00:00:00,430 S1: So we'll start the meeting. 702 this is the, uh, February 12th meeting of the Wyndham Finn comm. Uh, present is, uh, Finn Sprague. It looks like it got Bob. We've got Jared and also Jeff. All right, so with three members present, we have a quorum so we can get going. So if I take a look at the agenda on there. 00:00:24,899 S2: There's Jenna. 00:00:27,469 S1: Daniels coming. 00:00:28,570 S2: Yeah. 00:00:29,070 S1: We'll wait a minute here. 00:00:35,000 S1: All right. Looks like Daniel has joined us. So we've got four members ready. So. Hey, Daniel, how's it going? 00:00:42,170 S3: Hey, everybody. 00:00:43,869 S1: Cheers. So, uh, let's see. I'm looking at the agenda that we've got out there and, uh, has the call to order, and that has a public comment. Uh, I don't see any members of the public present, so I'm going to move past that one. So we've got three, um, three discussions here. One is about the new school project. We've got the FY 26 budget and the capital budget. We spent almost all of the last couple of weeks on this first topic, the new Cutler School building. Um, and so I'm hoping to, um, give more time to these other budgets. Um, and, uh, and so, you know, I think given the motion that we, uh, we issued last week, I think the the last thing that I think we want to do is, is start to, um, align on whether or not we think the, um, the dec, uh, for the Cutler school building project is at a in a position in a condition that would be ready for, for release to the public. Um, that's the kind of the only major thing on my mind. But maybe. Jeff, I'm forgetting something that we need to cover here on this topic. 00:02:01,829 S2: Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. Um, you know, you've you've done your analysis. You took a vote, and now, uh, as you and I talked about earlier, there's a little bit of, you know, tweaking to the to the, the deck. Um, you know, the biggest difference I can think of is we did add a page on the tax impact, uh, into the PowerPoint. And I did actually just send a PDF version of that new page to everyone because I'm not sure it will show up really clear. Um, on the, on the screen when we share it. And Gary Cheeseman is joining us in a moment. 00:02:34,099 S4: Oh, yeah. That, uh, PDF was non printable on both my printers. He complained about. 00:02:43,800 S2: Uh, he might have had like a font issue. 00:02:46,629 S4: I don't know if there was a font issue. It was, it was just sending the PDF to the printer. Uh. 00:02:55,129 S2: I will take a look at that on my end and see if there's something I can do to make it work better. 00:03:00,530 S4: The other thing is, uh, what was our vote? Uh, on the, uh, uh, school proposal at the last meeting? Because I looked at your, uh, quickly at the warrant draft you sent out, and I thought we had one against. 00:03:14,800 S2: Uh, that's a very draft, um, warrant. So they they recycle a sort of prior year things and stuff. So it may actually say that there's a, you know, a vote in there, but that's yet to be updated. I haven't even I just got that, uh, shortly before the meeting started so I can go through and look. But yeah, I mean, it will be clear our vote was 4 to 1. 00:03:36,770 S1: Yeah, I think that that's important. So, um, as I, you know, I went through the the deck again this afternoon and I went through it with John McGrath from the Hamilton Finn. Com to see if he had any comments or concerns about it. Um, you know, as I read through it, um, I think Jeff hit it on the head. There's it's just the last couple of, um, slides that I think need our attention. Um, slides eight, nine and ten. I can throw those up on the screen, can't I? Because I think, Jeff, you sent me the the deck. 00:04:18,300 S2: Yeah. 00:04:23,629 S1: All right. You hopefully you can see it, guys. No. Try again. 00:04:35,029 S1: Right. So, um, in my mind there are it's these three that are the last ones that I really need to, uh, see if there's any wordsmithing to happen here. Right. This one is to basically acknowledge that, um, the as proposed, um, school, you know, opening doors in 2028 is showing us more expensive than the one school, right? But I don't have any language in here. That is what I highlight. And we highlight in slide nine, um, with the recommendation, which is the only reason it's less expensive is we've given this next alternative the delay seven years. Every single advantage possible when it comes to interest rates, construction inflation or cost or scope of the project. Um, so I feel like not having something to that, to that effect in slide eight is, is the thing that's missing there. Um, I don't know if you guys have any other thoughts on the language that's on this recommendation page, which I think will end up being the the thing that maybe we agonize over a little bit more, and then after that we can just go to slide ten, um, which is the new slide that Geoff put together that says, okay, now that you've we've brought all the residents together on through this path of how we did all this math. Right. Um, come to a recommendation and then we say, okay. And the net of the least expensive option, right. Is, is this impact on your tax rate? 00:06:08,329 S1: I'll pause here before we move on. 00:06:12,470 S5: Well, I, I like the recommendation slide. 00:06:21,170 S1: All right. Cool. Um, not hearing any other, um, comments. So, um, we can take a look at. 00:06:28,129 S4: This question was, uh, what should go on the previous slide? Great question. 00:06:34,129 S1: I think I'm trying to figure out I want to I want to kind of highlight the fact that we're using this 6% discount rate, right, in all these these, uh, sensitivity analysis, the one we've got the box around and it shows the the delay, as you know, being favorable financially. Right. Um, but that's not the whole story. The story can't end there, right? Which is why we highlight why we even though it shows as less expensive to delay, um, for another seven years or so. Um, we still don't recommend that to the right. 00:07:13,899 S4: And you're looking for a language. Something along the lines. Uh, well, this, uh, you know, is slightly more attractive. Uh, the recommendations page that follows describes the many risks associated, uh, many benefits given and the risks associated with the one school in seven years option. So I think you need some, you know, a few words. You know, you can't put the whole thing on because you have too much text, but but enough to refer back to the, uh, the next page. 00:07:55,470 S4: In that comment, that really doesn't just apply to the 6% discount rate. It applies generally to the alternative. 00:08:03,629 S1: Right? If you if you have a higher discount rate than 7% than 6%, right, then you're going to see it that way all across the board. 00:08:14,699 S1: Okay. So I think that is the major thing that I think is missing from the deck here. Um, otherwise, you know, I've gone through all these other slides and, and I think I've, I've got, I've got what, what we all talked about last week. This is the new data. And so I'm going to make this a little bigger. Hopefully you guys can see it. All right. So Jeff this was your work. So, um, maybe it'd be a good idea for you to kind of walk us through. 00:08:44,600 S2: Sure. So this is just a reworking of of what I sent out. Um, or maybe I don't know if I sent it out or presented at last, uh, last week, but it just walks through the debt amortization for when, uh, and the, the impact to, um, the average household, the median household and then per 100,000. Um, but what we've done is break it up. So half the page sort of walks you through. How did we get to, you know, that we needed $92,486,000 00:09:16,370 S2: of debt. Then how is that apportioned between Hamilton and Wenham? Uh, and then some information there about, you know, what what are the Wenham, you know, total valuations, the average and the median single family homes. Uh, and underneath we've, you know, you'll see um, sort of throughout the, the stuff on the left hand side here, there's some notations one through four. Um, some of them are just simply, you know, explaining where the information came from. You know, emails from Eric or Jenny at the school. Number three talks about that allocation, which for FY 26, we're looking at an operating assessment or operating apportionment of 65.92% to Hamilton and 34.08% to Wenham. Um, this was brought up last week, I think, by both Jared and Angus. Um, so I may not have made it totally clear last week during the meeting, but in the regional agreement, which there have been a few different, uh, amendments to over the years, and instead of sort of replacing language, they kind of added to it each time. But where we stand now is essentially any debt that was issued after January 1st, 2000 is apportion to the towns in the same manner as the operating assessment each year is calculated, which is essentially a three year rolling average of uh enrollment for each town. Uh, that is that is what the debt will be apportioned at the. The sort of caveat to that is that the the school committee, with the approval of the two member towns. And by that we mean an actual vote of the town at a town meeting to accept a change. The two towns could, um, sort of debate about the apportionment. Would it make sense to memorialize a static apportionment for the debt over the 20 year term rather than having it, uh, you know, vary from year to year? Um, you know, and that that's a discussion perhaps we could have with our counterparts in Hamilton. Uh, to some degree, I feel like if you're Hamilton and you feel like, uh, when I'm, you know, at a higher than the historical average apportionment, why would we want to, you know, lock in a different rate than that? Um, but the reason they may want to is that, you know, the enrollment. And I've been working on some data, you know, the last 20 years of apportionment. You know, it is very variable. And, you know, while we may be at 34.08 right now, um, we've dropped considerably lower than that, you know, into the 30 and 32 range over time. So, you know, agreeing to make some sort of change to this specific debt allocation, uh, you know, could be seen as sort of a, you know, a hedging instrument to, um, you know, have a little certainty around what your, what your share of this debt would be over the next 20 years instead of, um, you know, just having it, you know, be this sort of rolling, rolling average for the next 20 years, which can have pretty big fluctuations, uh, for each town, uh, in theory. Uh, so we wanted to spell that out here based on last week's discussions. And, uh, I'm certainly happy to update that, uh, with more detail, uh, you know, as folks would, would like. Um, and then the final sort of, you know, footnote here is, you know, what we do whenever we do any of these sort of projected calculations to say, you know, the best we can do is take what's the valuation in the town right now? And what are the average and median single family home values now. And just assume that those stay static, you know, for the period we are analyzing. Um, and so we always throw language in there that, you know, essentially says this will not be the the experience of any individual homeowner over the next 20 years, because clearly, you know, each person's individual property value is going to fluctuate and the total valuation of the town is going to fluctuate. So your your percentage of the overall town valuation will change. Um, this is just meant to be if everything stayed static. Here's how this looks to the average person. Um, and the the complicating factor here is that the debt service is a level principle as it's been presented to us. So that's what we're modeling out. And so that's where you're getting this, um, you know, this descending, uh, for that average home you're going from, you know, almost 2200 in year one to just over 1200 in year 20. Um. 00:13:55,399 S2: And I know Bob had suggested that I believe last week potentially breaking us up and maybe showing it in five, five year increments or something like that. I messed around with that a little bit. I found it was getting sort of confusing when I did want to show like what the average over 20 years was and what the total paid by, you know, the average household would be. And if we were showing it in five year increments, that got a little convoluted. Um, but I'm happy to, you know, try to adjust this as folks see fit in terms of making it more readable and more useful to the end user. 00:14:30,700 S4: You know, you might consider keeping what you have, but using two slides, because that would get your, uh, your type up a little bit in size. It looks okay here. Uh, size wise, I guess the footnote for I was wondering, would it be worth stating that, uh, you know, inflation would bring the tax rate impact down? 00:14:55,899 S4: Um, so people know the direction. 00:14:58,299 S1: So are you are you saying, Bob, that, like, if if the, uh, if over ten years, the property values double? Right. Um, and and $1 million house becomes a $2 million house. Right? Then the the cost per thousand, $100,000 value would change, right? It would get cut in half as well. But really, the number that you see there at the bottom, 30, $34 million and 30.30, sorry, 33 34,000 and $30,000. Like these numbers here. Those are really not going to change. 00:15:34,169 S4: Right now what's going to change is, is the rate, because the rate is going to come down even faster because the base is going up with inflation and your payments. You know, you have a payment structure that's locked in. That's all. You know, whether we want to. 00:15:48,529 S1: Oh wait, you're saying the interest rate itself might. 00:15:51,370 S4: Well, no, I'm saying that the tax rate impact is going to go down because your your debt services as scheduled, but you're going to have an increased tax base. I'm not saying you're paying anything less. I'm just saying that the rate is going to go down even faster, uh, with inflation than what's shown here. 00:16:13,230 S1: Um, I understand. 00:16:15,470 S4: You know, I'm just suggesting that. Is that something we want to provide isn't, you know, information to people or not? 00:16:21,830 S5: I'm concerned that we're forgetting about our audience and the purpose of this, this slide. Um, we've been working on this for months. And the slide. And we understand what we're what we're trying to do I think. And but the slide as presented I think is a great slide for if you're a finance major, it doesn't remember we're going to be sitting in the annual meeting or the warrant hearing, and there going to be people throwing their hands up in the air in frustration. Uh, we need like we're in my suggestion, in lieu of all the red notes, which I fully understand why they're here, but just something in big print that says, if you do this school, you're going to pay and your house is worth this. You're going to pay $2,000 more in year one based on the assumptions that we have. Something like that. Okay. Because otherwise the purpose of the slide is going to get lost. I you know, I don't think anybody who's not been following this project who's going to understand what this slide is telling them Because I would guess that 90% of the of the citizens don't understand how the tax rate is set anyway. 00:17:37,069 S1: So, Jeff, what we could do is sort of the pattern that we've done in the rest of the deck, which basically would move all the comments you have in read there into sort of an appendix. Right. And that would free up an area here, a quadrant of this box to say, you know, here's here is. 00:17:54,670 S5: Exactly my suggestion. Yeah. 00:17:56,000 S1: The, the the net takeaway that the, you know, typical right. Typical household can expect to pay 2000 to $2200 incremental property tax in year one, which will reduce over time. 00:18:13,869 S2: Yeah. And I guess I was almost hearing Jared as saying that almost this whole slide belongs in the appendix. And it should be replaced with something that's almost like a chart that shows, you know, whatever started $500,000 of valuation and go up to 1,000,005 or something with the associated tax rate at a bunch of a bunch of, you know, valuation spots in you. 00:18:39,230 S5: I mean, I like it. That would be even clearer. But I like I think what Finn just said was what I would wear where I was going, okay, is where the red stuff is. Just something in big print that says, as these numbers show, under under the assumption of a straight line mortgage, you know, you're going to pay this much more in year one and you're going to, you know, uh, please note these these values may, may change in the event of, you know, in the event that, uh, the a different financing option is elected by the town or something like that, or interest rates change. 00:19:19,369 S2: Okay. Let me, um, let me work on a couple models of that. The only concern I have, um, you know, something like this, this one pager, it sort of has everything and all the footnotes in one place. Um, when you start breaking some of that stuff out. My only worry is that then you have slides that maybe don't have the footnotes or don't have extra information that suddenly are being circulated and not telling the whole story. And so someone has a little piece of the information and they use it in a certain way, pro or con on the, on the project. And you say, yeah, but if you knew, you know, this fact that's in the footnote, you know, that you would view this information differently. So let me take a couple cracks at, you know, doing what you're suggesting in the red area. Uh, and another idea I kind of have and maybe send those out and get some group feedback on that. 00:20:12,829 S5: Okay. 00:20:13,829 S1: Sounds good to me. 00:20:18,130 S1: All right. Um, I'm feeling like we're wrapping up. Like I said, I'm trying to keep our our Ah. Um. Ah. Uh, a topic on. You know, since we've been discussing this, as you said, Jared, for months. Um, you know, my my goal is to to get this deck to a position where the committee can basically, uh, approve it through some sort of motion and say it's ready for for public release. Um, I'm not sure off the top of my head when that's going to be. I think it has to be in, in February. Um, I think I mentioned next week I'm going to be, uh, traveling without my laptop. So, uh, if I attended a meeting, I really wouldn't be able to, uh, to look at stuff. Um, but, uh, I think pretty soon afterwards say that I think the week of the 24th, um, you know, we'll we it's kind of our last, uh, last week to get a lot of our motions, uh, for the warrant book, um, out the door. Any any thoughts on that sort of timeline? 00:21:21,869 S1: Okay. So, um, uh, at the beginning of the meeting, I've, uh, we had, uh, public comment, and, um, we didn't have anybody, uh, present at that moment, but I see that Gary, Gary Cheeseman, you've joined. So, um, I wanted to see if there was any particular topic that you on the agenda, uh, that you wanted to cover. Or we can come back to public comment at the end of the meeting. 00:21:53,829 S1: I'm not hearing anything from Gary. 00:21:55,569 S6: Yeah. So, no, I'm just just observing. 00:22:00,069 S1: Okay, well, then we'll just keep moving through any any other, uh, commentary on the, uh, the new school, uh, item on the agenda, or we can move on to the next one. All right. Not hearing any. We can. I can pass the ball back to you, Jeff, and we can go on to the next one, which I think is the, uh, operating budget? 00:22:21,630 S2: Sure. Um. So let me. 00:22:26,269 S2: Switch that over in a second. Uh. 00:22:40,769 S2: All right. So I don't know if folks had a chance to look at, uh, I sent around, um, a link to the capital budget and also, um, uh, sort of revamped, uh, town operating budget, uh, spreadsheet. And I wasn't sure if folks had a chance to look at that, if they had any particular questions or areas they wanted to sort of focus, ask questions on, uh, relative to various departments or things like that. I wasn't sure what the best way to approach this was, I wasn't sure. I'm assuming folks don't want to walk by, walk through each department, you know, line by line. But, um, you know, maybe there's some areas folks who are interested in, um, in focusing on or asking some questions. 00:23:27,470 S1: So, uh, what do you have on the screen here? Um, I seem to recall that you had one that that showed, uh, you know, recent actuals and, and budgeted amounts for at the departmental level. 00:23:39,829 S2: Yeah. And I think what I have here is what we reworked is this shows the actuals. And I've just got my finance department up as an example here. Um, so I've got FY 23 and 24 actuals. Um, the 25 budget. Uh, and then that we're in right now in the 26 budget that's been proposed. And then what we've done is, you know, the this column here shows the increase over the, the, the budget season we're in. So from 25 to 26, here's the percentage increase. Uh, and next to it is what the dollar increase is. Um, you know, 25 versus 26. But over here, these are the columns that, you know, I worked with Bob a little bit on these, um, sort of targets. If you took your FY 23. Um, actual expenditures in the departments, and you extrapolated those out for the, um, the actual CPI, um. 00:24:36,769 S2: Which was, you know, the actual two year CPI, um, was 11.97, um, for the for the two years. So the FY 24 and then the three year actual CPI is is 17.91%. Uh, and so what, what you know, Bob had sort of turned me on to here was what, you know, if you just took what you really spent and you and you went by CPI, where would you be now? And, you know, how do you compare, uh, relative to those numbers? Um, and so one of the, the limitations we have that we're going to need to work to fix in our general ledger is that we've never tracked actual line item wages very well in the, in the, in the actual GL budget. So what you see here is you have, you know, the budget for 25 and the budget for 26. We have breakdowns of, you know, the individual line items, you know, the treasurer collector or me or the assistants. Um, but for prior year history, wages are just lumped in together. Um, so it gets a little, you know, looks a little confusing here, but sort of what I was doing is saying, okay, well, if I, if I were to sum up those three or those things, so all my 23 targets with what I really spent in 23, um, what would I have? And what I see is I'm about $27,000 too high based on my 23 target. Um, and what I've done here is I've made a note to say, well, there's sort of a reason for that, because in 23, the town made a decision, to basically turn the assistant town accountant position into a full FTE. So that that, you know, went up by, you know, 20, $30,000 in that year and that, you know, essentially accounts for why we're, you know, why there's a variance when we move to FY 24. Um, you know, we're actually we're probably a little bit under we're under by about $19,000. Now, of course, you know, we didn't you know, the inflation over that period was 12%. We didn't we didn't raise, raise our wages by 12%. You know, during that time frame. So, um, you know, that wasn't Arcola, you know, internally. So I would expect that we were under those targets. But the way I was, I've been approaching the budget is to go look at these target numbers, to try to identify places where, you know, where can we maybe trim that budget down because it's over a target. You know, as a first line, it doesn't mean if it's if it's not over target, you couldn't make an adjustment there. It was just sort of a filter to, to look at, you know, where's a good place to start to look at places where you might want to make some cuts. 00:27:18,299 S1: So if I can just make sure I understand this. 00:27:21,000 S2: Yeah. 00:27:22,000 S1: Is that you took your took column E, which is Axl's, in 2023. And you said the inflation rate over three years was about 17 or some odd percent. 00:27:32,269 S2: Is it almost 18%? Yeah. 00:27:33,730 S1: And and that gives you column N right. And that if you do 24 you add 11%, you get column O and then you're saying, hey, you know, how do we how are we doing in 2026 versus these inflation adjusted past actuals. Is that. 00:27:51,369 S2: Exactly. 00:27:52,269 S6: Okay. 00:27:52,670 S2: And you know it looks a little choppy because I threw the the targets off to the side. So when I print this you can see everything through the notes. And we can fit it on a, you know, sort of a printable page. Um, but yeah, you just followed it through. It's you go over to column and or column how to figure out what the targets are, and then you determine if you're over or under. Um, so. So yeah, I mean, that's we, you know, I it maybe it's, you know, I changed it up a little bit, but and maybe it isn't helpful, but, uh, as I talked through it with Bob, I thought it was sort of a helpful way to look at it and look for ways to to find places where you could make a pretty straightforward argument to a department, um, that it would seem reasonable that if you've outpaced inflation, you know, and I think the two years is a good way to look at it because, um, you know, if you're outpacing inflation for both, you know, FY 23 and FY 24, it would seem to me to indicate more of a reason to, you know, perhaps investigate that more, um, versus, you know, if you're if you are outperforming, uh, both years, you know, that's hopefully more of a positive sign. Uh, and if, if you're sort of a mix, you know, one's one's within range and one's not, again, probably worth looking at more. 00:29:02,269 S6: Um, so just the big I mean obviously the big drivers inflation here. Did you explain Maybe I missed it on what you're using for inflation. I know you said 17%, but there's 70 different measures of inflation which aren't reason. 00:29:15,000 S2: Yeah, and actually, I might even let Bob weigh in. So I'm trying to see if he, um. Bob had pulled these cola numbers. Bob, I don't know if you want to weigh in on where you actually, um, pulled those numbers from or what you used. 00:29:29,029 S4: Well, those ones are the ones that we pulled for the first half of the year. For what I do for the someone else pulls them, but do for the New England diocese. And it's the New England, uh, uh, cost of living adjustment. But that's where they came from. They're similar to the national CPI, which, uh, but the intent here was that, you know, for the last ignored the last few years, inflation has been in a fairly narrow band, so that things kind of, you know, adjusted naturally. And the the reason for looking back over multiple years is there are a lot of things going on that don't immediately track inflation. You've got contracts that, you know, get renegotiated a couple of years later. And that was the reason for, uh, looking at, you know, at a multi-year, uh, look back over this period where inflation, uh, jumped dramatically. Uh, I would add, you know, the other thing is you can see people who have good trends, like trash collection, which, uh, doesn't actually bode too well since our, our trash costs are likely to go up very much in the forthcoming contract. So, you know, you've got to look at things and, you know, and apply some judgment as to what's happening there. 00:30:45,000 S2: Yeah. And I just pulled up trash. That's a great point. I mean, the contract we have with Casella, um, in particular, which is the folks who actually pick up the trash, uh, we are locked in a longer term contract that's at a much lower, um, cola if it's in the contract, which is, you know what? Almost all the, the the towns around are at the tail end. Either you know, they in the last year or two. They've had to renegotiate or they're about to. Like we are in the next year or two. So we'll see a pretty significant change. Um, I know just on the, um, we'll of breeder, which is the, the actual folks who take the trash. You know, we pay them a tipping fee per ton. Uh, and that, you know, is probably based on the proposal we received for, uh, July 1st 25. Uh, we're looking at probably a 12% increase there. Uh, the good news is that that's a much smaller part of the overall, uh, budget. So you're, you know, it's a big percentage number, but a smaller, you know, dollar number. Uh, it will be a much bigger deal when we redo the Casella, uh, contract, which is, you know, a 400 plus thousand dollars a year contract. 00:31:56,069 S6: Okay. Thanks for where that came from. So, just a question for proper procedure tonight. When are we trying to get to a vote on this, or are we trying to just get our heads around it better than we have, since we haven't paid as much attention and we've been focused on the school? 00:32:11,930 S1: I think that's the latter is more likely. I want everybody to be comfortable with this. I think we have to come to a vote by the end of the month, but I don't think we need to go to a vote today. 00:32:24,369 S6: Okay. 00:32:26,269 S1: Same with the same with the the capital budget Dan out too. So Jeff, is there a way that you could you could do uh, give us an overview here at the at the departmental level rather than the line item within the department? 00:32:42,529 S2: Um, yeah. Let me kind of give you, uh. 00:32:47,470 S2: So here is your, um, we we've got a couple of different ways of we've built it out here. So, uh, you know, one is what we show by function, um. 00:32:58,829 S2: Uh. Um. 00:33:04,369 S2: And another is, you know, then we would have like, buy department. Um, but generally speaking, you know what we're looking at here? Um, you know, we for the most part, um, told departments to, you know, essentially level fund, uh, and not just a lot of times we would say level fund, except for contractual obligations. This year, we sort of, you know, with your original, um, guideline and really trying to, you know, come in closer to, you know, one, 1.5% something like that. Um, you know, we told departments to try to, if you had increases, come in, um, you know, as close to a zero increase as you could. And I think, you know, for the most part, if you look here, I mean, General Government is coming in, um, you know, slightly under the prior year, as is public safety. Uh, education, of course, is a bit of an outlier They're, uh. 00:33:59,269 S6: Yeah. Can I. Sorry. I know you're trying to do the percentage over there. Only because I beat my head against the wall on this before. Yeah. Because it's a pivot table, you have to actually type in the cell name. So you have to say equals. 00:34:08,400 S2: Yeah, yeah. I realized as soon as I did it, I was like, oh, I have to actually go in and do each one. 00:34:13,170 S6: But if you know, if you just do the first one, you can still copy it down. You just have to manually do the first one. 00:34:17,500 S2: Yeah. 00:34:17,699 S6: The e whatever divided by D whatever. 00:34:22,500 S2: Yeah. And then as you work. Yeah. 00:34:24,369 S1: All right. So yeah. So while you're doing that math, Jeff, I'm just gonna kind of look at what I'm seeing here. Right. So basically we're saying that column F whenever you have a negative value there, we're actually having a reduction versus the spend in the prior budget. If it's a positive number we have a material increase. So the big numbers right that come to mind are the education the employee benefit and the FY 26 reserve. 00:34:52,699 S2: Right. Which that's we have in the reserve this year is that we have three contracts open. We are very close, I think, on a tentative agreement on one of the three contracts. Uh, and hopefully, you know, we're getting closer to resolving the other two as well. But for right now, we're setting we've set this reserve aside, uh, as a way to, um, account for it because we can't actually increase the actual departmental budgets yet because we don't know what's going to go in there. Um, so we're just holding this reserve. The hope is that, you know, we we won't exhaust the entire 265, uh, you know, so, um, but, yeah, I mean, to your point about obviously the big one, you know, education is coming up, coming at 5.6% there. That's the big one. Uh, partially that's the the the Hamilton Wyndham School District and their increase. But it's also, um, over at the, the Vogue we've added to students. So, you know, just quick ballpark math at 20 something thousand a student, uh, with a couple extra students, you're looking at, you know, 40, $50,000 more there. So it's not just the the local school store. 00:35:59,170 S6: Totals 4.79% increase. Can you just. This is me being ignorant, but our 2.5% threshold. How close are we to that? Or how far over are we vis a vis that? 00:36:11,300 S2: Uh, well, so if we come back here, um, you know, with the you've got, you know, you've got your two and a half, but you've also got the 150,000 of new growth. Um, that, you know, that allows you, you know, to absorb some extra expenses. And then you also have, you know, it looks like we're able to. And this, this number could change, but I've been able to assume our, our revenue, our local receipts revenue will go up about $150,000 uh, as well. And so those two things would actually allow you to be under. And I know this is different completely, you know, not completely what you're asking, Daniel, but this is why, you know, when people say there's a prop two and a half, how are we going up? 4.79%? And that's why, as you're this 150 and this 158 are allowing you extra sort of leeway on tour. 00:37:00,070 S4: By. 00:37:00,230 S6: 3500 bucks. 00:37:02,199 S2: As of right now. Yeah, I still think, you know, I can tweak this number a little bit, but. And then we can also tweak expenses, but that this is where we stand right now is, you know, relative to the levy limit is 3500 under Jeff. 00:37:13,170 S6: Can you. We're nowhere near. 00:37:14,469 S4: Flat. No. The levy limit is calculated. 00:37:17,829 S2: Uh, hold on by saying, Bob, I think was saying something right there. 00:37:20,969 S6: Keep going. Go ahead. 00:37:22,269 S2: Okay. So the levy limit is calculated. There's a couple components to it. So each year, um, we can we you calculate a brand new levy limit. And that levy limit is based on the prior year. Plus the 2.5% growth of that levy limit each year. Um, and then you have the new growth component, uh, and then um, then you also have debt exclusions. So what's interesting if you look here is that the debt exclusions are actually going down because the debt exclusions, they allow you to be up and over the top two and a half number, because your town at some point has voted to allow the town to take action. That would push it over with debt service, the annual two and a half levy limit. But as those debt payments begin to wind down on certain debt instruments as they are here in Wenham. Um, you know, you can see here the exempt debt payments we made last year were $932,000. Essentially, this year that's dropped to 887,000. So we don't just, you know, that money disappears in terms of the levy limit. We don't, you know, get to absorb that, um, you know, whatever, $50,000, $60,000 into other spending. That's the beauty of the debt. You know, the debt override, uh, is that it goes away. An operational override continues forever. Once you set that prop two and a half limit, it continues. Unless you actually vote what's called an undefined. But the the debt, you know, actually drops, you know, the debt payments above and the expenses have dropped as well. But, um, you know, the. 00:38:58,699 S4: Is. 00:38:58,900 S6: That flow through in your model. If you just typed in 500,000 there instead of 886. 00:39:04,570 S2: Um, it would well, this is actually set to um, this number is tied to if I actually the way it's just. 00:39:12,269 S6: I just want to just write on the bottom right corner. I wonder if it would change a 4.97. The 2.88. 00:39:18,699 S2: Uh oh. Okay. So I'm just going to go. So we're going to do what like -388 I think. 00:39:23,929 S6: Sure. 00:39:27,630 S6: So if that number's smaller you're you're better off your your your under your your father under your 2.5%. So. Got it. I just want to make sure I was understanding that right. Yeah. 00:39:42,070 S2: Yeah. Actually no that actually that just did. 00:39:44,769 S6: What this did. 00:39:45,900 S2: Yeah. This was just, this just did actually. Is it. Yeah. It put us way over the the the override, the the levy limit. And the reason is I lowered this number, but this number is actually tied to, um, if I go here. 00:40:07,630 S2: The debt service, the way the debt service basically works out is these the red highlighted numbers in our debt service. Those are actually not exempt. When we voted those debt instruments at town meeting years ago, we did not do a debt exclusion override. So these numbers have to be absorbed under the tax rate. But the rest of the debt. Um, so. 00:40:32,670 S2: And then actually and that's not even going to be enough of it. I mean, that's okay. 00:40:36,469 S6: I don't want to get us to real. 00:40:37,769 S2: But but yeah. So in anyway basically, you know, what should be happening is in lockstep. If I lowered this by 300,000, this expense up here would have lowered by 300,000 as well. And actually, we can do that just. 00:40:52,130 S2: Actually, what did I do? I should just real quick what I did exactly 388. Right. 00:41:03,199 S2: Yeah. So this would get you now this gets you back. You're still at the, um, this is still your 110, but now the expenses and the debt exclusion are matching up again. So you're still 3500 under the levy limit. Um, it's just that the levy limit is dropped quite a bit because you don't have that extra debt exclusion. So let me just remember to get rid of all of this now. 00:41:29,170 S2: Um, you know, and that and that would be very prominent if we were to pass the Cutler debt because the Cutler debt is decreasing, uh, each year quite a bit because of the level of principal payments. Um, it would be similar. This number would be dropping year over year. It would be a huge number in year one and it would begin to drop by, you know, 100,000 plus each year based on the level principle. So yeah, and I. 00:41:55,199 S6: Guess we should go back to the department schedule. Right. I didn't I took us away from that I apologize. 00:41:59,670 S2: Okay. Yeah. Um, so and so we were looking at by function. And so. Yeah, I think this is the first basic look is, you know, we're trying, you know, and I'll be the first to say that this is budget over budget. We're going down. So you're still, you know, up from what you actually spent in 24. 00:42:19,400 S6: Can you do that percentage real quick on what we are versus 24? 00:42:24,530 S7: Uh. 00:42:51,730 S6: We're up 14%. The 26 budget is 14% over the 24 actuals. Is that what you did in that column? Um. 00:43:01,670 S2: I believe that is correct. Yes. No. Yeah. 24 actually was exactly. Yep. And so now one of the things that I can tell you right off the bat is within general government in FY 24, we have 120. We start each year with $125,000 of finance committee reserve. And the way Finance Committee Reserve works is we don't actually spend it in that. Um, in that year, we transfer it to other budgets. So in any year when you look at your actuals, you didn't spend any money for fin com reserve on that line item. But each you know but for this year I still have to build that in. So it looks like you know you're up 125 over zero. Um, so that's like something like King Kong reserves. It's almost like a placeholder. I mean, you're putting it in there for the case of emergency. You may spend it and you may not, but you you need to have that in there because you have things like this year. 00:43:55,269 S6: So wait, it's in actuals. But it's not in budget. 00:43:58,329 S2: It's in budget, but it ends up not being in actual. So if I looked at what. 00:44:02,429 S5: You. 00:44:02,630 S6: Removed it from the budget line, it would be an apples to apples comparison. 00:44:06,199 S2: Yeah. 00:44:07,329 S6: So we should. Yeah. I don't know if you can do that. Subtract 125,000 from the 2,048,000. 00:44:12,329 S2: But yeah. And I think I, I actually have a document I've done in another spreadsheet where I've tried to walk through those reconciliations. But yeah, essentially if you were to, um, if I went here. 00:44:24,570 S6: I get it. So but it's employee benefits like normal and schools and insurance so open. 00:44:36,599 S2: Yeah. And you know, some of these can be deceiving, data because I mean OPEC is 1,010%. But it's you know, it's really $10,000. So it's you know the 10% on OPEC is is not nearly as um impactful as 5.61% on school. 00:44:54,699 S6: Yeah. Yeah. Can you do the total dollars for 2026 versus 2024 actuals. 00:45:03,130 S2: Uh, yeah. So you do here. 00:45:23,070 S2: Like yeah. And then that. Yeah it seems to about makes sense 2.20 5.6 ish 22.4. 00:45:33,269 S2: Which and let's just prove out plus. 00:45:45,829 S2: Yeah, it does back up. So it's about. Yeah it's about three. 00:45:52,630 S2: And that would. Yeah because that's 24 you know. So this because the one education is one one line or one function where the numbers are the actual is always the same as budget because it's a it's you know, we agree to we agree to a budget with the school and then they bill us that exact amount for the year versus most other budget items are, um, you know, they're they're yet to be seen. And we might budget a, you know, a certain amount for expenses and in general government that we may or may not spend them. But this, um. 00:46:51,969 S2: So this looks like from FY 24 actual to proposed FY 26, we're up 3.2 million. And this looks like roughly 1.6 million of that is is on the school. Or these are my percentages. 00:47:10,699 S2: So essentially it's half. And then you know I think the bigger you know then the rest is probably the big ones are probably employee benefits. That's actually not that's up half a million. It looks like roughly um, what other big tickets do we have. And that's 403 50. That's 200. 00:47:37,429 S2: That's 150. So yeah, we could go through each and one of those and see what makes up that that difference. Um, but you know, clearly the big drivers are employee benefits and education for sure. And then this is the 265 is obviously a that placeholder didn't exist before. So that's another you know, another 265 is a decent part of the increase as well. So let's see if I can. 00:48:10,269 S6: Know we've talked about this before. And are we contractually obligated to cover certain levels of benefits. Right. We couldn't redefine benefits. It's outside of the contract negotiation I assume. 00:48:23,570 S2: Uh, it's it gets considered part. You know, it can be considered a change in working conditions that would allow them to sort of reopen the contract if we agreed to a contract, and then we suddenly the next year said, oh, you know what? You're now paying 60% of your health insurance. The unions would certainly file some kind of claim and say, well, wait a minute, that changes everything. 00:48:44,070 S6: So it was it is negotiated as part of the contract. 00:48:47,730 S2: Yeah. And it's I mean, even, you know, it's it's mentioned as part of the process, right. I mean, you're all, you know, as you're trying to negotiate all the other parts and pieces, you're always kind of throwing in there. Well, don't forget, you know, this is worth X. You know to you these benefits are worth X to you. So it's part of the conversation. It's not always a completely locked into the agreement. Um, but it is part of the personnel rules and regulations too, is that we, you know, we cover x percent as a town and you cover x percent as a, as an employee. Um, but, you know, I think as we talk about longer term discussions, that's going to have to be, um, you know, something that we're going to have to evaluate because it's, you know, it's one of the faster growing parts of our, our budget. And if we're if we're covering the majority of it, um, we've got to figure out a way to, to address that. Um, you know, and even in the last 20 years, um, you know, I know in 27 or 2007, maybe 2006, um, you know, I know the Manchester Essex School District was still at a 9010 split on health insurance. Um, you know, and because we were at a 75, 25 split in Essex, that was, you know, we were able to use that as leverage to begin working the district towards, you know, something closer to that 7525 split. Uh, and a lot of times we I believe we're 75, 25. So, um, and what we what we, what I've seen done in the past is, you know, sometimes it will be a sort of like a grandfather type situation. So you say, you know, these people still stay at 75, 25, but all new, you know, new folks, you know, it's not as big in the town as, you know, the schools. You tend to see it more because they have such large numbers of people on the insurance that you just say, you know. All new teachers are now, you know, 70, 30 or, you know, some other thing. Um, but the, you know, the unions will usually agree to as long as you keep me, it's this, you know, this level, uh, I'm fine with the new person, you know, paying more. 00:50:48,900 S6: Aren't we all? 00:50:51,630 S2: Yeah. 00:50:52,199 S6: That's why we are where we're at. 00:50:53,869 S2: Yeah. And the pension, the pension side of things. There's two sides to pensions. So pension at the school level, uh, all, all teacher pensions are through the mass teachers retirement system, um, and actually aren't paid at the, at the town level. Uh, that that's, that's it's handled sort of at the state level. So all employees at the town level, you know, that pension we pay into the Essex Regional Retirement System. Um, but the, the, the teachers are handled differently. But all of that is still dictated, you know, through state, you know, mass general laws in terms of, um, you know, we can't say, you know, we'd be willing to offer, you know, these pension benefits versus, you know, something different in Hamilton. It's we'd need to work with over time, um, pension reform with, you know, local state reps and senators and things like that. Um, Deval Patrick did, uh, the last sort of material pension reform, you know, probably, you know, eight, ten years ago now, uh, where they changed a lot of the parameters, um, around, um, you know, what people's contribution rates are, uh, and also, uh, sort of how your pension is calculated. So someone like me, who's only been working in this space for, you know, 6 or 7 years, my pension calculation will be much different than someone who's been doing this for 20 years. I will have a much, much less lucrative pension than if I started, you know, 10 or 15 years earlier. Um, based on the pension reform rules. 00:52:33,530 S4: Do you have? Do you think it would be desirable at some point to talk a little bit about the work that's being done with the comparables in terms of ranking? And also, you know. 00:52:44,670 S2: I haven't got I haven't got that completely squared up. And so I was thinking it might be something that I finished up and ran by you one last time and sent out to the group, just because we've had a couple other things crop up this last week or so. Um, so yeah, I didn't want to have another night where I'm putting something up that I didn't have completely ready to go. But if you have something that you felt like you were ready to talk about, I know you've sent some of the library stuff and things like that. If you want, I can pull something up and if you want to walk through it. But I had sort of been thinking of, you know, pushing that off a little bit. 00:53:16,769 S4: Well, I had a couple of thoughts that maybe are worth verbal commentary without graphs. I mean, Basically, the thing that Jeff and I have been looking at is how are we compared to our comparables? When you do a scatter diagram of expenses by department total. ET cetera. Uh, against the median household income in the community. And, uh, you know, that data generally suggests that, uh, the more affluent the community, the more they spend per capita on whatever. And the thing that particularly interested me is there's a fairly strong correlation at R-squared of 67% for education. Uh, it's the highest one. And, you know, the things I've looked at. So, you know, I think that might be something, you know, that we should be thinking about as we consider, you know, what changes might be appropriate because it's not consistent across the different departments. Uh, you know, the thing that's as I say, stands out is, is education, culture. And on the other hand, the DPW Ten looks right now like it's, you know, less driven by, uh, uh, median household income. So I just wanted to, you know, share that to the extent it might be useful to us going forward. 00:54:33,670 S2: Yeah. I think yeah. Like I said, like I'd hate to. I mean, I feel like the last time one of our last meetings, I put up some stuff that I didn't have completely ready, and I wasn't. 00:54:40,800 S4: I'm not asking you to put it up. I was just, you know, maybe just just particularly because I mentioned the education because that thing is coming up, you know, that one. You know, people might want to know that, uh, we spend more on education because the median household income is much higher than a lot of our comparables. 00:55:01,929 S1: Did did any of you. 00:55:03,429 S4: Guys libraries do? 00:55:06,170 S1: Uh, this is a little bit of a tangent, but it's it's it goes with what you just said. Uh, Bob, there was a, an email that I got from Eric Tracy. I think everybody did it. It had these reports called the DC reports that compares, um, Our Town and all the other towns to, uh, to each other in terms of kind of, uh, education outcomes, cost of education and accountability. Um, I, I looked at that and there was, um, a couple of things I pulled away from that, which was that, um, and I wish I had the number. I don't think I stole the numbers on my screen, but basically it it suggested that, um, the Hamilton Wenham spend per capita, I think I do still have it up here. Um, per capita for, uh, for Wenham was basically, uh, more expensive than the Massachusetts average. Right. And I think I put this up on the screen. 00:56:12,199 S8: Here. Where is it? 00:56:15,599 S8: Here. 00:56:16,369 S2: Yeah, I'm going to switch it over to you or. 00:56:18,030 S1: Yeah, let me just push. I'm going to click these buttons, I think. 00:56:23,670 S1: All right. And this is um, this I thought was a little bit, um, the graph. Whoever designed this graph. Has got some sort of programming error because it looks like we went from getting, you know, 0% or 4% of education, um, from federal funds to zero, but it's actually $100 more. Um, so the total the, the investment per capita per student went from, um, $20,000 to $21,000 or 22. So call that about $1,500 increase from 22 to 23. But there was basically a $1,500 increase, um, for the average student as well here. So you go from 22 to 23. But our our cost, right. Our total cost of call it $22,000 per student is, um, just a little bit higher than the Massachusetts average, which I thought was different than what I was. I was assuming. Right. Um, and the other thing that I, I picked up was, I don't know if you guys I, I went to or I attended virtually the Hamilton Wenham um, meeting uh or sorry, the, the Hamilton uh, select board meeting um, last week and John McGrath from the Hamilton Finn com chair basically stood up and and said that he had he is trying to do a bunch of math that suggests the incremental cost for one more student in our school district is somewhere around $13,000. Right. That this isn't this is not a number that increases $22,000 for every, you know, for one more student, but something lower than that. But those those are the numbers that I pulled out of this just on the finances. And you can go down into the into a power BI report, right. And really try to figure out which ones are your comparable towns. Right. And you can just look at it across a ton of different ton of different things. But my my big Stan, my my big takeaway was pretty comparable with these supposed Massachusetts averages. 00:58:39,400 S6: Can you go back to that power BI for a second and look at Hamilton Wenham. Total. I thought it's a 23,000. 00:58:45,369 S1: Yeah I think this has to do with the total expenditures. Has something to do with like um other expenses that are not not included. Right. So I think that total number of 21,000 doesn't include every single one of these rows. I think it it excludes something here. Right. So here's here's Hamilton Wenham 23 seven. Right. And you can see that say concord with is 26. Manchester is 25. Marblehead. Newburyport a little bit lower. Topsfield a lot lower. Well. Those these students. I was trying to take a look at these and look at the size of the of the districts. Right. So Hamilton with 1600 almost 1700 students is not doesn't fit perfectly with any of these. But you might say it's you know, it's more like these middle four than, you know, 2600 and Marblehead or, you know, Beverly is, I think, for 4400 students. Um, so those numbers are, you know, maybe not comparable. 00:59:56,599 S6: What about what can you scroll to the far right. What are Beverly's cost? 01:00:02,469 S1: 18 five. 01:00:06,369 S6: Interesting. 01:00:09,570 S4: The other interesting thing about the comparables is that of our comparable group, I think it's only 3 or 4 actually provide schooling within the town for pre-kindergarten to 12, that there's a real spread of what people do. Some people offer pre-kindergarten to five, six or eighth grade. Then there are the people like we're classified as a non operator because we're in a regional school district. So there's a real, you know, a real mismatch. When you look at our comparables as to what's going into their cost of education, they're either whether they're paying it directly in town or they're part of a consortium, etc.. 01:00:52,030 S8: Right. 01:00:52,369 S2: Yeah. And actually, to that point, Bob Topsfield on the bottom of the screen there, that Topsfield number, they're part of the Moscow school district. But that Topsfield number is basically they're K or pre-K through five because they educate locally for elementary. And then they kids move up to the the regionalised Moscow for six through 12. Um, so yeah, that Topsfield number doesn't reflect their full education cost. They're also, you know, in the Moscow district as well. It's Moscow. I think there's one in there you go. Mascot on it. 01:01:26,230 S1: Oh, I didn't know what that was. That sounds like a town I've never heard of. Only 1500. 01:01:34,300 S4: I think. 01:01:34,699 S2: Yeah, but realize that's only K through. That's only six through eight through 12. 01:01:38,800 S8: Okay. 01:01:39,800 S2: So, like. 01:01:43,670 S6: If you go to the right fin. 01:01:45,070 S1: Sorry. 01:01:45,829 S6: Can you go to the right on that 25. Interesting. 01:01:50,670 S2: Yeah. They're on the more expensive side. 01:01:56,269 S1: You know I wonder you know, these numbers here must do they include the, uh, you know, the debt service on buildings, or is this just operating? I think it's. 01:02:09,099 S2: I believe it's operating. 01:02:12,400 S1: So basically, if you have some of these towns that are going through a pinch point like Hamilton, Wenham is on investment. It's not or the timing of, you know, having done this ten years ago and not need to do it for another 30 is um is out of is not reflected here. This is really just the operating expenses to run the the school. 01:02:32,030 S2: But actually that's an interesting point because I'm looking at Manchester Essex at 25,000 and they've got we you know we've got a $50 million build we just did in Manchester. Um, which I'm wondering if that is part of what would be driving that up. I thought it was just operating costs, but. 01:02:49,269 S1: I'm just looking to see if there's anything besides operations and maintenance. 01:02:53,769 S2: And I think that's much more like just regular day to day. Yeah, I can look at that though, because that's that's an interesting question. I mean, that will obviously skew. If that's the case our number would go up, you know, quite dramatically if the Cutler project were to move forward. And I don't think it will because it would make it hard to evaluate from school to school, because someone who's in the middle of a debt service versus someone who's not, you know, could look much. You know, it looked like their numbers were much better, but it was really just a question of timing in terms of, you know, capital improvements. 01:03:28,469 S6: Yeah, I know we're jumping around a bit, I don't know. I had another set of questions just on the tax rate tab that you put together. Yeah. 01:03:35,630 S1: So the only other thing that so I just thought that that that was particularly interesting and I was planning, I put together an email that I haven't set to Eric just trying to figure out why, um, this accountability thing, which basically seems to have to do with, you know, how well kids graduate and, and, uh, you know, if they're attending classes and stuff like that, they're there are a few zeros in here that don't make sense to me, um, where we're getting dinged because this is saying that, you know, um, basically we're getting zero out of four for graduation rate. Um, which didn't make sense to me. So those those were things that maybe I'll see you on at Jeff. And if anything comes to it, we'll come back to the to the group. 01:04:17,400 S8: Okay. 01:04:19,869 S8: Well. 01:04:27,500 S6: Jeff, I was just looking at your tax rate tab and the trend over time. And then as we're talking about the capital budget to. Oh, sorry. On the far right, you had a our ten year. Your ten year tab. 01:04:42,400 S6: Shows levy increasing over time and estimates for new growth etc.. And you come up with whatever the tax rate tax rate is going to be or median family tax implications. How do we think about the capital expenditure in here. 01:04:59,500 S2: Um so there's. 01:05:00,869 S6: Implicitly included. 01:05:02,429 S2: Because I mean, its. 01:05:03,599 S6: Service implied or. 01:05:05,429 S2: Yeah, I mean, what we've really done is we, you know, the big ticket item, the Cutler debt has been built in here, um, underneath town operating budget up here in the top. Uh, and even on the school side, there's debt that's rolling off both the town and the Hamilton Wenham school district and a small amount off the Essex North Shore. I didn't get too granular with moving that on and off. I've just sort of assumed that, you know, this is the big ticket item. Yes, there could be some capital, um, you know, that's in there. I mean, the big things that are on the horizon thinking you. 01:05:36,199 S6: Got 14 million in the total CapEx in the next five years on your on the PowerPoint you sent over. 01:05:41,969 S2: Yeah. But, you know, one of those is $10 million for a DPW building that's really sort of it's on the last year of the five year number, just to sort of have it there as a placeholder of, you know, it's not necessarily that we need a DPW building in five years. It's just to have it. As you know, that leaves it in the in the capital projection as something we're going to need at some point. 01:06:01,530 S6: And then where. Okay. So that explains that that helps. And then where would the schools other CapEx like whatever, millions of dollars for roof and stuff like that fit into the school budget? I guess. So that's implied also. 01:06:15,599 S2: I mean, yeah, I think yeah, I mean, we certainly could. I mean, as we got more, um, good data on that, I mean, I know they've they've applied to the MSBA for reimbursement on, on the, the high school roof, uh, is what I think you're talking about there. And, um, so we don't completely know what that amount would be. But if, you know, if we if, you know, as as time progresses and we get a more definitive, you know, if that's going to cost us, you know, let's just call it 3 million out of pocket. And, and that means it's going to cost one of them a million bucks. Um, you know, we could build that in I mean, if we fund if we did that over a ten year, you know, debt instrument, we could back into, you know what? That. 01:06:52,199 S6: I guess I'm just philosophically more just high level. I'm asking if we should assume there's a base level of debt service built in here already, like you said. Certain stuff rolls on, certain stuff rolls off. So this is a decent estimate assuming ongoing effects and whatever else. 01:07:10,099 S2: Yeah, I would say I feel like I mean, you know, like this 100. If I go back to the debt page here, you know, this 180 is rolling off soon. Um, that that's a big payment. Uh, the fire truck, uh, you know, that's 50 000, you know, eight. This is, um, so, yeah, you know, you've got 350 grand of debt, which really this ten year is just sort of saying that's going to keep rolling. So I think, you know, I don't think there's a material amount missing in there. 01:07:38,170 S6: Um, 350,000 of debt a year covers how much was in that CapEx that that's going toward? 01:07:45,530 S2: Well, most of the CapEx is covered with free cash. So, you know, it's I mean, the other part. 01:07:51,000 S6: Okay. 01:07:51,469 S2: Yeah. Um, I'm trying to think of what was I mean, town hall was a big project, you know, 20, you know, or 18, 19 years ago now, um, trying to think of what other ones are big. 01:08:03,269 S6: I'm just trying to guess if you're understating or overstating. 01:08:05,969 S2: Yeah. I mean, we could certainly I mean, we could um. 01:08:09,400 S6: But it sounds like pretty. It's pretty. 01:08:11,070 S2: Yeah. We could I mean, I guess you I mean, maybe we could stress test it a little bit, too and say like, well, what does it look like if we assume there's going to be an extra 100,000 a year in CapEx or something like that to see how much it changes it? But I think generally speaking, at a high level, it lays out to you where this trend is headed, uh, and what your, you know, your tax bill, um, you know, could it be that that average, you know, home at the end instead of being 23, 147, maybe it's 23, 358 or something? Uh, you know, maybe it will be, but it's I think just as a general trend, it gives people the direction, which is, you know, I think part of what we want to show is, you know, we want you to we don't want you to just focus on what you're paying in year one. We want you to understand, you know, where you're going to be in ten years or something like that. 01:08:56,869 S6: To me, this is like, this is the message that we got to get across. I mean, to Jared's point about the slide on the school, this is the this is the one line on the overall, you know, the one line on the school is if your house is worth this, then you're going to be paying this much in taxes incrementally in year one. Our one line is this if yeah, your house is worth this with all everything included, you're going to be paying whatever and five years from now. 01:09:26,529 S7: Yeah. 01:09:27,729 S2: So yeah. So in that case, you know, right now, you know, and this here is this is sort of your bill as the FY 26 budget is projected right this second and this, then this is adding the, you know, the debt payment over the top. You know, onto that what that would look like. Um, so this is you know, year one you're looking instead of having a 16 four. You're looking at 18 six essentially. And then, you know, to your point, it carries over. You know, that all grows, that all compounds or the I shouldn't say that the the debt, the Cutler debt actually is descending, but your other payments are, you know, increasing it, whatever that might be two and a half to 4% a year or something like that. 01:10:11,569 S6: Cool. Thank you. 01:10:12,970 S7: Yeah. 01:10:17,500 S7: Um. 01:10:18,899 S2: So getting back to your sort of, you know, can I give you a high level this. So now we've sort of looked at as I was building it out with Dana on the side there. Um, if we look at what we're projecting our budget to be for FY 26 versus what we actually spent in FY 24. Here's here's where we're at in terms of a dollar difference. Um, and so you can see where the big, you know, the big ticket items are and they're kind of where you thought they would be. They're in employee benefits. They're in, in, you know, um, education that FY 26 salary contract reserve is a big ticket item, obviously. Um, the last line item for water. Um, you know, that's that doesn't impact tax rate. Uh, that's a water, uh, a water utility bill, uh, issue there. Um, but it does we do include water in our our operating budget article here. And it's basically offset by, um, if I say that, um, you know, the water budget is going to be 598,000 in FY 26. I'm assuming that $598,000 of revenue is coming into to the tax picture to offset that. So it's, you know, the net effect is neutral. Um, you know, and then there's a page here that also and, you know, then breaks out, you know, that was the the function, the general government, the, you know, all those. And then here we get into what is the what are we looking at for the changes for each individual, um, department. Um, and maybe I can add resubmit this and recirculate this, but add, you know, some of this data we were just working on. What are the dollar and In percentage increases. Um, for, uh, you know, over FY 24, over FY 25, just to give people a little more data. There I, you know, I tend to struggle with trying to make it so it can be, you know, kind of looked at in one page, but, you know, there is just a, you know, an awful lot of data to look at. Um, you can look at it multiple ways. Um, and, you know, certainly super helpful. 01:12:12,600 S6: This is outstanding breakout, I think, and lots of flexibility to look at it a million ways. So I think it's great. 01:12:18,970 S2: Um, but yeah, so I don't I mean, like that's kind of my high level. I mean, I can, you know, if, if, if you think it's helpful, I could type up a quick email that gives you a I think I already kind of had one going that gives you my a little bit more departmental level. Um, you know, I think there's certainly room you could, you could squeeze here and there. But I think generally your departments are trying to, uh, you know, adhere to your original, you know, sort of, you know, mantra of staying in the, you know, the 1.5 Five range or whatever it was. Um, you know, and it's just mainly we're handcuffed by, you know, the bigger items that are the, the big drivers, just just like they are in every single town. Uh, with the, with the employee benefits and, and the education and those type of things. Um, you know, we do have a discussion. We can have, uh, you know, as a fin com is, you know, there is, um, about $2 million, a little over 2 million to 2 million, 71,000 of free cash. Uh, the the proposed, uh, capital, which we'll be talking about shortly. Uh, you know, it's about 1.3 million. I think so, certainly there's, you know, 6 or $700,000 of funds that, um, much like last year, we can look at putting into stabilization or OPEC, we could entertain using some money to reduce the tax rate. Um, you know. 01:13:40,000 S1: Tell me, Jeff, did we, uh, did the town adopt the Recommended sort of guidance ranges in those. 01:13:48,270 S2: Those aren't fully adopted. I know on our end, um, you know, we you know, we had some more dialogue to have on that. And I know we had some discussions on, uh, you know, whether we should have ranges or specific targets, uh, you know, 5% instead of 4 to 6%, that type of thing. Um, but I think generally speaking, you know, they, they they're not fully approved yet. But I think generally speaking, you know, we all sort of agree and that they're generally close so that yeah, we would still be trying to, you know, that idea of having, you know, at least 1% of free cash left after, you know, the 1 or 2% of free cash left after what we use at town meeting and those type of things and the same, you know, the targets for, you know, we'd like stabilization to be, you know, 5 to 7% of, um, operating budget, those type of things. Um, so I think. 01:14:39,500 S1: That would be a good idea for you to, um, kind of show us what our like. What would it look like if we tried to get this budget in compliance with those, those guidances? Right. So you have that $2.2 million, of which 1.3 we're going to talk about in a bit on some capital projects. Right. Like what does the what would that propose policy kind of like. Would it reserve some of those, those funds and say, hey, you know, you got to send 400 of this over to one bucket or another? 01:15:10,899 S2: Yeah. And I think that was kind of my next thing for sort of next week is to, you know, as we tighten up the budget and then you then have a handle on what you think your operating budget is, then you say, okay, well, we said we wanted 5 to 7% of that number to be in stabilization. And we're currently at, you know, 5.2%. So I think we're good or geez, we're now at 4.6%. Do we want to make an additional contribution? I know last year we had a lot of talk around. Uh, generally speaking, as a group, I think we liked, you know. Locking up the funds. You know, we would rather have $200,000 in stabilization. That is a little bit more rigid in terms of how you can spend it versus free cash. That's a little bit more easily accessible. Um, but yeah, I can have those ready for sort of next time. Um, to, to talk about talk about those. We certainly have less money than last year to, to play with. And we have, I think, a little bit more capital than we had last year. So, um, can you also. 01:16:08,199 S6: Send around, do you also send around the 5% reduction study? 01:16:12,800 S2: We did. And I, um, let me see if I've got I mean, I think I briefly touched on this uh, a week or two ago. 01:16:18,569 S6: But yeah, I don't know if you I couldn't find it in any of the emails if you'd send it. 01:16:21,800 S2: Yeah, it's actually I just built it into this model. Okay. Um, so it'll be in here now. I mean, these are the ones we have so far. Uh, you know, folks that could, you know, they thought they could find another 162,000 or so. Uh, I'm still trying to chase down some people to find some other numbers. Um, but, you know, this is the. and this is what I presented to you a couple of weeks ago. So this is the starting level. Um, and yeah. And we can certainly push back on folks. Um, and certainly if we have our own ideas to, of, of where we think that there's some overage, uh, clearly there's overage in the budget because we're returning. You know, departments are returning money, which is what's helping us derive free cash. 01:17:01,899 S6: I don't think that's available in the one you sent us, maybe. 01:17:04,800 S2: No, I just added this today. It was in a different spreadsheet. So I was like, I want to have it in the model that goes out to you folks this time around. 01:17:11,970 S6: Okay, cool. Um, I got a hard stop at 830, personally, and I know we're short on people on the group here tonight, so I don't know if that matters Fen or not, but I gotta jump at 830. 01:17:23,800 S8: All right. 01:17:24,300 S1: I don't think it'll take us out of a quorum, but I think, um, we can we can try to address. 01:17:29,770 S2: Can we. 01:17:30,170 S1: Um, item in the budget on the. 01:17:31,329 S2: Agenda? Yeah, just try to run through it a high level. These, um, cap. 01:17:35,100 S8: We just see if there's. 01:17:35,800 S6: Any questions with people. Have looked at it already, Or if they haven't, I had one question. I looked at it, but I tend to pick on the police for whatever reason. I'm a fan of law enforcement and have colleagues for law enforcement, but I don't know why. So anyway, but if we just blew up the whole concept of the Durango, you know, it's $75,000 a pop and said, hey guys, what's the cheapest, you know, front wheel drive or all wheel drive, police capable vehicle out there, some Nissan sedan at $25,000 and scoop it up to be police and it's $50,000. Like, what if we just rebooted our our fleet to a totally cheaper version? 01:18:16,930 S2: Yeah. And David actually asked a very similar question. You know why? How come we don't see a lot of Hondas or, you know, that kind of thing? Generally speaking, it was the big three auto guys that were that made, you know, the, the, the police packages. Um, and actually, you know, we had been on the Durango and now this year, what they're proposing is actually this forward interceptor, which is an SUV. That's I guess it's sort of a Ford Explorer type body type, I would say. Um, but that's about the only all wheel drive mini or mid-size SUV, uh, that they. 01:18:50,630 S8: Make an SUV. 01:18:51,470 S6: We can be a sedan. 01:18:53,100 S2: Yeah. I mean, I think that's I mean, I think maybe that is a question for I mean, you know, I look, you know, I've seen a couple of times where we have the two Tahoe that drive past my window at the same time. And I think, can we really possibly need two Tahoe. Um, you know, that's a big, huge, you know, not rather nimble vehicles. So I can, you know, push the chief on, uh, because. Yeah, even the chief and the deputy both. I mean, the chief drives the Chevy Traverse. The the deputy drives a GMC terrain, I think, um, and those are unmarked vehicles. But then, yeah, we have a couple of the Durango. We have one of the Ford, uh, interceptors. I guess they're called, but, yeah, I don't know why we don't have any. 01:19:31,500 S8: Um, I mean, there are police. 01:19:33,100 S6: All the police all over the world driving small sedans. 01:19:36,770 S2: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it's less prevalent here, certainly in this area. But yeah, other other people are certainly driving, um, you know, certainly like in Europe and stuff. They're driving much different cars. Um, I yeah, personally, I feel like that's a definitely a bigger conversation to have. How many cars we actually need and what they are. Um. 01:19:54,670 S8: Well, we. 01:19:55,199 S6: Had the I mean, we had the replacement every ten, seven years conversation with the chief earlier, a couple of years ago, whatever. That all makes sense. And there's, you know, useful life, etcetera. So I didn't want to revisit all that. I just wanted to revisit the baseline of the foundation of the type of vehicles we're using. 01:20:11,930 S2: Yeah. I mean, I think at the very least, you could probably make a case for a couple of, you know, at least 1 or 2 sedans. Um, you know, because a lot of the police work is, you know, maybe they're at a detail or, you know, they're not you know, it's not always an emergency, you know, reaction in the snow, sort of a situation. And so, um, you know, I think it's worth having that conversation. I know it's probably going the wrong direction, but a few forces now are like, they're moving to like Teslas because there's a push towards electrified vehicles. But, um, most have been hesitant to that, um, just because there's a charging element and things like that. Um, but yeah, I can raise that question to the chief. 01:20:51,399 S1: Let's, let's ask him that. And then, Daniel, can you remind me, did were you part of the, uh, the master plan work? There was somebody I thought that was when I was. 01:21:00,699 S8: Yeah, I. 01:21:00,970 S6: Was seconded to the plan. It was a master plan advisory committee. 01:21:05,869 S1: Okay, so, like, there's $150,000 for a couple of of plans in here. Studies and plans. Right in the middle of the the report. Um, I assume those are those are ones that are kind of key to being able to move that project forward. 01:21:24,500 S2: That's the idea. I, you know, if we could certainly have Kate weigh in on this, but the idea is that if two of the driving principles are economic development and also improving housing. You know, you'd be reaching out to have a group do a study on those. On those two things to, you know, to work towards meeting those, um. 01:21:43,470 S8: Those guidelines. 01:21:44,630 S6: Having sat on that team, I'd want to understand what the next steps are for implementation of the master plan, you know, and how these particular studies fit into that implementation plan. Or, you know, are there 50 studies that need done? Are these the highest priority, most urgent studies to implement the plan, like what are the next steps on implementing the plan and what needs done first, what the highest ROI? 01:22:14,430 S2: Yeah, I think that that's a good question. Um, and and yeah. And I mean, I think like at a high level, if I looked at it, you know, because if you read the documentation that comes with these two studies, um, you know, they would like to sort of move forward with the downtown vibrancy study. You know, as soon as the economic development study ends. And I'm sure that, you know, the thought behind that is, you know, to kind of keep moving the ball downfield with the master plan overall. Um, but I could certainly see a case where, you know, you say, well, let's, let's do the first one and see where we're at and what comes out of that. And then, you know, make this a little more iterative or something and not, you know, do a hundred upfront and not 50. But but yeah, I think, you know, it would be interesting to hear, Dan, um, how many studies I mean, how many $100,000 studies are we looking at here, like in theory or, you know, these are the two, two big ones out of the gate or are there, you know, 6 or 7 more of these, you know, over the next ten years? 01:23:09,770 S8: Yeah. 01:23:09,970 S6: There was just a lot of discussion around who's responsible for implementing the plan. And ultimately it's a select board, but it's also the, I guess, the planning committee that owns the plan. 01:23:20,630 S8: And yeah. 01:23:21,329 S6: Who. 01:23:21,569 S8: Does the implementation. 01:23:22,970 S6: Plan within the bigger plan. And that wasn't that's not Super clear. So I think before we start spending money on additional studies, we should understand what the overall implementation plan is. 01:23:39,529 S1: It's it's an interesting point because if there's going to be plan after plan, it might be something we'd want to put in that scope of of letting you know the fourth bucket of things we talked to the citizens about in April, which is kind of like future material costs coming their way, right? That they've we've got this, um, master plan that assumes, you know, $100,000 plans, you know, each year for the next 3 or 4 years or something. 01:24:07,369 S2: Gotcha. 01:24:11,199 S2: Yeah. I can reach out to Kate more. And it could be that, you know, I'm sure she's always, you know, willing to talk so we could, you know, bring her in, or we could, you know, I think maybe even a, you know, a summary email or something to us could be helpful. But, um, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, in that last paragraph of the report where we're mentioning big ticket items. It's certainly relevant to say that there's, you know, $600,000 that the study is hanging out there to. 01:24:36,500 S6: Or staff that need hired or different things that need done to implement the plan. 01:24:41,369 S2: Yeah, I believe we've sort of the land use department has been built out, um, in part to ensure we can implement the, the master plan. Uh, and certainly Kate and Margaret are well equipped to do that. I don't know if there's more, uh, an idea for more staffing. I think it's, you know, it's not more staffing. It's these studies. Uh, that would be, you know, the additional costs. Um, but, yeah, let me let me talk to Kate and find out a little bit more about that. 01:25:14,630 S2: I'm trying to think of. 01:25:17,300 S1: All right, so, Dan, before you drop off, I'm just looking at the agenda. We've talked about the Cutler school, the operating budget. We've got the capital budget on here. The item after that is kind of talking about all these impacts on the on future tax bills, which we also covered. So I think we've we've covered all the things that are scheduled there before you drop out. I just I wanted to let everybody know, you know, I've been talking to Jeff and and emails coming from Steve, it looks like, uh, the town manager and is going to be looking together, put some sort of document, um, hopefully a little simple, uh, document that kind of helps, uh, everybody in, in all these committees and, um, uh, projects that to kind of understand a little bit more about how, um, you know, it gets kind of confusing for, uh, residents, uh, when we stand up to say something in a public forum, whether we are, uh, representing the opinion of the committee that we're on or our own kind of personal opinion and a few other sort of items like that, that, uh, you know, I guess the the Select board has been noting has been kind of happening a lot, because a lot of the the these committee positions have been open and there are a lot of new folks on board. So I think we're trying to go through, you know, an education path to help folks with that. Um, no idea when the timing is on that, but that's an email that I saw come through and just want to let you guys, um, hear it from me first. 01:26:49,130 S9: All right. 01:26:51,670 S4: In our, uh, people going to be attending the land acquisition disposition training thing that was advertised this past week because the question was raised about whether we might have a quorum there. 01:27:08,199 S2: Oh, and I didn't realize that was I. We had seen it internally. I didn't realize it went out to everyone. So, yeah, if we think if we think it's possible, I could always post a meeting. 01:27:18,600 S1: And I'm looking at the, uh, the Wenham um calendar on the website. I'm not seeing that one listed there yet. 01:27:29,970 S1: But, um, I'm not I'm going to be out of pocket, um, all of next week. So if it's next week, it's, uh. 01:27:36,569 S2: It's March 5th, actually. Right. Is that the one you're talking about, Bob? 01:27:40,170 S4: I think so. 01:27:41,600 S2: Yeah. And so I didn't realize it when I was down. Yeah. I mean, we'll be, um, at least, you know, a few of us in my office will be at it. But, yeah, if you think, uh, a few of the fin com members will be attending, we can certainly post a post a meeting, just, you know, saying that we may have three members there. 01:27:59,300 S8: Okay. 01:28:01,600 S1: It seems possible as we get closer. So we'll keep that on our radar. 01:28:08,069 S1: All right, um, let's see, are there folks on the call beside that, uh, have, uh, things they want to talk about? Uh, past Daniel No dropping it in a minute or two. Um, or do we feel like, um, we have had this meeting run its course? 01:28:25,829 S4: When's our next meeting? 01:28:29,029 S2: Um, so it was on that schedule, but I don't think I did a great job of making it known, but, um, I know the select board would like, um, to have the fin com at their next meeting on Tuesday. Um, to sort of give a progress update of where we are with the budget. Uh, I know Fin's going to be out. Um, you know, I can certainly go and provide input on your behalf. Uh, but I think, you know, they want to make sure that, um, you know, it's clear, you know, the fin com has been invited and, uh, you know, to participate jointly, uh, in that meeting. Um, and so, you know, with fin out, we could certainly still have a quorum, but I'm not sure, um, if folks are available for that. Uh, and then certainly we probably need another just regular operational meeting for us to maybe dig deeper into the budget and things, because we're getting close to the end on that. Um, so, you know, probably another meeting on Wednesday if we can make it work. I know Finn will be here. Um, and then, you know, I'd post us for Tuesday as a joint meeting with the select board. And, um, you know, if we have a quorum, we have a quorum. If we if we don't, we can, uh, you know, have a, like, a say. I'm happy to put, put forth everybody's thoughts to the to the select board. 01:29:43,829 S1: That would make sense to me. Um, and then we'd I'd be, you know, making sure I've got plenty of time to do any sort of final voting on, on what you guys discuss next Wednesday. You know, the following week when I am around. 01:29:59,170 S2: And if we are going to wrap up the meeting for tonight, is there any you know. So we wanted more information on the studies and, and you know, we'd like to talk a little bit more about potential, um, types of vehicles. Um, were there any other, uh, capital items that sort of stood out to folks as something they might be opposed to at a, at a, you know, general level. 01:30:25,170 S5: Um, I had a sorry, Finn. You said when you said next Wednesday, did you mean the 19th or did you mean the 26th? 01:30:32,800 S1: I think we'll need to do both. Um, but I won't be able to do the 19th. 01:30:38,000 S5: At what time are we going to meet? On the 19th? 01:30:46,000 S8: Typically we do. 01:30:47,000 S1: Seven people that are actually going to attend. Maybe you guys let me know when you can make it. 01:30:54,630 S5: No, I mean, I can do it. I just didn't I wasn't I wasn't sure. 01:30:58,869 S6: Seven's good for me on the 19th. And I'll plan to attend the select board meeting on the 18th, but happy to not speak a whole lot and let Jeff carry the day. 01:31:08,270 S2: So that's always dangerous. 01:31:12,930 S6: I'm going to jump, you guys. Thanks. 01:31:14,529 S8: All right. Thanks. Okay, bye. 01:31:19,970 S2: Uh, how was seven seven for everybody else on Wednesday? 01:31:24,130 S5: That works for me. 01:31:26,300 S8: Great. 01:31:27,000 S2: Okay, so we'll do 7 p.m. at 7 p.m.. Typically works for David as well. So. Okay. So I'll, I'll move forward with that. Um, those postings and actually I think I have to get those posted earlier because Monday is a holiday. Um, yeah. And then just back on the Capitol, did anybody have anything that was really sticking out to them besides the studies in the, in the, in the, um, the cruiser. 01:31:54,130 S1: As soon to remember, the electric motor mower was on the list last year. 01:31:59,069 S2: Yeah. So last year it got deferred. Um, and in part, um, you know, what Richard said was, you know, he he could get an extra year out of the mower that they had, um, last year, it's it's, you know, definitely much closer to useful life now. And I think one of the, the hang ups on that last year was it was the electric mower versus the, um, more traditional gas powered, um, and we had sort of less feedback on how those were working out for DPW, you know, across the state and talking to Rich. Um, you know, he's gotten some pretty good feedback from various other DPW that have, you know, have put put some of these bigger electric mowers into the rotation. And they, you know, they seem to be working out fine. Um, but I believe, uh, you know, the, the, um, the name of the committee is escaping me right now, but there is sort of a committee that's focused on green initiatives for the town. Uh, and that is one of the, you know, directives is trying to move to, you know, more electrified, you know, vehicles, equipment, things like that. And I think this was sort of the first, uh, you know, stab at that. And so in talking to Rich, um, you know, if he had to, he could wait another year in a in a pinch. But ideally, he's. I'd say he's ready. He's ready to, you know, get a get a replacement mower into the into the mix here. 01:33:21,630 S1: Okay. And and what's the timing to to figure out when you, you're going to need to use or can release the the big $500,000 HVAC placeholder. 01:33:33,170 S2: So I believe what we're hearing is maybe 2 or 3 weeks, uh, on on that grant. Um, so the hope is it's in there as a placeholder and that that grant is going to come through for us. Um, but, you know, the timing isn't working out great because I think we will be right against it. We could be potentially pulling that out of the mix, you know, at the last minute before the booklet goes out. Would would be the best case scenario. The worst case scenario is it's you know, we don't get final word on the grant until, you know, a week after the book goes out. 01:34:04,829 S8: Okay. 01:34:05,770 S2: But but yeah, I'll stay. You know, Steve will keep me posted on that. And obviously, you know, all of us here in the building would love to love to take that big red item off there. And it makes a huge difference on the bottom line number, to be sure. 01:34:18,300 S1: Frees up $500,000 that we could be, you know, messing around with either the tax rate immediately or, um, putting into some of these reserves. 01:34:28,699 S2: Yeah, I mean, it's nearly 40% of the capital requests for the year when you think about it. 01:34:33,899 S8: Okay. 01:34:34,329 S2: Um, but we'll keep you posted on that. Okay. Well, what I, what I'll do is I'm going to, um, you know, some of my notes are to, um, you know, I'll, I'll keep in mind that I have to potentially post a meeting for the 5th of March. I'll get meetings posted for the 18th and the 19th. Um, I'm going to get some more information from Kate on sort of just the general implementation strategies for the master plan and general thoughts about, you know, are these the two main. You know, is it just $150,000 for these studies up front? And then it's pretty small, you know. From here on out or, you know, are there, you know, multiple expensive studies to come. Um, I'm going to send around an updated version of this, the spreadsheet I sent for the budget, which will have the potential cuts listed in, and it will also have, um, some I'm going to work in some additional formulas and dollar changes, like I was walking through with Danno there to hopefully provide folks a little bit more information. Um, but yeah, then I just asked that, you know, folks, you know, take a look at things. I did add tabs for each department. Now just so you instead of updating the the dropdown, you can just go to a various department and look at it directly and see their data. Um, but you know, take a look and see where you might have some questions. Um, and then I will work on making sure we've got Bob's comparables, you know, up and running and ready to be, you know, probably distributed ahead of our next meeting so that folks can get a chance to look at them and then, uh, you know, discuss them in a bit more detail next time around. 01:36:05,069 S1: All right. Makes sense. 01:36:08,869 S1: All right, so I'm going to, uh, see if I unless there's any public comment. I'm gonna see if we can move to close the, uh, the meeting. So not hearing any, uh, members of the public raise our hand will, uh, entertain a motion to close the meeting. 01:36:30,229 S5: So moved. 01:36:31,800 S1: So that's from Jared. Looking for a second? I saw Bob's hand up, and so that's, uh. All right, no more discussion. All right. Not hearing any. So we'll move to a vote. Fin, I. 01:36:43,199 S8: Uh, by. 01:36:44,800 S1: All right, we got three members saying. I, uh, don't think there's anybody else here that's a member, uh, to vote against or abstain. So 3 to 0. So we'll close the, uh, the meeting. 01:36:55,800 S2: All right. Thanks, gentlemen. 01:36:56,630 S8: Thank you guys. Thanks so much I appreciate it. Thank you Jeff. Take care. Bye, guys.