Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. It is seven 30, Thursday, June 25th, 2026. And I call the finance committee appointment committee meeting to order. Um, Don Anderson is here, Dan Kusher?

Here.

Okay, they're here. Amy Berry could not be with us tonight, but we have a committee of three and two is a quorum, so we are in good shape. The first item on the agenda is the Finance Committee Annual Appointments for which there are four seats. Before we move forward with the appointments, I want to take a minute and thank Heather McHugh for her 18 years of service on the Finance Committee. She did not seek reappointment this year, and I just wanted to share how much I have appreciated her thoughtful, dedicated work supporting the town of Grafton over the last five years as my terms moderator. So there are four open positions, and two of the members have asked to be reappointed, Mark Haddad and Kyle Quirk. I will entertain a motion to reappoint Mark Haddad and Kyle Quirk to the Finance Committee with terms expiring June 30th, 2029. So moved.

Second.

Second.

Any discussion on the motion?

Nope. Nope. I am good. So all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. I declare the motion is carried by the required votes. Congratulations and thank you both for your continued work on finance committee. Mark, I hope you are enjoying California. We also have two vacant seats that need to be filled and due to the requirements of our charter, these seats have to be filled for specific zip codes. The first one must be filled by a resident of the 01560 zip code. For the seat, we have one applicant, Amy Marr. Amy, would you like to come forward? Is that a mic? It is. Can you hear me? Yeah. Bill's saying we can hear you. Awesome. Okay. Ms. Marr, tell us a bit about yourself and why you are applying.

Great. So I'm Amy Marr. I live at 36 Perry Street, South Grafton. You might remember me from six years on the school committee, during which time I also served five years on the Capital Planning Improvement Committee. I was also on the later start times committee prior to my time on school committee and I really started to get into financial stuff at that point because one of the mitigating factors and being able to have Later start times is money We would need far more buses than we currently contract for And that kind of really got me interested and kind of learning more about finance how the money is brought in how it's spent that led me to run for school committee. And again I spent six years doing that. I negotiated contracts. I learned about school budgeting and over time I started to dig a little bit more to the municipal side of things just because we're all pulling from the same pot of money. Right. So I've learned a great deal and I would like to continue to serve the town on the finance committee.

Excellent. Excellent. In your letter, you mentioned wanting to advocate with the state for how the money is distributed. Yeah.

I'm a strong proponent of fixing the broken system. We, Finance Committee primarily, we do with what we can, right? We have this pot of money we make sure the town is allocating it appropriately. That's the job on finance committee, but I feel like, um, as a member of finance committee, my voice would be a little bit louder in advocacy as I've done previously in my role in school committee. There are a lot of problems with the way the money is allocated. Um, the millionaire's tax being 1 of them, we were promised that that money would be. put into education and while it was technically put into education, it didn't make its way down to public schools in a meaningful way. So I would like to continue my frantic letter writing campaign and go to some events and talk to some people who might be able to help us fix it. In addition, I know that the school formula is being addressed this summer and I'm following that very closely to see kind of where that goes. Opportunities for public comment and I'll be sharing that out to members of the committee so that they can have their voices heard. I'm very passionate about this, as you can probably tell.

I think you are aware of the time commitment, especially when it comes to the lead up to each town meeting and the budget time that we have. So just, you ready?

Yeah, my kids are grown and they don't need mom anymore. I've got one going off to college in a couple of months and my daughter has moved home. So she doesn't need us either. She can cook for herself and that's fine. So I'm ready. I know what the time commitment is. The only other real drain on my time is I'll put in my plug that I'm president of the Westboro Community Chorus and our time commitment is much smaller.

Any questions from the appointment committee?

Uh things I was going to ask have been asked.

Okay we do have two members of the finance committee here if either of you have any specific questions.

I was going to ask about your if you attended the town meeting but I know you were there so. Yes I'm a frequent flyer when it comes to town meeting.

Okay. I will entertain a motion to appoint Amy Maher to the Finance Committee with the term expiring on June 30th, 2029. So moved.

Any discussion? Did you make a motion or am I seconding? Sorry.

You are going to so move and I will second. Is there any discussion on the motion? Hearing none, I will take a voice vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, I declare the motion as carried by the required votes. Congratulations, Amy. Thank you. Thank you so much for stepping up and for coming here tonight.

Great, thank you so much.

The second seat must be filled by, yes, sir.

So because that one is required to be the 01560,

should just so everything's clear that would be the one that gets appointed immediately to fill victoria's seat is that correct no it's just that well tether seats that's the south grafton so if you wanted to match them you can do that but i also don't see a reason why you couldn't give either of them either.

Yeah, I know what you're saying. So we have two vacancies because we had two people leaving.

But Heather's still on until the end of June. Then that that means we still have two people from South Grafton.

So I think that doesn't matter.

It's also a difference of six days or seven days, I think so.

Two, but no more than four. There has to be at least two. And that's Heather and Greg and Amy, but there can be no more than four. So even with the overlap, I think we should be fine.

Okay. Cool.

Okay. Now, for the second seat, which must be filled by a resident of the 01536 North Grafton zip code. That one I know. We have one applicant, Scott Hall. Scott, could you come forward, please? Introduce yourself.

Hi, Scott Hall, 6 Glenwood Lane, North Grafton. Everyone. Those I know and those I don't. What would you like me to share?

I've read through your letter of interest. I think your qualifications are excellent. I love seeing people with strong financial and auditing backgrounds. And your work on the Trails Committee means that you're not completely unprepared for work on a committee. Yes. Which is great.

I'm now carrying that one, so different experience.

Why are you applying?

Yeah, I thought about this when there was an opening the last time around, but didn't end up putting my hat in the ring at that time. It's just been an interest area to get more involved with the town. And so then I just elected to do it through the, through the trails committee last year. Um, so, you know, I've been much more involved and interested in aware of, you know, the town in its situation over the last year and a half or so, particularly as we've gone up to the override, um, and I've been a lot more prolific. So it's really just an interest area to be more involved and more, you know, influential, you know, I suppose, um, you know, you know, give back, participate, contribute, you know, just all kind of that standard stuff.

Um, It is a lot of time. You get to spend a lot of time with the people on the committee. How do you feel about that?

Yeah, I expect that, right? It waxes and wanes, right? Yeah. Depending on the season.

Fall town meeting is pretty easy lift for the most part with the review of the warrant because You're like, is it depending on what we have for articles on the warrant, but then you roll into. Budget season, and then looking at the spring more, which can be a bit more complicated. Sure. But in certain years, I'm sure. Yeah.

Yeah, I just thought when I, when I 1st thought about trying to join this committee was the 1 that was targeted just because of my background. Corporate accounting and fund accounting, not quite the same, but I have I have that in the back of my mind. So it just seems like a natural slide. And then there's room based on the size of the committee to come in and learn a little bit and get your legs wet, so to speak. So it seemed like it was a good a good entrance. And now that I have a little experience with town government, I'm a little better prepared for it.

That's great. Dan, any questions?

Have you, do you feel like you're familiar with, you know, municipal finance and how the kind of the differences between municipal and private sector? I mean, you don't have to be, I guess.

Yeah, the idea of funding isn't unfamiliar to me. You know, have I spent a bunch of time in it? No, but you know, I understand that. I understand the concepts and I'll learn. Quick come on.

Yeah.

I'm an analytical researcher. So what I don't know today, I'll, I'll pick up.

Yeah, finance is a really great place to pick that stuff up.

So yeah, I think the, the In my experience, since I became more involved in town government, I'm seeing a lot of people really learn about the nuts and bolts by being on finance committee and then taking that into other roles within town government, which I feel like this gives you a really strong foundation in how things work and just the uniqueness of a municipal budget, which is its own challenging challenge. Yeah.

Yes. It's very central.

So do we have any questions from the finance committee?

Were you in attendance at the town meeting? Oh, yeah, certainly. Perfect. And in defense of it, if you were. And then maybe, quickly, thoughts on the town being override dependent for the last few decades or so.

What are your thoughts on that? It's inevitable. I mean, it is what it is, right? So until our general court makes a change, this is what we're going to have to be. So someone on the select board gave a great analogy. that it's a subscription service model, right? If you're subscribed to the magazine or the Netflix and you wanna continue to watch your favorite shows, then you have to re-up the subscription. And so, unfortunately, none of us like it. Nobody wants to pay more taxes, but how much more can you really do? This is my take on it. How much more can you really do here at the town? There's some tightening that may be able to be done here and there, right? And it'd be interesting to see where some of those opportunities are, but it all sits with the general court. I have a little bit of a lesser opinion on this subject with them than I would with you guys for sure. Maybe Amy's voice back there will crack through.

To get some change where it actually can help.

That's what matters. Thank you.

I will entertain a motion to appoint Scott Hall to the Finance Committee with term expiring June 30th, 2029. So moved. Seconded. What? 2028. 2028, sorry. Amend.

So moved. Seconded.

Motion being seconded, any further discussion on the motion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

I declare the motion is carried by the required votes. Thank you so much for stepping up, Scott, and it's going to be wonderful having some new faces on the stage. Great, thank you very much. Basically the only time I ever get to see any of you guys. Thank you both for your time and your talent. Finance Committee does so much behind the scenes. It is vitally important for our local government. And I really appreciate the commitment that everyone on the Finance Committee makes supporting town meeting, but also throughout the budget process. A lot of people ask about line items and really drilling into it. And that's what you guys do. And you do it long before anyone else is paying attention. And I appreciate it so much. Our next item on the agenda is our meeting minutes. I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our meeting on June 25th, 2025. So moved. Seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. I declare the motion has carried by the required votes. Is there any other business? Usually not. I will entertain a motion to dismiss.

So moved.

Seconded. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. I declare the motion as carried by the required votes. Enjoy your summer everyone and thank you for coming out tonight. Have a great night. Thank you.