00:00:00,270	S1:
Okay.

00:00:02,500	S2:
All right. Good morning. I'd like to move to adjourn from executive session and reenter open session for the Select Board. Second. All in favor? Deirdre? Yes.

00:00:14,630	S3:
Yes. Yes. Gary.

Yes. 00:00:16,300	S2:
And I'd like to invite the.

00:00:18,670	S4:
Recording in progress.

00:00:20,730	S2:
To call to order.

00:00:22,129	S5:
Either call to order. The Town of Windham Finance Advisory Board, Saturday, December 14th, 835 present. Finn.

Sprague. 00:00:32,729	S3:
Jared Ward, David paddock.

00:00:37,000	S5:
Thank you very much.

00:00:38,299	S6:
Thank you.

00:00:40,469	S3:
All right. Well, welcome, everybody, for our lovely Saturday morning budget hearing. I'm sure this is what everybody wanted to do on their Saturday morning, especially right before Christmas. So we thank you. I mean, I think it's it's a good opportunity to at least, you know, work through the budget. And, you know, this is really the first iteration of the budget. I mean, we think we've integrated a lot of feedback that we've received from both the income and the select board into this budget. So the memo that went out this year to to the department heads, um, in large part based on feedback from the finance Committee to the select board, was that, you know, there's concerns of, you know, a free cash balance, regeneration amount being slightly high and that the board would like to see that pulled back more into the middle of the range of our stated objectives. And so because of that, we thought, and, you know, a way to do that was in part by to have the department heads by have a level funded budget, both by, um, you know, basically adding up your expense line items in your salary line items and any required, um, contractual obligation, such as, like an escalator and a printing leasing agreement or, um, steps in, uh, collectively bargained, um, labor agreement would have to be balanced by the reduction in either expenditure or salary, um, expenses to maintain the level budget so that, you know, as an exercise is kind of put on the department heads and, uh, a way for us to trim the budgets back by absorbing those contractually obligated, uh, increases without increasing the budget. So over the last, over the last 3 or 4 weeks, we've met a number of times with the all departments. Actually, if you want to pull up the.

00:03:01,900	S3:
We met a number of times with with all departments. Just go to the slide number three and work through their budget. Work through their budgets with them. Um, you'll see the budget is presented a little bit differently this year in that we are as you know, we're in the midst of negotiating three labor contracts. So we've separated all labor adjustments associated with those those contracts in and lump non-union into that as well into a separate line for for tracking. We need to remember that we have to bargain in good faith, and we cannot constrain ourselves going into bargaining sessions. So, um, so this this year, we also talked about at a, at one of our meetings to have an exercise of a reduction of 5% of the budgets. And what would that look for look like? So we and we did just we did just that. And um, you know, it was a good conversation. I think it was it needed to be done because we've always kind of just made the statement was, you know, that we're pretty lean in that, you know, further reductions beyond kind of nibbling at the edges here and there would result in, you know, reduce staffing and therefore reduce services that we could deliver to the residents. And so we went through that exercise with all, with all departments. And the original intent was to illustrate the result of those discussions, a department by department basis. But as we put the presentation together, it became clear that although just an exercise and not, you know, without the expectations of any cuts. At least this year. From my perspective, it was clear with a small organization that when you start talking about services, you're talking about, um, you know, individuals specifically. So we didn't feel it to be fitting in a public meeting to be talking about what positions, um, could be reduced in this. So with that, Jeff, Joe and I are happy to share all that information with you offline. And you know, any time that you want to come in. We can work all that through. Uh, but the exercise would ultimately and I think the message and the more importantly is that, you know, the exercise highlighted that the next to reduce 5%, although sounding small, uh, would have would be staffing reductions and, um, service delivery reductions. There's no there was no way around it. So I think it was it was a good exercise. We've always kind of set it in the past making that assumption. But now we've actually got into the numbers and can justify that and show what services. All right. So but before. Before we get into the budget itself, I kind of wanted to do just a little recap with, um.

00:06:11,399	S3:
We'll just do the next, next slide.

00:06:18,069	S3:
I just wanted to do a little overview of the select board this year or last fiscal year, kind of blending together, sent to um, the fin com a draft of financial policies that are industry best practices. So I thought I would go through a couple of those, although still in draft form. And the fin com is currently reviewing that. We can kind of go over, uh, kind of where those, those stated policies and where we fall within them. So firstly just to look up. So not to go back just to look at revenue. Our sources of revenue just as kind of a um, you know, as a starting point, I know there's some new, new members here. And, you know, it's always helpful to know that our, our sources of revenue are not very diverse. We basically have three main components in our revenue sources, which are local receipts. Those would be permitting fees such as like a building permit, conservation permit planning and the like. Um, we have state aid, which is aid that comes from what it says, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, uh, unrestricted, that comes by way of there's really two components. The component you're looking at here is the unrestricted government aid. The larger piece, it would be called chapter 70. And that goes directly to the school district in this case because it is restricted for educational purposes only. And with us being a regional district, they get the money and not not us. So with that, you can see the those three components, the very large majority is um, is uh, is our tax revenue. This certainly is not uncommon. Uh, if you look to the right, you can see that kind of our cohort of similar communities surrounding us are all all in a similar boat, you know, on one. On one hand, it is, you know, difficult that we rely mostly on tax revenue. However, from a creditor's perspective, such as, such as the S&P, they they prefer communities with the higher reliance on tax revenue because it is, uh, you know, all but guaranteed revenue source The collection rates. Typically in communities like this. When I go to the next slide. The collection rates typically in communities like this are very high. And Wenham is certainly amongst some of the best. Generally, we're always above 98% on our collection rates, so they see this as a stable, reliable income source so that when we go out for borrowing and we're looking to issue debt, it's a it's a it's a safe community. We maintain our Triple-A rating. So you know, although it's bad because it's, you know places additional burden on the taxpayers but good from a debt issuing perspective. It also makes us less, um, less susceptible to economic downturns. So some of the communities that rely more heavily on, um, state aid or local receipts, Such as you know that you look at, you know, just an example. But like the Lynn, Lynn, Lawrence Lowell's some of the bigger communities like that. If you look at their revenue structure, you know, it might be the reverse, maybe not as extreme as that, but, you know, their state aid might make 60 or 70% of their revenue and their their, you know, their tax revenue is, you know, obviously, the other end of that. So you see that. Yeah. Go ahead.

00:10:12,629	S5:
Could you go back to the slides to the uh describing the percentage? Uh.

00:10:18,070	S3:
Yeah.

00:10:18,700	S5:
So if I use a round number of $24 million is the budget for the town, um, if I use $24 million as the budget for the town, and you look at this trend that has happened in the last five years, we've gone from about 13% local receipts down to ten. So 1% would be about $240,000. Right. So this is basically saying that if that 13% had stayed constant, the 10% that we have at the very top, there would be 13%. That'd be three quarters of $1 million of local receipts that we don't don't have now that we had a few years ago. I wonder if you could comment on that. Is this a is this a function of, um, you know, the rates at which we charge things? Is this a.

00:11:07,500	S3:
Couple of things going on there? So somewhere 21 to 22, there was a relatively large about $1 million operational override for the schools. So that would be a direct increase of about a million bucks to the tax levy. So as a percentage of a whole like that's going to increase, you know, the local receipts and state aid didn't go down as much as the levy went up by a special town meeting action. But they're in going through the pandemic. There was some reductions in local receipts, um, and, uh, in state aid stayed flat. But so you're kind of seeing like a, I guess, a double impact. So there were some reductions. And now that we're out of the pandemic, you know, this is something that Jeff and I have talked about and we brought up at the last meeting is that, you know, we're starting to ratchet our revenue assumptions back up because the actuals that are coming in are going to be stronger than they were through the pandemic. So we have the data now that it makes sense to ratchet it up. And part of that ties in to the free cash equation where, you know, where we're budgeting, you know, let's just use this at face value. We're budgeting 10% of our, you know, the revenues for local receipts. But the reality maybe they're coming in at an actual side at 12%. So that extra 2% in just like simple terms, is going to free cash so it could. It's part of why maybe our free cash is a little higher than, um, than we'd like it. So, you know, the exercise to that is remember the two two primary components of free cash are, you know, excess revenue from what's budgeted. So when your revenues come in higher than estimated, and then when you have your expenditures, when you spend less than anticipated. So we're we're hitting it from both sides where we're increasing our revenue estimates slightly and we're decreasing our expenditure estimates slightly while providing level services. So the result of the two should pull us from about like the six something percent down into the 5% range, if that makes sense.

00:13:30,129	S5:
Okay. Thank you. So you're saying that perhaps the 10% number will not be as low as you've got up on the screen here If you're, um, if you are pulling those levers that you just discussed. Right. That's correct.

Okay. 00:13:43,799	S3:
Going forward. So this is just up to 25, which is the year we're in now. We're budgeting for 26.

00:13:51,669	S7:
I think it raises an interesting point, which so I wanted to pick up on on that. And it's a little bit off today's topic, but maybe just to put a pin in it as a future agenda item, which is whether or not we've undertaken any kind of an assessment of our, um, um, permitting fees, for example, the, the, the types of things that generate the, um, the local receipts. Um, you know, how much discretion do cities and towns have under state law to set those? I don't know the answer to that. Yeah. Good. Um, and, you know, how do our. When was the last time ours were raised? How do they compare with other communities? Um, do we take into account the fact that the average home prices in one of them are significantly higher than neighboring communities and therefore, like a building permit fee as a percentage of the house, that's going to be the value of the house. It's going to be built. It might be lower here than in other places. And could that justify and increase those sorts of questions come to mind?

00:14:43,370	S3:
Yeah, I mean absolutely. So last time we looked at our permitting fees was 2016, I believe where and it is a stated goal this year to review all our permits and fees and have a presentation before the end of the fiscal year to the select board with where we fall on all the fees we from dog licenses to building permits, every, every single fee, everything we charge in town to do anything will be, you know, put out in a grid across maybe 8 to 12 different communities. Right. Um, and it's, it's the select board's discretion to set those fees. So. Right. So obviously you can be as high as you want or, you know, competitive as you want, like it's an argument is, well, you know, people will build a house. We want the new. We want the revenue growth. So we want to keep our permanent fees, um, competitive. So people come and build and win them. But, you know, then the the other side of that is like, well, land is so scarce if the land is available and when them like, they're going to build the house there, regardless if we're the most expensive building permit fee in the Cape Cape in Essex County. Uh, but yeah, no, I agree, it's been a long time and it's, that's something that we're doing this year.

00:16:10,730	S7:
Sorry. Jared Ward, um, I had a question.

00:16:14,669	S8:
About the policy. Free cash policy goal of 4 to 6. Um, my comments previously had been that instead of a range, we should pick a number. 4 to 6 implies that there are circumstances under which you would need six, as opposed to circumstances under which you could live with four. And it's not clear to me that if you just throw out a range as we go through the budget process. In other words, if you end up with a final budget that says we need six, there's got to be a reason why you need, you know, a number of contingencies that caused you to want to keep a reserve of six vis a vis four. My strong recommendation is that as we go through this process, we shoot to a fixed number below which, you know, the alarm bells go off and pencils get sharpened. But throwing out 4 to 6 and ending up with six, which is the the probability okay, doesn't make a lot of sense to me when maybe if we if we can't identify contingencies as we go forward, we could live with four.

00:17:22,369	S3:
Yeah. All fair points. And just to kind of justify why we're, we're proposing the range is, you know, 4 to 6 free cash generation is a policy that is recommended by the Department of Revenue for the communities to adopt using the range. Um, free cash. You know, as you can tell, it's not it's as much art as it is science. So you you know, we could pick five but end up at six and we can pick five and end up at four. So in the event that, you know, we're going out for a debt issuance in any given year and you have a stated policy that is, let's say five, and you've justified why five is the right number in S&P and you're at 6 or 4 s. And S&P will ask once you have a stated goal, which they highly recommend that communities have stated financial policies once you have a stated policy of the 5% and you're at 6 or 4. They're going to ask why. And, you know, is it.

00:18:37,400	S8:
Which is what I'm doing.

Yeah. 00:18:39,430	S3:
So, you know. So why did you miss your mark? So if they have an, you know, knowing that you're going to fall between 4 and 6 and it's, you know, four and six is an appropriate range, you know, acknowledging that your target maybe your target five, you target the midpoint. But knowing that it's always going to fall somewhere is plus or minus. And it shows that you're meeting your financial policy. You know, it looks good in the eyes of of the S&P as well. So you know, again it's certainly a policy discussion for the fin. Com and select board to adopt this initial drafting was a proposal of you know sort of a best practice. But you know we're we're open to an amendable to making any changes that that the board prefers and will strive to continue to meet them. And these will. You know, this type of presentation at the beginning of this meeting will, you know, continue to evolve to match our policies, and we'll be able to build them out as we get more financial policies so that it's an annual look, as, you know, where we're trending. Are we meeting our financial policies and kind of what's going on? Um, but yeah, so whatever, you know, would be looking for feedback from the fin com. And if that's your desire we'll certainly explore that.

00:20:02,900	S9:
Just to add on to that. So Jared and I have talked about that a little bit. One of the reasons I do advocate for a range, and I would certainly be open to the discussion of maybe the range should be tighter, maybe the range should be four and a half to five and a half or something to to speak to. Jared's point a little, but one of the challenging parts about free cash is that we don't have complete control over it. So a lot of it is driven by door policy. And so an example I'll give you. Is that what we were allowed to cap our motor vehicle excise tax estimate at for this for FY 25 is like $400,000 less what we actually received in FY 24. And that's the door won't let us go beyond that number. So we've already got to like say a $400,000 excess of free cash created just by door policy. And that extends to every single revenue stream we have. They will sort of only allow us to maybe creep up 10% a year. And they they hold you to not only your actual receipts, but also what your estimate was last year. So it becomes a circular problem of every year, they won't let you estimate your actual receipts. And then in the following year when you say, see, I really did make $1 million, they say, yeah, but you only estimated 600. And we say, yeah, but that's because you told us to. And so, you know, that makes it tougher to, to, to make this a really tight, tight number. As Steve says, like the door. The CFO for some of these organizations we follow. They advocate something in this 4 to 6 range. Actually, some of them advocate closer to 7%. Um, but so they all tend to advocate a range, I think, for this reason. But I think certainly tightening up something some of that range, you know, is something we could discuss, um, as well. But, you know, to Steve's point, I have had to go through the process with S&P. And when you have policies, you know, they do make sure you adhere to them. And even, you know, if you say, well, we're coming in at 4.4 and they say, yeah, but your targets five, why aren't you meeting your policy if you had that range? It just it alleviates that problem.

00:22:22,130	S3:
So just wrapping up on free cash again, assuming this is again a draft policy so you know, it can change. But you kind of look at the, you know, the free cash generation over the last 6 or 7 years we're targeting. So remember free cash is always about a year delayed. So when we say we're a budgeting we're budgeting for FY 26 right now. And we're using FY 20 four's free cash amount is what we're waiting for certification. So kind of keep that in your mind. So next year in FY 27 we're budgeting for FY 27. Will be waiting for 2020 five's closing of the books to certify our free cash number. So with the things we mentioned before, with the slight increases in revenue assumptions and the decreases in expenditures, we're hoping to bring that number into the 5%. And I hate to use the word but range.

00:23:27,000	S3:
All right. So this is a nice slide to look at because last year we presented this same slide. But it was using FY 24 numbers. And you can see we were just slightly over 2%. This is our stabilization stabilization funds and reserves. Our draft policy is to maintain a stabilization of not less than 5 to 7% of prior years, general operating fund, general operating budget. And last year, the income and select board recommended to town Meeting that we make a one time free cash deposit into our stabilization fund, bringing us up to just below 7%. So you can see, if you look at our our cohort of comparable communities, the same group as we looked at for the tax levy. It kind of brings us right into the mix of of that. So, uh, you know, certainly good job moving in the right direction.

00:24:35,970	S3:
And then our two unfunded liabilities.

00:24:41,099	S3:
What do you.

00:24:41,900	S2:
Sorry, we're trying to get a microphone for the phone com because there's no microphone on that side.

00:24:47,599	S3:
I just don't put.

00:24:48,369	S10:
Any of this.

Oh. 00:24:51,200	S11:
Steve, that's not connected to anything. Yeah, you just keep going.

00:25:25,130	S3:
All right then. Finally, before we dig right into the budget numbers, we just have our two unfunded liabilities, which are certainly two large elephants that are that are in the room. So we're our our pension and our open. So other post employment benefits are two liabilities that we have on our accounting books and mass general law. We've what we're proposing we adopt in our draft policy that requires the fully funding of our pension liability by 2035. Currently, we're at about 61%. And about ten years ago we were at 48%. So we're making positive movement in there. We're using. We're also something to keep in mind. The Essex County Retirement Board, who were were a member of Will. Will have lists of, you know, percent funded by different communities and those, you know, are going to vary depending on the discount rate that they're used. So I just want to highlight that, that we're at, uh, using a 7% discount, which is more realistic than some of the other communities. So they may appear to be further along than Wenham does, but they might be at 8 or 8.5%, which is, you know, a bit high in my opinion. And similarly, we're making some positive progress in our Op-Ed. There is no state law yet, although however, we are anticipating 1st May be coming once the pension um, in retirement liabilities, which is something that just about every city and town in Massachusetts is struggling with come due, they're going to be looking for those funds to be directed. Um, the pension funds they were contributing annually will be directed to the other post employment benefits. So all of that is incorporated into our policy. Uh, in addition to make at least a contribution, in the interim, we strive to make $10,000 per year additional contribution to what was done in the prior year. So, for example, last year we made $100,000 contribution. We'll be looking to make $110,000

00:27:48,099	S3:
this year.

00:27:49,769	S8:
Question. Yep. Does the law that you cite there apply just to Essex County or to all the municipal pensions in the Commonwealth?

00:27:57,069	S3:
Oh.

00:28:01,369	S3:
So we get an assessment every year from the Essex County Retirement. And that assessment is tied to, you know, basically Not much different than like an amortization schedule of a mortgage. We know we need to be at a certain point at 2035, and they send us our payment that we need to keep that, keep track on.

00:28:24,130	S8:
Sounds like the law still lets you to pick a discount rate.

00:28:27,029	S3:
Yeah. I mean yeah, it does, it does. But I guess who's right. Right. I mean, maybe they're right. Maybe the eight and a half is going to be right, I don't know.

00:28:33,930	S9:
Well, actually, on that point though.

00:28:36,099	S12:
Um, the law doesn't say.

00:28:37,700	S9:
What you can or can't do with the discount rate. Um, but S&P does. So when I dealt with S&P three years ago, they were going to knock the credit rating in Essex down from a double a plus to just a double A, because at the time Essex Regional was using a 7.5% discount rate, which they felt was out of the bandwidth that they thought was appropriate. We fought hard and said, I don't set that rate. How can you, you know, just, you know, ruin my bond rating over that. But there's definitely a general sense. S&P and other sort of rating agencies out there. that it frankly should be under seven. I think at the time S&P was targeting six and a half. You'll notice ours on the open is at 6.8. But yeah these folks that are using eight eight and a half. I mean it's a delicate balance between trying to minimize amortization payments that are manageable for people while still making a dent in the, you know, the outstanding liability. And so, I think, you know, our board has done a pretty good job of managing to keep us on track while actually lowering that discount rate over the last 4 or 5 years.

00:29:43,500	S8:
I'm sorry. Last question. Does the pension fund itself set the rate or for each? Does the manager of the fund set the rate the board.

00:29:52,099	S9:
So the Essex Regional Retirement Board as a policy adopts a discount rate. And then you know, the the state print program actually is who handles like 99% of the investments that they, that they are doing. But they have to set that discount rate. So it wasn't, you know, they had to vote and have a have a board meeting and vote to make that change. Um, and just one final point on the pension, you know, so this amount that's due each year is set. And then the way it's allocated is based on they take all of the, the all of us. I think it's about 46 of us in the, in the district. They put us all together, figure out what the aggregate of all those payrolls are. And then they say your percentage of the payroll. So for us it's 2.14% this year. Last year it was about 2.05. So we've actually gone up about 0.1% in our share of the pie. So this year, much like the school with the apportionment issue, the the budget is going up, but also our share of that budget is going up. So we get a.

00:30:49,700	S8:
School has some employees in this municipal fund as well.

00:30:53,569	S9:
Yes. Anybody who's not a teacher is in that as well. But um, so that's when we see our increase for this year and we, uh, we just did get our letter from them. Um, you know, the increase actually came in a little bit higher than we were thinking because our share of the pool actually, you know, increased marginally.

00:31:11,500	S3:
All right. Great. Any other questions on

00:31:16,170	S3:
this fun topic?

00:31:23,670	S3:
All right. So now what we've all been waiting for. We'll get into the budget itself. So this this meeting will be a little different than in prior years. The feedback we've received is from both boards that would like to just get right into the granularity of the budget and not, do you know, a lot of department overviews. You know, everyone generally kind of knows what the departments do so well. So what Jeff is going to do is spend a few minutes to go through the next couple of slides with kind of a higher level review of budget challenges. Um, and, you know, just kind of last year to this year, uh, comparison based on the budgets you're going to see today and then each department will get up and review their individual budget. Just briefly kind of go maybe talk a little bit about, you know, some challenges and some of some of the some of the changes that were made. And uh, and then we'll wrap it up with questions at the end. Or, you know, we actually encourage questions. Just, just raise your hand during and, and um, and ask them. So with that I'll hand it over to Jeff.

00:32:34,470	S9:
All right. Great. Thanks, Steve. Um, so I won't belabor these points too. Too much. Um, they're up here as bullets, but basically, um, you know, we. Steve covered a lot of it. I mean, generally speaking, uh, both boards, the finance committee and Select board, um, are looking to avoid an operational override for FY 26 as a bare baseline. Um, but we also heard the message from both boards that, you know, we'd also like to look at, um, you know, finding ways to make reductions where we can, and particularly targeting some of these areas where if we're routinely, you know, getting back, you know, say $900,000 of unspent, um, budgeted expenses, you know, are those areas that we can tighten up. And I think what we'll see is there are some areas we can tighten up, and there are other areas that you need a little bit of that wiggle room in there. Um, you know, sort of for emergencies. And the point I like to make, you know, sort of comparing a town to, uh, you know, maybe just a private company. Um, you know, private companies are much more nimble than a town. You know, they can look at trends and see sales are dropping or whatever, and they can make changes sort of on the fly. A town sets a budget typically once a year. Uh, and then if you if things change and veer from that budget, you know, you have to call another town meeting to actually make material adjustments to that budget. So, you know, just to give you an example, this year, if things that come up in this in this year, we have lost a transmission and a cruiser, an engine and a cruiser. A pretty significant HVAC issue at the police station. A really significant HVAC issue at the fire station. All of those are basically $100,000 worth of expenses that have crept up. In emergencies that without things like a finance committee, reserve fund or some slack and some of the say, like the building maintenance funds. Um, you know, you would, you know, be calling a town meeting to raise $100,000 on the tax rate or use free cash or do something to to address those kind of concerns. So there's definitely a balance between trying to reduce these budgets to, you know, a more actual kind of level, but also having that flexibility to to manage the town without, you know, having a call a second or a third town meeting during the year. So with that being said, you know, what we've committed to is, you know, taking all these recommendations from the board seriously and working with the committees. And as Steve said, we've been meeting with boards or, you know, departments. Excuse me For the last couple of weeks, to start to identify some areas where we could potentially make changes and things like that. And we're committed to doing that over the next 4 to 6 weeks as we set this budget. So what you see here today is certainly not a final number. Um, so please bear that in mind as we walk through it. Um, Steve touched on the the union negotiations that were involved in now that that obviously looms over everything we do. We haven't built any specific estimates for those contracts into departmental budgets. But we have you'll see a couple of slides that we've built in, uh, a conservative sort of reserve, uh, for settling those contracts. And lastly, everything we talk about today is just operating budgets. Uh, our assumption is that, as in, we we've done them in past years. One of them tends to address capital with free cash. Uh, so it doesn't have a direct tax impact.

Um. 00:35:58,369	S9:
Oh, yeah.

00:36:00,400	S13:
Yeah. Quick question. How did you handle utilities? The gas and electric there seems to be going through the details. There seems to be kind of an inconsistency between historical, actual and the budget for 25. And then the budget just kind of rolled forward for 26.

00:36:17,429	S9:
Yeah. So that's one area where and I think I wasn't here yet, but I think and Steve can correct me if I'm wrong. But at one point I think we added this utility reserve under town town hall, which is kind of the general management fund. Um, we had $100,000 reserve in there for utilities. Um, because, you know, energy costs had gone crazy, as we all know. And so rather than trying to tweak individual budgets, we had created this, um, reserve fund. What we're going to try to do this year is to drastically reduce that reserve fund and right size budgets throughout the actual departments. Um, so you see a little bit of that today, and we're continuing to work on, you know, adjusting those accordingly. I mean, some cases the budgets are far too high. In other cases, they're, you know, far too low across the board. So that is definitely one area I think we need to tighten up on. And I'd say that continues to be a work in progress as we work through this.

Um. 00:37:16,099	S12:
The capital budget generally is kind of run out of the kind of free cash flow or the general. Is that consistent across other poor towns or.

00:37:25,369	S9:
I mean, in the and the ones I'm aware of, I think that's fairly consistent. I know Hamilton, you know, actually for Hamilton it is a you know, they've got a capital committee that you know, is focused on capital improvements constantly. And it's part of the operating budget, a very significant part of the operating budget. For those of you that are at the quintuple board meeting, um, it always strikes me that they have a huge part of their budget that's called unclassified. And underneath that falls pension and things like that. And one of the big items in there is capital as well. Um, I sort of like personally, I prefer the capital to come out of the free cash. Um, you know, because it, I think it makes you more you have a limited pool of free cash, so it makes you more mindful of of how you spend that and makes you sort of say, okay, if we've got a pool of, let's say $800,000 to spend. Um, you know, you are more likely to sort of, you know, allocate that appropriately. You know, there is another argument that, you know, you could look at and say, oh, I have $800,000 of free cash. What am I going to buy? Um, but I think in most communities usually you have well, well over what you have in free cash as needs. Um, if you really think about it. Um, and so I think it's just an easy way to do it. And I just think it's cleaner to keep the the operating budget of the town separate. Um, and then just look at that, you know, using free cash. Um, you know, not to say that things don't happen. I mean, I know, you know, a lot of the debt we carry, um, is for little projects here and there that we've done that, you know, either free cash was maybe not as robust, Gary might remember in certain years. And we did have to go out to out to use, you know, a debt to acquire certain things. I know even a couple of years ago, I think two years ago, there were two capital items on the warrant in April. One of which was using free cash. And there was a second article that was going to use $200,000 of debt. As it turned out, free cash got certified higher. And they did use free cash for everything. But that was only probably the town meeting back in 23. So not not that long ago that they, you know, had to look at using something besides free cash.

00:39:35,570	S9:
Um, there we go. Um, just a couple of the big budget drivers. Uh, we presented this a few weeks ago with the school, but, you know, we've tightened it up a little bit. You know, the biggest driver, obviously. Um, the school, um, has recently settled contracts. Uh, and so their budget is going up pretty significantly. Uh, with that being said, I think if you look at us compared to some of the other communities that were on strike around us, we've probably fared pretty well overall in negotiations. But, you know, nonetheless, it still does increase the operating costs of the school, which makes up, you know, over 50% of our budget. Um, and you'll see there that, you know, all in the operating increases over 10.5. So it's, you know, 1.25 million right there. Um, the pension increase that I mentioned earlier because our share of the overall pool went up. We were hoping for about a 10%. We're at about 11.15% there. So, um, you know, just those two items, you know, you're looking at close to $1.5 million, um, health insurance. You know, they were out here several weeks ago telling us, um, that the Medicare plans in particular are going up quite a bit, probably 16 to 18%. Uh, the other traditional HMO PPO plans are still going to go up in that, you know, probably 8 to 10 range. So you know you're looking at a 10% increase there, which frankly would be a lot more than 116. But we did take a look at some of the historical usage of the plan. And we thought we were able to reduce that and mute that increase. So it's only at about 116. We'll see a little bit more detail on that later. Uh, general liability insurance. Everyone in the room knows who has home insurance. All things insurance are, you know, continuing to escalate at a higher rate than most things. So that's another 15,000, 10,000 extra to open. Best part of our plan there? Um, that is one area where we did add an extra $300,000 to PEB last year. So we're sort of ahead of schedule, if you will. Um, I wouldn't advocate for it. But if we were in a position where things were really, really tight, um, you could, you know, cut back and stay at 100 for one year using the fact that you gave a much larger gift or a donation to the fund last year. But, you know, all things considered, I'd say we stay on track. We're still, you know, in a pretty big hole there. We're only at 15% ish, I think, funded of that liability. Um, and then just generally speaking, we pretty much everything in the budget is level funded as best we could. And then we built in, as I mentioned, that that estimate for the union contracts and salary reserve.

00:42:13,400	S9:
So here is your quick, you know, high level look at the budget, um, in a way that also shows you, you know, how that sort of translates to translates to whether we are under the levy limit or not. Um, and so, you know, overall, I mean, there's sort of we broke out at the top, you can see the subtotal of the town budget. So, you know, that's everything but the school, the schools and then the assessor's overlay that I'll talk about in a minute. But, um, you know, if you look at the chart here, um, you know, we're going up a total of 441,000, roughly, um, the lion's share of that 265,000 is this reserve for salary and contracts. So, you know, you take that out of the mix. And the the general budget of the town itself, excluding schools, is is going up about 1.52% or about $176,000. Um, which, you know, sort of keeps us in line with the original directive of the Finance Committee, which was to sort of come in at about a 1.27% increase, uh, basically utilizing, uh, just new growth and growth in local receipts. Um, you know, but then you had that reserve, and obviously it bumps the number up quite a bit, up to 441 there. Um, the school obviously stands out there. The 1.2 million. And that also includes the little bit of school debt that exists currently. Um, we're just using 3% now for Essex Tech. Um, you know, the caveat there is that varies on how many students we're sending into the district. So, you know, you add another couple of students to the district and that you can add 50 or $60,000 to that bill pretty quickly. And unfortunately, the moving of a student from Hamilton Wenham to Essex Tech does not have the same effect on both sides of the of the of the equation. So the Hamilton went on budget doesn't go down a whole heck of a lot based on that one student moving, but the Essex tech budget does. Um, and the last piece there you'll see is assessor's overlay. Uh, you know, not everybody might be familiar with that term. The assessor's overlay is an amount that we set aside each year. A minimum amount is is required by the state. But essentially that is the amount we have to set aside for abatements on the assessor side. So when folks file abatements and they get a reduction in their real estate taxes, there has to be a fund available to, to, you know, take those, those funds from. And so that's the assessor's overlay. We've used $200,000 for quite a few years now. Uh, it still appears to be an appropriate number based on the, um, on the door calculations, so I don't see any reason for that to go up. But that's something we're required to do. And, you know, basically that money returns to us at some point down the road. If we don't if we don't issue abatements, uh, in this particular year, um, there's a bit of a process with us and the door to get those funds to return to us, but, um, but that's just something we have to do. Um, we've assumed, you know, so then we get we have to raise. If you look at that total amount that we raised, this is the amount of money that, um, you know, we're spending essentially $26.3 million. Then we begin to reduce that by our net state aid, which is, you know, the state aid we receive. But then also there's assessments back to the state, um, you know, that are probably we, you know, we get closer to 500 and something thousand. We give back 100,000 in assessments, uh, to net to about 400,000, uh, Um, local receipts. You'll see. You know, it's a fairly it's, you know, 5.67. It's a reasonably nice increase on a percentage basis. It's only 158,000 $159,000 of increased local receipts. And as I spoke to earlier, you know, it trails what we're actually really going to collect. Um, which, you know, it's really a timing thing. Um, if they let us make the local receipt number higher here, your current taxes would be lower. Um, but you generate no free cash. So it's a question of paying less now or getting money back later. Um, but we're sort of limited in terms of what the what the door will let us do. Uh, you know, that growth is really driven. I mean, 158,000. I mean, the lion's share of that is we are able to go up about 72,000 in motor vehicle excise tax. Um, you know, we are able to increase our rent from iron rail, about 12,000. Um, you know, the water revenue that's associated with the water expenses above that we are able to move in lockstep with, uh, with the, the the increase in expenses. That's an extra 15,000. Um, the library, because we share that service with Hamilton and it runs through us. We all the expenses show up on our budget, but we get a revenue stream back from Hamilton for their share of the services. We're able to increase that 18,000 or so. Um, and so when you look at those, those net to, uh, you know, about two, 3.4 million, three point. Yeah, 3.4 million. Um, so you only you have to raise 22,000 22,000,943 um, on the tax rate. And the calculation below just tells you, okay, you know, we need to raise this 22.9. What are we allowed to raise. And so our levy limit is 21.3. Um, we estimate we're going to have $150,000 of new growth, new building in the town that adds to the tax base. And then we have the debt exclusions. So, you know, you've all probably been part of what we call a debt exclusion override vote at town meeting and at the ballot at some point over the last 5 or 10 years, when you vote for those things. Another, you know, line item gets created here that says, you know, your levy limit. The prop two and a half levy limit says you can spend the 21.4 up there. Um, but you're also allowed to spend 940,940 2000 on debt that the town has approved to be in excess of the levy limit. The beauty of the debt exclusion overrides is they go away when the debt is paid off. So, as Steve was alluding to earlier, when there was a vote made for an operating override to fund the school, that is a permanent increase to the tax base. So if the school suddenly became cheaper, we would still be able to spend that money and allocate it in other places. Um, but with the debt you don't that once it goes, Once it's done, it goes away, which people tend to like more. You know, things like debt exclusion or capital exclusion overrides because people, you know, tend to prefer increases that aren't permanently cooked into the tax rate. All that being said, you know, we were going to spend about 22.9. We can only, um, actually tax about 22.4. So we're about $480,000 over the levy limit right now. So as it stands, as you look at it, we are in an override position for operations. That doesn't mean we're going to have an override for a couple of reasons. One, we can continue to make reductions to the budget. We anticipate a reduction to the budget from the school. That should likely wipe this out almost entirely. Um, and then we have, you know, other things we can do on our side. We can use free cash, we can use stabilization, we can make changes to the budget to reduce, um, but this is where we stand right now as it's, as it stands against the levy limit. The final point I want to make, and then we can move on to the departments. You'll notice in the prior year that's a negative number. It's 384 $385,000 under the levy limit. So that's what we call having excess levy capacity. Um, you know, we use conservative estimates when we're doing the budget around, um, our income and things like that. Um, and we make conservative estimates around new growth when those things come in a little higher and we set the tax rate. We it turns out we're actually under what we could have, um, we could have levied as a tax. Um, and so we came out of last year under the levy limit. And so now we're over the levy limit. So I just want to point out, you know, so just, you know, in the to be transparent here, you know, we were under, under um, you know by 384 last year. Now we're, you know, over um, over by 483. So, you know, you really like that difference. Um, you know, you're really looking at moving up. Um, you know, $800,000 is $840,000, increasing from one year to the next. So even though we're only 483,000 over the levy limit, that isn't how much you've, you know, increased from the prior year. So, um, I mean, it doesn't change where we're at, but I just want folks to know, you know, the increase is really more than that.

483. 00:50:58,730	S3:
Thanks, Jeff. If I just jump in, excuse me real quick. Two, two points. I just want to make and bring everyone's attention to the, you know, general government, public safety and public works up the top. Uh, it's a net reduction in spending. So I want to highlight that that is we've absorbed, you know, inflationary pressures in our expenses. We've absorbed contractual obligations and further reduced spending, um, year over year in those categories where we have control. So I just wanted to highlight that, you know, we talked about, you know, free cash generation and how we're going to get, you know, from the 6.5% down to the five. So there is, you know, reduction in spending there and addition to the two pieces that we keep talking about, the revenues and expenses, local receipts went up 5%. So that is an estimate that we have control over. So we've ratcheted our estimate up about 5%. So we're hoping between the two that net reduction should bring um you know the free cash down. That's all.

00:52:16,869	S12:
I'm sorry.

00:52:18,670	S13:
What was the actual for uh, town budget for FY 24?

00:52:25,170	S9:
Actual.

00:52:26,269	S13:
Um, comparable number to the 11.

549. 00:52:29,369	S9:
Um, so it was.

00:00:00,430	S1:
I just remember that.

00:00:07,769	S2:
It was 22. 350. Oh, no. Excuse me. You're looking at the 11. Sorry.

Um. 00:00:17,500	S1:
Do I do a minus school? Um.

00:00:32,369	S2:
1080 was the town part.

00:00:43,570	S3:
Um, could you remind us when we'll have a reliable, um, final free cash number for FY 25?

00:00:54,100	S2:
Um, my hope would be in the next few weeks, you know, certainly within the next month. The numbers are ready. We they had us hold off and get the tax rate certified before we worked on free cash. But it's in much better shape than what I got here last year. And it was, you know, we were really fighting with them over a lot of stuff. So I'm pretty confident we're right in that $2 million range.

00:01:13,730	S3:
Okay. So enough available along with some of the other factors that you mentioned to to bridge that 483 gap.

00:01:22,299	S2:
Yeah. Especially if the school can come in with any kind of significant reduction, you know, very comfortably within free cash. Um, that being said, the issue with free cash is that when you use free cash to fill a hole. So let's say we're $300,000 short this year. So now we you know, we fund that with free cash, but we're really still short that $300,000 because we use free cash to fill it. So that three, you know, 300,000 really becomes, you know, a little more than 300,000 next year with growth and inflation. So now you've got a $300,000 hole to fill next year. Um, so I think if we get to the point where we're looking at scenarios where we need to use free cash to avoid an operating override this particular year. I think we want to look at that almost in more of a multi year sort of perspective so that you can say like, okay, you know, we've let's just say after capital, you know, whatever, we have $800,000 worth of free cash available. Let's make it nine to make it, you know nice and easy. Even so, if we've got this $300,000 problem and we look at it and say, well, we think we have enough now that if we over the next three years use, you know, whatever, 300, 200, 100 or some version of that, it gets us through that period. So we're not just sort of like, okay, well we throw everything in the kitchen sink at it in year one, and then you throw your hands up and go, well, how the heck do we do year two? But certainly I can't think of any scenario after a school cut where we wouldn't have free cash available to fix that. Um, but, you know, it's it's it's a good question to ask.

00:02:47,969	S4:
You indicated if I heard you. Perfect. You anticipate further reductions from the school budget. What's the timing of knowing that getting the news on those.

00:02:58,669	S2:
I mean, it's well, I mean, it's certainly, you know, less than, you know, six weeks. I mean, they have to set their budget, I think, by the end of January. But I mean, those discussions have have started where, you know, we're all working towards, I think in agreement to.

00:03:11,629	S5:
Yeah. I think when is the the second board meeting is the middle of January.

00:03:18,669	S4:
Where they would presumably inform us of.

00:03:21,699	S5:
Yeah, the.

00:03:22,729	S4:
Progress they've been waiting for.

00:03:24,770	S5:
Yeah. So the school, the school does their the way they budget every year is the first iteration is every need that, you know, they've heard from their schools, you know their principals and things like that. They put it all together. So it's almost you don't want to say worst case scenario, but it's probably as high as it's going to be. And then they go.

00:03:47,099	S4:
Which is what this number.

00:03:48,000	S5:
Is, which is what that number is. So that is what has been presented to the school committee. and, um. And we've been we've been informed that. So that's. We don't have anything else to go on, but we know that they are working to reduce that. They're sensitive to both Hamilton and Venom's restriction and their ability to raise revenue. Uh, all parties are on the same page as wanting to avoid an override of any kind, um, at all costs. So we're expecting that number to come down substantially at their second iteration. But we don't want to speculate. So that's why we're sticking with what we know. What's been stated in public meeting.

00:04:29,769	S4:
Okay.

00:04:31,329	S6:
Sorry. Just ask a kind of ignorant question. The bottom line the total level of exclusions. So this essentially implies, as things stand right now, the tax rate is going to go up by 3.13%. If all else is the same. You can get away with it because you're under the two and a half number. But that's kind of where it looked like essentially.

00:04:50,329	S2:
Yeah. And that I mean, I would just say that the levy limit is increasing 3.13% year over year in that scenario. Um, but that's not necessarily the, the, the tax increase. Um, you know, the tax increase is a different component. Um, you know, and again, because, you know, just looking at it, that 21.778, we didn't actually hit that number. So even though the increase in the levy limit is only 3%, 3.13%, we didn't use all of the number from last year. So that means, you know, the real increases is a much is a bigger number. That was I guess the point I was trying to make a little earlier is it's not just the 3.13%, it's the whatever, you know, the whatever. The 384,000, nine, 73 adds to that mix as we get tight, as we get closer to sort of, you know, finalizing the budget and things will, you know, we we will be showing, you know, this will have you know, what the tax impact is, the average home, median home, that type of thing. Um, because I think that's important for people to, to see. But yeah, it would, it would certainly be more. More than the 3.3. It's more likely to be, you know. Closer to the 7.24, um, number above, which is the actual increase in what was taxed.

00:06:00,230	S5:
Yeah. But something to remember is that it would only be that much if there was an operational overhead, because right now we can't raise this entire amount. So the reality and the target is to reduce this number by about $500,000. And, you know, so as a percentage that's going to cut about a third off that 7.24%. Uh, there's a few other pieces that will go over, you know, net tax impact. But uh, that's pretty close.

00:06:31,629	S6:
You have 5%.

00:06:33,029	S5:
Yeah, roughly.

00:06:41,029	S7:
Right.

00:06:44,100	S2:
Now are we going to move to like, public safety first?

00:06:46,899	S5:
Yeah. When are we up to? We'll do. We'll do. Police fire and. Oh, yeah, everybody else have to go to the Wreaths Across America early for setup. I know public safety.

00:06:59,170	S8:
I do.

00:07:00,970	S5:
Oh we don't. It doesn't matter. I don't get it. You got to stay.

00:07:06,170	S8:
We know it.

00:07:06,970	S5:
No. Just kidding. The, um. No, but they had the setup. But no, we want to get. Everybody's going to be out of here in time for the rights across America to attend. But I know public safety has to get over there a couple of hours in advance for setup. So why don't we start with police and fire safety?

00:08:13,269	S2:
See you waiting for it.

00:08:15,230	S9:
Oh, yeah, if you can. Yep. You're all set. Oh, okay.

00:08:18,470	S10:
Um, I don't know if you want me to just stop by generically going over kind of a state of the state. Yeah, sure. Yeah. That's fine. Uh, I first want to, uh, just obviously thank Steve and Jeff and you, Joe, for taking the time when we met last week and just for the, uh, the back and forth dialogue. I know a lot of the department heads probably echo the same feeling that it was an atmosphere that was conducive to a productive, Uh, you know, discussions. So that made it a heck of a heck of a lot easier as we dredge through this. And then obviously, I want to take note to thank Deputy Chief Luke Anthony and Executive Assistant Jackson for helping us, um, kind of forensically look at, at the details of where we're at and where we need to be. And the teamwork at my place and in town is, uh, is, uh, beyond words to describe how much it makes things better. Um, the biggest thing that we were looking for by way of our discussion was to take a look at, obviously few different areas, the expense, uh, options as far as abilities to trim, trim some areas. Um, and I can I can certainly discuss that. As we were looking at each line, um, some of the areas that we were hoping and that we had a little wiggle room to shave some, uh, some of the money off, uh, was, uh, Pleasant Pond. We we took a look at our supplies and what allowed us to save little money there for the expense line is that when we transitioned over from lifeguards and gatekeepers to all gatekeepers, that allows us a little wiggle room relative to the, uh, the need for uniforms, for CPR certifications, for the other certifications that are required. That would have been and were in the past relative to the lifeguards. We can, um, move away from that. And that need isn't as apparent. And so it allows us to take a look. And we estimated about $1,000 can come out of that line. And I think will will be okay. Um, relative. And that's like 53, ten, uh, for the pleasant pawn supplies. 5580 our overall uniform, um, line in expenses right now, current to the current collective bargaining agreement in place, has a mandated uniform allowance across the board. Uh, also contextually. For myself and the deputy that that mandates an amount per full time officer, we also have an estimated amount relative to the, um, each individual reserve officer that we've had in place for quite some time. However, uh, taking a look, uh, since I've been in place when I first started, we had 16 reserves. We're down to eight. So we were able to do was take another look into that and shave a couple thousand dollars out of that line because of the smaller reserve force. But we did have to leave a little bit of a buffer and an overage in place because, um, if an officer damages a uniform in the course of his or her duties, um, it's in place to the collective bargaining agreement that it wouldn't then come out of their uniform line. So if they rip their pants, um, you know, if they're chasing a bad guy and they and they fall and rip their pants. That wouldn't come out of their individual line. We would then have to bring that out of the uniform line in general. So that's why a little bit of a buffer needs to remain in place for the possible needs to pull from from that line, but we were able to still estimate to take several thousand dollars out of that line and still be okay to shave some more costs. We took another look at the miscellaneous line five five, eight one. That's another $500 that looking at past usage and possible future usage, we could shave shave that off as well and still operate functionally and be okay. Those are the expenses in areas that we look to try to make some make some cuts. And I think we're able to definitely do that relative to the the salaries. We're kind of in a funky place right now as we have active negotiations going on. The current collective bargaining agreement is in place until June 30th of this year. So what we were able to do relative to the salaries is have a um, an estimated, um, thought in place for where the agreement would, uh, would end up. Um, we looked at a few, um, different areas to try to, uh, to try to make some, some cuts. And it's really hard to do that with, with kind of the unknown that currently exists. Um, if, if we, if we were able to move some of the reserve officer money, the problem that exists with that, based on the mathematical formulas that we put in place, is if those reserves aren't working at their flat over, uh, excuse me, base pay rate, that then becomes time that has to be filled by a full time officer at an overtime time and a half rate. So you're looking at about a $38 an hour difference between the average reserve officer rate and the average time and a half rate for one of our full time offices. So essentially, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we were to shave some of that reserve money off, which was one of the areas that we spoke about, we also then spoke about another position in place, um, relative to our inventory control specialist. And he's an invaluable part of the current department that we have in place. Uh, he works 16 hours a week in, um, the duties and responsibilities beyond what his job description lays out are a huge part of the day to day operations of the police department. So we're hoping to maintain that. So I definitely don't recommend moving forward with any changes there. Um, the other, uh, there's some minor contractual step obligations relative to the current police officers that are in place by way of their. With the current CBA that's in place. Collective bargaining agreement in place. There are certain delineated steps that will trigger minor raises. Whether a contract is agreed upon in principle or in general before July 1st. So either way, those steps would trigger minor changes. And then also there are some stipends in place and some other nominal costs that are relative to the current agreement in place, whether or not, uh, you know, if and when the agreement takes place. So we average those out. But the biggest change we were able to make and the removal you'll see here, um, is the bridge reserve salaries, uh, so that if some of the folks that have been in town or on the board in the past will remember that we had a state mandated an unfunded mandate at the time Relative to the training requirements for part time police officers to maintain their certification in the state. That was over a three year period that we had to find the funds available to do that over the last three years. The first year we had to do some dance and to find that money. The second two years we were able to budget it, in which this past year was our final year that we had to budget it in for the proposed three officers that were were going to be required to get those additional training hours in place this year moving forward. The Bridge Academy expired, if you will, on June 30th. So anyone that hadn't obtained at any department in the state, any part time officer that did not obtain that additional training that was required by that June 30th deadline, would in turn have not been able to maintain their certification. So that is moot at this point. So that 25 5591 um can come out which, which is a big a big plus, uh, because it'll allow us that buffer to trim what we were looking to do without making any, uh, huge day to day positional and operational changes to the agency. So, um, that's kind of a rough state of the state. I'd be happy to answer any questions or dive a little deeper. Yes, sir.

00:16:53,529	S4:
Yes. Um, just for my just to be educated, I'm looking at all the different control. Uh, increases or decreases? Uh, there doesn't. Why do some go up a lot and some go down a lot? It strikes me if they have the same job description, wouldn't they all be going up by a certain negotiated amount?

00:17:12,230	S10:
So yes and no. So what happened was with the last collective bargaining agreement that was agreed upon, it created a table of steps for each officer. And that's specific to time on the job. So, um, Whatever step you're at and some of the steps will change over the first. I believe it's 1 to 5 years. They change annually. Then there's a there's a period of 5 to 10, and I want to say 10 to 15. So you could get stuck in that step for a longer period of time. So there wouldn't be any movement. So some of the officers, um, may not be facing that change to another step because they're in that period of time on the job that won't trigger that. Whereas other officers over the first few years, if they came in brand new, they're going to see those steps over the first few years. But if an officer came in with, say, ten years experience, he or she from 10 to 15 wouldn't have any changes. And it also ties into their time off. They made it parallel with the steps relative to your vacation time and your additional contractual salary raises. So that's probably why. That's definitely why you see some changes more than others.

00:18:23,569	S7:
And go good and Jared.

00:18:26,099	S2:
So and one of the things is we've listed. Listed positions there. We're obviously not listing actual people. So I think sort of in the patrol area you'll see some ups and some downs where the person is actually changed. So maybe you've gone, you know, you're you're actually seeing a reduction because let's just say patrolman three was, you know, you had someone that was a step four, and then you hire a step one. And then up in the sergeant, there's a pretty large increase there. But I think that would be more as as the steps move. As the chief says early years, it's like almost a step every year. And then I think it goes to like five year increments in between steps. So obviously when you go up a step and it's a five year increment, it's a nicer bump at that point. So what you're seeing is a sergeant who probably, you know, went from whatever a step eight to a nine or a 7 to 1 eight or something like that. That takes a longer to get there. But when you get there, it's a larger number. But some of this might look funky from a math standpoint because you're sort of it's not Jim Smith, you know, in in both columns, it's Jim Smith in year one and Bob Jones in year two. So there's you know we're trying to give good detail but also not, you know, put you know, put people right out there in front and center. Um, but generally speaking that's you know, that's the idea there.

00:19:36,869	S4:
Yeah. Presumably the overtime over the year would be allocated to different officers who elected or were required to utilize that.

00:19:45,529	S10:
Yeah. And we have an average number for all our full time officers with the average overtime rate is we calculated that and I have that. And that's the only other thing that may change depending depending on the agreed upon, um, wage scale adjustments or step raises or whatever that may trigger that overtime line change nominally relative to that general rate changing. So, you know, I have an average overtime rate now of 60, $66 an hour. But if they, you know, whatever is agreed upon, that could change a little bit to cover that.

00:20:24,569	S6:
Does the overtime usage. Is it kind of consistent? You know, every officer is roughly 10% of that number or so.

00:20:31,769	S10:
No. Yes and no. So the year to year is different to, you know, and certain circumstances can trigger that. We have an officer out now on on extended military leave. So that creates more more vacancies. And a lot of it is, is how it's written up to of what is required to be a full time officer overtime, as opposed to what we're able to fill with a part time officer vacancy. And some of that I have control over and some through the CBA, I really don't. And then it's also based on, um, we have a system in place that's ours, ours based, to try to keep it fair and equitable to the overtime usage. So if two officers put in for the same overtime shift and they put a bid in the one with less hours, we'll get awarded that. And so then it could change. You could have an entry level patrol officer overtime rate, which is a heck of a lot different than a top step sergeant overtime rate. So that can that can factor it as well.

00:21:35,500	S7:
All right.

00:21:37,430	S3:
Bob, first.

00:21:38,799	S4:
Uh.

00:21:39,630	S11:
On the expense, uh, slide.

00:21:41,869	S10:
Yes, sir.

00:21:42,630	S11:
I was looking at the actuals for 23 and 24, compared them to the budget for 25, which is being rolled over for 26. The two items stood out. One was electricity and the other was training. The question is, is the experience for 2025, which we're only partly into now, consistent with the 2025 budget? Or is there something that could suggest a change when we do the 26 budget?

00:22:13,900	S10:
So the A training. The biggest difference with the. I'll speak to that first is through the post. The post is the governing authority which was created a few years ago relative to all police officers in the state of Massachusetts. In that implementation of the new post requirement, a cross-reference with R where accredited through the state of Massachusetts, there's a whole bunch of additional training requirements that we have to adhere to on an annual basis to maintain our all of our officers certifications and to maintain our accreditation. So that's triggered the need for the training. Uh, without a doubt. Um, that's a that's a huge difference there. Why that's required. And we have very little wiggle room with that. And I'm sorry, the other one was an electrician.

00:23:02,930	S2:
If I can take that one. So the electricity. So, Bob, you'll notice the electricity was $120 in FY 23. Our meter was broken. And so we were getting a bare minimum $10 a month charge. Um, and it was discovered in late earlier this year, probably January or February of this year. And they've begun billing us again. Um, and since then, you know, obviously electric rates continue to rise. But yeah, that that's what accounts for that very drastic, uh, increase in electrical charges there. So the 16 is probably, um, you know, it could actually be a little light when all is said and done because that 9216 actual in FY 24 is honestly probably just not even half. Um, so, you know, that's probably a good number. And for the most part, uh, they've written off a good chunk of it. Um, so, you know, it's just sort of a windfall for the town of when I'm there.

00:24:02,299	S9:
Sorry.

00:24:02,799	S3:
Oh, you go ahead.

00:24:04,069	S6:
Thank you for the, um, London and recruitment services from fiscal year 23. Does that imply you haven't had any vacancies that need to be filled for the last couple years and don't expect it. Or how should I think about that?

00:24:15,630	S10:
Uh, no. We've had, uh, vacancies annually. Um, and I'm trying to look back on why that's. Uh, we we have I have a proposal for capital relative to a promotional, uh, process, and I can't speak to.

00:24:34,230	S2:
Yeah. I mean, it's going to be the 11,000. They're on the bottom for the. We're going to put to capital. Um, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the chief can probably speak to it better, but not all searches are the same. So like we're potentially looking at a sergeant search now which is more involved than a patrolman search or whatever. So, um, you know, this upcoming one will be a capital addition when we do the, the budget, um, to ask for 11,000.

00:24:58,599	S10:
And it's best practices in a lot of area agencies, most outsource any promotional processes now. And it has to be validated and standardized because of accreditation as well. And we have an outside entity that comes in. We did a last time as well that, that, um, uh, proctors and uh, does the written examination along with a full day assessment center and then objectively identifies the best candidates for us to move forward with.

00:25:26,130	S3:
Uh, question can you go back to the personnel slide? The next one, chief, can you just touch on briefly the recommendation to not fill the detective position and to add a seventh patrol officer.

00:25:38,769	S10:
So that that was more of a shell game. We're definitely want to fill the detective position. So, um, it's it's not it's own entity. The detective position is, uh, in the current CBA, it's a patrol officer or a sergeant for that matter, depending on how we fill it. That then gets an incentive to work in the detective capacity. So it's it's they just moved it. Uh, it's not it's its own identified position yet. I think we can get there and I'd like to get there, but right now it's a 10% differential for whatever officer is working in that capacity.

00:26:19,369	S3:
And there was such an officer in FY 25.

00:26:22,599	S10:
Yes, it currently is. Now, Sergeant David Marsh is acting as our detective now. Okay. Um, but, um, yeah, they're currently they they assist a lot. They assist the deputy, uh, with court. Um, they are not to mention all that. Dave Marsh has done a phenomenal job, uh, with a lot of different duties and responsibilities, that that position gets thrown on them.

00:26:45,569	S3:
So it's possible that one of the seven patrol officers might get promoted, for lack of a better description, to the detective.

00:26:53,000	S9:
100%.

00:26:53,670	S3:
Position. Yeah.

Okay. 00:26:57,400	S8:
I have a quick question regarding meals and travel. Is that in conjunction with the trainings and education, are they traveling to the trainings. Is that what that is covered? So yeah. Or is it a separate.

00:27:08,470	S10:
No. They kind of tie in together because some of the training, um, if it's out of state or um, you know, depending on the type of training that exists, we pull from that line. They can put in if a cruise is not available, they can put in an office that can put in for mileage. Um, if the cruises are tied up for responsibilities in town or if it's a scenario usually overnight training, they can also put in for meal reimbursement, which occasionally happens, and it would get pulled from that line as well.

00:27:42,069	S8:
So the training and education does not encompass all expenses to and from the training.

00:27:46,829	S10:
And we could talk about, you know, Jeff and I, we've had discussions about it in the past of kind of condensing some of the lines. And I know in different municipalities to your point. Um, so, I mean, they that happens so it, it can be pulled or morphed together. I don't know. I mean.

00:28:07,769	S2:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would view the training and education as more, um, you know, like, unlike in my office where I might go to UMass for a week and stay out there. Your training is tend to be more you bring a firearms instructor in for the day, and you spend $1,500 to bring the person in and train for the day that would fall under training and education. Perhaps when you do that, you may, um, sort of bring in pizza or something like that, and maybe the pizza falls under meals and travel and the and, you know, the cost of the instructor, um, goes to training and education. Um, you know, we tend to in the finance department or maybe like Steve, we tend to go away to trainings individually. But I think in your department, it's it's it's a far better process, you know, to bring someone in. Everybody gets the same training at the same time. It's more cost effective. It's more, you know, you get a better bang for your buck and you ensure everybody's getting the same training, you know, and whatever. Um, and so I think it sort of makes sense to keep them separate because they are. As a chief, you might go to a conference for a week more like, you know, maybe Steve or I would do, you know, and that would fall, you know, you'd have a lot of meals and travel there. That would be that kind of thing.

00:29:14,599	S10:
We just did that before we had our department meeting a couple of weeks ago. So it was kind of one stop shop, and we had the whole department there, and we had a woman from Hawk come in that, uh, taught all the officers about, um, you know, domestic violence and the updated laws and how we work in Essex County, uh, to use their resources effectively. And then we were able to, uh, feed the officers during that training. And it was it was a good it was a good event. It was very productive. So that's exactly to your point, Jeff.

00:29:45,269	S6:
Maybe one more question for me on communication services and telephone. If I remember right from just correctly the system, they just used some ignorance. Last time, meeting the fire department and police department asked for $250,000 for walkie talkies or some. So does that. And I see like a pretty large jump of telephone costs from 23 to 24, then some more.

00:30:06,069	S10:
Um, I know.

00:30:08,000	S6:
Does that factor in or is that something separate?

00:30:11,029	S10:
Well, I know we added to that line because the beach needed a phone line, so I don't know if that's the same line that that's pulled from all our, the, the, the cell phones for myself and the deputy and the, the detective. And then each, uh, cruiser, uh, have cell phones I can't think of.

00:30:34,869	S3:
I think the walkie talkies were at fire department.

00:30:36,769	S10:
Yeah, that was a capital.

00:30:37,670	S2:
It was.

00:30:37,900	S9:
Both.

00:30:38,630	S4:
That was an immediate need.

00:30:39,670	S9:
Yeah, that was.

00:30:41,000	S5:
For the devices, the differences. Those are for the device. The capital requested devices themselves. These are the like service and licensing agreements that are annually reoccurring okay for those devices, cell phones and also our hard lines and our.

00:30:55,970	S10:
Laptops and our cruises require that as well.

Okay. 00:31:02,930	S7:
All right.

00:31:03,529	S5:
And before we move on to that. Thank you. Chief. And before we move on, if you just could pull the salaries up, I just want to make sure everybody is on the same page. Um, I know we've kind of belabored this slide, but. So we talked. It was brought up. But, you know, if if one person goes up, why is there different increases. And it was explained very well about, you know, the step increases. And depending on how long you've been with the town in your seniority. But I want to highlight this is one of the contracts that we're currently negotiating. So the cost of living adjustment is part of the negotiations. And that's the piece that would be applied equally amongst all the participants. So you have two components. You have your essentially your longevity increase for your time with the department. That's contractually obligated. And regardless if you have a contract in effect or not. Union members benefit from the benefits of the previously negotiated contract, even if it's expired. So in this extent is step increases. So that's why they're reflected here. And we made the adjustments in other areas downwards to absorb those without you see the -1.44%. So we've absorbed those increases for to maintain the level the level fund request coming from the Common Select board. But the the cost of living adjustment is what we're negotiating now. And we have that side, um, sort of bucket of money that we're anticipating. We'll cover that. And it's already budgeted for. But just so you know, this, this these will change. And that's how it's going to change. And we already have the money that will fund that set aside and is reflected in the totals here. I just didn't want any questions that come up later.

00:32:57,799	S9:
Okay.

00:32:58,400	S7:
Thank you very much.

00:33:00,269	S9:
Thank you.

00:33:08,599	S4:
Good morning.

00:33:17,069	S3:
I'm not going to be that.

00:33:17,900	S4:
Long, so.

00:33:20,700	S5:
30s.

00:33:21,400	S7:
Let's go.

00:33:22,900	S12:
It's going to be pretty quick.

00:33:42,799	S12:
So on salaries, everything pretty much stayed the same except for the additional coverage. And that was we added 11,700 to the coverage line item. Uh, it was 28 371 94. And we added the 11 seven, which is now a total of 40,071.

00:34:11,900	S12:
So this was an operational need. Uh, we've been having problems with, uh, getting people to respond, and.

00:34:25,329	S12:
It kind of helps guarantee that two firefighters respond to after our calls from 1700 to 724 hours each on Saturday and Sunday. This amount would compensate for one person to take a coverage along with the assigned officer in charge, uh, for seven 1700 700 hours, which is a 14 hour shift. And that would give them a $25 stipend for 14 hours to be around and a 24 hour shift would. The firefighter would receive $50, and that would help ensure just a bare minimum to get the ambulance out the door. Because that is one of the number one revenue generators in the town. So it's a very minor amount to guarantee someone around.

00:35:22,369	S12:
Other than that, salaries, nothing else changed.

00:35:30,530	S2:
Chief, just to put context to that revenue. So ambulance revenue actual revenue in FY 24 is $183,000. So just so people understand the, you know, the context of having that service, having that coverage, you know, there is a direct correlation to revenue, you know, received by the town.

00:35:48,599	S12:
And we're already up 180 calls this year, so it just keeps coming. Oh yeah, it keeps compounding and compounding.

00:35:56,170	S4:
Where would that 183 end up?

00:35:59,400	S13:
Is that in the the local receipts.

00:36:01,400	S2:
That's in our local receipts. Yeah. And another one that's probably because we haven't been doing ambulance service revenue for two too long. It's another example of probably we went from a low number. We've moved up to a higher number. And the door is kind of ratcheting us down on that. So that's an area where we're probably under underreporting based on our estimates. We'll also probably talk about it town meeting this year, that taking those funds and putting them into something called the revolving fund, what other communities tend to do is, um, set that money in a revolving fund fund and, and stockpile money to buy the next ambulance. Basically, you need another ambulance every probably five years in most communities tend to get on a A schedule where you've got an old ambulance and you could use for a couple more years when you get the new ambulance. So you're running two ambulances and you can generate more revenue.

00:36:54,670	S12:
I think that's on the agenda for two years from now, I believe. Uh, so that one would go into reserve. Hopefully we could find a spot to store it, hopefully here. And then we would buy a new one, because if we go to a motor vehicle accident, there's always more than one patient. So we lose on that patient when we could transport two people instead of one. So it would help us considerably.

00:37:20,869	S2:
And I don't know that everybody really understands, but transporting is what generates revenue for the town. So towns have. Yeah. Hamilton might be a good example. Hamilton say has EMT's on staff, but because they don't have their own ambulance service, they don't transport the patient and therefore they don't actually get the revenue, but their actual cost for for having that patient probably isn't much lower than it is for us, but we, by virtue of transport of the patient, actually create revenue. Um, so it's, you know, it's something for folks to be mindful of when we have there's not many things in the budget that the increase in cost actually correlates directly to an increase in revenue, but this would be one of them.

00:38:01,030	S12:
And also motor vehicle accidents we build for. So that's like almost another 50,000. And uh Gordon College they paid dollar for dollar. So whatever we send out for manpower trucks, they uh we bill them and they reimburse us, which is a which is great.

00:38:26,429	S12:
Though on the expense side, that went up 1.06%, and that was due to all the new defibrillators that you see in all the town buildings. And it's a there's a $2,000 expense yearly For replacement pads and batteries for each one.

00:38:50,170	S12:
And down the road, we're going to have to have a discussion about putting full time on, you know, at least two people on 24 hours a day. And it's a that can be done through a federal grant. Uh, the first year, if we if we were to get the grant, uh, ultimately, I would like to put on six full time firefighters. And the first year, they pay everything 100%. Second year is 50%. Third year is a quarter. And after the third year, we have to retain them for a minimum of five years. But at least it gives you the stats. Building out where we can prepare over three years and you guaranteed two people on at that point 24 hours. You don't have to worry. You know, unfortunately not this Thanksgiving, but the Thanksgiving before I was the officer in charge, and I was the only person that showed up to a medical, I had to call for another ambulance.

00:39:55,969	S12:
And that. Got any other questions? The.

00:40:01,599	S8:
Chief is somebody who has unfortunately had to use your ambulatory services quite often in the middle of the night from a family perspective. Um, there is nothing more comforting in that exact moment to have a sick child or a husband at that point, to have someone in the community that you know and you trust and you see on a regular basis. So I fully understand and, um, support that in any aspect that we can.

00:40:26,300	S12:
Thank you for the 11,700 for $25 on weekdays and 50 on the weekend. It's a pretty short change.

00:40:38,670	S8:
And having the part time EMT on a regular basis, the EMT shows up in regular clothes. At one point, there was a one who showed up in a full painting outfit, so it was slight concern from the anger of whether or not they worked for you. Oh yeah, but it's nothing more comforting than having them. Yeah. So thank you.

00:40:59,800	S12:
Thank you. Anything else?

00:41:04,369	S4:
Do the firefighters, um, receive EMT training as well? Or do they? Are they strictly fire prevention and.

00:41:13,230	S12:
Oh, no. No. They. Yep. They get, uh, training. We offer training in-house. Uh, a lot of them take it outside, but we always offer credits in-house. Uh, even during training, you can get credits. So we try and incorporate medical with fire plans during training, and which will give them, like, three hours credit.

00:41:36,300	S4:
And then for the firefighters. Does the state have a certification process as to certain things that each firefighter has to go through in terms of standardized training?

00:41:45,269	S12:
Oh, yeah. Every EMT. Yes. Every two years you have to recertify.

00:41:49,500	S4:
But also for the firefighters.

00:41:51,130	S12:
Nope.

00:41:51,630	S4:
Well, yes.

00:41:52,429	S12:
Yeah.

00:41:52,769	S4:
Firefighter one two. Let me go through with the mass fire Academy. Okay. And they usually stopped at at the beginning of the career.

00:41:58,900	S12:
Yes. And then there's always trainings often throughout the rest of their career.

00:42:04,099	S9:
Yeah.

00:42:05,630	S2:
Because Jeff has it all. Firefighters are have first responder training. Then there's EMTs. And then the final level is like a paramedic, which is where an EMT force, um.

00:42:17,000	S4:
The first responder even to go to the fire academy, you can't get into that without it. And you can still be a first responder with us. But within the two year period, they have to become an EMT.

00:42:31,530	S12:
That's what we make mandatory. There's no point in having someone sitting here and they can't drive the ambulance out the door.

00:42:38,369	S2:
Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah. I just feel like a lot of people don't know, like the sort of like the difference between, you know, first responder all the way up to paramedic and whatever, but.

00:42:46,300	S12:
And being a taxpayer, I don't want to see that happen.

00:42:49,130	S4:
First responder is a classification under the training regimen. So the first responder the EMT basic EMT advanced an EMT paramedic level. So you're always going to start with the first responder level which is your very basic. And anybody who comes in can can go up that uh, career path with when I'm if they so desire.

00:43:10,300	S12:
Absolutely.

00:43:11,570	S7:
That's excellent.

00:43:12,900	S12:
And that's the problem. We lose a lot of people, too. I just lost two firefighters, one to Exeter, New Hampshire, and one to Devens. But they're allowing them to stay on our department. They haven't required them to move out of town yet, which is good for me because they work at 24, 24 off 24 on five days off. Yeah. So it works out great for me.

00:43:35,199	S6:
How large is the, um, Omkar on call south, you have.

00:43:38,230	S12:
Uh, 28.

00:43:40,099	S6:
And do they all respond to every call?

00:43:41,869	S12:
No, no, that's the problem. You don't have to come.

00:43:45,730	S6:
So that's purely optional.

Really? 00:43:48,000	S12:
Yeah. Friday nights. Saturdays are tough. Like I'm the OIC today. I've already worked my 40 during the week. But I don't ask you as a call firefighter to take a weekend if I don't. So. So I start my Monday off. 64 hours.

00:44:10,530	S12:
Not counting any other calls.

00:44:16,099	S12:
But that's how it works. And it works great right now.

So. 00:44:22,400	S12:
Any other questions?

00:44:24,969	S7:
No. It's good. Thanks, chief.

00:44:26,530	S12:
Thank you. I'm going to get you on.

00:44:27,630	S7:
For, though. All right. Sounds good.

00:44:28,929	S12:
Thank you.

00:44:30,329	S2:
Do you want to start back at the beginning?

00:44:32,070	S7:
No, we'll just do. No, I think we'll do.

00:44:34,500	S5:
We'll stick with public safety, do permitting, which we'll do permitting next.

00:44:38,829	S7:
Rich Maloney.

00:44:44,030	S5:
Everyone's favorite zoning official.

00:44:45,829	S9:
Everybody.

00:44:47,099	S7:
Warren.

Rich. 00:44:50,929	S9:
Um. It's pretty cut and dried. Looks like last year. Uh, nothing's really changed. Uh, probably the biggest change is, um, we changed our online permitting July 1st, and we. Same program we use over in Hamilton. We had some issues with the third party vendor for taking money, so we carried a $3,000. The vendor that comes with the company, um, was a no cost. We've had a lot of problems with them over there. So we changed vendors and it cost us a couple thousand dollars. We haven't had any issues with the third party vendor that comes with the company. So we eliminated that $3,000 placeholder we had. So that's the only change in the budget.

00:45:44,530	S5:
And just to remind everyone that this is this is a shared service with Hamilton. So Rich covers both Hamilton and Wenham. And it really this is one of the shared services that works really, really well. Rich runs a very tight shift ship and, uh, you know, everything. Everything is going great here.

00:46:05,070	S9:
Yeah. We our revenues through November, we've taken in about $40,000 in permit fees. So we project that out. You know, we're guessing somewhere between 80 and 100,000. So we'll cover our budget.

00:46:16,869	S5:
Yeah. Generally, yeah. This department is self-supporting. And even if anything, profit generating.

00:46:24,269	S5:
Here.

00:46:25,500	S3:
Um. Morning. Uh, we don't anticipate any issues with the new website and the interface between that and the new permitting system.

00:46:36,670	S9:
I take it. No, not at all.

00:46:38,000	S3:
Okay, great. Thank you.

00:46:44,670	S4:
Easy one.

00:46:46,630	S5:
Thanks, Rich.

00:46:47,230	S9:
Thanks very much. That's it.

Great. 00:46:48,869	S2:
Thanks, everybody. Great to get in.

00:46:51,969	S5:
All right.

00:46:52,500	S2:
Land use. And so now the new system.

00:46:54,429	S6:
Entry one.

00:46:55,469	S2:
Entry. Warden Kate Mallory.

00:46:57,829	S1:
Come on down.

00:47:08,070	S14:
Betty. Hi. My name is Kate Mallory. I'm the land use director. Nice to meet you guys.

Um. 00:47:18,699	S14:
So we were able to, um, level fund the budget. Just moving a couple of line items Around for the first line with the contract services. You can see that that is just some contracts we have with ArcGIS. So the ESRI contract that we need in the land use department and sign now, which is what we do to sign off on our permits because we have electronic signatures with that.

00:47:43,130	S8:
Um, okay. Can you hold on for one second? Where is.

00:47:46,130	S2:
This? Yeah, I, I think do you want to start with, um, tree warden? We were, um, we were. I was calling you up because tree warden was the last of the, um, of the, um. Or. I guess he's going to pull it back. What page? What pages?

00:47:59,829	S5:
Uh, land use is 25.

00:48:01,130	S11:
Tree wardens.

00:48:01,730	S6:
36.

00:48:03,000	S2:
Yeah, but. Yeah, if you want. I think people were looking at tree warden is like the next thing.

Sorry. 00:48:09,269	S14:
Does everybody have the tree warden one? No.

00:48:14,630	S14:
Okay, great. So we're just requesting to level fund this budget.

Um, 00:48:23,000	S14:
First of all, the salaries is for our actual tree warden, so he gets a stipend. Um, so we'd like to just level fund that for the expenses. Um, the $200 is usually just for miscellaneous expenses, like gator bags for trees that we plant. Um, the contract services is taking down trees. So in 2018, we have a tree report that we had done. And it shows that there are a lot of sick trees in town. So last year we really started this initiative to really take care of those dangerous trees and then also to plant new trees. And so that's what the contract services are for taking down trees. Um, we're on track to take down around 25 to 30 trees this year. And the way the tree warden goes about that is he looks at the trees that are the most diseased, um, the most dangerous if they come down. Um, for that, for that line and also, um, resident requests as well. And for the tree planting, this is to me, the most exciting part is where planting about 12 really good trees each year. We've done six already so far, and we have the Arbor Day celebration. Um, we started an apple orchard in Reynolds Farm, so that was wonderful. This year we'll probably use the funds for the celebration. Um, in conjunction with opening up the new West one, um, park that we have. So we're going to hopefully do a community event with that.

00:49:58,670	S8:
Um.

00:49:59,869	S14:
So that's it with the tree ward and any questions?

00:50:08,199	S4:
Do you have a particular firm that you contract with, or do you bid out on a job by job basis?

00:50:13,670	S14:
Yeah. Um, it depends. Each year kind of what the plan looks like. Iron Tree has really helped us out a lot. We're looking at different tree companies so we can, um, instead of piece mailing one tree at a time. That costs more money. If we can get a company to come in and to do them all at once, that would be a little bit cheaper. So we're looking at different options now.

00:50:41,730	S5:
Jump to number 2520 fifth slide. I apologize for jumping around here, but it's already 1020. And we want to make, you know, hit the exciting departments. Make sure they're hit by 1130 so everybody can get to the Wreaths Across America. I don't think anyone really cares about the finance department.

00:51:02,070	S14:
So.

00:51:04,000	S2:
Not even in my house.

00:51:07,630	S14:
Um, so for land use, I actually skipped over the salary piece. So the salary is for myself, and we have a part time planner in the office who is wonderful. Um, so it's a two person office, and so most of our budget is salary. And then we have we were able to level fund this budget underneath. So like I said, with contract services, those are strictly, um, contracts that we need. A land use department needs to, to run postage. We mail out a Buttars notice notifications and certified mailings. So we were able to look at what we had used in years past and truncated that down. Um, office supplies, really, it's just folders and labels and stuff like that. So, um, it's $200. And so the big ones, the meals and travels and the dues and subscriptions and the training and education, those are, um, when you work in conservation and planning, you have certain certifications that you have and you keep up. So one of the major things that we have is we travel each year to this Nepa conference, which is the planning conference in southern New England. And so that would be hotel for two nights. So you're talking travel there for myself and my are there other planner and the cost of the tickets. And so basically what those trainings do is they keep up our certifications and also help with our continuing education. Um, we had a great training this year in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was really educational and we've brought some of those things back with us. So that's great. And then for the advertising, we, we, we turn down the training and education a little bit to make sure that we had enough money for miscellaneous advertising. So legally we have to advertise zoning changes. And with the master plan implementation, it looks like we will be doing some zoning changes within the next few years. So we wanted to make sure that we padded that line a little bit as the Salem News. Um, it costs about $700 each time $600 $700 each time you put in an ad for those zoning changes. Any questions?

00:53:25,099	S14:
Okay. Thank you very much, everybody.

00:53:27,570	S15:
Thank you.

00:53:30,730	S5:
Assessors.

00:53:32,030	S6:
Yeah.

00:53:34,130	S1:
Where are you going?

00:53:35,570	S6:
Assessors. Page 17.

00:53:38,230	S2:
Now, I realize the pages aren't numbered. Unfortunately, they're digitally numbered.

00:53:41,769	S6:
Oh, sorry.

Sorry. 00:53:49,000	S16:
No one likes to follow Kate Mallory. I'm Teresa Fontaine, interim principal assessor. Um, brief history of the changes in the department. Um, probably 3 or 4 years ago. Well, probably about three years ago, they went from, uh, part time assessor and part time office clerk to a shared assessor with Hamilton Wenham and full time um, assistant assessor myself. Uh, recently, Todd Laramie has left to take the assessing position of Marblehead. So we are in transition at this point. But you will notice that in the salaries and wages we do have, um, a new administrative assistant, which hopefully will be ratified soon, and that number is probably going to be much lower. Um, I think that's based on the difference between Todd's salary, the shared, um, position, the Windham chair, and, um, at about 19 hours, maybe even, you know, 16, depending on what we feel the office needs. Um, and an hourly rate. It will probably be much lower than that. So there will be some trimming there, likely. Um, contractual services. We have, uh, Patriot properties who assist us with our software program and also cartographic that does our assessor's maps and the online GIS system. Um, last year the assessing budget took on the entire cartographic, which was shared with land use before. So, you know, we absorbed that class last year. It makes sense to have it all in one place. Um, training and education. Same as everyone else. Um, we keep up our certifications. I have my Ma Massachusetts accredited assessor, um, and would encourage the new administrative assistant to take courses and, um, ultimately go for an Ma as well.

00:56:06,699	S16:
Postage. We have a lot of mailings. We mail out the forms of lists for businesses, income and expense forms for, um, commercial properties. Um, we as a courtesy mail out exemption applications to seniors, veterans and blind anyone who received an exemption in the prior year. Um, they don't always remember that they have to apply every year. So as a courtesy, we mail those out to them and follow up. Um, and then there are notifications of cyclical inspections and things of that nature. We like to send out a postcard, um, just notifying someone that will be in the area and, you know, to do inspections. And I think it's, you know, cost beneficial. Um, dues, fees and subscriptions. We belong to the Essex County Assessors Association and the Massachusetts Association of Assessors. Those are important. That's for myself and all three board members. For both organizations. They offer a lot of the training. Um, a lot of the training that they offer are free webinars, and I take advantage of that as much as possible. Uh, and office supplies, um, you know, we we needed additional monitors and things of that nature. Could we trim that a little bit? We probably could take a, you know, a deeper dive into that. But right now we're presenting a level funded budget, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

00:57:43,769	S4:
So you mentioned that if I heard correctly, that the full time assessor took another position in another town. So we're down one person, so to speak.

00:57:53,369	S16:
Yes, I'm I am everything. Yeah, I'm doing it all.

00:57:58,969	S4:
So so you're the top line position there. The set for.

00:58:04,199	S16:
Yes, I am the interim assessor right now.

00:58:06,369	S6:
Oh, okay.

00:58:07,570	S4:
Um, so. All right. So the budget would go up if a new person came back or if we got another person.

00:58:16,500	S5:
No, I can, I can clarify. So just something I was going to say at the end anyways. But, you know, just for clarity on this budget, this was last year, excuse me, last year, this was a shared service similar to how we have set up with the permitting Rich Maloney who was in or who spoke earlier. So last year or really currently this year the agreement with the intermunicipal agreement were in is Hamilton is the lead and they hire what is called a principal assessor in this person was shared 5050 between the two communities. The Board of assessors and the Select board have both voted to exit the agreement because, um, it wasn't working as well as maybe it could have. So we have restructured the department. The net increase is zero in the restructuring is Terry used to serve as the assistant assessor to the shared principal assessor. Terry is also interim and title is soon to be our principal assessor full time. That is not shared. She'll be 1 a.m. only and we created a part time 19 hour per week or less position that will be Terry's administrative assistant. So we've gone from a shared, you know, a shared agreement to an office of 1.5. The net difference in cost is zero.

00:59:47,670	S16:
And providing better service to taxpayers.

00:59:50,730	S5:
Excellent point. And that service delivery will increase to the town of Windham.

00:59:58,300	S4:
I took a crash course on.

00:00:00,070	S1:
Being a total member state provided. And they explained that there's a schedule of properties have to be looked at over in a certain schedule.

00:00:10,929	S2:
Ten years.

00:00:11,669	S1:
Okay. Where will the part of the staff has proposed allow us to keep up with that schedule?

00:00:19,769	S2:
Yes. So the administrative assistant there, we're actually looking for an assistant clerk slash data collector, someone who would be able to help with cyclical inspections, sales inspections, building permit inspections.

00:00:33,630	S1:
To keep us up to date.

00:00:34,670	S2:
Correct? Okay. Along with myself.

00:00:38,469	S3:
So could you explain a little bit better about, you know, what was or wasn't working in the in the previous arrangement or what what is it that this will be avoiding in terms of problems?

00:00:53,329	S1:
Yeah.

00:00:54,229	S4:
So I mean, in a nutshell doing two communities is tough. So you're doing everything twice. So, you know, the idea of, you know, you share one principal assessor. So one quote unquote department head between the two committees. And between the two communities. You know, at a high level, you realize, you know what could be true in some departments or industries, you don't realize any economies of scale. So the individual is doing essentially two full time jobs, twice with only an allotment of half time for each community. So we felt that, you know, as a result of one of them being the not non lead, I guess we're not the lead community. So the individual is hired by Hamilton and we pay for the services. We felt that one of them was, you know, not getting a fair amount of capacity, or we felt that for the money we were paying Hamilton, we could do it better ourselves. So in this situation, we have Terry, who you know is is extremely qualified, knowledgeable, has done a great job. We'll be able to dedicate the role that Todd filled, um, part time, full time, you know, so her she'll step into his role. You know what he should what that role should have been doing in a full time capacity, you know, but only spending 20 hours a week on it, uh, and instead created a part time assistant that will fill. So, you know, therefore, basically doing the job that the principal assessors should have been doing better. And the administrative and clerical work, uh, we feel can get done in part time, if that makes sense.

Yep. 00:02:50,300	S3:
And, um, is there, uh. Is there any way that we. I know that you've been concerned in particular about the, the idea of of achieving the, the assessment cycle and seeing that that is happening is there, uh, you know, is there a metric that you would recommend that we be paying attention to? Um, you know, how well or, you know, we are achieving the recommended metrics by.

00:03:15,169	S2:
As far as keeping up with cyclical inspections, right? Yes. So, you know, basically you run an inspection report out of the Patriot software. The last previous inspection, which I've done, um, I don't have the numbers right off the top of my head, but for next year, I believe there are over 200 properties that need, you know, an immediate inspection. So working on that. Um, in the next year or two, there's over 300 that will be at their ten year. You have to attempt to inspect every property in a ten year period. Uh, not every resident is going to let you into their home for a variety of reasons. Um, so, you know, we, we send out postcards, like I mentioned first to notify people we're going to be on Spring Hill Farm Road. We're going to be on Main Street, we're going to be on Larch Road. Um, within the next few weeks. And then we follow up and we do, um, knock on doors. And if no one's home, no one answers. We at least measure and take a new picture and observe from the outside what we can. Um, you know, so, so it's basically just planning your time. Um, how many inspections need to be done? How many can be done realistically in a week and then, you know, charting it out that way.

00:04:31,399	S3:
Do you feel like 200 is achievable? 300 a year is achievable.

00:04:35,970	S2:
It has to be. You know, we may be a little bit behind, um, from before when when it was part time staff, you know, part time assessor, part time, uh, clerical, which had retired and then, you know, could couldn't that position could not be filled. So they brought her back one day a week. Um, you know. So. So, yes, it will be. It will be done. I will make sure it's done.

00:05:02,370	S5:
Terry. Maybe you can speak to this a little bit in terms of the inspections. So if you go to an inspection property and the folks, for whatever reason, you don't get into the home and you take pictures and measure and whatever you are allowed to make, um, sort of assumptions around what the interior of the property might look like based on what the exterior looks like or whatever. So it does sort of, you know, even if folks don't let you in, you're able to make some adjustments and then, you know, someone might come back and say, you know, want an abatement, you know, because they're, you know, the problem. You know, you made assumptions about how the interior of the house looked. And if they go for an abatement, then we are actually allowed to get into the house. Um, so, you know, it's an interesting sort of the whole process is interesting. But, um, you know, I think your point of where, you know, having this extra person, the administrative assistant, be really more than that, have some ability to do some of these inspections on top of your full time dedication to this. Now, you know, makes the 200 a lot more achievable, right? And we do have Patriot as well, which I don't know if they do any, um, for us, but that is a you know, if we were falling behind, you do have the ability to use a third party to do some of this work as well.

00:06:08,730	S2:
Yes. And probably, you know, maybe a data collector that I was more comfortable with that, you know, that I felt like would do a good job. You know, um, I had a thought, but it just escaped me.

00:06:24,269	S4:
And I think when you're talking about metrics, the probably the, maybe the most important metric to look at is when you get your third quarter tax bill every year, there's going to be a value on that evaluation. That's what your tax that's how much your that's how much tax you pay. It's how you know, the value kind of determines the proportion of the tax burden you're going to pick up for that year. And that value should be you know, I usually give a general rule of thumb. It could be a little bit beyond this, but in general, you should be able to look at that value and say, you know, I could probably sell my house for, you know, plus or minus ten, maybe 15% of that value. If you're below that. Right. You might think, well, I'm not going to say anything because I'm getting a good deal, but it's just as inaccurate as if you were above that because you want to be. You know what I mean? You want everyone wants to be paying fair, you know, fair and equitable. So, you know, if you're looking at something going from a year over year change where, you know, I'm just making numbers up. But you were assessed at $400,000 and you're like, yeah, right. I could get twice that from my house. Well, you're getting a better deal on taxes, I guess. You know, if you look at look at it that way. But the reality of it is you probably should be closer to that $800,000 mark. So and that's kind of the result of it's kind of what happened in the past as we had some, you know, properties that were really low and they were brought to market. And, you know, it works both ways, both on the low end and the high end. We're bringing high end properties down just the same as we're bringing low properties up, not high end as in like the value. But but you know, statistically properties that are being valued outside of, you know, where they should be both on the high end and the low end.

00:08:26,870	S1:
And it's my concern that we don't get behind on the low end, you know, being refreshed.

00:08:32,529	S2:
So, um, the the assessment system is a computer model. Um, and it's, it's, you know, there are statistical, um, standards that have to be met by the state. And that's how we get certified every five years by meeting those standards. Now, being a computer model is not perfect. So some, you know, properties are going to be under assessed just for the statistical, you know, um, piece of it alone. And some are going to be over and the abatement process is in place to help those people who are over assessed, truly over assessed to get a remedy. Um, but everyone has to pay attention to their assessments and be logical about it, not look at I don't want to, you know, no one enjoys paying their tax bill. But if they look at that value and say, no, I really could not sell my house for this, then that's a good reason to come and apply for an abatement.

00:09:28,870	S1:
What did the state last perform there last year?

00:09:32,529	S2:
Fiscal 24.

00:09:33,970	S1:
We were up to snuff.

00:09:35,830	S6:
We were.

00:09:37,230	S1:
In.

00:09:38,269	S2:
May will be FY 29.

00:09:39,769	S7:
Because I think there may be some confusion that your house is not assessed EST once every ten years, but it's updated every year, correct?

00:09:49,769	S1:
No, I, I understand that. And the state assesses our and our the fact that we're up to date on our annual assessments as well.

00:09:59,830	S2:
They do a deep dive into our, um, whole system every five years. So fiscal 29 will be the next one. Last year was our certification year.

00:10:11,269	S1:
Based on frequency evaluation.

00:10:16,000	S2:
Yes, yes.

00:10:17,669	S5:
And the only other point I think about it like an audit, right. Every five years they don't say all 1214 properties are assessed correctly. It's that the process the process works or whatever.

00:10:29,929	S4:
Yeah. So all right. So let's call that at the last question. Just because we want to we want to keep moving I know Terry's available. Thank you very much for any detailed questions at any time. All right. Thanks, Terry.

00:10:42,370	S4:
All right. Let's do um. Let's do rich.

00:10:49,870	S4:
Let's just.

00:10:50,529	S8:
Get. Yeah. Thank you. That's good.

00:10:58,570	S9:
Buildings is also will be under me.

So. 00:11:01,799	S4:
Yeah. We'll hit. We'll hit all ya. We'll do. Building and grounds, highway snow and ice and streetlight.

00:11:06,769	S8:
Yeah. Buildings.

Berg. 00:11:08,000	S9:
Yeah. I think that's usually the way.

00:11:09,570	S8:
Okay. Buildings 26 on your little.

Okay. 00:11:29,730	S9:
So this is pretty much a reflection of a level funded. I believe the only increase is that we're restoring the electric back into this budget. That's where that, Um, 1 or 2.52%. So this is the, uh, facilities director. This the salary wages is his position as well as there's, um, some funding in there for summer help. Uh, if that's used. So that remains the same as, uh, as last year. The clock winter stipend is for just that. The over at the first church and then into his expenses again. The electric is put back into this. This is to, um, electricity and heat. The, uh, garage at Iron Rail. There is a small office and a couple of bay garage that Mike, the facilities director, works out of. Um, so that's where that again, the only increase there building expense covers Everything. All town owned buildings, all issues that come up. All anything. Anything within the building envelope. Uh, there's any issues. Mike is there to respond, you know, after hours as well, so that, um, you know, that that's his. The lion's share of his job is to make sure that every component in all of these buildings is working every day. Contract services, that is, the custodial services within the buildings. So that that's the king handyman is the people we use. And they've been with us for a few years. So that's been going well. Um, the energy manager, it basically says that shared program with Hamilton that, um, that is more or less falls under this budget. But that's really she's very active with the green communities, uh, group. So that's any projects done in I. Well and Wenham $5,000 of that for grant funding and things like that is done with that person. So again, level funded, um, you know, the I guess the very large piece of what Mike does is respond to issues within these buildings. It was mentioned earlier that there was a HVAC issue at the fire station, you know, emergency that needed to be replaced or replaced. Um, you know, Mike has been responding to that particular boiler for years. You know, kind of just piecemeal keeping it going. Um, so hopefully that will after that replacement, you know, that'll be up and running and there won't be issues there. But that's where his time is consumed, where when there are issues, he comes in and fixes them and does a great job.

00:14:22,799	S5:
And just for context, building expense, $40,000 for all the buildings across all the town buildings. The boiler at the at the fire station was $32,000 this week. So like that budget is.

00:14:34,100	S8:
And that is.

00:14:34,669	S9:
Gone. That is a good point in the sense where major repairs like that you normally capture under capital. I think that was deferred for a couple of years. So, you know, again, Mike was doing a good job limping that along. But, um, you know, then there was an emergency. So, um, to your point that 40,000 is just to sort of keep everything running. It's not these major capital projects.

00:14:59,029	S4:
40 highway.

00:15:04,799	S9:
So again, this is another level funded for the most part. Um, I'm sorry, one of the for salaries was mentioned. We are in contract negotiations with the union. So we are working towards, um, you know, agreements. That contract is up June 30th and it's an end of a three year cycle. So we're working hard to identify, you know, areas where we're able to, um, you know, come to agreements and, and where everything will fall within you. No operating budgets that we can actually afford.

00:15:47,830	S9:
So to the operating side, really, the only large, I guess, reduction that we've been discussing is down in the street maintenance catch, basin rebuild, replace. Um, that.

00:16:07,470	S9:
Agreement or discussions that we've had, we've been very, um, lucky in the sense where we've received additional grant funding the last few years. Um, the largest I would say project that was completed was the route 97, Topsfield Road. That was done with state funds. So that was actually through a grant program that the state helps towns Pounds with numbered previously owned state roads that the town now owns. But the the the positive there is that that was a road that wasn't really a bad shape. That's why it was done. But we would also have to respond to many potholes and issues on that road. So that road was, you know, high deterioration. And we spent a lot of time fixing that road because it's a town owned road. It was on, you know, my operating side. That getting done kind of keeps us off that road for years to come. So that was actually, um, a very large benefit to the taxpayer because that project was done through state funds, through Dot's funding. And there has been other funding with the with the Arpa. So I've been able to sort of move that program along further, faster on a better trajectory curve. So we're in pretty good shape as far as responding to issues on roadways. But that's what that that street maintenance budget is for that type of work. Curbing patchwork. All of the police details that are associated with that, that comes out of that funding, a lot of that work has to be done with police details. So that's where that that pot is generated from the catch basin rebuild and replace. That was newly added a few years ago for to be more of a of a proactive program instead of a reactive program. We've done quite a bit of work on drainage issues that were known in town to get ahead of that stuff. So again, talking with Steve and Jeff and Joe. It's been agreed upon that we can, you know, kind of become more of a reactive department in that one line item where we could still keep things moving along. Identify issues that come up. Take care of them. There's enough funding there to take care of them and keep moving along. So overall level funded. But you know, it was a conscious decision to remove some funding out of those two line items and still be able to provide the services we've been doing for the last few years.

00:18:59,500	S9:
That's really, I guess, the highlights I'd want to go over if there's anything. Any questions? Feel free.

00:19:08,299	S8:
Great. Thanks, Rich. Thank you. Thank everybody. Nice. Nice.

Nice. 00:19:13,670	S9:
Snow and ice is a quick one. That's. That's more or less a level funded.

00:19:19,299	S9:
So that's street lighting.

00:19:24,599	S9:
So again, completely level funded. This this budget is really based on how much weather we get each year. So you know it's not. We spend as much as we need to fight storms and keep the roads safe. Some years are better than others, so there's really no change there and no recommended changes on my end.

00:19:51,670	S1:
So if you have a mild winter, you end up contributing to free cash.

00:19:55,170	S8:
Yep.

Exactly. 00:19:56,269	S9:
That goes.

00:19:56,670	S8:
Back up.

00:19:57,200	S5:
Yeah. And it's the only budget you can overspend by law. Um, you know, essentially because you, you know, you're trying to protect the weather, but the state also regulates you can't because you can overspend. You're not allowed to just say if you have a year with very little snow and ice, you can't drop the budget.

00:20:16,069	S8:
Down.

00:20:16,569	S5:
Here and then lower your tax rate and then use this as sort of like a loophole. So they're always going to have sort of a minimum, um, you know, you basically you always use what you had last year unless it was, you know, and even if you had a really low last year, You can't reduce it. Um, you know, the only time the state gave us some wiggle room was after 2015, when it snowed a foot a day for a month. Um, you know, all the towns said, like, we can't have a budget of, you know, $2.4 million for snow removal. Like, we have to go back to a more normalized number. Um, but, yeah, this is, um, it's kind of it is what it is kind of budget.

00:20:51,730	S8:
And street lighting level.

00:20:53,170	S5:
You know. Oh, it's bumped up. Um, as you can see. And then we budgeted 18,000 in FY 25. You know, it hasn't been 18,000 since before FY 23. So we're just trying to bring that a little bit more in line to sort of to Bob's point earlier, trying to get utilities a little more under control.

00:21:12,769	S9:
And this is more or less for streetlights if there's issues we the, the my department, the DPW does not respond to those. So we have a contract to come in and replace streetlights and, you know, repair things like that. So that's what that budget, um, mostly consists of.

00:21:32,470	S1:
Did the highway employees end up staffing when we have a storm?

00:21:35,930	S8:
Oh, yes.

00:21:36,630	S1:
The snow removal.

00:21:37,529	S9:
Correct. Oh, yeah. That's so we.

00:21:40,130	S1:
It's not an overtime item for them.

00:21:41,829	S9:
Or if it's after, you know, between 7 to 3 and 3:00, it's within three hours. That's a normal straight time. Anything between, you know, 3:00 and 7 a.m. is time and a half.

00:21:54,769	S1:
Do you have a, like, call fire? Not like call firefighters, but contractors.

00:21:58,529	S9:
We have a few contractors that we we keep and they help us out on the larger storms. Yep. We have reached out to them this year already and they're on board. So that's that's.

00:22:08,329	S8:
Good. All right. Thanks, Rich. Thanks, Rich. Thank you.

00:22:13,269	S4:
We'll jump down the library next.

00:22:30,069	S10:
For those that don't know me, I'm Kim Baller. I'm the director over at the library. Um. And I hope I can see that without my glasses. Um, so in terms of our overall budget, um, my staff union contracts are set for fiscal 26, so those salaries are set. Um, that's not a question mark. Um, so the 2.24 increase is, is largely, uh, union staffing. Um, everyone on my staff is union with the exception of myself and, um, our two shelves, our high school pages that, um, make minimum wage. So that is pretty, uh, pretty cut and dry. If I flip over to, um, our expenditures, um, for those who have been here before, you heard me say, um, we have some mandated line items that we have to meet in order to qualify for our state aid certification. The first one is always our what they call our materials expenditures. It can come from a couple of different line items. Um, the biggest one obviously is books. Um, so that's that small increase you see there. Um, the next, um, line in terms of subscriptions and periodicals, we have categorically reduced it over the years, and we'll continue to do that. That's our magazines and newspaper subscriptions as more of those go out of business. And a lot of those go digital. Um, we definitely will see less funding needed in those line items. I'd say the most that we spend is on our newspapers. Still, um, the New York Times is very expensive, but we have a lot of users that come in and still like the physical newspaper. Um, they're at our doorstep at 9:00 every morning waiting for their newspaper. Um, so we'll we'll probably keep looking at that as the years go. And definitely that will be something that will continue to go down. Um, our technology line encompasses a bunch of things. It's primarily our membership to the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium. Um, I'm part of the executive committee for that. And we did a deep dive, um, into our membership rates, um, because they were hadn't been looked at in a long time. So we're actually seeing a little bit of a decrease in our membership. Um, because we were overpaying based on some of our smaller libraries that weren't paying their fair share. Um, it also encompasses our e content line that we get from the consortium. That's our, um, if anybody uses the Libby app, that's our overdrive ebooks and audio resources. And then the last is sort of an other line which encompasses all of our peripheries, whether it's a barcode scanner, a receipt printer, a scanner, a mouse, a keyboard, anything that needs replacing. It's some of our contracts in terms of our our our website subscription, our domain subscription for our website. It's our contract for our telephones, things like that fall under that sort of other, other line. Um, and also in that I forgot to mention, um, we're with our capital and our Arpa requests. We are getting a, um, access key, access control system installed, and security cameras. There's a yearly fee now associated with that that's being absorbed into that technology line. Um, supply, um, just about its level of funded from past expenditures. If you look back at fiscal 23, that's everything from postage to, uh, paper to toner, all those things that, that, that go into running our building, um, our conference and travel is level funded. Anything that we can't fund out of that line, we take out of our state aid funding, um, in order to sort of absorb the the increase that we saw in the salaries, I did pull out the $1,200 that's in that program line. Um, most of our actual programs that happen at the library are funded by the friends. Um, that line is largely symbolic. As you can see, it's never increased in all the years I've been here. Um, it I usually use it to cover the cost of our movie licensing that we do. In order to publicly, publicly show a movie. You have to pay a service to, um, to do that and that anything that falls across all age groups, adult, teen, and kids, I will pull out of that. So it's sort of equally distributed. And it was also the cost for our online subscription for our summer reading program that's run through an online service and an app. Um, I will speak with the friends about absorbing some of those costs and probably substituting some state aid money for for the other parts of it.

00:27:23,930	S1:
Please continue the movie.

00:27:25,400	S10:
Yes, they've been huge.

00:27:27,269	S1:
I like beans really good.

00:27:28,269	S10:
Yeah, they've been hugely popular. And interestingly enough, we also get. So we run Friday morning movies and also our our children's department runs family movies. Um, and on the Friday morning movies, which I run, we actually get a very high attendance from a couple of the group homes in the area. And I've heard from their managers and their, their chaperones that come with them how much the clients love coming. So that's been a really nice thing to hear too. Um, our heat and utilities are level funded. Our water bill, strangely, was higher last year. Um, so I added a little a couple hundred dollars into that. Um, we're built from Hamilton, so that's. You have to ask Hamilton about that. Um, so our water bill is a little bit higher. Um, and then the small increase in building and grounds was for our contractual increase for our janitorial contract and also for our IT contract. Everything else there is level.

00:28:24,299	S5:
Bob is a.

00:28:25,000	S8:
Question.

Yeah. 00:28:25,869	S11:
What are the metrics used for the NVQ allocation.

00:28:31,000	S10:
So it just changed. So it's now based on I wish I had it in front of me. It's it takes into account the last three years average of your circulation. It takes into account the number of staff that you have. And I'm forgetting the last one, which is a failure because I was on the committee, um, I believe. Oh, shoot. What was the last one?

00:29:00,799	S10:
I apologize, it's not coming to me.

00:29:02,730	S8:
But.

00:29:02,900	S11:
It has been. What was it in the past?

00:29:07,400	S10:
It was. It was based on population. It was based on circulation. It was based on. Um. It didn't take staffing into into account. Um, and then there was a, there was a weird metric in there, um, that allowed a lot of the small libraries to, to sort of stay level through the years, whereas the medium, which is us and the large libraries were absorbing the cost of some of those smaller libraries because the theory was that those smaller libraries come from smaller communities that can't fund them as well. So the burden was falling to communities like us, Hamilton and Wenham, to sort of subsidized, which became untenable. And it wasn't a true reflection of of what was what was happening. So there are smaller towns presenting very different budgets to their their committees this year. Um, the rallies and the box words of the world. But it's fairly it's definitely a fairer system I think.

00:30:14,970	S8:
All right.

Great. 00:30:16,130	S12:
Do we have an idea of what the attendance or usage numbers are per year? And of that, how many are children and families?

00:30:23,599	S10:
I can so the the door count that we get doesn't tell us. Um, obviously who's coming in. We can sort of tell it from program numbers and from circulation numbers. But for fiscal 24, we had 73,609 people through the door. Um, I can pull out my fancy, my fancy table. Um, we had 571 programs. That's across all age groups. We had 12,754 people attended program, meaning just about everybody in the two towns would have attended a program at the library at some point last year. Um, and then 205,724

00:31:03,569	S10:
physical items were checked out. That doesn't take into account our resources, our databases, but we'd have to I do report to the state on the age groups of program attendance for different. You know, for I think it's zero birth to six and then it's 6 to 12, 12 to 18. They make when I report. I have to break it down that way. Just don't have it in front of me.

00:31:26,730	S12:
With the camera usage. Are they able to put a camera taking a look at who is going into the children's room because. So there isn't a way to do that.

00:31:35,900	S10:
We wouldn't want minors on camera.

00:31:38,170	S12:
That's not a I was more or less thinking. I think the the usage of the children's rooms and the, the usage of the children's program is drastically underreported. Um, that room is consistently, in my opinion, always, always used. And the remainder of the library is, is quite dense. Um, so I'd like to know what those numbers are to be able to understand exactly. Not necessarily who walks in the door or from a program perspective, but the amount of families that use the children's room, I don't necessarily think is reflected in the, um, budget. So I would really like to know that number.

00:32:14,200	S10:
We reported all I can look at. Like I said, the two things that would probably point to that would be like we talked about the program numbers and also the circulation numbers, because I can look at the types of items that are going out in terms of picture books or chapter books. We can see that. And again, like you said, not everybody is going to check out when they leave, but they do come in and hang out there and use the space. So you're not getting that number. Unfortunately, without without actually putting a door counter right at the the children's room entrance.

00:32:47,130	S12:
And there's no way to do that.

00:32:50,569	S10:
We I mean, we could the door counters themselves probably cost 5 to 500 to $1,000 to purchase, and then we have to have electricity and install them. But it's something we could look at if that was something that, that the board or the my board of trustees felt was something to to, to do. We could we could definitely do it.

00:33:09,769	S12:
Because the amount of programs that were that were cut for children, um, opposed to the number of usage, I believe, um, would be would be is really inconsistently reported on this. So, um, to find out that there's a major flux of, of families that do use it. Um, I'd like to then reflect that in the, in the budget. So if there's a way that we could have that presented to the select board, that'd be great.

00:33:37,130	S8:
Sure.

00:33:37,769	S10:
And the friends probably if I looked at what they spend, I do have the breakdown for what they spend on our children's programming, our adult programming. In our teen programming, it's probably about $10,000 a year is spent out of the friends budget on children's programs. And then on top of that, our children's librarian is great about applying for for grants and Cultural Council grants on top of that. So there's probably even more that comes comes in that way. And they are wonderful about being resourceful and doing things at minimal cost as best they can.

00:34:10,030	S8:
Um.

00:34:10,829	S1:
Maybe I missed it, but the library is regional, right? And so is this our share that's reflected here in terms of the cost.

00:34:19,369	S5:
So what you see here is.

00:34:20,329	S8:
The total budget.

00:34:21,230	S5:
And then there is a.

00:34:22,400	S8:
There is.

00:34:22,730	S5:
A line item of revenue that's part of the local receipts um, that we get paid from Hamilton. Essentially it's like most things it's like a two third, one third split.

00:34:33,400	S1:
Um, is that negotiated annually or is that in a statutory.

00:34:36,969	S5:
That's in an agreement that was set up to form the joint library. And then each year we do a spreadsheet that takes all the expenses fully loaded. So like, you know, we take people's salaries, their benefits, all those things we allocate a portion of the cost of like finance, town administrator, legal, whatever. And then roughly two thirds of that goes over to Hamilton. So we build them quarterly, um, sort of on a, on a, um, sort of preliminary basis. And then in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, We get, you know, we sort of chew it up with the actuals.

00:35:09,000	S1:
So roughly speaking, two thirds of this is ultimately absorbed by Hamilton.

00:35:13,030	S8:
Yes.

Okay. 00:35:14,969	S4:
And just for clarification, this we've talked about a couple of different shared programs today. Both of those. Hamilton served as the lead in this case. Wenham is the lead. So we're you know we're all the hiring where the well, the building, the building, maintenance, operations, labor, all that. So we we manage all of that. And in return, Hamilton pays two thirds to use the service.

00:35:42,400	S5:
I just wanted to point out one last thing you referenced, stating a couple of times, just so people are aware, the state allocates library aid to communities. Uh, our share of your state aid, I think, is about 15,000 a year or so. So I presume Hamilton's is probably a little larger. So all in is probably about 40,000 ish annually that it supplements this budget. So this budget is just the operating budget. And then as needed, you can access those funds for other like you mentioned, potentially using the 1200 of state aid. Um, you know, for the programs line there. Um, that is money that as we look at departments that we cut or whatever libraries, when we're making cuts, can put you to a level that you'd no longer be eligible for state aid. Now, at a high level, you might look and say, okay, well, I could cut $100,000 and it would. I'd only lose $50,000 of revenue. So maybe that's something I'm willing to do. Um, I'm not advocating it, but, um, but the the part of it you explained to us the other day that I didn't understand it as well, was not only would you potentially lose the state aid revenue, but you'd also lose the ability to potentially, based on how you cut the budget, to share services with other libraries, like within the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium, so that, you know, that's it's more than just dollars involved, because I know maybe not as much here, but in my library that's much smaller. That's sharing the service is a huge component to how how sort of robust and viable the library is. So I just thought it was important to understand, you know, sort of not every budget has components that, you know, cuts might have offsetting revenue changes or whatever, but this is one where you potentially lose a revenue stream and you'd also potentially lose some functionality based on funding and the fact that it's a shared service with Hamilton. You know, you probably just have to be that much more. You know, careful as you talk about, you know, making these kind of adjustments.

00:37:32,170	S11:
Where does that show.

00:37:33,230	S8:
Up.

00:37:33,969	S11:
In the numbers.

00:37:35,099	S5:
What's that?

00:37:36,170	S11:
The state.

00:37:37,269	S5:
So the state aid that it's it's one of the only pieces of state aid that what we see in our budget is called general state aid. They they're a component carved out for every community library, state aid that goes directly to libraries and set aside in what's called the special Revenue fund. That doesn't have to be used. You know, every year she doesn't have to spend that $40,000 down. Uh, it can be sort of, you know, a crew to be used for, you know, certain projects or different things, but you don't see it that actually gets pulled out of, um, pulled out of our available local receipt that are available state aid.

00:38:16,800	S10:
I'd say most of our state aid goes towards technology we own, or we have 28 to 30 computers between staff and public, and they need to be replaced pretty regularly. And that's nowhere in this budget.

00:38:34,800	S8:
All right. Awesome. Thanks, Kim. Thank you. Thank you.

00:38:39,269	S4:
Grab water.

00:38:40,369	S8:
Next.

00:38:42,199	S4:
Water.

00:38:50,599	S13:
Eric Mansfield, water superintendent.

00:38:53,769	S9:
Um.

00:38:54,869	S13:
So for this budget, the salaries at this point are level funded. That will obviously change slightly with contracts. Um, with only.

00:39:06,400	S8:
Uh.

00:39:07,969	S13:
A part time employee that we use for admin and one other full time employee besides myself, it's not a it won't be a big increase. Um, expenses are going to have an increase of around $15,000, and that is because of utilities, chemical costs. Um, and unlike some of the other departments that are funded by the general fund, where they were offset by the reserve account that the town hall had, mine have gone up. But I have to increase them because we are solely paid for by water rates. Um, since I did meet with, uh, Jeff and Steve, I had a meeting with my water commission last Wednesday. Uh, at that point they had. They voted to increase what we paid to our capital reserve account from 35,000 to 15 to $50,000. So that's an increase of $15,000 there, which I will get just the updated spreadsheet. Um, and that money goes towards future capital projects. Um, it was we originally started contributing to it in, in 2017 with the we at that point we decided that, you know, eventually we would start adding to that amount, um, to help offset costs. Um, and they've also asked me to, uh, we're going to be looking at a slight rate increase to help pay for the offset to the difference in our budget. Um, because people are conserving more since 2021 When we put in the place the conservation rate, we need to look at increases to our base and the two smaller tiers that we have so that we have more of a consistent, um, money coming in to, to pay for that.

00:41:14,699	S8:
Um.

00:41:17,400	S13:
And that's about it for water, if any questions.

00:41:21,369	S11:
What's the revenue?

00:41:23,199	S13:
Last year I think it was around $630,000 an hour.

00:41:32,869	S13:
And the year before was higher. Like I said, since we've enacted the conservation rate, we've actually seen a drop in the two higher tiers of bringing in money.

00:41:44,829	S5:
In 2040, you're actually at a little over 600,000 in total, like with all like, you know, late charges and all kinds.

00:41:51,099	S8:
Of.

00:41:51,829	S5:
Stuff. But, um, yeah, just the Eric alluded to it, but, uh, you know, we consider water. You know, like all the other town departments. Um, but at the same time, they they don't go to your tax rate. Water is 100% supported by the water. The water fees, the, you know, the water rate that is charged. So, um, you know, making increases here will obviously impact people's pocketbooks because their water bill will go up. But when we're talking about the the override and the tax rate and all those things, this is sort of separate from that conversation.

00:42:27,670	S8:
Um.

00:42:29,429	S14:
Will there be any consideration, uh, Eric, to even more steeply hiking the conservation rates? Um, as a, as a means of, um, raising additional revenue. Understanding that they've been effective in, in driving water conservation.

00:42:46,969	S13:
So the out of 1240 residents that use water, less than 1% actually hit that conservation rate. So even raising it, we won't see a lot of revenue from that. Um, and I mean, honestly, we've seen, you know, we have seen people who were who are in that conservation rate drop out of it since we implemented it.

So. 00:43:11,070	S8:
Um.

00:43:13,699	S8:
Thank you. So I.

00:43:15,699	S1:
Think.

00:43:15,969	S3:
Last year.

00:43:16,630	S8:
When you were presented.

00:43:17,829	S3:
You were talking, you were concerned about PFAS, uh, legislation coming through and requirements on that and that there might be a material increase in testing or filtration or something that. Can you describe, like what's happened in the past year on the on the topic?

00:43:32,670	S13:
Yeah. And I think it would probably be a more of a different meeting. But um, so by 2029 we have to have some sort of PFAS removal in place. We've already last year we had we got some grant money from Ipswich Water and DEP Step to look at what our options are. And basically where we ended up was we're going to probably be looking at spending up to $12 million to build a treatment plant for the removal of PFAS. Um, one thing we're going to have on as a town town meeting article will be to transfer some of our water reserves that we have to begin design and testing and pilot testing of how we can treat the water. Um, and just basically, we're right in the beginning stages of coming up with what our plan is and applying for no, no interest loans from the state Clean Water Act money, um, and infrastructure money that was, uh, put aside from the Biden administration.

00:44:45,670	S4:
And like Eric said, you know, there's sort of outside the budget discussion, but the whole deal was fast. And the water treatment plant, we and we talked a couple of weeks ago. We're trying to coordinate a meeting that, you know, will be separate, whether the water commission with Eric comes in to a select board meeting and makes more, you know, pointed, you know, presentation on, you know, our preliminary planning and you know, where we are now, where we see ourselves going, because it's certainly a pretty big discussion. So so keep your we'll be circular in that set. We'll be we'll be circulating um information to the boards to notify them.

00:45:26,699	S13:
And our discussions with the EPA is nobody's going to be backing down from the PFAS requirements of removal. So I mean, by 2029, we will have to have some sort of treatment in place.

00:45:39,269	S3:
So fiscal 2029 or is that year 2029?

00:45:43,000	S8:
Okay.

00:45:45,730	S8:
And that's going to be statewide. It's like every time you need this it's nationwide.

00:45:49,469	S13:
The EPA is in and we have to follow. We have to be, at least as Massachusetts will be at least as stringent as the EPA guidelines.

00:45:59,269	S8:
So every time that she's going to have to spend at least $10 million.

00:46:02,530	S13:
We're in a kind of a different situation because we have no treatment plant now. A lot of towns and cities, they already have treatment plans. So they were able they can do small upgrades to be able to treat the water. I mean, we have to basically start from the beginning.

00:46:20,269	S8:
All right.

00:46:21,030	S4:
Thanks, Eric.

00:46:24,900	S8:
Town clerk.

00:46:27,699	S8:
Diane. New town clerk.

00:46:32,269	S15:
Now you're in for it.

00:46:35,530	S15:
It's the most exciting department ever. Um. Hi, everybody. It's nice to see you all. Um, there's basically a reduction, I guess, in my total budget line.

Um. 00:46:57,329	S15:
What to say, what to say? I'll start with questions.

00:47:04,099	S16:
I guess I'd start by saying Diane did a really nice job working with her early on, of creating a side spreadsheet that you don't see here that really walked through all of our costs and what what rolled into each and every line item, which is why you're actually seeing, you know, nearly a 4.5% decrease in our expense budget because she's got a really good handle on, you know, each one of those things. So that was that was really helpful.

00:47:28,099	S15:
So they don't have this.

00:47:29,900	S16:
Know they have that. But you the side spreadsheet that you worked on that. Yeah. It was much more you know, each and every thing that went into your supplies or your, um, dog tags and that kind of thing.

00:47:41,269	S4:
And the other reductions we're able to make, um, where we were carrying some. additional funds last year, in anticipation of the transition from an elected town clerk to an appointed town clerk. So we knew there would be some overlap in the positions and additional costs associated with that. So you'll see that money that we budgeted last year was able to be removed this year. Now that we've transitioned to an appointed town clerk who is Diane Bucco. Um, and hopefully we, you know, add some stability to the department, and I believe we will.

00:48:21,730	S15:
Um, and most most of the services and the requirements that I have are mandated by law. So it's hard to to cut anything down, really. We just try to do everything as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

00:48:40,230	S15:
And so the only thing I will mention is that it should be a slower election year. Um, except that now that our representative for one A is appointed will be appointed to the judgeship. We will have a special elections. So we will have a primary and a election around the same time as our town election. So it'll be a little bit busier than was the original plan. But it's pretty exciting. So that'll just that's cherry pie. So that's just for one, eh. That's it. Next time. Thank you guys.

00:49:15,469	S8:
Thanks. See you.

00:49:17,670	S4:
Last but not least.

00:49:19,630	S8:
Not least. Hope so.

00:49:23,300	S4:
We saved the best for last. I should say.

00:49:25,469	S11:
The population.

00:49:26,570	S4:
We saved the.

00:49:27,099	S8:
Best.

00:49:27,869	S11:
If 60 is old, I don't.

00:49:29,630	S8:
I don't know, but, um.

00:49:32,670	S11:
My name is Jim Reynolds. Nice to see you all. Thank you for your time. Um, pretty much, um, level funded here. I mean, um, expense line, uh, has we've managed to stay pretty much the same. Um, for the last couple of years. I don't know what to say about about that. Um, yeah, we managed pretty, pretty efficiently, I think. There. Um, the salaries, uh, you know, most of our budget is made up of salaries, so. And I'm the highest, uh, line item on that. Um, we're in a bit of a transition period, I would say right now. Uh, we our administrative assistant, uh, uh, passed away in early November or mid November. And, um, so we've been without, um, that that person, uh, uh, Kathy Tomasello for about a month, and that's been uh, challenging. Um, but I've got three van drivers. Uh, we account for basically seven hours a day for each one of them. I did get a new. I applied for a grant for a new van, a smaller vehicle through the MassDOT, which will hopefully get. But it won't be till the fall of 2026, I think. Um, but, um, so. And then, uh.

Yeah. 00:51:15,000	S11:
Got a great. Um, you know, I really lucked out when it comes to hiring. Uh, as far as my outreach person. She's been great. And I've actually even looked to, you know, create a little more parity between the director and the, and, uh, and the outreach, because outreach is really critical, I think, to, uh, identifying people in need and so forth. But, um, for the moment, we're we're good. But, um, yeah, I think we're, uh, I don't know what else to say. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

00:51:57,900	S7:
How old is the van now?

00:51:59,969	S11:
2018 is when we got the when I applied for the first first one. So it's six years. It's got about 60,000 miles, 62,000 miles. And uh, part of the rationale I was using for the grant was Hamilton has consistently asked for help, um, because they're using Keda and it doesn't really work very well for them. Um, I would have preferred for them to apply for the grant and then share the services. Um, but um, but they weren't they haven't been that interested in, uh, assuming the liability associated with running a van service, which I think is proven to be really helpful for those that are most in need.

00:52:52,869	S14:
But do we ever get requests from other towns to assist or engage in any kind of regional collaboration? I'm thinking of Danvers or any of those other towns that might have rising populations. Um, even of like some of the migrant populations that have, um, come to Peabody, Danvers in those areas. Like, do we get those kinds of requests to assist or more so just from Hamilton.

00:53:24,269	S11:
You know, just really just from Hamilton. I mean, we fall in the catchment area of not the nine communities under the senior care umbrella. So they're the aging services access point. And, um, so actually we've recently taken the initiative to try and bring those nine, you know, the nine directors together. Mhm. Uh, because senior care hasn't really been doing that. So I think, uh, you know, sharing information about each other's services and some of our challenges is something that we've been, we've been, you know, working on. But no, we don't get too much, uh, you know, every, uh, city in town has a council on aging slash senior center. Um, anyone is welcome to any one of them. And, um, you know, the work that we're doing to try and do more collaborating with Hamilton is, um, is is, um, seemingly made a significant impact? I think, you know, we've got a, you know, a two town newsletter at this point. We publish a publication every Monday forenoon for both towns, which is more like a weekly what's happening that week? Um, so, um.

00:54:43,929	S8:
But thanks.

Great. 00:54:49,070	S4:
Thanks, Jim.

00:54:49,699	S8:
Okay. Thank you.

00:54:52,369	S4:
All right. So that's really it. I just want to just quickly, before closing out, let everyone go home. I just want to say, you guys, I've been through a lot of budget cycles, um, the last 15 or 20 years or whatever. I've been doing this, and, um, you really have a good group of folks that work for you here in Wenham. You know, they approach every budget cycle, you know, with creativity. Um, you know, they're willing because particularly when we're asking to identify reductions, you know, they approach the problem willingly, uh, with the willingness to work. And, you know, it's really great working with them. You know, and Jeff here, who's our new finance director, has, you know, really hit the ground running. He's really taking control of the budget and that's been great. He brings, you know, a level of experience and knowledge, particularly around like how the charts, the accounts are structured in the back and where the revenue needs to go and how that comes in. And just all, all the nuts and bolts and maybe even, um, you know, maybe even more so and more so important is his ability to explain it like in layman's terms. So we kind of all understand what's going on in the background. So I just want to say you got a good team working here. And I thank you for everybody sitting and hanging out this morning with us. Have a good rest of your day.

00:56:11,730	S8:
Thank you.

00:56:14,429	S4:
Oh yeah. If you just call both public meeting. Oh yeah. Both boards. Please just adjourn before we shut down.

00:56:21,170	S3:
All right, so I'm looking for a motion to adjourn the, uh, fin com, uh, meeting. It's, uh, 1124, looking for motion second. All right. And, uh, I By and against. None. All right. Unanimous.

Here. 00:56:35,170	S17:
Thank you. And thank you to the fin com for joining us this morning. As Steve said, thank you to all the department heads. And I thank Steve, Joe and Jeff for really some excellent work. Thank you Gary.

00:56:47,769	S7:
One quick comment to I think, you know, out to the public to we need to recognize that, uh, you know, at the Koa and other places around town that all our employees often go well beyond what their job descriptions are, both in, uh, activities and the time devoted to the town.

00:57:09,429	S17:
All right, on that note, do we have a motion to adjourn?

00:57:12,570	S8:
So moved.

00:57:13,429	S7:
Second.

00:57:14,570	S17:
All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.

00:57:18,570	S8:
Thank you.