liquor and anything else we want to discuss and then schools on Thursday and hopefully maybe Nick in to discuss more about the circuit breaker anyone have anything else to'd like to add Liz do you have a sense of next week's schedule I don't okay I don't um can I phrase that a different way what's your vision for what we will have voted on by the end of the day on Thursday I think we have voted on everything but this okay that's what I think everything that we've seen yeah everything that we've seen okay yeah I think this you know um you know there's part of this I like I think everyone's raised like really good really good points you know about this um the assessors you know all that stuff so I don't know I'm I'm hopeful inside baseball I guess as a first year you know are all votes unanimous or is there everybody yeah du it out we make the rookies present yeah no you know what I I've been a part I'd say a lot of them are unanimous a lot are unanimous but I mean there's always one or two right every warrant right that stirs up more than just financial concern right they're always presented as the Warren committee and that means that the majority of the Warren committee has voted yes yeah and I think too I think you know there's we've had to make some tough votes in the past by time here and I've seen it in the past but you know we're a committee um I think there's an understanding too and I think this is a big thing about the comments okay and I I try to do this and I think it's really important that you really illustrate what was discussed you know the winner writes the com right they write the history they write history but but you know I think that it it's more appropriate that we do give the other side of the coin you know what was discussed you know what what what were the issues brought up a lot of times it's silent to that but I think it's important for the tanting to like know what we talked about and that there are always differing opinions on this board you know we all stand together as a committee on our vote and that's what we are but you know we're all different people and all individuals and there's a lot more on the table so I think it's important to tell the town like this is what we talked about and while we may have not all agreed on those things and you know here are a couple of great points that were made that we discussed um that you know I don't know I don't really know what my my final point is but just that you know we vote as a committee but in terms of the comments I think it's it's it's better if we kind of balance it a little bit and just give some insight to the town of you know what we discussed and and that we do have differ opinions okay great is there a motion oh Lori do you have any more comments or concerns yeah no I just would like to make a motion to adjourn thank you second second of a jeel we are Jed thank you very much than [Music] he 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