Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

We have our first public hearing uh for the FY27 budget review uh with the finance committee. So, thank you for everyone attending both in person and in Zoom. Um we do have two attendees from the finance committee. um that are joining us remotely. So, we will be voting by roll call. Um but this is a public hearing. So, I would take a motion. I move that we open the public hearing. Should we do roll call first of Oh, that's right. You haven't. We're here. Roll call. We Yes, absolutely. We can do roll call. I withdraw my motion.

Yeah, please withdraw your motion. I was trying to two birds one stone it, but you're absolutely right. All right. So, let's start online. Mark here, Angelina here, Greg here, Dan here, Kyle here, Samir here, and Victoria is here. All right. And with that, I'll entertain a motion to open the public hearing. So moved. Second. Okay, great. We have a motion and a second. So, we will do a roll call once more. Mark, yes. Angelina, yes. Dan, I. Greg, hi. Kyle, hi. Samir, hi. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. public hearing is open and Heather is here.

Oh, fantastic. And Heather has arrived as well. Um, we might also perhaps have Skip arrive at some point, but I think he is in transit, so we'll just keep an eye out for him. Um, okay, fantastic. So, the first um item that we will go through is um have Evan walk us through the FY2027 operating and capital budget. Um just to kind of set the stage a little bit before I I pass it over to Evan. Um this is our first public hearing. So, what's really important about this evening is it is your opportunity as the public to um ask questions, to be engaged, to be involved. We will absolutely have time for for public comment. Um and and we'll we'll save space and call for that towards the end of of Evan's budget presentation. Um the the way that this process will go is after this evening when Evan presents us um each departmental line uh the finance committee will then delegate members or groups of members to go and speak to each of the department heads indiv individually one by one. So any questions that we might have that Evan cannot answer or that are better answered by those department heads we'll all have the opportunity to have those one-on-one conversations. uh ask them questions, understand their budgets line by line. Uh and then we will have a continuation of the public hearing usually around my birthday around March 10th. Um we'll do our our super Saturday, which is one of my favorite days of the year where we will bring every one of those department heads in here bright and early and they will have the opportunity in a public hearing to also review those budgets line by line, ask any qu answer any questions. Um but again that that will be after we've all had the opportunity

to speak with them. So that's always a really really fun activity that I invite everyone to as well. Uh and and Jay's always involved in that too. He's he's part of that. Um but we won't get too much into school tonight. Uh as as we have just just Evan here. So that's also expectation my favorite Evan just expectation setting there on on the school side. Um, okay. And and with that, Evan, please take it away. Thank you.

All right. So, I'm just going to share my screen screen quick here and we will Okay. So, um we've already seen a lot of this um because I've presented to you already and I've presented to the select board as well. Um so, the opening slides remain pretty much uh unchanged. This is going to be a three second delay. I keep forgetting. Um so our three main budget priorities remained uh for this year to continue to create a competitive work environment, continue to provide the services that residents want and continue to fund the Grafton public schools competitively. Um obviously we're talking about being in a deficit situation. So those things are done to the best of our ability with the funds that we have. Um, Grafton is about 23% higher on the state average for median income per household. Um, and our average house is just below uh the Massachusetts average with us our average value being 625,000. Um, that said, our average tax bill is a little bit higher, about $1,000 higher than on average in Massachusetts. Our official statement continues to have that doublea stable. We will um be looking to have another bond uh rating probably sometime in the summer as we look to go out to bond again. Uh OPEB uh we continue to trend in the right direction there. Um, and I believe I talked about this last time we met, we were able to through a funding mechanism and a policy change our OPED liability by $20 million leading into heading into this uh fiscal year. Stabilization, our municipal stabil stabilization account

is just shy of $5.2 million. Free cash was certified at 6.8, But we did use some of those funds to um offset some costs in the fall. And so what is available is 5.6 million. Um we'll talk about this when we get closer to the um capital plan when we get to the capital plan component, but we do try to use around a third or less of our available free cash as that is best practice. Um our capitalist stabilization account is 9578.98 and those reserves make up about 14% of our operational budget. Uh which is in line with our fiscal financial management policy. Uh this is just a graph that shows that our continued growth is predominantly residential. Um although in um heading into 2026, we did pick up some commercial and um some industrial. These are our forecasted revenues. You can see that we forecast that we're going to grow by about three and a half to 3.4 3.5%. Um when you get out to fiscal 31 and 32, you see a drop. Um I don't think that's a real drop. Um, I think that's a drop that's more indicative of it being hard to figure out what your revenues are going to be four and five years out. So, I would anticipate we're not we're not I just wanted to make sure people know that we're not signaling that we're going to fall off a cliff at that point. Um, it it's just gets more and more uncertain the farther away that you go.

So, the state aid cherry sheet, is that based on historical increases yeartoear? What we have in here, the forecast in here? Yes. Correct. So that those are our our forecast, not the state. That's our forecast. Correct. So it's showing just over a million dollar increase over the next five years with a $13 million increase in our uh uh property taxes. Not not nice. Correct.

Okay. Um moving on. So this is our forecast. I've already shown FINCOM this forecast and the school committee and the select board. So, we won't dive too far into it. However, I do want to note um the 1.428800 number um that's going to be our consistent forecast that we're going to continue to show. Um that forecast is that number of fiscal 27 is already different. It's going to continue to be different. Um, and once we get through uh town meeting, we will update the forecast again to then try to um, you know, forecast out the next five years. Um, but I do want to note like we're not going to change that every meeting.

Um, because I think we're just chasing our our tails um, a little bit on that. Assuming if there's any major meaningful changes that'll come if we found a million dollars, we would update that immediately. Yeah. like a change from this, but $100,000 here or there isn't going to change the the end result enough that we're going to sense continue do that. And and lastly, I like to leave it the same because if you're not following municipal finance, it is it's it's hard to understand these things. So changing just just keep it stable um would be better. Makes sense.

Um so you can see we are uh anticipating our our prop 2 and a half growth is uh just shy of 1.4 million. Uh, in our new growth, we have pegged at a million dollars. It's the highest we've ever budgeted our new growth. Um, but we have been consistently over a million dollars, as you can see by this next slide. Um, fiscal 25 and fiscal 26, we're both in the neighborhood of 1.2 million. Um, and we're going to u hopefully be on track in fiscal 27 to be over a million as well.

So, is that significantly affected by the construction of the UPS facility? Um, no. Um, well, so yes and no. We did not count on that in our million dollars is what I'm trying to get to. We do not count growth before that growth happens. Okay. I wasn't sure how far along it was in the process. So,

uh, no. So, and they also have the a tiff that gives them 100% exemption in year one. It does give us a little bit of a buffer as we're trying to develop new growth. Um so anything large like that we won't project into our our growth. We just we can't control any of the process. So we we won't do that. So my understanding was that affects their costs not our our whether we can realize that growth. Is that that is not my understanding. Okay. That may have just very well been my misunderstanding.

Uh no I I've heard that before. Um I I don't believe that that's how that works. I've never budgeted that way and I my conversations with the assessor and finance director uh that's not our understanding. Okay. But since it's a year out, we'll know a year in advance like because they'll say, "Okay, this is like the first year%." I I would rather us get a partial tax payment in a year that we did not plan for than for us to plan for it and not get it. Makes sense,

right? Okay. Moving on. Um I don't think we need to go re category by category. is available uh on the website. Um and these numbers are relatively unchanged with the exception of um we do have our chapter 70. I'm going to talk about that in a second. Um and we did get our assessments. Um so all told, Town of Grafton is looking at a total revenue of 84,177,62. Um sorry, Mary is texting me. No growth is it for UPS yet. So I was on the right page. Thank you, Mary.

Yes. All right. This is the original budget slide that I I showed last time we met. And I wanted to leave this in here so that we have some perspective. Um since that um since that uh uh presentation, uh we did get our cherry sheet. Um our revenue is up, but so are our assessments. And so we budgeted accurately for our uh increase that we could see from the state. We we pegged that pretty well. We did not peg um the change that we were going to see in uh assessments as well. So we saw big um big increases in uh net school spending and um charter school as well as special ed. Those were the kind of three big hits. So once you factor those in, that increases our deficit to 1.554. So it's about $125,000 to the bad to the red.

Mark, you have your hand raised. Yeah, if I can ask on the um on the assessments, I know you mentioned the charter school and that how much is the uh central mass mosquito control project on the assessments? Uh, I believe it's 90,000. I can Is there a thought Is there a thought of putting an article on the warrant to withdraw from that? Uh, yes, that is something that we're looking at currently. Okay. Thank you. The letter came in at 86. Yeah, I think we very close. Right. Yeah.

Um, yes, that is on the on the table. So, as it sits, total revenue 84177. As I just said, total expense, we're going to talk about the reductions in a second. Uh, total expenses right now are $84,1359, which leaves us a surplus of $42,593. Um, general government has actually uh shrunk these. Oh, sorry. Let me let me stop and back up one second. These numbers I'm going to show you now are already inclusive of the reductions that I'm proposing to get us to a balanced budget. Um, general government will decrease by a little little less than half a percent. Public safety is still on track to grow a little bit. They're going to grow to um the tune of 2.59%. Public works has decreased by 30.93%. Keep in mind that's where sanitation lives. And so since we created a an enterprise fund that's going to skew that number um dramatically. Um without that reduction uh public works grows by about 2%. Um so health and human services um on track to grow 3.4. Culture and recreation that's a decrease of 3.78. Um we're going to talk about that decrease in a second. um schools 4.09 BVT continues to be at 10%. We don't have that number yet. Um and as soon as we have a solid uh figure, we will plug that in. Um but again, probably better to be to the to the higher side. It's not a huge sum of money at between 10 and 8% or 5%. So, we're going to leave it where it is for now. Our unclassified, which is where

our health insurance lives, uh is up 8.6% 6% and our debt service will go up by uh 3.82%. So all told the this budget as it as it is presented is an increase of 2.78%. I had a question on the public works. Sure. Did we not take the trash out of that for 26? We did not. Okay. because the enterprise fund is established for one year before we so we budgeted for it in 26 as though as normal. Okay. And then I had a memory that we put the 600,000 in the enterprise fund to close out of free cash to to take it out of the budget.

We didn't stick it into enterprise fund. We just we just appropriated it to cover operational costs. Okay. Mary's having trouble with her microphone, so we'll see if I get a text in.

Okay. 30 seconds that I'm not correct, but no, that that's uh that's my recollection of it. So, um this is just a drill down on kind of our environmental increases. So, you can see that our retirement and pension uh is up by 9.72%. It's about $350,000 increase. Health insurance is 682,000 at a 10% increase. Um while it's still an increase, I do want to just continue to remind people that if we had stayed in the mass strategic health group, our uh assessment was uh somewhere in the neighborhood of 18% increase. So while it is still an increase, it is a savings over where we thought we would be. Um and it's good to call that out because we had someone ask in just in the last day, when did we last look at healthcare? So,

yep, we we looked at it this year. this year. Yeah,

every every day of my life that um and then um so overall just in these kind of uh uncontrolled increases, we're at about a 9% impact of the budget. So 1.2 million of that uh increase is all lives in in these these buckets right here. So service reductions and operational changes. Um, in order to balance this budget, we have to make some hard choices. And these are the choices that we've made. Um, so we would look to reduce the um or or eliminate the position of planning conservation admin. We would look to eliminate the position of part-time building inspector. Um, just for your edification in that office, we we have two full-time inspectors and one part-time inspector. Um, we would look to remove Silver Lake from um from the operational budget. That's a $104,000 savings. Um, I did get more correspondence from the wreck commission. They're looking at ways to continue to utilize the beach and keep the beach open. Uh, I did mean to delete my impact statement there, but I did not. So, that may not be entirely accurate. It might not wind up being uh closed or swim at your own risk. they may have uh limited um options to to pursue. So, we're going to flesh that out a little bit in the coming days. Um library, we asked them for a $75,000 reduction. Um the proposed reductions that I saw from the director are all expense related. Um and so we're going to continue to move forward with with what her recommendations are. Um the assistant engineer position would be eliminated. Um

what is the assistant engineer position? So the assistant engineer is a um oversight position essentially. They manage all the chapter 90 projects. They uh well the the term is bird dog, but they watch all of the um paving projects over the summer. Uh give input on those, ensure that you know what we we're paying for is what's being done. They basically are they're essentially a project manager. Um, and the assistant engineer title is kind of a carryover from when we used to have an engineering department that was um, fully staffed with a full an engineer and an assistant engineer. Um, so this is separate from DPW. This is under

so they're under Paul Canoyer's oversight and they do work with DPW. Their office is in DPW. Um, but they are not a frontline DPW staff. Okay. And so they're not driving a plow truck. They're not doing those things. So, um, the select board had asked me to not make any cuts in the DPW realm. I did follow up with a number of them and and their intent is the, you know, we we need the people on the street plowing and and doing those things, not those folks, but they understood that, you know, I have to find cuts somewhere. So, um, we would move the MS4 program into capital. we've done this in the past to certain degrees. Um, this would remove that in its entirety into the capital plan. Um, probably not a best practice because it is recurring. Um, but I think the risk is is substantially low enough that, you know, we have to do what we have to do to get to a balanced budget. Uh, and lastly, we eliminated the select board stipen as they requested me to do. So that is a reduction of 524 923. Uh now just to qualify this a little bit further, this chart is different than the chart I used on Tuesday because this does not include the reduction of one requested fire position. Um so the fire chief asked for two positions. Um we reduced it to one position that he's going to grow by. Um, I left it in the pres I put in the presentation on Tuesday because the last time I presented to the board, it was included in that budget. So, um, increases to in requests are not cuts if you eliminate them, but that's how I chose to demonstrate that to the select board. Um, so in the overarching scheme of things, it is not included here

because it was not an actual position. So, it's a reduction to the proposed budget, but not a reduction of current services. Correct. Thank you. That's a much more eloquent way to say that than I just did. Um, these changes are also in addition to the uh reduction that we've asked from the school department, which is 1,61,000, which results in a reduction of 14 full-time uh employees. question on the um assistant engineer role and the other part-time probably not the parttime but the planning conservation admin the cost there is that ain't like a fully loaded cost like salary benefits all that

yes um yeah sorry got sidetracked thinking about something else for a second um all right so enhancements and additions um again the town is looking to add one full-time employee at the Grafton Fire Department and uh the superintendent has talked about restoring one uh full-time equivalent uh human resource position and that was one thing we we talked about last year was that was a going to be a one-time y for one fiscal year reduction because just can't handle that.

Yeah, that was not a surprise as part of his presentation on the budget. Okay, I'm going to move on to capital quick and then we'll go back around to questions. Okay, so capital. We're looking to uh spend I don't know if this this is not a like a sales pitch, but this is the most we've ever spent on capital. Um we've done very well on free cash. Uh we do have a pretty good amount of money to to spend and we do have a lot of backlogged projects. So, one of the things you'll notice as we go through this plan is that there are a whole bunch of projects relating to the fire department. We have very old infrastructure as well as a newer station one that is from 2009. So, it's not as new as it as it seems. Um, and that also needs some some uh maintenance. There's a lot of deferred maintenance, I think, that we're finding in the fire department. Um, and with a new full-time a newer full-time chief, um, he's trying to knock a lot of that out. So, you'll see that as we go here. Um, of that $2.9 million that we're looking to spend, $940,000 of it comes from capital stabilization and the remainder just shy of 2 million is from free cash. Before you go on, since I know this question is going to people have had this question, uh, we we're spending more out of free cash than our deficit. Why can't we use that to Right.

So, free cash is used for one-time expenses. Um, and it cannot be used for operational expenses. And that's kind of the crux of the whole thing. It would be a lot easier if we could. Yeah. Um, all right. And that that's a state requirement. That's a state requirement. Correct.

All right. Our capital plan. Um, we have two requests in here for uh the conservation commission. Both of them deal with uh invasives. And so, uh, one, the $74,000 continues our treatment of invasives at Fischerville Pond and Lake Ripple. And, um, the other one is terrestrial invasives. So, in invasives in the woods, um, we are trying to do a, uh, a larger or an increase in that program because we do have a lot of, uh, knotweed and bittersweet that take over a lot of our recreation areas uh, and roadsides. Um, and we do this uh $74,000 for Lake Ripple and Fisherville Pond follows on to a program that we are are starting uh this summer that we are funding through a grant and an earmark. So, this continues that work. Um just a a fun fact, it takes 12 years to eliminate uh water chestnuts because their seeds can lay dormant for up to 12 years. So, you have to continue to treat. Um engineering, we already talked about this. This is the MS4 storm water compliance, although it's showing up on here at 125. So, I've got to fix that issue. Greg, I saw you give me the side eye, Greg. I I caught it.

I I wasn't sure if I was remembering wrong. No, it's one it's 150. Okay. Um so, I don't know why it reported over that way, but we will we will fix that.

Um the fire department has, like I said, a whole bunch of things in here. Fire prevention vehicle uh at $80,000. That is a vehicle that would be used by the new employee that we would be adding. uh it is a response vehicle and it all is also for um you know inspections and all the other things that that the fire department is doing. We need to upgrade the electrical service at station two. Uh station three needs a remodeling of the second floor. So uh there is a break room slash like muster room over uh next to one of the bays. It was straight out of the like your grandma's 1990s living room. Um, and it had a substantial crack in the wall. Uh, so we had to gut the entire room and fix that crack.

Is this separate from the 100,000 for the upgrade and the reserve fund transfer? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and we will there's another uh component to this funding and and station three a little bit farther down the list.

Okay. Um, so station two and three, uh, they're looking to epoxy the apparatus bay floors. We have that in station one. We don't have it in two and three. Um, station three, uh, has a very interesting roof issue. Um, so they have a wooden roof built on top of the original roof, uh, which it is not structurally rated for. Um, and it has caused a whole bunch of issues in with that building, including the large crack that I was just talking about, some other separations in the building. So, we need to replace replace the entire roof on that building, and that comes in at about $221,000. Um, if you look at the building now, it has a a peaked roof. That was the roof that was added. It was originally a flat roof and so we would be going back to a flat roof, but instead of uh tar and stone, it's a membrane uh roof that would be replacing it. So, um yeah, interesting uh architecture there. All built on top of the original architecture. Um station one, which is the newest station we have, there's an asphalt shingle uh section to that building that needs to be replaced um at $50,000. And then we have um engine one. It it's called a lease payment because that's what the program calls it. It's really us paying our our bond anticipation note. So uh $200,000 there.

Is that that's one of the newer ones or is that one? Yes. So we have actually received

Yes, we have that. We have that truck. Um the highway department, we're looking to replace a loader. Um loaders have gone up exponentially. They're about $350,000. This machine carries an extra $45,000 because we would be putting a plow and a wing plow on it. Um we in the past we've had wing plows. Um we don't have one currently. We're finding that it would be great to have a wing plow and that would help quite a bit with what we're dealing with even on the smaller snows. It just it's just faster. Um and then we need to replace a one- ton dump truck. Uh they are $150,000 all all told with the plow and everything else. Police department, we continue to fund our taser program. Um we are part of a regional collaborative with the town of Westboro to purchase a mobile command vehicle. So that's a vehicle that could be deployed to any of the surrounding communities that has communications and all kinds of other technology for them to set up on site. Um, and our our share of that is $50,000.

How much is West Bro share? Uh, I think 300 and something. Okay. So, we're doing okay on the on that fair. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Um, that similar to the one that us shows up at National Night Out. And so, we we have a trailer currently that's a command center, but it is 20 years old, right? So, the technology has fallen off. I think I think it's a I think it's a state. Well, the MIMA one that comes Yeah. That there Well, theirs is fancier. This is This is a like a a Sprinter van that has the stuff in it. Theirs is like a bus. Yeah. You know. Yeah. So, not not as big as scale. No. No. Yeah. Although, now that you say it,

um All right. Police. Well, that says vehicles, so we'll we'll we'll correct that. Um that this is our two cruiser replacements that we see every year. Um there are two requests from Grafton Public Schools. One is a blanket kind of $250,000 for general roof repairs as they continue to chase um and modernize their roofs. Um and then they need to replace the turf field at Grafton High School. Uh and that is about $750,000. Lastly is my request for continued OPED funding at 310500 uh for a total of 2,931,400.

The specific roof has that been identified for GPS or is that decide that that funding for whoever needs? I would I'll defer that to to the superintendent when when he comes if you don't mind. Of course. Absolutely. uh the OPED funding, what does that get us kind of in the context of the the whole the drop in the bucket? Okay, this is so we're doing like the drop in the bucket for a few years and then till 2050, right? It's a few.

Yeah. So essentially what this 310,000 does and we we incre this this will be going up incrementally as a transfer. So last year it was 300,000 this year it's 310. What this gets us is that 20 thou $20 million buy down of our of our um liability because we are consistently funding the program and the program will grow over time. It has compounding interest and all the rest of it. So in order to keep our liability low, our policy has to dictate what we're going to spend. And this is the essentially this is the minimum contribution we can do at this time to follow that plan. Okay.

Yeah. Um, it's not as fun as other $300,000 spendings, but it'll pay off in 2050. And ultimately, we are seeing a massive savings over correct. Yeah, it's it's $20 million less than the taxpayers will spend over the next 20 years. Which is pretty pretty huge. It's absolutely worth adding that into OPED.

I agree. I agree. And then the other the other thing that that I don't think a lot of folks understand is that once you've fully funded your OPED liability, um that's after we've fully funded our pension system as well. So that recoups all of that money that you would be paying annually into that those programs back into your operational budget. So it's money that I won't see, I don't think. But maybe some of you will still be on. Yeah. Um, and that's it for my for sorry for the multiple roof projects. Is the plan to go out and bid those together so that we can potentially side some savings through the uh you mean between schools and town and Yeah. and fire. Um maybe.

Okay. I it it all depends on timing. Yeah. Um so we generally do like to do that. Um but it's not always possible. So, y um yeah, as a best practice, absolutely. But okay, any other questions for now? I I do want to go back to Mark's question about the potential to remove Grafton from the central Massachusetts mosquito situation because I had the same thought when that email crossed my inbox. Right. That is a a $86,000 as a position. Right.

Right. Um that is something that we would have to go to town meeting to withdraw ourselves from and would not be able to recoup that until um following fiscal year timeline. Yes, go ahead, Mark. Yeah, if you go to this town meeting and remove it, it will come off of FY27's assessments. So, you'd have to do it at the spring town meeting and then you will not get hit with that on your cherry sheet. Yeah. This year and you'd be able to spend that money at town meeting. There you go. Remind me, is that is that or opt in or opt out program? I got to be honest with you. I I didn't I've I've gone through it. Yeah, but I've gone through it and brought in the

I really I really haven't. I just managed to I can I can tell you then I can tell you from experience you you you have to opt in and you can also opt out. Okay. So, it's it's it's per fiscal year. So, if if you opt out at the Springtown meeting, it's off of the FY27 uh assessment from the state. And also if if there's a huge outbreak of triple E, the state automatically comes in and sprays the town. If if there's a if there's a triple E outbreak or West Nile virus outbreak in the community, they will come in and they will do it regardless of whether or not you're part of the central mass mosquito control project.

Yeah, I guess my question was that's good to know. My question was more so about I know you can go and either request them to come to your neighborhood or I can't if it's request to come or or not come. It's generally uh opt out. Okay. So, they're they say we're going to spray on between these dates and these windows and you have to go and opt out your property. Do we get any like rates or anything from the state of like whether Okay. No. Just be interesting. I I think it would actually I don't think it's it's a real I mean the amount of material that they're spraying from the helicopter. I think the the flying the helicopter is what cost the money, you know.

So, um yeah. Um but it's definitely something to to look at and um you know our intention is to get an opinion from the board of health and the health alliance um you know bring that to the select board and then make a decision there. Okay. It's a wise thing to discuss. Yeah it you know I it is a public health concern as well. So I want to make sure we have those folks uh take a look at it. I did not know the piece that they will come in if you have an outbreak and an outbreak is one case, right? Likely um yeah, I don't know what the threshold is for for that, but I would assume so given what we've seen in the past. You have one triple E and everybody gets ramped up. So,

for good reason. Yes, for good reason. Yeah, that wasn't a slight on triple E. It's a it's a bad it's a bad thing. I agree. So like for that uh do is that something that we would want to consider like recommending to the select board that they consider putting that on the warrant. We certainly could. I'm not opposed to it. If if I were to give you some advice, I would wait till the board of health tells you whether or not you should stay in it or not. Yeah, sure. That's also very fair advice. Yeah. I see it. Oh, Mark, please.

Evan, Evan, beat me to it. I would wait for the board of health to make a recommendation before you do anything. Makes sense. Yeah. Yep. Any additional questions on uh there was some discussion of withdrawing from the CPA. uh have we done any further investigation into uh what our financial obligations would continue to be if we did that?

Uh that is ongoing. Um we we don't have a a followup really from the I would say from the select board on whether or not they're going to actually pursue it. So, we've done some calculations and some research into it. Um, and have reached out to um the the folks at CPA um but all kind of 35,000 foot at this point. Okay. This might be more of a a Paul question and I I just don't recall. Apologies. the MS4 stormwater compliance, is that recurring annually in perpetuity or at some point do we pay that um

compiance off? So there there yeah it's pretty much going to be in per in perpetuity because um there was an original um proposal that this was a 10-year uh process, but I I Mark, do you have a different take on that? I I don't I don't think it'll ever go away. No, no, you you have to it it won't go away. You're 100% correct, but I I'm going to reiterate something I've been saying for the last seven years I've been on the finance committee. I would really like to think about setting up an enterprise fund for the MS4, a storm water uh fee to the to the residents. It's similar to what you did with the trash fees. Yep.

But it's a way to take that out of the operating budget and pass and and and deal with it that way so that you're not worrying about funding that every year. You're required to do it. You'll get fined by the federal government and the state government if you don't comply with the MS4 permit. you have to do it. So, putting it outside as a as an enterprise might be something to to to consider. So, I I I'll just reiterate something I've been saying for the last seven years. It is something to think about. What would the funding source of that enterprise fund be?

It'd be a bit It'd be as an enterprise, individual properties would get a bill each year. You'd set a fee in Grten. We set the fee at $60 a property. We collect over $260,000 a year and that covers all of our storm water fees. and we don't have to it does not affect the operating budget. Otherwise, you got to come up with it in the operating budget. So, it is a way to free up some money in the operating budget and and uh pay for that service without having to make other reductions in the budget. You have to do the the MS4 permit. You have no choice. So, it's just a way of of taking it out of the operating budget and setting it up as an enterprise fund. Something to think about.

I mean, that's about onetenth of this year's shortfall. I mean, we couldn't do it for this year, but it's a significant uh You can absolutely do it for this year. Oh, we are doing it this year. We're pulling out create. No, what I'm saying is you create the storm water uh enterprise fund at the Springtown meeting, set the send out the um the the bills in September, October, and it pays for it in fiscal year 27, and it frees that money up in the operating budget. So, it's another bill that residents will have to get in the mail and pay and it's the same for every property.

You you it depends. You can set it up. There's different ways to do it. In Grten, we just do every improved property that has uh impervious services gets a bill. Imper imperous surfaces gets a bill. There are some communities that do it based on square footage and and all sorts of stuff which is really complicated, but you can set up the fee any way any way you want. And yeah, it is another bill. But with the with the lack of the interest of going for an override, you got to come up with every single op opportunity that you come up with to balance the budget and save positions and save services. This is a way to take that cost out of the operating budget and and come up with different ways to fund it. That's all. So in in kind of the short term, I'm thinking keeping it in, you know, the capital plan using uh like one-time funds is not ideal, but in the context of uh asking people to uh vote to increase their own taxes, uh you know, adding this on to that probably would just hurt a little bit more. bill.

Yeah. I I I imagine a lot of objection to having another bill. Another bill. Yeah. We're already moving a moving trash out. So, especially if it's considered acceptable to use onetime funds for it. What would you do with that $150,000 in your capital plan if you did not have to put it towards the MS4? Um, I mean there's a there's a host of things we could be doing probably from a facility standpoint, but as far as what was requested in fiscal 27, nothing. Okay. We would just be rolling that forward to another fiscal year.

So there was nothing significant in 27 that we are not Nope. Correct. I mean there's there's a million other things we can do. Yeah. Sure. And I know there's some big projects looming too, right? Right. Yep. But the uh the turf field has been one of those big projects and there is another one. So yeah, we we and and the superintendent's been talking to me about the turf field for for five years. Um and this seems like a good opportunity to to do that. I believe it it was how many 15 years of its 10 year life now or something? Yes, it's it's over its its uh original life expectancy.

Angelina, your hand is up. Sorry. I'll take public comment in just a minute. Yep. I um I'm

brutal having a hard time with these cuts, but I'm really happy to see capital getting some attention this year. I feel like um putting off these capital projects that need to be done only costs the town more money in the long run. So, I'm really really really very excited to see a bunch of free cash going to some capital projects that badly need to be um addressed. I about back to Greg's question about the CPA funds. Evan, what do you need? I when Andy said that at the select board meeting, I really thought that that was um something that needs to be seriously looked at because it is you know 1.5% um is a good chunk of money and you know talking about priorities as a town I think we need to give people the opportunity to say you know what things are nice to haves and what things are things that we must fund and and you know make a priority. So what do you need in order to further like look into that to see if that's even an option for us?

You need direction from the select board or like what what do we need to do to get you to the point where you can Well, the Yeah, I would need direction from the select board to to actually um start, you know, moving in that direction. So, um, you know, we've had conversations about again that like 35,000 foot, how does this even happen? Can you do it? Um, you can adjust that assessment number as well. It doesn't have to stay at the 1.5. You could lower it to one. Um, however, um, you know, the the board didn't come to any consensus on that. So um I'm going to move forward with the model that I have unless

and somehow Westboro just entered at 0.5% even though the minimum is one. Yeah, that's very odd. What is the process Evan to to get out of the uh CPA if we wanted to get out of it? Is it a town meeting vote? Yes. And a ballot vote? Uh it is a town meeting vote. I don't I don't think I don't think it's a ballot component to it. There's a ballot together. So, it's just it's just a vote at the town meeting, I think. So, I I can Mark, let me double check. I have all of it written. I did not prep ahead of this.

I think the biggest obstacle has been having to continue to fund the projects that have already been approved. So, if the obligations are significant, we will have to continue to assess that until they're gone. But there's some contradictory language in a couple places about couldn't we couldn't we use onetime funds for that? It does require a ballot. It does finish. It does require a ballot. So, so the select board would have to agree to do it regardless of what happens because they're the only ones that can put a a question on the ballot for even CPA overrides, whatever. It stays in the hands of the select board, right? Yes.

Okay. Do we have another I mean Greg just mentioned it but if in the next five years of the capital plan do we have another turf field replacement looming? Um yes but I don't know when it is. I don't have that in the full capital plan at this time. Is there any thought to doing them both at once and trying to be doing the same thing but is there can we group them and find savings? Um I So let's defer that question to when superintendent is here. Okay. And um I don't want to speak too much to his facilities or facilities plan. Y I I would assume there's some savings there, but I don't know uh conditionwise what his thoughts are.

Yeah. I know it's a a pretty penny, but if we can find if we do pursue the MS4 thing, which it sounds like we're not, but if we did and put that back in the capital plan, that could go towards something like that and find savings down the road. Maybe I'm big picture thinking, blue sky thinking right now. No, I mean it's I think it's a valid um valid thought. We'd have to move some stuff around in this this capital plan. Um you know, if we can't get a loader, we'll just say, you know, Kyle said no loader, guys. This is what it is. Be real popular over there. Thanks. Hope you don't like snow plowing. When all the snow ends up in my driveway, they'll know why.

We are looking for places to stack snow right now. So I Then I say it is a public hearing so I think bring in some public com comments. Sure. I I was going to ask if anyone else had any questions before. Not yet. I reserve the right to ask more questions later. I Right. Reserve. All right. To Greg's point, it is public hearing, so I will take public comment. Michael Rock a Trinity A. Uh my question is mostly one of logistics. Could MS4 be folded into a slightly expanded Seawware enterprise fund or is the logistics of changing the sewer enterprise fund

nightmarish? I do not believe that MS4 is allowable in the sewer enterprise um unless Mark has a different recollection but I don't believe it is. I agree with you 100% Evan. Okay. Thank you. I I imagine that would nice thought though also not be equitable because Uh, not everybody has sewer. Yeah, that's true, too. So, I mean, you could roll rolling it into into one account for bookkeeping purposes doesn't save us anything. So, yeah, it would all be, you know, the money comes in. Yep. Okay, please.

Good evening. As it is a public hearing, I will state my name and address. Roger Trean for Up and Road. Uh, first as a citizen resident, um, regarding the MS4, um, that's different than the loan we have out for phosphorus remediation, right? That was a town warrant. Um, correct. And when does that end? That's on the sewer. Correct. Sewer. Yep. I will I can I can get you that. I don't remember that top of mind when that rolled up. All right. I know that was a big chunk. I think it was like 20 to 25 mil overall, but correct.

Okay. Um, and now putting on my accessibility advisory chair hat. Um, so I'm putting I'm putting the finishing touches on uh the agenda and meeting packet for our meeting next Tuesday night. And one of the placeholders I've had um approaching town meeting in in prior years um is like warrant articles, just miscellaneous stuff that may come up. often times it's been uh CPC stuff where we weigh in and endorse projects um and there'll be a letter and maybe me or someone else will speak on town meeting floor in favor of something. So I plan on having just a generic placeholder for Tuesday that kind of speaks of town budgets uh CPC and town meeting warrant articles um to include some of what we're talking about tonight. And uh I'll use one example of Silver Lake. And I can't speak on behalf of the commission, but I'm sure that there won't be some favorable feedback. With respect to Silver Lake, we actually took a proactive approach that even though it's kind of looked upon as this inanimate object, you know, lakeside,

it was actually a a real uh uh thoughtful approach to accessibility where we put um the whole sidewalk back there that then leads to the beach. We added uh two accessible spaces on the higher end of the land and then we put all uh two sets of mats I think it's two sets all the way down uh on top of the sand to be accessible uh for folks with mobility issues andor in wheelchairs. So, uh, I just want to, um, mention that if there's any push back you're going to get either from the public or the accessibility advisory commission, I think it's going to be that one.

And, and so, we'll be discussing that on on Tuesday. I'll be posting the uh, agenda and meeting packet tomorrow. So, I'll I usually go on all things Grafton and let the public know uh, how they can um, uh, tune in. We have it's all via Zoom. So the other thing is that along the lines of your budget meeting, um I'm I think I'm a little bit ahead of myself on your agenda, but as far as all of you will be meeting with department heads, and one of the things I would invite is uh and in the context of my comments regarding Silver Lake, that's like wreck department, that each of you kind of approach things with an accessibility lens. and discuss with those department heads if if there is a reduction budget that they're talking about uh what impacts there may be as far as um services uh or supports and and to let me know or the uh commission know. All right. So, uh accessibility graftenm.gov is a commission web u email address. My personal phone number if anyone wants to take it down is 5083357. Um ideally just so the whole commission knows if there is any communication either through that direct email address or through me. I will approach the commission and look upon that as like new correspondence at the top of our meeting uh between now and town meeting. And then the other thing is, and I think this is a question for Evan, I know that there's the school there's the municipal ADA evaluation that we've been chipping away with since 2019.

Sure. And more recently the school uh ADA val I think in 2022. So looking at those combined, uh, is the plan to kind of put things on hold a little and wait for the facilities uh, advisory or facilities assessment committee to do all of their work so we don't have to do rework and then take it all at once. Is that the plan to approach some of the ADA things so we don't have to do rework? Um, not really because the the um facilities committee isn't necess isn't predominantly looking at any of those issues. Okay. They're looking at

roofs, uh, mechanical infrastructure, uh, you know, general maintenance of the building. Okay. Um, I think that most of the things that we have left or the even the things we've addressed are well outside of their scope. Um, right. But for example, when they did the walkthrough of this building, they noted that we have a crumbling uh ramp out uh to the senior center, right? We've already uh received a grant for that and and some funding and we're already planning to I think it was what 75 grand. It was 75 grand. Yeah.

Yeah. And uh kudos uh I know that Evan and William and and others and like Tracy Shy were working hard behind the scenes. Uh there's the Mass Office on Disabilities um Mass Office on Disability annual uh municipal uh grant opportunities that u you know cities and towns fight for a small amount of funding for these things. So it's really good when we can get those grants and take that out of the municipal budget. So um

yeah, we're we're also waiting on designs for this building for three more customer service windows. that kind of eliminates most of our accessible accessibility challenges to having just the old school doorways that aren't wide enough for people to get into. Y um so we're, you know, those things I think are are far enough away from what the facilities committee is is looking at. Um that I think we're we're safe. Okay. I I didn't know how that was being approached as far as uh because some of them are some of them are actually small items like really lowhanging fruit that can be part of operational or routine maintenance and other ones are

are probably you know like let's say all the school district doorork knobs we're talking like hundreds of thousands of dollars. So,

um, all right. So, I I guess I'll leave it um to you to continue looking at at uh that Eval. I know that this building was the priority. And then the school I guess I I'll speak with Jay and the school committee about about that. And then um lastly um and I'll I guess maybe related, but I'll put my resident hat back on and I may be ahead of myself. your draft 2025 report uh for the town report speaks of having tax to 98.9% of the full levy limit. So is that we left levy capacity on the table. It's at the It's 1, two, 3, four, five lines down on page two.

Yeah, I think like my guess would be new growth came in higher than expected. Okay. After the budget was approved. So I remember about five or six years ago that's just a I'm guessing but that's my recollection where that happened once and I think in fall time meeting I think we raised and appropriated from taxation an amount to directly go into I think stabilization in the same uh warrant article. Did we do that here? No, but it just closes to free cash. So there was there's no need to So we didn't leave anything on the t Oh, okay. No. All right. We're the government. We leave nothing on the right.

So you don't need to actually So what happened to the 1.1%? We didn't So if you look at what we closed for free cash, it was higher than Grafton's ever had. So it's a combination of uh our new growth came in better than expected. We got some really large one-time building permit fees. Right. These are all revenues that we didn't anticipate having. Okay. So they closed to free cash, which we then used to fund our capital plan. Okay. All right. Okay. I I didn't know how that exactly that worked. On paper, it kind of looked like we left levy capacity on the table. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. All right.

Thank you, Roger. And and I also absolutely hear the statement about, you know, the any sort of cuts to level funding leave the vulnerable population even more vulnerable. and the onus is on us to ensure that we're asking the right questions to make sure that things like accessibility are not um left off of the table um either by accident or whatever. So um absolutely heard and that's something that that we'll be very conscious about during those conversations. So thank you. Thank you very much. Do we want to bring the person on Zoom? They've been there. Madam Chair, if I may, I have to run very shortly to if you could indulge me. Sure, Peter, please. and then we'll move to Zoom after this. I promise.

Thank you to the Zoom people for holding on. Appreciate you.

Good evening. My name is Peter Carlson. I live at 42 Old Upton Road. I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight um at your first public hearing for the FY uh 27 operating capital presentation by the town. Again, great job, Evan. Uh again, always um your presentations and your explanations are are spot on. Um, as a resident, I I do have just some concerns with regards to some of the staffing cuts, and I just want to make those known to you, um, as a resident that the part-time field inspector is somebody who serves the public good. Uh, so for those people who have projects or building projects at their homes, these are one of the services that I believe are being proposed as a cut to balance the budget for FY27. Uh these are uh again this and the assistant engineer position who uh oversees uh a large portion of our capital improvement for roadways in Grafton in addition to other things that are all roadways in Grafton. And something that we fought uh tooth to nail for back in 2014 was putting together a stabilization fund um to improve these roads where there was very little from the state. um these two positions um I know uh you have to look at all areas of the budget but I would highly recommend um cuts be looked at elsewhere and the reason for that is that both of these positions do service a good for the town. So I just wanted people to know who are listening uh who tune in that um uh you know from a part-time building inspector that's the person who's going to come out and inspect your stairs that you just replaced in front of your home. If you don't have that, that could take forever to get full occupancy and so on and so forth. Um, again, one of the other questions I have is um the um we're calling the lease payment, Evan. I understand that, but for engine one, if we could just have a description um in the report that shows where are we with the aging report in terms of how far along we are because we know that these

apparatuses cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I know we're paying down 200,000, but are we in year two? are we in year three out of a five-year plan? It's really good for people like myself who don't always pay attention anymore to these things to just have a constant reminder. Um

in addition to that, I really do think we should consider looking at the CPA um the minimal percentage return that we get. We have a robust capital plan. We never had that before. We fought tooth and nail in 2014 to put road stabilization capital plans in there. We fought tooth and nail in 2020 for that overwrite to put in a capital stabilization plan. I believe Grafton is farther ahead than most other communities in here and that's to our benefit. I do believe that that uh 1.5% from the CPA fund could be put back into other things and those things could be decided again at town meeting just like we do with CPA funds. It's really just taking a pot of money and hopefully if override does get put on the ballot this year, although I was told the other night that that is a possibility, but again, I don't like to I don't like to base my uh options on hope. It's not a good sound financial strategy. I think Evan has heard me say that many times before, and I apologize if I'm burning your ear.

Dja vu.

It is. Um, last but not least, um, is the MS4 storm water priority. And I understand like we need to find a pot of money and I know like times are tough and we're looking under every single rock. Um, I would consider moving that back into the operational expense line item. Uh, you know, as you heard earlier, I think there was a question asked like why don't we use free cash to offset uh our operational expense? I kind of look at that as an operational expense and I have a strong opinion about utilizing one-time monies based out of free cash to offset that. Now, I understand it's important. It's it's it's a pot of money that we could do and if there's no other choice, I get that. But I do think it's worth another consideration and lobbying to look at moving it someplace back into the expense line item. Last thing I want to leave you with, I love spreadsheets. I absolutely love spreadsheets. The only thing I ask is if could you put some commas in here? so I can deliminate a little bit easier on the numbers. That is all I have. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate all the work that you guys do. Thank you.

Just what if I could just make one comment there. um CPA elimination would not affect the operations budget, but it would lower the taxes of the residents to offset any uh other raises uh because that is added on top of the tax bill and that money goes only into the CPA. There's no other way to put that anywhere else. Correct. Just clarification. Thank you, Greg. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, we do have a hand on Zoom and they've been very very patient. So, I think I'm the host now, so I think I got to deal with that. Appreciate just stand by for one second.

Okay, you just need to unmute yourself. Yes. Can you hear me? I can.

Yeah, thank you. Um, my name is Carl Bill Green. I live at 111 Miran Road. For those who know Grafton, it's a former Lazy Acres fruit stand and it's so relatively newcomer to um Grafton. Love it here. And this is my first finance committee meeting. The question I've got is about your um the reductions that are proposed. They were they were clearly itemized and very lucid, but they only made up one third of the total reduction. 2/3 looks to be coming from elimination of 13 full-time positions at the school. My question is how do we square that with the very first slide that you showed that talked about, you know, one of one of the three missions of this town is to uh keep our schools competitive.

Uh okay. So I guess that's me. Well, I I think perhaps we could start with um sort of the rational that you've you've given in the the recent past about how how you and Jay came to the conclusion of of the the breakdown of the

So, yeah, I mean this there's nothing inherently uh equitable about trying to find these these cuts. Um, so this is a conversation between the superintendent and myself back and forth trying to work on where these pressure points are in the budget and where we can we can find some savings. Um, so one of the things that becomes uh apparent right away is that schools have the lion share of the staff. Um, and the town looking at cuts has a disproportionate impact. Um, and when I say that, it's not because I don't value education. It's because we have a lot of departments that have two people in them. So, you get rid of I have departments with one person in them. So, you get rid of one person in that department is no longer uh available for the public. Um, that said, we we did we we cut about 600,000 um and the schools cut around a million. Um, you know, that's not far off of where the breakdown is from where the budget split happens. Um and in my conversations with the superintendent um you know shifting 50,000 100,000 um doesn't move much on the school sides because the way that their um staffing structure is because of their collective bargaining agreements they have to lay off due to seniority. They have to move positions around. Um it just didn't bear fruit uh to move to move some of that stuff around. Um, and just while we're on the the topic of the cuts, if I could elaborate just a little bit, um, because I've heard uh from a number of people that, you know, we we shouldn't cut here, we shouldn't cut there. None of these are good cuts, right? There's an impact to everyone in some way. Um, but there aren't other places to go. Um,

there's no capacity for cuts in the in the Council on Aging. Um all of our departments here are two three people. The largest department we have in this building has four people and that is our tax collector's office and treasurer's office who do very important work that actually collect those funds that we use to pay all of these for all these services. So there's there's not one in this list that I thought to myself though this is this is a good opportunity to make a cut. We did that last year, right? We reduced by 600,000 last year. We we we've already done all of that exercise. So now we're on to people that do have a public impact. And the reason I selected the part-time field inspector and the planning conservation admin are because those were the last two positions added. Honestly, there there's not a lot deeper in that. And they were both added because we needed them. we you know so none of these cuts are going to be without some kind of sacrifice and otherwise we would have done them in previous years. Um so I I hope I answered the question about the schools. Um you know this is a a joint uh a joint budget that we've created with the superintendent and the school department. They would love to have more money. We we don't have it. So that's where we that's where we're at.

Very good. I I appreciate that explanation. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Um Angelina, your hand is up.

Yeah. Um I think u what I'm what I'm hearing from people, what I heard from the few people at the select board meeting and then people online and I'm I'm trying to kind of get a sense of what people are saying online without getting too depressed about it. So it's like walking a fine line. Um, but what I'm hearing a lot of is that there's this impression on the side of people who think that, you know, there's a lot of fat in our budget. I saw someone today said that um, you know, at the end of the year, departments are scrambling to spend their money because they know that they're going to lose it if they don't spend it. And all of this is just based on I think just a general mis like just not trusting government which sure and just a general sense of like you know this is what happens that town governments are just bloated and there's all this extra and I think that the thing that's different about Grafton and after being on this committee for four or five years is that we are administratively very lean as a town like in the school department, we don't have layers and layers of administration. When you look at other towns, there are towns that have layers of administration. Like we have what, two um curriculum coordinators or are we down to one at this point for the entire school district? Like Jay doesn't have an an assistant superintendent. I mean, it's just we're so lean that all of these cuts are going to be painful for the people in the town. You're going to feel them. You're going to feel them. Whether it's because, you know, your kids got 27 kids in their classroom or it's because you're not getting your permits on time because we don't have

the capacity to do the things that like we need to function properly. So, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I'm just generally frustrated, I think, with the impression that, you know, we're we're bloated in that the government is overspending and that's why we're in this situation. Prop 2 and a half came out what, 40 years ago, and it's an arbitrary 2 1/2% that were allowed to go up by. That is probably something that needs to change because like us, many other communities are in the same exact position. 2 and a half% is not enough. And to look at that 2 and 12% as you're overspending if you need to go over the 2 and 12% is just like a I mean the two things just aren't related necessarily. They're not this one doesn't mean the other. So, I just think that there's this general lack of real understanding of how the budget works and how our budgets are structured and I hope that people engage and come to meetings and actually look at the budget line by line because we do. So, I hope that people do as well.

Thanks, Angelina Kyle. Off my soap box. Sorry.

No, we we appreciate the soap box, Kyle. Please. No, I'll keep mine a little bit brief just because I basically say very similar things what Angelina said, but I mean I I get it. I I'm a little bit maybe weirdly encouraged by all the discussion online. I think people really care about their town and where the money is going and how we're spending it. Um obviously I think some conversations are more productive, but it's it's complicated. I there's a lot of rules and hidden, you know, um restrictions on certain monies that we can't allocate how we want to or how it may make obvious sense. Um I think you know to the point of the budget being bloated, yes, there's they're very lean. We spent and you know we've known this is coming. We we know the structural deficit has existed. This is not new news to us. you know, we we've what, three years ago, two years ago, we cut a department out of the um municipal side of the budget um in preparation for this to try to, you know, see what we could do to get by and and minimize the loss of um services and um to the town, to the people. Um you know, I I understand that the distrust in government, the good thing is all these meetings are recorded. They're all online for you to review. They get there long, then we probably won't want to do that. But um the um commitment is there. You can see it all. Um and I guess I would encourage people to you know continue asking questions for you to learn more. Um but also you know I think I'd be encouraged on if I was another end that there are answers to all these questions. It's not just we don't know. It's not a you know people aren't getting responses. It's no, there is an exact reason as to why this can't happen or why this is this way or why we're facing this now. So, I guess encourage people to listen.

Yeah, I appreciate that. To that point, this is probably the one of the better attended finance committees we've we've had in quite some time and um there are six people five people now. We're six people here in person and uh at top we had about 20 I believe nine attendees uh down to down to 15 at this point. That's not a very high percentage of the voting population, but but we public comment is still open and we did have a hand. So I please encourage I think you also have a hand on Zoom when you're ready. Thank you very much. That's smart. Yes. Colleen Roy, 53 Elman Street. This is uh maybe a nerdy question, but when we're getting our bond review this summer, yeah,

what if any impact will going to our second year of cuts, substantially bigger cuts, have on our bond rating? Andor would passing a third override have any uh positive or negative impacts? Um I don't think in the current economic climate that having a third override impacts your bond rating in any way. Um, I think they're really looking to see that you haven't defaulted, you haven't been in deficit, you haven't had to, you know, make mid-year cuts. Okay. So, us strategically making these cuts now, I don't think are going to impact our our bond rating. So, we wouldn't have potential insult to injury of cuts and then paying more for bonds.

No, I don't I don't think so. Thinking back on all the different bond calls I've done and different um ratings reviews that I've done, they're all around kind of that unplanned emergency. you didn't do this right kind of cut. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Colleen. All right, Mark. Thank you for your patience.

Oh, no. You don't need to thank me. I'm here for the night. Um, I have a brief statement. I I wrote this down because I wanted to make sure I didn't fumble what I'm I'm going to say. So, if you bear with me, it's very brief, but it's very clear to me that the finance committee has been excluded from any discussion relative to this year's budget. I find it troubling that the committee charged with reviewing and making recommendations on all issues before town meeting has been excluded from the process by the select board. A majority of board members are requesting more information and guidance and the fincom is here to provide that guidance and leadership. Given the fact that any decision, whether it be an override question or a vote to leave the CPA rest with the select board, I believe it's important for the finance committee to provide a strong recommendation in person to the select board. I would strongly recommend that we request a meeting with them as soon as possible. If you think I should make a motion to that effect, I will. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Um, we did reach out um and had asked to have a a Tricom full meeting with the select board. Um, that was a month ago, right? That's that's that's right. Um, and have they have they invited us? Uh, no. No, I that's my statement.

No, I not not disagreeing. Um, rather agreeing. I did attempt to um sort of tag along on the January 27th meeting that ended up not not occurring. Right. That meeting was going to be joint between the school and um select board, but unfortunately did not occur. Um but no, we we have not been invited. Um, I'm perfectly happy to entertain said motion um to have that conversation with the select board. Mark so moved. Do I hear a second? Second.

Can we repeat what the exact motion was again? It's a it's a motion to request a meeting immediately with the select board to allow the finance committee to make recommendations relative to this year's budget and ways to address the shortfall. Okay. Thanks. I have a motion to second. Do I have any conversation, any discussion on the motion? No. Hearing none. Um I will by roll call take the vote. Mark I. Angelina I. Heather. Did we lose Heather?

Nope. I'm here. Sorry. I was trying to unmute and I didn't know how to unmute. So I Thank you. Dian. Hi Greg. Hi Kyle. Hi Samir. Hi. Victoria also says I. All right. So, um I will once more um reach out and attempt to get availability. Um we can put that in a letter as well, Mark. Um and put that into correspondence. Um I think Thank you. Thank you, Victoria. as well. Of course. I agree. And I'm glad that you did that. Thank you for bringing that up.

Any additional questions, comments for Evan? um either here or our audience either on Zoom. I see no additional hands. Greg,

so uh to follow up a little bit on a previous comment, we were talking about uh Proposition 2 and a half and how we got here. Uh I I spent a significant amount of time after the meeting on Tuesday talking to a resident who had been here. uh participated in the meeting and he came up to me because he wasn't sure how proposition two and a half and this whole uh reduction and override process worked. So uh I I gave him a bit of an explanation for we talked for quite some time. Uh I think the custodian was was uh ready for us to leave the building so we could lock up. Um, so some of the things we talked about was Proposition 2 and a half was started in 1980 and 20 46 years ago now. And they at that point picked a number for each town which is okay. This is your current levy limit. This is the limit beyond which you cannot tax your residents without getting their approval. So that limit increases by 2 and a.5% plus new growth which is um increases in value of houses and property due to construction and renovation and things like that. And that that gives us a ceiling beyond which we cannot tax people without their consent. It weighs out a very particular method of getting their consent for that which is an override and that says you are allowed to permanently raise that ceiling and permanently raise the ceiling meaning all future contribution ceiling numbers go from that point working forward. So that is completely

separate from this year's budget. so that the override if it were to pass would set a new ceiling. We've done that twice before. The first time we raised our ceiling by 2.5 million. The second time we raised our ceiling by 3.2 million. We did not use it all in one year. We planned to use it for 5 years. We used it for six years. People talk about a five-year override. Really what that means is we plan to you to make that increase last five years. It really has there's no official meaning to that other than this is what we plan to do with it. Now we don't have to spend to the levy limit. So there was a comment earlier about leaving money on the table. Yes, we leave money on the table under the levy limit all the time. Uh that is because we as a town the legis the legislative branch of the town at town meeting decided we didn't want to spend all the way to the levy limit because we were fiscally responsible in making our budgets. We didn't say, "Oh, we just raised our limit by $2.5 million. We're going to spend that $2.5 million right away." We used it over time to gradually absorb the cost the increasing costs of our budget. Uh, one of the ma the main reasons we have this increase in cost of our budget is things out of our control. Health care, largely transportation, uh, special education, and the fact that our state aid increases very very slowly. It has it there. I've made graphs of

what our expenditure and our state aid looks like. the state aid is mostly flat and the graph goes up significantly. So, we have a significant issue with the funding formula that has 200 and I believe it was 270 of 319 school districts where the formula says you get enough money from the state. We don't need to give you any more money this year, but just to be nice, we're going to give you $75 per student that was enrolled in your school as of October 1st, and that is your increased aid for the year. For us, that's $222,000. And we're that is nowhere near enough to close a $ 1.5 million budget gap. I'm glad to see people reaching out and talking. If you want to, if you have questions, if you don't understand what it is, reach out to us and ask. We will be happy to talk to you about it. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. Very, very well put.

Additional thoughts, questions? Okay. I have one motion to close the public hearing. Oh yeah, go ahead. Close your public hearing. Thank you. Sorry. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Uh Angelina I. Mark I. Heather I. Dan I. Greg I. Kyle I. Samir. Hi. Victoria I. That motion passes unanimously. The public hearings closed. Thank you. Yes Evan. Please. Just as an aside, if anyone's interested in a great book that involves chapter uh prop two and a half, there's a book called Burn Boston Burn.

It's about an arson ring in the early 1980s. Uh so when when Prop 2 and a half was passed, a group of nine police officers and firefighters and fire buffs lit Boston on fire like 260 times to try to drive up the call so that firefighters would be brought back in. It's fascinating history. If you're interested, check it out. Not we're not we're not planting seeds. We're not planting seeds. No, I'm not planting seeds. I'm just saying this is what they did in the 1980s. It's it's it's pretty wild. No, that sounds written by the ATF officer that that closed the case. Incredible. Awesome. Yeah.

Thank you for that aside. That that that was a great build. That's the side you like. Okay. I got plenty more. So, Okay. So, next up on our agenda is to review um the list of departments to go speak to. Um in our packet, we have last year's list or it might actually be the year before. Um it says uh it has Nick on it, but it has Nick on it. So, that's why I think it's old. Nick was here last. Oh, Nick was Nick was still in this time last year. Nick was still here last year. You're right. It was

Oh, right. This Samir, this will be your first time. Y this is this is fun. Uh Madam Chair, yes. May I suggest with just the amount of not scrutiny but close as we want to keep to the budgets that we keep our committee assignments the same since we've worked on them for the past couple years and I agree with that. Know them the budgets very well and can continue to be the check that we need to be for those budgets and then have Samir joy and fill in where Nick was. I think that's a very very reasonable, prudent and wise suggestion and I agree with it. Any disagreement? Uh the only thought was uh we have

well I say we have a lot of people on uh DPW well and uh I had previously been interested in schools but since uh my wife was on the school committee I chose not to participate in that. So I'd be interested in joining that discussion. I don't think Jay would mind Victoria if we brought four of us to sit down with him. I I think that he might he would he would enjoy that greatly. Um, yeah. So, I think Greg should definitely join the school with me, you and Angelina. I I love that suggestion. And Greg, we can I think we can handle or if Smeir wants to join or we can handle and you handled it without me last time because I was not able to make that whatever date that was. So, yeah.

But if if five people attend, then it's a quorum. That's right. It's got to say four under. Yes, you're absolutely right. No uh surprise dropins for something where there's four expected. No, got it. Got it. I was going to ask that like if you are if I am interested in any other one but we want to avoid the tour. Yeah. But yeah, if you were interested then DPW and they'll give you a tour of whatever facility they have it in. So yeah, I was going to say we should ask if Samir has anything he's particularly interested in.

Uh yeah, I mean I I would send another DPW one. I I don't think that would I think that'd be good. and I I am interested in schools, but I don't want to be the fifth person there. So, I will trust my fellow colleagues to get that done. But no, I think overall I'm happy to step in where Nick was at my laying of the land.

Okay, great. Thank you very much for your flexibility, Greg. I'll I'll ensure that I reach out to you for the school piece. Okay. Um so for I'll I'll take responsibility for the in the areas that um my name appears. I will reach out to uh the department head and set up time and and coordinate. Can I can I take care of reaching out to Jay and set up that meeting please? Sure. Please go for it.

Um I do know that that Jay is interested in having that meeting sooner rather than later. I understand that. Great. Okay, perfect. Um, next item on the agenda is to review the uh 2025 annual report. Amber, thank you very much for uh putting this together. Uh, did anyone have any thoughts, comments, adjustments? I'd make a motion we approve the annual report as presented. Second.

I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Uh Mark I. Heather I. Angelina I. Dian I. Greg I. Kyle I. Samir I. Victoria says I. That motion passes unanimously. Again. Thank you very much Amber. We so appreciate your your diligence here. Um, moving right along. Meeting minutes. I move move to approve the minutes. Oh, you beat me, Greg. December 10th as presented. Second. Motion and second. Any discussion? Any um adjustments? No. All right. Great. Mark I. Angelina. I.

Heather. I. Dan. Hi. Greg. Hi. Kyle. Hi. Samir. Hi.

Victoria is I. That motion passes unanimously. meeting minutes are set. All right. So, let's schedule the upcoming finance committee meetings. So, we do have um the the motion to ask to have a meeting as soon as possible with um the select board. So, I will start working on that again immediately. Um but in the interim we still do need to set up our meetings for um review and Saturday. Um, we usually have the two dayer that we set aside,

right? Or we've been we typically do that Saturday and then the Wednesday before and the Wednesday after. So, probably Wednesday the 11th, Saturday the 14th, and Wednesday the 18th. Does that work for everyone? I am out of the country on the 11th. I might be able to do it remotely, but that's You can get by without me. Um, I cannot do the 11th unfortunately. March. Yes, March. March. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. You're like, "This seems fast." Yes. March.

Um, do we want to consider Thursdays? Yeah, I was going to say, what about the 12th? 12th works for me. Yeah, I'm I am out Tuesday to Friday, so don't uh affordable housing is on the 12th, but I could we could move that to the 5th. Uh well, is uh Brian, do you happen to know if ZBA has anything on March 5th? Uh we don't have anything yet. Cool. All right. Well, I guess that means means it could come up. So, we we'll see. We'll we'll work it out. Well, let's do the 12th. So, let's do the 12th and the 14th for sure.

So, I think we have charter review mark on the 12th. Yeah, we meet we meet the the 12th of the 3rd or second Thursday. So, I was just about to say I'm not available on the 12th. So, that's I don't think that means Angelina, you're not available on the 12th, right? And and Greg as well. And Greg's not available on the 12th. and move it. I guess going to be gone anyway. Be not there. Not available on the 12. Yeah. Yeah. Then I think the 11th I'll have to do and poor Kyle will be the odd man out. That's all right. Okay. So, back to the 11th. It is. Okay. I I will try to join those remotely. Thank you. So, it's uh

I mean, if you'd like to do the 18th and 19th following week instead, that's also an option. Is there a reason we like to have one before the Saturday meeting, one after? Is there anything we set up? Really? No, we've always we've just always done it that way because we do um we do school department one night and then BBT the other night. Yeah. Yeah. That week much for me works much better at least. But Greg, you'll be back the 18th and 19th. Yep. And we should move it. Yeah. So, if we do the 18th and the 25th with the I think we were saying

Oh, I was going to say 18th and 19th. So, you can do two two week nights and a Saturday. Sure. So, 14th, 18th, and 19th. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. That sounds good. February or March? March. March. And then we usually start what, like 10:00 a.m. March 14th, 9:00 a.m. March 14th. We've started at 8:30 in the past. Beautiful. Love it. Paul likes to get here, but we've also been we've been um done pretty early, too. So, if you want to uh I'm that start time. I'm a morning person, so I I'm ready to start at 6:00 a.m. if the rest of

speaking my language. I'm going to go ahead and veto that 8:30 though I can haul myself here for. We also used to get lunch and we also used to have like three Saturdays and I'm thinking Yeah, that was ridiculous. I'm glad we've cut it back to that one Saturday for three hours. It's cuz I wasn't here. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, we know that we know the budgets pretty well right now and we can get right to the streamlined a lot of things since we started. Yes. Appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. I don't want to be here three Saturdays. Cool. I like you guys, but it's a lot. Yeah, Evan, it was ridiculous that we did three Saturdays. My first year here, I was like, this is this is a lot.

So, one will do us. So, we'll do the 14th, the 18th, and the 19th. Okay. And in the interimm of course we'll be meeting with our uh individual assignments and we will sneak in a a meeting with uh the select board as as well. I'll I'll make that happen. The 18th night they're obviously subject to our guests being available as well. This is always a very good point. Yes,

I do think that uh recreation will be on the 18th or 19th. Um Adam let me know that he is running a half marathon Saturday the 14th, which I think is a fine reason to not be there in room A with us, but I told him that we could offer him a week night instead. He should He could run here afterwards. That's true.

Get up really early. Uh, we'll be happy to speak to Adam on the 18th or 19th then. Okay, that wraps us up for this evening. Thank you again, Evan. Thank you everyone for attending in person and for um listening in, asking thoughtful questions and and your engagement. We we really appreciate it. Um, and this is only one of uh three more public hearings to come. So stay tuned. Um, with that I will call the meeting to a jury. Okay. And that's it. Night. Night.