e e e e hi AJ hey Becky how's going can you hear me okay hi Melissa is that you can you hear me Becky the answer is s yes AJ we can hear it hi Becky I can't hear you muted oh no I should be okay Becky I I think uh I think there's must be something wrong with your audio cuz oh one minute is that better can you hear me now I can hear you you can yeah yep no okay still can't hear you I think there's something wrong with Becky's I can't hear AJ oh maybe it's me I think so it's me how's that I'm gonna du off to finish cooking dinner but um I can hear okay you know because at the select board meeting I had to mute and that's yeah that's right I figured that's what it was I'm Gonna Change I'm Gonna Change um obviously we don't have a a Christmas tree at the Town Hall so going to change my name on this knew it was [Laughter] you I'm impressed that you still have your Christmas tree up well you know um is it like a year round thing no no it's more of you know there's I usually leave it up when there's snow on the ground right because snow winter I mean doesn't really look christmy you know except for and it being a an evergreen yeah you know might as well enjoy it a little longer it's so dark outside anyway and stormy yeah it'll it'll come down this weekend it'll leave a big hole Yeah and then what do I do what do I do with it you know I have an idea actually I'm gonna it's a planter I saw on Pinterest you take a trunk of a tree that fell down and you and you put these things on it make it look like a lantern tree but like a plant tree too like you put your house plant on yeah interesting there's plenty of trees that came down this winter you know a good weekend project yeah exactly okay I'm G to run stuff to the refrigerator I'll be back okay hey AJ hey Paul how's it going can you hear me okay Paul hi Paul can you hear me okay yeah I can now I had my speakers shut off but okay they're on all right how you doing good I'm good how are you doing good very good thanks so we're all set on how this will proceed tonight I I assume yes yes that sounds good we're um unfortunately we we're gonna have um a a smaller turnout from the fincom just scheduling wasn't great this year so I can't remember ex we we kind of went through at our last meeting and now I've forgotten who's going to be attending tonight but it's it's not going to be our full crew but we should have at least a few um Bob and George are out I think yeah Jim won's still here and Susie will be here yeah and I assume Jim heing I don't think he mentioned uh anything yeah Rita said she Rita said she's gonna join but she might just be a couple minutes late and April Rita sorry April excuse me yeah she just texted me um at 20 after she was leaving ammer she figured she'd be 10 minutes late okay so do you need to have a quorum for your meeting here AJ good question um I feel like we're not actually doing any decision making tonight we're just sort of presenting information so my instinct is that we don't need one but Becky what do you think um I I don't think it's required especially with the moderator handling all the questions but I think you're gonna have one you're gonna have next person makes yeah actually I see George coming on so great um yeah I was wrong sorry George I thought you were out tonight but that's no this is this is the last meeting I can make for [Music] what Michael dikara did did you see my response to you uh just about half an hour hour ago I did and I responded already thank you I okay on board I'm on board with your suggestions and I we'll just do the report part so thank you okay all right thanks good points Becky you might want to make me uh cost now and uh just because I'll be sharing stuff I'll make George a backup co-host in case always always a good idea yeah J all right so I think with Jim with Jim hopping on here I think we do have a forum tonight uh is great hey do it oh AJ I'll just leave it up to you whenever you uh you want to get your meeting officially started you can do that and well I'll tell you what Paul I'll I'll call the fincom to order at 6:30 and um you know I know you wanted to do a little bit of um just uh kind of setting expectations and discussing process so whenever you want to start with that I think that's fine I could I'm also happy to wait a few minutes if you think we want to give time for people to hop on yeah it's only 6:32 so why don't we why don't we give people another two minutes or so and then we'll get going okay all right sounds good and since you've called your meeting to order already I'll I'll just start in about two minutes okay okay great sounds good for e hold on okay so by my clock it's 6:34 looks like a number of other people have just joined us so I think uh we'll get started here thanks for joining us this evening for this um pre anual town meeting presentation of the proposed uh fiscal year 2025 shutesbury Town budget I'm Paul l is a town moderator and I'll I'll be facilitating uh this session again this year I think this is maybe the fourth or so year that that we've done this format will be similar to what we've done in previous years starting with a um overview of the budget by the uh finance committee members followed by questions uh from attendees uh please note if you uh have questions that arise during the presentation don't try to ask them uh during the presentation send them to me if you would via the uh chat function uh hopefully that's right down in the bottom of your page um or jot them down and uh you can ask them later on I'll organize all the questions that I receive uh present them to the uh finance committee after their presentation uh after that if there's still time and uh remaining questions we can try to open it up to uh more of a live uh question and answer discussion please remember this session uh is meant to provide information about the budget uh it's it's not uh an opportunity to debate or Express opinions about it that opportunity will come on uh Saturday at the annual town meeting when you can not only debate uh any or all of the budget items but also actually vote on them on them uh finally this evening if there's time and interest after the uh budget portion uh of this evening's program we can review the rest of the warrant articles we have people here who can explain what the articles are uh and answer questions that you may have about them the more information we feel we can get out before town meeting the more efficient we can be uh on Saturday and and try to get out of town meeting as early as possible so uh if we're ready to begin uh I'll turn it back over to AJ cashew for a an overview of our fiscal 2025 budget AJ okay thanks Paul hi everybody good to see a decent turnout tonight my name is AJ cashew I'm the chair of the finance committee and I'm joined by I believe it's four other members of the committee tonight let me see my screen here so we have Susie moer George arvanitis Jim Hemingway and Jim Walton um I believe April Stein will be joining us in a few minutes and then um um Bob Groves is also a member of our committee but he's not available tonight am I missing anybody I think that's I think that's our full committee uh so um yeah as Paul mentioned I think this is an opportunity for us to um maybe share kind of a more um share a a an overview of our budget process and our actual budget that's going to be voted on at annual town meeting this Saturday um and also answer questions from any of you uh who have them in kind of a format that might be more difficult to accomplish at a town meeting um so I did I did want to point out and I'm going to actually share my screen um I wanted to show direct you to um the website where there's a number of documents that I think will be important if you want to understand the budget um so you'll see there's a link here to learn more about annual town meeting if you click that link and you scroll to the bottom there are a series of really the first three links here are um kind of our main um uh deliverables or documents that will be um relevant for Saturday's meeting um the first is an an annual kind a budget summary report that we do as a finance committee every year um and then we have two documents that are kind of represent our budget one is an expense budget and the other is a revenue budget so um you know it might be helpful for you to download those if you haven't already and maybe um follow along as we're um talking tonight okay uh just a kind of word on our process so the finance committee um uh put out a letter to and a a budget form to all Town departments uh believe back in October and then um uh or maybe we yeah around October uh and over the course of the year we've had um meetings with department heads uh representing kind of all of our key departments school police fire Highway Etc um where we take a look at a proposed budget that they submitted to us um in advance that meeting and answered questions from committee members um that's kind of the first step in our process and then once we've kind of completed that um those set of meetings that really happen kind of through February um we spend you know really a month six weeks or so um actually compiling and um making decisions recommendations um that produce what is the budget that we're going to review tonight and um discuss our uh present it at annual town meeting and have you or have the town vote on um that the budget has been unanimously of recommended um by all members of the finance committee that doesn't necessarily mean that every Committee Member um agrees with every single decision that went into putting that budget together but I think the point being that collectively the committee um I think uh supports the budget and is recommending that our community approve it at annual town meeting so I'm gonna go ahead and pull up that annual kind of budget summary report uh and kind of walk through it tonight because I think that's the rather than do kind of a line item review of budget I think that would not be a very interesting meeting so I'm going to pull up this document here okay and kind of give you a highlevel overview of the budget this year so I think right off the bat it's fair to say that this was um perhaps the most kind of challenging budget year at least in recent history um we have developed a budget here the totals ,on 28,000 we'll call it um and this that that total represents a 4.5% increase over our FY 24 budget and in and in dollars that represents an additional $39,000 or a $339,000 increase over last fiscal Year's budget so while certainly not unprecedented in the history of our town um it is fair to say that that's a larger increase than we've observed in recent fiscal years I think last fiscal year 24 our the budget we proposed annual town meeting uh represented a 3.4% increase over the prior year in in the uh let's see 22 annual town meeting we presented a budget that represented a 1.1% increase over the prior fiscal year so so um so this is this is definitely more of a of a bump um than than we've observed in in at least the last few years and so what does this mean for taxpayers you'll see that there's a little box off to the right here that um summarizes what this is going to mean in terms of um homeowners property taxes so right now we're projecting a tax rate of $18.53 per $1,000 of assessed value so the average single family home in shutesbury is valued at [Music] $343,500 that means that the average property tax bill is estimated right now to be $636 so couple things to State that's a that tax rate is based on a set of assumptions that we're making right now um that um that may change as the assessments about our properties um happens um kind of O over the summer I believe that's the timing on that and so if the town assessor assesses um our kind of in total the value of our properties to be higher than what was assumed here that would mean that we would have a a lower tax rate so this is just kind of based on current assumptions today but again that it's it's entirely likely that that number will will go down somewhat based on um the Assessor's conclusions about you know overall total value all all property in the town um so as I mentioned right now we're estimating the average single family tax bill to be $636 last year for FYI 24 it was $ 6,126 so in essence we are with this budget we are um expecting the average tax bill to increase by $241 obviously the more valuable your property um the larger that number will be the less valuable your property if it's under that average um value of $310,000 or so that that increase will be a smaller amount so um that's kind of the um the sort of main takeaway in terms of what this is going to mean in terms of property tax payments um so let's do a little bit of a review of the budget itself so the budget really has you know two sides to it there's a revenue side which is kind of where do we how how do we collect money in order to fund the other side of the budget which is the expense budget and that's essentially all of our different departments all of our services obviously expend money um to do the work that it takes to operate a town and um those two things the revenue and the um expense budget um need to be balanced that's that's our um part of our process and responsibility so um couple things you can so we're going to take a look at two um pie charts that essentially tell us what are the components and what are sort of relative sizes of the different components to our budget both on the revenue side and on the uh expense side so on the revenue side um you can see here that almost you know three4 of the funds that are collected by the town to to um fund our budget come from residential taxes um that's about again about 75% um other sources of revenue that we rely on are state aid and the there are kind of a few different sources of of uh of kind of Municipal funding that get from the state there's something called Chapter 70 funding which is the the the way that the state supports our school expense our school budgets um and there's also an unrestricted uh government Aid uh fund that uh or or a grant that uh comes to the town as well and so about 10 and a half% of our Revenue comes from these different sources of of uh state aid um there's also you know commercial taxes um which are which are uh applied using the same tax rate as our residential taxes that's about four and a half percent of our Revenue there are local receipts that's those are things like motor vehical excise taxes we have a new um category Rel relatively new category of local receipts which are um like room taxes that are applied to short-term rentals Airbnb uh bookings and that sort of thing um that's that's a new source of Revenue that's coming the last maybe two years or so Becky I might be think I'm right about that uh and um and then uh yeah I would say those are the kind of main sources of revenue you can you can see the rest of this pie chart for other categories uh let's take a look at our our expense budget so this is essentially what it takes to run our town and you know couple key takeaways here right is is that not surprisingly um you know 59 of the largest um piece of or single piece of our expense budget is education funding so that's our running our elementary school and our portion of the um uh Regional Schools um budget and so that together those that represents 59% of our total expense budget and then you know we have Public Safety which is 6% of our budget highways which is roughly eight% of our budget sorry I should say Highway and public works so that includes things like you know snow removal the highway department um trash and recycling um there's um General government that's 9% um culture and recreation I believe the largest share of that is our library if I'm not mistaken if I'm getting the categories right um You can see health insurance is a big chunk as well about 7% um yeah I think those are the kind of largest categories of our of our budget so move on so what are some of the kind of significant increases or decreases that we're um experiencing with this budget so as I mentioned already overall increase of about $39,000 over fy4 um I think two of the notable increases to do with um public school education so our elementary school budget is increasing by about 5.9% um there are a couple of particular drivers that account for a really large chunk of that increase um one of them is um what we've been referring to as as um kind of a temporary mandated expense that we're um required to to to comply with um and uh as well as a uh staff position that was initially created and funded as part of our kind of um pandemic well it was utilizing pandemic related funding that the school had um that position is um an adjustment counselor that kind of support supports the um social and tional well-being of students in the school and um the school committee has made the decision that that that's an essent that's an essential position and so that's now needing to be supported by the operating budget for the school um because obiously not there there most of the pandemic related special funding or support that our schools received um you know is no longer available so those are the kind of big drivers for that increase there's um what we have put in here is essentially a 6% increase to our assessment for the Regional Schools the emmer fum Regional Middle School and High School um we may have questions about this later tonight but just just to let you know that the the regional school committee approved a budget for FY 25 that would have required an 8.2 2% increase in our assessment we've spent quite a bit of time discussing this issue in our committee and we've um recommended that um that really a six% increase is is the most that we can accommodate um for fy2 and we have uh as recently as this past Saturday have communicated to the other three towns the regional school committee and the superintendent that um that you know we really can only recommend to our town um that we fund the Regional Schools at a 6% increase over last year um as it happens Leverett is thinking in similar ways about the regional assessment as as as we are and so also has its town meeting uh on Saturday uh same day as us and they will also be pres my best information I have available right now they will be presenting to their town a budget that includes um a 6% increase to their Regional School assessment school committee the regional school committee is meeting tonight they are going to be reviewing and and a budget a new budget that would apply a 6% increase to all four communities it's possible they will support that and revote their budget tonight that's the that's our hope at least and so um we'll have to see you know I'm gonna be watching that meeting tomorrow the recording of it and we we'll see if that's what um that's what actually occurs um if that doesn't happen tonight and then we're going to potentially have a complicated situation where we may not actually be able to proceed with our um that aspect of our budget on Saturday but I don't want to I don't want to go there just yet because I'm I'm hopeful that that's not GNA have to happen so anyway those are um those are a couple and and just a word on so why is the Regional School increasing by 6% it's I think it's fair to say that there are a couple of maybe three or so different drivers for why our both our elementary school and our Regional School budgets are increasing by somewhat larger amount than in recent years you know part of it's just um uh well at least for the region there's newly you know recently negotiated contracts that um included increases for for staff that's a contributor um another big contributor is there were couple of different sources of um pandemic related relief that were awarded to both our elementary school and our regional school and those sources kind of helped um helped uh sort of uh pay for some of the increased um expenses um in in the school bud schools budgets over the last couple of years and those sources of funding are um you know are are dwindling right just they're they're not available at the same levels in fact I think the the region has $500,000 left in in one of those sources and and that will be spent that's being applied to fy2 and that will not you know after fy2 there will be no more pandemic related support for for the Regional Schools so anyway um there's that so then other other notable increases decreases so looking at D here there's um um a new building committee I guess the committee is not new but there's there's kind of new membership and there's a project that um is underway where they're doing a really impressive and serious review of the condition of all of our uh municipal buildings in the town and um doing kind of a thorough assessment of what are the conditions the the the needs uh maintenance needs um Capital Improvement needs of the various buildings and they're prioritizing those in in uh specific way and with that where um this budget includes $4,000 increase um to essentially fund not all but some of the repairs that the building committee is has identified as kind of the most immediate most pressing needs and so um that's a notable increase there are salary increases uh for for Town employees um a small increase through Elementary School transportation costs uh there are couple of decreases so there's um the every every year our budget includes a certain amount of funds that go into to a finance committee Reserve fund and that fund is used so that we can essentially fund emergencies and unforeseen expenses that come up during the year and that fund allows us to to support those needs without the need for having to call a special town meeting so that contribution to our Reserve fund is decreasing by $220,000 for for this year there's also uh a $20,000 decrease in what's being allocated ated for legal expenses and then all other expense increases together collectively amounted additional $28,000 all right uh so I should probably wrap up soon but let me just uh look at two here I'm just gonna do this in the simplest terms I can so we have something in Massachusetts called prop two and a half and what that means is that there's a um a maximum tax Levy that the law allows us to uh impose on our town um and that maximum Levy is calculated essentially as 2 and a half% increase over the prior years uh tax levy um plus an estimated an estimate of New Growth right so um so um kind of new new development and growth that um has occurred in our town and so that tax levy according to those rules where the the tax levy is allowed to increase by $225,000 based on those two things what the a two and a half percent increase over last year's tax levy and this additional New Growth okay so in order to um to stay um under that that maximum tax levy allowed we have to utilize something called excess Levy capacity and in the amount of $113,000 and that's essentially like if you one way to think about it is that for the the last few years where we haven't gone up to that maximum tax levy we've been essentially banking the difference between what we were allowed to assess and what we actually assessed and so this is a year where we have to kind of dip into that um excess Levy capacity in order to comply with prop two and a half so so um um that's probably a little bit of a simplified explanation but hopefully that that is good enough for for our purposes tonight the other another thing to to note here is that our estimated state aid is increasing by 30 thou a Poulter $30,000 so this is one of the kind of big picture points that I think we all should be um you know um aware of which is that you know we we have you know we have things like we we have a significant amount of inflation that we've experienced over the last few years we have increases in expenses um particularly in the education sector every year and and those those increases in inflation and expenses are really um outstripping the the kind of poultry increases in state support that we're being provided and that's a problem and um it doesn't have an easy solution but um but it's one that we all should really um kind of rally around and speak to our legislators about and and quite frankly um uh complain about and Advocate uh change um because um that you know that the the the amount of state aid that we're getting each year is really remaining essentially stagnant and our expenses are increasing which is why um you know our property taxes are having to increase by more than what I think would be you know what we would all like um okay uh I think on May I'll just mention in kind of three and four here really speak to kind of the status of our cash reserves um essentially the bank account for the town and there really are three different funds there's a free cash um Reserve there's something called Capital stabilization and then regular stabilization and you know you'll see here that um we had a special town meeting um in uh January is it January I think so uh and so as a result after that um that special town meeting where we appropriated some funds for the Culvert project there was a cost overrun with that project and some kind of legal fees H that were required and some mitigation and testing for gasoline at the fire station after those um Appropriations uh the total of our cash reserves was was at just under $1.5 million doll we have a number of capital projects that um went through the capital planning review process this year and are are being will be presented and have corresponding warrant articles um um at our town meeting on Saturday you can see them listed here police pickup truck um generator for the highway department body cameras for the police department Gravel Road repairs and a storage container for the highway department Saturday you know the department heads will um you know give you some context about what is the rationale for each of those projects um I wanted to mention here that you know one of our part of our process we have to make a recommendation about how to fund those projects if they pass an annual town meeting and with one exception we're recommending that they all be funded utilizing our free cash reserves with one exception which is $122,000 from Capital stabilization to fund um some gravel road repairs that the highway department um wants to oversee for this year um and then I should mention one important factor here or detail which relates to um line B here which is that as a finance committee we are recommending and our budget includes um the utilization of $70,000 of free cash reserves for two particular um categories of expenses um one of which is $40,000 that will support um of the state mandated expenses for the elementary school that are not longterm I'll say um and then $30,000 for the building Renovations that I mentioned just a couple of minutes ago um so you know it's it's not ideal that we use cash reserves to fund um parts of our budget usually you know that's that's not a practice that that um we like to to um to have to to have to use but in this particular year it made sense to utilize some cash reserves to limit the impact on taxpayers and it is the case that we are using cash reserves for projects that are not um kind of uh long-term aspects of our um kind of operation of our of our town right these are not these are not kind of permanent features that we expect to see in our budget year after year after year and so that's what that line is about okay Paul I probably talked more than I wanted to so maybe I'll pause here there's there's some more information about kind of upcoming capital projects and sort of risks and opportunities but that may come up during Q&A so I think maybe I'll just pause there and see what questions people have okay thanks AJ and I need to apologize I just discovered that we do not have a chat function uh available tonight so I don't know if uh if people have been trying to get questions submitted or not but we'll have to uh go to plan B here and and just raise hands so uh if you do have questions for AJ or about the budget in general uh you can just raise your hand and um I'll just trust you that those questions are going to be appropriate and and um and let's go for it any questions I should say we did have one question come in um to the uh moderator's email address prior to the meeting it was it was really about revolving funds which are not directly a part of the budget um I don't know if AJ you would want to address that try to address that now or we could just wait till after the budget discussion and uh when we're talking about other warrant articles so did did you see the question AJ that I had sent you yeah but could you I guess for the benefit of everybody and also just to remind me exactly what the qu do you have the question in front of you um it'll take me a moment to pull it up but basically it was about uh article 12 in the warrant which is the article that deals with all the revolving funds that the town has and the question the limits that the limits for for each of those funds correct yeah and the question was in regards to the uh the srex um I think there's like $20,000 um spending limit on srex and the question or was asking uh if that's still applicable or appropriate I'm gonna look to Becky for help Becky's got a hand raised go for it Becky um so the the SRE amount um we have not made any expenditures out of that revolving fund um and the 20,000 is quite High our esprs have dropped off and since we hit um the I believe it was the 15year Mark um so there that there's not quite as much money coming in so we could consider lowering that but it was set at that amount because um if we are to utilize it it it will probably be for a bigger Capital project at some point in time okay thank you still looking for for questions I I actually did have one uh AJ based on on your uh uh the last thing you one of the last things you said was uh for Capital uh expenditures you were uh proposing or the fincom was proposing that we use free cash for all of those Capital items except for the gravel road uh Improvement I was just wondering what the what the reasoning was for using Capital stabilization there instead of free cash well I think um I hear an echo there uh I think it's it's I mean I think generally speaking I mean that's that's a clearly a project that is a capital Improvement right that um that quite frankly I think needs to be made and so um that particular fund Capital stabilization funds are really appropriate for you know those those kinds of capital projects it's not it's not a piece of equipment like a vehicle or a generator it's really making um kind of a a capital Improvement to the infrastructure of our town our roads um so that was the logic behind that and um there're also I mean for I guess one kind of practical Point thing right is that that will require um 2/3 majority uh vote to approve that project over as opposed to um majority vote which would be required for the other projects where we're proposing to fund them from free cash not not uh not much else to say about that that would be my my response response okay thank you I see Amanda has a question hi thank you Paul so are we able to ask specific questions about the revenue budget and the expense budget at this point or are they planning to go over that separately or is is it okay to I'm not I'm not gonna be doing uh I I wasn't planning on doing kind of a line by line uh review of the budget so if if you have a specific question yeah feel free to to to raise it yeah okay I I also have a question about the SCS budget but I don't know if that's anything you want to talk about tonight it's sort of tied in with my other question about school choice so all right so so well what you know ask your ask your question I I may be able to answer it I may not be able to and and the other thing I should mention is you know I've got I've got another four committee members here so um I'm gonna open it up anybody can answer these questions but go ahead thanks AJ Okay um the first one's just I think kind of simple on the revenue budget I just wonder why the state cherry sheet assessments line 35 through 39 are included in this budget and they appear to be expenses um and why is school choice sending the only line item expense repe cheated in the expense budget online 13 okay so maybe I ought to share [Music] um my screen so um your first question was about so this is a this is our Revenue budget and so your question is is on the state aid section which is which is the what what we refer to as the cherry sheet they're essentially kind of two sections to that um one are represents the kind of sources of state aid that that come to us and um sort of credits to the town if you will and then the next section are um essentially deductions from that so these are these refer to uh items that reduce the amount of state aid that that we received I think this is the appropriate I'm not I'm not sure why we wouldn't put that on here um they this this represents the total amount of state aid that we receive so that corresponds to you know in the annual report that we looked at earlier in the meeting there was a slice of that Revenue pie that pertain to state aid and that corresponds to to this number so when the state calculates what they're going what to what is the amount of Aid that they will provide each municipality that total amount includes um some kind of credits for the town like um Chapter 70 funding unrestricted government Aid and but there are also some credits that reduce that that amount I'm sorry yeah uh that not credits but there are some some items that reduce that amount so okay so you're basically answer your question yes yeah I think so so you're just basically subtracting 35 to 39 from the 904 100 right exactly coming out with 74 okay I didn't actually the numb so okay thank you um okay so my school choice questions I have a couple of them it's a little confusing to me it you know that this issue is mentioned both the revenue and expense budgets and SCS budget and it's kind of hard to discern how much shutesbury actually will make out of the deal um it it looks like from the Mass Department Elementary and secondary school education for f um spreadsheet for fiscal year 23 um the school choice receiving for 19.4 full-time equivalent students was was 107,000 and some change for 109,000 so in sending was 95,0 51 that's in the budget um as well and so that if you subtract it we get like a little over $112,000 profit that's what it looks like to me I'm not sure if it's worth it but anyway the so then in our budget the numbers are pretty close the 9551 is the same and the um receiving number is 1035 basically I don't know if somebody dropped out or what the issue was and our profits only like 8,500 there so um I I wonder about that is is that how it works you subtract the one from the other and that's what we make in funds because on the SCS budget they're saying that like $161,000 worth of positions are being funded by school choice funds so this obviously that's not the same thing but I don't understand what the difference is I know it's a big question yeah I mean I'm not sure um I'm not sure how much I can answer but I mean I guess there just a couple points and maybe Susie if you have any thoughts you want to Susie is kind of our representative okay on the the the yeah kind of our Lea on to to the school committee but um yeah so are I mean those school choice funds they they're you're right to say that there's a a portion that comes to the town for students that are choicing into our community and then there's an amount that we essentially send to um for students that are choicing out of our schol into to to another District um so and I think I I you know the the the school's budget does indicate and I I don't actually don't have it right in front of me but take your word that the number that you you shared there they have a plan for how to utilize a certain portion of the school choice funds that they've kind of accumulated over time on some positions that are important and I think it's fair to say that those positions many of them kind of address some of the needs that have presented themselves post um you know pandemic um and uh so that is the purview of the school committee to make essentially those funds and the decisions about how to utilize those funds and what to spend them on are the really the perview of the school committee to make um what we asked them to do is to kind of have a thoughtful plan and um they've shared that with us and and they communicated that to us and they um you know they they describe how that how those funds are being used in their in their budget but they don't actually contrib they're not reflected in the um Elementary School um expense lines that are in our budget they kind of they they they kind of they work outside of the general upating budget um so I think that's I think that's all I can really share but Susie did you have anything else you wanted to yeah I want to mention response the school has ownership of those funds and they've accumulated some over time so it's not dollar for dollar in and out in any one given year they do have a very clear policy which is available to look at um I will make sure that the um school budget gets posted on the town website along with the other documents so that you can read their um their expenses um including positions um funded by the REM um school choice money and um what the state how the state accounts for it some people have had a dispute with but changing the state formulas is is pretty difficult um I also want to say that the um school choice program has um clear guidelines about who can be enrolled it includes um children of staff can be enrolled in school choice um if they fit some of the other criteria that's a useful benefit to our staff so that they can um have their kids come to school so school choice has a lot of different purposes um and at this point um I I don't have the current enrollment numbers in front of me but um I feel like the policy as as AJ said they've explained their policy very clearly to us and we're um glad they found a way to use the funds effectively um okay but are you saying that they're they're like saving up the funds year-over year the like approximately $10,000 that we're getting or is it coming from someplace else cuz the year before they had almost $154,000 they were spending on these positions so I don't know they must have have a huge pot of money somewhere then what this policy is maybe uh that would clear it up for me if it's posted on the website okay maybe Becky should answer Amanda Becky Becky Amanda that there's two separate transactions um when PE when a child from shsy goes to say the um to to Amer pelum for school that's what you see you see an assessment to shoots Berry for that cost so what you were looking at in our budget when you see the outgoing number for Choice that's how much we're paying out right that gets paid out out of the cherry sheet the incoming money for our students goes straight to the school district in every community so the full amount coming in it's not 12,000 it's not a net amount they're two separate amounts that are handled separately okay make sense that makes that makes more sense then okay I mean as long as far as the money being yeah building up yeah that makes more sense to me okay cool so all right I have one can I ask one more questions yeah go ahead done on line 38 for fiscal year 25 the school choice sending tuition amount is lower it's like $79,000 doeses that mean that we already know that there will be fewer students attending another school or is there some other reason I guess you're still on Becky Becky um those numbers are determined by deese and um they they're the ones tracking the choice students and they give those numbers in the cherry sheet um to us and then they'll give updates in our payment amounts throughout the year okay so the numbers do change over time and they monitor it through the year so we might start the year thinking we have say five Choice students going out and then by October we might only have two Choice students going out and they make a correction at that point okay so this is basically an estimate and then there will be an actual later okay yes when they close out the recap will have all the actual numbers at the end of the the tax year okay um I think that's that'll do me all right thank you great thanks Amanda thanks Amanda other questions AJ um you know one of the interesting parts of your your U budget report each year that I find interesting at least is the very last section on the risks and opportunities do you want to since we don't have other questions right now do you want to go back and and go over those sure all right let me just share that document again okay um well let me see maybe I'll talk about a couple of these and then open it up to other uh vcom members so you know we've talked a little bit about school expenses so I think this is clearly a concern of ours um the their they're I think it's fair to say that there's kind of a uh right now A a structural problem in um kind of deficit that's sort of built into the operation of our Regional School District right now which is you know where our the expenses are increasing by you know three four five% sometimes more each year and um their increases in in Revenue are kind of closer to 2 and a half% so there's kind of a fundamental problem with the regional school budget right now that um you know we we really need to do something about and and and we we really need to kind of either fundamentally um make some difficult decisions about the on the expense side or find um additional revenues um and so the school committee is s committed to spending a significant amount of time in this upcoming year kind of figuring that out so that's a big risk a big concern of ours I mean there's um a pretty extensive Capital plan for the regional school buildings that is also particularly in some of the out years are going to require pretty significant investments from all four towns um that's a big concern I've already spoken about the fact that the Chapter 70 kind of um funding formula is really um hurting our community and the region because it's not keeping Pace with the increases in expenses um that our schools are experiencing that's clearly a problem I mean there's um uh there's infrastructure issues I think um you know um Steve from the highway department Steve Sullivan will speak on Saturday about this kind of initial um phase if you will of improving the dirt roads in our town that the highway Department would like to oversee this year but you know that's really going to be an ongoing problem our our dirt roads have um have not been um kind of regraded um in in quite a long time there's been kind of Maintenance like Min minimal amount of maintenance done each year but there there there's really kind of more significant amount of work that needs to be done to improve improve the quality of the dirt roads in our town um we've got you know we've always got sort of continued maintenance issues with our now 40 plus year old school building um Becky do you want to say anything about pasas testing and mitigation this is kind of a new challenge um that we've been dealing with for the last year two years now or a year now um and it's going to be an ongoing issues two going into three years um only been held we've been held responsible since November of 2022 and in that time um we've installed about 35 poets in uh some Town buildings and the rest are residential homes in a 500 foot um area that's determined of you know then then you have to go another 500 feet from each active case so as some of the homes we just had um two more um homes move into the active needing a past poet um today um so this is a changing Dynamic situation um and the costs are driven by the requirements to mitigate which means install filters if people have um P um in their test results um the growing and constant expenditure but that won't go away is the amount of testing that we have to do because we have to continue testing homes that are non detects uh on a regular basis as well as the homes that have filters in them the testing um we hope to get to a point after a couple of years to slow down the testing um that will be a great savings to the town as the tests average about $300 a piece and on the Dual tanks which we have about 12 of um you have we have to do three tests um so it's 9,000 I'm sorry $900 to do a test we have already expended all of the 136,000 from the January 2023 uh town meeting we are down to about between about 40,000 in the 150 that was released um by the loan that happened last year um through the Clean Water trust we have submitted a second request for another 150 we are submitting um the starting point is the warrant on the annual town meeting um so we're asking to go for another loan of 150,000 um to get make it through this upcoming year hopefully a little more a year and a half of um maintaining and protecting all the homes that need to be mitigated so it's a very costly Endeavor and um the loans will be helpful if we can get um we were promised that would there would be forgiveness of part of the loan and that the loan is no interest so we are um we don't know the exact amount of the Forgiveness portion we know the Min most minimal amount is 10% but we still do not have um a final report from the Trust on what uh what our final amount will be okay thanks um I mean I'll just say one thing about item 10 here so you know this is one of the challenges um of budgeting for our town which is we we don't have um many sources of um commercial uh properties that um are subject to commercial taxes so 94% of all of the taxes that are levied in our town um are levied to homeowners and so you can see the comparison there the average Massachusetts town um has 83% of its tax levy um come from residential taxes and 177% from commercial taxes so that's a big challenge for us um in terms of opportunities you know the first two um listed there speak to um kind of public land in shutesbury that's not subject to um you know tax levy uh but you know we receive payment in Le of taxes are pilot and so the clearly something that would benefit our town is if the um kind of calculations of how much um is contributed to our town um in L of taxes you know that those amounts increase and we've been working with you know members have been talking with um Aaron Saunders our state rep about this issue and so um there's some hope that those amounts will increase um which would certainly help us in future years um and then you know last thing I would say on on item four is you know are there opportunities to uh collaborate with our neighboring towns to share resources and um share expenses um it's they know that's complicated there there's not necessarily obvious um opportunities but but that is something that you know we we should continue to think about and and pursue if if and when they Mak sense thanks AJ yeah any more questions Eric yes Eric you're unmute unmute just just a quick comment that I thank the finance committee for their incredible hard work I know this is a very hard budget year and I certainly appreciate on behalf of the town I appreciate the amount of work that's been done um so that's just comment the question I'd have is your again A comment I guess is just a pest thing just to go back to that for a second that to me is really a huge ongoing potential problem I mean you know it's the the number of houses that are um that are that are requiring um poet or treatment systems that's what poets are um is increasing um the the basic the plan is right now just just um you know treat the water supply and and hopefully get things more not that things go away but just that's that's the plan and that's a plan that over time is as Becky suggested is an incredibly expensive plan and I don't see anything that's going to change that in the future I think that's a real and I it'll only increase be my guess um it may start and I I would I wouldn't be too um let's let's say Doom predicting but I mean it could it could could even boil down to like Municipal Water Systems that'll solve this problem um at least in that part of town where the p is a problem anyway I just mentioned that it's I think it's a problem huge problem that it's it's number seven on that list that should be number one with a star and a bullet as far as I'm concerned it's big thanks Eric anything else anybody else Michael oh yes sorry that's okay it's actually a question I think for Paul for you and for Becky um Becky had suggested that I just be present in case people had questions about the energy storage which clearly is not a finance related thing so I don't know I don't have to do that um if it's out of place in the setting but I just wanted to make myself available if that was appropriate great yeah I I just want to see if anything there's anything else on the budget itself and if not then um I thought we might move into the other other articles on the warrant so I'll give people one last chance if you have any budget questions Now's the Time okay I don't see any so um thank you AJ and the finance committee oh yeah go ahead yeah I just wanted to um neglected to say this earli I wanted to publicly thank um my colleague George arvanitas for um putting that annual report that I walked you through together that's um something he he has done for us for the last few years and so really appreciate the hard work in putting that together compiling all that information thank you George and thank you to all the finance committee members I you know being a former member of the finance committee I know just how much time and effort it takes to uh all year long really to uh to finally put together this budget for Town meetings so I certainly appreciate your efforts and I guess AJ you can probably adjourn your meeting officially now if you want and then we can move on to other warrant articles if people are interested in doing that all right thanks Paul so I'm going to I'm going to adjourn the finance committee at 740 PM great okay so um as Michael indicated he is here uh to talk about um maybe more than just that that one article um Becky is here and other you know finance committee people are still here so if people would like to um to go through the warrant more generally this would be a good time to do that um in the past I've just kind of walked through and you know kind of explained what what each article is um looking at the people that are present here we have a lot of people who have been around for a while so I don't know that it's worth a time and effort to do that so why don't we start off at least with any specific questions that people might might have about individual uh warrant articles anybody have any Becky um sorry every is that me making that sound yes might have been me wrestling paper sorry no I I really appreciate Michael being here the the zoning article um he is very familiar with and they are um a little bit more complicated and the energy um storage article I'd really appreciate getting his um review of or short review of if possible okay so why don't we jump right into those I think it would be very helpful since those are often some of the more complicated articles that we deal with at town meeting so Michael I'll give the floor to you you can just kind of approach you know these several articles that you're involved with in any way that you'd like great thank you Paul I appreciate it thanks Becky um so I think I'll start with the energy storage one and I think the thing most important about this one is that this is a it's a general bylaw so it's not a zoning bylaw um and the idea there is that um it affects all Town regardless of you know where in town it is um the idea with energy storage it's you know more commonly known as battery storage but there's other ways of storing energy there's a big push at the state level and also nationally to create energy storage so as we're moving to create more electro electric generation whether it's solar or wind um Hydro Etc that were creating places to store energy um what I think this is about is to make sure that as we go forward with doing that that they remain to be the right scale and done safely for the public health and safety of folks in town and just for the environment generally so the big thing that's sort of the purpose behind it I think the big thing is that what this does is it creates a new system um process in town so um because it's not a zoning bylaw um you know normally if there's a special permit like we can talk about other things there you know either go to the planning board or the zba depending on the project what this would do would create a energy storage licensing board which would be composed of all three members of the select board representative the board of health planning board zba and the concom so seven people um and they would act as the licensing body um so that if there was a battery proposed in town that essentially that energy storage system would have to get a license from the licensing board um before it could proceed and this basically outlines um what's required in terms of the application what the timelines are what the criteria to be considered for and it's for both the construction and then the operation is what the license would be um so because it is a general bylaw it only needs a majority vote um as opposed to the usual 2/3 and it would be effective you know as of if it gets approved on the 27th um so it goes through just like I mentioned there's some requirements in terms of applications there's Regulatory Compliance so it has to basically comply with all the existing state and local laws including uh endangered species and wetlands protection Environmental Policy Act um Board of Health guidelines etc for shutesbury um there's some emergency response requirement the the biggest thing we there's a section in this that pertains to lithium ion batteries in particular so like I said there's different ways to store energy you can sort of um do it in a variety of ways but really the only practical commercially available way of doing battery storage in America these days is with lithium ion batteries so if anyone reads the papers you know there's Tesla cars that catch on fire there's bikes that catch on fire ET Etc and the problem with these big ones is a thing called thermal runaway where you get a battery that heats up and it catches on fire and because catches on fire heats up the next battery um I was going to look up and I forgot so I apologize but um there in Wendel there's a battery project that they're being confronted with which is I want to say it's like 15 or 20 acres in size so if you imagine sort of tractor trailer boxes of these things filled so they can be rather large with ours what we're saying is that based on the Federal Regulations um a small energy storage facility is under one megawatt and so you would not need a license if you're under one megawatt because would be small you also would not need a license if it's residential so you know as people were doing solar in their house the normal or prudent thing to say is to get it back battery system as well so that when it's cloudy um you're saving up the energy then you can use it else you know and when when sh spray loses power you can tap into that as well um and then for in installations that are above 10 megawatts that they would re prohibited but I between one and 10 would be the licensing um so I think that's primarily it without getting too much into the nree deals um but if people have questions I can definitely dive into the details of that um so I don't see any questions which is trific um so you want to keep going on on some of the other planning board related articles yeah I'll definitely do that so there's two warrant articles from the planning board which are zoning related and and these both require two-thirds vote um the first one is a lighting bylaw and for those of you who are regular which it looks like everyone probably is um not last year but the last the year before that town meeting requested that the planning board come forth with the lighting bylaw and last year we didn't do that so this year one year one year behind the times but we're we're proposed it and it's really an attempt by the planning port to balance per regulating lightings that were preserving dark sky um non-glare non-l trespass um as well as also being cognizant of the fact that people need light and there's existing lighting situations in town so um there's an international movement called the dark sky network uh and we basically looked at that as a starting point and I think the things I would just it's in the bylaw but the things that are worth calling out so the five underlying principles are be useful so all light should have a clear purpose be targeted so that light should be directed only where needed provide low light levels so light should be no brighter than necessary be controlled so lighting should only be used when it's useful and then have a warmer color because it's a spectrum of light so warmer color amber lights when possible um so that sort of was the foundation from which we built this and we went through and try to minimize it so it's it's pretty pretty sparse relative to other things that come out of the planning board recently which are you know tens and tens of pages um the thing that I would say which is really there's two important parts one is that the effective date would be April 27th so if whatever lighting you have as a homeowner or um in town that's not compliant unless you do a major renovation of some sort you you wouldn't have to comply so it's not going to be backwards you know applicable um and then the other thing which hopefully the select board will appreciate but um given my time on the select board I we we were struggling with enforcement you know so if you come out with lighting lighting is one of those things where clearly people can have opinions about their neighbors and things um and it struck me that it it has the potential to be very much like dog hearings which I know are the least favorite thing that anyone on the selectboard has to deal with but um the starting point was and we put into the bylaw the really what the town encourages his residents to come to a resolution amongst themselves so really encouraging neighbors to talk to neighbors and figure out if there's a reasonable way to go um and then if not the someone can bring a complaint to the select board and the select board can listen to it and figure out what the next logical step is um there are some towns like I know in ucket they actually have a lighting officer that seemed a little extreme for shutesbury um the planning board discussed the building inspector doing it and there's no way the building inspector is going to sleept to shutesbury in the middle of the night to look at lights so we're trying to come up with something that's practical if we're actually going to have a bylaw um so that's pretty much it that you know currently there's only a few things that are prohibited in our bylaw so we currently prohibit neon lights and midle high DED mercury vapor and quartz lamps so we're really sort of taking what's a very minimal designation um the idea is basically to you know we're all live in chatsbury because it's a rural place and we like it so figure out how to preserve that sense while also balancing the needs of people who are living here so that's that's that one and I again as I said town meeting two years ago asked us to bring this forward so we are complying with that request so any questions on that one I just want to make make sure people understand that we're we're talking about articles 26 27 and maybe 28 uh here just in case people want to look those up okay yeah I didn't memorize which is which so the the next one I say is I would say is describe as a schmorgus board um it's Consolidated a four items in one warrant article um some are very straightforward um and the four things that this one does it creates a new table use in the use table in the zoning bylaws so the zoning bylaws had different uses there residential there's business Etc um we created a new one which is indust because we're discovering that you know there's now energy uses that are distinctively separate so the we're not changing any of the parameters regarding those uses we're just creating a new bucket that's called industrial so that would put in soil mining Light Industry Wireless Communications and temporary wind monitoring systems so that's that's just sort of a neatening of things so we can categorize um the next one hearkens back to another town meeting vote that happened a few years ago where the planning board worth forth and the town meeting approved changes in the associate member um language regarding planning board members so the associate members of which they're two the Attorney General approved most of it but rejected two one key aspect of it and um after the Attorney General rejected it Rec conferred with donor MC nickel and she thought that our interpretation was correct and the basically the idea is we wanted in town meeting voted for in the in the instance where you need an associate member because an elected planning board member is not able to act that a associate member can step in and do all the things that the elected um planning board member could do that was the idea um the AG said that that wasn't the case and they could only act on special permits so Donna's recommendation was if we wanted to actually meet the intentive town meeting we had to go to legis ative process so a home rule petition and if you recall last year town meeting voted on a home rule petition about associate members once that was approved we sent it to the house and they approved it they sent it to the Senate it got signed by the governor a few months ago and so what this does now that it's law because the governor signed it is it basically restates what we were intending to do a few years ago by saying that the law that is passed is now what we're going to do in Chet perer associate members for planning board and it spells that out so it's just one big loop to come back to where we were a few years ago was um I commend everyone who is part of it was a little bit laborious but we got there um so that's that um the next one is a little longer and this is for special permits um yet get approved by either the planning board or the zba there's criteria that um when you're looking at these that you have both boards have to look at and consider when approving something we're disapproving it so there's General findings there's specific findings and I think where're the planning board came down is that the last time these were really looked at was probably 2008 when the um zoning bylaws were fully updated and we went through and added things that we've sort of come to the four in the last bunch of years so adding different criteria um in terms of awareness of Public Health welfare and safety um Forest lands Wetlands drinking Wells things like that um so we basically expanded on that and then the last one um this was informed by a special permit de planning board and the zba dealt with um in the last year where um there's a concept of the Minimus changes so basically things that are very minimal and don't really substantially change something and currently the way the zoning bylaw works is that if you have a special permit application and then you change something slightly you have to redo the entire process um and so in the instance where this was informed from the planning board approve approved a special permit but we said that um this path had to be I think it was 10t wide and it had to get approval by the zba the zba said no it can't be 10t it has to be 9 ft so it was literally a foot difference between our definition and the zba's definition and the applicant had to go through the whole process again so what a conversation we had was if the planning board or the zba votes to determine that something is di minous so really insignificant changes the three things that can get avoided is they don't have to repeat the filing fee they don't have to pay again they don't have to have another public hearing and they don't have to resubmit the same unchanged documents that they've already submitted um so sort of Common Sense and sort of just a a helpful thing you know if someone gets caught up in that minimal stuff but it's only if it's very insignificant changes and the board would have to vote that so that those are the four things in this um hopefully I haven't totally bored you um John who makes the uh determination if it's Dom Minimus the board so either you guys or us me okay thank you you got the power okay hook did you want to say more about that that one Michael or were you done with that no no I'm set and I I do you want me to just mention the one that we're not doing or leave that sure okay um so wearing my other hat as chair of eak energy and climate action you might have seen article n was to approve an opt-in stretch code um and last night and then this morning we confirmed with Donna that unfortunately missed the step so the opt-in stretch code we're already because share is a green Community we're already um committed to as of January 2023 the updated stretch code and what we were proposing is an optin stretch code which is just a little bit extra in terms of us moving towards climate um action it's would require either new homes or significantly renovated homes more than a thousand square feet to wire their houses for solar um we're still supportive of it but what we realized in reviewing the guidance is there was never a public hearing that took place um EAC made the recommendation to the select board um there's a little confusion between the select board and the and eak about who might have called that public hearing so it never happened so clearly if we didn't do the public hearing so that's getting pulled back um and we will plan on bringing it to the next town meeting that we can so um and we'll we'll probably just talk to this as Paul is allowing us during reports just to sort of do an educational moment and I think I'm done thank you great Becky do you want to add add something or no I was just say thanking him okay yes thank you okay any questions on any of that anything that Michael just covered okay people are still hanging in here so I don't know if that means that you're you're interested in going through some of the rest of the warrant or not but um I'll just keep going it's a little bit before 8 I figured you you know certainly by 8:30 we should be wrapping up here if not sooner uh so maybe since we've we've actually covered a fair amount of the warrant already um maybe I will just quickly go through uh the rest of it and if people have questions um on any of the items at uh any of the Articles then just kind of raise your hand and uh we'll stop and discuss it uh only problem here is that if I bring up the warrant then I can't see the hands rais so much uh but I'll do my best okay so um we get a lot of you know routine articles uh in the warrant so we'll we'll kind of Breeze over those really fast number article one is one of those where we just hear reports uh from town committees officers and boards Article 2 AJ already mentioned that earlier that's the uh the regional school budget formula that we vote on every year and this year uh there may be some uh some twists with that so we'll uh we'll see what uh what we know as a town meeting uh on that but that's what what that one is about article three is the budget which we've already gone over uh and then we get into uh a number of articles not a number but several articles that uh are very routine that we do every year and in recent years we've combined them into something called the consent agenda where we can vote on like multiple articles all at once so articles five uh six seven oh I'm sorry four four five six and seven I think we'll try to combine into one vote this year those are all routine um you know giving permission authorizing the treasurer to you know do certain agreements and the select board to apply for Grants and so forth those are things we do every year um article 8 is very similar to that and again if you have questions on any of this just raise your hand and uh hopefully I'll see you article 8 uh is similar to seven except it's uh it's something new uh we haven't dealt with this specifically before for the cemetery groundskeeper so I decide to pull keep that one out of the consent agenda just in case people have specific questions since it is a a new uh article a new agreement um okay so far so good article nine Michael just mentioned that that's the the new uh specialized energy code um which we will not be actually voting on this year but we'll hear more about that at least uh during the article one reports at town meeting article 10 uh is something a little different than we usually deal with it's related to the shutesbury Athletic Club allowing them I guess that's kind of expanding the um parameters of their operating permit is that right Becky to allow them to um open a little bit early or sell liquor a little bit earlier on weekends Sundays yep y um okay and again I'm pausing because I'm just kind of moving my my copy of the uh warrant aside to see if anyone has any questions or comments article 11 is um amending the uh revolving fund bylaw which we deal with in article 12 to add a new one related to the cemetery commission uh so that's creating a new revolving fund with a spending limit of $2,000 and um as of next year well even this year I guess that assuming that passes that's already built into article 12 right Becky yes yeah so you do see if you have the warrant in front of you the list of revolving funds that we have includes the cemetery revolving fund which we'll be voting on in article 11 and um Article 13 is uh more pasas uh request uh money requests and uh we've already heard about that uh tonight as well and we've dealt with that at several of our last couple Town meetings uh and then we get into our Capital items 14 15 16 17 18 and 19 uh these were all listed in the budget report that AJ uh reviewed earlier uh but we'll be dealing with those individually at uh at town meeting the next couple articles 20 and 21 are related to the Community preservation act these are routine articles that we deal with every year as well just in terms of how the the money that we tax ourselves uh uh for uh where it goes uh in the different funds that are set up within the community preservation act um and then 21 is just uh administrative uh money that we approve for the CPC Community president cons a committee 22 is the MLP Municipal Light and Power Group I guess uh and their uh operating budget for the Year this is our Broadband uh this is another routine article even though the figures change a little bit each year uh we deal with their their budget in one article every year 23 and 2 four both deal with uh paying bills from prior years um they require higher majorities and our usual votes um for whatever reason I don't know uh let's see questions comments I see none 24 uh well I'm sorry I did that one already 25 uh is from our Police Department a request for a general bylaw related to solicitation in town uh so that's something new and then uh Michael just went over 26 27 and 28 those are the planning board articles and I've got to zoom ahead now to the last couple articles that we have on the warrant this year are both citizen petitions uh 29 I'm still not there 29 is um from a group um regarding responsible solar and you can read that in the warrant and article 30 is related to noncitizen permanent residence uh given the ability to vote and that is it boy piece of cake we should be out of there by noon time on Saturday so comments questions about anything that we've dealt with tonight I don't see any fin oh John the um P I know that it's um sort of marching up pelum Hill Road I'm wondering if is there a map that shows um you know what houses have been tested and what houses are yet to be tested um all the houses within the area um within the group has been have been tested and more than once um so it's we did creep up uh pum Hill Road um but then have had a hard stop and um one other good piece of news uh regarding past the only one I've had this year is that the library tested negative for past um they're new well tested negative so um maybe when it moves from one location it's um you know maybe it leaves um but it some could stay but the hope is it keeps marching away whichever direction is close I it's seems down gradient is what it's it seems to travel It's been traveling down gradient so thank you anything else there any final comments from AJ finance committee Becky select board members no um no just want to thank everybody for participating I just want to remind people it's at the school um last four years have been behind Town Hall but we are at the school we are indoors um the kitchen will be functioning full speed there will be food and um look forward to um a good day great John did you want to say something or just acknowledging okay great well thank you all for attending tonight and I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday thank you AJ and Becky and everybody else thanks Paul thanks for moderating Paul you're welcome much Paul okay go Bruins good night go Celtics