00:00:00,470	S1:
That's great. I'm sorry. I ought to call the meeting to order. Since Rose Mary is on a call, we'll do a roll call. Vote. We'll do the same order the entire night. Make it easy. We'll do. Rose. Mary. First. Rosemary. Roll call. Vote. She can't.

00:00:14,070	S2:
Hear her. For some reason, I wanted to turn off her son. Okay. Owls interfere.

Okay. 00:00:19,670	S1:
Uh, and then we.

00:00:21,070	S2:
Can see you.

00:00:22,929	S1:
Thank you.

00:00:24,070	S2:
Uh, Ben.

00:00:25,070	S1:
Here for Wilson.

00:00:26,100	S2:
Uh, bill.

00:00:26,469	S1:
Wilson here, and Bill Wilson here. All right. Um, the only thing on our agenda is going to be the budget review, the department budgets. And so, um, public comment tonight will be, uh, we'll at the end of the meeting.

Okay. 00:00:45,929	S2:
The questions and comments.

00:00:47,929	S1:
Okay. All right. I'll turn it over to you.

00:00:50,329	S2:
All right. Thanks, everybody, for being here tonight. I'd like to thank you. So let's just getting started for tonight. Show you all looking a bit.

00:01:03,030	S2:
Red. Want to make sure this is the sides?

00:01:09,000	S2:
Set up so we can see the good side of the team real briefly. This is what we're doing here. Uh, the budget conditions, uh, sell under the team. These are the conditions that we have to go with this here, with the trying to comply with our budget, goals and objectives absorbed by the budget drivers. Things like health insurance, uh, increases a trash.

00:01:35,769	S2:
Contract. We were requested to report part two and a half overriding this year like our every year. So we're attempting to do that again. Um, we had a suggestion for the scoreboard. Have a focus on making our investments in efficiency, stability and sustainability. And we're fine with I.

00:01:54,700	S2:
Guess I won't read through all of these. The least, the If I could just get back to work. What I would do is to ask, how do you feel?

00:02:08,000	S2:
Everybody here went outside the door.

00:02:11,870	S3:
Yeah.

00:02:14,069	S1:
So?

00:02:14,300	S3:
So sit by.

00:02:18,599	S2:
The.

00:02:21,030	S3:
Light.

00:02:26,270	S2:
Don't try to let John into. I don't know why we can't see him.

00:02:35,870	S2:
I don't see him.

00:02:38,400	S1:
No.

00:02:39,069	S2:
You got.

00:02:39,300	S1:
Yours. Can you get to the screen up here?

00:02:41,770	S2:
Oh. I'm good. Yeah, I had to get my wet clothes. He's raising their hand. Does it?

00:02:51,699	S2:
Do that.

So. 00:02:55,099	S2:
Where does this raise their hand. Rosie, we can't hear you. Can you type in the chat, so to speak?

00:03:13,330	S4:
Come on.

00:03:17,629	S4:
Come out.

00:03:19,229	S2:
Now I know it.

00:03:23,199	S2:
Rosie.

00:03:23,530	S5:
Come here.

You. 00:03:25,870	S6:
Um. Please pick up.

00:03:27,099	S2:
There we go. We got you. Yeah. Now you can hear us. There's no. There's no. So there's no microphone in there. Well done. All right, I'm gonna sit down and I'll.

00:03:36,430	S2:
See? Can everybody see? There we go. Here we have Rosie and John McGrath has joined us. So still, unfortunately, not a cause for.

00:03:44,629	S3:
Yeah, man.

00:03:45,599	S2:
Okay, go back to this. It's like this teaching mode. Okay, so we went for everybody by going through the budget's goals and objectives. But the select board of Pin comment and open safely back in the fall. It set 2027 budget, goals and objectives. Those are listed up there for you. And, um.

00:04:04,400	S2:
We've complied with those as best we can in this budget slide.

00:04:12,169	S2:
Okay. Recent efforts that we've taken in the last six, eight months to offset budget growth. We regionalized the operation of the emergency operations center. Uh, we're we're forecasting a first sentence of up to $300,000 where, um, we've negotiated contracts with Gordon Caldwell and then past zoning out there. So there's potential for another $400,000 in special revenue that the board will have in the following year to use as free cash. And this, uh, we're forecasting $350,000 in new revenue from the addition of the Gordon Caldwell Apartments and Tattersalls. We also are not replacing, uh, the deputy fire chief position. Uh, many people know we've already announced our long term fire chief. Long-Time Fire chief is taking a well-deserved retirement later this year. And he'll be replaced by the deputy chief. And we are not returning that position.

00:05:09,100	S1:
So, three, these are recurring. One of them is a is just a one time.

00:05:12,370	S2:
Right?

00:05:12,870	S4:
Yeah.

00:05:14,100	S2:
But in terms of our capital.

00:05:16,699	S3:
Subject is the highest two.

So. 00:05:20,329	S2:
Um.

00:05:24,300	S2:
Foreseeable increases. We have about $111,000 in changes, coal increases and employee contractual changes that were part of the recommendations from the Select board. And the think we have we're projecting a 16 to 22% increase in health insurance costs. At that total is $288,000. This is a year after we received the 19.3% increase in health, health care costs, our health insurance costs. Um, we believe that 22% number is going to be very close to what we actually get. Essex Regional Time report has increased their assessment to us by about $70,000. As I mentioned at the top, we are anticipating about $259,000 in increases for the collection, hauling and disposal of our website pickup and utilities. Fuel costs have increased by about $50,000 in, um, energy costs. Next slide. All right. I'm going to let Wendy take over with the revenue summary. Him.

Yeah. 00:06:28,399	S1:
Have we done an estimate on the utilities for New Town Hall? I mean, this is what how are we doing that that math.

00:06:36,129	S2:
So, uh, the utilities, the new town hall, most of the new town hall is going to be green, right? But the money that we put in the budget annually for that will go to pay the payment to remember, we use tax exempt lease finance system to be able to pay back the money that gets invested in it from our partners at Energy Services. Our next 20 years will have a monthly amount in the budget that is equal to what we have carried for town hall utilities that will pay that.

00:07:06,569	S1:
So there's $50,000 isn't really related to town hall.

00:07:09,069	S2:
It's not turning out to town hall. Utility talking about vehicle fuels and all the other buildings that we have in town.

00:07:17,129	S2:
At 77.

00:07:18,699	S7:
Okay, so a snapshot of the revenue. Um, the prior year levy limit came in at 35,144,000 to 48. 2.5% of that represents 878,606. We are anticipating new growth of 500,000. That includes the 350 from the Gordon Conwell. We reduced the original, um, new growth to 150 because we continuously come in under new growth. The past couple of years, uh, debt exclusions have dropped to $1.4 $1 million and then the allowance for abatement. Consistently, we carry a $250,000 allowance, leaving us with a total levy raised of 37,662,008 54. State aid, net of offsets and assessments, is 1,000,001 81. That's anticipated. We don't have any factual information yet, and local receipts increased to 3,095,220. And then transfers and other available funds from mainly from the enterprise is 612,914.

00:08:20,899	S7:
Free cash will be used for capital and transfers of $1,391,000.

00:08:27,170	S7:
Total revenue and financing sources equals 43,000,009 43 943,001 31.

00:08:34,669	S2:
Just real quick on the state aid. I know for folks that the what's typically referred to at the state level as House one or the first pass at the annual state budget will be released this Friday. Um, that's always coincides with the annual Massachusetts Municipal Association.

Uh. 00:08:55,899	S3:
Yeah.

00:08:56,500	S2:
Do you? Mhm. Uh, it's a convention.

00:09:00,370	S3:
I'm sorry.

00:09:01,600	S2:
Sorry. I'm losing my words. The convention is where the governor announces, uh, their first pass of the budget. So we'll have those. We'll have a better idea Friday afternoon climax number. But we've typically always been conservative in our estimate on state aid, and we haven't been disappointed. We can't really come in very close to.

00:09:21,500	S3:
What we did.

00:09:24,299	S7:
So the pie chart here shows you, um, of course, the biggest, uh, amount of revenue, 89% is from the tax levy. And then your state aid is 3%. Local receipts represent 7%, and the transfers and other available funds is 1%.

00:09:43,370	S7:
Snapshot of the operating expenditure summary you can see by general government by department. Overall you're looking at 820,000. Well I don't I'm going too far. Sorry. Too fast. Overall total operating expenditures then change is $2,675,696.

00:10:05,899	S7:
Of that, the town's portion is an increase of 820,773,

00:10:11,629	S7:
and of which the town foreseeable increases that Jo mentioned were 778,000. So there really is only a $40,000 gap between what's increased that we don't have control over to what's increased in departments. So looking at this overall picture, your capital improvements 866,000, which is an increase of 103,875 year over year, and total expenditures of

00:10:42,429	S7:
Thousand $163. As you can see, does not match your revenue of 43,943,001 31. So we do not have a balanced budget at this time.

00:10:58,970	S8:
What fell off of debt for debt service is that.

00:11:01,730	S7:
The, um, the public safety building.

00:11:07,399	S8:
And they transferred HTC with that.

00:11:10,470	S7:
So that's the meals tax that came in.

00:11:12,669	S3:
Oh, right.

00:11:13,399	S2:
So last year, the people that were wandering, um, who noticed this and paid attention to some past in the past. We have always taken an estimate on what would come in in meals tax, and then that would get floated to HTC by the time they both, uh, when town meeting voted to adopt the meals tax, that was the stated purpose for doing. Unfortunately, we had always been estimating and the HTC and the fin. Com got together last year and they decided that rather than estimating going forward, the better thing to do would be to give the HTC exactly what we collected in meals tax the year before, and then that way there they'd always be a year behind, but they'd at least be getting all the tax that they on the town meeting had intended to get. So the increase you see this year is a difference from what we had estimated last year to what they actually got in the last fiscal year. So that's why it jumped as much as it did, because we actually took it a lot more. Next year, we'll be giving them exactly what we've collected this year, and that could go up or down from there, but it will be that difference in the sales tax that was collected by the restaurants in time.

00:12:14,570	S8:
So by the change in policy, do we roughly know how much more they'll get on an annual basis? We don't.

00:12:20,970	S3:
Okay. We'll we'll we'll know what books.

00:12:23,570	S2:
Close for this year, how much we collected. And that's what we'll be able to put in the budget.

00:12:27,200	S3:
For that next year.

00:12:28,230	S2:
But there won't be, you know, any publicity. Most of us, it'll be exactly what they previously, um.

00:12:35,029	S3:
Got it to be.

00:12:36,730	S2:
Exactly what was actually collecting so.

00:12:40,169	S3:
So, um.

00:12:41,000	S1:
So our, um, our tax rate lasts in 2026 was 1570 or.

00:12:47,570	S3:
Something per fiscal.

00:12:50,070	S2:
Year. We just adjusted.

00:12:51,200	S3:
The tax free. So it's a good question. What's our current.

00:12:55,500	S1:
So I just want to know the math you say. You say prior year levy limit is 35 million. 144. Yes. That's based on what.

00:13:03,929	S7:
It's it's the prior year. It's the prior year levy limit plus the 2.5%. And then the growth the new growth always drives that up or down. So we anticipate a particular amount for growth. But then when it comes in and then you report it to DLS, that's when they calculate what's what.

00:13:18,970	S1:
My question is what's the levy limit based. What's the math of that.

00:13:21,929	S7:
It's it's based on the prior year.

00:13:23,899	S2:
It's and it's based on the, the it's based on the total property values in the tassel.

00:13:28,330	S1:
But the limit at the limit I thought the limit was like seven. But there was a number. It wasn't what we were charging. It was a different number. Is that what we charged or is it is it is there a dollar amount.

00:13:38,929	S7:
This is what? No. This is the. This is your tax rate. Yep. Yes. This is what we charge, and then it's gone.

00:13:44,129	S1:
We only go with most 2.5% per year.

00:13:46,070	S7:
That's right. The 2.5% represents that 858,000 I mentioned.

00:13:49,700	S1:
So we charge the same tax rate on the growth this year that we had last year. It's 35. 144 and then if we add the max 2% we get another $878,000.

Okay. 00:14:01,100	S3:
Yes. Okay. All right. Is that correct?

00:14:04,970	S7:
If I understood your question.

00:14:06,100	S1:
Yeah. But it went down last year. Right. So we went down. It goes back up.

00:14:11,769	S7:
So if the property value goes up, then.

00:14:13,330	S1:
No, but the rate already went down. So I'm saying if we had a higher rate, we probably wouldn't be. Well. So that would be the rate.

00:14:19,529	S2:
And that's that's a good opportunity to explain. The rate is we get to the rate by dividing, um, the total property value in town by the amount of money we want to raise in the open. So the rate is the number you actually back into. If property values go up, then the rate will actually go down and make no other changes.

Right. 00:14:36,929	S1:
So that's what happened last.

00:14:39,000	S2:
Year, right? That's why we try not to focus on the rate. We try to focus on the total dollar amount that we're collecting. That's an actual truer picture of the impact to our taxpayers.

00:14:50,470	S3:
When we talk.

00:14:51,429	S2:
About the operating. So you have a pie chart here.

00:14:55,230	S7:
Pie pie chart. 63% of the expenditures is for education at 28,008,507.

00:15:03,269	S7:
Uh, 7% is for your general government at 3,131,003 45. 9% is for public safety at 4,125,007 82. 6% is DPW 2,000,008.963 15. Um, 1% is for Health and Human Services for 426,005 69, and 3% is for Culture and Recreation at 1,208,591, and then the remaining 11% of 5,032,054 is all your unclassified. That's your retirement group. Health, Medicare, open celebration, state assessments, property and casualty insurance. It transfers to HTC town debt service and transfers to general stabilization or capital stabilization.

00:15:55,570	S2:
Yeah, okay. So don't want to be all business. Want to show a couple nice pictures from things around the south side of this picture is just how well our town departments did it. Kind of decorating this. Here, have some shots from the Public Safety Building. The town's on the edge of park, and then here you see some of the capital improvements that are on. The two on the left have been undertaken this year. Um, top is obviously the the nice new, um, vintage fire engine building that, uh, Ray Brunet and other volunteers have built with the help of capital um, Preservation Committee funds. Lower. Is the DPW working on a new sidewalk to the Council on Aging, and the big center picture is a project we hope to undertake in the coming year. Uh, refreshing the gazebo.

00:16:44,230	S1:
So we go back to the trees, though. We're a joint venture with the.

00:16:47,470	S2:
With a good point. Yes. The trees, the decoration of the trees here. Uh, we had we had volunteers. Uh, a group of volunteers stepped forward, offered to do that. So Iron Tree and some other folks, uh, combined to light those trees up and, uh, just showing the lights. And then they took them out. And, uh, we appreciate their their willingness to step up and help the town of this.

00:17:09,799	S2:
And, uh.

00:17:10,769	S9:
Public safety folks all decorate the Council on Aging. I understand as well.

Thanks. 00:17:15,799	S2:
And the Council on Aging, and they're all building up. Yes. Thank you. That was very much appreciated.

00:17:23,700	S2:
Um, well, here, what we're showing here is that FY 27 capital to request the capital approval of Daniel. The plant starts out, with the capital, with the department heads making recommendations for capital improvements that they need for their departments in the coming year. Uh, most of these, uh, in this year, I think they were all on the, uh, capital plan. Five year capital plan. They make their recommendations, and then they meet with the capital committee that moves all the requests and prioritize it. Uh, we have capital improvement policy. It suggests that we're supposed to invest about $1 million a year. Uh, a little more into capital improvements. Last year, we did not hit that last year. Remember, we were doing our best to keep our budget to a certain number, and we didn't. We made an investments of free cash in a couple of other areas, and did not spend as much money or free cash as we wanted to. I don't mean as much money or capital prudence as we wanted to. This year, we're going to get to our goal of spending 1.25 billion in capital improvements, but only 866,000 of that is coming from free cash. Another 111 will come from repurposed funds. There's several. There's funds left in several old capital projects that were not fully expended. The the projects were complete. They did use all the money that was budgeted for it. And the funds are sitting there. So it would be asking a meeting to allow us to reuse those to the pen and park master plan things. What looks like if I did that and um, and then.

00:18:54,769	S2:
And then the, the rest of it will be paid forward by Water Enterprise Fund retained earnings because everybody's projects have affected water department corrections.

00:19:03,170	S1:
So if you go back to page six, slide six, you have free cash at 1,391,000.

00:19:11,769	S1:
So which is more than water. So what else are we spending free cash on besides capital. So we do have a slide. Are you doing okay. All right.

Perfect. 00:19:19,829	S10:
The, uh.

00:19:20,730	S11:
Well, I mean, are we going to stay on this page or so? The library is at the total cost, or is that our portion from Wyndham as well, or.

00:19:28,730	S2:
That's our portion.

00:19:29,569	S11:
Okay. And do we have anything on the lead service line program? I'm curious what we're doing. There's been a lot of mailings on that. I'm just curious.

00:19:37,269	S2:
The lead service line program has all been paid for with grant funds. We haven't used any town funds on that program, so that wouldn't be reflected here. We get credits as a pass through, uh, specifically from the state to to fund that program. And it doesn't cost us any funds here.

00:19:54,099	S11:
But what are we doing regardless of the source of funds?

00:19:58,170	S5:
Tim.

00:20:00,369	S2:
Oh, yeah.

00:20:01,000	S12:
So we are supplied with the DEP, the EPA's, uh, requirements. Um, the last requirement was to get out in the inventory.

00:20:12,430	S12:
Um, as well as then a consumer customer notice by December 31st. Who's complied with that? Uh, so the next step is activating area commentary based on, uh, notices in the responses from residents, and there will be a planning attack to physically look at, uh, through excavation, through excavation and whatever we have to do, uh, physically look at some services throughout town, uh, team in efforts to, uh, confidently say that great uh, to you make it so that is coming in this year.

Oh. 00:20:53,529	S11:
Okay. Perfect. Thanks, Tim.

00:20:58,299	S2:
Any other questions on the capital?

00:20:59,500	S9:
Yeah, yeah. The, um, sidewalk improvements, line item, highway rose and sidewalk improvement. 300 grand there. Do we have a list of areas that we're improving?

00:21:12,269	S11:
Yep.

00:21:13,299	S12:
Yes. Um, right now, those shorter list that I had previously or recently bid out was, uh, Lower Bridge Street with, uh, some significant drainage improvements. Uh, major road, the major of greens? Um, Essex Street from Woodbury to Wilton town line. Those three roads, I believe. Uh, the bid was about 1.6 million. Um, we need some additional funding to contract all that work. And that's what if I'm successful in getting that? That's what I might add.

00:21:51,730	S2:
What do you currently have to help pay that?

00:21:54,900	S12:
I believe I have on was 1.2 million.

00:21:58,000	S2:
So we get all that side work done if this gets approved. Okay. We have one of the sidewalks around the capital on the five year capital plan. Uh, we tend to invest every year came out that we can afford to invest. Depends on what our other priorities are. As I said, that goes to the capital committee and then to the Pentagon for final recommendation. But where we're at right now is recommending, based on their recommendation, $300,000 for road, sidewalk.

00:22:24,069	S12:
Boy to.

00:22:25,369	S9:
Have we in terms of the five year plan, have we looked at the habitat for humanity project going in and then the Iron Ox project going on across the road from that? If we looked at extending the sidewalk out to those areas.

00:22:40,269	S12:
That's the, uh, I looked at that as a planning, um, to do some considering, um, to develop the cost estimate as well, because I believe to carry that sidewalk out to assure the cost to those developments will, there'll be a little bit of drainage improvements. That's.

Yeah. 00:23:01,869	S9:
The one that's a little bit of a that.

00:23:03,829	S12:
Oh yeah. Right now it's country grazed. You put the sidewalk in with carriage. Uh trapped so in vain is a pretty good sound to be true. Good news. Yeah. Um, is, uh, is needed, and I understand that out there. Yeah, it's a kind of short list.

00:23:21,500	S9:
Private, right? Is that kind of a 27 or 28?

00:23:27,369	S12:
Oh, depending on if I this year we did get some more than 90 something through the state. Uh, if I get an you get another year in that bubble or I don't know what I'm talking.

00:23:39,769	S11:
I.

00:23:39,829	S12:
Don't be like that. We try to match it with this effort. If we can, uh, to expedite, uh, grow the funding to expedite.

00:23:50,400	S9:
Yeah.

00:23:51,769	S12:
But that is the short list to get some sidewalk concentrating on that side of the session. Now, I'm going to be over here, uh, seeing the speakers.

00:23:59,299	S9:
All right.

00:24:00,369	S12:
So good.

00:24:01,029	S11:
So it is chapter 90 buried in that state aid line at 1.18.

00:24:05,799	S1:
It's the up side of it.

00:24:07,170	S2:
It's outside of it. It can only be used by the sidewalks. Necessary. So we did a project.

00:24:12,670	S11:
Last on the budget.

00:24:14,099	S2:
It lives in the DPW, but it's outside of the town. Budget? It's not. It's not part of the General Revenue Fund.

00:24:19,470	S11:
And how much is that?

00:24:21,230	S12:
We usually get around 240 a year. Wow. This year we got about double that. Oh, yeah. Check out this one time.

00:24:30,269	S2:
It's partly related. It was partly related to, uh, funds that the governor had available based on the millionaire's tax, I believe. And the supposition was that that will continue. But given kind of recent, given kind of recent economic development efforts that have come up.

00:24:47,470	S12:
Our allotments around 240 a year.

00:24:49,299	S2:
To call.

00:24:49,630	S12:
You back to your work.

00:24:51,430	S11:
Now, there are other buckets like that that are outside of here that.

00:24:54,569	S12:
Are.

00:24:55,400	S2:
Not really okay.

00:24:56,799	S12:
There's those grants available that I plan after.

00:24:59,269	S11:
They're not a recurring thing like that.

Okay. 00:25:02,099	S12:
Not not the guy is a drag.

00:25:04,630	S11:
He's got it.

Thanks. 00:25:09,430	S10:
Thanks.

00:25:10,200	S2:
All right. So, um, we're making progress at town hall. We're still expecting to move our offices back into the building in May. Um, And these are just a couple of pictures of some of the progress. You'll see the elevator towers up. It's actually more complete at this point. The sidings are almost completely, uh, around there. And, uh, they'll be installing the elevator shortly.

00:25:32,529	S12:
Um.

00:25:36,029	S10:
Okay.

00:25:37,670	S2:
So to give you kind of a high level on the, uh, the General government operating expenses for the coming year, um.

00:25:50,529	S2:
See, there's very little change. In most areas, the change that, uh, 123 time management budget involves probably my new contract, but also includes funds for, uh communications, uh specialist, and.

00:26:04,569	S12:
Um.

00:26:05,369	S2:
In the part time executive assistant. So we we had requests to enhance the operation there a little bit, particularly in the way we communicate with the public. So we added some funds in there to do that. Um, that would be one place that would be looked at if we were asked to make further cuts.

00:26:20,599	S1:
Let's just select board increase.

00:26:23,269	S7:
That's an increase in Robert Gates hours. The the individual who does the communications for us and the website and the um.

00:26:31,799	S1:
I.

00:26:32,799	S7:
Facebook. Sorry. And then uh, minute takers. So we increased that budget to represent more of the actual expenses that have been coming in.

00:26:41,200	S1:
To actualize what you saw last year.

00:26:42,829	S7:
That's correct.

00:26:44,000	S2:
Uh, we have a decrease in the assessor's budget. Um, a slight increase in the triple.

00:26:50,170	S12:
Due.

00:26:50,630	S2:
To a slight increase in the treasurer and the treasurer collector's office that is based largely on a retirement. We have a retirement that we're anticipating on later this year in that department. And most of that 25 is I mean, most of the 29 is covered in paying that return.

00:27:10,230	S12:
Um.

00:27:11,430	S2:
Smaller increases in human resources. There's a entitled clerk. The town clerk has agreed to take on, um, a project to, um. Kind of help digitize our records and make a lot more of our records available to the public through the town website. And she'll be spearheading that. And we're recognizing that effort with a stipend and her budget as well. And then it was an increase, um, for elections. That was because of the extra elections that are planned for this year. In addition to the annual town meeting, the town, the annual town, um, annual town meeting, a special town meeting, annual town election. Then there will also be the state primary and state elections as well. So that's probably that's the increase there. Elections is due to bring two more events to neutral. Um, when you look at the overall budget. One thing that jumps out at you is $150,000. That's again for the digitization project that's been recommended by the Capital Committee and others.

00:28:07,299	S1:
Uh, is that it? Is that not recommended for free cash? This is a one time extension.

00:28:11,930	S2:
Yes. It's recommended the payment will come out of free cash, but we're referring to it as a one time but one time project. It will. We will likely.

00:28:22,730	S1:
Need it, right?

00:28:24,130	S2:
Well, more importantly, we're going to start with records in the planning and clerk's office and building department. But then there are other departments that will eventually. So there's 150 in there this year to start that. And that's scanning and digitization of a lot of our existing records. As we move into other years, we may be asking for more money in that line item. So we needed it to live somewhere. So we just put our time.

00:28:47,799	S13:
Budget.

00:28:48,599	S2:
For now. And there's an increase in of $64,000 in the finance budget.

One. 00:28:57,470	S7:
Yes. Um, that is for oh, of course, I don't have one down here. That's for increases. Um, basically for your audit actuary. And then we had to hire, um, CLA to do the tax audit for the tax exempt payment for the town hall, um, green project, so that we can receive funds back to the tune of potentially $250,000. So that that just represents, um, an increase in contractual expenses if necessary.

00:29:34,329	S11:
Um.

00:29:35,299	S2:
So any questions on the town manager's finance department budgets?

00:29:42,230	S9:
Again, on the digitization project, once that stuff comes digital because, uh, maintaining the the database.

00:29:51,170	S2:
So it'll be managed through the website. Um, and uh, the goal will be next year to also improve our website with working with, um, the town manager's assistant and clerk and, uh, team of department heads to potentially move us to a different website.

00:30:10,299	S1:
As a.

00:30:10,730	S2:
Future. And, um, so this is the idea of what the digitization is, that it would be outward facing to the many of the records that are all the projects anyway, people will even have to come in to tell all or submit a recognition by the state should be able to look about on the website through the portal.

00:30:28,099	S9:
So what do we have in terms of maintenance of that? Like it maintenance like it was that.

00:30:34,269	S2:
It comes with an annual contract. So we'll use that in a contract to maintain those records. And then it's just adding to the records as we create new records.

00:30:42,170	S9:
And that comes into play in FY 28 and beyond.

00:30:46,500	S13:
Uh.

00:30:48,670	S11:
Uh help me understand the finance.

00:30:50,529	S7:
Yeah. Sorry. Now I have it in front of me. Um, so there's always an increase in the CLA audit, and then we consulted with CLA to do the tax consulting for tax exempt credits so that we can receive the credits, but we need them to help us file all that paperwork. Yeah. So that's, um, that's a contract that we signed. And then there'll be an actuary increase as well. Also, there's an increase in the IT contractor to get him more to market value. And there's an increase in contracts for Tyler, for Patriot services, for any backup services that we use. And Kai mapping also an increase in Comcast, Verizon and your phone systems. So all of that represents the 64,000.

00:31:35,799	S2:
Yeah you could just reference the IT contractor. Let's be clear. There were a couple of IT contractor works on a contract basis for less. His contract has not always included the same increase as employees. He often negotiates his contracts three year increments at a different period than town employees did. So when the town employees got their last increases, he did get a similar increase. And quite frankly, we're getting a really good deal. Most most towns that I know that have IT departments are paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars for those contracts and services. And our contract with Andy, I think, takes are about 60.

00:32:09,170	S1:
Yeah.

00:32:09,869	S2:
Um, so, yeah.

00:32:11,500	S11:
He's.

00:32:12,000	S2:
A really good value for us. He's the architect of all of our IT infrastructure. He knows the system inside and out. He's available to us, but we need him. He comes out here usually 1 to 2 times a year to check on it. Everything himself. If we lose or what, I will. I won't even say what. Eventually Andy is going to retire or move on or do something else. And when we lose him, the IT line item is going to double. But for as long as we have him, I want to keep him. I thought it was it was worth it to negotiate an increase that brought him in line with similar raises that other employees have got.

00:32:44,200	S11:
Yeah, he is good. So would you stay with that remote model? Do you have challenges with that? You do you have somebody more on site?

00:32:50,200	S2:
Part of the reason we're working with the IT collaborative is that we might be able to go to them. Uh, they're providing some of those desktop services and troubleshooting for other towns in the collaborative. We don't pay them for that right now. Um, but we'd like to be able to get them. It'll still be more expensive than Andy, but maybe not two adult double or triple.

00:33:08,869	S11:
Gotcha. And on the finance Committee reserve line. Just help me understand. Like the actuals 2425 down around a couple hundred. I know we replenish and keep a number of about 100,000 to those prior actuals represent what was actually spent. So do we think we need that big of a reserve.

00:33:26,730	S2:
So so it's the only place in the budget that we can go if we have a large, unexpected expense without calling me $100,000. In the grand scheme of things, in terms of our budget, is it a lot of money towns going to is proposing to spend roughly $17 million this year to have a line item with $100,000, that we can absorb an unforeseen expense, um, that has to go through the income and that has to also be ratified by the Select board. Isn't a bad thing. Uh, we've been lucky. We have generally done a good job in forecasting our needs, and we live within our budgets. But once in a while, things happen. Uh, fire truck breaks or something isn't covered by insurance, and you still have to get that piece of equipment back up and running. It's better to have money in a line item than we can go to.

00:34:14,369	S9:
Yeah, the special town meetings come out of that number.

00:34:17,630	S2:
No, we we budget to run special town meetings.

00:34:20,199	S11:
That's up in the elections. Registration, right?

00:34:22,099	S10:
Yeah, except in 25. We did this one morning.

00:34:24,769	S2:
Well that's true. Sorry. It's 25 because we had.

00:34:28,170	S11:
Five.

00:34:28,670	S2:
In calendar year, 25 because we had so many.

00:34:31,400	S11:
Town meetings.

00:34:32,269	S2:
We had to go to find common areas.

00:34:34,469	S11:
Yes. So that number for 26 will be I mean, will be bigger than the 2425.

00:34:41,429	S2:
Because we had two and 526 two specials.

Yeah. 00:34:44,829	S13:
All right.

00:34:48,099	S2:
We're going to move into the smaller departments. And our department heads are largely here to help us come clean. And the special services we have, the mark cutters are plenty of electric. And Rich Maloney are building commissioners here. Um, the main thing I want to focus on here is that overall, the budget here, a percent of change is a decrease. Um, we've got a slight, slight increase in the personnel and expense line items. Uh, personnel. Line item. You'll notice that there was a decrease in conservation commission. That's because the, uh, partnership with Manchester switched to Manchester being in the lead, and now they just bill us. So that $15,000 is exactly what we expect to pay Manchester for the services of the part time Conservation Commission. Uh, conservation. Hmm. Uh, planning saw a similar increase, but we needed some additional hours in order to make the partnership with Manchester what we needed. Um, we need some part time admin help. I know we discussed the select time we brought in Alicia, who's been doing a fantastic job. She's only here, what, 20 hours a week? 24 hours a week, 24 hours a week. Um, so we're just showing that cost in the budget this year. Um, Alicia coordinates a lot of the meeting postings and things for both Park and the Conservation Commission, and she's available to, uh, to other park.

00:36:10,599	S10:
That's right.

00:36:12,369	S2:
And we have, um, inspection services. What you're seeing here is just the, uh, contracted increase for the, uh, raises, the calls that this is for the people, that overall, though, uh, we're seeing a decrease of just under the. Yeah, about $10,000 times. So, uh, you know that fortunately, we know that we can live with this budget, but it's, uh, we're not really growing this budget. We're doing a better job and being more efficient. Uh, Mark and Rachel both here to answer questions.

00:36:52,400	S9:
We just, um, wrap up a master planning exercise as well.

00:36:57,929	S2:
We did. The master plan was paid for from pre cash who lived in a separate, separate space in the pie charts. But we wrap that up. Not this fiscal year, but in FY 20.

00:37:08,530	S9:
So all of us, did they have implementation recommendations in there.

00:37:13,070	S2:
So they, uh, they did. And this, uh, planning board has reached out recently was within about two months. Um, they want to talk to they want to have us talk about establishing an implementation committee or master plan committee to to start to bring forward the recommendations. We have tried to get our budget hearings earlier in the year. You look at the master plan recommendations and have this have the departments that think about what was in the master plan and how we could start to, um, you know, predict a use of that or are moving in the direction for the master plan. So we thought it would be helpful to have a committee down the road appointed potentially by the Select Board to work with the Planning Board and the department staff to map out how we make those changes go forward.

00:38:01,329	S1:
We have a budget of about a half million dollars for planning and special services. What is the what is the intake of that? What is our what are our permit receipts? Is that is it a does it offset or is it a profit center or is it a loss. How is that. How is that. How does that work?

00:38:14,929	S7:
In 25 we came in under. So it was a loss. In 25.

00:38:18,829	S10:
We.

00:38:19,130	S7:
We budgeted higher than what the the amount came in. But in 26 it already looks like we're going to either be um, even or a little bit above.

00:38:27,570	S1:
How often do we look at our I mean I, I, we're looking I work in a lot of different towns and they, they continue to raise their private fees. How often do we look at that and when do we assess if we want to raise priorities.

00:38:40,929	S1:
Right.

00:38:41,230	S14:
You want to talk about property.

00:38:42,929	S2:
We haven't done it. We haven't done an official vote with the Selectboard recently. The the permit fees are currently tied to a explain the formula for the last time. The fees array was 2018. We did a uh, I started employee one. We did a.

00:39:00,099	S10:
T shirt day.

00:39:01,099	S2:
So we did all the abutting humanities, everybody on tape band. And then we started in the electronic grouping software three years ago. So, I mean, which is a model for small cons, because the cost of sending money is a fee to each permit that gets issued. So that pays for the permitting system they use to pay for it. So we didn't the communities, um, that use that permitting software. Roman. West. Newberry. Newberry. Raleigh. Uh, so we were we were we weren't out of whack with what we have is, uh, we take a lot of, uh, we have a multipliers and you pull a building permit for $1 million. Oh, we have multipliers with all the plumbing and with a building permit, and that's what we do. We get a lot of.

00:39:54,699	S10:
A.

00:39:55,099	S2:
Oh, a hot backslash on those screens for mechanical problems where they tied to and blown up. So these are our fees. There's a prompt. You have a rate. Permit fee based on the per thousand value of the work to be done. Obviously people come in and they're doing a whole kitchen and they say, oh, it's only going to cost me $25,000. We have data to show that if we know it's not gonna cost them $25,000. So we adjust that multiplier to to market conditions, and that's how we get the fee that they're charged. So what I think what Rick is trying to say is the per thousand evaluation that you're charging is in line with other communities around us, and we're just being very careful using the permitting software to make sure that we're, um, we're assessing the actual value of the work that's being proposed to be done. Um, there's some pushback on it, but largely people understand you can't tell me that it only costs $25,000 to do a pinch of them. Everybody knows in eastern Massachusetts it's going to cost you. If it's double, that's how much work you're doing on it. So I'm the atypical house would probably be a $7,000 building.

00:41:04,030	S1:
I mean, what so what are we per thousand? Are we? That's not how we charge. You know, I mean, most towns are $15.

00:41:08,530	S2:
Per.

00:41:08,769	S1:
Thousand, right? That's low. Right? Most charge those towns are 15 per thousand.

00:41:13,630	S2:
So we'd see that. But, you know, um, different communities make their money different ways.

00:41:19,929	S1:
Uh, I'll just say I was going to lose money in that department, so I wonder if we should. That's that. Joe, as I.

00:41:23,800	S2:
Said, generally don't we generally don't. The only the only equipment that to the top we both generally. And when you know I just wanted to say to I think when Wendy says that we didn't make our number, I don't think she means that we didn't make enough money. Or maybe I'm wrong. Normally we've always made enough money to pay the people that worked in the special services department. What we do is we project a a revenue number on that fund. And in 25, I think the only time that since I've come here, We didn't make our projected number. Yes, but normally we've we've exceeded that projected number and that additional revenue cost. Free cash. That 25 was the only year we have made that number. What do you have? Is there a formula that you have to look at the prior year's revenue?

00:42:06,170	S7:
So I was talking about just the revenue portion. The the anticipated revenue came in less than under the local receipts. It came in less than what we anticipated. Yes. We're using a three year average. Pretty much.

00:42:19,969	S2:
So if you look at what our actual cost for personnel, it is factual. It's between it. Oh, sorry about that. This thing so sounds a bit. Um, there it is. Um, I don't know.

00:42:36,570	S1:
I guess I just, I guess my point is saying is that we're having a tough year. It's an opportunity to look at it. We haven't looked at in 2018. Maybe we should just look at it and make sure that we're still in line with local communities. And we have a couple of big ones come. We have a couple of big payments coming in in the next couple of years.

00:42:51,300	S2:
So next couple of months.

00:42:53,170	S1:
It's probably too late for those, but but.

00:42:55,599	S14:
I have reported yet.

00:42:56,900	S11:
About.

00:42:57,369	S2:
$23,000 in permit for the, uh, okay building for the, uh.

00:43:01,869	S1:
Asbury. Right? I mean, it's a it's a big number right there. You got.

00:43:05,530	S2:
To make.

00:43:05,800	S1:
Our projections. You got one coming, six. You got one coming for Gordon.

00:43:08,369	S14:
But they have it all together.

00:43:09,329	S2:
So the board can adjust the permit fees as you see fit. We need to.

00:43:13,269	S1:
Maybe we're maybe I just I don't remember talking about it. So is this one thing I just thought about as an opportunity to.

Maybe. 00:43:18,269	S2:
I think you adjusted them right. Right before I got here. I started late in 2018, and.

00:43:23,969	S11:
I remember doing that. There was that market base, looked at surrounding communities. It's always good to do that. And then any other fees we have. Yeah, but I'm sure you base it on volume dollars. It sounds like a number of jobs that are done times an average amount, and we just didn't see enough to cover our base. We don't want to overcharge, but it can't, does it?

00:43:42,570	S1:
The building does not need to equal the permit fees, is not equal to the cost of the department. That's not that's that's been taken to court and disprove. And so we try to do it, but it doesn't. The law is not required. It could be more. You could twice.

00:43:54,900	S11:
Oh you can make it.

00:43:56,099	S1:
Yes, exactly.

00:43:56,730	S11:
But you are at a minimum one.

00:43:58,170	S1:
But we don't want it. We don't want to, you know, sort of have it be too high.

00:44:00,570	S11:
You don't want to discourage.

00:44:02,269	S1:
Discourage? Right.

00:44:03,670	S11:
I get it. No, I agree with you.

00:44:04,769	S1:
So just something to look at. That's what I'm saying. It might be the right spot and maybe some. Just look at.

00:44:08,570	S2:
It and bring it.

00:44:09,070	S14:
To, you know, February.

00:44:09,929	S2:
And we can start the process.

00:44:11,369	S9:
The question I have on the master planning piece is do we have the resources we need as a town on the administration side to fully support that? Or would we be relying on volunteers through a committee?

00:44:25,030	S2:
You'll largely be relying on volunteer supported by staff and the current environment. We don't have staff. We don't have enough staff to actually, you know, undertake the implementation by itself. But it depends what it is. But so the committee with a need for some special committees decides what they want to do it. Some of the things we can do an analysis, put some safety frames on, but that hasn't happened yet. Or they can bounce across.

00:44:54,469	S11:
This terror.

00:44:55,070	S2:
Bacteria. So we don't have a sense yet.

00:44:59,070	S9:
But so they're not planning on. So at most. They may form a subcommittee to look at this next in this fiscal year. We don't anticipate them coming with any request.

00:45:14,070	S2:
Not a meager request this year. But I mean, it's the master plan is you manage the master planning process as managing approvals to the planning board, but the implementation can be managed by the select board if you if you want it to be because you ultimately the ones that are going to have to ask town meeting for the funds to do it. So yeah, it's it's also an appropriate way to go. If you want to talk about that, we can ask for either joint meeting or contingent from the planning board to come discuss what committee would look like, what the what the request might look like. And we can start to click on that.

00:45:46,900	S9:
Yeah. I mean, it's they're just kicking stuff off now. It's just where we are in the season, right? Of is if they're planning on trying to get something done. Uh, if they need specialist support in order to get something done, I would rather know. Now, instead of waiting an entire. Another year and a half. Uh, if there's things that are going to vastly improve our our community. So, I don't know, rather hear about it now, even if it means we have to wait another year, but start planning it.

Okay. 00:46:18,570	S2:
Stay tuned.

00:46:19,769	S9:
All right.

00:46:20,829	S2:
Next apartment.

00:46:21,900	S1:
But but. Yeah. But generally. Yes. Great job on balancing this budget in this department. I mean it's been that pretty impressive. So thank you for that. So just wanted to acknowledge that it's a pretty impressive right. So everybody else is going up and this one down. So well done.

00:46:38,670	S11:
Thank you.

00:46:39,230	S2:
The put the all the credit with Rich and Mark um in the fit talk but thank you.

Uh. 00:46:45,469	S11:
Fire rescue, police department.

00:46:47,199	S2:
So, pictures from the past year. They are the police chief. And, um, those fire. This fire. There we go. There's a bike. We have some photos for the fire.

00:46:57,900	S11:
Find some ashes.

00:46:59,230	S2:
Um, we got both chiefs here in the house. Let's. We'll go over it. This is another budget. You're actually going to see a decrease? Um. The fireside. You know, I already talked about the fact that we're not replacing the deputy chiefs. Um, and in the, uh. And you know that we already cut the emergency operations center.

00:47:15,000	S1:
So obviously, that's the.

00:47:16,070	S2:
So that's the biggest. That's the.

00:47:17,199	S9:
Biggest.

00:47:17,570	S1:
That's the.

00:47:17,829	S2:
Big decrease. Yeah. Um, this budget does include a change to add a police officer. As you know, the we've been talking about from several years, the previous chief and this chief that talked about it, what's been called the the old reserve police officer program is not what it used to be, but the advent of um, in the police accountability and other factors has led to a decrease of people wanting those positions. You can't put a police officer on the street unless they've been through the full academy anymore. So we just don't have the resource to be able to cover those open shifts. So this budget calls for, um, calls for the addition of $108,000 in the budget to allow for it, the fully loaded cost of a new police officer, but it also reduces the resource retiring by 52,000.

00:48:08,130	S1:
Okay. Gotcha. So that's awesome. Okay. That makes sense.

00:48:12,599	S2:
Chiefs are both here. If you have any questions.

00:48:16,599	S1:
I mean more just the fact this is your first time going through it. So just understanding how how the process went for you and what what things you. If we had more money, you'd be asking for more money.

00:48:26,570	S2:
Would I be asking for?

00:48:27,730	S11:
Yeah.

00:48:28,230	S1:
Um, like, what do you need that you can't get this.

Yeah. 00:48:31,230	S15:
I mean, there's a lot of little things that, you know, I can point to. Um, one of the things that, um, I can say that that most police these are. It's a beautiful hat is a this is what they called large scale thing for themselves. You can utilize it. If you have a recipe, you can put the mike in, the system goes apeshit. You'll be able to get that. Uh, that person is already dead in the system. Um, if they also utilize it, if you have people in the community that need to have for their own jobs or schools, you can have that read on. Yeah. They don't have to get in contact fingers and to have that a pinnacle in the system. Although those people, they just suddenly things right up there with these business people.

00:49:19,099	S1:
Is that a one time equipment fee or is it a recurring expense every year?

00:49:22,429	S15:
Uh, there is a maintenance speed for it. Um, you know, you have your LinkedIn with the Massachusetts on state, uh, on.

00:49:31,670	S11:
That and everything.

00:49:32,599	S2:
So you have.

00:49:32,929	S15:
To coordinate that.

00:49:35,030	S11:
Within.

00:49:35,929	S15:
Uh, the equipment that you got. Um, actually, with This is at the Ephesus. Uh, but that's yours. Any Sunday you can go on with that. That was the one that I had signed it. That would be very interesting for us.

00:49:50,699	S1:
What's the rough cost of that?

00:49:52,670	S15:
I think it's somewhere between 20 or $30,000. Couldn't see it. So. So I do not cheat.

00:50:00,199	S11:
Well, Kennedy.

00:50:00,969	S2:
Did you have a question?

00:50:03,400	S6:
No. I'm sorry. Okay. Can you. Can you hear me?

00:50:06,969	S11:
Yes.

Perfect. 00:50:07,969	S5:
We can hear you.

00:50:09,170	S6:
Well, I've been groaning. Sorry. I'll be fine.

00:50:12,769	S11:
I thought that was Bill. Um, what do we have in the budget for school resource officer? Has there been any changes in that? Anything additional that we need or.

00:50:23,530	S15:
Because it's the same. Um, Gina is going to sell it. Um, well, we'll find out. We can go, like, go to the bears. Um, we're continuing that position. Obviously, this is also, um, you know, the schools pay for that. I know that during these nine months or so that she wrote that. And then she'll come back during the summer time we go because of her schedule. She uses a lot of the time that she built up during the summertime. So it's like she she goes, uh, you know, come in and she will work out shifts. Uh, you know, it's like she didn't have any other lot to which she wore during the summer. Uh, she's at the school of the Queen Elizabeth Nocturne. And I said.

00:51:09,699	S2:
I will say the SRO program has been great since, uh, it's been brought to Hamilton. One of the, uh, the two SROs that we've had working in the schools, Gina and Kent, before her were were just great. They were beloved within the schools by the parents, by the kids. Uh, it's a great connection. And it's it's helpful to us.

00:51:27,800	S1:
It's the one good thing that came out of the pat. And the pattern growth. Marijuana grow facilities over here. That's that's where that started, right? We got funding from them to start that process.

00:51:37,699	S2:
And then we need to really get the money because it's silly one way.

00:51:40,230	S1:
But we're able.

00:51:40,869	S2:
To do it. But we were.

00:51:41,530	S1:
Able to find the importance of it and paper, which I think was a good thing. So that's great. Yeah. Um, and then I just curious, I got details. Do we. Is there any is there any income for us in detail? Private details. Or do we.

00:51:52,269	S11:
Know.

00:51:52,500	S2:
In the press the minutes pass.

00:51:53,869	S1:
Through to the past.

00:51:55,070	S2:
We charge a different rate to private entities that need a detail versus if it's a town detail. And then that's that just reimburses.

00:52:02,530	S1:
If it doesn't show up on the on the budget.

00:52:04,900	S15:
How do you think it is a lot of detail. We charge the type of settings.

00:52:10,099	S11:
Um, and.

00:52:11,530	S15:
See who are the other partners in the detail. I'll be quite honest with you about how well, uh, my last place of appointment. We couldn't fill details. It was 30 to 40 day. Uh, there were days where the music beats alone. Right? That's a bit. It's not usually you can tell something you got. So stuck at the top.

00:52:35,929	S1:
Yes. Yes. Just curious.

00:52:38,070	S2:
Okay. Very good.

00:52:39,630	S1:
Look out for any reference.

Ouch! 00:52:42,769	S2:
Okay. Move it to fire department.

00:52:45,670	S9:
I'm sorry. Are we on the stool?

00:52:47,630	S2:
Yeah.

00:52:48,300	S9:
In the same.

00:52:49,730	S11:
Category.

00:52:50,329	S9:
Category?

00:52:54,000	S1:
So, Joe, you.

00:52:54,699	S2:
You.

00:52:55,030	S1:
You forecast a $300,000 savings. Being conservative. It could be. Is that pretty exact or could potentially be more than that.

00:53:03,300	S2:
So, I mean, there are there are costs still. We you know, we're carrying in the budget, uh, somebody to work at the work desk at the public safety building during business hours and maybe a little into the evening. Right now, we're carrying enough funding to have one and a half people there. Um, we've got a job description that's been approved by both chiefs, and we're waiting to hear back from the union so we can go about the process of hiring those positions. Uh, so we got to carry cost for those positions as well. That was part of the phased approach of the committee recommended. So we can't. There's also additional costs, particularly with the computerized system that stores all of our records and calls. And it could take a year or two to transfer all those records and files to the regional. So until then, we need to maintain some level of connections to those to that software. And so we carry an annual cost for that until then.

00:53:57,769	S1:
So as a phased approach, you're saying next year we could see additional savings.

00:54:02,500	S2:
Right.

00:54:03,099	S1:
Okay. All right.

00:54:05,070	S11:
Because here it looks like you have about 253 right.

00:54:07,829	S2:
Yeah. But it can be it being conservative trying to.

00:54:11,599	S11:
Yeah. No, that's not good. This is great.

00:54:14,369	S9:
There was some, uh, on sorry. On the fire department. There was some discussion around a potential. The ambulance. Um, is that show up this year and or in FY 28?

00:54:24,570	S2:
No. So there there is, um, the deputy chief and the chief, uh, are working on a plan to make a future proposal, but that involves federal grant money. Then we have to apply for.

00:54:36,099	S15:
And, uh.

00:54:37,000	S2:
And pull it. Um, we we're not ready yet. We are ready. Well, it'll be a week presentation with the Pin code with select board. Before we even apply for the grants, if we get the grants, we'll know what's coming in and what's what's expected of us. All right.

00:54:51,869	S15:
Good.

00:54:53,670	S11:
So we talked about shift of reserves and full time police. Is there any anything like that in the fire department?

00:55:00,699	S15:
The future is going to be complete at a full time. Staff calling.

00:55:05,400	S9:
The front.

00:55:05,969	S15:
Lot within the next three of those planning goes. Talking about I'm going for a rest. Uh, which allow us to hire, um, firefighters. Um, at the reduced rate as far as the majority of attacks for years, and then the period to which.

00:55:26,829	S2:
You assume it. Okay. And nothing like that. yet in 2007.

Okay. 00:55:34,429	S15:
Okay.

00:55:34,769	S2:
We're moving into the public works. Um, it's just a reminder that, as you've mentioned in each department, I've let the department heads know that they don't have to stay till the end of the meeting. They can leave. Um, so we've presented some of the department heads who left, some choosing to stay. That's great. Um, I appreciate them coming out, and I definitely won't.

00:55:54,030	S16:
Be assigned to this leave after.

00:55:56,099	S2:
So this is another big budget. The Department of Public Works. Uh. Uh, probably our largest headcount should be if they're fully staffed, but we're having trouble getting. We've got a couple of vacancies right now. Um, the biggest change here is going to be in.

00:56:12,400	S15:
The.

00:56:13,170	S2:
Operating expenses. And that is the $265,000 that we're anticipating increase in the in the trash budget. The trash budget lives in this budget. And, uh, as you can see, we have a 405,000 total increase in 265. That is just from the trash contract. the increase in the personnel expense is largely contractual. It's tied into the DPW workers raises and uh, uh, minor. You know, those all play out through to the reduction in highway is two twos.

00:56:44,269	S15:
Moving uh, personally to parks.

00:56:47,730	S1:
So in terms of trash, you're negotiating that right now. Is that in negotiations? Yeah. Or is that the bid or how does that work, the negotiation or a bid.

00:56:55,230	S2:
It's going to be a negotiation. Okay. We we got some um.

00:57:01,829	S2:
We had our feelers out in the and we, uh, we let them have a contract with KSL together, and we have done some investigation in the market without going out to bid. And the non the people not to seller were asking for more. Um, and in one case, uh, one company had told Wenham that they wouldn't give us an actual bid unless we did a public bidding process, but we were able to get pricing from them when we compared their pricing, uh, to what the seller's pricing was, it was going to be a lot, a lot higher. So you can see the sets and go through the the formal bidding process. Bidding trash contracts are one thing that we don't have to bid. The only other aside from Casella, the only other active players in our area are hilts. I don't think I need to remind everybody that hilts was the one that abandoned town of Hamilton about ten years ago. They just walked away from their contract. Casella came in and stuck to their contract. They had fixed pricing and never tried to raise it. They never tried to change it. They came and they've done a good job. Are they perfect? No, I don't think anybody in this space is. But they did a good job last summer when, um, then the unionized employees for trash companies went on strike. Casella was able to come to quicker terms with their employees. They never missed a day of service to the town of Hamilton and even had the employees strike longer. They already had a plan in place to make sure they were going to continue to pick up. Able to wind up and the absence of that. So, um, we felt that they were they had acted responsibly. They were ready to deal with the emerging threat of trash, uh, not being picked up and, uh, largely been responsive. Their increase is largely due to changes in the market. It's it is, uh, they need to invest in their infrastructure and their trucks. They haven't really been able to do that for us in the last number of years because they had a fixed price contract, um, a fixed rate contract, and they weren't able to raise that. This is going to allow them to modernize their operation a little bit. It'll allow them to stay competitive and stay in business. And yes, it's an increase. But like I said.

00:59:11,929	S1:
What about where's it? Where's the compost end up in this thing. Does the compost going to cost money?

00:59:16,099	S2:
Currently the compost has been going to black Earth for about a year now. Um, but we have been in discussions with, Um. Break ins. Break ins wants us to come back, and our contract with Black Earth ends in a year. And we're working with Brick Ends to.

00:59:32,070	S1:
Start, so they want to start that back up again.

00:59:34,000	S2:
Yeah.

00:59:34,130	S15:
I didn't think they were.

00:59:35,230	S1:
Uh, good news.

00:59:35,869	S2:
We didn't either. That's initially what they told us, but they have been in touch recently. Uh, and they're interested in, uh, and having us back at the same rate that they would charge us before, which will be, uh, potentially decreased from Earth. And it gets gets to keep it in title to local business. We like all the all that stuff, but the decrease from black earth to brick ends isn't, you know, significant enough to really show it. It's going to be on the margins.

00:59:58,469	S1:
In what are what other towns around us are doing a trash fee? We're not doing a trade. We've talked about it in the past, doing like a trash fee.

01:00:08,730	S2:
Right? Yeah, we we brought it up during the budget process with the pen com.

01:00:12,699	S15:
And, um.

01:00:13,929	S2:
The suggestion was that in order to look at that, we should probably start a conversation earlier than the budget process starts. So we decided to try to live within the budget increase for this year and then start a committee to work with the Select Board and others to kind of determine if there's if that's a we want to go down, they would meet a lot more socialization with the town. Yeah. Um, before you you wanted to go down that road. Um, but it, it it is a conversation workshop.

01:00:44,369	S1:
We meet. I mean, we we made the deal that we want to be able to compost, so we kind of made the deal. You compost and you get trash every week, right? So that's the deal. We made it successful. But I'm just curious about how many towns around us are doing the same thing.

01:00:58,099	S2:
Uh, that's one of the all I was doing was saying, and even if even one doesn't, you know, we have the quote unquote mandatory composting, we have to at least put your grain bed out. One of them doesn't require that they offer it if you can take advantage of it or not. Um, do you feel like that's had some success, but not maybe as much as some people had hoped? But, you know, if if you think it's worth it to look at ways to defray the cost of trash. Then we should look at the whole program based on. But that's not going to necessarily change who we are. It's just figuring out how we're going to raise the money to pay and contract.

01:01:30,230	S9:
The blue bags. You know, that you get from the grocery store. Um, how does that come into play?

01:01:35,230	S1:
And thus we have never figured that out.

01:01:37,369	S9:
You have no.

01:01:37,829	S1:
Idea what that money goes.

01:01:39,199	S9:
It's like, that's.

01:01:39,769	S2:
Kind.

01:01:39,900	S16:
Of a per user fee, though, right? Okay.

01:01:42,469	S2:
If if you have trash that doesn't fit into your black tote, then you could put it in a bag that you pay for it and it'll get picked up. You put that blue bag on top of your black.

01:01:52,030	S1:
Yeah, but where's the money go?

01:01:53,099	S16:
Yeah, that's.

01:01:53,900	S1:
I've never figured out where that money goes.

01:01:55,230	S2:
Yeah. So custom waste zero to our treasury. Pardon? He gets wired simply so it falls so far.

01:02:02,429	S1:
So how much do we get? How much do you make?

01:02:04,099	S16:
Yeah. Just be curious if it's going this like this.

01:02:06,269	S2:
Uh, well, it's decreased considerably when we do that every other week. Blue bag? Yeah. I was, uh, kind of pushed the revenues up. Um. We can't. Now, this back to just the old flood, So it's not a considerable amount.

01:02:21,369	S1:
But you buy it at Crosby's. You buy back Crosby's, and then Crosby's keeps a small percentage, and the rest of it goes to this company, and they give you a percentage.

01:02:29,869	S2:
Of pass through, uh, from the merchants. They buy from them directly. So they pay divide, and then they get obviously the money from the customer at cost, and then the purchase from way zero a percentage. And again, that's the percentage.

Yeah. 01:02:48,869	S9:
What are we getting on those. Because if we're talking about.

01:02:51,800	S1:
Like I don't know how we know what that if that's making money losing money as I know I.

01:02:55,030	S9:
Know just like around the concept too though of like if there's a like if we're going to open up the discussion for a fee, it's sort of, uh, you know, well, it'd be nice if you can get at least like, if you're, you know, very economical with your trash and you're very good at sorting your recycling and all these things and composting, there's.

01:03:10,829	S2:
No.

01:03:10,969	S9:
Point.

01:03:11,199	S2:
Sorting, recycling. It's zero. It's zero short at this point anyway. So if you sort it all, you.

01:03:15,230	S16:
I.

01:03:15,670	S9:
Mean, like you don't put it in the trash, right? Like, I mean, like that. You're like. You're like, God.

01:03:21,099	S16:
That's all right. You're separating.

01:03:23,329	S9:
Your trash. Yeah. Sorry. That's my version of sorting.

01:03:26,400	S16:
But.

01:03:27,030	S1:
But we paint a short amount of time. How much fees do we pay in, in, uh, in recycling? Because it's not because it's contaminated recycling. And we pay an exorbitant fee.

01:03:35,329	S2:
And there is. It varies, obviously, by market, but it's ranging between probably between 5 and $7000 or more.

01:03:45,800	S1:
To pay like $70,000 a year because people don't saw it there. Yeah, it's once again a lot of money, but it's not a lot of money overall.

01:03:54,469	S2:
But right after we talked to the seller as we had our early meeting about their proposal, and we discussed that exact some ways to reduce the contamination rate in order for us to pay less.

01:04:08,769	S1:
Yeah. I mean, we just got to educate people. Just don't know. People think they're doing.

01:04:12,369	S2:
The right thing. We already do.

01:04:13,429	S9:
Better.

01:04:13,630	S2:
In.

01:04:13,730	S16:
Hamilton than most cities. Yeah, I think we, uh, we were we do pretty well, but there's always room for improvement. But to be clear, for me on this line, is there a variable component on tonnage? Probably. Right. If we improve it, it comes up and down. Or is it a fixed for all this?

01:04:27,769	S2:
Uh, well, the way that they expect, uh, their contracts are lump sum based on monthly. Okay. Um, quicker, uh, where you see the differences in recycling and, uh, constants.

01:04:40,400	S16:
So we actually pay more.

Yeah. 01:04:42,400	S2:
If our disposal contract is, is in there too, but something so that's real greater that obviously as you get if you decrease the tonnage bids.

01:04:52,900	S16:
Gotcha. And that.

01:04:53,400	S2:
Contract.

01:04:53,869	S16:
Will be up shortly.

01:04:54,929	S2:
As well because there's 2000 to a new way.

01:04:57,969	S16:
To school dance.

01:04:58,800	S2:
Music. So um, yeah, what I mean is, is programs okay.

01:05:06,269	S1:
And so if it goes.

01:05:07,369	S16:
Up.

01:05:08,000	S1:
So if it goes up, uh, whatever, 263,000 this year, What's it going to go up next year?

01:05:15,530	S2:
So the contract that they proposed is another 5%. So they're their contract instead of being the same rate for the next ten years the way it was when they first signed with us, it'll go up 5% a year. So where are they? The good news is you won't go up 30% in one year when you get to the end.

01:05:29,199	S9:
So it's five. Where are they taking it? Where are they taking it? Where do they take them? We don't waste.

01:05:34,599	S2:
Them. So we'll bring her in and over gets the trash. The recycling goes to their plant in Charlestown. And the compost is currently going to Black Earth. But we'll be going to Perkins.

01:05:48,369	S9:
Sorry, I was laughing. Where's the landfill? Go?

01:05:51,469	S2:
Will a breeder? It's a it's.

01:05:52,530	S1:
A New.

01:05:52,900	S2:
Hampshire north.

01:05:55,869	S9:
How far is that from here?

01:05:58,500	S2:
It's like that song line.

01:06:02,369	S1:
But that's a short term solution.

01:06:03,730	S2:
But that is, uh. Yeah, that is very delicate. I think we are very good at the one on the ship with that.

Yeah. 01:06:12,369	S1:
You dreamed.

01:06:12,829	S9:
That?

01:06:13,070	S2:
Yeah. To have space stuff.

01:06:14,570	S9:
I mean, like, I'm just thinking if everybody around here is facing these kinds of. Well, I guess I'll. It's all the same. They're mad.

01:06:22,369	S1:
But you're telling.

01:06:23,070	S17:
Me. Even with this increase in the 5% annually year over year, you know it's not worth a bid. The other carriers are even higher than that.

01:06:30,570	S2:
The carriers are higher because we know that both from getting finding out what they're charging other towns. I know what's public. Just have their troubled summer, and then they turn right around to all their people that they didn't pick up from for six weeks and gave them a rate increase. Yeah. So their number was way out of whack to what, you know, pricing number that that item was able to get was way out of whack versus the pricing number we were getting from Casella. Oh, and as I said, hilts, I just wouldn't trust them. You know, I think I think that, you know, you have a company that previously didn't honor a contract today at time, and now they want you to take them at that. Again, I give you the last minute. I think you see a lot of the time. Just because there's a white suit shirt.

Yeah. 01:07:15,300	S1:
Okay.

01:07:16,099	S2:
So, uh, any other questions?

01:07:20,670	S1:
No. Thank you.

Tim. 01:07:22,030	S2:
All right. Good work.

01:07:26,130	S2:
Well, I have these arms.

01:07:32,070	S2:
I'm ready to pull it out. So, council.

01:07:34,900	S17:
Agent.

01:07:36,530	S2:
We have to hear from the council already. We will go over this. This is presented to you as the Health and Human Services budgets. This is both the public Health Department and the Council on Aging. These are two of our smallest budgets in the town. Uh, you'll see what looks like large percentage increases. Uh, they're very tiny. Dollar amount increases. The Council on Aging increase is largely due to making the part time assistant director time position, so that we can get more resources to the council agent and help slow that department integrate a little bit more with the public health department, our public health department has only part time employees, including the health director. We have a full time person in the bottom right now, the interim senior center director. Previously in the and the previous managing director was also wearing the head of Health and Human Services director. We're looking to add a few hours a week take it works out to about 5.5 hours a week to make a hand on a full time employee, and that will give us a lot more resource to be able to health. What really knocks down kind of the most at risk people in our community, our seniors and other people that need to use the public health department. And we are this place that we have the least investment. And I know this is something that Rosie and I have talked about many, many times over the years, and we want to make more of an investigator. Um, so with that increase, uh, in the Council on Aging, you're still seeing decreases in what we pay in veterans benefits. That is directly related to our contract with Closter and the number of people we have in the program right now. There's not really anything we can. There's not other people that we can get into the program. Um, we have a contract with us to provide benefits. Uh, and Gloucester Council on Aging does that. Um, and they're they're contract price to us came down. We were we were anticipating an increase. And then they gave us a new contract where our price actually was down from where we thought it was going to be. So, um, that was reflective of what our actual contract amount is.

01:09:35,399	S17:
So we're not reducing any benefits. It's a volume of thinking about that.

01:09:41,300	S2:
Um, I wanted to add, Melinda, I know you all spoke to her at the last.

01:09:46,199	S17:
Meeting, and.

01:09:46,600	S2:
She gave an update on some of the programs we're running at the Council on Aging. Um, I appreciate her being here, especially since she has, uh, has had, unfortunately, no input into this budget because we were already well on our way of developing it before she came aboard. Uh, but she's stepped up and, uh, really understands what we're trying to do down here, so we appreciate it.

Help! 01:10:06,729	S17:
Is there anything you would like to ask? That is not in here. Is a new employee and fresh eyes on everything.

01:10:14,100	S18:
Gonna be honestly nailing down. Well, at this time, I think I'm really gonna taste this year. And. And what Seth's volunteering and what the needs are and the co-op and to. With some work not as good and so not so bad.

Yeah. 01:10:31,100	S17:
All right.

01:10:33,600	S1:
Okay.

01:10:34,770	S2:
Okay.

01:10:36,170	S9:
Rosie's off. Does it? Do you have anything to add?

01:10:40,029	S6:
I'm sorry. I couldn't hear what she said, but if she didn't mention the word, let's think about a senior van. Then I'd like to add that to the list. I'm. I'm. I know that all our seniors and I, as the liaison and the, uh, the CoA staff, were very appreciative of the increase in ours so that we can have more personnel available for the folks who come in every day with questions and needs and so forth. So that's really good.

01:11:12,869	S9:
Do we have a so we don't have that in there now is that. No we don't have it.

01:11:18,130	S17:
But there's you know.

01:11:19,470	S2:
We may have more news to report. We're continuing our partnership to.

01:11:23,970	S17:
Find way to.

01:11:24,430	S2:
Meet other times. And there may be more to report in the future. So, um, as of right now, we don't have that, but we provide, uh, rides, uh, through the Cape and Transportation Authority, and we have other means available to us to help provide rides. And as I said, we may have more news to report. So so.

01:11:44,000	S9:
We have another avenue to get people the flexibility and transportation that you're working on.

01:11:49,600	S2:
Right.

01:11:49,800	S9:
Now. Oh, can we say what it is?

01:11:51,329	S17:
So I really don't.

01:11:53,000	S9:
Like jinxing things. Okay. I'm sorry, I just.

01:11:55,770	S2:
What.

01:11:56,170	S9:
I don't like is.

01:11:56,670	S2:
Saying something here, and then I get a call later on from somebody somewhere else saying, hey, we didn't say that was done yet. You know, don't.

01:12:02,930	S9:
Sure.

01:12:03,670	S2:
So I want.

01:12:04,899	S18:
To speak to it. I think I think the cleaning is still just in the past month, it's been working on educating the girls a little bit about China. Okay. We had, I think, the senior center doing decorations. And then and then we also have the ability to register folks ourselves so that we can easily coliseum. So I can register them and then I can schedule that first drive for them. Yeah. Kind of the moral thing. And then once they're in the system, they can call. Yeah. So this is at all the math.

01:12:38,170	S9:
So how many.

01:12:39,270	S18:
Did what was on a vacation or now which they wanted us to and how they didn't really get a lot of they.

01:12:45,930	S9:
Get a few days notice. Is that what you said? Sorry.

01:12:48,699	S18:
They need at least two.

01:12:51,069	S9:
Two days notice.

Okay. 01:12:53,899	S2:
And there's appointments, shopping, things like that.

01:12:57,399	S18:
Yeah. I mean, they're, um. They aren't. They prioritized that. It's all ready to.

01:13:01,170	S5:
Quote.

01:13:01,970	S18:
And it's obviously a shared resource. There's a lot of other views. And so they do not build stations. Um, but so far we've had the folks who have realized through this and then, you know, because then Colin and, you know, Hannah had never met the books or other papers and just the communication and collaboration between the two organizations.

01:13:26,100	S2:
Yeah, I love the idea of setting them up for that first ride, and then they can read it to me at peak.

Hey. 01:13:32,899	S9:
All right. Thank you.

01:13:34,300	S2:
Thanks, Linda. All right. Moving on to the recreation department. One of our celebrated departments. Sit down. Because of all the wonderful programs Sean runs. Um, and you're seeing again.

01:13:45,270	S9:
You're getting a.

01:13:45,729	S2:
Really good deal. Um, and the budget increase here this year. The miter. Uh, virtually. It's it's tied up in, uh, increases in the contractor. Kohler increases to the employees in the department. And other than that, most of the operating expense for recreation comes from the fines. So basically it's a fee for fee for service. People sign up for the programs they want and that pays their fee. The other big budget number in here is the library we are in. As you know, we're in a partnership with the town of Wenham. The Hamilton Wenham Public Library is managed through the town of Wyndham, and we get a bill from them for the next year's, um, assessment for what we anticipate, they anticipate they need. And you'll see the increase there is also tied to anticipated races. So we've had a better job the last couple of years of making sure that when the library has large capital projects, they get them into our capital plan, which was when I first got here, they were burying them in the assessment to us. So one year we saw an assessment jump up several hundred thousand dollars a year. What's this for? And they're like, oh no, we're doing, you know, we're.

01:14:52,529	S9:
Painting.

01:14:53,300	S2:
Something and we're like, well, can that go in our capital plan.

01:14:56,569	S9:
And.

01:14:56,829	S2:
Get paid for a different way? So they've done a better job of working with us on that. And that's that's how we manage that now and we appreciate it. Um, but these are, um, small increases really. I guess the actual amount of, of money spent for these departments that really help improve quality of life and deliver results.

01:15:16,029	S1:
Yeah. Excellent. How does the pool.

01:15:17,869	S7:
Work into.

01:15:18,529	S2:
This budget or somewhere else? So the pool. So all the, uh, programming pool.

01:15:24,069	S1:
Camp.

01:15:24,899	S2:
Just basically everything that.

01:15:27,829	S1:
Um.

01:15:28,029	S2:
Our part of this operating sort of runs goes through the revolving stove, so everything. Uh, does a lot of field maintenance, maintenance to the rec center. All those things are run to the volume. And so really, the general fund mostly of that 23, $24,000, you know, I'd say.

01:15:50,029	S1:
75%.

01:15:51,229	S2:
Of that is just the utilities up the rec center. So the heating, uh, bill, gas, electrical, water and the rest got him. The only the only things in the general fund budget for recreation are the salary, the salaries of director and the assistant director. And we share that with Wenham. So is when Wenham sends us a bill for our share of the library, we send them a bill for our share of their share of Sean and Danielle. So, um, it's a it's a good working relationship deal. It's great.

01:16:23,100	S1:
Okay.

01:16:24,199	S9:
This is the biggest part of the budget.

01:16:25,699	S2:
Um, as noted in the pie chart at the beginning of the meeting, um, you know that this is a bottom line budget. We are given an assessment by the regional school district for the amount of money they feel they need to run the, um, run their programs. This is the part of the budget that is kind of currently out of alignment. Um, we're showing an increase in year over year spending for the town of Hamilton of $1.854 million, um, in Fy20 settled and most of that is into whatever regional school district assessment. I'm coming out of 1.7, just under 1.78. Uh, there's a small increase for and for the Essex North Shore Agriculture and Technical School.

Um. 01:17:12,869	S2:
We have five boards meeting tomorrow night. We'll continue to make the case to them. Um, I met with town council to discuss how we handle this. If there needs to be an override, then obviously you have to be a separate budget article. And, uh, one article. It'll have to be on the ballot to be voted at the town election. Um, and we are able to separate out, um, articles for spending in our, in our annual operating budget. So at this point, what I'm looking at proposing is that we'll have two budget articles for FY 27. One would be, um, Town of Hamilton only expenses and one would be educated. So the educational expenses from both Hamilton One Regional School District and Essex Cultural Tech would be in one budget article that would get voted on separately at a meeting. And then the parts of the budget that are dependent on an override would be in that part of that budget. So if the override failed, um, then it'd be up to the other regular school district to figure out how to close that out.

01:18:24,170	S2:
This was part of the direction that we got from both the select board and the column this year. Um, this isn't meant. This message isn't meant to suggest that the school district doesn't need an override. Uh, we get a bottom line budget. They are definitely, uh, able to make the case to what they need. And, um, you know, we respect that. They think. I think that they should make a case for what they need. I don't think that, their increase, their their need should come as the town to cut its budget. Any frame as you saw. Most of what's included in our our budget by 27 is beyond our control. Next, our existing staffing services, we provide staffing providing for the last decades. And if you want us to cut, you'll be cutting services. There's no way around.

01:19:25,199	S19:
So what's the path to kind of make a decision on that strategy?

01:19:29,329	S2:
So yeah, I mean that'll be at the site board meetings over the next couple of months. Your board is open or bringing you an updated, uh, list of proposed budget articles for consideration of the Lauren.

01:19:47,000	S2:
Deal.

01:19:47,600	S19:
John has to say.

01:19:48,930	S2:
Okay. Yeah. John McGrath has got his head raised. Why don't we like John to tell us? John.

01:19:55,800	S20:
Hey, folks, at the at the last, uh. Can you guys hear me?

01:20:02,800	S9:
Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah. 01:20:05,529	S20:
Yeah. The last chairs meeting, um, with the, uh, two towns and the school. I suggested that the, uh, chairs of all five entities get together, uh, because we're going to be going to the public with an override. And I think it's important that the elected officials be completely informed of everyone else's point of view on this. Um, and I think we need to listen pretty hard to the schools, but I also think the schools need to listen really hard to the towns. Um, so from what I understand, an override this year at Hamilton Town meeting will be the first one we've had since I think oh, nine is that I think that's I think I have that correct. That's all right. So this is. Yeah. So this is a this is this is kind of a, um, a seminal moment. Um, and I would urge, you know, the five chairs get together, um, or at least the, you know, the three, the three chairs, you know, uh, the select board in the, in the, in the school say, hey, how do you want to handle this? And what's the right set of decisions for us to make? Um, so, um, I mean, in my view, there needs to be an override. Um, given the confluence of events. And I think we need to, you know, partner with the school district on how to bring this forward to the voters. And we have I think we have a couple of months to do this, um, before we have to lock it down for town meeting. Um, and I think there's a number of items that we could easily go through and start cutting, but I would suggest a small group meeting. Um, and not just let the the normal cadence of select board meetings, you know, just kind of dictate when we get together. So I think it needs to be a special conversation. So that would be my recommendation. Um, you know, we can certainly come up with a whole string of, um, you know, cuts that you could make to the town budget and the string of cuts that they can make. but I think a small group working session is in order. In order to get ready for town meeting over it. So that that would be my recommendation and I'm happy to participate if you guys need us to participate.

01:23:03,000	S2:
Okay.

01:23:06,270	S1:
That's a good point.

01:23:07,670	S19:
And is there, um, you know, so this is for this year and I like and I don't I believe it is around 2009 that we had the last. But will this be over the next several years? Do we have an indication of what 2829, 30, based on contractual obligations that the district has?

01:23:25,470	S2:
Yeah, the district's one year behind us in contracting. So we, um, we're entering our third year of our contract. They're just entering their second of their contract. So they'll, um, they should know what they need for FY 28. We don't yet. Um, we'll we'll be back at the bargaining table next fall.

01:23:42,430	S19:
Yeah. I don't mean, uh, Steel Town, I think.

01:23:44,569	S2:
I think that they they know what they need. For by 28, I don't know what they'll need. I probably don't know for FY 29.

Uh. 01:23:53,699	S20:
And if I could, if I could add if I could add another comment.

01:23:58,800	S1:
Um.

01:24:00,069	S20:
I mean, if someone was to ask me for my personal professional advice, um, given where we are in the global economy, and I don't want to make this sound too preachy, but let me let me take a shot. Um, dealing with a dealing with a 2.5% funding increase year over year would lead me to project that. You're going to need a override every five years. So if I was to set an expectation with the town that we'll do everything we possibly can, uh, to avoid an override, as we have. But given what we are dealing with, um, I would tell taxpayers that, um, be prepared to help fund the schools and the town. Every, you know, 4 or 5 years within override. Um, it's just two and a half is a number. Um, but given what's going on in the global economy, the US economy and a local economy. Um, two and a half is not going to cut it. If we want to continue services. Um, at the school and the town level. So that's just an expectation built that I would I would try to set. And you can. Yeah. And you can bring in a, you know, an economist if you will, from the state and, and but anyway that that's, you know when you look out to the future unfortunately that's probably what we're dealing with. But anyway, I just think there needs to be a pretty clear, direct message to the taxpayers. And and, you know, we should start working on the messaging now, not wait until March 1st.

01:26:00,930	S2:
It's here.

01:26:01,399	S9:
So yeah.

Well. 01:26:02,729	S6:
Anyway, get on. Can can you can you folks hear me?

01:26:06,970	S5:
Yeah.

Yes. 01:26:09,029	S6:
Okay. So I'll just make a comment first. I think Joe's been pretty clear about the reality that the town has cut its budget every year in deference to the needs of the school. And so the first question is, when do you say we cannot cut anymore? And I think Joe has pretty much said that we cannot cut anymore. My second comment is regarding, um, Positive, um, positive, uh, attitude toward the override. If we think about it, we're not including the 5.5 million that's going to be requested for the new roof. Am I correct in that?

01:26:59,569	S2:
No. That's right. Yeah, I.

01:27:00,970	S5:
Think.

01:27:02,329	S20:
Yeah, I think what? Basically what's going to happen in April is there'll be two overrides on the warrant. One will be for one will be for the roof. Okay. And our piece of the roof is, I don't know, maybe $4 million.

Joe. 01:27:19,500	S9:
Yeah.

01:27:20,170	S2:
Something a little less than that.

Yes. 01:27:22,470	S20:
Yeah. Okay. And then there'll be. Then there'll be an operating. Right. Uh, so so you're you're correct. So. So really, you know, when I, when I went through, um, the budget meetings with all the department heads. Um, I asked a similar question that bill asked, and that was, is there anything you're leaving out of the budget? Um, is there anything that we really should put into this budget? But now this is the town side that you are, um, turning a blind eye to. Is there anything that we should be doing for the town that we're not doing? Um. And please articulate that. So, you know, when I had these conversations with the largest departments, I asked those questions. Um, and and Joe. And I'll ask the department heads that are still there. Is there anything of a significant nature that you have left out of the the town budget that would, in essence, disable us from delivering services. So that's still an open question. And I urge the, you know, the select board a few weeks back to ask that same question. Um, so, um.

01:28:49,229	S2:
So the if I could take a crack at answering that. I mean, at this point, yeah, at this point for the town services for FY 27. I don't think so. I think that our department heads have projected their needs for the coming year. We have had some conversations, particularly with the select board and with you about future things, uh, improving and enhancing our ability to communicate with our residents, um, that we're carrying some money in the town manager's budget to be able to manage that. The the police chief had, uh, articulated a need for an additional police officer with carrying money in the budget to do that, uh, enhancing the ability to offer services for the council and agent for the folks that are served by that department. We're carrying money and the budget to do that. Um, and, you know, if it comes to the point where, uh, the board wants us to make a cut to get out there, or an override doesn't allow us to fund the town services the way we're looking at. Then those would be the first areas we'll go to. And then there'll be there may have to be others. Um, projecting forward, I think that, uh, suggestions that, you know, working to implement the, the goals of the master plan are things those are future costs, uh, adding, um, firefighters to be able to bring potentially at least basic life support ambulance service in under the town umbrella is going to be a future cost, but we think we can start to get there with grant money. And then once the grants are in place, we hire the people staff and then we are able to hopefully offset that with future earnings for, uh, ambulance billings. But those are not things that we need to worry about for FY 27.

01:30:22,869	S20:
Yeah. And one one final comment. If I could, um, my, my, uh, my point of view is that we. We do not want to disable town services.

01:30:40,069	S20:
Um, because of the school budget. Um, we do not necessarily have to split the worn articles for the override into a school or or town if we haven't done that, at least in my memory. So that's a departure. Um, but I'm pretty adamant that, you know, we don't want to disable the town department's the safety, you know, water, uh, all the department services. Um, so we really have to be very careful about, you know, that. But I think we need to think long, hard about how we present this to the town. And that does not necessarily mean we should split the override into school versus town, because that again, that is a departure. But we need to be really thoughtful and sensitive to the messaging on this. So anyway, that's that's all I have on that one. So thanks, Joe.

01:31:53,069	S1:
Yeah we talked about right. The legal aspect. Right. So we.

01:31:56,899	S2:
You know, you're allowed to.

01:31:57,869	S1:
Say we're allowed to split it and then the the budget would pass and we would be able to spend that money even if the school didn't pass. Right. They don't both need to pass. Right. So it's a way of going forward. And then just sort of saying, okay, we solve this problem now we can just work on a school budget rather than have it all beat together. So I don't know.

01:32:23,300	S2:
Yeah.

01:32:23,500	S19:
I think we should do our diligence over the next month and a half and.

01:32:27,500	S2:
Yeah.

01:32:28,000	S19:
Figure out what I said.

01:32:29,470	S2:
I'm not going to have because the language for ballot questions I don't have. I'm sorry. I should have had it with me today. Town clerk will remind us that the language of the ballot questions has to be in by a certain date, and it's it's sooner than.

01:32:43,100	S19:
They.

01:32:43,329	S2:
Bend the language, for the record. So we have we have to be mindful of that. So if you're going to have things in a budget override and a budget budget, that debt exclusion, they have to be passed by the voters on the 14th of April, the 15th day of April, whatever it is, we need to have those things decided. What that what is that language going to be? How much money are you asking for? And then with that is a decision that if you're going to just do one full budget with everything together and it doesn't pass the override, then there has to be an agreement about how we go about making those cuts between the failure of the of the override and then the beginning of the new fiscal year.

01:33:24,770	S9:
Okay, I.

01:33:28,670	S20:
Yeah. This is a this is a this is a tricky a tricky couple of months we're coming up on here. So we need to really we need to get after it quickly and deliberately. What. The school district.

01:33:41,600	S9:
Yeah, I.

01:33:44,729	S9:
Mean I'm thinking about just sort of like from a, from a risk management standpoint.

Um. 01:33:54,470	S9:
I don't if we, if we lump them together, that means everyone's making cuts that I'm sure the school committee feels the same way. It's these are services that they feel are essential. And it's the same way that we feel about the level of service that we're trying to provide, you know, as a select board for the community.

So. 01:34:16,199	S9:
Most of the programs, the things that we have and what's been going on here in town, it's it's at a sustainable level of service. But you can tell kind of around the edges to that. It's like, yeah, there's other sections of sidewalks or other things that we need that we're not doing that we forego taking care of, that are not in line with our stated goals of maintaining our our infrastructure. And these things don't get cheaper as time goes on either. Right. So and it's the same school is facing the same with their infrastructure and with their costs for for their teachers administration and their health care costs. So the biggest question that comes to my mind is, are there additional operational efficiencies that they have been looking at that would improve their overall position? What are the big things that they that they are doing? Right. I mean there are only source of revenue. Is is the tax base right. So that all comes back to the households. There's not really a lot of other opportunity for them to raise revenue.

01:35:23,069	S2:
So the school actually has more funding sources than Thomas Town. The town gets all gets all of its funding from either the local taxpayers or a small bit from, uh, state aid. And that's it. This the school gets state and federal grants and dedicated funding from the state government that never comes to the town. You know, I again, I'm not trying to pit town against schools. I think that the schools do a great job here. I think that they need to continue to do that job. The voters here demand it. The people that live in this community want that education system. I'm not closing it all out.

01:35:59,399	S2:
That that that's not a good thing. But I think I've shown you an on the table at the last meeting over the last over the last 7 or 8 years that I've been here. We generally fund education at about 60% of the budget in the town, at about 40% of the person. And what the budget we've shown you here from the outside lives within that 40%

01:36:22,800	S2:
on I'm asking is, you know, if you want to. You know, make us cut. Okay. But the schools should be living within their 60%.

01:36:33,130	S1:
Yeah, right. I mean, and I think we should need to show that as a, as a graphic, but I, I'm under the opinion that because we're two.

01:36:43,100	S2:
Elected.

01:36:43,899	S1:
Boards with two different budgets, it's okay to separate them because they don't control the town budget. We don't grow the school budgets. So like I'm okay separate like that's, you know, like we're one time we're together but but we're but we're also two entities that have been trusted with an elected to take care of fiscal responsibility for what we can fiscally take care of. So I'm okay with that saying, hey, listen, we are this group right here is, you know, prepared and planned and done the best we can do with what we control. Yeah. Right. So that's one. Okay. So to separate because I think it's like it's not separate one against the other, but it's focusing on each board on what they're elected to do. We're not elected to balance school budget. We're elected the.

01:37:25,729	S9:
Best. Yeah. You know, the corporation of Hamilton.

01:37:28,930	S1:
And so it's like that. So that's that's kind of what I was at. But I sort of, I convinced I don't want to pit one against the other, but I also want to represent that we've we've done what we've been asked to do. We've been elected to do.

01:37:41,500	S6:
I think that's a fair statement.

Bill. 01:37:45,529	S19:
Yeah.

01:37:45,930	S6:
And we don't we don't I'm sorry. We don't know how the school district is.

01:37:52,869	S18:
I mean.

01:37:53,829	S6:
I'm amending their budget or making efforts to cut or and you're right, we're responsible for for our budget. And we're listening very carefully to what Joe is saying to us and, and informing us about and asking us to approve. So I absolutely agree that we we don't know all the circumstances of the schools. And it's it's up to them to, to ta figure it out. And it doesn't mean we're unsympathetic. But, you know, there's so many pressures on the taxpayers that I think we need to be most of all sensitive to that, no matter what we ought to do.

Right. 01:38:34,699	S1:
Right. Which Joe told me in some towns. Vote department by department.

01:38:39,430	S2:
Yeah. Small towns that otherwise is.

01:38:41,869	S1:
Going to say we're not.

01:38:42,500	S2:
Getting into everything and everything.

01:38:44,600	S1:
But sometimes.

01:38:45,229	S2:
I don't think we want to go down that road.

Yeah. 01:38:47,170	S19:
So and it also gives us wow. It gives the community a more focused voice at town meeting as well. And if they, you know, believe in both budgets.

01:38:55,470	S2:
And.

01:38:55,630	S19:
They will pass, you know, or they want all accountability to the board that manages that. So I'm, you know, at this position at this time, I would be very open to doing it. But I'd like to go through the diligence.

01:39:06,069	S1:
I agree with you. I'm not making a decision tonight, but right now it's where I sit.

01:39:09,300	S19:
But do we have a sense with the the numbers we have out there today, what our cut would be if it all went together and it all felt From the town. I mean, does anyone calculated that?

01:39:21,800	S2:
So the cut would be $1.75 million. All we got and then.

01:39:26,770	S1:
So we'd be 40% of that 16%.

01:39:29,670	S2:
Well, we'd be 40% of that.

01:39:31,630	S1:
We could.

01:39:32,029	S2:
We take 40% of the budget.

01:39:33,229	S1:
Which is like $400,000.

01:39:35,899	S2:
That's all I'm.

01:39:36,270	S1:
Saying out of.

01:39:37,369	S2:
$670,000.

Okay. 01:39:39,069	S19:
So so high sixes would be. The number would be.

01:39:41,699	S2:
So if I stick to.

01:39:42,470	S19:
You know, rough.

01:39:43,100	S2:
Estimate, we will. It will. It will be deeply felt to cut $600,000 at the time.

01:39:49,170	S18:
And.

01:39:50,229	S19:
Okay, I think this is a this warrants a much longer discussion.

01:39:53,369	S9:
Okay. I guess I'll just I'm not going to be there tomorrow night. Right? Yeah. I'm unfortunately on a plane. So, um, my point of view, because I don't know when when we're getting back together for just a couple of weeks after things get decided between, um, I'm comfortable separating them. I think that we politically, though, or just kind of in terms of the way that people look to us. You know, they look for us to be able to represent their interests and their needs and the needs of their kids as well. So ideally, we get to a place where we as a Selectboard can feel confident that, you know, the school committee and the district have done everything that they can do while maintaining that level of service, because I don't think that these things are separate in people's minds always either. As far as like whether it's the trash being picked up or like their kids getting a good education for them, it's one thing. Like they they live in one town, right? So I, I believe we should be able to get to a place where we, as a Selectboard, believe that the school committee in the school district has done everything they can to provide a, you know, quality service within their remit. You know, we shouldn't have to feel like we can only represent what we're representing. We should be able to represent, in some essence, what? The school, you know. We don't control it. We should be able to feel comfortable, if not advocate for what they're proposing.

01:41:24,600	S2:
We said, here's the board's how you want to present them in the Lord. Decisions towards how you want to present them on the ballot. Um, and, you know, just we just want to make sure we have a good, full discussion and whatever the number is, if you're going to have to go forever, we have to understand what the impact is going to be to either the schools or the schools and the towns, depending on how you how you structure that. Um, that 600, $650,000 cut for the tunnel.

01:41:56,770	S9:
That's not pretty.

01:41:58,100	S2:
Um, but if they if if the schools, you know, can cut their budget to a point where the child share, that is at $650,000, if it's I don't want to even put a number on it, to be honest with you, because I really feel like we're kind of at bare bones. We will cut services, and services will change if we have to cut, but, uh, it's it's debilitating. It's $650,000.

01:42:21,500	S6:
Yeah. And I think, um, just one other quick comment. Um, you know, if we do decide to split the, the the warrant articles, um, voters are free to choose whatever they want. Right. We're not speaking for the voters, which are speaking to be able to continue running the town based upon our our budget projections. So we are not saying that we don't agree. We don't disagree with the with the override, which is saying we're going to let the voters make that decision separately.

01:43:05,800	S2:
John, you still.

01:43:06,399	S19:
Have your hand.

01:43:06,869	S2:
Up.

01:43:06,970	S19:
On.

01:43:07,100	S2:
The floor. Do you want to speak together?

01:43:11,529	S2:
Tell me back. Your hands up in the zoo.

01:43:15,770	S20:
Nope. Sorry. I'm all set.

01:43:17,100	S2:
Okay. All right. Um, we didn't get to the last couple slides. I think that would be really quickly. Uh, unclassified. Uh, Tim is still here for water retained earnings, and then we'll we'll end with a free cash calculation. You can just see what we're doing with free cash. That was a question earlier.

01:43:34,329	S7:
So the total unclassified increase is 338,000. And largely that is the first line item salary reserve Medicare tax and health benefits. So the majority of that is for health benefits, just so you know. Um, so it shows a 20% increase. But specifically to health, we're holding a 22%. It's just that it's all combined. It shows 20%. Capital spending has gone up $103,875.

01:44:01,500	S7:
And the debt service, like I said, the public safety building was paid off. And that comes down. It's a it's a pass through. It's a one for one because it was a debt exclusion. State assessments looks like at this point. I mean, we just budgeted an increase of 5% based on actuals in the past retirement. We were pleasantly surprised that it stayed at 4% increase and not gone largely above what it did last year. So $70,000 there and regular insurance for liability insurance. Overall, about $24,000. We're holding a 7% increase. It actually could go to 10%, um, transferred to special revenue. That would be your capital stabilization. We've been trying to continue to replenish that to get where we need to be. So we're we are suggesting a $250,000 transfer, which would come from free cash and then transfer to OPD. Same as every year, 125,000 also from free cash. And then the transfer to agency, which is the HTC. That is just a pass through from the revenue that comes in from meals tax. And as the policy says, goes directly back to HTC.

01:45:13,500	S2:
What enterprise fund? Again, this is this operates separately outside the general fund, and it manages all the expenses of the water department, similar to the general fund. We have a free cash policy that has us hold as percent of the budget and what we refer to as retained earnings. Essentially the Enterprise Fund's free cash. Um, we will be coming to you in February to talk about water rates. Um, Tim's run some numbers. Uh, you'll you'll remember that some of the debt service we have out there is due to, uh, funding improvements to the water system. Uh, the last eight years. And, uh, we're at the point now where what we have in debt service for the this department against the, uh, total budget that it can handle. Uh, we're choosing to do projects that we can afford without taking on debt. So we're trying to build up the retained earnings to be able to carry and do more water main replacement projects without having to, um.

01:46:17,500	S1:
Borrow money.

01:46:18,369	S2:
But that means that in order to keep both our retained earnings level, where it's supposed to be, and raise enough money for future projects, there may need to be some adjustment to the water rate so that we can continue to fix our system. It's an aging system. There are pipes in this town that have been in the ground since the 1940s, 50s.

01:46:36,100	S1:
30s, but.

01:46:37,500	S2:
So we we do need to plan to improve those. Um, the best place to handle those costs are within the US, within the enterprise Fund. Tim. Lord, what do you want to go through your changes? Yeah.

01:46:51,569	S7:
The major changes you'll see is in contract services $240,000. And that is due to the water, the continuous, um, need to replace the water media for 200,000 and, um, repairs on meters and hydrants for $30,000. And then the rest is a reduction.

01:47:09,869	S2:
The media refers to as the filtration substance that's in the plant to clean our water. So, um.

01:47:17,000	S9:
Is that something.

01:47:17,800	S2:
To place that almost annually in.

01:47:18,930	S19:
Itself? Yes.

01:47:19,930	S9:
And most of that jump up a lot like sorry.

01:47:23,100	S1:
Just so it's.

01:47:25,100	S2:
Our for, um, so the annual tour, uh, tuba Grand tuba pledge to the city. May be it.

01:47:31,430	S19:
Then we'll walk double tries.

01:47:33,100	S7:
We were holding it in capital for a while, but.

01:47:35,130	S19:
Now.

01:47:36,199	S1:
It's a shift. And so next year it will won't go up as much.

01:47:39,970	S19:
Yes.

01:47:40,170	S2:
So we're going to use the.

01:47:42,529	S9:
So the near it's kind of a near annual thing but sometimes it's 18 months or like I'm trying to just understand.

01:47:49,470	S2:
I'm usually in the low season like uh, wintertime looking at work. Um, pergola says the best types of plants I haven't done. Um, so I would factor in the yearly there could be some savings because we will be able to regenerate our insignia. They take it back, they regenerate it and then put it. They are like our next 16. So every pretty much every fifth year we're going to have new media again.

Um. 01:48:21,630	S9:
So that's why we see this. Is that why we see this jump? That's what I'm trying to understand.

01:48:26,329	S2:
Well, part of the because the last time we changed the media, we did it as a, as a capital project. So we weren't sure on the cadence of it. Then we got we got through it and we realized it was going to be close to annual. That becomes a recurring expense and something should be handled in the budget as a capital item. So we've shifted that expense into the budget this year. But that's.

01:48:43,569	S19:
Like Tim.

01:48:44,000	S2:
Said, that's something we'd have to account for in the book. So that's why we'll talk to you. One of the reasons we'll talk to you about the water rates in.

01:48:50,029	S19:
Could you technically use free cash for that.

01:48:52,930	S1:
Every five years?

01:48:54,100	S19:
Yeah. That's not an annual.

01:48:55,630	S2:
Movement that puts out a fire. Excuse me, every year, but they'll take maybe $200,000 or less every year, depending if we can reuse the media, albeit savings that particular year. Okay, eventually we'll have to go back to Virgin Media, which will be around 200.

01:49:14,729	S19:
But and I heard hydrants in that sentence says, uh, we don't have. I mean, that's nothing we want to like. We don't have broken hydrants and stuff, right? We everything those should.

01:49:24,329	S2:
Be in meters as well. Okay. We usually have an correspondent out of the capital was also, um, but as it involves, you know, it's it's even maintenance that we have.

01:49:37,529	S19:
Okay. So there's there's not nothing alarming there. Is there any more money you need for hydrants?

01:49:42,600	S2:
Uh, no. Just we do hydrants with our theses as well, like our water system improvements. We will take a neighbor for it. They're replacing water main. We'll redo everything. Uh, so we are making improvements on hybrids. Um, specifically. And then our different partners.

01:50:00,170	S19:
Okay.

01:50:00,800	S1:
And good.

01:50:03,069	S2:
Cash. Last slide.

01:50:05,899	S21:
Hey. Free cash.

01:50:07,199	S7:
Everybody loves this. We were certified on October 28th with $3,714,565.

01:50:15,170	S7:
And at the special town meeting in December, we use 26,388 for prior year bills, leaving us a remaining balance of almost 3.7 million, of which 5% reserve is 2,062,000. So then you have your available free cash for this budget of $1.6 million. As you can see from that, we've been very strategic in what we use it for. Capital expenditures of 866,000. OP one 25,000. Capital stabilization, transfer of 250,000. And then the one time project. Not a one time cost, but a project for the file digitization digitization project of $150,000 to get us off the ground. That leaves us a remaining of only $235,000. So we have pretty much.

01:51:02,300	S19:
Existence.

01:51:02,729	S9:
Remaining.

01:51:03,130	S19:
Available, so.

01:51:03,899	S2:
We can obviously still have the $2 million.

01:51:05,770	S19:
That's something that's only 201. But I mean, I didn't know.

01:51:08,930	S2:
Uh, I.

01:51:09,329	S19:
Mean, it.

01:51:10,170	S7:
Just lessens our opportunity next year.

01:51:13,029	S19:
Uh, and the other the other thing is that.

01:51:14,770	S2:
If.

01:51:15,000	S19:
We.

01:51:15,170	S2:
If we had a.

01:51:15,829	S19:
Big thing, if we had something.

01:51:17,100	S2:
Really large come up that we needed $200,000, I mean, our free cash, our free cash policy would allow us to go to a special meeting and go under our 5% threshold. But the goal isn't to do that. The goal is to is to be able to handle an emergency without going under that 5%. So yeah, I feel like 35 is a little tight. Uh, when you talk about, you know, the totality of our annual budget and all the expenses, $235,000 is about 5%. So you have five, 5% outside of our reserves.

01:51:48,000	S19:
Yeah.

01:51:48,470	S2:
To be able to handle an unforeseen, you know, traumatic, tragic expense. Um, and I don't think that's I think that's smart budget.

01:51:58,000	S1:
Oh, yeah.

01:51:59,170	S2:
No. That's good. Wish I was able to keep that much in my kitchen. But I have kids. That's not possible.

01:52:08,930	S2:
Very good.

01:52:10,470	S1:
Remind me what the 866.

01:52:12,699	S2:
That's a.

01:52:13,170	S7:
Little capital.

01:52:14,029	S2:
So that's capital spending from free cash and capital on the capital.

01:52:17,270	S1:
If you go back to slide.

01:52:19,100	S9:
Ten, there's another.

01:52:19,699	S2:
111 that we're taking. We're going to reuse funds from unexpected capital projects.

01:52:24,000	S1:
And go to page six.

01:52:25,329	S2:
And then there's other funding from Walter Taylor.

01:52:28,329	S1:
That's right. Here is free cash. Lot column.

01:52:32,130	S7:
It somewhere.

01:52:32,729	S2:
Listed it out as well. That's right here. It's right there.

01:52:34,770	S1:
On the page six.

01:52:35,500	S7:
Capital improvement.

01:52:36,300	S1:
Plan. It says all this is made up like eight items.

Sure. 01:52:44,729	S7:
We talked about headcount here.

01:52:45,899	S2:
And there, but what is the net net number? Year over year. How many new hires in the 27, 12 and new hires at 27. Plans to hire the police officer. Now the full time police officer. That's just that.

01:52:58,869	S7:
Attention.

01:53:00,569	S1:
To part.

01:53:01,500	S2:
And the potential part time communications person, so I apologize. Potential part time communication person. So yeah. And and verify really when you think about it because as I mentioned, we're not we're not going to be hiring a new deputy fire chief that there'll be a lot less body time body in the fire department. So a lot of the body fire department and the addition of a body in the police departments.

01:53:22,170	S1:
And so do you account.

01:53:23,670	S2:
For growth in those groups as well, promotional money and that type of thing? Yeah. I mean, we have money in the budget to be able to handle that. Think somebody gets promoted. Um, okay. That you pointed out to we actually are going to be net down this year because of the egos too. So we well yeah. When we when we closed, when we voted to move to the dispatch which will hopefully happen in April this year, we'll be start FY 27 and July 1st. We will be minus the four full time mission to up timers that populated that department. We will gain the one and a half Craters. Fire department had a full time police officer in a part time, potentially media person. If this budget passes, but you're still going to be neck down, almost equal positions. And then, uh.

01:54:07,170	S9:
Tim, you mentioned you, uh, had some open positions at the moment that are looking to be filled. How many what's your current headcount.

01:54:15,029	S2:
Just.

01:54:15,300	S9:
For planned headcount and how many positions?

01:54:18,069	S2:
Oh, you have two open positions. Yeah. Uh, one in, um, what we want is one, um, arts work center. Uh, we currently have an employee that's, uh, we have that position held. Uh, we are down. Check token three rec three. Okay. Thank you. That's the employee. Some medical side, the other two positions. We are actively recruiting in advertising and trying to hire. We just haven't found anybody to Dominion. So, uh.

01:54:56,630	S2:
We're heading into the. You know, we just had a snowstorm. One of our bigger snow snowstorms in the last two winters. And early forecast for next weekend, or what's coming next Saturday and Sunday is may be worse. Um, this is not the time to be down DPW drivers. Mhm. But that is the position. We're ready.

Yeah. 01:55:14,829	S7:
Um benefits.

01:55:15,869	S22:
Isn't that a large big increase. Which is is there any more discussion on my reverse GIS or edge.

01:55:22,800	S2:
So I mean that we're, we're we've notified the unions. I'm waiting to come for confirmation with the state that they have a notification and a notified the reserve, uh, the retirees. And then we're going to be hoping to start some negotiating sessions in February. Um, gee, I see the earliest we could go in order to go to the GIC. We we wouldn't be able to go until the mid fiscal year. So a change would take place on January 1st next year. Um, we have to split any savings that get realized that way with the with the employees. That's almost 50% split. We'd have to offset any potential increases that they would feel with them. With half of the savings. So even if we were able to expedite this and get this conversation to a mutual agreement that we go to the CIC or we make plan changes in Maya, um, we'll only get about half of the benefit of that this year. Um, which is still. Yeah, which is, you know, which is still worth doing. And, you know, uh.

01:56:25,430	S9:
That savings is that a one time thing for one year or is that, like, roll on for multiple.

01:56:30,729	S2:
Years? So yeah, it's it's a reset. Right. You reset the, the base cost for that, for that, uh, for that expense for that service. And then next year there'll be, uh, you know, an incremental increase on that based on whatever. If we're stable, maybe they'll have an increase. If we stay with GIC, they will go to GSA. They'll have an increase over what their current year is, but, um, you just reset it to a lower level. Uh, which we have to do through negotiation.

01:56:55,729	S9:
So one, so that it's a one time savings and that base being reset. That's a one time.

01:57:02,170	S2:
Yeah. You'll be an increase over next year. But it wouldn't be.

01:57:05,930	S9:
Third 20.

01:57:06,670	S2:
And still be less than this year. So right.

01:57:10,930	S22:
And there's not a benefit of consolidating with the schools or when I know the schools are probably I think a problem.

01:57:17,670	S2:
So I mean no. So I've tried to initiate a conversation uh when we would is interested in having a conversation. I think the school superintendent is. Well, one of the things we have to keep in mind, though, is that, uh, is that the reimbursement or the split on the, uh, insurance premiums are you know, Hamilton has part of the reason that one of the things that we're open to is, uh, the plan design changes is because we actually have a pretty generous split where 25, 75 the schools are at 65, 6535. Um, so, uh, and I don't know what went on. And so, you know, for the schools, they don't want to increase their split. Right? They're already in pretty good shape. But can I get our employees to go to a 65, 35 can what's what's the benefit to them for that? Why would they agree, Sara. So, um, we're I'm willing to talk to superintendent, but we're trying to get a meeting. But as you know, this is a week full of meetings this week. We got a meeting tonight. We got a meeting tomorrow night. The schools have a meeting on Thursday night. I my guess best is my best guess is that we won't actually get around the table with me, Scott and me, Sean and Eric until Steve and Eric. Sorry. I'm losing my mind. I won't, I won't be able to, unfortunately, have a meeting with the town administrator and school superintendent until next week.

01:58:38,699	S7:
And you asked how many full time employees is 44 enrolled in.

01:58:41,600	S22:
The health insurance?

01:58:42,470	S23:
Thank you.

01:58:46,569	S2:
Um, does anybody else? And then we have public comment, and I know that there's at least one member of the public that seems to have a question. We want to make it sound like it's a full run, because at least one member of it has a conflict.

01:58:58,770	S23:
All right.

01:59:01,000	S2:
Well, that microphone isn't working. So, yeah, I'm here to give you this. Hello. It's really.

01:59:07,270	S23:
As for the end for Roseanne.

Yeah. 01:59:12,270	S2:
Hello? No, that's not working. Just speak loudly. Is that microphone there? We'll pick you up.

01:59:15,470	S23:
Okay.

01:59:17,369	S24:
Let me see. Toronto for just the reason, I would like to, first of all, commend our town manager, Joe Norris and finance director, for the excellent job once again with hopefully keeping us from facing a town on the right. We are living in extraordinary times and extraordinary economic times for sure. The pressures of small Massachusetts towns like Hamilton have never been greater and there is no limit in sight. Tonight I'm asking that we start to really look at our town's needs versus Tamluk. node. To that end, the Hamilton Development Corporation was started in 2012 as a quasi public, quasi private corporation in each of the town of Hamilton in the charter to bring a smart development to our town. The HCC has had the best of intentions and has done great things. However, this past year the passage of three aims were accomplished through the incredible hard work of this board the Planning Board and the assistance of the HDC. The zoning and development landscape in Hamilton has completely changed. Three A means developers will be building in Hamilton by right, with FBC or SCO as their roadmap. Both zoning bylaws now take up the mantle of HCC. The question is not where the HTC has done valuable work. It has. The question is whether Hamilton's male tax revenue stream would be best directed to more urgent needs. As just last week, Governor Healey has directed other towns to do. Perhaps it is time for the taxpayers and the HCC itself to evaluate what role makes the most sense on board. At a joint meeting between the Funcom and HTC in 2024. September 2024, HTC chair Scott Morton stated that there was $500,000 in cash assets held by the HTC All Town Meeting. February. I'm sorry. April 2025 they received another $78,702. And as we heard tonight, this year they will be getting $174,235

02:01:14,699	S24:
thus each. So we can assume that there could be anywhere between 7 and $800,000. You can ask that to them, since that is a huge, huge amount of money to be sitting in the coffers of any town agency, especially when our town budget is stretched thin and still budget overruns and get excluded for the high school growth. Just this past fall, we had to do away with our local emergency call center to save money, and we are linking the deputy fire chief position unfilled. We are also all keenly aware of the two house fires that were held. We have here in town within 48 hours last week. We keep cutting away services that are virtually. I'm sorry. The vitally important to the town, and I'm sure if you were to ask them when they would each have many more suggestions where the line is more urgently needed than the HTC has always been an excellent neighbor. It's time we start the conversation once again with the HTC to become an excellent neighbor and step up for us. They could alter their charter to help the town directly. They could vote to disband with remaining funds and future tax revenue going directly to our immediate town budget needs. I am not talking about anything difficult or contentious here, but I am suggesting is a caring and logical business decision. I believe it is well within the purview of this board to start a conversation, or to ask Joe to start the conversation on directing town revenue where it is urgently needed. Please, let's start that dialogue. Thank you for listening.

02:02:47,229	S2:
Thank you.

02:02:52,130	S25:
Anybody else?

02:02:56,869	S2:
Smart question.

02:03:00,970	S20:
Well, joining us for you to cover.

02:03:02,869	S2:
The, uh, you have perseverance listening to the drone on about the budget for the last hour and a half.

02:03:09,529	S23:
Oh, and.

02:03:10,270	S20:
Uh, stay tuned.

02:03:11,100	S23:
Tomorrow we'll get into the bigger numbers as well with the school. And next up. So. So do I have a motion?

02:03:18,630	S22:
Well, for the town budget, though, at this point you feel like you've got your this is the final product.

02:03:23,670	S2:
That you want. And so yeah, I think that what we're asked to do is create a budget. I can't I can't do anything with the school number other than treat it as what it is. It's best if we follow the bottom line. Um, the board wants to recommend that we should change it some way, or the school committee can make recommendations. Okay, then that number is what it is. If you want us to keep this at the period where the board and the Pentagon can tell us to go back and chop our pencils, do other things, we can do that.

Um. 02:03:58,029	S22:
I think this is good for now. I think that's good. Well done.

02:04:02,430	S24:
Okay.

02:04:03,000	S23:
And thanks to the community hospital, I have a meeting here. I thought it went very well to great room. Yeah, yeah. Um, so thank you for the committee. So nice to be here tonight. So. Thank you.

02:04:13,229	S6:
So I make a motion to adjourn.

02:04:16,369	S23:
I have a second.

02:04:18,329	S2:
Is that.

02:04:21,000	S23:
Any further? Any further discussion? I think we're good. So roll call. Vote.

Rosemary. 02:04:25,630	S6:
Rosie. Kennedy.

Hi. 02:04:27,470	S26:
Ben and Liza.

02:04:28,529	S23:
I will.

02:04:29,229	S22:
Say Wolf.

02:04:29,770	S23:
And I will. Olson. I thank you all.

02:04:33,100	S22:
Thank you. Thank you.

02:04:35,199	S6:
Good night.

02:04:36,600	S2:
Good night.