this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers okay I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton select board special meeting tonight uh on March 21st at 6:02 p.m. if we could please stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all okay thank you all right so we are we have our Quorum tonight both um joy and Dan have said that they were unable to be here tonight so we will proceed with out them at the present time and let me just grab my correct note here we are actually going to be moving into exec session there's nobody here for open time for the public so I'm assuming we don't have anybody here to do that um oh goodness I need to find the right H where is it g to sorry Scott do you have the agenda that you could read the uh the reason the mgl yep so the reason that we're going into executive session or I can give it to me an I can't pull it up on my screen for some reason all right so we're going to go into executive session um per mgl chapter 30A section 21 A2 to discuss strategy sessions in preparation for negoti in in preparation for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel Fire Chief and then we will return to open session probably close to 6:30 so with that could I take a motion to so moved second all right all right all those in favor Lumber ey johnon I FSE eye okay we're going to move right into executive session at 605 and then we will come back into Open session in about uh 20 minutes thereabouts thank you okay all right guys um let us reconvene an open session here we're a couple minutes early but hopefully uh we can get started and not spend a long time here tonight um we have our finance committee so thank you guys for being here and we'll wait Donna will maybe also should join us hopefully we're like I say we're a few minutes early so she'll probably be right on time um you have a quum though y so why don't somebody call your meeting to order just so you have it on record that the finance committee is here and open for business here so just somebody call your meeting to order that's all I'll call it okay all right okay and before we start off on budget so tonight's purpose really is to uh do some continuation of our budget uh presentations uh focusing on Council on Aging Library Board of Health uh Sor school and whatever else may come across our desk as we go tonight but hopefully we can get through um at least hearing what people's rationale is what they're asking for obviously no decisions are being made tonight we're just trying to gather all the information and then plug it into this massive spreadsheet to figure out okay where are we in terms of people's asks versus what we're expected expecting for Revenue based on our best best estimates at this point in time so with that though we have uh maybe an announcement after we did take a vote in session that we have to take publicly yeah so what don't we John would you like to do that or yeah so I make a mo uh the motion is that the select board offer the position of permanent fire chief of the Southampton fire department to Richard foli and that the vice chair of the select board and Town Administrator authorized to enter into negotiations with uh Mr fi for that position and report back to the select board right okay so that is the vote that we in executive session so back here and then we have a second on that oh we have to redo it yeah yeah so just a second to John that was a motion essentially from John so just second that if you would yes second all right all those in favor of I that all right I good motion passes so we will um offer the position to the interim Chief and enter into negotiations and hopefully we can make some Headway there okay very good all right well why don't we I think let's get started so let's go in order that we had on the list so I think COA guys you're up first here so Christina would you like to just come on up to the mic and uh just sort of walk us through what you're talking about and I guess so we've got a new set of figures is that it okay you're plugging them in Scott is that y okay perfect yes okay hi everyone thank you and thanks for uh taking the update last minute updated uh version the math didn't quite work out we noticed at the last minute so okay thank you um so pretty well straightforward we only have we have three line items in our budget um so I'll talk about the three each line item and why we're asking for a slight increase um in our wish list so COA director um at the time of my hiring um had exceeded the my salary had exceeded the budgeted amount um for fiscal year 24 by $2,912 um so in order to cover that it ended up um need that difference needed to come out of our formula fund budget um which the formula fund is designed to cover programming for the COA it is our only programming money since that is not a line item that we get from the town um that comes from the state right yes sorry formula fund Grant is yes State money um so what we're asking for fiscal year 25 is to cover my entire salary um and the amount listed in there um um isn't necessarily exactly cuz I talked to Bradley and there was some confusion about what step I was technically at but it gives you a rough idea that that would include um the bump in a step um plus the 100% coverage out of the Town budget um all the other department heads are paid 100% out of um Town money um it it you know that's the way it was originally designed um it just you know at the last kind of minute when negotiations with myself starting um in August my salary had gone up a little bit and had to get creative how to make up that difference that what was budgeted so um we would like to see that 100% covered going forward so maybe I missed it is that the number that's in wish list to or is that in budget one no it it's the wish the wish list to is covering um 100 % of my salary okay yes um let's see um so COA wages um is currently um pays for um most of our COA program coordinator um and our 4our week Administrative Assistant that's what it current that Lineum currently pays for that um however some of the program coordinator budget for her salary has to also come out of the formula fund Grant which as I mentioned when I was discussing my um line item my the director's salary um is designed for programming um and we're trying to move off of getting employees paid out of that fund since that's our only programming money and that's what it's designed for um so the wishlist amount of18 , 56650 um is is the step increase for both positions and to make the program coordinator 100% covered as well as you know the administrative assistant the 4 hours would still stay that part wouldn't change um so again that's just to keep the pro the formula grant funding um clean so to speak so um um and I'm and I'm sorry if I to give you some specifics um 36% is currently of her set the program coordinator salaries currently paid for out of the formula fund so again the majority is is out of town funding at the moment we're just asking for 100% of that and then um COA expenses um the basically the increase amount on the wish list is asked because we um depleted that line item in February um so obviously the rest of the fiscal year we do not have any of that left um again that means it will now those kind of expenses now will have to come out of the formula fund Grant so we were could you give some examples of what those expenses are yep so we we have paper Inc mailing costs we have newsletters that go out every month um you know we have we have kitchen supplies because we have you know we serve a meal every week um and mileage mileage was a big increase from last year because we now have an Outreach worker who um her part of her role is going out in the community so the mileage part of that has increased from what it was before and honestly that's just going to continue to increase so that's for a state mileage fee of whatever it is now 65 cents or something yeah yeah it went up from 57 or something like that right so overall um what you know as as I keep saying what we're asking for is to to basically keep the formula fund grant that we received from the state untouched um so that we can use it for how it's designed Pro the programming um because again we do not have a line item from the town for any kind of programming so we would so without that formula grant money you know we we would just be sitting there I guess in the COA so in order to make the COA work we obviously need that money um and we continue to grow um I've only been here since August but our numbers have gone up we are offering more programs including the lunch I mentioned that's a we have a weekly lunch now that wasn't offered um prior to November um which in the lunch itself just to know is is covered um but you know the cover covered by Highland Valley Elder Services um but we there's no charge to the participant there is a $3 suggested donation but it's Anonymous and if you can't pay you just don't put in money and and for those that do pay put something in where does that Revenue go back to Highland Valley okay yeah we don't get that um because the food is given to the COA free of charge so this helps Highland Valley recoup some of their cost about how many meals are you doing on a weekly basis about 40 um and sometimes you know we we've hit 50 depending on if it's a if it's a well-liked meal for example um but I see that number inre reing too um but because at least half the people eat at the COA we then need to although the food is free of charge we have to provide you know water and utensils and plates and all that good stuff so just just for everybody so this is either an eat there or take away lunch oh yes yes sorry exactly I I and it's maybe 60 40 60% stay and eat um it it's still you know a fair amount of people that T it's designed to take and go but we're seeing an increase in the PE amount of people that stay too because they're getting to know other people now and they they want to sit with their friends so go ahead question um I appreciate the presentation and my question is about the formula grant referred to so many times but uh I understand that's a state Grant and it's in your exclusive purview but you have funded staff off of it previously which makes me a little anxious but where is the budget for your anticipated formula you're you're asking about the Sig Grant I'm Sor have to tell me yeah okay um this is uh Steven's first cycle through the budget but you might want to take a few minutes to explain what is the formula grant where's the money come from and how's it calculated all right I apologize yes um I'm uncomfortable as far as I understand so I'll listen carefully with the salary contribution and although it is off budget I would like to understand what's going on there so yep um so the formula fund Grant um is $14 um an older adult um and so there's roughly 2,000 um citizens that are over 60 in Southampton and we get $14 time 2,000 and St from the state yes um and so that's where we get the money to do you know programming and and and hold functions and offer things less than $30,000 annually yes correct stable or highly fluctuating it it's stable but not guaranteed um we might lose it if we do well no it would more well we could lose it if we didn't you know um they asked for reports and and you know statements you know there's things I do have to do that if I just stopped giving them any feedback I'm sure we could lose it yes um what as yeah and then we and it's also possible to lose if um you know say we had another Governor or and they cut that out of the budget or say even next week you know so it it's pretty stable um but it's it's not guaranteed is it is it based on a spend down do you have to spend the money before you get it or do you get it in quarterly installments it comes in two different payments um okay and it used to be you had to spend it within that fiscal year luckily now if you did have a little money left over you can carry it over which is nice is it fair to say that I'm not seeing it yeah thank you without the formula budget we would have building and we'd have staff right no program no program correct all that's what I was trying to stress so um it's important and we you know a couple of the ways that we receive funding currently um is we do have an arpa fund um that covers our Outreach worker um and sort of a heads up for NE next fiscal Year's budget we'll have to fi that fund will be ending and we will have to find other monies to continue paying our Outreach worker again just a point of clarity because we had aror money American Rescue plan money for town but this was a special uh designated earmark from Senator V's office from the state so this was $50,000 yes 50 for for the COA over a 2-year period right well they've given us the money so we have the money we don't have to return don't have to return it okay so once the 50,000 once it gets gone it's gone okay right so there's no limitation in terms of when it had to be spent okay no it was different different than the money that we had for town to give out yeah right so it was it was an arpet ear Mark yeah yes so are you exploring other options or are you just planning on hitting the general fund next year oh no we're definitely going to explore other options um it's it's imperative that we have our Outreach worker continue um because a huge part of what we do at the COA is in fact Outreach and we are reaching um a lot of individuals that way so um we also currently have two Sig grants um but they're only funded through the end of June um and there's no expectation that we we would certainly apply again next year um I know I'm sorry I apologize um it's Sig ster service incentive Grant and it is another grant that is um from the state that's that's given out through the um Massachusetts Council on Aging um the overall group um what of which were one member of um and we received funding um for some programming and some Outreach money money um to further our programs and Outreach um but it was for a limited time January to the end of June so we received you know we had to apply and it was very um competitive and we were lucky enough to get those the two of them this year um but there's no expectation that we would get them again just Wednesdays and Tuesdays or T and 20s that you get what's the number oh yes um so the out the one that was for outreach and marketing was roughly 9,000 um and the one that was for us to hold memory cafes um what was around seven something oh was around 75 or yeah that's right um 4,800 sorry yeah that would have been better but I here Madam chair sorry I forgot that was right up on my screen so with all of these special funds these dedicated purpose funds you have to code up invoices specially for Bradley Bradley yes double checks that it's a qualifying expense or he he doesn't yes I code them up separately for him but it's up it's my responsibility that I'm spending them the way that it needs to be and like for the Sig grants we're talking about um they reimburse so I have to submit invoices after I've already submitted them to Bradley to cover in the meantime and then and of course I have to make sure I'm submitting things that they are going to cover so um and of course all these grants require a lot of reporting and um you ALS you also get like was it $48,000 from f frta um 30,000 30,000 yes and does that cover 100% of and that and that's the the shuttle van there does that cover over 100% of that operation including the wages for the drivers or the drivers in here no the the wages for the drivers are out of the the F frta Grant yes yeah so right now you're you're actually operating on four separate and four separate grants plus an ear Mark yes essentially that's the bulk of the funding I would I mean not for one thought is uh I think for next year you should probably grab a page the recap page that the school does because it says here's here's what we have here's all the other money we're putting in here okay the expenses and then we get down to the bottom and this is the little bit we need from the town it's not a little bit on the schools but it it shows that there's a lot more going on than just what's here and when I look at this I say oh okay it's a 12.16% increase yeah but it's not here I know then we found an error in this so then we had to okay yeah I did have copies for all of you but they wi in our Center so I can I saw it on Capital yeah you can email it around yes you know because if you just look at percentages it's 12.16% but if you had the whole picture yeah I yes I understand what you're saying the total bu% of our funding comes from how much sorry 322 32 for this year okay so I end up having a question same fance John I mean I don't know how the accounting Works in in government but sounds like there's a lot more going on than here and it would be kind of cool to see all the money coming in and then all the money going out and Y um so so and maybe for accounting purposes we don't include the grant grants are accounted for separately it sounds like at the Town level because I mean we talk about programming but it doesn't show any programm expense in here so but I mean the most of the programming is coming via those grants so that is that is the challenge yeah right but I think I think this is an area we can approve on so on on this because all you guys will see it tonight and and for the newer members you'll see it tonight the old the longer seated people here who aren't old um you kind of get it when we're looking at the Town budget all you're Lally looking at is the cherry sheet money and the tax so anything else that comes in town you don't see there I argue it should be there but then you you have to put the expense in somewhere so so that the citizens can see the entire picture if we really have to fun the whole thing but M yeah we'll get to that book have you seen Hadley no I have not okay sorry any other questions comments from anybody on this end congratulations on pulling down the money to run the programs amazing yeah so by the time you added all that up I mean you're talking there another 78 another 88 90 but another 990,000 easily 182 896 182 yeah okay of which of which what's 59,000 yes 59 from the town okay any other Finance questions MH any anything else from anybody okay all right well I think that's good thanks apprciate that and yeah just send it around to everybody just yes I had them all printed out but last minute uh that's fine no thanks for that that at least gives us better picture in terms of what the needs are and how how money is being spent currently so appreciate that all right okay next up I think is Library Johanna good evening everyone Johanna Douglas uh director of the Edwards Public Library um I went into a lot of detail last week about um what is going on at the library how it operates and so thank you for the opportunity to go over some of the budget questions Scott could you make that just a little bit bigger oh just T can yeah move quite a bit but yeah that helps a little bit thank you perfect okay so uh our The Lion Share of the increase in our budget are the staff salaries that are presented with the recommended 3% step increases Lisa Shay our our Technical Services administrator office manager and Emily mska our circulation Services administrator Tech help person have both been at the library for many years I think Lisa's been there since 2008 Emily's been there for 6 years um and they certainly deserve uh any kind of increases that that we can afford Lisa is our system administrator and cataloger Emily often teaches computer skills to patrons as well as providing reference services for historical and genealogical questions Andrea laclair is our youth librarian Andrea oversees the day-to-day administration of this important department she also writes grants fundraises and develops our youth summer reading program which hit another record attendance in 2023 of 220 children Andrea holds a master's in library science and joined us in March of 2023 you will also note that we have a line for substitutes which I would like to explain for safety reasons the library must always have at least two people present our substitutes are a vital part of our team Subs cover us for vacations and at short notice and I place the subline at 30 hours a month because as I noted last week our Saturday circulation is extremely high and statistics indicate that especially between the hours of 11:30 and 12 we average uh over 400 circulations I would like to have a third person at the library most Saturdays in the future especially when there is a Monday holiday finally there are lines for our longtime custodian Dave Wells and the director line for me um I also want to note the critical role that volunteers play at the library we use volunteers for approximately 80 hours every month and they're vital volunteers cover and repair books put items away perform maintenance do programs book plates book sorting and so much more I have teenagers who come to get their volunteer hours for sacraments or for sports or national Honor Society I have seniors who are uh doing senior write off program I have people who just really like to be at the library um and so before I move on to any other sections I wondered if you had any questions about those I do yeah yeah can you identify because I know it's not your whole budget can you identify which lines I think it's all but two have to meet the uh standard to to uh trigger the fund Foundation funding from the state doesn't it exclude utilities and maintenance oh the M line is what I gave you last week um that's for the entire budget that is given by the town so you sure yes even utilities and Main the municip yes the municipal Appropriations requirement that you're referring to has to do with um whether or not you give us the um a certain amount called the tamy the town appropriated Municipal uh income or the m so um that's the total number the 195 9663 and by achieving that M you get to keep your accreditation correct the main problem that we've had in the past where we were short in terms of the ability to provide necessarily all the resources from our side at one point in time a few years ago I know is the accreditation different than the calculation to trigger the state funds that you receive or is it the same thing it's the same same yeah so sorry so and my confusion is because the previous person that held your position gave us a different answer and I don't want to get caught again so yeah so I think if you achieve your minimum your minimum whatever Municipal Appropriations requirement which is your Mar yes if you achieve that which has got to be a certain level percent I'm forgetting what it was but is a 2 and a half% or greater okay um then that gives you your accreditation is that correct correct so um I'm sorry if there was any previous misunderstanding about that I'm sure it wasn't intentional it's a difficult um calculation and that's why I wrote the um box I'm I'm on the Mars page now okay because I seem to remember we had the move we put money in but we had to move it she wanted us to move it out of a line out and put it in a different line item because that increased and I thought it had to do with the boiler mhm um okay I think I'm I think that are we so that's getting to something that I spoke about last week John and that was that I didn't I had Capital requests the boiler was a capital request and so if we had and that's excluded from the Mars calculation that was excluded from the yes I'm I'm glad that you asked that to clarify that because it's something that I've actually stared at when Bradley sends me the expense reports and looked at it and thought how does he do that so just briefly on the on the wages just to recap here so the wages would include your three main people that you cited plus your subs yes and and your custodian all that is in the wages line that's in the wages line yes and how many hours does the custodian work over there now 3.5 hours a week okay so the breakdown of that which isn't there um I have a copy here uh of how that would work so uh Dave would go from a grade he would go up to a grade one step seven MH the subs would go from uh grade one step one to grade one step two okay so all those are there okay yeah anybody else thoughts and questions while we're done okay just go ahead and keep on keep on going with expenses then if you want to do that right and so um the library it is the Edwards Public Library big capital letters our toilet paper tissues masks hand sanitizer pens are not only used by staff but by everybody and that includes people who just need to use the bathroom we do have a lot of people who use we can hear the door opening they're not coming into the library they're just using the restrooms um one um so our toner use is unpredictable our public computers paper fax machine copier are used regularly by patrons in our work we use an abundance of tape identifying stickers plastic cases for Audi books DVDs and other librarian supplies like book covers archival tape and glue we repair we clean uh many damaged items that are returned to us and so the expenses that's a part of the expenses further um expenses that we have um I'm trying to think if there's anything that pops to mind but that's kind of a a good overview about how the expenses are at the library at this point in time though like for photocopying or use of the computer you're charging people a nominal fee they actually pay yeah we charge people 20 cents a page we went up from 15 okay so um I think you know there are certain inflationary pressures on things but um I asked that that be um just level funded for next year one more question on the um mhm copier contract with derenzi how long have you had this copier is this a new it is new to us I think it used to belong to the police station maybe or oh no that was The copier before the RICO copier this copier um Ed Gibson had suggested because it was so stressful as soon as I started The copier died and he said oh well jenzi can get you a used copier and um so we paid a fee for The copier itself and then then we have a copier contract with them so they come in and do a quarterly maintenance or something like that or not as far as I know I do report to them how they they can't come if if there's some sort of struggle going on with the copy machine okay so it's a used copier though from it is a used copier okay okay yep okay um so let's move on to utilities which is kind oh you know what let's do maintenance because you mentioned that Chris so maintenance includes the maintenance line for the HVAC with Northup electric um our copier contract with durzi the trash and recycling bills that we receive from the town our websites our own and the historical resources of Southampton hackworth systems for the security cameras which the police actually um were coming in to use this week because they had an issue they wanted to research it's a great let me tell you it's a great resource it's gotten me out of a jam or two um and also maintenance for people like for example Peter frie who maintains our roof scuppers privacy Hedges and our sidewalks after a snowstorm maintenance is tough I mean it's a real it's a very difficult prediction um I don't like the fact that I think gosh I hope it doesn't snow so that Peter doesn't have to do any shoveling but I mean that's the reality of it um I have so uh I've Not Included the many expenses that seem to pop up at the worst times the leak in the roof last year the septic repair that was the insurance thankfully ch um the the insurance took care of that the occasional call to the plumber for leaky toilet um I did make those uh couple of capital requests we are by the way extremely grateful to have received an arpa Grant this year which allowed us to hire Alvarez painting to clean fill and paint the front portica which we love any questions about that section for me maintenance okay I do have one question and it's it's not really it doesn't pertain uh specifically to the maintenance but with the the state formula for the the minimum um excuse me um Appropriations requirement do they look at requirements by line item so do you have to spend a certain amount for Library materials versus Wages that's a good question the only amount that is really looked into by the state so they don't want certain things to go for salaries so you get the you get your state aid which mostly for us goes to our membership in the CW Mars Consortium um but we have a m Municipal um expenditures requirement for our books and materials so that's 9 18% and that's in relation to the state funding and not to the to the town uh appropriation no no no that is in regards to the m that you first mentioned I'm sorry I know it's confusing yeah so you have to spend a certain amount on materials future satisfy the our exactly and so in the summer um I will be doing two reports and one is uh how I spent money and then about how um much money I received and how it was dispersed so they that that will be two reports for the for the state so followup question with with the books and materials being level funded um and the increases in wages and and salaries will you still meet that 19% no I'll have to fund raise okay it looks short as just a quick look it is short it um um as I mentioned last week which um you weren't here for um there's a little dance that I have to do in terms of making sure that the M doesn't get out of control and I probably was a little conservative about the numbers because I really was enthusiastic about staff um getting some of increase as I said I have somebody who's been there for 6 years and this increase would get her to $18.21 an hour but somewhat along his notes though I mean unless you were given instructions that I'm not aware of how much do you think you have to fund raise and how come it's not in wish list too like like one one should be your contractual the minimum that you need to do but two is what you want because if the answer is I got a fund raise $1,000 that's one thing if you got to fund raise 100,000 that's another thing but you know like some people some departments you know they struggle just to ask for the $50 we'll just ask for it I mean we can usually find I don't know what do you need the fundraiser to do your dance to make this all work what do you think that number is um $4,500 yeah and right now you're looking at having the friends help with that cor lineary yeah so part of like your book sale that you'll be doing and all those kind of things so the book sale will make about $2,000 um the friends um just as an FYI they pay for a lot of uh our ancillary expenses so we also don't have a programming budget like the COA so the friends will for example pay for a lot of summer reading um exciting programming there things that we don't have grants for the friends pay for our WiFi they pay for the book page magazine which is extremely popular um they uh they do so much um I probably John in answer to your question it's just my inexperience about these things um that probably made me go low um and that's the best answer all right just looking at your narrative though I mean just to recap for those that are listening so from what you said in order to maintain the mar the materials costs need to be 19% of the mar mhm so you need to spend at least 37,2 22 for materials in FY 25 and you're asking the budget stay what it was which is the 30 32693 is MHM for that and then that difference of 4,400 is what you're hoping the friends can fund raise for you as correct right cuz right now it's 3269 $353 is 17.53% of the mar mhm right so you have to fund raise in order to make that Mar correct to make the m r yes M but the M yes okay my I know Chris I told you it's complicated many acronyms okay got it so Becky Chris Becky yes sorry Becky yeah go so there's two requirements in order to receive the state aid one is the m and the other is that you spend 19% on books and materials MH so what happens if you don't fundraise the $4500 I will fund raise supp no no what happens is that I I wouldn't I would have to sort of um beg borrow and steal and figure out something and so I mean I don't want to think about that um but like I said I was focused so much on this increase for the salaries and so I wasn't thinking about books and materials because I didn't want to throw the m out of whack and the go ahead Becky so I guess the my concern is that you have to meet both of these requirements if you don't make the 19% for whatever reason and we don't want to think about it but fundraising is fundraising it doesn't always happen then the state aid is in danger correct right but yes but doesn't the state aid can be in not that we want it to but don't you have a three-year window like we could miss it in one year as long as we make it up um right that's why the Mars is is averaged no they're two different yeah it's I'm sorry so it automatically kill it automatically stops IT the next year period so you can ask for um a waiver yeah we had to do that a few years ago if I'm not mistaken but the waiver is only there if it says that you have cut this department or you've not funded this department to this level yeah in line with all other departments I gota yeah so I'm uncomfortable fundraising for a minimum in order to achieve our state aid so along those lines I would say again this is your first road deal too no this my actually my second oh well then you should know better but but the um budget one should be your contractual requirements I I would say your Ms and your Meers are contractual requirements okay as long as the wages I'm not saying everybody else up here would agree with me but you know um cuz you know skipping on for whatever it is I Ian whatever 1 and a 12% of that budget would be um of the Mars to get to the 19 to L potentially isn't it I don't have the cherry sheet in front of me but isn't it $177,000 state aid to the library no it was uh it was about $115,000 this year and of that about $10,000 went to CW Mars for our uh Consortium fee which gives you so State's giv you money to support a state program that you have to turn around give back but that gives you access to for those listening what do you get out of it I get out of it inter Library loan I get out of it access to thousands of books as they I mean I think I have the number I don't want to make it up but you have to have that um just I want to amplify or or lend my support to what everyone's been saying your base budget should ensure that we continue to be eligible for State paid income and you know just as with the Council on Aging it's not insignificant to have a sense of how much money income is at risk if we fail so 15,000 for investing less than five we better do it thank you so Scott this version that you have up there that's the live version right that'll go back to Broadley so can we update this now or do we have to like keep notes on the side um usually keep notes on the side then i' talk to Bradley and have them updated but we can I I can or just put in some figures and highlight them so that you know because otherwise once we get going on this we'll end up I would say books and material wish list 2 change the 32,000 to whatever to 35425 69 which is 19% of your Mars which is the previous three fiscal years divided or added together divided by 3 multiplied by 1.025 which comes out to 186 450 and change so now wait for for for FY 26 so the m is calculated by using the prior 3 years Municipal Appropriations for operating expenses or the M figure whichever is higher the average of the three years figures is increased by 22% to determine the m figure for the current fiscal year so per that sheet that I gave you last week so if we used FY 23 FY 24 and then this really wonderful number that you put there um to get to 1 198 then we would add those together divide by three multiply by 1.25 what I read was a copy and paste directly from the from the state page yeah it's it's the three prior 3year Municipal Appropriations for operating expenses calculate using the prior right you're talking about this year I'm talking about next year oh yeah no we're only on 25 so far right okay all right I'm I'm talking about next year but but Johan part of my reticence was that I didn't want next year to be right but sooner or later you got to you got to jump off that ledge and get on the steps and there's this one time correct and compared to what we did last year and then the wage issue is what it is and separately from you but everybody else if we don't have the Collins report back by the end of the next week we're going to have to put a placeholder somewhere in this budget because we I'm not going to sit quietly and let us go another entire fiscal year without implementing the wages I mean so you're you're kind of getting a jump start on that you yeah I I don't know how it's going to end up but you you may have already solved your wages everybody was instructed to go to the next step on the wage wage scale but just to say looking at the revenue report for 23 so you actually got 15,43 okay for last for last fiscal year for FY 23 from the state from the state okay Grant 15403 well I appreciate your willingness to um to be really involved in the funding of the Min of of the expenditures requirement so just to move on because I don't want want to hog everything yeah go ahead just say one more thing I don't think that number is enough because the 19% is actually of the operating budget not of the mar so it'd be more like uh Johanna has in here 37,000 222 M so the 198 it would be the 19% of 198 right which I don't have a calculat that's where you're coming up with a 4,400 to fund raise for right right trying add isn't enough right so it's actually in for the budget narrative it's 37 Something 2 as long as as long as whoever you must have a worksheet because that's in written form can get that worksheet to Bradley and Bradley signs off that he agrees with the figures I'm good with whatever that in result number is well the budget narrative it was 37 so let's put that figure there that's fine I just would prefer the town account and validate the the calculation okay and just a question on the on the state gr though you said do you re that twice a year I received two two tranches one uh two tranches exactly thank you cuz right now looks like you've gotten around close to $88,500 so far correct this fiscal year yeah okay I'm sure we already have it we just haven't booked the receipts I I didn't look at the expense but I don't I can't remember when they sent out the two um all I was worried about was being able to pay for CW Mars um so we do you I'm sorry do you want me to email Broadley tomorrow or or yeah or stop by and meet with him and Scott okay talk yeah thank you um so just to finish up so utilities is the other sort of um wild one uh in July 2023 um obviously I'd received that small grant for the $110,000 for the lights um so we have to use that money by May 31st um interior the interior lights and our parking lot lights which were um vandalized so that that qu that question actually came up with capital today go ahead so the capital ask is for $ 177,000 the note says there's a $10,000 Grant yes is the total package 27,000 and you have 10 already so you need 17 more to make it work or the total package is 17 and you have a $10,000 Grant to apply I don't know that first one that you're talking when you said that something came in today Capital committee met today on okay so I don't know what the actual cost was it when Barbara had that done in like 2018 or 2017 um I think it was to do the entire library was around 177,000 I can't imagine it's the same I think it would be more expensive well that's not good news but light replacement at the library requesting $177,000 comment Grant of 10,000 is in hand will lose if work is not done by 53124 correct so you're thinking it's 27,000 no no no no no I'm saying that the original quote which was which I was not involved in it was something with Ed and I can't remember greens I can't remember the gentleman's name separate from the Green community Grant this is not the same thing right you have a separate Grant from the Library Association for 10,000 right also waiting on us to get the green community's Grant the Department of Revenue um energy resources rather on the Green community grant for the library which was some other Energy savings and I'm trying to figure out what that amount was but I don't it hasn't been approved yet by the would that be for the lights as well or a different project it's an energy savings Grant um So based on an estimate of from six years ago there was there was an amount of money given to the town to be a green community 138,000 and we've put in four projects to actually access that money one of which being the library right and we still haven't heard ever Source has done their part to show that we're doing our our 20% Energy savings or whatever with these projects if they were to implement them but we have that one employee at the do hasn't come to work to sign it yet what I'm asking is you said the capital committee was was requested an amount of money to do this project in addition to the 10,000 wait a minute all right hold and so the estimate to do those that lighting 6 years old correct did you put in a request or has this been carried forward on the sheet it's been carried forward oh six years ago so that who knows how much it is now yeah but but six so so during during the during the so 6 years ago the request comes on right so it's there sitting there it doesn't get funded roll forward to this year I an opportunity comes up for a grand of $110,000 so we just tagged a note there saying this could pay for it if we did it but we're going to have to adjust the number correct yeah and we're still waiting to hear what the other one is and I'm not finding a total on that I understand where I am but yeah so you may the total price of whatever you want to do both inside and parking lot lighting is probably more than the 10,000 you have but theoretically part of what we've asked for should help supplement that correct for the library correct you got to spend your part by the end of May to satisfy your Grant which is independent of so because it's under $50,000 couldn't we move forward with even a something partial whether it's the parking lot or the inside to spend that $10,000 that's their Grant they can spend that the way they yeah I wasn't sorry Chris I wasn't talking to you oh I'm sorry so I I I would suggest you don't wait for Capital to do anything I think maybe you work with Scott and get a because you're going to have to get current estimates and and maybe on 10,000 you can't do the whole thing but what's the bigger priority the inside or the outside the inside then then the inside how much work can you get done for 10 grand on the inside I I have no idea a lot of this was being done with Ed and uh and I contacted the gentleman that he had in originally engaged to do the estimate and he said okay I'll do a new he as I recall he said okay I'll do a new estimate send it to ad and then I contacted him and he said never it hasn't been signed yet so this was maybe last year who is um can you just give me the name of that person I can't remember I'm sorry oh okay yeah okay I can email it to you tomorrow it's in my Pap we got contact finally at the department of uh energy resources so we're going to try and contact them and see if we can shake loose these four projects because we've had this money sitting for or years now and yeah we had not come up with projects that would show eversource and everybody else that we were actually having a real energy saving so now we've got four separate projects that will eat up that 138 $140,000 but it's just taking them forever to approve it so we need to push that well simultaneously figuring out a way to maximize this grant that's already in here correct yeah yeah okay um so hopefully in terms of the utilities again it's always a crapshoot just to put a button on this part of the conversation I just wanted to to say that my hope is that once the lights come in that we will have um improved uh use our our cost will go down and we'll be a Greener community so um I just don't know if there's any I feel like I've taken so much time but I don't know if there's anything else that you wanted to ask we're schedule to be here till [Laughter] midnight okay anybody else have questions thanks for the comments there yeah anybody else Stephen I think that was great Scott anything collaboration sort of off topic but Den novas were they able to do the remote they I have a uh a ticket waiting those tiets oh those [Laughter] TI thank you so much for your time and for this indepth conversation you g me a lot to think about it's important to understand this so that we you know make sure you keep on the accreditation and we don't have to go for waivers and all that other craziness I know that's thank you definitely a problem oh thank you for your okay next up Board of Health gate hello Kaitlyn Rooks chair of the Southampton Board of Health thank you for having me come here tonight and thank you for um your your patience while I submitted the letter and the draft budget unfortunately I am missing some emails and um would love to get that fix as soon as possible so um thinking about what John said about how it's it's difficult to ascertain the full story from this one budget sheet I will say that the board of Health's budget has been largely cobbled together over the past several years and um especially since our health agent resigned um in September 1st 2022 um so I'll start with the health agent position so we have been trying to recruit a health agent part-time since September 1st 2022 and unfortunately there's a regional shortage of Health Inspectors so um we've been using a contracted agent Charlie keki who's been doing a lot of great work for us um I did bring a sample if anyone wanted to look at it of the last 6 months of invoices of the work that he's been doing um but unfortunately we have been you know this this contracted expense has been drastically more expensive than a hired Health agent um which we've had that position posted since Nicole's departure about a year and a half ago um we don't have any other really grant funding that Southampton specifically receives but the state has allocated um a significant amount of funding to go towards a shared Public Health Excellence program which I presented to the select board about on a few occasions and this Regional program um was designed to supplement Health Services not replace them so um as a few examples we've had Public Health nursing come and do vaccine clinics for us we had a booth at the celebrate Southampton um they've done some you know Ed educational programming for us we're hoping to you know get some additional programming into the Council on Aging this year um did a lot of our covid and flu vaccines we're hoping that they'll maybe do some flu vaccines for the school because we're um it's been a little bit of a change in the nursing structure within the schools so all of these services are additional but not in replacement of the health agent position which is um a required position for inspections of septic systems restaurant inspections complaint inspections I mean we have some nuisance properties that we're currently inspecting we've had some apartment buildings multi uh family dwellings that have had multiple issues of um non-compliance that have had to be remedied it's kind of several ongoing issues that continue to be problematic um that I hope you're aware of if not I can go into some high level detail about um and we're hopeful at some point that the shared Public Health Excellence program will provide us some supplemental inspection services so they have recently hired and are starting to train a restaurant inspector that is shared between 14 different communities um challenge is that this is 14 communities sharing two individuals also sharing with Northampton so it's not like we expect that these are going to be replacement services for Northampton or for Southampton but I will tell you that you know one thing that we're looking at is um mobile food truck inspections we're trying to come up I just joined a subcommittee for that too we're trying to come up with a regional way to support food truck inspections because obviously we have a lot of food trucks that come into town and um challenges with that is that the fire departments also have to inspect the mobile food trucks in every town so we anticipate that this project is probably going to take about a year to explore and really maybe put into place for next summer um and that we might have be able to have this um the shared Public Health Excellence program supplement our restaurant inspections for our next round of inspections that are coming up however a majority of our inspections are not restaurant inspections or you know our food service inspections the majority of them are Title 5 inspections Plan reviews um soil testing um looking at some failed septic systems that need to be remedied um and so this is just not a service that the shared Public Health Excellence program can find inspectors for either and so they're also looking at ways to train inspectors to try to supplement their available programming um with again the the hope that it could supplement our Inspection Services but likely won't be able to replace uh the volume of inspections that we're doing so that brings me to the Board of Health contracted expense line which is $42,000 the reason that this is so drastically different than our previous budget years because that was also funded through arpa and also some unused I don't know if it was an I I don't have it written down anywhere but it was like in leftover Insurance unused insurance money like benefit money that wasn't used in the town because of other position vacancies um and so while it might not be reflective of our previous year budget we still had these expenses right we still had Inspection Services last year um it's a little bit difficult to pull together the exact amount but it um because it came from so many different sources but we have averaged the past 6 months out at about $3,500 a month month um which is slightly seasonal but we don't see that that amount is going to decrease in the foreseeable future that covers Charlie or and that that covers Charlie um and I guess I should probably stop there and see if you have questions because it's a lot of information I just have one just just for everybody just um how often do the um the restaurant food inspections whatever happen twice a year twice a year okay so we're we're hoping that this person or these people will be trained Tred well enough to be able to help supplement some of our inspections um in the future what group of community make up this collaborative or Northampton eastampton Southampton there's 14 I think starting next year right aren't we sharing a fire inspector a dedicated in yeah dedicated inspector with East Hampton it's going to be a co-employee yeah that might um the problem is these food trucks go to ammer they you know ammer is in the collabor as far as fire department being available there's going beated fulltime employee between us and eastampton so we're trying to figure out how to streamline things because obviously a regional approach would be really helpful I mean we're trying to think about things in a different way also we'll mention that this shared Public Health Excellence program is a three-year grant program so we just completed cycle one of this three-year program they just renewed funding for an additional three years so there's no like long-term plan to fund this public health Excellence program so I just want to like mention that because it's hard to build a plan around something that seems like it could be temporary um just just a point of clarity so when you do like the food truck inspections there's obviously a fee for that that goes back to the town right yes correct so the idea of having a regional inspector that would maybe if food truck X is here it's only needs to be inspected once then it would serve all the 14 towns they wouldn't each 14 towns wouldn't have to do their own inspection is that the idea well that's what we're kind of trying to figure out so right now the current the proposed idea would be that each town would continue to to re um obtain a fee for any town that that person goes to of course that's being explored because you know to say that's going to be a loss of revenue for somebody right it is it is it is a loss but but at this point that's not what's being explored uh because obviously revenue is a it's not just a concern for Southampton it's a concern for all member towns also we have to look at the cost of doing these inspections too because right now you know if Charlie does two hours of inspections it's $120 for the town right so I think we're going to have to look at how this model would potentially benefit or negatively impact Southampton to determine whether or not we would want to participate because right now I know you know we're all of our contracted service be fees are you know being pulled out of uh funding that's not available after this year so um our the rest of our budget is actually pretty simple so the health health director position has been funded so 2 years ago at the height of the pandemic it was funded for 3 hours through arpa funding was about $5,000 last year uh we uh proposed to continue the um the health director at 35 hours instead of 32 hours just given the extra clerical work that's required by using a a contracted Health agent and because our Town's really busy you know we've been selling a lot of properties we have a lot of title you know Title 5 inspections being done we don't have uh currently have anybody managing the phones um so we our previous Town Administrator has suggested that we should use funding from the septic betterment fund administrative fees to cover the 3 hours however we have not used any septic betterment funds we're not administering any loans so we're kind of feel a little bit hesitant about if we really should be drawing down on those funds because we're not like managing septic betterment loans at all right now um so we really think that that position that those 3 hours should be centrally funded um it is within the the requirements or like the the administrative percentages that we are able to fund it through the septic betterment funds but um you know that funding is not unlimited and we kind of think that it should only be used if we're administering septic betterment loans um only other changes to the budget is our animal inspector currently was receiving a stipend to be on call 247 for $3,500 we are requesting that that get changed to $4,500 just mentioning that um Nicole does not collect mileage and again she's on call 24/7 and um and doing some like re comparisons to other towns like a 45 or $ 35 or $4500 stipend is a relatively small stipend and hasn't really been adjusted because it's a very part-time position doesn't include mileage this is not she does not charge for mileage um as far as our expense line we kept that level funded um I think you have the worksheet where we broke out the $3,000 in um expense fees did I do you have that or might go through it it's printing trainings mileage professional dues uh legal advertising office supplies office equipment maintenance including a fax machine paper um and the other two items that are Level funded are the sharps program which allows for residents to access free Sharps Containers and dispose of Sharps free of charge which helps keep Sharps out of landfills and then the mosquito control program which is a $5,000 membership to um do surveillance for infectious diseases that are in mosquitoes and if there happens to be for instance an outbreak of of um contagious disease like Eastern and sephtis they will come out and help do remediation to help control that um spraying it could be spraying it could be um you know treating water but you know they they treat where there's issues and um so they monitor and until there's like an outbreak or increased prevalence of disease in a particular area they don't do uh like remediation activities unless they're needed limited to a certain number of years though to be involved in the mosquito control program um we haven't opted out I mean we H hypothetically we could opt out I wouldn't advise that just because you know on the cape there were outbreaks of E I thinking it was like a 5year program so I think it maybe you have to re re renew your membership but I think it's really worthwhile because you know the the prevalence of mosquito born illnesses is is increasing over time especially with climate change it might be good at some point just to see a mosquito report I I can email you one to show us what you know what we're getting for the for the value in terms of what what they're they're monitoring and you know if we're if we're safe that's good to know but I mean it would nice we do review those at our meetings and I'm happy to share a report with you and they're also available this is where my question is so let me say back what I think I heard you say uh participation program provides areawide surveillance for the outbreak of uh disease mosquito born diseases I get that there some cost efficiencies we don't have the ability to do that and in the case of a severe outbreak however described uh then they'll come in and do mitigation what I'm less clear than I heard is that there is no annual fogging of neighborhoods they do not do that and in fact they have to disclose to like if they were to come in and do spraying they can't just do it they have to tell you that they're going to do it a different question are we signing up for regular fogging of neighborhoods in this program no all right well that's an important thing to say for the public uh because the Telemetry what are we getting for our money the Telemetry is a hard thing to really value but um that's where the public health issue really is and spraying chemicals on everybody in the neighborhood is maybe working in the opposite direction I I agree 100% of course it would be different if there were you know if it was a disease outbreak then it would be considered a public health risk and then they would be to implement plans anyway but yeah okay the DC3 is with malif I remember them coming over my house and the aftermath with the insects it is what the state does yeah okay okay can I revisit um just briefly the inspection fees so when you look at the contracted Services the town is receiving versus the funding for say the or not the funding but the offsetting fees for like a Title 5 inspection how much of a loss leader is each one of those inspections so that's a great question it dep it depends most of the time we try to we adjusted the inspection fees to cover the cost of inspections that were able to recoup fees for um if there ends up being issues then and it needs to be reinspected then we collect a different fee um our Revenue the past 3 years was about $39 9,000 42,000 and 42,000 which is about what we're requesting and of course that still comes at a loss for the town right that used to go into our general fund now we're being now we're using that money to pay for an inspector um I will say that there's not always the option to bill for services The Next Step that we've talked about as a board is like if we're going to continue to rely on um Charlie to provide inspection services for instance for a complaint so I'll use an example um but I'm not going to tie it to any particular property so say if we went into a property and there was a a laundry list of problems then we have to go back and reinspect that property and reinspect that property and if they're not following through and completing the the the tasks that need to be done we have to reinspect that property and so what what's been happening sometimes is you know you you go out to just do a complaint or just do a routine inspection of a multif family dwelling issues are identified it's it's taking a lot of time to fix these issues and of course this was not something that we were doing during the pandemic we weren't going out even though we're suppos to inspect multif family dwellings it just wasn't happening um and so one thing we've talked about considering is you know do we need to if somebody and this gets tricky but like maybe we need to collect a fee if somebody goes out for a reinspection and then they're not able to remedy the issue within a particular period of time unfortunately um supply chain issues have really been one of the major barriers for people uh completing tasks within a reasonable time frame right like for instance if somebody needed to put a new door um bars on a door or um new bells for an alarm and they can't get them in it's like really hard to fault them for that before to um but I guess if it happens more frequently that's something that we can continue to revisit because obviously time is money right that's still a cost to the town but on a on a like I say a new development um you know new build property you know you believe that in general those inspections break even for that yes MH okay yep and we really try to be thoughtful what we're charging to try to cover to offset that cost because we don't want that coming out of the Town budget and then I can see the value in you know H having this individual for like a Title 5 which is a pretty specific inspection you need certain certifications are there certain you know inspections that are being done by um you know the contracted Health agent that could potentially be done um by the Board of Health um like employees the director or or anyone else that's at the Board of Health good question possibly restaurant inspections could fall into that category but again we're trying to have um the the public health Excellence program try to cover some of those inspections as well because sorry You' got to have certain qualifications and certifications do that yeah we have some complicated issues and some of them are in court right now actually probably may know or not know that the health agent the contracted Health agent was the um state District Health officer for the state of Massachusetts um so he comes with 40 years experience people know him in the courts and you know Boston the AG's office so it sort of makes it an easy uh work environment um and there just are no qualified um Health agents out there it's and it's across the state every every body is having a difficult time sure but I think part of your question is you know if we're paying x amount for a contract for a health agent and I think Kate you said 2 hours minimum it's $120 right yes correct so no matter whether it's a 15minute job or whatever it's it's a 2hour billing and then that that Revenue though is not quite offsetting the value of the contract so I will say the fee would be $200 say for instance that it was the title 5 inspection so um and that might take he would he would wait until the contractor digs everything up he's not going to stand there and watch the contract I mean he knows what he's doing I I certainly see the value for a Title 5 inspection absolutely housing is another issue we have some serious housing and property issues right now in town so just just for example for for FY 23 we'd estimated Revenue at 44,000 and came in at about 42 so a little bit less than what was planned for so it's not quite equaling out the it's right it was 45 it depends on you know seasonal and this year halfway through the year you're at 22538 so if we multiply that it's about 45,000 it's also seasonal so here we just go to the revolving fund model and put the fees into the revolving fund and pay pay the contractor out of there whoever's doing the inspection out that right so we T we did talk about that I understood that there was a limitation to the revolving fund that there was a limit in the amount that could go into the Revol voted on an annual townn town meeting um the other once it's voted it's that number for the year but then it can be changed on an annual basis that honestly whatever whatever needs to be that's where plumbing inspections go for example electrical inspections all of that goes into a revolving fund and then if there were fees that were charged for an inspection for arrestant not say that the health agent herself did then maybe you'd have a little bit of extra in there to you know for another inspection that maybe went over and the feed didn't quite cover it understood yes and the other the other thing that we did is we made it so if say he was to inspect three restaurants in one day and it took two hours then that we wouldn't be charged for three inspections it would still be charged as 2 hours so we try to group those inspect like we don't have a lot of restaurants in town we tend to group we tend to group those inspections together so that that I mean that's such a small amount of the inspections that we're doing but we um we made it so it wasn't like one fee per site and we we intentionally put that in the in the contract because we wanted to try to be as fiscally responsible as possible what we would have to do would be to create a revolving fund for for no meaning you would have to create a revolving fund and then in I believe a separate article possibly you would have to set just like you do with dog fees and the other revolving funds you have to set with the maximum right is there a limit to the amount of money no cuz we talked about every every town meeting every annual town meeting we vote there's a whole list of of revolving fund fees and some are 10,000 something like that the health yeah the health department line like last year for fiscal 23 took in the 42,000 but that's not all inspection fees you know some of all the revenue that the the for all the different the fees the fees right so it's not all inspection fees so if you broke that down Health Department would still have Revenue outside of the inspection fees so we're paying out more inspection fees than we're taking in for sure right now by not using a revolving and and making sure that the fees that are being charged are covering it mhm understood so I think that you know the every like I say every year we at town meeting we vote on the amount of revolving funds for all the different ones that we have and so we just have to figure out creating an article maybe to establish and I think at one point in time it was done that way but then the employee came inhouse so that got rid of roling fund and there were some other departments that were kind of looking at that money and well it should should maintain you know I mean all these like plumbing and and electrical stay with them I mean it doesn't required to do um you know housing complaints things that you you know we are not charging for and those would have to come out of a separate so but then we could create a budget line for that correct those anticipated expenses right right mhm yeah and I don't think it's ever going to be do I mean with this structure I can't even see it can't see it ever being like dollar for dollar it's just well and if we even for for a a perk or for a septic I mean years ago in another town I was and like the full amount of the fee wasn't for the inspection some of it went to the town so it was split so when the money was dep positive say if the fee was $200 or whatever it was maybe $1 1225 went into revolving and the rest of it went into the general fund line and that split that way and then only the inspection fees were charged to revolving you can split a deposit like that on a turnover sheet and it gets posted to the and I think that's what we just recently voted on when we changed the electrical inspections yes because they wanted a certain amount for the fee and then x amount goes back to the town x amount goes to the electrical inspector not like you need two checks or anything there's a lot of work that goes into the housing portion of of what we're doing right now with some of the properties and there's Court time there's documents are ceiling with Town Council so you know that's not going to get covered by anything you're going to have to which is right so if you hold on to well even right now if a fee a fee of $200 the contractor is getting to $1 1220 so there's an $80 residual that goes in so I mean it's in practice it's kind of already happening it's just all going into one spot yeah is the general fund and then yeah but at least which which I'm sorry Chris which then means instead I mean I would change the description of what you keep on but it's well it might I'd probably have it in a separate so it's it's inspection costs not that aren't recouped or that are the legal expenses and things that nature so that you can see the number and it'll tie to at least you would know if you were taking in enough cover your fees and what your other expenses were related to that you weren't collecting Revenue to cover correct great and again this is all new because we just started you using this inspector this this year so I'm open for you know honestly we want long term and trying to make this more sustainable yeah trust me I would love for it to be and I'm hoping that maybe it'll change over you know the next couple years sense so for example we we've got limits that we vote on at town meeting so plumbing inspections is um ma maximum spending limit is 20,000 so these are funds that come in and this is the maximum that they can spend out of that Su are 10,000 spend out of it annually it's set we we pick 20,000 we say that's the max you can do yeah would so that would include expenses for Char's so your maximum might be 50,000 okay so we can set that and that's not a problem no because you got to collect the money in order right he's got to do the inspection collect a check check gets deposited then he gets paid so if we were to do this this town meeting then how I I guess then maybe that would that would impact our requested budget I I don't know how that would affect the budget for this year because it's hard for me to not you know be able to say so if hypothetically if it started July 1st we'd create the account Char the contractor would do an inspection in the month of July collect the payment deposit the money submit his invoice and I'm guessing August right probably bills and AAR the money's already there he gets paid then there's the $80 that comes over to the towns side so then we create a line item somewhere in your budget of you know I don't know call $10,000 whatever for other inspectional services okay right would it be helpful if we looked at the percentage of inspections like we kind of did this informally but actually went down the say take this past six months of inspections and say these inspections we would be able to recoup charge for these ones we would like so it would actually be like a more concrete number because I can I mean we certainly can do that right cuz then we can track yeah I think because I think if you can break out the health the um whatever the restaurant inspections versus the title fives versus I mean you've had this year in the first two three months you've had I would say extraordinary issues related to some housing problems right which is incurred not only other fees it's incl it's incurred legal fees and various other fees that had not been planned for but hopefully those are more one time is rather than a regular occurrence I mean your inspections and your title FES are going to be you know ongoing obviously so and I'm hopeful if we continue to do inspections on multif family dwellings that we're going to remedy a lot of the issues so they don't keep coming up like a lot of these issues are coming up because they haven't been inspected in a long time mhm okay good suggestion any other questions sure just to clarify so the um 6538 under the health director so that's basically taking uh moving from 32 hours to 35 hours and not using the 3 hours and the septic vment which was that's that's correct with the whatever the standard increases 3% I believe it is 3% so it's the same yeah three extra hours but not using the the septic Vint that's that's correct and that would that's would the step equal um and so the wish list um so this I really think it would be helpful to have for both the building inspector and for Board of Health to have some sort of administ ative um support just because there is a lot of paperwork that goes behind it and you know honestly Jerry's not going to be here forever we do anticipate at some point that Jerry's going to retire um and there's always been this um a lot of people have vocalized that maybe ways to do to structure the Board of Health a little bit differently it's really hard to think about that because even since I've been here since 2020 there's been so many changes not only within Southampton but also within our region about available resources and it's kind of just been like a pendulum swinging all over the place place but a part-time um I feel like having somebody in a clerical role within the Board of Health could also not only it's going take them a long time to understand the the the wide amount of knowledge that's needed to manage a health department but I also think it will allow for us to think differently about the department in a more long-term way for instance you know we have one Health director now like does that need to always be the structure I don't really know the answer to that question right now um and so I'm putting this in there as a wish list so we can start I mean would it might it be feasible to have somebody answering the phones to have a have an inspector and then you know do we need a full-time Health director in the long you know I don't actually know because right now we're spending a lot of time working on Regional collaboration emergency preparedness we're working on I mean I personally have spent about 12 hours in meetings and and conferences with the regional Public Health Excellence program within the past week so this Regional collaboration while it's really awesome it does require a lot of time and effort um and so I just I just think it'd be interesting to think about how we might be able to structure the department in the long term differently but I want to acknowledge that that person is going to need to be trained and I think it would be smart to do that before the health director who has been here for a long time retires so have you put in a wish list on that one it is under fiscal year 25 budget 2 wish list Board of Health clerical wages and while I put in my it's it's not in the one that Bradley sent us oh okay mine didn't have it so okay Board of Health I can see it up there got edited okay so I said we recognize the overall budgetary constraints of the town and rely on the select board and finance committee when balancing competing Town priorities meaning I understand that this is a a lofty wish um and know that there's a lot of different people asking for a lot of different things and I know and trust that you know you're obviously looking out for every Department in town and not just our department is record keeping a challenge no because we have Jerry I mean so Jerry Jerry and Charlie Jerry's successor could walk into the office and pull the as Bill plan for my septic system no problem yes well that's good cuz I couldn't get I will tell you that the I'll wait for your successor the challenge though is that I'm the only one in that office office if I want to take vacation time doors get closed it means the door gets shut so I can either take you know like a long weekend or something but I don't get to you know and especially when it's busy this is Springtime you the clerical level would it be still useful if that person was shared among the other landbased departments think you'd have to qu I think you'd really have to look at the scope of what that person is doing I mean if I think there are there is some overlap between certain departments I know that I'm not the first person to say that between the the the building department and the Board of Health that it would be helpful to have somebody to be able to answer the phones and kind of manage that there like documentation wise there is a lot of overlap we'll also say that I can't imagine that um paper documentation is going to be the standard forever and part of this public health Excellence program is talking about digitizing um inspectional Services things like that so it's just you know it's more change um well I'm I'm reassured but it certainly is Department Records are being managed in ad hoc way which is what I'm seeing and cross Department um checking is not very practical and it's um it's a frustration that I see I think one in various Department conservation and um you know Zoning Board of Appeals planning board that could get confusing and also be very expensive you'd have to have someone that really understood each one of those departments yeah right but if it was building building in Board of Health it seems like there would be a lot of overlap part time but the thing is we don't have you know separate office space so you don't really get a gatekeeper I mean people come in and the phones are ringing and they still want to see but so I mean but this is how it used that's what you're proposing now is how it used to be so what and I wasn't on the select board so why why okay so we did a 180 and and now we want to do 180 and go back and I actually think that the funding from what I understand it's because the funding for that administrative position was absorbed by two others right and two other people said we'll just take on the responsibilities and then they which so so is is is is it now well I don't want to give you the answer but okay that might be something down the road you want to look at yeah no I mean I like the idea I mean it's it's I mean it's early but it's working well between police and fire right now right with their shared admin shared ad you know it's the most qualified lowest paid person that can do the job is who should do the job and what I heard previously is you know because I don't like to mention names you know our current health director is swamped with administrative work so can't possibly do the restaurant inspection or it's not the best use of time so if we put an admin in there does that free up and then I mean you know or you know or could we have somebody out in the field to manage all of the the specialized inspections and maybe not need to you know I right there's a million ways to do it but it I don't think 15 minutes tonight is the way but I think starting the conversation and we're that I feel like starting with a part-time administrative you know role and maybe thinking about how it could be shared between a different department is a a great stter chair PPP Q unless Donna wants it I would say um work with your counterpart and and the building commission and develop a job description of roles and responsibilities because you you would have to have that in place before we can budget anything right so I mean there anticipated this year yeah we didn't really but it starts the process and then we can all think about it right another model you can look at which we recently implemented is um shared admin between Highway way and water departments and they're not separate offices down the hallway they're on opposite sides of the town so I think it's who you hire too if you tra if you create the structure to train that I mean I think about my husband it guy right like there's ways to build build technological infrastructure to support people in different Geographic locations that might not have been available for before and I'm all about exploring those options to be more fiscally responsible it just obviously takes time and you know time and resources to think about let us know what works best for you I mean we've tried to collaborate yeah and I think I think out of the Departments just from my point of view it seems like Board of Health and building would be the logical to that would maybe have some shared expertise because signing off on building permits doing inspections all the kind complaints are largely building and seems like it would tie together more naturally than with any other department is is my thought but yeah so okay anybody else have comments questions okay well thank you very much thank you thanks for the presentation appreciate it all righty I think uh next up maybe we're going to try and Tackle Norris and I'm going to sit right here you're going to sit right here okay we'll let Scott manipulate the the magical thank you so much thanks everybody thank you that would be corre yes please did you diet or am I losing it something just happened felt like it did I'm fading away over here it's cuz the screen window I was sitting in this is this this is the Norris budget yeah is this like a set a set and a set and Scott gets a set oh boy colors pass one down yeah here's yours these were not printed on municipal copers since we don't have cop that's why I emailed Scott don't don't print it in black and white I'll I didn't know we didn't have color copers until two days ago another actually the um the Board of Health actually has one no I saw the laptop I just assumed no I I can look at no it's that $9,000 expense charge two years ago oh my God not too far wrong all right really so I I guess maybe I should start with the monologue yeah here um on what's going on history so that people know what's going on yeah this is not the year to be the chair of the school board so um the we'll say the um we belong to noris is part of uh five different towns that belong to the Hampshire Regional School District but per the 1966 agreement each prek through six is independently controlled at the local level by its own elected officials and then we elect another group of officials to control the 7 through 12 program up at Hampshire Regional all those four different School committees Plus Worthington who tuitions children in since they do not have a option for 7 through 12 um fund support and oversee central office which results in 39 elected officials trying to something as it turns out for whatever reason um our superintendent is not renewing her contract our business administrator is departing to become the business administrator in lllo this is up at Hampshire Regional at Hampshire Regional which we rely on that central office to oversee the the Finance and Accounting and HR of our local school um a schw of retirements and transfers to other jobs um I think our most senior person up there now has a year and a half on in central office so this particular year myself and Kim shot of the local school committee created this budget so I'm pretty confident I can answer any question you may not like to answer but so we start on the recap the single page is the recap sheet and you see that for fiscal year 25 um we're seeking 6,665 375 for Norris which is a 4 $4,000 increase from the previous year of that 6.6 million we are currently proposing to offset that with $39,600 if they happen to be um on an IEP or 504 there are enhanced charges that come with it so the number is not e EAS evenly divisible by five um that we get to build that out so and you you follow kind of down my notes I know it's small print but that's the that number comes off the uh State cherry sheet based on based on the numbers that they come in so that number May fluctuate but we're committing to use 100% of those funds this year uh typically the school committee wouldn't use that money because that's our version of stabilization money but but for this year we're saying use all of it we also have our school choice revolving fund Beyond fiscal year 25 so this is the amount we've been able to build up that balance um as of uh 320 according to Bradley Our Town accountant sits at 236,000 during or 2023 during the pandemic there was across the Commonwealth there was a dip in enrollment whereas people pulled their children out when we returned to school and it was a one-year blip and the way the foundation Grant works with Chapter 70 it would penalize us but because we were able to show that our children actually came back the next year and didn't leave the state made us whole for that so they gave us a one-time allocation of $25,995 cents of which we used 25,000 in this year's budget so we're saying we're going to use it again 25 ,000 again next year we want to hold on to the 100 because we have we we we have to replace our preschool van and the revolving account doesn't support it um and we we've already voted we received a $25,000 Public Safety Grant from the Department of Public Safety to enhance the security systems within the school after we had um a few issues with some of our more vus juvenile delinquents getting into the school um so we need to pay for these security upgrades and that's where that money that uh extra 75,000 in there is the placeholder to pay for that from the foundation Reserve right yes so we don't have to come you know we're not looking for any more money from the town preschool revolving account according to Bradley our balance is $59,000 667 we realized by doing this because we the school committee hadn't for whatever reason i' I've only been on the school board now 6 years um or 5 years had hadn't realized that we we bill out for preschool offering preschool in the Commonwealth is not mandatory we've for all the right reasons we've opted to do it we have to maintain a 51% uh special uh needs to a 49% uh typ what they call typical right so this if you're going to offer daycare it has it has to be slanted in favor of those with higher needs um what and those with higher needs generally don't pay or on a or on a sliding scale pay um and we charge $242 a month for a preschool so after our expenses in and out or yeah Revenue coming in and going out we're we're only um gaining $320 a month so we're going to this next cycle we're going to look at that building structure perhaps in $250 a month for preschool is is relatively all if if you haven't had to pay for that recently um but we're saying let's put 50,000 into that okay so that's what you're asking for for that instead of the 95 95 was last year we put in um if you remember last year was a hard year yeah right um so we're saying okay we got 59 we're going to put 50 in we'll leave nine um as a a cushion I guess so to speak now for the next ones you'll notice that what we're going to start doing as best practices is whatever we actually get in fiscal 24 for the grants we're just going to commit 100% of that in the 25 cycle and keeps going so this that will explain the differences in the numbers circuit Grant we circuit breaker we only put in 155 we're saying we're going to commit the full $183,400 Grant we got 130 we're putting 130 in 262 we got 75 75 is going in Title One same thing title 2 title 4 a I don't so that's one question I don't actually know what all those little things are um but it's going in rural Aid three years ago was the first time we ever got rural Aid we've never qualified for rural Aid we now qualify for Rural Aid which is based on the distance that the the average distance that a child lives from the school related to transportation and now that we've built further out from our Central Hub we now qualify cuz we meet that threshold and it's and it's consistently going up that 45 and this is just we're talking southon this is just noris this is just Norris um fiscal year 24 we actually received 58,000 we put 45 in um but we're saying we got 117 put the full 117 in the reap Grant we got 565 um that's an estimated number so we may need to true that up but that's in there miscellaneous grants we've broken the go all down up above so that 7500 6500 10 and 35 is is what we used to just kind of lump together but now we want it we want to show these line by line and break them out now our arpa instructional allocation this one is is a note and it's in red um we had we we asked and got permission for arpa funding for fiscal 2324 and we asked for 6 months of 25 and at the time the select board um reserved the decision on that so the 168 163 were approved but the 84 is out there in limbo um we put it in there hoping hoping that we get it because if we don't get it it's just going to it's going to fall to the bottom line but that was brought in to do the um to create the neurodiversity program uh which is be is successful and going on there's separate reports on that but the intent is at in fiscal year 26 we will actually start receiving children from the from Westampton and Williamsburg into North for this particular program and we will be charging um a outof district placement cost to us right so just see and I'll get to this in another spot a typical out of District placement cost for us where we we can't service that child full-time within our school we have to place them at the at the Oak School or the May um because I know this the May Institute ude is $123,000 a year for one child plus Transportation which is $200 a day by Van Pool so we're not going to charge that much to the other towns for van pool yeah um so John this is for the arpa money this is to go through December of this calendar year or not not all the way through F just the six months we were working on um and when I so for all our buckets we would be kicking in 1, 15,950 which is 146,000 more than last year um and then um and as I noted up above I believe our only Reserve is going to be that 236 of school choice that we have on once the budget goes through something happens within the school we get an extra AO District placement that we weren't prepared for or budgeted for cuz the um kids can transfer in they move it you move into town November we have an obligation to bring them in and if they come in with an IEP and we can't get them up to speed like for example one of our a of dist Replacements historically um was was a very was a kindergarten child who was death so the first three years they had to go to Clark they had to to learn how to sign and all that and then we were able to bring them back with um you know getting one of our teachers up to speed un signing as an example but um we don't have the ability to come back to the town and in the in November and say hey need another 150,000 so we have to keep something for the reserve um so then that gets us down to our general fund tax dollar ask of 257 or which would be a 4.7 increase the then we get into expenses yes just on Choice uh how many kids come in on Choice 48 is that like the maximum or we have we have we we could drop it but we we it's cons we allow up to 48 seats each year so it keeps our Revenue consistent and you said that was 5,000 it's 5,000 plus if any child has an IEP or 504 there there are add-ons to that yes so with a budget of that size and you only have 200 and something thousand in reserves that sounds awfully thin yes yes but we um it you know last year if you last year we got a 10.6% increase so we're we're also mindful we can't keep getting double digits um and two years ago our budget Recaps looked a lot like what we saw earlier where you didn't have all this stuff but I but I think it's important if we're asking for 5.6 million that we're showing all the other Revenue sources that are coming in um and our plan our just we haven't voted on anything but Our intention for next year is to create an actually set of policies for the school committee we're going to have turn we have two we're going to have two seats if we can find anybody that wants to run for school board um to join to create policies like we discussed school choice money we should have a policy where we start with committing 75% every year and then put 25% into the reserves and then I would say at no time could that Reserve um be greater than 10% of the general budget right because then we should be putting more in and we we can't build because in essence we're we're just pocketing a tax money that's already come in um so and I say a half a million for us Hampshire Regional has 2.1 right now in reserves but we're not here to talk about them um so now we get down to our expenses so we see that we're asking for the um our projected um actually no I'm sorry we're not this is this is still on the tax on the uh recap soe uh the elementary school we be looking for $5.6 million um school choice tuition out that comes off the uh cherry sheet so that number right now is 49933 that may change they um they automatically deduct that from us before they before they give the treasure the money so local school transportation is highlighted because um this was a question I'm going to ask Bradley nobody we can't find the contract anywhere I thought we renew that we're in the third year of a three-year contract with two we're going into the third year of a three-year contract with options for two additional one-year renewals and my memory says that it was a 20% increase 10% in year one and then five and five so as a placeholder I I just added increased that by 5% um I reached out to Durham yesterday today there do you know it yes no oh I just want to go back to the school choice out yes how come it's so much lower or do you know why it's so much lower than the previous two years we have um I mean do you feel comfortable that that is correct it's it's a copy and paste from the cherry sheet from the governor's budget okay sorry that's okay so does that mean that we're actually able to offer more services so kids don't need to go out of town There's got well again Kim Kim and I did the budget yeah there's got to be a calculation somewhere on the Desi web I just yeah I don't know okay no great I can try and find that answer but you're but you're right Don it's significant M um so for right now I uh I reached out to Durham they're contacting their Court they don't keep local contracts in East Hampton they're contacting corporate for a copy to get to me once we get that whatever the the number is you know we'll adjust for that um and then we got uh Charter School tuition out uh is 204 The Vocational tuition out that is you could um my I have my notes there it's it's it's a pure calculation I believe I'm waiting I we as a select board generally don't fund that at 100% it it's never 100% of the children these are just all the children that have submitted requests to be considered um I've asked the superintendent and um the employee up at Hampshire Regional who tracks these applications to give me 3 years of applicants and 3 years of who actually goes so we can create some sort of trend I'm guess but that's 100% right now I I would think at the very least we would cut that by 10% but um so that's why that's in yellow and red yeah 48 rather than well see how many how many of those people are the new correct the new kids are 13 requests to go and we have 18 seniors so we're already plus five right because of all 13 go and 18 drop significantly yeah yeah right so I mean go right so this these the 54 here does not the 54 includes the seniors when they really when they originally gave me the number so I mean I guess it would be good to know how many kids in the last 3 years have applied to go in as freshman and I'm guess use that the average of the of the fresh 20 each year what percentage actually go right and then you know the number that's expiring right the seniors that are dropping off gradu yeah right so there's more work to do on that number but that to me that's a worst that's a worst case scenario number that's in there uh vocational Transportation um this is the same same thing I added a 5% um and then uh the Hampshire Regional budget so right now as of March 18th but they haven't had their public meeting um our portion of supporting the Hampshire Regional and central office is 5.7 million and so that's a 2.77 increase which is good because they started with what was it Chris 17.4% increase y that's what they started with what keep in mind they have committed 100% of their school choice money and and there's a movement not to do that they've got like a half a million coming in this year so they put a half a million in they still have a 2.1 million Reserve uh But there again that's where I tell you there's 39 elected officials so there's a couple towns that while southampton's only 2.7 it's having a significant impact on the other town so they um I don't know their public meeting is tomorrow night so we'll know what that number is so that gets us down to a 13.2 million total ask of 4.6 yes how how is it allocated to by number of students that we sent yes so great question two different calculations and the long story is Southampton pays 56 cents on the dollar for Hampshire Regional um and we have we have we have six voter if all of our voters voting members show up we have it's a weighted vote we get 56% of the vote um and you need a majority to pass anything at a minimum so we have some open seats there too if anybody wants to run the uh every year they do a calculation as to toal number of students and how many come from each town for the high school but for high school and middle school right and then right so that's one number and I think um actually I don't want to guess I I could pull up but that's one number so it's all the kids in the school that are there which what town are you assigned to what percentage that's percentage of that budget you pay central office is by town all the children that fall under the jurisdiction of the superintendent which which includes school choice children vocational children out of District children um so that so it's a different number on that it it's like 2 or 3% difference but that's how it's and the high school number is a rolling 5year average to try and avoid a a one-year Spike and the Hampshire Regional budget has to be passed by four of the five towns in order for it to go so Southampton could vote it down as we did last year if even though Southampton has the biggest the largest majority of kids and the biggest percentage we could be the loan and we we would pay the biggest increase dollarwise but we could be the loan um the center and and it would still pass and we would be forced to come up with that money that's kind of what we had to deal with last year correct that has okay so page one the next pages are now our expenses um so they're broken into the section so I'll just go over each section I'll stop at each Gray Line there's questions so the first section is the school committee budget I um so when we first started this we just did we did a 2% increase Right Down the Line you know all the way through the budget and then we adjust as we went I mean honestly we could give back that $28 but there doesn't need to be any adjustment um in there so uh we share legal counsel that's our cost 4,800 Hampshire regional's legal bill I think is $36,000 so I don't have our attorney on speed dial um our recording secretary she's the one who does our our minutes at our meetings $50 a meeting um random supplies it's just our name tages when we get new people questions all right now we'll get into the more difficult ones so central office core cost this was broken into two so that five that 506 and that 68 um or the 575 alog together that's our share that's our 50 56% share of the central office staff um because we're going through all this turmoil or change right now we've had we don't have a business administrator lined up we start the superintendent search on Monday to identify somebody to come in we've had to in we've had to increase the salary offering for the superintendent by $ 35,00 are up to up to 195 now we'll see what we get for candidates um and we have to it is but keep in mind if you're the superintendent of that District you have a school committee meeting every week yeah cuz you you've got four towns you've got you know it's a lot it is we need to regionalize the um but we've had the higher Mass Municipal Finance to come in $288,000 a month because they're working on 22 and 23 uh Hampshire Regional hasn't been audited since 2020 so that's a question 2020 so I have a question how are we incorporating their audits into our audits but I'll ask Tanya when she gets here and then um so because all that goes once they're done with that which they anticipate being done by September current then the 28 drops to $10,000 a month um so they're in lie of the business manager or they they're doing the work the work of the business manager we still need a certified licensed business administrator in name to and they they don't provide that service they do all the work up to that somebody with the license then has to proof it and sign off on it okay um so it's believed that if you take our if we were fully staffed it would be X the extra on that is is roughly $110,000 that we need to add to the budget until we can get the people in place that's that second line the 68,000 it's it's only anticipated that that's going to be a temporary number so we want to break that out so it doesn't get baked into a budget say as long as we have these contractual services this that's the extra money that we need to spend our share and once the office is up and running that goes away we good on that part M all right so now we're into what actually happens at Norris we have our principle that is a contractual increase our assistant PR principal again contractual increase administrative assistance salaries this is where you're going to start to see well why if you only have one one and 3/4 people why do you have a 22% increase because what we used to do is bury half their salary over in school choice funds and nobody really saw it the assistant principal a year ago you couldn't find an assistant principal anywhere in our budget even though we've always had one because it was buried over in school choice um so two year two years ago we started this whole it this needs to be transparent need to find everything um and stien you know one of the admin gets a stiping because they have to come in um half hour early every morning and figure out who our subs are going to be and make the calls for that so that's a fixed cost internet services um we did increase that at uh 2% um but office supplies and a lot of this is on the recommendations of our building principal she felt comfortable leaving it as is other expenses professional development that's a fixed number per her contract um student software um you know when we asked about that she's like well you could always use a little bit more money there so we just rounded that up to 6100 um it's more than a 2% increase but uh questions on that piece Central and administration just the uh the percentage increase yeah it's 34 well it's going to be that 20 looks like it's because the admin assistant salaries yeah the $8,000 for that's a 22% change there just question of the math 30,000 from 30 yeah I wonder if that's grabbing that 17 up above it right because it should only be 10 yeah around 10 or something mhm I will double check that if I keep losing my can you tell from Excel what the sub total should you steal my pen that no this is a a PDF huh it's a PDF oh it's a PDF okay yeah I didn't give up the uh check okay um now we're on to staff salaries and benefits um teachers it shows a 3.9% increase um there again there was a half a salary missing because it was buried in Grants um plus there's a contractual I believe their contractual increase was uh two 2% because we're in year two of a three-year contract um neurodiversity this is what we were talking about earlier with that 84,000 so we're showing 100% of the funding um to create that program so for the two teachers that are there it's 157,000 for them and if we skip down just for one second there are five pair Aras in that program so for 280 290,000 that we're spending on that um and then in the middle we have our PA [Music] professionals and again it's pulling it's pulling everybody back in so that's got to be more than one how many of those how many people peris yeah I think there is 40 oh there's 40 teachers and 5 six Paras some some children on their IEP have a 1 to one so that would be a per y I think a pair is around $28,000 a piece um school physici that's been pulled out because that's now up in central office we all share the same physici longevity stiens that was um we couldn't figure out where that was where that was budgeted last year but that's per the contract and we have the list of employees that match up to that you have to be 20 20 20 years or greater to get a longevity check uh there are 12 of them at 25 you get up you get I think you get another 500 intensive needs these are these are Paras that are assigned to uh um High needs children that um have to deal with uh toilet issues there are extra incentives to do that uh medic um medication manager stip in of $5,000 currently we don't have a systemwide um Health director who and so therefore we cannot prescribe or hand out medication um so that stien is there um if we are able to negotiate with one of our one of our two Union nurses to take on that class which would come out of professional development get the certification they're they're already licensed under the RN to do it and then we provide the uh the stien which is $500 a month for 10 months of school to do it but if kids have medication they have to take during the day how do they uh technically our attorney says we're covered under the Good Samaritan act early retirement uh that's a thing of the past when Deval Patra who's Governor um Food Service salary food service is a revolving account except you're not allowed you you can only charge the Food Service account costs associated with the preparation and serving of meals so the three monitors that stand in the cafeteria to make sure we don't have food fights we can't charge that fund so that's three people at 10,000 a piece to monitor the lunchroom that was a bargain but hey you know they work two hours a day um sick buyback per the Union contract if the employee notifies Us by x amount of time and they are a 20 plus year employee they are entitled to 50% of their sick unused sick Bank up to a maximum of 200 days back so that's a placeholder that's in there we paid it out we paid it out last year it was like 11,000 and something we didn't get a notice of any retirements so I don't know but um we opted to just leave it there it's got to be like a 6 month notice or a notice or something right y so substitutes um we're currently we we looked into this one because we're going through a lot we're not going through a lot we're using a lot of substitute teachers um year to date we spent 67,000 and we're going to spend more however we have two teachers that are on maternity leave and one teacher is uh took the entire year off so that's an unpaid so there's there's money up there that's going to get transferred down so we're pretty comfortable that 60,000 is going to be enough to cover the substitutes questions on that section okay now this next section I think is pretty straightforward because it's allocations each teacher gets a certain amount of money to buy classroom supplies um and we we uh per our building principle just leave it flat um the only thing that or not the only thing cuz there's three things that got changed here was um classroom curriculum supplies U fiscal 23 we zero to out in 22 it was 40,000 that's that's the only place where we can buy books in programming next year we don't have anything scheduled to buy so we just we just at this point I just want to start rounding numbers so that's why it's 24426 to 25,000 um fiscal year 26 there will probably be a new program coming along um but like we did in 22 we need to spend this 40,000 to buy fast Bridges for Math and then by the third year and you can see it on our incast results on the maths that we're we're beating the Statewide averages now that we've unified this curriculum across the the board right now we're we're trying to prove that with the neurodiversity program uh so the rest is down Health other expenses um again that just round it um and then Health supplies so Health supplies is your Band-Aids your your Molin your over-the-counter stuff the the I don't know the Pung depressors whatever it is the line above that the different CU I asked this question what's the difference between other expenses and supplies other expenses would be they need a battery for the add defibrillator I mean it's not it's not a it's not something kept in the cabinet it's it's more like equipment related um and apparently those batteries are $250 a piece John just quickly on the ell's supplies while you're there so not too many kids um that are non English speakers then if only we only have one teacher okay so it's per the teacher the and I believe I believe we have seven ell students um professional development that's uh we hold two two days throughout the year per contract and um to have all day development classes where people are brought in in curriculum uh the rest of it remains flat okay on that mhm all right so now we get again alarm systems flat our our boiler it it kind of alluded to Chris mentioned a little bit when she said our heating controls the boiler system over there was I believe it was upgraded when they put the addition on the school was built in 56 and the addition was in 89 or ' 92 something that looking at Don some somewhere around there I can tell you we we have two boilers our boiler rooms about the size of this room in there who are also part of the air conditioning so they constantly run and we spend $144,000 a month in fuel when they're running and it's a whole water steam system it needs to be replace it's Antiquated the control boards don't work anymore so a lot of times in the in the summer they stay on um it's so it's part of this part of this eversource grant that we're looking at is to replace the whole contr communities yeah one of the projects under there yeah um but we're still trying to maintain this so it's it's just building up on the cost um so adding again it's rounding but adding some more money in there for the for the system uh BG mechanical they're coming out more and more and more um custodial salaries is contractual uh their supplies we just we added 1,000 to that the electrical or electric $89,000 we took a vote last night um that's based on actual numbers we took a vote last night to authorize the business administrator to enter into a 5-year contract to lock in our supply cost at uh 04 a889 less that'll translate into an $118,000 reduction that reduction is not in here because we don't have the contract signed per year per year just for noris um I think that might go down if the boilers kind of get upgraded but we opted because the contract's not in place we left the historical Trend number there we can have a conversation about that or not but we're we're anticipating once that's signed it up and running that there'll be $188,000 drop there um uh 750 are we have to have the fire extinguishers inspected annually fuel this is this is just to run the boilers $72,000 um contractual services to maintain the equipment they have uh supplies um miscellaneous stuff for plumbum electrical rubbish removal that's how much we pay the transfer station to to pick up our garbage septic system I think um gets taken care of twice a year telephone system we just did the token 2% here same thing on water um questions on that section special Transportation special ad transportation is blank and it we didn't know the answer last night I've now found the answer today I asked where the vamp poool receipts are being or invoices are being charged to they're being charged to the town's general transportation line item so moving on um wow that will Zero well the town pays for transportation costs yeah okay I Chris it's a discussion to have I just pointed out to you is that a lumping and splitting question I'm not sure I'm following you so a couple decades ago the the town I don't know if you're familiar but there's there's a law that requires a net School spending calculation in each Community must meet that minimum threshold um and transportation is an ex colluded Idol so when Transportation was in Norris's budget it looked like we met it but we didn't so then the town said we'll take that out and and most communities now have it out so now it's outside the calculation so we're in theory we're not TR we won't be in trouble because now we're our net School spending is three almost 3 million and we're at six I mean we're so far over the net School spending number maybe maybe we correct that now but um then uh the CC I knew what that acronym was um that's for us to belong to the collaborative which provides um the after school programming before and after school programming over there which is the executive collaborative is it Hilltown education collaborative there you go Hilltown education collaborative so that's that's our membership fee program programs in District 16,320 so that's where a a child for maybe one class go somewhere else or somebody you know maybe they need the um the reading specialist and they're only over in West Hampton so they go there and there's that cost transfer programs out of District we have two children $314,000 that's just a tuition now one child is sixth sixth grade so that child will become part of the Hampshire Regional budget next year to my uh your observation earlier we're proposing to leave that flat so because our reserves are low if another child comes in we have that there to pull from and then the other items are not part of the Norris budget they're part of the that bottom recap sheet which is why they're blanks in [Music] there now I we're we're scheduled to have our public hearing next Wednesday to vote on this I do Envision I I I need some math double checked but I I'm between last night and today's meeting I I'm pretty sure I identified an error that's going to drop the number I think there's a double calculation on two faculty members so this is the highest it's going to be I think I think it's going to come down and once I get that done then I can circulate those updated numbers out to everybody mhm good job yeah unbelievable a lot of work to go through this thank you so much absolutely you and Kim went through this yeah not bad for a retired math teacher and uh a sitting CFO I'm glad you volunteered to do it so thank you very much I think we would have been my my goal is I I think I I think we need to get the town contribution if we can we need to get the town contribution down to a flat 3% for Norris yeah which will then you know it's only it'll that means the overall will be like a 2.97 mhm mhm yep so so right now the 5649 is the maximum you're thinking about as you re look at the math uh correct okay well do I haven't looked um what are chair sheets looking like for next year compared to this year it's an increase of $30,000 we're getting milon do less than we really well we've had increases for the past 2 or 3 years of 800 to a million and now it's going to be flat or close to flat so I think if I if I remember right looking at it year over year was like a 2 it went was 2.03 to 2.37 oh so that'd be 300,000 I don't know M yeah what they were I mean I know that can change a million times before right yeah okay all right so I guess we don't know totally if we looked at Bradley's spreadsheet he's got basically everything plugged in there although we've made a couple of additions tonight how far apart were we in terms of I think there's still a couple departments missing are we missing somebody still there's a few smaller ones like uh concom bylaw committee things like that there's not too much there probably but I also wondered and I don't know cuz I don't remember did Lucy didn't really come and present her budget right because it was a small we didn't me the smaller ones right but I did have a question and maybe you guys know the answer but um it didn't look like her expense budget went up and being a presidential election line to go up first I was just surprised it was the same it looked like it was the same as as last year I feel she did talk oh maybe did she do that during her her quarterly report yeah town clerk uh does she have a joh CL tab there mie she has so if it's not colored it's not done um if it's orange it's not done all right yeah Green is done yeah there should and I guess I just thought about it because when I was looking at our budget in South Hadley which um the town clerk's budget was going to be higher because of the election so that made me go back and look to see and it didn't look like right um so she's got actually looks like a reduction in election wages and expenses right mhm which would be a little bit strange good point D yeah that would be might want to like just revisit that or get some clarification because it doesn't seem like there's going to be more um and I know the town gets reimbursed for some yeah things but I think that's mostly mailing and um like the early voting kind of stuff but not for the actual right yeah good point because we've already done the primary we've got a town coming up and then we've got the so we have our regular ones every year but that presidential one is you know it's going to be big and take more people for sure I don't know yeah no good point let's flag that one and maybe just color code that those expenses got just to draw our attention back to them a little bit there was discussion about reducing the cost of Elections by eliminating inperson early voting right that was her recommendation but I think that was can we do that that was for the town I think that was the town election I don't think we can could be the for the town she said that by vote of the select board they could do it yeah I think it was I think it was just for the town election I don't think it was because she was saying for the primary they actually they were open for inperson early voting and very few took advantage of it I don't know how many mailin they had but um it wasn't as much as she had anticipated so I think she was just jumping right onto the next one which will be the town election at the end of May I don't think that would apply to the presidential I don't I I mean I could see not doing it for the town election yeah there's nobody on the pallet we're all on a post yeah I know so yeah but so so even knowing that we've got a couple of smaller ones in what's our bottom line in terms of how our total in terms of how far apart we might be here well he's looking at that can can we try and get a a dedicated time with the two groups to uh to spend on Revenue sure yeah yeah if you guys want to come back for another night yeah yeah I mean I think it's really hard to I don't know sometimes it's really hard looking at the revenue numbers when 23 is not even like we keep getting the 23 report should changing yeah um we're almost you know we're three quars away through 24 but we've only got maybe maybe 50% y of the revenue entered so we're not really getting clear yeah we've only got revenue entered through December from my right end of December and then the 23 expenses I think it's I think Bradley just does a revenue and expense report every time so the date changes on them but I haven't compared like this month and last month but they shouldn't be changing in terms 23 23 should not be no I think he's just updating them for us but and there we're waiting especially again on on school reconciliation so there's a lot of we're waiting on the central office whatever that company is to yeah help us sort out those figures because they're showing a lot of deficit every town I don't know what happen all the five towns have not been able to certify free well so I asked that question and somebody told yeah butes does Goan because of their size their SI they they're not required to do an audit they don't do an audit an annual audit uh I don't know but Chesterfield I'm pretty sure has to because but I'm thinking Goan specifically I don't know um but the rest of the communities yeah because they've got they've got questions on the school lunch program they've got questions on um various other lines that are showing deficit spending until things get reconciled it looks like things may have been just posted to the wrong right so if we net all the reconciling items it's positive 20 something thousand to the schools to noris which that number would get into that school choice Reserve account um it really just I mean they got an extension from desie to get their books in order we got an extension to follow up with them because we're stuck waiting on them so we you know we're just waiting on them to close the books and Bradley's been trying to work with them but we're not getting any answers yet so that's a problem part of the problem yeah there were we were a year ago that sentence because it scared the Jesus out of me because we hadn't certified free cash this is three months ago we don't we haven't got it yet we can't accordly state aid was being withheld would have because we didn't we didn't support we you have deadlines to submit the supporting documents which start in September 30th and and full honesty this was the first year Southampton was actually going to be able to achieve this for the past two years we we it's been turmoil while Bradley gets up to speed and and we don't need to go into the reasons why we got there but we thought we were going to have it this year yeah no we were I mean we were now good news free cash doesn't get certified it just it falls out and gets it'll show up again next year it's possible that we might not have any free cash right this year because we'll just wait if if it's not going to be done by the really by May it's got to be I mean yeah what's the point the goal is to get it done byan yeah because and it will just it will still be there technically the next you know year well and I think we what little we estimate for possibility of free cash is going to be less this year anyway cuz we've got to repay right it's like four well we have to repay our operating stabilization fund that we borrowed 350 $1,000 from in hopes that one other community would vote down the budget but they didn't yeah so the amount of free cash we'll have is a lot less than what we would have hoped for this year anyway because of that sort of can that we kicked down the road a little bit last year um but no I mean the goal is still to get this the books closed and get our certified free cash I mean that is the intent before town meeting that's certainly what we're trying to work on so so when what's a good um yeah what a good time for you guys so we [Applause] are we have a regular meeting select board already next Tuesday but beyond that we can see where we want to go are are um Thursday night's better as a night of the week rather than anything or I mean we don't have a select board meeting on the 2nd so we could do on Tuesday night that's Town caucus oh gosh thank you we can't do that okay so the fourth would be a Thursday for example you're right I forgot about that yeah well I only remember because it's Bubba's birthday which one the caucus second fourth actually have a medical procedure so I'm not available the fourth oh okay for the third Wednesday third works for me Wednesday third I think I can do that MH okay well let's let's try to set up something for Wednesday the 3D and the timing that would take not only me but Dan out for planning board on the third okay you know you can do that um they've got a meeting already scheduled do they yeah yes that one is going to happen Okay is it is it like a like a within an hour window or do you think it's going to go long it's likely 7 to 8 but I haven't seen the actual agenda okay could we do a 6:00 does that work for people or is that 2 or 6 or 6:30 then you could cut out a little bit be for come whatever I can it's same building yeah did you what time did you want to start yeah the third third right 6:00 there a 6:00 start can we do at 600 I planning board starts at 7:00 so that would allow these guys to be if you roll in at 6 rather than 6:30 yeah that would if we could try that at six be a better overlap okay 615 I mean if we say six then most of us can be here that yeah okay um before we adjourn I also need to know if there was anything that the PB sign that we need to sign before we adj yesterday no no prfs they were all pcfs or whatever they were changing grades okay and then um you don't yeah cuz you don't sign off on Police Department new hires right I don't think they're in the budget no they already signed off on the yeah yep Mo wej second y hi all right that was I and the select board adjourn and fincom adjourned so we are adjourned at about 855 is thank you guys much appreciate your coming and through yeah anybody uh by the way we're so we're jour e for