00:00:00,000	S2:
All right. Good evening. We're going to get the Monday, January 5th Select board meeting rolling here. So we will do a roll call vote since we have, we need to worry.

00:00:08,567	S1:
She's not on yet. If she comes on, on, you know.

00:00:11,400	S2:
Okay. All right, so we've got a quorum, so we'll keep going. Um, board and committee openings. Affordable Housing trust says one opening conservation Commission has two openings. Community Preservation committee has two openings, one opening for a member of historic district commission and one opening for an at large member. Um council agent has one opening. Finance Advisory Committee has two openings, which is coordinated through the moderator. Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee has one opening. Um Historic District Commission has two openings for three year terms. Two openings for two year terms. One must be a resident of historic district and one must be a resident reeler realtor. And lastly, we have two at large openings for the Human Rights Commission. I think tonight we are we've already done one of those.

00:01:02,467	S4:
I believe so.

00:01:03,367	S2:
Or is that one, is that two in addition to the one, or is that two goes to one stays.

00:01:07,567	S1:
It stays on the thing. So it's I think there's two openings in.

00:01:10,367	S2:
You're going to go to one okay. Right now at the public comment. So anybody in the room would like to make a public comment. You have three minutes to speak and you should approach the podium at this time.

00:01:21,100	S1:
The meeting at 701.

00:01:23,167	S2:
Rosemary Kennedy on the call at 701. And Joe, anybody on the zoom should raise their hand if they have public comment.

00:01:32,100	S1:
I don't see anybody raising their hand.

00:01:33,767	S2:
And we'll public comment a few times throughout the meeting for specific items if anybody wants to speak on a specific topic. All right. We have a small consent agenda. We have a annual. You could you can run a race on May 9th and September 13th. So we've done this previously. And then we have a, uh, a request from Hamilton Regional High School principal Brian for senior banners along Bay road. Um, Both of which we've done annually, so I've no other comments than we've done manually and approve them. Do anybody else have any questions or comments or discussion on that or otherwise? We can make a motion?

00:02:15,601	S4:
No, I think we're good. I'll make a motion and then we can have comment to. But I move that we approve the consent agenda as outlined in the agenda.

00:02:24,701	S2:
Second. Second. Any further discussion?

00:02:28,000	S1:
Any other roll call vote. Because Rosie's on.

00:02:31,000	S2:
Just make sure her audio is working. Rosie, are you there?

00:02:33,868	S5:
Yes I am.

00:02:34,601	S2:
Okay, great. Good. Great to hear from you. Um, we'll do a roll call. Vote on a consent agenda. We'll start with Rosemary.

00:02:42,267	S6:
Rosie Kennedy, I.

00:02:44,000	S2:
Bill Wilson.

00:02:44,801	S4:
Bill Wilson.

00:02:45,400	S2:
I Bengalis, Bengalis I and William Olson I.

00:02:52,868	S2:
I just want to also start by, um, by doing a quick press release on. Can we do that now, Joe?

00:03:02,267	S1:
It's on the agenda later in the agenda. It's on the agenda on the bottom. But you can. You can do it later.

00:03:06,601	S2:
Sorry, I didn't put it out before I do business, we'll do it at that time. Okay, so the first item on the agenda is a department head report by the interim senior center director, Melinda Vining and council agent assistant Hannah.

00:03:21,000	S1:
Hannah took a person today so she won't be on, but she's on zoom, as is the CoA chair. Um. Laura? Stella. Okay, great.

00:03:31,567	S2:
All right, so who wants to speak? First? Hear from Melinda.

00:03:37,868	S7:
Hi. How are you tonight?

00:03:39,167	S4:
Good. How are you?

00:03:40,767	S7:
Can you hear and see me? Okay, great.

00:03:43,200	S1:
Yes.

00:03:44,167	S7:
Um, my name is Melinda Vining. I started mid-December, uh, alongside Hannah. Um, I did come on board back in October. November? Um, as a consultant, um, to just kind of support Hannah during the interim time. Um, so I'm happy to be here full time now. Um, so over the past month or so, um, Hannah and I worked on completing some of the reports for the state, specifically the end of year data for the Executive Office of Aging and Independence. So that's a requirement for the formula grant that we receive annually. Um, so we also wanted to just let folks know that the senior center is operating daily. So Monday through Thursday, 8 to 430, Friday 8 to 1230. Um, we're looking forward to some upcoming programs this month. Uh, we have Keda coming to do a presentation on their transportation offerings. Um, we're going to do a lunch with Hamilton Police Department on winter safety. Uh, there's a new program starting the end of this month called the Legacy Lounge, and we're also going to do a meet and greet with myself in a couple of weeks so people can come in and ask me questions and then hopefully share with me what they want to see at the senior center, anything that they are hoping to have for new programming. Um, we are looking ahead for the year to just kind of figure out, you know what? What would increase participation? Um, we're really open to new ideas and suggestions. Um, really with a focus on on making social connections, um, health and wellness, community connections. Um, and then really looking forward to partnering with other town departments. Um, to see what we can do together and then really continuing all the programs that folks have come to love and enjoy. So far. So Yeah. Did anyone have any questions for me?

00:06:02,167	S2:
I'll let if Rosie wants to go. I know it's near and dear to Rosie's heart that you're stepped on, stepped in.

00:06:08,667	S4:
And doing a great job.

00:06:09,567	S2:
Interim interim director. But I don't know if you have any questions or comments. Rosie.

00:06:14,467	S6:
Well, my comment is welcome. Welcome. It's very nice to have you here. I've not had a chance to meet you yet. Um, I do hope in the next, within the next month or so, I'll be able to come by and visit with you. I'm hearing wonderful things from the board. Everybody's very enthusiastic. So thank you for taking on our wonderful senior center and our seniors. Um, I don't have any specific questions. I'm just very glad you're here. Welcome.

00:06:44,000	S7:
Thank you. Thanks.

00:06:47,367	S2:
Uh, this is our Bill Olson. Yes. I also say welcome and thank you. I know it's hard sometimes to step in as an interim. Um, you're doing a great job here. Great feedback and sounds like you're staying active and and getting everybody involved. So, uh, anything else we can do to help? I mean, that's what we're here for. Here to help. So anything you need, Joe, ask, ask us. And, uh, we'll try and get whatever help you need to keep the center productive and successful and active. So thank you.

00:07:12,000	S8:
Thank you.

00:07:13,701	S4:
Hey. Welcome. I'll echo that. Just curious not to put you on the spot. Any early observations on the program? On the attendance? Uh, any insights from your experience in your first month, I guess, of being there?

00:07:26,767	S7:
Yeah. Um, people have have really expressed how welcoming and warm it is. And I think Hannah, um, has a big role to play in that. Um, she's just so friendly and lovely and, um, people really love that. She is the first face when they walk in the door and greeting folks. Um, so she's, you know, only been in her role for a few months. And so I think we're still kind of in that learning phase of, you know what? What's working? What could we improve upon and how do we grow? How do we get people, you know, more engaged? But people have just been so, so great. People have been coming in and just introducing themselves to me. And I'm just I'm really enjoying getting to know the community and getting to know the seniors who come in. Um, so that's just been like it's been really welcoming space. And, um, yeah, I hope to get to know everyone, um, over the next couple of months and get settled in.

00:08:30,067	S4:
That's great. I'm glad it's welcoming. Welcoming to everyone, really. And, uh, looking forward to, uh, you know, future reports on, like you said, how we learn what's working, what's not, and maybe some insights and ways we can improve things or add services. So appreciate it.

00:08:44,200	S8:
Sure.

00:08:44,667	S2:
Does the cold snap bring people in to get together in a warm spot? Is it a difference?

00:08:50,000	S7:
Sometimes it's the opposite. If it's too cold, people don't want to leave the house, which is totally understandable. Um, but, um. Yeah, I mean, I started at a weird time of year or two. You know, there's been short weeks, you know, the several weeks that I've been here. Um, so looking into January and, um, you know, being there every day for weeks will kind of give us a better gauge of of how things are going and what people want to do. So. Yeah.

00:09:20,200	S4:
Excellent.

00:09:22,367	S9:
Yeah. Just one. This is Ben. Melinda. Welcome aboard. Um, we're really excited to have you. And I know it's been important for us as a community to have you fill that role. And so thank you for stepping in. And. Yeah, we're here if you need us for anything. And if you've ever got programs that are going on that you want to kind of have us help promote, or if you want to grab a couple of minutes airtime at the beginning of our meetings, you know, to help promote those and let the public and community No. Feel free to use us as a resource in that fashion as well.

00:09:53,367	S8:
Great. Thank you.

00:09:56,167	S2:
Do you have anything you want to step up to the podium? It'd be great.

00:10:01,367	S10:
Hi. Thanks. I'm Laura Studley, the board chair for the Council on Aging. Hi, Melinda. Nice to see you. I have no prepared remarks, just that we fully support in our enthusiasm and excited by Melinda and Hannah's presence. Um, Hannah has just jumped in and has done a wonderful job. As you said, Melinda. Just such a friendly, open, welcoming face for the center. And I think we have our first board meeting this Thursday. If anybody would like to attend, it's at 830 in the morning at the Koa. And we're going to be talking about goals for 2006 2026. Sorry. And um, so some things along the lines of just getting people in new social Engagement without maybe programming behind it. Like Melissa Melinda said, the Legacy Lounge is just going to be a very casual drop in opportunity for our seniors to connect and maybe bring back some travel opportunities. Um, maybe bring back some, um, let's see. I can think of the top of my head, but, um, Melinda has just been welcoming and encouraging to new ideas. So we're really excited for the year ahead and we look forward to working together.

00:11:18,868	S2:
Excellent.

00:11:19,300	S8:
Thank you.

00:11:24,367	S2:
All right.

00:11:27,367	S1:
Jamie is trying to join right now. Jamie Knudsen of the Human Rights Commission is trying to join right now. I think an invitation to join may have got lost in the holiday email, but if we can get Jamie on you, you can ask him questions. Okay. Um, the next item for the board is the appointment of Nanette Marrero to the Human Rights Commission. As you know, there's been several vacancies on that commission for a while. Then that joined the select. I joined a Human Rights Commission meeting in December. She was very engaging, very personable. Um, and the commission did vote to recommend her appointment to the to their group to fill one of the vacancies. Like I said, Jamie is planning to be here in a minute. He just texted me. So you want to put that on pause for a second or come back to it?

00:12:12,300	S2:
Do we have the application?

00:12:13,200	S1:
The application? It was in the full packet. I don't have the full tag in front of you. It was in the full packet.

00:12:18,167	S2:
I did see a balance sheet here. Okay.

00:12:21,300	S9:
Her resume was in there as well. Yeah. Um, the email from Jamie said that they unanimously voted their recommendation.

00:12:31,467	S2:
A motion, and then we'll see if Jamie can join. But I accept the motion to appoint, uh.

00:12:40,701	S2:
To a point, um, in that Valero to the Human Rights Commission.

00:12:47,000	S9:
Okay, you got it. So moved.

00:12:48,367	S2:
That I have a.

00:12:48,767	S4:
Second.

00:12:49,167	S2:
Second and.

00:12:53,567	S1:
Roll call vote.

00:12:54,367	S2:
See if.

00:12:55,067	S1:
I want.

00:12:55,367	S2:
To wait till Amy joins. But no, I mean, we've got. I saw the resume. Obviously, I trust, uh, Jimmy's, uh, words and recommendations on the matter.

00:13:04,667	S4:
Three and a half year resident of town, a retired substitute teacher, and just passionate about protecting at risk populations. That's kind of what I'm reading here.

00:13:14,100	S2:
Uh, Rosemary, have any questions or comment? Are you ready for roll call? Vote?

00:13:17,767	S6:
No, I'm ready for a vote.

00:13:19,167	S2:
Okay. I'll start with you. Rosie. Kennedy.

00:13:22,067	S6:
Rosie. Kennedy, I.

00:13:23,467	S2:
Bill. Wilson.

00:13:24,100	S4:
Bill. Wilson I.

00:13:26,100	S9:
Ben.

00:13:26,701	S2:
I. William olson I. Well, welcome, Nanette. And thank you for volunteering.

00:13:34,367	S2:
And if she wants to get on and say something, we can.

00:13:36,767	S1:
He's just coming in right now. Okay.

00:13:48,868	S1:
You're, uh. You're with the board. The board just went over Nina's resume.

00:13:54,100	S2:
So we just voted on that. Based on your recommendation, uh, and voted unanimously to appoint her into the into the commission. But since you're on, I don't know if you have any comments. You want to make an addition to what we discussed?

00:14:09,767	S11:
Um, no, just that, um, we, uh, we had a good robust discussion. You know, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes within it. Um, and our vote was unanimous.

00:14:26,868	S11:
Um, yeah. She's had a, you know, a good, diverse background, background in education. You can see all that from our application in a resume. So I don't want to repeat those kinds of things, but, um.

00:14:41,667	S2:
Okay.

00:14:42,367	S9:
Great.

00:14:42,901	S2:
All right. Well, thank you for joining. And, uh, you have a new member, so that's great.

00:14:48,100	S11:
All right. Thank you.

00:14:49,100	S1:
Thanks, Jamie.

00:14:49,868	S4:
Thanks, Jamie.

00:14:50,567	S9:
Thank you. Jamie.

00:14:53,567	S2:
All right, next item on the agenda is to review our climate leaders program with the Northeast regional coordinator of the Green Communities program, Dillon Patel and the Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee. We've talked about this, I believe, a little bit, probably a year ago, and it's time to sort of revisit and think if it's the right thing to bring into the, uh, it's I think it requires a town vote. So it's something that we want to discuss about getting if we want to put it on the warrant or not, to change some of our, our code building code. So who's here to speak about that?

00:15:27,567	S1:
So we got well, we got a whole group of people here today. We've got Emmet Emmet Holt of the Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee, energy manager Vicky Mazzoni and Dillon Patel of the green communities.

00:15:40,167	S2:
Excellent.

00:15:43,667	S12:
So Emmett Holt on the Hamilton Environmental Impact Committee to monitor Hill Road. I just wanted to introduce these folks. I was here exactly. You know, the 1st of December. So glad to be glad to be back here this quickly. The real mission here is to have you guys commit that you want to pursue. Um, the, uh, climate leader certification program. And there's a couple of steps. So that's what what Dylan is here to talk about. When I left, he presented this this same presentation on the second, uh, following our meeting last week, last month. So you guys may have included in that whole thing, but I also wanted just to have you guys recognized Vicki Mahoney, who was awarded climate, uh.

00:16:35,100	S13:
Because the leading by example.

00:16:36,467	S12:
Leading by example.

00:16:37,567	S4:
The.

00:16:37,767	S12:
Example of the state here in the middle of the month. So, uh, and she can talk about well, Dylan talks about all the overall things. Uh, Vicky is here to talk about the details and how it affects not only Hamilton, but Wenham and probably most importantly, the, uh, the regional school system, because it got to get all three together to really make a whole lot of sense and maximize the benefits from grant perspectives. So in that, Dylan, I'll let you, uh.

00:17:08,567	S8:
Yeah.

00:17:09,567	S2:
We'll pull the PowerPoint out for you. Okay.

00:17:11,868	S14:
Oh, brilliant. Thank you very much.

00:17:15,467	S8:
Okay.

00:17:18,267	S14:
Thanks, Joe. Uh, so good evening. Members of the Select Board, members of the Hamilton public and manager Dumas. Um, thank you for inviting me. My name is Dylan Patel. I am part of the Green Communities Division of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. I manage the northeast region, including the town of Hamilton. I'm here today to talk about the Climate Leaders Program. Um, and before I do that, I'm going to provide a little bit of an overview about the Green Communities program, which we're all familiar with, and then talking about some of the criteria to become a climate leader as well as actually talk about, you know, why become the whole point of becoming a climate leader, which is the money, obviously, and the prestige that comes along with it. So, um, to give a very brief overview about, uh, green communities. Um, we have been going on since 2010. We are a maturing program. Hamilton was one of the first green communities back in 2010, and since our multi-year growth, we kind of reached all four corners of Massachusetts where almost touching 300. So nearly six out of every seven municipalities in Massachusetts is a green community. Um, so we're kind of at that point where we're welcoming in new members those that are early on in their energy efficiency decarbonization journey, as well as more seasoned members like Hamilton, that has really, um, gained a lot from our program and made a lot of headway when it comes to energy efficiency. So we definitely want to recognize those key players and help them a little bit more towards achieving the state's goals of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. So kind of within our 15 year time, we've kind of achieved a lot. Um, we have awarded over nearly $200 million in green communities grants spread across the state, as mentioned before in the map. This has translated to a lot of, um, energy savings, and that leads to fiscal savings right back into your taxpayers pockets, as well as greenhouse gas reduction, um, greenhouse gas reductions. When it comes to Hamilton in particular, thanks to your great efforts of Vicki as well as your sustainability committee, Hamilton has really done a lot, as I mentioned before, really laid the groundwork for a lot of energy efficiency improvements, not just with the regional school district, but with a lot of town buildings as well. And obviously, as you all aware, this culminated in the one large decarbonisation grant, a very coveted grant, one of just under a dozen that we've awarded so far for the town hall.

00:20:12,667	S9:
That's over a million.

00:20:14,267	S14:
That's over $1.4 million in cumulative funding, including your designation grant. So your competition in terms of all your competitive grants, that's about 1.25 million in competitive funding.

00:20:28,667	S9:
Um, great. I mean, these are all things too, presumably, that we would have had to have done anyway, right? It's like then. So.

00:20:36,200	S14:
Like, exactly.

00:20:37,167	S9:
So this is the more sustainable option.

00:20:39,767	S14:
Exactly. Exactly. And that's a very good point. Uh, Ben, if I may, um, and I think that's something to keep in mind when we talk, when I talk about climate leaders, um, green communities, we we definitely exist to help drive toward, um, more sustainable choices. But we also recognize as we recognize where municipalities are. And a lot of these are capital improvements, obviously. So we will help. We want to help bridge that gap between what a business as usual case would be towards a more sustainable and better technology, to be honest. Um, and I'm going to make that point again when I talk about one of the criteria, which is the decarbonization roadmap. So to introduce the Climate Leaders program, the first thing I want to say is that green communities is not going anywhere. You know, like I said, we recognize that different towns are in different places. And even as a climate leader, you still have access to green communities funding. However, we want to provide different and more resources to municipalities that are climate leaders to help them move towards, um, the Commonwealth's goals. To do that, we want to encourage a lot of participation from the town, um, from your voters. Um, in order to achieve more sustainable, um, policies within within the town. Next slide please, Joe. Thank you. Um, so the climate leaders was officially launched late in 2023, and we started accepting applications in at the end of 24. We had initially, um, certified 18 climate leaders back in the summer and then another ten a couple months ago. So we're now at 28. And just as with green communities, I know it's been a long time, but there are five criteria to be a green community, and there are five criteria to be a climate leader. Hamilton has already achieved two of them. The third one is you're kind of in the middle of doing that right now, and I'm going to spend a little bit of this presentation talking about the last two. But before I do that I'm going to talk about number three. Thanks, Joe. Um, which is your decarbonization roadmap. So, um, Hamilton had applied for and received technical assistance to do a decarbonization roadmap. And working with Vicki and the consultants, we were paired. We paired you up with, um, late last year. I think that's close to completion. Um, I believe what the idea of a decarbonization roadmap does, it takes a look at your inventory, including that of the school district, um, and understands well what made pieces of major equipment are in those buildings so that we can identify the most opportune times for capital replacements. To your point. Right. And so we take a zero over time approach to understand what would be the best time to when you're doing your capital planning to commit for a green communities grant, a climate leaders grant so you can fill in that incremental gap towards, let's say, a heat pump rather than a boiler or furnace system, because we understand you're going to spend the money to do some sort of replacement anyway within ten years, 20 years. We want to help you bridge that gap towards a more sustainable option. So, um, what the so what the decarbonization roadmap does is take a high level overview of your municipal facilities to basically understand how to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. What it is not is any financial commitment, and this is something that you can bring towards your voters is, um, to do any, any of these projects. This is a planning document. First and foremost, it does not commit you to do any of these, these measures. Um, nor is it any, any in-depth, um, feasibility towards any of the specified measures. That is something that you would have to do, um, with some of our additional technical assistance or through math, say, for example, this is an example reduction timeline of what our roadmap would look like. I am very aware that 2027 is literally 12 months away, but the idea is that this trajectory is supposed to be flexible, amenable, um, such that you can take a more relaxed approach in the first few years and then as technology improves and gets cheaper, you can become a lot more aggressive in reducing your onsite emissions and then transitioning your feet to, um, to EVs as well. So that's the decarbonization roadmap. The specialized code is probably want to want to spend the most time on. And this is, I think, something that you were talking about already. So, um, there are three tiers of energy codes in Massachusetts. Um, the stretch code is has been adopted by the vast majority across the Commonwealth. It's required to become a green community. Hamilton has adopted has implemented the stretch code since 2010. Um, the specialized code has been in existence in 2023. So this is a new addition to the top of the pyramid. And in just three years we've already had 55 municipalities adopted. And these are shown in the map. Um, so as you'll notice, there is a lot of concentration in the Boston metro area. But you'll also notice that there's a lot in western Massachusetts, in the Cape and Islands. So the range of adoptees does span a large spectrum of income, of density, of different kinds of realities of analyses, um, including some close by communities such as um, Andover, Beverly and Salem. This is probably one of the most important slides for the specialized code. So I hear a lot that this would affect existing buildings. That is not true. This specialized code only affects new construction for any permits that are applied for after a specified date. That would be included in your town meeting warrant. Um, the specialized code does not include any new provisions for electric buildings, so those would just follow what you would regularly do. For for the stretch code, which is becoming increasingly common style of construction across the Commonwealth, there are lots of funding available for from both mass save and from the federal government. I understand obviously in the media, there's been a lot of talk about cuts from the federal government, cuts to mass save. There's still a lot of money out there for construction. What specialized code does do is for multifamily houses larger than 12,000ft². It requires a very high level of energy efficiency performance known as passive house. This already exists in Hamilton. I can mention a few projects later on. Um, it does retain the choice to build with fossil fuels like gas or oil propane. But if you do do that, it requires a consumer protection measure whereby one would pre wire for a future swap out for an all electric, um, appliance, whether that's a cooking range, boiler, clothes dryer or water heater and on site solar where possible, but not requiring any trees to be cut down.

00:28:31,100	S14:
So, um, this would be this would obviously have to be taken to a town meeting. It is not a zoning bylaw, so it just requires a simple majority. Um, I want to be very explicit that when you. What if the town does adopt the specialized reg code, it agrees to accept any future amendments or additions thereto by DWR. That's usually on a three year cycle. And obviously the town does have the choice to bring it to town meeting to rescind the specialized code if it does not end up being a good fit for you. And that's not happened in, you know, in the three years that it's been available. Um.

00:29:10,067	S2:
And Joe does the reason is that still simple majority.

00:29:14,100	S14:
It would be a simple majority. Yes. Yes. Um, and this usually DWR recommends that this be effective. Um, January 1st or July 1st following town meeting because that's when usually, um, most building codes happen. Change has happen. And to give builders some time to get used to the new provisions as well. So, um, obviously this would require a lot of outreach before, you know, being put forward to the voters at town meeting. Um, I have done a lot of presentations in front of both members of the public, as well as to builders and developers. Um, whether that's in towns or in cities. I've also sat in front of, um, select boards, planning boards, fin coms to, to do this kind of presentation a bit more in depth. Um, obviously Hamilton does have, I think, two projects so far that are passive House certified. There's the Willow Street Flats and now the Asbury Commons. Um, so there is some kind of experience with that. Um, now moving on to the Zev policy. Thanks to that. Um, so the Zev policy, which is the zero emissions vehicle first policy. This would just require a affirmative vote at the for the sorry by the select board and from the superintendent. Um, this, um, requires that any town purchases of municipal vehicles, um, prioritize all electric vehicles first and foremost, where practicable and where commercially feasible. If that is not the case, then it slides down a priority list of plug in hybrids regular hybrids, and if neither is financially possible or commercially possible or practical, then it leaves the option of a high efficiency gasoline or diesel vehicle. Right now we do exempt heavy duty vehicles, those that are larger than £8,500. So you know, your heavy DPW vehicles, your school bus fleets, for example, um, as well as emergency vehicles. So your police response vehicles, your fire response vehicles as well. And of course, Green communities does provide quite a bit of funding to do that increment between that and, um, hybrids and EVs. All right. So I've taught I've spoken a lot about what you have to do. And I'm going to talk about what you get. Um, so climate leaders we have allocated funding set funding. This is based on a ratepayer allocation for um, $150,000 on technical studies for your municipal buildings. These are technical studies that evaluate the feasibility As well as do bid documents, engineering drawings for all sorts of clean energy solutions. We also provide the kind of capital funding for that. Up to $1 million is available for onsite solar PV, for air source or ground source heat pumps, and for other clean energy and resiliency activities. Right now, we have this as a one time grant up to 2027. Um, and we still haven't made a decision. We still don't have the allocation yet for after 2027, but we do hope that we can provide future funding, um, as well. Um, so, for example, for the technical assistance, we do feasibility studies, pre electrification work, test wells for ground source heat pumps. And we can also make um solar installation a lot cheaper as well. And we've had four, um, grants come in so far. Just go to the last slide, please. Um, so these are some examples of what we've already awarded across the Commonwealth. Um, so for example, Chelmsford, they've done two new fire stations where they've done, uh, ground source heat pumps plus solar in Acton. They've decarbonise the town hall. Obviously, you've already done that. Um, but there's also been solar on top of DPW garages in Ashfield and Watertown. And we set to receive a lot more of these accelerator grants in the in the coming months as well as well. So thank you very much. Um, happy to take any questions on the Climate Leaders Program.

00:33:54,467	S2:
Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, I'll start and we'll kind of go around the room, but I applaud the effort.

00:34:01,868	S9:
Thank you.

00:34:02,300	S2:
We obviously the community care a lot about sustainability in terms of things we've done over the last seven years that I've been in the position here, but between the recent projects at Town Hall, um, between our, you know, our between our, our composting project, between our, you know, putting the, the, uh, charging stations around town, things like that. I mean, so we're, we're obviously a community that that is in favour of it. Um, personally, I work in construction. My company has sustainability goals that I'm part of. I attend green conferences, I attend, I to sell. Um, so I'm a big proponent of as well, too. Um, what I'm trying to weigh here tonight is sort of changing code for the residents, because the grants will the grants will help the community, but not necessarily help the personal, like the grants are not for individual private residents. The grants are only for public municipal structures and buildings and properties. Correct.

00:34:56,000	S14:
That is correct. And the same was true when you first became a green community as well.

00:35:01,367	S2:
And so what I'm trying to understand is that the advantage of what the cost impact would be for people trying to come to town and build a home, and how much more that would cost them for us to get the benefit of a grant. And so I'm just trying to I think that's the that's that's sort of worth the convince our community out on the vote. Right, is that I think all the stuff is great. I just want to understand sort of the cost impact that we would say, okay, you got to put solar on your house, you got to put extra electrical in your house. And so we're trying to understand, and I don't know if you have sort of any data or statistics of what the cost, impact or time impact of building a new home would be when you have to add these requirements of the specialized stretch code.

00:35:40,000	S14:
We have done some modeling, which admittedly is already out of date because of a lot of changes to to federal policy and because of changes to just building construction as well. Um, I would say I will say that, um, building all electric, um, we've proven empirically and by in modeling that it's always going to be cheaper. Um, number one, because you have a large range of massive incentives which are still going despite the cuts. And then you also have the fact that you don't have to have a separate heating and cooling system. It's all one system. So we've kind of proven that going all electric is the cheaper option. It's also will be cheaper to run as well with the new heat pump rate from the winter. Building with a gas system will obviously be more expensive because you have those new regulations to put on solar to do the pre wiring. I'm not going to shy away from that. Those regulations are what they are. It's going to add cost. Um, the passive house, we've seen that there has been some cost increases around the range of 1 to 3%. Um for a selected group of um, buildings that kind of, uh, were part of a study. We're seeing that that's going down over time, because a lot of that is soft costs related to us actually getting used to what the kind of engineering is required, the kind of feasibility study is required. As these developers get more experienced. These costs don't. Sorry. These costs do go down over time. And as well there are quite generous massive incentives for passive House as well as low income housing tax credits from the federal government as well.

00:37:27,267	S9:
Passive House that only applies to the 12,000.

00:37:29,801	S14:
For multifamily as well. Yes, for multifamily.

00:37:33,167	S9:
I didn't understand that it applied to.

00:37:36,167	S14:
It does not. It's not mandatory. It's optional.

00:37:39,000	S2:
Optional.

00:37:39,667	S9:
It's optional optional for that category. So for the single family, for the for the everyday taxpayer, they don't have to go to that passive house.

00:37:47,467	S14:
They don't have to know.

00:37:49,100	S9:
All right. No thank you.

00:37:51,000	S2:
Sorry if there's people online. She had to go up to the podium. They can hear you. Sorry.

00:37:54,467	S8:
Okay.

00:37:55,667	S12:
Uh, Emmet Holt again? Uh, I asked Rich Maloney, Just before Christmas break. And he's going to put together an assessment of the building permits issued over the last two years. How many of them would be affected by this? So when we get ready for town meeting and all that, because most people are doing an awful lot, but maybe want to have a gas range or something. So there's only one item that's different and it's not everything. So we'll get that information okay.

00:38:23,667	S2:
So yeah. So that was the question. Do I apply what you do. I'm in favor of it. But in order to what we've learned in Hamilton is you have to build consensus and of course, the right information to make sure we sort of convince our community that this is going to create a big burden for them or a big burden for us to grow as a community and bring new families in. So it'll be interesting to sort of have that discussion right in more detail. Um, this is 100% state funded, not affected by the federal government. There's nothing.

00:38:47,667	S14:
No, this is this is funded through an allocation from the alternative compliance payments. So this is something that is ratepayer funded. And going forward this will be part of the allocations that goes to green communities as well.

00:39:01,300	S2:
But it's completely, completely.

00:39:04,100	S14:
It's completely it's ratepayer funded. Yes.

00:39:07,167	S9:
Okay. Like on.

00:39:08,000	S4:
Your state mass state.

00:39:09,567	S9:
On your utility bill. Like this money is going into a fund. And then that is what where the grants come from. Sorry.

00:39:17,367	S14:
Yeah. The money goes into a fund. It gets all mixed together. It's Reggie's. Sorry. The climate leaders is currently from the alternative compliance payments.

00:39:26,367	S9:
People's utility bill.

00:39:27,868	S14:
Yeah, it's not a it's not a it's on line item. It's something that the generation companies play or the power plants pay. So it's a very indirect impact on your on your bill.

00:39:39,968	S9:
Baked into their cost.

00:39:41,100	S14:
It's baked into their cost.

00:39:42,367	S9:
Structure into a fund. And that's where the grants come in.

00:39:45,167	S14:
Exactly.

00:39:45,767	S9:
Okay.

00:39:46,367	S2:
Exactly. Funding is. Is that is it part of a law that has no expiration? It's it's in perpetuity. Like what happens when that funding runs out or does not somebody. Can we look to the cell phone? Remember that the cell phone rate for the call center. We looked at how many years that was built into the cell phone bill. Right. So I'm trying to figure out like how how far is this baked in?

00:40:06,000	S4:
Is there an end date to the to the funding program or is it into perpetuity.

00:40:09,868	S14:
So we obviously the legislature and the governor is looking into ways to reducing some costs, including looking into whether the alternative compliance payments is necessary to continue with having said that, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which funds the green, uh, the Green Communities program, could also be part of funding the Climate Leaders program as well. And Massachusetts has been a very strong proponent of being part of Reggie.

00:40:39,367	S2:
And then I want to hear you speak a little bit, too, but, um, but I try to stand so right in favor of it, convince community, vote for it. But then, like Joe, so like let's say it moves forward, right? So now we have the ability to go get grants to fund projects. But what do you see as a project? I'll give you an example. Right. Project in town. Right. So school committee. Right. We don't control the school, any school property. So the school committee would have to buy into this. I'm not sure where they feel on this. Um, number two is we've just done town hall, so we don't have a lot of other properties to do, but maybe kind of walk through the properties. Okay.

00:41:13,868	S1:
So I would say that, you know, the water treatment plant is one of our biggest energy users. So, you know, and it's going to be difficult to do solar there, but maybe there's wind or other options that we can look at there because the whole area is covered by trees. So I don't know that you get enough, you know, daylight onto the top of that building to do solar out there. But we need to look for ways to reduce our energy consumption at that building. The Public Safety building is a great example of a building that could probably benefit from solar, and I'm hoping that when they test it out, there's enough to run solar over and cover the uses at the Council on Aging building as well. Right. Right across the parking lot. So we do have some other buildings that could benefit from it eventually. I know the library has solar on it now, so, um, you know, we're working towards it, but there's still need in our town to try to find ways to take our fossil fuels.

00:42:01,667	S2:
You see an opportunity for us to apply for grants pretty quickly.

00:42:04,000	S1:
I do the one, I guess. One question I have for Dylan, and I don't know if he has an answer to it, so I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but one of my concerns, and just like Bill said, we're obviously 100% in on this. But one of my concerns is the more we push for electrification, the more things we put onto the grid, the more the grid needs to expand. And the grid has shown no real ability to expand lately. We know for a fact that the North Shore area doesn't have sufficient electrical supply for future needs. We are already without pushing more people to electrify. So I'm wondering what you think the solution to that problem is going to be? Because as much as I'm in favor of it, we still have to figure out a way to make sure there's electricity. If we have everybody's homes on the grid and there's nobody using gas and oil anymore to heat their homes, great. But how are we going to make sure there's enough electricity for all?

00:42:53,367	S14:
There's enough for everyone. That's completely understandable. What I will say is that, um, the specialized code does allow, um, gas or some kind of backup, like a diesel generator or oil generator, without having to do the kind of, uh, solar and, um, electrification you can. You are allowed to have, like, a fossil fuel based backup generator if completely necessary. Having said that, um, Doe works a lot with the utilities, and the utilities are aware, especially of the increasing load that is being, um, created through electrification. Um, we work a lot to understand what their long term investments are. Um, especially in the North Shore. Um, but kind of aside from that, we are developing these policies in mind that the kind of electrification that's happening is not stressing out the grid. The reason being is that the, um, we've developed the stretch code, which Hamilton is part of, uh, to make sure that these buildings are as efficient as possible. And that's taken a step further with the passive house as required by the specialized code. You're kind of incremental. Electrical load is not that much higher. Um, you increase in your peak demand is negligible. Um, when you're talking about passive House, because your heat, your they're designed to trap heat in. So you, um, you don't need as much electrical draw to run your heat pumps. Um, and the same is true with, um, you know, smart charging as well. There's going to be a lot more electrical vehicles on the road, both if you adopt the Zev policy, but also just through, um, energy codes. Those can be done through, you know, time of use tariffs as, um, as well as other kinds of policies that help shift electrical demand to non-peak um, to non-peak times. So we don't need to build up the grid as much as we need to.

00:44:55,367	S2:
And then vehicles are what vehicles we purchase now. Besides, we talk about emergency vehicles return which are exempt. We've had issues with.

00:45:03,067	S1:
We don't have a lot of other.

00:45:03,901	S2:
Vehicles.

00:45:04,667	S1:
Now. Most of the towns are. Most of the town's vehicles are currently exempt. Um, you know, we've looked at police built vehicles. We've taken in an electric truck and heavy truck to try to use it. You know, I've still got concerns about them in long term. Right now, the state of technology right now is that the truck that we had being used in the DPW department became dramatically less usable during the wintertime. It just it went down. The DPW director was driving it, and he had to stop driving because he couldn't be guaranteed that when he went out to get in the car, there was going to be enough of a charge to go do what he needed to do. So, um, that's concerning. The technology is not there for heavier vehicles yet. I could see us trying to bring in. We've done some hybrids in the police department I can see us trying to do. And we have an electric supervisor's car. But in order to change over the complete, um, you know, cruiser contingent, we'd need almost twice as many vehicles as we have and probably four times as many charging stations as we have. So that's a that's a big lift. We have and we need instead of six, six cruisers, we probably need 11 to 13. And because while one's charging the other one's going to be out on the road. You can't charge and be on the road at the same time. So right now this concern, concern about there again, this has time. We've got time. The town has already showed the town meeting. Voters have already shown a willingness to go there. They have passed that resolution.

00:46:36,868	S2:
Right? Yeah.

00:46:37,801	S1:
Three years ago they helped us create the Environmental Impact Committee. Uh, they supported green communities. They supported the stretch code, so I don't necessarily think it's a huge lift to get the town on board, but we just there's some questions that need to be answered and some thought that needs to be put into it. The EV first policy. I like the idea of it. As long as it's we look at the EVs first and then if we can show that they're not going to help us, we move to the next thing, because I don't want to tie us into buying vehicles, even with grant money, that we aren't going to be able to use three months out of the year because it's too cold.

00:47:08,901	S14:
Yeah, completely, completely understandable. And like you said, we don't expect you to drive headfirst into this and that you, like have to transition.

00:47:17,000	S2:
For these Amazon Rivian trucks on the road now.

00:47:19,567	S14:
Yeah I mean.

00:47:20,100	S2:
Like.

00:47:20,567	S1:
The Rivian.

00:47:21,200	S14:
Yeah. Like even my my call I'm going to have to charge after after coming here. I'm glad you've got those DC fast chargers. But yeah. Um but yeah know to your point. Um, you have a long runway for this. You have 24 years to do a complete transition. It is, it is, It doesn't feel like a long time, but it is a long time.

00:47:44,701	S9:
Some of the new battery technologies that are coming out as well. You know, in 5 or 6 years, it's going to be a whole new ballgame. Yeah. So like I'm not as scared about that, I think. Joe. Your point about power as related to charging, especially for the municipal vehicles that are being used, you kind of basically all day, every day by people on patrol. I think that is that is real like that aspect. I have additional comments, but.

00:48:11,100	S2:
So yeah, I got one more question and we'll go down. The last question I have is that although we are not afraid to be leaders in the community on stuff like this, we also most time we make a change, we really look at our surrounding communities about what they're doing. And so I look at your map, I see it's, you know, it's Salem, it's Beverly, it's and over much larger communities, how are they? So why are the large communities doing it first and how do they what kind of challenge did they have getting it passed? Do you have the anecdotal sort of of.

00:48:40,100	S4:
Perhaps the Apollo.

00:48:42,167	S2:
Size that has done it recently.

00:48:43,667	S14:
Sure. Um. We did. I think you might already be aware that, um, we had this discussion a few weeks ago with Venom's select board. So Venom's also kind of considering this in tandem, but there are some smaller, um, smaller population climate leaders such as Swampscott. There are a few, especially out west, um, in western Massachusetts, that are also considered um, have become climate leaders like Warwick. Um, so there is a benefit and and a drawback because obviously they don't have as much of a large vehicle fleet that they need to transition. They don't have as large of municipal facilities to maintain, but they also don't have this, you know, the tax base. So, um, you know, there are.

00:49:31,801	S2:
Specifically our neighbor like Beverly Salem. Do you have anecdotally know how their process went in terms of town vote and all that stuff.

00:49:40,467	S14:
So, um, it's going to be different because they, they, they the city council tends to be, um.

00:49:48,267	S1:
They don't have a town.

00:49:48,901	S2:
Meeting. Oh, they don't have town city council.

00:49:50,467	S1:
City council vote on. Okay. And with Beverley in particular, Swampscott was I was here at a meeting. I wasn't at the Swampscott town meeting that night, so I don't know. I know they passed it, but I don't know.

00:50:00,868	S14:
It was I don't have the I can't remember the numbers, but it was quite overwhelmingly in favor of passing the specialized code. Um, and so they are they recently did a ground source heat pump conversion of their elementary school, and they're considering, with the climate leaders application, to do a ground source heat pump system for that high school as well, with some solar PV.

00:50:29,801	S15:
That's all I got.

00:50:31,100	S4:
That was just about everything, but which is good. There were questions I had. So we talked about it's ratepayer funded, correct? So like, all that money goes into a pool and then how does it get allocated? And who decides where that money goes to fulfill grants?

00:50:46,367	S14:
Uh, that's that's a good question. So that's unfortunately above my pay grade. But um, that what we it's it's a kind of, um, it's a, it's a decision made between the commissioner of the DOH, Commissioner Mahony, our fiscal department, the secretary and the governor. Um, especially when Reggie is involved. Reggie is a multi-state, uh, program. So I'm sure that, um, we do have a set amount of funding specifically for, for green communities. Um, however, I don't know how the mechanism works when it comes to climate leaders.

00:51:28,100	S4:
Gotcha. Um, and our numbers are available to kind of understand how that accrues up. How much money has been out there, and does it get allocated annually for when they take in, or is there a balance that keeps growing, or who? Is there any way of looking at all of that? Like does it deplete by December for a calendar year or does? Is there pockets of money, hundreds of millions that just carry forward year over year?

00:51:51,601	S14:
When it comes to Reggie, which funds the Green Communities program, we get $15 million to do our grants. Um, when it comes to the Climate Leaders program, we've only had one cycle so far, so we've not really spent all the money. We have 75 million allocated. So we have that money that was approved. Gotcha. Um, that split into $60 million in climate the capital funding portion. So 1 million each roughly equals 60 applicants. And then the rest 15 million of technical assistance that that funding runs out, um, in spring of 2027. And unfortunately, I'm not in a position to say what our thoughts are after mid 2027.

00:52:38,968	S4:
Yeah. So I mean, you know, on this, you know, from a town perspective, I mean you nailed it. I think those are grants we can ride and we can look at the our inventory and our buildings and we can use it to subsidize, you know, much needed improvements and reach our goal. It's really like Bill said on, you know, what is that 1 to 3%? I think you said cost to the homeowner who has to pre wire, you know, for new new stuff only. Right. You said new.

00:53:00,701	S14:
Stuff.

00:53:01,100	S4:
New renovations.

00:53:02,400	S14:
No major renovations, no additions. They would have to follow your current stretch code rules. Okay.

00:53:07,100	S4:
All right. You know that's kind of what I would want to dig into a little bit more as we go and look down this. You know, the other thing I keep thinking about on the vehicles, it's really those two things, right? The stretch code and the vehicles. You know what you just said, Joe, consistent to what you've said before, it's been a challenge for us. So we could say and go and do this and maybe technology catches up and we can do this. But to date, I'm not sure we've seen that as a as a viable path that we could say, hey, we're going to do this. I do think the schools have done it right. Aren't the buses electric at this time?

00:53:37,200	S1:
Yeah, there was again, that was a state grant that paid for all the or federal grant.

00:53:40,868	S14:
I think that was a federal EPA grant.

00:53:42,400	S1:
Paid a federal grant that paid for all electric buses. Okay. But that's a big step for them because they were, you know, um, it helps them a little bit, too, in terms of writing the way that contract runs right before they were going out to the market, asking somebody who owned a bunch of buses to give them a deal on running their buses for Hamilton, one of them now, they're saying, well, we have all these new buses that you're going to run for us. It's a much different dynamic for them. But yeah, I'm going to be interested to see how they run this first winter with electric buses.

00:54:13,467	S4:
So and I know they're running probably morning and then later afternoon like our vehicles might be more throughout the day. So it's a little bit different.

00:54:19,567	S1:
But yeah, especially DPW and police vehicles are throughout the day.

00:54:22,467	S4:
And yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if like heat pumps you know I have them in my home but you know are they are there other studies that show whether how effective they are versus, you know, oil furnace like in very cold New England days? Are they as effective or are they challenged heat pumps versus.

00:54:40,567	S2:
When you get to like minus ten degrees.

00:54:42,167	S14:
Yeah. So we have we've done. So it's going to be different between a single family house versus let's say town hall or a school. We have a funded heat pump conversions that will go down. They'll have a backup fossil. They'll keep their old system, but they'll have, um, switch over temperatures that go down to like 14 Fahrenheit. I've seen some that go down to like minus four Fahrenheit. So, um, obviously as you go down in temperatures, it starts to d rate. The efficiency does go down because there's less heat to capture. Having said that, um, they're still they're still going to be much more efficient than, um, than older heat pumps. The technology is always evolving that come becoming ever more efficient. And there are what's known as the hyper heat options or the cold climate. Heat pumps that can work in those very cold temperatures. If you're looking at price differentials, there are studies that that do show kind of what, um, what the cost to run a heat pump would be vis a vis gas vis a vis oil. Right now, there's still going to be a sizable cost increase, especially on the commercial side. On the municipal side, however, on the residential side is practically even now because we have the winter heat pump rate. Okay.

00:56:01,901	S4:
Um, yeah. No, I definitely am excited. I'm a proponent of it and and want to do that kind of community outreach and educate folks and give them the opportunity. So definitely something I'm interested in learning more about through the process, through the warrant.

00:56:19,801	S2:
Uh.

00:56:21,868	S6:
Yeah. I have a few comments. Um, first, I think that the grants that we've gotten through the Green Communities program, Vicky, has done just a fantastic job of reaching out to the state and finding every extra dime that the state has to offer, and that that has been great. Um, and so so that said, I still, I think in terms of going forward with, uh, a greater commitment to, to the green, the total, um, immersion into, into the electrification. I have some, some concerns and I think the board has mentioned some of those. Um, I know that Rich Maloney, Rich Maloney very recently, uh, maybe in the past year or two, advised against going for the specialized stretch code because he felt that there were no uniform standards and it adds costs. And so that's that's the first caveat. Um, my second concern is about, uh, all electric vehicles. I think it's great in theory. And I think the board has also talked about some of the weaknesses of going all electric, whether, um, to me, I worry about the infrastructure, I worry about the the cost. I think the prospect is great. I'm not sure the technology is available and usable to a point where it would be beneficial to the town right now. And then I think about the, the, um, the requirements for, for residents. I mean, we all live in Hamilton on the board. Um, we have all looked at our recent electricity bills, which have just skyrocketed to the point where somebody like me, I have an electric dryer and I haven't used it for months and months because it just.

00:58:34,801	S6:
Buzzes so much electric electricity to be used, and it just causes my bill to increased astronomically where I just said, forget it. I'm not using it right now. So so the other the other part of that is when we talk about the mass save programs and the, um, the, uh, electricity delivery charges. I mean, I think we all know that those electricity delivery charges are astronomically higher than the kilowatt usage, and that is specifically related to such programs as Mass Save. So it's it's sort of a you you get in one hand, right, but you're giving in the other. And I'm just I'm just not convinced that we are there enough to say that this is something that we want to jump headlong into. I think there are a lot of concerns, a lot of financial concerns, especially related to electricity costs. And and I think the presenter would agree that the mass save is funded through, I think even said that through the electric companies and they put it into their fixed cost. But in reality those fixed costs are just sent back to the, to the residents, to, to the ratepayers. So, um, I think we are headed in the right direction. I think we need to look really carefully about proposals to go further at this point.

01:00:23,167	S8:
That's all.

01:00:24,801	S2:
No. Thank you. Rose. Rosemary.

01:00:27,467	S15:
Um. Ben.

01:00:29,367	S9:
I think we've covered all the bases. I my what I heard in the presentation. And then my follow up questions was from the residential and construction side that the increase. Like to go up to the next tier that the mandatory there was mandatory requirements for multifamily that are 12,000ft² and above to achieve a passive house standard.

01:00:52,567	S1:
Correct.

01:00:53,467	S9:
Um, and then new construction for single family. No passive house standard. It's just it stays as is based on our current commitment. Is that right?

01:01:02,467	S14:
So if you build an all electric house, then there's nothing additional that you need to do. If you build with any kind of gas appliance, then you would have to have solar where possible and also have like a dedicated circuit for future change out.

01:01:18,801	S9:
Okay, so you don't have to do passive House, but you do have to have, uh, you have to upsize every wire. And as if you were all electric anyway. Correct. In terms of your your main panel. Correct. So you're basically going from a 150 amp or something like that to a 200 amp panel anyway, which many houses.

01:01:35,968	S14:
Most, most houses are built with 200 amps. Yeah. Um, very unless you're building a very large house or a house with a pool or some kind of very large, uh, draw. Um, very few are built with 400 amps.

01:01:50,167	S9:
Right. So there's some large single family homes who might already be at a 400 amp. Anyway, throw in some diversification. You've got probably most of your electrical loads already covered.

01:02:00,067	S1:
Correct.

01:02:00,968	S9:
So from the new construction perspective, I'm not I'm not seeing a significant risk, especially if, you know, Harbor Light, the development project already kind of achieved the passive House standard. So I'm not seeing a significant risk to our taxpayers and our community. As associated with the uptick in requirements related construction. I'm just I'm not hearing something that's like this massive outlier of like, this is going to hit all of our existing taxpayers or even new home construction. I'm trying to put it back to the board, too. Unless somebody heard something different, but I.

01:02:35,767	S1:
Know it doesn't sound like it is in the current form, although the one caveat is that you're passing it and agreeing to accept all future additions. So, you know, you could you could envision a time when it becomes more mandatory at different levels than it currently is. So you'd be then signing off to accept that until you move forward.

01:02:54,367	S9:
You asked a good question to at the beginning of like if we wanted to, if we started going down that road and the requirements started to ratchet up and we wanted to unwind it and exit, you know, presumably if we've been on the right path and even if we've received grant money, it's just sort of, hey, you've just now changed the rules of the game. They're accelerating beyond what we can, what we feel we can financially afford, either as a community or what we're willing to put on to, you know, our constituents. We just bring it back to town. Town meeting.

01:03:23,567	S2:
And I didn't know if it was like we'd have to be like a supermajority, but it's not a simple majority, so it's good to know. Sometimes to reverse things, it takes more of opposing like both.

01:03:34,267	S9:
In both cases, it's a.

01:03:35,267	S2:
Simple majority.

01:03:36,167	S9:
Act to go into the program and to exit the.

01:03:39,067	S4:
Program. But they have the right to change that potentially, and we'd have to adopt that. It could. It could shift from simple to right.

01:03:45,200	S9:
I just like trying to game this out. I didn't hear a lot like associated with the construction piece. I think then when it comes to the vehicles as well, you know.

01:03:53,100	S1:
Just separate policy and that that's the separate policy right now that only requires the select board to adopt.

01:03:57,667	S14:
Just the select board.

01:03:59,267	S1:
Meeting vote. Yeah. So there are two different parts of becoming a climate leader that we need to investigate here in the next few months are an EV first policy that the town could adopt. And then, you know, Any vote taken by a select court can be undone by a future vote of board. Just so.

01:04:16,467	S9:
The other thing that's kind of coming to my mind too, is like, I really appreciate the example of the harbor like development. Um, you know, that's been done here in our town. You know, and we passed three a last year. Um, we don't, you know, there's been no rush to develop anything. But if the economics change, you know, I'd like to see developers who are coming in to do a 12,000 square foot development. I don't know if they have that that flexibility in our zoning, but they did a good job of breaking up all the massing and whatnot and the policies. But you'd like to think that they'd be achieving the same level of performance or sustainability that Harbor Light did somewhat 4 or 5 years ago. Now, if a developer comes in in three years, it's like, well, you've got to at least do that, right? So I think there's also kind of an environmental backstop of, of us kind of looking out, continuing to look out for the community to make sure that anyone who's coming in is kind of the same level looking on.

01:05:13,067	S1:
An extra level.

01:05:15,300	S9:
So that was the only last little nugget I had of kind of thinking about, what does the future of development look like in our in our community? Um, but otherwise I don't see a significant risk. I think it would behoove us to start thinking about. I'm looking over at John McGrath now, around kind of, you know, the the planning stage of, well, when are our vehicles reaching the end of their useful life or when are the HVAC systems, you know, in most of these buildings reaching the end of their useful life and starting to kind of plan out, when would those incremental capital improvement things be coming into play?

01:05:52,300	S1:
And that's coming in the carbon.

01:05:54,100	S14:
And that would be as part of the municipal decarbonization.

01:05:58,100	S1:
Roadmap already is already working on, um, it's not completed.

01:06:01,100	S14:
It's mostly done.

01:06:02,000	S1:
It's mostly done. It's going to include all that for our vehicles.

01:06:04,367	S13:
And that will also.

01:06:05,067	S14:
Include your feet inventory as well.

01:06:06,868	S9:
I mean, I'll just say my opinion And based on that sort of having that financial roadmap of what what this looks like over five, ten, 15 years before I think we're even start thinking about bringing it to the town meeting. I'd have to say like, so I'm not saying not this year, but I also don't want to try to do like a rushed sprint between March 15th and April, whatever it's going to be. Right. So yeah, just putting that out there for conversation as well. That's it.

01:06:42,167	S2:
That's good. No, I think and what you had mentioned earlier was, you know, we look at grants as, you know, not taxpayer money to do improvements in our town. Right. So we save our taxpayer taxes getting the grants. And this is work we'd have to do anyway, is what you said. Right. It's not work that we chose this work that we would have had to do anyways, or it's work that we do that saves money on an energy bill that saves money for the town. So it's it's good to be able to be in a pool They can. They can subsidize our work we need to do anyways without increasing taxes. So I'm obviously in favor of that. And I'm not even worried about a commercial developer wants to come to town and build something and they have to go stretch Coke because that's that's a profit center for them. But it's the residents who might want to buy a house, tear it down, build a new house, and what do we do to that person who's trying to improve the residential property in Hamilton? That's what I'm more concerned about. But so that's what I kind of want to dig into. And I think you kind of said the same thing. So I agree, but I don't know if you want to talk from just an initial point of view, how maybe you can help us evaluate this.

01:07:43,868	S16:
John McGrath A couple of things that I think we should do. One is and Vicky and I exchanged some emails, um, as a follow up to the budget conversations we had. Um, the journey we have been on has been highly successful for the town. And that roadmap that was shown. Um, a great story. So one, I think, um, if we're going to get up in front of the town or you're going to take a vote, I think you need to lean heavily on where we've been and what we've done. The other go forward I would recommend is put together 3 or 4 use cases, um, on hey, here's what it might mean to $1 million homeowner. Here's what it might mean to a $2 million homeowner. Basically, address the questions that you know are going to get asked. And one of the questions we'll get asked, um, is on the building code item, there's going to be a developer who gets up in town meeting and is going to say, um, this is going to tie people like myself in knots because we have to deal with this new code. So I would have that be one of the use cases? Get 2 or 3 residential developers together and have them opine on, hey, we've thought about this stretch code and here's what we think it means. We know we will get asked that question at town meeting most likely. So. So there's probably.

01:09:20,267	S2:
True hopefully between now and town meeting. Yes.

01:09:22,567	S16:
And I think it's highly unlikely that we're going to sprint on this subject before April. Given some of the things that we have going on in town. So that would be my my thought. So so I think great track record. Here's what we've done for the town. And then when the roadmap emerges, here's what we're thinking going forward a couple of years down the road. And maybe the stretch code is one of the items. So I think we need to be we've learned if there's an impact, the taxpayers get out ahead of it, articulate it, put it out in front of everybody to explain, hey, we've already given some thought. And by the way, we've engaged some town members, you know, like folks like Tom Ford or some of these local developers who would get up at town meeting. So those are some of the early thoughts that I've had.

01:10:14,868	S2:
Thanks, Joe. Timing on this thing. So what? And maybe, you know, so so obviously it's beneficial to get it approved as soon as possible. But if we didn't approve it for a year, it just it doesn't eliminate from the program. It just prevents us from getting grants for another year. Right, right.

01:10:32,567	S4:
But we've gotten we've received we've.

01:10:34,701	S1:
Used we're still in the green community, but the new enhanced level of grants for some of the other stuff that we have to. I do think that it's important for us to get, um, to start to understand what the roadmap is going to. Decarbonization roadmap is going to tell us. Um, and I think getting that out there publicly, um, familiarized with folks in the town yourselves, uh, other voters and department heads and then figuring out, um, you know, that may tell us that we think it's more urgent that we do something than than that's true. Not like what is the roadmap on some of the stuff. And let's take a look at that and see. Does is this something that you want to try to get done by April, or do you want to be 30 time meeting or next annual meeting?

01:11:22,067	S9:
Joe, what I picture is like, there's stuff that's already 30% past the end of its useful life. And that that's the story across every building in this entire community as far as like municipal or school buildings, then having an extra million dollars sooner rather than later would be worth it.

01:11:37,701	S1:
So that does bring me bring up a question. I know that the goal here was to try to get Hamilton, Wenham and the Hamilton Random Regional School District all to be able to apply for this, but Hamilton Hamilton doesn't. Hamilton's not applying right away doesn't limit the regional school district's ability to go forward, nor us. Applying them, going, not going forward doesn't hurt us, right? They're not tied to each other.

01:12:03,367	S14:
Um, God, that's a very good question. Um, I will say that, you know, Hamilton, both Wenham and Hamilton are doing this almost in tandem with each other. Um, in the very unlikely scenario that, um, one town did go forward, but the other town did. And as long as the regional school district, I believe, um, the regional school district, uh, buildings are included in Hamilton's roadmap, if I'm not mistaken, but in both of the roadmaps. So in either case that in the, uh, scenario in which one of one of the towns does not go forward with crime leaders, the rest would still benefit.

01:12:42,968	S4:
And how are other regional agreements like the library, like the park programs? How were they impacted if something wanted to be done? Like if one town's not in it? Or is it the. Yeah, the entity that manages the program. I you don't have to answer that.

01:12:57,067	S1:
I don't know the answer. I wouldn't be able to give you an answer to that right now.

01:13:00,100	S17:
I just hi. Vicky Moosonee, energy manager. Hi. I just have a few comments about. I think context is the best thing I can offer right now. So when I'm, as Dillon said, is is also pursuing or considering pursuing. And I think this is the only case in the Commonwealth where the two towns have the regional school district. And we're all kind of intertwined in this. Right? Because people call me and they're like, how do you do this? Because it was the same situation with green community. So Hamilton and Wenham both became green communities at the same time. So therefore the regional school district was eligible for grants. And you saw some projects on that timeline that we did at the building, at the school buildings. So the same would happen here, I think if both towns became climate leaders, those grants could go towards school projects, and schools are going to have some huge projects coming up.

01:13:50,167	S1:
I think both towns need to be climate leaders in order for the district to get them, but I think they are.

01:13:55,801	S17:
If both are, you could get you could get 2 million. Because that's what we did in green communities. We doubled what we did. We did a big controls project at the high school, and we combined Hamilton and Green communities and got 500,000. Yeah, but I mean, the high school roof alone, they're going to be looking to do the high school roof. It's like $10 million. I've been talking to Curtis and that's, you know, partly paid by MSBA. But this could be like a good, you know, supplement to that. Um, and just with the vote of those schools, there's going to have a lot of capital going on there.

01:14:25,667	S9:
Roof solar ready. Can we get some more?

01:14:28,467	S17:
We wanted.

01:14:29,000	S4:
To get money.

01:14:29,801	S17:
Or period. Not so we're ready for pushing to get the solar on to.

01:14:34,567	S4:
And is that all part of the roadmap the school needs, like the roof you gave as an example. That'll be in this roadmap that's already being put together.

01:14:41,601	S17:
Yeah, yeah. I mean the roadmap is more about the mechanicals. I don't think the roof is necessarily on there. Um.

01:14:48,567	S14:
I mean, maybe it is if your facilities manager or Your school facilities manager does give that information that it can be included in, that we would not be able to fund the, the, the roof itself, but we definitely do the solar right.

01:15:03,968	S17:
Because when we did the draft, the vote hadn't been finalized yet on the schools. So it was still kind of in limbo. So hopefully that's helpful.

01:15:11,767	S2:
Thank you. And Jove, we said, hey, it's worth it to put it on April meeting and we're going to work hard to do it, but it failed. So it's not really it's not it didn't come back the following meeting. Right.

01:15:23,567	S1:
Yeah. It's it's not it's not a zoning article. So it can come back at the next meeting. It can come back a few months later at a special time meeting. You can also always, you know, consider putting it on to the warrant, start to draft it, start familiarizing the community with it. Hopefully Agassi and Vicki can lead some community informational sessions that will. We'll get some traction for you and you can always change your mind. Hey, this isn't going to pass right now. Why don't we pause? We'll go back to work and we'll bring it back either in the fall or next year. But the only thing is, if you don't put it on the warrant, you can't act and you can't act on it in April, no matter what.

01:15:58,968	S2:
You gotta get some momentum right to it.

01:16:01,000	S9:
I think my mindset is just sort of like getting a bit of a foreshadowing of how our equipment inventory is looking and if it's dire, right. Like, you know, I know we lost the boilers at the high school last year, and if it's going to be the same for some other of our facilities around, then maybe it's worth trying to push. But if it's not a dire situation, then like I.

01:16:24,267	S1:
Don't feel like we're I don't feel like Hamilton is in a dire situation.

01:16:28,300	S17:
I feel like the big opportunity is with the schools at this moment. You know, unless we did like the solar at P.S. Public Safety, that's a good one. But the schools for this first round.

01:16:38,167	S1:
The treatment plant.

01:16:39,100	S4:
So what is the timing of seeing that information for that.

01:16:42,367	S17:
Yeah.

01:16:42,567	S4:
Another what is the timing of being able to look at that. You know, this roadmap at least an inventory of what could possibly be? What's the cost of waiting that is going to hit us soon in the next year?

01:16:54,067	S17:
Now, we met with capital before Christmas to try to overlay their facilities list on our facilities list to make sure that they're the same. So, um, I would say in the next couple of weeks, we could probably have something to review.

01:17:08,267	S1:
Yeah, if you could, that'd be great. Yeah. So the board's going to open the warrant tonight. Um, they're currently scheduled on the original calendar. They were planning to close the warrant on February 2nd or whatever it is, but they'll probably extend it because, um, town meeting is going to be a little later, so we can extend it and close the warrant two weeks later. It would be February 16th, I think, or whatever it is. Uh, that's that's right after the holiday. So it'll be this, uh, right around the February holiday. Um, so we we need to know enough for them to decide to keep it on the warrant or put it on the warrant by by that date. Um, Otherwise you'd miss the opportunity for April. So.

01:17:49,767	S17:
Okay. So the draft would come to this board for review. It would be like a local operations review, like Tim and you and I. Okay.

01:17:57,367	S1:
Share with Tim. I hope you give it a B. Will you give it to me? I'm going to share with Tim. I would share it with Wendy, Capcom and these guys, but Capcom probably already seen it. So yeah. Yeah, let's get that.

01:18:10,067	S2:
There's been a great discussion. I do want to open it up to see if any public comment, um, is out there. So anybody room or.

01:18:18,100	S1:
On ready to say something.

01:18:19,367	S2:
Or online can raise their hand. Otherwise we will, uh, we will think about this and put it on the future meeting agenda and keep working towards it. But no, thank you for coming. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

01:18:28,968	S15:
Thank you so much. Yeah.

01:18:29,968	S4:
Great presentation.

01:18:30,868	S15:
Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks, Don.

01:18:35,868	S2:
All right. Next item on the agenda. Fiscal year 2027 budget discussion with highlights of areas of concern with Town Manager Joe and Assistant Town Manager finance director.

01:18:46,367	S1:
Wendy, I'm gonna try and get this up here. Going. Does everybody see that? And everybody at home see that? We're all good.

01:18:52,267	S15:
Yeah. Okay.

01:18:54,868	S1:
Thanks. Um. All right, so this, um, you know, we have this normally, you know, we have the, uh, the joint meeting with the fin com at the end of the month. Um, a couple of weeks ago, the board said, you know, members of the board said to me it'd be helpful to have a little bit of a high level look before we get there. So Wendy and I are bringing this to you to kind of give you an idea of where things stand right now. From our vantage point, obviously there is still another five board meeting. There's still votes by the school committee to be had. It. We don't have the final capital committee recommendations yet. So this is going to change. And, um, remind me after we go through this that we want to talk about other things that aren't included in this, like, um, health insurance. So.

01:19:42,968	S3:
Come on.

01:19:45,901	S3:
There we go. All right.

01:19:47,167	S1:
So is this my first screen? Right? Yes. Okay, so this is a quick look at our FY 24 through FY 26 budget breakdown. Um, and FY 24, our total budget was $39,747,906.

01:20:03,567	S1:
As of last year, it was up to $42,915,592.

01:20:09,801	S1:
Um, this this has just meant to give you a snapshot of kind of where we've been at with regard to what we take in for revenue and where it gets spent. You can see that on average, we're right, around 59% of our revenue goes to the regional school district, the Hamilton Regional School District. We add another 1% to the Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School.

01:20:36,467	S1:
Which is moving too fast. Okay. Um, for the FY 27 budget outlook. Right now, we're projecting revenue of $43,605,469.

01:20:50,567	S1:
If we look at a reasonable budget projection based on our average revenue percentage of revenue, we would be looking at, um, the town having a $186,000 deficit right now compared to, um, where we stand. That is, like I said, it's still early days. We can figure a way to close $186,000. The much smaller deficit that we're that we're anticipating with Essex North Shore of about $60,000, but we actually have some reason to hope that that actually may turn into a surplus, because we've been told that the our enrollment in the Essex North Shore has gone down a little bit. So we would expect that we wouldn't be paying for as many students. The real problem for our budget this year is with what the regional school district is proposing. Um, their budget. Um, you know, if we gave them 59%, we'd be giving them 25,631,448.

01:21:52,367	S1:
So unfortunately, they've asked for more than that. Um, base as a percentage of revenue, the regional school districts. Current request to the Hamilton town of Hamilton. It would be equal to 64.5% of our budget. Um, you know, this this includes all the things that we've already done. So we'll get into some of this. So what does this what does this include? Um, potential budget changes we've already recognized. We're we're holding a $350,000 savings for realizing the dispatch. So we've cut the dispatch out of our FY 27 budget. We understood that that was a cost, but we were taking a phased approach. And so we're going to recognize about a $350,000 savings. That's what we can estimate right now for FY 27. In addition, you know, we've announced last week that, um, we're the deputy fire chief is going to be promoted to chief effective October 1st, and we're not going to fill that position. So it's another $72,000 savings that the town has made for the FY 27 budget. We have we are currently carrying some potential additions due to changes in the way the reserve police program works and and the police officer certification that is required. Uh, we don't have I think we have one reserve officer left. So that creates a need for additional policing in our department. And, um, so the department has asked for a new officer that comes at a cost of about $108,000. We've added, as we talked about the the phased approach to, uh, removing regionalized dispatch, uh, results in a one and a half public safety creator. We're carrying in the budget about $114,000 to have a full time and a part time to cover the bulk of the days on weekdays at least. We have asked to increase the hours for the assistant coach position to a full time position that comes with the cost, and we have been asked by the Select board to consider, um, you know, communication specialists to help the town manager, the select board. But all departments and all boards really communicate better and focus on community engagement and really outreach. So that comes with a $50,000 cost that that is all baked into what we're saying. When I say back here that we'd be looking at $186,000 deficit. That includes all those new positions we just talked about. So if nothing else changed, we could still if we got rid of some of those additions, we could still and look a little bit closer to some of our other expense, because we're still in the point of estimating we could still close on the town side and stay within our our regular percentage of the budget of the revenue. The problem does come down to what to do with the school. So, you know, we just I just talked about all the different efforts here that we've taken to increase revenue. Um, this budget projection also includes $350,000 in new tax revenue from the Gordon Conwell departments. We recognize it might be closer to $500,000, but that's all based on it being there for a full year and everything's assessed properly and we're all ready to go on July 1st. Assuming that.

01:25:04,367	S15:
That's already.

01:25:04,901	S2:
In there.

01:25:05,567	S1:
We've added we're carrying on budget our budget number 350,000.

01:25:09,267	S9:
Have they closed?

01:25:10,167	S1:
I don't know. We're expecting them to close before, you know, too long. But we still have everything. Still has to run through the process. We're not expecting them to have that, you know, fully rented out before July 1st, so.

01:25:22,501	S15:
Sure.

01:25:24,267	S1:
Um, the revenue, the special revenue from Gordon Conwell, the $400,000 will be there. That'll help us with capital if we want. Or we can put it. We've talked about putting it in a special revenue fund. Um, but, you know, those are things that we have to discuss as well in more in detail that we wouldn't put into the operating budget. But there's potential for that to be there either in a special revenue fund and to sit there and gain interest and gain interest until we have a bigger project we want to use. Or if you wanted to, we could propose to use some of it in our capital plan. Um.

01:25:57,267	S4:
And so cautioned us about health care. Is that how is that baked into this initial assessment.

01:26:01,767	S1:
So right now right now we're carrying a cost for health care based on an estimate from my am. I is our municipal, uh, insurer. And they provide our health, our employee health insurance. There is a process to go by. And I know one of the select board members have been. And share an email with all of you. And I, uh, a week or so ago, and we have already been working on trying to pull together an employee insurance committee to discuss changes, whether that be the movement out of Maya to the GIC, or to move and change the just make changes to plan design to find some cost savings. We haven't done that yet. I have in your packets the packets I left with you and that I sent out earlier today included emails from town council with a kind of a template of a schedule and a template of a letter that I can send to the unions tomorrow to engage them and try to get them to the table. And then there's other steps that are listed there. I want to know if the board wants me to pursue that. I don't really think I have to have a vote from you to pursue that conversation with the, the, with the unions, but I think it would help in getting them to understand where we're at. The goal here is to be able to find savings under the state law. If we find savings in the health insurance plan, we'd have to share half of that savings with the unions themselves. Generally, a lot of times you set up a fund to help them help offset any increases to their co-pays and things like that, but that that could all be negotiated with the unions. A larger.

01:27:32,100	S2:
Conservative.

01:27:32,667	S9:
Number.

01:27:33,000	S2:
Here.

01:27:33,467	S1:
We're carrying a number right now. Based on what happened to us last year. We they they told us last year. Oh, probably 10 or 15%. And we got whacked with a 19% increase. We were able to absorb it, but I don't don't.

01:27:44,767	S2:
Think we did what, 19%.

01:27:46,300	S1:
I carried 19, carried 22% 22.

01:27:49,167	S2:
We had.

01:27:49,467	S17:
To.

01:27:49,667	S18:
Do a catch up as well from last year.

01:27:51,767	S1:
They catch up for what we absorbed this year plus. So we carried 22% in the budget. Right now if we do plan, design and stay with Maya, or if we move to GSE and we can show that there's savings, we can reduce that number a little bit. So that might get us a big chunk of that 186 that we're currently out of whack. We hope to have a lot more answers on this by the time we meet with the income in two weeks.

01:28:13,067	S2:
But go back to the second slide. Show a good slide like the slides I'll put together. Back to the um, and how much detail does the school giving us right now?

01:28:24,067	S1:
They don't give us much. I mean, they, they they.

01:28:27,167	S2:
Go back one more slide.

01:28:28,901	S1:
Yeah. That one.

01:28:30,400	S2:
That one more click on here.

01:28:33,300	S1:
Come on.

01:28:36,467	S1:
Come on. Sorry, guys.

01:28:42,100	S9:
There is.

01:28:42,901	S1:
That's the one. So you've seen like the total budget goes up. You know, a little bit.

01:28:49,801	S2:
Of the school education went from 23 to 24 eight. So it went up like 1.7 million. And then it went up and went up a less than a million. And now it's going to go up 2.5 million.

01:29:02,000	S1:
Okay. So what I would say.

01:29:04,200	S2:
To do every year though, they always go big when they give it the original number.

01:29:07,300	S1:
But what I would say though too, is that what you're seeing to don't forget, is that last year they had a much bigger number than what they actually gave us. And part of the reason they were able to reduce that number was because they had additional excess and deficiency, which they put into the budget. So it was like, you know, our our retained earnings in the Water Enterprise Fund or our free cash. And they used it in the budget. They said, you know, well, we told you we were going to use it and keep you down. But, you know, now we got it. Now we're going to make that up. It's not really the way budgeting works. You know, the deal is they knew that they had this larger issue. They and us, we all wanted to avoid an override if we could. We did that. That's a good thing. That's always our goal. Um, so they used the access and efficiency they're allowed to by law. And it's something that they can do, but.

01:29:52,367	S9:
It.

01:29:52,467	S2:
Doesn't help them.

01:29:53,267	S1:
At the end of the day. They voted for a contract for their union that they knew that they couldn't afford based on our budget. If they want to ask for an override, they can. What I'm arguing is that it should not be tied to the town meeting and override. The town doesn't need an override to handle our operational expenses this year.

01:30:12,200	S2:
So go to the next slide.

01:30:13,601	S4:
Yeah, I commend you on the 186. That's not a problem.

01:30:15,868	S6:
Joe, I have a quick question.

01:30:17,667	S8:
Yeah.

01:30:18,567	S6:
They're indie. Um, it goes into their Stabilization fund.

01:30:25,868	S1:
They know it doesn't necessarily. They'd have to take a vote to do that last night.

01:30:30,300	S8:
But but they gave it back.

01:30:31,868	S6:
They have done that so that even if even if they don't use everything they're asking. I mean, it's it seems like their, their residents wouldn't get any rebate from any leftover funds that they, they have in the past few years since they developed the stabilization fund. Take any end and just put it into their their stabilization fund and then use it for whatever they think is reasonable.

01:31:04,567	S1:
Not not to not to argue a point, but I don't believe they have. So they've done both mostly. So the agreement allows them to keep 3% for their benefit.

01:31:15,567	S8:
Okay.

01:31:16,167	S1:
And that they have put some of that into the stabilization fund, which they'd argue was the reason they created the stabilization fund.

01:31:23,901	S8:
Well, yeah. Okay.

01:31:24,801	S6:
Okay. Yeah. I'm actually I was unsure about that. I, I thought that they had said that they were putting all of the end of the excess funds into the stabilization, but. Okay. Thank you for clarifying that, Joe.

01:31:40,100	S2:
The 43,605,000,

01:31:43,267	S2:
that is based on what tax rate.

01:31:46,067	S1:
That's based on a full use of our two and a half allowance to go up 2.5% of the levy over last year. So that is but I will say we were as always, we were conservative in estimating other revenue. So we didn't measure we didn't estimate very big increases at all for things like uh, excise tax or um, permit fees or state aid, because those things are all kind of trending in a different direction. We didn't hit our number on we didn't quite hit our number for the current year on current fees and excise tax. So we had estimated an increase last year that we were coming in just out of just under, again, not causing us a problem, but we didn't want to. We did not want to project a larger increase in those, again, because we don't. Necessarily feel comfortable that we'll get there.

01:32:41,100	S4:
So what's the number that triggers an override for the total budget?

01:32:48,567	S1:
What's the number that would have we'd have to get I think if we go.

01:32:52,000	S2:
For.

01:32:52,701	S18:
43 the 43,000,600. So that's that's all in revenue. That's free cash is in there. Those are your transfers. That's your 3.2 million of, um, your local receipts. Everything's in there. Your state aids in there of the 43, six, 600.

01:33:08,367	S2:
Maxing it out.

01:33:09,367	S18:
Yes. And it's, um, we've come under the growth the last couple of years. We've overestimated. So we the the the normal growth, We put it to 150, which is normal. Based on the last couple of years. And then we added the 350 for the Gordon Conwell. So we're at the 500 total of growth. But it's because of those two pieces together.

01:33:32,267	S4:
So you're saying so what was the number in 26. The total budget by 42,000,900. And right now to we can go as high as 43 six right without doing it.

01:33:44,000	S18:
Right. Correct.

01:33:44,868	S4:
And but we're currently at 46 three so that this two segment is the number. Okay.

01:33:49,567	S1:
Yeah. And that two seven, almost all of it is the $2.5 million additional from.

01:33:54,567	S4:
So what's our path of what are the schools working through that. I mean we could sit here and talk about the one six. I'm pretty sure you can cover that. But what's our next steps to kind of walk through that?

01:34:04,167	S1:
So I think, you know, I know that I know that from talking to the superintendent and watching some of the their last meeting, the superintendent and Vinny did propose some cuts that the school committee chose not to act on at the time. I think it was not to act on, and it was a total I think it was a total of 750,000. Um, which would have only impacted us by about 500,000. So you're still. Yeah, they're still really not really working on the actual issue at hand.

01:34:34,501	S2:
So they're going to say to us.

01:34:35,601	S9:
We don't have any detail, we don't have a breakdown of what's driving that up.

01:34:40,667	S19:
All the details.

01:34:42,501	S9:
Okay.

01:34:43,467	S19:
So I mean.

01:34:45,701	S2:
What's driving it up? Well, it's not really driving up. The what's driving up is the fact that they really spent $27 million last year, but they only charge is 25 million because they took 2 million out of free cash.

01:34:55,901	S19:
Right?

01:34:56,267	S2:
So yeah.

01:34:57,667	S19:
They delayed a little.

01:34:59,167	S2:
Yeah. Yeah.

01:35:00,267	S19:
For this year. Right.

01:35:01,601	S2:
And so here we are.

01:35:04,801	S1:
Um, but they're going to need a debt exclusion for the school roof and an override the way this stands. You know, the school committee and the school district have the right to advocate for what they think they need to run the district, but it shouldn't require the town to make cuts that at this point we don't have, we don't have the room to cut it.

01:35:25,000	S9:
I don't think like the things as well that we're saying, you know, it's been a tough couple years for the town as well. It's like these are the things that we feel like we need as well to improve and to provide a level of service that people expect. And so a great job on the budget, getting us where we are. I think, yeah, I don't particularly want to see us taking a hatchet to ours just yet. If the school committee isn't looking at ways to be more efficient just yet either.

01:35:55,701	S1:
So, I mean, I anticipate there's going to be a conversation between at the five boards about the need for an override and how much what that need is and how it gets presented to voters. Um.

01:36:07,100	S19:
Yeah.

01:36:07,701	S1:
You know, and when you get into that conversation, you should prepare the budget as it would be if you have an override and then the budget as it would be. If you don't have an override, what I'm suggesting is that the budget without the override shouldn't reduce critical services in the town of Hamilton. It should be reducing something on the school side, and they need to outline what that would be.

01:36:34,567	S19:
Yeah.

01:36:36,167	S6:
Joe, we also know that you've worked really hard on the budgets over the last several years to make sure that the town got what it needed. Well, certainly attending to the schools needs as much as possible. So I think having a more, um, austere line with the schools is, is not something that's unwarranted, given that the town really has made a lot of concessions for the benefit of the schools, and we want to do that. We certainly want our schools to be successful. I think when you look at something like this, it really it really gets pretty scary.

01:37:24,000	S4:
And it just keeps growing, I think.

01:37:26,400	S6:
And just. Yeah. And and I think I would agree that, that we don't often see a detailed breakdown of the school's budget such that it would satisfy inquiry. And, and I know their budget is much larger than ours and but but you have to just look at the reality, right. I mean, that's a huge number. And it's good heavens, it's something that hopefully they will look at very hard and come up with some with some budget cuts because.

01:38:12,467	S6:
wow, that's that's pretty. It's just mind boggling.

01:38:19,901	S16:
Uh, John McGrath, a couple of comments.

01:38:22,000	S19:
Um.

01:38:25,367	S16:
The, um, the school budget and, um, is painfully detailed, distributed in open meetings. Um, so any and all detail that we need regarding the school budget is readily available. We all have it. All right. That's the first point. Um, I think.

01:38:47,868	S16:
I think two questions. One is, um, I would suggest that the select board asked Joe in the department heads, is there anything that's been left out of the town budget that we really should have in there? Have we squeezed? Have we pushed? Have we deleted anything that's going to impact town operations. My assessment after sitting through all kinds of meetings. I don't think and I asked the question of department heads, is there anything that you really feel as though you got caught or you haven't included, or is there any rest of the town? The answer I got was no. So I think the Selectboard should, um, make sure they feel comfortable with what's in the town budget and what isn't in it. I think it's a good budget. I think Joe and Wendy. I think it's a fairly put together and well done. So, um, I think that's the first point. The number that I've been watching and the fin com has been watching is the percent of revenue. Um, anything above 60% for the schools? I think you're on thin ice. All right. So. And Rosie's right. I don't think we should be allowing the school to go from 60% to 63% to 65%, you know, an increasingly larger percentage, because that will probably, um, do a disservice to the town. So I think the bottom line is, and I had the conversation in the meetings, um, there's going to be an override for the school roof. Um, I think it's $6 million coming to the two towns. Hamilton is going to have to approve 4 million. That's going to be an override. I think it's a debt exclusion, Joe, if I'm not mistaken.

01:40:44,501	S19:
Yeah, yeah.

01:40:45,701	S16:
Um, then the second point is, how does the how do we collectively want to explain this to the taxpayers. And it's primarily cola health insurance and step increases.

01:41:02,267	S19:
Uh.

01:41:03,601	S16:
That's those are the top three items and that's about $2.3 million. So if you don't fund that, you're probably going to have to lay off teachers. Increase class sizes. So that's the message to the to the, um, taxpayers. After seven years of no overrides, unfortunately 2027 there will be an override. That's the way it comes down to. So if you feel comfortable with what Joe and Wendy did on the town side, I think the answer then is we've delayed overrides for a long time, and it's coming to roost now on top of the new roof of the high school. So I think that's the that's a quick summary from my.

01:41:54,000	S19:
Point of view.

01:41:54,501	S9:
I think the other thing that we might want to do as a board too, is look back at our, our goals, you know, to that question of, um, is everything in the budget that we need, and not that we're going to try to achieve the goals in 27, you know. But are there other things that we need to be doing in this upcoming fiscal year to in terms of laying the groundwork? Are there studies that we need to be working on? Any additional audits that we need to be thinking about that allow us to achieve our our longer range goals, whether it's things around the water, around resiliency or or for thinking, whatever else that whatever else was on that list.

01:42:36,868	S19:
Right. Yeah.

01:42:37,467	S4:
So I think a lot of that might be the capital budget, right? Especially with water. But your point as well. Have we thought about a 27 and 28 plan, you know, for the district as well. Because, you know, you're saying, you know the 2.5 million increase, right. For the schools. I think everyone saw that coming. Right. And I think a lot of that is based on the teacher's contract. Right. So we know that as a multi-year contract. So do we. Can we roll that forward to see if we're we going to face another 1 in 28 or do is it a step function in that we're back.

01:43:07,000	S1:
And so some of it. So I would say this if in the world they put forward the entire override amount and it got passed.

01:43:18,167	S1:
It would a lot of that would be catch up. So the the annual increase isn't so drastic as to be $2.5 million every year. The I don't want to paint that picture either. Like, but because they've been, they've been artificially keeping the assessment down by putting free cash into their budget. And that's been used to kind of absorb the increased annual over the last two years. Now, going forward, you'd have to catch all that, all of that up in the 2.5 million. Then next year it would be a bigger increase than the normal because there I think there's their Cola was 5% and ours, ours was three. So it would be bigger in 2829, but it wouldn't be $2.5 million. It'd be something smaller than that.

01:44:05,167	S4:
But could it still trigger an override?

01:44:07,467	S19:
It could potentially.

01:44:08,868	S4:
Those are the kind of things I'd like to see. Like, if we're on a path to that and then really impact and, like, let everyone decide, right? Like, if the 2.5 get you XYZ, what we feel we need. Right. And then here's the cost of reducing it and prioritize the list. Like you brought up layoffs and things like that. I think that should be called out not to do, but to show the impact, you know, of not doing it. But I do think that's a that's a tall order. And I would commend you again on your number. I would almost argue you're a flat budget, right. Because of the phased approach on on the emergency center, because of the, you know, prorated amount on the Commonwealth tax. You know, in another year, you know, that catches up and it's a much bigger like savings right on a full year.

01:44:50,167	S1:
Yeah. I mean more or less flat. But I mean, again, we got rid of a whole department. You know, we're not going to replace a senior leadership position in the fire department. So that's why.

01:44:59,300	S4:
Yeah that was 650 versus the 350. Right. And then you added the head. Yeah. So.

01:45:04,067	S1:
Um, so it's, you know, I think that the big things that are in this budget that, you know, we, I think that we need and that we're asking for are the police officer, the increase in the assistant director of the CEO to full time. She's mostly full time now, but not quite there. And then, uh, establishing some level of professional communications, community engagement effort. I'm carrying a number of 50in here. If you ask me if there's something else that we could use, we could actually use somebody full time, but that's going to be on the order of 85 for just, um, for just salary, because I know that's what they're paying in other municipalities that have those. So.

01:45:42,667	S8:
Um, no, I, I just had a question.

01:45:46,000	S6:
The public safety greeter, could that be combined with the part time team communication specialist?

01:45:53,767	S1:
Somehow I think that would be difficult. The public safety greeters, really, you know, somebody that is going to kind of. You know, just solid people from different point people in a direction when they come in and they look at things in there. Also, we've also written that job description to include some administrative work to help the fire department, because the fire department doesn't currently have any admin help, the police department does, but the communication specialist is going to be somebody that's going to run our website. Going to help with press releases is going to make outreach. It's going to run polls. Surveys, help us work on community engagement events where we have, uh, informational sessions and things like that, that that person will be doing more proactive communication rather than passive standing there waiting to be asked, hey, we're I need, you know, I need somebody help me put a baby seat in my car or whatever comes into the police station.

01:46:47,467	S8:
Yeah, okay.

01:46:47,901	S6:
Well, yeah, that that makes sense. And I was just inquiring.

01:46:51,901	S1:
Thanks I understand.

01:46:59,167	S6:
And this override the 2.5 million. That's our share of it. That doesn't include when and share right there. They're projected to increase their budget by is it 11.6% or something like that. I mean, they when I was going to be paying, um, a hefty increase as well.

01:47:24,367	S1:
Yeah, I think when it was already decided though that they I mean, I don't want to speak for them. I had heard through the grapevine that there's some belief that they need an override for town side services there as well. So they're.

01:47:36,400	S8:
Not.

01:47:37,167	S1:
Planning on having the same conversation necessarily with the schools that we are.

01:47:41,467	S2:
So you're suggesting breaking the budget into two votes?

01:47:44,100	S19:
Yes.

01:47:45,501	S2:
Which we did a few years ago just to create conversation, not doesn't really do anything because you can't approve one without the other, but can you.

01:47:55,067	S1:
Uh, you can, um, you know somebody. You know what the situation we've run into in the past is that somebody stands up and tries to merge them and join them all the time on the floor. Um, my point is that if they're going to take that budget to town meeting floor, they're also going to need to bring an override question to the ballot the following Thursday. And I think that we need to be very specific, that nothing that should be in that override ballot question on Thursday is related to the town meeting. I mean, the town services vote. Um, and that that needs to be part of the messaging for them.

01:48:35,767	S9:
And I think if we get, you know, pushback from the community that just that says, well, actually, no, I don't need these services, those services and this aspect of the school or the number of teachers or headcount that we have, classroom sizes that we have the way we have our schools operationally organized with the the three elementary schools, etc.. Um, they say that's most important and we want you to look elsewhere and see what else you can do. I think it's it's an interesting concept to kind of just to force the conversation as well to say, here's our level of service. These are we've gotten a lot of feedback this year about what we need to do to improve. All of us have.

01:49:18,367	S19:
So it was really fun.

01:49:20,367	S9:
Yeah. So these are the types of things I would say. Same level of service with these small enhancements and increases to meet your requests. And now let's have the conversation about what do we want to do about schools as well. They don't want to see us start taking stuff out of ours, our side, when we think that that's what people have asked us to do.

01:49:42,267	S1:
Yeah. Um.

01:49:49,000	S19:
I'm kind of okay.

01:49:50,567	S9:
Just put it out there. I'm okay with having two. Just to.

01:49:53,000	S19:
Say.

01:49:53,167	S2:
It. Yeah. No, I think we'll do two. I think.

01:49:55,567	S1:
Uh, there's, you know.

01:49:57,567	S9:
I'm also okay.

01:49:58,367	S19:
The whole the whole time meeting.

01:49:59,767	S9:
And they say, look, we're going to do all this stuff. We gotta we got a couple million dollars worth of ideas and, like, let's get it all back into one thing. Like, I'm okay with that too, but I want to have the conversation first. That's what I'm.

01:50:09,701	S19:
Trying.

01:50:09,901	S1:
To say. The entire town budget, including, um, capital, which would be paid for out of free cash and, uh, payments to OPEC and stabilization funds. The entire town budget is $17 million. If you ask us to cut $2 million out of that, not touching the stuff that gets paid for by free cash.

01:50:29,200	S4:
For cutting services.

01:50:31,000	S1:
You're eliminating whole departments.

01:50:32,567	S19:
Yeah, right.

01:50:33,167	S4:
And then so.

01:50:34,267	S19:
So.

01:50:37,701	S1:
We don't.

01:50:38,100	S19:
Have.

01:50:38,300	S4:
That. You play the card for it. It's separated, you know, and an override doesn't pass. The town budget's approved and you move forward into 27. And then there's a I.

01:50:48,267	S1:
Think the goal would be to have the town in the school, have the school outline what it is that they. If the budget doesn't pass the pole. If it doesn't pass it, if it doesn't pass the poles, then they have to bring forward. We'll have to have a special time meeting before July 1st for them to bring forward another budget. That could be that could be passed within pass.

01:51:11,701	S4:
That's my question. Does our budget.

01:51:13,100	S2:
Passed to the pass? If they don't pass.

01:51:14,868	S1:
If we have them on separate votes, it.

01:51:16,467	S19:
Would be.

01:51:16,868	S1:
Sure. Well, I.

01:51:18,000	S19:
Think that's my.

01:51:18,567	S1:
Question. I think.

01:51:19,267	S19:
So.

01:51:21,300	S4:
Because otherwise there's no sense to break out.

01:51:23,100	S2:
Well, it was more of a talking point than it was for, but I did not think our budget would pass unless they both passed. But that's.

01:51:33,100	S19:
Fine.

01:51:33,767	S4:
But if I don't know the answer, but I would think it doesn't either. But it is a separate vote. But it's. I don't know.

01:51:42,667	S2:
If that's teeth to it. Then I'm all in favor of it. It doesn't have to. I'm still in favor of it, but just it becomes.

01:51:47,300	S4:
Sort of a tough one.

01:51:48,200	S19:
Yeah.

01:51:48,601	S4:
Yeah.

01:51:49,400	S9:
So of course, the conversation. Right?

01:51:51,000	S19:
Yeah.

01:51:51,868	S1:
So while we're talking about budgets, I think I'd also want to talk to you about, you know, the idea as posed by Tim in Cape law, to engage with the unions. I have a template letter in there that I could get issued. The for unions and the retirees tomorrow and open the door to start having that conversation. Even if we don't need an override, I still think it's a worthy discussion to have. We should always be trying to do our best to save. Um, insurance costs through might have gone up dramatically. I don't see them coming down. I think that they're being honest when they tell us to carry an 18 to 22% increase. We carried the 22 because when he said we needed a make up for the difference in what we carried in last year's budget, and we think they're going to be right where they say they're going to be. Um, and unless my board decides to forego things like paying for GLP one drugs and things like that. They're anticipating this to maybe happen in FY 28 as well, so it's worth it for us to look at either plan, design and sharing that benefit with our employees or maybe potentially going to the GIC.

01:53:01,100	S2:
I don't know that you need a vote from us, but I think we just say, yeah, go for it.

01:53:04,901	S4:
Yeah, 100%. My question, though, is when I'm used and the school district.

01:53:11,167	S1:
One of them is also using Maya and the district is out. Um, is out in private sector. They don't they don't go through Maya. The the difficulty in the past in trying to merge with, uh, Wenham and the school district and share health care, is that the district pays a different percentage of health insurance benefits than we do. We actually pay a higher percentage of health insurance benefits right now than the school district does. So the school district, though, the teachers get paid, you.

01:53:39,000	S19:
Know.

01:53:39,567	S1:
In a way, at a higher rate. Um, they do pay for more of their health insurance. Um, so the goal here would be to do plan design, where maybe we change that rate change, change that split and share the difference with them. Maybe we do some other things with co-pays and deductibles that allows the plan to cost us and them less money. And again, share that with with the employees. State law requires that when you make a change, you have to share 50% of the savings with the employees. So then they can help us figure out how they want to have access to that. We're in a better spot now than we were when I got here to have this conversation with our employees, because we have had in the last 4 or 5 years, a lot of older employees retire. If you'll remember, generally you use your health insurance most when you have kids or when you're older in life. So a lot of our employees now are in their 20s and 30s. They don't have kids. They're not on family plans. Now's a good time to have the conversation with them because they're not using their health insurance the way. Five years ago, our employees were using.

01:54:45,367	S19:
The health insurance.

01:54:47,567	S6:
Joe, do you have an estimate as to how many employees receive health care through the town?

01:54:55,367	S9:
I think I have it in that letter.

01:54:57,601	S19:
Yeah.

01:54:58,167	S1:
Um.

01:54:59,567	S19:
88. No we don't.

01:55:01,601	S1:
I don't think we even have 88.

01:55:03,000	S19:
Employees, full.

01:55:03,667	S1:
Time employees.

01:55:04,167	S19:
That have been eligible.

01:55:05,167	S1:
I think town has about 65, 68 full time equivalent employees. Town wide. And they're not all. Um, they're not all covered by health insurance.

01:55:17,100	S19:
Okay.

01:55:17,467	S1:
So, um.

01:55:19,000	S2:
You might be the family, including the family members. Yeah. Might include the.

01:55:22,868	S19:
Family.

01:55:23,200	S1:
That might include family members. I have a family plan that includes, you know, my wife and my two kids. So that that could be. I don't, but.

01:55:31,467	S6:
And is it only full time employees who are eligible for our the town health plan?

01:55:38,367	S1:
Or part timers that work more than 24 hours are entitled to health insurance benefits. And we have some of those employees they don't all take avail themselves of the benefits right now.

01:55:49,567	S8:
Okay.

01:55:51,000	S2:
Our approaching 9:00. Let's keep moving here. Yeah.

01:55:54,000	S1:
Um.

01:55:55,501	S9:
I think.

01:55:56,567	S1:
I.

01:55:56,601	S4:
Would say look at plan design and everything.

01:55:58,801	S9:
You said you sent that. Yeah, just like a synopsis.

01:56:02,000	S1:
Really? Yeah, I said that.

01:56:03,300	S9:
When I'm in.

01:56:04,367	S1:
Yeah, I did, and trying to get a conversation scheduled. Uh, Steve Poulos is just back from vacation, and Eric was also, I think, taking his I took it, so I'm going to try to have a conversation this month with them about it as well. Um, I'm going to let Wendy discuss this with you, if you like, while I refill my water, book my water cup, if you don't mind.

01:56:21,601	S18:
So, um, we've been asked by the boa, the. Well, it's actually a requirement by the Boa to have a budget process policy. And that was one of the comments on and and we knew this. So we put a draft policy in last year. And in order to move forward and potentially get the get the award again this year, we need to memorialize this policy and adopt it and put it into effect. Basically, the policy states everything that we're doing. It identifies the timelines, it identifies the capital projects, the the amount of the capital projects. It identifies where the money sits, it identifies who's affected by the budget policy. So the town's been doing it.

01:57:04,667	S2:
We have a process. We're just making it into a formal policy. Correct. We're not changing.

01:57:07,868	S18:
It, but just memorializing it. So all we're doing today is just putting it in front of you so that you can look at it, get familiar with it. We've already given it to Finicum, and we'll wait for Finicum to vote on it and then recommend, um, action. And then we'll be looking for your vote early February.

01:57:24,167	S1:
Okay, perfect.

01:57:25,367	S8:
And it's a good policy.

01:57:27,767	S2:
When is fin come looking at it? Do you know that? And what's the timing on it? It has to be done by a certain time or.

01:57:35,467	S18:
Yes. because we have to close. We're actually going to have a meeting on Wednesday with the call on Senate to tell us the deadlines, but we have to close the budget process to get it to print by end of February.

01:57:50,467	S2:
Okay.

01:57:50,767	S18:
For sure.

01:57:52,601	S4:
I think the only red line I see is the project cost for capital. Anything behind the 15 to 25 K.

01:57:57,868	S18:
That was more of a standard policy. And we put it to what Hamilton's policy is. Okay. Okay.

01:58:04,767	S8:
Yeah.

01:58:09,167	S4:
Looks good.

01:58:11,167	S6:
Yeah. I thought it looked like a pretty comprehensive policy.

01:58:16,000	S2:
Was there a template you worked off of, or did you.

01:58:18,968	S18:
Yes.

01:58:20,667	S2:
No no.

01:58:21,767	S18:
No. The UMass call center that they're very helpful. So they were able to, um, give this.

01:58:28,267	S2:
This that were different than the we had a list of policies working. I don't remember this one being on that list.

01:58:33,000	S1:
Is this. No. So you're thinking of the policies, the, uh, the financial policies that were recommended by the state. And we've adopted a lot of those. We have more of those coming.

01:58:41,000	S2:
This is different than that.

01:58:41,801	S1:
This is different than that.

01:58:42,767	S2:
It's really just the same because it's kind of a good thing to do as part of the financial policy.

01:58:46,767	S4:
But yeah. Yeah. Foundational.

01:58:49,400	S9:
Yeah, I like that. It includes the school district's capital improvement.

01:58:54,801	S1:
Yeah.

01:58:55,300	S9:
Stuff in here too.

01:58:57,701	S2:
One thing is not to jump back, but one thing I was thinking is that we've been asking for an audit independent audit. Is that something we got to we really got to put out there in terms of the school, in terms of we're going to not even talk about the budget and let's say agree to do a we put in letters to them before and they've ignored it. But how do we make it? I can't they can't we can't demand it. We can just request it. Right.

01:59:18,467	S1:
We can request it. We can request it as part of as a condition of supporting an override request. We can request it as we can try to. I think we've been trying to we've been trying to talk about memorializing and in the regional agreement to require it every so many, not every year. But.

01:59:33,367	S2:
Um, yeah, not.

01:59:34,100	S1:
Every year because they do an annual lot. Like we do every year. But to to do a third party, a third party operational audit would need to be, you know, we I think we're asking for it every 4 or 5 years or something in the regional agreement.

01:59:45,167	S11:
But the.

01:59:45,567	S16:
Last region.

01:59:46,767	S11:
Right.

01:59:48,367	S2:
Last version, the draft.

01:59:51,100	S16:
The last regional agreement that we signed, that regional product was in there.

01:59:56,067	S2:
And that got done.

01:59:57,167	S16:
I think it was 2015.

01:59:58,701	S2:
Right. It was one time, though. One time? Yeah. One time. Not right. Not so. Correct. Correct.

02:00:04,868	S1:
We're trying to negotiate in as a recurring thing in.

02:00:07,467	S9:
The.

02:00:07,667	S2:
Recurring 3 to 4 years.

02:00:08,901	S1:
Right.

02:00:09,901	S2:
How many how often is the, um, is the is the union's negotiated? 3 or 4? Three. How can you do it the same. The same cadence. But anyway, sorry, I meant to mention that before. Um, but I was thinking that that needs a part of the discussion. Um, all right, so meeting wise, our next meeting is in two weeks, so we're not going to do it. We're not going to vote at the next meeting. We'll vote at the following meeting.

02:00:36,667	S1:
Right.

02:00:37,367	S2:
Okay. We will have the beginning of February.

02:00:39,767	S1:
Yeah, February. I think it's February 2nd or fourth.

02:00:43,567	S2:
Okay.

02:00:44,567	S1:
Everybody, second. Yeah. Perfect. Give me a second. Yeah. February 2nd. February 2nd is the next week.

02:00:49,200	S2:
All right.

02:00:50,167	S1:
The next.

02:00:50,767	S2:
I need a motion to open. Do I have a motion to open the annual town meeting warrant for April 11th, 2026, for, uh, town meeting. So moved. I have a second.

02:01:02,801	S9:
Second.

02:01:03,801	S2:
Any further discussion? Uh, we do a roll call vote. Rosemary.

02:01:09,067	S6:
Rosie Kennedy, I.

02:01:10,400	S2:
Bill Wilson.

02:01:11,000	S4:
Bill Wilson, I.

02:01:11,868	S2:
Ben.

02:01:12,367	S9:
Ben.

02:01:12,868	S2:
I, uh, William Olson, I.

02:01:14,667	S1:
All right, so you have a list of potential Tommy Warren items. These are just regular recurring ones that I put on there. I'm not sure that we'll have much in the way of community preservation this year, other than to just do the annual, um, allotment of funds, uh, the annual budget, and then I don't know if they're for sure that they'll be zoning amendments. I have since I drafted this included potential climate leader status and an extension or a new lease for the Hamilton, Wenham Rod and Gun Club. The president of the Rod and Gun Club reached out to me this week and asked if we could have a conversation. Um, the gun club has done a lot to improve its operations the last couple of years. They've lost their relationship with their neighbors, has returned to a more, more, uh, better equilibrium. Better equilibrium. They've made a lot of improvements on the club, but they want to make some more longer term, um, improvements. And in order to do that, they'd need a longer term lease so that they could capitalize that those improvements. So, um, I want to have a conversation with them, and I'll bring that information back to the board and let you know which direction that that they're looking for you to go. And that would need to be a town meeting vote.

02:02:26,767	S2:
So what's the stabilization fund and thoughts? What are we thinking about for stabilization fund?

02:02:32,000	S1:
Just miss Wendy. She was just here. Um, it's not a lot this year. Stabilization fund is supposed to be at 5% of the operating budget. And so we annually adjust it a little bit. Um, based on whether or not we the amount, the money that's in there is equal to 5% of our operating. Last year, we didn't have to make a contribution because we actually decreased our operating budget last year over the previous year. So the amount of money that was there was already sufficient.

02:02:59,868	S2:
We're not suggesting we spend it on something. You're just adjusting the balance.

02:03:03,167	S1:
Our our financial policy requires us to have to maintain 5% of free cash, 5% of the budget in free cash and 5% of the budget in enterprise, which means that we always have a 10%, um, hold, which is important for things like our credit rating and everything else. So we have our Triple-A Triple-A bond rating. We don't want to lose it. It makes it easier.

02:03:24,667	S2:
I thought you were suggesting we spend it on something.

02:03:26,400	S1:
No, no, no. This is appropriation to stabilization. So? So it's our annual appropriation from free cash to stabilization, from free cash to the capital stabilization. Because that that helps prove our credit worthiness and our our sound fiscal policy to the credit rating.

02:03:41,868	S4:
Still, to maintain the fiber side but still maintain money coming in. Like whether it's Gordon Conwell South side.

02:03:46,667	S2:
So we're going to have a we're going to have a fun meeting. We're going to go through all.

02:03:49,667	S1:
Yeah, I was going to say we got to involve.

02:03:51,868	S2:
Our.

02:03:52,000	S1:
Funding, but we wanted to have.

02:03:54,000	S2:
A lot of fun. We don't even know about like we still have a patent fund, which I don't even know what's in that.

02:04:00,267	S1:
There's a potential to create a new special revenue fund or.

02:04:05,601	S16:
A lot of money to.

02:04:06,567	S1:
Spend that, but, you know, would love to have a car. I'd love to have a wider conversation with everybody about what I know. We've had members of the community recommend that the quote unquote windfall that we're getting from Gordon Conwell and the money that we get from selling the lease on the on the cell tower lease should go into a special revenue fund. Okay. I'm. That's a great idea. What is the special revenue fund for? What's it mean? What would it be able to be used for? Or is this just another fund that you're going to stash money in and never use? I just need to know. Yeah.

02:04:37,801	S4:
We should go through a list of all the funds that are out.

02:04:39,801	S2:
Yeah, I'd like to go through all the funds.

02:04:41,100	S4:
That'd be.

02:04:41,367	S1:
Great. Yeah, we could bring the treasurer in because they can talk to you about the way that some of those funds have been.

02:04:47,667	S2:
Treasurer Peggy.

02:04:49,167	S1:
McLaughlin. Um, we could bring the treasurer and, uh, her financial advisor and talk about the way we've been invited. No, probably in February. Not not not for the next meeting. But talk about what we've been doing to invest some of those funds so that they've generated revenue for us in the last couple of years, and that we recognize in the budget. Um, which is good. So that was done when Alex was here.

02:05:11,267	S2:
Um, so it's reoccurring so I can go into the it's reoccurring.

02:05:14,167	S1:
So it goes in, we estimate it. And so we estimate conservatively and it comes in a little bit higher than what we estimate. But you never know. it's it's an investment fund. Right. So it's invested. So if the stock market goes down, it doesn't come in where we expect it to be. We have to be we have to be conservative about how we use that fund.

02:05:31,300	S8:
Yeah.

02:05:32,501	S2:
All right. That's good. All right. Um, anything else on that? Nope.

02:05:37,267	S1:
I did include a copy of the the annual town meeting calendar just for you to look at it. Yeah. And I also included a select board agenda setting schedule. I just updated it, took the same cadence and just moved it forward through, um, the April meetings. Uh, then you'll see this in blanks, because we don't know if everybody here is going to be here after April.

02:05:59,100	S2:
So on this, on the on the meeting. Right. So obviously the most contentious thing is going to be the school budget. Right. And we always talk about if we never do anything about it. But it's just I'm not sure who it's up to. But the order of the, the order of the, of the articles in terms of the order of the discussion, order of votes. Right. We should just talk about it, you know, as we go along. Does it make sense to think and really think about the order in terms of how much of the time we want to sort of allocate to it? And if things are earlier on in the meeting that that are more contentious. We get more. We get better discussion, better dialogue better. So the first point at the end. Yeah. So it's like I just don't know the right thing to do, but we can debate and talk about it.

02:06:43,400	S1:
So we've had kind of had a structure to our warrants for the last several years now at least since I've been here. And I think it actually predates me. Um, certain types of articles are put in different parts of the warrant. So zoning articles and then general bylaw articles are always at the end. The, the financial articles are generally in the middle at the, at the beginning, middle part of the meeting. That's where most people come to participate in and where people are still engaged and able to offer testimony.

02:07:17,667	S2:
So we should talk about that a bit. At the time it was right. Just sometimes we don't think about that until it's too late and then it's already in order. And then we look like we're trying to stack the deck. So we want to put it in the right order before we put it on paper.

02:07:30,200	S9:
Yeah. So our historical just to say it back is kind of like zoning related stuff up front.

02:07:36,467	S2:
It's only at the end.

02:07:37,167	S1:
Zoning at the end. Zoning has always been at the end.

02:07:39,000	S2:
Money's up front.

02:07:39,767	S1:
Money is up front. Zoning is at the end.

02:07:41,400	S9:
Generally in the middle.

02:07:42,601	S1:
Um, no, it's mostly mostly.

02:07:45,267	S2:
It's the first one is.

02:07:46,267	S1:
Is this one.

02:07:47,300	S2:
Our town budget is spent the spending. Right. And then we do the, the, the allocations and the CPC and then we do the school vote and then we do zoning articles. But I'm saying maybe move the school vote up to like, you know, pretty quick, you know, just to get most of the most discussion out of it. But.

02:08:09,767	S2:
But you, you keep people for the other. The thing is then the school board has everybody leaves. Right. And some people stay. Then you put it at the end. So just something we just need to think about. What's it? What's Joe saying is correct. We've had a we've had a structure. It's not required to have a structure. It's not in our file structure. It's just precedent. Precedent can be changed. And we think it's the right thing to do. And it can be changed by anybody after us. But it's just something I'm not recommending that we do it. I just recommend it. We talk about it before it's too late and we say, oh, we try to talk about this before we put it in order. Oh, because then Bill bowler says, no, I decide the order. Well, that's not necessarily true. We put the.

02:08:42,567	S1:
You you present the warrant. Yeah.

02:08:44,667	S2:
But we can't change the order once it's in the warrant without his approval.

02:08:48,067	S9:
Okay, okay.

02:08:49,501	S2:
That makes sense.

02:08:50,100	S4:
So we just start putting one through ten. Now we kind of just talk priorities. Yeah. Logistics as we go okay.

02:08:56,868	S2:
Does that make.

02:08:57,267	S4:
Sense? It does.

02:08:57,968	S2:
Okay. All right. Um, so I have we have a press release for new contract for town manager. I'm gonna read it. So it's on the record and it'll go out tomorrow.

02:09:11,100	S4:
I like the press release way of doing things.

02:09:13,767	S2:
All right, here we go.

02:09:14,567	S4:
I don't want to get on, like, a 7 p.m. and.

02:09:18,267	S2:
Exciting stuff.

02:09:19,067	S1:
Here.

02:09:19,367	S4:
Yes, sir.

02:09:21,601	S2:
All right, here we go. Uh, Hamilton Selectboard announces restructured town manager contracts. As most people know, Joe was a finalist in two, uh, towns. And, um, and luckily for us, he's accepted the restructuring contract in order to stay, to stay with us, with our goal to keep him here. So the press release states, uh, Hamilton's select board chair, William Olson, on behalf of the entire Select Board, announced today that the Select Board has come to an agreement on a new, restructured contract with Town Manager Joe Demoulas, Jr. I am pleased to announce that the town has reached an agreement with the town manager, Joe, with the plan to keep him here for the next 3 to 5 years, explained Olson. Following the Select Board's annual review of the town manager this past summer, the board entered negotiations spelled wrong with the town manager to discuss an extension of the contract, and the result of those discussions was a new three year contract between January 1st, 2026, with two one year options that can be exercised by the Select Board in the future. Over the past seven years, Joe has worked tirelessly on behalf of the Town of Hamilton to strengthen our community, build relationships, and bring long term financial stability to the organisation. Perhaps most importantly, his demonstrated a consistent ability and desire to bring people together and build consensus around complex and important town decisions. Select board believes this restructured contract reflects both Joe's performance to date and our confidence in his continued leadership. The new contract increased the town manager's base salary to $210,000 per year, bringing him in line with his peers around the North Shore, which begins on January 1st but freezes his salary until at least July 1st, 2027. I'm extremely grateful to the Select Board for the commitment they have shown to me with this new contract, said Joe. I feel I really feel lucky to get the chance to work in Hamilton. We have an amazing team of department heads and staff, and the volunteers and elected officials that we work with are truly dedicated to this town. Is my goal to continue to earn the confidence of the select board as shown in me, and to work through through the end of this new contract here in Hamilton. So thank you Joe. Congratulations.

02:11:21,968	S1:
Thank you.

02:11:22,267	S8:
Appreciate it.

02:11:22,767	S6:
Very nice. Congratulations.

02:11:24,968	S1:
Thank you. I'm very excited to be here for the next, hopefully five years. That'd be great. Uh, maybe in three years. We could talk if you want to. If you still want to keep me, but. Well, let's get to the next three years. At least. Stay for five. So.

02:11:38,467	S9:
Sounds good.

02:11:39,467	S2:
All right. Um.

02:11:40,868	S4:
Well done.

02:11:41,767	S2:
Next item on the agenda is, um, new business. Um, the only thing I had, Joe, that I want to talk about is that we have been involved in so much stuff over the last year that I don't think we put enough attention into the really exciting work that we're doing at Town Hall, and how hard that project was. We sort of haven't. We've got some updates and stuff, but I want to Think about more how we can sort of get the community excited about it, because I think it's a really big deal. The bills are going to be great and to come up with some event that when we do the ribbon cutting or do the opening or recognizing staff for, you know, relocating for, you know, a number of months and maybe not being an ideal conditions, but I want to sort of come up with a way to recognize the staff for, for sort of making it happen Uptown Hall and relocating for the year, as well as getting the community more engaged. So I don't know if it's an event. I don't know if it's a if it's purchasing something as a gift from the select board to the town hall to the employees. But something that we can do is sort of acknowledgment of appreciating the effort that you and your staff has done to relocate and make it happen, as well as the town really getting excited about what this building is going to be and look and perform like. So I just want to get some discussion going on.

02:12:55,400	S9:
That the the environmental performance attributes to the town hall, like in a historic renovation, and then just also the kind of the financial engineering behind it with the ESCO and accessing all of the grant opportunities. The long term efficiency that's going to come with that. You know, that's a that's a 40 or 50 year system, right. You know, it's a it's it's really amazing like what's been done. You know that's got to be I think it's a first of a kind sort of thing in the state too.

02:13:24,367	S1:
We've had now finally confirmed by a couple of people. There's nobody that believes that. We are not the first. We are. We are definitely the first historic, um, zero carbon town hall in the state of Massachusetts.

02:13:36,601	S9:
Yeah. I mean, there's I think there's a lot, you know, in addition to thanking our staff as well, but just sort of something that can also draw in.

02:13:44,400	S2:
I think it's right to buy two things, right. I mean, staff, but also getting the community excited and engaged about what this is going to be.

02:13:51,868	S6:
I think a party, an open house. Yeah, would be fun.

02:13:55,367	S1:
Rosie loves a party. I know.

02:13:56,467	S4:
That.

02:13:57,601	S2:
Whatever it is, we want to make sure we do it well in advance and get people there and make it a big deal. Yeah, I don't know what that is right now. I just want to throw it out there because we've got time. Because we've got. It's March. April. May. What's the day you're moving in? Now again, it's, um, late spring. Early summer. Right?

02:14:14,200	S1:
Yes, late. Probably late. Late April? Um. Early May.

02:14:19,667	S2:
Hopefully so. But I think we need to start talking about it. Maybe in February. Start planning whatever this is. And maybe, Joe, you can think about it. Yeah, yeah.

02:14:28,067	S1:
We'll come up some ideas for you. Yep. Get the board to sign off on it. Yep.

02:14:32,200	S4:
Our team is excited to move back, or they'll miss their.

02:14:34,701	S1:
I think so. I think overall people are looking forward to it. I mean, uh, it's been the staff that's out of patent homes. That's been great. Um, they've there's a part of them that really enjoys being out there, but they're ready to go to, you know, kind of a professional office environment as well.

02:14:53,267	S4:
Wasn't built.

02:14:54,100	S1:
It wasn't wasn't built.

02:14:55,067	S2:
To be one toilet, I think in the building.

02:14:57,467	S1:
Oh, it's more than that. There's, there's one on each floor in the office.

02:15:02,601	S2:
And when it's mine, when it's zero degrees outside. It's, you know, you know, it's zero degrees outside.

02:15:06,868	S1:
So today was a tough day. Yeah, today was a tough day out there. Fortunately, it gets warmer tomorrow. So, um.

02:15:13,067	S2:
So there's definitely sacrifices, but it's a beautiful property to just be there and look out the windows. It's much different than what the sacrifices they've made to be in that building.

02:15:22,000	S4:
I was there one day and it was sunset and I was like, wow.

02:15:25,067	S1:
Yeah, it's great. I mean, it's a great location and you know, and then that's something else I'll be bringing up with the board. And we're I sent out an email today to the, the group that we've been referring to as the Patent Homestead Task Force and try to, you know, get that going again, because we need to figure out what the next life of the patent homestead is when we exit. So, um, that needs to percolate real, real soon here. Um.

02:15:52,467	S2:
Okay.

02:15:53,167	S4:
And we talked about the list of funds. Right.

02:15:55,467	S2:
That's kind of. Yeah. I want to get the fund for the homestead.

02:15:58,601	S4:
I think the regional school district agreement, I don't know.

02:16:02,367	S2:
Yeah, we need to.

02:16:03,868	S1:
There is a regional regional school district agreement meeting on Wednesday this week Wednesday this week at 330. So I'll try to confirm that Tom's going to be there.

02:16:15,767	S2:
And Rosemary, it's great to have you back at a meeting. So I hope you're feeling better. But great to have you back.

02:16:21,167	S6:
Yeah, thanks. I am not not quite ready for prime time yet, but I'm headed there.

02:16:27,567	S9:
That's great.

02:16:28,567	S1:
Um, could we, while we're talking about new business and I don't know how you want to act on it. Uh, we had a request over the weekend. Um, or maybe it was yesterday afternoon. Or first thing this morning. You all received an email from Nancy on behalf of the, uh, Hamilton Town Democratic Committee. And they're looking to do an a candidates forum at the Council on Aging. We had previously the board had not acted on any policy to allow public use of that. So other than town boards and committees, we haven't been allowing anything there. We don't have a committee. We don't have a policy against it. We don't have a policy in favor of it. So we're just not letting anything happen unless we talk to you. Um, would the board be comfortable allowing both the Hamilton Town Democratic Committee and Republican Committee if they wanted to use the Council on Aging for candidates forums? There are some statewide, you know, after hours. Yeah, it'd be it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be during a it would be after hours on a Saturday. I believe the Democratic Committee wants to use it, at the end of which is February 1st Saturday.

02:17:33,300	S9:
Women voters who don't normally know.

02:17:35,267	S1:
It's the it's the Hamilton Town Democratic Committee. The, uh, there was a Hamilton town Republican committee. You could make an allowance to allow either of them to have a.

02:17:45,667	S2:
Candidate, because this room will be under construction.

02:17:48,267	S1:
This room is not available.

02:17:49,567	S4:
So this is our last time in this room for.

02:17:51,467	S1:
This is our last time in this room.

02:17:54,000	S9:
So it sounds like it's sort of a one time exception because they don't have it on their public space.

02:17:59,067	S1:
There is not currently a public space that we could go to.

02:18:01,868	S4:
If you used it historically. Correct.

02:18:05,167	S1:
So that building's been used for things in the past. We just got into a situation when we were looking at adopting a public facilities, use of public use or facilities policy, and then we kind of got tripped up on it and didn't, didn't finish it. So we halted all use by outside entities for the time being. Um, except for Patent Homestead, which they can't really use right now because we're there, so. Um.

02:18:31,367	S2:
Yeah, I'd be fair to say we're in favor of a one time thing because they can't use this room.

02:18:37,000	S9:
And I'm just trying to understand, is it for local candidates, like for candidates who are here in the town for regional things or.

02:18:43,467	S2:
For state, statewide?

02:18:44,868	S1:
Statewide? So, so, um, Nancy had had it all laid out in our letter. I believe that they've got they've got several candidates. There are several candidates to replace, um, our congressman. Um, so this would be a candidates forum For this, I think there are six Democratic candidates that are going to be on the ballot before the primary. For the primary to replace Scott Seth Moulton, who's who's left or has announced that he's not going back to Congress. I think he's running. He's planning to run against Ed Markey or he's I think he's planning to step up to run against Ed Markey. But these types of things have been allowed in many communities in the past. Lots of local organizations have community forums for to introduce candidates to their voters. And if you said.

02:19:33,968	S2:
Those public around their elected officials. So this isn't um.

02:19:36,400	S4:
Yeah, that's why I wish we had a policy on it. Like, you know, because it would be easy because I would agree. Um, as long as it's, you know, both both parties, if you will, or have the same, you know, um, yeah.

02:19:46,968	S2:
We don't need a policy to do it, so. But we need to. We should have a policy in the future.

02:19:50,567	S4:
Yeah, well, we've sat at this table many times and said we need a policy.

02:19:53,501	S6:
I.

02:19:53,601	S4:
Think.

02:19:54,100	S6:
And I think, Joe, you and I were going to be working on that. And you're right, it did fall through through the cracks. So, yeah, maybe I could look at, uh, I think we looked at a few towns policies and maybe I'll get cracking on that again so that we'll we'll have something.

02:20:15,200	S2:
Yeah. Joe, if you want to just resurface that.

02:20:17,767	S1:
Yeah, I could do that.

02:20:19,000	S2:
But but but do you need answer on this today.

02:20:21,267	S1:
I would if you unless you want to take a vote for the meeting on this one because they need time, because the candidates all have to be in divided. They all have to be invited and be confirmed.

02:20:30,901	S4:
Their schedules are going to be adjusted. We have a policy, don't we? Like, like, is there a fee they pay or do they.

02:20:36,567	S1:
Know we.

02:20:36,901	S4:
Don't have.

02:20:37,200	S6:
Anything?

02:20:37,501	S1:
John, we're trying.

02:20:38,367	S6:
To you, John, have a policy.

02:20:40,601	S4:
Even if we don't have the end all.

02:20:42,000	S6:
We can get it done within two weeks. I think, Joe, because we had a rudimentary policy.

02:20:49,267	S2:
We can't borrow as a first reading, but we can allow this to happen as a one time thing because they.

02:20:54,367	S4:
Get.

02:20:54,801	S2:
To this because they can't use the library. So that's just how we would go at it. So um, let's just say yeah, because this is.

02:21:01,467	S1:
The motion of that effect.

02:21:03,467	S2:
Can we make a motion if we're not on the agenda?

02:21:06,100	S1:
And there's nothing legally that says that you can't vote on things?

02:21:08,601	S2:
Um, if I have a motion just to allow the Democratic-Republican committees to hold a meet the candidate night at a Council on Aging within the next two months. One time for each party.

02:21:21,467	S6:
Second.

02:21:22,367	S9:
Can I, like amend?

02:21:23,667	S2:
Yeah. Well, yeah.

02:21:24,367	S9:
So with a slight amendment that they get approval from the Council on Aging first and that it works with their schedule?

02:21:31,000	S2:
Yes.

02:21:31,267	S9:
Perfect. That's all.

02:21:32,467	S2:
Yes.

02:21:33,267	S4:
And it would be nice if you don't even have like, a feed and utilize that so that at least they get something out of it. The Council of aging. You know what I mean? Hmm.

02:21:42,767	S2:
A donation?

02:21:43,868	S4:
Yeah.

02:21:44,667	S2:
Any kind.

02:21:45,767	S9:
Yeah.

02:21:47,000	S2:
Um, these committees, political committees have lots of money, right?

02:21:49,667	S4:
A lot of times. All right. So I.

02:21:52,901	S2:
Guess so. Rosie. Seconded. We made it. We made an amendment. So we have a Rosie Second Amendment.

02:21:59,567	S5:
Yes.

02:22:00,167	S2:
Okay. And then, um.

02:22:02,167	S6:
But are we going to think about a fee? I mean, just as that as part of the amendment.

02:22:07,100	S2:
And as for a donation in-kind.

02:22:09,667	S5:
Yeah.

02:22:10,968	S2:
If I make a recommendation, Joe.

02:22:12,567	S9:
A recommended donation.

02:22:14,501	S6:
Hundred dollars to go to the to go to the Council on Aging.

02:22:19,300	S4:
Yeah. The beautification.

02:22:22,000	S1:
All right, I'll let them.

02:22:23,100	S2:
All right. We'll make a vote. We'll make Rosemary need.

02:22:28,000	S5:
A I'm sorry.

02:22:28,767	S2:
I need a roll call vote.

02:22:29,801	S5:
So, Rosie.

02:22:30,200	S6:
Oh, okay. Rosie. Kennedy I.

02:22:32,567	S2:
Know Wilson.

02:22:33,100	S4:
Bill Wilson.

02:22:33,567	S2:
Hi, Ben. Ben glues I wasn't I okay?

02:22:38,000	S4:
Yes. Good stuff. Done.

02:22:41,267	S1:
Okay. All the stuff is a motion to adjourn.

02:22:44,567	S2:
The motion to adjourn.

02:22:45,767	S4:
I move that, we adjourn.

02:22:47,000	S2:
I have a second.

02:22:47,667	S9:
Second.

02:22:48,767	S2:
Uh, roll call vote.

02:22:50,467	S6:
Rosemary Rosie Kennedy I.

02:22:53,667	S4:
Bill Walton I.

02:22:54,667	S2:
I Ben.

02:22:55,367	S9:
Engels.

02:22:55,901	S2:
I. I'm bill olson I.

02:22:57,567	S9:
Last fumes there.