##VIDEO ID:nWr_RzXbhJY## this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers right I'm calling to order the meeting of the Southampton select board for October 1st at 6:02 p.m. and if we could stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance please you see a flag here and there to the flag the United States of America and to theic for which stands one nation indivisible Li all thank you so for those of you who are not actually watching live but you will catch this later on we um put a notice out on Facebook we had a uh technical glitch with our microphones tonight and we're not able to record downstairs live uh therefore uh this is being recorded and it will be broadcast as soon as we get the link to share it with you which I'm sure will be probably tomorrow um so for those that uh normally tune in hopefully you got the message on Facebook or somewhere so with that um just a few minutes for Citizens speak I think we have somebody first yeah Robert go ahead Robert Flor speaking for the cemetery commission there's a lot going on in the cemetery besides burials these days we took down 150 year old tree that was live but it was tilted at about a 30° angle and its many branches were over storic headstones 200 years old and we felt it was prudent to take it down people didn't like the looks of it um took five men about four hours of five machines to take it down so took it down without any incident um I will be giving a report and the future select board meeting but I just want to give a heads up about what we intend to do in the next week or two uh the tree service company is going to clear about a half an acre of land in the southwest corner of the cemetery it's going to clear the brush saplings and any dead trees that are already on the ground so we can see the Contours of the land and determine our expansion of the CET so in order to get a landscape archit check in in order us to see what's what's feasible we need that cleared so that's what we be going on probably in a week or two okay and give a full report present we'll get you scheduled for the 15th I think we postponed your report so we'll get you on for that meeting perfect good good thank you very good all right and before we jump into our presentations tonight I do want to repeat one thing that we had uh announced we had a very very short uh select board meeting on the 17th of September uh couple of us were out of town a couple of us were under the weather um and we decided not to have a live meeting so we did a short Zoom meeting for just one agenda item only and that was to announce a major gift to the town um so I'd like to repeat a share of that tonight I won't read the entire thing but basically um at the May 7th annual town meeting uh it was approved that uh we were authorized as a SEL board in the town to acquire certain property on College Highway uh about 52 Acres uh and this is the partiel right across from uh uh Dow Insurance uh Cumberland Farms area U it's been owned by the LA Brothers for a while now uh and this was approved to be um purchased by the town and the asking price was $2.2 Million the purchase was continued upon the voters approving it at a formal election after the town meeting uh cuz this would have had to been a proposition 2 and a half debt exclusion so we did a special election on June 25th uh to do that and the voters did approve the debt exclusion question so therefore we were authorized to borrow $2.2 million to fund this acquisition and its related costs um we'll get into the details a little bit more but we did close on the property uh this past week and Scott can go into details when we get on the on the subject line there but uh we had in the meantime over the last couple months we've been approached by a uh family in town uh who wanted to consider uh giving us a donation toward the acquisition of the land so uh just to um be clear and not mess up any words here uh in an effort to alleviate the financial impacts on the town and its taxpayers of this property acquisition Richard R Bole herein after the donor has pledged to donate to the town a gift in the form of a mutual fund to be held by the town for the sole purpose of this proper prop acquisition upon acceptance of the gift the town agrees not to borrow more than 1.2 million for the purchase of the land on College Highway so basically the gift amount from the uh donor in town is the Bo family uh they are a family that actually owned this property their parents owned it back into the 1940s um and so this is kind of an interesting full circle um so the boil family uh is how they would like to be noticed as the donors uh and they have presented us with a gift of a million do so the 2.2 million was indeed the purchase price uh but it means that as a town we only have to borrow 1.2 so this is an incredibly generous gift and we really thank publicly again and we're working on a thank you note to the family um for for this generous donation because this is pretty amazing and this is really just for the land acquisition but that gets us uh a good start on all the projects that we want to do from the public safety complex to the senior center some affordable housing perhaps and various other uses that are coming forward to us still so that'll be um anyway a great um a great um generous contribution to the town so we want to thank them publicly so with that uh I think we'll move into tonight's presentations we have two we have uh every year we try to get a hold of our our Senator and our rep and so we're very pleased that we managed to get them coordinated on the same night so how about um Senator vas if you'd like to start and then we'll follow up with rep peas and uh I think whatever you'd like to do is update on what's been going on on Capitol Hill I know we had some things floating around in the econ development Bill and that kind of fell by the wayside this year I think and you know just you know tell us what what kind of has been happening what the priorities are and what you guys might be working on now yeah certainly well first and foremost thank you very much I think this is absolutely critical that we do this um you know the communication between State partners and local Partners is is absolutely Paramount um so I just applaud you for doing this because someone as someone who represents a fairly significant number of towns this doesn't happen everywhere so I think it's a feather in your calf if you will um I guess just because you mentioned it the EOD depto right and I just kind of want of I think this is important information for everyone and I and I I I certainly don't fault anyone in this room I blame the media wholly and entirely for what I'm about to say there is this really significant uh should I go ahead go ahead yeah very significant misperception out there that business stops on July 31st nothing else can be done um and then all bets are off and if you've paid even a cintilla of attention um subsequent post July 31st I think five bills have been passed signed by the governor and I have every reason to believe that the echod dev bill which to your point already that you alluded to which has some really good things for this community in it will be passed and and I I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I think it's going to be passed really really soon um talk to a couple of people leave it at that who are who are leading negotiation on our side in the Senate and it's we're getting really really close and I think that's just really really important because I think every year it comes up and every year the media crucifies us and I get it um but but July 31st is the end of formal session right and there there's a lot of informal things that that that happen for example I am I am a conferee right so by way of background um house passes the bill Senate passes is a bill and if there's differences in those two bills it goes to something called a conference committee we passed a both the house and the Senate passed a really substantial substance use disorder bill um and I am the chair of mental health substance use recovery so I am one of the Senate negotiators on our side so I've been actively going back and forth again with my friends in the house to try to get a compromise and I fully anticipate that bill will be done so again just kind of just laying the foundation of this July 30 hopefully putting to bed this July 31th myth that is so pervasive and I get it right you know prior to prior to being a member myself I was like Wow July 31st got to be done or it's done and then I would just go on and on right you know the echod dev Bill a climate bill I mean the list goes on and on and on um but what finished on July 31st I guess August 1st because we we were up all night um uh where there was quote unquote 12 bills left on the table um there's only five left so you know seven of those have since been P I just think that's important important to know um so that that's that's in a nutshell so my time right now is is really being consumed by look the echod dev Bill the the priorities that that myself and I'm certainly going to venture to say the that the rep care about and the echo Dev Bill certainly for the communities we share and then beyond survive that final product meaning they survive the conference committee so we can get it to the governor and we can start getting that those funds back here whether it's in the form of a bond or or or real dollars if you will um so that that that process is happening and of course stuff like this is going on there I guess a a couple of things right and I think I touched this last time and I just I can't stress this enough for this group and Beyond how critical this topic is right now how consuming it is financially for the Commonwealth right now and I'm going to kind of just go back and I know many of what I'm about much of what I'm about to say is is everyone in this room is well aware of but I always I always tell people I'm going to treat everyone I talk to based on the amount of information I knew prior to becoming an elected official which wasn't much so so if if you already know this I apologize and anytime I go into a classroom I always say you're like hey do you know the main difference between federal government and the state government in terms of and they all kind of look at me and they say there's the federal government and the state government I say yeah besides that um and and I and I always give this analogy right it's like when the federal government goes into the grocery store they can use a credit card when we go into the grocery store we have to use a debit card and of course what I mean by that is that we can't run debts we can't do all these things we can only spend what we have and why I bring that up why I think it's really really important to bring that up is that for the past oh for the past you know two to three years uh but really this has been much more pronounced this past calendar year we've got this new kind of unprecedented financial burden in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts obviously I'm referring to the emergency assistance stuff I.E the housing stuff IE the immigration stuff I.E however you want to respond to it that's really having an impact and again the reason it's having an impact is well a couple things are at play here and I'm going to say what I'm about to say with absolutely no reservation whatsoever the first reason is that our friends in Washington DC are categor without a doubt unquestionably useless um they can't do anything and and what happens with that dysfunction and this is going to be in my prediction the next this is going to define the next two to three years of government in this nation right now and I hope I'm wrong is that you know issues that historically have been the province of the federal government IE immigration and so many other issues um are increasingly having to be dealt with by States because the federal government for any number of reasons won't do that and just to be very clear taking the immigration issue going way back to 1870 the United States Supreme Court weighed in with this case called the Freeman case what they said is that without question immigration is an issue for the federal government for obious Reon right it's if you had a 50 different states just a hodg podge of different policies it wouldn't make any sense the FED should do this what happens when the federal government doesn't do their job um and we have this really unprecedented influx of folks that are coming to Massachusetts for whatever reasons and I'm not looking to get into a immigration convers I'm just looking at this from a sheer bottom line standpoint in Massachusetts and what this means for us because we have to balance our budgets is that at some point in time something's got to give so all of these programs and and as far as I'm concerned you literally could go down the list it runs the entire gamut from from roads schools uh homeless beds to treatment beds for the opiate crisis and addiction crisis all of that is vulnerable if you have to spend which we are spending right now a billion dollars a year on this I want to repeat that a billion dollars a year on this issue um so so overarching all of this and all of these discussions right now just from the time period that I've been in if you look at the Continuum from when I was a first rep and now a senator uh you know there used to be a day and age where you could sit down with your ch share of ways and meanes and say I want the following project you know Southampton Westfield and and and unless you were just any number of reasons but but typically the answer was okay you know let's talk about that we can make that work the answer now we're getting increasingly is well justify this tell us why this is a good use of taxpayer dollars because those you know much tigh C strings if you will at this time and and I wanted to why am I Stu at Town Council tonight right now in Southampton well because it's relevant to every town and city that I represent right the more we spend on this the less we can spend on other things um and that's just something for us to keep in mind I've got I've got any number of thoughts on that where we could go with this but I think it's less important than just kind of putting that flag pole in the ground to say this is where we're at right now and this is just something to be mindful of as we have this these dialogues about revenue and stuff of that nature um that being said you know I I I think the Commonwealth All Things Considered is in a pretty good fiscal situation we got a very strong rainy day fund uh we are commended for that all of the time which of course in my in my mindset is that really supposed to be there for you know things well we have a rainy day things get really really really bad um but the way we maintain it certainly one of the best in the country um and look I guess I'll just quickly transition a little bit to and then I'll obviously um yield the floor to my friend here right now is it's so so so really the word the phrase that gets talked the most about right now in Massachusetts and and I have this conversation all the time with the governor and the previous governor governor Baker was like we need to ensure that Massachusetts is competitive right like we can't we can't gone are the days and I think Co showed us a lot with this like gone are the days where we can rely on having the best institutions of Higher Learning some of the most high-speed country companies that are out there leading on things like Ai and all these things and think that just because they're located there people are going to come here even if it's just really really hard to find housing right housing housing housing all of these issues are tied together housing the workforce shortages all these things that are out there all contribute to to one thing I think absolutely which is that Massachusetts is going to be less competitive with other states and there are a lot of states and I'm thinking Tennessee North Carolina Georgia that are basically saying hey Massachusetts you might have uh great colleges and universities but ours aren't too shabby anymore either oh by the way you can get this beautiful luxury condominium for half the price come on down here and you want to know what a lot of those companies that you work for where you're from you can work remote from that's one of the things that Co taught us a lot of people can work overhead and save some of that overhead so I view everything we do right now I kind of ask myself a question does this make Massachusetts more or less competitive um now the good news is we just pass a monumental housing Bond bill um really really important $5.4 billion Bond bill which is a start right this is going to scratch the surface maybe go a little bit below the surface but a housing Bond bill that is going to speak directly to that competive competitive here in Massachusetts we could spend hours talking about the housing crisis here in Massachusetts but in many ways refined to his beest Essence I would arue you that it's like that I think I took one economics course in undergrad and then the rest just comes from Reading media sources right in many respects you have a basic Supply demand issue right demand far exceeds Supply and housing costs are skyrocketing now I'm not laboring at any misperceptions that there any there's not any more causes of skyrocketing housing um but it's certainly lack of housing stock is a big part of that and it's housing stock all throughout the state of massachusett so one of the things that this bill does is build build build now we get to the hard part yeah I deal with all the time with my friends in local government and I'm going to exclude my friends in my present company right now the biggest challenge that we have with housing in Massachusetts is our friends in local government at the local level and a big part of that is nism right and it's you know good bad and different and again not look at I already said I'm not saying anyone in this room is guilty of that but what I am saying is that I I am fond of going to an event in front of a lot of people and saying who thinks we have a housing crisis they all rais their hand everybody knows that it's like it's getting to be like a like invoke to say yes we have a housing crisis all right who's willing to do something about it if you mean means you're going to build this many units and this amount of time nobody looks at crazy no we don't want to do that we want it built elsewhere and what I'm here to tell you is that if if if if everyone says build elsewhere then we don't build anywhere and then we still find ourselves in this house for crisis I want to be very clear here it's not we don't just need more affordable housing we need more market rate housing we need more workfor housing we need all of the above because I'm absolutely convinced that when you build one it helps relief some of the pressure some of the areals I think that's common sense um not everyone agrees with that but I but I tend to agree with that and look here's the other part when someone comes forward and says look I want to build I'm going to build I think for too long in Massachusetts a builder a developer would come along and say hey I'm willing to do this and then we look at them and say okay well you have to do the following things you have to do this to pay it has to be this many units and they're looking at it and they're looking at it and they're saying well don't know what I'm not going to make literally a dollar on this you know what they do they say see I'm gone so another thing we have have to do and I think this bill exemplifies that is we have to say you want to know what if you are a builder if you are a developer and you're going to make money on this Kudos good for you you're building housing if you make money on that good you know it's a cost benefit thing last thing I'll say I'll turn it over to my good friend the the extent I guess of that nism it's really playing out for us in the eastern part of the state right now right if you look at kind of the I for what we call the bill the MBTA Community app whatever it is you literally like if you're within a certain proximity to the the T we just say and I'm overs simplifying this it's like we're not telling you you have to build we're telling you you have to come up with a plan to build housing and and so for the longest time Massachusetts you know the whole carrot sticks thing we've said if you do this we'll give you the following things and communities are still many communities are saying no we're not interested well we just passed a law that said if you're within this amount of space Cas to a te you have to come up with this plan no we're good like openly defying the law so it's okay so now what we're going to do is we're going to implement the stick and what we're going to say is hey this grant that you applied for if you don't follow the law you're not going to be eligible for this fund they're going to they're going to withhold it what's remarkable is that there's still communities willing to forgo that money not to comply with the law and this is the last thing I Sal say promis if we start to live in a in in a system of government where you know either individuals or communities or anyone can kind of pick and choose the laws that they want to follow we're going out a really bad place CU cuz I've seen some of those places as has my colleague in government here oversees what that looks like and it's not good um I'm going to stop talking for right now and obviously I'm hopeful that we can have a a dialogue that might lead to more question but I just want to touch on a couple FL is yours my dear thank you yes rep PE please go ahead it's amazing right I um I really love serving with the senator because makes a great team and uh we work together well on a lot of different initiatives um but obviously uh one of the big thing there was an increase in the Regional School transportation right I know that's always a Hot Topic but it's never it's never 100% mhm we have a lot of colleagues on both sides of the aisle that are from rural communities and Regional Schools that continue to fight and push that up every year um so we did get a bump in that but obviously it's not necessarily what we wanted as a as a caucus down there as we work together um but we continue to to fight that and obviously uh another good thing that the the senator referred to is the Financial Health of you know the Commonwealth with the with the current crisis being cost about a billion dollars but prior to that ever since I've been in office it's been very fortunate that we've had during Co it was a lot of money right and I and I'll give U credit to the leadership uh down there um they've done a really good job of building up that rainy day fund I mean it's the highest I it's ever been and matter of fact we just passed a uh a thing that allows us to take the interest from that rainy day fund and use it to offset matching funds for federal money so that'll just make us more competitive in this Commonwealth to get those federal dollars so that's a beautiful thing um and then um on the other side of the coin I mean the um we got to watch continue to watch the student Opportunity Act um you know with the with the millionaire tax that's supposed to be going towards roads and schools now a lot of that money for roads did kind of go towards the MBTA which we need to get that focused not just down in the Boston region you know we need to get that out here which again they have not increased chapter 90 money in over 15 years um so I keep trying to fight that I mean they do have the grants that have been put in place since I've been in there of about 150 million the buckets and again but that's that's not necessarily um doesn't it's not as conducive especially for smaller towns who def don't have the the grant writers available to to do these things like a larger City would so I I wish they would do more with just the chapter 90 divide up the formula which they've said they've told me when I talked to the chairman of Transportation they're supposed to be rework in that formula too to see how that make sure it is fair and Equitable across the board out west as well as for the East uh but that chairman is now um retiring so I'll have to see who gets appointed as a new shair of Transportation on the house side so we can continue to have those discussions down there because that's always a a big issue as I always tell people I mean it's it's all about schools and Roads right I mean the school is your biggest budget item and it's the thing that drives your property taxes you know and and roads are the biggest thing we complain about so if the state would prioritize those that would be a lot better um so that's what we try to do um and again the Eco Dev I've been told on the house side that that will get done um so we're optimistic but it's not on the calendar it's not there yet um so uh but I've been told by uh that that uh from people who have talked to uh the chair of ways and mean that it's getting very close like the senator said and it and they expect it to be done here soon which and then hopefully the um the 150 million that we have in that bonding Bill towards your safety complex will will still be a part of that because again when it goes to conference committee there's no guarantee I did get it passed on the house side but again it's got to get to the conference committee and get over to the governor so 150,000 right yeah did I say million oh oh you're like oh we're going to build a h complex your housing crisis is solve thank you for clarifying $150,000 go thank you we're coming back to that back to that oh thank you good catch on that so um so hopefully that is going to be the case um I just um also reached out I was talking to our our guy in the governor's office who's who's going to who hasn't have an answer on the liquor license about pushing that through good uh cuz you know they got the letter and I said where are we at with it what's going on um and I see see the senator on it as well and and they said they're still discussing how they go forward they don't like to do this this process very often but hopefully we can nudge them to get it done this year you know um so we're still have a I looking at that and um and I think yeah that's for the P Market y uh um so if there's uh any other questions about any other particular issues then I'd be more than happy to address but those are the things I focus on for the town of Southampton and every time it's budget season we we try to get something in I mean um it you know as I said with the with the crisis right now it gets a little tighter but at least we did get 25,000 towards the hybrid Cruiser so a little bit it's better than nothing um and we'll keep going forward to try to get you a little bit I well I'm not going to say but um but anyway so unless you have any questions that's that's kind of uh what we're doing down there and I think the senat had a good good roll up and we got to obviously do something about which they did make make some moves on at the end of session um oh and I do want to clarify we don't end session every year on July 31st it's only election year next year we'll be going up till Thanksgiving before we close out session so so we don't like always get an early break good point but like the Sor said we continue to do stuff after that if we need to and then and I expect that we will get called back in um to do the EOD bill because we'll have to so that's that's great break someone like neglected you got to let me know about that it'd be interesting to find that out if we're in break like it's just again it's the misnomer like it's right sure yeah well I just want to you know on behalf of the select board and stuff and I just wanted to reach out and say thank you to the ear marks you both been able to provide for us um those have come through and it may I may say it it probably has taken us more time to track down the paperwork to make them actually appear in the account but we got them so Scott's been diligent about doing that so we appreciate the uh the past work on that so we'll look forward to hearing any news about the econ development bill I I wasn't aware that that it was probably coming forward I knew that it had a possibility to but I didn't realize that things had been picked back up again so that's good to hear I think one thing I'm I'm also cheering the ad hoc Grant committee here in town and and both of you have been very supportive when I've reached out needed letters of support for various Grant applications so thank you for that um one of the things I've been tuning into there's a um fairly frequent webinar that's done by the um some new office at the governor's level uh the federal federal funds infrastructure office ffio I think and so been tuning into a lot of that a lot of the federal funds that are out there don't really apply to a little town like Southampton um so we're still looking honestly for a lot of construction money it's that brick and mortar money for public safety for the senior center um and finding construction funds is really really tough to identify the appropriate grant for and I know we've got the One-Stop Grant we've tried that a couple of times we're farther along in our our design process for both um both facilities now so I think you know we'll certainly put in for it in in January when it comes up again but you know we've we've been probably at a disadvantage cuz we we were talking theoretically in the past Grant applications and now we can be a little bit more concrete but just to say if you know if you guys hear of anything that's related to that um you know that would help us move forward um in particular on those kinds of projects um we'd be very appreciative on that could I underscore that sure package it up and put it in catapult and launch it to the other end of the table um in Prior years certainly you've heard about public safety building as a critical longstanding need and and that remains that's been some of our ear marking in isolation and you may have heard more recently about uh effort to build a new Senior Center as a standalone initiative with purchase of this 50 somewhat acres of land those will be collocated on this land where we really have the opportunity blank SL no prior development a former agricultural land Frontage on Route 10 and on the greenway bike path to be built to be completed into Westfield it's a blank slate and there is initiative from our housing authority and our community preservation act committee to do something meaningful for affordable housing and we're trying to put shape to that in order to do that we're reaching out to private nonprofit developers to make sure we don't ask for something that isn't what the market is prepared to build that if we go with a coherent plan for a new community Town Center Public Safety Senior Center housing recreational components Regional Transit um that hopefully will appeal for particularly federal dollars and we're going to need either a connection to the eastampton Sewer or sophisticated onsite Advanced and Innovative they call it under Title Five and we're going to need the whole team we're going to need your support um I won't be lab with it now but it is Major capital investment specifically to that brighter economic future for everyone um Southampton on paper well it is a small community on paper it looks affluent but many what 30% of the Town residents are housing stressed here um and it's barely it did grow but it's not growing very fast right now we need more opportunities for housing so join the team we're about to hire professionals help is we're going to need that we we've brought in U Pioneer Valley planning Council and Mass Housing Partnership um but we need everybody on the team it goes right to the heart of what you're saying and designing it right from the get-go um we understand people fear what they don't understand or what they haven't had a chance to participate and we want everyone to have a chance to participate and do in the future of the Town yeah so and are you are you referring that I know we're moving forward you're moving forward with a public safety complex and you're moving forward with the senior C correct are you saying that at this point in time you'd also like to try to add in the housing is that what you I know that that came I know that it came up at the town meeting when I sat in on it that when you got the land right that that you were talking and that the future it could be a good place to do affordable housing but you're talking about trying to incorporate it a as a like a whole development plan it's a jigsaw puzzle of 50 odd acres and there's Public Safety a senior center a housing conservation Recreation pieces and perhaps others that we haven't identify so I would agree Public Safety and Council and aging are go everything else needs to be vetted discussed and get there naturally jump right to housing so um unless I missed AIG meting that 15 minute session I I was inviting everybody to join the plan in process that's I hear what you're saying I kind of got that from the specific about what's happening basically is that the next step for us will be to hire a land use planner and part of that is going to be a a whole system of community engagement and meetings talking to the various it's not the intent that going down that road is not going to slow down Public Safety Council and agent those two projects priorities no priority and then but we want to weave that in and keep that in the forethought of the future plan correct yeah and then then the East Hampton sewer they have capacity if we can get the flow going the right way they have pick up a portion of the town which didn't eliminate septic which are they at all are they up there by big why are they they come right up to Coleman Road right now oh okay it's perfect alignment if we can raise Capital to do it if we get the underneath right away they didn't give us they give us the upper dick yeah so we're we're actually undergoing a a sewer feasibility study they only have a reverter rate okay there's a sewer feasibility study underway right now we'll see how that times we have things come up and I'm and I'm and I reach out I'm sure Center's office probably does I mean he's got a lot more communities but I usually try to reach out and I I usually do reach out to to Scott and and Chris is the the chair um and to say hey are there any needs that I might be able to get a little bit something for yeah we can definitely feed you needs and if the St for big big CH sometimes CU we want to try to get it going if the state budet is constrained we have to be yet more competitive for federal funds yeah the infrastructure act has the right mix of things housing has funding both federal and state even though there are major pieces left on a chopping board um Cutting Room floor but I think at the at the end of the day first of all anytime that I reach out to either one of your guys or your staff everyone's been supportive and helpful so thank you for that but the uh I think the pro I mean yeah I'm in favor of solving the housing problem and you can build it here in town that's all right we can continue to give away the agricultural land I could be able to grow the food so there's a make sure there's a piece there but let me get my words you had yours um our system of government and how it's set up here in town our property taxes pay just what we need to survive with a little bit of extra right so infrastructure with the 100y old police department the 150 year old fire department the the 76 year old school that only has capacity for 18 more students so if we add housing right we're going to add stress unless we do 55 and over with no with no children but that's not going to necessarily solve the issue is we need we need you know and I've I've dropped where it went but when the auditor Goldberg put that study up for the rural communities yeah we're the 20% out here and I know the minority every the M MBTA that you talked about them getting that millionaires tax is all out there that's great but proportionately what do we get on our side of the state yeah I mean and I'm fine with the funds being proportionate to population but where's the extra money to help us with our onetime infrastructure needs every 50 to 60 years right and I know you guys don't have the solution it's the leadership up above you but that's our strength but John following up on that on you know with Senator sorry state auditor bump's report a couple years ago now about this the status of infrastructure and small towns like Southampton needing the public safety complexes and the senior centers and various other things that all sounded like it was going to turn into something and I know there's a bill that has been circulating somewhere I guess it's probably at the house level I'm not sure over the last couple years to to really focus on setting up a special fund to to build infrastructure for small towns for Rural communities well and and I mean the governor when she came in she appointed the rural go GOI so I guess I I mean I'm not sure I haven't talked I need to proba reach out to and see which where's the path and what's going what's happening down that end because I think that bill just kind of spins and it doesn't doesn't seem to go anywhere and I don't know what fing mechanism so a coule a couple things like and I get it right it's something it's not it's not it's not novel The Western mess Easter mess thing and there look I would say there's been I mean you look at the you know one of the things that I do like about this past budget and there was there was definitely more you know Regional parody right I said more not not not not absolute parody right uh and I'm looking at the $110 million investment in rtas right like that's a that's a big western Mass thing that was that's unprecedented amounts right there so perfect no absolutely not um the NBTA still sucks up much of that but you know when we when we left when I left you know the meeting with the chair way and me the Senate President and we talked about you know the 110 million for the rtas big deal but I think a larger issue we've talked about this before and and it's something that's already been alluded to speaking of former Senator GOI Commissioner of rural job right now I had a meeting with her yesterday different communities Russell mountgomery and it was the Gateway School System right and and the whole point of the meeting was they had been eligible for this funding stream and they became ineligible because they could no longer meet the requirement to have as many students as they needed to participate in these programs and the details are less important than the meeting that we had where the the superintendent looked at us and said there's absolutely no way that these communities with these numbers this is Boston projecting something on other parts of the state enter and GOI and that's why I think you know again a start like the recognition that hey and look you can look at you know Ann's title is the rural communities whatever but I interpret it and we've had this dialogue she's like the smaller communities person so if folks haven't had a meeting with her and we can absolutely help close that I mean former colleague well know she think she was not she was in the Senate at that point in time I sered up some committees with her yeah she's great right and she would be more than willing so yesterday I mean we had this meeting it was a desie issue and desie had already gotten a call from an by like an hour after the meting so just we have a voice now that knowing where an's from literally lives in the community she gets this perspective so there's a person with a seat at the table so really critical so I think a do out is meeting with an GOI for all of us to flag some of this stuff know I've met with her a couple of times just personally we run into each other on different different scenarios altogether but she had said that she'd be willing to come to a selectboard meeting at some point in time we got to get her on the agenda I think at some point want wait till we had something to really concrete ask her that we can push her I think we're getting there now and then look we like and I'm looking at this right so I just think these things matter too right so I think every little bit helps I'm looking at the you know the the eops grant right that was recently I mean again is it through the roof money no but 8,744 you know there's there's a lot of quiet lobbying that goes on behind the scenes that we both do on behalf of that and again is it is it the multiple million dollars that the community KS absolutely not but it's a little by little I know we talked about the the the another ear Mark too like and I think I do this all the time and I think it's really really important I'm so happy the Southampton youth Athletics ear Mark I think that's really really important that's Co I think it's really really important that kids have a place that they can go to and feel happy and feel cuz I again we could spend hours and hours talking about like when kids feel happy and they're have a place to go and feel happy about and go play sports and look around and it's kind of that matters that matters to their wellbe That Matters to the community go out of this park right you see all the parents and grandparents Che their kids out it's a fantastic p on and I I'll be honest with you like this is stuff that before I was just do and just go yeah sure that sounds good but now that I have like a 2 and a halfy old I'm like this stuff really matter and I just want to inject a second because you mentioned the eops Grant I just wanted to give a shout out so Chief illingsworth is here that's a grant that he applied for and just received for $18,000 some dollars for Traffic Safety so congratulations for pulling that off as well thank you for your support 100% at anytime yeah and look so the sorry let me just because the bond budg the bond bu right I think we and so we got the and then I feel like I put in for a million on the public safety right uh I think it was actually yes got it down here somewhere I feel like I put a million the public safety um yeah so a million dollar in the Echo Dev fill so so that's going to pass and that's going to be in there right so so so then the fund begins then it's text messaging or calling the good governor and saying governor you need to fund this this is really really important and that's the difference between a budget item as opposed to Obama the governor has to submit it to the legislature after it's already approved before it gets funded yeah it's got so there's we have this this Capital project at the end where the governor just goes through and says yep yep yep Y and this is where I this is where I am a really big believer that relationships matter right so it's it's Governor let's there's a lot of things that are going on in conversations on any number of issues so I've got I've got my we as an off we as a colleagues we as an office have our eye on that because we look I've been and the chief just you have a phenomenal Chief here right police fire but you need new buildings like I I don't I see this and I hope this never happens but it's you know bad things happen when folks in public safety are not taken care of um and and it's a damn shame pardon my French if it's because you know we knew there was an issue and we didn't do anything about so I think we're all on board with getting that and I think it's you know from my perspective I think seeing it is a big one too so we get this bot money and we'll continue we're going to do no that's great that that that's going to be money we actually Target sure well and we're still looking at a variety of options for Grants as well so the more that we hear about them we're you know tuned into regular things at the state level but also some federal ones we'd applied last year just for your information we'd applied last year for the assistance to Firefighters Grant which is a Federal grant uh with the intent of trying to get a new tanker pumper pumper tanker um and it's they've been awarding grants out since about mid July and they stopped last week and we didn't get it and we were looking for about $600,000 for it but it didn't happen so but open up again in October November November I think they open up so we will apply again next year what dialogue have you had with the federal delegation on that uh had sent in letters of request of for support for both Senator Warren and Senator Mary and Congressman Neil uh which happened to go along with the application okay but that's about as far as it went when we when when that when that opens up again ping us again and please let me know when that thing comes in because I think it's I think it's the end end of October might be actually so it's coming up soon as in thisth soon yeah they open up it it I don't think the application is due until the spring you know like February March but um I think it actually opens up for expressions of Interest early on yeah make sure you can us again I definitely want to P congressman's separate from a letter of support okay that'd be great yeah absolutely thank you good does anybody have any questions we have a another agenda to get to but I know you guys have got as well you've got busy schedules as well so we didn't want to keep you too late tonight but quick question sure yeah um CPA has often benefited from a little something in supplemental budget yeah um wait start can you say the first party the community preservation act CPA State match you know with receipts from the registry declining the state has sometimes in a supplemental budget in the fall cuz you guess there still n thank you uh seen fit to add some money to the state match for CPA could that could make a real difference is we're drawn actively on CPA we're using our open space allocation fully um we have designs on historic preservation and not enough money and thankfully we've got a nest egg towards housing should that be part of the plan uh the final plan so uh this is good but a little extra for CPA is huge and related to that um without diving off a cliff um help me send you with the name of the program there is a state tax incentive for donations of conservation restrictions in addition to your federal tax deductions I don't know the name of the program but it is it's been sort of clogged up in the legislature in terms of people applying the funding has capped for what was a new program is no longer a new program it's in high demand was this a state credit for conservation land is that yeah for donations donations of land for conservation restriction purposes when people donate so even less than fee donations of a conservation restriction are eligible for I think it's a tax Inc you say fedal at the beginning of your comments federal tax deductions are another issue I'm talking a state tax credit that is refundable so even if you don't have $11,000 worth of state tax liability you can get a benefit from this program and it's oversubscribed by private land owners who would like to see their land conserved but they need something back in order to afford the transaction cost literally it does that and a little bit bit more that's it it's not market rate but it it's been a huge incentive um we had a couple Town people in town I think that have taken advantage of that well absolutely the Hendrick family I believe it's the Commonwealth conservation land tax credit cltc LC yeah and it's through the energy and environmental Affairs office um good and there's the whole formula for yeah the way you can it's yeah it's been capped a absurdly low number state that's the gist of what you're saying like getting rid of that cap or raising that cap raising the cap oh and also getting it through because it sometimes people are waiting years well that so that not not to cut off like if there's any message that I can convey tonight and I I need to know more about this liquor license thing um like soon as I can probably um help yeah definitely so make sure we please um we can really expedite things so like I can't get it to me like if you know of a a resident in town who's applied for this and it's what the heck this is taking too long like that is that's what I consider to be the lwh hanging fruit things that we can do it would be a travesty if there was a resident of this community who had something was getting tied up in the state red tape and we didn't get reached out to okay like I always tell you we can't can't guarantee you're going to get it we can't get but what I would guarantee is this we will get it faster than the process as it exists is that a good thing probably not but you want to know what people I represent so I'm going to do it sure we'll work with you to get you some real life examples so we give me the real life people and tell me where it stands phone it really Happ that's our job it's it's it's um legal Staffing at eoea that's insur Supply and then it's this artificial cap it's we have specific it's like anybody with you know if they they're having trouble to get unemployment or driver's Li we call up it just it happen you know you know so if you have app and thank you for helping with our chapter 91 license I mean who knew look a lot of times you just said underst staffed I mean this this isn't this isn't even a matter of we can put this person to the top and push someone aside that's not what I'm saying here what I am saying is that there could literally be someone who just hasn't even had eyes on this application yet we can bring the eyes to it sure that's great y okay no we much appreciate that so thank you for coming and spending your time much thank you very much no thank you for you'll be hearing from us too thank you and please if you send something to one of us send it to both because both things will go through both places in it so at least if he's going to take the lead and I know when it comes there that we need to make sure we always like to say as we're fighting with our friends in the house and vice versa keep in mind something to be law it's got to go through the house the Senate and ex CH that's right good thank you thank you very much much appreciate be in good thanks I got to read all these wars are speeding up I know we got lot to do here we got lot to talk about before that good well thanks uh that uh took about the time that I figured it would but we only do it once a year so I think it was good to have them come I think it's really nice to have us yes you know face to face and get a get a sense of what's going on from their their perspective and let them know a little bit about some of southampton's priorities so all right let's motion to approve foran tishman reappointment bylaw review advisory committee term to expire June 30th 2025 wa second all right all right and just a a point of discussion Francy to bet on the B had decided originally not to renew but she's willing to go on at least until the uh till the uh end of the fiscal year so um motion and the second is on the table could I have an approval please all those in favor I I all right motion to regret regretfully accept the resignation of Donna Whitley uh from the finance committee effective immediately September 17th 2024 second second by Dan okay yes unfortunately um Donna has decided to step down and we just want to thank her for all of her work she's come on and off the finance committee more than once she's had her arm Twisted several times to come back on and and do do that important work so we'll be looking for her replacement but much appreciate Donna's time and effort supporting the town so with a motion in a second all those in favor I I okay motion passes okay Scott Town Administrator report uh so the big news was last Thursday we took uh ownership of zero College Highway and today where that Scott we have to get a better name no we got yeah whatever thank you thank you congratulations so we actually have the de in place and everything's set yep and then the other good news is today we received the funds from the boil family um they were sold we don't have an exact amount till tomorrow uh when they when they officially post um but I also want to thank Tim Flynn of Flynn Financial who uh was vital in doing that cuz I have no idea about mutual funds but more importantly he actually um paid for all the fees and did it for zero commission so everything that Mr boil the boil family donate is going to be 100% to the town of Southampton and I think just just clarifi too depending on how that transfer the timing of it if it ends up being a bit more than a million that's okay supposedly it's going to be more Yep y so and if it had been less or if it should be less the the boil family had said that they would make up the difference to get to it at least million but we're believing that with the markets and how things have been going this would have transacted on a even better better rate so we might be a bit more than a million which is pretty impressive so yes go ahead Scott um the other big thing is that we hopefully we'll get our pvpc quote in for land use planner the um yeah Senior Center building committee uh two weeks ago a little bit outdated for the the skip meeting but right um voted to use $100,000 instead of the land use purchase to use that towards um Consulting fees for the land use planner so that's going help expedite it uh pretty significantly um and we should have our third quote hopefully by tomorrow I did remind pbpc and at that point we can recommend a land use planner to the uh the site board that would be nice yeah and get moving on that um yeah and just to say that with the the money from the senior center through the par state that allows us to not have to search for other money from some other some other place that we would have taken a little bit more time to identify probably so considerably more time to approve even once we had agreement so so this is great to uh to be able to use that for that purpose yeah uh Wi-Fi is up and running and Vadar we we had our Vadar training taking place we're slowly implementing it uh one department at a time uh we're slowly getting there um there were some great pancak served last week messed out on big thanks to the fire chief who came volunteered very uh as well as all the the staff and then the council and agent board so that was great and um again thanks for the fire chief and Dave who responded to the emergency Thursday night with a um leaking uh sprinkler system so that's part of what may have yeah under under yeah down in the boiler room so that may have been What affected our uh our microphones downstairs for tonight just the alarm system triggered something unexpectedly so we'll work on that but good so that's great that's it for now y all right good all right how about a few select board reports who's got something Cindy anything to report from your end um yes the uh the open space committee hasn't me for a couple of weeks but we have moved forward very diligently to work on a draft of the land use uh form that stepen helped create and um this is a really critical thing we feel very strongly about this and we're going to talk about this at our meeting which is the 10th of this month and today I spoke to the chairperson I mean I'm sorry the conservation agent and he needs to speak to the Conservation Commission but hopefully that's going to be a joint submission between open space committee and Conservation Commission to create this land use form draft and again a step towards what the land use planner can be using so that and then the second part of the open space committee is that we are also really putting a lot of attention now into the goals and objectives outlined in the um open space and Recreation plan that really it's got three years to go but that's very high on our agenda right now um in terms of the Board of Health um it's its work as usual but I will say at the most recent meeting which was um a couple weeks ago just the night of the last meeting we had on the September 17th the gentleman who came before the select board who had a concern his name was Aaron B and it was at least five six weeks ago he and his neighbor who owned the house were able to jointly meet with the Board of Health can't say they resolved everything but there was a plan as to what was going to do and I bring this before the select War because he made a point of coming before the select this was for the Tall Grass issue and other the animals running through and things like that got tick good well thank goodness so that's good and there um beyond that it's just as I said business as usual for the time being uh uh what's my third committee I forgot alers I'm sorry assessors oh Board of assessors right Board of assessors has we uh have moved towards we're we're close to um having the uh tax rate um approved by the um Department of Revenue for um the coming year and so all the Ducks are in place in time and then uh principal assessor will come before the select board for the proposal I would say within the next few weeks next few meetings um and uh effort has been put on good service that's really been a critical thing for people to know they can get answers they can be notified in advance of something that's going to happen like an inspection Etc uh and I I'm completely impressed with the office staff and the way they're working between DAV and Cathy I think they're doing a really personally I think they're doing an excellent job that's my thought and if we need any feedback on that and we'd like to know if we can improve even more sounds good and we still have one open seat on the board of assessors but another individual has expressed an interest let's see if that works out okay one one quick question what's happening with the any more of the Southampton property acquisition for the mountain Waters project is that okay yeah the mountain Waters project yeah um there are um slowly moving forward I hear positive things on all of the properties that were listed when we went to town meeting to get CPC funding as well as to understand the the the private grant funding Etc and the state funding um on the other There's issues on every single one of them one thing or another um I I don't have enough I don't feel confident enough to be able to give specifics in a public meeting as to I've heard certain things nonetheless the message from Kestrel is will make this happen so that's because they have a do they not have the deadline of the end of June right it's got to be done this fiscal year uh it depends on what acquisition it is there is one that does apply for that well we were assuming I think that you know the way this was structured that various properties would kind of come to us one by one as they were ready to kind of get to their finalization so that's fine I just want to tend to Bunch up around deadlines my experience um but you you clarified the deadline is more significantly the grant driven deadline rather than the individual income tax yeah no It's the Grant deadline what I was refering the other half living with the land owners doing conservation deals and I tell you December 31st is a BFD in terms of getting on record and um so I know that I thought the the end of June was a drop dead date kind of for the grant process so yeah I will I will get an update for the open space committee meeting there be a lot of those things good all right Lots yeah I I we had the Housing Authority meeting um and I'd like to thank Stephen who was able to attend and help in the getting our Our Land Ed survey together so I think we we we uh gave a good result and sent it off to the select board so okay they'll receive that so that's one thing that I'm sure we'll be great discussion about what people like didn't like looked at real world examples around the valley yeah thank you very much um and also the Housing Authority we also talked about the other property we have on College Highway that and moving forward to that the one that we're we're ideally looking to partner with a Habitat for Humanity with so that's um so looking at the W lens of that property at the moment that's the where that property is at um and then the technology committee met and the important thing to note there is the conversation we had around where we're going to where that committee wanted to go with broadband and I think that committee itself is has felt that that subject of broadband in itself is too much for that committee to handle itself so the chair had proposed breaking that off and coming to the select board and proposed that become its own committee to to help move that forward to make sure we have the right talents people together to um to have all the voices input and maybe have people like Scott involved people that can really help move it forward because it was just getting stuck so D on that so the the MLP has passed both times so wouldn't I just thr this out there wouldn't it stand Teresa that we form a formal MLP commission or Commissioners who would have oversight and jurisdiction over this and yeah it's still going to be volunteer because we don't pay any but um I mean because then they could kind of like fall under the MLP chapter here's your Authority on that that might be one way to do that yeah exactly I think the um the whip city folks just reached out to us today I got an email today I know I was like are you guys ready to make a decision yet so I think that's part of the challenge is that you all have interviewed at least the two two companies at least two two companies fiber companies you know it's again it's not going to be a a cheap process and and trying to figure out you know how to make the decision of which one to go with and so forth and obviously East Hampton's going with something totally different and I think northampton's going with something else another different kind of thing that neither one or similar to what we've been looking at so I think it Bears a discussion so we probably need to have a a bigger discussion on that very soon uh I did get an email from Megan about the the committee so we'll we'll bring that up at another meeting here uh and talk about that more detail yeah those are things I have to mention good all right thanks Stephen up uh what's left planning board meets More Night and we're going to get a report from pdpc under our local technical assistance grant looking at groundwater protection and um where we are in comparison to our neighbors in the prior wies aquer protection thing and um and and see if there's changes to be made to our bylaw um we know that we've um had some hit some speed bumps with its implementation but you know we have been steadfast and our carrying forward on Our intention to protect our groundwater made a lot of Investments over many generations in that regard so um we want to make sure we stay up to date as well very I don't think I have anything else okay good uh I'm sure my committee has met but I haven't been to anything the uh you been too busy traveling I know you know cheers the uh we uh I do not on the Norris update right we've uh we've completed all security upgrades um that were primarily paid for through the state on the Grant and show us the picture I it's already posted oh we're good and we took possession of the new uh preschool toddler van today it is bright red with extra red lights on it so not to be confused for a uh not to be white right because there were some issues there I I have no doubt when these red lights come on the traffic is going to stop so got the big tiger logo tiger side of it y be it's quite cherry red it will be very visible I think yeah Fire Chiefs going to be a little jealous so that's great that's up uh can I link on to the Norris report I was at a meeting of the friends of the council I mean of the Council on Aging today and there's a super volunteer who coordinated the effort to get a lot of um donations of items that classrooms need whether it's tissu whether it's uh sanitary wives notebooks pens Etc uh and I'm going to mention her name her name is Mary Kennedy and she works really hard and she's a fabulous volunteer and um we want to make sure the school committee knows that there was a lot of donations on that um and the teachers were really appreciative and there was actually more than was needed at the beginning of the year but the teachers were able to put some in a closet because then when the kids run out of stuff later on was that parallel or in conjunction with the PTO was it independent I believe it was independent it was initiated by the Council on Aging itself and it was I mean there were some basic supplies but it was mostly you know like like you said like you know wipes and things like that but but it was really a lot of notebooks and markers and all sorts of things boxes and boxes of stuff and she's still collecting CU she says teachers run out of certain things like sanitary you know the antibacterial wipes and and tissues Etc but on top of that they're going to be working on getting donations of hats and gloves for people who need those kinds of things during the colder months so I just want to make a good point that was great so yeah Mary Kennedy LED this up and this was basically an initiative of the COA itself and they did a great job collecting all sorts of stuff one of the things Cindy just I'm thinking about it um somewhere I saw and I can't remember the date there's going to be a flu Clinic Board of Health uh yeah October 23rd October 23rd okay and that'll be here at town hall or or at the school uh Council on agent it's not at the school it's at the council if you want to get on October 4th it's open door at Big Y oh you just walk in while this door is open oh wow okay that's interesting okay good so just so people know um just on my end on a couple committees uh grants committee I sort of reported on already we got information that uh we did not get the um assistant to Firefighters Grant which is a big Federal competitive grant for the tanker pumper um so we will reapply uh I think we will just basically pretty much use the same information we will just have to update some some basic statistics which Chief foli um will be able to do with me to to pull that together um we also got feedback on the historical uh Brun Grant which was the one for getting repointing done of the the Old Town Hall they said thanks it was a good application but it would have been stronger if there was already activity happening in that building besides the fire department I mean besides the police department that if it was already a cultural center it would have had more strength to it so anyway there was like good application but your other applications were stronger than what we were able to justify in terms of its long-term usage and it's being an what they call an economic anchor in the community so because it's not there yet um that's where we fell short but you know they were encouraging at least we got feedback which doesn't always happen with many Grant programs uh the grant committee is meeting on the Hello on the 8th uh we've got two possible members who are interested and they've been invited to attend so we can strengthen our committee a little bit uh bylaws committee will be meeting up uh also within another week or 10 days um and now that we have a third person on the committee and we're as I mentioned before working on the um swimming pool bylaw and the use of public buildings in particular uh and we'll be doing a cost efficiency meeting very soon uh probably not next week with the week after and then lastly I'm putting a call out to various names that I've been given for folks that want to join in on a new committee which is sort of planning for the 250th birthday of Southampton uh trying to figure out what we might pull together for that so I'm going to try and schedule that for the week of the 14th and hopefully we'll get at least a first meeting done and people can be joining in as we go along but we just want to get something on the ground to get get some brainstorming done and thinking about that so lots of lots of many meetings to get tidied up and scheduled here but we'll Capital planning is that going Capital planning is getting tied right now to the cost efficiencies um meeting so we're we're kind of taking over that uh activity the the um the Chiefs in particular and Highway and water have turned in their Capital uh plans for their basically their equipment and vehicle replacement we're going to consolidate those and reverifying against what we have from the assessors and the accountant to see that we've got the most correct version of everything which has been a little bit right we have we have a draft of some tweaks to the bylaw yes and there was very very little to to go with that but uh we'll we'll pick that back up again to on the capital uh funding bylaw so yeah so we're going to be working on that and Scott's been pulling together some ideas for a um basically a capital planning exercise that's going to be something a bit more um useful I think that maybe um than what we've done before so we'll be working on that so that'll be part of our next cost efficiencies I was impressed with the volume of tonight's packet and when I realized that it was all the warrants ver bothos I don't know whether the Panic increase or decrease but I looked at the um full fiscal year expenses against budget and when I got to the special purpose accounts I knew I was beyond my understanding and I didn't know whether it would come through a planning cycle and all would be revealed but there were a bunch of things where it appeared there was a remaining balance that didn't make sense other places a carried deficit that didn't make sense we'll get to that when we get to the revenue and expense I think we're we're still catching up on that's part of the proc so that's the answer it'll come I think so it's been identified with thank you okay let's get into some new business Scott um classification Compensation Plan update I know you've been working on that now we're going to we're going to keep on moving here we've got two two real big issues I think probably that are in Scotts baileywick which is the classification plan and then just talking about this budget book draft um the other ones I think are probably not lengthy issue so I think we'll be able to move somewhat efficiently here we hope so I will uh I will be quick on this one I'm just next steps on the um classification plan so I was able to get some funding from the finance committee to hire de Bradway to help out with the um the scoring and the review of the uh the ranking of the positions um art Lawrence and I we've completed our independent scoring so we're going to work with Dev and get that done as soon as possible uh then come with at least some kind of consensus to present to the select board um we would need to probably next meeting do an executive session to talk about how it's going to impact our contractual employees specifically Randle uh because his contract's up and we want to make sure we have internal Equity when we look at this so oh so when you say contract I was thinking 1099 folks but you're talking about um highly compensated exempt employees yes there a difference yeah well let's take care of the hourly folks here who have been slaving away without a contract sorry um and then we would finalize the the scales and rankings um there's a couple questions I I want to present to the the board tonight and then hopefully we can implement it in um October or early November at the latest um so with the most recent um talking about the hourly employees uh getting all the information what we came up with is I a little bit difficult to see uh executive session I'll show you all the backup material um but essentially what we found out was our actual salaries are at 72% of the market um our maximum ranges on the current Compensation Plan that we use is actually 92% of the market so our system isn't that far behind the problem is there's 18 steps to it and if you do a step a year yeah uh you're never going to reach Market ever yeah truly so uh that's that's a little bit of an issue um that shows that and then just to refresh this is the uh the exempt employees and the actual uh comparable averages um the midpoint it's a little bit different because usually with hourly employees you go more for the maximum because they're on a step system so they'll more than likely end up at the top step so that's a more accurate depiction of what the uh Market is whereas with non-exempt or exempt employees um you usually have ranges or a different a little bit of a different structure so midpoint is usually Market on the exempt employees do you um are we able to break down further our two elected individuals m y all right just maybe just for people that are listening or will be listening just to redefine exempt and non-exempt for people uh non-exempt is hourly exempt as salary exempt from overtime yeah and so basically depart Department there are some exempt positions actually over time right but for the most part yeah basically the exempt positions are our department heads for the most part um can I ask a question in terms of the previous oh anyway it's a hand out here inspection SLU Health you've got conservation agent Health agent inspector administrative um assistant where's the um director under exempt exemp oh it's under it's not the current practice but that's where it is okay where it would be moving to sorry keep going okay uh so this is just uh depending on which way the C goes this is a um you know really a draft for our non-exempt pay uh pay wages pay scale for um our hourly employees it cuts it down from 18 to 10 which is usually the the normal um what most people use it also doesn't restrict someone from you know you that highly qualified employee doesn't restrict someone from having to start at a step one um So Def finding you know where most people would start that's a different different discussion and then using the the 11 grade systems looking at our positions um I'm just doing a back of the napkin math um that would give us enough of a range to um be comparable to to be competitive in all the ranges um based on the market so so from the grade you're actually the the lower grade is actually a grade nine it's going from nine up to one rather than the other way down your grade level oh yeah um we can reverse it or however we we see we want to name it um I just didn't want to use letters yeah like um but most of our employees would go right in the middle the middle area um some of the uh more technical ones will be in the higher and then um some of other ones will be towards the lower end of the scale do you indicate back there on the hourly which which grade these jobs are or no we don't know not yet that's we're going to have to wait for executive session okay um so the the the question is how do we want to structure our exempt or our salary employees and there's a couple ways that we can do this and uh I mentioned these before you know one way to do it is using Straight ranges where there's a midpoint which represents Market there's a low point and there's a high point and if you're a competent employee that has you know the qualifications you start at the midpoint as market and if you get someone with 20 or 30 years experience they would be in the higher area if you get someone that's right out of maybe college and they don't have any experience you'd be more towards the minimum um there's some pros to that that gives you know more flexibility so you're not tied into an actual step um it encourages growth so as you gain experience as you gain you know education credentials um you can have your salary adjusted in the range uh and it's employee specific um so we we look at each employee and their specific experience education qualifications you know their performance uh and then place them within that range um the cons are it's difficult to obtain a consistency it takes a while uh to do that and you really have to stay on top of it but once you get there it becomes easier over time and it is more subjective than objective which is steps are very objective you're here for 5 years you're on the fifth step s right um it it's a little bit more judgmental uh the next way that we could do it would be a hybrid system and there there's ways that you can do this as well so this kind of combines both steps and a merit based system and if you look at nm's um Needum doeses this system for their higher compensated employees so people that are you know major department heads um DPW directors um you know uh planners um you know their their public safety personnel uh so they essentially they do have a range so they have a step one and a step 11 for those top five uh columns or rows uh but they have a a merit range in between so they get up to step four and then any additional uh compensation is based on their Merit um whereas the other one other positions in the exempt is really just a step system um but looking at what we could do is essentially where that yellow line is is what we what need does is it goes up to a certain point where you do a step system and then to the right of the yellow bar you can either do ranges like uh Needum has done or you could do steps and depending on the Merit performance review um as they get more qualifications it gives more flexibility for those High performing employees to be able to retain them so that would be based on an outstanding performance appraisal that you'd be able to jump that yellow bar and go into something else and if you got to if you got to the midpoint it say whatever seven um and you had you were doing your job you're a competent you just got a basic satisfactory rating M are you kind of Frozen at the seven right so you would still be at the seven and you would get a cola because the the actual wages have to be adjusted every year okay um so it would only be for specific incidents where compensation needs to be more than market so kind of puts the brakes on it at a certain point so it's somewhat of an encouragement to try and do better mhm in a way so that you can jump up the next year right exactly but at the very least Market yeah yeah the question is if you're going to apply calls across the board are you willing to hold the line and not Advance somebody a step and so I was a seven this year I didn't qualifi you know the cost of living but I really didn't live up my appraisal didn't do that so now I'm going back to a six are you ever going to move anybody down I I think the answer is no I wouldn't think so yeah so then they just stay there until they they would stay there until they did better the next year they might have a better performance appraisal and then they would be able to jump that yeah midpoint right but app sorry were you about to but appraisal the problem with appraisals are unless you have one voice doing it across the board right it depends on what board you answer to or who happens to write your result no I think that's the that was what I was going to raise is that there should be a a very uh closely defined set of bullet points that we that we advise but we actually train people on how to do the performance evaluations so that it's impossible to be equal all the way along the line but we can make every effort to make sure we know yeah some similar to a 360 but what I go back to I you know my ask for this next budget for my seat is the part-time HR person MH because that you got to Central you got to get away from PPQ I totally and you got to centralize yes and it's not the Town Administrator in that Ro right who can and a mid like somebody with you know five to six years that doesn't have director experience because Scott has that but you need somebody to do the work that Scott has just put his eyes active and absolutely agree with that yeah and that way if we do that Scott's got to sign up for 5 to 10 years but you but I think the point is to have a meaningful performance appraisal system which I think we would all agree has been seriously lacking here there's been attempts that you know certain departments have tried it better than others and tried to work at it but others really have fallen short and so I think we just don't have anything that people believe in well enough to take it seriously and I think if we can do something and until now prove that that would be good to quote Senator reveals there's never been a carrot You' had stick you got to do this but we've never had a carrot that's a good point yeah okay go ahead Scott sorry do you agree with that with everything we said okay everything he said and then the the third one is just a traditional step system which a lot of times use as well um there's some pros to this is it's the easiest to maintain uh everything's laid out you adjust it every year you don't really have to worry about Merit increases which is one of the cons to it as well you know everyone's treated the same so once you reach to the top there's no additional there's no incentive cuz you're at the very top step so you're going to get colds for the rest of your year there's no um no reason to kind of break through but it it it does allow people to plan and and see in the future what it's going to be um so that's that's another option you mentioned at some point about adjusting the the wage scale every year is what I think I'm understanding right so whatever was on say grade five step three that difference between a step three and a step four is that equal to what a cola would be no so if you're in a step five or grade five step three and you didn't do very well your grade five step three would just go up by 1% that year so along with the entire uh pay schedule so you would move everything up by a percentage plus the cola well the percentage is the is the cola so you're you're going to get the coal adjustment which isn't baked in right it's a variable that the select board would pick every year say if we said we want to do a 2 and 1/2% the current grade five step three would increase by 2% right but so with six and that person going from five would go to six and then I guess this 1% uhhuh okay because I think that I think in general that the way the the scale sort of currently is I think that the um what I going to say the distance if you will between the steps is usually been like 2% or maybe 3% we for years ago as a placeholder correct okay yeah yeah but I guess guess what I'm saying is if you up if you if you do this every year so we know an employee knows where they should be following on the next step but that so that's a step increase is there a cola on top of the step increase that's my question I guess yes yes if if so voted by the if voted by the S okay and funded does a cola uh is there any background information on a yearly Cola based on some federal guidelines or state guidelines there is there's not just we don't make it up we we so what I used to do is to reach out to the entire State and get maybe about 40 to 50 um examples of what people are are increasing their non-un employees by then I would also reach out to our comparable communities and see what generally they're increasing it by then you have the um the Bureau of Labor Statistics with um you know their regular um you know cost of Labor things like that so I mean traditionally we've been like 2 or 2 and a half% because that's the maximum we can actually to afford right so I came from Private Industry but um we always have the opportunity for management to give bonuses is that not going to happen in the municipal sphere it it can I I'm familiar with that and it can happen uh we just need to have a system to do it okay do you see that as something that would be part of this because when you reach the top you know that's get cola that's it well it depends on which one of these we choose though right but the top as the assistant right you're now driving you to become the department head right so I mean you keep going up I mean if you if you're the but sometimes department head positions don't come open you know the guy that's or the woman that's the department head why what we need the evaluations and we need it documented we need to be able to go back right no I think that's the challenge we haven't been you doing that very well and being consistent across the board I think is a goal that we need to definitely set out there but yeah go ahead so if we like on what Cindy said if we had like our assistant Town accountant and they're brand new to position then they get all the credentials and do really good over a period of years they get more education and they get their certificates then that might be a place where we do a a standing in the range adjustment so maybe they go from a step three to a step five or something like that uh a bonus would be um you know Bradley's fixing all these things with the with the budget and he spent a month and a half burning the midnight oil um and he did really good so we're going to give a sum of money whatever that's based on that won't affect his salary or retirement or anything like that it's a separate amount of money so it's kind of like a two two like two level so like the first example you would give just a bonus to because you would want to keep that person sure okay all right uh so that's uh the my recommendation for the three things that the select board um for for person guidance and then the next question is where do we what what are our goals for the next one to three years um you know where do we want to be in comparison to our other communities uh if we have a market that's considered 100% and these are comparable communities from you know East Hampton and beler toown and grany and Hadley you know do we want to be exactly there do we want to be a little bit below a little bit above um I've you know been here six seven months and we we have lost some people due to compensation but we've also been able to get some really good people too so we kind of have to decide what we're looking at so when I have a similar process at the agency we make that we answer that question by position mhm it's not certain positions we want to be at 105% other positions we may only want to be at 95% depend on you know is there only is does are there 10 people currently in that position bigger pool if it's a unique job you know I'm thinking you know like laborers at the highway department if we were fully H HED there four of course they're not under this scale so that's a bigger group of people versus the highway superintendent who you know there's different priorities on on where we want you could argue we should want to retain everybody at the same level but I just throw that out there that sometimes it's by classification or by grades H to be considered it's a good thought I guess my original thought would be that we'd be slightly under the median and that would be something that work toward M you know whether that's 90% or whatever that is one to three years yeah and certainly this isn't it's not set in stone so it's going to be a multi-year process where we're going to have to evaluate it and take a look and see where we moving and are we you know where do we want to be also you we have to treat exempt and non-exempt separately uh because a lot of times you know exempt employees because they are you know more on the Range and non-exempt are on steps you know there is a difference in in market so going back to what we saw you know our exempt employees are a little bit closer to where they should be than our non-exempt right um so do you want to set you know set the bar a little bit differently for each one of those right but but under I don't disagree with that but I'd also say I mean how many exempt employees do we have eight of which are nine of which four of them are under employment contracts yeah so I so I would expect those four that you know create those employment contracts those should be on par with their peers M close right so again another breakout group because those that have the employment contracts there's other incentive compensations within that other than just their annual salary mhm yeah so we might need a a two tier system right there yeah I mean you know perfect example you know Equity right Fire Chiefs got heated seats the police chief doesn't you know so that's worth something I'm telling you it's a bone of contention between this I bet our police chief was always in the hot seat um yeah but but you're probably going to get to this but this this is wonderful because finances is important but it isn't the only reason people come to work someplace or stay and so are you going to talk about that or is this all Financial today I I think we have to look at everything as a package too I mean we we have great health insurance but the problem is we don't really advertise that and people don't think about that when they a lot of people don't look at that yeah exactly so we pay 80% right but our actual plans are really good no no I know but even the percentage % is great but I mean considering we don't have a deductible and most expensive thing is 250 yeah it's like that that's like 20 years ago the normal plan so it's really really and this might be this might be executive session but it's like it'd be my for to get an answer from me on this where are we now and that's percentage what's the dollar impact to get to say the 100 hypothetically you say we're at 87 okay well what's the dollar impact to get to 90 95 and 100 1 2 3 year um and then at the 90 this number is this that represents how much much of the current well that's only a one a quarter increase over our existing weight okay to your point earlier Chris we know we can kind of go two 2.5 yeah before we even touched the money we've already set aside you know so the pre-plan that we've already done assuming a 2 and 1 half% increase and the additional funds we have I guess from where we are now where does that put us and that would kind of like be in my mind our Max for year one and we'd want that or something less to start and then phase into it right to phase yeah no I think it's got to be a sort of a phase system yeah I would agree with that so I I could probably start doing a 90% do the cost analysis and do all the wages on that and then see where that kind of goes and then if want to go further or yeah shorter and I can kind of guesstimate once we get you and you get my point about what's the percent you know if we're paying 100,000 now and to go there is going to be 110 right well that's a 10% increase on wages right so we know we can't really afford that right off the bat but and I'd like to see that not just in year n plus one but I'd like to see it 10 years out because we're building an escalating structure and if I mean directly to the extent we're successful at long-term retention of employees our costs go up in a nonlinear fashion so you know at least 5 years but if you figure out what that increment is in percentage then you got three lines if we're going to 9 90% or 95 or somewhere else M okay good so does that get you enough answers tonight to move forward or we still need to answer the other uh the other question the other question so the so that last the other one the other one with the Merit up in the top section yeah no that this one here so I like no yeah that's the Merit one this isn't the green The Greenway version the one that has hybrid yeah the hybrid I guess okay this one there we go yeah no no just more easily expressed only exempt whatever Town had already this one this is the one all right so so I like this approach but I'd have to know which position is in what line item for example like I could see you know 12 through 16 they might be be consolidate the department heads that have employment contracts that section there but but those that don't have employment contracts there just follow because they're they're you know the director of the library doesn't have a employment contract right now so what is you know would one of those lines 1 through 11 be for the Librarians so the librarian trustees could go forward they may make an argument later on that well we want that Merit range in there to be able to reward and things of that nature but yeah once we rank the positions and there's you know ABCD EFG where all of them kind of fit in uh and you come to an agreement on that you can say position ABCD yeah or ABCDE and then like I think and this is where I come back to elected officials that are compensated they need to be on a grade and a step and that's it and then at town meeting that gets voted and and if the town wants to move them up they can move them up we can say this is you have to take the vote but here are the steps going up right um but any increase to an elected official being paid should be um pulled out of the cumulative budget Spotlight shined on it and said because these are the wages for your elect and most and you brought this up before most communities that's the first line on you're going to set the wages for your employees and elected officials and you list who the elected officials are CU I don't feel comfortable with us doing we don't elect them yeah right so it's up to the voters to determine whether there's Merit raes or increases or evaluations quite do they there's no there's no evaluation there's no performance evaluation for them under under M General law an elected official every three years but under Mass General law an elected official only has to be in the building one day out of the year and they get their full pay whether they do anything or not right and so I think it's up to the voters to decide yep you you earned an increase this year so we'll put this forward or all will leave you where you are yeah the on the back on one thing you said so from say the 13 from at the sideways here from 13 to 16 why wouldn't all the department heads be in that one whether they're contractual or not cuz I think the four people the four current positions that have employment contracts there's a lot of um it's more than just the wage right that's in there that we don't permit other department heads to have right in my mind those four positions are considered key positions that I would argue need to be above the 100% okay because if any one of those four spots went open we we'd have a problem not necessarily I mean any department head that leaves but they're more key positions and so how then does the in the Merit range how does the 5 6 7 89 how do we determine this well they probably every time you hired somebody the new value there I mean the new but you probably already you would probably always hire somebody at step for it uhhuh because again you're talking about the highway superintendent the fire chief the police chief Town Administrator I I don't think they're coming in on step one yeah right because we're going to want somebody has experience but at some point so based on the Merit then you're going to be giving them something for step five whatever that was how negotiated through the through their Employment contract with everything else and it just tells us what the ceiling is because there was a oh okay a final step in there right yeah yeah there was yeah that's the maximum it can be that's a little bit different than the slide before then M yeah slide before I gave it to everybody potentially and I would argue if it's there employees are going to make an argument no I'm I'm entitled to that because it's right there in my slip steps but they still have to have a better than satisfactory performance appraisal that has to be developed nor and right now if we pass this it's up to PPP to conduct that and enforce that which includes two employees well right of which would be covered yeah they're covered on this so it' be a conflict I would think but oh you would have one would be subordinate to Department their department and actually I take that back cuz I pretty sure we gave Bradley we gave the town of C an employment contract yeah he's on a contract so those not on contract is the assessor the treasury collector The Building Commissioner the health director Library director COA director and town clerk two of which are elected two of which are elected it's so the four contractual ones are there's Bradley was makes Five Town Administrator Police Chief Fire Highway superintendent water also yes but water super yes but the fact that that's a different kind of fund doesn't put them here that's where my mind goes it says it's the Enterprise yeah Enterprise I don't I don't think their his current wages are on there but I don't know okay so what's the third question so is that oh is that get you what you need or are we focus on the hybrid what's everybody think so not this one but the next one one is that what you're saying I'm in favor of the next one anybody thoughts either one but this is we're still doing the multiple grades and steps it looks so complicated why would we go back to the one that doesn't have all the numbers in it with the Merit thing the yellow one no the other one with the yellow bar so that's got 13 how does this get that's that's still to have how does it the other one is just the example from Needum is that's why the numbers are there right I see so this is still going to have numbers in it so when you're know you're an employee you come in and you know say you're a D4 you're going to be able to look at a scale and say okay next year I should be at a D5 this one gives everybody the opportunity for the Merit increase which sounds fair to me correct it gives everybody the chance to have a merit increase yeah not just the exempt employees that's just strikes me as this is exemp this is only exempt not hourly right oh sorry yes these are the exempt on that's right so what's the difference between the two my argument would be key employees you have more flexibility flexibility to retain them and nonke employees who are still department heads would have a logical progression So you you're in fav of the NM example yeah with obviously the Southampton numbers one more time please need numbers yeah because like grade 16 number 11 that's got to be super superintendent of schools usually a Chief Financial Officer not in South Al no no that's yeah so this is just the exempt but then for the non-exempt we do a similar yeah okay and then again each year the you know step one 2177 would go up by 2% in theory or 2 and a half% as app to the whole thing they would go from one to two so not only they getting the cost of living adjustment that gets apply to everybody but they're getting whatever the difference between 2177 and 2256 is percentage wise yeah yeah I I like this the higher it's the hybrid those two approaches with the exempt and non-exempt and I think my my comment would be to get the place where we can use the hybrid approach where there's a merit range for um exempt employees we're going to need that HR component in place where we have the capability to do the performance reviews that's something we don't have right now so I can see how we can handle the non-exempt employees this this similar to what we do now but there's another step there like you guys said I think there'd have to be some other bylaw changes right because right now we have depart we have some department heads to report to a commission or board so it goes back to that 2016 restructure of town government which is first the chicken of the egg yeah which is first a b question chicken feed yeah really do we are we giving Scott the answer I think the hybrid yes option for that let's see what it looks like anyway and then if we if we don't like it we'll send you back I I've always happen to be outvoted I have no problem with no I mean I think it's worth taking a look at and see it's easy to go to the other direction well yeah but honestly in in that tone if it's easy to look at then I want to look at all three options then let's populate them all not just focus on one yeah well but but on the back to Cindy's point I guess so even though we were looking at the non-exempt scale which doesn't have anything that says Merit in it yeah that's true if somebody had an outstanding performance appraisal mhm they'd be able to jump maybe two steps rather than just one step no if we deigned that a lot of Union contracts might have that where you don't get a new Step until you get a performance review yeah and then if you have an exceptional performance review you can skip two steps yeah but I'm not even talking Union people just you're basic non adopt the same language right and put it into the so they'd have a chance to to have a a bonus if you will I used to work for Bay State Health Systems with you know thousands of employees and they were hourly employees but they were highly compensated professionals so if you're if you're if you would if you did really well you'd get your normal step anyway but if you did really really well you could maybe potentially get a second step on even the non-exempt scale so that that kind of equates in my head anyway to to this hybrid model right a bit so like using a fixed step scale but the the increases could be based on actual performance reviews that's right yeah cool I mean I mean the the one step would be standard but if you did better than that that would allow us well okay so I could go along with that if you eliminate the merits because there's too much it's all in the eye of the person doing the evaluation and they may be good but you've got to get past the select board and you know there could be three members that get elected because they they got a bon contention with one person I mean it's happened before it's happened here it's happened in other towns sure sure you know it's so doing it this way and hey you got the evaluation everybody jumps a step then maybe it should be so you're not for merit um increases huh well for I'm for merit only if we have a dedicated HR we don't have that in place right now but how close are we to getting something like that get it next to budget this next year Well a few months away yes I mean there's that but there's also you know comcom is going to want more money for their part-time position and then was is plan planning we're talking about trying to do a combination plan conom person or something like that yeah right and in theory we we should be adding if we stick to our plan we should be adding at least two more paramedics right to to get that that's a separate wage scale which that Chief has been working on apparently yeah so I I don't know if there's room to add that extra person yeah on the other commitments we've already made yeah can we not add it no we have to have it that's what I see I think we're going to really truly implement this it it can't be done by pqb this has got to be done by Green we're expecting all these things from Scott and you can't spend all this time doing yeah Scott just to ask for another thing I think of this consideration is thinking through the steps of to get to implementation if we were to say have that Merit that does include getting some type of HR staff to to do the calibration between the scoring from different people and all that great stuff um how we could how we could get there because I I think there a couple steps we have to take a road yeah road kind of thing yeah which will be useful when it comes down to sell it to the town right yeah that's true we'll have to figure it out sometime sure yeah exactly that's a good point and I think I won give up my year pay like how much are you making I want double zero transparency exactly you get two zeros I get one yeah no no I think that that's a point I you know getting some sort of an idea of how long it's going to take us to get there I mean I think we really want to you know we've been people have been waiting for adjustments so I mean I think your point of doing something in November we got to act on something as least for the non-exempt people if nothing else I mean we've got to at least do something right um and make make some adjustments there but I think you know for a performance appraisal system and honestly I haven't looked at the pqb handbook lately to see how well defined that is in terms of the the form that people are supposed to use and the different categories that are there I know there's some template that people are supposed to use as department heads but I don't know you really defining at it really defining you know what's satisfactory what's what's basic what's satisfactory What's um meritorious and what's you know outstanding some of that honestly just likey owns that right because the select board mandates that the Town Administrator conduct these evaluations but so we of those that report to him but right but did our predecessors ever actually develop one to say this is the one you shall do yeah I believe so okay well there's a starting point yeah yeah now I'll have to go back and dig it out but I know there were some that were re used yeah anyway we'll get on a floppy disc somewhere yeah is a tablet to ask a silly question but yes um is there possibility of to to make to get this rooll out it would be most efficient if we could we talked about a part-time HR person if we could start if we get that person on board sooner then they could start helping Scott work through this whole process I don't know how if you can we could get that I'd prioritize that over the land use conom Planner yeah what's the like sorry Chris what's the lik what's the timeline of free cash certification because we need a funding source in order to do that to yeah I'm just throwing it out there a couple months by Mar March February March I think maybe oh I hope so well earlier than that that that be the trigger for the special town meeting at which time we could ask for that money and we still whether we use it or not we have that other 76,000 that we stuck in the capital account right for a potential vehicle yeah well and you know depending on where we end up trying to reconcile some of this arpa money you know we could temporarily do we we've got to re obligate anything we're going to reprogram by the end of December yeah got to be spent in two years when you're saying reconciliation I thought you were saying we're we overspent no no no no I'm sorry no just trying to still tweak figures and do we really have that amount left still working on it believe me um we could conceivably like we did with the conservation agent or with who else the planner person um fund that for x amount of time out of arpa money with the intent that we build it into a budget so I think we could find some money sooner rather than later because I'm relatively sure we will have some monies to reprogram are we going to get some more didn't I hear from the government no no no no no no it was a a warning to hurry up and get it obligated before you lose it that's what I saw there might have been something else but so I think there's a way to you know as we progress on this and we maybe go into more detail in an executive session on this we can talk about you know what would we need to get you know what would it cost us to get a part-time HR and that's that's why I like Dan thought about a little roadback it doesn't have to be much can be just a one sheet paper bullet point boom boom boom boom and then because then it's like okay so two days we we we work what s and a half hours in here MH a day so we talking about 15 hours if we're starting with a 2-day a week person yeah you know you know what the annual salary is you so 40% of that is a start Point what is that number yeah is that in the arpa money or yeah how are we compensating dead Bradway for the finance Reserve fund Finance fund I'm just wondering yeah yeah the finance committee for that $1,200 yeah okay $1,200 to have her do this little cash y okay so are we done on this part right now M okay let us keep on thanks Scot for pulling this together I know you've been working on this a lot and I I think it's a it's a long overdue exercise and we are making progress It's not not quick but I I really do feel like we're we're moving forward on this so thanks for your work on this now to the next one that you've been chugging away at you want to take on the budget book idea yeah um so one of the things that when you look at our current budget how we do things there's not a lot of information um oh is you know the standard that I we're not going to get there anytime soon but the GFA has um guidelines to win an award uh for what what a a municipal budget could be um things like having a um you know goal setting exercises having an organizational chart uh defining you know what employees and the goals um what the strategies are for each one what the budget overview is um where do we get our funds and where do we spend them um the relationships you know what our financial policies are um and a lot of towns really have some great budgets like you know like Middleton really tells a story with their budget books so that citizens can can look at it easily find out exactly what do they spend money on where are their priorities what are they trying to accomplish or they not trying to accomplish um so that they can see you know telling the story of the department M um and then having a lot more information available where do they actually spend their money you know what the organizational chart is how many full-time employees do they have right things like that um here ex this is another one from uh stonum which is a little bit more text focused but has the goals has all the uh the accomplishment you know at least you know for people to see that so putting together a budget book is something I would like to kind of focus on this year it's going to take a little bit extra time but I think working with each department is definitely doable because a lot of the stuff that we already do is goes into the annual report and a lot of our departments also keep a lot of great stats that they're not really showing right um so focusing on you know what the department description is that's something that that be recycled every year um what changes happened in your FY 26 budget you know what are the highlights did you get a new employee did you have an emergency did you have to buy a new vehicle things like that you know where are you getting your Revenue in Grants did you see an increase in your fees did you get a a $25,000 hybrid vehicle grant for this year things like that um and and that should be really highlighted and then what are your accomplishments and successes and then also what are some of the potential issues that are be coming up in the next year or two or three or four or five you know are we going to have a lot of re retirements are we going to have a need for extra Capital funding are we going to have five police cruisers that are going to be broken down all that once um are we going to have to do resources in technology things like that very basic one paragraph things just to kind of map it out and then being able to put everything together uh to visually show it onto that um so looking at our actual budget kind of talk I was talking you know I'm talking to Bradly on this but looking at ways that we can better make it both easier and um more transparent for our departments yeah when you when you look at our current way that we do it you know director wages expenses you know director wages expenses we need a little bit more clarity on that so you know what are the you know what does the councel AG spend on technology what kind of Grants do they have how much they spend on on the meal you know major things we don't want to get into where how many uh boxes of pencils they're buying right but at least a little bit more of a description but the COA is a perfect example um COA the library in Norris specifically that none of those three are 100% funded from the general taxation right and so like you know Norris tried to do it last year where they break that down here's our here's our real number that we need here here's how we're offsetting with the grants and all that and what they're going towards here's the Bott number that comes in I think on the COA the same thing needs to be happen because it's always like the comment is always well we're not even paying 100% of the director okay but I don't see that on the sheet of paper I I'll see it with here but under our current setup you don't see it there you don't see the f frta um $28,000 grant that pays for 100% of the van drivers right right um so painting the full picture they operate those like separate departments rather than integrated into their program and and then when you go to the voters and say we need a little bit more why do they need more money they're always doing this what but here's their true budget yeah you know no I think it's true yeah and then giving the historical context um you know so people actually see you know we have that now but with with the changes over Last 5 Years so that you can see like oh the postage increases 14.29% well that's how that's crazy I mean oh wait a minute it's only $125 and that's because the St up qu so it's easier for people to read and see what do you think about under Staffing here putting FTE counts uh I'm in favor of that I put it right here oh yeah okay down the bottom yep um so that you can see historically what what changed yeah like on this one the administrative assistant well yeah that's why it went up so much because you got you made a full-time position or two part- ERS yeah right and so many of our are part time you know they're not really full-time so that that would be the budget book and this is just the individual Department um if you look at other budget books there's a lot more work that goes into the general uh you know how much do we take in for Revenue where does it go things like that yeah some of that would be I mean you know it's going to be time consuming I guess that would be a challenge on it but I I did skim through both the east east I think it was and uh and stonum whichever ones you had up there and there are pages of it that I thought would be really helpful for a resident hell who wanted to to read it and understand you was like well where where's this revenue from the state where are we getting from the state and you know how do we oh my goodness so so I think there's there's pieces of that book I mean the one that was like 270 pages I think is a bit much but I think there's chapters of it we might be able to modify and you know downsize a little bit to what we need to present that information because I think it would just really help people understand better and it also helps for the coming year that year you're in when we're applying for Grants you can go right here copy and paste and pull it out yeah it is a mountain to get this the first year and second year but by the third year it's just update this number if you start with everything you already produce and what you want to have on hand to respond to an opportunity then you build the motivation y to get on board with developing something like that and does this automatically become the interal report yeah well that's what occurring to me why yeah good very well yeah so the other goal that I want to make sure we're tracking is that the budget uh that gets presented in the warant for annual town meeting ought to be simplified and higher level yeah with this kind of thorough background available for people who want to dig into it so a smarter man suggest that than me there's yes generally in favor but I just want to be careful there's there's pros and cons oh yeah so if you if we didn't do this if you so right now like I'll use the police chief since he's here because he's all by line item yeah he can't automatically take officer wages and put it into overtime because he's got a cover for somebody or vice versa it's listed by line item he's got to get approval if you collapsed all of it if you collapse it department head is free to do whatever they want in between the two regardless of who the department head is with Town account approval right or you could you could break it down so even those that are bound up with Union contracts and stuff like that yeah that's the flexibility you remind me what the motivation was so I would say yeah but it's it's wages yeah and expenses so you can't take oh you know I didn't have to buy that 40,000 cop this year so what would yeah what would those line items not to write a blank check it's just to get the annual 10 voter to focus on the high level and if they W to serve on the finance committee we got a seat for them we what where I used to work it was like that so you couldn't you couldn't move you couldn't budget shift between categories yes yeah correct but you could budget shift between line items so even though the line items were listed they were just an indicative list I mean they were real but I mean they they weren't well why just Police Department a million bucks no no I agree but what I was going to say is what we did was say that you know if you wanted to shift between I don't know position a and position Z or whatever it was like a 3% anything over a 3% or 5% had to come to somebody else to take a look at but there was a certain amount of flexibility that you could just shift between line items you know as the department head y but you couldn't do category to category within your budget so I think there's a way to if we don't have good uniform information every department head could cck the Bucks and we need a fin I me it can be a risk too so I mean I think we have to build in the right some sidebars but something simpler for the average f for the Department to be able to manage and not feel like they're they're constrained with with uh every little nickel and dime in their budget they have to manage it obviously but not to you know say mother mayi every time they need to shift something Dan you were going to say something oh I was just going to say something John mentioned earlier you know thinking about this and I think you know you have a lot of you have a lot of great aspirations and I say I I would try to aim for this over the next maybe 3 years and first Focus using on I know that we have a lot of difficulties just getting our budgets together right let's try build our foundation of being able to to adequately or appropriately get our budgets together and then how do we present that information and things like that so you know I'd say don't don't ere extend yourself although I know you have great aspirations that's all I want to mention yeah I think we could try to take a few steps toward this idea though for this this coming budget year I think that would be great to do I think that would be good structure has come from Central yeah I mean we you know we've been talking about kind of restructuring our budget process anyway and we've never really you know grabbed onto something that made any sense so this is at least uh giving us something to look at so okay so we'll hear more about this going forward yeah so we don't need to discuss more of it tonight is that right or yeah uh just the budget calendar so depending on you know I'm going to I'm trying to work on actual dates So eventually get to this no um but this was just a general overview we're a little bit behind already but surprise the chief's actually going to do a zerob based budgeting uh for our department head meeting on Thursday so he's going to go over that good uh so we can check that off as well um but I would like I would love to get the guidelines and and kind of have start having meetings with the fincom just to get an overview of where we're going to be looking start getting the revenue estimates early just so if there are any emergencies or anything like that and right I know the representative of Senator said that we're in a good Financial state but still there's a hiring freeze and they had ni he cuts so yeah it really isn't the rainy day fund just uh over taxation of the citizens that they chose to hold on to the money you know just saying how' you get the money to start with it wasn't on lottery tickets was a lot of lottery tickets but so Scott I think one thing that if we can hold to I would really love to see us you know be able to have budget submissions in December you know before Christmas if we can do that that would put us so much further ahead than we usually are yeah um so I think whatever we can do to try to make do these these two parallel I mean they're parallel it's the budget calendar but then the budget book mhm how how much support and by support I mean labor um could you possibly get from the finance committee you know teaming up with them to to work this out I mean it's some more bodies that um I mean Reggie and um I forget his Doug and Becky yeah I mean just their backgrounds are Naturally Fit for numbers and presentation is that a five person committee that we just lost one from yes we' only had so we've only got a quorum available right now if they all show up right okay so we got to get some more people we we only had four and we've lost one so we're at three now and then John you're a you're a a me delegate but you're not a not a voting member if you get down to two and it's within 60 days of the calendar year of our year ending KP law has given us a legal opinion that we can appoint select board members but only during that last 60 day emergency yeah yeah but but back to your thing about having the finance committee with the expertise that is on there yeah help out with some of this that might yeah yeah if they will so again we might need a joint fincom meeting sometime soon too as we think anyone ever use doodle yeah okay so I might be sending out some doodle stuff uh just for the next 6 months uh but if we can have if we can like set a few dates just for joint meetings I think it'd be most efficient whether you want to do it over a couple nights or do as a bandaid and do it over one long one long night to do like budget presentations and things like that I like when um when we when we met when we get into the budget which months are we talking about we're talking February March yes February and March where we met every Tuesday yeah but on the off Tuesday it was only budget Materia only finance and budget stuff yeah only budget stuff that was as a starter and if we need more meetings but at least then we can plug it into our calendar you know and we really focus was that driven by essentially a vacant finance committee or was it just for that cross-pollination of issues well I think it was we we could we didn't have the bandwith the fitted in during our normal meetings at the time so we broke that out why did the select board have to carry such a heavy love cuz even though our bylaw says the finance committee with the town ad Ministry put it together my four years on the select board it hasn't happened the finance committee has in my time is I don't think they've ever presented so how honest are we going to be in the budget book anyway lack of volunteers gos this year no but I think we've got some folks on the budget Comm on the finance committee that you know have got some some good skills that could help us do this this time but we haven't really had a very solid finance committee for a bit and so that's been part of our problem I was just getting encouraged and we lost chair I think sharing the calendar with them showing them the path um I think all three of them are going to be on board and you know can we find two more people to put on as good as the first three so I think you know the challenge you know too is that when we when we had these meetings this off off Tuesday meeting just for the budget you know we were really focusing on the bigger departments coming and presenting their budgets and then there were couple of others that came in I know Lucy wanted to do hers and I forget somebody else that you know were not necessarily the bigger departments but you know it really helped to you know just focus on that and not not have anything else to to talk about and not to have every department head come and do it to the finance committee and then come and tell it to the select for too which is one thing that we did one of my earlier years which was a nightmare um so this I think you know worked out pretty well to have a joint meeting and have a presentation to both boards at the same time but good okay all right okie dokie are we set to move on that that's it okay let's jump into thank you Chief uh let's jump into uh revenue and expense report um and I think I'm going to maybe answer part of Steven's question but maybe not um so we have expenses through June the way I'm reading this report and with that that shows the general fund at uh 1.5 million overspent but that's because revenues I believe only go through the end of May on this report so I guess that's our challenge we don't still we're we're still behind to get through fiscal 24 on this so but I know that's been worked on so maybe since this report came out we've got some other updates on the revenue reports Scott it's also with the bridge funding as well that kind of threw it off as well with the uh the expense report oh um so there's 1.5 million that we had to carry on the bridge that wasn't accounted for oh uh I know JY is up to July and possibly August I'm we're meeting again on Thursday for the revenue for the revenue y so I do know she's done with the fiscal year I just haven't sure how hopefully by October it's already October um October one so you're good so that was kind of the goal to get close to our you know 100% caught up okay um so I'm going to meet with Jen so but you're pretty confident that July is done so we should be seeing a new budget report excuse me from Bradley that really puts fy2 24 in perspective then more more clearly because this does show a lot of negatives or so F you looked at the bottom line just to clarify I was looking I think beyond the annual fund to the multi-year funds the special purpose accounts and I although I'm warrant clerk uh and I see the one toone matching between an invoice and a special purpose um I don't know um the restrictions on these funds and whether we have retired ones that are done MH whether in a sense the uh balance it's showing on this big comprehensive list is reliable yeah and I think part of this doesn't really get complete until we're complete with the revenue report because so much of that is the carryover from last year that ties into this so that's that was going to be my question the starting budget numbers in the in the fiscal year 25 reports which I don't think we we have here I think we this 24 that got sent out I think to us so that's been some of the issue I know with certain of the Committees planning board for one concom few other CPA you know it's like well what what was our carry into the fiscal year and and so because that thing has always been behind it's been very tough for those groups to even manage that budget those revolving funds they have or special Revenue funds or whatever they may have thank you but then I think a lot of and anybody correct me I think a lot of the revolving funds in particular am I not right or am I thinking something else um kind of thinking the revolving funds but it may be some of the others where they basically are able based on or might be some of the special Revenue funds they can only spend the interest they can't spend the principal depending on on however that would have the restrictions for purpose so all that would explain it too it's like well why does it look like you've got $40,000 in your budget you're not spending it why are you coming to us for more money but point of that is is how these things were were originally you know designated and set up and maybe more the uh Grant accounting forces some irregularity apparent on our books the cemeter funds the aler funds funds what about the Board of Health don't they revolving fund too that's different so revolving fund they can spend up to the authorized amount of amount they're authorized to spend but they have to first collect the receipts okay so right now they should be starting soon on using that revolving fund because we gave them a little bit of seed money through the first quarter to cover that contractor expense for agent the contract for Charlie and so that should be starting pretty soon now to start using this cuz I'm hearing they don't have enough money that's what I'm surpris surprise we keep heing that a lot but anyway we'll see I mean they have to you know they're charging the fees yeah so that's the idea they need to charge the fees and make it work um okay so anyway I don't know if there's other questions on the budget so I think not not worth it belaboring now it's encouraging to know that we're probably through July on Revenue that's great so let's assume that on at least on we've got two more meetings this month let's assume that certainly by the end of this month we have 24 tidied up and you know our second meeting meting our third meeting rather um that we really have the a good status of what our revenue and and stuff is because then that one will be ready and I I really do want to well we'll get to it in a minute but I I do want us to sign I don't know why our Auditors want us to hold off but I I really do want us to sign our engagement letter for FY 24 there no reason not to sign there's no reason not to sign it as far as I can understand so unless they only if they're going to resend it if they're think about resending it that's why they don't want to sign so as as we leave this subject um I I just would like to mark my follow-up question that at some point I'd like uh to know and it doesn't need to be be before the whole select board it could be a finance committee or whever just give me notice that there's going to be an educational walkth through of those special purpose accounts yeah hopefully that would be part of the budget process yeah that would be good so yeah if it becomes a line item on your calendar I'm covered thank you the non- department funds up you know like grants and you know the debt and all that stuff should be a separate yep right exactly it should be with a little bit of luck it will be that okay uh all right next um arpa financials um I know Bradley's gotten a whole lot closer with the few things on the school um and we're just trying to some of the payroll things are not quite right yet so Jen is running a u payroll report on the names of the seven eight teachers I think that are involved just to be sure that we've captured everything because they hadn't been very regular at identifying which project our for project they were doing when they turned in their revenues uh or turned in their payroll slips last year so I'm not going to say that we've got lots of money there but we should have some money there and we have I think the first reimbursement has finally gone in you've heard me talk about the storm water um the cul grant that uh randle's been working on with tyan Bond where we had to put out the full amount of the money and yet we're supposed to get $84,000 back from the state uh the first reimbursement has gone into the state Scott I'm thinking it was $58,000 so we should be getting that back in so I'm pretty sure we're going to have $58,000 for real coming back into our cers and then there's little dribs and drabs from we should have said that start with for the HR spot well I want keep a surprise until we see it I don't want to it um and then a couple other smaller ones uh we had put in a little bit of extra money just cuz we thought we might need it for the famous classification plan and a little bit for the green communities so that's like another 6,000 that we're not going to use out of our so we're you know we're probably in the low 60s easily I'm I'm pretty thinking that we're good on um but um you know we'll we'll get more clear so I I'm still committed to getting between Jen and Scott and Bradley and I we will get get that nailed down to the can I ask about the famous classification plan did that yes so Scott you want to talk to that about the bill on that one have we where did we go in that we are still in negotiation still in negotiation okay but definitely not what was the they wanted well 21,000 21,000 we yeah so there's they're sending us a new bill and I'm not sure if I'll accept that or not okay so and what was the original contract that we didn't contractual amount that we weren't I think it was 20 22 or 22 22 oh they wanted all in they wanted yeah no they wanted full yeah yeah Grumble Grumble that was a definite no they got that message but I don't know how much they're going to be willing to come down on um so I think that's um that's probably necessary um and we may need um from what we're looking at I think Scott on the um from the public safety building committee we may need maybe another 20,000 um to cover some redesign work for on the U planning Architects um so we might need that out of our public safy for the public safety building committee right so we've got some uses but I I want to get certainly if if not by next meeting then definitely by the end of the month to know exactly what we've got so that we can entertain any any new Awards any new proposals in November uh to get this awarded I definitely do not want to leave any money on the table um this all needs to get awarded to something viable obviously so we're getting there but not quite ready to say this is exactly how much money we're going to have as Surplus right now okay um jumping down so land use planner Scott you already kind of gave us an update on that we've got three entities you guys are looking at interviewing scoring and hopefully they should all be uh the initial ones should be under 50,000 so we want through RFP great good all right and College Highway property closing again um you mentioned that already that that's already a done deal and uh so we actually do own the property now uh which is congratulations amazing amazing yeah is there the press release on any of that I can't remember what we the boils want a press release the boils family does not want a press release they did not want a lot of publicity but to the extent that The Gazette or the reminder approach us and I think we ought to talk about the closing of the property um that's a worthy news article and I think would mention certainly the gift in there that's fine they just didn't want special special attention that was their now that we own it did we notify our insurance we did we don't have to adjust it because it's just land no structures so I talk we self-insured for general liability with all the tour guided tours the S boards over there and the fact that I lost my life in that property because of the two two in a row I nearly lost you George what oh I told you this was grown up and first George went down when they had him out there and then well I got caught in the vines that wasn't a problem it was it wasn't the vines as much as the fact that it was completely surrounded like with poison ivy I couldn't reach down to try to get my boot out cuz I was going to get poison yeah it's the worst the worst right moment yes okay so we're self-insure for General Life I do need a little listed yeah well we we actually I mean we may as well we have an Ask into the um yes recent previous owner to see if he might mow it one more time there I know it's well the recent previous owner made a big thing about all the equipment he's got he's got the equipment so we'll see be willing I got a brush hog I can drive down that's liability I'm worried okay uh next one up a letter of support for pvpc in the HUD Pro housing gra I MO we approve the letter of support that's harmless yeah so this potentially beneficial right so this is uh pvpc is basically trying to um applying for a HUD Pro housing Grant so would focus it would provide pvpc with five years of funding to update Regional land use and housing plans and support municipalities in completing state approved hous housing production plans and other things so they're asking if we would sign on as a municipality so I need a motion to do that second and a second okay any discussion when do they get the money um they need the letter before the 10th so we can get that done I don't think they say when the money would is this discretionary or all but certainty you uh it says uh they are applying for head pro housing HUD Pro housing Grant so I I think it's an application process I don't know I have no more questions um when that when that might um when yeah come do but uh so this is the first day of the new fiscal year so all those in favor of approving the signing of the letter all those in favor I I all right very good we will get that done and into there um any other necessary business that can't wait until the October 15th regular meeting it's have all the boards signed off on the status of 177 178 Brickyard Road notice of um what it's with a receiver and whether the receiver has completed the cleanup I don't know how about that I don't know who signed off for our Board of Health agent or you talk about contractor has it's been pretty cleaned up down when I go by it's pretty clean up the cleanup is done I think clean Up's done but I I I wonder if you got my response Charlie said what do you think and I was driving dog walk daily dog walk details so I pulled in and took a bunch of pictures and they have taken an unbelievable crap load of Stu no there's been a ton of stuff but what's left is the filthy fragments of all different kinds of porcelain plastic metal that is in the soil that needs a different approach to get it out of there I said something like a stone rake that landscapers use sure and then at the you know they pulled what they could with a Grappler but some of the stuff more nearly got pushed and I think the um conservation agent ought to take a look that from a conservation perspective they're happy with the boundary condition but then to stabilize this site and I don't know on Whose dime um now that it's raw dirt it's a weed magnet and if it's not stabilized with relatively inexpensive conservation mix and normal care and control if we don't do it this fall by Springtime the only thing will be weeds out of our ability to control so it'll become a source for for this kind of problem it might be an issue for kcom to take up you guys are meeting sometimes too other way to secure it is with Boulders on the Frontage otherwise it will simply get more mattresses yeah nothing has come before us so I think it's all been Board of Health whomever yeah okay I think Charlie was looking specifically to certain committees for their sign off I don't think we've heard that though outside of what you've heard okay anyway okay old business uh Hazard mitigation Plan update Scott you guys had a meeting we had a meeting and then we're hoping to do a presentation for just like board uh with which is also going to be a public meeting as well um hopefully we have m phes by then um either October 29th or November 15th I don't know if there's a preference okay um that that we would like to have it on November 15th if they can fulfill special requests okay I have a song request I understand that they model um some of the hazards such as the family or the dam on only system um presumably they also model um high impact storms mhm and I don't know what degree of resolution but I would request that they turn the model Up Until It Breaks and look at the extreme conditions because 20 in of Rin is certainly an extreme condition and I don't know maybe the model really doesn't understand anything more than 3 to 5 in in a event but I would truly like to see what happens as the model breaks because that's what happened in North Carolina with it it's a terrible loss of infrastructure and yeah so much that we need to look at that but the failure of the dam however improbable that is it is one measurable impact you all had the guy from ta car here at the meeting did you not yeah we had hoyo Waterworks we're told that they did some modeling of that at some point basic yeah basically if the dam was to break the cause of that would be the least of our concerns uh because it' be a major earthquake um terrorist attack plane landing directly into the dam um 20 in of rain 20 in of rain uh but they actually I I I don't want to go into the details cuz I'll I'll not get correct with them but um they do monitor it based on what coming up in the in the couple weeks of weather so that they it's a great science of damn management yes I I have a lot of faith in that I'd like to hear the presentation I won't be here on October 29th so if it's possible to do do the 15th try for that or whatever the middle yeah because I think too and you know we can have it certainly downstairs and invite the public in or have it on a zoom or something so if people had questions or or what we want to do I get guess would have the to me I would want to have like the draft report up on on the website and if there's a way for for people to write in questions you know we give them a week or something if they they read it they have a question they can just jot in a question somehow and a some chat thing or something U so that we do get some Community feedback if there is any um I think that would be is our elist of pet peeves you know like my personal pothole that I want have the dress in really I was absolutely flabbergasted during one of these extreme thunderstorms it only lasts a half half an hour um Chief illingworth was driving back from North Dakota and I got him on the phone I said Chief you got to stop all the traffic on Route 10 because I turned around cuz the water was that deep at the river and wasn't the river had come out of its bank it's all water coming off of rivers side or Glendale whichever it is comes shooting down the hill and there's a low spot just south of the bridge I'm not talking about lime and smell I'm talking about up by up by booes well yeah and uh 6 8 10 in deep there just because of the volume of runoff not the backing up of the river um if you hit that at full speed and there was no indication that there was a hazard there you'd not have a good day for sure so that's my personal thought it actually happened and it was just a bad thunderstorm yeah okay okay uh stormwater Enterprise fund Scott oh yeah um we signed the contract with TI and bond um and that's where we are right now there no other right okay so so so the price they they came down okay so we got it within our I think we got it within our arpa money that we had allocated y so that's to determine how we can set up a a storm water Enterprise fund right uh and not have to budget it separately every time at $30,000 a year or whatever it is okay so in code that's how to create a separate Standalone tax that be pass on to collect money it will be okay it will be oh yeah um November 15th is a Friday night that's what you intended sometime in that that week October 15th or November 15th Oh I thought you said October 29th uh yeah that was one of the question C's not come here couple so go for live but I'm really not the most important but we'd have our next oh November 12th I'm sorry November 12th 12th be our next meeting Tuesday okay all right um after that Scott uh manhatt Meadows Bridge update so this is the um the bridge down at The manhatt Meadows Sanctuary uh any update on that one um no update they're doing the engineering right now so hopefully it should be very close to it so day who's doing the engineering the company the company that's going to put it in get build a bridge so I'm going to give you my two cents with I spent some time in Vermont this year and they had a ton of water up in Vermont as you might have known a lot of rain up there I was amazed at the bridges that came in on trucks like we talked like preed Bridges and they were put in I don't know about that $25 million or2 and A4 million dollar whatever is just kind of wonder about that quote sorry about that yeah now we're we went back to the actual manufacturer of the bridge and they're the ones working on doing something so the bridge Parts the easy Parts no I know it's the bridge I'm talking about the yeah they did it they put it in the bridge yeah well mon okay so that's that's ongoing we're hoping we'll get some updates on that in the next couple weeks and see where that goes okay because that's too that's part of that man uh Mass Trails grant that will expire so we want to try to get that used if we possibly can and get that done with concom uh Capital asset planning uh we're working on that a little bit um through the cost efficiencies uh committee and um taking a look at uh especially the fire police water Highway um 10year 5e at least but 10-year Capital plans that they currently have and we're going to take a look and see how they um sync up with assessors and accountant in terms of our actual vehicle inventory and other equipment inventory to make sure it's all correct and that we're paying what we should be paying for insurance on the right things and things that have been disposed of or need to be disposed of using that list to anticipate future purchase needs in that but along with that we had talked when we did the joint walkth through at Norris yes about doing what Scott called an envelope study correct yeah of at least Norris and then in and then that's where it started and then said can we incorporate all the town buildings so I I think that would be part of the capital asset too um at least maybe keep it on the yeah Forefront for when we do the budget what do we actually call it an envelope study yeah structural yeah okay good point yeah I forg about that okay I always forgetting about nor um I can't came the walk give me CR I came your M it's not Chris's biggest takeaway from it uh it's going to be it was 1952 yeah no the first se6 56 sorry Chris Chris's talk walk away from when we got that she goes I haven't been back here since I graduated when I was in sixth grade pretty much it is still the same yeah my point exactly anyway Surplus equipment disposal Judy's working on that we're getting uh a couple things up she's trying anyway with this website the municipal auction site yeah so if anyone's interested in 100 12-y old 15in Community computer monitors that's where you want to go exactly so we're going to slowly get those advertised I think they have to be advertised for a couple weeks or two three weeks or something and I'm not sure we're going to get bids on any of this stuff we'll just have to dispose it pay we have to pay but slowly we will slowly we will get them officially advertised so that we can officially dispose of them and clear out the basement plus other storage areas that other people have been hiding all their equipment in um sort of tripping over over time uh 23 status on the audit how we doing they came in and did their onsite y they did their onsite last week uh Monday Tuesday Wednesday and um they have some follow-up questions that we're trying to put together it issues um law lawsuits um legal the letter from our town counil that there's no pending lawsuits things like that so we're slowely getting all that stuff to them okay all right but our Historic Society stop sing us I say um and then green energy approval so they've received the um they received the the down payment or the payment Y for the materials so we're in their pipeline to get it scheduled okay so that's the installation again for the improved lighting over at the library stuff here police station and then the the master control board the controller board or something up at up at the school right so that Grant will be finally underway so that's that's good news to get that going um anything new on East Street section or anything I don't think there's anything there and a couple things Scott and I have been talking about and just we we were working on getting um the cement pad out in front of the uh steps done we had a quote but apparently they didn't use prevailing wage so we've got to go back and check that back again uh so a couple things like that are not on the list but there's some hanging issues we're still working on so with that uh Stephen I'll let you read the warrants and go for it favorite part of every me all right I would like to share with you all the warrants that have been signed since I last reported um they are P 25-6 the amount of $ 35,000 $358 next warrant W 25-7 the amount of $362,900 $ 6775 and I might note that that's probably our Hampshire Regional assessment payment it is okay PD 25-8 the amount is 20 uh 54,5 228 PD 25-8 a $246,600 60 over W 25-9 the amount 49,3 3446 W 25-10 the amount is$ 56,3 7451 P 25-10 the amount is $334,700 W 25-11 the amount is 2,414 51 82 PD 25-12 the amount $5 59,42520 PD 25-12 a the amount is 23155 79 respectfully submitted your warrant C all right very good off that com so exactly so all the payroll and all the vendor warrants and payroll deductions so thanks Stephen for doing that uh we have a couple of personnel change forms I'm going to suggest we take the three resignations as a group and the new hires as a group so somebody would like to motion to accept the following resignations all pcfs Deborah rodway resignation inter term COA director effective August 21st 2024 Dennis cynical wire department water technician resignation effective September 30th 2024 Eric Lo loo loo Police Department parttime police officer resid effect of September 5th 2024 okay we have a motion can I have a second second second by Dan all those in favor I okay uh motion to approve pcfs uh for the following folks Dano Dano Kevin or Kevin danero fire department new hire firefighter/emt basic non-benefited on call as needed $18 42 cents per hour and Thomas Kennedy accounting assistant accountant new hire part-time non Ben at grade three step 12 $24.7 an hour second okay second by Dan okay all those in favor I I okay uh and just a question um when would Thomas start to work with Bradley is he ready to go he's ready to go he's just waiting for this vote so okay great it' be nice to have that position fi very good high the retire good okay and our next select board meetings are the 15th and the 29 coming out retirement uh and uh that's what we got going and uh let's get going I move we adjourn I think there's nothing else yeah we adjourn and go to Executive session there's did I read it wrong oh that'll be next but we could delay the Cannabis one oh oh okay I thought that's well it was on the original that was one we that REM it yeah we're going to adjourn so I had a motion to adjourn second netive all right all those in favor hi all right we are adjourned at um watch out watch out time is it somebody tell me against 850 uh 8 no I'm sorry 9 no 8:44 thank you 8:44 we arej thank you this government meeting is brought to you by eastw works and our local cable subscribers