Select Board - Regular Meeting

[music] It is 7 o'clock. We're going to call tonight's meeting to order and start with the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat]

Okay. Grafton Recreation will host a someone special dance at 7 PM on Friday, February 27th in the Municipal Center gym. Kids grades two through five can bring a parent, grandparent, or any adult that is special to them. The cost is $15 per family. Registration for Grafton Rex uh spring and summer programming opened yesterday morning. Visit graftonre.com for details. Um, as a just quick forward note as it pertains to tonight's meeting, we have overflow space set up in conference room F. Uh, we are currently close to capacity. If once we get there, we will start directing people up there. But if you also want to spread out, there's more room up there. Um, public comment uh will also be available from that room. We have the smartboard set up, so easy peasy. [clears throat] Okay. Uh, we have no public hearings tonight. Is there any public comment for any non-aggenda item? Mr. Me? [snorts] Well, it is an agenda item uh but it's in exe executive session. So, I'd like to speak about the TUS pilot program payment in lie of taxes that'll be in executive session at the end of the evening. Uh Grafton is TU's largest campus. It's not the it's not the not the largest student population. But 20 years ago, uh, the town started with a $55,000 pilot program. After 10 years, it was increased to $61,000. The payment now is $71,000. The payments in the last agreement increased by 2 and a.5% each year. Our [snorts] agreement expired in June of 2025. TUS currently has 554,000 square feet of buildings [clears throat and snorts] in use and over 400 acres of land. They will be starting a new building. Actually, they started the new building [snorts] uh already and it's 30,000 square feet. So,

their total buildings uh once that building is complete is 580 4,000 square ft. When these negotiations started with myself, Mark and Evan, [snorts] I suggested to the dean that we could base the payment in lie of taxes on a dollar figure per square foot of the buildings in use so that every time TUS constructed a new building, we would get an increase. The [snorts] dean was not opposed to that, but he said we would need to meet in September of 24 because that's when they started their budget process. It's uh February of 26 and it's on the on executive session for later this evening. [snorts] Just to give you an idea, 584,000 square ft at a dollar a square foot gives the town each year $584,000 with an increase of 2 and a.5% over the 10-year agreement. In 2036, the town, if we had that deal, if we do that deal, would have received 6,542,771, not including the new buildings that TUS will be constructing in the in the next 5 years. The money would reduce the pro proposed override, and its money can be relied on to provide relief to the taxpayers. TUS does not provide a discount to Grafton residents to bring their animals to be treated. They do provide lower tuitions and facility uses for Medford, Somerville, and Boston.

[snorts]

Um, just to give you an idea of of some some of the other uh pilots that are in the area, WPI pays $815,000 a year to the city and during their agreement time they will the city will receive $9 million. Clark University pays $412,000 per year and during their agreement time they'll get $6.7 million. Medford Tus gets paid $600,000 plus 700 $759,100 in property taxes. Grafton gets 11% of what Medford gets. The percentage does not include the split of 5.8 million between Medford and Somerville annually from TUS. Somerville TUS [snorts] uh they pay $415,000 based on a 2018 agreement plus they get half of the $5.8 million. Uh Boston Tus gets1,247,564. Grafton gets 005% of what Boston gets. I don't know what the current negotiations are, but getting paid the per square foot will cover the existing buildings and new buildings that TUS plans to build in the in their their current uh aggressive 5-year expansion expansion plan. [snorts] I hope that the board negotiated a fair deal that brings us in line with Somerville, Medford, and Boston. If not, the taxpayers need an explanation as to why we're not going to be in line with other municipalities. With with the override looming, the taxpayers need to know that our elected officials are looking for all ways to decrease the tax burden and reduce the

override to everyone in town. Thank you. Thank you. [cough and clears throat] Can I just get a clarification? Can I ask a question to Ray? [snorts] Just be cautious of it because you haven't talked about it in executive session. Yeah. No, it's just a point of clarification. So, I have notes uh done some work on this I know that they've voluntarily expecting questions in that's okay. I'm sorry. So I know they voluntarily increased to like 450k. I wrote in Somerville, Medford and Boston. So you said Boston is a different number than that. Boston is 1,274,000. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Okay. Anybody else for public comment? Okay. We have a couple appointments from the town administrator tonight. We'll start with the conservation and planning department assistant. Uh Miss Brown, uh you are on Zoom. Yep.

Hi. Do you want to come off mute? Just introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Elise. Um I'm very excited for this opportunity. What uh so what drew you to uh to the role? Um I've worked with the town of Grafton in the past with my time with um Department of Conservation Recreation as a conservation restriction monitor and I had a really good experience with them. Great. [clears throat] Any questions from the board or comments? Okay. Hearing none chair. Yep.

I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Elise Brown to the position of department assistant for the conservation and planning departments. Second. Okay. Uh any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I bush pass unanimously. Thank you Lee for coming in tonight. Appreciate it. Thank you. Uh you're under no obligation to stick around. Enjoy the rest of your night. Thank you.

Okay. Okay, next up we have an appointment for the recreation commission. Uh is Mr. Roberts here? Okay. Um we do require applicants to be in person. So we will pass over that one for now. If he comes in later, we can come back to it. [clears throat] Okay. Uh new business. First up, we have a general update from the board of health. uh specifically discussing things like private wells and irrigation. Um I know we have several members on um on Zoom right now. Jennifer, is this something you want to lead or Sure. I'll kick us off. Um I didn't we weren't sure if there were specific questions uh for us on this topic, but uh in general, just uh since last time we were here with you all, um the uh relationship with the newly formed alliance has been really going very smoothly. I believe they're fully staffed um and very engaged in all of our subcommittees that we have um outreach into the community on things that we had been doing with the prior alliance in a postcoid state. Um so we've been really pleased with that engagement. Um so that's sort of day-to-day how things are going from our perspective on the board. Um but were there specific questions on um wells that you folks wanted us to to comment on today?

Yeah. Um so I think one one in particular um I believe the application at High Fields was was withdrawn but that was um something that we had discussed uh you know here just how that affects uh residents in the area. Um and also we heard some feedback that um [cough and clears throat] residents aren't always allowed to consider uh an irrigation well option if they if they are on town water. So, um, is that so I think I should clarify. So, the the high fields request was not withdrawn. Um, are you referring to the one we received in like March, April of last year?

Yeah, they wanted to do uh some well testing and for a third location. I think

uh it was a second a second well location. So, they had been granted an irrigation well 20 plus years ago, very premy my time. Um and so this request was for a second location because um the well was not producing um satisfactory to its prior performance. Um we had a public hearing in July of 25. Uh we did grant that variance with several stipulations attached to that. Um we've recently been notified that they um had dug in September for this. uh that well has not been started. It sounds like there's some concerns with uh the performance the potential performance of that well. So that work has not been fully completed. Um and they are scheduled to come and meet with us at our next meeting which is actually Monday of next week so that we can get a better understanding of what's been done uh and what they are now looking to do. Um, we also need to determine uh depending upon what they're asking of us because again we put some stipulations in around uh concerns we heard from constituents uh in the public comment period uh via submissions during the public hearing and even some thereafter. Um, so we have some guide guideposts in place that we want to hear about. Um, and then hear what their next request is that that may require, we're not sure yet, a brand new variance request um, which would require yet another hearing. Um, so we we need a little bit more information about what's happening with what was granted in July and um, next steps. Um, I will say that um, I have only been on the board since June of 2021, but this is my first and the first that we've had as a board. We went back to look um uh variance request for irrigation. I don't know Karen's been on the board much longer than I

have. Uh if there have been others that have been declined, but this is the only one I'm I am aware [snorts] of.

Yeah, this Karen um the vice chair board of health going back since I've been on the board almost 20 years. I'm pretty sure the stipulation in the well regs predates my time in terms of not allowing irrigation wells unless you know there's some type of variance granted. I think [snorts] during my 20 years the only other time this has come up and I think was granted was with the um the ball fields down at Brook Meadow in South Grafton. Um cuz even the original High Fields irrigation well predates my time on the board. Um and looking back at the wellregation wells unless the board grants a variance for you know due cause that predates that's I don't know could be there since the original wellregs that were put in town however many decades ago.

Okay. Just one thing I think Airport Road was another one. And I don't know if you were there or not, Karen, but that was another one when we redid that park. That was a long time ago. Um, yeah, I I don't remember that.

The other question that we had was I don't know if you if you've had an opportunity to discuss it, was my understanding is in the regs uh it it um it doesn't allow residents who have access to public water to be able to put in a well for drinking water. Um, and given, you know, given the the issues that are going on at the Grafton Water District, I think it should be, if somebody wants to put in a well and not hook up to to town water, um, I think that they should have an opportunity to make that decision on their own. But right now, I don't think they do. I think they they're required to hook up to municipal water. Um, again, there's been a lot of issues there, a lot of concerns, and um, is that something that the board of health has discussed or would consider discussing?

That's that's a really great point. I know [snorts] um we did have Evan um come and talk to us to give us an update on what was happening because even though the municipal water supply is not under our jurisdiction, we obviously were just concerned with some of the things that we were hearing um from uh constituents in different parts of town. Um it's not something we had discussed as a possibility. I think um Annette, Phil, and the board should probably talk and see if there's something we should consider in our regulation. um you know with also consideration. I'm just mindful of some of the feedback we've also received on uh even these kinds of any kind of variance requests. So I think um I think that's a really good point that we should consider that and see if there's something we should be doing uh to consider that option in our regulations.

Well, obviously the condition of our our public water drink, you know, drinking water change, right? So yeah. Yeah, be good if you guys talked about it. Yeah, that's a that's a really great point. Okay, thanks. If I might, uh, just can I get clarification? So, that that meeting is um, next Monday where Miguel will be coming in because I have had some residents that have been in contact with me about this and um, it had been [clears throat] indicated here that perhaps they had withdrew that request. So, if that's in fact not the case, it's Monday at 7.

Correct. And and from the latest communication, uh, it's a 6:30 we start uh, but they're on they're on the docket to be discussed at 7. Um, and it's it's not a hearing at this point. Um, as we said, they they have

drilled the variance that we we provided to them in July, and it sounds like that was not as fruitful as anticipated, and now they may be looking for something else. You know, I think the board certainly wants to follow up on all those things, right? Because we're mindful of um Abutters who we know had already concerns. Um, and so I think we all have a lot of questions to ask of them before we allow anything further. Um, whether it's a, you know, a new request that they're looking for or some other variation of that. I think, um, that was one of the things we stipulated to them that we really wanted this to be a process where if we were getting feedback as they were doing things that, you know, people were noticing changes, we wanted to be able to um, you know, kind of pause things and and adjust. So we have a lot of questions as well uh of them and I think um you know we can just we can chat with Annette and Phil about the best path to talk about um you know proposed changes to the regulations as well.

And of course you know our even though it's not a hearing um and we are uh convening virtually on Monday but of course um constituents are always welcome to call the office with feedback submit in written comments um and join the meetings um when they're virtual. Usually we use the Q&A box because we don't, you know, have everybody um uh verbalizing, but um just as we did in the public hearing, we had some folks, as you all do now, live in the room with us and then we had some folks that gave public comment uh via the box and we recognize those. Um so we'll do our best if people do join to answer questions, but it it is not a public hearing. It's really just us trying to get better information and we we do want to be uh making sure it's a transparent process.

[clears throat] Uh, any other questions from the board? Okay, I think we'll uh we'll probably tune in Monday, see how that goes. And uh Okay, great. Thank you for your oversight. Yeah, thank you all so much. We appreciate your assistance. Appreciate you coming in tonight. Okay. [clears throat] Uh, next up we have reviewing recommendations from the Municipal Solid Waste Advisory Committee. was a report in the packet tonight that everybody could read through beforehand and um I think our chair Larry Perchek is on Zoom. Yeah, I'm here. Great. Good evening.

Um floor is yours. Mr. Chair, do you want me to just run a through a quick couple slides here that sum uh summarize our our uh memo? I think that would be really [clears throat] helpful. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. [snorts] All right. Um, so as you're all aware, I'm not ready yet. You now you you showed my trash bag. You typically you go right into it. Spent a lot of time on that trash bag. Um, nothing.

Okay, let's do a trash bag then. So, uh, the municipal solid waste advisory committee has been meeting for the last few months, um, to try to, uh, come to a consensus on what recommendation we would have for the board in regards to our, uh, municipal solid waste program. So, if you recall at our May town meeting, we did create an enterprise fund with the express purpose of moving the remaining 600,000ish dollars of taxpayer revenue uh out of the municipal solid waste program and uh fund it strictly by fees. Um so, the purpose of this update is to align our solid waste program with the town meeting improved [clears throat] enterprise fund and ensure long-term financial stability and equity. Go ahead. All right. Our current program, just as a quick recap, uh we are 100% pay as you throw, uh we have current bag fees of $8 per roll for small bags and $14 per roll for large bags. [snorts] All right. Why if uh adjustment is needed? Um, so if we are to stay with the pay as you throw model, which is what the committee has recommended, um, we need to be fully funded through user fees, which is again about a $600,000 delta. Um, and we also face rising disposal and tipping costs. So, the municipal solid waste committee recommendation is that the bag fees are raised uh for $15 per roll for smalls and $24 per roll of large bags. This uh go to the next slide. Generates uh it eliminates about the $600,000 in annual taxpayer support and should um we're projected to create about $130,000 positive revenue. um that won't be the number that we

shoot for year-over-year. That's our year one uh projection because we do think we're going to have um a lapse in revenue because people will buy bags before the fees go up, right? And that takes away from our next fiscal year's uh earnings or or um income um as well as um takes into account some other other measures that we might we think might happen as a result of the increase in fees. [snorts] Um so again part of our discussion and our model is about equity and fairness. One of the reasons we decided to stay with the pay as you throw model is that it is about as equitable as any model out there. Um, you only pay for what you produce. Um, and so a lot of other towns have different approaches. We looked at the tot system moving to a a bin that every town has uh more of an automated system. We looked at um an annual fee structure. We looked at a whole bunch of different models. But at the end of the day, the most environmentally friendly and the most equitable and fair way to do it uh in the this committee's estimation is through the page you throw model. Um so staying in this program and making it self-funding, residents who do not use the program are no longer subsidizing it. Uh it aligns cost with your actual uses and uh is consistent with all other enterprise fund principles. um additional impacts. Uh when when towns go to pay as you throw, which we're already part of, but when you see increased fees, that will generally drive your increased recycling participation and reduce contamination because folks want to put more into their recycle bin to try to offset the amount of uh trash bags that they are purchasing. uh we're likely to see greater use of

Black Earth Compost, which is the the vendor that the town works with. Um I did meet with the Black Earth Compost folks, uh two weeks ago now, um or a week and a half ago, um and talked about some some strategies and some maybe some programs moving forward. Um, so we're going to circle back with with th those folks as we approach uh the new year and try to get some some increased usership of that. Um, we do have a backyard composter program where you can buy backyard composters at a greatly reduced price. So instead of $1 to $120, they're $25.

And we're subsidizing that with grant money that we've received. Um, generally it reduces the overall trash tonnage and disposal cost. So every time the trash goes to the dump and tips into it as your tipping fee, um the less trash we move in that regard, the lower our fees would be. Um and it supports the town's sustainability and environmental goals. Thus, the recommendation of the committee is to adopt the revised bag fee structure like I just mentioned um and implement other changes that help support the self- sustaining equitable program. Okay. Uh somebody want to start with questions? [snorts]

I have a couple. Okay. Um could you speak more to um with the the rollaway system? Um it had significantly higher uh initial capital investment but it noted long-term operational savings. Um I'm sure those things were weighed out when the consideration was made, but just could you

So when we were when we were looking at it, I I believe um that the the fees for buying the toters depending on the size that we purchased and going through that program could be upwards of threequarters of a million dollar. So $750,000 of capital outlay. Um there's other costs that are associated with that beyond just the capital outlay because now you have to track them, you have to replace them, you have to fix them, you have to, you know, the lids get broken. And so uh what a lot of communities do is they actually pay the hauling vendor to do manage that program, but there is a cost to the community that gets added into that. [snorts]

Um there are some operational savings of maybe 10% um per year of what you're going to pay in labor costs because if you can go to an automated tower system, the person has to get out of the truck less. So it decreases the amount of labor cost that you have. However, in our conversations as a committee, one of the things that was noted [snorts] is that Grafton has a really solid uh contract right now with Harvey with only 3% increases year-over-year when other towns are seeing 5, 10, 15% increases. Um, and so the risk of opening the contract to renegotiate or going back out to bid to go to a totter system meant that we were likely to see an increased program cost overall, therefore negating the 10% savings that we would see.

Thank you. Um, other question is when would you be looking to increase uh to the proposed new back? July one. Yep. So in line with the fiscal year, we [clears throat] have to notify all retailers 3 months in advance. Okay. Soon. Soon. Yep. Okay. Uh that's it for me. Anybody else? [clears throat] Evan, how No, no, I was going to say there was a hand in the back. I didn't know if he had a question. Oh. Uh yeah. I was just wondering how far we are into the current Harvard contract. Uh [snorts] we are in year two of it's a three-year hitch with a two-year extension. Okay. Two one-year extensions is how they're

um All right. But we those those two-year extensions are already negotiated at that 3% increase rate. Right. And so at that 3% rate, would we need to increase bag fees again during the this contract? No. provided that it all goes according to plan.

And so one of the things that I I would be remissed and that that's a great segue. The committee did spend a lot of time talking about the uncertainty of this model because there's there's quite a bit of unpredictability as we lead into you know switching the bag fees which we've seen in the past. Every time we switch bag fees we see a spike in purchases. So um you know there there's going to be an impact there. and what that impact actually is. There's really no good data source to say that we're going to lose 25%. So, what we tried to do is look at around 10% of the program cost in reserve with our bag fee structure um knowing full well that we we need or knowing that we need to be cognizant that we may need to come back um and look at uh you know either a use of stabilization or free cash to some small degree. It's not going to be a huge

huge number hopefully. Um but you know if we're 50,000 short that would that would be I think a pretty pretty tight estimate with the amount of uncertainty we have. Got it. Okay. But otherwise it gives us some it should give us some longevity there.

Makes sense. Okay. Um so that was yeah one of my concerns. Um I do like that it's um very [snorts] direct in terms of the consumption based model. So, if you're somebody who, you know, uh recycles a lot and my wife and I have a compost thing, we love it. You know, that kind of stuff. Um, [snorts] uh, it's a way for somebody to really manage their cost as far as the bags go. Um, uh, I also like that if we wanted to go with the tot approach in the future, we could do that. Whereas, if we went with the totter now, like going back to the bags isn't really an option. So, right.

Yeah. You're you're pretty locked into it at that. you're locked into it once you bought all the infrastructure and everything. Um, yep. So, it's I'm in favor of the the recommendation. Thanks. Good. Would we have to, you said we'd have to go back uh on the contract. Would we have to renegotiate the tonnage uh in in those fees? Because that part of the re part of the page you throw program is that the bags only hold a certain weight amount. So we can better estimate what our you know tonnage is going to be uh over the course of year.

Yeah. So no um the [clears throat] way the contract is structured the tonnage is based on a fee. So the less tonnage we create the less tipping fee we pay right. Is that is that your question? So if but if we went to the toer then we remove that that balance of having a rough rough estimate of like per bag. No, because what you do is you you purchase toters that are a certain they're all a certain size, right? So you do a 35gallon, a 64 gallon or a 96 gallon is typical sizes.

And so you know that runs into some issues too. Um you either need to then create an overflow bag um purchasing model which starts to negate your automation offset, right? because now you do have to get out of the truck to do an overflow bag or um what happens like in in the town I live in um you only get that one barrel and so if you have more than fits in that barrel like we did when we hosted Christmas I'm still throwing away bags from Christmas that are Thank God it's real cold because they're in my garage but I'm I'm adding you know two bags a week to catch up with when we hosted 20 people and that's uh you know I understand it doing this job but it's also as a resident I'm like this is horrendous. I don't want to be deal with that and I wouldn't want anybody else to deal with that too. So that was part of our our conversation as well. It's just, you know, you produce seven bags because you hosted Thanksgiving.

Yep. That's just an more expensive. You got to get everybody take a trash bag home. [snorts] [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. That's the strategy. Yeah. Yeah. I have brought bags to other people's houses. [laughter] It's yours now. Um, so that's how we that's how we got there, I think. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, sure. All right. So, any other questions from the board? Nope. Okay, Mr. Chair. Hang on one second. Okay, please. Oh, sorry.

Uh, Ken Remlad to Mountain View Lane, North Graffton. Um, I understand we have to be physically responsible for everything that happens in town with taxpayers money, but uh, you're talking about doubling the cost of trash bags. No, when when we went from 15 to $24, that's that's double. Correct. And you're trying to make It seems to me that you're trying to make the trash uh self-sustaining, correct? Correct.

Uh [snorts] now you're talking you're talking about the the the bins going the the root of the bins. I live where I live, we have town s I have I don't have town surge and I don't have town water. So, I have to have a septic system and I have to have my own well. Um, when when the town went to the surge system as [snorts] a taxpayer, I still had to pay toward the surge treatment plant. Oh, yeah. I did. Well, it's in I understand it's self- sustaining now. Okay. But when we initially built the plants, the treatment plant. Yeah. Okay.

It wasn't self- sustaining. So talking about the bins, you're talking about a uh talking about a uh initial cost, correct? Yeah. Uh so there was an initial cost to the to the plant just like there's going would be an initial cost to this. I I just don't see uh the fairness of doubling the cost to make it self-sufficient. We all we all use trash

just like we all all use a school system and we all use a thing. So if you're saying if you're sitting here saying that we need to make it self self-sufficient and only the people that use the trash system should be paying for it then that's going to bring questions to people that send their kids to St. John's and say well my kids don't go to Grafton school system why should I pay for the Grafton school system? I think you're opening a can of worms by saying we need to make this self-sufficient by saying that because I use more trash than you do, I got to pay more than you do, which is fine by me, but I don't use the grafting school system anymore. My kids are all grown up and gone. You know what I'm saying?

You understand where I'm coming from? You You're talking about You're not talking about adding a couple bucks here. You're talking about doubling the cost to to make it self-sufficient when only because you want to make it self-sufficient so that the people that use more trash have to pay more. Well, I don't again I don't use the school system so why should I pay for the school system?

If I might. Um so part of what happened last year with the budget was um Evan came up with this idea I guess essentially uh how do we get $600,000 right? It's kind of to offset the the problem with the budget last year. And so this is what we determined would be a way to find some money, so to speak. The tote system would also cost everybody money as well. It's not just the bags. So either way, everyone's going to be paying. Everyone's going to be paying.

Um, for me, it's it's more equitable because there are folks that live in condos in town who have reached out to me and, you know, they're paying the same taxes as everybody and they don't get a trash service at all. So for them this is a win, right? So at least we are we who who use the trash system are now paying our fair share. And I would [snorts] say that you know for folks who it's up to you how much you use. So it is quite equitable in terms of you know I'm able to just do one bag every few weeks. So this is a win for me. The totter system would not be a win for me because I'd be paying more. I'd have that toar every single week even if I don't put one thing in it. Oh I understand.

Yeah. But my my what I'm what I'm trying to the point I'm trying to get across here is did you just open up a can of worms by saying that as as a taxpayer I should I I should be exempt from the school system cost because I'm not paying because I don't have kids in the school system and I'm sure there's a lot of parents out there they have their kids in St. Peter Marian or St. John's or something like that and they're saying, "Why should I pay taxes for the graph school system? Why should I why should I sign this uh Prop 2 and a half when my kids don't even go to graph school?"

Mr. Chair, so there's a lot of nuance to that and municipal finance law and all the [snorts] rest of it, but essentially none of the other things can be put into an enterprise fund is about the simplest way to look at it. So you can have a sewage enterprise fund and you can have an enterprise fund for sanitation. You can't have an enterprise fund for the school district. So there's no there's there's it doesn't everything else is is irrelevant. Yes. [laughter] Or just Yeah. I wasn't going to say irrelevant. Mass law or what? Right. Mass general law doesn't allow us to create an enterprise fund for those other things. Oh, okay. So this is so this is like the math says that you can have an enterprise for

crash but you can't have an enterprise for fire department police department or correct school system. Correct. So um wasn't there wasn't there a wasn't there a thing where where with school choice doesn't school choice um doesn't have doesn't doesn't it have that have something to do with like people sending their kids to St. John's or St. Peter Marian or yes whatever private school they want make choices into or out of a district there's a cost or a revenue stream into the schools or out of the schools that that is true um but right but but St. John's is a private school. So like if I again my kids are grown and gone. Yeah.

Okay. But uh um for a parent that has kids in a Grafton school system if they want to say well I don't want my kid to go to Grafton school but Sutton won't take my kid because they're filled up. So now I now only choice is St. John's. Does does Grafton pay for St. John's? No. No. So my kids both I didn't make the decision to pay for them to go to Holy Name. They both decided to they had to leave Grafton when they were younger. So they went to a private school and that was I paid for that and I paid my taxes just like everybody else. Right. Yeah. So, it's it's I mean this is just

we voted on this last year in an effort to balance the budget so to speak last year. This was an idea of a revenue stream which I think it's at the end of the day it's a different tax, right? It's just like if we look at increasing excise tax to try to offset some shortfalls, different way of taxing people. Um, however, I feel kind of strongly about it. I just think that it it really is it is an equitable way to do it in terms of if you look at the folks in our our town who have big families, they're unfortunately going to probably be paying a lot more for this than someone like myself is by themselves or someone who might be older. Myself, I have nine nine adults live in my house. So, [laughter] they're all going to have to buy their own bags.

What's that? They'll have to buy their own bags. Yeah. Yeah. I would also say, and I don't I don't I didn't put that this was a condensed kind of presentation, but we did look at, you know, annual service costs and what it would cost if you threw away x number of bags a week and all of those things. We did some of that exercise. And if you look at what other towns are paying [snorts] for a tot system and you get your annual bill, oh yeah, my my son lives in Sutton, so he hasn't he pays he pays for a contract on his own, right? But uh so like so like if you if you doubled the cost, correct? And you're talking about 13 is that $130,000 is that a profit or is that Yeah, it's I mean yes, it's a you could call it a profit. It's excess revenue. So what you try to do is we need to have a buffer.

Okay. Because you you really don't want to be short in an enterprise fund. Right. Because Right. Great. Exactly. Because like when you bring when the when Harvest brings the stuff to the Worcester incinerator, there might be 10 tons over, right? But so like at at the end of the year, this $130,000, where's it go? Stays in the enterprise fund. And so you can use it for a couple of things, but because this program doesn't have any infrastructure, Yeah. then that money would be used to either buy down the bag fee, right? Reduce the bag fee to get us operating more equally.

Um or it could be used for uh you know, a discounted bag program. There's a lot of different uses, but it has to stay within that trash operating area. Okay. You can't just take it and buy a police car with it. Okay. Okay. Good enough. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. [clears throat] Anybody else?

Mr. Chair, Mr. I move the board vote to accept and move forward with the recommendation for the mun municipal solid waste advisory committee as presented. Second. Okay. Motion been seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I Mr. Chair, before we move on, yep.

Just want to thank everybody on the municipal solid waste advisory committee. Um we had a uh we had a great time. Was really was one of my favorite committees to go to. we we moved quickly and efficiently and um I think everybody was really into it and uh so I appreciate everyone's time and and I think it was a job well done even the outcome that nobody wants is more cost but as far as the process I think the process was great. Yeah. Good. We'd really like to thank you also Evan. Uh thank you for your guidance from beginning right up to the finish line here. Absolutely. Well, thank you for making it easy. That was That was a I really did enjoy it. It sounds weird, but it does. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I did, too. I like It's on brand for you, Evan. It's fascinating. # trash club. Yep. [laughter] All right. [clears throat] All right. Uh, next up, we need to designate the charter review committee for spee m municipal employee list. Um, do you want to speak to this or I uh sure I guess I am figured you'd do a better job than I would. Uh, probably not. So, the reason that uh you designate positions as special municipal [snorts] municipal employees to avoid conflicts of interest. So under uh section 20 of uh Mass General law chapter 268A [snorts]

um they do give a carveout to avoid conflicts based on creating the special municipal employee designation. So let's say you're a registar in the town of Grafton and you get paid money and then you're going to get appointed to another commission. They they look at that as uh you know that can be serving two masters they call it. It's doesn't make a lot of sense to me honestly because you're just volunteering for another thing in your community, but that's the way that um [snorts] conflict of interest law is set up. So, you designate that position as special municipal employee and then you avoid all of those conflicts thereafter with people that are serving on a whole bunch of different

just one question. Don't go [snorts] too deep, Craig. [laughter] No. Oh, boy. No, this is this is a soft Okay. So, is is this kind of specific to the charter review or does this happen in other, you know, circumstances? We do have other committees and other circumstances that uh positions are listed as a special municipal employee. So, this one is because there's people that are serving on other boards that are maybe making recommendations that might impact those committees and boards. Yep. Okay. Yes, sir. That wasn't hard, right? No, that was good. That was good. I appreciate that. It'll be hopefully easy too. So like what is what is an example in this instance? Um

is it like an election worker or something? Maybe like an election worker would be would be because there's not many other things where some correct make Okay. Correct. Y say a select board member any one of those. Yes. Select board has an actual exemption though uh under under this particular special municipal employee uh section. But yes, any any position where you're you're going to draw a salary, we're technically like we do it when you have a employee that's part-time in one department and parttime in another department, you have to do a conflict of interest statement and make them special municipal employee. Any other questions? Any in the crowd? All right, take a motion.

Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to designate the members of the charter review committee as special municipal employees in the town of Grafton. Second. Okay. Seconded. Any discussion? Hearing [clears throat] none. All those in favor? I. Great.

Okay. Next up, uh we will review our 2025 annual report. Um that was also included in the packet. I hope everybody had a chance to read through it. Um, felt like it was a pretty good summary. We had one edit that uh was already submitted. Um, does anybody else have any feedback or questions about the annual report?

Just two quick things. Um, unless I missed it in there. There was nothing about maybe going to put it in those departments, but like the the new alliance with the board of health, that's something. And then the um the emergency man the regional um you know the westbrow I don't know I mean those were kind of big things for that were done this year. I don't know if you want to add those or you want to put those in the reports for those. I think the board of health report might carry that part about um our new alliance. We'll double check that and if not we'll add it to ours and we can put something in there about the wreck for sure. Your part-time job? Yeah my parttime job in Westboro. Yeah. Any other feedback?

Mr. Chair, just uh quickly um was [snorts] there any impact um for the funding for the GAP recovery program? I know that they were reviewing a lot of the opioid settlement funds and distribution, all that kind of stuff. Do you know if that was impacted how? I just I don't mean to pulled basically. Oh, no. That was all lawsuit money. So those are award monies that came from from other outside. They're not like federally funded or state funded. Okay. CVS. Got it. Correct. Yeah. It was basically all the producers and sellers of opioids that that were on the hook. We're actually involved in another suit that [snorts] will probably net some more money for that program.

Got it. Um I want to just uh make a comment too. Um, I love that. Um, you know, one of the things that you've done since you've been here is just to really focus on grants. So, you do grant tracking, how much we're bringing in, you know, comparables to last year, and really kind of tuned everybody into making sure that we get grants. Um, that's really huge. It's really paid off. Um, and I just really appreciate that. Um, all of the department heads aggressively going after the grants. So, thanks for that. Absolutely. Anybody else? Okay, I think we take a motion.

I move the board vote to approve the 2025 annual report of the select board as presented. Second. Should we make a amendment that we might add in those two things that Craig mentioned as as amended? As uh as amended. Sure, that'll work. We know what we're doing. Yeah. Second. Seconded. Any discussion? hearing none. All those in favor? I

I [clears throat] um so next up we're going to go over some FY2027 budget updates. Um I want to jump in here quickly before handing it over to Evan. Just to to uh reiterate, I spoke with both uh the MA uh ethics commission as well as town council. Uh as was discussed at our last meeting, my wife is a par profofessional in the Grafton school district. Um as a result of those discussions again uh I was informed I cannot participate in individual school department and line item discussions like the paraprofessionals contract or their wages which are negotiated by the school school committee anyways and not by the select board. Um I I can discuss the school department budget as a whole as well as part of our overall town budget. superintendent has stated there'll be no reductions to pair professional staff in any scenario uh because they're mandated by student IEPs. Therefore, there's no conflict of interest there either. Uh I have filed the appearance of conflict of interest disclosure form with our town clerk as was suggested by um the ethics commission just to cover our basis. So with that I will pass it over to Evan.

Okay. Uh so just a disclaimer before we start um this is a compressed uh presentation. We've seen v various uh iterations of the same uh presentation and I will be giving the full line item budget presentation to fin. Um however these are the changes uh to the budget since we last talked about the budget as well as um my projected cuts to make this budget balanced. So, I have to present the balance budget for the charter [snorts] to the uh finance committee. Um, and I can't do that without showing what those cuts look like or reductions look like rather. So, those will be on here as well. Okay. Disclaimer over. [clears throat] So, our original budget presentation that I showed uh starting [snorts] on December 17th put us into or showed us as a deficit of $1,428,800. Next slide, Will. [snorts] Since we have created that budget, um we did receive our cherry sheet numbers. Um cherry sheets are your revenues uh and assessments from the state of Massachusetts. They're called cherry sheets because way back in the day they were mailed on cherry colored paper. Uh just as an FYI for that.

Uh so our Grafton is expected to see an increase in state increase in state revenue. Um, we've already accounted for that in our budget when we originally [snorts] built the budget. Our our our estimated uh change to uh receipts was pretty pretty close to where we need to be. Um, however, we were not super close on what our charges were going to look like. So even though our um cherry sheet shows an increase in revenue, the charges that the town has uh increased, we wind up with a net deficit um when and these are just the the large numbers, but when you when you factor it out, we wind up with a net deficit um of 125,000 in what we were forecasting. Uh next slide. So, uh, post cherry sheet, our deficit goes up to 1.554, uh,698. Um, now again, we talked about this at the beginning way back in December. These numbers are going to bounce around as we get more revenue numbers and everything else from the state as we go. Um, the balanced budget proposal that I am presenting again at the public hearing on Thursday, um, gives us a surplus of $49,000. and we'll talk about how we we get there. [snorts] So, these are the proposed service reductions and changes. Um, of note, these are uh in addition to the 1,61,000 [snorts] reduction proposed um in uh Dr. Cummings last presentation. Um, and that results in a 14 FTE reduction for the school department. These are in addition to and these are on the municipal side of the house. Um so we would uh eliminate the

position of planning and conservation admin uh just for full transparency so I don't get lit up online later. Uh at least that we just appointed at the beginning of this meeting is this position. Uh she is fully aware of what we're dealing with. We've had uh many conversations with her to uh make sure that we were fully transparent going [snorts] into that hiring process. Um the fire prevention officer reduction. So this is one of the two fire production uh productions uh positions. Um that was a new position and the budget does retain the addition um the the other addition that the fire chief had had recommended or requested. We would uh reduce one our part-time building inspector. [snorts] Um Silver Lake Beach. Uh we would look to close that. Um so we spend about $104,000 um aside from what we were able to take in in revenues to support that beach. Um so that is [snorts] all of your literally lifeguards and staff that go along with that is about $104,000. Um, we've asked that the library reduce their overall budget by 75,000. Um, we met with uh Katrina, the director earlier today. Um, I don't have a list of what staff would be impacted or expenses are impacted. She's going to work on that and and get that back to us, but understands the number is is roughly 75,000. We would look to eliminate the assistant engineer position. Um, we would also seek um to shift all MS4 storm water program costs into the capital plan. Um, and as the board discussed uh at their last meeting, we would remove the

select board stipen. Um, which then nets us a total of uh total reduction of $599,923. You can go back to that other slide if you um so that's it as far as the the changes go. Um, we will be presenting this budget with probably some by the time we get to Thursday some minor alterations, not in this list, but

you know, minor tweaks uh $10,000 here or there. Um, and present that full line item budget at the public hearing. Who would like to start? I have a couple questions, Mr. Chair. Sure. The Silver Lake, I know we talked about this earlier, but what are we losing? What is the town losing if we are not funding that um access to it? Just can't go at all.

Yeah, we are we are currently looking at a swim at your own risk model from a town administrator capacity. I don't really love that. uh there's some inherent liability and some public risk associated with that. There are plenty of other communities that have ponds that you can swim in that no there's no lifeguards,

but um you know this is a this is an added feature I think of Grafton in the summer. Um I know that a lot of kids do swimming lessons there and it's a good outlet for for folks to go and and uh spend family time on the on the beach. I think it's also a good uh it's been a good mechanism for uh younger folk in Grafton to get uh you know summer job uh which I think is important too a lot of these things you know wind up feeding them what would [snorts] we have to do there um to make that say a wash is that possible to like the amount I don't know what the fees are there if there's any feed of park I know there's a snack bar there which never really generated any

right so we're we're generating creating uh I think we were netting $12,000 in fees. Um and you know to to cover the cost of this it would they'd be extraordinarily high fees to use it. I don't think you'd actually get folks using it, right? Um I can I can I don't have that analysis top of head uh top of mind rather say it that way.

Um but yeah, we we had talked about it in years past when I first started. I think the cost to the taxpayer was about 90,000 and you know it's grown over the years as far as [clears throat] um just labor costs have changed. Um but you know there was no way to to close that gap with the fee structure. Um you know you have limited parking, you have there's other limitations there too. Just a question. You know this is a long time ago. I served on recreation for a long time and I really feel like it was self- sustaining back then. Is that possible or we don't Yeah, we don't know. I I I can I can look back at when the last time it was self- sustaining, but it definitely has not been since I've I've been here. Yeah. And this was

Yeah. more than 25 years ago, let's say. Um but so the um this might be too specific but the fees for the swimming lessons for example does that go into this uh fund so to speak to keep it open or is that Yeah I mean I think that the swimming lesson money goes into the revolving account that the um wreck department maintains to then pay like swimming instructors and uh other ancillary costs for that. I'm sure there's probably some program costs that come back into there, but it's not it's not real offset this program money. Okay. So, I think that was part of it. It was when we looked at the whole big pot, the revolving plus all of the fees together,

uh the goal for the summer programming was always that it was relatively self- sustaining. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I know like our summer camps are and other things [snorts and clears throat] we're doing are this was this is the only thing that I've uh well not the only thing I found. This is the only thing in the budget that is not self- sustaining. So parking lot fees and snack shack money goes into a separate account. Correct. For recreation and then potentially the swimming lesson fees are going into the revolver fund. Uh yeah. So, the the the beach permit fees do come into the general fund. That's the $12,000 offset that we that we see. Okay.

I'm I'm happy to if if that's uh a point of interest for the board, I'm happy to give you a fee or financial breakdown of that at the next uh meeting for sure. Evan, can you talk a little bit about the um MS4? What do we currently have in terms of, you know, operational that could be moved over into capital and why wouldn't we just do that anyways?

Um so it's not a true onetime cost. [clears throat] So we are paying$1 to $150,000 every single year to maintain our MS4 storm water compliance, which is a federal regulation for storm water. So, um, we have we have, uh, generally one staff associated with that that pretty much just runs that program all summer. Um, and we have some some financial or some, um, capital costs associated with that as far as trucks go and and things like that. Um and then this is predominantly uh taken up by consultants and other engineers and things that we need to be able to actually file the paperwork for the federal government. Um every community in the state of well I think every community in the country but in Massachusetts we have pretty tight regulations. Um

would that run counter to our financial policies? Uh Yes. Um I think that the risk is low because it's not a very high amount of money. It's the same thing that we do with the cruisers, right? Sure. It's the same amount of risk in my opinion. Um we've we've supplemented this MS4 line, I think, for the last three fiscal years with some capital money. Um this just moves the entire thing over. And we've done that in other ways, too. We've accepted a certain amount of risk. Um, again, because it's low, like the taser program is in there. The taser program is an annual fee subscription service.

Um, it's a capital purchase, but it's not funded in a capital manner. And, um, you know, so I I I'm not super worried about us getting dinged on that particular item if that. But to that point, in an ideal scenario, these everything you just mentioned, the taser fees, the MS4 storm water, the cruisers, those are all operational items. They're they're they need annual replacement and and truly belong in the operational budget, not moved over to capital. Correct.

So, we talk about things that, you know, the town administrator and the select board are doing to attempt to solve some of these budget shortfalls. You know, these are these are things we're we're going against best practice uh in order to make it work in in a less than sustainable fashion. Yeah, this is not the this is not the best practice. Again, I I think that of the risks we can take, this is pretty low on the the list of things that S&P or Moody's is going to look at because the amounts that we're actually dealing with here are are pretty minuscule in comparison. Um that doesn't mean that you know whoever is doing our next bond reading doesn't pick up on that and but um

it's not the direction we want to be moving. Right. Well, it's not the it's not the best practice. Correct. Yeah. Yep. A question um just on the light those I was going to ask about the MS4 as well as the Silver Lake. Um but also with the library in terms of what those reductions might look like, is there any impact? I know we have like grant money there and you know a lot of different things that are tied up in that project that might um be affected.

No. Uh well let me let me couch this. So as far as like from our grants that we're doing with our our programming and and those pieces probably not. um we do get, you know, state aid and we get other we have we have our our our u you know minimal minimum assessment that we have to pay all those things that go into it. So that's really why this is the outlier that we just said to Katrina we need to help finding 75,000 because she's got to navigate those different levels. Okay. Um so that would still kind of protect whatever Yeah. I think that ifs we have with the state,

right? If if while we're going through this process, Katrina comes and says we can only cut 50,000 because uh that other 25,000 is going to impact our grant revenue or our state aid or something like that. We're we're going to go some other direction, right? We're not going to we're not going to do that. How many employees do we have at the library currently? Do you have a number on that? Full time equivalent. Will says 16.2 full-time equivalents. [laughter] 16.2 full-time equivalent. So more but part-time, correct? It boils down to 16 full-time.

Mr. Chair. Yep. The fire prevention officer, that's not someone that has a job that exists now. That would be just hiring one instead of two. Correct. And the building inspector. So if we lose that position, how bad is the impact on our efficient our efficiency to do [clears throat] inspections? Um how much pressure or stress does that put on the office?

So when I started we did not have that position, right? So that's that's one of the reasons why I looked at a reduction because that's some place where we've grown. Um the the um reason for that growth has been that when you have someone like in our case we have Tracy. She's a building commissioner. She's got a lot of functions that you know require her to be in the office reviewing um you know plans working with other departments. You know there's a lot of those type of pressures. Um, and so this position is this part-time position is strictly inspections in the field. So it frees up time for us to be able to do other things. Um, and it was also an an attempt to draw down the amount of time it takes you to get a permit in the town of Grafton, which um I think we've seen uh significant uh advancement in advancement making it sounds like we're taking longer, but you know what I mean. Mhm.

Um it's it's a lot shorter of a time frame than it was uh you know several years ago and and that's one of the reasons why kind of going along with that for me I would think that our planning department and the building um department have got to be quite busy with all that we're putting y to them in terms of um new developments and there are a lot more coming right a lot more units. So, um, that would be my concern there is just those two departments must be pretty taxed already. Yes.

And it's important that things that in Fiona's office are filled out appropriately that need to go to the state so that we don't fall in and out of various um, you know, Yep. could could incur some some difficulties which we've seen. Yeah. And we're we're also what the increase in fire staff is to help account for some of those same inspections but from the the fire department's end of things. Um whereas now we're we're reducing that ability on the on the town side. So it's you know at least with that one though um the chief came in saying I wanted to we can do one and we'll build. No I mean the one that we're keeping.

Yeah. still like that's that's that's an effort for the chief to you know have more time to to do these inspections and whatnot. Yeah. But on at the same time we're reducing the municipal ability.

Yeah. If if I if I may, Mr. Chair. So I mean none of these are easy decisions or easy places to look. Um everything we have you know we're not a a overstaffed organization in in my opinion. A lot of our departments are two people departments. Uh so there's not a lot of room to go. Um or they have really vital functions like uh folks that you know work in the treasur collector's office or you know things that we we need to have folks at that window to take in revenue because that's what pays for all the rest of the stuff

right those those types of folks. So it was very hard to go through. Um and you know the board had given direction of no DPW, [snorts] no fire, no police, which I think is a very reasonable ask. Um but that if you take those staff members off the table, we don't have a lot of other staff to to look at. We we just honestly don't. Um and again, that's not a knock on that decision. It's just the reality of we have a small pond. Yeah. Um, the library. Um, how many people like what is that number made up of? I guess $75,000. Yeah. Where'd you get the 75? I needed $75,000.

Okay. So, so we haven't worked out like so. I I went to Katrina. Uh, we met with her this morning and you know, she she runs the library. I'm not going to dictate to her what I think. [clears throat] She knows the programming. She knows the ins and outs. She knows how many staff you need to do certain things. So, all that we asked of her is that she strive to find a $75,000 reduction. She was from Ashlin, right? She came from Ashlin as far as Sure. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. Will's the Will's the library lead.

Okay. All right. I'm sorry. Will um [clears throat] I would have a conversation with her about how that was run. I happened to be out there a few weeks ago at an at an art event and she might have some really valuable input into to maybe adding to that number, you know, if we have to make cuts, you know what I mean? So, um, how that library operated, the staff that they had, the facility. So, I think there may be some more opportunity there. Yeah, we we uh just as an aside, we think she's doing a great great job. And yeah, you know, um I think she's pretty innovative. Um, which is again all the more reason to say, "Here's where we need your help. You tell us how you can get there." Right.

It was a random I ran into one of the librarians there at this event and and they spoke really high. They hate, you know, they were happy for her, but they were really hated that she left. Hated that she left. Yeah. Yep. No, I think she was a good get for the town of Grafton. Yeah. Will doesn't think so, but I I think very highly objectively. [laughter] [snorts] You look good. Will you look good? I always do.

Um yeah, I haven't uh I share Emory's concern about sort of planning and building inspector and all that. Um you know, one of the things that has come up repeatedly is when we have one-off situations where we've got to keep on top of developers for whatever um finishing off developments, you know, adhering to special permit conditions, whatever. um we need staff that have some head space and capacity to be able to keep track of those things over time and that's been really challenging for Grafton. Um and it's exposed us to a lot of um just difficult situations is the way that I would put it. Um so as we look at you know we're seeing a lot of larger um developments coming into town. And I think that that capacity within uh planning is really more important than it has been in the past. Um and it's the type of thing that you might not see it like on day one, but at some point you're very likely to say, "God, I wish we had that extra capacity, and now we're paying for it." So it, you know, I appreciate you um doing the work. [snorts] Uh, and I know that it was a bit of a a difficult ask trying to, you know, stay away from the departments that we um that we stipulated, but um, yeah, this is not great. But I do have that concern as well.

I would like to see those the recreation numbers. Sure. Yeah. Yep. We will get And back to Silver Lake, you know, is there a halfway point? You know, I know we've reduced hours and I know the lake closes down much earlier all the time. I know it doesn't have duties. Yeah, it's a lake, but yeah. Um, you know, what what are the hours now? Sure. I canuction versus Yeah. So, Adam put together a lot of information about the beach. I'm happy to meet with him again, go through that, and then be able to report that back to you folks. Um, would it help to invite him to that discussion as well or is you just want to handle that yourself? Uh, he and I can meet and decide how to move that forward if that's all right.

Any other comments or feedback? Mr. T, you do have one hand on Zoom. Everybody's good here. Yep. Good. [snorts] Uh Jeffrey, you should be able to talk. You just need to unmute. Jesse, we can see your hand up, but uh you're you're still muted.

[snorts] Okay, you can come back. You do have one other one now. Okay, let's go to the other one. [clears throat] [snorts] Hi, this is Shannon Failen um 159 Old Westboro Road. Um about the you mentioned a FinCom meeting on Thursday. I was wondering if there was an opportunity for the public to see the line by line budget items. I wasn't sure really where to find that. I just went on the town administrator site to the budget book and it said it was for this fiscal year, not not 27.

Yes, Shannon, that's an excellent question. So what [snorts] we typically do is when we present to FINCOM, we release the current fis the new fiscal year's line item budget um at the same time on the updated budget book. So all of those lines will be available on on Thursday. Okay. Thank you. And and I I don't do it to be secretive. I do it because we often change things right up until we get to the public hearing and that kind of how that works. Okay. Jesse's hand still up. It is. Try her again. Jesse, you want to try again? All right. How did you do this time? Yep, you're good.

Thanks for your patience. Um, Jesse Ramlari, 27 Flint Pond, and I am on the Recreation Commission. I'm not speaking on behalf of them. I'm speaking on behalf of myself. Uh, but I did notice although the number is the same as what we discussed, the summation of the impact is a little different. Um, we have discussed that even though the the lake wouldn't be funded, there is funding available within the department for at least a reduced schedule. And it didn't sound like beach closure uh was on the table at least for this coming summer. So, I do think that's worth getting um just for the the interest of um being transparent in the real impact there. Uh I do think that's worth looking into a little bit more. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Christy Kilbazinski. I just have a question. As you know, I have Oh, just for you, Andy. [laughter] Three Lotty Drive Grafton. Thank you. As you know, I've vigorously advocated against um the threat of unemployment costs being put onto the school with four employees that you were once saying. Now I see that it's saying 14 versus 18 before. Are we no longer responsible for the unemployment? Uh I'm not budgeting for unemployment at all. This in as far as the school is concerned. We are no longer threatening for positions lost correct. Correct. Okay. Thank you. [snorts]

Anybody else in the room? So, um, we'll just kind of leave that as is for now. And, uh, obviously we'll we'll need additional information from the library director to make sure that's, uh, attainable. and we'll plan to have a discussion about uh wreck fees and and

yeah, I'll circle back with Adam. That was he and I I think had a different conversation and maybe we just haven't caught back up after he went to the last rec meet. So, we'll Yeah, we'll flush that out. Yeah, I'll flush it out. Okay. Anything else from anybody before we move on to the next item? Yeah, so couple of things. Um, I know we talked about at some point like or I brought up auditing or looking at fees and are we comparable? Can we increase fees somewhere? A building where you get rid of your I don't what's what's the dump thing called over there? All of it. Thank you. Brush dump, etc. So, [snorts] where are we with that in terms of

Um, so I did ask the building department to put together for us as far as our building fees go. Okay. They're working on putting that together and also looking at what other communities fees are just as a comparison. So, we'll have that for you. Um hopefully by by next meeting. Um as far as like our brush dump fees and some of our other fees [clears throat] um I I I don't necessarily think some of these are going to be worth the increase, right? you're going to increase people by $5 or $10 and it's going to get us an extra 500 bucks or a thousand bucks, right? So, um I I think that generally speaking, if we can leave some of these alone, but our our high [clears throat] frequency fees, um you know, some of what the fire department has for inspections, they have a ton of inspections, right? So, so small changes there can net um you know, bigger impacts elsewhere. Um, but we can we can I don't want it to sound like I'm not going to look at it or we haven't looked at it. Um, I can I can give you a breakdown of what the fees look like as as well. And um, but I really need Tracy to help with the building department stuff because that's that's your area.

I was going to ask about that. Do you remember the last time that it was done? I mean, I think definitely since not since I've been Okay. Because I think back when I was on the board, we did it in like maybe 2018. Yep. Um, and we were we were way behind and we kind of caught up, but if it hasn't been done, there's probably worth a look for sure. Yep. I I agree. So, we can get a numberish by the next meeting about [snorts] that. Okay. Yes. Yep. Okay. That was one thing. And then um funding for that energy advocate position, I know it's grant funding currently and will that go forward with that?

Yes. So that's it's it's not really a grant. It is um a fee that comes from the Grafton Energy Choice program. Okay. It's like a 05% addage. [snorts] Uh and then we sweep that money over to pay for the energy advocate. Okay. So that would be there. Yep. It's sustained in a different way.

Okay. Um, I also do want to just mention, you know, a lot of these fees, and I I know you know this, but [snorts] just so that the public understands, a lot of these fees, they don't contribute operationally to the budget. They close to the general fund, which then becomes free cash. So, when you adjust a lot of these these fees, it does nothing to help us on this particular side of the budget. It would help us in a in a free cash capacity to either do other capital projects or things like that. The building permit fees that would go into operational. No, it doesn't.

No, goes into free cash. I know that and and the the reason for that is [clears throat] that [snorts] what you don't want is building departments to fund their own salaries and departments by issuing fees and fines. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the underpinning of why the law is set up that way. Yeah. And then lastly for me, I know you sent over [snorts] somewhere here um you know what your increases have looked like. So these numbers are based on the increases that you've projected there. Correct. Okay. Yep.

And is there any wiggle room there? Uh wiggle room. How I mean so like I think that Mark brought up at the last meeting, you know, is the cola increases. It's a lot of 4% and up increases. Yeah. So most of those positions are union positions and we get so it's a a step increase which is generally 2 and a half% plus the cola which is almost universally 2%. What we have in what we have done is that we have given uh 3%s in contracts but we've staggered them so that not [snorts] no more than one union is getting a 3% raise. Um, and then what we factored in for non-UN people is that 2% cost of living adjustment, which

Okay. Um, you could reduce, um, I Mary Mary's here. Do you remember what the cola amount is, Mary, for non-union? Okay. It's not a big It's not a big number. We We'll We can send that out as well if you don't mind. Okay, that's all I have. Yeah. Anybody else? I guess one last thing. Sorry. Uh so relative to health insurance. Yes. For next year. So I know we are where we are. Um are we how long are we locked into that in terms of the employee share versus

the employer share? So you mean the the 60 40 7030 like what we talked about a couple months ago? [snorts] Yeah. So, you're locked into it for the duration of this PEC agreement, which is a one-year agreement. Three-year agreement, sorry. Three-year agreement. Okay. So, that's what we're locked into. All right. Thanks. Yeah. Um I I did look at what other communities are doing. There's [snorts] not a lot that have moved uh you know to like a 6040 50/50 model. And uh the ones that I'm finding that have or are talking to their town administrators, they've done that with new hires and not current employees, right? That's an easier uh pick. So, you know, that would

relieve some of that pressure down the road, but it doesn't do anything immediately. But that that's kind of what I'm what I'm seeing when I'm um looking at those that data.

That's it for me really. Any public comment? All right, [clears throat] moving on. Uh, next up, we have a vote to add uh an override to the ballot. Obviously, we do not have all the information we override at this time. We would not have the amounts and whatnot. This is a commitment to the residents to place it. um both on the ballot election and and the uh Springtown meeting board. Anybody have any questions or feedback? All right. Uh we will um let's ask some public comment. Why not? David Grispman, Five Stratton Road. Um thank you for having me. And I know there's a lot of school folks here tonight. So I uh I thought I could calm the waters early on saying that um I I've been to [clears throat] most of these meetings and I've tried to educate myself. I've been a lifelong resident of Grafton. So I have a very vested interest in the community. My father was the fire chief. I was a police officer. I've owned a business in Grafton for 37 years. And I really [snorts] appreciate um the benefit of education. Both of my

sons are engineers. I'm an engineer and way back when. My granddaughter goes to the Grafton schools. And um I thank all all the school community for being here tonight. But I do think um that one of the things that that you've got to be real cognizant of is the the school department has not put forward in my opinion a a comprehensive budget that you as the select board can understand and uh Mr. Doffany probably two months ago had asked for a profit and loss statement. Mr. Busousad and the superintendent said they would provide it. [clears throat] Never saw it and I don't believe Mr. Dolphin has ever seen it. Um at the last meeting when the superintendent was here um Christy Kay asked some very pointed questions. Um it led me to conclude that the school committee has not vetted the budget line item by line item and certainly Mr. Dolphin again asked for a line item budget. He was promised to have that budget. He can correct me if I'm wrong. He still has not received it. And I I understand fully the the school committee and the school department has a strong duty to educate our kids and I think they do a very admirable job at it. Um, but I don't think they have to look beyond that. And I I believe the select board has a fiduciary duty and was elected that they have to worry about all the other departments

and the taxpayers like myself who don't have anyone in school anymore. And I I think that the an override is inevitable. And I hope that everyone here recognizes that given the situation that the school has overspent and town didn't have the money, we have no choice but to do an override. But I do think in fairness to the select board, which I find to be uh one of the best we've had in a very long time, very caring people, highly intelligent. Um, they are entitled to a line item budget from the school department [snorts] and they are the gatekeeper of our tax dollars and they need to vet that budget so that um we can determine what is the override amount. Um, I think that that's your fiduciary duty. I strongly support the board, but I I think that if you don't require that, you're not doing your job correctly. I also think that one of the things that should be considered is that there is always a strong sentiment to always vote for the kids, always support the school, always whatever the school needs, the school should get. But there are a growing population in Grafton of people who don't have kids in school. And I would tell you that it's very easy, and I saw it with Chief McNamera when he was um the chief during my tenure, um for the police department budget, if it was questionable, he'd stack the meeting. And you could see tonight, it's very easy to stack a town meeting and

get get it approved. But I would tell you from supporting a number of political candidates over the years, when it goes to to um ballot vote, what people tell you to your face and what they do in the voting docking can mean two entirely different things. And I I think it would be very dangerous to not have the the select board look at in comprehensively with Mr. Brousad look at an itemized school budget and find where money can be saved or perhaps where money more money needs to be spent. And knowing that the select board with strong confidence can go to the town meeting floor and say we support an override. We've vetted the budget. This is the number it should be. I think presently what you have in front of you and the way it was explained at the last meeting that I went to, you don't have a solid number to know what that should be. And um I think the school committee, the school department has a much better opportunity of success if they can include the select board as an intelligent arm to support them. I know in the old days um when my father was fire chief, the finance committee went through line item for line item with every single board and the select men, which was what it was called then, were always in concert with um with the um the departments so that there was always this cohesiveness. I I don't think you have it in this situation and I really think you need it. I I I I'm I'm a firm believer that the Grafton school system um

needs some support in this, but I think it needs to be done the right way. Thank you. Thank you. Y um [clears throat] I I don't know if either you or the chair want to take a minute to respond to that. Yep. [laughter] And I am I I will give you some time. Uh I I did not three minutes. I did not state before Mr. Glisten came up that we limit comment to three minutes. So uh you know gave him a little grace. That's on me. Yeah. Moving forward three minutes.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Um my name is Lauraman 79 Westboro Road. I am the vice chair of the school committee. I'm actually not speaking on behalf of the school committee. I'll let our wonderful chair do that. But I can answer at least a some I don't know what all of that was. I do appreciate the support of the schools. I think um one I was interest it was interesting and I was glad to see what was recommended for um for additional cuts to the town. I truly believe this is a town issue. It's also interesting to note that Silver Lake closing library generally even higher bag fees generally affects people with families. Um and um so our budget which has pretty much been standard. I know you haven't seen the entire budget yet. I mean I've just seen a draft of it myself today. But our issues haven't changed. We um are a very competent group of people. Um I I really take offense that we [snorts] need there's a recommendation that we need help. We're always welcome to guidance. Um but we have um a very great school department looking at our budget. Um and we are over a million and a half dollars short. Um that's not going to be raised. And as I've said over and over again, that's just this year. It's so important to look long term. Once we cut, they don't come back. I've heard that said about other departments by you. Once it's cut, it doesn't ever come back. Once you start a fee, you never cut the fee again. All of these are affecting everyone on this town. And I guess I'm going to wrap up really quickly to say if you think bec I don't have kids in the schools anymore, so I'm going to be clear about that. If you think that [snorts] schools are just for people who

have kids in them, and you think good quality schools are just for kids and the people that have them, you need to take a very strong look at what a real functioning society looks like. And I think we're seeing that across the country. We have lost education in this country and you don't get it back. It's to everyone's best interest that we have a strong funded school department. It's not just for people who have kids in schools. That's selfish. And that's what a functioning society does. We help each other out. We all pay for fire. We all pay for roads. We all pay for police. We pay for a library. We pay for schools. That's what makes Grafton the wonderful town it is. So, thank you. Mr. Chair, you do have one hand on sure you know.

I'm gonna let Leora go first.

Leora Braum, 74 Adams Road, chair of the school committee. Um, I just want to correct a couple of things. One, we didn't overspend. Um, so I just want to be very clear on that that we weren't given a budget that we went over. Just the fact remains that we're able to raise revenue in this town by 2 and a half% and inflation is much higher than that. Period. The end. Um, we also do have a budget. It's very clear. Yes, things move around in it, but um, as Mrs. Austin said, this is not a one-year issue, right? the override isn't going to fix it and then we never have to talk about this again. You know, you can't do a one-year it it it compounds. So, the implication that somehow the school committee or the [snorts] schools themselves are not behaving in a responsible manner, I just can't let that stand.

Uh yeah, Mr. Um yeah, so uh I asked to put this on the agenda. Um [snorts] the reason that I asked to put it on the agenda is it's as someone said earlier, it's it's crystal clear to me that we're going to need an override. I have no question in my mind at all. Um, and based on every bit of information [snorts] that we have, um, I would challenge any other board member to tell me that we are not going to need an override. Um, the public is asking for the board's direction and commitment to putting it on the ballot. Um, all of the correspondence that we got, I would say 90% of it was asking for the board simply to support putting an override on the ballot. Um, and so to me that I I don't actually think this requires a lot of discussion. Um, there's a lot of other things that do need to be discussed. Um, but we understand very clearly what the impact on the schools is going to be, what the impact on the town is going to be. Um, and [snorts] we're pretty close to the number, you know, and unless we're talking about a one-year override, this like kind of really intense focus on this year's budget, as far as the override discussion goes, doesn't make any sense at all to me because [snorts] we're not talking about this year. We're talking about I don't know how many years, however many years this board decides, but um we don't even need to decide the number of years tonight. All we need to do is to send a clear signal

to the public that we're going to allow them to vote for an override to to fund services at a reasonable level. Um I I don't understand what other information we need than what we have already. Um I I would like to get to other bits of discussion like what the number is that's really important. Uh the length is really important and you know other bits of discussion are um need to happen before we can actually [clears throat] write the language for what would go on um on the ballot. But uh the fact that we would put it on the ballot and that we're committed to um yeah allowing people to vote on it just so I'm gonna I'm gonna make a motion to u to vote on this tonight. Um, and so, you know, let's have the discussion, but but I'm going to ask for the vote.

Mr. Chair, am I on or off?

Yeah. I mean, I um I thought we already did that. I thought we already had some sort of a tentative straw poll last meeting or the meeting before. Uh so I don't know what what we're into here. You probably got close to three. I would say this for me personally. I have said this multiple times publicly that if we're putting in the best good faith effort to try to save the people of this town as much money as possible, then I would support putting an override on the ballot. Having said that,

I I don't know what I'm looking at. It's override that that's probably a little bit not fully formed for me personally. So, I'd kind of like to know what that is. I've had some discussions with Evan and Mary and you know you look at some of the numbers and they're uh pretty enormous over a long period of time. So I personally don't want to just put out a vote say yeah let's just do it. Cool. Done. Can we go home now? That's not really I don't I think we want to be just a little bit more responsible. It's not a discussion. Just what's the number and how long? I'd like to know what that is. And I I know that there's a school budget. I I don't know that it's been approved. It may have been and if it is, we got it. Let's move forward and get to it. I think that is the process. So, but for whatever it's worth, I already thought we had the sort of like semiformal or informal straw ball.

We do. This is going to make it this is going to make it formal that we will commit to putting an override option on the ballot. That's it's just the option at this point, people. It is a commitment to the residents that they will have the option to choose whether they go with a reduced budget or whether they [clears throat] pursue they are allowed to pursue an override option. Okay. So if that's not enough for me then and I say no now what deal with them and I I don't know what everybody else says. What if now what if it goes 32 the other way? You're beholden to the residents. It has nothing to do with me or or what I say. So I am I mean did you make and this is the only residence in the town too. So, like I'm with you and I think you should know where I stand. We do not.

You don't know where I stand. Have you watched any of the last three or four meetings in a year and a half? I just said it just now. I literally just said it. I would support an override on the ballot. Make a motion. Uh [snorts] I I will make a motion. Um Mark, I I sort of understand where you're coming from, but not really.

Okay. And and this is the reason. um this board gets to decide what the number is. So we can have those discussions until we arrive at a number that we feel comfortable with. That's our decision to make. So I want advice from Fincom. I want, you know, input from school committee. Uh I want Jay and Evan to give us some input, but we decide what the number's going to be ultimately. And but we can decide that later. We don't we don't actually need that number right now. I I I don't understand why we need the number.

This this vote tonight hardly makes it, you know, an open and shut case. Like there is a lot more work that needs to happen, you know, both with balancing the the budget as it stands and an override discussion. This vote tonight is merely stating that we will we commit to giving the residents the choice. We will continue to to vet both of those options and and flesh both of them out. That is our that is our duty. That is our responsibility. But we will give them the choice when it comes down to the budget as to as to which direction they wish to go. So we take a motion. I will.

All right. I move the board vote to place uh the question of an override on the next local election ballot. Second for discussion. Um I'm just going to say I'm going to abstain for exactly the reasons that Mark indicated. I don't think that I am going to um make a and I agree with with Mr. that it's my fidiciary responsibility to look at this. I want to know what the number is and I want to know the years etc. And I just don't understand why we have to, you know, push this along um on this timeline. And so just stating why I'm going to abstain.

Okay. Um just Andy.

Sure. So, um, I'm not going to vote in this blind. And that's kind of how I feel, um, this this push. Every every meeting we're talking about this, it's just being kind of jammed down our throat. I've never never seen anything quite like this. Um, I might ultimately support an override, but I don't know what that is. I don't know what it looks like. And to do this this vote blindly without having any idea where we're going with it, I think is um is not the right way to do it. I we had agreed that we were going to go um we were going to wait for the school department to scrub the budget and present us with hard numbers. That hasn't happened yet. It's been weeks and it hasn't happened. They said I think it said the middle of February. So, we're waiting for that. And we had agreed that we were going to wait until that. I think the school committee should be here when we do have that discussion. Um, and I think I think that's when we decide what we're going to do. We shouldn't be in a rush to vote for this blind override with with not enough information. I said, I might ultimately support it, but I want to do it in a thoughtful way. Um, and this isn't it. this is just, you know, kind of banging the nail until you get what you want, you know. So, it I don't think it's fair to this board. And um we need to be we need to be able to go through it and ask questions and we can't do that tonight because we don't have the information in front of us.

It doesn't have to be tonight. We still have the ability to do all of those things and we are going to do all of those things. Well, let's do them and then we'll vote for an override. Then,

Andy, we will vote on the override number and what will be presented to the residents at that time. Right now, we can commit 100% to them that we will give them the option. That is all this is discussing. This has nothing to do with a number a number of years. We know, we have sat here and discussed this ad nauseium so far that we are not going to come up with $1.4 million to easily close this without reductions. Okay, this gives the the public the opportunity. We have heard overwhelmingly that they want the opportunity to vote on this. They want the choice to be theirs. This is what we're granting them. We say yes tonight. It commits us to putting an override on the ballot. We still have lots of work to do. By our schedule, we have four meetings left by the time we need to have this decided. I have very little confidence that that is enough time to work out both of these scenarios. It's going to take additional meetings. It's going to take additional joint meetings. We don't have a lot of time. It's realistically until the beginning of April. That's when we need to think about closing the town meeting warrant. And by April, I think 16th, I confirmed with the town clerk's office. That's when the ballots need to be submitted. That is not a lot of time.

So, we have a motion, a second. Should we go ahead and vote? Yeah. I guess I'll just say one last thing. Um, we do have the numbers. We have the projections and Evan has indicated that those projections are solid. So, we know what the numbers are over however number of years we would be looking. So, that's not a surprise and we don't need to wait for that. We have it in hand. We have those those projections have already been presented and that's what we would be basing our number on. Were you talking about the five-year projection? Yeah. Well, see, that's something that we need to talk about, right? And I know to your point, Andy, we're not talking about that tonight, but we need to do this.

We need to do this. So, when we have all the information, that's how I want to do it. So, that that's going to be my vote. And like I said, I'm not I'm not against putting it in front of the voters, but I want to have the information. And we're rushing to do this tonight, and it we don't need to do it. It doesn't feel right to me. So when we get that then we'll have the discussion. Just this is no rush. Um we have uh known this was coming for two years now. Um so it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody.

We have the numbers in terms of what the aggregate deficit is year after year that we need. Um and so you know we we do need to have those discussions about how long of an override we do. that those this vote is not contingent on that at all and and this board will decide what the number is. So, we're in complete control. We're in the driver's seat and um yeah, so I'll just leave it at that. Uh Mr. [snorts] Chair, there's a a lot of sound here, so why don't we just ask people to tell us what they think?

No. Um we we do not take public comment during the select board portion of dur during the select board discussion. I will give you a chance once we complete this discussion here but when a motion has been made and seconded the discussion is between us. Is there any other discussion from the board? Yep. I'm going to abstain. I want to give it to you. I want it to happen. I'd really like to know what it's going to be and I'd like to go through that. And if you want to do that now, Evan, let's just do it. No, if it's a 1.5, we can't do it now. I still five. Let's do it.

Sorry, just interject. I still have questions and comments that I, you know, had for Jay and I keep pulling them over because I'm not sure if he's going to be here or not that I had asked, you know, six weeks or or more ago. So, I don't think that we're going to I'm not in favor of sitting here and trying to hash this out right now. No, that is not

Again, I need more information that we don't current I don't currently have. Okay. So, the the purpose of the override is levy capacity, which has nothing to do with this year's budget. I mean, all it does is it gives Evan and Jay some room to maneuver to keep services reasonably funded uh over the coming years. We've two years in a row now used some um sort of one-off budget mechanisms. Um the schools had reductions last year. you know, we used uh revolving funds from the schools. Those were exhausted. Um we've had three meetings now asking different questions about ways to save money or generate revenue or whatever. Um the questions have been asked and answered. U we're not going to

we're not going to make up that one one half million dollars. It's that's just not realistic based on any of the discussion that we've had. Um and we can we will continue those discussions but to your point Y like it's February now we we so yeah um I have been pushing and I've forecasted to the board that I was going to do that um I challenged this board this time last year to um prepare itself for making decisions about an override with some level of uncertainty. That's what a board needs to do. We need to have the vision to to put this on the ballot and signal to the public that that it's coming. Um and this sort of hedging where we don't have enough information just doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

Okay. It feels like just unnecessarily [clears throat] maybe purposeful delay. It's not purposeful delay at all on my part. And I will also just say that questions that I've had have not been answered. I mean, even just talking about fees tonight in addition to, you know, other things that I still have for Jay. So, um, no purposeful delay here at all. I feel obligated to [clears throat and cough] know know what I need to know, you know, to move forward. Again, we're five different people. We all come at this differently, and that's that's fine. That's why we've been voted into these positions. [snorts]

With that, uh, all those in favor, I I All those opposed. Extensions. I'm going to I Okay. Motion passes. Public comment. That's right.

Does the motion pass? Did I? No. Does not pass. Colleen Roy, 53 Elwood Street. All this vote tonight was going to do was provide direction to the town administrator who asked for that back in December with a deadline of early to mid January. And to have three of you up here unwilling to provide that direction is wild to me because why go through all of these scenarios and create all of these override opportunities if you're not going to support it? That's a lot of work. So by initially coming up ahead of time saying yes, we support the vision and then we'll talk about the vision or saying no so they don't waste their time coming up with all these scenarios, but abstaining is wild to me. You were elected to lead. They're asking you to lead and you're sitting back choosing not to lead. I I don't even know what to say. [applause] Hi, Zoe Rasmusson, Tenbay Farm Lane. I am a very lay person in this circumstance, but I've become very interested lately in the funding of our schools and our town services. As a almost decadel long resident of Grafton, proud parent of my six-year-old beautiful son in Grafton public schools and lover of the library, fun, public services, safety, and all my other fellow town residents. I feel like there is a little bit of confusion maybe on the board regarding personal support for an override and allowing the public to vote on one. Um, disenfranchising your citizens is not a I think good move politically or just as a citizen of a town. I think we should be able to decide where our how much we pay towards our schools and our town services. I have done a lot of research in the

past few weeks because I was wondering what is the root cause of this funding deficit and how do we fix it? And it turns out we're not unique in needing an override to fund our public services based on antiquated state laws and regulations and the lack of state funding. It's not mismanagement of funds. It's not schools overspending. It's the opposite. We are working with so little. We are unique in how little we spend per student. That I learned and I was so sad to hear that. So, I'm probably rambling and I apologize, but my point is this has to be a vote for put for the people to have the say in their town. I will be voting pro- override, not just for level services to fund our schools, our safety, our library, our recreation. Make my town proud, make my son proud, and make my neighbors proud, and hopefully make you proud, too, because that's what makes this town great. Thank you, [applause]

Mr. Chair. You have several hands on your favorite.

Kyle Palmer, 18 Vincent Road. Good to see you guys. Love the Walter White look, Matt. looking like Breaking Bad over there. I'll keep it quick. I want to say thank you to the board for trying to be fiscally responsible. I do appreciate it because although we do spend less per our neighboring towns per pupil, we also have a bigger percentage of our town budget that goes to the schools committee. And isn't it already expensive enough to live in this town? Seriously, I'm looking at getting the hell out of here. I want to move to New Hampshire. I want to go to a place and you know what's funny? People in New Hampshire, they don't have any sales tax. They don't have any property tax. I I'm sorry. They don't have any sales tax. They don't have any income tax. They complain about the property tax cuz the property tax is so damn high. You know what? I've been looking at houses for the last year and a half. I pay more in Grafton than they do in New Hampshire. It's financial suicide. You know, politicians say, "Oh, when times are tough and we have inflation, you know, tighten the belt." Well, you know what? Towns have to tighten the belt, too. And I love teachers. I have teachers in my family. All my children went through the Grafton school system. Guys got to get more creative. You know, I bet that if the Grafton town residents saw the line by line item, they'd be like, "What the hell is that?" You think every single town resident would approve of every single thing that is in that school board's line items? I don't think so. [snorts] So, I would just like to thank you for being fiscally responsible because I think it's stupid to vote on something that you don't even have the numbers on.

Our superintendent is also the HR director. Yeah. [snorts]

Shantel Kimble, five big away. All we were asking tonight was to vote in favor of both Mr. Brousard and Dr. Cummings presenting two budgets at town meeting, both of which would have multiple opportunities for deep vetting. Um, both of which would go before you for before you, both of which would go before the finance committee. We're just asking for direction for those two heads to create two budgets to be presented at town meeting for the residents to vote on. I I feel like I'm kind of paring what Colleen said, but if you don't now give them direction to create those two budgets, then we end up in a rushed situation at the finish line. Then we end up with not having an opportunity to educate voters as to what they're actually voting on. Then we don't have time to educate voters on the importance of attending meetings like this or town meeting. And I'm really resentful right now of how often I've heard the term pack the room. That is a wild way to talk about a functioning democracy. People should be showing up to have their voices heard. The only reason to direct to not give the clear direction to our town administrator and our superintendent of schools to create two budgets for town meeting to vote on is if you are trying to either delay it so that we don't have time to quote unquote pack the room or deny us the opportunity to vote on it to arrive at a

pre-ordained outcome. that for some reason you've decided Dr. Cummings and Mr. Brousard haven't jumped through enough hoops to prove to you that asking to raise revenue um is a reasonable ask. So, there's a lot more to be said on the topic, but all we were asking for tonight was for you to direct our officials to create two budgets for us to choose between. So all the rigomearroll and all of all of the other things details that you're hung up on that you refuse to make a decision without are are really not even relevant to that. Just tell them to create two budgets. Thank you. [applause] [clears throat and snorts] Ken Remlad to Mountain View Lane. Um I'm not quite sure what she's talking about as far as not being um uh creating the two budgets. It's a simple question. Why why has not why has the uh superintendent not presented to you a line item? Think is [laughter] are they hiding something that that uh that that they don't want you to see? I mean, it's a pretty simple thing.

They they were asked a long time ago. The audience should to present um appreciation to this gentleman as he did to you. They were asked they were asked a long time ago to present a line item budget. What's the problem? You know, I don't I don't understand what the problem is. I'm kind of like in a conundrum conundrum right now because I'm a firm believer in the people having the right to vote. But on on the on the committee side, uh they also have the right to have a line item budget. End the story. I mean, I don't understand what the problem. Are they hiding something that they're not showing it? You know, that they're afraid to bring a line on their budget.

Hi, Wendy Carlson, 42 Old Upton Road.

I'm not going to Colleen and Jal said the same thing that I wanted to say except for the fact that I'm going to be completely honest here. We have three select board members here that doesn't trust the public to make a decision on their own. We have people who are for the override, people who are against the override. I don't care how the outcome goes as long as a town gets the vote for it and not the five of you. [snorts] You guys should be putting this to the town to allow us to make a decision. We are the voters. If you don't like it, you can also vote against the override or for the override. I can vote against it. I can vote for it. But the fact that you don't even trust us to make that decision on our own is a slap in the face of democracy. We're not asking you to give a number tonight. You have plenty of time to do that as Matt and Andy have told you. But we always have questions. Questions. Question. Questions. Delay. Delay. Delay. Stall. Stall. Stall. Whoops. We're out of time. Oh my gosh. This is so frustrating. The fact that we have three members of this board that doesn't trust the public. Thank you.

[applause]

Greg Mar 36 Ferry Street. I member of the finance committee. I'm not speaking on behalf of the committee. Uh for those that have wondered, the finance committee is having its first uh budget presentation on Thursday. After that, members of the finance committee will be meeting with each department and going through the budget line by line. After that they will be having public hearings where the department heads come in and present their budgets and the public can uh ask questions at those. They can ask questions at the public hearing on this Thursday and also uh the other questions later. You may remember that three weeks ago I came up here and spoke and reminded you that nine weeks from that point it was too late to put an override on the ballot. You have now used onethird of that time and you are still debating whether or not we should even put an override on the ballot, let alone trying to come up with numbers. You don't need the exact detail to decide that yes, we need a an override, probably a multi-year override. This year's budget is not going to tell you how much that is going to need to be. You need to look at the projections and figure out, okay, what is it that we think people would be willing to to put forward and willing to vote for? That is all people were asking for tonight is to say yes, we commit to allowing the voters to choose. Thank you. [applause] Hi, Victoria Duckworth 8 Trinity A. I am the chair of the finance committee, but I am not speaking here on behalf of the finance committee. Um, want to thank

Greg for the plug for Thursday evening be the not the first time in this budget season that we're going to have the opportunity to sit down with Evan uh and and speak through the preliminary budget, start the line by line exercise prior to when we have the opportunity to go to each of the department heads and ask them all of the hard-hitting questions that we get to every year. I know Craig, you had specifically asked, is that something that the finance committee still does, uh, and it is, and the finance committee invites you and the rest of the board to any and all of our meetings. Um, we'd love for you also to have the opportunity to see the sorts of things that we get to learn from the department heads line by line. Um but ultimately I also think that that particular exercise and this greater conversation is serving as a form of obiscation right to echo what everyone else is saying this year's budget although important and certainly deserves scrutiny is not the overarching end all beall to the question do we need an override over the next three to five years. This budget for this year will give us an answer for this year. But ultimately, as Matt stated, we're looking at actual levy capacity over the next 3 to 5 years. It's up for you to decide that number. And I think that constantly asking, do we have the budget for this year? Can we see the school committee line by line is just a stall tactic to not allow the people of Grafton the opportunity to vote on an override. uh and and whether you personally vote for or against it honestly is irrelevant. What is most important is the opportunity for the town's people to have their say to be able to vote for or against it. And uh to be perfectly frank, I think

constantly asking for more detail over and over again, pushing this off week by week is extremely transparent and it's actually a little offensive to the people of Grafton as though we can't see for ourselves the tactic. Um we we can and we're asking you to give us the opportunity to vote. That's all. Thank you very much. [applause] I can jump in quick. Yeah. So, just several of you have kind of jumped in and said the same thing that um we're stalling, we're putting it off, right? All right.

So, you know, but we about I don't know couple meetings ago when we met with the school department, you know, we had agreed that they were going to scrub the budget and they were going to bring us hard numbers and and we're waiting for those numbers. We haven't seen those yet. And I get I get the whole point about we can still take a vote tonight. I get that. But that was the agreement and we haven't seen those numbers. So here we are up here, right? Getting our head kicked in. Um because we're waiting. We don't have a Why don't we have the budget? I'm not blaming the school department, but that was the agreement, right? So we need to So it's not a stall tactic. If the if that those numbers if that was completed that scrubbing of the budget and the school committee was here we would be having that discussion and to say that it's you know it's a I don't know whatever said about you know it's a an insult to democracy it's not this is probably going to

this is probably going to get on all right it's most likely going to get on the warrant so I would relax about that but we but I think it's only fair to us that we get the information that we've been waiting for. If we had the information, we would be having that discussion. We don't have that information. Again, I'm not you. You guys got to go through it, right? I'm I'm not trying to throw you guys under the bus. All right. But we you That's why that's why and we had agreed to that. So, you know, I had prepared something for tonight, which I very rarely do. And if wait,

if you let me just speak just for a second. Sure. All right. Really need the audience to just I mean, we're providing everybody the same level of respect here,

please. So the rest of it I'll share when the when we meet with the school committee. But I am trying to support the schools and still be fiscally responsible. And I think that's the job that we all have up here. That's the responsibility that we have to all the taxpayers and that includes the parents of of school kids and that includes um elderly people. We represent the whole town and every department, right? We're not just representing one department. So, it's a balance, right? Um, you know, as most of you know, I grew up in this town. I I was in a I was in middle school here. This was Miss Kent's classroom, right? I sat right over there. Um, my father went to this school. My four kids went to this school. You know, we've supported the school system for 30 years. You know, I sat on feasibility study committees. I knocked on doors, sat with elderly community to push for for new buildings and for funding for the school, right? Um, you know, I advocate for the schools, but I also advocate for fiscal responsibility, you know, and I think about all the people when I drive through town, like my parents' generation, my grandparents generation, I know those people. I know that they're on limited income. So, as much as we want to fund the schools and and make them the best that we can be, everybody wants that, but I think of those people, too. Um, and there's got to be a balance. Um, so for me, you know, I like I said, I think we're going to get there, but I was on this board when for years and years and years when Tim is here, we cut and, you know, we there was years that the townside budget was flatlined or was negative, right, in order to give extra money to the schools that needed it, right? The the pay is just throw the first round.

That was when I was here back in I don't know 2013 or 15, you know, that was to fund the schools. We we pulled all kinds of levers throughout the years to try and help the schools and I've been part of those discussions. So, and I'm not against putting in front of the voters, but I think it's only fair for us. I'm not speaking for Any Mark, is that do we get the information that we requested? You know, everybody can write in and I get it, but we're the ones that have to make the decision. And if we're asking for information like what the school real the school budget is, I don't think that's too much to ask. I think it's a fair question or a fair thing to ask for. Um, okay.

I'm going to go with Miss Rice and then take a couple hands on Zoom.

Lisa Rice, 40 Browns Road. I just want to for anybody who's concerned that the school is overspending, um we are 13th from the bottom of pure per pupil expenditure. So if there's like 365 towns in Massachusetts. So if anybody's concerned that Grafton's overspending in the school budget side, I think that's a really good indication that we are not. Um it feels like Groundhog Day a little bit. 11 years ago, we talked about an override. We put an override on and said this is going to be the model. We got voted for a second override. Five years everybody agreed on. We actually got six years out of it. This is not a surprise. Amory, your question should have been asked 365 days ago. The fee questions. You asked about raising fees 365 days ago. Then why didn't the board talk about it then? It's been 365 days since the school committee came to this board and said, "Hey, we're going to make and cut $600,000, but next year there's no way we can do it without an override. You've had 365 days to look line item by line item about what the budget is." And Mr. Dolphin, I hope you're listening. I listen to you without texting. Um, you had 365 days to look at the line item that was voted last year's school committee budget. Everything went up what 1 to 2%. The line items are the line items of the school committee budget. Look at them. I understand the process and you absolutely want to look at all of them, but this is a philosophy discussion, not a pennyto penny discussion. How are you going to manage with the state funding the way that it is over the next five years? That's the question tonight, not should we raise building fees to get an extra thousand. That discussion should have happened 365 days ago. Thank you. And just to clarify on [applause] that, you're right. 365 days ago, I did ask

about the uh fees looking at sports related fees for busing. I'm talking about fees, the ones that you were asking about tonight. Yep. The development fees. Did you ask that 365 days? Shame on your committee members for not addressing it. Then you have seven hands on. Okay, let's take the first one. [snorts] Samir, you just need to unmute.

Hi. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Yes.

Hey, thank you guys for your time tonight. Obviously, I know this is a very difficult time for the town, right? And um again, my name is Samir Ramen. I'm a member of the finance committee, but I won't be speaking on behalf of the finance committee. Um you know, I think what we're doing here today is we're sort of debating giving the people the right to vote on something, right? Not so much how we got here, what's going to happen next, but giving them just that right to say I say yes to this or I say no to that. We have a $1.5 million deficit. We know for a fact all the scrubbing in the world of the budget as it currently exists is not going to make that up. I kid you not. How are you going to find $1.5 million? Why are we delaying this?

Secondly, we can't continue to think about this in a one-year vacuum. We have to think about this for the next few years. What happening what's happening now is going to happen next year. We can't predict that costs will not go up. they are going to continue to go up. It's simple economics, right? Costs go up over time outside of inflation. Inflation happens. Costs go up outside of inflation as well. So what happens next year when say transportation increases, say health insurance goes up. Sometimes you can't predict it. We need to be thinking of it over the next 5 years, not this year itself. We cannot make up $1.5 million this year. So we need to start thinking of what we can do in parallel. We need to start thinking about this tactically and not wasting any more time. Also, we need to start thinking that if we do go for the override, maybe we do see some savings, we see some benefit. In the world of budgets, you always consider execution risk. We don't even have that in this budget. So we need to start thinking long term for the future not this year itself. Thank you. [clears throat] Lisa, you just need to unmute. Lisa,

hi. I wasn't sure if you called me. Can you guys hear me? Okay, I'm in the car. Yep, we can now.

Okay, great. So, this is Lisa Hall. I'm at 6 Glenwood Lane. Um, and I really have the same sentiments that a lot of people have spoken. Um, this discussion should be about whether or not the people of this town have the right to vote, whether they want an override or they don't want an override. It doesn't matter what the number is, but we should have a right to make that decision. There are plenty of people that wrote in. I looked at all of the letters that came in that are on the agenda and they all want us to be able to vote and make that decision ourselves and saying that you are going to try to take that away from us because you're not willing to put an override out there is just completely unacceptable. I'm just gobsmacked or sitting in my car listening and so angry that it's not a a yes vote from everyone to just say let the town's people vote and make this decision. And that's all I want to say. I am for an override. I believe we need to fund the schools. If you [snorts] guys can find a $2 million or $10 million tree out there that has a lot of money on it that we can use, that would be awesome. But that doesn't exist. So, we still need to get about $10 million over the next five years. And we're just not going to find that without doing an override. That's all. Thank you.

Um, we'll continue we'll we'll take some more comments. uh if if we are getting a little repetitive. So if we can you know people who are going to continue to comment can try to I guess expand the conversation or um you know um touch on different points that would be great. [snorts] Steve there we go. Hi. Can you hear me? We can.

Hi, good evening. This is Stacy Bennett, 14 Rose Lane. I am the chair of the Grafton Republican Town Committee. However, I am not speaking on behalf of the committee, speaking as a private citizen. Um, first I'd like to say thank you to the three select board members who did abstain from this vote. um to that lady who just spoke before finding that tree. That tree is us, the taxpayers, and I don't have many of those trees in my backyard. But that's not what I wanted to say. Um with all due respect to Mr. Offen, I want to ask you why you keep pushing this vote. It seems performative. It seems manipulative. It seems like you're trying to catch your fellow select board members, put them in a bad light. I think it's very clear who's for the override and who's not for the override. What I'd like to ask respectfully ask you, Mr. Offen, is that you please work with your fellow select board members to get them the numbers that they'd like so we can move this discussion on. So, people are astounded and disgusted. I'm fed up with this discussion that's happened over and over and over. It's clear where your fellow select board members stand. They want numbers and I think you owe numbers to the residents of Grafton. No way would I ever make a huge decision like this without having all the information. So I respectfully ask you to move on from this this discussion and get the answers that you that they need. Work collaboratively together. Get the school committee to give you the numbers that they promised and let's move on because this is a waste of everybody's time. I think it's pretty clear we're probably going to have an override and from what I understand they've already given you how they feel which is they'll put the override on the ballot. Let's move on

respectfully Mr. Offen. Thank you. Um I'd like to respond to that.

Um the uh only thing I really maybe two things that I want to uh respond to directly. Um, one is, uh, any kind of surprise of select board members. Um, our agendas are published in advance. Um, so there's no surprise with any of these agenda items. Um, the reason that I'm pushing uh this particular uh item is because it doesn't require any other information other than the projections. You know, we know already that what we're facing if we don't have an override is repeated service cuts, not just in the schools, but with all the service cuts that we looked at on the on the municipal side. Um, so, you know, we we can come to those numbers later. Um, but the other thing that I just wanted to talk about was um the sort of performative aspect. Um, this isn't performative for me at all. Uh, I'm super disappointed to hear that question came even brought up with regards to to my discussions um in our meetings. Um, I I only have the town's best interests in heart uh and the residents and the voters best interests uh in mind and and for that reason I want to offer them the opportunity to to vote to keep our schools whole, which I think is really important. It was mentioned a couple times tonight, you know, wow, my kids don't go to the schools. Everybody benefits tremendously from a healthy school system. it that's indisputable. There's no question about that. Um and you know, but I do think that there uh are optics to this, right? And so I

want to recognize a little bit that select board members have to demonstrate a certain level of diligence with regards to um you know that sort of financial discipline if you will um and making sure that we've uncovered all of the um all of those stones. But that happened last year and there's nothing new this year that came up and there's certainly nothing that I've heard that is going to get us even close to a million and a half. So yeah, let's keep having those discussions. Um what I would um what I would ask I guess uh from my fellow board members because ask the ask the other board members. I'm somebody who's very collaborative. Uh, I get along with all the board members pretty well and we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but um I'm not some somebody who's looking to make anybody look bad. That's not what I'm about at all. Um, I have a real sense of urgency for this particular uh item to to be moved past so that we can start talking about some of the other things. Um, and I guess what I will ask is can we come up with a final list of things that we need? um to start discussing because I I don't even know like can we talk about the number of years I it just seems like this endless list of things that we need to discuss before we can have that discussion and I don't I don't know it doesn't seem like we're getting there anywhere fast and so I'm I'm frustrated uh and so you're hearing that from me tonight. Um, to me this is was just a no-brainer. You know, it's simple question of are we going to allow people to vote on an override or not? Um, so but I would I

guess ask select board members to clearly identify what they need um to to move forward and we don't need to do it in open session here but you know just let's make that really clear so that all that stuff can be compiled and and brought back and we can just Stacy I want to move on too. Thanks.

Amy, you're up. Hi everybody. Can you hear me? Yep.

Okay. My name is Amy Maher. I live at 36 Ferry Street, South Grafted. Um, I just want to reiterate that the numbers that you guys need to work on setting the override, you've had for over a month. Evan gave them to you. Um, they're updated versions of the numbers you received last year in January. The projections for the next 5 years are what you base the override on, not line by line budgets. That's never been how it's worked. It's never been feasible to work that way because of when the line by line budgets are done. They're not done. They're not going to be done. You need to make the decision sooner so that it can be put on the ballot. It's got to be done sooner. I haven't heard you talk about scenarios for an override at all. All I've heard is yes or no. I haven't heard what about three years at this amount, what about five years at this amount. And that's the level of discussion that we should be hearing right now. Um, we've done this before. We we've done it twice before. You can go back and watch those meetings and see how it was done. So, I don't understand why we're suddenly so preoccupied with getting a line by line budget from a man who is already doing two or three jobs because we don't have a large administration in our school district. We cut the HR director last year. So, Dr. Cummings is the superintendent, the director of HR, he doesn't have an assistant superintendent. So, this idea that, you know, he's late or whatever, it's really, it's really bothersome to me that you're painting this on a guy that, you know, is overworked because you asked us to make it. So, you asked us to make those cuts and we did when I was on the school

committee last year. So, if he's running a little behind, I'll apologize on his behalf. But the numbers you need, you have. They're only getting worse, guys. They're not getting better. What about next year? What about three years from now? You want to have an override discussion every single year, or do you want to try to put a finger in the crack, stop the bleeding, and move forward? And my final comment is that it is not fiscal responsibility to disenfranchise your constituents by not giving them a say. And that's what an abstension could have done tonight. Those of you who abstained, it's not the select board's job to protect one portion of the population at the expense of others. It's just performative and it demonstrates a lack of understanding of the budgeting process and how municipal finance really works. And I hope to see all of you at all of the open hearings and listening and taking notes because I don't think three of you understand how this works. Thank you. [applause]

To sit up here and be insulted by people. You're just gonna keep Hi, I'm Trace. People came to talk. I'm going to let them talk. All right. Well, maybe I'll maybe I'll just leave this because I don't need this [clears throat] So, what? Go ahead. Do you want to do you want to say that into the mic so that everybody can hear your attitude? Let's just move on. We've heard from everybody. I can handle this. Completely just repetitious at this point, Andy. So, okay. Tracy.

Hi, I'm Tracy. And I'm Tracy Kaufman. I live at 96 Pleasant Street and thank you so much for allowing me to speak tonight. Um, I wanted to thank you all for allowing me to speak, but um, I wanted to reiterate the fact that Craig um, you made mention of the fact that you have lived here for 30 years and you have seen the growth of our town. um and allowed you know seen the prosperous of this town grow. But yet over the years you have also stopped the growth of our town by stopping development and you know in you have also um you're abstaining from the o voting on this override tonight and it's a little bit frustrating to watch and you know you support the schools and you support our town but Yet you're allowing our students and I have three children who have two have graduated and one that's currently in the high school, but you're not really looking for the growth of our town. And our override really is detrimental for our town's growth. And you can see from other people who have spoken in the past before me, um, it's really detrimental that we have this override. And you know, you're you're not allowing as well as our other board members, select board members who are abstaining from allowing

this override to be on this ballot. And I'm really um disappointed in um some of you tonight and I just really wanted to voice that. Thank you, Tracy. So, can I respond to that? Sure. [clears throat]

So, I don't I didn't really understand a lot of what you said, Tracy. Um I've been here for 60 years, not 30, and I haven't stopped development. I was on the planning board for years and saw many many projects come through that board that got approved. Um if you're talking about the recent um affordable housing project, yeah, I was against that specific project for a bunch of I think really good reasons, but not anti-growth. Um many many of my friends um current friends are people that moved here that weren't from Grafton. So, never been against thoughtful um thoughtful growth. Reckless growth, yeah, I have a problem with reckless growth, but thoughtful growth, no. So, and I supported the first override. I was very involved with that. The second override I was not involved with. Um I wasn't on the board at the time. Um but yeah, you know, fourth generation Grafton. I mean, my kids went to school here. I went to school here. You know, my dad went to school here. I I don't I guess I don't really get where you're coming from. Um, and I've said it five times. I'm sure there's going to be an override put in front of the voters. Not trying to take that away from the residents, but what I am trying to do is do my job. And um, for me tonight, that requires more information. and a discussion with the school department about how this override is going to get structured and I because I have questions um to ask them about that. So I don't think what I'm asking for is unfair. Um obviously a lot of you do. Um so did that answer any of your questions or your concerns?

I think I think she's been demoted so really just a statement at this point. All right. Okay. Um, again, we are getting a little repetitive here. I I I will let and I I acknowledge people are here to speak. I'm going to give you an opportunity to speak. We're going to reduce, I think, the the time limit down to a minute. Um, and I [clears throat] think Will, you indicated we have a couple repeat hands on Zoom. I think we're just going to do one time comments at this point. Okay. So, we have three on Zoom. Okay. Let's uh take the next Zoom. Hi, I'm Gabrielle Mlean. Three Lake. Sorry.

Sorry. We're just We're gonna Sorry. One more Zoom. Oh jeez. Sorry.

Hi, I'm I'm Cherylyn Reno, 89 Keith Hill Road. Um I've only I've only been a resident here for 15 years. I've only been like civically engaged for eight years, but this this is the eighth budget cycle I've sat through. And I can't remember a budget cycle where the school committee has not been asked to do more with less money. I have not remember cannot remember a budget cycle where we were saying, "Yeah, we want you to expand programming." It's level funding is always like seen as that's the starting point. Level funding is the compromise position, guys. We want our schools to educate our children better, right? We want to have excellent schools. We can't get excellent schools by continuing to cut money. Thank you.

Thank you, Sharon. Can I go? Please. Yeah.

Thanks. um Gabrielle McClean three Lake View Drive. Um so my kids u have graduated from um the schools and but they had a really great experience and when we moved to this town there were some things that were really nice about it. We did our homework. We looked at what the schools looked like. I could see they were underfunded compared to some of the other areas but they still had really good ratings and we had a great lake and it was great and there were a lot of nice things about that. Um, we're looking to cut a lot of that tonight. A lot of the things that made me want to move here. And it's really sad. And I think that we have to look at what that means in terms of cost to us when we go to sell our houses. Cuz frankly, if I was looking at this right now, I wouldn't move here. I wouldn't. I would think, what's this going to look like in 5 years when my kid is here? How many more positions are we going to cut? and I wanted my kids to go to good schools. And we've seen our housing values go up and up and up and up. And if you look at Zillow, I challenge you guys to, you'll see that the districts that don't have as good schools and that cut positions have lower values to their houses. So, everyone who's thinking they're going to save money on taxes right now by not funding our schools and our town and our services are going to lose it when they go to sell their houses. And sorry, my minutes up. That's it. [applause]

Andy, you still Mr. Chair, sorry. You do two on Zoom. Thank you.

Hi. Uh Dan Kusher, 79 Keith Hill Road. Um I just wanted to say uh we're talking about uh levy capacity. uh the the exact numbers for this year's budget can go up, can go down. We we don't need to spend whatever is currently in the preliminary budget. If if we can scrub something out of there, reduce it by a little bit, that can be the new budget. Even after you guys set a number for the override, even after that point, if they find a way to save a little bit more, they can still save it a little bit more. And then that extra little bit of capacity that they're not using just stays there. And then we can use that in the future farther along and maybe stretch the override beyond what we were hoping it would last for. Kind of like what we did with the 2020 override. So really having the exact scrubbed school budget, not even entirely sure what a scrubbed budget is, but having those, you know, more precise or whatever it is numbers really is not something that needs to block a decision about even the number for the override, let alone the decision to commit to putting an override on the ballot. Thank you.

Thank you. [clears throat]

Howdy, James Bion, 37 Fisherville Terrace, Deja Vu. I've been here before. Uh, really quick clarifying question. The vote earlier was two pass, three abstain. I thought I heard the phrase motion passes. That was my How does that work? It does not. It does not work. It does not.

Okay. So, um, was walking through the halls of this very building earlier today. I had to get water. And a quote on this wall stood out to me. It said, "Think of three things. Where you came, where you are going, and to whom you must account." That's Benjamin Franklin that said that. That's on the second floor. um where you came. Think about the past two years and how the schools have had to and the town schools in town have had to magically just come up with like a magic $600,000. We've exhausted all our revolvers. We're in a crisis here, right? We're in a crisis and there's a lot of people's jobs at stake, very likely, including mine. uh that if you vote no or we don't get the override on the ballot in time, it's not going to solve anything [snorts] even past this year. I guess Evan, a question I have is if you are faced with a $600,000 delta next year, are you able to cut that without touching DPW police fire?

Uh most likely not if Right. So, I mean, you're in this same position next year, right? So, uh I guess all I have to say is um for myself and [snorts] anyone else's job who may be affected, you have a chance tonight to either help preserve that or not. And I'm not really understanding what the difference is, but if the scrub budget is 1.4 or 1.6, I'm just not really understanding what that is there. So, uh, yeah. Sorry, I'm losing my train of thought, but thank you. Thanks,

Michelle Williams. Um, 16 Chipper Road, Tripper Drive. Um, and I'll be really quick, too. Um, I hate that this is a town versus school issue because it's not. This is a Grafton and a Grafton issue and we're all together in this. And I feel very people have been pointing at, oh, there's a lot of parents here and it's a school district issue. No, this is all of us. This is our everybody is is going to be affected by this. My kids are going to be affected by this. And am I going to look to move after this if we don't get this on the ballot and and get this override passed? Yes, you're damn right. I'm I'm going to be looking to move. This affects everything, everybody's life. And I hate that it has to be one or the other like that. And to look, we have the numbers. We've looked at the budgets over and over and it's over. You have the numbers. He outlines it. 1.5. You have it right there. And we're not even looking for that. All the people want in this town is just the right to vote. I said the exact same words last year. I said, "We just want the right to be heard. We It's our futures. This is my kids' lives." And you're not even giving that to us. I I don't even know like I don't know how to feel right now. This is unbelievable. It's 2026 and we're facing this and we just asked for that one. Right. That's all. [applause]

Let's go back to Zoom.

Hi, I'm Jen Vaka. Live at four White Birch Lane and I have four children who went through the Grafton schools. My youngest will be leaving the G the gain program in June. I'm hearing from members of the [clears throat] finance committee that this vote is an important step towards getting an override before the voters of Grafton. It's interesting that members of the select board are not addressing this, but instead keep recycling the argument that they can't vote because they don't have lineby-line numbers. So, it seems like ignoring these comments makes it look like you are not debating in good faith. It feels like subtrafuge. It feels like you are denying us the right to vote for the future of our town. I am also hearing things like overspending and fiscal responsibility and what are they hiding when speaking about the schools. Several comments have been made by members of the select board suggesting that the superintendent is trying to delay the delivery of a budget. I would like the select board members to explain to the voters whether they are accusing the superintendent of wrongdoing.

Thank you. Thanks. One more point of information. A two vote is a passing vote, is it not? No, I I don't believe it is, Greg. A two to zero is not a passing vote. It's not a zero because it's not a majority of the board. But it's a majority of those who chose to vote and did not abstain. Attentions do not count. I I don't because otherwise you'd have uh I don't believe that two one if there only three people here that's a quorum and a 2-1 vote would be passed. Yeah, that's not my understanding of how the abstension is is calculated. So an abstension is the same as a no vote. Right.

I don't believe that is the case. Okay. Okay. So, I think regardless of that, Greg, um, [snorts] we'll revote this at some point after some additional discussion. I think I'll purely for minutes and official proceedings and that Yep. Um, but but we'll revote it after there's some additional information that comes out. I don't think any board members would disagree with that. Hi, can you hear me? Yes.

My name's Rick Lane. I live at 19 Perry Street, South Grafton, Mass. My grandfather was born in Fisherville, Massachusetts in 1899. My father was born in 1930 and lived here all his life. The two things I always told them and especially when people are talking about loading a meeting, the things I told them over and over again every time they complained about their taxes or any spending going up in town was if you don't vote, if you don't go and vote, you are at fault. The both of them always just wrote a check, sent it in because they got up early in the morning and went to work and they couldn't attend those late night meetings and they paid their taxes. And that's what people do. The three people that abstained tonight in this meeting have all voiced that they would support an override if they get what they are asking for. Two members that have voted for this both have ties to the school. Both have a spouse that's on the school committee and one has a worker that is on the school committee. I is in the school department. I get that. And we will vote when we have a number. You know, this is the thing. Evan tonight gave a a balanced budget, which he has to do, and I want to see the same thing from the school committee. I want to see a balanced budget so that we can see what the cuts are going to be and we can make a decision

because if they go for an override, they're going to get the override. The people have to vote for it. That's the only way. They can't just say, "You guys are going to pay more 1.5 million and that's it. We're voting for that." They're going to put it on the ball. You've reached your minute. Thank you. Thank you. Any other hands on Zoom? No other first- time commenters. Okay. Any other first- time commenters in the room?

Okay. Everybody has had the chance. We have given ample opportunity. So, at this point, I I would like for us to move on. It's likely to be an antilimactic rest of the meeting for all of you. If you want to hang out, you're more than welcome. But um select board reports. Anybody have anything? No. Uh I just want to take a moment quick to thank Pack 106. Uh I got invited to judge Pinewood Derby cars last uh this past Saturday. It's always great seeing the kids creativity on display. And uh I also want to congratulate the scouts that that won their heats and will be moving on to districts. Okay. Uh, town administrator report.

I don't have anything figured as much. Okay. Uh, correspondence. Anything anybody wish to discuss? Um, we had a great email in there from from Paul Canoyer thanking the the Grafton Police Department for their assistance in snow removal. Again, I I think it's it's worth highlighting. uh both the DPW and GPD as well as all of our maintenance and custodial staff had a lot to deal with uh earlier this week and I think did a a fantastic job. So, thank you and and our appreciation for that. Meeting minutes one sec.

Uh Mr. Chair, I move the board vote [clears throat and snorts] to approve the meeting minutes for March 4, 2025 as written. Second. Okay. Motion been seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Okay. Uh before we move into executive session, I did want to take a moment to thank Will for all his hard work with town council. Uh one of the things we'll be doing in executive session is approving some meeting minutes. Uh between la our last session and this this session, he has prepped 21 sets of minutes for us. And that is [applause] no small fees. Happy to help. Thank you. Okay. How was this [laughter] class for me? This is ridiculous.

You need to wear time more. Okay. So, um do due to uh Mass General law chapter 3A section 21A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if any open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body. And the chair so declares. I can take a motion to enter executive session. So moved. Mr. Chair, may I suggest we delay executive session until the next meeting? There's nothing in executive session that has to be dealt with this evening. Is the board a minimal to that? Yes. Yeah, it's it's minutes

and the and the pilot, but we just got updated pilot information on the 30th that we haven't really vetted yet. So Okay. Is that all right with you, Craig? Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. Then we can we will pass over executive session. Save that for our next meeting. Take a motion to adjourn. Second. Okay. Motion being seconded. All those in favor? I. We are adjourned.