Town Board - workshop

They never have. Call the meeting to order and start with the pledge to the flag, please.

I'm going to ask the board to retire to the conference room in the court section over there for an executive session on a personnel matter. And then afterwards, we'll come back in and brief as much as we can the people in attendance and those viewing on the YouTube.

So we need a motion to go.

Motion, please. So moved. Second. All in favor?

All right.

All right.

Motion to reopen the meeting. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. For transparency, we had a personnel issue that we needed to meet on. It involved an employee of the town vehicle and building. THE EXECUTIVE SESSION WAS TO DISCUSS THAT AND MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS REGARDING THE EMPLOYEE, WHICH WE WILL DO. THOSE MATTERS ARE, BECAUSE IT'S PERCIVAL, ARE NOT FOR PUBLIC RECORD. SO WE GET TO GO ON TO THE FUN PART OF THE MEETING. IT IS A WORKSHOP. WE'RE HERE TO BEGIN THE PROCESS OF LOOKING AT some of the budget numbers. What I've put together for you all today is, and what you have before you, is a snapshot of the first six months of the 2026 expenditures in A, B, D, A, and D, B. As you look at the stack of papers that you've got in front of you, You'll see each of those. And in that stack, for instance, let's take a look at that marked A. And what you'll have in there is the budget to actuals for A and highlighted those areas in the budget to actual where we are clearly over budgeted. or destined to be over budget if expenditures continue with the same rate for the next six months. And the reason we've got it just to the end of July and it's six months, it's easy to follow. We also have complete data up to that point and it's easy for me to go through it. In addition to that, you also have in that the expenditures in that fund, the A fund, in each budget line highlighted to match those that are highlighted in the year-to-date budget to actual. So for instance, if you look at the general A budget versus actuals, the first page you'll see highlighted a 1010.4 town board contractual small amount of money but we only have 37.34 percent left for the year which since the budget was only 750 that's not really one to catch us but it is Certainly one that needs to be looked at in terms of is it something that we budgeted correctly for or we didn't budget correctly for or what items were in there. And then you can go to the other sheet and see what items were actually coded to that line. An interesting one is the next highlighted one on the budget to actual, which is A, 1110.4 justice contractual you'll see that it's actually behind already for the first six months and in reviewing what we found is that we have not been accounting for money that we get back from the state on the fines correctly so we've been taking the revenue but not putting in the proper code how that payment is split. By making the adjustment, and Diana has been on the phone with the controller talking about what would be the correct line item for that to go in rather than in the justice contractual. We didn't get some real clarification there. It looks like it'll just come out of payables. Is that correct, Diana? So I've also reviewed all of those. And if you want to go through them very quickly. You'll see that the supervisor contractual, we had some, we're only 16%. It appears that we under budgeted, but probably that the payroll processing alone is going to run us 5500. The clock, See payroll processing is going to be that much. Processing alone will be $5,500. The clock was almost $4,000. The point of all of this as you go through it and you'll see is that when we come to budget time, this will give us a clearer picture of those items that actually are included in each one of those. If you look at the comptroller, we budgeted $70,000 for that. We're obviously not going to have enough to pay the year on that. We're going to have to look at moving some money. That, of course, is single source. There was extraordinary expenses for the audit. additional work that she had to be involved in. Also, as we remember the contract, there was a $1,500 charge extra for the water. Hopefully, when we get the water study done, we can eliminate that. Whether that can get done in time for next year's budget, I'm not certain. When you look at the auditor contractual, that number was solid. Dresher Malecki did come in at the rate they told us and we budgeted for. However, there was an additional charge of $4,500 that came in from Allied that we did not get until I think March of this year, March or April, which put us over and would not be a recurring. And of course, that's a decision about whether we have a similar audit done again next year. I think that'll be open for discussion when we do a budget. The attorney contractual, again, we know it's unclear at this point whether we would run over entirely on the year if we don't do anything more than the, if we just do the fixed fee for the next six months. If we run over, it'll depend on whether we need to use the attorneys for other As you know, you've seen the attorney's bills. I've really tried to eliminate or limit the number of conversations I have with them, but there still always seems to be extra bill for every conversation. The point of this exercise here is we did fairly well on budgeting in a very short period of time. What I found in going through this is there were a lot of things that we missed the mark, and I think that we missed the mark because it was not good data on what elements were actually being charged to those budget lines. In fact, we're still finding ways to improve it. On the next page, the A, the building's contractual. We budgeted 99,000. We got 32% left of that for the year. We had two issues that came up that were unanticipated. One was the security system, which ran us almost 10 grand. actually about 9,500 for the printer and for the software update. We did expend money and put it on that buildings for the improved sound system, both in here and in the courtroom to better communicate with the public that doesn't attend the meetings for our streaming and the audio for those folks. that do attend in there. That came in about 5,400. I think that what it tells us is that while we were pretty close on the 99K, we're going to be short with these. Also, we'll look at the amount that has increased in a number of various heating. some of the other expenses associated with the building. The A, the unallocated insurance. That again, as we rushed through the due budget, we put in $85,000. Self insurance, however, alone, which we take through the county 70,000. And then Tompkins on top of that with what we approved and the increases that we got this year put us over budget. This will be one that we're going to be

Is that a final number, the 128? Have we paid all the insurance?

It looks like that's going to be close. We're going to be over, we're going to be about 43,000 or so that we're going to have to look at moving. And when we get done analyzing these, one of the things we're going to want to do is look at each of these overages or where we think we're going to be over. We don't want to wait until the end of the year and make any kind of adjustments in these.

Mm-hmm.

The veterans contractual, we had budgeted 1,000 until we found out that the board actually approved an extra $500 last year for 1,500 and already committed to the Veterans Association for Flags at the increased amount until I found the resolution that we were supposed to do that. Cemeteries, it's another one we're going to have to look at a little bit harder. The labor comes in as journal entries. I mean, we're going to have to take a harder look to see it. And when we work on the budget with Dale to see whether we need to put more money in that for labor. And that's an unknown. You don't know how many. But we certainly want to make sure we put in the money for that.

Can we go back up to... 5010.4 highway contractual so we didn't budget anything but there's 1500 I know what the 200 is what's that one's the highway contractual 5010.4 it's between allocated insurance and veteran services it's okay So there was no budget, but we've overspent it. You just didn't get a number over here. So what else is in there? I guess I could look, but clearly there was something there.

Just because we want to know how much is supposed to be on there, because it goes under his budget line. So in my mind, putting the Verizon bill for Dale in that one would let us know how much we're supposed to put in it beforehand because it didn't fit anywhere else.

Did we budget it, though, somewhere? Not that I've seen. No, no. We didn't budget for the phone bill?

I think we felt that it would have been in the – we didn't budget for it.

Okay. Okay.

You know, we – We came up with a budget in about four weeks.

Yeah, no, I just, for some reason, I thought we talked about it.

Yeah, but I can't remember. I'd have to go back through all the notes.

But is that only for his phone, and then Dan's phone is in a different line?

Yep, so the Verizon, I believe the Verizon Connect is also.

So it's his cell phone and the Connect. I believe so, yes. Okay.

But the Connect is for the water. Water, yeah.

No, the Verizon Connect is the GPS from the vehicles. Which we also have to know that all of the vehicles do not have GPS. The mower doesn't, which certainly should probably have in case somebody got hurt on it or something. Okay, sorry.

Any other questions on A? Again, we've got plenty of time to look at these. With the detail that you've got, you'll be able to see what each line item contains. So anything that you have any questions on, please let us know.

Do you have these electronically that you could send? At least to me, I don't know. Just everything that's here. Just give me the Excel file. I'm assuming these are in Excel. Yeah. Yeah, just give me the Excel files for these handouts. Yeah, I would want them as well. It's easier for me to look at. That's a paper guy.

Yep. I like to be able to plug numbers in. Yep, that's right. On scenarios.

Okay. Under B, the extraordinary ones that you'll look at, first off was the constable. That was put in the wrong place, charged incorrectly, so we'll have to move that to the correct line. Since we don't have constables, that'll have to go to court. Is that what A111.100 is? Constable A.11, yeah, that will have to go back in there.

Yeah, whatever the personnel is up there, or contractual. Or is it personnel?

Personnel.

Personnel.

So this refuse and garbage, is that the dumpster rentals or what is that?

Our waste management. Waste management. Yep, so that one was a real struggle to figure out because I didn't know if it fell under buildings contractual. But if we have a specific code for refuse and garbage, it would make sense to put it there.

And as we get into the budget, Larry, I think it does well to have that kind of conversation. We can move it to someplace that may make more sense. We've been struggling for the last six months to try to figure out where is the best place to put a lot of these charges. In the previous budgets, it varied. And unfortunately, because we switched counting last January, we don't have any more visibility other than 2025. in terms of how things were necessarily assigned. So we're dealing with 2025, which we know the year was not static. It was kind of a moving target. We're going to have...

I'm sorry. I was just going to say that goes back to the spreadsheets, the forms that are going to get filled out for the budget. They're going to be very specific about what's included in those numbers as opposed to just $100,000. Mm-hmm. so that we know where we should be putting, you know, where we budgeted for stuff.

And I think that's the first time, really, and even if you talk to Darlene, we'll tell you that the board has really tried to look at all of the line items and really try to define what goes in correctly into those to be able to make proper decisions.

I like that these charges are all broke out like this. This is helpful.

Yes. And that's the one thing that you didn't have in the previous accounting system. I don't think that that was the ability to be able to look. It'd be nice to be able to look at something prior to 25, but even those, what we found is because of all the changes that occurred, even after Miranda left and then you went into a different accounting system and then new people in the office here didn't even get haphazard.

We actually can get.

Refuge and garbage, January dumpster runoff, February dumpster runoff. So that is what it is.

We had the ability to get that out of Williamson. And actually, I will send out, I'm pretty sure I might have the general ledgers for the end of 24 out of Williamson, which will show you all this. I'll see. I think at one point they sent it to me, but I'll look. If I have it, I'll send it out to everybody.

One of the areas we're going to have to spend some time on, and I spent probably, I don't know how many hours today going through the hospital and medical bills, where they go. For instance, you'll see in the other two budgets, we have one person actually, you'll see the B9060.1. eight hospital medical here we budgeted nothing for it it turns out that's retirement for one former employee who worked in the office and she's the only one that ends up under b probably the correct place for it to be but we didn't budget didn't know it you know at the time so we will have to cover that but we'll have to when we budget next time make sure that we put that in there You look at VA, not a lot there, but you're going to see that where we really run into the issue will be in that DA 9060 again. I still have, after spending most of the day on just that particular budget line, we're still gonna need to work through where we're coding healthcare. This is mostly for retirees. Currently, we only have two employees. on health insurance here that we pay. One of the MEOs and Dale, the rest are retirees, and they get charged differently whether they worked and some of it split between DA and DB. That needs to be reviewed. All told, it looks like if you look at the budget lines in A, the DEA and DB, we probably have, we budgeted enough money for that. It's just didn't put it in the right place. Just so you know, healthcare costs us in total about 117,000 a year. The Medicare package alone that we offer retirees comes to $78,880 per year. That does not include the Medicare reimbursement or Social Security reimbursement that we give. I think there are some questions that need to be asked given what Ridgeway went through recently. amherst i don't know what the answers to those will be but those certainly are going to need to be some questions we look at i have not been able to find anything here that speaks to any commitment and this is not to say that we're thinking that we need to remove those support but i don't find anything anywhere in writing that would you to pay those I certainly want to make sure that we don't run afoul as Ridgeway did in theirs so that speaks to the DA that's really that at this point the biggest one on that that's On the DB, the last one here are the four main budget areas. The DB 5112.2, that is where the CHIPS money is used. Now, it shows that we only have that much left in that line. And I don't know how it works. We actually got more CHIPS money than what we had budgeted as revenue. So I'm not sure how the discussion occurs to put the, you know, extra revenue in that to cover because 3.5%, what's left is not going to cover probably the latest work that was done after June.

So this 260 in CHIPS money, has that come in or no?

Yes, I thought that the CHIP money.

I believe it has.

I have to double check.

Yeah. And it was more than 260? Yes. Okay.

Not much more, was it? Probably 3%. Probably, yeah.

I was thinking 280. I don't know why 280.

274, something like that. Yeah. Snow removal, who knows? We've got a fair amount. This is what change that we made last year to split out. so that we could track snow removal versus the contractual salt and make sure we had better visibility on what was being spent in those line items. We may have enough left in those depending on how November, December play out. I've asked Dale to look at the salt that we have currently and to get a price on SALT because it's certainly not going to go down before the end of the year. And we'll try to make a determination if we should buy some and pop it off. Social Security, I have yet to ask Margaret about. I've got it highlighted. It was one of those things I wanted to talk to her about today, and I missed that opportunity. And as you see, the next line item there, the DB9060, shows again that the way that we're splitting up the hospital and medical insurance is probably not appropriate to each budget area. Again, we totaled it out. We didn't budget enough money, just maybe not in the proper budget area. What I'd like to do, and the reason we put this together is to give you some time to start studying as you look at what the expenditures are in each of these lines. Linda put together some spreadsheets that I have passed out to different department heads. Darlene is working on hers. I asked Dale about his today. Start putting together the budget numbers. The process as it's defined in the books is that I will review those with the department heads. And then present those to the board. And then every opportunity for those department heads to, once we've had a chance to look at those, we'll get through some workshops. and begin to ask the department heads for justifications for those expenditures. I'd appreciate a look at this. That'll give you a pretty good idea of what's in each of these, where we stood overall in the budget. I think that for as rough a job as we did last year, we're not too far off on most line items. Whether we have enough money to move from those areas that we have not expanded into those other areas to balance the budget, not certain yet. But anything like that, any movement will come up for a vote to the board. So we'll make some recommendations and the board will decide whether to vote to approve those money from one budget line to another within, of course, the restrictions by law. At this point, I think that in the last meeting, I mentioned the fact that we did have a meeting with the county on the reimbursement for highways. Still haven't heard anything, and in that meeting, Jack Welsh, the county treasurer, said that he would get back to us by August 7th. That's the end of this week, so we'll see if we can get that. We have confirmed that we have canceled the state contract for plowing for Route 31 and 63. The state did come here today and asked if there was an opportunity to store some salt here. They would pay for a division in the salt barn so that they could store their salt so they didn't have to travel so far to get it. There would be some reimbursement for the storage of the salt and the fact that they would pay for the divider. how that's going to impact the budget some will have to take a good hard look at when we start looking at overtime and what it does to those budget lines there it's no removal the hemlock solar project is bouncing around next meeting scheduled on that September 1st supposed to give us a where they're moving with that. I did send the banking information to AES and anticipate getting the escrow money so that we can hire the engineering firm to monitor that project, which will put the onus on them to make sure that they follow through on it. And I've not heard anything. I think I shared the last email with you regarding the grant for water. This is the water study. So I'm hoping that we hear in August here, we can get that thing rolling. The state did say that they got it. They're reviewing it. And I think Jeff Smith said in that email that I shared with you that he anticipated to hear this month that we can move forward to that. At this point, I'd like to open it up to anything else the board would like to bring up in the workshop here this evening.

I just want to... We received an email from the resident that was charged for the water meter that got taken out. It was here when he came back. He was required to pay for a new one, requesting that we take a look at that again. Here's the receipt showing that he paid for it, and the meter is out there on the shelf. I saw it. So I personally would like to fund them the $600.

I thought we already did that.

No, we talked about it, and I was going to look into it, but I was waiting for some request from them. So it just came in. And, you know, for him, yeah. So I think we should be refunding that money. We have the meter here. I don't know why he wouldn't have been given the same meter back that was already paid for it for that property.

Any discussion on that? We talked about that before, but we didn't see the bill and we didn't hear from the residents.

We didn't make a motion to do it.

Do we have a motion to refund the money on that bill? Go ahead. Can't do that. Oh, yeah, you can vote on stuff. Absolutely, I'd check with the attorney. You can? Yeah. That was a question brought up before, and I thought we were out of line to do that.

Try not to, but sometimes.

Something like this is. Yeah. I move that we reimburse for the meter.

I second.

$600. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Anything else?

Charlie, do you want this?

Yeah, I've got something here. I'll preface this by going back. three years to the previous Assessment Board of Review. A question was brought up to me about this year's Assessment Board of Review. The folks there had a lot more dedication than I got, hanging there and listening to all the gripes and grievances and stuff. But in 23, they worked worked over and their normal hours of work for what they get, the 175 hours they get, according to what Tricia put in the assessor's report was, normally works one seven-hour day on reassessment here. Well, this year it was from noon till three o'clock the following morning so several hours over what was normal uh the other year in 23 that's why i'm referring to this uh the board of assessment review that year worked six days for a total of 45 hours going over what they had to do here they worked they got it all done and Let's see, 15 hours. So I think we need to take and pay them what they got in 23, which was an extra 20 an hour, $20 an hour. It's hard enough to get people to work and do this thankless job. They should be compensated for their extra time, dedication that's put into it. I'd like to propose that they get paid for the extra hours over seven.

I don't really know much about that board. So they only, we budget every three years for that in a year that there's an assessment change?

No, it's budgeted every year.

And what happens on the off years where there's no, you know, appeals or whatever?

They're there. Well, that's what I'm trying to understand.

And I think we should know what goes on in order before we start changing salaries. So I just am curious. I don't know what – I mean, I know the zoning word comes once a month. I don't know what the – They come once a year, and their fee for doing that is – Doing what? That's what I'm trying to understand.

Taking any complaints.

In the off years? Yeah, I'm talking about the off years.

They're there to take complaints. If there's no complaints, they do nothing.

Can you grieve your... Okay, sorry. Can I go out into the public for this? Can you grieve your assessment on a year that you're not reassessed?

Yes.

You can grieve every year?

Every single year if you want.

Okay. So I guess the other thing I'd be curious just to know for my own personal is what are the hours in those off years?

We can be there anywhere from four hours and up. Our minimum we have to be there is four hours.

Okay.

The minimum is four. We can be there another 10. We can be there eight hours. We can be there 10 hours. We don't know.

Yeah.

See, they have to be over there and be available.

Well, I know. Yeah. I knew, understood that, but I didn't know they met on off years. I thought it was only, I thought you could only grieve on the years that you were first. The assessment came out.

Yeah. Okay.

So have they been paid for this most recent grievance period?

Not yet. Not yet, no. This next month.

And is it by voucher or is it by time card?

So I had a voucher or a letter from the assessor and then I made up a voucher for them, so for each one. And it's based off of, because it's my first year doing it, what it says.

And does that include the overage?

Not right now, no, because it's only based off what the assessor wrote in her letter to me.

What did she put in there? How many hours?

I don't know if she did say that.

Just their standard, apparently.

Standard fee. They did the grievance.

And that they should get paid.

Yeah, the $100,000. The $100,000, yeah.

John's stating by resolution that they agreed to pay $20. In the past.

In 2007. For that one time, I think, right? It wasn't an ongoing. Right. It was a one time, I think. It was at that meeting. Okay. Yeah.

That sounds right.

Maybe we should look at how that whole thing works in general as opposed to just... We've got a meeting next week if you want to do some research on that and then bring it up.

I think the resolution, if you're going to do a resolution to change it, would be good at the full board meeting, and that's next Tuesday.

Is there any way we could get some background on the last three or four years, five years? More on the off years, I guess. Not the year that the assessments come out, but on the off years. how much time has there been spent so that we can kind of see?

They got minutes maybe or something they can come up with.

Would Trisha maybe, or not Trisha, I'm sorry. Julie have that maybe?

Three years ago when we did the assessment, Trish was there and then this was the first time that Julie was there.

Yeah, but for 24 and 25, how many hours were spent in those years?

It was just the four hours that we were there. Okay. I don't think anyone came in. I think it was maybe a couple that came in.

Okay. But you weren't there? No.

At 8.30 we left or whatever.

Okay. Yeah, maybe we should just look at the whole.

Something, too, you can also ask Julie about. Yeah. Since the bill comes through the request for payment. Yeah. I think let's cover this next week and do it at the board meeting. And I think at that point, too, if there's any public conversation or comments, they'd be able to make such comments. during a regular court meeting. Anyone have anything else?

We're waiting for a couple of things to come back from the state to update you to the code of ethics and have not received the verification of that.

You can ask Donna. She would let us know as soon as it came in.

And I'm actually concerned about that. Actually, I'll ask Kathy if I get their phone number to call them because that makes me nervous because it's been since May when we had our meeting. I need to know. We all need to know.

What's the other one? For the hiring, which I think we did get confirmation from Jim. We got it, and it was acceptable.

It will be on the ballot. The wording was correct. I double-checked on that. I called the board and got confirmation from them. from a couple different individuals and the wording was correct and was acceptable.

And before it just pops up out of the jingle weeds, what's going on with New Leaf and the whole solar on gravel?

I've kind of taken the approach to that, that the sleeping dogs lied. I have not heard from them and I have not called them. I got a feeling, you know, they were all hot to trot at the end of last year and they wanted a meeting with us in January. I told them okay. They declined and said we'll do it in February. No response. And so there's been, it's been quiet. So unless they are ready to pursue it, it's tough, you know. Okay. Okay. So we do have money still in. escrow for the engineering and legal work it's just sitting there so any of the expenses that were associated with the work we've done on that already have been covered by the escrow so we're not out any money at least in terms of either legal or any engineering fees if they were to start up again then we still have some money to cover those and any any excess they'd have to you know renew their, you know, put more money into the escrow.

So Municipal Solutions has applied for the grant?

Yeah, I think I forwarded the actual application and he followed up with them and called them or wrote to them and asked them what's the status. They came back and said that it's under review and that we should hear from shortly now. Jeff, when he was in here and when we processed this, he said he expected it to here in August. So we're in the first part of August. We'll have to see where we go. I'd like to get it as soon as possible. You know, Jeff's been pretty good at least keeping us informed. I can ask him here in another week, you know, give him a week or so into August and ask him again if he's heard anything. And then he can ping them and see.

Let's see if my record correction is correct here. Are they waiting for the results of the grant, or did we agree that they were going to go outside that regardless to work on it? Well, we couldn't agree.

Well, we can't go outside the grant. That's a bad choice of words. I know what you're saying. I don't know that we made a decision. We have talked about that. I did ask whether we could start working on it before the grant was given, and the answer was, if you do, you negate the grant on it. However, I think a discussion needs to take place. If we don't get the grant, do we want to pursue it? And that's certainly a valid discussion that if we don't get the grant, I think those are, we do have money and water. You know, we can make a discussion once we find out on the grant, yay or nay. If it's a yay, great, good to go. I've not signed any agreement, even though I've got board approval to do so. I've not signed any agreement with any engineering firm, MRB. or anybody else to begin and work on that study until we get the money. And if we don't get the grant, then we can discuss, okay, do we want to pursue that, you know, anyways, outside of the grant?

So to date, have we given municipal solutions any data?

We have shared what we had already that they took a look at in order to formulate. So it's also shared some with MRB so they could formulate a quotation. But mostly the data was shared with MRB. Now they've been a part of our water studies going back years. We did share some information with them and they did have some discussion with Margaret. that we produce, so they could take a look at what the scope would be, so they could do a valid estimate. At this point, no, we've done nothing else. And I think that they'll have a lot more questions for both Margaret and for the clerk. And that was all part of the money that we've proposed for the grant, was to cover Margaret's time, or single sources time, and Kathy Bennett's time, where they're legal. So this wasn't a WEA grant, it was? No, it's a CRAIG grant, I think, or CRAIG. CRAIG, yeah. And it's a non-competing grant. So it sounds like it's pretty much in the bag. We just need to get notified that we're going to get it. Then we'll pursue it. We'll get 50% of the money. And if we actually enact the results, we'll get 90% back. Okay. All right. Didn't close. I hope so. Love to get it going.

Speaking of water, two meetings ago maybe we had a young lady come in, bought a house on Eagle Ridge Road. Where are we with some plan?

It's just at this point, you know, there was some discussion years ago. There's no plan at this point. I think that we would need an engineering. I'm not going to rely just on a highway department guesstimate. We'd have to hire an engineering firm to take a look at it and give us a true cost. We certainly aren't going to be able to tap off the Medina line to supply those. So we would have to run something. Probably the least expensive way would be to come off of Salt Works Road and go across with our own line.

There is a fire hydrant there in front of, if you're going west.

The first three houses have water. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know whether they came off the main.

They did come off the main, but I guess can't we tap their, you know what I mean?

The transmission line's right there.

The village will not let us. No, you're not going to. They won't tap the main line again.

Yeah, but what you're talking about, can't you tap off the hydrant? I don't know.

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.

I don't know. And I don't know whether you can do that or not. It depends on what the connection was. What's the agreement with Medina? Oh, yeah. I did have a meeting with Medina on. water two weeks ago. The discussion about the 20 houses that we actually have tapping off the main along there that we have our meters on, it's tapped into the main, we read the meters, and then we furnish the readings to the village. Years ago, it was a problem in that the town did not give the readings to the village. And for almost, it's guesstimated about 10 years of water. So that's a sore point with the village. We had a nice conversation about it. And one of the discussions was, how about just turning those things over to the village? Let them put their meter out. Unfortunately, The agreement was signed between the village and the town in 1993. It became part of a bond for not only those taps, but also for the line along Salt Works Road and along Freeman. So there's one bond that is all of them. It's not a separate amount of money. That bond was a 40-year bond and goes to 2033. So how do you split it? And that might be something to talk to once we can get a study started. Are there other elements that you can put into it? I think in terms of a headache, it's a headache for us. It's a headache for the village. It would be great to be able to say, hey, put your own meters on it. Nobody's making any money on it. But it's been a sore point. But without clearing up the bond, I don't know how you separate those out. I think certainly something to be looked at in the future.

So I want to go back to, so as far as that row of six or seven houses are,

There was an estimate years ago, I think, that run in a line, but I don't know that I would put any, and I don't know what the number was. I wouldn't move ahead at all without having some kind of engineering.

Well, I'm just curious, is it possible, and would somebody know whether we could do it? Is that something that Ed Hausnick might be able to just tell us?

You could ask.

Because I just don't, I mean, I've been at several village board meetings early, like three years ago, where those people were begging for water. I haven't seen them recently.

And I don't know why it was done in the past when they had, I understand they had a plan actually to do it and nothing was pursued.

I just don't want to drop it.

I don't like dropping it. If you want to pursue it, that's fine.

Well, it seems like an embarrassing section of housing did not have water. They didn't want it. Not out in the middle of the swamp. They didn't want it originally. They didn't want it.

The people that lived in those houses originally, I think.

Yeah, they didn't want the water.

They didn't want the water.

Yeah. So, unfortunately, you know, they could have probably, if they'd done it at the same time those other tapped into the main, probably could have all been accomplished at the same point. Now, it's just going to pay the $83. Right. Now, yeah. And so now you're faced with what's going to cost to put for that many houses. I don't know.

And they could be different people, in all fairness. You could have different people living in there.

One thing, when you mentioned the agreement between who reads the meters, if I recall that agreement correctly, either Shelby read the meters or the village had the option of reading the meters. So the responsibilities... wasn't always shouldered by Shelby. The village had the option of reading the meters and the meters didn't get read.

That's correct.

So, I mean, it was.

I have the agreement.

Yeah.

Which I had to get from the village because I couldn't find it here.

Oh, I got them all.

Surprise, surprise. Did you want to bring up sunshine?

Oh, yeah. We do have, you're all aware that we had a little issue with Sunshine and we now have that resolved. They've turned in their last invoice, but they also have turned in, they would like to see if, and I told them I would ask the board, and thank you for reminding me, they would like to get paid in advance for the next month. And I would bring it up with the board. I want you to think about that and whether you want to pursue it. They got to have a guarantee they're going to do it, right? Well, that's, do you set a precedence? Yeah. Do you prepay services?

Can we work with them on paying them when the bill comes in?

We've done that. Okay.

So not waiting for the next board meeting. That is correct. Making that one time, one bill a prepay.

Was there a stipulation? Did they have a mower go down?

No, I think that there's, they lived through all of the non-payment of bills last year and i think that with what happened and we discussed that in the last meeting um we unfortunately have with a number of our vendors when we walked in here burned some bridges damaged others he's a small businessman who's nervous And I think that all reports we have that he's been very good. He's done a good job up to the point that we didn't pay him. And he's looking for a prepay, which is out of what we do for services of that nature. I did say I'd bring it up and I'm not in favor of that.

I worry about a precedence.

Yeah, exactly. You can put it out there that he would definitely get his payment.

Well, I've assured him on the phone. I've talked to him. Diana has talked to him. I talked to him. You've talked to him. We've done the best we can to reassure him. I mean, for a small business guy who's got to pay for those mowers and labor, I can certainly understand his angst about it.

I would entertain him weekly.

or by week I'll talk to him I told him I'd bring it up with the board we brought it up I sense what the feeling is here let me talk to him again and see if I don't want to he's done such a good job it would be a shame to have to try to go out and find somebody else although we will have to ask for a renewal of the contract next year which we will do that okay Anything else before we end the meeting tonight? Can I have a motion to close the meeting this evening?

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye.