00:00:00,000	S1:
Looks like. Just hit the button there. All right, so, um, I am, uh, I wanted to give you guys a brief, uh, update on what's been happening in the last week or so. Um, uh, let's see, we met. Um, I met with Eric, uh, from the, uh, the superintendent. And basically I sent him over a list of information that I thought that we all needed based off of our conversation last week. And, uh, he sent over a response this afternoon. Um, and, uh, I think we'll probably want to take a look at it. And also, um, perhaps some of the, the models that I've put together. And I think perhaps Eric or Jeff has sent out to you guys, um, that we can update with some of this information. Um, that was one of the things I wanted to do during this meeting. Um, we also had a, uh, a a select board meeting, um, uh, on Tuesday night. Um, and, uh, I think it's it's worth noting, um, that I tried to watch it. I could not watch it because the, uh, the audio was broken in the, uh, the recording. Um, but I think, Jared, you were there, and, um, it was probably worth kind of giving your impression. Um, and, uh, and I think the, uh, the select board has decided to unanimously vote to support the proposed school. New school. Um, and then there was also the meeting last night, uh, presentation by the superintendent to any, uh, town, you know, any anybody from the town who was interested, um, to learn more about it. And I think there was there were a bunch of points there, but I'm going to pause and see what what other folks have for, uh, the new school topic, uh, you know, is it a gender thing we need to cover?

00:01:55,601	S2:
So. Sounds like the train has left the station. We don't have any input. That's going to be of any relevance at this point.

00:02:03,267	S3:
The only thing I would add to that is I don't. As a former fin con person myself, I completely understand the feeling of. And someone might have even made this comment today, sort of the rubber stamp or feeling kind of marginalized, um, with with what we do as being con people. I think in this case, and I'm not saying I agree with it or not, I think the select board felt it was important to, you know, say conceptually that they support this project, the need for new schools and that kind of thing, with the idea being that the fin com is sort of the final arbiter of if if the proposed project makes financial sense. Um, so I think they are still, you know, eagerly awaiting, you know, your analysis of that. But I think, you know, this is my own take on it. But I feel like the the select board felt it was Important, you know, to get their support behind the project ahead of that meeting. Um, but not necessarily. You know, that they're coming in from 100% the financial side, but more the they understand the condition of Cutler. They understand the condition of Winthrop. They understand the need for these new schools, in their opinion. You know, it's something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Um, you know, if it was me, I'd probably wait, wait and wait until I had the the finance committee in lockstep with me. Uh, but I sort of understand their motivation there. Um, you know, so that that's just my $0.02 on it. But I certainly understand how you guys feel. Because I felt that way many, many times in Essex.

00:03:38,367	S4:
Uh, yeah. I mean, I, uh, I had the same technical difficulties that you did. I was listening online and I read the agenda item and it said vote on the new school. And I thought, gee, I better tune in to this meeting, particularly since I'd missed the five board meeting. Um, because I for I had a well, I had some dental surgery. So anyway, um, I was horrified. I got in my car and drove over to the meeting, and I and I placed, I think, anybody who saw the thing. I placed an objection rather strenuously as a point of order. They they just said, okay, we approve the project with no qualifications. And they had and they acknowledged that they had no input as to the the effect on the tax rate of their decision. And that was what was was considered was particularly upsetting to me is, um, they didn't even acknowledge the issues that, that, that Geoff just raised. And so I was very disappointed. And then, you know, they sort of stared blankly at me and said, well, go to the meeting tomorrow. All your questions will be answered and I. And they were not. So anyway, it's very disappointing. Is all I have to say. But I guess we have to soldier on.

00:05:03,868	S2:
I mean, for what it's worth, I don't, uh, you know. Yeah. Anyway, I'll just say, for what it's worth, I've been thinking about it a ton. And after the last meeting and just doing my own math on my own property tax and thinking about what? Mr. Timon, I can't remember his first name during our during our group meeting. That was off the record early in the season where we talked about, you know, the need to really address the tax rate and the the viability of the town over time. And he said, yeah, that's that's reasonable. And Deborah similarly said, yeah, we should think about that. But now is now. And that's a long time down the road to be able to figure out how to solve that bigger problem. But to me, this is the this is the hill to die on. This is a ten year plus project. This is. This is the future that will tie our hands to a pathway that's not viable. And so we're making decisions now that. Yeah, for me, it's worth saying at a whatever level that I fully don't support going forward with the school project and adding to people's taxes at that level, recognizing all the puts and takes and recognizing. But this is kind of the to me, like I said, it's the fallen sword burned down the house, whatever. Like, no, we're not going to do it. And town town leadership, uh, find a drastic solution now instead of ten years from now.

00:06:44,000	S2:
That's where I'm at.

00:06:45,167	S1:
Okay. Thanks, Daniel.

00:06:48,767	S1:
Any other. Any other comments as we start the meeting?

00:06:56,701	S1:
All right. Um, so, Dana, the thing that I want to look at with you and obviously the rest of the board is right, is that if we if we reject the $140 million project, that's net, say, 92 million, and I'll just throw up on the screen the. Jeff, you're gonna have to give me permission.

00:07:17,200	S3:
There you.

00:07:17,400	S1:
Go. Um, that, you know, I, I, I think if you look at these models, um, if you, if you look at the, uh, the options that we have, you guys are able to see the screen. Is it showing up? It is. All right. Yeah. Like is, it's if you reject the school proposal as it is, you know, what do we end up doing instead? Right. What are the most likely options? What is the most expensive option or the least expensive option, right, for the town. Right. And, um, you know, in talking with John McGrath, I, I, you know, I asked him what what do you think is going to happen here? Right. If we do this right. Um, there seemed to be three different options, right. Um, one of.

00:08:06,300	S2:
Them is. John is sorry.

00:08:07,667	S1:
John McGrath is the, uh, the chair of the Hamilton. Oh, right. Uh, fin com. Right. So he has been. You can go and find a whole lot of presentations by him over the past 3 or 5 years that he's been involved over there and being involved in the process here. Um, and, um, there's there seems to be, I think, three options. One of them is that we, um, we decide that it doesn't the school doesn't go forward, and instead we basically bring the schools up to code right between now and, say, seven years. Right. In a reasonably short period of time, we comply with the law and make these, these schools, um, viable for the next 20 some odd years. Um, and you I think you, um, I don't know, uh, Jeff, maybe you have to forward, uh, the email from Eric, right. Answering some of these questions. I don't know that I can send that out to the to the group.

00:09:10,367	S3:
I think I sent that out to everyone earlier today. Um.

00:09:14,501	S1:
So what what we have here is, um, I think it's 46 or $48 million to bring Cutler up to code, mostly having to do with, um, being Ada compliant and, uh, and safety related things in there. Um, we don't have a number for how much it would cost to bring Winthrop up to code, because they never thought about it as one of their 14 or, uh, or two dozen options for how this project might go forward. For whatever reason, they didn't do it.

00:09:48,400	S3:
Yeah, last night he did reference, um, like 48 for both. Um, you know, granted, that was just a quick thing he threw out there last night, but if we were to even take 48, 48 for the the Cutler, the Winthrop code, that's. Yeah.

00:10:04,767	S5:
To be clear, if 48 each. Yeah. Yeah.

00:10:09,000	S1:
Right. So he said it would be 40 million, you know, $48 million for each of those schools just to make them compliant with, you know, um, with building code. Right. And those two numbers combined are more than the amount of money that it would cost to build one new Cutler school to for for the town, for the two towns. Right. We're talking $92 million for the new school net of this grant. And we're talking, um, uh, 40 to $48 million for each of these. Right. Even if we try to do it slowly over seven years. Right. It would be $94 million. And that would get us a building that was in code, but it would not give us any more classrooms. It would not upgrade any bathrooms. It would not modernize it. It would not give us capacity. It would give you two separate schools that are in 1950s buildings, right, that are that have ramps that are up to code, but nothing for HVAC, nothing for plumbing, nothing for all that other stuff. Right. Which is why I asked him, you know, how much would it be to bring each of those fully modernized? Right. To, to bring to make those completely modernized. And he basically said it was going to be about $110 million each. Right. So we're talking an additional $60 million on each of those schools to get them from, you know, up to code to a modern building. Right. And that is this two new schools in seven years option. Right. Which is basically that we if this gets rejected right, then you spend seven years just kind of limping along trying to minimize your investment in this building, these two buildings, because you expect to replace them in seven years and you try to go back to the, to the, the state in seven years. But at that point, $226 million of buildings has grown at 5% per year of construction inflation, up to $318 million. Right. So it's it's bring it up to code and then, um, and then basically spend some amount of money to keep those 50 year old buildings going. All right. It's. Wait. You know. Wait. Try to minimize. Minimize our investment, but then either try to do the exact same project again in seven years or two schools in seven years, which is nearly twice the cost of one school.

00:12:55,467	S1:
And, uh, and that's those are basically the three scenarios I have. I heard from one of the individuals there, one of the members of the public on the, uh, at the meeting last night, that they could not believe how expensive this was, and they could not believe that it would take $40 million, 40, $50 million for each of those schools to bring them up to code, let alone do any improvements to them. Could not believe it. Right. And this individual claimed to have experience in in the industry. I don't know that I can confirm that or deny that. But the response from the owner's rep, Kevin, who's supposed to basically. Supposed to be the school board's owner's rep to to go get us through the process. Do it as cheaply as possible, as and as compliant as possible. He said this is how much it costs. Like if you look at if you look at a comparable building projects over the last five years, you can see how the costs have absolutely skyrocketed. You can see even within Wenham and Hamilton, projects that delayed two years have like a 25% increase in the cost of of building, of doing construction project. And he said, look, you have to do these completely above board. You have to do them with union labor, right? And they are extremely expensive. And that was that was their defense of this, you know, basically $94 million Bill to just modernize it, not even make them any better. So I think as as a finance committee, we're going to have to decide what we think about that, right? Do we believe them or do we not? Right. Do we believe it's it's, uh, 40, 40, $50 million in each one of those buildings just to get them code compliant.

00:14:56,300	S3:
You know, and I thought that was a you know, it's a very reasonable question. And certainly a lot of people, I think, have those questions. And the one thing I, I wish they did a better job of last night is maybe laying out a few of the costs for people to say, like, just this would cost, you know, this much or, you know, to kind of help people see the impact of our procurement rules and prevailing wage laws and things on some of these projects. And, you know, so like example would be here in the one in Town Hall, the, the, the HVAC system we have, which I know they're not really talking about HVAC in that project, but this is just an example of the HVAC system in this building. To, you know, it's it's failing and we need to replace it and just replacing it in kind and it's it's not a great system. Um, you know, our quotes are $1.2 million, which, you know, I just think to the average person, if we told them it would cost a million to to replace the heating system in this building, you know, they would find that unbelievable. I think if I didn't do what I do, I would find it unbelievable too. But I wish they had laid out a few examples of, you know, just the ramps alone or a $3.8 million. And, you know, these things are another 2 million because it does without any sort of numbers behind it. You know, 46, $48 million is a is a staggering amount of money to try to sort of think about, how do you get from 0 to $46 million just to sort of make something compliant? Um, so it would be nice, I think, if maybe we could get a little more, uh, you know, example of, you know, how how it quickly, you know, escalates that um, that that high. Um.

00:16:34,100	S4:
Um, I.

00:16:34,601	S5:
Feel like they're making.

00:16:35,501	S2:
The case that it's not. It's not viable. Neither way is viable. Like, the only alternative is this is statewide. It's a problem. Like, it doesn't work anymore to do what we're doing.

00:16:48,000	S2:
Sorry. Go ahead. Jared.

00:16:49,601	S4:
No, I completely agree with that statement. I also completely it is a is a systemic issue statewide. I also have had personal experience in a prior life with prevailing wage and union shop deals. And I don't think they're blowing smoke up or you know what? And and I do think it would be counterproductive to attempt to have a debate about construction costs. I'm certainly not qualified to do that. And from what I've seen of Kevin Nigro and company, I think they know what they're talking about. I that's that's just a value judgment on my part, so I would accept that I accept the numbers as a given, as it were. Um, but I, I think and I too am desperately trying to find a hill to defend. Um, the big thing that, um, comes out for me, though, is that what what fin just said. Net. Net? You know, it's cash out the door. You can you can adjust the timing one way or the other. But the other thing is, uh, and this is why I was going to the meeting the other day harping on the tax rate.

00:18:02,901	S4:
The the big difference is between the two net net, they're almost a wash. But also we actually get something. We get a building. I mean, I that I went to this color school and I'm 69. So we get a building that will be around for 50 years in addition to. So you're actually getting something for the for the money and the tax rate Whereas in other situations such as, you know, the pension situation, which I will not go back to today, but I, I would like to revisit it. A future date such as union contracts with the teachers, etc.. There are things that I would love to, you know, defend. Um, and, but I think in this case you'll have a physical asset, um, that will be state of the art and it costs too much to build. Yes, but at least you do have that in addition to the fact that net net, you know, cash, you know, it's the same cost. That's my rationale. Um, so anyway.

00:19:10,400	S2:
Mine would be to shut down our district level administration and have it under the management of Town of Beverly or somewhere else, and or send our kids there and shut down the schools because we're not big enough to have this many schools and this much overhead. I know that's a nuclear point, but I think we're at that stage.

00:19:35,567	S1:
I mean, Daniel, I don't I don't know that I, I don't think that that could be a serious proposal. Uh, like for, for, you know, the, the ongoing existence of the town like to shut down the school system and expect the neighboring towns to pick up the, the, the bill.

00:19:58,601	S2:
Well, there's efficiencies to be gained. We it would cost us something to send our kids to schools, but we're not. Uh, what's his name? Gary said it. There's same amount of overhead for our administration as it would be to run a school system four times our size.

00:20:18,000	S1:
So you're. I think. What? In order to make that a viable option, I think what you're saying is that we would say that there's a fourth option here, which is that we do not invest in those buildings to bring them up to code. And we have the school district merge with neighboring towns and then send our kids not to Cutler or Bucur or or Winthrop, because they aren't up to code or Cutler book. They basically be sent to Beverly or some other building that is code compliant. Is that right?

00:21:04,167	S1:
Sorry, you're on mute. No.

00:21:07,267	S2:
It's outside our purview, I think, to include a financial analysis of that option. And to your point, it's, um, it's a bigger animal, but I think that's just where where I'm at personally. So I'll get off that and let us make progress on this.

00:21:22,367	S5:
Yeah, I think the big pushback also be just on pure property values. There'd be a material decrease in our property values if we went down the Beverly route, I would think. Um, so like a couple different ways to think about from like a taxpayer perspective. Um, how how so?

00:21:40,167	S5:
Yeah. My, my belief in this is from my personal kind of experiences, like move to this town for the school system and for kind of the fact that it is the Hamilton one school system, not Beverly schools, not, you know, Manchester, Essex, you know, what have you all are kind of fine. Um, but, you know, we're in this school district for specific reason.

00:22:00,067	S2:
Well, I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head, David. Like that's where the town implicitly is landing there. Okay. With 3000 bucks a month tax payments eventually or not, you know, 2000. And because of whatever perception of whatever quality of life here, and looking at my life ten years from now, I won't be able to afford that and I'm going to have to move.

00:22:25,567	S4:
I'm already making plans. I'm retired. But that's what they count on.

00:22:37,267	S2:
So it's not. And it's really not viable ultimately over time, like eventually. I mean, I guess it is. I don't know how all the New England towns are set up, but more and more wealthier and wealthier people. But young families, I think that's contra to having young families who are going to occupy these schools. So I think it's like a I think it's an I don't think it works over time. You price young families out of the market and so you don't have anybody to go to your schools.

00:23:08,767	S1:
So I hear you, Danno on on the, uh, the ridiculous amount of cost that is associated with running the school in the town. Right. It's it's, you know, more than half of our budget as a taxpayer goes to fund this, right? And this is this, whatever it ends up being. Right. If I've heard numbers between 10 and 12% increase in property taxes as a result of this bond, you know, for for 20 years. Right. It's not a small ask. Um, from the taxpayers. I'm. I'm just stuck with. I don't see any purely financial. Right. As I try to model this, I don't see any cheaper options than what they've proposed. Right. Two schools, if you want. If you were really, really wanted there to be two schools, right? If people and I know that people in the town want it, you know, you're talking about the difference between 143 million and 226 million. So that's another $80 million, right? Um, that it would cost right for that to to be, uh, possible. Right. We're talking about the difference between basically, if you use the same numbers, it's 92 and 204 million, like you're talking about adding a huge amount of cost to keep two schools. I don't see that as a, as a viable option that the finance committee or anybody else would say based purely on financial, it makes more sense to spend another $80 million to keep both. I don't see that as financially viable. Right. So the as proposed with one school sounds much more viable to me. Right. Whether we do it now or seven in the future, I don't see how two schools can make any sense. And the the fact of the matter is that the 90 some odd million dollars would take to get the the schools up to code alone isn't as good. Right. I think, David, you. I think you were saying that. Right. Or was it Jared saying like, at least with this $90 million, we get an entirely new school that should hopefully last as long as the old ones did. 50 some odd years. We don't get that. If all we do is bring them up to code.

00:25:26,567	S4:
Yeah, that's what sold it for me. Because even if the the school was significantly more, you still have to weigh the tangible physical asset that you've obtained. State of the art as a result of the investment. So I in this case and in this case alone, I look at the incremental, uh, call on the tax rate, you know, as a, as an investment, not, you know, money, you know, poured down the, the toilet, so to speak, for, you know, maintenance of operations. Um, and, and that's no offense to our, our, our staff and town who, who are do a wonderful job and need to be supported. Um, but that's how I get to the point that as much as I would like to. This is not the hill to defend. Um, and I have some ideas about others, but for another day.

00:26:26,267	S1:
Robert, I think you've got something to say.

00:26:28,300	S6:
Yeah, I think we should recognize that we're not bringing, uh, savings into our analysis, primarily because, uh, uh, Eric did not respond. Those first five questions were the ones that I posted online and handed him a copy of, uh, last night. Uh, I mean, basically saying, you know, we're not going to save any money because we're anticipating a new school coming online. Seems to me, uh, a bit tenuous then to go on to say you're not going to save any money by having a new school on maintenance and operations. Uh, the only offset is that he said that using the new facilities wouldn't have any additional cost. And I know, if nothing else, I think if you're trying to promote this with the residents, you know you need to come in with the logic that you're saving something by spending this money, because right now, uh, you know, we're justifiably doing the analysis with just the cost. But when you come back to the tax rate, you're going to, you know, you really should be over time, telling people it's going to cost X less for the next couple of years because we're anticipating, uh, the new school coming online. And we're going to save y, uh, once the school is online. And that's going to have an impact on how we view, uh, the tax rate, uh, going forward. I did some preliminary work. And I would also suggest that, uh, we look at adjusting the valuation base as you go forward, looking at the tax rate impact, because you're going to have the valuation probably going up by something like inflation plus or minus plus, we're going to have some new growth, which means that the impact on existing residents is going to be less in future years than it would be if we didn't bring these factors in. And I think, you know, we need to pull that into the analysis.

00:28:26,567	S1:
So I specifically challenged him because in my in his response to my email from earlier this week, I said, you know, can you tell me what that is? Right. I'm assuming half $1 million a year of opex, um, economies of consolidation, right? Um, and I and he responded back, and he didn't even address the question in my note on, um, and so I challenged him. I said, look, I know that, you know, at the five chairs meeting, the school board didn't want to put a value on this. That's what I told you guys when we met last time. And I and the conversations that we all had in this meeting a week or so ago. So that was not I didn't use the language. Not acceptable, but it's not acceptable. Right? I want to know you keep telling the public that you're going to get savings and to not put a value on it is is not acceptable. Right. So it's in this it looks like Eric got back to me again just a little while ago. And he said that he wants to, you know, he'll get behind a quarter million dollars to half $1 million of opex savings every year. Right. And I don't know, Jeff, can you remind me is that a $36 million annual school budget or is it.

00:29:40,567	S3:
It is it's I mean, that school budget is.

00:29:46,067	S3:
Yeah, I mean 200.

00:29:49,667	S1:
Right. So if it's a.

00:29:50,467	S3:
33.

00:29:51,067	S1:
Elementary.

00:29:51,701	S3:
Right there.

00:29:52,167	S1:
Yeah. Yeah. So it's 36 million. It's a third to the elementary, a third to the middle and a third to the high school. So $12 million budget for the elementary school. So half $1 million is, you know, 1/24 of their spending. Right. Call that, um, 2% right of their opex budget, um, savings. Right. So I want to keep. You know, I think I want to keep that half $1 million number in, in the model. Right. So when in this Excel model, I've put it in here, right. So that if there is a single school. Either as proposed or in seven years, it starts at half $1 million in the first year. That it goes live and it grows within with construction inflation. Right. So. Or sorry is it I think it's a construction inflation. Um, so it becomes, you know. 5 million, you know, half 1,000,005% the second year and a half a million. And it compounds that way. Out in the model. Right. So, um, you can see it going here as proposed in, you know, we make the first bond payment here in 2027, but we don't actually start working in the building until 2028. And then you have half a million, which then grows so that in the end in, you know, 30 years in the future, it's at almost $2 million of annual opex savings.

00:31:17,667	S5:
So I probably quibble a little like I, I generally agree with that assessment, but like, I feel like we shouldn't be assuming that this opex continues to grow 30 years out. Like there's probably a date where you kind of, like, start to retire the usefulness. Um.

00:31:33,901	S1:
Yeah, I thought about that. Uh, and the question here, to me, David was like, all right, if you had two buildings now, you would spend half $1 million more if you have two buildings 20 years from now. Right?

00:31:48,100	S5:
Mhm.

00:31:48,901	S1:
You still have you don't have that economies of scale. And you know the value of a dollar has, has increased, you know, has crept up over the years. Right. And you're now having to fix, you know, two HVAC systems instead of one. Right. Um, you now have salaries of people. You don't need to have two principals anymore. You have one principal for the combined elementary school. So I thought about it, and that's why I said, all right, opex continues for the foreseeable.

00:32:21,901	S1:
I guess it is. It is. It's something for us to discuss.

00:32:25,767	S5:
Yeah. Personally, I just think it's kind of one of those, like with the like I so I was going through the spreadsheet and first of all, I really like you did a very nice job kind of laying it out. And it's kind of a good way to kind of, you know, contextualize it. You know, one thing I would say is like, I think in order to make sure, like taxpayers are comfortable with things, um, you know, I think we should like, try and be a little bit conservative on the savings estimates as well as even some of the inflation estimates as well. Um, for instance, construction inflation, I think. Like, you know, I was talking to a friend who works in construction. Like, we normally just assume 3%. Last couple years have been weird. You assume 3%. So, like, just pick that number. Kind of, you know, through time, if you want to use a more aggressive number, higher number, it's obviously going to make the new project look more attractive building now versus later. But like things like that, I think, you know, it's gonna be important for people to think about, you know, their tax bill in a worst ish case environment. I guess that makes sense. Lower CapEx and probably, um, you know, construction inflation that, you know, it's I guess, standard.

00:33:30,667	S1:
Yeah. The I think we we do want to determine that because it basically takes adds, um, almost $20 million to the cost of a $50 million project, right, in seven years with 5%. And if we made that, say, 3%, right, it would save $8 million from that, that number in 2034.. Right. Um, the, uh, the thing that I, I want, uh, if if you look at what John McGrath's, uh, does, my, the slide deck that I put together was like, five slides and there's no visuals, and I did not make it pretty. Um, I'd love for this to be turned into something that's a little bit more consumable by, um, by the the general public. Um, John McGrath's is 26 slides long. Okay. And he has a slide on every single one of the major things he wants to talk about, whether it's construction, inflation or something else. Right. And he's got that graph, which I think we've all seen. Right. Which shows, you know, for the first ten years, it's creeping up at the 3% that you're talking about. David. Right. And then over the last five years or four years, the construction costs went up by 50% in four years. Right. And so to go back down to something more reasonable. I want to believe that will happen. Right. Um, you know, 50% inflation in four years is somewhere around 10%. Right. Um, so I've dropped in 3% just so that we can fool around with this, this model for now.

00:35:07,400	S6:
Um, no.

00:35:08,067	S7:
It is.

00:35:08,367	S2:
Our sorry, is our objective to, um, just figure out the trade offs and make a recommendation? Or is it, uh, help the public embrace a particular. Well, embrace the school. I mean, it's very obvious. It's very blatant, very black and white, that the new school is the best option of these options, like you said earlier, fin. So, um, all the rest of it's kind of minor details, unless we're trying to really make a case about tax rate implications and get into more granular. But if we're just talking about A or B, clearly it's a we don't have to debate a whole lot of detail.

00:35:44,868	S5:
I mean, personally, I'm thinking about this as purely educate people on the impact of the tax rate. Here's what the options are. And if somebody thinks there's another way to go. You know, kind of, you know, your Beverly example, like I'm not sure if like I necessarily want to kind of like vote put that on the table. But you know, it's worth at least like demonstrating to people here are the tangible impacts on our tax rates versus saying, oh, this project can be better than the other. Like, yeah, our job is to look at just pure tax impact.

00:36:13,267	S2:
But that would be specifically for the new building as proposed because that's clearly the winner. So then we should really drill into the assumptions about the new building and the implications of that for tax rate.

00:36:25,367	S1:
I would agree that we want to give those those details. But Jeff, can you keep me honest? What is the select board going to ask us to actually say? I think they want an official opinion from us on the proposal.

00:36:41,100	S3:
Yeah. And I think, um, I think one of the things and I think you're kind of doing it here. And I think to to David's point a little bit, you know, you want to sort of show that, you know, we didn't just approach this and say, well, assuming inflation's going to be, you know, 9% and like just completely skew things so that it's like, you know, there's no way that it could be anything other than the new school. I almost feel like it's more like if you if you folks run through almost like stress testing it and saying, you know, even if like, I'm looking at your model, um, the four deck, um, tab you have on your model that, that does the like, you know, it highlights in green, whatever is the best solution. And even when you switch the inflation from 5% to 3%, the the green bars stay the same, the numbers change. But the, you know, the number one ranking, um, you know, still stays the way it is right now. You know, I think folks would want to see that, you know, you, you know, you kind of looked at the assumptions and made it clear that you didn't just take every assumption, you know, as as gospel. You looked at variables, whether it's discount rates, whether it's inflation rates, interest rates, any of those things, and said, hey, we tested this thing out, you know, 20 different ways. And you know, this, this is the model that made the most sense. And that's why we, you know, we're endorsing this particular project over waiting and doing two schools later or just bringing them up to code or whatever it might be. That's the primary, you know, sort of recommendation you would have. And then I think as the Financial Finance Committee, you know, you also have an obligation to the the town, you know, sort of to what, you know, Danno advocates of saying, you know, I want to make, you know, clear that you people understand, you know, what you're signing up for here. This is what the next five, ten whatever years, you know, we show on a, um, a table that shows you, you know, this is what, year one of the the first year of the debt payment would look like. And, you know, and here's what the next 5 or 10 years would look like assuming, you know, certain, um, changes in the operating budget and operating revenues. You know, here's sort of what it looks like. You know, if you're if you're someone who's, you know, the, the median taxpayer and you're somewhere in that, I don't know, 15, 16, $17,000 range a year. You know, this project alone is going to bring you from, you know, 16 to, you know, just under 18. And then this is what it looks like in ten years. Um, you know, we want you to just be, you know, completely aware of what you know, what this path, the path that you're on is. Um, because I think, you know, Dana might have mentioned it at the quintuple meeting, but, you know, I think people tend to look at the fiscal years in a vacuum, and they're not always thinking it out to the future. And, and that's, you know, if I was a resident, that's what I would be wanting, you know, my finance committee to be sort of explaining to us.

00:39:36,400	S5:
So, yeah.

00:39:36,767	S4:
Like in the in the spirit of that observation with which I agree,. When do the assuming this starts on whatever the schedule is? When did the first bond payments hit? You know, hit the cat tax rate.

00:39:52,100	S3:
So so typically how it's going to work is that we are um, you know, we're not just going to take out a $92 million bond in year one, especially in this rate environment because rates are a little higher. So what we'll probably do is take out, you know, chunks of cash, uh, in short term financing. There's a program through the state called the state House Note Program, which is, you know, basically short term, year over year financing. You know, you just refund them each year, uh, until you get to a final point where you, you know, you actually go out to, to market and sell a municipal bond in the market. But, you know, right now we're estimating the first real, you know, bond payment might be 2028, but there are going to be short term interest carrying costs on some, you know, some portion of that 92 million. That's our net cost. Um, you know, you are allowed to get MSBA money. Money along the way. You know, you sort of submit reports, progress reports and things like that, and you get chunks of money from the state. But certainly we'll be borrowing, you know, tens of millions of dollars pretty quickly just to get rolling, I would think. Um, and then, like I say, through the 2028 fiscal 28 would probably be the first year that we we had, you know, our first amortized bond payment due. Uh, and the numbers we've seen so far, um, are looking at sort of a descending bond payment structure. So kind of a level principal payment structure. So year one is the worst year because you're paying a level principal stream. Um, and by the end you're paying a much lower payment at the end of the 20 year period. Uh, and, you know, we tend to end up doing that because it, you know, greatly minimizes interest payments over time. Uh, but it certainly makes that first year a lot more painful.

00:41:34,000	S4:
So if I understand that correctly, the the effect, so to speak, on the on the taxpayer of the bond payments. You know, when they get the bill in the mail will not hit until 2028.

00:41:46,868	S3:
Not in full effect. You'll pay. Uh, you know, the project all in will probably take a couple of years to to finish. So maybe we'll, you know, let's just say we do short term financing for 45, $50 million instead of speculating here, you know, in year one at the end of year one. So if we did that, if we started the project at FY 25th July, we started in July of this year in FY 26. Excuse me if we took out short term money through the state program. That payment wouldn't be due until that first payment wouldn't be due until July of 26. Um, and that might be, like I say, for maybe half the proceeds. And then somewhere along the line, we take out additional financing, and that would probably be due, you know, July of 27. Um, and then by, you know, July of 28, uh, December of 28, we would be, you know, paying the full effect of all 90, 2000, $92 million of, uh, a full, you know, municipal bond. But, you know, I mean, roughly speaking, probably half the, you know, half of an interest payment due in, um, July of 26. Uh, and then, you know, a full short term interest payment due in, um, July of 27 ish. Um, and bear in mind that those, um, those short term notes are at higher interest rates. So, you know, we'll, we'll probably be paying, you know, closer to the fives, um, on the short term notes and hopefully, you know, be getting, you know, something closer to the, you know, mid to mid to low fours. Uh, by the time we actually finance, uh, and it's probably too early to speculate on whether we'd get a bond premium or anything like that to help us, you know, offset some of the costs. But, um, but that would be the general strategy.

00:43:27,467	S4:
Okay. So, so if I understand this correctly and I'm just sorry, I'm just trying to fix this in my mind. the fiscal year 25, we let's say, for argument's sake, we approved this in April. We don't. And then basically everybody forgets about it, financially speaking, until fiscal year 26. And then they start thinking about it again because the debt and debt exclusions are hitting their tax bill. Is that a right way to think about it?

00:43:56,100	S3:
Yeah, it's actually the fiscal year is getting a little cloudy. So it would actually be we're about to pass the 20 fiscal 26 budget. So the first payment probably wouldn't hit until fiscal 27. Um and and then 28. And that's another part of sort of as you talk about how to sort of show residents, you know, what's about to hit, um, I think that, you know, normally we just sort of throw out there the here's the 20 year bond amortization schedule that's going to hit the town budget. Here's what that would look like. But the reality of how this gets implemented is a little messier than that. But I think it's that's sort of difficult to try to model and explain. Um, explain to folks. Um, you know, well, there's got to be a little bit of a short term, you know, some form of a short term payment to and, you know, early FY 27, some short term payment due in July of FY 28. Um, and then you'll start paying and, you know, full fledged in FY 29.

00:44:53,567	S4:
So okay.

00:44:54,868	S1:
Yeah. What I'm hearing is like I just did a straight line bond. Right. And I basically delayed, you know, I said I said it to start one year before the school is supposed to go live in in August of 2028. Calendar 2028. Right. What what Jeff is saying is, I think that, um, there would be a much larger principal payment in the first year. Right. This wouldn't be a six point $6.5 million bond payment. It would be an, I don't know, a pick a number $8 million bond payment. Right. So that a larger principal, uh, a payment was made and then it would it would shrink down over time. And I think you probably have seen, uh, something from John McGrath, uh, where he kind of demonstrated that, uh, that that downward slope. Right. Which basically means that you, you know, you're now front end loading the all of these bonds versus what I've put in my calculator.

00:45:55,868	S3:
And honestly, like the way you are showing it, I mean, I think you know, everything about what we're trying to do with your model is to sort of simplify this. So I think trying to get into the, you know, the, the actual, you know, bond amortization is probably a little bit too much to throw into this. But, you know, so this would be I would view this as this is what your finance committee used to evaluate and test and prove that the other options weren't more financially viable compared to, you know, compared to the, the, the build, the new Cutler model, then the other documents we'd be presenting. Would would show the more nuanced, amortized bond schedule. Um, to show people, um, you know, how those bond payments might actually hit their tax rate over the next 5 or 10 years? Um, you know, and I think it's, you know, I've got a model, I've got started, but we're waiting for the final numbers to sort of, you know, release them. I know Emma is looking for those at the paper. Um, you know, and I've kind of doodled around with it shows all 20 years of bond payments that went and will make, um, and, you know, shows that, you know, the tax rate impact of that on each year. But I've also shown at the end of the 20 years, sort of what is the average over that time period you pay? Um, because I think you have to be upfront with people that let's just say it's $2,000 to them in year one. I don't think you can dance around that and get cute and say, oh, well, on average it's going to be $1,500, um, you know, per year. And, and but then they get their first year tax bill and say, well, my tax bill didn't go up $1,500. It went up $2,000. So I think you need to be upfront, but I think, you know, it is worth mentioning that while that first year is painful, you know, that pain isn't is going to reduce over time because the payments are, you know, are descending. But for your model, I think, you know, I just think it would be too much and too confusing to try to build in that kind of, um, you know, special specific, you know, kind of bond payment. And it's also not a given. I mean, the decision on whether to pay level, payment level principal, um, you know, they can get pretty creative in the, in the municipal bond, you know, sales market and how they, how they put these things out. Um, you know, it might not be that we go with the level principal model. Uh, you know, it's most of the ones I've been involved in, they've ended up there just because people sort of are enamored with the overall interest savings by, you know, Paying the higher principal payments along the way. Um, but we may just decide that the total cost of this project is so staggering that you, you know, you couldn't possibly front and load it like that. You know, that's a decision that, you know, will have to be made. Um, you know, with the school and the school building committee and the and the, the, um, the fiscal advisors who help, help them bring this, uh, you know, bring this to market.

00:48:56,767	S5:
What? Um, just another somewhat tangentially related question. What's the, like fee that we're expecting to pay on this bond issuance like fee to the banks, to whoever's syndicating it? Not the.

00:49:08,667	S3:
Yeah. I mean, you're going to pay. I mean, I've never seen one this big. Uh, the ones that you've done in Essex are much smaller than this. Um, you know, but you're going to pay bond council, which is typically like, Loch Lomond, is the biggest bond council in the state. They're going to get, yeah, something that's usually going to be on a point basis on this. There's usually like a minimum fee and then, you know, whatever a, you know, 3% fee or something like that. Uh, the fiscal advisor will get paid. Um, I don't know enough about what their contracts are to weigh in, but I can certainly ask Vinnie. You know what? What are the exact costs on this? Um, you know, when typically the ones I've done, um, in the past, usually we've received a premium that basically covers the issuance costs and returns a little bit to us. So it might not, you know, obviously there's a cost to that as well. Uh, in the form of future interest payments. But it you know, it does minimize your, your cash flow upfront.

00:50:08,467	S5:
Yeah. That'll be a feature conversation. But like those fees are going to be like, you know, a huge driver of just like overall costs here. So squeezing those lower and lower I think would be helpful.

00:50:17,400	S3:
So yeah I would have to assume that as the as the, you know, the size of these things get a little bigger. I mean, usually, like I say, in Essex, there were smaller notes. So we were really kind of paying some minimal fee structures, you know, like we had to, you know, meet a minimum amount. We had to pay them. I mean, this is such a large number. Um, that hopefully there would be a scale on it that, you know, it's not just 5% of a $92 million bond. It's something that's a little bit more, um, reduced given the size of it. But, um, um, yeah, we'll we'll have to see. But it's certainly not it's certainly a material cost that we. No question about that.

00:50:56,701	S1:
All right. So we're, we're looking at coming up near 8:00 here. I've been going for almost an hour. Um, I have not gotten any specific requests from the select board to come up with an opinion tonight on this, so I don't I don't know that I'm ready to ask for one. Um, from from the group. Um, I think we're going to get increased pressure as we go through February to to issue something. Um, I think, uh, it would make sense for you folks to go through Eric's emails, which I think Jeff has forwarded to you, and mess around with this model and see if there's any, like, do what Jeff, I think described. Right. That that we can demonstrate to the public that we've collected this data. We've looked at alternative we what's likely to happen if we reject the bond or reject the new school and, you know, um, and be prepared to, to state, you know, um, you know, where our what our opinions are going to be, right? And, and get ready to do that vote.

00:52:04,400	S4:
Um, I was under the impression there was some I got that schedule which I quoted last night in the meeting that there was, you know, everything turned into a pumpkin on February 17th. Is that not correct?

00:52:17,767	S3:
So that's that's a schedule we lay out at the beginning of the year just to sort of have a, you know, something to keep us on track. It's not like 100% a drop dead date. I mean, I think this year is a little different because you don't know. I mean, we haven't you think about it, right? It's the 23rd of January and we largely haven't talked about the operating budget, you know, at all yet because this large financial, you know, thing has been dropped into our, our laps here and we need to address it. So I think we're probably running a little you know, those numbers are going to be um, you know extended for sure. Um, you know, ultimately, like the biggest, you know, thing for us is we need to have a report ready to go essentially by the end of February. Um, at some point, we'll be called into a meeting with the select board, um, to sort of say, you know, here's our at least, you know, um, initial recommendation on the budgets and things like that. Um, you know, there's still room for some changes. You know, there's always changes on the in the, in the budget, whether it's income, you know, revenue streams. We're still working to reduce, you know, certain budgets or whatever right up until February 28th. Um, but usually they're looking for some kind of indication which you really already have, that, um, you know, we're under, you know, an override sort of an issue, um, which is that for us, that's always a big thing because, you know, having an override is a very different town meeting, uh, in town election cycle than than not having an override. So the fact that we're already under that provides some level of comfort on the timeline. Um, but, yeah, that January 16th deadline, I heard you or. Excuse me. Um, February 16th deadline. I heard you mentioned last night my bigger concern. I might have said at the fin when he said, well, you know, we'll definitely have an answer by, you know, February 27th or something. And I thought, yeah, I have to have a book ready by the 28th. I hope you have an answer by the, you know, by then, but I don't feel yet that we're off schedule to in any way. Um, but, um, I understand the concern because you've seen the schedule and, um, you know, in this proposed forum, we're probably a little behind at this point, but this is, uh, I think the Select board certainly understands this is a really large piece of analysis that needs to be done. And they certainly want, um, you know, to know that the finance committee was able to look at this, you know, 50 different ways and, you know, and and, you know, and honestly, whatever your recommendation is, um, you know, they just want to know that, you know, as the financial professionals in the town, you looked at it as many ways as you could and came to your your conclusion. Um, and then, um, you know, once that's done that would, you know, the recommendation would be that, you know, you know, we looked at it in option one, 2 or 3 makes the is the only one that makes sense. Uh, and, you know, and that's what we're recommending. And now our, our budget module will, um, you know, our other budget stuff will include, you know, include say that you said this project was, you know, what we should move forward with. We would sort of we would build that debt, you know, the debt payments into our other, you know, sort of budgeting, uh, in a sort of pro forma way so that, you know, kind of to Jared's point, you know, that this isn't actually going to hit in full until FY 28 or FY 29. But he you know, here is what you know, what it looks like, you know, so that folks, you know, you're not telling them to to make a decision where they don't really see, um, you know, see the impact of, of it on their taxes. They need to know and understand that. So, um, so, yeah. So I don't feel like we're on or off track. Long story short.

00:55:56,367	S6:
I think we need to include in our work, uh, some of the tax payment information over time, because a lot of people are unfamiliar with the discount rates. And I think it if it's going to tie back to what's presented, uh. Uh, when, uh, Jeff puts his package together, I think we need to show that we've taken this into consideration. So I'm suggesting that we look at tax rates for the alternatives over the forecast period.

00:56:29,000	S3:
Yeah. And we can, you know, we'll we'll have to do that. If I try to build out this model that, you know, carries out several years. Um, for folks will have to make assumptions around, you know, how much the operational budget will grow, how much local receipts will grow. Uh, assumptions around new growth, uh, and all of that will tie into, you know, growth of tax rates themselves. All of those things will have, um, you know, I always have to put sort of a disclaimer, um, on, on the bottom that says, you know, the reality is that assessed values will not in, you know, there's no way in the world that they will go in lockstep with what we're projecting here. But, you know, we don't really have any other way to analyze but to but to say, you know, we've decided that, you know, assessed values will go up, whatever, 3% a year or something like that. Um, and, you know, each individual homeowners experience will be different. It just means an aggregate. We think assessed values will go up, uh, 3%. Plus there will be new growth of $150,000 a year or something like that. Um, and, you know, and folks can, you know, evaluate things based on that, uh, you know, that's how I've always done it. And, you know, I, I'm certainly open to if there's different ways to do it, but, um, usually I just lay out the criteria. I use the variables I used to, you know, to extrapolate the numbers forward. Um, and, you know, usually it's enough to give people a decent representation of what they think things will, like, look like.

00:57:53,267	S6:
I'm suggesting that, uh, we don't need to go that far. I think we need to just focus on the items that are related to our recommendation. Whether, uh. Now.

00:58:02,968	S3:
Okay.

00:58:03,801	S6:
So just showing that part so they can see the incremental impact of of the project. And then that gets rolled into a bigger picture. But uh, I think our task should just be focused on the, the alternatives that we're looking at in our recommendation.

00:58:21,501	S1:
So if I understand you, Bob, you're basically saying we need to we need to have some sort of quantification of the likely payment in July of 26 and July of 27th, and then the first 1 in 28.

00:58:35,100	S6:
Right. And then relate that to what it what what its impact is on the tax rate during that period, including, as Jeff has pointed out, you know, whatever expected growth we have in the base, uh, from inflation and from uh, uh, new people moving into town. But for each of the alternatives, it's basically just adding another, uh, uh, line to the bottom of each of the models to just show what that that impact is actually two lines. You have to have the valuation and then you can calculate the impact of the, uh, payment in that year. Net payment in that year.

00:59:15,767	S4:
Um, Jeff, last night, who was it? David Nigro that was saying, you know. Oh, sorry, Mr. Ward, but I promise we'll have the numbers by such and such a date. Um, and is he the. He gave the impression that he was just waiting for the last figures from the state, at which point we could then plug those in as the final baseline. And I'm just concerned that they don't they forget to get back to you and then, you know, Fin's traveling or, you know, and three weeks go by and then all of a sudden it's crunch time and, you know, hurry up and approve this.

00:59:51,300	S3:
No. So what will happen is so they met with the MSBA, I think last Friday. Um, and they had there were sort of some, some last minute changes around like silly stuff that, you know, somehow they said, you've got to reduce the size of your cafeteria and or, and increase the size of your gym or vice versa or something like that. So they had to go back to the drawing board. Rejigger the design is my understanding a little bit. And that will, they'll that'll get resubmitted um, to to the MSBA and then they'll redo the calculation. So is it $142 million project and, you know, 50 million of, of grant money or, you know, does it turn into, you know, these changes, turn it into a $144 million project, but it's, you know, 54 million back or whatever. They'll have those final numbers. I think what he said is they were supposed to meet again on Monday, but it was definitely this upcoming week. They would meet again as soon as they have that, the next thing that they do is they turn those numbers over to Hilltop Advisors, who is the the school's fiscal advisor. They're the folks that help them, you know, do their bond analysis and that type of stuff. They will then update, a bond schedule, which, you know, I have the last one they did that's on on a number that's not quite the accurate project number. Um, that breaks out, you know what the 20 year Wyndham schedule looks like? What the what the 20 year Hamilton schedule looks like. So that, you know, in my mind, we should have that, uh, you know, by the end of next week. Um, if not that following Monday, uh, and you know that it's on everybody's radar. We all know, um, we need it. Uh, so not just, you know, not just us, but Hamilton as well is looking for it. Uh, Emma, uh, in the paper, uh, have been asking for that information. So, you know, everybody's well aware of it, and I don't, um, see it as a situation where we're going to be here in three weeks ago. And, geez, I wonder where, you know, is that information going to ever come out? I mean, I'm going to be sending Vinny an email tomorrow, um, that, you know, ask them about issuance costs, ask them for a little bit more information on how he thinks the short term debt will be issued. Um, and then I will say, and you know, what's the latest update on the MSBA funding and the final project and bond numbers. So, you know, we'll stay on top of any for that. Um, so yeah, I don't think it's going to be an issue, but we'll stay on them.

01:02:12,067	S1:
All right. Well, I'm trying to figure out what what kind of actions we can take as a group right now. I think we're we're just trying to wrap our heads around these numbers. Um. Check them, check them in the model. I can update the slide deck, the 5 or 6 slide deck that, um, tried to turn this into a narrative. Um, but, uh, you know, I'm one of the things we're going to need to do is be ready to issue an opinion sometime in February. Probably. Right. Um, be ready to kind of, uh, defend it in writing. Right. Um, with some sort of, uh, communication that goes out in the warrant book. Right. And then be ready to talk about it in person at the, um, April town meeting. Right. And, um, you know, that basically means coming up with, uh, um, the right information at the right level for, you know, general consumption by the public, which are tasks.

01:03:24,767	S4:
Um, and hoping in the in the spirit of hoping to make this simpler, um, just thinking about the the language in the opinion, it's my strong view that the opinion should say this is an opinion as to the, the, uh, financial impacts of the proposed project. Okay. And that we, quote, express no opinion because last night, uh, as to the qualitative aspects, which there was considerable citizen concern about how come we can't have two schools? I want two schools. I don't want a big school. Those are all qualitative things which I just don't want to have. I don't want to have to have you do 25. I mean, John McGrath did that unbelievable deck. But at this point we don't need to do 25 decks. Okay, here's how two schools look because that's a qualitative. I think we agree that whether we agree to do the project or not, I think we agree that financially, um, you know, this is less money than two schools. So I just I just don't want to get us into a qualitative debate, which is entirely legitimate for the citizenry to have, but just say, look, um, this is the numbers as to this decision that was made by the school board.

01:04:46,667	S8:
Um.

01:04:47,767	S4:
I don't know if anybody feels differently, but.

01:04:52,767	S2:
I just told heartedly agree on trying to keep it simple. Finns put in a ton of work and it's really helpful. I just would hate to see it not be of use. That's why I'm. Yeah, particularly worrying about the tax rate and really wanting to make the case to the public about what their tax rate is going to be just. Will we actually have a platform to do that? Um, like I said, hate to have been or spin our wheels.

01:05:21,868	S8:
Okay.

01:05:22,267	S5:
Is it is the plan for like obviously we'll report this like board but like we're going to post this somewhere, make this readily accessible. Correct. Not just in the warrant book, but.

01:05:35,167	S3:
Um, yeah.

01:05:36,300	S2:
So we talked about last year. Sorry, David. Sorry, Jeff. We tried to get some more visibility to some details that ended up kind of got an kibosh that felt like that. Well, the warrant book isn't really the venue for that. And or there wasn't a platform. So.

01:05:51,501	S5:
Yeah. I mean, not that, you know, I am noticing that there's somebody from the Hamilton, one of the news there is a platform now, not that I want to condone or kind of support one specific kind of news source, but, you know, um.

01:06:05,267	S3:
So yeah, and we, we do have a couple new tools this year, the new website that we've been training on and working on for the last couple of weeks, uh, is going to go live soon and it is, uh, much easier to use. It's much easier to roll, uh, information out on it. Um, so that tool is, is going to be more helpful. And the, the budgeting tool that we purchased for this year, um, is also going to give us a lot more capabilities to roll out, um, you know, this kind of analysis, um, for folks in an easy to sort of digest way. Um, so I think we, you know, we will have that ability this year in a way. Maybe we didn't have it last year.

01:06:47,367	S1:
So perhaps what I could do is, um. Work. Since I can really only work directly with Jeff. Um, outside of these meetings, I can work on, um, simplifying the the deck that, um, I put together, um, maybe linking it to where these assumptions came from in some sort of appendix. So it's not dragging everybody through the details. Um, and, um, I can basically put together a final slide that gives a kind of acknowledges that as far as we can tell, there is no cheaper option. Um, sort of sort of opinion. And as a, as a result of the committee, you know, the one of the finance committee is going to recommend this as proposed, you know, solely based off of financial Considerations and that's it. You know, to avoid the quantitative and as you're mentioning. Right.

01:07:49,100	S4:
Qualitative.

01:07:49,868	S1:
Yeah. Qualitative. Yeah. Um, in anticipation of of getting that back to the committee, um, for our next meeting. Right. Um, where we can, um, you know, maybe hit the first milestone of being ready to hit, you know, issue a financial opinion. Um, and then maybe elaborate a little bit more on that deck as something that goes out on our with the warrant book. Um, either, you know, posted to the Wenham page, you know, available for, you know, any newspaper to to point it at where it is on the Wenham website. Right. And, um, I don't know that we want to have I don't think all those slides would go in the Warren book. I think there's some other very specific language that has to go into the Warren book. Um, but, Jeff, I can work with you to figure out what that might look like.

01:08:44,000	S3:
And I do think if I think back to. I wasn't here yet, but, you know, the athletic fields, I, I, I feel like there was some pages in the booklet that talked about tax implications of the debt related to the school field project and things. So, um, you know, we certainly will have something in the book, but maybe it will just be, you know, a lot more detail outside of it, outside the book. But, you know, there's certainly will be something in there related to it.

01:09:17,667	S1:
Okay. Well, I'm seeing that it's 812. I think I've got some actions to take. Um, before we meet, uh, the next time that I can work with and, um, I don't know, we could maybe if, uh, unless we have an objection, we can move on to the second item on our agenda for the day, which is taking a look at the, you know, the regular operating budget for the town.

01:09:46,868	S1:
I'm going to take my present share screen down here. Um, I don't know what time, uh, folks can commit to keeping this going. Um, I can probably go for another half an hour at least. Personally.

01:10:04,267	S3:
Yeah.

01:10:04,968	S9:
I'm okay with that.

01:10:05,801	S5:
Yeah, I'm fine with that.

01:10:11,100	S2:
Same.

01:10:14,567	S3:
Folks, seeing the budget. This is the, uh, FY 26 budget here. Um, so on the operating budget, the, I guess a couple pieces of news that have come in, um, in the last week or so. Uh, one is that today are the first round of of our state aid. So state aid, state aid is a process that the governor releases a budget which contains the state aid numbers, and then it goes through the House, the Senate, conference committees, whatever. Before we get to the, you know, the actual number of what our state aid is going to be, but the initial budget from the governor looks like our state aid, which in our budget here we're carrying, you know, as flat, is probably going to go up about $25,000 as compared to the prior year. Um, so if you're looking at this screen, our state aid was, you know, about 565,000, but it's actually reduced by, um, the above, the offset of 159, uh, almost 160. Um, so the 65.

01:11:25,567	S3:
Yeah. So, you know, net we're at about 405,000 or so somewhere in that range. It's going to go up to at this point it looks like about $430,000. So that's a little bit of positive news in the budget cycle for us. Um, you know, we usually tend to keep it static at the prior year number. You know, as it works its way through committee because, you know, it's interesting if I look at them, you know, year over year, you know, the governor number, you know, governor number comes in. You know, it goes up in the first, you know, in the house, it comes down in the Senate. It you know, it goes up and down. And so until we get the final conference voted, you just don't really know what it's going to be. But usually it ends up being a little bit more, uh, and usually it's somewhere around the governor's number by the time it all rounds out. So hopefully at the end of the day, that is $25 to 25,000 to the positive for us. Uh, on the less positive side, uh, we have, um, been told we don't have a budget yet from the, the Essex, uh, tech. Uh, but we do know that our students have increased from 16 to 18. Uh, as of the way that school, uh, budgeting works is all schools look at what their enrollment is every October 1st and based on the enrollment of October 1st of 2024, our students have gone from 16 to 18, which means, uh, you know, our overall percentage of the district has gone from, you know, 1.14% of that Essex Tech to like 1.22 or something. So we're probably looking at something in the range of 25 to 30, $35,000 additional, um, in in the Essex tech budget, where we were only looking at, you know, maybe a $9,000 increase. So those two, I think are, you know, pretty much going to largely just wash themselves out when all is said and done. Um, so, you know, there will be, you know, a lot of those, you know, sort of little changes here and there through the end of budget season. Um, but I would say, you know, we're still, uh, you know, if I'm looking here, you know, we're still under the levy limit. You know, as we look at it now, um, and that's, you know, with, with some changes left to be, you know, left to be made. I know Bob in particular has done some work on some of this already on numbers. I've sent out Bob's Run some, some numbers, um, you know, and he tends to focus a lot, um, like I do at times on, you know, looking at prior year actuals and sort of comparing those to what we're asking for. Um, you know, now and, you know, what is that increase? And does that seem logical? Um, you know, that we're asking for, you know, 12% more over what we really spent in FY 24. Does that sound reasonable? Uh, is this an area that we can cut? Um, and so, you know, I can let him certainly speak to his thought process on that, but he's one person I've had some back and forth with on the budget. Um, that, um, you know, I think he has some ideas on, on some trends and things like that.

01:14:37,000	S10:
Booze.

01:14:39,767	S10:
Oh.

01:14:40,400	S3:
Actually, did.

01:14:40,901	S10:
We lose Bob?

01:14:43,100	S6:
Oh, no, I.

01:14:44,267	S10:
I wasn't. Oh, they are here right now.

01:14:46,501	S6:
My concern is what Jeff mentioned. Plus, also because of the, uh, rapid change in the rate of inflation, doing some analysis, looking over a longer time horizon than you might, just because things have a habit of having to catch up in some cases. In some cases they lead. And that was part of what I was thinking about. Uh, in terms of the analysis, looking at various categories over a multi year period to see how they compared.

01:15:15,601	S10:
And.

01:15:17,267	S3:
And the other actually I can pull this up to um.

01:15:26,167	S1:
All right. So this municipal comp data. If we weren't doing this school, this would be my hobby horse for the year, right? The, uh, the idea of, um, putting, um, putting the these comparable towns, uh, and at the department level so that we can see how much does it cost other towns to run, you know, uh, the highway department, the, uh, the town hall, you know, all all those different divisions. Right. And is it reasonably close to what Wenham is? Uh, you know, it costs for us to run Wenham. Um, you know, I think, Jeff, you were saying that, uh, one of our a meeting or two ago that you had these comparables that you were sending them out to the department heads to kind of give you some, some thoughts and that you would be coming back.

01:16:23,968	S8:
To us with.

01:16:24,801	S1:
With their response ahead of us. Really starting to dig into it.

01:16:29,100	S3:
Yeah. And so actually, I think I just pulled up the comps for you. Um, some of the comp data I've been working on, I have been a little delayed in that. So I'm still working with the departments to get that out. But I've spent a lot of time with Steve to just make sure we're getting the the comps right. And so I think you should be able to see right now the sort of the mike, what I call my criteria page. So basically what we're doing is we scrape from the state what, you know, all of us filed financial reporting that rolls up to the state and is, is in a fashion that we can, um, you know, compare and contrast. And so what we've done is we've sort of said, like, let's look at towns between 3800 and 5200 in population. But at the same time, you know, there are communities that, you know, are geographically, you know, close that also sort of need to be considered, um, you know, comps for us as well. So, you know, this page, I can kind of adjust. And then that swings over to, um, this is the the set of data from from from the state that we, you know, we go through and you can see this is, you know, based on the criteria. And the other page here is, you know, who our comps are. And, you know, one of the things that, you know, I think we need to look at to some degree, um, is, you know, the the things that, you know, folks that are way out in, um, you know, like a Berkshire County, you know, is that, you know, is that really a good comp for us or not? I mean, actually, Lenox is a higher end community out there. So maybe it is a good, um, it is a good comp for us. Um, but, you know, Dukes County, you know, is Tisbury, you know, is that really a good comp? I mean, even though it's about the it's within the size range. Um, you know, it's obviously much, much more expensive to do things, you know, down on the vineyard than it is, you know, here.

01:18:13,100	S10:
So maybe we.

01:18:13,767	S2:
Can.

01:18:14,167	S4:
This is.

01:18:14,567	S2:
Per road.

01:18:16,367	S3:
Uh, no, this is, um, this is just my comps. This is my data. So. Yeah, I've. I don't know if you probably can see, Danno. I have like this is just the the comparable data. And then like the other spreadsheet.

01:18:27,567	S4:
The tab is.

01:18:28,267	S2:
Called per road. That's what's throwing me off.

01:18:30,868	S3:
Oh, I thought I thought it was in the comments. There is a per road which is per road, you know, mile, um, that we're building out and we're.

01:18:37,767	S4:
Just pop it over.

01:18:38,467	S2:
To per capita.

01:18:40,100	S3:
Yeah. So here's per capita. Um, just roll it. I don't know if I built this out completely yet, so let me just see. But yeah, the idea is going to be, um, I think I can do it this way.

01:19:06,567	S3:
Yeah. So here's your per capita in this green column here.

01:19:10,701	S2:
We're not seeing I don't know, I'm not seeing it. At least I'm still seeing just a spreadsheet with a per road tab. Noted.

01:19:17,100	S1:
Yeah, it's the same here.

01:19:18,567	S3:
You're not seeing, like, a blue header.

01:19:21,267	S2:
No.

01:19:21,968	S3:
Oh, you know what? It looks like my screen sharing is paused, so I don't know what happened there, but, um.

01:19:35,267	S4:
While we're waiting for that, Jeff, have you. Can you draw any conclusions yet from your studies?

01:19:41,968	S3:
No, I mean, we it's I haven't really dug into it too. Too deep yet. I don't know why. Stop sharing. Let's try this again.

01:19:58,567	S3:
Okay. Are you seeing that now?

01:20:01,267	S1:
It's the comps tab.

01:20:03,367	S3:
It's on the comps tab. And you should see towns on the left. And then, uh, a blue header. And those are your per capita, um, cost. I mean, I might actually change this to this might make these more visible.

01:20:17,467	S4:
Uh, this tabs.

01:20:18,467	S2:
Per capita, not the per capita tab.

01:20:21,267	S3:
Yeah, it's the data is I. The data is you're looking at right now. It's on the far right side of it is where the per capita gets, you know, calculated. Um, I haven't built out the other tabs yet, but this is the data. So in, you know, in Avon, the General government is 525 per capita. Um.

01:20:38,767	S2:
Okay. Got it.

01:20:40,100	S3:
Police is 509. So, yeah, I mean, I think when you look at this, you're going to see.

01:20:45,067	S4:
Um, and.

01:20:45,767	S2:
You're.

01:20:46,000	S4:
Going for our.

01:20:46,767	S2:
For our capita. You're including Gordon College population, right?

01:20:51,067	S3:
Yeah. And that and that's because the, you know, the data is, um, in the state system is the, you know, essentially 5000 population. We can and that's one of the sort of the other steps is I can, you know, put a when I'm in there if like 4000, which is really more the true population. Um, and you know, you can see obviously, um, you know, we're at.

01:21:11,767	S2:
3500, I think.

01:21:13,100	S3:
But it is, it's like it's the, the from the clerk. It was like 39, 90 something or it was just under four. And the because the, the, the um, Gordon College was uh, 1007 or something like that. And so it pushed us. Right, right. We were just under four and it pushed us right over five. Um, okay, cool. You know, Essex is 35 ish, and we're definitely bigger than Essex, but, um, but yeah, I mean, you know, that being said, Danno, that's a good point, right? So if you look, you know, we're at 335 for general government. Um, you know, but that would clearly be, you know, so we, we don't look, you know, we're definitely on the higher end of the, you know, above the middle. I would say, you know, just looking at this quickly, but, um, you know, can.

01:21:56,767	S4:
You just pop.

01:21:57,367	S2:
It in there just since we're on the call? I mean, I don't know if f 321 just pop 3900 and there instead of four instead of 5000.

01:22:06,868	S2:
Looks like you're dividing by f 321.

01:22:09,100	S3:
Yeah. So, um, let me just. And let me just do minus.

01:22:20,868	S3:
Yeah. So that put us from about three 5355 or something like that to 412 in that particular column.

01:22:32,868	S3:
So I think we could do it twice. Right. We could show the actual population that's in the system. And I could create a like a phantom Wenham that's at the smaller population. Just so you know, I call it when, when I'm minus Gordon or something like that. But these are, these are the, you know, sort of trends. Um, what I was, I think maybe I was talking to Bob today. So about this so general government, unfortunately the way we do the reporting, um, for the state, you know, there's a bunch of data underneath general government and what I report to the state, you know, finance and accounting is separate. Um, you know, assessor, all those things are separate. But for whatever reason, they rolled General government up into one number. On the on the shared data. Um, so what I could do is I can, you know, reach out to some communities and say, hey, can I get your underlying data? Um, you know, for general government, because I'd like to be able to compare and contrast finance or, you know, land use or whatever it might be, you know, um, community to community. But, um, you know, we'll see that, um, you know, they do break up police. They do break up fire. Um, you know, just other public safety. That can't be us. You know, we're here.

01:23:46,200	S4:
Um, we're.

01:23:46,801	S2:
In top five and a lot of those, huh?

01:23:49,300	S5:
If you.

01:23:49,701	S3:
Yeah, if per capita on honestly, for small towns per capita is hard. Um, on in a lot of cases because, you know, like the example that I was always given to me is sort of like a police, a town, a town needs of up to 5000 needs a certain police force. You need a police chief, you need, you know, to.

01:24:08,567	S2:
That's a whole ballgame right there it is. It's hard to make it work per capita.

01:24:12,501	S3:
Right. And so, you know, yeah, if you pay a town administrator, you know, we we we pay a town administrator and Hamilton pays the town administrator. Well, they spread that across, you know, probably another 4000 people. And he probably doesn't make you know, that much more than Steve, um, that it would absorb that. So, yeah, I mean, that's the whole ballgame is there's a lot of stuff, um, you know, and I can, you know, show you because it's like Essex is a town that is pretty lean, like, I mean, they're pretty notorious for, you know, understaffing and not paying, you know, hot top dollar and whatever. But there's still a pretty high number, you know, per capita because they just don't have, you know, their population is, you know, much, much smaller than when EMS.

01:24:52,000	S8:
Can you confirm.

01:24:52,801	S1:
That debt service number for me, just real briefly. Third from the bottom, is that saying that in my family of five you got to go down one?

01:25:00,701	S5:
I think you're down 1 to 5000.

01:25:03,267	S1:
Is that saying in my family of five, there's $25,000 of debt service every year just for Wenham.

01:25:13,601	S3:
I mean, it's it's dividing it by the number of by it's dividing the total expense. And let's, let's just try this out. So actually now I have to multiply this by 4000. 1000, right.

01:25:26,901	S1:
That'd be a $20 million.

01:25:30,100	S2:
That's the number over there in column X. Yeah, 21 million.

01:25:33,167	S1:
So we're not paying $21 million in debt service every year.

01:25:37,167	S3:
Just look at that.

01:25:42,300	S2:
Well, that's total expenditures getting duplicated there. Looks like total expenditures 21 million.

01:25:48,367	S3:
Yeah. Because there's no our debt number is actually good.

01:25:52,767	S8:
That looks more like our.

01:25:53,767	S1:
Entire town budget 21 million.

01:25:56,000	S3:
I think. Yeah. There might be an issue there. Yeah. It's it's duplicated actually. So it's a the Vlookup is wrong. So this is 15

01:26:07,400	S3:
And this is 15. Yeah. So as you can see, this is still a work.

01:26:11,567	S5:
What's in what is other public services of other public safety. Sorry.

01:26:16,968	S3:
So in in Essex I know it would be like harbourmaster and things like that here. Um you know it would be ambulance certainly would be something. But that's something is this is all kind of going astray on me here.

01:26:32,200	S2:
What happens whenever you present a spreadsheet? We've all done it.

01:26:36,267	S3:
Yeah, yeah. Something's definitely. Yeah. Because. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, it's not 11, eight, eight, eight. I'm almost like, I want to open this up again or something. Um, I just switched this, this main tab, so I have a feeling I've completely messed something up here. Um, let me go back to. Let's just go look at this.

01:26:55,167	S1:
So, so absent. You know, since we're we're down to the last 15 minutes here. Yeah. You know, Geoff, as, as I was saying, like, absent the the school new school project, this is what I would have chosen us to pick spend all of our time on. Um, this year, right, is. And a lot of people like to talk about the mill rate or the tax rate in a town, but that's really just a numerator denominator. And the denominator is almost arbitrary, right. Which is the value of the tax value of all the property. The numerator I think is what's the most important. Right. How much money do we actually have to shell out as a community every year? And to know or or know that we are paying a reasonable amount, right? Or know that we are not and and discuss it right. Um, would would really be a lot more helpful in, um, you know, convincing folks, uh, that the budget is reasonable or that, you know, the Finance committee is, uh, you know, has looked through these numbers. We've got a limited amount of, uh, wiggle room. We've done what we can, but we are paying way more than our neighboring towns or our comparable towns in this, that and the other. And that's where, you know, we think the Selectboard or the town should be focusing on, on savings going forward.

01:28:12,567	S3:
Gotcha. Yeah.

01:28:13,400	S5:
Yeah. Or I mean, frankly, even get to Dana's point, thinking about some of these kind of like bigger picture conversations merging police forces far, you know, groups like this as well. We're kind of the fixed cost benefits would actually be better at higher populations.

01:28:30,868	S3:
Yeah. I mean, clearly, I mean, I know for Essex, I, I think I kind of thought the same way Danno does of, you know, I just projected it out and thought, I don't see how we can be a town in 20 years. I just don't see it like I don't. You know, we're going to have to be part of Gloucester or something. I mean, just the numbers, just as, you know, as you extrapolate them out 20 something years from now, I don't know how we can continue to to do it on a on the backs of, you know, 3500 people and 1100 households. And the numbers aren't much different here, so it can't hurt to make those cases to people. And I think, you know, if I can straighten these out tonight, um, and get you the pro rata for tomorrow. Um, or the per capita. Excuse me. Um, you know, it starts to build that case. It's, you know, I mean, it sort of makes the case of it doesn't necessarily mean you're mismanaging your finance department or your police department or whatever, but you just you can't afford to have one for, you know, many, many years in the future when you just start, you know, dividing it by, you know, 4000 or 3500 or whatever the case may be. Uh, it's just it's difficult to maintain moving forward, uh, because the, you know, the numerator continues to grow and the, you know, the denominator is not largely changing, uh, in towns like ours.

01:29:54,000	S1:
All right. So the actions that I'm hearing on this are, you know, we'd like to revisit this file when it's ready. Um, Jeff, and have a have kind of.

01:30:04,267	S3:
A discussion.

01:30:04,868	S1:
And also also be interested in your, your findings. Right. Uh, what you're seeing as you go through this. Right. We're doing this entirely by capita. Right. And I think you've got that per road tab, which means that. You know, there are different divisions of the, you know, the highway department in Wenham versus the highway department. Somewhere else, it does make more sense to comp do it versus per road. Um, it obviously makes it a lot more complicated as we try to present this to, uh, to to the town. So maybe we stay at the per capita.

01:30:43,400	S3:
Yeah. I mean, I think it would be I mean, you know, sometimes I think it helps if you, um, you know, I'm sure I've used the example many, many times, but, um, you know, Essex DPW versus Manchester, Manchester is is much more expensive. But they also do, you know, a lot more things. Even though we have more road, technically more road, they have more parkland and more mowing to do and things like that. So, you know, I think sometimes I could present, you know, because I think per road mile and also per area could be another way to look at, say, public safety, you know, police or fire. Um, you know.

01:31:18,200	S4:
I think the question is.

01:31:19,267	S2:
Whether we're trying to analyze the efficiency of our government resources or if we're trying to analyze the impact on the people, the tax impact on the people.

01:31:33,968	S2:
Because your way is efficiency of government resources, area, road, etc.. I think what's more interesting to our people is how much is it impacting their taxes. Yeah, per person.

01:31:47,200	S1:
It would be a lot easier the first year, Daniel, to stay at the per capita rather than trying to come up with some Unique KPI to each division of the, of the, of the of the government right of the local government and say we're going to do it by area for police and by, you know, road mile for the DPW and by you know that that at that of each one, if we stay at the per capita, I think it gets what you're talking about, Danno, and it's going to make it a little simpler this first year as we try to roll it out again. I think this has to be done for the warrant in time for the warrant book, Jeff, doesn't it?

01:32:25,367	S3:
Yeah. And I honestly, I know obviously it's embarrassing. I've got it messed up here, but I don't think it's that far off to to have that. But as I can see, there's just a couple of column references that are off that we'll fix those and you'll have the per capita and then, you know, you put it in front of the department heads and say, you know, you, you know, I mean, like you say, there's two sides of this question. There's the government efficiency question. You know, uh, you know, chief, why does the police department cost a little more than, you know, this or that? But yeah, ultimately people are like, all I know is I'm paying, you know, this much per you know, on my tax base, you know, for police or for finance department or for whatever. And it's more than I can bear. Um, it almost doesn't matter that I'm running my department efficiently. If it's costing somebody $200 a year, they it's going to seem expensive to them.

01:33:10,868	S1:
Right. So I think you can put these numbers in front of people, but, um, we're going to need a lot of commentary, right, to, you know, as you compare a town right across the 5 or 10 different breakdowns of the different departments, major departments. Right. Why are we okay with when EMS number being larger than town X right in in police. You know, there's there's just so many there. You know, if there's ten towns that we're putting out there, you know, um, in the final version of this, um, as our comparable towns, you know, when M is higher than some sometimes in lower than some the other times. So like when you know that commentary is, is going to have to be pretty well crafted.

01:34:00,067	S3:
In terms of the I'll just give the comp list again here. I mean, at just at a high level. Um, you know, I think, I mean, obviously, I think the, you know, just sort of the geographic comps sort of makes sense. I mean, it makes to some degree makes sense to compare us to, to, you know, surrounding communities. But, um, you know, when we look at these, do you sort of feel like, you know, you may as well just get rid of, you know, uh, Worcester County, that's just not a reasonable comp for us. Or do you feel like it's appropriate to sort of look at the entire state?

01:34:33,467	S2:
I mean, I think the first thing is to look at the numbers and see where the outliers are, and then to ask ourselves why they're outliers and then potentially get rid of the outliers.

01:34:41,501	S5:
Okay.

01:34:46,767	S3:
All right. Well let me I can work on tweaking this to get the per capita. We'll leave it at that for now. I mean, I think, um, you know, some of the department heads as I send these numbers and they talk about, you know, their per capita number being high, they may say, well, geez, if you think of how many roads I have or, you know, they may sort of they may delve into the road miles or the total area of the town or whatever as part of their, um, you know, sort of rebuttal, if you will. Um, but, you know, we'll keep it simple and just keep it at per capita. Um, but all right. So I'll, I'll, I'll make a commitment to finish this up so I can get this out to you guys tomorrow to look at the per capita numbers. You can give me your thoughts and I'll. I'll start talking to the department heads about, you know what, you know, their thoughts on it. And, um, you know, they've they've heard it before. They've heard, you know, of, you know, certainly if the police chief here hasn't heard it, he's heard of his, you know, fellow police chiefs in another town nearby having to answer these same questions.

01:35:40,100	S2:
Speaking of the department heads and not to derail us, we're out of time. But we had talked about at some point telling them, hey, find a way to shave 5% so that we can cover the cost of the increase.

01:35:51,467	S3:
Yeah, and we do actually not happen. We do have, um, pretty much from everybody. Like what is a 5% reduction budget look like. So we can I can share those two.

01:36:05,167	S1:
I can send that via email tomorrow.

01:36:08,567	S3:
Yeah that that might take the weekend because I might have to compile that into some stuff. But, um, we can get you that.

01:36:15,267	S1:
All right. Okay. So best thing I can think of us doing in the last five minutes of this is figuring out when we're talking again. Um, does anybody have any calendar concerns about trying to do some same time next week or, uh, some other time?

01:36:33,067	S4:
My only concern is that we have the meeting after Jeff has gotten the final numbers from the school. And I know that's a moving target, but I, you know, I'd hate to have the meeting and then, like, two days later. Oh, look, we got this.

01:36:53,100	S3:
So it's the only counter I might have to. That would be if we did. For some reason, we didn't have school. Um, those school numbers. Um, you know, we certainly could use the time that night to to focus more on the operating budget side of things and circle back to the. Okay, so.

01:37:09,167	S4:
That'll be that's a hope, then I understand we need to finalize the operating.

01:37:16,300	S6:
Are we going back to Wednesday instead of Thursday?

01:37:20,968	S1:
Let me take a look.

01:37:25,868	S5:
Wednesday. Work fall for me.

01:37:32,467	S1:
So Wednesday today is the 23rd. So it would be the 29th and 30th. All right. So, um, I can do Wednesday at 630. I can do Thursday at 630.

01:37:50,567	S1:
Seven. 730, 7:00.

01:37:52,901	S4:
I can do Wednesday.

01:37:54,767	S1:
Sorry. Say again.

01:37:56,267	S4:
I can do Wednesday, but I'll. I'm having cataract surgery on Thursday.

01:38:01,767	S1:
So maybe maybe looking at little tiny numbers won't do it for you.

01:38:05,100	S7:
Well, yeah.

01:38:07,868	S1:
So we want to try 630 on on Thursday or sorry, Wednesday the 29th.

01:38:14,267	S4:
That works for me.

01:38:16,267	S3:
630 or 7. I think David David has a seven right for you.

01:38:22,167	S5:
I normally prefer seven purely because it means my children won't show up in the middle of it. Um, but I can make 630 work, if you don't mind. Little kids running around.

01:38:32,501	S6:
I can see they're all the way for seven.

01:38:36,000	S1:
Sure. We'll do seven then.

01:38:38,868	S3:
All right.

01:38:42,767	S1:
Okay, so we'll do 7:00, uh, next this coming Wednesday. You know, uh, before I close, I just want to take a look, make sure there isn't any. Um, we've got the last item on the agenda is open discussion matters not anticipated by the chair, not for vote. I don't know if there's any other topics. Um, I don't have anything here. Um, about specific time for public comment. Um, but I'll just leave it open for anybody on the call. If they have anything they want to bring up before we close the meeting.

01:39:18,868	S1:
Doesn't sound like it. Okay, then, uh, we'll get to the motion.

01:39:23,000	S3:
And then maybe. I don't know if we want to entertain it real quick, but, um, we we do have an open seat on that school building committee. Uh, that was being filled by Scott. So I don't know if anybody has an interest in filling that seat. Um, you know, they would be the voice of the finance committee on that. Um, school building committee, which will be working with the operation, the owners, project manager and things like that moving forward, if this project were to were to move forward. So maybe something to just think about.

01:39:52,367	S1:
All right. We'll look for volunteers, uh, next week. Um, all right. Well, then I'm going to ask for a motion to close the. When, um, uh, Finance and Advisory Committee at 842.

01:40:11,100	S1:
We got a motion.

01:40:12,701	S4:
So moved.

01:40:14,000	S1:
All right. Chair's got a motion. Look for a second. Bob's got a second. Looking for a vote, I say I fin.

01:40:20,167	S9:
David, I.

01:40:20,767	S7:
All right.

01:40:22,467	S2:
Noi.

01:40:23,400	S1:
All right. Looking for any opposed not hearing any. It looks like we've got all five are voting I. So thanks very much, everybody, for sticking around for a good hour and a half hour and 45 minute meeting. And, uh, I will see you guys in a week.