Town Council - Regular Meeting

recording in progress.

Time being 6:00. I call the February 11th, 2026 meeting to order. Take a moment of silence. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Note to residents, all citizens are welcome to attend the public meeting in person to view the live meeting remotely. Citizens are encouraged to watch the live stream on the Franklin Town Hall TV YouTube channel or the live broadcast on Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 29. To listen to the meeting remotely, citizens may call in using the number 1 19292056099. To participate in the meeting remotely, citizens may join the Zoom webinar using the information below provided below. Meetings are recorded and archived by Franklin TV on the Franklin Town Hall TV YouTube channel and shown repeatedly on Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 29. The Zoom webinar ID number is 84917783849.

Any participants who wish to speak during the webinar must enter their full name and email address when joining the webinar. All participants will be automatically muted upon joining the webinar. In order to speak, participants will need to select the raise hand function to request to be unmuted. All speakers will be required to state their full name and street address before commenting. Announcements from the chair. This meeting is being recorded by Franklin TV and shown on Comcast channel 9 and Verizon channel 29. This meeting may be recorded by others. There's nobody no counselors participating remotely. Upcoming events. The town council office hours will be held on next Thursday, February 19th at 8:30 a.m. at the Franklin Senior Center. Citizens comments. Citizens are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes on a matter that is not on the agenda in compliance with chapter 38 section 20. The open meeting law. The council cannot engage in a dialogue or comment on the matter raised during citizens comments. The council may ask the town administrator to review the matter. Nothing herein shall prevent the town administrator from correcting a misstatement of fact. Is there anybody in the audience? Dave Dave Callahan, 30 Plain Street. Uh just come and uh give an update about uh what happened at last night's school committee meeting. And so we had uh the FY27 budget open hearing. I know it's kind of part of your your doc, so I won't belabor the moment, but ultimately the budget was presented out. Uh it's a 2 and a.5% increase from last year. A very

sustainable level service budget. Uh it's right on our website if you haven't had an opportunity to check it out. Um and I have to give uh just some amazing accolades to our school business administrator uh Miss Motti. This uh it's a line by line budget that really kind of outlines exactly how every single dollar is spent. And what she ended up doing was going the extra mile. And anytime there was a change plus or minus 10% from last year, there's a whole column that fully explains um you know in just you know real words what exactly why did that change happen? Where were the savings found? Uh it's fantastic. Uh so we kind of talk about like transparency. There's nothing more transparent than our what three plus hour meeting as we go through every single dollar. It's all right there. It's right on YouTube. Um, and I also just want to um give a shout out uh last night during that meeting, we had almost the entire council watching just on Zoom alone. Uh, and I know everybody watches on different ways, but uh, you know, this is it was the the most amount of kind of counselors that I saw just on our Zoom meetings in the five years I've been on school committee. Uh, you know, and I know to kind of steal Steve Sherlock mentioned the the new logo, but the first of many. I'm sure it's going to be the first of many of those opportunities. Franklin itself, we have a lot of financial challenges and struggles uh you know that we've encountered and as we kind of move ahead financially as you kind of see in your documents here and you look at the five-year forecast but it's by all of us kind of working together collaboratively kind of move those chains is how we're going to find that progress because it's not we're not all here working for the betterment of one department over another. Uh we're all working together for the betterment of just this entire amazing community. Uh and it was so amazing and refreshing to kind of see everybody here engaging uh council Jane Callaway trip ask some uh wonderful insightful questions and uh it just as we start on this uh new budget season it was on such a hopeful uh note and I look forward to more questions and more meetings as we kind of move forward.

Thank you very much for your time. Thanks Dave. Unfortunately I couldn't watch it. I was keeping an airport open but I'm sure it was a great meeting. Is there anybody else? Steve.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Steve Sherlock, 13 Magnolia Drive, uh, community information director for Franklin Mattis, Franklin Public Radio, and since it's I'm doing more video, I should say Franklin TV as well. Um, good evening. Thank you all. Two quick public service announcements. First one, somebody may recognize, certainly the name's going to be more recognizable, but Alli Ray has published a children's book. It'll be available on February 20th. Uh, as you may or may not be aware, she's had a brain injury and buddy the brain enables that conversation with the youth in terms of what does a brain injury mean, how do you deal with it, etc. Wonderful read available March 20th. She'll be doing some additional uh communications so everybody will know where to go and get it. Second one. Did you know the number two killer from Massachusetts is high blood pressure? I did not. Did you know that the library has a blood pressure stand? It's actually a desk. You can go sit down, spend a couple minutes, put it on, take a test, and find out if you're in that key range or not because you do need to do so. So, I did speak with Alicia Sullivan, the nurse, and as Dave alluded to, which is a good setup, not a steal. Um, this is a first of many, and yes, kudos to the town because it's truly there, first of many. A collaboration between the health department, the library, American Heart Association. This is the first library that has that blood pressure kit. not only for a test in the library, you can take a kit out along with the book or the CD that you're going to use, etc. So, it's available both ways. Additional details I'm sure Felicia and others in the library can explain.

And given the results last night, as Dave's already mentioned, in terms of the participation, clearly we've got a struggle with our struct structural deficit. We've got financial analysis. You're going to get more details tonight in terms of this long-term plan. The fact that there's a number of interested folks in regards to actually doing a strategy as to how that plan is going to be developed, I have hope that we may be the first of many communities to address that significant structural deficit that's facing everybody across the state. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just want to give you the update. Uh last night we were out clearing the roads. That was our 20th event. Uh we recorded 44 in so far this year. Um we are now over our operating budget. We're about 1.51. So about $110,000 over. Still got to do a couple solid analysis, but I just want to give you a heads up on that. And uh but the weather's looking really good. I mean the 10day is like warm is really looking good. So we're the boys have been working really hard. I think you know it's been a lot of hours and I made the joke to Jamie it's Saturday so it's snowing cuz they've come in almost every weekend. So um but thank you.

I know that. I know. Anybody else in council chambers? How about anybody in Zoom land? No. Nothing. Okay, moving on. Councelor's comments. Council Mallaloy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, just a couple of quick thoughts. First, Steve Sherlock, is there a correlation between the budget work we're going to do and blood pressure? The better you do, the better we're going to be.

Can we get those kits here for a couple of meetings? Uh just a a quick comment about the new format. This is the we voted last time to kind of change things up a little bit. So this may feel a little bit different to people. Uh one of the objectives of that was to try to put counselor's comments closer to citizens comments. So to the degree we could collaborate discuss we don't have a referee here tonight but you know to the degree we want to try to facilitate some better communication that's the intent. But I did want to take a second to remind everybody here and at home that you can use uh email. You there's a feature on the town website where you can email the council with questions, comments, etc. We can't all respond to every email for open meeting laws. But I think that might be a good way to you don't have to wait two weeks or three weeks for a meeting to make your voice heard. You can communicate any time. Um I think many of us are trying to be as responsive as possible to even oneoff respond to those things. maybe even direct your concern or your comment to the appropriate town people who can maybe help. So, just keep that in mind as another way to communicate. And I was just going to add another thank you to the DPW folks for all the hard work they've been doing all season. I know it's been tough and you've been doing a great job. So, thank you.

That's it. Thank you. Would you

um just a couple things quickly. It it has what's that song? A long December. Yeah, it, you know, wanted to say thank you again to DPW for all the work that they've that they've done over um this very wintry um season. Uh you know, the fact that the fact that we're already over budget is, you know, does cause some concern. Um but it's the reality of just, you know, where we are today. I think we're all here because we know that we that the town has some uh financial challenges that we need to address. Um what I appreciate about the folks on this side of the table is that we're all on the same page with with we need to understand both how to fix it today and put together a plan for how to, you know, position ourselves for success in the future. Um to that end I also wanted to just you know uh say thank you to uh the school school finance uh folks you know the documents that they've shared which are available online I believe um I I think are helpful um and more educational beneficial than I think some of what I have seen historically. um you know, we're going to we have some tough decisions that will need to be made, but it's you know, but I'm glad that we're getting closer to having the right information to help inform those decisions. Um, and just to piggyback a little bit on what councelor Malloy mentioned, to the extent that, you know, folks are seeing things, have additional questions, uh, or or or thoughts that they want to make sure you address, please feel free to reach out. Um, emails really, you know, a fantastic way to at least make sure you're getting

heard. um and we can see how we can incorporate it as we think about uh our our budget and our financial situation as we look forward. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um just a couple things. One, I wanted to mention that the Franklin Food Pantry finished their Super Bowl um drive this weekend and they raised more or brought in more than 6,000 cans of soup. Um, so I wanted to recognize and commend the generosity of the Franklin community for um, participating in that and for making sure that our neighbors and community members are fed. Um, especially now when it's cold and things are tight. Um, I also wanted to mention and you know the the benefit of us speaking at the beginning is that we can you know respond to things but the drawback is that um, Dave Callahan stole my comments and now I'm going to repeat them right after he gave them. But I just wanted to mention that the school committee budget hearing yesterday um I was glad to hear that so many counselors were able to attend. Um I wanted to commend um Superintendent Jagar uh Janna Motti and their staff for um just the incredible work that they've done. I wanted to mention as um David Kalan already said that they maintained a 2.5 increase. Um they were incredibly intentional and thoughtful in the way that they planned their budget. um they you know made changes but it's still level service and um they didn't try to you know restore anything that had been cut when they you know the cuts had to happen um due to budget cuts and I think that's something that we as the council should keep in mind as we are looking at the municipal side of the budget as well. Um, I also wanted to mention that uh, councelor Callaway Trip had some great questions, including one about the revolving funds for the school. Um, and that was reiterated that um, the school revolving funds cannot be utilized for any purpose other than um, what they are collected for. And I know that has come up several times in council chambers. So, I just wanted to make sure that was clear. And

I think that's all I have. Thank you. Council of I'm still wrapping my head around having to do comments at this time, so I'm going to pass this week. Okay. We'll we'll hit you up double next time.

Yes. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to thank all of the department heads for being here for the capital budget and for the operating budget today. I know it takes a lot of time out of your busy schedules to uh and time from family to be here. So, I appreciate that. I also want to thank the finance committee for their work uh putting together or working on reviewing some of this and being the first pass uh the first line of defense for the budget. Um and uh I think uh with that I'll uh I'll pass it over. I don't have a lot. Um, I don't really have too many comments except that I do want to thank the school the the schools for their new budget because now I don't have to slam my head in the wall when I'm trying to figure out what's going on. Um, so that was a very big plus for me when I saw that because I can understand what I'm looking at and my eyes don't have to be gouged out of my head now. So, thank you for that. Um, and that's pretty much it. Not too much going on.

I'm so glad that you don't have to gouch your eyes out, Jake. Makes me I'll sleep better tonight. So, I'm really excited to see council comments um piggybacking on after citizen comments. It it it doesn't seem like a big change maybe to people, but for in other meetings where hours and hours have gone between what somebody brings up and when we can actually respond to it hasn't been um the best, right? people. Uh so at least now we can respond relatively quickly uh when things are brought up and um look to Jamie to to get people the answers if if need be and it'll also make it better for viewing on YouTube and other things because it'll be relatively immediate. Um want to piggyback on thanking all the department heads for being here tonight for yet another meeting. Um we're starting budget relatively early. Uh so thank you to the school department certainly for getting everything tied up nicely this early. Um I'll throw the little uh sort of referee thing out that um the discussions ahead tonight are going to be difficult and it's not the intention is not to divide us. The intention is to try to figure these things out as a group. It's not a popularity contest. We've gotten some emails already about, you know, can you walk a day in the life of a school teacher in Franklin? And my response back is no, but I can certainly walk the walk as a parent of kids in schools. But we also have to walk in the shoes of our fire personnel and of our police personnel and of our veterans affairs people and our senior

center folks and our librarians and everybody that shows up to work every day. So, we're going to deliberate because that's what you've elected us to do and we're going to look at these capital requests and we're going to start these budget conversations and if a decision or something is brought up, it does not mean that that person is anti that department. So, we have to stop that rhetoric that has been going on for years in the community that somebody is like anti schools because they have a question about schools. That's not the case. Um, and I just know from looking at this that there's going to be a lot brought up tonight and we're going to do our very very best uh to meet everybody's needs. Um, so with that, uh, thank you again and I'll yield.

Sure. I'll be quick. Just a couple a few things. First of all, Steve, thanks for bringing up the um blood pressure. I think that's an important point to make. Um as someone who has high blood pressure, um you know, it needs to be constantly under control. And I think a lot of times, especially men, we don't like to go to the doctor, don't like to get things checked out. And I've seen so many people, um friends, people my age, um who've suffered strokes or hot heart attacks. Um so, it's really important to make sure that you get your blood pressure under control. So, thank you for saying that. Um Dave, your comments uh about the um budget. First of all, the the um the work that the school committee did last night was was, you know, terrific. So, uh great work. Um you know, we definitely want to work with the school committee, understand, you know, the challenges and um and move forward as a united team for the town of Franklin. So, um so just want to echo uh other people's comments on that. And then finally, um, Brutus, great job by the DPW, but I think you did come here in the beginning and say that we were seeing less snow every year, you know. I think you jinxed us a little bit, but um because I was thinking going through that like, oh gosh, don't say that. Anyway, um, yeah, it's been a tough, you know, tough year, but the guys have done a great job and thank you, thanks the DPW team for that. That's it for me.

I also uh thank you, Steve. bringing up high blood pressure, but those those machines sometimes I don't think read good. So, Chuck, you might have to bring an EMT in I think pretty soon to do with the old fashion mind.

But I do like council comments here right after citizens comments because as you know with the long meetings that we've had sometimes you you got citizens comments and you're saying to yourself, listen, maybe I'll do it next time. It's a shorter meeting. So this this time it works. I I think it I think it will come out great. Um I just want to thank all the department heads in school committee and everything for for working so hard over the years. Jamie, your office, everything getting everything done. You know, you know, Nancy, you everybody, all the department heads, I know it's a long time. You you know, a lot of hours that you put in that probably weren't getting paid for either. So I I do appreciate that. Fire, police, everybody. Um, I do want to give a shout out to uh one of the officers, uh, Samuels. He's coaching the JV uh, basketball team. U, I love seeing that because I know our sons, my son and Jean son went to school together and a lot of the police officers back then were they were all coaching and it really it really brought the kids together. They're still friends with them now. You know what I mean? They're still talking to them. So, it was awesome to see that. So kudos to him. So um with that I'll uh I'll uh leave. Okay. I am tired. So um subcommittee med uh uh committees we don't have town administrator report.

Yeah. Uh three Mr. Chairman. So um a couple quick announcements. Uh there'll be a press release going out today and tomorrow and some data. Um it's a slight bit of bad news. Uh obviously with all the weather and the cold snap we've had um unfortunately our aggregation program which has a 14 cent per kilowatt rate um now has to be adjusted to a 15 cent kilowatt rate in the absence of going into a massive hour-long breakdown of geopolitical energy markets which I will not do. Um, I think we all know that the east coast and the eastern half of the United States has seen enormous cold snap over the last three months and it's put a major major stress on the system and I think to what Brutus said and I think council, we haven't really seen this in a while. Um, so that will be an effect on the March readings. You know, hopefully we'll jinx it the right way and the next couple weeks will be good and hopefully some point later this year we can try to reverse that rate and go backward. But this is not just unique to here. It's kind of like the budget issue Steve talked about. It's going on through all the aggregation programs for the entire system and you're going to see and probably hear more of this in the news on the entire eastern coast just because of the cold snap that's there. We're going to send the press release out. We do have a website um that is off the town administrator's page with all municipal aggregation information over the last six years. Um but before the news gets lost, there's a couple other points I want to point out on that. Um the rate that's there is 15 cents per kilowatt. That's still slightly lower than what your average national grid basic rate would be right now. So people are still going to be saving money as long as they don't increase their usage. I always have to say that, right? Because if you increase your usage, it doesn't matter what the rate is, you're going to be paying more money regardless. And um and many of the former counselors, particularly Council Fringillo and many others, um did uh speak highly of this program. Uh we entered into this actually before the pandemic and um but as fate would have it the

rates went into effect during the lockdown of the pandemic. This is now our seventh calendar year and if you aggregate up all of the savings under the aggregation program versus what would have been paid through national grid basic service. Um residents have saved over those over those six and a half years 16.4 4 million in electricity costs. So, I understand somebody may say, "Oh my god, a penny more. You know, it's obviously going to cost me more. Affordability is troublesome." But I want to also make sure the message gets out there clear. um you know when the lockdown was happening and when there was inflation and global supply chain problems um this aggregation program uh protected every residential homeowner in this town and the small business community from seeing 25% rates uh 25 cent rates at some points there was 22 cent rates. Um so in the aggregate the town by far has been in the savings model on this. So even though that this is a scent adjustment for an extreme circumstance, um I hope all of you and all the staff and the people watching at home still realized we really dodged the bigger bullets over the last 5 years when inflation hit in 2022. Residents here were paying 10 and a half cents per kilowatt. National grid basic was like 28 cents per kilowatt. So people saved a lot of money over those years. But I also recognized that most people didn't know those savings because they didn't see the 25 cent rate. They didn't see the extreme spikes and everything stayed really stable for very long. You can still at 15 cent per kilowatt do a lot of comparables and it's not apples to apples by the way. Uh electricity and energy markets are an extraordinarily complicated thing to dive into. U but I did want to announce that. And the second thing is um by the next meeting on March 4th um Julie and I will have one additional colleague in

our office. So we're excited. We're hopeful too if the references turn out. So at the next meeting hopefully we'll introduce the new communications director and hopefully I'll have an announcement on the part-time admin. So other than that uh that's the town ministry's report. Chie one question. I know it went up ascent because of the weather. Will it go down? I got I got Yeah. No, I know. I doubt it would, but I I know probably people are saying, "Well, if it were not because of the cold, is it going to come down when it's Yeah. And I know the answer before I said it, but

I got to walk a pretty fine tight rope on this one." You know, um you know, my hope is is that that is the case. And in aggregation, you have a little more flexibility. These are not decisions that are being made by me. These are decisions that are being made by the ISO New England in a much larger um overly bureaucratic energy system. Um so I can't say it can come down, but you are going to see a a different rate in the summer anyways because energy usage usually less unless there's heat waves.

Um so to be determined. Let's let's just at least knock on wood that we can have 45 degrees for the next couple months and then we'll take it up when the spring's over. I know. No, but I'm just I know I know everybody I knows saying is it gonna go I know tomorrow it's going to be I'm going to get a million questions but I can't answer that formally because I I can't guarantee that that's going to happen. I would love it to go way down even further than it is. But um but you know but still the Germaine point I think is assuring people that during the extremely massive spikes in electricity costs over the last six years.

This program protected everybody protected people in a very in a very significant manner. So so hopefully most people will take that nugget as opposed to you know will it come down in a few months. No, no, I know. I just I just I mean I mean because like you said, nobody saw things. If you didn't do anything, right, you automatically went into that group. Yeah, you had to opt out. Yeah, you will opt out or you had to choose choose the green product, right, if you wanted to pay a higher percentage for the renewable energy. All right. No proclamations or recognitions. I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of January 21st, 2026. So moved.

Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion, deletions, anything? I have one question. Um I went I was just reading the minutes and like for the minutes in that meeting that was when we did the appointments and everything was like perfectly there. When we went down further and we were doing some of the presentations, not all questions that were asked were put in there. It basically just made a line that said questions being asked and then listed answers. So, I'm just curious why the questions aren't actually being listed. No clue. Have to ask Judith, our our scribe.

I'd have to I I don't know. I mean, I think I can guarantee you after and once we get to AI transcripts someday, I'm sure that'll be the norm. Um, you know, I've I don't know exactly why one thing versus another. I mean, I think you would agree these minutes are generally done at a level you'll never see anywhere else. She does the best minutes I've ever seen in my life by far. Um, I don't know why a question here or question there. I don't know. I'd have to ask Judith why what the logic is when she's typing them out.

Okay. Because I just noticed it's just starting to do it that way and I just wanted to find out because typically when you ask a question to be having it on the record, but the question is not being showcased. It's theoretically not on the record. So, I just think that we need to be careful with that. I think at some point we've just got to go to AI transcripts

and you know, we can't do that now because that's not in We still have to keep minutes by state law. It to me, this is something they should be getting rid of. Everything's on video, too. And I know there's a difference. Some people don't want to watch video versus read, but I think the only way to do this right is to just have the verbatim transcript done. Hopefully, at some point, I'm hopeful at some point Zoom will have the technology that it will just do this, right? Everything we say in the meeting will just be recorded on a transcript and there won't have to be any quality control. We've we've tried the AI technology and the quality control is terrible. They get names totally wrong. I mean, it's it's it's not very well done. So, the technology is not quite there yet. But, I think at some point, I'm guessing, you know, hopefully in the next few years, we won't have to pay for minutes. we won't have to have it in the budget and every meeting will just be transcribed in artificial intelligence.

Thank you. Yeah. No, I just want to point out this whole process that we have here is to review the minutes. So, if there's something that is missing, you know, you have the ability to make an amendment to put it back in. That's why we do this. So, if there's something that's missing or inaccurate, you know, you can make a anyone can one of us can make a motion before it's approved to That's true. to correct it. That's why that's our job. That's our job to do.

Um, this is Jane. Do you want the minutes tabled to the next meeting so we can find out the questions that were omitted or are you okay with it as is? Um, let's table it because I think the questions should be put in there. Okay. I would I would be in favor of that, Mr. under the circumstances. So I would I would entertain a motion to table the minutes. Second to can I just say to March 4th you have to have a date. You have to have a date, sir. Yeah. Table it to the March 4th meeting. Stepping in for Mr. Sell who's under the weather. All right. You got to step in for me. All right. So we have a

motion in a second. A motion in a second. All in favor? Opposed? Motion is tabled right motion is tabled March 4th uh appointments we have none license transaction I believe we have one right y

hold on capital. Oh, I'm sorry. That's You have to get No worries. Just give it just give it a minute. You want me to do a quick intro? This is a stock. Sure.

Um so through Mr. Chairman, um for everybody's I think this for most of you your first vote on a liquor license and it's okay. This is really the easiest of the easy. Um state law requires under liquor licensing that you have to go through. There are dozens upon dozens of varying applications on liquor licenses. And one of them is when there's a change in the officers, the manager, the director's stock options in the company, for some unrealistic reason, all of you have to approve that application to send it back to the ABCC. And basically the reason is um is they want to check local compliance with building code, local compliance with health code, and local compliance with paying taxes. So that's really the only reason. So, um, all the departments have signed off on this application. Just for by way of background, we have an online permitting system that the applicant goes into and fills it out and uh, Julie manages all of that and does a fantastic job. And we have contacts in all of those departments who go back in, they know their responsibilities at health, treasurer, building, fire. Um, they all go in and they check off the box when they're compliant. And then on the resolution, all departments have signed off on the application. And so this is a very generally non-controversial issue. I think Mr. Nick Zazula who I think Nick you're a regular here. Are you at McQuilty?

I am. Yes sir. That's correct. So if you have any you want to do a quick introduction but I don't think there's anything else to add. Right. No that's correct. This is a strictly uh first of all good evening everybody. I'm out here in Zoomland. I apologize not being with you in person but um I represent Shaw Star Markets for all their liquor licenses here in Massachusetts. Um and Yes,

as was just um um stated, this is, you know, an administrative change on the corporate level. Um so, we need to file this amendment to make sure that the liquor license for your town and for the state is uh consistent with the officers and directors who are uh listed with the state for the for the corporation. Um so, this application is just to update the records for the for the corporate entity. Uh there are zero operational changes for the store um itself, no changes to the hours, layout, manager of record, any of that. So it's really just an administrative change um that again, as was stated, just has to go through the town first before it goes to the state. Um so happy to answer any questions uh if if anybody has one on the council. And thank you very much. Well, let's have the clerk read it first and then we'll go to discussion.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This license transaction is modification of the section 15 retail package door wine and malt beverage license change of officers and directors. Shaw Supermarkets, Inc. doing business as Shaws located at 255 East Central Street in Franklin is seeking the approval of modifications of their section 15 retail package door wine and malt beverage license to include the removal of Robert Bakus as president and director, the addition of Robert Larson as president and director, the removal of Bradley Beckramm as group vice president and secretary, and the addition of Marilyn Beardsley as secretary. All departments have signed off on the application. The motion is to approve the request by Shaw Supermarkets, Inc. doing business as Shaw located at 255 East Central Street in Franklin for changes of officers and directors as described above.

I have a second. Second. All right. I have a motion and second discussion. James, I have three actually three questions. um where this is like a license for corporate for like a a broad of the stores. Is it typical for them to have multiple licenses with the same names on them? Like that's okay.

Yeah, I think I mean Nick could speak to this too, but under state law um grocery stores, for example, have a quota of amount of licenses they can have statewide. It's changed over the years. It was originally three and then the legislature up it to five. I think it might be might be up to six or seven now. So, it's not uncommon for um chain stores, especially like this, grocery stores in particular, to have multiple licenses.

Okay. Um second question is I noticed on the thing that back in 2006, it was in a Boston location, they had a sale to under a minor. So, how does that take effect with their licenses if they have a sale to for a minor? So there's a bylaw in our town code that when there's a violation, it's ironed out and specifically when there's a violation like that, there's a penalty that the council then enforces on them. The stock options and the change in officers have nothing to do with the actual violation or whatever happened in 2006.

But obviously the paperwork they're required to, you know, to disclose it. Um, but in our town code, there's a strike one, strike two, strike three set of bylaws in there, and the council has to follow the bylaw that's in the town code. So, actually on violations, it's a town, it's a local ordinance, not a state one. So, would it be only if the violation happened in Franklin? Correct. Okay. Yeah. If it happened in another city or town, it would the violation would take place there. Correct. Okay. And then my last question is um in the thing exhibit A it says um $15 for off premise. What does that mean? Uh so off premise Oh. Oh, sorry. Did you say $15?

The little squiggly thing. Yeah, the little squiggly thing. Yeah, I wasn't wearing my glass. So the squiggly It's okay. The squiggly is actually a a legal reference. So, what section 15 is referring to are off- premises licenses, which means you purchase the beverages uh at the supermarket or the package store and then you take them home. There's a section 12 which is on premises. Those are your restaurants. So, it's just a reference to the stat for any like liquor store, grocery store that sells alcohol statewide. Okay. Okay. Yep. Got it. It's actually it's just an MGL reference. Master,

thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I was looking at the Corey request forms. This is two minor things. I don't know how minor they are, but first is they're required to produce a form of identification to the uh notary public to prove they are who they are, and that's left blank on both of the forms. The other one is the notary public, Danielle Albino. Um, Alano, uh, the notary republic for the state of Ohio, but she works for Albertson's. Is that a conflict of interest for notary public to sign papers for their own client? You threw me a curveball, Max. Nick's gonna have to answer that one. No, the only

um I don't typically That's a great question. I can jump in. Um typically, usually if some if a notary does not s tell you why, what the identification was, usually my understanding is it's personal knowledge, uh which is approp for a notary, meaning if you know the person to be who they say they are. Um, as a notary, I would put in personal knowledge, but my understanding is um that the ABCC, which the state commission would accept this as being blank because the uh it is personal knowledge. Um, I don't think there's a conflict of interest for a corporate form such as the Corey. um if if there was an an issue um the state ABCC on their review if approved by by the council uh would would raise it to us at that point in time. Um I do know that this Miss Albano has um has notorized a lot of their corporate forms in the past without any issue. So I would say precedent states there wouldn't be an issue, but it's a great question. It's never been raised to me before. um and and if it is, the state would um would ask us to address it. Um so I don't know if that helps answer your question. I think in both instances these core forms would be acceptable to the state. Um but I it's it's a good catch overall.

Um I hate to put you on the spot, but I can I ask the notary public uh Danelloo in the audience to see if she has any comments on that. Max, I'm I'm a notary, too. Oh, you're a notary? Okay. The the only the only violation. The only person you cannot notoriize is yourself and family immediate family. Family, immediate family, you know, brother, sisters. It's common for companies to have a notary. Absolutely. They can do what they can. A lot of attorneys offices have notaries that notoriize for their attorney's office. I notoriize all day long here. Obviously, you know, even I'm a notary. Yeah. You know, I mean, I think the first floor has got several. Um, so yeah, I think the only restriction is immediate family. Yeah,

thank you. That's why I have Nancy. Why we all call this Nancy? Keep in mind there. There are no other questions. Motion to pass the license transactions. All in favor? I opposed motion. Okay, now we're done with the fun stuff. Here we go.

All right, Jamie. Yeah. Uh, so, um, for the folks at home, I guess, uh, if you're looking for the budget documents, um, we have a budget website. Um, FY27 is set up just like we've done the last several years. Um, we're going to put in chronological order from the start of the season to the end, every budget document we have. I think in past years we've been trying to include a lot of the school materials there so people can feel like they can go to one place. Um, or you could go to tonight's agenda on the town calendar, look up the agenda, and all the materials are there and all the links. We've provided in the packet uh a memorandum from myself um to update folks on the budget model. Um, we've put in there a new uh FY27 budget model and a five-year fiscal forecast through FY32. Seems like I can't believe I'm saying FY 2032. Uh, but we put a a five-year forecast in there, really sixyear, um, including this one, uh, for people to just look uh, into the future a little bit. I would caution people on reading too deeply into the five-year fiscal forecast because I think as everybody knows um over the next few years uh a tremendous amount um is going to change with federal, state, and local budgets. But through you, Mr. Chairman, I think I spelled it out hopefully pretty clear for folks about all the variables. Um I don't really have a lot to say or or to present. Um it's pretty early in the budget season. Um but I think um as I put in here um you know it may not be optimum and I think as several counselors mentioned earlier uh during counselor comments um obviously there's a lot of decisions to be made uh by the council and the school committee and the finance committee this year. Um I think all the department heads are here tonight and the school department uh representatives are here tonight to answer any questions for

folks. Um, happy to answer anything that people have, but I think, um, you know, my guess is is the public is probably going to look forward to hearing from the nine of you. Um, I think I've spelled it out pretty clearly for folks, but maybe there's still some, uh, gray areas. Um, it's not prideful to sit here in a situation where we have to use free cash to try to balance the budget. But, um, as I think all of you know, there's going to be a lot of choices um, you know, coming up. And I think um working with the superintendent I think one of the the strong themes from our perspective is um you know it goes without saying I think the last two years maybe 18 months have been uh a rodeo ride uh around the budget in this community. um for him and myself and some of us that have been working here for you know 5 10 plus years um this is a problem that dates back 15 plus near nearly 20 years ago now. Um the structural budget deficit has always been an issue in this community. Obviously, the two overrides last year that failed, uh, particularly the one last year has put us in a position that if the override had passed, we wouldn't be sitting here today with these extremely grave choices between capital, infrastructure, facilities, public safety, teachers. Um, but we are where we're at. And I will say that, um, using free cash unfortunately is not something that's uncommon in Massachusetts. and it's going to be something I think that's more common uh over the next few years. So, um I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it up to the rest of the council to ask any of the department heads or myself any questions and and kind of keep it short and um give you guys the floor to to to deliberate.

All right. So, we'll go through it and then you know if you want to call at the top of that up feel free to call at the top of that up to explain your question. So, council Malloy I guess we'll start with you. Okay. Thank you, sir. Um, where to begin? Right. Um, so Jamie, am I right to say that the budget, overall budget, including schools and whatever, is we're we're going up 5%. It's probably about right. Yeah. 27 to 26. 26 to 27. 26 to 27. Yeah.

So, it's like 6.7 million. the quick arithmetic that I did on that. Okay. And the schools, I know they moved all of their benefits and pensions and all those things over to the town budget now, which kind of helps clarify some of that. Um, so I'm looking at that and just going through and I notice on the detail budget a lot of the expense items are flat. Yep. Um, some of them are down just a touch.

Y couple of them are up a little bit. And I know as we have time to go through and and massage this, I'd like to look at some of those expense items that have gone up and see if there's other opportunities to reduce them, keep them flat, what have you. I don't know if that's a discussion for tonight, but that's something to kind of anticipate. I think Mr. Chairman, really quickly, down the bottom of the entire memo, I do a budget calendar section of dates to look forward to. And just for those that are home or here that are new, um, when I release the full budget, uh, and anticipated on March 27th, that's where if you look back to FY26 and you go to the budget book, which is usually appendix A, that's where you get the itemized, you know, every single staff member, salaries, um, all the expense line items, even not just the aggregate, all the details that'll be in that budget book that will be released as part of the the entire budget.

Okay, great. So, um, once you go through that, if you see something that's questionable, you know, during your budget hearings in May, um, and June, you guys can, you know, amend, you know, anything that you might say. Um, but, you know, obviously between now, tonight, and then if you all want to hear have more budget meetings at the council level or if you want to watch the finance committee meetings in early April, they will go through every line as well. Um, so, um, so that's usually when the line item, uh, budget comes out. Okay. So, I mean, at first blush, I'm kind of looking at that 5% increase, which I thought might be a touch high. Just

overall, considering the 5-year projection, your comments are well taken. You can't take read too much into that, but five years out, you know, the budgets at 184 million versus 152 today based on the assumptions and everything else that's in there. So, of the 30 plus million over the next five years. I know it's a projection, but the trend is obviously scary. So, I think it just begs the question, and Steve alluded to this earlier, like we need to try to figure this out, you know, and this year, I guess we can I'd like to tweak this as as best we can um to get it as lean as we can.

Um because every dollar we save now is going to like compound over the next number of years. So I I really would want to kind of look at that

and as we look at budget and all that planning I think you know growth is something we need to keep in mind. We got to figure out a way to grow our way ahead of this o over time. So um those are kind of my initial questions just on free cash from last year. I guess I was asking myself as I'm sitting there looking at this saying this time last year um it was override or we're going to make all the cuts that we went on to make because the override didn't pass. And this year we're going to use free cash and restore a good bit of what was cut last year, including the additional police officers, the ambulance crew, which I think is either on board or will be soon, right?

The deputy town administrator role is coming back. The communication piece is new. Just conceptually, is that all due to the use of free cash? I don't know if I know I hope I answer the question right. Um, in this model, yes, because if we didn't use the 2.1ish of free cash, then you'd look at those new positions or restored positions and say, "Okay, well, there's about 470,000 there." you'd take off, but then you'd have to cut these departments another 1.6 million or so to make up for that, right? So, um, you know, I think to your point earlier about how some of the expense items level out, they're flatlined or they dip, that's actually common. Um, so when we do the model in August, we just assume two and a half down the side, but you know, there's savings in there. And so, the irony is is the budget deficit's almost exactly the same as it was last August.

That's what I noticed. There's also revenue growth when we talk about 5%. Remember local receipts are going up 5% every year. So just to differentiate between I think some comments I I make and people get twisted around when I say two and a half. I'm really focused at first of all we're at our we've been at our levy capacity for 25 years.

So we have no excess levy capacity. In fact, uh 90 plus% of the communities across Massachusetts are at their excess levy capacity, which is a troubling statistic for other communities as well. Um when I say two and a half, to me that's the cola cost of living adjustment. 75 80% of the school of all our entire budget is personnel. So when you're looking at personnel and you're looking at staff, you know, the cola is in my view and I've said this for a long time and my predecessor did too. Um it's the spinal cord of your culture of your community and your staff. I mean I think a lot of that gets into the us versus them that I think is behind us because of the fours that were done a few years ago. But in all sincerity, the two and a half when I say that as a budget just to you know this is like in the fall you look at it you say okay well the personnel costs are at two and a half right um at least from the cola perspective DPW police teachers fire they all have unique stuff in their contracts about educational incentives and other things that are time off that are unique to their unions right so when you look at the two and a half because it's a majority of your budget that to me is the single most important factor However, when you're looking at local aid going up 2.53, which is a little underwhelming, but still just a a nick above, and then you're looking at some expense items coming below two and a half or zero or even, you know, saving money from the previous years, you know, that's where about right now you start looking at much more honed in numbers. But I just don't want people to forget like for us local receipts, you know, it's plateaued, I believe. Um I hope it isn't, but I hope the economy continues to grow, but still at a 5% most of that money is offsetting costs in the in the municipal budgets, right? I mean, if you even look at the revenues, you know, our office brought in, we were over we

brought in more revenue last year than what was projected, right? Well, all that revenue and it doesn't it's hard to pinpoint to an exact dollar, but you know, 5% of my salary is offset by fees coming in from the work I do. You know, five or 10% of Julie salary is offset. The town clerk, everybody in here, right? So, when you see that revenue growth at 5%, that's not uncommon overall, the number you pointed out earlier, because some of our revenues are going above 2 and a half% or some of our line items, right? So, um, I hope that answers your question about free cash. I mean, if if if if we weren't using free cash, the alternative would be to have a discussion tonight and over the next several months about what we're going to cut. And I'm not going to speak for the superintendent, but we certainly meet often and talk about this. I think the last couple years have been very tumultuous. They've been very erratic. Um, and to be in a position where we can have a budget model where there are no cuts, that we're not talking about losing police, fire, teachers, you know, other support staff for all the other departments. You know, I think as everybody's getting their foundation and footing underneath of them, it might be nice to at least have a safety net there for a discussion point. So that and that's just the logic

framing that's the logic behind the free cash piece. Um, you know, certainly there's a consequence on the other side, which we'll talk about later with capital.

Um, but I I hope the takeaway mostly is the override last year was not a joke. This was the real deal. And I think it's going to be really hard to find where you're going to cut one and a half million without other issues that fall down river, whether it's the schools. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, I don't know about all of you, I heard loud and clear myself from disgruntled board members, committee members, citizens, people over the last eight months about how angry they were about losing the Halloween party, losing the SRO's, losing the police officers, losing the revenue from the ambulance, losing the paramedics, losing the LPN at at the senior center, losing Sundays at the library, the cuts from the schools, you know, obviously over the years have been tough from enrollment based declines and the redistricting issues and all that other stuff. But I think um from my perch, I have yet to find anyone who's thrilled or very few people I should say if any that are thrilled with the cuts that were made over the last year. I have found very very few people who were happy that the library was closed on Sunday for example. So, from my standpoint, as I file a budget, I look at that feedback and I say there was something else missing in this community for a year um that didn't get out to people to make them know what was at stake last June because the feedback I've gotten has been overwhelmingly upset, disappointed about the cuts and I felt like at least for my perspective filing a budget I wanted to preserve a budget that didn't make any more cuts, didn't

bring the community more division, and I wanted to try to put forth a decent faith effort uh to try to restore what people have been concerned has been lost. So, I I think that probably that last piece might answer your question. It does. And maybe I didn't articulate it well enough because and I'm with you, we really need a good year of some stability and we buy some time to kind of figure out what we want to do going forward. So that makes sense. I guess in my mind, I'm just replaying where we were a year ago. And did we have a lot of free cash last year? Just about the same amount. Yep. And what did we do with it? We spent we prioritized capital. Capital was approved probably in January.

That's just what I wanted to make sure I understood that we used the capital for maybe what its intended purpose is, which is exactly we use that money for capital expenditures. This year we're using it more to work on correct the operations budget and we're deciding to do that but we could have last year used free cash as well. We could have absolutely 100%. Yep. And during the whole budget debate or whatever I kind of listened and followed along with all that. So you know the the decision was made to make the cuts as opposed to use the free cash to offset kind of what we're thinking about doing now. Correct.

So in my mind I struggle with Okay. So this buys us a little tranquility, a little peace, but where we're going to be this time next year or the year after or the year after. So I see your red ink on here. So you know, I kind of know where that's going.

Yeah. And I think as you went to a lot of listening sessions, I think the um the philosophy was I think from the the board and councel Deloro and Cory Ledger can speak to this. was that if the previous override was a 100% school override, but if the pain were shared across all departments, that would bring people together to try to deal with the structural budget deficit with the second override. Obviously, that wasn't the case. So, I think um and the last quick thing I'll say is it's never good to use one I know all of you will agree with this too. It's never good to use onetime revenues um to plug these budget gaps. Many towns will tell you, you know, you don't know what'll come in next year, right? Um, as Brutus's budget gets tighter on snow and ice, there's not going to be any excess to give back to snow and ice reserves or any other reserves, right? So, um, I think that, um, you know, we spent many, many years avoiding all of that. I think only a few years had we uh approved budget stabilization money uh for onetime monies and that continued got us into the same problem you know every three or four year cycle. So it's not exactly a practice as I mentioned in the memo that we were proud of.

Uh but given the context well thanks for clarifying that because I just wanted to make sure I unders I could just track what the zeros were in prior columns and I think there's zeros going forward too in the free cash for budget. So I just want to make sure I see it. That's right. And there is zero I do not we do not add in the fiscal forecast any assumption of one-time monies in those next four years other than the mech stabilization fund which we're just drawing down over a fouryear period. Thank you. You also council. Yes sir. And and again we will in the in the in May the two meetings we have the budget meetings in May we go over line by line right

and we automatically hold firew I appreciate it

bl um I don't I I don't I don't have a lot to I mean, I I've I've looked at the budget, you know, for the last for the last few years, and I think what we'll find, you know, is that our operating budget really has very little fat on it. Um, if there was any a couple years ago, it's it's it's more or less gone. I mean, what with the schools redistricting, the cuts in police, the fire, the LPN, etc., Um, we're we're we're running really really very lean. Uh, you know, I I I get the proposal to bring back what we what what he can um and you know, and push that and get us to at least a a better spot for the next year. But that puts us in a really difficult place where, you know, it terrifies me that if we do that, we don't have a plan to support our future. We don't have a plan to, you know, on how we're going to keep the LPN, the police, the fire, um, goodness, the schools, um, you know, stable and operating in in in fiscal year 28. We don't have we have no idea what it's going to He was talking about in 2032. We have not put together a plan that the pro provides any kind of financial stability for this town. I sorry I can get passionate about this. I I I think it's I think it's it's a it's a good gesture. It's a good approach. it's a good idea to say okay let's get back a little bit of what we lost and

try and you know u get people comfortable uh you know my fear is by doing that they'll you know they they may again miss the fact that all of that and more will be gone in two years because we've now burnt through our rainy day funds. you know, we we we won't have anything unless we put a plan together to, you know, to to guide us forward. Um, and I know we've talked about this as a group. We we need to have a a joint budget subcommittee. Um, the finance committee does go through all of this, all of the these line items line by line with a number of questions. We'll get that opportunity as well. Uh, we need to do that, you know, with Fincom, with school committee, and actually make a plan. I can I can I can support just barely. I It's hard for me to say, you know, moving forward with this and kind of bringing back some of what we've lost because I think that's healthy that may be helpful and healthy for for Franklin, but only if we're tying that to an incredible need to put a plan in place. I mean, you know, to figure out how we're going to move forward and and yes, there has to be some economic development. Some some growth has to be part of that. So, what's our approach there? Probably some realistic cuts have to be part of that. Um, you know, potentially uh we're going to need to find more sources of funding, what whatever that means. But we need a plan. Um and and you know uh right now going to our to our um I'll just keep calling on them rainy day funds is not a sustainable option and I'm scared we're going to put ourselves in a position um where you know things things will turn south very quickly if

we don't have a a plan that allows us to get to fiscal stability. where our what we're bringing in is more than what we're than what we're spending on an annual basis. So that that's that's my two cents back my head. Couldn't agree with you anymore. I kind of took the words right out of my mouth that I was going to say, but council. All right. Um so first I have a question Jamie. Um, your memo says that we have 2,2 about 2,235 in free cash.

Um, and then you're proposing to spend about 2,ion30,000. Um, but the capital plan says we're at about 4 and a.5 million. I just want to confirm that that the the 2 million 235 is that after we take out the 10% for the stabilization fund plus the um uh 1.8 million that we have kind of earmarked for the tier one capital. Is that how we get to that 2 million uh 235? It sounds about right. Yeah, it what you're saying sounds right. Obviously I right crunch the exact math but that sounds about accurate.

Okay. Um, and so then we're proposing to bring that down to $226,000 in free cash. That's what you would have, right? If you approved tier one and the OPAD, which I'm asking to hold,

um, and you use the 2.029 million, then that would still leave you 226,988 in free cash. I just clause that by saying healthc care is really the issue that nobody knows what our surpluses are going to be or deficits from our exiting our self-insured consortium and we obviously don't know what subscribers and enrollment are going to be in April. Um, and that's why I suggested in here to other than tier one tonight, you know, and even holding the stabilization transfer, OPED, by the way, you'll have a presentation on May 13th and we can dive into OPED that night and all become experts about why OPE is important. Um, but you're correct. That would be about 226 left. But I just want to make sure people know that um you know you could have a big deficit coming out of the self-insured come June or if our subscribers go you know healthcare employees are activives you know just depends on the healthcare numbers when we get to June.

Um so that number is really scary to me. They bring free cash down to 2. I mean I saw the historical free cash data and it looked like the last time that we were under a million dollars was 20 years ago. Well, we got certified for 4.5, right? So, I mean, you're getting So, our free cash has been very stable for many years. How we use it is different. Okay.

Right. In the past, we've been using it for almost all capital, but now because of the budget deficit and the risk of additional cuts, so I don't know if it I don't think we I don't know if I if I heard you correct, but I wouldn't say we only have 226,000, right? Because there's a proposal for about 1.8 million in free cash for capital tonight. So, I just want to make sure we're on the same page, right? But but all of these things going does bring it down to I mean it right we're not approving anything right now but all of these all these proposals that we're looking at at the moment would then bring it down to that. Um I I noticed there are several

um positions that would be hired through free cash and I have to say I feel like that's irresponsible. Yeah. To hire people with one-time use monies

um knowing that they're going to be let go if we don't have more money coming in. Um, so that makes me really uncomfortable. I don't think, you know, I we're not there yet. We're not making decisions tonight, but I don't think I can support hiring people with free cash. Um, and um, also, you know, to your point earlier, you made a comment about um, we'd have to talk about what kind of cuts we need to make. And if we're talking about what kind of cuts we need to make next year, I don't know why we are looking at restoring things. I mean, I I understand your point about people are upset about the things that we cut, but I feel like we cut them because we didn't have the money

y to to um to provide for them. And we still don't have the money. So, we're using this proposal says to use one-time use monies to plug those gaps, which puts us right back in the same position in the year where we'll have to make the cuts again, um plus probably additional cuts. I I just I feel like this is this proposal just doesn't make sense to me. It it feels

um it just feels irresponsible to use onetime use monies for some of for a lot of these things when we just don't have that luxury of uh continuing those things in the future. So, um to councelor Juku's point, we need a plan. We need to figure this out. I I don't I don't think that we should be looking at restoring things. I don't think we should be looking at hiring people with those one time use money. We need to have, you know, long-term plan for how to provide for those things and free cash is in it. Great.

Um I did have a couple more questions. Um at the end, we're looking at at the end of um the whole packet we're looking at the FY2025 revenue analysis by department. Um, I noticed that for property taxes, um, we overestimated by like about a million dollars for FY25.

Um, and there were a couple other lines that we overestimated by a good bit. Um, building permits we overestimated by almost half a million dollars. Recycling by um, over $400,000. I just want to make sure, are we being a little bit more conservative with our with our estimations this year? because I I'd hate to, you know, see all of these um you know, very generous, you know, estimates in our budget, then we're falling short of them and then we got to pull the money from somewhere else. So, I just want to make sure that as we're looking at the budget this year, we're being more conservative. I'd rather have money left over than not enough to Sure.

So, three, Mr. Chairman. So, the uh property taxes is actually the amount that people haven't paid. So, it's not about being conservative or liberal. You just times it by two and a half percent. That's your levy. That's where you go. If the council decides they wanted to have like 0% 0% spending this year, just hypothetically, which isn't feasible. Um, then you would grow your levy capacity, right? And so, you then would have a cushion, if you will, each year, but then eventually, like we've seen in every year, everybody wants to spend it for good reasons. It's not It's not uncommon, right? So, that's really the amount of people um that's really what your gap is of people that had been that hadn't paid their taxes up until that point, right? Um second on the building permits, um the building commissioner just brought in, I think he announced last week somewhere that he just got a $600,000 building permit for the Maple Gate Country Club. Why do I bring that up? Because building permits are generally, if you look over time, we've generally have about the same. But when the intake and when you get that money versus when you don't, if you get it on, I'm making this up. If you get it on August 1, it's in a different corridor of how you have to report it to the state than if it's on February 1, right? So, a lot of times we may assume that number um and then next year you may see his building the building permits went up 200% because of a large building permit that came in for something like Maple Gate. So, a lot of that has to just do with timing. It's very, very hard to predict when you're going to get occupancy on a property and then get a building permit fee. Oftentimes, it just shows up, right? Um, we didn't know that they were going to close on that until the end of the calendar year and then whenever they pay their permit, whenever they apply, they they they could have taken eight months to do that, you know, and that's for every home, that's for every residence, every commercial business,

every small business or whatever. So that's why we generally really only do a moderate projection on local receipts because ultimately what you'll see is also there are other revenues that make up for those. So we've diversified our revenue streams quite quite well and that's why we try to upgrade the ALS and BLS rates to middle levels for fire every year. Um so that that revenue that's being captured for the service is coming back into the coffers. So, it's not just the ones that you're seeing that have parentheses around them, but look at all the other ones where we undersshot motor vehicle X size, but motor veh motor vehicle X size went up 566,000 over projections. These are very, very hard to project. If I could project these to a tea, I would not be sitting here and I'd be on Wall Street. So, but in sincerity, like it's really hard to nail exactly what that is. We do an analysis every year on every one of them. Okay. Hey, are we have record-breaking hotel taxes? We try to talk to the hotel owners. What's your occupancy rates? How are those going? Do you see markets in the future? Um, for example, I called the Best Western the other day. Just picked up the phone and called them and I said, I couldn't make a reservation online. I just wanted to check that you guys were open and they were. And come to find out, they were targeting business clients for longer stays. So, that was unique. And they said they had a very high occupancy. So, that you can't just go on and reserve a room on their website. So um we try to do some I'm using this as like an example of one thing upon all these revenues that we look at. Um during the pandemic we gave a 25% rebate to licenses for liquor licenses right and we thought we were going to lose a lot of restaurants so we we downgraded those numbers but we didn't really lose a lot of restaurants so that revenue kept coming in. I hope that's like a two or three minute like kind of explanation about how we go about um targeting some of these numbers. Um, I think I I have one other question.

This is really I mean this is just out of curiosity when I was going through this. Um, what is what are the rentals that are bringing in $250,000 to the town administrator's office? I saw that and I wasn't sure what that included. I mean, I know we're not going line by line today, but that was a curious No, that's okay. No, it's okay. Um, I know there's a good answer. I think we get rental fees. I don't remember what they are. Do you remember, Carrie? No, I was looking at Linda. Yeah, I know. Once you say it, it's gonna jump right up. I'm gonna go, "Oh, yeah, that's right. What it is." I'll have to look up. Give me a minute. I can Oh, yeah. Oh my god. The cell towers. Okay. Yeah. The cell towers. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks.

And speaking of hotel tax, we know we got the World Cup coming this year. So, every hotel in Franklin. So, because my daughter decides to get married on hotel, we have to go all the way to Canada to get a hotel. Oh my god. Married at the Super Bowl. Yeah. So, so that's the only reason why I know they're all booked. Council of Blank.

Uh yeah. So, um, last week I put my stake in the ground and Jamie went a little bit farther with this one with the budget. It's a little bit more than I would have wanted to see. I mean, it is does have 2 and a half% for most of the salaries. We talked about one and a half% for the non-contractual ones. So, I think in going forward, I'd like to see um kind of that salary line broken out so we can look at that. Most of the expenses did come in either equal to or or less than, but there were some that were fairly large. Like for example, police expenses appear to have um uh gone up great amount. Uh public property went up a a particularly large amount. Um so I'll be looking for explanation of of those very similar to what the school committee did last night, explained those increases. Um, as it relates to the use of uh free cash to to effectively balance the budget this year, um, I am 100% for that. Um, I'm 100% for doing it for next year as well so that we can put together a long range plan. It is a plan that is not going to get done in a year. It is a plan that will require a couple of years to put together and to sell to the public as we talked about last week or maybe the week before. Um, that plan will include does need to include debt and or borrowing and everything else. It needs to be an all-inclusive plan that will take care of capital as well. Um, I look at free cash like a tax return. It's a tax refund. We we we underestimated or we uh we're paying more in our taxes and all of a sudden now we have cash. This process of using free cash changed literally when I was on the council 20 years ago. 20 years ago on this council, we used free cash to balance the budget. The process changed with the prior administrator to

fund capital. I agree we need to fund capital. But when you get a tax refund and you have to decide putting a roof on your putting repairing your roof or paying the medical bills to take care of your children, I use that tax refund to take care of the day-to-day expenses. And I think it's very prudent what we're doing if we go down this path this year of using some of that free cash to add back these services. These services were cut last year and I even threw a couple out last week that I would like to see added back because that's what the the community wants. I will even I've also had phone calls um from school committee of what or others about the schools. Can we do the same thing for the schools? I would do the same thing for the schools, but I would also expect the schools to be held to the same standard that I'm going to hold the town to. Two and a half one hold expenses flat yada yada yada. So, if the schools have reasons why they want to add back language and arts and it's going to cost 300,000, bring it forward and I'll support it. So, if this is not just about the town, it's also about the schools, it's about the whole town. But I I I like what I see um in general. I I can certainly pick away at it. I'm not going to do that tonight. We'll we'll we can continue to have those um kind of discussions over the next couple of months. But directionally, I I I'm I'm all for what I'm seeing right now.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so I two concerns. One of them has been reiterated, but I get to the other one first. Um, so I noticed that not only is it the budget balanced not only on free cash, but there's a lot of reliance on local receipts. Uh, 5% increase where inflation is like 2.7. So that's a big jump. I know we're expecting the World Cup to bring in a lot of local receipts. What do we do after that? You know, and the other thing is if there's a recession, local receipts are probably going to plunge. Um, do you have an estimate for like what our model would look like if we had a recession? No. Okay. I mean, like I Yeah. I mean, I'm

I'm going to take a guess. Yeah. I mean, not only, you know, this is the difficult about the economics, right? If you get a Fed chairman that kills interest rates, that's great for borrowing and I think to council the blank's point, many others, it might free up some room to be able to take care of some of these capital things. On the bad side, inflation is not going to go down, you know, or you want to you want to bring costs down, you want inflation to come down, have a recession or a depression, right? And then things will really plummet. So, it's difficult. Um, if you look at the numbers, we had record-breaking numbers in a lot of categories. is obviously council Griffith pointed out a couple of areas that I hopefully explained uh through a little bit earlier, but because of the diversification of all those revenues that come into that uh into local receipts, um I did mention in the memo that if we were not planning on raising ALS and BLS ambulance rates and then through the budget process, we haven't had time to put it together, but there will be a fees um discussion at some point about tweaking some of the uh user fees that a few of the departments had requested out of us. So, we'll put a package before you later on this this year. It's not going to be an overwhelming amount, but if any of you want to add to that or charge other fees, I did say in the memo I probably would be looking at a three or 4% roughly local receipts because I feel like at some point they are going to plateau with consumer spending. Um uh um and so um if we weren't going to do that fee by law, I think you would drop that number probably down a little bit. Um because I do agree there is does seem to be at least a plateauing of of consumer behavior.

Thank you. And also we can promote this as a time to eat out in Franklin really. I mean restaurant week restaurant week just restaurant. So I I guess and you know the other point just to reiterate what uh uh uh council Griffith has said that um I you know I can support you know I'm actually came in here I was I'm I'm open to balancing the budget with some cuts. Um I'm open to you know having a level service budget and using some free cash but I'm not I won't support I won't vote uh yes on a budget that um restores with the exception of contractual obligations. Um, so that that's that's sort of my red line. So, thank you.

Thank you. My turn.

Okay. Um, couple of quick questions. Um, on the slide for the schools, you have the blue line and the purple line at the bottom. I know that one is with the insurance, one was when the insurance was taken out of the 300 account. What I just wanted to understand is if you go over to the right, it shows increase of 3.32% for both of them. Like that doesn't really make sense. So I'm not sure if I'm reading is that reading it correct. Is that based on 30% of the tax levy?

Just finding out where you are. Are you on the purple line? Yeah, like it's the one that has the yellow and green three. It says 300 count history. Yeah. Yeah, I see it. I'm just trying to follow the number. You're down in the um the bottom one there. Yeah. Where it says 81,155. Yes. All the way to the left. That line item. Yeah. Like if you go over to the bottom right like the percentage increase is 3.32. I don't understand how that's both the same because that's with healthare but one line is without the healthare. Oh yeah that might be um yeah that may be let me see

was that is that a typo? Yeah. So I think on the above line you have uh yeah you have the deducted one you can see the min you can see the 7.86 7.62% 62%. Right. And that number over to the right just got transposed. So that should that number should be that number should be in a um in a deficit. Okay. So I wasn't going crazy because I couldn't figure out how they could be the same percentage when the numbers were different. So the 3.32 obviously that got transposed because they're both the exact same number and that shouldn't be happening. But the 3.32 would have been if they had kept healthcare in that account.

And would that be based on the like 3.3 3.32% of the tax levy. Is that what that's from the previous fiscal year? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Um All right. So, the next question, and some of these might sound silly, but um to me, none of them are silly because um if I don't know the answer, then I need to get it. So you spoke about the comproller with the muna system and I understand that certain departments would cut a little bit to offset the cost and it would come out around 52,000 out of the operating budget. What is the mun system and what does it do?

The munis mun munis is our entire financial system for the town and schools. We've had it for about 20 years. It's generally the um the standard of municipal and school finance. It's all of our payroll, all of our HR functions, all the deductions. So, it's our entire financial management system um for both the town and the schools. It's a very complic you know, it's a very complicated financial, you know, if you I don't know how many of you worked within private sector financial management systems, but it's a it's a complicated system. And I think as the memo says here, we tried to have that position funded several years ago. We tried to do a shared town and school appropriation. That didn't work out. Um the market also required a higher uh dollar value. We did not get any of the candidates that were even close to being able to do what we needed to do. Um but um but it's something that where we're looking for systems improvements. This is probably the most important one to help our HRs teams of both school and town and our finance teams of both school and town to be able to maximize the value out of that system by having somebody that deals with security, deals with a whole bunch of other stuff that right now HR and finance are doing. You take those responsibilities off um and you're going to have a lot more efficiencies within all of those departments. So that's the logic there.

Okay. Um then on the assessor section um admin assistant my question is right now I know we contract out to go have people who do do assessors portion just a small portion. Does that end that or we still paying for that contract? Yes it would. Do we know roughly what that contract cost? I want to say it was 15,000. So 15,000 a year. Yeah. Okay. The Yeah. Nine nine 9,000. Yes. So it's 9,000 a year contracted or $54,000 for an employee.

But the key is is that the appraisers that are supposed to be out on the street doing new growth appra, you know, essentially capturing new growth through property appraisals have to do all the admin work in the office. the abuter notifications, the phone calls, the meetings with constituents to go through their bills, all the abatements, all of that work is being distributed among all of the assessors and the appraisers. So that would free up their time to go out and be able to do the work to helpfully improve the new growth situation. If you're looking for a revenue generator, to be very blunt, that's the number one thing you got right there. Because if you can get the appraisers and our assessors actually doing the work that they're hired to do, you will structurally hopefully that job will easily double pay for itself. Um because eventually within a year or two they'll be able to go out and do more property appraisals instead of spending time doing all the administrative work.

Okay. Um then one I have one other question and then I'll make a brief statement on the budget. it. I've seen it in a few places and I'm just curious what it means. What is the encumbrances? Encumbrances are monies that are splent over two fiscal years. So, if you have a contract say um that goes beyond the fiscal year July 1st, y

you have to do an incumbrance to say that that contract is going to extend to the next fiscal year. So, say you have a $100,000 contract and you spend 30 of it in FY26. You would then encumber the money over July 1st into the next fiscal year and you would encumber 70,000 into the next fiscal year and then you draw down that money throughout the fiscal year so it doesn't become a new appropriation for the actual budget year. So like a contract with like a contractor or like an employees contract. Absolutely wouldn't be an employee contract. Okay. I don't think that would be it, but it would be any other vendor you want to identify. Anything you can think of. Okay. Um, it can only be used for that money,

right? Okay. Um, that's basically my questions. Um, but I'm I'm I'm really struggling with the whole free cash aspect. I do understand like what council blank was saying 100%. But I also kind of with council Griffith and Ojuku thank you. Um I kind of agree with them as well.

We talk about the override and the cuts that we had to make and everyone is sitting here. We didn't get a message out to people so they didn't understand. As someone who was part of vote no, and I feel compelled to say this, it wasn't all because people didn't understand. It's because people can't afford it. Yeah, I agree. It's not a matter of we don't care about the town or the schools or the police or the fire, but we're trying to keep a roof over our head and food in our mouth. We talked about the electric rate going up 1%. Do you know the usage is nothing? My electric bill is normally very small in the winter because I have gas heat.

It's tripled because it's the delivery charge that's three times higher than the amount that I actually used. That 1% increase does not phase me.

Can we get something to do with the delivery? Because that's insanity. Grocery bills are astronomical. my insurance. Now I can no longer use Milford Hospital. So I can't call 911. Don't come get me because you can't take me. You'd have to bring me to Brockton because I'm struggling this way and I'm not the only one. So what we need to understand when we're doing all this isn't that people didn't understand what was going to be cut. They can't afford the increases right now because everything on a state and federal level is killing us. And this state is the worst of them all.

No question.

They are crippling the residents and then they're saying figure it out from the unfunded mandates that school town have to do. We're drowning. Okay. Everyone knows I almost was late for a meeting. I'm sharing a car. Why? I can't afford to get my daughter's car fixed. I'm just making it. So that's what we need to remember and stop focusing on the fact that people weren't listening. They were listening. We need to listen to them. Do they like the cuts? No, they don't. But I have to agree with bringing back employees with one-time money when we can't promise them sustainability in that role is cruel. because I'm going to bring you in and say you have a job, but in 365 days you might be getting laid off. Now, we're dealing with unemployment insurance. I don't have an issue with using some of the free cash to buffer some of the things within the budget that is already there that we're running a little short on. But I don't believe, and it's not that I feel that any department shouldn't have the full staff that they want. In a grand scheme of things, we would all have everything that we wanted. Um, but I think that we need to try to stay within the budget that we have because bringing them back is only going to jeopardize it later. and using that free cash if we can leave some of it there that's going to acrue interest that's going to help us in the long run because right now we don't have a plan. So it's kind of like you're not going to go buy a house

unless you know what the price is and you getting the inspection done first and then hand over half a million dollars for a home. Well, today more like a million. But the point is don't use everything that we have because we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. So buffer what we absolutely need and say no to everything else. And as far as like the trash at the parks, if you can bring in that bag when you go, you can carry it out like we used to do. There's certain things that even residents are going to have to take up and be part of and help out with and take responsibilities for because not everything can be funded. But if we use everything that we have and something bad happens, we're in trouble and that's not where I want to be. So I'm really hardressed on approving any free cash going to new positions even if I feel that they are needed right now. I think that we need to just kind of um not lay low but stay within our means and I will call Milford Hospital. I think they they worked out that thing cuz I they worked it out for me and I'm on the GIC.

I'm just saying I'll try it. I called my daughter. Otherwise, if I need an ambulance, they have to drive me to Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And uh thank you councelor Callaway trip for um being brave enough to share what you just shared because that was that was personal and sensitive and vulnerable stuff and I think it was important for people to hear but that took a lot of bravery to to share. So thank you.

Thank you. Um I think everybody can speak to the enormous energy spikes, the grocery spikes, the uh life is just very very very expensive. Um so I am finding myself a little bit in the middle here. I'm finding myself agreeing with my colleagues over here in the sense that seems a little bit irresponsible to uh patch operational deficits with one-time revenues. But then I also understand the folks that are like we need to do some of these things to help the community heal and to show them, you know, what Franklin should be and could be. and put a plan together to move forward. Like I get I get all of those concepts. I too worry about funding any position with one-time revenue because it's not sustained and it's already been said it's really not fair to do to that person. Um, to councelor Leblanc's point, uh, Jamie, I too struggle with the two and a half% COLA to all staff. We've talked about this before. I I know there's contractual obligations, but um, the unfortunate reality is that maybe other staff have to take a lesser cola increase in the FY27. It's really early for these conversations, but we're trying to do the prep work so that in May this thing can can move forward and we can and we can figure things out. Um, to the point of I don't think people understood I I I think people understood just fine the ramifications of the last override. What

I think we're finding is the 60% that didn't bother to vote at all. That's the they're the they're the folks that maybe are just kind of going through life. They're busy. They're dealing with the kids. They're like doesn't even phase them, right? But we're not or we're not and I don't think we're that unique, right? Like I think there's probably that could probably be said for a lot of people. They just

going through the motions with running their dayto-day and they're not focused on this stuff. I worry about you restore all this stuff with onetime revenues and we fall into this sort of like complacency mode where everybody's like oh everything's back to normal again and that you know this new council they fixed it they took you know and it's like well wait a minute you rob Peter to pay Paul you're taking we have we heard Brutus's presentation granted nobody was still up by the time he gave it because we fought for hours over other stuff but the folks that did Listen to Brutus incredible presentation from DPW. We have over a hundred million dollars in projects that can't be funded that we're going to get whacked with the minute a major pipe breaks or sidewalks are in need or water treatment needs to be done, roofs on buildings. Like those things don't go away. And quite frankly, they get worse when you take the free cash capital program from where it is and cutting it in half. What I did here that I wanted to clarify so people understand the FY25 free cash money that we're talking about later tonight for capital is not what you're talking about to use here to patch FY27. Correct. FY25 capital was spent to council's point earlier. FY26 free cash service is what you're looking at.

You're a year behind, bro. No, no. What what I'm what I'm trying to point out what I'm trying to point out is the the money that when we get into capital the and we're going to spend those monies tonight and hopefully we're going to put some money aside but for next fiscal year you would basically be proposing instead of putting the money into a capital program you'd be taking some of it out right I'm hearing it correctly

I think as I said in the memo Oh, you know, I think for the next couple fiscal years, you could realistically try to use 1 to2 million in free cash to try to make sure there are no cuts and layoffs. And, you know, I think I think every department in here, I'm not going to speak for them, they can speak for themselves, but I think given what happened last year, you're going to take another another step back, right? You're going to hear the chief, both of them say ambulance is gone again, right? The next two SRO's are going to go. like I think we know where the I hope you guys know where those and we know what the school cuts will be. Um, so you know, I think

what I would say is when free cash gets certified again in um, October of this calendar year, you would look out at that number for the next fiscal year for FY28. And you'd say if 4.5 million came in in free cash again, say, you could use 1 million or two million or nothing or 500,000 or 100,000, you know, it doesn't matter what the number, you could use some of that for the operating budget the following year. I just thought it was important for the public to understand some of the some of the differences and councelor referenced rainy day funds. We're actually not touching uh reserves or rainy day funds at all with this proposal. Free free cash is a little different. Yeah. Yeah.

But I just want to make sure people understand like at least right now 100,000

other than other than tackling, you know, we're going to need to look at Brutus's snow and ice reserve fund to patch some holes. Like we're not talking about touching reserves. Um this year already we had some creative solutions, right? We had the uh part-time nurse at the senior center restored because the senior center re-evaluated their staffing model and shifted some things, shifted some responsibilities and came back to you and us and said we can actually restore this person not quite at the exact amount of hours that she was at before but close. Correct. Right. So um and then we also looked at restoring the to ambulance drivers because we got a little creative with uh monies, right? The the if if they're bringing in a this amount of money in receipts, then that can basically fund those positions. So, the the creativity has already been looked at for those things. I would throw out to department heads um particularly, you know, our our great team at Park and Recreck, there's some creative things that can be done like we've talked about it, right? And and that's a a self-funded department. We all know that, but it's certainly helping the big picture. It's helping the bottom line. show us some, you know, a sticker at Beaver Street, you know, so that if people want to use the Beaver Street facility, it's $35 for the summer and maybe that helps pay for the trash or, you know, charge a fee to the people using the Cricut fields, like do a contract with them so it's not free. Like I think there are some ways like those other departments have done some creative things. It's is it gigantic

revenue? No. But it shows steps in the right direction. Um I I would encourage you, Jamie, between now and May and all of us, we might be able to patch a few holes with dipping into free cash and figuring that program out. I don't think we can restore everything that you've outlined here, even though it would be nice. It'd be it'd be such a nice be such a nice thing to be able to tell everybody we found the money. But I also worry about the people in the community that are going to say exactly that. You found the money. You don't need an override. You don't need to come to me about your problems. You found a way to bring everybody back. Things are good. Meanwhile, they're not noticing that the pipes are breaking or that the trucks aren't being repaired correctly or the roofs aren't being done because they're just looking at the data. So, I think it's I think it's an interesting start, but I I too can't support it fully as is. I 100% will look forward to the conversations as we uh dive into this more, but I yield.

Um I have a question and two comments. Uh first question is around the basically Steve and I were having a discussion about the Munis um administrator in these areas where you you have like a need for an administrator but it might not be 100%. Are there shar shared services that we can utilize? Because that's kind of the way we do it in the private sector. Like if I can't fund I can't fund IT security because my company's too, you know, too small and one security person's not going to do it. I can buy a percentage of a service, you know, a shared service that provides that capability for me. So for this immunity administrator, is that something we could even share with another town so that we could get it? But also, you know, it's not it's not 100% full-time.

You would um from a return on investment standpoint, you would spend probably exponential amount of dollars trying to enter into a shared services agreement or anou or an IMA with another town. And you know we tried this internally and this is not a comment to we tried a communications director we tried a mun administrator we tried a cyber security specialist between our own within our own school district where we all work on the second and third floor here and we couldn't get that baked into the budget. Working with another community is going to be 10 times harder. Regionalization sounds great and in certain instances it can work. Um, but I think as as as towns are looking inward and when they sign up for something, they want more than what you get into. And so it's just I can tell you from doing IMAS and regionalization and all that stuff, um, you'd spend more staff time and more hours to get like $10,000 from the town of, you know, Norfolk, say, to buy in. and then maybe one day goes to Norfolk, but then you lose the value of that full-time person being here and and and the whole point of this is to maximize the modules in the system um among the team here. It is a good question and it's not a bad idea, but in practicality working that out with another town is is extraordinarily difficult. I would say that um uh but you know animal control right now has not been looked at in a long time because there's a new town manager in Bellingham. Um we're going through that entire thing and we're going to cost it out. It's going to cost more money, but we're trying to rewrite that to give an opportunity to get more towns in animal control because the economies of scale. That definitely is something that can work. the regional dispatch center. I've been wasting my life away on trying to

get merged. You know, with Foxboro, you know, in three or four years, that's almost certainly to become a reality. You know, by then you'll have probably 12, 14, 15 towns in that district. That will drive down the economies of scale for one system where mutual aid is already working. So, there are some examples of where that can work. I think in this case it'd be a it'd be a little bit more challenging because you're not really you wouldn't get a shared services agreement that would bring in say 50 thou. It wouldn't be a significant amount of money that you would get from another community. Um and then you got to manage that. Well, when the person's on vacation, what happens? And what if they're sick? Who gets them then? Oh, it was Friday. So, I didn't get my day in Norfol. When do I get in Franklin? And it just becomes really, really hard. Um that's one of the biggest reasons why we're leaving to go to the GIC is regionalization with healthcare was just was just way too much with with those kind of communities. But um but it is a really good idea and in certain instances it can work.

All right. So my two comments are I'm going to be like council car Ledger who kind of taken a middle path here. Um I do not agree with using these one-time funds with restoring U positions. um that are kind of taken away for a number of reasons. You know, there's also the concern like we had brought up about the healthcare. We don't know what the impact that's that's going to be. So, so it doesn't make sense from that perspective. Um we don't want to restore something and then have to take it back again. I don't want to be in that position. So, for a number of reasons, I think it makes sense to to not do that at this point. let's get a look at what the situation is and then you know in the next budget cycle maybe consider something like that. But um to council blank's point um this idea of how we use free cash I think needs to be looked at as well because um right now we just say well it's going to be used just for for capital spending but doesn't have to be. That's a decision that we've made to do it that way. Okay. And we can fund capital different ways. you can borrow to buy um capital items. So we should take a look at that and say okay is there a percentage of free cash that we going forward that we do want to spend on budgetary items and then you know a portion that we want to spend on capital and and and consider that you know because like I said this is kind of something that we've a rule that we've set up on our own that you know we can we can make a change to and we have to look at everything everything has to be on the table in order to solve the budget cap. So those are my uh points and I yield the rest of my Thank you. Well, I I kind of agree with a lot ofers. Uh I I I I don't believe in I believe if we give two and a half contract a raise. I don't I don't believe that we should cut I don't think the I don't think the fire chief should get a one and a half raise on the police

chief. They're doing just as much work. And I think when when the schools got four and a half and the and the municipal got two and a half, you saw what kind of divide that brought the town to it was it was awful. I mean that could be my union, but I think everybody deserves the same amount of raise. I know in the public sector where I am, if we negotiate a contract for 4%, our managers get 4%. It's just it's just the way it is. Um it's always been that way for 40 years that I worked in the public sector. So um I definitely wouldn't support that. Uh but I do agree that we we keep a level budget. We get we you know no cuts this year and I I definitely agree with council that we need a plan. The plan to for the next couple years has to come and it's going to be a lot of work from all of us. I mean it's not sitting here. It's going to be it's going to be a lot of work. The school committee is going to have to be in the finance committee. Everybody's going to have to chip in. It's a lot of work, but we definitely have to get that plan. I Jamie, I don't know about you, but I I agree.

Yeah. Uh thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh great feedback from everybody. Um this was very very helpful. I hope it's helpful that we've you know, I know the school committee and superintendent got things done a little earlier this year. This is the earliest we've ever had a real budget model with local aid baked in. So, this is giving all of you in the community hopefully fair time to make some tough decisions. Um, I have two quick points. Um, uh, and then one question for you guys. First, um, I I just want to speak to, um, to councelor Callaway Trip's comment. I agree affordability is probably the biggest threat in this state. I referenced it in my memo. I've spoken about it many times at meetings. Um, I understand a lot of people could simply not afford an override. Um, I also want and I hope she'll acknowledge that a lot of people are really upset about the cuts and people were people have told me on a near daily basis whether I see him out and about or they call a woman stopped in my office last night at 3:00. I was the only person there and she came in. I had a great conversation with her for an hour and the conversation is consistent that I have with people. I had no idea that was going to happen. I didn't realize that the nurse was going to get laid off. Why couldn't we cut something over here? Why are we doing this? And I think many of you referenced, why are we not fixing a roof or why are we fix Some people tell me why are we fixing the roof and why aren't we doing this? And so I think what you all are dealing with is an extraordinary amount of opinions from people that they have very differing opinions. The override statistics of the two votes I think are very representative here tonight. I think all of you are bringing forward opinions that all of you have heard throughout the community, a variety of ones from maybe this budget is irresponsible to how can we restore positions to uh I can tell you a lot of people do want these positions restored. So people aren't not asking for the services. People want the work to get

done. I don't envy the position all of you are in. It's very very hard because you're dealing with hundreds and thousands of opinions and you're not going to make a majority of them happy um because every decision that gets made is going to come with a significant consequence. The overrides I would point out were 4951 both of them

and they were within a couple hundred votes on both. I think the challenge all of you have this year is how do you thread that needle with the variety of opinions that are here tonight, but also the variety of opinions we've all heard, the variety of opinions you have here. I wanted to make sure these folks in the room have their voice heard and a lot of this represents that. This was the budgets that they brought forward at the departments, including the schools. Um and um when you do dig into the budget and get into the bone, you'll realize you'll be into the marrow uh the bone marrow because um there is no reform. There's no easy thing that's going to get done. There's no um this that or the other thing that's going to solve even if you didn't fund the new positions with onetime money. One, you're still going to have less capacity to do a lot of the work people want you to do, a lot of the work some of you want us to do. um you're going to have less people, you're fewer people. Um but also, you're just going to be in a position where some of that work um you know, if you cut the departments, you're going to cut into that even more. But I think part of what this group has to decide is maybe to councelor Callaway Trip's point and maybe others, maybe the town's people really do want a lot less. And maybe all of you have to set those expectations with the public that the third ambulance is something we can't fund. You know, I think we've heard a lot about school needs and investments and foreign language and a variety of other things. Maybe the expectation has to get set where we say to people, "We're never going to do that. We just can't. We're just not going to be able to do it." And I think the override numbers speak to that fracture in the community. Those are very close votes and you had two of them in one year that were extraordinarily close. Um so while council cormier ledger I agree and I point out the 60% who didn't vote right these were still two enormous voter turnouts for a special elections 40% of

the public and almost 50% in 2024 those are huge huge voter turnouts in a special election people were paying attention they did come out and vote in a large number um but I also want to acknowledge and I hope you do too that I get a lot of feedback every day from a lot of people that are very very unhappy with the cuts and do feel like for whatever reason they didn't know what was going on for not pointing fingers but just in some ways there just wasn't either clarity there wasn't enough people out there you know telling people that but I I hear that from almost every day while I acknowledge the affordability issue I reference it in here I've said it at many meetings and then the last uh question I'd have um to many of you is and I pointed this out in the beginning of the memo is um appreciate all the feedback back. All of it is is is fantastic feedback. And uh to be completely blunt, um you know, I expected most of it. Um the question I have for all nine of you starting tonight is what is the plan? How do you want to create a plan? I think a shared services agreement. I think a couple tweaks to revenues on uh on recreation or maybe some additional fees. Every little bit adds up. Every idea should be on the table. I I acknowledge that. But I think if we just stay in those little areas, you're still going to be disappointed to find out

that it's not even close.

Not even close. So, if affordability is a concern, which it very much is, and I think you're going to see that on the ballot in November, um, with the income tax uh, from 5% to 4%. Right. Well, then we have to start managing expectations of what can get done and what our staff are able to do because at some point there's going to be a breaking point where the bandwidth here is not going to be able to solve these problems. But if affordability, which is a legitimate concern, you can't ask for an override because I agree with Council Callaway trip. If you're not going to go for an override, what are you going to do? And so I think all of you I hope tonight will ask yourselves or maybe we're going to have a discussion. How do you want to create a plan? Because I can tell you people want the police officers back for example. I'll use that one for I won't say the deputy town administrator, right? But if you want to get those officers back, how do you do that? How do you keep up with the demand? We have record-breaking call volume in both police and fire. So I think maybe what would be an advantageous point and I don't know if it's tonight or in the future. How does the town council want to create a plan to make this more sustainable in the future? Um, so that to councelor Blank's point, if we support even a year or two of free cash, then what? And I think that's ultimately if you take an override off the table, you really can't borrow. Where are you going to borrow? There's no money to borrow. then you're paying three percent interest rate on that borrowing. So you're not going to go out and borrow and the only other alternative to borrowing is a debt exclusion. So I think and all of that comes back to I think the affordability issues that many people have spoken in town. So, I'm just asking, how does the council want to create a plan for sustainability? Because I truly believe that

conversation needs to start really quickly and needs to be discussed among all of you and others about how you want to frame that because I think May is around the corner. I know it's still snowy and cold, but before we know it, it'll be here. Oh, yeah. So yeah, for sure. Could I say something? Repeat that. Go ahead.

I can acknowledge what you said. I'm not saying that there are people out here that are not unhappy about the cuts. So I do give you that acknowledgement and I agree. I just get a little upset because that's the only thing I've ever hear about versus and I know it was stated in here. I'm not saying it wasn't,

but it's it's really more of the financial aspect for a lot of people. And I do agree you need a plan, but there's also a problem. We're not going to create one meeting twice a month with agendas like this. So, we need a subcommittee and that is all there is to it because we need to have the time to sit and be able to communicate with each other

in order to do it. And without it, it's not going to happen unless we plan a couple of months of meetings with zero on the agenda. except what are we going to do and how do we make a plan because we only have so many hours and we need to be able to sit down and have these long hard talks with each other so we can understand where everyone's looking and take everybody's background and what they know and let them put it on the table and then figure it out from there. But we're not going to do it without a subcommittee. So it needs to be put into place and it needs to be put into place like cancer

when we get the joint separate but that's that's a joint committee with finance and school to work together. Yes. But if the town council is supposed to come up with a plan to keep a balanced budget and keep things going then we need a subcommittee that we can meet where the only topic is that plan. I'll make a committee of three then because that's the only way we're going to do it. I'll make that a little bit tonight. But I would recommend making it for just say the forum issues maybe. I mean,

yeah, you could. I just I mean people work. That's all that's just what I'm trying to figure out. Yeah, that that's the reason why I was trying to cut it down a little bit. I know, you know, people you you know we have this but you're also volunteer and now all of a sudden you're going to have another night that you have to come out you know that's that's the only reason why I was Mr. chairman. Yeah, I think we need to kind of step back a little bit. I mean, I get the idea of a small group of us, but we need to include many more people than just the town council.

Well, that's with the joint subcommittee. Well, that joint subcommittee would work, but I did I maybe I misunderstood what you were saying that you would have both a joint subcommittee and then another sub that's they want another subcommittee on the council, but you know, you know, I I I agree with you that it's the school and the and the finance committee is going to come back to us with all recommendations. So if I could, I I think the joint budget subcommittee is probably the first priority

because we need to have that that that broader perspective. Um it's not a bad idea to also have a finance finance subcommittee within this group, but it's less uh timesensitive like we don't need that as soon as we need the joint budget. Oh, no. But what we do want to do, and we've talked about this already, is have the broader group uh sit down and make sure that we're we're talking through what the potential priorities are for that JVSC. Yep.

So, if we've got our priorities or goals, we go in and start working through that. And then, you know, the various groups, the town council, the school committee, and finance all have their representatives and can speak to how accomplish the goals.

I think it's just we had questions, right? That's what the department heads are here right now. We're going to go to capital, right? Yeah. And then we we can speak to them. I mean, anybody can speak. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. But nobody nobody needs to talk to any of the department.

Well, on the budget I I mean I don't do does any of the department have anything that they want to speak to? Is this what's really this detail? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Bruce K, your public works director. Um, you know, I hear all the different things that go on, but I just want to reiterate because I it's only fair to say as council Ted Corned said that when you start affecting my budget, it's not personnel. It's a lot of maintenance type things, preventive maintenance. We have a strong friend maintains program and money you don't spend now, it's going to cost you more later. Just just why you know that?

You don't have to tell me. Well, I want the public to know that, too. Yeah. You don't always see our expectations like right away. We're not going to lose a resource officer on July 1st, but your roads are going to fail over the next two or three years. And then catching up is going to cost more money. So, that's one thing I just want to talk about the operating budget. And even what Jamie proposed this year, we're still a couple hundred,000 behind from the previous year that we had to cut. So, we're already behind going into it. So, I just want the folks to know. Thank you.

Sarah, then

good evening. Sarah Amar, senior center director. I just wanted to thank you all for having the tough conversations. I would say what I'm hearing and particularly from staff and we've kind of said it tonight. I think we've been hearing for months and I know we have a lot of new members, but really starting to talk about that plan because I think we all are putting together budgets, thinking about it, what potential cuts could come. Let's build our armies. let's figure out what we're going to do if we get cut more where so much time could be spent on actual efficiencies and strategic planning that we don't have the time for because to be hon to say we keep saying we need a plan but we've needed a plan for 10 plus years so if we started to see movement there I think you see a lot of staff morale boost um because then they have something to look forward to. Um so I just wanted to share that if we could we keep saying that but if we saw some momentum um I know that would just really help staff morale. Thank you.

Yeah morale. Go ahead.

Good evening everyone. Lucas Shagir, superintendent of schools. I I would echo what Sarah said around I appreciate the discussion and debate. Obviously you're all here. you come from different perspectives of the folks that your constituents who you speak to. You have different philosophies, different experiences that bring you here. I think it's healthy to have uh varying opinions and as an elected body hopefully can coalesce around an idea. I do think that does take time and I just want to acknowledge that none of this gets solved like in one meeting. It's a series of meetings that have to happen. I wanted to just say I was thinking a lot about uh some of the comments and I I was thinking of a Warren Buffett quote around you can't cut your way into lasting prosperity and I know that every year we've had to manage cuts the the impact of cutting uh has uh the imp you have to then redistribute that to the people who are still here and then the same the same people that we have that we're redistributing the roles um if you get a restoration or there's some kind of movement and then you have to hire back, you now you've lost some you lost some time, some money um and some of those pieces. So, there are some just consequences to some of that. Um you know, we have uh certainly been through uh along with my colleagues the reductions and cuts that have happened. Some of them have been strategic as a result of redistricting and school consolidation. So, um there's there's twofold to that. I think the the first override, second override, we tried to get that out. I know even just this this week I've had to notify three people already that they're not in next year's budget just because we were trying to be thoughtful around landing at 2 and a half%. And when I think about my colleagues and our department head meeting, you know, I think uh what Jamie proposed provides the ability for us to create a little space to actually problem solve. So I think there's the two I've heard the two perspectives. You don't want to spend money that you know you can't commit to long term,

right? On the flip side, you also if you don't and you have to cut more, we'll be that's what we'll spend all of our time doing and then still having to strategize and come up with a plan. So, there's no easy solution here and I respect everyone's uh opinion on that. The last thing I was going to say is this idea of kind of being in the arena and you're all in it. Every elected body like FINCOM and school committee there are in the arena with you. I think we've been in the arena for a few years now uh living it and I think uh to see this year to see a throughway where school committee made a seven uh nothing unanimous vote to say let's put healthcare all together and get that under one roof and and I think that was the will and the vocal um comments from many people. I thought that was a a move to say okay let's let's um signal that we're all listening a little bit and maybe I originally was really opposed to that idea. I think I made that pretty public, but I think I'm listening. We're all listening. And how can we, you know, you don't always get what you want, but I do see value in in that decision. So, I'm just trying to say that I think the more we can try to continue to work and come together, I thought not having a year, I mean, since I've been a superintendent every year, I've either been in the hot seat, you know, early on, or it's been a lot of if if I have to cut and then someone else, it's kind of like departments, we're trying to figure it out. Then the supporters of each of our respective departments are are talking to you. And I just thought it um the strategy was around trying to create a little breathing room for the opportunity to build a longer term plan. And I think to get through uh one season without devastating or or a high number of cuts and then some of the positions I I will speak to the mun administrator just on um school and town side. That's really the use backbone already for a different purpose, but I think that's really the the tool in any organization. That's the one that we use for payroll, for leaves, for all those pieces. it has not been updated. I think when you

invest in technology, but then you don't utilize it and optimize it to its full use, I think there's a a cost loss there as well. And I think I'm here to also just say that many of my colleagues and folks that work for me have been advocating when they heard about the opportunity to have the MUN administrator in there. We're um we're excited about that. Um so just I don't I don't envy the position you're in. I don't envy my own position to be quite honest. Um, but ultimately I I hope that uh hope that we can continue to try to figure a way to work together and I think thoughtful strategic long-term planning with a solution to get us through uh a period of time where it's clear that more questions need to be answered, more um more information needs to be provided might be uh a worthy endeavor. So, thank you.

Thanks,

Rowan Levelvel. Uh I'm the town archavist. I'll be very brief. I don't want to take up too much of your time. Uh just to say that for many of the smaller departments, uh such as myself, uh the arts, the senior center, the library, we are already approaching a point. Um we've been meeting for months going on a year to try to find creative solutions between all of us to support each other. Um we understand the difficult decisions that are at stake here. Um my personally my budget for the historical commission is 0.05% of the overall town's operating budget. Some people might say that's too much and I understand that in hard times there are going to be difficult cuts. But for many of us we have spent the last two years in so to speak the hot seat of am I going to have a job come July. Um and as councelor Callaway trip uh mentioned regarding using onetime funds to fund positions uh many of us have already been experiencing this anxiety of is this the year that it's decided my department is redundant. Um and this is by no means a guilt trip. Things have to happen. Things have to happen uh how they do and if that's how the chips fall then that's how they do. um just that we are here to serve the community and that's all we've ever wanted to do. Um and we hope that the community as a whole can find the best way forward. Thank you.

You're going to hate me for this. Um, so, uh, you know, I'm I'm hearing from a lot of the staff that they want certainty from the council and I, you know, I think if we could just provide some guidance to them easily in the form of a motion. So, I would like to move that is the sense of the council that there will be no uh, FTE cuts in FY27. I would need a second for that. This is not too early. I don't think anyone wants those, but I don't know that we have enough information to say that today, right? We're way too early for that. I I respect the principle. I

Good idea. Would love to give you that, brother. All right, let's let's move on now to legislation for action. No, capital. Oh, I'm sorry. CP capital. I get this. That's all right. I've been on for a while. That's I know. That's the biggie tonight. FY 26 26 capital book plan book.

Sorry. Um yeah. So,

uh the book's the book. Um I I just as a as a quick background, I met with one of you u recently. Um, when I got here 11 years ago or 10 years ago, um, a lot of this was done on back of napkins and pieces of scratch paper. And, um, this is the first year we've actually had a capital plan book. Um, this has been a goal of mine for many, many years. And I thank Evan and Carrie and Linda and the whole finance team and, um, all the departments for putting this together. Um, it's not perfect. It's not exactly where we want to be, but I think for council Delloro especially, who's been here for the whole time I have We've seen a a huge um better organization than just a packet of incomprehensible spreadsheets, which I know maybe even council Cormier Ledger got his first year.

Yeah.

Um they were disorganized and they were not very well done and some people had a five-year plan, some didn't. But we do finally have a real six-year plan in here for everywhere. I believe um next year uh to consol blank's goal um the last meeting um we are going to try to take that next step and get to a 10-year capital plan for all of our departments. Um the good news is everything will be organized. It'll be much uh more clear. Hopefully allow for better strategy. The bad news, forewarning, is it's going to be way more money than you can afford. And so most of it you'll have to say no to. Um, but at least you'll have a a a really formal look. If you look at towns like uh Andover and even Needam and many others, by the way, they have full-time staff members that deal with just this, okay? Like they have an entire team in Arlington of two full-time people that do nothing but capital analytics. Um I have one fifth of one person Evan who does some of this in his time and a lot of the departments out here actually fill in a lot of these sheets. So um you know the overview really quickly is the resolutions that are before you tonight um are obviously below. Uh one is the general capital plan um that's that's on the list which um I believe was about 1.81 81 million of mostly, if not all, tier one priorities of things that were broken or public safety gear and things that needed immediate replacement. Um and then two, we had recommended the OPED deposit because for those of you like councelor Juku and council criminal ledger and councelor Deloro and many of you who have watched a lot of meetings, you know, um our oped actuarial has stalled and we have cut almost a million dollars in OPEC contributions to in our

operating budget and I think almost two years we have not been able to make that deposit from free cash. So our policy uh is is is in tough shape. Um, however, given where all these numbers came out, um, on the OPED, uh, policy, um, you don't have to do it. You can approve it tonight if you like, but in the memo, I had recommended that maybe tableabling that until the June 10th meeting would be advantageous to see where exactly all the budget numbers, particularly with healthcare, show up. I want to be clear that this is the finance committee's recommendation. They did recommend this on an 8:1 vote. Um I think if any of you watched it um the one dissenting vote um was one of the finance committee members who actually wasn't against the uh fixing the sprinkler system at all. Ryan Lordna um he just was trying to actually engage I think some discussion among the finance committee about u about whether this was too much money, whether we were going to wait, whether we should do it now, wait for later. Um, and obviously the fire chief stood up at that meeting and said, "Well, the way you close the senior center is not repair the sprinkler system." Um, because if the sprinkler system did have a problem, then the senior center would have to get shut down. And the fire chief, I'm sure, is happy to talk about that later. Lastly, I'll say even despite the financial committee recommendation, the council has full authority to spend all of this free cash. None of it. Portion it off. You can add things to this list. You can make amendments and take things off this list. Um the finance committee recommendation is just that. It's just a recommendation um that's in the town charter. They have no authority to say um you know you can't go higher or lower. So if folks want to take some of this stuff off and make amendments to this resolution, you can. Or if you want to add things from other tiers, uh you can you can also add things to the list that aren't even on capital program. So um you can go ahead and spend the money however the council desires. because you're the legislative body and you're in control of that. So, this is our

recommendation, the finance committee's recommendation and obviously the staff are all here tonight to answer any questions that you might have um on any of the projects in the capital or any of the fleet or any of the other uh facilities questions that you may have. Thank you. Okay, go into that. Yeah. Can we go into the source of free cash returns? Jamie, if you could just detail two and three before we have the big we have the big discussion.

Sure. So, um, as I think a few councilors had mentioned earlier, we uh were certified for about 4 and a.5 million in free cash. Um, which has been fairly stable for a while. If you notice years back, um, we had far less free cash. Um, one of the, uh, about half of that, about two million of that is, um, your income tax returns. It's really what departments turn back and there's an itemized list in there and you can see it's a little bit of everything from all the sorts of departments throughout town. Um I guess for people at home what warrants a turnback. Um you know an example would be um we had a labor at the DPW who resigned on October 1st. We weren't able to fill that position until February 1st. So there's salary that was not paid out for three months or four months and that money is money that is then um turned back at the end of the year. Um all of our free cash is certified by the Commonwealth. So it goes through a review process at the Department of Revenue and then we get a certification. And then the second um category are excess revenues. Um on here you'll see um you'll see as we talked about earlier with councelor Griffith's questions you'll see some of the overunders on where revenue came in um where it um was a little lower but as I explained earlier um you know these are all reasonable estimates and our free cash totals over the past at least five or 10 years um have been fairly stable. I would note that up until a few years ago when inflation really hit in 2022, we used to actually separate out the hotel tax money um and use that for nothing but roads. Um obviously that doesn't happen anymore because the budget needed that money into local receipts. So um so that's really the split and free cash. Um and um when people ask for example

um where's all the money go from building right um the building commissioner who's on Zoom um brings in a tremendous amount of revenue in building permit monies um like I said the solar farm uh on Maple Gate uh will bring in a significant chunk of change. We'll see that in next year's free cash. We didn't anticipate that as part of this year's free cash because you don't know if the solar farm is going to be if the land is going to turn over, if there's going to be lawsuits. You don't really know. But now that we know they closed on that on New Year's Eve

and now they're going forward with it, they come into the office. But there's it's very very hard for us to predict exactly when all of that type of stuff is going to happen on a bill on a large building fee. U but hopefully that's good news for next year. So that's a quick uh that's a quick rundown. All set. Y. So, we'll go the same way. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, so we're talking about the tier one um investments.

Okay. Um, couple of questions on a few items. I did watch the finance committee meeting, so I picked up on some of this. Obviously, at $750,000 I'd like to get a little more background on the sprinkler system at the tenure center. Do you just so while Kevin's coming up, do you know the history? No. The 20 year history, 5y year history, two-year history. I know what I want to know. I've heard bits and pieces of it.

Building was built almost 20some years ago. Was built for some reason completely on the cheap. Um, it's a beautiful building, but as you go in there, they've got those eaves in the nooks and crannies. We've had two sprinkler breaks, uh, with sub-zero temperatures. Um, we were able to finance the insulation repairs last year. Um, and now I'll let Kevin explain and maybe the fire chief talk about the actual sprinkler system and the code um, that needs to happen. But that's the one minute version is that we had no that's part of and we did insulate the entire inside of the building I think a year ago. Kev year and a half ago. Uh around this time last year this time last year. Thank you. Go ahead.

Uh Kevin H, director of facilities. Thanks Kevin.

So as an old facilities guy myself I try to think back on my career and how many sprinkler replacement jobs we did. I can't think of any. Um, and maybe that's cuz our leases were 10 years and we'd moved out of the building or we did whatever, but um, even at 20 years, can you just give us some background on what's the problem? What's the fix? And how does that add up to $750,000? So, um, as the breaks had happened, um, you know, we would get on site and working with the technicians, we would actually look into the pipe and we found that, uh, the existing pipe that's throughout the senior center um, is worn. um as as as in a in a dry system with compressed air, it it has moisture and over years there have been breaks. Uh and we're noticing that the interior of the pipe is not um it's it's not I I guess sufficient or or what what breaken down

exactly. Um so and that's that's your dry system. That's also your wet system. The $750,000 number is uh a a pretty high level. Uh I think it was somewhere between4 and $45 a square foot. Senior center is a little like around $18,000 square ft. Um so that $750,000 number, it could be less. So even just more basic, if you could just back up. So you're talking individual pipes that terminated sprinkler heads, those are failing or

so where where the where there was a break. So in a dry system where there'd be a low point and then there'd be a um a drip drum. Um typically you would go over and open up the top valve um then close it then open the bottom valve. So any water that hit the low point would have been in the drum and then opening the bottom valve, it would drain out. You would continue that sequence until no more water was coming out and any any moisture that would just naturally happen in a dry system would would no longer be in the system. Um in the times where we had the the brakes at the senior center, uh typically those were the those are where the brakes were. wherever there was a drip drum um or above in a in a low point and when it would break and then the team would get on site um and they start cutting back in the pipe and then they would see ice. They have to keep cutting back further. They cut back until there's no more ice and then you would just add a new pipe and then connect it into the system. And

so all this pipe is up in the ceiling right above the ceiling tiles. Correct. Yeah. and in the race ceiling in that plenum and it's cold enough up there to freeze the water. Not anymore. Not anymore. We insulated it. So, okay. Warranty um evaluation on what was built. I know it's 20 some odd years ago. Is there any It doesn't sound like a great installation if I can say it that way. uh from from

from what I've uh from from what I know I believe I I don't think I don't think going back and um or or going through litigation or anything like that with like the the original like construction team that happened. I think that that's no longer I don't know if it's been discussed. It just they may not even be around anymore. The people that built it may not even be with us. the insurance company. I was just going to say we've done Yeah, we're out of insurance claims uh challenge flags. Um we pulled a rabbit out of the hat both times. They did replace the furniture. We pulled every string in the book, but those rabbits are now gone out of the hat. So, we we the insurance did cover

cover some of the the costs of the previous breaks, but strike three were out. It's a great question, but I I don't think the warranty or any of those other options are available. Just my own experience. I don't remember ever having to do anything like that. Whatever scale it is or whatever, but um it just seems like obviously it's a lot of money. It's a big facility. There's a lot broken, right? You're replacing every every pipe, every sprinkler head. Go ahead. Yeah. I was just wondering if we would you going to go back to a dry system by the way? Well, that's that's um

so the we we have some funds allocated to uh you know get a designer um you know I would I would love for it to just be a wet system but I think the way that the senior center is designed it might not it might have I don't think that's that's an option for us. Um, so dry system meaning there's no water in the pipe until it calls for it when the one of the fusible links melts or something like that. A lot of the newer in and some of the newer dry systems they don't they no longer use compressed air. I think it's nitrogen. Um, so no more just naturally just water or moisture be being

connect to the to the water main in the building or the main water lines and that's that's where the the water comes from to discharge. Right. Correct. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's just it's a shame. It just seems like a lot of money for, you know, a big project or pool work or whatever it is. It's just uh that's too mad. Okay. Um my only other question on this list is on the police vehicle replacements. I don't know if the chief's here or anybody could speak to it. I'm older than some sitting down. I don't blame you. I don't blame you.

So, if I read the narrative right, I think the the request was for three vehicles at there was a misprint in the book. It's three vehicles. Okay. Yeah, that's what I thought I remember. So, three vehicles. Is there a misprint in the $284,000? No. What? Is there a misprint in the 200 $84,000. $284,000. So $95,000 a vehicle. Yeah. Okay. No, one's 103. So 103 that Yeah, because I thought I heard that at the um one's 1037, the other one's 922, and the other one's 88477. And what are they? What are we

two of them are specialty vehicles, one being a command vehicle, uh replacing one that we already have. So in the event that we have a critical incident or we're doing something like a 4th of July that the vehicle itself is where you know there's several computers in it, there's several two different radio systems. It's a Tahoe, right? It's not a regular sedan or is that

No, we need a Tahoe because we need we need a bigger space. We we've used them in Fords before because we didn't really have anybody that was doing, you know, there wasn't as much maintenance-wise in having the proper people down to DPW, but they've gone to several Chevys now. So now it's it is an option whereas before everything was all Ford. So of course I asked uh Jay who's the fleet manager for the entire town of the DVW you know you don't have a problem with us have the Chevy we could use the bigger um vehicle for both the command vehicle and the other Taho being used for K9 vehicle you know with all the equipment that they end up having as well. I mean, every time Dave go opens the door to the rear of his current Explorer, you got to get ready to catch all the stuff as it starts falling out of the thing. Um, it's just the way it goes. The other one is a regular line vehicle, a black and white that is going to be replacing one of the current, you know, black and whites that are part of the patrol division. And that's why it's a it's an Explorer. You know, we don't need a Tahoe for that.

So, it's two Taho and one Explorer if if I'm hearing that right. Okay. One's 103, the others are 90 plus something thousand dollars. Yeah, roughly. Yeah, regular cruiser is 88 477. Uh cruiser 625 would be the uh the command vehicle. That's 92. And then the K9 vehicle is 1037. Some of the stuff in the K9 vehicle is expensive. I mean, you know, there's a system in there that if the car starts to get hot, it will automatically turn on the air conditioning, drop the windows, and turn on the fans. Come on. So that the dog takes my time because if either Frankie or Ben were to expire heated back up.

This would be the last time you'd see me. The last time you'd see any of us see any of us? Well, just like I don't have experience replacing 18,000 ft of sprinkler heads. I never brought a police car before. So, um I have no idea what the price is, but Yeah. I mean, all of it's on the thing. I mean I Yeah.

Yeah. No, I I saw it. I just I getting more expensive. Yeah. Light bars are expensive. Radios are you know the computer the MDTs or mobile data terminals or the computer that's in the car is a milspec computer. We already tried to use you know hey let's just get a $1,000 Dell and stick it in there. But when you go from 0 degrees to 10 and something degrees summer and winter basically the thing started to peel apart. Um, so now we end up you, you know, we we have patrol PCs which you can basically run over with the car and they will get damaged, but they'll still work. Um, and those are what we use. But that's $5,000 just for that itself. And everything's got to be put in the car so that if they're ever in an accident, it doesn't come back to hurt them, right?

So it's, you know, the way that we put them in there, gun racks, uh, you know, just, etc. Uh, the prisoner cage in the back. And of course, they keep changing just enough on the Explorers so that you can't move with this stuff from one cruiser to another cruiser from, you know, because we keep our cars four to five years due to the number of cars that we have. So, we're not turning them over, you know, like when I first started, we were turning cars over every two years. They were functionally dead after the first year, but we had to keep them for the second year. And all I remember you talking about that at the police station tour in terms of how you rotate them through. And I know this is only three cars. I just at 100 grand a piece, I just thought I'd ask. We usually ask for five, but we just don't. We only needed three. Only three this year met our replacement

uh guidelines. I think I kind of mentioned that as well. We had a couple of cruiser accidents in which the cars were replaced through insurance. It's not the way that we want to replace the cars, but it also meant that we didn't have to ask for as many this year. Maybe not a bad strategy. No, I don't like it. No one was hurt. All right. Thank you. You're very welcome. Steve, if I can guess. I do it for the state police. They're turned into the towels. So, just it's it's just more for the equipment because they they carry so much strong, you know, they get they got all that stuff. Um, but that's outfitted, too. So, that's MHQ that that's that's everything.

I know it's not just a off the line car. I get that. I know it's got gear in it out in the audience public note. Sure. Because you can buy it cheaper, but you know, it's painted putting emblems on. It's It's all that stuff. I'll get it. Go go go go go go go go go. Yeah. The upfitting is like the towels themselves are 55. Yeah. It's 55,000 and then you have to and then the rest of it is all the equipment that's added on that's in it or the paint and everything else in MHQ the only game in town. If you go out to Oxford and see their yard, there's cruises from every town everywhere and everybody's got to buy from them. Yeah. Yeah, it's got the state contract because we're getting a great price through that state contract.

The prices for everything that we bought. Every single thing is through a state. No, I get it. I get it. Just I just went through it and I hate to say it, but I paid a little bit more than that they had. It dresses good. Are you all sir?

Yes, sir. That's all I had. Um, I don't have a lot with with councelor Mallaloyy's questions. Um, which I which I think are good. I I I did have some familiarity with the vehicle replacement program and and and the sprinkler system, but I think, you know, it's great to to have that additional clarity for for the room. You know, as I look through the the tier one request, there's nothing that really, you know, jumps out at me as being well out of place. and frankly um not much that's going to move in terms of managing our our savings and kind of helping our budget. So to me the proposal you know which I which I think can be made which is to focus on tier one for now uh save tier two and tier three for for for another day uh seems to make a lot of sense

um you know especially if we're we're combining with with our broader uh goal of defining our financial strategy for the long term. So um I don't have I don't have any specific questions on the tier one uh on the tier one elements. Um I do have one question actually two questions on tier 2 which I you know I just want to better understand them. Uh you know both I think one's in school and one is in IT. if you could just speak to the 300 I guess teacher laptop replacements and the 300 375,000 in teacher laptop replacements and the classroom infrastructure improvements and why do we not need them this year versus

Hi Tim Raposa director of technology for the town of Franklin and the Franklin public schools um I can speak to the uh laptop replacement I would love to do them this year. Um, as you know, it's just a big ticket item. Um, I think it's just a issue of affordability, but those 300 laptops um were purchased in 2020. They are, you know, going on six years old, which means we the opportunity that we may have to replace them is next year if we have the money. Um, teachers are using seven-year devices that are out of warranty. And um, actually was having our staff meeting today and they're saying, "What do we do when the motherboards are dying on these devices?" because they are and the batteries are not lasting because they're already six years old. Um I say, well, we have to start replacing them and that means it comes out of our regular budget. So, um over the course of this year, those old devices are going to eat up a lot of the funds of the technology budget. Um so,

thank you. And the maybe you can speak to the Chromebooks. The Chromebooks are for students and we um that is in the the tier one. Um that is our replacement for the sixth grade entering sixth graders and those devices roughly. We plan on trying to get anywhere between 300 and 350 devices because as you know those prices vary greatly. Um so $100,000 will give us somewhere in that range. Um, and those students are expected to have those, believe it or not, from sixth grade all the way through graduation. Uh, is there another IT question before?

Sorry. Well, Ken's up. Ken's has he has If I can have the time back, you go ahead and ask your question. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, I just was curious about the virtual environment and the access point licenses. Yes. And um what were the vendors for those and how did you go about choosing them? Did you do like a comparative bid for them when you did them?

Um the access point licenses are they're pretty standard. I usually am pretty um good at trying to get us some discounts on those. Um I already have a quote for that. Those I believe that quote may have came from Wall-E computer. I'm not sure. Um, but so what happens with that is you're going to get the same price no matter who you go to. What this, and here is why. So Extreme is the name of the company that owns these access points. There's one right above your head right there. Uh, so what Extreme does that company, they don't give you a licensing quote themselves. You have to go through a vendor, right? They don't they don't deal directly with you. Only Dell goes direct. Um, everyone else goes through a reseller. So what they do so that I don't ask four different resellers to say I need a quote. I need a quote. I need a quote. I need a quote so I can get comparative quotes. They say tell me, "Listen, what vendor do you want to work with?" Because we're only going to give one vendor the discount pricing. We're not going to give them all discount pricing. We're only going to give one. And that's called a registered deal. That's how they work. That's not That's not us doing it. That's how the company does it. That's how Extreme does it. Um, a lot HP does it that way. They all do it that way.

It's not just the government. It's every everybody. It's it's the the sellers and and here's why. Because they don't want to get five, six different people all asking them for the same quote and then having to, you know, and then letting them all battle it out. They just say, "Listen, we're going to give you discounted pricing. Pick your vendor. Who do you want to work with? We'll give it to It's called a preferred vendor." And and once that vendor registers the deal, the other vendors are locked out from getting that discount. That's how it works. Does that violate antitrust laws?

I have no idea. I'm not a lawyer. I just know that that's how it's worked. Um and so and and sometimes if I do ask multiple ones, they'll, you know, the other vendor will call me up and they'll say, um, somebody already registered this deal. Have you asked someone else? And I say, yeah, I asked I asked three different vendors because I like to get three quotes. And they say, well, we can't get a discount now. So that's it. That's how it works. Uh, but it's that's the discount. That's the discount that so the vendor's already chosen here. They we we use Extreme. That's the vendor. And it's just the the reseller that he has to be locked into, right? The manufacturer is extreme.

Yeah. Some of them get a better, you know, they say, "Oh, we have a better deal with Extreme. We can get you better price or whatever." But, you know, once like like you were saying, once it's locked in, you're locked, you're kind of locked into that vendor. They won't let you kind of move around even try to shop. Sometimes you can but most what's the uh what about the uh virtual environments? Uh is that a server? Is it software? Is it support for the software?

The virtual environment is um you've all heard the term virtualization, right? It basically means instead of having a hundred you know hardware boxes everywhere, you have a stack of really big servers like you know two or three of them. Um we have two here at the town hall and two at the high school and they're mirrored. They're identical servers. um on those servers you virtual you virtualize our hundred servers in them. So big piece of hardware, it's not really a server, it's an environment, right? And then you have these hundred servers that you can create within them. They're virtual. They're not real pieces of hardware. Um so that's what that is. And they're identical stacks. They replicate towards, you know, everything on the town is replicated at the high school server and vice versa. so that if one of these stacks fail, we can fail over to the other server and within several hours bring them up and have the town running over there or have the schools running over here. Um and obviously it's a backup system as well. So

So in terms of the provider for that that's is that a um is that something I mean I assume the infrastructure is already there so you can't just shop around for that. It's already there.

So that was purchased um six years ago. um very expensive um way more expensive today. Um so typically we would have been replacing this by now. It should industry standard in private industry they would have been replaced a year ago and probably it's more than a year ago every three years but be we extended ours three years because the hardware is still working great. Knock on wood, right? It's working. Okay. So, I mean, it's not like the police cars that are getting beat up and we have to replace them. It's still work. If it's still working well, as long as I can cover the hardware, get someone to um basically it's not really an insurance policy, but um you know how you get a maintenance plan on when you buy a laptop, you get a three-year, you know, maintenance plan. That's what I'm extending. I'm saying, "Okay, well, we had it for six years. Can I find somebody out there that'll give me two more?" And they're not going to go more than two because they know it's going to break and, you know, so that's what that is. So, I'm extending that environment age another two years. Um, and it's still will it with it still being covered? If I could not cover it, I would have to replace it. So, this is it in two years. Big bill to replace that. But in two years, we don't know. Virtual cloud storage, which a lot of people are moving out of the cloud back to physical where we are because it's just getting so expensive. Um, why? Because AI compute is eating up all that hardware out there in the cloud. So, it's becoming more and more expensive. supply and demand, right? So, moving, we don't have to move back because we're already here. We never left because it's cheaper for us to have it here on premise. However, we will have to replace that hardware in two years and it's going to be a half a million dollars, you know, at least.

Who's the hardware vendor and who's the the virtualization vendor? Um, Dell is the hardware vendor, but we purchase we purchase everything from Dell direct because we get a good deal, but with the exception of the virtual stack because the virtual stack is not just a PC. It's not just a computer. It is a system, right? So, you want to have a value ad reseller that knows what they're doing when they provide that system. So, um, when we had to put in six years ago, it was Winslow Technologies. Um, that they are a Dell certified value added reseller. They did a fantastic job. Um when So we're gonna have them support it for the next two years. They gave us the quote for that. Is it Microsoft HyperV? It's Oh, it is HyperV. Yep. Okay.

Yeah, we've always used HyperV right from the get-go. We thank God never went to uh VMware because all those people who did are scrambling these days. But yeah, um HyperV has always filled fulfilled our needs. We don't need a huge virtualization system. We just needed to virtualize our servers to stop having hardware distributed everywhere. Um, and HyperV has worked great. The last question before I give it back to Ken uh a lot of his time. Uh, but the Chromebooks, are they uh, you know, are are you going to be is is that something that you're going to be asking for every year for a similar amount?

We have been asking for it um, every year. Um, so we're in the ca the co hangover right now, right? So in 2020, we bought 4,500 Chromebooks with a million dollars. Um, they're all the same age. So, we had to put a stake in the ground of when we're going to stop replacing these. Um, they're all, well, do the math, right? They're all six years old now. So, we have a lot of not too happy parents with 10th and 11th graders that have these really old Chromebooks that we just can't replace them. Um, they're breaking. We're fixing them, but we're in that replacement cycle now, right? So, we had to draw, we had to say, when are we going to stop replacing these? So, yes, every year I'll be asking for $100,000 for 350 Chromebooks, and that will move us over the course of the years to get that replacement cycle. Should that be in my regular budget? I know that's going to be the next question. Yes, it should. But I can just increase my regular budget by $100,000. Um, unless you guys say I have to, then we will.

Back to camp. No. Uh that that's that that was it. I think we're I thought it made sense to just have you answer all the questions so you can sit down. Yes, exactly. So, thank you very much. Um my my other question was for the schools just I wanted more context or or color around the classroom infrastructure improvements and just how you know that that's a tier two which is frankly not something I'm going to support today. But I just wanted to better understand what's included there and what the timing time frame is.

Right. So, as a result of the district reorganization, obviously we picked up um classrooms in every school, shuffled people around, moved out of certain buildings, and then and then reset. What we learned is we um did some walkthroughs with facilities, with operations, with trades to really look across the board at each of the schools. You we ended up moving middle schoolers into elementaryaries, elementaryaries into middle schools. So you have a science lab in the middle with a you know with a gas uh turn in a in a current third grade classroom. So that was like priority one is how do we make these actually suited for the age and grades that the students would be learning in. So that was phase one. After that when we moved everything what you realize is you know Washington Street built in 96. You start looking at the walls wall repair holes just things that that happen over the course of a 25-y year period. um tiles um that needed to be replaced, things like that. Those weren't immediate needs uh when we first moved, but then ultimately a list was put together with um Colin and with Kevin and the trades to look at if we were to chip away at these items, what would it take to get some of these things up to speed. So, they have a full list of things that they've chipped away. Uh what we what I'd say is this goes towards allowing the tradesmen to have the trades people to to have the things that they need to continue to keep up with the work and the repairs and the investments in these facilities. The last piece I'd say is um they've tiered it. I don't want to confuse tears so I'll try to but they've they've broken down like their next phase of areas in which need the most uh most attention. Right now we have some old carpet in a middle school uh science room right now. Now we're in a science lab. It's carpet's not really what you should have in that room. Did it make tier one? No, cuz I wasn't going to sit here and say I need carpet out of the science room to when we need a police vehicle. But ultimately, that's how uh we were asked to put together the capital uh program. And this is

ultimately part of once again like a multi-year asks around capital uh that just how we would continue to chip away and working together as a team. Um and I will say my son's a senior. He's had that Chromebook and it's We're handing that I'm handing that thing in. It's going to be like smoking by the time you get that thing in the car. I'll sanitize it. Yeah. So, um, sorry. Did you want to speak or you

No. Um, the only thing that I'll add is, um, you know, I I met with Colin, uh, Steve, Richard, and we're going to continue to work on, uh, items, you know, phase two items from the redistricting, but when we met, you know, we looked at our bandwidth on what the list was and what we could actually do. So, um, I'll just say that.

So, I appreciate that. I I you know for me I think it's it's important you know you'll be a broken record a little bit that you know we're looking tactically at what we can practically accomplish and what what what's necessary for today but also thinking more strategically about what's our long-term plan what's our goal. Um I know we we we ask you to do that and that's something that we need to do as as well for ourselves. I just it's good to hear that that's what's what's happening. So that's that's what you're actually bringing to the table. Um that said, my my broader comment as I as I look through this is I and I I kind of started here was you tier one feels like it makes sense. There's some things in tier two that might also be nice but uh you know given that two tiers two and three are not necessary uh you know or not immediately necessary for for today it makes sense for us to take the approach of looking at tier one. That's that's what I would support. Um, but we need to, as I said before with the operating budget, make sure that we are working on a plan for how we how we approach these. And if it's something that's in the capital budget that really should be an operating expense, we need to be thinking about how we h how do we how we manage that in the future as well. Um, to councelor Leblanc's point earlier, it's going to take us some time to get there, but I think we just need to make sure we need to be clear that we are committed to making those adjustments because they're really necessary. My two cents.

You Tim, our big computer, come back to the mic. Um, so it it always sucks being the unpopular kid at the dance that no one wants to dance with, but that's me, right? So, so, so here we go. Go back to go back to that. We we got that onetime federal money during COVID to buy 4,500 Chromebooks, but if I understand it correctly, having sat here for a few years, there really isn't a plan in the school department operating budget to fund the maintenance and replacements of those computers because you're coming to the capital program every year with the hope that we do that.

Correct. That to me is insane, Tim. I agree.

Like I I'm like I'm just again it's why no one wants to dance with me, right? But like it's we accepted that federal money. We bought these Chromebooks have being a dad with two kids in the school system and having replaced four Chromebooks already even with the insurance, right? They're not optimal, but I understand that the school department shifted as that was the delivery model for education for sixth grade up. So, I'm not I'm not questioning that. But if you make that decision to leave textbooks and go to the computers, then you have to also have a plan to pay for them when they break and they need replacement. So, from where I'm sitting, the $100,000 for sixth grade Chromebooks doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It makes much more sense to look at the tier 2 request of the school safety improvements for $75,000, especially when I see today in the news that

another school shooting happened in British Columbia, right? Like, and that's why we talked about doing these school improvements for safety a number of years ago, right? we were going to phase in these necessary thresholds and buzzers and two-way access points to truly make the school safer. I remember those conversations, right? So,

I don't mean to put you on the spot, right? But maybe the larger uh conversation has to be to parents of the school department can do a group purchase and everybody's going to pay the $250 as a fee and maybe the kids will take better care of the computers if the parents own it. but to continue to put money from a capital when we're not doing sidewalks, when we're not doing, you know, our our fire chief's going to talk to us today about the needs for the fire truck. Like, it's kind of nuts. And then I look at this report that was provided, this FY25 expenditure analysis by department for what departments actually contributed to free cash. And this is no offense, Lucas, to any of my friends over at the school department. and I love you guys. But the school department contributed a whopping $34,000. Our veteran services department contributed more than that. And they're two people. So you're asking for over you're asking for a hundred,000 from a program that you contributed 35 to. But our police and our fire departments who contribute hundreds of thousands of dollars to this program, if you look at what's here, that makes sense to me, right? because all right, they're putting the money in. They're waiting for their safety equipment. They're waiting for their cruisers. They're waiting for their fire trucks, but they're hoping from fees and onetime money to get this stuff fixed. That makes sense to me. So, it's and this may this may just go to the bigger operational deficit issue of the school department, right? That they're just isn't the money to fund these computers. Okay, then phase them out or figure out a different way to pay for them. But this this as it's outlined right now, I can support everything else that's here in tier one, but I can't support 100 grand.

That's all I have, Mr. Chairman. I was going to say the same thing, but you took my glory. So, I agree with you. I agree with you. I'm happy to answer any further questions that you may have about that. I didn't really I was looking for a question in there, but I you you answered the question by saying there isn't a plan to pay for this. You you answered the question and I appreciate the honesty. Okay. Go ahead.

I think just like many large capital purchases that support our budgets, if we could put that into our budget, we certainly would put it in operations and it wouldn't it wouldn't come before you. A good example, too, is we're always looking for ways to fund other things. One thing that didn't make this list, um, we received an earmark from, um, Senator Roush for 100 grand to fix the, um, courtyard area at the, uh, Lincoln Street School that they had to tear out old equipment that was in the middle. So, that was originally we had proposed, hey, if we get that, we'll make like learning environments in the courtyard. It was like, nope, we have like a different need. We just need it fixed because it's got potholes, sink holes, it's a complete mess. So, that's not on the list, but that's where we were able to kind of find money to do that. Historically, we have had this program. We have a 1:1 device program like many communities within uh Massachusetts, particularly in Northeast, um around using devices. I think when you if you were to ask, I think it's back to affordability. If we had every kid who shows up at our front door where they had to buy their own device, I think we'd be having similar conversations around affordability for many people. So, some of this is an equity piece, too, that as a school system, we say, "Hey, when you open the doors, it's free and appropriate,

right? require them to buy.

Right. Right. You can't. So I think the idea is, you know, um I just wanted to frame it in a way that the the other perspective to that is just trying to make sure that we're providing that that particular service. And I think when we had the money um that came as one time I think that was another example of trying to buy some time, multiple years to get out ahead um to try to and then come up with a plan or a longer term strategy. So I think that was the goal then like COVID time it the We're talking now about longer term strategies, but ultimately just wanted to provide a little bit more perspective. No, I I appreciate that movements very much and I do appreciate that there's an affordability piece certainly and maybe the solution is there's some computers that have to be on hand for kids that can't afford them or you have kids that are on free lunch for example like maybe there is something that could be done so that equity piece and you don't want to shame some kid that can't afford a computer that's not my intention I'm not

but there's still but but but still like what now we're talking about you need the you're going to need these computers this And you just said you're going to need to come to us every year for the next foreseeable well probably forever, right? Because every six years you're going to be replacing the previous computers, right?

Just to give a little history, we've been doing one to one for 10 years, right? It started with the high school. Um the reason that it exploded to 4,500 in in 2000 in 2020 is obviously because everyone went home and everyone had to have a Chromebook. Um so what was what happened was we started with onetoone at the high school and we had our roughly 2,000 um Chromebooks there and that was sustainable. We were purchasing them with capital but it was sustainable because we were just replacing you know one grade level a year um one grade level every two years and it was sustainable. Then it moved into the middle school. This is all before co right and so we had our cash of Chromebooks and they were getting aged but it was manageable. Um and yes, were we uh re refilling the, you know, the ones that were broken with um some one-time funds? Yes. Some budget funds? Yes. Um when we hit COVID, it's when we bought so many at one time. That's what And and it's not just us. Every school district went through this. Everybody bought thousands of Chromebooks to send all their kids home during CO to teach them remote. That's just what happened. And everyone is in the same boat. everyone should be moving to a more sustainable um repair program. Yes. All the money that we collect from insurance, just so you know, goes into a revolving fund. That is the money that we use to repair and replace the devices that are insured um that um qualify for, you know, replacement. Um so um and the third piece that I really want to mention that was um not really driven home is we chose a program based around online learning on Chromebooks 10 years ago. We chose to go in that direction. Um I agree they should have been managed and funded better. Um and when we went through the bump of um COVID it exacerbated the problem. Um, but one thing that has to be made very clear is that you cannot require a student to have their own device. You can't say in order to do our curriculum,

you have to buy a device and come to school and have a Chromebook. Um, we have to provide it for them. Why? Well, the state has this thing called MCCAST, and MCCAST has to be done on on a device. So, we have to provide those devices. We have no choice. We have to do it. There is no paperbased um MCCAST anymore. So even the even if we said hey you all have to bring in your own devices we still have to have enough Chromebooks on hand to test 1,200 kids

um during MCCAST um that's a lot less than 4500 I agree um but that requirement of requiring a student to come in with a device or you can't come to school that's private schools can do that public schools can't do that so that's that's really where we are. So, we're kind of kind of stuck in that mode. So, hope I explained that correctly. I had a weird question. Wait a minute, Max. Jean had a question. Then you can have a question. Okay. Thank you. Um, what happens when a student breaks a Chromebook?

Uh, the onetoone Chromebooks that are taken home, which is middle and high, they are um they are offered the opportunity to purchase insurance every year at the beginning of the year. It is not required that they purchase it. We strongly encourage that they do. Um, if it is an if it is insured and it's accidental damage, it is repay or replace. They're insured. If it is not insured, it's a $250 fee. Just like is if you were to lose a book or break a microscope, you have to refund the school for what you broke. How much is the insurance cost? $45 whole year.

For the whole year. Yep. And we insure them to the end of September. third week in September so that they can keep them over the summer. We can at the end of the summer when they come back in, we can get all those ones that were broken over the summer and they're still insured so they don't have to wor, you know, we don't have to worry about that. Get them all fixed before the new insurance kicks in. Um, and in that time we're telling everybody go buy your insurance. Um, so it's a good system. Um, we do occasionally run into that problem of, well, I didn't buy the insurance and it broke and it was an accident. Well, if you didn't buy insurance on your car and you got into an accident, what would the insurance company say? Well, they're not going to say you can buy the insurance now. Oh, gee. It's just how it is, right? That's what insurance is for. Um, the other thing that we always run into is intentional damage. If you key your own car and go to the insurance company, they're going to say, "Well, you did it yourself. We're not going to cover you." It's the same thing. Intentional damage is not covered whether you're insured or not. It just makes sense, right? Um, so we we run into that and we have to have those uncomfortable conversations, but that's the system that we have in place now and we are always looking to improve it, but that's where we are now.

This is kind of a crazy question, but hypothetically, could you have give people a Chromebook, but also have them opt out and pay them if they opt out so that they're incentivized to use their own laptop and it still cost less than getting a Chromebook? Yeah, I know. I I never really explored that, but that's an interesting concept. Um I I don't think I could get that to fly by finance to be honest. Um All right. Yes, I'll yield back. I I No, Go ahead.

No, I was just going to if you were done, I was just going to recognize Al Charles has got his hand up. I just let him as a panelist if the chair wants to let him ask his question. school committee member Al Charles while while he's still here up up standing up we'll let him go. That's kind of the way capital goes. All right, Al, if you want to ask a question. Go ahead.

Sure. Thank you. Um and and I I've been listening to this and definitely appreciate the conversation. Um, I just wanted just just to confirm though if we have students use their own laptops or devices, does that add more technical challenges that we have to account for? Because now we're now supporting numerous different devices that we hadn't planned for in comparison to knowing that we have these set type of models of Chromebooks.

Well, that's that is an interesting question and there's there's two pieces to that. There's the educational piece and there is the um support piece. So number one, if you choose BYOD and we do have the option of BYOD at the high school level and that is a educational uh decision comes from the principal um of the school if they choose to allow BYOD. It actually makes it easier for us because we don't support them. If your own device breaks, you go get it fixed

um and go get a loaner out of the media center for the day. Um that's how it works. Um so for the tech department makes our life a little easier. For the educational environment it makes a little bit more challenging because we have management tools that teachers use particularly at the middle school level. Um they use a a software called securely classroom. And what securely classroom is, it allows the teacher to see the devices that the students are on. Um, and among other things, um, send things to their their device, their Chromebook screen. Um, with a personally owned BYOD device, that becomes not possible anymore because we're not managing that device. All that magic happens when we manage that device right behind the scenes. They're not really using not using that software at the high school. So, at the middle school level, we kind of are in the position of well we kind of have to be providing the devices if we want to manage it and use the software that we're paying for to manage this. So um so educationally a BYOD from in the educational arena makes it more difficult for the teacher and for the curriculum makes it easier for the tech department. um putting all devices we us owning all the devices makes it more difficult for the tech department to obviously maintain more devices that we own but it makes a lot easier for the educational envir environment. So

does that make sense? Uh just quick question clarifying question can you do the mcast on a personal device? No. Okay. So that you would every year you would have to give them right? So in the high school for example, but we do have roughly 50 to 75 BYOD devices. When MCCAST comes along, they have to head to the media center that morning and we have to make sure that we have enough devices so they can grab a Chromebook, log into it and do their MCAST test that day. Good question. Anybody else for the tech department? No. All right, you can go home.

All right. council around. All right. Um, so similar to councelor, I actually don't have any questions about the town or tier one, but um, sorry Lucas, I'm going to make you come up here for a third time because we didn't get you all the questions for you while you were up here. Um, but I would like to ask about the um, tier 2, the district-wide safety or school safety improvements and why that is a tier two. That seems to be the only um item that is safety related that is not in tier one and um so I'm just

Yeah. So some of that is related to uh camera replacement. Um we have cameras throughout our schools in many different areas. So on a hallway you might see on a 100 foot hallway um two or three cameras. We have ones that are either uh aging out or need to be replaced because they're not working. So part of that was around trying to just keep up with the replacement. What we have done and at the schools and and through the help of facilities and those investments that previous uh council has approved is we've done um a lot of multi-year asks for school safety. So every one of our schools has a pedestrian trap. Now I remember when I uh was an assistant super we had certain schools that didn't. We had a big safety assessment done by uh Synergy and the state police and they said that's one of the um best things you can do is just get the double if you've been to the schools it's the double buzz in. So that didn't we had a single um door open. So now we have that that's done. That project was completed over years of having capital investments that happen. Some of the schools with the cameras that we have we would look to just look to repair or replace and we know that they're on a cycle. So we don't want to wait until they're all gone and then we come with some larger number. But ultimately what we decided was when we looked at taring and it's part of the discussion a couple of hours ago too around you can do all the capital or you can have an unbalanced budget for a year or you can balance the budget and then decide on prioritizing capital. I think those are the discussions that need that that's what's happening right so ultimately um that that's what those that's what those mean. So, and

and the servers, okay, because I think Tim talked a little bit about it, but the school safety um the camera servers are a different server than what Tim's talking about. So, those are going to hit an age where there will need to be replaced. So, that was part of it too was trying to slowly start to chip away at those. So, if um if we don't do that this year, I assume that that will be next year and more additional there be a bigger number. It's similar to to what I think Brutus talked a little bit about when you don't you do it. It's just like with a special ed van. If we didn't do it and then it fails mid year, we have to I don't know what we'll do. We'll have to We have a spare van that's kind of on its last leg. This is the last one that's over 10 years old, over 150,000. If we get And then we were lucky. We had an earmark from

um Rep Roy to have additional van put in. That was good. We worked with Jamie last year um with um to include another van. I think it was two years ago. So, we've tried to patch. we're on the last leg. Next year, we would be asking for two. So, that's kind of how I would predict that would go. So, that's how that ended up in tier one was just trying to make sure that we have that first priority. Okay. Yeah. So, I understand the the van. So, I'm just trying to figure out the safety improvements this year. You're thinking that they're not like critical for this year.

No, they they did not make the first tier because we were trying to, like I said, trying to manage multi-year replacement repair. Um but ultimately and if they were I would say that to you and I would um I would have advocated harder for that to be tier one but we're hitting that point. It's similar to some of the access points and some of the other technology decay if you will is a real thing and I think we're all experiencing it in our different different areas. So that's that's the example I'd give. Okay. Thank you. Yep. I I have that same question. You know, safety to me is is very important in the schools obviously, especially with what's going on everywhere, everywhere in the world.

Everywhere in the world. That's why I was kind of hoping that we could make sure that Yeah, I'm not opposed to putting that into putting that into this either. Um yeah, I just Yeah. And uh you know I is the only safety from what I could see. It's the only safety item that's plus that's how Lucas caught my son's tail in his locker. You brought it up, not me. Thank you, Lucas. That is actually my That's my old question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. You good? I'm good. Clo. All righty. Jamie

to the chair to Jamie Jamie 1 plus one equals three when it comes to how the free cash is calculated. though. I just I'm not expecting an answer tonight, but Carrie, I probably have to sit down with you because when I look at the numbers, when you look at the sources, the excess revenue was a million5. The excess department returns was 2 million. That's three and a half. Where's the other million coming from? That's from overlay surplus. Explain overlay surplus. to say that um we have a 10:00 curfew. Yes, I know that. So that's why unless we vote to extend,

right? You you So there's a whole PowerPoint presentation that we were going to do at the finance committee recently on overlay surplus. So overlay surplus is abatements and I'm going to boil it down to one sentence. Okay, one sentence. Abatements and exemptions in the budget. When those aren't spent, okay, then they go into your free cash certification. The issue with overlay surplus is overlay surplus is is is a surplus amount of money that's controlled single-handedly and unilaterally by the board of assessors. Fun fact for all of you, that's actually the board of assessors are who you thank every year for our senior tax workoff program. Most people don't know it, but you pay the senior tax workoff program out of the overlay surplus account, right?

Overlay surplus has a whole another statutory thing. You can Google it tomorrow and geek out on it. It actually counts in in and so it's it actually counts within your free cash certification, but it's it's very very complicated to explain how the board of assessors still have it and they have to authorize it, but it still comes on your balance sheet on your recap when we go through all of our financial audits with do and that's how they come out to a free cash certification at the end of the year. So there's where your differences and I'm getting education offline. So you you can go get it. You can go have fun with overlay. I know. It's like it feels like a a government term coming out of the middle of nowhere. Like as y'all y'all haven't learned enough,

right? And it's like over overlay surplus. What where's where where's what? And Kevin's laughing. But that's but that's the third that's the third bucket. But we can still meet. Yeah, we're definitely going to meet. Yeah, you should. We're going to meet. Block a couple hours with Mr. Doyle if you're going to meet just for overlay surplus, right, Kevin? cuz he will teach you how to build the clock. I'll bring the drinks. So, um, bring coffee.

Um, one of the things I like about the way the the the budget book is there's and we talked about tiers, it's actually not the tiers, it's the prioritization, your classifications in there. I think that's very important. And I think for consistency year-over-year, everyone needs that, we probably need to give definitions around these things. And right now I would actually argue um right now you have tier one is threat to citizens safety blah blah blah. Two is maintenance of operational necessity. Three is requirements of state or federal law. I actually would flip three and two because to me if it's a a federal or state or it's a law requirement then it probably takes precedent over operational. So going forward I'd probably look to switch those. But I I think that's the key to determining any budget is to have each of the departments put their prioritizations based upon what these classifications are, which is what they did. There's probably some loose interpretation, but we got to nail down those those pieces because ultimately what you did with the capital uh plan and what you put into tier one was anything that was classified as one with the exception of one item and that item probably was not really not a threat to citizens or employees. probably could have been a two or a four actually. Um, so I I appreciate that. One question I am going to ask the departments that are here tonight is there are almost three dozen apartments departments here, but there's only eight departments making requests for capital. Do any of the other departments have requests for capital that didn't make this book for some reason? That just seems highly unusual that 36 departments and there's only Oh, there's one person jumping up. I'm just I'm trying to understand why like why isn't there something in there for the library? Why isn't there like just so quickly one issue is if you notice the school department requests are only about 300,000. Why? Because technology is all in technology.

Yeah. Facilities are all in facilities.

Well, they were on my question as well too. Yes. And then number right and then um number two we did start asking other departments uh we just started this about two or three years ago um you know before then I don't even think all of these departments 10 years ago were asked necessarily um but if the town clerk needs a voting machine and I just happen to look right at her right she just walks upstairs and says how do we fund this you know I have an election in a year we want to stay ahead of this and then we try to figure out a way to pay for it but most of the other items that you're going to see from them are either very lowcost dollars. Um they're going to be they're not going to be very expensive and there may be another way to pay for them. There may be a grant. There may be u maybe instead of going to free cash we pay out of the clerks if there's a surplus. I'm just giving that as an example. So that's one of the reasons and it just helps streamline things for all of us to just focus on the eight or nine or 10 big ones. But if the library had something they had a capital request last year, we funded it through community preservation act. I just use those as a handful of examples of, you know, sometimes you we can, you know, draw some of those capital requests on oneoffs from another source that may not be from free cash.

And that ties back to that that's why we need a 10-year plan that literally lists everything regardless of how it's going to get funded and then we figure out the funding source at a later date. I do agree with that. Okay. To my question, Mr. Chairman, through Yeah. I I don't know where to start on this. But I I will tell you, you get two minutes. Two minutes. Um because I want to be out of here by 10.

Real real quickly. You know, I did ask for a law. We went through a process. But I got to tell you, in all my years here, you know, 20 plus there's there's $10,000 on here. $10,000 on a five plus million budget general fund. Even the worst years in 209 when we had the recession, public works still got over $200,000 for type stuff. $10,000. And that's the general fund share of replacing the fuel pumps, right? So we can fill other vehicles in town.

So once again, this goes against the promise. They were running up against it that that we're not getting the funding that's there. The one I do want to bring out to you was on the tier 2 was the um traffic study. You guys are all hearing about I get called all the time, traffic out here, traffic out here, traffic light. I did put on there for $150,000. I'm not sure where you can get it from, but that not only looks at, you know, the timing of the lights, you know, to move people quicker through town more efficiently, but also looking at the asset that we have out there. Those lights, they're $400,000 a whack, okay? You know, those little pretty boxes that people painted,

you know, the rats get in there and they eat those. We're not fixing this stuff. You know, the cameras work really well now. We still have a lot of wires in the road, you know, the signals that go on and off. this stuff we need to look at because if we're not fixing it now it's going to cost more money in the meantime besides costing money it's inconveniencing folks in town. So that's an ass and that's going to be I don't know million bucks or next year how to plan for it but we need to start planning for that now because we're in reactorium over that stuff and it just costs more. So that's my two cents. Thank you. Appreciate it

Kevin. Uh I'm just going to echo what Jamie said from a facilities perspective is you know I I go around um to all the departments you know again more so looking at it as as the building as the facility itself and I'll meet with you know the respective department heads and give me your list what do you need um and then you know I prioritized it from there and then again putting it onto the sheet that um finance team was looking for capital that's how that's how it Perfect. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you, Kevin. Um, yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to solve it now, but if there are requests that I mean, again, it's just unusual that there's eight departments and and there's 36 in total. One last question I had Jamie for you is there is an item in here for the design review guidelines. Yes. Can you explain that a little bit more?

That request is going to be actually looked at through a uh through a grant. Um the design review committee has wanted to do an entire analysis of our sign bylaw. Um and it's a big master plan goal. Um but given the financial issues, I do think there are probably some grants out there that Marina can tap into. So she's going to try that first. But that if she did that is not a joke for an entire consultant to come in and just help, right? Redo an entire code of bylaws. We've looked at other communities and that's what they were paying to have somebody assist the design review commission to do that. That was what the price was, but we brought it up and she's going to try to um get some grants first to see if we can uh finish that one off that way. But that's what that is. And and I do think, as Council Delco knows, I mean, we've

duct taped our way around the sign by law in town for a long time, and that does need an overhaul at some point. Yeah. I mean, I'm personally I think the design review needs to go beyond just being a sign committee. It needs to it it needs to take into other things. So, I'm all for agree trying to boost the the status of the design design review committee and how it plays into the development of the town. So, um so that you answer that question. As it relates to the safety item, I don't know how we handle this, but I would be for swapping out the Chromebooks that are $100,000 for the safety improvement. I don't know if that has to be an amendment. We have to amend

then I'm going to ask I don't know then I would ask to amend the what's in front of us to remove the 100,000 for the Chromebooks and put the $75,000 in for safety because it says safety and safety is number one. That to me is again just was a mis prioritization in the grand scheme of things. Now granted Lucas there may be already cameras there. I I would feel terrible if that camera didn't work and something happened and think what's think what happened at Brown, think what happens today, all this stuff. So, I I would be uh I guess I'm making an amendment um to remove the 100,000 for the Chromebooks and replace it with the $75,000 for the safety improvements at the schools.

I think I think we have to do that when we do the resolution, right? Yep. We wait. Okay. Okay. That's right. We're talking about this right now. That's true. I forgot about that. I'll hold that. Yeah, I'll hold that. Could I just interject? I don't disagree with what Mike said. Um, but I'm not sure I want to reduce the Chromebooks. So, could we just add the $75,000 for the school safety enhance it? So, the the amendment might be slightly different.

Uh, let's vote on what I'm going to amend first and then I'll tell you the reason for that. While Ted stole my thunder a little bit about the and and you can throw me maybe I'm not going to get asked to dance either. I I do think it's kind of um unusual that a $70 million depart department turned back $30,000. Um when you I didn't pick that up that you have a department of two people that turned back $40,000. Um, I know that that the school committee does a lot they they a lot of things and I want to understand that better. So that will be something that I'll do as a side note because I do want need to understand why a department of that size only can turn back $30,000. So

three, Mr. Chairman, I will answer that quickly. Um, because under state law, schools can keep all of their money from one fiscal year for the other. Towns cannot. That's a state law. Number two, there are very finite things that they have to turn back. And I will even admit to you guys, I don't know exactly why encumbrances get turned back, but I trust the school business administrator, I think she's around somewhere, uh, thank you, Janna, that whatever was turned back and working with our comproller was what was the few reasons why they make a few deposits, but schools under Massachusetts law, once they get their money, they keep their money and they can roll it from year to year. Am I No, we No. Well, we have to

we have to expend it or that's the small incremental amount that we do turn back. I will say we're uh our budget's built on a pretty fixed set amount because most of it is salarydriven. So, you have to reconcile and pay your employees for the entire year. We don't have the same equipment um uh items. We don't have the same predictive thing. You don't have expenses,

right? I think expenses is where it gets different. So when you look at our budget, the majority of it is salaries. So when you commit to those salaries, that gets expended throughout the year. So I think that's how that that budget is designed, I just would say. Um and that's that's the nature of of school. I think if you looked at schools across the the state, you'd see the same kind of metric. So there's an I want to acknowledge we don't um contribute to the capital program that's existed in the same way that other departments, but we also don't budget. If you want to give me 200 grand, I'll buy my own Chromebooks and I'll give you 100 grand back at the end of the year. You know what I mean? I just think we don't budget that way. Um and that's how we we have a budget set for the year. That's um how we expended it. And last night, if you watched last night, which many of you did, we try to show like where is this money being committed to for that fiscal year.

Thank you. I'm all set. Thank you. Max said, "Yes, I know you talked to the Yeah, I had one other question. Um Mr. Chairman, um I had a question. I know Chromebook's got a lot of heat, but I want to ask um through you to the town administrator, what other uh items on this list are going to come up every year that uh we're going to have to allocate a similar amount of money towards?

Uh through, Mr. Chairman, just a quick, you know, just a uh I I think what Max is trying to get to is more operational stuff. So, a lot of the public safety gear, I think we've talked about this for decades now about why we can't fund, you know, turnout gear for police. I mean, a lot of towns have cruisers in their budget. Like, if you look at NATIC, everybody loves NATIC. They have in their budget cruisers, right? So, they just buy five or six of them every year. We don't have anywhere near the tax levy as NATIC or NEM or those communities. Um, you're probably in here. Portable radios would be an example. Um, probably the Chromebooks. I think the t I think there would probably be a certain amount of money in Tim's budget on laptop replacements. Um that would probably be an annual cost. I don't think the access points fall into that category, but I think laptops and computers probably fall into that habitual thing. That's just a quick

Okay. Like the police vehicles, does that come up every year? It does come up every year. Okay. Yes. Thank you. Yep. Um, sped vans have come up every year, but I think to the superintendent's point earlier, we've gotten pretty far ahead on those, so maybe there'll be a gap year at some point. Um, safety and then those are the things that just jump off. I'm not reading through every spreadsheet here, but those are the things that jump off. Uh, the tasers, um, those are, uh, every year. The portable radios are every year. A lot of times in the past, I will say we've gotten grants for some of this stuff from the federal government and obviously those grant programs have dried up largely.

Um I know they got a big radio one maybe four or five years ago that was for several years. Um those those are just a few of the things that I can think of. I'm sure the superintendent probably has some other stuff that you I yield. Okay. I don't really have any questions because you guys asked them all. So but I I would hope so.

Yeah. But and you asked all everybody asked something I I had written down because I had like three pages. So you guys should be counting your blessings. But I will I do want to say just kind of touch on because I've been actively watching the um trying to watch finance in schools. And to your point with why they don't return money, here's an example. when we were talking about the senior center, the 750 for the sprinkler and the gentleman came up facilities and that's what they're budgeting for, but he goes could cost less.

So if it costs only say $500,000, there's going to be $250,000 that's not going to get used. is coming back to the town. Mhm.

With the schools after they pay their salaries and everything that's unfunded, literally what's in their budget is already planned out to be spent to the penny to the end of the year. So if they do have two, three, $4,000 that comes back, then that's almost like a plus because they're not overbudgeting and just saying it could cost us less, but we're asking for this much more just in case. It's kind of like DBW, police or fire. They they might ask for something and it's this amount, but when they go to do it, they got something different, so it didn't cost much. Money can come back to us. I think that's where the difference is between the town departments and the school departments. You know what I mean? Like we get free cash from receipts so when the ambulance goes out that money comes back. The school's not doing that. Um and like with the police and stuff. I really do wish we could get to a point with the police and fire and the safety equipment. It just becomes part of an operational budget that they can just basically count on having every year because they should have it. It's going to take a while to get there. Um, but I think that might be why the school's not returning as much. And trust me, I was hard on the school. So, um, for a few years, but I've been paying attention very closely to their meetings. And I think that's why they don't actually have the money to give back at the end of the year. They're really budgeted to the pay. That's just my opinion. Um, but everybody asked all my questions, so I'm pretty much Okay. And I yield. And I like tier one.

You're up, team.

All right. Well, um I like tier one as well. Um I guess I'll just make a comment on both the security and the Chromebooks. Um security, uh if Lucas says we don't need it this year, it's, you know, if the current cameras are okay, I'm I'm fine without spending that money. But on the Chromebooks, um, these students, this is what their their main device that they work off. They need to have, um, a decent device to work on, and I'm not for cutting back on that. I mean, if we want to talk about them down the road in the future of changing the way we do grow the school takes care of them or we wean them off this process of using capital, fine. But for this year, um, I'm definitely on board for, uh, replacing, uh, these Chromebooks so that these students that keep them. So, the end of high school, um, they need to have a good device to use because it's the main thing that they work on.

That's it for me. That's it. You want Oh, you I didn't get you. I'm sorry. I commented on technology, but that was it. Oh, I'm sorry, buddy. No. Okay. No, that's okay. Uh, nice to see that Michael and I are going to the dance together. They can keep keep you keep each other company. Um, so I I'll it's it's really difficult because I feel like for years we we rally around these conversations and everybody gets into their camps and everybody

makes these decisions like, "Oh, you're a pro school guy, so that means you got to be against the cops and the firemen and the fire staff." And I'm like, "No, that's not the case." like you can absolutely want what's best for the whole town and still be critical of some decisions. I and I realize that our our place as a council is not to tell the school committee how to run the schools, but it is our place to question funding and to question how funding gets used. And everything is a decision, right? Every every if the school department is for example making the decision that a main principal with four assistant principles is critically necessary at Franklin High School. It's a decision that they've made and it's a decision that they're willing to fund at the detriment of something else. if they're making the decision to put two principles at an elementary school and two principles at another elementary school, those are Lucas's prerogatives to make those decisions. I'm not saying anything against that, right? But when you make those decisions, that means that money then isn't available somewhere else. And on an 80s something million dollar budget, I don't care if you are the best budgeter on the planet, you can't possibly tell me that you're you're spending every penny down to the penny. And because every department every department deals with personnel, every department deals with trying to make ends meet with very little. Yet every department, even the small ones, are cranking fees and turning it over. And I I am embarrassed that our police department and our fire department and

our DPW have to come to us every year with these lists. Why should our police department have to ask for protective gear? Why should our fire department have to ask for protective gear or radios? It's it's craziness, people. But we've talked about this now for five years, if not longer, right? But here they are. We tried, they tried putting in their operating budget one time that I've been here and then it got taken away, right? One time.

And I even remember Lucas's predecessor put uh some money in the budget for replacing Chromebooks. I think it was one time of 250 grand, but then it got taken away because other things became a priority. So like I get it. You you make choices. Every department head has to make choices with the money that they're given. For me, to what councelor Blank says, the safety concern at the school is absolutely more important right now to me than Chromebooks. Maybe there's a way for FY27, for Lucas and his group to go back and find the money for those Chromebooks. I don't know. But if we're saying to our police department and our fire department, you can't go back to your budgets and get these things, then unfortunately, we have to be willing to have those uncomfortable conversations with our friends at the schools, too. And that kills me because my inbox is going to be full now from everybody that said, "I can't believe you said those things about the schools. I thought you were a pro school guy."

I am a proschool guy. I 100% support our schools. I support our athletics. I support our arts. I support our music. I give and I give and I give as much as I possibly can. But these numbers aren't making a whole lot of sense. And I would support an amendment when it comes up, councelor Leblanc, about making that change for now. And maybe maybe the Chromebook thing, Lucas, if down, you know, if over the next four months, five months, you guys just can't possibly figure it out and we have to come back and talk about it again with some of these other tier 2 and tier three requests, then maybe that's what we got to do. I I don't know. But for now, for me, making sure that the schools are safe, making sure those cameras are replaced, making sure that I can sleep well at night knowing we've done everything possible to make the kids and the faculty safe in those buildings is far more important than those crappy Chromebooks. But that's that's it, Mr. Chairman.

I'm sure Lucas is gonna have something. He's my neighbor, by the way.

Mr. Chairman, really quick, I just want to meet tomorrow. I just want to comment on school security and school safety. What we need now are for people to recognize our schools are incredibly safe. I am almost out of breath. This is a study. If everybody on the council wants to vote for the study, I am fully supportive of it. I think it's a great project. I have no doubt. where I gasp for air is hearing about school shootings in British Columbia and drawing that comparison all the way to Franklin and somehow portraying to our community that our schools are now not safe. What many of you probably don't know, Bobby, you should Ted, I think you should, we have spent unbelievable amounts of millions of dollars

in the last 10 years.

I'd like to pat myself a little bit on the back. I'll give Mike D'Angelo a tremendous amount of credit who's not here. Same thing with Kevin, Lucas, Sarah, Miriam. There have been countless people in this community working on school security. Our schools are really, really safe. Every one of you should sleep really well at night. Really. But what happens is during these debates is message gets out on YouTube and on Zoom that we're not safe because we're worried. And I'm worried too. We're all worried, but I need people in this community to recognize there are a lot of people that also believe our schools are like prisons. There's cameras up in every single corner. If the superintendent or the facilities director walked in here and said, "We have 80 broken cameras. Our servers are down. We're not getting videotapes." I can assure you the superintendent would have put that number one on his list guaranteed without question. But he didn't. He did it because it is not an immediate emergency today. It's a study to look at this. And I'm going to tell you what the stud is going to show. The stud is going to show another several million dollars worth of improvements that need to be done in the next few in the next in the next several years. All of which is worthwhile. We need to get those numbers on there. But where I truly get bewildered is that people don't feel safe. Not only do we have one of the best fire departments and police departments in the United States of America, we have one of the best school facilities and school buildings and the most upgraded school facilities of any other district in the area. Our schools are incredibly safe. And what I would appreciate is everybody in the room finally saying that to our children and families and assuring them that our schools are really safe. The superintendent even gave a breakdown of I think a couple of the projects we did a few years ago with the vestibules to make sure there was additional stuff. I mean, I can't say it any better, but I really would appreciate the support from everybody in assuring the public our

schools are incredibly safe and I have a feeling that's what Superintendent Jagir was going to get. You took a lot of stole a lot of my thunder there, Jamie. And I normally I wouldn't take the bait. I wouldn't take the bait, but you got me, Ted. I just But Lucas, you said you said the money was for to replace broken cameras, right? You didn't say it was study and the servers that will need to be replaced. You said that it was to help servers. So to to contradict Jamie a little bit, it wasn't you didn't say you wanted the money to study and see what was

No, study is not the right word. It's about keeping up and replacing as these items age and the ones that are broken needs repair. So that's the mix of both. And we and you can you can listen, I I am all about it. What I don't like is the mischaracterization as though we don't value safety. And I think that's came. Yeah, that's how it came across. And the other thing that came across is I'm really tired of getting pitted against my fellow department heads. We have been working really hard.

Consolidated schools, avoided costs of 3.2 million. We're still spending in the lowest percentile. We're doing everything we can and we're sitting up here as though we're asking for luxuries. But then I'm getting pitted against I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not fighting with them. We came in all at 2 and a half% came in with a balanced budget. We're working really hard. We made a lot of shifts. I'm not alone. Every every single department's done their version of a reorganization at some point. We just happen to have done it the most the last time. But it's really really hard to sit in the department head meetings that we have and talk as a team about what we need. And I get it, the money's finite, but I'm not going to get pitted against them. when you frame things and the way you message things, even your comments about revolving funds and how they should be used. I get emails after you have a meeting about some of the things. So, I have to clarify now misinformation. Our schools are safe. We should have go as a superintendent. I should be advocating. I had three things on there. They were tiered differently because you can't have it all. I think we had that was the the heart of the discussion tonight. If there's a longer strategic meeting about what we need, I think you would see us wanting to put uh more into some of those other other uh tiers that each of us had and have larger budgets. But ultimately, I feel as though there's an opportunity. We had an opportunity and we still have it to really come together and have the town council school committee fincom group and then our department heads for the first time in a few years have been more aligned uh under the leadership of Jamie and trying to make sure that we're really trying to swim and and row in the right direction and I feel like we're at a point but when I feel like what I just heard was and you're entitled to your opinion on this believe me you're you're in a position to vote on the money so I'm not arguing this isn't my authority but I would just I I would just say we were primed to kind of move through this in a way where we could stay unified. But comments like that, I think detract and put us back to where we don't want to be in the battles and fighting for what people need. I want to support everybody here and everything you're

doing. I think the the plan you put together for one year while we sort out there are difficult conversations certainly, but to get through a way of not having to do this again um just I I that's how I started and I just would end it there. So, I just need you to know the Miss Cat. I I feel like if I left here and I didn't say it, I wouldn't have stuck up for myself or our district to say, "Of course, we prioritize student safety. Um, we do have a need for the Chromebooks. I also know there are a lot of other people who have needs who spoke and I think we're trying to find a balance and I think you teed up the opportunity for that to find and I think you're entitled to also disagree with my recommendations. I'm just doing my job to advocate for my department. But the one thing I've always done and I'll stop is try to always keep a perspective of the other departments at the same time when we're trying to do this.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to reiterate. I agree with everything that Jamie and Lucas said on that subject, but um for the last 10 years, all I've heard is the same stuff when it comes to the capital plan and that yes, the police cruises that we buy every single year. Three to five every single year. Bulletproof vests. Bulletproof vests. Yes. Part of the capital plan. The TAS lease program. It's a lease. It's a 5-year lease, but it's out of the capital program. Why? because your predecessors decided that they were going to move that stuff out of operations so they could balance the budget without asking for an override or anything else to be able to do it. So that's the reason that this stuff that normally would not be in an operations budget is in the operations budget. So we can just we're there, right? Everybody know now.

Okay. Because I mean it happened when I was a lieutenant because yes, police vehicles were in our budget. There's even a go that says police vehicles. It's just been zeroed out for the last 15 years. But that's the way it was. This is the way it is now. And the only reason you can't do anything about it, just admit it, is you don't have the money to take all this stuff out of capital and stick it into the operations budget. Otherwise, it's not $2 million we're looking for. We're looking for five. We're looking for six or whatever else it is. Good luck. Don't envy your job of how we do that. Let's just get to the real reason as to why is because this town has had a structural deficit for 20 plus years. And this is part of the how they somewhat fixed it and now it's come back to bite us in the you know what.

Okay. Next. He's absolutely right. He's absolutely right. But I mean I I didn't get that that we're talking about safety. That was a little bit out of and that is my fault. I was reading a different in terms of the actual I think what can you clarify Lucas are the or Kevin are these going towards actual replacement cameras. It's not a study. It's not a study. Okay. It's not a study. Okay. That's my error. So you owe me an apology. So what you owe me I'm very sorry Ted. You should be. Okay. It's not called for. Well, you know I'm also what I'm you know I'm constantly defending you up here constantly. I didn't but whatever. We'll move on.

All right. Let's move on. Let's move on. So, I'm I guess everybody said I'm not going to speak because we we got we got 10 minutes. So, uh let's move on to uh legislation for actions. Clerk will read uh resolution 26 03. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Resolution 26-03, free cash to stabilization account transfers. Total requested 451,845 purpose continued funding of the stabilization fund per town policy. The OPED trust fund continued funding 10% of free cash from free cash with the amount of $451,845. The finance committee unanimously recommended this at 9 to zero at their meeting on January 14th. The motion be moved and voted by the town council that the sum of $451,845 be transferred from free cash to the OPED trust fund in the amount and for the purpose outlined above. This resolution shall become effective according to provisions of the town of Franklin home rule charter. You

heard the resolution. Second. Motion to approve resolution 2603. Second. Can I just ask a clarification, Jamie? You've attached a memo here asking us to consider tableabling this. Should I read that also? Yes, please.

So, counselors, in your packet, there is also a recommendation by way of a memo from the town administrator dated February 6th for resolution 26-03. I'm requesting the town council table this vote until June 10th of 2026 when I anticipate a final budget vote. While staff are prioritizing and recommending to execute the town policy of 10% free cash going toward the OPED trust, we think it is prudent to wait to enact this resolution until after final healthc care numbers arrive. Final numbers include any deficits and surpluses from the current healthc care consortium andor the cost of the GIC after open enrollment. The finance committee has unanimously approved this request.

So Jamie, now we have to make an amendment. You would just make a motion to table. We have a motion on the floor. We have a motion on the floor right now. Yeah, you could amend it. That's what I mean. Can I ask a clarifier, Jamie? So that the finance committee according to one document you said voted unanimously to recommend but then you also put in your memo that they voted unanimously to table.

They did. That was a that was a month and a half ago. That was before local aid came out and before the budget model was done. But in working with the staff and just seeing where the numbers were and looking where the budget was, we thought it would be advantageous to hold that in case there was another issue financially and you can approve it in June. But at least it gives you four more months to see where the numbers fan out. When does he want to table it to June 10th? He wants to uh if if we were to amend and table it, it would be till the June 10th meeting. All right. So I make a motion to amend resolution 2603 to table it until June 10th.

Second discussion. All in favor to move the resolution as amended to June 10th. All in favor? I opposed table. All right. Resolution 26-04 FY26. Yeah, I got to find it. I move to it reading. Oh, sorry. I think it wasn't He's going to read it. I was going to I was going to move.

He's going to wave. Oh, is anybody seconding's motion to wave it? Is there a second? Just second. Okay. All right. So, we have a motion to wave the reading and we have a second. Is there a discussion? No. All in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. Okay. Do we want to amend? How are you waving a reading if there's going to be an amendment? You can still discuss it. We can still discuss discuss. Okay. Now you move the resolution. So, uh, move. I'll make a motion. I move resolution 2604.

Second. And we have a motion and a second. Now we we go to discussion. Okay. Go ahead, Max.

So, I want to um we talked a lot about uh the issue of um uh things that should be in the operating budget. And of course, I don't think that should be done today, but I do think it's worth having the joint budget committee joint budget subcommittee looking at when they're talking about the future of our town and how we want to fund things. So, I have this amendment to do that. Um and so this is what it says. Uh, I did email it to Ted earlier and to Jamie. Uh I move to amend resolution 26-04 to insert before the last sentence be it further resolved that the town council refers to the joint budget subcommittee for investigation and report the qu to uh and report the question of identifying recurring annual capital expenditures for schools public safety and technology currently funded through the capital improvement plan that should be instead be funded through the annual operating budget and to recommend sustainable funding strategies for such expenses. The subcommittee shall report its findings and recommendations to the town council by September 30th, 2026.

Is that a motion? Let's look at that. Second that. But we just had the discussion. We don't have the money. So remember, it's a it's a lovely thought. No, no. It's it's to have them study to have them study it. Just a It's a study study. And we studied this over it's okay. All right. Um, all in favor? I I opposed. No. No. Amendment field. I'd like to make an amendment. Mhm.

I'd like to amend uh the capital expenditures to add back or add the 75,000 for the Do I need to specifically say that line so we don't get confused? Yeah. Yes. Um so I don't have it in front of me. Districtwide school safety improvements. Yes. Thank you. Uh to add that and to remove the $100,000 for the Chromebooks from the IT department. Second. Okay. Discussion Max is here.

Yep. Um I think that it doesn't make sense to ignore Superintendent Jagar's um professional opinion about what he believes is the most pressing priority for the schools. Um I agree that our schools are safe. I think safety is important to keep at the forefront and as he said, you know, we'll have to replace more cameras later on. I would be in favor of adding it, but I would not be in favor of removing the line item of the Chromebooks as um the schools have said that is their top priority. Uh I would have to second that. I I agree. Could we add it and keep the Chromebooks? Absolutely.

Absolutely. You can do both. I think we have to vote on this one. No, no, I know that was just a question I had for J. Uh, Steve, I know you're looking at me, but No, I'm just trying to f follow where we are and what we're doing. Um, current amendment to replace. So, we get a vote on the amendment. The current amendment the amendment to replace 75,000, but he wants to take out the 100,000 and 75. So more on the amendment, right? The amendment is decreasing 100,000 adding 75. So they're losing 25 death. Correct. Just to be clear,

correct? For now. Okay. So we vote on the amendment first, right? So let's vote on the amendment. Is there any more discussion? Uh Max?

Yes. I just want to say I strongly oppose this motion. Um, you know, yes, things have come a long way since I was in school and we didn't have Chromebooks, but this is something that, you know, is going to be a shock to our students, you know, waking up going into the next grade and not having something that their peers have. Um, and also, yes, our schools are safe. We live in one of the safest parts of the country. Our crime rate has gone down day year after year. Um, you know, especially in terms of violent crime. I I I think that, you know, and putting some cameras on a building really is really it's going to make us feel good, but is it really going to help us feel be safer? I don't think so. So, I um I encourage a no vote on this motion. All right, let's vote.

I'm requesting a roll call, Mr. Chairman.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought anybody I thought anybody could request a roll call. Where is that? She just wrote Would you just uh do a roll call vote for the rest of the rest of the Ted. All right,

that's fine. So, right now, if I understand it correctly, the amendment is to remove the $100,000 on tier one from Chromebooks and replace it with $75,000 for the district-wide school safety improvements as outlined in tier two. Okay. Councelor Auku, no. Councelor Morangello, no. Councelor Malloy, no. Councelor Leblanc, yes. Councelor Griffith, no.

Councelor Callaway, Trip, no. Myself is a yes. Council Growa, no. and chair. No. So, the amendment fails. I would I would attain obtain a motion to keep the $100,000 Chromebook and add the $75,000 for security. Second. Second. Discussion. Vote on the amendment. one day at a time. Sir,

I so sorry just just briefly I can support this but I I I I will just call out that the just remind us that the superintendent did just suggest that that 75 they can wait a year on. So just Mr. Chairman, can you read me the amendment again? The amendment is to keep the $100,000 for the Chromebooks and add the $75,000 for the for the cameras. So, the amendment really would just be to add just adding 75 for districtwide school safety. Just add the 75.

We've been talking about the Chromebook so much. I had to add

school safety. approve this to the resolution.

We have we actually have to vote. We have to vote extend the meeting to extend the meeting. No, no, it's until the motion. Yeah. When when the next motion come when the when we're done with this this motion because this finishes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe the amendment to resolution 26-04 is to add $75,000 uh for the district-wide school safety improvements. We ready to call the role? Councelor Rajuku, yes. Councelor Morangello, no. Councelor Malloy, yes. Councelor Leblanc, yes. Councelor Griffith, yes. Councelor Trip,

yes. myself as a yes. Councelor Growa, yes. Councelor Dorco, yes. Motion passes. Amendment passes. Amendment passes. So now, do we have to do the full resolution, Mr. Chairman? Have to extend the meeting first. Huh? I think it's No, I think we're still working on this. We can Yeah, I think we're okay for now and then the next thing until we go then 2604. Okay. Yeah. And then we have to vote on the end to do the last two.

All right. So I make a motion to approve resolution 2604 as amended. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? No. Any anybody just for the record opposed? No. So now we have to talk about extending the meeting. I think we still vote on it. Yeah. Going to make a motion and vote on that majority rules if we go past 10 o'clock. So, I'll make a motion to extend the meeting so we can finish the agenda. Second. Yeah. Second. All in favor? I meeting extended

first time. So, did we voted we we we approved the capital plan. So, now we're on to enterprise. Now we're on to enterprise.

Yeah. So, uh, resolution 2605 FY26 capital enterprise funds. Clerk will read the resolution. Make sure this reading. Okay, Mr. Chairman, this is resolution 26-05, the appro appropriation of capital FY26 enterprise funds.

Motion to wave the fine second. I'll second that. Be all in favor? I I opposed. Right. Okay. So, make a motion to approve resolution 2605. Second. I'll second it. All in. Uh Okay. Discussion. Discussion. I'm fine for now. Any discussion? Yeah. It's enterprise funds, so Okay. All right. We got a motion, a second on the floor. We'll take a a vote. All in favor? I

opposed. No opposed. Resolution 2609. Gift acceptance to veteran service department $450. Motion to wave the reading. Second. Waiting for that. All right. All in favor? Oh, wait. We have to make a motion. We have to have Oh, we have all for the reading. All in favor? Yeah. All in favor? I I

Okay. Make a motion to approve resolution 2609 gift acceptance. Second. We have a second. Second. Discussion. Discussion. I'd just like to thank the donors, Mr. Chairman. I think it's only right that We thank uh Miss Miss Boura, Miss White and Vera, Miss Souza, and Miss Scoba for the total of $450 to veteran service fund. Thank you very much to all of them. Agreed. Agreed. Thank you. Agreed. All in favor? I I motion passed. Uh future agenda items. Not for me. Um I'm just going to You said no, right?

You said no. Um, I'm just going to put in my monthly plug um to get subcommittees up and running again. I know we talked about those a little bit earlier, but I think I've said it hour. We need help. We need help. I know. I know. But I think we we made it clear that like we need a plan. We need I would say um getting the budget subcommittees, getting the economic um development subcommittees going. That will help us make that plan. So, here's my my monthly plug to get going. I think we're going to do liaison. We get people in there. But doesn't that run us a ground of um like string string deliberation? No. Yeah,

it technically it does. Yeah, technically it does. Huh? Yep. Not really. But, you know, well, we need we'll have to I think the issue that's not being talked about is the bandwidth issue. And I'm sorry to continue to bring it up, but um I don't know who's going to do these meetings because you can't. Yeah. What about I'm already working, you know.

Sorry. Like I know you don't want to hear it and I know people it's late at night, but it's like getting very frustrating to keep adding more and more. We don't have the work. I don't know who's going to do all this work. Um, I'd love to have subcommittees, but I just don't know. I think they're on the goals, so maybe we'll finalize them on March 4th, but I'm just a little exhausted from it all. So, I don't know who's going to do all this work. So, I'm very sorry to say that. And I know that's not what people want to hear. I want to tell everybody yes, but I don't know how to have an EDC. The joint budget committee, I will say on the finance committee is going to pick their appointees on February 25th. So, I think the joint budget can probably get up sometime, you know, soon. But in terms of councelor Callaway Trip's comment about another budget committee or or something, I I I think we have to all work together and figure out what the bandwidth is to do this and who's going to staff those committees because I I can't do four nights a week of doing meetings like this is just if I got to go to budget meetings, too. I mean, it's just getting very And yet, you know, I obviously can see that there's probably not going to be support for a deputy town administrator, and I understand that, but I don't know who else is going to do all this work. Economic development, it's just getting very thin, and um I'll stop there. Thank you.

Um just respectfully, Jamie, I understand you are stretched very thin. Um I know that you are also doing the MMA work.

Yeah. Um which is Okay. And maybe somebody could ask me what I do. Maybe somebody could ask me how much time I spend on it. Maybe why I do it and maybe the cost benefit of how it brings to the town because I need to go bang Beacon Hill for money because obviously here's a problem. So I know that people have that but it's very frustrating because nobody comes and talks to me about it. Nobody says what does it entail? What am I doing? My term's up. I don't even think anyone knows that. And it's very frustrating, you know, it really is. And then we just got to do more meetings, right? Which then leads to more drafting, more work, more agendas, more priorities. And I just I feel like all the department heads were here tonight saying like the chief like like we're not we're not managing expectations well. It's just very very frustrating. So, so and every time I make a small error, then I get grilled. So, it's very very it's very very tense. I have a lot going on. It's not just MMA. It's a lot of stuff here. So, I think we need to talk a little bit more about what I do, what my hours are, and a lot of other dynamics about the bandwidth of myself in addition to the staff that are out here, the finance team, and many others. Like I think we have to have a really really hard conversation about that because this is just not this is not sustainable. So I'm sorry.

So if we're not going to fill subcommittees, do we need to vote to close them? Do they just exist out there um un unfilled? I mean I think I don't know. And we voted to open them. Do we need to vote to close them? I don't really know the answer to that question either. But I mean this isn't like we haven't had them in five months. like it it it but we're not saying we're not going to have him in case we do get help to him then maybe we do you know you know what I mean but so bad but just to clarify Jamie don't those subcommittees have end dates I don't think so they they didn't have them like the other ones

I mean I think the end dates are when the election happens but um so if if people can make suggestions on how people can attend all these meetings and do all these meetings. You know, I'm open to the ideas. Maybe we'll talk. Council, Max, I'm all set. Nothing. Nothing. Okay. Future general items. I think we have to talk about the fire truck, don't we? Not now. I don't know, man. I I just think it's just

Chuck Allen, fire chief. Um, just just real quick, I know we're up against the time. We uh we had a uh a firet truck that we we had to take out of service. Um so it's it's currently not not being used. Uh it's a vital piece of equipment. Um it has a serious safety issue uh with the frame and we're going to have to replace it. So that uh we are actively working on an act on a plan to replace that now. Um and that'll probably be before you uh in the future uh hopefully soon. So, just so let you know I would encourage or ask all of you to reach out to us individually and we can give you whatever information you want in the meantime. Um, that's it. So, I I do just want to say too I from and I know I know listening to the budget uh conversation tonight um we all rely on each other, our departments. You know, I I I can't tell you how many times I, you know, we have to we have to talk to Jamie during the day and and and he's busy or or we you know, we work we work with each other all the time. If if as a fire department, if if you cut public works, then you're you're reducing our ability to protect the community because we rely on the water maintains. Our ISO1 ISO1 rating is reliant on a lot of public works. you know, if if we can't get in the schools, we can't we can't, you know, reduce our our risk to the community. You know, if we can't get in the senior center in front of the seniors, we can't we can't help the seniors and get, you know, we all work together here. We really do. And I I just I just wanted to, you know, quickly say that. So, um, but as far as the fire truck goes, if if you could reach out to me, I can give you a little bit more information what's going on with it. Uh, it's it just happened last week. Uh, but the vehicle's out of service and we do absolutely need to replace it. So,

how much do are you going to need to We're looking at We're trying to save as much money as we can. Um trying to buy a demo model. Uh ordering a truck is absolutely out of the question. Get 36 to 48 months. Um this vehicle is out of service now. So, we're really looking at at a at a cost best best case about 935,000, which is which is crazy for a firetruck when you think we just bought two last year for 540 20 in 2021 for 540,000 a piece. So, it's it's a it's almost a double cost increase of what they are today, but um it's not going to be avoidable. So, it's a demo, right? It's a demo. That's the only vehicle available right now. Um there's there's just nothing out in the market. You know,

most communities that buy them, they're waiting three or four years for the truck to be delivered and and it's an order and it's well over a million dollars. Um, if we had to actually order this truck, the one that we've identified to to try and purchase, if we had to order that vehicle, uh, it'd be at least a 36-month wait time, and the price would start at 1.1 to 1.2. So, and they say 36 months, but it's it's not 36. And we're up against the 27 emission standards, too, which could be could be a big problem. So, that it's like it's like 48. Yeah, it's a long time. So, but uh we do have some options out there. So, we are we are working on it, but um we'll get those uh we'll get those out to you as soon as we can. So, does the demo truck have everything you need? Would it

It does. It does. It you know, we our fire our apparatus that we ordered, you know, five or six years ago are just standard fire trucks. There's nothing fancy about them. That's all we need. We don't need to go, you don't need to custom order a vehicle or anything. Um usually when you when you order a truck, um you know, they might custom cabinets or, you know, placement. This this particular vehicle happens to be outfitted just the way we would use it, so it'd be fine. Yeah. And um is there a chance if we don't move quickly on this, someone else is going to buy it? Absolutely. Yeah. It's actually actually if they're holding it for us for 30 days. Okay.

Uh we might be able to extend that a little bit of time. Um the this this vehicle is scheduled. It's a demo, so it's been around a little bit. Um going to, you know, firetruck shows for for sales. Um once that hits the open market, it's going to go. So it'll go it'll go well. It'll go in a minute. Yeah. Because we're buying Yeah. Yeah. It's actually going to a trade show in two weeks, actually. So hopefully nobody else wants to buy it there. They're holding it right now, but they're okay. For 30 days. For 30 days. Probably from Friday or whenever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Y we good. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Ready? Ready. Motion to adjurnn. Make a motion to Yeah. I have a second.

Not undebatable. I