okay um I'm going to call to order the um uh March 21st 2024 uh joint meeting uh with the select board the finance committee and the uh school committee um we should start with the Pledge of Allegiance pled aliance to the flag of the United States of America and stands one nation God indivisible with li and justice for okay and uh Paula and Sherry do you guys want to open your I think you have to open your meetings as well yes I also call to order this um joint meeting March 21st 2024 the nor finance committee with the school committee and select board call the U meeting to order 701 March 21st 2024 for the school committee all members are present okay yeah so all members are present on the select board we have two absences okay all right so um I don't know why there's such a big crowd here tonight but um we do um I did want to lay out some some ground rules because we do have such a large crowd tonight um you know the goal of the chair of the meeting is to run an effective um and efficient meeting so we're going to keep that in mind um so I'm just going to read off a couple of things um a couple of ground rules um so first off if you wish to address the board or any of the boards you must do so only after being recognized by the chair um the chair for the meeting tonight um I spoke to the chairs or or communicated with the chairs of the uh finance committee um and the school committee um earlier today and we agreed probably be best to just have one chair for the meeting so I'm the lucky person today um so um so if you want to be recognized to speak um you um uh please uh go up to the podium and then um identify Yourself by name and address um because of the large number of people here tonight um each person will be given three minutes to speak um minutes cannot be deferred to other speakers okay this isn't Congress you know we uh we we also don't want to try to keep track of like you know I'm passing my two minutes and 13 seconds to this person um Alec is going to keep time for us tonight um again this is just intended to keep us moving forward to give everybody an opportunity to speak um and if anything goes wrong you can blame me um the um if you've already spoken on an issue and wish to speak again um I may recognize people who are waiting to speak for the first time before those who have already had an opportunity to speak um and if you've already had an opportunity to speak on uh one issue um please confine your next comments to a new issue okay um and um uh please confine your comments to the items on the agenda um all speakers in this meeting will be treated with courtesy by everyone in the room all remarks will be directed towards the chair um and while I will allow questions to be asked of individuals I will not allow cross-examination type discussions if there are people waiting to speak on an issue the chair will not accept a motion from a board member until everyone has a had a chance to be heard that sound good sound good sound good okay all right um and uh last but not least I do have a gavl don't make me use it and um uh I do have an air horn as well if the gavel doesn't work um so um you can blame Jack Conway for this so um all right so um the first item on the select board's agenda tonight is the appointment of uh Bob Kimble to the permanent uh building committee so Bob I don't know if you wanted to come up and say anything um just maybe Express why you're interested in being on the I guess if there's any questions um my my background is in retail but I have uh opened 37 new from the ground up retail stores over the years I've had that experience I built my own home here in noron so I guess I'm there the passing my good friend Bob uh maderas I realized there was an opening available and I thought maybe I could uh coming in at the Conor the last minute of it but maybe I could help uh continue to get that process completed in in a time of passion so that's basically it for me okay thanks Bob does anybody have any questions for uh for Bob okay so this is a joint vote correct between the select board and the school committee it's not on our agenda we cannot vote on it we were not told that there was a vote toight okay sent over the agenda all right so we can't well we can we can we can can we vote and have them vote at another time yes we can do that right okay it doesn't look like it's on yours either though yeah it is I definitely saw it on theirs but an older version the one that we received today ited earlier I one version yeah okay did they forward the older version today yeah I know it was on our agenda yeah all right so um all right so I'll take a motion uh to appoint um Bob Kimble to the permanent building commit so move second okay all in favor I any opposed okay thank you all right thanks Bob thank you thank you all right next item on the agenda is um a discussion of the 2025 fiscal year 2025 um budget um I think probably the best way to do this is to get updates from uh the town manager and from um Dr O'Neal um on the status of the budgets uh for the town and the schools so we'll turn it over to Mike to start all right um Jen and I have been going back and forth uh quite a bit I want to thank uh Jen and uh denz and Cherry for meeting last week on it um it's obviously a long process and this year it's a very tough process everyone's got a lot of work to do still um so with the original uh budget proposals that came in from all departments um looking for level Services resulted in a deficit of 5,500 $8 3,29 and uh obviously the Departments all put time into that those the things that they submitted are things that truly they need they're not it's not they're not looking for Pie in the Sky it's truly stuff they felt they need to operate their budget um but some of the issues we run into is um this year the uh assessors were unable to provide us with any money on out of the overlay Surplus which was 100,000 we had for our budget last year um last year we used um some $77,500 out of stabilization and we used 1,935 536 out of free cash and so this is an evolving process when that was done we were only looking at using um $700,000 of free cash and um with with what we're been working on now is trying to get to 3% budgets um still working on I know on my end I have 144,000 still a cut out of our our budgets um but we're proposing uh to use uh a million dollars of free cash and increase the ambulance receipts from 800 50,000 to a million uh so with that even trying a 3% budget would still be shot $1,375,000 um so the next decision to be made on that is um do we do use money um from the what we did last year do we use some money from stabilization or do we do an override I mean those are things we have to look at going below 3% I think would I mean it's tough enough as it is at 3% um going below that uh would be very tough and another thing uh this year our fixed and shared increased um we've been very fortunate over the last few years where our health insurance was going up 1 2% um this year though it's not bad comp compared to what I've been seeing in other towns it went up 5 7% and every percentage increase for us is $80,000 more in health insurance cost so that's a significant um hit to the budget so um those are some of the issues that we're all working with okay all right thanks M Dr O'Neal thank you um so the school um committee has put forward a level service budget for the fy2 school year um a level service budget allows us to retain exactly the amount of Staffing positions and services programs to our students that we are currently offering there are no new positions that are in this budget there are really um no new programs and that is a 12.01% increase to retain that level of services um financially that's 4 44,1 166,167 um as Mr Unis just said um we have been having a lot of conversations about um what the realities of our budget is here um and I think it's important for the community to know that a 3% increase um is a 3,125 794 deficit over level um over level Services um so those are pretty significant cuts for the school department uh this year we are facing a incredible increase in um tuitions for some of our students that are as specialized um education schools um based on their educational needs as well as Transportation costs um both for our students that are out of District um as well as homeless Transportation all of which we are mandated to provide um those are significant costs um additionally we have been really fortunate over the last few years to have Esser Grant funds which were grants that were given from the federal government uh postco so with all of those funds now gone um we are no longer use able to use that for Staffing and programming uh during our current school year we are using $550,000 of aser funds and those are will no longer be available okay um all right so at this point I think we should discuss as boards um and see if uh anybody has any questions um for uh for the town manager or for um or for Dr anyone okay yeah go ahead do we know on excuse me on the the town side of the budget police fire Highway do we know if there's any Personnel impacted by these potential shortfalls I know we we've discussed this on the school side but I don't I haven't seen much in way of of how that might impact some of the other departments in their service but um as I said I'm still working on it but um one right now would be the public health nurse is uh in my plan is eliminated that's the only position at this point as of now yeah um Dr I I had a question on the Asser funds um so this year you said this year you used about 500,000 for Staffing yes and do you know what it was last year um it was close to Million last year okay so those those are temporary funds used for for operating expenses so was there a plan when using those funds so it's it's it's the um age-old issue of kicking the can down the road in order to save the day at the time um and so the last few years have have been difficult budget years as well we keep talking about the fact that this Cliff is coming uh so the previous administration chose to you know use that for Staffing that was definitely needed at that time um and unfortunately eventually those funds do run out just want to add to that nobody trust me nobody in this room is more against using onetime revenue for operating expenses than me um however I I do think among the SS generally were fully on purpose it was to keep keep teachers in in rooms so I didn't love the plan but it it was the intention of the s to be honest with you so it it alleviated for two years a problem that was going to going to hit us anyways yeah and and I'm Dr I'm not blaming you buy needs so please don't take it that way I just you know using temporary funds like that I mean there should be a plan for when those funds run out not you know so as um denz has said the funds were originally designed for safety measures so we were able to use um Sr funds to purchase masks or tests or any of the cleaning materials that we needed they were also designed to support students both academically um and through withal as they're coming back to school full-time from uh the closures that happened and what we found over time is that this is much a much more long-term problem in terms of students being academically ready for school having those foundational skills that they may have missed out on um many of our youngest Learners that are coming into preschool in kindergarten at this time um may have not have received the early intervention services that they needed um at a really key time or they may have not had a school experience at the preschool so they're coming to school for the first time in kindergarten where it's it for many of our students it's really their very first time in school they don't really know how to how to do it yet um and so the other thing we' found is just that those academic gaps have just grown exponentially for students um and the mental health component and students emotional Wellness um so while those positions were designed to be almost like a temporary fix when kids came back the needs of our students have really significantly changed in the last few years and what we've just what we've really found is that those positions have just been really valuable it would be ashamed to give them off as well y go ah Mike I have a question so you just mentioned that let me just clarify I guess first um just doing the 3% increase the only anything we'd be looking to eliminate on the town side would be a public health nurse right now but public health nurse and overtime police and fire which well cuz yeah I mean we're we've been seeing the budgets come forward and most of them are over the 3% what they're asking for um town clerk Highway um police fire Council on Aging was a 56% increase ask um so I'm just confused that it would only be eliminating one position if we just did a three % increase I feel like there would be a lot that we' lose with just 3% increase well you had you you had you got my first draft of cuts I think um and that we did police overtime fire overtime um some expenses um and right now the current public health nurse that would be the one position that would go and uh we're still looking we have 144,000 to go so if we use the 1 million in free cash now that means we're not using free cash in the fall to supplement anything I we don't know what we're going to have for free cash in the fall um the concern is that as we cut these budgets back we're not going to have turn backs mhm and if we don't have turn backs that's going to affect what our free cash is next year so we may need to hold on a free cash so we have it for the pre next year's budget because we could be in even worse shape right yeah sorry um think go ahead um so Mike I know that we don't currently have a town planner and I don't know if you considered or um included that in the budget um or not I can't recall um but are there other positions in town that are not currently filled other than that um no okay so that does not eliminate the two newly created positions for the Council of Aging um sorry we it has um the Council on Aging had it would only be one position they already have a position there um part of it is funded was funded out of our proper and it it would be one new position we haven't eliminated that [Applause] yet any other questions can I ask for a point of clarification yeah sure go ahead so when we started this whole budget process back in October November whatever kind of starting to look ahead of what we're looking at we all obviously saw the writing on the wall we were kind of told in a late February is that we were looking at possibly a school budget of a 4% increase then right before our meeting we get a bomb dropped on us and puts the entire meeting in his area of we're not getting any increase and we're looking at taking a fiscal year deficit now we're back to possibly getting a 3% increase across all Town lines what is h how has so much changed in two or three weeks of of going from increase to to nothing to to a deficit and now we're going back up to I guess part of the problem there is sharing information too early maybe because I mean we still if we didn't do if we didn't do anything if we didn't uh use stabilization that we were looking at uh $ 421,750multifamily going along we're sharing information this is what we have now we we don't have everything in we don't have all our fixed and shared um till and health insurance doesn't get set until how many weeks ago was it end of February yeah it wasn't so we didn't even know until the end of February that our health insurance was going up more than $400,000 so I mean I think just in the future we really shouldn't jump because I think we put people in this this panic mode of of what's happening for no reason simply because we were just trying to get information out that didn't wasn't real I didn't do that I didn't put that out in the public I was just sharing that with Mike so to clarify um if the finance committee chooses not to use free cash that is available or chooses not to use stabilization right both the town and the schools would see right a negative increase over our current year we and that's something that would have to be addressed by the finance committee um it's not something that we have ready to go and just to make another point because I did not realize this if like you said like you said you cut police and fire um overtime for example your likelihood of having turn backs in the fall is less which means next year free cash that free cash is not going to be available or it could be significantly less okay so I'm sorry stabilization was just mentioned though did you you I said you you said a million from free cash a million from ambulance receipts I don't feel like you mentioned stabilization yeah um I said that we're shot still 1, 375,000 so we have to have a discussion are we going to use some stabilization Mike can you just for the folks here explain what stabilization is yeah um stabilization is an account that um we hold money in um that requires a 2/3 majority vote at town meeting to take it out and um generally they say you should have 5% of whatever your budget is in stabilization and I would point out that stabilization and free cash are essentially using onetime monies for operational expenses Mr points me and I agree that we do you would point that out understand the position where I just point like we using your tax munding pay your credit card right yes makes it sound simple sorry go ahead Denise um just quick question just so I understand there's four different um forms here that are marked arriv estimated operating revenue and expenditures all varying levels of deficit what's the thinking behind each of these that's just um you have um what was submitted by departments for level service Services which was a 6% on the town side and 12.9 I think on the school side and then we were just looking at different scenarios um if we did 5% 4% 3% what what would that mean as far as a deficit so the largest deficit is what was submitted right and then the others vary upon three four five right and we even I think gave you a two and a half and 2% too where would I see that goes from higher to lower percentages I don't think it's I don't think it's on the down the bottom where you see school and general government you don't have extra copy [Music] um great we got an email to us but we don't anybody else yeah go ahead Mike just ex any um any remedies we're we're thinking about doing are we fairly confident in our numbers now the numbers we have now X the remedies we're pretty those are the final numbers the thing that'll always change a little bit is um um the indirects that's from water and soore cuz that all depends on what the budgets end up at the end okay for the most part but generally speaking the hard numbers are the hard numbers in the state we don't know we don't get much anyway so sorry how can we be conf numbers if we still have a 1.5 75 deficit it's not level funded right what that how can we be confident in these numbers with 3% if it's still one point ch ask can we now plan going forward with the numbers we have or is there going to be another surprise sorry um Mike how much do we have in stabilization right now um right now we have 3,170 th114 so that's not that's not 5% of our budget okay and what about free cash uh free cash we have 1.7 if we use a million we'll have 700,000 remaining like how how would this also affect like um Capital Improvements for the fall or even coming up in so typically I mean it's been a while since I've been on there but we you know have money that sometimes is free cash or so how does that affect some of our capital projects as well so right now we only have uh a little over 500,000 I think it is and uh Capital um and so we're being very well least I'm recommending that we be very cautious and what we spend out of in May will probably leave us with about 200,000 unless we put some more money in and in the fall hopefully we put some money in um but right now um we we'll be down to about 200,000 so with that 700,000 we have left the first thing we're looking at is is um any articles on the warrant that require funding um and then we could use some of it for Capital now so my other another question when we look at you know new construction in town whether it's apartments or housing or how can we or can we project what we might see for that like I know when a couple years ago when we talked about the industrial park we X Y and Z whether it's building permits if they're parking their trucks there can is there any way that we can say when the the new apartments by McDonald's are filled we're going to get x amount not necessarily because it's not from the residents but their excise taxes their you know the property tax is there any way to project that for the growth of the Town yeah I know that uh the assessor has included that warehouse across the street from those apartments and the apartments and her new growth figure for next fiscal year um but her new growth is a little bit less than it was the previous year and I know her uh the assessor and the building commission are working today on permits that are out there and what they see coming in so they can do just that so $5.5 million short Change whatever that's when every department has submitted their budget that's no one touching it right okay correct and then number two so if we took 3 million from stabilization and 1.7 million from free cash that's 4.7 million obviously it would offset us a little bit here but we're still looking at a deficit of give or take 800k got it before anyone [Music] comes mik just out of curiosity um if I think you said there was a consideration of spending free cash down to 200,000 I that number right no um capital capital okay yeah sorry right disre is well actually you know what let me put it on T is there any reason we wouldn't spend or I guess what's the downfall of spending free free cash and stabilization to zero the biggest downfall to be honest with you well one if we have an emergency we're in big trouble and make the argument we have an emergency and two we're about to go out to do the final bonding of the three projects all right fin I can't tell you I I know it does affect it does y I didn't think about that you're right which I hate to say this but I don't because I can't quantify how it would balance out but if you had an override and we didn't have to touch our stabilization and we didn't have to touch our free cash which would look much better for the actual arals when we go out to borrow maybe the um what the tax would have to pay on that would be less than it will be if we do that and then yeah and what's that final fond that we're going to be the final Bond will be for the building projects yeah in the fall I'm sorry in the fall we don't know the amount though no it depends on the and everything that yeah it depends on um you know the Final close out of each project we borrow about 80% of the town hall and Senior Center project so there's a potential 20% more so left what people are seeing on their tax bills right now next year is the peak and it's going to start coming down for the debt exclusion Cody has his hand oh I'm sorry go ahead go ahead Cody um mik when we had the discussion last year we recommended pulling the 700,000 from stabilization as a a onetime offset I thought I think I remember you saying that the stabilization funds are directly tied to our credit rating and our ability to borrow and if we don't maintain a a level balance or as close 5% of the the annual budget that impacts our credit rate impacts our ability to borrow future right future process right that yeah that's what I was just saying okay did I see someone else if we do the the reserves the stabilization fund and the free cash and use the 4 million into the 2025 budget in 2026 we're going to be looking at a78 million deficit well that's the next question right is if we do what are we doing next pick the P but how many how many years have we been doing this right it's been a long time we keep taking from these accounts to pay right so it's just it's catching up to us we all said that this was coming we've talked about this clip for a long time and here we are you can see you should be chairing Denise go ahead uh quick question for for generalis committee um I noticed that the state budget has some proposed increases in their per pupil fee busing some of like the charter school that kind of stuff is that included in here not included here and I real it hasn't gone through the house hasn't been voted on and it doesn't happen till July I need to know by I understand all of those factors but has that been factored any of that been factored into here thinking we're going to get something so really Norton doesn't really qualify for any of those things when the transportation is all around Regional Transportation um so places like d hobit that have a regional transportation system they looking at um a greater increase in reimbursement there um the student Opportunity Act that went in a few years ago this is now the sixth year of U funding that um and we'll still get $30 per student unless that minimum Aid is increased um at the state level last year it went from 30 to 60 so um we saw an extra $65,000 which is great and we're always super happy to have it but really doesn't make a dent in some of those things here um it it's we're in a difficult position just in terms of uh where we are as a community we don't have enough uh families that are considered high need um to qualify for some other things so okay it's we don't we don't imagine the needle moving very much thanks um and just on the on the state aid the big concern there is the state um they had a a revenue estimate that they didn't hit they adjusted it they haven't hit it for eight months even after lowering it so they're in tough shape Revenue wise so um I Heard a State Rep on yesterday saying that they hope they can level fund locally Aid this year so they cut a lot of the projects by 50% right we had a couple projects that were affected by that anyone else questions or comments no okay Mr chair oh y go ahead Cody I I just feel like we discussed it in call on on Monday and I just want to reiterate my hesitancy to utilize non recurring revenues for recurring expenses and I know Jess hits on this a lot you on on school committee part of the reason we ended up in this situation is we utilize those those um free cash free cash isn't free it's a misnomer and we end up up creating paying for new positions and expanding our spending in the fall and it just kind of rolls into the discussion in the spring and people tend to forget about when we are funding using preat that is not guaranteed to be there every year and I feel like it's fiscally irresponsible to continue to push that I know it's like ripping a bandid off and you can't just pull it all off at once um because it it's that much more difficult but we need to have serious conversations about how we're utilizing that free cash and making sure that we not funding reoccurring expenses from it to the extent that we possibly Mike um I I was just going to say Obviously a lot of us agree with that that we shouldn't be doing that and I can't take credit for this cuz Sandy said it but uh we now have to wean ourself off of it we we can't quit cold turkey so last year we used 1.9 million of free cash if this year we use a million and next year we try and work till use a little less but we got to wean oursel off of that we can't just quit cold turkey assuming we have it well I think that's a problem is if for the next two years we keep doing this that fourth year we're going to have to bring back some of that free cash from somewhere as well to start the cycle all over again in you know 5 years from now it's just this it's this circle of insanity that we keep doing well I think the biggest issue to Cody's point is we're using the free cash to try to button up the budget but we have a number of new heads included in that and that's going to be something that's we're going to see come back every single year and the biggest issue we have which Zach thank you very much I heard in the fincom meeting is our Personnel cost our contractual rates every single year is over what we have for our 2 and a half% and and I get it it's not easy to say we have to keep it to 2 and a half% it's not cost of living it's not competitive I get that but it's we're chasing our taals here that's that's townwide and the school I agree across the board everywhere well that that was my purpose of asking the Personnel question because we're upwards of 10% of our work staff if we have to cut 40 positions so I mean the schools are definitely feeling it and I don't know about unemployment or anything like that but that's another expense in the budget for all these employees who are potentially going to be laid off whenever that is they can collect till they find another job and if the Market's not that good they can continue to collect so it's just again it's just part of this vicious cycle that we keep in every year Paula go ahead sorry um so I don't know if you guys have had the chance to figure it out cuz I think you may have just heard about this 3% number now um how many positions would that mean do you know that yet 3% is 25 to 28 that's 25 to 28 this year next year assuming again expenses go up everything costs more again next year what's that going to mean next year and then how much free cash will we even have to put into this next year it's just creating the same problem again and then you know just looking at the other departments if we're not able to fund like say overtime for the police department or fire department what does that mean for making sure we have um enough offic on the road or the station fully staffed in order for emergency you know things that happen um that makes me worried I don't know I mean I think the Chiefs would be able to speak better to what that would mean that not funding their overtime would mean for Public Safety in this town um I think that's a great question do the Chiefs want to come up and talk about that always prepared the LI cage sorry she promise to I don't want just the schools to be in the SE everybody um so I guess I wanted to say a couple things real quick is um my budget this year was a 4.9% level Services budget which is what I was directed by the town manager to put together a level Services budget um there's not a wish list in here I put some numbers together that I Shar with the town manager if there was a wish list there would be another $400,000 so um overtime is not an exact science there's a lot of things that that uh happen with it I mean if you sat down with Zach I think you know Chief Scher is aware of it Cody I talked to I think talked to a bunch of people about how we come to overtime um back in 2018 our our overtime was $438,000 this year's request is 4666 um it's the same amount as last year we are currently have uh we just had one retirement uh we have two people in the police academy we have one person who's out on a long-term illness we have another person who's out with uh Medical Treatments right now um so we're down a few people you kind of ask you know specifically what the overtime um effect will be so uh you know the cut to overtime will be a little over $108,000 um over 62% of our overtime is to backfill to maintain three offices on the road it's the same amount of offices on the road that basically has happened since I've been on the department um I had a conversation with the chief of police in Easton today and their overtime is approaching 700,000 and they maintain floor offices on the road so you know if we're all healthy you know that overtime number can decrease but it's not going to decrease to $357,000 um you know it would take some reassignments of personnel from administrative positions which I'm kind of doing already um here and there as needed but it would definitely you know I it would be a big hit to us um you know commonly overtime it's kind of low hanging fruit um it's usually I know the teller hates this word but it's usually cut at this time every year um and then there's some that's replenished in the fall but it's not always replenished in the fall and I'm you know I'm kind of at the you know from what I'm hearing and seeing I don't expect any or all of it to be replaced this coming fall so um you know this there's some things that we can do maybe perhaps deficit spend you know court is something that I don't have any control over if somebody summons to court they have to go um if they uh if they don't go there could potentially be a bench warrant for them so um training if anybody's uh hasn't been sitting under a rock for the past three years we we're we've been coming to police reform um there's some new mandates to it but it's uh you know there's some reporting requirements and some some new training that's come up that you know we're mandated to do I know you know that word mandate comes up quite a bit and I honestly don't like that word because I think you know it's just it's what we do to provide the best service for the town so um I don't know if you have any specific questions but it's just kind of an overview of that was helpful Chief um and then for the fire department um the 1 million in ambulance receipts would that sorry Hi how are you before we go to fire I think I think Joe a question chief chief I know we talked about this on our fincom meeting but for the benefit of everybody else that's here now uh can you explain to us how many how many officers will that mean on the road without the overtime and how does that compare to what you consider our ideal number of officers on the road it should be yeah so like I said the minimum Manning is is three officers on the road um we have one on the desk three on the road and I would I really would not want to it's just not safe to go below that so you know from an assignment perspective we probably look at uh look at taking some people from assignments um you know some administrative um assignments as well as you know potentially detectives and I hate to say it but we' have to look at where we stand with SRO as well SRO come under my budget um they're not funded by the schools their robot time is not funded by the schools it's strictly mine so um you know we'll have to take a look at what we do there if they go to and I'll talk about the SRO if they go to something at night uh a presentation or something at the school or if they get a late call about a school threat like that's overtime that's what it is so um I you know I'll have to De dive deeper into exactly what we're we're going to do but this isn't 1990 it's not the 80s like it's just not safe you talk about office of burnout if we have two offices on the road like that's that's burnout we can't close the station we've tried that before it's just it's silly it's there's too many walk-ins that come in um too many phone calls that come in um so people are always looking for something U I tried that once when I first became Chief to to uh to save on overtime and it was just it's just embarrassing you know so oh just to clarify for people who might not know the acronym SRO student resource officer so it's the officers we have the schools do I recall you saying you'd prefer to have officers on the road if we if we could M so we're talking about potentially cutting overtime but that really is a defacto position cut you're taking you're not letting somebody go but you're taking a body off the road that should be on the road so that is a position cut technically I agree right so I mean there's another position we're cut we're not calling it that but that's exactly what's happening we're cutting a position all right any other questions for chief Clark all right than you Chief off the hot seat sorry I was thanks Chief Fire um the 1 million from ambulance receipts would that be going directly to keep chly open um because I with that safer Grant done now how would we do that so yeah that that's pretty much covering those positions uh to keep Charlie open and pretty much everything that Chief Clark said first of all uh Chief Simmons was was UN aable to make it tonight cuz he's ill so um I'm kind of hunting for him so I'll do the best I can uh but we've studied this obviously and and kind of looked at the best you know scenarios we have but uh cutting the overtime along with what um Chief clock said is it's station one it's keeping station one open um we have our minimum Manning is eight firefighters on duty we have right now on the books and I think I said this at the fincom um that for the first time we had uh a full staff of 10 per shift but somebody got injured since then so now we're down with that so um that's what ends up affecting that when we have injuries when we have we have four people that are um that can retire basically anytime at this point um FMLA is a tough thing we have a younger Department uh last year we had five people on FMLA that we had to backfill um so anytime that that overtime that overtime being cut which I believe is uh $236,000 is what's being cut from the overtime account um it'll affect um the chli station staying open sporadic I mean it's not going to close um depending on what we have I mean it's over time like Chief Clark said is really hard to predict we have a major incident uh we have to cover a major incident we have a long incident um that over time there's other things that's involved with the overtime it covers holiday pay so when someone's working on a holiday that comes out that's $100,000 right out of the overtime account um it covers uh floating holidays it covers adverse weather um like I said the FMLA uh bereavement sickness and everything else that goes along with it so you know we're going to try to do the best we can going to try to still give the same service that we always have uh but Staffing is is going to be an issed go ahead and I think um to answer your question I'm not sure um for chly you need three a minimum of three uh people in that station so if they if they have 10 on a shift and they go down to eight um they won't be calling anybody in and they'll have to pull people from chly back so which means we'll have to shut that station down right okay any other questions for fire department okay that was easy you should all right does anybody else have any questions for for Mike or for Dr O'Neal at this point all right um yeah go ahead Cody um I just I just uh to the point that I was making earlier on free cash about people forgetting about it when we're looking at our fiscal year budget for the next year you see that 1.9 million and we're talking about cutting back of what we're recommending on free cash for the spring our recommended and approved budget at this time last year for fiscal year 2024 our starting point was 1,119 and we added another $816,000 from free cash spending in the fall so starting like when you're looking at that as a $1.9 million starting place it's a false equivalent because we added $800,000 in the fall so if we're talking about scaling that million doll to me is equivalent to 1.1 but that's not scam down we need to have a more realistic conversation about how much we're going to cut from that okay thanks Cody right all right so um I think at this point we'll um continue the discussion um of the budget with anybody from um you know from the uh from our guests here tonight so if you want to come up and ask a question or have a comment um please come up to the podium um name and address and um Alec will try to keep you at three minutes hi hi come on these are just my notes right yeah um Amy Martin for bulock Drive in Norton um I'm a citizen of Norton I'm also an employee in the Norton school district I'm a school nurse so I do have a stake in this budget um from both ends of the spectrum being a town employee and also being concern citizen um my big question is um I have three questions they're going to be small hopefully not I won't take too long the first one is school choice funds just from looking at the numbers it looks to me like there's a balance of a little over $133,000 right now my question is is that historically used up by the end of the fiscal year and if not is it able to be rolled into using something else as far as like a salary or anything else in education so typically um for our school choice funds we have them allocated for certain things throughout the course of the year if a we do not use it or we have funds left in other lines for example if um a teacher is out on leave and they're not and they're picking taking unpaid time we can move that money to pay for whatever that school choice money was going to to pay for and we can put that back into be into the reol revolving account to be used later okay thank you uh my second question is um is a library media specialist necessary for school accreditation is recommended requ okay thank you and one other question um to the town manager what would be your um motivation and your um question your um rationale for eliminating the public health nurse in the town as the eliminated position um so we've kept some um money in the account out of EX for expenses and we' look at um hiring someone on a consultant basis so someone that come in and do flu shots or anything else and we also belong to a Consortium of other towns so hopefully uh that'll help fill the void too and you believe the consultant rate would be less than the having a full-time occupational health nurse rate who is familiar with everybody in the town in town processes right we're budgeting a lot less have you had numbers on that or is that just a projection and I thought that that would that's just a projection so you're eliminating a public public health nurse for the projection of having a consultant come in for less money correct well the consultant W be working the same amount of hours as the public health but you don't know what the salary would be so you're eliminating position in place of somebody who may save a town money as a public health nurse for safety they're only going to have whatever we budget so they'll get we'll only get but why would you eliminate a position already there for a consultant who has no stake in the town to save money but you just said they would be working the same amount of hours so how would that I didn't say that I said they won't be working the same amount of hours we'll just be having the Consulting come in when we need the consultant and the amount of hours we High the consult you don't know when you need them because the public health safety safety of the town is should be a priority so you can't project when you're going to have a public health safety issue that's what I'm saying no we can't we can't we can't so why would you not keep somebody town already familiar with and we can't predict when having the chle station would be better right to and we can't predict when having three police officers on the street would be safer it's just something we're forced to do which is why those projected offices are going to stay on the streets budget right I'm just saying the safety of the Town needs to be considered with this budget thank you thank you um I have a I have a question because um I know there was a lot of discussion around school choice yes I actually want to clarify a point as well for so where did you guys kind of land on the school choice and um so um Amy just spoke about $133,000 that is somewhere along the all the documents we have that's actually outgoing school choice funds um it's a very small amount of students that are Norton students that may attend other Community Schools um our receipt on school choice is about $1.6 million for this upcoming year um so to answer your question Kevin um the school committee has not yet voted on school choice for the upcoming year um it a lot of it really hinges on what our class sizes are going to look like if if we're going to have to make cuts at the elementary level I can't in good conscience recommend that we taking additional school choice students um so really that's a big factor here um and we're also um going to be having additional conversations about some of those costs as well so I don't know if the gr that okay thank you um I think Nick did you have your hand up I was just going back to the public nurse we would also not have to pay benefits on a right contracted person right and I think I heard you know the idea would be you know the senior center is doing the flu Clinic youd bring that person in just for that one event okay yeah kin hi kalista Thompson uh ke Drive I just had a followup question on the school choice piece as well if we are seeing cuts to the school budget and 40 positions cut from the program do we have any type of projection on what that would do to the loss not only of school choice money coming in but students in Norton then opting to leave the district which then takes that $134,000 number and brings it up quite a bit I imagine that's part of the discussion but that's just something that comes up for me it's really it's very hard to predict that right because every family makes the choice that's right for them at that time um if you if we're going to have higher class sizes if we're going to be offering um less extracurricular activities for students and families they're going to look for other options we know that that is what's going to happen um also if we're not bringing in any additional Revenue that is something that we have to think about too our budget looks to spend almost about about $2 million of school choice for the upcoming school year and just a just a Jen's Point too like we can't cut school choice and then go to zero school choice kids we by law have to keep them in so if we even were to cut school choice it would be a a 10 12 year project of you know this kid's now out this kid's now out they graduate through but they stay in the system so it wouldn't be a cut of $1.6 million right away it would be Progressive over the call 10 years but but those funds may be up for grabs if they then choose to go somewhere else instead of in the current program that so you say those funds are up for grabs what do you mean so say of the $1 million coming in from current school choice people we have class sizes of 30 and we cut band and we cut music and half of those kids parents say why am I driving 30 minutes to go to Norton for these programs that I thought were amazing I'm going to go somewhere else so the million is not stable even if we choose not to take people in they could just as easily choose to Choice somewhere else so by law they don't have to stay here we have to educate them if they stay here yes it's a it's a good question um but there's a sneaky better question and the sneaky better question is tell me about this Charter School in foxb and what happened in the past and where is it now and if we do this what happens in the future so some years ago um different Administration Dr BR um he and I had a bunch of Charter parents come in sit down with us and just have a talk bunch of people in the room said hey why' you guys order the charter said well we went to the Charter because they had free kindergarten at the time why' you come back H once we went our kids met kids they so we stayed and our numbers were we were paying the charter million over a million bucks right closer to two closer to two close close to 22 million bucks came right out of our budget we reversed that because we instituted for kindergarten but if if we're laying off a bunch of teachers and right now it looks like the focus is probably more younger than than older with u with respect to what grades and people say the heck with it I'm sending my kid to the Charter we know that that's a sticky situation they stay there so all of a sudden we could be looking at spending another 2 million bucks to have these kids go to the Charter and that actually that just up right there or they're they're voting on right now I mean that 2 million could be 2 and a half 3 million so that's the sneaky quiet question that that I worry about is where does this lead us to in five six seven years yeah I think we're a little more protected given their turnover in recent years but that is turning around also so yeah but also this use of school choice money is another case of using non-recurring funds for recurring expenses yeah thank you guys thank you anyone else yep come on up my name is Brian Stalter I am the President of the board of directors for the library so I'm speaking on behalf of the library uh you're all here just to let you know that the lighting and the heating comes from the library itself not from the town it comes from money that we raise whether it's from the uh the friends of the library or fundraisers or things like that it's all Grassroots fundraising we asked for 4% my guest three we're doing 4% because we need to go to 50 hours a week we're at 45 hours now um there are 378 libraries in the state we're one of four who's not 100% certified one of four so if we go to 50 hours a week we'll be 100% certified we'll get a little more money from the state which will help with buy books and programs and things everybody comes and they like the uh services that we have you get the free passes to the to the museums that costs us money we're not getting that from the town we're raising money to get those every year to give to the people in town um the money that we get from the town is just for the staff just to support the staff and some people are still making minimum wage here um so I'm just trying to promote the library the best we can the library the the Brick and water of the building is owned by the town we rent it for like a dollar a year but we've had expens this past year where our endowment we're only supposed to take out a certain amount of money we're using that money just to get the building up to speed to code we spent $144,000 this year just getting the sprinkler system back up into a code we spent $30,000 on an alarm system we had graffiti at the park which we're in charge of now uh some of the graffiti was very upsetting to a lot of people we're trying to put in security cameras down there that's $5,000 alone just to put security cameras down the library uh they by the park um so costs go up everybody knows costs go up insurance goes up health insurance goes up utilities go up everything goes up so we're just looking for that Mike gas he he gave us a 604 in change uh we asked for 609 69,000 a little more so I'm just trying to promote that extra 5,000 that extra 5,000 would get us to 50 hours a week um and we really the town the state is really pushing us to get to that level if anybody has any questions I'll be happy to answer them questions for Brian okay all right thank you thank you thank you thank you uh I think I saw a hand back there still 11 Maple Street let me cram this into 3 minutes um no chance right Insanity the definition of insanity is consistently doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result we've been doing that for 40 damn years and we have anybody who's paid five minutes of attention to this to this town budget knows that the answer is that we need an override right unlike Easton or Mansfield or north adoro we have never ever in 40 years pass an override to adjust our Levy limit to be able to fund our town so the decision we have before us now is really simple either pass an override and fund the town to the level that we need the town to be at or just say no I'm not going to pay more taxes I'm going to live in a substandard town look around you do you see high futin spending all over the town of Norton do you see luxury apartments in the police station somewhere do you see all this stuff going I mean and we talk about you know going cold turkey turkey from not uh you know from from transferring for one time funds our turkey isn't cold our turkey is dead it's been dead for years and years and years we do this constantly we were doing it 20 years ago and 30 years ago because we postponed and we kick down the road and that's a waste of time we're not fixing the problem we're not addressing the real problem and we've got to address the the idea that like all these other towns at some point you have to adjust the tax levy limit when you only go up 2 and a half% a year and the levy limit only accounts for maybe 50 or 60% of your of your Revenue then you're really only increasing 1 and a qu% per year they say well run it like your family budget well the problem is in a town the kids never move [Music] out it's not a family it's not a business you can't stop making a product that's not that that's not profitable for you you can't do that so for God's sakes let's face but I will tell you that if you throw an override together and you you try to put it on in the next month or two I'll probably vote against it because that doesn't make any sense because no one believes that you will have studied it enough no one believes that you're going to be able to put together a proposal that makes sense and you can talk facts and and oh it's going to be terrible all you want but face fact that an override is a political event and because it's voted on In The End by the people regardless of what the selectman do as long as they put it on the ballot and regardless of what Tom eing does you know I mean Tomy has to pass it but it has to go so it's an election you have to treat it as a political campaign you have to treat it and I know that's oh my God you're putting politics into it that's what it is and we've got to start facing it I've lived in this town for so long I this is my 50th budget cycle we have Rob Peter so much he can't pay Paul okay we he just you can't my God go let's face our problems either that or make the cuts and maybe after one year of tremendous cuts and I've been saying this for decades after one year of tremendous Cuts maybe people will go hey that's it we have to do something you know maybe they won't but either way we'll stop this stupid thing that we just keep doing year and year talking about a public health nurse that we're going to cut yeah that'll solve our problems I mean come on let's get real either we're going to get serious about what's really going to fix this problem or we're going to keep wasting our time like like we've done all this time I say let's put together a plan let's construct an override that makes sense that sets us up Beyond just next year because I don't want to be back here making this same stupid speech again next year um I noticed that Mr G mentioned Mansfield Mansfield has they're looking at two options this year either instituting a trash fee or an override so it's the same Jen you're gonna pay I'm be paying for the trash you know top of your head how many overrides Mansfield has done I don't why do we not ourselves all right does anybody else oh I'm sorry I missed you go ahead um name and address please Alexia Zella T Robin Circle um this is more just a comment I think we're asking the wrong questions not about what we need to cut in this town but what we need to keep in this town and how we can keep it um hearing um Dr O'Neal speak and I'm sorry I'm very bad with name can you speak up oh sorry hearing Dr O'Neal speak tonight hearing the chief of police speak tonight and the sorry deputy chief of fire I'm really bad with the names prop the titles they you can hear in their voices how it it's affecting them that they're talking about overtime and that equals safety and in our town we shouldn't be asking about safety we shouldn't be asking about education we should be funding these things that is one of the things that I moved here a year ago and I did my research on towns and I chose Norton because you guys had good ratings and you seemed like a good town so I think that we need to keep what we have in this town and we need to fund it and it sounds like it's been an issue for a while so I'm not a financial person but you guys need to fix your budget to pay for the things that the town needs Peter did you want to get up yes yes go ahead yes yes then you're next here's the mainor wi you're hre Marin and I agree what Bill G said it is time we start thinking about our town and let's think by world because I lived in this town almost 38 years and I'm a proud nor night just like my mom and my dad and it is time we think about this town and think about the community and let's move our town for and we want to be Norton and we we want to be the best town that we ever had hi Laura goon 9 drive this will be super quick um I just want to piggy back on previous comments um we prior to living here we've been here for a decade we lived in adoro and when we wanted to move and get our you know big grown-up house we definitely looked around everywhere and we settled on Norton because we're like we like these schools this will be great um and then I'll scale back a little so I also get to bring my child to my school why work it's a teach teach in a different District so she was with me just because sorry couldn't do the JCS time so she just started in the district last year and loved it we were like this was great this is perfect this is everything that we wanted and then as we saw how things went so you know my daughter is the fiery redhe head that came and spoke at the school committee meeting when everything went down um then we spoke at the following school committee and you know we we got involved too late so we were told to pay attention so we're paying attention so here we are um um and I don't I don't want to have these conversations with my daughter of saying all right well let's take a look and let's see what South Eastern has to offer okay well let's take but you know what we're having those conversations because I don't see an end in sight um override big scary word override I'm saying it override can everyone hear me override okay I live here I got PID that too I pay my taxes I pay for my kids I pay for their Sports I pay for their fees I pay for everything I a school teacher my husband is a school teacher okay great we look at those contracts we have contract negotiations we are talking about Kota we are talking about all of these things you are talking about suggestions of teachers take a zero you know what it's up to you guys you got to save the day you got to get us out of this mess not fair okay I'm paying I'm taxpayer I'm doing all of that okay override override should not be this big scary oh let's do this fear mongering of what an override is you know what an override is if you look at an override and what you're actually going to be asking for okay if you're looking at your medium house you know what it costs okay we'll go with a $750,000 cost of a house that's that's what medium is now okay fine it's 500 here 500 here even better but I'm going to go 750 I'm going to go high you're talking 750 okay then you are looking at a $750 increase do you know what a $750 increas is guess what let's PE that you know Sarah mwac music it is literally $2 a day you can get your you know sacrifice your CES cup of coffee and it doesn't even have to be your whole household one member of your household can you s sacrifice that $2 cup of coffee alternate between family members to sacrifice that $2 cup of coffee that's what an override is that is what your overtime for your police officers that's what saves your you know houses from burning completely to the ground like unfortunately that one that happened on Shelly thank God that that happened on Shelly now and not back in December when we couldn't even get on to Shelly because the tree was down for 24 hours that is with what we have now okay that's what an override gets you an override keeps your teachers in those classroom rooms that's what an override does that's what that $2 a day does the end thank youin here we go I want a little balance um inflation rate for 2022 is a 8 %. everybody here yeah you want an override but you got to realize that we're all getting hit with utilities Insurance other taxes uh you know our pay rates aren't going up enough and we didn't have a we voted down an override in 2016 and my kids my kids still did pretty good going through all the schools went up to UMass and probably will get a job doing very well how what's the percentage of the kids going to college fouryear College fouryear college accepted is close to 80 that's that's a pretty good number so we're doing PR actually going is about 68 well that's up to them on an individual basis but that's that's a pretty good number that they do get accepted so you've got everything going up and you're just asking for all right here's one more thing going up you know I don't I don't I good luck to that and and and okay let let him talk okay thank you and you're going to say that well you don't have any kids in the school or something like that I've given you a brand new police station a water uh treatment plant I've improved the um the high school uh we've given you a brand new well back in the day we've given you a middle school we've given you now a new town hall we've given you now a senior center okay I want to see you know I've given you enough okay so I just want to get some balance here it's just not all one-sided here okay so yeah Mark sweeney1 Lane thank you Mark can I ask you a question question trans question so just where you're you know coming from in your stance what what do you what do you recommend how do I recommend how do we fix this what was what was the pay increase for the teachers for what was the perent was high than 3% 2.75 and and then SP 2.5 it should be that high each year that's it's since 19 1980 so how we fix it so how you how we fix it we saying is that our teachers are paid too much is that is that what you're saying what have the what the contract wise have they been ever been higher than 2% or 2 and a half% since 1980 when 2 and a half went through generally no I mean in my time I I've been on all of the negotiations for 15 years 15 years and and I'll tell you this right now and there are some teachers in here I don't if there are any who have been on the thing with me it's a cold day in hell when I give 3% that's all you got that's all you can give that's all you can give no I don't give that I I am usually I mean I think every year I I don't think I've ever been 3% I might have been one year just want a little bounce just not one side yeah so I guess I would ask I would my question to you you you talked about all the things that your taxes paid for and you know new schools new whatever I guess I'm I'm curious ious what do you think living in a town is I've given you but that's what living in a town is living in a town is pay for the things that Giving You Everything salary we don't get paid we don't get how much did they get paid zero get zero everybody everybody remember we're going to be respectful of everyone you finished or do you have anything else you want to say before I've got more things to say but okay Mr chair let's try that scorched Earth he's always been talking about Scorch Earth let's go for a year for scorched Earth and if it's that bad we come back next year all right thank thank you okay go ahead I would just I would just point out we are neither going to pass nor fail an override tonight this is we are not here to vote on an override we're acting like we're here to debate that topic and we're quite frankly we're not so right I I think if if I remember your agenda correctly the question is do you want to put one on a valid or not so the so I'll answer that so the first item on the agenda and we have to stick to the agenda was a discussion of the budget so we haven't even gotten to the part about whether or not we're going to put an override on the but but we're not here to debate the override there is there is right now no override on any ballot anything at all it's simply a question of what do we think of our budget right now and our budget stinks I that's what that's where we're at right we don't have enough money so I I I think I we can keep the questions to budget questions and not the I don't like an override or I do like an override I don't know that that's productive right now and there's there's going to be time for that I think in the future whether it's this year or next year but at this point battling about an override is is counterproductive quite frankly Den I think just the public is concerned and they're wondering what the options are to fix the problem that I I get that and I get like and it comes up because but I get discussing mechanics of it Etc but to to come forward and say you know I don't want one and I paid for this and whatever this this isn't the place for that I mean the the decision they have to make timately is do we put it before the citizens do we say hey we want the citizens to have the right to decide for themselves whether they want an override or not that's that's the decision being made tonight right and and so everybody here knows the background of why we're here tonight the decision to about whether or not to put it on the ballot has to be made tonight because there's a deadline for getting it on the town ballot and that deadline is tomorrow so that's why this meeting was called for tonight um because the select board has to make that vote tonight if we're going to or not put it on the town election ballot so the 27th for for April 27th that's correct yeah go ahead so I just want to clarify two things cuz I think I heard somebody say what do we get paid um we are all volunteers so some of us have gotten these seats for 159 whatever however many years we don't we don't get paid a done huh I thought you just said 59 and I was like you look very good for your age um so we get paid nothing we we are sitting in these seats because we genuinely care about our town we want to see our town Thrive and get better year a year so I just want to clarify that the second thing is the reason why I asked Mark um is what five what oh um I thought I misspoke um the reason why I asked that question is because we have gone this route of an override I mean some of us have been involved in these overrides know that it's needed but this town speaks loudly no we don't so what are our options as the three boards what are our options what do we have what do we do override is here what's the other option cut drastically so we have less police and less fire less teachers is that what this town wants if it is get ready it's coming it's coming cuz we have no other choice now why are we here so right I mean it just I don't I would just like to hear somebody tell me another way what's the other way if we don't want to increase taxes what is the other way to get us where we need to be when like Mr gu said this has been happening for decades how do we get there who can answer that don't everybody speak at once hand up okay um all right so on the front row here and then um I'll go after go yep y Debbie Winston 77 Elm Street here's the problem the override doesn't pass because the people need to trust that there's not sneakiness going on that there's not underhandedness going on it's that simple we're in the digital age for the schools we're in the digital age let's look at how many books math doesn't change there are other ways to cut other than cutting teachers and the fear mongering we don't buy it anymore okay and those who say the town is not like our budget it most certainly is and is a point when we say enough is enough we have a nice town we have a great school we have provided enough okay thank you thanks Debbie so um just Rob come on up just want to address that very um Jenner Christine we have our entire budget online yes can be accessed so any anybody who wants to access the the school budget the entire budget is online but how long has it been online for years um the FY 25 budget the book that um all of the committee members have um here and it's a full um all the line items are there as well it's right on our um website right on the page so I i' I've said over the years a couple times here and there I invite anybody to go through the line items and correct our budget it's it's super easy to get up there and say we don't trust you you're sneaky you're sneaky the problem is is when you present someone like that with evidence and say Here's everything right here show me the sneaky part that's when the confirmation bias comes in right they say well I don't believe that okay I can't I can't help you like I can explain it for you but I can't understand it for you this is this is it this is the budget this is what we have it's not something sneaky it's not something like hey hey Sher put that 5 million under the under the covers over there so nobody knows it's here it's not happening it's simply not happening that's not true there is evidence of there's 5 Milli okay well so again I can't I can explain to you I can't understand for you if if you if you want to believe if you want to believe that there is sneakiness going on there is nothing that will change your mind there is there's evidence there is nothing can you it please produce it yeah present it I mean I don't what to tell you present the evidence where yes or what about what we did to the paces all right come start Onis please ahead um well most of name and address oh Welsh South wer Street um most of my points actually got covered the guy would right after me um first of all I'm kind of hearing the thing kind of want the level set we here T talking about whether or not an override goes on a ballot not whether or not to have an override so the time to argue about whether or not we want to have the override would be in the coming weeks after this meeting maybe not right well here now well uh ultimately what what would have there's two options really where that could happen one is it's put it's voted on tonight by the select board and the select board votes to put it on the April 27th Town election ballot if that if the select board does not vote to put it on to that to that ballot it can the override can be uh brought up at town meeting as part of the budget discussion so you can you can do it one of two ways then if it pass if the override passes at town meeting then there would be a special election for that because it has to be passed on in a ballot vote okay ultimately But ultimately your voting just whether to go forward with it tonight and correct and then whether to do it at a later date correct you got it yep but this is not uncommon for us to do when we because we do joint meetings regularly and we talk about the budget so it's not uncommon for the three boards when we finally get face to face to have these conversations about the budget I just want to make sure everyone understands that okay we're trying to strike sort of a delicate balance here right we want everybody be to be heard and tonight was the opportunity for people to come and be heard it's the last opportunity before we vote on whether or not to put it on the ballot so yes I agree with folks who are saying well we're not really here to talk about an override but it's really hard to talk about the budget without talking about an override um and also we want to give you folks a chance to be heard on the issue it also may affect one of the select board members vote frankly whether or not to put it on the ballot I don't know that for sure but it could be so no and I and I agree with that um this meeting has actually been really informative you've actually and I know you guys have read some of my so um I've been kind ofing yeah I've been praising you um would but um no and I've been kind of complaining the lack of information this meeting has been terrific and um you know I I'm in that group of people that I could possibly vote Yes for an override um I'm not up for cutting programs and things like that if I wanted to start seeing the the why why do we need the override seeing the budgets and that's why I was asking for it um it's not like oh we're going to dig in and find out where somebody C or anything I just I want to understand what I'm voting for and why and if I'm looking at things that say Jesus this is what it cost to educate a kid now at that level you know you got to make a hard call um versus if we were looking at it otherwise so I found it intriguing you said the detail was online I did not know that and there's been a number of us saying we'd love to all look through that so if we could get those links like out you know that information you can get out website Rob here I got an extra copy few minutes you go and the meantime just you know I I'm going to say I think you should put it on on the ballot and we should get information out there things like that it's good if we all know the budget because if we're all looking at that and say we should you gee this is the case then go you asked really good questions this is what I was praising you for and these um answers to the things she did I think should be put out and then um if you all saw the post where I did post Sor you're loving this aren't you um video of Denise asking but I thought were very good question C for I also included one of you Kevin um because you asking questions now your questions worth questioning you know the from the budgets Kevin what you were asking for was information supporting you I think was more like what do we lose if we don't vote for this and I know you're trying to support the over but that information should get disseminated too I'm all for putting it on but getting the information out there and we make an informed thing so a lot of my frustration up to now has been feeling like starred for information I me being told vote for this on someone say so and that gets tough so share lots of information and then by all means put it up vote on thank you Rob appreciate it um so we got a couple of members of the fincom who wanted to make comments she okay all right and then all right come on up come on up um Bill and Cody I know you guys are waiting to to speak we'll get to you in a second okay hi my name is Amy Weber I am not a resident of but I am a Norton teacher and I'm also a vice president one of the vice presidents for the Norton Teachers Association and I am here to speak on behalf of teachers but really I'm here to speak on behalf of our kids cuz really we all know that children are the future of Norton um and they really deserve a right to a high quality education which we do our very best to give um but we need more and we need smaller class sizes as well as more better curriculum support and the opportunities that we could possibly be losing um that will help them grow as people um it will be the students first and foremost who will feel the impact of these budget cuts um and if we're talking about elementary Cuts I really believe as an elementary teacher I teach third grade I've taught Norton for 16 years um they will have long lasting impacts that will carry throughout their entire educational career um class sizes is something to me that's really crucial as an elementary student kids today it's not like when a lot of you were in school and everybody just sat in a row and listened and the teachers are expected to have a real bag of tricks and it's really hard to meet the needs of all your students when you have I have 25 this year it's really hard to meet all their needs and I take it to my own heart when I feel like I'm not and it's not my fault it's not anyone's fault it's just that there's 25 of them and I can't imagine if it gets bigger um so I just am here to say on behalf of our association that the town is a responsibility to our children what whatever we can do to properly fund the schools um that's true investing in Norton's future all right uh Mr rotundi you wanted to you have your hand up I tonight um just a quick comment and and it goes back to what uh Bill gvea said you know essentially this is a a political campaign and my personal view is we haven't we haven't started the groundwork yet to be successful if we Define successful as getting an override I think if we Define successful as defeating it then you'll put it on the ballot I don't think we're ready I think we need we need to do more groundwork to um really try to convince the other side that yep the budget is this bad yep if we stick to it we're going to have these Cuts Yep this is what you voted for but to put it on today or to vote for it today I think it's just going to go down it's gonna fail and we're going to be that much further behind because we're not going to want to repeat the process right away so I would be very hesitant to vote it in tonight thanks okay all right thanks Bill uh Cody um I'd like to thank uh Mr Sweeny for making some excellent points on what great town Norton has been historically and what a good job in particularly with respect to the schools um how great results they have produced it is one of the key things that we consider whenever we move to Norton 5 years ago um it is a key consideration of anyone who's looking to move to Norton that has school AG kids and I think um it would be a mistake take to eliminate level Services funding and go in the opposite direction of the success that nort has had 86% uh acceptance rate you cut schools you cut programs that's going to go in the opposite direction you cut that at elementary age programs it's going to be a lagging indicator but if you're starting at you know kindergarten through third grade you're going to start seeing those results come you know nine years down the road so I I just appreciate the you know the recognition there that Norton has done things very well and that the the budget hasn't always been what we would like it to be um to be able to provide more and more things and but to go in the opposite direction The Trusted board members of of the school committee and select board and the finance committee over the past 20 some odd years that produced those results and giving the guidance to their talent to be able to fund the schools to that level to say now we don't trust you we think that you're lying you don't need the money you're telling us you need to stay at the level services that we're at I think it's a mistake so to build points or you know whether or not we are in a position to have an educated discussion about whether or not an override is needed I think it's pretty clear an override is needed but how much the specific amount is needed and to be able to educate people you know I'm closer to it because I'm on the finance committee we the the people on the boards and the Committees that are sitting here talking about closer to it but the general public who generally doesn't pay attention to these things looking at it hearing this for the first time tonight you know we've got 90 some odd people on the on the call at one point plus all the people in the room if every meeting of ours look like this I think we'd be in a position of passing over right tomorrow unfortunately we don't and we haven't and so we we do need the time to have that discussion and you know we've got to leave it up to the elected officials at this point whether or not they're going to put it on the ballot for further discussion or what the town me looks like all right thanks Cody um I think we've officially moved to the next item on the agenda um but uh we can definitely get some more comments from from the crow in the I'm going to take the mask now get here I don't have Co I just have an old grandmother my name is Val cabal I live at 50 man's field AV I'm on the Norton cultural Council so I see how many things are needed for programs to run in the schools in a library and so on and I am going to argue about the override so I'm sorry um I feel that a little bit of an introduction is necessary because not everybody knows me a lot of people seem to think that I'm from the outside here and while I moved here in October 2020 I've lived four places in my entire life West Bridgewater through my entire childhood in the house my father still lives in 15 minutes down the road Norton for college with a brief stint and Sharon for a few months while I was off campus and a decade in Mansfield before I was here that's it I've never lived anywhere that's larger than here except from Mansfield I say this because it feels like sometimes people think that my belief in particular are big city rather than small town and they AR when you say Norton's a small town it kind of makes me laugh because you guys have multiple elementary schools in a separate middle and high school which frankly seems like crazy to me she's not a city but I had three schools Total 1 through third fourth through 6th 7th through 12th I graduated the class of 60 people the whole school at the time had 420 my hometown is still half our population so yeah we're small but if you were up here I'm actually smaller town than you I'm not coming at this from some City perspective into the meat of this my home is twice the median value in town which is not $750,000 so please don't think that I'm saying that I don't have kids I'm not at this time intending to have kids with a caveat that might Foster or adopt someday but I'm still happy to pay higher taxes to support the kids in town even though I don't have any because I see the value in educating children I was happy to pay higher taxes back when we voted on the debt exclusion because I think that the folks who serve our town deserve a decent place to spend the majority of their waking hours and the seniors in town deserve resources and not to have to have Financial conversations with a door that's unable to be shut if they're in a wheelchair and I think the kids in town deserve to not have to worry about other towns refusing to play them in sports because the fields are dangerous this is what being a community means caring about everyone who lives here and not just yourself and that does include caring about the folks who feel a real burden from a tax increase but when we are one of very few towns in the Commonwealth that have never passed one Whitman did okay Whitman which is like known for being elderly folks they have around the same percentage of retirees and West Bridgewater my very fiscally conservative Hometown has also passed one the argument that some people might not be able to afford an override Falls a little bit flat when we are such an outlier that argument has been used over and over as the school's lost resources a middle school librarian language instruction for grades younger than eighth grade when your brain is the best able to learn languages all these bus fees and sports fees those things are things that were already lost and have already happened never mind the new cuts and every time an override doesn't happen the next time there will be a new class of folks with fix incomes who might have a harder time handling a tax increase plenty of the people who are mad about this are not those people there seems to be a contingent of folks who say and maybe not all here some here but a lot online that there's waste in the budget or money's being spent on indoctrination or there's somehow a way that the schools despite the aforementioned cuts and plenty more that I don't know about can further tighten their belts there are concerns about the other budgets I'm sorry I timed it at 4 minutes I'll go really fast as well that might be wasteful but I think every time we ask for those details I can see those details I review the budgets from the other Town meetings I've been to I have yet to see the waste proven out I don't see anything that looks egregious myself if there is a secret conspiracy to Waste Town money I obviously want to know about but that's not what it looks like and if you make accusations like that the onus is on you to prove that someone is wasting money we have the presumption of innocence in the United States whether we like it or not all right finally the yes okay sorry I'm really loud I just am what all this looks like to me a lot of the time is that frankly a lot of the folks who are fighting this are well off as me if you look at property values some of them I do not think that if we are in a town where we have people with their names on streets arguing against this and they want us to believe that the best we can do is cut upwards of 40 positions across the school system and continue forgoing needed repairs of the schools like the middle school that you cannot do a show in without renting lights separately Norton singers which I'm part of we paid $500,000 I think the last show we did because the lights in that Auditorium do not work I don't think that any of that says that this town is fiscally irresponsible and I don't think new taxes can continue to be an anathema to us I think we have to put the kids and the seniors and everyone else in town first we have funding that we can help folks who find these tax increases to be difficult I will gladly and I'm saying this and you can hold me to it I will pay other people's tax increase if $750 is a killer for you if you're in a home that's $300 million and sorry $300,000 $300 increase I will pay you a $300 increase a year I'm not joking about that I can't fix it myself but if there are people who are really struggling with an increase I'm happy to help with it where I can I have donated to funds to try to help with that but we can't keep pretending that because some folks might struggle with a tax increase it's something that we can't ever consider when our kids are suffering have been suffering and will suffer more EXC I want to know where I can put my name on her list me a message you guys get together afterward I called you when you asked him what I donated we all know you're were up we get it I don't think I don't think anyone has anybody who hasn't spoken yet so Amy did you want to say one more thing um just one more question Amy Martin um so here on out can we just um Talk tell the town what the process would be for putting it on the ballot requesting on the ballot and then I do want to say as far as those who cannot afford it there are an inordinate amount of resources at the senior center contact Beth frossy contact the senior center anybody can get help oil senior tax rebates their resources are there just seek them out I promise you she is a wealth of information the senior center is a wealth of information if you do need help funding anything for your family there are a so many resources in town St Vincent depal Beth Rossy reach out there were so many of us are there to help you if you do have problem when the override hopefully is passed or if not but if you need help even without the override if you need help in town there are resources please use them just to clarify that's not just for seniors correct oh no the senior tax rate yeah but everybody yes anybody right thank you for clarifying yes anybody in town reach out to those Services there's so many people in town that want to help you anybody okay thanks Amy all right so oh was there one more uh matain 6 North Washington Street um so I mean a lot of others have already spoken a lot about you know the need for their override or more funding um I just wanted to ask you know one of the items on the agenda it's kind of a s way to what the next item on the agenda is whether to put this on the ballot for April um and I I would just like to ask the question you know do we have enough information at this point tonight to know what that correct numers would be if we really truly do then we should do it um but if we if we don't then I would encourage us to wait until town meeting to put forward you know two budgets um and and do that approach um because you know we want to get the number right we want to be as close as possible we want to be able to have a defensible budget to the town that everybody can know is our best effort I certainly wouldn't want to see us you know rush it tonight to uh potentially have you know the wrong number in mind that would then all go on the ballot so that's really my main question for tonight is is whether we know that and if we do we would go forward but if not you know I would encourage everybody to support you know an override effort at Town Mee um and and pursue it in that direction all right thanks Matt so if I can just m and just correct me if I'm wrong mik you said these are the the final numbers that you're going to present so this is this is what we we would be potentially voting on so the these will be the numbers it wouldn't change it wouldn't well it all depends what if we went with a 3% budget right those would be the yeah I'm saying within the options you provide okay um I think it's a fair question to ask like if we're talking about an override what are we talking about for the amount of Fu right so I'll turn that over to uh to you us one you do one of these you all you well the the thing is if if you're going to do an override say say it was we're going with the 3% budget if you're going to use that you can't do an override for the exact amount because next year you're going to compound that obviously because you're going to have increases in utility costs you're going to have salary increases so it could go up another two and a half to 3% the next year so you got to go higher than the one point whatever we need you'd have to go higher than that so you'd have to go to at least 3 million and then we'd have to be conservative in how we do move forward so we'll have a cushion as we go along in years to come and just because you pass a three or $4 million override that doesn't mean that we have to spend to that level it's still up to town meeting to approved budgets you always have that and but you don't have to spend up to it you can stay under the levy limit it all depends on what town meeting approves for our budget and just a procedural question that the select board is voting tonight on whether or not to put it on the town election ballot do we have to um arrive at a number tonight for that valid question you will have to arrive at a number tonight unfortunately so if I can ask a question I know I'm sorry drop if if we go the opposite route so to speak and or if it's a negative vote by the select board as is their potential what's the process for someone to bring this up on the floor of town meeting to say we can pass the two budgets there and then we obviously have to go to a special election after so how like how would a Town's person do that I guess for someone that um you want to say something well I was going to say the town's people wouldn't have to do that I think the town manager would present the two budgets at town meeting we could work on what we want to present as a level Services budget or a the budget that we can afford without an override and then an override budget and um town meeting would vote and if the override failed on the ballot then we'd go back to the other budget so what would have to happen is at town meeting if that override budget does get approved this select board could meet that night and vote to put the ballot on the question it would go to the town clerk right then and um she could schedule an election within like 35 days after town me and that would be how much of an additional cost a town would a special election give or take uh it's last time she said it was about 10,000 I I had a just question mik you mentioned that we want to if we if we do decide to do this um to go over what what's needed um because down the road you know next year the year after uh a lot of questions I'm getting from from residents are you know what's to say that's not going to be needed in four years so what's going to be done to prevent this from having to be an issue in four years if it goes through and passes he just and that's everybody I mean who knows if in four years none of us may even be sitting in this room I hope so new business so I mean we can obviously say we're committed to being conservative and staying you know so we that doesn't happen but that's also been the argument against the overrider that not staying with it so I'm I'm just I'm passing on question so yeah and just a couple of things on that like I think you know you know ultimately you know that it's it's an un it's unanswerable right like you don't know what's going to happen between them who knew that Co was going to happen or whatever um so I get that part of um but I also think It ultimately it falls on the town the budget is set by town meeting is not set it's recommended from the fincom and it is set by town meeting so we only have ourselves to blame if we don't pass a budget that we think is conservative or meets the needs of the Town departments that need it so you know I know that's a hard thing to hear but it's the truth we don't vote on the budget we the town meeting the people in the Town vote on the budget and then the other thing I would just want to mention is that I'm not a mathematician by any stretch of the imagination but you know we tried to do an override in 2008 to that for fiscal year 2018 if we had passed that override at the time um you know the numbers that I have says we'd have about 4.5 million more dollars right now in our budget that's total back of the napkin math somebody wants to challenge it or sit down with me and go over it but if you just take the amount that we asked for in 200 18 and you just compound it by 2 and half% every year you'd have another $4.5 million or $4 million in our budget right now so we wouldn't be in that this position that we're in right now if we had passed the override in 2018 so it's just something to think about um I think right now um we we want to discuss oh we have one more comment from the from the a yeah is that a line over there informally um Donna dolak I live at 104 Nukem Street I am a parent and a par professional at the yell I have two children who are nine school grades apart and I can personally attest to the fact that my oldest has had opportunities and resources available to her that my youngest who's in sixth grade has not had and will not have if these cuts are made I think that every single person sitting up here should be supporting putting an override on the ballot this year because enough Cuts have been made we cannot let the kids have we cannot hurt the kids anymore it's time that we all as a town came together and passed an override and if you don't support that I think you need to be explaining to the public why it's better to just make Draconian pets that's all I have to say thanks Don anyone else in the line over there come on up orang SEO 28 cot Road I did want to mimic uh what Bill had said I had the same thought about Insanity I've been watching this town I've been here for 18 years and every year this almost like the same question comes up and the same thing happens one of the things that that I just want to be think about um I've heard everybody talking about this as a political campaign it's not it's an informational and educational campaign one of the things that happens every year it gets thrown out you hear the worst of everything from everybody there's no organized attempt to let people know what's involved why it's involved how it's going to affect them when it's going to affect them and the other part of it is it's the other side too you talk about the elderly people there's no programs out there letting them know that there is help there's things such as the uh the circuit breaker tax which came into effect there's a senior work program and it's that's part of the education program as as well it's not just telling them we need this we caruse and we want it it's saying there's some help for you if you really need help and that's part of the program that was the one thing I want to caution I don't want to see this as a political campaign I want to see it as an educational and informational campaign because that's critical to making it sucessful thank you thanks or or I wanted to thank you for for saying that because that's something I was actually going to bring up that you know a few people did say this is a political campaign and uh I can speak for myself and and a lot of the board members that I do know I don't make any decisions by political influence I I base it on what I think is right for the town so I don't think anybody here makes their decisions based on anything political so I I'm I'm glad you brought that up oh sorry um come on up on the line and then then you'll be next okay hi I'm Olivia gson I'm in seventh grade in North Middle School um and last year when we made budget cuts we lost course and I fought we all fought really hard to get that back luckily that did come back but we still lost languages I have not had languages this year and I feel like if we didn't have this override I probably won't have them next year I am already behind on that because I just won't have them and I feel like if I don't have languages or let's say band got cut and all these things got cut what's like the point of me staying here like I could honestly go to like Manfield stuff like that I feel like I would need if I don't have these things like I'm already behind cuz I don't I've already haven't had a language this year so um I feel like if we waited on the override then what's to say we don't wait next year and I just feel like if I've already lost this I mean like I've already missed out on that and I don't want to miss out on it next year and miss out on all these opportunities I could be having so thanks J Kim Arena 8 forom drive I think what Sher was saying gone you know I think that maybe we approach this as what do we do how do we fix this you know we've been kicking the can like Bill said I've been here 28 years now my kids both went through the school systems and we just keep putting it off so okay some people say no to overrides some people say yes to override where what other options are there and if we approach this at town meeting or on a ballot or whatever as how do we fix this let's not talk about what's wrong what's right what we're going to lose but how do we fix this and try to get everybody focused on that and from that we might get new ideas or we might get the support for something else so that's just my opinion thanks Kevin yeah go ahead and um James reminded me when you do the override you also have to add in that one million we were using a free cash because we want to get to the point where we don't use free cash for the budget and ideally you have the free cash that's available for onetime expenses and think about people that have come before the select board about drainage issues um you know different things that come up and we don't have money if we're using all our free cash for budgets we don't have money to take care of anything else and so people you know you may need a damn repair you you may need uh some work on drainage so but we end up going out borrow for some of these things that we're wasting money on interest if we could have our free cash available for that stuff that's good all right yeah go ahead just to follow up on that it goes back to what you were asking Steve like there would be work involved right it's not just pick a number right we we have to sit down look at what the budgets are look what's a realistic number for level services or you know what what needs to be put in the budget and keeping you know a conservative number in mind as well but you know it's that balance right so I think anyone that's expecting us to just pick a number is is not that's not how it's going to happen so Nick go ahead um I mean I agree with you to a point but if we're trusting our departments and we're not fluffing anything and adding anything additional we have a pretty easy number sitting right in front of our faces of 5.5 million that's what it is to get level Services that's what it's going to take police to keep overtime to keep schools funded that level services so on and so forth right plus that 1 [Music] million so there 6.5 right that's yeah this year this year 6.5 so so if we're looking at without any cuts that fincom can recommend blah blah blah blah you're looking at a 6.5 million again I can argue semantics but $6.5 million override somewhere between 3 million and 6.5 million talking about being conservative then it may not be in the best interest to go full 6.5 the still I I mean that's that's a true burden so I mean if that number is 3 million then that's a conservative number like we just discussed 20 minutes ago to go full you know full full scale 6.5 maybe isn't the best way to handle it I mean you know we we've talked back and forth all night we don't know what our future holds we don't know what the numbers look like you know janz likes to say this the math is the math the math is not our friend you know so and that's that's the bottom line when it comes to this so I mean you know is is 6.5 that's that's a tough tough point to make for I think with a 6.5 though you can't sit here and say this is what we need to do Rebel services to the residents of Norton and then turn around and say well we can actually cut a little bit more fat back that's exactly what some people have have discussed not to mention when we did it when we tried to do an override in 16 and 17 what did we tell all the residents we were going to open chly the schools are going to be more funded you're going to get XY and Z you're going to get all these different things you're going to get a full-time park and rec director right we all we we sat here and told the town if you pass this override you were going to get all these additional things now we're going to go back say hey uh we need $6.5 million in getting nothing you're getting Level Services maybe maybe we're going to go real conserv we're going to cut it down to $3 million override instead and now we're still taking a $3.5 million cut so so what it comes back to us you're you're looking at it from a standpoint of like even with an override we're not doing anything additional we're putting with the $3 million override what we're doing is and I've said this to school committee we're putting a Band-Aid on an amputated arm why are we going to go for 3 million get what we need if we need a $6.5 million override put a $6.5 million override in the budget what are we waiting for so to to if I can add on to Mr chair on to Nick's Point um yeah yeah I was just looking to make sure that that 12% increase that was um for level Services would be part of that 6.5 so anything under that exactly to your point um there's going to be Cuts anyways so so are you both supporting a $6.5 million override if if you want me to uh to motion I will well we haven't got I didn't say I was supporting it I said yeah I historically at these overrides we haven't given the voters what we said we were going to give back then that's because the money wasn't there you know we've we've had a grant to open Charle and and thank God because I live on that side of town and I know about response sign and things like that you know and we still don't have a full-time Parks and Rec director 12 years later MH you know so we're still you know we're still asking for more money we're asking to just now call it it's Bill we're asking you're digging the whole we've dug the whole deeper yeah right that's that's a great word for that's a perfect word but when it comes to it it's on the backs of the the taxpayers absolutely yeah go ahead chairman yeah and listen to everybody here tonight listen to everybody on all sides you're not ready for an override this town is not ready for an override we don't even have our numbers together it's 3 million it's 6 million it's 9 million as Mr rotundi brought up Monday night at the fencon meeting we need a 5-year plan put a 5-year budget cycle and say okay this is what we're going to need next year that's what we're going to need the following year that's what we're going need the following year without that this is just another bandaid and next year we'll be sitting at the table again whether it passes or not there is there is no numbers without a plan you have no numbers you just want to throw a DOT at the board and say okay 6 million 5 million what's your number what's your number what's your number just get a watering machine and just pick a number when you have a plan that you can present to the taxpayers and say this is what we need year one year two year three that's when you go to the taxpayer if you want to be successful if not I think you're wasting your time just my [Music] opinion yep come on up I'm a of the finance committee I came late so I I would what Zach said and what Bill R said I'm really concerned tonight we're just not ready we just sit here and joke it or not let's had a million we just found out about that tonight yeah yeah are you ready to pick a $6.5 million override yeah why not let's do that this is serious so if we're really serious about it sit down do the due diligence so we can do what best interest of the Town not just one year let's go future but I don't think we're ready I'll second third we're not ready thank you so so we Sor and you can you can come up go ahead we we actually do have our numbers this is not a you know casual exercise for us we've actually run through our numbers you guys want yeah so um we've spent a lot of time our number has been pretty consistent uh for the school department uh we knew what level Services was going to be back in November our numbers been consistent U throughout the course of this budget process uh Christine and I have done some work taking a look at what level Services would be but also as Zach said looking towards the future of what Norton Public Schools really needs um one of the things that we put forward this year for the first time ever um was information on our unfunded requests so things that came from the principles and from our uh department heads around what we really could use for this coming um school year and so thinking about those positions thinking about what level Services is and also thinking to Nick's point about actually giving back something to the community in terms of you know taking out transportation fees I know um Chief Clark would be thrilled if more students were riding the bus to and from school would really helped some of our traffic issues um also taking a look at our athletic fees and being able to bring some of those down as well um and we think our number is between 5 and 5.2 million okay can I just I just want to respond to the gentleman from fincom um we didn't just just take a number and throw it out there and I know it sounded like we were kind of uh there's no joke about this there's a hard number here of 5.83 five 5,583 th000 and the additional million was what James had said for free cash so we didn't just pick that number out of the Hat that's fine thank for that I don't think we should be talking about these numbers the night of the so Zach to your point you know take taking those numbers and adding the 2 and 12% year-over-year can you keep your cost of 2 and half% year-over year we would have to I mean right we would have to we wouldn't that's the issue we wouldn't do that because we know how much the teachers and how much we need to keep them so we have to pay them 3% 3 and a half% we have to up the things we have to give them their step raises per the union we cannot keep rate we cannot keep anything at 22% so we're going to into this issue again just like a lot of towns who have done this they've done multiple overrides we will be back at this table with or without an override within 5 years guaranteed that's how it works it's that is the cost that is the cost of doing business but right now you don't even have a 5year plan correct I you know you need a 5year plan the plan right now is let's throw a bandid on it to get P another year I think that's the wrong approach I could be wrong as a you know as a business person that's not how you run budgets exactly um you have a plan and you say okay this is what we're going to need year 1 2 3 4 and you put a plan in front of the the taxpayers and say this is what we're going to do I don't think it's you know townwide schoolwide you know what the contracts are with your various employees I don't know how far out they go but so one of the biggest challenges we have in the school department is predicting costs when it comes to educating our students right so as students are born um they come in they enroll in our schools the demographics of our community shift the demog the changing needs of our student shift and some of the things that we don't have control over are special education costs over and above what we're able to offer and provide here in Norton um so last year the private um special education schools across the state had a level 14% increase that was approved by the state by oped and that's something that we have zero control over this year it's 6% so when you take a look at those placements and that cost it's 20% increase over 2 years and that's something that we can't predict and we can't do anything about um additionally Transportation costs those have been really excessive over the last few years so while we had definitely had control over contracts um the upcoming school year will be a contract negotiation year for us with the majority of our unions um we can keep all of those things we can predict those things and there's just certain things that we just cannot prounce but again even on that I I would argue that every every year as a town we should say okay we're going to put a million dollars every year as budgeted into the stabilization account for things that we know are going to come up things that you can't predict it snows 20 ft this year you know we can't predict that we have a buffer in you're not going to cut it to to the live but right now we have nothing we have this what we need to get by next year that's what we think and this is going to I I just I just think and it's personally my op it's my opinion if you put this out there the way it is it is dead arrival that's just my opinion Zach if if I can counter that point where where's that money where we get for stabilization in the next three or five years we we we we have a problem predicting this year's numbers and we do a budget in two months three months time so every year we we get later and later to what we predict our budget is going to be and it is largely a prediction so to say we can take a million dollar and put into stabilization we don't have a million dollar to put into stabilization now I said as as of an override you budget that in this part of so if you need if your next 5year plan says you need $20 million you say okay I'm going to put a $21 million and I'm going to put a million away not to mention we just had a CO situation where we've relied on we all got drunk on on federal money that we used for for for everything and now that's gone and hopefully we don't have that again and we get have some stability there has to be some stability and there has to be some cross controls I you just can't if you're going to come back with 10 12% budgets no matter what you do it's going to be blown up I mean there has to be we got agree within some reason pick a number 3% 4% 5% that's the money we have that's all we're going to negotiate contracts with Town employees teachers whatever me fir fight is I it's just a budgeting process you can have something instead of what we have now which is everybody just you know let's you get by the next year thank you all right thanks Zach um yeah and then Denise my name's Curtis bck I live at 51 West hes I've been listening to the conversation tonight and it seems like it's a game of semantics y oh we want to 2% 2% 2 and half% 2 and a half% why don't we just say we have a budget that needs to be passed we have expenses we have all kinds of things happening in town that need to be covered with unfortunately taxpayers money nobody wants their pocket picked everybody wants to contribute fairly we don't expect a free ride we expect our to pay our fair share so why don't you come up with a budget that's you all can accept have no desires or warrants have necessities and needs present it to the people leave this leave two and a half out that's that's kind of a moot point we need the money we have to have the money to run the town for the expenses that occur to me it's pretty simple thank you all right Denise you can finally go so I just want to say that I I although I'm not opposed to an override in general I think rushing it tonight would be a huge mistake we as a board just got these this detail tonight and to I think it was Zach and Steve's point we need to see what this looks like overtime we know what our contractual rates are why can't we put that into this this same table and see what it's going to look like over the next 5e period to make sure that we are selecting the correct amount for an override when we do think about doing override um so we need to kind of and also looking at the tax rate over that 5ye period as well because we have debt exclusion coming off coming on whatever so let's look at that over the 5year period as well we need more information and um to someone's point about uh what's measure of success measure of success educating the people so they can make the right decision for them we we've not done that yet right we've justed these numbers today we should be sharing this information with the public we should be sharing the tax rate information with the public as much information as we can give them we should be giving them so they can make educated decisions otherwise we're just they're just taking our word for it and that's where the distrust issue comes from all right so um Bill and then um Debbie somebody back here just one point when I was talking about this is a political issue Nick was absolutely right in in what he said about you put the number four that makes all the sense in the world it's the most logical thing it's the it it's it's far away you should do and you can't because this is a political thing it doesn't matter if you're putting forth a good number it matters if you look like you're putting forth a good number because if the public doesn't believe you that you're putting forth that good number then all the work you have done is wasted and that's what I mean by politics I know that's everybody gets all upset and that's but that's what this is is and there's nothing wrong with politics politics is the business of running government and that's what everybody does every day it's the bad politics that we don't want to get into but this isn't override it's a sensitive issue it's a it's the most emotional issue you can tell because when you put a selectman's raise or a select board members raise or a school committee raise on the ballot we get 500 people put an override on we get 5,000 people so you know I I mean tell me what draws them you know it it wasn't me when I ran I can tell you that and and it's it's it's that so you have to go through it you have to look at it you have to have every single thing because I guarantee you there'll be people who are watching this tonight or maybe who even here tonight that later on will be going they just picked that number out of the Hat they rushed it they didn't you know they they didn't do this so that's why you have to do it Nick you're absolutely right and and that's the way it should be but I can't be um all right Debbie and then um Denise bill on and then Bill sorry sorry Bill what he said about information the wisest thing I heard is what you said the whole night it's a budget I've been here I hear how it's a deficit this is my ignorance I don't know so I'm asking what does the town manager do we have all the boards I'm grateful for all of you who volunteer I'm in the education field myself okay and I care deeply and passionately about those children but we need fiscal responsibility it's we the people that get to decide and I know we have a lot of volunteers and whatnot but as a town manager we need somebody strong you did say the word conservative that gives me a little faith we need conservative and we need a plan we need to have faith okay thanks Debbie the only last point that I wanted to add to my thing is I know that there's some concern about a special election later on because there's cost associated with it but if there's one task that's the most important task for all three of these boards that are sitting here it is proper budget um and so if there's anything that's worthwhile for extra cost this would be it okay fair enough all right um bill go ahead yeah I'm um you know anybody who's been on the fin call um for 5 six seven years has heard me say for 5 six seven years we need projections we need the information ever since I was chairman I've been asking for this information you need the information not just for the year we're looking at but two to three forward that way you have an educated ability to say this is where we are today with these changes this is where we'll be and that's how you educate the people as to whether they can decide override yes override no but to to to the person and it might have been Bill GAA I I forget who essentially said if you try to come up with a number tonight it's going to be judged as we pulled it out of the air because we don't have all the information and it's going to go down in flame and we should stop trying to half bleep it and do it right and to do it right we need the information and unfortunately asking for the information over the past 7 years has been unsuccessful so if you want it done get the information all right thanks Bill yep uh someone else over there who hasn't spoken yet hi am am I up yeah you're up just because you haven't spoken yet and then Olivia we'll go back to you cool um my name is Kate boan I live at 20 Oak Street in the old Sardi place for those you the cardies I was across the street from Gary who's my neighbor my butt um I have two boys in the school system Nick Scher was Harrison's baseball coach he never listened I'm eternally gr grateful for him he's eight he uh I work at Wheaten college and I'm from New York City I'm a big fan of Municipal municipalities and services lightning can strike me now um that being said I am very con I'm Pro override I'm Pro supporting our teachers a million percent I won't go into that now but I'm very um on uh I'm very uh on the same page with people who want to be educated and well informed I'm curious from the select board what you would like to see from your constituency in terms of being civically engaged to help with spreading information Fair information not misinformation and what we can do to make sure that we are obtaining information and we are sharing it so that progress can happen so that movement can happen so what what do you need from your constituency I can I can say one thing I I I would be always wary about information you get on a Facebook group totally fair it doesn't answer your question but I would be wary of that and I think that's that's education right that's but like what can the citizenry do Beyond Faceook Pages which I'm not a fan of um but what can the citizenry do to to hold meetings to be educated to to work with you to get solid um Municipal information and into the hands of other people I'll I'll take it again I I would love to see more people at meetings especially you fincom does tremendous work they do they do a lot of hard work nobody shows up at half of those meetings right so any usually shows up at and not just when there's a major issue like this I think in general people need to be more engaged and that will they'll learn they would have known what three months ago maybe that this was coming maybe sooner 10 years ago so that that's the first step I think in educating the public absolutely I would love to Sally locate all this information in one easy clickable spot I a librarian loves the include the school stuff in one location along with Town stuff so that everyone can read this stuff themselves yep my personal preference so web designer needs to build an aggregator you're just going to send it right we do it manually unfortunately but we can do it go ahead just the um having the information available is a step and I agree with both of you I think answering the questions about the information the finance committee the select board and the school committee meet the the select board and the school committee meet weekly 52 weeks of the year um the incom meets for 3 months and then in the spring and then two months in the fall and we we dissect all of this and our thanks for that by the way is to be told we're untrustworthy sometimes um and also that we were um but we sit down and we look at these things and we have talked about them for two and a half quarter hours for tonight and still have only really scratch the surface about what our budget is all about because it's pages and pages and pages and 65 7 million so it's hard to have just the information available um we also in the past we've had forums that's still not enough I I don't know what the answer is but I do think we need to think just beyond having the information available because a lot of people don't know I mean we've thrown out so many acronyms tonight most people don't know what OPB is or arpa is or Esser funds or anything like that and so to just have the information available it's just not going to be adequate people are going to get misinformation about from when they ask the wrong people or or some people they in their Circle about what it is and um or just not information at all and then people will show up to vote because that's one day five minutes and I can I can manage that but they're not going to come to 3 months of meetings 52 weeks of meetings that's what we do so I think that's one of the questions we need to figure out I would I would agree and I think maybe we could link the the meetings where you guys are discussing it link those in that same location of what right because I got most of my information coming into today by watching in CL meetings which thank you was very informative and most of most of the meetings are almost all of them right are on not all of you were here because we had a meeting before this meeting but um I had to look up two years ago when I motioned at town meeting to pass over on an article because I wanted to refresh myself and it was two years old so um I highly recommend if you haven't watched any of the especially the fincom when it comes to this I would do that and even though informational meeting tend to not be well attended I think we should still have one and perhaps like a frequently Asked question section people have questions like what is oped we can kind of create a form that that lists all the questions that people are asking and kind of give answers to that in that same location as well I I asked this knowing that like Equitable equity in terms of access to information is 100% your in your wheelhouse um and i' I've watched meetings and I've been participant but I just want other people to know that you know that they they can be engaged citizens too I think to if I can answer your question I have two answers I think one is what do we ask from the constituency or from the town um I think I think and this is this goes to myself included I think we need everyone needs to have an open mind and that's what I would ask people don't come if if if this town decides that it's going to start having meetings and talk about an override and talk about the budget and try to find some kind of Common Ground between the two sides both sides need to come with open minds so the people who always say we need more money we need more Revenue we need more money they need to come and say but are there some things we could save money on are there some efficiencies that we could get in in the town um in the schools in the town come with that mindset okay so whatever we do if if we hold meetings come to those meetings with those with that mindset and then the folks will always say well you know we got to cut this we got to cut that we the people are wasting money and people are spending my money and they don't know what they're doing come to a meeting with an open in mind that maybe those people are doing what they can and are doing their best and maybe it's just possible that we just need more money okay so but I think what happens is is that and I do this people come with their bias they come they start with their bias we need more money and then they take all of the arguments that they hear from people and they just put it right into that or they say we need to make Cuts or we need to and then they take all the arguments and they just put it into that I'm sick of it it's been going on since I've been here for 12 years and it's just not it's not the way to run a town so what what the people of the Town need to do is find a way to get engaged we need to lead them and be engaged and they need to come we all need to come with an open mind and I know that's kind of a squishy you know answer but I just I've been thinking about this all day long not even all day long for weeks I've been thinking about this meeting right and what it comes down to is is that people we need to figure out a way to get all I think I said this at a previous meeting we need to figure out a way to get all of these people and all of you people and all of us to figure out what the solution to this problem is and stop coming to it with our biases and then discounting what the other side says out of just you know just discounting it so that's that's my squishy [Music] answer Mr chairman yeah just to add to that I've been on the fcom three or four years now yeah and just to bookend what uh Bonnie said we have a public hearing every year public hearing on the budget before it even goes to town meeting every year the time I've been there you know how many participants they've been from the public zero zero in four years zero so to say that you want to be engaged nobody nobody shows up so I mean you keep for somebody to show up all right yeah I was going to say that um I like cor said don't get your information from Facebook um and that um I've been very clear about the fact that my office is always open for a conversation um I had a great conversation with one of our um candidates for select board earlier this week I think there are other people in the room that will say that you know they've asked questions and I've been able to sit down with them and walk them through the budget process um I mean it I'll meet you for coffee I you can come to my office we'll we'll have a conversation and I will answer any question that you have all right thanks Chen um Olivia did you want to come up and then and then we'll go to you so I just had a question so you said um that you'd have a 5year plan in which I was just wondering what that would mean for me a person that would be again not getting that until I was senior year maybe so what would my journey throughout the school like be if I'm not going to get that until maybe jior year misund for years five years he's just trying to budget five years in advance not saying that we wait five years for this right we're trying to have a plan today to get you from from here to graduation that's that's not years today tomorrow and all the way until you get to graduation we want to put a plan together I want to put plan together anyway that says this is the funding that you need to get you from seventh grade to walk that stage and have one of these fine folks hand your diploma yeah we do not have it today yeah we keep doing Band-Aids every fiscal year if that just gets us through one year so we want to yeah we want to plan ahead there be a plan that covers 5 years instead of a plan that takes five years thanks Olivia yeah um are you in line oh all right time already started tell don't need it all you're on um thank you for coming together tonight I think this is hugely valuable sorry what's your name and what my name is Jack Conway 27 Oak Street really nice to meet just killed 15 seconds absolutely uh I am very glad that I am no longer sitting in your seats because you are faced with an impossible decision there are just poopy options and it's the choices between which option is the least poopy right I'm sorry for that I have a thought on uh a compromise and I think the the phrases a true compromise is when both sides are equally displeased and what I'm going to say is probably going to anger everybody in the room so I may need an armed guard I think the also now all know where you live so all right I agree with everybody that says putting an override question on the zap's ballot is a a Fool's game right it's it's going to fail spectacularly because we have less than 35 days to educate people and move the needle on that and that is just not going to happen right there's so much cross conversation here tonight we know there's a need but we don't know what that need is I think the responsible thing to do would be to unfortunately accept that there's going to be some Cuts in the budget this year whether it's at 3% and push the consideration for an override till at least the fall you know it's 6 months versus 35 days it gives time for for the collection of you to put forward a number that you are certain you can stand behind it's defensible and it's clear and understandable then you can mount that educational campaign by that point those cuts people have felt them they will understand that this needs to happen um that's all I got I I wish you luck in your decision I'm go back all right thanks all right yeah so um I'm going actually kind of echo what what Jack just said so i' I've I've been going back and forth tonight and and prior toight about how I feel about this what I think you know um one thing one thing is not debated we cannot afford what we currently have we either need an override or we need to have Cuts that's not debatable and and Dan saying is not good math it's I'm not your enemy math is your enemy that's so math is the enemy here right we we can't afford what we have override or Cuts those are the two things so thinking about this and the timing of it I I think I think we all know that the schools are kind of the albatross or on the neck of the overide right we're going to be the largest part of it by far and as we've seen tonight people don't generally trust us for some reason I honestly don't know how we can convince them at this point but they clear there's still that contingency that for some reason think we're hiding money or we're doing something onto award so with that in mind I think if you put the override on right now there is zero chance it's going to pass I I mean I I just don't see it passing quite honestly so you know I I think I think in the end throwing it on and Sher and I like we go back about this about just throwing on every time and just the their 12 passes I I think eventually people become to that so I think you want to pick your spot on this thing and I I don't know that our spot is in whatever it is 28 days with 27th from Now 37 Days yeah I I just I don't think you can get over the hump at the schools quite frankly you know and and Jen said toight and that was not a crazy like that was not a you know quick ass number that was that 5.2 million is a legitimate like okay this is something that we think is is a potential real number for US you're adding on now the free cash that's gets you to 6.2 what the towns need I don't know what that's going to be 78 you know 8 million in 37 days I mean Jesus I don't even know if I would vote for it I mean and I know the numbers are right you know so um and and I'm going to say something else here and this is this is going to be tough for me to say even if we do this override Whenever there is a chance it is not going to pass there is a decent chance we have to start thinking about what is Plan B we're discussing using free cash stabilization Etc that gets us through a year and then we're kind of screwed and have no free cash and no stabilization so I'm starting to think I'm not so sure that's the best move either and and I what I say next it's paining me to say the the cuts might be what we have to do quite frankly and and it's killing me to say that because I've devoted the last 15 years of my life and trying not to let people go and trying to keep these schools as good as I can keep them and I'm I'm starting to look at this and say I don't know that the solution the right solution is not going to be hurtful in the short term quite frankly I I I don't see the world where that makes sense quite now quite quite honestly right now like and I don't know Mike or James if you guys disagree with me like using that money spending that money down puts us in in a bad situation and we may not have the way out of it and we have to start thinking about that you know we're all talking about this like okay we're going to we'll do this and this what if that override doesn't happen they were kind of screwed you know doubly right you're really echoing what Zach said yeah which is well he wants a 5-year plan right but we don't but but I would I would not I speaking only for myself I'm only one vote in this committee I would not vote to spend one cent of stabilization funds without a plan to replace it that is put in the the town you're looking two plan I think Z that's where I'm at now I'm agree with you that that puts you in a place where you don't want to be right so I I I I guess that's and we've had some conversations Mike and I have had conversations with with Jan and Sher and and you guys about you know is is there a way out of this in the short term I just don't know that there is not a good one you know so anyways that's my sense thank you can I ask one more question yeah go ahead um Mr unit does our town have an actuary or an public accountant I thought you had mentioned an actuary at a previous meeting um I was referring to actuarials when we go out to do our fi final barring okay stand in for okay so we don't have an action okay um so who drives the actual budget process and who creates the actual you do okay all right thank you thank you um yeah go ahead Qui y um just CU I heard some comments here and somebody some over there asked not trusting you or or questioning that I think that came from me where I was saying I kind of want to look at the budgets and things no no I didn't take it from youor I want to clarify that was not coming from that direction at all no didn't take it that way Jo rean said always trust verify yes so that's more yeah no this is I was not standing up here saying you guys were in trust no no never took it that way I appreciate the clarification all right oh Peter yes all right Peter's going to be our last speaker Peter anybody has anything else he's he the mayor gets the floor the last Peter wigs honoring mayor N I love all what you do for this town and I know it's going to hurt but the the mayor will be there for everyone in this town and I want have all your support and I have the support of the school committee the bcom and the Flipboard and everything will be okay right go just I not the glom off but I totally agree with with Zach and and FZ and various others that I I think trying to put it on the tonight is a good idea I my is just one opinion among many but I I got a error on that side as well a dangerous thing all right what I'd like to do is um I'd like to have the select board um make any additional comments if you have them um and then I'd like to move to a to the vote um on whether or not what I'd like to do is do this in two parts so I'm asking for your agreement to do this what I'd like to do is do this in two parts I'd like to do put it on the ballot on the town ballot part one if we vote to put it on the town ballot part two is we have to come up with an amount okay but I don't want to complete those two things together I want to just let's have a vote on whether or not it's because if we vote to not put it on the ballot then we don't have to come up with a number which that would probably well I I won't I'll hold my opinion you kind of see where I'm going so um so does anybody on the select board have any further comments um on anything that we've discussed regarding the budget or um putting the override on the on the ballot for town for the town election go ahead um I want to Second uh Zach's thinking on this too I mean on the last override I I was in no um strictly because there wasn't a major plan for it in my opinion um so that that will change I change lot of Minds I mean it could potentially change my mind or are a lot of people out there if there's a plan for this going forward for four or five years so um I do agree with that okay anyone else okay I will entertain a motion to um uh what's the language do you have the agenda um I'll entertain a motion um to uh vote uh to put a proposition 2 and a half override um question on on the town election ballot I'll second okay you have to move oh I'll motion so moves there you go for for April 20 so Denise moved and Steve you second sure okay um so Steve second okay so um I'd like to do a roll call vote um so Denise no Meg no Alec no Steve no and I am also a no okay so um uh I don't think we have anything else nope H thank god um before we before everybody gets up to go um I want to thank everybody for coming tonight and for being respectful um and um it's important for everybody to be involved in the government and the town government and it's great to see all of you here tonight so thank you to motion to yeah