Board of Selectmen - Regular Meeting

But any of these like if you're doing them and need help with it, I did them, too. Okay. What are you doing with me over there? No, you're not on camera. I I I don't care if I It's 6:01 February 10th. Uh we're going to start the board of selectment meeting. We'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Start with citizens comments. We have not no need the uh approval of minutes from January 13th meeting. Um I'll make a motion to approve the minutes of January 13th. I will second that. All in favor? I. Any additions to the agenda? No additions. Correspondence and announcements. I don't. Do you have any?

No. uh public works report. Uh just want to talk about with them is the uh snow that has came and is still coming. Uh the parking ban is doing pretty good. There's a couple of roads that people are still parking on the road, leaving their garbage cans out. We're trying to we're trying to talk to them and trying not to have them do that, but uh they're doing a really good job. So that's that's pretty much what I got with them. Have we had to tell anyone yet? Not yet, but we sent out a couple of letters that it it's reoccurring every snowstorm. So hopefully that does it before we have to do that.

And people have called in. Correct. Regarding public works doing a good job. Correct. Excellent. Correct. They are doing a great job. So [clears throat] all right. Um the finance report, we have the finance director here, Chris Schneider.

Um so just a few updates. Uh budget preparation is in full swing. Worksheets have gone out to most departments. A few are still waiting. Um there is a tentative schedule attached um for um meetings and so forth in the future. Um, capital project requests are beginning to be compiled and put together and will be reviewed in March. Um, working with public works on road projects and their capital um, projects as well. Um, tax forms have gone out. So, all of our vendors have received their 1099. Sub2 forms have gone to employees and those have all been filed electronically. Um, we did certify another extension on the fiscal year 25 audit for the town Sterling transfer uh the volunt Sterling transfer station is complete. Um, so that one's all set, but we are just wrapping up a few final things to close out the audit. Um, we also renewed our SAM.gov. It's a a website that we use for search for grants and things like that. So, that has been renewed for the town. Um, and all of our quarterly reporting to the Department of Labor for both the town and the Volunte Sterling transfer stations have been complete.

Okay, thank you. Okay, now we have Tony here, treasur's report.

Hi folks. Um, after the last or a couple meetings ago, um, they requested my presence to present the report. So, here I am. Um, and I guess that's going to be periodically I I will do so as anytime. Um, I typically work on Tuesdays. It's a part-time position. Feel free to reach out any time. Um, and uh or the public can stop in and see me on Tuesdays. I'll be more than happy to go over anything that's necessary. So, uh, the the treasur's report, a lot of the treasur's information is is required by state. It's handled by state statute that oversees what we can invest in or whatnot. It's all very secure FDIC insured and um or or run by the state. So, it's as secure as the state is. Um and that's where our investments are. Um the report that I present on a monthly basis on paper uh just kind of hit some of the highlights. It's a it's a public document. Anyone in the public can look at it, request it. Um so interest and uh investments earned in January. So for the month of January we earned $9863. Fiscal year to date that brings us to uh 73,475. Our um our pri our bank is Centerville Bank. Prior to last year at this time we started the transition. Previously it was with Citizens. Centerville is uh a good partner for us to do to deal with. They've been very helpful and they've helped us um with some very good rates and products. So, uh with them uh we've um we have a number of checking accounts and we have a savings account. The savings account uh is earning a rate of 3.01. The annual percentage yields is 3.15.

Uh, and the interest earned this past month in that account was uh, $4,169. That brings our total for the year to 20,624. One of the things that we put in place a few months October. Um, we started using a service that Centerville has and it's called Cedars. uh the money is invested um so that we can uh the money is invested as a certificate but the certificate may not necessarily be with the center bill.

It is FDIC insured and it could be at banks uh throughout New England or the country. All those banks are FDIC insured. Ironically, in the last CD that we just purchased, some of those monies is with Citizens who was our our prior one, and we couldn't never get the interest rate that they're they're offering through this other program. Um, and that allows us to to maximize our insurance. So, that's it's a great thing. The rates are very competitive. Uh, the rate we just did some investing last week, and we earned we're getting 3.8% for the month on that product. uh for one month CD. We have a three-month CD also at 3.8%. We're kind of keeping things short term at this point. Couple of reasons. We're in the back half of the year. The money that we take for taxes will be spent out in the forms of snow removal. So, you know, salaries for that. Um and uh you know, teacher salaries. That's that's predominantly where that's coming from. Uh our other main investment product uh right now is Connecticut Stiff. Uh and that's a short it's called a stiff short-term uh investment fund and uh that standard employers rating. It's the top rating that you can have. Uh the 30-day yield on that is 3.74. So it's a little bit less than that 3.8 and it's dropping. Um, and I'll touch on that in a second as to why. Um, the rate, uh, pardon me, for the month of January, uh, we earned $5,694. Year-to- date, that brings us to a total of 52,851. And the reason why why that rate is dropping is because this past fall, many people were aware of it. Um the Federal

Open Market Committee meets basically every six weeks or so and they had three rate reductions of 25 basis points. So 0.25%. And each time that that happens, it takes a while for that to kind of work its way into the into the system as to what you or I are paying for rates on a credit card or a mortgage or whatever it might be. The opposite side of that is the people who are funding that that would be town funds if you have a CD or whatnot is the other side. So what we're earning so that 374 has dropped u basically about 13 basis points. So half of a quarter% basically 1/8 of a percent each month. Um so it's it's dropping down. So if I can lock in at 3.8 I'm pretty confident we'll be at by the end of this month and two weeks that 374 I just said for a 30-day yield is going to be below 3.7. So we pick up a few basis points there uh to make that work for us. Um, let's see. Kind of wrapping up the open market committee. It met uh couple weeks ago, January 27, 28, and they left rates unchanged. Uh, shortly, I guess it was last week, uh, President Trump announced the next uh, Federal Reserve President, uh, Kevin Walsh. and assuming that he will be confirmed by the Senate uh sometime in April or May, he will take take that position in May. Uh the next committee meeting for the Federal Open Market Committee is St. Patrick's Day. Uh this through March 17th and March 18th, they'll probably announce what's their planning on doing on the 18th. That's typically they have a press conference about 2:00 Eastern time and they announce that and they take some

questions. Uh not sure what they're planning on doing, but typically the right now you look at the the tea leaves, the bond market, they're pricing in two more 25% rate reductions in 2026. Some some places are going as high as three or four rate uh reductions, 4%. I'm not sure we will we [clears throat] will see that but I I I think we'll get at least one I at 25 probably going to get that too. Um, so that's the other thing I'll try to lock in some of those rates at that point in time. And that's pretty much the report. And one other thing that I shared with the uh board of select, but I think at the last meeting, at least with Brian, I think I said everybody else. And if you guys flip over your back page, so this is um the interest revenue um for the town. Uh, and this is tracking it. Uh, I put this together last spring in anticipation of the um the town referendum and the budgets and that type of stuff in case someone asked at that point in time. So, if you kind of take a look at this, I started in uh November uh 2nd of 2021. So, if you look at that number, I'm going to just focus on the town side. Um, so, uh, that year the town earned a little over $3,700 in interest revenue. The prior year it was $4,700. A lot a lot of things were happening at that point in time and um, the prior treasurer uh, had some concerns just not knowing what cash flow was going to be, if people were going to be making payments. So he kept the funds very liquid uh which was a prudent thing to do. As things have changed in that environment,

we put together um a number of things working with the assistant treasur which is Pan Thro who's also the town clerk uh the prior first elect Tracy Hansen and the prior finance director uh Julie Zalinsky. We kind of looked at a number of um uh opportunities to enhance the revenues. So, we started putting some of some of those in place and we started getting the groundwork done in the spring of 22. Um, and uh we we put in some security measures to do some stuff so that we could uh be a little more comfortable on some items. Nothing was compromised or whatnot, just kind of belts and suspenders type of a concept. So, uh the first year as we started rolling everything out, that would have been fiscal year 22. the fall of summer and fall of 22, spring, early summer of 23, uh we we almost got $8,700 $87,000 in interest revenue. Okay. Uh in fiscal year 2324, um we brought in just under $177,000 in revenues. Last year it fell off a little bit. Um, and last year for the full year it was 140,764. This year, as of two weeks ago, the end of end of July, end of July. Gosh, end of January. I wish it was July. We missed the snow. Um, 73,475. And we anticipate um making budget inside of there. The numbers have kind of come down for a couple of reasons. Um, [clears throat] one of which is interest rates have been coming down. So that's that's some of it. Uh, another uh another reason for that happening is we had ARPA money

which was grant money from the infrastructure bill under President Biden and and and whatnot. So some of that money was sitting as we were spending it down. We could earn interest on it which we did. And that money has all been spent down a while ago. So that money wasn't available. In addition to that, the town has used fund balance. So monies that we have available to invest until we spend that money, we can earn interest on it. That's that's the goal. That's what one of my jobs are. That's my primary job. Um so we look to do that. Um and we've uh we we've done okay uh with that. We I said uh

I think so what's going on there?

Yeah, we used fund balance. It was 200,000. I'm pretty sure it was last year's fiscal year budget and the year be I don't know off the top of my head I should know it but I think it was at least two it might have been a little more. And that was to help kind of keep the the mill rate uh in a palatable uh range. So that money was spent. That's money I can't earn interest on. None of us can for the town. And you know, we can we only can spend the dollar once, right? So that's uh that's what I have probably more than you guys wanted to hear. Uh and I'll take any questions that you may have or clarifications that you may uh put to me and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability ability.

No. Uh Tony, thank you. Um I have a question and [clears throat] this is actually probably for Crystal. Okay. What is a current mill rate? How much? Oh, I don't know. Approximately. Do you know? Yeah, but I can look at it. Okay.

40.72. I don't know. How much is one mil rate? Oh, I Yeah, I I think it's Is it It's just over 200 275 thousand. Yeah, the the the one the year that we had that the 174,000 175 almost. Yeah, that was at that point in time for that year it was just under a mill.

Yeah. And and that Thank you. that that was the point I just wanted to make is that the um the investing that you've been doing for the town in your role as treasurer is helping keep taxes down in a in a measurable way because that 23 24 that 176 177,000 you know that was almost a mill rate right there. Yeah. So yeah, and if you want to go one step further. So at this point, we're not quite there yet, but by the end of the fiscal year with the interest that we have since we've put in all these enhancements, it's to it's the tune of it it'll be in excess of half a million dollars over the span of five years almost.

Yeah. You know, and so that is, you know, 23 24 that's almost a mill right there. 24 25. Let's say this is over a fouryear span. This is probably it's going to be three to three to four mills that it has saved that uh cumulatively. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. No. Awesome. That was I just wanted to make that comment. No.

Thank you to we'll move on to old business. We have one. It's Matthew and Stacy Lambert 64 Cap Road for 2596. I make a motion to issue the tax refund as recommended by the tax collector. Second. All in favor? I I

Were we missing a page on the agenda? Any other business? I just don't have the back. That's why. That's okay. I I know what's next. No [laughter] other business. No. Um the do we have an appointment under new business?

Oh yes we do. We had an appointment for Justin Henry for the recreational commission term starting 1126 and ending 1129. I make a motion to open the appointment of anything to the re recreation commission. Second. All in favor? I now we got other business. All right. Suggestions for the next meeting. Um Oh, no. No. Yeah. There's one thing left. I make a motion to adjurnn. Second.

All in favor? I. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. That's so good. Yeah, I like that. And you didn't have to present it. No, [laughter] I don't think I could have presented it like that. So, I did have a question, but it didn't need to be part of the horse because the earnings are are good.