Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay. Uh let's get started. We have a we have a quorum. Um good evening everyone. It is 7:03 on Thursday, January 8th. Um this is a meeting of the finance committee. Um, we are fully remote so I'm happy to open the meeting with a roll call. Um, I'll start with myself. Victoria is present. Skip present. Greg present. Mark present. Angelina present. Samir present.

Thank you. Okay. So, we are we are open. So there are three items on our agenda today. Uh so let's start with the first as we do have a guest. Reme is joining us for a reserve fund transfer request for for fire station 3. So Ray, thank you so much for joining us this evening. Would you like to give us sort of a rundown for this this transfer request? Uh sure. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can.

Okay, good. Um, so the this is a uh a $31,000 request uh to transfer from the reserve fund into uh the renovation fund for station 3. Um, I had to use $31,000 uh between uh engineering and repairs uh on the building. Um kind of emergency repairs. Uh so I'm in the process of renovating the uh the building. um or renovating the bathrooms in the upstairs. And once we did some demolition, we found that uh there were some structural issues in the in the building itself that had to be addressed immediately. So, I used the renovation money uh to address those immediately and the $31,000 is is what I used.

Okay. Are there any questions from the committee on the renovations or the request itself? So that that is just for the renovation. This the still the $100,000 is still to be spent from that. Is that accurate? Yeah. So that the uh well some of the $100,000 has already been spent. Um but that's the reimburseed over $100,000 which will be spent uh by uh June 30th. Okay. Mark, I'd make a motion we approve the reserve fund as presented. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the reserve fund as requested. Uh Dan Kushner has also arrived at 706. Hi Dan. Uh any further discussion on uh the motion? Seeing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Uh Skip I. Greg, hi Mark. Hi, Angelina. Hi, Dan. Hi, Samir. Hi, Victoria. I That motion passes unanimously. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate your help. Thanks, Ray. Thanks for working on the the station. We appreciate you.

Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye. Um, do I need to come in to um the municipal center to sign off on that at any point? Yeah, that would be great. Okay, I can stop by probably sometime tomorrow um if I just wander on over. Perfect.

Yeah, no problem. Okie dokie. Easy peasy. So second piece uh today is to continue our discussion on the FY 2027 um budget. Uh so so Jay and and Evan, Dr. Cummings and Evan have been kind enough to join us this evening to um continue the conversation. Um I'm sure most of us saw Dr. Cummings presentation to the school committee on on Tuesday. have sort of asked him to um go over that again with us at a at a high level just so that we could ask any questions on um oh thank you Greg Amber if you could promote Heather as an um panelist uh just to allow us to ask any particular questions but I'm particularly interested in in the the reduction budget obviously is that's the um potential second budget that we would be presenting to to town meeting Um, so please if Evan, if you don't mind to to have Jay take it away and go first.

Oh, absolutely. All right. You're right, Jay. I I think last time Evan I asked you, so I'm just, you know, I'm gonna I was just thinking I need to go and finish my doctorate because it's always Dr. Cummings and Evan. I I can call you Dr. Brousard. I'm I am so good with just Jay I he could be Dr. Bray. Can you guys see my screen? I I can.

Okay. And first of all, thank you very much for having me. I don't think anything I'm going to talk about I don't think is going to be a surprise to any of you. We had the discussion that set this up um I don't know it was almost a little less than a year ago I guess. Um, but I'll run through it quickly and I'm more than happy to take any questions you have. So, on Tuesday night, we started talking about that preliminary FY27 budget reduction. I stressed that it was very preliminary. It was on January 6th. Um, and I know Evan's doing the same work on the municipal side, if you will. um so that there's a somewhat or a more educated decision in terms of impact when an override is considered uh possibly for the spring. Okay, it's stuck. Okay, there we go. So, our initial or preliminary level service budget was $50.5 million. Um, so that covers all of our anticipated costs with nothing new with the exception of that that would include bringing back that HR director position. So for the past since July 1st, I have been filling in as the HR director, if you will. Um, just trying to kind of keep the ship afloat, but with over 550 employees, it's it's just not sustainable. Um but that's the only additional thing and that's again not new. We historically have had an HR director. Um so very much a level service budget. In discussions with Evan, I knew that we'd have based on the initial numbers um 14 point or 49.3 to 49.5 million in terms of anticipated funding which would obviously leave a

resulting deficit from the level service of somewhere between 1 million and 1.2 million with that townwide difference in total being around 1.4 million that I'm sure Evan will speak to. So with that target in again in discussions with Evan, we want to keep in the back of our mind that we need to cover unemployment. And this year the number that we're going to use is $20,000 per full-time equivalent. Um so for every full-time employee that's let go uh due to reductions, we should have in the back of our minds $20,000 per employee to cover unemployment if needed. Um, so my first take or first try at the preliminary reduction budget over the break, I totaled 1,86,000. So kind of in the middle of that range. Uh, without a doubt, the two things that get impacted are class sizes and the programming that we can offer students. We have over the years, as you well know, cut every little thing from big things to little things. Um just to bring you back to last year, we reduced uh six and a half full-time individuals. Uh we did our best to minimize unemployment through retirements. Um thankfully in every way. Thankfully, uh most of the individuals were able to find full-time jobs fairly quickly. Uh so the impact wasn't tremendous in terms of unemployment, but we reduced by 6.5 FTE. So, a halftime preschool, our HR director position, another uh technology position, math intervention teacher, a maintenance position, and two of our four curriculum coordinators. Um, and

then 162,000 for non-personnel reductions. That's supplies, materials, tech, software, uh, which are already fairly thin. we reduced by 162. In terms of the preliminary reductions, uh this slide is actually what I use with our leadership team. We with one exception that I'll speak to, we don't put paraprofessional positions on the reduction list because they're not they're not real reductions. uh in that all but four of our paraprofessionals in the entire district are directly tied to student individualized education plans. So we can say oh maybe we can do with less but then come September once those needs with the IEPs emerge we are tied to that we don't have a choice so if you reduce paras what can happen and what typically does happen is you end up adding those back in September without any funding available to do so and it simply creates a big mess. uh when we look to finalize our reduction plan, we could look at four different parap positions in the district, those are uh we at one point had a paraprofessional dedicated to every kindergarten classroom, which is fantastic. That's best practice. That's what you want. Um we have over the years had to just chip away at that and where instead of 12, we're down to four. So we could cut those four positions. it probably wouldn't be particularly wise, but we could and we will if we have to. Um, I'm hoping not to. Um, I think in the 15 years I've been doing this, I I don't think there's an example of me saying one thing and us doing another. So, what whatever we end up saying we're going to

reduce by, that's what we're going to do. Um, and I'm trying to keep the numbers in this picture, this preliminary image, uh, broad enough where I'm not looking to cause panic, but I want to be upfront and be honest. And if it causes rightful concern, so be it. Um, it's not the greatest like this whole presentation of of course is not great for morale. uh once we get to actually defining reduction positions, be it at Grafton or anywhere else, of course those teachers on that list, whatever it might look like, are going to go and look for jobs. Uh there's just no two ways around that. And then finally, we we work very hard to keep the sister schools. That's for example, we have two preK through one schools and two two through six schools. What we would not want to have happen is class size of fifth grade 29 at one school and fifth grade at the other at 21. Um, it can't always be perfect, but we can come pretty close. We wouldn't want to have instrumental music at one school and then not have it at the other. So, we we try to make sure they're as linked as possible. In terms of the actual plan, of course, I'm not putting individualized positions on. Um, but I'm the one that did the work and I know the numbers. We would have uh most likely at this point seven uh full-time instructional staff, primarily teachers and counselors. Again, we're not including paraprofessionals. It could include curriculum coordinator. We only have two, so we're we're a little limited there already. uh we most likely would not go back to maintenance. Uh we're bare bones with custodial. So it's going to be instructional staff in in for the most part in terms of um teaching

curriculum support um in counseling. So seven at the secondary level, so 6 through 12 and seven at the elementary level. Um we will most likely focus on upper elementary. That's just the way it plays out. Um, and as you continue to make reductions, you inevitably end up going lower and lower. Um, but if if you can I'd love to not make any reductions, but the last place you want to reduce is prek through one and two uh in terms of literacy and just core skills. If we need to account for unemployment costs, there would be a reduction of four additional instructional staff to again cover that cost of 280,000. And that totals just over a million dollars.

Um Mark has his his hand raised if you don't mind taking a a question. Sorry, I couldn't see. No, that's okay, Jay. I just want to make sure I understand. So to lay off 14 to get a number, you have to actually lay off 18 if for the unemployment. Correct. If if the number we're using is 20,000 per person, obviously the 14 time 20 is going to be the the 280. Okay,

got it. It might be just 14 if it all works out and everybody just we don't have enough right now. I know of two retirements. Um I have to figure out certification. It's not just you can just not fill those two because we may have to fill that. Um, but we we certainly do our best and and hope that just on the humanistic side, anybody, our staff is tremendous. If we have to release anybody, we're going to do everything in our power to help them. Yes. Could I ask a follow-up question to Evan? Yes. No. Maybe. Sorry. You caught me literally. I just started taking a drink of water.

I'm sorry, Evan. I'm sorry. I guess I guess my question is unemployment is a one-time nonrecurring cost. Yes. And if we have to start laying off people within the budget to make up for that unemployment if if that's the way we go, wouldn't it make sense to use free cash to offset the unemployment cost so that we don't have to lay off an additional four teachers? Um that is a potential we haven't really gotten that far, but yes, that is that is something we can consider. Sorry to interrupt. No, no. Is it Is it Jay or is it Dr. Cummings? How are we Jay is fantastic. I I love that. I'm just joking. Thanks, J.

I I appreciate the question. Three compounding issues. We We've over the years gone over all of these things. And I think it sometimes it comes across as maybe fear-mongering. I'm I can only promise you I'm not trying to do that, but I'm trying to be realistic um and be as open as possible. So the the three compounding issues that need to be thought about when thinking about what you want as a town from the schools and if we decide we want we just can't afford to do what we currently do and obviously with reduced teaching staff we're going to have larger class sizes and a a change a negative change in the provision of services and opportunities for kids. That's just a fact. Um, so with that, these three things need to be thought about. School choice revenue, out of district tuition and transportation costs, and then growing enrollment. So, if you've been around a while, you you'll recognize this most likely. I put together a chart way back what, 11 years ago, more when we did the first override. And whether it be Grafton, any really any district in the country, once once you start decreasing funding significantly where it's limited andor eventually dysfunctional, this is what plays out. It's really not rocket science. It won't be exact, but it's going to be pretty close. Um, we're increased class sizes, as I mentioned before, in the upper elementary to secondary level. You're going to reduce electives. We've already reduced maintenance and custodial. We probably wouldn't go back to to that. I even cut more in the first year. Um, art, music, PE. You've you've probably seen this in other districts. It's again, it's not unique to Grafton. Two things that are

going to compound the issues for us once we head down the road where we're below level service is loss of school choice funding. Over the past decade, we've brought in at least $8 million through school choice. We have uh we've always had a huge weight list. On our end, it's it's awesome. People hear great things about our schools. We provide a great education to kids. We have great opportunities, athletics, you know, a great culture and climate. So, so much so that people are willing to drive their kid or kids every single morning to and from our schools. And it's been great. Um, we bring in revenue and we use that revenue to pay for staff, to pay for supplies, to help offset the budget. Awesome. Win-win. Um, right now we have maybe 130 kids. Um, and just because we want to, I can speak to it, but I purposely we could get 200 tomorrow if we wanted to, but it would bump class sizes up. It would have a negative effect. I think we've beautifully taken advantage of um economy of scale where we've added brought in tremendous revenue and we haven't hurt the fiber of the Grafton public schools at all. Um, so of course if we have class sizes that mirror those class sizes of the districts that people are leaving, they're most likely not going to be looking to drive over time to drive your kid to and from Grafton every day for the exact basically the same experience they would get in their the town in which they live. Um, we've done a phenomenal job

creating special ed programming in the district to keep as many kids in district as we can. We've with that built funding where or built programming where we're able to tuition in students. We have another student starting tomorrow. we've got to be almost close to double digits in the number of students that we bring in in those districts pay us um a significant fund like an outofd district tuition uh to come into our programming which is fantastic. We have less than or just about 1% of our total population going to outofd placements. The cost of no fault to any of the students or families is tremendous. about a million dollars of our increase, like the bulk of our increase is for out of district tuition and transportation. It and that's everywhere. That's not just Grafton. Um but of course, if we have larger class sizes and few fewer services, there's no way around it. We're not going to be able to keep in district as many kids as we do. Um those two things won't be I'm not saying it's going to be overnight. Don't have an override. Class sizes go up. we reduce and then overnight we don't have school choice and everybody goes out of district. I'm not saying that but that will happen. There's no question about that. Then the third component I'm almost done. That third compon compounding factor I spoke to this on Tuesday night. I I inadvertently I think caused um triggered some discussion about housing in town and whether that was good or bad. And I I truly wasn't aiming for that. I probably should have thought of it, but I that wasn't my intention. My intention was to say that we've had we certainly you've all driven around town. We have a lot of construction going on. Um

so we know we're going to in the near future have more students coming in. I was a little surprised just a few weeks ago. I ran our the enrollment increase what's in front of you to see how many kids moved in um just since July 1st and it's 168. We have had 35 move out. So obviously a delta of 133. Um but that that's a lot of kids moving in before the places that have the excavators and everything else in motion. Um, and I I wasn't trying to use scare tactics or anything else, but in thinking about class sizes. So, if we reduce and go up our class sizes, what I'm going to take whatever we have at that in two months, um, say we have to reduce a teacher in fifth grade. I'm making this up. And that class size average is going to go from 23 to 26. Given what I've seen this year and what I see in terms of development in town, I know that number most likely is not going to stay at 26. I can't tell you if it's going to go to 28 or 29 or 30, but I can't even promise you that it will, but it certainly I don't see any indicator that would tell me that number is going down. Um, so we're just going to have to keep that in mind. I mean, there's that that's real. Um, and we as a town are going to have to figure that out. And I think that's really all I had.

We have we have two two questions. Greg, I think or three now. Greg, you had your hand up first. Yeah. Uh, it's seeing the uh state enrollment numbers over the last few years have shown that the number has decreased by a few hundred over that time. What was the effect of doing that? So I assume we still have physical capacity. It this is all about staffing needs. Correct.

Correct. We do have physical capacity right now. Um we're not bursting at the seams in in any school. Um so you're absolutely correct. It's about how many kids per classroom is is my concern in in year one of reductions. Yep. So, mine kind of dovetailing on what Greg asked is we might not be um bursting at the seams, but we've also kind of been told that with the construction that's going on that we won't be seeing the need for any new schools for quite some time. Yeah. I

Sorry, Roger. It it just it seems like uh you know with 133 new kids, how much more room do you ha anticipate having or being able to absorb before we do have to look at schools?

Yeah, that that's a fantastic question. We've got NZDC. That's that group that in New England does this work. Um they go in look at birth rates, construction. Um we had them come out and do give us an update in the spring of 24. Um, given what we know now, I don't think we're going to have a a need for a new school, um, due to size. My worry, and it's I guess my worry more than anybody in town, and rightfully so, is we have like these numbers right here, as long as they're spread somewhat evenly, we can absorb that. Um, I literally have nightmares that we'll have buses pull up and every kid that moves in is a fifth grader going to Milbury Street Elementary and we have a hundred fifth graders come in. Um, the odds are that's not going to happen, but it's really going to depend on the the spread and this kind of increase. We we haven't seen this before in you know we're talking a little over half a year. So it's not common. It seems like it's slowing down. Um so I don't know. It's a really hard question to answer.

So I guess I ask in this slightly a different way is how much room do we have left before we would need a new school? I feel rather than wing that I am very happy like I I can go ahead and put I'd have to really look into that Roger with like physical space. Um but that really wasn't my worry hasn't kind of beating around the bush. I'm happy to look into that. Roger. I'm not I didn't go into Tuesday worried about a new school or busting at the seams. My worry is if we have class sizes in grade four at 27. That that's not really going to be 27. That it's going to be 29. You're talking about 30 kids. Can we manage that? Yeah. But boy, that's going to be incredibly challenging. Uh not only for the teacher, but just the space. I think of North Street Elementary. their classrooms are lovely, but they're not particularly large. Like just fitting 30 desks, um if it comes to that is going to be a massive challenge for us. Yeah. And it and so my general thought process here is if we've seen 133 new kids in six months this year, we also have to think about or we can't not consider the fact that we may need to enlarge our school plan.

Right. And with that, that's why I I weeks ago reached out to NASDAQ uh to come out in the next couple months and do a full report. really looking at that. So I you maybe as a conclusionary statement there um we're we're comfortable but maybe pushing up against the line at a level funded budget when we are looking down sort of the barrel of a reduction budget where we are not level funded the uncertainty level increases significantly right because in all things resources are are are sort of stretched to to their limit. Oh sure yeah yeah absolutely we re reduced by 14 or 18 teaching staff we are going to to feel it and that's being coupled with if if nothing else a general increase in our population

and I I think you know one of my questions and this is not something that could necessarily be answered this this evening but is to attempt to quantify some of the impacts that we might see in a over a longer term of of losing school choice both from a number of students and and from the dollar amount. You know, if that's I I know you like to not on purpose, but sort of by by de facto pick on North Bridge about this, right? Because we get a lot of their students. They ran into some issues. They've been having a lot of out of district placement. some sort of comparator to the the way that that has impacted that district and the fact that that could be a really good direct reflection of what could happen to Grafton. Um I I think maybe numerically or quantified that could be very helpful for folks to see.

Yep. I I think that's great and yeah, North Bridge is an outstanding um example and no all the respect in the world for their educators, their leadership, but at one point not too long ago uh they were considered an outstanding district and they ran into budgetary problems and they've been trying to dig out since. It's a good cautionary tale and and I think it's it's something that we we might think about presenting um to the public at at large. Um Dan, please thank you for your patience.

Uh yeah, with those um uh new enrollment numbers, uh how does that compare to the uh the new growth that we've been seeing uh past years? I I'm pretty sure it's been a relatively uh higher new growth numbers past couple years. I wonder if uh Evan can confirm or correct my uh my recollection on that.

Yeah, we've been at about 1.2 million. We've been we've been north of a million for for uh the last two years. Maybe I think the year three before this was 984 or something. So, pretty close to that. But, um yeah, we've seen a little bit, but only a maybe a couple of hundred thousand. Um, so and and most of that is on the, you know, single family home construction. Um, that's what we've been seeing the the most of and getting our our growth from.

Okay. Thanks. Any additional questions for for Jay before we toss it over to Evan. Okay. Thank you, Jay. Really appreciate that. My pleasure. Evan, good evening. Hi. Howdy. Hi. Um, is it too late to pass? I believe so. Okay. Um, sorry.

All right. Let me um let me just share my screen real quick here. I only have one slide. I'm gonna throw up here. Nope. Sorry. Hold on one sec. It's not the slides with the euros.

No, that that's a that's a whole different problem I got going on over here. Um, okay. Sorry about that. Um so we are in a little bit not of a holding pattern but we're waiting um we are going to be meeting with the school committee and um the select board next week. Um that kind of kicks off the directional type of meetings where you know uh we hope to get some uh some clarity on areas of the budget that we're uh requested to preserve or or make cuts. Uh in the meantime, our budget deficit is currently about 1.4 uh84 million. Um we did get our initial GIC estimate. Um and it's about a 10% increase over what we uh had last year. Um we still have some some final work to do with GIC, but that's their kind of um best estimate uh early on here. um which is a reduction in projected cost of between 341,000 and 545,000. So if we stayed where we were, we were looking at about a 15 to 18% increase and we wind up at about 10%. Um our Worcester County retirement number came in at uh 3.8 million uh which is a reduction in what we were projecting by nine uh 9,000. So just shy of 10 10 grand. So not not uh any remarkable savings there. Um we are working on a reduction budget. Um again waiting for some direction from the select board. Um but our current budget uh reduction budget reduces the the overall by about 425,000. Um and reduces municipal staff by 5.5 full-time equivalents. So

Greg, I'm I'm sorry. I'll interrupt you here and let let Greg ask his question. a previous discussion proc correctly GIC estimate of 10% is already included in the current deficit because that you were estimating that corre thank you Greg correct so that didn't us getting that number at about 10% didn't really help us as far as our deficit goes but um so the bud the 425 reduction is after the GIC correct okay

yep yeah so Um, again, we're looking at about 5.5 full-time equivalents um reduced on the municipal side of the house. Um, and if we do look at free cash um to try to make up some of that um unemployment cost, we're probably looking at probably still 5.5 um just because of the way the positions fall. Um I don't know that it saves us anything on our side of the house. Um but I still still think it's worth um still worth looking at. Skip.

Well, my question on that is easy. How many uh positions would that leave us with on the municipal side? So I believe our account right now is 117. So that would bring us down to 111.5. Thank you. You're welcome. Evan, what are you using for an average salary in the 5.5? Because I'm sure you're not you haven't Have you I don't want you to say, but you haven't picked positions. You're just Are you like using an average salary to get to that 425? No, I picked salaries.

You did? I picked positions just based on what um I thought the most likely outcome would be. Um but, you know, that's at my own risk. So, if the board wants me to head in a different direction, I got I got more work to do, which is fine. Um, but it's just the way that our numbers uh were playing out, there was a wide variance in what those positions were going to were going to net. So, um, the average wasn't going to get us there. Yes. Angelina, sorry, Victoria, I'm gonna I'll just

Okay. So, how did you come up with the um taking so much from schools and so much from municipal?

Um well, it was a conversation between Jay and I and Jay, correct me if I'm wrong. Um but we really looked, you know, we we try to do the 6040 rule. Um, but that's not going to really work out as we try to cut positions because they're they're going to fall in in blocks. Um, so we really just said, "Well, why don't I try to get to 425 and you focus somewhere around a million and both of us are going to come up with a different number and then we'll work together to kind of finalize how that that those two are going to rub up against each other." But um it wasn't much more scientific than than that. Okay. Thank you.

And Greg, so we're looking pretty much the entire 1.5 million is going to come out of uh personnel. There's not a whole lot of extra hiring that can be cut at this point. of that 425 I have 110,000 of non salary okay

Mark yeah so going into Tuesday night next Tuesday meeting with the select one on the fin in the um in the school committee what's the strategy that you and Jay are going to utilize to talk to them what's what's the plan.

Um I don't know that Jay and I have fully codified our our plan, but I think it's going to be very similar to the conversations that we've already had, which is um you know, uh Jay and I will will get us across the finish line. We will reduce and be able to close that budget, but there's going to be impacts and those impacts are going to be fairly significant. Um, and you know, it's up to the select board with conversation with the school committee to determine whether those cuts are something they want to see. Um, and then secondly, the select board needs to start thinking about what parts of the budget they want to see preserved um, kind of at all costs and which ones they're willing to see us um, hit. Does that make sense, Mark?

100%. Thanks. So, okay. Angelia, um, for the 110 that's not staff positions, I don't know how much you want to speak to this, but what kind of an impact is that going to have? Um, it is, well, I think it depends on how you look at it. Um, so it is a nonvital service, uh, or there it's made up of nonvital services. So that th those aren't cuts that are going to say reduce senior meal planning or anything like that. I I stayed far away from anything that would impact residents in that way. Um there it's it's pretty much non-essentials and I'll I'll kind of leave it as that if that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. Thank you. Yep.

Here. Uh just real quick on the GIC estimate like uh how confident are we in that 10%. Did they give us any range or is that sort of what we best guess as right now? No, we're pretty confident in that. Mary, do you have a different take on that than I do?

Hi, sorry. Um, so from what I'm hearing, it's it's going to be um low double digits. So, we're hoping, fingers crossed, for 10%. Um, we will know a little bit more next month. Got it. Thank you.

Just just as an aside, so Mary and I both work together in a GIC community prior to this. Um this is our first time onboarding a community in whole. Um but previously we would receive kind of early notification and they were pretty darn close um in the past. Again, little different situation for us here. Um but um you know I don't think they'd throw it out flippantly. So hopeful.

I did go to the um one of the seminars for the municipalities and they had mentioned a lot about the GIC's and they had mentioned like you know one of the pitfalls right is you could see like sort of stable stable like you know year-over-year and then in year three it goes like through the roof because it is based on historical claims data that hasn't really caught up. So like that's always like the pitfall of a GIC. But again ultimately yeah I I'll tell you my experience is that's the pitfall of all health insurance. Yeah because we just went through that with Mass Strategic Health Group and before we did that we went through it with Harvard Pilgrim. So,

um, you know, it it's it's kind of the nature of the beast and and, uh, you know, I think we're trying to pick our way through it the best we can and and find the the balance for residents and for the staff that are utilizing it. Um, yeah, but, uh, yeah, that that that happens. I mean, we went we went uh 10% 4% 18%. Right. So, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's a little bit of a mess. Yeah. No, I I agree. Hard to hard to predict.

Yep. Yep. So, um, again, and my last you just kind of point on this, the the other part that I and I've said this before that really made us look at GIC is that budget certainty. So, they come and tell us we're at a 10% or a 12%, whatever it is, um, and it should have been an 18%. they don't come back and say this is your this is your deficit for the year. They might we might see that adjustment in the following year because they're not going to just leave us uh underutilized. But um we're not really on the hook for that and that does give us a little bit of peace of mind um when we're when we're creating this budget. Uh I think Greg

Yeah, I know in the past we were with GIC and we left. I believe that was before you came in. uh you familiar with the reasons that we've left and

have we dealt with all of those? Did we just find that things were worse on the outside than they were on the inside or what kind of can give us that on that? Yeah, we've had we've had a lot of conversation around that. Um both at the the PEC committee, which for folks that don't know, that's the um the employee committee that's made up of union representatives and we represent Mary and I represent the non-UN people. And so we've talked about that quite a bit. I believe it was 2014 to 2018 that uh Grafton was in GIC. Um and you know, they got a uh actually speaks to Samir's point a little bit. they got a a a higher number in um you know a follow on year and decided that um they needed to leave. There was also some plan changes being discussed at that time and then those plan changes never came to fruition. Um but Grafton was was already out. So um I kind of won't speak to the mentality of the time. Uh I can tell you my personal experience is and and I think Mary remembers this quite well. We we dealt with the same issues. we decided in our previous community to stay in um and that w up being a benefit to us in the long run. Um but you could you can definitely see how that uh would have caused people to kind of kind of jump ship at the time. Um and we've talked about that a lot with the union represent representatives. Um and I'll make my final point like this and this is what I told the union staff is that I remember um you know 20 uh 2015 2016 2017 and the insurance market and it was very uh unstable. However, in the hindsight of 2025 I would take that level of instability all day long because what felt unstable is now um probably the best we can hope for. So,

so thus far the select board has not provided any sort of um general guidance in the the the reduction or the areas that they would like you to focus in. So, the 6040 sort of reduction budgets that you gentlemen have preliminarily come up with are are simply just based off of the fact that 50% of the budget comes from the school's 40% potentially. Yeah. And and I'll and I'll put it this way and again, Jay, feel free to to jump in if you think I'm wrong, but um having the schools start at around a million and us started around four uh and change is a pretty easy number to give each other a target to try to reach.

Um and then we're not having those conversations publicly. So we can we can tweak them as necessary once their guidance comes in. But we we both need some number to shoot for to start trying to make that make that come to fruition. Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a logical place to start to start the thinking. Um so that's very helpful for them that you've you've started that work on on their behalf essentially. Dan,

uh yeah, with um the schools, uh Jay was talking about uh how there can kind of be a sort of uh spiraling effect where we lose uh lose enough quality that we start losing uh school choice funding and then start uh having more out of district placements. Um, is there anything similar with uh other town departments that where we risk having something like that happen? Uh, because I'm just thinking if it's if we have that big risk with the schools, but not with other departments. it might make more sense to weight things a little bit away from the the schools and try to at least put off that kind of uh that sort of uh spiral.

Um well, I'm obviously in a different position than than Jay is. Um I would say that it depends on what the select board tells us they'd like to see. Um I think that we do have some departments that um you know when you start making cuts it shifts the workload to other either other employees or other departments. Um but you know I I also uh you know my job is to fight for the schools but I'm also going to fight for the employees that that uh you know we have. And quite frankly for a town of 20,000 people we don't have a a very large staff. So, when I cut a position in a in a department that has two two positions, that's a that's a hit. And um you know, I I uh I think that is going to have an impact. It's just harder to I think quantify than you know, Jay's talking about some major reductions. And I I don't you know, I don't want to make that sound any any less. So, I think we're both going to fiercely advocate for our for our folks um because that's what we do. Mac.

Yeah. I just wanted to follow up on something. I think somebody asked the the split. I think Victoria, you said 6040 is what we're starting. The numbers one and four is 7030, not 6040. So 6040 isn't the isn't the idea. It's you guys just pick numbers that you are targeting of the 1.4, right? You don't have any percentage. You're not using a percentage to get there, I guess, is what my question is, Evan.

Nope. Uh, no. Um, again, we both needed to be somewhere to start doing the work. Um, and and we did have a, you know, part of our conversation is if the school comes up to 960 and the town is 540 or whatever the number is, that that's okay. We need to get to a part where we can even start having the conversation of uh, you know, which which cut is a harder cut, what impact is bigger. Um, you know, maybe that shifts to 8020 because the cuts on the town side are are are going to have a a different impact or maybe it's 50/50. I I don't know. We we don't really know. We don't have that guidance, but we also didn't want to just twiddle our our thumbs while the process plays out. So, that that's really what it is. I don't want to sound like

first of all at the board. No, you I know I know that's not what you did, but I got to tell you, you guys are sort of suiting in the dark from the lack of direction that you've received thus far. And I and I applaud the two of you for working together and at least coming up with a plan that you can present with an impact that people can understand. So, I tip my cap to you to both you and and Jay. Thank you. Thanks, Skip. Mhm. Yeah.

I I assume since it's still very very early in the year that there are still a lot of numbers from the state that are wild guesses. Are we basing state aid increases both uh general aid and chapter 78 just on uh what we normally get as a minimum for chapter 70 and kind of an average for state aid that kind of stuff? Yeah, I'll let Mary speak to those those kind of

correct. I I um estimated historically we received 2% on your chapter 70 um 2 and a half% on the UGGA um and and really those are the the two main buckets um you know you do have offsetting receipts um and that's the school choice and um the library and that goes directly to to both the school and the library. Yeah. And that school choice is another thing is I see as services start declining we not we would not only see a decrease in incoming school choice but probably an increase in outgoing school choice as well.

Correct. We will get the um the cherry sheet numbers. Typically it's the third week in January. So once I get the the first round, I'll go and I'll update all the the um work papers.

Any additional thoughts, questions? Wait to see what happens Tuesday. What's going to be our role in all of this moving forward? We just going to sit back and wait for the select board to come up with a with a plan and then see what Evan comes up with and then judge that plan. Are we going to have any say or any role in this process moving forward? Are we just going to sit here and total our thumbs?

Yeah, that's that's an excellent an excellent question. Right. Um, I'm a little disappointed that the finance committee has not been explicitly invited to any of the sort of joint school committee and select board meetings. I think it's one of the reasons why we're sort of having these tag along additional meetings because I I I do think that the the voices in this room are um particularly experienced and um and have have seen a fair amount. Right. Um what what I am planning on doing is is reaching out to to the the the chairpeople of both of those committees and ensuring that um any post January meetings that there is a Tricom meeting. Um I and I have not heard any tell speaking of specifically Tricom of the the smaller Tricom um getting together at any point. Now Mark Angelina you're our representatives. you heard anything from

No, I I've not heard anything about the smaller Tricom either. Um like I I I think their initial hesitation to bring in the finance committee is that it is so preliminary but um I don't think that's a a reasonable excuse at this point. Um it's Jan it's January what what's today? the 10th, 8th, 9th. It's January 8th. And there's still no direction to the to the town administrator and the school superintendent. And town meeting is what? May what? May 19th, something like that. That's the election. When's town meeting? May what? First week of May, right? Yeah, I think it's the election. Second Monday of May.

So, here we are sitting on on and I'm going to repeat what I said at the last meeting. I'm really frustrated with this. They were supposed to get to work after last town meeting last June. It's June. It's January 8th and there's no direction. And we have our two top managers in this town lacking direction and and trying their best to come up with something. It's not fair to them. And the finance committee is is sidelined. Invited to meetings. No, nobody's looking for our opinion on anything. and and they and they're going to meet on January 13th and they're going to decide we're going to start giving maybe maybe we'll give direction on January 13th and next thing you know it's May 19th and we're and we're going to start trying hard again next summer. It's ridiculous. I'm frustrated.

Dan, please. Uh yeah, I think um in terms of the finance committee's role, one official thing that we have is uh we can propose amendments to uh the budget uh at for town meeting and um I don't recall us ever actually doing that um because we tend to have very collaborative and uh you know very efficient uh process where we give feedback that gets taken seriously and gets you know uh there are changes that are sometimes made by from the feedback from the finance committee. Um and I guess I just wanted to to point out that if uh we feel that's not happening, we can propose changes uh at town meeting. Um the the bigger thing of course that Mark was getting at is that uh by that point uh whether or not the town can vote on an override will be decided.

Um and so uh that is something I'm definitely more concerned about. Um which things get cut from where, how much from, you know, each department. Uh those things really don't need to be decided for the select board to decide whether or not they're going to let voters uh make this decision or whether they're going to decide against it for voters. Um and so I think that uh that really needs to be the message to the select board. It seems like last year uh everything got really hung up on figuring out a number. Um and I think another point that that the select world really needs to to understand is if the number is a little bit higher than what we end up actually needing, that just means it can last longer. And if it's a little bit lower, it'll just last a little bit less. it doesn't need to be perfect uh for the selector to decide we're going to go for an override and and they can decide that before they even pick a precise number. So, I I I'm really hoping that that we can get the select board to understand that and and really realize that they they already have everything they need to decide at this point whether to uh to give direction toward an override or not.

I think that's so beautifully stated, Dan, and and I I couldn't agree more. Right. I I feel like asking for the numbers, revenue or or or or budget over and over and over again to to the to the scent level is truly kicking the can down the road because um there's hesitancy to make the scary call. But ultimately, it is not a scary call to put the the fate of the the the services of the town into the hands of the voters, right? it is up to the residents of the town of Grafton to decide whether or not they are willing to spend additional money to maintain the services that they enjoy today. Um, and I I I think it's honestly um it is sort of disrespectful to to the the members of of the the town of Grafton to not give them the opportunity to make that that choice um with both budgets clearly uh lined out for them when that time comes. So I I could couldn't agree more. Mark, your hand is up.

I I I I I let Heather go and then I'll follow up after Heather, please. Heather.

Um so I do agree that um after June it there was no doubt in I think anyone's mind that we needed an override. I mean I whether or not you got direction or you didn't get direction I think that we all knew that there's just the funding isn't there and we need if we want even you know flat uh services we need more money because like you like Jay just said we had 133 new kids come in. I mean that's a lot of money. Um, so but to everyone's point, you can't give you can't create a budget back in June because there's so much change in that in that time. Um, so I know, you know, our last um our last call, you know, Mark, you know, and this one has said he's he's upset that that people weren't given direction. And I agree. I I I agree that it that I don't think it's necessarily our our um charge to actually tell people what to do. And I it and we all had our opinion back in June that something has to be done. Um but I think knowing that we needed an override, I think Evan and Jay have both sort of assumed that. I'm not saying that you should assume it that they should have been given more direction, but I think looking at everything that has been shown tonight, last time and this and tonight, um that yeah, like what Dan said, an override is just it's going to h it needs to happen. Um so I do I I I like everyone else, thank you Jay and Evan for, you know, assuming that that's what is going to be happening. Um, and even though you don't have the number,

um, you're sort of giving everybody an idea of what that number needs to be. So, you kind of did the preliminary work that hopefully on Tuesday they'll be able to give you um, a little bit more of a of a of a direction as far as um, how much they think you guys should ask for. So that's all market and skip.

I think I think the important message that that everybody needs to understand is neither Jay nor Evan are growing their budgets. They're not they're not expanding services with the exception of the human resources director which I don't know how you have an organization of 500 people without an without an HR director. So with that with that minor exception, neither one of them is growing the budget. And they haven't grown their budgets in years. Long as I've been on the finance committee. I think we've added a few police officers, but I haven't seen a ton of growth on either the school side or the town side. So we are behind the eightball because of the lack of the state aid that that comes in. The state aid isn't keeping up with our needs and and and it's putting more and more of a burden on us, the taxpayers of of the town to support the the schools and and the town. But we're not growing services. We're trying to maintain what we have. And you know, we put my wife and I put three kids through the school system and they're thriving because of the wonderful education that they got. I don't have kids in the school system, but I know how important that is. And I really think we need to continue to push hard to to maintain what we're getting out of out of the Grafton School District because right now it's it's we cut another 14 employees after cutting six last year. It's gonna start to really impact the way that that we educate our kids. So, Heather, yeah, they weren't going to make a budget decision last June, but they could have started doing research. They could have started working on numbers. They could have started working on a plan. They could have started doing a lot of different things because that's what I think needed to happen then, not waiting until June, January 13 to decide what the plan is. They could have started planning long ago. And that's been my point the last couple of times we've met and I haven't seen any change. And we met what, December 8th, 9th, 10th, whatever that date was. Here we are a month later. Nothing has changed. Nothing.

Yeah, Mark, I do agree that um that something should have happened since June. But it's hard. You can't it it's in my mind, you know, doing and you know, doing budgets, especially in a in a in a municipal side of things, you really can't look at numbers because they they could totally blow up in your face. So,

but what you can do, Heather, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but what you can do and what I've done in the past is we started we started in in June one year on a budget. What we tried to do is do benchmarking and we tried to do comparable communities and we tried to show where we were compared with other communities and we did that over the course of four or five months so that when it came time for November, December to get the budget guidance going, we had a plan in place because we did the research over the summer and and nobody has done that and and nobody's given direction to do that. And that's what my frustration is. There's a lot that can be done to help move a budget discussion along. And yeah, you're right. You don't know what health insurance is. You don't know what pension is. You don't know what what union contracts are and things like that. You have a lot of moving parts and putting a budget together. But you can do benchmarking. You can do planning and none of that was done. And that's my point. You know, I was going to keep quiet tonight. I just can't help myself and I apologize. I guess I I sorry I have one more question actually. This is for Evan and for Jay. Um because we keep saying that you guys need all this guidance. Did you re do did you want guidance? Like are you are you looking for guidance? I guess that's I guess I should ask we should all ask that question. Like since June are are you looking it have helped you if they had told you one way or another how they wanted things to go? be honest. I mean, you have to be honest because I I mean, if you want us to advocate and help and and move things, I I don't know. I don't I don't know. I mean,

so here's what here's what I'll I'll I'll say to that. So, when we when I got here, and I've said this before, when I got here, you know, the the there was a there was even a question in my uh interview about making the override last for five years. Um, and so we did that. Um I think we did that successfully. Jay and I worked together. We got us we got we got the town across the line. But then um you know that expectation shifted and so it it would be helpful earlier to know whether or not an override was expressly on the table. Um but as far as more finite um uh direction, I don't know that that's helpful that early on. So I kind of uh I think perhaps what might have behooved us in December was to be prepared to communicate that regardless of the end result, we're going to need an override if that's what we deal for at least 2 million bucks. So you guys get on the stick because we can't try and drive this bus. This is not our bus to drive. It's the selectman to see what they want to provide to the town for finan financially to support the services. And then we have the budget that gets put before us. If we go to the town meeting and say this is what you should do and why for us to try and jump into the middle of giving direction or any of

that kind of stuff just it doesn't work. It's not our role. But to come out and say regardless of what happens at the end of this month on the cherry sheet based on generally what Mary's talking about, we're going to be a million half dollars in the hole. So let's start looking at sticking with those projections and seeing what what do we got to do. So we're going to need at least a million and a half bucks. Okay, Selecman, this is what you got to do. You got to cough it up. you're going to put this on the table because that's really what's kind of happening is you you you're going to kind of know this at the end of your preliminary budget stuff like we usually do in December. So that's not a wrong time to go and say look at this is what we're going to need. So this has to get planned on and that's it. that would take care of. You can't really do it any earlier as Evan said and you know Mark yeah we could start this or we could try to get this started or force the selectman to get out and start asking for this because you know it's going to happen. It's just a question of how much is going to happen and you won't really know this until the the final numbers come in later on in the spring. all the meetings that we sit and have really kind of get a sense of. We can negotiate with different people or say, "Hey, maybe try this or try that." But in the end, all the bestlaid plans kind of either melt down or get reinforced on your way to the end of the state given its figures about what they're going to fund and what they're going to require. And and that's really it. I I think I think you're right on the line, you know, the the line by line

dollar basis, but but to Dan's point, you don't need to have that level of granularity to understand that we are at a place where it's insurmountable. And the answer is either we we put it to the voters to make the decision on whether they are going to accept an override or we don't make that decision and we don't let them make that choice. Right? We

you don't set the number until you get all the facts. You just the what I'm talking about is the direction is are we going to try to level service and come up with the additional revenue and then once the governor puts out the budget, you got you start to see what the state aid numbers are going to be, then you finalize the number 45 days before the election because that's when the town clerk needs to get the the ballot. So that's when you make the final decision. So I'm not saying last June you were going to say, "Oh, we need a $2.6 million override." Saying you start looking at things and you start planning. And Evan, I disagree with you. I would have wanted that direction a lot more early on and that's what I've been doing in my career for 41 years. So I I'm sorry I disagree with with Evan saying it wouldn't help him. I think it would help him tremendously.

It it might help him. We might help him by having taken a position in early December conveying that to the select board and saying look at this is what's going to have to happen whether it's 2 million, 3 million, a million. in in fairness, I I think I did. I think it those words did in fact come out of my mouth in that in that meeting in December. Um yeah, it's whe whether or not we took a motion on it, but you know, they are they are aware that those are their their options, right? Yeah,

Angelina. Yeah. I mean, I don't think any a single one of us was confused after last year when the school made all of those cuts as to what was going to happen this year in the budget. Um, and I think that the frustration that Mark is expressing, you know, when we went to that um, select board meeting a few weeks ago, it was them uh, you know, kind of looking at each other like, well, we need some information on why are we here again and what are we going to, you know, it was that I think that discussion, the not the granular like how much in deficit are we, just the fact that we can only raise taxes by 2.5% and we know that our costs go up by more than that. Like it's a very simple math problem actually. So, you know, to be at this point in the year saying we need to figure out why this is happening. Well, no, that's what we should have been doing for the last 6 months. If anybody's still confused about why this is happening, that was the time to do that. Not now. Like now we have to start talking about what's going to be affected if we don't get the override. and you know getting into the detail of actually how much money do we need to keep funding things at a level services. So I think that that's I think that's where the frustration was. I don't mean to talk for you Mark but um

you talk for me better than I talk for you. I just um can I follow up on something that Skip said please. Will anything hurt the finance? I mean we're supposed to be an advisory board, right? Everybody's telling us it's not a but we're supposed to advise, we're supposed to recommend, right? So, what if we take a vote tonight as a finance committee follow up on what Skip was saying before that the finance committee urges the select board to consider an override to fund the fiscal year 27 budget. Maybe help them start the discussion by having that on the table. I will. All right. Well, it was your idea, Skip. I was just putting it into words.

All right. We have a motion and a second to encourage uh the select board to um put forward an override for the fiscal year 2027 budget. Um do we have any further discussion on the motion? Dan, do do we want to specifically use the word advise since you know we keep getting tells us that we're not that we're that we're just advisory. So I figured let's advise to advise the select board to

I mean that way you know we completely avoid the uh uh distraction of saying that the finance committee is out of our lane or anything like that. We're we're advising and that's a fair entirely within our purview. I said advise strongly advising. I used the wrong word. You you're both absolutely right. the word advise is the correct word to to use with this. I I like that. Samir,

um why not maybe recommend for consideration because I think like right we want to get to the point like we need to start considering it right not advising hey get on the docket on this because what I I've just been listening I'm trying to kind of um hear everyone like I've heard a lot about overrides through various municipalities and it's a lot of work. So they need to start like right now. We need to educate everybody as to like what needs to happen line by line and get the get the word out because I'm a new resident grass. I've been here for two years, not even, I think. Oh, yeah. A little more than two years. And I think like the first thing all my neighbors, none of them even hear or know what that means. So, I feel like if we're going to do it, it should be a very strong recommend to consider and get the ball rolling versus advising because advising makes it seem like we're pushing it on them. my opinion only. Again, I I do think they should definitely get the ball moving on thinking about it.

Compelling point, Heather.

Yeah, I was going to agree. I was going to say the exact same thing because whenever we do any of our um our recommendations, that's our word, we recommend. Um and I Yeah. And and to Samir's point, we're not and I do like the word advice because that's what our role is, but um we're not it's we're going to we we need to strongly recommend that that's the direction. And if they don't know that by now, then I really do question I question that whole board honestly because if they don't know that I know they don't they don't want to raise um residents taxes but reality is reality. So, um, yeah, I mean, and we, like Mark said, it was and Angelina, it was pretty well stated back in June that we're going to do this now, like cut the HR director and but guess what, guys? next year that we have to do. So I I would be shocked if the select board is is you know shocked that we need an override. I I would find that very um like I would be a little nervous living in town if the select board doesn't know that by now.

Nobody wants to pay more taxes. I'm about to retire. The last thing I need to do is increase my tax bill. Yeah. No, but I think that's their but we need to we need to do it. I know. But we we we still we still need to do it. I'm I'm willing to amend my motion to say that the finance committee strongly recommends that the select board consider an override for fiscal year 2027 to balance the time of grafting budget. I have no problem with that amendment. My second remains Dan, please.

Do we want to recommend that they consider an override or that they propose an override? And I don't I I don't want to like, you know, keep, you know, nitpicking words, but I feel like this one's substantive. Yeah. Yeah. But I I the statute specifically puts that decision squarely in the hands of the select board, right? And we so I don't want to you recommend that they recommend that they consider it that they consider it because they have to consider the over I be words matter in this particular motion and I would say consider is the is the is the right word. I agree agree.

I I feel like we could be a little stronger than that. I I don't think I mean they they are considering at this point an override. That's kind of what they're doing. I I disagree and I don't think they're considering anything to be honest with you. Well, I I don't think we are out of our lane for recommending that they make a particular decision on uh whether or not to put an override on the ballot. But sounds like I'm in the minority here, so I'm fine moving forward. I I would support that change.

What? What? Greg, can you define which change? Recommend instead of consider. We've been we've been considering for a year. I I'll I'll accept that. I'll accept that. Dan, you convince me. So what I what I actually have written down is the the finance committee strongly recommends the select board consider an override for the fiscal year 2027 budget or to to balance the grton budget. So I have both recommends and consider. No, I think they're saying consider. Yeah.

Yeah. I would I guess I would phrase it as uh that we we strongly recommend the select board uh place an override on the ballot that amendment. It's still their decision. They can do what we recommend or not do what we recommend.

How about uh fiscal year 2027 to balance the Grafton budget? Yeah, trying to trying to do or say any more than that is just going to cloud the issue. We're kind of telling them that it's time to behave as if we know what's going to happen because we know what's going to happen and to fight this concept is to be walking around with your head in the clouds. I I think it really ultimately comes down to the fact that the gap is so big and the consequences of making those cuts are so big that it it makes no sense to like I I can't imagine the justification for not letting the voters choose it. like I if it were smaller like last year, you know, I I still wish we had gone for an override, but I can I can kind of respect that, you know, it's in that gray area and you don't want to put out an override that you think might fail. Uh this time it really is so big that I just think the voters should get to choose.

Any additional What's the exact motion now? just so everybody knows what we're voting. The motion is the finance committee strongly recommends the select board place an override on the ballot for the fiscal year 2027 um sorry the finance committee strongly recommends the select board place an override on the ballot to balance the fiscal year 2027 budget I I that's my motion that's my second any additional discuss on the motion. Right. Seeing none, we will vote by uh roll call. Skip I

Samir said I Heather I Mark I Greg I Angelina I Dan Hi. Victoria is I that motion passes unanimously. Okay. Angelina,

um just a quick question for I guess Mary. Um how much of an impact are we seeing like as far as grant funding and with the you know with everything that's been happening? Is that feeling unstable? Is it feeling like you have a pretty good handle on what um it's going to look like? Um grants have not been impacted from the state. Yes. yet. I do know that Governor Healey, they passed um a thing um something for 9C cuts where she's authorized to make the cuts, but um nothing has been pushed out to any municipalities.

What is 9C? Um that's when they they cut the the budget. They they call it it's a mid-year cut. Essentially, the governor has certain authority, certain budgets that she controls that the legislature can't tell her she can't cut midyear. Okay.

I just wasn't sure if like the, you know, that stuff was feeling as unsure as the rest of the planet Earth is feeling at this point. Like it's all just feeling very unsure. I I think I think and I'll just jump in for just one second. I think Massachusetts is doing a good job of insulating us from some of that. Um but I I do think you're going to see some impacts from that. We just uh I was just talking to the fire chief today about AFG grants and that program has kind of shifted away. That's all federal dollars. So um be interesting to see what else's impact down the road. We only lost one grant uh that was called the brick grant. It was about 60 grand I think. Um, so not a huge huge impact, but it's out there.

Thank you.

All right, let's move on to the last piece of the agenda for the evening and that is our uh end of year report, the report of the finance committee. Um, do any updates need to be made to this substantively to change the uh 2024 to 2025 report other than numbers. Obviously, we didn't have any excess expenses of 2500. Um we could just move the interdep departmental transfers for the end of the fiscal year. Um, does anybody have any specific ideas, additional updates they'd want to make to it or just kind of our our usual wrote update the numbers?

Typically, the finance committee doesn't meet in the beginning of January. So, I just wanted to give everyone an opportunity to make any notes um before we get to a final draft. Usually, you guys just approve it in one in one go at the end of the month. And we always appreciate you doing that leg work for us. Amber,

the one thing that's never clear and we only we discussed this a bit in the bylaw review committee is that it's the end of year report. So do should it be fiscal year or calendar year? And we talked about explicitly defining it as calendar year, but then we didn't want to deal with um transitions and all that stuff. Do we traditionally do it as fiscal year? Th this should be a fiscal year.

Traditionally we do it by fiscal year for for your expenses. We do report some things in the town report calendar year like the number of permits issued. That would be reported by calendar year. But for expenditures we should be it should be reported by fiscal year. So it's a mix.

It it is a mix. The financials are fiscal. The rest of the reporting for the boards and committees are calendar. So ours can be ours can be a mixture of the fiscal numbers and anything we did calendar wise if we wanted to call attention to it.

Correct. Okay. Okay. So next steps um the school committee and select board will be meeting next Tuesday together to continue this conversation. Um when would what would the finance committee like to do? I I personally would like to sit down with those two committees. I know that their Januaries have been now sort of predetermined, but but I I would like our next conversation to be a larger one that's that's inclusive with those committees. If you all would agree with that thought process,

I would like to I would like to to say that we I'd ask the chair to reach out to the chairs of the select board and the school committee and schedule a joint meeting of all the boards. Yeah, I would be very happy to do so. Are there a lot planning to attend on Tuesday? Should we post a meeting just in case for OML purposes? This is not a bad idea. I am planning on being there in person. I will probably be there as well. I'll be there. You should try. You should just post. Yeah. If you don't have a quorum, there's no no harm.

No harm, no follow. I mean, if all you cool people are going to be there, I might go, too. Yeah, enjoy. That'll be a fun a fun time we'll be had by all. All right, so let's plan to post just to avoid forum issues for that particular meeting, but we won't be massive party poopers. But I will reach out to the chairs of the select board and the school committee to um have a full tri not representative but but all but all of us and and try to get that in the calendar and in early February. Um or maybe they'll even let us hangers on in late late January. I'll I'll be in communication with you guys to get those schedules set. So um I'll do that tomorrow. Uh

Dan, please. One one quick thing there. Um just so it's like clear I I feel like the the bigger priority is to get some get whatever direction is needed uh by Evan and Jay uh to them and if like I I don't want it to sound like we want to meet with them ASAP squeeze us in on Tuesday this next week. um if they need that and they're going to have direction, you know, to give, that's great. Um but yeah, Madame Chair,

yes, just let you know. So Andy's uh on the call, so he's got all of that, so it should not be a surprise. And I think he gets the intent after having listened to the discussion. So I don't think there's a Cool. So, I wouldn't worry about it is what I'm trying to say. Are we going to send it? How are we going to How are we going to deliver this vote that we took tonight to the select board officially? We're going to send an email. We're going to send a a memo. We're going to We're going to send a banner, telegram, singing telegram. I plan on writing up a letter that Victoria could sign when she's in signing the um

reserve fund transfer. Can we get correspondence for the next meeting? Next meeting at the select board. Is it going? Yeah, it'll go on the 20th. There isn't going to be correspondence in the the meeting on the We can't give it to them for Tuesday. They they'll get it. It just won't show up in Oh, correct. Yeah. Well, they should have it Tuesday when they meet with the school committee, right? Yes. Okay. They they'll receive it in an email as soon as um I have a signed copy. Yeah, I'll be in tomorrow to sign that.

Okay. Any additional topics for conversation this evening? Uh we do have to schedule the public hearing for the the formal budget presentation. Um that needs to be advertised um in the paper as a public hearing. So I do need to to know the date for that very soon. Do

you have a recommended date, Amber? Um, I was looking at the first Wednesday in February, but if we prefer Thursdays, we could go with that date. It would be Thursday, February 5th. That's fine for me. That works. Give us an extra day.

Well, we know Skip prefers Thursdays. Well, then I want it on Wednesday. Have on Monday or Wednesday. February 5th works for me as well. Thank you. Okay, awesome. Anything else for evening? Motion to adjurnn. Oh. Oh, okay. Oh, I don't get to do that. I'm sorry. I don't think you get to do that. And then Jay seconds it.

I know it's as I I don't believe we need to do any of that rumor roll, do we? So you all just have a wonderful evening and um see you probably on