Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

So noting the time and the quorum, I call the box of finance committee into order. Um we'll do a um no do vote. We don't need to you just say who's here then for the just because Gary's not here. Yeah. Just for Gary, we'll say that we have John Grieven, we have Michelle Ryan, Joe Stalpin, Maria Nand, and Tony Newton.

Yeah. And Yeah. And in the audience, we have Hongwa Lee, uh, finance director, and Ray Jean Hudson, the deputy town administrator, and also Susan Back from the wonderful Boxboro News. Okay. Um, minutes from December the 2nd. Are there any comments on the minutes? Take a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Uh, all in favor? I. Anyone opposed? Okay. MO. They're approved. Um, citizens concerns. Let's hear those. Like Susan's the only citizen or Christine. Yes.

No. Yeah. um was no reserve fund transfers. Um nothing for the FY26 budget that I've got anyway to talk about. So we'll go straight into the FY27 budget. So um met with um Mike and Rajan and Hongwa today on the budget model. So I'll just go through that and where we stand right now um on that. So just to orient you on the screen here, what we've got is at the top here we've got the inputs um for the budget budget A and budget B. So first two columns are budget A, second two columns of budget B. Um the left column is the clear gov uh input and the right column is is a column I put in to to um establish what the budget would need to be to reach our guidance targets that we' set in the budget guidance. So i.e. 5.5% for budget A and 2% for budget B. Um and in fact what's over the course of the last few days as they've you know adjusted the budget numbers we're actually pretty closely aligned now in terms of what the town or clear has in in the budget and our target numbers for the budget. Um so you see there's numbers side by side there basically. So going down going down here we then got the growth of each of I should also say here the way this is organized administration is all of these stuff like insurance um health care pensions debt servicing that really can't be adjusted in the budget process they're like fixed cost um so you got administration which really stays the same from budget A to budget B uh and then the other pound um budget items which are the the thing

we can adjust to actually get to our number. So under administration is that all contracts too or is that it's the administration category in the budget? Okay. So that is truly the pensions, the insuranceances. So outside assessments that we can't touch aside from the school. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't include a school, but it's all it's all the stuff that we that every year we'll we'll get um a a bill and we can't do anything about it, but not this not the contracts. Not the contracts. No. No. Okay.

Um so then and then we've got obviously the school um assessment. So the numbers in there which now like we've got the same number for the town and and for the and for our model um are the numbers that Adam gave us most recently based on two based on 5.5% for the school um assessment and 2% for the school assessment for budget B. So that's those are the numbers that we have and those numbers are down here on the left just just for reference the actual numbers. Um, and the 5.5 for the school assessment is uh that's where they're going to stay, right? Because didn't he say at the last meeting?

I think I think that's where they're going to stay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. They can't move off of that because of active.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think that's like 3 point something 25% maybe for the actual budget increase for the for the school. Um, then you got the actual dollar number increase for each of those lines below that. So you know for budget B we depending on there's a little bit little bit of difference between the town's model and my model but the um I think we need to decre decrease that budget from year to year that B budget from what it was to reach our target. Um I and I don't understand what there's there's some discrepancy there somewhere between you know the model that the town has and and my numbers but it's not much difference really but uh

we yeah you know basically on my model we need to get to that 2 point that 2%. Mhm. In fact yeah so there's actually is 2.97% that's that's why they're not quite there yet in terms of their their budget being they're close but not quite there. So we're so we're at 2% just virtually. So what it on our model if we get to budget B the 30 million um 3 point 30 million.1 we that is what we can afford without an override well that's I'll get to that in a minute in a minute actually but yes to jump ahead that's that's what that's what meets our guidance of 2% increase but does it meet what we because that's what the guidance has to do

it guesses it guesses without yeah it gets us there without an override yeah great okay so the the green one is what what you can adjust, right? So, what it basically tells you is you we can let the town spend 8 8.25 million in that category and that gets us to our target. Right now, it's 8.5 million. So, it's slightly over, but it's not not far off that that target. It's a quarter million dollars off. It is that far off in the big scheme of things. It's not that far off. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But it's only the one side and it's just the town and it's that one category. So, I mean, we have to be honest that that is a lot of money. Okay. I guess the point to make is that's a lot of money for just the town adjustable categories to absorb. Does that make sense, right?

I understand the budget's $30 million. Yeah. But, you know, we we we don't we don't have a place to absorb it otherwise. It's a lot closer than it was a week ago. Yeah. And I think that's great. I'm just saying, you know what? We shouldn't give the wrong impression. That is a lot of money for the town to have to absorb in cuts.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in fact if you look at the increase on the town B budget it's increasing from last year by 877 on on the model to get it to 2% we can increase by 585. So that's your that's your difference differential between the two. So then you if you flow down then this is the actual model. So these are the numbers that that flow in uh the um the uh non ABR you know non-school basically and then the um and then the school assessment for different models that flow down there. Uh then you got other other costs in the budget. Um ATM articles. So for ATM articles I'm I'm assuming that everything is actually not RNA. It's all bonded free cash or or other sources.

And do we know that that's 3.1? Is that what's on the capital plan? Is that what they they brought? That's just But that that doesn't affect the model because what I what I've assumed is that we we will balance that with down here. So this this number here at the bottom is 3.1 million. So if we you know if we have to increase the num the the number with free cash, we'll use more free cash. So they'll just balance out. But that number doesn't m I'm just I'm just wondering if that's a close target to to what the capital but we don't know.

I I don't I don't know. I don't know. Um um so then you then you've got revenues. So this number here is what the town are estimating. I think that's actually quite conservative actually because last this last year we raised 2.6 million in revenues with local receipts and state aid. Um, so that's put that may be a low number, but conservative number that number. Um, um, so then you've got then then that will calculate out what the levy is for that that that part of the model. Um, and the bottom here is is a levy limit. So this is less based on obviously last year's levy plus 2 and a half% plus new growth plus um any debt any debt um exclusion in there. And we have how much in there for new growth?

We've got 150,000 in there for new growth. A very low number actually, a lower number than last year. So the actually the result of this as it stands today only or the other thing is I I've taken out of here um the overlay reserve fund because I've been told now that we will not be taking 300,000 for reserve fund this year. So that changes the model as well significantly. Uh Tony Gary has his hand raised. Yep. Gary. Yeah. Just in case you're interested right now. Gary, can you speak up? We can't hear you. Can't hear you, Gary. Not at all.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Now we can all right now the capital plan for FY27 is showing 796,000. Okay. Okay. with no major only a few departments have come in, but that's the current plan. Okay. And by the way, that's including 300,000 for road paving and the uh playground structure. Those are the two big things, right? Okay. Playground playground and paving. What was the first thing you said? Roads. Paving. Paving. What was the second thing you said? Roads. Playground playground flare up.

But I thought that was through CPC. CPC. Yeah. Remember this is capital plan. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. It's still capital plan. In fact, is it can be baked into this number actually. Okay. Yeah. Okay. But regardless of that, those that number balances out with the 3.1 up here. So it doesn't affect the levy calculation. What? So what I'm assuming whatever we have to put is ATM articles will be covered by free cash bonding. Yeah. That's some CBC funds. Gotcha.

Um so on that so on that model both both of the the a budget for both the town's calculation and my calculation now show us actually 600 600,000 or so um below the levy limit.

Wait, wait, wait. 29 million. 29.7 million. Yeah. Is the budget. No, that's the levy limit. What's this? 28 921. That's next be the B column. Levy limit. 28921. That's last year's levy limit. That's last year's. Okay. I don't see I can't see the headers. Yeah, that's the that's the official number from last year that that was submitted by by um by GM recently. So last year we were 852,000 um below the level limit. Yeah. Which was lower than we had estimated. You remember we we thought it was going to be over a million but we were

for various reasons we was we were lower than that. Um I mean I think that 630,000 is a an uncomfortable number very right now. So, so we're we're in this sort of like this sort of like zone of of discomfort, I think,

in terms of levy limit. You know, we're not we're not there's not enough leeway there to say, "Yeah, we're good. We we we can get we can go here." Um, and we need to sort of be looking at this very carefully. Um, and well, you know, I threw for discussion about what you do then. And then obviously if you look at the Budgets, they're they're in pretty good shape actually. The B budgets on both models are reasonably good. You know, we're in reasonably good shape for having levy capacity. Our levy capacity. I'm sorry, Tony. Can you refresh me? I We're typically looking more at a percentage below as opposed to a number below, right? Because just to kind of fix the lines.

Well, it needs to be a number, right? It's always it's always a number that's that's your your cushion before you hit the levy limit. So, right. And it's been much higher than this in the past. It's just if you look at the graph over the years, it's gone it's gone. It's sort of shrunk sort of shrunk down and now we're in this sort of like this very shrunken zone. Mhm. Um and for various reasons we you know we thought this year would definitely be be above the levy limit. Mhm. But there's various factors coming into play here I think which makes it um that we're not quite there yet but we're very very very close now to the level limit. Yeah. Um, one thing is not taking the overlay reserve fund is a big is a factor in that.

Um, not h not having any um, RNA HM articles is is a big factor in that. I mean, there were 200,000 or so of those last year, I think. Mhm. Um, so a number of things have sort of come together to say, well, we're sort of we're still squeezing squeezing it a bit. But the question is, is that is that enough wiggle room to continue and say and declare success and say we don't need an override. Yeah, personally I don't think so, but I mean I take discussion

if Okay, so the one the 17 million from the school is the max, right? That's going to be the max number. So we know that's there and if we can get I mean what I guess the question is where are we comfortable coming in um with the excess levy? What's Yeah, what sort of buffer do we want to have? What sort of buffer? So are we thinking a million dollars? Because if we're thinking a million dollars, can we come up with a compromised budget between an A and a B, right? Where we're not cutting, we're not looking to reduce the B budget as much, but we got to reduce the A budget a little bit. Yeah. I mean, the B budget you can almost set aside, you can say we need to do an A minus budget basically. Yeah. Could we do that and would we be comfortable with that?

Yeah. Right. Um and are we comfortable that the numbers we're getting from, you know, the assessor and and all of that? Um, it needs everyone needs pressure testing, right? Exactly. Because if we if we're comfortable with that and we can avoid an override this year, do we do that? Yeah. We just need to figure out where that limit is. The buffer, it looks like it goes from like 8 and a half to 600,000. So, I mean, with that trend, are we looking at like a 350,000 next year buffer? And we're just going to get closer. We I don't think I Yeah, I don't think you can I don't think you can trend it that precisely actually because there's there are so many other factors that come into play on on the budget that that that sort of we can't control.

So yeah, we come in with a bunch of Warren articles next year. Yeah, we Yeah. Which we can control to some extent, I suppose. But but we'll also but if if truly we only have which sounds very low to me on the capital plan, um $800,000. Yeah, we have $4.2 million in free cash. So we could certainly take care of that, right? And not worry about the bond. The question is how do you use that free cash? You know, we without throwing into the into the into the operational budget. I mean that's not so but I mean so even if we come in closer next year I guess the question is do we try to go for an override this year or do we wait a year? And what's the advantage of waiting a year? Um

if we can get that number to a better place. Maybe maybe I missed some of this context and I apologize if I did, but I was just looking through the materials and what were the drivers between A and B? We we the guidance we gave was to bring in my initial calculation was that to avoid an override, we'd need a 2% we could we could do what the cuts are though, right? and and for 5.5% which we want we'd sort of expect to have in a normal year. Yeah. Would give us an override. But we don't but but in fact that was not correct because in fact when the 5.5% increase on these numbers these other other factors we actually are under the you know under the override and we're sure about that and is that because the schools come in lower than we anticipated?

I think that's what I'm asking. I'm trying to understand why the a budget works like works. No, no. What are the concessions made for budget A and what are the concessions made for budget B? And like why is budget A? So for budget A, all departments were told, even like when me and Hungwa met with the departments that they had to get their individual budgets to five and a half%. And for budget B, they had to get their individual departments to 2% or as close to 2% as they could. And that's kind of probably why you you see the 600 because some most of the departments have made cuts to their budgets to get them within that five or six.

But what I guess that's what Michelle's looking for is what are those cuts? It's mostly expenses for each department. And then as far as for the salaries, non-union was uh two and a half cola plus steps. And then for the um the B budget, it was a 0% cola and then just two and a half steps. So just two and a half% increase for non-union. And then the other part is contractual and uh uh union which is their contractual increases plus contracted employees. I'm sorry on the B budget was no COLA and what steps or no steps? steps. So,

and then when you say it was like just expenses, was that like we're making cuts to specific hours or services or what do you mean? It wasn't the hours, it was the services. So, it's the non non salary line. Non- salary line pretty much. So, but then software, materials, things like that, like other operating expenditures. Okay. But we didn't cut any like ongoing contracts, right? So, I mean those cuts are not cuts made just to get us over the finish line here and then coming back for reserve fund transfers because oh my goodness, we have this expense now. Some of them actually

Okay, so that's a problem because reserve fund is used for emergencies, nonanticipated. It's not used because we're going to cut the expenses to get the number to where it needs to be the target and then we'll come back for a reserve fund because that would be my concern. if you know you have an expense that you can't make go away, but we're going to cut it out of the budget and make the budget numbers look good um or look to the target and then you're going to come back in, you know, October of next year and say, "Oh, by the way, we need a $5,000 reserve fund transfer for the police because of radios, but we already knew that that was supposed to be there." So, it wouldn't be unforeseen and it wouldn't qualify for that.

Exactly. But that would be the problem. I would so I think we need to know what that list of expenses are to be comfortable with those cuts and a full understanding by the administration and the department heads if you cut an expense that is not un and it it's not unforeseen I would not vote for a reserve fund transfer down the line we have to be transparent with these numbers on on the other hand we came in a million under budget last year for the for the town operating budget y so clearly we we budgeted more than we actually needed for the budget So that tells me there's some there was some over conservative budgeting going on. Sure. When we went through the process. Absolutely.

So I mean I think it it is incumbent upon us to make sure the budget is closer to that that line where where we think we're going to be with the with the budget and not Yes. We don't want to make it below the line where we're taking out things we we know we you know we think we're going to get anyway and we going to get a reserve fund transfer but we also shouldn't include any sort of padding in there for for safety. I don't disagree. Yeah. But I mean I'm talking about I'm talking about things like we know that we have a contract for X which is tasers, right?

Let's say. All right. Because this is a I'm trying to think of stuff that's real that we've done. We have a contract for for tasers. It's a yearly contract. You buy them. you have a yearly contract. We cut that contract by $5,000, but we're not cutting the tasers out, per se. Yeah. So, now you're going to come back looking for that $5,000. We can't do that. We can't do that. That's the kind of stuff that's not unforeseen. But a lot of the budgeting items, I think we we're putting in stuff which we we they're sort of covering what they think, you know, what all eventualities, you know, clearly we are because we're a million dollars. We're a million dollars under. I guess it would be a lot easier if we understood where we were a million dollars over last year.

So, an example kind of what I brought up earlier is like vehicle maintenance for police and fire. Like we gave them the guidance and as a part of that like the vehicle maintenance for both of their departments is going up. But yeah, as a way to kind of stay within the guidelines, they either level funded it or decreased those line items just to kind of stick within the guidelines. But vehicle maintenance is going to go up and it's going to go up because you can't get parts and parts have tripled and this is one thing I am an expert on because that's what we do. I was right in wheel parts have tripled. Yeah.

So you're definitely going up on that line item. Um labor costs have gone up but not even if you just take that out and you just think about tariffs and trying to get brakes and um you know anything for your suspension and an exhaust and on and on and on. You cannot love a fund vehicles. You've got to be you've got to know that if you have the same number of vehicles, you're going to have to do the same amount of maintenance, your oil changes are going up. Every single thing is I'd like to know that what what we actually did spend on vehicle maintenance for the last five years. If there's a if there's a big gap between what we budgeted before and what we actually spend, then maybe a year older too, right?

Yeah. So, I guess I guess if those are the cuts, there needs to be a history to show us what we've spent and then we have to add money to it. I mean, that that's the thing. You got to look at certain things we just know is going to be more expensive. And that's one of those things that's more expensive. I think that's why I'm asking. I have like two major concerns. One, that the cuts are not sustainable and they're going to come and bite us. Maybe not in reserve fund transfer, but maybe next year we're in the same predicament and we're this close to the limit. All of a sudden, we have to do an override and we're pressured into it.

Or cuts that we're making. This is like very sad path, but the cuts that we're making aren't deep enough and not sustainable. And next year, we're also forced into I I don't ever want the town to be in a position where we have to make like a knee-jerk reaction. I want to be able to control what cuts are done when and like in a calculated way. So that's why I'm asking like what are we cutting in both of these budgets so we can make sure they're either sustainable or maybe there's areas that we should reconsider now to prevent pain later. Um so well well we get a chance to to you know speak with heads of department and budget Saturday and beyond that we can call people into think

and have those conversations with them. So I mean what we need to do I think is drill down budget by budget uh and ask those questions and I think yeah and I think the problem is if we don't have a budget that is sustainable and a budget that we make the cuts that are sustainable and we're doing reserve fund transfers but we say to the town you know we did this and we're okay it's all good this is a cut but it wasn't really a cut because you know you're going to do a reserve fund transfer down the line then it is you know the only thing we have is the credibility that that we put out there. And if we're not credible in this year's budget, we cannot pass an override next year. This is my frustration.

But but I also think we're not credible if we come in with a budget which is a million dollars over what we actually spend. I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you, but you need to be able to I mean last year we had a minute and a half went back into free cash.

We've had that for the last three years and we've never gotten an explanation as to why that is happening. I mean that's been an issue for the last number of years. But that said, you know, we coming back in, you know, three months after the start of the year and saying we need money for, you know, X, but you knew X was coming, makes it difficult next year when we go out and say we scrubbed the budgets because the school has scrubbed the budgets, right? They're telling us they're scrubbing the budgets. So, and even with this $17 million that they're doing, they're still they're they're taking more cuts. I want to make sure that our cuts are are real and transparent. We need a list of those cuts and we need to understand why why we've overbudgeted. Where where in the last two years have those line items been so far over? Well, we got, you know, we have all the data, right? We have all the data clearly.

Yeah. Yeah, we do. But we, you know, this also isn't my full-time job. So, but you know, we're in we fund reserve the reserve fund transfers that comes from free cash typically. Budget from the budget. Okay. It's 5%. It's 6%. 6%. Yeah. Um, however, that is one topic we we could make a policy change and fund our reserve fund fund from free cash. Okay. I mean, I think the challenge is if you start if you do it because then we're balancing up your numbers in terms of what your what your increase is each year. But yeah, I mean, a lot of town a lot of towns have a policy of using free cash to fund reserve fund transfers.

Okay. Can the policy be that it's at our discretion to do it either way rather than because it needs to be the voted it needs to be voted as a budget if it's going to be a budgetary item. Um and I actually think if we're going to do that that's a change in policy. I think we're going to need to do a warrant article to for that because how else are we going to fund that $160,000? You got to be it would be a warrant article. It would be an article that would be funded by free cash. Um it would make sense if we're constantly that wouldn't be Yeah. It wouldn't be for emergencies. Yeah. Do you just understand that too much free cash has been like the last four years and no one's ever been able to explain to those of us who've been around long enough where is this money coming from?

We've ne never had a good explanation. I mean obviously the state's approving it. I have to tell you there's been a few years where I'm like I don't want to spend all this cash because I don't know where it came from. Um because we're so tight on our budgets but then all of a sudden we're a million dollars over but it's a million dollars over and our free cash is 3.2 $4.2 million. Correct. Well, it's accumulated, isn't it? It's accumulated over the years. But at the end of the last year, we had, you know, we had used quite a bit of it and was down into the under $2 million mark. Yeah. When we added we added a million and a half because we added half a million dollars from revenues we didn't anticipate and a million dollars from the operating budget because we add a million and a half to it. So that that that that that's where it came from actually. And then you get another Yeah. other factor.

Yeah. Other factors in the Yeah. So, I I do think it can be a policy change, but I'm sure that Adam can can back me up on this. School committee used to use END to offset the budget because it was easier to offset the budget with END because we had all sorts of money in END. END is their free cash. And then all of a sudden, because we were doing that, we the school committee I think I got off just as they were realizing our END is going down and we don't have that. And then all of a sudden there was no reserve. So you had huge increases just to get back to zero. You had to increase that, right?

Yeah. There was a time where we purposefully built up END because we were really low and hadn't been um which is a function of sort of how conservatively you make your budget each year. So we had turnbacks every year. We got to the point where we're at the upper end of our our limit close to 4 and a.5%. Five is what we're statutoily allowed to hold. At that same time, Actton in particular was getting closer to their levy limit. And so we said, well, what we can do is use END to reduce assessments to both towns. And so we were typically using what we would turn back each year. But as your budget goes up, your headroom for your what you could hold in END would go up. And so essentially what we held in END came down and down and down. And then we had a pandemic. We had health insurance blow. We had all those things that you needed to use END for. and it very quickly just sort of said we we don't have enough on top of even if we did there's no levy limit left in Actton. So, you know, we got to an override. We got to where we are now and we're back at rebuilding reserves,

right? But getting back to that point on the budget where you're taking those reserves out, you know, as I see it, if you put $100,000 in reserves this year, but you don't do it next year, you need a h 100,000 to get back to zero to get to your o, you know, to whatever your overage is going to be, your your increase. So that's why I'm always concerned with using free cash.

Yeah. But but that for the but for reserve fund, if you made the policy change and did it every year from now onwards, that would be okay. I think it' just be a a conscious policy change that we agree between us and the select board and everyone signs off on it and we understand we're doing that's what we're doing because right now it's just we sort of like it's a it's a it's a factor of the operating budget which just you know which just is calculated in the operating budget. Just a thought really. I don't like taxing people for the reserve fund that we don't use. Right. So, if we don't use, we're taxing people the $160,000. We don't necessarily use it. Let's say we use 50 of it.

It's $110,000 that we've raised and appropriated through the budget process if we if we and then we turn that back into free cash. So, I from that perspective, I don't mind using the free cash. I'm concerned long term. We need to think about long term if that makes sense. It's like when we took choice students at Blanchard. It becomes a little bit like Becky used to say this and a little bit like crack. It's like you get a little extra money and you don't lay off the teachers because you're just filling the classrooms and then you take a few more kids and then all of a sudden you've taken all these kids in because you like the money but then the reality is well now it's costing us money because we got to hire a teacher because we have too many kids yada yada. It's just you got to just be careful.

Well, yeah. And the question is how much should reserve fund be? I mean, we said 6%. That's what we that's what we were settled on as being not too much because you're taxing people for it and not necessarily using it. But you need enough that you can actually cover unanticipated expenses. So, I think we've got that number about right personally. Yeah. The percentage I think. Yeah. Based on what we do use each year for various things that come up. Um, so yeah, it's just just a question of how you fund it really. So, if we took 160 out of the budget for the reserve fund. Yeah. I would not want to see that backfilled with expense. I don't I I don't Yeah, that needs to come out of the budget and that needs to stay out of the budget. It's like you don't get to now use $160,000 to

actually more than that because it's a percentage of the budget. So, it's more like 180,000 I think this year. So, um Yeah. So, that so that would add to the the buffer brings it up to more like 900,000. That would add to the levy buffer. Yeah. Right. Because you cannot then increase the budget by 160. Yeah. Yeah. No, your idea is to increase the levy buffer. Well, I mean, you get to get to a point where we feel comfortable with the with the with the buffer given the any other uncertainties as well. That's a thought. But you guys all have the same expression. You're all thinking.

Very thinking expression. I keep coming back to what you said which was I want to see the trends of things over year to year and I want to get to what our true baseline for line items should be and I want to do like a bottoms up exercise. Well, you have all the data. Yes, I was poke I was poking around in clear the other night and I see all the data but what I don't have is like context of what's coming for certain departments. So what what we need to do is we need to sit with the police chief and with the fire chief and with the DPW head um and sit with those that data in front of us and say why has this gone down? Why has this gone up? Why did you not spend this? You know

I don't want to be obtuse and be like you have to be like under an arbitrary percentage because I said so like I just want to say no no well so that's what we we used to do. So last year was a little more difficult because of clear gut that was just it was very difficult. We used to take every single line item and we would have three. How many years worth of numbers now do we have going back? What do we go back to? 24. 2. We do 23.

23. So we used to do that. So we would go through budget to town which is police and we would look at every line item going back three or four years and then we get to that. We'd look at it and say okay but why are you increasing this budget by when you haven't used it for the last three years? Exactly. That kind of thing. So we used to do that. Now, in theory, we'll talk about it. I don't want to jump Tony's agenda. We're going to talk about that document he sent us. Yeah. I was I was looking at that. I'm like, well, let's move on to that because that's um I think it's a natural progression, a good progression of this discussion. So, are we at this point? What are we going to do? We have to give Mike direction on any of this on where we are with the like I think we want to wait till budget Saturday.

I think No, no, I can. No, I can talk to Mike about this and and and uh I think you know the discussion points we're having now. We had the same discussion points with select board last last week, right? Is that we we're in this sort of zone of do we go for an override or don't we? And what's what's the strategy around this? Um, and can or can we can we move this a little bit in this budget to get to a point where we have a comfortable buffer that we feel okay with not doing an override? I mean, but then then it's down to drilling down all all those lines, right? Making sure we're not overcutting, which is your concern. Yeah. Um,

because if we're going to do that, we need a scrubbed budget. And I've looked at that budget and I will tell you we've increased travel, we've increased conferences. That's not a scrub budget in my opinion. That is a budget. Right. So you got you got concerns on two sides. You got concerns that some lines are too high because they we shouldn't be you increasing them and some lines are too low because we're artificially decreasing them, right?

To re and that's I guess that's my frustration, right? If some lines are too low because we're artificially decreasing them and yet we're increasing conferences, you we got to make I guess I'm a little frustrated because I feel like we're not getting Where are our priorities? Like we're laying off teachers, but we're increasing travel. Um we're laying off teachers, but you know, there's two department heads that are each getting a $20,000 increase this year. I mean, that is just I I'm just dumbfounded by these numbers that I've seen. Um, unfortunately that stuff is contracted. That doesn't mean that, you know, we don't get to call some of that stuff out. So, I when I looked at this a budget, um, I felt like I don't know. I felt like there was a lot of priorities and and some of that has to do with some experience that I've had just kind of looking at numbers and understanding them.

I'm I'm concerned that our concerns are not being heard. Yes. Okay. Well, so the question is what's the what's the what's the mechanism for us to understand that budget and and and and bring up concerns and ask our questions, right? So part of it budget Saturday and and part of it is is bring people into fincom in meetings and ask them questions. So all those things are open to us to do that. Um so with that let's move on to clear go and the and the output stop that so so I sent everyone must send the um the uh the clear output.

Mhm. Um so and I even sent a handy list of instructions of how to use it. You did handy dandy. you didn't come over to my house to do it for me which might be the was made it slightly easier for me. So what we've got here is we've got on tab one has got all all the data basically. So that goes through um actual amounts from you know 23 24 25 um I don't think I don't think you're sharing to the zoom oh sorry it's my fault let me share it let me

when John gets here while you're bringing that up are we going to come back to talking about an override because my concern is we have to like start making a decision as to whether we're going to suggest that we go that we have to make a decision at some point soon because there are people who need to know and there's people that need to run an override if we're going to do an override and we have to suggest to the select board where the budget may want to land. So I think that's one of those things we really need to when's the can we go back to that conversation? Sure. Yeah. We'd vote in May, right? So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When's the drop dead? Like when's the need? Like when Yeah. Exactly. I was actually say last month. Yeah. Like really we need to know like going into budget Saturday

we need to like have a decision the budget that Yeah. So if so I don't want to derail this again but like if John comes and we decide okay if we can get this number to a million dollar buffer we'll say no override but there's got to be more cuts on the A budget. Yeah. Then Tony can go back to Mike and say, "Okay, if you can get it to this point, I'm not including that 160 and making sure the expenses are legit and everything's transparent." Yeah. Um, we won't go for an override going into budget Saturday, right? Because those are the budgets we're going to look at. We don't want to look at this budget and then still be looking for $300,000 in cuts. So, yeah. So, if we said a million dollars is our is our line, right? We got to get to,

right? Um, and what we're saying is that's not going to include the the the reserve fund amount, right? So, it's really it's really 1 something million, right? You know, which I think Yeah, that's a reasonable number to get to, I think. So, we got to find 500. Sorry. We got to find 500. Is that what you're saying? If we want to go from the six Well, yeah. And so, you we can have that conversation when John comes. So that see what John says. Maybe he doesn't agree, but I think all of us should have the conversation so that we can give some direction to downstairs. Okay, that makes sense. John's me coming into a hot conversation.

He thought this whole like, you know, thing that he was going tonight was going to get him out of it, but no. Okay, let me talk about this. We just want to make sure we get back to it. Yes, he's coming later. Right.

Um, so yeah. So anyway, so here's the download. So you've got every on the download you got all the data that's in that's in clear gap. So every actual year is in there um as well as the budget number um as it stands today and the difference and and the growth in Whoops. Um then the second tab is actually sortable. So, this is where you would look at if you wanted to figure out what's going on with, you know, the police or something as long as you know what the code is for police. 210, I think. Right. Right. 210. Y. Um, you can look at everything in police. Um, so that's salary, but there's another way to

Yeah. Yeah. So, this one I've this is this because I've I've been working this already. So, Oh, okay. So, so you you can select all of them or you can just select salary or non- salary. Um, so this is all here again. And you can then you can you can this this partic this one doesn't have the um previous years. We can put that in there easily if we want that. If you want all the years I think we do need that because this is so this is what I want to see by department. Right. And then if I this is what I want to see and I think this is what I think this is what Michelle was talking about. Okay. So, can you add to that at 20 23 24 25 actuals to that pivot table? And then if you if you go over to the notes,

maybe maybe they're there already. I should I think they're there already. They're hidden. I think it's just hidden. Yeah, they're there. They're all there. Okay. So, if you go all the way over to the notes on non salary. Yeah. Am I going to be able to Yeah. So, there it is. So, on line 85, this shows Okay. the radio. so that we can get a sense of um what this item is. So, this decrease of $1,200 is for detective body cam stipens. Well, that's great because So, we're going to So, then the question I would have for the chief would be, are we just not going to have body cams? Like, are stipens are usually a contracted

item. So, you know what I mean? Yeah. Right there. CBA content for 85. You're looking at um 85. Yeah. Where you highlighted? Oh. Is that wrong? Oh, no. 61 you mean? I'm sorry. Yes. Okay. I was originally looking at 85. Yeah. So, 61. I don't know where the lines in between went, but I can't. Well, if it's sorted, that's why. Okay. So, 61. So, then, you know what I mean? That would be the question I would then have. Yeah. If you go over, it says CBA stipens. Can you go over anymore? To the point. Yeah. No. But but we can uh we can always um do that.

Um stipens from being removed. Okay. So it it got removed from the contract. Yeah. Okay. So that's that would be one of the questions, right? That explains that and that's great. So that then I we don't have to worry about that. That's not going to come back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So I'm okay with this. So then my my question is I do this for police and then I can save that as a page. Right. All you need to all you need to do if you wanted to do this is just right click on the bottom there say say move or copy. Yeah. Create a copy. Yep. And that'll copy that page. Yep. And you say okay then that's police, right? So then so then you say okay.

But then for the next download when when adjustments are made I have to do that all over again. And that's my issue. So, so I'm going to I'm going to do that for 25 budgets and then Hungwa is going to make, you know, presumably a wholesale change before budget Saturday because we're going to give you different, you know, um if you do little changes if it's just if we could just at least get a track of what the changes are. So, if we're going to take $5,000 out of DPW and $10,000 out of police, if when the new budget comes out, it could say changes in 210, you know what I mean? So, we didn't know that before, did we? In the old model, we didn't we didn't

we used to just get in the old model, it would be changed by the accountant and it would be sent to us. Yeah. Know, but we we didn't know what had changed in that model. Um, well, it was explained to us by either the TA in the past, the accountant, you know, the same thing could happen here, right? I mean, so that's what I'm saying. So, if there's a change other than a big wholesale change that we might make, if it's smaller changes as we go through the budgets, if we could just get a kind of a here's the new budget numbers, here's the new dump, this kind of thing, and here's specifically the departments that were changed. Because if it's four departments and you just all you're looking for departments, you cut and paste it into your document. If I have one working document,

I'm just, you know, you got to we got to track it. And then we used to use that one document to be able to highlight, you know, what we've already voted, what we haven't voted, right? If you get into copy and pasting into some document you've created, that's that's sort of um prone to errors, I would say. Whereas the download, the immediate download from clear go is always going to be uniform with everybody else. Yes. a power query where you take both uh outputs and then you can put them in a power query and you can show just the things that have changed. So you you ahead of me on that one. It's kind of complicated.

So I'm walking across the street with my laptop after sends this and I'm going to have Joe do that for me. You need to give us a tutorial on how I just I just guess I can do pivot tables. That's as far as I go. Yeah. I mean, I just guess, you know, this is great and I'm going to sort this whole thing out, but for us to really be able to do what Michelle was talking about, if it's ever changing, I can't I don't I'm I'm not an employee of the town. I do not have time to do that. I'm learning all these tech sales skills and you know, I am like listen, I'm going to work do my job

in my business and then I'm going to retire. I'm never going out looking for a job where I'm going to be able to do any of this. So, I don't know. That's my only concern with this. I think other I mean that works great like what you just did except I would need to do that sort every single time I got a new version of this budget. Yeah, but it's it's a very easy sort to do. I mean that's the it's a sort and a save and a sort and a save and a sort. Well, I wouldn't I wouldn't save it even I mean why why save it? Because because you need to under so I do things differently. I need to be able to refer back to this budget and understand it. And to do that, I need to have a document that, you know, I need a summary that shows me where the budget is. And if I if this number gets changed, I that's just the way I do things. I mean, I can't

So, the next tab on here is a summary, right? So, this this gives you what every department is for all of those categories, which I suppose is where you could compare the different departments. Yeah. But it's within the categories. Yeah. This is your bigger P. This is your overview picture of what the the numbers look like um by by department. Um row B, column B. Um education was never $4,000 because that's a $90 million budget for actual FY23. You see that?

Yeah. Um something's missing in um the actuals for FY23. have a B budget. So yeah, it's we're missing Yeah, doesn't look right, is it? That's that's the that's the raw data. So we're missing probably 12 million something $4,314. That's my guess. There's some sort of error there on 314 because that's what it shows in clear go for. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's not it's a No, it was an input input. No. Yeah. Yeah. Delete this.

Okay. Anyway, you got us with that. Um and then you've got another one which is just um salary and non- salary for every department as a summary which will roll up so you can see what that is. Again, you see what's changed from time to time. in that that one. In fact, if you were to print that out or or or save it, you could see it. You could do a you could do a direct comparison with with the the new version that came out easily. I could bring it to Joe and he could compare the two for You could bring it. You could do a power was it a power surge? Powered the data tab. Just ask Chad GBT how to do it. That's what I did. Lord. Oh, no. I'm not getting I'm not getting into that. Uh

okay. Yeah. And then at the end you got this handy dandy key which tells you what all the cost centers are. But Maria doesn't need because she knows them all by heart. I know most of them by heart. But those are sad is that don't know them all by heart. We can refer back here and say okay then you know please is 210 or whatever. Can you go back to the summary that I just we just had with that column B that was Yeah. Go back to that. So on that summary we'll be able to it's very similar to what we had last year. And when you bring it down, I hate that 27's all the way over, but when you bring it down, does this show um does this show the reserve fund separate or is it within Okay,

it's within it's within administration, I think. Can we move the reserve fund? Okay, so we can't move it as a separate item. Okay, we'll just have to track that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. So other than so okay with this it's going to have to be like I'm not great with it. I'm gonna everybody else I think this is great. I still want context which I'm I'm super interested. If you pop back over there's like a notes. Yeah the notes are important. Yeah. Some of them are great. Some of them are like absent. Yeah. Not so great. Yeah.

But I mean those are the that's that's when you ask the questions of the department heads. So that's I think I'm probably just like waiting for the conversation on budget Saturday it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then after that and then after that we'll we'll have people come in to us and we can have further followup. We'll have we have followup with the police chief and the DPW and and the and the fire always. We'll have the library and we'll have um the school the school will come in. Yeah. We'll we'll have planning here. So um and then and then the committees if there's any committee that has a substantial increase and it's really our choice of who who we who we have want to ask questions of. So if if you have a question flag it up and we'll and we'll that particular committee in. Right.

I just want to look at it holistically and not be like you know squeezing the police chief if someone in another department is going to like a $200,000 conference, you know, like expensive conference. If anyone goes to a $200,000 conference, yeah, we're coming we're coming we're coming for that line item. But like that's that's the kind of thing that I'm concerned about. Like I don't want to just throw an arbitrary number at every department. I want to like really look holistically at what we need and what we don't need. So just so that you I don't know if you remember this, but Melissa um what we can't do is snow and ice when you get to that on the budget. Yeah. We cannot decrease that number

because Okay. I didn't know if you knew that we cannot because it's a state. If we decrease it, then we can't overspend it. That's the only thing we can deficit spend. Um and we can't deficit spend if we decrease it in the budget process. Yeah. So, okay. For the same reason, we don't want expenses to then come out of the reserve fund. It's almost like a def right. So the state has a rule that um so during COVID unfortunately in all the chaos that got bumped up too high because we needed separate plow drivers. So that become became much more expensive. Interesting. Okay. Um because everyone needed their own trucks. It was kind of a thing. So but now we can't decrease that. So we get some of that back from the state too reimbured, right?

Snow and ice if we go too high or something like that. I don't know if we do. Do we get reimbured for snow and ice? No. No. Okay. must have been reading something else.

Okay. So then for budget Saturday a couple of years back we started giving a template out to the department heads because they would come with their own PowerPoint. They were all over the place basically. So so this is the template that I've updated for this year. Um and I'll you know welcome your comments on this basically. So the idea is that you know we get for every for their budgets we get an overview of what the salary and non- salary is for um actuals 25 budget 25 26 budget we'll have a quarter's worth of actuals for 2 26 actually so we

yes I was going maybe we could move the deal with those numbers so we could do FY26 actual well it be just one quarter right Or we could do FY25 actual. I don't know that we need budgeted because we're going to be doing the budgeted 26 against 27. We could do FY24 actual. Well, it's good to know what how how far off the budget it was in that year. I know it's two years ago, but Okay. It sort of is what you're thinking about. That's what I'm thinking about. Yeah. I mean, like an Apple's trend a little better because we've been over so much. Have we been historically over or or you know on on this by how much? Um so it's only going to give us one year.

Yeah. But as I say we we will have a quarter's worth. I mean we'll actually we actually have two quarters worth but not in clear right because we'll have a we'll have Vadar data for the end of the end of December or January the 3. Pretty tight. Yeah. That's really tight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The first quarter in there already. Yeah. Yeah, the first cause is in is in Yeah. So, maybe we should add that into the um output. Okay. So, we have that. Yeah. Because you, you know, it's a quarter. You can you some stuff you can some some you can't, but some you can. Yeah. Okay. So,

okay. So, I So, I add in another column there for for Q1 Q1 FY26 actuals. Okay. And we don't want FY24 actuals. So we you would we would rather see and I'm asking the actual versus budgeted for 25 and that trend versus um actual 25 actual 24. I want to see them both personally but this is only going to be so well we're going to have we can have it all ourselves on on our own laptops. I mean this is what the could be presented by the department heads basically. Um, so, uh, I mean you you only have so much on the page really, right? That's the problem.

Okay. Um, so which would you prefer? We want 24 actuals or 25 budget 26 26 actuals or 20 Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, we do 26. We're going to do 26 Q1, but we can have either 25 budget or 24 actuals in that progression. Tough decision, but tell I guess I'm just I'm I'm listening to the convers I'm just trying to think of what tells us more. I like 25 actuals. 25 actuals is a thing. The 25 budget. Yeah. Versus 24 actuals. I I think it has to like for what I'm interested it has to be 25 budget because I'm like how are we trending?

So that's fine. And then we'll have it on our laptops to look if we if we want. I think looking at like a year of reviews Yeah. Yeah. that's only going to show us how much it went up. And then if it's a repeated pattern, we can like flag to ourselves and be like, oh, in 24 you were also trending. And bear in mind, this is this is not every line. This is just the salary line total. But we got all that detail on on the on this on the output. We can look at this this could be a red flag like when you see the actuals for a second like you were, you know, 72,000 over only 1,800 over or under or whatever it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, same for B. Um, and I put in, you know, some bullet points here, the sort of things they can discuss in terms of, um, you put the bullet points in. They're going to put the actual information, underlying assumptions for FI27, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then what are the big changes in those budgets? What the budget drivers? This is for them to fill in. It's for them to tell us. Oh, this is this is you know these these things these things are impacting Yeah, that's right. Yeah, this is one department. These are impacting the budget. Yeah, this this is this is going up this much. You know, this was this this much we've cut or whatever. And the same for B. Yeah.

And Maria, that goes back to your vehicle maintenance tasers like Yeah. If we see that in there, we got to talk. Yep. Yeah. And is that going to be is that cut going to be um any cuts or is are we going to say you know if it if it's a 1% you know what I mean because it could be a long list if oh like we don't want your office supply budget was cut by $7. Well I think I think we want the top f top five I'd say based on those five lines there if if there were five additional slides is necessary. I think we give them a percentage because you know what you may it may be more than top five. We may have you know you may have oh depending on the department

seven budgets in DPW because it depends on how many items they have right um and seven budgets that are cut more than what number do we want to see 3% 5% I think probably 3%. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So any any change more than 3% up or down or down? Yes. because we're we're considering things like $250,000, but what's the what's the Yeah, there's got to be a dollar number as well, right? Because it could be a very small item. Mhm. So, there's got to be a dollar impact as well of it. I think above $500, say, oh god, yes. Oh, yeah. Even to 103 like Yeah, I think that's reasonable.

Yeah. $500. $500. Yep. Okay. And I think if that's too much, they'll they'll they'll let us know. We will we'll be alerted. They'll be like, I have 27 line items like And you know what? But maybe we need maybe we need to see what the 27 line items are. Those all tally up to why we're over because they can add slides on that. And and the other thing is it'd be great to get this a little bit in advance because normally we get this on the morning of. So if we could get it even, you know, when I used to do budget Saturday for the schools, I would get my binder usually on Friday morning and I would spend most of Friday afternoon with a bottle of wine and my budget. And so even like Friday would be lovely to have this stuff.

Yeah, it's January the 3rd is Christmas, right? I know. I know. So I mean, if not, you know, as soon as I guess the as soon as they could possibly get it to us would be great. It'll just make budget Saturday. They clearly need to get it done by by some point to get it on. So you want presentations by Friday by August. Well, when I'll tell you what, Rajan, when do you want presentations by Are you going to get them before Saturday morning? Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess the more so for guidance of the department heads, how soon would you like the Right. So, like if if we said Friday afternoon, is that reasonable? I don't want to be unreasonable, but you're going to get them at some point before that. Yeah. Because you got to get them all. know this stuff though, right now. Really?

Right. That's what I'm saying. So, I mean, it's not like they're going to spend New Year's Eve by themselves doing this. I think it would be unreasonable to have them by Friday morning. Yeah. It's not like Friday noon kind of thing would be great. Okay. Friday. Would that work? I mean, I guess it depends. Do you have a deadline of Friday at 3? Because you know what I mean. If you say to the department heads, I need a Friday by 3 to key it up, then we could say 3:00. I don't want to not looking to put pressure on that. It doesn't have much time to look at it, does it? Really? Well, again, don't make them answer Friday night. Just pour yourself a drink and sit. Yeah, we we can do Friday by noon. So, that way it gives us time to review them and get them. Yeah, that would be great if you could do that. So, then we have time to

We have time to scan it and go over it. Yeah. And make our notes because it's hard when they're doing it live and then we're trying to come up with questions. So, and then we're not aligned in anything and flagged anything. Yeah. And then then the last one is um warrant articles. So I mean yeah, are there any warrant articles we're going to be putting in this year? It' be a good I know I know we've got capital sat and stuff coming up, but I mean this is this is actually non- capital stuff. So but just make sure right. It shouldn't there shouldn't be any RNA stuff for the start. Well, I guess that would be is do you want just RNA stuff or do you just want anything? Well, anything I suppose. I mean pre-cache stuff could be in there, right? I mean if they

Well, I do think if we're going to plan for free cash, yeah, we should have some idea. But they don't get to make that decision. We do. So really, we need to know bonding versus non-bonding, right? Because the non-bonding then we make the decision. We got to flesh out the thinking about, you know, just just so we know. Um and actually I did I mean one thing you can do with this clear go sheet and I'll show you something else I did was I did do a like an analysis um of all the stuff all the changes. This is increases um above above a above $1,000. So you can do that. So you can go through and you put your own filter in basically

um and sort out above. Okay. All right. And that's up or down any changes. Yeah. So then so then you you can sort of you can sort of do the same thing then you and again you you can sort it by by department code. So you say, "Okay, then you know, let's see what's what's in there for, you know, police. We're picking up police tonight." Okay. So this is all the stuff which is a big increase. Contracts and and CBAs and wages. Yeah. Nothing we can do anything about.

No. Yeah. What's the first line? Motorola. The Motorola. Yeah, that's kind of a lot. So, you can So, you can you can filter all this stuff out. Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole with these right now. I will. Yeah. Because even though contracts are not things we can do something about, we certainly can highlight the concerns around those changes.

Yeah. Yeah. Circling back to our question earlier about when do we need to know about an override and like Adam said yesterday would have been great or last month. Um just walking through the steps we got budget Saturday we're going to be looking at everything questioning everything. I think honestly getting through budget Saturday is going to give us that perspective. Do we need that following FINCOM meeting to kind of finish up on like the 6th to really have a better idea for going for an override at that point? Like I'm just trying to time frame it. I'm not locking us in January 6, we're going to have a decision. Well, I think if we if we say tonight, right,

we want a buffer of a million dollars or a million5 or 800,000, whatever number we decide makes sense, right? We'll know if we have to go for an override because they will either by budget Saturday it'll either we'll have that buffer or we won't. Gotcha. Right. Right. Yeah. And then if we don't then we have an A budget and a Budget. Mhm. Um yeah. Is that something we want to let them like they'll need to know that coming in? Well, no. I mean I need to talk to Mike about that. I mean that's why I think we should setting a new target way for ar saying okay good we're here but we need to be a little bit further. Mhm. This was clearly if we don't want an override. If we don't want an override, if we don't want an override, can you get us a little further along? Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Okay. And if and if we can't do that, then we're back to our A budget budget scenario. If we don't need an over, then we don't we don't need a B budget basically. We can just right put it, but we have to let people know soon. I mean, there's there's a lot of confusion over whether we need an override, don't need an override. Um, you know, some of this stuff has been a little prematurely put out there and stuff. So, yeah. Um, I have a question for Adam. Um, does Actton's not doing an override this year? Does it look like they may be looking at one next year? Uh, they haven't gotten that far in the ALG plan. Okay.

And and what I'll add in terms of timing for an override in addition to like community information is that there's a lot that goes on in the back end of the budgeting process for for both sides, for the municipality and for for the schools. Um, so it whether or not we're going for an override, what's more important is what's the depth of the BB budget cuts. Um, because we're in the middle of reorganizing. So in addition to reorganizing, and Hana will will confirm this, when you do that, you have to create all new costs for all of the different facilities and all the different school setups that we're going to have. So we have to do that. And then if we have to do that at a different level, whatever that budget cut level is, that's that is creating a budget basically from scratch all over again. And so the longer it takes us to decide if we're going for an override and then what the depth is of that B budget, the longer it'll take for us to actually produce the Budget. And it isn't until you can produce the Budget that you know what the cuts are that you can then go out and communicate

what the costs are if you don't pass the override. That makes sense. to see why we needed it last month. Yep. Yep. So, I mean, I'm thinking I'm thinking this ought to be doable to do it without an override if we can get the budget, too. I think we Yeah, I think the Audus budget I think is if we can do a B budget, we can do an A minus budget. That's what I'm thinking. I mean, does that mean that based on your previous projections that you think we need one next year? Yes, probably.

Yeah. I mean, we Yeah, we just we're kicking the ball down the road, I think, a little bit, but I mean, but it gives us another year to, you know, think about that. Gives us It gives us this budget year to make sure these budgets are clean. Yeah. And as clean as they can be and not overbudget by a million dollars that might be fed back into Yeah. you know, my only fear is getting closer to the, you know, having it be more dire next year and then who knows what happens the next year. Maybe stuff in town gets more contentious. It's harder to communicate next year. You know, this year we got a fire station coming up, you know.

So, the fire station in March will be the vote for the land purchase and design and then it will be next February we would come back for design money. Um, but whether there's an override in this May or next May, um, you know, I we need a fire station and we need to run the town and the schools. So, it's unfortunate, but that's what we're looking at. And so, um, I guess we should just be really careful not to communicate if we don't need an override this year, not like, hey, we're free and clear. No, I think the me I think the message is we're going to need an override soon on the brakes. We're just not slammed on

him. Yeah. We've managed to sort of like manage it this year so we can we can get under but don't make that the expectation. Yeah. But we can't do it again. We can't do it indefinitely. Yeah. And and you know, who knows? I you know, I really think there's enough towns dealing with this right now, both on the school side, if they're regional, um, and on the municipalities. At some point, two and a half% is just not realistic. And so I don't I don't think you get consensus statewide to get rid of a cap. There needs to be a cap. A cap needs to be raised to something more reasonable. There's a lot of talk out there right now. I mean, since we've been going through this whole process, every day on the news, I'm hearing every municipality speaking up,

you know, municipal associations. And so maybe that really is what needs to be done. Maybe the school districts need to go as a, you know, and then we need to, and I know you guys are doing it, so I'm not saying you're not doing it, but then maybe the municipalities need to get together and start really putting pressure on on, you know, our representatives to say, "This just isn't working." And, you know, Massachusetts Alliance for Limited Taxation was great 300 years ago when they did this, but this is not realistic. I don't know if it's going to ballot, but I heard that there was an initiative to allow towns to with a vote at their annual town meeting go over 2.5 without an override, but but that is an override. There's some some change that they were proposing that would make it easier. Yeah.

So, there's just a lot of that's people talk about this, not just us. So, so the other thing we need to do, I mean, and John's got this detailed model of multiple years of of sort of like um budget modeling he's been working on and and I'd like to feed in what we have here into his model to make sure they mesh properly and make sure all the assumptions line up because that's that's another validation I'm looking for for the for the for the model. Make sure we are on the right track. So, do you feel that you need to do that before we can say we're comfortable with a million dollar levy?

No, I think I think I think I need a couple, you know, I'll discuss it with the town, you know, this next about here's that here's our new target, if you like. Uh, but I think in the meantime, I think John and I can work on sort of pressure pressure testing all the numbers and all the assumptions. Okay. So, what does that mean? So that's what we're gonna Is that the plan? So yeah, that's the plan. That's the plan is we're going to go for an A minus budget. Well, because I'm just thinking too, we talked a couple fincoms ago. I think I had looked it up, right? The last two or three times we went for an override. It failed that first year. Yes.

We went back scrubbed the budget like crazy and it passed the next year. Yep. And we can almost give ourselves that opportunity right now to just scrub that budget and almost use this year as a trial run that even if we're not going for an override, we're still going to act like we are. So if it comes up next year, which we think it will, we can be like, we already did this, guys. But I because I think when I we looked that up, like it always the the vote was clo when it failed, the vote was always close. And then when you looked at the numbers the following year it was like they had gone back and done everything to do the work we're talking

because when that first year when it failed we had to scrub the budget right we didn't have a choice because it was about a half a million dollars that first year there was and there was also only a no committee there was no yes committee that year and the next year there was a yes committee but I do think um by but when I say scrubbing the budget like I I cannot explain I believe the TA took a zero increase um I think that every conference was wiped out of the budget. Every anything non-contractual was like stripped. Um I do think employees did get colas, but they were low. I mean it was just really really really super tight.

Um and then you know you go back and say okay we've done all this. We've taken every ounce of meat off this bone and now we're we're hitting bone. Um, and you know, maybe that's what this year gives us an opportunity to do, but we need to have buyin from everybody cuz I got to tell you that a budget again, there are things that I'm going to go through on budget Saturday. I didn't feel like there was complete understanding that like there's still stuff in there and there's still increases. Yeah. So, yeah. So, we need to align with the town. We need to align with the select board as well. Yeah. Does every department need to get the same budget? Can there be discretion that we or the TA could say you're getting the your B budget? They all they've all prepared. They're they're I know it's maybe a little

I mean it is up to the TA. So right so the TA and the select board present their budget to us. Yeah.

We don't and then we do get to go in and make cuts. One year we did um we cut I we said we got to cut 10% out of everyone's budget when Becky I think is the year before you came on the committee or maybe your first year 10% out of everyone's budget because we didn't know what the fuel was going to be because I think that was right started some war and embargos and this that and the other thing anyway um so we went in and we said to department heads you need to cut you know 10% out of your budget and if they didn't there was one department and I I want to say it was not under Mike it was the other TA a didn't cut his budget. We took, you know, 10% off the bottom. And we can do that and present that. That's not the way we want to do it. It'd be great to be able to work together.

You know, if we're going a A minus budget and maybe one or two departments have to go with their B budget to to slide into home plate. Like, is that unfair? I mean, well, that may be what the Audus budget is probably some elements of B. Oh, right. Yeah. There may be some budgets we can't take down, and that's really up to Mike to do. Hopefully Mike and it doesn't necessarily mean a budget for them, but it might mean uh we all need to take a haircut. We all need to cut X or whatever if Mike's willing to do that. Just if the A and B for every department are suitable in some way, they they present them to us, then maybe being able to choose between them in some way, like make our own shopping cart of them could get us to an exact number a little bit.

Yeah, I mean already that town other is only increasing three and a half%. So it's not 5.5%. So because a lot that's all taken up by the administration line um and the school line. So so

they're already yeah they're working with a limited amount of working space to actually make those cuts. So that's how it has to be basically. I don't want to come off too aggressive on this, but I also think that when you do budget cuts, the first swing is often incorrect in either not a big enough swing or too big of a swing. And I I want to give us a chance to correct this year before we get ourselves in an override situation or not the year after. So, I almost want to like we've been talking about a million dollars potentially as the buffer. I almost want to say like let's see how low we can comfortably go and not impact like basic town services and then see where that gets us.

Well, that's that's the B budget, right? That's the B budget. I mean, is it like I I don't know. I don't know. Budget is like so does it impact town services? Does it not? That's that's kind of what I want to know and why I keep asking for like justifications because if we're making impacts to town services in an A minus budget, maybe that's still not suitable,

right? Or if we aren't making impacts to town services and we're like still going to conferences and still like I don't know. I don't know what people are doing putting extra meat in the budget on a on a B budget, I'd be like, "Oh my god, wow. We still have more to go." So, I still just don't feel I know we're trying to push for that buffer number um to have a a strategic number to shoot for, but I still don't Well, you got reference points, right? Reference points you're going to have is you're going to have the B budget and yay budget to look at. So, so we're saying yay budget like is B does B budget mean like we get rid of a fire? We can ask the question. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we'll know on budget s. Those are the questions we can ask

tonight. I'm not ready to like Yeah. But we have to but we have to we have an A budget and a B budget. And if we think we want to come where somewhere in the middle we we need to direct the TA and the select board need to have some understanding of some idea where we're coming from particularly going into budget Saturday because we're going to go into budget Saturday and say we'd like to avoid an override and we'd like to avoid the B budget. So that means an A and A and a half a minus budget whatever it is. Um they we need to get that budget to look at. That's the problem. We can't it's like a catch 22. But we have to we have to really at some point put a pin in it.

Clear will keep they'll keep updating clear as they as they go through the discussions. I think Michelle to address your concern too. It sounds like you're also wondering like is the B budget the floor? Is there is there a C budget? Yeah. Like we just don't know about because we don't know enough about the B budget. Exactly. I just like don't have enough context to be like, well, what we know about the B budget is there's no colas. So that means that a handful of people who are not on contracts. Yep. Right. And are not paid enough to begin with. And are probably not paid enough to begin with. Right. Because all the department heads are on contracts. Yep. The police and fire union and DPW are all unionized,

right? So it is we're gonna that B budget is you know a little bit on the backs of people who are not making a fortune um working for Boxboro. Um so we already know that is there any personnel cuts in the B budget? I think at least it's ours. It might be some cuts to ours. Just hours. Yeah. But not any I think it's hours. Okay. Okay. So, functions remain except for the hours we're cutting. If you've just eliminated your unions

and your department heads, the reality is you're probably cutting hours of people who might not be working full-time to begin with. So, there's going to be it is going to somehow impact services. Yeah. If you got someone working 25 hours a week and we're cutting three hours out of their, you know, the goal for me for this year is like do not cut basic services. How do we maintain basic services? Is that an A minus budget or is that like an A? That's the question we need to ask each department head, right? Yeah. This is why it's for me it's a catch 22 because I'm like I keep coming back around to this loop of like I need context. Yeah. But until until we have that that dialogue um

we're not going to we won't have that. I mean there's the not there's the notes in the in clear but that's that's pretty basic. So what's the guidance then? That's up to us. I mean, I think, you know, do we I know we keep going around in circles. Do we want to know do we want to say if we can, you know, without the reserve fund, make it a million dollar buffer. Um, then we we we start with that and then we can either cut that budget or add back into that budget a little bit. It means Yeah, it means that the town has to come up with another $350,000 or something in cuts. I think that's reasonable. Last year was 850.

I think that's reasonable. That that would give us like 1.15 million as a something like that. What do you guys think? Including the reserve fund. Including the reserve fund. Yeah, I think I'd support that. I mean, part of me thinks, you know, we're going to need an override anyway soon. Um there's a lot of stuff going on. Like I just I kind of worry about what the landscape might be next year for an override, but um going for one early doesn't I feel I feel asking for an override if we can get away with not not asking for it would be sort of disingenuous I suppose in a way you know I think it's it's you know

right but we can say that to people we can you know people can understand that we've asked for and we've cut and and there needs to be a real cut list to get to your A minus budget, right? People need to understand that these are all the things itemiz all the things that we had to cut out of our our level service budget, which you now still have level services, but we've cut these things out to get there. And I think we need to we need to map that out and and show that to the town at town meeting. But I think I think the TA's office needs to show it to us so that we can get behind it because I think that's important because then that's to your point next year when we go to for an override. Yep. Here's our list from last year. Here's what we're going to have to do this year.

Yeah. Um but we, you know, we did our best not to get there this year. Plays into yours, Michelle. We're like, now we're going to be cutting things. Yeah. We're going to be cutting things you don't want to cut. Yeah. So, I'm like I want to be super clear this year of like basic services need to remain whole like think super critically about everything else. Mhm. Because if we get to the the bad place, then we're going to be, you know, like losing coverage of police and fire and like things that are actually dangerous to human existence. Yeah. And the other thing we have to keep in mind is dispatch is going to be coming back online in the next year, right? Good point. Yeah. 50%. Oh, do we know what that is?

Oh, that we have to pay for 300,000 or 600. It's It was 425,000 when we took it out of the budget because we were getting reimbured from the state and then we were slowly um two years it was 100% reimbursement. Then it was a Yeah. 7550. We just got to be we just need to keep in mind remember that. Yeah. Next year. Yeah. That is going to be going up. We have to mention that this year again at Telm we've we've reminded everybody yearover-year but we have to do that because next year there will be a jump of 25 percent. Yeah.

I think the targeting an override next year also may help help people understand. I think this is more just personal opinion but I think a lot of people associate overrides with school budgets and not town budgets. And I think if we're if we've already done a lot of that work to show like this is the town that needs the override, not just oh school costs went up of they always like that's a thing. But we can also show that the the school has gone through the school's already done everything. This is our whole town budget. We're going to lose all of these things. Yeah. Because the town's the school's already done an organization reorganization. They're saving money where they can.

We've scrubbed a budget. We're saving money where we can. Okay. You know, and again, I'm with you. If if we can do this, even if it's $600,000 levy, right, it's close, but if we can do it with that, it does seem a bit disingenuous to try to get Yeah. a budget override. It's FY28 is the 50%. So, FY28. Yeah. FY28. This upcoming FY27 is 100%. So, the state is paying that still for FY27. So, then next year it goes. So, that's something to keep in mind. That's a $200,000 increase. Yeah. Okay. So, are we done with budget discussion? So, we're just going to do that then without John part of the discussion. He missed that discussion. He's doing Navy Seal training. Get your priorities right.

Um, can we talk about budget Saturday for for Okay. So, we normally do food and it's budget Saturday. We show up at like 8 and stay here. Well, we we start we don't stay forever. It usually finishes about 2:00, I think. Yeah. Even budget Saturday is actually a little bit earlier than that. It's capital Saturday. It depends. I mean, at this point, we have two items on the capital plan, so who knows? But might be it might it might be capital Saturday 8 a.m. to 9. Exactly. Coffee. Um, so a pile of donuts and everyone in town will have a knock for you. Capital. So, we get here on Saturday morning. Um, and we start at 8:30. Generally, we're done by I would say one on the budget, maybe two this year.

Um, we usually have breakfast. We bring in breakfast. So, um, we've got to organize this because it's in two weeks. Um, we split it with a select board. So, what would the Fincom like to bring? So, I can because Tony just said you and Kristen can make a list. So, we usually do like a bagels. Um, I said we don't need French toast casserles and everything else. It gets a little over the top, but um, we can do bagels and maybe muffins and cooking flour. Um, I'm not sure it's in the budget, so that's the problem.

It's not It's not in the budget. Um, hey, the the best budget, the best croissants, and they make me cry. They're so good. But that's in this different conversation. Um, so what do we want to do? Like assume um tea, coffee, bagels, bagels, and muffins. Orange juice, water. Orange juice, water. Yeah, that's great. We're not doing all of that. Do we want to Does somebody want to go get fresh bagels that morning? Does somebody Okay, so Finn Kamel Supply bagels. Yes, I can get bagels. What do we do about coffee? Do we bring coffee in? She um Well, Kristen brings in that 55 pot thing. 50

and um after her first year of using the water, which is full of PAS, so nobody drank it. And she didn't understand why nobody drank it because we all knew there was PAS in the water and she did not. She brought in gallons of water. I don't think we need a 55. It's a giant pot of coffee. One year Duncan or something. Yeah. I mean, one year literally I brought in two cars of from my coffee machine and Becky brought in two from her coffee machine. We had four caress of coffee. Um we don't need to do the coffee. So Kristen can do coffee. We're going to do bagels and um juice. She want orange juice and cranberry juice. How's that? Perfect. All right. You're getting bagels. I'll get the bagels. Okay.

How many bagels should I get? Um there's actually there's there's a few of us. Five, six. Yeah, there's um So two dozen. I would say two dozen. Yeah. Yeah. You got police guys coming in. Come with these guys. Probably three or two or three fire guys. And these guys will all be here. Okay. Um three dozen. Three dozen. Three dozen bagels and cream cheese. Three baker's dozens. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So we who who pays for this stuff? Can we um do this? I've never turned in receipts. I usually just donate it. But Michelle, if you're going to do all the bagels, Yeah. I'll I'll chip in. But um or I mean we do have FinCom has a line item.

We Yeah. Or we can all pitch in, you know. There's a lot of bagels to buy, so Yeah. Yeah. It is a lot of bagels and cream cheese together. So, we can chat about that. Okay. Yeah. All right. Great. So, that's what we're in charge of. And the select board can do coffee, tea, and whatever else they would like, drink or whatever. Okay. Okay, next up, fire station Building Committee update.

Fire Station Building Committee update. Okay, our next meeting, we've we've had a lot of meetings. Um, our next meeting is going to be um January, this is going to be I've got January 5th, Monday, January 5th. At that point, we are going to have all the information back on the environmental stuff and the engineering testing that we've done on um 984 Massav, which is Tree Masters, which is Tree Masters, and 1300 Massav. We will have three pieces of property. 1300 is your mom.

That's that building um on the corner of Stow. So, we'll have those three pieces of property, assuming that all the engineering reports and the environmental reports come back clean. Um, we are hoping that at that point, um, we've been able to negotiate a price and we will be able to vote on either one piece of property depending on the property or two pieces of property. Um, our concern is we don't know the appetite. So we're we're right now kind of budgeting out at $4.5 million for because we have to take down 1300 too. We have to take the building down. So there may not be that appetite to purchase a building. Um we do still have 72 still road. Um we have all the testing back on that. So we will have a decision that night and we'll vote that. Um and hopefully we will have um a purchase offer to purchase kind of in in in hand. Um, so then on we meet again on the 8th to finalize our vote and then it will come to us on the 13th and on the 13th we'll be voting and this will be for there we're this the fire station building committee is doing an article for purchasing either one or two articles to purchase property and one article for design money. And the design money is pretty close even um but it's all a little bit different depending on the piece of property just because of um the some of the you know what needs to be done with the land if we need engineering some of it is like at um you know do we need a light um that kind of thing. So it depends on where we are. So it'll be a little bit different um but not by much. So those will be the two or three articles from the fire station building committee. There should also be an article one which um I have to send I sent to Mike about because that will be

an override vote, right? So those those will both be override votes. Um so for debt exclusions. So then there will be an article that the town will put forward to set the ballot question for the following week. It will be two ballot questions. So, um I don't have much more than that. We're we are working on um a public forum for the end of January. We're also working on a public forum which will actually be more like the town meeting pre-Town meeting forum that we had um at the library for the special town meeting in October. It'll be similar to that and it will be a I think we're actually going to do like a either a two or three until 7 o'clock. Um so people can stop by. That was very successful last time. We're hoping people will stop by. Um, and then there's going to be a couple other warrants that'll be coming from the town that will be on that. Um, but that's all I got. Is there any questions?

When When's the um town meeting? Um, March March 9th. March 9th. Thank you. That's the special town meeting. Okay. And that will be at Blanchard. Blanchard. Okay. Um, so Okay. So, school committee John's not here, but we have Adam here. So maybe just Adam, you could give us an update on real um you know strategic options and and budget.

Sure. So we have um we have a school committee meeting Thursday night which will be the second meeting where the full school committee is deliberating on the remaining reorganization options. Um and what I can say is that they all roughly come in with about the same amount of savings. There's a pretty intense um school committee packet that shares all of that information. It's available online, but somewhere between 1.8 and $ 1.9 million in savings for any of those options. It really boils down to whether or not we're keeping existing school programs and combining or we're sort of starting everything from scratch. Um and then we're also looking at enrollment options. Um so, you know, there's something of of interest here. I'd say specifically for Boxboro residents, while we're keeping a um a hometown priority is what we're calling it now, um one of the enrollment options is to actually move away from an open enrollment and do more of a geography based enrollment. Um so there's lots of stuff that the committee is considering. We're getting just gobs and gobs of emails, probably 20 or so a day now from community members, from family members. Um the rest of the school committee stuff we're working on is sort of standard. We got our audit report back for 2024. Um we haven't gotten last year's audit report back yet. The audit reporting companies are really behind um through some mergers. I think the town's probably dealing with a similar um challenge. Um uh I haven't heard back from the finance director if that was a a clean audit, but we've had a clean audit for the past three years now, so I'm not overly concerned on that. Um there's some information about our OPED position that's in our packet for this month as well. Um we're doing really well on funding OPED. Uh and the budget subcommittee, you know, is moving forward with sort of planning our a budget. Um which looks to be a 3.75

to 3.8 uh 3.8 uh% operating increase for the schools, which comes to about a 5 and a half 5.6% assessment increase to Boxboro. um that will result in anywhere between 20 and 30 positions needing to be cut from the schools. Um and that would be year five of 20 plus positions cut a year. Uh other than that that I mean the school committee is just deep in the details for the reorganization and like I shared earlier um what we're preparing for our budget workshop which is now on a Monday and I sent you all that information about that. Um we're we're we're still working pretty closely with the administration to sort of balance what they'll be able to prepare um knowing that they will have just heard the um outcome of our reorganization decision about the day before they need to publish budget budget binders. And so you know what we've said is we know we we'll have our bottom line number. We'll know most of our um sort of operating budgets in the main categories. um but they won't be able to produce a full and complete budget because they won't have had time to rebuild the entire budget depending on what organizational model we've chosen. So the budget workshop will be somewhat abridged. Um what we're going to use the opportunity for is to sort of um provide uh a bit of a recap of where we've been over the past few years. some of the big questions that keep coming up, you know, out of district spending, cost to to educate students, how we compare to um expenditures across the Commonwealth, those types of things, because we do have a lot more people paying attention to what's happening now. Um, and I will say that it's frustrating to get emails that says that there's been financial mismanagement over the past few years and we've had to close a building because of that. Um, and what it speaks to is that when things are going well and when your kids are thriving, you don't pay attention.

But when you hear that something as drastic is going to happen that may affect your family, you then

you light up and start paying attention. So we're going to take advantage of that and use this increased engagement to let everybody know that, you know, we have been scrubbing the budgets for years. We have been making choices that are actually in the best interest of taxpayers by bring keeping students in district by finding ways to um you know combine programs and all of that. So that will be uh a good part of what our budget workshop will be in addition to sort of the the minimum what we can provide in terms of where we're seeing the A budget land. Um and I think the conversation tonight has been really helpful. Um what I will share is that given all of the work that our administration is doing, we're not pushing them to build a Budget. Um and so the Budget will come pretty late in the process if if need be. Um because there's there's plenty to do um in sort of doing a reorganization. And remember that means potentially reenrolling every student in the elementary schools into a building and it involves moving, you know, 50 odd staff or the 500 elementary educators that we have around different buildings and all of that. So there's a great deal of planning that's going to have to go on after the 22nd when we vote on our our uh our reorganization option. Um

yeah, that's great. Remind me when the budget workshop is. It's a Monday evening, right? Monday the I believe it's the 9th is what? of February. Of February. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's two days after our capital. That's why they moved. Yeah. So, yeah, we should all go to that, I think. So, you need to post a quorum, possible quorum. Yeah. I'll post a quorum for that meeting. So, I think it' be useful to be to be there. Is it going to be tell It'll be on Yeah, we'll be in the admin building in the in the auditorium. So, it'll be broadcast on acting TV as well. So, and I know you don't need to hear this, but like sometimes the sound is atroc it's awful. public cuts out just just if you're happen to be discussing it with somebody

act if we had some spare funds we could replace the system in in the administration building so I assume that that was an act and TV issue no so it it's all very tied together so you one of the things we learned is if the connection that connects our presenter computer into the system gets disconnected then it cuts audio out to act and TV yeah so it's all very interconnected because that's the frustrating part you guys are just having a good discussion. Sudden there's no sound. I'm like, what do you mean? We were having a pretty heated discussion. And I will tell you that one member of the school committee was a little upset that he felt like he might have gotten censored in his Yes. That's exactly what happened. I was watching the meeting. I'm like, where did that go? Cuz that looked like it was going to be an interesting tidbit and then it just it just went no. I mean, that that system is

like I said, I know this isn't your issue. I just thought I would mention that system's about seven years old and the equipment you can't buy replacements for. So, you know, we're we're limping along as best we can at this point. Okay, thank you. Okay. So, okay. So, next topic is the Canada year 25 annual report, which I don't have on screen here, but I did send it around everyone, right? Yeah. Um, so um so yeah, I won't bother to share. I mean, if you get a chance to look at it, please have a look at it and make any comments you have um on it. Don't reply. Don't reply. Just reply to just reply to me. Uh, I think it's due to be sent in by like January the 9th, maybe. I

I'm really impressed you have it written. Usually I'm writing like when I'm chair of any committee, I'm like the day before it's due. I'm like, what did we write last year? I took last year's before. I'm just filling the blanks. How do these numbers change? Yeah. And Hongwa is checking the numbers for me because there's some number discrepancies in there I need to figure out. So Hongwa's kindly doing that. One thing I did add this year was the a trend of OPED funding versus the um liability which is trending quite well actually

and a trend of pension funding versus liability which is neutral I'd say hasn't really changed much but the the plan is that we'll we'll move on to funding the pension liability when the oped is is sort of paid paid down that's our that's our stated policy so that's going to be another Warren article so There will be warrant articles. It's just not maybe capital because OPED will be one. There's a few. Yeah, it will be free cash. But so the the 796 might just that Gary gave us that's a capital number, but there's other articles that we're looking at.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay. And then um on terms of the calendar um coming up, we've got our um let's have a look here. Our next get together is going to be um capital capital capital Saturday, right? Budget Saturday. Budget budget Saturday. Um and then um do we have do did you schedule out any department heads already? No, for for Saturday. Budget Saturday. Not for budget Saturday, but for any of our Tuesdays for looking

No. No. So I was just looking at that today actually in terms of what we had last year. So I sort of listed them out. So we, you know, I can be thinking about um what that schedule looks like, you know, more or less the same as last year, I think. But the question is, I suppose what do you, who do you guys want to hear from? So we'll definitely have police back again. We'll definitely have um John's online now. Yeah. We'll definitely have fire back again. Um we did last year. So the school um the school will have come. Yeah. So Gary, just so you know, John Connor's joined us at 8:40. Um, so the school are they going to be at budget Saturday? No. No. Right. So we need to schedule them watching but they won't be participating.

Yeah. But so we need to schedule them for sure. The school. Yes. Right. But what makes sense from your because usually you try to go early but like that doesn't make sense, right? Because of it would have to be after the February date. Yeah. It depends on what level of detail you want us to go into. So maybe the best thing to do is to come to the budget workshop and then we can chat after that. Yeah. Okay. And and then we can sort of time out. Yeah. When we'll have the line item information. I mean we've got a bunch of meet. We're meeting every week. So we've got a bunch of meetings we can we can pick. Yeah. You just I mean you just want to get people like and the library is not coming usually doesn't come budget Saturday.

No. No. Come in. So they'll come Saturday so we can get them. And we last year we had Mark White came in for planning board and then we had Alex separately. So I know it makes sense if we have them both in together maybe. I mean it seems to be more more Yeah. So I think there was questions last year like I think that Mark when Mark came he wasn't the the bylaw changes that we were voting on wasn't quite where they needed to be. Um and actually the planning board has a couple they have a warrant article that I was going to talk about during my update. So we certainly should have them in. Yeah. Yeah. and anybody else that is not coming budget Saturday who we would like to have you know who have questions of any other board or you know committee. So if there's a committee that has a big spike

I think you guys might want to hear from conservation um it's a small number but it's a big increase 50% increase to the budget. So this 50% increase to their budget. I haven't looked at their budget yet. It's the Yeah, it's gone from 15,000 to or sorry um No, it's gone from 10,000 15,000. My bad. Yeah. And just on the CPA, but based on the other stuff I tell you, I think you might. Yeah. Um yeah, there's some funny stuff with RECCOM, but that's really a town thing. I think there's some like just in the lines there sort of like, you know, so if they're at CPC

moving things around, you know, right? But if they're doing CPC, we're going to want to hear about the flare field like you know in person, that kind of stuff. I mean, you know, so yeah, we haven't voted on the warrant articles yet for CPC. So, but but if they're So, we can't bring CPC in though, right? It's not really No, we don't usually bring CPC. We bring the individual like we would bring in RECCOM this year because they want to do Flare, right? Yeah. Is it Flare? Conservation because they have a higher Right. Conservation could discuss, right? So, The housing board is that's always the same. I'm sorry, Marie. You mean for one of our meetings or a budget Saturday? For one of our meetings when meeting. Okay.

Yeah. Otherwise, budget Saturday. That's why we took the school. It just ended up that's when it ended up being like getting home at 4:00 and you're basically, you know, your brain's like jello because we had the schools, the library. There was so many that just dealing with the bigger department, the four big departments separate at the end of that. So I can probably schedule library reccom conservation early on. Yeah. Earlyish because they're they presumably know what they're doing by this stage. Yeah. What's in Well, they've they've turned their budgets in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So um yeah. Okay. I'll work on that. Okay. Then then I'll add to this list the um the school budget workshop and get a forum for that.

Yeah. Okay. Um committee reports. Um John Green um I don't have anything actually. Um I unfortunately was not able to make uh sustainability to a unforeseen thing on Thursday. Um water resources meeting right now so I will have to catch up with that for our next meeting. Um and we already presented so I don't have much beyond that other than that they went to CPC. Yep. You sure?

Which I can carry on from that. We heard all five major products projects, one of which was the flare farm, the other was conservation. Um because the meeting went so long, we postponed our review, wording, voting um on the warrant articles until January 8th, I think is our next meeting. January 8th. So we will be discussing as a group and deciding on if we are supportive in voting then.

Okay. Sure. Um, I heard back from Ed um in DPW uh regarding bond schedule. He said the only things that haven't been bonded yet are refurbishing the truck frame rails and replacing the dump spreader body. Um, those are the only things that are outstanding. Uh, that'll be done in the spring because they need the trucks through the winter for the winter use. Um, he did meet with Rajan and Hungwa. So, they might have a little more further detail. I just had email correspondence. Uh but he said there's very little change in the their budget except some salaries and a couple of contracts for the building cleaning and the Hager well maintenance and operation. Uh he's getting quotes for those now and the percentage change is within the requested guidance by FINCOM. So he says the only capital item he'll be asking for is a new trash compactor for the transfer station to replace an aging one from 1996 that keeps needing repairs and he believes the cost is about 35,000. Um, uh, with Hager, well, just remind Ed to make sure that he's in contact with the school because the school needs to be able to budget the maintenance and they just sometimes that falls off of the radar and then that's a problem for the school because your budget's so tight. So, the school

to schedule the maintenance just to let them know what the dollar amount is once it gets budgeted. So, it gets put into their budget. um if it you know I mean I'm sure it's it's whatever it is yearly but if there's anything extra um because like last year we did the warrant article and so all of that. So

okay cool. Um and then conservation um heard back from Liz um she actually shared the full CPC presentation PowerPoint with me if you wanted me to forward it or present it if you needed to. Uh, basically to summarize the um the reasons for the increase which maybe Michelle being at the um presentation could shine extra light on but what I got from Liz is basically uh the major reason is the uh in addition to the need to respond to land acquisition opportunities, the need to fund the updated town's open space and recreation plan which I mentioned last time. Uh the detail that I didn't have last time is that they're planning to go from a fiveyear to a 10-year plan.

So that the cost will be $60,000 instead of what I assume will be a $30,000 cost. So um they expect to raise uh or they expect to get 30,000 in grant funding, then take 30,000 from the conservation trust fund. Um and their ask is for 15,000 additional CPA, which is anticipated to be a one-time. And then they said they'll take the additional 15,000 out of existing CTF funds. Okay. Did they say why they're doing it this way as opposed to the way you've done it in the past, which is it's a $60,000 price. If we get that grant, we should be doing a $30,000 fiveyear plan instead of a 10-year plan.

No, a $30,000 warrant article. This is not a a conservation only thing. This is open space and wreck. It's everybody. It's all these committees. So, there's no reason that money should be coming out of those funds. I mean, I don't have her rationale on that aspect. I guess we can talk to her about that on budget or Well, I think that's important to know because I think that that's that's a warrant article in my opinion. I heard this that wasn't part of the proposal um like that that justification, right? So, I've heard this that but um the open space and recreation plan is not just a conservation and there's no and it should not come out of that fund because that's not what that fund was created for.

What fun what fund is that? That's that conservation that $10,000 a year they get from CPC to go into this fund which they're supposed to use for if they got to do wetland delineation if a piece of property teeing up to buy piece of property.

Exactly. Right. And they need to do surveys and stuff. So this open space and recreation plan I don't I've heard this like this is the third time someone said this. It should not be in in they should not be taking that out of that account. that's not a slush fund and it's not used for this and this is a townwide plan for 10 years. It would be like telling the planning board they need to pay for the um 20 Boxboro 2050 which is the new master plan, right? And that's that makes no sense. That should be a warn. So what they saying is this is going in the operating budget you're saying or what? Well, they're saying it's coming out of their C they're taking it from CPC. All they're asking for is 15,000 additional CPA funding. the rest is to go into their fund, right?

Then they're going to take it out of their fund to fund this. If they can get a grant for it, that's great, but they should not be funding it out of that fund. And I'm It's actually like you shouldn't be taking your money. It's a townwide initiative. It is recreation is involved, conservation is involved. I think Adcom was involved last time. So what are the steps to get to for them to get CPA funds? What do they have to do to you know does it just present to they need to present to CPA and CPA or CPC and then they then they say they approve it right as long as it falls within the guidelines of well we we vote on if it falls within the guidelines and we talk about how to phrase it on the warrant article so have no say in that then basically

well I'm a voting member so well wait a minute we actually do have say right because our voting member can go back and say vote no but I think if it doesn't fall within the guidelines are like appro what I could say which I need to dig into this because this is like the first I'm hearing about potential not misuse of funds but it maybe is coming from the wrong bucket. It's coming from the wrong bucket. That's the problem. That's not what the CPA So where should it come from? It's not just it should be a warn article. Just a regular Yeah. Like it should be we were probably ask for 15 grand for

whatever the dollar amount is for this plan because it's a townwide. So that's what I'm saying. If they need the 15,000 for other things, that's fine. But the open space and recreation plan should not be coming out of that fund. It's a townwide initiative that involves multiple unless this is a completely different plan. I don't think it is. It it involves multiple departments, land departments. I mean I I don't know those guidelines but um I forget the gentleman's name who was um not part of this commission that was um on one of the presentations that you know brought up the five versus 10year plan. Um it all seemed co conversations.

Yeah. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it. I'm I am I not I don't they should do it. It should be if they think a 10-year plan that's fine. They just need to get the money from But they need to get the money from a warrant article. There is no reason they should take it. That fund should be used for what it was originally intended for. And and and the open space and recreation plan is unless this is a different plan we're talking about is something that should be done through the town. Just like the master plan is done on a warrant article as well. It doesn't come out of the planning budget. Even though the planning department is kind of in charge of the master plan, it doesn't come out of the planning board. Do you want to dig into this with your message?

I mean, I can ask for more clarification on it. I think we just need more clarification and I I actually think this is going to be something that um will probably be more of a discussion as we get closer to Capital Saturday. But if it's a Warren article, we should know that. Yeah. Yeah. I was not familiar with the OSRP. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know that that was the the pain point on there. You know, I thought it was just the value that we were So, I didn't value those questions. Then they clarified it was 5 to 10 and then it made a lot of sense. that now I'm hearing like this may not be the correct bucket for this to be coming from in the first place. Who would make that determination though? Is that just 100% fact or is that an assumption because it doesn't sound right?

It's what we did last time. So I don't know, you know, I don't know why it would come out of that. I don't know why you'd want to take it they'd want to take it out of that bucket. That's my I just I don't understand why this all of a sudden has become a let's take it out of conservation money. It shouldn't come out of that money. It's not just it is an open space and recreation plan. And it says on this on the slide about open space and recreation plan, it says the current plan covers 2022 to 2027. Must be updated again 27. Yeah. Expense has already been incorporated into the capital expense for fiscal year 27. Yep.

2025 executive office for energy and environmental affairs permitted municipalities developed 10-year plan. So this is a new thing that you can even do a 10-year plan as of last year. Um the cost for the previous one was $33,000 paid from the conservation trust fund. It just seems like a crazy place to pay it from. Makes no sense to me. I mean, we can ask the question. I mean, it's if they're going based on the historical aspect, then they're just kind of, you know, going with status quo, which is how it was done before. So, you're saying it should come out like a free cash or something.

It should be a warrant article and come out of free cash. We have to do it. The town's not going to vote it down. We're going to get up. It's going to be just like, you know, we have to do it. And a lot of that also informs grants and stuff, land grants and stuff like that. So we have to have that done just like we have to do a housing production plan and a master plan that helps get a state. The benefit of doing that is it's is voted on by the town. So it's like it becomes official. You're not going through a back door to do it. If that was the right way to do it, I think then they would be happy because they would get what they need because they have enough to cover the other portion

and and it's not just theirs, right? Because it does say open space and recreation. So the reccom's involved, the adcom's involved. It's not just a conservation thing. So I just to me it makes more sense to do it this way. Also I don't know why we would be using CPC funds if we can do a war article. So it's something that the conversation needs to take place. Um so just to finish the slide since I'm half we're threequarters way through they said basically last time it reduced their trust fund balance and elimmited their ability to respond to other priorities so that this year they just want to make sure that they don't get in that same position. Uh they do currently have the highest trust fund um that they've had. It's like 46,000 as it was. that

um but you know they're expecting a $50 to $60,000 expense. Half of it is going to be grant funded. So that's that's the rational. So you want me to check in just say what am I asking? Are you sure that this is the right way? Like how do I talk to Mike? Mike is it's you know I think the conversation just needs to take place. I think maybe I'm completely off. Maybe Gary can help us out because it's on the capital plan, but um it doesn't sound like funding it through the CPC fund is the place that should be funded. It's also not transparent because this is going to be an ongoing thing whether it's in five years or 10 years, right? Because it was a fiveyear plan 5 years ago we did this. It's, you know, it needs to be in the public. They need to understand that we're doing this and why.

Yeah. It sounds like their plan is just to kind of roll those those payments into the trust fund, build it up, you know, slash it down when they need to do this plan and try to, you know, so Joe, would you could you talk to Mike about that? You because you're sort of okay with this. I mean, I'm not sure I understand enough about it to actually have the conversation with Do you want to talk to Mike about it and check in with him, see where he thinks he should come from? Sure. Wise. Yeah, I can do that. That would be the best way of doing it. I think we could do it, you know, rather than me getting in the middle of that. Yeah. And I I am in favor personally, but I'm, you know, not. But again, it's not, you know, I cannot advocate. No, you can't. I mean, it's it's Yeah, I'm not opposed. I'm not opposed to the plan. I'm opposed to the way it's they're talking about funding it.

Yes. It's it's a mechanical question. It's a funding. Where where do you where do you fund it? Where should we fund this from? You know, right? Yeah. What's the process? And we have that's a much easier. Yeah. The parliament procedure from the right place. It sounds like either way there's a there's a mechanism to get it, you know, and it's it's a I mean, in the grand scheme of our budget, it's pretty small, but I totally get that we want to do it the right way and especially if we're going to establish another president for the next 10 years, we want to Right. Yeah. And I think to my point of view, I think having in front of the town meeting is a way to do it because then then it's completely transparent and everyone's voting on it and and agreeing it. So, do you want me to recommend or or just ask straight up should this be CPC or should we No.

Do you want to push for it? Can this be XYZ or you know Did someone just unmute? Uh John. Oh, John. Are you unmuted? That was Gary. I've been unmuted for a while. Oh, did you? No. Hi. Hello. Um yeah, there's No, that wasn't me. That was somebody else. No, Gary's got his hand up. All right.

So I I'll give you my two cents is that I I will stand up until meeting if this goes in as a CPC with 25,000 and vote and and asked to vote it down. It should be separate articles CPC 10,000 a separate article for the for the uh land and recreation plan. And that way it's trapped. We know that the land the money has been set aside from whatever funding source you agree on to go with the that the funding. Was there push back in22? You know, when when this happened the same exact way in 2022, was there push back or any discussion over

2022 was um we it we we're in chaos. We had a interm there was no budget. It was kind of a little chaotic. So um there's not push back on the plan. So you got to understand that it's the funding mechanism for the plan. But I mean was there push back on the CPC? Probably not. We were lucky that we got a budget into a we're lucky we got a budget into a warrant that year. So So I mean are we under the impression that the the commission now is just sort of going with the way it was done before? It was done before wrong and just needs to be corrected. Yeah. Could be that. Yeah. I will talk to John Michael Jones

library to be continued. No updates on library or anyone else? Uh what why do you have a controversial thing? Something about steel farmer and the goats that I need to talk to you about. Steel farm and goats. I saw it on the you know we'll talk about that's interesting on an agenda. I got to talk to either Chris or I guess you I'm sorry Joe. revenue. Yes. To the comment about FY22 in the capital plan we g if they took money out of the out of their fund to pay for something. I'm not sure that was ever discussed. Yeah.

I can't say for sure, but if capital plan had just 10,000 in 2022, just as an FYI. Okay. from from CPC for conservation trust fund and the funding source is the CPC. Yeah. But that was only we've done 10,000 for at least since 2020.

Okay. So I guess maybe in 2022 they had just been putting in the 10K each year and they had enough and they used the conservation trust fund to pay it. That may be I'm not I would say now that was the wrong usage for that fund but they didn't plan an extra amount of money for the land use and recreation. So they might have just pulled it without knowledge of anybody that I can't say it just got done it and got paid for but

in your opinion the conservation trust fund is the correct source if they have the funds in there or it has to be warrant article. I I I don't think that's a CR that's not why that trust fund was established. That trust fund was established to um if if something comes up for purchase, if um they need to do something with, you know, delineating the wetlands, it's that that's what that trust fund was for. So, they shouldn't be using CPC. They shouldn't be using conservation trust fund. They've just got all the wrong credit cards in their wallet and need to correct the whole thing.

I that's in my opinion and apparently Gary's and he's the historian on the fin. I think it should be done through a warrant article. I think that makes the most sense. It's clean. It's transparent. People understand. In 10 years, we're going to be back again for this item and and and nobody's debating whether we need the item. Right. Thank you, Gary, for the historical commentary. Appreciate it. Okay. I had a quick question just uh with RECCOM coming in. Is that to what just present what they presented at CBC to like get our endorsement for the Warren article or Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, the operating budget as well. There's operating budget. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Operating budget as well. Yeah. We don't know what that number is, but we'd have to look at that.

Yeah. Yeah. So, there things in there. There's some squirly things in there I looked at like that I can't make sense of. So, okay. We need to understand that. Okay. and and they could even come in after Capital Saturday because we might discuss it, but we don't usually go down the big art about CPC articles and but um you know I mean I I will tell you at on the face of it $300,000 for a playground. I understand how expensive stuff is, but like we've already put so much money into playgrounds. I I need to understand that better. Right? CC put money into the school playground. We did we did, you know, Liberty before I could vote as a FINCOM member to recommend it. I would really want to understand it better. Yeah. Gotcha.

Yeah. Okay. Maria, um, so on the library, just I know you don't have an update, but they did get a $100,000 grant today. Um, Oh, yeah. For the gener generator. Generator. Yeah. So, um,

so that was from I think Senator Eldridge was able to get that as an earmark, which is great. So, we'll get a second generator. Our emergency shelter is actually Blanchard, and that's that big generator that's kind of hidden. Um, but that would allow the library to be a cooling center if we lose power or a heating center and that kind of thing even though we can't use it necessarily as a as an emergency shelter. So, um, so that was just that came up today. Um, I went to the planning board meeting. Um, they were discussing the housing production plan and they were actually talking about how they were going to fund this. Um, if we they wanted to start it immediately, the town would have had to fund some of it through a warn article. Um but instead they're going for two different grants. They're doing one grant and then using that to offset a second grant which will cover the cost. Um and that will be um we will I think they will have that plan back FY27. They use that plan um the affordable housing trust uses it to um a lot of different like the planning board will use it and you also need it for grants and that kind of stuff. So um so they're going to do that at no cost to the town. So congratulations to Alec for finding those grants. He's really good at that. Um and

so it's housing production. Yeah, it's called housing production plan. So it basically we had one but it's outdated. Same thing all these but all these plans are coming up. Um we had one. It's outdated. Um and basically I I believe I am not a planning guru. I believe that it takes the town and says you know what can we do? I think within our existing bylaws for housing and where where are we at buildout and we've always everyone's always talked about the buildout um of the town. Um so I don't have all the details on that but that's going to be um they're going to put that forward and they're going to it's going to be completely funded with grants. Um

yeah, which is great. The planning board um their meeting they still have not I went to that meeting. I honestly signed off at 11:15 because I cannot look at Adam's face. I cannot that meeting went till after midnight and I was like again again. I think they hold the record on how many meetings go after midnight. Um when I signed off they were still talking about conditions for the for the Campanelli campus. So the Beaverbrook campus also again

again. Yeah, we're into months now. Um it's coming back um I believe on the 12th um of January and um with the intention this is what I was told actually one of the members asked the chair with the intention of doing the final um conditions and a final vote because again when we talk about new growth right

that's one of those things that could be bringing in a significant amount but this is the master plan and there and um my understanding ing from Campanelli from being on the meetings. They have projects ready to go, but they need to get this master plan with the with the special permits all approved. Um, they also, I think at the last meeting, the meeting before, and I don't think we've met since then, approved the project for 975 Massav. So, that's going to be like three or four um condo contractor condo kind of building, right? Storage contract storage, not storage, but like, you know, if I'm a contractor, I work out of there. I parked my truck inside. I got my tools inside. That kind of thing. Um

that was they were at their deadline, eight months. They asked for an extension and the builder said, "Nope, just vote." And so it was voted 4 to one. Um one of the members voted against it. Then it went to ZBA. They got their their permitting at ZVA. So that's going to go forward, which is nice. So they'll probably be breaking land on that soon. It's great for growth, but you know, had Alec gotten his gateway district in, would that stopped that from being able to be a thing? But they didn't get it in because it's like putting another contractor or warehouse thing steps from our town center. Not really. Town center's right here.

That's way up the street. It's a mile up the street. No one's walking. There's no sidewalks. The thing is, here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's They've put so many rules in about foliage. You're not going to see the building. You don't see the one next to it. True. Right. There's one. There's DPW and there's a building. You can't see that building. You can see the driveway in the really nice granite post with the mailboxes. So, we have to like Yeah. And again, if the planning board wanted to do that, then the planning board should have put that forward. I mean, I think Rich came forward with a really good bylaw last year and they chose not to bring it forward. So, just think the big picture and the long term and you know, well, that's their job is to like plan so they could they can do it this year. See why they're stay late, dollar short on that one, but

no, but I can just see why they're going past midnight and just being thorough with everything again and again and again and again and again and again. They're being very diligent and a lot of work. Okay, kudos to them.

So anyway, um they have been talking about, you know, that one of the big conversations that came up was that they they wanted to do this kind of 111 quarter so they can bring it back in May and do it for for zoning. Um, we are I also heard that we are losing a business up on Swanson Road that's going to New Hampshire. Not because of anything Boxboro's done, but because the laws in New Hampshire, the tax laws are better. Um, the planning board is also going to be coming forward at some point relatively soon, I think, with a um I don't know if it's in this May with an article for the master plan, which will be for 2050. Mhm.

So we have to get um the consulting um we do that through mass planning association or something. Um I think that's it. Okay. Um John Connor or Jacqu Kustau as we call you now. Seal team six. Here we go. Yes. Um sorry I've missed the last two meetings. I apologize for that. But um my service to my country. So, um, uh, no, not much going on with the school system. Um, is Adam there still? Did I hear about

He left. He left. He gave us an update on the school budget situation and the school reorg situation.

Yeah. So, so you you you probably know where we are. I mean I wanted to ask him it seems like you know of the two one of the things that they they've done is there's four options left and they've kind of characterized them I don't need to speak in but my take on this is they've kind of characterized them as like two kind of like old school solutions and two new school solutions which um and that the new school solutions are are the bigger cost savings um but I I just don't like I just think it it um I know kind of polarizes it a bit unneeded need but I'm struggling to really understand what option five is um you know I I get an idea and seems like it's primarily different from option six in its um administrative um structure right so you're introducing that to deal with a span of control issue that's introduced with with option six, but you know, they say it's five schools. And so, one of my questions for Adam, is it really five schools or is it kind of three schools? Um, and I think they just need to be really careful and they need to provide more information on kind of what those four options are. And they were kind of bing at that a little bit uh during the last meeting. So option five is actually option five is three schools because what they do is

No. Yeah. But if you Maria, if you look at the description, it says five schools. That's the problem I have. But I think I think it's the banding within the school. So it's it's actually option 5v2 is Blanchard is its own school but then the boardwalk becomes one school with one principal and a couple of vice principles and then in option four six and whatever the other one is there are multiple schools in the buildings.

Yeah. So that well I don't think it's especially clear and secondly I want to know kind of it says five schools Mar option 5.2 to an option six. Let's call them option five and option six for now. Now going forward, option five says five schools in the description. And I understand there are band there's banding in it. Um but it's not much you know there's like one page. I think it's slide I'm guessing here. I think it's slide 19 that shows you these little representations of what the school can be. And that's almost the extent of it in terms of what the actual underlying structure is going to be. And I basically, this is a long-winded way of saying we need more information on what those two how those two options are going to kind of pair out and flow out. And again, they seem a little bit hesitant about that. So again, that's just what I wanted to ask Adam and I was a little bit struggling quite a bit with that.

You can probably talk to him offline, John, if you need to. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I'm definitely going to ping him an email. I'm hoping to catch him again today. But um and originally I kind of questioned why those two were the same cost savings. It seemed like one had a greater administrative burden is not the right word, but had more administrative staff than the other one. Yeah. But in the last bidding they they uh Peter pretty much cleared it uh explained it pretty well that it's basically four principles across in both options. So they're just laid out a little bit differently. So, um, yeah, those are kind of the hot points that I had. I'm sure Adam or Liz gave you a better update than Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Kevin. So,

they have a meeting Thursday night, too, but I think he said he was they were going to be discussing this on Thursday. Mhm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, I went to select board and we discussed budget stuff, which is, you know, all we're going to be talking about for the next number of months. That's all I that's all I've got. So BLF Yeah, I was going to say BLF BLF. BLF. That was a big one. The night after our last meeting. So was that our last meeting? Yeah. So what did we discuss with BLF? I So it's fading into background already in my mind.

So budget, budget, budget, override whether well override and it wasn't a discussion as to whether or not we needed one because at the time we thought we needed one. Um the so there was uh a training that you Tony sent the doodle thing out for um for everybody and anyone who's interested. Um, I would suggest, well, if we're not doing an override, although we are for the fire station, um, I would suggest if you have an hour, um, and it's, you can do it when it's scheduled, it is a really, really good training to understand campaign finance in Massachusetts, which is super important. Um, yeah, it might be worth doing it anyway. Whatever happens, maybe worth getting the training anyway because we need to do it sooner or later.

And if you can't make it, they're going to video dice it. It'll be recorded. So the challenge we've got is that there's not one date or time that everyone works for everyone. So So I did ask Becky today whether she they would do it twice. Um but I don't think they would do that. So we mainly just watch the recording, you know. So maybe you can look at who can make it. Like I've already done it twice. So if I had to miss a live one, I'm happy to watch a video. But like Mary's done it twice. Al Adam has done it twice. There's a bunch of us have already done it multiple times. Pri has done it. Um that maybe now we did it through the campaign finance commission. Yeah. And we could and we could do that as well. If you if you decide later we want to do that as well. We can always do that, right? I mean so

I think you know that training was really good. They're the experts. Um I don't think KP is the greatest idea, but that's just because they give free advice, a cell phone number. Like we call them, we text them um our flyers and say are these acceptable and we get their approval before this is in the fire station building committee. Um, that's a campaign finance. But anyway, if you guys can do it or watch it, it just to get kind of It's really hard to know what you can and cannot say. Yeah, I'd like to watch it. It's it it's really informative. You can't make the meeting. Yeah. Can you respond to the thing? Yeah. I just just will it all those working hours. Yeah. like literally just 2 3 p.m.

If it ends up being in a time that like right now like the earlier ones is in the middle of my work day, but let's say I happen to not have a meeting then even if I like can we all join even if we said no like will we all get the invite regardless? Everyone would get the Zoom link. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like if I happen to not have something at that time selected time is like Tuesday at 10:00 in the morning. Yeah. like I might be able to join. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No from technical sales on that for that a different zoom. Yeah. Yeah. You can do two. Can you do two zooms at the same time? I have done that. It's not easy to do. I've had the planning board and like the school committee or the select board. It is not an easy task.

Yes. And they're like Maria, you're like sorry which one? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So, what else did we discuss with BF in? Um, so we discussed that. We discussed this task force. remember, you're supposed to bring it back to our committee. Um, so we can't we can't vote on this tonight, but we can talk about what we talked about at VLF. We talked about one of the biggest issues we have in town is new growth or lack thereof. Um, and it's not just,

you know, the finance committee is in charge of the money. So, we see the new growth from a budgetary perspective. The select board is in charge of policy. Um, the planning board is in charge of the site plans, right? And what happens there affects us us being the other boards and EDC which has done a really spectacular job in bringing in small businesses and helping. I mean they were really instrumental with getting grants to two friends chocolates and thinking flower and all of that. They're doing a great job um getting a task force so to speak together to say okay here's our problem. We need new growth. How do we get there? Um and it's going to be a combination of committees. It's going to be a long view, but we need to take that long view. Since I've been on since I was on the select board and I got on in um June, May, June of 17 um to now the commercial tax rate in our town has gone from just over 24% down to 17%. That shift has gone directly onto the residents. So when people complain about their taxes, that is why your tax, even though we're tighting, we're tight budgeting, that's why your taxes are going up higher than where we they should be because we're budgeting because that money's got to shift from somewhere. So how do we get that number back in a thoughtful manner, redeveloping what we've already got, not necessarily putting new stuff in, redevelop, you know, maybe developing some new stuff, and how do we do that going forward as a town? And so I think that was a big part of our conversation. um maybe putting a charge together um bringing it back to BLF or bringing it to the select board. So, we really do need to put that on an agenda at some point, right?

Um if that's something the FINCOM thinks is interesting. Keep in mind if that means somebody needs to volunteer for this. So, when we get there, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, I I we all thought it was a good idea because we can't do this. The planning board can't do it just their piece. Finom. We've got If we don't all do it together, we don't have everyone's Yeah. So, you know, there's a $60,000 grant that I think Alec has for EDC

that they're doing for some kind of econ, right? But but they're doing that in a vacuum. And so that's great and good for Alec. Once again, the man can he can chase down a grant like there's no that's great, but how do we you know, we have to involve to every other committee. They can't do that in a vacuum. We can't be budgeting in a vacuum. So that was a big part. It was a big part of our conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Anything else? I'll take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Okay. We need to do a roll call, I guess, because John's online now. So, roll call to adjourn. John Connor.

Second. Air present. I Where is I? Is that too much like scuba air going into you or what? Like what is that? Thought oxygen was good for your brain. Narcosis. Um John Grieven. Uh Grevin I. Michelle Ryan I. Stalin. I Neil and I. Newton I. Meeting officially adjourned at 9:19