Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

at 6:00 on Tuesday, October 21st. Uh, pledge of allegiance. Ready? Sure. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So, just to let everyone know, Joe notified us he won't be able to make the meeting tonight. Still, he's got sickness in the family. Uh our first order of business was select board presentation and we're not ready to do that. So why don't we jump down and uh review and approve the minutes of the previous meeting last week on October 14th. Somebody want to make a motion or you want me to do it? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of October 14th, 2025. Second. I'll second.

Motion by less, seconded by Scott. Uh comments. I have a comment, but I'll go first. In the section on Granite, uh Granite Grafton County Senior Citizen Council, uh when it listed people that were there, it left out Gail Emman Shaw. So, she is our local director and she's not listed. She should be in there. She was here. There's a few names if we were on that section that spelled wrong, too. It was Rosa. Rosa Ackley. Okay. A K E R L Y. Okay.

And Louise Cass is L O U I S E. Thank you. So that was it for me. I didn't I have one name change. Sure. I like the name Paul. My name is Brian. Oh Paul. Oh at the beginning. Yes. Okay. Oh, no. I missed that. I didn't I didn't see that.

So, we got some name changes. Brian in the in the list of uh committee members. Uh add Gail and correct spelling on uh Rosa and Louise all in the senior citizen. Anyone else have a comment? First of all, I went through the emails um this morning. I never saw the minutes distributed. Were they distributed? Mhm. No, I couldn't find them. So, I'm I I read them, got here early and read them, but I do have some comments. Okay.

I just It's going to be hard for me to identify them. Do you do you want to do them now or do you want to just have us We'll reopen it next meeting and you can come. That might be easier because um Okay. They were attached to an email. I don't remember which one, but I thought I went through all the attachments, but I didn't see them. Apologies. It would have been from Shannon. Yeah, I went through all those.

Yeah. So, so I'll make a comment for the record actually for Shannon when she writes the minutes. Let's add uh reopening considering the minutes of the 14th next meeting's agenda. Okay. Any other comments? So, I'm not sure procedurally. Should we table the motion since we know we're going to talk about it next meeting or should we vote on it and then just reopen it next? So, we'll table the motion. So, I'll make a motion to table the motion. Is that how that works? Second.

Second. So motion by Paul, seconded by Buzz to table consideration of the minutes from the 14th. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll vote. All in favor? I nays or abstensions? No. Passes 6. So um we'll still wait because Don is going to do both select and capital improvements. Can I can you make a corre correction on a name but we'll wait. Sure. Sure. Um at the page it is but next to the last page voices against violence.

Yeah. It should be Gowen Marcy. I think it's an I and it's Gowen Genoli N O B L Y. night. I I think that that's great. Could I ask you actually to send it by email to Shannon and that way we're sure she's got the correct spelling? Yeah, she she doesn't have to because we should have it in their packets. Okay. Or they'll just take it from their packets. Okay. So, never mind. Thanks anyway.

All right. Um I guess we'll just try to keep moving here. So, the next item on the agenda, skipping our main business, is correspondence. Uh, the only correspondence I saw was that um there was a response from Lakes Region Mental Health to Sue's question about billing and costs. Was that sent to everyone or just to Sue and I? So, everyone saw it. Yeah. Okay. So, everyone that's So, everyone saw it. We don't really need to. It wasn't the full answer though because we had asked he said

I was so may not have gotten your additional question. Shannon said Shannon had Yeah. So Shannon had asked me what it was I had said and I went pretty sure it was that. So I stopped by here and I talked to her about it. She said, "Okay, I'll I'll actually resubmit that." So you're right. He probably didn't get it. He probably So um we can start have Shannon definitely follow up. But he sent that like the next day after your meeting and I just waited till I was sending your packet out to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, we'll go back to the new business section. Our main purpose here tonight is to hear from the select board and the CIP committee. Mr. Bill, would you like to take the uh hot seat?

Sure. You can use my copy. Thank you. and CIP. I'll have to put on the screen for you. That works. Thank you. All right. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for coming in. Sorry I'm a little late. There's four skeletons from my closet rattling today at work. I was going to say you always have too many things to do and not enough time. Yeah. Four projects. Somehow people dug my name up. All right. So, I think I think we're looking to do the same thing. And I'd rather than start with questions, we can start with just opening it up to uh your your presentation and what you have to share with us and then if we have any questions, we'll ask. But

uh let's see the short version. We want to spend more money. Thank you very much. Uh actually, it's more like as much as you don't want to spend more money, you end up having to every year. It's just the the way the world is right now. The goals that the select board set for themselves when we started out the budget process this year were mainly around employee retention. Uh part of that of course is a a large part of that is salary. So the the major increase that you'll see in the budget is on the salary lines. The decision we we went back and forth. It was quite a discussion on uh do we give them step increases? Do we do just the cola across the board? Uh pros and cons of all that. We ended up uh going the cola route this year just so that we can keep our uh salary schedule up with the with the current times. Uh everybody knows it's still it's not inflation like we've had the last couple years, but it's still out there. Um, so we don't want to get behind like we did before and have to do, you know, 6% for two years in a row, which really hurts. So we decided on a 4% uh cost of living added to the salary uh scale, which brings everything up and everybody up on that. Uh there there's one or two positions that you'll see that are adjusted uh for new hires, uh things like that. Uh the probably one of the biggest ones on that is the four new hires in the fire department. Those remember have offsetting revenues. It was a little bit tricky. I think we got it straightened out to because of

funding it for half a year this year as a warrant article and then next year it'll be the full. So the percentage increases were screwy but we Christina is the we in this statement. went with Dr. and and found out how to get it actually into the budget correctly. So, you will see that um health insurance Oh, yeah. Insurance is up 20 20%. Yeah. Thank you. Those are some Oh, there we go. That's the I don't know what that Yeah. Yeah. Um

which uh which doesn't start until mid year. So, we budgeted at 10.3 10.3. Yeah, it's actually a 20.6 annual, but the um it goes by fiscal. Yeah, it's July 1st. So,

um time to put a plug in for getting the town on a on a fiscal year instead of a calendar year. But I need to do some homework on that. That's my fault. Yeah. with the U employee retention thought on that. We we did discuss very briefly about do we increase the amount that the employees pay in to offset the costs but we decided that retention of employees is a lot cheaper than what we would what would we would recover from you know taking them up and making them pay 25% of the

just to clarify do we charge them a percentage of the cost fee or what do we charge They pay 12%. 12%. Yeah. So, their cost will go up, but our cost will go up. Well, yeah. Their their their 12% whatever that number is came out of their paycheck, that number will go up 20% as well. Yeah.

Um my the company I work for, we pay 25%. So um typically uh municipal the amount municiples municipalities charge is less because they they're also given less salary. Um what else? Yes, some other stuff. Uh I just you don't have to touch. Yeah,

there's there's nothing really um blaring out on this. So, those that's the main thing that the uh salary and healthcare are are the biggest increases. Like I said, we added also added the firefighters, EMTs, but those those do those will see offsetting revenues. If you back the thing we were talking about the other night um and a good talking point for town meeting was if you back out everything associated with those four positions which are entirely offset by income the budget increase was I think Rob said 3% but it could raise

it was 3 point something it was a little under a little under four say three and a half% yeah it shows up over 6% here. But taking that into account trying to see Christina, were you able to add the asterisk?

Yes. Um there's a sample of it. Well, and I will have to manually add it when we're done, but this is just to show people what it will look like. Um there were about five or six lines. So there's asterisks. You'll see them on the side here. And then make the comment. Oops. Says um note new line items show 0% change because there is no prior year value for comparison. This is a system limitation and does not affect actual reflect actual change. Can't read with glasses on that close. If you want the wording to say anything different, I can change it. But that's what I put on there for now. There are about So the four fire No, the four firefighter lines are okay. Um there were about five or six lines that have that but it was much smaller than it has been in the last couple of years. So

there's one in planning board, one in highway department, one in transfer station. May only be it may only be those. Um I'll double check. So it may only be three. It's just a few. There's a really small tax map. Oh, yes. Sorry. There's

um there's two in transfer station. There's one in tax maps, one in highway, and then one in plenty form. So, but I did put them all in so you would see what they look like. It will not be in there when you're reviewing your individual budgets, but we'll make sure it's back in there again um at the end when we're done. So, does I have to manually manipulate them? So, yeah. Yeah, the bottom line without water and sewer shows 6.8% increase, which like we said is closer to four. A little under four.

A little under four when you back out the the additional revenues coming in. Okay. Okay. Questions? Well, I have some, but I guess I wanted to see what other people had to say first. This is at this point I was not personally interested in getting into like individual lines and talking about that. I really was thinking this this will be a more of a broader higher level discussion but and by all rights the individual department heads should right field questions about specific detail with the department heads and talk but

yeah it' be a disservice for Sean or I to or and Scott to speak on that. I um I can I just add something? Um sure. So comments were put on um for anything that went up over 3% or under 3% like we talked about

if the select board had adjusted it those comments were added and whether it was the 14th or the 16th and um they were added those comments as well. So you'll be able to see why there was a difference that the board adjusted it. We did make some minor adjustments from uh the department of head recommendations. Uh a couple in the outside services and some couple in the library. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. But nothing nothing too major. We of course we did a lot of that work before you know with the department heads and what they were presenting and and the emphasis was on what do we need you know to budget and there's there's I don't know any real wants that we you know nice to haves anything like that I didn't I don't see any of them in there

so I think my question would be that's what I had heard was that The goal of the select board and the instructions to the department head is basically to differentiate between wants and needs. Focus on want needs and put them into the budget and identify wants and don't put it in the budget. I I don't know if you can answer this, but do you think the select board is happy with this? If this if we don't make any if we weren't to make any changes, would that be good? Are you looking for us potentially to find ways to make the bad guys? I just I just want to kind of get a feel for what you're looking for.

I' I'd like to know, do you still beat your wife? Talk about a loaded question. I'd like to say it's pretty bare bones, but it's pretty level funded. We minimize some things just going off of history and past year's expenditures, actuals. Yeah, when you look at um I mean I think it's telling that excuse me I think it's telling that when you look at what we removed from the department head recommendations the and across the full budget was well yeah 50 maybe 40 um not quite 100

yeah it was almost it was a little bit more um but of course that's on a you know rather large budget but um So, I think that that speaks well to our pocket heads. Um, you know, we're we're trying the best we can. We like to think that we're good stewards of the funds that are entrusted to us to manage and operate the town. Um, there are some things I feel we're not spending enough on. You can look at the highway pave what we called paving historically we're now calling highway projects project project road project you know we changed

to be more inclusive of things like drainage work and um ditch line work and infrastructure um we've been spending the same $300,000 on that that we have for the last dozen years you know there's been no increase in that um yeah we changed to highway projects.

So, you know, I think I think that that number should be higher, but that's where we're at. We're going to do the best we can with that number. Um, we've done things internally like start a road working group um to talk about focusing that money where it's best you uh useful. Um um I'm speaking entirely for myself, but you know, historically we've been on a well, we need to pave every paved road every 10 years uh to stay on track. And the simple fact is not not every road needs to be paved every 10 years. And some of the roads we put pavement on really need to be started over from the ground up with better culvers and better ditch lines and all that. So, um, we've focused some efforts on that. So, we're really trying to be things like that, I think, speak towards how we're trying to manage those monies the best way possible.

Okay. And I sort of to answer your question in a in a roundabout way is I I describe to people from other towns how Bristol is not your typical we've gotten out of the typical government way of budgeting where the department head pads his number 20% because when it goes to the select board they're going to cut 10% because that's their job to do is cut and the budget committee it's their job to cut. So they cut another 10% and then he gets what he was wanted to it's taken years but Bristol has gotten around to the point where uh department heads know that they don't have to do that and that both the select board and the budget committees have uh looked at it with the with the with a good eye not just saying well we got to cut because that's what our job is

and I and I think I think you this I think your committee has seen that in the pass when you hear comments like, "I don't know what to cut, you know, feel like we should be cutting something, but we're but we're not cutting something." Um, you know, you can I guess you can have the argument of whether we should be doing, you know, particular services or not doing particular services, but if we're going to do particular services, then there's a cost to that. And historically, those services have been supported by even in lean years supported by uh by the voters.

Yeah. And in that you're the both the select board and the select board's job is to put together a budget they feel is is what will run the town in a in a certain fashion with these points. And the budget committee's job is to look at that and say, okay, is this is does this look good or not? Is it correct? you know, make adjustments where you see it's it may be out of line, which means adding or subtracting in different areas. Um, that your your job isn't just to cut and it may feel like you're redundant or just a rubber stamp if the select board does a good job. Um, but it's it's not that. It's it's another set of eyes on this looking at it and making sure that it's correct.

I appreciate that. I I And I hear you saying that because you're right. we're going to meet with the department. Let's go through line by line. I sat through your meeting on the 14th and you guys did a lot of work, but you didn't try to go line by line. You you were you were a little higher level on that. Yeah.

So, just to feedback, you didn't quite say it this way. I But what I heard you say is that of course as taxpayers, you'd love for us to find ways to reduce the budget, but you think that probably at this point we're going to be cutting muscle, not fat. And I think I agree with you that if we if we say we want to make major cuts, we have to have discussions about what services we're going to discontinue because there's not there's not padding in here that we can just easily remove, right? And that's typically not the budget committee's job to make policy decisions on what services the town does. So, we don't usually do that. We're not planning to do that, but

but we did the homework. you're the teachers that are correcting it if you want to look at it that way. You know, it's like go go through and make sure it's like, well, no, you goofed, too. You know, you know, in the in the end, um whether in the end, the voters decide yes or no. That's true,

right? And there have been years where last few years where there hasn't been much discussion, there's been years when we've had really significant cuts where we had to go back and figure out where not to spend where not to spend a couple hundred,000 or a few hundred,000 that was suddenly not there. It was a couple hundred,000 on a much lower budget back today. But um and you know the I guess I'll I guess I'll quote Ned and say you know that town always makes the voters always make the right choice uh you know whatever choice that's definition

by definition because they voted on it. So, um, you know, I think I think overall, you know, um, I think we have I think we feel this budget adequately represents what we need to run this town for the next year in the in the manner we've been running. We Yeah. At the level we are now. Yeah. Okay. I feel like I'm talking too much. How about other any other committee members have a comment? Yes, please. I I have several questions just to sort of get a better understanding. Um easy one. Who's the insurance carrier? Which one? Which what insurance? For health insurance. Health trust.

Oh, health trust. Okay. Um you had mentioned before you had touched on the revenues a little bit. Is the board aware of any significant potential changes in either direction on revenues? that would support the general budgets. Uh well, the one that we know about is you know we do expect the con the uh towns that contract ambulance service uh the chief has done the work and they've they've said that yeah they're that's increasing significantly. Yeah, that's an increase. That's a significant increase in the uh in the revenue,

but for the general budget, it's market for the right. And on the flip side, there maybe one or two of the towns vote down on that, too. So, it's it's it's not expected, but it's it's a possibility that we have to be aware of. If I can do a follow, for example, the highway block grant, was that just sort of flat? Is that what you're expecting? Um, it pretty much stayed the same. We get two small payments in the um at the end of the year and then we get two larger payments at the the first two quarters of the year. So we just got a $30,000 payment. It ends up being about 90,000 roughly. So they stay the same.

A big variable is registrations. That's one of our biggest revenue generation. Yeah. One of the good stabilizing things is we're in the middle of the state budget year. So it should be pretty much consistent from one from year to year in that respect. Um the the current fund balance, the undesated fund balance that the town has when the budget year ends, do you expect that to increase? And if so, do you have Christina or do you have any sense? We just talked about that. We just talked about that the other night. All we can say is historically

it's averaged 80 to 100. It's Yeah, they maybe a hundred 150,000 a share if that. Yeah. Um it's when you and when you look at that over a $8 million budget, it's that's not a lot. So So that would be 150 on top of the current. It depends too what the board if the board decides to use anything at the tax rate setting that could affect it. Um and we're still waiting for our final audit to be finished from 24. So

yeah, we also have the in we also had for as far as unreserved fund balance we had the sale of the fire department of the fire building which will go to that'll that'll actually increase it. We used a big chunk though. Well, we anticipated using Yeah. Yeah. We used a huge chunk last year. Not enough, but that's Yeah, I know. LA last last year, we we applied more from the gym from the unreserved fund balance towards taxes in anticipation of of it selling. So, I mean, we didn't we borrowed from that knowing that it was going to be filled back in,

right? Just in general term, the current balance million million and a half. I'm not sure what we're under a million. Um when when we set the tax rate, we were 600,000. Does that sound right? Um and I don't have that folder down here. I'm sorry. But I think it was around 600,000 left when we set the tax rate. Absolutely. We're supposed to try to carry up to two months worth of um your budget. That's the recommendation state. This is there's no there's no some towns don't turn a reserve at all. Yeah. They go zero bridge water. Yeah. Um

but um it's a you know it's a recommendation by by the state. um in and out. It's kind of like you can only go to that well so so often. Yeah. Yeah. So they recommend anywhere between five and 17% is kept in the fund. So we're closer to the 5% and on that um there's only two times that I understand when the select board can take any money from that. One is to have a setting of the tax rate and the other is a declared emergency.

Yeah. Um other than that um it has to be approved by the voters and that's why you'll see like warmer articles and say to be taken from the right just two more generally this is actually fun with you know with with the the huge change of reevaluation because of the state law of every five years right and I recognize you know Dr has to set the tax rate and the whole Okay. Do you have any sense when that may occur in terms of the tax rate being set with the new values?

Yeah, there's a couple of things we're waiting on from the uh the state and the school district. Um the school district has to file one thing. We're waiting for finalization still from the assessing firm which we anticipate we're going to have the final values hopefully end of next week. We are also catch um plugging in our revenues um and reconciling revenues right now because we did have a open position for a few months. So um we're hoping by the middle of November that we will be in the queue to set the tax rate. So in a in a vacuum it's strictly a it's strictly a math equation I understand

right of course individual numbers will will vary but um right I mean in essence you look to be about half of what it is coming out final question this is just from the recent article in the paper will the board selectman be chiming in on the potential sale of a property that's worth 1.1 million that's on the tax roles now that potentially could come off of the tax rolls. Would the force let me be talking about that and taking a position? I I think you did already at the when you met with the superintendent of

We haven't had a uh we haven't had a a formal press release, I guess, but we did have a conversation the other night with the um superend schools and it was a very good conversation. Wasn't just about that, but basically update where they're at and how they're doing and and the relationship between the towns and the and the school district. And I think you heard pretty loud loud and clear that you know we weren't we weren't fans of of the proposal. However, having said that other than our individual votes, you know, we didn't but

yeah, it's sort of it's sort of rare that that the board here will will take stands and and make, you know, statements as a board on something on something like that. It's it's it's related to us, but not so hard directly related that we that will that we'll put up a position for the board, right? It's, you know, and it's not there's some nuances to that answer I I gave you. You know, there's Yeah. You know, there's probably consensus on the board if we wanted. There's a couple of us that, you know, could possibly support it if given enough reason, but yeah. Don't like it at all.

Yeah. Right. Just just from looking from the outside, I appreciate that, you know, that the public is influenced by leadership. Yep. So,

great question. By the way, I really like it. Actually, one of one of the things I found encouraging that uh the superintendent said is that that I I asked him directly. I said, "Are you looking at a contingency if you know if the voters vote down your plan to buy this?" And and he is cuz they're the plan is to build another wing onto the high school. It's like if you're going to build another wing, why don't you have them make plans for administrative office there? and they are thinking ahead like that and that was encouraging to know they've hired a company um to review all of that and provide recommendations right um and different cost alternatives

right and that's exactly what they have when it's small got they got the whole SAU office right into attached to the high school yeah which actually makes sense yeah does thank you

One other note back to your other question was uh there is a change in the law and the billing uh for EMT service and such. So that may affect our revenue slightly on that portion. Yeah, we don't know what the impact will be yet. Um we're just waiting to see what happens. So, but we're not anticipating in huge hope, you know, huge swings either way, but it's out of our control. So, it's just life,

but we also did ask uh Ben to to make sure we got the math around how the contract is covering the full positions at the town, right? So, so regardless of that, you know, he's got that he'll be pulling all that together. Even before I kudos to the chief, even

even even before the Warren article last year for the new positions um the last five years before that had seen a significant um increase in the amounts build um to those towns. based on um adding adding things like capital purchase costs and and stuff that hadn't been entirely accounted for previously where it was a percentage of capital purchase. Now it's pretty much full coverage and all it also allows us to have an extra vehicle available um at times. So kudos to the chief. He's run that he's run that contract system very well. He's run the department very well, but run that contract system very well. And I I I think if you look at the numbers, you'd see that we've done we do we do better by those contracts than we had say 10 years 10 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Anything on this side of the room comment? Don't have to ask a question. I'm really impressed with Regal. couple of years in a row potentially. Yeah. Knock on wood. You know, it's uh Yeah. I mean, it's nice to to have quiet quiet years, I guess. Chasing us soon as you say something.

Um you know, but uh the biggest um liability there was some enforcement stuff. Um, and unfortunately that's a very long process, a very costly process. Um, but it is something that council have told us that they want us to do. So, we've been trying to do a lot more of that. Yeah. Thankfully, there's no northern pass or anything like that that's being a pain. Ridge John, anything you want to say?

Well, I it may have been asked, I'll ask it more specifically. Given everything that's gone on in Washington in the last 6 months, are there any um recurring um grants or other forms of federal assistance that have have become unavailable or been delayed that would impact the town? Um it will be delayed depending on how long the shutdown lasts. Um our EPA funding on the water and sewer project. Um but we also have USDA funding with that as well. And we have a bond anticipation note with that as well. So um I don't know how it would affect the project yet. So

we've received notification that we they will be short staffed if if at all staffed and doing furlows. So I think the only other liability we have there is on the pretty small side with the army corps payments. We already got the flood reimbursement. Good. We got that already. I just um I was just looking trying to get We're working Ruby and I have been working on revenue. So, I'm getting her Yeah. as much information as I can. Um, uh, overall, we don't get a lot of federal money. So,

it's so EPA and CDPG may have some delays in payment. I don't we won't lose it. Um, but there will be delays depending on how long the shutdown goes. So, but just to clarify, that's for the special sewer project. That's not for ongoing operations. That's correct. Well, it's 50% tax, 50% water and sewer. So, I mean sewer. So, yeah. But yes, that's a special project. Ongoing operations, I don't think so. Um, meals and rooms maybe. It depends on how the state gets affected by the shutdown. Yeah, it doesn't seem that won't really change the timeline of the super project.

No. No. Right. So, so, so the line item because basically what you'll see is the line item for interest of the bond anticipation note. So, that's so this shouldn't be increased because of that. No, we just won't have offsetting revenue immediately, but we should be good. So, is there any potential um revenue that could come in from the sale of any of these empty buildings that are around Bristol? Right. Aid and and we don't own any of these. You don't own any of those buildings. That's good to know.

We have a couple um we have one property we're looking at as soon as I can get through the process and locate the owner. Um but that might be the only thing that we have to sell. Yeah, we've looked we've looked at that list fairly regularly over the last few years. And if you look at the I think actually it's listed in the town report. We have to list that, but there's a there's a list of town owned properties. And almost all of them are, you know, an unbuildable lot that a developer gave to the town. uh an eighth of an acre in front of uh Wolffield Circle that you know with uh

we thought table the bed wetland uh you know these all these little little things we've done we've done pretty well in the properties that we've had to take uh in getting those back or of course with the fire station um but getting those properties back on in the last couple years I think there's and two or three that well counting we sold two this year counting the fire station fire station right street uh air street um and there was one there was one a couple years ago so um we don't want to hold those properties

so the only one that we might be able to sell next year it is another taxdeed property but there's a lot around how the town comes into possession of the properties and the time frame that you can dispose of them. Yeah. Isn't Isn't there like I'm not sure if the house is empty but by Gilly's restaurant. Isn't there like a big house right there that they own? That's owned and someone lives there. Gillies owns it. I've never seen anybody. No, they don't. That one's empty. But Gilly owns but Gilly owns it. Okay. But I I think you're asking about revenues. I think the one other thing that we're working on is short-term rentals.

Yeah. Now, we don't know if that really is yet. So, we still have to finish that process. But, you know, I think we're we're striving to get that done as soon as possible. So, that way really as we go into next year, we got that leased in place. Yeah. The baseline is there now. Now, it's a matter of us figuring out, okay, what are the fees? How do we how do we actually do with those pieces? So, that'll come into play. But that'll be a from my perspective a pretty good offset for the changes that we made to the to the certificate of zoning compliance stuff. Yeah, that's true.

Right. Because we because we we we changed the values to make more planning board perspective. We changed it to keep current. Um, but to me, when you look at our community and you look at other communities that are the lakeside like us, pretty good amount of them all have a short-term rental fee structure because that has seriously impacted our property values in town, right? So, how do we make sure that we're staying current in that in that way, too?

That won't be represented anyway yet. uh even even though buildings are empty, there's no exemption for property taxes. So, um things like the bank property or the former right aid, you know, they're still responsible for um for paying those taxes. Now, if they went years without paying those taxes, yes, the town could could take those properties, but she usually usually a last resort. Yeah. They don't don't want to take anyone's anyone's property at all. And then even then you still have, you know, some requirements to pay back. You know, sell it and and yeah, the town can't make money off

it. Right. Our mayor Max Street property, we did the bid that came in was for more than we could we could keep. So, we had to cut a check to the former owners and give them over and above what we were allowed to keep. So, the idea is to get them back on back on tax rules. Yeah. Yep.

Anything else? Thank you. Vicious crowd. Yeah. You're up. So, now we'll talk about CP. Move over to CIP. All right. I don't have a print out, John. Um, but I can put it up on the screen. Okay. Well, maybe um I should have drove. I can't print because the copier the new drop you off.

Yeah, they So, the new copier is broken and if they can't fix it by the end of the week, we get a new copier. get 11. Uh just a quick overview for people that may not know what is what the CIP committee is. CIP committee is a sub committee of the planning board. It's uh actually regulated by RSA. I don't remember chapter and verse, sorry. Uh but what what it does is it takes a look at long-term uh capital expenditure for the town and makes a plan to try to even out those expenditures so you're not seeing spikes up and down of the of the tax rate because of that. you know, so you're not buying a fire truck and three highway trucks one year and then nothing for two years and then, you know, five police cruisers and your taxes are bouncing all over. The goal is to spread all that out so that you your capital expenditures are as even as as possible on the on the tax rate. So that said, there's six five people. I think we're six now because because we did gain one.

Um the uh a the definition that we came up with long ago for for capital expenditure is anything that is over $10,000 and lasts more than three years. Uh so typically the the things that are looked at are you vehicles especially for for all the departments. um certain tools and things like that that get expensive. Radios, radios for fire and and police, those kind of items. So, uh it's a pretty mature probably been around a dozen years or so. This year, a lot of the talk around it was and actually last year and this year we looked at and grilled the uh the department heads pretty well and they and they came through with some better estimates of of future numbers cuz it's it's hard to predict obviously. And recently with inflation bouncing around all over the place, we've increased the the numbers going out into the future and and adjusted adjusted some lifespans, things like that. That's the um how much specifics. The the way the spreadsheets laid out, it has the expenditures on the top. Then there's a uh there's a portion for uh revenues and there's also a debt portion that any long-term debt that the town has is also accounted in as as a as a capital expenditure because a lot of those were for capital pro uh capital equipment. Anyhow, um if you see on your on your sheet, the bottom line, uh probably next to the bottom line is the tax the tax impact for for what

we've planned out uh over the course of the years. And that is based on a 5% increase, I believe, on the valuation. And you'll see that it's actually pretty pretty level in the current plan. uh took a lot to get there but we got there. One thing I will say that because of the valuation this year uh the revaluation this year that bottom number will obviously have to change with that that is the old valuation not the new um I was thinking about that actually earlier today is to if there's a way that the committee could meet one more time and put put the new valuation in or at least an approximate before or somehow if we could get it approved for the uh the new valuation for the for the town report. So, we may have to we may have to talk about that.

I was going to say I think the only thing you might have to do is just present it back to the planning board again. Yeah, because technically they're the official ones. You have to approve it. That's true. So, that's CIP in a nutshell. So, I'll just point out from my point of view, I I mean, I'm Buzz and I are on this committee. So, we're involved in creating this, but this doesn't in my view really affect what we're doing on the budget committee because these numbers don't go into the operating budget.

Correct. These numbers really are used by the select board to create the warrant where we propose to raise and appropriate in order to make contributions to different capital reserve funds. Yeah. So it's important information and it's stuff we want to know because it's financial but it's not really a budget item. Right. The two things that I would until next year. Correct.

Yeah. the the two things that I would say to the to the budget committee that to two takeaways from this is one you will at at the end of this process the budget committee has to vote also on the warrant articles. So the numbers that we're suggesting to put into different capital reserves will come across your table in that respect. The other is when you're looking at what we're spending on the on the general budget, be aware also that there are other warrant articles and these these are monies that are also have to be spent for the entire picture rather than you know the the operating budget is probably one of the large ones but it's not the only monies that are be spent. So, probably indirectly, Paul, um, some of the things I think about when I look at this is the maintenance line items in the budget and how they relate to when something needs to be replaced, right? Because

you can see it obviously creeping up on something that's older. And you kind of look at the CIP to go, all right, when are we planning on this thing? Right? Because the departments, I think, have done a pretty good job of of going, hey, we think we have an opportunity to replace this thing. might be a year early out of this fund, but we're doing it to save on the other side, right? So, just that may be Yeah. No, I didn't mean to say that I don't care and this isn't important. Saying that when we sit down with at the department and go line by line, this isn't actually a set of lines we go over and we're not correct.

It's important to the town. It's important to all of us because it affects our taxes, but it's not something we're going to dive into to get go through line by line as a budget committee is what I was trying to say. So, we didn't say that quite right. So, keying in on the other topic uh of warrants. Yeah. Uh there's only one project that comes to mind, right? And that's uh the dip the culbert project that we're looking at putting together a warrant. Correct. Is that That's all we've talked about. Yeah. So as of right now, so just we're not planning any like million-dollar projects just so you guys aware of that.

I I know it's not it I don't know what the number is and it's not going to be a million dollars, but we did come in and talk as representative of the library. came in and talked to you and said that the library building needs some maintenance and you guys did agree the library is putting together a proposal for I think it was around 25,000 um the fireworks warrant article the contingency fund um and then capital reserves and then it um the only other thing was that we're changing veterans credit or recommending to change a veterans credit. Yeah. So, the law change, but higher or lower?

Um, there's a law change that's taking um if you received standard veterans and a disabled veterans, you can only get one of them. Okay. So, we're increasing one because we wanted to make it so that they people who are going to we want to make it neutral. That's the word, right? So try to make it cost because those people are going to lose those credits effective next year. So

question. Sure. Go ahead. Just to go back to debt service for a second. Yeah, sure. Is the existing debt service being financed by a single or multiple financial institutions? Multiple. Multiple. Yeah. Yeah. Every project goes out for its own financing. There's some with the Bond Bank. There are some with regular Franklin Savings Bank. There's some with Camden Financial. Okay. Yeah. Northway. So the the selectman have the authority to um chop that around in essence and and

I can remember various projects where like like Christina mentioned sometimes it's more advantageous to go to the ham bond bank sometimes up the street I mean the local bank was is best on on another project. So yeah the public safety building is through Northway right? Yeah, they gave us Yeah. What's that? It's National Camden National. Is that what they are now? Okay. I didn't realize Yeah. I don't We also have some finance through dees. Yeah. So, I just gave that one. Yeah. So,

multiple. Sure. Um I don't know just the other thing that when this comes up that I always think about the fact is we also talked about the fact that there's really no section in here. So the oh the the two things waste solid waste and road department used to be one department now they've been split. This really focuses on roads. So, we're working with Chuck to kind of beef that up next year. That'll be a bigger section. The thing we've identified is that uh there's really nothing in here about long-term needs of the building.

And at some point, the public safety building, this building going to need a new roof some, you know, that's something we should be planning for now. And so, we're looking to add that in next year. So, this report's going to get even longer next year. Yeah. More comprehensive. More Thank you. I like your I have my politician hat on. I need to borrow that. But it's the same idea is that if you know it's coming and you don't plan for it, you set yourself up for surprises. Yeah. Also for the parks along buildings and parks. Yeah. The safety building you're talking about, you know, like 10 years from now. Oh, hopefully longer. Yeah. Hopefully. Okay.

And and I'll I'll said this before. I'll I'll tell you I this is I've done a I've done a 180 on this whole move. When I first was on budget committee, I was dead set against capital reserve funds because I felt like Well, that's interesting. Well, I I felt like you were being taxed for something that you may have no take no advantage of if you're not in town 10 years, you know, 10 years down the road. And um

I have seen where other towns and where Bristol has done a better job of it. I've I've turned 180 on that. I think it's a great idea. And I was my wife. It's possible I was I was wrong. And she said,

I may be mistaken. No, you know, so you know, I I think I think given given the right explanation and seeing the impact and the long-term impact and I think it really came in, you know, we saw a couple years where like we had to buy a new loader and a new highway truck, you know, because something happened and we had to buy, you know, various. So you you you had to go and buying, you know, why are we buying it? It wasn't great because that thing's like 40 years old. But

uh you know why why are we buying a new loader and and and a truck in the same year? Well, we load died. We need to you know and we need a truck. So what are we going to do? Right. So um having that planned replacement has I think saved the taxpayers from those you still spend the same money but you do it more evenly so that you don't see huge fluctuations and yeah some people say oh you don't get any interest it's like you actually get a lot of interest because instead of paying interest on a on a loan or a lease purchase you know you may not get money interest put into that savings account, but you're saving all the interest you would have paid.

Yeah. Borrowing the money. Yeah. Saving it rather than borrowing. The other thing I would actually say about that is I obviously being very new to the process. The departments have done a really good job of understanding what their replacement cycles are, right? So they Yeah. This helps with that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like like it makes them think about their assets. That was the point I was going to make is you you you you commented and it's true that if something unexpected happens and you need to do it, you have the ability. But the other thing is that it also gives the town and the department heads the option to say, well, I don't have to commit that I'm going to say I want money in this budget this year to do it because then you get there and you say, oh, it's not, you know, I can stretch that out another year. If you were committed, you you'd have to go and buy the new because the funding. Now you can just say it's in a capital reserve fund. I'll wait 8 months to buy it cuz I can squeeze another time on this old piece of equipment.

Not only that, but it gives it it gives us the flexibility and department has the flexibility the flexibility to look for take take advantage of opportunities. Yeah. Right. Because if every town is going to buy a police car every every March, there's not a lot of uh negotiation there. Right. Right. Uh but if something becomes available throughout the year, you have that in the fund where agents do to expend, we can do that

and and save and save money. We've done that. you know, we've been able to work with a local um partner in looking at, you know, pieces of equipment for very smaller pieces of equipment for highway that can be purchased, you know, at auction for significant savings rather than having to go through a dealer. You might have a little repair cost, but it's still better than having to spend a couple hundred,000 at the, you know, at the dealer. All right. Any questions? Anyone else have a question or a comment on the capital improvement? Go ahead. You can scattle if you want.

Thanks everybody. Before you guys leave, I guess the other thing that I I don't know if you've got any ideas. My my concern is that we we can do a good job and we can do great things and the town of Bristol can come up with a good budget, but the school district is building new buildings and the county is building a new county courthouse and I don't know what the state's doing with the swept, but taxpayers are not going to be happy because we got to collect all four of those segments. We're the always the bad guys because we got to we got to be play tax collector for all of those. I always don't like you should have to write separate checks. I think I like your thinking, but RSAs don't

Yeah. Don't call for that.

Uh, you know, the county thing is I'm speaking for myself. Um, you know, it's a big number, but spread over the county, it's it's not huge. It's not a it's not really a market increase in the in the county cost, although I don't like it. Um, the school is, yeah, it's a giant question mark for us. We don't know where that's going to land. You think there'd be significant savings, but when you look at it, there really isn't um in the district after the divorce. And um so that's that's the big thing hanging over us, you know, at at the moment. Well, I would say like when it comes to the budget, I think we talked this about this a little bit the other night. I think transparency is very key in this entire process.

One of the things I'm trying to do with with the budget as it sits today is take the various line items. This is probably in there there's like four or five that really relate to highway.

Mhm. And you know the way I see it in the presentation is we have a summary line for highway which then equates to a percentage of the overall piece right so you could you could create a for lack of a better term like an example home $10,000 in taxes that means this much go of that$10,000 goes to highway this much goes to police this much goes to schools this much goes to and you kind of break out for folks. So then that way you can see tangibly and go, "Okay, I feel good about those services." Cuz it really does come down to what services does everybody want to have? And then now you know that that service costs X cuz I think you know was it between police and fire like 3 million bucks or so in this budget, right? Well, as a community, we overwhelmingly said that those are things that we want to support, right? But you're right. when it comes down to it, people they want to feel like they have input and control and an ability to influence the process. So I don't think you can do that unless there's a level of transparency and and in some cases probably some good summarization, right? Yeah,

I I think the school system will have the pressure on them um when the tax rate is released because going from seven towns to four towns which have a school budget that has increased you know their portion of the overall tax rate will I mean right now the town and the school is even but the school's portion is going to go up significantly over the towns. So so listen But for me, I I said it to the superintendent the other night. I think we have to dig in harder with them on this. Sure. This is this is John speaking personally. Okay.

Primary responsibility we have to do provide a good education for the kids. Period. Full stop. Like that is not an option. However, we have a tax cap in town. If you are able to calculate out, you had seven schools, seven districts, seven towns in it before. Now you have four. If you're able to do the calculation, it should be the calculation plus the tax cap brings you to a number. Okay? If if that isn't how we get to the number, because I don't think right now they still don't know how they're getting to the number. If that isn't how we get to the number, then we need to sort of go back and forth so we understand it because otherwise people are ignoring the tax cap that the community has voted into place.

Well, I'll come back to what you said before. I think it comes down to being transparent and open and I don't completely understand either. So that makes me nervous. So yeah, listen, I think it makes everybody nervous, right? Like I don't Oh yeah, I'm not unique, right? I mean, it makes me nervous, but again, I don't you know, it's not But but becomes a a thing. Yeah. Go ahead. No, I'm just going to say, but again, it comes back to it comes back to the town. The town still has to function regardless of what the school district does, right? Oh, correct. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And for for a lot of years, we we didn't do things that should have been done because we had to absorb a it was a dollar increase. member it'll be one year and we you know we tried to come in at a somewhat level budget but absorb you know that that kind of

that kind of increase and so and I and I'm not here to demonize the school district I they're in a tough spot they're in a really tough spot for various reasons but uh but I I hate to say at the end of the day because I hate that saying, but at the end of the day, um, you know, we still have we still have a budget ourselves and yes, we have to be wary and mindful of what the to overall picture is, but we still have a we still have a town to run.

You know, I think the other point ends up being is we almost have two very different kinds of activities that go on around here, right? We have about 3,000 residents year roundish and then we balloon to between 7 and 9,000 in the summertime, right? So like we we have to acknowledge that our primary economy driver for a town really is that vacation, right? Like, so how are we supporting that in order to continue to maintain the town, but then also have an environment that the kids can go through school and they don't feel like they got to like leave Dodge.

Yeah. Right. Like that that that is something that I think we all are concerned with trying to figure out how do we make sure that it's affordable, right? And it doesn't come without a few uh scraped knees, so to speak, right? like we're all going to get in have to get in anyway. Well, I don't I'm not quite sure what what you're saying as far as leave dodge. What do you mean? Um, so like if a kid So something that bothers me personally is thinking about a kid that goes through our school system, grows up here in Bristol, comes out and then then there is not enough work here for them to stay here or a job to afford,

right? like that just personally bothers me, you know, because I this is a beautiful place, you know, and if if we don't keep that in mind when we think about our services or, you know, sort of to the point that you were just making about the other communities a minute ago, right? So, we're a 3,000 person year- round community. So, when we think about the services that we want to provide, okay, what are the comparisons? So why why do we need whatever whatever it is why do you need it and then is it similar to others cuz we're not totally unique right like I think that's the thing sometimes you know it's it's easy to to have that conversation about why we're a snowflake in some of the conversations but we're really not you know so what can we learn from some of these other pieces that's that's what I'm trying to like have us do when we look at any individual line item or anything okay well why is that the right you know.

So anyway, there you go. Hopefully that was more articulate. [Music] Any other questions before we I ask you guys to stay for a little longer at home? I think that's I think that's what I wanted to talk about. No, but I was just thinking when talking about the school district because last year they tried to have the cap removed. That was one of the things that they wanted to do and the other one was to raise the cap an enormous amount. That that failed. So they the only thing you can hope for is that I'm sure they're going to try it again that it would just fail again. So So I guess I I guess I kind of want to if you don't mind I want to just say one thing about that because I think a lot of people feel that way. Yeah. Right.

They're clearly feeling pressure on that side around how do they run the thing? How do they afford all of the pieces? Yeah.

Right. In order to provide the education they they believe they need to have to provide. Bottom line is it comes back to these are the rules of the road, right? That's why the math and how they get there. I think sometimes we focus too much on the actual oh my god that's too much. Okay, it might be, it might not be, but we if we if we strive to agree on the process that got them there or got us there, right, whether it's one of our departments or the school board, then I think we all then have a better understanding around where we actually have levers. Otherwise, everybody starts arguing over, okay, do you need that much Windex? You know what I mean? And then, you know, you're arguing about 20 bucks that got moved from pocket left to pocket right, you know, like that's I really do believe it's about the process that's used to derive the number.

They teach math, so they should be able to do it. Yeah. Well, it I also feel like there's a lot of it's us versus them. It's not the case. This is our community. These are our kids. They're the ones that are going to take care of us as we get older. We want to invest in that. Of course we do. Yeah. Um the other thing about the tax cap is and I think I think most people don't understand is it doesn't limit their budget to a 2 and a half% increase. It limits the amount they can raise from taxation per year. So if they have other funding sources, their budget can, you know, can go up accordingly,

right? Um, so I think when people see the number and I I think I think most well they're automatically thinking the taxes are going up. So that's that's like the first thought they can do funding things. They can work hard. I have yet to see any students. I can remember years ago whatever you're seeing students do fundraisers all over the place. We we tried to offer that or see what we could do with the craft fair and see if you could set up a booth and start selling, you know, the the things to, you know, candy bars and all this other stuff. I rarely see that stuff around Bristol. No, now they sell a bed and mattress for

But there used to be a lot. Still not getting a good night sleep. It hasn't come yet. It hasn't come yet. I haven't got a good night's sleep thinking about it. There are rules governing how much and how often they fund raise. Yeah, there are but that's where I'd start. Some of the rules need to be changed. I mean, I I think that there are certain things that you could do. And when you're talking about a budget, when you do anything, any business or anything like that, you're going, "What can I get need versus want versus need, you're going to cut what you don't need." They have a lot of um how do you say it? Special needs students that

that's a that's a huge problem because you have all these people that are coming in and I know one person in particular who's like in her 80s, just went back full-time to teaching. Why Why would you go back to teaching full time? because they they need her. They need her, you know, to come back in, but there's extra money that's being spent. Yeah. You got to figure out why. So, I I there's a lot of things that can be done beyond that. You know, I think this is one of those topics where everybody like listen, I mean, we could all go down the rabbit hole and go, you know, I wish we did it this way, that way, other way, right? But that's kind of why from my perspective, if we come back to in particular the budget, we come back to how we're deriving it. Yeah. Because that's where the discussion has to happen. Yeah,

right. Like it's and and less, you're absolutely right. Like we're in this together. Like it doesn't help us if if we have this rift where there's no conversation around how that something happens over there. But at the same time, it's got to it's got to be both ways. Like it's it does it it only works when we're all going, "Okay, here's how we're going to get this done." Well, I'd say a couple things. Um, one the um the special ed, you know, from from someone from someone uh with folks in their house who deal with that.

You don't you tomorrow could get a student that's going to cost you $200,000 a year that you didn't budget for. That That's hard. That's really hard. Uh on the other hand, um believe it or not, uh I give this administration great credit and and even the last administration to a degree. Um it's worlds better than it used to be.

Um in my personal opinion, in terms of attitudes towards the town, I think I think it's I think it's much better than it was 10 years ago. much much better. You can argue all day about what things cost, how much is going to cost or this or that. Um, but it's it's gotten it's gotten a lot better. There was some pretty contentious attitudes on both sides. Brilliant. For sure. Well, you have a person at the helm that is all about community and is from the community, right?

Been here for almost 20 years and worked his way up through. And I, you know, I think I'm I'm a big supporter of his. I hope I hope he does well. Um, and I think I think we've seen that as a board. We've seen little things like before we would ask for something and it was always no, we're not going to do that, you know, and now it's, hey, can we use your building to vote? Yeah, let us figure it out. Yeah. Right. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's huge. Uh when when you're writing that check every month for a half a million, $450,000 550. Thank you. Every month. Uh yeah, it's painful.

Yeah. I think the town based on my observations done an excellent job in putting the information on the reevaluation. You know, I followed the website and I think it's been very informative. the person who's interested in understanding it. I was beating on Christina about a year ago from day one I started in March to uh You did actually. I think I think it was like the first you go like listen we got to get in front of this and I looked at you like really. Yeah. Joanne did a really good job and then um in this last few weeks we really tried to push more out because

we knew where the numbers were. We saw the preliminary before everybody else did. put them all out quickly with that. That's a plus. Yeah. And that goes back what the gentleman said about being transparent and put the information out there. Yes. Has there been any misunderstanding from folks or property owners? Yeah. You get you get comments like, well, you know, they have to they have to pay for the safety building one way or another or oh, look, there's all this extra money. And I try to remind people that we can't spend a dollar more than what was authorized at the last town at the last town meeting, right? So whether your tax rate is $22 or $11,

right? You know, now now your house may go up more than your neighbors because you did something to it or this neighborhood was undervalued more than the neighborhood next to it. Uh, and so then yeah, that neighborhood's going to go up more than the fat neighborhood.

And that's that's the thing I think people have a hard hard time understanding or like it wasn't as dramatic this time as it was 5 years ago in terms of uh the difference between the Lake District and the town in general. Um, you know, the last time we did it, the Lake District was undervalued significantly more than the rest of the town.

What that means is that the rest of the town was actually making up and subsidizing for that lower that lower value. People don't want to hear that when they have a $20,000 tax bill. I get it. But that that was the that was the case. This year it was a lot closer. It was still a little bit, but it was it was a lot closer. Yeah. Yeah. It was 18% increase on the lake last time. Yeah. Just mainly the lake. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, you guys unfortunately you're you're going to be sort of the direct line because tax rate is

associated with right and you know many people I don't want to say most people many people don't understand how the components go together. Right. But I think we in the room here understand that a driver that will come at you will be the component from the school district disproportionately because of the you use the word divorce kind of thing. So I wish you the best.

Yeah. Appreciate that. It's uh it's it's it's always an I even it probably shouldn't be but it's always an eye openener. I can point to a couple of conversations over the last couple years, you know, one with just a friend, local resident, you know, we don't, you know, we don't need this, you need to reduce the school, you need to reduce this. I'm like, we have no no control less than half of the bill that you pay, you know, people need to go, I mean, at the end of the day, they feel that way. Yeah. They need to go to school deliberative session. Exactly. And actually vote. I I just

another person who was actually running for a a position was you know didn't understand that didn't understand what town meeting was didn't understand that um you know that we don't have any control over the school or the T or the county or the you know or or any of that. Um and you know that I always tell people municipal New Hampshire municipal budget is so weird. It's like you spend a you spend a quarter of your budget before you approve it. That's strange, right? That's very strange. Which is why we've talked about, you know, trying to get on a fiscal fiscal year situation. But

um yeah, it's and and we spend the town spends, you know, five months. Oh, yeah. five months trying to figure out what's gonna spend the next right the next 12 you know 12 next 17 months you know after that so it's it's a it's a convoluted process but that's what we have my biggest things is when I first uh started you know paying attention to the town and stuff like that is I couldn't understand why there was only one town meeting why is that why can't you when something comes up and you have issues why can't you have a town meeting It's like an act of Congress to Yeah, exactly. It's like I said,

even doing it for a snowstorm wasn't active. Yeah. So, you literally have to get a court order. Yeah. It's so crazy. Yeah. And we've we've done that. Um I mean, the school district went through that process, but we did it when this building, right? We petitioned for a special meeting. Yep. We did it once before when we were in the other building. Yeah. I can't remember what it was for, but I remember doing the park. What was it for? The park. Mil Street. Park is Mil Street. That's right. That's right. Oh, yeah. You know, we used to have a Summertown meeting for

Yes. Informational. Informational meeting. It wasn't Yeah. you know, no official business, but um it got to the point where there were more town employees there than by by more than you know, by double uh than there were people coming to hear things. I was going to say I think the last one there were two people from the public and nobody else was staff. So we all they got they got their taxes worth that we all have to be there. You know, the other thing I think that is just generically interesting about when I think about the entire budget is when you look at our demographics

and you consider the the age groupings in town and then you consider the services related to each group, right? You can almost again when you do the summary, you can bucketize it that way too. Um going back to that point uh you know the summer time the the other part of that is you know the town the town has done a good job of taking advantage of the tools that it has just in this information age and getting more stuff out there. We have so much more than we had Oh yeah.

even a dozen years ago when I first started doing this to for people to be involved you know uh and have that information. Um where where you know um it's all out there, you know, budget, the line items, everything is out there that someone wants and I think and I think that's that's helped a lot too. I think the gentle gentleman hit on it. It's the demographics. Yeah. If you look at Lincoln, okay, which is a town which we've had a lot of talks about Lincoln lived up there for a couple years. I've quoted you a few times, don't worry. Yeah. And the other town, actually, Campton and Thor with the Al Nest Resort,

both the tourist community for Lincoln and Nest, they don't put any children into the school system, right? But they expand the tax base, right? That's something that is a little harder in this demographic.

It is. And we've, you know, we've we've talked quite a lot about how how do we change that? what what businesses do we try to attract? What even looking at what areas of town are available for something, you know, something like like that. Um and that is was one of our takeaways from the goal setting session that we had um as as well as other things. But um yeah, that's you know, ideally you'd have you know, I say I've always said we need another manufacturer in town, someone you know, 30 to 40 jobs of, you know, um, but where and who and what and, you know, kind of somewhat limited and available space for something like that, right? But the nice thing about what I've learned in Bristol, unlike what I've experienced in Lincoln, Lincoln has changed so dramatically that the folks that were there originally, um, their children have to move out because they can't afford to live there. composition of the town is now it's now a new town. This is still called Lincoln, but it's a new town.

Yeah. And Bristol doesn't have that issue because there's still the community feeling here. It's uh

we're certainly on the cusp though. Like that's I think a challenge because like the median house is uh like over 400,000, right? So if the median house is over 400,000, it's 100 you got to make $100,000 a year to afford that house, right? So, you know, it it to me the housing problem is actually much more related to the schools because it's really how are we channeling and preparing people in this community, whether it's adult or the kids coming out of high school, like how are we making sure that they're ready for the jobs that are today, not that. Okay. Well, we've always had this type of job like no no what what else what else can we avail ourselves of in all of this to me this is the piece that that we sort of skirt around like we we worry about the housing oh we got to we got to make housing more affordable okay are you suggesting we have to depress how you know what I mean like it becomes a whole conversation do you depress housing costs that doesn't make any sense

everybody wants to make housing more affordable but no one wants to add inventory right anyway So just it becomes that scenario. So to to me it's really about like the whole training and and how all those pieces come together. The library, right? Like like how does the library fit into that from an adult education perspective? Like what what programs can be offered to sort of upskill the folks that are around here? Anyway, do we know where the school stands in proficiency through nationwide? Do we know where our our school

I I I I actually just a week or so ago there was a release You may want to follow up on that, but they I I won't have the numbers right, but they were they were scores were up better than last. Okay. Because they've been down they were better than last year and they were above state average. Oh, that's good. Well, that's good. Because that's a draw. You're talking about people coming to the thing. They need to have schools that are up there. Yeah. I mean the hardest thing from a business perspective is who do you hire right like okay you convince somebody to bring their business here

then it's going to be okay well what does the skill set of the community look like in order to support that business it's a it is a chicken and egg thing in so many ways that's why the partnership with the schools and stuff is really important around how are we preparing everybody for the jobs that are around here and also it's equally important to pay attention to the state and how the state is trying to where they're trying to put different businesses in the state, right? So, their whole Bureau of Economic Affairs, I mean, you can see it. They post things all the time. Oh, we opened up this manufacturer in Manchester and we did this other one in conquered and this other one in Portman. Okay, that's all great and we can commute to Conquer, you know, cuz that's not that far, but like what do they expect to happen in this swap of the state? That's that's an outstanding question for me and one I'm trying to have the economic development committee work on. Anyway,

I commuted to conquer for 17 years. So, it's Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Doable. But, but nonetheless, like when they're when they're thinking about economic activities at a state level, they've got ideas, right? I think we need to not only have a ground swell of things that we're trying to do as a community, but but understanding what those forces are so we're not pushing a rock uphill.

All right. Thank you. There you go. You guys

great. Thank you for coming. All right. Thanks. All right. Have a fun meeting. Thanks. I think I think we just have a few things to to run through just real quick. So, we already we already did minutes. We've already done our correspondence. No one else has more correspondence. Um Christina does. What do you have? Um CASA has sent a thank you to On behalf of all of us at all of us at CASA, I want to extend our deepest thanks to the town of Bristol for your generous $500 donation. So that's for the 2025 that they Yep. thanking us for the funding for this year and they just send a letter. So nice. Thank you.

Comments. Any just got an update. There's nothing else in the select board, right? Anything for you personally? No. Okay. Um Buzz, anything you want to do? I want Sean to stick around after Okay. I can avoid you. You say anything? I don't have anything else for I don't have anything else for Okay. Uh Christine, anything you wanted to uh bring up? Okay. So, so our ne our next meeting is next Tuesday. So, Tuesday 28th of October here at 6:00 for a general discussion about what we're going to do with this budget. Uh motion to adjurnn. [Music] So, motion by Sue.

Yes. Seconded by I think less. No, Scott. Oh, Scott. Thank you. All in favor? I have a good evening. I survived.