Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Finance committee, Monday, 03/30/2026, 06:45PM, small conference room, town hall, 10 Nixon Avenue, recording on FM. First item on the agenda, please.

Let me pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So next item on the agenda is I I put recess and select wolf for any 27 budget discussions. Yep. There's nothing really on their agenda right now. I'm gonna skip over that and have some talk to, you know, like, discussion. I left it as a generic

Yeah. Okay.

We left last meeting with some homework to try to figure out a, basically, a prioritization

I have a few, chair. And so that builds on what what John was talking about last time. I don't think I got all your Cs, John, but I I got a few.

Okay.

You know, one was I I brought up last week was critical service.

What? Oh, wait.

Sorry. I'm late.

Okay. Let's get started.

27 budget discussion and kinda talking about our plan

and Mhmm.

Just going over some ideas.

Do we have anything from the town? We don't have anything

from the

town. Okay.

We

were talking about those prioritization items that started talking about last time. I had mentioned this last time, critical services contribution to revenue or revenue offsets? Because I think you look at some departments and they do contribute to revenue, but others, like school for example, how do you say they contribute to revenue and and not necessarily that they should be rated downward because of that. Revenue offsets and perhaps grants and stuff that that the various groups bring in. Compliance requirements, and I'm thinking each department probably has some either regulation or law that they need to comply to that might mandate some level of staffing or some other requirement that has an implication on their budgeting.

And then the contract requirements, I think John had mentioned that last time. So just before I left, saw an email from Chris Peck. He had sent me contracts for his unions. I'll send that off when I get home this evening, get it to Eric and you can circulate it to the rest of the committee.

Get it into the drop off. Okay. Okay.

You sharing ideas? Yes. I don't I came in late, so we'll be Yeah.

We'll be well. No. Alan just had started, but he was, like, maybe fifteen seconds into what you were saying and he held back.

I'll put together a little something. We get time. So I use, you know, the thoughts that we had, put them all together and see what we could generate. So I put something like, why why do we have a framework reduction? Middleborough faces an approximate and whatever that million dollars is shortfall to address this town and school leaders are using clear and consistent process to guide difficult decisions.

Our priorities, protect health, safety, and legal obligations. Prioritize students, seniors, and public safety. Be fair across all departments. Avoid short term fixes that create future problems, and be transparent with residents. Suggestion on how cuts are made.

Step one, reduce spending that does not impact services. Hold positions vacant, delay hiring, reduce overtime, cut non essential essential expenses, delay equipment purchases if safe. Step two, reduce services where necessary. Reduce hours of programs, combine services, reorganize operations. Step three, a last resort, impacts to people, layoffs, program eliminations.

And step three is considered only after steps one and two have been fully reviewed. So make sure that we're not looking at people first. And how are decisions evaluated? Is it required by law? How many residents are affected? What are the long term financial effects? Does it create problems elsewhere? Is it fair across departments? And the idea is to adopt the balance, f y '27 budget that lives within our means, protects essential services and keeps Middleborough financially stable. Those are just some thoughts.

Bob, is there any way that we could, like, you could email that to me, like just so maybe yeah. I think it's a Yeah.

I put it together.

You know, I can get it to everybody and Yeah.

You can do that.

As a starting document to kind of

move around. I I I didn't understand the charge last week. It said any ideas that we have, send it along to the town manager. So I did that, but then I said, should I be sending it to the finance community? Said, well, it sounded like we're supposed to send it to him. So I did send him that kind of thing. So but yeah, can get a copy of it to you or or should I put it the Dropbox?

I could. If you send it to me because the chair only has access to the bottom.

Oh. Oh. Alright. You can do that.

I don't know. My thoughts is start with least invasive. Got more low hanging fruit, funded positions that are vacant, attrition, you know, spots that are easy. You know? Yeah.

And kinda build from there. You know? Me, I I don't wanna see anything that affects services to the citizen community. And that's there's obviously a problem with b. It's gonna affect the other one. I don't see any other way around it. There's gonna be some effect to minimize that as much as possible, this is the priority. Mhmm.

I've got a couple of priorities. Some of them are kind of redundant, so I'll skip those. But then I had some just, like, actionable versus long term strategic thoughts. My priority list would be all actions are can be explained as equitable, transparent, and can be justified to town departments and the community as best as possible. Weigh targeted layoffs versus permanent position eliminations and consolidations.

And each department should be discussed and evaluated independently as for what the best approach should be. And I got some actionable things, some long term things. I guess the short term and long term, guess, could be better or instead of actionable. Request of the select board discuss potential cost saving and or stabilizing measures with the union unions and other contracted employees and consider using stabilization funds to partially balance the budget until fall town meeting, and we can reevaluate how to balance the budget between now and then. Long term thoughts, evaluate all permanent licensing inspection fee structures across all town departments, updating just accordingly.

One department told me in the past that they haven't changed its fee structure in over twenty years. Maybe there's something like a fee study could be done.

But the better at least look

at what other surrounding communities charge.

So I think there's a a

reduction, you know, there's a reduction in expenses, but if we're leaving money on the table for you know for all this growth that would happen then but that's just as bad. Right? Also you know discuss the possible debt exclusion for the BP project, move the cost of the BP school project to a debt exclusion. It's a recurring yearly expense of $800,000 or so and it restricts accountability to undertake much needed capital improvement projects that could otherwise be used for our roads, schools, equipment, and other town buildings. And then the last one we have is evaluate contracted services versus in house The agreement to keep going back to is not in fiscal year twenty two.

Legal services totaled 162 k. Now it's 300,000 in Ryzen. And one of the reasons for this in the town went from an in house attorney to a contractor services in '23. So it eliminated in house position. I can understand you know some of the rationale for it is you know if you have contracted employees or eventually have to pay retirement on them and health insurance and all the other benefits that come along with it so I understand the desire to maybe subcontract that out but my thought is that in my experience when we had an in house attorney it was the accessibility was unmatched so if you had a question for you know the town attorney you could ask it where now it is a little bit harder to do.

And my additional my last thought is you know how do we keep town services level town wide when the costs such as health insurance premiums and retirement increases at a higher rate than what the town is actually receiving year to year in revenue. I think that's and I think that's a question that's really hard to answer. I've had this discussion with a couple people like in the town, you know, even back as 2023, insurance is still going up 8%, 9%, 10% and if your growth is only 2.5% plus local receipts how is that sustainable long term? So it kind of goes back to you know having the select board maybe discuss some of that stuff and collective bargaining for whatever they can recommend or get for us. I mean, any of these costs even for stabilizing measures.

So that's all I got.

I've pretty much said what I had to say so far, so I'm good. But thank you.

No.

Nothing yet. I'm waiting to hear what the total number is looking like. As far as I'm concerned, everything's still up in the air as what the dollar amount is. We've got a lot of things that are still haven't been sorted out yet. So for me, I think it's rather premature to start speculating where we can cut, what we can cut, and so on.

I think we need to have a more firm number as opposed to a soft number as to what the deficit looks like. So I'm gonna be waiting to hear from Tom Andrew Perkins to see what where we're at with that. I spoke with him earlier today. He stated that he's really not nothing new for us since last Thursday. So I guess we'll just go to the meeting, see what that's what he said, if there's any revelations that come out. But as of right now, it doesn't seem that there are.

I think we're just we're not talking about the actual number. We're just kinda spitballing maybe an idea of a plan, whatever that final number would be, like, where where we'd like to start. There's been some, you know, almost per se, like, the gentleman just said last week, we can start with, you know, blowing fruit. You know what I mean? And I'm not saying that it we're at that particular number. You know what I mean? We're just kinda having a discussion about, like, the plan and whatever we should

how do I put it?

You know, where do we start

when those numbers come in and where we'd be at?

Yeah. I mean, the only thing I'll say beyond that is, I mean, like, I had said last week that there's three c's that we should look at, consolidation, concession, and lastly, cuts. The first two are asks. The last one is a tell. If we don't make enough ground by way of consolidation and concession, we'll have no choice but to cut.

And when we talk about cuts, I'm very, very much reluctant to cut services that are affecting the residents and taxpayers of Middleborough because they didn't create this mess. We did. And I say we collectively, but primarily another board. Nonetheless, like, the residents should not have to bear the burden of the poor decisions and bad mistakes of the leadership. So and I understand that only leaves personnel.

And trust me, that's not something that I take lightly. I mean, we're talking about people's livelihoods, but at the end of the day, there is only so much money, and we have to continue running this town as properly, seamlessly, and efficiently as possible. So that's kinda where I stand on it.

Well,

when I walked out of here last week, I I did I didn't really expect that the numbers were gonna be so firm that we could start picking away at it. I came away with I thought the charge from the interim town manager was that he thought he used the term guidelines, think. Something that we can say to the town, this is what we're looking at as what we have to use as how we came up with these decisions. And this whole idea of having, you know, I'm just saying this one, you know, protect health safety and legal obligations. The things that that that are put down would give people a sense, okay, at least they're not spitballed.

And they're not she's I'm gonna get that department because my taxes are too high. Something that that's what I thought he was for. Some kind of guidelines that once we did get the numbers, we we can say to ourselves, well, we're not starting with people. Okay? We're starting with, again, some of those short term fit, you know, delay hirings, we use to lose our overtime.

You know, something that people can understand and if we live by these guidelines, then yeah, you're not gonna make everyone happy. But at least we're all working under the same umbrella on how we came about with these with with these cuts. So I'm sure we're gonna hear if if if he's decided that's not something that he wants to do, or he decided it's no time, or just too cumbersome, I guess we'll hear that on line 28 on the agenda tonight and I hope I'm still awake, but but facetiously. But I suppose we'll hear from him tonight and we'll know more if that's maybe he decided the guidelines or something that I don't know. I'm just saying, I walked away with thinking it was more not thinking about where the cuts could be made and you know, just what would we be using as a as a template, so people can at least say, okay, they didn't just do this because of personal reasons, they were all looking at the same foundation from which they're coming from.

So it's been a week, Actually, it's been less than a week, but Three days. It's been a it's been a few days and maybe things have changed and we'll know more tonight. That's just my thoughts.

Mister chair, I I heard the same as Bob just articulated. It was more of a framework or guideline to help in making decisions as numbers might become available. I did talk to the DPW director this morning. He doesn't have numbers ready yet. He's going through he's gonna be having conversations with finance director and town manager to work through his analysis, but but, but, yeah, it's it's gonna be at least a few days, I imagine, before we start to see numbers kind of rolling out that are are reasonable for us to all look at.

So I I think to Bob's point, it's kinda once we get those numbers, how are we gonna how are we gonna evaluate, I guess, is

I mean, one of the things I've hit on last week when I drove this year was I think you basically have to look at it by department by department because like there is gonna be a cut to services. If you cut personnel, you're cutting services. So I think you're have to go by department by department and and if there's a, you know, a reduction in, you know, so call it supplies or whatever it may be. In one department, it might be a reduction in staff in another department. I think you just have to kinda see.

I like the idea of what he presented last meeting where each department had, you know, the the five, ten, 20, or or whatever percentages were, but that they entailed what those cuts would actually look like. You know, each department didn't have the same three things. It was, you know, a lot of those reduction in supplies or reduction of this or that. So I think when we get the whole we get all the talent departments and see what that looks like, mean, it's basically becomes a scenario where, you know, you know what the what the savings are be in this department and maybe you work it through and get to that number that you're trying to get to. So I think it's, you know, have some guidelines now is great, but I think it's gonna be it's gonna vary a little bit department by department as we kinda work through the process.

Yes. Every department is different. The purpose of guidelines is that the different guidelines, the different tiers as I use are priority. Some departments, you couldn't start with tier one because they don't have enough to do it that way. As you might have to jump right to the highest impact.

So that's that's how we used to do it when we had the cut. We didn't just willy nilly. We created something so people will understand it wasn't, you know, yes, every department is different. The idea of guidelines is, yes, maybe that you can't do the least impact things like delay hiring. Maybe it's a two person out, you know, show.

So I I'm hoping he still has the guidelines as something he feels is important to move forward with. We'll know more tonight, but it's I feel it's important from experience to have something that you can let your you let people know how we are doing this. Now, in it, I'll just go back in history. If you have a teacher's contract, you know that that's going to be part of the puzzle. But where there are places in the contract that can apply, so it's not immediately impacting folks, you find those parts of the tier, maybe a tier one where it's least impact.

So, yes, obviously, every department is different, but the guidelines are adaptable or should be adaptable to any one of these departments. Once again, it may be something that things have changed and we're gonna move in a different direction. Well then, as part of a group, if that's what we decide to do, then I guess that's what we do.

Mister chair. Yeah. I I agree, Paul. I think we need to start with something that will allow us to look at numbers initially and I

Not denying that.

Yeah. I I think that having those that that rubric or that that framework, and and I think you articulated one very nicely there, Bob. We need to cascade through this and and look at our look at the numbers in the departments as they come through. And and I I do agree department by department is is gonna be the way it's gonna have to happen, but we need that framework to understand how we're gonna look at each of those departments from a starting point.

Well, mister chair, yes, he's right. These are no build without the numbers. Mhmm. But the idea is to have them ready to go when we get the numbers. This shouldn't take that long doing this. The numbers, apparently, it's it's a little more of a task because of where we're coming from. I gave him the chair, so or the scrubs with the secretary. Thank you. In case she want it.

You can email it to me, Bob. You can email it to me. Okay. Yeah. Just I'll pop it in.

Honestly, I think open meeting loss has, like, anything we present like this or discuss actually it's some of it is attached to the agenda, but has to sort of go with it, like, with the with the minutes. So if you wanna

I draft one.

Typed it.

Go ahead. Put draft on because this Yeah. This is going nowhere.

Draft? Yeah. We're do the watermark.

This isn't gonna this is just I thought there was an idea he wanted ideas. Correct me if I'm wrong. I thought he said if he got some ideas, send them to him. I did. That's specific. Then I thought I should at least bring it here too. Didn't know whether I should send it. I said, well, I'm sitting here now.

There were, mister chair, there were a couple of things that he wrote that I wrote couple of things that he said that I wrote down. And I did write them down, but, like, they're they're not really in in order of importance. Right? So you put you said last in, last out was considered a necessity, essential versus nonessential.

Yeah. I think we I'm not trying to Yeah.

Some of those things. I'm not I'm

not a big fan of essential nonessential.

Yeah. I'm just going off

the list. Critical, noncritical. Revenue. Call me semantics or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Sentences or something that nonessential or just

kinda Yeah. Semantics. Yeah. Revenue generating versus nonrevenue generating and impact on revenue collection. That's what those are.

Bob, if you could email me that, and I'll make sure that it's important place where everybody can kinda look at it and we can kinda, you know, try to get with you this week and maybe we can

Get a red marker out. Pretend you're teaching.

It looks like a good good place to start. Yeah. Thank thank you for that effort, Walter. It helps.

I know I'm the only member here in public comment, but can I just speak to this? Because I watched, obviously, the meeting from last week and did the minutes for it, there was a thousand lines in there, but that's okay. I like Bob's framework. I like, I listened to what Joe was tasking you guys with. I know it's hard to do that.

As I was listening, I couldn't possibly process how you figure out what is critical, essential, nonessential. What's important to one may not be to the other. But I think I do like Bob's, like, step one, step two, step three, like, sort of analysis, like, where do you that some may have to go straight to step three and some can start at step one. And some but to combine it with Nate's, like, for some departments, that's just not having an intern and getting rid of some office supplies. And for some, that's getting rid of 20 people. And I don't know what that looks like. I I listened to that and I thought it was well thought out. So that's just my 2¢ on it.

Don't call it bars. It's a collection of of of what is out there. Thank you. Mister chair, are we waiting to go in there or they have something going on that we

They they have their their meeting. They have a lot on agenda. That's really nothing to do with us. I believe they have

They have an executive session tonight?

Uh-huh. Yeah. They have a lot on agenda.

Skipped over the recess. Just I kept it there as a Nope. A placeholder. I guess we're moving on to public comment.

Public comment for Point of order. Before we move on to public comment, I would just like to address the email that was read by chairman Mark Germain last week. And when I heard it, I said, that does not sound quite like the wording that we voted on as a committee. The message that we were gonna communicate to the select board is far far wordier. And quite frankly, the way I interpreted it, it sounded like that we were derelict in our duties as a finance committee that, like and now we're ready to cooperate.

That is not not at all what had happened. We have been actively trying to be part of this process, but have been rebuffed. We've had information withheld from us, and I just don't understand why what was voted on by this committee was insufficient to send to the board. We belabored the point so much so. And, I mean, I have the agenda right here in front of us in front of me.

Excuse me. For agenda number five, FY '27 liaison discussion. If you look down to item g, Bob Sullivan asked if a formal motion can be made for John's request to be sent to the select board to ensure we are part of the process, that we get it get the information at the same time, etcetera. Item h, after much discussion, keyword much, between members of the of the way, the motion should be phrased and presented. Matt Phillips makes the motion, quote, that a letter be sent to the select board reaffirming the finance committee's commitment to advise and assist in the ongoing budget development process, end quote.

Matt Phillips first, Bob Sullivan second. All in favor. That should have been, like, the the email. I don't understand what all the additional paragraphs were. It seems like you went behind our back on that. You were operating unilaterally, and I don't understand why.

Well alright. So the meeting was on the sixteenth? Correct. Alright. And we went through this whole process of coming up with motion. So the chair reached out to me on the seventeenth?

Yes. Right.

He advised that he's composed something this as far this I've composed thus far this information. Just wanted to see if it captured the spirit of it, meaning the motion. So he gave me this. I think I'm just read it. Yeah. The finance committee would like to renew our commitment to the budget process. We as the finance committee respectfully request to take a more active role in developing the budget moving forward with the interim tile manager. We also ask to be included in any future meeting with the select board involving the budget. I could not respond at the time. I was working with a four year old.

And so by the time I got home, I was able to sit down, get the motion the way it was written. I hope I got it the way. I said, hope this helps. To the Middleborough Select Board from Middleborough Finance Committee, FY twenty seven budget. At the 03/16/2026, Middleborough Finance Committee meeting, Finance Committee approved the following motion.

Move that a correspondence be forwarded to members of the Middleborough Select Board reaffirming the Middleborough Finance Committee's commitment to advising and assisting in the ongoing f y twenty seven budget developmental process. I did add a sentence because as I read the motion, in my mind, was something missing here. I just gotta kinda wrap this around. Sentence was, the finance committee is ready to be partners and working to find solutions to address the current and significant budget shortfall. That was what I sent to you.

I believe I didn't put that in. Mhmm.

Well, what I have that I got as an email, I think we all got it. And if I copied it wrong, was just trying to cut and paste. Morning, everyone. At the 03/16/2026 Middleborough Finance Committee meeting, the Finance Committee approved the following motion. The motion I believe is just the way I just read it. I'll read it again. Do I have to? I will. No. I will.

Move that correspondence be forwarded to the members of the Mineral Select Board reaffirming the Mineral Borrower Finance Committee committee's commitment to advising and assisting in the ongoing FY twenty seven budget developmental process. Then it kind of got a little bit longer. Finance Committee would like to renew our commitment to the budget process. We as the Finance Committee respectfully request to take a more active role in developing the budget moving forward with the interim town manager. We also ask to be included in any future meeting with the select board involved in the budget.

The Finance Committee is ready to be partners and working to find solutions to address the current and significant budget trough all respectfully middle of our finance committee. So in my mind, if I was gonna do this over again, move that a correspondence be forwarded. Because I mean, listen, I'm reading I'm reading that thinking, a correspondence is gonna be created as opposed to just having the motion slap to somebody. That's what was that sentence that I added at the end when I was trying to reaffirm was created. That's as far as I got, that one sentence.

So I I I I I I still don't I can understand one to be concerned that the motion wasn't just forwarded as is. It was my interpretation as I was reading it, it just seemed to be something that we should have added to the motion, but try to clarify the motion. And I thought that one sentence didn't show that we weren't or ever worked with him. It was just simply putting some meaning to the motion. So we can debate this. We probably have an hour we can debate this if you want, but that's what I know about it.

Well, the thing that, like I said, is if it simply said a correspondence be sent to the select board, draft it however you want, that would be one thing. But we literally went over this back and forth, getting the wording right. And I vividly remember John had his laptop. He wasn't getting it quite right. I was speaking extemporaneously, and it seemed that that was more appropriate. John slid his laptop over and said, you clearly have a better understanding of the message that needs to be communicated. Here you go. Type it up. I did. Mhmm.

I read it. Mhmm. We all agreed and voted on it. Mhmm. Don't like this all of a sudden, like, capturing the spirit. There was no spirit to capture. Just send the message. End of story. That was the message that we all voted on as a committee unanimously. Send it. End of story. I get really bothered when we go over and belabor a point only for it to not be presented after all the discussion. Let's point out in discussion then. That's that's my question. I don't understand.

I I just wanna jump in through the chair. So, I mean, I recognize what you're saying. And I think hindsight being twenty twenty, if if there was anything to add or subtract or modify or delete to that motion that we all agreed on, it should have come back to a meeting so we could all discuss it. But I'm gonna back the train up and go to the chair and say yet again, under what authority do you take a motion that the committee has agreed upon when they the committee directs you as the chair to send it to the select board? Under what authority do you have where you feel you're entitled to ask anyone outside of an open meeting to change, modify, delete a motion that we all agreed to.

Folks, we have a meeting in session out here. We'll just keep the volume down.

Thank you. Ask somebody to change a modifier, did I ask? Under what authority Who did I ask? Under what authority do you have as the chair?

Who did I ask?

Were you not instructed to Motion Excuse me, I'm talking. Motion to adjourn. I'm point of order. You were instructed as the chair to deliver the motion as we agreed to the select board. You failed to do that. Period.

I move that we adjourn.

Second. Do do we have a second? Okay. Alright. Alright.