this government meeting is brought to you by eastworks and our local cable subscribers okay I'm calling to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for April 9th 2024 at 6:02 p.m. uh we do have a quorum tonight uh Joya will be late and Dan is absent this evening but we can get going so let's please uh stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance pled the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation indivisible for liberty and justice for all thank you okay all right so at about 6:30 the finance committee will hopefully some of them will be joining us but we'll work on regular business until we get to that point uh do we have anybody here for citizen speak formerly known as open time for the public all right I see none at the moment so let me find the right agenda here hang on a second people oopsie all right so um how about any reports Scott do you have anything you want to share with us first in terms of following our agenda here um just a few things um one of the things is um the select board policies and how we kind of distribute all the documents um so this this week was a little bit of a little bit of a transition so I did send out the invitation to have the shared folder um it was just more of a test to see if it actually worked um so John thanks for giving back to me I didn't I wasn't expecting it to actually work uh but the idea is to move all of our files to have them accessible by all the select board members um also kind of organizing all the archives CU we have we have a significant amount of files in our drive I get actually error messages that we have exceeded the file amount in our uh thing every 5 or 10 minutes um so it's a matter of just getting going to the archive sorting them out and then kind of starting fresh with a lot of the newer things like you know do we really need to reference the FY 2009 budget at this point if we need it we can always just go in the archives and and dig it out so um but you whether it's like emailing the packets or you know I would like to do one single packet for everybody as as I mentioned um or if there's a it's better to put everything to the folder the share folder um and just update it as that goes so there's there's a lot of different options um that we can kind of customize so if you prefer paper we can always print it out for you um if you prefer electronic we can do it that way too okay so this would take the place of Dropbox okay I think most of us I'll speak for myself all the three of us okay none of us have been terrible fans about Dropbox um use it periodically but it it's not very um intuitive to find things and maybe it's because there's so much in there that you know needs to be archived so I think we're I'd say we might be fine with that um I don't know I personally I'm just used to getting email attachments but I'm I'm willing to try this new shared folder whatever it yeah I'm okay with the new process I I guess I would want a um paper copy of the agenda right that way because I only have one screen I don't want to have to bring my second one so I can follow the agenda on paper and then pull up the attachments as we go along okay that would be helpful what my brother says okay exactly I just wanted a paper agenda so in track um thank you for the invite Microsoft is Microsoft but I have all the documents I would prefer not have paper other than the agenda yeah if there's something that you know depending on I can't imagine what but if there's something that people felt like they really wanted it so they could you know scratch it up themselves we can always just print out a copy but rather than doing multiple copies and multiple versions I think that's fine accommodate everyone but for me yeah and I think the only the only thing I would just want to be sure of it I'm sure you can manage this Scott is just that as we put something in a shared folder that we just manag we set up some parameters for Version Control so that we're all you know if there's edits that are done we're all very clear as to what the last version is that we're looking at so that would be my only comment I think about that okay um so we most of the other things revolved around the budget and the uh the warrant uh but we did start negotiations with the um Highway Union so we just had a a first meet and greet just to meet each other and meet the negotiation team just do some Basic Ground rules U so we really won't be getting into any real bargaining till after town meeting um and then uh just a reminder the public safety building form is tomorrow so can't see it enough it is yeah okay any reports select what any important meetings that anybody's had since we met last time it's only been a few days it feels like I think it has only been a few days uh since April no I mean Capital met all those items are going to come up later on tonight okay when we talk about the warrant in uh local school committee will meet tomorrow night um Finance we've been meeting jointly M and PPP is delaying their meeting this month by one week to accommodate for school vacation so uh we won't me till I think it's the 25th yeah and school vacation again is the 15th uh next week yeah yep okay all right Stephen anything I have nothing from assessors Board of Health open space committee was conflicted out with our prior meeting okay planning board cancelled okay I sat in on concom but I'm not going to step on Dan's territory okay the only good news is that there's a modum of progress on the manhan river bridge okay for the trail manhan Meadows conservation yeah I know that's been in the work still a prayer that we can get it purchased and installed this year good okay very good okay all right and on my end just briefly on the ad hoc Grant committee um the our little team has been meeting uh we've got two things that are kind of underway uh one is um do this later this week it's for the historical commission to look at doing some historical preservation on the Old Town Hall which is eventually the next step we had done the windows replacement and some of the rotten woodwork on the Old Town Hall police station last year um the next step is actually to do the some of the repointing of the brick work um and this is necessary to preserve the envelope of the old building so the whole thing doesn't fall down and if there were some future use of this building um we need to keep the outside function so there is a grant availability it's not a lot I think it's between 50 $100,000 but it's very rare that we find something for historical so we're working on putting that together and then also uh an expression of interest for the One-Stop grant program and this will be uh looking for the possibility of doing a sewer feasibility study um from well along the rail trail so essentially trying to connect in with with East Hampton and uh looking at that so that one is not du until the end of the month but uh Kate has already made some some good strides on on working on that one so that's pretty much it I think for the uh grant program at the moment there's a couple things that have come across my desk but there um there's one that came across today from um one of the firefighters grants but the deadline is Friday so I talked to Rich and he said no no that's quite all right we're not going to apply for that one so that was a little too late um we did reach out I did reach out to um respond to a requests from the um Senator Warren and Senator Mary's office like we had done last year they had asked for uh ideas for the congressionally dis congressionally directed spending amount sometimes they have availability of funds that they can push forward um and have for their identified projects so they put out a request to everybody in the state basically and so um we had done one last year and basically they said just reiterate the same one and that was for the the design work for the feasibility sorry for the public safety complex so we put in a request but chances are probably not not strong but we at least put our name in there so that's about it um okay we have a uh cost efficiencies meeting uh coming up this week and a grant meeting coming up this week as well so if people aren't following if you go onto the town website the calendar uh function is quite visible um and you can you don't have to go into my town gov because every time we schedule a meeting in my town gov it shows up automatically on the calendar page of the town website so that's all very helpful okay I think that's it for those kinds of things let's get into some new business and we have Lucy I think town clerk yeah and let me just say one thing here this is uh we know what you're coming up for on the uh the request of the early person voting and just to say last meeting we started to get into that discussion but that was not officially on the agenda so I hold myself or hold myself accountable for having allowed that discussion to begin so now it's actually an agenda item so you may come up and explain what you're talking about please Lucy d d town clerk um last time I was here I presented a letter to you all from the board of registers don't think we got a letter well I have the letter oh for you to sign but okay we were going to table it um but talking with the board of registers um we had our meeting and um I had given it some thought and um I'm going to present at our next meeting next week um maybe to table it again because um we don't know when we're going to have a election a special election if we're going to have a special election so I'm asking for us to add it again to another agenda for you all to add it to another just say a couple words about why you were thinking about opting we were thinking about opting out because we did not have a good turnout on early inperson voting at all we had about 15 people in total come out for early inperson voting um we have over a thousand mail in ballots that we have to send out so we had just discussed just having it just for the local election opting out of it um having it for the you know primaries and the election in November but um I had thought about it over the weekend and I'm going to bring it up at our next Board of registers meeting so we can we can hold off on any further discussion just a question then and the way I'm understanding this so this would happen basically during normal business hours right you've said weeks it has to be open so right somebody's in in town hall and that's why I thought about it yeah so so you have to open up you said one weekend or two weekends um just one weekend well when it's the primaries it's it's either two weekend weekends or both Saturday and Sunday of one weekend okay so um so two days of of a weekend yeah okay y so it's not like you've got to call in a bunch of people to manage the person voting okay no it does yeah okay so you're going to talk to them again and then come back to us whenever you want to be on the agenda yep anybody object okay all right thanks that's it thank you oh can I just say one thing sorry maybe it's about the caucus the caucus is Thursday April 11th 7 to 9 it's in this room um we need a quorum of 25 registered voters to attend and I did put up the procedure today on the uh Southampton Community web uh Facebook page I have to have it put on the town community Facebook page just how it goes and how everything works so you on the on the website too I did not put it on the website yet but I will do that so y all right good than okay thank you all right all right next up Scott I think um Colin Center update such as it is um I'm going to actually speak to that in in later on the budget okay that's fine okay um so we're going to wait on the budget discussion until fincom actually gets here obviously um so anything on uh whichever one uh 23 close out y um so we officially do not owe our Auditors any more information okay I just got it so for the 23 one uh yes 22 22 22 close out so the 22 audit update okay so the Auditors are fine with 22's information okay okay and about 23 23 then where are we with anything from school okay and and are we can we say publicly for the record that uh all outstanding items related to 23 are exclusively connected with the schools I'd have to double check that with the Auditors um I just was able to get the 22 you know when those two things but I know the main thing that you've been waiting for Bradley right is to to balance the books with grants and then some of the accounts that are showing that they might be leaning toward a deficit right or correct things may have not been put in the correct category so and when we had the chair of the school committee here last meeting I think we made it pretty clear that we wanted this I I really am not comfortable getting much further along in here and and getting right to the end of our deadline with DLS that gave us an extension and if they said that they were doing it imminently well I don't know I think right now the target is still May 31st to have the school stuff done that's why before I go start beating the drum tomorrow night I want to make sure it' be nice if somebody could say on the record and I'm and I guess I'm looking for our town accountant whether he can or can't is is there any outstanding items that he's aware of not related to the schools that you're aware of I just want to discuss with Scott the certain vent of Grant uh deficits of how that we can deal with them but other than that it's the school counts mhm and and the the grant conversation you want to have are any of those Town grants Town grants well cuz I I know there's outstanding School Grants yes that you're waiting on but but you Ed you just used the word Grant I'm just looking for a qualifier is it just related to the schools on the grant question that you want to talk questions there's deficits that have been carried over for prior years as in covid expenses has 100,000 deficit mhm I don't want to keep rolling that over that's related to the school though not I would assume that's town and I don't think that we used any Co expenses for a school so that's Town more Town related than school school has their own Grant accounts that yes I want to investigate but there other carryover deficits from prior years I also want be helpful if if you may not have it handy or if you do uh just whatever account that is that you're talking about so we can y cuz if that's the cares act stuff that goes way back um which I okay yeah that would be good to know but the so we I think we can say at this point the majority of what we're looking for I would agree with that statement but yeah it's a much bigger Sledgehammer if I can say it's 100% related to the schools and we've already as a as a town this town has already spend an additional $76,000 and if our request can't get raised to the top yeah then I would make an argument to withhold the fourth quarter payment yeah so okay it's the only way we got their attention last time yeah I all right well let's keep seeing the school committee meeting is tomorrow you tomorrow night okay local school committee local okay all right hey Jo welcome Joy all right okay well let us let us see where we are then we will keep on pursuing that but I'm hoping our next meeting will be what are we at well we're probably going to have to meet once in between to sign off on the warrant and all of that kind of stuff but our next regular meeting is going to be the 23rd um so we definitely need it before then as far as I'm concerned whatever they have to do I and I I don't know I would like to know if other towns have somehow closed their books while waiting for the school I can't imagine they could have but it doesn't seem like it's only it should be only us that's complaining about this no but if it's if it's Grant related I would say Norris has the majority of the grants based on it population yeah okay all right okay any further comment about that all right uh Scott looks like you're up with the draft warrant article discussion perhaps we'll keep on going until around 6:30 when we'll hope for some of the finance folks to show up so if you want to go ahead and run through that can make it a little bit bigger maybe so I don't know how it shows up on our screen with the rection and TV here okay not quite so bit there you go that's fine here we go all right so you want to just kind of we don't have to read them all but just kind of the categories of the the article name I guess is what we would need yeah just so a lot of them we have we have to input the numbers kind of be like the final process once um come up with a budget and decide how you we're going to transfer things and and fill in the blanks so a lot of it is really just placeholders at this point um but for the first three articles we have the uh additional KN that we get the free cash um transfering from free cash or our three funds the stabilization the capital and then the oped trust um so I so I would just suggest for how we communicate this to the public that I think Article 4 needs to become article one article because other without the explanation of why we're paying this back M I think it'll be alarming when we say there's only 100 ,000 in free cash mhm good point so put the okay so put that first first right first we got to repay the loan that we took out last year remind everybody we did that which is why free cash is only X and these next three transfers are going to be sub substantially less than historical okay and so this is the actual amount that we had borrowed right last year the 35387 that needs to go back to the oper operational stabilization fund okay um the next one is establishing the capital project stabilization fund that we um talked about briefly last week for the um the Hampshire Regional High School do you want feedback as we go along yeah what all right so I'm in support of this as long as we add language to it that puts a cap and I'm open to what that is but it like right now it's open-ended the way this is written um so if it was to be that the cumulative of the stabilization fund canot exceed 5% of the previous year's budget okay but I don't want this to become a place where they're just dumping Surplus money that otherwise would come back to the taxpayers mhm so some sort of cap and I don't know what the rest of the board thinks about what that number should be right and at this point we do need the language they were not putting in any dollar amount at this point in time right correct but if we but if we vote minus the language it's open if we add the language which we I asked Tom if we could modify it and Margaret said yes you know whether it's 5% 10% 2% whatever the number is I think we should put some sort of cap and we can always go back to the voters and request an adjustment but I don't want to write a blank check so when you say of the previous year's budget you're referring to which Hampshire Regional is previous previous year Hampshire Regional budget right so this year they're asking for 5 point 7 million mhm and they're already sitting on a surplus of 2.1 million so I mean how much more they're already close to 40% in reserves but I understand it because the school choice and the um their uh excess in deficiency account I get that so this would be now a third account that would allow that 2.1 to build MH andh I don't even think we collectively have $800,000 in our reserves mhm mhm so so okay that's all I have a question before we leave this um this is for capital projects in the future Regional go at the school and we heard quite a list of very major expenses that coming down the line and it's a fund that will accumulate over time until it's drawn upon the authorized right so the current I'll say enabling acts but that's the wrong word the current agreement that Southampton entered to entered into to allow our 7th through 12th grade students to attend Hampshire Regional dated 1966 so it's outdated allows them to pass two budgets their operating budget and their capital budget and if the capital budget comes down to us we like in the other four communities have to put it out to the voters just like a debt exclusion which is how we operate and I would say that would work fine for Southampton I would say the other communities that have a shrinking population can't afford to do that so this is a way to allow those smaller communities to build up reserves without having going back to the taxpayers I would argue it's at our detriment and I understand why they want to do it and I don't necessarily find fault in it but considering that Southampton pays 56 cents on the dollar for anything that happens up there we we should be able to put a cap in that place if they want to use as an alternative method so this is really helpful for me this will expand until it's duly called upon only for capital projects so it's a purpose distinct from the other funds that you enumerated other reserves correct but those other reserves can be used and are meant to be use for capital projects yep okay yep and so I'm glad you flexible about what the limit ought to be I agree there should be a limit but in anticip ation if they've got a clearly thought through Capital plan M um you put the lid a little low right but nothing prevents all right so if we say if we say 10% right that's another 5 million so now they'd have 75 million and I understand the athletic fields coming up and potentially the roof but say the project comes up to be 8 million and they need another half thousand they would just come back to the individual towns and say you each have to pay your portion of the half million good vehicle to have in place with a limit yep Finance folks if you would just have that mic turned on just right on the top switch right on the top of the thing just right right below your finger there yeah just flip it up so it's on green there you go perfect thanks um okay and we'll wait until you have somebody else to call your meeting to order I know if we will or not yeah okay feel free to chime in all right good okay so next uh Capital requests so they met last night apparently y yeah last Thursday and do we know what they're looking for for we we do I just haven't not inputed it yet so I I guess we do need separate articles for each one instead of one article and several motions so the way we've usually done it anyway so do well yeah but I just I was trying to expedite it and you know say as long as the Tom moderator was okay with it could we do it as one lump sum well maybe we can need to talk to him but do we have just maybe two articles though for for capital or 11 five or at least you can't have that much money well we I thought I I not send you the um maybe I only sent the Scott I mean it's a long list for Capital request I'm sure but I I would have thought we might have had maybe money for five so give me one second maybe the dep on how much we transfer into it from free this year but the TBD okay no hold on um I'll find it okay let's cuz we we ranked them and then we um allocated money until we ran out of money exactly and weren't you also keeping a reserve in there based on their that assumes money's coming in yeah their recommendations though that we didn't spend all the capital money down okay well we know that we've got at least two and and we'll we'd have to talk to the moderator about combining them so there were 16 articles to be consider 169 is to be considered after we backed out the ones that were uh withdrawn mhm of the 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 nine were funded really totaling $12,991 of what we believed was availability of $139,700 mhm uh next was lighting at the library for $7,000 to secure their 10 ,000 Grant and I think that one needs to be worded to release the money immediately since it has to be spent by May 3 need double check all that if that was a match to her current Grant is that the idea what that one is maybe I don't know CU there's something also for the green communities one so we want to be sure we're not and then counting it 20 then we passed on the heating system at the highway 200,000 because of lack of funds we passed on the 172,000 diesel issue lack of funds we passed on the $300,000 street sweeper which for the record has a 12year expected life and we're paying $48,000 a year now so it's actually costing us more money to Outsource it and we still have to pay for the staff either way um we did approve 20405 for the north resurface of the gym floors which is the strip all the way down to the original wood and then rebuild it back up uh $5,500 for the library to replace septic pump number two septic one already failed and has been replaced we passed on the $210,000 for the highway road side mower um I don't know how they're going to cut the grass we approved the $18,800 um we passed on the $104,000 for the highway box truck we passed on the $138,000 for the noris replacement of carpets we passed on the $54,500 for the Norris parking lot we approved the $4,895 for the highway roof repairs we approved the $1,671 for the internet upgrade within town hall and then the last one was the $844 for HVAC mini split which actually cools all the servers that's supp Town Hall okay that's more than I would have thought we could fit in there but I did see in here it looked like you had a different somebody had a different funding source for the internet yeah I was going to ask about that um the the amount for the uh the wi-fi at the for Town Hall is going to be close to $4 to $15,000 um so I wasn't sure who submitted the capital to might have been Ed I don't know Ed or it would have been Ed or the or the it committee no it would have been Ed probably I don't think well I it ad hoc Tech minov okay they I know they were talking to Ed or Ed asked them to think about a a capital request so we could check with Megan on that okay yeah but but that's I think in these articles right didn't you list that source as the existing operating budget yeah I tried to um see if we could fit in for this town meeting just do it a little bit quicker uh to get everything squared away so I wasn't sure what the source was going to be yet okay we can double check on that yeah okay so anyway so we either see whether there's more articles to spread them out like that or if there's a way to combine some of them that maybe we can combine into two articles or something depending on you know how they're worded they may not all be if there's something special for a match like on the library or something that might need to stand out a little bit differently but okay go ahead um next up we have our annual operating budget um as well as the water Enterprise fund now just one one thing back up I think you base budget a so this would have been from last year's language maybe where we had we presented two budgets last year we had our base budget and we had an override budget so I I think oh yes that budget a reference would not be in there anywhere if we could take a minute to talk about this the um I'd like us to consider a different way on presenting the budget instead of the um 48 or 92 line items Broken Out by sections but town meeting we do it by category right I'd like to condense it even more like when we get to the public safety I'd like to break Public Safety out and say Police Department police department wages here's the cumulative of the sublines police department expenses here's theum two lines it does two things once or one thing it still gets the full amount approved and the details below that but it allows the department head to say I'm short a full-time officer I need overtime money to cover this but because we voted for for it at the higher level as long as they don't spend more than that accumulative they can freely move money without additional Town votes if you follow me right so then when you get they can't do it until later in the year Well special town meeting right and so then if we run out of money we're at deficit spending we get the fire I'd break fire into fire and ambulance fire wages fire expenses ambulance wages ambulance expenses right so the department has free to manage that budget up to the total amount that that the citizens have approved and the argu the argument not to do that is you don't trust your department heads but a first I trust all our department heads for the record but B if that's the case they shouldn't be our department heads so I I think it I think at select board level needs to see all the detail and say Yep this is this is how much for off pick on the PD since that department head is here this is your officers this is your overtime this is your Quinn Bill here's everything in here and it totals X for wages you can't go from wages you can't take wages and throw expenses which is why you don't just say police department you say here's your wages here's your expenses as department head you manage within those lines okay so if I'm understanding you'd have Police Department whatever you're calling that title that's the the main category but then maybe three subcategories under it there's no money money attached to the three sub subcategories no there would no there' be Public Safety under public safy so that's the title subtitle Police Department wages X Police Department expenses X fire wages X fire expenses X ambulance and there's something else in public safety might be the EMD it's part of the fire department yeah and then and then that's it so that cumulative still equals those those 25 lines we would normally see but again picking on the police department if he has a full-time relieve or get deployed and he has to staff it with overtime he's got to pay it out of that overtime line item right now which he would still do but if he ran short his Surplus is up there in wages right because that that full-time officer is not there working but he can't touch that money without special town meeting approval because the town voted those individual line items right cuz right now you have equipment maintenance building expense custodial wages all under police in addition to I think that's just some of the expense then you wouldn't have to to transfer from from Building Maintenance or whatever to equipment right but nothing prevent nothing in doing this the department head would not be allowed or permitted to overspend they'd still have to stay within their budget MH which and honestly most of you know I'm think our big Department police fire Highway they're all on contract they're all six fig people MH I I I think they can do it without us so at the accounting level though for for Bradley would we still have those actual account MH all those at the very detailed level I don't think anything change the only thing that would change on Bradley's part or the town accountant part is if there was a transfer the department head would initiate the transfer on their signature alone within those line items it wouldn't have to then wait for approval at town meeting for Bradley to make the transfer M okay so good recommendation I don't know um anybody thoughts about that I mean Finance does that make sense with anything you've seen in South Hadley does that work that must be how it's done I mean I don't have to go to T in South Hadley um but I believe that's how it's done because I know that I just have to stay within my budget line like my total budget y um okay I don't the individual breakdown that we do just for budgeting purposes doesn't I didn't prep him but not to put him on the spot we could ask our police chief here if this would make his life easier on day-to-day management of his department or if this would be more csome yeah yeah I yeah sure no actually I've asked for this for the last two years something very similar to this because of just like John said deployments um uh leaves with absences and what happens is I have to in order to keep the services the way that we to maintain the same Services I use my overtime budget for that and my overtime budget gets drawn very quickly M and as a result I have to wait until the next um uh you know special town meeting that transfer do any transfer right and in in the Ian in the past when you've had to draw that down and have to wait for the town meeting the period between when you've exhausted those funds in the town meeting have you had to make difficult decisions to I did I had to I had to reduce patrols on the midnight shift I had to and we operate on a two two person Patrol now so that means there's one officer working by themselves at night where if I had that Liberty I wouldn't have had to do that would done I think I've had to transfer on every special town meeting we've had for the last three years yeah well I think I think we probably have something up here now too for okay no that's helpful and I think for me I guess just as you know just thinking ahead as we're going to be moving to Vadar right in July the new Financial fin yeah the new Financial system that you know the level of detail of the kind of reports you can generate from that still gives everybody the information they need to know where they're having an issue I mean right now we look at those expense reports and say well geez somebody at you know we're halfway through the year and if somebody's already at 70% spent it raises a red flag right so I mean there still needs to be that and we would still be able to see that data and information yeah okay okay as long as that's in there so Madam chair I'm hearing two things on the table first I heard that we simplify the presentation to the voters that they don't need to review how much much is in postage stamps versus FedEx and I'm totally on board with that um the second point I think quite distinct from how we present it to the voters is ensuring that we're actually giving the authority to the department heads to make those management swaps and not have to wait for a special town meeting I don't want to achieve the first and in in ently miss the second or mislead department has yeah not give the authority that's required to to do that it seems self operating but I don't want it to be missed the authority that we're granting is I think I think that you know the whole notion of if you're going to delegate something then the authority and the accountability has to come with it right so before it to that's implicit right theoretically yeah okay all right so that's a recommendation anyway if you guys would like to try and tackle that as you go forward not to make your life more complicated as we try to put this budget together and and and possibly maybe for the first year that we do it you know perhaps we attach an addendum at the back of the warant articles that shows the level detail people are used to seeing so they can look at that and say okay the sum of this field equals this I can tie the two together especially the first year that we do it right cuz there will be questions about it I think that's what I've seen all right on this on this article I just want to mention that there's going to be two numbers that we input in this article that 1,000 for the wpat loan okay right now it's 17,500 and then the next it's from ambulance fees that would be another number that we need to input currently is 175,000 from ambulance fees yeah just remember that we need another so s two different accounts so the the wpat though you said was 17 or 17,500 I believe it's the current okay but as long 175 from ambulance fees okay okay yeah so next M what is that you pull the money out and put it into the budget so we have the uh the Water Enterprise fund next we have everything except for just the IND cost so we're 99% done with tra so we can input that okay otherwise it doesn't show up on the Deb schedule the transfer station Enterprise fund so obviously we've had discussions about that um and I'll talk a little bit more about it in the detail okay budget but that allows us to transfer the money into it um we have the land Acquisitions which I put after all the I guess the housekeeping stuff can we can can we back up to the wpad mm up and then one more above yep so so wpat is a water pollution abatement trust and is there an existing loan we're getting that there's interest there's some Revenue coming in is there not on this cuz that's where Board of Health is using their are they not taking their um that was that's the septic abatement program oh septic okay sorry wrong one yeah but that's it's wpat though isn't it yeah that's the W did they initiate a borrowing is for elected officials let's Sal elected official $1,000 if I mean if that's what's going to fund the health agent or director that's not an elected position right yeah so you're questioning the word elected why would money be coming out of the wp P's elected salaries we just bring up to you oops sorry about that lost it um let me see if I can well right in the ambulance receipts wouldn't go to elected officials no the only two elected officials getting paid are the treasurer and clerk town clerk right mhm well yeah the other eled off isn't that generic language at the top of our entire budget well not positive I was going to see how it was last um is where we're going uh where is it going here do we have the one here you pulling up last time time you know to include but not limited to blah blah blah blah blah blah uh fix the salaries of all elected officials there uh ambul yeah huh well that's the way it was and further to raise an appropriate 19 million y yeah so it's spelling out it's omnus budget it does everything yeah that was there for last last town meeting can you make that just a little bit bigger Scott just one or two clicks there you go so so the total rais in appropriate is $19 million of which yada yada yada oh I see right so that okay all right so the other number to plug in is What's the total budget all those different things are making up the money yeah it's a laundry list I couldn't tell from what I was reading it didn't the emphasis so you were questioning whether it should be elected officials cuz that applies only the two that are elected is that what your right I think well and I I think the draft the draft version we have I think is missing the total budget number mhm mhm yeah sorry okay and the usually the payback um changes for the wpat loans too from year to year because the interest goes down yeah so I 175 last year but it might not not be the same amount yeah we just have to check the amount for what it should be if we can do that just to be sure okay yeah okay all right so we've got to still come up you you started about the um the um water Enterprise fund yeah so we're almost ready with that yep just the indirect costs we're just finalizing okay um then the transfer station as well yeah uh and that lead leads us to the uh land Acquisitions um so these have been approved by uh KP law so this is the motion um to move forward and purchase the 89 Clark Street parcel um using the uh the monies from the David Parsons estate uh we're currently in negotiations with the price but we're just seeking for town meeting to approve the actual purchase so there won't be any there won't need to be any uh additional monies for that so do we say that do we say because money is donated by theate well it's acquired by gift purchase or Adent domain or maybe I haven't gotten that far funded by monies donated by by theate yep so this is for the acquisition yeah okay and this has already been through kp's okay we actually did take out the gift purchase him the domain they put it back in so I understand what you're talking about you want to be very specific but I see okay and then the next one is um the parcel of off College Highway MH what up um zero College Highway or formerly known as or 117 through 125 College Highway see area right across from um Dow and Parker O'Grady that open field up there so this is one um where the land is is up for sale um again and again still under negotiation I haven't got the final final figure here but this was looking to a require the full parcel um for various future Town uses including the public safety complex including potentially affordable housing including perhaps spillover for the um Park commission Playing Fields Etc so there' have been various requests for other land in town and this is one of the few spots that's actually available and is open uh for that so this is a a proposal going forward and we'll have to fill in some blanks here and it's um so this one though Scott would be one that has to go to the ballot cor as well it would be a DAT exclusion so it's a temporary period of borrowing mhm so CPA funds could be used for something like this not for the land acquisition I think eventually when we get into something like whether it's under open space or under affordable housing there could be pots of money from CPC that might be able to be used for the project level but not probably for land acquisition from what we've understood yeah and and here's the transfers that Ian was talking about the exciting part of the town meeting yeah um so we have Financial transfers for the police station um we did not need one for the fire department I know I put a placeholder but I didn't talk to the chief about that so he's all set um we do have a matching grant that we would MH um include and yeah this just needs to be contingent upon or whatever yeah on receiving those and we there's two separate grants and so assistance to Firefighters grants one for the tanker and one for the scva U so acquisition of a tanker not tanks tanker is a typo there keep those tanks that's more exciting um um and so depending I mean if if the grant doesn't come through then this is mot right but U we need to be able to find matching funds should one or both come through and it's a 5% match uh on about a total of close to $900,000 ask of the federal government um next up just uh I am going to request some uh transfer for Town Hall maintenance just working on the exact amount still and the same thing with U Wi-Fi and it improvements um the sooner we can do this the better okay for that one so this might be a duplicate of the capital request it might be okay Scott could you back up to please firefighters Grant M that's a federal transfer from where oh that's the answer I'm sorry okay so you have a placeholder for the source of funds everywhere some places you know some places not yet thank you some we know and some to be determined okay is it multiple tankers or one because there's an S there there's one tanker one tanker but several SCBA units yeah but the source of the match would not be General operating funds it would be I don't know what it would be what would be an allowed Source we've been taking a lot out of insurance I don't know if that's where we would have it again or not or some wages that are underfunded I mean empty positions perhaps or I don't know at this level okay I'm not sure but I mean those are likely ones that we draw upon and insurance has been one in the past well yeah but 43,000 is a lot yeah and it's only you know again if it's only if we get it so that's why I want to be sure that that language is um I if the town receives but I think that language might need to be stronger not from Capital stabilization for these long-term expensive assets well see and that's where I I would be going to say this does justify capital I mean to get an $895,000 tanker for $22,000 I to me that's a capital expense that's then going to have a 35-year life span versus trying to find it within the fire well and I heard insurance so that might be outside of it but I'd also want to be very cautious because we may have underspent EMT wages but we couldn't get away with taking EMT wages that those have to go back to the to the ambulance receipts I'd almost be more comfortable with taking it from Capital stabilization CU I still think anything that comes out of those stabilizations is a three4 vote for okay well for some reason I guess I had in my mind that something that was like a match to a grant was not appropriate for Capital but maybe I was wrong I mean it's not acquiring the item itself it's it's a match to to but it does go towards the purchase right it's just our portion of the purchase it would be the town purchase yeah I mean Town contribution yeah it's a tangible thing it's not study yeah okay I don't know Donna any thought I don't know what ever happened to well the there was money gifted to the fire Association years ago and only the the principal was not supposed to be spent only the interest but it was supposed to be spent on things specified in the will like CBA yeah and things like that that money all got turned over to it got turned over to the fireman's Association so now there's no it's not part of the Town budget anymore yeah so unless they were so willing to do that yeah it got transferred out of the Town budget okay well we'll have to check on that and if yeah that might again I just for for one I would say it comes out of capital no I mean and again worse comes to worse if we can find it because we won't need it probably right away it depends on you know when they come forth with these grants but you know if worse came to worse we could put maybe a piece of it from arpa if we had to um we've done match you know Grant matches from arpa before great but isn't the intent to as of May 7th to get the vote and the hopes that the federal government looks kindly on us and then we're just ready to go and sign on a line and then wait 18 months to get the truck at least two years to get the truck yes exactly yeah I'm not sure when the when the um you know the grants I don't be if we if we pulled it from the budget we'd have to encumber the funds and then hold it over and future years fun yeah okay you know just a thought let's think about it yeah okay good point all right Town Hall maintenance okay we're going to need a little bit more money this year just for Town Hall maintenance is this more utilities or is this um a lot of like HVAC the doors a few other things that we're going to need to make sure that we pay for yep the Ada doors no no like the front doors over here they had to be adjusted and fixed so front doors that don't close well you mean your predecessor to deficit spending I don't know no I don't I'm not sure that they we're we're pretty close to it though so in case there was an emergency or something that comes up you know it's it's different though I mean okay yeah cuz we had done last year I think on Capital we had done the um the repair of the U cement apron down at the bottom of the stairs that was falling apart so that's a capital request that still has to be acted upon but that was approved last year so that's different from that okay got it then we have the U the Wi-Fi improvements check that out uh the transfer salary for the uh Town Administrator M and then we have uh the general bylaw amendments uh so two out of the four have been approved by KP law um the noise and the unregistered vehicle vehicle so we should be having the the tag sale and the board of registers um relatively soon hopefully this week okay um so the first one is the the bylaw for tag sales mhm so there's three new three new um bylaws and one that's a revision mhm and the revision is the unregistered Vehicles one y uh the next is the nuisance peace and quiet uh the board of registers which is one of the ones that we're waiting for and then the unregistered Vehicles MH and this one because it's a revision you end up having to show the strike through of what was the original bylaw so you need to have to have to put that in there to show what changed okay uh next up we have the CPA funds so we have uh three requests for um different projects Greenway design the cemetery fence restoration and the uh conservation restrictions and then the last part of that is we have their uh CPA program budget and we hadn't approved the cemetery money elsewhere some somewhere along the way that was for the fixing the water pipe I think for one one but we didn't do anything with the fence in previous previous time does that sound right nothing that I'm aware of I thought they couldn't fix it because they couldn't find it yeah I'm just going to me just take a two second look here that I'm just curious on that one I know we had put in money for the restor the repair of the water man and that got done so that's watering all the the faucets and water delivery not the water sorry not the water correct yes no they were calling it the water man but yeah the water line I guess I would say yeah the water line where all the all the faucets and stand pipes are inflow and then outflow yeah um could have swor that but okay keep on going I'll find it if it's there we have the CPA annual budget have the uh revolving fund so uh the first one is establishing the um health department inspection revolving fund account and this was to again try to help fund the um the cost of the health agent is that right mhm and then we have we would add it to the um the chart and then if that passes we would do the uh add it to the revolving fund spending limits which I didn't I didn't carry over any changes from last year did we set an amount for the Board of Health fund no seemed like we need well that's a spending limit yeah so yeah we would add it to um most of these seem to be 10 to 15ish range I well yeah but we know historically at least for the past two years that account's been at 42 to 48,000 right and I think they were saying if remember Kate when she came and presented to us that the the receipts from Board of Health were something like 42,000 45,000 so they were hoping to kind of break even and be able to use that to cover the U the cost of the health agent um so that mean that should be the idea if this is if this is can just where's where's burn permits huh what type of burn permits oh burn permits um yeah only because was last when you say you carried over from last year and we do a onetime raise the limits to allow for the trailer and then we had to raise the limits allow for the lights and then we had to raise the limits to allow for decals for this grant freebie that we got that we continue to pay more and more for 3 years so I just want to make sure that if last year we already adjusted burn permits back down to where historically was I'm good with it but if it's inflated because so we'd have to look at year-over-year yeah it was more um a dollar amount that went up on that the limit um to allow him to our former fire chief to purchase that trailer for Last annual meeting it was 10,000 for yeah so it's that $10,000 L I think I think historically it's been five but I think it went up higher though at some point we did we did a onetime raise specifically so we could buy that trailer lights and all that to go with that free grant that we got another year of something there probably goes back a bit um so this is 2423 so if 22 was $10,000 I'm good with it so going back for FY 23 yeah so this would have been the 22 town meeting that had gone up to 20,000 okay so not so 10 the right knocked back down to 10 so I think we're back to where it should have been had been looks that way okay and then uh last but not least we have the zoning articles what yeah they've submitted one uh to update the zoning bylaw table is just a language change or okay so you may want to just group the uhw section just there General bylaws and zoning bylaws you might want to just group those together I don't know um all right group zoning and bylaws okay perhaps I it's a separate separate from the general bylaws but um which article is going to cause the most controversy cuz that should be the last one to make sure we maintain the audience it's not my first town meeting if you put the most controversial one first we're going to lose Quorum but John you should know F now it's never the one that we think is that's true we spent a long time arguing over what um ceiling tiles or something last time I was like always had no clue that that was going to be such a big issue right it it wasn't when we were expecting to to have the largest amount of discussion on but it you know it needed explanation and I think it finally came through but it was a surprise to have that one be the one that do some uh commentary so we don't know exactly how many articles that is but I'm guessing we're in the probably close to 30 issue without I didn't number without even looking at the capital stuff here so yeah we have the order ready well I think there's an argument to be made um for trying to combine the capital items if we could but I think you can need to talk to the town moderator about how to do that because he manages the meeting for us so okay okay so that's kind of the overview so once we get some figures to put in there yeah I mean and and perhaps we could we could talk to uh Robert and when we get to the or suggest to him that uh when we get to the uh um Capital committee ones however many there are there 11 or 12 if we said article X and then went a bcde e f g h by them in the event that somebody raised an objection want to divide the question it could then be done there take a through D together versus CU He he'll never let you take articles 7 through 12 together as a package but if it's one article that's easily dividable if there's an objection raised on the floor yeah you have to be able to separate it out somewh in case there's right I mean the ti you titles of the article and then subtitles and kind of group them like these are these are maintenance these are actual equipments and and he could pose the question is there yeah we we used to do that as a consent agenda so you take several articles group them together and then if anyone at town meeting opposed the grouping they could take it out and vote on it specifically right yeah and you might even because there's two or three there for um for town hall there's two or three for Norris I mean you might even group them that way might even just group them that way so that it was easier to yeah kind track and then if they had to be subdivided out in discussion level we could do that I guess and he should oh chief police has sending emails I don't know how to turn he should uh moderator should be back from England pretty soon right he's at next week I be back yeah okay okay anybody have any F questions are we is there any other article that anybody can think of that we're missing here you've done a great job trying to capture all the ones that we coming at you um it's a lot going on yeah okay if nothing else all right let's uh keep on moving on the agenda here I think uh we're going to keep on with the um budget discussion and do that since we have even though we don't have a quorum but we have both uh Donna whle and and Reger green here so I think we can talk about budget issues they just won't be able to make any deliberations but they can certainly give their input and their advice as far as I know is there a reason why the executive session's on for 7 uh it's on for 7:30 I think yeah we're going to get through the budget first for then go into that yeah okay so go ahead Scott with whatever your newest thinking is and so I did just add a starting off with a few thoughts I had just you know I'm kind of coming into this the bottom of the eth um but learning everything you know pretty quickly on how things are done but uh as John had mentioned I think there's some ways that we can kind of look at how we update our processes um so one of the ways you know I'd like to reach out over the summer and into the fall the different stakeholders the you know select board um you know the finance committee talking to the department heads and the employees and see um how we can kind of shape our our process to kind of make things more efficient and more transparent right uh one thing I'd like to kind of do is a um budget calendar uh similar to other communities you know close to the end of the summer just so that everyone's kind of prepar to know when the meetings are going to happen when things are due um also for transparency for the citizens to know uh you know when they can start putting their input in M the other area is um doing a townwide financial plan and I think that also goes into the the public transparency uh one of the things that um most communities do this is one that we that we used to do but it's it's a way just to kind of show town meeting in the community uh a lot of the major points in a budget such as um full-time employees uh where your personnel costs have have grown employee benefits which is a huge cost driver oped and pension benefits um your liabilities where we are and funding it which is important um some of the cost drivers like health insurance if if that's going to be a a larger or smaller increase our um Capital planning projected debt major funding project calendars you know sources of income you know we probably won't get to this all in one year but but I think it's important to solely build on a lot of the key areas to kind of show people M um and then the tax impact so so suffice this to say you're going to have a different approach to the budget next year Well no I mean yeah I I like it you know I I didn't use that one but you know Hadley does a very similar one I mean it's it's a very lengthy book but it's it's it's transparent it tells the story and folks can argue or debate the assumptions that are used but a lot of these things like the you know the retirement contributions this is what our obligation is this is when the state says we have to be fully funded and short to do an a penion obligation bond which I don't think South is anywhere near doing you know we have to deal with this and these numbers are just going to go up and I also think that um as we are replaced here on the select board that it doesn't you're not starting from Ground Zero if you have the previous year's book and you can read it and have a general understanding of it I'm a big believer that the um like the capital the town needs a capital project every single issue that we passed on is because we don't have enough money but if the capital committee never gets more than 100,000 how in the world are we ever going to replace $114,000 truck right so there's got to be a way to go out there and say hey here's our 5-year plan and we're going to have a rolling million doll you know debt exclusion that we're going to renew every 5 years but that's going to give us 200,000 a year per se and and in order in order to communicate that to the voters you've got to be able to show the picture and show the future and how the money is going to be used and then you got to follow through with it um too long I think Southampton like many other towns has been living in a 12mon snapshot and never look into the future that's someone else's problem that Kick the Can Kick the Can well and I think to the extent that the the main the big departments anyway have got their Capital plan for their vehicle replacement or their equipment replacement that all exists at highway police fire they do but we never fund it exactly and we but we don't look at it I mean they've got their kind of indiv it's almost still a little bit siloed in that regard it doesn't get folded into a a bigger perspective I think in terms of the future of the town and and I'll pick on a different department head tonight you know you look at our Highway superintendent half of our capital projects are his you know a he's inadequately staffed and and perhaps the if the Collins report will address that or Union negotiations will address that but B we don't have the vehicles over there because nobody wants to spend $300,000 on a street sweeper or $200,000 on a dump truck because why would you well yeah most of us don't drive around street sweepers and know what those are you know we'll we'll believe the uh the the police chief when he says I need $75,000 for a new truck okay that kind of makes sense we can understand that but you know we just we need to do a better job at communication because then I think when you go to the polls if you communicate it's the 8020 80% will read it and understand it go with it you're always going to have the denters that are going to say if raising my taxes a penny I don't want to do it sure no that'll always be there you made a point about the street speaker earlier though that we're spending more right to rent one or whatever than we would if we purchased our own so if you can fit that debt service for a new street sweeper within the budget right because we're already paying it out of expenses so just move it to a different line Y without doing an override mhm right why not do that cuz you're saving money ultimately right you have to be able to show that picture yeah you know that explanation not just I'm with the government trust me I'm here to help you right I know but I think easier sell than saying than saying okay well we need this and it's it's an override we need this and it's an override right you know to your point we're paying the money anyway and we can save money in the long run then just move you know sell it at town meeting as an article that we need this much money but we're going to finance it over six seven eight years or whatever right and if you only every six years you only looked for that override for that specific purpose so every 6 years we want a million dollars to fund the capital so it stays consistent once we get there and here's all the equipment and the pattern we're going to do it over time that's different that's the you're talking about Capital override I'm just talking about right but yeah yep yeah no I mean that does seem to make some sense in terms of trying to save money that's already being spent on the the main activity anyway here but yeah so we we we took a course a few weeks ago on long-term financial planning so we want to start instituting some of those practices as well um uniform documents that are a lot easier to read you know we might be able to look at a spreadsheet and look at the budget and understand it but a lot of people in the public won't be able to um Ian it'll take them hours to kind of look at everything and figure out what these two or three words describing a line item is so I think it's you know explaining a little bit better making it a little bit easier to read and then public transparency maybe doing website and doing the different stages of the budget development uh putting the financial plan online um making everything available no and I'm I'm just going to harp again that you know as much as we try to get stuff out on social media we've invested in putting up a new website and more and more people are going to the website I'm going to try and see if I can get some statistics about you know what pages are being looked at the most or you know what what kind of volume is you know is it attracting but I really am we'll keep on encouraging departments and so forth to not just automatically go to Facebook go to the website first and then get it off to some other social media so that people at least can see it you know I think that's really important um so just looking at the actual budget sorry I just want to add something I don't know if this is yeah two things I've noticed in a couple of meetings I've been to is it difficult to understand the grants how grants come in whether you're seeing the department as the whole including the grants what they're fing there were a couple of departments that came in that showed us only the part that was wasn't funded by grants and that was difficult for me to understand out okay so that was my minimum reserves just you know when the school was in the other day and they have these big reserves and they're going to take a certain amount from the reserve didn't really understand well how much was there to start with appropriate those were two kind of thing I the information you have in that thing from I thought last somebody who was new and even the historical Trends it's very helpful to know how much we're spending count right yeah no exactly yeah a lot of the grants that we do anyway just having been involved in it from the grant committee because the grant committee is only 3 years old now but most of the grants are going out for a specific item or specific you know it's not something that would normally be able to be funded in the budget it's a project that has always wanted to be done like the greenway for example and it's finally being able to be done right now through grants or I think both the police chief and Fire Chief and and Rando 2 do apply for some mini grants at their LEL but again those are funding specific things you know whether it's police vests or defibrillators or whatever so yeah I'm to yeah maybe the grants librarys the COA the formula grant well right the even the state grants I think the school is like that too I yeah I was going to say the school grants are more complicated I think yeah but there are quite a few right but right on the school side when when you you layer in the grants yes Norris is 5.3 million and Hampshire Regional is 5.7 but we're spending this town is spending $16 million on the education the fact that almost a third of it comes in from Grants should be part of the story and that particular is reoccurring because if those grants weren't there you'd still have to pay that $16 million yeah yeah total cost exactly yeah okay go ahead Scott so just looking at the the overview of the budget um so the first step is you know I'm just looked at some of the budget requests so how could we reduce some of the line items um mostly due to available sources like the health director uh being paid out of the septic fund and the concom agent possibly using the arpa money that's existing uh and then there's also some increases based on the needs and requests uh such as the Counsel on Aging uh we had the request that um their salaries be fully funded outside of the grant that they receive from the state and then our it uh will need to be increased uh to cover our uh new contract with the services mhm and that's the managed services for it not not the Wi-Fi per se it's it's an actual on call it entity yeah um so there are still some unknowns the highway salaries as I as I mentioned earlier we started negotiating with the um the highway Union so that's not obviously not going to make this town meeting so it might be something that we look at for the special um hopefully we can come to an agreement but those are still some kind of unknowns that I had to put some placeholders in uh the Colin center salary impact is still out there and I'll go into a little bit further detail and then the water indirect cost everything else was pretty much minor placeholders that we would just carry over mhm so when we look at the entire uh revenues versus what the request was uh it came out to a difference of 23 about $23,000 um based on the recommendations of the increases and the reduction and then um what we actually have for projected revenues so how are we going to balance that so there's a couple different ways so we could certainly cut the $213,000 but after looking at all the different line item that's going to severely impact the wages the services it would mean usually the elimination of some positions um I mean it would be worst case scenario obviously there's the override uh or we can find some additional fun uh funding sources which uh brings us to the stabilization fund um so one of the things that I would propose to um bring the budget into balance this year would be to use $200,000 from the stabilization fund uh currently we we have $412,000 in it we would um have a maximum of $200,000 to balance the budget and that would leave us with roughly about 12 or $133,000 right now to cut from the budget um that would right now it would leave a remaining balance of 212,000 uh for the stabilization fund um but that's just a little bit of the story so last year as we mentioned that there was a $350,000 that we had moved into uh the Hampshire Regional uh costs um with the idea that once this year's uh free cash is certified we move that money back into the stabilization fund uh so we should have that amount available to move into the stabilization fund as soon as we finish with our books um and then from that we should have roughly $125,000 left over for three counts that we generally appropriate from to from free cash to that's assuming that we get the exact same free cash certification as last year y so it may you know it'll be roughly the same or total you're guesstimating free cash at around 475 is what I'm looking at there you're adding those two together is that it I just used that last year's placeholder I'm not exactly sure what the number will be so hopefully we'll know in a couple weeks um once we get it but so we do have a policy for 30% going to the operating stabilization 35% for the capital budget and then 10% for the oped trust um this year depending on you know we might want to think about CU we're so close to the end of the year we're not with the free cash um we might want to think about how we appropriate everything so I would just say on that it's not a policy I mean it's it's a bylaw that recommends these the select board is not obligated to even put these questions forward yeah but past practice says we do I wouldn't want to put these questions forward to dump $108,000 well first of all I think opb's off the table I think we need to fund that because you talk about kicking the can down the road um so if if you're if your recommendation to us which we can I'm hoping we're going to debate is to use 200,000 I wouldn't want to ask them to pull 200,000 out and then ask them to print8 back in right again I you know it's doing the two-step dance here I would just say we forego funding you know we put the 10% in the OPB because that's a future obligation just continuing to grow and that's millions of dollars to us right now and it is only 10% we're BR in but you know I just that out so you saying not to fund operating in capital stabilization is that what you're saying if we're only going to pull $200,000 if which again you know I I at this point based on what I know I'm not in favor of doing that at all pulling 200,000 out but if if my other three esteemed colleagues so vote to do that then I would recommend you you can't pull 200 out and then ask them to put 108 back in cuz aren't you really asking for $ 82,000 you're just going through the motions well I mean this is hypothetical that we can get free cash certified if we don't we still would need to balance the budget so this is like the worst case scenario so if we if we don't get free cash certified we still need to make up that $200,000 when do we publish well free cash needs to be certified by May 7th in order to make this work oh even before well no cuz you can amend you can put a placeholder in there and we can amend it on the floor right if free cash gets certified after May 8th we don't have it and my guess is the state usually needs two business days so yeah they turn it around usually very quickly from our experience but but anyways so Scott just re explain what you were thinking there sorry um so taking the 200,000 um you know worst case scenario we don't have any uh other free cash and then essentially what would happen is um this is just an idea that Bradley came up with for the free cash distribution so we would have to think about how we're going to distribute the free cashes here as well if we get Bradley your thought on this is because normally we would only what move 75% and have 25 for discretion you're saying use it all up because it's so late in the year well I'm saying that we generally transfer it to those three accounts and we have 350,000 that we need to move to the operating stabilization so we had 125,000 hypothetically remaining I don't didn't know of any other use for free cash other than putting it into those three accounts so I just uh proportionately updated it so the rest of the money goes into those three accounts it's just my idea because the downside is if you don't appropriate that 25% at the end of the year it falls the free cash to get certified again in 3 years any thoughts from Finance gave you a bunch of thoughts know so that would um so that would bring us to a hypothetical operating stabilization from of just over $600,000 after town meeting if everything goes well uh and it did bring up an idea or kind of like a question I had is you know what our stabilization fund balance should be or what it could be um I know that we have the percentages that we've put into it but you know where should it be you know should should it be 5% 10% 7% should it be a set number um we may not be able to reach it anytime you know relatively soon but I think it might be a good uh way to start thinking about you know how much we need to obtain in that um so right now if we were going to do you know the PO you know the do recommends you know at least 5% of the total operating budget um so right now if we were going to put in our entire stabilization fund against our budget it' be funded at about 2.9% um so NE next is the uh the Callin Center report so we I was able to receive a draft yesterday um and looking through it quickly I I didn't haven't had conversations with the Colin Center yet but there are I do have some questions about their results their methodology and their data and you know how they obtained it what they used uh what the comparable communities are what the positions are so uh it's going to take a a little bit longer to actually get something um that's usable um I know it's not the best situation but I I I just don't feel comfortable looking at the data that they provided to move forward with any changes this large well and I think I think too we don't I don't think we were ever privy to the scope of work that was given to them too in terms of what what we were expecting for the results so that's maybe part of our challeng too did not know but I'm I'm sure there must have been something in there for comparables that they had to it would be just normal process right to to do that but just understanding why they chose who they chose or is that what you're thinking more they should have interviewed everyone and they should they did they did all that no I mean all that preliminary stuff of looking at job description but talking to people interviewing you know that was all done all that front end stuff was done so but I guess I don't know what what the report was supposed to consist of I don't know like one of the things is you know grany is not a comparable but agam is so you don't think Gran is comparable to US population size and no what he saying Noy wasn't included but like a place awam was oh we're not aam makes sense that's you sure they gave us our report not South Hadley's report well might have copy pasted but so that's part of your questioning then you're seeing things like that exactly things like that and you know do they actually understand the highway superintendent position cuz you know you can't compare it to a DPW director but you also can't compare it to a traditional Highway superintend because Randle does so much more so that's like very specific type of position that you need to look at and do they understand that um those those types of things kind of raise a little bit of red flags and then you know comparing you know to you know to hoo and East Hampton and some salaries and some of the wages are a little bit skewed so how do they how do how do they handle ones that are a little bit outliers or you know below the normal do they throw them out do they adjust them um cuz if you only have a couple data points and you have one that's a large outlier that's going to skew everything skew everything yeah so there I'm looking at the list that you provided us with uh the uh the summary I'm referring to the the grade steps right that list the positions mhm um there's 31 on there if I exclude the water department because they're not funded by the general fund yeah if I exclude the fire chief who's under an employment agreement I don't see the highway superintendent or the police chief in here so that's four that I exclude from 31 that leaves what 27 people so could we as a placeholder attempt to identify um or put in X doll amounts under the select board line item of just for s of argument call $27,000 yeah so obviously that makes our deficit more right but I also think some of the wages that made it in the budget one need to be reduced because whether it was um a misunderstanding of the instructions or a slip of the pen that um they were very generous to themselves uh well that's the good news is I think a lot of it could be funded already what's in the budget but but at least then we have the line item so we don't need to wait for free cash and we can have a special town meeting just to appropriate those lines if we're not able to do the uh the wage adjustments within the by May 7th so are we fairly confident though I guess with part of the discussion we had last time with having everybody's everybody's current grade and step as they are now and what they were asking for in their number one budget yeah everybody's or even if they didn't make that extra step increase like they were told to that we've now got that in our minds at least that that's been accounted for outside for a couple departments um like building that's 100% but we would I would want to adjust it looks like most have built in roughly a 3% increase so we can call that a cola which is kind of what we had I think told them I think for the instructions if I'm not mistaken yeah so one of the things you know cuz we don't have a report and 3% probably isn't going to be enough just across the board to to fix the issues well s sorry but I mean there are some people on here that have 8% increases yeah and there's no so the piece that it's easy on the uh it's it's easy when someone's salary say okay this is their number but like some some f like there's an individual in here I'm not going to mention names but there's an individual in here that has 123% increase and without knowing the story um they had a midyear adjustment so that makes my mind makes sense um but it sticks out like a sore thumb but also for the hourly folks that are here what were they budgeted for hours in 24 and what does that calculate to budget it in 25 MH you know are they staying consistent with hitting the general fund now yes we heard from at least two departments that they were requesting additional hours be assigned to the general fund and without saying that's good or bad I'm just saying you know I think we need to understand that cuz it's part of this well you're putting the names up there um yeah so yeah I think we need to be clear on some of those things for sure cuz I don't think we've actually made any moves to Right add ours to anybody unlike we had done a few years ago correct or or if we do I just want the us as a body to knowingly make that vote to say yeah this is higher than the 103 but it's because yeah of XYZ um because I'm if I sub tootal down the bottom the total wages are going up by 6.6% right there's a $55,000 adjustment uh I mean on average is a little bit skewed like with the library and a few other things um yeah so I mean if we took out the high and low I think it might be you but I believe library is just trying to get to minimum wage which we well we did that though the substitutes they were all put at 15 anyway a few years ago like last year you're right I'm sorry a dollar above minimum wage is where she wanted to move them to but yeah that that percentage looks really off the off for the so roughly you know excluding the water or contractual employees you know 1% is about a little over 8,000 1 and a half% increas is 125 2% is a little under 17 2 and2 is 20,000 and and a 3% so that's kind of just just an overview of looking at percentages um now it doesn't include fire EMP wages which is U outside of police our largest wages um so that kind of needs to be handled a little bit differently because it's such a large item do you have enough information on the colums report well not if you're challenging the numbers but let me ask a question do you have enough on the cins report to just look at that first line these assistant accountant you know is is the 19,0 811 more in line with the colins report or is there at the 20,000 I mean are any of these like cuz that would be my other argument there's potentially some people on this list that are making what the Colin report says or better and therefore no adjustment is warranted yeah but it sounds like if we don't have the comparables we don't know that with enough confidence yet Perhaps until you maybe talk to the folks at Collins to understand understand how they that methodology which you were talking about because right um did you get I think we want to you know refrain from making any assumptions we need to be sure that we're working on as solid information as we can and if it's not it's got a few holes in it just the way you're seeing it now and again it was supposed to be just a quick draft for you I think probably so but I think you know Now's the Time for you to question that so that we get a final report that is usable and makes sense obviously right so yeah so one of the temporary Solutions you know depending how we want to kind of proceed with the Colin support so I just did a quick example A lot of times uh municipalities will put a side a certain pool of money and then depending how far people are away from where they should be you would appropriate a little bit more and then the people that are closer to where they should be might just get a little a cola or a little bit extra uh and the people that are above where they should be would generally might get redlined and you know their salary held so there's that's usually how um it's it's treated uh so for example you know depending how the py board wants to proceed if we have just a madeup position um you know security analysts at $50,000 and their $4,000 behind the Callin Center report you know we could keep their FY 24 salary uh we could do a CO adjustment whether it's 1 two 3 whatever percent looks like 3% already been baked in to most Department budgets and then um you know year after year we can supplement that with a uh adjustment from the pool of money so the final salary for FY 25 would be 52750 and that's a part of their Cola and uh money from the the funding pool uh to adjust the salaries yeah which goes back to I'd like if possible to fit in a a line item under the select boards section yeah call it $225,000 as a placeholder MH and and see if we can make it work yeah within that cuz I think in times I mean I'm I'm trying to think back on my first couple years on the board I mean there were a a year or two that we didn't even put in any Cola I mean there was no there wasn't even a 2% that we were able to find money for well and that's part of how we got to where we are if you were a member of the Union group your contract dictated it and the people not in the union were the ones left at the end say oh there's no money left exactly yeah so we have a line called waging C you know so that's kind of like you know if you you have to hire new people mid year or like I think it's it's at the Town administrator's discretion The Way South adley is set up so they have and it's also used for our pves [Music] which our PBS are performance reviews performance performance evaluations so Merit increases and so forth kind of thing right cuz they have yeah other than Union they haven't historically given the C plus yeah so let bring into like the philosophy of how we want to do compensation in the future um you know there's there's a million examples I can go through but you know do we want to maintain a step-based system do we want to do a combination of step and Merit do we want to do ranges based on the market so that's kind of a you know there there's a lot of different options so we don't necessarily have to adopt the exact method that Colin Center puts forward but I mean it'll be you know it'll be ready um eventually but we don't have to do it that way we can still transform it to what make it our own yeah yeah cuz I think cins I think colins was supposed to be giving us ranges they were not going to give us steps to low high to Mid and then we our steps on our own step basis that were created God knows how many years ago now and so that's been the challenge here right but um so you know trying to figure out a better way to do things that it's understandable to everybody and you know easier to manage I think would be great the thing with the steps is you have to you have to change it every year it has to increase because that's what happens if you go a year or two and you don't continually update it then it's no long you're totally behind and so I think a couple years ago when reie was still on the board we made that attempt to try and at least you know categorize some of the positions according to you know levels of responsibility Etc and try to bring up some of the ones that were the lowest paid up a bit onto the scale but knowing that that wasn't that was a temporary Band-Aid solution but nothing permanent so however we can be working towards something that really will be able to be maintained and whether you I don't know how would you if you had like a median a low median and a high right you'd be able to adjust then for inflation as you go along somehow well I hope there would be a written evaluation well yeah no I mean well number one step written performance evaluations have to happen I I will say that I don't think that's been a uh a norm I mean I mean it may be in our Personnel rigs but I don't know that I've ever seen too many being done so there may be some but not not across the board one way you can do it with the range is you have the medium you you have the minimum and the maximum and then you have the midpoint and a lot of times the midpoint will reflect uh the market right analysis that that we determine we have to have consistency uh but every year we would look at the ranges and move the midpoint by what we think the market is moving so if Market's 1% we move the mid point 1% of is 3% we move it 3% okay and then we move the maximum and the minimums to do that as well now that doesn't necessarily affect the salary um that's just keeping the actual scale that we use in line with with the market based now depending on where people are in the range so some people might be at the midpoint below the midpoint or above the midpoint and that should be determined by their qualifications their education their experience um things like that so you can adjust where they are in the range based on what the midpoint in the market is and the midpoint would be a comp uh competent person that meets minimum qualifications essentially so so I I think the uh makes sense actually well it is it's more labor intensive no true um but but then there's incentives for folks to do a good job because they get a positive review then you have the debate of well it's all in the mind of the person that's actually doing the review and there's pros and cons on both sides but right now we're showing that we have a shortfall of 212 and I'm suggesting we we need to add in at least 25,000 so that brings us up to 236 shortfall with that shortfall have we because we haven't gotten to the budget yet and I don't know when we're going do this but there's two things is one is if we're all in agreement that we're going to put on the revolving account for the Board of Health have we removed a significant portion of the Board of Health contracted services that was in the budget right so they're at 46 um I would argue 10,000 or even 12,000 for seed money so there's 30 so yeah we're already MH meeting that $25,000 placeholder that that I suggest we have and reducing our deficit because I think we did agree that we would want to put in some seed money to start that I don't know if it was Chris or Jerry somebody made a valid point that it's not all the charges aren't always 100% going to be B by the person um so that made sense to me and I figure if they're if they're 44 48 put in enough money to car carry the first quarter for the first year and then we can we'll have a history and then we can adjust down in the future years um we go the and I know it's small potatoes but I mean finance committee has never spent money you know do they need the $200 for are you going to advertise you want pencils yeah and some of the redline ones you're still going to be checking right on some of those mhm so I can reduce this one by um 30,000 I bring down to 12 or down yeah you know as a starter 30,000 you know and then again if we put the 25 up in select board now so we're down to $27,000 shortfall yeah um I would I would question postage um I don't know I mean I'm get we're putting the cart before the horse here but for all the election the governor oh yeah but we get to reg's Point the Secretary of State sends US $10 to $20,000 a year to cover those costs it just builds up in in in the clerk's expense costs um but besides that I wasn't even thinking I'm taking our tax bills and all that stuff so the Vadar system did we buy the piece where we can send out electronic tax bills to avoid all that posters to start with we already use the uh our deputy collector no I'm sorry unit if the town's still going to use unipe unipe has a module for electronic you have to opt in for electronic tax bills um and then you get an email hey your bill's due I as taxpayer can say you know what my bills due just automatically hit my bank account and pay my bill and I'm done the question is I don't know the answer to this people have to op in right but is is that a $2,000 module and if doing spending $2,000 for that module saves US 10 grand see we use invoice cloud yeah and um for those paperless bills that people have opted into they can sign up to get an email notification without being paperless yes so then they just get the email notifying them that there is a bill but I don't think that we really say that we really Save A Lot on paperless because invoice Cloud charges us presentment of the bill yeah for those paper bills so it might not be worth it might so they charge us 40 cents and it's 60 per less it's a bulk mailing for a stamp you know what I mean I do so I don't think it's a significant savings for us and then the other with uh the governor's uh bill that's currently before the house about the government reform it eliminates the annual production uh no longer required to produce paper annual meeting booklets uhhuh there only has to be one uh-huh everything and then an electronic version I mean we we how many do we print 100 of them we spend $500 on it for the time report you mean yeah exactly we don't have to do it anymore we print I think we print 50 or 75 at the most for $500 yeah for $500 yes we we no no but I mean yeah we used to present I think many I mean most every town household had had a report so going down to 50 or 75 at the most I think is all we do but yeah it's always been $500 since I've been on the board but to your point about using the website one hard copy available to sign out from the clerk print a pdf version on on the website yeah we'd have to have a few available cuz I think there are people that seem to says one if you want if you want to come in and buy one absolutely well maybe okay maybe that's it too yeah but yes they're all on the website anyway paper we come to meeting I know you're new but get a whole stack I got everything on my computer oh he took our paper away from us tonight I was not prepared for this yeah we you know and it was onesided it's like oh my gosh such a waste we're we're working against all that believe me um but yeah I think you know we do put all the town reports in the town town meeting ORS they end up on the website now anyway so we've made a a collection on that yeah there's ways to to challenge that so so the and then so you already you already addressed that 30,000 issue so those two points and then I I think there's probably another 7 to 10,000 potential savings if we just look at holding people people to the number of hours they worked last year to this year with only the 3% adjustment unless there was a midyear correction that's documented by a PCF we know about we can still go above and beyond because we we have a request from the Board of Health and the Council on Aging to look at those but again transparency here's maintaining the same here's doing the extra and for all the right reasons we want might want to approve all those but we should see that number broken out and then the flip side side of it is have we really taking a hard look at the revenue mhm yeah we haven't talked about Revenue since we've been here okay do you have the revenue uh screen that we can put up at all or not just one thing too while we were on this um Reserve fund is something that we've only just been putting in like 5,000 every year I don't know that if we have any extra money but it just feels like we need to keep building that fund better my my personal feeling is the balance of that Reserve fund should be whatever and I have no idea what it is because it was such a closely held secret what is our deductible on our insurance policies be because that's where that money is going to come from yeah and know if we have a $10,000 deductible then that's what should be my guess is it's probably 50,000 and we can't get there overnight yeah yeah okay good point you know okay well thoughts yeah so uh you're going to have to make that a lot bigger if we can see any just one one last comment on the reserve fund is once you fund it and you don't spend it it just Falls to free cash next year so it's not reoccurring expense until you actually use it except for the first year that you designated it okay right because the 5,000 we don't spend this year com we hav had to spend it yet this year I mean we've had a couple times where we've spent it right down but it just I mean for a town it just feels like 5,000 bucks is really small for any reserve line assist where it's a separate line in the budget for reserve it falls under the finance committee's approval so July through April it requires joint action of both finance and the select board in order to use it May and June the select board can just use it and in the past I think the since I've been on finance committee which has only been a couple years I think previous fire chief requested previous fire chief did a did a repair on his own at the building and then came looking for money to pay for it after the work was done well anyway so anyway that's great if you don't have the money that's fine let's talk about Revenue then so if you can I can't read that yeah um AQ that's yeah collapse a few columns or something or I don't know what can we see there do we have a very top level trend line year on year was the please are we get are we expecting less Revenue this year than last I I would think so that's my gut looking at how the numbers fall the Excel all right put in the driver's seat put them in the driver's seat so we can see this okay then we can kind of see where we're going projected expenses that's okay a little bit more Bradley little bit yeah that's better I'll ask him for it all right okay so what do we got there top portion is property taxes I don't believe we can adjust that in any way next is education I'm sorry Bradley did you did you use the word trust or adjust adjust adjust sorry we can't trust this no I can so yeah go ahead wait a minute Don's got a question she got prior year Levy and the 2 and a half% increase and then new growth and that new growth came from the assessors yes okay and then that excl and the the overlay the assessors are comfortable with leaving that at 93,000 yes next section is education age which is I believe a lot from Cherry sheets yep all this and the non-education aid also from Cherry sheets those are the the governor the Govern there hasn't been a more updated version I checked maybe last week and nothing's changed then we get to our local receipt Revenue yeah and I feel these are very conservative well as conservative do you have the fiscal 24 let me see that would have to unhide if I wish yeah it's it's hard to know because I think we're M we don't even have well we maybe have 6 months of 24 actual right so we don't really know where we stand I don't know if we added we had 24 estimates and then actuals as of December 31st so when we look at motor vehicle so we've only one quarter one quarter's Worth or the big commitment went out in February and was due March but we don't have any of those revenues yeah this is half a year then right yes okay but I thought the revenue I thought you just sent us April 4th Revenue numbers is your is yeah is the revenue revenue is accurate as of January 23rd 2024 there's there's a few more rest seat packets I can review but I've been busy with the budget and everything else but soon we'll be up through the end of January and then we can move on February but yes we're still a few months behind so so uh I don't know what you want to see here but motor vehicle it's hard to see because we're not in the big Revenue earning months right that which was March so it would have come in in your April packet so we estimated 1,50,000 in 2024 and we're now estimating 1, 70,000 so we're above what we estimated last year we don't know what the first commitment do you know what the first commitment amount was I can't recall so again the change from 25 to 24 in this column AR yeah saying we're estimating more for motor vehicle the same for penalties and interest more for payments in Lo taxes 5,000 I'm sorry what why why the increase in payment in L taxes I think it was based on I think we State didn't that go up from the it's by contract so it should be a fixed number maybe we got an increase but I think they were talking about increasing that because a lot of the towns I know that's not the state one that is either the O Waterworks or or oil gas Elric calculation that is done by the assessors I think unless it's a fix ho waterwork is probably a fixed number yeah that's that's what I'm thinking of50 in terms of the state okay so me tax yeah we're we didn't estimate anything for the impact fee because we know we weren't receiving much challenge there mhm license and permits that's yeah that's I think three accounts that we received money for sorry brothery can you speak a little louder sorry sorry about that um license and permits yeah I'm saying license and permits the three accounts there's alcohol beverage licenses other licenses and then the building permits those are the three accounts that flow into that one line which I don't like it probably should separate them out so can you go back to the other screen for a second yep so Board of Health Board of Health right so we're not going to get all those receipts 44,000 right because 75% of them are going to go into the revolving account not that I want you to lower our Revenue but we can't have it both ways yeah yep we'll note that that would that would reduce our departmental receipts mhm Port fines well highlighted or something so we can work on some speeding tickets 4,000 that's that's there's people driving much faster than that in the stone we have been receiving a lot in Investments we could bump that up but it's but we don't know what the rates are going to do really past summer so yeah we kept everything similar we added the I would I would spec I would speculate on the interest whatever you collected for interest this year I think 50% of that number is appropriate the budget cuz I don't think the rates are going to fall before October November but and the uh Communications that reflects putting in the um the reserve the middle of January so and that was a holding pattern thing right that's for the Futures expense on Communications right for the dispatch where where is the um where's the 3% tax for cannabis that would be cannabis tax not the community impact oh okay tax cannabis tax so we're 2 y yeah all right the foll the bottom ones are 17500 from that wpat loan from the article for the the budget that we give to the town right that was a $1,000 placeholder on the draft and do we do we have a more current ambulance receipt money past January I could get that amount I'm sure there is more than yeah 200,000 in there yeah so that might bump up a little bit better and these are the temporary indirect costs for water and the transfer station we're we're working on the water one and so the ambulance receipt thing again we're you know our intent was to do it this year but for next year is to put two full-time paramedics in there and just say they're $65,000 a year without benefits that's 140,000 then you layer in the benefits to go with it I mean we should be drawing at least that much from the ambulance receipts you know so I mean I'd be comfortable going up to the 200,000 yeah well if you can get some more recent figures I think you're going to need to just to get as accurate as we possibly can um cuz we don't need to nickel and Diamond if we actually have a little bit of extra money in there but yeah okay right so that's where you came up with that okay you the the um Health border and I know I'm jumping back to expenses here but I just remembered it on the expense side I think we're over budgeted on vocational schools oh yeah on expenses roll off and enrollment well it's just last year's budget was 980 and they're going to 1 two so so the number that's in there is the placeholder assuming 100% go and does not account for those that drop off so there's got to be a calculation I think historically this select board has funded at 90% of that number we haven't funded 100% of those going out to V voke schools right and um and this budget right now has 100% in it which is like a million one million two and what's the when I know April 1st they had the commit when they had to oh when they had to commit no no when they had to sign up to say I'm interested so 100% of those are in the budget back out correct yeah yeah and we've often had well we've had for a couple years we've had like one family or two maybe that come in late saying oh well we kind of changed our mind and we really want to go to Smith voke now or something like that so we've had to make accommodations for that right but I would suggest there's at least 100 150,000 Surplus in that line item so again this 200 thing is shrinking in my view uhhuh so which line is that referring to AG that's the that's on the expenses on the bottom of the budget by some of that Board of Health Revenue too so correct y should be towards the bottom or wherever education is education right there yep yeah they're at a million one Lo tuition uh right about to get dizzy over here yeah they're a million million one million two have I fix that is it up right about there uh which one V tuition I think you're on it it's a 92.4 one cell 170 vocational 126 126 or whatever that is that should be adjusted well I so that assumes 100% I um I have the number the calculation on on one of my documents but that assumes that everybody that applied is going and does not adjust for the graduating scene so I think there are 15 seniors in 13 applications so it's a net Savings of two to start with at 20,000 a pop unless that already takes into account the people leaving no well not when I looked at it earlier U there's a new person doing the calculations and they they forgot to deduct the seniors but maybe if we highlight it and then I can if you remind me I can send you the details because the other thing I asked for from them is historically how many apply how many drop off and what percentage of those actually end up going right yeah so that we could figure it out mhm okay all right so with those we maybe haven't made all those changes yet but did that get us a little bit closer or not yet um there's a few items I mean I think that at the top list is chairs for select board it may sound crazy but we're spending like 4 to 8 hours a week in here yeah um just for workers comp and lower back sciatica uh something I would try to keep in at least maybe upgrade it just for everybody but how much want, 1500 yeah six seven chairs at 100 150 each depending uh some of these I'll donate 500 who else is going to donate I think I put something in I gu was on my wish list for the select board I forget what my narrative said it was something I think I had something in there um but the cons so we adjusted the conservation wages uh with the arpa we also adjusted the um oh that's it the where is it while while you're looking for that Scott are we because I didn't see anything we're assuming zero contribution from arpa no that finish they they've St out money on the entire budget oh cuz we didn't have a revenue source of arpa money no we didn't yeah so we think this is all they would need that the arpa they have right now will get them far enough that we only need to put in 10,000 to get through fiscal 25 roughly it's like you know I just use whole numbers yeah um and then the planning board Revol you know the 5,000 can be used in their revolving fund right um technology Services was an increase that was the 10,000 and again that's the Managed IT support yeah yeah and then uh I did just put in some placeholders for uh salaries yeah um just I just you know throwing it out there doesn't mean that we're it's just literally 3% so we still to negotiate everything but just to gives you an idea of what a possible increase would be um both for the highway superintendent and the uh General Highway wages mhm um reduced the health director by the 5,000 plus change and then I made the uh the change to the contracted um one request that we did have that I I would like to talk to Michelle a little bit further just to get the exact what she could do is some additional hours for a veterans agent um she's at 6 hours right now she's making a lot really a lot of uh impact on the community and when you know I was just working with her last week on one case but you know one case um with a veteran that's being evicted could take you know 3 4 5 6 seven hours a week just on that one case and that would use up Oliver a lot of hour so um and you might have seen the veterans coffee hour so that's been really successful so um some new initiatives there so I would just advoc I'm just advocating for for that myself um she did request it but I'd have to sit down with her and get the actual amount um the transfer to the Enterprise fund so that is the total amount that does include the monitoring costs there's still some kind of gray area of how we can take the monitoring cost out of the um the amount that we pay for the price fund for the um transfer station but to balance out we're going to need a little under 32,000 so that includes the transfer station and the monitoring um The Hope is that we can figure out a mechanism to take that out so yeah okay so with the decreases and increases um if they all carried through maybe or maybe not 180 180 yes yeah 180 and then did I so 180 is just the actual adjusted mhm and then the decreases would minus 55 and the increases would be plus 24865 so the final recommendation would be we have to close 149,000 so are we is this then not going to need to be the 200,000 you were recommending from uh well if you do the the placeholder for the column Center yeah so that would bring us probably close up to 2,000 this isn't taking any locational right adust so what the The Vocational the reduction of the vocational budget yeah so maybe um a note the reduction in the revenue for um uh Board of Health fees right cuz we're right now we're taking 100% of it unless it carried over from that other workbook no we haven't adjusted the revenue number so it's still C oh that's right so so yeah so I think you know not not to keep expanding this Excel workbook here but you know could we make column I proposed adjustments right so we don't lose H what we started with well so we don't lose G some column that doesn't have notes in it yeah well yeah even reduction increase and then maybe insert whatever I J and K per column K and show the map right because then that will give you a total all the way down does that make sense need yeah you're doing good all right so just um adjust it because that column is going to be become the proposed budget okay right and then you just got to do so that's assuming we can get enough information from the Collins to well no I just mean all like you know where we backed this out and we put this in we really only hit like six or seven lines but it's changing which is all driving to the bottom right and then if you make the changes on the revenue you got your expenses you insert the revenue tie the two together you know cuz right now I mean at least from what I'm I'm seeing we're all doing our math in our head yeah yeah right okay and then and then and then I go back to can we have that last Madam chair can you give us the last 30,000 available in arpa will you release it to release this number and how much arpa money have we got reimb from because that's what there's another 100 that we're waiting to get reimbursed and then we can deploy it again but we're running up against I mean right away CL and that's why the the quarterly reports for arper are doing so our next actual meeting at the end of April real meeting we should have the arpa quarterly reports in from those that are still ongoing to see how close everybody is to spending but the the big ones are are water and Highway that are out there with um the water M and then the um the match for that Grant so the the match for the grant is the one that's got a to come back in from Randall's Culvert study right and I think that will start to come in I just don't know how fast but yeah anything coming in we've got to have before December so we can re obligate it reprogram it um but correct but don't we have to put it in this budget to get it approved well I guess not well not necessarily I mean I don't think but would be ideal but I'm not sure we have to um anyway any other um thoughts and questions I don't you know we could be here all night I'd rather not you know if you guys have enough clear direction to to move forward and do another iteration or any other comments or thoughts I mean on on the next one is it possible to get both workbooks revenue and expense you know at the same time Link Link together there I don't know about linking but M we do that right yeah yeah did you have a sense the magnitude of the change in the vote Tech tuition I it's it's probably five kids so maybe 100,000 okay good mhm and you're going to supply better information I'm going to give what I have I'll leave it to I'll give what I have with my interpretation and if if others disagree with my interpretation that's fine with me hold so I think probably um obviously we're going to be running up against the deadline in terms of balancing this budget and getting getting it all put into our warrant and getting the warrant approved and posted and so forth um it feels like at least on the select board side we need to have another interim meeting I don't know whether finan is going to be available or not and you guys are off next week right for vacation time I will be in the Carolinas so today's the 9th I'm forgetting the day that Robert said we had to post the warrant uh was it the 24 maybe the 23rd is our last day question the finance committee have to approve the budget before the select work do we recommend the budget our bylaw that's how it's supposed to work yeah but it hasn't been my process or my understanding of the process that we've gone through in all my time on select board it's we haven't had a very um we've been short short staffed on finance for most of my time on select board so it's it's usually been that select board has kind of initiated it but then brought in select board but according to our bylaw before the town meeting we also vot as a finance committee to recommend the financial are now go through one by one so that's generally printed on the Motions whether the commit whether Finance recommends or not recommends so that that becomes part of the warrant eventually if you look at one of the last warrants but yeah according to our bylaw that's I believe how it's supposed to work in terms of the budgeting process is is that you all do a lot of those hearings and then recommend to select board what what you're hearing yeah I think I mean I don't Donal I mean you've been here longer than I have with vote from us before we're well I mean I guess we were just trying to kind of save time too and and since the select board wanted to be involved why why why should the finance committee put in all this time without input from the select board and present something and then have other departments coming to you and saying well but we really need this and then you changing what we did why why do that right why not just do no I think this makes more sense to have kind of joint meetings it saves and it saves time for those that are presenting their budgets too they don't have to do it twice right and and I think as the the finance committee uh develops and becomes more robust right that we one of the things that we look at is the existing bylaw a doesn't need to be changed but if it doesn't need to be changed how about we we start following it or tweak it as we go I mean I like the benefit of the joint sessions right but it it seems yeah no and I think that's that's one of the ones that I know from the the general bylaw so on the on the bylaw advisory committee the the finance committee one is one that had come around and um as one to be looked at and whether it needed any changes or not so I think if Francine hasn't reached out to you yet she will because I think there was a draft that had been done probably a couple years ago and then the finance committee kind of wasn't there to respond to it so I think maybe I did get it and but we haven't really met yeah so whenever you guys have a meeting but I mean that could be you know something to look at in terms of how the process can work better yeah but okay so uh what are we thinking in terms of meeting time here Scott I don't know we've got a regular meeting on the 23rd but I think we're going to need some level of interim one yeah I think I think we can do both the warrant and the budget mhm probably at a a special meeting shall we aim for the 16th a week from now that mhm actually should give us enough time to put a put a placeholder down for the 16th and [Music] uh no John won't be here but if you have anything as a draft to get out enough ahead of time that maybe you can comment on before you go or something if you have thoughts about the school especially I know but um shall we try again at the 6 6:30 time 6:30 so is that your a regular select board meeting or no it would be a special one this would be on the 16th it would be a regular not a regular one just just budget and War okay so we'll post our meeting too and so 6:30 okay on the 16th I won't be able to make it no okay his birthday okay Patriots Day is the 15th say what Patriots Day the 16th uh 15th right so that's a holiday so we can't do anything there so let's try 6:30 on the 16th and if folks from from Finance can join that would be great I mean if you promis not to keep it too long I could zoom in yeah okay but not for a 4-Hour Marathon we should we should if we're 4our meeting at that point in time we're in real trouble no yeah I would just say in the event that I can't I can't zoom in I mean I'm I I to say I would be opposed to any move to utilize stabilization fund for the budget M just personally I I don't I don't think we're there yet um that being said I mean if it came down to we're only looking for you know 20 or 25,000 and I don't want to speak for every else but I can bring it up tomorrow night you know the that onetime extraordinary relief is still sitting at 75,000 we're going to use 25,000 over the next 5 years so it's not an impact whether we use it next year that's fine but it's understood that it's gone man so then a year down kicking the can you know we're going to Norris is going to look for that to finally make it back into the budget but if if it's beneficial to use it all up now I can propose that to the committee tomorrow night M um maybe use 50 or something I don't know divide in half but to get us closer because I I think we're close yeah I think we are okay all right so we'll continue on with our agenda here but Donna and Reggie thank you very much for coming and uh for those that will be at the Town caucus see you at the Town caucus on the 11th those that will be 7:00 get nominated let Becky and uh Doug know as well obviously all right thanks for coming guys much appreciate your time all right all righty I need to pull back the agenda here that's my problem not having it online quick any other necessary business okay thank you it's got some any other business for right now and I don't know that we have anything off hand so if not Bradley thank you too for your efforts this evening and during the week to get this worked on and um all righty hold on just a second here oh good we're going to be going into executive session in a minute uh you want to read the motion oh is that where we my SC try to find the actual minute thank you very much all right thank you thank you all right so um we have a regular select board meeting on the 23rd we're going to do a special one with Finance on the 16th so with that we will be going into executive session uh and the reasons will be um per mgl chapter 3A section 21 A2 to discuss strategy sessions in preparations for negotiations with non-union Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union Personnel Fire Chief and mgl 30A section 21 A6 to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real property if the chair declares that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiation position of the public body uh public safety building site so with that could I have a motion to move into executive session adour our regular meeting move into executive session will we be returning to open session this point I don't believe so okay or no I so move the Motions okay we just need all those in favor roll call please yeah Lumber ey Johns sen i f ey hyper ey okay so we are adjourned at 8:15 and we will be going into executive session thanks very much really e