Select Board - Regular Meeting

Tonight is Monday, May 4, 2026. I will call this meeting to order. Please note that we are being recorded and we are live on the cam. And please join me for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you.

First order of business tonight is the minutes. We are going to go ahead and not vote to approve the minutes from fourtwenty seventwenty six. We just wanted to kind of put it out there that we're in a bit of a transition period right now in the town manager's office. We're working on getting the staffing proper staffing that Joe needs. But we're not quite ready to put all those minutes out there for approval yet. We want to make sure that the Board, everyone on the Board gets an opportunity to read through thoroughly and really know what we're voting on. So we're going to skip over that and next week hopefully at this point we'll have someone who's in, Joe. I

have a list, the list of missing minutes or not completed minutes start on January 12 and they go to April 13. I've spoken to Jess McEnough, the secretary for the finance committee, and she's agreed to pitch in and update those missing not completed minutes.

Thank you, Jess. Appreciate that offer to help. So that should get us kind of situated and hopefully get through this transition. So we appreciate everyone's patience on that. And next on the agenda is announcements and recognitions. I do have two things that I would like to go through and then I'll offer it up to the Board. First, I wanted to let the public know that the Health Director has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. We wanted to inform the public, but we cannot take any questions that is a personnel matter. And in addition to that, I'd like to welcome our new Library Director, Beth. Can you remind me of the last name?

Hay. All right. So thank you. She's here tonight. Welcome. Welcome, Beth, and thank you. Beth started her position officially on April 15, and she was here tonight. So I just want to make sure that the public could put a face to that name and welcome her. Her. So that was all I had. Is there anyone on the Board under announcements and recognitions?

Do not have any.

Mr. Giovannoni.

A brief thank you for those who came out on Saturday, the middle bar friends who I'm member of. We were able to have a beautiful pancake breakfast as we've done almost nineteen years now over at the COA to benefit the COA and hopefully we'll be bringing over the big check to the COA. It's actually a little check. We don't have the big ones, but a big check because nowadays every dollar counts and we're happy that we've we usually give a thousand raise about a thousand dollars for every one of these that we do, plus it's a great it was a great event and a good meal for $9 couldn't go wrong. But so thank you all for coming out. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. And actually I'll piggyback on that. I apologize I did not make it because I was at the two hundred and fiftieth celebration, was run by Steve Adelman and that was a great morning, really interesting and fun to see Senator Kelly Dooner there and Norm Orl and Kathy Linajra. They were able to shoot off a musket and blunder bus, I think is the name of it. That was pretty cool. And Tom and I were able to represent the Board at that time. So it was great. So other than that, Tom,

do you I have just want just to go back on both you and Brian spoke of, the COA pancake breakfast. I had the opportunity to help out. I had a great time. It was a great day. And then I jumped over here to the veterans, the two hundred and fiftieth celebration on the town hall with Theresa, and it was a great day. And I wanna thank the Pierce trustees for helping out with that. And Central Cafe slammed up quite a few pizzas. It was pretty cool.

Nice.

Great day had by all. And then this Saturday coming up, we have the Flying Dogs on the town hall one. I believe is it You want me to do it? You have it? I do. Okay. Thank you.

A lot going

on. I'll do all

of this.

Oh, did before you do, do you have anything?

No. Just I was unable to attend the two hundred and fiftieth order pancake breakfast. Unfortunately, my sister and I were both ill. But we did take a quick drive by and it looked like it was well attended out here on the town hall lawn. I was very disappointed because I was looking forward to hearing the band. So but good job by all.

Thank you. I'm sorry.

No, all good. Thank you.

Paula Feyne, I think I'm becoming the official announcer. So, on Saturday here in Middleborough, it is market day in Downtown Middleborough. I believe stores will be opening around 10:00 running and staying open until about five. You have going on obviously an opportunity to come down and support your local businesses. Beyond that, you have at noon time, you have the high flying dogs or the flying high dogs, I haven't figured out which one it is, but it's an exciting opportunity.

If you've never seen them, it's unbelievable that inaction. I mean, they travel everywhere. They actually go overseas and everywhere else, the gentleman takes them there. So, that's at noon time. Also at noon time, the public library is having a concert and I'm not sure of the name of the performer, but there is a performer coming in for the public library too.

And then there will be music in Kramer Field throughout the day and I believe Mike is opening up Harper Lane at noon time and the puzzles are either going to be there or they're going be at Kramer Field, the town puzzles are going be sold. And at the same time, I now might as well do one for the Peter H. Purse Homestead and I want to begin by thanking Sandy in Namaskar for putting the announcement out. On Saturday from ten to two, we will be on the grounds with Dolly Parton, as we would say, we are going to unbox her again, because she sits in a box in our building, and doing the registration for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. So, Middleborough based family with children, so parents or caregivers, please come down, get the materials to register your children.

It's free, high quality literature sent monthly, a book sent each month to any child from age, from infant through age 4.5, because they end the program at five. So, you'd only get one or two books. So, that's why we stop at four point five. So, that's taking place on Saturday too. And now, I'm going to go to May 16, just so everyone knows, Steve is looking Steve Adelman, the veterans agent, is looking for volunteers to help hang the banners. And it's a great day to come down and do that because that's Armed Forces Day here in in the country too. So come on down, assist in hanging the 50 plus banners that go around the town.

Paula, do you know what time that starts?

What is this, quiz time? I think, I actually I actually think I've been here some mornings and he he pulls the crowd together starting around 08:00. Right, because I know you do it at times, Brian. So I think they pulled it at eight. And truly, if you're afraid to climb a ladder, don't worry because they need people to carry the banners and match them with the locations.

And the ladders.

And hold the lattice I can do that.

On windy days.

And I just to go back on of the flying dogs, the high flying dogs is a fundraiser for the animal shelter.

Correct.

So there's no admission. It's a free event. But please bring your wallet and and help out.

But they do request that if you have a dog, please do not bring your dog because your dogs upset those flying dogs. Alright? So that's it.

Appreciate it.

Thanks, Paul. Anybody else in the audience?

I guess I just publicize my own thing as well. Nathan Demers, SoHomestead. We have a couple of events coming up over the next two weeks. This Saturday, we have the annual plant sale. So come get your veggies, indoor plants, perennials, all that fun stuff. It is from ten a. M. To three p. M. No early birds don't show up there at 08:30. I won't be there. I'm coming in half, 09:30 quarter of unloading everything. So it's a great chance, a good opportunity to pick up some low cost vegetables and stuff like that. The following week on May 16, it is our Sheep Day Festival. It is from ten a.

M. To three p. M. That's a ticketed event. All the proceeds go to help our non profit. It's all available all the information is on our website, soulhomeside.org. We have a sheep sharing demonstration as well as some live music and food and all that good stuff. So some vendors and everything else. So come on down, check it out. Two great events at Seoul. Thanks.

Thanks, Nathan. Anyone else in the audience under announcements and recognitions? Good evening.

Hi. My name is, Tom Quigley and I live at South Purchase in the Southern portion of Middleborough. And I'm here to thank you for supporting us to this point in time with the traffic problem that we have in the Southern portion of Middleborough. So thank you. And I do this on behalf of Self Purchase and our neighbors. Number two is the Middleborough Police Department. It's great to see that there's a regular presence out there now. And I will tell you, just even driving here tonight, I can just see the difference, pulling out and people just not flying around the corner because they know that the police have been there.

Awesome.

All right.

Mass DOT, I know you probably know this, but they painted a double line where you could pass on a curve and all the way down that entire quarter mile stretch,

all

right, from the Pizza Place all the way down to Lenny's at the end, all right. And so we want to thank them. And lastly, we want to thank Serpent, all right, who did that South Mirabaud Corridor study of which they have recommended that you set up a meeting with all the above and let's see if we could just do one last thing, and that's get the speed limit dropped. And of course, you have to initiate that and you have to do it through MassDOT. But again, thank you.

Thank you.

You're

welcome. Would the Board be okay if I go ahead and try to set up a meeting for that?

It'd be good.

Anything we can do. Okay, great. I will go ahead and make sure we get all the players here. All right. Thank you. Looks like we're all set with announcements and recognitions under new business letter A. I'm going to go ahead and skip over that. I have been had a request to push this to May 18, so that the library bolts can have a little bit of time to make sure that all of those positions were posted properly and enough time given to everyone to apply for it. So it looks like May 18 will be when we discuss that. New Business Letter B, discussion vote on town manager search regarding a potential community survey.

This is something that I had asked to be put on the agenda just as another opportunity to allow the community to have a little bit of input on this. So I was just thinking as a committee maybe we could or as a Board we could just discuss tonight asking IT to potentially put out a sort of like a SurveyMonkey, Joe or something.

The experience I've had with it, the town's IT department can put out a survey requesting citizens fill out the survey and you can have preformatted questions with answers such as looking for the best traits and qualities the community looks for in the next town manager. It gives the members of the community an opportunity to weigh in and feel heard. You can also leave an empty box for any comments that they want to have and it would be good direction for the search committee to have some input from the community regarding what they look for in the next town manager.

So, again, it was just a proposal that I thought the Mhmm. Board we could discuss as a Board and give the opportunity to the community.

So is

this formatted? Is this something we'd put together?

Exactly. So we would put a few questions together and honestly pretty basic. So like Joe said, an empty comment area and then just two or three questions asking for the best qualities, characteristics, anything else that we discussed tonight that Brian is we could go down the line and just say is there anything that you really would like to be on a survey, but keeping in mind that we don't want too many questions, just a Sure.

Something we could do for homework and come back next week. I

think so.

Absolutely. Yeah.

So maybe you could send the thoughts together, put them together and send them to Joe and I.

And, M. G, I feel it should be very concise and short, not many questions at all.

Agreed.

Four and then an open like you said and whatever qualities we are looking for and if that's if the public has something that could be the empty space and then we can narrow it down. It would be a good tool for the search committee to

That was my thinking. Brian, thoughts on that?

Yes, my thoughts are, I think we're going to be hiring a consultant. It would be nice to get the input from the consultant if we're going be paying $15,000 to do a job. We should probably get input from the consultant who does this for a living. Probably have something off the shelf that then if we start with that, then maybe we can polish it a few things. I just got this, but I just got the original in my Dropbox three, four hours ago.

So I didn't get a chance to read the one proposal out of the four. I look forward to reading all four proposals at some point so I can read through what the concepts of each one of the consultants was. So I think that we should loop in a consultant at the same time and maybe utilize them. That's what we pay them the money, the big bucks for.

Yes. No, absolutely no issue with that. Like I said, I think it's something that we as a Board, our duty is to try to make sure that we find every possible way to bring the next best person into town. So giving the community a little bit of a voice, but also piggybacking it off of whatever the search committee or the firm that we choose has for ideas as well.

Madam Chair?

Yes. If I recall correctly, a few years ago when we went through this process with Grow White or Rick White, whatever the name of the firm was, they did put together a survey. So if you wanted to go off of that one as a boilerplate or a template for I'm sure a lot of those questions are still applicable to today. So I think we I'm pretty sure I have I can always forward it to you if you don't have it.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So obviously no decision tonight, just a discussion on it. And if people want to send some of their thoughts this week, we can always just continue the conversation next Monday.

Yes. I feel we should do it away Monday.

Yes. Sounds good. Everyone good with that? Perfect. All right. Thank you. Letter C, discussion vote to appoint a consultant for the town manager search. So I'm going ask you Joe to kind of go through this process for the public and for the Board.

I will. So this is an email from Tara Paraglia, the IT Director, who is also the Procurement Officer currently for the Town. Today, she wrote an e mail, Good afternoon. I'm writing to inform you that the Evaluation Committee has completed its review of all submissions for request for proposals RFP twenty twenty six TM01 Consulting Services, Town Manager Search. The Evaluation Committee consisted of Acting Superintendent of Schools, Mike Perrone Police Chief, Bob Ferreira and Park Superintendent, Frank Cass.

They were tasked with evaluating the technical proposals submitted. The town received four competitive submissions including proposals from Municipal Resources Incorporated, Grow White Consulting LLC, Ready Set Exec and MGT. After a thorough assessment based on the criteria outlined in the solicitation, the committee has selected Municipal Resources Inc. As the recommended awardee. The total cost for the Wyndham proposal is $14,800 The decision was based on the vendor's overall qualifications, responsiveness to scope of work and competitive pricing.

We believe the selection best aligns with the town's needs and projects objectives and project objectives. I have provided an electronic copy of the proposal attached to this email as well as hard copies for the technical proposal of the for winning the select board members for their review. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact her.

So can we just talk about why we have one in front of us and why not?

The RFP, the town put out a request for proposals. They were put out. The proposals were submitted under sealed bid. Each proposal was reviewed by the committee for content, adherence to scope, overall demonstrated history of service. Based on that, they were ranked one through four. The committee came up with the number one pick based on the criteria and then they opened the pricing. And they were the second lowest.

Any questions from the Board?

Madam Chair, I would like to review all of these proposals. The reason why is this recommendation, I take it absolutely they did a great job on the proposal review and they made their recommendation. But I would like to read each and each one of these proposals to ensure that if I vote something that I'm confident in the vote that I make, Plus you never know if there's something in one that could be utilized in our search that maybe municipal resources doesn't have in theirs. We can say, hey, can you include this? And I believe we did that with Guru White in the previous search that we did.

Somebody had something we liked and might have even been the community survey and it was ended up getting included in that process the last time we did it. So I always like to look at all of the proposals. I understand the process. I'm not looking to change the process. I just think that we should be able to read to make the best decision and ensure that we're making that best decision for the town.

Madam Chair. Mr. Pike. Yes, I'm a little bit with Brian, but I feel that we put people in charge to do this for us. And I have confidence that they did look at all proposals and they came up with a proposal.

My only concern now hearing it was the second highest or lowest bid knowing probably the lowest bid was our first candidate, which was 9,800. So we're 5,000 more in my mind. It could might have changed. I do feel that we should get a vote on it as soon as possible, so we can go forward. I understand Brian's concern about reading them all, but I have confidence in the people that did read them that they picked the people that are the company that they felt was the best.

Thank you.

Madam Chair. Mr. White. I agree with both Brian and Bill, but I think we need to vote on this. And to Brian's point, we can still review the other proposals and when we meet with headhunter, the we can make recommendations of I believe that was your point, Rod?

No, my point is that we have a proposal that is 50% higher than the proposal we had eight weeks ago from Guru White. We had a proposal eight weeks ago that we could have started this eight weeks ago and we went in a different direction. And since we went in different direction, we've added 50% more and every dollar counts and as we're cutting jobs in this town to the tune of 3,600,000 every 5,000 counts in my book. I want to know exactly what the extra $5,000 is for in this proposal as opposed to the other one before I vote on it. I will not vote for any proposal tonight.

Madam Chair. Tracy. I've had professional experience with this company twice and I have to say they are phenomenal. They know what they're doing and they're already predicting a twelve week process. And I think time is of the essence. And we need to get moving. And I feel 100% confident that MRI will do a great job for the town of Middleborough.

Madam Chair.

Mr. Richard.

I couldn't agree more time was of the essence two months ago, but get it, had a twelve week window on this and that's if we everything goes perfectly. I still think that I care about that $5,000 and I want to know what's in that $5,000 I was handed this proposal here in hard copy, it was put in a Dropbox while I was working. In fact, there was no Dropbox all weekend. There was nothing for us to review and it's hard to take and vote on something that we have not been apprised of until two hours before a meeting. In fact, I don't know how anyone could vote on this.

It's almost unconscionable to think that anyone would say, yeah, we're just going to vote blindly. How did February 2 go for you folks?

Madam Chair. Mr. Mick. And Brian, we aren't really sure what the all the proposal numbers were. It might not have been the same as in February. So and again, I want to use the confidence on the people that we have put in charge to do it and get this process moving. To your point, we could have done it and it was earlier, but we wanted to see other proposals rather than just one. And now that they've seen it, I feel this is something that we should move on. Thank you.

Any other comments from the Board? Any comments from the public? Mr. Sullivan?

Good evening. Bob Sullivan, Cedar Street, Middleborough. I've had some experience sending out proposals for consultants and it's always been my understanding that you might have a screening committee that take because this is a proposal not a bid. A screening committee would come in and look at the proposals and did it meet the criteria that was set up for that particular proposal. And that they would come back and say, five proposals came in, three met the minimum criteria, these two didn't because of X, Y and Z, and then it would go to the governing body for the to do their decisions.

So I thought that what the screening committee was doing was looking at the minimum criteria, making sure they all met it or they didn't and they advised it. So that was my

Understood. Thank you. Anyone else?

Paula Fey, 8309 Oak Point Drive. I just wanted to be clear, most likely to the public who may not understand because I too am aware of the fact that there was no packet available on Friday at noon time, the standard time. But I think the public needs to realize that there's nobody sitting in this room that is responsible for that. And it's a very important thing and I I don't think it's being projected that way. So I want the community to know that the person or the functions responsible, first off was the administrative assistant to the select board.

That position was eliminated three or four weeks ago. So, we could then move it into the same office and say that it was then the assistant to the town manager who maybe picked up those duties. But, we need to realize that that position too is being vacated. So, those are important things to realize because I don't want the chair to take responsibility for it or to be perceived that it was her nor do I want Mr. Perkins.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. I did try to convey that during the minutes discussion, but I appreciate that clarity as well. Thank you.

Madam chair, I did I did not want anyone to think that it was your fault for doing this or the town manager's fault. It's just when when you don't have the information put in front of you in a timely manner, you're you're being told to vote a certain way Mhmm. It's tantamount to the situation we're in tonight. Mhmm. I trusted somebody. I still trust that person. We're we're going through a whole process right now, and I think that before I would vote for anything, I would like to see all four of them. It's not a lot to ask for. It's I mean, it's a it's a read. You read through them. You make sure you're comfortable. There may be something. There may be something not, but there that's the process that I go through. Mhmm. I read everything.

I don't just take someone's word for it. It's trust but verify is what I always say. And moving forward, that's how I've I've always been that way. But moving forward even more so in these times

Mhmm.

Trust but verify. And that's that's how I feel about it. You guys, it's a it's a vote of the entire board and and as miss Fay said, you're absolutely right. We as a board voted to eliminate a position

Mhmm.

Of the administrative assistant. So it's it's us as a board, we did it. Yep. But as far as the the packet, I would I would actually I will talk about putting together a policy in the future that if the packet isn't available to the public nor us on Friday that we don't take action on Monday at all and we cancel the meeting. And the reason for that is, for instance, I was looking in new business piece and I don't want to jump out of it, but I'm looking at the application for a one day liquor license and I'm going back to Tracy and saying what Tracy said, it's not it doesn't seem to be appear to be correct.

If that was in the packet, that was the first thing I would have looked at and when I said, hey, we got to get that fixed. Instead, it's not fixed. So but this is just one thing that I really feel strongly about. The reason why we have an a policy right now on our website, Wednesday at noontime for submittals of everything that's gonna be on a packet so the packet can be built. And I get it.

Oh, appreciate it. Chair.

Yes. Mister

Bush. I've been reporting on this for three weeks. We knew the deadline for submission was May 1 on Friday. Mhmm. I said they'd be open on Monday, May 4, and you would have the information at that meeting that night to submit anything prior to this morning. They opened them at 11AM. There was no way it was it got in the most timely fashion it could have. So I've been talking about it for three weeks, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.

It wasn't a surprise. The lack of information in my Dropbox was the surprise.

I didn't have And I don't

know how you're gonna get the information when they was the deadline was Friday. They were opened at eleven, and you got them in a timely fashion.

Absolutely. I'm just saying the information talking about it for three weeks

at least.

The information's not okay. You guys can vote on it. If information's not in your packet, you wanna do something without all the information, then vote on it. I'm just saying the information was put in our packet. This and other things within excuse me. This and other things were put in our packet today late in the day. Unfortunately, I was on a job site in the middle of a dust bowl and and was unable to review most of it. So, unfortunately, I guess it's my fault because I expect to pack it on a Friday at the latest available to the select board to make intelligent decisions. If people wanna do it, that's their choice. I will not make any decisions tonight.

Madam chair?

Mister White.

I'm gravely concerned, excuse me, gravely concerned with mister Perkins' opinion right now because I don't want him to get up and leave us.

As I always say, please don't quit. Please.

So Brian makes some good points. None of us have really had the ability to review this. At this point, it's one more week.

You're the ones that asked me to do it

this Joe again, I'm not pointing the finger.

Okay.

I'm just saying this is what it is

and

none of us have really been had time to review it.

Madam chair.

Mister Pike.

I would like to make a motion to appoint as our consultant to the town manager search municipal resources as given to us by the committee that we approved.

Do I have a

second? Second.

For discussion? Anyone have anything further to add before we vote? All right. Seeing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Aye. Giovanni, nay. Right, nay.

All right. So that passes three to two. And I appreciate the discussion.

Madam Chair, I move that we provide the rest of the proposals to the Absolutely. Or unless we could just do it without a Yeah. But

no No reason. We can't. Yep. No problem. Thank you.

Alright. On.

I'll ask

by three to two.

Yes. Discussion vote to appoint a seven member committee for the town manager search. So the way that we discussed this was that each member of the committee would have one choice. I trust that everyone has reached out to their choice this past week and everyone has someone who has accepted that choice and so what we'll do is let the public know hour five. And then the other two we had discussed having at large members which would be anyone from the public who had shown interest.

So we have a couple of ways that we can do that. And we have one, two, three, nine people who had expressed interest. Thank you to those nine. We absolutely appreciate that. Some names are recognized, a couple not so much. So I appreciate that as well.

And Madam Chair? Mr. White. We might find that some of those names, somebody chose one of them, I don't know.

Also fair. I mean, think someone probably would have seen the list and known that they had. But either way, but my thinking was let's do the five and then let's just talk about those nine. Does that sound good? Sure. All right. So Mr. Pike, would you like to start?

Sure. I would like to propose that John Barela be my choice for part of the selection committee. Madam Chair. Mr. Giovanni.

Brian Giovanni selects Randy Gagne.

Excellent. Mr. White.

Madam Chair, I select John Burbach who is here this evening. Thank you, John.

Tracy? Madam Chair, my choice is Emily Sarett.

All right. And my choice is Joe Mandiel. So that sounds like a really good group of people. I'm excited for that five. So thank you all for putting so much thought into that.

And for the other two spots, we do have a couple of different ways. We can certainly choose tonight out of those nine names, we can write down our top two choices. My thinking was sometimes when you do that, you just pick a name you know and I don't know that I love that. So I was thinking that we could have a discussion, a little bit of a discussion tonight about the process and potentially interview those people. And it could just be a quick five minutes, few questions in a public setting next Monday and then we would choose our top two.

And it would be anyone who's willing to come and have an interview. There might be a couple who step out of the process and just say, no, thank you, I'm all set. But that to me gives everyone again an opportunity to maybe we see a name that we didn't recognize and we get to meet someone and we say, they ended up being a really good choice. And I'm fine with either way that the Board wants to do this tonight. I just thought it would be another option for discussion.

I do like the idea of having these people present themselves to us with a two or three minute dialogue whatever the

Okay. I agree because there's a couple of names on here that I am not familiar with.

I feel like it's a disservice to those people for us to just choose people tonight that I mean

If we could possibly get all the letters of interest.

And they were e mails?

Yes. So,

yes, great. We would send an e mail back to that person or just let them know tonight at tonight's meeting that if they would like to join us next Monday, we could even potentially start the meeting a little earlier, 06:30, 06:45 if that would work for people just to give us a little time to have a quick little introduction to everyone and then we could choose from that.

Madam Chair, my only concern is if some of these names might not be able to make it here that they could somehow either give us a letter

send us

a resume or something that to introduce themselves. That's my only concern because there might be somebody that might not be able to make it on

a Fair road enough.

Do we want to there's nine names here. Should we reveal these?

I think we should at least name Absolutely. Yes. Want to read them off?

Sure thing. And excuse me if I pronounce it incorrectly. Pam Frannie, Nancy Cavallis, McDonald Sprague, Louise Derry Wells, Lauren Howe, Jessica McAnow, Wayne Perkins, Robert Hammett and Ed Maderas. Those are the nine names.

Great.

And thank you all for coming forward to be included in this process. So again, it's sacred process in my opinion that needs to be done as a and I do feel that we should once all the names are done come up with some type of parameters for the search committee to at least adhere to.

Absolutely. So that brings us everyone is in agreement. Next Monday, we will ask those nine people to send either a more detailed resume letter or please join us at the meeting and introduce themselves and we can make a decision next week. That way everyone will have a chance to look at the resumes if they aren't able to make it and they'll have a chance. So everyone good with that? Okay. You good, Brian?

Why not? It's not just another week.

Yes. Oh, good.

Well, understood. But the search committee can't do a whole lot until we have that firm. But there is one other part to this regarding the committee, the search committee. We all saw the letter from Lincoln Andrews that he had Yes. Okay. So for the public I

don't know what the letter was, but it should be put in our packet under correspondence now that we've discussed it.

Right. So that it was just a well, it was sent to the entire board, that's why it wasn't put in there, but

No, we've discussed it now in a public we should it's a public document.

We should put it back there. Week. Agreed.

Yes. So we'll we can absolutely do that next week for discussion as part of the second decision that we're going be making. All right, that's fine.

Madam Chair, I mean, it says right here in the bottom of this from Joe when he's talking about the names that Mr. Andrews requested to be on the committee, but doesn't want to be a voting member, which I appreciate. I think that anyone should be able to go to these meetings and participate to an extent. But I think Lincoln does add experience.

Exactly. So next week we can also discuss that. We'll put that letter in the correspondence so everyone can see it and it will be part of our search committee discussion. Sounds good. And

Madam Chair, as I said, we do have to discuss some parameters for

the search committee.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. New business letter E, vote to approve a one day beer and wine liquor license for the bartending service of New England for the following date, five-ten-twenty six from 10AM to 2PM at Italian Gem Cafe 19 Center Street, Middleborough, Mass. The event is a Mother's Day brunch.

Motion to approve the application. It has all the information even if it's not in the right locations.

Looks like the email was changed so that I appreciate that.

Second on that.

Thank you. Discussion? Any questions? It looks like Mother's Day event and we do have that paperwork. Do we I don't see

Madam Chair, although the paperwork is not completely included in this this We know that we've got certificates from bartending services. We know that they're tip certified. They've been doing this for a long time, but we've

I

think last meeting we had approved

it Exactly. The week

And because it would be this weekend, it would be something we do need to vote on. All right. Any questions or comments from anyone? Ms. Faye?

Diane Faye, 8309 Oak Point Drive. I'm not saying not to grant this, but I raised this at a select board at the time of the last snowstorm when one of the bartender services of New England's got caught with not having a meeting, delaying, and it was late getting brought forward. I don't know what the date was on the submission of this one. The date was timely on the other one. And we have no packet.

But that is why I said that these people that normally, and they're one of them, they're the most that we get from that group, they've got to look at the fact that things are happening in this town. And it's unfortunate, we don't have the staff that normally would pick up on this and get it out for a timely vote. So, I think, you know, it's another situation that, unfortunately, we're caught in. And I don't want to not have that approved. But I think, you know, it's important that these not only storm situations, employment situation we knew about, those things have to be picked up on.

And Madam Chair, what Diane was just saying is exactly what we discussed at this time of year when we discussed it because we had holidays falling in Patriots Day. This time because the last time I believe we had it was in April we were talking about it because we had April Patriots Day and then we went right into town meeting, which means we didn't meet for three weeks in a row. Right. So the same thing's happening right now. I go into Memorial Day. Let me go into June 1, which is gonna be a town meeting.

Mhmm.

So we're not gonna meet for three weeks.

And the one I raised before was this bad weather and the storms of the winter and they got to get those out fast.

That's why we had the thirty day lead time thing.

Right. Understood. Tracy, if you're okay with that, I'm just going to kind let them know what you're planning for Wednesday. So we have we happen to have a select board member who has quite an extensive experience many years as an executive assistant to a select board in another town. So Tracy has generously graciously offered to kind of get our office a little bit more up to speed on some things as we transition. So thank you, Tracy. Appreciate your offer to do that because that really will help. Thank you. Yes.

You're welcome.

So we'll get there. We will get there, but and we do hear you. It's

not ideal.

Boot camp is coming.

Boot camp is coming. It's not ideal and we recognize that it's a quick turnaround, but we certainly don't want to deprive this business of an event. So we are going to just really clean up this process and make it better. Thank you. All right. So I will entertain a motion to approve.

Yes, I do.

I second. All right. Perfect.

Okay. All those in favor? Aye. And Chair votes aye. So the vote passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. The event of the evening, Mr. Parkins on the budget presentation.

Madam Chair. Before we begin, I don't know if the Board is okay with this, but I would like to invite the finance committee up to sit at the table with us for the budget presentation.

Sounds good to me.

Gentlemen, would you like to join us?

Are you currently Are you guys in a meeting right now? Is the finance committee in an open session? You're You're in recess. Okay. Maybe open it? Yeah.

Pass pass down to the microphone.

Don't you think they should open their meeting again? You

can you can

Come out of recess?

Come out of recess. Yeah.

Yeah. Mr. Sullivan? Bob.

Bob. Bob.

Bob. Might suggest that you come out of recess so that it can be an official.

Okay.

Here we go. Yeah. She

wanna make sure we got it right. So that's all.

Good? Theresa?

Yes, all set. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Honorable Board members, Finance Committee members, the following is a presentation of the 2027 revised budget. This revised presentation and future budget book addresses a recently identified $3,375,000 shortfall. Unfortunately, this new budget includes cuts in which contemplates the layoff of 19 people, the elimination of funding for 1.5 full time positions, attrition cuts to four positions either through retirement or resignation and the elimination of five positions elimination of five vacant positions and seniority bumping throughout departments based on collective bargaining agreements. The town has reached memorandums of agreements or understandings with the Police Department Union, which needs to be signed by the Board of Selectmen or the Select Board and the Clerical Union. Impact bargaining is ongoing with GMEG, the GMEG union over workflow and will continue until an agreement is reached.

Most importantly, I need to emphasize that these are contemplated cuts and the town is continue to look for cost savings while awaiting the Senate's version of the budget and updated cherry sheet numbers. Any cost savings or possible reduction in staff layoffs will be announced at a select board meeting and updated in a revised budget book online. These contemplated and recommended cuts hopefully minimize the impact of a $3,300,000 shortfall in the town's ability to deliver quality service to the residents and the community. We will begin with the first slide, which is the recap book, which demonstrates our revenue and expenditures. The first column is our current position titled revised FY 2027 and colored in blue.

The middle column is what the previous budget book listed. The third column is the difference between the two if one exists. The $3,075 discrepancy was first discovered while reviewing all of the numbers. Our net estimated state aid has been incorrect from the beginning. We originally had a $746,000 discrepancy.

That discrepancy has now been updated with the House release of the Cherry Sheets for the better and is now only a $446,000 shortfall. Local receipts, which is a volatile estimation based on multiple variables was set this year fiscal year twenty twenty six at $11,500,000 in the previous budget book. This was another number that was estimated. Our local receipt number, which was reported to the division of local services was actually $11,374,000 on the recap sheet. Fiscal year twenty twenty six should exceed this number and is projected to be around $12,000,000 due to several one time building permits, which have already been collected thus creating a spike.

The fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget book estimation of $13,000,000 for local receipts has been reduced. The new fiscal year estimation of local receipts is $11,575,000 This reset increased the budget shortfall by $1,425,000 Total revenue for fiscal year twenty twenty seven is set accordingly to 112,501,004 and $90 in the left column versus the $114,375,715 listed in the previous budget book with a shortfall of $1,874,225 Our expenditures have been reset to reflect the current revenue figures and our cuts. We have reduced operating expenditures and have added $889,168 to employee fringe benefits. This increase reflects the additional shortfall in health insurance and unemployment cost increases. Our total operating expenditures have been reduced to $109,172,394 cut by $2,603,321 The final inconsistency in the previous FY 2027 budget book was incorrect state assessment number.

The previous '27 budget book listed the incorrect state assessment at $2,000,000 The actual updated cherry sheet number is $3,029,096 Our total estimated expenditures for fiscal year twenty twenty seven is $112,501,490 leaving us with a zero surplusdeficit number. The next two slides show the balance sheet. The next three slides demonstrate the summary by function report. We'll get into each one of those. The first department, Finance Committee, Department one hundred eleven, no cut.

Madam Chair. Mr.

Putnam and Pike, we're going to take sorry, should have said this at the beginning and I apologize. We were just hoping to take questions at the end. There any way he can go through the entire presentation? That's my fault. I did not say

that. Problem.

Finance Committee, Department one hundred eleven, no cut and then the munis actual computer printout, it will be used for the actual budget book for 2027. If you could go back one, Josh. Each slide with each department, the bottom number FY 2027 revised 5130 with each slide that comes after the MUNIS number, the budget number for that department, Total number is in the very bottom right corner, 5130. And we'll pause with each department slide to demonstrate that the numbers match. Some of the departments have more than one slide for their budget.

So we'll go through slowly until we get to the bottom number. Select Board, Department one hundred twenty two, a shared services cut to the administrative assistant between the Conservation Commission. Total department cut $38,487 The new fiscal year 2027 budget number is $33,938 Town Manager, Department one hundred twenty three cut the Town Manager's fiscal year salary by $19,527 cut the assistant town manager salary by $10,000 cut employee appreciation by $7,000 cut in state travel by $2,000 absorb the administrative office building department $193 Total cut to the town manager department $123 is $38,527 Administrative office buildings, Department one hundred ninety three, layoff facilities director saved $120,105 cut temporary clerical line by $13,000 cut vehicle supplies of $2,000 Department will be eliminated and absorbed into the town manager department, Department one hundred twenty three. Total cut to this department is $135,105 The next slides are the new Town Manager's Department budget. Finance department, Department one hundred thirty five, an attrition cut to an administrative assistant via retirement at $81,096 Total fiscal year 2027 cut to the department $81,096 Assessors department, Department one hundred forty one layoff a junior clerk saving $48,938 Note that the previous fiscal year twenty twenty seven budget book requested amount for the assessors department was off by $55,525 It did not include the five year reevaluation article.

The correct fiscal year twenty twenty seven request for the assessors department is $365,187 The total fiscal year twenty twenty seven department budget cut is $48,938 Treasurer collector, department one forty five, attrition cut via retirement of $81,095. Layoff at junior clerk at $47,892 Adjust an incorrect salary listed in the previous budget book by $3,671 Total fiscal year twenty seven department budget cut of $132,658. Law department, department one fifty one, no cut. Human Resources, Department one fifty two cut the department head salary by $16,075 due to the pending retirement of the HR director. A shared services cut to the assistance position, which will be a shared services between human resources select board and town manager will save $52,500 a reclassification of the mental health director clinician back to unclassified removing a $106,000 from the HR budget line.

The actual cut to HR is $68,575 Information Technologies, Department one hundred fifty five, cut new phone upgrade of $80,000 cut computer equipment upgrade by $68,674 total fiscal year twenty twenty seven cut department cut of $148,674 Media department, Department one hundred fifty seven, elimination of the department, layoff a full time employee, eliminate the town's contribution to the department head portion of their salary, total fiscal year twenty seven department cut $152,806 and there is no budget because the department was eliminated. Town clerk, Department one hundred sixty one lay off a part time clerk at $38,008 total fiscal year twenty seven department cut $38,008 Elections, Department one hundred sixty two consolidate the town's five polling locations to three. This will reduce the police detail line by $20,777 The total department cut for fiscal year twenty twenty seven is $20,777 Conservation Commission, Department one hundred seventy one, a shared services cut between Conservation Commission and the Select Board, saving $28,138 lay off the land manager position at $75,876 total fiscal year twenty seventh apartment cut $104,014 Planning and Community Development, Department one seventy five, eliminate the director's contract at a $155,708, lay off the economic development coordinator at $81,093, lay off a junior clerk at $41,348, cut longevity by $200, total fiscal year '27 department cut of $278,349.

Zoning Board of Appeals, department one seventy six, no cut. Police department, department two ten, lay off four police officers at $146,831, attrition cut to a vacant senior clerk position saving $50,513, cut temporary clerical by $25,000 according to the Chief of Police, this cut will eliminate bike patrol shifts in the summer cut education and training line by $10,072 Total fiscal year '27 department cut is $432,416. It is important to note that the police department will be taking an additional indirect cut of a $100,000 due to the elimination of money from the school department reimbursing for the school resource officer program. Fire department. Department two twenty lay off five dispatches at $265,142.

Cut chief salary by $30,000. Cut dispatcher liaison stipend of $2,000 cut dispatcher budget line supplemental of $30,000 cut call men line supplemental of $300,000 cut fiscal year twenty seven increase of $25,000 to the vehicle maintenance line. This line is level funded at $101,785 Cut hose replacement at $32,000 Total fiscal year twenty twenty seven department cut $684,142 All these cuts, the South Station will remain fully manned and no changes to firefighter staffing levels. Fire Department SAFR grant. Six new firefighters were hired in January and February 2025.

The town paid a $149,578 in salary from January, February 2025 through June 2025. This $149,000 was not reimbursed. It was a hit against our 2026 free cash prior to the free cash certification. For the current fiscal year 2026, the town paid $366,011 towards these six salaries. The town has received $162,408 in federal reimbursement so far.

On April 21, the town submitted a reimbursement for $387,530 On Saturday, May 2, the town received confirmation that FEMA will reimburse $384,407 within the next five business days. To date, the town has expended approximately 27% of available grant funding so far of the SAFE grant. Billing department, Department two forty one, cut administrative assistant. This cut created a clerical union contractual obligation of seniority bumping. The employee was bumped to another department.

Fiscal year twenty twenty seven department cut to the building department is $75,974 Sealer of Weights and Measures, department two forty four, no cut. Animal Control, department two ninety two, no cut. School department, department three hundred, dollars four hundred thousand cut. The acting superintendent advises that of this cut, $100,000 will be put towards the police reimbursement while the rest of the cut will not impact teacher staffing levels. DPW administration, department four twenty one, no cut.

Highway department, department four twenty two, delay hiring the assistant highway superintendent until December, saving $30,602. Cut four vacant driver laborer positions at a $153,993. Reduced snow and ice by $130,000 reduced hot top materials by $3,500 a shared services cut of the assistant engineer with the wastewater department saving $26,100 The original cut to this department was $344,000 but was reduced by $4,548 due to an incoming employee via union bumping. The total fiscal year twenty seven department cut is $339,647 Tree warden, department four twenty three, no cut. Health department, Department five twenty one, layoff a health inspector at 78337 Total fiscal year twenty seven department cut, dollars 78,337.

Council on Aging, Department five forty one, two attrition cuts, one via retirement and one via resignation, saving $60,109 total fiscal year twenty seventh apartment cut of $60,109 Veterans Services Department five forty three, unclaimed benefits cut of a $100,000, salary reduction of a senior clerk due to CBA agreements of $11.25 dollars The current clerical staff took a voluntary layoff and other clerks were bumped into the clerical staff in the Veterans Department. It's important to note that no veteran services or benefits will be cut. Total fiscal year twenty twenty seven department cut, 101,125. Library, Department six ten, savings of salary from former director to the new director, dollars 5,000. Cut to training line of $4,250 total fiscal year twenty twenty seven department cut $9,250 Park department, department six fifty, cut to the chemical budget line of $10,000.

Total fiscal year twenty seven department cut, $10,000. Historical Commission, Department six ninety one, no cut. Debt services, Department seven ten, cannot cut. School transportation miscellaneous, Department eight ninety nine, no cut. School transportation contracted, Department nine hundred, no cut.

Employee fringe benefits, Department nine nineteen add to unemployment of $458,302, reduce health and life insurance by $207,279. Unclassified, department nine fifty, add opioid settlement back into unclassified from HR department for the mental health clinician at a $106,000. The next 10 slides are from the town's enterprise funds, wastewater, water, and sanitation. The following 32 slides are salary compensation worksheets. When this presentation is published online, these worksheets will be formatted according to each department properly and presented as the revised 2027 budget book.

That's all I have here, Madam Chair.

You, Mr. Perkins. Mr. Giovannoni.

Mister Perkins, I don't envy you at all for having had to do this work. I thank you for doing what you had to do. It was not I know it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy sitting here tonight. I I know what you must be going through in your mind. Have any worked here? Hadn't been a department head? Have lived here your whole life? I really want to digest what we just saw. I was only the one thing that snow and ice, can we reduce it without having a problem with deficit if we That's have a question.

There are issues that we're going to look at. I'm being told that the Cherry Sheets may be released tomorrow. I don't know how accurate that is. So I'm hoping that again, is contemplated until June 1. It's

a lot. Will this be

a The number is big. It's a lot.

It's monstrous. And it was an undertaking, including negotiations and bumping and all that. And I appreciate having to listen to probably us at times wanting more information to make sure that we know what's going on. And I appreciate this presentation as much as I wish we didn't have it.

I just want people in town to understand the gravity of people losing their jobs and their livelihood. People who have worked for this town that have tried to do the right thing are now 19 people are losing their actually 22 technically are losing their jobs.

And on top of that, there were school

not including teachers, this doesn't include school.

Right, right. And I mean that because I know the school had to cut positions as well. So

One thing I wanted to say is, obviously, you, Joe. But I think it's important that people recognize that we have to present a budget. We don't want this to be the final number and we know that it won't be, we don't know what it's going to look like. Like you said, it's going to change pretty much every day like it has been. But at some point, you have to make a decision to present a budget, approve it and then hope it gets better.

We want it to get better. We do not want this to be the final number, but we have to have something before everyone. We have to have something that ends up at town meeting. So what can we expect so that the public can know how often do we plan on putting this out for the public? Is this going be like should we plan on it weekly? Right

now, the plan moving forward was to publish this tomorrow by Wednesday, formatted properly with a cover, pages numbered, table of contents, so it can be a document online. If it's true that the numbers are coming out tomorrow, I'm going to reserve the right to change my mind. Again, trying to see go back and look and address some of the issues that everyone around this table has we've talked about, prioritize where we do want to put money back towards. Again, this is I appreciate all the input I've gotten from everyone at this table, all around the table, from people in the community. Again, this is people's livelihood are being taken away.

This is a life event and not a good one for 22 people in this town that work hard.

Mr. Gimione.

One things of you said at the beginning of this whole presentation was your goal, I think you said it today, might have been one of the

previous ones. Minimize the impact.

Make sure all the resources that the town needs are still being met

My as much as perspective was from a resident trying to I want the uninformed resident to drive around and utilize the town services, not realize there was a $3,300,000 deficit. If we can have the people who don't know not realize it, then, okay, we did a tough made difficult decisions and did a very difficult job. That was my ultimate goal in addressing these cuts. Okay.

Madam Chair?

Mister White?

I just wanna commend mister Perkins once again. I know this isn't what you signed up for.

It is not.

I know it's been a detriment to your health and your sleep. I can't thank you enough. All our hearts go out to the employees that are being affected. There's only one way to get there. And I just it's hard on all of us, but it's been extremely hard on you and I thank you profusely.

So I do have a lot of questions. Well, not a lot, but a few. But I want to open it up to Board members first and then I'll defer to see if you have some questions as well. Mr. Pike?

Well, I did interrupt earlier and I did have a question right on the first page and second page. And it was regarding the offsets. Could you explain the offsets because at one point there's the total estimated state assessments

No. The cherry sheet.

Yes. Thank you.

On local aid, there are two offsets. Library, which I think is $7,400,373,000

dollars

School Choice Receiving. 112. And I it's 112

Okay.

It was a number it had changed. It was higher, the first number that came out. Those are your offsets in the budget book, the previous budget book. There was a placeholder for $300,000 So that $300,000 placeholder was awash. It's the actual number is in, if Josh, go back to the first slide.

The actuals are taken out and it's under Chapter 70, School Choice Receiving Tuition Offset. It's the one, three, 45678 lines down, 112,877. Public Libraries is in the top quarter and it is yes. So those are the two offsets and they're demonstrated already added to the number. So the placeholder was removed. The overlay, the other 300,000 has to stay in there. That's what we have to pay.

That was confusing.

What is the overlay?

It is the assessments in the assessments and off the top of my head, it's assessments and something else.

Abatements.

Abatements, yes, that have to be covered, yes.

Abatements and exemptions. Okay. $300,000 was throwing me off with the zero part.

It was a placeholder in the previous book. The numbers weren't actually mapped out. But the numbers are mapped out here.

It. You.

Chad, it's not really a question, but the two cuts that bother me highly are to the police department and the health department, two very, very important departments. And I know I know the men and women in these departments will step up and do what they have to do. But it is it is upsetting. But there's no other way?

Regarding the health department, I happen to have done in my previous work, worked with a lot of boards of health and Middleborough actually had quite a few staff members which was great because they were actually able to help other towns around them when they had some cuts that were happening. So I definitely think that it will be a team effort again and other towns will step up as necessary. So it's kind of nice because they're all part of a group that supports each other when needed. So not ideal, I'm not pretending it is, but at least I do know that they have that group that is able to support each other.

Good to know.

Yeah. If you don't mind, I'll ask a couple of questions and then open it up to some finance committee members before we ask the public for their input. So my question, Joe, regarding the reclassification for the mental health director clinician. I know that we get some money from the opioid settlement, but I don't believe we get enough to pay that $106,000 total. Is that correct? And We where

received money prior to assigning that position. There was funding prior to the hiring of someone. So there has been that catch up. And it is for, I think it's 2035 that it's funded until and it's about $80,000

a Right.

That we get, yeah.

Yeah, it's about $80,000 a year.

So we have enough in there because there was already a fund that was sitting not used.

We hired the clinic.

Excellent. Thank you. I just want to be clear because I wasn't clear and I know there might be others who have that question. So curious about the highway or the DPW. It seemed like you cut a lot in one part of that department, but nothing in DPW. So I was just curious.

DPW administration is just bills, water, sewer, gas, that's the first. That's DPW administration highway is other department. So the administration pays all of it's basically, I think it's $43,000 $41,000 total for the department and it's to pay bills.

Okay, perfect.

It's their expense account for all of DPW.

So just has to be it has to stay exactly what I

was going Yes. It's not personnel.

The call men supplement, I believe that I know this, but again, there may be people who aren't sure that we don't have call firefighters any longer. So my understanding is that that 300,000,000 was the money that we were putting aside for what in a few years we're going to need for the SAFER grant.

In 2028, you're going to face a so if if you noticed in the presentation, I put the SAFR grant and it's also reflected in the salary worksheets. The six firefighters that are hired under the SAFR grant, they were not in the previous budget book. They are now. And the funding source is or the money or the amounts from the funding source is demonstrated. Eventually, that money will stop and they'll be absorbed into the fire department budget, the regular budget. And your fire department budget in 2028 will go from X to Y because you just have six new firefighters without Okay. Funding

So that is something I wanted to make sure people understand. We will have to be having that discussion.

Can I just interrupt?

Sorry, maybe 2029.

Think the grant runs through 2020. So

fiscal year 2029, it will

be all

of a

sudden the fire department budget will spike up.

But we have the opportunity if things change to

put aside

to That was planned

Exactly. To this Yes. To supplement the fire department budget to offset any Future. Future Mhmm.

Mhmm.

Cliff that you may see in 2020.

We just can't do that right now.

Not now. I understand. But

was one of the items that I as someone went to the SAFR grant the previous time for an ambulance startup. One thing I said is if we can't keep these people after the three year SAFR grant, I'd rather not take a SAFR grant and then all of sudden have to lay off eight people because I had six that I have to lay off plus the one or two others or whatever ends up happening. So I think that was why that was being built up.

I just want to point out historically in 2024, 2025 for the twenty five two thousand and four, 2005 budget, the police department had a burn grant. The police department, you couldn't lay any police officers off that year, they laid off firemen. So it is role reversal So this time everyone knows, it was only three police officers back then. But definitely was the same situation 20 All one years

right. So I do have another question and then I will give it to finance committee members. Regarding the polling locations, it looks like you're going from five to three.

So that was proposed by the town clerk has a plan and has a presentation that's complete. We're just looking for an open time to provide that plan to you, the Board, so it can be discussed and the impact of it in public setting. It's just we haven't had time to put it up yet.

So that revised budget of 329,000, who is in that department? We have an elections director. Do we have a clerical staff?

No. Where We have temporary workers that are the polling workers.

All of that has

come Your from

polling employees, the number won't change because we're not changing the number of precincts. We're just changing the number of buildings.

Buildings. Okay.

You need a certain amount of employees to work the precincts. You need a certain number of police officers to work.

Right. There's the savings. That's we're going to have.

Yes. Great. Okay. That is great. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification on all that. And is there anyone who would like to speak? Tracy. Oh, sorry Tracy.

I have a sheet full. Okay.

So, okay. The first one is employee appreciation, dollars 5,000.

7.

Well, looks like it's 5. It looks like it went over to 7.

No, it was 5 and there was a $2,000 increase in the budget book for the old budget book for 2027. So that 7,000 that 2,000 extra $2 was counted towards the 2027 budget. So we were able to cut 7,000 It was really didn't exist, but it was a number that boosted the expenditure side of it up. It was a $7,000 cut.

I think that with what's going on, I think that is small money. Employee morale is horrible right now, rightly so. And I think for that small amount of money, I think we should find it because we need to let our employees know how much they're appreciated and that we couldn't do it without them. And for that small little amount of money, I think we need to find a way to keep that. So I would love to see that money go back.

I think it's My second question is, so elimination of the facilities director, I see that in the town administrators town managers budget, there's custodian 66,725. Is that replacing the facilities director?

No, just $6.02 75 is the janitor that was under the previous administrative office building budget that just got moved into the future town manager's budget, the person that does the work.

So can I ask I guess I came from a community that has this position, so I know what they do? And I just want to know, with the elimination of any position, my first question is always, who's going to take over the work? Because there's only so much that you can pile on a municipal employee before they go, that's it, I'm going. There's another job in another town, it's more money and less duties. So that's like the number one thing.

I mean, we're we're getting rid of our land steward. We're taking conservation part of the clerk. So that leaves a part time clerk and the conservation agent. Conservation agent's job by definition does not have her in the office. So with these cuts I really implore the public that you're going to have to be patient. There's going to be times when you're going to show up at people's doors and they're going be closed because there's no one in the office. And there's no doubt about this. Town government's going to slow down. There's absolutely no doubt about it.

You

can't take people away that are doing the work now and expect everything to roll on as usual because it's not. We being a former municipal employee, I understand this. It's not. You can only ask so much of people. So the public is

going

to have to give us a little bit of patience and a little bit of grace, please, because this is going to be an adjustment for everybody. You've got people that are getting bumped into different departments that are not familiar with those departments, don't have training in those departments. So this is going to be a learning environment for all of us and we just ask for your patience. My next question is under elections department there's part time wages for 80,000. Are those the election workers? Yes. Okay. You and I had a conversation about this before. The election department in my opinion is a want not a need. For decades, elections were done under the town clerk's office.

The town clerk's office is staffed. Change. It is staffed, and the elections department head's wage is big. It's a big wage. There is a way to do the work using the election workers who typically are paid minimum wage.

You can use your election workers to come in and stuff ballots. Can use your election workers to do voting lists. You can use your election workers to check-in ballots. You can do that for a much smaller amount than having a separate department and having a large payroll as well as paying benefits. So I think we need to look hard at that department.

I think that we could definitely combine it back to the town clerk's department and maybe throw a part time admin clerk position in there at 29,000, 30,000 most, no benefits, use the election workers in. I think we could save at least $50,000 in that department by eliminating elections and combining it back to the town clerk's office like it always has been. There are not a lot of towns around us that have elections departments. The majority of the work is done with the town clerk in that office. So I think that's something we really need to look hard at.

If we're getting rid of part time clerks and etcetera, that's a department that's a want not a need.

Madam Chair,

can I dovetail on that? The reason, do you know why we created that department?

Because of all the elections that are coming and the mail in ballots and stuff like that.

There's approximately forty eight weeks out of the year that the elections clerk handles all of everything from everything from the annual updates to the residents lists and everything like that. There's so much that goes into it. So I get it. We don't need to have a clerk, a town clerk or a department head doing it. But someone has to take responsibility. And I know you say that the town clerk can do it. The idea was to make sure nothing fell through the cracks. And when you're sending out 2,800 mail in ballots for a primary, you want to make sure the 2,800 ballots get out correctly. That's when the presentation was given, it makes perfect sense. I agree.

We can look at it. I think that saying that it's a want is I disagree as someone who's been involved with elections my whole life in different parts. I can say that there's a lot of work that goes into these especially with these mail in ballots and, when you have primaries, if you have a presidential primary it's even worse because you add another. But with two town meetings a year, town election, primary this year and a general in November, it is a lot. And then the question came up during the presentation, well, what happens in the year, the odd year that we only have a town meeting and I think there are other things that person actually goes back and assists with the clerk's office.

And I think we cut out of the clerk's office. So I mean, I look at it. Absolutely, we should look at every single line. But I wouldn't say it as much as a want or it's something that's it's a serious thing. And the reason why it was put together is because it's a large number and we wanted to make sure we saw it separate from the town clerk's budget because there was a concern that it could be $2.300000 dollars That's why we had done that. But I agree that it's all part of the clerk's office.

Coming from an environment where there was a town clerk and an assistant town clerk and a part time clerk. And that department utilized election workers. It was going on right in back of my office. I saw it. I talked to them. I saw the work they were doing. It requires organization and bodies. And if you trust your election workers to be at the polls on election day and do that important work, you can trust your election workers to stuff ballots. And I saw it done. I saw it done extremely professionally.

I think we have a very, very good town clerk. And I think that she would be able to find a way utilizing her election workers rather than having the overhead for a separate elections department. It was done by the town clerk's office for decades. I get it. Mail in ballots are they're a problem.

Early voting is a problem. But you use your election workers to help you do the mundane work. And then has staff that she can delegate to and she can take back the high administrative parts of it. But I think that in this budget climate, we're basically laying off people that are going to shutter departments if somebody's sick or if someone's on vacation. And God forbid, if someone's on vacation and someone gets sick, the department will be shuttered.

There will be no work doing out that day. So if we could take the salary from that and the expenses from that and mitigate it into the town clerk's office and cross train people, then we could take some of that money and perhaps save some of these offices that are only going to have a part time clerk and a department head in it. And we need to think outside the box. We need to think outside the box. And we're going to have people that are going to show up to an office, and it's going be closed. And they're going to be sending emails to the town manager, to us. And they'll be like, we went. We've gone there three times, and it's been closed. Every time we've gone there.

Like Friday afternoons.

But this is the reality that's going to happen. This is the reality that's going to happen. So I think we need to look at every little thing. And honestly, I hate to see the bike police go away. Downtown is so much safer in the summer having those offices there now that we no longer have a police station downtown. Having those offices ride around, especially we're going to have a brand new skate park that's kind of isolated. We need those police officers on bikes to be riding around town. We need them to be at the current one. We need to be at the playground. We've been complaining for years about the bikes, the kids on the bikes.

We've been complaining. These officers help. They build a rapport with the kids. They're there for safety. They're help. It's cheap money. We could take some of that elections money and put the bike officers back on the street where they belong for public safety. And not to mention the fact, it's nice to see them interacting with the teenagers. It gives a good interaction between teenagers and the police. They're not the bad guys, you know.

So we need to find that money to get those bike police officers back on the streets for the safety of everybody. So really concerned with conservation cuts. Again, a part time clerk and a conservation agent. That's a real gut punch there. Tricia is nonstop. Everyone knows Tricia. Everyone knows how hard she works. Everybody knows that she is out slogging through the marshes and the swamps and all that stuff. She's not sitting in the office. I know I've gone a couple of times, and she's been out doing walk throughs and stuff like that.

So cutting that department down to someone that's there part time, again, closed doors. Nothing we can do about it. That's concerning. I don't know if you know, Joe, why was the $149,578.68 not reimbursed for the SAFR grant? Did we not file the paperwork on time?

I don't think you can

We can't talk

We can't talk about that? Okay.

I don't have an answer. I can't give you an answer right now.

That's the

best answer I can give you.

Okay.

But let's just say one thing. We didn't get reimbursed for a safer grant 2025. But we were getting reimbursed in like two weeks when we set this new application

in? Yes.

Without saying anything else.

Okay. The building administration, the bump was just you know what, forget it.

No, the bumping is a clerical union collective bargaining agreement. So while a department may take a cut, the person in that position may have seniority throughout the whole town over everyone in the clerical union. So while the department took a cut cut, that position may have been eliminated. That person then chose to go to another department. And then that person who they bumped went to another department. It's like dominoes. And eventually, the veterans agent clerk just took the voluntary layoff.

Okay.

The same concern that I believe it was Brian had about snow and ice. So $130,000 reduction means that they're going to be probably looking for $130,000 at fall town meeting?

No, it was still that's this is next year. We're you're talking about this year. We are adding to snow and ice this year because of the blizzard. The number

So, FY 2027 or FY

2026. We can still definitely spend beyond. We're good.

This for

next year. Chris felt he had added money to it. He felt this was a cut that he could sustain, but it is something we're going we are going to address if we can

Okay.

Restore some money. That's probably one of the first places we're gonna look back to just because it is a roll of the dice.

Right. Because you you And we could

We were trying to save as many people people as we could. This is a nonhuman capital cut. This is a cash cut versus saving Clark at $48,000 If we can restore some or recover some more money, we can go back and look at that number again. Again, but your list is quite long. There's no way we're going to fix that.

But Tracy, think Tracy, I think my concern, I think might be yours is under Massachusetts general laws, can't deficit spend if you if you budget less than last year's budget.

Correct.

Which I think this is an increase. Why he had the number is You wouldn't

have suggested it. Correct. Correct.

He checked.

So question

on the assistant engineer. You said it's is that what I said, it's a shared position between

No. It was not a shared the assistant was not shared. It was straight positioned for the highway department at 52200. It's now a shared position between the highway department and wastewater 26100. Okay.

Excellent. Is it possible to for the board to receive a list of department staffing numbers after the proposed cuts?

I don't see why you shouldn't be able to. It's just a matter of compiling that information.

And I don't mean names. Just mean, you know, building for

You're talking about a headcount?

Yes, headcount after the proposed cuts. That would be very Library?

You should be able to if I mean, if you want to look, the salary worksheets will be added to this budget book in the correct department. They're not in order right now. I didn't want to take an extra few minutes going through 15 slides to get to the next department. I just stuck them in the end. Tomorrow, we'll format them. Hopefully, readjust some numbers tomorrow if it's true that the cherry sheets are coming out. But yes, you can look at them and make that determination. Anyone can on their own, but I will try and provide you with that number in a timely fashion.

The library, with the cuts, they're going to remain certified?

Yes. Was one of the big issues with the library. They need maintain their certification. To maintain their certification, they need to stay open fifty hours a week. They're currently open fifty four hours a week. Any impact on that certification is a reduction in the local aid.

Okay.

Huge local aid.

Yes. Park department, it has it says skilled services and support services and then there's salary for those. What exactly are those what are those positions?

There's no cut to It's cut to the park department, chemicals for the pool.

But what is skilled services and what is support services? Don't know. Their salaries?

I don't know.

Summer staff, I believe.

Just staff. I

mean, that's what I'm wondering. What's the difference between skilled services and support services?

It'd be a union issue that

It's two separate line items.

It would be a GMEG issue. I don't have the definition.

Support would be all of the camp counselors, all the kids that are just hired

Yes, exactly.

Skilled I'm

sorry. Do know what that is. This is summer program.

Okay.

So you have your obviously, full time employees, but you also have numerous camp counselors and lifeguards that run that get paid through the summer program.

Eight weeks. Okay. Oh. Next maybe? That's it.

Madam Chair.

Mr. White.

Tracy, Ms. McGee, I'm distressed by your dark shadow that you've cast over offices being closed and people not being able to get their business done. I don't see that scenario at all. We have exemplary employees that are willing to pick up the ball and run with it. And yes, there's going to be bumps in the road, but I really think you kind of overdid it. That's just my opinion. And then the election officer, those cuts were recommended. All these cuts, Joe met with all the directors of all the departments. Yep. It was hours and hours of discussion and what and there, he went to them and said this is what I need and this is what they proposed.

The department heads gave me impacts. They did not give me obviously, no department heads are gonna come in and throw themselves on the sword and say, cut me. No. It was No. Give me an evaluation of what these cuts could do, what they impacted deliveries. We had those conversations happen, but they did not give me any

Okay. Well, my okay. So but they made the decisions or you together made the decisions for these cuts in these departments? No. No. They Joe No. Did it. No. So the point the point is

Well, we had a conversation. What what does a five, ten and a 20 cut do to your department? Some cuts are higher, some were complete. So that there were conversations, but I took it took the information on what they do, what cuts could impact them to the delivery of the services to the community and the citizens of Middleborough. And that's, again, looking at basing that information when I obtain that information, basing it on a cut and the impact of a $3,300,000 deficit, that's kind of the decision making model that I use. From the perspective of a citizen who still needs to come and receive services from the town.

Correct. And so I guess these are cuts that the directors of these departments can live with. They don't want to.

They don't

don't think any of them Well,

don't want No. I'm not saying they want to. Yeah. What I'm saying is these are things they feel they can deal with. And and this is to the point of the the election official we have. So I think it's needed. And I I think the department gave us their cuts as they could.

Well, think as far as the election department goes, this was the clerk's I you know, she came up with this particular cut for this particular department. She has a complete presentation that's done. We're just looking for a time to present it. Again, contemplated cuts. This is an outside the box idea, as Tracy had mentioned, trying to look at different ways to cut. And this is what she came up with. This is not my idea. She has a pres she's already talked to the Secretary of State.

That's my All

the information yes. So she has a presentation ready to go at some point.

Madam Chair, to Mr. White's thoughts, Joe did ask us all to come to him with ideas for budget cuts. So that was my idea the budget cut.

No. I'm not criticizing that. I'm not criticizing at all. I just don't scare the townspeople into thinking there's gonna be a bunch of shuttered doors because I don't believe there is. Miss It's just my opinion.

Friday At that point, when you have one and a half people in an office and one person's on vacation and the other person calls in sick

It's called management.

There is no management. There's nobody in the office. So what happens? And all these departments are taking cuts, so you can't pull from an empty department to staff another department.

It's not a pleasant situation. No. But we'll get through it.

We will. We definitely

That's my point. We'll get through it.

But it's just logic. You can't pull from somebody that's already down when there's nobody there.

Is the sky falling?

No, the sky is not falling.

It's just different.

It's going to be different.

That's all I want to reassure the residents of this community that the sky is not falling. It might be some difficult times, but we'll get through it.

Madam Chair, I joke about it, but it's one of my pet peeves has always been the Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon, the town hall is closed. And I understand why it is, but a lot of people have contacted me and said, geez, I take a half day and I can't even go do this. I can't do that. So they're already going to town hall on a Friday afternoon when they take a half day and it's closed.

Right. I think that part of that was a learning curve also. People don't watch me, don't look at the website. They don't pay attention. Thank you.

I get it.

I think to Tracy's point, she's adding that that's what we're looking at. It may not just be a Friday afternoon, it might be a Tuesday afternoon. So I would say we're all definitely looking to work through it, but always call first and try to make sure that we yes, But

it's not the sky is not falling.

Mr. Perkins, did have one more question regarding the IT department. One second. Just wanted to ask

the question.

Where the sky is falling is for the two individuals that are losing their job. That's where the sky is falling.

So regarding the IT department, you mentioned those cuts of the phones and everything. Why no staffing cuts? I'm just curious. Is there really just no way to do that? I don't even know how many people they have. I'm just

One of the workflow issues, they're going to be getting taken over for web content and any other issues from the elimination of the media department. They will be had it have added work to them.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. All right. One

other thing that I was the thing that floated through this whole thing that our HR person is retiring.

I was gonna be in my

I'm sorry, but I heard that

and I was kinda

like I was little saddened by it, but

I was I was gonna be in my town manager report. Do have a letter of retirement from DHR direct Allison for effective June 30.

Mr.

Pike?

Madam Chair, I just want to be on record. I was here for the presentation for the media I mean not for the media, for the election report and it was really needed at the time and we really felt that it was a department. And when you do hear their report, I think Tracy will have a change of mind because I believe with so much going on with elections, I do not want to be with all our cards, the town that is on channel five, saying that we have

Screwed up.

Screwed up our election. And it's and it is well worth that money. So I don't wanna see that.

Mhmm. I guess I have faith in the town clerk being able to assume those duties like she previously did

Mhmm.

And her staff to be able to Nope.

Assume those it's a different job.

Going. Madam chair. I think madam chair. Yep. I'll take this as I'll take this as long as I can when my hands start turning white, you'll know why. We all have faith in our town clerk. I I really dislike when someone's well, I have faith. We all have faith in our town clerk. She will step up. She has stepped up. Please don't put words in my mouth that I don't have faith in the town clerk. I have the utmost faith in the town clerk that she'll get the job done. It's I

don't believe I put words in anyone's mouth. I put words in my own mouth. I only speak for myself.

Well, madam chair, I don't wanna get in a fight, I I I'm just sitting here going every time someone says, well, I have faith in the town clerk. It is the insinuation that others don't. I don't insinuate certain things of people up here publicly. I may sit on my sit on my hands, but I'm not.

I am. I'll say I did not take it that way, but that's again, that's just me. So I'm going to open it up to the finance committee. Does anyone on the finance committee have any

Through the Chair.

Mr. Sullivan?

I would agree with the sentiment expressed by the select Board members regarding the difficulty and the heart drenching work performed by our interim town manager. Also, he kept the finance committee fully informed about the non personnel expenditure component coming to our meetings on Thursday night faithfully and was very open to any contact from our Finance Committee members on any ideas or any questions that came about regarding looking at the non personnel expenditure component. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Stolman.

Mr. Demers? Yes.

First of I'd say that I appreciate all the dialogue and have an open mind to figure out ways to, you know, save a position here and there if we can. I think there's no secret cows in evaluating all the town departments and ways we do business. I did have a couple

of thoughts on a couple

of a couple of positions. The election department, I have a

serious concern about the induction

of

phone locations. Mostly, my biggest concern lies in fact, and I'm sure Pam will have a presentation and speak about it further, a little bit more in-depth. But my biggest concern is accessibility for the elderly and in the community as well. Notably at the high schools, my biggest concern is along just the walk for people, as well as sometimes it conflicts with events the school is doing, making parking challenging. And then when you add a couple of polling locations to an already tough spot to have it, I have concerns about that.

But really only to save $20,000 I think there's other ways we can go about it. We could probably look at some other trimmings of expenditures and some other town departments. But I look forward to discussing that at a later date. Conservation, the land steward position, I've had multiple discussions with Joe as well as finance committee members. My biggest concern with that is when the town purchased the Baconi Farm, the town government owed it to the residents to make sure that property is being maintained and well kept, you know, with between the community gardens as well as the passive recreation use that it is used for, we owe that responsibility to the residents of the community who put in the bill for that project.

So I understand that these are just, you know, these are layoffs. These are not permanent eliminations. They can always, we have a little bit more of

a

rosier financial outlook in the future. We could bring some of these positions back. But in the here and now, I'm concerned about that position not being funded in the future. In the law department, know it wasn't part of one of these slides, but I really would like to look with a select board to explore the possibility of bringing at least part of that service back in house. I think there's some, I think the town can benefit a little bit by having the accessibility for departments and committees to have the accessibility to an in house counsel.

If we can still have KPU law or some other major firm when we deal with the bigger issues, but I think having that flexibility, it could be a little bit cost savings with the two. I believe when it was last funded, I think it was 2023. I think the budget was only like $150,000 Now it's about $300,000 So I think there's a way to have a creative balance that might be financially beneficial.

So if I can just interrupt, my question would be and I don't know if you know this Joe, but our current contract with KP Law, is that a year or two I haven't really been a part of actually hiring them because they were already in when I came on the Board. So is it a three year contract?

I haven't looked at it. I can

So maybe it's something we can find out.

Believe it's a retainer. Yes. So and I think it's there's two different pay grades depending on what type of service you're asking for in terms of hourly rate.

I was just curious how quickly that could even be discussed because I really honestly didn't know

the Yes.

It's just something to keep in mind going forward. But those are the couple that I can think of right now. I think particularly with elections department, only $20,000 $21,000 savings, I mean, when your deficit is $3,000,000 plus $20,000 just a drop in a bucket, but I mean, those drops add up to something, so I get it. I just don't want to see or hear residents and communities saying they don't want to bother Boeing because they don't want to drive twenty minutes to a polling location. That's my biggest concern of potential disenfranchisement. But I think that's all I've for now.

Thank you. Mr. Barlow?

Thank you, through the chair.

Joe, thank you for being open and transparent and thank you for tying the data to Munis. That's something that we really pushed for previously and something that we did not have, but this is a very much

Excuse me, Jon, cannot can you speak more to the mic? I really can't hear you. You.

How's that? Thank you very much. Good. Okay. Thank you for being open and transparent and including Munis, the tie in that was not apparent in previous years.

It helps the residents prove out the numbers themselves. It really shows the work and it's very easy to tie one number to another when you're looking at the source of truth, which is Munis. I think on elections, I think moving it to three locations actually is a benefit because I think for my own area South Station, I don't know if that's ADA compliant. I believe the high school is. I believe the high school solves a lot of the parking issues that people might be concerned with.

I think it's a good move. Someone who's living in the South End of town, I would be happy to go to the high school for elections. I do think that also I'm pretty confident, I'll speak for myself, I don't like to speak for anybody else, so I'll use the word I. I feel that I have confidence in the talent clerk and I would be interested to see with regard to talents that do the elections through the clerk's office that they have good assignments and good budgetary practices. It seems as though most towns do have this process through the town clerk's office.

So I think that following that same business model would be a wise thing. And that's all I'd have to say about you.

Mr. Kirchner?

Madam Chair, Joe, I don't envy the position that you've been in. This is very certainly a depressing period. So you've done a yeoman's job in tackling this issue that we're facing. Just a couple of points and questions. One is, I know your first slide said, Finance Committee wasn't giving up any money.

I think at one of our meetings, we decided we could. So Bob probably has the number tucked away in our notes somewhere, but we would certainly it may not be a large number, but it certainly is symbolic and I think the committee believe that we should do something to participate in the process. I heard some salary reductions for town manager, assistant town manager and fire chief. Will those be market rate so that we don't end up next year having to adjust upwards in a significant amount to catch up because we might have missed something.

So with those particular cuts that you mentioned, again, 3,300,000 was such a big number. I was looking to save anywhere we could. And knowing the time line for the talent management position, you probably know the doom and gloom, Ryan Givinoni says September, I'm really hoping it's like July, but think I'm being naive. But to be able to cut that amount saved to help contribute towards saving a job, That's why I did that. And the same in the other position as well.

Okay. So it's basically a one year

A one year savings.

Got you.

It really was just trying to get down to that number. But I do think 190,000,000 for the town manager

Still competitive.

Yes, competitive. You can up it if you want, but you're not going to spend that from September to July next year if you do find somebody. Hope not. Just

the in observation on so in the we mentioned school department and $400,000 cut from but that's from the town budget. There is no teachers cut for that $400,000 I