Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

get started I'll call this meeting of the Bristol budget committee order at 601 on Tuesday February 11 first order of business is the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty justice for all so we're here primarily and for the public meeting where we're going to go over the budget the revenues and the yeah hopefully more people are going to show up and the propos and the proposed warrant article um there are for members of the public there are copies on the table if you don't already have that um for the most part what we're going to do is go through the budget uh SE by section and just mention the the amount of money if you have any questions we're happy to answer whether it's a number question or a or something else between the budget committee and the town department heads we should have the uh ability to answer any reasonable question so um we'll start at the Top If I miss something please speak up but I think uh I've got this so the first section is uh the ex executive department and that's section 4130 and that's in uh proposed to be $245,600 um that is I don't know if we want to do this but that's a roughly uh $50,000 increase it's significant but it's primarily a lot of that is due to uh some reorganization on how the town

Staffing is put together there's more people in the department 25 than there was in the beginning of 24 you guys have any questions or comments anything go ahead Contract Services is down to zero or is that just a line that historically we've had I read that right line 330 sorry 330 yep no it is zero so um we need to put that back so um the when we set up the budget sorry Mr Sherry no go ahead um when we set up the budget um we set it up so the budget committee could see 2023 also yeah um we had to add lines back in that weren't in there um to do that that's reason it's in there it'll go away next year it's been split out to departments um the contract Service is in there I think CB was the acting Town Administrator at the time right oh okay yeah I don't we don't have other Contract Services Under that line if we did not aware of that yeah but um we didn't that was the acting Town Administrator we put it in that line so I I didn't know that but I know it's something that we're not planning to spend against we left it in there so we had the previous year columns and it won't be in the 26 budget because we'll have gone enough years with zeros yeah we weren't getting our numbers to match when we were trying to match back to the budgets I know historically we've we've had larger numbers in that but it covered like various computer um I think computer maintenance and stuff like that I think you're talking about 312 I think too projects oh probably I mean yeah well so we didn't so computers is in general government now but um and projects line we decided we're not planning any for

2025 um but we didn't eliminate the line so I so part of that is again that we we want to compare back to previous years but the structure and the intent changes a little bit yeah we've had at least one major uh accounting system change so it's sometimes hard to compare apples to oranges but we do the best we can that is that's not something that the budget committee cut that was proposed from the department and the select for anything else in the executive session that anyone would like to uh have a question or make a comment about okay so the next section is for uh it's now called elections registration and V statistics it's basically our town clerk tax collector so that's section 4140 and that is proposed to be $217,900 um it's about uh 6% 6.5% more than last year um any questions any I'll give you a little time to take a look at it if you yeah go ahead yeah I I just assume the reductions are because it was there an election year mean a general election last year for for elections it was less because in 2024 we had the presidential election we had the town election we had the state primary and we had the general presidential election in 25 we just have the town election so you're correct it's the number of Elections I'm going to let you do that I knew that one um anything else in that section so I think one of the things that's that's different I can tell you

is that um that is that is I would I would say that is that is our primary public facing office that's the one that people come in here to to to interact with to register their car to buy a beach pass to pay their property taxes to do things like that so we we I think the town has made a decision that we want to provide good service and we want to keep that open and so we budgeted and Raymond was able to hire a part-time person started recently in order to keep that service level at the high place that it is has been in the past Mr shair can I just clarify for anybody that's watching the public that position was added last year right um not this year so I don't want people so but we just hired it this year so thank you for that correction yes okay anything else in that uh go ahead just just a question on new equipment um it wasn't a lot spent last year you still yeah if you could if you could actually give me the line number that helps me to see you is 810 810 thank you and I assume that's just in case you need to purchase something U like election related yeah so the B the big one the big do you want to talk about this it's up to you you were talking about the it's the vote counting machine counting machine right so the the machine that we use to count the ballots is old and not really supported by the manufacturer anymore so and it was to be replaced this year right and so what I he's wondering why it didn't get so so we budgeted for it I think the state is still working to figure out what the recommendation is and then they're going to most probably they're going to provide at least some grant money

towards that so the last time that we asked the question what Rama said was the state still hasn't finalized what machine they want us to buy and they haven't made the grant money available so we didn't get it done in 24 we put it into the budget again y so we'll get there eventually but not yet okay so that's that's just from a philosophical point of view if if we knew at the end of the year that we what machine we wanted to buy we would I think have made an effort to put in a purchase order and commit the money and then we wouldn't have had the budget for it but that's not we're not ready to do that yet so basically what will happen is that the money at the end of 24 wasn't spent it goes into the unassigned fund balance and becomes available for other things and offsetting taxes or something else and we but it it's it lapses so since we want to do it again in 25 we have to budget again in 25 yeah almost all of our money is just on an annual basis if you don't spend it at the end of the year your authorization spend goes away anything else in the town clerk section okay we'll go to the third one which is uh Financial Administration that is uh section 4150 that is proposed in the amount of $4,595 um so this is basically the finance officer position right and and Associated resources and and Human Resources okay

so I'm sorry just to be clear back to tax collector yep okay it just says TC but it's TC and TX yes it's so they're all one budget so it's um I I think we R town clerk we didn't um we changed that okay yeah I just wanted I just wanted to be sure yes so it is both yes SE thank you so it's Town it used to be called town clerk tax collect it used to be in two separate and we oh yeah two separate and they were com and they are combined and actually under the new I don't know what it's called but the new accounting system that we it the officially it's called elections registrations and Vital Statistics but it covers all of that yes thanks y we used to have tax in financial budget so so section 4150 Financial Administration is our finance officer and our human resource uh not officer I don't know with the person and then all of and if you look actually line 130 was tax collector which is zero because it's up in the up in the previous section now it's not in in finance anymore so I think this is fairly straightforward other than the rest you know F and insurance and things like that there's money for the for the audit we're now fully staffed in that yes we are yeah we um I think the reason in this budget it used to be Finance assistant and that's all CH with the restructure upstairs so but we are fully staffed okay all right I'm going to move on again if if you see something you want

to come back speak up so the fourth section is 4152 which is uh uh property revaluation of property and the proposed amount for that is $172,300 144 so if you have a really hard question Joan is on the zoom she can answer that but I mean I think this is okay not hearing any questions I'll move on again I guess one of the things I I I know I found it a little overwhelming to go to the school deliberative session and get a big packet with the budget in it and try to look at it at the same time that people we're talking it's overwhelming so I will also say that um if when this meeting is over and you guys still have those documents if you have questions get in touch I would think probably through Christina and she can get a hold of me or she can answer them directly or we can get the the department heads to give us some information because we are still looking to answer questions even if it comes up after this meeting sure thank you appreciate that well we appreciate you coming out um the next section is the fifth one which is legal expenses which is$ 4153 and the proposed amount is $80,000 I will say that this is I mean it's one line and it's always a guess we

don't know who's going to sue us or what's going to come up so we make our best guesstimate do we know like the last couple years that number right now I think is right that's in the in the budget before you so it's been it's 52 of 80 but we do have some open court cases right now yeah so that's why we didn't change it yeah I think the year before we finished 2023 I think it was closer to 65 right around there but thank you okay the next section is personal Administration which is 4155 and that's proposed amount of $732,000 um I'll comment you guys can have some questions but I will comment that this is a pretty significant change it's about 30% less than last year and that's primarily due to a decision that the town made on how we're handling some numbers in the past we budgeted anticipated correct me if I say this wrong Christina but we budgeted an anticipated salary increases for all of or most of our employees water and sewers are always separate in this l line and it I found I found it confusing so what we've done now now what we've done is we put that into each line of for each staff member and each department has it itself it's no longer centralized in this department right and the only other thing we didn't budget for librar so Library Water and Sewer had their own they were called Merit increase lines what we did in 24 is we did budget transfers and transferred all of the funds that were in this budget back to the lines and that's where the they're now

budgeted and I don't know again I don't know if you would ask but so one of the things that we do at the beginning of the budget season is we asked the select board you know kind of what are you thinking and what are the what are your feelings for the priorities of the town and one of the things they said to us which made sense although it was little is that that in 24 we made a fairly significant investment in raising our employees salaries we felt that we were we were too far down on the comparative and we were in we were seeing that people were leaving service in Bristol to go take a job somewhere else making more money we're not looking to be top payer but we want to be closer to the middle so we made that investment in 24 and they said well with inflation and what's going on we're still in danger of falling behind so as I understand it I'm open to is that is that in addition to all the people that do a satisfactory job that would get a step on the on the salary chart which is 3% the select board has chosen to give everyone basically an additional 1% cost of living so instead of getting 3% raises in 2025 it's anticipated that everyone was doing a good job will get a 4% rise four point something thank you you probably know more about it than I do Mr we're so what they're doing is adjusting the wage scale by 1% so right so you stay on the same level but the the the chart will be updated but there is some Merit based judgment in that or um the kind of sounded like that's the board has changed that um slightly it is it would be a per a performance

Improvement plan if you're below a certain score on your valuation but as long as you're above that then you get your step and then the wage scale is it so still based on the evaluation yeah just not a SL so I think I think I got to be careful because I'm not an HR person but my understanding is that 3 or four years ago you would get a performance evaluation and depending how far with you got you know outstanding or good or fair or poor you would get a different rise now it's basically yes or no you're doing a good enough good job and get a raise no you're not doing a good enough job you need to improve your performance you don't but it's it's not different did I get that did I not you are right but I just want to add you if you would go on your per performance Improvement plan but it doesn't mean you won't get that if you meet your expectations then you would get your the movement on at a late at the at the time that you meet it all right so and Mr chair one of your members is going to join on zoom in a few minutes just to you only one not here so I know who you're talking about all right so that was um personal Administration the next section is planning board which is 4191 and that is a proposed amount of $9,300 um so this is basically I would I think of it as operating expenses for running the planning board we don't pay the planning board people a salary but they have costs involved in doing the work they do and most of that comes back in fees a good junk of that yes yeah a good junk of that between application fees y

okay so not hearing any questions about planning which is 4191 we'll go on to zoning which is 4192 and Zoning is a proposed amount of $2,450 so again this is their expenses the cost for them to do the things that we've asked them to do that's fairly straightforward so now we'll move on to the next section which is 41 93 which is mapping or tax map that's $8,750 that is basically a license fee that we pay for the mapping program that we use okay the next section is General government buildings which is 4194 and that is um $439,999 which is a lot of things in here is not a significant increase it's pretty close to a it's less than a 1% increase from from the current or from last year's 24 budget um but youve got computer support you got telephones you got Heating and portter toilets and general stuff that we do to keep the town running patch up the timing of through line by line you could go all of this but I'm going to stop talking and see if you guys have any questions go ahead uh question on why electricity is lower in this budget than was budgeted last year and the source rates have dropped so sorry go ahead we're contracted um before ever Source rates drops we contracted with

constellation so we have a locked in rate um for a year and the rates were definitely coming down so we felt we could cut it so they may be going up again well we're locked in on one side with constellation luckily but why why did the slman zero out the town clock statement that was um not it was an accident okay we're going to we're still going to pay that great there was when the when we train that was one of the lines that was missing actually Sean if you look line 490 Town CL clerk oh I see that budget committee has we we we added the 750 back in because we even though the S board recommended zero we thought that that was they they did they didn't do it on purpose it was an oversight in the budget that was presented to them and we decided to correct it and put the money back yeah we don't usually do a lot of adding so that was unusual we did all right any other questions on General government yeah what what is the Newfound area access sorry line 8:15 that's our medium medium manager so that's that's basically all the work he does on the website so that is offset by um cable franchise not completely though um the board made a decision to to um give him the increases even if we weren't giving the cable franchise because he's taken on a ton of work for us so and we are renewing the cable franchise this year so we

negotiating anything else okay so the next section is cemeteries which is 4195 and that is the uh proposed amount of $800 anybody interested in becoming a cemetery truste yes the three M the three member board currently has two members and so they're looking for a volunteer to be appointed to the third position we do have one on the ballot and that person's running but we have an open position somebody resigned um so you're welcome to submit your name okay the next section is Insurance property and liability insurance section 4196 that's the proposed amount of $77,200 not a lot of negotiation by the budget committee about this we're told how much it is and we don't we don't change it so if you have a question we can try to answer but I'm going to move on so um the last the next section in and the last section in the general government section is advertising and Regional associations which is 4197 that's a proposed amount of $753 this is basically um membership fees to the Lakes Region Planning Commission and the New Hampshire Municipal Association so two organizations that the town is members of and they they charge a membership fee and that's where it is in the budget so it's not it's not official I mean it but the budget has some subsections the ones we've just gone through are considered General governance and that that what we' done so far totals up to

2,197 769 and now the next couple of sections are are going to be in public safety so the first one is the actual public public safety building which is uh section 4200 this is a new Department a new section in the budget in the past the cost for the police department building was in the police department and the cost for the fire station was in the fire department building but now that it's a shared building for both of them rather than trying to figure out how to split it up between those two we created a new section to house those costs and at this point with with less than a year's time in there some of these numbers are a little less confident than we are usually but this was our best understanding using the the expertise that we had available to to discuss what what was happening here and it shows a huge increase because you only had a portion well it shows a huge increase because yeah we basically didn't have in it last or we at most we would have had half a year right and only a couple months of you correct so if you have any questions I me general questions I think so far one of the things we've talked about when we talked about this with the with the with the folks in charge of this is they've said so far the building has looked to be pretty um efficient that it that it looks like it's going to take it's a bigger building but certainly per square foot the costs are going to be lower even not on square foot the total cost is probably am I am I talking out of my back no they're significantly

lower I think even than we thought they would be and that's why there just real quick that's why there's a lot of kind of big adjustments and maybe still some big numbers certainly getting through the the course of a year and in particular heating season will be huge um Farmington sent me all the information on their building for years of kilowatt hours and gallons of propane so we could apply it to our actual rates those were where those numbers panned out so I think propane and heating will be a little bit closer um but just overall the electrical subcontractor and the contractor really work to kind of outdo themselves on the electrical fixtures and I I'm very confident we're going to be under that number but the discussion at the budget committee level and the board level was let we'll cut it but maybe air on the side of caution you know until next year that's exactly right we we wanted to take the things that we thought we could but we didn't want to take so much that we ended up with not enough to pay all the bills so in the first year we were probably a little conservative but where where it makes sense to be just out of curiosity how does it compar to the old fire station the heating cost oh it's night and day I mean so even if we even if we hit that number at $12,000 right which I don't really think we do I think we'll be close so call 10 maybe um I think we're at 19 last year or no 14 and change so it's it's less heating um maybe not as big right 33% but it's 20,000 ft versus 6600 feed and so then you throw in the other you know portion of what the PD used to pay to heat that 60s 80s type building um and it's a huge even these numbers that are probably a little bit High

conservatively are are beating that roughly 50% cost savings that we projected to see okay so that's the public safety building the next SE the next line is the police department which is section 4210 that's a proposed amount of 1,494 152 um I'll try to give you a second because this is this is a fairly big section it's three and a half pages almost four pages so there's a lot of things in there but I don't think that there's any uh proposed changes in the services being provided or the goals of what what we get from them so it's with without getting into individual specifics M I'm assuming there was some classification changes or something when you look at a yes 21% increase that's what that's what Chief told us that people people at one point or another certification and right and the the person they most recently hired had more experience than they were originally thinking they could get so came in higher on the weight scale and was originally budgeted for thank the two the two control ones are uh officers that had a couple years on replaced with officers with ones got 20 plus years and the other ones got 17 or 18 years and the the flip side of that I know I know I don't think it was this year it was last year but when I mean before before you got your current job we had a

chief and two lieutenants and now we have a chief and one Lieutenant so but this is this is this is bringing back two lieutenants though this budget um believe the select board is to bring we essentially took the second Lieutenant um and gave a sergeant all the task and he went above and beyond has done even more things but we're not paying him for that so I thought we should bring that back I thought we could get rid of it but then we just asked somebody else to do all the same work yeah so answer your question yep question on overtime you you fully staffed at this point we're fully staffed yeah last year we were not so the the differenes the only time should be less though because it's got we spent we spent 103,000 last year oh we also had an injury we had an injury that was uh Insurance related too so we got we weren't paying that salary for a while too right but so we budgeted 70 but we spent 103 in 24 and for 25 it's been proposed and we agreed to put 80,000 did somebody in Zoom want to make a comment no okay any other um should be working working this I think that's for Sue Sue Sue I think we can hear you so if you could mute your can y last time no our last time yeah so I guess the one other the one other thing I wanted to

um like if you look at line 891 one of the things we've talked about is so that's for basically um Radars for some patrol cars and some more signs and we talked about the fact that that's we anticipate that's going to be covered by a grant so we're like we're a little we a budget committee point of view we like is there a way we don't can't not show this because it inflates the number but it doesn't cost the town anything because it's long going even C by a grant and basically what the state told us was if you want the grant it has to be in your budget yeah and it's gross appropriation so we got 10,000 I mean it's not a huge amount of money but we $10,000 in the budget but we are we know we're going to get offsetting revenues so it happens in a couple of places here in the budget all right any other police department questions all right not hearing any we'll now move on to the fire department that's section 4220 and that's a proposed amount of 1,574 n57 so you can see the again this is a couple of pages of is a lot in there the first bunch of lines are for uh salaries for employees and then there's a bunch of uh sections in there with the support for that insurance and and F and things like that um I'm trying to think what else in here that needs to be called out if anything you have a question feel free to speak

up so one of the things that I will mention if you go just go down further to lifelines 660 through 660 or 370 670 we in the past so again because we want to be able to compare last year's numbers anything that was in the budget last year or the year before is still has a line in this budget even if we're even if we're going to spend zero so we've done this in the fire department we've done this in a couple of other departments where we used to have a line basically for every vehicle or every major piece of equipment for the maintenance of it and what we we've done is we're moving we're moving all of that into line 660 which is just maintenance for all of the equipment and vehicles in that department um I think it gives us a little bit more I like it because then you can use some number things that of sag got to take you know this everything could potentially break everything needs money but you know on average you know you're expecting a couple of things to break and most things not to so I think that one of the things we talked about is that is that here and in the other departments even though all the money is now in one line in 660 the department heads still every piece of equipment every vehicle has its own tag is still tracking what's being spent against it so we can still do the analysis about you know we starting to you know something look like it's now so much repair that maybe it would be better to replace it how where where are we spending it how how is the equipment holding up we do do still have that information even though from a budgeting Point all that money is in the one line 660 okay I think if I noticed that we did that in police too but I didn't notice it when I was talking about police police did it

last yeah and when we get to highway they're they're going to do it also this year then was there anything that I'm not rambling on about that you wanted to make sure people knew about computer nextal thank you all right um anything else on fire department so the next section is forestry which is 4230 and that's a recommended amount of zero so one of the things we've been doing over the past couple of years is basically I got to be careful cuz I'm not an expert on this but the forestry is basically done by the fire department and in the past it was budgeted separately and Bic what we've done over the past few years um is is move that money into the fire department so that it's not shown separately as for whatever services are needed the town is still providing the people in the fire department who were doing them before are still doing them they still have the money and the resource they need to get the job done but it's just being handled in the budget a little differently is that okay statement is there is there generally State Compensation on that there is for larger incidents it doesn't cover a lot of anything and haven't had anything you'll have to deal with it too call sh the chains are I I I can do

that okay the next section is Emergency Management which is 4290 and that's a recommended amount of $1,002 so it's $1,000 for training and $1 in each of two lines just to give a nonzero number in case something comes up that the select board and the and the chief have the uh the option it's a lot easier to change one to something sometimes it going be harder to change Zero so when makes sense we'll put one in just to make things easier for the town just a question why that wasn't moved into the fire department as well because that's how intertwined yeah I think uh just given the way that so one of the big questions when we moved away from the forestry budget was do we need a forestry budget when it comes to Grants or opportunity funding opportunities like that and the basic answer have from the state was no um I don't know that we're in the same boat with Emergency Management but when you're looking at those direct federal funds to me I would still rather have this be its own separate line so that there's just an easier way to account for you know whatever grant that we may get um over the course of the year okay anything else on Emergency Management all right so police and fire and all those other things we just did are all public safety and for the sub total for that section it's $3,173 the next base group of departments we're going to talk about our group as public works the first one of those is the highway department

which is section 4311 so this is basically the operations budget for the highway department and this is proposed amount of $748,000 [Music] and retirement and insurance uniforms things like that um and then there's lines down below from operating things electricity and radios and again uh equipment vehicle maintenance has been moved all together into line 660 and 661 through 670 let's see 679 maybe no 678 are still in the budget because they were there last year but they're zero for all Victor anything do you want to bring people's attention other than me weren't rambling on no I thought we kept it pretty tight for the first first time out yeah so question on one 142 on the uh on call compensation 142 on call compensation so we asked about that also basically what what Victor told us I forgot the num but he said there's a number of departments that have people that are on call and that the rate in all the other departments was one thing and the rate in the highway department was different lower and that he wanted to bring it up so that the folks in his Department got

the same pay as the folks in the other so it's not anticipating extra usage of people just compensating them yes at better and we only run an on call for about 16 weeks anyway I originally thought that was summer he said no that has to do with winter plowing yes it looks like you must be getting a handle on all the dead ash trees say that number has gone down over the last couple of years yeah I mean we've identified uh and we'll be identifying again this year but yes we're still working on that issue but you're talking 390 the Tre Mo yeah sorry yep that's okay maybe I'm being optimistic but since we only have the two of you here I'm hoping somebody is you know W watching the stream that we have people in the audience who are watching it electronically so if I call out the line number it makes really easier for them to follow along okay anything else in the highway operations uh Department not hearing anything we'll go on to the highway projects Department which is 4312 and that's a proposed amount of 3 35,1 so the majority of this is resurfacing basically road maintenance um there's some money in here for guard rails there's some money in here for some some drainage the but the great majority of it is for road

service any question what are the uh identified guard rail projects they identifi guard rail is for a section on Crescent Street and then a long section on a rock wall on Green Street yeah both those two particular sections we don't have the capability of doing it and I've got quotes out from CW fans CWS thank you okay thank you okay next section is Street lighting and bridges which is section 439 oops Yeah so wait so we just did Highway projects which is $335,000 one and that now okay now we're doing $35,100 Bridges 4319 so $335,000 for Street lighting and $1 for Bridges as a placeholder Mr chair yes can you speak sure and just let her know that we keep hearing the background noise okay and that's Sue Sue can you hear me you I can yeah you're you're I something's coming through we think it's on you where there's like some male voice talking in the background that's we have to okay hold on one second can you shut the door thank you okay how's that that's much better thank you oh you're

welcome all right so any questions is this is this the last year on this so we upgraded all of them and we're paying the that's actually High the street lighting is handled Out of You Christina yeah I don't manage that got okay the last year on the loan um so and then I just need to determine um if there what kind of cost you would incur for replacing the lights in the future so we should be able to adjust this I think down so um I do know we've placed three or four heads and we were down to one head left due to accidents and that and that's discussion that we need to have about the replacement head to the okay because ever Source replaces them for us when there's a strike but I because we don't we don't do what they do right and then they send us a bill yeah the the Overflow supply of parts we have and we're getting low on heads because of that so we do one more loan payment and then we just have to determine what it's going to cost us to replace them when we start running out stock equipment so okay I hadn't thought of it as a loan I thought the way it had been described to me was we contracted with the company who replaced I'm not sure I get the details right basically they replaced the fixtures with old incandescent bulbs with new much more efficient bulbs and we agreed to pay the old cost for 3 years where they pocketed the savings to pay for the project and I was ask if I remember correctly they did everything at the same time so basically you're paying considered a loan because you're all the work and but we spreading the payment over so this so this is level funded and it's just that next year we'll have an opportunity maybe to think about maybe we can have some savings when we did the project there is lease

payment there a threeyear lease payment it's roughly $20,000 but what they asked us to do is keep the 35 in the budget um until we knew what kind of repair cost we might have over the years okay so we're paying the last payment this year and we should be able to drop that down we just have to confirm what it's going to cost I guess I guess the point is and it's not really something that was important for tonight is that it is level funded but this is the last year that it h pretty much needed to be level funded so next year we can spend some more time on this line and we might find a way to to reduce it but at this point we're in the middle of a contract or towards the end but we're still on a contract where we need to keep this little F did I get that one okay no questions on street lights we'll move on to Solid Waste which is section 4324 and that's a proposed amount of $422,400 and this is just the expense side there's some money from revenue from recycling but that's that'll be in the revenue discussion so any questions about the transfer station okay the last section in public works fire betterment which is section 4339 and the proposed amount is $110,000 this is level funded this is because we tend

to forget this is the way it this is basically the fire hydrants some of it is paid am I getting this right this is fire hydrants some of it gets paid out of the water department and some of it gets paid out of General Municipal this is the share that's getting cheed by General mun it's a way for the general fund to reimburse on the expenses to the water requirement for right maintenance of okay any questions I would just note that that's been 10 $20,000 total for at least 15 if not 20 if not 25 years yeah yeah time yeah yeah I think the philosophy is that we're we originally we somebody estimated it at $20,000 and we said we'd split it 5050 so 10 to1 I kind of don't want to look any harder because it's a bigger number then we got to increase this so I'm happy if we keep getting proposed P I'm have to to leave it count has been successful level funding now for 20 all right and the last section is public services so there's a bunch here so the first one is land use oh so on all of those Public Works Highway uh operations projects streets Solid Waste that's a total of 1,551 440 and the fourth and last section General big section is called public services and the first line in that is land use Health office which is section 44 11 and that is a proposed amount of $158,400

and then there's a little bit of operating cost water testing and supplies and postage not hearing any questions I'll move on to the next section which is animal control that's section 4414 and that is proposed amount of $200 this is actually less it was proposed to be less and we just left it where it was I think we change this one as long as the PC keeps watching these animals car so good it's probably going to go up though for next year it's something that we've needed to do something different about for a while um we explored some different contracts but their numbers were just way too much money but something other than driving to Enfield with dogs really needs to change because we already brought quite a few this year but that's what keeps the dollar number low using field okay so we also pay for stray cats so we had build for them as well really we just found out so the spending was $500 but you're only putting in 200 I don't I don't remember the details of this I don't remember that we changed it I think the select board recommended amount you correct me if I'm wrong no you're right the the select board recommended amount was 200 and we honestly I'm not sure I understand but it's not a big number and I didn't want to really add things in so if it might have been from a dog that needed some medical stuff while I went there are two dogs and a cat I think in that building um but I think the board just felt we don't know what we're going to have so just level funded it so that's why they put it at the 200 because we just don't know what

we're going to get but we do have to look into better options in the future so okay so the next the next section is Health agencies and hospitals which is section 4415 and that's the recommended amount of 33,400 so this is basically um community support for the Lakes Region Visiting Nurse Association which is the successor to Nana and to the peny baker hospice and Home Health those are the two agencies that that we know that are providing um so ning servic huge jumps because they would decrease the previous year so they when I started 4 and A2 years ago we gave $ 33,400 to Mana right so during Co you couldn't assemble you couldn't so we said we we made a big cut we cut them down to in half and we said well you're still you're still going to people's houses and providing them um service but you're not doing any Community Services we're not getting like seniors get together where you're running a blood pressure clinic or a toenail foot Health Clinic you're not you can't run a flu shot clinic CU you can't assemble people in your building to give them shots so we said we we thought we were getting less service and we were looking for places to cut and we cut them and then at some point pamy Baker came to us and they said well we're providing services and so we would like to be supported too so we supported them and they they asked uh Lakes region has cons has consistently asked to go back to

33,400 and we have always said no and we had quite a long discussion this year and some interesting disagreements and in the end what we what was proposed and the majority of the board agreed was we would take the whole the whole department back up to 33,400 which is what we had spent four five years ago and we would divided between the two one of the things that was interesting is that basically the the select board had said we don't want to spend really a lot of time on this so in our in our budget what we're going to do is we're going to level fund them because we don't work with them we don't talk to them and we don't want to take the time to do that it's not I don't mean to criticize them I they were just being admitting they have other things that are more important so they said we're we're just going to level fund them and then you guys on the budget committee have them come in and make a presentation and talk to you you're more informed of what's going on so you guys make a decision of what the correct level should be and we had the majority of the committee agreed and we had one person in particular strongly strongly advocated for for for bringing this support level up and do you have a a number of calls you know I I I I did not bring that with me we do have information we asked them one of the things that we've done now for I think two years so three years ago we basically said make a request and what you want and send give us one information and then starting two years ago we decided no we want more information so we we Chang the letter to say not just how much do you want but what are you providing how much are you providing what percentage of what you're doing is in Bristol how many Bristol cases or people are you helping so we have all

that information but I did not think to bring all of that with me to this meeting so I can't but yes we do know I'm assuming that they're providing a lot more services on an annual basis so there I think a really interesting point that the CEO of Lakes Region VNA U mentioned too is it's not so historically home health and BNA Services have really been kind of perceived as um something happens and then you receive them right uh and she's actually been really advocating for more preventative care for particularly senior citizens and the communities that they serve um and so part of their philosophy moving forward is actually to really invest heavily on preventative care options to try to prevent people from needing to go to the hospital and needing BNA care after the fact so um that was part of their presentation along with the statistics of kind of growth of services over time um I'll just tell you from my perspective there's not enough a na services and every Hospital in New Hampshire will tell you that same things and and the the agents Midstate and the hospitals are getting rid of patients because they they're looking to make money rather than Services I that's my opinion um I think the the Home Health agents playing a bigger so one of so one of the things that the both of the both of the organizations have changed their executive director in the past three years Lakes regions have done it twice B Baker I believe has done it once um the new director at Lakes Region does seem to be more proactive I know they're working with the senior services that are provided out of the bucc they send a nurse monthly to do a blood pressure check they're working with the director there to talk about what additional

services to the to the seniors in Bristol who go to that want to receive and could they Pro potentially provide so I think that there is as Joe said there's there's also a desire to not just be hey someone sick and we've got an order that to go provide services they're trying to think about how can we improve the overall health of the community and all the members in it so um we'll see it's a it's a journey and I'm no we're not at the end of it yet but we're they're getting they are getting back they're not where they were during the co we were really concerned that they were they they stopped doing a lot of things you want you want to say anything all I I can say is we were paying a certain amount of money five years ago inflation we were happy with those services but inflation has considerably affected what services there were and the services have improved since we made made complaints and the two cases that I referenced are much happier now they're getting the service they need and that's why I supported it that give you you wanted I you okay good okay so the next section is welfare Administration which is section 4441 and that is a proposed amount of $23 so that is a huge decrease and that's because how we're providing has changed instead of having a person who was dedicated specifically for that that we had to budget for them now it's being done by a person in a department who is elsewhere

in the budget yeah go ahead the person was dedicated in this budget but the person was also shared with another department right they were not full time doing this yeah we just switch the duty the person know is going fulltime which is um at the fire department and we switched the duties into the executive office so and combin them with another job so so if you have some questions but I mean when you when you look at the at the you know last year it was budgeted at 20,200 I no the right section no I'm sorry last year was budgeted $1,117 I don't know what I'm doing here 138 I'm on the wrong line 138 thank you thank you sorry yeah so it was $13,800 and now it's 203 so I mean that's obviously something is happening there and that's what happened is we're still providing those Services it's just in a different part of the budget now it's in the executive section section of the budget okay so if you have a question let me know but I think that was the answer that you needed and now we got Welfare Services which is section 4445 that's in a recommended amount of 28,900 um [Music] so if you look at this you'll see that the 24 budget was 18,900 and the recommended amount is 28,900 um the year before it was 28,900 so for 24 we chopped money out of it um we I don't know I didn't get a year end report but towards the end of the year we were surviving that but the message we got was that the request for services was going up

that we really should go back to where it was in 23 and the the committee the budget committee agreed with that so it looks like it's an increase but it's just going back to where it was in 23 is what I'm trying to point out to everybody any other questions okay next section is Parks and Recreation which is section 4520 and that's a recommended amount of $5,775 and this is just the one line this is to pay for the for the services that uh we received from ptcc and all right so the next section is beaches and that section 4521 and that's the recommended amount of $485 74 so this is up a fair amount from almost 40,000 to 48,000 um I remember exactly why lines oh right right right that was what it was line line 430 Contract Services for the person who has to do the maintenance of the St lines right so line 301 and line 430 um line 301 is basically a new line and line 430 basically what they told us was the I call them swim lines I call them the buoys that separate the swimming area from the Boating area at both of the beaches um need to be replaced and we asked if we could you know maybe stagger that and do one this year and one next year and what we were

told was that the exist the last years were not I think we were told they weren't stored properly and they were damaged and for sa two reasons we needed new ones and so it's in the budget I think they're more patched than original it were pretty rough four five years four years years ago I think it makes I mean I think it makes sense we're we are I mean I think we identify as a Lake Community our beach services are an important part of our I didn't really personally didn't really like spending the extra money but I think that sometimes you've got to even if you don't like it sometimes you got to do things we definitely want to keep all our swimmers safe and away from the boats or keep the boats away from our sers I guess more like it all right any other questions any questions on beaches not hearing that we'll go to the next section which is Kelly Park which is 4522 that's a recommended amount of $39,995 um projects line Thank you so line 820 which is projects which was no there was no money in the 24 budget is $20,000 in the 25 budget and B basically it's um I think that they had requested money in 24 and that's one of the places that we as a budget committee made some Cuts because we were looking to get the number down so it's not that it didn't exist in the past it has existed in years before 24 but in 24 the budget committee uh made a decision to zero it out and we're saying now the needs are still there and now we need to fund it in order to get those done I think

they're talking about doing some um repair on a on a the tennis court fence and there's some tree work done and and maybe some work on at least one of the ball fields we didn't get into the detail we're not trying to manage the detail of exactly what work is going on in there or I'm not okay so if no questions on Kelly Park the next SE I do okay go ahead yeah please the the the total seems to be up by 90 uh sorry right we we went from a budget in 2024 of 20,700 to a budget in 25 of 39,900 so we want up about $9,000 but if you look at line 820 you can see basically where that comes from it was 29 additional oh okay I can't add it's okay all right next section is Library so that's section 4550 and that's a recommended amount of $278,000 243 so this is all the things that the library does I think our library director is on the zoom if we have any specific questions but you can see that we've got um salaries and people working there and all the associated costs with that and then the excuse me the operating cost of running the library the building the electricity the heating the security the computer support office supplies custodial supplies um I don't think there's anything too strange in there but you have any questions I'll try to answer them

okay again come back to it if you see something but I'll move on to patriotic purposes that's section 4583 and that's the amount of $29,900 so it's not quite level funded but it's pretty darn close so this is this is basically the the fireworks are handled in a separate warrant article but this is the other things this is the the community events the the the coordinator for the con the summer concert series and things like that the downtown decorating committee putting up flags and other things on the on the poles to decorate the downtown area we we added a little bit of money under the Patriotic purposes because we have to replace some Bunting and fls this year so okay okay so the next section is the Conservation Commission which is section 4611 that's in the recomend amount of $2,400 um there's no salaries this is this is volunteers working on this commission but they have some costs operating costs to to basically do the work that they do [Applause] any questions the next section is historic district commission that's section 462 that's in the recommend that is a recommended amount of $650 basically they increase the

advertising line the first line 550 that's the only line that didn't that's different than level fund the next line is the next section is economic development committee that's SE uh line that's Department 4651 that's a recommended amount of $1,300 so the project line went down I I think the committee is a little less active now that Bill Dow is not in town anymore but we'll see what happens in the future we were able to encumber some of the funds from 2024 to cover the contract not contracts but cover engineering or surveying that's needed for the project as well so that's the the path sub committee okay so this is what the this is what was asked for I don't want to leave the any changes in this section and then the last section is outside agencies which is section 4652 and that's a reconed amount of $383 so for the most part I believe these these are all of the other uh Community organizations that to provide services to Crystal and its residents and ask us for support um the one that I believe the only one that changed was line 573 which is voices against violence so they had $3,500 last year and they asked for $7,000 and

we what I remember is we asked them you know why and basically the answer we got was that they have a new executive director and she tried to figure out where the request was justified by the previous director and really couldn't find anything so she started from scratch and said these are all the services we're providing here's all the costs were incurring and gee we didn't ask for enough last year I going asked for $7,000 and it wasn't unanimous but the majority of the committee agreed that that was justified we've heard uh both from the questions we've asked and from a couple of other places that they do provide valuable services and are asset to the community the other I guess the other thing that changed and it's not something that we did is line 578 the bridge House Shelter had asked for money in 24 and we had budgeted that they basically I don't know what's going on with them but they said we we don't we're not asking for money in 25 so we didn't cut them they they basically said they were going to pay a year off and then again one of our members was concerned that they might come back during the year and ask for some money so we change it from zero to one just to make it easier for the select board if they decide they want to put money into that line am I missing anything folks that I think that's mostly what's going on here okay okay so again now those sections the beaches and the recreation and the library and the Conservation Commission all group together to be into a bigger group subgroup called public services and they total up to be 78 6,261 if you take all four of those and

you add them together you get what is our general fund obligations which is7 million what we're proposing is for um General operations of the Town un increase of 5% an increase of yes 5 5.8% and then the next lines have to do with Debt Service so there's three lines here the first one is basically the principal payments on our long-term debt which is section 4711 that's um we can go through this and I can try to answer questions but honestly we don't spend a lot of time on this because this represent payments on bonds we've taken out the loan we're obligated to make the payments there not really an opportunity to go back and renegotiate and cut money in these sections so the next section is now the interest payments on the long-term debts that's section 4721 and that's a recommended amount of 100 9,341 again now instead of the principal payment on on bonds and long-term debt this is the interest payments I think it has to be on two different lines for State reasons it's the way it's always been handled um again this is what was we were told is going to be needed to make the payments that are required to be made and interesting even with the addition of the building they're both down somewhat um so Mr yeah I the one thing that's down is if you look at the de we took the Deb the Central Street Force main Bond payment out because we won't be making a payment this year um so that's out um and that that will have to

go back in next year when we make our first payment on the bonds um and then um the interest for the Central Street is in there on the project though because we anticipate we'll be paying some of that f there so so just to re make sure that was clear so if you go back to the principal payments section 4711 and you look at line 97 997 you'll see we budgeted zero and that's because the project is going forward but you don't make we won't make a principal payment until the project is completed the project won't be completed in time that we need to make a principal payment in 2025 but if you go to the next section 4721 and you go to that same 997 line there is $20,000 in there because there there will be an interest payment on I believe it's a bridge loan financing but it's basically there will be an interest payment on a on a loan in order to fund that project yes we have a bond anticipation note similar to a tax anticipation note that we draw down we and then we will get USDA funding but not until the project is done so that's why we won't have a bond an actual Bond payment we're just going to pay on the bond anticipation note and then the third line the third section in this in this grouping is uh tan which is tax anticipation note which is 4723 and that's a recommend amount of $188,000 so this one was kind of interesting we we had budgeted $1,500 last year I I don't think it had changed in a bunch of years so that's a number we probably got three years ago

from Bob maybe that was back when Banks were paying Squat and charging squat because this year when we actually needed the taex we because the whole problem with the school and we couldn't get the tax bills out and we needed to get borrow money to keep our cash flow going our Fant finance officer came and said who budgeted this this isn't enough to pay interest on so she said it should be 18,000 and I I believe I mean I know that the staff will work to try to not do this because we don't want to do it we don't have to but next next year will be the every five years we do a reval and we will do a re we we will do a reval at the end of 25 so there is a chance the tax bills could be delayed a little bit so we definitely wanted money in the budget for a tan in case it's needed to the end of 25 did I did I we we made our first tan payment I can't tell you what it was interest so payment um we pay only pay interest on the T we pay them back obviously but we only pay interest in the budget on the tan but we do anticipate we may have to get a tan towards the end of the year again with the reow and we didn't have an expense until January on that yes not until January on that we um took it in December right and but we didn't have our F our first interest payment due until January so if you take the this section these three lines the principal payments the interest payments and pan potential expenses and add them together that's so you get a line that's general fund obligations and Debt Service that's 8,243

192 so this is the part I get I get a little so this is the part of the budget that is going to be funded by General revenues so General grants General Revenue General state aid and property taxes so even though that we still have to cover water and sewer and that's part of the warrant article that the town has to approve that's funded through grants specific to Water and Sewer and Water and Sewer fees so that this is the line to this point potentially affects your property taxes we're going to do the other lines but they don't really affect shouldn't really affect do you have a a percent on it's not on here 5.15% increase over the 24 Budget on total government total government and Debt Service yeah thank you yep I think you and I think the same way I need to know that number I'll find out we should be on there Sean so we'll make sure we add I saw that 511 what I got it is it's on a weird page I see it thank you okay so now moving along we'll try to go through now so we got Sewer Department and Water Department so the next line is operations so this is um the sewer departments all start with an o so all of all the Departments we did beforehand are part of the general Town operation actually start with a one so it's 01 Das 4 digit number the sewer department is

05- 4326 and that's a recommended amount of 5,775 so you go through this this is the operating department so again a lot of folks and it makes sense but I think the majority of the people in that department work in both Water and Sewer so it'll say okay 50% of this person's salary is here in the sewer department then when you get to the water department you'll see the same person and the other 50% of the salary will be in there so you got all of that and then you got the uh you know F and unemployment compet something thing uniform safety boots um operating expenses I'm trying to think if there's anything in here I mean it's barely straightforward it's up about 2.3% from last year think we made any major changes I don't think there was anything that we thought here that was controversial so if you have any questions and try to answer that I'll keep moving you can always bring me back if you need to the next section is the sewer Capital project section which is 4327 that's a recommended amount of $220,000 so what you'll see in here there's four lines the first two are things that are going on and it's basically got to be careful but I'm pretty sure that you'll see that again it's being split between water and sewer so there's $10,000 for each of these

projects in the sewer department when we get to water you'll see that there's addition the matching money in the water right Jeff uh for the paving for the for the for the paving but not for the Bridge Crossing correct okay and then the third line was uh the dump truck which we did in 24 but we still there because you want to be able to compare to last line and then the last one is a sledge dumpster which we were originally anticipating we would do in 25 it was in the early drafts of the budget and Jeff found a way to get a hold of one before the end of the year so we made it he made it happen in 24 so we took the money out of the 25 buget so you weren't just being a bad guy no we we did what he told us to do all right so the next line is sewer Surplus so that's 4328 and that's a recommended amount of 991,00 937 so I'm going to try not to ramble too much this is this is one that so the the water and the sewer department are called Enterprise funds so they're basically supposed to be run as Standalone separate businesses you're not supposed to co-mingle their finances with the rest of the town so one of the things we do is we we say we we the town not me one of the things the town does is the select board works with Jeff to set the rates so that you make sure that the revenue is more than the expenses that you have some Surplus to put into Capital Savings so you get some money to handle unexpected things or big PR com so what really happens is at the end of the year you look at actual revenues minus actual expenses and you make that transfer at this point we don't know

what those actual things are so for the past at least two years we've said well we don't want to deal with this we just put like a $1 placeholder in that line what we found out this year in discussions is is that that causes a problem in state reports they're like things aren't adding up right so they said we know that it's not exactly the right number it's going to change but you need to put you need to put that $ 91,9 37 in there because that's the difference between the projected revenues and the projected expenses and now everything will add up and and balance it it it's a little frustrating because now what it's what it's going to do is it increases the number in the warrant article by $91,000 doesn't spend any more money but it makes the number look a hot a whole lot less attractive so I'll stand up at town meeting and try to explain a little bit about this this will also be in the report that's in from the budget committeee in the in there but the warrant article doesn't look as good as it should because it's got 91,000 in the sewer and 104,000 in the water and the number is bigger than but the spending didn't go up I'm a little frustrated it's going to be hard to explain to people but that's the way it is you didn't do anything wrong it's just be coms so and the past being done behind the scenes the it was being done basically by staff at the end of the year behind the scenes and everything was handled properly but basically the state said but yeah but now the MS 737 you are submitting in March doesn't quite add up right so we needed to fix that and it made sense and we did that but now I'm thinking about

the fact that our war number went up by from I don't know I have it in front of me but I don't but it's offset by revenues but it's offset by revenues but it will be the same exact number in the revenues correct but the revenues aren't on the warrant you don't see those so I have to make more of an effort to talk about them to make sure that the voters under your understand they are on the but they are in your Ms 737 correct before I got on the budget committee I don't think I had had ever read that so I don't think the average uh Talent person does but I hope I'm wrong mistakes all right moving moving on thank you for rning the event a little bit I'm sorry I got to do that to you um the next section is sewer debt principal payments which is 4711 that's $ 52,2 34 so again this is the sewer this is this is principal payments on long-term debt for sewer capital projects that have been done in the past that we have bonds out for and the next line is the interest on those same long-term debt payments so sewer debt interest section 4721 is $2,920 Jeff do you know what you have left for years on those I want to say uh 27 one of them was paid off just looking at that the other day but off the top of my head I really don't know look you try I feel like I should have

the music playing in the background do the Jeopardy music um General where is it debt you can get back H you can get back to to me or oh I yeah I we'll do it at later you move on and I'll find it and I can tell you it might it might it might be in it might be in the CIP spreadsheet um yeah we also have a debt schedule we had to create do that this year with our audit so before before I move on just so taking all of those sewer operations sewer capital and all of those things you add them all together and you get a total of $746,000 Central Square and dewatering so dewatering was there Central Square sorry yeah Central Square Central Square is 2027 okay so now we're going to do basically the same thing for the water department so these departments all start with seven water operations is 4331 and that's a recommended amount of $523,111 19 you'll see that this is certainly not exactly any ways it's kind of a mirror of the sewer operations same type of thing salaries people Associated costs and then

operating uh costs excuse me so while you're looking through that if you have a question speak up I'll keep moving um the next section is water capital that's section 4332 and that's a recommended amount of $20,500 and that is you can see the list of things here the uh treatment plant Paving was split between water and sewer but there's a project here for basically um scard is like a supervisory control system so it's Electronics to monitor the operation if you really want detail you can get it from Jeff I'm not an electrical engineer um and a for uh coding and again they bought it we bought a we budgeted and bought a truck in 24 that's in the budget because we want to see what happened compared previous years but there's no money in 25 to buy yet another truck and now Surplus so water Surplus which is 4333 is $ 4,884 that's the anticipated difference between revenues and expenses uh and again there's long-term debt on water projects so there's a principal line which is 4711 which is $ 55,1 73 and an interest line which is section 4220 I'm sorry 4721 which is $644 so the other one that is the de the water system bond is the dees one right so that one's done in

2031 okay thank you and the the total for the water department uh sections is $71,900 so if you add Water and Sewer together the Total Lines departments sections all add up to 1,456 n956 and now you add general fund operations Debt Service and water and sewer Enterprise funds you get a total of 9,661 384 and that is the number that we appear in war article 9 we're not doing War articles yet but that's the that's the number that is reported out of the budget committee that will be discussed at the town meeting for the voters to approve 348 348 you said 84 okay thank you 9 m661 348 thank you for correcting me I I love the support thank you all right so that's the that's the budget any questions from members of the audience okay so now I'll try to stop rambling and go a little faster we're going to cover revenues real quick so you have a revenue report in front of you the the current estimated 2025 Revenue are 4,100 264 don't have the same report that you have in front of you now I I look through

this I kind of try to Dev to to group things together to so let me ask any questions on revenues no okay so the last thing we're going to do is we're going to just do a quick pass through the proposed warrant article I believe the warrant article is still amendable still changeable the select board still has not got a final approval so this is uh not it could it could change um I believe that just just the vot I think but they could change if they wanted to right or is not no to bring it back to you again okay so so they just have to vote on so it's just voting to do so those that's why those things are highlighted here those will be updated those will change so the first eight articles are going to be handled on the Tuesday at the polling place so I won't I don't think I need to go through those right okay so we'll just start with article 9 article 9 is I don't think I need to read this to you I'll just say so article 9 is our typical uh budget article as I mentioned before it's 9 million $661,000 [Music] [Music] article article 10 is for the

contingency fund so that's something I think we've done every year that I'm aware I'm not forever in the town but so this is to establish a $25,000 contingency fund um article 11 is for fireworks in the past that's been $220,000 it's proposed to be $225,000 this year I just have a comment on that I I don't think taxpayers be paying that because only a limited number get to see the fireworks because of the way the the areas are cordoned off so cars can't park anywhere near it so the first people that get there can see the fireworks but most of the town is not able to but again that's going to be voted on at town meeting so it's just I I don't believe it's a worthwhile expenditure for the tax I he Les wants to say something I don't disagree with you Tom and I think that's why we've always said we want it on a warrant article so that people can make that decision at now meeting we don't make it for them are you got to say the same thing I think that's why we don't just put it in the budget line in the budget we call it out to make sure that the voters approved because there are there are some people that are enthusiastic supporters are there are some people that are enthusiastic this is not a good idea so we I'd support it if everyone could see them but it's so limited that I don't think it's okay and Mr chair just pointing out that everything except for two articles does have the select boards vote on them now too okay um so Article 13 is again I would call it a typical article this is a article to make uh contributions to a variety of capital uh funds capital reserve funds Capital uh maintenance funds Expendable trust different I don't know what they

are AR 12 what did I say but that's okay that's okay we know what you meant well thank you but it's a public hearing so I do need to be corrected so article 12 is for Capital uh reses reserves it's a total of $400,000 into six different funds are are you voting on these tonight we will vote on these after the public meeting while we're still having a budget committee meeting yes uh Article 13 is basically asking for approval to put a new to for a generator for the public safety building as I understand it's it's it's $125,000 as I understand it the expectation is that it'll be paid for by a grant that if the grant doesn't come through the town won't do the project but again we have to approve spending the money because state law says we have to do for Appropriations we have to spend the money even if we're expecting to be re and is this something that was originally included in the in the project but had to be cut no no okay no so there is a generator it's the generator that was at the town office building it's technically undersized it operates the majority of the building um so this would be to to Really fully operate the building put in a three-phase gener that's only a single phase generator but there's three phase in the building um and just like in years past so the empg grant is typically a 50/50 match um but our kind of 50% contribution comes from building the building and the offset of what spaces the EOC and Emergency Management director works out of um so it would be 100% funded it will likely not be that

much regardless um but it's just best of what the kind of Max number number in for now until somebody finally gets back to me with quotes on what it's going to cost okay so that's Article 13 article 14 is asking for authorization to raise and spend $ 24,4 16 to hire up to four new additional full-time permanent firefighters and this is basically their salary and benefits for 6 months so I am sure that there will be a lot of discussion and more explanation but that's what the warrant article says at this point that was Article 14 Article 15 is basically to establish a Cemetery maintenance Expendable trust fund and to allocate all future proceeds received from the sale of cemetery lots into this fund and to appropriate $2,025 which is the amount that was received from the sale of two lots in 2024 and this amount of money is not from General taxation but from the UN unsigned fund balance so and the trustees will be the agent so how was this handled in the past covering those costs do you want to handle it handle it um so we haven't sold a plot a lot for a long time um but according to statute and according to the cemetery bylaws um we had to accept when we sold a lot we have to take a

check for Perpetual care and it has to the trustees love me um has to create a new fund um at that time for the Perpetual care and then the rest of it goes into the general fund and statute requires us to put it on the Warren article and move we can ask the towns people whether they want to move it into a fund which doesn't exist so we had to create a new fund for the six cemeteries for general maintenance so the Lots the lot fees can go into that I'm actually meeting with the cemetery trustees in two weeks to ask them to change their bylaws so we no longer have the Perpetual care so um and we just do a lot fee instead or general maintenance instead and then it can go into this fund we're creating so so in I don't before that I have no idea how it was being handled because we have a very long time and we just sold two so I miss anything no that answer your question okay so that was Article 15 article 16 is to raise it appropriate the sum of $25,000 for purchasing replacement firearms for the police department so I don't know all the details I've heard that there's some concerns or issues with the existing weapons and that the police have asked yeah so um Firearms are usually replaced every like 6 to 8 years we're at the 7year Mark um this year we had two Firearms we've got two spares um one of them now is malfunctioning because one of our officers um it wasn't

um ejecting the round and putting the round back in um we fixed that however we're not relying on that not to happen again um so because the year the amount of years that they're normally replac seeing some issues with them um we've decided to go forward with replacing them now um this price also we've got a couple of rifles that are from Vietnam so this this price is to also start slowly replacing some of those rifles as well it also includes Optics correct yes yes which is it will have which is a huge adding Optics to to um which just about every police department now is supp have Ops on their guns those are customized for the officer is that correct um not necessarily customized for the officer um it we we tested out four different Firearms um the officers who are firearms instructors and have way more knowledge than me about Firearms um test them all out then they narrow them down to early 2 and then we've narrowed it down to one um and from what they said the the one we've chosen was because this um comes with a warranty with the sight with Optics um and the gun um where the other ones we were buying Optics from a different company and a gun from a different company they also liked how this one fired so it's not specific per officer but they are issued to each officer um and this also this price uh gives us I think it was two spare guns which we always wanted a spare gun because one if we were ever involved in a shooting we will never ever get that gun back um and if of the malfunctions we have we have one to go to okay so that was Article 16 article 17 is basically uh to establish a new

capital reserve fund for energy projects and to support Energy Efficiency renewable energy Outreach initiatives reducing energy costs covering Grant matches um in addition to establishing this new fund uh to appropriate the sum of $10,000 to be placed in the fund the sum of this $10,000 to come from the unassigned fund balance and to name the select board as agents to expend Mr chair the since you saw this last you saw the draft the board added the wording from the unassigned fund Valance so they made that change at their last meeting so I know I noticed in 19 it said that that fund will be administered by the treasur does this fund go to the treasur or to the trustees of the trust funds 17 do you know do we need to put it in here it would be the trustees the trust FS but you don't need to put it in there the treasure on Article 15 it has to no actually which one Article 19 it says treasure reol that one's because we were amending and mod we're modifying a existing revolving fund okay and we were told we had to put it in there okay so Mike I see that the select board has already voted 5 to recommend this uh I had a conversation with the chair of the energy committee he told me that he was strongly proposing this and that he described to me that he thought that it was basically a fund that when that when we apply for Grants often times they ask or require us to have matching funds so

this would be a pool of money to supply those matching funds so that way could get grants I not a budget Committee just personally I know during covid it was easy to get a grant we were a lot of money going around I believe for now and for the next four years grants are going to be a lot harder to get certainly from the federal government not not sure that I personally like this but it is proposed and the voters will vote well and I just add the board felt that it would be up to the voters whether they supported it or not so that's why they voted to recommend it okay um can I can I ask a question yeah please go ahead yeah so can you just explain what is it that saying um to increase Energy Efficiency what ises what does that mean what does that mean what are you what are you talking about there oh so you're asking a wonderful question but you're asking the wrong person I think that you're going to have to ask this question at the town meeting and let the chair of the energy committee answer that because unless you want to get us no okay okay this Lan did discuss that a little bit though right about they discussed about renewable more I when they talked about it I um they haven't taken a stance that on renewable energy and where we go with that and they wanted to be clear I believe in the meeting um about that correct me if I'm wrong Les I think we discussed the fact that some of us were uncomfortable with the fact that we're by doing this it shows that we're supporting but we don't know what we're supported and then we discussed the fact that we would be as agents to expend we will have final say as to whether we move forward so we leave it to the voters on any projects to before you

even apply right okay so that was 17 so article 18 is to raise an appropriate $16,700 for purchasing installing and maintaining four new trees in Central Square so that's fairly short and and now last the last one what for the public it includes a Christmas tree so we don't have to rep a Christmas tree every year so it's three trees that we took down six we're putting three back and it includes a Christmas tree so three deciduous trees and one Evergreen and Article 19 is a proposed is a warrant article to to modify the purpose of the existing transfer station revolving fund created in 2014 from I guess its current purpose is promoting recycling through improved transfer station operations and we're going to modif modify it to additionally include recycling through improvements and maintenance to transfer station operations including equipment and to add that all recycling revenue from cardboard and Alon will be deposited into the fund and the money in the fund shall be allowed to accumulate from year to year and shall not be considered part of the town's general fund balance the town Treasurer shall have custody of all monies in the fund and shall pay out the same only upon order of the governing body and no further approval is required by the legislative body to expend such funds may only be may be extended only for the purpose for which the fund was created

and this what Bo you don't have a vote for them on this one no we didn't have the wording finalized from the Department of Revenue and time then their last week's meeting was post until Thursday so General consensus I believe is that they are in favor of this article because they put it on to the warrant um less you agree you yes um the wording is this is the Department of Revenue again changing the wording um they told us that the governing body which is and the legislative body when normally it's the select board that you put in there but um and but they finalized the wording with me on last week's looko meeting day so sorry go ahead it's an existing revolving fund with $100 approximately in it and want the board wanted to um there's going to be some improvements that need to be done to the transfer station in the future potentially compactors they can cost a lot of money um so um and there might be other recycling initiatives that may want to be lift up so um the board wanted to change the purpose of the existing to allow us to imp do improvements and maintenance including equipment and then um taking instead of raising any funds from taxation taking the revenue from cardboard and from aluminum and putting that into the fund and not taking all of recycling Revenue but starting with those two so I will again comment as not as the chair but as a member of the committee that when we first saw this I had asked a question and I said well when we when we agreed to do when we approved doing the cbard recycling we

said there was a fair amount of equipment purchase and cost going on and that the eventually we would earn enough to offset all of that cost between either money re revenues received from selling corrugate or expenses avoided by diverting things out of the municipal waste string so we don't have to truck it down and dump it and disposing it that way and the I asked for an update on that and the answer I got was well when the project was originally proposed it was anticipated or estimated that it would be a seven-year payback we did that three years ago so four four years ago so we and then I look through the detail on the revenue system and basically for 2025 we're currently estimating that the aluminum recycling will be $3,000 and the corate recycling will be $7,000 ,500 so if we divert that out of what it's in the revenue report not complete the corate recycling yeah it's it's mixed in the revenue that's mixture yes have it call it up on the computer St I'm willing to be corrected but I was going to say that I think it's $10,500 total for those two things I'm looking at it says recycling NR that's not just cardboard okay so so you know that's a mixture gotcha gotcha did not understand that yeah which I can tell you the line

number sorry it's it's line 3411 100 y and the aluminum was I think higher uh 3290 d425 is aluminum that's 3,000 yeah but you're telling me that the the recycling NRA 341-1000 includes corrugate but includes is not just corate includes other things yes okay so I can tell you for the I can tell you what the last um three years were um my print didn't print so I'm going back to the email um for 2024 it was um 7,958 but that's that's that's not corate that's just corate yeah oh was corate okay yeah so this mean does it have a and this is estimating the entire 25 now again we tend to is 7,500 right so it's not that far off yeah if you look under 2024 actual it's 9,073 so so it's not we did reduce it slightly um 2023 it was $626 and 20122 it was only 2353 um I think when we first enacted this the cardboard prices and Victor you might know better but cardboard prices dropped when we first started out they PL yeah and they started to come back up a little bit but we also n uh brought in two other uh sites that they could broker with so sometimes we have to wait a little bit longer to get the trucking to haul it and sometimes in those

contracts there's no hauling fees so it changes the price greatly I guess the point I was making just for my person personal point is that when it says we're going to divert revenue streams I would want to know okay what's the number so I was going to say my understanding is it's roughly $10,000 a year I I think that's fair so by diverting it out it's not directly paying back for the by diverting by diverting it out it doesn't now contribute to paying back for the cost of the all the corrugating equipment and it takes it out of General revenues but if we're going to make the investment in the transfer station for future equipment so it's a wash I mean to me it's a wash whether you pay for it out of a out of General funds or you pay for it out of a trust fund to me it's like you know you're paying it out of which your bank account or which pocket of which section of your wallet you spend the money where it comes from is not as important to me as the fact for the money being spent and there was supposed to be state revenue coming in to support Recycling and you know reducing what's going into the landfills um but with the budget problems they're having and I I I don't think the town has received any of that money that they talked about giving to the towns I I don't know but I know that the state is coming up on a really tight year so I'm not expecting that they're going to they're not going to give any money new that they Haven in the past they're probably going to give us less than what they give us in the past so we will see so anyway that's the that's the proposed warrant article 20 is any other business that

can legally happen so that's so we've gone over the budget we've gone over the revenues and we've gone over the proposed warrant article is there anything else that you guys have any questions or make any comments or are we ready to wrap this up okay I think we are done with the public meeting it's 8:04 thank you all of the the staff for coming in I don't know I probably should have talked L and giv you guys chance more chances to talk no I appreciate it have a good night um so so just so you guys the members of the public you know we still have some budget committee business to do you are welcome to stay if you want to you don't have to but the public meeting is over have there's very little you have to do you expect to wrap it up tonight or yes yes thank you all thank you for your work see you guys good night you too you good night thank you so now I think the next thing we need to do is now to do our votes on our recommendation that your understanding start you start at the budget if you want down so I don't see a reason to go through now I will point out that legally we do still have the ability and the authority to make changes I think if we make red ctions we don't have to but if we make any additions we will have to have another public meeting tomorrow night we have to present the budget in a public meeting

with all of the money in it so if we add something we can do that but we will back here tomorrow night to have the second session of the public meeting I'll point that out I don't I don't have any proposed changes but I want to make sure you guys know that if you want to make a change we can consider it so I don't know I guess I should make a motion I'll make a motion to recommend approval of the 2025 budget as currently determined by the budget committee which is a warrant article of 9,661 348 second motion by Paul seconded by Joe to recommend approval of the current budget I don't have any discussion does anyone want to make a comment or make a discussion we have Sue still on the phone so we have a zoom meeting we're going to have to do a roll call vote not hearing any more discussion that we will call a roll call I'll go first and we'll go around the table clockwise Paul says I I I sue okay um well the only thing is is I don't know that I can say I if I didn't um agree with one of the because that would knock the balance off if I didn't agree with the um you know one of the things that I voted no on let's put it that way so if I voted no that would have changed the outcome for me so how can I agree with the budget I'm not sure that I I'm not sure that I understand you're saying that at least one of the proposed amendments to change the buz budget you voted no and the you you voted in One Direction and the majority of the committee voted the other way so you didn't get what you wanted yeah so so so if the budget that would have changed the

budget um so that means that the balance is is beyond what I because I voted no it would you know R I got I got you I got I got what you're saying so yeah you you I don't think in my opinion you're not required to vote no what you're you're not voting that you're not saying that you approve voted that you got everything you wanted but you right and you can vote no if you want to but if you vote Yes you're not saying I love every line you're saying on the whole I'm recommending that the voters should approve this budget you don't know you're saying I'm recommending that the voters should reject this budget that's what we're voting on right now okay well then I'll I'll go yes I'll go yes because everything else was fine it's just one thing okay I okay so Les said I and Joe said I so that's 60 so I don't need to do well we did a roll call I don't need to do anything else so we've made our recommendation for a 60 vote to recommend approval of the budget so now we'll do revenues I'll make a motion to approve the revenue budget which currently has 2025 revenues of $4,100 264 is that a okay motion second second so motion by Paul seconded by Joe to approve the revenue budget of $4,100 264 again I don't have any discussion about my motion I but if anyone has a question or a comment the floor is open not hearing any we will do a roll call vote again same thing I'll start go around the room clockwise if you could

actually say your name and your vote I think that's the way I'm anticipate but would like to see roll call votes go so Paul says I B Kenny I W says I sue says I Lesley says I Joe says I 60 we're passed okay now we need to go through the warrant um so we've already done article 9 that was the budget so now we've got article 10 which is the contingency fund for $25,000 this one to me seems not very controversial I'll wait a second to see if anyone wants to speak up and make a comment but assuming there's not we'll go ahead and take a roll call vote so we're voting on our recommendation for the voters on article 10 PA vot yes a motion oh make a motion okay thank you I'll make a motion to recommend approval of Warren article 10 second second motion by Paul seconded by Walter hearing no discussion we'll do a roll call vote Paul says I B says I wal says I sue says I mostley says I Joe says I 6 Z that passes okay article 11 I'll make a motion to recommend the voters approve Warren article 11 which is to raise an appropriate $25,000 for fireworks patriotic Recreation and special events which will be used for fireworks I'll second that okay so we have a motion from Paul seconded by Walter for article 11 which is $25,000 for fireworks I'm thinking of what Tom

said I don't have a strong feeling I'll say I Paul says I bz says I wal says I sue says I Le says i j says I 60 we approve we recommend approval of article 11 article 12 I'll make a motion that we recommend approval of article 12 which is to raise an appropriate $400,000 to be added to uh six various capital reserve funds as listed in the laen article second motion by Paul seconded by Leslie to recommend approval of article 12 not hearing any discussion we'll have a roll call vote PA votes I pa votes I roll votes I who votes i l votes I Joe votes I 60 we recommend approval of article 12 Article 13 Paul make I'll make a motion to recommend the voters that they approve Article 13 which is to raise and appropriate the sum of $125,000 for an emergency generator and corresponding components at the public safety building with 125 th $125,000 to come from a grant and so the appropriation is contingent upon receipt of the grant second motion by Paul seconded by Joe roll call vote Paul says I I say says I says I sue says I says I Jo says I 60 okay article 14 I'll make a motion to that our committee recommends the voters approve article 14 which is to raise and appropriate the sum of 25,400

$166 thank you um for the purpose of hiring up to four full-time firefighters and so this is for salary and benefits for six months I I will comment before we do a roll call vote yeah we need a second I'll second it thank you so have a motion by Paul seconded by Joe um since I made the motion I get to talk first I I think that there's details here that I don't completely understand and so I'm really looking forward to hearing Chief L Ro and other people talk about it and explain what's going on exactly um I reserve the right when I get that additional information to vote as I see fit at the at the town meeting but at this point as far as recommending to the voters I think I trust the chief in the town enough that I will V will ask for this so that's what I'm thinking does anyone else want to make a comment I think just an important detail to add for the public record is that this is entirely offset by revenues from other towns correct yes if that wasn't in there I'd be much less willing to vote Yes be proposing thank you I kind of like I said I trust the chief I forgot you were in the room I didn't realize you was listening to me talk I trust the chief enough that if this were really crazy he wouldn't propose it so I think it probably makes sense I just don't even though he explained it to me once I still don't feel like I completely understand all the details so I reserve the right to reconsider but at this point I'm going to vote to recommend and to your point it is offset with

BRS all right we ready for a roll call vote Paul votes I let votes I walk votes i s votes I plus votes I Jo votes I 60 got the support you wanted okay I'll make a motion to recommend the voters approve Article 15 which is to establish a new Cemetery maintenance Expendable trust fund and to allow all future proceeds from the sale of cemetery lots and interest gained to be used for the maintenance of cemeteries and to raise and appropriate the sum of $2,025 to put into the fund that money coming from the unexpended fund balance second motion by Paul seconded by Buzz to recommend approval of Article 15 I don't think I have any comment anyone else have comment all call vote all says I says i w say I sue says ior says I Joe says I okay Article 15 is recommended for approval 60 I'll make a motion to recommend the voters approve article 16 which is to raise an appropriate the sum of $225,000 for the purpose of purchasing replacement firearms for the police department second motion by Paul seconded by Joe to recommend approval of article 16 go I don't know you want to make amendment I was going to I was going to comment that when I first thought about this I'm like not sure I like it but the more I thought about it the more I'm like if the if the weapons are getting old and they're not

reliable we could have a horrible situation with the police it's probably worth $225,000 so I would say my only comment on this is I feel like this should be a standard part of the operating budget I know that back and forth over the years we've talked about large dollar items going in the operating budget out of the operating budget but just my comment to the budget committee is you can't really have a police department in 2025 without Firearms it's a required piece of equipment for them so I certainly would support this regardless of whether or not it's more well it's it's interesting because in in past years especially when we had Charlie amongst us we would get the budget and then Charlie would be like this is a big item let's not bury it in the budget let's make it a warrant article but we didn't do that this year we it was never in the budget and we found out about it when we first got to look at the warrant so I'm I'm not telling you you're wrong but I'm telling you we I don't feel like we did anything wrong here no no agreed okay ready for roll call no can I just yes yes go ahead Su go ahead yeah no but why wasn't it put in in the budget why wouldn't it have been put under the police budget that's a standard thing item you know that you would have to have purchasing your fire so often I I don't know we could ask less from the select board but she just said what I was thinking one of two things happened either either the chief Bean said I want it to be visible so the voters no or it it got thought about after early September when the budget was submitted so I mean I don't know when it came up I don't know when when when it was first proposed um it wasn't proposed until the waren article so it may have been something that they were considering after the budget was presented because we did warn

articles um November and December so I'm not sure he had the pricing on it de so he was waiting and I think he thought it was a substantial line item so he that's why he may have done as Warr article as well so okay okay yeah so what I'm what I'm hearing is that the committee would like to make sure that Christina as the administrator and Les as our select board rep know that for things like this that are not nice to have but pretty much must have in the future we think they probably belong in the budget I wrote a note that already I think so too right that's just just a comment that you could share with the rest of the board we'd appreciate it is that for you okay roll call vote on article 16 Paul says I says I W says I Su says I says I says I okay 60 we recommended article 16 article 17 make a motion to recommend that the voters approve article 17 which is to establish an energy Project's capital reserve fund for the purpose of funding Energy Efficiency and renewable energy projects Outreach initiatives related to increasing Energy Efficiency Andor reducing energy costs and for covering Grant matches related to increasing Energy Efficiency and to raise an appropriate the sum of $10,000 to be placed in this fund the sum to come from on a sun to find balance the select B agents to expand second motion by Paul seconded by less to recommend approval of article 17 so even though I made the motion to

recommend approval I think I'm going to vote no on this one I just this is not really well defined and not sure that I like it so so can I it doesn't stop the town from spending money on this thing it just doesn't create a fund to do that I would comment just from select board's perspective when we discussed this we were we wanted to be sure that we weren't telling the voters that we would approve any thing that came up from an energy committee's ideas or things that they thought should be done unless we felt that's what the town wanted done but by do the other piece of this is and we saw this with the EDC is we charged these people with doing great work as volunteers for us but then we don't give them any funds so that if something an opportunity comes out that they can act on it so we felt that it's not really fair to on one side say yes we support the committee but no we're not going to support you with any money so we agreed that if something good should come up and the board felt that's what the town wanted then we would vote to go forward with it but that would give us the ability to do so with some money in there good thank you anyone else want to comment I'll just say as a member of the energy committee I didn't have any role in in drafting this but um I I don't think that it's intended to be an endorsement for anything it's just money there um this grew out of the effort to put solar panels on the public safety building the particular grant that we applied for had a significant match and um we just thought you know um at that

time um politics hadn't changed in Washington but right but we just thought that you know we're going to be looking for other grants um there's the possibility we're looking into expanding the solar field um down by the wastewater treatment plant um and that this would just make things easier on on the voters um but there's no at least from my perspective as a member of the energy committee there is not intended to be an endorsement for any particular project okay I guess part of the I Hear What I Hear you're saying and I don't disagree with what you're saying but to me if it says the select board recommended 5 and the budget committee recommends 60 it should be un not much question we want the voters to approve it I kind of want at least one no vote in there to let them know hey let's talk about this let's let's get some more in maybe I mean I said the same thing about the fire and I didn't get the know it but it's kind of the same type of thing maybe it's because I no offense buzz but I trust I trust the fire department more than I trust n taken so do I so so I'm not I'm not planning to stand up and make a big stink about this and demand that everyone vote no and the town go turn it down but I kind of want to make sure they know that it's there's some question here I don't I not clear what the benefit is I think an important point though is it's not so much like the example you just was energy committee versus you know fire it's it's actually the select board

right who has the authority to expend These funds should the warrant article pass um so at least in my mind it's a group of elected officials by the constituents who are voting on the warrant so you in essence you might be saying more that you trust that the select board will make the right decision when the time comes and not that the energy committee might propose something that you would like exactly that's a more suct way so so you're both saying you think that it would be much better to have a 6 zation a 5 to one I don't think it matters I think you vote your conscience absolutely yeah yeah y yeah I completely agree with that point I was just disagreeing with you well that's fine to be to be to be honest I don't really want to talk to you guys Sue did you want to say something before I go yeah no it's just right from the start I'll be voting as well I mean just because I do have a couple of questions on that and and there really isn't a full answer on that it just doesn't it doesn't sound right to me for some reason there's something missing in the way I'm perceiving this so I'm really going to be voting no on it too that's that's exactly why I asked the question to begin with all right that mean thank you for that comment so part of the thing is I I don't really want a majority no vote so if three of you all say you're going to vote no I'm going to switch back to yes cuz I don't want to be a majority no but I didn't want it to be a unanimous yes stop talking yourself in circles shut up and vote please be quiet and vote I just will add that the language is boiler from we were given it from other towns but also from the Department of Revenue so um okay and the voters really don't care

they're going to vote what they think is a I wanted at least one no vote Su since you're saying no are you going to be upset if I switch no no I won't be upset if you switch I just think that that's kind of a crazy reason too you're just now figuring out that I'm crazy yeah not really but I knew before but I almost my all right let's call a roll I I thank you for that direction let's call a roll call um now I'm sorry I made myself go first I will vote no Paul said no says I says I sue oh sorry Sue says no le says I Joe says I okay recommendation passes 4 to two thank you last TR we are that was 17 18 I make a I make a motion to recommend to the voters that they approve article 18 which is to raise and appropriate the sum of $16,700 for the purpose of purchasing and installing and maintaining four new trees in Central Square including the Christmas tree second motion by Paul Second and by less to recommend approval of article 18 any comments I just have a question is it are these four trees just like in the center right there you're going to be able to fit four trees right there in the very center of the square is that where you're thinking of putting them or on along the sides or where there's there were six cut down between the Central Square and the bino property in the church driveway and I think the six one was closer

to what are they called now the pizza oh you're talking um L cross thank you Lin cross I'm like no not Pat so there were six trees along that line and they were taken down because of the Ash boore and so we want to put three along that line and spread them out and then the fourth is the Christmas tree which would be down in the same location roughly that the current Christmas tree is right right okay all right yeah okay not hearing any more conversation we'll do a roll call Paul says I says I says I sue says I I Jo says I Joe says I 60 we recommend approval of article 18 one more to go Article 19 I make a motion that we recommend to the voters approval of Article 19 which is to modify the existing transfer station revolving fund I'll just see Article 19 I don't need to read the whole thing right yeah okay um um any comments oh yeah Joe y motion by Paul seconded by Joe thank you for L for reminding not hearing any comments we'll do a roll wait wait wait wait there was something I did I did have a question because I just wanted to be really clear what I was hearing so when you were talking about revenues from the cardboard in aluminum right I I would I wasn't sure how much the um revenue from the aluminum was I kind of missed that one but so the total let's say it comes to $10,000 so $10,000 would be deposited to the fund and then it can accumulate each year and that's

just like an emergency fund if the operation the transfer station needs repair what is it for just if it needs repairs or things like that or what are we talking I I I mean I'm I Chuck's not here I don't know if you want to try to answer or you want me to give it a shot well this is the select boards Warren article well one of the SEL board member brought it through um it's improvements and maintenance both and it's for the transfer station and their equipment so it is my so I would say it's e it's either or it could be in an emergency situation if something had to be replaced or it can be used as a capital reserve fund that you're building it up if we need to make a purchase we'd be able to do so we didn't the board sorry sue the board didn't want to create another fund this was an existing fund that had um like I said about $100 maybe roughly in it so the thought was to instead of leave that money just sitting there was to change the purpose of that fund and to be able to put some and start putting money into that fund as well so okay but it'll accumulate and then sit in a fund anyway if it's not used correct because it just accumulates each year yes and and so it would be an emergency or if they need you know upkeep repairs or what have you so none of the you're saying none of that money the revenues goes in on the revenues list that we that we have been counting for the last couple years it's not going to go on there anymore as as revenues received about approximate $110,000 approximately $10,000 correct the revenues from those two things but there's other revenues continue to go this is in my mind this is pretty similar to in years past I believe it was police detail funds we used to park a portion of those in a capital reserve fund to replace uh police cruisers I

think this is a similar mindset where the day we have to replace a compact or the day we might have to replace the Baer for the cardboard some of those large dollar equipment items at the transfer station I think that's probably the most likely use of this one or at least that was my impression y I mean we we get the compactor that we can probably get through one more year um and that's going to be a big ticket item if we can't get it through one more year obviously this fund won't have enough to replace a compact during two years but okay okay now I get it y so the one other thing I would say Sue is I I mean when we did the transfer station section when Chuck we went over that budget with Chuck he also talked about that he's got a vision that he'd like to create more recycling streams and divert more things out of waste and into recycling so in addition to being let's replace the compactor it potentially could be used to let's buy this new piece of equipment to allow us to start recycling this other type of stuff yeah but yeah and as long as it's all used for the transfer station purposes that's there's no problem I just wanted to make sure that that's what it was that's my understanding is yes yes it it'll be there and the and that again the select board any any proposal to spend the money will go to the select board and the select board has to approve it it's not just that the department a can spend the money the department head will propose spending money and the select board will decide whether or not to do it okay yeah is that answer any other questions okay roll call Paul says I pa says i w says I yes who says I plus says I Jo says I so Article 19 recommendation passes

60 um minutes next Minutes review minutes of our most recent meeting which was January 28th got uh yeah than you mate do you want to make a motion do I want to make a motion go ahead to what approve and then second we can do it that way I'll make a mo I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the January 28th meeting and then they'll get amended and then we'll vote to approve them as amended right yeah second so I got a motion from Paul seconded by Les to approve the minutes and now we will discuss and we'll let Buzz go first um on page three in the first paragraph halfway down the line begins with the word taxes and then it says noting Bristol BPL LLC um I would strike our payment revenues based on and and put in represents payments to the town under and then I don't know it just says the solar agreement I'm assuming that's the barington power agreement um I don't know if just saying the solar agreement is enough for people that is this intended to be the Wastewater contract yes so you should say the baring barington power agement name now I don't know what the name is but I mean it's not the solar agreement anyway um um in review of draft warant articles one two three four lines down it begins dependent it should be depending

ining um article the the paragraph that begins article 11 in the third line says fireworks committee which um which funds the town the fireworks committee doesn't fund it so I think it should say is responsible for the town's Fourth of July firework C in the next paragraph article 12 um in the third line Miss Goodwin added that you should strike the word v yeah just a few more wait wait a minute can I ask you something what did you just say on Miss Goodwin added oh it's just miss Goodwin it's it currently says miss good Goodwin added that the many of the funds just strike the word the before the word many it's just grammar many of the fundament okay yes okay thank you yep um on the next page in the second paragraph I got to read my own oh um you've got a number of places here we just U towards the end Miss Goodwin discussed and then it's stated stated stated I think starting in the line that begins timely manner um you'll see it goes peral perbal care period you should insert then um um she stated yeah she stated miss good one stated and then the same thing in the next line emergency calls have increased period Miss Goodwin stated or and Miss

Goodwin stated something like that okay and then I missed one um in the line that begins Goodwin discussed the increased emergency calls some of the calls are not answered or and and then it says or in a timely manner I think you should add after the word or or answered in a timely manner and not answered or I don't think I said they unanswered CU I don't think they're yeah I wondered about that too but yep so let's edit that yeah yeah all right let just say not answered in the timely manner I don't even know if that's correct meaning sometimes they had several calls and some of them are not being able to be answered how about just um Miss Goodwin stated the um there was an increase in emergency calls and some of the calls are taking um longer response due to the does that sound yep that sounds better yes um just nickel and dime in the paragraph against article 17 in the third line there should be a slash in between the and and the or true um and article 18 again I got to read my uh well in the first line uh it says money to purchase again there's an extra the' in there that should be I'm sorry where are you article 18 article the line of the end article 18 yep was noted as the article to raise appropriate money to strike the word the yep and then in the in the last line of that uh um after it budgeted for three parentheses comma and and then insert

she will update the figure okay and that's it did anyone else have any comments on the minutes not hearing any let's go ahead and approve the minutes as amended we'll do a roll call Vote with Sue on the computer Paul says I bu says I W says I sue says I us says I Joe says I 60 the minutes are approve correspondence any anyone else have any correspondence they want to talk about I just I just want to make the committee aware that as in all years the budget committee like all other committees and departments is asked to write a report to go into the town report that's distributed at the town meeting Deb and Shannon who are responsible for that have pointed out to me that I haven't submitted that yet so I've got it about halfway written and I will send it in I was hoping to do it today but it won't happen till tomorrow until tomorrow which theyve told me is their deadline um the big thing that I'm focusing on it is is again that that that in addition to looking at the W article number we need to look at revenues because 9,600 is is a lot more than 99,100 last year but part of that is

just because we had to increase the sewer and the water that that that $200,000 just sticks in my C I think it makes I think it's going to get people excited so I want to rively try to explain to them what's going on that's other than that and then normal you know thank all of you for all of your service and thank the folks who are not going to be on the committee next year for all of their service including Janet yes okay sounds good all right that's my correspondent I don't think there's anything else I've corresponded on and I don't think anyone else has uh comments uh anything going on in the select what we know about we need to know about I don't think there's any more than what we've discussed tonight okay that's what I was thought you would say uh Joe anything no both Walter Sue no so the one comment I will make just to let you guys know is so we have three positions on the election ballot coming up in March and we have three candidates so we should have a full seven member board I'm not doing it now I want to give you a heads up that if possible take a look at your calendar and come to the meeting because rather than me just picking I want to do what we did this year which is have like an organizational meeting probably like in late April we'll elect the new chair we'll elect the vice chair we'll review our bylaws change anything people want to be done rather than me just picking a date if if we could get together at the end of town meeting and talk about you know do we want to do it on a Tuesday night do we want to do it on a Wednesday morning you don't want to do that so we do do it at night sometime but I'd like your input rather than me just randomly not randomly just me arbitrarily picking a date do we want to drop by the homestead after the town meeting I love that

idea okay so that's the only thing I wanted to say is you know I'm looking for your input on on an or a date for an organizational meeting I think that's it uh Christina staff comments anything Tom public anything you wanted to say I just want to commend all of you I you're you're doing a great job um making it understandable to everyone whether they're familiar with budgets or not um and and it's such a contrast from the Schoolboard budget committee which did nothing this year um but but you guys really seem to be on top of it and you're you're making it clear to everyone I I just want to commend you it's you're doing wonderful job did you want to say something I think you've done a wonderful job thank you thank you yeah it's good I can't pull my hair out because I don't have any new phone no you just made me no I'm kidding all right I think we're done motion to adjourn second um I don't need to do a roll call for this do I all in favor I we're adjourned thank you everyone see you hopefully on uh Saturday and March Compu