##VIDEO ID:Tf8zccQCVjc## hereby call to order this regularly scheduled meeting of the Sunderland select board the time is 6:33 p.m. our first order of business today is going to be to approve uh two batches of minutes for the November 12th and the November 25th minutes uh for those two meetings do we have a motion I motion we approve the minutes from the 12th and the 25th of November second all right we have a motion made and seconded to approve the minutes of November 12th and November 20 fifth all those in favor I I I three nothing Val do you guys need to call to order do you have they don't have a quorum all right I didn't know if the other person on there was that's M no that's mice at this point so they can do that when they get so there can be a discussion about Finance with random people in the public Y without the finance committee having a meeting right yes yes yeah you just can't vote on anything yeah and going to exactly that's not on the agenda anyway yeah all righty so our first order of new business is the 2025 holiday schedule and I have to apologize um this is tabled to the next meeting all right no problem we will take care of that next time that brings up our next order of business which is the Sunderland setting the 2025 sewer rates and the sewer rates actually are going down down this year oh um the total budget for Approved um by the wwtp um wastewater treatment plant at annual town meeting was 416,000 um 857 which was um um I think the last one was $424 so was a not a significant drop but enough to make a difference in the in the monthly rates which will now be set at um I'm sorry the annual rates per person per unit are $329 27 compared to the $335 and5 last year wonderful any discussion by the board no all right at this time I would entertain a motion to accept the sewer rate of $329 127 per unit per year motion to accept the sewer rate of 32927 per year approv dwelling unit second all right we have a motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing all right see next up we have the select board and finance Comm committee Financial overview discussion so thank you very much for joining us today um as you guys are probably both already aware the finance committee and select board works very closely together um from now until uh town meeting time to come up with budget proposals to um discuss a whole bunch of financial whatnots um and to that end in years past we have uh met together every week for much of the winter session um what ends up happening though is uh you guys come to our meeting you sit through a bunch of us talking about stuff that's not related to the budget and then we get to the budget stuff and we talk to you guys for about half the meeting um to that end we are hoping that um we can transition to a schedule where we do regular Town business every other week and we have you guys join us on the off weeks so that we can concentrate the the financial discussions to those weeks save you guys from they spend half of your time each time coming just to hear us talk about stuff that really not that they don't care about but isn't necessarily well maybe you don't care um but anyway it's definitely not perv part of the purview of those discussions um and so we just wanted to make sure that we're on the same page there um and trying to respect your time and uh just streamline things all around yeah the last finance committee meeting we talked about that and there was agreement that that was a good plan wonderful that's great um so that was sort of my part of that was there anything else on that end that you wanted to and it was so it's every other week on Mondays but does it start on the 6th or does it start when would be start yeah so that's a good question it would start on the 6th in January so January 6 and then every other week um the schedule that Margaret had done for the B budget process had it start on Monday the 13th 13 okay with them all right January 13th 13th start with um interviewing departments because that's what she had put out um the 13th would be police fire and South County EMS great okay um two weeks later it would be town clerk assessors Treasurer collector accountant and Board of Health okay does that sound doable that's not too much no they they're they're all fairly small departments and usually their asks are fairly straightforward so that's that's fine okay and then the next one on the 10th of February is a South County Senior Center um the library and the select board and Town Administrator okay and the final on the 24th of February is um Franklin uh County Tech the inspectors um building reporting in progress and Highway internet's being a little funky today but that's right and that would um and then in March it's the school and Frontier budget hearings on the 10th she just said starting in March uh the 10th would probably that's this that's two weeks after that us going to their meeting is that why there's I think it's them coming to us but it it's a lot harder to nail down there it's to nail down Other M may not be on a Monday it may be it's been on Mondays it's just a question of whether it's that particular day or not I think but if you can get in touch of Darius now because the faster we get on his calendar the better chance we are of having him actually be available to come meet with us um but yeah hopefully that 10th is available for him and right and then we have the we have three School ones we have Frontier Franklin Franklin's the week before the on the 24th is that's Franklin Tech so I think it should just be Frontier and the Elementary on that day which is both darus either way so it should be just you know one fell soup of them how long are those meetings usually a couple hours yeah they're a good couple hours I'd say probably about a good two hours for each of those in terms of the presentations and whatnot um maybe another half hour of discussion if there is discussion to be had yeah I mean we do try to move them along um because there's a couple of them that would go forever mhm yep Y and the public is involved too they they are all of our sessions are public so they can come if they want to um traditionally we haven't seen a ton of participation from public on um but of course you know they are always welcome to join us in public session plus they can watch on TV yeah yeah or on Zoom yes and occasionally we do which which is being super fun um occasionally we do uh get a followup from somebody who watches one of our sessions on FCAT and you know very infrequently but occasion does happen well um the only other thing I wanted to from my perspective wanted to talk to you guys about was um not that this isn't always the case but this is going to be a tight fiscal year um largely because we are coming off of um the arpa money and the arpa money over the last bunch of years has not only sort of silently aided our budget but it has hidden a lot of the increases that we would normally have seen over the last couple of years um instead of this line item going up no problem we've got ARP money to cover that and so that's go that's going away as of December 31st this year our money is no longer a thing um we don't have it available we don't we you know if we haven't spent it already by then it goes away anyway so you know that that's no longer thing um so just for for you guys for us for for anyone watching um you know we we were the last couple years have been slightly unrealistic in terms of how how good the budget has been because of that arpa money and we no longer have that and so this is not going to be a fun easy year I think we're going to be able to come to a good budget but it's not going to be a year with expansion in really any Department um I'd be very surprised if we were able to do anything beyond the level services level um but that's what we're here to figure out so and just for context the last couple years did you think about like the obviously individual budgets change they don't change the same but like what has been the overarching goal in terms of budget increase last couple years and then what is it this year obviously that's a different number because of our um so I don't think we've really set a number a dollar amount for increase what we say is level Services okay so if I'm going to just thought some very fictitious numbers if the police department says they need a th000 gallons of gasoline per year they they would budget what a thou you know what they project a th000 gallons of gasoline for their vehicles costs we don't tell them they can only go up 2% or they can only go 5% they keep that you know th000 gallons of gasoline and project what that cost will be for the next year to budget it same thing with utilities G you know heating oil things like that um so even though the services are Level the dollar amount you know that's being expended isn't level and in general our our goal is always to stay within the 2 and a half% of prop 2 and a half for obvious reasons because we don't want to have to go to the town asking for more money and also because that's sort of intended as a guideline for how much Town should be looking to increase their budgets so overall we're looking for no more than a 2 and a half% increase across the board luckily some departments are fairly stagnant we have some departments that come in with the same number they've had for the last 5 years and that's great um some departments have you know just like a Personnel increase from contracted increases or cost of living increases that kind of thing um some times like last year we have the school come in with a transportation increase of 70% or I don't remember exactly what the number was but there are there's often forces out of any of our controls that come in and you you can't stop that from happening the you know the health insurance went up by 8% last year um you know that has to be accounted for somewhere and so it's trying to figure out how to make the overall budget at 2 and a half% when certain line items are spiking up by Otherwise large things um the theme I would say at least for the last this is my third budget season is um as crystal said trying to maintain the services that we offer in the town within that um if we ever have the opportunity to increase services within that budget great um that hasn't really been the case the last couple of years um there have been a handful of places where we've been able to do that um we did add a um School uh counselor position was it last year the year before last year last year um but that wouldn't necessarily be the the standard um and that was largely a response to a need from the school from the pandemic did a lot of you know increase the need at the school level for that kind of thing um so this year in particular um if everything goes well I I would imagine we're going to hit Level Services across the board um I believe we did ask in the budget memo for two budgets though one level services and one hey if there is some money you know um and we do always go through all those things with the hope of being able to do any of them um but again this is going to be a realistic a much more realistic year in terms of where we are financially um I have a concern about the amount of free cash um that is that's been used over the last number of years probably at least the last five years um I think this past year in 25 it was $217,000 um and with not much else changing on the revenue side um if you if we don't you know if we don't add that additional free cash I think it's going to be hard to hit the level Services y um but we'll I'll try to search for any other options that we have because you only had certified 600,000 in free cash um so that doesn't leave a lot for the future yep no and most at least again the last couple years I've been involved um we try to take the free cash leave some of it alone and try to put some into the capital stabilization some into the general stabilization fund to and some in the reserve fund to sort of you know spread the wealth there um but I agree that we've been the amount of free cash has been going down over the last bunch of years because we've been spending more than our revenue is able to recuperate into free cash um that is also going in line with arpa funding um I don't want this year to be a huge dip into free cash because of the arpa funding and then next year we find that we can still don't have arpa money and now we have $100,000 of free cash instead of $600,000 and a big deficit a whole in the budget and a whole in the budget um so you know are there things we're still waiting on in terms of the numbers from blanks fund at the state or are the things that we don't know yet that are big changing like that might change significantly over what we've expected in the past um the the potential Chapter 70 and the um you know the there's it used to be called Lottery money but there's a a significant amount that goes to the town I think it's here it's almost 600,000 the the Chapter 70 is 920,000 last year it can go up or down it'll be dependent on changes in the enrollment and Equity at um the state and we usually hear those numbers in January um I have gotten the budget um Revenue side to a point like I'd like to review with the finance committee carefully and then send to you guys um just because I've done it a little different way um I'm using the method that Sunderland has been using but I want to show you both ways so you can see the detail um involved um Jeff was using and not just Jeff I think it goes back to Sherry too um they were using comments and all the addition you know where they detailed um what was in the levy number and it made it harder for me to figure out you know when what things are changing in there so I've just expanded out those sales great um but I wanted to check with you to is that appropriate if I work on the revenue side in detail with uh finance committee and then we just do the hearings and I'll send you yeah as long as you're keeping us I'm going to send you all the information and then we can add you can ask questions and we can review it at a meeting if you'd like yep no that'd be great I just I want to keep up with them when you're when you're busy doing other things Y how does the select Bo feel about the the capital side of the budget process over these last few years have projects been building up do we feel like we're at a good place how does that so I'm on the capital um subcommittee and the short answer is we made a very smart choice as a town um a couple years ago to make a big increase to the amount of money that we put into the capital stabilization fund um and so now we have I think it's 429,000 or something like that per year going into there um versus 150ish in previous years um largely that was because that was a forward-looking measure because of the school roof the roof on the school needs to be replaced like next year or sooner um and so that's going to be a million plus project most likely um so we we left some money in capital stabilization I believe there's a couple $200,000 in there currently plus we have the 400 or whatever going in this year um and the roof project would most likely be split out a couple a couple years um there are of course a handful of other sort of sizable projects in the in the future nothing like the roof but you know a couple hundred thousand here and there um the good news is we also just recently purchased a couple of vehicles for the highway department including a loader and I think a scraper or something like that um and that was according to George last year the last big purchases he's going to be needing to look at for until something breaks or until a new need comes up um so in terms of the cap capital budget we're actually in pretty good shape because the town did a good job of again looking forward planning ahead and the the to and really that's kudos to the the towns folk for seeing that need ahead of time it's really hard to ask people for money that you need three years from now um but the town saw the need and you know and came came together with us um so the the capital side's actually in pretty good shape um I haven't seen the numbers at least I haven't focused on them yet this year in terms of what the asks are um but based on what the assumed asks from last year the future ask from last year are uh we should be in Budget on that end and and is it anticipated that that set aside each year will decrease or change once you get over the hump of the school roof or that's expected to be persistent so the capital stable Edition overrides um we passed two now the first one established it and it was 120,000 I think or something like that which has grown by the 2 and half% per year um and that's a that's a a collection of money from people's taxes that happens sort of outside of the budget um it's it's an override of its own so it's you know you're paying this much in tax for the general fund and then it's this a little bit of extra percentage everyone agreed to pay a couple years ago and then last year two years ago we increased that amount by additional $270,000 something like that um and again that money is comes out of the tax rolls straight into that fund every year without without question so that doesn't go down per se um we can collect less than the maximum if the need were not there um but but given how things go I think you'd have to see that fund pretty fat to do that because again sitting here today we don't know how much the next fire truck is going to cost we don't know how much the next police cruiser is going to cost um and we need a new police cruiser every 3 years is that's about the the Cadence were're on and so Foundation at the school the library is 20 years old this building is 100 billion years old yeah so just just our budget is already pretty tight when it comes to just the stuff that we know is going to happen there's always the who knows what so I don't see ourselves Ever Getting to a point realistically where we're going to say no let's not let's not collect that taxes because we don't need that um at the very least it would have to be multiple years of putting like that entire amount away and being like yeah we got like $2 million sitting there maybe we should not collect taxes but I don't I don't see that happen um if anything with what we've seen happening with the the cost to replace things I mean we just got an ambulance for the South County EMS this last year that was 50% more than it was quoted at 3 years prior you know when we went to go get the loader that was far more than it had been 5 years ago you know fire trucks police cars all these things are are substantially more every time so um again I don't see us wanting to back that off um I do think we made a good good choice with the amount we added to it cuz the 400 and whatever it is um is pretty realistic um we didn't want obviously want to ask the town for way more than we needed although it would be lovely to have a huge Surplus in that that that line item I think we were reasonable and realistic about our needs in that respect the fire chief is talking about um not buying a new truck the next time but he wants to look at the 20y old 25y old truck and really go through that and remodel it um instead of trying to buy a new truck um it'll still be pretty ex you know a couple hundred thousand dolls but hopefully not the 800,000 a new one would cost or the million it'll cost by the time we get to there a couple years um yeah so speaking of that when's the last time we got an estimate on that school roof I believe the last estimate we had was 2019 or something I'm just saying that might be a $2 million I mean so I can say that that the the frontier is also looking at a new roof um and so I don't I don't know the last time I've heard a quote on the elementary school roof but the frontier roof was definitely more expensive the more recent quotes but not a doubling Factor anything like that it was it had gone up from I want to say 1.2 to 1.4 or something like that um so yes there's definitely a concern there also which is also from our perspective incentive to get the roof done sooner rather than later cuz things don't get get less expensive over time we're not going to hit some sort of inverse reverse inflationary period in the next 10 years where all of a sudden things go back to Old Time prices no this is just this is what it is going forward um and so that was one of our our one of the balancing acts we do is do we save up for the roof and have be more expensive and get there or do we Finance it now and the interest we pay over the next couple of years is less than the increase in cost of the roof in the up front and so these are all you know but that that part of it is more of a capital subcommittee question um these two groups don't really do a whole lot with that um in terms of the discussion when it comes time to recommendations that group will make recommendations to both of our boards which then our boards will have to approve or deny or or negotiate on or what not um but in general U given that there's a member of our department our my myself and I believe there's a member of your committee who's at least has a a seat available on that on that uh work on that fin to be it would be it would be good Sarah she was yeah Sarah um what was her last name yeah Sarah Sarah waski I should I should remember that Sarah Sarah was on that board previously um so we'll put that in our prayor for the next time we have a Corum in a meeting that would be great someone on that Y and and there is a study a $155,000 study um on the school roof that's happening now yes an engineering study so there should be cost um potentially coming out of that on sces yes yeah we had put I believe it was arpa money not last year but the year before into that um it takes a while to get things going we have a history with if we really want to make sure we have everything good yeah yes the collapse oops yep um and there is also discussions going on both within our board and also with the energy committee about whether it makes sense to do solar on the roof um incorporate infrastructure so that if down the line we wanted to add solar to the roof it wouldn't be like tearing the roof off to put new roof on like putting the brackets in already or whatever um or whether that doesn't make any sense at all and it makes more sense to if we are wanting to add solar capacity to look to another groundbased thing or car porch over the parking or lot or something like that um but we are having that conversation now because if we're going to be investing a million dollars or whatever in a roof it makes sense to have that roof meet the needs of the of the town for the next 30 Years not just the next 10 and I mean you need to yeah that discussion means to be with somebody who's very familiar with it because if you look at just a basic level of putting for example putting solar on the roof of the elementary school the building is closed down for the most part during Peak solar right June July August where you have lots of sunlight long days and that building's not really sucking in that electricity at that point because it's closed down and one of the concerns about that was that the the grid may not want that much extra electricity and it may may end up being hard for the town to make a a deal with the electric company to S to be selling all this electricity this Summer that we don't need but it would be okay um you could you could allocate it to other buildings that's what you can yeah again we're getting a little off in the weed on this one um but that there is discussions going in that that they just need to be by people who truly understand the way it was built you know the connection to that solar farm or the you know solar yep so yeah but um make it and that's basically just getting to the point of determining what type of roof to put on that building right do we want to deal with a solar capable roof or do we want to just go with Standard Roofing on that building before we well hope that's one of the answers that we'll get from that study is like a we can put this roof on and you can put solar on it in two years and won't make a difference great then why we even have this conversation you know or it you can sure you can put the infrastructure in but it's going to double the cost of the roof on the off chance you decide to put solar in down the line is that worth it no you know so so hopefully that that that study will have some information for us there um yeah the roof is definitely the biggest item coming up uh on our plate um um beyond that there wasn't a lot of other items on our to-do list in the future we managed to hit a lot of them in the last couple years of money there was a million dollars spent on all kinds of capital were very behind before that yeah there huge amount of work you guys have done that is sort of the silver lining of the the warning I gave at the beginning is that it's not just that that that we've had this aror money we've also been spending at a higher rate because of having that arper money than we necessarily would have we could have continued to push a lot of this deferred maintenance down the road luckily we managed to get to a lot of it and put money our money aside for things like the steps in front of this building and um you know all kinds of stuff even the emergency stuff that came through like the boiler at the school and the oil tank like you know yeah so there's definitely going to be an impact but not necessarily the full million whatever dollars worth of impact um because we could have gotten away with spending less money the last couple of years and still had deferred maintenance that we're pushing forward um but we did take the opportunity to get get some of that stuff up to speed up to date um so hopefully the next couple years won't be quite as uh intense in terms of capital requests um but again that roof that that's a that roof is multiple years worth of capital budget by itself so okay um one other question I'd have is just uh you know we have new chair Val and I'm new uh how can we be most helpful to you all either things that the finance committee has done in the past past you want to make sure we keep doing or things that we could do that whether they were done in the past or not in terms of you know support advice analysis I don't know that is a very good question to be honest I don't have a great answer for you um you can think about it yeah that seems like more of a we'll think about it and we'll get back to you kind of one um I think in general um you know we we we on this board don't necessarily have a finance background you know and we're we're looking at a big picture of which Finance is a small slice you know there's a lot of other pieces and your your your piece is that Finance slice um and exstensively you guys come from some background that made you think you would be good on a finance committee so here you are um so we really appreciate some insight in terms of the the finance part of that um a lot of what we're going to be considering is also things like um sometimes you have to spend money in order to provide the services you need to spend you know and so there there might occasionally be I wouldn't say necessarily conflict or tension but the the interests of the two boards aren't always 100% aligned but in a good healthy way that keeps us honest and keeps the town fiscally responsible um so beyond I don't really do you guys have anything no I mean just by all means if you see something say something say yeah let us know because you know I can look at those budget numbers and go huh you know we just increased you know that line item by 200% and going I don't know if that's real or if that's a typo you know some of that stuff to me just doesn't always jump out at me as it being you know necessarily correct I have tendency to think a lot of things are typos on those budgets and go oh wow it really does cost that much um that busting increase last year I was pretty sure it was 7% not 70 I was like you sure there's not a here um yeah I know one of the things the finance committee is um interested in is um growing our numbers were at Bare Bones new I'm new as a chair every's new on the committee right and um but I know if you look at the like a history you know I don't know 25 years right the finance committee has been bigger more involved more active and so that's our goal so if we can pull together the resources to Pony up our side we'd like to you know find out maybe won't be a situation that we can do more to be assistance to the town we have we're not there yet I would say we're I think I think you're touching I think you're touching on a much larger systemic issue across local government which is that um the the willingness and the time people have to volunteer on boards or willingness to run for elect positions or whatnot has been declining over the last bunch of years um I don't have a magic one to to make that better um other than just you know if you're watching this wher the hum are I encourage you to get involved um the finance committee during the finance committee one thing I had brought up um I I believe was before you started with learn Margaret um that I feel is something that we need to talk about is we also haven't increased the compensation for any of the boards in ever like it's been 30 years or something like that since the compensation went up um and while none of us do this for the compensation it's often a barrier for people wanting to do this if the compensation is so low that you find yourself for lack of better word working for under minimum wage for a lot of these positions bcom doesn't have any payment do you guys we don't have compensation right they don't have compensation this is part of our job is to look at that right so because we're our to our job is to look at yeah um I I'm just talking again I'm talking bigger picture in terms of the towns boards in general um and so one of the things that I would like to have a discussion about is tying the compensation for each of the paid board positions um to the cola increases going forward so not nothing big and fancy but when the people in town get they're not tied to the colas they have not increased for like 30 years theyve been at all at all like straight at all they're very low and Andre pretty so other than the slug board the other boards that have a little have stiens are planning planning um zone of accessors assessors the Board of Health I think those are all of them um and again we're not talking about a giant pile of money and their their stens are even lower but yeah yeah as low as yours as are theirs are lower there there's are lower ours are okay as sad as it is ours are the highest of all of them um and they're not they're not a lot you know I I I did the basic math last year and I think I made $4 an hour or something like that doing this and again none of us are here because we're trying to get rich being a selectboard member but I really feel that it's a barrier for younger newer people want come in when rather than it being something hey it's my time but at least I'm getting some vacation money when that vacation money turns to gas money the gas money turns into Milk Money turns into you know I got some you know wine on the way home kind of money um there's there's definitely a disconnect between the needs of the town and how the town is compensating the people who are there trying to to reach out to um so that's one of the things that I was wanting to have a discussion about during these discussions is again not like going back and retroactively raising these these rates a lot although that would be nice um but just tying it going forward so at the very least um it doesn't continue to fall further and further behind inflation as time goes on um because you I mean even three years ago when I got when I got elected on this position the money went so much further three years ago than it does today and will just continue to be worse and worse and worse and worse as time goes on um we also just in general have a real problem with volunteers um things like the um River Walk path we're struggling to be able to find people who will volunteer to do this on that um you know just general you know um I can't tell you the last one of the um spring caucuses I've been to where we weren't having to like convince people come on you can run for that position right come on down um and I I think other than two in the last 10 years there hasn't been any other contested elections in town and ever um all of which are parts of healthy democracies and so yeah contested elections have been school committee there have been a school committee seat that's been contested twice yeah in the last um in the last 10 15 years or something like that um but yeah other than that it's you know twisting arms to get people to agree to run for the position um and there's something to be said about about that in terms of the the part the engagement you know if if I'm not forced to knock on doors I'm not forced to put you know signs out on my front lawn in order to get reelected it for it doesn't force me to make that engagement with members of the constituency when you have vibrant elections like in Deerfield if there's a a contested selectboard seat or something like that when you come out the other side of that you end up having a bunch of people in that person's Camp who are ready to like get progress and make make things done and it inherently brings people into the political fold by just having a contested election in town um and so I really feel that for the health of democracy in Thunderland um it's good for us to do everything we can to to make that happen so I'll get off my little soap box now that's important I mean have you seen obviously there's a lot of small towns across western Mass have you seen any towns kind of solve this problem in any way whether it's on the compensated track through compensation or otherwise or on the volunteer track through more contestant election like what what other so anybody have something that is working um if you if you find somebody who has something this working please let us know we'd love to hear um I think that fortunately I think controversy often does it yeah and it brings more people out but it it also the political climate gets hotter and um right School committees have been where we've seen contested elections across West it's more the issues than they not good yeah I mean it's good but it's well and and that is obviously The Balancing Act that we want to have because believe believe you the three of us really appreciate having a town that is largely on the same page and doesn't areg you all the time so it's I'm not saying I want to like bring contested everything into town um just I think there is room for some vibrancy vibrancy to that to that effect yep um we just get more people engaged somehow yeah well I think yeah I think a big part of that is um Outreach to like you Mass students for example there's a lot of students in Sunderland um every now and then we get some of them who are engaged in town and that that engagement kind of wains a little bit but if you can get people who are young unencumbered with children at the beginning of their careers in ed in the middle of their education something along those lines those are people who um are both idealistic and also have time on their hands um and also traditionally people who don't get involved in politics at this kind of level which would be from my perspective great um and to that end we actually last year I'm not sure if you both aware this or not um the town passed a um an ordinance to allow 16-year-olds to vote in town uh that has pending at the state state level we have to wait for the state legislature to give us the okay to implement that but assuming that happens um it will allow 16 17 year olds in town to vote on Town issues um which we're hoping will help to get people engaged while they're in high school and while we have Civics teachers who are forcing them to be a little bit more engaged would that mean that they sit on official committees that's a very good question and I don't believe I believe you still have to be 18 to sit on the committee I that's that's a very good question of think so too but no I I had ay on the finance committee but I'm just curious I think it is possible to we had them on um a woman on a girl on the recycling committee okay um I think it's might be I think it is allowable which would again which would be I mean which would be wonderful if we could get people who are are young and interested into the into the system it depend on the if it's elected or yeah I don't know it's a good question yeah and and again it depends whether they're a Committee Member a voting member a non-voting member because there are committees that have non- voting members and they'll probably disappear when they hit College age very possibly um anyway but the state when the state formalizes that maybe those are some of the kind of questions we can answer absolutely either way the 18 year olds there's 18 plus year olds a lot 18 to 60 I feel like that's a good Market we can go on I don't think that we any of us should underestimate how politically motivated and engaged young people can be when given an opportunity to do so and have and with a cause that they care about you know um and we see that at the at UMass with protests around Palestine we see that across the country with um young people getting involved in in different movements and whatnot um and so it'd be great if we could find a way to energize that energy into local baltics um and and you know I know that running towns may not be necessarily the most sexy part of of politics in general um but it's one of the most important so you know exactly Michael Moore started out on his local school committee when he was 18 who did Michael Moore the maker yeah he um the year that they lowered the voting everything to 18 he ran as an 18-year-old right out of high school for this local school committee in FL that's his beginning yeah you know maybe we'll have the next Michael Mo as a 16year old well there was um a FCAT was helping a um a student group take and do a video over the weekend in this space that was about a meeting so there I don't know anymore about the video but it's sounded like it was interesting I'll get more information but that' be great thank you yeah CU if we can get the students into the you know into the space and then maybe get them back active in on a committee would be great well in the spirit of um moving the volunteers along so that we can continue to volunteer because we haven't been burnt out um I feel like the next steps for the finance committee is that we keep in contact with Becky as more numbers come in and we go through those and make sure we're up and then you know between now and the 13th of January and then the 13th of January we will kind of be with you all to look at what comes in sounds good yeah do you guys have any more questions for us before we move on to our next item no thanks for your time wonderful thank you for joining us we appreciate we appreciate you being here and we appreciate your service today so we should all happy birthday no unfortunately we're not allowed to sing as a group because it's just too horrible awful nobody wants to listen L to me talk never mind sing the owl just slowly slides itself off the edge of the table horrible for a all right um so thank you guys very much for coming um our next order of business or that's our last order of new business our next order of old business is Select board updates Crystal do you have anything for us today I do not wonderful Dan anything for us today um no I don't think so no wonder um I don't have anything either um other than just wishing everybody a happy beginning of the cold holiday season all right so that's it for selectboard updates um next up is Town Administrator updates Becky okay so I have um two agreements for you to sign I'm sorry from the fire chief if you would um so these are Tri State Fire U Mutual Aid agreements that are due by the end of the year um a number of the communities in the surrounding area um most of Franklin County going into the burkers belongs to um the Tri County Fire and um I think it is only Nathaniel that needs to sign okay very good do we need a motion for the board to approve okay well do we need time to actually look them over or the samies yes the same yes they're both both the same and it's and I don't I think it's a 5-year agreement so you don't sign it every year it's a long and this is something we've been in traditionally is that correct this is the same agreement we've signed for multiple times there's no change or anything no no it's the same agreement there are no new changes it's just it was it's expiring yep and they're trying to get it signed by the beginning of the year but you said that this is like a five year or okay three year three years sorry yeah so I would to remember it from three years ago no so I'm comfortable signing it as is but I don't want to pressure the board in doing so do you want Crystal do you want more time to go through it or are you comfortable signing it no I'm good okay and I apologize I I met with Steve Benjamin today um this morning for my I finally had a chance to meet with him and he brought those with him okay um and asked if I could get them signed I didn't have in my head two weeks out right so yeah yeah so we only have one more meeting in December anyways so I'd feel more comfortable getting it taking care of now if possible um any any discussion before we no okay at the time I would entertain a motion to authorize the chair to sign the uh Mutual Aid agreement I motion we authorize the chair to sign the Tri State Fire Mutual Aid agreement all right motion right motion made you say motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing all right Dan can I borrow your pen for a second I'll just sign it right now all right beautiful [Music] all right any other uh business for us um I just want you to know that I've um continued to meet with different departments uh I've met with the school um got a tour of the building had a good conversation with Ben barara barvi barvi thank you um yeah there's it'll be interesting I think it's going to be a tough budget um with the school yep um they have um they ended up going with two kindergartens so they've added a teacher position a kindergarten teacher position that wasn't in the original budget y so their budget is starting at a higher point so and this is also just for everyone's aw we are in the middle of um contract negotiations with the teachers union and the instructional assistant Union um and so there will be an impact on the budget from the result of those negotiations budget yeah so that's something also to keep in mind in that respect and is there a representative from the town on that yes myself and Jess Corin the chair of the um school committee are both on that good so you can you can keep us updated absolutely excellent um anything else all right um we don't have any correspondents no public comment because nobody's here and our Zoom crashed so where there we are um so unless uh Morgan wants to say something um no objective session today our next uh regular meeting will be Monday December 23rd that is a couple days before uh Christmas so just FYI on that um at this time I would entertain a motion to adjourn a motion we adjourn second all right we have a motion made and seconded in to adjourn all those in favor I I I 3 nothings at 7:20 p.m.