Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

It is 8:30 on Saturday, March 14th. 8:31 and Saturday, March 14th, and this is the FINCOM budget hearing, public hearing for the FY27 budget. Um, so thank you everyone for attending or for listening in or for listening in in the future. We really appreciate um everyone getting engaged and taking the time to learn about our municipal budget. So, I'll just start off by [snorts] um discussing what this is and what this isn't and sort of how we lead up to the public hearing for the municipal budget. So, for today, we will be discussing with Evan Bursard and multiple department heads, specifically the municipal side of the budget, um minus wreck. Um we'll be seeing him along with the superintendent from Blackstone Valley Tech on um Wednesday and talking to Jay on Thursday evening. So this is just the municipal side of the budget for for this morning. Um the other piece um is just sort of a reminder this is like truly a public hearing. Um the f finance committee over the last like three or so weeks has already broken off into smaller groups and had conversations with each of the department heads talking about line items asking questions. So there there will be some followup but this is really the opportunity for the public to ask questions um and and to learn about about the the budget process. Um, we have nobody online. Um, so in person, um, we have Dan Kosher, Greg Mahar, myself, Victoria Dworth, we have

Kyle Cork, we have Angela Korea, and we have Mark Kad. Oh, and Heather McHugh, sorry, she's on the other side of the table, so apologies. Um, okay. With that, I'll entertain a motion to open the public hearing. So moved. Second. Okay. By roll call, Heather here. There's nobody online. Do we You We'll have to do that. You need to open the public hearing. All right. There [clears throat] we go. Just kidding. You just have to vote. You just have to vote. [laughter] You don't have to do roll call. But that's that's what I was voting. That's what I was doing. You just don't have to name people. Just say I But also, Amber, I think was about to say not a public hearing, right? Yeah. This was not a public hearing. Oh, just kidding. Okay. Well, you just declare them open. Public hearing. All right. Well, I declare

I withdraw my motion. Sorry. I would public hearings, too, but they're not.

I was convinced. All right. Well, so you learn something new every day, which is part of the reason we're here, right? Awesome. Okay. Um, so since we are all here and I called role, um, let's get started. Um, our first agenda item is to discuss the engineering, highway, DBW, sewer, and cemetery and parks budget. I believe we have both Paul and Kevin here today. Good morning, gentlemen. Uh Daryl is stuck in DC with a canceled flight on the 10-day vacation and Matt Maynard is in North Carolina golfing

where we all should be where we should I couldn't agree with that more should all be good for him more importantly I was this close to being stuck in DC myself. [snorts] I was I was wondering since then I think we were supposed to fly back like yesterday evening. Yeah. Poor guy. Yeah. All right. So, let's get started. Sure. Sewer first. I'll do sewer and cemetery. Engineering is very easy unless you want to do that first. Engineering is first and let's please follow the list. Where's the list? List right here. Policy one. List it. The list is engineering then. Yeah, let's do engineering.

All right. engineering for us engineering greatly reduced budget the department head number is zero so um not much to talk about there you know we the obviously his pnt's line was which is mostly for the MS4 permit has been moved um to capital so that's That's it. Yeah. So, you know, I'll go on my soap box. Keep that in capital. What's that? Is the long-term plan to keep the MS4 in capital? No.

No. And what is the long-term plan to put it back where it was? Back into the operating budget. Yep. Um, so just before we go too far down the rabbit hole, so obviously the board voted last night. So we are working on a contingent budget and so we're going to have to probably [clears throat] segment this conversation into the department as are presenting what the level budget would be without any additional revenue and then we're going to have to have a separate conversation about what it looks like should should the override pass. Um, so if we could just keep that in our mind just so we don't have to I won't go down the rabbit hole then. No, you can. No,

absolutely. Go down the rabbit hole. Um, you know, this is the public hearing and somebody might watch this meeting. It's a It's a grave mistake.

Um, it's an important job. We've done a lot of work over the last 10 years. I'm leaving in November. Kevin's got a lot of work to do on his own. There's nobody to cover these public jobs. And the biggest mistakes we make in public service is when we don't have a representative on site when these jobs are happening. And so it will cost more in the end. It won't be done quality. And you we're going to lose a guy who's got intimate knowledge of the infrastructure of this community. And so anyway, that's allowed to retire. Um me. Um [laughter] so

that's a good answer. But anyway, so that's it for that on my from a, you know, personal standpoint. A taxpaying resident of this town, you're we're going to lose a lot of stuff. Yeah,

you know, when we did our meetings, there was a lot highlighted where there was a lot of catches that that position did um from, you know, paving of roads and that not using the correct um amount of product, a lot of skimping and and cutting around the edges um and other things obviously as well, but just I think there's a lot there that we would be paying for later if we don't have this position to oversee. um and you know do what it's supposed to do. Well, you know, for example, that George Hill Road project that we've been dragging along for 10 years is finally out to bid. Yeah.

And somebody needs to be there every day. Not the whole day, but you need to have somebody there showing up randomly. Mhm.

To make sure that people are doing the job right and doing what we're paying them to do. So, and that, you know, we've got that. We've got intersection improvements, bridge replacements, cover replacements, and we need somebody who understands how those jobs work. Um while like conservation is the lead in the culver replacement on Marian road from a conservation standpoint they understand all of those issues but they don't understand the design the construction how to make things work how to make a decision to not delay the project which then costs us more where Brian can easily know say no that needs to go this direction and so anyway so those are the those are the things we're going to lose if we you know permanently lose that spot. So with the override that would go back into the budget [snorts]

and would it be level funded with the previous year or would there be a an increase in to the salary line? Yeah, there's a an increase. So it would be 4 and a half% over what it is currently is like probably like 4.5. So is there somebody in that position? I'm Yes, correct. Yes, there is. So, this person would retain the job if the override passed. Correct. That's right. He's been uh in that position for how many years now? 20. So, he's been here for a little longer than me. Yeah. He's over 20.

Intimately familiar with the town is a mild way of putting it, right? Um yeah, we rely on Brian for a lot. A lot more than most people realize. Yeah. I think Paul makes a very strong case for retaining that position. You're 100% right in everything you said. Well, hopefully the override passes. I guess we're going to be saying that a lot today.

I mean, that's the ev your point is is is maybe the best and one that I I should have brought up at the top and that's that we are reviewing a level budget which is the the existing funds that we have today. No override. So there there's a lot of pain associated with this budget and um we starting at line one, right? Line one, we're losing our our lead engineer. Well, what I want the general public to know is that it's their money. Absolutely. You know, it's not our money. It's,

you know, they pay the taxes and they're paying the salary and if that over the overall budget, that number is more important than the quality of the work that they expect, then then that's their decision to make. But it's it's foolish in my opinion. It's a waste of my money if we're not going to we're not going to monitor and expect the same quality of work. So, may I ask you another question? So last night they your projection and Jay's projection was for 5.7 million over 5 years and the board voted 5 million for 5 years. So in FY27 is that loss of the 700,000 going to have any impact on what you decide to put back in the budget or you going to go with what you're

No. And we'll we'll um we'll go into that a little bit deeper. But right now, I'm going to pull [snorts] up something else on the screen because of our our um BBT and um actually whoever's is it Bill in the booth today? Who's in the Can you could you minimize the the Zoom uh participants screen? No. On the Okay. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Um, so we're running currently as of this morning $346,000 surplus because of the BBT assessment

because of BBT and this includes the withdrawal from the mosquito control group at 90,000. All of these things are contingent upon town meeting and other things. So, um, while I think we can have conversation as we hear from department heads, we have a little bit of surplus there, but again, if we're looking at it was uh 5.7 and now it's five, you're going to want to have a little buffer here moving in because um it's going to give us a little wiggle room to So, the decision on that extra money that you're looking at right here, you and Jay would have to figure out how much comes back to the municipal side, how much goes back to the schools. Y with that particular surplus.

Correct. So if we listen to all the budget presentations today and say at the end of the day we decide the engineering position is the most important, we can ask you to consider putting that position back into the budget now without an override. Correct. Okay. Thank you for that explanation. Y just one other thing though is so that would get us through fiscal 27. But again, so not knowing the outcome of the override, I'm I'm concerned about I know 346,000 looks like it's a lot of money just sitting there. It's not next year, but it's not next year. And then we're now we're we're just having the exact same conversation next year. So I want to be very thoughtful of how we that [clears throat] not inclusive of the conversation that Paul's having because I I agree with Paul wholeheartedly. I agree, too.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Jen. Um, so you mentioned that uh without this position there would uh likely be situations where where projects get delayed um that sort of thing that ends up costing us more money. Um it it sounds to me like this is the kind of situation where if we try to save money up front by eliminating this position, we'll probably end up spending more money in the long run. Is that Yes, it it happens on literally every job

if we don't have somebody watching the job from the smallest things to the to the George Hill Roads to the building of the high school. Um things get missed and they will then and people will cut corners. They will do whatever they can. If it saves them $20 and two hours of work, they'll do it. Um [snorts] and they especially with municipal, right? They won't put a foot of stone under a pipe. They'll put two inches. So when you get there, you say, "Oh, this stone." And they say, "Oh yeah, it's a foot." and you can't get down to the trench, but if you see them putting the foot of stone and then you know it's there. Um it's it's those things that are important. So yeah, it

it just it seems like it's one of those situations where um like we need to make it clear to people that saving money upfront to spend more money long term is what the trade-off is at least for this position. Uh, I mean there's a lot a lot on the table, but yeah, I think that's there's nothing more expensive than trying to go cheap. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the bottom that's the bottom line and that's what we that's what, you know, what we're living with in this today right now, the way the budgets.

Thanks. And the thing a lot of people don't realize too, uh, monitoring these projects, sometimes they don't rear their ugly head until 10 years down the road when catch basins are caving in and yeah, you know, curbing is failing and stuff. So, it could be a surprise a lot further away. [cough and clears throat]

You thought that was going to be easy. Yeah. [laughter]

Thank you. Um Kevin, how are

Hey, so I'm um pretty much pretty much level ponded as best as I can here. We've been um as the same as last year. uh filling in that delta with the with the with the crack filling. And um um the only things that the only things that we've um we we've increased are the the repair and maintenance and that's for the actual um highway building. um the tree removal and um the vehicular supplies and that's just for parts. Um everything costs more and we're doing our best to um uh fly under the radar here and uh keep operating. But we only can go at this rate for so long before same you know things the bottom starts falling out. So but everything else is uh pretty much the same across the board.

Any questions? So, are there things that we are putting off by keeping the funding basically level at this point? Are there places where there should be increases that there aren't at this point? Uh, just like I said, it's the uh the crack filling in everything that that'll that's usually to the tune of anywhere from 75 to 100K. and we're using those funds to fill in the blanks. Okay. Right. So, specifically, you said it's been like three or four years since we've gone on an expedition to truly do any sort of crack seal. Right.

We're using those as as movable funds within your budget to Right. And this this this whole thing leads back to saving money. It's like we put in this uh paving system planning ahead and doing this road then and it's the whole point is keeping the good roads nice, you know, and that bottom is going to start falling out because part of, you know, an important part is the crack ceiling and and everything. And so that all goes away if we don't pick back up with this again.

Sure. So part of the discussion that the select board had is on the long-term planning looking at the community preservation act looking at the road stabilization funds. So you've done a phenomenal job. DPW has done a great job utilizing that money to improve our roads. If the if the town decided to cut back on that I'm sure you don't even have an answer for this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is there a plan in your head if we don't keep maintaining those roads without the crack sailing and the other things that you need to keep going? you well you you do you know every every year we do we can do less and less miles of road only because you know the critical the most costly point of the asphalt is oil really is driven by the oil market and we all know where that is now.

Um so well we you know we started at 1.5 million and we you know the escalation thing we just started doing last two years ago whenever that was um every year we get less and less for our money. So the nice thing about having the roads at, you know, 70% or 80%, whatever that number is, is it's just a mill overlay and you can do a lot of miles for that versus, you know, a complete reconstruction of the road where if we don't do the crack ceiling and the chip ceiling, you lose that those 70% roads start dropping off faster because you can only you can only maintain so many miles of those roads. Wow. Yeah.

You know, the town made the commitment was it 2014 when that went into place for the first time. The town's done a phenomenal job really on that. It's really improved the overall quality of the town. I'd hate to see us take a step back, especially after we now decided finally to start doing that escalation piece. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And then also keep in mind we we allocated $300,000 317,000 a year out of that for George or George Hill for the debt service on George Hill. If you reduce that by say, you know, half a million dollars, you're not you're not bringing it down from 1.5 to one. Say you're going down to 800 because you still have to spend that 300 some. Thank you for that explanation. Y

So, but that that is money that can be used for the the same purposes as the the the paving and crack filling here. Yes. Okay. Yep. But since it's not in here and since we've reduced that out over the years, that's just less that we're able to do to maintain that road condition.

Okay, thank you. Good. So sewer.

Sewer. All right. Ready. Um [laughter] again, sewer wise is, you know, most of the most of the the big money items, energy, sludge disposal, chemicals are largely out of anybody's control. Um we're at the mercy of obviously National Grid and Eversource for our energy, the sludge disposal, upper Blackstone drives the bus on that as and again they have the same cost as us. They their energy goes up, their chemical use goes up, they that charge gets back to us. Um and the chemicals same thing we some years we spend a lot and it's based on flow and you know the flow is really high right now because of the melt off and everything else but those numbers again if like we spend a lot of money on the chloride which is driven is a waste product of iron production and the more iron the country makes the cheaper that gets but so everything is and then the other stuff is really just the salary increases is pay increase there. And then there's some costs whatever I you know indirect costs I always screwed that up. Um that increases because obviously the enterprise pays the health insurance and vehicle insurance and then portions of salaries for people we annoy in this building on a daily basis. Um basically every position gets a little bit and every position gets a little annoyed at me. Every every time Paul comes in the door, that percentage moves a little bit.

The annoyance meters. The annoyance the annoyance me. Yeah. And those those costs go up. I didn't print that in direct caution, but that those costs raise a little bit as well. And the debt service of the department is in there as well. So, yep. I recall last year um the the previous year's um sludge fee had been absolutely out of this world and there was a lot of issues with that. Last this this last year we did not see that same massive search charge. Well, what happened with us was last two years ago whenever you know calendar year fiscal year um

Upper Blackstone shut down taking sledge for like six weeks. So every community that goes there had to find an alternative source. So everybody went to Lawrence and Lawrence you know obviously now they have you they know right so that you know so then instead of trucking it ourselves we had to hire trucking so that everything those costs escalate from there. What about rates for the story this year? What's the

So we're going to raise the rate the board we've been talking about it for probably 6 months. So we're probably going to rate we haven't raised the rate since 2018. Um, so they're going to raise the rates probably that dude probably a dollar a thousand gallons which raises the overall cost annually to a family of four by between 60 and $80. It's all over the four quarter.

Correct. Yeah. It's not a dollar seems like a lot, but it's a dollar per thousand gallons. So in the average person, the average house of with a family of four is 15 to 20,000 gallons a quarter. So that will go effect for the four four quarters of fiscal 27. Okay. So July 1.

Okay. Any other thoughts, questions on the sewer enterprise fund? online. Okay. Um and then last would be cemeteries and parks. You don't look like they say everyone. You want to talk like Daryl? No. So, you know, we got this going down here. Again, wait. Yeah. Back.

Pull [clears throat] my pants up. And um so it you know try to not sh Daryl but he does a great job at managing his budget which is very small but he he makes it work. So really his the but you know the majority of that budget is personnel costs. Uh that's really it and maintenance of his equipment which we've got some decent equipment you know and we thank everybody for that. So those maintenance costs aren't huge. Uh but really that's you know the other parts of that grass seed and the fertilizer for those things are those costs have increased dramatically. Grass from uh fires in Oregon where the most of the country's grass seed has grown um those costs are up and obviously fertilizers costs are driven by gas petroleum costs and those costs are also up. So Daryl does a great job at managing his the budget within the constraints and understanding what you know what he can and can't do. So

then that Skip hasn't been able to join us yet cuz I'm sure he would have a lot to say about this. But after speaking with Darl as well, you know, just highlights to the budget changes. I understand that cemeteries and parks are also going to be taking over Nelson Park and so they are going to be getting some funding from that foundation to maintain that space. There are what, [snorts] four baseball diamonds there. Um, three and a half

and the the the graft and girls softball does a lot of the maintenance on those particularly certainly in the spring. Um, so but the mowing and everything else, we'll work with with Roger about getting, you know, organizing that however however we're going to work it. Um, so between Daryl's guys and then, you know, some of the DPW staff that does the mowing of this building and other town properties, we'll we'll get it done. And we've been discussing the personnel of the cemetery department and how we're going to manage that going forward. So, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he he was talking about some some, you know, full-time additions versus part-time and things like that.

Yeah, we're talking Yeah. Internally, yeah, internally, but whatever. between all of us. We're figuring fig figuring that out what the best path forward is. So listen, Paula and I are gonna cut the grass on Saturday. [snorts] It's work work around. Well, you are going to be on fire, [laughter] right? How many years you been with us? Uh [snorts] I don't know. I started on the fire department in ' 83. So since then, I guess. Congratulations on your time and thank you for all you've done for the town of Gra. It's awesome.

Well, it's November. We're still going to get him in October, right? We're still going to bug still going to bug him. You're going to miss that meeting on purpose since I've already said congratulations. Yeah, you can't come now. I can't come. That's it. I'm done. He'll be stuck in DC. Okay. And it looks like Evan, you'll go through sanitation and snow and ice later. So, Sure. Okay. Yeah. Don't have any snow and ice questions now while I'm here. I It might not be a shot idea. They really How big is the deficit? What's the plan to make it up here? We were at least I think I was at 160,000, but I was still waiting for like, you know, salary to come through and any additional

Our last our last uh salt invoices just got passed in. Uh we just turned them in this this morning. So, uh, we are right now we are up to the same amount of salt that we used last year with half the rate. So, we went out double the amount and used the same. This winter was terrible. [snorts] So, I'll make up for the deficit with free cash at the spring um annual town meeting cuz the levy will be so tight. Maybe. Yeah, I'm at $300,000 right now. Deficit

we'll probably we'll be pushing that'll be will be two to$ 230 somewhere in that range be my guess by the time it's all that's the biggest deficit in the last several years. This winter's really been awful. But DPW did a great job of doing a new plan so they reduce salt by almost 50%. Um so think about what that deficit would look like if that wasn't what was happening. They did a great job on the roads this year. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much. With a lot less people than But we just plowed more. That was Yeah. If you're going to reduce your saw, you have to plow more, which is So people are like, "Oh, why are you plowing? There's only an inch of snow on the road." But you don't have to melt it off instead. You plow it off. Right. Gone.

Yeah. Great job. Yeah. It's a phenomenal job. I mean, it's I I heard so many people say it over and over again. All you had to do was just drive over the line into Shrewsbury or Westboro. And I mean just automatic skids as soon as you hit off of Grafton Road. You guys so much for all your It's all It's all the guys. It's like there are 28 plows touching the ground and each one of them are gold. The first year they didn't like plow my driveway in. I'm like yes. They went on the sign and like I was so psyched. Where do you live? [laughter] Come back. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. Where's Where's Daryl now? Yeah, I offered they won't let me drive a plow truck.

No, they always say thanks. I'll take you up on that. I never do. Don't give up. [laughter] I'm actually going to put it in the capital. I'm going to get my own plow truck. Oh, then just go out unsanctioned. The TA I'm just going to go out unsanctioned. They never know where I'm going to turn up [laughter] kind of like me. Exactly. Your customers. Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you guys so much. Really Thanks for having us. Yeah. See you guys. Kevin, I do everybody else. I don't know where I live. We got plenty of time. We love being here on a Saturday treat. All right, so next up, uh, Chief Matthew. Eric, come on down. I've got a list. Okay, sorry. I'm Hey, Chief. How you been?

Good morning. Busy. Very busy. Um, thanks for having me. because as discussed at our uh previous meeting, our budget is uh largely unchanged except for um salary increases and the addition of the you'll see it prevention firefighter position. Um, and our other increase was uh building maintenance costs which are through the roof and trying to catch up on that which also reflects in our capital plan as well that we're trying to get ahead of things.

Um, as far as the quick state of the department, we're still onboarding new members all the time. We have uh hired six people this year. two have graduated from the fire academy in the past week. We have one in the academy now and we have um five other people in the hiring process be everything from um waiting on physicals to waiting on interviews which we have one scheduled next week. So that is going excellent. Um this year we also had a huge um highlight for the department is uh we the members were able to affect a rescue of a uh citizen in the uh Forest Lane elderly housing complex from a fire. Um which the crews from station one were the ones that that did it and they did an excellent job. And to give you an idea of how rare that is that a fire department rescues a civilian, um it's the first one I've been involved in in 32 years serving two different departments.

True.

Um and especially when you talk about a smaller town and a call department. It's uh uh unbelievable and an amazing thing that they did. So I can't recognize them enough. Um Paul left, but he was the incident commander and stuff. So, it was uh it just amazing and super proud of them. So, um and other stuff, like I said, busy. Um this just this past week, to give you a highlight, we're averaging two calls a day, which is up from last year. Um that would put us around 150 more calls this coming year if it continues on the same path. And um the mass pike is a magnet for things going wrong. We were out there last night with a car that was uh on the road under a tractor trailer with three people injured. So you can check out our Facebook page. It's amazing that the driver survived when you see the car. Um but with the Mass Pike, we've implemented our uh um recovery process for um some funding and that has trended to average about 30K a year that we're able to recoup from them to help with maintenance and uh the offset for like car fires for firefighting foam and um items like that. So that's what I got so far.

[snorts] Uh can you write what what the new the new position is that you were able to get this year? Um the new position is a uh another fire prevention um firefighter. Um we were looking for that position due to the fact that our inspections over the last 2 years have doubled with the uh new projects in town. And in order to basically keep our head above water, we need somebody else out on the road all the time. And they will also be a fully [clears throat] trained firefighter so that when we do have calls they will supplement the um on call staff during the day. What's that fee structure for uh inspections? The structure

what's what do you pay what do you charge for an inspection? Um it depends on the inspection. It's all it's everything from uh $50 to 300 depending on the size of the the building and stuff like that. And a lot of it is driven out of uh the um building uh permit fees. So in your estimated receipts, there's a there's a bump up to that to offset some. Correct. And we are we are um looking at increasing some of our fees to be in line with uh some other towns. Oh, going to be my next question.

Thank you for answering that. that's been on my my list that you know um along with that um as far as things that we're looking to do is I've said it since I became chief so over the last four years that I would like to um be able to increase the hourly rate for uh firefighters. They do get a 2% um cola raise every year, but um you know, we're expecting these people to do more and more every year with the increased amount of calls. And as uh we presented to the select board, it's a a core group group of people that are doing it with some other people that are supplementing at times and stuff like that. But I want to make sure that they're getting compensated properly for what is the work they're doing.

What's the top step down for? Um the top step is $32. Yep. And the um initial probationary fire fighter is just under 25.

Um I think I had one question for you when we met. It was around what we've been able to recoup since we started charging the state for incidents responses to the pike. Is it 30? Well, at this point over the the year and a half that we've done it, it's 45,000. You said that and we were out there three times this week. So, I did see that photo this morning. Yeah.

Is it like per incident? Is there a flat rate? There's a flat rate for the first hour and then we can charge additional per apparatus at a preset rate if it goes over an hour. So we get more money if we have our heavy rescue truck out there or hazmat truck versus a pumper. Sure. And even the command car has a rate. So, um I'm I'm really glad that regardless of whether or not we do vote for the overhead or or not, you're getting your additional fire prevention officer. I know you've been looking for one to two headcount for essentially the entire time you've you've been the chief, right? Yeah.

And you've had a completely flat budget um the entire time that I've I've been speaking with you. Um, so I'm I'm glad to see public safety getting some muchdeserved love here. And to go along with the the need for the override and in order to keep our services, I know the projection was if it if it isn't given, we would actually lose that position in two years. That would be a a [clears throat] big hit to have to pick up that um that workload again and distribute it back amongst two people. So,

well, and it's also going to be difficult to find the right person to fill a position who knows that it's it's a two-year maximum position as as well, right? So, that that also does kind of hamstring you a little bit. Um, so that's something to keep in mind. Oh, sure. For rental. Yes, please. So, that that's the plan. If there's no If there's no override. Okay. So, I mean, you would think if there's no override this year, they would try for a different kind of override next year instead of just resigning the town to this downward spiral. But you would think I would you you would you would for the obvious. Yeah. [laughter]

But still definitely it's it gets back to that uncertainty for for town employees that like it could be a 2-year thing. And this is, you know, it's not really like a stepping stone kind of job where you work for two years and move up to something bigger. It's the kind of thing that is like a longer term career kind of position, right? So, do you have someone like in your current workforce that would like to move to that position? I'm just thinking, how do you find a firefighter who doesn't really want to be a firefighter all the time?

It is. It is very tough. That is a uh a very um uh interesting position and they have to be into that type of job. And there are a lot of people that want to [snorts] be firefighters that want to take on that role. Um, I'm sure we actually have people in house right now that would be interested and it may be just using it as a stepping stone to, you know, something else in the future and then being able to backfill that position. But, um, we are going to look at it as a um, being able to train somebody right from the start. you know, there not going to be a lot of requirements to fill that position, but we're going to make sure that they, you know, kind of create our own habits instead of bring other bad habits into the

It's always good to train for people. Yeah. And it's, as we've discussed, it's a incentive for people to join the call where they can potentially step up through the ranks. Okay. Any additional questions for the chief? Were we talking at all about capital requests that we can handle? Uh remember if there are some um uh we can we can do either either or whatever the pleasure of the order you want to do. You have a specific question. Yeah. If we have a specific

I was just wondering what we had for uh capital uh plans for this year um or in the next year or two. Most most of our capital PL uh requests this year center around the um uh building improvements and maintenance. Something that uh we've uh jumped on in the last few years in order to keep what we have going. Um we've got electrical service upgrade for station 2. Um which we found during our renovations. um some let's say shoddy and extremely dangerous electrical work in the panels and stuff. So that needs to be replaced. We did have an incident where um we had a breaker fail and thankfully the electrician we used was able to find a breaker at a some old school place that he knew how to get one. Um but the parts just aren't available to up upgrade anymore. Um, station three, we were doing renovations there and that uncovered some structural issues which led us to the need to replace the roof. Um, so that's on the list. And to fix those structural issues, we alo also had to demo the second floor meeting room um to be able to fix those. So that's another cost that we're looking to do to re uh remodel that room. And then for safety and um ease of maintenance, we're looking to do the uh epoxy the apparatus floors in the two state stations two and three. So, [clears throat] and the other one is the asphalt roof at uh headquarters is 15 years old now and the sunbeat side needs to be replaced. So, so it's a it's a total of $290,000 not inclusive of the $280,000

in lease payments, which one lease payment. This is the final year and then the other truck has two years. I believe that three two Yeah, it's two. So, we don't have any new trucks coming in for another year or two. Is that um It all depends. Uh don't don't talk to him about the truck. Yeah. Okay. [laughter] [gasps] Just making sure there's nothing. We don't have a big one coming in then. No, the uh the next one coming in is a is a brush truck and that will be hopefully in this coming fiscal year, but until they secure a chassis and stuff, we honestly don't know if it's going to be this year or not. So,

that's the uh unfortunately the nature of that piece. So, frustrating. How was Eric Carrick? Um we have two uh we have three brush trucks total. Um one of them were replaced a couple years ago with a new one and over the course of last year the members uh rebuilt one of ours um and made it more worthy of going off-road and stuff. So we took a regular pickup truck and put a different bed on it and gave it a suspension lift and some off-road tires so it can actually go off-road and do what it's supposed to do. And we were able to do that with less funding because we used the stuff that was around. [clears throat and cough]

Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Not a problem. Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your day. Hey, you too. Hope it's a quiet one. Thanks. But stay off the pike. We already started at seven this morning. Those two were ask. Okay, up next, please come on down. I'm just curious. I like that every morning. Good morning. How are we? Okay.

Well, it's a sunny Saturday. So, we're pretty straightforward operationally um level funded and the only increase we saw over last year was just short of 72,000 was based on collective bargaining and salaries. So, we do okay operationally being level funded. We're doing all right with that. Um, that's pretty much where we stand as far as that goes, as far as the budget on the capital side. So, we do two vehicles each year. Uh, last year we replaced actual cruisers, line cars. This year, we're going to replace one line car and one administrative vehicle. Fire detectives [clears throat] running a 2016 vehicle, so it's not that old, but in a fleet that's kind of end of life. So, that actually saved us around $16,000 by getting an administrative vehicle instead of two actual line cars. And the other the other capital request is um I don't know if you saw the request that the information that I put in, but through the town of Westbrook, they have a project for a mobile command vehicle, which is about a $340,000 vehicle. and um they were gracious enough to sort of in try to include the three towns that are in the wreck because they thought it would make sense to sort of share that vehicle. So they were looking for you know sensual partnerships financially with that. So um through speaking with Evan you know what we thought we could potentially afford would be that $50,000 towards that vehicle. So um it's a pretty incredible vehicle if you if you didn't look at it. It's it's essentially everything you would need to, you know, run a critical incident from a vehicle. And [snorts and clears throat] not only a critical incident, but we're also talking about say even just community events like the like a parade or, you know, national night out, any type of

community event. And I know, you know, West does a lot with that as well. So, uh, it's not really a luxury from my perspective, from a from a public safety perspective. It's sort of a critical um piece of equipment to have in today's day and age and for us to be able to you know have the use of it for a very small portion of what the cost of that vehicle is I think is a pretty good opportunity for us. So to confirm we are paying 50k and Westboro is paying 290. Yeah. So, um I know the West Bro chief pretty well and uh Westbro has uh I mean clearly they [laughter] Westbro's, you know, funding sources are probably a little more robust than ours. So, and he's got that's a good way to put very fair.

He's got some options there. So, right. Yeah, that's where we're at. And then whatever mo MOA we would probably have with the town and you know, garaging it and all that stuff, we'd have to work out it. But given that we're in the wreck with Westbrow. Yeah. Um and I already have a pretty good work relationship with the town administrator, etc. it. I don't think that was an issue to work those issues out. That's that's that's incredible. It's a great deal for us. Yeah.

So, when I met with the chief, we talked about a couple of things that I'd like to get an update from. One, [clears throat] the status of where we are with the regional dispatch, and two, we also talked about long-term needs of the department in terms of personnel meeting the actual because of the population increase. What's your thought process? where where do we stand with the uh with the wreck and what's your thought process about increasing personnel within the police department with or without an override um [clears throat] act is without an override to the police department.

Right. So the wreck is um we're probably a solid year behind schedule of where we thought we would be. We're looking at about probably fall of 27 is when we'd be able to open. Um that delay is primarily because we we we terminated an agreement with our OPM. So that paused us probably by about four or five months and then we're, you know, we're we're back in it now. So we're just wrapping up um kind of the the the end of the design in order to be able to go out to bid. Uh we're working on a bonding potential bonding project for the district to just get more operational cash without waiting for the drops from the state so that we can be a little bit quicker. Um but we're on we're on track. nothing really has besides that one little hiccup. Everything else is pretty standard for a municipal building project. Um, so I think we're we're on the right track. The relationship between the three towns remains solid. So I think that's that's a good sign that we're going to get this over the finish line here uh in the next year or so. Um, as far as funding uh, positions for PD, I I think, you know, our original plan was five and five, so one position a year for 5 years. Um, we got to four um, and then had to hit pause on that. Um, I know that even even without a population increase, we're still underst staffed compared to where we should be. Um, and I think, you know, my personal philosophy is we're we, you know, it's when we have the resources to do it, we we add we add positions, right? We're going to have to do that with fire as well, obviously, cuz it's a it's the same thing. Um, but yeah, I don't know that I have a great answer for the long term because there's a lot of uh whatifs is

the override. The overwrite doesn't go through, if I remember your projection, you're looking at a reduction of how many in three years. you'd be you you'd lose three and three. Yeah, that would be

Yeah, I do not want to see that. We did a lot of work to get uh those positions in place. They've made a huge not to speak for the chief, but made a huge difference out there. Um even, you know, I'm not out there, but I listen to the the radio non-stop and you can hear it just in the radio. The amount of people, they're busy, but also the amount of people that are available for calls. So that you know when you've got one medical and a domestic, you can get enough people to cover that. As before when I started, you had two people on the road, you know, you don't want one officer going through a domestic dispute without anybody else there to to back them up, even if it's not at the exact same time. But um so I don't, you know, obviously don't want to see that go backwards, and we wouldn't have added them if they weren't necessary. So, um, yeah, I'm hopeful not to see that unravel.

Thank you for that, Evan. I appreciate it. Rick, so um, quick question back to the the command vehicle. I'd seen some, uh, people asking question. What What kind of things does, uh, Grafton do that would use that? And how often do you think, uh, based on your past that would have been useful?

So, not and it's not just law enforcement. And so it could go out for fire. Um but any so if you had a missing person or a missing child and you want to and you want to have a command center nearby. So recently, well last year we had we had a suicidal male on a in a power lines uh with a with an SUV and we had to we had to launch drones and we were in the area of um Leland Hill uh in South Grafton near the Upton line. It was difficult for communications and we had state police there. We had Upton PD involved. We had graft and PD involved. We had drones. So, we could we could launch it for that. We could use it in a situation like that. So, um we had a situation on East Street a number of years ago. We had a man we thought was barricaded with a with a fully automatic um rifle and we had state police, we had Milbury, we had Shuy, we had Westbrow, we had Grafton, we had Selex Swap. You know, try to imagine trying to do that off a couple three different portables running back and forth. Um, you have to be able to coordinate those those responses with people. You have officers in the line of fire. Hey, can you call Milbury PD and tell Milbury PD dispatch to tell the Milbury officer over there that they need to move as opposed to having that communication capability in the vehicle where we could change that channel and just make that call right there.

Um, it has it it has a weather station. It has uplink for websites and uh internet capabilities out of that. I don't know if we could. I mean, it's going in the IMA. I'm not a tech radio guy and but when you look at what what what the capabilities of that completely self-contained unit are, it's it's remarkable. It's not just critical incidents, too. So,

parades, large scale events where you want to you want to have a vehicle staged, right, that you can then patch in all your different communication links and everybody can talk at the same time and be able to coordinate response. So, we don't have, you know, the the Boston Marathon starting here or anything, but we do have, you know, some large scale events as does Westboro, as does the South Burough. Um, those are the members of the wreck. So, um, you know, you'll see it deployed for those type of things as well. What we do now is you kind of operate out of the back of a of an Explorer, an SUV with a whiteboard. Uh, we have a monitor at least for our drones, but it's it's difficult to do. And if you got weather related issues, this thing is fully self-contained, heated, air conditioned. That's it. Oh, it it it really is. We've got a mobile command trailer out in front of the police station that if to try to launch that, it's not even fully operational anyway. Doesn't have near the capabilities that this thing does, but you know, it gets snowed in all the winter. We had to hook it up to a pickup truck, try to drag it to some place to utilize it. So, if it's pre-planned, probably not that bad, but if it's an emergency situation, it's just not feasible for us to use it. And that that vehicle's 15 years old, that trailer

roughly. Yeah. And I still said it's not fully technology in that has marched on. Yeah. Significantly, you know, try try to try to create a link between highway that's on analog and and you know, Westboro that's on digital. Uh it is a happen out of that that thing. So it's really not functional at this point. So the new one would presumably be like housed in Westboro most of the time. I yeah, like it we'd have to work out the staffing and the housing and and the maintenance and all of that stuff with the MOA with between the departments. I don't have that information, but that's out of my wheelhouse.

Yep. It's it's one of the people and I'm not suggesting that this is way your question drives that, but everybody wants to have it in their community. Um, but having done a lot of these regional assets over the years, it it's almost better to have it stored in my house cuz you don't have to own it. You don't have to maintain it. You don't have to insure. You pay your piece and then you call and it shows up, right? I would advocate for them.

We before I came here, we had a $100,000 trailer that was built off of DHS money and it was awesome. Could do all the radio cross link. It had towers that would go up with cameras and all kinds of stuff. But it was a real hassle because one, everybody always wanted to take it and you had to have somebody there to be able to do it. [clears throat] And two, we we were the ones that had to house it and insure it and figure out, you know, where it's going to be kept and all that stuff. So, yeah, I suspect Westbrook with the largest financial part of it. I'm pretty sure they're going to want to keep it there. Yeah, I would imagine. Well, we'll get we'll get keys. We'll put it on the MOA. One for Chief and one for me. We'll see what happens. You can you can have it. [snorts] Uh, so what will we do with the old unit?

A surplus. We sell that on municipated surplus. That'll be that would be good too because it frees up some space down at at PD where where uh you know space is at a premium. Yeah. Great. Um, any rumblings about anyone else thinking about joining the wreck? It's been sort of up and down, but last year I recall discussing that, you know, it was going very smoothly and that there were people knocking on the door. Like, how do we feel about the stability long term for them?

My opinion is there's there's we have several tire kickers, uh, right now. I think that the closer we get to this being a reality, the more stable those tire kickers will become. Uh, and then you'll get about 6 months out, 8 months out, and we'll say you can't join until after it's live. Um, and then once it's live, then it becomes a lot easier because all that we have to do is flip the switch and the other communities in as opposed to, you know, it's a lot of work and and a lot of towns are just watching on the sidelines, I think, and of course, we'll come in after. So, somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to put in the investment and the time.

Yeah. And we I I know I I personally enjoy this part of it because we get to shape it however we want it to be. And then, you know, when if you sit on the sidelines and come in after, it's easier. Um, but you don't have as strong of a say, right? Um, you know, in the process, you kind of have to live with what's been built. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. So, we're willing to put in the work to offset that. Say, any additional questions for the chief? Great job. Thank Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you all for what you do and especially uh these years go. I know it's not easy. So, thank you very much. Somebody's got to do it. Thanks, Chief.

Thank you. Okay, moving right along. We have um Katrina from the library joining us. I do have a presentation if you'd like me to. Oh, that would be fantastic. Thanks. It's so nice to meet all of you. Nice to meet you, too. Welcome. Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to be here. Um, and I wanted to thank also trustees Carrie Hogan and Aaron Vansky for being here. And uh, thanks for Mr. Maher for uh, coming over and telling me exactly what I need to do here. So, welcome to Graphit.

Thank you. I'm very excited to be here. Greg is a a good resource for that sort of thing. Yes. All right. So, let's pick that one. Of course, I at the very end. Um, all right. So, uh, my name is Katrina Ireland Bido. I'm the library director. I've been here for about 4 and a half months. So, I'm still, uh, getting to know everybody and learning about Grafton and, uh, learning exactly what the community is hoping to gain from the library. But, I um took some time to go through our statistics. I've got some interesting projections and stats for you. and then we'll look at the the budget as requested. So, um our mission uh is obviously the kind of the guiding light for everything that we do at the library. Um we want to help people find and use information, develop their ability and provide materials. I just wanted a quick plug on this too. Um the library is heading into a strategic planning process that I'm hoping to get underway uh mid year. So, um, anybody who's listening and anybody at the table, we will definitely be looking for, um, [clears throat] feedback during focus groups and surveys. So, please keep an eye out for that at the, um, on the libraries newsletters. Um, so, the way that I see it, the library really has three core functions um, in the community. Obviously, the biggest one being our circulating materials. Um that's sort of the bread and butter of library services. That is the most important thing that we do. Um but more and more uh the programs that we provide the community are of value added to the community. So educational programs and outreach programs and that's the third

um branch is outreach. So, it's really important for us to get out into the community, build connections with um the, you know, the businesses and the town organizations and other community organizations because when we build that network, um we're just getting stronger. So, I'm going to talk about those three things. our collections right now. So, uh we have about 73,984 physical items in the library. Um our digital collection continues to grow. We're at almost 300,000 and that is through a um through our consortium. So, that's the CW Mars library network that helps us to purchase and have and maintain that collection. Uh we have a number of special collections. Library of Things. Um, sorry, this is in my way so I can't actually see it. Our local history collection, which if you haven't been to the the room in the building, it's air like temperature controlled. It has documents from like the 1700s in it about Grafton history and like old handwritten um like memoirs of old uh historical doc. It it's the coolest thing. So I invite you to come and take a look. Um and of course our museum passes are very very uh circulation has skyrocketed in the last fiscal year um across all of the um things that are listed here. So I just did books and then um ebooks and e audio. you'll notice a marginal increase in ebooks and e audio and a huge

increase in physical materials. Um part of that I think is due to the fact that the children's room was closed due to the flood a couple of years ago. Um but even still the adult books just jumped up. Um so to to respond to people who are saying do anybody does anybody read actual physical books anymore? Yes, they are there and there's they're still loving them. Um, so I put together a projection for this year. So FY24, FY25 and um it's just continuing to go up and I will talk about that at the end when um after we get through all of this. But circulation is um we're already at a point this year where we've nearly surpassed last year's circulation statistics. Last in FY25, we offered 1,557 programs. 33,558 people attended those programs. That is a fantastic number. It also continues to increase. Um we offer a variety of programs for teens, adults, children, families, all ages programs. And um I think one of the reasons that libraries have really leaned into programming is because it provides not just you know entertainment or education but really specific things like early literacy. Um we know that there's a loneliness epidemic happening in our communities right now and that helps to combat against that. Um, and um, I love how my one of my favorite things to do as a librarian is to build those community connections and bring in the expertise of other folks in the community into the

library so that we are utilizing everybody's expertise and experiences and talents um, right at the heart of the of the community. Um and the third I wonder where my photo went. The third pillar of library services I would argue is um outreach. So we have done 741 outreach visits and um served 5,871 folks in those visits. This is really remarkable. Out of every library that I have worked in, and I've been in libraries for about 13 years now, Grafton has the most robust outreach program that I have ever seen. Um the staff are so dedicated to getting out into the community and um talking about library services, connecting non-traditional users, inviting people into the building, teaching them about online resources that they may not know about. And that's really it's so important because why are we paying for a library if people aren't using it? Um so this is it's a wonderful service and I will look to continue to grow this. So some of the places we um go obviously the Grafton public schools, the clock museum, um any kind of outdoor um farmers market or um outdoor activities that Grafton has, we will always be seeking to be a part of those things. And I apologize, some of my photos just disappeared. [laughter] Um, and of course the library offers a number of other services, meeting and study rooms, reciprocal borrowing technology access, and the like. Um, I was very excited when I got here to learn about the community garden. I don't know if any of you are gardeners,

but what a wonderful thing. Couple of other statistics. Um, same thing there. Everything's projected to go up. So, our meeting room use um has sort of been flatish over the last three fiscal years, but we have almost already surpassed last year's number. Um so, do yeah, it's it's been um quite an increase. And the same thing with reference questions, although not quite a um not quite the as dramatic of an increase, but um projected to go up as well. And so I mentioned that I would address this. Um the anytime libraries um I'm sorry, let me rephrase. Anytime the economy takes a downturn, it is no surprise that folks are looking to um figure out ways where they can cut back. And so library sees dramatic increase in use when folks wallets are hit economically. And so none of this comes as a surprise to any of us in the library world um that these numbers are skyrocketing kind of a backward. Okay. Um using a calculator that the Massachusetts Library Association developed in tandem with a staff person at the Chro Public Library and then the main state libraries took it over. There's a return on investment tool. So, I plugged in some of our statistics for last year and um last year for FY25, it was a 373% ROI for the library, which I thought was good number.

Yeah.

All right. Now, for the fun stuff. [snorts] Um so, this is our um FY25 actuals versus what we've requested this year. Um the FY27 request reflects the um the deficit budget that I was asked to prepare. So the uh we were asked to remove $75,000 from our original request. Um couple of couple of line items that I just wanted to point out. Obviously repair and maintenance uh is a huge difference. This line does not include the I think $200,000 or so that we um needed to repair the couple that fiscal year. Um the the $20,000 will cover our contracted repair and maintenance. It will not cover any emergency repairs. Um, so the library's roof leaked this um this year. I think there's an ice dam there. Um, not going to cover that kind of thing. Contracted services we decreased um only because we're going to move um we were paying for copers out of that line and moved it to the rentals and leases. So that's why that line in the rentals and leases is increased. contracted services is decreased and um if the budget passes we'll um be getting rid of one of our printers to save little funds. Um let's see what else did I want to say? Guys got a quick question.

Oh, please do. Yeah. Is that a printer that the public has access to and and pays for or is that free to the public?

Great question. So, right now we lease two copier printers from uh Peak. The one that we keep will is the one that's upstairs that the public uses. The other one is downstairs in the children's office and the children's and teens departments use that. Okay. So, it'll be um inconvenient but not insurmountable. Okay. Uh what else did I want to say? um the periodicals line was decreased by about $1,000. And I I do think it's important to note that um so obviously you know that it is required that the library expends 15% of our um total budget on materials um educational materials and circulating materials and um I did make sure that we would meet that um amount in considering all of the decreases here. So, um we will not lose our certification based on any of the um the decreases.

And just a note on that is if we don't meet that, that puts our certification in jeopardy, which means we would potentially have to repay all of the money that we got for uh the library expansion and we'll be paying over the next or many years. That's it. Also, there was a state aid contribution too if you don't meet that. Right. This what do we get from the state for the library? Uh about $50,000 a year. We spend all of it every year. Uh most of it. Yeah. No, the the trustees have an account that the state aid. There's about $200,000 in state aid that's sitting in the account now. Yes.

I take it that's for emergencies and things that come up that they can't. Yeah. So that's typically what happens coming uh up to year end. I'll monitor their accounts and I'll I'll let the director know. Um so if they go in deficit, the um committee, the library board of trustees will make up for it. We do a transfer and then if they have any um past due prior fiscal bills um that then has to be paid out state aid. Um so Evan, in your red reduction budget or your if the overright passes, are we restoring any of this? Yes. What are we putting back in? 75,000. You go I give the whole thing back into for like fun.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not a not an exorbitant request for level funding. It's trying to make tough choices that no [clears throat] one wants to make. Could that fund be used for the ice dams up? Yes, it is actually.

So that's that's So I was going to piggyback on that. So we entered into um we actually signed an agreement. We have an agreement between uh the town and um the library board of trustees that we're uh responsible for the maintenance um and and we'll call it care of the of the structure, not the you know aesthetic piece of it and all the other things that go along with that. But um your regular maintenance type of thing. So um we don't we're not budgeted for that especially in fiscal 26 in our maintenance budget. So what we've been doing is um you know enacting repairs and then or affecting repairs and then going to the trustees who've um you know been able to cover that. Um so it's a good symbiotic uh approach to that I think. [snorts]

And the only other line item I wanted to mention was the programs. Um so obviously that's about a $7,000 difference. it would severely impact our ability to provide the same level of programming and obviously we should be making some diff decisions around that. Uh one thing that's not listed in this is um if the budget doesn't pass we would lose six hours of staff time per week um in the children's room specifically. So last fiscal year we gained about 10 hours um for one position and she would she would lose six kids. Can you talk a little bit about the programming because that's a basically half that's not I mean it sounds like it's not that much money but it's having what? Yeah.

Um yeah so we do a number of programs over the course of the year. We um divvy it out to to the different departments so that they can plan annually. Um the children's department uh needs funding for um April vacation and February vacation and summer vacation which is obviously their big very busy season. So we bring in a number of uh performers and activities to keep kids engaged over the summer. Um the teen room I've never I'm going to brag about this too. I've never seen a teen room like this. I've never seen um so many kids in the library after school and on the weekends just hanging out and engaging with the staff and playing video games on the couch. Like it is the coolest thing. And they do a wonderful job because it's so difficult to get teens in for special programming. Um they do a different activity every single day. um that's just sort of a passive thing that the teens can um opt in to do or not do as they desire. So I think that has u been a wonderful way to engage that population. And then of course the adult services programs do a number of educational um craft programs and home improvement programs um author visits and those kinds of things that uh require require funding. So, um if anything, um if librarians are anything, we're resourceful and we will um take steps to find free or lowcost programming to make up the difference, but um it would definitely impact the the scale of things.

Yeah. Uh you mentioned during our meeting that your first day in the job you found out your budget was due in a week. Yeah. [laughter] Have you have you had chances to dig into it a bit more since then or?

Yes, definitely. Um I've spent long hours with Mary. Thank you very much for teaching me how to how to get through all of that and with Eileen, our finance director. So, it's been um I've had a lot of time to to dive into our specific contracts, our building contracts, um the library specific contracts that we hold um under the contracted services line. So things like um our CW Mars consortium fee and then the fee that um we have to pay to Bibliotecha to maintain our ARIT tags and the automated handling system. So um I have a pretty good idea of everything that we have to pay for. We're still barely able to cover that. Um, but like I said, the if there's any kind of emergencies, we'll I mean, we've already been we've already been working very closely with the trustees to cover those expenses as needed. So, [snorts]

um, no. Oh, okay. Oh, um, I was wondering if you were aware of the trust funds that the library trustees have at their disposal to help with some of the money here. Yes, definitely. Uh we haven't had an in-depth conversation about the use of those funds, but uh they're certainly on the table and I think that's a conversation that we'll be having. Right. Just to um give you a little information, they haven't been used for 24 years. money. Um the library trustees had come to the finance committee when I was on it the first time

um insisting that um [snorts] principle had been spent. Mhm. Um, and I did an extensive amount of research and sent them a lengthy dissertation on the treat trust funds, what they were to be used for, and the fact that they had not been touched as far as principal goes and that a good deal of interest had built up in them. Mhm. Um, and last summer, um, Mary was kind of pulling her hair out with respect to things that showed up as trust funds, but she couldn't find any documents. Well, I found the rest of them for a variety of different funds that we have. Mhm.

And can provide you with detailed information on that. I don't have at my fingertips because I don't have the the the letter I sent to Mary.

Um the amount of money that has built up in interest. There's some work that has to be done on them to see if we can spend money. Um for instance, one of the trust funds specifically said used to be purchasing children's supplies for the Southampton branch of the library. Well, that doesn't exist anymore. I don't know what has to be done to change that if you actually have to go to probate court or not. But there's there's a pile of cash there that you could use for the reasons that are listed in the wills and the bequests um that some require sign off by the library trustees, others by the library director. Okay, great. I appreciate that. Thank you. How much is in those, Skip? Huh?

How much is it? I I don't know right off the top of my head. it. I looked at probably 30 of them and went to the probate court and got stuff from people's wills and all kinds of crut. Mary has it. It It's I think all of those are in vadar, right, Mary? Yes. Yeah. I think I have seen the um the the money. Yep. Definitely. And just for the record, uh the trustees, if you're going to speak, please come up to the microphone and state your your name and address. Thank you. Thanks, Har.

Hi, uh Aaron Vanderstein, library trustee 3 Institute Road in Grafton. Um now, I don't have the specifics on hand. Um but the library uh trustees have expended some of the trusts that are available, especially surrounding the renovation of the Graph Public Library. Katrina wouldn't have that information on hand and neither would I, but I believe Mary may have some of those um trusts and how we may have expended those.

Yes, I believe for the um during the capital campaign with the new construction, we did transfer I believe 120,000 out of one of the trusts. So, we have utilized some of the money. Um since then, we have not utilized um any trust fund money. Um to date you have $145, um $20 in in your non-expendable and expendable trust funds, right? So there's certain stipulations on some of those trusts where you can only spend up to a certain amount. And I don't disagree with um is it skip?

Yeah, I don't disagree with Skip. There's probably more we can do in terms of analyzing those trusts, but generally we try not to to touch the trust because they acrew interest and and um you know become an asset for the library in case we do need to spend them. Um but if there are extenduating circumstances certainly we can take a look at those. Oh yeah, it's all interest. That's what you can spend but there's an appreciable amount of interest in them. Yes. Um expendable um portion is $73,035.

Yep. Great. Yeah, we tend to go to the um the state aid fund generally when we have um you know operational funding uh expenses before we go to the trust because those are monies that were entrusted to the library um by you know patrons and supporters of the library. So we tend to go to those last and and first to state aid. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, [snorts] and we said there was about 200,000 in the state aid fund. Is that correct? It's a big Ruth. Yeah, that's nothing.

I just thank you for the presentation. It was very easy to understand and really well done. Um, I think like my kids are older now, but I know when they were small that we spent so much time at the library. We were a single income house. Did not have money for, you know, Apple tree arts, music programs or anything really. It was like, what can I do for free? Playgrounds, library. Um, and you're probably seeing the adult books go up because the kids books are going up. So, the parents are there and they're like, oh, I'm going to grab a book while I'm here. Like, you just get more people into the library with the the children's programming. So, thank you for what you guys do. I think that this is the kind of thing that is easy is easy to look at and say, "Well, we don't need that." But as a community, you know, the people that are actually living in Grafton and um working and doing all of these things, we do need the library because we need a place to take our kids when we don't have the money to do other things. And um I think without it, it just leaves a really big gap. And I think it's a a it's easy as you get older to forget what it was like when your kids were little and you you know needed those communities and those people around you. So um thank you for putting it the way that you did. The other thing I would say is that um you did a good job of um you know going through and taking money from where you could while still maintaining what you need to in order to stay within all of our obligations. And I think that that's something that people who don't really understand municipal finance think and they compare it to business finance and it just doesn't work the same. You can't just cut from wherever you want to cuz we have contracts, we have obligations. You do something here

and then you lose your certification and now you're in trouble. So it is not simple. None of these things are ever like you really can't reduce them to a sound bite or a meme or a you know three sentence thing that you can put out on Facebook which is I think where conversations tend to trend these days. It's like how can I say this in two sentences? You can't. It's not that simple. So, thank you for even though it's not simple, you made it, I think, very clear. So, nice job. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah. Beautifully said, Angelina. Abs. Absolutely. Um, thank you very, very much.

Yeah. Thank you. And we do have one piece of public comment. Oh, great. A piece of public comment. I don't know if that's the the correct unit of measurement. [laughter] They're close enough. Okay. Okay. Morning. Uh Andy Jefferson, 31 Weston Street. Um yeah, my my uh oldest is a frequent visitor to the the teen room. I know him and his friends really enjoy walking over there after school. They have a great time. Um like Angelina said, I made a note that it is very easy to sleep on the value that the library adds to the community. Um that return on investment number was incredible and I was wondering if you could speak a little more to um you know, kind of how that's formulated.

Yeah. Um it's an imperfect number. um as you would imagine because it's an imperfect tool, but essentially um it assumes the value of certain services and items that we offer to the public. So um an adult book might be worth $25 and a children's book might be worth $18. um and a meeting room use, assuming that if you were to rent something somewhere else is worth $20. And so I took the number of um times that we rented out a meeting room or a study room and how many items we circulated in different categories, multiplied it, and then added it all up together. um it doesn't take into account um some types of things that we offer like Library of Things. So, we've got some interesting items there like telescopes and um garden tools and things like that that you know you might not need to use more than once a year. Um but it's really difficult to put into a calculator. So things like that aren't calculated. Um outreach isn't calculated. So being going out and um visiting the school and doing a story time or um visiting the Crescent Manor and providing services or homebound delivery service, those kinds of things aren't calculated in there. Um but meeting rooms, reference questions, all of the different types of materials that we circulate, the ebooks that we circulate, those kinds of things were um calculated in that number. So that although that number is sort of difficult to quantify um and a little arbitrary, it probably also doesn't fully capture the full benefit of our library given that it's

kind of in between those four walls and doesn't necessarily fully encompass the things that we do out in the community. Correct. Yeah. Okay, that's super helpful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, thank you. [laughter] Well, thank you. I appreciate the difficult um tour you have in front of you and thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Take care.

Okay, we are on time. Um made up some time somewhere in there. So, our next item um for 10:00 a.m. is um Mary in in the paper. to have Mary here with us now. Uh the first line is um centered. [clears throat] Thank you. Hello. Hello, Mary.

How are we? I'm well. How are you? I'm good. You're the first mailing case I saw when I walked in. So, I'm happy to be here. Been here fresh and ready to go all morning. She's got her grafting gear on. So, I'm I'm going to speak on um the accounting and treasurer collector budget. Um so, we recently just hired a new treasurer collector and she started Monday. So, we're still get her budget done.

She had came off as good as the library director. [clears throat] Well, you know, I I Jessica, the prior um treasury collector, um she completed the budget, so you know, I I feel comfortable enough speaking about it. I didn't want to put the pressure on the new employee, but um she'll definitely be here next year.

I was I was just kidding. Don't we don't have to intimidate her on her first week. [laughter] Um so the accounting budget reflects no operational increases in expenses um other than contractual salary adjustments. Um department spending remains level funded while continuing to maintain and improve internal financial controls and processes within the treasurer collector budget. P500 was reallocated from professional and technical services to the tax title account. Um, in recent years, changes to the Massachusetts tax title law have increased administrative and legal requirements associated with managing the tax title properties, including additional documentation, processing, and compliance procedures. The modest increase anticipates a small rise in costs associated with properly managing and processing the tax title accounts. [snorts] An additional 500 has been added for the employee training and seminar fees. This funding will help support continued professional development for the department's new leadership and staff, ensuring they remain current with municipal finance regulations, accounting standards, and best practices. I also wanted to speak a little bit about um departmental activities and milestones. Um, over the past year, the accounting and treasurer collector office have completed several significant initiatives aimed at strengthening our financial oversight and improving record accuracy. With the assistance of the finance committee member Skip Courier, the department conduct conducted extensive

research and reviewed the town's trust funds. This work included reviewing historical wills, trust documents, and town meeting records to determine original intent and legal purpose of each fund. As a result of this work, several trust funds that had been inaccurately categorized were properly reclassified to ensure compliance with their intended purposes and accurate financial reporting. The department also conducted a similar reconciliation and investigation review of developer performance bonds held by the town. These bonds were reviewed and reconciled against the general ledger bank records and documentation maintained by the planning and conservation departments to ensure all balances and obligations are accurately recorded.

[snorts]

Additionally, the accounting department is currently implementing a new purchase card PCard program. Purchase cards are controlled credit cards issued to authorized employees and approved town purchases. The program will streamline small dollar procurement, reduce administrative processing associated with purchase orders and reimbursements, and improving purchasing efficiency. The program will operate under strict internal controls, spending limits, and monthly reconciliation requirements to maintain accountability and transparency. These efforts reflect the department's continued focus on strengthening financial controls, improving record accuracy, and modernizing financial oper operations while maintaining a responsible and stabled budget. Thank you. Any questions? [laughter] Thank you, Mary. Any questions? Um, looking at the the topline budgets for all of these, I mean, it's they're they're they're flat. Um, no essential movement. Uh, but it it sounds like you guys are also doing a ton of due diligence inside of your department to ensure that we do know where every single one of our pennies are, accessed or unaccessed. Uh, so thank you also, Skip, for being a huge part of that. Um, that's fantastic. Um, thank you, Mary. You're welcome. We know that without you, Evan would be a drift and it's sever. [laughter]

Oh, no. Oh, no. I I Mary, I just have one question and it it did come from some of the historical stuff. In the past, the treasurer collector's office had to do all the foreclosure stuff. With the modernization of that program, has it changed over? No, that's still Okay. Yes. And we also have Timmy. Yeah. Come on down. She's the department head for the assessor. Good morning. Good morning, Synica. How are you? I'm well. How are you all? So, well, thank you for coming down.

No problem. Okay. So, um let's see. We will start with our elected and appointed boards. That figure has not changed. Um the department head for department assistant and administrative personnel salaries are just contractual changes. Um over time hasn't changed. See you in ter um the BOA stipen. Uh that's for my uh designation um professional and technical there was um a significant increase in that um and I'd like to explain. So our we have a couple of databases that we use for our real estate. Our primary one is vision. Um, we were having some issues with uh updates for the database. Um, storage for photos. You do take photos of all the properties when we go out to do inspections. I believe at one time we had to add I think we had to add memory to to increase was that what we had to do to

be 100% honest with you. I wasn't listening to this getting [laughter] I was I was reading your note on what was the question the the vision server I believe we had to we had to increase the the memory in there for the we had to yeah it's a it's a virtual machine so we had to we had to reallocate

sover uh Vision does did have something that we could upgrade to. It's called Vision Cloud. They're responsible for the storage of all of the all of the data. um it takes it off of a server here in this building. Um so due to that there's an additional $6,600 increase [clears throat] and it's running much better. Um we don't perceive having any more problems. They also update regularly um behind the scenes and the remote access for vision to get in if we are having a problem is so much easier for them to be able to track any any potential issues. So this is essentially modernizing an old serverbased data.

Yes. Lake that probably was extremely inaccessible and clunky and we've now modernized moved it to the cloud which makes it easier for folks to come in and try to access their data. Well, I don't think I I I mean they would still be able to access their data. It just makes it so like the the server was having issues. Yeah. So we we have a server that's uh due for replacement in probably 2 years from 5 years ago. Um so uh shocking,

but it's it's also the the town overbought and I don't know what the con what the what the thing what was going on at the time but the server that we have is very large and very expensive probably too large and expensive for what our needs are. So when we offload things like vision to their cloud, when we do move forward with replacing the server, we can go to a smaller server um and not have to be as heavy with our replication because we're not storing that data ourselves. So that $6,000 a year won't pay for itself, but it does offset the cost of having to to buy a new server. We're also delaying server purchase because of the RAM shortage and and all that and it's crazy expensive. So so it right now.

Yep. It it I think it just protects the integrity of our data and you know Yeah. And one other one other thing is that we're not responsible for the security of it and the security of it is a a huge thing these days. So yes having vision uh manage that for us is is the way to go. So and with reducing risk. Yeah. I must have dozed off. Did you change your top in between? Yeah. When the police chief got it was fire and now it's police. I I also when I clicked Denver [laughter] is my is my wardrobe change in between in between acts. I thought I left the room and came back. Well, if the other departments would give me stuff, I would have more.

Be doing a quick change every Yeah, [clears throat] I' I'd do it, too. Oh, I would. I believe it.

Sorry, Tammy. That's all right. [laughter] So, uh, the subscription increase, uh, there's was also a subscription increase of $1,920 for vision and the web hosting, which was $270. Those are our typical um increases. Uh, the other program that we use a lot is is near MAP. So, there's a new $500 uh fee for near. What it's for is it's an uploader. So, it's connected with vision. So now it updates any information in real time. However, it only updates it with really the information as of 1 one. So usually the way that it works is I do my map change and then they update all of the owner information. I roll my database every January. I forward all of the the owners that took place. I take them from future owners to current owners as of January 1 because that's our assessment date. So that's all of the data that gets that got updated. So future owners, so if you just bought your house yesterday, it's not going to be on the website because it doesn't work like that. It's just current ownership information, but it updates the the owner information, the sale date, you know, um the deed booking page, things of that nature. So um that was something that's new this year. Uh we also had an increase of $800 for a new program um that we're using in conjunction with near MAP which was new about a year or two ago I believe we talked about it. Um we do high flyovers [clears throat] a year um generally April, June, July and then September, October. what PushPin does and what we did because this was the first year that we we used it was we took April of 20 I believe it

was April of 21 through April of 25 uh flyovers and I showed Skip when he came in to meet with me and what it did was it compared um all of the flyovers and it puts a little push pin and it sends me they send me a link I have about a 95 changes So what it does is it looks at every single change. It puts a a little push pin there and then I have a link to go to to look at it and then we we have to look at vision. We look at the regular NAR map and say have we picked this up? So I think the example that I showed Skip was there was a house that had an extensive deck edition.

Um we had already had it. So now we can you know we can check off that we got that. But that's something that we're using to assist us with trying to um you know collect growth. Yep. So it it's comparing previous year new years it automatically picks up that I I want to thank you for bringing that to my attention because it's been a lifesaver for us. A great program. It's a it's a very cool tool. Um and it it both near mapap and push pin together more than pay for themselves. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. One one building want to pay for itself.

Yeah. So it that increase and that increase was just basically they went from 25 cents a parcel to 35 cents a parcel. Uh I believe it's less than $2,000 and any changes that we pick up, we'll pay for it for that pretty much. Um any one change [laughter]

it. Yeah, it depends. Um so the next line item is our conference and seminars. There was no change there. That's what we use for um my continued education. Any of the staff to to go to um any continued education. Our communications line uh is the next line item. That decreased. We found a better deal. We have three iPads that we use when we go out in the field to do inspections. It's just uh it's we were going through cameras like crazy and batteries to try and you know we'd have to get new batteries every time because you're out in the cold in the winter time and the batteries die. So we switched to iPads. So that decreased uh significantly I think more than a half. Um next line item is our office supplies that hasn't changed. Instate travel hasn't changed. Our dues and membership uh increased slightly. Our Worester County Assessors Association dues have stayed the same at $84. Our MAO, which is the Massachusetts uh Association of Assessing Officers, uh that was previously $75 a person. There are three people in the office. They've increased it to 93. Unfortunately, they've increased it again to 100. So, uh we'll be a little short there. Um that's something that we have to have. They issue my designation. [laughter] Um uh Megan in my office I do want to highlight that um she has applied for her uh certificate of assessing administration. Uh so that's a new designation that the MAO is offering. So she's recently applied for that. Uh let's see the next the next thing would be my uh reval section and that

did uh change slightly. Uh that change we're in a three-year contract with Bishop and Associates, so we're tied into the same amount. So I haven't had any changes there. The changes are due to our personal property listings. Uh so the account listing increased $80. that was $2 per account. Um, this discovery and maintenance that they do where they come out, that increased $50 a day, so that was an increase of $300. And they assess our wireless and cable, so that increased uh $500. I

think I'm not saying Yeah, the valuation that might be under that's under the 142, isn't it? Yeah, but it's flat. Yeah. 312 both times.

Did it change? They put it in. We can review. Okay. Huh. That's from already tell I'm in trouble for that. Yeah. You know how much the total increase? Um $880. Okay. What was it? $880. That was a total change. That was total change. That wasn't me. I don't cut little things like that. [laughter] If you really got old apartments, they just did it. We'll restore it back. Yeah. No problem. Okay. Okay. So, that'll be one person. All right.

So, when somebody asked how clearly the finance committee reviews line item by line item, I'm use this example. Yep. See, $80. Did we change because maybe it was it was rounded and we did and we didn't change it. That that could that could be that could be it maybe. $32,80, right? Yeah. Well, yeah. 880 plus the what was there? The 32. There you go. Done. I already I already fix it. All right. Sorry about that. Magic of the internet. [laughter] [clears throat] Well, thank you so much, Tammy. Nobody has any questions. Well done.

Thank you, ma'am. We so appreciate it. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. Okay, so I'm going to take a very quick informal straw poll. We um Miss Miss Amy is on Zoom. Um but I feel like I'm getting we could use a bio break. We do Amy first. I have 10. Yeah, we do. This is This is This is my question. How are we feeling? Do we want to do Amy first and then Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we're gonna hold it and [snorts and laughter] we're gonna we're gonna talk to Amy and then we'll do a break before we start the Evan chat. Okay. Hello, Amy. Good morning.

Morning. Happy Saturday. Happy Saturday. How are you? I'm doing great. Yourself? Excellent. Thanks. um if you wouldn't mind um we're happy to dig right into your budget. Okay, perfect. All right, so starting do you need me to go over the salaries or do you want me to do the changes?

The changes are where we like to focus any any significant or or changes at all really. So the only change that I had in the entire budget was per for the professional and technology and that was due to a codification project that was um started in 2022 and they're now starting to apply their um annual fees to that and so that was the only increase that I had for the town clerk budget.

And what what is that project? So that project is um purchased through e-code 360 and what it will do is put um the town bylaws and the home rule up online and every time we have an update they will put the update in and then we'll just double check it to make sure that it's correct but it's an online program. I thought it might be it was mentioned in last month's uh charter review meeting that we were going to that

yeah and just to piggyback on that a little bit. It makes it a it makes it a clickable document, a searchable document. So it's we have that information online currently but just in PDF. This makes it much more interactive and uh hopefully user friendly to find the information that you're looking for. Thank you. No problem. Okie dokie. That's the only change at all honestly outside of um contractual salary increases. Yes. Doesn't sound like we have to hold it that long. No, I should know.

Can I just ask ahead on the um if we can do go to elections

for the professional and technical under elections. What is that? What's that made up of? So the vendors that we have there, they s we have like contracts with them to service our materials. And then also for each election, we have to have like ballots printed or um for the tabulator we have cards that read the ballots. They serve as like the poll pads for us and every time we have a new election we have to update the data in the poll pad for the current election.

Okay. Thank you. Can I get a question? I don't remember. I think it had something to do with elections, but um I have lost it.

Okay. I I don't believe we have any additional questions. Thank you, Amy. We so appreciate you taking the the minute or two to to chat with us this morning. Okay. Have a great weekend. You, too. Thank you. Okay. So I um propose that we take an 8 minute um break because that brings us directly back on time to 10:30. Second. [laughter] I love an informal motion. Okay, we will rejourn at um 10:30 after a brief recess. We are still muted, but I know that was a subtle way.

It's kind of like you have to do a search.

Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you very much, Amber. Okay. Um, thank you for that quick recess. We are back. Um, the next series of items on our agenda um are all to be covered by Advent. um if or or mostly with some some William and some some Mary sprinkled in there which is wonderful. Um just as a reminder for folks who have seen this in the past might be wondering where our recck director Adam is. Um I believe he is running a marathon or a 5K half marathon.

Okay. So I was both over and under on my first insulting on so many levels. He's running a half. So he will be with us on Wednesday evening along with the BBT superintendent. The new BBT superintendent I believe Anthony Steel. Anthony Dr. Steel. Mr. Steel. I think it's just Anthony Steel. Anthony Steel. I don't think it's [clears throat] okay. But Mister maybe. Yeah, Mister is probably Okay. Mr. Steel. Sure. Um as long as it's not Doctor. It's already Dr. Cummings and Evan. So let's get another doctor. [laughter] Well, they do every time. And they're like, "Dr. Cummings is here." Evan, at least we're not bitter about the whole thing.

No, no, no. This big [laughter] giant sized chip was a shoulder. Cummings doesn't like that either. Well, you can go. [laughter] I don't You could be incorrect. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You are a riot. Unfortunately, [laughter] Dr. All right, let's let's let's start Dr. Bernard. Okay. Honorary honorary doctorate. They don't give them out as easy as you think they do matter how many times you ask. [laughter]

Um, all right. So, I'm just going to go straight down the list. Uh, we'll cut through. Feel free to interrupt at any point and if you have any questions. Um, so we'll start off with the moderators department. So, uh, the only change there is we removed the $1,000 stipen. Um, that was at the request of the moderator uh to try to save costs. Um, [snorts] there is a $100 uh line item that stays in there and that's for mass moderators. [snorts] Um the select board uh again we removed the stipens. That's a total of a $5,000 savings uh that was requested by the uh select board. There is a small increase about 4.5% that is for the select board's administrative assistant which is Amber. Um and um you will also see um there's a change here. Uh no, excuse me. We are What happened next? We received they had our quote for next year and it was I believe like 30,000.

No, I know. But it got zeroed out in here soon enough for us. Yeah, we zeroed it out because it's going to be in the capital cuz

Oh, yes. Thank you. Yeah, that's going to be in the capital plan this year unless the override goes through um as a cost-saving measure to try to get that out because um every five years we have to do additional testing and reporting which is why it gives it outlier year at year five. Um and that is it in the select board category. Um, in my category, um, we have a 2% adjustment on my salary line. Uh, I do want to talk about the assistant TA cuz that's come up online a couple of times. So, I just want to make sure that we go through that. That shows a 10% increase. Um, and so if you go back 5 years, when I got here, there was no assistant town administrator. Um, that position had been uh removed and replaced with a uh management analyst. communication specialist, an analyst, and management analyst, something like that. Um, which I I didn't feel worked uh for the level of work that we have in the office. So, over um those 5 years, we've brought that position up. Pretty much every year, there's been an increase. Um those have all been done through the uh contracting process um uh negotiated contract process and uh in conjunction with different milestones that need to be met with different levels of responsibility. So um this last increase brings us to about where that position needs to be before you start doing kind of um you know more regular sized increases. So, um, you know, it's a pretty big jump over four years, let's say, um, or even over last fiscal year to this fiscal year, but it's a, I think, a responsible way to get the position back to where it should be funded instead of just going from,

you know, me as analyst to TS and TA and making that position uh, earn that. So, um, that's that's the story on that line. Um, we have uh the administrative assistant in my office is a 2% adjustment. [snorts] Um, we've got a change to deferred comp. That's part of my contracted package. Um, and then I think that's it for my office. Um, I will also show um done some work here in the professional and technical line. They've broken all of the uh consistent costs out the contracted costs. Um and so for everything from financial advisor, emergency alerting, all the different random things that live in the TA uh professional and technical line are are there and broken apart.

Appreciate you breaking those down so that folks can see it line by line. Yeah. I mean eventually [clears throat] one day maybe in the next year or two it would be nice if we could think about breaking down every department's professional technical goal because a lot does tend to live in that line and we get the opportunity to go to the department heads and have them load that nice transparency. Some of them do have it. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them do.

Um but we do have all of that data. We're just getting through it as we kind of get through it. But [snorts] um that was part of that um performance-based budgeting that we did. Um so we created a document that is every single line and every sub category of every single line, all the things that are uh you know um contracted out of that line. Um so that will become more and more robust over over time. Perfect. Evan, can you remind me again how much you guys cut when you went through and did your um analysis early on in the budget process?

So, originally it was probably in the neighborhood of about 60,000. Probably in reality is 20,000 because some of those cuts um don't really play out the way you think they're going to play out. So, our original findings of of kind of where we might have some efficiencies, not all of those panned out. So, it's only about a $20,000 thing. And and and to be to be clear, doing performance-based budgeting, [clears throat] which is an offshoot of kind of zerobased budgeting,

we already knew that we didn't have a lot of areas that we were going to find. We weren't going to find something we were paying for that no one even knew about. Um, you know, we found a couple confusing spots. I will be honest, or or company names that has changed that we didn't realize the invoice. You're like, who the heck is that? But, um, I think we did a real good job of recapturing that. So, yeah. And it was a nice exercise, too, for the new department heads, you know, so they could, you know, dig down and figure out like, you know, what are their contractual obligations going forward. So it it was a nice exercise

and and also that's the that's the way we budget that. So it's not a one time. I would like to see them using the notes a lot more. Yes. I was going to I was going to speak to that cuz I did get I got an email from Skip about the notes. I had one department head that was confused about the notes and who does the notes and how the notes. Um which I think we've since corrected. Um, and then I have some departments that are really good at it like police, fire, DPW. They do an excellent job. Really robust notes. Almost too much notes you'd say. You got you got no such bang. Yeah. The the best notes you've ever seen.

The bigest uh of all the notes. Um, [laughter] but uh some of them it just it's just a little it's more spotty than we want it to be. So we'll we'll tighten that up um in the years. it. Well, we'll tighten it up. Um, so anyways, uh, where were we? Any other questions on the TA admin [clears throat] department? Okay, so Fincom, that's you folks. Obviously, we didn't make any changes there. Reserve fund we left flat. Um, Mary's already talked town accountant, assessor, rebal, treasurer, collector, the legal budget. Um, Evan,

yes, sir. Second, we go back to the finance committee reserve fund. If if the override fails, Y and I know we were talking about that $354,000 as budgets get tighter, would you want to take that $75,000 and make it higher, put more money in that fund for unanticipated things that may come up because you're reducing? So, for example, in the library budget, you cut out $75,000. It could be something that comes up in that budget that you want to put back in by having a larger reserve fund in a lower budget. Does that make sense? Um, yes and no. Um, I don't know. We would have to drill down on that.

Something about Yeah, we had always held it at like 50 a long time ago and that's why it went from 50 to 75 was we felt that things were getting tighter. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it's a little situational. So, I you know, it's definitely not outside the realm of what we we'll look at. Um, currently I think we'll leave it where it is and we'll see how this this plays out. Do we know what the current balance in the reserve fund? I believe it's 14,000. Like we've had some big hits this year with the water line to this building and then the fire station um renovations, the electrical um issues that they had there.

That's a reason to consider it is, you know, 14,000 with 5 months left in the year. That's just not reform. Just something to think about, Evan. Yeah. Yes. No, that's a fair point. Um, okay. Sorry [clears throat] to ruin your No, that's okay. Uh, there is no real flow. It uh legal, um, is unchanged from 26. Um, see those notes are a little bit I got to tell you, talking about legal, I'm really, you know, we we had the um at the charter review committee meeting, the town council came into the to the meeting and just watching the quality of the legal counsel that you've had since you got here is just amazing.

Yeah, they're they're a great great firm. Uh Chris Brown is our our main point of contact who's fantastic, but honestly, their bench is is fantastic. Yeah, good firm. Um so I got to update the the notes on legal. So we had decreased it. Um but we put it back to where it was. Um because legal trends uh decrease due to utilization trends is not accurate as it was two months ago. So yeah. Uh so [laughter] I'm not going to [clears throat] go further into that.

No, you don't need to. Uh so that's I'll I'll fix the notes section on on that on that component. Um all right. Um human resources. Um so we have our this is really payroll and benefits is what gets captured in here. Um and just so everybody understands we do payroll. We do benefits for town and school out of that and retirees. uh payroll. The school has some payroll employees uh or a payroll employee that works in conjunction with our payroll employee to to do the the massive payroll that we that we have with you know 500 plus uh people.

Yeah, it's just a lot of work. Um so that department uh head uh there's a 4.5% increase. That's your your step in cola the administrative personnel. So that went up obviously at 1772, but that represents there was a person that did all of the retiree benefits. Um, and that position was a contracted position with a a vendor. Um, that person has retired and we have trained our staff to take over that responsibility and then um change their classification to reflect uh the increased uh responsibility and workload. Um,

do you recall what the what the contractor was being compensated at? Like is it comparable to this dollar amount? No, it's we we've gotten a bargain. Yeah, it's a it's I think it's about a third. Wow. Of what we were Okay, that's fantastic. If I remember this correctly, you Where is that? Is there a reduction somewhere because of that? So, it it's in the health insurance line. Okay. So, you're Yeah, it's in

Yeah, it's in there. And then it Yes. Um, [snorts] yeah, it was it it was a different and it was a different billing structure the way that it was built through our health insurance. It was part of the we had a we were working with a broker called NFP. So NFP is the one that helped us, you know, for the past 5 years actually much before we got here, but helped us, you know, along, but we've since parted ways. Um, and so the fee structure changes as well. Now we've got a now we're paying about $24,000 in consult 20 20,000 in uh well it had a two um in consulting fees um to help us manage uh all the employee benefits. [snorts] Um everything else in that line I believe is the same.

There's a note on increase on professional and technical that is probably not there since it didn't change. They may want to change that. Okay. was a carry forward from Rash. All right, we can just silently make notes on these things. [laughter] I have to point out every single thing.

Um, no. Okay, so yeah, we'll we'll we'll make that tweak. Um, all right. It um we've kind of gone through and and called quite a bit out of there as we try to make the budget uh work. um you will see that we kind of just went through and made adjustments across the board in that in that um so obviously that's not where we would want to be cuz we weren't doing a lot of things that were over and above. Um but it is what it is. Um if we do pass the override, we can look at kind of um fixing that line a little bit. Yeah, it just seems like everything with it is going up so much now with like memory costs and all of that kind of stuff that seems impossible that it will go down,

right? Yeah. So, none of that is with it's it's not stuff that's without paying shifts. So, we're shifting a lot of that internally. Um, so we've been buying our own RAM and putting our own RAM in those type of things. Um so

yeah we we had debt book I think we were paying like yeah 15,000 the previous treasur collector was using it so we were not utilizing that contract so you know we didn't continue that contract so there is a decrease that so I I do monitor um our IT and I I go in look what we're spending I review the contracts with the department heads and I've adjusted accordingly Um, we've level funded for our contract. We were thinking of um possibly hiring someone, but I think with all of the override um discussion, we're we're just going to keep it um contracted. So, I mean that that feel I know we talk about this every year when we meet about it and I didn't do it this year, so now you get it. Okay. um you know to it feels like and not that you guys are doing this but as a philosophy like you know with everything moving more IT you know everything is now electronic and you know all of the departments are utilizing it so to not have a central place where everything is like going through to make sure that we're all compatible and you know for security reasons that these things are not now putting information at risk because you know so like to not it's almost like with the construction to not have someone looking at this overall and saying like what is our it and does oh do all of these departments does it all fit together and is it making sense it's like being you know pennywise and dollar foolish like it's going to cost us money down the road so I don't know what the conversations have been with select board and it's you know not fantastic right now. But as far as like just kind of looking at should we have an in-house

IT department where we can centralize all of that and like what what does our consultant do for like so what do what do we use the consultant for the IT contract? Um so the consultant is all of our 247 like help desk support. Okay. Um there's a person on site from that company twice a week that does uh some of the internal um you know my keyboard doesn't work that kind of stuff that you know I can't get into my email and they go over and they shut it off and they turn back on and it works. It's a it's very expensive reset button that we have. Um

that that kind of stuff, you know. Uh they do all of our patch management. They do all of our security. They do all of our So we're we're currently uh we just made the switch to Wasabi. We're using Ashure. We've got a whole bunch of different things that are that are going on. Um, and then they monitor up our servers. They do all the PD stuff. So, they're CJ certified, so they can do all PD. Um, the fire department is kind of in the stone age.

So, we're bringing them them forward as well. That's part of that whole thing. Um, so we've we've I will say so we we've modernized a lot in four years. Like when we started, five years that we just hit. So when we started there was no patch management. The firewalls were had been expired for like two years. There was no service contracts, any of that. So we fixed all of those things. Um so again, you know, we had to go through and make this as lean as possible. This is not our first choice of what we're going to be doing, but we have limited places to to slow down. So, um,

you know, I I don't we haven't put the this doesn't put the town at any more of a security risk. That hasn't changed. Um, it's really nice to haves and things that uh, you know, are going to cause small pain points for us that we would rather not do, but we got to do what we got to do. I'm sorry. I don't I you know, we've we've kept the the the big items that would open us up to risk type. Okay. We bought a little tool kit. Can do our own RAM. So, it's $24.99 on Amazon.

Should have told me Mike would my son would have done it. Yeah, it's not it's not hard to know. I [clears throat] It is expensive now. It's DDR5 is through the roof. But anyways, um okay, any other IT questions? Okay, copers. Um we're the same town clerk. We just did election registration. We just did cable TV. That's that um show 40. Oh, cuz it's got the um that tone.

Yeah, he's not coming. Um um there's we've made no changes to Peg Access, so I wasn't going to ask him to come in and do that unless you have specific TV questions. Uh it's a self-contained budget, so any monies that we don't spend go right back in and can reallocate next year. Uh conservation commission, um we do have some increases there. Um so this looks like a 36% increase. It's not a raise for the department head. We were paying it out of wetlands fees. um and that account is not regenerating uh fast enough. Mhm.

And so we have to shift some of that into the operational costs. Um I don't think that that's a fee problem. I think it's the nature of the how they how it works. U we spent more than we were taking in, right? So we're going to we've moved some more out and that should help us reach equilibriums. Um and and we're still taking some money out of that. Or did we stop and we're going to come back? We stopped and we'll come back because it will be fully deped, right? Let it rejuvenate a little bit and then we'll we'll try to uh make sure that stays the same.

Yeah. And then the rest is uh uh 4.5% increase and then everything else is pretty much the same with the amount with the the difference of $300 for communications. Um that is a iPad

uh that has cellular connections. So when they're doing field reports, they can do them right there in the field. Um and that's uh it I think commission uh planning board. Um so we've left uh this uh department head um with a 4.5% increase. We have that job currently posted. So that could be subject to change uh up or down depending on how that negotiation goes and what we get for a candidate. Um the assistant planner um is a an increase. Mayor, do you remember what the outlier is on that? Why that's not the same as the other?

I think we were just adjusting. Yeah. In the previous I think we had to do a transfer last year. I'll double check that. Yep. That's I think that's what we talked about. I think we I think we underfunded that accidentally and then had to make a make a adjustment here.

Um and then this shows the planning board administrative personnel. This is the planning conservation admin position that has been cut. Um so obviously subject to that um other vote. [snorts] Um we've removed uh some funding for uh the consulting line um some training dollars. It's all small dollars that you know adds up um across the across the uh the account there. Yes sir. Uh can you talk a little bit about the impact of losing I mean I I my understanding is this administrative uh spot has been kind of unfilled quite a bit. Uh so

tough one uh removing that you know permanently hit what would the kind of impact be for these two department?

Uh it's a it's a pretty large impact. So, I mean, the the reason we created the position in the first place um was because we weren't doing enough uh field inspection and construction oversight from the conservation side of things. We didn't have we don't have the time to put a staff member out in the field and check up on these things and make sure that the the things that we've put in place to protect uh our wetlands and other uh other environmental issues are are being fulfilled, right? we say you got to put the sil fence here, you got to do this, you got to do that, can't be within x amount of feet of the wetland, blah blah blah. Um, so we are checking that, but it's not as frequently as we really should be able to do that. So, um, that administrative position from a conservation standpoint took some of the routine administrative stuff off the the the table and allowed our people more time to be in the in the field. Um, from a planning side, uh, you know, we are we are behind on minutes. uh decisions take a ton of time to write and we have a lot of inputs coming into that department. And so again, when you've got your uh your your uh department head and your assistant department head um you know, kind of in the weeds of minutes and some of the basic decision stuff, they they're not able to do those other things, which you know, kind of speaks to what Paul was talking about earlier with the we're saving money here, but we're costing ourselves money there. So the the planner can really drive some of that development and the economic development that we want to see uh go through, you know, responsibly and and technically on point to what the planning board wants to see, all those things. But when they're stuck doing minutes from a meeting, you you you don't have that ability.

One of the things that I did, I don't know if it would if it would work here, is in my I had the same problem and I agree with you 100%. Taking uh time away from that is is it really does cut into their ability to get stuff done. I created a line item within my budget, not a big line item, maybe 10 or $15,000 a year. And we hire minute takers. Yep. Specifically to take minutes for the conservation commission, planning board, finance committee, um, and a couple of others. [clears throat] That has worked very very successfully. It's taken the the burden of the minutes off of the the department head. That's something I know we don't have any money, but if you do have money down the road to improve efficiency, you might want to think about No, I I uh I I agree. We've done that a little bit which we we've done on a bless you.

We've [clears throat] done it on a smaller scale with um tax work off folks that's actually been pretty darn successful for some pretty short money. Um but we've we've recently been having conversations about either creating another smaller uh pool for minute takers. Um and then there's another option which is um it's called clerk notes. So, it's a AI tool that I was in an um they're using in college. Yeah. Yeah. So, those do they they work accurately? Oh, yeah. My son does that. He just phones out. Yeah. Oh, good. Yeah. So, there's there's pluses and minuses to it. Um

it's really just kind of spinning up in the municipal world. Um so, you know, we we've we've dabbled with it a little bit. The clerk notes is the best in my opinion. This is not an advertisement uh tool that I've seen so far, but it's also the most expensive course um by a long shot. So, we have dabbled with um you know, once you I don't have to go super far into it, but once you upload a video into YouTube, you can have Gen uh Gemini give you a synopsis, then you can pull that Gemini synopsis out and then tell like chat GTP or Gemini or whatever. Insert. I want you to make this into minutes consistent with telegraph and minutes. Yeah. Pretty. It's pretty and it gets you a pretty

lean [snorts] version. So, when we're talking about minutes 2018 for meetings that no one that works here attended, uh I think that's a that's a viable option to get us caught back up. I mean, we're we have a tax work off person in my office that's doing uh minutes from 2014, 2015, 2016 that were were never completed. Um, so you know, those are very detailed and and you don't always need that very detailed. You know, if you're if if it's a meeting from 5 years ago that quite honestly, who's looking at that besides Skip? Uh, thank [laughter] you. Yeah. I don't want I don't want to disrespect.

That's it. Um, no. So, you know, just the motions is is sufficient. Breathe. So, anyways, yes, I think that's a great suggestion, Mark. Long story short, I did have found that the they're not very good with names, but No, names is tough. Yeah, definitely. You need to review that kind of a the kind of the neat thing about again I don't work for Clerk Notes. Um video is not sponsored. This video is not sponsored by Clerk Notes. It might not even called Clerk Notes. It's got to work clerk. But at any rate, one of the things that you do is you go in and tell it like that's this is this person, this is that person, this is that person, which kind of cleans that up a little bit, which is probably where your cost comes in. But um yeah, we get some real wonky.

It's a good time. Um, all right. Will's very anti- AI. I am. It's taking over the world. That's just just in I'm not saying I'm super pro AI, but that that work. Your conduct begs to differ. [laughter] Yeah. Uh, you're going to revisit that town. Is this assistant town administrator budget right now? No, that I think it just got flushed. We can replace that role with AI, right? Right. Exactly. I'm working. [laughter] I do like the um AI gives me less sass.

Uh that's actually I' I've heard that there's a problem with AI being like very sick of fantic but anyway um the Yeah. So hiring that new uh planning uh town planner uh do you anticipate that having the uncertainty with the administrative role might be an issue for attracting 100%. Yeah. Um I think it was a a problem with retention. I think we've we've had three department heads leave in three months and their exit interviews. Well, I only know two out of three. I don't know what the third one is yet, but it was Fiona and she gave me a hug when she left, so I'm thinking she liked me. Okay. But [clears throat] um

Fiona left. Yes, that's a big loss. Yeah, that's why position, right? And so that's um you know I I think that that uncertainty drives that because even if people like where they work uh with all the uncertainty that that's kind of surrounding us they they'll look for other opportunities that are more stable. Um so I that said I I don't want to mischaracterize that. Fiona went she's the deputy planner at Somerville. She's very capable of being in a bigger place that does more urban planning and I think that'll be a good fulfilling career move for her. But I I I do think generally speaking, yes, it's harder for us to retain people when we have this uncertainty,

right? And we are competing statewide with places like Somerville. I mean, we we throw out like Axbridge and and North Bridge and and we should be concerned about those as as well, but it's a large state with a lot of opportunities to and and it's a different market, right? So, um if you looked at municipal service 20 years ago, most of the people lived in the municipalities they serve. Grafton currently, the last I looked, we had 36% of the people that worked here lived here. That that demograph that that is Yeah. school in town. So that has shifted dramatically. Um,

you know, most of us that work here now don't don't live here. Um, and so I I I don't know where I was going with that. That's just that's a shift, right? That's a that's a um so people aren't just looking at the next town over for a 7-minute commute. People are I mean um you know Fiona was commuting from Dorchester. Yeah. So I mean they get there's not a lot of planners right? So these these people will move for opportunity and and take that commute and do that. Salary does create job retention, right? Cuz I've heard I've heard some people say that people don't work for salary, but I really think salary matters. I I Yes.

Who says people don't work for salary? Who said that? Um, [laughter] right. So So I mean salary especially especially in the municipal world salary does drive our retention everywhere drives retention. I I know I was being facicious. Were you being a little facicious? No, I'm actually not being facicious. I'll back out of this conversation. Yeah, I'm sorry. You You definitely should back out. All right. All right.

So So yes, we are seeing some retention issues. We did a salary study about 5 years ago and I I think without doing another salary study I can tell you that we're we're losing footing because other communities around us or in the state in general have grown by leaps and bounds and that's hard for us to keep up with. Um so um sorry if you want to continue on that I have one more question about planning board.

Oh that would be lovely. Okay. Um or just maybe like a comment. I I have seen you you mentioned it about having at the tax work off and having that support. I know that other departments are are are doing that too. I think that's a great creative solution to find some savings. I mean I I think I'm not sure how many departments are doing that but it's it's it's a lot. We have this is the biggest well that I know I can't even say the biggest. It doesn't matter. I have no metrics to to back that up. big. Yes, there's there are we we have a a great robust senior workoff program in the town of Grafton. There's about 22 participants spread across townwide. Yeah.

Yeah. We have them in the town administrators, assessing office, the payroll benefit office, highway department, uh board of health. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. Clerk's office. Clerk's office. So, I mean it they folks are doing a lot of a lot of work uh in that program and it it's been it's been great. Plus, as an aside, we've built some really great relationships, I think, with with folks. Um they they really do get entrenched in the departments and it's it's really cool to see um you know, do we do we do any kind of outreach to grow that because I mean it's a very new

Absolutely. the Council on Aging. Yeah, we do it through the Council on Aging and their newsletter and and all of that and that's where we've gotten probably 95% of the people that are in the workoff program. So, [snorts] thank you. You know, I we were talking with um the DPW and they're telling us about how they the relationships they've created there and how just they really appreciate it. Yeah. So, I think knowing I was unsure how many departments are taking advantage of that, but hearing that is great to see. Yeah, it's awesome. It was when Mary and I came here, the previous community, it was like pulling teeth to get people to participate. Mhm.

Um, you know, wanted the program to be bigger and more robust and more helpful and it was hard to do, but here people have just really, you know, grabbed on to it and, uh, both staff and and people that want to want to participate. So, it's been it's been good. I think it's also a reflection on our senior center and council on aging, how engaged we've been able to help the community become. They are aware that things are occurring and they they want to continue to help out and be a part of it. I and and the depth of talent that we've had come and and be able to align people that had a career that are now retired that are doing this tax work off. It's been it's been really cool to see. I

mean, and also hats off to the the department heads to providing those creative solutions to try to find savings in their budget. I think that that is worth recognizing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. That was a great a great point. Um All right. Planning board. Thanks, Kit. [snorts] Uh, all right. Planning board. So, now we're on to uh ZBA. Um, just a minor change there. That's uh costal living. I'm sorry that we went to see the wrong person according to this list. What was that list? Well, this list, these were all yours, but we talked to Tracy about it. Oh, that's fine. You can talk to whoever you want [laughter] unless she contradicts.

I know. Unless I'm looking at this one, I'm like, is Tracy not coming in for this? Uh, no. I'm going to do it. Yeah.

Um, economic development, uh, we we called that office last year. Uh, Farnumsville Fire, there's a $300 increase. That's just, um, cost of energy. Um, South Graffin Community House, $4,000 increase. Again, um, cost of energy. Municipal Center. Um we've got some um changes to to sal uh to sorry to energy about 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7 10 7.69% uh 4.3% uh increase to wages um is that conversion of one part-time to full-time was that this coming year or is that a past

that's uh that already happened. Yeah. Okay. So, I left it in there because I don't I can go call that one of the Yeah, I'll update the notes. No. So, one of the things that just just to be clear, one of the things that happened, we refresh at Clear Gov and now ClearG brings forward notes that it didn't do before. So, we're there's probably there there's clearly some in here that we've got to we've got to correct that issue. I think there's also a comments feature separate from notes. Yes, I think the comments might be specific to the year.

I Yes, I So, I've gone through and moved the comments into notes because the comments don't pull forward and we want some of them to pull forward, but also I can't get them to print on a spreadsheet to show you, right? I can only get notes to print. So, uh it's a little it's a little wonky. It seems like you would want the notes to pull forward, but then you just go in and delete them if they don't pertain so that you

But yeah, but so one of the it's a double-edged sword, right? So you bring forward the notes so it refreshes everybody of like like you know if it's your standard 4 and a half% yeah just have it say salary and cola adjustment and then good that's a good note. Um but then some of the notes obviously change year-over-year and one of two things happens either if we don't pull the notes forward we wind up with these really thin notes that don't really tell the story and if you pull the notes forward people leave them and get complacent and then they're a four-year-old note. So you kind of you got to go through each time and we this represents a quite a good deal of work changing notes. There are clearly some some pitfalls in there.

Um you know it was frustrating the first year doing them and putting all kinds of notes in for the budget and then the next year Yeah. they pull up the to do what the budget for the park. I'm like Mary what happened to them all? She goes we thought it was going to pull them forward but it apparently doesn't. Yeah. So to Clear Go's credit in we told them that that's a problem and they fixed it. Now we're on to a different problem.

Now the [laughter] comments originally weren't they for like going back and forth us and and you folks, but again now we have an open media law problem. We have to make sure we're capturing that and make sure we're discussing that in an open meeting. So we've been using notes um almost as a reminder. So you see the little notes flag and it'll go in and Mary will say this needs to be updated still and you do that and then kill the note um or the comment. Yeah. But yes. Okay. Um so municipal center. Did I do this already? Yes, I did. Yeah.

Um unclassified. This is obviously our health insurance and pension. So pension's up uh 9.72%. Uh that's a $339,000 increase. Uh Medicare FICA relatively flat with a 1% increase. Uh group health insurance we're carrying a 7.9% increase. Wait, did you mean a 10 a 1% increase on the what? Mike Medicare Fus. Yeah. Yeah. 7,000. Yeah, I got you. Sorry. Was one line off.

Um our our group health insurance. So again, this is a 7.9% increase. That's a 10% decrease in what we had originally projected if we did not make a change. So I think that Thank you. I think that's a win. Is this one still coming down? As I thought you'd said it was sub seven. It is sub seven but we're going to leave a buffer there because we still have deficit and then we will still have runout claims. Okay. And and so we need to be a little bit um conservative. Uh yeah, we got to be conservative on that.

So it's current cost versus what we actually had, right? And then and then there'll also be we we'll have a warrant article on town meeting to move free cash to cover some of our deficit as well. We're not going to get that deficit to zero. But the the the call over budgeting the the percent or two that we're carrying here is really for runout claims because those can come up to 2 years after you move. And so we got to just hedge our bets a little there. That accurate?

Absolutely. and and I'll be able to budget a little more accurately like once everybody is enrolled in the new plan in the GIC um and and then I can um budget accordingly next year. Yeah, still much tighter than we were looking at. So, um very happy with that outcome. Um hydrogen rental, that's a a change that we saw. That's uh South Grafton. They went up by 2500. Um so we have a agreement with North Grafton. That is uh $20,000 flat fee for hydrant rental.

Um and in exchange for that, we offset um building fees, right? So they're doing these massive water treatment plants, obviously a public need. So we we kill those fees and they charge us less for hydrants. So that was a deal we did. We do not have that deal with South Graph and Water District yet, but we will be approaching them to try to see if we can just cap that and and make an exchange for for uh fees and Oh, we also get we get we don't get charged for water as part of that agreement. So for municipal building, correct? Oh, yeah. You get charged. Yeah, we don't

pay my water bill. I get charged for water. [laughter] No, we we uh so that's a I think that's a a symbiotic agreement that we have with the water district and and I I think that's an awesome opportunity to go to South Grafton as well and and have that same Yeah, they we we hadn't because they're typically so much less sure uh than than the Grafton water district. Um but it's just a matter of of getting them to they al they also have a baseline of I have ne in 28 years I have never gone above the baseline usage. So yeah. Huh. Um yeah, but but 24.5,000 is doesn't it sneeze? Yeah. I I meant what just the water usage.

But if we could if we can agree to cap it at say 20 and do the same agreement and I I and I don't foresee [clears throat] that being an an issue. They're very reasonable people. We just haven't locked up that that agreement. We don't have too many municipal buildings in South Graton Water District Barnumsville and community. Yeah, I mean my my philosophy as far as like the fee structure or our our building permit fees and all the rest of it is that you know these are grafting residents. They're going to be paying you know you're you're shift you're just shifting money from people's pockets and also you know the the treatment facilities that are being built currently are greatly needed. So we'd much rather get out of the way and

get that accomplished. Um okay. Uh fuel we've left level. How you feeling about that? Well, you know, less good than two weeks ago. Yeah. See what happens. So, what was what is different town insurance versus is that insurance for the town itself? Yes. Okay. That that's just our casualty liability workers comp, right? Do you know where we're at for fuel this year? Um under that under Yeah. Yeah. But we're all got we we just I think we just got another delivery prior we we have a a contract so that we're for see a consistent

and we recently increased it a couple years ago. It was a 100,000 and we did increase it uh by another 50,000 um when we were having those energy crisis a few years back. So I I think we're okay. Okay. Is this specifically for the pumps at police and DPW? Yeah, no pumps at the police station anymore. Okay. Yeah, all our fuel is is at DPW. Okay. So, that that pump is just sitting there doing nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Put out on eBay. Um the mobile command center. It's a it's a bundle deal. Yeah. [laughter] There you go. Must take both.

Um All right. Police and fire. We've already talked about uh inspector of buildings. Um, you've got a 4 and a half increase. That's for the um department head. Um, you've got the, uh, assistant is where we carry the, uh, part-time inspector as well. So, that's where that $32,000 decrease is. Uh, there, that's one of the proposed cuts. Um, so we'll still have two inspector eligible people in that office. You have the building commissioner who's also an inspector, a local inspector and and now no longer a part-time inspector. How is that going to affect things for

uh well slow down our ability to inspect? I mean, we we added it because we got such a high volume and then we were running at like a 100 day, you know, uh or no, we were running, sorry, 100 day, we're running a backlog of about a 100 prints at any given time that, you know, it's just as they came. we just never could could catch up. So, you had people waiting, you know, uh 2 weeks, 3 weeks, you know, for inspections and for plan review and all that. So, that that helped us bring that way down. Now, we're, you know, we're running a backlog of 30 or 40. Um, so we're able to to stay on top of it. So, how long have we had that position? This the two years.

Yeah. So, without it, we can expect to go back at least. Yeah. I mean, the work will get done. and it just will take long and that was one of the primary complaints that we were having at the time. Yeah. Is is time time it takes [snorts]

um and that can also affect our uh you know business friendliness and economic development. Yeah, that was that was a big part of why we did it was not only for, you know, people building a deck that had to wait 21 days to get a permit back. You know, it's it's uh you know, there's there's a lot of workload when we're doing these big projects that the building the building commissioner should be focused in on and and to make those processes smoother. Um we're it's actually really nice. We're doing a project right now off of uh Westboro Road to 124 Westboro Road, which was um was a DAM property that the town held market and sell. And uh the the principal pulled me aside after one of our last meetings and said this is the easiest place she's ever had to had to work. Um or not the easiest, maybe one of the easiest, but she was it was it was a great compliment cuz it's that's no one wants to go through the permit process, right? I mean, I don't even want to be in here while they're doing it. I'm like, "Oh god, this is a lot,

but [clears throat] that's the way the world works." And for us to be able to get people to say it's a great process, you know, that's a that's a huge win for for us. So, well, that's the word that we would need to get out too cuz I think that the overall sentiment was not that, you know, 10 years ago. Correct. It was the opposite. So, it takes a long time for the reputation to change. It does. It does. Um, all right. gas inspector, plumbing inspector, small budget, small changes. Um, sealer of weights remain plumbing inspector. Is this the decrease? A

I I played around with some of the the salaries because um I' I've noticed in years past we had it a little budgeted high for plumbing and every year I come back to FinCom and Select Board and I have to do intra fund transfers into um the electrical for wiring. Okay. So I just shifted some money around. Yeah. Right. The the plumbing and the gas inspector are the same person. Okay. So it's just where when they where they're working. Yeah.

Yeah. Um sealer awaits we didn't change. Um got a change for the wiring inspector. We have a new wiring inspector. Uh and that shifted rate. Um we had someone retire. Correct.

Yes. Just making sure. Okay. Um emergency management unchanged animal control. So this is a good exercise in us making a mistake. Um, so if you remember, uh, folks were real mad at town meeting last year because, uh, we were paying $98,000 for for animal control. And admittedly, I didn't really have a good answer on town meeting floor. Uh, one of the ladies, uh, Barbara, she comes to our senior center, real mad at me. Um, so we went back and looked and that was a an error in the contracted amount. We were paying the entire assessment and not just our assessment.

Oh. Um, so we didn't pay them anything, right? We didn't we didn't that money went nowhere. We reallocated it when we went back through the budget again. But this reflects the actual cost, which is about $50,000. Still, I think going to be too much for some folks. We'll see what happens to me after town meeting this time. Maybe they'll just be happy to see a decrease of 48. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I don't I'm going to say I'm going to say that's a hard think they listen to you or you listen to them. Well, that's how I'm going to spin it. I'm not that I'm not that great. Jonas, you did listen. Oh, I did. Yeah, they were correct. They were correct. They were correct.

Um, okay. BBT, I'm going to leave that uh for uh Mr. Steel to discuss when he comes in. Um, we can talk about that a little bit. I do want to understand. So, if you don't mind.

Yeah. So, I when they come in, they're going to give a presentation on it. Okay. um they're going to they're going to have, you know, hard data, but essentially what's happening is um you know, other districts have um some metric where they look and say, "Okay, you've got 800 um people in your um eighth grade class. So, we're going to we're going to take a percentage of that and that's what's going to be allocated to your town, right?" Or they might do it based on population or they might do it based on economics. There's a lot of different ways that they can do it, but BBT hasn't really historically done that. They've done it pretty much all by merit now that the the state is pushing uh us into the lottery system, right? All these places have to be lottery now. Um they are readjusting the number of seats to to be to be um tied to the number of um eighth grade students that you have that would be applying. So what that does is Grafton is is pretty skewed. We don't have as many seats as we should based on the number of potential applicants. So um so a lot about kids getting weight listed. Is that what the issue is right now?

Yes. But also other towns that have a much smaller percentage have more students per percent per you know. You know what I'm saying? So um so what they're doing is readjusting all of that. And it turns out because this is the luck that I have of course uh we are the most out of whack out of all 13 communities. Are you serious? Yeah, I dead serious. But again that does that confuses me cuz don't you guys every year Anthony comes in and says how come Grafton doesn't have have more students? They don't no one's applying and that so I don't understand. Well and that was well that was also wasn't that Dr. Fitzpatrick that was coming. Yeah. No, both of them would say and they they had increased us once a while ago, right?

That kind of was a substantial wacky on the money and that was sort of the justification back then, but it wasn't, you know, the whole the state idea is, oh no, it's got to all be proportional. The the only well not the only good part of this. There's two good parts. one is that crafting kids that want to go to tech school, public school will have more opportunity to do so. That's that's undeniably a good thing in my opinion. Yes.

Um however, the the other thing that comes out of this that I I think you know uh future Evan will enjoy is that once once this reorganization is done, the number of seats available stays pretty much the number of seats available. So the wild swings that we would see before when they would come in and say you have six additional students this year and then you'd watch that bump kind of go through and then they would fall off and then we'd have a decrease and then you know it's always that push and pull. Um that should become much less because the seats are the seats more predictability more predictability right and so that makes sense sense so you'll see an increase.

Yeah. So I think you know 28 is probably 13 seats. Oh yeah. And then uh that's gonna be a lot big increase. So is it tied to the high school grade population is how what is it tied to again? It's tied they're tying it to the the eighth grade population in each school. Okay. So like the number of students that are that could potentially apply. Okay. And pull forward. So Dr. No. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah, we did it again. I did it again. Um, Mr. SE uh Mr. Steel uh when he comes in and we'll explain it much more eloquently than than than I am here. Um,

that's a good explanation though. Thank you. But that's the that's the nuts and bolts of it. So, so basically the state is saying we have to send more kids, but they're not going to give us any more money in So, the state isn't saying we have to have more kids. The state is saying that admission has to be done via a lottery. Yeah. You can't break kids. But you're say I thought you said that this new like changing how many students we have there. That's a BBT change because the state is telling them then they have to have more kids. Oh, no, no, no. I think they're just happening at the same time. So BVT is changing is is making there's a there's a word for it and I'm going to say it's amalgamation, but that's not what it is. But can do we have any say in that?

It's realigning all of that. Well, we have a school committee rep and the school committee is the one that takes a majority of the school committee to vote on it. Grafton has some So, our school committee can decide. No, no, the BBT school. Each town has one representative that is elected by everybody in all 13 communities in the evenear election governor election. I got so we will be electing our all of our we will be electing all 13 BBT school either one of them or doctor well that's that's the only thing we have going for us so just so I understand the BBT school committee correct is going to decide

or has already decided has already decided has already decided to increase or to change right how they're accepting students based on the population of each district's eighth grade students. Yes, we have more eighth grade students proportionally than like their little ratio. So now that's going to be shifted, right? There'll be more seats for draft. No saying that. Well, well, you do cuz you elected the person on the school that and we voted for the legislators that voted to change the whole thing anyways, right? He's been on but now we have no say in path, right? So, we're going to pay another

not really. They I I will say and and again when when Mr. Steel is here, um we can have that a deeper conversation with him about that. Um he was uh very willing to try to work with us to to ease Yeah. It was not that they came in and said, "Guess what?" [laughter]

Yeah, they were they were they they get it and and understand that this this would be a burden and especially given the current climate and the conversations that we're having. So, they were well aware of that and I I really appreciated their tact of how they came in, explained everything and and showed us um you know all the other communities and where those shifts are going to happen and and there's communities uh around us that are losing seats that are upset with that as well, right? It's a that again it's a double-edged sword. Um yeah, I think I think um we res maybe reserve that deeper conversation for I appreciate the explanation, but that's the ascent. I just wanted to understand it. I appreciate that. I didn't mean to derail the

No, no. There's supposed to be uh uh they they told me they made a video that explains it. I have not been able to locate said video. Um so as soon as I have that, I will send that out to the group as well. uh change.

So, and they I will say uh on the other the other part of BBT and again they'll go into this but they they seem to have done a really excellent job in managing internal costs. They're they're flatline or their increase is 1 point well it's actually they said it was 1 1.9 but it's really in in our budgeting world it's 2.2 because of how we had done it last year but at any rate it's about a 2% increase over last year. So they've got a combination of personnel cuts. Um I think their contract with the teachers is a 0000. So um they've been doing a whole whole bunch of stuff. Um and and he will go into depth on that when he's here. Okay. All right. Engineering. Paul talked about highway. Paul talked about sanitation. Uh this is our enterprise fund. Uh we have released our our bag fee estimates and gone through that whole process. Um folks are jazzed. [snorts]

Excited. Haven't gotten any any complaints whatsoever. Um this morning lot of positive feedback. Yeah. Um which I get it. It's a it's another change and another fee. Um, but we're trying to educate and we'll we'll have some more um educational materials coming out next week that talk about what what you're actually funding. Uh, I don't think a lot of folks understand that the bag is you're not paying so much for the bag, you're paying for the service and and you know, tying that together. One thing I hadn't seen I I thought I passion along is the uh page you throw website lists the size of the bags, but it doesn't list the expected weights. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we can we can make that tweak.

So, I think it's still worth pointing out that there there is a you know 2425 still in that account. Uh and that is for the DPW DPW stuff, the municipal center. Every municipal building that generates waste is inbound. So, that's for the dumpsters basically. dumpsters and then the and the other uh you know the the public use dumpsters that we have as well up at none of that's the DPWA. Okay. So, one one other thing I think people get hung up on is the price of the roll and if you break that into the price of each bag. Yeah.

I think that that makes it easier for people to understand like oh well I use this number of bags and this amount of time and yeah so we have some educational materials that have come out about that. I will just tell you that in my experience explaining to people that the cost of the bag does not go any better for me. [laughter] Really really on weight. I I would I would counsel to stay away from the weight because we could lousy load of bags. Well, there's there's a but the the so the what what I think Gre Greg is getting at too is one the bags have a weight rating and people stuff them with more than they're supposed to have and then they fail and then

um and sometimes they just fail. I get that that's it's plastic extrusion. It's is kind of what it is. But um the other part is that you know all all that's all that's pegged to our tipping fee, right? And so you we're calculating x number of bags with x number of weight. So, um I think I [cough and clears throat] think it is primarily aimed at well I I put the stuff in the bag and I pick it up and it rips. Well, it's probably a good portion of that is because it's overweight, right? But right as I I have seen the weights, but I've only seen them in the actual the last time the contract was approved with by the select board. I think in the in the weight zero contract. Yeah.

Yep. Um and we've had a lot of conversations with folks about the quality of bags and where we get the bags and our procurement process and all of those things. So um we'll have we've been actually it's been helpful because we've been taking those uh questions, comments, complaints and making them into kind of a FAQ to help drive some of that because there's questions that I wouldn't have thought people would have but it's great to know that cuz I'm sure that's not one person. Yeah. Of course. Um okay. Okay. Any other sanitation? Is that professional and technical moving into the enterprise fund? The Saint professional and techn the 90,000. Yeah.

Yes. That's that's to purchase the bags. Okay. Thought we already did that, didn't I? Yeah. It's just started. I was asking why it was going to zero. Oh, got Oh, yeah. Thought we missed it, but no. Okay, gotcha. Um, that's also some of the part-time labor has been also supplanted by the senior workoff program. Correct. Yeah, that's another place we utilize senior workoff folks.

Um, okay. Um, snow and ice. Uh, we've level funded to where we were for this current year. It's pretty far for the courts. We had increased that by 50,000 maybe 3 years ago, four years ago. um just because you were always in deficit and this has gave us a little reprieve from that but this year like we said probably uh you know in the hole by 200 to 230 somewhere in there. So we'll see that at springtime.

Yep. Um street lights we've left uh level parks and cemetery uh Paul covered health department there's a small increase um of about 3% one is for the administrative assistant and one is for the actual um contract where the heck is that I scroll past oh right here uh 2.5% increase for professional and technical that's our alliance that we have with Shrewsberry and um West West Boilston. Yes, correct.

Okay. Council on Aging um slight increase. Uh it's all staff positions. So, we do have a new council on aging director. Um these are our two outreach and ad administrative positions. Um and or this is outreach. This is um what do you call it? Uh the the Yeah, it's the assistant plus our our folks. We have a few other folks that are wrapped up in that line like our um activities coordinator and um that might be it in there. Yeah, I think so.

But no no major changes there. This is the nuts and bolts of it. We add a little bit um for repair and maintenance because stuff is starting to get a little bit older and it's costing more money to veteran services. Um fairly self-explanatory. So um just regular cost of living adjustments there. And uh yeah, I'm not I'm just I have the microphone. You'll listen to what happens. Um [laughter] so um but uh we did the only the only major change in the district is we shifted uh a part-time position. We had two part-time positions. We consolidated that into one full-time. I cover it well.

Yep. Okay, great. Um moving on. Um library, we've covered w new equipment was a new line this year in veterans. Yeah, that is for um for a new laptop that is separate youth old and fall. And so we we've going to we made that a consistent line item and we'll just keep refreshing some technology here as we go. Um the library we've covered wreck is coming in Nelson Library. Um the short of it is we moved you want questions. Anyone? Anyone? We we hearing none. Moving right along. Yes,

we moved money as as you heard before over into the cemetery uh and parks department because they're going to do the the maintenance. Um I think that is all my stuff. So can we spend time now on the contingency budget? Exact contingency budget. Mary's next. Or did you already go list over account with debt and everything? No. Yeah. So the then we just have your retirement debt and your interest and so those all correspond with our debt schedules. So those are changed every year.

Do will we have a chart of town meeting showing uh the debt coming off over the especially over the term of the potential override? We Yeah. Yep. Um, [clears throat] we already have that in our debt schedule, but we'll put that in the warrant. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can get you that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just send them what what you gave me. I think that's the Okay. What you see the bar gra they show as she said to me comes off. I would just forward it to fin. Yeah. [snorts]

All right. So again, a small caveat as we talk about this. Oh, sorry. Are you still going there? Okay. Um small caveat as we look at um the contingent budget. Um because as as I mentioned the the vote happened last night about I don't know 6:00 6:30 6:20 6:20. So, we have not built the full contingent budget. You stopped working after that. I I um I actually didn't [laughter] but I didn't work on this.

As as I not noted, we've changed the trash bag fees. So, I was answering correspondence. And um anyways um so the only thing that is is an outlier here on our reductions and changes is if you look at this fire prevention officer that was a proposed position. So the fire chief asked for two. We carried one in the budget. One would become fiscal 28. Um so that would not be entering back into the equation cuz that's fiscal 28. Everything else on here is what I would be putting into um the contingent budget. Um the only well we haven't discussed the MS4 and whether or not we do that immediately or we put that into you know what that what that looks like in in this particular comm.

Since you're getting really good at answering questions on enterprise funds. Sure. I'll make my annual pitch that I've been giving for the for the water one. Yes. for the for the for the MS4, maybe another uh enterprise fund for that. It could be very successful. I know. I know you don't like me saying it every, but every year I feel I need to add that to the conversation. You do. Mary saying no freaking way. Very very consistently. I actually I think you add the over on that. [laughter] I'm telling you it worked. [clears throat]

Yeah, I know you are. I know. And I appreciate it. But I think it's a it's a valid uh valid thing to bring up. So has there been a conversation with the select board about whether they want to have their stipen restored if the uh override pass? Uh nope. Uh so again just to be again it was it was last last evening. So uh we will build the contingent budget out because there are other things in there that we've reduced that aren't part of this like real reduction. Right? the IT piece we're talking about, they some of these smaller things that I think are important, but that aren't necessarily reflected here. So, we're going to work on the contingent budget over the next couple days. Um,

and Jay will go over what his contingent budget is when he next week. Yep. Yep. Yes. I've only had a text conversation with Jay since last night, so we we've got a spool back up. Um, we we did a lot of the kind of preliminary work, I think, on what a contingent budget looks like and kind of what our our messaging is and things, but we didn't have the number, so we didn't hone in on on creating, you know, the final document. So, we we'll work on that. I know one of the one of the things you have to do for the override vote is put a description on the ballot. Has is that something that's in in process? Do you already have a general idea of what that's going to be or is that does that have to be a select board discussion?

Um, I don't think it has to be a select board discussion, but it is definitely a council discussion. And again, we we're not Yeah, that's got to be formed, not that's not that's got to be straight. Yeah, I mean, we've got we've got previous ones to work from, but um I'm going to just engage council immediately on that. But again, I'll do that. Yeah, because I I know they say you you have you have to follow that description for year one and then after that it's right whatever. Yep. So, we got to we got to kind of work work that that's what we got to work on. Not kind of. That's what we have to work once it all.

So, the um you kind of going off of that uh MS4 comment. Yeah. um [clears throat] with the uh the 5-year forecast being 5.7 million and the override proposal being 5 million. That's 700,000 that you need to find somewhere in those 5 years. Y

um you know that's the the MS4 is a a big chunk of that. Um, and um, I'm not going to ask you for anything to do with last just the evening, but um, like are are you going to be like presenting um, kind of what those $700 might look like coming out of the budget? Cuz like you presented a whole bunch of different scenarios and this wasn't one of them. Yes, I'm I know. Um, yeah. Which is why I'm a little like I

Right. Right. So I think the short answer is is probably not at least not at if we're talking about town meeting probably not. I think my role at town meeting is to say here's the balance budget. Here's an contingent budget that is filled when you do that 5 million for 5 years. Um I think that's a conversation that we have in here through the budget process. And I think um you know I'm not saying we we we'll be 100% transparent with it, but I just don't know that that's a like the the number is the number now that's going to the ballot. So I think I'm going to focus on this is what this is what we're going to be able to maintain. So I guess my my kind of two cents as one of nine members here.

Yeah. Um I would hope that we can move forward what is you know the the level services budget for next year. Yes. and not scramble to make, you know, find a few cuts to to throw in there because of that 700.

Yeah. So, I think I I think that it I mean I won't guarantee that. And the reason I say that is because again, we've got like the BBT thing happening and we've got some other things that are on the forecast on the horizon and we're always trying to become tighter, right? So I I I I'm not I'm not confident that we're going to have the exact level services number that we had when we started the budgeting process. I think it'll be close to that, but I think anywhere that we've we've identified efficiencies or changes um you know, and I think there's other conversations that need to be had like the the $104,000 for Silver Lake, right? So that gets us through fiscal we're we're already going to get through fiscal 27. Fiscal 28 is when you know that falls apart. So, um, are we adding that back in or are we not adding that back in? Right. So, essential things like the the engineer I think is a no-brainer. I think the assistant in planning and I think the position that we have in building, those are all my penis areas that we're going to absolutely make sure get in there. I think the rest of it kind of needs to be discussed in a broader way. What one of the things if you you're not talking about eliminating theund,000 or whatever the MS4 thing is from the tax base you're just taking out of the tax rate and giving it to the people to pay anyway. So that's really a point, you know, if if you

Well, I think we're talking now about attempting to make whole that $700,000 gap. In which case, I think what they're talking about is putting that into an enterprise fund, which means you're just moving it into people's you're still going to take it out of people's pockets one way or the other. One way or the other, everything's coming out of somebody's, right? Yeah. If we if we keep it out of you know spending onetime funds on it which is not the ideal best practice it then we're not doing I mean it reduces our maybe and and it may be a combination of two things right I mean we really I don't know if I told you this but we got the number last night at 6 so we're you mentioned that

yeah so um we're going to work on that you know coming up Monday Tuesday we'll we'll kind of come up gather our thoughts on on that because to to your point Dan that wasn't a number that we had run a scenario with so that you know that that changes things and um we we'll we'll we'll get it done but

so that the 104 for um Silver Lake I know during some of the conversations we thought maybe we could reduce the hours and keep it and that kind of thing. Um, I have to say that like when when my family was young, again, one income household, we sold our original house to get a bigger house when we had our third kid because we were going to just get divorced if we didn't do that. And um we looked at other towns around and Silver Lake was actually one of the things that kept us here because I said, "What in God's name am I going to do with three kids, all different ages during the summer?" And that was for $100 or $50 or whatever the permit was. I could go down there whenever. They would play with their friends. Like I think it's one of the one of the benefits of living in Grafton is having that lake. And I would not have been comfortable with my kids swimming in that lake without lifeguards.

Absolutely not. So I I just think that these are the things that seem like, you know, kind of easy cuts to make that actually affect the life of people living in Grafton, right? Um, and it's a lot of times it's young families who don't have a lot of money. So, I just think that we all need to kind of think about that and I know we all do, but yeah. Yeah. One of the things with that, too, is it's not really a direct $100,000 savings because you're also wiping out the permit fees that we would have got, which I think Well, I think that is the net savings, right? No, it's not. No, no. There's some there's some income that we would lose, but it's like 12 grand or something.

Yeah. I I don't remember what was in there for that. It's not It doesn't cover the No, it doesn't cover it, but it's not It's not nothing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean I Yeah. Well, I think you're with us. You're preaching the choir. Yes. No, I know. I'm saying it for the benefit of Yeah. I mean, I' I've heard about every single cut that I proposed, right? Yeah. And to be clear, none of those are cuts I want to make, right? They're not cuts cuz I was like, you know what would be good? Let's go to the beach for no apparent reason. Right. like it's these are these are difficult decisions and I'm trying to find we're trying to find collectively to to close that gap.

Yeah. And you only have so many things that you can cut because we have obligations that we have to meet. We have certain expenses we have to pay. So I am definitely not directing this at you. You don't know what I'm saying or agree. But yeah. Yep. Eric.

Yeah. Well, we we do hear a lot we'll just trim the fat just make the cuts and I mean Leonus kind of does have to go back on the asker, right? like what would you like to seek out? What services are you willing to lose as a as a resident of the town? And those are that's it's a really hard question to answer. Sometimes folks can, sometimes they can't. And it's not a it's not a judgment call against that that at all. Like we are the fat has been trimmed. We are bare bones and the the level of services that we enjoy today are going to cost the amount of tax dollars that we are now charging. anything less is is is a loss of some sort. Whether it's $75,000 worth of programming at the library, whether it's $104,000 worth of enjoyment time at the lake. Um, and that's just year one and then we look at year two and year three and then all of a sudden we've losing three police officers.

It's a different kind of service that you're starting to lose at that point. Um, and and I just think it's important that folks really think through the implications of of not funding the the town of Grafton to the level that we anticipate, expect and deserve in in my opinion it it to be funded at. [snorts]

So, another topic that we've talked about here on the committee a couple times and we've seen uh other people ask about is the additional CPA uh search charge. Uh I know it doesn't seem like the select board is really interested in that. Um we had talked previously about uh what we have for outstanding obligations uh because we would have to continue collecting until we can fund those obligations. Uh just based on the last year's bond payments, which are actually a little bit higher than this year's bond payments, we're looking at $830,000 left to cover those obligations. and our unrestricted balance at the uh once we get our uh money for this year is looks to be over a million dollars. So I I think it would be feasible to do something like that if the voters wanted to use that to help offset some of the costs of the override. I know there was some discussion yesterday about well if we're doing multiple override options then we don't actually that was Friday or Tuesday but if we're doing multiple override options we don't want to also throw in the CPA option but I think with only one override option on the ballot then giving the residents the choice of do we want to continue to fund this which was great when it started when we were getting 100% match from the date, but we're only getting like 20some percent now. I think that's something that uh we should seriously consider and give the give the voters the choice about whether they want to continue supporting.

That goes with the same conversation as we were having with Paul on the on the road stabilization reduction. So that's part of the overall I think part of the discussion the select board had yesterday was that they want to look at the the override and give Evan and Jay time to to look at the other levers to pull which I appreciate. One thing I wanted to say to to Evan and to Jay is the amount of work that you put in over the last several months coming up with these different scenarios and these different numbers was a ton of work. And what was a little discouraging is to sit there and throw out numbers without any facts behind those numbers I thought was a disservice to the hard work that you and Evan did. And I just want to say publicly to you and to Jay if he's watching or listening, thank God for the two of you and the hard work that you guys have done. And I really appreciate that as a taxpayer for the time of grafting.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. [snorts] So, and I think I' I'd like to make a motion that his new title be doctor. [laughter] We create an honorary doctor. I'll second that. Yes, we do. I've got MS pay. We can do Okay. Excellent. Excellent. That's going to the charter review committee. We'll be changing that a lot job [laughter] title. Okay.

Absolutely. [snorts] I don't and I don't think that the um select board didn't want to talk. I think they just said that they wanted to talk about it after, not that they didn't were interested in doing it at all. My impression was that it was like we're going to if if we throw it in now, it's going to complicate things, which sure I think that's not incorrect. It was definitely one more thing, and it's definitely one more thing that nobody understands what it is, generally speaking. So we'd have to somehow message it to help people understand what they were choosing. Um it is however a huge amount of money [laughter] that is being collected in taxes and used for this specific purpose which when you're looking at what our deficits are it's it's oh I don't know 70% of it or something like it's a it's a big chunk of the deficit. So, I am hugely in favor, as I've said several times, of looking at that and, you know, giving people the choice of where they want to spend their money, but I don't know if it's going to get done before.

I think that stuff should be on the board. Do we add another 2 and a half% to that this year even? Um, so they they did discuss that at one of their previous meetings and I think we're we're planning on not increasing it to 2 and a half%. At least the road stabilization I thought is something that came up. Maybe we didn't decide. I'm looking at Andy cuz he's actually on the board. Yeah. Um [laughter] but uh maybe it was just brought up and not discussed. Andrew Jefferson, [snorts] chair of the select doctor [laughter] Dr. J. Everyone here.

Yeah, I'll never be going for a doctorate. Thank you. Um again just speaking uh for myself uh as I recall the conversation going um when the um DPW advisory committee was in we asked them to run through some scenarios and figure out kind of where if there was a an opportunity to reduce that responsibly um because we had discussed [clears throat] that um that stabilization was initially put in to improve the quality of our roads. Now that we've done that, can we reduce it to a point where it's maintenance instead and you know without the improvement? So

yeah, we expect long and short uh long story short I guess we expect them to come back with some suggestions in the future. Thanks Andy. So just one note on that for those that may not be familiar. If we reduce our amount this year, then that is the new baseline going forward. Uh and can increase by 2 and a half% from there each year. But increasing that again requires an override vote. So anything we cut now is cut forever basically for road stabilization.

Yes. for either road stabilization or capital stabiliz which are both things that don't affect the budget numbers but affect the end taxpayer costs just like CPA. Mhm.

So that's one of the reasons why I think looking at CPA at the same time allows us to educate the public about this. So, so like we have the calculators like here is here is here's your cost next year if you don't have it. Here's your if you don't pass the override, here's your cost if you do pass the override, and here's your cost if you pass the override. And we uh eliminate the CPA search charge. So, all those things could be together at once and it lets people see, okay, here are here are my options. I can vote yes on this and no on the other one, and here's what it what it'll do to my to my numbers. So, if we did the CPA, what? So, we have to fund what's out there.

Yes. Do you collect it all up front and stop after a year or two or do you pay as you go? And if you pay as you go or discharge the debt, it depends on how the debt it depends [clears throat] on how the debt was accumulated. If they did a long-term bond, they they have to appropriate that money each year until they can refinance the bond. If they did it as a pay as you go, then the then the town can make a decision if they want to increase that CPA tax and it give although I don't think you can go more than the one 1% once you do it. So I think you're stuck with the long-term financing,

right? That's kind of wonder whether you incur like the the money that has to go to the affordable housing trust. Does that continue to go? you know, like we we put 10% into the three categories every year and then the projects and stuff like that. If we had to continue with it, is it that stuff plus getting rid of the debt that we've incurred already? So, what what I've read, not being an expert, looks like you have to continue to fund the things you've already obligated for. Okay.

And from looking at the last treasurer's report from February 26th, my I believe there is enough money in the accounts to cover the remaining three and nine bond payments. So I don't think we would have to continue collecting any any money to cover those. So the CPC as a committee will continue to exist until those are paid off. Did that Yes, that's the sense it seems. Yeah. Yeah. So, I sent the IGR over to the committee last week or the week before. Yep. Um and it does talk about that a little bit. Um like every other IGR. I think it's

talk [snorts] to town council type of thing. Um but that's that's a general sense that I I have as well after reading that that IGR. Um yeah. Yeah. I was I was on a my business trip during the week. So I had not No, that was that that was so it was sent on. What is he doing? No, no, he was saying he had time to read this. Well, he wasn't paying attention, Greg. No, he was not.

I I did [laughter] I was going through foreign customs and all that stuff. So, I decided not to bring my personal computer in addition to my work computer. So, I didn't do that kind stuff while I was there. noted. Thank you, Greg. Um, any additional uh relevant topics as they pertain to either the FY27 budget or to the override proposed last evening again at 6 p.m. What was that? I didn't hear it. I did actually get to see because I was stuck in an airport. Uh,

all [snorts] right. Seeing none, um thank you everyone for attending uh the FY27 budget municipal hearing. We will see you on Wednesday to continue the discussion with uh Mr. Anthony Steel from BBC, Adam Point from Grafton Rec and your finance committee. We are journ Thank you. Still a point. Thank you guys for being here today. Yes, absolutely. Where else would