Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Uh, it is 7 o'clock. We're going to call the joint budget discussion with the finance committee to order. Um any members on Zoom, so I'm going to kick it over to you so you can assembly your group. Great. Thank you so much. Um since I have remote members on Zoom, I will open the finance committee via roll call. Um Greg Maher here. Heather here. Mark here. Angelina here. Samir here, Skip here, Kyle here, and Victoria is present.

Okay. Thank you for coming in tonight's um finance committee. I I will apologize to all of you. Um you've been very persistent in your request to come here. Um I have somewhat intentionally kept you at an arms length. Uh hoping that we would get further in this discussion and have some ideas fleshed out before we brought you in. Um but very happy that you're here tonight. we can we can start kicking off this discussion with all of you. Uh we'll let Evan start. He's going to walk us through the presentation. I think everybody's seen it at this point. Um but we do have some numerical updates based on uh some miscommunications. Yeah. Um, so as I I I put out an email to all the groups, school committee, finance committee, select board. So when we've been talking about um our override figures, we've been pulling the entire five-year forecast in um which becomes problematic because we changed our five-year forecast uh at the beginning of this fiscal year. Um and it's actually showing you right now a six-year forecast. So, um, that caused me to grab the wrong column when I was putting throwing this together at the last meeting. Um, so I gave out the wrong medium and large override uh figures. So, we're going to just skip to those part, the small, the 850, nothing changed. None of the figures or numbers in this chart changed. It's just where we draw the the final line. Um, we're going to zip right over there. So, we originally had talked about a 7.1 at the last meeting. It's really, if we're looking at a five, if we're having a conversation about a fiveyear override, five years is 5.6 million, which is about 165

uh dollars per year. Uh if you average it evenly between the five years, um you go to the next slide. broken down here. This is um exactly the shortfall that you see on the forecast um except that I have broken apart each year's um cumulative cost over the life of a 5-year override. So 172 in year 1, 318, 497, 637, 836. Um, so again on the other side, if you average across all five years, this is what it would actually be if we were to spend exactly what those deficits show, which you know, they'll be close, but probably not exact. Uh, this doesn't change. You go to the next slide. Yes. So then I just adjusted that full override um conversation that we were having. So that would shift um to about 1.5 million uh 7.5 million total which is $219 averaged across uh the five years. And well if you go to the next one uh you can see across the bottom it's 219 then 438 um 657 876,95 and so it just shifts that number up obviously because it's it's more money. Um, I also gave updated um surplus, which is only a surplus if we weren't to use any of that, right? That would be what was left after you knocked out your deficit. Um, and added the 1.5 million across what we were expected to spend uh per the forecast. All right, I think that's it for updates. It was just those two, not just, it was those two um sections that I had to go back and tweak.

Um, any questions for anybody that they want to follow up with on this? Clear? No, but can we talk about them? Sure.

I mean, I uh we asked the select board asked Evan to put these scenarios together. Um, and it doesn't feel to me like we've really had much discussion about um, after having put them together. Um, so I'd love to just open some discussion about, you know, what we want to offer the voters. Um, and and what, you know, what the size of a of an override might be and what service levels we would want to let people vote on. It's a you know, part of my reasoning uh for asking for some multiple options was to have this discussion because I think it's important. Um, and so we've got a range of options here from uh no override with uh you know as sorry, yeah, small, medium, and large. Um, and I think they're all valid uh options. Um, but I' I'd love to hear some conversation about um what what people support in terms of funding levels. One of the most important things that we have to discuss. Okay. Anybody want to kick that off? You want to start with your opinion? Um well I think uh you know if the board is amendable to um you know multiple options uh I would I think regardless we owe it to the voters to have a level service option no matter how many years uh we that's what we've done in the past.

Um, and you know, the the whole purpose of Prop 2 and a half is that, you know, if the municipality is going to be raising taxes more than two and a half%, you got to check in with the voters to make sure they're okay with that. That's the whole point of it. Um, and I think the basis for checking in with the voters has to be level service. Otherwise, the select board is making a decision on behalf of the voters on we want to spend more or less on services and with in our discussions which services we want more or less of and that just completely in my mind goes against what we're here to do. Um we're not here to make decisions on behalf of the voters. We're here to to check in, I think, with level services over some number of years. So, that's kind of I'm open to the strengthen option. I think that's a an interesting one. It's something that a lot of people have asked for. Um I'm not personally in favor of the sort of small override option. As we looked at the um you know, personnel reductions, you know, we were getting into 60 and 70 numbers as we were going into years five and six. I just that's not a sustainable or reasonable approach um for this board member. Um so those are my thoughts. Thank you. I I'll echo those. Um we talked about a couple different scenarios at our last meeting. Um, I'm in the same camp where I think we we owe it to the voters to at least put out um our our sustainable option. Uh, I think it would be good to have a full option

out there, the the strengthen option. I'm not I don't I don't really see the point of the small option in its current uh iteration. um for the same reasons. I think it'd be, you know, it's we we'd put a lot of effort into going through these motions uh and still have to go through painful reductions along the way. Um it doesn't really, in my opinion, serve uh solve the problem. Um I could be open to reworking that option. there were, you know, there was some feedback in our last meeting that um a one or a three-year option would be uh could be acceptable. Um I would, you know, if we were re reworking the small option, I would want to see an FY26 lab level fund, the same as what we're discussing for the the medium five-year except brought down to a a one or a three-year level. Um, I'm in the same camp that uh I, you know, I think it is, it is our job to do the diligence, put together some good options, and then ultimately it's on the voters to to choose what they want to do. Um, I likened this to a subscription service to somebody earlier 11 years ago. um that you know the the select board and and the finance committee and uh school committee came before the town and they said look the the budget can no longer sustain the level of services that you're used to. Um we either reduce or or we institute our first override and the answer was the first override. Here's a set duration that we expect it to go. We check in at the end of those five years. We're we're where we thought we would be. Do you wish to continue on this path? Yep. they renewed for another another override. Instead of five, we

got six. And now we're at that that crossroads again. And to to me, it's like I said, up to us to put together responsible options and then let the voting public decide. Greg, your hand is up.

Yeah. Uh just one note, that was 12 years ago. They both lasted six years. So it was 2014 for the 2015 override. We we expected them to last five and they both lasted six. Um I too would like to see multiple options. I think that's something we've heard from some at least some voters as they want to be able to say that yes, we want level services at least from before we started cutting a couple years ago. So I think if people are willing to allow the voters to make the choice of which override that we start with a one-year level services and go up from there maybe a three-year level services, fiveyear level services and fiveyear expansion as an example. Um, but in any case, I think we owe it to the voters to make a decision at this point. We we are now basically five weeks, maybe six weeks from when people will start voting on this. So, we need to make a decision.

Thanks, Greg. Yeah, I I'm in I'm in complete alignment. Um, I think that it's um an innovative and relatively novel idea, Melrose aside, maybe a couple other communities aside, to have this multiple option um put up to the voters. Um, you know, given all the feedback that that we have received, I think that makes a lot of sense. Uh and and I also agree that if we're going to split the pie, the the best way to do that is on a time basis and not necessarily a size basis because I agree the the small option doesn't make a whole lot of sense because you're you're paying a little bit more but yet we're still firing police officers by by year three, right? That there's there's really no gain in that in that scenario. So if our concern is the whole the the number piece of it, I think it makes a lot of sense to to say, "Hey, you know, will you accept it this a year, 3 years, 5 years, and then we'll come and and we'll check back in." Right? This is this is the way that the the letter of the law, Proposition 2 and a half was written. This is a feature. It is not a bug. We are um coming back to you the voters to make the decision informed decision about the sort of community that you want to live in and that you want to the certain level of services that that you want to have and uh if you if you choose to check in in three years well that's something that we're we're happy to do for you if you tell us that. do want to highlight, I think it's worth noting that we did have two five-year overrides that we stretched to six years. So, it's not that we're just taking the 5-year overrides, running with them, and hoping for the best. There are cuts and optimizations we're making to this budget and that the department's making to the budget over

the course of the years. I know there have been departments that have been merged into others or shut down in names of efficiency. I know speaking to each of the departments there's a lot that they're doing without um or making do with to be able to make this budget last. Um so I think that does go worth noting. I do want to be cognizant of I I know last year we talked about doing one-year overrides or micro overrides and I don't have the exact reasons or memory as to why but I know we we three and five is preferred for bargaining purposes for the unions. I believe one year overrides makes those negotiations more difficult. Um, so I believe that's why we did kind of lean away from that last year. Um, or at least some folks, myself included, leaned away from that last year. So, I do want to caution against or maybe we have that discussion or caution against the one-year override for that reason.

It's a fair point, Angelina, please.

Um, I also would not be in favor of a one-year override. I think that would make it very difficult for um the bargaining units and I think it would create more of an atmosphere of like contention in what's happening. Um I also and I know you guys tabled this but I'm going to bring it up anyway because it's the CPA funding is like $800,000 in taxes that we're paying for CPA funding every year. Our gap is 1,136. And I know that it's not a swap. It's not like, oh, you know, you can just we can take that CPA funding and move it over here. But if we're talking about people's total tax bills, I don't understand how we aren't considering giving people the option to get rid of that and shift like as far as your overall tax bill is concerned, it's going to go down by one and a half% and then it's going to go up by the amount of the override. So, it's going to be a difference of just the gap there instead of adding the override on top of the CPA funding that we're already paying for. So, just, you know, when I when I heard that brought up in the first place, I thought this is the first idea that I've heard that's actually going to move the needle as far as like a good chunk of money. And when we're talking about giving people um when when we are talking about giving people the opportunity to decide what they want to spend money on, I think that has to be part of the conversation. Like when we added the CPA funding, we had a conversation and that was what people wanted to spend money on. And now we're in a position where groceries are, you know, 30% more than they were five years ago and a lot of other things are

going up. And I just wonder if people still would feel the same way about those funds or if they would feel better about shifting them to what else the town is spending money on. So I I just have my answer to that question is what do we have committed of that $800,000 already that we can't wipe out so to speak by this? Well, it's 800 a year if I'm understanding it right. There's projects underway. Yeah, there's but we have committed to funding projects. So, how much of it that would actually change

if we kind of decided to do away with that? Now, it's, you know, people will hear one and a half%, but I'm sure that we have a good chunk of change is committed to long-term funding of projects. We had asked Evan uh to look into that at one of our meetings. They were going to the staff was going to talk to I think it was Stuart and see if they could figure out what our obligations going forward were. Uh do we have any of that information yet? Uh no, I I stopped working on that because the board had said they weren't interested in going that route. So

Okay. I thought I thought we FinCom had said we would be interested in that after they said they weren't really interested. I thought you had said you were going to follow up, but maybe I just misunderstood. No, it could be me too, Greg. Um, so let me uh we can we can regardless put that together. Yeah. So,

and if I might because I know that you reached out or you and I might have had some conversation. My my recollection is I wasn't at the meeting in real time, but I hopped in when you guys had a discussion relative to this. And at the next meeting or even that night, we were looking for more information in terms of what the percentage is, could we even go down a percentage, what we can change, um, in addition to what our obligations were. So I know and then I know you referenced that there was an email that came through. Um but maybe everyone didn't see that or No, but then in open session you guys took a straw poll and decided it wasn't something you were going to pursue.

We thought you you instructed us that a we could not reduce. So one of the things we talked about was reducing the percentage, right? We're at one and a half percent. Um Westboro had been brought up as coming in at a half percent. Uh you gave us confirmation that we could not uh reduce down to a half percent but the lowest we could go was 1%. We had also talked about increasing the exempted amount and you gave us the update that that was not possible either. So it was at that point that we decided again you know we we straw poll with the board and decided not to move forward with that option. Um I don't

you know Matt brought it up um at our last meeting the idea of reducing to 1%. Um it was a discussion that you know the the two of us had beforehand um and then we you know it's more an open session but um you know I think there were still some question marks about what we have or obligations financial obligations with them moving forward if you know what we can close out if there are still outstanding obligations and whatnot. Um CPC is still taking applications for projects heading into spring town meeting. You know it's a it's a busy time for them. Um, and with the short timeline, giving it the the time that it that it needs to be discussed. You know, it it I wouldn't say it's an option that we can't discuss in the future. It's still something that we could talk about instituting, you know, for potentially fall town meeting or next spring, excuse me. Um, but gives us the opportunity to dig in a little bit more into that specifically, meet with the CPC, give them a chance to, you know, articulate why they feel we should or should not do this. Um, as opposed to mixing in with all the budget stuff that we have going on now. You know, this this has a much harder deadline. I'm in a similar camp. Um, you know, I think we've done a lot of good work with our with our CPA funds. I do feel like it, you know, it could be a reasonable hold. Um, but, you know, that's just one member's opinion, but we are going to come back to it at least and have another discussion about how we handle it moving forward.

On the other hand, I I think that's something that if we're going to ask the voters to increase their taxes, we should at the same time ask them if they want to decrease their taxes. I just think it might be kind of hard to put all this out all to them. We're talking about a lot of different things. You'd have to put all this stuff on the table and see how you're going to explain any of it in a fashion that might actually work given the short period of time that we have. Um, it's going to be tough. As Angelina mentioned, when this first came about, now groceries are 30% more. There might even be more than that. It was a great program. There was a lot of matching money at the beginning because a lot of towns weren't involved in it. That's funding has become more dispersed. It hasn't peted out, but our our help from the state funds has dropped.

So, it's not quite as an attractive thing as it was before. But the same thing could be said of putting anything out for any department in the town is saying, "Okay, well, we want to have uh like a board of health budget without these things or we want to have a school budget without any school sports or we want to have uh a town budget without a police department or something like that." That that's going to get to be kind of tough to do. Um, there's one thing that I would really like to see happen as part of all of this is we have a tool here that needs to be used by everyone and it's clear gov that regardless of what department um you know maybe this won't come out the right way but I don't care to hear from anybody in this town regardless of what department they're in that they don't want to use it that they don't have to use it. They should all be using it. It's very transparent. And if we want to put out an override and say we're going to guarantee you these things as part of the override, people have to be able to go in and see that it got used for those things. Um it gets hard to advocate for something and then not be sure that we delivered on it. And without having this be used in this fashion, how's anybody ever going to really know they got what they voted for? Mr. Chair, um part of what you're saying, Skip, I agree with the um uh there's a lot to consider on May 10th or 11th. So, this is this might be a

little bit of a um a bigger swing, but um Angelina, to your point, my initial position on CPC stuff was it's the only place in town that that the town budget where there's a fence around everything where you get some money back from the state. There's some matching funds and it's the only place that's guaranteed to do something some make some contributions, positive contributions to the town. But just listening to everyone, not just here tonight, but in general, uh, as what happens with me, my position is probably evolving a little bit. So worthy of discussion, I just think it's a lot. And and I think you're on to something here. I just think it's a lot for May 10th. It's just it's just this is a big this is big. And we if we're going in with more than one single option, multiple years or multiple amounts and multiple years, that will be the piece that's really important to educate the uh the residents and just be in lock step on what we're trying to accomplish. I think peeling that one piece away for the time being. It probably has to be done anyway because there's so many different logistical things that need to be dealt with to un to untangle it or dismantle it. So I'd probably be in favor of pausing that for now and focusing on this piece. So and as far as this piece is concerned, Mr. Chair, uh my personal position would be a longer term, bigger picture strategic sort of option for me. One year that's just who wants do we all like each other, right? Want to do this again next year? Let's have some fun with this. Probably not. And that's where we wind up. And if it's going to then it could go like, well, let's just do it one year from now on. That's a lot.

And I am in favor of thinking long term, strategically, and trying to reconcile the problem for as long as we possibly can. Whether it's a penny or a pound, that's a different story. But the longer term is what I'm in favor of. And I probably have said this a few times, but for the record, three to five is where I'd be at least, not one. So, and also if I might, um, Evan and Mary, thank you for putting all this together. I imagine it took you a few minutes, a few days, maybe a few weeks, and it's a lot to consider and it's a lot to review, and I know how you do it, and just wanted to say personally, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

So, I'm just to go back to the CPA thing. I I know I was absent for a meeting, but either way, I think I would like to get those that information. I don't believe that I I know that there was a reference made to an email. I'm trying to find it in real time, but I don't see it. So, you know, the question is relative to what the percentage was, which may have been clarified, but I think it's valuable for us to stay say it here. Um changing the amount uh that you can be exempt in addition to what our obligations are. Sure.

Um then so that's just one separate thing. and relative to the tiered approach. Um, while I saw that as well kind of online, um, and I appreciate that you brought it up, Matt, is, you know, a state of idea. When I looked a little bit more into it, I'm not sure if you saw correspondence that came through, but someone reached out to me some more information and I did a bigger bit of a deeper dive. So, my concern with it as it stands is that in Melrose, what ended up happening, which I thought it was curious that they turned down a an override one year and then approved like the biggest override maybe ever the following year. Um and I think that the re in part the reason could have been that the way the law relates to this the chapter the 2 and a half% um the smallest override amount in Melrose that year passed by 59%. The middle tier was 56.5%. And the largest tier meaning the the one that passed only had a 54% yes. And the way it works is you go with so because any of them passed you went with the they went with the highest one. That's how it works. So I think that I want to clarify that or I looked into that and for that reason for me I would not favor going with this approach. Um certainly not without the ability to understand that more fully because the more I thought about it even just trying to explain like how the voting would go. What does a no mean? What does a yes mean? do you vote multiple times? And I know we could get that all out to people, but even though initially I thought, you know, this sounds like kind of a different idea. Um, there was that part of it initially that lent me some pause. Uh, how does this look for everybody, you know, including myself with I feel like a relative decent knowledge about this. But then when I did a bit of a

deeper dive in terms of how it works, um I'm not sure that that that's what we want is that the majority of folks could vote for a certain tier and yet a different tier would ultimately win. So well nothing passes above the majority of people vote for it, right? So love to hear from Mark.

Yeah, Mark, please. Uh yeah, I I I just want to say I I completely agree with Amarie. Um one of the things when you do a multi- tier override is the confusion that voters have. I'd like to go in with uh with an override that we we're all committed for. We're all committed with and we really work hard to get that override pass. It worked in 2014. It worked in 2020. And I think we should keep that same um that same uh level of service going. So, I I would like to see a five-year level service override uh proposal go forward to the voters. I don't want to confuse the voters if we had more time to sell a multi-ter override and explain it better, but I don't think there's enough time to do that. I think the voters in Grafton are familiar with the 5-year override approach, and I think that makes a lot of sense. So, I'm I'm on board with what Amarie just said, and I think it makes a lot of sense to just pick a number, pick a a level of service that you want to go. I think level service is important and I think you should put that out there for a 5-year override and I think that's the decision now and I think we have a better chance of getting that passed than putting out multiple options without a lot of time to explain it. Thank you.

Uh yeah. Um so as I understood it, look, I I guess I want to be really clear. Um part of the multiple override option was to get discussion going about levels of service. So I'm not married to that idea. Um as I said earlier, I think it's imperative that we at least provide a level service option. Um and if that is the sort of consensus uh on the board, um I agree we're we're starting to run out of time. Um and we need to make some decisions. So I'm not I'm not married to that at all. Um the um to just address a little bit the uh that email that we got. Um the intention of the ballot basically is to gauge the highest level of um investment in the town that the voters that the majority of the voters would uh support. And so we're not having voters choose one option between the three, which would be and then you would get a sort of a a real gauge of if they only had one to choose what would they what would the most uh support. Um it's it's designed to sort of be tiered like that. Um so uh I'm comfortable with that approach, but um if you know if there's concerns about it, I'm not you know I'm not stuck on that at all. It was just an idea. Um, and I thought it would help us. I've been desperate to move this conversation forward a little bit. So, um, yeah, if it's not something that other board members are interested in, then I'm okay with that,

Mr. Chair. So, is that something is it too complicated, Evan? What do you mean to do a a tiered approach, three options? That does that really result in sort of chaos or confusion? Yeah, I mean I think that you know even in again not to keep harping on Melrose but to look at what I mean they they f they spawned off a separate 501c3. They had like eight months to get the public prepared for it and it's still a complicated

venture. Um I I I think it's kind of neat. I like the idea of being able to put out to residents a whole bunch of different options and people can pick from it. Um, but I do think that given, you know, that we're in the beginning of March, that'd be a that'd be a tough that'd be a lot of voter um information to be putting out and trying to educate people on. So, it's probably at this point, you're probably best off to pick what level of service you want to see move forward and go from there. Angelina,

um, can we just talk for a minute about level service versus the slightly expanded services as far as like, you know, um, I know that Jay had had some requests for additional things this year, but I don't believe those ended up in his request, right? It was kind of just like literally level. So, how does the level service um impact us being able to, you know, sort of support things going forward? Is it built to just give increases to the people that we have and not add staff when we need them or like how is that shaking out?

Um, essentially, yes. So, um the level services approach does um restore the human resources position at the school and it does take into account the addition of uh up to two firefighters. Um but otherwise it's status quo um with every other position and it's not cutting the is it 10 or 11 positions we were talking about. Right. it right level services is exactly what we have today. Um with the caveat that there's a little bit of growth in there. Um so you know it's it's

just wanted to go back meetings. Um well it depends on who you ask. Um we're we're at 24 right now. The chief has said that we're we're okay at 24. Um, you know, I think it's just a conversation that we need to keep on the front burner as we get more people and as things change over time and we see different things happening in the community. We just need to be able to react to that. But, um, in the expanded version, um, I did provision for one additional police officer um, but that was that was it.

So, the original um gap was like 1.4. So now we're down to 1 point for this year for for FY2 1.192 I think is what it is. So and a lot of that was health insurance. Was that

correct? Yeah. So we Yes. So we made the switch to GIC. Um GIC has made some um some cost cutting measures or put in place some cost cutting measures. Uh and we have seen a decrease in what we were able to forecast which does have big impacts when you start going out into years three, four and five. Um and so that was a that was a big um a big shift for us. Uh we also made some tweaks to revenue which we are you know borderline comfortable with. Um, but you know, there's a lot that can happen in the environment that we're not going to control anyway. If we went into another recession or or you know, housing market crash, uh, it doesn't really almost doesn't matter what we put in there for revenue. You're not going to come anywhere anywhere close to it. So, um, but I think that covers pretty much how we got to those better numbers.

Um, so good job with health insurance. Thank you. question like and I don't know if Evan you know the answer to this but um in terms of like our our transportation cost for the schools how is our contract are we locked in like is it a year or is it five years or what because what I'm getting at is we are seeing a lot of things happen externally that can impact the cost that we can't control right so transportation maybe health insurance maybe other spend

like how are we thinking of that because I know level services level right you're assuming changes. However, we live in a world in which something changes every weekend. You turn on the news, right? And we saw the gas prices this week. So, like, how are we thinking of that in terms of level service? I know we build in a plus or percentage potentially, but how are we thinking of that?

Um, as far as school transportation, I'll defer to the superintendent to for that. Um, that's not something I have top of mind or we can Mary and I can get you that information and send that out to the group. as far as the larger picture of trying to insulate ourselves from that uh you know change um we we do have that conversation pretty much throughout the entire budget process and I'm sure the schools are doing the same thing. So we're looking at our energy prices. We're looking at what our contracts are. So we buy fuel in in basically in chunks, right? So we have uh fuel contracts, we have salt contracts, we do a lot of these threeyear plus contracts. Um, we also put in a provision, uh, this was right when I got here. We we allowed some contracts to be able to go out to even 10 years, um, which is a local option. We haven't really exercised that beyond some like longer term engineering things that we have going on that it's a 10-year project, so have the same person for 10 years. Um, but we will leverage that sometimes if we need, you know, if we if we think that that's going to be better for the town. Um, we actually have some correspondence with some of our vendors uh from this week even talking about, you know, the bombing of Iran and what that's doing to the local market and whether you you might want to contract early or you might want to try to ride it out. Um, so we are having those conversations, but

yeah, it's always something a different week. Yeah, Greg, thank you. So just so everyone's on the same terms, level services right now is last year we cut six and a half positions from the schools with the understanding that one of those would be coming back this year. This is level services after those cuts, not level services before we decided to make cuts last year. That would be more the f the the large option that Evan presented is restoring those positions that we cut last year.

Correct. So, I mean, we've heard opinions um from three of the board members tonight, and I I think, you know, Miss Foley, you've shared what you're not in favor of, but at this point, I think it'd be helpful if we could flesh out what you are in favor of. What was I not in favor of? Uh I mean,

the the multiple options. um last la at our last meeting you said you were going back and forth between a one and a three but um then I saw a comment that you don't necessarily support a one. So um any any information you can share would would be appreciated.

Well I think I'm again trying to take this all in and uh you know land still trying to sort out where I'm going to land. Um, I don't think that a one year, you know, makes much sense for a myriad of reasons. Um, I'm not sure I want to push it out five years either, though. So, should get it down. Um, three years is I think something that I could support. Um, but I'm still taking in all the information and the number for me as we're fleshing out tonight is something that's quite important in terms of, you know, not just the years, but what is the um the number that we're going to come up with. Um, I I I hear everyone and completely agree about the the the one-year option and am sensitive to the amount of time that we have to educate the voters on a three and a five-year option. Um, so, so just like Matt, not necessarily married to being innovative in a time crunch. Um, but I I I do think it was a a great idea and coming from a great place and I think there's a lot of potential there, particularly moving moving forward. um to from my from my perspective the number that we land on um I think has to be married to the the amount of time and I don't think that or the amount of time that we hope to to get out of that particular override number. Um I I don't know if

it's worth anyone's time or effort to go to the town with a number smaller than level services. Um again asking folks for for more yet not providing the level of services that they're used to in light of not giving options. Right? If if you get a yes or no vote on on one single option, um to me it does not make sense for that option to be pay more but receive less. Um it that that just doesn't seem logical to me. Um I I could even see an argument for um pay more receive more, you know, going for sort of the larger restoring the 2025 um staffing and services levels in the schools for instance. That that might make sense. Um but I I think that the the number itself aligns with the amount of time that we would like to to have before we go back to the voters and ask for this again because we are an override dependent. uh town uh given given the laws that the state of Massachusetts has bestowed so so so graciously upon us. Um Mark, please.

Evan, can you put back up the the slide that shows the options, please? Yep. And while he's doing that, can I can I I guess I'd ask the the select board a question. It seems to me that

you you you realize that that an override is is needed. I think we said that and and to go on Greg's point, I think when the town made the decision last year to fund a budget that didn't that cut those positions, I think we set a new level services area and I think that new level service area is FY26. So, looking at the the chart that that Greg uh that not Greg, I'm sorry, that Evan just put up on the screen, Evan, just to confirm, this is the level service based on the FY26 budget. Correct. Keeping those moving forward. Correct. Correct. Yep.

So, I think the select board has has two two choices here. I think everybody said the one-year override makes absolutely no sense because we'll be back having the same discussion next year. And I agree with um with Mark that it makes no sense to do that. So, I think the select board tonight, I would urge the select board tonight to make a decision on a on an override of either $3.378 million or $5.682 million. I think you need to to to set the thing that this is a level service budget and that we're either going to do three years or five years. Take that vote tonight and move the matter forward. And and I would really urge you to to do either a three-year override at 3.378 million or a 5year override at 5.682 million. And hopefully if you go with the three-year it lasts four and if you go with the fiveyear it lasts six, but I think I think it we're it's March 10th and and we're voting on May 19th. There's not a lot of time to get the word out. So, I would I would really urge the select board to to right now, three years or five years, 3.3 million or 5.6 million. And if it would help having a a vote of a recommendation from the finance committee to help you do that, I'd be more than happy right now to make a motion that the select board um consider a 5-year override at the amount of $5.6 million.

Just to clarify, voting starts somewhere around April 21st. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. You have early voting, Greg, right? Is that what you're saying? Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah. So, my recommendation would be 3.5 million for three years or 6 million or five years just to make it nice round numbers for people to understand. I'm I'm fine. I'm fine with that. But I' I'd still say that I'd like to see the five-year at the if you say it's $6 million, Greg, I I I would like to make that motion that we recommend to the select board tonight that they take that that position. Absolutely.

So, if somebody wants to second that from the fin, I'd appreciate that. We have a motion from uh Mr. Hadad uh to recommend that the select board takes a vote this evening on a override for um was it $6 million uh over five years to last approximately five years um the the dollar amount is what would be on the on the ballot and we have a second. Any discussion on the motion? Can we talk about rounding up? I don't think it's a it's a it's a it's a significant roundup. Yeah, it is. It's like it is a

well then leave it then leave my original motion at 5.6 like 5.8 or 5.7 like I could see that. So like you know not maybe not doing an override for $82 like if you want to make it the next but I I wouldn't round all the way up to six million personally because I just feel like that's I'll amend my I'll amend my motion if somebody will second it to make it 5.7 million. Uh so moved. Seconded. Yeah. 5.7 million. All right. Maybe a quick question on these numbers. Is there any risk or variability that they could change? Yeah. They're already different. There is.

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, these are these are our we're comfortable with where we are with our estimates given the information for next week. This wouldn't change by say $300,000 for three or 3.3 or probably probably not. Okay. But it doesn't at a certain point you've got to you've got to pick where you're going to go. There's there's a lot of things in the environment that shift and we deal with them as they come. And that's just kind of how state hasn't the state hasn't approved the budget yet. So they could increase or decrease our chapter 70 funds by hundreds of thousands of dollars. BVT we haven't been yet. Right. We don't know PBT till the 12th.

Right. And I you part of this sort of motion is yes, it's it's numerical, but what we're asking for is is the the five-year option, right? And that's what our recommendation is and whatever that number does. Yeah. Try trying to tag anything to any of the contracts would be silly because we don't have any they're all over the place as to when they're going to expire and Sure. be coming up again everywhere.

I I I think five years makes a lot of logical sense if for for no other reason the best predictor of the future or the things that have happened in the past and we've had great success twice now with a thank you ma'am with a with a 5-year override. Angelina please.

Um I think also fiveyear would be the way to go. Um because I think what it does is it votes confidence in our like in the town's it tells like our staff, our teachers, our police officers who are not getting paid what they could get in Westboro that the town appreciates them and wants to keep them and wants to pay them as best that we can. And I think that that's what the five-year message sends. I think that we are, you know, they've a lot of work has been done on this. A lot of work has been done to save money by switching the health insurance and other things that we've done throughout this process of things that were done last year to cut from the budgets. And I think that the five-year tells the people who are here that we support them and we appreciate them and we want to keep them

and we want to keep music for the love of God. Beautifully said. Just any further discussion on the motion. All right. Seeing none. I know what I want to do, Mr. Chair. Well, hang on. Let them wrap up.

Apologies. I I guess my one thought would be if we did do the the three years versus the five, if we did want to try to do a multi-step approach at some point in the future, this does push that out significantly versus three years would be a shorter time. I think we're kind of I guess if if that is something we would like to do in the future and the reason we didn't do it this year is because we didn't have time to talk about it. This does push that out quite a bit. But I also see the other sides of it. So that's just my my one point discussion.

It's it's a fair point and and I think that the the onus is on the finance committee and and the select board and and the school committee in the upcoming five years. um to be as diligent as possible. Um I know that that the town has been incredibly diligent about uh spending the resources that they have in front of them from the previous overrides, which is I mean self-evident by being able to stretch both of them out an additional year, right? Um, so I think continuing those conversations and continuing to be fiscally responsible will will hopefully help buffer that to some extent, but um that there also just does have to be an awareness that we we are overindependent. We are going to be coming back to this conversation unless there are massive policy changes and that the town agrees that um services are to be cut.

Let a few more towns make the the three option things and see what happens. the more the more guinea pig. Yeah. Yeah. Let let the other 350 cities and towns in the state do it a couple times and see what happens with them. I don't dislike that point, but but point taken, Kyle. Yep. All right. If there's no further discussion, I will take a roll call vote. Uh Greg,

Mark, I Heather, I Angelina, hi. Samir, hi. Skip. Hi. Kyle, hi. Victoria votes I. That motion carries. Thank you. Finance Committee Mark, did you want to share? Nope. I'm good. You said you wanted to do something. No, no, I'm good. I'm good. No, take it all. It's all good. Fine.

If I might, um, I'm landing on the three-year. I'm not in favor of rounding up. In fact, I'm in favor of rounding down. Um, but then my other concern would be relative to a vote. Um, are all of us going to be here next week? I'm not doing this to push it out or don't accuse me of of kicking the can, but um, do we know if all of us are going to be here next week? Oh, Mark, you're not. Okay. Okay. March hasn't been a good week or for us to all be able to be here. Mr. Chair,

I'll give it a shot. I mean, I'm not going to be here, but I'd have to zoom in and it would be for five minutes. So, I'm going to an important conference, but um I literally could just step out if it needs it. I think we should do that. Yeah. I'm only here via Zoom next week as well, but I can be here via Zoom.

Yeah, I just wanted to respond to the um finance committee. Uh I I agree with that recommendation. Um I think it makes a lot of sense to me. um in addition to um uh confidence uh in our staff and um it also provides stability and I think that's really important um for all departments in town to have that kind of long-term stability. Um I would love to um have some more strategic discussions uh after we're kind of through this uh process. um you know to talk about you know we uh have at least one board member that's really concerned about you know what's driving um the override dependence. I think we're going to talk about that a little bit more tonight. Um but uh you know I would be in favor of um doing something like funding a a budget study to to look just an independent I don't know if this is a thing but um just an independent study to like look at Grafton's uh you know revenues and expenditures and our history and trends and the service levels that we provide relative to other towns and um it's not a simple thing to do. So, we had a sustainability commission that tried it a few years ago and they had some success, but um it's really complicated and I think you need to be professionals at that sort of analysis and data gathering. Um the data is all there. Uh but to produce uh adequate comparisons and um sort of trustworthy recommendations I think is a it's a bit of an art form. Um,

but I'm completely in for that kind of analysis. Um, I I'm confident in what Grafton does and all of the data that I look at points me to the same sorts of things. Um, you know, there's there's there isn't any fiscal mismanagement. Um, and we have a really heavy dependence on residents to to fund our taxes. That's just the reality of Grafton. Um, but if you know, so I I'd love to see some independent analysis. I I have I don't think that sort of putting another commission together would make sense. Um, because I watched how the last one struggled and um there was definitely some value that came out of that. Um but in service of trying to get it done more thoroughly and more quickly um I I would probably look to outside um resources. Um but I'm completely like I'm in total support of datadriven decisions. I think it's really important that we do that. Um but we keep sort of focusing on you know this year we've spent so much time on this year's budget. We haven't had that broader discussion about you know what our vision is for the future of the town and what our different service levels should be and what the needs of the town are and and all of those plans that we put together that express what people want in this town. um and and sort of married that with some actual analysis of what maybe what some of our options are just we don't have a lot of options. Um the you know the the only option that I can

contemplate is sort of managing the uh pace of growth instead of hiring a fired you know uh department full-time person every you know year or two we might have to stretch it out to every five years and just tell those guys you got to just deal with it. Um, but I feel like that is the approach that has been taken and what we've been doing over the last dozen years is catching up from that. Uh, the reason there was a a reason that we hired a sort of to rightsize the police department, we had to hire a a few in successive years. Um, it's because that was sort of frozen for a really long time. And I remember just on finance committee, Chief Crapo coming in every single year going, it's not great, but I guess I can make it work. And it was that story over and over again. Um, so I don't know. Um, I I I would love to for this board to engage in that kind of um analysis and investigation um and pair that with a um a longer term five-year override at level services. Um Mark, I totally agree with what you're saying about, you know, with the reductions that we made last year, that becomes our new level service. That makes a ton of sense to me. Um and you know, the other I guess is, you know, uh, with a longer term override, you know, we have five years approximately of levy capacity. And it gives Evan and Jay a little bit more time to optimize things and um, make the decisions that they may need to make knowing what kind of funding they're that they're going to have in the coming years. And I think that, you know, I've been really impressed with how um this town has been able to manage the override funds. Um

and I think a part of that is the the length that we have uh chosen at five years. I think that's really important. Is that a motion, Matt? Uh just asking. I I I don't know. I think what I'm hearing Sure. Uh, no. I you know what I'm hearing from board members is we want to get together and on all vote, right? I I don't I'm ready tonight. Um, it's hard. I mean, I appreciate I'm the one who is having to zoom in, so um I don't want to say either way.

Well, then I'll just make the motion. Uh I make the motion that we accept the recommendation from the finance committee um with the uh revised uh rounded figures uh for 5 years at 5.7 was it? Yeah.

Second. Any discussion? Yeah. I should we be waiting for the other board member to be a part of this? We can do it Tuesday. Five minutes. Mr. Chair, if we have a second so we can discuss it. I mean, if that's the way you want to go, your vote will be a no on this particular motion, which I can vote fully know. Mr. Chair, if I may.

Sure. I'd like to remind the board that is March 10th. Last year on March 18th, the board decided that it was too late to put an override on the ballot for FY25. Thank you. If I might, that is not how I remember it at all. Um, I worked hard to figure out, or I should say, our town administrator and our superintendent in conjunction with the board worked hard to come up with alternative ways to um find money andor reduce the gap. And therefore, we did we determined that we did not need the override. And I believe that was voted on by the school.

Part of the reason was that it was too late too late in the season to put it on committee prior to us. And I'm not sure about the finance committee. I'm sorry. They they they held while we were in our motion. So I'll ask that the finance committee does the same for the select board, please. Thank you. Any other discussion? Yeah, I'd like to wait for all five members be together and make the vote, whether it's by Zoom or in person. I'd make myself available in the next three days or Tuesday. I don't think you make that vote without all five members.

Okay. So, you said you can make yourself available in the next three days. Is that something that the other board members can do as well? Yeah. Depends on what time we could have. We could in theory have a meeting with one agenda item. Yep. Uh to to vote on this tomorrow. Be great. Well, we got to post it 48 hour Thursday. It'd be great. You can't meet again until Friday, right? Yeah.

And Craig's a question mark. I don't I'm not entirely sure why he was absent tonight, but um I don't know if that impacts his availability for the week or what. And can we do something Friday that's not in like in the is it any we can do any time essentially that we come up with. Right. Right. Yep. As long as we just pay attention when we're posting it on Wednesday or Tuesday. Does an earlier time work for you or is is next Tuesday just all around bad?

I mean I'm not going to be in the state for for starters and it's I just looked at the agenda and the the big reception ends at 7:15. I'll just cut out a little early. Um, it does start around 6, so if you wanted to do something at 6, I can do that, too. I'll just pull out. I mean, whatever. It's 6 o'lock in the morning. Have it over coffee. You can have it whenever you want. Well, then it's like a water commissioner meeting. Um,

for what it's worth, earlier on Tuesday would be better for me. I can come in via Zoom. Um, but I am committed that evening. I'll make myself Um, yeah. Would I mean what about five o'clock on Tuesday? Five for everybody. That's better. Okay. I'm flying out on Sunday. Oh, well, do you want to continue with the motion at this point or do you and and we vote and see how it goes and then

No, it sounds like the board's wants five members. I understand that. Okay. So, we'll just wait. I'll resend my motion. Okay. So then we will schedule a meeting five o'clock. Okay. Next Tuesday. What if Craig can't do that? Hopefully we'll figure out a time that you can't. We're agreeing that next Tuesday is the latest in which this will be right. That's fair. Pending our fifth member. But say for example fifth member is not available Tuesday. We need to figure out what that scenario is going to look like. Then maybe Monday. Okay, we will work to as soon as possible

find a date between Friday, this coming Friday and the following Friday that we can get all five board members together um whether it's here or Zoom and um take action on this. Cool. Are we done with all discussion on the motion or in general? No, not on the motion. Just in general.

Um no, I don't think so. I guess just to um you know one more point relative to where I'm coming at this from with the three-year is um I understand that you know some degree of stability for all departments um that would help in that respect um but I also hear from you know residents relative to concerns with budget and is there more money here is there more money there or whatever concerns there are there. um in addition to finances and and whatnot. So I guess I would be looking at the three-year to reduce the impact on the taxpayer allow us to also I feel like I was disappointed this year that there wasn't more movement on the school side relative to you know revenue producing. I know in the last month or so they talked about preschool increasing rates there and and and and how obsolete our our fees were for um the the the uh the rooms and whatnot. So they are looking at some of that. You know, we talked about the uh road stabilization. Is there some money there that we could squeeze out? You know, even just silly things like the mosquito control, like just, you know, things that we came to because of the the push um relative to really tightening this up. I would really like to see those through. And Mark on finance, I will say I know early on you said that, you know, this is ridiculous. We should have been already all talking about this. And I have to say at this point I agree with that and that really I would commit or and I appreciate your comment, Matt. Um I don't know if there is such a thing as a consultant that can look into this, but I I would like to know that we have some sort of objective um group. maybe nobody in this room or on school committee, you know, other folks andor maybe a consultant that can

really look at what's going on and and where we can maybe find either find money or what can we do different. Um, so I think for that reason I would go for the shorter duration and really have a solid plan as to what are we going to do going forward um if things don't change. We also have fiscal 27. is the governor really going to look at adjusting numbers relative to school funding? Um, so, you know, there's like some variables that are are coming up. So, that's I just want to explain kind of where why I was kind of landing at the at the three-year.

Mark, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I I just want to ask Mark and Amarie one one question. I totally respect your position that you want to have all five members. What I'm concerned about by waiting till next week is if the fifth member comes in and hears about this for the first time and says, "I don't have enough time to consider it. I need to weigh on it. I need to think about it." Will the two of you commit to at least voting one way the other next week, regardless of the position of the fifth member? and I and I respect what you're doing, but we we we really are running out of time. Regardless of the May 18th, May 25th, whatever it March 15th, March 25th, or whatever the dates are, I just I would just ask the two of you if you would please commit to taking a vote one way or the other next week, regardless of what the fifth member says.

That make sense? And I say that very respectfully to the both of you. Yeah. And again, I think, you know, not to speak for you, Mark, but we're part of the problem in terms of our availability this month. So, I'm I'm um aware and sensitive to that. But yes, that sounds reasonable in terms of where we're at and where I think I will be, you know, after tonight's discussion. Um nothing really new here. So, yeah. Yep.

Same here. Well, because the town voted for five people and that's really probably the right thing to do. And if if it were me, I would probably would appreciate the gesture of respect of the vote. And we have the time. We'll do it. Do it. I respect I respect your position on that, Mark.

Thank you, Mark. So, I um I put together a little presentation that I I would like to share um because I think it touches on some of the things that we that have been discussed here, some of the I I feel like misconceptions that have been shared in the past. Um well, can you bring that up for me, please? Okay. So, at our last meeting, um, Craig threw out seven towns, um, and compared Grafton's average single family tax bill, uh, to them. Um, I I don't I think the, you know, this will this will help shine a light on this, but, I don't think they were they were fair comparisons. Um I I disagree with this assertion that it's a spending issue or that you know um budgets you know that that that the school budget needs to be reigned in um you know that that these small amounts are are going to make a large overall impact. So I'd like to go through some of these slides. These all came from the department of state department of re revenue and division of local services website. I grabbed these um these pie charts. They illustrate Grafton's um new growth over the last four fiscal years. Okay. Uh you can you can see very clearly by that key that that residential growth is primarily what drives us. Last year it was 83.94% of our growth. So when the question comes, you know, or the discussion points to why are we taking

this back to the voters? It's not fair to burden the tax base with this. When you have grown only your residential base in this regard, that base is going to be the one that foots the bill. It's plain and simple. Um, next slide, please. Auburn was one of the towns that was compared. You can see here that that Auburn has very drastic splits. Um their average single family tax bill is uh significantly lower, but you know, you can see what their new growth was over the last four years. So in actuality, their average single family tax bill is is $6,37 compared to Grafton's 9,86. They are 76% residential and open space compared to our 91. They are 23.7% commercial, industrial, personal compared to our 8.65. Okay? And they have a staggering levy capacity left compared to our 200k. The only thing that they compare to us in is close proximity. Okay? They are they are not a town that I would benchmark uh Grafton against. However, in terms of when we're talking about our school staff, our municipal staff being in this area, they are a town that we compete with in terms of um you know, hiring and and retaining uh staff. Okay. Um they have vastly different growth uh compared to the way Grafton has. uh they they have a a three-way tax split so that their commercial industrial pays more than their residential um and slightly more than their personal. Personal is pays in more than commercial uh than residential as well. Um their total single family parcel values are almost a billion

dollars less than Grafton's and they have uh more overall single family parcels. Now, the way you get to your average single family uh tax bill is by dividing your total single family parcel value by the amount of parcels you have and then multiplying that by um your tax rate. So, they have said uh less less single family money coming in because they have much more commercial industrial um and and more single family parcels to to divide that amongst. um we have a a higher income per capita. When we talk about competitive hiring, their insurance split is better than ours at 7525. Um their teachers salaries are 86,000 uh should be 276. It's a typo. Um versus our 81 934. Uh and they have much more full-time school employees. Milbury was another town. Um, you know, their their residential growth is obviously different from Auburn, but not quite ours. Milbury is directly adjacent. Their single family tax bill is is, you know, fair share lower. Again, um much less uh residential open space, much more commercial, industrial, personal, uh a decent levy capacity. They grow in a different way. Um, their total single family value parcels, single family home value part parcel values, excuse me, are closer to half of Grafton's. Um, while also having fewer homes in general, lower per capita, better insurance split, they pay their they pay their um average teacher salaries uh almost 10,000 more a year or just over 10,000

more a year um and have fewer school employees. North Bridge again similar to Milbury lower tax bill um adjacent their residential growth is similar in that it is consistently above 50% similar to Grafton ours was closer to 60% plus um and with their 25,596 levy capacity much lower than ours um they still have double digits when it comes to commercial industrial personal Um their uh their total single family home parcel values are almost half of what ours are along with fewer um fewer overall parcels lower income per capita better insurance split and they pay their teachers better. Shrewsbury again you know very very different approach. Um, next slide. Directly adjacent, they're sing they are the second closest in terms of single family home tax bill of the towns that we compared. Um, and still uh, you know, 200 and change lower than we are. Um, and also in the lower lower leverage capacity group, but again you vastly different growth structure than we have. um their single family parcel values are almost triple what ours are and they have double the single family parcels. So again once you start spreading these things out you know they they it makes a difference. Um they have a higher per capita income. One of the points that was made last week was about their insurance split which they have two premium plans that they offer. one at a 6040 and one at a 60 6337 but the comparable plans to what Grafton offers and the bulk of what they distribute are 7822 or 7327 which are still again you know those those two are are better than what we're paying um they pay their teachers more more full-time school employees

I would have thought um offhand Sutton would have been a little closer to us but they're Again, adjacent town, uh, lower levy capacity, their income per capita is close. Their insurance split is the same. They still have very different growth. You can see that they they're still 15% commercial, industrial, personal. Um, their their average single family parcel value is half. They have fewer of the single parcels. Their teacher salaries are better. They employ fewer staff. Finally, Upton. Upton was the one that seemed to line up with us the best. This one seems like it could actually be a decent um decent benchmark. Directly adjacent, very similar in their residential growth. Um they're at 95, we're at 91 in the last year. Uh they had the closest single single family uh home tax bill of the towns that we compared. um though still a couple hundred cheaper, low levy capacity um and comparable incomes. Um but again their their overall home values close to half a graft um half the parcels that we have. Their insurance split is better. They pay their teachers more and they have uh fewer full-time school employees. So again, all I have to say, um, you know, you can you can go in and and say the surround the the the taxes are cheaper in the surrounding towns and and you know, uh, Grafton, Grafton is an outlier because it's higher. But when you dig into the data, we're not we are primarily residential, so that is where the tax burden is going to be felt. That's the way we've chosen to grow, you know, forever. Um

and and you know these these other towns have have vastly different um funding mechanisms through their new growth that they bring in. Um and still, you know, even even with less revenue, end up paying their their school staff more. Um, so I I really, you know, I I think it's disingenuous to our current employees to say that that, you know, or to imply that we're that we're overpaying in these contracts or um, you know, vastly out of line with what the districts around us are paying. Um, the superintendent touched on this a few weeks ago. You know, that that that we are barely competitive. It takes Grafton teachers. you have to max out your steps and lanes um and have been here quite some time until Grafton reaches the middle of the pack when it comes to the average of what they're they're um paying their teachers. But for the first two tiers, you know, that that intro and and middle level, we're dead last, you know, and the and when we bring on teachers, they tend to be more junior in their status, you We are we are not going out and um tracking down senior level people. You know those people are are people who have stayed here for a long time and and um you know kind of cultivated their uh career here. So, um, anyways, I, you know, it was just looking again looking at the data, I felt like it was, it was very telling. Um, you know, those those new growth numbers, again, heavily residential. So, to me, that answers the question of why why do the residents bear the majority of taxes in Grafton? Well, that's why. Um, even with our with our best effort towards commercial

growth, we are never going to come close to closing those gaps. even though, you know, you're talking, well, it's only 5%. That is a massive number when we're getting into these things. So, um,

so I I do have one answer for you, and it's a mistake that we made 35 years ago when we didn't elect to go to twoacre zoning like Sutton has. We have four times as many kids or homes produced on the size of lot than we would have had had we had the wisdom to not cave into people who wanted to keep those pieces of land and imagine making tons of money by selling them off for four times as many house lots as they could with the twoacre zoning. That's one of the issues. The other question I would have is what's the state reimbursement for those towns look like?

Well, again, that's why this, you know, everything is difficult because um Upton uh they get they get a lot more reimbursement for their schools because they are a regional school district. Um they get they get more per student, they get transportation reimbursement. You know, there are other intangibles along the way. um you know that I in the information that I tried to keep there were things that have directly come up in our meeting discussions things like salaries you know

it trying to do that is exceedingly difficult to have it be valid points yes the end salaries might be different but our ability to raise mons funds plus what the state gives us back are two very important components of that end result. And when you say that or and this this euphemistic not you particularly but when one says that there we don't pay as much well the taxpayers may pay as much and we may be restricted in our ability to give the taxpayer another bill to help pay this. the money that you get from the state is going to be a lot different on the other end. So if you look at other cities and towns and the the reimbursement for other cities and towns is a averages out to $30,000 a teacher and we only get $20,000 a teacher. There's your $10,000. Um I trying to look at all that stuff and that again we had Senator Moore was out here and we talked about the formula 70 and how it adversely impacted the cities and towns and he said it was the department of education wasn't going to play with that for a long time to wait to see how it settles out and that is what continues to hurt us. So, it's not anything mystical. Elsewhere in the budget, we're all all the cities and towns have the same ability to raise more money from their individual tax bases. We have no commercial tax base in town

to speak of. It's all residential. And that's where the money's going to come from. Last year, yeah, we didn't do an override, but we handed the town a $600,000 bill for the trash. the trash all went in as a user fee. You know, to say that other places are looking at what their user fees are. Well, maybe they got to stop looking and they got to start charging some more if they want to have those programs because we can't. The tax base can't afford it. It's simple. It's like your home budget. It It's not going to happen. We can't print money like the federal government can.

And to that point, you know, I I think he uh Senator Moore was a little bit more direct in that conversation uh two years ago or whatever it was um in casual conversation with him since the answer is the same. Yeah.

You know, we should not rely on the state. The state is not going to help us out. He is not optimistic that any update to that chapter 70 spending is going to benefit Craftton in any way. Um, you know, quite honestly, I I had the opportunity to talk with him and and Representative Meridian briefly at an event over the weekend. Um, and Senator Moore expressed concern over a referendum that's at the at the state now to reduce the um personal income tax rate from 5% to 4% over the next three years. That would cut roughly 5 billion annually from the state budget. Um, frankly, I'd rather see a cut from the state budget and have us kick it all into the town and let us decide where we spend the money instead of sending it to Boston to let them decide,

which is fine, but I I would not think that's going to be the case as soon as as soon as that money gets cut back. They're going to claw back the rest of it and we are going to receive even less than what we're receiving now should something like that pass, you know. and and it it's it's a big maybe, but um you know, as we talk about uh instability in the future, yeah, it's kind of a big one. Angelina,

I think when you look at school spending and I've been meeting with Jay now for I think it's five years, this is the fifth year on the budget. Um and I think when he speaks about it, the one thing that he I haven't heard him say um in a setting like this kind of, you know, to put it in perspective is that we don't have the administrative layers in our school system. So like when we met with him the last time I said Jay seriously you always say like we do it like somehow we're able to spend you know we're at whatever 16th in the state and how much we spend on per student from the bottom of the you look at the districts that are below us in that list and most of them aren't actual towns. It's like a charter something and like things that aren't even recognizable. There were like two towns that were below us. So he said we don't have administrative layers. So like he's like when I was in Shrewsbury, I believe it was Shrewsbury the um you would have your curriculum not curriculum coordinators um like department heads for each department would be you would be a department head and you would maybe have one or two classes that you would teach. Our department heads are also full-time teachers. So that's how we do it. like he has created this atmosphere in Grafton of everybody pitches in, everybody does everything. He's out directing traffic. He's not now because now he's the HR director, but last year and every year that I drove my kids to that high school, he was out directing traffic. So I think the bigger conversation I appreciate what you did and when we when I was on that sustainability commission we came to a similar conclusion when we were trying to find towns to compare. I know we ended up like with Hollist and

Bellingham were kind of very similar. Upton but then it was a regional school district. So then we went down that rabbit hole. So it was like, you know, trying to find t find towns that were um economically the same as us as well as their their um and then and then you would look at what they put out with their student like you don't Bellingham is is tough like it's a tough place. So you know what Grafton puts out with the amount of money that they put in I think is the real story. And I don't think that it's a mystery or a miracle like I think that it's because of the way that the administration has run it. The way that they have fostered this attitude of everybody does everything. And that's why we are able he he bargained with the teachers union when other districts were striking and coming back after oh I don't know five weeks of being on strike and then getting 14% in their contract. Like other districts were Brooklyn was I believe it was Brooklyn. They they were on strike for so long and then they came back with this crazy increase and when he was going into negotiations I was like oh no what's going to because I know I know that our teachers don't make a lot of money but we in this town like we are taking care of them and I think that the environment that's created there and the respect that they feel is why they negotiate the way that they do and the idea that was tossed around that, you know, they should be paid less and we should freeze their steps and lanes. Uh, I think is just needs to be stopped like that. You can't pay someone at the bottom of the pay scale compared to everyone around us and then also freeze their increases. I think

that that is a terrible idea. I have a um just a quick spreadsheet to address that specific topic. So, we can maybe pick that up next. Sure. Um, can we call on Mark real fast? Yep. And then I want to actually just comment on your slides. Mr. Hadad, please.

Yeah. I just Angelina took a lot of my thunder away. I agree with everything uh that you just said and I'm glad that Matt is putting that up. But Andy, I want to thank you for um that summary that you put forward. It was very very enlightening and I'm glad you did it because I started to do that after the comparisons were made and I ran out of time. So great great job on that. But I can't remember in Shrewsbury did you put up the the percentage that the teachers pay in health insurance in your slide? Yes. Because they have they have a couple different options. Yeah.

Yeah. Because a statement was made last week at the meeting that that the the teachers pay 60% and the town pays 40%. And I'm afraid when stuff like that gets out in the community and it's stated by a member of the of the select board, people take that as gospel. And I and it really needs to be corrected because Mass General law chapter 32B does not allow you to do less than 50/50. So Shrewsbury is actually 6040 the other way. And they have and they have a um a cafeteria approach to it. So it's important that when information is given out that it's that it's the right information. And just one last thing, I sit on teacher school teacher negotiations for the town of Graten. I've negotiated the last two teacher contracts with the Graten Dunville Regional School District. And when Jay came out with a 9% over three years, I applauded that because we did the same thing. And it was an amazing negotiation. And it just shows that the Grafton Teachers Education Association cares about the community that they were willing to take 9% over 3 years when they saw other districts striking and getting 12 to 16% over that same time period. So I I applaud the I applaud the school committee. I applaud the school superintendent and I applaud the the Grafton Education Association for working with the town of Grafton to to let that happen. So Andy, thank you so much for putting that information together. It was awesome.

Thank you. Um to to your point, um we did receive a correspondence from the Grafton Teachers Association after our last meeting and they did provide us with Shrewsbur's insurance numbers. Um and and you know it is accurate that there is a 6040 plan um under one of the HMOs for example. Um the employee monthly charge for that is roughly $1,500 as compared compared to um 796 for their uh 7327 contribution. Um every everything goes up almost twice almost double I should say. Um when you move into that uh to those other plans um they are I I feel dated saying this but uh they are the the Cadillac of um insurance plans you know that those those 6040 options they they're not the norm.

Okay. Do we want to go to your uh Yeah. I just I just wanted to Can I just ask a question just relative to what Angelina So I'm looking up Brookline and it's saying 2.5 2.75 and 2.75 um unless I'm looking at the wrong years and then another it might not have been Brooklyn who stroke. Yeah, I'd have to look. Yeah. And I know that Worcester um I think they got one of the highest and theirs was like a 443 for what? 4.3. No, 443. So ours was a 333 here in Grafton and looks like Brook Lines was a 2.5 2.75 2.75.

Um so Andy just on on your slides um I think it's um I feel like it's important to to understand how we got to where all of our like predominantly the new growth is residential. Um, uh, Skip, you mentioned zoning, and I think that's that's a big part of it. Um, decades ago, there were decisions made that Grafton was going to be a bedroom community. We didn't want a lot of commercial or industrial. Um, and the priority, the land use priorities in Grafton has been open space and single family development. That that's mostly what's gone in. And so, that's how we ended up where we're at today. There's been a lot of resistance to multif family. There's been a lot of resistance to any kind of density or apartments. Um things like apartments are really tax efficient. They don't take a lot of services and they provide a lot of uh tax revenue. Um there's been a lot of resistance to certain kinds of commercial developments. um right, wrong or indifferent, you know, but when we get something that doesn't look like a an antique store, people get upset about it and they don't want that in Grafton. So, I don't necessarily completely disagree with all those decisions, but that's that's why we are where we're at today. Um, and you know, people talk about the the character of Grafton. Um, I think that's a thing. I think that's more about the sense of community that we have in amongst the people and it's less about the like physical layout of of things and how much open space we have and all that kind of stuff. But there has been this pretty um deliberate um and systemic approach to trying to keep Graph in a bedroom community without a lot of commercial development without a lot of uh multif family

residents and all that kind of stuff. So, here we are. Um, and I would say I love living in Grafton. There's over a thousand acres of land that's then that's open space that's been conser conserved in perpetuity. That's it's great. I love that. I'm always out on the trails. It's a it's a But there is a premium to living in a town like that. Those decisions ended up where we are today. and people those decisions resulted in this premium this tax premium for living in a town like Grafton and and that's where we're at and I think it's important to you know to mention that you know that we these were decisions that were made decades ago. Um, and I think, you know, love for our board to start thinking about what are the decisions we're making today that that we're either going to regret or congratulate ourselves on in the decades in the future. Like that is the sort of strategic view that we need to have in the decisions that we're we're making. Um so if we can just bring up the um the spread I just wanted to talk a little bit about because there has been a lot of discussion about um the the teacher contracts. Um so I used the same communities that Craig mentioned in our last meeting. Um and I just pulled some data from Desi. Um it's all out there. It's super easy to find. You can just uh search for average teacher salaries in Massachusetts and uh it'll it'll come right up for you. Um so I looked at uh where we were at in 2014 2015 um what the average salary was at that point and the FTEES and then I compared that to um over nine years what that is in the last information the most recent information that's available

on the DESI website uh which is 2324 um and I I put the the order for the towns is the amount of growth percentage of growth over those nine years. And so you can take a look at Grafton. I I can't explain Auburn necessarily, but um if you look at all the other towns, um Grafton is either at or below the the growth over nine years with our with the with the districts that were mentioned u last week. So, we're not growing any faster than any other districts. In fact, we're grow we're growing slower. We're losing ground. If if you look at the salary gaps that we had um again a little bit of a um an outlier, but Upton, Milbury, Shrewsbury, Sutton, Northbridge, um our our gaps are are growing. We're losing ground to to other districts year over year. And so the idea that we're going to sort of cap teacher salary as a way to like mitigate the overrides is a terrible idea. It's going to accelerate the um the loss of competitiveness that Grafton has to area districts and we're going to move into a scenario where we can't hire teachers. We're going to be priced out of the market. people will not look at Grafton as a district that is a a good district to go in and to consider when you look at all the towns around us. So, I just I could not disagree with that strategy more vehemently. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. Um, and I I just I the numbers are really clear here and I would challenge anybody to pick another three districts in the area and I guarantee they they're going to look exactly the same. These I just I didn't

pick these. These are ones that Craig used. Um I had uh I used the ones that the s sustainability commission brought up. I used the ones that the uh school department uses. It doesn't matter. We are at the lowest and it's like super it's crystal clear where we're at in terms of how we pay our teachers. Um so yeah, not at all uh a a feasible or reasonable or sustainable strategy to really consider um somehow throttling um the school committee from you know good faith negotiations with with the bargaining units. Um I I couldn't disagree with that more. Um, so I just wanted to sort of show that, you know, the the the increases over time, the contracts over time that Grafton have negotiated are not the problem and they're also not the solution going forward. like we need to just leave those alone and let the school committee and the superintendent do their work um and continue supporting our teachers because we have great teachers and we want to keep that quality of teachers and we need to be competitive enough so that we can execute that strategy that you're talking about Angelina where people are willing to pitch in and make the district work. That's the only reason. and and when you start to sort of pay less and less and less that the message to the teachers is we don't care about you as much and and I just that is not not an approach that I think has has any wisdom whatsoever does not make sense to me. Um so I just wanted to and I urge anybody any in the public to go look at the desi website. It is super super easy to find data and go look at Grafton and all the towns around us and you will not find uh a town that works more efficiently than we do in terms of how we pay teachers um and the results that we get from the school system. It's it just doesn't exist. I'd

like to piggyback on that a little bit quick. Um again, you know, the the focus uh when we're talking about employees has been on school staff because that does seem to be um the the group that is being attacked the most. Um you know, in the in these discussions or singled out the most instead of attack. Um on the municipal side, you know, we're we're hearing the same things through through exit interviews and departures. People love the the environment here. They enjoy working for the town. They enjoy the people that they work for. Um, those three right there come up consistently. You know that I would follow them wherever they were going. The the the crux of why they end up leaving is generally money. And I know that is not uncommon from the private sector. That happens everywhere. But I just I want to highlight that, you know, we we have fewer municipal staff compared to the schools. So that may happen less on the municipal side, you know, than or or in a less noticeable fashion on the municipal side than it does on the school side, but the impact is the same. Um, you know, we we are losing people to other municipalities because they have the ability to pay more. So, um, you know, you you can dismiss it as that's that's life or, you know, uh, choose to read into it some. It's up to you. But to me, you know, that's telling if if people are not leaving this job, a municipal job, because they're not miserable. They love it here, but they just are getting money other money elsewhere. You know, that that tells me that that we're doing a lot of things right. Um we're, you know, we we just unfortunately are lacking here and and even throughout all this discussion. Um these override options, you know, even

the strengthen option that we've talked about is restoring the six and a half school positions that were cut last year. We're not talking about the types of increases to salary or anything that have been discussed here. Um you know, or or trying to increase really our competitiveness. we're we're talking about maintaining the level uh you know that we're putting in now um and and hoping that that ends up remaining competitive in the overall market. So that's it.

I just about the strike Brooklyn did get 6% um for increase in wages and stipens over three years plus an additional 8% for the next three years. So it was 14 that they got. They did only strike for one day in Brooklyn, but they got 14% over three years. And um I think it was Newton that struck for 11 days and they got in big trouble for that. But it just is generally kind of a terrible thing to happen for the kids, for the parents, for the teachers, for everyone involved. It's not good. Yeah. The last time we had one of those here was uh 1974 73

before I was born. Yeah, I mean I I'm probably the least tenure person to have moved to Grafton for two years and I will say right you move to Grafton the American dream you buy a home you can do all this and we came here for the schools the land the town itself right and to kind of hear these discussions now of like the school spending too much municipality it's one town right I always think of it that way like I think if we dilute from the municipality we dilute from from the schools we're all going to see that right? Like if you are financially saved in any way, sort of form, your property value will only go up if the town succeeds, right? That's ultimately the end goal, right? Regardless if you have kids in the system, you do not like that is what we want, right? We want everyone to be better off in five years than they were now. So thinking of all this like I understand level service, but I am somewhat disappointed that we aren't thinking even of strength at all. I think right for us to get to where we want to be, we need to have those discussions. That's the next time around. But, you know, we are all going to benefit from level if not better than level services. And it's just the way we are here with um not a big commercial presence. It's hard to grow that revenue line, right? So, again, like I think this town is great and I think we have are better days ahead, but um for me as a younger resident of the town, it's it is remarkable to see everyone come together and so passionate about it. Um, and hopefully we get to the bottom of where we need to go to grow the town, right? But more importantly, strengthen it moving forward. So, I do appreciate everyone's hard work here.

I I do have one last thought for that. One of the things you also hear is my kids can't afford to live here. And that should be a sobering thought as well. I have one question. Can you just repeat the BBT numbers you said were coming in on the 12th of this month? Yes. Okay. Thanks. Can I ask you a question about BBT?

Well, we're talking. Go ahead. the um we we have could we not do BBT as an option? Is that something that is like does a town have to have a technical option while we're talking about directions of things? I mean I feel like you have to talk about everything. I don't not trying to be popular. I think you would have to go back to the the regional school district vocational setup in the legislature in the is 13 or 17 towns

in this district and somehow figure a way to get out of that and but then where are you going to teach the kids trades? They want to go to a trade school. We've eliminated all the industrial arts stuff that we used to have in town. I just think BBT is expensive. That's all. Angelina, Chapter 74 of the Massachusetts General Laws requires every city in town to provide access to vocational technical educational uh education secondary schools for students. We have no choice. We have to offer it.

And at the time it came out, it was probably the most comprehensive thing you could get to teach the kids a trade. And the state has changed what you have to teach kids going to that school now to make it even more expensive. I am meeting with the superintendent tomorrow. Actually, I don't know if I'll get the full the full number, but uh that's part of the intent is to have that conversation.

I guess I would like the finance part of me would like to know what the difference between BBT and another tech school is as far as like our contribution and that kind of thing. like if we were to change schools that we were working with, would that make any kind of a difference? And it maybe it wouldn't move the needle at all. I have no idea. It would just be more of a hassle than anything else. But you know, Mary and I working in another town, it's it's comparable funding,

honestly. Yeah. We don't see a a hu well I'm not speaking for you but I I don't see a huge difference between what we were seeing uh in the western part of the state to what we're seeing in in this part of the state as far as tax schools go. They all spend more money per Yeah, almost all of them spend more money per but they're also they're they're teaching kids a different right uh methodology right so those costs are going to be different to a certain extent else

I guess Matt to follow I mean I don't don't know what happened to Auburn but I can say that it's remarkable to me that Auburn's um cut their staff by more than half in FTEES from 2013 14 to 15 to 23 24 and still saw a 13% increase. Um so imagine that has to do with a lot of why they're not comparable to the other districts. Um assuming a lot of those staff were uh adding to that they were still at the same level. Yeah. And look, we're still four grand below them average. So we're still below that. Yeah. And didn't cut half our piece, right?

Uh yeah, I I didn't bother sort of looking into why um because I didn't think that was relevant. Um that that's just an outlier, but I did want to be consistent with the district, you know, the towns that that Craig mentioned so that we could just be consistent with the ones that he mentioned in terms of tax rate. I thought that that was important.

Um Okay. I mean, it feels like we made some some good progress here tonight. Um, there was I I feel like there was some really good discussion. I appreciate finance committee's input on all this. Um, and you know, slight little slight little kick in the bum to to move us along. Um, anybody have anything else uh they they wish to discuss before we consider a journey? Um, for the select board's part, again, I'd just like to thank you guys for coming in tonight and participating. And before we go, uh, thank the chair for spending her birthday here with all of us.

Happy birthday. Oh, yeah. Happy to. Couldn't couldn't imagine a better place to spend my birthday. Oh, you need to go. Happy birthday now. Happy birthday. Thank you. I can take a motion to adjurnn the select board. So move second. Okay. Uh all those in favor I I second your motion, Mark. He's already gone to sleep. I'm still here. Mark never sleeps. Mark never sleeps. A motion to adjourn from the finance committee. Second. All right. Um we have a motion to adjourn. Mark I. Greg. I. Heather, hi.

Dan, you you as a late up here get to also vote. I I've been on for about 10 minutes now. I thank you. Angelina, hi. Samir, hi. Skip. Hi. Kyle, hi. Victoria is I is unanimous. We are adjourned. And thank you for