Board of Finance - Regular Meeting

at the on online. Let's start the meeting at 7:06. I call it to order and I notice that there are two regular members absent tonight, Candace and Dave, and there are two alternates present tonight. I um invite a a motion to seat both of the alternates uh tonight. Can I have that motion? So moved. I move that. Oh yeah, I'll second. Okay. So Tom and Fred and uh

him um seconded. So you guys are are up. Shouldn't we vote? I know it's a technicality, but we need a vote. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Before you need to vote, but um is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose say nay. Anyms. Motion passes. Thanks Andy. No problem.

So the first uh the first item on the agenda uh is um emergency management under public safety and we have new spreadsheets and I assume those are a little different. So let's take a look at the the all the salaries and what's that? all the salaries and everything. Oh, okay. So, that's gonna change the salaries. We're gonna be paying people this year. We want them to return.

Interestingly, I took a look at this at home and um I didn't have a chance to go through everything and I kind of did a somersault. Well, gee, that's up a lot until I read the the note. Can I try? It's not that explained that it's up a lot because the um I know you did the numbers are moving from capital to this operating budget, which is an increase of almost $80,000. Correct. Well, in the current current budget, we had 43 in there. Right. So there's the 80. It's going from 43.

That's what I'm saying. It's only,000. But with reimbursement, I gather is so wash. I mean, it's a non issue. He only spends 80, but he has up to 120 they can approve in one year. So that's why we lived at 120 because it doesn't get approved until actually July. Okay. So with with that comment, it looks to me the budget isn't up. So you're not connected. So is the whole 120 dependent upon reimbursement? As it has been in the past. Okay.

Any questions or discussion before I ask for a motion? He's there. He's here. He's here. Greetings. Dave. Hey Dave. Hey.

Did you want to say anything about the emergency management budget or about the new off center? uh on the emergency management budget that was as Anita stated that was in capital in the past and she moved it into an operating expense. That 120 stands as the agreement that we have with the board of finance for many years. If I get it from Milstone, I'll spend it. If I don't get authorization for it like they did last year, we did not spend it. [clears throat] Anybody have any questions? We're stuck.

Um Dave, are you splitting your time between emergency management and fire marshall differently this coming year? Oh, no. Okay. Is the stipen in there? Yeah, the I think it's the salary is in there. And I'm just looking I'm just going to restart between the two. Any other questions? We have a new clerk. Thank you. Um, then I request a a motion.

So, I'll move $159,520 for emergency management. Second. Any discussion? What was the amount? 159 520 exactly as it is. Okay. All in favor say I. Any oppose say nay. Any abstensions. Say what? Fred and Andy. Thank you. Did you get the mouse to work? No. I'm I'm the IT committee's got working on his I'll bring a wired mouse.

Not the mouse. It's the computer is not connecting to Wi-Fi. So, she's having some issues. It's in here in my office. Great. Interesting. Interesting.

First of all, you're going to get all of this in a transcription tomorrow and it's so easy. I will it. Well, you're not going to be here tonight. You're going to have to do it tomorrow night and it's fine. I I recommend that in the old days people would take a a pad and a pen. Yeah. Sit there for a minute while I get this done. In the old days [laughter] the um normally we may not have very much discussion. It may mostly just be approving the budgets. Yeah. If you have any questions or Kim, they always have it down. Just have to record the votes. That's all you have to do. Okay. Valley. Sure.

Okay. This one you might want to see. I just spoke to Kelly. Um it was in January. She said that we're it's going to be approximately 6%. Um I did get another email from her. I emailed her again on the report and she returned and said they're trying for 4% but she cannot guarantee that. Well, I'm I'm I I recommend that we approve this budget as a maximum and hopefully it comes to get you. I'll make a motion for Valley Shore uh communications for the 183 401. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? That passes. So that I mean that's fine. any, you know, hopefully it'll come unless it is what it is. Um, the ambulance is down 2,000 in the total. There's any questions for the EMS. I told the chief, but I relate back to them. So, there anything that you guys come up with, let me know. I'll get it back. Yeah. I mean, it looks like they made some reasonable adjustments to fuel and education and education. Yeah, just based on past spending it looks like. Um,

my only question would be about the uh the uniforms if that comes down a little bit. They haven't spent the budget on that for a number of years. Well, yeah, that's that's true. Haven't spent any this year. So, I don't know how to quibble over $500, but it could help reduce that a little bit. Oh, they reduced it a thousand. The uniforms in emergency management. No, ambulance. They reduced it a thousand. Mhm. From last year's request. They're going to spend more than 1645. Do we know if they have significant uniform needs?

They had um last year they had a number of new hires. Yeah. And then this year they haven't had that. They don't expect that coming forward. So, well, they just haven't spent any money this year. They haven't spent it. A lot of like, you know, if stuff gets damaged, you get blood guts and whatnot on call, stuff like that. They're going to get replacement along the way. So, yeah, there's always going to be a little bit lef over for um I guess that side of the business. Right. Right. Well, Martha, is there any appetite to reduce it another 500 to 2,000? It's not material really, you know? No. Yeah. Yeah. We'll just leave it alone. I'll make a motion for 183,000.

Who seconded? I did on the seconded. No, just leaving it the way at 183. 183,000. Yeah. Any discussions? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any extensions? That passes. My favorite one control. Yeah, she doesn't have It looks like she increased part time part-time wages some. Yeah. Yes.

I mean, it's up 10%. Like does no one else see this as like a really wild increase over a couple of years? Well, we have to remember one thing is we had an assistant animal control person. That person is gone. Um there were some personal reasons. Sure. They're gone. And they're gone. And then we now have only two people that are helping her out part-time. Um, so the assistant was full-time.

They were more hours than the two full part- timerrs. I don't know what their total Do you know what their total hours are? Anita, the two part- timerrs are full right now. Hold on. She's going through a major book of I think this is also a department we've been trying to figure out the right size for that. There was a lot of stuff happening in the background that we weren't aware of. Right. and you've gotten a control where you're seeing the vet bills coming in. Now, we're not seeing we have very few people who are making demotions. There's still some donations that go to a vet, but there are more that come in and Anita gets the checks and it we have a revenue stream too that's coming in.

So, there there are only two increases, material increases. One for the director going up $3,000 or 3.2% 2%. Um, presumably that's not controversial. And then there's the increase in the part-time hours. So, who wait, where are you seeing the 3%? It's going up 5.3%. Like, oh, the change is three is 3,000. Yeah, that's what I got. Also, is that higher than everyone else? Is that is that better? Is are we are we being directed to equal her compensation for some reason? like what the salary committee did was 2 and a half% increase plus steps. So there must have been steps there. Yeah.

I mean it's not anything extra that's out of the ordinary for other people. But I think the next line is the real line the the part-time wages which if you look at what we budgeted 34,000 for this year and 6 months well seven months through the year we've already spent 26. Junior had in a situation where there were 27 animals taken in and that that ate up a million. Do we think maybe some of these animals don't need to be taken in by us? They weren't all taken in by us. Okay.

But there were a lot that were because she was the receiver. So from the state acco she's the receiver. It happened here in this town. The birds went elsewhere. The chinchillaas or whoever they were, they went somewhere else. Dogs and cats came. But Lynn is responsible as the receiver. Where do they go? Some were had to go to vets. Some had to There were a lot of vets situations. There were a lot of things that were taken. Then she found foster homes for everybody. In the meantime, she's got to feed and everything else. I I just think that like this to be walked.

It's just it feels like this just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing. And this is one where I guess this is just what everyone has decided we're going to spend a lot of money on. I think that you have better if you would like the board of selectmen to look at alternative ways to run an animal control building. I think maybe if we just didn't have permanent residents there and like I just I feel like this is a tough budget to to un to talk about because no one wants animals to

then but at the same time like if like the building itself Lynn has said is not what she needs. So either I think we should take this on and do exactly what we should be doing or

send them someplace else. You'll you'll notice when you get to capital, there are not a lot of capital improvements that need to be made except for the fence actually is being done this year. The fence is being done. It's already in the budget for this year that Eric will do in the spring and that's only because the state has changed the laws as to what type of fencing you have to have around a dog enclosure outside. So, that's going to be redone. Um you I think if you have any those ser types of serious con concerns then we should have Lynn come back and you can redo it with her and have her rethink or send me the questions that you want answered and I'd be more than happy to get you.

So I think I think one of the things Anna's point is you look at the history here and it's doubled in five years. Okay. Um I I know other communities have probably seen the same thing and they've combined. Is it Waterford and New London that are Yeah. combined? I don't know what East Slime does. I don't know what Old Sabbrook does, but it maybe I don't know what Lime does. They probably don't have anything. Their dogs probably come to Old Lime. They'll come here. I have a question. But that's like a serious question. I have a question. What are the drivers is the number of animals and how many days they stay? Is that rate? I would assume so. Because this is just like like in five years if we're at 300,000 this is going to be like

this is the result. We need to know the driver. So, how many animals? What's the average days or median number of days? Then that would drive your cost from year to year. So, if we could begin to get and I also think what we're actually responsible for. Yeah. And if we could begin to get that data from whoever can give us that data, then that's going to drive the dollar outcome. And look at what other communities are seeing and what they're paying per what's the norm per animal debt. I don't know. I think so, too. Yeah. I mean, I do think that we've had some exceptional circumstances in the last year as far as animals go, right? But it's Yeah. No, it has absolutely

more and I think some of that is again driven by us trying to figure out what what the actual expenses are because a few years ago there was a situation where there were a lot of veterinary expenses that were associated with the animals that the town was not aware of. um because people were making donations to the veterinary clinic to cover the animals and various veterinary clinics and various veterinary clinics. So it was hard to understand what the actual cost. So it so there's a little bit of that that's captured.

Well, I don't think it's little. I think it's material and we could quantify it, right? But the fact of the matter is that we have redirected those charitable contributions appropriately redirected them to come through the town and therefore uh the the budget dollars are increased because we include those charitable contributions, but they're still charitable contributions. So the town, you know, isn't out of pocket though. It's still money. But I think I think that explains some of the inflation. Like is lime sending their animals here? Like who's what do you do when when like

I'm just saying I think Andy is right. Like look at the other towns. Like not every small town has a full functioning like animal shelter. Waterford and New London I believe are the two that are combined. They are combined together. Like why are we running an animal shelter? But let's bigger towns than us. Martha and Andy because I'm on the salary committee and don't remember the answer about the increase in hours and the note is a little obscure today. Okay. Increase in hours. Lynn um the salary committee moved her was given approved up to 35 hours. You're talking about Lynn or the parttime? We're talking about the parttime part-time. Now the parttimers this is where I'm going to say the part

16 hours a week. That's for training. She asked not to go to 35 hours. 96. She refused. No. She said the wages there because she's working over 30, but she don't want to be in salary is what she said. So we budgeted her from 35 and she only 30. So there'll be money to do that. That's not that's not in my book. that she has to do. She she goes to 30 and we

if she works overtime then she works overtime and then we'll have a better idea of what she worked over. But that you can't just throw in 35 and then say no you don't have to work 35. Why budget for it? That's not when I talked to her she said I don't want 35 hours. So I was like okay fine we'll go to 30. Well okay. So, so we can't act on this tonight. Yes, she can. She's going to switch it. She's going to hold. No, no, you can do the number, but I I thought maybe there's a misunderstanding that we have to clarify.

No, she clearly does not want to work 35 hours. She feels that she's working as hard and there are many hours that she doesn't even get accounted for in emergency situations. She just comes and does it. Does she want to be paid for 30 hours period and we'll change the number? And then with respect to the part-time person,

well, it says additional hours are needed for the new AC personal training. They need 16 hours per week times six weeks is 96. So we've included that it's not just in salaries, but they have to do training. So we have to pay them for the training that they have to do. So that's added in. But is this a new person that we're adding? Two people. two new people. Well, no, exact time is just one, I believe. So, is that a onetime cost for this year? One time cost as long as the person sticks around. Yeah, exactly. One year a deal there. We're like, you got to work for us for 5 years if we're doing this training because I don't want to pay for the training then have them be like, actually, I live in Montville and I want to go to their brand new gorgeous facility.

Well, but you you know, we don't have employment contracts with people. They're all employees at will, but you can't enforce it. So, a question. We talked about the revenue now coming through the town. How has that changed and how much of that will offset this? Because now we're receiving the revenue, the donations come through the town. And there's nothing under revenue tab. So no, there's financial in the Okay. Yeah, Kim just grabbed one because that may be a factor in our discussing this that it softens that blow some. Yeah,

going back to the one time that that'll come off next year providing these people. Right. Right. So, it'll reduce we can expect to see reduce 96 hours. Okay. And how much of the how much of the 10,000 does 96 hours represent? 5,000. No, I'm saying right here in this report right here. There it is. 3,720. We budgeted 6,000. Oh, okay. You got report. Yeah. Yeah. Um All right. So, it's not what Let's see what we budgeted, budgeted 6,000 for revenue. Yeah. We're at 37% outstanding. Does it show last year?

Last year we had 200. No, prior year 350. No, that just that don't give you your date. That gives you the last the last month. Last year of the same month. Gotcha. Okay. The year the date should be. Yes, it's $3,700. Six grand budgeted. It's not that significant. I mean, but it brings the 1356 down to 1296. Yeah.

I mean, I think everyone's making has made good points about the way this budget has increased in the last 5 years and that I agree that it would be good to look at what other towns do, but I don't think it's it's practical to get a change like that in place by by July 1st. Um, but I think this is this is one of the opportunities that exists here to make improvements. Okay. Well, maybe make improvements, but the real question is, are we overspending? Are we over caring for our cats and dogs? We don't know the answer to that. I I personally am not offended by this and I'm I'm I'm willing to um

rely on the board of selectman's decision that this makes sense. But if the board of finance is now asking the board of selectman prospectively to look into this, I think that's fine. But I personally wouldn't hold up the budget for this year. But I think I think looking at options for the town uh both internally uh as well as partnerships that may be able to be formed. Um again, I'm sure every town is looking at their animal control budgets in the same way. Um, I can get you some of the other towns budgets to show you what they're spending. Well, I think um

and I'll find out what towns might be willing to do. Tom's point of cost per pet or something that Yeah, there's got to be a driver for the cost veterary in the past. Once you figure out those drivers, then and if the number of pets days through the year was up significantly, that means more food, more attention, more work. Um, yeah. Can we get some from Lynn? So, we know what we're talking about. How many dog calls does she go out on for loose dogs and that kind of thing? How that cost per day compares to other towns, right? Because even if you call on a Saturday, so someone from animal control has to come out and retrieve the dog. again. And she did tell us, I mean, they're just dumping pets on there. I mean, so so

Yeah. And and the question is, what do we do uh if animal control is fully occupied? And what she says is I never turn an animal away because I find members of the community. Yeah. [laughter] Who I can place the dog with. We have a lot of foster people. But before you do that, do you have to do the vet bills and do you have to do provide like food and personnel?

It's an entirely legitimate question. I just think it's complicated and fundamentally it gets to the question, do we have a limited budget and when that budget is spent, we turn animals away? Can we do that? But this is, you know, what I'm asking immediately is, do we want to approve this budget tonight or do we want to defer it until we get answers to some of the substantive questions? I mean, the real increase here and it's been the creep up is the part-time wages.

Okay. The [clears throat] part-time wage is one person and that person is 15 hours a week. the other person and he's um uh he only has paid 20 hours an hour currently is he works two hours a day 300 he comes in every day the dogs every night feeds them and whatever he cleans the cages so he does two hours a day and that's all then she does have an additional 156 hours for the part timer and that's to cover her vacations and her days off and then the 96 hours for the train. Yep.

And that's Yeah, that all sounds reasonable except as we said it's it's doubled in the last five years and maybe we're lucky it's only doubled maybe a lot more in past years. We just don't see it. Yeah. Well, maybe contributions were were more than $6,000 in past years. So, it may have cost as much. Of course, she had no contributions on the books when I got here. That's right. Well, I think too that we can probably get some past history from vets if you want to know what the contributions were over the years because they certainly had a lot. It wasn't just cash. I mean, there's people dropping off bags of food. Oh, yeah. I mean, she still Yeah. Yeah.

non-cash donations to help soften the blow. Um, and again, I think back to Tom's point is what the change has been in dog days. Uh, cat cats probably aren't as big a factor, but dog days because they require that person to come in two hours a day to clean their kennels out and feed them and so I think I'd like to see all the animals, you know, does she have Yeah.

non- cats and dogs? So I mean I think again I think it's an entirely reasonable question to ask. I I'm under the impression without empirical data that she runs the animal shelter efficiently. You know she's not wasting a lot of money. The question is she said it's the difference. It's an animal control facility not an animal shelter. And I think it's sort of being run as a small animal shelter right now, which if that's what we decide we want and that's what the board of selects, that's a different story. But as animal control, I think that it's we're sort of getting out of the bounds and we're seeing it in the budget as this has creeped up and up and up. And I just if it's something we can plan for and we're like, "Okay, there's going to be a 10% increase every year because, you know, if if one part-time person decides to leave, then that one-time fee is now a regular fee." You know what I mean? And this is a part-time like somebody who comes in two hours a day every day of the year. Like that's kind of like the person who we had opening and closing the gates at the at the beaches and stuff. like we relied on that person to do that and then suddenly they were unable to do that physically anymore and then we were like now we got to pay somebody. So it was I mean we just have to person

being able to think about these things. They've always been paid the gatekeeper. It's just a matter of who. Yeah. Right. But certainly a legitimate policy question that in the first instance the board of we got it. I got I got it. Has to address. Do we want to take care of every lime resident dog and cat that comes to our door? But I will I will find out. No, I mean I know you will. Um I just think common sense says we don't want to take care of animals from other towns. But do we or do we not want to take care of all lime animals and if so can we do it more effectively? Let me just tell you that it would come in at 126718.

126718. So, and what's so and that's the fulltime 30 hours. 30 hours the AC wages would change to 54 558. Thank you. So, so we're at 30 hours we're being asked to approve 126718. And if we're getting 6,000 bucksish of contributions, the net is 120, which is not as much. I mean, it's it's it's less than last year, but not as big an increase. So, again, I ask, do we want to vote on this tonight or postone it for more information? Anything we can

I'd like to I will make a motion for 126718. Second that. Okay. Um Michelle 126718 has been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? I I just think it'd be useful to get um a report from her annually as to the you know what she's doing so we have some basis. Yeah. I mean maybe maybe the need is growing. We don't know. I think you know that a lot of people got puppies and and decided it's going to take a while to get the right answer. It's not going to help us for this budget. No, just approve it and but for the future it'll help us decide. Absolutely. Yeah.

Um any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any absent? Okay. fire services.

And I'll make a motion for the 279 258. Second. It's a 1.46% increase. You're so stingy. I mean, they do a good job. They do a great job. Is there any any questions or discussions about things? You said the fire folks always give us a 7,400 page explanation of all of their I'd like to pay them to come train every other department and they're volunteers from everybody. This is what we do. [laughter] It's always good to be here.

Does any does anybody have any questions? send me all that. Yeah, I'll I'll make sure we get So, they gave us the backup paper copies that they were in one sheet. No, they gave us They had a book, too. Well, maybe I've got it right here. We told them to send it electronically instead of having them I thought we would. We usually get like a one sheet synopsis, right? If he wants to send it electronically, we'll print it out. So, you want the the full thing, not just the one sheet just for backup. Yeah. Okay. Are there capital items for the fire department that we should talk about? Yeah. [laughter]

Nothing new from what we requested last year, but you know, kind of going forward with the plan where the fire apparatus world is and you know, you guys have seen them get grilled on Congress. You know, it's not us, it's them. We're trying. Um, but we came up with a great plan going forward for the next almost 20 odd years. And then um you know whatever you guys can do to make fire trucks cheaper, talk to your friends and get them quicker. Um so what they've got in their capital request is apparatus replacement of uh 3935 which is down from this current year. Uh Scott Airpacks uh 87,000 but they've applied for a grant

for those. Uh those have to be replaced. It's 87 and 26 27 87 and 2728 87 and 28 29 80 87,000 a year. So you don't have to get all this. Um it's all on paper. We got it. Yeah. We don't need to have Don't go granular. Like go. No. So don't not in this situation we're not voting on this. So

we've worked on it. We've done a really good job, Anita, Eric, and I, and all the departments have put together a capital plan going forward, five, in some cases 10 years if the information is out there. It's our best guess estimate, but we're trying to give you a picture of what it's going to look like. I thought you did.

So, uh, Andy made a motion. Did somebody second it? Yes, I did. Seconded it. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Any oppose say nay. Any abstensions? motion in front, please. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here, John.

I'm going be nice. You too. The next one is fire protection. Those are the fire hydrants. I was going to ask everyone. Okay. And we have no control over that. They sent us a bill and we paid it. Yeah. Nice increase. Um yeah, it was only they sent a letter to 16. If you're not a 16% increase. Yeah. Is there a reason? But it only came to their estimate that they sent is going to be 4600 a month. That's what they think. [clears throat]

Did we add any hydrants? Because I know it's a we have a per hydrant 23rd is what? That makes sense. It's 200 bucks a month per hydrant. Wow. Um is there any reason why the board of selectman's budget number is $200 less? Because I have a letter after. Okay. So it should be 552 for 55 even. So I took 46 um so minor. Okay. So I just rounded it was 459 something 50. So you need a mo a motion for 55200.

You're making it. Yeah. Second first on a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Passes. And we got to pay the fire marshall again. He's still on the phone.

He is [laughter] still here. I'll make a motion for uh 99545.

I'll second them. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. And the extensions passes. Thank you all. Thanks Dave. Thank you Dave. And don't worry, spring's coming. You said the storm is coming. Storm. Aren't we supposed to get a little snow tonight? Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, no. Freezing rain or something. Freezing rain or rain and freezing rain fun. It's a coding. It's not a a delay. Okay. Emergency services uh retirement is down because the number of applicable personnel are down for their election to do this or does that number?

Yeah. If you notice, um, we only spent 124 January 31st, but they haven't finished the year, isn't it? That's it. It's only the one year that we do and then we have to pay quarterly payments of like $2,000, maybe 4,000. Um, and that would be the book. I mean it's an internal formula based on years and years of service. So it can vary. I mean

so I'll move 1564 for emergency services retirement. I'll second. Any discussion?

All in favor say I. Any oppose? Any abstensions? Passes. Same thing here. pretty low um cuz I had like a 10% in there but we received a letter from them um from the state and basically put the note it says first 82.5 increase wages and they gave me um an estimate and it says but does not include increase in salary franchisement promotion transport or addition So I just rounded it up to 170 making that just in case something was a promotion there's a few extra dollars in there.

What what did you round up? Yeah. What did you round up to 170? What was the base number? The base number they're giving me as an estimate was 161. 161 based on the seniority of our president state trooper. That was currently they said no but in the letter it does say does not include increase in salary French benefits replacement corrosion transfers. No, I I I understand that. I'm just starting at ground level. The 161 applies to our particular resident state trooper based on his seniority, right? Yes. Okay. So, that Well, I think actually

85% it's a 85% of the salary. We pay 85%. Yes. Okay. 85% 161, but I guess if you get July 1st, that wouldn't be included in So it's that's why I I said we had basically 166 budgeted this year. So I I increased it by approximately two and a half% and just let yeah well the 2 and a half% implies that it's just for wages not not fringe benefits and so on and and went to 185.

Yeah I was going to say they were saying that approximately a 10% place would put in there. Okay. that is um so this is newer knowledge than when we before we passed so it's you can decrease that line of the board of selectman's recommendation and keep it the ones well I don't I just don't want to underbudget I understand yes the letter just came do you have Anita do you have what our our current payment is as of 131 though no payment they don't send the bill usually until May it doesn't look think like we've ever come too close.

Okay, then maybe we don't know. 180 would do it. Well, Anna makes a good point. If you look back at the actuals for 2425, it was 151. Yeah, that's why the 180 was way too high. That's why I put some there. Yeah, we've been 177 way back. Way back. Yeah, I think we could reduce that a little before Matt. Well, whatever. Probably somebody at the guy that take five 5,000 off or what?

Well, but but the these words are are troubling when it says doesn't include an increase in salary. Well, I don't know about that. Fringe benefits. I mean friends benefits if that includes health insurance that's a big those are big bucks. Well, that is included in their estimate in that 161. That's included in the 161% but I guess it doesn't include if they're getting if there's an increase in the fringe benefits July an increase in the French. We're still waiting on final numbers. They're probably not healthcare benefits going down. [laughter] So, I'd make a motion for the 195.

No, you don't mean Oh, down at the bottom. Yeah, I'll second that. I mean, it's kind of going to be what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, kind of neat. You know, if we're $5,000 over in terms of we budget $5,000 too much, comes in 190. Okay. They'll come back and we'll fund it. Yeah. Uh any discussion on the 195? All in favor say I. I.

Any opposed? Any abstensions? We're 195 here. So, municipal police just going down to the bottom line uh is going up $111,000. And that is the request to add another additional officer. [clears throat]

Right. And the additional officer is $3,000. I'm sorry. Say that again. The additional officer is officially 72757. The 72,000. Yes. 72,000. Okay. So the increase in salaries of 93,000 includes salary increases plus a new officer. Yes. So there's going to be other things obviously benefits are going to impact that

um not just this and what who's asking for the is the new resident trooper saying we need it we need to go from six to seven. We had discussions with um I would say that even Miss Beck is when Matt was here with us before this year as we started and we found out that Wayne was retiring and uh we still haven't replaced Wayne. Interviews should be starting soon. Um but we haven't replaced Wayne. So we've been down to four. We've had some people that have gone out. when people are gone, you got to have cover for vacations and our So this, if you look at what our overtime is now, we'll probably save money by having another officer versus the overtime that we're paying when we have four full-time at the present time. Derek will be coming on after he graduates on March 12th.

So, he'll be the fifth. He will be number five, and he's um And then there's Wayne's position. So that we haven't filled this would be an additional if we can find someone and there's no guarantee that we can. So we've never been we have since in the recent past we have not been at six full-time. I know. So yeah, what what makes it what makes us think we're going to be able to get to seven and is there truly a need for seven? I know in the past in the summer we've used part-time which is what the part-time line is.

We've not used part-time in in a long long time. The last part-time person we had was met the Lord. Okay. And when he left, we have not replaced any part-time. Is there a reason we haven't done that?

Yes. It's too difficult to schedule. They they come, they go, they'll say they'll do things and then they only want to do special duty things like they'll be over at the high school for basketball or they need somebody over there for a night event, but then they don't want to do a shift. And we need shift coverage because our guys need to go out on vacation. They try not to take vacation in the summer, but they need to go on vacation. We need somebody to cover some shifts that don't want to do it. You get somebody out on sick who's sick, then you don't have anybody to do it. You only have one officer on at night

from 4 3:30 4:00 on. You have one officer. If they go over to Buff, they're gone for two hours while they book somebody and it does happen. So again, is it realistic for us to find to get to seven this year? Whether or not we can get to it, the question is should we budget for it, right? But let let me ask what is the actual number of full-time equivalent officers we've had for this year and the three prior years. Well, today we have [clears throat] when Wayne started we had 17. Huh? Officers started. We had 17 officers.

17 full time. Yeah. You talk to him. There's a picture of all of them. They can't be full time. [laughter] We haven't had that in 23 years. Is that really 17 full shows me the picture down there? Um, look at But more recently, how many have we had?

You've increased you have increased the population of this town. In the summer, you increased it again by twice. You are asking the same five officers to do the duty that they do all year round again in the summer. You do not have the coverage. If you don't want to do it, fine. Well, but but your your point is well taken that we've paid 90 to $100,000 in overtime, right? The trade-off for a number of years. Yeah. So, the trade-off is you maybe net less and there's no I'm just trying to get a headcount. You have four at the present time. You have four. You have four plus our res. We're the fifth one about

in the pipeline. That's going to probably will come on and he'll be number five. You'll have five. Then you'll still but you would have had six because Wayne's position has not been filled. So that would be six. We're asking if we find we're looking interviewing for just one right now. That's Wayne's. If we found someone, we could add a seven. So this budget can afford seven. This budget cover includes seven Wayne's position plus one more. But if you take away the overtime that we're carrying now, that'll pay for the seventh person,

right? So, so I guess that's that's the question that I have down here is if if one of the goals of adding a seventh full-time officer is to reduce the overtime. If we're adding the officer in the budget, should we reduce the overtime in the budget? Maybe not by 72,000 just so that it's we can see what happens, but should we reduce it by 30,000? How do the current officers feel about losing out on that overtime? go like I just

that exactly they may that may make the difference between them making $72,000 and scraping by and making $85,000 or $80,000 and uh that overtime money. I mean that's a big deal. I mean I know they put more I mean 90 grand time divided by four is 20 like that's almost $100,000 they're making then which is which if that keeps them here so a question because Martha said wouldn't be they

um there he was going to keep it in there um to try it out but why don't we just taking away the parttime at 20,000 and make it zero and then this gives you back 20 because we're not going to we're not going to hire part time. Well, then if we're if we're definitely not going to be able to hire a part-time, let's just get rid of it, you know. Well, are you looking for are we constantly looking for a part-time person? Like, is that So, here's what happened. We started this budget with Tim Ryan, who is our intern. He did his best to formulate it out.

Derek came in, looked at it, and then I think it was last week, right? He came back and made some other changes. we had to let him do it because he he had not had enough time to do his homework. So he came in last week and sat down with Anita and made some changes and the changes that you're seeing are those that he met and we said at our meeting when we passed it board of selectmen we said we understand there's going to be a few tweaks here because some people are just getting their information together. So if the town doesn't feel that they want a seventh, then fine, don't budget it for it and just stick to overtime. What does our What does our new resident troop? What does Derek think?

He was all for it. Like see if we can get him. But if we can't, he'll work with what he has. He's working with four right now. He's How about police officers? What What do they feel what they feel is the right number? I'm sure that he's had conversations with them. I have not been down there. Alth I'm not invited. I am the chief, but I am not invited to that someone else meeting. You're the police chief. I know. It'd be good to know what what their opinion is. Yeah. If you look at response time, I mean, they're professionals.

Couple of thoughts. Give the analogy. When I used to dispatch 10 UPS drivers, I would plan them an eight and a half hour day or a 9.5 day. So you control the amount of an expected overtime they're going to get because it's actually more productive. At a certain point it's better to put another person on. It's the same as the police officer in terms of the labor. So I don't think you putting on the additional officer we need it. We need it. You put them on. I don't think you want to cut the you're going to recover all that overtime. I agree then that whoever's got to manage has got the tough job. He's going to say to those people in the future you used to make 20 now you're going to make 15 or whatever the number is. So that management issue is is tricky.

I mean, I think it's a real issue. The policemen are gonna be very unhappy. But as an as a labor and employment matter, it seems to me inadvisable to underst staff your needs, right, intended that you're going to have overtime. So I I'd say we we we go with this proposal. We cut the overtime number somewhat. Uh we leave some money in there and the part-time. No, we cut out the part time entirely and reduce the overtime by some Yeah. number. If you look at how much we've spent on overtime, we've spent exactly n like we're between

our budget and 90,000. That is with four officers. But previously did we have more? No. So we've only had four basically at four or maybe five. We haven't been at six in years. I don't think we had six last year when we had Ryan. We had Wayne, we had Ethan, we had George, and and Ryan, and then Ryan left us and he resigned in July of last year.

All all I'm saying is really simple arithmetic. If in fact we hire a seventh officer, overtime should go down. Here's one of the things. we don't aren't able to hire a seventh officer, then that salary line will go down and we'll subsidize our under budget for the overtime. Here's what I can tell you is once we interview for Wayne's position, we'll have an idea of what the pool's like. Yeah. And we may be able to come back and say we're not I mean hiring police officers is tough. It's tough everywhere. So if we find

I need to find them. But if we can't I mean we might come to you and say we can't even find somebody to replace Wayne. I mean, [clears throat] but I think you could easily cut 30 or 40,000 from this budget and still be in a safe space all from the um I don't think part-time that's Yeah, that's from part-time between the part-time and the overtime. Um, you know, if you're leaving that 72 73,000 in the full-time salary range for a seventh officer, like at the end of the day, I think we could balance that out.

Anita, does the or Martha does the private duty that our officers do fall in the overtime here or is that come into a separate a different line? nonprofit overtime comes here and then now you'll you see it on the revenue side and now we're taking revenue in against it right prior when I first got here everything was going into the fund seven whether it was nonprofit even though it was getting charged to us so the other overtime they do goes to that fund and it wipes out with the pay okay

um so Now um when I was doing I was like I track it back and that's when so now that's why you see you're being offset with revenue for nonprofit. So the nonprofit is coming out here but if you look at the revenue you'll see that there has been revenue this year. Last year we started was like seven now. So that's additional revenue to our officers that we're not seeing here. Yeah. It's coming into their pockets. So they could be outside of their salary. They could be 30 or $40,000. Yeah. What's an officer? That's the number. What do they really make? And they are.

Yeah. Because I send I definitely are like I've I've hired off to the office. They're direct how they make that's how they make their living. That's how they make it work. So, I don't I think that if we try to cut overtime, police, we're going to be in a hole. I mean, we were in a hole, right? Didn't Matt come to us and he was like, "I need a ton more money for overtime." And then we had to go We have to go to town meeting. Go to town meeting. Uh current year revenue is 7,260. We're a finance issue in I know you just filled out this month. I got another check for I mean, I guess Martha, that's up to you. You want us to cut that overtime budget so that we have a smaller overall budget and then potentially go to town meeting later.

Have to go to town meeting for being over on a line. We have to go to town meeting for being over on a department. So if you're putting an additional $70,000 into the full-time salary line, I think though, even if you add that seventh person, you're still going to get those guys on overtime for exactly what Tom said. They're not trying to get more nonprofit over time as they might be able to do more overtime.

That's right. I think I think if we're always been at this number, I think that's a a good estimation of where overtime is going to be regardless of what our full-time staff is. If we think that you want to stick with the full-time staff and try for seven because that's what we need then and you you try to hire for Wayne and we before we we sign on the dotted line here, you come back and say, "All right, time out. If I can get another person,

so let's also to look at some of the things that are coming up." You're going to have non-stop construction on 156 going forward for starting around May 1st. non-stop because they're going all summer. They're not no hammer laws. They said they're going through for this sewer project. You're going to need people down there. You're going to have flaggers and everything else, but you're going to need somebody paying attention to what's going on. You are going to have falls, road sidewalks going in in another year. You need to hopefully hopefully um um you've got other types of things. You've got the bridge at Flanders that at um 156 and um four mile river road that's going to be the next bridge. I don't know if they're going to set up the lights that they have now currently because that's a shorter span, but where Armstrong Bridge is now, that's going to be next. In fact, they already got the twoe look ahead that'll be starting. They're going to start staging their um materials there um in the next week. So, you've got those constructions. You've got state construction projects working on crosswalk renovations. They want to do the one all the crosswalks here in town. St. An's church. They may be putting another one in near Ferry Road because of the fact that they park on one side of the road and go across to the other to fish. They may be putting in something there. You're going to have things going on. And like I said, my guys will work. My guys are happy to work. They're they're happy to do it. But if somebody gets hurt on the job or if somebody gets sick, we're down a man and there's no one to bring in. So you can do a closed budget and you can do it or you can plan for seven and I can come back to you in May and say we're not going to need it and take it out before you go to town meeting.

That's I mean really and truly I'll take it out if Derek and I will chat as we go through. We've got what how many more months? March, April, May. Got three more months, right? Another another small fact. or you go to April. Well, the small factor is to give the uh board selectment a chance to hire somebody good if they come along for the future since it's have that option. I'm personally supportive both of the concept and a deference to the board of selecting judgment on this for the seven and I'm also happy

but that leaves open the question whether we should reduce the overtime budget because I got to believe it certainly should be true that if we have an additional policeman we ought to have less overtime or remove the part-time line I think I agree that rid of that I Think though for all the things that Martha just said, like there's going to be a lot of overtime opportunities and I just think that they're going to take them. Like it's it's how you keep these guys here. Okay. Well, they're going to take part other places.

Um I I'm I'm also pleased to be overbudgeted, right? To budget for 100,000 bucks all over time and only pay him 50. the man question the the um resident state trooper and should be managing his labor force in an efficient way. Yeah. And we've had different successes with that. Right. Right. Um so that's again that's an individual we should give a budget number to work against too. Right. Well yeah that's where I think I think constrain a little bit perhaps reducing the overtime a little bit. I press so

but that somewhat ties the hands if we don't find the sixth or seventh officer because we're really looking then they just go over the over budget and we funded it on the salary line and the person that you replace Wayne with is probably not going to be a top step and it's budgeted as such because it was budgeted for Wayne position so that's not going to come in as whatever the other thing is is you have a road and public safety committee meeting going on upstairs. They're dealing with the excessive speeding. I'm going to tell you, the other night there was a car that went down Nin Street. I swear they were going 75 miles an hour. I was like, "What?" You know, [laughter]

but you know, the best part the best part would be is it's just people would just follow the directions. Yeah. Don't speed. Good luck with that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, anyway, that's So, we're deal overtime by 10. We'll take out part time. Take out the part time. I would take out the part time. Okay. So, I'll make a motion for 947651. Where are we? Okay. 947 right there. 651. It's $27 less than what's in there. Okay. So, we're just taking out the part-time. We're leaving the overtime

leaving the overtime alone and with the um instruction to the man to to the um residency trooper, not you know to to fully utilize full time and to be discreet with overtime. And hopefully we'll come in less than this. So 947651 has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Who seconded it? I did. I said it's a max he's going to get. Don't come back to us for town meeting. I guess that's my last point of discussion would be the other areas in the budget that impact this seventh officer like vehicle

uh benefits. Is is that included? Because I know we got a lot of cars down there, but we you that's it. You said they're not being used. Now we're going to use them. But you talked about roadworthiness of the vehicles that are down there. Um that will we have to buy two cars next year? I'm sure we're budgeted for one. Are we would we have to budget for two? Maybe we don't budget for it and that's something we go to town meeting town meeting for if we well but because adding that I agree 50,000 that's a fair question as well but the real talking 200,000 the real question is how many how many police officers do we need

budgeting for seven doesn't mean we're going to get seven right if we get seven we still have to determine whether or not we need seven and if you know in other words we have to rightize as the police department. Yeah, but other costs. Absolutely. I am going to be completely honest. I will come back to you in a month. Eric and I will continue to have conversations. We will start the interview process and we'll let you know. And if we don't think there's going to be a chance that we're going to find the seventh, we'll let you know and you can take it out. Okay. I will do that before you get to I think the other thing that would be helpful if you do think the applicant pool is there, how much more can the overtime budget be reduced? Okay.

Or how much can the over the overtime budget be reduced if we get to the full complement of seven? Okay. Um I know the real pinch point is the summer months. Yeah. Um and so I would think the chances of getting to seven between now and July 1 are pretty slim. Well, that's the other thing is if there's big trucks going up and down all those streets, how many people are going to be here in the summer? Now they'll show up to the beach as much as possible.

Um I had a couple questions too on these lines. The contracted services PD accreditation is that 6,000 just for is it says badge six. Is that like the six the new person? So then we might need Andrea and I didn't think he said that there's additional education that they have to what he said to me. He said that there was additional statute and they wanted that person um for requirements and he wants to work out. But is did you say this is a new state requirement for it?

Well, but on the budget we've never paid for it before. Correct. line. It's a new line item for I don't know what the credit Well, I don't care about that. But if I'm assuming bad is badge six like the six badge no that's Andrea Swift. She used to work for the state police. She went off. She developed her own company. We've been using her to help us with the state the tier one through tier. That's not this line item. Well, I think what he's saying is that she might be doing some of the continuing education. I have not I have not

I have not heard it as Andrea. I have just heard continuing. That's what you said to me. Okay. She's already sold her company. She already sold her things. She's I don't know. I I can't keep track of her. But this is a new line item and it's a new item that we It's not really new. It's not new. We've been paying her contract under contracted services but not for that particular things. But I don't know why there's no lines because we've been paying her what have you been taking. And that's what we've had in that line and it's zeros. That's that's what it's called the credit. But wait, it's this fine. We've had been paying Andreda out of some for something.

What? Prior it was in education. They did a they did a appropriation transfer when we moved into education. Okay. should it should have used to be an education. So now at that last line's been reduced. Oh, okay. Okay. I see that. Okay. That should have stayed in because education is retraining education. Huh? We have another line for [clears throat] that. Huh? I don't think we needed to add a line. Yeah, I agree with you. That's just confusing. Education. It should just stay in education. That's what training is. created the one last year. That's all. We didn't create the last year. Last year,

it's new this year. Well, oh, no, it is. The the line is new, but also are the dollars. Like the education budget is going up by uh what almost $2,000, $1,900. And in addition to new line items is is $6,000 for this fiscal year. Yeah. If you go back to 2425, the education budget was was 22,000 or 30. Yeah. I just think we need to the definition of 24.

The line is education training incomes under education. There's no teacher in the world who would say that. That's what it is and it should stay there as such. Certification, the certification program is a contracted service. So, because we hired someone to help us do all the work because we only had four full-time officers and uh the state trooper cannot participate in doing the work. And in fact, we had Matt Ward, Katie, myself, and then we could pull the officers in to grab materials for us or or their policies and things like that and provide us with information to get the tier one. Then we upload it all to Andrea. Anda puts it into the DMS system and then the state comes and gives us uh goes through the DMS program, tells us if we qualify. If they have any questions, we come back to them with more information and then hopefully we pass with flying colors. I'm just going to say from my chance these programs they start the state wanted them.

So we so we just have to do this the 6,000. My question on this was if we add another officer, is that gonna No. Do we need to add money in there? No. Okay. And then my next one was on Lysb police LSB. It looks like the program hasn't been done. Nope. Starting for quite a while. Starting back. Yeah. So, is that dependent on us getting the seventh officer? No. No. I know he wants to feed Steve back. It's not dependent on a seven. One of the guys interested in running it that he has now.

One of the problem, you know, we've gone through a lot of things at LOSB. They lost some of their funding. They lost a person. So, Steve really wants to get the cop club up and running again. Working through he does a lot of work with u the hearing board. feels it's important for the young people that have this and bring it back. It was a great program years ago. They'd really like to get it. And Steve has got his certification for that and also he want he's got a certification for DARE. So he's trying to get more involved with the kids and it's just you know there's again there's only four officers so they have to do do so it's hard for them to go off and do other things.

Just one more I guess observation. Um, going back up to the full-time salary line recommendation from the board of selectmen is $72,000 less than what we just approved. Right. I did not. Okay. All right. That was fine. Okay. I'm just So the board of selectment are on board with they were on board with the seven. Okay. Is that kind of back to your That was point That's okay. No problem. So we've already voted for the whole thing. I don't think we voted. No, you're still in discussion. It's still the 947651. Any further discussion? Yeah, I was curious about the uh police and ammunition line.

Um $11,000 capital that month capital now moved to operations. Yes. It's not some it [laughter] doesn't depreciate. It just Well, they didn't spend anything last. Yeah, they spent no in this budget. They spent it in capital budget. They just spent it. They just spent it. It just came in about three weeks ago. Two years ago. They have a truck come in. Yeah. Two years ago. They have to come down here. They have to receive it. It does not come into this building. They came, they received it. And if I remember right, they also sometimes turn in some old ammunition. It has to go back and they get credit for that. Oh.

Do you have any idea how many rounds that is? That's a lot. Seems like it's a lot of ammo. I guess that the price has gone up significantly on ammunition over the last two or three years. I'm just curious number We also had to increase that when we decided to do different they changed their weather weapons the long gun change the weapons and we added long guns a few years ago but it's not just it's a lot of ammo I don't know I think they're day use it for they go to the ranges certainly it is a lot certifications well but I'll be assuming that it's it's one year that they spend 11,000 in one year

they have to It's a couple bucks a round. It's 5,000 rounds. It's a lot of It's a lot of shooting. Three more officers. I mean, if we go from four to seven. No, that's going to go up. It's going to have to go up. Your point is well taken. 5,000 rounds and I don't know what it is, but 5,000 rounds divided by five officers is a,000 rounds each. You think that they're training with a,000 rounds each? I don't want to question because we we don't know. I just don't ask. They don't use it for next year. but doesn't spoil. Well, I guess it does. It says it does. They return in old ammo and get credit for it. So,

it may be exactly what they need. I'm just questioning, you know, to get some idea. We've asked about that line before. Well, let's put it this way. Well, we can ask them to let us know how many times they shoot their guns. We can get some metrics from them. I know the na the National Guard in Niantic has a very expensive range but it's all electronic because of the cost of I mean I think the range was $7 million but um because of the cost of ammunition and safety was one reason they went officers are 11,000 imagine what the National Guard training ammunition was it was 7 million and I don't know if they let other people use that people use it that'd be a good question

maybe That's all. Might be other options because that's why they made it all electronic. Oh, you love this. Is about 20 cents. Group leadership, right? Okay, we're going to Okay, I'm going to try again. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. All say nay. Any abstensions? 937 651. I mean, with a list like this, you knew what's going to go on. So, that's all. Mr. Hastings, I just want you to know he's got a medal. Can I make a motion for the since we have somebody here from Rogers Lake Authority? Oh, yeah. He's way down there

up in this group of boards and commissions. Absolutely. I'll second that. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? and the extensions. Rogers Lake Authority, tell us about if you want to come up, come tell us about Hydrillaa and all the good things happening at Roger. We've got Hydrillaa, too.

There was something in the paper about town getting I think $100,000 granite. Oh, for the lake the wash. Yeah. Probably why we've got the hydraulic. No, you got to staff it. You got to staff it. You got to find a place to put the water once you wash it out. You don't want it to roll back into the lake. I don't think they're staffing it. They're doing it as a um like drive-thru.

Yeah. Literally. Yeah. If you Yeah. Um that's what the grant that's why the grant wasn't as much as it could have been and that was how they agreed upon it. it was some kind of like a wash and like you're it's just on the honor system you're going to do it but because fishermen know how bad the hydrillaa is. They're actually willing to do it and sort of like knock on the speedboats that maybe aren't necessarily doing it be like you got to go over there and wash it's it's here just do it. So we'd have to build a new I didn't see that it was just in the last week. Yeah. Yeah. I think they got the grant last summer. I think so. Thanks. I'll check into that

deep water. Yeah. No, the lake all the way. Deep just came out with new grants. Mark came out with new grants. I'll send you the list. Something like the the increases are for motor testing and um the weed control lead treatment. Yes.

Slash survey. So on the water quality testing for the last four or five years Yale University has been doing our water testing and we got a rate of $8,000 because that's what it cost basically to write their report because they were doing Live studies. They were doing water testing um all along for actually the last 20 years. So we were piggyback piggybacking on you know costs that they were already incurring. We went out for a scope of work you know to get a quote on to replace what Yale was currently doing and it came back at $37,000. So what we um as an alternative, our current um invasive plant uh contractor will also has the ability to test water and one of our authority members Joel Hawkins has a PhD in chemistry. So he can take the results and sort of analyze what the trends are and keep us going for till we find another solution or another Yale to um you know piggy back onto their their cost or their um you know what work that they'd be doing.

Are there other towns that were benefiting from Yale's I don't know probably what they're doing. No, I don't actually. That's a really good question. We just were told that, you know, their funding was cut back just as everybody's was. And um they're not going to be doing um the other testing here anymore. I don't know about the other towns. I'll alas that's Yeah, it' be interesting to know because if we're not the only ones impacted, they may have come up with

others. No, that's a good idea. Um then we're continuing Yale was also doing we're uh sampling the tributaries to the lake for um phos phosphorus and nitrates because that's the biggest potential pollution and um Yale was doing that testing for us for free and now we're going to have to pay for that. So that was another $1,800. So, um, you know, the pond and lake testing is 12,600. Yale was in at 8,500. Uh, the tributary sampling is 1,800 and supplies are 200. So, the net change is 6,100. Um, the other changes is the weed treatment survey. Um, we anticipate our herb, we did not do a herbicide application this year. Uh, the permit didn't come through in time and it got so late in the season, it didn't make sense. But, um, we had the survey done, we didn't apply any herbicide. So using the the survey results from 2025, last year we the year before in 2024, we um we applied herbicide to about um four acres. Now we're going to have to apply it based on this survey to eight or nine. So we're having a slight increase. So that so there's 3,470 in additional herbicide application cost. um

to try to count to get an early warning system for hydrilla. We've we're proposing to do edna testing. Um you can test specifically for the DNA of hydrillaa and we found um uh we can collect the water samples. We send them overnight to Maine and they will um they can analyze them and tell us if we have you know a hydrillaa and you know where we've um taken water samples. Right now our plan would be to take water samples at the U boat launch because that's where most of that's our biggest risk point as we were just talking about. And um the other area where we have a lot of invasives is up at the north end of the lake. So, we'd be testing those two places. And um it's there's a number of studies out that show this is an effective um way to find that you have a drill in your lake long before you actually see it. What would happen if we do find it, which isn't in the budget, is we would um come back with a proposal to have a a much more intensive survey done of the lake because to apply for the our permit allows us to do spot applications that um of a herbicide that would be effective against hydrillaa, but you can't just say, well, you know, you have to actually show where it is. So, we'd have to have somebody come out, survey it, find the plant, and then we can do the application.

Um, before you get off hydrillaa though, what what's the status of the undertaking to um wash wash the boats that before they're launched? And can we get somebody from DP to help monitor it? How do we enforce it? What what's the current thinking on that?

We have um Deep is actually honoring an invasive investigator program where you can train online or in a you know in a class um and I think our whole authority members and our um all of our patrol people will take that class and then there's an on-site. So, we're going to get people trained to actually be on the be at the site and know how to know what to identify, know how to interact with the the boating. Um, you know, the people are putting boats in. We don't have to anticipate where you're going.

Um, we won't have the authority then. It's um but we uh a couple of weeks ago there was a seminar put on by Twin Lakes which is a lake in north set of lakes up in the northwest corner of Connecticut and they had a hydrillaa infestation in a portion of their lake and they went through their whole process of what they did to get ahead of it. um cost them $340,000. [clears throat] The but what the 40,000 of that was they intensively went and had people attending the boat launches because that's where they first saw the hydro was near the boat launches and they were um their people are on a vol you know it's on a their interaction with the boers is on a volunteer basis. I'd like to inspect your boat. I'd like to see what it is. And they're getting pretty good response from that. And we're going to contact them and try to get a much more information on how they went about this and approached it, what materials they used. Um, a step after that would be some sort of enforcement.

Well, I guess what I think I'm hearing is that we're going to have folks educated to identify hydrillaa or evidence of hydrillaa on the bottom of the boat. right? Or on the trailer before they put it in. Okay. And then they're going to ask nicely if the boat owner would refrain from launching the boat if it's identified. Yes. I mean, unfortunately, that's the case so far. Okay. And and we don't have an enforcement mechanism as yet. No.

And is is that changeable? In other words, can the town adopt an ordinance that says you can't launch a boat with hydrillaa on it and then Yeah. Yes, I think they could. Yes, we could. But then we would have to the person the attendant would have to notify the police officers to come and enforce it.

Well, yeah. The attendant would say this is a this is a a municipal law, an ordinance. You can't launch a boat. you can't contaminate our lake. Um, sounds reasonable. And if the owner says, you know, I'm big, you're small, you're a kid, I'm not. I'm putting my boat in the water. The attendant says, okay, I'll be notifying the police and we'll have you arrested. Yeah, that would that would be wonderful. Well, and I mean, I'm I'm kind of not making this up. No, I know is in fact a serious enough problem both in terms of our ability to enjoy the lake and our cost of enjoying the lake. Yeah, it seems to me we should try to solve the problem.

I I would be happy to to work on that. You should adopt an enforcement mechanism. You spending it's a cost issue especially if folks are going to spend their own time getting trained to identify it and learn how to speak to the public. I think that's to not then give them the ability to say point a boat owner shouldn't have the right to introduce a contaminant into a body of water. No, that's I would agree with you. Yeah. Um I don't know the process of doing it. That's sort of my luckily. Okay. Drafting. She's drafting the ordinance right now. Is is the boat launch in line or

the boat? Well, the state boat launch the the typically [clears throat] boy the line is right there. I don't know but the ordinances for the lake are joint it would have to be passed in both jobs. Yeah. So lime would have to be I mean I know all this with lime. Yeah. But I would think from a because the lake is half and half. That's right. So it's in both towns best interests have to do something to coordinate with lime and make sure they have the appetite for because us doing it by and they don't have any police officer so pack a lime fee onto that.

I do have a question but do you present this budget to lime as well or do they just ask you what the number is? I send them um I sent them actually the memo that I had drafted that I'm talking through now and the spreadsheets that Anita provides and I sent that to them and that's all I've heard so far. I mean they Yeah, they never I haven't had any questions. Any other thoughts or comments you want to make?

Um, the only other thing which is along with the hydrillaa is that we have a there's a $2,000 item for the launch attendant. And that's really the to pay the people that would be if we do pay people to that aren't volunteers for the um you know to um inspect boats before they go in. Is that the miscellaneous other? That's the first one. No, there's a top up on Oh, launch. Okay. I'm sorry. No, miscellaneous other. Um, we, as you unfortunately know, we, you know, have had this deal with the state on the operation of the dam. Oh, that's right.

And we still have a portion of left over in the capital budget for following through on that permit. We've talked to the state and we've got a schedule for them to respond and for us to be able to um finally apply and get the permit. It looks like they're pretty much on board with it, but I've just I left the $2,000 in there in case we needed it for,

you know, if there's any extra cost associated with that. Mark, would you elaborate and remind me and tell us the why why has the docking fee gone away and and and explain the the note the credit due to region 18 reimbursement of 4382 for new dock remind us what's going on there. So um the 900 we were paying to a gentleman that lives up at the other end of the lake to dock the boat. I mean on his private property. On his private property. Okay. And there are no bathroom facilities there or good places to park.

And um it also occurred to me that at some point he lives mostly in Florida. He's going to retire in Solo's place. So, I talked with Candace and we were um we basically we came before you a few months ago and asked for funds to extend replace the current um chase boat dock they have with a new one that's slightly longer that would accommodate their two chase boats and also um our patrol boat. So, actually that's bought and it's delivered. It's the that it's right in front of the boat house as we speak, waiting to be put together. So that's why the 900 isn't there anymore because we uh had a capital.

And isn't region 18 uh paying for the new dock or what's the they paid for half of it I think. Anita, they you got the money. They got half. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. Um you did specials. So we reallocated funds um from sort of training and miscellaneous a portion of that to cover the um to you know cover the cost of the dock. I remember y

and still come in within our budget but sort of moved around in light on excuse me. So, what do you think the chances are that you'll actually have a program to pay someone to check boats next year? Cuz this would I'm assuming be then for like this summer and fall. It's for this summer. Yeah. And fall. Yeah, for sure.

Um that's I I think they're fairly good. Um cuz I what we may do is get have if it's not the volunteers of the um you know the authority members the first people we would do is have some of our guys work our patrol people work extra shifts and be at the launch and they so you have like a system set up that could I'm working on that. Okay. No. Yeah. Yeah. I don't

The one of the things that you could consider, you could call Rivercock because they had two interns that were working on Hydrilla uh last year and doing things and I can put you in touch with the person at Rivercock, but maybe somebody like that who's done studies on it would be interested in doing some part-time work. That Yeah, thank you. I would appreciate that.

I'll move the 57350 for the Rogers Lake Authority. Second. Any further discussion? Yeah. I just want to Could you quickly just educate me bring me up to speed on the water testing that you do? Is that required? No, it's not. It's um well because you got a freebie there for a while which is nice. Yeah. Yeah.

Um we tangentially should do apply the herbicides. They like that we the deep likes that we do water testing to make sure that the water quality is good. Um, we do the water testing to try to stay ahead of any potential risks of algae blooms or other other problems with the lake. Um and just to make sure that the um that the how that's a big the quality of the water and the um you know the levels of chemicals in it has a big impact on the ecology of the lake overall. I mean it's important information just make sure you need to do it the same frequency you've been doing at doing it at

Yeah. No, I hear you. Yeah. Um yeah, I think it's it um yeah it it I think it would be if we started to see trends um you know very negative trends in the water quality. We'd have to start setting up programs to figure out why what's where's you know what's the source and try to get ahead of any potential adverse effects. It's sort of an early warning method to know that the the lakes remaining healthy.

Any other questions, discussion? And all in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any concentrations and passes? Who second gave that? I did. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for bringing me up on the agenda. Hold on for you. Seems like it does. Yes. Wife says it keeps me out of trouble. So [clears throat] have a good night.

Okay, let's go back up to our management sort of beginning of the spreadsheet. So the the harbor master salary went up uh from 2 to 5,000 and um contracted services that we share with Essex

um previously We used to put it in the 5,000 or the hydrographic we put in capital and it's capital. So they asked if we want to put it in contracted services, but they also added a second hydro and who who's who's the day management, but you're when it says share with Essics, it's confusing you because that's the patrol boat, the um pumpout boat. The pumpout boat. So that's included in that that 175. Mhm.

Um, so basically Essex sends us out and we got a grant this year so it did go down a little for pumpout but from last year but but the hydrographic survey is not shared with Essex. No no no none of that is. And and why are we doing that? Um we have two grants from um the port authority. Um one is for the town dock. So we have to do a hydrographic survey for the area so that we can get a number of it

for the new dock design. You have to do that first and the other one would be the four mile river which they also have a small grant for that. But they would have to have a survey there because they want to do some dredging there. We've had a conversation with food authority um to do dredging in conjunction and work with Rocky Neck because Rocky Neck every year brings in sand. Their sand is going around the corner and coming in the four mile river. So we thought why don't you take your sand back and then you wouldn't have to buy sand and truck it in and we wouldn't have to and we can dredge. So there's some discussions that one of the things is they want to know that the sand that they're taking out is really their sand. with the sand from them. They don't want to take anything that has any problems with it. So, I don't know if that hydrographic survey will also be used to help them determine that, but they will be testing as well from the state to determine if the sand is good for them to take, but that would save us some cash.

And so, there's a note here that says the board of selectment is questioning the second hydrographic survey. Has that question now been answered? I don't know if he got his answers, but I think he would have there was a conversation online with Terry and Mike the day of the snowstorm that we met. Was that you're taking it from there or from what saying he had a question on that second? I don't think we were questioning. We passed it as is. Um Jim may have had a question, but if you remember that we we had our meeting online during the snowstorm. So

um it's tough if we were trying to keep track of everything as possible as well as possible. It is do we regularly like just have to dredge four mile river? Like is that our town deal that we have to do that? Well, there's problems with the marinas that on the four mile and getting boats out. You really have to time it correctly. I'm not a boater. I mean, I boat, but I'm not in charge of it. So, I don't know. But you do need to time it Yeah. correctly, or you can get stuck. And And are is the town paying for the dredging? We haven't gotten to that point yet. We haven't. But have we in the past? I believe we have dredged once before, but it was under a grant.

We got grants for four months. Yep. Right. It was and there was [clears throat] leftover money that let us do something else. They were there was supposed to be something else and they never was leftover money. Well, they never did it. But dredging is very expensive and I have to question whether we should be dredging just for the benefit of some private citizens. Well, well, it's economic development, too. It's also two businesses. The the other point that was made uh was they opened up some dumping grounds closer to old line. So it was less money than they which would cost less than it did before because they're not going to have to take the stuff is far away. There's no dreading in this budget. But

if if it's paid for by a grant, I have no question. Um what was the reason for the 150% increase in the salary? He is I was on that call. He is working two parts of u the harbor master's responsibilities. He's working at least 100 hours um patrolling pat well putting buoys the moorings and then on top of that patrolling it was um so it really I think you were on the call BJ I think it was more calculated to probably be about 200 hours of work he's really been charging us.

Yeah I think our vote too. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's it's not that much money. It's percentage. We're getting more. We're had concerns we were underpaying him last year. Big time. Matt does goes above and beyond what he's actually contracted to do. Um because he he's been a boater all his life. Is it is he STO? Yes. Toeboat. Toeboat. One of those. So he's and while he's doing that kind of hanging out, he's doing old line stuff. He was the captain of the Fischer Island Ferry for many years. Really?

So [clears throat] it's a good value. He loves being out. He's a He's a good guy. Yeah. So that's why we want to keep him there. And then he's working. He's really done. I mean I can remember doing buoy but you'll see you'll see years ago the is not good

the harbor m harbor master permitting of $10,000 and this year's budget is is zero because it's being paid from the fund that the commission maintains from its permanent income. Oh yeah, because we had a lot of questions about that last year where that was what was happening with all that. Yeah. And the clarification is that there the use of the funds is prescribed by statute. Okay. And so it can't be used for anything, but it can be used for this. Oh, well, there you go. Done. I'll make a motion for the 33924 not to stop discussion certainly. Okay, I'll you know it's a small thing on the last line we talked about the maybe getting gravel from Ed,

right? Yeah, we haven't talked to Ed about that. Yeah, [clears throat] as of yet. It's been a few past couple days. We've been so excited that we actually had salt, but we haven't talking about gravel. Sorry, we're not on the spring stuff yet. We're still So that's still right. That was I can check with him. Yeah. Did somebody second that? Andy, you Yeah, Andy made it. No, Fred second. Right. And then asked a question. You can't do both. [laughter] Any Did you second? Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any abstensions? 33924. Michelle

Affordable housing. affordable housing commission $1,300 increase. Yeah, I haven't looked at the back of this yet because I just got my book tonight because I wasn't here last week. And while these increases are small, I'm concerned with when we look at the percentages [clears throat] that Yeah, $1,300 increase, but it's 8.97%. Yeah, harbor management was 18 almost 19%.

I mean, so these are small numbers. Police department or municipal police was real number. Um, again, I haven't flipped. The reason they're doing this is because we have to have under the new affordable housing for the state, we have to have a plan. They're going to need help, contracted services to put that together. And I'm not disputing this number at all. I'm just making a point about I understand percentages. So So who did they contract for that? Who are they talking about?

Well, there's going to be we still have the choice to opt in with Riverco to work with the plan there or you can choose to opt out and do your own. So I they haven't decided. They just got two new chairs and they just met with me to rebuild the funding that they had. They're trying to get this McCullik property off the ground that's been slowed down over since Michael left. So, um, they're trying to do that and work on this new housing plan. It seems Fred, every week there's a new addition or a deletion from something that we're getting from the state

regarding that bill, the bill and more information thing. You can do this, you can do that. So, they need to work through it, but Jen and Fred F, Jen Miller and Fred Fenton had put this budget together before they left knowing what they knew. So, that's [clears throat] what they assumed they would need. um to work through contracted services to work with somebody. Just curious, what kind of person you contract for this kind of a kind of advice? Who you who do you turn to? Well, they've done some of the leg work. We don't have

it would probably be our town engineers would be pull pulled in to do some type of help them. They'll have to certainly rely on legal as well. But um do you think it would you know it seems like you know they're volunteers so I'm not expecting them to be experts in this sort of thing whereas is Rivercog sort of banding together to try to figure this out and would that be maybe a better path for

it's not it's more like I think that what happens is is that each town has to look at the plan that River comes up to and sees how it's going to impact them. Um, and they're just grappling with all this, too. So, we're all pulling in together. Um, and there's a lot of meetings going on and how do we get this together? I just gave Eric Knap the list of dates that they're supposed to hit marks on for certain things just so that he knows through land use what what types of things. um shared that with um Sheila and uh Sean the other last week just to get them up to speed. So they're just coming up to speed. I I think that some of the things that I've heard is that it could be overreaching. Rivergs could be a little more overreaching. We may need smaller towns may need to pull back a little. You know, I don't know who's going to go in, who's going to be involved. You know, we cover Middletown, Portland, are all in Rivercock. Those are different environments than we are. They can put up an apartment complex. We cannot. So,

so I'll move 15,800 for affordable housing. Second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I.

I. Any oppose say nay. Any abstensions? passes. There's another development. They can't. Is this for redoing the town website? under theirs. No, explore old line. Okay.

Is theirs um part-time pres they can't use I don't know why it says process intern because we don't have a process intern. We have a policy intern. That policy intern will not be here. uh that was to do some leg work getting up to June when our policy intern leaves that if they need something but they can't use them next year so they're looking for a paid position um which has not been a I mean 416 hours um and we basically said that we understand it but it's up to the Board of Finance. We left it up to you.

So let let's Yeah, let's flesh that out a little bit. 416 hours at how much an hour? Nita doesn't have it in on this. No, we don't have any numbers here. They didn't give any what they would want to pay a minimum wage. Well, let's say 20 20 $20 an hour would be $8,300ish. But [clears throat] They're asking for 416 hours. It doesn't necessarily need to be 416. That was their request. So, does the board of selectmen I mean you guys put in agreed with 7,000?

No, we questioned the position, but we decided to leave it to the board of finance. It's in the red over on the underneath account name. You'll notice the note. Um, we understand what, but it's timing. Um, you have to I mean, you remember they're all volunteers and most of the people on affordable housing are still employed. So, it seems one way to look at this is is the return on investment. Well, that's they can bring in some businesses. No, no, no. That's exactly right. The economic development commission then it would pay for itself if it's mission and they just what's their chance of success? success, right? If you don't and so maybe giving like the

I mean Jeff Hartman and Joe Cammy are pretty serious guys and um I think it'd be wise to give them some resources to give them a shot at this and they just if it you know if it's not working in a couple years then it can change, right?

They just redid their entire EDC strategic plan. Jeff ran a tight ship and he and Joe put it all together. They've got a new strategic plan going and I have to tell you that the positive news is the amount of businesses that are all of a sudden are interested in line. We have a lot of activity um you know we have somebody who just bought the pizza place down by Teddy's down by Teddy Smithson where the old Smithson healthcare is. There's a lot of activity for job new permitting going into that building. Um that's going in. We've had a lot of interest the new owners for the big white plaza charter charter realy that does the property management ton of interest and people are interested in going in with them. So I think that those are all positive signs and EDC also wants to you know maintain the businesses that are here and support them. Um, I will say that we are part of the greater Sabbrook Chamber. I get a little bothered by the fact that all their mailings and their stuff comes out and it's always says this is happening in Sabbrook. This is happening. And I literally called her one day and said, "Excuse me, but can Old Line participate in that?" And she said, "Yes." And I said, "Well, you don't even mention any the fact that we're in this." Um, so I don't know where we are with that.

Jeff has an amazing track record experience, right? Yeah, he's CFO a couple of businesses. Well, so I I agree with with Fred. It's worth I mean 8,000 is is real money, but it's not going to bust the bank and it's worth the investment and see if we get a return. We don't do Yeah. And they have some particular things they want that person to do, whatever that job description is. Right. Assuming these these guys are knowledgeable then I would think they could manage the person very do things they want. Yeah. Got the idea from western recycling. [laughter]

So it's about 40 hours about 10 weeks of work for somebody over a lot you know one day time 50 weeks eight hours times 50. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it is. Yeah. So that would be 15,000. That would be increase that budget line by I'm I'm increasing it by 8,300. No. Okay. 83 8320 is 20 bucks. Yeah. 20 bucks an hour. 15320 is what I What was their What was their original I mean they requested the 460 they requested they request

they requested seven but we left the salary line blank. So they didn't they just said the hours they just without the salary line put a dollar per hour on it. Yeah. Okay. It's 20 enough to get the kind of person they want. And maybe maybe it's 40 but they only work 200 hours, right? You know, right? Yeah. I think if you give them this and then they can come back and say like this is working out and we would like to go to the town and ask for more money because this is the great things that this person's done. Like I do think there's a benefit to giving them a chance to do this because this is something that people complain about all the time,000

what00 gives them the resources they need to hire somebody. That's that's good. Do you want to go up, Fred? Somebody make a motion. 17,000. Okay. So, uh, yeah, I'll move 17,000 for economic development, right? So, you want to put 10,000 on top? Yes. 10,000 in the Yeah, I'll second that. Yeah. Second that. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Motion passes. Aside of that, it'd be interesting to talk to the new owners of Big Y Plaza and say, "Why did you come here?"

Yeah. Oh, I've had multiple conversations. And that's the kind of information that would be helpful. They made a big investment in Old Lime. What do they know? I know they're they're in Guilford and they're in other places. Um, yeah, Walgreens is going out, but medicine shops coming shop is coming in and a lot of opportunities. They have two other they didn't buy it to right leave it the way it is. They must have a sense. He sends me little tidbits but I can't make it public yet. And Joe's my neighbor. I'll keep on him. [laughter] Um has come down $10.

I'll make a motion for 2930. Yeah. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Any oppos say nay. Any abstensions? 2930. Water pollution control authority. Okay. Oh Jesus. Okay. I just had So I just had my meeting.

Jim, John and I just had a joint meeting. I had to leave seven to come down here. So I don't know what the end results were. But basically, we tried to put them uh new board. We lost a few members um that did not return. Um we have new members. We reminded them that they are the town of O Lime Water Pollution Control Authority. They're not just Sound View that they have other uh duties to take care of such as pumpouts and ordinances and things like that that they have to attend to. Um their pumpout ordinance is outdated, needs to be redone. Um, so we sort of put them on that, rewed the ordinances with them that they're on there. There was an ordinance rewrite that was attempted in 2020. It never went through, went through legal, went through everything else, never came to the town to be reviewed. Uh, we asked them to please go back and look at it again. We are not out of the woods with DEP. We know that Deep will be coming in this February to talk to me. Um, so what are our possible plans and our paths forward? So Jim, John, and I all put out what we felt needed to be done. Um, what Deep's going to say we can do of that, I don't know. We still have a $9.5 million referendum that was approved for spending. Um, there's a CSA that was signed in 2020 by Jim. um that is still in effect according to although we've tried to rework it several times because it does not refer to the clean water funding correctly. So anyway, there's a lot going on. Um Andrea and I met today because Andrea is the treasurer for the WPCA. Um she's concerned that perhaps legal, she thinks legal might have to be increased even further. Um board of

selectmen brought it down to 45. They wanted to raise it up initially to 68. Um, so where where's the board of selection today? Well, I see this was all 210. So I think Andrea went upstairs today and talked to Anita. So So she changed numbers and we did not see these because we voted on this before her visit with Anita today. So, she's at she's at 68,000. Yes, she went up to 68. What does she

And I will tell you that they have a bill that they have to pay today that's 52,000 for Mike Battello, who's their bonding attorney, because over the years, they never paid him on a regular basis because he was going to work his fee into the bond because that's what they usually do. But when there was no bond for the next 11 million, he had to bill. And I was on a phone call conversation with him at some one point with Steve Tsunami. And Steve goes, "So what's your bill?" Like 20,000. And he goes, "No, I'm like at 43." And this was number of months back. We just got the bill. It was 52. I mean,

we have to go to town meeting to [clears throat] there's 45 in the budget. So it's 700. They have they have a couple of smaller bills from Susman and Shapiro that they have to do. They're probably going to go over um between now and June. Well, they're already over the legal budget then. Yes, they're already over the legal budget. That's why she felt that going forward. There's going to be other things to look at. But so well that's right. So the 68,000 did she this is she had it with Anita. you'll have to charge.

But did she enumerate what is the 68,000 going to pay for? Did she indicate what legal services does she intend to buy for the 68,000? She mentioned that next year because we don't know what's going to happen um with the state um that the expenses are going to occur. Um, but she just knows that she believes that it's so theoretically it could be a bond issue for 52,000. It could be negotiating with the beach associations to [clears throat] finally get the contract sharing.

Um, I mean, you know, talking about messy stuff like this and legal fees can go through the roof, right? But what is the status? says the status that the beach associations other than the town they're going forward at this point. They're going to go forward, right? And then

so Sound View was going to be left fighting with the D. And I mean, I don't just as I sit here, it seems to me if there's a a a main going through 156 and the infrastructure is all there to process waste that the most effective solution for Sound View would be to join in. Well, you had a referendum and 73% of the people who voted said no. Said no. That's it. So, are you going to tell me at the democratic process we're just going to erase that? Well, we can't we can't issue bond without town approval. I'm just saying

we're going to have to first of all, we have to go back out to bid because our bids have expired. We will have to go back out to bid for our common infrastructure. We will then need Well, [clears throat] but but the question before us is legal fees. I'm convinced that 68,000 is not an unreasonable number faced with the the mess that we have to wind our way through, right? But we can't guess at what that's going to be. No, I mean I I like the selectman's budget better, but [laughter] uh I do too. I think at this point we probably have no choice but to

if we get away with 68,000 in legal fees, I'll be happy. They still have the they do have an ARPA fund that was originally 150,000 57 157,000 for the force main um that they can contribute. We have not that has not all been used. That was for the design and implementation of the force main and that hasn't been used but that's under ARPA funding and that has to be used by December 31st of 2026 that can be applied to legal fees. Yeah. And it's only for construction of the course main and designed.

Um I just have a question. How come most of the actuals for this year we don't have anything? Did they not spend any of this money? Well, they have it's just not in here, right? Like postage, for instance. Like they had almost $10,000 for postage, but was that for a particular mailing? They did. They did do a large mailing. They did the pumpout price again. They did a huge large mailing. I don't know where they Yeah, there's nothing there. There's nothing there. Mostly the advertising budget. Like I just my point was if they hadn't spent it, I mean these are all going to end up as carryovers and would cover almost all of the rest of their budget unless they've spent it in which case you know

well and that I think at the end of the year you have to decide that it it really and truly if they did not spend at the end of the year they aren't carryovers because our our practice has become that for carryovers they need to come with us with a specific justification for carrying out, right? But if that's But that's what I'm saying. Like if they're going to ask for it, you can wipe out the legal. There's not going to be a dime left in that as far as I if I look at this like I do not understand. Erica should have been on the W White um water pollution clerk pump out.

Yeah. She should have had some of her salary taken from that because she's worked on. We believe that they charge to the wrong account. They they have the wrong account on their sheet. They're charging. Yep. Okay. Office supplies. I don't think they need $600 because they never reduced it. So I think you could reduce that to I mean first of all these people come in and they need paper. We just you know Yeah. Give it to them. I mean, we're paying for it out of the town. We've got extras all the time. Why would we need Post-it notes? What do you want? Extra or just charge it. Like, buy some paper. Keep it here. Want to spike the 600.

I think you could go down to a Let's do a 100, take 500 out. Um, you've got She went down on postage. And I don't know why because I just said to them tonight every year you have a post every year you have pumpout cards that have to go out. They did I will say this they and again where's the printing of the postage cards that was done I saw the order came in. I don't know I don't know but there's another their their fees are not it's not calculated correctly. Should we not vote on this until you have a chance to

Well, I'd like to know where these Well, we're not going to come up with those answers at this table. That's what I mean. So, I'm like, should we The other line I would look at is miscellaneous, which is five grand. And, you know, they've never spent $1,000 on that line. Yeah. I mean, a miscellaneous line for $5,000 I don't like. Anyway, um, you know, that was a Andrew. Yeah. But he went down to 700 or a thousand or something like that. So now it's not Anita asking, it's the board of finance asking why. So let's let's let's

I wish I'd been called upstairs because I had a two hour an hour and a half two hour meeting with her and then she left and I thought she was just going home. Go upstairs. That wasn't her call. this budget, these numbers that she's giving her is just her. They did not vote on this from their their board. There has to be background. Mr. Chairman, can we push this off to the next meeting, which I think is in two weeks. I don't think we have a meeting next week, right, Michelle? No. So, school vacation. So, that gives two weeks time for I'll get more homework done. Okay. Do we need to vote on that? I think we just say

next one's going to be tough. Just moving it. Maybe you should say we're moving it to the next week. Maybe it should be put on an agenda for a motion to move it to the next meeting. We had we we moved a couple of things, two, three things from last week's meeting that are not don't appear here. So, somebody like Michelle has to remember what it is that we didn't vote on and bring them up at a future meeting. It's me because I'm doing [clears throat] homework. I just haven't gotten one back. Okay. But I've talked to two others. So, let's uh let's anybody here from the board of finance that can justify these expenses? Ridiculous. A thou $1,400. What are we spending money on?

Basically, it's related to the town report, right? Is where the increases are. Right. Yeah. It's the It's the um the advertisement is the um the protein and we just put an estimate in there probably 600 books. What are the contracted services? Isn't that printing? Is that the audit? No. Isn't that the design of the town report? Is that Oh, that's Michaela. Michaela. It's Michaela.

Yeah, that's design of the Yeah, that's town reports me because it really should be. Don't Well, I guess it's contracted because she's doesn't. We had talked before the budget about dealing with what advertising in a newspaper means. Did you ever get any clarification on that?

Well, for this your type of meeting for the um annual report and also your other one for the budget, [clears throat] I think you have to be pretty specific. Um and it it only runs one day. It's not like you run it over and I've changed all the rules so you don't have to put it in all those other papers November through April. You can just put it at request to see if they'll put it in lime line. We request if they don't put it in, they don't put it in. But we do put it in the day. We have to do it in one at least one newspaper under the Connecticut general statute. And we also put the budget and then we reduced it. We made the budget a lot smaller the way they put it in. Okay.

And those rates have gone up significantly because that's the only place that they're getting revenue. So much. It's ridiculous. It's so much. Okay. Anybody [clears throat] want to move the 16395? Isn't that a conflict? I'll make the motion for 16395. Second. Fred seconds. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any abstensions? Passes. I'll follow that up with a motion for 610 for flood and erosion. Second. That's great. And they're going down 20 bucks. Okay, that's um Andy and first Ken seconds. Any discussion? All in favor say I.

I. Any opposed say nay. Any historic district? I'll make a motion for 10,158. Second that. Yeah. Well, that's flat from this current year. Down down 136. F seconds. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Say nay. Any obstensions passed? I'll make a motion for uh tree commission for the 14625. I'll second.

Can I just say that they they wanted to take the tree warden out of their budget and put it in my budget and I said no. Oh, the first warden belongs in the tree commission. And I said, I don't know why you're because we'd like our budget to go down more. [laughter] We didn't want the responsibility of finance. And they just don't do anything next year. It'll go down, right? And they got confused because Anita asked for That's a false.

She just asked, "You need to send me approval to send his stipen check out." And they I don't know what else you put in it, but you she alluded Joanne alluded to me like she asked if we're happy with him and she goes, "I don't want to start evaluating people. I'm just a volunteer." I said, "You're not I said all you got to do is Tom's doing great. Send him a stipend. That's all you got to do." I said, "You don't have to evaluate." So she goes, "She should be under. You just wanted say, "Is the person still employed? Are they still working?" Yeah. We don't know. I mean, they could be appointed, but they quit.

Anita, I've talked to you almost every other week. No, I know, but make a motion for park and rec commission. Um, no, we're we're still Yeah, you're fine. Anyways, we're leaving. I mean, precommission at 14625. Motion's been made and seconded. Discussion. Wait, I missed that one. 146 mission it was Andy and Anna [clears throat] extensions that did you get that Michelle 14625 [clears throat] and nowy's going to go out on the limb with park park and recck commission I'll make a motion for the 1620 second

any discussion all in favor say I oppose say nay any abstensions questions. Okay, I'll move 2845 for assessment appeals. Second. I know seconded that Michelle. Um, any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Uh, 2845. Thank you. That passes. It's like a pretty good rush. Like look at that blowing down his page.

So the board of assessment appeals doesn't need a lawyer I guess, huh? that comes at the current time. We only have four people that have put in a request to have their So, you still have a few weeks to go, but four [laughter] Rogers like we've done down to land use, flood and erosion, land juice. land use land use is is further down on the Yeah. No, we already did all this. We already did all these. Yep. Yeah, we jumped around.

I'll make a motion for land use for 303271 just to get it on the table. Go ahead. It's Fred. Let's pause for a minute. It's not up much percentage wise 1.5% [clears throat] but it's real money. That's salaries. That's salaries. Actually, the salaries are up more than that. It's that there were some reductions kind of balanced it out. What What's land use um wages? Is that Eric Nap? And what's land use salaries? Those are the two part-time land use tax. They're full.

They're full-time. Sorry. We have Julian, Craig, the sports guy. And why are they Doesn't Eric get a salary? Eric's on the salary. Eric's on the salary line. And then the wages are for the other people. They're hourly. I thought I thought Eric question.

Yeah. We don't understand why we put Well, are the P are the the two full-time people are they paid hourly even though they're full-time? Yeah. Yeah. Nobody's exempt from wage and hour. They're all salary. They wouldn't have they wouldn't be exempt in those positions. That's right. So that's what's kind of separating them, I think, is exempt and they aren't over here. We have many full-time [clears throat] clients in certain categories and then like two and three part time. I mean, to me, this makes sense that you're divvying out the salaries versus the hourlies. That makes sense to me.

Scroll down, folks, to postage. Postage is going up from a budget of 1,500 to an actual of $97 to a new budget of 3,000 and historical expenditures less than 700. Does anybody know why? I got to find it. Regulation revision. Yeah. increase due to regulation revision. What what it is, it's the new um they did new books and they're going to be mailing all those out all the um policies that we gave $100,000. All the policy I think it's the manuals. No, no, we're revising the zoning code. I get that. It's the mailing of It has to be printed and mailed.

It's not [clears throat] the books. It's not the mailing of the books, though. And we're not gonna That was talked about at the meeting we had. It was discussed upstairs at the Monday meeting we had the first or second one. And what what did you remember that it had to do with the regulations and who they had to distribute it to? Yeah, those books. Yeah. Well, but but I don't know if that there I don't know if printing or postage is the total I think he has to develop it has to go to just certain well when when my printing cost

when we have new zoning rags we got to send them to a bunch of state departments and legal in our legal department well I can understand printing being expensive but 3,000 for postage well especially Because there is no printing cost. Yeah, there's no printing cost. Uh there is down the bottom 1,500 which went down. J they're going to be books that are heavier than that. And that's going to cost only $1,500. We shouldn't have that many. 3,000. No, the printing.

Now you're on postage. I know, but I'm trying to combine this together because something doesn't make CCM is has been doing our printing and Mark them and they give us a fantastic cost. They're truly great. Um, and but he did mention that he has to send it to the state because the state is all paper bill. The state will not take an electronic copy and it's the sending them to the state that's only going to cost. Yeah. And you got to probably send them to three or four four departments in the state. But

so when a town makes an update, which doesn't happen that often. Okay. No, not doing this. And you're sending the whole thing, you have to. It's sort of like Wow. So he says it's 30 to 40 copies, right? So it's going to cost double the postage. doubled the amount of money to print whatever this is, whatever. I guess it's just what it is. And he actually did, I think he got a quote already from CCM and he called them and explained what he needed and they gave him a basic overview code. So, do they cheap it as well? They send somebody up and buy them lunch for God's sakes. No, it's expensive.

We we have hired a contractor to help us do the the zoning revisions, right? What line item captures that? It's in capital. It's in capital. It's in capital. Capital. Okay. Going on to the second phase at this point in time. Okay. All right. So, I mean the the budget isn't up isn't up much by a dollar amount or a percentage. We got 303271.

Can I just ask again? So, back to this printing cost. He does have something that costs $1,000 to print every year. What is that? And does he have enough in here to print this extra stuff? Well, he didn't use anything in 2425. He's zero. He had 1,100. Didn't spend a dime. But before that, he had 800,000 from CCN. Well, no. I'm just wondering what it is. Keep looking at history. It's a new regulations. 30 to 40 copies of the new regulations out in the notes on the farm.

No, I just want to make sure he doesn't have whatever he's been printing the previous years not included because his printing cost actually went down and the reason for that was CCM. Okay. Okay. It's being printed. And I feel like last year he talked about having it printed. So that $2,000 number like I think they're going to do some hopefully would do some this year. I mean Okay. I don't know because they're not sure. They're not a little off schedule. They're like two months behind on their rewrite. But so we could potentially be carrying over to from this year. We usually don't carry. [clears throat] Well, if it's printing of a specific thing

to beat the dead horse, if he if he's going to he said he wants to print 30 to 40, the town of old line needs a bunch, right? So, if he's going to send out 30 for $3,000, you need all your zoning people. No, no. Well, what whatever. If he's going to ship out 30, that's a hundred bucks each. I don't think he's sending out 30. He's not sending out 30. He's printing 30. I understand. But he's got $3,000 worth of of of postage, right? Yeah. So $3,000 to to send out less than 30 copies is more than $100 per set. And Federal Express for they probably they probably have to go certified mail. They have to be received so that you know that you're following the

$100. I don't know. Yeah. And you know, if it's not spent, it won't be spent. But it's a $1,500 increase over his prior postage budget. Not that he spent, which he never which he never spent. He spent 664. And you know, no, 855 back in 21. Yeah. So, postage has certainly gone up since then, but you know, it's But you and I can deliver them. We'll go for a ride. [laughter] I've never seen the state house. I'll drive them off lunch.

Any any other comments or questions or discussion on this 303 mileage then the mileage budget will go up the motion something and Fredum. Okay. We were just Any further discussion? All in favor of the 303271 say I. I. Any opposed? Any extensions? Okay.

View cleaning went up for the portaotties. Other lines went down. Contracted services. Speed humps. The speed humps. They want to put them in, install, and remove. They'll have the reason it's going up is because they bought more speed humps for next year. So that's why. What's the new line, Martha? The last line. Sound view repairs, maintenance, operations. Just kind of a general if a sign gets broken. Landscape miscellaneous. It's signage. It's like a new line. Yeah, it's a new line under golf carts. There's some detail,

but he was paying his landscaper out of contracted services. because he uses Jones Landscaping and they were coming under there. So, why is he putting this under and why isn't it just under contracted services? It doesn't need to be a new line. Okay. Well, I don't see why I remember him talking about the signage that, you know, they had some new signs made and I don't know what happened to them. They disappeared at the end of the year and uh so we may have to have some redone. Uh okay. But that's that's part of the $6,000, right? But that's that's a contract. It's you're going out to have a a printing company make the signs, right?

You're contracting with somebody to make signs. Well, everything's a contract. I But landscaping, landscaping should come under services, not not the manufacturer or purchase of a item. He's mixing landscaping with signage. I mean, it's a little bit of a It's a not signage should be under something else. It should be under printing, right? So, his whatever his printing is should go under his whatever his signage is should go under printing. His Do you want to hold this one until this is fixed or do you want us to to vote on the total and then you guys can fix? Yeah, I think

I would like to talk to him because he was never came before. Well, he he was he was on the snowstorm. He also his budget arrived literally like three and a half days before that. So, it was a put together quick because he forgot to get it in to us. So, I would like to have another conversation with him. Okay. He mostly regarded that $6,000 expense. Yeah. All right. First two weeks. I don't know. I think people just taking the signs homes to souvenirs. I I couldn't understand what he was saying there. They all go in a shed and the next year.

I think he to me it sounded like public works took them down for them and they disappeared out of public works. They were like these little flags that hang off the the p and they had different seascape things and so they're on view. Okay. And they disappeared. It was done when they did the sidewalks and everything, the beautifification. They were there and then they weren't. Sometimes those have to get replaced. Maybe somebody saw them at public works and thought they were too faded and needed they were there to be disposed of. Sometimes Ed does make those decisions. [laughter] I mean it would I feel like Ed might make those decisions. But I think too part of that like the repairs and things like that I'd like to know what he's doing because public works can do some of these things for him. No, that's good.

Yeah. We don't need conservation commitment is down $2. I will make a second. Oh yes. Seven 7,000 moved and seconded. There you go. For 7195. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Post say nay. Any abstensions. Lots of notes on open space. I'll make a motion for open space. Uh $1380. You wish it was that much. Oh, I'm sorry. Got all excited there. Keep going. Still good.

Yeah. 21 380. I'll second down. 21380 has been moved and seconded for opening space. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any extensions? road and public safety. Oh my um house.

Which neighborhood is it? [laughter] The speeds. Yeah, they want to put in speed humps. that hasn't been approved by the police or the fire department yet. Where where where would that be? It was a request by a neighborhood and one of them was I know was um Bright Wait Brighton Road going down and I know years ago some of the beach communities had speed humps that damaged one of the town plow trucks. These would be the removable ones like they have at Hartford D. We put them in in a community was a board on us six grand a year to put them. Is it is it a high

for the number at Sound View because you've got three streets. This is one street and they're asking for um [clears throat] so the figure includes um how many I think that they were only figuring two speed humps going down. It's a narrower street than Hartford, so they don't need, but they'd like to put one in. Well, I I guess I think we ought to approve the budget, but then urge the board of selectment to be sensible in what you approve that they do.

Well, they have to still, you know, we didn't, you have to understand that when we started to get budget figures, we didn't have a resident state trooper that was actually assigned to us at the point of time. So, they need to sit down with Derek. And actually, Derek went to their meeting tonight. So, they'll have some conversations, but they need to um Okay. Meet and they haven't spent their,000 from this here. That's to buy the speeds and this is so the 2,800 just includes installing and taking them out

and also other stuff. Yeah. $100 to purchase or build two small trailers because those speed camera signs that we have on poles. Um John Evans from uh Lime came down and said to us, you know, if you put them on a trailer, you don't have to do all the major mounting stuff that you have to do and you can move them around town more easily. So John built one for Lime and then they went out and bought one. So he said you can get them for like they're just a small trailer they put them on. He showed he sent me pictures. I mean Dominic went up and took pictures for me so I could see. So that's what they wanted to do so that they could move those signs around more easily. Is this committee [clears throat] talking about um being authorized to impose to to have the the speed cameras not the advisory but enforcable by issuing bonding for speeders?

They are still discussing that they have not made a recommendation to the board of selectmen yet. They interviewed three different companies and then when we were at the CCM conference in December, Jim was off and was approached by another company. So that company has reached out to Greg Ftoma who's the chair of this committee and um so Greg's in conversation with them. They've not made any recommendations to us. They know it's a hot ticket item. U people are not not everybody's going to be excited about that. So they have not made any recommendations, right? But right now wrote a really nice uh opinion piece in the examiner about that process and pro or con.

Just explaining how it would work. Yeah. And you have to get authorization from the state before you can do it. If you want to do it, you have to go through [clears throat] a lot of data that you have to provide to them. Everybody should be against it because we don't we want to be able to speed and not get far. [laughter] But but if we want to take our the revenues that you bring in. Well, absolutely. I paid Middletown $50 for their speed camera on Route 66 this past going from Middletown to Meridan. They've got them going up the hill. I was in Washington DC a year ago and I got a ticket. I got two tickets that were about 200 yards apart.

You look crazy. Didn't know it until I did it. Oh, does it slow you down? I didn't know. I didn't think I got one in DC and I had no idea that it was even. Yeah, I didn't I didn't know this one was there. So, now that you do, now that I do and the next time I went through, there is signage that was probably there. Uh the first time I went through, but it's on Route 66 in the speed limit. It's like 35 miles hour that, you know, it's a four-lane road that and it was $50 plus an $8 fee to the company. And I had read the article in the paper. This was back in October. At that point, Middletown had put them in July 1st. They had generated $250,000 on $50 volume

$50 tickets on Route 66, which is a state road, which I found kind of odd. I was going to say it's getting the money from a state road. And the second time it's 75 and the third time I think it's 200. But you're not going for those two. You've slowed down. with the 50 so far. They send you a nice picture of your car. Well, and I think that's the other piece people are concerned about is who who's getting the data on where you're driving. Yeah.

What is the company doing with that? So there's there is and I did sit through two presentations but there basically is a appeal process which pretty much is like what we do with our parking violations down to beach but the chief of police sits and listens to the appeals that have come in and yay or nay their process was via email and they never responded so I got my you know I didn't want to I sent my 58 bucks in and Um the only their claim is it doesn't go against your insurance or points on your license, right? Um okay, I guess that's good, but who knows if that'll change. Um

yeah, so I I just, you know, we're talking economic development and we're making it, you know, a friendly town. Yeah. We don't want people getting run over, but I don't know. I mean, I also think it's kind of funny like there's a lot of people that don't like the people that speed, but then you see people commenting on people going the speed limit on on Facebook. Why are these people going so slow? I'm like, well, because it's a 30 it's a 30 mph zone in by Teddy's. It's so freaking slow. Is 25. Exactly. That's lower than my creek. If you raise that to 30 or 35, what's going to happen? They do 40. We're already going. I don't think anybody pays attention. put their mind over the speed limit.

I think we can't see that in here. That camera on McCertie, I come around that corner and when I see if I see that red light, that yellow light pop up, I get I go slow because they're on you. You're like, I'm sorry. All right. So, what do we do with the 4180? What do you want us to do? Do you want us to not do it? Because if they're not going to put if they don't have this money for the speed bumps to put them in and they haven't bought them yet, maybe we leave a little money in that column so that we can allocate them later if you guys remembering this wrong. But I feel like when we initially talked about these removable speed humps, public works was going to put them in and take them out.

Well, we have somebody who does it. with contract to somebody down Frank Papalardo has someone down at Sound View used to work with DOJ and he put them in and out. Okay. Because I just I feel like our initial discussion with them was it was just the purchase of them and then public works was going to put them in and take them out. Somebody would have to guide them just so that it's done correctly because you got to fill in the plugs correctly in the winter or else you have a problem. Yeah. Road and Ed's very proud of his roads. They're a nightmare. So, and didn't wasn't there a concern that um the fire trucks and the ambulance don't appreciate these things? They don't. They don't.

So, I mean, maybe this needs a deeper discussion before they allocate. Well, we talked about it, but they they do handle the ones on Herford A and fire trucks do. Swan, Portland, and Harford all have them. And I have to say there the people have collected data on on Brighton and it's the summer months. It's insane. And even

what if they put up some of those fences instead? You have to like drive slow on the fences. So in a private I love the what point of woods does because that's exactly what they do but I don't think we can are allowed to do that on a ste we can't do it because we're not a private it's not a private association that road is a town road so I don't think we can put them up but I've suggested the same thing like why couldn't we put something like that up um but it's a straightaway it's a straightaway and the kids and they complain about some of the adults that leave the club, the beach club at night and come back and well, they have

residential area. They haven't decided what they want to do. They've just asked, "Please give us the authorization to send $2,800." And presumably they'll make a recommendation if and when they figure that out, right, to the board of selectment and the board of selectment will say that's a good idea or it's not. Or I mean I I would or we don't give them the money

and they come back and they make their request with data and uh we can appropriate the money. It's not like we're talking 30 or $40,000 talking about an amount that we could as a board of finance approve after the board is selected. I would ask that you keep I would ask that you keep the 800 in for the little trailers because that would make it easier for public works and the police department moving those things. We're going to take 2,000 out of that lot bottom line and just make it 800 and then tell Greg when he gets his plan. I'll move $2,180. Second.

Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose say nay. Any passes? Okay. So come back to the plan and just are they part of a particular beach association? Are they part of White Sands Beach Association? Brighton Road. They're just their own thing. This is pretty straightforward. That's in the budget book. Well, I know. If they're part of if they were part of White Sands, at least you could suggest maybe they some of the security money that might White White Sands are spends 215 offered down there. Okay, we got to go to a

I'll make a motion for 54 $544,000 for debt service and debt service for principal and interest. Right. And if you see in the notes, we will be further,400 will be coming out of the senior stat. Um 33 is from the leftover money for the last three years of the interest on the new box. So that money will be will come out of the leftover money. So Andy, what number did you move? Uh 544

544. Okay. Any discussion? Is there a second on that? On a second. Thank you. Uh any any discussion? All in favor say I. I. All oppose say nay. Any extensions? That passes. Then before we go to lengthy public comment, we have to approve the February 3rd meeting minutes. Do we have them? Yeah, they were emailed. There's also hard copies.

I was not here. I was absent. I wasn't on the phone. So, you just move move Andy Michelle from present by phone to absent. No. Couple uh names crept into some of the on page four. Okay. We'll go to page four. Um below Grizz. Motion made by Mr. Russell, second by Mr. Olson. Fred. Fred, can you just wait till Michelle pulls up her copy so she can make her corrections? [clears throat]

You need a copy of it? Yes, please. You want a hard copy? Thank you. I'm sorry.

Page four. I'm sorry. What was on? Page four. Y um the flow grid motions. I don't know who made them. I can't tell you who it was, but it wasn't me. Wasn't Matt because Matt's no longer on the board. Let's see. Which one was this? This was Andy wasn't here and Mr. Olson is our facilities director who was not reelected. Oh, the the old Matt Olson. Um, in any event, we got Yeah. What number was it? Well, it's on page four.

I can figure out if I had it in my notes. Yeah, I just checked it off that we approved it. Kelsey and uh Dave Kelsey and22, right? You got that. And then the next one down um I was not seated at the at the meeting. So, and I wasn't here and wasn't there. It's another one. Lime Art Association must have been from last year. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Well, do we if if nobody remembered, do we want to ask Michelle? She has it. She has it. Oh, just didn't get in there quite right.

Lime Art Association, Kelsey and Anna again for 9500. Yeah, I guess got the right numbers. Here they are. Did we get the right number for Gris? You wrote them down everybody. So if you have them, what do you have for Floss?

Floss was Dave and I. And then Lime Art Association was also Dave and I. She got that notes. Okay. Okay. So, Kelsey and Ryder for both of those. Is this yours? No. Yeah. No. Is that yours? I don't know if this is This is yours. That's I'm just trying to pack up the stuff that's didn't get handed out. So, moving on to any other comments or changes. I

have one more suggestion for a change on the first page. bottom just to add that um the 1999 is requested about to complete the white sand beach pavilion. I'd say engineering at engineering just to make it clear it's for the engineering. Oh, I don't think it is. I think it's for construction. No, it's a 19 additional amount. It was in addition to what we already gave theund and whatever we already gave them. It's a complete. Yeah. Okay. Take it back. So, it's got that. Yeah.

Then let me I'll ask for a motion to approve the uh minutes as amended. So move. Second. Second. And on a second. Any discussion? All in favor say I. Any oppose? Say nay. Any abstensions? I'll abstain. Andy abstains Michelle.

That does it. Thank you folks. You need a motion. Motion to adjurnn. Go ahead. Move away. 953 adjournment. Woo!