We'll call the meeting to order 703, um, March 12th. This is the Wenham Finance and Advisory Committee. Uh, present is Finn Sprague, see Jared Ward, Robert Papa. And then, uh, who else do we have? We got one member of the public here as well. Dan and Dana, you're here too. OK, sorry. Great. And uh I think we're good to go. So, um, fairly, uh, Uh, small, uh, agenda here. We've got the, uh, public comment, we've got the financial articles. We're gonna talk about the, the warrant book. Uh, we've got a uh meeting minutes from, I think January 29th to approve and then open items. Um, we can start with uh public comment. I see one member of the public here. Uh, Lizzie, do you have a particular, uh, topic, uh, that you see on the agenda that we can cover later or do you have any, uh, Anything for for the group here generally? 00:01:09,129 I think I saw Lizzy go off of mute and then back on again, so I'm not hearing anything, so I think we can um move on to the Um, does, uh, anybody have any objection to taking this out of next topic. 00:01:20,629 order and approving the January twenty-ninth uh meeting minutes first? Uh, and Finn, I believe we have January 8th and 23rd as well. OK. 00:01:34,870 All right. I don't know that I have those prepared up on the screen here. 00:01:42,230 So I've got the 29th. I sent those over on um last night about 7:30. 00:01:51,530 OK, let's grab these then. All right, we got this one. January 8th. 00:02:01,370 So folks, we got these, uh, as Jeff said late last night, so All right. 00:02:05,530 I'm not sure if everybody's had a chance to read over them. Um, but we'll just take a brief moment to look over the January I'm gonna put it up on the screen here for folks that I 8th 1. 00:02:16,569 want to read, you guys can see the screen, right? 00:02:20,629 All right, great. 00:02:38,370 I'll give another minute for folks to read through this to see if they have any objections to uh the January 8th meeting minutes. 00:02:54,830 I'm OK with the minutes. 00:03:02,099 Now we'll take a motion to approve the January 8th meeting minutes as uh sent by Jeff. Yes, last night for a second. Bob's got a second. All right, any discussion. Not hearing anyone move to a vote, so Finn votes I. I. 00:03:24,669 Dano, do you have a vote? Dam, so we got 4 out of the 4 present to approve that. Take a look at the January 23rd meeting. 00:03:38,300 It looks like everybody here, was present. 00:04:01,729 The next page here. 00:04:39,269 I'm ready to move to a vote. Read through. 00:04:49,000 Still moved to approve the minutes. I, Jared, I, or seconded and I. Hi Bob And I, you know. 00:05:03,529 All right, great. And then we'll take a look at the twenty-ninth. 00:05:13,100 So, we had everybody here at present for this one as well. 00:05:38,199 I didn't check it, but on the 8th is the correction that I sent uh Oh yeah, I did make the correction, Bob. OK. 00:06:08,399 I'm, I read through this earlier today. All right. 00:06:17,930 You guys ready to move to a vote? 00:06:21,370 Yes, I, Jared. Someone's gonna make a motion. I move that we vote on the. 00:06:32,029 OK. Bob's got a second, so we move to a vote. Finns I. Jared, I Bye bye. 00:06:40,100 All right, so we've got 4 I votes there, right, so that Then I. 00:06:42,629 covers through the relatively Easy 00:06:48,170 List here. All right, so, uh, the, the next item we have on here is uh taking a look at the annual town meeting warrant, right, so, Um, Uh, just to, to get everybody up, up to speed here. Um, so the warrant book is gonna go out, right? And, uh, it'll go to all the different, uh, folks in the town. They'll get a physical copy and then there will be, um, you know, a review of it during the annual town meeting. Um, there is a second document that, uh, the town moderator and, and the town puts together. That's more of a, more of a script for us to be reading out loud, uh, during the meeting, and part of that is going to be specific language introducing each one of the motions, right? Um, uh, really, especially the financial ones, you know, everybody in the, um, whether it's a select board or the, the, the finance committee kind of has a role to play in and and a speaking role to play in the uh. Um, annual meeting. So, uh, what I asked, uh, Jeff to do was to help us, um, kind of identify, you know, where, uh, that's the speaking roles were so that we could get kind of, uh, we could parse out, you know, which one of these motions we're all gonna kind of have an opportunity to, uh, to present to the, the town. And uh perhaps maybe get a little practice in on uh pronunciation of some of the uh more high syllable words that are in some of these uh um the specific motions. Um, I remember stumbling over one or two words, uh, last year. So, um, I don't know, Jeff, if you got some, some more specific guidance on that? Yeah, so it's interesting. I was just going through last year, uh, as a reference, and, uh, in Wenham, we, we have the finance committee reads quite a few articles that, uh, I think in other towns might be read, um, for instance, the cemetery related articles would usually be read by the cemetery board, um. And that will be on page 39 of the warrant if you're going through that fin uh or no, not 39, it's um it's actually articles uh articles. 10, 9 and 10, um. The, you know, typically it would be the uh the cemetery that would read those, but here in when we seem to have the finance committee read those, uh, and in this case, uh, Articles 89, and 10 are part of what we call a consent agreement uh agenda, which one person reads uh all three articles, uh, and they get voted on as one. And last year, I noticed that was Scott who read, who read the consent agenda. Um, So as I was going through the list, uh, the first one, there's a, there's an item in there for increasing the exemption for veterans. Uh, that might actually be an article that, that you folks read. Uh, I'm gonna have to get some clarification on that from, um, Uh, so be Article 2 right there. No, it is Article 33. There you go. I'll get some clarification from that on Steve, from Steve, but um, certainly Articles 4567. The consent agenda of 8 through 10. Article 11 is collective bargaining. 12 is the adoption of the prudent investor language. Uh, that would all be us, uh, 13. Uh, creating a revolving fund, that would be us, I think. 1415, 16. 17 would be us, and I think that would be the end of the finance committee portion. 00:10:50,799 Is there a uh table of contents in here that would kind of show all these topics in one place? There's, there's not. I'm actually typing one up right now that I might just, it's a quick bullet point I'm typing up that I might just circulate to all of you um to, to walk through it. Uh, I was typing it up just so I could start putting maybe some names next to the articles, um. But those that those would be the ones I don't think any other articles would actually fall under uh the Finance Committee. I think at that point we switch over to more planning board type of articles. 00:11:28,500 So I'm trying to remember the uh The way the public acted at the last. Major vote, which was, um, what was it, the um the um The sport of the um the fields, right? And uh when they put that, when they put that at the beginning of the um agenda. And put the vote at the beginning of the agenda. We lost something like 25 or 50% of the people um in the meeting call um afterwards, and I, I think there's like a quorum requirements, I don't know if it's beginning at the end or the entire time. um It can be called at any time, there needs to be a quorum to start the meeting, uh, but I believe that under, under the, the rules, that there, someone can call a quorum count at any time which could stop the meeting. Uh, at some point, if they were to call that towards the end and there were, were not enough folks present. 00:12:28,000 So I'm wondering where do they, where did we place the uh the cutler um The Cutler is is Article one. It's the first one, in there, um, but there is also a citizen's petition article, uh, which I believe is the final article of the night. Uh, which would probably be in the very towards page like 50 maybe, um. 00:12:54,029 It's on page 46, it's Article 24, um. I don't think it happened much last year, which is my first meeting here. Uh, articles can be requested to move around, so I don't know if folks may request. Uh, moving the, the citizen's petition article up, uh, it sort of goes hand in hand with the Article one for the Cutler school. um. But you know, your, your synopsis is pretty similar in The, the big ticket articles when they're up in the front, most towns. uh, you see a significant drop off uh as soon as that article is done. 00:13:38,230 OK, so, uh, what I'd, I'd like to do, Jeff, is, um, you know, is have that kind of table of contents, those notes that you have there and start kind of allocating those out so that the ones that, uh, either someone has a passion for or um you know, it's just kind of, uh, if we just rotate it. You know, um, automatically have to do that as well, just to, uh, You know, get, get people, you know, get the other members of the, of the committee here to kind of recognize what their, what the role is gonna be at the, the meeting. In question, uh, are we taking corrections to the warrant at this point? Before we allocate. It's my understanding that the warrant has been printed. And I think the deadline was middle of last week to make Uh corrections to the language in the deck or in the, in the warrant book. Is that right, Jeff? Yeah, it has, it did go to the printer, uh, but there is a distinction there. The warrant is not, it's gone out, but it's not actually final because it, the board of Selectmen or select board, excuse me, does not vote. To finalize the warrant until their meeting on the 18th, I believe it is. So it's possible that this could change, um, but in terms of making changes before it goes out, uh, in a mailer that, that has gone. Well, there's an error on Article 6. In the vote from the Fincom at the last meeting. 00:15:16,029 Uh, stabilization fund. Uh, no, I write the wrong number down, it's It's the uh capital budget. So that, that's Article 5, and it actually looks a little strange. Uh, because if you recall, the finance committee when they met as a group, uh, probably the last meeting we had in February, uh, all five of you were present, I believe, and you voted 50 in favor of the entire, um, Capitol other than the, uh, historic District study. And then, so then we, we had another, we met with the select board on the 4th and we had another vote, um, and we did not, I think actually we voted 2 to 2 on. 221. Yes. I pulled my notes up from uh the meeting because the 5 just didn't make any sense. Well, we only had 4 people at the meeting at the select with the select boards and that vote was 2 to 2. And so the way I, you know, I could go back and forth on this, but the way Steve sort of recorded this was to footnote it and say, and I actually reordered the the capital to make it so that the historic study was last so that we could say, you know, the, the select board voted 4 to 1 to approve all, all items 1 through 23. Um, but the, the Fincom, you know, voted essentially 5-0 against supporting everything. They supported 1 through 22, um, 5-0, but they did not support the entire list above 5, you know, you know, so he showed it as a 05 vote for what was listed above in the warrant, and then in the footnote below said the Fincom did approve. 1 through numbers 1 through 22, uh, in a 5-0 vote. Um, it's a weird presentation, um. So I, yeah, I wonder how that's gonna play out at town meeting, cause it looks like we're, you know, that if you, if you read it, it looks originally like the fincom is not in favor of any of the capital. 00:17:38,670 So Bob, how did you read this? Well, the vote that I wrote down from our meeting was 2 and 2, and it failed. I thought there was an abstention in there. 221 is what I wrote down and the vote failed on that basis. Jeff, can you help me understand like if you don't have someone present, is that counted as an abstention or counted as a not present? I would sort of say it's a no, I would say we took a, we took a 22 vote that day. A abstention would be, uh, I, I would view that more that we're, we're viewing, we're voting on this and You know, Dano were to say, you know, my wife's painting company might, might, uh, might apply for that exterior painting job, so I'm gonna abstain from this vote. Um, but if you're, if you're present and don't vote, that's an abstention. Um, if you're not there, I wouldn't view that as a 221 vote. I would just vote view it as 2-2. Yeah, I, I, that was my concern was having 05 show up here. Yeah, and I think it's almost, it's just the inverse if we voted 5-0 in favor of every, you know, everything if we took out the historic commission, but when you put it back in, we weren't in favor of the list as it's, as it's shown above. Um, and it also gets a little more complicated because of them when we write, you know, sort of the narrative and say, you know, what we want to put into stabilization. Uh, you know, we didn't support the 50,000 for the historic, you know, commission, but now it's possible that, you know, it's on the warrant and it could get voted on, so we had to assume it could, it could be free cash that was used, so it's gonna limit how much free cash is available in the next article. Even though we didn't support it. 00:19:31,500 All right. 00:19:39,230 And I'm looking for any other, any other questions or comments about specific language uh of the warrant. 00:19:49,869 All right, not hearing any. Jeff, can, is there any way that you could create that list and I just just type in the last few things right now and then I can, um, I can move it over to the screen here so we can see it, uh. 00:20:05,630 So the, if I recall last year, the script itself showed up about a week ahead of the Um, the actual town meeting. Um, so that's, I think the timing that that folks can expect to, uh, 00:20:24,299 To get the specific language that they'd be uh asked to speak. Ha, I haven't asked the committee members, is, is anybody um have a, a problem with speaking publicly at the, the meeting? Are everybody willing to This is the, the town meeting? No, but I just had a question. Are we supposed to be at the warrant hearing as well on the 31st? 00:20:50,569 Yes, so that the warrant hearing on the 31st is a joint meeting with the select board and the Fincom, and actually the script that uh Finn is talking about, it's almost like a dress rehearsal. The we go through from opening statements to every article on, on the town meeting warrant and read through uh the way it's going to play out at, at town meeting, um. And so, the Fincom and the select board are there, but also, you know, planning board members, anybody else who ends up reading some of these um articles will be part of that as well. 00:21:38,230 What, what time, it doesn't say here what time the meeting is on the 31st. I believe it is 7 o'clock is typically the time. OK. 00:22:07,099 And so this is um the list and technically, um we might have All right. 00:22:13,230 that Article 3 as well. 00:22:21,930 So, um, So, typically the uh the chair reads Article 4, the operating budget. Uh, that's the only one that's sort of set in stone. Uh, the rest of them are, you know, sort of up for, um. Up for grabs. Um, you know, I think we could look at these a little bit and Uh, you know, try to pick out what, you know, you know, the capital is likely to be one that will, there's quite a few art, you know, quite a few items on it. Um, so that one could, you know, be some debate and the person, you know, and I should point out that, you know, who, who, for those who aren't familiar with it, if you're the person reading the motion, you are the first person to answer questions, uh, that the script lays out. Um, who reads the motion, what the motion says, and then lays out who would answer questions. So it might, um, You know, if Bob were to read the Capitol article, he would be tasked with being able to answer a question about anything on the, uh, on the Capitol list. Then they might list me as the backup. Um, and so, you know, as Bob is trying to answer questions, he can, uh, defer to me and say, you know, I'd like to ask the finance director to, you know, he's got a bit more information on, uh, you know, the police cruiser or whatever it might be. Um, so you wouldn't want to give someone, um, You know, 3 or 4 ones that you feel like, well, jeez, there could be a lot of questions on those. So, you know, when I look at this list, um, you know, the, the Article 16, the water capital to move money from their reserve fund into, uh, or their, their fund balance into um the PFAST study in engineering for $500,000. It's a big dollar amount, so that could likely get some questions. Uh, you know, I don't think you get a lot of questions about the water truck purchase or the $35,000 to water capital reserves, that's, you know, kind of standard every year. Uh, the, the prudent investor, I guess, could get some questions, folks might just ask sort of what, what's going on with that and why we need it, uh, or whatever, which, you know, there's, we'll be able to answer those questions as well. Uh, I'm trying to, you know. Stabilization is probably, you could get some questions there. I mean, people could say, how did you decide to, you know, get down to 1% of operating budget or why didn't you do, you know, more and put more into OPA or do something else. Um, capital will definitely be questions. Short-term debt, I think should be fairly self-explanatory to folks that we're just trying to pay it down and save on some interest, uh, and, and pull it out of the operating budget uh for FY 26. Uh, Collective bargaining, I think this one, you know, people might have some questions on that. Um, 00:25:24,670 So yeah, I think I might just say, you know, don't, you know, I, I, I wouldn't give the same person, uh, all the ones highlighted in red, um. 00:25:35,400 You know, this will be Finn for sure, um. 00:25:40,470 But yeah, other than that they're, they're fairly straightforward. Uh, I mean, if there's ones that people are more passionate about or they feel like they know more about a particular subject that they're, you know, they'd prefer to be on that one to talk about it if needed, um, you know, that's certainly, certainly worth considering as well. 00:26:02,000 All right, so, I, I guess what I'm asking uh the committee members here to take a look at this list and, and see if there's any that they'd really prefer. I'm not going to make any comments about myself since I'm going to be spending a lot of time in Article 4. I'll let everybody else. Pick first. 00:26:23,799 And this is the type of thing, Finn. I, I don't know that um we have to reach a consensus on this, um, you know, tonight, it could be the kind of thing that we could have a little bit of dialogue, um. You know, this isn't, isn't a vote type thing. I wouldn't view. Um, so, you know, folks took a few days to think about it and, you know, wanted to get back and say, geez, I wouldn't mind doing, you know, Article 68, and, or 612 and 13 or, or something like that, you know, I think we can kind of offline, sort of organize that. Um, you know, David's not here as well, so it might be worth, you know, um, maybe I can take this list, send it out to the whole group. which would include David, um, and, and, um. Sort of asking everybody, I mean, what are we looking at? We've got 2345. 00:27:17,299 Yeah, so there's about 15, so. You know, that's 3 apiece, but um, where Finn does the operating that, you know, almost is like, you know, 3 or 4 articles in one. but yeah, we kind of said everybody kind of pick, you know, 2 or 3, and we can um Just kind of pull it together, uh, you know, and maybe, you know, people can let us know, you know, so give us a ranking, like, uh, you know, I, my top choice would be, you know, this article, my second choice would be this article, my 3rd choice would be this article. And then I can try to compile them into a, into a list and circulate it to the group, uh, and just get, you know, um, everybody's, everybody's thoughts on that, and then I can let Steve know and he can begin, you know, putting names into the, into the, um, The script Uh, it's Jared. I, I'm happy to be assigned at random whatever you, you know, if you need to assign people to articles, 00:28:17,930 um, recognizing that Finn is going to be doing the heavy lifting with uh. You know, number 4. So, um, feel free to just, you know, as, you know, assign me to whatever articles, you know, you want, and I'll bone up on them if I need to. OK, fair enough. Would it make sense to uh uh have uh each one of us take one of the red items, including Fin on the 4? Yeah, 4 is definitely a red good point. Yeah, so I mean that, you know, and then that people then pick up secondary items. 00:28:52,630 Yeah, I'm trying to think of what what other. Well, on, on, on 11, collective bargaining, I mean, none of us sit on the, the negotiating committee. So, yeah, I don't even know, I don't know for sure that you will be required to read that. I'm just thinking you may because it sort of seems like anything that is, that has any financial ramifications they tend to assign to a Fincom person, but um I, I, I think it would, I would suggest that you find somebody who, who's actually, you know, involved in the negotiations, cause we'd look kind of dumb if we just said, can't, can't add much cause we're not on the, you know, we don't negotiate the contracts. Right. I mean, I would just chime in at the same time if we're, if we're reading it, it's a script, we just read it and I know for me I'm gonna be quick to defer to Jeff on any question on whatever I'm reading, so I'm not gonna feel bad about that. Yeah, I think we have to be super expert on the topic. We just got to be able to read the script. Yeah. And on collective bargaining Jared, um, you know, I, I get your point in terms of the, the level of knowledge of the negotiations. It's really an odd, um, administrative requirement for the first year of a union contract that we just have to vote to accept. The contract, it's already in the budget we approved at Article 4, but for whatever reason, we have to just approve it. So, uh, to Dana's point, as you read it, uh, you, you, you know, you could then immediately say, you know, I can defer to Jeff or, you know, defer to Steve who, you know, could answer uh more questions about the, the bargaining itself, um. So, um, you know, and, you know, it's interesting cause, you know, Steve or I might be the most appropriate person to read it if you were coming at it from the way you're presenting it, but, you know, neither of us is a resident, so it's not, uh, that's not something we can do, uh, here. Um, but yeah, I'll keep that in mind. I'll ask, ask Steve a little bit about that, like how, uh, I think he was his first year here was a collective bargaining year, so he's maybe been through this and went them one time before and he can give me some info on what he thinks, um, You know, that that um article will require, uh, or how much feedback it will really even get. Well, just last thing on that, I, I, I, my friend, um, Angus West, who uh is very knowledgeable citizen. Um, you know, he's always asking me, well, did you, did the town push all the costs on into the out years on the collective bargaining agreements so that we, so we didn't have an override this year. And I, you know, they're more into this year. Um, we, we actually took the opposite approach, uh, and pulled a little bit more into the first year. Um, but yeah, you know, I mean, I can see someone thinking that way, um, but, um. You know, there were a number of different reasons for approaching it that way. Um, but yeah, I would say more, more often than not, they were a little bit more front end loaded than, than not. And, and yeah, and so like it again to Dano's point, you know, you could read the article if it were you, uh, and then when that question were to come from the audience, um, you know, you could immediately say, well, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna defer to, uh, Steve Poulas on that or, or to Jeff, and, and we can walk through it. OK. All right. 1234. So I'm happy to, I'm happy to take the same position I think that Jared had, right? So if you wanted to uh assign them out to me, uh, you know, with given enough, enough time to, uh, bone up on a little bit, but recognizing also that most of the questions I'm gonna be uh diverting to someone specific. So that is, you know, knowing who to divert to is kind of part of my my process and my script. Who, who am I gonna divert, you know, if I'm, if I'm short-term debt, you know, who am I You know, diverting to if uh if uh I get a specific question. Gotcha. Um, I do always like to ask, are there veterans on the committee who are, you know, feel, you know, compassionate about, you know, reading the, the, the article, uh, 3, about uh providing extra exemptions, uh, to veterans. 00:33:08,000 I qualify as a veteran, but I don't have any particular convulsion. OK. Similar, similar sentiment. OK. Um, All right, well, taking Bob's advice, I'll have to figure out one more, uh, one more, I'll consider a red, uh, and assign though everybody to one of those, and then, um. It sounds like maybe most folks are OK with just, you know, sort of divvying the rest of them up, um, you know, in any way we we think makes sense. Sure. 00:33:42,670 OK, we got some time. We got one more member uh that you can, you can pose the question to over email. Yeah, I suppose that's the real question is what do we want to stick David with? 00:33:53,769 The hardest one on there besides, yeah, in a break from precedent he'll read the operating budget. 00:34:01,670 It's nothing quite like standing up in front of people and saying numbers for 15 minutes straight, so, yeah, yeah, that is a good one. Good lord. Um. 00:34:12,300 All right. Um, OK. Uh, any other discussion on this topic? 00:34:18,269 All right, then I think we've got some actions to move forward. So if I look at the agenda, we don't have anything specific mentioned here. Um, so I have something to uh discuss in addition, um, but I don't know if anybody else has any other topics they'd like to put on the list here. Um, it's Jared. I just had one brief, uh, information item. Um, I know that, you know, we, we discussed the last, I think it was the last meeting, you know, we were all shocked, at least I about the, the rise in the healthcare costs. And I think we, we agreed that we were gonna seek. Uh, you know, at least to know what the options were, as a matter of, you know, fiduciary prudence to, to, you know, given the shocking, um, number that came out. I, I, I subsequently read, there was a very good article in The Globe, and there were a couple of other things that I read. And it really isn't what I've, what I've learned is it's really amazing. It almost 90% of this rate increase apparently is due to these, these weight loss drugs that people are sticking themselves with. It's just unbelievable. Uh, you know, Blue Cross said they get, they're paying $400 million incremental. So, I, I, in other words, I, I, I, I sort of got an explanation and I sort of understand it's kind of shock horrifying, but, um, anyway, I just wanted to pass that along. Uh, and we've actually heard the same, um, internally in talking to the folks at my, uh, Garrett, that, um, that is a, a, a really huge driver um of these numbers. Um, but I will tell you because, um, I think we didn't actually manage to do it at the meeting on the 4th, but we were going to, you know, let the select board know that you had voted to ask them to pursue, you know, other options, and I have talked to Steve about that. And one of the things, uh, he has been doing with a number of other town administrators that are that are on sort of a, you know, an email chain or a text chain or something, uh, that are in the same boat with Maya that we are is trying to exert some pressure on Maya. Um, to, to find a way to lower the, lower these cost boards, uh, but Steve and I talked the other day about, you know, once we have the, the warrant, uh, and, and all the town meeting stuff sort of buttoned up here, uh, is to start, you know, look into the GIC and see what our options are there and start looking at, um, what, what our options are in terms of changing carrier. you know, in terms of changing plan structure, uh, you know, and looking at, you know, how you share costs with the employees, just all of our options that are going to have to become, uh, you know, something that's going to be addressed, you know, him and I have talked about it, you know, sooner rather than later, uh, because it's just becoming a, a, a harder part of our budget to manage and We've been relatively fortunate in recent years, uh, you know, and I say that, um, you know, half tongue in cheek because, you know, we're still getting, you know, 78, 9% increases in a lot of years, but we've never seen anything like this. And so this is, uh, you know, now that this is, you know, a possibility, it changes how we look at things because um we obviously can't absorb, we, we barely can absorb a 20%. You know, close to 20% increase in one year, but we can't be looking at this being our new norm. Um, so, you know, those, those, um, You know, sort of conversations have started with other TAs and trying to exert pressure with, with Maya, and then, you know, Steve and I will start to look at how, you know, what are our options, talk to legal and, and figure out what we can and can't do, and then figure out how to um look at what those options are and either, you know, we find a better way to go, or maybe that helps us put a little more pressure on Maya. Um, but, you know, it, it's interesting that you saw something very similar to what we were hearing, uh, on that front on the Ozempic drugs. 00:38:09,500 That was all I had. Can I, uh, bring up uh A chart I sent uh to Jeff, and he dressed it up uh just as information for the committee because I think it reinforces the idea that uh As median household income goes up, uh, towns spend more on education. And so I added 5 towns that are larger than us. Uh, with high MHIs and uh. Uh, I think the conclusion is the one that uh Jeff wrote back to me that, uh, you know, people with uh higher incomes in towns spend more on on education because they value it more and uh We're right on the line, so that, uh, uh, you know, it's not that we shouldn't be looking for ways to save money, it's just that, uh, this seems to be a characteristic of uh towns with characteristics like Wynham. And Bob, I wanted to ask you, because when I ends up right on the line in a number of these that you've done, and is that just happenstance? I mean, I, we've been off the line on a couple, but I find it interesting. We're right on the line in, in probably 4 or 5 of these. No, that, that there's nothing that I'm doing to force that. That just happens when the regression solves the equation. 00:39:31,170 Interesting. And I don't know anything uh in terms of our town behavior that would put us there either, you know, it's. Uh I found it interesting that our friends in West Newbury continued to be uh uh. An outlier being lower from the line. Uh, basically, you know, and this is a little loaded because I selected high MHA counts to add. I could have added some more low MH ones, but the, uh, R squared is even tighter than it was before I added the five high income groups. Well, I think it argues against the uh thought that we're too small with our regional school district that we need to be bigger because it doesn't seem that uh in these bigger towns actually spend any less. In fact, they spend more as their MHI goes up than we do. It may also tie into some of the comments, uh, that I had when I talked to Superintendent Tracy, and I shared with him the earlier data, and also we started chatting about uh metrics for measuring school district performance, and he mentioned that the problem of having trouble beating some of the same people that are on this list. So. That may not really, uh, say anything about the quality of what's the education. It may just say something about the input into the education system and therefore it's easier to, you know, get more kids going to college and get higher scores and all that because they start from a higher base. There may actually be school systems with, uh, in, in, in areas where people aren't as well educated, parents aren't who are actually doing a better job moving people up, but, you know, they don't compete. When you look at sort of the go to college scores and uh other scores. Remind me, this is based on median income or average income, median household income. Government statistic, it's I just, I was just gonna react to two things you said. One was that People who People who have more money value education more. I don't know if that's what you said or if that's what you meant to say, or if that's what I misheard, but I'd say people who have more money. Have more money to spend on education. Yeah. People have less money may value it the same, but just don't have the money to spend on it, so still, still true, yeah, and then the Household income conclusion that we're not too small. Yeah, we're not too small for the median. Or maybe too small for the. Bottom quartile. And taxes may be too high for the bottom quartile, but we're not too small for the median household. 00:42:15,829 Yeah, I mean I think the issue is that, you know, when population wise, size-wise is is really more down here with these folks, but they're more up here with these, you know, we put, even though we're we're Population wise, we're down here. Our income pulse is closer to the top, and we, you know, we're, we're obviously moving higher up. We're acting more like the larger wealthy towns up top than we are like the towns that are more like us population wise. Um, I was thinking Bob meant the, you know, just in general that Hamilton went as a school district is, you could probably be bigger, um. Yeah, or we're, we're even as two towns were too small, we should be part of a bigger program. I I was thinking that's more of what you were talking about, Bob. Well, you know, the populations of the people that added uh 13,0009, 11,0008, 10, 18,0009, 34.4, 18.5. So the people that got added are, are bigger than the That combined with uh Hamilton. 00:43:23,730 So Bob, I noticed that Hamilton isn't on here. Um, I see, I, I suppose Manchester by the Sea, I've always thought kind of had a, a similar MHI, um. There is Hamilton uh not on here because it It's, it's not comparable or or like the MHI is materially different from Wenham? 00:43:45,469 Uh, the MHI is, uh, different. It's around 120,000, which is why, uh, when you do the school district comparison, it blends it, uh, you, you blend it at 140. Uh, but Hambleton is, isn't on here because it wasn't on our list of comparables originally. Uh, I'll be happy to get the data for Hamilton at it. Yeah, we could throw it in. I mean, they are um. They are much bigger than us. They're outside the, the, um, population. Set, but they probably should be on there, uh, uh, you know, and I don't know why I might have pulled them off early on, but um they probably should be in here so we could rework that. Um, Especially we're like yeah we have Essex, Manchester, and Essex that are in a district together. Um, we maybe could also look at, um, Bob, the, the Masco towns, Topsfield, Middleton, Boxford, whether they should be They're all, they're regionally close and they're also, I would on here. 00:44:47,929 think a few of them are at least 2 of them are, um, median household household incomes probably pretty similar to, um. We can add them. You know, one of the interesting things is, uh, what, uh, the cities and towns, particularly before I added the 5, because I don't know exactly what they're doing, but I looked up what the, uh, other towns are doing, and they're doing everything from, uh, a regional farming out their students all to someplace else, uh, doing PK to. 5678. I mean, there's a, in terms of, of the method of addressing education, there's a real spectrum here in terms of uh the communities that are on, on the uh chart. 00:45:31,869 Mhm So the That kind of goes into one of the topics that I, I wanted to, I've got, I've actually got 31 of them is, um, you know, the, the idea of, you know, where when I can go to materially reduce its its tax burden on, um, on, uh. The residents, right? Um, The, uh, the You know, as I, as I read through the, uh, the article in the newspaper about how that might happen, it looked particularly uh expensive for, for Wenham to try to pull out of the regional agreement and go its own way. And um I think the You know, consolidation seems to me to be the, the way that you would go and, and, uh, you know, generate uh cost savings. Um, and so it made more sense for the, you know, to imagine, um, you know, in that particular instance of combining the Hamilton Wenham school district with another neighboring district rather than having Wenham try to pull out, deal with all the financial ramifications and then go into another one. But that, that really made the question of like, that's why I asked where is Hamilton on this is, you know, Hamilton and one of them have already joined, you know, on the school district, which is 60% of our spending. The library and the, you know, the recreational leagues like it, it, it, it makes more sense to me to consider, you know, um, Doing more consolidation with with Hamilton in order to, you know, uh, generate tax savings for um The, the town of Wenham, but, you know, the, I'm looking for where, whether or not that's a You know, a glib answer. I'm hearing all sorts of drama at at Hamilton when it comes to the, uh, the cost of, uh, of, you know, of getting water to the town coming forward and all these other things that are, that are coming um down the pike for Hamilton. So, you know, whether or not we really want to make a plan to combine our police or fire departments, um, you know, and look for savings there. You know, as I look for, you know, after the town meeting and this um late spring and, and summer, you know, whether or not we have any appetite for, for doing an analysis on um kind of strategic cost, cost reductions. Finn, just on that point, uh, you mentioned Hamilton, there's some talk about the expenses for water. And I know, um, You know, as you all know, we're looking at having to build a brand new water plant, which we've never had before, um, to, to handle the PFAS issue. Um, Wenham, as I understand it, has a, a pretty robust supply of water, but needs to build a, uh, a plant, and I think Hamilton is struggling with supply but does have a plant. So I do wonder uh if, if water is an area that, I mean, it's not the general fund budget, but it's obviously still a cost of running the two towns, uh, if that might be in an area that makes sense for some sort of synergy, you know, basically because of the PFAS issue. I mean, if we're looking at having to build a plant, uh, this is gonna be really, really expensive. Maybe there's a way to combine that with, with the fact that Hamilton already has a plant, so maybe it's only, you know, some sort of renovation to their plant. Um, and somehow we tap our water supply into that, and if that sort of, you know, is, is a good solution for both towns. 00:49:18,530 And I can, I could talk to Eric uh Mansfield about that as well. 00:49:25,130 Right, I guess I'm, I'm, I'm suggesting that we should uh consider carving out time as a committee to, to look into some, uh, you know, 1st, 1st draft sort of uh analysis of, of cost, major cost reductions in the, um, the June, July, August time frame. Yeah. I would think that makes some uh good sense. Uh, I think we've started some of that. Jeff's been doing that, uh, we. So I think, you know, it makes sense to do it during a period when there isn't a lot of pressure to get things processed, approved, printed, and that kind of thing. 00:50:08,000 Right, so that was, that was the first one. the second thing I have is I got an email from Eric Tracy, uh, about, um, a open position on the, um, the school building committee. It's a non-voting, uh, role, um, and, you know, he just said that the position is, is held open for um the, uh, a member of the Wenham Fincom. Um, you know, we had Scott Schoenberger, uh, attending it, um, before he dropped out this past year. So I was just wondering if there were any particular folks who are interested in that. You know, um That non-voting um role. Fin, do you know what the purpose is? Because I was on the building committee for the library, you know, 20+ years ago, more like 25 years ago. Uh, but I looked at, you know, I'm just, what's the expectation of what the representative, uh, does, contributes to the committee, and what does the expectation is that just reporting back to Fincom. You know, I, I'm not sure. I see in the upper right hand corner of your screen here, Jeff, you've got school building committee. It might have um Does it have, if you click on that link, does it, does it give, uh, you know, a calendar when they're supposed to meet? They just met on the 24th. I don't know. Let me see if I can, uh. They don't have a March meeting scheduled yet, um, but I did, uh, take a look at, um, oh ***, yeah, so I mean just as a Pull this up. You know, here's just an agenda that from their last meeting, um, I mean, I think you have your, you have a voice on the committee. Certainly, you're participating in the discussions, you'd be bringing, you'd be tasked with bringing the information back to the finance committee to keep them apprised of what's going on with the building committee. Um, you know, it is interesting that you don't have a vote, um, Which sort of minimizes, you know, your, your, uh. Your sway on that committee. 00:52:19,030 And it's also sort of interesting that, you know, John McGrath doesn't have a vote on that committee, but he seems like the most, the most influential person in the room. 00:52:30,030 Well, most of the members of the committee aren't residents of either town. If you go on that, you know, the list you just had, I looked at it earlier. 00:52:43,130 Principals, town administrator. 00:52:49,369 Select board members. 00:52:54,469 Yeah, basically, board members will be residents, but beyond that. 00:53:13,500 All right, it doesn't sound like anybody is jumping for this opportunity. Um, I'll talk to Jeff offline and see if that's, um, Uh, something else sign out to our, our loan non-member, uh, non non-present member here or if it's something I. I, uh At least attend a meeting or two and see what what I'm walking into. 00:53:40,469 If you want, uh, at least take temporarily go there and see what they're doing. 00:53:47,199 Well we could do that. Whatever you'd like. Sure, Bob, I appreciate that. Yeah. Get a motion to uh make Bob the uh school building committee representative for the Wenham Finance Committee. OK, I can look for a motion on that. Don't moved. And that was Jared, so looking for a 2nd. I'll make the 2nd, and then we'll look for a vote. So I'll vote I. 00:54:15,369 Jared, I 00:54:18,469 I guess, right? No, you can you can vote. OK. 00:54:26,630 All right, great. Thanks, Bob. Looking forward to hearing what you, what you learned there. OK. 00:54:36,469 All right, and in all the excitement, I've forgotten what the third thing was that I wanted to ask folks about. Um, oh, I know what it was. Um, does anybody have any information on 3A? So John McGrath was telling me that he expected to, uh, see, he expected a role for the Hamilton Finance Committee, um, in a town meeting dedicated to this topic, um, in June. I have not had any official requests um from the. From the select board or the town uh uh managers, um, on this topic, and there seems to be a lot of, uh, you know, occasionally you'll get something on the news that says that it's gonna be completely, it's an unfunded mandate and it's gonna be delayed or, you know, that's a, a non, um, You know, a non-issue and it's gonna, you know, we still have to expect a town meeting in the, I think late May, early June time frame, um, to ensure compliance. Has anybody heard anything on this topic that might You know, inform this committee about what we might have to expect to do. So they've, they've, they're starting a working group uh at town hall, the, the town administrators select board uh are, are working to start this working group that I think would, would include, you know, a select board member, uh, you know, probably uh a Fincom member. Um, planning board members and also uh I think some members of the, of the public, uh, as well, maybe to bring in some of the folks who are opposed, uh, and the, the the focus of this working group, I believe is going to be, um, there's been a request for uh some, some reporting, uh, you know, what, what, what, what can we expect the cost of, of 3A to be, uh, and sort of maybe. Taking an approach similar to the, the deck um you built um for, for Cutler. It's just sort of Figure out where all of our facts are coming for, how many people per bedroom, those type of things, you know, get those from some sort of source and then build out a matrix of, you know, I, I for some reason I have it in my head like 19 units will go in over by Ean village or something is one of the areas, you know, what would, what should the town expect as, you know, number of new residents, number of new students, um, you know, with the tax base increase look like versus compared to the upfront costs and things like that, um. And so that has started, but they haven't yet put out the word uh for asking for um a finance committee representative, but I, I would assume that is going to be forthcoming, uh, probably in, in fairly short order. 00:57:28,730 OK. 00:57:32,199 All right, so we'll look for, we'll look for news in our emails uh on that topic and we'll be looking for a uh a volunteer um to uh be the lightning rod on that. 00:57:45,630 OK, I think those are all the topics I could think of. Anybody else have other topics for discussion here at the end of the meeting? 00:57:56,530 All right, I'm not hearing any, so, uh, when, when are we meeting? Um, can I actually uh have you guys look at 11 thing quick here on the screen? Uh, so you should be seeing uh the, a 10 year tax projection. We, we talked about this a week or two ago, I think. Uh, and I reworked this a little because we were having, um, we weren't liking that it was showing the tax rate every year, um. And then we, so we were just showing the average in the median household impact, and then we're also showing the per $100,000 impact, which, you know, indirectly was showing the tax rate. Um, so I reworked the schedule so that instead of actually showing like the average, the median, uh, the per 100,000. I, I just added this stuff down here that showed you the annual and the cumulative tax increase at the town level over the next 10 years. Uh, and I didn't know if this might be something that you, you, you guys might like a little better, uh, less confusing. I mean, I know it doesn't necessarily speak to individual, you know, tax bills, but it does, you know, someone can look at this and, and sort of see. You know, the, the cumulative increase, uh, 00, you know, you can, you know, you can see in, in 2028 where, where Cutler hits, you know, you see the big 15% jump there, um. And, and things like that, but I didn't know if this might be something as I'm, I'm trying to build out our new budget software, uh, and I, I, you know, I know, especially as I was reading through the minutes, I know getting this kind of information about the 10-year impact of not just Cutler, but how that layers in on top of, you know, the, the prop 2.5% growth, if you will, um, you know, what that looks like. So, um, just wanted to get some thoughts on if, if you might like this presentation better. Or if you prefer to stick with the other sort of approach. Jeff, what might be useful uh to to show as a stalking horse is uh adding a line under the cumulative increase to show the uh cumulative increase of inflation based on whatever assumption you've got in here. You know, if it's 30% or whatever. Because I think what that will show is how the cumulative. What you've got here compares to what would, uh, you know, just occur because of inflation. 01:00:22,630 Like actual CPI inflation or just the normal inflation of the budget? Well, he's basically saying if we, uh, if you assume that the inflation that you're gonna have, um, in the next, you know, each one of these years is say 4% inflation. Right, and is what CPI is likely to do, then this would suggest, you know, absent that 2028 big jump, that the cost of the town is gonna grow below the cost of inflation, right? I just picked 4% from the top of my head, yeah, yeah, um. But you need to use whatever Jeff assumed when he uh uh ran the numbers out. Well, and that's up here as I did, you, you know, um. Yeah. 01:01:13,199 No, that's the, uh, well, yeah, but you were assuming some interest, uh, uh, some rate of inflation driving those, right? Right, so I'm assuming that the, you know, the, the town budget will grow 3%. The school district and the, the two school districts will go 3.5% every year. Um, you know, our, our revenue streams will grow, um, and new growth will stay flat, um. 01:01:41,000 So I think I, I like this presentation because it does not, uh, pretend to know the, the value of the, of the tax assessed value, um, so I like this one better, um. And uh it's, I'm trying to think about how I might think about um say a 3% increase there in, in column D. And the only way that residents wouldn't see a corresponding 3% increase in their own property tax bill is if there was, you know, 3% increase in, in, uh, You know, house, households, new houses, and new builds in the town. Right, um, 01:02:28,630 Is that, is that the right way. 01:02:34,570 Yeah, I mean, well. I mean, we have to assume that most of these, these growth rates was, you know, we have to pick something. Um, but yeah, so basically, like in year, this year here, you would go, everybody, if everything just stayed exactly the same, you'd go up 3.09%. But the reality is, um, you know, your assessment will change or your neighbor's assessment will change and, you know, I'll go up 2.91% and Fin will go up 3.7% or something, but um. Yeah, if this were, if I changed this. 01:03:12,000 Right, so you would need, but that's only actually changing my Um, That's new growth is really more of a function. It's more of a tax rate function. So $700,000 more taxes paid by some new, new residents, new houses, and $700,000 divided by a $2 tax rate is, is that, is that $140 million of, of new houses? Yeah, yeah, so I need 700,000. 01:04:00,469 I'm not mistaken, uh, over the last, uh, Decade or so, I looked up the numbers. I can't remember them exactly, but I don't think Glenheim has been growing population wise. It's actually been shrinking a little bit. So I think, you know, we should need to be careful about the assumption about. Unless, you know, we're pushing 3A and 100 people per bedroom. In which case the septic system will fail. 01:04:26,869 Right, so So you're not going to grow the residents. Uh, to keep this annual increase flat, right? Um, you're gonna have to cost reductions or, you know, um, a New England biolabbs, um, size building, um, over in the Gordon property. 01:04:50,530 In order to uh Materially Affect that that annual increase. 01:05:04,829 OK. Looks great, Jeff, thank you. All right, so you can, and I'll think about the inflation thing and maybe work with Bob on that a little bit. But yeah, I, you know, I think, you know, and I think that gets the, the point across, you know, Danno, I think specifically like it would be the person who, um, I just want to make sure I'm capturing his, you know, what he'd like to see as well, uh, cause I know he's mentioned this a couple of times, so I just want to make sure, you know, we were following through on things we had discussed as, as being important to, to showing a residents. Yeah, thanks a lot, Joe, really appreciate it. If you had 3% growth, you'd be looking at 34.something uh. Uh, versus the 41, 42%. That might be interesting, you know. To show people that, you know, it's costing a little bit more, but I think most people don't really appreciate the effect of compounding. You know, So, you know, that that's why I was suggesting that you, you show some kind of inflation-based number as a comparison. Another row. OK. I was just gonna suggest a simple start. A graph of some sort off top of my head that shows. 01:06:27,000 I don't know, today, today, 5 years from now, 10 years from now. Uh, bar chart, here's your Tax. Yeah, like a like a trend line. Well, not even that, yeah, just, yeah, you could put the trend line or not. I just mean it, um. A side by side bar with median single family home and average single family home. So in 2022, median is 16 or 2025, whatever year we're in, median is 14 and average is 16, and then in 2030, median would be 17 and average would be 20, and 2035, median would be 19, and average would be 22, whatever the number is in terms of Total tax owed for the median home and total tax owed for the average home at 3 different places over the next decade, year 1, year 5, year 10, 3 different side by side bar charts in one bar chart with 3 different side by side numbers. That make sense? Yeah, OK, off top of my head, maybe that's not the best chart, but just people aren't gonna get all this stuff and anybody who wants to dig into the details can figure out the methodology behind it, but Just be good for people to walk away with what's the real impact given all our assumptions. 01:07:49,099 And I think we've done a great job, like you've done a great job, Jeff, and we could I don't know how materially our changes at this point will change. Change the numbers. Yeah. OK. Yeah, I can work on a bar chart. And yeah, cause the, the new software tends to have a, um, you, you can sort of toggle between table versus chart, uh, for people who, you know, view taking information differently. Um, so I'll, I'll work on that and I can send a, just a, a, a snapshot out to the group to take a look and make sure we're capturing it the way you want to see it. But um, yeah, we can look at that and I'll work with them. The inflation number thing, Bob, and, and, um, run that by you as well, but I, I see your point of saying, you know, whatever, 42%, but how much of that is, you know, just typical inflation-based, I mean the trouble becomes your kind of projecting what you think inflation is too. So, um, but, um, yeah, we'll work on those two things and uh and circle back, you know, get some stuff out to you over the next week, um. Do you know Jeff, yeah, that sounds great. Do you know Jeff, when the 2.5, uh, proposition 2.5 went into effect? When did that get voted in? It's a 79-ish, 79. OK, so that was right at the end of the, of the huge inflation time period, uh, in the United States. Yeah, I think yeah, that was sort of the driver. Uh it was, you know, that town budgets were, you know, go escalating quickly because inflation was escalating quickly and someone finally said we need a mechanism that, that caps this. Um, and, um, so it was, yeah, right around 79 to 80 time frame, I think. Can I ask you a question since we got a bunch of brainiacs on the phone here, if I'm thinking about this right. You just mentioned the impact of compounding interest, Bob. Um, You know, the big coup with being able to buy a house, is that it's effectively a Leverage buyout model. You get to borrow all the money and you have to put minimal down, and so you get huge wealth building opportunity. Assuming it goes up at some minimal rate. So that doesn't that same Implication applied to our taxes. Because the tax is on the full value of the house. As opposed to just the equity you put in the house. So, Some minimal inflation rate on your taxes. I Uh, it's like an outsized impact on your budget, because it's against the full value of the house as opposed to just the equity you put in the house. I'm not saying that right, but you kind of get my point. It's not just, it's not like inflation of my food costs. Because I was paying for all those out of pocket anyway, cash, real cash, and that goes up by 4%. And now I'm paying, you know, instead of $100 I'm paying $104. But for my house, I only had to put $10,000 down on a $100,000 house. But a 4% increase goes from $100 to $104,000 for my house, or it goes from taxes of $1000 to $1400 or 1000, yeah, $1400. It's like a Leveraged impact, tax tax in inflation on your taxes is a leveraged impact, just like the appreciation of a house is a leveraged impact for the good. Anyway, side note, not relevant, but it's just something that's been in the back of my mind. Sure, I understand. Yeah, I'd say it's further compounded too because you used to uh be able to deduct the tax you, the, the real estate tax you paid, so it was, that was helpful, but now in large part, you can't, um, so you know, that, that makes, um, it compounds the problem you're talking about on the real estate tax side of things. Yeah, that too. Well, you know, the other thing you should keep in mind though is, uh, uh, the income, uh, with what you're paying this from is should be going up with inflation. The unfortunate thing, uh, is unfortunately that, uh, folks in the middle 60% are, have not been keeping up with inflation. But people in the bottom 20% have really been getting clobbered, and the people in the top 20% are making out like hell. 01:12:07,170 But I mean, you know, I think that's the comparison of what you got for income, as opposed to the leverage on the, you know, whatever equity you put down in principle you've repaid against the value of the house. Yeah, no, totally, that's a great point. Another, another factor too. 01:12:29,569 All right, cheers, Jeff, thanks for putting this up and interesting discussion with the leveraged by leveraged uh. Uh, equities here. So, uh, I'm looking at the end of the, uh, the agenda here and I don't see any, uh, I think we've lost our only member of the public. So, um, I don't think it was the last discussion, Dana, she was scared away earlier, but I was gonna say we've worn people out.trition boys, yeah, um. So, uh, I, unless anybody else has any other topics to cover, I would entertain a motion to, uh, close the, uh, 01:13:10,300 when's the next meeting? So we, the absolute must next meeting is the 31st, the, uh, the joint meeting leading up to the town meeting, um. You know, honestly, there's, uh, I, I don't know that there's a lot for us to do in the next couple of weeks. Uh, certainly, I would think we could take next week off. Um, I, I, I don't know that it's even necessary to meet the, the following week to get prepared for the, the meeting with the select board in terms of, you know, we'll have picked who's gonna read what articles and those type of things. Um, you know, we certainly can have a meeting, but I don't know if there's any particular business between now. And town meeting that, um, you know, it's gonna require us to meet. Jeff, isn't there one item on the, uh, uh, warrant that says we're gonna make a recommendation at the town meeting, and I, I forget which item it is, but I don't think it's, it's the, uh, the CPA, there's the Community Preservation Committee articles, uh, Bob, you're correct, uh, and we could, um, on the 31st we could make a, uh, motion on or make a recommendation on those. Uh, as far as I know, they haven't finalized that committee hasn't finalized a few things. Um, for us to really weigh in on yet, um, but we could, you know, and, and the select board also has to, to, uh, recommend those same articles. So in the joint meeting we could both, uh, address that. 01:14:40,130 OK. Sounds good to me. Uh, so, OK, so we'll, uh, yeah, we'll shoot for the 31st, um, Yeah, I mean, the only other thing that's out there is the uh the $500,000 grant. We, I believe they talked to, to the green community folks this week, and all signs are still looking positive, so that's, that's good news. Uh, so maybe the problem we'll have is uh just having to sort of vote again on what to put in the stabilization because we've got another $500,000 in play. Um, but I think we're waiting until the last minute to uh ensure that there's no hiccups with that grant. 01:15:20,270 OK. 01:15:23,199 Not hearing any other discussion. Uh, does anybody want to make the motion to close the meeting at 8:18 p.m.? So moved. All right, second. All right. Any discussion, not hearing any move to a vote. Finn votes I. Garrett. You know. And I think you got all you got 4 votes 4, so I think we're good to go. So we'll call the meeting close, guys. Thanks very much for your time. Talk to you soon.