Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

Great. Good evening everyone with our monthly meeting for March 2026. Calling the meeting to order at 7:06. Sorry, we're a little bit behind. And I'd like to ask the clerk for a roll call, please. Trusty Boozie. Hi. Trusty Bis here. Trusty Hall here. Deputy Mayor Woods here. Mayor Trolling, I'm here. Thank you.

Um, announcements. I have none other than thanking the 90 people who came out for the our event last night. Walkable culture. Great crowd. Anyone else have any announcements? Anybody need to know about garbage? All good. Okay. I have a couple of items under opportunity to add to our modified agenda. Um we have had a a very busy few days and things have been coming in rapidly that we need to deal with. So um I ask everybody's patience. They're adding things in. But first I'd like to make a motion to um discuss the dump truck bed replacement um that Bugsy has put forward. Did everyone get any email related to it? Okay. So,

that and discussion of the liquor license application for 114 Main Street. I'd like to add those two. My motion. Second. All in favor?

I. And I'd like to table the wreck survey because I haven't had a chance to go back and see if all of the changes we requested have been made. Is that okay? Is there a second on that? All in favor? All right. So, um, reports, this is our monthly meeting, so we'll go through a few reports. I know we have our we do have our, um, auditor here to speak. So, we're going to accept the reports of the departments and boards as submitted. But there are two things I want to pull out. Um, one from the fire company report and one from the police department report. Um there is there has been some confusion about who clears fire hydrants. Um it's it is the requirement that the hydrant be cleared by the resident who lives next to it. The residents it is in front of is responsible for clearing fire hydrants. I think we need some more clarity with this in the code. So, at some point, um, it'd be good to update our streets and sidewalks with that reference so everyone's clear. But the chief wanted me to assure everyone that, um, the vehicles do have shovels in the event that somewhere they needed to get to a fire hydrant fast, they could, but they would prefer not to have to spend time waste time digging um, when they need to make a connection. They also would like folks to know that 286 Main Street in Nelsonville, which is the old blacksmith shop, the wine shop, has a vent pipe on its roof um that is venting uh steam.

Steam, thank you. I couldn't think of the word steam. And it it has been called in a number of times as smoke. Thank you for caring about that building, but double check that you're seeing smoke before you call. Um, and from the police department, um, there were four motor motor vehicle accidents in the last month. So, be careful out there. Slow down. I'm sure a lot of it was storm related, but be careful. Um, and a note from Officer Jackson. Now, the Woodchuck story that will not end. Um, I'd like to recommend I'd like to commend the local residents who attempted to assist with the injured woodchuck and left pet carrier at the scene. Our officer was able to safely secure and transport the animal to a local animal hospital. I'm very proud of our officers. Whether they're responding to crimes in progress or something as simple as an injured animal, they consistently go the extra mile for this community and that dedication makes my job much easier. And that is signed respectfully from Matthew J. Jackson, the commanding officer. All right, moving on to um because we have a long agenda, I would I'm going to pass over. We've all been focused on budget. Don't think there's much to report beyond what we will discuss in budget time. So, pass over report of mayor and trustees and go right into board business. And the first item up is the presentation of our audit for 2025. EFPR is our um financial adviser there in Williamsville, which I think is up by Syracuse. Um Jeff Jones is joining us. Hi Jeff, we haven't met you before.

No. How are you? I'm actually filling in tonight. Um the partner on the engagement, he was supposed to have landed already, but his flight got delayed and kind of shifted around as flight's due. So he's actually in the air. He's probably flying over you right now.

Oh, okay. Hello to him. No problem. I'm another one of the directors actually here in our government department. So, I've reviewed the file and I do a lot of um town, village, and county audits. So, I'm still familiar with all of the, you know, kind of terminology and I should be able to help you through any questions you might have here. Um, so we do have a presentation. I was just going to share my screen with you here. Um, okay. Looks like we don't have screen sharing. Do you have the presentation in front of you by chance? If I just kind of go through it. Uh Jeff, Jeff, could you uh request to share your screen? Okay. So, uh it just says host disabled attendee screen sharing.

I think you can make him a co-host rather than I can't participate. Yes.

Okay. Have the host tools again. All right, Jeff. Sorry. Give us one second. No problem. We're pretty locked down um on our Zoom. We've had some sh some incidents. They're allowed to shift. Oh, yeah. If you are allowed to. No, more controls are never a bad thing, you know. They can be a pain at times, but overall it's a good thing. Almost there. Do you want to try again, Jeff? Sure. There we go. Okay. Now, just want to make sure that you can see my screen.

You can. Yep. Okay. Perfect. So again, my name is Jeff Jones of PR. Um I'm going to be going through essentially just a pretty high level overview of the audit and then at the very end of it, I'll open up for some questions if anyone has any.

So excuse me. First I want to introduce the team. Tom Smith was the partner on the engagement. Doug Zimmerman was the technical review partner, which essentially means that what our firm does is assign another partner in our government team to go and review the audit after the fact, just so they still have the technical expertise, but they didn't actually do any of the work. So, they might actually notice something that you might not notice yourself while actually completing the work. Um, the senior on the job was Eric Schaefer, and then we had Devon McDonald as the staff on the engagement. Field work took place the week of November 3rd. We issued drafts about a month ago, February 13th, and then we'll be finalizing everything after tonight's meeting. The results to the audit, we're expecting to issue an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. Unmodified is the best opinion that we can give. It means essentially there was no material modifications to whether it be our opinion, our audit procedures, or the numbers themselves. So, you know, that's great to see. All records information that we needed were freely available. The only thing we do have to note is there was one instance of non-compliance we had to report and that's that the water fund actually exceeded the budget and it was by about $6,300 and we wrote it up um in the financial statements on page 47 is a budget to actual comparison and you see the biggest reason he went over was actually health insurance um and a lot of the employee benefits whether it be ERS spending insurance costs things like that and obviously those things are hard to budget for because you know as we I know those have been jumping up drastically. So, our recommendation is just to regularly monitor the budget. You know, if there's something needs to happen, if an amendment needs to occur, then it should occur just to make sure that you're kind of staying within the budget or, you know, keeping things where they need to be. But again, it was only about $6,300, but since it is over budget, it is something that we do want to report to you.

Next, we go into your villagewide statements. So essentially you have two sets of statements of a villagewide which is a full acrruel basis of accounting and your fund statements which like your general fund and your budgeting actually occurs. The biggest difference is in the governmentwide we have long-term items such as capital assets such as OPED such as the state pension system items where in the funds it's a modified acral basis. So it's more budget based accounting. So, the easiest way I can think of to explain to people is that in the funds, if you go and purchase a new um police vehicle, for example, it's going to be an expense. But when I go over to the villagewide, it's an asset on the books for the village. So, but for budgeting purposes, you of course would expense it. So, that's how it will be in the funds. So, the village wide here, we saw total assets remaining fairly consistent, only moving.1% to about 8.5 million. Deferred outflows decreased 178,000 now to 374,000. That was mainly changes in the state pensions as well as your LOAP. And the biggest thing I always say with pensions is you can't control it. You know, the state just says here's a number, put on your books, the end. It's not something you can fund ahead of time. It's not something you can kind of account for. It's just on how the pension plan itself um performs during the year and then the number that they then assign to you. Your total liabilities was decreased about 725,000 now to about 7.9 million. The decrease was mainly results to the valuations applied to your OPED as well as then payments made on your debt such as your bands and bonds. Um deferred out inflows of resources decreased about 38,000 now is 671,000. Those were those actual assumptions that were applied to the pension plans as well as the LOEP. um offset slightly by the increase in some grant advances that you received. Then overall net position

at the villagewide level was an increase of 587,000 now to a positive 287. So that was a deficit last year. Now it's swung up to be positive this year. Uh the revenue at the villagewide was up about 845,000. Major factors were your program revenue increasing or about $2 million with an increase about $400,000 mainly due to a large amount of chips that was received during the year. And your general revenue was about 2.6 million, an increase of $446,000 in the prior year. That is mainly just normal increases in property taxes, interest earned on cash, as well as an increase in your fines and forfeitures. Expenses about 4.1 million, a decrease of about 1.2 million from the prior year. Basically, we noted that most of the categories decreased and that was mainly as a result of the allocation for the pension plans is OPED. Kind of as I mentioned, the liability for those items went down and because of that expenses that were allocated to them also went down. So, they kind of a correlation with each other in that sense. Now, we take a look at the general fund. We saw your assets increased about 300,000 to 2.5 million. mainly that was from increases in cash and equivalents as well as some state and federal aid receivables. Um liabilities we saw actually dropped about 131,000 451,000 mainly just decreases in your accounts payable as well as the inner fund balances deferred inflows increased 160,000 now to 308,000. This is due to timing of funds. We talk about kind of a revenue recognition criteria of when items come in versus when they're available. So a lot of that, for example, was the ARPA funds that you receive that haven't been spent yet. So those are sitting in your

deferred revenue account. And then so we said overall fund balance in the general fund, it increased about 277,000 now to just under $1.8 million.

Then the other results for the general fund, we saw revenue about 3.2 2 million which is up about 790,000 over the prior year. Mainly that was due to just normal increases in taxes as well as some new state aid that came in this year. Expenditures just under $3 million which is an increase about 261,000 from the prior year. It was mainly in areas of public safety um related to increased police salaries as well as transportation and road repairs. Lastly, I just wanted to just kind of highlight quickly that in the coming years, you are going to have some new Gazsbas getting implemented here. Um, we do disclose them further in the financial statements or if you want, I can talk about them a little bit, but I know you said you have a full agenda. So, I just at this point now, I just want to open it up to any questions you might have. And if you'd like me to go into them, of course, I'd be more than happy to. Anyone have a question, comment? defer to Michelle if you hang.

I've talked to them a lot. Go ahead. I had one question I think you've spoken to us about before in terms of the villages bond rating, but does any of this information here bear in any way in a positive way on that error?

Sure. I mean, yeah. So obviously, you know, when they take into account your bond rating, they always are looking at your financial statements and the fact you have a healthy general fund, right, that has no increase in fund balance, as well as you're one of the few municipalities I see that the governmentwide level, it's actually a positive net position. Almost every single one I see is negative, and that's usually just because the OP and ERS or PFRS, you know, those pension items are such large liabilities that it forces it down. But when you actually kind of take a look at your numbers, the village is actually very healthy as far as that goes. And then if you know, you ever want to kind of take a look, they take a look further into it, kind of looking at, you know, maybe your debt ratio, you know, how much of your cash is being consumed by debt, you know, how much of it's promised out within the coming year already, right? How much of your cash is committed. So they want to see how much you can really absorb and still maintain that healthy fund balance. So

from what I've seen in you know during 2425 everything is trending positively. So you know that's kind of all good news that we see here. Again the only real thing that isn't positive that presented was just the water fund overspending the budget. But again, that was mainly just because health insurance and other co those costs were and other employee benefits were more than you budgeted for, which I think just about everybody saw large jumps in those numbers that they could have never planned for. And and would you have any general guidance about how we should manage the general fund balance? Any dos or don'ts around that?

Yeah, I mean the biggest thing of course is going to revolve around budgeting, right? whether or not you're going to be appropriating fund balance for the coming year, whether or not you want to establish certain reserves to cover some expenses that might be coming up in the current year. Um, I mean, you know, the state kind of outlines a large number of reserves that are available to a village. you know, if you ever wanted to maybe fund some of them in a certain way or kind of plan accordingly. You know, you know, they always think about planning out long-term capital projects, having a capital plan out multiple years, especially if you know there's going to be large renovations or large projects coming up, starting to plan and fund those reserves accordingly um when looking at those items. But again, yeah, the fund balance stuff is healthy. So, if that's something you wanted to start looking at, those long-term items, I don't think that would ever be a bad thing. You know, if there's any other guidance, I guess I can look around on, you know, look at the state's website, see if they have some guidance, and I'd be happy to kind of shoot those over as well.

I can send those in an email, too, if you'd like. Thank you. I just wondered what you classified as transportation, what things fall under transportation from your perspective. So, that's actually usually a coding um item. So, you know, when you think about when you budget, most expenses have a fourdigit code at the beginning of it. So, transportation is actually a coding. Um, so let me see what is falling into your I have a your file in front of me. I'm just going to take a look at what's falling into there. Michelle, the the accountant has just said highway falls under transportation and that makes sense. The highest places you were finding expense were police and highway. That makes sense.

Okay. Um, and we are we are looking at a number of long-term capital projects. So, we will be doing exactly the things that you're describing. Um, dam repair, etc. That's water fund. Michelle's gonna Michelle's kicking me under the table from across the room. We have a number of infrastructure we have a number of infrastructure projects that have nothing to do with water that we're looking at planning. Perfect. Okay. Well, thank you very much and we we do appreciate your brevity when we have a long night. Of course. No problem at all. Well, you know, I hope that you're not there too late.

All right. Well, thank you for your time. Anything comes up, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Okay. Next. Can you now like unallow screen sharing? How we doing this year for those like drop off? We have to formally accept the audit in the next meeting or something. We can't do it. I can I don't know if it's a resolution or not. So, it might be best to wait till it needs to be formally adopted so that we can send it out for the ban ratings.

Okay. Good. Thank you. Listen, when you're ready, we good? Yeah. Okay. So, moving on to setting a public hearing. We are still working through the budget, but in order to advertise um and meet um open meetings law requirements, um we need to set a resolution tonight to set the public hearing. We do have a resolution in front of us. Would someone like to make the motion with the number? Yes. Do we have a number? We need to add it. Double check. Okay. Be determined.

Proposed resolution be determined November 2026. A resolution to set the time and date for a public hearing on the proposed village budget for fiscal year June 1st, 2026 to May 31st, 2027. The following resolution was offered for adoption by myself and seconded by Oh, that was that was a close one.

Okay. Trusty Bose. Whereas the board of trustees of the village of Cold Spring is required by law to hold a public hearing on the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And whereas the purpose of such hearing is to provide residents and interested parties with an opportunity to review and comment on the proposed budget. Now therefore, be it resolved that a public hearing on the proposed budget for fiscal year June 1st, 2026 to May 31st, 2027 shall be held on April April 8th.

2026 at 700 p.m. at Village Hall, 85 Main Street, Gold Spring, New York 10516, and by video conference. That notice of said hearing shall be published and or posted in accordance with applicable law that all interested parties are shall be given an opportunity to be heard at the hearing. on a roll call. And oh, one more item to the resolution that documents the copies of the budget will be available through the village clerk's office and copies of the budget will be available in the village clerk's office

and on the village website. And on the village website, boldspringny.gov at Bspring Thank you very much.

Trustee Bosie. Hi. Trusty Bis. Hi. Trusty Hall. Hi. Trusty Woods. Hi. Mayor Foley, I vote. Motion carry 5 Z00. Thank you, Brian. You came in just in time. Yeah. Moving on to 37 Main Street. I think that we last discussed this before Tony was on the deis. So, I just go back and give quick review. So, this is okay. This is the the no longer Tyvec building, right?

But it's gonna be Tyvec building forever. You know that, right? That that that means you're an OG culture. Like it means that you know the history. Agree.

Um so Brian is the owner of that property. Um and came in and asked to purchase um parcels on two sides of the building belong to the village. Um we declined to sell along on terrace um for the purpose of storm water management and in case we should relocate the road. Um but we did agree to go to sale for the area between the sidewalk and the front of the building. So we have all of that in front of us tonight and we have a multi-step process to go through. everyone um had the opportunity to review the part one of this the versus seeker part one of the environmental assessment form which um called factb finding and now we go through part two together in public and we'll be reading them reading the questions and answers and then making a declaration will the proposed action create material conflict with an adopted land use plan or zoning regulation No. Will the proposed action result in a change in the use or intensity of use of land? No. Will the proposed action impair the character or quality of the existing community? No. In fact, it's a great improvement. Thank you very much. Will the proposed action have an impact on the environmental characteristics that cause the establishment of the critical environmental area? No. Will the proposed action result in an adverse change in the existing level of traffic or affect existing infrastructure for mass transit, biking or walkway? No. Will the proposed action cause an increase in the use of energy and it fails to incorporate reasonably available energy conservation or renewable energy properties? No. So, this is obviously reflections and changes in the secret law. questions are slightly different than they have been in the past. Um, will the proposed

action impact existing public private water supplies? Not building not building a an an entrance. No. Um, and wastewater treatment utilities. No. Um, and just as a reminder, this this focuses specifically this environmental impact assessment focuses specifically on the sale of that square footage. Um, will the proposed action impair the character or quality of important historic, archaeological, architectural or aesthetic resources? No. And I know that you are undergoing um a detailed review with HDRB. We have our certificate of We are done.

Um, will the proposed action result in an adverse change to natural resources, EV wetlands, water bodies, groundwater, air quality, flora, and fauna? No. Will the proposed action result in an increase in the potential for erosion, flooding or drainage problems? No. Will the proposed action create a hazard to environmental resources or human health? No. Um so given that these are all nos um we are we can find if the board agrees that there will this there will be no significant adverse environmental impacts as a result of selling this parcel discussion. Okay. So I would make a motion to to declare no significant adverse environmental impacts by this sale.

Second. All in favor? Hi. Okay. The next part then is dealing with the underlying resolution. Since you have all just listened to me read the secret questions, would someone else like to make the motion regarding sale? Is it the contract?

It's got a table on it. Someone else. There we go. You got it right there. All right. Sure. I'll read it. Resolution of the village board of trustees of the village of Cold Spring authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract for the sale for real property. Is Manitude Machine Works Inc., a New York corporation owns property located at 37 Main Street, Cold Spring, New York, and is offered to purchase a portion of land parcel, which is currently in a village. Whereas public lands uh consists of approximately 0.010 010 acres and is further described in the description attached of exhibit A parcel and whereas the village parcel is primarily a vacant parcel for which the village board has declared a surplus and it is not needed for any municipal use as this village parcel is not used for highway purposes and it no longer serves or is used as sewer or water purposes has no environmental or recreational or parkland component and is not used for the administration of fire or police purposes. And whereas the sale of this village parcel will limit the village's liability exposure and maintenance responsibilities. Whereas manitu uh machine works inc has offered to purchase the village parcel for fair and adequate consideration which offer price is supported by the assessor's analysis recommendation whereas sale price would be not less than $3,438. And whereas proposed sale of the village parcel is an action subject to the state environmental quality review act. The village board has determined the sale of this small parcel is an unlisted action for which it will conduct an uncoordinated review. Whereas the village has reviewed and completed a short environmental assessment form pursuant to SRA. Therefore, it is hereby resolved that the village of board of trustees hereby issues a negative declaration attached for this proposed action under SECRA as it will not result in any significant adverse environmental impact and environmental impact statement is not required and let it

further let it be further resolved that the village board of trustees hereby determines that bill the village parcel is in the public interest of the residents of the village and resolve that the village board hereby authorizes mayor to execute any and all required agreements documentation to effectuate the sale of the village parcel subject to the review and approval as to form and content by the attorney for the village by order of village board and it is a roll call. John lays them out differently than Marjorie does. Yes. Trusty Bisusty Boosey. Hi. Trusty Hall. Hi.

Deputy Mayor Woods. Hi. Mayor will vote I and the motion carries 500 0. Uh I have all the documentation on my desk. Don and I are meeting in person on another matter tomorrow. So I will go through with him and make sure that I sign everything correctly and then he will follow up with you. Wonderful. Thank you. Any news on a an opening date or a target? We are streaming for it as fast as we can. Uh we did get some new requirements added to the process that created a little bit of a delay that we weren't anticipating. Uh but we are complying with them and and moving through the process uh as quickly as possible. Excellent.

We all need baked goods. There can never be enough. True. They were um Thank you. There were sheet rocking in there today, right? There were sheetrocking in there today. There was some sheetrocking in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have some of the walls can get closed up. We've been waiting for sort of approval uh stuff. Yeah. Right on. All false. I'm gonna leave this with a note for Abigail and I've emailed her to tell her exactly what it is. Just going to leave it on the table here and we'll do that locked right now. Great. Thanks. Thanks.

All right. So we issued an RFP for structural engineering assessment. Good night on our doc and the we have with us um a recommendation from Han Engineering. Um I have a question for Michelle related to it. Um the the company that will recommend it was a it was low bid race coastal engineering. um and they have great recommendations and are able if in round two it is necessary to have divers they do have that capacity um which would it would be an optional amount if we need it um we had asked for May 1 deadline they have said they um it would need to be expedited if to reach that June 1st would be more achievable for phase one deliverables so phase One is visually inspect the pier, perform non-destructive testing, review any existing drawings or documentation, and evaluate the pier. Structural engineer should prepare a written report that summarizes our findings and recommends maximum vessel size using metrics such as length or tonnage and seasonal limitations that can safely mo the pier utilizing existing mooring followers. So, this is the information we really need to make decisions about docking in the fall that pushes up. We were hoping to get it in this um budget cycle. Um my question to you is it is it appropriate or um so that we can include in this budget if that's where you're hoping that it lands a um substantially complete invoice. Um, so phase one and phase two, it sounds like phase one, it's a roughly half the cost

would be done by May 31st. Um, so we had talked about there's about $100,000 the board allocated in fund balance for two happen projects. The majority of that is the snow removal, but there's still some. So this should be about I think 11 to 15,000 in phase one. 24,000. Um, so I would Sorry, it's up to me. I was estimating and I didn't need to. So I would I would say that that fund balance allocation, yeah, would the small that's left after snow removal would cover this and this and then fund balance for next year. It's already in the proposed budget for next year, phase two.

So what I'm asking is if if they can't deliver until June 1st, we are in that cycle. So would you would you be able to work from a st substantially complete? Yes. So if they're 90% complete, they would bill 90%. All right. Understood that. Um any discussion of the proposal or will's recommendation? You mentioned something about expediting. If that were necessary, would there be an upcharge for that or it's not going to be necessary? Um, I don't have clarity on what I think what well my sense from from the conversation with Will was don't let it sit for three weeks. Make a decision soon. Okay.

Um, not that there's something special that we need to do. Once we approve it, they can go. If I could interject, the RFP stated it final for phase one for May 1st. So if it's closing later than what's requested in the RFP, I don't think there should be up charge. I would agree. Interest was almost four times as high. What this is crazy out of I mean it happens like that sometimes and it you know you wonder what conversation if there are conversations that happen. I don't know. Um but the two that were closest together were really close though you know WSP seems like an outlier. There was something about the diving or something.

But even still, evening, if we did it with the current bid is still significantly low.

I would be inclined to approve this the the um the phase one amount um and see where we are in terms of because the do the dive is another $6,000. have a better sense of whether we think that will be necessary or not before we approve the full amount. Does that make sense, Michelle? Or do we is it easier for you from a documentation perspective if we do an up to amount in the approval?

Probably an up to because they're say they might not they might be there and might have to do it and so if they have the approval if the board's willing to allow it to approve it all at once. Okay. So then just for the record for Grace's U proposal takes the diving out and so in add over the two uh $24,250 they list the underwater as a phase three for another $5,800.

And that that's what I'm asking if it makes sense to approve an up to amount which would be 30,125. Um, and my sense from Will and he is if you would if you would like to ask questions of Will, he said text him and he'll hop on. Would anyone like to have the engineer on the call? Okay. Um, his sense was they were the best qualified. So they sound like they mean business. I like I think they would like to make a motion to accept I'll make a motion to accept bid of Race Coastal Engineering as per the recommendation of our engineer in an amount up to $30,125.

Second. All in favor? All right. And conveniently everything melted so Dr. B. Get this out of the way. Lot a lot of RFP response.

Um, okay. Next. The next item is actually a a postfacto retroactive approval. There was a car accident in Nelsonville on Friday that sheared off the um fire hydrant by in front of village hall. Um that's obviously an emergent situation. We don't want blocks of frame houses without a fire hydrant. So Matt went ahead and he did get bids um and bought a fire hydrant at the lowest price. Um and it is scheduled for installation tomorrow. So we are asking Matt is asking us to approve the low the low purchase which is the one that he made.

That's something that the insurance company subjugates we get the money back on it. We will absolutely be an insurance claim and it will be our our insurance company working with driver's insurance. Absolutely.

Um do you need an actual motion for this Michelle since it's a a retroactive or clerk? We should review the quote that we're accepting into the record. So, you should make a motion to accept. You want me to do that? I make a motion to uh approve the recommendation of the water and wastewater department's superintendent um the purchase and installation of a new fire hydrant um from uh

windwater the sorry windwater is the I think that's the well is the installation oh that's the labor uh with the purchase of the new Mueller fire hydrant from Caramel Windwater and and labor from Pazella Brothers. Uh do we have a total cost? So it's 4,161 for that's the estimate for Pazella and 3,950 for the fire hydrant. Thank you so much. Second favor. I You don't want to hit a fire hydrant with your car, doesn't it?

Um, did it actually break up? She water and all that. Um, I Mac got there pretty fast to shut it down. Um, so it wasn't a big loss of water. No. Um, okay. You have have you all been able to read the memo from Justice Hilbert about the details of court shift? I didn't see you. I don't Okay, I'm sorry.

Well, I'll I'll summarize it as best I can. It has been really challenging to transfer justice and court clerk at the same time. There is very little guidance from New York State court uh unified courts. It's been really frustrating and disappointing and timeconuming. Um Luke is asking for an additional um 40 hours for Kathy to assist Kelly at the rate we approved before um of $50 an hour which is what $2,000. Um, Michelle, I assume we would take this out of the unspent um money for the deputy clerk we haven't hired yet, right? Okay. So, we it's not a concern. We have the money to do it. Can I ask?

Yeah, your summary is very familiar. Is it Have we done this once already or is that we talked about doing? Yeah, I told you that it would we were waiting for a proposal from Luke. Great. So, this is the first time of the of the reapp. Yes. Okay, great. That feels like new. I guess that cover probably Monday. Um, so would someone like to make a motion to accept the to approve the request of the justice? I'll make a motion to approve the request of the justice. Second.

Favor. Hi. I'm really grateful to Kathy um putting in the time and Kelly has the patience to saint a long time ago. They're getting

um the one thing that's great is that New York State courts I don't I don't know if you've been in that office or were in that office before, but there were three massive outdated machines. One printer, one fax machine, and one copier. And they've been consolidated by quartz was quartz gave us another one single machine. So they've gained half a desk space, you know, half the L. The room works better. They're getting now and we didn't have to pay for it. Okay. Um the next item extends the uh we we had conditionally extended and an offer of employment to Nicholas Ferrer for the full-time interdep departmental labor position. He has passed his background and driving test with flying colors and the crew chief has recommended his hiring at it should say 25 a rate of 25 not $24. Um that was what that Um, I would like to say so moved.

Or is there any discussion first? That's a six month probationary. Yep. Absolutely. Every every hire. Yep. Okay. Well, move. Uh, second. Second. All in favor? I. And the next we can talk about if we need to um when we have our um executive session, but I recommend that the services of Anthony Winters be terminated effective close of business March 11, 2026. Second in favor.

Is it a roll call vote? Sorry. If someone could read the resolution. We don't have a We don't have a resolution. I just did read it. Okay. Be it resolved upon upon the recommendation of the mayor that the services of Anthony Winters are hereby terminated. Effective close of business March 11th, 2026. Thank you, Andrew. Catching Bardis. Hi. Trusty Boosezie. Hi, Trusty Hall. Hi, Deputy Mayor Woods. Hi,

Mayor Foley. Hi. And the resolution carry 500. The next closes out the LOAP process. Um, I am looking for a motion to authorize me to certify the hours of the Cold Spring Fire Company number one service roster. It has been posted to the firehouse for 30 days. Um, and we are approving it for submission to penalty.

Make a motion to authorize the mayor to sign the certification of the cult company number one service roster they having been posted at the firehouse as required for 30 days. Second. All in favor. I uh I think you can't vote. We need to do that vote again. You need to I resend my second. Second. Abstain. I in favor. I thank you. Sorry to put my hand on your face like that.

Okay. The next item is one of my favorites. signing for the Nelsonville Fish and Fur Club um fishing derby again, now the Tony Savastano Memorial Fishing Derby. Um we have done this every year for many many years and in addition to um approving the stock the the derby um we approve the club to stock the reservoir. This is the the lowest reservoir before the water treatment plant on Fishkill Avenue. Um I'm sorry, Fishkill Avenue. So Fishkill Road. Um and we we normally grant with it 20 permits for the members um in exchange for the stocking. Um and the water excuse me wastewater budget provides for body. So would someone make a motion to authorize the

or discussion if anyone in discussion would be I'm um I'm an officer of that club so I should abstain okay thank you I forgotten that

um I make a motion to authorize the mayor to approve the Nelsonville fish and fur club request to hold its 37th annual Tony Satano Memorial Kids Fishing Derby at the Cold Spring Reservoir on May 3rd, 2026 from Dust Don and grant 20 village of Cold Spring fishing permits to the club's membership who hold New York State fishing permits. All in favor? It's all yours. And sorry did you go out of the room when I said this, but I did ask Matt if he's willing to fund the porta potty again from his budget and he said, "Yeah, what is it stocked with?" Trout.

That's a fun day. They come with a big truck and it's amazing to watch. Fill it up with buckets and we carry it down and dump it in there. And some of the fish are huge. So, so when you see a kid hook onto that the next day, it's like, "Wow." Yeah. So, the DEC where where I grew up in the Fingerlakes and you call it a creek, um the DEC was doing samplings in Catherine Creek and do you know what kind of Yeah. Anyway, it was the biggest trout that the DEC has ever caught. I will send you a photograph of it. It's was a beautiful creature and my sister was taking videos and sending them of them jumping up waterfalls. It was just really cool. What do they do with it?

What do they do if they catch it? Um they eat it or or mount it. Oh, what did the DC do? Oh, they let it go. Sorry. Fishing day doesn't open until April 1st. And um that was like a that was a that was a day off school for everybody, right? When I was growing up, school was empty on April 1st.

Okay. back in my day. What's next? The other fun event is the Knights of Columbus Easter egg hunt. They have asked to hold it on Saturday, March 28th with a rain date of April 4th. And the Knights of Columbus have put this on for years and years. Discussion. Someone like to make a motion. Make a motion to approve the application by the Knights of Columbus to hold children's Easter egg hunt at Londonville Park on Saturday March the 28th 2026 with a rain date of Saturday 4th of April 2026. Just making note that the time 8:30 says set up starting at 8:30 event starts at 11:00. It'll be done by 1 and break down by 1:30. So, we have a motion, a second. All in favor?

I. And I think we need to say to Bob Flity, "How dare you write no slash rainbow?" That is a jinx. Okay. Um, the recreation commission

playing low music. Yeah. um community day. Uh it worked beautifully last year in June before the kids were completely out for school before people took off for summer vacation. Um and so the rec commission is beginning to plan. They would like to do it again that third third Saturday in June with a rain date the next day. Um same formulation as last year at Docside. They sent us a diagram of how they set it up last year and I want to do it do that again. Um there are no big event conflicts on that day. That would be the event of the day. Um and I'm sure we'll get these questions next. Um the rec commission is not planning a Fourth of July um event because we have had um we have had low turnout because of heat in the last number of years. Shifting community day earlier has gotten us um better attendance. There will still be fireworks from West Point. Um, and I believe that the town, um, is planning an event, um, uh, Phil, Friends, Phillips Town Wreck is planning an event at the Shakespeare site that we'll hear more about. So, there will be something happening Fourth of July um, in addition to music at Bosel. So, any questions or concerns about June 20th as a date?

No. 21st. This is the last year flyer, right? Just for the record, the documents that are attached are just for an example because the recreation committee said that it will be based on last year's, but the details are still working. So, it might be some of the same vendors and they might be in different places on this map. And yes, the date is June 20th. It's June 20th, people in 2036. June 20th is the date to say I'd like to make a motion.

Sure. I put my foot in it. Um I will make a motion to approve the village of Cold Spring Recreation Committee's recommendation to set a date for the celebration of the community day 2026 for Saturday, June 20th. Uh details and development rough concept based on 2025 collateral attached. Oh no, you don't need that part. Second.

Second. All in favor? Hi. Hi. Hi. Thank you. We're committee. All right. Now, this is just the highlight of the night. Um, Alex Cheek, I can't remember when you first came in with a wayfinding proposal, but we've been, the village has been talking about wayfinding to get around our strange train station and corners and tiny roads for a very long time. Um, and Alex came forward with a proposal that the board approved in concept. Alex and I met with Metro North on Tuesday. I have to say I was expecting it to be really difficult. Yeah.

Um and it really wasn't. And there were like I don't know there were like nine people on the call from all different points on all different parts of Metro North. They still needed to go higher. Alex sent their designs. They made a very minor comment which was um please remove where the Metro North sign is on Alex. is going to show you on Alex's design to take take away the gray background like great.

I don't know. They haven't answered yet what the actual permitting process looks like, but we've got concept approval and Alex has had a sign manufactured based on our concept approval last time to show us what they'll look like in the field and ask for us to give the go-ahad on.

So, I was here in September. We agreed to move forward. In that time, I reached out to four different vendors. Um, and we got one to actually I mean, three responded to us. Two said no. One said absolutely not doing this. One said, uh, well, we will do this and then they ghosted me. Another didn't respond at all. This guy, I actually engaged with him to talk about the welcome sign specifically because he does hand carved wood signs. And then he's like, "Oh, I could do the I can do road signs and metal fabrication and printing as well." I'm like, great. So, he actually has come through with a quote, which is quite reasonable. That's probably another discussion. Um, the point is I've been working with this guy to get these samples made up. We met with Metro North. Um, what else has gone on

talking about the right way?

Uh, that doesn't seem like there going to be any blockers on it. We just have to get them specs and then I have to talk with the sign guy again just to get a quote on the welcome signs. I'm treating that separately. It's like here here's the way I'm thinking about it. There are these signs for the village which are pedestrianoriented. Um many of them are with Metro North. Um and they did say that they would have to have their guys do the installation but it's reasonable. Um and then there are a few small examples of signs that are uh for cars like at the corner of market and one. Um, and then there's some odds and ends like no trespassing at the, you know, wastewater treatment plant or something like that. Um, one of the next steps I can just talk about with editing, but let me show you the samples here.

The big reveal. They've been in our kitchen. Um, now we have two weights. I only have one to show you today. These are thin. These thin ones would be mounted on the brick stair structure. Um, could you aim that the camera? The the brick stair structure. Uh, so this would get you down under the tracks. Um, there's a thicker weight, so we had to revise the quote on that which would be durable enough to put up on posts. Uh, one of the other things we don't actually have an answer on yet is the cost of posts, but we can deal with that later. I think we have Michelle's been able to estimate based on Yeah. And if you

Yes. And if you all open up tracker all the numbers in there and I spec out all the post that we would need um like that. This would be right when you get off the frame. Beautiful. So this will be right on the brick structure as you're exiting the path out a little bit. Yeah. You can see how pretty these are, but I think it makes perfect sense for the uh for mounting. Try that one more. Oh. Oh, yeah.

And I think it's worth pointing out for folks who will watch this that you have included language and universal symbols to help people find things so that you, you know, like the the turnaround you get to to get to the the foundry, etc.

Yeah. Yeah. I and also like since you're new on the team and you probably weren't here for the initial presentation like we're covering all of our bases on this like we want this to be clear plain language. We're replacing all the signs that are wrong or misleading or just like there just opportunities where there aren't signs and we know I know based on volunteering at the info booth and we all know based on living here like people get lost, people are wandering around. There are hordes of people crossing the tracks looking for trails down there. There are no trails down there. They're asking where's the river? It's madness. So, um, so bottom line, the document that you can look at covers, I think, everything.

Um, so I think probably the next discussion is like we we need to really talk about editing these down. Um, get some feedback on that. I would love to be able to install for the spring. You should put these up. Um, I'm not taking them home. We will um are there specifications for how they should be installed?

We're winging this because this guy that we're working with, as great as he is, like he's not a sign guy or an installer, he will print them and but he's like in terms of labor and posts, like that's not his business. So, let's let's let's have a conversation with Bugsy because how the way he has put up signs in the past is, you know, bolting them in. Yeah. But I think we want to make sure So, you've gone you've gone to the effort to make a beautiful sign. We don't want to end up with ugly bolts. Yeah. Um so, maybe think through how to do that. Gold. Gold. Yeah, gold. Alex, I didn't think about it till now, but the ones that are in the air like on a post. Okay, great. the rounded. Yeah.

Yeah. So, we've got everything's rounded. If it's going to be posted, we've got some that are on single post. You got some that are on aluminum square post. Aluminum square post mean double-sided. We don't have to worry about people running into it. So, safety's accounted for. How? Go ahead. And thank you. How many sides are they going to be? What's the uh I don't know the number. Um let's take a look here. Um maybe you can share around the link again to to everybody. We're not gonna go through it all now. Um there are 27 pedestrian and sidewalk signs. Yeah.

There are there's one car sign. There are six that six that relate to parking. Um, and there are three that are kind of plate specific and then there are three welcome sign proposals which I think is another conversation we should have because I haven't got any feedback on this and I just kind of winged it. Um, but the idea is one thing I didn't mention was also is a clutter reduction project too and if you think about all the noise around here that leads to more confusion. We want to rip all that out. And I would even say like where the welcome signs are is like clear out a lot

organizations on those posts that don't exist anymore. Yeah. And and we have discretion over clearing those things up. Okay. And one other question just noticing is are they going to be sort of lit by ambient light or surrounding light just looking at the slightly darker background. I'm not specking out any light stuff here. No. Um we can always we can tell it might be how it looks down there or something. Maybe the these the signs that are the big like cold spring. These might be wood. Oh, I think we should have a discussion about like what this guy can do for us. Okay. Um would it be cool? But it's just a matter of taste.

They look they're very readable and clear. You know, it's it's a very kind of clear impact. It's it's easy and concise to understand and comprehend. Yeah. I have high contrast uh highly readable type face and uh big we use we're meeting again next Wednesday. You guys are gone. Um but if you are willing to leave them here and maybe we can all Well, we can't all do a site visit. We can two at a time on site and look at them and get a sense of day and night. Shall we have do you want to have the entrance signs discussion tonight or not tonight? Sure.

Yeah. Um well, we have three welcome sign proposals. Uh they would be at um 301 in front of town hall. There would be one at uh fair and 90D. And there would be one There are already welcome signs here. Yes. So they're just replacing those. Yeah. You can't see them. Uh they're big. They're 60 in x 40 in. And um they're consistent with our branding. And uh I for the heck of it, I just brought in a little bit of variety. One of them says 1846. One of them says named by George Washington. One of them says in the town of town. I like the I like

I was going to say like we could have different things on each side. So I like that the historic village of Yeah, I like that too. And that also eliminates one of the signs that's there for the historic district. Get rid of all of it. Um and you would had you you plan one of these up on 301 as well. Uh the the DOT sign. That's this one. Yeah. Um that's the one we're going to have to that's one of the ones we have to work with on. I think all three of them might require DOT approval. I in my head I was imagining the the permit conversation being around um you know actual gateway with

big pole signs. I had hadn't thought about that one. Um one thing we might want to

try to optimize when when when Fur Trail was considering still considering the southern part of the trail. Um we had multiple meetings with um the town and New New York New Jersey trails and Hellbane about signage and and Helane in particular got hit hard last year when the trails closed and people were cutting through the woods and cutting through the campus. And so Ford um designed or FOD paid for the production of signs for In the Woods and on Cedar Street and then um had offered to go through the permitting process for Hane with Haldane for a gateway sign at Craigside to identify the entrance to the school.

Right. that is obviously not materializing because now the focus is going north. Um I'm not suggesting that the village pay for it, but it may be if this if if we're finding that the prices are good, it may be a conversation we want to have with Halane to see do you want to piggyback on an order. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um but they'll need this they they need to pursue their own permit with DOT. Okay. I would even suggest that they kind of approach it in their own brand language, too. Oh, yeah. I don't mean that we design it. whatever they whatever it is they have just maybe they can hop I don't know if they can if there's any um economy of scale of ordering at once

probably oh um probably yeah I I know fewer details about this I know that the guy is good at doing wood carve signs he's looked at this he's like yeah I could totally do this um it's expensive like all these metal signs all of them produced comes out to about six and a half grand that's I expected it to be much more supposed to be a lot more too. The wood signs, three welcome signs is 12 grand. Um, so like it is more and and a lot of that's just like the large cedar posts. The guy said, the guy said each post is like $200. I'm like, okay. I mean, you know, it's got to go right in the curb side, so it needs to be big and durable. And I assume they get installed with footers. And

I think he would be able to install that because that again like he he does he's a wood carving sign guy. um like this is more of like the outsource of production to his neighbor business. Okay. So, I think he can handle the welcome signs. All right. Well, we'll get more details on that and have a proper proposal. Yeah. I have a question over in Putnham County. I think it's Nancy Montgomery saying she has something money for tourism. Yeah. Is there any way that they could

not what you think? Um, it is a the tourist office has a staff member with a salary of almost $90,000. There is no budget or very small budget. Their their biggest that that role's biggest um responsibility is taking the I love New York fund grant fund every year and advertising that one. So, it's not it's not a a it's not the tourist office tourism office that you imagine. Um, unfortunately,

I actually looked up there are some state grants for tourism and I thought maybe it could work for the fines and it's not like it's about promotional materials and not about uh uh these kinds of installations. So, that wasn't a fit either. Remember that we when we approved the parking waiverss for 37 Main and One Depot, we're specific in the resolution that those those items th that income should go to improving parking things related to parking and related to pedestrian movement. So, in my mind, and we did talk with the attorney about this when we were writing that resolution, in my mind, this is a a great use of that because it's it's doing exactly what was intended to do.

Yeah. So, we need to look at the numbers and see where we where we come in, but it seems like it's in the r in the range of possibility. H solar lights on the light. Solar lights. I never thought about lighting. I think okay so like I do think and I would like some help on this is like we need to actually look at my document and edit and I want feedback on that. I'm not looking for aesthetic feedback or directional feedback like we're kind of past that point but I need you to like go to the sites like print it out. I'll print it out for you. Come by the house. I will print it out for you. Take this with you. Walk around. Think about it. Look at way the way I'm placing the arrows. Think about the language I'm using.

Um really kind of put it through the ringer. Um, one thing I never thought about was lighting or kind of like what it would be like at night. I just sort of was thinking high contrast does the job. But like feel free to to think about that as well when you're out there. Maybe the especially the entrance the gateway signs. That's what Yeah. Yeah. I I the other ones, you know, we don't generally have lighting on those, but I think the entrance ones are kind of like, you know, those are significant. That's the like Yeah, that's the boom moment. I feel like that looking at lighting might be we're not violating any of our present zoning laws, are we?

We the village um because we'd be reviewing ourselves. Um we are exempt from going through the ZBA. Um I'm just trying to think about all the the Facebook people. Yeah, we don't. You don't I'm really concerned about it. Don't be concerned about it at all. It's not real. If people have a concern, the forum to come to is Village Hall either we're we're available live

online. We're here in person. If you've got a concern, bring it in. We don't read Facebook for for your comments. One one thing we talked about, I can't remember if it was like formally in this discussion in September or if it was on the side, but um you might consider like writing more articulate language around the sign policy for the village because the way we got to where we are now, the reason there are so many signs and it's so chaotic out there is perhaps that the language is not tight enough or there isn't any language. You can write a policy to prevent more clutter and noise coming into the village moving forward. It's time to do I mean we have size specifications etc but there isn't an approach to design yeah

anyone ever a comprehensive yeah so if we move forward with this and like we're good with the designs like one of the follow-ups from this after we actually get all this in production is I can put together some sort of idea of like what guidelines would look like or a document around that when you look for feedback by

um I I mean it would be nice to button this up in the next month like by midappril maybe. Um we've got a bunch of things running in parallel like we can figure out funding sources and discuss that. In the meantime if somebody wants to run point on on doing editing and feedback I would say over the next uh probably by midappril would be great. What we should do is send send out a document saying with a map just to bring the sign that that'll be good. I'll send this to you or I can print it out for you. Thank you. Yeah. Good. All right, Alex. Great. Yeah. Thank you, Alex. The um the Google t-shirt is a considerable flex.

Oh, yeah. Well, and just to say Alex is doing it as a volunteer, but then like that's really we're getting some really skilled um design designing um and although also like parking people have talked about this for years and we're doing it. It feels great. Thank you. All right. Now we have to deal with Are you leaving me? I'm leaving. Yeah. away. You know how

the box? Yeah. Do you need the box? Put in Mary's office. Don't block the door. But if you lean it against the wall over there. Thank you. In Marre's office. You got to hang it on the ceiling. Okay. Have a great trip. By the way, um we we table the survey. You've got the bills. Yes. It's on I you made a motion to add that to the agenda, right? Yeah. Yes, we've got we've got those two here. Yep. There. We've got it at the end. Who Who has bills?

Yeah. Uh, I make a motion to approve the bills batch 8390 in the amount of $150,53. Second. I Okay, now to the add-on items. Um, we are tableabling approval of minutes. Um, Michelle, want to talk through? So this is this is an a vehicle I understand to be a vehicle that has a good engine and is worth investing in by replacing the body. Right. That's what's been relayed by um chief gun.

Make sure I was remembering. We've talked about so many vehicles in the last couple of weeks. So he got bids on I don't actually have it in front of me. He got bids on three um from three Yeah. installers. There we go. Um and the least expensive he was he's recommending green truck division in the amount of 11,1225. This is a 20 what?

2016. So, this can be put in just to so folks know what we're talking about. I have three quotes attached or Thank you. to replace the existing rotted dump body on our 2016 Ford F50 small dump truck. They'd like to have Robert Green Truck Division do the work. We have the lowest bid by $2,500 and they installed the Boss plow we purchased on our 2014 Ford F250 late last year. Um, yeah. And the discussion that we that was had he wasn't clear about it in the agenda, but the discussion that he had during during budget discussions was that he felt that this the vehicle was worth investing in. You're not going to attest to that. Right on.

And and it being a good price as well. Excellent. Would you like to make the motion? Yeah. Okay. Make a motion to accept the highway crew chief R. Downy's recommendation to accept low bid for dump truck bed replacement Robert Green division in the amount of $11,12.25. Second favor. I you.

Okay. And then the next also seems left on my desk but I can talk through it. Um, so we New York State Liquor Authority notifies us with a 30-day window when a new liquor license is requested. There is a request for a transfer of the existing liquor license at what was Pett's to a new company, a new LLC called Clove Ridge. Um, we noticed in the application two things. um my email so I'll make sure I get it right. Um there were two things about it that were um not insurmountable. Thank you. This little Here we go. Um couple of things. The So currently or until Saturday Pette when it was open was classified. There's someone waiting to come in. Oh, it's our attorney. Um, it was classified as a a retail cafe and the new application identifies the applicant as a bar tavern and is um that may be that may require site plan approval. So, we wanted to point that out. And the second thing is that it calls out in the application a sidewalk cafe and the village code specifically prohibits the sale of alcohol on public property. So the other locations that have sidewalk alcohol sales and consumption have they own the property

um to do that. So none we're not saying no to the application. We're just pointing out to the liquor authority that these are things that need to go through the the village review process. So, I'm asking for your um approval to send this feedback to the liquor authority. I agree. That a motion. I make a motion that you send it to the liquor authority. Thank you. Second. and and our own zoning code is going over this same time. Oh yeah, it doesn't even happen. It's still got to go the planning plan.

This is just New York State saying we are contemplating issuing a license here. Is there anything you're concerned about? And these are our concerns. It is an allowable It's in the B1. It's an allowable use in the B1 with a site plan review, but not on our property.

Right. The question will become are they going to ask for variance related to sale? And that will be for the zoning board to consider. So, we have a motion. Second. All in favor? I I you'll send that out in the morning. Okay, we have Melissa Knaps. Timing is perfect. Hello, Melissa. Our attorney, one of our attorneys is here. Um, they brought my sheet, so I would be prepared to make a proper motion. I make a motion to enter executive session um for two items. Melissa, you're going to have to I have one other item we need to talk about really fast. Um the reason for the executive session um is to uh review the employment history of individuals and to um give an update on a proposed purchase of real property where disclosure would substantially affect value. A second all in favor I

I So we're entering executive session 823. to the right. All right, it is now 10:06. I made a motion at 10:00 to exit executive session. The tweets seconded it. They all voted to come out. Here we are back to the public portion that we're talking through general fund expenses. Take it away, Michelle. So for the health fund expenses, um I do a narrative and it kind of does department by department. Um an o quick overview for the departments. Um most departments will have a personal service, some have equipment and then contractual. So, anytime you see a 100 account, it's salaries 200, equipments 400, it's contractual, something paid to a vendor contract. Um, anything not to an employee. Um, so as we go through this, um, I'm going to run through some of the departments really quick, so stop me. Um, but ones that have like no change to just keep going. Um so the board of trustees department um no anticipated changes for personal services or cont uh contractual uh village justice court. Um here the the salary changes year-over-year because of the new clerk that's in the spot. the Justice Department um has requested new filing cabinets um proposing,

you know, maybe that $2,000 to come out of fund balance for a onetime purchase. They will look into a JCAP grant, but by the time the timeline for a JC cap grant happens, you're looking at about a year out from now, too. So, they need something to tie them over. Are we allowed to buy There's Oh, no. Maybe it closed. There was a There was a a an office company, office furniture company in Fishkill that had rooms of new stuff and then had loers and loggers. The valley business. Are we allowed to buy used stuff?

The village procurement policy right now precludes used items. They have they've got huge numbers of really nice like when corporate corporate offices get rid of their stuff. Even their new stuff was reasonably priced. That's who we used when we redid the the shared office here. Um and that's like that one cabinet was roughly $1,000. that new registar one with the double doors and um so two that's where I got the 2000 from for two cabinets.

Okay. Well, I mean we need to get her something. Michelle 1110 personal services it says requested part-time clerk but that was declined or so the justice court um when the previous deputy clerk was in that spot instead of the court clerk she was helping doing some parking not just parking permits but parking ticket questions to an extent uh so the justice is requesting another part-time clerk to help with The parking program,

the parking program is a lot and it consumes a lot of time. I can see how a part-time clerk would be incredibly helpful. I don't see that we have money to do it this year. And the new deputy clerk of some like flex Kelly was able to do it because she was had secure, for lack of a better term, security clearance from the court. She had already been a village. She had already been a town justice clerk. So, she had transferable skills.

Mayor department status quo. Um, auditor and accountant department status quo. Um, I did reach out to the auditors um for an updated pricing and contract for the next few years. Oh,

no. But that guy needs to come back every year. Okay. the previous person has left the company. Um, so we'll have a new person and so now we could do another five years can have a they try to keep the same person no more than five years. So now it just for a change anyway um budget officer and budget notices um about the same. Um the cost of legal notices have gone up so added a little bit more there. Can we pull I mean what is it? It's $1,500 for budget officer

$2500. Are you required to give me that? You're required to name a budget officer? Yes. But are you required to pay me? I don't know the answer to that. Um 2500 bucks. Uh, mayor, let's keep moving. Well, let's keep with the advertising for the um public line item. I was reading in the Nikon book that we don't have to advertise. I mean this is waiting.

Yeah. We just have to let people know that it's posted in the village office or websites and we don't have to advertise in a paper. My understanding and Mar can't have two conversations at once. I'm sorry. regularly scheduled meetings wouldn't have to necessarily appear in the paper, but a public hearing where you're accepting comments has to appear in the paper with a written affidavit signed by the paper. And we don't publish week toe meetings in the paper. We only publish public hearings. I mean, I must have read it wrong. I thought we we just had to tell people it's posted at the villa on the website that we could save. No, there's just public hearings.

My mistake. Okay. the village clerk uh deputy clerk. Um the website the website is contractually going up by about 5%. Um and then a request is to have a consultant help re finish redesigning the new website. Can you tell me what number we're on right now? 14. Can we go over engineering services? We're not there yet. 1410. Wait, wait. Can before you Yeah. 1410.

The village clerk website. No contractual. Can one of those go on fund balance on the website is? It's down on the It's on the village clerk one. Look at this. Look at the narrative. Okay. Okay. So, the one where we're hiring somebody to do the website. Okay.

In the narrative, I use the word contractual for all 400 accounts. They're not always itemized. Even though there's specifically a village clerk contractual and website, they're both contractual line item. Thank you. 1420. Um, so this is attorney. Um so this is general counsel labor attorney are on the top line for attorney contractual. Um and they'll always be CMR but their new acronym are raising rates 10% effective June 1st. to take the average of where it is and up to 10% add it in time for a labor attorney and then a portion for fund balance is the original proposal that Melissa put through to update the handbook would have been done in this budget year but I don't think that that's reasonable um and given that that would be a one-time expense I think push that to fund balance but her hourly consulting is built into this 105 number um attorney process executing is for the courts. I lowered that a little bit um based on actual usage. It differs from what he had proposed when he did the contract on how many hours per month, but in reality for the past 3 years.

Yeah.

Engineer contractual. Um I put in about the same as last year. um a they average about 8,000 a month. There's a lot of engineering going on in the general fund. Um so that's just the general fund average. Um for FEMA, um which is on the revenue side, um seven about 17,000. Han estimated that for fish and main those two projects about 17,000 in engineering costs. So they sit here as a cost, but I added them back in as revenue because FEMA will reimburse us. And I added it in at the 87 and a half% rate. It's not a full one to one

and that's money that we already have in our accounts because they're small projects where they're not we're not waiting for approval on those. Um you won't see the revenue on these lines because as the auditor say defer it until when we actually realize the expense. So the the money is in the account but it doesn't show up on the the statements for this current year. Also included in engineering for fund balance as we talked about before would be the second phase of doc um engineering if we need to do it if we need to do phase two. Yeah. Okay.

So I would my next question was phase three is that not likely? So there are two phases, two phases plus diving will be phase three and so I don't have diving. I was thinking of diving as part of phase two. Um we authorized up to tonight 31 31. Well, I'll add that and take that from the fund balance. And so what are we we're expensing phase one in this in the current year? Yes. May 30th.

Just catching up. Thanks. So that's training in engineering. Beth's management. Um they request to have another summer intern for a couple hours um for the week. And that's that's what is that request for to catch up on to continue um scanning? What's what what is it? How does

digitization and organization of files? Okay. on the next um big department issuer of services which is essentially stuff that happens in village hall 1620. Um so the the board also works a lot on building stuff. So the majority of her salary plus the part-time clerk falls here in shared services. Um the contractual items is you know cleaning floor mats um things that happen at village hall um on a weekly or monthly basis. The computer software this is the financial system um for water payroll and accounting. Uh it's split between all three funds this year. they are requiring a mandatory upgrade um and it's a onetime cost of um $5,000. Is it a is it a system that you want to stay with or is it worth is it is it worth exploring see whether there are cheaper and more efficient programs. I know nothing about that by the way. I'm just throwing it out. I think the lift to transfer to new systems um is not worth it especially the water because of how it's interfaced with so many moving parts.

Yeah. heating and electric um the costs are rising through the years, but for a day I took an average of actual usage for gallons on the heat and put a current oil price. Um I'm not sure if that's something that's going to stabilize or but it it is what it is for right now. Electric, it's about the same. the copy machine. Just to note, um that contract is up soon. So, I'm not sure what that will look like come January of next year, the pricing.

And we Why do we lease it? Why do you not buy one? Um I think the thought is to have a new machine and be covered under uh warranty and the service package but it's you can the option at the end of the lease is to buy out the machine the same way you buy out a car after a week. It seems like we've been I feel like we've been having so much trouble with that machine lately. Sometimes it's connectivity. I mean, it's always something different. The one night it was software issues with Adobe because it hadn't

it corrupts your file. So, it wasn't it wasn't did everything. I don't know if you remember when you got the agenda like garble. That's why that's happening. Support is the manage technologies contract um for computers, servers, and all that stuff. if they're not proposing a change in the next fiscal year. We just did that big upgrade last year. I mean a change in like the monthly rates. Oh, that equipment. Great. Sorry.

For technology, uh this is where um the A+ contract was. So here part of A+ is the door access subscription and that is something that it's paying for the licensing and to have door the doors work. We need to pay that. They have another support charge that they were billing us annually for $6,700 for the cameras. managed technology is willing to take it over at a much at a reduced rate per um so that if the board's okay with that we can bring a formal proposal that I think the service rem has been terrible

and then that'll be a savings to the village too municipal building repairs. So this is the line that we usually use to allocate fund balance. um for projects that have yet to beenident be identified because it's usually a capital project for something within the village. Well, it has to be within the village, but like a building. Um for this year, because there's so many other fund balance projects, I haven't allocated anything from fund balance to building repairs. Like one year, this was the wall um came out of here.

What have we done with that since though? Because the wall is before us. What what have we what what in the last four years what have we used it for? So the current year it wasn't allocated for anything specific and it ended up going mostly to snow snow removal. The year before um was going to piggyback on village hall upgrades because the costs were coming in more than the grant. Y and then the doors replacing doors at village hall. So nothing really happened. Not much happened the year prior with that money either.

And we've still got the we've still got the grant money to work through. Are we are we going to spend all of those lines in the current year? That's what I'm that's what I'm get that's what I'm trying to get at is is maybe maybe we don't need to allocate it. Does that help us in terms of having more in fund balance at the end of the year? We do have we have grant money to do the roof.

Um, you know, maybe that's like we we have to cap it at at the at the grant money. We can't spend more than the grant. We we were we had envisioned being able to do more with the grant became so tangled and complicated with the outdated systems in the building that we never got farther. If we set the goal at the roof for this year and we that's used for the grant from the grant, maybe we don't need this line. But but what does that mean for like like the firehouse put in a request for a number of repairs in that building? Yeah, I haven't. Oh,

you I saw that we had asked them for more concrete numbers, but Oh. Oh, yeah. The what? You're right. We haven't gotten numbers back. We got We got items and I said, "Can you come back with numbers?" And we haven't gotten any numbers back. What kind of um of I'm just looking

repairs or changes. I mean some of them are it's small things like that we could do now with with um fund balance now it's meeting um solution for meeting room floor paving the paving the front lot um exit door at church street has a hole at the base the bench on the pad where they sit side. The toilet in the ladies room is old and very low to the ground lock on the ladies room door. And then there's the larger stuff which is like I don't even I don't even think that bit like the facade, the foundation, the building is a mess. and investing investing in the the long-term I'm not sure the wisdom in investing in that building for long-term stuff like that but things like toilets and doors I mean that's achievable but you're right I don't have numbers

is a fun balance line Michelle usually okay so that help well yeah because it's a building that we It's our building, right? That it's like a one time expense, but so just given we're trying to shrink and we would be adding to a zero. I don't So you're saying take are you supporting the takeout? No, I'm just saying even if Yeah. If we add if we put something into this line, it's not going to worsen the gap that we're trying to close. Got it. Because it's fun. I don't know what the number is, but So, in other words, it doesn't help us to go through this agony. It's a little Yeah, a little. Okay, I'm with you. We're all getting tired.

Okay,

next section is um insurance. This is a general liability insurance. Um I put in 10%. Um waiting to hear back from Brown and Brown. It's hard to get an accurate estimate because the policy is not up until general liability is in June or July and workers comp is August. Um so we're still kind of far out, but usually they can give us some kind of ballpark sometimes. Um last year we got lucky and um the rates didn't really increase much. Um but I think that that's a one-year anomaly because usually they go up. So 10% placeholder. Yeah. Yeah. Why Why has that gone down compared to last year's budget? So, it was 66, right, to 60 62.6, but you're saying there's a 10% increase,

a 10% increase over actuals, not over budget. Okay. So, the actual expense than the policy cost. And because it didn't go up that much as anticipated last year, it brings it down and now your base is lower to start working. Go check. Um before Greg left he was looking at I thought it was workers comp like switching to another workers comp. Remember? Yeah. Um is that something that's worth thinking of at some point? Remember that?

So um there's a there's only a handful of my understanding municipal workers comp insurance people in the game. Um, the village has typically flip-fpped back and forth between the two that Brown and Brown recommend the most, Nimmer and Perma. Um, whoever's cheaper. U, Nimmer has been offering a two-year policy. Um, and it ends up working out well for the village. Um, in terms of looking at general liability insurance, we can't switch companies because of the dam. Um, next department is the police department.

What's contingent account? It's like a It's always been in the budget um for small like emergencies, but $3,000 isn't really covered much. I mean, have you do you feel like you've had to draw from that line? No. Okay. I feel like much forget it.

The police personal service. It's mostly based off of um the contrast. This year OIC is requesting to have extra officer on Saturday and Sundays um from April through November. It's up in the air for a 6 hour or 8 hour. I talked to him um and 6 hours seems to be where we landed. Okay. Um so it's roughly 35 Saturdays where in the past and 35 Saturdays and Sundays in the past it's typically only been the extra officer on weekends in the fall.

How do folks feel about that proposal from the is that in the budget now? And how much is it?

Because of holiday Mondays, too. Everyday Mondays. Um, we didn't ask I didn't make to ask about that. The extra officer. Yeah. The concept of having a second officer in our busy season which is now April and November. I don't don't think it's necessarily a bad idea, but do we need him from April to November? Could it be more compressed period of time? Well, I mean, if you look at the the data that Matt presented to us last time, the surge starts in April. Yeah. Um I wonder about

I wonder more about the dead of summer when it's really hot and numbers drop off. um that that that might be a time where there would be could be more flexibility and maybe we can do by do with one. We'll have to like I don't know. We'll have to see what this season looks like.

So last year um they cost roughly 8,000 and so it would have you're doubling the coverage. So last year the coverage was Friday, Saturday, Sunday for nine or 10 weekends if you're just doing Saturday and Sunday longer. Um and then it brings up to about 15,000. So it kind of doubles. I don't think you can drop off the way Fridays have been in high season. I don't think you can drop it off on Friday. Other didn't ask for it specifically.

Oh, he's asking only for Saturday. I mean that's his judgment. Um would would there be a tolerance among the board for for doing April, May, June, trying leaving out July and August and then September, October, November. That's we need feedback from uh that person before we do that. I think there's something in it. I think it's something to it is Yeah, we should have Matt's feedback for sure. I'm all about saving it.

Yeah. I mean, if if if I'm asking if people are willing to have the conversation, I also I or look at April like April might be ramping up, but it certainly be lower than hard to remember. Um, you mean from his chart or hard to remember from the field? Just from from the field. I mean, well, the the there's also an outlier with I mean, what we don't know is weather, right? I mean, we just had like a couple days of 70 degree weather. So, like saw what it was like. Who knows what?

But like but also Matt had like that big drop in October. So, there's something, you know, like something in that data that I was so surprised by that. Yeah. it just doesn't and and if you look at like the parking I think like numbers for parking tickets or um parking usage it it has it has a big you know it spikes in October. So, um, just maybe we want to use a few different points if we're thinking about this. Um, and and also it was yeah, it's one it's one data set and it it's one year

and it's worth it's worth digging in. I mean, we do we are feeling the bodies in the spring. Um I I my question is the summer and maybe it's halfway through April. April. Yeah. Yeah. Oh to use parking meter fees. Um, April, May, July, August, September are all about the same amount of revenue with October being the But that's not parking is one measure, right? That's not how many people are getting off the train, walking on the streets.

So, it's like they all they there's a piece of all of them that make a difference. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, we need to talk we need to talk to Matt, but it seems like that's a spot where we could well, and I think maybe part of the the conversation with Matt is like, yes, it's important for all of these months, but like we're in a really tough budget and like help us figure out like how to prioritize because um because I understand if he's like, "No, I need all you know, but we're trying to make really tough choices." I just also I think about you think you think about worst case scenario and you have there have been some uncomfortable situations when we've had one officer on and crowds. Um and I don't want to risk anybody's safety. That's that's the other thing that's that's high on my mind. This is this is this is the really really difficult part of being a tourist town.

No money to work with and the responsibility. All right. So that's Michelle's noted that parking enforcement. Uh the budget currently has one parking enforcement officer to work every weekend and then one an additional one half the year. That's kind of the schedule they're following right now. I mean, that's how we I was just going to say they um equipment. Yeah.

OIC is requesting a few things. Um one is um we talked about a little bit a new gas engine Durango that we would the board wants to move forward with the purchase. It would um it would be a fund balance payment um a fund balance allocation here. So you don't have it touch it. Excuse me. You don't you don't have it as a line item because of that, right? No, I do. I do, but then I pulled it out to find out. Okay. I see it in your narrative. I was looking for the numbers on page.

Oh, I think we're just a different format. Oh, tweets. Is that the one you're looking at? We're sharing documents and clickers. So, would you like me to share? Lex is also requesting two new tasers with licensing on a 5-year payment plan. That's approximately 10,000 a year.

And this this is something that's important to talk about. We have tasers that were they were handme-downs, right, from the sheriff's department? They were purchased new, but they were purchased on an older model, even though a newer model was either coming out or had just come. This is years ago now. Years ago.

And now, as they bring on new models, the older models aren't supported by the company. So, there's a real liability in having these old tasers. um the cost of them. Is it the software that drives it high? Something drives it high. The laying thing, but I'm nervous about them. I'm nervous about them having ones that are not that the company doesn't support

per officer. So it's two pieces of equipment, two actual tasers, let each person, each officer using it make their own life. And so it's really high because we have a lot. So even though they're super bartending, we have to pay a monthly license for all of the officers. Uh Officer Jackson would be better suited to ask for that. Um I have asked the question if there's anything that Axon can do to lower the quote. Um, but I don't believe he's heard back.

Yeah, he's he has been reaching out to them and he hasn't gotten respon. I mean, of course, they're not going to want to answer that question, but it does seem logical to me to not be paying for 15 licenses when there's only one officer on at a time in on weekends. But then how would you they'd have to like how how would they know? But like there's one computer license, you know, I mean it's a silly example, but like I could go, you know, log into a computer and then someone else comes and loss. I guess there's different login. I don't know. Yeah. It just I don't I don't I to make it

Yeah. per person rather than per It's the same licensing structure from Axon cameras as well. The problem is that Axon dominates the market. Yeah. There there are they have virtually no competition. They dictate they dictate the terms. It stinks. That does appear in the line item a $10,000 expense. And then the third request um is for new core craft lockers um that come with installation. New what? The brand is Corecraft lockers.

Oh, lockers. And they come installed this brand with the labor. It's approximately 5200. Jackson was asking and the lockers are I would need to go up and look at them again. Haven't been up there in a while, but my recollection is that a number of them are not operable, right? He said that they're very old. Um, and I I know that um last time two were purchased and they were very expensive and then this would replace all of them at once.

I mean I don't feel like I can judge without seeing them. Um I understood it to be a question of operability. Um does that does that number include there was a proposed reconfiguration of space.

I had Ashley who said that the lockers really need to be he would still request the lockers with or without the renovation. The renovation that he's that they're asking for is to shift right now the c there's a camera that's behind the desk which is recording all of screens and DOJ does not want that to be the case. So, they're proposing to move the desk over where the bench is at the end of the locker room and have the bench on the other side. Um, do you have anything to add to that?

I was just pulling up with the uh event and he just confirmed that um regardless of the renovation, 11 lockers need to be replaced. It sounds like we need to have a followup conversation on that. I I just don't know the condition, the actual condition up there. Police vehicle repairs. Um this one is um a place where we might be able to lower the budget. of I increased it a little bit based on yearto date actuals. Um but if you go back two years the majority of those higher expenses in vehicle repairs was for the 2018. So with the purchase of a new Durango they retired the 2018 um and that's what's been eating the repair line. So I do think that we move forward with the Durango, we could drop this 12 back down to nine. Most of the other stuff that appears in the police budget is contractual either from the PBA for uniforms or systems and software and licensing um for things that they need to run the department and their computers. traffic control. Um, now hearing a presentation on wayf finding. Um, I thought that it would be a a fund balance project next year. Is there could it sounds like April stuff might start moving? Um, some of it some of it will be able to be done this year,

but that's not the numbers that reflect. This number doesn't reflect the numbers that Alex is finding. You've got two. Are you talking about this? You've got 2,000, right? 20,000. 22,000. Keep my glasses on. 20,000. Yeah, we're good. Um, so if that's a one-time overhaul of signage, I that I think would be fun balance. Yeah. But you said we might spend portion of it this year and we in which case we could spend some this year and reduce it by 5,000 next year. But again, it's a if it's a fun balance, it's fun balance. Right. Right. Right. Right.

I love the optimism, but knowing how long it takes for things to get printed and approved June first. Probably on street parking. Um the Park Mobile fees on average like the percentage of the revenue versus the expenses back to Park Mobile seem to have increased a little bit. Um but I did lower this line a little bit because um parking meter revenue is expected to be a little less than it was budgeted in the past and but we've talked about that last month.

And do we remind me do we pay do we pay licensing on the meters? We put a monthly fee at the meters. It's $75 per meter per month. $75 per meter for 150 bucks a month. 225 meters. Oh, I forgot about the one at the municipal lot. Sorry. That the outlay for those was the initial purchase. Yes.

Fire department. Um it's the gas, the oil, diesel, electricity. Um there is a small building repair line for the minor repairs. Um so there's already 3500 there. Um it sounds like there's a little bit more than $3,500 on the little items. Um but there is something built in for you know something breaks and you know something but that could I mean right we don't have numbers on their stuff but I imag I mean I feel like there that could be wouldn't that be like a new lock on the bathroom door and a new toilet

that could be this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the the one the item that they the item that's that is a high price item. I I don't know how I don't know how pricey because they need to get estimates, but the floor the floor in the community room because of an old pipe leak is has an uneven crack. And there was an attempt in 200 I don't know 18 or something to use an injection material, a material that was injected under the floor to stabilize it. and it did not and the floor has settled again. They're now proposing and I asked them to get numbers on it. If you you've probably done this with your bathroom, there's a a a viscous material that you pour.

Oh, yeah. And it levels the floor. It went through the floor below. Oh, we don't want that to happen. It's not exactly a cheap one. No, it's not. But um until we get numbers, I don't I don't think we can make any decision about it. That that's the most expensive of the I mean setting aside the foundation that the is the most expensive of the items. When the injection was done, that was done through an engineering company.

So that may have been a different engineering company. Um so I wonder if that's something that has to go back through the Yeah, probably be a good idea to get Honda advis on it before we invest money in it. I seen that up there. I could be wrong. You might want to check the engineer on. I think if they sweep all that tile off, level it out and then put like an indoor outdoor carpet like what we got in here or the squares. I think that would take care of it. But no, it would be an accident to us to fix that room up in case we need for extra things.

Yeah, I actually haven't thought about that option before. The floor is gross. Floor is gross. Well, it'd be nice to have a place, you know, where if we have to do a bigger meeting, we got it there. Or I'm just I'm not sure how I'm not sure what is structural and what is visual, which is I guess the question for Will. Well, I don't mean visual, I mean cosmetic. The floor looks I mean it's got a raised portions in it and visible cracks and pretty nasty. But I think that could be I think it's a really huge area to do the epoxy thing. Yeah,

I think just rip out all that old tile. This is just me speaking. Rip out the all the old tile, patch what we got, then put a carpet over just like you would do in in a in a kitchen, right? You you what do they call you? Shiv is what I stab you with, but that's not the right word. Shim shim. Shim shim. Shiv buildings. The building inspector contractual. Um they went up 3% last year. I I assume that they would go up 3% again. I'm not sure though because right last year they talked about increasing it periodically.

Yeah, they gave it was a 2% increase last year I think. Right. You think it was three? It's true. I don't go by my brain right now. I I thought it was two but um I mean it's reasonable to expect that going to go up. Um registar is vital statistic highway 5110 wait can we pause for a second to give you an update on how I'm trying to deal with highway think

um there There was a list of of projected projects put in. My assessment is that it was way too much to get done in this year and it needed to be prioritized. We met did the prioritization the other day. There aren't numbers yet attached to it. And I I I think that we need to get real numbers real numbers from Will because we've had in-house estimates of the past that have been really off. Um so there for me there's still some uncertainty in the highway numbers and needs a little more work to get to real numbers. We I think the big decision we have to make is about is about that backhoe, right? Oh, go ahead. you go from here

um for the highway. So when we talk about highway roadways and facilities um especially for salaries um we should look at it's highway snow removal storm drain sidewalks street clean weing

all is one and recreation um in terms of projects chips projects um it's a revenue and expense are mostly a match um the backho would be fund balance so that's a discussion on purchasing it and taking out a fund balance but doesn't affect the revenues or expenses storm drains and sidewalks. Um because we've never had actual real numbers, it's usually, you know, 10 8 10 12,000 for each category year-over-year. The real numbers would help in those departments, but there are police holders for the backho. Is that something that we want to keep in the budget to be paid out of fund balance?

So, we're meeting tomorrow morning. Bugsy and I are meeting with the highway superintendent for the town and the supervisor. Talk through whether it's realistic to share the vehicles that they have. I think the sticking point is going to be that the intermunicipal agreement requires that an operator go with the equipment. So, we would be drawing a staff member from the town with the vehicle. Um, and I don't know how that I don't know how that's going to work. I don't have an answer for it until we have the meeting in the morning. I just throw another thought into the occasion. Yeah. Question just came to me right now.

I prefer the earlier discussion about municipal consolidation. Not municipal consolidation. We talked about shared services. Um, shared services highway. But say that was to become a fact in five years time is say that was to happen say over a period of five years time does the idea of leasing a backhoe for 5 years make any sense? I don't know if you can lease. I was thinking in terms of a car you could lease. What what Tony found with leasing that was renting short like like renting from United Rentals saying lease like like you lease a car.

Yeah. I think there's too many deals like that. There might be municipalities. I have no idea. It's fun balance. I'll leave it in for now pending. Yeah. I can report out from tomorrow. Um, a lot of this stuff is equipment repair and supplies of materials. The one thing that once we have numbers I would like to firm up is resurfacing other than chips. you know, if there's a small area or a parking lot or things that need to be done in house, that's the number that I

We do have we have identify what he can do in house and what he can't. So that I need to input it into the spreadsheets, but I've got that. Michelle, how much do you have for that? I have 8,000 in there right now, and I have that coming out of like regular operating, not $1,000. Okay. Okay, let me just make a note. I'm not

um what part, what number are we on now? What section? Because he did he did have a a non-equipment request that I think we need to pay attention to. 8,000 around 5110 400. Um, so yeah, it's regarding clothing allowance. Are you ready to talk about that or not yet? Um, I actually didn't have it planned to talk about, but it we could talk.

It's a small item, but I think it I think it makes a difference to the employees. Um the the I the clothing per the sorry the clothing allowance per employee has not been raised in since I've been here um clothing and I care I recommend that these bills first he's look he first he was looking for flexibility where clothing and I was they they choose what they use for clothing and what they use for eye care. Um he's he's uh also re another option is recommend to increase the clothing allowance by $200 per employee in the 22 and a half years I've been employed by the village's items has always been $300 clothing and $250 for eye care. Clothing costs have gone up. So he's asking to to raise that amount and could they have the flexibility to decide if it gets used for eye or clothing the second part.

I figured that this would be part of like the handbook discussions because it's in the handbook what's outlined the 300 the 250 and then the dental um is all outlined. So, we can talk about if it could be swapped. Um, my gut tells me no because it's uniforms, you know, versus actual medical stuff, but I don't know. Maybe there's a way to do it. Well, he's making a point though that we're asking we haven't upped the clothing allowance and a good pair of boots is a, you know, like 125 bucks. Cheap.

Those are cheap boots. Then would we I don't think we would want them choosing like protective eyewear versus like a that's right. So what is what then what is he suggesting if you choose either or saying if you don't it doesn't actually now that I'm saying it out loud it doesn't make it doesn't make logical sense. It was I if an employee doesn't have doesn't need an eye eyeglass prescription can they use it instead for clothing? The bigger the bigger issue, the baseline issue is clothing costs have gone up, the allowance has not gone up. Can we increase the allowance for clothing? That's the more important one, but that's not

right. So they get now they get so it's one line item for clothing and eye and I think that's for the point of view. Got it. um from the handbook's point of view it's very distinct. Um so clothing like you said is 300 250 for a vision and it shouldn't be it's not protective eye it's actual glasses corrective right

but we're al we're asking people to work outside in extreme extreme conditions and get the gear they need for four seasons for $300. That that's that's the point. I don't know what the right number is but 300 doesn't seem like enough. And I realize that's not helping because it's going up rather than down. Anyight on that? As someone who works outside all day, we're talking about four people, right? I would maybe bring it up to five. That's that's pretty good raise for the three of it's not it's not ideal, but

but that's what I'm asking. What is the number? What is a number that you think is reasonable for a gear to be to wear outside working outside in all conditions? Well, this is like a it's like a stipen kind of, you know, to toward towards it. I mean, most people would be expected to provide their own clothing unless it's safety clothing, you know, eyeglasses and welding gloves and things like that. That's all controlled. regular clothes.

What do we when we buy I have seen boots shipped. What are we What are we b This is You know what? This is small peanuts and it's really late and I'm really taking us down a path we don't need to go down. But but that's the that's the ask. Maybe maybe we can talk to you separately about what makes sense from your experience. Mhm. If you go up to 500, it's 2, 4, 6, $700. That's one person. Yeah. Part time staff. So,

um, right now clothing's only to full-time. So, when I said part-time, it meant the person need to put Yeah. Well, that's a consideration, too. no removal. Um, given the winter that uh we just had, I put in $20,000 for a contract a contractor to come in to remove snow um and $7,000 for a new plow. So, last year we paid we used fund balance to buy a new plow for a vehicle that went from water and sewer over to highway. this winter, one of the plows that had a lot of electrical work and it's still not working the way that it should that it's almost it is cheaper to just buy a brand new plow with new electrical wiring and then it saves on all the repairs. The plow has been in for repairs over three times um so far. And it's it's not worth fixing anymore because they can't fix the electrical issue with it. Um so I put that down to fund balance because we did that last year. Do you think 20,000 uncontractual is enough given what we saw this year?

I don't know. I don't know how to what number the board would feel comfortable putting in here. I mean, worst worst case scenario, we really this year we took it out of a line that we're talking about. It's still being paid for by fund balance. No, but we talk about we talked about we had the ability to pay that 70 because we had allocated 100,000 for miscellaneous what might be needed. without that miscellaneous number that might be needed. Where does this get balanced?

On the flip side, because the backhoe is still included because it's on the table, the fund balance allocation already is at like 400,000, which is a a big chunk and it's all pretty much earmarked. But it's in line with Andrew asked the question today. What how does that compare year-over-year? And do you have that behavior? Yeah, it's um see 22 23 was 327. 23 24 was 300. 2425 was 449. Current year 269 next year 400. And these are also

so the the adopted not the not the spend spent. So what's the number? But also 24 25 actuals were 10,000. So right, you know there's I mean we can't predict the weather. Yeah. I mean, I guess I guess what I'm arguing for is because there is that lack of predictability in storm in snowstorms and also like not we haven't had a monster rainstorm, but we don't have a line for that.

We don't have a line for monster rainstorm. I'm wondering if that when where we talked about taking out that miscellaneous item, we should keep it. I'm breaking Michelle. I can't. I know. I think we can put an asterisk or a pin in though that we may need to talk about it again maybe. Okay. I'm inclined. I want to finish this. It's 11 o'clock. We've been here for four hours. Yes. Well, so I I thought you were looking for $34,000 in cuts. $54,000 in cuts. I meant to put a pin in that particular item. Oh, I meant

for the night. You meant stop for the night. Can you stop? Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm okay with stopping for the night. We figure out when we're going to I guess we continue it next week. We'll have to continue it next week knowing that board members won't be here. I think as a result of some of the earlier discussions there are some changes that have will have bring that down. Okay. One one thing though should we just have a quick discussion about the ban um line going to the fund balance or do we need to the 93,500? It's it is what it is, right? You talked to John first about I don't know what we're talking about right now. I thought

the interest. Oh, my my it was more a comment about the long term that it will switch to a bond. Um, so it won't be fund balance. I don't I understand the rationale for including it in fund balance now. We won't always have that option. We won't always have that option. Right. Okay. And I I did ask John first if he has um more guidance other than what the controller guidance for

fund balance usage and a policy that the controller has notoriously said. Um we don't have a threshold or you know an actual policy but here's some guidelines. It should be one-time expenses. Um there are some maybe gray areas and I do think we we hit on some of them sometimes. Um, so I asked John first if he had ever done research or had a a one-page hit list of stuff that we don't know what we don't know. So I asked for his opinion. All right. So we're tableling the discussion. You've gotten some guidance not necessarily useful. That's what it is for tonight. motion to quick.