Good evening. Noting the time and the presence of a quorum, I'd like to call this uh meeting of the act and select board to order. Noting the time and the presence of a quorum, I'd like to call the finance committee to order.
>> You're up, John. >> Okay. Well, we're back at it again. Uh, thank you for uh giving your time um and your energy to better understanding our budget proposal for this year. We had a a great night last night. We went till what, 9:00. Um, I think we'll probably finish a little earlier tonight, but
we're we're here till 10:00 if you need us. Um, and we have a lot of great presentations up for you tonight and we look forward to your questions and we'll do our best to answer them live. And if there's a reason that we can't, we'll get be sure to get back to you. Um, our
first presentation tonight will be of the fire department budget proposal, which is um in your budget book. If anybody needs a budget book, please let me know. We do have some extra hard copies tonight if you want one. And the fire department budget starts on page
66. And the fire department is led by Chief Anita Arnum. Welcome, Chief. Good evening, members of the select board, finance committee, town manager, deputy town manager. My name and members of the
public who are listening. Uh my name is Anita Arnum and I have the privilege of serving as the chief of the Actton Fire Department for the past two and a half years. Uh now and I'm now in my 37th year of service with the fire department here in
Actton. Joining me this evening is Deputy Chief Christopher Sam uh who has served in that role for the past two years and brings 27 years of experience with the Actton Fire Department. We appreciate the opportunity to present the fire department and related budgets
as well as updates on departmental operations this evening. Working collaborative collaboratively with town leadership, our goal is to balance financial responsibility with the operational readiness necessary to deliver reliable, efficient, and timely
emergency services that protect life, property, and overall safety of the acting community. As the uh town manager said, our budget starts on page 66 of the budget book. Um the fire department is comprised of
48 full-time equivalent positions as outlined on page 67. We currently operate four shifts with 10 members on duty staffing three stations, South Actton, Actton Center, and North Actton. At this staffing level, meeting response
time objectives and maintaining adequate onseen resources requires careful daily deployment and limits our flexibility when managing multiple or simultaneous incidents. We are actively working to hire four additional members, which would allow us to increase staffing to
the currently authorized level of 11 members per shift and strengthen our ability to assemble effective initial response crews, maintain balanced station coverage, and sustain performance expectations across the community. Since last f since February,
last February, the department has participated in a pilot program in partnership with the Collins Foundation focused on evaluating the most efficient and effective deployment of personnel. This initiative looks at operational data including call volume, response
times, incident concurrency, and geographic coverage to assess how staffing levels and station assignments influence service delivery. The findings from this pilot will inform future staffing decisions, guide capital and apparatus planning, and support
long-term resource allocation to ensure the department continues to meet the town's service expectations and risk profile. A formal report is expected from the Colin Center within the next several weeks. I'd like to extend my sincere gratitude to the firefighters of local 1904 and to
the dispatchers of local 25 for their continued cooperation and professionalism as deputy chief Sammit and I have explored and implemented various operational models. These changes have involved the movement of personnel and apparatus between
stations and adjustment to operational deployment requiring members to adapt from their established routines. This their dedication has been essential in ensuring the process this process effectively util evaluates and
strengthens our operational readiness. As I mentioned last year, fire departments have evolved into an allhazards response organization. In addition to fire suppression, the Actton Fire Department provides a broad range of essential services including
fire prevention and public education, training, inspections, pre-inccident planning, hazardous materials response, emergency medical services, permitting, and code compliance, among other activities. The fire department is also jointly responsible with the police
department for overseeing the operation of the E911 dispatch center located at the public safety facility. Historically, the Massachusetts General Law 99A has limited fire departments to hiring candidates residing within 15
miles of the town, a restriction enacted following the blizzard of 1978 that remained in place for decades. I'm pleased to report that through the efforts of town leadership, Representatives Dan Cena and Senator Jamie Eldridge, House Bill 4168, an act
authorizing the town of Actton to increase the residency limit for members of the police and fire departments, was signed into law on December 10th of this past year. This legislation allows the town to establish residency requirements collaboratively with the union, significantly expanding our hiring pool
and strengthening the our ability to attract qualified candidates. Coupled with recent contractual improvements that enhance Actton Fire's competitiveness, these changes position the department to achieve full staffing, improve coverage, sustain response
readiness, and manage risk proactively, ensuring that the town can continue to delivering reliable, effective, and timely emergency services to the community. Given the challenges in hiring firefighter paramedics, we current we are currently supporting both new hires
and existing members in training to achieve paramedic certification. This training typically takes 12 to 18 months depending upon the program. Across the country, many departments have found that in response to ongoing shortages of firefighter paramedics,
developing internal candidates is an efficient and effective strategy for sustaining highly qualified workforce. Unlike a typical desk job, any vacancy, whether due to illness, injury, or training, must be filled with overtime to maintain effective emergency
operations. Staffing gaps directly affect response readiness and the department's ability to manage risk, and they have contributed to increased overtime costs. Reaching full staffing will help reduce these costs, enhance operational readiness, and ensure the
town can del continue delivering safe, timely, and reliable emergency services to the community. Full staffing staffing of at least 11 members per shift is more critical now than ever, particularly with the near completion of several large residential developments,
including the fivestory, 260 plus River's Edge apartment complex on Powder Mill Road in South Actton, which just started taking occupancy. uh the four-story 40unit McManis complex on Main Street and the multiple multi-story buildings of Avalon
Apartments in North Actton. In the event of a fire, arriving with a minimum of three member engine crews is essential for quickly investigating an alarm, advancing hose lines, and extinguishing a fire. Achieving 11 members per shift will allow us to staff two engines with
three members for the majority of the responses, significantly improving our ability to protect life and property in these larger, more complex structures. As of December 15th, we upgraded the north engine to a paramedic level and
placed a paramedic fly car into operation. This change provides several benefits for the department. It gives our paramedics additional valuable experience as firefighters, adds flexibility by allowing deployment of a single paramedic resource when needed,
and enables us to support mutual aid partners with advanced life support capabilities. Previously, when ALS mutual aid was requested, we had to send a full ALS staffed ambulance, tying up two ambulances for a single patient. With this new configuration, our primary
ambulance can remain available in town while still providing ALS support to neighboring communities. A welcome addition to our admin administrative staff, the fire prevention officer position has significantly strengthened the department's fire prevention code compliance program by assigning
dedicated a dedicated professional to oversee this critical function. Jeffrey Dalton was hired in July through a cooperative effort with the building department and has quickly demonstrated an exceptional engagement with the community. Because he has not assigned to emergency
response, Mr. Dalton is able to provide more flexible and reliable scheduling of inspections and maintain consistent focus on code compliance. He now serves as a stable single point of contact for the public regarding inspections and enforcement matters. As a result, the
deputy chief and captains have been freed to focus more fully on their administrative and operational duties. On page 69, you'll find a summary of recent accomplishments along with changes and ongoing challenges in FY27
goals. I'll begin by highlighting some of our accomplishments. We have successfully secured multiple grants, some of which unfortunately are no longer going to be available moving forward. Firefighter and safety equipment grant of 19,000 along with a supplement of
9500 was received this year or fiscal year uh 25. Um a student awareness of fire education known as safe grant of $5,700, a senior safe grant of $2,400.
And we have most recently received uh two state earmarks for turnout gear of $25,000 and emergency radios of $25,000. Another accomplishment, as I just mentioned, was the filling of the fire prevention officer, marking the first time in over 50 years that this has
formally been staffed. I believe Robert Craig was last to hold this position in 1974. In the decades since, fire prevention responsibilities were handled intermittently by firefighters with an interest in the work or by onduty officers. In recent years, the duties
largely fell to the deputy chief with limited support from the captains, resulting in a due to their duties lack of consistency and continuity. Establishing this position has significantly strengthened our fire prevention and code enforcement efforts.
uh strengthened recruitment of qualified paramedic candidates with significant leadership and effort by Deputy Chief Samut. Uh the passage of House Bill 4168 allowing us u uh to increase our residency limits was a critical factor
in expanding that candidate pool. Deputy Sammit has developed and implemented a comprehensive and structured orientation and onboarding program acknowledging that many of our new hires no longer come to us with prior firefighting experience. Here to explain what is
involved in onboarding new personnel is Deputy Sammit. Good evening, members of the select board, finance committee, town manager, and deputy town manager. This evening, I am here to briefly walk you through the orientation process for our new firefighters.
The new hire orientation process consists of two weeks of daytime training, Monday through f Friday, uh totaling a 42-hour work week. Um during this period, new members rotate through each station with a focus on station familiarization, apparatus, and
equipment. They also participate in fire and EMS training using a competencybased training book to document proficiency in key skills, including but not limited to pump operations, self-contained breathing apparatus, search and rescue, driver training, and vehicle
extrication. Throughout these two weeks, new hires respond to fire and EMS calls with on duty crews, allowing them to be integrated into the acting fire department operations from the onset. Continued training. Um, following this initial initial orientation period, new
hires receive a group assignment and continue structured fire training under supervision of leadership of department officers. Within 18 months of hire, any employee who has not previously attended a career recruit uh fire training program is sent to the Massachusetts Fire Academy
10-week recruit program. Upon completion, members graduate with firefighter one two certification and a strong foundation and core principles of the fire service. An important message emphasized prior to graduation is that learning in the fire service is continuous and does not end until
retirement. In closing, I would like to thank all members of the Actton Fire Department who contribute their time and expertise in the training of our new hires. Their dedication and serves a strong foundation for these employees as they develop and progress throughout their
careers. Thank you. >> Thank you, Deputy. Uh additional accomplishments incl improve uh excuse me include implementation of the pilot program to evaluate effective and efficient deployment of apparatus and personnel. As I mentioned, we placed a
paramedic engine and fly car into service, enhancing our operational flexibility and patient care delivery. We invested in leadership development. Deputy Chief uh Semit successfully completed the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy Chief Fire Officer Program and I
was honored to be accepted into the National Fire Academyy's Executive Fire Officer Program, a highly competitive and nationally recognized leadership program. Continue. Um, we've continued to deliver exceptional advanced life support services to the community,
including multiple successful cardiac arrest resuscitation with patients surviving neurologically intact. We took delivery of a Ford F-150 hybrid pickup truck to replace the shift commander vehicle, improving reliability, efficiency, and reducing
operating costs. We've secured equipment from state access property, primarily emergency medical supplies, including portable ventilators. Additional functionality with open gov. Uh our firerevention officer has been able to create additional permits within the open gov system and utilize it more
efficiently with assistance from Jessica Thomas in the building department. So, thank you to Jessica. As far as ongoing challenges, increasing call volumes and complexity, including a growing number of incidents involving emerging hazards such as lithium ion
batteries. Uh we've also had an increase in concurrent calls where two ambulances are tied up at the same time. Rising incident c costs across all operational areas including equipment, apparatus maintenance, and repair as well as personnel.
health and safety and wellness concerns for our department members, including increas increased risk to related occupational cancer, post-traumatic stress um disorder, and line of duty injuries. Aging facilities in need of significant
upgrades with stations constructed in the 1950s and early 1960s, including critical needs such as the station 2 roof repairs that need to be done. escalating training costs, including compliance with unfunded mandates from the Office of Emergency Medical
Services, such as Nero's law, Asher requirements, and mandated equipment upgrades such as IV pumps. Rapidly evolving technologies that present new operational challenges, including solar installations, energy
storage systems, lithium-ion batteries, electric vehicles, and modern construction materials. And lastly, a national emergency response information system called Nerus has recently been mandated to replace the national fire incident reporting
system for state and federal fire incident reporting. This transition will require an adjustment period and may necessitate tracking fire incidents separately from emergency medical responses and inspections, requiring the use of three distinct databases rather
than the single system currently in use. While this presents an operational challenge is one we're prepared to meet. Goals identified for FY27 include filling of all current vacancies to maintain an onduty complement of 11 members per shift, identifying an
implementation of efficient operational deployment model informed by data from the pilot program, department member feedback, and guidance from town leadership. We additional goals include continue to provide timely current training to
ensure the department remains prepared for the evolving increasingly complex challenges of firefighting and emergency medical response. Maintenance of all apparatus and equipment in a state of readiness to ensure reliable response to all requests for service.
Expand community engagement. The department has begun collaborating with youth connections based on information provided by our economic development director Patricia Costa. So I appreciate that and and we anticipate engaging two interns to assist with emergency
management inventory and fire department statistical analysis. And we another goal is to conduct tabletop exercises to test and refine Actton's emergency management plans. A multi-jurisdictional tabletop exercise
is currently scheduled for March supported by funding from the Northeast Homeland Security Regional Council Advisory Council. In coordination with the sustainability office, the department is also planning a tabletop exercise under the municipal
vulnerability preparedness program focused on actton's response and resilience to climate a climate related event. This exercise is anticipated to take place in the spring and will provide an opportunity to specifically evaluate and strengthen act preparedness
for such incidents. On page 70, you'll see emergency management services. Emergency management services is responsible for ensuring the town is prepared to respond effectively to a wide range of emergencies, both planned
and unplanned. These include hurricanes, winter storms, extreme temperatures, major crowd events as we might have for the 250th, who knows, and significant traffic accidents, aircraft crashes, tornadoes,
earthquakes, fires, hazardous materials, active shooter situations, and other critical events. As far as changes and ongoing challenges uh with emergency management, there's a need for storage facility for support um
efficient inventory management and rapid deployment of resources. We are currently taking up all the space in station 4's closet. Um identification of uh identification and preparation of appropriate community shelter locations.
I've recently engaged with some talks with the school uh and there's some other locations that we're looking at as well. Uh ongoing recruitment, identification, and training of staff and volunteers for emergency response support and organizing and providing training for volunteers. As far as
recent accomplishments with emergency management, we have secured $5,100 in emergency management preparedness grant uh funds to enhance our emergency management supplies. As I told you, we obtained the Northeast Homeland Security Regional Council grant
uh or funding to uh host the multi-jurisdictional tabletop. We continue to expand Actton's emergency management cash of equipment and supplies and we've um acquired last year we acquired NERAK funded equipment to support the 2025 July 4th celebration
offsetting costs for that event. As far as goals for FY27 for emergency management, we want to be able to complete a full inventory of emergency management resources and procure additional equipment as identified, maintain equipment in a readyto deploy
condition, and increase community engagement by recruiting additional volunteers. On page 71, you'll find the fire alarm network revolving fund, which has historically been used to maintain the town's municipal fire alarm system. As
noted earlier in the municipal monthly, which you may have seen, the department is in the process of decommissioning the municipal fire alarm system as it requires significant ongoing maintenance and has been surpassed by newer technologies that provide more detailed and actionable information to
responders. These modern central monitoring stations are now capable of transmitting alarm signals that identify the specific location and type of activation such as smoke, heat, or sprinkler flows, improving response efficiency and reducing reliance on
townowned infrastructure. The full com decommissioning is expected to occur over two to three years. Street alarm boxes will be removed first as virtually all alarms that previously may have been transmitted by such equipment
are now received through 911 system. Master boxes which transmit building fire alarms will be removed last to allow property owners sufficient time to upgrade their systems. The fire department uh the fire prevention revolving fund moving to that
established in 2024 collects revenue from permits and inspection fees as well as fees associated with fire prevention activities including sprinkler compliance testing that requires personnel and apparatus. These revenues are used to support the fire prevention
officer position are intended to become self- sustaining over time reducing reliance on support from the bu building department for which we have been very grateful. The ambulance enterprise fund is supported by ambulance service fees and
currently funds the salaries of 11 FTEEs and associated expenses required to operate the town's ambulance service. Expenses include EMS equipment and supplies, equipment repairs, vehicle maintenance, and ambulance leasing or borrowing costs.
If you turn to page 72, you'll see three charts that provide 10-year snapshot of the department activity. Uh fires extinguished, responses by type, and inspections conducted. On average, the department responds to
approximately 50 fires per year, ranging from structural and vehicle fires to dumpster, cooking, and chimney fires and many others. Rapid coordinated response is critical to minimizing fire spread and limiting property damage.
The responses by type chart illustrates trends over the past decade, notably an upward trend in emergency medical responses over the last four years. We have also noted an increase in concurrent medical requests requiring both ambulances to be in service. EMS
calls now account for 69% of all emergency responses and this upward trend is expected to continue. Non-medical 911 emergency responses are primarily associated with alarm activations. Some variation in this category is that
you see on the chart is likely due to historical data entry practices. For example, box plugout, plug in um calls may have been recorded as non-medical 911 emergency responses when they're just typical day-to-day uh routine
responses. The department is actively reviewing and standardizing data to improve reporting accuracy. The new nearest system is expected to further enhance data quality as only emergency call types can be entered into this system.
Page 73 presents the fire department budget. A notable increase in overtime is primarily attributable to unfilled vacancies. As mentioned earlier, maintaining minimum staffing is critical and once vacancies are filled, overtime is expected to decrease to a more
typical level. The 8% overall increase in personnel services largely largely reflects recent collective bargaining agreements designed to maintain a competitive package for recruitment and retention of department members. Services
expendit service expenditures were reduced by 13% as a cost containment measure and while supplies increased 17% due to rising costs for materials and services. The ambulance enterprise fund budget is
presented on page 168. So that's much further in your packet. Of particular note is the increase in professional development which reflects the cost of supporting department members in attending paramedic certification. As discussed earlier,
supporting paramedic training is a strategy increasingly used by many departments, including Actton, to recruit new members and address nationwide the nationwide shortage of paramedics, ensuring continued highquality emergency medical services for the community.
Couple more pages in on page 171, uh you'll find the fire alarm network budget and that supports the maintenance and decommissioning of the current municipal fire alarm system. There's no major changes reflected in this budget. And then the fire prevention budget can
be found on page 178 and that reflects a decrease in supplies to be offset by revenues generated by permit fees. As far as our capital request for FY27, we have included fire hose replacement
at a $25,000. That's a single one-time replacement. Fire hose only lasts so long. When it's used out on the street, things happen to it from time to time. So, we need to to do some replacement. It also includes phase two of the portable radio replacement program. Uh
an additional $60,000. We received $60,000 last time and and we're looking to just complete our radio purchases so that every every uh person on the department has a portable radio which becomes critical for communications on
scene. Command vehicle replacement at 1265. That's an annual uh request as we have seven command type vehicles. Uh, and we just rotate them down the line and get rid of the last
one on the line every year. And then an ambulance replacement of 8,000 855,000. We replace our ambulance every 3 years. It spends three years in primary service, 3 years in secondary service, and then 3 years as a mechanical backup.
As far as an update on current vehicles that are in the queue, uh, our Excalance ambulance is currently under construction at a facility in Huntsville, Alabama. Two members just went down to, uh, oversee some of the construction of that and that is due to
be delivered approximately November of 2026. A ladder truck is currently under contract with a due date of approximately August of 20 28, I believe. Uh, and then an engine that's currently under contract is due
approximately January of 2029. The long production times make it important to make sure we plan ahead to to make our capital requests. So, this concludes my presentation and I would uh
I'm happy to take any questions questions from SL. Um, David. Uh, thank you, Chief. You talked about the fact that you had four openings for um uh firefighters. Um, I know you've had some success hiring this year because I've been to pinning ceremonies.
Can you talk about the number of people you've hired this year? >> I can. So, in fiscal year 25, we've hired seven personnel. Um, and we currently have three in the queue that are going through the process
right now. So, we've had a lot of success due to a lot of efforts by the deputy and some members of our staff that participate in interviews. I do believe the new contract rates have helped with that. And I do also believe that having a paramedic engine and a fly
car has attracted more personnel. >> Thank you. Just one other question. Uh for speaking of that fly car, is that one of the command type vehicles or is that another vehicle? >> Yeah, it's a command what I mean by command type vehicle is typically a a uh SUV or a pickup truck. Um and the reason
I call it a command type vehicle is because often times it starts as a command vehicle and then as it rotates down it goes into more utility service or as in this case we have it um for the fly car. Thank you, Melissa.
Thank you both for the presentations. Um, I have some wonderings about the turnout gear. Um, I'm wondering if the the POS free turnout gear is available commercially. Um, I noted that in FY26
or maybe it was FY25. Sorry, I lost it. There were three sets that were purchased and and there's more um in the budget and I'm just wondering is that going to need to be replaced because it's not the new POS free. So I
I don't believe it needs to be replaced according to the statute that's uh been put out. Uh however, any new gear purchased um should be PASF free. However, uh there is some PAS-free gear
currently on the market. Uh our current manufacturer uh has attempted to also put gear out on the market, but they were not satisfied with some of the materials that were currently in use, which is what some of the other
companies are using. So they actually took several million dollars in orders for PAS free gear and then contacted everyone and said we're not confident that this gear is going to last and be um effective. So they are diligently
working on getting quality PAS gear produced. We have a need to purchase gear as we get new members. So we may or may not be able to start them with PAS free gear. That although that would be our intent. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and in terms of the
need for storage um for our um emergency inventory is that obviously with our deployment um pilot program we we could potentially
have a space um a building that's that's um available for that. Um, but I don't know if it would be appropriate or if there were, you know, who can who can tell what's at what's going to happen in the future. I'm just wondering if from
your perspective, this is rising to a select board goal level for for next year. um not only the storage space for the emergency equipment, but also the work that you're doing with the
school to identify shelter and the tabletop exercises and also um the the recruiting additional volunteers. That that sounds like a lot of staff time, a lot of effort. And I'm just wondering,
>> it's a big lift. It is a big lift. Uh as far as storage, uh let me give you a little historical perspective. Um, the Actton Auxiliary Station on School Street used to store some of the equipment that had
to be moved. We moved a lot of it to 21 Maple Street, which is now being used for the pantry. So, now we had to consolidate and and put some of it up at station 4. Uh, the barn at station 4 that's up there is unheated, and some of these materials really can't deal with
extremes in weather. uh they will deteriorate much faster. Um so additional storage space would ideally be uh welcome as well as as I said with an intern hopefully to come and help us manage the inventory and and get a good handle on everything that we have. Uh it
also requires for example I have 12 generators. They require to be serviced or run at least annually if not more often. So, that's another um piece. If we're thinking along the same lines as far as additional potential storage, I've thought of that. Um and there are
some opportunities out there, but obviously I want to work collaboratively with leadership to figure out what's the most appropriate. Um one of the things I learned uh through my years of experience, I had a mentor who um told me, and it's very true, a couple of
things. First of all, in an emergency, you want to be able to meet the different people involved and say, "Hi, how are you?" versus, "Hi, who are you?" Uh, so it's important to hold exercises. The other thing I learned and take to heart is if you need something in an
emergency, so does everyone else, and you're not going to be able to get it unless you have it. So, those are some of the principles I try to operate on, and that's why we're building out our cache of equipment. And in terms of the volunteer recruitment, is this um part of aert or
is this a little less formalized? So I know that those the organiza those programs involve training of the leaders of that. >> So uh not formalized yet, something we're in discussions with. I'm hopeful that having some of these exercises will
stimulate some more discussion about that and we can figure out where we can go to and how we can organize and maintain some volunteers and it's similar to Cert. Yes. And maybe maybe we will go that route. >> I just have one um more question about
the responses that you're seeing the increase in concurrent medical calls. Would you attribute that to our aging population in town? >> So, I I attribute some of that to some
of our facilities in town. Um, we have a nursing home, we have some elderly housing. Typically, over the past a few years ago, they would have a contract ambulance service. Uh, we noticed a dramatic increase in calls to some of these facilities. I went down and talked to them and they told me they're in a
contract ambulance desert. So, we are the resource that they call now in order to um transport some of their patients. They do have some very sick patients, but they also have some patients that would normally go by um a non-emergency ambulance, typically needing an
ambulance for transport because of their condition. So that has contributed. >> Any other questions from the Smartboard? >> Okay. What do you >> All right. U Thank you. Uh it was a great presentation. Um I'm going to I
have two questions. One a number question then um and then a different question. uh it from the uh staffing perspective uh has has there been a point in time that
you've had full staff uh full employment for I don't know more than a day like police yesterday said they had full employment for a day in the last seven years. How are you having more success historically than the police department? In 2023, we were at full staff for
six, nine months, something to that effect. Um, with all the competitive salaries going on out there and it being a paramedics market, people are jumping for a dollar here, a dollar there, or something else. Uh so we've seen that
take place and we were down at one point almost an entire shift which gets very demanding on those that are remaining. So um I I think we're we're having some very good success hiring currently.
>> All right. Thank you. So um unlike some departments that have presented uh when the fire department um has uh shift not covered it basically runs into overtime. Is that an accurate statement or or mostly accurate statement? So like you
have still have to cover your shifts. It's not like if someone doesn't show up you can just like we're not going to respond to anything for that six hours. >> Exactly. >> So you So that's what that's why. So what I did looking at the numbers is I count I looked at regular and overtime
just together >> because I figure if it's not in one, it's in the other. And I'm just having um I'm struggling with the jump to 27 and I hope you can kind of speak to it. So if you just look at actuals and you add regular and overtime together you
get 2.4 million and 24 2.6 million25 and you go to 3.4 and 27 which is an increase of 800,000. I understand there's a contract change. understand that um there's well I understand there's a contract change but even with
that um and replacing of staff I would think that uh I'm still feeling like it it seems heavy to me it feels I'm not saying that um the the re the the budget change makes
sense the dollar change from actual to 27 it feels very heavy to me. Could you speak to that or can you speak to that? >> Sure. Um so when we have a vacancy that's four shift every week that has to be filled.
We have some groups. So currently we have some groups right now with a single vacancy but I also have sever uh three members out on IOD. So that means on one shift I have to fill three vacancies four times during the week. That's 12
vacancies that have to be filled each week for that group. So, um, and that's why I say anytime someone's out, we have to fill. The other option, which is not one I recommend, not one I endorse, is you'd have to reduce staffing to for the
day or something like that. But that gets into um difficult circumstances because we already cross staff some of our apparatus. Meaning, I I'll give you an example. I I came by um the center station to talk to someone the other
day. There's an ambulance and an engine sitting outside. No one was there because they were on other apparatus responding to calls. So cross staffing is also a challenge for us. Um but primarily it's the it's the number of
vacancies whether it be because it's a vacancy or because someone's out injured. The other thing that has increased over the past year or two is we've had a number of hires. Each of those hires has to spend 10 weeks at the fire academy for which we have to cover
their 42 48 hours a week um that they're out. And um the other addition uh for the past um maybe 10 months is sending them to paramedic school. we uh have to cover
the days that they're in school that they would normally be on shift. The days that they go to school that they're not on shift, that's on their time. So, it's a little bit of a partnership as to what we're uh offering for paramedic training. Does that address what >> uh mostly um and I'm I'm sure if we
spent hours going through the weeds of it, it would make more sense, but just kind of high level um because no one has the patience to listen to this for an hour. uh in so in 2025 uh which has the same staffing level as
2027 uh is the assumption in 27 that effectively you're full staff and you're not going to have vacancies is am I saying that correctly? >> I believe we're looking at the numbers that way so that we can fully staff and
reduce the number of there's still going to be vacancies for >> understood different things. I just to just to interject the the budget for FY26 added a new staff member to the fire department. So the actuals in FY25 reflect one less FTE than FY27.
>> Okay. >> So and um other other components of when you're looking at actuals to uh budget is that a lot of the contractual increases were in the comp preserve budget. So that m So even though it
makes it look like a bigger increase here because the funding was in another budget. >> Okay. To cover that as I said I like the 400 increase makes sense to me. It was I was struggling with the actual change of 800 because I understand there's a
contract change. I understand but the way it was explained does make sense that you're budgeting for full staff. I'm going to pivot to my next question. Uh, and and if you've covered this and I didn't hear it, I apologize. Uh, is the
does the fire department um have the same uh or similar level of uh paper inundation that the police department has or is or are you are you folks spared from the constant paper reports
and everything? because the police department spoke yesterday about trying to get things into a system that would make things more efficient and easier and uh so that the team wasn't, you know, constantly filling out paper forms and saving them. I just don't know how
your how that how the fire department runs. I just was curious if there was any issue with that in your department. >> Okay. I'm not familiar with the police paper shuffle. However, um with the probably the exception of my office, um
we a lot of the paper shuffle is gone. We used to have to write EMS reports. That's all done in the computer now. Fire reports, all done in the computer. Um permits all done in the computer. Uh we have open gov. We have something called ESO. We have the nearest system
now. So, a lot of what used to be on paper is now done electronically. >> All right. All right, I'm going to defer to the rest of my team here if they have questions. Go, Greg. >> Chief, good to see you again. >> Likewise.
>> So, last year I guess my question was about key performance indicators. >> Yes, sir. >> So, I'll start there. >> Okay. Um, similar to last year, our key performance indicators are based
primarily around NFPA 1710, which gives us requirements or it's a consensus standard. It's not a requirement, but it's a consensus standard. It looks at alarm answer times, which is managed by the um dispatch center, and they keep
records on that. Uh, alarm processing, turnout to a fire. Um, we're it's suggested that we turn out to a fire within 80 seconds of the alarm or dispatch. Turn out to EMS within 60 seconds. First due engine, we look at
that um within 4 minutes. A second due engine within 6 minutes. Uh the initial full alarm for a low hazard 8 minutes and the initial full alarm for uh a high hazard within 10 minutes and 10 seconds.
They also put parameters on number of people or number of staff and firefighters that you need. So for an example, a single family occupancy, a typical single family occupancy, if it comes in as a report of a fire and there's a fire there, they suggest a
minimum of 16 members or 17 if an aerial device is uh to be utilized. When you get to um like a strip mall, you're looking at 27 to 28 members that you have to assemble. and garden style apartments the same 27 to8 when you
start talking high-rise which I mentioned now we have several um you're looking at a minimum 42 members to assemble for an apartment fire so we rely heavily on our mutual aid partners
um but when you have mutual aid now you're dealing with time and fire doubles in size it's logarithmic every minute it doubles in size so until you can get water on that fire or sprink sprinkler system works. And I'll give you an example. We just had a fire on Craig Road last weekend. The sprinkler
system was able to contain it. It didn't put it out, but it contained it and we had to go in and um and put it out. So, that's where it becomes important with our code compliance officer making sure that systems are working. And he's done a great job. He's found a lot of
different things out there that we just never had a chance to focus on. and he's making um vast improvements in people coming up to compliance and he's doing it in a very com you know uh businessfriendly way.
>> Second question then is um what risks are introduced or reduced by the pilot program and how are they being evaluated before you basically make your recommendation. So the pilot program is looking at some of those key
performance indicators that I just told you. Um time to respond, time to assemble a certain number of people on scene and things like that. So that'll be important. um the pilot program itself, we've um one of the biggest feedbacks I've received, especially when
we had the two stations is that the the staff um really was able to work together well, train together well, enjoy the camaraderie of being a firefighter, and also respond their response time and response on
scene now becomes similar because they're responding with different apparatus from the same station. So they're arriving on scene with multiple people. So that's enhanced safety. With three people on an engine, we had a mattress fire in one of the apartments. Three people showed up. That allowed one
person uh to run the pump and two others to now take that hose line up multiple sets of stairs. And this apartment complex happened to have the half stairs that keep scissoring. Very difficult to run a fire line up that by yourself. Uh so the enhanced staffing um with three
on an engine improves safety, improves efficiency. There's uh as part of my budget, I believe this year I I uh may have been last year, Ellie will have to help me. Um I included a NIST report which looked at uh efficiencies of
staffing engines at two, three or four personnel. If you go back to the NFPA compliance standards, their recommendation is a minimum of four on a piece of fire apparatus as far as an engine and five on a ladder truck. So, we are below those consensus standards.
I'd love to get there, but I understand the balance that we have to work together to find. And um my number one priority is safety of our personnel. Um just like anything else, we can't help others unless we're in a good position to help ourselves.
Hey Chief. Um, >> good evening. >> You mentioned response times. Do we track >> response times and and how are they improving? Are they >> So, our response times um I don't have the exact numbers in front, but um I
think they've been very um very reasonable and and meeting expectations for personnel uh and for our community. there's some place it depends on there's always variables. So if everyone went to a call up in North Actton for an alarm
investigation and now we have a call in South Actton, you know, the response time is going to change. Um in those types of situations, we always look also to our mutual aid partners to assist. And for example, with our fivestory, two
building multic complex down in um South Actton, I've been in conversation with Chief Lawless from Maynard and we're going to put their ladder truck as a first response, not only because of the height of the building, but also our ladder truck is limping along right now.
We are we've restricted its use to um reports of fire, chimney fires, and mutual aid for fires. Um, we used to run it on alarm investigations. We're not doing that anymore to try and keep it and maintain it in service. Um,
primarily due to the diesel exhaust system that uh the regeneration, it's a first generation of that system and it's caused a lot of problems that they don't seem to be able to fix. >> Uh, I I don't recall when did you say the new ladder truck would be available? >> I I believe it's supposed to be August
of 28. >> Okay. >> That's a four-year buildout. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate the presentation. Um, you said that we hired seven this year. Um, but we're still down by four. You got three in the queue.
>> The good news is it sounds like we're on trace to be on track to being only down one by the time uh FY27 starts. >> Well, that that brings us up to our previous staffing of 10. We technically have those I I'll call them four positions. The two impact positions that were never filled make up part of the
11. Um the one half firefighter that um was authorized I believe as of January. And then what we did is we took the ALS coordinator's position and incorporated into an on shift position. So
>> of the 48 uh FTEES on page 67 of the book, how many of those 48 positions are currently vacant? It would be a total of seven but three in the queue. So there'll be four vacant.
>> Okay. Currently seven vacant, three in the queue. You said that seven were hired this year. Did we have anyone leave? >> Uh let me we may have in FY25. We had one member who due to
OEMs uh issues um was not able to to stay. >> Okay. Um let's see. >> What I'm getting at is >> how many left? Yep. >> Are we worried about um do we believe
that with the new budget struct the new payment structure that we should have better stasis moving forward? >> I believe so. I believe not only the the new contract, the fact that we have a paramedic engine. One of the things that some towns have struggled with, which we struggled with as well, is we hired
paramedics and they get what they call stuck on the ambulance and people less senior to them were jumping to the more highly coveted engine position. Now that we have a paramedic engine position, we have room for advancement for them as well in because they want to do both.
They want to be firefighters and paramedics. And if they're so-called stuck on the ambulance for their regular shift, they still were able to fill overtime shifts on the engines and the ladder. Um, so that career development I believe has helped. I believe the contract has helped. The fly car has
helped. So I think all of those things that we've instituted has helped to uh with retainment. >> Thank you. So these four open positions that continue to be empty at this time. Um, I understand that you are have the initiative to try and fill it. Uh, and I
know that it's an objective. Um, if you were a betting person, would you would you think that you're going to get there this year or is this chronic? >> I believe this year we're going to get there with all those changes we've instituted. We have a great bunch of folks. The deputy has been working very
hard to um to weed through the applications and select appropriate candidates. Um, we certainly had some candidates um that just weren't going to make the cut. Um but that that's in any job.
>> Understood. Um are we about even on mutual aid calls? Um this is by way of saying are we begging our neighbors? Are any of them beggaring us? Uh or is it or does it more or less come out in the wash and
from a regional perspective? Uh because Actton being, you know, a relatively small town in a region, does it come out about even? I I'd say it's about even, but we might be doing a little bit more than we're receiving. Uh it depends what we're talking. If we're talking sort of
ambulance mutual aid, there's a couple of our surrounding towns that do not provide an ALS service and they will call us sometimes. They also have the opportunity to um to call a private service that operates in the area. Um but they're not always available. um by
OMS regulations, if we have an ALS unit available, we must respond. And I was in conversation uh at a chief's meeting this week and if you dig deep into the regulations, it says even the chief if
they're trained, the deputy chief, anyone in the station, if you have a equipped, whether it's ALS or BLS, technically you're required to respond, which means you got to drop whatever you're doing and respond. We don't have an ambulance at the PSF, so that doesn't
include us. Um but uh that was interesting. If you read deep into the regulation, which is old, um that's a requirement of running an ambulance service is if someone needs it, you must respond. >> Does this imbalance, even though you've been very polite about about stating it,
does this imbalance rise to the point of something that you believe should be brought to the state legislators for to try and get some redress from the state level from a regional perspective? At the current time, I'm not certain that would be the most appropriate. Um,
some of our surrounding communities, for example, conquered, they're very soon going to be at the ALS level. >> Okay. >> Um, so that will help even it out. The other thing is we do generate some revenue uh from that. So, every time we go mutual aid for the purpose of
providing ALS to a town that either doesn't have it or doesn't have it available, we are able to be compensated for that run. So it does generate some revenue as well. >> Okay. So the juice isn't worth the squeeze on trying to fix the imbalance at this time. >> Okay. Um why have the number of
inspections not returned to precoid levels in your chart on page 72. Uh I totally understand why inspections went to >> almost nothing zero in 22. Um, but it sure looks like we're not back to
pre-COVID levels yet uh for a number of inspections conducted. And was that also is this where the code compliance officer comes into play as well? >> Absolutely. I think you're going to see those numbers dramatically increase in the half year that he's been here. He's done roughly 363
uh inspections. Uh he's done a lot of code compliance. He's done oil tanks, propane tanks, um a number of different inspections. So that's just 363 of the fire related inspections. If you add them all up, he's he's done quite a few.
And the captain's continued to do some if if if need be, but very few anymore. >> Okay. So So we expect good things to come for the FY26 number. >> Without a doubt. >> Um let's see. There's that. There's
that. There's that last one. Um uh when there is a problem with the ladder truck or any of the other larger pieces of equipment, >> where do we go to get them serviced? Do we have a contract with a centralized location or do we do it, you know, do we roll it out back and figure out how to
jack it up on massive on a massive jack? >> Depends what the issue is. Simple things like tires, oil change, stuff like that or are managed by a company in town. Um, anything that has to do particularly with the deaf system, we go back to uh one of the I forget the name exactly,
but it's a local uh service representative for uh the um the ladder um and sometimes they'll come to us. I'm working aggressively with our apparatus maintenance uh person to say either you fix this problem or you find some way to
you know to resolve and and make it available to us because it's typically what would happen is the ladder truck would go out four or five times and then the regen light comes on and then it doesn't regen and then it goes to an all stop. >> Okay. >> So is I've heard that it's a sensor
problem. I've heard that it's a filter problem. I've heard all different excuses. Um it's very frustrating for us as well >> and costly. >> That is a private private entity that you're contracting with, right? Yeah. >> So, um being that it's a private entity
and being that fire engines are in their very definition among the most important pieces of equipment in town. >> Um you know, I'm assuming a private entity like that probably does work on other vehicles as well. Do they do we get priority when we roll in with a firet truck that needs work to to be
worked on? And is that written into the contract? >> I don't believe it's written into the contract. Um uh however, they know that we have some issues that we need resolved and they've been very receptive uh to taking care of it as
quickly as possible. Like I said, they'll even come out to us with their computer to try and help with this regen system. >> And this you said this is fairly local. It's not like you got to drive the truck half an hour or an hour to get to somewhere. >> Uh, maybe about half an hour, 45 minutes. >> Okay. Okay. Is it within mass or is it
>> It's in Massachusetts. Yes. >> Okay. Again, private. Thank you. >> Private. Yes. >> That answers all my questions. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Is the ladder truck under warranty? >> No, it's 2009. >> Okay. All right. Um, I was curious, do we know if Emerson Hospital will be
bringing back ambulance service? I know that they have a big construction project planned. They're expanding their emergency department. Do we think that they'll be able to fill any of the the sort of local gaps in ambulance service? >> Uh, in my estimation, I would say no. I used to work for them. Uh, and I was
there when they made the transition to a private service, and I don't believe they have any intention. That's my guess. Uh, if you want me to investigate that, I'm certainly willing to do that, but I don't believe they will. Um, I do know that some of the towns in the
Nshoba hospital region um are receiving $5 million from the state to help augment their services. I also heard that an additional $5 million is going to be available to the other communities and they're basing it on uh something to
do with responses since CO. I'm waiting for the language to come out, but there's going to be $5 million to be split. what our take is going to be on that. I have no idea. >> No more thinking questions. >> Think we're done with the finest
committee questions. >> I think you win extra points for Pumpo. >> Okay. Um, I just wanted to take the opportunity to once again thank all of your staff for their incredible flexibility with the pilot program over
the last year and also for both of your leadership and vision. Um, it's incredible the list of changes that you've made in order to address issues with supervision and retention and recruitment. So, kudos to you. Shout out
to the entire department. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay, thank you very much. Have a great night. >> Well done. Well done. Okay. So, um we are going to uh continue our presentations. Uh we're going to be heading over to the
recreation uh department and Tom is going to introduce that once he settles down here. >> Thank you John and good evening everybody. It's good to see everybody again. Um I'm happy to present the recreation budget uh tonight. So uh
joining us from the recreation department sitting right behind us is Mike Collins and joining us at the table now is Mike Collins. He is the recreation program coordinator. Uh Mike has been here for just about a year now, right Mike? >> Yes. >> Congratulations. Happy anniversary. Uh
so joining Mike in the recreation department is events coordinator Mora Haberman. Um we have a part-time registar uh Heather Wright who replaced excuse me who replaced the office manager who uh retired in the middle of the year last year and uh senior worker
Paulo Walsh. We're currently um getting close to hiring a parks and recreation director for the department that'll oversee the department and uh we've shifted from a recreation director to a parks and recreation director that will give a lot of focus on our current conditions of fields and facilities and
help us uh develop some long-term um improvement plans to be able to um bring mainly narrow park in some of the facilities there uh back up to where they should be. So recreation department uh begins in section 117 or page 117 of
your book. Uh recreation manages uh the usage programming and capital planning for a number of facilities including TJ or Grady skate park a number of athletic fields like the school street fields elm street fields veterans field uh camp actton the recreation center fit the
Ottabon and Nara. Additionally, the department, as you all know, hosts a pretty good summer event series that highlight, it is highlighted by a summer concert series and Pridefest that kicks off the summer. Um, while a few of the staff are budgeted in the general fund, uh, majority of the operations are
budgeted through the revolving fund, which is on page um, page 179. And I'll jump right back to there and start to talk about some of the differences in this year's proposed uh, revolving fund budget. That is the last page in your budget
book. Uh as you can see there, um the major changes uh in this budget is a $2,000 increase to seasonal. That is for park stewards and park rangers. We're looking at increasing some of the hours that they uh work throughout the year to help provide some more maintenance and
improvements at uh NAR. Uh we've also increased the buildings grounds and maintenance by $25,000. uh that's more in line with what's been expended in past years. Uh as well as if we're going to be improving the grounds and some of the facilities there, we'll need to fund some of those. So that's how we'll do
that. Uh another driver in the budget this year is a $20,000 increase to machinery and equipment. Um what we're proposing to do, so since this is a revenue generating budget and we're setting the revenue for the next year, typically um we've been fortunate enough
to be generating more than what we anticipate. So that carries over every year. And what we're looking to do this year is to tap into that um that reserve to be able to fund some improvements. And one of the improvements that we'll fund through this uh are signage and um
replacements around NRA. So as you drive up Ledge Rock Way, you'll notice a sign that sits on some plywood. Uh that's from the construction. So it's a 20 25y old sign, and we'd like to replace that with a formal uh welcoming sign that better matches some of the other
facilities uh throughout town. um some of the uh key performance indicators in the budget that are found on I believe page 121
uh 119. Thank you. Uh those focus on camp registrations and program registrations and facility reservations. So the first one that we're pretty proud of is an increase in camp and program um registrations. As you see, that's jumped
pretty significantly. Uh last summer, this uh the department decided to shift from offering programs for all the way up to eighth grade and dropping the eighth and seventh grade program, but creating a new counselor in training and a leader in training that would still
give those kids an opportunity to join camp. And then increasing enrollment for the lower grades, third, fourth, the ones that we've had a wait list. And because of that, we um realized an increase in being able to provide um an increase in registration and being able to provide summer activities for the
community. Uh the other one that you see is a facility rentals and the hours of rented that's decreased in um prior years and we're transitioning our reser and it may be due to um some of the tracking that was done prior. It was all done on paper and and we're starting to
move towards my which is used by the community to register for programs. We're going to move all registration um and reservations for facilities uh to that system as well to give us a better idea of uh actual hours and and facilities um rented. So, that's a quick
recap of the recreation budget and what the recreation department does for the community. Um Mike and I are happy to answer any questions and thank you for the opportunity. >> Questions from the slackboard. Uh Alicia, >> thank you. Um I have a question. Um
well, first of all, I'll say congratulations on the increase in uh camp registrations. That's very nice. Um I do have a question moving forward to the model of contracting out the camp.
Um it's probably one of the most, if not the most affordable summer camp option for families in town. And I'm just wondering if that pricing will be able to maintain at that low level even if we're moving to the contract model or if
it will increase just slightly and not you know enough for people to to notice and and I know we have scholarships that um will continue to be available to folks um that need them though. >> Thank you for that question. So, we have
put out um an RFP uh for a potential outsourcing of summer camps uh that actually is due tomorrow. And the intent of that is to see what's out there for operators and what um a third party could provide to the community if we were to outsource camps.
Uh along with that, we intend on looking at at the same time, Mike has been planning out camp for this upcoming summer with the idea of two parallel tracks and then whichever one better fits the community the most, we would go with that. So, we wanted to see uh what we could find in the community. Um our
intent is to continue offering affordable camps for all the community and to continue offering as many scholarships as possible. Um Mike worked last summer and will continue this summer with third parties that offer uh scholarships. Um we're actually starting to look at afterchool programs as well
during the school year that would be certified from the state so that we continue offering um a place for kids to go during uh summer or after school. Um, and we anticipate taking the model that we have for summer camp and instituting that for the afterchool program so that
we would maintain affordable programs both during the summer and then after school throughout the year. >> Thank you, >> David. Thank you. Um, yeah, I just want to make sure I didn't miss this in your opening remarks. What are your hiring plans for
this coming year in the recreation department? >> I'm sorry. Hiring plans for the director or for a seasonal summer? No. Is it I I was just wondering is is it just the director or are there other positions you're filling? >> For right now, the only vacant position
for our year round staff is the director of parks and recreation. Um we will soon once we've decided where we're going for summer camps, which um which direction we'll go. Uh we'll be advertising um park stewards, lifeguards. Uh we'll also
be advertising potentially camp counselors, directors, um and some program coordinators as well. So that should be coming out in the next few weeks. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anything else?
Finance. Um this first question is uh driven from uh my experience uh renting spaces from the school system and uh and I I don't know if this is appropriate or not but uh
whenever uh there is space rented like if you had to rent a gym or something from a school you have to it's a mandatory you have to pay a custodian in addition uh when we rent spaces is there A is there a charge built in for someone
else to like walk through the premise to make sure that like the whoever just rented it didn't leave a disaster for the next group coming in. I just don't know how everything works. Just curious if that's built into the pricing or how that functions. So, it's not built into
the pricing, but we have the park stewards that are there at the park and we get a security deposit for the rental and the park stewards walk the premises, make sure that the trash is taken care of, make sure that it's in, you know, good condition, nothing happened to it. They report back to us. Then our office
releases a security deposit at that time. >> Thank you. That answers my question. Questions from finance committee. Greg, >> Tom, >> you beat me to the KPI punch. >> I tried.
>> And you've got a department that's revenue generating. >> I got no questions. Christie. >> Um, I don't mean this in any sort of self-s serving way, but I would love that any of the camp options we go with
be good sources of jobs for our local students. It's a place that since my kids were little, there was always a counselor they knew. There was someone who was going there. And I know that my daughter has other connections with younger kids in town from having worked at Camp Hilltop. So, I would love to,
even if it's contracted out, have that be an important part of what they do. Both a place for our local kids to work and to keep maintaining that broader sense of community. >> Agreed. And I will say that I think that that's an important component of this is that if it does end up being outsourced
that um I think that there'll be a need from the operator but also uh a driving need for us to include some sort of uh involvement of former camp counselors or future camp counselors that would want to work for Actton. >> Any other questions from finance
committee? >> Anything else from Alex? Good evening everybody. Uh facility rentals are down over the last couple years and I'm sure that they're a large revenue generator uh cause and any plans
to be laid out to increase. >> Yeah, thank you Alex. That's a great question. So I think it's um a collection of a couple different things. uh facility rentals in the past have been handled through a paper system and unfortunately when it comes time to track those I think some of the the
documents have um been misfiled and we just haven't been able to count them correctly. Not saying that this large decrease as a result of that. I think that um youth programs um from what I understand before it was here that there was more of a need across the community
for more fields. There's some fields McFerson field is one that comes to mind that are underutilized. uh that would be heavily permitted throughout the year as well. Um I think that what we can do as a recreation department is start looking at changing trends. Cricket is a large
increasing uh organization throughout every community. Uh disc golf is another one that we could potentially look at other areas for temporary baskets that people can use. Um, so with the new director coming online, uh, we're hoping that as a team, Mike, the new director,
and Mora, uh, can start to develop some creative ideas and how we can remarket, but also repurpose some of these facilities that are underutilized. >> I'm all set with questions for finance committee, I think. >> Okay, I think we're good. Thank you very
much. Nice work, Reck. Our um our next presentation will be from the budget for the libraries and that uh budget is overseen by library director Mal Maria Palasio. Come on up, Maria and
team. Good evening everyone. My name is Maria Palasio as John introduced me and I am the director of the Actton libraries. Um as you know we're super fortunate to have two to be served by two library locations here. Uh we have the Actton
Memorial Library right next door and the West Actton Citizens Library which is our neighborhood branch. Um together these libraries allow us to meet the needs of residents across the community from early literacy to lifelong learning. This evening I'll be referencing information beginning on
page 123 of the budget book. With me tonight is Carrie Darcy, our assistant director, who will speak to our services programs and strategic goals. She also uh gave you the handout that you have in front of you with our KPIs.
So uh our staffing overview includes we were supported by 31 plus employees including professional librarians those who hold a masters in library and information science uh circulation and patron services staff and also librarian
substitutes who ensure service continuity for us throughout the week. We also benefit from a strong volunteer core, including adult and teen volunteers who support shelving programs and shelving programs and special projects. Our staffing model is designed
to maintain consistent service across two buildings and to meet rising demand for programs, technology, help, and public service. I don't know why I did that because it's right here. Sorry. We also strive to provide flexibility
while remaining fiscally responsible. Our team's work directly supports accessibility, safety, and highquality customer service for all residents. Of the library services that we provide, um they are far more than book lending. Our services also include robust
physical and digital collections, public computers, Wi-Fi and technology assistance, study meeting and community gathering spaces, programs for children, teens, adults, and seniors. We continue to expand our non-traditional library
services, including our Library of Things, streaming and digital resources, and museum passes. Our goal is to ensure that the library remains relevant, responsive, and accessible to a wide range of community needs.
So, some highlights and accomplishments. This fiscal year, we successfully expanded after hours and experiential programming demonstrating how the library can function as a vibrant community space. Some notable examples include our teen haunted library. We had
a regional collaboration with S sergeant Memorial Library in Boxboro and the conquered public library and we welcomed 96 teens to the act memorial library. We also had some support from trustees and select board members even helping us
out. So we this reinforced that the library is a safe and engaging space for teens after hours. Then we had our murder mystery at the library which is an adult program and we partnered with True Rest Brewery. We drew 129
attendees, drawing residents from Actton and neighboring communities, and demonstrated a strong demand for creative social and adult programming. These programs highlight the library's evolving role as both a cultural and a social hub.
Um, of our goals, we have three we're going to talk about today. One is fostering community connection and cultural enrichment. Um, and to do this, uh, our plan is to host at least two after hours community events annually. Um, two events have already been scheduled for this year with additional
programs planned for later in the year. We also look to connect with residents where they are. And to do this, we plan to expand our community bookshelf locations throughout Actton, uh, repurposing weeded materials from our collection to get, uh, further use.
and then leveraging our connected online grant which we were awarded in partnership with the actton housing authority to provide laptops to residents over at Windsor Green and help provide technology assistance in learning. Lastly is to balance tradition with innovation by maintaining strong core
library services and thoughtfully expanding new offerings that respond to evolving community needs and interests. And now for our performance metrics. So those can be found on page 127 of the budget book.
Some highlights include that circulation has finally returned to prepandemic levels and we have which is reflecting uh renewed inperson engagement. 24% of our circulation now comes from
digital materials including ebooks and digital media such as Hoopla, Canopy, your Libby app, Overdrive. And our program offerings increased by 32% over the previous year with a balanced mix of in-person and virtual
programs. We are serving children, teens, adults, and seniors. Uh we have programs that we offered in FY25 were stable with FY24 but also in line with our 2026 goals where we have offered 496
programs so far this year and plan to offer more in FY27. These metrics demonstrate both recovery and growth as well as evolving patron expectations. So budget,
we continue to closely monitor the budgets for both of the library locations with particular attention to the rising use of downloadable materials. In response to increasing monthly invoices, we implemented a cap this year on monthly checkouts through
Hoopla, one of our digital content providers. That was a tough decision. This measure helps stabilize costs. However, as patron demand for ebooks and other downloadable formats continue to grow, we strategically reallocated existing funds to strengthen that budget
line. With circulation now averaging approximately 60% print and 40% digital, I'm sorry, non-traditional, which includes like anything that is uh not a physical item. We anticipate continued finetuning of the materials budget to
responsibly align spending with patron demand and evolving usage patterns. And that is all we have today. Uh we'll be open to questions and we thank you for your time and your support. I know some faces I saw some people like on this side that came to our murder
mystery. So that was awesome. Um so thank you for your support. We we love that you visit our our libraries. Um we're proud of the work our staff is doing. We're grateful for them every day. If you've been at our libraries recently, I think you can feel the buzz, the energy that we have with all our new
staff doing some amazing things. So, please continue to encourage them. We're really proud of them. Um, and we're happy to answer any questions. >> Questions from the select board. >> Alyssa,
>> thank you for the presentation and all of your work all year long. I'm so impressed. I'm very impressed with the 3% total increase. That's nice. That's better than the double digit that we saw in other departments. Um, and I'm super
happy to see that our circulation is is up to pre- pandemic levels. I did um notice in the changes and ongoing challenges section that you talked about um staffing pressures and challenges um
and using substitutes and volunteers. Um yesterday we heard about a targeted social media campaign for helping with recruitment um getting candidate pools larger um for public safety, fire and um
police. And I think that was a partnership with the human resources department. And I'm and I see that you are doing something similar, but is it are are you anticipating seeing similar results or have you already started
seeing that? Um >> thank you for that. Are you talking if we had a are you asking if we had a social media campaign uh like for say the librarian one position at West Actton or or >> I'm asking I've seen I've seen the job postings on social media for sure but I'm just wondering if there was anything
extra that you partnered with HR to have I I don't know the details of the targeted social media campaign that the public safety did. Um, >> I think, um, one thing that we've noticed with with HR and hiring is that when someone's looking at a job posting,
they they quickly go and see what they can figure out about the town. And what they a lot of people find is that our library has an awesome social media presence. They're doing things every day, uh, video, pictures, infographics, creative things. And I think whether or
not it's a targeted campaign about a position, just having a profile showing the creativity and excellence that is in our libraries is a recruiting tool in itself. And and not just for the library, it's for for all the departments. If people see that, they say, "Oh, this town's got something
going on. I want to work there." So, um, and do we have a targeted HR campaign? >> We do not. Well, for the librarian one, we did something that I think I believe you said had tons and tons of um of uh views. Um and we we did not do a
specific one for that. I think it just turned out that it got a lot of traction. Um and I believe we had maybe like I don't want to say, but we had dozens and dozens of applicants for for the West Actton one, whether they were people that were viable that we could pull through, but it was a really nice
um big number of of people. And then we did partner with the town uh on the like the Elfie visiting during during kind of the holiday season and that got a lot of views and and we are getting that feedback. In fact, John, thank you from from candidates who tell us that uh they have they've looked at our pages and our
at our accounts and it seems like a fun place and it actually really is. So, thank you for that. And I also just wanted to note that I really appreciate seeing you um reaching your goal of being out in the community, meeting people where they are because I see you
everywhere. I see you at the festivals, October Fest, Pridefest, Farmers Market, um Danny's Place. So that it's um it's really good to see the library going out into out outside the walls of the library into the community.
Thanks for reminding me about Elfie. I loved that. Um, I also wanted to just ask a quick question. Um, can you elaborate on your uh the last goal listed is bridging the digital divide and what does that what does that look
like? So, one example of how we're working to do that was the connected online grant that we were just awarded um where we will be deploying laptops. I think it's 30 laptops um to Windsor Green. Um and part of that will come with technology-
based classes to help with um educational learning but also workforce development and uh improved access to health care. Um so we also and in conjunction with that we offer regular monthly uh classes at both library on
using either library resources or different computer-based products. Um and then we also have regular appointments um that anybody can sign up for to meet with the staff person one-on-one um and and on any topic and we'll do our best to kind of help
troubleshoot the issue or work through and and teach them how to to to use a service. Yeah. >> Uh, I don't have any financial questions, but I have a staffing question. That's more from my understanding. Um, and my wife did go to
the murder mystery. I did not um day jobs and volunteer work sent to occupy my time. Um, I'm trying when I the staffing of 18 full-time, 31 total. I know that if I walked into the library,
I wouldn't see 31 people there. Um, between the two libraries, what is like the normal on the ground people count in each building like West Actton like you have two or three and then here and I know you have the volume of people because you have a lot of part-time
people so that the numbers higher. Could you just maybe just kind of just high level talk about how it's how the building's covered? Well, we we um at West Actton, I would say there's at least one person all day. Um and sometimes there's a little bit of overlap. There's a person that might
work like a senior worker a few hours in the morning and then being taken over by by someone else. Um and in circulation we always have what like six people maybe. You do the scheduling usually, right? >> Yes. So um at West Actton we have four
staff that work there. um and the remainder remainder of the staff work primarily but there is overlap. We have cross-trained all of our staff to be able to work at West Actton with the goal that that should there should never be a lapse in coverage over there. Um so there are four that are routinely
scheduled over there, but two of those four uh regularly pick up shifts over at the main library as well. So, I would say 31 with the exception of the two senior workers that were over at West Actton. All 31 li uh staff do work at the main
library as well. >> Yeah. This So, if it was like 3:00 on a Tuesday, there'd be 31 people working. >> We would have about 20. >> That's what I was trying to get to. It's like I know it's not I didn't think it
was 31. So it's like you have four have to cover West Actton and over here where there's more things and there's programs going on, you have like three times the amount because you have more space and you have things going on here. All right, that makes sense. Um, any other finance questions?
>> I'll go over here first. Christie, >> um, I haven't heard anyone talk about it in a while, but I wanted to point out that in terms of community value, you have the only free third space. My knitting club sits in your little I
think it's the salarium. Um there's nowhere else for people to go. We could buy a coffee and fight for a table, but it's really incredible. So I hope that continues to be valued because I don't know how you would keep track of it, but um please keep up having that free space
and defend it if there's any challenge. >> Wait, so Christie, are you saying that you only meet in the salarium? So you're not part of knitting club the one that that >> is my knitting club us five women meet once a month in the salarium just as a >> nice you could also join our knitting club if you wanted to just sit around
and >> this is >> this is a like highly hard to get into. Okay. Okay. >> Selected >> exclusive at the library. Got it. Okay. >> Hi. Um you might have addressed this and I'm sorry. The I was just curious the
the streaming the streaming what is what's being streamed? Um well we have services like Hoopla and Canopy. So like for example Canopy one can uh stream movies and videos and um I think even music on Canopy. No I but definitely m
movies for sure. And then Hoopla is also like just ebooks and videos and um see Yep. And music. Yeah. >> So people are doing that remotely or at the library? >> No, they can do that remotely with their library card. >> Okay. >> Just enter their they uh some of these
services are limited to actin residents. I believe Hoopla and Canopy both because the of the cost is for but if people just come in and get their library card and then we help them download the app and they put in their library card number and their PIN and they can access
all of these digital materials from wherever they are. >> Okay, thank you. I have one other question that just popped into my head. Um you know that the app I think it's called is that called Libby? >> Yes. Does that cost you guys when somebody uses that's in the budget obviously, but
>> yes, it does. Yes, there's definitely a cost associated with with that. And like every every item it it's a it's like a buying a book. Um, some can cost like $100 and there's like a license. Um, we get, you know, a certain amount of
checkouts. Uh, so there's definitely it's definitely a big part of our budget. >> Okay. >> And and growing. So if if so are you paying for the license or you paying for the number of times people check out a book? >> All of it. It's however the publishers let us purchase it. Um so there's um
there's all kinds of like kind of like controversy around like you know with publishers how we we are probably one of their biggest um buyers or of books that we that we consume. Um, and so there's some limits sometimes to how many we can buy or how many times they can check
out, but but that is part of our regular collection development of, you know, making sure that we have the the newest books in all formats, whether it's in print or digital. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Um I I noticed that the police chief is
here in the back and um Monday he wondered why the library won the KPI award last year was Tuesday >> and I think Ann you were sitted seated there when that moment occurred. So um
if the library wants to start advising other department heads, they too could be um in the running. I also have to disclose that um I used the libraryies free space to talk about Tom Payne's
common sense and yeah, could I get that space anywhere else in town? So, I got no questions. Um on your full-time equivalent chart on
page 124 um in the um categories of staff librarian and library assistant the the par little parenthetical numbers are the the number of real people in the in the hours they work is what's shown
as full-time equivalents. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> It's okay. John's saying yes. Yes. >> Yes. That is the number of people. Yeah. We've looked at this like so many times, but yes, >> I sure >> um so do are all these people benefited
positions or some benefited and some nonbenefited? How's how's that work? >> So, um all of the librarian the full-time librarian positions of course are benefited. Um we have three library assistant two positions that are
benefited at 29 hours. all the rest of the library assistants and that's the biggest team at the libraries um are not benefited. Um so every you know starting with me through at least three of the libraries
the three library assistant twos are benefited. Um, I don't know why it says four there though for two. Are we missing one? Three. >> It should be. Yeah, that's a mistake actually. Should be three for library assistant twos. There's only three, not
four. >> And the other question I have is what's a seed library? >> Oh, a seed library. Okay. So, at the West Actton Citizens Library, we have a um and this happened way before I got there or even Carrie got there. There
was there's a you know remember those old card catalog things that you just kind of so those one of the pieces of furniture is being repurposed um to have seeds in there. So we buy the seeds and then people can come in and grab whatever they're wanting to plant and
take a packet or two and go and plant them and then get more if they need it. >> Do they have to return anything? >> Nope. They could bring they could bring me um some avocados or something. That'd be nice. Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks.
>> There are uh not a lot of book distributors left in the country and one of the largest ones just went out of business, Baker and Taylor. Has that impacted us at all? >> Yes, it did impact us, but we have an amazing head of material services, Dory
Lewis, who is um who took it all in stride. she kind of saw things happening, a slowdown in Baker and Taylor, and she started to reopen accounts with um other providers like Ingram and um and what was the other one with the B that we just
>> Yeah, we're looking at Broart um and other ones. So, we there is there was a slowdown and all of a sudden we just got like just a bunch of books that have come in. Patrons from a patron standpoint, I don't think they've really noticed that. Um, we have a couple of questions from people about why things
aren't in yet, but we have explained and and patrons have told asked us about it because they're, you know, watching wherever news or whatever about about that. So, um, some challenges, but we've been able to manage. >> That wasn't a gotcha question. I heard it on NPR a couple like, oh, we
>> that's where a lot of people get the that's >> it was very and and I was looking forward to asking it. So, you guys have it all under control. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you.
>> Nice work, library. Okay, our next presentation will be from the Health and Human Services Department, which is a team of uh divisions that are led by the Health and Human Services Director, Penny Fonioli.
Penny, take it away. Hi everybody. Good evening. Um, it's really exciting to listen to my peers show how well this community is caring for our people. That said, so good evening Slackboard
and Fencom. Um, I'm excited to be here. My name is Penelopey Fioli. I'm the director of health and human services for the town of Actton. I've been here for one year and 10 months and excited to be here for a long long time. So, that's exciting. Um, in the Department of Health and Human Services, we have
six divisions with five department heads. Our five department heads are excellent. They've been serving your community for a very long time and they care very much about their work and the people that they serve. So, I couldn't be more proud and and in and in in some ways that makes the job just so much not
in some ways, it makes it so much better to come in every single day, but it also makes it a little bit easier when you have really highly competent staff. Um, the Health and Human Services budget starts on page 131. In our department we
have 17.775 FTE or 22 staff people who are supporting individuals. Um we are also supported by two regional staff. This is funded through a public health excellence grant. Um one is an inspector
who supports our inspectional services. The other is a community health and wellness coordinator. She does a tremendous amount of work to support me directly on many of the initiatives that we're working on and is um and will be rolling out mental health first aid and buried in treasures and other programs,
education programs that are supportive to our community members. You will see in our org chart that it changed slightly. the community services and transportation director and the human service um administrative assistant were taken out of the town
manager's budget, put under the health and human services budget. They work under my direction and that's where they should be. So that's where you'll see a change in that. We've added some new staff. Two positions were unfilled and Heather York was
filling them for a long time. So, I think this is probably the most proud thing that I am to report is that um we have an incredible public health nurse. We're sharing her for uh a third of her time goes to the town of Littleton. And in many ways, it's so efficient because
she's able to be at statewide meetings and be on all kinds of different, you know, calls, but also she's able to do disease tracking and contact tracing throughout the week for both towns depending on the case counts. We also have our on call or and Perdeium nurse
um Daveen Orrigo phenomenal employee. We couldn't be more happy to have her support us. She does over the weekend calls and she does um cases throughout the week occasionally. We've also reorganized some of the budget of the health department so that we can really
support our inspectional services. the um the town before the reorganization for health and human services had a director of public health and two health inspectors even and an administrative assistant in that time. They still
contracted with a food uh consultant to do food inspections. that consultant is no longer doing her work in our town. But that gave us a real opportunity to take the dollars that that contract was providing for those inspections and we're able to increase to 300 hours
instead of 100 hours of her time. We now have 400 hours of food inspection and weekend inspections. So we've hired um Michael Seager. He's a a well-trained, well seasoned um food inspector. He's working in other communities, but he
works for us on the weekends now. So we'll do Friday, Saturday, and Sunday inspections for food service. We'll be able to do our farmers markets, weekend housing calls, any sort of emergencies that happen over the weekend. We have a weekend inspector now. It was a major gap that needed to be filled and I'm very proud that we did that and that we
have a high high quality individual supporting us. Um the role of health and human services for the town is really critical. We are the backbone of a healthy community. Um, by protecting public health, supporting vulnerable populations, and addressing both social and environmental factors that influence
health, we create a town or we help to create a town where people can live, work, and thrive. And I think that's really important because one of our key performance indicators is a lot bigger than an indicator. It's an impact. Impact is hard. You know, if I could
have a behavioral economic person in my department, I could probably pump out a lot of ways that we're saving money for individuals in this community because our nursing services addressing someone who's had a fall or a hip replacement. Then they're asking them to come back,
go to a balance class, come back to a maintenance class, come to the COA and hang out and enjoy yourself. It's also a third space, just to keep that in mind. It's free and it's really exciting environment. I love it so much. If you love puzzles, come on down. Um,
we but that said, we are supported by our our colleagues. We can't have healthy, thriving individuals in our community if we don't have the library doing cool and exciting things in the evening or having great steady program or the recck department expanding what they're doing and looking at different
ways to provide recreation our town. The one thing that I keep hearing over and over in this community is that everybody wants the same things that happen at the senior center in in all ages. So that's that's that's so exciting that everybody wants to be together. They want to be
enjoying and learning as a team or as a group. But we are always so always faced with real concerns. We have people who come through our doors that have extreme hardships. So our jobs are not easy. They're not always happy and fun. We
have increasing demands on social services for all ages, especially seniors. We have minimal services that deng elder services both in funding from the top down and staffing that they have to
support our elders. So, it often falls on our staff to support at a higher level than what may be expected of a community. In November, there was a significant rise in food insecurity. I think we all know what happened. We responded very quickly. We organized our food system. We got talking to each
other. What's the need? What's it? Good news. They had it figured out. This is one of the most welloiled food systems I've seen in municipalities in my career. It's amazing what's happening here. But they always need help. We need to convene. We need to make sure we're on top of it. So, we are. But there's
even more demand for housing needs. We do not have money to support residents who have who are going to miss their rent that month. At this point, the only thing that we really are helping with and we are getting a lot out of it is
our housing legal clinics. These, if you remember, our dollars were centered to have a housing clinic. So, this is a monthly conversation with individuals who are facing major housing legal concerns. We've been able to support individuals that the health department
was going to legally push on their housing issues. We've said why don't you talk to this legal service and it helped move the whole the whole process faster. So that is a huge huge asset I wanted to point out that we are still utilizing. We are data driven. We want to use data
driven decisions. We've been um working on our data collection and really improving a lot of different ways in which we're doing that. So we know that open gov came through the town about two years ago. The health department has 40 plus permits. It's very different than the building department and the planning
department. When we entered all of our permits, we were doing it very quickly because we were also operating a health department and transitioning from paper onto line. So what we're doing right now with that is we're going through methodically our large permits and looking at inefficiencies in our permit
workflow. We're looking at ways that we can better track using open gov the work that we're doing so we can have our septic inspections boom boom boom in the field on a tablet. All of this stuff is coming and we're building it this year. I hope to be able to report much more detailed information from open gov next
year. Um my senior center is an amazing tool. You look at it and you think, "Oh, is this Netscape 1997?" It's not. Um, it's super sophisticated. We moved to my senior center for our transportation system to monitor and to schedule our
rides. It has increased our service a availability because of it, because of the way that they built their transportation system. Very happy with that. Laura will expand on that. Um, and then, as you know, many of you know, maybe not all of you know, but we are do I'm doing community listening sessions or focus groups in the community. We've
had one go I believe spoke about this last night. We're doing this as a team. We have similar outreach uh efforts. There's no reason to do two different tracks for that. We're do we're doubling up and helping each other out. It's really uh been so amazing to talk to our
residents. I that's my favorite thing. I like people. That's why I do this. So, I'm very happy to get to talk to everyone. I just completed one a couple hours ago. Um, with that data collection, we will then bring back what we've learned through our narratives and
we will bring it back to the community and then reinvigorate a strategic planning process. So, that's coming up. Um, how do we stay afloat? We try real hard with all the ways that we can. We're looking at donations, of course. That's where we get all of our great free programming at the Council on
Aging. um donations that go to the act and nursing service for medical care and for podiatry clinics and all kinds of ways. By the way, podiatry clinics can save lives, too. That can really extend your life getting your feet cared for, believe it or not. Um we get direct
reimbursements from the state for our veterans officer. So, we pay 25%, 75% comes back to us, right? I got that right. Okay. Um we are looking at grants all the time. Any grants that we can find we want to grab. Um, grants are difficult though because if you try to
build something that you're missing in your department on a grant, how do you sustain it? So, those are also very tricky and need to be thought about when we're we're approaching these grants. The permitting and the fees that we get from that and then finally insurance, right? We get a large amount from the
nursing service through insurance payments that help move our services forward and support our residents. Um I want to highlight the p the public health excellence grant. It is um it is really really providing a major service
to us and especially in our inspectional space and if that grant does go away we have to have a deep conversation about that. We will not be able to cover our inspections if we do not have that support of that regional staff. She's highly qualified. She's doing an excellent job with our hazardous
materials permits and we really need we really need that support. So, um fingers crossed they don't cancel this grant in the next few years. Um the behavioral health programming that I talked about that stray does and the townwide u mental health for state buring treasure. I already briefly
talked about that. So, what are we faced with? We're faced with growing demand of need, high need, really complicated needs, complicated housing cases, complicated social service calls.
All of these could use a clinical lens on it. We are not clinicians in the clinical therapeutic space. We are all case workers in this department. a therapeutic component would support moving these
cases faster and more comprehensive support for the individual getting them connected to the services they actually need. The other thing that's happening is everybody wants to be in our programming. So we have weight lists for watercolor and for horiculture and for
podiatry clinics and residents are not happy that they have to be on a wait list or that their regular program that they love they couldn't get into because the call they their call went in too late in the day and others wanted it. So we have a bit of a challenge where we
really could double up our services but we don't have the staff or the capacity to do that. So, we're not asking for anything, but I'm telling you that that's that's a fact for us, and we want to do more for our community members. Um, and then just the just the fact
that, you know, um the federal government down is not funding public health emergency preparedness. They're taking dollars away from mental health and social and substance abuse services. So let's say that our it is not an
indicator right now for what I'm hearing in the community, but let's say the substance use or mental health major was a major issue. We wouldn't have access to those grants. And those grants are very helpful. They can really change lives. So this is a real challenge for us. We're going to keep being light on
our feet, tactical, and looking for ways to continue to cover our service and then and the needs of our of our community. Um, I'm going to typically I would turn this over to Matt Dao to speak for the health department. He is not able to make it due to a family emergency. So, I'm going to do his
presentation for him, which is great because I enjoy being in the health department. So, um, Matt has been with the town for almost 10 years. He's coming up on 10 years. We have three full-time employees in the health department. Matt Wei and Jen Schmidt. She is now our administrative assistant.
She is making a huge impact in only a few weeks. Um, and again because we're a part of the Northwest Public Health Coalition, which is the public health excellent grant, that is the other staffing that we have that supports our office. Um, and then I already discussed the PDM inspector, the Spectre, the
weekend inspector. So, our budget for the health department is on page 134 and the actual budget details are in 137. There's an enterprise account and revolving budgets you can find on 165. So the health division has general oversight of operations including food,
septic camps, pools, housing, body art, body works, freshwater beaches, emergency preparedness, hazardous materials and sealers, weights and measures. These are a lot of different things that we're covering and we're watching out. And one thing you can know
is that if you haven't heard about a controversy at your food establishment, we're doing our job. That's an impact, right? No one's getting sick. No one's This is all because we're we're here helping out, making sure we're silently supporting you without you even knowing
it. Very exciting. But I do want to say just a little a little touch to tack on to what Chief Arnum said. We in public health have a high responsibility for public health emergency preparedness as well. I've been working with her and
with um Andrea through the sustainability office looking at those resources from the public health entities, the emergency management side, the sustainability side, and we're all working together as a team. I am on the board that oversees our medical reserve
corps. So, I will be helping with the volunteer recruitment and the work that we'll do with that. And again, it's it's we are expected to provide and to do the work to ensure that our emergency preparedness plans are in place, that our um you know, that our shelter is
there, that we have all the resources we need. So public health has a deep role in this as well. Um so we're responsible for five budgets, one general fund and one enterprise fund, three revolving funds. All proposed budgets have levelfunded
with the exception of position control um that I mentioned earlier. Oh, the I I'm sorry. This is his speech. I I don't know what I said earlier, so I'm gonna Sorry about that. Um as you can see from the performance metrics on page 136 in 20 year 25, um
some permit numbers we have issued have decreased from the prior year. For example, food metrics are down a bit from last year. This is due to food establishments closing and less temporary food events in general. We do have a few establishments opening and that is a more intensive process for our
food inspector to go in and get all the setup, make sure that we review their food plan. So, there's good news in that and that I know that we're working really well and closely with our economic development director, Patricia Costa, who's phenomenal, um, on making
sure that we we get our businesses here and that we have we want businesses here. We need jobs and we need we need good community uh organ you know working whatever the money moving around the community is what I meant to say. Um the hazardous
materials line you could take a look at that and you'll notice that we have um brought that cost down. We only ran one uh hazardous materials day last year and it was and it was successful. We will continue to stick at that rate. if
anything changes, we would have to come up with some money because it's quite expensive to do a hazardous materials day. Um, but thank you for your time and um the other notes that he has here I just want to say is that our fees are in line with surrounding communities. So we
we don't have a lot of opportunity to increase fees to increase our budget. Um, and that again, we're trying to continually make sure that we're tracking our inspections and that in each education moment that we get that we take the time to do it and spend that
time with our vendors to make sure they understand our public health concerns and that they operate them properly. Thank you. Um, next we will have um Heather from the nursing department. Heather is the director of nursing and
she is going to speak to her office. Thank you. >> Thank you, Penny. Hi, it's nice to see everyone. Um I'm Heather York. I've been u the nursing director for almost 22 years. Um the nursing budget starts on
page 144 of the budget book. Um we currently have 5.6 6 FTEES um between these two budgets, the BNA and the public health budget um which includes myself, Kathy Flannry, our clinical manager, Susan Samma, our public health
nurse, Elizabeth McNamera, our community health uh case manager, Dave Arrigo, our perdemium or as needed uh nurse, Denise Whitney, our administrative assistant, who is also a certified home health aid, and Katherine Bri, who is our certified
home health aid. Um so there are two budgets for the nursing department. They start on page 147. The first is the 0 um1522 the VNA or the home health budget. Uh, Actton provides home health services to the town of
Actton and the contiguous towns providing skilled nursing, physical, occupational, and speech therapies and certified home health aid services under doctor's orders as patients are referred from a variety of sources including doctor's offices, hospitals, skilled
nursing facility, rehab hospitals, surgical center, and wound clinics. Um in that budget um there is only one change to the contractual line item 522700. Um this is being increased. This is specifically for our physical,
occupational, and speech therapists. They're all contract staff. Um I'm requesting the increase related to the actuals from FY25. Uh the second budget is the 01520, the public health nursing budget. Uh we
provide a variety of services under this budget including mandated disease surveillance in cooperation with the Mass Department of Public Health, health discussions and education programming, blood pressure and podiatry clinics and we have a uh durable medical equipment
lending closet. Um as well as we provide walk-in services um for things like health promotion questions, referrals uh people that are looking for uh resources in the community. Um, in this budget, there are no changes this year. Um, some
accompl accomplishments for nursing over the last fiscal year, as Penny mentioned, we hired um a long open position of a perdeium nurse, specifically for weekend coverage. That's that had been being covered for almost three years by myself and our
clinical manager, Kathy Flannry. So, we're uh thrilled to have her. She's a great nurse. Um she does help out on days that our main nurse case manager isn't available during the week. Um specifically on on her day off as she works uh four days a week. Um so that
we're very excited about that. Uh the second thing is we hired a public health nurse again uh over three years of not having a public health nurse um where my I had been covering that. This helps to us expand our public health programming, um our outreach in the community, our
networking, uh and just the things that we need to do under the public health uh realm. Um two of our programs that we're pretty proud of under the public health budget. Uh one is our balance matters program. Um so this is um actually not paid out
of our budget. It's funded by uh the friends of the act and nursing service uh fund a balance matters program every quarter. Um so this is a program that our physical therapist, occupational therapist and physical therapy assistant
run um each quarter. They do assessments uh for balance and strength and then they do a six-week class to work with folks in the community. We feel that this is really important to continue because um one of the biggest leading causes of injury in uh anyone over 65
are falls. Uh so it's very important that your balance is is is well. Um we also have a anonymous donor who funds a maintenance uh balance program. So anyone that takes that six week class can come to a class. We do two classes
every week um 52 weeks out of the year. It's always full and it really um helps to keep people safe in the community as we age in place. Um the last is um under our public health budget we have we started some senior strolls at Narrow
Park. It's more about uh socialization than about activity just to get different people from the community. and and two of the other communities that also are included in this are Littleton and Boxboro. Um it's great because these
residents have met and now spend time together where some of these folks were pretty isolated um and now they have a support group of folks in the community. Um we did expand to have our community conservation specialist Ian Bergamman um
work with us over the summer last year. He did one educational walk with us um a month um which was really wellreceived. He did things such as um invasive and native species um around Narrow Park. He
also talked about um climate change. Um so goals for this year um we in we would like to increase our admissions by 10%. Last year we increased by 3.5 which is good but we would like to be larger than
that. um we'd like to add additional programming to our public health um our program overall and outreach into the community and now that we have a full-time public health nurse um that's also shared with Littleton um we're looking forward to doing more things in
the community and then we've also uh one of our goals it's partially met we started using the my senior center um software that Penny mentioned um we needed something to success to consistently track our performance
metrics for public health, but also as a documentation system for our public health nurse for any kind of interaction she has um with community members that come into the office uh that are outside of disease surveillance. Um this would
be a documentation system that is HIPPA compliant for that piece of the service uh under the nursing service as we have uh the VNA budget is our access uh HIPPA compliant documentation system for VNA services.
So thank you. >> Thank you Heather. Next we'll hear from Laura Ducharm. She will review the community resources and transportation divisions that she manages. Good evening. My name is Laura Ducharm and I oversee the community services
office in the transportation department. The community services office was established in 2009 to provide comprehensive case management services to residents primarily under the age of 60 years. My job is a a lot of collaboration between other town departments in the health and human
service building as well as many community partners. You can find my information on page 149 of the budget book. There is no budget um for my department as far as community services goes except for except for my salary. Funds to
assist residents come from donations, grants, and government funding. Primary services my office provides is application support to public benefit programs such as SNAP and Mass Health to assist with emergency needs such as food insecurity referrals for assistance to
local nonprofits and programs such as fuel assistance. In FY26, as Penny had mentioned earlier, we launched a monthly legal clinic for tenant and housing related matters. This opened in January of 2025 and to date 44
residents have come to the clinic which is on Tuesday evenings um the second Tuesday of the month between 4 and 6 p.m. This service has prevented two evictions, assisted with complex needs such as homelessness and provided advocacy for
priority on public housing weight lists and many more and much more. This is been an effective collaboration with Metro West Legal Services in Framingham. And I can say that in the years that I have been working in Actton with them
being in Framingham, it has been difficult to get the residents to get services from them if they don't have a transportation um vehicle or they just aren't able to get get up to Framingham. So having them
come here has just been phenomenal. And Steven Matthews is the attorney that comes every every month and he is just been great and has really really worked really hard for the residents on their behalf. We also hosted a tenant
rights workshop in partnership with them last spring. And what happened? Um, the program just opened yesterday, but we did, um, open the new childcare subsidy program with the funds approved by voters under article 5 of 2025 annual
town meeting. And we are currently accepting applications for this program that will run through June 30th. And families who qualify can receive up to $2,000 um towards their childare costs. changes in ongoing challenges for the community services department is that there has
been a marked decrease in available resources. Massachusetts as a whole is facing unprecedented cuts of billions of dollars in federal funding to health care, housing, food assistance, and other essential other essential human service programs. Despite these challenges, we remain committed to
maintaining nimble partnerships and strong relationships with our community partners. Overall social service support is taking on new forms guided by the changing realities and emerging needs of the community. So FYI27 goals for this office would be
um to continue to reimagine and reshape services to reflect the evolving priorities and needs of the community. And FY27 will be a pivotal year of growth and change as we evolve as we evolve a service delivery model that has served
the community for many years. So where the resources are shrinking um and we're not always able to provide what we have provided maybe in the past five years with all the COVID funding and community support services we offer may be more
things like a housing clinic or other tangible ways that people can still get the help um minus the financial assistance piece if that is continuing to go in the direction that it has been. And next I'll speak about
transportation. Um transportation is on page 150 of the budget book and we have had transportation under health and human services for about a year now. And FY26 um we have had several accomplishments.
we have um begun to stabilize the transportation program and to really look at operating costs and service needs as well as um what's the best use of the service for the community. Um overall for FY27 operating costs were
reduced by 2.4% reflecting a 1.8% reduction overall for the transportation budget. We did this by terminating the lease of our two CAT fixed route shuttles, which are the ones that go around every hour. Um, which is
roughly $31,000 a year in savings. And through collaboration with the Low Regional Transit Authority, we have been provided two surplus shuttles that have been made available to us to support our transportation efforts. These shuttles are maintained by the
LRTA and issued and leased to the town at a minimal cost. These savings position us to support future expansion of transit services. We also migrated to a new software through my senior center and their rides transportation module to increase
ridership and also more accurate um data collection. This is roughly going to save us around $8,000 a year for a much better um sophisticated smarter software. In the spring of 2025, we did conduct a route efficiency study for both the
ondemand and fixed route services. The study findings indicate a strong potential for increased ridership on the on demand service as well as sufficient capacity to add more frequent fixed route stops at the high demand destinations including the MBTA commuter
rail. So what this is essentially saying is that we can add more service for the same amount of money and get more people on the bus. So that is a goal that we we want to continue with. Um, with this new software that I had just mentioned, um, between November and December, we've
seen approximately a 15 to 20% increase in rides. So, um, like our Minute Van had 13 more trips than they would have before, and the Roadrunner had 22 more trips. That is that's great. And the
public has noticed it. The gentleman that we have dispatching for us said, "This computer software is finding things that I wouldn't see with my own eyes." So, it's really it's really going to be a big help. Um, we also submitted a community transit grant application to
the state to support our FY27 shared regional dispatch costs and also a grant to um continue with our mobil mobility management study of fixed route cost fixed routes in regionalization. Um, Penny and I have also set up monthly
check-in meetings with our vendor um to strengthen our partnership with them. they have kind of been on an island and we're here and we're trying to, you know, reach out and let them know that we are here to support them. And I think that that has been going very well
and the drivers are more involved with my office and day-to-day stuff. So, they're more part of us now than I feel they have been in the past. Um, changes and challenges. So even though we're finding ways to increase writership and we know that we
can do that, expansion is challenging without without funding and we have emerging community needs. We have different populations that are needing transportation services that maybe 5 years ago weren't. Um rides right now to medical
appointments in the Council on Aging make up 70% of our scheduled rides. However, we are getting requests for employment related transportation now and also trips into Boston to the Boston area hospitals and also a goal is to continue to
examine operating costs. I would like to continue with looking at our contract with our vendor and also re-examining the efficiency of the van operating hours to find out if it makes more sense to run them less time or adjust their time. So maybe earlier in the morning
would make sense and then later on the day when it tends to be quiet um we may not need service till 6 o'clock at night but we may need service at 7:00 a.m. So we will continue to look at all that and in FY27
um we are going to begin to promote we well it's open right now we have just released a new um crosstown connect website crosstownconnect.org org and we also have new outreach materials. The website can translate in over 100 languages and
all required policies to follow federal transit administration requirements are now posted and these are policies such as ADA discrimination complaints, how to file them and also title six. It also received a score of 100 under the web
content accessibility guidelines. And we're looking to promote Cross Town Connect as an overall service like in it's been in the past um different man van names, different hours, different
populations listed as who can ride these vans and it's just confusing to most members of the community. I'm afraid to call. What if I get on the wrong van? I don't know what to say. Can I take this van? And we want to
stop marketing the service by each individual van and just cross town connect. And you call the dispatch number, you tell the dispatch staff where you want to go and at what time and they'll make sure that you're going to get on the right van. You don't have
to worry about population um age or anything like that. So we're looking to be promoting transportation as just cross town connect and we hope that in it reduces hesitation to use the service and
increase ridership. We have increased our ridership by 3%. We did 10,743 trips last year and we're looking to increase that again by another 3% this year. And we also want to convene with our
regional partners including the lower regional transit authority, the metropolitan area planning council along with neighboring communities to expand our regional influence and coordination of the transit services. That's transportation. A lot a lot has gone on in the last
year. And I have to just give Laura a huge shout out. She has a very difficult office with high needs coming in and she took on transportation from legal ease down to policies, title six, you name it, she knows it. Uh she's pretty pretty
amazing what she knows. She knows a lot of stuff. Everybody, if you're if you have a question, come to her. Um but I couldn't thank her enough for the work that she did and it's been an exciting year working in transportation. So, and it's going to get more exciting. I guarantee it. I'm excited. So,
sorry. Okay. So, next is our Council on Aging Director Sharon Mccurio. >> Hi everybody. Um so, um the COA staff have collectively given over 115 years of service to the town of Actton. Really proud to say that. Um that's one of my
goals or you know when asked about accomplishments, it's staff retention that I'm really proud of. Our staff consists of Beverly Hutchkins, our assistant director, Chris Turokus, the program manager, Rosie Athetherton, our office manager, Bernice Nicole, our
activity assistant, Fiona Star and Wendy Curtis are our customers uh customer service coordinators, Terry Zabarowski, our fitness instructor, and Rosie Murphy is employed under the health and human service department, but provides support to each
of our departments, including in the COA. So, um, glad to have her as part of our team. Our department works under the guidance of Penny, um, who advocates for the COA and she also helps us collaborate with other departments. Um,
as of the last census, there were over 6,70 people aged 60 and older in the town of Actton. Um the COA is best known for the senior center and the incredible programs, classes, lectures, meals that
we provide. We also provide a lot of social services to our actton residents 60 and older. Um we continue to grow each year, but um I feel the budget book and our newsletter really kind of do a nice job outlining that. Um what it
doesn't describe is what it means to people. Um, you know, I know some of you have visited the senior center and it really is a community unto itself. Um, the friendships, the the bonds that form there, it it's really hard to describe. Um, you know, a couple of months ago, we
had one of our regulars that was taken out for a medical emergency. Um, and these people that were strangers just a few months ago, um, really cared about him. You know, I came in the next morning and before I even got to my office, one of them had reported he had
called him and gave me his medical status and somebody else had gone to visit him already. Um, those kinds of friendships and bonds that form, um, it's hard to explain, but it means so much to people. Um,
one of our goals this year as a department was to do outreach to our underserved community residents. Um the program manager worked really hard to form a rainbow group um to connect with the LGBTQ community. Um got some
suggestions from that group of different programming that they wanted to see and that's been implemented into our services. Um we've also been working with community partners to offer ethnic group meals and cooking classes and
we're seeing more individuals with their care partners coming. um our criteria is that you need to be independent. We have some folks that have dementia and now are are joining us with their care partners. So that's been wonderful to see. Um the COA provides social services
as well. Um information referral to anybody in the community that's concerned about somebody um maybe a friend, neighbor, relative that's that's aging. Um, we also assist with food and fuel applications, housing applications.
We make um referrals to appropriate agencies. We're also mandated reporters. So, we uh are involved with protective services. We host monthly elder at risk meetings. Um, and that consisted of different town departments that we're
able to collaborate with, police, fire, veterans, nursing, housing, um, but also Minute Man Senior Services as well. We're part of the hoarding task force in town and members of the Salvation Army. The COA offers free legal consultation,
health insurance counseling anybody that's hitting 65 and had to deal with Medicare this year. Um, it was a nightmare. we had our busiest year. Um, our shine counselors were just phenomenal assisting people. A lot of health insurance companies got rid of plans and lift people kind of high and
dry. Um, so that sort of support we're able to offer to the the people in the community. We also have ARP that does tax preparation for um the lower income people of our community. We had over 1,600 social service interactions last
year. The friends of the acting council on Aging contribute over $25,000 each year. They support our programs and classes, making it free of charge to our our residents. Um they're an incredible support. We also have a formula grant that we
received from the state that um funds two of our part-time COA staff members. It also helps us with programming and special events. We do a '9s birthday party. We um try to do volunteer appreciation throughout the year and it
also helps offset um supply costs. The majority of the COA operating budget consists of salary per position control. Um little has changed in our budget. It looks like a big percentage but it's a small small amount. Um there's a slight increase in equipment repairs and
maintenance and that's due to aging equipment. um dues and membership. That line item increased slightly and that's because we're seeing uh more of our 60 plus population. Um I did add more to professional development. We do have a new line item that Ellie helped us
develop for events and supplies just to um pull out from that generic other supplies that was in our budget before and travel has slightly decreased. Um thank you for your time this evening. Thank you, Sharon. It is a very exciting
place to be. This the senior center. This is James McCrae, as you know, our veteran service officer for Actton Boxboro. Thank you. >> Thank you, Penny. So, yes, again, I'm James McCrae. I'm the veteran service officer for Actton and Boxboro. I've been with the town of Actton for 14
years now. Um, my whole job revolves around assisting veterans, surviving spouses and family members with state and federal veterans benefits. A large portion of what I do is assist veterans with service connected disability claims. Uh, portion of my budget is on
page 142. And I've assisted over 40 disability claims this past year. Relatively busy uh pretty busy year for disability claims. The vast majority of those claims I assisted with um all but two or
three resulted in a award of VA disability of 10% or higher. Um these amounts from 10% values at $180 and change taxfree every month and all the way up to 100% which can be over 4,000 per month um for veterans who meet
certain criteria for claimed conditions. I would be comfortable in saying that half of the claims I assisted with were from Vietnam veterans and presumptive conditions from exposure to Agent Orange. So, a number of cancers and other ailments the VA recognizes as
presumed from the exposure to the herbicide in there and those those conditions and cancers can crop up at any point in your life. And it is presumed and and um so glad that we're in this position to be able to help out in that regard. Um, and on page 143 in
my budget, you'll see uh my primary duty, it's under other veterans benefits. And uh, Penny hit on this before. Uh, but it's a primary duty of a veteran service officer. Massachusetts is the only state in the country that by state law there must be a veteran
service officer for every single town. And the reason for that is to provide veterans and surviving spouses with the state veterans benefit called chapter 115 assistance. And that's what that budget is for. What we pay out to these individuals on a monthly basis, 75% of
that is reimbursed by the state. It's a means of financial need assistance on the immediate local level. And it's great that we're able to distribute that. Part of that assistance includes medical uh reimbursements as well. cost of Medicare B, Medicare D, supplemental
coverage, prescription co-pays, hospital co-pays, and things of that nature. So, individuals that meet the financial criteria to be able to get that money back in their pockets is is a great thing. I also assist with um Memorial Day parades and ceremonies,
Veterans Day parades, um not parades but ceremonies and other small various ceremonies uh throughout the year, flag retirement ceremonies, coordinating with the local scout troops and things of that nature. So that's all I got.
>> Thank you. Thank you everybody. Um we're here for questions. questions from the select board. David, >> thank you for all your presentations. Uh it's it's really good to hear about all the services that uh you guys provide. Um
am I correct that we just have all the on-site inspections are done by just two employees. Is that right? >> Um so we have a again a mix of a regional inspector for two days a week. We have two inspectors in house, Matt and Weey. And then we now have a perdm
inspector which will be over the weekends. So he'll do about 8 to 10 hours per week. >> Okay. So um uh three of our employees do on-site inspections. >> Two of our employees and then two and a
two and a two and a two plus a per three people that we pay. Um yes. Thank you. And I like the idea of having a well seasoned food inspector. Yeah, me too. >> I app you you you said that actually. >> It makes me, >> you know, I'm not that good with puns
and I just got it. Thank you. >> And and just one question for for James. Have you seen any problems in VA benefits or coordinating with the VA in the past year? >> Any problems in terms of
>> people receiving their benefits or you being be people being able to put in new applications? I'm just wondering if things are running smoothly there. >> Sure. So, um I don't know if you may be alluding to maybe some articles from the Washington Post that have come out or
other issues with I'm just trying to gauge. >> I'm I'm just wondering whether from your point of view things are operating normally or whether you're having or there you know the veterans in town are having problems. The problem with the VA and especially with disability claims is that
I always tell people when I joined back in 04 is the buildup to the Iraq and Afghanistan war. And you're inundated with commercials uh the Navy, the Army, be all you could be join. And when I got out 5 years later, I've not seen one commercial about the from the VA or
other about veterans benefits and what's what's available to you. And unfortunately, all too often, I'll meet with a veteran for the first time, let's say a Vietnam veteran, and they just don't know what the presumptive conditions are, and I'll run down the list with them, and they might have two, three, four of those conditions. I say,
"Okay, we need to put in a claim." Um, so the dissemination of information, I do what I can to get the word out. Um, it used to be tougher, uh, in past decades to get an adequate rating or not
be denied for certain claims that you put in. It's come a long way in that regard, I'd say. Um, I don't know. We just do what we can to get the word out as best we can, but there are definitely some um some issues with with disseminating that information.
>> Great. I I'm really proud that you provide that service to our residents. Thank you. >> Other questions from the select board, >> Alyssa? Those were amazing presentations and you answered all of my questions.
Um, but I guess I would like to just um say thank you for the work that you do because I see so many increases, you know, increasing numbers of riders on transportation, increasing number of um elder older adults. What are we calling
them now? >> Older adults. >> Older adults. Yeah. We're not calling them seniors anymore. um older adults that are coming in for programs. Um you're increasing the diversity. Yeah. So, I think all of my questions
were answered. Um I I might have a suggestion. The note about needing a clinical case manager, is that something that is ripe for a regional collaboration similar to
some of our, you know, I don't know if the Northwest Public Health Coalition could could come into play, but m maybe some other coalition regionally to share. >> Yeah, I I would definitely be interested in looking at that. I think we're also
talking about is there a way to do a mixed insurancebased that's difficult. So I am looking at like how you could do that if it's possible. Um but part of the issue with that is is
whether the other towns are ready for the t same type of service delivery that we are. We have a because of this welloiled machine because of the work that they do. we're at a far advanced space in terms of case management for a lot of communities. So I I think that
it's I'm going to put my feelers out for sure, but I I definitely there's also an issue in the entire field of public health and understanding how hoarding and housing cases operate and what is truly needed at that at that call and that's another issue and I'm advocating
at a state level for that because it's a problem. But yes, I want to do that. Thank you. So, uh, thank you very much. Uh, you know, I'm frankly impressed constantly by the growth of the services that you
folks provide. Um, I've seen the town the town's needs have grown. I've seen how um important it is to provide these services. Oh, some 10 or 12 years ago, Jim and I
shared an office for a while and uh just seeing how uh having somebody that's really focused on the project um can really encourage uh a lot of these veterans to come in and get the the
services they deserve. And it's really made a big difference going to a a full-time or 95% time person to do that and to focus on it. Um along the same lines, certainly looking at the nursing
service and the the great services they provide and moving on to the council on aging. Uh back around 2010 2012 there was a move to perhaps
build a new senior center and that didn't advance very far but part of it was a challenge that we got from the community at large and the finance committee that well you can't prove that you really need these services and are
you going to build this thing and nobody will show up. So moved into the the present facility there on uh 30 Sbury Road and I think Sharon and the rest of her team have shown that yes if you have the facility they will show up and every
time I go up there which is not terribly often but often enough um I see something new going on and I see new pe new members of the senior population showing up there. So I think I think what we've done is we've proven and
Sharon and her team have proven that yes there is a need and there is a population out there that really needs that call it the third space or whatever you want to call it but um it's been fantastic and uh I think that's one of the things
we have to look at moving forward. I know we're in the process of securing another 5-year lease extension, but I think we have to look beyond that. Um, unlike the uh the questions that were raised 10 or 12 years ago, like, well,
do you really think the senior population is going to increase? Well, I think the demographics have shown the senior population has increased and the need for services has increased. um you know that there's this huge demographic shift um not just in Actton
but you know worldwide towards having an elder population and a smaller uh student population. So I think we have to look uh proactively at what facilities are going to have to be provided in the next 5 to 10 years
>> and what staffing is going to be required. So, um, you know, I'm not known as much of a bleeding heart type person, but I think you guys have done a great job. So, thank you very much. Turn it over to the finance committee. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um, I'm just going to ask numeric questions. Apologize. Um, I think everybody's doing a great job. I echo a lot of what Dean says. Um first question is uh just uh uh just to
make sure I understand which area is doing this. What part if this is the right question, this is the right group does the um inspections on uh chemicals at businesses and how they're handling
them. >> Um so that's the health division. >> So that's you folks, right? That's yeah, it's the public health department and uh we have two accounts that work to do that. We have a hazardous materials account. So all of the permitting fees
go into that account. Um we use that for our personnel and for the hazardous waste day and then we also use a general budget. >> The inspection for that is there an out is there a third party doing those inspection? >> No, we do those inspections. >> So there was just people in town people here. Yep.
>> Who are the two people that do that? Uh right now it's Ar Lenny um Sodto Alamante who's our regional inspector and Matt Dao. Uh we is is training to do them. She will be doing them. She if she hasn't already started
the training she will be doing them independently soon. >> All right. Thank you. And uh my numeric question is going to seem um not material, but I'm asking it because uh it's uh for
uh probably for Heather. Um I think your budget's the only budget that has mileage reimbursement and I see cars parked behind the building. I just want to understand why we have mileage reimbursement. >> I can do that. So the nursing service,
right, all of our work is in the community. they're driving to homes. This is how we do our job. All of our inspectors use town cars. >> So, the nursing service doesn't have a town car and that's why you're seeing mileage. In addition to that, um, we have multiple staff that are doing that.
And I think to the contractors as well, so our contractors as well would be >> it's not material. It's just that >> No, not the contractor. Sorry. >> The entire town, there's only one department that has submits mileage reimbursement. I just wanted to understand why. >> All right. Back to it. >> Any question? Okay, Christie. Christie.
>> Um, I'm sorry. You all know after me doing this for a few years that I'm a little touchy about the fact that the revenue for the nursing service is now hidden. Um, I'd love to know how reimbursements match up with the visiting nurses, Medicare insurance reimbures matches up
with our re um expenses for that division. And have we seen a change um with more people switching over to Medicare Advantage? My understanding is that they reimburse at a lower rate. Yes, Medicare Advantage plans uh reimburse at a lower rate than straight Medicare does. Yeah.
>> Um when there was a shift about 2015 with the Medicare um advantage plans, our revenue stream lowered. Yeah. >> Because the majority of people switched from straight Medicare to Medicare Advantage. Um our revenue for this year was 195,000.
>> Okay. So, and that is to line up with the half a million. >> Correct. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. ask for kudos or like what? Anybody else? Uh, couple of questions. Under the health division, I don't see any new
FTEEs, but the salary has gone up $211,000. You may have mentioned that. I don't know if it's a readjustment of somebody from a different division. >> It's the re am I correct? It's the reorganization of Laura Rosie. >> And that so that was in what department? That was in what line item before?
>> Uh they were in the town manager's budget. >> Okay. Okay. Um since you're at the table and then I'll get to my question for uh uh James. Um sorry for such a strange question, Heather, but has a Lonear tick shown up
in Actton or Middle Sex County yet? And would you promise to tell me if it ever does? >> Yeah, I want to know, too. >> I honestly don't know the answer to that. Um, Susan Sam has been doing it since I ended uh doing the disease
surveillance. I have not seen anything and I don't believe we've had >> I heard there were cases in Maine and that scares me. >> I mean is it is literally creeping up Massachusetts. It's at central mass and it's going to go all the way north. It's very invasive. The mury's vineyard is
completely riddled. Their health departments are getting the pro I don't know it's called profanal whatever the spray is you put all over yourself and they're handing them out. handing them out to workers because it's that critical. >> Okay. Um, uh, veterans question, hopefully this is just a, uh, a clerical
question. On page 43 near the line near the bottom of the page, other charges and expenses, the veterans benefits, is that the line item that you said gets reimbursed by the federal government at 75%. >> It's one of the last ones roughly 70,000. >> Yeah, 70,000. >> Yeah, 75% of that budget is reimbured by
the state. >> Okay. So, it's the state budget, not the federal budget. Sorry, state. Okay. So, but that's not our cost at the end of the year. That's just uh the that's the what we pay out and then we wait to get reimbured 75% of it. >> I think the turnaround time might be somewhere around a year. Okay.
>> But uh yeah, that's that's what we have allocated to. Yeah. >> Okay. So, the actual the actual impact to the taxpayer is a quarter of the 78,000. >> Just want to get him on the mic. >> Thank you. >> You repeat that last part. So the actual
hit to the taxpayer is a quarter of the 78,000. Um could be delayed by a year or so. >> It's one way to look at it for sure. But we do get reimbured 75% Yeah. >> of that line item. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Appreciate it.
>> Um while you're there, James, um how many veterans or surviving spouses do we have in active? So I conduct a veteran census every two or three years that accompanies the annual town census >> that I know. Yes.
>> Okay. So you've seen it before previous years. And based on those responses, I've compiled an Excel spreadsheet and mailing list for both Actton and Boxboro. combine uh combined the feedback the responses I get from that combined with
talking with the clerk's office what they have on file the assessors as well compiled a mailing list that I um I'd say we have roughly 600 actton households on the mailing list and another 180 in Boxboro
that's not to say that I know that I heard Leo from the clerk's office talking to you guys last year and one thing that I didn't really think about until he said it was that only about the return rate for the census is only hovering around 80%.
>> So having said that obviously the veteran population is a sampling of the population at large but in general I would be it would be safe to say that they're even more reserved and try to keep to themselves the veteran population. So we may be
even seeing less of a response in that regard. Um, that's not to say that the people that we assist know other veterans in town and that word of mouth goes far when we get positive results. So,
>> okay. >> And one for Heather. Um, immunizations. Uh, you used to do a lot of flu shots. >> Yeah. >> What happened? >> So, we saw during COVID that there was a decrease in the amount of people that
were coming. Um, as in a flu in town, Actton got a very small amount of flu vaccine through the state and we purchased our ourselves and there were stipulations on that flu vaccine that we received from the state that it's only for underinsured and uninsured folks. If we didn't use it, we'd have to give it
>> go anymore. >> No, we do definitely have people that are uninsured and underinsured, but the population uh isn't as much as as you would imagine that are coming for vaccines, unfortunately. Mhm. >> Um, so because we were buying the vaccine and the numbers started falling
for people that were coming to the clinics because I think people got used to going to the pharmacy um during COVID for vaccines. That was a big thing, you know, uh or doctor's offices, but I think it's mainly the pharmacies. Uh we weren't seeing the numbers come and it just wasn't fiscally smart of us to keep
purchasing it and wasting it. Waste is is not a great thing in my mind. >> Okay. Thank you. Mhm. But we are very much looking into the fall of next year doing employee clinics, doing some clinics, working with with a pharmacy to to partner to do that because of the
loopholes at the state because of the front-end cost of purchasing flu and then maybe not delivering that flu because we didn't get enough applicants. So, we want to continue to get smart about that, but we we need to increase vaccinations. Our flu season is really not good this year and it's only going
to keep getting worse. So what happens if somebody comes that is under you know can't afford to get a flu vaccine what what what do you do with them now they come to you and say I want to get the vaccine I can't afford do you send them to like Actton pharmacy or CVS or
>> Yeah. So we would we would refer we would refer them off to someone in the community whether it be Actton Pharmacy or one of the otherarmacies um their doctor's office. There are free clinics in the area um that folks can go to. There used to be a mobile vaccine um
that used to I think it was the Ronald McDonald was it Ronald McDonald I believe um and that has ended quite a few years ago unfortunately but there is still are some uh clinics that do that also the urgent care centers do do vaccinations also
>> okay thanks I um >> my in-laws live with us for a short term active nurse nursing services came in to take care of my mother-in-law being in rehab and things and they were and James doing the flag ceremony last year. I think we probably do another one
this year with the scouts. It was a >> Oh, yeah. >> I mean, we had summer >> a lot of flags. >> That was so many. >> And if anybody ever want to see it, it's you probably heat this building for a good part of the winter with all the flags we burnt.
>> Um, one more uh plug for the nursing service. Um, since we probably have a if our television audience hasn't left us by now, um, if you happen to need a walker or a crutch temporarily,
um, I have found that you can get them at the nursing service and they'll just lend them to you. It's wonderful services. >> We even have very specialized like there's equipment there that it it's very very expensive and it's now free. standing walkers. I mean, it's amazing
equipment. I want to get on one of the scooters and go around the I'm not going to do it. >> Since apparently I really shouldn't ask you about KPIs, I'm going to ask you a difficult question. >> Okay, here we go. >> Not everything that you do is easy to
measure. >> No. And I'm reminded of the fact that um one of the things that Actton ranks well for is being one of the best places to live in Massachusetts.
So, how would your group of of departments try to measure the really hard thing to measure, which is how do you contribute to making this one of the great places to live?
>> It's a great question. I think we're contributing by serving again vulnerable populations, people who do not have the the affluence that many of us do in this community. Um, I think I would love for the the rest of the staff to also chime in on this because they're amazing. Um,
but I think that we're also again at the public health level, right? So, I I hope that this is the case is that for so long you've had a public health department that focused on environmental health. Public health is bigger than that. It is population health and these departments are providing that level of,
you know, top down looking at this at the biggest picture. So when I'm thinking about health and wellness, I'm thinking about the community operating as a whole. I'm a whole person. So the community needs to be filled a whole. I think my boss does a great job with all his employees making sure that we're all
working together to provide this really true community that's supporting each other. I mean just the like who was saying about like the groups and the meetings. I mean it's amazing what you see. I was just at Mount Calvary. Couple of residents I already know. We came we talked. It was a wonderful conversation
and they were telling me how they support each other and how they go here and they're going to do this. It's an active healthy community and that's why we're one of the best communities because people want to be in a healthy space, right? Wellbeing is fun. >> Answered my question.
>> Oh, okay. Oh, they could have talked to >> actually being a member of the senior community or what are we now called? >> Well, they're adults old people. We're the older community. I don't know. The badge I have here says
senior centers. Are we now the older center? But um yes, the activities there are phenomenal. Um one is sitting right next to you. The Java with John Sessions.
>> Oh yeah. >> The seniors get the inside scoop on what's going on in this town before a lot of other people do. A lot of people say, "How did you know that?" I said, "Well, I was at the senior center and I heard Java John there's there's a lot of
information and I think based on the attendance, yeah, we've had to be on a waiting list to get in. So, in answer to the question about flu clinics, uh my wife and I spent quality time at the Elder Americans
Center, I guess, this afternoon, um getting our flu shots. Um, it was not run by the nursing service, but it was something coordinated collaboratively with the nursing service and with the COA, uh, with a local pharmacy.
And it was quick, efficient, um, and I guess because folks are used to using going to CVS, there were not a lot of people there. There was no waiting line. So, um, now it's just another example of the kind of things that you don't think
of that you can get at the senior center, but there's another one. I'll defer to my colleague. >> Yeah, I lied. I do have a couple questions that didn't get answered. One is about the clinic today. Um, so we
didn't pay for that. That was Actton Pharmacy that came in. How many people were there? >> I think there was half a dozen. There wasn't a lot. Oh dear. >> It was a catch-up clinic and he did als uh he did co also for folks who were interested >> but he provided that. It wasn't a cost
to the town. No cost. >> Um so the other question I had I noticed that um for transportation the section for social and recreation is pretty large 41%.
Um, and I'm wondering I need to get on that new website that Jim um announced to us at our most recent select board meeting. I haven't done that yet. So, the information may be there. Are rides available
on the weekends, evenings? >> No, but wouldn't that be great? >> That would be great. >> Wouldn't that be great? And wouldn't that feed the transportation system if everybody got access to transportation? Because I'm thinking, you know, there's there's shuttle service to Dvali Fest,
which is on a weekend. Wouldn't it be great if there was shuttle service for Pridefest and October Fest and the Martin Luther King breakfast at Beth Elohim? And >> let's figure out how to do that. And we did put a small piloting project into
the most recent dispatch grant so that we could pilot a, you know, potential grocery run on a Saturday, you know, for 4 hours, something like that. But, um, I think it's necessary. >> That would be it would be nice. Um, and I guess I have a suggestion for
the name. Uh, we could call it the center at 30 Sudbury Road. >> I like that. I just copy Littleton's the center at 33 Shadic. >> Jim, >> um Alyssa, thanks for reminding me that
I had a transportation question. Um I love this FY2027 goal about the enhanced fixed route schedule. Uh because I know I saw that from the consultants report. um have more frequent stops, reduced weight times, you know, maybe extend extend the length
of it a bit. Um and is that is that currently consistent with the budget or is that going to need some other funding or what? >> No, actually the um the consultants report
that can all those runs would cost us no more money. >> Mhm. It's just increased efficiency. >> It's just the vendor working with the vendor to choose. >> I'm remembering that like getting rid of some of the stops that almost nobody ever uses. So you have you can you can
go faster. Okay. Got it. >> And it will be birectional. So it will be going up and down >> so people won't need to wait as long >> for pickups and stuff like that. So it's actually we really wanted to do that. We're working with the vendor to work out the bugs.
>> Yeah. I remember being very excited when you were outlining the report. I just didn't I'd forgotten that it wouldn't actually mean spending any more money, which is another wonderful thing. Thank you. >> Yeah, there was like we have two or three commuter rail stops right now or four.
This new route would be every every hour on the hour. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I just have a quick comment and Penny, it was something that you said. Um, I had been recently trying to help a woman in Stow try to get transportation and
there are no evening hours like if she wanted to be picked up after working hours. So, what would that entail? Cuz I know that Actton and Stow kind of have the same program. I think I think there's a two-parter, right? Like one, you got to get them to come to it,
right? So, so if we find the fund, like if we get a grant fund to to pilot it, to get it going, we we still need to be aggressively advocating, which is what our goal is right now. So, as we're working to increase that writership, the knowledge of the service, um I think
that we could then look to to do that. So when we applied for this regional um grant, I think that that's really a big goal, right? Is to get people across. If we can get West Conquered and Conquered residents to all of our grocery stores,
awesome, right? They want that. That's what Conquer told me last week. You know, if Maynard, they want us to go and hang out in their night space. I like that. That sounds pretty cool, too. So, there's a lot of interest around the region to increase night in weekend service as well. So that's on the table
for sure. We just It's going to take a chicken and egg thing. Like how do you get it going and get it sustainable? Hi. Hi. Um so I think I mentioned this last year and nobody remembers except for me that I wish they had services where my parents live like we have in
this town for seniors. And so I asked um I think I asked a similar question last night. I know like we're required to have this veteran services and I think that we're only one of like what two towns in the state that has a nursing service or something like that. >> Is the council on aging senior centers
thing adult senior or older adult living >> whatever um is that is that >> like I said they don't have it where my parents live in Ohio. Is that something that's common in like across Massachusetts like everybody does this? >> Yes. counts on aging and and and each committee.
>> Are there like a state requirement or just something nice that we >> every town in Massachusetts needs to go? >> Come on, random softwared >> I know we're really fortunate. So, every town in Massachusetts needs to have accounts on aging. What that looks like
is very different. We're really fortunate to have staffed with a senior center. some it just might be somebody working five hours a week out of town hall basement, but everybody has that resource in Massachusetts. >> Um I I think I want to like add on a
little bit to what Dean said to I guess you guys that as the senior population grows and the school enrollment declines, I hope there's a little more I I don't want to say give and take, a little more take from the schools as far as the piece of the pie that starts getting allocitated towards stuff other
than the schools in this town. So, thank you. >> Thanks. >> And we're four years away from Gen X coming in too soon. >> I think the finance committee is done with car questions. >> Oh, can I
>> I know. I'm sorry. I got one last taunt. >> Taunt. Um, as a Michigan Wolverine. >> Okay. >> I root for two teams. One are the Wolverines. The other one is anyone who
can beat the Ohio State University. So, thank you Indiana. >> I'm from Indiana. If you're c if you're It's cute. Anyway, he didn't know. >> I I just wanted to respond. Um Karen, I'm glad that you brought that up. I
will just say that I hear from seniors that Sorry, older adults. I don't even know why we're not calling them seniors. >> I don't know. I heard it at a nursing services advisory committee meeting. um that our center at 30 Sbury Road is the
best in the area and folks from other communities come for our programming and our meals and to hang out and play pool frequently. Um and there are programs that are restricted to Actton residents.
Um, but it's well attended by folks in the region and they come and say, "This one's so much better than the one in my town." So, it's already the best. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> Great work, team.
>> Nice job. Cookie break. Cookie break. All right, we're going to reconvene here and close out the night with uh our last presentation. Second to last presentation. Last presentation. Yeah.
Okay. So, for our uh final presentation from our budget workshops, we have the public works department. The Department of Public Works is led by its director, Corey York. Corey, take it away. >> Hi, good evening. Um, I'm just going to caveat the presentation. I am going to
cough and I'm not sick. Uh, I'm closely monitored with in-house medical professionals. So, uh, so just a heads up. Um, as John said, my name is Cory York. I'm the director for the public works. Um, I'm here tonight with Evan White, who's the
new town engineer. He just started in the fall. And Kyle Maria, who's our operation superintendent. Um in addition to them um others other on our management team we have Ryan Hunt who's our tree warden, Shaun Ali who's our cemetery superintendent and Karen Switzf
who's our business manager. Uh so the budget itself it starts on page 152. Um you'll see it goes to the org chart. Uh within the department it's comprised of the highway trees and grounds engineering and cemetery divisions. Uh
within highway you'll see the roads crew, the fleet maintenance and transfer station. Um the the FTEEs haven't changed from last year. It's still about 34 FTEEs roughly. Um and in addition to the work we do to maintain the public infrastructure around town. Uh we also
work closely with other departments um on various programs. We'll work with conservation on dealing with beaver dam management. Um we work closely with Ian Bergman um facilitating the community gardeners program. Uh we were in constant communication with recreation
doing upkeep of parks and um almost daily with police and fire dealing with emergency response and dealing with various traffic safety issues throughout town. Um so as you get into the our sort of our recent accomplishments within the
department um some of the things that just highlighting is we were able to um acquire some grants over the last year. So we acquired a grant a couple grants to improve do some work on central street. So focusing down in the south actton end which is one of the highest
priorities in our complete street prioritization plan. Uh we were able to get an AMR from the state to help offset some of the cost at 19 Maple Street. Um and we also got a a sizable uh grant to help with the sewer equalization tank at
the plant itself. Um we're in the final stages of completing the replacement of the fuel depot down at the DPW. So uh we have that up and running. We removed the old um system that was um beyond its service life and we're preparing to do
um sort of the landscaping and all that in the spring as soon as the weather permits. Um and we've been continuing to building our asset management plans for the various work that we do. Um probably one of the the newer ones that we've been working on is uh we had taken over
the responsibility of street lights in towns. So over the last year we've been building an inventory of what's out there. um the condition and in the next couple weeks I'll be meeting with Eversource talking with them about the inventory and the building and all that.
So um that's coming down the pipeline and we're constantly working on the stormwater plans, the road paving plans. So we're we're trying to develop those programs. Um before I took this role, everything was institutional. So we've been we've been working on that and trying to build programs and
interconnect those. Um we also just recently completed um the main and prospect intersections. So doing the the improvements out there after talking with the public and coming up with the um sort of the consensus on the design the option to do um and then the on the
cemetery side um they've been working with the commissioners trying to institute various projects. So we've we've been working on a design to do an expansion at the Woodlon um cemetery. They're they're getting a little low. So, we developed a a plan to do an
expansion in the back and as part of that, um the cemetery superintendent has been talking with vendors about a column burying them that. So, they're looking to phase that in with that project and then uh they've also been working on the Woodlon cemetery. So, we've been doing sort of the first phase of that work
where we're working on the accessibility to get in the building. So, we're that's it's pretty much done. We had a contractor that was working on it through the spring and summer. Um, one of the challenges he was trying to find was trying to find a a granite that
closely matched the chapel itself. Um, so he was able to find a quarry that that worked really well. U, he placed the order in July and we're we're expecting it in the next few weeks so that we can finish the sort of the the
aesthetics of it and do the final paving in this um this construction season. So, um, those are just some of the highlights of what we've been up to. Um, as you see some of the matrix in our in our narrative, it shows the you can see
the daily flows in the sewer. Um, it down a little bit from last year. U, the the plant operators themselves, they they live on studying the trends and the what's going on out there. So they can they can monitor situations uh where we
use that a lot as we're looking at trying to tighten it up so we're not getting sort of the inflow and infiltration that's around. So we we monitor during sort of wet storm events. Uh we go in with cameras trying to identify leaks and problems and trying
to fix that up so we can um get that out of the capacity issues. Uh you'll see the on the road paving side of it. You you see the the program is we're doing a little bit less than we have in prior years. Uh that's just the a lot of that is just due to the the pricing.
Everything's getting so expensive. So we're we're in the process of trying to find ways to um do a little bit more in the next few years to sort of make sure we're keeping the the condition of the roads in a in a a a good condition. Uh we've we've done a pavement management
study throughout town and the the overall condition of the road is is still good and we're just trying to make sure we keep that moving forward. Uh I think the last matrix you'll see is salt use. Um we do a lot of uh preventative work. So throughout before the season,
the crews do periodic calibration of the equipment to check what's coming out, make sure we're keeping it within the reason of what we intend to put down for salt. Um and then we've been go attending workshops and programs and talking to other communities just looking at other ideas and opportunities
to maybe modify the system a little bit to uh deal with winter maintenance um different ways and see what we can do to improve upon that. Um so what I'll do is I'll hand it over to Evan. He's going to go through the the operating budgets and kind of highlight
the changes that he sees there. >> Thanks Corey. Um, good evening, Actton Select Board and Finance Committee. Um, my name is Evan White. I'm the assistant DPW director and town engineer. Um, and I'm going to go through and highlight
the changes on the, uh, cemetery, highway, and engineering budgets. Um, on the cemetery side of things, uh, permanent positions, there was a $13,824 change um, for FY27.
Um and then clerical salaries and wages, uh there was an increase of $1,785. Um on highway permit positions, there was a $73,258 increase um which represents a 6% change on the overall budget. um clerical
salaries and wages um and professional salaries uh saw a 3,000 $288 increase and $18,127 increase respectively. And um these uh changes are reflective
of the new three-year union contract which goes into effect in FY27. Um two two uh areas I do want to highlight is the street light and traffic signal um line items under purchase of services. Um those are
transfers from the facilities budget and don't represent an increase for the overall budget. Um very quickly I just want to talk about the engineering department goals a little bit uh before I get into the engineering budget. Um you know we have a list of things that
we're looking to do. um just being here in the last 4 months taking learning the town and learning how things are done uh I came up with this list and um I'm looking to standardize inspection protocols uh for things like private u
sewer connections and um construction inspections um utilizing uh survey 123 and GIS software to create forms and you know track this information and keep it uh for future reference. Um, I'm also I
also want to do a conduct a uh comprehensive review of the town's GIS data, kind of figure out where our deficiencies are so we can better um comply with state and federal rules and regulations. Um, especially when it comes to things like storm water. Um, I
also want to look at expanding our GIS mapping capabilities. Um what I'm kind of used to is being able to make field changes um while we're out in the field. If we find structures or you know things like you know catch basins or sew man holes that weren't on the uh in our
mapping system we should have the um equipment to to add that in the field. Um I also wanted to look at streamlining um our annual storm water billing for uh commercial properties. Um, the way I
understand it works now is it's mostly a paper process. Um, so I wanted to try to take a crack at making that electronic and incorporating that into existing town software systems. Um, and then
lastly um wanted to uh work with um current staff um that have responsibilities with the uh town's MS4 permit. um work on training the staff um and also uh prepare for the um
implementation of the next MS4 permit which is currently in draft form uh with the EPA and DP D. Um, and jumping back into engineering, the the only changes was on the engineering side was to professional
salaries and u there was an increase of $15,194 and I think that's just uh due to the fact that I'm here now. So um and uh with that I will hand it back to Corey.
>> Yeah. In in addition to the operating budgets we have, we have a couple enterprise budgets that we also manage. Uh one is the transfer station and recycling facility. Uh the other one is the sewer budget. So on page 166 is where the transfer station budget is. Um
I had to admit defeat and print the budget logger so I could see it. Um I can read it for you. >> Yeah. So the transport station budget predominantly the changes you'll notice the two big changes is um position control was adjusted for the upcoming
year and then last year we had a a capital expenditure to replace the frontend loaders which we did so we we dropped that the capital outlay back down uh which we'll use the what we have there for projects that we know that are upcoming. Um on page 167 we have the
sewer budget uh that operates the the plant and that and you'll see similar the position control was adjusted and then as far as the contractual services as we were entering into the new contracts uh knowing that the the infrastructure was expanding a little
bit down Powder Mill and Main Street and um and knowing that we have adjustments come as we look at the material costs increasing as we to the annual adjustments and we look at um the indices out there. We anticipate um
somewhat of a an adjustment from last year. So, we we threw some money in there to kind of cover those instances as we get to talking with the with the contractual firm and and dealing with any issues that are coming up. Um and then I know that down below in the debt
service there was finance did some adjustments there based on what we're paying out. So, um, as far as budgets go, that's the all the budgets that we handle. So, we'll open it up to any questions. >> Okay, questions from the select board.
Alyssa, >> thank you for the presentation. Um, I'm happy to see that there is going to be a focus on um improving the process for billing and collecting the storm water
permit fees and also staff training. Um, I'm wondering if one possibility for the change from paper to electronic with billing. Um, obviously not every property. It's just
the commercial properties that are sent this bill, but similar to the sewer, I see that on my on my property tax bill. So, is it something This might be a question for the town manager for LA. Like, can we shift that from your department to treasure collector?
We did um prior to Evan starting um is when we took over the building of the for the storm water permit that was out there from the health uh we did start talking with finance about how to improve upon that. Um we just didn't have the the resources at the time to
follow through. So that's something as Evan's looking into that that we'll work closely with finance the best way to automate that and work with finance. Yeah. So um couple questions. One specifically about the transfer station
and uh here I must concede once again that my colleague Jim Snder Grant was right all along that pay as you throw really makes a lot of sense. Um I argued with him extensively 10 years ago and lo
and behold I was wrong. First time that's ever happened. Um, so I I guess my question is are there any particular challenges going on with the pay as you throw and the trash
transfer station? From what I observe, it seems like the transfer station is the second most popular spot for seniors to hang out other than the senior center itself. Um, but I'd like to see if
I know in past years there's been issues with uh, you know, how much disposal of the recyclables costs or you know, so what's what's the lay of the land as far as that goes? >> Yeah, probably the biggest challenge
here is just the recyclables. It's a market driven. So, we'll see. Um I know when we're implementing pays you throw uh scrap metal was probably one of our biggest revenue sources. Um and we rely on that quite a bit to help reduce the cost for the residents. Um when we
implemented pay as you throw um be be as we started the proposal we were probably making over $200 $220 a ton. We implemented the pay throw and the market dropped and we were getting 120 a ton. So, it was a big hit that we
were worried about how that was going to hurt the program. But, um, the markets come back. It fluctuates. We'll see it get close to 200, drops to 160. But, on the same token, we we've seen the the coingle and the mixed paper. Um, those
markets have been they were very volatile for a number of years. Um, at one point we were we were paying up over $100 a ton. Um it's it's steadied out somewhat now, so it hasn't been too bad. Um I don't know of the numbers off the
top of my head right now what we're paying at the moment, but um it's it's settled in where it was we were getting these drastic swings and it was expensive. So that's been the biggest challenge that we've had there. Um I'd say as the as the program itself uh we
had started reaching out to members and groups asking about the possibility of uh curbside collection and part of that is the the transformation itself I think stickers sold were in a little over 3,000 I think 3600 somewhere in that
range of stickers. So there's a big niche of the of the community that's still using private subscription services or and whatever other means. And I know from a sustainable standpoint, um, as we've seen the page to throw program work, there was a a
strong interest in trying to find ways that we could, um, extend that out across the whole community to try to get the same benefits we were seeing from the transfer station um to the other PE people that are using private. So, um,
we did some outreach. Uh, we got some positive feedback. Obviously, we got some concerns about um what that might entail. Um and there'll be more to come down the road. We're just sort of putting out failures right now. Just thinking about things like that. But um and then yeah, just the operation of the
plan itself just is as we have we have third party inspectors that monitor what we're doing out there. Um the D will show up and do surprise inspections. Um those have all gone pretty well. So, um, operationally, I think we it's been pretty smooth and we just,
not just me, but the crew themselves as they're dealing with it day in day out, they see issues that might be coming up that we can fix. So, they find a new mechanism of maybe where we can add a new service in. So, they're always looking at that and sharing ideas. So, we're always kind of monitoring and
looking for ways that we can um enhance what we're doing or or change things if if need be. So, Okay, thank you. Um, next question. And I raised this last night with the uh IT director, and I hope Carl, you didn't come specifically
to defend yourself tonight. Um, specifically about the uh two-way radio system for all the public works vehicles. Um, like to see if you folks are seeing any particular challenges with that system. Um, I'm looking
forward to, you know, if this is a a real need. Um, it's something that I think the select board should probably talk about in goals um when we meet in June. So, any any thoughts you have on that about how effective the system is
and how resilient the system is in case of challenges during extreme disasters? >> Yeah, as you know, we've been looking into this for quite a while. Um, prior to Kyle, we were working with the IT um, prior IT person, Matt. Um, and there's a
whole lot more about it that I don't understand, but they were working through that. Um, in the short term, we've been we've been working with the police and we've been borrowing portable radios from them. um especially during um these storm events whether it's fallen trees and that the close
collaboration between the guys on the ground Carl Jason who's our assistant um operation superintendent and the police and fire just having that ability to have communication that's seamless across all of them so they can be reporting whether they um whether they
see a tree down a road closure wires and we can we can relay that information to the emergency personnel So they can call and ever source keep it updated and we can just track what and who's going around. So um we've talked with Carl about it. I know he's working through a
technology plan. Um and I think we're part of it one of the next phases. It's just a matter of yeah the the integration of that and the technology. So we're still chipping away at it. But I think having that and having the the technology that makes it seamless to
work with police, fire, and um even some of these larger events that we've had that we've had um I think it was those October storms that we had wires and trees down all over. We had um I know Tom manager's office, we had different people at the EOC um and trying to communicate what they were dealing with,
what we were seeing on the street and just making sure everybody was getting the most up to date. We found it very um very useful but very critical that we have that kind of technology and redundancy that beyond just cell phones or or what have you that we have radios
that we can rely on multiple different ways to keep that information flowing is important to us. And finally, um, I got a request from folks at Actton TV that wanted to be able to interview me at some time in the
future to talk about disaster response. I'd made some remarks after the micro burst um, about what it's like to, you know, recover from one of those events. Uh, so I'd like to specifically see if there's anything
that you folks have noticed or that you think would help better in those extreme emergencies. Um, yet what I've observed is that 15 or 20 years ago, the the coordination between the tree department and the highway department was not nearly as
seamless as it is now. So that seems to be a great improvement and I certainly congratulate Carl on that. Um, but is there any other uh facets of that coordination and
disaster response you think could use some improvement or some additional resources? >> Yeah, I mean Carl might have other comments about that. I know with the micro burst the one big benefit we had was because it was so localized to this
area um we had a huge response from Eversource that helped um put that system back in place where a normal storm that's coming up the coast people are stretched thin um the Eversource public utilities us um and like you said
with the reorganization of the DPW and bringing the different departments under like trees and grounds um they're working closely with Carl and Jason KD on a daily basis. So when it comes to um a storm, I mean for the crews, they
they're dealing with multiple these snow events and going out salting and deicing. So they're the the type of response they're dealing with it almost daily. And so when a large storm events come, they've kind of basically exercised themselves where they're very
familiar now and where they work so closely now with the trees and grounds. It's just a ramping up and a little bit more chaotic, but the the structure of the system itself, the way it's we're forming it, we're still changing and making improvements, but I think this
has really helped to improve how we respond and work together on something like that. So, I don't know if Kyle has any. >> Yeah. No, like Cory said, the little storms help with the big storms. Um, the communication with the police department has always been great. Um, as far as wires down, they let us know where they
are, when they whenever will be in contact with us. Um, I'm in contact with tree warden on a daily basis. Um, yeah. So, the communication is between police, fire, and and highway
is as seamless as it can be without the communication of radios that we don't have at this point. Um, but yeah, like Corey said, it's the little storms prep us for the big storms, and it's just a just like old hat to us.
>> And even with the public utilities, I mean, throughout the year, um, Eversource, there's a community rep. So we we generally attend their regional they have u regional meetings that they'll talk about their response times but we try to coordinate with them just
talk about act and specific stuff and just getting um familiar with who's the rep in this area getting familiar with who's doing the failed work um so that when these events come we have a good relationship with the different utilities that we can reach out to. Um,
so that's been beneficial, but like every big um entity that people shift around and move. So it's it's kind of a a hit or miss target of if they're still there when when the storm comes. But um they've been improving their operations where when these storms are starting to
hit, they start ramping up sending out um sort of warnings and what they're doing to sort of ramp up their operations and the possibility of next steps. So, um, there's there's been a lot of improvements, but there's always more that we can do to help make it
better. >> Thank you. Any other comments from the select board? Fran >> to add to how um beautiful the Woodlon Cemetery looks with the new accessibility. I mean, it's not finished
yet, but what I can see it looks really lovely and I thought it would detract from the the building, but it enhances it somehow, which is really bizarre. So, thank you. Yeah, that was a we had when we started that project, we brought on a landscape
architect, but it was a very collaborative with the cemetery commissioners with the historic value of that building and I know one of their core objectives was um getting that accessible entrance in, but making it look like it was part of the building from the beginning. So, u yeah, so that
was a that was a real big objective that we were trying to hit and uh we had a few different scenarios, but this one I think worked out really well. Anything else? Okay. Finance.
Uh so my uh my main question is uh really based on the fact the last three years I bought one bucket one bucket of rock salt and this year I'm buying my third tomorrow. Um where in the budget is the uh salt
for the streets? What GL account? What line item is it? I want to make sure there's enough money to cover this year. Uh there's a under the snow and ice there's a materials >> line p give me a page in a GL account >> I want to confirm and verify we have
funds >> 161 uh the third grouping of budgets >> is it 540900 >> okay so what else is in there because it you have 360 is expense
25 and you budget 2013 2000 213 13,000 a decrease of 150,000 year over uh from actual to budget. I just want to make there could be equipment in there. I understand. I just want to make sure that that number is
not we didn't spend $360,000 in rock salt and then we budgeted 213,000 when it's I'm sure there's more stuff in there, but what what's in there? >> Yeah, we I mean we buy the the rock salt, we buy the we have that the magnesium chloride, the deicing agent we
make. what's in that GL account besides rock salt? There has to be something else in there. >> Yeah, I can get back to with other things that we buy from it, but um I mean the the amount that we spend out of the snow and ice budget is strictly dependent on the number of storms. So >> even this year we we haven't seen a lot
of snow, but the guys are out multiple times in a day and night dealing with icy conditions. So they're um >> That's my point. >> Yeah. So, it's a it's a hit or miss target with that budget where um there's some years that we've done turnbacks, there's some years that we've overspent
it. >> Could you just get back to me on uh how much >> of that 360 361 and 25 was actual rock salt? >> Yeah, I can run a report. >> And what is your budget for rock salt and 27? >> Yeah,
>> guess Mr. Chair, to ease your mind, that's the one line item uh in the budget that the town manager can overspend. It just has to be made up the next year. All right. Just >> Yeah, we've done they're doing a great job with the roads. Um my wife walks
every day and um she the only place she's slipped in town is actually by the building you're just describing by the cemetery um because the trucks can't get there apparently. So that is my primary question. Um I'll go to the rest of the
team here. Uh Roland, >> uh couple things. So we throw all the aluminum and the plastics all in that one thing. If you segmented out the aluminum and the metal cans,
could you actually make money on that? In other words, instead of paying to take it away as you make money on the steel, could you make money on that? >> It is u there is the pure you can make a material if you can get it down to one
pure thing. you can search for markets and maybe make money on some. Um >> I know like the I want to say like uh glass the last time I was looking into it there's really no market and it's actually a it's one of the heavier
materials in the recycling. So if you can pull it out it draws it makes a big difference. Um there's not a lot of opportunities for it short of um if we got into buying some equipment that we could crush it and make it into sand or something. Um, and we've looked into
that, but it's it is a an expensive cost for the equipment and not just the up and and then running it, keeping it running. So, um, we do look for opportunities to do that. Um, but yeah, I mean, one thing you could do if there's something we could pull out of it. Sometimes when you look at mixed
paper, um, sometimes they talk about the the white paper can be have a value to it. And sometimes cardboard is a very flexible market but I know during COVID all a sudden fiber became um became a driver in the market. So and that's
about when we saw the our costs shift quite a bit because all a sudden people were looking for fiverr. So um we're always looking for opportunities and then how does that work in the operations and if it drives up the cost because we we need more equipment or need more staff to monitor it and go
through it. So, um it's a it's a balance, but we we look at those kind of things. >> I'd love to see you guys open at least limited hours on Sunday, >> but I don't know if that's a possibility in the future. What is going on with that house thing? The uh trailer that you
purchased is sitting there empty that hasn't been hasn't replaced the older one that's there. >> Yeah. Yeah. We're in the process. We're um working with the DP to get a permit. We we put it in place and then we were working with it in that to deal with relocating the the communications and
electric. Um so we have an application with the state right now to get a permit to do the excavation to run the wires. Um they've they've completed their administration review um and that's been approved. They're going through the technical review right now. I think they
said they're going to have some um some some comments back. We just have to address. So, we're hoping to get that resolved this winter and then we'll be working on that this this season. >> That'd be great. The um one other thing is that I was down there two weeks ago. I sent John a picture of
all the compost overflowing and I'd really love to see a town go to an earth earth ve earthflow vessel. They're around 100,000 a little bit more. My company uses it and they partnered with the Smithfield schools. My office in Rhode Island. They
throw theirs in there and then they take all the the pure dirt that comes out the compost and they spread it on the town fields and things like the we have a baseball field and around our campus and stuff like that. It does a fantastic job is loaded with nutrients and really helps and I'd love to see the town do
that instead of having a vendor come that you know that has a hiccup every once in a while and it's overflowing. But I will say that this vendor seems to be a lot better than the previous vendor that I I try to put as much as I can
compost without throwing the landfill and I do see it's a lot better than what was there previously. So I commend the uh the staff on that. So every time I've been at the dump a couple times I've had a senior stop me and ask me questions. I saw you on TV, you know, kind of wonder
what was going on, but um it's good to see. And we did use it for the scouts with our tree collection again this year. And uh maybe we can get a couple goats next year to crow them up then they can eat all the trees. >> Thank you.
>> Um couple of quick sewer questions, Corey. Um let's see. your average uh daily usage is I guess a little less than half of your permitted uh use, but what what's the highest days you've had? >> Uh we have we have a trend that we watch
as far as our max peritted at the plant is about 299,000 gallons. Um in the spring, I think with the inflow and that we've we've had a few instances over the years that have hit and slightly exceeded that. um as a as a an actual
daily. Um so we're closely monitoring that as we as we hit these things. That's one of the reasons why we've been kind of aggressively going after our sort of our INI plan of >> trying to find those issues. Um and we have a series of things that we can fix
just in the public infrastructure whether it's um manhole covers that we're going to try to resale. Um, we've been doing some camera investigations trying to identify if there's any private laterals that we're noticing what looks like to be groundwater and talking with um commercial private
residents trying to have them look into it. So, uh, we've been aggressively going after that, trying to shave that off so it we're not we'll hopefully see less of those seasonal trends that we're getting those spikes. >> How much will a power mill um add to the
usage? Um, I can get you that number. Um, there's about 230 260 units. Um, I forget what they were projecting for flow. >> It's going to be up to 20% increase in
the flow. It's a pretty big um >> count bedrooms. It's 110 gallons per day per bedroom. Yeah, it's one of those that when you go by the D and the title five or the 110, but we we notice especially with our own is when the actual flow is a lot less
when you have to pay for that. So yeah, >> it's it's a number came up number. >> Yeah, you need to start somewhere. So yeah. >> Um just anybody know your current O andM rate off the top of your head? >> One second. Okay.
How much they charge? I'm sorry. I'm into sewers. It's a hobby of mine. It's okay. All you can just send me an email. might need one more minute. >> Like I said, I don't
>> I'll ask a quick question. Is there any plan to repay some of the Woodlon cemetery? because on the older part the roads are all and I imagine they're running the plows down there in the winter which is probably beating the heck out of the the vehicles
when they go over those. So I was wondering if that was not and also a column barium yeah >> being put in place I think. Is that what you said on the expansion? >> Yeah, on the back. Yeah, there is um unfortunately that back road that's really bad with the tree roots. Um we don't plow that in the winter. So, um,
but a number of the roads throughout there, especially in the historic areas, are are in pretty bad shape. Um, and we've been talking with the commissioners over the years, so they've pledged some money in the and we have some money um to do some improvements there. So, doing repaving and that uh we
we did a a one project in the back where we did it, but some of the problems with those roads is because they're in such bad shape, we have to do a full reclamation, which is a lot more expensive. Um so we're trying to find ways to um work around that. Um we
dealing with the the the the water systems that's there that's not very deep. And then in addition with all the trees are in there, we we're I wouldn't say we're hesitant to do full recation, but we're looking at other opportunities that we can improve some of those roads
but not be um grinding through the root structures and damaging the trees more. So it is something that we're working on and we did implement one section and we're just we're working on um doing that in a future year of doing another section. So we're we're doing short
sections but we're trying to build into a program where it'll become more routine on an annual basis that we'll keep chipping away at it and try to get get caught up. >> And then I do have those sewer rates for you Steve. So the residential rate is.1721
per cubic feet. Um, and then the commercial and school rate is.2428 per cubic foot. >> Thank you. >> You good, Steve? >> Yep. >> Take your mic off. Jason, >> with your permission, I'd like to go
last and give everyone else a chance to go. >> Me. Well, thank you. Um, please remind me why it's okay that you got 100 grand out of the 700 you asked for for storm water in this year's budget.
>> Um, yeah, we have, as you know, we got a a decent amount last year. Um, and we're working towards that. Some of the issues that we were experiencing is timing of design and construction. Um, so I think the decision partly was um with the
projects that we were delayed pushing, we're going to be pushing with that money we had last year. And then we're I know um RACK is also looking into long-term um possible more sustainable options. So we wanted to kind of see how
that vetted out next steps. So, >> so does that mean that you'll need more staff or would it be hired out if you when you get more funding to tackle this problem? >> No, I think um just like any utility um it needs it obviously needs funding for
upkeep and and that um I'm not at this point I'm not seeing that we would need more staff. I think like right now you're getting into specialty of bridge designs or some of the specialties of some of these larger culverts. Um we're working with various um consultants that
do that on a daily basis that have the experience. They know the the permitting protocols and they know the triggers through the state. So it it it's been very beneficial working with the various groups and um in-housewise Evan and that we can handle some of the smaller
projects and that but I think right now we're not seeking a a staffing increase at all. >> I'm in part thinking about the proposed DPW building. We're not looking at needing more staff for when this gets more funding in the future. >> No, not at this point.
>> Okay. Thank you. >> Can you do your KPIs? I'm going to pass on the KPI question partly because I should disclose I'm one of the adviserss to the ACT TV interviews on the micro burst which
happened September 8th, 2023. And um stay tuned for ACTV making an announcement actually fairly soon on the content of that. It's um it's a series of
interviews and um I'll let the story hang there. >> Any other finance committee besides Jason that want to speak up? All right, Jason, it is you. >> Thank you very much. Um I'm going to
piggyback off of uh Christiey's conversation on the culverts. Um, my understanding is that more sustainable program from RACK is a euphemism for going down a feebased funding source. Is that an accurate assess assessment of of
what's going on here? >> Uh, that's one of the models that they looked at. Yes. >> Okay. As a committee, as a finance committee, we had a we dedicated one of our segments in the last couple of months just to that topic and we came back, I believe, unanimously.
if not unanimous, then very close, that something as basic as storm water and culverts is a townwide responsibility and should not be done outside the confines of Prop 2 and a half and tried to go down a fee route is a way of
circumventing Prop 2 and a half. Um, so I actually took it as rather alarming that we went from $700,000 in capital planning for culverts and storm water down to 100,000. seemed like a way of manufacturing a problem so that you could have an issue for it in the
future. >> So I would >> I can address that question. >> Okay. >> Um Corey asked for $700,000. I I cut it because we tried to deliver a budget that met the target of 3.25%. So uh if you asked him 10 times, he would say he
wants that $700,000 10 times. Uh but as a town manager, it's my job to deliver a budget that balances needs of departments like Cory's and all the other departments that we heard from today and find a way to still contribute to the storm water program at a pace
that is better than nothing but at the same time take a step back from the borrowing that we've been doing over the last two years because I I think it's it was getting to be too much. So it wasn't a programmatic or a policydriven decision. It was a
financial decision. Okay. So to that end, please make sure uh that you understand that we do not consider going a down a fee a fee route for something that is um a responsibility of the entire town. So that should be within Prop 2 and a half and uh I would point
to your certified free cash being at 5.4% when our ceiling is 5%. So you have and it is the select board's comment that the uh reserve use should be used for uh capital projects. This is a prime
example of something that should be fed so that you do not manufacture a problem in the future. >> Yes, I think I appreciate that input. I think before I arrived here in Actton, the town meeting members and maybe some of you were there adopted a local bylaw
that created a storm water fee. This was not I this is not something that we're bringing forward now. It happened about a decade ago. So the this concern that you're raising has already been discussed and and a decision was already made by the town.
Okay. uh ne. So that does set up a well I find that to be answered to be a little on the glib side just because something was set up and hasn't been used heavily in the past and now we're told that there now we were told in this last year by
rack that we have a an urgent crisis. Um I would I would hesitate to try and heavily lean on that fee. >> It's been used every year to do I mean the mandated reporting that we have to do and that we've had to do since that time. A lot of that reporting and
surveying and testing outfalls to see if they're dry during dry weather, that's all been done with that that fee that was created. So, it has been used. Um, it's not it's not a new idea. Um, the board still hasn't made a decision on how to move forward with that rack
study. Uh, so I think we should wait till that happens before we decide that we don't want to talk about it anymore. >> Well, I'm sure we'll review it in the future then. >> Uh, next topic. I'm sorry, Jason. Can I jump in, >> please? >> Um, that fee is only applied to
commercial properties. You You make it sound as if this is a fee that everyone >> pays already. Um, and as residents, we do not pay it. So, this would be adding an additional fee to the vast majority of taxpayers.
>> Well, no, I did I didn't say that. I I said that the town has already decided that a fee was appropriate for storm water. uh who it was applied to was decided at the time to be commercial properties only. Um that wasn't something that we discussed. >> But you said it was something already discussed at town meeting implying again
that this application was discussed. This was not a fee discussed as being a residential fee. >> That proposal isn't before us tonight. Um >> okay. So I I understand your concerns with it, but we're not we're not proposing that. I am you have said this enough times in
enough meetings that I've listened to that I in spite of the time and the early hour I have to work tomorrow feel like we need to rec set the record straight in a more of a public forum that this was not the blanket fee that um you're implying for
>> Thank you. Um I'll move on to my next topic. Um and I hope this is please let me know if this is not the right venue for it. I'd like to get an update on Kelly's Corner. And um also my understanding is that if I and again my my memory could be faulty, but I thought there was going to be some changes to the directionality of Carol Spinny Way.
I also thought that was going to be another light. And I also thought there was going to be a series of um pedestrian street lighting even though we recommended against it. So my question is first of all, do we consider we also were told that this project
would be complete by the start of the school year. So that was 3 months ago. My question is, do you consider my questions are as follows. Do you consider Kelly's Corners finished? Do you consider uh what what happened to those pedestrian lightings? And is the current traffic pattern the final traffic pattern that's being expected to
be done? >> Thank you. I can I can address that question. I think uh Kelly's Corner project is not finished. Um as I think I've announced a few different times over the last few months, it's been delayed. Um the work on sidewalks was not completed before snow set in. So,
that's going to have to pick up again when the weather cooperates. The traffic islands that are going to be installed at each approach to the main intersection have not been constructed yet. The finished paving has not been installed yet. The pedestrian level lights that Town Meeting approved a few
years ago. Uh they're actually wiring those right now. Um you may see them out there um periodically. They're installing them. Uh they can do that kind of work in the winter. So, you'll see those come up this winter. Um but once that hardcape work is completed uh
once construction season starts again then they'll start all the planting. They're going to be planting and something trees thousands of other vegetation type things throughout the quarter and this will finish it by the end of the school year. uh if you want
to work with the school calendar. Um and I think the traffic pattern that's out there today is um the lights are the lights that will be there. There is no light that was ever well there was a light proposed at the top of Carol Spinny Way, but ultimately it was not
approved as the final design. Uh there will be a left turn lane which isn't there now in the temp. They they kind of they didn't do a very comprehensive job of temporary paint markings. they did ve very little uh which we've asked for
more and it's been you know it's a state job and we try to get them to do as much as we can um and it's been challenging but um that will look different um the light the light timing is going Cory keeps a close eye on that and we give feedback
to the state and they check on things to see if they're timed properly uh but once the thing once it's fully built out with the street islands and the the proper lane markings it'll be easier easier to navigate than it is now if if you're having trouble. I think the first week that the pavement was down and the
lights were on, I think there was a lot of concerns uh over the last few weeks and I think people are getting starting to get more used to it. Um people still need to learn to take a left on Carol Spinning Way because when you get to the main intersection, you're not supposed to turn left. Um that'll be better
marked in the final when the thing is done. But so I think we answered your three questions. It's not done. The street lights are being installed right now and there is no light at the top of Carol Spin. Anyway, >> thank you. That that's a very complete answer. I appreciate it. Uh just a last
thing on Kelly's Corner. I know it is predominantly a state project, but it did have uh a local um local funding uh component. Are we on budget, under budget, you know, too early to tell? Is that is it going to be is there any risk? Is there any fiscal risk to that
project because it's now continuing to drag on? No, the the the town's contributions to this project were uh the design uh a lot of the design work and then the non-participating costs associated with the street lights which you've already mentioned and maybe other
minor things that they call nonparticipatory. The contract has already been signed. We have the money that's needed for it. Any cost overruns the state will have to take care of. Um it's a state project, so we're they wouldn't be coming to us for more money. Uh we're gonna have to
maintain it. Uh which is going to be a challenge. Carl Carl has been uh trying to work with the state on some of the locations of where things are installed for maintenance reasons. That that'll be challenging, but it's it's going to transform the community. It hasn't yet,
although it's starting to. And I and I think it's going to be once it's done. It feels done now, but it's not. Once it's actually done, people are going to love it. You're you're going to love it. It's going to be great. very glad to hear that we're that our exposure is limited. Uh last topic I want to bring up and I'm sure this is no surprise to
anyone in this room. I'd like to bring up the topic of the DPW building. Um I unfortunately was not able to attend the joint uh select board and finance committee meeting on the DPW building. Um but we did bring up a couple of topics of other other configurations or
of other options to go down. Um we received notice I believe the very following morning that those options were not viable. Um, I continue to maintain that a $23 million building project where the project itself is closer to 29 million when you include
all of the other uh rollups as described by the DBW building committee. Uh, this is still outside of the scope that I can possibly get behind. Um, part of the reason why it is beyond the scope of what I can get behind is as was
discussed with the finance committee, we wanted the smallest scope possible to meet the needs. The needs that we firmly believe need to be met revolve around uh the employee uh employee
facilities in the form of showers, whatnot, livability. So that's why we had said from the beginning we liked the plan from now 13 years ago about a small office building leaving the rest of the facilities to it. This current plan
still has mechanical base. We just heard from the fire chief tonight that a perfectly viable path for maintenance for vehicles is through a private contract. Um we've been told that that's not feasible. I'd love to know what the analysis is that went into
that for it to be not feasible. We already have mechanical base. We can reuse them. We should be pursuing truly the smallest possible footprint because the building of a new building at prevailing wages and with all of the
green uh green mandates is has become prohibitive. Sucks that we're here. But another thing that was praised tonight is the ability that to repurpose the uh Council on Aging building, a pre-existing building
that was otherwise empty and is now we've been told how how great it is for the facilities. Proof that you can transform an existing building into something worthwhile. So again, please don't just have three meetings, which is what we had this year for the DPW
building, and come back with a largely predominantly same building that does not go to smallest cost, does not go to smallest footprint, and still runs tens of millions more than needs to be
done for the the need that the finance committee has identified. So, I would ask you to pull the $900,000 for another for another feasibility study and actually go through the work similar to what's been done on other major projects
uh in in the schools in the town. Don't just have three meetings and say, "Well, this is the best we've done. We've come back to it." I would remind you that even Arrow Street this year said, "You still have 10 to 15 years usable life on that building." Don't squander it. that that didn't seem like a question.
>> Would you please pull the $900,000 request for the for for design work for the for the DPW building until you actually go through the work of coming to possible >> the budget that we developed including the capital program. The budget and the capital program we developed was based
on the needs of the community as identified through the chief policy makers and elected officials of this community which are the select board. The select board's number one priority was to bring a DPW project and advance the design process which is what we've done. Town meeting asked us to take a
look at the design and come up with a better idea and we did that. Uh the finance committee expressed a lot of concerns about tearing down a building and this new design reuses that building. So in terms of withdrawing
proposals, that's not what we're here for tonight. We've presented this budget is what we're recommending. The select board could direct us to change it and we take that direction. until that time. This is what we're proposing and we believe it meets the needs of the
community as identified through our elected officials. So, if I may weigh in, I'll just reiterate, you know, we're kind of here to talk about the operating budget. Um certainly
if you if you want to discuss DPW project um you know you even admitted yourself that you were not here at one of the most recent more open discussions that uh finance
committee had asked for repeatedly. Um, I think the uh the building committee, the select board and the second designer have done a really great job in trying to address some of these issues.
Um, I think it's obvious to me that there is no size building that you will agree to. And I think I frankly get a little frustrated with dealing with this because we've cut the building back
tremendously. We're reusing an existing building. We're addressing these issues about employee safety and employee workspaces. Um, you know, I think we will we will be approaching town
meeting at some in the spring to look for design money to build out the design that Arrow Street has come up with. There's still design work being done on that. I know we've got a meeting coming up on Zoom tomorrow to talk about some
of the issues with reusing the existing building. So, it's still work moving forward. Um, this particular building has been on the short-term goals list for the select
board for a number of years. And frankly, when when we voted the to approve um option 4B, alternate 4B, we had a 4 to1 vote
in favor of pursuing 4B. And the one vote on the select board against that was that that individual was afraid that that 4B did not address all of our issues. and I respect that and I agree with
that. But we're attempting to come up with something that is financially responsible and that provides for the long-term needs of the town. So, um, as the as the person that puts the
agenda together for the upcoming select board meetings in collaboration with my co-chair, I don't foresee us stepping back from this project. No matter how much you don't like it personally, it's not a personal point. It is the
point of the entire committee. Uh, so I would recommend you do take that into account because you do still have to get full public support at a town meeting and at at the vote. And I do not see that enough has been done to get to
smallest minimum minimum path. And also I would say this is the budget meeting, but if you ignore capital, you're ignoring a very important part of budget. And so I think that's a red herring, but you knew that. Dude, so I just want to clarify since
Jason said that this was the opinion of the whole finance committee. Has the finance committee voted on the money for this design? >> Has the finance committee voted on the 4B design? >> Thank you. >> Uh can I just jump in because
>> Go ahead. Not going to direct it at Jason, but we are elected officials. Um, beating up on town staff just irks me.
They didn't come up with a plan. We are we had came up with a plan to replace our DPW building, which clearly needs replacing. So, I I just the beating up on town staff uh is is just not the way
to go. >> I don't believe I've beat up on the town staff at all. I believe I've directed most of my IR towards the select board. >> Can I just jump in for a second? Um the last finance committee meeting um when
we discussed this, I I I discussed that I wanted to get more information about the prior um feasibility study and the aerost street study because I know that this was going
to be an item presented uh by the select board and I wanted to use that as an understanding understanding to help understand um the current request and be able to drive correct questions. Town manager
gave me the information. I want to say it was yesterday. It was recently. He emailed me all the information. I have not had an opportunity to go through it. I have a finance committee meeting on Tuesday. I plan I plan to go through all the
information he sent me and discuss it with the committee on Tuesday and then we can discuss this further as a committee on Tuesday but I felt like we needed the additional information that I feel like I I have but I haven't
digested it and shared it. That's where I am with this to make any like votes or decisions or anything on it. Go ahead, Greg. >> Yeah, I've already um voted on this as a
member of the Actton DPW building committee, so I may be a little outfront on this one. Um, but I was among the people who voted at that meeting unanimously for option 4B.
Now, one of the numbers that I heard um at that point in time was that this was the $29 million proposal. And there I've heard feedback since then that
you may have the framework of a uh plan uh in in the sense that we're talking about new construction for the offices but renovation for the uh storage for the
trucks and plows and things. But I heard a new number on Friday. And so my question, John, is I heard 25 million. Is is is there a is that a new
development? Uh excuse me. The the construction cost I think is estimated to be around 25 million. So uh design costs are are in addition to that. Um but So, we'll discuss this at pincom on on
Tuesday next week. Um, and that was my my intention to have another conversation on it after I felt like we'd have complete information because we've had our joint meeting where we we discussed openly all the scenarios we
could think of and irregardless of um the responses and the opinions on those, we definitely have a collection of all the opinions on those items. And I felt like the missing from my perspective the
missing piece was um understanding um what goes like when I hear you know years ago when Dean presented we need money for feasibility studies a million two it's like okay what did we spend that on so I feel like I I'm sure John
sent me that detail a very long email he sent me I just haven't read it yet. So so I feel like you'll be able to present that to the team on Tuesday. >> So the the 1.2 $2 million that town meeting approved in 2023 which the finance committee supported in 2023 was
not for a feasibility study. We had already completed the feasibility study and we brought forward a design. >> What's the correct way to reference it? >> Well, it's it's what it's design funding for a building that we showed meeting this is what we're thinking where we can build and we need the funding for. So, it wasn't the town had already spent the
money on the feasibility and we've already presented this is what we want to design. We spent a year and a half on the design. It was mixed reviews on whether we should continue. So that's why time meeting in 2025 said, "Here's some more money. Go back and take a second look at this. Look at some
alternatives because we're not sure that that's the best design. Even though we approved it in 2023, we're not sure that's the best design." So, and that's what we did and that's where we are here. And I'm happy to take questions on the capital project that, you know, it's part of what we presented here tonight. Um, if there are questions about it. I
mean, asking to remove it isn't isn't really a question, but if you have a question, I'm happy to answer it. >> I don't have any prepared questions for for that right now. I I think I need to meet as a committee before we can ask additional questions.
Sorry. Uh, do we have any other comments for the team at the table? Um, I would hope that there is a recognition between these two boards that we are all in this for what we think is in the best
interests of our community members and I'm not hearing that in all of the language tonight. Um, I had hoped that we'd get into a better place when we had our moderated discussions and it did not happen. But the distance between these two boards is
really concerning to me. And specifically around the DPW, the discussions are just getting worse. We need to figure out a way to fix this. The way we communicate with each other, the words we use, the intentions that we should understand are behind it because
I know I'm feeling worse sentiment. Um, and there are other actions that have happened in the last few years between the two boards that have made me lose faith in our communication and our working together. We need to fix that.
Anybody else have any comments? Anything? All right. Nice work. Nice work, DVW. Thanks. >> Well done. >> Well, that that concludes our presentations. We really appreciate you
spending uh nine nine hours and or so on the last over the last two nights taking a deep dive into our all the work we put into the budget process. A special thank you to Ellie Anderson who compiled this budget book which I think is a wealth of
information. Um, and I hope that you all will refer to it throughout the budget process with and um, it's a good place to go if you have a question. If you have it on PDF, you could do a word search and find whatever you're looking for. And if not, if you can't find it, we're happy to help you find it. And uh,
we'll see you all uh, very soon. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, John. Oh yes. Um, can I get a motion? >> Motion to >> motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I motion for the select board to
adjurnn. >> I move to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Moved and seconded. All in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> Journed.