e e e e e e e e e e e e e h nobody's very chatty today well there the sound wasn't working there it might have been working and we were just all quiet yeah no no no the sound wasn't working for for a moment there for some unknown reason okay all right let's see uh don't see anybody else anybody else is there there's here he is hey Jim all right I will uh call the finance committee to order I see everybody um in the meeting at 6:33 um Becky quick question um is Steve Sullivan joining us at the top or should we do you know if he's coming at a certain time or um let me try to find out okay I know he wanted if he was if he was here my inclination was to just deal with that issue first just because I think it'll be much shorter conversation than uh than the regional school committee conversation but if he's not here that's fine we can all right so while we're while we're waiting on news from Steve um think our our we've got sort of three primary goals or objectives for this meeting one is to um discuss a request for a fincom transfer for the highway department which Steve is GNA speak to us about um we have a a very important and timely issue which is we need to review the latest Regional school committee budget that um has been voted on and approved by the region and um obiously has implications for our fy2 budget and um Anna her is in the in the zoom with us who's our representative on the regional school committee and um you know I think she can help provide some context and and answer some questions that that we might have um I will say that I think time is of the essence and I think it's imperative that we provide some guidance to Anna I think tonight um about our inclination to either recommend I mean obviously voters will ultimately approve um a couple of Warrant articles related to the Regional School school budget but I think I think it's the it's imperative that we make a recommendation either to approve the budget or not approve the regional budget and I think Anna needs that feedback from us to bring back to the the regional school committee Becky I think I saw your hand up for a second there you're I think you're muted in the back and forth we didn't give Steve the time of this meeting Okay so we go ahead with the region I'll figure out if jump in after that that that that sounds great yeah okay so I'm going to share oh sorry Becky before you do that can you give me a sharing privileges oh yeah and I'll share the budget uh Susie is is there a fire department request on this agenda I don't see it as Highway oh did I I might have uh sorry Becky it's a it's a fire department transfer request not highway I I misspoke Highway requested as well okay highway so there is down and he needs um he's the training wages right but he just jumped on I think okay I think he needs help I think it's over a $7,000 repair and he was going to explain but I will the fire department was between training and wages and um and on call wages is that right okay right I I think the email I got said it was related to the training wages uh line being pretty well depleted um all right so I see Steve has joined should we tackle his issue so I actually I don't think I was fully aware uh so Steve if you w to unmute yourself hey there um so can you tell us that are you making a um a request for a fincom transfer tonight is that the plan yes that I okay that's the plan yes right okay so you want to give us the the the details yeah I think I attached the um the repair estimate to the email but um the we have a three-legged grader right now and we'd like to put the tire back on it again and start grading the roads but my repair budget isn't going to be able to handle that it's it's crazy how much stuff is costing now we've got I was looking at the figures there's all kinds of little things that are between 500 and ,000 that we've done and the biggest repair we've had this year was $4,000 on the one ton but it it's all little stuff that's super expensive now and the greater 70 just 7100 and something dollars okay and and what's your what is your um repair line at right now I believe that there 9,000 left in it 9300 all right and so what is your I guess maybe I'll ask the question this way what is your expectation about what that line is gonna what what's going to be needed for that line for this current fiscal year that we're in for FY 24 correct I would say Ju Just the addition these greater repair and because we're we're into mid-march now so I think that that would be sufficient to get us through and I'm hoping that with the with the equipment the um highway I think it's it's not Highway expenses it's Highway materials that I will pay for the street sweeping and I also need we need a great we need greater blades and we need blades for the um the loader also but I I should be able to get those out of the other the materials budget okay so St all right go ahead Becky so you actually with the $9,000 you have enough to cover the current repair of 7,000 but it'll only leave you about 15 or 188 00 that's correct for three months and that's your concern yes okay uh let me let me open it up to the rest of the committee see what questions this raises for anybody Bob you're muted Bob oh you're muted Bob oh thanks uh Steve hi I just wanted to raise follow up on what Becky raised you said you had 9,000 it's going to cost 72 to 7821 that's 8,000 leaving a th000 and you said you didn't anticipate any more expenses so what are you asking for uh to get you think you need to get through the rest of the year just to pad that account yeah so yes so I'm asking for the 7,000 for the greater and that will get me through because I the um the the Sterling single axle that needs a little bit of work too we we've got that in the shop but we haven't touched it because we've been working on the road for the library so that's just parked in the in the shop with the hood up yeah uh well I just want to remind the committee and you that last year when uh Tim told us that he's was going to keep the Sterling that we were replacing with a new vehicle this is the other one this is the single axle we've been using that we've been using the 10-wheeler every day oh yeah so that's not getting that's getting maintained too though is that eating up some of your budget no not at not at this point okay that was we did spend we did spend $1,800 on it to get it ready for winter but we haven't done anything else to it right well again I just wanted to repeat that when I when Tim asked for a new truck and we I think the committee recommended that he get the new truck he then announced that he was going to keep the old truck which was a concern of mine because it's just another vehicle that has to be maintained every vehicle uh requires uh repairs even if it's not used particularly if it's not used very often so uh I just want to want repeat that but you think you need the whole 78 or8 8,000 to get through the year because 72 pardon me 7,200 is the number I heard I think I heard 7821 didn't no it's it's yeah it's 7139 or something all right so so you want 7139 that's what you're asking for that's what I'm asking for okay but I'll take anything okay that's good to know thanks all right Jim yes Steve Steve what's the 7139 um paying for exactly on the greater it's paying it's $5,100 for the Hub and the spindle which I was calling the axle and in that email I mentioned that in 2011 this one would this particular spindle was replaced and in 2016 we replaced the other side on the front and in 2016 the part was $1,100 and now it's 5,100 for the same part oh well inflation yeah they were probably cast at the same time too yeah probably uh suy I um feel like we could go ahead and um vote to appropriate um 7,139 and um give the maintenance line enough to get through the last three months so I I would be in favor of voting this out of our fincom Reserve okay and April and I just wanted to sort of give the other the other on the other hand if we had this come out of the current maintenance um fund how much do you think that you would run over you know you've got 9,000 this is 7200 how far do you think that $1,800 will take you maybe one more repair okay because the um the truck that's down now that's sitting in the garage it was uh um900 and something dollars to repair a ground wire that was behind the dash and it was $350 to tow it so it doesn't take much anymore for something to go well over the $1,500 Mark so if you were to start to go over you know if you up the $1800 you could come back to us at that point and ask for an appropriation I mean I like either way I'll I'll do it whatever way it works yeah okay uh George Well I like I like the way April's thinking I mean do we need to cover all of it right now because we don't know what the repairs are going to be it sounds like we have another truck I'm thinking maybe 5,000 or 4,000 and then if Steve you have other repairs coming down the line we're here until June and also if we get to the end of the year and we find that that Line's coming a little lighter um we might be able to do the inter account transfer at the end of the year because I'm just thinking about how much pressure was on the fincom reserve last year I'd like to take you know I just want to be careful about how much we take uh thanks George Becky um I just want to remind the fincom that when um when we had a situ sitation where people uh Department had did not keep the fincom clued in as they went along we ended up with um a very frustrated department head who just charged a whole bunch before he left um and um I think we I'm hoping the fincom wants to you know Foster good communication and and also be respectful of their time when they put in all the work to to get the emails to to give you their Viewpoint and um to you know it might be manageable to come back and come back but at the same point um it's another thing that he'll have to put on his plate in the busiest season of the year uh Bob me you're mut I just want to say I agree with George I think that would be uh I think it would be a decent compromise to to give Steve some moreone money but you know there's another issue which I think George might have referred to which is we got to a jam last year with our our account was running out of funds we have another person coming tonight Lenny to ask for funds and we don't know what we're going to run into in terms of requests uh for uh for Reserve so I think the the the Prudential and uh way to deal with this is to try to be careful with that money and if Steve and Steve uh can come to us for more as it's been point it out and yeah the busiest I thought the busiest time of the year was the winter I didn't think it was a spring but uh I don't know all times of year are busy but I think Steve can come can come up to a a meeting and and just ask put his hand out we can we can deal with if we have the money that's what he's doing all right Jim Walton yeah I guess um for the most part I'm in agreement with April with what April put out there I I I know Steve when when April asked you the question you said you had enough money for one more repair I guess my question would be based on what you know right now what do you think you need to do to get you through uh the end of this fiscal year uh Beyond one repair I'm not not putting you on the spot just this is not this is not cast and stone just what's your rough idea we've got uh what three months three months to go um you've got enough enough money Beyond this one repair to do one more repair um what's your best what's your best guess my My Hope Is that we don't have to repair anything else yeah but I I honest I honestly couldn't say because every single little repair seems to cost between $500 and $1,200 now yeah and I think that's something we as the finance committee need to make sure we keep in mind is just uh inflation is not just going to affect uh the highway department it's going to have some impact on probably a number of different depos departments um so I guess what I would suggest is we we hang in there for now I I I I think it's really good that Steve's come to us now uh to give us to wave a flag but it's not clear to me um what or if what amount or if any is needed um to get us through this fiscal year in addition of what's currently in the budget so okay Susie um I I think our fincom Reserve uh balance is 59k is that right George do you have it I do hold on one second let me pull it up thanks y it's 5995 yeah so I'm gonna go back to my we did the whole 7,000 139 it would go down to 52,000 yeah 51955 right so I'm in favor of that okay um I have one other thing sure George I was gonna put in my hand but I just wanted to point out I'm looking at the budget for the that for fy2 for the highway department which I just lost because I'm hold on one second um it looks like actual spent on maintenance in fiscal 23 was $338,000 $ 3799 6 and Steve you requested 28,000 for f well it was 28,000 for fy4 and you didn't increase it for 25 but with inflation and everything I'm hearing again we spent 10,000 more in fiscal 23 that we're spending this year do you know what that additional amount was Steve and do you still think the 28000 well there there was um $7,000 spent on that diam mower but that that $7,000 has taken care of the issue it was a computer issue with the manufacturer so now we've got that all taken care of and then there was the $5,500 we threw at the John Deere tractor which still doesn't work and is still parked out back that was where that extra money went and do you think we're okay with 2018 ,000 for next fiscal year probably not seem probably not but I you know I understand things were tight and I I did bump up the line striping and I bumped up the materials so I you know I don't really I mean sure I'd love to bump them all up but I don't want to do that I'm happy to come back and knock on your door with the repair the repair one like like this this is okay with me uh Becky um so when Steve has this repaired before March 31st they will have 7% of their budget left for 25% of the Year all right I think we've had a fair amount of discussion about this so um maybe I'll entertain a motion if anybody's uh inclin to make one and then we'll take it from there all right uh Bob I think you were the firstand beat Susie Bas hair there go ahead oh you're muted Bob the right uh Robert's Rules of Order way to do this is but I like to make a motion that we uh provide $44,000 for to Steve for this at at this time um I I don't know if that's the right way to do it Susie or not but that's what I'd like to toh suggest so I'll make that motion okay all right so is there a second second all right Jim hemway second okay any other discussion about the motion on the floor which is to transfer $4,000 from our bcom reserves to the highway department for these repairs okay seeing No Hands Let's uh vote and George if you can kick us off i r II cashu I Mo ah Stein ey now Walton no okay so motion passes 5 to two so Steve I think the the takeaway here is we're going to um we're going to boost that line up by $4,000 um you've done I think uh an important thing which is sort of first and foremost flag our attention to the fact that this line um is going to be strained in this fiscal year and there's a decent chance the $4,000 may not be enough to cover us for the remainder of the year so so you know i' encourage you to come back to us if that turns out to be the case and you know we can discuss we'll see where we're at in terms of our Reserve funds and we could potentially discuss another transfer at that point any any questions for us Steve no no that sound that sounds good I don't I don't mind like I said I don't mind coming knocking on the door when okay I need to all right well thanks for for joining us then and um and thank you for I assume they'll be I was just saying thank you for all your work you're doing a great job yeah keep up the good work yes thank you Steve thanks Steve all right thanks Steve um okay uh I'm gonna ship gears um and we'll talk about the regional school budget that was um voted on and approved by the school committee uh this past week and let me pull that document up all right um I think I'm gonna need to zoom how's that can folks read that well enough yeah was there a no or or yep I could quite hear that's say yes okay got it uh all right I think to sort of set the stage um what what what is there to say right like okay clearly you know we we had a four towns meeting the end of February and that meeting resulted in a draft budget that was going to I'll give you the exact number was going to require Cuts in of 1,689 ,000 change um I think it's fair to say there's been um significant amount of public concern about that and the implications of that um I think coming from families and from Educators so uh I think this this is this is just my sense of it the school committee took all that feedback in and decided that that was not going to be consistent with their their mission um to um support the kind of high quality education that our families in all four towns have come to rely on and and that those those cuts were going to result in what four 14 um positions I think 14 FTE being cut from from the budget if I remember the number correctly so they essentially asked the superintendent to produce a new draft of the budget which restored uh I think the student facing Cuts so those 14 positions that produced a new budget which we're looking at on the screen here which reduced the amount of cuts required down to 747 [Music] 896 now that um I think what's happened there from that point is that you know we we get um an amount of assessment required which is 23, 6729 uh $918 and what Doug has proposed is is a is essentially a guard rail 8.2% which we all um hit um and that kind of gets us to the to the budget um that uh the regional school committee has basically asked him to produce a little bit of a if you just my personal view is a kind of a little bit of a backwards kind of strategy to get to the the the budget number that the regional school committee feels like um is what what the district needs but nevertheless what that means for us is two things we we're looking at an assessment that is one uh sorry 1,688 432 okay that is 888627 more than the last budget draft that we looked at at that second four towns meeting and um uh and and and so we went from what a 31 39 2.52% increase in our assessment over FY 24 to you know the 88.2% that all four towns are looking at in this this budget so um okay so I think that's kind of the background Anna I know you're in the meeting is there anything else that you think just to kind of kick off this discussion that is uh important to to to relay at this point so one additional piece of information is that we also cut some Capital expenditures um from the high school budget that you know one could argue that they're essential but they're not quite as essential as the safety uh items so like the security door and some of the fencing um the HVAC uh things that are the filter system um those really can't wait but the paving of the parking lot and some upkeep on the sidewalks and things like that uh bleachers I guess and some lights in the theater were taken out of the budget for next year and pushed down the road a little bit um in order to recoup some of the costs and so that you know the the allocations to the the Regal school budget um will go up considerably but that will be minorly balanced I can only say m slightly balanced against the the capital um in uh budget so the at the end of the day um we're cutting a million about out of the total budget uh a million on the capital projects that ini I got about 300 okay 250 3 yeah 250 oh I see so that the total of the cuts is about a million between the cuts from the regional school budget and the the capital budget um they they total about a million I see so this this figure here that I'm highlighting plus those cuts in the capital plan for fy2 amount to about a million dollar correct okay got it okay slightly appeases the slightly okay amates the ask all right um okay so uh and Jim Walton I see your hand up so I'm gonna I'm gonna turn it over to questions and comments just in a second but uh um I guess I'll just say in addition so really there are two implications for us right one is we're looking at a significantly increased budget that we're GNA um have to fund if it if it's passed um and and second we're looking at an implementation of guard rails that's different from anything we've discussed with the region up until this point those are both kind of important issues that um we're g to have to provide some feedback about okay so I will now open the door to questions and comments so I'll start with Jim Walton and then I'll go to April yeah AJ thanks um and I I know I know you touched on this a little bit AJ um but I'm just trying to understand a little bit better uh I think we all during our first couple of meetings the four Town meetings we had some guidance uh for a aiming for a specific budget proposal and and now there's a different number what exactly transpired between the two uh that that gives us this new with this request for this new guidance on on an increased budget um well I think I I'll I'll ask Anna in a second but I think one thing to keep just I think there's been a tremendous amount of public um reaction to the proposed budget that would have required 14 staff positions to be eliminated from the operating budget just to give you I think I think it was about an hour's worth Anakin you can correct me if I'm wrong but it was about an hour's worth of of public comment just at last Tuesday's meeting and I think I'm sure there was was it two is that what you're saying April okay so maybe more like two hours uh so yeah uh Anna I don't know what else what else you'd want to offer in terms of like why we're shifting from a budget proposal that we saw in February and the one that's here yeah so the February budget was not specific it just said we would need to cut 1.7 million dollar out of the budget and we knew that that was going to be rough but then the reality of what those cuts meant were just unacceptable um they were they would severely impact our ability to serve the students as we want to serve them um and then you know you could you know sort of piece meal it together and say well if you somewhere in between could we land somewhere in between but then you have to go back and renegotiate figure out like oh well which student facing positions are more important and which student facing positions are less important and so we we really wanted to not do that and so we came to the decision of just let's reinstate all of the student facing positions and realize that you know the other cuts are a little bit problematic as well but let's at least not um affect this the ones that are more directly um facing the students um and one could argue that we should put all of the cuts back but and get a level Services budget out there but you know we have to be a little bit realistic at the same time and so this is our this is our decision okay that helps provide some Flav the flavor for what what's driving driving this process I think when we did get meet with the superintendent and whatnot I thought they did know that they were going to have to cut a certain number of positions sort of in this area but maybe they weren't specific at that time and maybe um they weren't out in the public as far as providing information publicly regarding the the specifics that's that's yeah so thanks thanks for all that background I apologize for not having a camera my camera is no worries um I I've got a few hands up but I was wondering actually before I go to them could you just speak to there was a lot of comment in particular about a proposal to change the language program at the middle school that I think was necessitated by these Cuts required so one of one of the yeah so one of the one of the cuts proposed was to the world languages program and what they proposed to do was and I it was actually a like the language program is already relatively small um and so when you cut a cut some of it it only reduces it by a portion of an FTE but what they effectively wanted to do was right now you have a semester of languages in seventh grade and a full year in 8th grade and what they wanted to do was to cut basically a semester out of eighth grade and then switch the language program to both seventh and eighth grade instead of meeting one semester meeting every other day and there was a considerable amount of push back from the language program saying that the every other day effectively means two days a week and it's really hard for both the teachers and the students and it reduces learning by more than half I got it so even if even if every other day meant half the amount of learning time we would basically have a effectively go had middle school students go from getting a year and a half of language instruction to less than one year of language instruction is that fair to say yeah and yeah definitely less than a year and then the other problem is so they they then treat it as more of an exploratory course instead of a learning languages course so just let's just expose the students to this language so they can see if they like it and then they would affect L have to start over in in high school starting with the the first year program so you if you took French in Middle School you would then still start with French one in high school got it okay thanks um April well I have to say I do appreciate the attempt to not take away from actual face-to-face teaching you know that that certainly is a struggle but what I had a question about was the assessment method I really it was like calculus I really don't understand it's almost like it was work backwards to get the you had the numbers and then work backwards and created an assessment method it just it did not make sense to me the new assessment method if I may yeah go ahead George you want to respond to that yeah if you look at the first blue column April basically what they're doing is they're saying they need to raise 24420 and they're going to use the current assessment method that we always use and so that's what they did and that's why shutesbury is much lower than Leverett for instance because that's how it's been coming out then they just changed the guardrail from four to 8.2 and so when you look at the right-and column it's only because of the guardrail that those numbers look that way are you sure because there was there's you know in in the material that we got we had a summary of an assessment method that I'm I was trying to understand that was different than the one that we had agreed on yeah no it's it's it's it's it's only different in that it applies an 8.2% guard rail as opposed to a 4% guard rail but I will say one thing though that I think is important which is that the way this chart is constructed this figure that George referred to um this is a true level Services budget right without any cuts at all so in in a world where four towns funded a a level Services budget it would result in this um Collective assessment and you would see the percentage increases over fy2 24 that all the towns would have experienced and so that they basically did your right to say that they did work backwards because they said well let's look at a budget that includes Cuts but let's make sure that those cuts don't include any student facing positions so so in that scenario the amount of cuts required is this $748,000 and so that arrives at a new um amount of assessment Acquired and then they did work backwards I think it's fair to say that right from that number and said okay well what would be the guardrail value that we could apply to all four towns that would land us at that that that total budget and so I think while technically true that the assessment method is not different other than guard rails a Guard the guard rail value it is I think fair to say that the way of implementing the assessment method here and arriving at this assessment method is different than um what what we've what what they've done in the past um Becky is your hand up to respond to that specifically yeah are you're muted if you take FY 24 if you take shots spy's budget and multiply it by 1.08 82 you get 1,688 432 the same if you take leverage FY 24 budget and multiply it by 8.2 1.82 you get 1,667 349 so I don't know how they described it but this is not anything like the assessment we had been using that's represented in the column right you're right yeah I I I I think I think here's here's the way I I was sort of thinking about it and then I'm sorry I know I'm talking a lot and I see some hands up but I'll just I'll just say you know these this um way that this assessment is being a portioned to the four different communities all of these represent a deviation from modified statutory right which has been kind of our Focus for for for a while now and is I think it's fair to say has been the kind of agreed upon method after a long sort of process right we've all four towns have agreed that that's ultimately the fair and right modified stature is kind of fair and right way to to determine these assessments um these all represent deviations from that for all four four towns and um so I think in that sense we're we're not utilizing the assessment method that we have I think supported and we've agreed upon in the past I I don't when we when we when we talked about guard rails last two years I don't think we ever envisioned a scenario where guard rails would be applied to all four communities and the actual guard rails amount amount of guard rail would be determined by the amount of budget we needed to fund and then work backwards from that number to find out okay well this is the amount of guard rail we should apply to get so I'm not happy about that I and a this is not guard rails though there no guard rails here yeah they they had they had voted on it Amendment to the um assessment system that that was part of the packet that you sent to us no but Becky's Becky's point is really important they if I may because if you look if you look at the number that they're asking for they're looking at for an 88.2% increase yeah from year to year they want they want to raise the 23672 but they're not calculating use everybody's assessment based on the method that we've been using they're not doing that what they did was they said we want to fund 100% but because of the 8.2 guard rail that we instituted we can only fund 23672 that's right that's a dubious method in my mind the real the real I know AJ you alluded to it and I know April also I agree that the 23672 should be ass to all of us based on the assessment method and that's not being done here and that those what those numbers would look like have not been presented to us right it's not even on the chart right anywhere yeah I agree with you I think I think you all made the right call on that all right um let me go to Becky then Bob and then uh Anna yeah oh your okay so Bob yeah I'm not done I'm still gonna oh sorry sorry George you ra my hand okay sorry go ahead so I want to ask I I want to ask um in regards to the conversations in the region in the regional committee about this proposal was there any conversation regarding how using the method that's on this page right now is going to affect future years Beyond fy2 because when I look at when I look at where our numbers are relative to the others and I think about the 4% guard rail if we were to implement it next year there's going to be really weird increases for each of the different towns and I'm wondering if it's going to be difficult for the region to fund next year's budget especially and I hope there was conversation about the half a million dollars that's also being used to prop up this this um budget from uh the remaining Marissa money so I was wondering was there conversation about how this will impact assessments did Doug address that for future years Beyond 25 uh Anna I didn't hear any um at the me meetings that I viewed but can you speak to that is that so the the SR money is still a thing yes and so yeah you know next year we're not going to have the SRM funds we're not going to be able to apply that $500,000 towards the budget um so that's definitely going to be an issue next year this is also going to affect the base for next year so next year's base um will be this and the 4% will be on top of this um as a as a guard rail and yeah you know I understand the the issue with the guard rails and the method of assessment here I think there's as you guys are talking about it there's two different ways of allocating this money and one is to to use the the total budget and raise the guard rail progressively until you hit the budget without with with the 7478 96 in cuts to get there um and this obviously puts um a few Towns at a at more of a disadvantage than others or you know having would have owed probably more than they would have if you do the other assessment the other way to do it is to treat the new budget with the cuts as as the total budget and then do the allocation based on the total budget without any guard rails at all and you know I think there's there's arguments to be made for either Choice um the argument for this method is that no town has a higher increase than 88.2% um and the argument for the other method is that more accurately reflects the the assessment method but definitely will hit some T some towns a lot harder than the other towns and some towns will see I mean it looks like pelum will will see a probably close if not even larger than 20% increase if they were to portion it that way right um Bob yeah I want to say first just to respond to what uh Anna just said it does make any sense it seems to me they should do the find out what numbers that they want to have for a total cost and then a portion the cost according to the statutory method as that's our method and then after the statutory method has created the assessments for the for our particular towns then you apply the guard rails uh so that we still have the right proportion according to the method that we've adopted and then we modify it to reduce uh the most the highest uh increase you know maybe uh maybe it would be pelum probably usually is right but I don't see why they didn't do that first step in any case that's uh and also I think we have to remember here folks that uh Amis has not approved this funding this budget yet the ammer financial team so personally I think that it's very unlikely that they will so if that means all these numbers go away and we're going to have to deal with that situation as it evolves because I don't think it's any I don't think it's likely that they can afford to pay for this right for what I see I I think I think you you may be right Bob but I guess what I would say is that we have an obligation to independently arrive at a a conclusion for us about whether this is something we can recommend to our our okay well I'll just say my first take is for looking at this tonight and and looking at our budget and looking at the stress we have currently to deal with on our budget without this increase that it's unlikely we can afford it based upon our situation with uh uh our tax levy such as it is now compared and after all we represent the taxpayer and the taxpayer is also undergoing uh inflationary pressure in his own household so his or her household and we have to regard that as an important issue for us too so uh that's my take got it Susie um this is just an observation not an argument um it seems to me that this school committee the regional school committee decided from what I read in the paper decided to make a stand about the programming to be funded um for the schools that they came at it from the from their responsibility of the school committee saying what program is needed that splits it off as far as I can see because it's such a big um budget it splits It Off from being responsible for the financing um and how you represent the costs to the towns that are going to finance it that feels a little different to me the superintendent's office is in the middle of that they're the sort of Arbiters of this um but there's clearly a decision that this is the programming that's needed and it was made by the school committee and now our job is to say what is the financing what is the role of the financing and I feel it's unequivocal that shutesbury can't afford this kind of jump um it is Way Beyond us um we were busy wrestling the numbers into um something that was going to take more than our two and a half Levy more than our new growth more than this and that and this is just way way out there so if if the decision about this budget gets split into program needs versus financing then I think we just need to represent our financing part which is we cannot afford this and I do think Bob's right that Amis is going to come up with a response so as pelum so as Leverett and I can't imagine that any town can absorb this kind of hit in the newspaper they're talking about you know will Amber College cough a million dollars blah blah blah those are things that also are not in our purview all we can say is this is what our tax levy looks like this is what our Revenue looks like and there is no way that this will fit into our picture and if we're going to do this sort of separately um where they talk about the programming and we talk about the budget then we do have to recommend that I know that when we went at to the four towns it was clear that that was way too big a cut but there's no Revenue coming in to this picture and we can say our town cannot afford that kind of Revenue jump okay um George yeah for me it's it's clearly too much money we've been struggling already trying to control the increase knowing that this year is one of the wor most difficult years we've had that was before we saw these numbers I would hope that maybe that the finance committee we can take a closer look at the budget see how things stand and come up with an additional amount above the 39,000 that we might be able to support but there's no way in my mind that we could support an additional $889,000 and so I would propose you know that we a we don't um approve this and we do work to see what can we do for the region this year um and that's that's going to take a little more horsepower you know a little time I will also disclose to everyone that I became aware this afternoon that the town of pelum did vote on this the finance committee met and voted and they actually rejected it as well so I know you were all speculating about that okay I hadn't heard that okay great um Jim Walton yeah I I think there's really maybe there's three messag messages back to the uh back to the uh the regional district one is the points that were made earlier about statutory we should be following the same methodology we followed in the past with regard to changes uh from year to year I think Bob you you referred to this earlier uh I think I think the second comment that needs to be pushed back to the region is gu and this column this right this right blue column is called applying guard rails these these are not guard rails and guard rails were designed for a specific purpose this this has nothing to do with guard rails and and maybe the third thing is you know either reject as we're talking or we talk about proposing another fourtown meeting a quick fourtown meeting where this where this uh uh topic comes up and and go through the budget process as we always do with the region where the four towns discuss and and debate um the uh the increase or or or whatever the budget may be um but and and if that's not feasible then yeah definitely support not not going forward with this increase okay uh April yeah I I would like to see another column with uh using the method that the towns have agreed on you know what would that look like um and and with with the guard rails I mean I you know on the other hand what's what's hard is that you know education is so important and so underfunded and you know we have roads to maintain it's just it's this is too much to ask this year but I would like to see the numbers using our the statute the method that we had agreed on just to look at that and George can't do that you can't do that George ohal if you look at the uh if you look at the first blue column and you see the increases by that that sort of implies a methodology there right which to me would indicate that pelum and leverick get hammered with increase and then ammer and Sho SP are probably pretty similar with regard to increase yeah yeah I mean I think I think ideally what what what we would have seen was a a third column here which was using this method 100% modified stat atory on a budget total that is equal to this number we're speculating we we have a rough idea of what that would produce but we don't know the exact well I wonder if the proportions would be the same but you know this formula just gets confusion you know what I mean so the 19706 for ammer is a percentage would that percentage be the same I don't know I could check though because we could look P at the previous ones I presented if the percentages are always the same we could calculate it that way right go not tonight um so uh let me see uh Anna so um the percentages represent the percent increase from last year so those percentages would not be the same necessarily I think what you want is to take um the the the allocation percent percentages so what percentage of the total budget is um each amount and so if you took like 197 divided by 244 and then you multiplied that number by 23.67% if you have yeah it would be rough but yeah it would get us yeah okay um not sure if that's helpful let's see yeah no that is uh Bob yeah I just want to ask Anna uh you know the school committee is the one that uh negotiate a contract for the instructors at the school and uh that is something that I wonder how much the instructor the new contract has impacted this budget and uh I I couldn't see it from just the paperwork that I had in my font folder here do you have that on the top of your head Anna uh it's it's a huge impact what I would say yeah okay so that's that was what my impression was too you know the I mean salaries make up a huge portion of the budget right so you and so their concessions in that budget negotiation which I will remind you went on for over a year yes I know that my from my point of view I tried to raise this issue at the fourtown meeting you know the enrollment has declined in the regional school over 10e period about 19% and to me not knowing all the details of how the school you you organize the classes and the teaching obviously teaching is the most important uh thing that the school does uh you know I just wonder whether uh whether there could be some structural changes applied in the way the instruction is delivered to the students that reflect the enrollment decreases uh uh you know I've I've always speaking out uh I'm against school choice as a way of keeping the current configuration intact I think that the configuration could be fundamentally change to make it reflect enrollment uh and not import student Choice students who pass next to nothing to support our uh the cost of that school down there so anyway I just wonder you know since the school committee did provide through I know a very very stressful negotiation a major reason driver for this increase uh maybe there's a way that they should come to understand with a 20% in decrease in enrollment that we do have it's reasonable to think that we would have less teachers for 20% less students I mean I don't know if that if it fits or if it can be arranged in a way that works but it seems like reasonable on his face that this side of adjustment uh is is reason and practical Bob over what period of time are you is that 20% okay 10 years okay that was the those are the numbers that I got from Doug when I asked a Ser of questions that we the committee forwarded through me to him right okay no that's helpful because my my understanding is that the the census has been fairly stable in in the last few years but uh but I I that's why I was asking what period of time um I can send you those and I see your yeah no I remember um and I see your hand is still up did you want to respond to anything Bob said yeah yeah what I would say is that the I don't think we've been able to fund a level Services budget for many years so basically what we have been doing is making Cuts every year to the system so all of those cuts are adding up and those cuts are reducing the teachers right so every year we cut a teacher every year we cut someone retires and we don't replace them and we've been doing this continuously for several years now and so what I would say is there has been shrinkage to match the lowering numbers of students and so we really are running at capacity right now the the the numbers of like sort of the teacher student ratio is about where you want it to be and not lower than you want it to be and in some cases higher than you want it to be so I do think that reducing the number of teachers would negatively impact class sizes um but one of the biggest impacts it's going to have is on um special ed and that's probably a and maybe you could argue that we could go back to the superintendent and say that's not the right position to cut but you know then you're going back and you know making sort of like micromanagement cuts and saying look you need to change this one and you need to change this one and you need to change this one and at a at at a certain point you know you do need to trust the the administrators to know which cuts are going to damage the students the least and you know I I don't think that any cut is going to make an improvement you know all of them are bad um to a certain extent yes you're saying what's what's the least horrible cut that we can make but what I will say is the argument that we are losing students and therefore we can afford these Cuts doesn't totally hold we've been cutting too many times that we're really at where we need where we can't afford to lose any more teachers to maintain the the services that we have yeah yeah I I just want to I think say something um Bob just hang on for one second just in in response um I think I'm largely in agreement with um some of the kind of overall feedback that we've heard during this meeting but I would push back on sort of one I think important point which is that I I think it's accurate fair to say that we've got a structural problem in that we've we we've we have families students that have been benefiting from a quality education that has been underfunded over the last several years and we've managed to mask that problem with by tapping into some forms of funding that were temporary in nature and related to the pandemic and that sort of that enabled us to kind of you know get by um you know over the last few years but I think we like fundamentally have a conflict in terms of you know Susie talked about it as programming for the needs of students versus the challenge of funding the budget and there being a tension between the two um and I think what I would say is that I I do think that we're not appropriately funding the the regional school at the levels that um we expect and require in terms of the experience we we we expect our students to have and so I think it sort of created this need to sort of reset the and it's being done in a fairly dramatic way here um but I'm not like I I I I think it is I think both things can be true right that we we can't afford this increase but we also can afford to gut this quality of education and we and we can't afford the implications of of these cuts and I think where that leaves me is that whatever whatever we do here in this whether it's for fy2 or if this gets kicked it you know down the road to next year like I do think we have a hard in shutesbury I think we have a hard decision to make about how we we might need to readjust what services what levels we're funding various services at um if as I believe we we may be underfunding our school and that may require us to look at ways to save money in other parts of our budget and then those will be painful decisions to make but um it is a conversation I'm sort of like increasingly feeling like I don't want to have it but like I kind of think we need to have it whether it's this year or next year any I'll leave it at that um Bob yeah then April just I want to briefly respond to what Anna said I just want to just tell you I I totally sympathize with your your dilemma and what you're having to deal with down there uh at the regional school but I want to do point out to you that the sture uh the student teacher uh ratio has actually uh decreased from about 15 and a half per in that same 10e period just for the record that includes uh the school choice uh students in that ratio who have whose numbers and percentage have gone up during that period so it just reinforces my point it's not that I know exactly what to do about this but I do think that uh that's that it should be understood that that student teacher ratio has actually uh gone from 11 uh point8 to 10.2 over that period so that's just to be considered that fact uh and the other thing is you know if we we have to think in terms of what's what you need to do a good job and what sort of resources you need to to operate that institution but the other thing is that we fund this with property taxes which is a regressive tax and it falls the most with the most weight on people who have the least resources which is another issue has nothing to do with what we do here but it's something we have to remember when we pass along these costs to the taxpayer that we're disproportionately uh punishing or affecting people who have the least ability to to pay for it so if we could just get the everybody's 1040 on the table and start funding education based upon income and on resources like that maybe we'd have a uh we be we would have a different situation in terms of our resources to distribute but we are Distributing based on a regressive tax system uh April this this may sound uh anyway you know I I remember a number of years ago back when we were children we had an override vote that increased made our budget more robust and really set the down in a better path um it just occurred to me that maybe this is a time for another override vote for us for the towns to come together to really acknowledge what we haven't been paying for and to come up with a way that that we can pay for it at the same time we need to be pushing our legislators and I and I think the ammer college you know I think that's a good idea but I wonder if an override would be um a way to address this in a larger in a longer term way I know that's sacriligious suie um in in the budgets I've been participating in and aware of we have not always needed all of our two and a half Levy therefore we have some Levy capacity this is something that the people at town meeting have supported they're going to support that that's obvious um and so now we need to it may need we to be represented and like April said one way would say sort of a lump sum um this is the override we need to bring our education budget back in line but one thing I've always noticed is that um compared to ammer shutesbury puts a bigger percentage in their education budget than their other um costs roads fire police um so so I'm don't know if that's another aspect to look at if everybody was um funding their education budget I mean both the local and the regional at 66% or something like that that we're at um then maybe we would have a different discussion uh Jim Walton yeah I just responded I think it was a comment earlier about well this eight .2% it's a big number it's it's painful um it might be something we absolutely have to do um and maybe in in order to do that we'd have to cut in other areas to make up the difference and that's where I have a concern um I mean education is 60 70% of our budget um the the Regional School is is a big chunk of that um we've also gone through budget reviews for all our other departments and I think for the most part would've been in that 2 to 3% increase so I don't think there's much room um for cutting now we just heard from Steve he's doing everything he can to try to cut in certain places just to keep things even um and I don't think that's too different from what we see in in in some of the other departments and some of the other areas so I I just don't see how we're going to make up the difference uh by cutting in in other in other budgets in other areas um to to to get into this 88.2% it's a huge number and it's a huge number in one of our biggest uh budget areas um 88.2% uh Anna I just wanted to point out that um the you talked about the student teacher ratio decreasing slightly um but the uh the percentage of the students that have an IEP or have uh uh the special ed students has actually increased dramatically and so that is also affecting the student teacher ratio I see George um in the last 10 years there have been a number of cuts to this region we've seen it we've seen some very big cuts six seven years ago and to some extent it's related to decreased enrollment and to other extent it's not and when we start cutting programs we know that it's not and um it is disappointing to be in this position I know it is for everyone it certainly is for me as well um but there is the financial reality that Bob was was referring to and that is you know Chapter 70 has not lived up to its promise we all know that and um it is regressive to put too much burden on the taxpayers our job as a finance committee I guess is to try to figure out to what extent can we really put that burden on the taxpayer without taxpayer feedback we might not really know until we get the town meeting um for me I'm looking at this budget that Becky sent us today and I'm looking at what its impact is going to be on the average taxpayer and it looks to me like it's over $300 additional tax increase for the taxpayers for the budget we have we were already struggling as I said earlier before this started and yeah we can talk to the legislators to we're bleue in the face it's getting us nowhere and this is a crisis regionally and probably out east as well it's well documented in The Gazette you know belter toown last week Amis for the last month eastampton Northampton so that doesn't answer anything for us today though so you know um like I said earlier I'm willing to help and give something there's no way I'm going to approve $128,000 increase but you know maybe it is time to say we use more of that excess Levy capacity so that we can fortify our ability to pay the region because this isn't going away we're going to be having these same conversations in a year from now but we need to do the analysis right so George just just to respond to that um I did a little kind of quick calculation and if we could absorb a 4% increase in our assessment that would amount to um [Music] $62,400 what 39,000 in change that we had seen in the previous budget I'm wondering what people just you know how that how that strikes them um that would be yeah so that would be an an additional almost $223,000 above and beyond the budget that we looked at at the last four towns meeting um one one thing I can tell you is for every for every the ratio is 1.1 so if we add $40,000 I'm just throwing this out if we add $40,000 to our budget that means that the average household is going to pay another $44 on their tax bill and so we can look at it in terms of to what extent do we want to add to the tax bill for the region right whatever that increase is we can calculate what the impact on the taxpayers are and again I think we want to look at the bottom line where we are with everything else that we looked at up to now and say what is that number and then including the 39,000 that's in there initially from the region and then you know for every 10,000 we're adding we're adding about $11 to the T to the um tax bill this $ 127 is a $90,000 increase that would be $100 per household increase above and beyond what we're already going to be asking people to increase with the budget that we presented which by the way we've used $130,000 of cash to balance and we're already you know again struggling ourselves not as bad as the region I'm not comparing us our Dilemma to theirs but all right Anna sorry I just I think I just left my hand up sorry I didn't okay gotcha all right um Bob yeah I just want to add to what George just said would and and say that there's also in this budget that's being presented to us there's Esser funds so there's another thing that will go away I think next year uh so that will be something that be in the basis budget that will not that is not funded by the taxpayer now yeah and you know one one bit of feedback and I think we will take a a vote formal vote just so you you have I I think we see where it's going but just so you can have um you know something concrete to report back to the regional school committee but one thought that occurred to me is that like you know if it sounds like pelum is not recommending this um I think we might be heading in that direction I don't know what emmer and and lever are going to say but like if if the feedback is this is not tenable um this 8.2% increase and the region is and and and superintendant are looking at alter you know sort of Alternatives that fall somewhere between the LA the four towns budget and the one we're looking at right here um I think one thing I'd be interested in is what what would be the implications of restoring the cuts that are specific to the language program that you spoke to that and that did seem to to be the focus of certainly not all but a lot of the public comment that at least I heard and read at town meeting so like if there was another alternative budget that could be drafted and responded to I would be interested in in that uh I don't know if any other folks are but um that would be kind of one you know one one budget scenario that would fall somewhere between these two that we've we've talked about um okay any other sort of General comment so I think uh yeah Susie I feel like we don't really have enough um workable information so like when you say what about an alternative to do this that um I guess I feel like um this what's being presented to us is kind of like this or this or not and so if it's this or not I'd say not um I have a lot of concern about our budget and I also have a concern about of being able to compete in the market for students that can go to other places but they too are facing inflation um but I don't want to put amest in a death spiral so um so it is as an alternative might be looking at any pieces that could be offered because this doesn't offer pieces this is just like um the the whole the whole thing plus some Cuts or or not so I don't know what kind of voting we could do when we don't have that information to make some other decisions yet yeah well I I I don't think we're in a position to vote on a budget to approve a budget but I think we could vote to just um reject a budget scenario that we're being presented with here which again I'm not like I mean I think that's I just sense that's where the disc discussion is headed but um and I think that may be useful um sort of feedback for that Anna can can share back um let me go to Bob and then Anna yeah I just want to say I don't know if it would be acceptable to the committee or to Anna but I think there's pretty clearly a consensus that what this 88.2% is not acceptable to shutesbury finance committee uh so would that be adequate to send that message back without a vote uh do we you know do we have to have a formal vote um andna what do what is the region expecting are are they expecting the towns to kind of formally vote on whether like the finance committees to to vote on whether to approve or or not approve or or recommend I should say um this budget um like what do you what do you what what do you feel like you need from us so I think you you know you obviously have the right to not come back to us with anything and we have to just wait until town meeting and and hear what town meeting decides um yeah because it's possible that you could recommend not passing it and then the town would decide that they want to override your decision and pass it anyway um but I I think it would still be helpful to know whether you support the budget or not um one thing that I would say is if you do not if if you are inclined to not um pass the budget or so you know recommend the budget at the town meeting if there's any amount of guidance as to what you could possibly um be okay with I think that would be helpful because then we could say you know if we could get the budget down to X then that would be more likely to pass and then we could work on a budget that would take out the bits that they think are the the most Expendable um and not prescribe which bits to put back in um then and then I me obviously they heard all the same feedback that we heard um that but if you have sort of a like a numeric guidance as to say if you could only increase it by 6% we might be able to stomach that or if you could only increase it by something then that might be a percentage that we could deal with but um without any guidance then then we're still sort of swinging in the wind right okay Becky um Anna I was just wondering I and I apologize if you already answered this question because um Zoom decided to update um in the middle the beginning of the meeting so oh no I crashed um my question is is so is this the final budget from the school committee are you statutorily out of time and this is this is it this is all the towns will see um so we have to put this um to the towns in order for it to be able to be on the warrant and to give proper notification we could not have any more meetings on this what that means is we have now notified you this is our budget any further changes would have to be at the discretion of the moderator I guess and so if we were to come to a different budget between now and then we could still give it to you or could still be proposed at a certain time my understanding is I think AJ said that the warrant has to be made um 10 days before two weeks two weeks before the town meeting so it's not clear to me exactly which modifications can be made and when they can be made and who decides whether they can be made but from our stand from the school committee stand point this vote had to be passed in order to be in compliance with the state um is your final statutory required budget yes so still make amendments but this is the budget so any changes would have to be handled on town meeting floor with three towns and through the council for ammer okay I I just want wanted to be clear on that because that yeah there aren't many options here then yeah yeah I mean we we are definitely going to amris college as soon as possible and we will try to raise some additional funds from you know in other ways and how that would play out and how that would affect future budgets is unclear so you know that's all we can promise right now and the last question can I just ask a quick question yeah go ahead Becky um so the method presented that says 100% statutory is that the does that include the rolling average and is that the method we've used for the last three years yes okay that's the method so what happens this is very confusing to me but the way that previous budgets have been developed is you have a level Services budget and then ammer tells everybody well we can only afford X percentage increase this year and so then the they're they are given 4% and their amount of money is taken out of the budget then the allocations happen based on that amount of the budget and then the guard rails are put into place which I think is a little convoluted but I'm new to the game so this is how it's apparently always been done well the method we just so and I'm sure you're aware we fought for 10 years to get to this this method um because there was never any acknowledgment of of the disparities between you know the the average incomes in the communities which are astronomically different yeah um and so formula itself is very you know has been negotiated over many years the way they apply the formula to me is a little confusing because they don't apply the formula until after they've discovered how much amers can pay and then then they apply the formula and then they further reduce the walk into it backwards yeah it's a little backwards but that's my understanding of how the normal budget process goes right AJ if you if you have a different perception then please correct me okay no that's right and you know it's like it's usually a kind of a two-step process because ammer says we can we'll give you this guidance and then they come back a month later and say well actually we'll give you another percent or whatever and so then then that this what you described then gets reworked um to accommodate you know what what they're able to absorb isn't that is that guidance come from the finance side of Amherst or is it the school committee no it's the it's their Finance director yeah uh Susie um just that little scenario that Anna mentioned if we bring a reduced then below what the school committee is asking if we bring that to town meeting and in fact town meeting rejects that and says no we want to take the whole budget in it's going to drive a hole in our budget right there on town meeting floor and I think um what I read in the paper it made me feel like the school committee doesn't really know what that looks like um and like Becky said you got four towns um trying to come up with something um and how would we plug that hole um what kind of mechanism I don't want to know the answer tonight I just want to say that it's not it's very convoluted it would get really um difficult and I'm not saying how people should vote at town meeting I just feel like this there's a lot of naivity going on and um we can sort of be begin to look at that and say yeah so we we suddenly have an $80,000 hole in our budget where where are we going to find that money um and and so you know would we be in the April quarter of looking for an override would we close our meeting with a um a plan to have an override um I don't know um but I I just think that this is more uh this is more way more messy than people are imagining it's not just about votes it's about making it work yeah that's a good point Bob yeah I just want to say somewhat reflecting what Susie just said we can't come and say we're going to give you an additional 4% or 5% or whatever the percent is that we think might be we' be willing to part with we have to do this in if we're going to stay within our assessment method we have to know what Amerson is going to do because after all that is the he's the that's the big dog they they have most of the students they have most of the expense whatever they do if we follow our assessment method then that determines what we pay based upon the overall budget which is extrapolated from Amis contribution so that's how we've done it that makes sense to me and we don't know what Amis is going to do so we can't very well we can't say we're going to give additional money and Amis isn't not the same level according to our assessment method or lever isn't and pum isn't no sus is right we can't have an inde independently we act as a member of the region based upon an assessment method and that means we as a as a regional towns we agree together somehow what percentage of the school committee's request will be funded and then we assess what we pay and bring that to town meeting so we've already done that once but now we have this new situation and I think we need to know what the other towns uh think we I think we need another four time meeting immediately but we need to know from Amis what they're going to do ultimately that's that's the determining Factor so have you heard anything Becky from amist or from Doug or no okay I haven't asked though I um I can reach out um okay Becky um so I I'm sorry to be stuck on the assessment method Anna so it's the applying guard rails budget the the second blue column that the school committee has committed to so and you've committed to this new assessment formula that goes with it so the towns could vote against the assessment formula and the budget I mean now we have two things for that the towns can vote against um or for but it's the 100% statutory even though it's presented here we have because of your vote we have no opportunity to work with that method is that your understanding Anna so my my understanding is the 100% statutory version um yeah so it's never really been done with 100% statutory because you always apply the guard rails at a certain point so that no town has to have we didn't always apply guard rails I don't think I think there was one year we didn't okay but the guard rails are set so that no town has to experience a more than 4% increase from the previous year and so the yeah the it's a it's it's very convoluted the only real difference is the guard rail limit in this particular case the the rest of the assessment was done according to the formula um no no it's not it's it's the guard rails these are not it's an yeah compated application of the Guard guard rails I get you don't have guard rails all you did is um use the same percentage for every t there's no because you have to you have to start with the original formula and the original so if you start with 100% statutory amount yeah and then you apply the guard rails and you gradually lower the guard rail until you hit 35 or 23 672 98 then you end up with a guard rail set at 820 so what you've done is you've taken these 10% 20% 15% 10% and you've taken that guard rail and lowered it until you reached the amount in the budget that we need right I'm not saying that that's the right way to do it I'm just explaining that that's what was done is that it's not a it's no longer a guard rail I think technically technically I don't think I'll just say yeah go ahead George no no you go you go well I I was just going to say what's different about this is that in in previous applications right we've had a situation where multiple towns are being assessed a value that corresponds to the 100% statutory method right and there may be one town or two towns that are deviating from that because they're hitting a guard rail right in this scenario all four towns are hitting a guard rail which which means that the result actually has nothing really effectively has nothing to do with with 100% statutory like I understand that in the process of getting there there was the application of formulas that that that are mod modified statutory but but at the end of this process the result is something that bears very little resemblance to modifi story because it's you know we're just backing into a number and just applying the same percentage increase to to all four towns George technically technically technically technically all right so what first of all technically that's not the 100% method we're looking at that's just the title that Doug has had on it on all the budgets he's ever presented we know it's the modified method yeah it's 100% modified statutory yes now technically what is the school committee recommending are they recommending 24 milon 4284 or are they recommending 2372 and that's really important 23672 okay so if they're presenting 23672 then technically to pass this budget we have to get the voters to agree to it in our budget and the voters will also have to agree to a warrant article for the assessment method to be used in fy2 the way that is worded is you take the modified statutory method and you apply it to 23672 918 if you you have a guard rail then if shs spy's number is over 820 then we go to the number we see on the screen but that won't happen because if you take 23672 918 and apply it as that warrant defines the assessment that guardrail comes in after that calculation here if the budget proposal was 24420 and the school committee approved that budget and then they applied the method just like they did here then they could throw in the 820 that would be a correct calculation but the way the wording is I guarantee you of the warrn article you apply the assessment method to so I think that's what's really going to happen here and so technically speaking right now I think there's there's a conflict and I don't I think you know a technicality if you will I I seem to like that word right now that's actually that why I raised my hand though should we look at the should we look at the wording of the the warrant article that they it's right there all right so the proposed assessment is based on 100% of a 5-year average of minimal contribution with the remainder allocated for the regional agreement but with guard rails of 8.2% on the maximum increase or decrease of town can you know what you're right George that that implies that the 8.2% guard rail is being applied to the 24 budget of of 23672 it's not it's applied on a sort of a fantasy number that is is not actually being um right you're you understand that point Anna I think he's right yeah yeah yeah yeah that's why I was asking I'm not 100% sure that if you apped so let's just say that ammer comes back and says we can only afford an 88.2% increase and so now you set the budget based on Amor's ability to put in an 88.2% increase and then you set the guard rails at 88.2% would you not still come out to the same place no no no you'd be in a different place no that's the point right because up going up the same I don't even know so if you I don't even know how to do this math nobody knows how to you trust you took the 24420 number and then you then put ammer contribution at 8.2% you are then left with what $350,000 it gets right across the three towns but of course that it would be it would also take some from from yeah the other three towns as well yeah yeah but it should be based on the uh on the statutory methodology not this methodology that just came up again yeah but then would you not still to no it would be it no it would be different the the allocation between the four towns would be different applying I think go on but then do you have the do you have a sense of what the actual budget would be at the end of the day if you well the budget would be the same it would be 6 it would be 23 672 it's just that well I don't I don't know because Amis number would probably go up and they'd be stuck at 20 so you'd have to decrease it for that right no it would it could be the same you would just allocate the other three towns differently to get the additional 350,000 inputs right but Shy's number would go down yeah which means somebody else go would go the The Other Two Towns would the other two towns would go up right but they can't because they're stuck at 8.2 so they'd have to take it out of the bottom line yeah right if shb was the only one that had a decrease through that c culation call $20,000 everybody's at their Max we'd have to take 20,000 out of the 33672 yeah yeah yes I I think in other words Anna what what I think should have been done here is that Doug should have instead of this column here which which really sort of is is is kind of interesting context but it's not really relevant right because nobody's actually proposing a budget of you know 24 million dollar what I think should have been here is the application of 100% modified statutory to a total assessment of 23 672 918 yes yeah so if they did that I did the quick I did a quick back of the hand calculation on my calculator so that would reduce our contribution by about $177,500 right um but then I think what I think would have had to happen then is they would have either had to say we're not doing any guard rails this year or they would have had they'll have to set the guard rail at a at a at a different what would happen if is if they applied the statutory distribution um to this year's this 30 23672 ammer contribution would actually go down and pelum and Leverett would go up and shsb would go down yeah and that would be somewhat untenable for at least pelum if not Leverett also because they would then have an even higher than 88.2% increase and they they've already rejected the 88.2% increase um and you know to have amoris contribution go under 88.2% just then massive L increases the amount that the other three towns have to support So any other method of doing this is going to right I think you may be right but I but but I mean separate and apart from that yeah potential is I think you're going to have a problem with this language I don't think this is this is this is technically incorrect I think the language that you guys and and you know Becky and George pointed that I completely missed it but um yeah the way the way this this suggests that these guard rail this 8.2% guard rail is being applied after you've calculated our each of our Town's assessments using the modified statutory method or you haven't done that actually here right um right yeah it's you know when when Doug was talking about how he did this I was like trying to argue that this wasn't quite correct but I didn't argue it strongly enough obviously so um I can give him that feedback that the this was not the correct method of applying guard rails and making a budget and applying the guard rails to come out with a budget that equaled 23 672 um that doesn't change the fact that this is what we got got yeah and I don't know how we can change the motion well point so I can ask Doug that also like how do we change the motion to uh for the statutory method motion Anna can I ask a question yeah so the Regional School do they just vote the number 23672 and the method the current method with a new guard rail at 8.2 is that what they voted or did they also vote these specific assessments to each town I think this is what they voted on right yeah they voted that have the it has the assessments well there you go right so then it is wrong I mean because the first part is right the the upper paragraph is actually technically that's how it works they just change four to 8.2 but it's this calculation below that's the issue because they should take that method above and apply it to the 23 the the smaller number on the page yeah uh Susie sorry I'm not done oh sorry go ahead George I'm sorry technically just to make sure everybody's on the same page when we talk about an override we don't need an override to spend $127,000 more dollars we have excess Levy capacity over $600,000 the distin the distinguishing Point here is for a two and a half override we need 2 third's vote to approve a budget but if we put this 127 in our budget and bring it to town meeting it could pass with just the majority of the voters because we have the excess Levy capacity to draw and technically we can bring We the finance committee prepare the budget we recommend the budget we can put whatever number we if we reject this today we can still we would put the $39,000 increase on our budget but if we feel like we they make the to the region may come back and ask us for more money we could put something in there more than the 39 we don't have to I'm not even suggesting that we do I'm just saying we could so if we had an amount in our minds that we know we could support we could put it in there and if the region doesn't go for it you know doesn't come up with another number and they the original number that's just excess money in our budget that we'll never spend but if they do something we got a little extra money set aside I'm not saying we should I'm just saying technically we could do that now I'm done okay uh Susie um I think this is informative and um fascinating but I think what I like to think about is process and um I guess I imagine the finance office was pretty overwhelmed and um and we know that um like Bob said we're all um co-joined in this process and we don't know how other towns are doing it so I I think for process even if this has to be a warrant article the way it is we need a fourtown meeting we need these numbers reown and we need to um have options in our minds um shuberry Having excess Levy capacity might be our way through this maze it might not be the way for other people so we need to hear from a fourtown meeting what kinds of ways people are looking at this to see if we can find a group solution based on each other not just ourselves right Susie if if if there was an opportunity to do another four towns meeting are there other alternative budget scenarios that we would want to see explored at that meeting I presented one which was just you know the the last fourtown meeting budget plus restoring the language program at the middle school I don't know if you or others have other I you know I know I understand it's like it's a little bit backwards to be like talking about this now we're just looking at a bud but but I kind of feel like time is a the essence I don't know if there are other of budget scenarios that folks would want to see explored at a at a potential for towns meeting well we don't know where our budget is truly at either we are still working on our budget so I can't say that we know um I think what you're you're right in saying we might choose some programs to support and leave that number in as the bottom line of the budget but in terms of our B picture we we haven't gotten there yet okay Bob yeah I just want to say uh I agree I think we need another fourtown meeting and we need to know what the other towns get together with those people and i' like to know how does Amis make this decision what process goes on down there because that's crucial to this whole thing uh and I I I would be happy or not happy but I would be I think that represents my point of view to say to the school Regional school committee we don't support this 8. 2% increase we can't we can't deal with it even though George says we can tap into the excess living capacity and support the numbers that are on the page here I don't I'm not going to support that that's too that's too much and I don't really go for the excess ly capacity principle I think it's a gimmick uh that is a work around two and a half so uh you know we've already got a pretty tight budget we've got a lot of pressure on our uh budget process and we need to know more information really than than right now to support this uh I don't know what the process is at Don and amest I don't know who gets to make the make the recommendation on this on these numbers whether it's the finance director there's a finance committee uh when do they meet uh what are they going to give us some indication of what they're going to do uh those are important things that we need to know before we can act on this I think so I'd say we send it back and say we're not going to support this just like palum did uh and as far as us uh medling in the process of what teachers they keep and which ones they hired now we're more I'm more interested in how much money is it going to cost the town it's their decision how to spend the money that we could allocate to them April so how about if we make if I make a motion for um the finance committee of shutesbury to recommend that we have another fourtown meeting before we make any final decisions on this budget it's a PL all right let's see um Jim walon yeah I was going to suggest emotional along the lines that we can't support this this current budget um that we that we support a fourtown meeting uh that we support sticking to the previously approved and agreed upon fourtown allocation methodology meaning using using the 100% statutory rolling average with the prior guardrail approach so maybe not just Downing this budget but also proposing some changes to to get us back on track together with the other three towns okay um all right I see a member of the public has their hand up I'll entertain that Elizabeth Fernandez O'Brien thank you AJ uh as a retired teacher in the emeris public schools and a resident of shsb second the second part I appreciate how hard it is for you to make decisions on the finance committee I think you guys do a great job and I really appreciate everyone's thought um and willingness to speak up about their opinions because you carry a lot of experience with you um I would ask that you do what the principal asked the regional school committee to do talb sadik said to them why aren't you being more proactive about the future and that's the future the present and the future that that concerns me and that's not just amers college but you are the finance committee and the school committee is a separate body which I understand however um none of us can stay in just our lane at this point given uh the remark about how difficult it would be to raise the taxes on any Resident um we need to be activists and one of those is to actively support the regional school committee and going to not only Amis college but the university Hampshire College which we know is in financial Straits and other organizations and asking them to support the education of these students if one of these teachers is cut here's just another here's a piece of it the this is my emotional response there will be no safe space for lgbtqia students to walk into in the morning there will be no opportunity for them and there's lots of mental health issues at this point not just lgbtqia there will not be an opportunity for them to get anything beyond the overstretch guidance counselor's help so these are the stories that are behind the requests to keep the finances at the new level that the regional school committee is has voted on it is not just a person who gets their job cut and that person by the way does the same thing that the highway department does they go from paying $1,500 in26 to paying $5,000 in the present Year everyone is experienced inflation and well well beyond what teachers finally after a year plus were able to get uh increases in their salary so once again I really appreciate the hard work and the discussion that you've had this evening and I ask you to please consider the people behind um these issues and be activists go to the regional school committee and tell them they need to do more work maybe the locals school committee person has to do more work because we cannot fail our students thank you okay thanks Elizabeth um okay so I think Jim and April suggested that emotion that I think does a few things one it communicates formally to the regional school committee that the budget presented here is we feel is not tenable for shry recommends a an additional four towns meeting so that we can collaboratively work on um a solution that balances the sort of financial concerns of towns and our commitment to students um and also um provides some feedback about the assessment method that we've shared tonight so I think if that's okay I'll make that motion kind of summing up what the two of you shared is that all right okay second on that I second it okay all right uh Susie seconds any other comment or can we just proceed to a vote all right George it doesn't seem practic do you have a comment yes can you hear me it doesn't seem practical to have another fourtown meeting I don't see how it can be pulled off with the timeline to me this is more symbolic I'm inclined to vote against it but I will vote for it but I just think it's you know I I agree that we should try so I will vote for it but it seems like it can't work just because of the timing you're saying yeah we we're just it's a real time I'd like to be able to tell the region how much more we think we can afford than the 39,000 that we're looking at already to what extent can we go higher but I think that's more important Susy I think that it's true the time is not our timeline is not working but it informs us if we go to the fourtown meeting and we even said then what we think we can afford um it it may be too late for the warrant article but it tells us um when we go back to our town meeting and try to present things it gives us more information and we're not going to get the information unless we meet together to get it the reason I think it's impractical is because organizing a fourtown meeting takes weeks and it's going to be the end of April before we can even have it yeah okay uh Jim you know I I also think what we're hearing here tonight and what we've heard from some of these fourtown meeting discussions or the uh the school committee discussions is this is a critical issue so it really is that critical that maybe we can find a way to get together and solve a problem yeah I I agree with you Jim oh sorry April goad no I just wanted to say if nothing if even if it is symbolic we're saying we're not just isolated we are a region that this you know that's part of the reason yeah so yeah and and I'll just share one thing and I think we should probably should proceed with the vote um but I I think what it communic KES is a desire to to find a workable solution compromise on our part I'm not comfortable and I'd be really upset if we just flat out said we can't do this and we won't entertain any other option other than the budget that was presented to us in February like I I I'm not personally I'm not comfortable with that so I think this this indicates a desire to kind of work on some some alternative between this budget that we're looking at on the screen and the one that we saw in February okay uh can we can we go ahead and vote Yes so Bob George arantis ey oh Groves ey Hemingway ey ASU ey moer ey Stein ey walon I okay motion passes seven to nothing and then Anna yep can you just reread the motion one more time unfortunately unfortunately I don't have it written down but I think I'll try to sum up so we unless you have it Susie I I have down the points are this budget um that we're looking at is not tenable we want to have a fourtown meeting to discuss um other to be with other towns to discuss opt options and we want the assessment method um applied appropriately okay Anna does that is that enough for you to yep that's great that's super helpful thank you okay great okay got it okay um all right thanks everybody for I think a really good discussion a hard one uh for sure um but I think I think we needed we needed to do that um Anna um you know keep in touch and let us know like what else and I I did want to offer one other option or just one other thing if Doug wanted to talk with us um about our concerns about the way the assessment method is applied here and actually how it made technically be not incorrect um I would be happy to have a conversation with him I might pull in George if he's sure willing to uh to join me if I'm available yeah um and if you know because you know I think I think we said a lot about assessment method and um you know um you know I think Doug May wna sort of you know kind of H kind of hear in more detail what what our concerns are and I ought to include Becky in that conversation as well Becky muted oh are you muted if Doug were to agree uh or the lawyers that helped him put it together that the method was and needed to identify the 23 million not the 24 in in the article um that Amendment could be made on the floor by the regional reps at all four towns um potentially or however ammer would have to do it but I think it if we could identify if there is a problem and get it corrected that would benefit everybody okay all right um Anna thanks for for spending time with us I know you you spent a lot of time in school meetings so yeah I appreciate it all right okay by night um okay um oh boy it's 8:30 and uh I'm going to pull up yeah um so uh I think what we should do is uh well Bob I see your hand up I was just gonna ask you AJ if it's practical for us to have another at a meeting to cut handle some of the other things on our agenda I'd be happy to do that but I I'm not happy as a I get all tired out you know tuckered out with these long meetings and I want my mind to be sparkling and fresh um I know I think that's a really good suggestion I I mean I know we I I hope you guys don't mind how much time we spent on the region I just felt like it was critical to get her our full kind of feedback um so I think what we could do is add a meeting for next week um Becky what what would our options be I know select board's probably meeting on Tuesday night so what what would our options be for if we added a meeting for for next week um we do Wednesday yes I believe Wednesday I'm having my two Wednesday meetings this week so next Wednesday is wide open for me and my my zoom is available okay so Wednesday the 27th um okay George's thumbs up anybody not available for that I'm I'm good okay all right so I I think that I'm glad you suggested that Bob uh let's plan on on adding a meeting to our uh schedule for Wednesday March 27th okay at 6:30 okay and um so what do we want to do with that meeting we we still have to look at the budget that um Becky shared with us earlier today um I think we also need to review funding of capital projects that have been approved by Capital planning right um do we do we have any capacity to do either of those things tonight or are people kind of spent and we just wanna tackle that next next Wednesday next Wednesday that'll be my vote okay just don't add anything else please okay don't add any the fire chief never show that been the only can I can I speak to the fire chief situation please go ahead Becky so he's letting you know and he might and I will check in with him if he's down to zero but um the fire so we have money available in the call response there's a $10,000 balance um he probably he has $1,500 left um in the training salary he's going to run out but if he doesn't I mean if we can hold out to May 1st um the selectboard and finance committee could do a line to line transfer from the call wages so in the end I think we can avoid a fincom transfer okay oh nice yeah I like that I like that idea yeah great so Reserve is just over 55,000 so for the next time we get a request everybody just keep that number burn your mind thanks okay a request before next meeting Becky um um the budget you sent today would you be able to set it back to the 39,000 increase at the regional level and redistribute it sure thank you okay great um can I add I know Bob you said let's not add anything um I do think on Wednesday we should have a discussion about what we might be able to um contribute or recommend contributing to the regional school budget above the 39 as you know if if for no other reason than as a as a step to sort of help us plan if there were if there is another fourtown meeting I think it would be useful for us to have had a conversation that says well you know we we we said that we couldn't afford the the the full budget that came to us tonight but we think we can potentially find um you know some additional funds above and beyond the 39,000 I think I think we should have that discussion Bob yeah just on that point I think it'd be really useful from my point of view if you did have that conversation with Doug and we got some more information uh about ammer and what they're uh likely to do with this because that is a crucial thing as far as I'm concerned uh you know that just gives us some basis to understand what what the what the playing field is you know uh really uh yeah uh that so if you can do that that would be great if you could bring that to the meeting or let us know uh that would be very useful in that regard okay so yeah if I don't hear an update from Anna I'll I'll reach out to Doug and um and ask ask about both questions like can we have a conversation about assess method and two has has there been any feedback from Leverett and ammer um okay Susie so are we assuming that our conversation tonight Anna is going to be the person who brings it down to Doug as soon as possible or should I send him a draft minute tomorrow so that if there is any movement towards a fort town meeting it starts to gel might as well hit him from both directions yeah I mean I know Anna's is definitely I don't know if she's speaking directly I mean she's reporting back to the region Regional school committee I assume she'll include Doug in that communication but yeah I don't I I think I think as Bob said we you know we can that doesn't preclude us from sending that as well uh Becky I was just thinking um I could call Shan Mangano and see what I can learn from him and yeah maybe Andy Steinberg if if Shan directs me that way but hopefully Sean will have Theo Sean still in ammer I thought he left ammer oh shoot that's right he's in he's down in hoyo school system that's right call him up and ask him call ask on fing yeah he's been paying attention tell you I know him he's not he's focused on where he is I'm sure he's busy in hoo yeah but I so I'll call I'll call Andy all right we can do yeah let's do that we've been we've been hunting on these February minutes for for a little while so we could just do that let's do that and then we'll wrap up uh okay so we've got the draft minutes from February 6 that we asked Susie to make some changes to so let me pull those up March 6 no first February 6 febrary okay February 6 we hted on these in the last meeting I forgot to give you the redrafted ones right uh Susie C Is there a way to direct me to the section that we updated I'm trying to remember now we changed um A1 A1A um we changed um little B to State mandated costs of 90k we didn't identify something else and that was really the only um significant change okay accept yeah uh George just made a motion to um approve these minutes as amended uh Jim have way yeah um Susie could in in A1A could you just uh Delete the wordthe it would read a little bit better there is a 40K the increase for just I believe what you're trying to say is there is a 40K increase for5 all right right okay uh I will second George's um motion to approve these minutes as amended any other suggestions or questions okay George i r side ryi cashew I Mo I I think Ste Stein ey yes okay okay Walton ey y they're falling asleep all right okay uh February 6 minutes are approved and now I'm going to pull up [Music] um let's see the March 6th minutes okay um does everybody had a chance to review these Bob yeah three 3A Susie you the highway department says a needs storage unit for small hand tools it's really a storage unit for machinery and tools not hand tools but uh I would just say machinery and tools you know that would come wait I when I'm looking through all of this I need I need to get reference where you are so oh I said three 3A it's where it's what AJ had highlighted it's page uh top of page two top of page first 3A okay you don't want it to say hand tools you just wanted to say equipment equipment yeah that would be okay uh the other thing I noticed was uh C the grav I maybe you cover this later further down but the gravel road request was uh we we we recommended it go to Capital planning is that covered later in the minutes re Bob it's in 5 a 5 yeah it was covered okay okay because that was on B no excuse me C on on on part three okay uh so we're saying using cash reserves fur P I guess it was covered down there that's what that's what I thought yeah okay okay that's it for me all right Jim hway yes I got a couple of things uh Susie there it's two number uh threes in part C uh you might want to renum those what page are you in uh right there right top of page top of Page Three see you can look on the screen but I'm trying to find my copy so I can put the edit in so I'm not looking at the screen but you want it so if you look at the top of Page Three I it starts with should be four yeah four seven six and then that'll change everything else yeah eight nine okay and um Jim yes I got a few other things on b2a um if if this is has to do with the cruiser yep the the state this is bottom of page one no you're you're right there right now requested you know F-150 and you say the state contract figures seven what is the state contract who's said she went to get that number off the state contract something Becky knows L it's the state bid list the state bid list okay maybe make that a little clearer I was confused what that meant mid list okay and and um down below um section c b oh no not that DB uh um C6 I'm sorry maybe um section B what page are you on uh it's which number yeah um um it's number can you scroll down a little bit AJ yeah uhuh [Music] um keep going down there right there um could you clarify um shutesbury currently ranks 76 is that out of this is confusing to me here and that is a 50 n what in the State uh it just percentile rank yeah okay well just yeah I I was just you know when I hit that I thought that was a little confusing that is the 50.9 percentile in the state yeah yeah yeah and and and also the 351 should have been 347 because at the time actually let me take a quick look but that schedule I I sent you there were still six towns I believe it was I can't remember now because one town has been recently added but the it to get to the the 50.9 is 176 divided into 347 I believe it was I'm I'm checking okay so just to be technically correct need my word technical a technical night technical fou George technical file that's right oh yeah it was 346 yeah it was 346 so all right and yeah there's still Five Towns there's one of them did since then report but there's still five towns in having I'll keep looking yeah okay and Jim um Hemingway sent me some um possible edits and it was good because he sent them in type so I can read them um going back to page one and under the Broadband review a number one should say he would proposed to say some budget lines have been merged making a more simplified budget per recommendation from accountant um so that's one correction um number two it says increases in budget work for routine maintenance Insurance Cola for the colas for the manager and employees overhead to be announced accountant and Treasurer costs extraordinary and un foreen um I'm not sure why adding up to I so I have in there I'm not sure what part is being edited is it to drop the rest of it my draft says added up to 15102 that's not in Jim's suggestion Jim do you have any well I I asked Gail Huntress I sent Gail because there's there were some inaccuracies here and Gail is very clear about the way she likes things worded so I just forwarded that to Susie because after all Gail was the one who said all of this to begin with and so um I I'm hoping that um that what she wrote and sent to me which I forwarded to Susie would be would be satisfactory or or or should be uh perhaps um agreed upon well I guess I need to work with her on it because so I have in there I have in our notes and unless she's disputing it I I feel like the fincom looks at those numbers which is added up to 15102 and then the other one that she thought should be different um on number three I said the new cost of 5K for lowincome subscribers and the 7K administrative fee will be offs set by Federal grant revenues and she just wanted number three to say a new budget line item of 5K for lowincome subscribers subsidy was added I don't mind using the word subsidy but what the fincom kind of looks at is how things fit together and so I guess I should talk to her and we we can't we could talk to her but the lowincome subscri that's up completely up in the air I think that's that's where she was trying to say at the meeting um we don't know whether that $30 a month subsidy is going to be cut or not and if it is we also have some we also have to figure out whether we can uh um replace that with something else and that requires it gets complicated that's all I'm saying so she sort of simplified it down to that one sentence which at least to me makes sense based on what I know about um what's going on on on bmlp okay well I I think what I going to ask the group is to let me go back and talk to her because sure um and then I'll come with yet another re-edited set later and we can vote on this set that our next meeting then yeah thanks for doing that Susie okay all right so we have a meeting for next week anything urgent that we need to would you be able to send that um document that you showed us regarding the region the the the latest uh PDF uh that you had on the screen with all those calculations I assume that he took that Doug took the February meeting and just amended it yeah so I think I I sent that document oh I don't have oh I'll look for it okay I apologize just see yeah if if you can't find it George just shoot me an email I'll send it to you when did you send it I sent it uh let's see um I got it okay I apologize I didn't realize it was attached I missed that comments no but actually you just reminded me one thing I did want to mention is that that document does not include the cut in the capital plan for fy2 that Anna mentioned uh early in our earlier in our discussion so that that document was the document that was posted in advance of their last um meeting and they actually discussed making that cut in the capital plan during the meeting so I don't actually have the dated Capital plan from them so just just so you know if you're looking at that section yeah is that another thing that Anna needs to send to us we need to be in a loop here and I and I don't think she understands that yet yeah because that if I don't get that these that update to the capital plan which has happened a couple times uh my numberers wrong in the budget right right right yeah so let me um yeah let me I'll be following up with her tomorrow so I'll ask her to to get that presumably Doug has revised that document and so we ought to we ought to be able to ask for that she may not realize that Doug doesn't send it to us automatically that we're viewing her as the conduit we need to make sure she knows that yeah and Steve used to send everything to me and I'd get it out to the committee right when I got it it was really helpful y okay so mention that too we bring the long goodbye to it uh right make a motion that's a motion to to to retire I'll second that all right only two only two items in our next meeting though yeah really small ones right really almost significant yeah piece of cake piece of cake all right everybody have peace until no you have to vote and then I'll shut you down cash you ey close your ey Walt and I that was that was too fast have a good night everybody yeah all right take care thank you