Town Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody. We'll start off the meeting tonight with the Pledge of the Flag. We've got a couple of early presentations here. We're going to start out, and I promised Ron Boyd, who's a member of the Rochester chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, commemorating the Revolutionary War patriots whose final resting place is in the town of Shelby. And I promised Ron that I'd get him up here first so he could get out before the rest of the meeting. So, Ron, if you would come up and make the Certificate presentation.

Okay. And we went and did a bunch of research and then we back checked with the college high school students for their research and we have certificates for every community in one of these counties commemorating the, in recognition of the Revolutionary War, Patriots whose final resting place resides in the town of Shelby. We have six different cemeteries listed here along with the Patriots who are interred in these cemeteries. We'd like to present this to the town and it's suitably framed so you can hang it anywhere you want in honor of our 250th anniversary.

Thank you, Ron. We'll make sure that that gets a place of honor in the walls here for us, and thank you for attending tonight. You too. Take care. I forgot to mention that. At this point, I'd like to invite the public any comments regarding agenda items only there's some solid That's not true. In western New York, I can tell you the number of towns in Erie County, in Genesee County, Allegheny County, I think the total, how many did we find? About 59 that those positions are appointed and not elected. So this would not be a one-off. And there are some very solid reasons for that. We will have a public hearing on it. But there was some real reasons behind this. Now, one of the issues certainly is involved is there's an awful lot to learn for those positions. We have two positions that are going to be opened up here in a year and a half. It would be great to find somebody possibly to start looking at them to hire for those positions. If it's an elected position, you never know who might get elected as opposed to finding somebody that actually you could hire, bring them in, get them trained, and put in that position. So it'll be a public referendum. It'll be a public hearing. The board has talked about it to great length, and we do think it's something that would actually benefit the town and make sure that we hire the best people possible. It's be no different than... Industry with how they would hire and look at the people and qualify them for these kinds of positions So we're not the only one One of them is not going to run for certain Darlene has made it very clear that she's we're going to retire I Haven't heard from Dale whether he is or isn't So there is obviously obviously one open position. There are two separate laws In place, you can vote for one yes, the other no. Vote no on either one of them or yes on both of them. So those things will be up to the public and they'll be on the ballot in November. Any other public comments? Dale, can I have the highway report?

Good evening. In a busy month, I started with helping the village pay.

We helped Ridgeway make the paved waterworks in Long Creek with the help of the towns of Yates, Ridgeway, Carlton, and Berry. To them, I say thank you for your assistance. I've been out filling potholes. Thank you to the town of Barry for lending us your hot box. We started our single pass roadside mowing throughout the town. Again, thank you Barry for lending us a tractor and a mower. I've been in the cemeteries leveling graves and seeding. A little shower this week would be nice. We incurred about 10 hours of overtime after receiving a call from the Sheriff's Department during a rainstorm in Fox Ceiling Water Works Road. We continue maintenance of equipment, help the county pave. Every week we try and mow the parks and the fire halls. We've done more lead and copper samples And I think we finished the second round of those. Sold two graves, got the video of the roads and the solar area. Talked to a lady by the name of Victoria about water extension on 31A. This should be something we take serious and try to accomplish. Once again, the old New Holland T90 has faltered. As you start your new budget process talks, please allocate monies for a new tractor and mower. As always, the stacking of e-waste. Thank you.

Dale? Yeah, go ahead. Is the Harley rig up and running yet? It is.

It's in the cemeteries right now.

Any idea when you'll get to the resident roadside?

I hope later this week.

Anybody else on the board have questions for Dale?

I do. So what you just asked us to consider in the budget, is that replacing the other mower? So what could we get for it?

Probably not much. Maybe $10,000, $12,000.

And the price of a new one?

$150,000.

Also, you went to the Cornell meeting last week. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I paid for that.

Okay, so you don't want to tell us?

I don't need to.

Okay. What about the $200 that you put on your credit card for the conference that we asked you, we did not give okay to pay because we didn't have anything in the budget?

According to the state auditor, you can apply that to Russian LEAD.

Well, what about when brush and weed goes over? Then what?

I won't let it go over.

Brush and weed right now, you've been mowing, but there's nothing being charged there for payroll?

Payroll's different than on the 400 account.

I understand that. 100 is payroll, 400 is contractual. There's nothing being charged to the 100. I just started mowing the roadside. So there's been nothing done out in the community except for the last two weeks?

Pretty much, yes.

Okay. So next pay period, we're going to make sure that, okay. I just want to make sure we're getting payroll allocated to the right places and where it's being, okay.

Understood. Okay.

So I guess, just to clarify for the record, so the $200,000 is not going to be paid back, or $209,000, whatever it is. It's not going to be paid back.

I would like you to charge it to Brush & Weeds.

Okay. That's not what the board said before. We denied a request to go because there was no money put in that line for the contractual amount. And actually, there are two different funds. We can't take something from the A fund and charge it to the DA fund.

I'm not asking you to. I talked to a New York State auditor. I don't think this is the place to get into the argument.

I'm not arguing, I'm just trying to understand. There was a request from you, an invoice that went to you, asking for the $209 repayment for the charge that was put on the town's credit card, when the board specifically said, we did not have the money to pay for you to go, and for other reasons, there was nothing in the budget, in that line, we said no. You went anyhow, and the board has issued you an invoice to pay the 209 back. And I'm just asking, for the record, are you declining to pay that?

For the record, I'm going to consult my attorney before I answer.

Okay, fair enough. Thank you.

Anybody else on the board have a question for Dale?

Yeah. We put anything down on the dirt roads to the controlling customer. I'll ask this again through the microphone. Have we put anything down on the dirt roads to control the dust?

Yes.

Okay. Is that something we have here or something we have to purchase?

We have to buy it.

Okay. And have it applied. Have it applied. If I remember right, a few years back we got a tank and we were going to do this all ourselves because we would get the brine for free.

We don't have any way to... Measure how much we put down. We do not have an electronic on-off switch. There's things that we don't have that they require nowadays.

Okay. All right. Then we can get rid of the tank and all the paraphernalia that goes with it then. Because you don't need it, right?

It's up to the board. Whatever you want to call surplus, put up for auction.

All right. Thank you.

Yeah, I got a couple questions. Well, there's a couple of road signs. There's two on Fletcher Chapel Road that are down and one on Wheeler Road that's broke down. The one on Fletcher Chapel Road, we had an issue 43 years ago. They had a lawsuit over it. This car must have hit it. It's down on the ground right now. I'm well aware.

It has been on their list to do, and I have spoken to the sign guy about it.

Okay. I forgot to ask last month regarding the porta-potties. I thought we were going to pull them out and not have them in there.

If you haven't received a bill for it, you won't.

I'd like to know who's paying for it.

They don't want to be known.

I also noticed Barry's Grater running on the dirt roads. I was wondering why What's the matter with our grader? We can't use that at all? Is there a problem with it?

Don't have a decent operator.

Well, there was an operator a few years ago that was running it and had no problem.

And it took the town of Berry quite a bit of time to get it back up, crowned up.

And what's the issue with the mowing tractor?

We sent it out to get a hydraulic leak in the brakes. The brakes have failed and the four wheel drive is making noise.

So are we getting a refund or are you going to go back to them if we paid to have it fixed and it's not fixed right?

It worked when it left and it worked for a week. I will call the guy who just came in yesterday.

Was that taken to the dealership?

No, it went to Alabama.

I would assume they would somehow warranty their work. If it's only been a week, would you not think that? I mean, are we not expecting they'll fix it?

I haven't contacted them yet. I will talk to him about it.

When did the break issue start? Like recently? Last year.

It was taken there last fall.

And it worked for a week?

It didn't get done until April 15th.

So it worked for a week and now it's down?

That is correct.

That's all I got. One other thing, quick, Dale. It appears last night the village decided to reopen the compost for village residents only. Apparently the area was being abused or they were dumping stuff that didn't belong over there. As a service through taxes for the town, what avenues are there for residents to have the brush taken?

Residents don't have access to it.

Village residents, town of Shelby residents. If a resident has brush beyond the ability to burn it, is there anything that you can provide?

Periodically, as you well know, we will come over and pick it up.

How does the general public know that?

We do not advertise that because it's not really in our scope of work.

Well, as the taxes go up, and it seems that services go down, then people start to wonder what they're paying for. I cannot make a policy.

It's something that the board will have to do to make a policy to have a pickup date once a month, once a season, whatever.

Thank you. I got one more thing. On the budget to actual, there's charges for cemetery services. And it was budgeted for $2,000 and we're like over $7,500. What does that consist of?

I don't know. We haven't. Services are for hours incurred in the cemetery, correct?

I don't have a budget with me.

Well, it's not a contractual. It has to be serviced.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Dale, thank you.

Julie? Yeah, I think, there you go. It's got the magic touch, I guess, you know.

Okay. Okay, I am happy to report that the reassessment project is in its final phase. On grievance day, the board was there from 12 until 3.30 in the morning. I'm reviewing all the grievances. Um, there was 61 total reviewed by the board. Um, so in total for the reassessment project, I had met with a hundred residents prior to grievance day. Um, so that brings the total to one 61, um, residents that came in to discuss their re to, to discuss their assessment with either myself or the grievance board. Um, I will be mailing out letters, um, over the next week or so. Um, RPS is still giving me a lot of problems. It's still freezing. So as soon as I can get the letters done and they can be signed, they will be mailed out and the new tax roll will be set on July 1st. So any questions?

And that takes effect for like the school bill, right? Yes.

So the first tax bill that residents will see with this new assessment is the school bill.

Okay. Um, Go ahead. You go first.

In reviewing the tentative role, I had sent you a couple of questions. I appreciate you getting back to me on those. I also noticed that some properties have the star exemption listed and some do not. Is that a function of didn't sign up for it or they preferred to get a check in the mail versus the credit on the assessment?

That is... It's a lengthy answer. So back in about 2016, New York State took over that exemption. And what they did was anybody that purchases a home from 2016 to current is only eligible for a check. So it's up to the homeowner to go onto the New York State website and apply for that check. So it's not done through my office. Prior to 2016, you're like grandfathered in as far as that's when you would have came to the assessor's office, you would have signed up for it. The other component to that is residents that were on the basic star that are now 65, up until this past year, would have come to my office, filled out another form, and then they would have been eligible for the enhanced star. Now New York State has taken that away from me as well. Now they want all residents to go online to create their own username and apply everything through the state. So there's like three different ways of receiving the STAR exemption, if that helps. It's a lot.

That's helpful. My concern being someone may qualify and not realize it.

Correct. When residents come in, if they are new to the area and they've come in, I let them know. I know generally a lot of realtors will let the residents know at the closing of, you know, make sure that you are signing up for this. So there is information out there, and I try to catch as many residents as possible. And there are still residents that come to my office thinking that it's still done at my office. And then I give them the appropriate paperwork to go online or call.

Okay. And then we had talked briefly about veteran consideration and then also disability consideration. Is that handled directly through your office?

Yes.

And you said that was yearly they have to qualify?

So disability, and did you mean the veteran disability or disability?

And or both.

Okay. So the veteran is, once they're signed up, they're good to go. And then that exemption stays with the resident with that property. So then if it's put in a spouse's name and then that spouse passes away but the other spouse is still there, that exemption stays until the property is sold. Um, when it comes to disability, that is income based. And so that needs to be done yearly so that I'm verifying their income. And then as long as they are eligible income based, then, then it will be reapplied each year. That's the same with the agent exemption. That's another exemption, 65 and older. Um, it needs to be done yearly so that I'm verifying income.

Okay. So there, uh, Being done yearly, there's never a situation where there could be potential arrears, you know, maybe they win the lottery or, you know, get a job or get healthy.

Correct, correct, yeah. So then I'm basing it. And so there has been a couple of residents where something like that happens, where they've made more money and then they're not eligible one year and then eligible again in a couple years.

Okay.

Yep.

All right, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

As we, the expectation is that we will get the tax roll July 1st. Just from curiosity, an indication of how much has the tax base changed at this point? Can you?

I haven't even looked at that bottom line because it's changing. I mean, I'm still making the changes. So, yeah, full disclosure, I haven't even looked.

Because we will be starting the budget process here, and that certainly is a number that is going to mean an awful lot to us as we get to the end of that process. So I was just trying to see if you could give me a peek ahead of time.

If I can, I will absolutely let you know, but I would probably just wait until that final roll.

Okay. All right. Anybody else?

All right. Could that equalization rate potentially change, or is that going to stay at 100?

No, that will stay at 100. Yep. And if homes could just sell closer to the SAS value, then it would stay longer. We'll wait and see.

All right. Thank you. Good?

All right.

Do we have anything from the planning board?

There, guess you gotta hit it in the right spot. We got an application from Dunkin' Donuts. They're gonna be doing a lot of miscellaneous updating to the building, mainly like the signs. They're gonna do some painting, miscellaneous painting here and there. They're gonna do some concrete work, electrical upgrades, and they're gonna be putting a canopy over the menu board. The planning board discussed it, and we felt that we want Dunkin' Donuts to stay, We told Dan to issue the permit form. The only other thing is that we've got some four-hour training, state training coming up in July, and I'll be signing up all my members for it. That's it. Okay, and that's for certifications? I don't know. It's going to be three and a half hours, so I don't know if they're going to round it up to four hours for us or what. Okay, so you have to have a total of, in a year, four hours. Yeah, we're supposed to have four hours, yes. But most of my members have got more than enough. I'll be able to cover that half hour. If not, I'll give them a little spiel or something to cover it.

All right.

Okay, that's it.

Any questions from anybody for Kurt? Okay, thank you. Code enforcement, Dan is not here tonight. He did turn in a report. He worked six days, 48 hours, took one day vacation. Building permits, year to date, 11. Working on older building permits permits that were never Started closing them out and informing the property owner. I have voided the permit Working on property maintenance violations including uncut gas glass grass. Excuse me glass. That's not good. I Send a violation letter. I've had good success with property owner compliance Uncut grass enforcement continues until late September and requires me to drive the town quite often to look Sincerely, Dan Wolfcoat, Enforcement and Zoning Officer. As a side note, we did take public comments on a weed and grass and brush law. We'll be making changes that reflect those public comments and putting that on the agenda in the near future, which will give Dan some other enforcement tools. Second person that I kind of promised that we would get them in early so they wouldn't have to stay through the whole meeting Is a Nicole rough from dresser Maliki who did our audit? Just as a little forward and because she certainly was not going to offer the same opinion that I may have We contracted with dresser Maliki to do an audit because we had reservations and regarding previous audits and Several of us on this board have had experience dealing with an audit that goes Through everything in the company from and it's not just finances its policies procedures Just about every aspect of what happens here in the town it was an awful lot of work on the part of dresser and Malaki and Certainly a lot of work on the part of the accountant, Margaret, and other board members. And so tonight, Nicole Ruff is here to tell us a little bit about the results and giving us the updates on where they are.

All right, thank you. My name is Nicole, and I'm from Dresher-Malecki, and we were hired to do the external audit, which is the audit of your financial statements.

Yeah, if you would just bring that a little closer. Okay.

Yeah. We are in the final stages of that audit, so we've done all of our audit work. We've met with management. We've gone through all of the discussions that we need to have. I think where we're at right now is we are in a really good draft form and we've given all of those drafts to the town so that you guys can look them over and we're ready to issue when you are. So about a week works for you guys. Um, if you want to look everything over, I know we sent an email with just some of the other drafts of the departments that I didn't print some smaller reports. Um, if you can forward that to, we can put that to everyone and then you can look them over if you have any comments in the next week and then we'll finalize and print those final statements next week. So the presentation outline, I'll go through the products of our audit, what the actual deliverables are to you guys, our required auditor communications, and then I'll do kind of just like a financial statement update and kind of give you a historical perspective of just what is considered your major funds, the revenues, expenses, and fund balance, and observations that we had during the audit. So the products of our audit, Obviously the main product is that of the financial statements. So that is what I brought with me tonight, and you each have a copy of that draft. That is, we help management compile those financial statements. So the only thing that really belongs to us in those financial statements is going to be the two different opinions. The first opinion is on the financial statements as a whole. Within your financial statements, there's two different sets of financial statements. There's what's considered your government-wide financial statements, which takes into account capital assets, long-term debt. We help put a lot of those things in there and compile that information. And then there's the fund financial statements, which is what you're used to seeing when you're doing the budget, and you see it fund by fund, revenues and expenditures. Similar to last year, there's going to be a modified opinion on those government-wide financial statements. It's an adverse opinion. It relates solely to what is referred to as OPEB, your other post-employment benefits. When we came in, there was a number of the financial statements last year. It was an amount that was done in 2015. The financial statements are has to be in compliance with GASB, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, and they issue pronouncements every single year. We help you look at them, implement them into your financial statements as we go. At that time it was GASB 45. It was a net OPEB liability of what that's gonna cost you to pay your retirees for health insurance when they retire. The new standards are completely different. So the new standard is GASB 75. and you'd have to evaluate that liability under those standards. So that old number, we couldn't find any documentation to support that amount in the prior financial statements. So we discussed with the town, we thought it was better just to put zero in instead of a number that didn't mean something and then kind of evaluate in the future cost benefit if it's even beneficial to go out and get, that has to be done by an actuary. It brings in what's referred to as a liability and then deferred inflows and outflows and it amortizes them. So there is a lot that goes into developing what that liability is. We do plan on issuing an unmodified, which is a clean highest opinion that you can get on your fund financial statements. Within that opinion, though, I do want to reference that we have what is referred to as an emphasis of matter paragraph. It doesn't change our opinion. It just means that we've restated your financial statements from where those audited financial statements were last year. So there was three different things that we've restated for that, or for. The OPEB balance, we made that, that was 518,000. We just made that zero because we really don't know what that number is. During the year, the accountants had discovered that there should have been a receivable for water in the waterfront for $54,000, so we kind of added that receivable back and started with that balance. There was also outstanding checks that should have been recognized, and then we also found that there was a CDBG grant that when you get the grant, you get the money in up front, and as you spend it, you have to essentially reduce that liability and record the revenue that hadn't been done. So there was a restatement in the general fund for $65,000 for that. There's a footnote in the footnotes as you're reading. Footnote 2 is just the restatement. So it describes all of those elements if you want to look at that further. In addition to that opinion, there's also what's referred to as the GAS opinion, Government Accounting Standards, and that's going to be the last five pages of those financial statements. And that really relates to your internal controls. So as auditors of your financial statements, we're not required to have any opinion on your internal controls, but we test your controls in order to develop our procedures. So we can't come in here and test 100% of your transactions. We do this risk assessment and see where are their controls. We test them. Can we rely on them? So like certain areas might have more controls than others, like the expenditures when they're going through all of those processes and getting looked at by the board. We'll test to make sure that all those approvals are there, and then we know that we can determine our sample size for the expenses. We did, so in that opinion, when we see something in internal controls, and we have a comments on it, we'll include that in there. So within those financial statements, we have two different, or three different findings. The first is just gonna be on your policies and procedures. So we had actually just, in working with the town before, provided templates for policies and procedures, and they were adopted, I think, at a time when there was a different supervisor. So those policies and procedures are, the policies are in place, the procedures just now need to be followed. So we've discussed that with the accounting firm. Things like journal entries, when they prepare them, or bank reconciliations, just that there's someone with a secondary review. So the policies are good. The second one is payroll. So one of the things that we encountered during the process was that the first half of the year, the payroll records just were missing and that we were able to test more so the second half of the year. We don't think that that's unreasonably stated just compared to the budget and what people were being paid. It's just that we weren't able to look at that supporting documentation, the timesheets, things like that. Also with the deferred comp, the retirement system reporting that lagged last year. We now know that that's getting caught up or is caught up, but we won't be able to test that that's actually done until we do the 2026 audit. And then the third item we discussed was the expenses exceeding the budget. So there was really just not that review during the year of the revenues and the expenses in making those budget amendments. So certain lines went over budget adjustments were made to the budget. So that's all detailed out in those last pages of that report. And there's different levels of findings. So the first finding is what's considered a material weakness. We do not consider them material weaknesses. Material weaknesses mean that we think that those findings could present, would be so weak that you could have a material misstatement in your financial statements. These are considered significant deficiencies, so they're just items that we consider important enough that the board should be aware of them. The next deliverable that you're gonna get is an auditor communications letter, and I'll go through those items on the next slide, but those are all required communications that we need to have with the board. And then the third item is the management letter. So your management letter, I know we're still just looking at a couple little things with the reserves, but we wanted to kind of get that all situated before we release the final report. We've discussed just housekeeping items. They're more so just recommendations that we have for the town. And then there are departmental reports. So the departmental reports are going to look a little bit different this year. Last year it was done as agreed upon procedures. We actually issue an opinion on your department. So we look at the justice, we look at the town clerk, and we look at the taxes collected in the town clerk. And we actually do a financial statement for them and issue an opinion. We have a clean opinion on all three of those items. they are cash basis financial statements. Another thing that's not listed on here is that we do assist the town in preparing your annual financial report, which is an electronic submission of all of your annual data to the state, and that was submitted on time to the state by April 30th. The required auditor communications, so we have to let you know our responsibility. Our responsibility is just to gain reasonable assurance that these financial statements that you have don't have a material misstatement in them. We also have to let you know of your significant accounting policies. Those are all disclosed in footnote one to your financial statements. If you were to change any of your policies relating to financial statements during the year, we would let you know and there were no changes. As I referred to before, the governmental accounting standards where they're issuing standards every single year. We look at those, we evaluate them. Sometimes they impact the way that things are presented on your financials. That did not happen this year. Also, within the financial statements, there are significant accounting estimates. Those are going to be on those long-term government-wide financial statements. That's going to be your pension liability related to the retirement system. And then the compensated absences, which is the accumulation of sick vacation time. We look at those estimates and just make sure that they're reasonable. So the ERS estimate we get directly from the state. They have an external audit firm that provides each entity in New York State with what their portion of the liability is, and then you recognize that on your financials. We are also independent from the town, so we have complied with all the ethical requirements to do this audit. And then if there were any other matters, if we had disagreements with management, we would have to let you know. We worked with a lot of people in the town, and we received the full cooperation with everyone that we worked with. So, the next part is just your financial statement update. You will notice this as a difference from prior to. There's a calculation that needs to be done before an audit to determine what funds are major, and it's dependent on the amount of assets, liabilities, revenue, and expenses in those funds. So, you'll see a reclassification on your financials this year, and you'll see that there's more funds that are major because they are supposed to be major funds. So, I'm kind of just going to do a historical perspective and give you an update of the financial data from this year. for the major funds. This is the first time that we're presenting the audit results to you, so our information's in the back. If there's, like, something that you want to see differently next time or you want to see more of something or less of something, please just let me know. But this is typically what we provide. The general fund operations, the revenues from the prior year really stayed pretty similar. Last year, you saw a lot of ARPA money coming in. This year, that was just replaced by an increase in real property taxes, and you saw about $10,000 more of mortgage tax as well. The expenditures, which outpaced the revenues, increased. There was increase in government support and offset by a decrease to transfers to other funds. So really, any offset in the expenses for the general government support was traded off by transfers out to other funds. So that net difference was about a $310,000 use of fund balance, which when you go to the next slide, it shows your total fund balance. That kind of compares to what you budgeted when the budget was done. So the budget anticipated using 358, $310,000 was used. So at the end of the fiscal year, this just categorizes the types of What that fund balance consists of. Non-spendable means that you can't spend it. If it's prepaid, you've already spent that money. It's an asset. And then restricted for a repair reserve of $204,000. And then $91,000 was used to balance next year's budget, leaving $481,000 as unassigned in the general fund, which is just available to use at your discretion. The next fund is your town outside village fund. Again, expenditures outpaced revenues here. Expenditures were about $92,000, about $20,000 more than last year, just solely pretty much due to the ambulance contract increase going from $15,000 to $35,000. And then your revenues remained about the same from $20,000 to $23,000. So the overall effect on that fund was use of about $68,000. which compared to the budget was good because the budget had planned to use $296,000 and only $68,000 was used. No money has been used to balance the 2026 budget, so there's a $482,000 assigned for specific use. Within the general fund, the amount that's available for spending, it's called unassigned in general, and then outside every other fund, it's called assigned for specific use. Your highway townwide fund, Expenditures exceeded the revenues. The expenditures went up from $618,000 to $950,000. And your revenues also went from $739,000 to $824,000. And the reason for that is that there was more money for CHIPS revenue, snow and ice removal. So really you see the increase in the revenues and you see the increase in the expenses that offset each other. Also there was the purchase of the snowplow 2025. So that net change was a use of $126,000 of fund balance at 12-31-25. $50,000 of that was used for the 26th budget, which left $312,000 available for Highway Townwide Fund. The Highway Town Outside Village Fund revenues were greater than the expenses. Revenues pretty much stayed the same. They went from $7.98 to $7.71 and then expenses went from $5.66 to $6.07. We just noted that there was additional equipment purchases in this fund during the year. So the Town Outside Village Highway Fund did increase about $163,000. There is a capital reserve in that fund that can be used for equipment purchases of $21,000. There was $100,000 that was assigned for the 26th budget, and then it left $488,000 for a specific use. And your last fund that's considered major is your water districts fund. The revenues outpace the expenses. They increased $570,000 to $612,000 based on water sales, while expenses actually decreased from $570,000 to $522,000. Your net change in your water districts fund was an increase of $89,000. $127,000 was used to balance the 26th budget, which left $855,000 available for specific use in those water districts. That's one thing that did change from your prior financials, is that there was a detailed listing of water districts. It was combined and reported in detail on the back, that's not like that this year. It's just all combined as one. Like I said, my information's in the back, so you can contact me at any time that you would like, but I would be happy to answer questions that you guys have now.

I think, anybody have any questions at this point? So you have a chance to review, I'm sure.

I just did.

Yeah.

What's that?

I'm going to digest it a little. There's a lot here. You spent a lot of time, and I want to thank you.

Yeah, and like you said, the first year is definitely a difficult transition, especially this year with the change in personnel. But the second half of the year was definitely much easier, too. And now that we have all the procedures established, it'll be much easier in the future.

We're working on that part of it every day. So I appreciate you taking the time to come here tonight. And I'm sure you'll be hearing from us with questions. And at this point, if you want to bail on the meeting, you're certainly welcome to.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

It was quite a process and I think that it warrants at this point to speak to a little history New York State came in here in 2021 and issued a report relative to errors in bookkeeping and other issues related to the finances They came in with seven items that they told the board and at that point that needed to be done. They came back in two years later not to do another audit. But they looked at, of those seven elements, what had been followed up on two years later. They found one half of one of the seven had been done. One half. One meeting had been attended. So a lot of the Issues that were raised there certainly raised concerns enough that in the last election there was a newborn. And we wanted to make sure that we were on sound financial footing. Over those same number of years, we've had a couple of different people taking care of the accounting. We've had different accounting software. Therefore, every time you change the software, not a lot of the information is transferred from one to the other. Is it correct? Did it all get run over into the other one? With the events that occurred last July, June and July, we were left without a real clear view of where we stood from a financial standpoint And it related to not just the financials, as you heard Nicole and as I mentioned to begin with, policies and procedures. And in many cases, some of those procedures existed here, but nobody knew about them. Nobody had them. Nobody saw them. Nobody was following them. Whether it was a procurement policy and the outlines that were in that procurement policy were not being followed, not because anybody was being dishonest, but because they didn't have access to the policy and nobody had enforced it. We were finding bills that hadn't been paid back to over a year ago. And currently, we still get and find things that have been set in place or something that's been in arrears for 12 months or more. So, it's a process, and so, A lot of the work that's being done is to put into place those policies and procedures so everybody understands, every department, everybody spending the taxpayers' money, understands how that has to be handled and what we need to do to work together to make that right. And it isn't a one-day-a-month job. It's every day, the people that work here on a regular basis. And just for instance, there's a handbook that was altered four or five times in a number of years back to 2021. And it references in the index eight forms that should be part time off, complaints, all eight different forms. And in everybody's copy of that that I looked at in this place, none of those forms were in their handbook. So how do you maintain facility and maintain a budget and a workplace when nobody knows what the rules are nobody knows what the forms are what do I sell out for a time I don't know what about a harassment complaint well it says there is one where is it nobody's seen it so every day we're in here trying to make sure that we move forward not only financially but put in place policies and procedures that no matter who's sitting up here on this board that they're followed and we maintain. Revenues are not going to increase a whole lot here. And unless we take control of all of the aspects of this and run it not like, oh, it's just taxpayer money. What do we care? We'll just raise the taxes. And unless we really follow up on what we talked about coming into office, then we're not doing our job. And this audit was a big part of that, and I want to thank you, Nicole, for going through. It was painful. There were a lot of days I was almost wishing that we hadn't signed you up to do this, but it was very thorough. And not that we hit anything. It was just trying to answer all the questions in a timely fashion because there was a report, the annual financial report that the state requires which has a certain date on it, and they get a little testy when you don't meet those dates. So, that's what we've been up to. That's what we'll continue with, and the audit was a big part of it. So, all right. Like I said, thanks again. I'm going to have a quick update here from Diana, who's the assistant here, my assistant, assistant for the board, for the accountants. She's everybody's assistant. Because part of what happens here is it's not only what are the old requirements, but what do we do with new requirements. So I'm going to let Diana, as much as she hates talking and being in front of people, she's going to have to today, so.

Got it. Cool. Okay.

Hi.

In April of 24, the Department of Justice published a rule that set requirements for state and local governments to follow to make websites and apps accessible to people with disabilities. And in April of 26, the Department of Justice extended the compliance date. So if the total population is more than 50,000, government buildings have until April 26 of 27 to get those sites up to speed. And if the total population is less than 50,000, we have until April 26 of 28 to get it compliant. Since I started working here, we've been looking at making updates, refreshing the website. And I have reached out to CHPC to give me access to make those changes. CHPC was hesitant to approve my request and informed us that since there are American with Disabilities Act standards that we have to meet, it wouldn't make sense to update the site only cosmetically and not implement those requirements. So at the moment, CHPC has added an accessibility overlay to cover us while we try to get everything up to speed. Jim and I met with CHPC to figure out what the Town of Shelby website needs to meet these requirements based on a copy of the digital accessibility readiness report. And it's a lot. I don't know if anyone got to see all 16 pages of what needs to be done. One of the biggest liability risks are our PDFs. They are definitely not compliant and we have a lot of PDFs on our site. So the plan is to take everything from 2024 and back and put it into an archive. And then everything from 2025 to now has to be updated, which means I need a Word document of all minutes, agendas, notices, and reports so that I can get everything ADA compliant and then convert it to PDF to put up to the website. And I am currently making Word templates to streamline this process and to use going forward. We also need to publish a statement saying that we're working on making the site accessible and that was provided to us by CHPC. I just haven't gotten around to actually doing that. We need to make sure that third party tax portals and payment paths are in scope. The site needs to be able to be screen reader accessible and navigable by keyboard. We have to make sure that forms are understandable, keyboard operable and labeled. Links need to be consistent and they need cleaning up. I have noticed we have some broken links. that go nowhere. Calendars and events need to be accessible. We can't just plop on a Google Calendar. They need to also be able to be read with a screen reader. The site needs to have proper color contrast, text resizing, and responsive, so they need to change according to screen size. And the site needs a proper structure page, because it's a little bit all over the place and not very cohesive. So we are doing it as much as we can in-house with help from CHPC, but it is a slow-going process on top of the other assignments that I am focusing on that needs to be completed within a 20-hour work week. So any input and suggestions will be appreciated.

Any questions from the board on this? Okay. You're off the hook, thanks. Thank you. This speaks to the ongoing challenges that are faced for a small town. When government regulations such as the Americans with Disability Act has been something, or you can just leave that on. Okay, thank you. There's been something around a very long time, and that's like having ramps instead of stairs, that you're accessible. All of these things are... in the eighty-eight law this is something new that's been added we've all seen it but either at any level that's county of the town new things come up and we have to respond fortunately uh... we have somebody in house uh... we're lucky enough that has some experience of ability uh... to address these uh... we've had a lot of comments the public about our website being not being the easiest to navigate, not necessarily looking like something that they thought that we should have, getting all the information there so people can get through it. This on top of it has been something we decided that if we were going to try to change the look and feel of the site, make it easier, that we would spend the time. And fortunately, again, Diana has the ability to work with CHPC. They've been very helpful on this. And with the time that she's got available, we'll make some progress on that. So, again, thanks, Diana. Next item. I'm going to move a resolution to approve the Hemlock Ridge Solar Project monitoring services by Nussbaumer and Clark. A little explanation. We have, for the solar project of Hemlock Ridge, we have a host and a road use agreement. At the meeting that took place, that Dale and I attended, I spoke briefly to the folks from Berry, They were looking to hire an engineer to monitor the project. That project has a lot of requirements as the host that we have to provide oversight. Certainly something that would require a lot of time and expertise that we may not have. Barry reached out, the supervisor there reached out, put me in contact with this engineering firm. It will be covered by an escrow payment that we will receive. And I've spoken to AES about receiving that as soon as we pass this resolution. I will get to them banking information. We will have an escrow account paid for by AES that will cover and more than cover the engineering folks to monitor the roads, to monitor all of the work that's supposed to be that they're following the rules. Barry is using this group, and when I talked to AES, the folks there about them, they were familiar with this group and said that it would make it a lot easier for everybody if we and Barry used the same engineering people. So what I'd like to do is get a resolution to approve this services. They've put forth a proposal for compliance monitoring services. Certainly I will, once we have approval, I will not sign this until we get the escrow money actually in the account. And then we'll have it in place for when they begin the work. So can I have a motion to approve the Hemlock Ridge Solar Project Monitoring Services? So moved. Can I get a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any nos or against? Next, I want to put forth a resolution authorizing the Highway Superintendent, Dale Root, to cancel agreement DO14805 between New York State Department of Transportation and the Town of Shelby for snow and ice removal on the state roads within the Town of Shelby. Can I have a motion to approve that? So moved. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All against? Well, it's taken us a little work, but we finally got a resolution to approve Craig grant application for the water study this Resolution gives the municipal solutions the right to and our behalf apply for this grant The focus of the grant will be twofold one to come up with a blended rate and and the other to look at forming a single water district which will provide a much cleaner way to handle thirteen water districts both financially from an accounting standpoint that will make things much easier for us the resolution sits before us can i have a motion to approve that resolution to approve the craig grant grant application for the water study.

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Putting forth a resolution to set a public hearing date for two new local laws changing the town clerk and highway superintendent positions from elected to appointed If passed this law will be put on the ballot for public referendum at the November election So I'd like to put forth We need to come up with some dates and set that in the resolution for a public hearing I'd like you to look at your calendars if you can please and look at the June 30th, the first or second of July. This thing needs to get to, if we so choose, and when we get to that point, if the board approves these, once we've gotten public comment, they will need to be in the Board of Elections office by August 2nd for inclusion on the ballot in November. And we put a date.

30th is fine with me. Good with you? John?

Yeah, it's good. Yep.

So in the resolution for the public here, we'll make it for June 30th at 6 p.m.? Yes. Okay. Okay.

You're going to want two resolutions.

Oh, that's right, because I asked you a lot.

Yes.

Getting ahead of myself. We can have the public hearing, though, for both those? Yes. Okay.

Yes, but it would be two separate public hearings.

Yes. Okay, you have to close one and open another? Yes. Oh, boy, I'm glad you're here to keep me straightened out on this stuff. So, first resolution to approve the public hearing date for... the local law to create appointed office of the town clerk of the town of Shelby.

So you want a resolution to introduce that law and to schedule a public hearing for that date.

Okay, so is that two resolutions?

No, you can do it in one resolution, but you just want to make sure the resolution says to introduce the local law.

Okay.

Let me see, I brought mine. Resolution to introduce local law to create a point of office of town clerk of the town of Shelby, New York, and to schedule the public hearing for June 30th at 6 p.m. Is that what you just said?

At 6 p.m. Darlene, did you get that? No.

Resolution to introduce a local law to create a point of office of town clerk of the town of Shelby, New York, New York and to schedule a public hearing on that local law for June 30th at 6 p.m. Can I have a motion to pass that resolution as stated? Someone needs to make the motion. Someone needs to second it.

Can I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second?

No second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Where's the other one?

Do you have the other one? Yeah, it should be. So the next one would be a resolution to introduce local law to create a point of office of highway superintendent of the town of Shelby and to schedule the public hearing on that law for June 30th at 6.05 p.m. You can start it later than that, but it has to be its own separate public hearing with its own separate start time with its own separate notice.

Yep.

So we're just going to say 6.05 p.m. Perfect.

Okay. I like that. Darlene, you have that? We do. Okay. Can we have a motion to pass that resolution, please?

So moved.

I have a second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

A resolution to approve the town clerk report from May. Can I have a motion, please?

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Resolution to approve the public hearing minutes, brush, grass, and weeds removal local law from May 6th. So moved. Second. All in favor? Resolution to approve the board workshop meeting minutes from May 6th, and I have a motion, please So move second second all in favor Resolution to approve the town board meeting minutes of May 12th and Can I have a motion, please?

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Resolution to approve to pay the claims against the town. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion to approve a resolution to approve the supervisor's report.

So moved. Second? I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. At this point, I'd like to open for board comments. Now welcome to public comments.

Yeah.

Right there.

This is about any public comment, not about what emotions you guys were just talking about. That is correct. Okay. Um, my name is Victoria Mandel. I work, um, as a trooper with the New York state police. I recently got transferred over here to this area. Um, therefore I'm closing on a house on maple Ridge. I know that Dale quickly spoke about, um, kind of what I'm going about on right now. Obviously with buying a new house comes a lot of checks. They checked the well. It came back positive for bacteria, E. coli, chloroform, stuff like that. I guess I'm just kind of asking if and how possible to go about getting public water to the few houses over there on Maple Ridge. To my knowledge, what I've been told is that the neighbors are in agreeance, I believe, to the water as well. I can't speak on behalf of them, but that's what I'm being told. Obviously, you know, consistent, safe water is a pretty important deal, so I just kind of want to know what, if anything, we can do with that.

I think it's been considered before, and I think it fell between the cracks someplace in previous work. There are a number of issues related to water. One of the reasons we're actually taking this water study we have right now thirteen water districts and every one of those water districts except one carries a bond and so any work that would be done in creation of another water district would also have to carry the expense of whatever it cost to put that in i've had other people approach me about that same issue there i think it's uh... Once we get this water study underway, I think certainly it's something, there's other people besides where you live that if it looked, I think one of the board members here for years has talked about being able to get water at his house. So I think there are a number of issues related to that. I think we certainly will take that under consideration. I did speak briefly to Dale about it. He kind of explained to me what might have to happen and what we could do. So I think that there's some consideration for that. Certainly cost is going to be one of those and what kind of burden and cost would be placed on the people that are looking for water and could we do it in a manner that is cost effective and not so overburdened so that it doesn't. So I've lived in the country for a very long time. I understand the whole well issue and when they ran water down the road I couldn't have been happier. can appreciate that and we'll take it under consideration.

Thank you.

I appreciate it. Thanks for bringing it forward. Any other comments? I want to thank everybody for coming. Appreciate it. I know sometimes it's hard to sit through all of this, but the more the public comes and hears, hopefully will understand how hard that the board is working along with the other folks here to treat your tax dollars like they should be. So appreciate it. Can I have a motion to close the meeting, please? So moved. I guess that means second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Again, thank you.