let me share the warrant article two and three yes so article two is um an article to put money into um cover separation expenses and I would recommend no action on this and wait till the fall for this okay do you want to share your screen of those separation expenses so everyone can see that did you you sent that to us right I did not you didn't okay um so right now um we're reviewing uh what any separation expenses are that we might have and how much money is left uh that was previously um approved so uh the town accountant will be going through all that um right now a lot of people when they retire they don't get paid out all at once it's two sometimes three years before they're paid out we spread it out so uh James will be reviewing all that and then we'll come back in the fall okay just for um reference point was this funded last spring and how much um I don't know how much um was funded last spring I think uh James said In Articles over the previous years there's about a million dollars in that account right now okay and the liability is about 2.5 I believe overall like opep everyone's not going to retire at the same time but all right does anyone have any questions or discussion before we um vote no action Adam Cher yes sir is that 2.5 mic just Town employees or does that include uh School Employees just Town employees thank you mad yeah Cody Mike do we know how much uh was it originally that you're looking before that we're taking down to uh to Paul um I don't have anything on that I don't believe I have anything that home would with that no I don't I I don't know if James is on and he would remember but s that yeah OPB um just covers um health insurance this covers um any um earned vacation or sickly buyback Madam chair yes James it's here uh there is an upcoming retirement on the police department um I believe that that was what the funds were being asked for I'll have questions or discussion hearing none the chair would entertain a motion to no action recommend no action Madam chair yes okay uh I make a motion that we recommend no action on article two of the special town meeting warrant second Kevin you here yet okay Steve yes Tracy yes Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes Bonnie have you come on yet1 okay yeah I put it in the chat oh sorry I didn't see that Bonnie do you are you voting I said yes okay sorry to yes uh 10 yes for article two to recommend no action okay next article is article three um to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate or transfer funds uh to supplement uh the FY 24 budget and um we have an option with this um these are the uh right now uh town clerk uh was short uh 1,200 in her salary account as well as Recreation was short $600 um we have the snow removal probably one of the lowest in years uh 8,749 and the police department education uh assistance $22,900 um we could move this article and um use funds from free cash or we would be able to do this with endof year transfers if so whichever uh the committee would prefer to do okay thoughts discussion on this one yeah Madam chair yes Steve just a couple of questions right how do we get the town clerk salary in correct I get the educational expenses that can happen right we don't budget for and then Recreation how do we get the salary accounts incorrect during the budget season is it approved is it increased dollars or something else that's happening here um it's not increased hours I don't believe um when the budget was done um it took into account that one of the staff people was moving up a step and then do we make sure that I'll call it that Miss was it updated for this current budget we did okay thank you yeah Cody uh Mike I can't recall I'm I'm having trouble finding last year's uh budget um how much was in snow removal for last year or the current year how much was in the budget yeah uh 80,000 okay every every year we do 80,000 okay thank you does anyone have any thoughts about transferring the money from free cash now what was the other option Mike we wait till the fall no the other the other option would be at the end of this current fiscal year when we do uh yearend transfers we could cover this with yearend transfers or um your reserve fund I think we we've got what like 142,000 in the reserve fund currently um we started with 150 uh you did about 33,000 um another eight I think you used 42,000 150 if I'm correct recommendation that we just use that instead of it doesn't make a difference using that versus fre cash transfers and alls up in the same price right yeah okay a thoughts about that Reser using Reserve pund supplements Madam chair yeah Zach I would just uh use the fincom reserve one less thing you would have to read off at uh to meeting oh thanks for thinking of me Zach so then um on this article do no action and then we'll come back with a reserve fund transfer requests later okay any other questions or comments for entertain a motion to recommend no action mad chair yes sir I I make a motion that we recommend no action on article three the special town meeting War second Steve yes chy yes yes no sorry Joe I didn't hear you yes okay sorry Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes Bonnie yes uh Kevin did you hear the discussion do you want to vote on this I just saw you joined I'll obain because I just hopped on okay sounds good and I am a yes eight yes one I mean 10 yes one of okay thank you um do you want to do another article on the annual yeah of five minutes that's what it is I guess um one done in five minutes Choose Wisely what I was going to suggest is the petition article the zoning bylaw Amendment uh the the planning board did not recommend um that article which number this Mike yeah I'm gonna I'll call it up the 19 the lights yeah Article 19 was camera um this is the lighting um and the uh this went before the planning board and uh they did not recommend that uh this be approved can you explain why did they give an explanation um is Paul on thought he'd be on um so um the what this was proposing to do was um to take out in the in the planning board rules and regulations right now when it comes to regulating um light um there is an a section that excludes two single and two family residential dwellings and so this what she wanted to do was strike that so that uh single family and two family dwellings would be subject to the bylaw and uh you know the failing was that it's just not something that they want to amend the bylaw right now maybe if uh she came back and proposed a section to be added into the bylaw for regulations on single and two family homes but um the section we have um right now is more or less to regulate Commercial Lighting and so they they didn't feel it was applicable okay okay anyone comments or questions about yes Cody no just I I watched that meeting I think uh the planning board basically said if they did that they'd have to go like everyone who wanted to put a light on their garage or you know on their house would end up having to go before the planing board or was own board to seek an interception anyone have questions or comments about this one Madam chair yes chair uh I know we have to do this in the affirmative uh so I make a motion that we recommend Article 19 of the annual town meeting warrant second Hein no Steve no Tracy no Sandy no jo no bill no Paul no Cody no Zach no Bonnie no no for Article 19 okay 7:15 the chair would entertain a motion to open the public hearing of the finance committee don't moov sorry I'm off my game I'll take a roll call to open the public hearing Kevin Steve yes Tracy here yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes Bonnie yes I two me yes public hearing is open all right Mike so do we want to share the 1% budget since that's all that the finance committee has gone over at this point yep and um while I'm while I'm getting that um I'll just uh mention again um that the reason uh we're looking at a 1% budget is um if you if you look at our increment our increment is$ 1,141 693 and so the increment if there's anyone on that doesn't understand is um what will allow to increase Revenue under prop two and a half and then if you take just our increases that uh we have in health insurance retirement uh expense to Bristol County our increase in our um assessment for regional dispatch and the increase in our other insurances that's $779,900 62,1 35 for the entire budget and um we are using $1.2 million of free cash again so that we can have a 1% budget otherwise we would have budgets reduced from what they were in the current fiscal year and um just emphasize again that this does have impacts um you know number of layoffs up to 29 I believe maybe on the school side um and on the town side we're not going to uh our public health nurse recently left we're not going to fill that position um we're not filling a position that just became vacant on the highway department uh the Council on Aging was hoping to have another staff person um for the new Senior Center that isn't funded under this um the van driver for Council on Aging is not funded uh police and fire both had drastic reductions in their overtime which for fire um more than likely Is Res going to result in a closing for a good deal of the year the chartle station uh they may they probably will be opening that during emergencies when uh snow storms are coming things like that um the police uh Department it's um G to hurt them in filling shifts uh so it will lead to a reduction of uh officers on the street and at times in order to keep the number on the street um they'll have to close the station for times so um just some of the impacts of that 1% budget and there were some reduced hours too right Mike like I know the town clerk there's going to be reduction of hours there right yep and reduction reduction in hours for um part-time uh staff in the inspections department Madam chair yes ch um Mike I just want to verify one thing I'm looking for the summary sheet in our packet I don't see it we we've talked about 1.2 million for free cash is that the exact number I assume it's not it it is you're right 1.2 million is what we use from free cash exactly you saying is that what's in free cash no no I was looking yeah number or was it like 1,1 192,000 blah blah blah 1,200,000 and we also had to increase the amount from ambulance receipts uh that's up to a million thank you and you know for anyone out there we're we're very dependent um other than the two and a half the only thing we have is New Growth and we've been fortunate over the last few years there's been some uh good commercial development in town and uh I know the uh Building Commissioner and the assessor met to review possible new growth for next year and they just don't see that commercial development happening that we've had in the past few years so our commercial growth is less uh for this coming year anyone have questions about thisw yes Bill uh Mike yes does the um owner of what used to be the roach Brothers Plaza given that it's 40 50% empty is he getting any type of rebate or anything on his taxes um I would imagine he probably files I can't say for sure um if everything in commercial property like that everything is they have to submit what their rents are and everything is based on the building and the rent so I I would I'm sure he's not paying what he would pay if the place was full and do we have any anticipation of the building the apartment building behind it what that's going to add next we do know I don't have that but um I know the assessor would know that that was part of our new growth for this current year anyone else have questions or comments Madam CH uh Mike I guess one last question sure is there anybody who um within the town or or um I don't think it's called the IDC anymore I forget what it's called um but you know is there anybody trying to Lobby either a smaller grocery store or something like that to get into that Plaza um I know reaching out I know that Paul dppi constantly is uh reaching out to different Grocers to see if uh we can get someone in there um the big the big uh drawback is the rents they charge I think the previous Market was paying $10,000 a month just wasn't one one that yes ouch they they they weren't doing that in business no thank you one of the stores uh that I'll have to check with Paul and see if he's reached out to um one of the ones I was reading about the other day Aldi is one of the stores that is expanding there are 21 in Massachusetts I guess I know I know Paul has reached out to Tres and it's he keeps trying mik if you could just stop on this page um sure quick I just want to give a little bit of a summary I guess of uh our meeting last Monday when we were discussing these budgets and putting our recommendations in um we had a long discussion about the police and fire budgets um there was a suggestion to take money from stabilization overwhelmingly the committee was not for that to fund the police fired budgets um considering you know um we don't want to deplete our stabilization account knowing that we need that when we go out um for bonds um but then there was a question about possibly using more ambulance receipts I think that Deputy Chief Wilson was going to ask um Chief Simmons about that do you know if there was a answer on that one yep I can f you I know the chief is on too um we reviewed that and on average ambulance receipts are about 1.4 million a year and the failing was if we were to put 1.3 million into budgets it really hurts um you what happens when we have a year where we don't meet that and we've already put it in the budgets and also if we put 1.3 out of the 1. four into budgets it limits the capital the amount amount of money that's available for the fire department for Capital and I know they've got some large things they're looking at including a ladder track possibly in the future um so I we just didn't feel it was feasible to do that and I if the chief wants to add or the deputy chief they can I like no I think that that's pretty accurate I mean I would consider it um I wouldn't object for like a one-time purchase I just I'm not sure the sustainability if we were to do that annually if we're averaging 1.4 we're going to take 1.3 out of there Chief Mike I thought they were looking at 200,000 out of that additional not 300 I don't is that what it was 1.2 yeah 1 Point 1.2 put $200,000 back into the overtime from ambulance yeah I would say for me I'd still probably have the same opinion I can see um last year we went from 700,000 to 750,000 this year we're proposing to go from 850 to to 1 million so yeah I mean it looks like for the fire budget um in order to provide them what they requested they would need another 254,000 $120 and for the police budget to provide them what they requested they would need another $18,350 chair yes Paul uh yes to Chief Simmons um Chief is it time to review the maxal cost per run and if that's been looked at a while uh we did that uh good question we did that about two years ago um so probably about this time next year uh we would be on track to to reevaluate the ambulance billing rates so thank you y Madam chair yes D didn't we take in 1.9 million in ambulance receipts last year I know you guys did a fiveyear average but if the trajectory you know if if it SS on the trajectory that it's been at I mean you could be over $2 million this coming year if the you know you get some population growth and with all these housing going into the town Madam CH can answer that if you'd like oh yeah definitely uh looks like last year we were at 1. 665 million uh this year I just try to check it earlier we're proximately projected to do about 1.8 million um but this you know the 5year average was 1.4 past couple years we've done a little bit better um but a lot of that can vary based on our call volume uh the payer mix which basically means what type of insurance people have uh for example you're going to get a higher payment with like um havit or Blue Cross versus a Medicare patient um and they've also been talking about um ambulance billing reform too so they've been talking about that for a while so you know I don't think that's going to go through um but that would also be a concern for us yeah Cody Chief um how much are you projecting the ambulance receipts to go down when you're having to down shortly it it's not necessarily the station that'll affect that it's going to be our ability to staff the second ambulance um so about probably around 750 times a year we're doing at least two calls at the same time uh so the decrease Staffing will will affect our ability to manage multiple calls like that so it's really hard to predict um but it could be in the area of $100,000 I'm just I'm just kind of guessing it's really hard to predict that do expect there to be a negative impact on that I do yes else have questions for the chief M chair yes one one additional question now that um the town failed to pass the uh the questions on the ballot the exit civil service was any how much of that is going to impact your uh your budget the big thing that was impact in our budget for the exit from civil service was the the having to pay for a promotional exam so that's probably in the I think that was in the area of about $88,500 to $9,000 is that number baked into these budget numbers or were these numbers going that number was correct that number was in our in our budget under uh Professional Service I believe was the line item okay so the so the budget here assumes that you stayed in civil service that's correct there's there's kind of a lot of moving pots to that because the the Collective bgan Agreement actually specifically states that they'll be out of civil service starting July 1 of this year so that's something that we're going to need to work through to find out um how we're going to handle it is that potentially mean it's going to cost more legal fees and services to renegotiate all of that uh it's possible yeah and and but honestly I'm not sure if we're going to keep with the the promotional process that we had already established or if we're going to move back into the Civil Service model or not comments or questions about um you know these discussions we've been having on the police and fire department budgets Madam chair yes um um M you it's um is there a chance there is going to be a special election to break the uh school committee tie and if so can the civil service question be uh reput out there the voters with maybe more education um we'll think about that it may I don't know if that's too soon or if we wait until uh next year in April but we'll have to talk about that I I think yeah it was unfortunate that I don't I don't know if we got enough out there to let people know that you know how Antiquated civil service has become and uh all the issues it creates and uh how the union actually negotiated as the chief said to exit as of uh June 30th 2024 so I mean the union was on board with it and um most of the towns around us have have gotten out of civil service so uh it's unfortunate that we're stuck with it but we we have to check uh with legal counsel also and see if we're town meeting approved exiting civil service if we can go with that and exit based on the town meeting vote rather than the ballot vote but we'll see thank you oops a lot of visitors tonight any questions from the audience too um we have a question from the audience who would like to hear from the um school department about the expected impacts of the 1% budget uh Dr O'Neal I can you're on correct I am paa thank you very much um would you madam chair you want me to stop sharing Jen I was gonna ask if you would mind if if I could share for a minute mik thank you um so the uh Staffing impacts that I am sharing with you all tonight um are to help us meet a 1% budget um uh the following 29 staff positions have been eliminated for the 2425 school year um so last Friday we gave out 44 letters that impacts people who are strictly a reduction in force um some staff members that saw their um full-time status go down part-time um and also staff members that are being transferred from one role to another um this included anyone that was a long-term sub or perhaps had a one-year position um so I just want to show you guys these 29 positions that will not be part of the the budget for up the upcoming year it's four pair of professionals across the district a guidance counselor at Norton High School the district nurse leader um So currently all of our schools have a nurse um and there is one nurse that kind of oversees everyone um and goes from building to building and it's really really helpful because it's extremely hard to get a substitute nurse when a nurse is out sick um so and that person also handles all of the paperwork all of the um mandated screens that go along with that we eliminated one of the two music teachers at norn Middle School uh the elimination of Middle School World language which is two staff positions an English teacher at norn middle school and a math teacher at Norton Middle School um we eliminated a reading interventionist two two of our three math interventionists um the art teacher at Norton Middle School is actually taking the lead of absence we are not backfilling that position we have two instructional technology Specialists um that have been eliminated they support staff um and it students districtwide uh the elementary math coach and the elementary literacy coach uh a preschool teacher a science teacher at Norton High School a social science teacher at Norton High School one of the two music teachers at Norton High School a wellness teacher at Norton High School a speech and language pathology assistant um so this particular person was working with preschool as a part-time um that position was eliminated two custodians uh day10 custodians the middle school dean of students that person um really worked to build culture and worked really really closely with students it was not just the disciplinary position um we are also reducing a School administrator we had um an administrator leave this year we are actually not going to be back filling that position and instead taking a look at the administrators that we have and um reallocating some of that and then we also these were some of the reduced time so um Elementary art was reduced by .12 um Elementary steam by. 32 Elementary library by 04 and Elementary music was reduced by 02 so that is 29 positions that will not be here next year Dr O'Neal real quick I thought I saw um at the JCS there was like a principal there was a reduction on a on the principal salary or did I misread that no that's the school administrator we um JCS currently has a principal and an assistant principal Early Childhood coordinator um the assistant principal Early Child coordinator has moved on um for a new experience professionally and so we will not be backfilling that rule we will instead be using our current Administration um to fill that capacity so see in the chat um are the middle school and the high school seen more Cuts than the elementary level schools so one of our um as you can see um we're losing a reading interventionist the two math interventionists um those Elementary coaching positions are actually really Central to teaching and learning um and because we were losing a lot of those support positions at the elementary level we tried really hard to keep the cuts away from the Elementary classroom now there's a lot of research out there that talks about the importance of class size at Elementary uh at the elementary level students are building foundational reading and math skills and so therefore we've made every effort that we possibly could um to keep away from those particular positions um therefore or we looked really closely at where perhaps we could make some adjustments um last year a high school lost a math teacher and an English teacher so this year we looked at science and social studies and reduced those departments by one the incoming sixth grade class um at nor and middle school is a little bit smaller than um our other cohorts so what we're doing is we're taking like a team and a half approach uh to this so it won't be two full teams for um the sixth graders next year it'll be um it'll be down one math and one Ela teacher and we'll be having um some of our other staff teach a few sections um as well so it's a little bit of a different model we have to get really really creative to get to 29 positions uh when you're looking at our um line item budget that was shared with the finance committee um the majority of our reduction obviously was salaries we took $2.4 million out of salaries and then an additional 300 74,000 um out of our special education salaries which were the par Professionals in that slpa um when you mentioned that you the art teacher left and you're not filling that position does that mean there'll be no art at the middle school so that means students will not have access to an art class during specials this particular Year we're hoping that and E cor yep um we're hoping that perhaps we can offer um art as some sort of after school club if there's somebody that is interested in able to um do that through a small stiens um but when we were looking at um different positions and this person said they were planning on taking a leave um next year it it became something that made it a little bit easier for us to maybe not cut something else none of them feel good though I'm sure you can imagine Paula um there are so many positions here that um really are needed uh for all of our students it's really heartbreaking to see uh this many yeah I know you I definitely understand you had difficult decisions to make um what about the band so you talked about our what about band at middle school and high school so band at um nor middle school will be an after school program just like our Athletics um hopefully going through and doing a stip in position um much like we do for sports and clubs um this will still give students the opportunity to participate it just won't happen during the school day um and at this time we are still keeping banned during the school day at Norton High School there be fees for those bandn after school they will go on to the clubs um sorry I'm just going to try to keep up with all the questions no I appreciate it and I I'll look too and see if I can um the current there there was a question about C sizes um at the elementary middle and high school and I don't know if they want to know the current right now or what the current's going to be would be so current class sizes um the question asks about current So currently right now um our Elementary classroom sizes are anywhere between 21 and 24 um we anticipate those remaining the same because we have made the commitment to not cutting Elementary classrooms um at the Middle School uh grade six sorry grade seven and 8 will again remain about the same there are about 22 to 24 um those will stay about the same in grade six because it is such a a smaller cohort those will actually be around 25 to 26 um because we're spreading them across a team and a half versus two full teams um at the high school I do anticipate seeing class sizes go up um especially in some of our core classes where um instead of having eight history teachers we now only have seven um so we'll be dividing students up amongst um those required classes um those class sizes will be a little bit bigger um we'll also be looking at what op options we have in terms of electives um and maybe not all of our electives will run like they typically do uh Renee I believe you had your hand up next before the next question came in Renee do you want to ask your question okay uh moving on I someone else asked about increasing fees yes for so last week at the school committee meeting um the board looked at and discussed increase in fees um and they made they did some voting as well um the sport athletic fees are going up $50 per sport uh so the majority of our Athletics are currently at 250 they'll go to 300 um at both the high school and the middle school uh for example at some of our some of our middle school programs are cross country are wrestling there's not a huge cost there so they're um they're a little bit less expensive than some of the other courses some of the other sports I believe they're 125 so those up to 175 um and then hockey is going to go up $100 from 350 to 450 um hockey has always been a little bit more expensive um than some of our other programs just simply because of the um cost of ice time additional um we are keeping the fee uh for clubs the same it will remain at $50 um but right now we have a cap um that removes that only charges I believe up to $100 so what will happen is that we'll take that cap away um and students and families will have to pay for every mon of their child joins um a good example of this is our Middle School drama program um as I think almost everyone on this call knows we have have a extremely successful Middle School drama program we have about 100 students that participate every year um the time of the year that it happens is in the spring so typically the majority of our students have kind of maxed out on their club fees at that point um we really don't bring in a lot um at that time for the drama program so that will just remove the cap and then transportation is going up $50 per student from 250 to 300 Madam chair yes Joe uh Dr O'Neal the increase in in fees for the the sports does that actually cover all of the costs for sports or is there thank you Joe that's a really great question it actually does not um in the past we have had conversations about a payto playay model um and so what that would mean is that um the students that are participating would be responsible for every single cost that goes into playing the sport so for example if you're playing basketball you would be um responsible for paying the Ws and getting the court time if we had to pay um whatever travel to and from games and a basketball team's pretty small there's usually only 10 to 12 kids on a basketball team um so I believe when we last did that calculation it'll be about $1,800 per student to play basketball whereas um something like track is totally different you you may need to um pay for transportation it's a big team you're getting to and from me meets um what uniforms referees but when you're dividing that cost amongst 100 students that run track it it's it's so much more nominal and I think we only saw maybe1 or $125 for students to run track so it's actually a really huge disparity when it comes to what the costs are for pay to play um and it's just something that I think we know how difficult the fees are for our families and you know there was a lot of conversation at the school committee meeting last week about you know not wanting to increase fees um and you know we looked at going higher um and one of our school committee members said you know when we presented our budget we said it was going to be a $50 increase so let's keep it to that um for the community okay it just may sound heartless but not cutting 29 full-time employees versus not you know losing more money out of the for for sporting events seems short cited to me I guess I will say there really no good choices here joh there really aren't but no I appreciate that thank you um dril the uh the increase in the fees um right now the the transportation and sports fees are capped is that correct no they are not a c a couple years ago okay so we're so we're it's 300 per kid per sport No Cap per family corre transportation is going to be 300 per kid No Cap per family correct and that's how does the how do the transportation fees work it's it's based on Mass General law so you're only required the bus outside of two miles yeah so the way that um the state requires is that uh Norton is required to transport any student in grade K to six that lives more than two miles from school um if a student is in grade seven uh through 12 it does not matter how far away they live um they are they are not mandated busing uh the committee also looked at what it would cost or what would be the savings if we went from um providing busing for students at the um just for mandated we weren't taking in any fees so when we look at it we would right now we're currently taking in about $130,000 worth of transportation fees we would lose that we would still need to run buses to the middle school because we would be required to transport sixth graders but not seventh and e um and it's only about a savings of $80,000 and I think we all know um and I don't know if uh Chief Clark is On's call um but that would just be an increased Nightmare on 1:23 in the morning um and it wasn't a huge huge savings uh we recently actually last Thursday I also just approved our new Transportation contract for the next five years um working with Bloom and we were very happy with the increase it was about um just around 5% for the upcoming school year um which When comparing to some of our other communities um colleagues they were going to be you know 7even 8 n 10% so we're very fortunate right now um that we were able to keep it in that in that ballpark um a related followup question if I can Madam chair yeah go ahead um it it pains me as someone who benefited from a full athletic scholarship and sports saved me um but I have plenty of friends who music and arts Sav done that's their Outlet M seems like every time we talk about Cuts we are talking about cutting Arts every single time and we never have a serious conversation about cutting Sports and it is a it's a big number in the budget that you're looking at how how frequently does that come up and you know I know there's title n ramifications on when you're talking about cutting one versus another but it seems very one-sided uh I'll be honest it comes up every all the time it comes up every almost every time that we meet we have lots and lots of conversations so when we were looking at potential cuts for this year um one of the comments was we don't want to cut programs and leave them out so kids don't have access at all um right now students have access to sports after school and the comment was made what if we do music after school as well and that and that way kids can participate that way and we're not taking away from them almost going along with the um the sports model that we've been using for um our music programs and band as well there are districts that do it that way and there are districts that have it during the day um it's really varied based on the community and what they're able to sustain um last year's budget eliminated it Al together where this year's budget we're we're really hoping to be able to provide it after school for students um the late bus is still part of our bus contract it visits um the middle school and the high school we have a number of students that currently um take advantage of the late bus um and I would hope that our students that are um musically inclined will continue to do so as well I appreciate they all terrible choices um as an athlete that benefited greatly from Sports throughout my life music and arts I always loved and it was a great outlet and it's such a shame that that gets cut because it's it's universally accepted well documented that everyone benefits from it the education benefits from it every kid it into a different part of their brain and it's just absolutely so crappy that that's like that's what and I think that's the challenge right it it's there's no good decisions none of them feel good none of them make me happy none of them make me proud to be sitting here in my first budget year um and going through and talking to you about these decisions that have been made um when you're only getting 1% and it's about $300,000 there's it's devastating it it truly truly is and I know there's been a lot of um comments on social media over the last few days about um you know the schools had said 44 at one point we have scraped and looked at every corner and under every rug and behind every shrub to see if we can find other ways to make these things work and when we were you know as Mike mentioned earlier if we um weren't able to use free cash we would be looking at um less of of a budget than we have right now and when you're that that's that's huge and so um one of the questions somebody asked me recently was like well how do you um how do you estimate the number of teachers um you know we say Okay 65,000 68,000 that's typically about an average and then you have to make an estimate um we've been fortunate this year um in some capacity to have staff members that have said you know I'm going to take a personal leave or um I'm going to retire um and while it's so you know difficult because that experience and that expertise is walking out the door it has been able to save us a little bit financially as well um Renee are you ready to ask your question think you are next yes thank you madam chair can you hear me yep good okay and just so you know I might not be able to figure out how to raise my hand afterwards um so I I had a couple questions um a couple for Dr O'Neal and then one for uh Mike unit so if I could start with Dr O'Neal first um Dr n you were talking about the fees and I apologize if I missed this um when I lost the call but um how do our how do our fees compare with other towns so the the um the busing fees as well as the the sports fees they're definitely on the higher end um of some of our surrounding communities um I'll give you a personal example um I live in Mansfield I think I pay 150 for my daughter to ride the bus um she is a freshman and then um we pay about 175 for her to cheer two seasons um they're definitely a little bit higher um every Community is a little B different but ours definitely are high for the area um a few years ago the school committee and Dr baetta uh voted to decrease our fees and we instituted caps um in order to make them more manageable for families but unfortunately it only lasted a year or two um before we had to bring them back up again um just because of situations like this okay great thank you and then um as you were talking about the teachers and those that are that are um that potentially um the positions that will be coming back I was wondering because you you hit I think you said social studies and there's some math and some reading um specialists in there how how have our our um test scores been like the standardized test scores um are we still trending behind a bit because of Co or um are we are we where we're as Norton as a whole has seen um some decline over the last few years um state why there was a significant decline postco um as students had a lot of interrupted formal education experiences however we're seeing a lot of communities have kind of bounced back and are starting to Trend upwards again um we're not doing that in all areas um and I apologize I don't have everything right in front of me so I'm going off my off my um memory here um we have some definitely have some areas that we're proud of um and we've seen some really great growth um but there are definitely grade levels and um content areas where we are significantly below the state average and when you think about the state average it's not just communities like Norton it's Wellsley Weston but it's also the urbans like Brockton and Lawrence and Springfield so um we definitely are a community that should be well above the state average um and we've been doing a lot of work um in the last few years to really look at our instructional materials to look at our process for re referring students for intervention before we get to um the need for an IEP um so there's a lot of great great work that's happening and some of those positions that you've seen like our reading interventionist our math interventionists our instructional coaches have been um really a driving force in a lot of that work um which is unfortunate so we can reasonably conclude that we won't see any any improvements if um if these positions are eliminated well I would I I don't want to say Never Say Never because we don't know know we don't know and it's um standardized test sces are so difficult because from year to year we're really comparing different groups of St students different assessments different teachers um but I would say it's definitely going to make our work harder okay thank you and Madam chair if I can ask a um a question Mr un ahead thank you um Mike I remember early in I apologize I don't have the complete details but I remember earlier in April um at one of the fincon meetings you guys had talked about some you and James I think we're talking about some money that had been allocated at um various Town meetings throughout the years maybe the past 10 or 15 years that hadn't been spent yet um I thought that you guys were going to come back with a a summary or review of um that money and a um discussion on what like what if those funds could be returned to the general fund and I don't know if that was addressed at vcom but can you talk to that a bit sure I know J was that I I know that James was going through those accounts I'm not sure if he did send um something back to the fincom I thought he had but um yeah we haven't gone over it yet though he did the email but we haven't gone over that in the meeting yet um want to speak to that or Mikey can I guess um so I think uh what what James will say is that some of those um are things that have not closed out yet like um an ambulance I know was one of the things they waiting for um which was Capital funds um and there were some other projects that hadn't been completed yet James um Madam shair yeah that is correct um there are some capital items that are recent and there's a lot of uh older accounts that uh will be closing out at the end of the year once we get confirmation from the department heads that they don't longer need those funds for the projects that they were approved for uh some of them are related to the town hall and we're waiting for the town hall project and the senior center to be completed 100% And then once that happens those funds will close out uh most of those funds will go back to the capital account not to free cash because they go back to the original funding source and a lot of them were funded through uh the capital account uh some of them are going back to the ambulance account if if that was the funding source so James can I ask um why were there separate line items for the new town hall if that was um if the cost for that was from the debt exclusion so um the town hall project has been an ongoing battle over the last I mean ever since I've been employed by the town over 18 years they've been trying to uh to build a new town hall uh at one point probably maybe 10 years ago maybe a little longer uh we received a million4 in um I believe it was building permits a one-time uh big permit might might have been NM or one of those I cannot remember exactly which big project it was it was on that money was set aside for the construction of a future Town Hall then a future Town meetings uh somebody got up a town meeting and said uh we want every time you guys want to use that money to come back to town meeting and reappropriate it so what happened was uh when we were doing the um the Beats when we were doing the architectural work when we try to do the RM Barton property all of that we would have to go to town meeting and appropriate money from the 1.4 into a separate article so the 1.4 kept going down and then the money was being spent out of the other articles and eventually you know the r b property didn't work out um and when the um the de exclusion passed um the balance on of the original 1.4 I believe it was like at that point it was close to 800,000 700 and change was used to reduce the amount to be borrowed and then uh the rest stayed in the original articles and we are going to close those out back those are going back to free cash once the projects are completed so is that it did you say I heard you say something at the end of the year were you referring to the end of the school year are you referring to the end of the calendar year uh well we closed those out at the end of the fiscal year so some of them may take another fiscal year before we close it but it's not a lot of money either it's not like hundreds of thousands um so I mean but we usually close them out uh what what happens is as part of the closing procedures I I have to notify every department head uh to let me know whether I should close those articles that are older and if they tell me that yes go ahead close them I I go ahead and close them if they tell me no there is still something pending I don't close it okay and so so some of that money is say going back to the general fund so is there an opportunity um I mean based on what dril said on the average cost is there an opportunity then that potentially there's some positions that we'll be able to fund that this up to the finance committee to the side and uh the select board and you know um I believe that um what I've been hearing lately is that the use of free cash shouldn't be used for operating expenses because it creates a bigger hole for the following year um I don't really know that is you know the money will be available so it could be voted for any purpose um I don't know if it makes Financial sense to keep using nonoperating Revenue to fund operations but um like I said it's that's up to the elected boards and to the appointed boards to decide sure sure totally understand that I was just thinking because it's not um it was money that was allocated previously right it's kind of like uh I don't want to say free cash because it's really not free but um I understand and then uh Madam chair if I can ask you just one final question thank you James and um so it sounds like you guys haven't actually reviewed the entire 1% budget so are there plans for another public hearing once that is done so we just hadn't reviewed the school department budget for the 1% yet we are doing that this evening okay so I mean that's the largest budget in town right yes it is okay will be another public hearing I and if you don't know have time for that okay that's interesting thank you and thank you Dr oil um okay Bonnie had a question about the yell and middle school students are would they still continue to be on the same buses uh yes at this time we are not making any changes to the bus routes um I have been asked by the school committee to take a look at start times um as well as as the makeups and um kind of configuration of our schools um so we have a committee that is working on that we've taken a little bit of a pause because um this budget season's a little bit crazy um we are hopeful that in the next few weeks we would start that back up um but no changes would happen until the fall of 2025 in terms of times or bus routes um there's also a question here um about athletic budgets would you be okay if I answer that M here definitely um so there's a question about what does the athle bud budget support and U what did the fees go to uh so the fees work to subsidize the cost to the district um for our athletic programs um they pay the coaches they um support whether it's uniforms or equipment that the teams need Transportation um perhaps registration for um tournaments or leagues or any other things really anything that goes into into the athletic budget and um the $130,000 that we collect just subsidizes that um Zach I see your hand is up next thank you madam chair uh thank you for coming Dr O'Neal uh question for you when asked that probably I haven't seen anybody talking about yet is how do we get out of this terrible spiral even assuming you pass an override and you bring a lot of these positions back we come to next spring and everybody has their steps and Lanes everybody has their contractual obligations Transportation special education all the stuff we've talked about year in and year out as long as I've been to this committee that's all going to be more than 2 and a half% including whatever the override is and a year from today assuming assuming we pass an override we most likely be here talking about layoffs again I mean even towns of your own that you live in they have a massive industrial base they have a massive commercial base they've passed operational overrides and you know where they are you live there you're paying fees and they're laying off people I'm gonna be paying for trash I know so how do we get it's all well and good I mean we'll go to the taxpayer and say we need more money and assume they give it to you and then a year from now people are going to be coming out of their skins when you say uh here's my layoffs for 2026 budget because of what I just said not to repeat myself yeah I mean if anybody has an answer to that I I'd like to hear it thank you um you know Zach number one great question and I always appreciate the conversations that we have um when I took this job one of the things that had said to the school committee who was appointing me is that I'm a teaching and learning person like that has always been my background um I was always been extremely curriculum focus and I feel like I spent more time this year talking about budget versus anything else and it's been like um baptism by fire um which is you know both a blessing and a curse all at the same time I think the biggest problem with the override conversation is that if we want to dig ourselves out of a hole and be good moving forward at least you know we had talked about a fiveyear plan and I know the school department um Christine Hadfield um and our and our team spending a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to put those numbers together for you because it there is there's so many variables and so many factors um we have to do the number that's going to make sense um and so when we we've talked about you know a three a $3 million override a $4 million override um in those scenarios the schools are still going to be making Cuts because it's not level services for us um Mr units has been such a great partner um in this whole process and you know he he is emailing Christine and I asking for the 1% the the four million the 6.5 million um and we're trying to pull all of our budgets together in the 6.5 million we're getting a little more than level Services it's about $187,000 more which is awesome and I hate to be that person that's going to say it but even $187,000 over level Services we're still going to see some sort of um need to reassess in the following years which makes it really really difficult um I've been in Norton for 21 years I know the reality of the community I know the reality of the um budget issues that we're having um I think a big part of it is there are so many factors that we as a community cannot control we cannot control the costs of special education tuitions um for collaboratives and for private schools um we literally have no control over Transportation um we were very fortunate to get a reasonable bid from Bloom but but it's always one bid we don't get any competition um the way that that model works we really truly our hands are tied um there's been a lot of conversation about inflation these last few years uh S8 9% inflation the um budget or the schools across the seat only went up 1.5% so there's all these comp competing things that are happening and um there's no strong understanding of how to fix the problem um one of the things that they're talking about excuse me my allergies are killing me this week one of the things they're talking about at the state level is taking that $30 uh per per student minimum Aid that noron always gets and they're talking about moving it up to $104 per student that's I mean like that would be amazing if we were to get $104 per student that would be about and Christine not here so of course I don't have my math really available to us last year we got 30 um you know with $60 it would be 60,000 65,000 so um it it would be great I mean that would be amazing but we have communities around us that are getting $900 per student they getting $1,200 per student it's not Equitable um and we're continuing to push um the can down the road um when real there's a burden on our community but there's a burden on the state to get it right and they are nowhere close to getting it right so I know that's not an answer um but you're absolutely right we'll we just we'll be back here again unless the number is I don't know just a follow up on that if I may yes please so wouldn't it be more and nobody wants a s i mean that's not what anybody wants to hear but to say that unfortunately the cuts that you have been forced to make are going to be cemented in and even if we do get an override we should maybe bring back a handful of the most key positions that you feel and not spend all the money even though I know Mike's going to say you have to spend all the money you can get creative maybe stash your school choice money whatever it may be and say okay we're going to bring in bring back only a handful of positions and this will buy some Runway if we get 4 million six million this will buy us some runway for one two three years as opposed to you know because you know everybody's going to be coming out of their skin if you ask for more money and they give it to you and then a year from now we're in these meetings having a public hearing and saying these is our cuts for this year because of not to repeat myself over and over that's I think a balance and again it sucks but a balanc approach is to maintain some of these Cuts get some more Revenue and try to buy yourself some Runway as opposed to yep we got four million we got whatever the number is and we brought all these people back and here we go again absolutely Zach I I think if if we are fortunate enough to have money given to us through an overy process whatever that number is um the school committee we're going to be having a lot of conversations about what makes the most sense um and I have some amazing staff members that have you know just gotten laid off and I want to be able to say to them like well you know maybe fingers crossed but at the same time I I don't see how we're going to be able to move forward at the same level that we that we are at it's just not going to happen um Christine and I had the conversation today about the $187,000 like we can't we're not going to put a new position in we're not going like we could maybe reduce fees a little bit but we're going to need that money the following year we're going to need to say okay let's you know maybe we'll put it towards subs or maybe we'll put it towards um we're leaving a little bit of school choice but we can't do anything new and and that's I get it that's fine um I just want to keep some of what we have thank you you Dr O'Neal you just mentioned sub so it made me think of it I did see that line item reduced as well with the information you sent us what impact does that have could you speak to that um so the way that we've paid for Subs these last few years is through school choice um literally because it it is such um a difficult line to predict you know similar to an overtime account we don't know how often people will be out we don't we we there's no way to predict um the last few years we've used some of that money to put a um a building Sub in each building this P this position is a one-year appointment and they just sub every single day and it's actually really amazing because number one they get to know the kids and um they're always available if we need somebody and we need somebody every single day um but that's something that you know Christine and I would love to eventually move that out of school choice because um it makes me worried about like if school choice dries up um that is definitely a need um we also pay for all of our instructional supplies General supplies all of that has come out of school choice for the last several years I would really like to be to move some of those costs back into the general fund as well I really would love to get to a point where we don't have any recurring expenses in our school choice lines just like we've talked about we don't want to have these recurring expenses in our uh free cash lines it it it handcuffs our planning for the for the following year thank you Bill I think you were next I think thank you um two questions one for Dr O'Neal one for Mike or or maybe it hits both Mike and Dr O'Neal the second one so Dr O'Neal the the first question and I know we went over this in the joint meeting a couple weeks ago um and it's been part of the budget for years and years um school choice so the original budget had a million is in money coming in with these cuts and I know you know some of the surrounding towns are also cutting so you know you know are we hoping that um our cuts are less painful than surrounding towns so therefore we won't be impacted or have we thought that we got to cut this back a little bit um first of all you guys all call Mike Mike you all don't have to call me Dr O'Neal I am Jen so please we do not have to be formal um B it's a great question it's actually something I'm really I'm really concerned about um because um people choose Norton because we give them a great educational experience and we don't just give them a great educational experience we give them a great school experience whether that is through um our drama club at the middle school or sports teams or um in the electives at JCS that they have every Friday in the spring whatever that is that's why people choose nor and when we're not able to offer that great school experience people are going to look for other options um one of the things that I think we're really probably really fortunate about is that a lot of our staff bring their own children here with them and it becomes like a family affair because they're coming here to work the kids come to school and as long as they stay employed I think they'll probably continue to bring their kids with them because they know how great our schools are regardless of you know everything that we hear um out there that's making a lot of noise right now but but it is concerning um because we don't want to rely on funding that all of a sudden could go away when I met with the committee on Thursday evening I shared with them my recommendations for school choice for the upcoming school year and we've pulled back a little bit on new enrollments um we are not going to be taking any new enrollments in kada 6 um because we are not going to have some of those supports for intervention um and teaching and learning for our students and so we want to make sure that we're keeping class sizes reasonable there and in grades 7 to 10 we're only going to accept five students per grade level um and what we're hoping is that this will continue to allow us to um accept Choice families if they are interested in in able um you know in those key grades but it's also not going to flood our system um and the other thing is too we also um the school committee is is really um passionate about about allowing Norton families to stay um over the last several years we've had families that have moved from town um whether it was due to a new job or a family divorce or or something along those lines and they want their kids to stay and so sometimes it happens in January sometimes it happens in March we always allow those families to stay and they they are added to our school choice rosters over time so that will be um continued and we're also allowing our um our norn Educators to bring their children if they wish so um once you're here and you're a school choice family you are able to stay until you graduate um so this would just be any new families um that would be the only kindergarten increases we would see uh this upcoming year um but I think we just have to really continue to work with all of our families not just our choice families all of our families to make sure they want to stay um because our Norton families have options too and whether that is another Public School whether it's a charter school which are also Public Schools um whether it's you know private or Catholic or what whatever it may be they have other choices too um we want to make sure that we're giving people a quality experience thank you um the second question um and again it it could hit you know both schools and town um so I'll just throw it out there um you know the new apartment complex that's 90 let's say 95% done it's probably aund and some odd units um I'm sure we're hoping it's just either young families or people without kids but a do we is is there any type of survey that says hey when these things open you know x per are going to be families you know pushing into the schools and two we we're we're factoring in the the the tax revenue and whatnot as growth but do we also kind of take out what we need as a town do we need more police do we need more different fire trucks or whatever do we factor that in I mean is this Positive Growth or in the end negative growth Dr Jen you want me to go first you go first Mike and then I'll I'll fill in anything you miss um as far as um I guess Jen would have to answer this I'm not sure how many students are in the 274 East Main Street um it's a little larger um apartment actually not a huge number I think it's like 57 or 63 right in that area so this one is about half the size of that that project um probably more than half the size um we we do when the planning board is reviewing these projects they obviously look at things like that as far as fire trucks and um you know if there was any need for any new equipment we would put that on the developer at the time and uh there really wasn't um and I know um the apartments on uh East Main Street um there were some incidents there in the beginning but nothing uh outrageous that would tax our services more and um I think just from the school's perspective it's so hard to predict uh what those numbers are are going to be um as you know Mike said um I think there's 101 units over um on West Main um and my understanding is that there are some studios but there are also some um one-bedrooms and some two bedrooms as well so um until they are here it it it's really hard to say um also I know there's a there's a large amount of building that is happening on Pine Street right now there are going to be 44 homes there um and those will be those will be family homes they're million dollar houses um so I think that is something we're looking at and thinking about too and that's part of the reason that we're doing this District a work um is because we're concerned about lgn specifically like there's really not a lot of space for us to add any additional classrooms over there so um you know Zach was talking about you know if we get an override we can't necessarily spend all the money because we're going to have to think about potentially adding classrooms here and there um if we see a huge increase in um student enrollment Cody you had a question yes thank you um I can't help but call you Doctor any because I feel like it's deserved you Doctor um Jen fine Cody one of the uh so I've got a a friend that's a a teacher in Easton um he was at the uh their school committee meeting last week um they she were uh facing a $1.5 million shortfall thereabouts um they were fortunate enough that their Town had the money and worked with the uh the uh Town manager there that they found 1.5 in their budget and gave it to the schools and said good for you um but you can't count on this in the future um but part of that conversation that came up was um something about them being seen as a theater to Brockton and because of that they get some sort of um like the amount that they get per kid is is more than we get it's closer to the 100 currently um but there was something about them trying to be uh seen as a feater to Boston um I don't know I don't know the ins and outs that but I don't know if you know what that means and if because we're because we're considering like the the NBTA commuter Community whatever because we're adjacent to Mansfield and like all of that that entails is there something there where we could we could tap into that and say well we're a commuter Community to Boston or alabor or what like what yeah to Pro like is there a way we can do that I don't know that Providence works because they don't we're not getting RH Island taxes but um that was it was interesting to me because I had no idea what he was talking about I had no time because I literally heard it yesterday uh to dig into it but is you know the the question that came up about the um the apartment complexes I know that the financial need is is a factor in that and generally speaking uh families that live in apartments are lower income and then not like the more families that come or lower income can drive that metric down or up however you want to view it so that um when you're looking at Chapter 70 funds and that really unnecessarily complex calculation um as the income level drops in town There's a consideration there's a factor that goes into that that we get more um consideration on Chapter 70 reimbursement from the from the state um I just didn't know if that was something that that you knew about it like that has been uh explored uh literally just came up yesterday so I had I have very little information to go off of it I I'll be honest Cody um I'm not exactly sure what they mean in terms of a feeder to Brockton versus a feeder to uh Boston but I know Lisa cabal um who's a superintendent over there and Chrissy pu who's the assistant very very well um and I will reach out and kind of see if I can get some context around that for you um in terms of community demographics impacting the Chapter 70 funds it's absolutely true that they do um so the the entire formula one aspect of it looks at our lowincome ratio um and that number has actually gone down in Norton um over the last year or so um so um when Dr akan was doing his title one work recently they said oh you know you might not be able to do that next year you might not meet the threshold um so I was actually kind of surprised to hear that um but it really does up and flow every single year so it's it's difficult so like communities like adaro um Sten where Dr Baya is now they are definitely receiving more per people than we are thank you um I see a question on the chat about explaining taxes um who wants to take the wheel on this one um someone who bought a house in 2011 their taxes were 5200 and now it's 11,000 and how would we explain that in a hesitation to the override because of everyone seeing their taxes go up with the debt exclusion and and everything else like do you want to explain the tax lovey and all that fun stuff I'll try um so um if their taxes have gone up U most of that would be due to the value of their properties their property becoming U more valuable um but uh the the debt exclusion itself um I is really um just starting to hit the bulk of it I think it's $63 um on the average $512,000 house so you'd have to figure that based on your value um but any other increase um you know we haven't had an override or debt exclusion other than the projects so um Mike do you have readily available I remember you shared it in the last joint meeting the breakdown of um what the tax increase would be based on the $4 million override or I think I think I don't know if you had the $6.5 million override at the time but there was like a breakdown on the average of the house value and what your annual tax increase would be with the override to see that yeah let me see if I can find it if well I'm looking James might be able to find it quicker Madam chair yes Zach there's a State website for that and you can go in there plug in the maybe maybe post that on online Mike plug in the town the tax rate automatically comes up put in whatever number you want and it gives you the calculations I was playing around with it the other day Z could you plug that website into the chat maybe it's uh in my office at work I don't I don't have it right here but I'll email it to you um I can share my screen and well like I said I'm just wanting the public to see this for their information but um while we're showing that um Nick schleker also has a question about um what debt exclusions do we currently have um I know you just mentioned um the high school project yeah um and um the fields the town hall and the senior center so this just shows um a million dollars so depending on the value of your home you just have to multiply um so um a million doll override um you can see what the impact would be on the average uh which is $10,774 so the average single family tax bill impact from a $1 million override would be $137.99 and let me see what I think we had them all and it looks like someone from the audience to just did find that website that Zach was referencing in the chat there for anyone who's interested there's the $4 million override so the average uh single family tax bill impact would be $546 55 and let me I don't even know if I have a 6.5 here yeah maybe not because I know that you produced these documents before there's a six six close enough get so 6 million on a u 510,000 dollar house is uh 81727 okay thank you for sharing that okay [Music] um uh Nick also just asked about the um debt exclusions will we see another significant increase of debt exclusions on our tax bills coming come January of 2025 James would you have an answer to that Madam shair yes yes uh we've already borrowed um 100% of the athletic field um bonds and about 80 to 85% of the town hall and Senior Center uh once those projects are completed uh over the next few months we are planning to go out to borrow in October or last piece depending on how much um the projects come in at at the end and those bonds are going to be added to the fiscal year 20 5 um and 26 the current bu that you have in front of you with the 1% already has those numbers factored into it uh there will be an interest payment in April for those additional funds there's an estimated amount there for those so yes that would be the last piece of the borrowing that has to be done to complete those projects thank you James you're welcome anyone else with questions from the finance committee from the audience hey hearing nothing do I entertain a motion to adjourn the public hearing oh one more question sorry when we are expecting when are we expecting to be able to see the 4 million or 6.5 million budget virgins we just received the schools I believe I think like a couple hours at least I just kind of saw it come through my email a couple hours ago we haven't seen the general government 4 million and 6.5 million override budgets yet right Mike um you should have those okay they should have been sent to you today did no one get them we have not gone over them I don't I don't remember seeing them any other finance committee see them today yeah we did know okay all right they came in a late afternoon okay all still at work I believe so uh Madam chair would you want to go over those Wednesday yes as soon as possible I don't know if we have time on our agenda to get to any of them tonight uh Madam chair yes CH I make a motion that we close the public hearing second okay motion of second to close our approval hearing Kevin yes Steve yes Tracy yes yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes Bonnie yes yes ini closed thank you everyone who attended this evening I sure is it worth noting that they can still stay on and hear us discuss the further uh details there'll just be no uh additional questions any comments taken from them yeah definitely this is obviously an open meeting to the public feel free to stay on and enjoy good evening okay party it is a party woohoo okay Mike next up on our agenda this evening is the do do you want do you want the schools to go over the 1% budget yes well we have Dr O'Neal yes kind of did that definitely go into more detail okay so um as I shared um we this 1% budget is um a reduction of 29 staff members um if you take a look through the line items um that we have here for you um the biggest reduction is in um salaries um as I mentioned we are eliminating a building administrator um as well as $2.4 million on the teacher line um that includes um all of the counselors that the know integration specialists the coaches all of those positions are included in that 2.4 million um there is also a reduction of about $374,000 for our par professionals um I know I mentioned four um but that actually um maybe closer to five or six once we look at our um numbers in terms of students and what their actual needs are so um at this time we had um one or two um P professionals that are resigning to move on um in their career and so we are at this point not going to back sell them however um with everything that goes along with special education it is day-to-day hour to hour minute to minute so we are keeping those in our budget for right now um additionally some of the other reductions that you'll see here um again Staffing in terms of a guidance council at the high school uh some instructional materials uh and testing m materials as well um the nurse there that is the reduction from six nurses down to five and really everything else that you see in this budget is um represented in school choice um the custodial Services we're taking two of our day custodians um and moving them so um currently um some of our schools have multiple custodians during the day to keep up with students and lunches and everything else um with the reduction in two we'll have more of a floating system um for the buildings and they won't have two people all the time um so again not ideal but hopefully we'll be able to keep up with this process um other things that go along with this reduction is as I mentioned we're using about um $2 million in school choice as well as a I'm sorry want to make sure I got the right paper in front of me here um also there are a lot of other Cuts just in terms of um supplies about $45,000 to General supplies $80,000 in software um we are moving uh one of our custodians into the cafeteria revolving account just because of their role in maintaining and keeping that up um and then we're also looking at about 100 $20,000 in anticipated salary savings this comes along with um people that may be retiring and now we are going to backfill um so for example we have a school psychologist that is retiring that is one position that we cannot um leave open um so we're hoping that we'll be able to bring somebody in a little bit less um we also have a a school adjustment counselor that's taking a year leave of absence so hoping we can back fill on some of those areas so that's about $120,000 there and then also taking into account the increased fees that we discussed earlier um tonight and then also looking at some of our central office typen so for example we have someone who delivers mail from school to school um that will be something that we as central office administrators and we're going to visit a school we'll pick up the mail that's there and bring it over might just take a couple days longer than maybe it takes now and we'll have to bring it to town hall when somebody goes to town hall so trying to look at all of the things and you know while they may not seem like um a big deal or a large stipend it's you know as I said we try to look you know under every shrub to see what we can move around here but I'm more than happy to answer any questions for the committee U Cody you had a question yeah [Music] um so the um recall correctly last year with the cuts that were made there were a lot of department heads that were like the stiens were cut and essentially those aren't coming back um teachers have had to exist without a department head I see a lot of team leader and another department head does that essentially mean there is no one driving the Departments and it's or or is it just mean you hope that someone's going to step up out of the goodness of their heart and not even though they don't get a stien anymore so last year we eliminated the academic cordinator Sten um and what that was um was the department heads at the high school specifically we kept um the original proposal had kept the team leaders and curriculum leaders in K to8 and so um during the summer when we had a few retirements we actually reinstated those at about a 75% cost um we entered into a one-year agreement with the union and reduced that Staten um that is on the table again for this upcoming year instead of only eliminating the high school it really is eliminating those teacher leadership positions um 3K through grade 12 um our current model has teacher leaders at all um grade levels it's something that has actually existed um much longer than I've been here and um over time we've adjusted the job description to be really more focused around student data and curriculum leadership U versus more housekeeping which it was what it was initially um and so um those are off the table again and so what it that means is that the principles and the assistant principales um as well as the central office administrators are going to um have a responsibility of leading whatever work needs to be done because there will not be um someone leading that work um I think all of our staff do a lot of things a lot of extra things without receiving a stiens out of their goodness of their heart um but at the same time they shouldn't have to you get no argument for me though I just it feels like um without without a leader of a team and without Direction and and where you have I don't know 12 team team leads across the district that are getting bu or how many it is uh it's but but in their place where you're taking I don't know five and you're inserting one person who already has a lot on their plate as an administrator there's a lot of chatter online that really bugs me because the the initial reaction from people is cut Administration you don't need Administration start at the top it's all corrupt everyone's bad like it's just it's all nonsense and it's noise but the the ramifications of all of this is actually the administrators that are already taxed and overburdened with a lot of this stuff you're taking away you know the the guidance counselors and the the psychological positions and the nurses and and all of these additional things and then you're taking away team leads there's not enough people to do all the work that needs to be done and ultimately on top of the fact that you know class sizes are going up slightly in some cases you're losing Specialists you're losing interventionists you're like all the kids that need the extra and extra attention and in order to not be disruptive and and actually learn something you're you're taking away the resources of all the people that actually deal with those individuals on on a day-to-day basis and you're saying everybody at the top suck it up and and do more and they're already doing as much as they can and I I know there's not much you you can say to that it's more of a statement it just really upsets me that you know you're of course the the senior leadership has to take on the role and has to absorb it but there's only so much that that they can do and when you're eliminating you know 12 leadership positions and asking three people to do the same thing that 12 people doing it's just absurd um I appreciate the comment Cody and I think the only thing I'm going to say to that is um someone in a professional development a few years ago told me behavior is communication and that is absolutely right and what we're seeing right now is an uptick in student behaviors and that's just going to continue and what students are trying to tell us is they're born they're not engaged they don't know how to successfully Master the content and there are all different reasons why kids act out but beh is communication and what our administrators are currently seeing is an uptick in student Behavior which really impacts everything we do and so when our high school principal or our Elementary School principles are dealing with student behaviors and everything that comes along with it they don't have the opportunity to be in classrooms they don't have to they don't aren't able to see what kids are doing what teachers are doing they can't give feedback um they can't see that a teacher might need something might need an additional Supply or might need a little bit of support and also teachers get burnt out too and so um I know there's a lot of call for um Administration and I'll say you know school is very different than when we were in school and it's the the expectations are constantly changing and um we jump through hoops a lot all day long because that's what desie wants us to do too so it's it's a careful balance but thank you uh Zach your hand is up Jen just to just to follow up on my previous comments and this goes to Mike also I like to have you know particularly I'm going to ask the residents for additional funds to be fully transparent in what we do so I know you both are busy as hell I know and I'm not want to put anything more on your plate but I think it would be helpful if we're honest with the with the taxpayers and we say a $4 million override assuming a 7030 split will mean X for the schools a $6 million override will mean X for the schools x for for the town and and and we going to be transpiring like we said you're probably not going to be able to bring everybody back or we're going to be the same position next year we should be at least transparent that say okay if we do 4 million this is what we can do and we bought ourselves a Runway of possibly two years you know something at obviously you don't know what the numbers are year to year you're making a projection but what do those actually do because some people are going to think yeah we'll pass a four or six million and everything's wonderful everybody's coming back and you know which just doesn't sound to be the case um tonight so you know I would think it would be helpful to everybody if we knew what that was thanks uh yes Steve so yeah just just a couple of questions on the budget right going through it um I didn't see any real train impact are we fully functioning with train and should we be seeing some Energy savings in this year's budget I didn't see anything from that perspective on the budget line Y so um I am proud to announce that we are finally up and running with train um we just had the high school solar panels go online during the April break which is fantastic and quite honestly well overdue um and so we're very happy that that is all up and running um Christine and James have had a lot of conversations back and forth about um how to make it all work in terms of what our savings are um and so for this year we anticipated about a $300,000 savings um at the same time we were going to have to come back to the town and ask for about $350,000 in supplementary funds for special education costs um so after a lot of conversation um we are keeping the money that was the savings um and not coming back and asking for any additional funds at Spring Town Meeting um and so hopefully with that we won't have to ask for any money um but we also need to have some conversations between Mike and I and Christina and James about what this is going to look like in in years ahead um one of the problems is when we return money when it looks like we're giving back $300,000 um to the town for these utility savings it actually impacts our net School spending um and it looks like we're not meeing that minimum threshold in some cases so that's something that we have to be very careful on both sides both the town and a school side because if the state sees that we're not meeting that threshold we will be fined as a community um so we want to make sure that whatever is happening is um done in a way that a makes sense and it's not costing the community anymore um but also is done in a way that we're we're meeting our thresholds so Mike I don't know if you want to add to that at all nope um I agree we will have to sit down and Jen and I will sit down with the uh Smart Finance people and uh Christine and James and figure that out so we should see from the actuals at least expecting a $300,000 reduction in those line items from from Energy savings is that my understanding and they we have to figure out you won't come back for another 350 of supplemental F so we are not coming back at at the spring meeting for anything um we are making it work on our end this year um we are not asking for any supplementals and it's thanks to James and Mike um for allowing us to rain that savings that we're able to do that um so I think it's probably not going to look exactly the way that we would Envision if it was looking like um Energy savings um but ultimately it's a wash okay and I didn't see any savings from the maintenance of the fields with the brand new Fields the turf fields I know there's a lot of maintenance cost going into those I didn't really see any kind of savings from those no fields and the second part of that is are we setting aside funds for the use so look say a 10y year useful life for that TR field are we setting aside funds that we can replace that field in 10 or 15 years yes so um currently anytime that we rent out the fields um that money goes into a special line within our facilities revolving it home um and any work or um materials or supplies that need are needed for the fields themselves come Direct out of that line we are not um paying for the field maintenance with our regular budget um if we are paying someone for oversight or custodians to come or the grounds people to come and anything up it comes directly from those lines um and what our hope is is that we be able to build that money up um year over-year um I apologize Stephen I don't have those numbers in front of me at the moment um but I know last year between um March 1st and July 30th we took in about $40,000 um and so far this year I believe we had taken in about 65 to 70 so we have almost about $100,000 available there um whether it'll be enough in 10 years or 15 years to replace it outright I don't know um but it is um definitely being set aside for that purpose specifically okay um and I know you answered earlier on one of my questions from the last meeting was trying to understand the subs where we not expensive over we're expensing reduced I think was $5,000 yeah for those salary lines where the expend right now is like $22,000 Soo one of the things we had asked is to understand when those transfers happen right I don't think we saw that kind of information yet um I know we're getting probally getting the um the financials through the month but we ask when we transfer funds like that so we can understand Atlant of sit so we can understand how that inw working happens I don't remember seeing any kind of transfers to pay for those expense Li so far course so um the way that our school budget the school choice budget is up is it looks exactly like what you have in front of you tonight for the 1% budget it has all of the same lines um so when we are paying for substitutes we are not doing any transfers we're simply using the school choice lines to pay for those expenses um Christine and I can sit down and kind of um maybe and I believe we shared the school choice budget with you as part of the original budget book um to show you where those lines are but we could probably get you an updated um version of what that looks like um with these changes in the 1% as well okay and I can see know you referen about the department chair stiens I think that was one um one of the things I'm just curious on I see where it looks like we're reinstituting about $63,000 of department chair stiens that wasn't in last year's budget where was that expense coming from or where would we fund that if it wasn't being budgeted I just want to make sure I'm on the right page there um I believe it was originally we took it out we took it out as part of our cuts um I apologize just give me one second oh I see it right here okay so um we paid those out of choice this year so that's why it looks like they are not in the budget there um but that was simply just the change that we made um and then also there were other positions that were in school choice which makes it look like or they don't exist but they do um so I will get us an an updated school choice um budget over to all of you with the 1% as soon as possible all right thank you if we go through two principal salaries how many positions are there in those salary line items is that one or two is that both principal and assistant principles is if there are more than if there's more than one administrator then yes it's both salaries combined so um if if you look like JC s has two administrators um the middle school has two administrators lgn only has one so that's that's the difference there um I also wanted to mention to um Steve I shared with the committee the um salary scales as well as our stien sheets I know that the committee was looking for um a line by line of our salaries from last year this year um and as I mentioned to Paula and as I mentioned to Mike um it's not a a data download for us we do not our budget system does not actually talk to the town payroll system in a way that makes a lot of sense um so it's about like six different spreadsheets and it's a a manual process so um we're more than happy to get that to the committee um we just need a little bit more time um and it's just been as I'm sure you can imagine um a little bit crazy oh no and I can understand that it is a it is a request each year that we get that information so it's somewhat disappointing that it wasn't part of this budget book because it was asked last year um so we can roll up and see the accounts of the actual positions right that's one of the things in terms of how many actual teachers there are correct to roll those up by school Etc and to find out what the components of pay are uh every other Town budget has that in their so and and I think that the primary difference is just the the number of employees so 400 employees um would just take Christine and um quitney a little bit longer than we we had available um I know that we've talked about this at least with the finance committee before um but I don't know if our audience is aware um the way that our salaries work you know for example the teachers it's a 2.75% increase for this year um but teachers also have um a step increase for years of service um so for example if you are a first year teacher on step one and then next year you go to step two it goes up to step 15 um and teachers also get um credit for educational experience so a bachelor's degree versus a master's degree versus a doctoral degree so it's really difficult to look at and just see that straight 2.75 um because in most cases that isn't a true representation of um where people are okay just my last one just trying to the 2024 budget presentation that we received earlier to the 2025 starting point yeah it looks like we changed some departments and some budgeted positions and it's just hard to roll those up because I also see some of the salaries that were being used in the where you're looking Steve um I can give you an example so I'm looking at 1420 and 1410 comparing um over line items to the 2025 budget book and it seems to be some combination of positions there okay 1410 that's the business manager salary that area right and then I'm looking at it's really the the benefits salary payroll benefit salary budget request for 2024 was less than what we're starting for the actual um show what's the budget 2024 is okay so so for example um if you were to look at um last year's budget for my position um versus this year's budget you know there's obviously a difference in salary um with staff moving with new staff um so for example if you're looking at the 1% budget I shared with you um the second section it's the superintendent's office so you see my salary there on the first line and then you see admin assistant salaries and we've actually if you look we've gone down about $30,000 that's just because um are new people in in different positions this year yeah no I get that I understand that but I see some of them go in the opposite direction to a little bit higher than what was expensed or what was budgeted for so okay just trying to correlate those I appreciate that all right that's so thank you thank you and Madam chair Sandy hi Jen I just had a question quick question on the salary was when you when you um project those salaries out for next year obviously you can project out you know the step going going down one but how do you project out the lanes like how do you know um do you just sort of do an average of of what those are going to be or how how does that factor into your calculations great question s thanks um so as part of our contractual practice um teachers are required to let my office know by December 15th every year if anticipate moving um over a column so if they're getting if they're taking course work and they're moving from Ms 15 to Master's 30 um and what we do is we project out those increases based on the reporting that we get from staff um and then they're required to turn everything into us um over the summer and in some cases not everyone gets their course work done by the deadline um and we have a little bit of a savings there um but that's how we do that perfect thank you anyone else have questions about the school's 1% budget any other questions from the audience Madam chair actually one more question for John um the the Esser funds like the position positions there um did you I don't if you already said this but how many of the positions that were cut were were ones that were using those funds previously um so the math interventionist positions um were from ESR funds as well as that reading interventionist uh the nurse lead was also part of that list um and let me just look super super quick I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything um yeah I think those are fairly accurate um yeah that that's those are the ones that were there Sandy so actually um the math interventionist we actually have three of those positions and we're we're retaining one um because we've had a math interventionist for um a really long time and so we're keeping one out of the three as part of our process um with those and we move that into the budget but um those are the positions that were used with asra funds also the Middle School Dean I apologize I missed that one how many reading interventionists we're we're losing one at the yell school um we have reading Specialists that currently service um students specifically in K to 5 um and those are primarily funded through Title One subed gr funds okay anyone else Madam chair yeah Zach I'm gonna ask Jen a question that she does not have to answer today but I'll ask it again in future in future it was a question always put to me when I was in the corporate world working for other people so it's not what's my favorite bottle of wine no no no no what's your favorite ice cream now I'm not going to ask that is if you had if you had an unlimited cap budget what could you do with that budget to reduce your costs whether that be could be something like I could build a brand new school and combine the two elementary schools I could do something else I don't know whatever that is you can think about that next time you come to a meeting I I'll uh I'll uh that's the Wild Card question of the day all right I like it I'll I'll think about it but I'd say off the top of my head we need a new roof for the milk well that is to reduce no no to reduce cost to reduce my cost well in in bucket but other than that you that's a great one and thank you for answering all our questions of course happy too thank you so much Dr O'Neal sorry Jen thanks everybody have a good night okay Madam chair yes Mike I know we have uh Representatives on from the water and sore Department um Steve Bernstein one of the Commissioners and Frank and John and Steve Peterson uh their engineer so if we could go to article 10 uh we talked about it um at the last meeting um where some of the members weren't there and so if I could rather than I have the full slide presentation but I figured uh everyone here has heard the history before um so um I just wanted to start with the cost of the project um as you can see the total cost of the Elm Street improvements are 7.3 to 8.4 million uh we did receive a massw Works Grant of 3.5 million uh the water rates so all the um work to improve the water main on uh down street will be paid for through water retained earnings and water fees um the remaining share is 1.8 to 2.5 million and um The Proposal um is that as we said the three you have the 3.5 million Mass Works Grant we're very fortunate to have that for this project um so there would be betterments assessed to the properties on Reservoir um and militarists like there was on West Elm I mean West Main Street I'm sorry and uh so the betterments would be 8,600 to 12,000 depending on the cost of the project uh the low end to the high end uh that would be assessed to any home or when it comes to Apartments it would be based on the number of Apartments so for the um 64 um edus as they call them on uh Elm Street and militaris the residents these 8,600 to 12,000 in betterments would amount to uh 500,000 to 700,000 or about 30% of the remaining share of the project 47 Elm Street would pay edus in the area of 1.3 to 1.8 million or approx ately 70% of the remaining share of the project um as you know this development is it's part of the master plan to uh develop this site uh on uh elen Street um and we were fortunate to get the $3.5 million Grant to reduce the cost of the betterments because as you see without the grant the betterments would have been 22.4 to 28 .7 um I know some of the questions that were asked um at the last meeting um were concerning um people having to tie in that have uh new septic systems I did check with the health agent and I asked them to go back and look 10 years back and um in the last 10 years there had been five septic systems put in um four on Elm Street and one on milit Terrace so the remainder of the septic systems are 10 years old or older um and also um he did this the health agent did inform me that there is a loan program so if uh anyone on Elm Street is going to tie into the sore they can receive a loan low interest loan from the Board of Health uh that will help uh pay for the cost to tie in um you would anyone tying in would have to hire a contractor and pay the cost to uh for that work there is not another assessment by the water and sore Department to tie in the betterment covers that and the betterment's over 20 years or you can pay it off upfront or whenever you want or when the property is sold um it could be paid off it would be paid off um I also asked Town Council um I know that it was asked could the water and Shore Department wave the requirement to tie in and as one of the Commissioners said that's not a water and sore issue that is a town bylaw that you have to tie in after seven years and as the um talking with Town Council it's really an Enforcement issue for the town um as I I said the other night do I think someone from the board of health is going to knock on someone's door it's seven years in one day and tell them to tie in I don't um it's it's rarely done I would think the only time that that's going to happen is if the Board of Health is uh put on notice that someone's system has failed they're going to tell them that they have to tie in um and right now there are two systems on Elm Street that have failed and they have not had to U repair their systems or put in new systems because this project is um in the design stages so they they have a waiver uh to wait on because of this project and I know as I said there's Representatives here from water and S and planning Aldi jeppi um if anyone has questions questions we have some questions bill you have your hand up yes so um 47 Alm street that is Wy and Bart correct yes so we're saying that in this budget a million3 to a million eight would be build to them correct but if they walk you know we're going to start we where're how can I put this we're going to be the first step in the process so we as a town as a street as a community we're going to commit and you know shovel in the ground and blah blah blah and so we're going to be you know putting in a new water M and we're going to be putting in you know the sewer pipes and so we're going to get 3.5 million for from a grant to a fund part of it we're gonna you know two to 2.4 million water rates and whatnot and then we're going to charge the other um residents or properties whatever feet but that still leaves a gaping hole of a million3 to a million 8 correct correct that's the assessment on uh 47 Elm Street so if they walk that and and again you know shovels in the ground and everything the bills are coming in if they decide this was a nice idea but n we're not going to do it and they walk this now becomes a town buil or does it become back to the residence on the street I guess is my first question okay it it would be a town liability not the residents on that street and the town if the town starts paying the note um be before the developer uh comes on board we would put a lean on the property for any portion of that that we pay so you know Silling me you know I don't negotiate for a living but is there a way to say to whomever hey you're looking for us as a town as a community to Pony up 7 million 75 million whatever give us a good faith deposit of a million bucks nonrefundable in a perfect world that would be nice yep in a perfect world I shouldn't need to pay for this if they walk so you know if they really want this project we shouldn't be fooled in thinking that you know they want put up something right I I think we don't look at it as they are the only developer out there in the world I think we look at it as right now that they're the potential developer but if they walk there's still other developers out there there's a shortage of housing in Massachusetts someone is going to step up and and yeah someone is going to step up I'm sure eventually um if they walk and you you know if you have the infrastructure there it it obviously makes it uh a more desirable location and if it's that desirable they'd purchase the property to then sell it to the next guy and make a profit so I'm I'm I'm still questioning the the sanity of this request but thank you Cody you're next thanks um so I got a couple of questions that are all kind of related to that 1.3 to 1.8 so first first of all the debt service on this would be carried by the town not by water and sewer Enterprises corre yes uh how much what's the time of the ran a construction um I don't know the engineer can speak on that but it can be anywhere from 20 to 30 years okay so what's and the The Debt Service that the town would be paying on this until the developer comes in and assumes whatever lean is placed on it because we're we're covering their their payments on their uh the the assessment to their property um what is the annual Debt Service that we would have to be picking up um that is taking funds away from other annual operating budgets um Steve I don't know if you've worked on that yet and it do have to be an exact number just a ballp part like 1.3 million is I know what it is but you know so we read um so I can plug in some numbers here so if it's if you pay if the town paid the whole two two and a half million it would be the first year would be 250,000 and declin from there so if I change that number so if you're saying the if it were the 1.5 million let say and the first year would be 150,000 and it would uh first year is going to be 10% of the overall debt and it declines over time as ites okay um I mean that's it's not great um but if we if we did that and then the developer comes in and then the back pay for the amount they pay off the the rest of the loan right like they would come in and pay the assessment uh the lean that's been placed against and however much we've covered from that property then gets turned back is free cash like how does that work so let's say let's say it takes two years let's say it's a million and a half easy numbers takes two years we've covered $300,000 they come in they tear down the the deal they they ere a building there combo commercial and and residential and uh they pay off the the lean that's that's placed against that what is the $300 that we paid on that Debt Service does that come back to the time is fre cost what what happens to that so if they if they paid um if we had already paid um towards The Debt Service um I would assume that anything that we receive and I'll I'll wait to the town accountant to weigh in anything that we receive would go towards paying off the debt the debt the debt is more than just the 1.3 to 1.8 that's just the assessment to the re Bon property total debt is 2.2 million 3.8 to 4.9 is the total debt but the the debt is all if uh Steve correct me if I'm wrong the debt is all covered with these assessments so um any if we're if we pay pay it off um and or if we're paying it off um any payment they make would then go into the free cash eventually you'll go into the general fund as free cash any reimbursement we get from them okay but in the meantime if we have to cover their Debt Service that would be an annual like that would have to go into the operating budget that we would have to pay the long-term Debt Service for that and it will have to increase by 150,000 or 30,000 180,000 or whatever the the 10% per us correct yeah M sh yes James so if we are going to be setting up a betterman um account the funds that go into the betterman uh when people pay them uh it's not combined with the general fund we we set up a separate fund for that there could be a way that we could place the funds from the developer into that betterman account to be used to pay future uh debt payments uh that would be one way to go around the other way would be if it goes into free cash we just have to keep in mind that we need to amortize that amount over the life of the loan so that we can every year take out a portion of it it doesn't affect the the future budgets sry I'll withdraw the free cash thing I thought that they would when they came in they were paying off the balance um to the to the full amount but if we're placing a lean on their their property um does that acur interest is the lean against the property acrew interest so if we pay 300,000 they're going to owe us 330,000 yes it would accumulate interest y uh ja you have a question oh sorry you're not done sorry um the last thing was just on the the Board of Health um obviously we are um short staffed with the budget we have if you're basically saying rist and the Board of Health is under staff and they're not necessarily going to be able to come out and tell you you have to tie in and enforce it um is there any penalty or assessments on top of um like if the Board of Health did come out after seven years and let's say it wasn't a Title Five failure it was just someone knocked on the door and said why aren you tied in it's been seven years um is there any uh Financial uh consideration or uh any type of penalties placed against a property that has not tied in within the seven-year time frame um I don't know what check I don't I don't think there is but I know anyone on the watering sore may have experienced with that in the past but and be able to answer that but I don't I don't believe there is there's to me there's just a big difference between turning a blind eye and turning a blind eye while you're you're putting a lean against their house because they're not compling is Zach thank you madam chair uh I'm not going to go over the same stuff we talked about last week everybody knows where I stand on this uh project already but I do have a couple questions number one uh how how are we figuring and every time we've dug in this area we've had a major issue with ledge so how has that been assessed and by who my first question yeah so there have been um additional um soil testing um borings uh done in the area above and beyond what was done before um more money was spent up front to better Define um the profile of any uh of what's below ground specifically The Rock so okay so more money up front we spent more money up front to better Define the profile okay my second question is about the site maybe Mike knows this as it stands today what is the the the assessment on contamination is the ground water contaminated I know they've done a parure cleanup it obviously looks like a disaster uh but what is the level of of you know I'm just trying to a risk assessment I mean could this be so that nobody would touch it no matter what you do and then you know we have this was site there on top of another couple million dollars so I know there's been a phase one and a phase two um assessment done um and the only area obviously that they have not been able to do a great deal uh testing on it's under the building itself but around the building they've done groundwater Wells um and it has not obviously scared off the developer from what they have heard so um there they if if it was bad they would have walked away but they have not so um obviously it's uh nothing that they haven't dealt with before uh on a site like that so what is the point of no return for the develop when he's locked in and he owns it where is that point if he takes it over he knocks down the building finds all kinds of nightmares there because they no we're done we're walking away what point does he own it does he become liable for the site um are we waving all his liability yeah yeah we're not I think that's one of the issues where right now the developer has been going to D to get a covenant not to sue so if they do start work on the site and they back out they don't want to be held as the responsible party so they they're fully protected even from this $2 million yeah okay thank you you have another question no thanks um two two question questions kind of related um to Zach's first point um when they file all of their building permits and and all of that stuff um presumably there would be some sort of shy Bond placed as a back stop to guarantee that at the very least they can't leave a pile of rubble there right so they their first step is to knock the building down before they assess and you know put a new uh foundation and all that stuff let's say they knock their building down they find something that that kills the deal for them there's going to be a back stop there for maturity right that that requires them to the very least clean the site and leave it in a clean condition and not worse than what it C is um that I would be taken care of when they go to the planning board they' require a bond okay and then um I don't know how far down the road and how close to the best they're um they're playing this but do you have a sense of their return on investment for this that if you know I know that the uh assessments and and connection fees in uh in Norton are a lot higher than surrounding areas that 1.3 to 1.8 if they're putting a lean on top of it on top of you know Brownfield development's not cheap to begin with um is the uh you know similar lines I thought here like they their walk away um number is there suff sufficient return on on investment here um that that this 1.3 to 1.8 is not going to uh to chase them off or anybody else y um I'll let Paul talk on that if he can um I will say that they were on they were on a meeting with us and all these numbers were presented to them so they they are aware of this right and and we don't know they didn't share you know their numbers with us though we know that they need to spend they they're looking at determining whether they need to spend additional funds to do another round of assessment work to determine the cost for them to remediate it we should also remember they're not buying this property they're going through the bankruptcy courts so their costs are really legal fees but there's not a a sales transaction so um you know that that works in our favor and if we're able to supplement that with the you know the sewer proposal here that continues to move the needle you know I think to their toward their favor to be a you know to help them move forward I think the big question is is what's the total cost of the remediation that that's remaining the first two phases that were done you know they it showed some level of you know some level of contamination but as the our license sight professional I said it wasn't that bad you know it's what they were expecting to see um we don't know what's directly under the buildings but you know we don't have any information that would tell us at this point that it's that it should be anything different than what we have found but they still need to test it so I think that's going to be the big crossover point for them is determining what that the cost of the remediation of the soil is thank you Paul and welcome back you have been missed yeah Joe um I just want to double check one thing Cody I've heard you mention a couple times that the betterment fees here are significantly higher than than other communities I'm not sure that's true do we have any actual comparisons that we can rely on for that I know I know these fees are less than what was charged uh on West Main Street um and I just know from projects um down the cape where uh s came into uh Falmouth and people were paying the $40,000 range for betterments because uh where the project was there was a lot of ledge and it was an expensive site um so betterments uh in other areas have been these are 8 8,600 to 12,000 is not a high amount BAS done I know uh what I've seen down there thank you just in response Joe I my own personal I reached out and done research and and found out what the now I was just looking at residential but uh compared that the closest the next closest time to all fees was possible um based on the assessments uh Mansfield was drastically less eastn was drastically less um and having spoken to um a couple of uh business people in town that do sewer connections and and um you know some of them one of them for Bernie and bills um on West Main over here uh they working in other towns and they're like the connection fees here are so Madam chair um yeah I I I think we're confusing the connection fees I'm not talking about the connection fees I'm talking about betterments um and there are no connection fees on this project but I do agree with you the connection fees are significant um I apologize if this was mentioned or discussed at Wednesday's meeting last week that I missed um there was going to be a public hearing I think it was supposed to be last Wednesday correct on this project for residents in that area yep there was one um last week and there's another one this week Steve next next Wednesday next Wednesday so yes there was one this past Wednesday so we had we scheduled two to give people two different opportunities to come out so what has been what is the response been from the residents in the area I mean the biggest they have concerns about the costs that's that's the biggest um issue that they have is the uh you know having to pay the betterment and then having to connect and pay someone to connect them and you said it's about 70 uh Residential Properties that would be affected is that correct it's about 50 and it equates to like 64 what we call edus equivalent dwelling units because some of them are multif family homes but it's about 50 properties anyone else have questions concerns about this article okay hearing nothing do we want to vote on this this evening based on all the information we have in front of us Madam chair Madam chair yes Joe sorry I said yes Joe sorry oh sorry you're you're very quiet this evening um I make a motion that we recommend article 10 on the annual town meeting warrant second article 10 we'll take the vote Kevin Kevin they not hearing Kevin Steve no Tracy no yes no yes Bill no Paul yes Cody yes Zach no Bonnie oh Bonnie has left sorry I am a no okay got add hold on give me two seconds let me just make sure okay four no five no four yes not recommended by finance committee do you want to continue the Articles or do you want to hold them to Wednesday uh I say we continue we do have a sorry I guess it's just me everyone else thinks we should continue we have a speed limit article um uh Street acceptance articles everyone good with moving forward Madam chair I just have a question is you know I did attend the select board meeting last week and they want us to get through two more budgets before the town meeting I just what does that timeline look like and to be able to get through you know that two additional budgets when this one's taken as long as it's taken that is a great question from what I see is that we really only have Wednesday's meeting then on Monday the warrant has to be posted with our recommendations am I right right with that mic yes so we wouldn't even be able to do a meeting on Monday because it would have to be posted by end of business day on Monday so we really just have Wednesday how many more how many more things do we have to finish how many more articles do we have to get through vote the school budget we didn't vote the school budget and can we finish this tonight and just spend Wednesday on the other two budgets that's I was thinking in my head we still have to vote on the 1% school budget um we also have one two three more articles for the annual town meeting right so the Article 13 is the establishment of um a townwide speed limit um and I know we've talked about this before it was previously presented at town meeting and the Traffic Safety Committee asked that it be brought back again um ironically uh someone on the Traffic Safety Committee was who's now in support was someone who spoke against it at the uh previous town meeting I think was one of the reasons that it didn't move forward um and what this would allow um the town to do is in congested areas lower the speed limit to 25 miles an hour and um as I said before be similar I know like Randolph right next to me here when you drive in a Randolph there's signs that say speed limit um 25 miles an hour townwide unless otherwise posted bill you have a question um yeah so reading through the information today uh only one question kind of popped in my head on like 123 and 140 where it's a state highway here and then there's a sign State Highway ends and then State Highway begins a little further down is that section where it's no longer going to be a state highway is that eligible for this so East East Main Street is not State Highway West Main Street is State Highway and 140 is state highway so um if we want a speed limit reduced on any 140 or West Main Street we'd have to petition the state we we'd be able on East M yes to have it at 25 but then when once you cross over it can go up to whatever it is right okay thank you yeah uh we would have to petition the state if we wanted it lower it on there sorry I think Cody's hand was up first mam sure um thank you uh two things one we have no traffic enforcement officer this is completely pointless make any difference people are going to drive fast we have no way to stop them with driving fast because we don't have the officer on sta to to pull them over and issue tickets so pointless and secondly how much are we going to spend on signs to put up it's a stupid article it's lost before I will not support it I'm done with this conversation I was going to say the same thing about the signs uh Zach uh wait Paul were you trying to speak or was that Zach no I was just gonna make a comment that I'd have to ride my break around town to keep it going that slow I know um z i spoke to this article when it came up before at town meeting and I challenged everybody at town meeting to go home that night if you want to go watch the tape and drive with their spouse 25 miles an hour and let me know if they didn't get a divorce by the time they got home so this is ridiculous it's a ridiculous article that cannot be enforced even if you had four traffic officers uh I'm not sure why it's back again but uh it's a waste of the the town meeting's time to even move it in my view but what can we make on speeding tickets the state gets the money unfortunately the town does not we don't get any of that nope okay Madam chair yes though um what is the police chief think of this uh Chief Clark are you still on with us I think you sent a letter I am I wouldn't have missed this meeting for now that I know I can call Mike units Dr units we got through this today like we're we're in good shape um yeah so I mean this we brought this up a couple years ago it was specifically because of the issues going on in front of Home Foods um you know to my frustration the people that were complaining about the speeding there actually voted against the article um it's the issue hasn't gone away I will say um you know what Cody brings up is not necessarily true our offices do do traffic andfor we don't have a dedicated person that would be a you know that would be something that would be great if we did have but you know every officer on patrol it is part of their duties to to do traffic enforcement the um it's not going away weat and college went before the Traffic Safety Committee they want to reduce the speed limit in front of Wheaten College um that's primarily I think why this is before us there's another Resident on Northwest street that wants to that wants to reduce the speed limit there um it's it's just a tool it's um it's just a tool that's all that's all it is and really when I looked online to see who else has it there's really no other communities right around us I think the closest Community is West Bridgewater I know uh the town manager mentioned Randolph as well there's other communities that are more um near a urban setting like Belmont and in those type of cities but it's U it's just a tool Traffic Safety is one of the biggest comp complaints we get I always say that we we have a triangle of you know what we what we do it's calls for service community policing and traffic safety so that's kind of where we are mad chair yes chief chief Clark Mike was saying that the default is at all streets 25 unless posted higher is that your understanding of this article as well or would you uh be specifically just posting two or three spots like the frun of we 25 and who has the right to decide that is that your call or is it the bard of slackman or who makes the call it would be the select board and it's strictly thickly settled it's not like you know we can't go to a posted 45 M hour or 40 m hour Zone and change it to 25 it would be it' be those that are areas that would be considered 30 we could change to 25 thank you anyone else have any further discuss discussion on Article 13 no I'm sure yeah Cody I don't know uh Chief Simmons is still on or not um I spoke with him a couple years ago and I think he he gave me a number I don't know uh exactly how much but the number 419 or 420 is in my mind of the um the amount of roads that have to be serviced in Norton by police and fire um it was an absurd number like it's it's a ridiculous number for um you know the size or the population of the town just because of the size of the footprint um if that's the case like again unenforcable like it doesn't the the posted speeds I see the the truck parked out with the trailer where it's gunning everybody and the speed BM it's 30 and everybody's going 45 anyways like it doesn't doesn't do any good you dropped it from 30 to 25 they're still going to go 45 I I I mean unless you're enforcing it unless you have somebody there on a regular basis which we can't we can't sta the the positions fully now and we're already talking about cutting like it just doesn't make any sense that we're again you're talking about this and again you know it it's going to cost money whether it's a thickly settled sign or 25 or whatever other posting notice signs are have to go up and be maintained like it it's an unnecessary expense and it's not something you could you could enforce it right now because most of the roads were already 30 or 35 and people are driving too fast on them you could enforce it now you don't have to make it 25 people are not going to obey it just because you you posted at the center of town that everybody is supposed to be 25 no chair yes Steve I make a motion to approve Article 13 second Motion in a second I will take the vote Kevin is still not here Steve no Tracy no uh Sandy yes Joe yes bill I won't promise to do 25 but I'm sad we're going to vote Yes well yes did Cody no Z and I wish I could do 25 pass we in college but I'm usually stuck in traffic so it's a no for me I am a no 5 no four yes we do not recommend Article 13 article 14 is uh a street acceptance uh put forward uh the planning board did review this and recommend it um I'll sh I'll share the plan just to I know it's probably tough to see but this is uh Leonard Street north um down at the bottom left is Leonard Street and then uh there's two sheets to this plan uh the road heads up and ends in a culdesac um Yale Appliance is on the road and one other building um that is not occupied yet um this is the end of the road up here with the CU the saac and if Paul is still on he can let you know about the planning board's recommendation seeing Paul Mike are you he's not there anymore okay well um let me uh the plan board uh unanimously Endor Leonard Street North as an accept way um I guess my first question would be is there a cost to this for us for the town um there's no upfront costs obviously um with any accepted roadway um it would be um our responsibility for plowing and maintaining the roadway um it would go on to our list for a chapter 90 reimbursement um as a public way but um as a public way it is our responsibility once the town accepts it what is going on this street what are what are they building on it um it's it's um industrial um so the Yale Appliance headquarters is um on there right now and there's another building that uh is just about complete that is not occupied yet is there a plan for occupancy at that building or they're hoping to have yeah they're hoping to get another business in there it's another commercial building so not sure I think Bill had his hand up maybe so stupid question I think I know the answer but um if we were to say no that would just mean that as potholes develop or there's snow or whatever some version of those tenants would have to take care of that yes and in the long run it would probably Drive tenants out yeah if it was if it wasn't maintained yep thank you has the highway department weighed in about this or they like it's going to be a Major Impact to them Highway did uh review everything and water and sore did too and they they were both satisfied with accepting it so do you add something uh two things this this is like the uh essentially the drive that comes North right after um Home Depot to where jaale is it's gonna like it's going to be a new SPO off of Leonard correct um and the funding or the buildout of it is that being funded by the uh by Li tenants that are building that out now every everything um is paid for by the contractor uh we're not doing we don't develop the road we don't accept it um we we didn't accept it until everything was done up to the standards of the highway department and water and sore and um so it all has been reviewed by uh water and SAR and Highway and they gave the planning board the okay to uh accept the road okay so it's it's built uh I noticed that Yale is is open now they they did an event um I don't know if they were still doing it but on a client sale um last weekend um so they built the road right now it's a private way and they're asking us as a town to assume control of it and then have to maintain and not keep it correct uh bill you had another question and kind of a followup to my first one if we were to say no then this this could have a negative impact on how police and fire could respond if it's not plowed or if the road isn't maintained if there were ever emergencies in that section correct it it could be an issue if it wasn't maintained properly yes thank you madam chair yeah Zach Mike is there a street Lighting on this street and are we assuming that as well we we would assume the street lighting yes Mike with that said I remember a story a couple years ago on street lights of one of these similar streets that we accepted that didn't fit the current criteria we had to pay additional expenses to get that up to speed is there a situation like that with this road has that been confirmed um it it has um we we made sure this time the planning board uh was diligent about that making sure that it was up to our current standards any other questions sure article 14 yes Joe uh not a question just more of a comment you know the town voted to to convert this this to Industrial zoning the developer has built it out there's there's I understand the people asking questions but there's really no way in my mind that we can say no to this this article like if we do not accept this street as an official street it's going to fall into disrepair the tenants are going to leave and we're going to have a bunch buch of streets with empty warehouses on them it doesn't make any sense to me to say no I agree with you Jo all right I think it's a good step to doe diligence before we V on so fa but at the end of the day I can't see a situation where we could realistically say no uh with with that Madam chair I'll make a motion that we accept article or recommend article 14 of the annual town meeting more Steve yes Tracy sorry Tracy I didn't hear you yes okay Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes I two of me yes we agree on something tonight all right nine yes for article 14 all right next is uh article 18 and as you know this was a petitioned article um in this article as opposed to the other one the reason you don't have a recommendation for the planning board on this is that this is um an article requesting that our bylaws uh be changed and they want to um she wants to insert in the petitioner into the town's General bylaw a homeowners privacy bylaw and uh this would control um cameras and where cameras could be and face um obviously um just one of my concerns is um everyone a lot not everyone but a good deal of people have cameras on their houses now they have ring cameras I understand um some of the issues with this um but um where it says uh the cameras can't be pointing at another property I mean that's pretty tough to do with a a ring camera on the front of your house yeah my my question when I was thinking about this one the other day um what would it cost us like for additional resources to enforce this right it it would be very very hard to enforce um Town Council hasn't really weighed in I don't know whether that's because it's a petition article um but uh bill yeah how how difficult would it be to have this petitioner amended to exclude a ring camera because what they appear to be going through is way different than someone's ring camera that just happens to come across into your property this is someone deliberately pointing cameras above a fence which if there's a fence involved a ring camera stops at the fence so I you know I actually feel sorry for this for this petitioner because this is above and beyond um harassment essentially so you know this this article if you insert excluding ring cameras I'm not sure what what a negative would be to it yeah I I'll suggest that to her to look at possible amendments and I'll talk to uh the petitioner would have to make that Amendment we can't um and I'll talk to Town Council on any amendment that we receive uh that yes this petitioner spoke at the select board meeting Thursday night and that's exactly what Bill said is exactly what's going on people putting fence cameras over the fence fences yeah I think you know it's legitimate we all have ring cameras but it should be maybe the wording should be cameras that aren't directly attached to your house you know or something to that if you're putting them on a pole at the end of your fence peeking to your neighbor's Windows that's harassment so I can see where this petition is you know to Bill's point and that's basically what she was saying uh at the select board meeting on Thursday night so I'm not sure uh if there's time even allowed for her to amend this petition prior to uh town meeting um but you know she's got a legitimate right yeah Mike could she amend this and then when you know if it comes to it we have to meet briefly prior to town meeting to give our recommendation or Would we not recommend this now potentially and then she move it on the floor of town meeting with an amendment yeah we we did tell her um at the select board meeting to be prepared for that um that if it's not recommended that she would have to move the article but we could potentially vote on this after if she if she chooses to make an amendment we could yeah or we could vote on it tonight and then possibly reconsider it with the amendment okay oh Cody I think you were next yeah um I don't know if Chief Park is still on or not but um she makes reference here to the Massachusetts nuisance laws um it's not directly linked back to whatever laws she's referencing but presumably there are laws on the books at the state level and if she has a legitimate right here why does the town that pretty much I mean we adopt Mass General law under the charter so we follow masteral law and if if there are nuisance laws on the books then an individual already has recourse under the existing laws I don't I don't necessarily see the need to add anything to our bylaws if it's already adopted under masteral law um and I I don't know if she had an attorney draft this up or or what but the the the language uh I I just see it as being full of loop hles and like unint unintended consequences ring ring cameras come to mind but ring makes more than doorbell cameras they make cameras security cameras that can be mounted at the top looking down and and surveying the rest of your property somebody's got you know they sit on half an acre and they're they're putting a a camera pointed out at their their RV and it's it's shooing over the fence when the LV is not there like all of these things the unintended consequences here I would just defer back to whatever the Mass General law is and if those nuisance laws already exist then she should have recourse under those laws without us having to to change our bylaws and introduce variables and unknowns that it's going to just rack up legal bills and Zoning zoning board issues and planning board issues I just don't I don't see the need that that this is addressing something that there should already be recourse for her to follow her along yeah I don't think Chief Clark is on anymore Cody I don't think so okay um Joe your hand is up yeah so I I hear what Cody's saying and if the Mass general laws do cover it then yeah I can see what you're saying but in regard to what we were talking about earlier I feel like the the petitioner has attempted to you put language in here that would exclude ring doorbell cameras I mean no one's installing a ring doorbell camera above a privacy events um and you know the the wording does say with intent to harass annoy or threaten you know you don't put a ring doorbell camera up to harass your neighbor that's for your own personal security so I I I think the wording of this could be improved but I I feel like some of the those comments are uh handled by the wording of the of the article uh bill yeah kind kind of to that point um I I guess I just add if if the current Mass General law was adequate I don't think this would be coming up this sounds like it's been a long term neighborly issue that you know seems to somehow be skirting under any Mass law that may possibly cover it I um I'm going to guess it it doesn't cover it to the extent that the quote unquote harassment isn't ending hence hence why I think it's here but yeah I think the wording you know as we previously said I think it needs to be amended somewhat Madam chair uh yes Zach I think and Mike correct me you were there I think that's what she indicated on Thursday night was there was really no coverage for her under Mass existing law isn't that what she stated she did so I mean she's already explored that option I and I don't know personally what to do with this I see where she's coming from can she amend this before the town meeting can we push it off till I don't know Monday I don't know but here's a legitimate Point Madam chair yes Andy so my understanding with the petition article is that can't be amended um prior it it has to just be amended on the town meeting floor is that correct Mike yes and it has to be by the petition right yeah I think I think the part that's tricky and it's you know I appreciate anyone who who um puts forward a petition article but where where it's not reviewed by Town Council I feel like that's where it gets a little tricky for me um has has anybody talked about you know having her go through the um select board and have the select board put this on um a future town meeting I I know that doesn't help her now but and that way does get reviewed by Town Council and and in any language cleaned up that maybe um would be ambiguous that's a good suggestion because right now I look at it and I can just imagine uh the legal bills when you're trying to argue intent you know I mean it's just going to go on forever mad CH yeah Cody um the intent thing is huge here like proving that you're you're trying to harass or annoy somebody like it and then on the other side of it if the town steps in like say we pass this and this town steps in and somebody says oh somebody put up a a camera and they're trying to annoy and harass me and so I'm protected under this who's going to enforce it you send the the cops out there and the police now say oh you have to take that down or they physically take down now you get a lawsuit from the homeowner saying you came under my property and removed it without like that's what I'm talking about with unintended consequences here like we no one of uh legal uh uh qualifications has signed off on this and said yes this is good this will cause you no issues and I'm not comfortable saying let's just really nearly change our bylaw we'll throw it in there we'll figure it out it's going to cost us way more and cause all sorts of issues that you know I understand that there's an issue here it sucks I feel for her but we can't just use like the first draft of something change everything and then sort it out down the road we've got to make sure it's buttoned up before we make a recommendation uh to change our bylaw I I think sy's idea was a great idea um I agree I agree yeah I agree bill you had something um is there any difference no action versus not supported I kind of would prefer no action which means we want further study versus saying no because then that kind of gives the the idea that we're tot against it against the petitioner yeah yeah I mean if we say no action we're not moving the article on the floor a town meeting and then she would then either not move it because maybe she'll decide to take s's suggestion or she will amend it and move it herself I agree with the no action mam sureair yes Joe I I agree with no action if we can do typically we use no action when something isn't needed um can we can we recommend no action for this do we have a precedent for that I feel like we've done that before uh Cody I I just to me I see no action as this is not needed and we're not taking a stance on it we're not going to move it somebody else wants to move it we can have a discussion about it but in this case I think it sounds like pretty much everybody's on the same page here that we would not recommend this because there is a better route and the better route is recommending that you go to select board to figure out what the the proper way to word this is get time Cil the L in on it um get the final draft where it's presentable and it can come back at call time meeting uh and we can you know we can address the the conversation there but I feel like no action kind of leaves it open for her to move it and then we end up in you know talking about making amendments up from the floor and trying to change it and uh on the Fly and I I I'd rather have you know thoughtful consideration and time put into this as opposed to trying to figure out from the so correct me if I'm wrong because I've only been chair once at a town meeting but I think that in either instance no action or not recommending the moderator will say article 18 I just won't say anything whether it be no action or not recommended right doesn't matter really just what is written on the warrant but either way I'm just not saying anything that's your opportunity to have a sip of coffee yeah mam chair yes CH I make a motion that we recommend no action for article 18 of the annual town one Z okay Motion in a second no action article 18 Steve yes Tracy yes Sandy yes Bill yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes I two me yes that is nine yes or no voting no action for article 18 n Sarah exactly okay and that's two things we agree on tonight and now we just have the 1% school budget everyone we want to bring that up Mike yeah Madam chair yes sure uh I make a motion that we ex uh accept budget 3300 school department line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 28 m745 54 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of 6,384 53 for a total of $35 m535 second motion a second um I didn't give people up an opportunity for discussion yeah does anyone want discuss it now does anyone want to discuss her have any questions comments okay all right I will go to the boat Steve yeah Tracy yes Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes I yes nine yes for the school department budget all right do we vote police fire we did we did vote on those Steve I think that um we were just thinking about possibly we'd reconsider it depending on what the chief said about the ambulance funds Adam chair yes Cody I think we were also on the uh the town budget we were waiting to see um the layoffs and whether or not we needed to reconsider um the the budget line items we we had a discussion about what we were carrying for for um unemployment um but we determined that it's going to like benefits versus unemployment is going to kind of BL and sort out so right some I got left time is anyone wanting to reconsider any of the 1% line items okay Madam Chief yeah Zach I just say for the record that you know I just think closing police and fire stations same thing I've said before I just think that's no words I hear you Zach I I feel the same I do all of this is really difficult to swallow right now so we'll leave it in the hands of the town meeting I suppose and other budgets on Wednesday yes Cody um anecdotally I've heard a um an account from a uh lifelong member in town saying they closed the police station before they closed shortly before we survived it that's you know whether we agree with but or not um that's the that's the state we find ourselves in we can't afford to keep it open we can't afford to keep it open we got to make some tough decisions and unfortunately those are the decisions that have to be made when we we funded it with a grant to keep Charly open rent money runs off unless we continue to fund it that's what happens all right that is it for this evening it is 10:23 way past my bedtime iect Wednesday may be a long one as well I see that there will be two absences um mentioned in the comments for Wednesday anyone else not able to make it Wednesday am I one of those you're also Yeah you mentioned that that's right no now there's three first minutes okay all right M sure that yeah Cody if we're going through the 4 million and 6 and a half million budgets I would just ask um Mike if if it's possible to do a side by side so that we can easily reference which ones have no changes or minimal changes um just so that we can easily go through and clear those off um part by the most like most of them aren't going to need to do it um I hate to admit this but I'm kind of a spreadsheet mode and I've already done my because I wanted to know what it looked like but when we go through like it'll be a lot easier to say Department 210 no change Department 500 no change like whatever those are for the most part they're going to be no changes and it's just going to be the big departments where we're looking at at major changes so you can do that hopefully Steve Rings along a lot all right all right okay so hopefully we have Quorum on Wednesday I think we'll have seven unless I hear otherwise from any other members um if anyone has anything else I will ENT yes are we meeting on the following Monday so I don't think so unless because it would be after we've posted the warrant with our recommendations so if we haven't gotten through everything I guess we would have to and then you know just make my job harder at town meeting I suppose um not having a recommendation in there but all right I'll pay attention to that then I might be able to on vacation join in that meeting if there is a need okay right thanks okay motion to adjourn and Joe some yes Steve yes okay Tracy yes Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes yes we are adjourned everyone I will see most of you Wednesday thank you so much thanks night