Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

from today on Tuesday, January 20th. Uh we'll start as usual with the pledge of allegiance. Victor, would you lead us, please? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, indivisible, with all it's delay. So, just to let everyone know as a point of order, um Christina and Sue both are not able to be here. They're both participating remotely via Zoom, but we have six people in the room. So, we have a quorum and we have all seven people that'll participate in discussions and votes. Um so, we'll start in with new business. Our first item on the agenda is to reopen section 4651, the economic committees. So ready to go. Sorry, not as prepared as I thought I was. I'll make a motion to reopen consideration of section 4651 economic development committees in the previous uh approved amount of $1,450.

Second. That was Scott. Y motion by Paul, seconded by Scott. Um, I think we want to consider line 565, which is the Pem Path Committee, which is currently $250. And I'm going to let Buzz take over as chair of the Pemmy Committee. You know more about it than anyone. So,

right, just a point of information. Um earlier this year the select board in reconstituting the economic development commission is now the economic opportunities commission committee commission um um moved the penny path from a subcommittee under the old um uh economic development committee to to a standalone committee. Um we are just um we are ever hopeful that that pro this project will come to fruition. We're at the point now where we're we're approaching the goal line on having a signed use agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers um which will allow us to um start forward with the actual project. Um and to that end um we have asked Mike Vically um the town's consulting engineer to put together a cost estimate um for the design and engineering of the project. Um that estimate came out this morning. He was waiting um to get a quote from a surveyor um and the quote didn't come through till yesterday. But we have a uh now um an estimate for the end engineering services that would be um required to design um and and and have um construction drawings um for the the project. And it's um the the the total cost including the surveyor is $69,130. Um, and I would like to amend um line Oh, shoot.

565. 565 um from $250 to $69,130. So, we have point of order. You you you went to the 69130, so you're giving them 250. Don't you add those together? Uh, well, no. Okay, I'm okay. Just want to make sure you you're okay with that. Can I Yeah, Mr. Chair. Yeah, go ahead. You you do pay for the Hein Fair, though. Don't forget, Buzz. Oh, is that what the 250 is for? I I I wasn't sure if you had any other meetings or memberships or trainings, but the Hein Fair is included in that, too.

Oh, okay. Well, then then it would be 69,3. Right. those two numbers added together. 69 380 first number. Um so he's got a friendly amendment. Just call the 70,000.

Oh, okay. I asked that Christina before the meeting. Um um but that the intent is to treat this as if the project were being grantf funded and the monies while there can be no guarantees the monies that are spent on the design and engineering of this hopefully will be reimbursed to the town through the fundraising effort. But it's a chicken and egg thing. We can't fund raise until we have two things. One is well three things. We need the the executed contract with the core of engineers and that's coming. We need a satisfactory um environmental study under the national environmental policy act and that's pending funding. um the um the archaeologist for the core of engineers that was working on the NEPA got um doed and um so now the core is looking for money in the coming federal budget. So we're kind of on hold on that. And the third component is that we need need a a project design that we can fund raise against. Um so um the town will have to come out of pocket. Hopefully the taxpayers um are fully reimbursed, but I don't have a crystal ball. No one else does.

I just want to make sure we're following procedure. So is your is your motion for 69 380 or 70,000? And can somebody second it? So could you state your motion just so we're clear? Well, I I I would I'm not sure 6 70,000 gets us anything. So, you want to if we run into a problem, it's it's bigger than $600. So, um I think the 69,380 will will do it. Okay. I'll be happy to second that for you. So, we have a motion now. Um do you want to keep talking about it or you want to open up for questions?

Answer questions, but that's that's it in a nutshell. Does anyone else have a The only concern I have is just, you know, that also includes memberships on that line. So, as long as we don't have any other memberships that are going to pop up. Well, we're we're adding the 69130 to the 250. So, he still has no correct. So, you only have 250 from I'm just making sure. Right. There's no no memberships associated with the coming path committee. So, the 250 is the two. Yeah. Yeah, the line Christina said the line for meetings and memberships and he's saying they just have meetings, not memberships. But yeah, human bear human fair. Mr.

Go ahead, Christina. I was going to say we should probably change the description of this line, not just it shouldn't be meetings and memberships. It should say I don't something else if we're paying for this engineering potentially out of it. So,

well, it I'm looking at the I'm looking at the the budget and it says pemmy path committee expenses and then the explanation is pemmy path is a standalone committee from the EDC added line for fees participating in heid fair any trainings etc. And if you just if you strike any trainings and instead make it for um um um project engineering design and engineering, I think then it's accurate,

right? But the descript that description won't be showing in the town report. It'll just show hemipath committee meetings/memberships. I think we should just probably say Pemath committee project. Buzz, if you're okay with that, I'll make a motion. You okay? I'll make a motion to amend the descriptor for line 565 of section 4651 from the current EC penny path committee meeting/memberships to a new descriptor of EC PMIP path committee meeting project design.

Second motion by Paul seconded by Buzz. Any discussion? Would it not fit under committee projects? Where's committee projects? The first line that I think that's the new economic opportunity committee. The only separate Okay. Yeah, we're standalone now.

Okay. So just to explain the section if you don't mind real quick. This is called economic development committees but includes the new committee economic opportunities which is taking over for economic development and the energy committee and the pemmy path committee all three of which are standalone committees. Yep. Yep. So I think Christina you were right that the line was not descriptive. if we're going to add 69,000 to it and so this will change the line in the budget. Uh are we ready to vote or do you have a comment? I have a question if I can. Go ahead.

Um so basically the the town will receive money to get the project going so you can get the the engineering done and whatnot. Right.

And you had indicated Buzz the intent would be to try to supplement it with grants andor fundraising. Well, we we've been chasing grants for I mean I've only been involved for four years, but I'm told it goes back, you know, 14 15 years um to no avail. Um so what we have been um doing a kind of backwoods a back room fundraising campaign for the last three years at the Heburn fair and we have recruited um a number of people. I think we have a mailing list now of 70 that some of whom um attend remote attend meetings remotely. I send them a monthly newsletter update and um we have I have talked with a number of local excavation contractors and there is there is tremendous support for this project out there and and I think that it's not going to be all that difficult for us to we're going to form a private friends of penny path organization do the fundraising and then contribute it to a town trust trust account, uh, single purpose trust account, but, um, I don't think it's going to be all that hard. And I think that the contractors, um, are going to be lining up to work on this. Several of them I've talked to said, "Oh, I grew up fishing there, and I love that I love that spot, and you know, I'm all in." So, um, so, but but we we have to, in order to in order to go to the public and go to the contractors and say, "Will you help?" We have to have a design to show

understand. Is there an intent knowing that there's great support out there, is there an intent to also put a revenue line in the budget, unanticipated revenue to to support this through the fundraising?

No. Um we would we would the fundraising will be described as the the project expenses but then also anything beyond that we will continue to fund raise because there's also maintenance expenses associated with this among other things you have to keep replenishing the the the gravel the stone dust because it it it washes out every spring and you have to recede it and and Victor consented to give us some space at the at the uh transfer station so we can keep a pile of it on hand and as that gets used down we'd replenish it and all of this would be um on the friends of Pemmy path nickel not on the towns.

Okay. But but again, we can't you can't fund raise a budget because you don't know what you got to get started to show to get people interested. But the interest is there that it feel like we should vote on I was I was going to say I think I messed up by making a second motion before we resolve the first one. So what I'd like to do is close that second motion and then go back to discussing the money and the project. Does that make sense to everybody? So, I want to call a vote on the motion to rename line 565 to take out memberships and add project design. Clear? Yep.

All in favor? I I the suit uh actually with soon I'm remotely I need to do a roll call vote. So I Scott I Joe I I I Sue I 70. Okay. So we changed the name on the line. We still need now to eventually have a vote on the changing the budget number. Did anyone else have a question or a comment? Joe does. Um I just wanted to ask because I know that this this is always a question that comes up in things like this. Is the warrant finalized? It is not. I don't believe.

And so I'll pose the question to the group. Do we feel like this is more appropriate in the operating budget or is a war article? I was going to go there myself eventually. I think you missed that discussion. Was that what Christine was talking about earlier? Mr. Chair, I I do think it's probably too late for the warrant. The board is voting on their warrant Thursday night. You're seeing the draft version tonight and the warrants being voted on Thursday. So, so that's enough. Okay. You guys are going to finalize the warrant on your meeting two days from today. So,

I think that's kind of way too close to make changes to the warrant at this point. So, I think that that makes sense. But it's just it's always worth asking that question, discussing. We have talked in the past about not burying big things in the budget. If it's big, make it visible to the voters and make it a separate war article. So that has been our general philosophy for a number of years. Yep. But I think given that it's I mean we didn't have really just got the quote today.

Just got the quote today. It's just the timing to get it into the warrant doesn't make it's just not possible. So I fully I I support this. I think it's a great idea. I agree. I think the town will rally around this project from a fundraising perspective. Um I also think there's probably some businesses who might might be interested. Oh, that's could be businesses and snowmoilers will be the first we um just at we um we applied for a grant from Northern Borders um about a year ago and as part of the grant application we surveyed every every business in Bristol, Hebrin and Bridgewater and we have a signed letter of support from each of the businesses and I assume it's still good. So, some of the first fundraising calls are

and and the snowmoers continue to tell us that they they can't wait for this. So, that's going to be the second call. Okay. Any other comments or questions before we go to a vote? Not hearing any. We'll go ahead. So now we're voting on the first motion which is to amend the amount for line 565 the pemmy path committee from the current amount of $250 to a new amount of $69,390 and clear. So again we'll do a roll call. Paul. Yes. Scott I. Joe. I Yes.

I Z I. Okay. 70 zero. It passes. Okay. So, we are done with Oh, so now I have to go back. Hold on. So, we had Mr. Chair. Yeah. Go ahead. I got to do my motion to close the whole section, but go ahead. Can I just confirm you said was it 69,300 80? So, we added 69130 to the 250 and got 69 380. Yep.

And now I'm adding the 69130 to the original, 1450 to get 70,580. Okay. So, now we're going to close this. So, I'll make a motion to approve um the overall budget section 4651 for economic development committees plural from the current amount of $1,450 to the new amount of $78,580.

Second motion by Paul, seconded by Scott. Any questions, comments, or not hearing any, we'll go ahead and vote. We'll start on the other end now. Sue, you'll go first. Uh, Sue, yes. Uh, yes. Thank you. Buzz, yes. Yes. Jerry, yes. Scott, I Yes.

7 0 0. That's done. So, we're done with that. Um, on our agenda, we have to talk about the surplus for water and the surplus for sewer. It's not on the agenda, but we have a request to reopen roads operating section. Does anyone have a suggestion on what order we do these? Does it matter? I don't think it matters. Jeff's right here. I'm giving you something to cut. You're giving me some You want me to open a different section? No, I said I'm giving you something to cut. So, you should open the section. Is that the surpluses or something else? Um the surplus and the water.

Okay. Surplus. Okay. We'll do those first. Next. Yeah. Then let's see. We'll do sewer first. I'll make a motion to reopen consideration of the sewer surplus budget section which is 4328 in the current budget committee uh approved amount of $91,937. Second.

Motion by Paul, seconded by Joe. Um just for a quick update so everyone to know we originally what we did was we level funded this amount and what we've discovered or what we've come to a different thought about is that by law the water and the sewer are enterprise funds which need to be run on a break even basis. So revenue has to equal expenditures plus surplus. Well, expenditures and revenues aren't static. So to expect the surplus to remain static was not a good assumption. So Christine has worked with Jeff to go back and update the revenue. We've already worked through the expenses and now we have a new number with what the surplus should be to make everything balance so it all adds up. So that's what we're doing tonight. So Christina, what's the new number? So we can make a motion and change it. the 46054.

Wait, 46,000. 46,54.

Okay. So, I'll make a motion to amend line 900 section 4328, which is the sewer surplus transfer from the current approved amount of 91,000 937 to a new amount of $46,54. Second motion by Paul, seconded by Joe. Christina, you want to say anything more? Give us any more information or

um I didn't get the revenues from Jeff until this afternoon. Um so the revenues that you're going to see later tonight don't have Jeff's updated numbers in them. Again, they're just drafts tonight. But I figured since he knew what this number should be, we should adjust this tonight.

Okay. I know he's not here. I don't think he needs to be. I I did make a point to ask him during this discussion that everything looked fine that, you know, revenues were covering expenses and we had enough surplus to put into capital. Now that the transfer has gone down quite a bit, do we still I just want to confirm. Do we still anticipate that for the coming year there is there's not anticipated to be a rate increase? And he's not proposed to increase at this time. No. Okay. Um so there shouldn't be. Um the reason your revenues are going down is because and I mean your

surplus in this line is going down is because there's enough revenues so to match it. So except for that amount. So I gotcha. Any other questions, comments from anyone else on the committee?

I don't think there's any doubt that we should approve this. Makes me a little worried that the rate increase might not be coming this year, but it's closer than it was last month. But I don't think we can at this point. I don't think we can do anything about that. This is this is what it is. And unless we want to go back and reopen some of the operating sections and cut expenditures to make this surplus higher, I don't I don't know what else we could do. So, I'm going to vote in favor of this, but I will see anyone else have a comment or suggestion or ready for a vote. Okay. So, we're going to vote on amending the s sewer surplus which is line 900 of section 46 I should say 054328. to a new amount of $46,54. We'll do again a roll call vote with a remote person. So we'll start with less.

Le I Paul I Scott I Joe I Ryan I Puzz I I Okay, that's approved. 70. I'll make a motion to close consideration to make a final approval for the section 4328 sewer sup surplus in the new bottom line amount of $46,54. Second. Motion by Paul, seconded by less. I don't think there's any discussion. Speak up if I'm wrong. We'll do a roll call vote. Sue, can we start with you? Yes. Um, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. product

ball I 70 zero. We're done with sewer surplus. So now we will go to water surplus. So I'll make a motion to open my cursor here. um section 4333 of the water department, which is the water surplus transfer from the current approved amount of $14,884. Uh I probably should know what the new number is. I'll second. Okay. What's the new number? It's uh 553,895.

Okay. So my motion is to amend it from the current approved amount of $14,884 to a new amount of $53,895. Motion by Paul, seconded by Scott. So same thing. This is the number that balances the difference between re expected revenues and expected expenses. Right. Correct.

Anyone have any questions or anything else? I this is kind of a carbon copy of what we just did with sewer. Okay. Not hearing any. We will now vote on amending line 900 of section 4333 of the sewer I'm sorry of the water department which is water surplus transfer from the current approved amount of $14,884 to a new amount of 53,895. We'll start with me now. Let's do something in the middle. Uh Paul votes I. Scott will go to Scott. I I Sue

Sue. I Yeah. 700. That's approved. And now Christine, am I over? Now I still need a motion to close this section, right? Yes. Okay. I make a motion to close consideration and do final approval for section 4333, which is water department surplus in the new approved amount of $53,895. Second. Motion by Paul, seconded by Buzz. Any comments? Joe, you want to start us on the roll call, please? Joe, I Sue. Sue I Paul I

Scott I 70 that's approved. So those numbers go down there's no effect on the tax rate but it makes the number on the warrant lower. So that's good. um road next, right? I don't think there's anything else on the I'm looking for my agenda expert just to make sure.

So, so um we didn't know about it before tonight, but Victor is here because he's going to ask for a modification to a line in the road department budget. And it wasn't sent out electronically because we just found out about it late this afternoon. So there is this the number here doesn't have salt. So what's the number? Um if you check on page four of it unless yours is cut out which I hope. Oh I see. I went all the way to page five. So, I crossed out the whole line and put the correct number that you guys had voted on before and the total bottom number.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. That was exactly what I was looking for. I was on page five. I'll make a motion to open consider reopen consideration of section 4311, which is the road department operating budget in the currently approved amount of $764,278. Can I get a second, please? Second. Motion by Paul, seconded by Les to open reconsideration. Victor, I'm going to turn it over to you. Which line do we want to talk about? And specifically,

when I was here last time, I told you there were two lines that I would have challenged, but I only challenged the salt line, but I had a meeting with Christina um last week and we were going over uh forecasted things that are going to affect the department. And one of them is that overtime line. I had beat that line up the year before due to problems in the square and plowing and that and then Christine and I were talking about some other tasks that are going to come before the the highway department and uh excuse me just for everyone that's line 140

140 I'm sorry 431140 um when Christina and I talked at length about it we realized that you know because I'm closing the year out at only $16486 in that line and with these new tasks that are going to be assigned. Some of these small new tasks that are going to be assigned. We think the number needs to go back to the 30,000 that that we were looking for instead of the 27. So, we're just looking to add three. You're looking for one of us to make a motion to amend it from 27,000 to 30,000. Exactly. Okay. What are the new tasks? So, we're now moving what?

I'm sorry. Before we get into discussion, I want to make a motion and get it on the table because we're not really supposed to have a discussion if we don't have a motion that we're working on. So, I'll make a motion to amend line 140 of section 4311, which is highway department operations overtime line from the current approved amount of $27,000 to a new proposed amount of $30,000. I'll second it. Motion by Paul, seconded by Brian. And now you can take questions and answer. Go ahead. Uh the question was just what are the new tasks?

So one of the new tasks that Christine and I were talking at length about is we're going to have voting three times. We're moving voting from the current facility of next door out to the high school. Due to the time constraint that the school is putting on us, we can we can only do things after hours and before hours. So, I'm going to have to bring the guys in on OT to do that due to our work scheduled and that because other things don't allow us to just put my guys on comp to to satisfy that. So, they're going to have to go on OT to do it. Um, we're also still have fighting some issues in the square about removal of snow and how to get the snow out of the square. U, that's why the number ran as lean as it did and as tight as it did at 30,000 this year. Like I said, I just got the updated report today and I'm closing that line out with only $164.86. So the the 30 was a real tight number when we came up with it last year. Uh we thought it was going to be tight. I didn't think it was going to be that tight, but it's really tight. So when I look at that, you know, we're going already into this year a little heavy with with OT. The last three storms were all done on OT because of the way the storm's laid in. I just just really think we need to cushion that by a little bit more. And I still think that's a little lean, but I I just like to bring it back to what we had asked for the year before.

Anyone else have a question? Just a comment. If you look back to 2024, it was over 30,000 almost 30,000 this year. It makes sense that you wouldn't go down, right? Well, I guess the other thing is I'd say it's always hard to cut because every year people make more per hour. So even you keep the money le the same, you get less hours.

How few snowstorms? Yeah, I know. You know, we've been beat up. You know, this weekend we got beat up pretty hard, but again, that put us all into OT because it was a holiday weekend. You know, there's nothing I can do about that. There's just absolutely nothing I can do about that. Is 30 going to be enough?

I think it's it's going to be extremely lean. You know, we're going to we're running real tight. I just, you know, when I saw the numbers come in to leaving only $164 left at 2025. And when Christina and I were talking in this meeting, I just I just see that if we could get back to that, it'll get us close. You know, I hate having to scrape out of other lines or not spend things in other lines to to to pat a number. I'd rather just I'll run it as a negative like I've done the other lines. It's still a bottom line budget, but I just trying to leave the line with a number that looks a little more clear so that all of you can look at it and go, "Okay, we running these lines, you know, equitably. I guess the comment I would make is I I do know that in the past you've done set up at the historic town hall for elections. I know we put more money into the town clerk's budget because there's three elections instead of one in 26 and posted to 25. I didn't think about that there's election setups in the road department. So your justification makes sense to me.

Mr. Chair, go ahead. Christina, I just want to clarify. So the two elections at the high there will be two elections at the high school and there will be one at the town office. So they will have to set up for those three. But again, those are three that are that are we you're right. We never take them into consideration that the highway department has to do the setups. Right. So, which one you said one is one's going to be here at the town office or over at the store? But but we're talking about doing it right here. That's we're talking about testing the there because September will be um September is traditionally a smaller,

right? It's a primary with a lower turnup. So, we're we're Cheryl and I have been talking about testing that room you're sitting in. Gotcha. So, everyone knows I hate to add money to the budget, but I'm going to support this one. It makes sense to me. I know. I've heard you say that. But he said no thank you.

Well, I didn't say no. I didn't say no thank you. I said I wanted to get it back to where I, you know, where I I think we got a a working number that'll get that line tight like it was this year at at uh, you know, plus or minus. If I see a negative in there, I don't want to see a $4,000 negative. I If I see a a $900 negative or $1,000 negative, I say, "Okay, we we called the budget close." You know, uh, as long as my bottom line doesn't drop out from underneath myself. Um, again, you know, I cannot predict what mother nature's going to do to us. I do know like these events and that we still, you know, we don't know what that's going to take us in time on that. We'll we'll get through this learning curve. Cheryl and I will get it through a learning curve and that'll give us a better idea how we would look at if we're going to keep operating out of there. Okay. Any other comments before we call a vote?

I just I just have a quick comment. Go ahead, please. Different Oh, yeah. What's the difference in the setup in school as opposed to town town new town hall? Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Yeah. No, I understand your question. Um, so what we have to do is take all the equipment that belongs to Cheryl the sort in the town hall. We have to bring it down to the high school, pre-stage it. Then we have to wait until they tell us we can get into the building, which is after hours, set it all up, and then the next morning we're going to have to come in. We're going to have to tear it all down and get it out of there before school opens and then return it back here to the storage area at the old town hall. All this is done after working hours or before working hours.

Ah, okay. Yep. Yep. I get it. And then we're going to, you know, repeat the process for the second vote out there and then we got to do it again here. No, it makes sense. I could see the superintendent saying they don't want your workers in there while the kids are walking in the hallways. Right. Yeah. So this Mr. Chair, go ahead. This is the first this is the first year that we're doing with with the school too. I think that the school did not think about setup and also dismantling.

So when I had the conversation with them last week, um it was why it was an eye opener for them. So um we tried to come up with the best solution for us to still be able to use the building. I think we'll renegotiate better next year how we do it. So, okay, we're ready for a vote. Okay. So, we're going to vote on the motion to amend line 140 of section 4311, which is overtime in the highway operations department from the currently approved amount of $27,000 to a new amount of $30,000. Do a roll call. Start with Brian. Yes. Yes.

Sue. Oh. Yes. Yes. Paul. Yes. I Yes. 70. That's approved. That was which Can I make a motion to close this section with a new approved bottom line for the department or is there anything else you wanted? That was it. It was only the line I wanted to talk about. No, no. I thought so. I just wanted to be clear. So now I'll make a motion to close consideration and make a final approval for the bottom line budget of the highway operating department which is section 4311 in the new amount of $767,278. Second

motion by Paul seconded by Buzz. Um speak up if you want to make a comment or anything. I don't think so. Buzz, let's start with you on a roll call vote. Buzz, I Paul I. Scott, I 7 0. That passes. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. So, I know I got to say I got more on.

Okay. So, I think that we I think we are done with I'm kind of thinking out loud here. I think we're done with the budget sections. Christina, do we need to make do I need to make a motion now to approve the bottom line of our number or do we just move on to revenues? I I was thinking about that as you were talking. I I would like to double check your bottom line because I haven't made all of your adjustments, but I want to make sure I've made all of your adjustments. Yeah, I'm not I don't have that bottom line number in front of me either. So, but if we do, we could we could have somebody work on it while we go do something else

or I can do I can give you the number. Um I'm just concerned that I might I want to make sure I didn't miss anything. Okay. So, I can give you the number. I think I've made most of the changes while we've been meeting. Well, I'll be honest. If I'm not 100% sure of the number, I'm nervous about making a motion having us vote on it because then if it's not right, we put ourselves in a very bad position. So, if we're not sure of the number, I would I would pass unless it's absolutely required. I wouldn't make the motion and vote on it. You voted on every We voted on every section. So, I think we've done what we do, but I just wanted to make sure.

And then you vote at your public hearing and you vote there. So, I think if you're I will I'd rather be able to go through and make sure I didn't miss anything that gave you I I completely agree. I don't want to vote on a number and then find out that it was wrong and then we'd have to call an emergency meeting to to change it or something. I don't want to hear solves the problem. Okay, I think we're all set. So, we'll move on to revenues. So, I think I have open, don't I? So, let's see. We need to review. So, we'll make a motion. We'll make a motion to approve them and then we'll have a discussion. Is that what we're going to do here? Could I actually suggest

Go ahead. Yes, please go ahead. Potentially doing the warrant first just so that Ben and Victor don't have to stay here. Oh, okay. You're Mr. Chair, you're not voting on either one of these tonight. We're just having a discussion. But I I like these are just your Sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I like Joe's suggestion. We can do warrant articles discussion first and then Ben and Victor can go home and then we can do revenues. So these are draft versions. You wanted to see them before you go to your public hearing. So we wanted to make sure that we did that. Um the board will be voting on these on on both versions this Thursday. So

right. So to your point, just to clarify for everyone, we're not I'm not going to make a motion. We're not voting on anything. This is basically a discussion. So, everyone a spot. Go ahead. Go ahead, Christina. I was just going to I was just going to add it's a spot where you can ask questions. Um, if there's something you need us that if we can't answer, something you need us to look into, we can look into it and we can explain them to you. So,

okay. So, we received these earlier today. Yeah, I know people haven't had a lot of time to uh review them. Do we I mean we don't need to discuss them because we're not voting. We'll vote on them in early February after the or during No, after the public hearing. Um but do we want to go starting on article 12 and just go through them real quickly? Is that what you guys want to do? Or do I want to open it up to questions? If you go one at a time, that would be

we'll go through them. So art article 1, two, and 3 through 11 are all going to be decided on the Tuesday ballot. So we won't discuss those here. Article 13 should be the budget committee up recommend the budget committee. We've done all that work. The place holder in here is 10,495,768. I don't have the detail in front of me, so I assume that's right, but I certainly wouldn't uh make a big bet on it. But it's Mr. Chair, that's not yours. That's the Shannon, can you roll back down? That's a select board's number. Sorry, that's the budget. That's the select board's number. Oh, I see. Our our number is the X's.

Okay. So, I don't think we need to discuss this because this is basically a summation of the work we've done over the last three months. And if we don't like it, we can only blame ourselves. And I don't think we're in that situation. So, we'll move on to number 13, which is a standard. It's in pretty much not pretty much in every year. So, it's established a contingency fund. In past years, I think it's been 25. So, this year it went up to 30. Am I correct?

Correct. The select board um felt that it hadn't been changed for a number of years, which I can't even go back and tell you when it was changed last, but it's been 25 for many years. So, they asked to move it up to 30 this year. The only comment I'd make is if you're concerned about this, Christina can provide a report on what's been spent out of the contingency fund for 25. But this is basically for unbudgeted emergencies. I think it's good to have. I forgot to tell you that. I should I I can open that right now and tell you.

Well, it's I didn't want to get into details unless someone had a question. So, I don't need the detail. Well, I can just tell you that for 2025, we spent 14,000 of it. So, the 10,000 that we did, we we're supposed to spend more, but um actually, let me just make sure. No, we are going to we spent close to 20,000 of it. I'm sorry. So, the remainder of that will goes right back to the general fund, but we spent 20,000 of it.

Right. Okay. So that's 13. 14 is $30,000 for patriotic recreation. So this is fireworks, right? Correct. And this is something Go ahead. I was just going to add next year's the 250th anniversary of the United States. So it's fireworks are going to cost more. Um so the board agreed to put this up to 30. This includes um the fireworks show as well as um any entertainment um that we're able we do on the on the shore drive.

Okay, I think Scott has a comment. Go ahead, Scott. Yeah, the bad news is uh we have not locked in a fireworks provider yet and it's not looking promising. So, they're already very busy on July 4th. We could get them for July 27th. Well, and it's especially busier with the 250th. Yeah. So, it's supply and demand. You go get your permits, Scott. Is that what you're doing? No. There's enough pyro guys down on the beach that can do it.

All right. There's If there's questions or or or comments or something, please interrupt me. I'm just going to keep moving through this. Did you say something? Question. to Scott more often. And then how is the sweatboard leaning as far as picking an alternate date versus just not doing it? It's still a struggle. Like no one wants to go to old home date. That was my suggestion. Just do an old home weekend. That's tough. But yeah, no, it's my gut feeling is going to happen.

We were given a date the weekend after. It's a question if it's still open or not. They're closing pretty fastly um a lot of the fireworks providers. So, yeah, this year was a year that you had to do it very early to apply for everything. I mean, everything whether you go or travel or book the the uh you know, the Fourth of July fireworks. It was something that had to be booked early because they are for everything all over booked now. So, it's going to be rare for you to get in. So, you're right. just promising for sure.

I guess the comment I would make, Scott, is I I had heard in past years that again, even on a normal year, July 4th is very popular. I know I had said to as a suggestion to our town administrator I said well it's not my decision but my thinking is I would I would stake out you know the third Saturday or the fourth Saturday in July and then hopefully people in the area know hey in the middle of the summer when there's not a whole lot going on every every year on the fourth Saturday in July I can go to Bristol and see fireworks and we could turn it into a a draw. But that's that's that's my thought. That's not my decision. Follow up on even 5. Yeah, it's usually that day.

Oh, so we pick a day that wouldn't conflict. But I mean, if July 4th, even on a normal year, is more challenging. Yeah, let's get out of that. Let's get out of that lane and create a That was my thought. I'm just sharing it with you guys so you can hear my silly thoughts. Not even on the events committee. All right, ready to move to 15? Yep. All right. Uh, let's see. Raise an appropriate $166,895 for the Beach Street Culver Replacement. Oh, we have a Beach Street Culver Replacement expert in the room.

Including permitting, site prep, roadway reconstruction associated. Yeah, go ahead. Sure. Any questions? Um this is u a project again to keep it out of the operating budget transparent to the public. Um the bottom end of a culvert system it's a 4ft culvert. It's something the highway department cannot do with the equipment and the manpower that it has. Uh uh the engine the town engineering firm has done the engineering on this. They put an RSV RV. Uh, whatever. RFP.

RFP. Yeah, we got uh bids. I did announce that already, Christine. Who got awarded? Yes. Um, I did not put an announcement out on the website, but I did send all the contractors the announcement. Okay. So, a contractor has been selected. Um we can say

uh Jeremy Hilts Construction was selected to do the project based on the voters approving this. We again because of the number we had a great discussion with the select board. They have decided to not put it into my operating budget but put it as a warrant article. It is something that that needs to be done. Uh it has been bandated. this section of pipe. Uh the pipe actually runs from the Newfound River up street up second through a white right away behind some houses and ends up just below the meadows off of High Street. So there it's fairly warm, but the lower section has failed. Uh it needs to be replaced. Um

this is this is storm water, right? This is storm water drainage from So that whole side of town is soaked in water. Yeah, living on Chestnut Street, I can tell you that it's running constantly, constantly. Constantly. We had the drought this year and it's funny that it's not funny, but um we worked that line up on Chestn Street doing major repair on there and we still had water coming in the middle of the drought this year.

So, yeah, it's loaded with springs. So, but anyway, so this is the tail end of it where it meets New Found River. Um, so the the one of the problems is when the river backs up, it stays up in the pipe and it causes washing. And when the bottom pipe is gone, it's eroding it and it's sucking the parking lot down in off of private property, which is our liability because it's our pipe. So the end of the pipe, which is a big to me, 4 foot is big. It's a big diameter pipe. Yes. The bottom of the pipe has failed. The water is causing erosion problems. We're seeing even on the surface that things are collapsing. This is pretty much a must do project. It is.

Okay. And that's how we're going to have to talk to the public about questions from anyone else on the committee. The only question I have is should there be a question mark at the end of that sentence? Which one? Oh, at the end of the morning 15, the end has a question mark instead of a period. Oh,

probably not. I'll fix it. That's out of my hand. Good catch. Didn't even see that. Okay. So, that's article 15. So, other than in February, in early February, because this spends money, the the budget committee will vote on our recommendation to either uh recommend approval or recommend not to approve. Is there anything else other than you want to make sure we vote to recommend that you need us to do this? Is

I would really hope you guys recommend to approve this. It's a it's a must need and I think in the it's just the beginning of a some future projects that are going to come and I I think we have to handle them in small phases like this. If we were to go from the river all the way up to the meadows, we'd be talking millions of dollars. And I think it's better to take it in sections as they as they're degrading. Okay. Can I ask so so what's the total distance um place? I think that I think the number and and the contra was like 390 ft.

Okay. It it goes from the center of the street at the bottom of Beach Street, the center of the street down to the river behind those buildings, the big brick building and the the the darker color building right there on the corner. Did I answer? I don't know. That's your Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

So, I I just was going to say to the other people on the committee, I I don't love spending money, but something's failing. I think it makes sense to fix it. I would ask if you're not sure or you think you don't like it, let me know or let Victor know. Give him another chance to share with you why it's really needed. We want to hopefully show support for this. Well, it's a safety issue and other infrastructure nearby, correct? If I'm not mistaken, well, you there's infrastructure adjacent to the pipe.

Yes, a lot of infrastructure next to the pipe. There's people's houses and stuff like that. There's a propane tank that feeds three apartments there. So, if this collapses and takes any of that with it, this I I would think it would be a liability onto us that we've known about a problem and haven't taken care of it. That's my So, Mr. Chair, go ahead.

I I would just add that we've had sink holes um that have been springing up and having to be repaired since I've been here off and on for years. Um it's it's getting worse, though. Um, and then there's a fence that runs down the middle of the culvert. That's all. And it's put us within, I would say, less than 2 to 3 ft from a house, right, Victor? Very close. Yes. Yeah. It's an out structure. It's not a house, but it's an out structure. Oh, no. The house where it runs right down the middle of the fence, right?

No, the fence is right at the edge of the on the side of the pipe. We're right in between everything. Um, but it's the the edge of the house is probably, you know, 15 ft away at mo at at least best case scenario was 15 ft. It's probably less than that. When you get up towards B Street, it's probably only 5t away from the edge of the pipe. So again, this is another reason why highway department itself can't do this repair. It's much the pipe's too big and there's just too much. There's a telephone pole right up against the side of a pipe. There's a a out building that's right up against the side of the pipe. There is a massive propane tank down there on top of the pipe that's got to get moved. It's it's something that a contractor has to do.

I hear what you're saying. I just wanted to share with the rest of the committee the reason the reason maybe I'm normally I don't try to sway you guys so much, but I I think it's kind of I like the idea that this is a big project and it should be visible and a warrant article is the way to go. The downside is that if the voters vote no, then no means no. Now, I've talked to Victor about this. If it becomes a big enough crisis, you declare a safety emergency. But under normal circumstances, when the voters vote no, you're really not supposed to do it. So, we've committed ourselves. I think I want to try to make sure that we're all supporting this project because I think that Victor's right that it's needed. So, if you're not sure or you don't think you like it, please don't. You can do whatever you want, but I'm asking you please don't just show up and vote no. Give us a chance to give you more information is what I'm trying to say.

I I I will say this and all I again I told you the last meeting I think the process that we have in this town where where these things are discussed at at the supervisory level with the town administration presented to the select board. Select board makes a decision and then we go to the budget committee and we talk about these things. I think this process that we have irons all these these types of questions out. Um I don't think uh things are brought through this process without a great deal of consideration. Um I I think the select board had a great conversation with myself and the town administrator about whether we should do this with Warren Article, take the chance or that. And again, you know, it one of the selectman said, you know, well, what happens if it doesn't pass and there's a catastrophic failure? Well, that puts it into a different category. Um, so we would have to find the money at that point and that that would mean we would have to relook at the operating budget and cutting things out of the operating budget at that point. But let's I think I think the right thing to do is keep transparency to the public and show them that there's a large project here. Let the public make the decision on it. Um, and let us state our case to the people on town on town meeting day. And the public is usually very supportive if they know something needs to be done.

Yeah. Usually if they know something could be catastrophic too. That that's what I was going to say too. As long as you present the way you just presented it, everybody will know the reasons behind it. I think they'll be very supportive. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I can share the plans if anybody would like to see them. Um, it's pretty much though it just shows you the river and beach street. Everything that Victor's verbally told you and shows you where the pipe runs that I can share them. I'm all set right now. Victor created such a great visual that you Okay. All right. Thank you, Victor. Okay. Thank you for your time. I think we're done.

Have a good night. Sue Christina, thank you for your time. So, we'll move on to 16, which is uh amending the ambulance replacement fund. I don't know what it is currently, but it's being raised to $500,000 a year. Is that correct, Chief? I think not quite. This is just saying that the first $500,000 of ambulance revenue will be placed into this fun. I understand. Yeah. So, we're already doing it, but it's different than 500. Is that correct? Currently, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So, um I've been kind of working on right the pre-Town meeting and let's, you know, get the information out and um it was probably ready for tonight, but it's it's not, so it won't be. Um, and the whole time there was kind of two these two like analogies running through my head. And I'm going to get to one cuz I think it's the most important thing we can talk about. But the first is uh the first line of A Christmas Carol, which is the Marley's or I like the SC the Muppets one, but Marley was dead to begin with, right? And it just sets this fact. Marley's dead. And I bring that up because uh fire trucks cost a million dollars now and there's nothing that anybody in this room is going to do about that. You know, that's just kind of the reality of it. Um we have, you know, been looking at right because we're coming up on that time. We all knew this was going to come and all of a sudden we got re we made I got really old and it came around again and right at the beginning of my career we replaced engine 2 and just a few short years later we replace the ladder and then not too many years after that we replaced engine 4 and now all of a sudden engine 2 is 20 years old. Um and now firet trucks cost a million dollars when it's time to replace it. And uh so I just that to me every time I I look at this problem cuz it's a problem. We're not prepared to spend a million dollars on a firet truck. That's what I keep coming back to. Nobody in this room decided that firet trucks would be a million dollars. Nobody in this room decided that they would take three, four, five years to build. Um but that's where we're at. And so I it's not I just want to be clear. I'm not coming here because I want to buy a million dollar fire truck. I would really like to buy a $600,000 firetruck, which is kind of what we anticipated it would be. Maybe even a little bit less

than that. Um, that's not the the reality, you know, post I hate to blame everything on CO, but you can't help but make the correlation. So the this stems this Warren article stems from we have a problem which is we are not prepared to not only buy a million dollar fire truck over the course of the ne you know at some point in the next three to four to five years um two things right we've got to buy we've got to place that order like

like this year cuz this year kind of that best case ballpark is we get it in say three and a half years. Maybe it's three, might be four. There's a chance in two and a half, but the truth is it's three or four years. Three or four years all, you know, puts us at 2030, which is about a year ahead of what CIP says. Um, just to kind of bring it up, uh, CIP put the engine replacements at 25 years. That was never a realistic number. NFPA puts engine replacements at 24 years. NFPA does NFPA is a national standard, right? NFPA doesn't factor in that these are running on salted roads for 24 years. Um, NFPA also has a standard that says you should have x amount of fire apparatus based on your size and all that stuff. And a lot of times that includes having a reserve engine or maybe you have another station or whatever. We don't have that. um like the year before I started like 0203 somewhere in that section in that stretch we got rid of engine 3 which would have been a great little reserve piece that would have said okay once engine 2 came we could do all these kind of bigger maintenance rebuilds and whatnot and we can miss that truck for say 3 to 6 months while it's you know back out in Nebraska getting this this refurbish done. You can't do that in our situation. we have a setup that allows, you know, right, that engine goes out for a week or so, engine 4 can fill in its role, um, but to miss it for three to six months. There's just never a good time a year to be down a fire truck in the town in Bristol. So, you don't have that ability. And so, really, when you look at it, you know, at least at the firehouse level, we've always said, listen, we've got to we got to try to be in that either early 20 somewhere between 20, 22, 23 years. Um, we can't even hit that now. will still be right about 24 years by the time the truck shows up if we order it this year. So

then we go out and we look and we say, "Okay, what what's the price?" Now we got the prices. It's roughly a million, right? Could we be a little less than a million? Yeah, we can probably be a little less than a million. All of a sudden, I'm hearing some numbers being thrown out that we may be in the 800,000 range. That's not realistic. Um there was a number that was like that. That was if we had every dollar and we handed it to the manufacturer. Today we don't have every dollar and in this plan we're not going to have every dollar cuz I'd need well like $800,000 to make that work and that doesn't make any sense. So we're going to be around a million. I've got to order unfortunately me. I've got to order ladder one's replacement maybe in 2030 probably in 2029. I need to have some of that or I need to have a plan that says we will have that money when the truck gets delivered, right? And so that truck today is over a million and a half. It's probably 167. I'm projecting that even though it's only 3 or so years from now, we're probably going to be around 2.1 if we buy a new truck to replace that. That's still kind of up in the air. in that any sort of used or or refurbished market obviously really depends on the truck and what's out there, right? It's like anything um in that in that market space. Well, then 5 years later, I had a I had to order engine force replacement, which seems crazy cuz it was only 12 years ago that we bought it, but now you're right here another 8 n 10 well 9 years in the future. That truck's going to be 2.6. We paid $445,000 for it. That's what the market is, right? So, we can have a plan. And it's important to talk about those numbers because some people in this room or some people listening and and people at town meeting are going to say, "Well, we had a plan all along. We had this capital

reserve plan. Why didn't we achieve that goal?" We didn't achieve it for two reasons. one, we never, not once, put the dollar amount that was described in the plan into that fund. We defer it and we say, "Well, we'll double pay it next year." And then we wouldn't. We just make the one deposit. And so, we missed out on that payment. And then it was supposed to be 100,000 and we said, "Well, let's make it 75." And then it's supposed to be 100. Let's make it 85. Last year's deposit according to the CIP plan was supposed to be 135. We'd still be in this boat. We'd still be short. It was 100 which was great, right? And it it put us in the right direction. So if you're never saving, right? If you and I get why it was years ago when we started down this path, we said it's 15 years. We're 15 years out from buying a truck. We can defer that payment or we can make that payment a littleer now. We'll make it bigger down the road. Never happened. So the other thing that happened was co the prices just skyrocketed. Precoid, we're looking at this. I'm going into the the CIP meetings and saying, "Hey, listen. It's not realistic to have this at, you know, whatever it was, $400,000. It really needs to be like $550. That's what we're projecting the replacement will be in that time frame." And we were probably pretty close, maybe still a little bit under, but we're probably pretty close at that point. And then COVID happens and there's these 10 plus percent increases every single year, year after year. And all of a sudden, a few years into CO, we're going, "Oh my god, it's going to be $800,000 to buy. Oh, it's going to be $900." And now it's a million. There there was one technically two. One ended up at like $9.97. They're both right under a million, but there's only two out of like seven companies we get bids

from. as high as 1.3, same truck, but $1.3 million. Um, and so you combine those two things together, right? We had a plan, we didn't follow it, and whatever happened happened. Um, there's a whole bunch of other stuff if you really want to nerd out on stuff. Search Rev group, congressional hearings, all cool. We're not going to fix it. Uh, and Congress isn't going to have it fixed by the time it's time to buy fire trucks. And my opinion is it's a lot like the housing market, right? We've proven over quite a few years now that the market's willing to pay these prices. Anything that comes out of Congress is maybe stop backloading stuff and making it look good for your your your shareholders. Get these trucks out the door because they're important, but there's nothing's going to affect the prices. We've said we by we I mean municipalities and and everybody else that's running a fire department. Yeah, we're willing to pay a million dollars for a firet truck. We didn't do that, but everybody else did. And so now we have to live with it. So that's kind of the high level. And what I think makes the most sense, right? I went to the board and I said, "Here's really what we can do. we can give up on savings and we can go back to financing fire trucks. Um, you know, financing a two engine 2 was $245,000 when we bought it in 2005, 2006, just so everybody knows, that's the truck that needs to be replaced next. So, you finance $245,000 at 3%. Sure, it's money, but it's not a lot of money. You do that with a million dollars at 3.5%. That's a big chunk of change. That doesn't make any sense that you could use if you have that extra 35,000 whatever, right? It that's year one obviously over an xyear loan you're going to pay more than that. But if you have that money, why not put it into the

resource that you're getting as opposed to just giving it to the bond bank and that's great. Obviously not giving it to the bond bank. Um but you're paying it to somebody. You're not seeing any return other than right the the value of borrowing the money. So, we can get on track. It's a little too late realistically if we started maybe a year or two ago or three ago and do 250,000 and and we get ourselves back on track. We didn't do that. And so now we've kind of got to come up with a drastic plan. So, when you look out just really the next 10 years, you've got engine 2's purchase needs to fall in there. The ladder's purchase needs to fall in there. and at least, you know, probably the upfront money, but probably realistically having all the money to buy engine 4 needs to fall in there. And it's like 12 years, I think, is is really what it marches out to. So, over the next 12 years, we basically need to figure out a way to buy $5.7 million worth of buyer apparatus. Um, and again, Marley's dead. That's a fact. That's just the truth of where we're at. it's time for replacement on trucks that have seen a lot of wear and tear, that have seen a lot of road salt, um, and that we can't, we don't have the ability or the funds to go out and do a 50 or $100,000 refurb every 10 years on them. And those 50 and hundreds, we haven't even looked into that in years. They're probably 200 and more. Um, I know they're at least that because we kind of looked into this as a part of the CIP process and it just doesn't work. Um, so the plan is that we kind of came up with and the board, right, I think, and Scott, you can correct me if I'm wrong, there's never any big votes, right? But a lot of the consensus on the board was, boy, if we can avoid financing, let's avoid financing,

right? Obviously, these are big big nuts that, you know, big pills to swallow that not only not only is it financing a million dollar engine, too, but you're probably not financing it for 5 years cuz the payment's going to be really crazy. You're probably going to finance it for 10 years and still have a pretty ridiculous payment. And then at the tail end of that, you're not only going to have that payment, but you're going to have now the new payment on the ladder. And then you'll have a few years where it's only 350 or something thousand, right? But then you're going to have a couple years where engine force payments piggybacked on there. And if you do it that way, there's years where you're paying $800 plus,000 worth of these costs in a single year, right? And so you do that fun game that we've tried to avoid with capital planning of, oh well, the the capital impact on the tax rate from the fire department's, you know, whatever, 30 cents. Well, that's it's 30 cents now and then all of a sudden it's 80 cents for a couple years and then it goes to like 50 cents and then it goes back to 90 cents because you're you're double paying on you basically almost $5 million worth of apparatus. So this the thought process is let's also try to avoid that. Now, that leaves you two routes that you have currently, which is currently we have the capital reserve fund. Um, and the capital reserve fund is great. You got to vote on it every year, but in order to make this work, you got to put 500,000, right? Or 400 and some odd thousand. There's some math involved in there, but roughly 410 to 500 um depending on how you approach it. That's what needs to go into that fund every year. That's where the second analogy comes in, which is we were all at some point told probably growing up later in high school, math teacher told you, if you put 10% of your paycheck into a

retirement account, you will be set for life when you come to retirement. Right? And everybody left high school going, I'm going to do that. Now, if you had direct deposit and you said 10% of my paycheck goes to the retirement account and you never see it, never have to think about it, but it's always going there, it'll be there. If you do like I did and say, well, I'll put that $40 in every week and you do for a couple months or whatever and then you go, I don't really need that $40, right? Which is what the problem we've gotten into with the capital reserve account. And we have to do it every single year and every single year there's something and I understand that, right? everybody's asking for money or the economy's up and the economy's down and you got to go in front of the voters now potentially and say we need $500,000 in this account, not the 50 and 75 and 100 that we've been doing and maybe people see it and we get through engine 2's purchase and maybe the ladders, but wow, we still got a couple years, right? Let's let's skip a year. Skip a year, the whole plan's done. You're not going to have the money to replace engine 4. That's just the truth. So the benefit to the other option, which is what we're we're talking about, is the ambulance re revolving fund. So the ambulance revolving fund was set up in 2014, and the benefit to kind of close this, whether we direct deposit our retirement savings or try to do it on our own. The ambulance revolving fund was voted on in 2014. It was at $40,000. That was the deposit every year. And for four or five, I think it was 5 years. I think 2019 we changed it for 5 years. We didn't think about it. 40,000 went in. 40,000 went in. 40,000 went in. Then we voted to change it cuz it needed to be $60,000 to meet the prices of new ambulances. And we changed it. And for the last sixish years, seven years,

haven't thought about it. 60 goes in, 60 goes in, 60 goes in. When it's time to replace an ambulance, we spec out an ambulance. We get our bids and our prices. We get the best price. We go to the board and they approve the ambulance and it shows up now roughly 3 years later as opposed to 6 months like it used to be. That's unfortunate, but that's what we do. And so I don't have to think about it cuz I know that the expense is there and it happens regularly, which is one of the big advantages to the to the revolving fund. the plan right now, what you would have to do, right? So, when we change that dollar amount, it's easy enough. We say the ambulance revolving fund increases to $60,000. That's the deposit. We would need to change the language in that revolving fund, which would be to replace ambulances and motorized firefighting apparatus. Um, I use that term because that's what NFPA uses and then even down the road, nobody would be confused as to what we're buying. Fire trucks can be right. Is firet truck just the engine? Does it include the ladder of motorized firefighting apparatus as a kind of industry standard? Um, which is what I would change it to. So, what the ask is to say if we change that number from currently 60 to $500,000, we can keep it at that number for like 9 or 10 years. We'll have to increase it at that point to about 525,000 and about another 10 years later we'll increase it to closer to 600 creating kind of like a 25 year plan which is our replacement cycle give or take on on firefighting apparatus. So I don't I'm not going to care about it. Probably a lot of people on this aren't going to care about it necessarily. Um but I care about it. That's my job, right? Is to set up the best plan that I can for the future. The reason why I think it makes sense outside of it's the

direct deposit. It's let's it's a problem. We know we have to do it. When you did it at, you know, at work that first day and you said, "I'm going to make 500 bucks." And then you realize, "Oh, I'm only really going to make 450." Maybe for the first three pay periods, you missed it, but then it became second nature. And then you get 20 years and 30 years and 40 years down the road, and you realize the benefit that you've gotten from that. Um, so 500, if you look at it, we still got to replace ambulances. That's all factored in there. We were coming up on whether it was this year or next year, we needed to to increase that number to 90,000 for ambulances. So, should we move forward with this plan, we would say, okay, $500,000 worth of that ambulance billing revenue is going to go into this fund every year. 90 for the time being and it escalates through that same nine and 10 and all that stuff, you know, years period. 90 of that's for ambulance replaces replacements. That covers our ambulance replacements. We've got a pretty good beat on that. The 90 that 90,000 is still accounted for in the EMS contracts, which is how it's done today because that all goes back, right? That's effectively lost billing revenue that replaces the ambulances. So, we charge a portion of that back to the EMS contracts and we get that back in revenue on that side. So, that leaves about $410,000 that would be going into that fund directly to buy firefighting apparatus. um which isn't 500 and it's not the 475,000 that if you break 5.7 across uh 12 years it works out to but I will give a ton of credit to whatever I don't know what they're doing but whatever the trustees and the treasur are doing with the funds because we're in a much better spot from an earnings standpoint and even using a really low ball more like bank interest number that is what allows you to make up that

difference not have to swirl away 475,000. We can do roughly 410 and it gets us all there. The other side of it is that fund's already starting with a balance, right? So, it's not a big balance, but it works out um in the end. So, I go on and on about it. That's the plan. Um I would just bring up two kind of important notes on this. And the first is relative to revenue. And Christina Ruby, when everybody's healthy again, I'll I'll look at it. But when you guys are looking at revenues, I want you to consider that what shows up there as revenues historically. The number's higher than I think it should be, but when you're looking at revenues, it shows we pulled in $600,000 worth of billing revenue last year. Historically, that 60,000 doesn't even show up on the revenue account. I don't understand. That's what I've been told over the years is the thing. So when I budget 450, it's based on we'll make roughly a little over 500,000. We have basically brought in probably on average over the last 3 years 550,000. If that's really 600, then it's maybe the average is a little bit more. So I feel pretty confident that that number is going to stay the same. Even some of the stuff legislatively that's changed last year and is going into effect. I don't think it's going to have an impact on our revenue. Probably a negative impact on our revenue, but not big enough to where we won't be able to put this $500,000 in every year. Um, so that's number one. It's there. Uh, and I was just looking at this because if it went back a couple years, it might only say 480,000 or something. Be like, well, that's not really there. It is because that 60 is already doing its thing out of that. Um the other one is that you'll see when we get to the capital reserve accounts. Um and not to jump to a

different warrant article, but it goes hand in hand. There's another Warren article later that we're going to also discuss.

Yeah. So the capital reserve account warrant article still asks for $50,000 to be placed in that capital reserve account. What really needs to be remembered is firet trucks are expensive and they're a big cost item and they come around every 20, 25, 30 years. Ambulances are expensive and they're a big cost item that come around every basically 15 years. Really every 5 years because we have three ambulances. Every 5 years we got to buy an ambulance. There's a whole bunch of other stuff that's really costly for the fire department, right? So, we were we locked out with the the SCBA fill station replacement this year. Um, instead of being a $100,000 item like we kind of planned on it being, it was a $52,000 item. Um, we got the car replacement purchased, which the CIP always called for hopefully coming out of that fund. We did it out of that fund. It was a little bit less expensive than the 85,000 that was that was in there. But you come across between the SUVs, the utilities, then you come across hydraulic tools are coming up in a couple years. That's probably going to be $100 to $150,000. We just bought radios 5ish years ago, but in 10 years, we're going to need to buy radios again. That $100,000 that we paid for radios then 15 years, right, it's going to be $150 to $180,000. SCBA bottles were, you know, roughly 20,000. Now they're about $100,000. We replaced them on a grant years ago. We've kicked them down the road, which is fine, right? The standard that they were built at is really good, but we are going to need to replace them in roughly 10 to 15 years. And it is going to be $450 to $600,000 to replace our SCPAs. So, the plan, the way I have this broken out, you would do that in two years, which is nice, too, because it

balances out kind of then you're going to hit bottles. And bottles aren't that expensive, but you know, 15 years down the road when you need to replace bottles, instead of spending whatever it is, $200,000 on bottles, you can spend 100 here and 100 here, and it just keeps the fund nice and balanced. So all that stuff that's generally like a 10 to 15 year replacement that yes, we just bought the compressor, but 15, 20, hopefully 20 years from now, we're going to buy a new compressor, right? And so that what could be $200,000 is going to come back around and we've got to have a plan for that. And that was kind of always the plan with the fire department equipment reserve is that you'd have a plan for not only that, but you'd also put enough money away to buy fire trucks out of it. We didn't do that. And so I think and and I think the board agrees this is really the best way we can move forward to say we have this problem that needs to be addressed. We don't have enough money and we don't want to finance that money to buy and replace fire trucks. We have a known revenue source, right? And we have a fund um and a program that has worked for the ambulances. really in 12 years now, nobody except for the select board and my and really myself have thought about replacing ambulances. The money's there. We make the money every year. The money's there. We get, you know, the best value that we can and we're able to take advantage of timely ordering on things. Um, and so that's it. I'll stop talking. I I think it's a pretty good plan. I recognize that taking $500,000 out of revenue is basically the same as spending500,000, right? There's still the same tax impact. Once again, the Marlies are dead. I I there's no other way other than financing, right? And may you know, so

and if you look at it from a financing standpoint, you know, maybe the next two or three years you can you're not spending that much, right? is even if it's now too late. But so next year we we put a probably what will be a $1.1 million truck on the warrant and then it gets approved and by the time we bond and we start paying on it it's a couple years down the road. So, you know, maybe this the impact that I'll tell you is, you know, 20 cents, right, for a couple years, but then it's 60 cents just paying right like that for another 10 years versus the overall increase in spending um you know, or the overall rate in a vacuum, what's the tax impact? It's roughly 38 cents on a,000, right? Which isn't a small number. That's could mean the difference in the tax rate going up over 14 or wherever we're roughly at, right? And I recognize that, but it's 38 cents and it's 38 cents for the next 9 years. And then the only real increases are um well, it's not 38 cents for the next 9 years. It's 38 cents for the next number of years. You got to continue to increase the CRF otherwise it doesn't but it's like 2%. Right? The plan is make more incremental changes than having to come forward with another, oh, we need to another 500, right? Like I don't I don't want to do that. I don't want my predecessor to have to or my the guy actually like my successor. There you go. To have to deal with that. I I don't want it, right? So 38 cents, 3 to 5 years from now goes to 40 cents. 3 to 5 years from now it goes to 42 cents. I think that's a more logical and practical way to look at it. um and at the same time know that the money is there and we can get these purchases made um and keep doing what we do at the fire department.

Okay, that's what war article 16 does. All right, you jump. Maybe you didn't mean to. You mentioned earlier we could get into details and be nerdy and that rang with me because I'm a detailed nerdy guy. But I'm going to try to keep my mouth shut and let other people talk before I start jumping in. So, let's get somebody else to say something. I was just gonna comment. I think like so you're really talking about automating savings, right? Which is the principle we're all taught at some point.

Um I I really feel like a piece of messaging on this is automating savings and spending money we have versus trying to spend money we don't have is the conservative approach to replacing fire equipment. Um, leasing is the not conservative approach to buying fire equipment. And when you're talking about a million dollar loan, three and a half% on 10 years or so, they're looking at 200 grand worth of interest.

Um, and so that doesn't help the tax rate in the long run, right? That's an extra $200,000 worth of expense that we're going to feel. So I certainly I completely understand the intent and the principle. Um I think your point that this is we have to operate within the bounds of reality, right? So it's not a decision of uh like firet trucks cost a million dollars, right? And so the the conversation that is are we going to replace a firetruck or not have a firetruck, right? that that's the dichotomy that really um and I I think Bristol prides itself on having an effective and capable fire department, EMS service, etc. Um I don't think people realize how valuable it is until they show up at your house. But so that's my two cents. I think what you've proposed is the most conservative approach we could take to try to fix this crossing. So

yeah, go ahead, Ros. I've got a couple of questions. The first is um is there any trade in value to the to the trucks after 20 years?

It's none of it's known until you put it out on the market, right? So, it seems like the tradein market is still basically the same as it's always been, which is we'll give you $10,000 for the truck. That's neat. But I can now I can tell you right now, nobody's paying $350,000 for engine 2, right? As a used truck, whether we sell it or, you know, it doesn't matter whether it's toin or pierce or whoever the manufacturer is that we would go with, they're not selling it for 350,000, but boy, I bet they're going to get six figures for it, you know? So I think for us the way I would look at this is to say um and and we've had this discussion at the fire department level is we would look to the third party type like municip or some program like that to say okay we know we're not going to get right because if you look on uh like Brinley Bowen or all these firetruck resellers you know you'll look and be like well that looks kind of like our truck and it's 350,000 or 270,000 or 450 whatever, right? And we've looked cuz that's been an option. Can we get that 10 to 15 year old truck that we can get 10 to 15 years out of um but then you look and you go, well that's not the same truck and it's coming from Georgia where right where the the frames probably not rotted out on it. Um, and so you know when we look at it, we also look at right like there was a beautiful rescue pumper in Iowa and I was like it's $380,000 that would be a great truck like a 300 horsepower engine in it. We would heaven forbid something up by Scotsway, right? Like we're we're never getting there. We'll get there, but we're not getting there in any sort of timely fashion. Um, and anything

right up off of Peak Hill or Hemp Hill or Hemlock Brook Road, we we've got to have a 450 horsepower motor minimum, right? Match with the right transmission. Maybe get a four, maybe get a five. But, um, you know, our truck has value. Our truck to the, you know, the Smeal rapper or whoever we might go through, they're going to give us that standard 10, maybe 15,000. um they haven't given anything yet because it's we're just still early in the process, but that's also what we've kind of been told. So, you know, municipal bid maybe gives us the opportunity. We just don't know what the number is. So, maybe municipal bid we get $125. I don't remember what their commission is. Maybe the town does see $100,000, right? And maybe that's whether it's just offset revenue helping the tax rate or, you know, the same unreserved fund balance and we fund the CRF out of it that year. However, um there'll be some funds there. I just whether it was the intent of your question or not, I don't want people to go off on Brenley Mountain and be like, "Well, we can get $300,000 for this truck, so at least we'll recoup that." You're not going to get $300,000 for engine.

Well, I was actually going to go in a different direction, but sure, the salt factor may be the answer to this, but um why not just keep it? You've got space for it. Why not keep it and put a little money into it? And then you've got a reverse reserve truck that allows you to do prolonged maintenance on the frontline apparatus.

Yeah, we've talked about it. Um I'm not saying that we wouldn't. That would be a discussion with the board. It's come up a couple times really relative to that idea. Um, as well as none of this plan takes care of the rescue. And the rescue is kind of a problem for us that in that the truck's a 93. It kind of works. It's a standard. There's like three of us that can drive at this point cuz nobody knows how to drive a standard. Um, it's a little undized, you know, at least chassis wise and whatnot. But um you know I looked at it probably four or five years ago when we at least started talking like hey engine 2 is coming up. Why wouldn't that be an option to replace the rescue? Maybe it is. Maybe it runs in that reserve capacity slash becomes the the next rescue. I I think the advantage is is a lot of that kind of discussion has been pushed off because we know at a minimum we're not seeing the new truck for 3 years and we really have all of that time to figure because I think everybody that's on the truck committee and myself included um are in the same boat where I don't really care if the manufacturer offers us 25 which is maybe the best case scenario. we're going to get more value out of that truck whether we keep it or whether we sell it. Um so we kind of have all of that three years to really figure it out and three more years to maintain it and see what problems pop up and is it worth keeping in that capacity, you know. But yeah, no, it's I think it's on the table. It's just that hasn't really been ironed out yet.

Okay. And the next this is a different question. This is my pedestrian mind. Um you're you're taking money out of you're you're proposing to divert money from ambulance revenue into a reserve fund essentially. Mhm. But that that ambulance revenue would ordinarily be going into your operating funds, wouldn't it? No, doesn't it? No. Goes into a general fund. Goes into the general fund. The only thing right now is $60,000 a year.

Oh, okay. All right. That's the piece I was missing. Yeah, it is the one thing, right? Like uh a lot of towns, quite honestly, most towns that have especially if they were established like in the 80s and '9s with firebased EMS, most of them set up resolving revolving funds or or how you know, whichever fund style they use and all of their billing revenue goes in. We've for 20 and really for 14 or 15 years of the way we've been doing this until 2014, the town always saw that revenue, right? That then offset the tax base. So to go forward and say, "Yeah, let's have a revolving fund or whatever that that takes every dime, at least at the time, um it would just be to have this fund growing and you know, no real plan. Now there's a plan and uh that's really the difference. A lot of chiefs give me crud like why why doesn't all your ambulance billing go into this account? Well dude it doesn't at the end of the day it's right. It's all the same money. It really is. I don't care what the line is. It's all this much in this much out and there's a tax rate generated based on

whether I'm paying you for money in my right pocket or my left pocket. I'm spending money. So yeah, right now it's not it's not doing anything but offsetting the tax rate. And so obviously that's where that that like roughly 38 cents a thousand comes into play. Buzz, I think too right goes into the general fund, but then it's up to the select board if they want to use those funds to apply to the tax rate or not and what level.

Yep. No, I get it. So I I just want to go back and make sure kind of a bigger picture that I understand. So the existing system is that we have currently an ambulance replacement revolving fund that gets $60,000 a year automatically and is under the control of the treasurer and the select what are the agents to expend. So that's all current. That's not changing. Correct. What's changing is that instead of being just an ambulance revolving fund, it's be I don't know that you said you're changing the name, but it will be not just ambulance, there'll be ambulances and motorized fighting firefighting apparatuses. So, basically all of the trucks in the

the big fire. Okay. Yeah. And 500 instead. Okay. M

um so just have you so there's also the fire I'm not going to say the right name but there's the fire department capital reserve fund which is control which is managed by the trustees of the trust funds but again the select board of the agents to expend that was originally set up for all of the engines and other stuff and did I hear you Okay. Going forward, your vision is the amu this this modified ambulance fund will be for the trucks and the other fund will be for compressors and tanks and hydraulic equipment and radios and other things that the fire department needs that are not trucks and vehicles and ambulances. Is that

correct? That's why I'm asking. I figured I didn't get it right. So, what's uh again, geek out on fund information, but what's important to kind of understand a little bit is the fire department equipment capital reserve fund was established in 1972. And I can't find them anymore, but I read the old town meeting minutes and paraphrasing, hey, what's this used for? is to buy the fire department stuff. That's what the minutes I'm paraphrasing, but that's literally how it was established.

So, what ultimately happened is that 2014 time frame, there was a warrant article that said, "Let's establish a fire department, fire truck, whatever it was named capital reserve fund and give the select board authority to expend." Right? because that was the year we established the highway department one and like two or three more and it was amended on the floor of town meeting. Hey, we already have a capital reserve account and let's just put the 25 or whatever that thousand the deposit was that year in Yep. approved, whatever. We had two accounts. One was for apparatus and one was this that was like 2000204 and then one was this 1972 account wasn't specified. So DRRA ultimately says you work back to the oldest account that it could apply to. So that's where for years as we deposited 25,000 and then 50 and then so on and so forth, that's where it went to. And then um they were cleaning up some of the accounts and the finance officer at the time said, "Hey, listen. We have this account. It's like established in 2000 or 2004 and there's only like 360 bucks in it.

We voted it down to it." Right. So that's when we realized, well, that's where all the funds are going to this kind of broader um you know, capability fund. And so that's you know, where we've kept it going and whatnot. So that fund is typically in that right there's like the five or six funds that get funded in one warrant article basically every year.

That's where that money um has been going to over the years. And then so once we figured that out, the board just moved forward with the idea that this is the fire department equipment fund. And then ultimately the plan would be we're going to replace the motorized firefighting apparatus out of it. Again, never funded it fully. And then on top of that, we've made purchases out of it. We've had as grants have come along that we didn't necessarily have a plan for and there's a $5,000 match, but you get $50,000. Well, that's where we've taken that $5,000 match from. We got a big hose grant. Instead of having to go out and buy $50,000 worth of hose, we got roughly 39,000 of it funded through a grant. And we spent the other 11,000 to buy a nice fire hose uh and replace all of our fire hose. And that's where that came from. And then right and even within the CIP there's been well hopefully hydraulic tools can come out of that. Hopefully the compressor can come out of that. We've done that. We haven't done hydraulic tools yet. But so the plan would be the ambulance revolving fund is now they again whether we change the name I don't know if that's important but the ambulance and motorized fire fighting apparatus fund. That's where that's going to come from really. Those six trucks, so to speak, right? Three ambulances, an engine, a ladder, and a pumper tanker. That's what we have for a fleet. those trucks come out of that fund. We'll still have the fire department equipment reserve fund, which is when an SUV comes up for replacement, when the utility pickup truck comes for for replacement, when it's time to buy the hydraulic tools, when it's time to replace radios, SCBAs, those big purchases like that come out of that fund. Um, which is why like it's great that there's roughly give or take $380,000 in there, but we're a few years out from 150 going by with hydraulic tools and a few years later we're buying, you know, air packs.

And then a few years later, we're replacing the utility pickup truck and that money gone, but it means you only only have to put the 50 grand in this year as opposed to the 180 that the CIP was calling for. So, those are the two funds. I hope that didn't blur it up anymore. But it is important to note, right? It's not wheeled vehicles that you drive down the road. You would still replace like SUVs. There's no plan for the boat. The company's been pretty good over the years about kind of mon, you know, trying to take care of the boat, the rescue boats. Um the hope would be that still continues. There's no plan for the rescue. It'll probably come out of that fund. um if we were to replace it or if we were to do some upfit stuff to engine 2, we would probably do it out of that fund, the the CRF fund. Um but yeah, like SUVs, pickup trucks, that would still come out of that capital reserve fund, not motorized firefighting apparatus.

Okay, any other questions? Ready to move on? We're not voting, so we'll just Thank you. That was I read your I read the thing in the buzz maybe two weeks ago where you you were kind of and you talked about capital and I thought I was going to have this conversation with you next summer when I saw you in the CIP but came early.

Yeah. It's just we're at that point that if you know not only if we can get this move forward with next year we can make that we sign that purchase order uh well make this happen this year. we can sign that purchase order during the course of this year when the truck's still at a million bucks versus 1.1 when we go, you know, rebid it next year. Um, and we probably got to order an ambulance next year. But it that it puts us on track knowing that that money is going to be there um and will happen this way. And then, you know, kind of the way everything came out. I went through most of the end of the the truck committee stuff my head I was going to go to the board and say listen nobody wants to do it but we're going to have to finance this. We're going to have a bond vote or whatever. Um you know and and but here's some ideas that we could avoid it. And ultimately the board said let's let's try to go down that path and not have to finance it um and and continue the savings. We just need to ramp it up. It's a big ramp up but it's nice and balanced. again. Once you get through those first couple paychecks, you won't even miss it.

Sorry. Yes. Go ahead. Sorry. So, as a talking point also, can do we have do we have any way to um estimate like the interest we earn would earn on that end through funds? Would the trustees have that available? Does one of your three trustes? I know. That's why I'm asking. Right. So, right. But that would be a good talking point also. So instead of paying interest down the road financing it, we're going to put this money aside and earn some interest to help offset. So we had that number. Interest rates fluctuate. Yes. That's kind of crystal ball.

He asked for an estimate. He didn't ask for a commitment or a firm number. An estimate we can and they're in a downward spiral right now. Right. Christina, go ahead. I was going to say this is a treasurer account, correct? We can certainly check and see what the current interest rate is. Um, but this this one is a treasurer's account. That is correct. Thank you for that. You are right. So, it's so it's Kathleen you want to talk to. Well, but I can tell I can tell you I can go look it up and tell you what we're currently earning on the on the trust funds that are that are held under the trustees of trust funds. Yeah. But I think if we had that a town meeting, that would be a talking point that we could talk to. Yeah. Also,

but I think Christine is right. I think you you also want to ask her to follow up with the treasurer and get an estimate from the treasur.

Yeah, it seems like they're in line with with what you guys are doing. I'm sure you guys are talking to some degree and it's in there. That presentation, I'll do the same. You know, I'll voice over a PowerPoint or maybe get with Kate or somebody and do something a little bit nicer, but that's in there. It's just it's as loose as we kind of said it without throwing out a number because, you know, I certainly don't want to put it in there and say we're earning X% and then we're earning 70% of X%. Well, Chief, you screwed that up. And and I would never factor it at that. So, I think it's everything's based on earning like a percent. So, if we do better than that, then then great. And it, you know, as we come up to these next purchases, then we can make adjustments and whatnot as needed. But, you know, one to whether it's three or four or two or whatever, that's not going to make a huge difference. It does show some because they want to plan for otherwise I'd be in here asking for 600 and that's not really realistic. The town's doing a better job with their funds. Um, and we should recognize that. So,

okay. Article 17 is about the Thank you. is about the appropriation for the uh six capital reserve funds. Um, I don't know. I guess the question I would just ask is, and I probably should know and I don't is 400 the amount that was looked like the CIP plan says should be or is because typically do do you have any feel for that? Christina, did we adjust any of these? We did, but some some of this isn't in CIP. CIP doesn't account for wages, correct? assessment.

Correct. For your assessment. So, but we adjusted our crude wages down. Normally that is now that looks like a low number. Yeah. It's normally 30, but we adjusted it down to 15. Assessment has to go up because um we're starting the next 5year cycle and the cost of the revaluation has gone up. Yep. The contract. Sorry, I couldn't hear you.

I said yes. I know we have a new contract and the rates are higher. So, I wasn't I wasn't questioning the numbers. I was just trying to feel for how we just heard the fire chief say that one of the issues is that even when we've come up with plans in the past, we haven't funded them completely. And I was just curious how about the rest of these things with with higher equipment and police equipment. Are we do we do we shave those or or is that what the plan asked for?

I could I can finish explaining if you'd like. Um, the assessment reval, we did bump that up. Um, fire equipment, I believe CIP obviously says 85, but the chief explained that we dropped that down to 50. Um, highway equipment, I think that's the same number that CIP had. Police vehicle, we bumped that up. CIP, I think, has like uh 75 or 77 and we bumped that to 80. And then Tom building maintenance capital reserve the CIP had 10,000 and we bumped that up to 25 because we were going to be paying for some

Yeah, I understand. We made some we made some spending out of that late in the year that we didn't know about until late in the year or Yeah. Yeah. Then we learned that we're responsible for the library also. Right. So come out of that. These amounts don't total 400,000. No, I just realized that. I was going to let you know. Um I had total it before and sent it to you and then made the change after. Um so that's my fault. I'll fix that. So

thank you, Buzz. Thank you, Christina. Okay, number 18. Moving on. Shall the T I don't know anything about this. Shall the town adopt the provisions of RSA72 colon 35 for an optional tax credit of $2,500 for a service connected total disability on residential property. So that we have to do every year. That's what we give to our veterans that apply for the tax credit. So we have to approve that every year. And the committee does not sorry have anything correct. Go ahead.

We don't have to approve this every year. Sorry, Scott. What this is once it's approved is it's usually adopted, but there was a law change this year.

We give out to our um service connected total disability. We give them currently 2400 if I 24 sorry 24 20 450 I can't remember which number but we normally give them they get um a regular veterans credit and then they get a service connected total disability with the law change they can't get both. So, we talked to the board and the board didn't they felt that these people shouldn't be punished. Now, they were going to lose about $700 off of their um optional tax credit. So, the board is made it an even number of 2500 so that it would be they wouldn't be losing anything. So,

Gotcha. I remember reading about this in the newspaper in the state senator who was a veterans uh advocate who got this thing passed and then realized that some of the veterans were going to get short changed. So I know I know a little bit about it now that you tell me what it is. Okay. Anyone else on 18 before we move on? No. Okay. So this is this is not veterans. 19 is elderly exemptions from property tax based on assessed value. Is this again Christina? Is this um the state law requires us to change this or are these numbers different than what we're currently doing?

These numbers are different than what we're currently doing. Um we've we've been receiving some concerns that the town hadn't adjusted theirs for a number of years. Um I from memory I believe it was 2004 or 2007 for most of these articles you see coming up was the last time the town did an adjustment. Um and the valuations have changed over the years quite a bit since um 2004 and 2007. So the Joanne did a review of other comparable towns to see where Bristol was at and recommended to the board to change um what we were offering for an exemption. Um this one here is elderly exemption and the next one's disabled and I think there's a couple others beyond that in order to bring us back up to date clo with our evaluations. These are exclusions that exist today. We're just increasing the amounts.

That's what it sounds like to me. Yes, correct. Yeah, correct. We're we're increasing the amounts and of the assets and the incomes. So, I gotcha. And I had to read it twice to be sure. We're not giving, for example, they're not getting a $35,000 credit. They're getting $35,000 subtracted from their assessed value that they're paying taxes on. Correct. Yeah. Okay. And 20 is a How is 20 different than 19? 20. Oh, disabled. Gotcha. So 19 is all the 20 is disabled. 21's for the blind. Blind. 21's for the blind. Okay.

So, um, we reviewed all of those exemptions and that's why you see them all listed here. So, 21's blind, 22 is deaf. Yep. And then that's it. And then article 23 is from the energy committee when you get to it. Are these cumulative? So if you're 80 years old and you're disabled and and a veteran and blind and deaf, you get all of this.

Um it no there um you can get multiple um but you can there you cannot get no my brain is not working today. Um so you cannot get um the elderly and the disabled. together you can get the larger of the two. Um so so currently our our larger of the two depends on what um age bracket you were and currently one of them is larger than the other. So for instance I think our disabled is larger if you're up to a certain age. So you would get your disabled and then you would um if once you turned a certain age you'd go to the next bracket which is so you can't you can only get you can get a few of these. Yes. But you cannot get um

soilally disabled. So you're saying 19 and 20, you get one or the other, but you can add on 21 and 22 for blind and or deaf. If you qualify for them all, and if you meet income and asset limits. Gotcha. Okay. If 19 and 20 have all of the exact same terms, can't we just combine them into a single? They have all the same. We can't. The problem is I think the problem is that the RSA is different for the two of them. That's they're not two different. Yep. Okay.

Okay. And then 23 is I remember reading about this somewhere. This is having to do with Yeah, this is an energy one and it doesn't spend money so we don't get to vote on it. So we probably should really spend any time on it. Not hearing any disagreements. I think we are done with the warm. Any other questions or comments? All right, let's move on to revenues. So, this obviously is a draft. You said there's going to be a updated copy with better numbers at some point in coming in the future. Is that Did I remember hearing that earlier tonight? Um, I'm going to do a second review of it with the department heads to make sure we didn't miss anything, but also the board votes on it on Thursday. So, I do not anticipate on any of the numbers changing. Um, I believe they're all going to be the same, but I just Oh, excuse me. Let me rephrase that. All but water and sewer. Water and sewer. I don't have his revenues in there yet, so I will make sure those are in there, but and the everybody else's are loaded. So,

okay. So, if the I just haven't really looked at this because we just got it today. I guess the only comment I would make is if the select board is going to approve it this week, then we should get it by early next week. I mean, we're not we're not going to get this the day before the February meeting. We're going to get it in time to review it for the next rev, right?

That's I guess that's a request. Please get it out sooner is what I'm trying to say. Of course, then I need to make time to actually review it. All right. Any uh anyone else have any questions or comments about revenues? Okay. Not hearing any. Go ahead, Christina. Shannon, I was just going to ask Shannon if she could roll to the bottom. Yeah. of the revenues all the way down. Yeah.

So, you can see that we did finish um 2025 200,000 roughly more than we anticipated, but we're proposing um at least 100,000 more than what we received roughly. So, Gotcha. We again we we put in tra we put in fairly conservative numbers. I do anticipate those numbers will go up.

Well, that's true every year. We always expect that there's more expectation of upside than there is downside because you don't want to overestimate and then find out you came in low.

Makes sense to me. No, I don't expect these to be perfect. I'm mostly doing what you just said is I'm comparing them yearon year to see what the changes and what the trends are. I'm not expecting the actuals to come in to match the estimate. Now, at the beginning of the year, things are going to change, but we just to we are required and we will uh review and vote to approve these at our next meeting, which is the public hearing meeting in early February. Okay. Speak up if I'm wrong. We're ready to go to minutes. I think we are. We're done with revenues, at least for now. We're done with the war article. Let's go back to the minutes. Okay, I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the December 16th, 2025 meeting as amended.

Second that you motion by Paul, seconded by Les. We went through these. So, just to remind everyone, we went through these at the last meeting and there was a section in here at the end which uh I'll be cruel to myself and say uh documented Paul's rant and we had some comment about whether that was appropriate or not. We talked about deleting it completely. We had some feedback that you know it did happen so maybe we shouldn't get rid of it completely. So, there's a section that's been put in here which I think is see where we are.

The last paragraph. No, see there's more here and so it's a short it's a short one that basically said we had a discussion. There was no vote taken but there was a discussion and there was some comments made on a certain topic. I I think that that fulfills the need to make sure that it's in the minutes that it happened, but it doesn't spend a lot of space talking about things that we didn't vote on that weren't gerine to our core mission. So, if somebody else would like to make a motion to change, I'll certainly accept that. But I think that that's appropriate. Now, did you find any more uh grammar or spelling or anything?

No. So, not hearing any questions, comments, or motions. I think we're ready to vote. So, now let's go ahead. We'll do a roll call vote to approve these minutes as currently amended. So, we're voting on approving the minutes of the December 16th meeting. Um, Les, can you start? I can. I Paul I Scott I Joe I I I I

Okay, so the minutes of the December 16th meeting are approved as amended. And now we will move on to the next the last of most previous meetings. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of the December 30th, 2025 meeting as currently amended. Second. Motion by Paul, seconded by Scott. So, this is something we haven't gone through before. Um, I guess I'll start with before we get into detail. Does anyone have like a big picture or there's a number wrong or something, you know, factually wrong that we need to fix? I don't know of any, but I made mistakes, too. So,

okay. So, you can keep looking at it. Laz, I'm going to ask you. You normally do you have anything? Yeah, I've got three comments. Okay. The first is on page three under fire betterment. U motion to move the bottom line of 4339 fire betterment in the select board recommended amount not. Oh, good catch. Okay. Yep. Um the next page, page four, the second paragraph under sewer operations.

Mhm. um in the end of the third line. Um, but now the water and sewer departments and the minards sleeper library pay for their own monitoring, not its and um, one final one on page six about 3/4 of the way down underwater capital projects, you've got a reference to line 910 capital Fiber. It should be fiber. Oh, spell check. Gotcha.

And I think it Okay. Does anyone have any comments or need me to stall a little bit while you continue to look at things? Not hearing any. I think we are ready for a vote. So, we'll have a final vote now on approving the minutes as amended with the three corrections that Buzz just presented. So, we're voting to approve the minutes of the December 30th, 2025 meeting. We'll do a roll call vote again. I'll start with myself. I vote I. Scott, Joe, I

I s. Thank you. I That's 70. Those are approved. Um, let me go back to the agenda. I think we're just going to do normal comments and right correspondents. I don't have any correspondent. Does anyone have any correspondence they want to share with the committee? Not hearing any. We'll go through and do uh comments. Um, Scott will put you on the spot because board rep. Anything going on? I think you already mentioned a few things, but nothing off top of my head. Okay. Um Joe,

I'll just share. Um I did reach out to Christina last week, but I'm going to step down after this term. Um I I'm having a son in a few weeks. I'm also on five boards right now. Um I can't do five boards and have two kids. So um so I'm going to step down off of this. I'm sure I'll come back at some point to town service, but just can't do it all right now. Thank you. Um, so I reached out to Christina just to see if if we could still get it on the ballot. That was too late. So you guys all have to source source the candidate recruit and recruit and appoint. Okay, serve. Brian, anything you wanted to share? Comments?

I'm good. Buzz Sue, anything you wanted to comment on? Um, no, I don't have any comments. No. Okay. Yes. the in the revenue the proposed draft revenues under 3290 other licenses is misspelled. Okay. There was that wasn't what I was looking for. I found one earlier and now I can't remember what it was. So, but I did find out something. All right. If you find something else, that's that's my only comment.

We can come back to you. So, I think the comment that I wanted to make maybe builds a little bit off of what Joe just said is that the uh filing period for the upcoming election opens tomorrow and is open through the end of next week. So, according to my knowledge, the two members who are finishing their three-year term are Sue and Buzz. So that I don't know if you guys have made any decisions. I just want to share that I want to be careful not to step on toes. Whether you're running or not is a personal decision and I don't want to put you in a bad position, but I feel kind of strongly that I I really dislike having an election where we have less candidates than the number of open positions. So, if we have two, not if we're going to have two open positions for two, three-year terms on the on the committee moving forward, and I want to make sure there's at least two candidates on there. I don't really want to spend a lot of time trying to find additional candidates if the two incumbents are running for reelection because I'm not trying to make your lives difficult or something. But if you know you're not running, I I'd encourage you to let us know and I'd ask anyone on the committee or anyone watching this on the screen or something. We're going to be potentially looking for more candidates. If you have any interest, if you have any questions, if you have any suggestions, let's try to make sure we have at least two candidates on the ballot.

I'll stand for reelection, BUT I'M NOT RUNNING. THAT'S FINE. Thank you very much. So, I don't know where you are, Sue. If you can, if you want to share, you can. And if you don't want to share, you don't need to. Yeah. No, I'll I'll share. Actually, no, I wasn't going to um be running uh this this term. I've been there six years, so I think I think I've I've done it right now. I'm not saying I wouldn't go back or do something different, but right now I'm not going to be re redoing it, resigning up.

Okay. So, excuse me. Thank you for that information. So, it does sound like we at this point are expecting we'll have one candidate and we have two positions. So, if you know anyone or you come across someone you think would be a good fit, feel free to encourage them. They have a deadline of I don't know exactly when it is. I want to say it's like 3 p.m., but it's next week Friday is when the filing you need to go to the town clerk's office and see Cheryl or somebody. We've all done it, so you know, it's relatively easy. But um and one question is there any age restriction Christina associated with this? Not that I know because I'll be 80 years old in 30 years.

Oh no, there's I don't I was just going to say I think you have to be 18. Been there, done that. There's no age restriction. Okay, just checking. So, can I just ask So, can I just ask So, Joe, if you're stepping down, is that just for the rest of this year and you're going to be back the following year because you have more of the term?

I'm going to try to finish out this year. Um, and then typically the way it works, somebody steps down. So next year, because we couldn't get it on the ballot in time, the budget committee will have to essentially source and review potential candidates and then vote to appoint them to a one-year term to finish up by last year. We would Okay, we right we would appoint them to serve to the next election. Correct. Since your term ends in 27, that term will be up and it would be on the ballot as a three-year term. Correct.

Right. Great. Great. Got it. Okay. So, I have one one other comment I'll just wanted to share with you. So, as part of the preparation for the town meeting, I just want to remind everyone that all of the different committees are supposed to submit a report. So, in the past, um I've said I always wanted to get through this meeting to make sure that the budget is finalized and whatever. So last year was a difficult year to get all of the paperwork together and they actually originally announced that there was a deadline of January 9th. So I talked to to Deb in the office and she's agreed. I said I would try to get it in by the end of the week. If any of you are enthusiastic that you want to write a report, I'd be happy to delegate and pass that off to you. Assuming that's not happening. Um, I just wanted to share your thoughts because we're not going to have enough time between now and the end of the week that I'm going to write something and send it around to everyone and ask you to proofread it and give me comments and revise it and whatever. But I got thinking about it if I assume you have on the committee. I think the last two years I've wrote notes that were a lot almost tutorial where I was trying to tell the voters kind of how the budget system works. And I've come to the conclusion that that's probably not the best way to teach them and that's not what they're interested in hearing. So I'm thinking at this point I'll go back to a to a more standard maybe a little bit shorter talk about you know the report is for the calendar year of 2025. So at the beginning of the year we were still working on the 25 budget and then we take off for the spring and summer and then we've been working hard on the 26 budget. I think one of the things I want to say, I haven't polished it up, but I think that fundamentally we are all still basically taxpayers of Bristol.

We're I know I am. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm as frustrated as other people are that the costs are high and the tax load is high. The the problem that we've got is that we've got I believe it's not a problem. It's a blessing that we've got good staff. They're not patting the budget. You can't make drastic cuts and expect them to do all the things they're doing. So the only way to make drastic cuts is to is to cut service somehow. And in my opinion, that's more of a policy thing. And the policy is the domain of the select board, not of the budget committee. So our our job is not to figure out the priorities and cut things because we don't want to spend money. Our job is to craft and create a budget that delivers the services that the select board and the town have decided we want to provide to the taxpayers. But I kind of also want to put a bug in there to people is you know it's a typical meeting. We don't have anyone here. If you if you feel strongly come get involved we'd love to have you on the committee with us. That's kind of what I'm planning to write. If if you if you have other things that you think should be included in that, you can speak up now or you can send me an email. I'm happy to take input. But I just want you to kind of know what's going to happen because I let it go late enough that I don't have enough time to write a draft tomorrow and then send it out to all of you and read all your comments and revise it. But I want to make sure that you're not going to read this report in the town meeting and go, I don't agree with that. Why did Paul write that? So,

I've always I've always felt like the the purpose of the budget committee is to maximize value per service that's offered in the town. And I've really taken the mindset that everything that's in this budget has been discussed and reviewed and approved at some point in Bristol's history to be included in the budget. Um, and that doesn't mean it can't change over time, but there's a reason and a precedence for why we have a police department and why we have a fire department. And right

um you know I've sat on this committee during the years where we tried to make massive broad-based cuts and really that conversation devolved into do we want a police department or not? Do we want a fire department or not? Right. And I think time and time again this the town has clearly indicated yes they want those things. So, um, so I've always viewed it that way and and really maximizing value per service is it's not our job to decide whether the town

our job is to look at the police department and make sure they're spending taxp if I want to say if I want to say on that or you want to say on that then we should be running for the select board because those are the people that get to make those decisions.

Our job is to support the town not to try to take the move. I think the only thought I would just throw out there is for most folks in the town, they don't understand the intricate details of the budget. You know, a short sentence or two, just putting it out there clearly that the the proposed budget is projected to increase by x%. uh revenues are projected to increase by x percent and you know this is the reality of it that the uh the bottom line where tax impact could be x%.

Yep. If we know the we know we know the anticipated revenues, we know the we know the budget we are proposing, we know what's in the other war articles. So we can figure out the total spending and then the difference between those two numbers is the tax effort. Right. I think just from folks that I've come across that's sort of where they're how does it affect my wallet? Correct. There's a little wrinkle because it's a revaluation year. I know. So I don't know that I want to talk about tax rate, but I can talk about dollars, right? Right. Good. Thank you. I'll try to I'll try to include that in there.

The last comment I'm dragging this on. I just want to put maybe it's a little early, but I want to put a bug in your ear. I know last year Joe you won't be here but when we have a organizational meeting in April Sue was our vice chair and she's not going to be on the board next year. I've been the chair now for at least four years like somebody else to think about you get out of it. So that's a comment I just wanted to share with you now because I last this timing is good. Nine months ago when we showed up in April, I showed up assuming that I wasn't going to do it another year and you all said, "Oh, yes, you are, Paul."

So I'm hoping we don't do You might say that again. All right, one more comment. I found the other mistake. It's under oh 3290 other licenses permits and fees and the the heading licenses has two s's instead of one. All right. I got it. Okay. So I um comments from staff. Christina, you have anything you wanted to comment or share with us? No, I'm good. Thank you. Shannon, anything?

I'm good. All right. Um, before I ask for a motion to adjurnn, I just want to remind you our next meeting is in two weeks, Tuesday, February 3rd at 6:00 here. So, it'll be the public hearing where we'll go over the budget, the revenues, and the warrant article. And then the public meeting will end and we will stay in session and we will vote on approving revenues and our recommendations for the war articles that we get to make a recommendation on. Um I think that's it. Someone make a motion to adjurnn.

So move motion by Joe, seconded by Scott to adjurnn. All in favor? I won't do roll call just unanimous. Do you want the computers left out or put away?