##VIDEO ID:a021F-rFp-c## noting the hour I call the uh budget uh workshop for night two to order and we are here the act and select board with the finance committee the finance committee is an order okay well uh we're back here for a second night of the budget workshops thank you to the finance committee and select board for all the questions and comments from our first round the other night before we get started with the next group of presentations I just wanted to follow up on a question about um pension uh pension liability which came up with the meeting um Teresa o who uh was watching from home sent me this during the meeting but I didn't see it until uh later uh the question about pension unfunded liability 53 million um 42% funded um as of last valuation July January 1st 2024 the the question though that I wanted to mention is that you there was a question about where the money's managed even though we're in our own um system most of that money is in pulled with the state's Investments anyways so we do get the benefit of the investment strategy that the state has which has worked out well uh recently uh the other question was the collection rate runs at 95 99.5 to 99.6 until um our collection rate is excellent I think she was just wanted to make sure that you knew that but I think you knew that um yeah it was a scale uh which was my fault um so uh back to regularly scheduled program unless there's any other questions or clarifications um we have a handful of departments that we're going to go through tonight we're actually going to start uh with the town manager budget which is starts on page 93 and um the town manager's office uh we oversee all the different operations and help the different departments provide the off services that they work on every day uh the office includes U myself Tom our assistant Town manager executive assistant Lisa toml over there um also the um economic development director position which is currently vacant the diversity Equity inclusion officer position which is wo who's uh right here and then there's a technician specialist that's also vacant that we we're doing some different um we're doing some transitions in in the or in the department to best meet the needs of the community and that was one position that we're still working through uh we focus on the select board's goals uh ensure that all the Departments are working to meet them our accomplishments are listed or some of our accomplishments are listed uh in the book I think we we do uh a good job of helping departments uh be successful and and imp improving things everywhere we can we focus on efficiency our job is to do the budget and uh part of that is to making sure that each department is running efficiently and so we do that every year not just within the budget process but on a on a regular basis anytime we're looking at whether it's filling vacancies or uh the way that we're doing things we're always looking to make sure that we're doing the most efficiently uh We've we have goals that have also been outlined in the the budget book I think if you look at our the actual budget itself on page 98 the number that probably stands out the most is comp preserve uh that's a number that we set aside primarily for collective bargaining settlements and our goal is to make sure that that uh is enough um we don't we try not to go into too much detail about that line item in public meetings like this because we're still actively negotiating with uh three of our unions right now and so it's something that I'm happy to talk to you about offline uh if if you're interested but is some of its executive session uh type discussions uh other items that are notable our Professional Services we continue to get grants and so that's one that's one line item that even though we have a lot of needs and there's a lot of services that we're we're trying to do I'm comfortable that every time a new project comes up uh rather than having to go to the town budget we're able to secure a grant to fund it and so I'm comfortable reducing that budget a little bit to account for the success that we have in that area that uh is the primary budget the other budgets that are thrown into this group are um cultural Council which doesn't see a lot of expenses but it's there to support that operation that that committee the town meeting budget also is shown here and that not not much has changed with that Commission on disabilities uh wo may may uh mention that but there's we do have a budget there it doesn't it doesn't get a ton of utilization but it's there if the cood needs it and so as as I mentioned there are several uh office there are several programs that are LED out of the Town manager's office economic development is one of them sustainability is another uh and Dei is is a third and uh I I'm going to invite wo up to talk a little bit about the the work that she's been doing since um she was hired last year following a select board directive and town meeting support for establishing Dei office uh we're very excited to have wo join us a few years ago and and wo take it away all right good evening everyone I'm highly caffeinated and underfed so bear bear with me um so yes so my name is wano I've been with the town now for a little bit more than two years years I started in January of 2023 um I believe in the budget book um my section begins on page 93 um the creation and positioning of my role as John mentioned came from a Colin study report that was conducted in January of 2022 um I have many years of experience working in a variety of different um organizations in international organizations and local or local organizations as well as Academia um I am pleased to be here tonight to share some exciting updates and initiatives from the Dei office um we've made significant strides in creating a more inclusive and welcoming community and I'm thrilled to walk you through some of the highlights um one of the um major ones that was actually cited in in cited in the Collins report was um a stronger collaboration between the town and the school so I actively work with the um AB schools Dei director we actually meet once monthly um I created a bias incident Reporting System um and the purpose of this was to address incidents of Buys in the town um so this tool this tool allows for residents to report their experiences and helping us to identify Trends and take actionable steps um for example from some of the from some of the um incidents that have happened um we've been able to see that there's a need for cultural sensitivity um inclusive conduct and stronger internal policies um I'm also the staff leaon to the DIC that's the diversity accurate inclusion commission as well as the cood and that's the commission on disabilities and as John mentioned the commission on disabilities has a budget of $2,000 which they themselves manage I'm just the staff Lea on um we have we the DI office me um but I I work with every Department in town so even when I use the word we it is on purpose um I collaborate with all departments I did want to highlight some of the work that I have been that that I have been doing um with human resources I'm involved in all of the hiring practices um as well as um all interviews and most recently I've been involved in collective bargaining um as mentioned last week uh yes last week I was involved well the DI office was involved with the Acton Police Department um and on the with on the event cone with a cop and actually it was extremely successful this year actually we had our second one um the first year that we had it we gave away over 300 ice creams and it was it was a major hit um I also um have worked with the health and human services department with put together several different workshops um and the one that is highlighted in the in the budget book is where we were working with marginalized communities we put together two separate events one was um on integrating Haitian immigrants this was again another successful event because not only was it for Town employees it also included um local organizations were also invited as well as we had participation from municip alties um in the Metro West area um this year we actually well fiscal year 24 um we actually also facilitated um the town's Dei strategic leadership Workshop Series where all department and division heads were participated in that so that was successful um we hired our first Dei intern um which was Major for for for us um since I'm I'm a department of one working with many um this year actually which was another great success and really speaks about not only the reach that we have within Acton but within um within the within the region we actually had a documentary screening for who we are a Chronicle of racism in America we had it at the mayor Fine Arts Theater and we actually had over about 50 participants in there from all different municipalities ities um and we're going to be having another screening this one A different theme we're going to be doing a screening for the documentary cryp camp and I'm doing that with the cood um we also when I say we a variety of different departments participated in a reach program reach is um is uh is a is a program where there's about 10 different municipalities that participated in it 10 municipalities from massachus us es um several departments participated in it and we would go to Boston once a month on Wednesday um I am extremely excited to um to say that the Dei office got um a community compact grant for $50,000 so we're going to be using that to conduct an equity audit um yes so it has been an inspiring year I'm looking forward to next year um we've made Wonder wonderful um accomplishments and like I said I'm really looking forward to doing more with um with not only the town of Acton but also with my with my co-workers so yes thank you thank you wo and so U that was a good overview of some of the Dei work uh the sustainability office also is part of our office I'd like to invite Lauren West up to the mic to discuss that um the sustainability office is overseen by Andrea baser who's currently out on leave this is Lauren our environmental analyst and she's going to walk through the budget and uh after that we'll be happy to take questions on all the town manager's office uh programs thanks thank you hi all my name is Lauren West and I'm an environmental analyst in the sustainability office and I've been with the town a little over a year and a half now as John mentioned I'll be presenting the sustainability office's Budget on half of our director Andrea Basera and you can find our section of the capital plan beginning on page 103 should be so good evening members of the select board and finance committee the sustainability office in Acton was created in response to our Town's 2020 climate emergency declaration with a mission to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enhance climate resilience and guide the community toward a clean Equitable Energy Future in the past year we secured over $365,000 in Grants to support projects like electric vehicle charging stations at Nar Park the first town-owned fast chargers at bedan field weatherization and Energy Efficiency efforts and natural Hazard resilience planning in partnership with energized Acton and our dedicated volunteers we've expanded our clean energy coaching program helping residents make energy saving upgrades as noted on page 107 in the 2024 fiscal year nearly 90 residents contacted a clean energy coach with questions on solar heat pumps and EV charging we have also worked with businesses to reduce emissions through Energy Efficiency programs for example in the 2024 fiscal year we organized the main streets program in a partnership with the town and eversource through this program a total of 17 businesses received over $102,000 combined from the utility to complete Energy Efficiency upgrades these upgrades cut energy use and costs saving emissions equivalent to 10,219 gallons of gasoline per year looking ahead our FY 2026 goals include further reducing emissions enhancing sustainability across departments and continuing to build Partnerships within our community to speed the transition to clean energy we recently applied to become a green communities climate leader which would make us one of the first communities to receive the designation in the Commonwealth this would enable the town to tap into additional funding State funding to improve Energy Efficiency and cutting cost of electrifying our municipal buildings the office is committed to leveraging opportunities for Grants and collaboration to make progress on the goals of our climate action plan thank you thank you Lauren nice work so uh thank thanks uh those are our presentations we're happy to take any questions on uh any of those budgets thanks thank you so my my question is for uh the Dei director you mentioned about the uh incident reporting system and I was wondering if it would be possible to come up with a compendium or a list of the sort of incidents that have been reported to you um how they were resolved uh if there was any follow-up action that needed to be taken um certainly with all proper redactions so that you know we don't need to read everybody's name or anything like that but I think if if people had a a document they could look to to see exactly you know the scope of the problem uh that we might be deal dealing with I think that would be very very helpful document to come forward um as certainly you're aware Dei is under a great deal of scrutiny these days so I think whatever you can come up with in the way of metrics specifically to uh Insurance of bias uh that would be very helpful thank you I wholeheartedly agree um and yes I can come up with with a summary how how many what does um there's been about 10 in well I got one today but there's been 11 as of today um the one today was was easy to resolve it wasn't involving the town itself but I was able to give some resources but yes there have been um 10 since I created since I created the um the reporting system and yes I can come up with a summary of all the various incidents and how it was resolved thank you [Music] that's a question for Lauren um so some of the sustainability funding comes from um some revolving funds and I was wondering if he could say a little bit about which which funds those were and what sort of work you've been able to do for for those uh [Music] operations sure um so the main one would be the Energy Efficiency fund and that one is kind of based on the savings that we get from other Energy Efficiency programs um so it's fed by things like our revenues from the electric vehicle Chargers um our programs that the town has with like our solar arrays and that program um or that fund we use to continue programs like those so definitely for our EV charger program um sometimes like when repairs come up um or like software fees those funds are used towards that um and then yeah I would say any other like programming that we do um could be funded there or weatherization work um we often get grants to weatherize our buildings to make them run more efficiently but also um sometimes we need to match some funds so that program can be used there um yeah I don't know if you just add that the the team is very successful in in finding Grant funds uh so that in addition to the energy revolving fund and the operating budget and arpa which was a large source for a lot of cool programs that were led by the sustainability office they bring in Grants every seems like every month I'm having to sign on a new grant that they found and were successful in competing for so u a lot of energy coming out of the uh sustainability office um I have a question for each of you and then just a general comment um Lauren I think this is for you I noticed that there was a drop in the cost of um waste disposal and I'm one for for the town is is that related to the composting efforts because I know that food waste at least in households is the the heaviest component of of uh buildings disposal yeah um I can't say for sure um I don't have the like data in front of me right now but definitely an increase in composting and the transfer station does a really good job of sorting recycling um that's like a big issue these days when like with the Bulk Recycling things aren't always as um like financially desirable to the companies who are collecting them so I would say because our transfer station does such a good job of separating out like trash but then also any recycling or compost that would definitely decrease um the trash costs as well yeah and then my other question for you um wo is um I see in the FY 26 goals you mentioned working with businesses and I'm wondering if there's any specific program that you have in mind for implementing um because I've heard a lot recently about Concords you belong in conquer um initiative where the their Dei committee is working with businesses to help um improve you know their ability to make um more welcoming environments in their businesses and attract more customers so just wondering if there's anything specific you have planned um we I have some ideas um we've we've spoken about some ideas um implementing them right now would be an issue because there isn't somebody in that role um but yes we do have some we have some ideas about reaching out to women owned businesses and as well as minority owned businesses um and actually this came about from the conversation that we had at at the community movie screening where somebody asked if there is um a place where they can be able to they can be able to see very clearly minority owned businesses so yes we're planning on on doing that yeah oh that's idea great um so I guess my general comment I'm glad that you mentioned um the position uh your positions foundation in the work of the Colin Center and that was in response to um the the deic which was created by the select board I think in 2020 um so you know that was one of their recommend recommendations from their report to create this position and town meeting approved the funding um I participated in a listening session with the Colin Center and um I got the sense that the the community members who were participating um didn't have a firm handle on the the key um aspect of the position which was an organizational one rather than a benefit to the community that is a benefit for sure because of all of the relationships that you're building with Community organizations and working with the schools and working with businesses um but I think that maybe what is more hidden for for people um and and sort of along the the same vein of Dean's suggestion to create some information for residents you know the bias inci the bias incident reporting is just one tiny piece of of the work and there's a lot that goes on where you're working with department heads and and all staff um you know and in hiring and policies and even reviewing bylaws and things so it's really about um making the organization of the town government um stronger and more effective and more inclusive and Equitable um so I just wanted to take the opportunity to mention that and and I really appreciate the the work that you have planned you know working in conjunction with the health department um for the the community health um audit you know along with this diversity off audit I think that that's going to have a big imp impact um and obviously anti-racism work is really important but so is working on you know making the community and the town um government more inclusive for people with disabilities or people with you know um language learning and you know various you know immigration status and religion and marital status and education so you know divers is is is not just about race so thank you sure this is for you John compensation Reserve uh guess you can tell me this what unions are still being negotiated with thank you so the the three uh contracts that'll expire in June are the two police unions and the fire Union so uh Patrol Superior offic and the the fire fire Union is all inclusive it's the officers and the and everyone uh in the union together and uh how in the world do you get the legal budget to go down we used to than that you know we we have uh thank you for noticing that I didn't mention it because it's not good luck to say something like that but since you said it it's fine uh we've been working on risk management and uh I think we work closely with town council's office to have office hours which I think has been a useful way for staff and select board members and others to uh efficiently get some legal guidance rather than sort of a chain of emails that creates hours of work etc so hopefully that uh Remains the case and um we won't be talking about Legal Services budget thank you uh thank you so um I have one question and one comment one cor verication question and one comment uh so the question is uh to the to manager so this 200 Grand uh Pro this uh compensation Reserve that includes the uh pay raise for the placeing fire or just for the um the uh operations office yeah so it's it's for the three Collective bargain units which include uh police and fire un uh employees so it's approximately 100 it's approximately 100 less than 100 employees um um so that was a budget item also for compensation Reserve uh in the FY 24 budget and that was not used so that Rose to this year's budget right or was it used for some other so that was a question thank you for raising that that came up in the questions that we provided to let me see if I don't know if you brought it back with you from last week but I can read it um the budget no no spending is shown in that line because the budget was distributed to the various departments at the start of the fiscal year to cover a cost of live increases uh the spending of that comp preserve is reflected in each department actual spending on salaries uh last year there were only two unions that we were working with and they were much smaller employ employment groups and uh we were able to um well we didn't get we didn't get a contract settlement that's why we had to end up doing it um at a special town meeting so that's part of the reason as well right thank you um and one comment for the uh di officer um so the comment is that I'm glad to see that the ACT government is promoting uh diversity Equity inclusion this community which is really needed um and it's related to the K Al has made um this marginalized group are marginalized because many many of them are not aware that they can reach out to government when they need help and uh this Port uh six time ging and to increase the uh uh uh utilization of the six maybe you can do more Outreach directly to the community uh either go to the community uh they are more active or you use uh some uh platforms or some um uh maybe multiple languages that they can they can understand uh to increase the the usage of this system thank and actually along with that so one of the things that we have been able to do is to increase language access whenever we're communicating with people who live in the town we're sure to put down the ma the majority of the languages that are spoken so there's a part there's a blurb on there that's translated into that says in different languages have this document translated because we are trying to engage more and change the culture for some people who are not used to engaging with with government so yes thank you yes thank you it would be also helpful to let them know like what action you would take uh after you re receive this report uh what the government can do to help them so thank you um I have couple comments I think or questions for everybody so John the the unions that the compensation Reserve when did those agreements come up for reall the three unions they expired June 30th so that they would go into effect at the start of the fiscal year 26 okay I'm sorry I'm off by a year thank you okay just lost a year of my life whatever um and I tell me how you say your name again wano wano thank you um the name of like you mentioned all these other areas that you could you know that you're considering and the Dei has a connotation that Associates it specifically it's you know with racial and lgbtq stuff and I think if you wanted to reach out or make it clear to other people other constituencies in town that their services maybe a name change would be in order I I think there used to be was a community services position before I think right and that there's that's not in here anymore Community Services director was in here in FY 24 and that position isn't I just I just I've think that dei's got like a carries negative connotation for a lot of people myself included to be honest and I think if you want to get to reach more people um a better description of what you of of your services would be useful for you and Lauren my question did you want did you have anything I didn't mean I didn't mean to like just talk at you and then move on do you have any okay sorry and my question for Lauren is um like what do you spend what do you and Andrea spend the vast majority like what do you spend the majority of your time doing looking for Grants it sounds like which is good yeah lots of lots of lots of things I'd say um so I'm an environmental analyst so I kind of manage a lot of the reporting side so there's certain grants that we're only eligible for if we submit annual reports um so like the green communities funds that we get we have to submit annual reports um I also worked on our greenhouse gas inventory just as um some data for the town to have um and we manage like the clean energy coaching program lots of other things in town um but yeah mostly applying for Grants and then once we get the grants kind of carrying them out um we have a couple grants to hire some fellows for the upcoming summer so we'll have to hire those folks and then we'll have them do plenty of other projects and we also collaborate with a lot of other departments in town um to work on like con ation efforts um we help with the habitat for all planning effort and we've had some programs like the main streets program I mentioned where we work with businesses so it's really a big mix of things but a lot of the time is definitely looking for grant funding thank you and so John so this office just created two years ago three years ago you said FY or fy20 around there yeah okay was anybody writing these Grant proposals before this office came into existence Department U certainly yeah oh okay all right um we I think I think that the the some of the program services that are provided are shown on page 105 and 106 it goes into more detail about some of the work that goes on it's not just getting grants and then reporting on grants it's also uh through the guidance of the select board and the community uh a climate action plan was developed and and and published a year and a half ago or so and in within that are several recommendations for implementation that the select board have uh encouraged us to move forward on implementing and that's the sole uh responsibility of this office is to advance those initiatives and some of the initiatives that Lauren mentioned are leading towards the goal of implementing things within the climate action plan but there are several others that you know weren't mentioned that are also underway helping uh managing our environmental um EV Fleet acquisition and uh management Pro um program and several other things as shown here so yes uh we did use the green communties grant program for approximately $100,000 a year uh before the sustainability office was created but now we're uh bringing in uh twice that every year and using it very effectively to advance uh Community goals thank you so following uh last week's meeting I understand there is now um a pull on how many times I'll ask the key performance indicator question uhuh so instead of asking each one of you three times and um collecting in tidy fee let me ask the question once and have each one of you sort of elaborate how would you know that you're you know on your way towards meeting your objectives well I'll go first um I get publicly reviewed on that every year uh by the select board uh so it's it's wide out there out into the public whether I'm meeting the objectives of the office and our and the team that we've assembled helps do all that uh so that's one one thing that I think uh we use to make sure that we're being successful uh there's also data in here that shows Trends uh that we use to measure how we're doing um wo I think did you have something further on yes um so uh uh some of the kpis can be or are um participation in Dei events so the number of participants um Workforce diversity has it increase decrease things of that nature um training completion this is for staff um and the equity audit that um we we're going to be doing there's going to be um implementation um deadlines on there and things of that nature so that would be another way that that I that we would be able to have firm indicators and then for the biased incident report number of incidents Trends in the various incidents resolutions things of that nature I would say for our office there's mainly three ways that we're tracking our metrics so the first would be the greenhouse gas inventory that I mentioned um we had a consultant complete one for 2017 and then last year I completed one for 2022 so our goal is to continue annually if we can doing a greenhouse gas inventory so that we can track our emissions reduction in line with our goal for Net Zero by 2030 and then similarly with our climate action plan um as John mentioned that kind of guides our office so we created last summer a climate action tracker that shows the progress on each of our actions within the climate action plan so based on that tracker we can see what progress we've made each year um and then lastly I would say when it comes to helping residents reach their sustainability goals um we have our clean energy coaching program and we track how many requests we get and then we're working on getting some better metrics on how many folks have actually taken action to Electrify their homes um so i' would say those three thank you good then the second question I have which didn't turn out to be an over under question so somebody's missing a bidding opportunity but the second question I have has to do with efficiency versus Effectiveness so um I expressed last week that you know nobody I mean seriously wants you to do more with less that's a that's a bogus request but if you had to rustle with the issue of doing um the same with less I.E being more efficient or doing more with the same in other words figuring a way to be more effective um how often do you wrestle with those issues what what are the ideas that you have looking forward because one of the things that the incom is going to try to do is to keep expenses from growing faster than the town taxpayers ability to pay them so efficiency and Effectiveness are going to be a key part of the discussion thank you I think that question sort of summarizes a lot of the things that we discussed and presented here uh whether it was reductions in legal services or reductions in Professional Services due to efficiencies in how we administ those programs or grants that we received to not have to spend as much local funding I think that's something that we we've done a lot of uh we mentioned grants that we received it may sound like a broken record but I think it's a really good record and it's worth repeating that the amount of money that we're bringing in from external sources significantly offsets the needed local investment uh from local taxpayers and it op allows us to operate more efficiently achieve more goals without having to add funding request so it I mean if you look at the capital Improvement plan from a few years ago and you look at a number of things that we've done from that plan with grant funding it's a pretty it's a pretty good track record and that so that's that's something that we prioritize and it's an important way that we can uh do things efficiently and I think it is doing more with less uh really uh because we're using less local investment to do more projects and programs that's a question for the town manager uh and it's only because I haven't uh done my own research on this but I we I think a lot of us heard over the weekend that the state uh owes the federal government $2 and a half billion dollars and that the money uh principal portion of it is going to come out of the state's general fund so and I know this budget book was presented before the information was you know made public so my question is is uh is there any Financial uh risk in the existing budget uh that this shortfall that the state has is going to impact the town of Acton um and it's only because I'm not sure I've never gone for a grant so I don't know if this affects grants um if the general fund is losing money at you know whatever that is a year uh without the interest um do you know where is that that's a that's a great time and very timely question uh thank you for bringing that up if you look on page 25 um it's projecting the revenues that we'll use to fund the budget next year and fortunately or or unfortunately depending on how you look at it about only about 1% of our budget is from state aid net you know U so if there is a change in the revenue picture from uh the state it would certainly impact us but not to the extent that it would impact other organizations um that includes all the grants as well well I mean grants um if they scale back on grants then it could have an impact but not something that we'd be able to measure or or be that concerned with uh so do you know uh like how this how the state's really handling this I just heard it on the radio so like I haven't done like any research on it so yeah it's related to uh and you know the finance Administration presentation was last week and they talked about how diligent they are um with unemployment claims and I believe it has to do with that and so I think our exposure locally is probably pretty limited and I think the state has probably been working on this for a little while and what was announced yesterday was just what they've been working on so I guess it it remains to be seen and we'll hear more we're actually going to hear from the governor on Friday uh this week at the MMA conference where she'll announce her estimates for for local Aid so and we'll learn more more about um if that will have any impacts on us so I'll I'll let you know next week thank you John Lauren this is a question for you it's you know 20 26 2026 goals and it says town hall and red hous is you know impact and Emissions reduction electrifying what is going on with the house that we should be aware of sure um sorry very excited about that project so ready to talk about it there is a lot going on at the red house right now um so we received a grant from the metropolitan area planning Council to do some renovations to the outdoor portion of the space um before we received that Grant the goal was we have this building it looks like a house it used to be a house and we want to use it as an example for residents of how they can one Electrify their house but it's kind of grown beyond that now to anything they can do to kind of make their house more resilient to climate change so um the main goal is obviously to Electrify it it's currently um heated with oil and gas so we have plans in the very near future to fully Electrify that building um and the goal someday is to have it available for folks to kind of walk through and see the equipment um ask questions about how they could do that in their own home and then with the outdoor space we got a grant to do some Landscaping upgrades so we installed a pollinator Garden a rain Garden um kind of bolstered the meadow that was existing there we did lots of invasive removal planted native species and then we're also getting some like accessible raised garden beds accessible picnic tables there'll be info panels um so the goal is really to have like a pocket park that's very focused on sustainability thank you John this really in relation to that is there any departments that are utilizing that house now using that building I should say now than yeah the sustainability office and a portion of the operations Pro uh department works out of that office and then public meets there sometimes but it's mostly those offices that use it it's a pretty cool space you should come check it out yeah I've been in it years years years ago so thank you I have a question for each uh wano you mentioned that you are part of the interviewing process um are you also part of the exit interviews to see how we did I have not been so far but that is a plan yes great and then Lauren um are there any current initiatives that are that are being funded by grants now that you anticipate we're going to continue to be responsible for after the grant runs out in other words are there any initiatives that are going to become an obligation of the general fund and if so how how what's the scale and what's the time and I don't expect you know off the top of your head but love to know the answer that question yeah I'm trying to think I can't think of any right now that we would fully take over um I can think of like a couple grants where they helped like create a program or fund like like for our EV Chargers we get funding to install the Chargers and then sometimes we have to continue paying like the software um but typically a grant sponsors like a specific like purchasing an EV or doing building upgrades or hiring a fellow and most of those have kind of a end time to them I can't think of anything that would continue I think the EV a good example well they'll give us um like the new one we have over on the corner of 27 and um Great Road which is a fast charger which is a really cool amenity for the community they gave us I think five years worth of maintenance cost for that and installed it for free but F five years from now we'll have to start paying for it uh we'll use the revenue from the the Chargers because we charge something reasonable uh and it'll it pays the electricity and it'll eventually start to pay for the maintenance so that is an example of something that we'll have to cover on our own but we have a mechanism in place to to do so thank you I'm SED I one follow not a follow-up but um wano and it's a question for you but I'm glad you're both here it's um I'm so glad wanjiku that you you touch so many Department ments and Lauren you do too you know just bopping around town is amazing but waniko I just wanted to ask you and not meaning to put you on the spot but what has been the biggest challenge in the two years that you've been here and I we know staff it's underst staffed at Town Hall we we know that I just wanted to to know if there was something that we don't know I'm I'm thinking about the question because it would depend on the on the circumstance all that being said if there were 10 people I know that there would still be issues right the fact that I work with so many different departments each department has its own culture navigating each culture and each department can be a challenge then there's the organization culture then there's the culture of acting so the Dei office literally has to be Multicultural to work with so many different groups sometimes it feels like I don't have a footing because when I'm talking to fire it's a different language language in quotes than speaking to HR so navigating that space I would say has been my greatest challenge yeah thank you for that thank you you I'm glad you're both are here I just want to follow up since you mentioned language um just to follow up on gang's um comment about being more accessible to community members um in other languages we do have on the town website the tool to translate um but it's kind of hidden like many things on the town website um so you actually have to open up site tools and scroll down so just to give you another example I have no idea how easy this is to implement but the ab United Way website um has the select language button out um along the the top bar so that might be something that that we could Implement um on the town website I hope it's I hope it would be easy to do um and then I just wanted to also follow up on the legal Services reduction that Steve pointed out um John I remember asking if that could be reduced last year but we had um three zoning changes to bring to town meeting that needed reviews so is that also part of the the reduction in addition to using office hours to more efficiently um resolve legal questions and what and what would be we be reviewing besides habitat for for all this year well Legal Services uh is used for for zoning changes and Zoning issues and several things I think over the last five years we've worked to have less Legal Services required and so I think it's just been a I think it's been a trend if you look back I haven't but I think it I think it's been going down over the last five years and we just continue to do that um we could have three zoning articles this year um and hopefully not or maybe not I don't know but I think it's it's not there's nothing that we said in particular that we know we can reduce from other than looking at the actuals and knowing that uh there's nothing uh imminent that we need to start building up resources to try to address in terms of a big lawsuit or something uh where in the past there had been big lawsuits uh that the talent was dealing with there aren't any uh right now thankfully well um some of us can uh depart the stage here nice job team [Applause] um uh well done so in uh the next the next uh business uh next operation on the program is the operations Department uh this is a department that uh is a relatively new name uh it's it's the com combination of a few different departments that I've been around for a while and last year we Consolidated into an operations team we're going through some transition in this department right now uh our CIO uh and operations director Mark H uh retired at the end of the year and uh Matt Frost who was our deputy director of uh operations uh his last day was Friday he got a new job so uh that's a pretty significant transition that we're working through it it's it's literally happening right now so uh we're working our way through exactly what that would look like fortunately we have a strong team here Kristen Alexander uh who who really stepped up over the last few months to help uh support the transition that had already started uh and Tom bean our assistant Town manager uh are going to be uh taking the lead in working through that transition we'll be uh hiring right away for another technology lead position which I'm hoping to have out the door um before the end of the month uh and then we'll continue to keep Folks up to date on how that transition is going forward but with that as an intro um I'll hand it over to Tom to go over the operations uh budget thank you very much and good evening finance committee and select board members I'm honored to present the FY 26 operating Department budget for you tonight and that can be found on page 109 uh the division is supported by hardworking and dedicated team who have contributed to the many accomplishments throughout the year that I'll touch on in a couple moments I want to thank Kristen Andrea ristine Chris West John Fleming Dave Mard der roian Cody Bailey Dale mcgilvery Mary Murphy Brian Cody and Justin Flynn I also want to thank Billy Martinez who re recently left the department for position with DPW the operations Department consists of public facilities projects in procurement it and GIS the department has currently funded 14.32% radio and communication systems for the town and support over 500 technology users across all Town departments boards committees and commissions a few of the kpi the department uses are shown on page 113 and 114 sorry to contribute to the underg I would like to highlight the graph showing outline calls answered and received this has been a very successful program spearheaded by Kristen and a number of town staff across many departments in FY 24 alone you notice in the graph that the program experienced an increase of over 1,000 calls in comparison to FY 23 this is proof that the program and is a success and continues to grow throughout the community another kpi are it help test tickets the tickets received annually contined to be above 2,000 showing the need for additional support and how highlighting how it has become a useful resource for not only staff for for members of boards committees and commissions as well over the past year the division has had many accomplishments that we are proud of a few of those highlights include that it successfully and seemlessly produce the 2024 annual town meeting that had record voter turnout this is the largest in act in town history and potentially State history GIS created 75 maps that supported multiple departments and compiled I'm sorry and compiled and calculated Public Works Data that regarding catch base and buildup and utility poll validation the public facilities division completed the repointing and the restoration project of the Isaac Davis Monument reboarded um sorry related markers and other memorials in the town common town library and Red House lawn as well projects in procurement solicited 22 bids and contracts that total $ 6,730 th000 in contracts in fy2 24 each division has a number of goals for FY 26 as well to build upon the esses of 25 and continue progress towards achieving goals established by the select board a few of those goals include complete the female locker room expansion at the public safety facility undertake the public safety or radio system upgrade Phase 2 and Implement phase one upgrade systemwide GIS to Arc Pro complete the upgrade of the Cisco telephone system as well while this budget is level Services there are some increases as a result of an increase in need and facilities and software management and maintenance on page 116 you will see an increase of $56,000 to the Mis equipment and software line item this is to accommodate the incorporation and continued expanded use of Google and provides for funding for replacement and upgrade of Aging computer systems on page 117 you'll also notice an increase to the public facilities budget and the contractual Services line item this is for H maintenance contracts that help with the routine maintenance and repairs of HVAC systems throughout Town buildings as they continue to age additionally we have begun transitioning to more Reliance on contractual janitorial services to meet the operational needs and Staffing challenges we've been experiencing in inside the department that's a full rundown of the operations Department portion of the budget John Christen and myself are happy to take any questions thank you thank you Dan thank you um looking on page uh page 110 your full-time equivalent positions it appears that you're under public facilities you're eliminating a uh crafts person and instead hiring a project coordinator um could you explain to me the uh the job descriptions and what those two the the position that you're getting rid of and the position that you're hope to acquire what the difference is and exactly what the expectations are for uh the new project coordinator thank you that's something that as I mentioned there's a lot of transitions that we're working through we've had a really difficult time uh recruiting positions particularly in the facilities uh in the maintenance and the crafts person role literally a year uh we had someone and it didn't work out for one reason or another and we have had very little success trying to uh bring people in the door and so we thought that we could rearrange the way that that's uh staffed and find someone that find a job that maybe someone would reply to and that's the goal of the project coordinator position a lot of the work that Kristen and Matt were doing were was meeting contractors meeting vendors and spending time making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing which is important but it takes away from the work that they do the rest of the time or that they're supposed to be in the rest of the time so a project coordinator would would be that person um do you want to add to that or do you want to add to that the crafts person was created as an sort of a a second lead to the crew leader and it really just hadn't hasn't functioned that way uh the way that we thought it would and so uh that's that's why we're we're we're always trying to find new ways to accomplish the goals of the organization and that one um is something that's happening now I guess we didn't do a good job of telling you all that uh but I'm glad that you rais it now because uh we're we're hoping to move forward with that as the plan thank you I I don't have any questions but um Kristen I just wanted to let you know that I work with um a few Community groups and I'm hearing rave reviews of all of the additional maps that are being made available in GIS so thank you for that they're very very useful for a lot of work that people do in town sorry Kristen could you briefly talk about the hotline program because this is to to get ahead of a question that I anticipate coming about doing more with less I think that this this is an example of sorry you can still say it this is an example of how we took the existing Staffing and an existing coordinator and asked you all to do more uh without adding to it and if you could just explain how that what that looks like okay hi I'm Kristen Alexander um and just to let you know I've been here over 24 years um with the town of Acton so I managed the hotline um I I have about 26 other staff um that work with me and help me out um answering calls from anyone that calls the 6600 number um we're down um oh gosh I don't know we'll say five or six people right now so there's quite a few empty slots but everyone all the all the employees that helped me on this on the hotline really pitch for those empty slots and just pick up the calls when they're at their desk whenever the phone rings whenever someone else um cannot answer the phone the most we let the hotline ring is three three rings and we'll make sure we pick it up um and if someone calls over the weekend and leaves a voicemail um I check the you know check it every few hours to make sure um I listen to those voicemails and it's not an emergency if it is I for it to dispatch um I don't know calls range from dog license calls to can I speak with the building department to I don't know where to go I don't even know if I should be calling the town but um I don't know who else to call and we also get calls from acting Califor you know looking for act in California act in Canada um act in Maine I've learned about more Acton and you know the world than I ever knew existed so um I that's it [Music] I have no questions because you're answering them before I even get to them but let me then share one observation there are seven actant in the United States one in London and one in Australia Scott thank you Greg my life is better now um I I question for Town manager uh and this is kind of a broad question uh what I've heard in you know in the last couple meetings and this conversation right here is that there's job changes people um in difficulty uh refilling positions time refilling positions and uh in general um I I view uh Staffing changes kind of in like three buckets it's either first buckets like people leave because of job growth or satisfaction second bucket is compensation they just get better pay check somewhere else and the third is some life-changing event um in general not necessarily this one Department um would you say that uh any of those is exceeding the other and the reason why I'm asking the question is my part two of this is um if it is compensation is is driving people um Mak valued staff away from the town does the uh ex existing budget as proposed um mitigate that risk going forward or is that going to be a risk that we're going to live with um moving forward it's kind of a two-parter thank you that is a good that's a very good question I think the three buckets that you laid out I think Life Changes is probably a big one I think Public Safety in particular we've seen a lot of retirements in the last few years and I think also Finance and operations retirement so I would consider that a life-changing thing that uh a lot of times we know it's coming because we we're notified and we can plan for it sometimes we have less time to plan for it um in terms of compensation we look closely at that particularly with collective bargaining that that's part of the process is looking at how we line up and whether that's affecting our ability to retain employees I think we're generally competitive uh for both Union and non-union but it's something that we need to continue to keep an eye on because um the talent pool is limited for Go Local Government uh and finance has been known to be an issue for a while in terms of there just aren't a lot of people that want to be into local government Finance uh we're thankful of have a finance committee but there's not a lot of people that want to do it for a living uh as as there may have been so we have a good bench that we're building and under Marian's leadership we've been doing a lot of suc succession planning um so I think I don't know I think Life Changes is the biggest one that we're dealing with and compensation always is an issue but as I mentioned uh I think we're generally competitive so we need to continue to try to find new ways to attract people to come here offer benefits that will get them to go from a lot of the towns are similar so and they don't know how awesome acting is because they just doesn't doesn't come across their radar so we're doing everything we can to raise our profile across the state so that people know more about acon and they want to come from towns that are similar and come work here instead thank you so it means the the bucket of job satisfaction is the least which is good news I I think this is a great place to work yeah uh I think we could ask everyone else maybe I I I don't know I don't you want ask everyone in the room um maybe that'd be more fair but I think it's a great place to work and I think support from elected leaders and and appointed leaders which we have I think goes a long way for how someone feels about their job um and I think that's one thing we have uh in our community go ahead I was just going to ask is Tom the one you can complain about the heat in this room now yes I just had a question about the help desk technician position that you want to add I was I don't know which who's going to answer that Tom you're pointing the mic at him okay um I was wondering have you considered Outsourcing that every job I've been at like even if they have an internal IT director they Outsource the health desk yeah that's that's a great question um for us it's it's a little unique uh the Health Des Tech and some of the organizations that that you're referring to um they wouldn't necessarily be dealing and and I'm assuming so I apologize if this assumption is wrong but dealing with boards committees and commissions and and a lot of the help Des tickets that come in are from some of those members so here having a help desk Tech that works for the town is a face that people can go in and meet with and sit down and work through the issues and and almost be uh taught how to avoid the heal the situation that created the health desk is something that is unique and really kind of separates that away from us being able to Outsource it okay thank you you're welcome thank thank you I also want to uh follow that uh on this it uh Services I assume that you're talking about the IT service um providing to the uh government offices have you thought about uh service sharing uh cost sharing with other towns because this is area that a lot of service sharing is happening I'm sorry in terms of it uh I'm sorry help desk or just in general for IT services in general in general it Serv is including the he desk uh technician uh service sharing with uh some other government or are you aware of some other service sharing Arrangement that's um uh happening around other other towns that we could be part of yeah I know the the city of Melrose uh and a few towns around there uh share an IT department and so it's happened before uh and I think it's something that we can certainly look at uh our immediate needs I think are such that we need to add we need to rebuild the Staffing that we've lost particularly the leadership uh but uh that's a good idea and it's it's something that we should look at whether it's help desk or it's some of the other sort of in between things that are uh more more that would be easier to share uh we we do it in every Department uh we find ways to share services so that's definitely something we could take another look at thank you I'd just like a confirmation that all the money is expended on 17 Woodburry uh res renovation in addition are either coming out of CPC or out of federal grants and and arpa yes that so the the money that we'll be spending going forward yes the money that we spent in the past there's been other sources but going forward the the construction which will start next week or or this week uh will be federally funded for the most part please make sure you keep it away from any general fund obligation because it was made clear at town meeting that this was not a worthwhile expenditure Mar questions is this like the public facilities have we talked about that okay um I love the goal of cleaning cannons how much does that cost I'm just curious if I believe I had the number right I think it was a few thousand but it was also part of an effort to um get everything looking as nice as possible for the 250 okay I I love the goal um and then but I I was the one I wanted to ask about was the progress on Town Hall electrification so how much of of that is in here and where do I see that that's a that's a great question so that specific project is a cap cap request for FY 26 there is a $3.75 million Capital request um that is that the annual debt payment will be split between the sustainability revolving fund as well as the general fund um to date we uh the project was allocated money out of arpa to pay for base design and OPM Services which are currently underway okay and what does the 3.75 cover great question so the 3.75 will um cover electric upgrades uh to this building as you can tell it's it's definitely in need of some um electrical upgrades to be able to uh support the systems that'll be installed and then HVAC um improvements and installations inside of the building as well as if there's uh funding left over an appropriate generator for the building that was lost um I believe it was in the Micro Burst that occurred in 2023 there's a temporary generator um on the Woodberry side right now that we need to replace and if there's funding available inside of this project that would be included in it okay so in the survey that the study that was done a couple years ago about the cost like $11 million something to Electrify everything are these items included in that and are is that yes okay yes and are the costs that you're budgeting now in line with those estimates from two or three years ago or are the costs going up I'm wondering because I'm wondering about that plan how much more is that going to be you know as those other items start to come up how much more are they going to be than what was reflected in that study just because of inflation and so on sure that that's that's a great question um unfortunately we we we don't totally know what the cost would be in relation to two or three years ago but the number that we used uh the 3.75 was um pulled from that study and it's also after speaking with the um Consultants that we're working with on the project uh we'll know as soon as we get further into design um but that 3.75 we anticipate on being able to accomplish quite a bit of things that we're moving forward with all right thank you thank you just to uh to elaborate a little bit more on uh 3.75 million and to give it a little historical perspective about this building uh when this building was renovated in the late 1980s we installed a oil heating system with an underground fuel tank U 20 years later we replaced it with a natural gas system um since that time there's not been a whole lot of upgrades to this building as far as the control system the HVAC system uh these were installed on a very tight budget in 1986 1987 so it's time uh certainly the electrification we can argue about that one way or another whether that's a good idea or not but the simple fact is that as we s sit here um in a uh insufferably warm room because the control system uh that wasn't really great in the 1980s is a great deal worse now um I think there's probably some savings that could be generated and I think you do have to realize that the uh the age of the building the age of the system uh it really badly needs some upgrades thank you so are the things in the budget now or do they lock us because I think that eventually we have to talk about electrification whether it's a good or bad idea because be because but um are the things that we're doing now kind of uh would they be would we do them anyway like are they would they be necessary upgrades even if we were upgrading to another to a newer gas heating system sure so so Baseline yes this building as Dean had just mentioned this building needs an electrical service upgrade and a refresh um the HVAC system needs the same it's 40 plus years old so it needs to be replaced so those two components yes as well as a generator yes those would need to happen whether or not this was a truly electrification project or just a building system Revival project but once we do them is the only path forward full electrification of town hall or could could some could they support another type of heating system system Energy System whatever you want yeah that that's a fair question it would be a full electrification um we would have to talk to our designers to see if there's some flexibility there and what that would entail but I would imagine it would it would be costly as well oh just to follow up on that um because we have both an aging AC system and an aging heating system um the electrification route is the only route that will get us uh solve both of those problems with one system so it ends up being um financially efficient for that reason as well as just the fact that it's a lot more efficient than a fossil fuel system yeah just uh because I've never searched this before I just did now uh the cost of a BTU versus natural gas for electric and natural G gas is 60% cheaper than electric heat that's what it says that would be that would be baseboard electric heat which is inherently very inefficient uh he heat pumps extract heat or expel heat from the environment so they're uh many more times more efficient than a gas system so or said another way the energy you get from electricity is multiplied by something well for an air source keep pump by three seasonally right so for every unit energy however you want to measure it kilowatt you get three kilowatts of heat right so you you have to multiply the electric Side by by three if it's uh geothermal you have to multiply it by four maybe four and a half um so electric systems are much more efficient and it's really a fallacy to start with the assumption that the fossil fuel system is cheaper um in general that's not true right maybe you can find something that's cheaper but in general that's not true and including what Jim mentioned that you're getting one system to replace two sounds like you've looked into this already so so I would I would just mention Lauren talked about our energy coaching program uh there are volunteers in the community two of them happen to be sitting right next to each other over there the David and Jim both serve as energy coaches and they they don't just not just entitled they do the work and they've been in people's homes uh they recorded videos and commercials so if you have questions about electrification you certainly can talk to the sustainability office but you you'd be you'd be well talking to either of them as well so my question was appropriate in this environment so they could answer so okay well thank you operations team thank you Kristen Tom you can stay up here though if you um are we um are we good do you want to take a break or we or do you want to um I think we're at the halfway point oh you Recreation Recreation is so fun don't you want to do that before you take a break okay great choice I'm going to um invite Melissa to set a p rufil up uh the director of recreation to give us a presentation on our budget good evening uh select board and finance committee my name is Melissa sedap rufo I'm the recreation director and I've been working for the town for 13 years and have been in the director role for almost six years uh the recreation budget narrative starts on page 118 Recreation employs three full-time staff members two positions are funded by the general fund myself in the rec recreation office manager Mary Lou pooi our new position activities and program coordinators is being funded uh through the recreation revolving account which is a 53e and a half account um Recreation revolving budget is on page 184 so the revolving budget's 184 um Recreation reports to the assistant Town manager which is Tom bean uh we also have over 70 seasonal positions including Camp Waterfront and park staff for Nara and the recreation center Recreation oversees all Municipal Recreation facilities Park and Fields our largest operations occur at narrow Park uh with all the summer camps the beach the event series and the field and facility rentals throughout the year we offer programs for all ages and abilities Recreation also helps develop maintains Fields facilities courts and playgrounds other than our two uh full-time staff our finances and seasonal staff operate under the revolving account um and our third full-time staff uh Recreation also manages the town celebrations account in many different gift accounts uh we also apply for multiple grants per year like the state's Ada Grant which funded the sidewalk ramp project at the Nara Sports Plaza uh the state Municipal festivals Grant which funded the marionette Series last year in 2024 and um CPA which primarily funds most of our large capital projects the proposed fiscal year 26 budget was created by analyzing expenditures from the previous fiscal years at this time Recreation is proposing a level funded budget uh working with Tom and staff from the finance department we've created a level funded budget bottom line budget even when adding a new full-time position um coming out of the rec revolving account here's how we did that so for the past few years our youngest camper groups prek through third grade at Nara summer camp have been filling up for every single session um our older groups which are the sixth through eth graders um in cits get very few registrations so this com coming summer we rearranged Camp um we set up to accommodate more younger kids in entice older kids by adding a leader um in training program to achieve hint on uh learning experience for for working once they get a little bit older um the new activities and program coordinator prision is going to focus on revamping our programming and really using the rec center for all different types of classes and programs the ultimate goal is to start an after school program um as all of our child care programs which are camp and the vacation programs do very well um and fund most of what we do in Recreation so adding a after school program will will really benefit us um we decreased some line item uh large line item budgets like building and maintenance from 880,000 to 65,000 uh fiscal year 24 and 25 were big years for one-time expenses like replacing doors at the amphitheater repairing irrigation system at conquered Road and major electrical Replacements and repairs at the amphitheater at Nara in the picnic Pavilion we rearranged a few line items like other expenditures we which were previously funded at 40K and we decided not to fund this line item at all and add 5,000 to other supplies increasing it to 55,000 these two line items have been used interchangeably throughout the years but records show that we spend around 55,000 between the two line items so doing this frees up another 35,000 for us to put towards that new position with the changes in Camp setup and operations and rearranging line items that are backing up by historical data and Trends I'm confident with proposing a level funded budget for fiscal year 26 uh thank you for your time please let me know if you have any questions I hesitate to ask but why don't I instead of using kpi why don't I call it a TLA say it's a three-letter acronym so how do you you you've analyzed the data pretty well what do those numbers tell you that you're likely to be successful going forward well we off so I mean we use a program called myre so that that is what we get all of our metrics from um and we often can get a lot of calls for more child care programs for younger children so that's where we kind of and we've filled up all these sessions and now we need more um so what we're doing is rearranging to to help fill that that Gap that we see that is a need and then have uh a lot of events and it it also tracks all of the metrics when we we purchase tickets and stuff like that so um in this year with our new person he actually just started today um today was his very first day and we're working on more surveying and you know reaching out to the community and trying to figure out what the community would like um for different programs whether it's Fitness classes or uh Sports classes or arts classes or drama whatever it may be so we're really that that's going to be the real new revamp for the programming part of our our operations thank you um so I listened to what you said about moving item line items around um based on Trends but are is your presentation covering the celebrations as well or somebody else coming up for that well celebrations is we we do have we do budget for I noticed that there's a almost a 42% decrease and I'm just Cur for FY 26 and I'm just curious about what changes are being made I realize that the first half of of this calendar year is an fy2 when our big 250 um celebrations are going on but that I anticipated to continue through next year for the 250th of July 4th 1776 so what's going on there we rearranged some of the yeah so the C the the Fourth of July celebration would be funded through Capital um that would be a proposed Capital plan and you're you're right where you observed that the fy2 budget for celebrations was higher to coincide with the money uh allocated for the 250 committee and that is ramping down in FY 26 um so my my other question is um I noticed that the facility Rental hours are going down um although the Nara Beach memberships and daily passes are going up and I know that you've you know targeted um that specifically in the community to try and and attract more people to come to Nara in terms of the facility rental is is maybe that that decrease um due to fees being out of alignment with other options in the area or do you have any other Insight think it's has to do with more people are renting so we have a few different rental options and I was really looking at this to try to figure out why this is happening it looks like people are renting for longer blocks because we used to do like a lot of people would do four blocks and four blocks and then it we would be able to do two at the same time so I was thinking that maybe it was po probably because cuz I would be able to get four rentals in in that day but it decreased to two rentals because they're doing longer blocks so I feel like that might be the reason for that but um that's just me kind of like looking at how the rentals were analyzed so I just want to make sure that we um aren't you know setting our fees too high driving people to other venues or maybe if they're doing that um renting for a longer period maybe we need to increase the fees so we can get some more some more revenue from from those facilities yeah we are looking at the uh different expenses and how what we're renting these out we're working with the finance department about that um but the picnic Pavilion which is our main rental which is the big Pavilion at Nara Park it's rented every single weekend from beginning of May to the end of October um and it looks like it's just one group each time now rather than smaller periods of times with to add more groups so that's that's what I I noticed for the trend just to follow up on that do the when a group rents for twice the time do they pay twice the amount so there's no not exactly um there are different there's a lot of different things that go into the price so it's if they're an acting resident a non-resident a full day or half day um but yes the pricing is more but like we do like a deal that if you rent for more it is not it's not double the amount of price so you still get you're getting a deal so we're trying to push for the full day rental does it that make sense [Music] yep hi Melissa thank you um I was happy to see that you guys were offering an after school program has that started yet or when does it start so yes we're doing it for Wednesdays um we haven't had success yet so it hasn't started um it is a outside vendor so it's not us doing it so um but there is a possibility that we could put it on too um but we do have a program that is Wednesdays but um we haven't had registrations for it just getting the word out or something new is tough is is tough yeah so all of our programs usually start slow um and then they build up nice work [Applause] Melissa I have to say I really like the pictures now a quick break right is that what we said sure yeah that that's uh that's fireworks that's one of the many fields that were filled with people during the fireworks this one uh that's where the soccer fields are e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e come on back Roland e okay back in session so thank you for those questions we're going to continue on with the regularly scheduled program and our next presentation will be from the library uh the libraries up to make these presentations is Maria palasio the director of the libraries uh said I'm the director of the Acton libraries we have two libraries here in Acton we're so lucky to have these two locations one right is is right next door and our community Branch at the citizens um Library so tonight we'll be referencing information containing your budget book starting on page 124 but first I'd like to introduce my assistant director hello my name is Carrie Darcy at that we are so proud to offer the holy celebration of color two years in a row in which we celebrate and highlight the culture of our Indian American Community here in Acton we applied for and won a $2500 Grant from the Massachusetts cultural Council to use for our 2025 holy celebration which we expected to be even bigger than last year another accomplishment that we are proud of on our website now we'll talk about on our website now we'll talk about goals I'm just going to mention two of our goals from the Strategic plan goals I'm just going to mentioned two of our goals from the Strategic plan the the first is Foster Community um which we feel the library first is Foster Community um which we feel the library is position is positioned to serve the community as a gathering space that can expose patrons to to serve the community as a gathering space that can expose patrons to a variety of variety of cultures while helping them to grow their own individual communities cultures while helping them to grow their own individual communities additionally one of our goals for the next 5 years is to serve as a third place a like after school snack program um where uh someone used the staff microwave to teach teens and middle schoolers how to make some easy snacks in a mug um so that was awesome and I just saw that today so I'm really proud of that kind of programming that we're doing and now we'll talk about the budget um so in an effort to keep better track of our budget expenditures in certain areas and in response to some of the questions we had from this group last year we asked the finance department to separate out areas of our collection into categories such as periodicals streaming databases AV Museum passes library of things and more and munis so that helps us track these expenses better and also helps make um it easier for us to report to the state when we do our IRS our state aid report this concludes our presentation thank you hi Maria and Cary thank you so much for your presentation um I'm gonna jump right on Greg's um Trend here and talk about how you are doing more with the same I noticed the programs offered doubled from fy22 to FY 24 so I just wanted to take the opportunity to point that out that's amazing um I wanted to ask about how the advocacy for a legislative solution to explain it because I won't do a good job can you just share what the is to explain it because I won't do a good job can you just share what the issue is for everybody who's listening here in the room and also at home sure so um copyright laws have always protected libraries and allowed us to loan out books numerous times to patrons uh helping to kind of eliminate some of the cost barriers to literacy and providing equal access to to reading unfort visit sort of points to that because our circulation numbers are close to visit sort of points to that because our circulation numbers are close to prepandemic levels but the number of physical visits is is still lagging and I've heard from anecdotally from a lot of people that ever since the pandemic they're not going into the library anymore they're using hoopla and and ebooks and doing everything virtually so they don't have to enter the building any longer so it's really critical that we can provide those digital resources um not at that inflated cost thanks um if and I will add um Alyssa that we did have one of our trustees from the citizens Library attend a meeting um on this topic at the state level last year and there's also ways to help and support is by attending a legislative breakfast there will be one for uh for this area for the minute man Library Network um there's probably a couple right now so I can send out the link of the list of legislative breakfast if you're interested in in attending I can dispense with my typical questions and I'm going to go entirely countercultural so I'm totally fascinated that you've focused on the third place and loneliness as a epidemic in the country and what we can do about it in acting that sounds really Innovative can you elaborate sure um when I got to the library uh three years ago almost um we had two study rooms that were in high demand we've doubled that number since I got here um and then the as you can see the study room increased just by one additional room went up by 23% we are seeing that people are increasingly coming in to do work to study um to do Leisure reading um and we decided when going through our strategic planning process that because of the demand that we were seeing and also because we knew what was going on across the country and globally that the library was sort of primed positionally to be able to serve that need um and and really bring attention to some of the struggles that maybe acum residents are facing hello um the personal services budget line is up 19% in two years um do we see that leveling off that 10% you're on years is are you aggregating the libraries or looking at just Memorial Library I am looking at page 129 personal services taking the fy2 budget the FY 24 actuals and that comes to 18.97% increase in two years that seems double digit almost double digit growth year over year um sorry I didn't do the calculation as fast as you did did you say you're comparing actuals to the what we're proposing FY 26 proposed to FY 24 actual yeah so that I think that's that's partly because of vacancies we we mentioned the turnover that we've been working through actually the library had a lot of vacancies a few years ago we're we're in a stable spot right now and so I think that's part or a large part of why the salary was not expended uh and that was actually the year that wasn't that the year that I told departments not to spend in an event uh it's much much in fact due to vacancies do you anticipate it staying steady if we're able to uh fully staff the library and not have people retire or leave then it should this budget is what we'll need to do that next year okay so on the on page 125 where they have the FTE is the FY 24 FTE was that the actual or the budget for 24 because it's 18 it's basically it's a budget okay and then so my other question on that same um topic is you know if we're I guess the salaries for the regular Perman and regular Temporaries is going up you know 6% and almost 10% six and 9.7 and I'm wondering why the such a large increase when the number of FTE is staying the same is it is it the mix of people or is it like are their salaries going up by 6% thanks for that question I would say that we had uh we did have a children's librarian position for example that was a 20-hour benefited position and uh we were able to Cobble together with other positions that were not um filled and create a 40-hour position um even so I think there's just been like some internal reorganization uh where we found the need so working within roughly the same FTE amount we've been able to provide uh a person for more service hours um in the library to meet the need of of the people that are that are there and and our staffing needs thanks hi new associate Alex Lind thanks for the presentation uh comment and a question first the comment um I live around the corner I've been going to into the library for 20 years whenever I have guests that come visit for the first time I take them to the little Museum up front because it is one of the best examples of the history of everywhere around us and it's right there at the back of the library or well the front of the library actually um and that actually brings me to uh off-the-wall question I was down in Bryan Park a couple weeks back in New York City and I went to the library there because I love going to all the libraries they have an archive that is like Fine Arts quality Museum that they have overhead for and it's it's huge they've got millions and millions of of pieces from old books to basically history of of the United States in there do we have archives like that at the Library part A and Part B is there an overhead component to maintaining that uh with cost because old paper you know we actually do have an archive here at at the ACT active Memorial Library um and it's funny you should say about the overhead that's something that uh Carrie's working on right now actually um so so yes I ideally there would be someone on staff to manage that we don't have an archist um so we're kind of working within the constraints of that but there are a number of archival items within the collection that have been curated uh particularly under the reign of Wanda null um who was director for 20 plus years I could be unders shooting that um but part of what we need to be addressing currently and we're applying for a CPC Grant is for a preservation assessment um and that will help evaluate the state of our Collections and then give us a guiding plan of what we need to do going forward um because storage is an issue um and if those records aren't maintained we don't want to lose them so right you know digitization you know and then all everything and I'm reminded is uh because Alysa was saying earlier about you we've got 250th coming up and that's kind of what triggered that for me is that they're you know a good history of the town is sitting in your library so and and um don't know if you know but there's been like uh movies like um different production companies that have come like to take photos of some of the items that we have and some of the artifacts that we have so um Acton is kind of on the map historically um for the screen so thank you for that question because that's like like we just said it's something that we're working on right now that we really want to preserve those records looking forward to hearing more about it super cool thank you um I'm I'm trying to have I correctly figured out that you broke out um Network membership from uh Mis software um because I first I saw this first I saw a big increase and then I saw a big decrease and I saw they were about the same so I'm guessing that was a split of some sort yeah we wanted to really um because we have been um we upgraded the computers and we got like a new wireless and printing solution copy scan printing solution and so because of for whatever reason a lot of these these categories were lumped together and only we knew internally what they meant and what to break out where so by breaking out Mis from the membership to the network we feel that we have a better like more accurate picture of what we're where we're spending thanks um and I know I should have asked this like a week ago so this might end up being a John or Tom question but what are the cool different colors mean on the org chart that's a question for uh Mary Beth zc uh who who may know the answer and I'm sure it's artistically uh is it what does it mean here you go so we use an um we use an or chart uh application called Insperity or plus and so the different colors can be used for um executive levels professional levels clerical levels and so it actually just comes as built um and you could customize it but sometimes it costs money to customize so we just go with the colors that they provide okay got it thanks thank [Applause] you thank you Maria Carrie and thank you Ann president of the trustees also for being here the um and Kristen our new office manager Christen Morrison um we are next going to hear from uh the health and human services department this is a department that also was reorganized this year to better align its different components with the services that we're all working very hard to provide to the public so it's led by uh Penny foli but I think we're going to get the whole crew up here right oh no you don't need that do you take that I'll Scot you guys I need it I need it I need one hello everyone hi good evening select board members and finance committee members it's my honor to come and speak on behalf of the health and human services department here for the town of ACTA my name is Penelope panoli I am the director of Health and Family Services I've been here for 10 months so I'm real new in my first budget hearing not my first observed budget hearing though I watched this last year during my interview process so I'm not quite prepared but I'm here for you to do that I'm excited to share what I've learned about the Health and Human Services Division Department over the last 10 months um this is a new department for the town and the health department itself is very fortunate because we're sitting in two different homes we're sitting in the L use department where our operations of our inspectional services live and should live along with the building department the planning department conservation we talk to them all day every day about the permits that we're putting out so it's important that we're there on the other other side we're over at 30 Sudbury and in 30 Sudbury we see people enjoying their time meeting with our staff in a trusted and a confident sense of both what's exciting and fun how do I eat what about this thing that's going on with my body going down to the nursing service and getting support for that so I've been very fortunate to witness both ends of this department on a on a weekly basis on a daily basis sometimes within the health and human services department we have six divisions we have the environmental health division we have the Council on Aging we have the veteran service officer we have our nursing service active nursing service our community resource department and now we have transportation living within Health and Human Services with all of those divisions we have on your book here on page uh 132 is where we begin we have listed 1758 FTE but that's 20 people 20 people that are carrying out Human Services and connected services for individuals who are sometimes struggling so of those FTE we have real people who really care and are very compassionate about the residents of our community when we say Health and Family Services I just want to clarify what that means that's where three of our departments are sort of under one umbrella and that's the traditional Community Health Public Health work that the state of Massachusetts is expecting the town of Acton to carry out so that is the Health Department inspectional Services environmental health nursing and our community resource office office this entire division Department was created to reorganize and to better address some of the needs that were going on in the town of Acton and still are some of those are mental health and well-being how do we continue to raise the the well-being of our individuals and help their mental health overall to coordinate our social services and our connection to our community services and our um you know our Elder services our other services that the state mandates and puts out but also our local community services like the ab Resource Center um we also were here to provide more support for public health so we are doing that in a lot of different ways and Matt's going to go over number and I'll scoop up if we miss anything but then the other one is to address housing stability which is a Statewide issue and we are very proud of um some of the measures that we've put together including legal clinics that began last week and we'll go on for the next year and a half this is for anyone to come and ask questions and see how they can get counsel should they should they not have that for themselves but again what are we really doing we're providing a trusted service to our community we are providing answers to questions where is this a trusted Source that's called me if an elder calls our front desk and says I don't know what this is we can say let us help you look that up those are the kinds of trust that we're building within our community with our with our staff So within all of this too we need to understand the community needs we have a knowledge of what the community needs but how deeply have we gone into it so it's really important for us to make datadriven decisions in order to show long-term outcomes of change and impacts for our F our families our residents our homes whatever that might be we need to understand what the issues are we will do that through a community health needs assessment that is going to be rolling out in the next couple of weeks really just getting our our ball rolling here and when we come back with that whole process we will then see what outcomes are necessary to change what measures we will monitor to ensure that those are getting done work to adjust if they're not working because that's a critical component of our valuation and then continue to to enhance this work as we're hearing more and more information it usually grows bigger once you start getting in there and the number one thing that we need to do is continue to build trust so we may have trust with who speaks to us now but who does not speak to us and how can we can continue to build that trust with them so with all that said um we have a number of ways that we're getting to these outcomes or getting the the work done here right we have the people that have to operate the work but we also have have to find the funding sometimes to make the thing happen sometimes you have to find funding to make a pilot something happen because no one's really sure that that's necessary right now in our department we have a number of Grants we have grants that are acting specific like our Council and aging formula grant that is provided from the state but we also have Regional Partnerships and grants some that we're leading some that we're a part of as a participant um and so one would be our Dispatch Center through Transportation that's a regional grant that Grant serves three towns dispatch that's one of those and we are the lead for that whereas our shared service our Public Health Excellence Grant we are a part of that Grant and Westford is the lead on that now we go into details about that there's a number of other components of of grants that we have here that um I won't go into uh explicitly but we have them to talk about um so one of the things that happened when I came on board is we also said okay so what what are we going to do now you have six operating departments and now you have a health and human services division so we looked at Matt and I sat down and we looked at it was pretty clear the other departments what their roles were it was it was a little bit muddier with the health department my role and how will that interface with the work so what we decided was we tightened our inspectional services to be the environmental health office so Matt is operationally managing all of the functions within that Health Department the staff and making sure that inspectional services are operating at the state's expectations and our expectations in the town of Acton with that there are a Salo of other components of Public Health that still need to be addressed many of those things are happening in these other divisions so it's my responsibility to look at Community Health and how do I help to create and paint and fill in this picture across these fi these six departments weaving together the human health and services department so right now with that I'm going to step back and let Matt take over and talk about um our inspectional services and thank you thank you Penny it's tough following Penny when she uh gets going like that so thank you Penny uh good evening uh my name is Matthew Dow I have been with the town for nine years I was just promoted from interm Health director to the environmental health director about six months ago at this time there are two full-time employees including myself two part-time admins Penny mentioned the um Public Health coalition we are part of the Northwest Northwest Public Health Coalition which through grant funding has provided the division a part-time inspector to help with inspections one to two days a week in July the health division lost a full-time inspector but during that time we worked closely with consulting firms to make sure all inspections were completed Public Health in the environment were protected the health division's budget starts on page 135 with actual budget details on page 137 the Enterprise and revolving budgets begin on page 166 the health division has General oversight over Health operations including food septic camps housing pools body art Body Works freshwater beaches emergency preparedness hazardous materials and sealer of weights and measures the health division is responsible for five budgets one general fund one Enterprise and three revolving account budgets all budgets all proposed budgets have been level funded with the exception of position control as you can see from the performance metrics on page 136 for physical year 24 some of the permit numbers we have issued have increased from the prior year for example the septage metrics are up from last year this is due to the letter that we sent out reminding people to pump their septic system every two years I would also like to dry your attention to the Hazardous Waste day line each hazardous waste Day event that we run cost the town between 13 15,000 per event there is money set aside in that account for contingencies that that people may bring in thank you for your time thank you thank you Matt so next I'd like to bring up um sorry I thank you so next I'd like to bring up Sharon Mercurio she runs our Council on Aging one of the key things while she's come up here that I noticed is that she's running uh a restaurant a physical fitness center an enrichment program she's running a helping component supporting people who don't know how to find the money that they might need to survive so she's doing a whole lot with a small budget thank you much appreciated good evening um first of all I would not be able to do half of what I do without the incredible staff I have so Beverly Hutchings is our senior service coordinator Chris chokis is our program manager Rosie atherton's our office manager B Bernice CO's our activity assistant um Fiona star and Wendy Curtis are our customer service coordinators Terry zaborowski is our fitness instructor and even though Technically she's not part of our budget she's an honorary member of the COA um Rosie Murphy collectively we've put in over 103 years of service to the town of Acton for the first year um that we've worked under Penny foli which has been really helpful not only has she been a strong advocate for the COA but for all of us in human services and is really helping us collaborate effectively with other departments at this time there's over 5,800 60 plus residents in town um the COA is really best known for the senior center and the amazing programs that we offer there we have lifelong learning Fitness classes lectures um art classes um we serve lots of meals great way to kind of have that normal socialization um and we provide a lot of Social Services for our Acton residents I feel our data is represented really well in the budget book and if you look at our newsletter but what I wanted to touch on is kind of those things that you can't measure um and that's that sense of community that we have at the senior center um the bonds that are formed there um it really is a home away from home for so many people I think you know 60 and retiring and losing spouses and having children grow up it's really hard for other people to relate too so this group of individuals really have each other to support um and I just wanted to share a couple of stories um we had a gentleman that um would occasionally come in beg grudgingly with his wife who then passed away very unexpectedly his wife did um he's now a regular there um he comes for lunch he's got a great group of friends he's an unsung ambassador he's in the lounge greeting people helping newcomers um just a fabulous gentleman another friendship form between a very unlikely pair um um they both had a love for books and as she slowly began to lose her vision they'd find a quiet corner and he would read to her and when she was no longer able to come to the senior center he would call her on the the phone and read to her over the phone um these kind of things you can't measure that's what happens there and it's a nice way to build those relationships and that trust not only with each other but with the staff um I think it's really hard for anybody to ask for help but the more they get to know us the more comfortable they are with us the more willing they are to share and to ask for help so that's a big part of what we do um one of our accomplishments this year thanks to the Opera fund was our beastro 30 again a wonderful way to bring people together to bring that sense of community um what it is it's kind of a built-in restaurant we have a gentleman that comes in and Cooks he has a different menu each week people can um order what they want I'm a py eater so I can say I want this but without that more of that um it's open to everybody in the community and um we're working on it being self-sustaining now that the Apper fund is out we get our funding um one from our friends group we have a wonderful supportive friends group that help fund programs and lectures for our seniors um they really feel strongly that they would like things to be free of charge for the residents they feel taxes are expensive um their their income's not going up so this is something that they help us with um over $225,000 a year they put towards our our programming we ALS o receive a state formula grant that funds two of my employees it also funds some ongoing classes programs special events we have a monthly memory Cafe we do uh a birthday party for everybody 90 and older that's a great time um our volunteer lunch and then it helps offset some of the costs for our other expenses the majority of the COA budget consists of salary per position control very little has changed in our budget this year due to the direct of being a level service budget we did add a new line item for program event supplies um just to more accurate accurately depict our spending um instead of having everything under other supplies thank you thank you Sharon next we'll have our veteran service officer for acting boxer District director of veteran services for acon and boxboro Jim MCC James mccre thank you thank you Penny um yes so again my name is James McCrae I'm the veteran service officer for Acton and boxboro I've worked for the town of Acton for over 13 years and my whole job is essentially to assist veterans and surviving spouses with state and federal veterans benefits um try and troubleshoot smaller issues at times finding um respective nonprofits that may be able to assist or even non veteran related possib Poss abilities resources that may benefit veterans or surviving spouses depending on their need um some of this ass assistance uh includes finding missed or missing or lost discharge papers the DD214 that's the proof that you want for any state or federal veterans benefit um assistance navigating the VA Health Care system I opted out what the town offered me 13 years ago and I've been using the Bedford VA ever since um I also assist with service connected disability claims and disabilities that were a result physical disabilities that were a result of military service hearing loss antonitis claims for veterans who served uh in jobs that were even moderately related to loud noise exposure and um of course presumptive conditions from veterans who served in Vietnam um presumptive conditions from exposure to agent orange the herbicide that was used over there there's a list of cancers and other ailments that are directly correlated with um service in Vietnam and and thanks to the PCT act that passed two years ago it opened up the presumptive locations to include uh other locations where people serve during those time frames Thailand La Guam um and other locations like that um my budget starts on page 143 detailing services goals and challenges with my actual Budget on page 144 so if you look on page 144 at the bottom the last line item veterans benefits so that's actually uh we should relabel that it's called chapter 115 assistance and Massachusetts is the only state in the country that by state law there must be a veteran service officer for every single town to assist veterans and surviving spouses and this is the primary duty is to assist with chapter 115 assistance so I currently have a dozen people on the roles who receive a monthly benefit and act and Veterans and surviving spouses whose income is less than $2,510 a month and assets not including your primary home personal belongings does not exceed $8,600 I'm at the very least able to reimburse um monthly medical costs if you're at the upper end of that income threshold so that's where most of that's where this money line item comes from and it's important to note that 75% of that line item is reimbursed by the state I also assist um I oversee Veterans Day and Memorial Day parade and ceremonies as well as well as other smaller ceremonies periodically as needed including flag retirement ceremonies and such and thank you thank you Jim um and just to also just harp on the point that the state was very smart in making sure that a veteran's service officer was a veteran because you're going to trust someone who knows what you've done right so thank you Jim for your service thank you for your time here and act and the things you do um next I'd like to call up our act and nursing service director Heather York in the act and nursing service what I've seen is I've seen a lot of a lot of care that happens in the office not just in homes people coming in and again asking for reassurance about medical issues recommendations but also our Podiatry Clinic which is if you don't know foot health is really important as you age so this is one of the most amazing Services that's provided in addition to all the other programs that she's going to talk about we thank you Penny hi good evening I'm Heather York um for those of you who don't know me I have been with the town for just over 20 years um so I'm the director of the nursing department um our budgets start on page 40 5 so we have two budgets um one is the VNA or the visiting nursing service Budget 01522 on page 147 this budget is for our Medicare certified Home Health agency so this is for our homebased visits um based on doctor's referrals for skilled nursing physical occupational speech therapies as well as certified home health aid services um to the T to the town of Acton obviously ly and contiguous towns um the other budget um is our Public Health Budget 01520 on page 148 this is our budget that we use for public health Outreach disease surveillance Health discussions clinics such as um Penny talked about our Podiatry Clinic blood pressure clinics um and wellness visits for those in the community who are identified as at risk um in those two budgets we have 5.4 FTE um myself um the clinical manager Kathy Flanery are um and our certified and our excuse me admin who's also a certified home health aid are shared between the VNA and the public health budget so 60% or 66% of myself and Kathy are in the VNA budget and then the other 34% are in the public health budget so we're shared between those um also in the V budget is another certified home health aid Kathy breest um and our uh nurse case manager Elizabeth mcnamer and then in our Public Health budget um we have one um other than myself Cathy and the admin we have um a public health nurse um who that position has been open and vacant since the beginning of FY 23 um so the VNA budget again starts on one page 147 page 147 and is level funded um the most notable change that you will see is that $7,000 was moved from the overtime and other wages line items to our on call Item item um this is for two reasons um one is that we have to regulatory wise have an on call nurse for any of the hours that were not open for the VNA for the VNA time frame um so after hours 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. in the morning morning and then through the weekend the second is um we've historically gone over this line item um because we do pay the staff but it's also not um a competitive rate as other Home Health agencies are so we've moved that $7,000 into that line item to increase that rate so we could hopefully um get some good qualified prum nurses to assist with our weekend hours um we've been without staff that's our as needed staff for weekends during the week if there's overflow visits that our nurse case manager um can cover in a day um we've been without those folks since just after uh the beginning of the pandemic um so we were down three positions one of those positions was cut in last year's budget as well as a certified home health aid um the metrics are on page 146 um you'll notice that we you know we tip do our typical um visits uh for each of our staff members but we did add a admissions um bar this time because admissions is a bigger indicator of Revenue than visits um there's other metrics that go along with that based on um your insurance company if you're Medicare as opposed to HMO or a PO um as those pay per visit where Medicare pays over a um it's an algorithm that they use based on diagnosis where you live who you know what you uh what you have for other comorbidities Etc um uh and then another metric that we use that is publicly available and can be found on the Medicare home health compare website um that's one of our qual that's our quality indicators as a home health agency is how we compare to other agencies within the state so we are rated at a three three out of five stars at this point which is consistent with the national and state average um for Medicare reporting patient satisfaction is also found on that website um and I'm happy to say that over the last 20 years that I've been here we've always rated well beyond the national and state average um the national and state average are typically about 85% for how patients rate the overall care from a home health health agency and we rate at 96% which is wonderful and that's a a kudos to our staff um as well as patients who would recommend the agency to other residents um we're also 96% were the national average is 79% and the state average is 78 so that's really um just kudos to my staff for really doing a great job um and for people realizing what a great job they do um our Public Health budget is on page 148 and that's also um level funded uh the only notable change that you'll see in that budget is the shifting of money from the medical supply line to the Professional Services line um as we've seen um after covid flu clinics have really diminished within the town we really didn't have the um need as we had years ago people got comfortable with going to their doctor or more importantly to a pharmacy um so that we did stop flu clinics this year just because we didn't feel there was a need um we did partner with act in Pharmacy they came in and did a a clinic at the Human Service and Senior Center and we allotted enough time for about a hundred Doses and we got 16 people so that just shows that it's really not something that people are doing as much anymore so we're shifting that money so that we can do more um more programmingsoftware folks would go to the would meet at Naro Park on a on a Friday you know morning walk around have a conversation coffee Danish it was more about socialization than about exercise uh it's for those folks in the community who are isolated really bringing people in um so Cheryl had requested and a few other and a few residents mainly because a few residents requested a continuation after she retired so we picked that up um and we started that in the fall of FY 24 with a small following because it was sort of late in the year it was cool people don't really want to walk when it's you know gotten really brisk out um but in the spring of 24 we had a higher attendance which is again shown on the metrics um on page 146 um over a five-week period we had 54 um participants um which was great um we continued into the summer and the fall so the end of FY um 24 into fy2 and that we had 144 participants over 10 weeks so we felt that was a really good indicator that we should continue it and we're looking to do that next year people were a little disappointed that we didn't continue into the fall maybe next year we'll we'll think about doing that um and again more about socialization than about exercise just really getting people together and the you know as Sharon talked about the the the um gosh I lost my train of thought as Sharon was talking about how people make these nice you know uh oh my gosh friend friendships thank you Penny um that's really we saw that a lot across towns too between act and boxboro and Littleton so it really was nice to see um other well- attended classes um include our quarterly balance six week ma balance matters class that's funded by our friends of the active nursing service um also our balance maintenance class which is funded by an anonymous donor um when we started our balance matters class um with our physical therapists we had a really good following through covid we were outside under tents doing balance exercises as people ended that class they really wanted to continue so a resident who had taken the class stepped forward and offered to help pay for these maintenance classes so we do two classes every every week continuously throughout the year it's really well attended um also our therapeutic horiculture class um and our and our Podiatry visits are booked within 48 Hours of the COA newsletter coming out to give the date so we're doing um I think we're doing really good work and getting people into um you know our programming thank you thank you Heather and that hor cost is a hot ticket people are leaving with really cool designs and stuff but overall it's really helping the mental health and the connectivity that people are feeling to one another is really critical for our mental health so ruling forward we have two more departments to talk about we have our community resource department and our transportation department both are being led by Laura du our community services coordinator good evening my name is Laura du and I've been with the town for 16 years and I oversee the community services office my position was established in 2009 to provide comprehensive case man Case Management Services to Residents these residents are primarily under the age of 60 but we do work with 160 over at times in my office this is kind of an oneperson office but there is a lot of collaboration with other Town departments and outside agencies so we're working together all the time and on page 150 of the budget book um it starts my my section but I do not have a line item in the budget book except for my salary funds to assist residents come from Community donations and government funding such as cares and arpa primarily my office provides needs-based services people will come to my office for things such as applying for support to public benefit programs referrals for assistance to local nonprofits programs such as fuel assistance which could be government and also local funding and emergency assistance programs to support needs such as rent utilities child care and Mortgage in FY 24 um we had a some of my office responsibilities were um doing a back to school drive holiday gift drive for families in the community this past fall um we transitioned those tasks over to the ab Resource Center so now they will be um the main leads on those types of projects with support from my office and if some of you aren't aware the ab Resource Center is a collaborative effort between the actum boxboro schools and the actum boxboro United Way they provide clothing and other items to all residents who wish to go there we finished um a very successful run um with the araa funding and I want to thank the board um and the town manager for providing These funds to help the residents we administered $150,000 in emergency assistance grants and $80,000 in child care subsidies through these arer funds in FY 26 we are embarking on a new initiative again with arer funds to subcontract with Metro West legal services in Framingham to provide tenant Support Services these clinics will be held at the Human Services Center um on the second Tuesday of each month from 4: to 6: p.m. through December 31st of 2026 and we've already had about five people yeah it's people are calling so we're looking to get the word out and we'll be doing that um in the coming weeks some changes and ongoing challenges my office um has encountered is a lot of what I do actually all that I do is from either charitable um resources from Community groups clergy churches um individuals but there has been a marked decrease in charitable resources um within the community despite the growing need for assistance if you look on the little table chart um you can see some of the um assistance categories that we have provided help with since fy21 and in in 2021 was was covid and there definitely was a a surge in in giving the United Way had received a lot of gifts and we were able to give a lot lot of Grants through car's act and also through United away and other donations so that was that year we had $346,000 of assistance paid out to Residents not to Residents directly but to their landlords to the utility companies to their childcare programs and as the years have gone on you know it's it's shrinking and and this upcoming year it will be even smaller however um these programs have helped shape that you know we do have a population that could benefit or you know has been greatly um supported through these programs um most of the programs we have are 65% of the area median income so for a family of four that's about 104,000 so our guidelines were were generous and we were able to help a lot of different families and families that who may otherwise not have received help from a state program so we did a lot of um good work for lots of different um income brackets within the community so that is a little bit about um community services and then it kind of leads into Transportation which is also another needed resource um to many of the residents who visit my office the senior center and all the other Human Services departments in town this department moved to Health and Human Services in the fall of 2024 and there's information on page 151 of the budget book so this is new this is new to myself it's it's new to Penny but we felt that it was a good fit for us to have transportation in our building because we know probably 80% of the people who might use the service or 75% so you know we're in either contact with them on a regular basis or they they know of us and you know we're familiar with who usually uses the transportation service um challenges of this program um is operational costs are outpacing available funding it is very expensive um to move people around and I did not realize that until I started um doing this type of work and the grants from the state level have become more competitive um there is um some grants that have matches to them and that sometimes dissuades other others for applying but there's a lot of money right now from the um millionaire tax or the fair share tax and you know the dot is offering grants without shares so they're doing the state money is is a little bit different than the federal money so they're expecting more people to apply for this money because there's not a share part of it so they can apply for the full funding of whatever um they're looking for for transportation and also um the needs of our ridership extends beyond the existing on demand and fixed root services and we were able to um have a grant with sberry through Mass development that ended in October of 2024 and we were able to provide um 1492 rides through that Grant um and these rides typically ran at the times when our buses didn't operate which was nights and weekends but also could take people to other places during the day that the Vans wouldn't be able to get to such as hospitals in Boston and to kind of give everyone an idea of the last three months of of what the trips look like on the van um the certainly busy we're not at preo levels yet but we are halfway there if not growing um in the month of October we did 1518 rides and the month of so these what I'm reading to you right now may not be in the budget book um there on spreadsheets that get sent to us from the vendor we use um in November of 2024 we did 1223 rides in December of 202 or 1,11 rides big rides as a COA in the cat shuttle COA in October did 515 trips to the COA the cat shuttle did 4177 trips in a month and the Road Runner and the minute van are doing about 300 between two and 300 chips but the the main busy busy Vans are the fix root shuttle and the COA van and of all those months all those rides we were only unable to successfully fulfill six of those rids so I think that's pretty good um we went to the Dispatch Center in wuin last week we were able to see what goes on and yeah and what's on the other side of of people that we've talked to for many years but never knew what they look like or anything so that was a nice experience and um acting is full they showed me their schedules and it's like blocked up blocked up every day so um they are doing their job and they are getting as many people on the van as they are able to and just for a fun fact the top five destinations of the cat tend to be in different orders but they tend to be acum Plaza Great Road Condominiums the MBTA commun rail Avalon and Town Hall so that's where people mostly are gravitating to on the shuttle um approximately 35 to 40% of our Riders are eligible for ada8 pair transit services and that's very important to to know that um all of our vans are accessible um however if for some reason our fixed route shuttle was not accessible we'd have to provide complimentary parat transit services we're in a different position because we have four accessible vans but we still have to um account for those individuals and keep track of them and make sure that they're getting the services that they need um and the most rides to medical appointments and social social events make up 77% of the scheduled rides so people are going to the doctors and going going to the Council on Aging or someplace else um see uh accomplishments um we did um secure a grant funded we just just got it in December uh all electric transportation vehicle from the L Regional Transit Authority um this is the first of its kind deployed by the LRTA and we're having a rep from LRTA come out um on Monday the 27th to train the staff um on how to use the vehicle and then we hope to get it on the road in February and this will also positively contribute towards the town's climate goals we also launched and concluded the taxi program that we mentioned um this was available free of charge and it was very successful and and very popular um residents were sad when we had a close the funding on that um and looking forward um for the upcoming year we have never I've been here for 16 years I don't think we've really ever had an active Reach campaign for the van or any of the transportation services that we have in the town I I don't believe so so part of Penny I's um goals would be to improve the Outreach of the transportation services and especially to populations with limited English Prof proficiency um to create the Outreach materials in English and other languages and expand Beyond traditional Outreach methods to extend to venues such as minority owned stores or markets libraries Community festivals and other community-based organizations so that is a little bit about Transportation um and another thing that we will be doing is a Mobility management study and that will be happening in the coming weeks and this is also a grant from Mass do and we're hoping to develop a strategic plan for the transportation program moving forward and also um part of our funding requires us to develop a formalized participation plan for engagement with the public around transportation services and needs so there's a lot that we have to get done um and you know the federal funding requires a lot more um of this kind of stuff so these are things that we're all working on to get caught up on so that's all thank you very much so that concludes all of our presentations and we can all come up and answer your questions uh whatever that might be and how you'd like to do that just want maybe like pull some chairs up my question is for Laura um so just in your little performance the performance metrics for specifically child care I know that we were graced with like arpa money yeah at some point um and we have allotted 40,000 20 20 2024 how how is that used what is it used and how quickly does it disappear yep so $440,000 um the way I broke it down to kind of be fair was about 14 families could receive $3,000 subsidies however some families didn't need that much so there might be families that only needed um School vacations so there might have been like a couple other families that had smaller amounts but how it works um we're able to work with um the child care programs in the school department in the community and what usually happens is if a child is approved um they build my office every month with an intendance sheet and we then pay if it's $400 for the month we will make an invoice and pay that we don't pay the 3,000 at once right we don't pay the ,000 directly to the family it gets build by the month from the daycare center so we're working with the local daycare centers and um we really had no problems with that method I mean we've been doing it for quite a few years now so they're all pretty comfortable with it um so what that can be used for a lot of different things it's a small amount and child care is very expensive um I think MX County and norfol County are like the third and fourth highest like in the nation under the Bureau of Labor Statistics like it's very expensive it's like thousands of dollars to put a baby in daycare it's it's just astronomical how much it costs so it doesn't always work for that person who might have an infant that might not really be an amount that's going to be like oh mean they could break it down 300 a month or something they could do that but it works best for the after school kids and it works best for the kids who are in preschool that might only go 3 or 4 hours a day come home that type of childcare Arrangement I've seen the the the best stretch of that like families could have their after school covered for the whole year okay you know or they could have their only their Wednesdays covered because they don't have anybody to watch their children on the half a day yeah um so to me that is the stretches at the most bang for the buck for the families but they can use it for a traditional daycare and they can do that as well um and and will how fast will it be gone it will be gone by September like it we'll have I mean the money will run throughout the year but the slots will be filled I I'm pretty sure by school people call all the time and there are no we have some of our work we don't have programs that will take vouchers we don't have programs that have scholarships um so it's hard it it's hard for families it really is hard for them um and when they get their new apartment or they move to their new housing through the housing authority and they come into the community it's like oh I can't work I you know I can't you know so it's it's really you know it's Mis it's unfortunately it's it's mismatched um we need to be talking to our child care providers to our medical homes and and accepting Mass health and accepting childcare vouchers and and bringing more of these Supportive Services to what whether it's too actant or around us so that people can get people can get to where they need to go and um they're not just having to drive to their former Hometown and they don't have a car and they can't get to I don't know it's just a lot of things that go on I know and I'd like to add to that because I mean I think it's important that we get people relief now so that they can live their lives and everybody can stay a baseline of mentally well right and when you're financially in a hardship or or struggling it really puts your on your back heels but what also needs to happen in this regard which we will see come out of a community health needs assessment that a lot more organization needs to happen at the organizational level around Health Care access to access to healthare access to child care why is it not working well in this area what needs to be done who needs to know about it who needs to advocate for it all of that takes a lot of work and a lot of really good facilitation which I absolutely planned to do for you here in this town however it's going to take a lot of work to not just help people immediately financially and that again requires humans to do that and families can work and the kids have enrichment um but it it can be the difference between um you know someone needing more government assistance or more Community charitable assistance if they're working it may not always but it most likely would lessen that need to rely on other services if they're working a 40 hour a week job y thanks uh you mentioned that charitable donations were down is there a list someplace where if someone is interested in donating they can find out the various funds they can donate to and yeah we can make one Y where where can they find that uh have to make that and mail it and send it to you I don't have one on the website I don't so so yeah if you if you make it we can announce it at a select board meeting all right thank you thank you y um couple of quick ones one for James is the veteran Serv you don't even have to sit down is the veteran service budget the whole thing or is that net of what we charge boxboro so I've been working working for the town of Acton for 34 hours a week from the beginning and when we came together with boxboro essentially all we did was add four more hours to my work week and then we negotiated a few other parts about I 10% of most of the line items were covered by boxboro a couple hours of um reception time at the senior center and so forth yeah okay thank you and the second one's for Heather of course how are you Heather I'm good Steve how are you so I'm going to ask you the same question I've asked you for about 15 years what's the nursing Revenue number for 24 actual or this year's budget sure fy2 24 was 165 uh right now we're at 117 at uh at the end of uh December okay in receipts it's been long enough I don't think I'll ask you that question again next year thanks I uh am not going to ask you any questions is about kpis partly because I'm a member of the senior center and every time I check in there's a barcode and they not only know that I'm there in case I die so they could call my wife but they also know what I'm attending so you guys have got data upon data upon data so I I'm not even going to mess with that one what I am going to say though is that all of you are in the front line of some really significant changes in this community you're sort of the canaries and the coal mine okay that may not be a good metaphor but let's put it this way you you're seeing the shift you're seeing the people who are in need you are seeing the people who are lonely you are seeing people who are isolated you are seeing um an emerging demand for transportation Senior Services um veterans I I was surprised to discover that we have a higher percentage of veterans in acting than other towns in Middle sex County so um you guys see it first so as you go forward with your assessment of strategic plans and whatnot help help me understand how you get your arms around what is really a big big series of interrelated issues that's a great question um we're going to do that by including a lot of people to help us get to the to the priorities um there are standards that will not change we are mandated in many of our departments by state and federal mandates including our professional development our you know our skill set how we manage our money how we monitor our work so that all will continue to be stable but we'll be looking at you know what can we do with what we have if we only have if so so let me also say this we will find through this community needs assessment parts that need to be fixed that we don't have money for and they'll be no funding to then address that situation so then we'll have to get creative and we'll look at ways that we can do the loow hanging fruit method figure out small moves that can have a bigger impact what's our tipping points that we and seeds we can plant in different areas and when that funding source comes in we're going to be real fast and we're going to get that money but we don't know what's going to happen we don't know what the intentions of the federal government are for Health and Human Services so I can't can't I can't guarantee anything I can tell you in my 15 years I've done a really good job of that working for municipality but I can't guarantee what's going to come next but I know that these people we all prepared to do what needs to be done for the residents here well we have a hell of a team so I'm um I'm optimistic that you guys could do it let me then share one other anecdote I covered the birthday party at the senior center for people who are 90 plus I was stunned at the large number it's and in just talking with um I'm not 90 plus by the way I'm old but I'm not that old um one of the things that um struck me is that 405 years ago people would when they retired sell their home and act and move to Florida you almost never hear about that anymore people who have lived in Acton um love staying in act and I I asked one 90-year-old woman have you lived here all your life and she said not yet so they like staying in the community so to what extent are we dealing with um a shift in expectations when people get older well that's a great question I think I may not be the best person to start the answer but I'm going to try um one of the things that we're looking at I know that so one thing that's really cool about the Council on Aging is that Sharon runs a team she's not telling everybody what to do they're all working together they're looking at what's going on they're listening to the residents and they're communicating weekly about how to innovate their programming and how to keep on being up on that and that will continue to happen as our boomers are getting more comfortable with the idea of coming together and hanging out regardless of what we call it a senior center are just a place to hang out um so I think that that that's one consideration we're looking at the shifts in in in who's aging and and what do they need and what are they looking at but all the while making that place a community where you can come and just sit next to someone and read a book and that you can see that when you walk in so anybody can observe that but I don't know if um Heather and um Sharon want to also answer so Sharon and I are starting to work on some um Mutual Aging in place programs um so you know as you know people are staying put and acting um so we need to be aware Ware of what they need to age in place you know um is it cheaper to stay in your home than it is to live in a nursing home yeah it really is um if you can get adjunct staff if you can get people to come in and check on you if you can get adaptive equipment um if you can get you know uh modifications to your home um but then there's the support services of everybody in this group you know between the COA Community Services veterans myself health Department um that's what we're here for you know we're here to help people brainstorm how do we stay in our house how do we stay safe and how do we find those services to do that I kind of have a bunch too um Heather you probably already said it what's the difference between active nerv nursing services and and um the public the public health budget sure um the VNA budget is our home health agency so that is um an agency that we are one of the last two within the state um that do home health services within the community um we've been a certified Home Health agencies since 1966 and then the uh Public Health budget is for the things that are mandated through the state every town does a certain amount of Public Health Outreach in the community um some of the required Things Are uh disease surveillance so outbreaks in the community um you know what we did during covid with all the disease TR tracking and tracing contact tracing um so disease process in the community those are things that we have to follow and then some of the other things that we do are Wellness visits community outreach programming um when the select boards set a um goal for mental health programming in the town um because of the Mental Health crisis we started doing some tral programming that we hadn't done before like our Horticultural therapy we have a registered Horticultural therapist who comes in three times a month um works with seniors um to do a variety of different plantings um artificial Arrangements um it's about you know their mental health doing that piece you said the active nursing service is one of only two such agencies correct the other town is Sten okay so you mentioned an example like older people people find trying to figure out how to stay in their home they're going to call you no matter what but which service would that be under it could be either I mean it could be someone that's under service after a hospitalization because they fell at home or they keep falling at home um and there's ways that we you know our staff can assess to see what the needs are what the problems are within the house um that maybe is making them fall so that could be when we've been asked to come in for the doctor's office because they've had an injury um excuse me or a change of status um or it could be under the public health department we're starting to work with police and fire as well as um the COA um for you know Outreach more Outreach when someone as an example has you know three or four Falls um why are they falling you know give us a call let us go in let us do an assessment with our therapists or our nurses um just to see what we can do to help uh what recommendations we can make what um resource we can give you for assistance in your home so it can be either or okay thanks sure I have particular thing in my head right now thank thanks um and Laura I wanted to ask you in your that doesn't have that funding anymore that funding source the uh the two programs that come to mind from this group would be the the cafe uh was an oper funding program that we're going to hope to sustain through uh a revolving fund and uh going forward and then the child care which uh We've proposed as part of a new subsidy program in the capital budget that would provide a subsidy for transfer station stickers and for child care okay thanks and then for transportation is that okay I see yeah cross town connect are there are there is says cross is is cross action Transit the same thing as cross town connect that's once somebody referred to it in an email that wayam okay the the cat the cat is the B sorry the cat cat is the program underneath cross town connect okay so it's its own van and are there being any are there any changes being made to that program okay and and what do you mean what kind of changes are you spefic okay so I I have somebody who's reached out to me a couple times and she's and she I think she sent these emails to the fincom and the board of Selectmen but she says um cross town connect is her only mode of transportation to get to doctor's appointments at the food pantry she's like really asking me to advocate for it to to maintain this program yes and we plan to and and she says she's speaking on behalf of other people you know and I believe her and I thank her okay y put that out there thank you yeah we'll be operating all four of the Vans thank you um let's see a few um first I think is is is is for Matt um the um so um town meeting and the select board uh gave gave you some extra work over the last couple years because of the plastic bag ban and then the styrofoam ban so I I wanted to find out first um how's compliance going with those and second um now that you've been doing this for a while what have you noticed about how much extra staff time this takes if any it's a good question Jim thank you um it's going well I haven't received any complaints in probably 10 months or so and that's actually a good thing because usually people call in and say I know they're using a certain bag they're using a certain package down there you need to go down there when I do go down to the establishments people are open to it the owners the the managers they're open to the changes so it's gone well it's gone well you're now and you're currently being driven by complaints so it's not a not there's not like an extra cost of time of regular inspections it's no it's it's complaint great okay um thanks and that's that's also true with the styr all the styrofoam issues yes great thank you thank you Transportation um so I'm the liaison both to the commission on disabilities and into the transportation advisory committee so lots of conversation about Transportation I think the only particular piece I wanted to pass on um because I think you've identified all the issues exactly right that there's you know a lot of Transportation needs that aren't being met um is that um the members of the transportation advisory committee which is now finally uh you know fully staffed up um would be happy uh to help out um for example with um you Grant applications or you know any sort of um tasks that would help in um you know in increasing the scope of the programs um you know we're we're we're missing as as the uh as the commuter traffic is getting back up to pre pandemic levels people are really missing the uh the the shuttle to the to the train um and of course you've mentioned the um you know after hours and uh farther distance transportation so just wanted to make sure you knew that they were available um yeah the only one I can of remember was really just a um a a note to to John which is um I was going to ask you earlier about um you know your the the number of direct reports you have seems extraordinarily too large maybe it's just a little bit too large um but that this this reorg particular um has really helped um you've so I just I wanted to thank you for coming on board and I wanted to thank you know the team for having the wisdom to hire her and to to reor this way so that you have um you know um a whole a whole bunch of important interrelated departments uh you know reporting to a new director rather than all having to report to you so good work thank you for the support oh I have something oh we can clap twice um so I just I just want to thank every single one of you for your presentations and I don't want to you know leave all of the other departments out in the cold but all of the work that you do makes I'm I'm so proud of it it makes living and acting worthwhile because you are meeting so many Community needs so thank you um we we talk about distinguishing between needs and wants um and I know that you know you are meeting needs like the woman that kin just mentioned who needs transportation in order to live in this community so that that is a need even though it might not be something that is available in in every town um so I I definitely support um the work that you're doing um you know and the budget that we put together reflects the values of the community um and I just wanted to mention there's been a lot of questions about the Child Care Subsidy um and the fact that arpa money is is is gone now so is this something that we want to continue providing um and and I think of of child care support because of the way the child care environment is in the community and and in the surrounding communities because people definitely have to leave Acton to find to find um Child Care uh providers it is it is a need in order for many folks to be able to to work um and actually um Senator Eldridge put a panel together some months ago with an Acton resident um Jeff fur um who wrote the myth that made us and um some other folks um and I can't remember their names but one of the things that um they talked about in that panel was a pilot program that had been put together I think in Cambridge using arpa money um but they provided funding for for families and and it actually showed the data over over the year of the pilot program people actually um increased their work hours so both full-time employment part-time employment seasonal employment um so parents were able to work they were working more handing people money does not mean that they're they're not going to work um they also they tracked you know how much time they spent with their kids so they were a lot more involved in parenting so it's a really important program and we can argue about whether it's a a want or need um but it's certainly um needed by some families in town um I had a question about the friends of act and nursing Services um Heather you mentioned that they contribute to some of your programming do you have an amount that they contribute annually an a guesstimate a guesstimate um you know I would have to get back to you I I don't know off the top of my head to be honest with you okay yeah well it's great that we have friends of um Council on Aging and nurse nursing service to help um support those budgets um and this is also a question for you have there you mentioned that the public health nurse position has been vacant since FY 23 so who is fulfilling those um duties that are required by the state like um disease surveillance you me yeah no mainly me but we have split off some of the other um things like our blood pressure clinics as an example so we do two a month in the building in our office and then we do two in the community um one at stum way one at winds or green um our nurse case manager uh when her hours are low we give those to her if she if they're not low we take them so it's whatever whoever it works for between the three nursing staff okay and and I know you're you're working to get that position filled as well as the prum nurses yeah we did fill it briefly over the summer um the nurse that took it had a lot on her plate and didn't stay Beyond 3 weeks maybe unfortunately tripoline yeah well anyways um so we're working on that um penny and I are working to you know strategize how to find someone who um is willing to do the position uh you know with Healthcare right now you know same with the perdm staff as you all know when you call a doctor's office are you're on call for 45 minutes on on hold waiting to talk to someone probably um that's the that's the dynamic of healthcare right now unfortunately so there's you know a shortage of Staff um across all you know all disciplines um and unfortunately nursing is one of those for us and I want to add too that the public health nurse is a unique nursing position it is it is it is a little bit of a different look at how nursing operates but um it is absolutely critical to our community to have a public health nurse doing what what they do and I also want to give a big um thank you to to Heather too for doing some of our communication campaigns around some of the virus that and bacteria based um illnesses that are going on out there and we'll continue to put more information out as best we can with the Staffing that we have is is one of the the potential strategies to create a full-time position that we can share with another Community because right now I see it's halim thanks John yes awesome I hope that works out um I just have uh one other question again for you Heather um so I noticed a shift in the there was an increase in Services of physical therapy and occupational therapy and I think I remember from last year that that was a deliberate shift in Focus um can you describe any impact on Revenue that the department brings in so the therapies do bring in more money overall um the therapists are paid more at a per visit rate for hmos and ppos and then having a therapy case in general for Medicare it does pay at a higher level um but there are more therapy needs I think as people are aging in the community um unfortunately there's been more Falls and injuries but there's also a lot of orthopedic surgery um which that shift has definitely raised up the visit levels for the therapist and our therapists are not um town employees they're through our contractual line items so they're as needed thank you and I just want to put a plugin for the beastro it's I've had some meals there it's really good as well as um I'm not a senior yet but they let me sneak in and participate in the program so I saw a great movie and and I just and I and I walked into the Horticultural therapy room and there was like like it was buzzing in there I wasn't allowed to participate but I could tell it was intense Penny I feel like you were directing that comment to me like Boomers that don't realize yet that they wna I I live I live with a boomer I my parents are boomers I'm I love my Boomers and I want to make I want to make the world right for them as much uhhuh uhhuh uhhuh as a boomer thank you health and human services team yes please now for our closing act we have our we have our Department of Public Works this is uh a department led by director Corey York and Corey is on his way to the mic Corey welcome good evening uh just yeah just quick introductions I'm Corey yor I'm the Public Works director um next to me is chin rupang who's our town engineer and then Carl Maria is our operation superintendent um others in the kind of the management team that on here tonight is uh Ryan hunt who is our tree Warden sha Ali who's our Cemetery superintendent and then Karen switf who's our business manager um so the public works department which start on page 153 um it's comprised of several different divisions um the first one being Highway division which is made up of the roads crew the Fleet Maintenance and the transfer station and then in addition we have the trees and grounds engineering and Cemetery um we do a lot of the things you would expect as far as upkeep and maintenance of the public infrastructure around town and the grounds around town buildings uh but we do a lot of close preporation with other departments that is probably not always well known but we maintain the rail trails in Acton um we assist the health department with the household hazardous waste days um we're also in charge of the Community Gardens so we've we've partnered with um the conservation this year to kind of kind of revamp that programing and and build upon that uh we also work regularly with Recreation for the upkeep of the parks and assisting with their events and um activities uh we work regularly with police and fire assisting with emergency response and in addition to looking over and uh trying to address various traffic concerns that have come up um so as you get into looking at the Departments I mean some of the accomplishments and um goals and sort of ongoing efforts that just wanted to highlight is um and one of them is the our substantial completion of gardener playground um that's coming along really well um and just the continuing efforts to try to improve the employee safety and well building and overall work efficiencies through the DPW replacement project um in addition to that we we did just the complete the rehab of the Su plant down on Adam Street um that as you know the sewer is over 20 years old so we went through a round of um repairs and upgrades down there um and in our Cemetery they were able to acquire a fairly significant Grant to help them uh reconstruct the entrance to the Chapel to allow accessibility into that down woodw cemetery and then kind of the last one of the last big efforts that just highlighting is we've been um building Upon A a comprehensive Stone Water Management plan so we've been going through a lot of that looking at the inventory and priorities and we've been updating sort of the townwide prioritization for complete streets so we've been collaborating with a um transportation advisory committee on that so there's been a lot going on those are just kind of the key highlights uh some of the performance indicators we have for the Department as you look in the budget it has the average daily sewage flows um that's something that the plant operators are looking at all day long the the flows for them they have the trends and the historical data so it allows them if they see an unusual Spike and it's say seasonal with um the spring rains it it could be an indicator of elicit detection um connection to the system or it could be a say a leaky pipe joint so allows us to target areas to do further inspections or cameraing in the pipe to identify those issues and then if there's an issue with a private connection we can work with those homeowners or the commercial properties to address that uh we also have the road paving index that we look at how much we pave in a year and try to make sure we're keeping up with the infrastructure keeping it safe um and sort of targeting various projects we know that are coming so that we can kind of work that together and then we also have the salt use which is relates to our winter maintenance operations so something like that helps us to as we monitor our winter operations and Equipment calibration to make sure we're we're not putting down too much we're and equipment's working properly as well as looking at our storm response and our practices of um how we do it and other ways we can be doing it differently or or just improving upon how we do it so um it gives us those opportunities to evaluate um in some of those situations so as we get into the budget reports themselves which start on page 160 first one you'll see is Cemetery um so the the salary only increased by about 1.3% um part of the reasoning was the um there's a a four-person crew so half of them are um new hires as for backfilling of vacancies as well as the clerical position was reduced to a part-time position um so that was only like about a 1.3% increase for salaries um when you look at the other non-salary line items we did some adjustments based on actuals but there was no change in that um those light items so so Bas hope the benefit there is with the support of the C commission is that budget only increased about 1.2% across that on the next page you'll see the engineering uh same you'll see an increase in the salaries um um and then we did for the nonat line items there was a reduction overall of those so the overall budget increase for engineering was about 3.4% um and then you get into the next one which is kind of a composite of all the various um budgets that relate to highway so um the salaries increased by about two 3.2% um but overall as you look down through the line items you'll see a lot of changes but overall all the non-salary line items they were reduced by about 7% so as you look at the various ones you'll see um snow and ice there was actually no change in that budget um there was an increase in the fuel to reflect the expenditures that are that we were seeing um and there was also a slight increase in Machinery the Machinery budget is what we use in the fleet division for um the maintenance and upkeep of the Town vehicles and Equipment you'll notice a lot of those items were reduced in that budget but there were increases to the police and the town Fleet line item um that's just due to the Aging Fleet and the sort of the more frequent repairs we're seeing coming down the line um as we get into the other budgets on the highway you'll see um in the the highway budget overall it was decreased by about 5% um in our roads budget uh which we used for road paving and things like that um that was decreased as well probably a little over 6% in Special Projects was reduced as well um we also have a couple Enterprise budgets that we operate through um the DPW so the first one is the transfer station um there were some adjustments in there related to actual so you'll see um working with finance and Facilities there was an increase in electricity to account for what we're seeing for consumption out there um and then there was another there was a decrease in align item for trash bags and that's we have the pays to throw prob um trash bags to that program so we're seeing less um acquisition of those so there was a decrease there as well uh and last item in the air was like the capital Li was increased and that was to reflect the replacement of the front end loader that we're proposing in that budget um for the sewer Enterprise fund which covers the operations of sewer um you'll see a couple increases one is the contractual line item um what's happening is we have we're at nearing the end of the contract for our um operations out there so we'll be in the process of awarding seeking proposals and awarding a contract effective this July um and what we're seeing what I'm seeing at least with um a lot of these contracts that we either acquired pre pandemic or right at the during of the onset um as we getting into new contracts we're seeing big cost increases for materials and services so we we increase that line on with the expectation that we were expecting to see that um the new pricing go up and as well as you'll see some changes to The Debt Service section and that relates to uh fluctuations for the kind of the original debt for the system as well as as we finish that sua rehab um the new loan payments will be coming online so that's an anticipation of that as well um as far as the budget itself looking at the DPW operating budget um when we look at across the salary on salary in the general fund um we're proposing about a 1.7% increase overall um that's that's kind of the DPW in a nutshell so I'll take any questions you might have so many questions but let me just ask a couple um so I've been a uh an advocate for a while of thinking of um sidewalks as you know life-saving equipment they're they keep people off the roads um and the condition of the roads uh as something that's a that's a variable I I understand that we take care of the roads based on um you know that that careful analysis that you hired that has you know the condition of all the roads and when they need to be done so that um if we drew the line differently than we do now uh kept the roads going a little bit longer uh could we shift our um uh our chapter chapter 90 use uh or our regular budget use to uh shift more towards uh sidewalks if you actually if you look at the the the paving Matrix you'll see we're already um Paving less we typically we're probably Paving in the range of I say four to five miles a road annually and that was to that was to sort of have a service life expectations say approximately about 25 years um obviously like a subdivision Street would be longer than 25 busy be less um so we're currently Paving under that just due to other things that are going on um we have leveraged our some of the funding like chapter 90 we've leveraged for acting Center when we were adding in bike Lanes things like that um but we're also in a position that where as we're building these various programs um we're trying to better link them together so um I'll say in the case of like act and Center we finished that we're in the process now of as we've evaluated road conditions Main Street sort of coming out of the center towards Route two um is one of the high priorities as far as road condition so what we've been doing is um been working with a consultant we've held a public forum to look at the corridor and how we would connect the dots as we've been doing um sort of complete Street accommodations coming sort of from West Acton um sorry South Acton up uh we have different pieces and I we're looking at how to connect the dots basically from Kelly's coed AC and Center um and part of this process is kind of a multi-step is to look at the vision of how we want the cross-section of the road to look when complete streets comes with the intent as we get up here it gets pretty wide so if if there's the ability to know what the cross-section is going to look like and we can make some of those adjustments to make repair the road surface to make it safe but knowing that we're doing it in a way that we're providing the space needed for whether it's a sh path or a sidewalk or a combination of both um so that's kind of a piece that we're looking at as as a new approach for our road paving program is and we do it in pieces so it's not necessarily we're going to do the whole thing at once or we might but the idea be is that we're taking a a closer look at the big picture and trying to come up with that um in addition to that we're doing a sort of an evaluation of our storm drainage of what's under the ground what it looks like so we're getting a better picture of that so in addition we've focused on looking at the drainage and that simp section but throughout town trying to phase it in so that we know what's happening under the ground we know what we're trying to do on top and then how do we phase in the different pieces and in in my head the the road paving program should be the last thing we're doing so um one of the pieces that it's always a struggle but working with the public utilities so that um we don't run to another situation where we finish Paving it and then all of a sudden the electric company or gas company come and want to cut through it so um we've worked with work with them is even with the gas company with the gas leaks um and we've enticed them that if there's a road that we know um the surface is in rough shape and we're planning to pave it that if they would um expedite something to remove some leaks um and they did the temporary patch we were going to pave it anyway so we could do that so we've been fortunate that it's worked I think there was a section of Prospect Street that had some pretty significant leaks um and it was the road was in bad shape so we were planning on Paving it anyway so we were able to get National Grid interested to come out and make those repairs so that we could stop those leaks and we've worked with them on various issues but those are all the sort of the different programs we're building and we're looking at and hoping as all these pieces are coming together it we're advancing in a more logical approach so that like I said the the last thing we do is pave it that we're not Paving it then realize we wish we did something else so and that's something that is complet streets is a big part of that is if we can if we can do some of those modifications in line with the paving and know that we have room to work out whatever details we have as far as trying to preserve trees or other kind of features so um that's something we're working towards trying to get that into a system thanks so much thanks so much um let's see next question um um there's a some of the maintenance that you do along you know roads and sidewalks involves um you know pushing back the encroaching poison ivy for example um and I mentioned the poison ivy because there's been some uh curiosity about um how to characterize how uh how much time effort or or gallons we putting into um um herbicides to uh remove Poison Ivy and do you have any way of sort of characterizing the scale of that operation either by you know how much how much we're using or or you know how many miles of of Pi removal we're doing or any of that yeah as far as herbicide use um our the tree Warden who oversees the vegetation management probably has a number as he probably has to report it but I will say a lot of the the requests we get for poison IV removal I mean the nature where it likes to grow is near wetlands and we're not allowed to use herbicides in those locations so um we may do some kind of a mowing or clearing but typically a lot of the places that we running into poison ivys we can't we're not treating it with herbicide so um first uh thank you for working out a plan uh for uh working hand in glove with the utilities so that you have the most efficient use of the p saing program that's uh that's a great step in the right direction thank you uh I do have a quick question on the Ada uh work at the chapel were you able to do that without having to relocate the orgon I know that was a a bone of contention with the with with the people who with the family who deed gifted that Chapel sure yeah um when we when I came on board I think the first round of that through the CPC had already gone through so I kind of came the second round so what we've done is broken into pieces because they have the the project we're doing right now is to get um uh repair the sort of the accessibility to get into the building and then once we can get that um the Commissioners are working on the sort of the the interior improvements of what that would be and I know the organ was one of the issues because I believe the area where it is um is an area they're talking about a bathroom and having a new septic system um and they've they've Ted talked about um creating a using the system but having some kind of a technology Improvement that they've discussed so it is a a Next Step that um as of right now we're in I think there's a consensus of how it's going to move forward but we haven't worked those details out we're right now we're trying to get the access issues resolved to get in and then we're going to work on those but I think we're in a good place to make those changes thank you yeah Corey uh um the as far as the sewer Enterprise fund it looks like you're averaging 160 gallons per day um that's that's a little more than halfy or permed uh volume so what what's what are the Peaks like we've we've definitely had peaks in the spring that um have jumped quite a bit which is has had us looking into doing caming chasing down leaks making repairs so um trying to prevent some of those surges so um I I I could probably get you that information because we do have a a graph that kind of shows the average daily flows and the peak so we have that information I can share I just don't have it with me tonight and back to repaving um if I remember correctly we have about 127 miles a road in town and if um if you say 25 year life then yeah you're talking five five miles a year which from the graph it looks like you may not be hitting lately but the life of the graph it looks like you've been on it so thanks Cory question the font loader that needs to be replaced is the new one that you're looking at more efficient than what the current model is is it prly the same size of a big giant front loader or is it a smaller one for the needs of yeah it's the same size is what we're getting what we have right now when we replac this one we did downgrade from the from the prior version cuz we I think when we had the older front and loader it was when we were running a much bigger operation down there when we were in that old neswick system so we did downsize it um we as you know we use that front and loader six days a week when the transportation open as well as the winter operations um the the one that's out there right now is a 2013 so it's I mean just efficiencies within the technology itself it it's the the new one meets much more stringent emission standards um the fuel consumption all that kind of stuff it has sort of new features built in that it's just inherently more efficient than what we have thanks um I will say that the new contract that you have doing the compost much better than the old one was I mean it I've seen twice where it's been really full after like Thanksgiving and like Christmas and stuff like that but otherwise he was collecting it the other day and it was pretty full and they came and took it away which is pretty good to see so thank you yes um so looking ahead a couple years imagining a future where we do successfully get a new DPW building um do you um do you have a sense that either that um you know you know decreases uh your costs in some way the growth in your costs because it's more efficient or easier to use or does it increase your costs because there's going to be a lot of you know new stuff to take care of or or what do you have a sense yet of how of how a new DPW building would impact the overall operations costs I don't want to start have a a specific number but I would say and the we're kind of jammed in there right now so we're as we're working on different things as far as even just storing equipment we spend a lot of time in the morning um getting it up spend a lot of time at night trying to organize it so in case of different calls or what we know is coming so there's different efficiencies that will definitely help um give us more hours in the day to do more work so um I right now I would say it's it definitely is going to be a benefit as far as work efficiencies i' would say it be a benefit in employee safety and well-being um as far as just having the space and we're not jammed in if you make it we're going to be giving a tour of the building this Saturday so if everyone has a chance to come down and just look around and see what the facility looks like um it just would it just overall is just it's time it's like it's been since 1970 um we have you see in the men's room there's a locker rooms next to the Arnolds it's just it's we're just jamming it in where we can um as most other dpws where we have storage trailers over the yard we have canopy sheds trying to just protect the equipment I mean equipment is expensive so we're trying to prolong the life and protect it so um I think the a new building sized appropriately is would be a real benefit for not just us but for the community and everything we do that would just allow us to do more so um back to Paving what is the schedule for Sudbury Road was it sort of not on the calendar because we were expecting the Powder Mill uh sewer line to go up the hill uh yes it was a combination different things during the pandemic we're working on it's amazingly for a short section of Road there's a lot of underground utilities there so when the pandemic had hit and uh traffic was really light we went through and res rebuilt a lot of tops and preparation um and then I would say at that time we started talk hearing from eversource they had plans of some upgrades which was going to involve um excavation on the road so we've been coordinating with them to try to see what was going on in addition to the Powder Mill sewer we were kind of watching that um so most of those issues have been resolved the last piece we just worked out was evosaur was um the the plan that they had of far as running new underground utilities down from the substation is not happening anytime in the near future so um I believe we have it on the on the schedule for the one of the next rounds so it it's coming it was just okay there was a lot happening we didn't want to jump ahead so we were trying to pan all that out I figured there was a reason I just didn't know it but the folks the hundreds of folks who travel up to the senior center will really appreciate a a more smooth road because it's pretty it's pretty treacherous um I have um a question I think this is for John what is the duration of the borrowing for the the storm water program because I noticed that it looks like there's a there's a something I don't understand in the annual Debt Service it's higher for the lower amount compared to the um the radio project so I'm just wondering if there's a really big difference between the the loan term I think I could answer that could you help me where where you are in where you're looking at just so I I wrote a note and I was just looking for the page number Karen's got it thank you Karen um thank you so I think I understand the question but I just wanted to double check the number so uh your question was the Project's going to be an $850,000 project and we are estimating 50,000 a year in borrowing cost and that seems low uh compared with the higher amount for the radio project which was a lower total borrowed under Mass General law you're allowed to borrow for items under for certain durations and so for a building you can borrow for 30 years but for a radio thing it's less maybe 10 years so I don't know which is which but that's certainly the reason why okay it's a longer borrowing period okay um so I have another comment about uh sewer it looks like um if I'm comparing correctly the FY 23 contract um with the proposed FY 26 well first of all let me just say um that it seems not in the town's best interest to advertise in our budget which is a public document what we're budgeting for the contract before the come in that just seems like we're shooting ourselves in the foot um that's so that's a criticism I don't know if it's avoidable um but it looks like it's 34% increase from FY 23 to FY 26 and is there is there any hope that I don't know shifting to another company or is that just what the costs are it's really that's a really big jump yeah as we working with the sewer Target team and knowing that we have a new contract coming um it will be be putting out for requests for proposals we'll be seeking various Consultants so hoping everyone sharpens their pencil and comes in with um proposals that we can review in that so um we're hoping for better numbers we just with the being Enterprise fund we want to make sure we we didn't um fall in the red and we had to come back to Tom meeting and ask for more so yeah okay all right um and then my last comment is uh Laura mentioned for um transportation that she's one of her goals for next year is developing a strategic plan and I noticed that the semetery and also I should have mentioned this when Melissa was here and Recreation are called Master plans and I think that it would be more meaningful to have a name that was strategic or comprehensive or longterm um that seems to be more in alignment with what it is that that plan will accomplish and master is not quite as meaningful so that's just a a suggestion for the the budget book The Narrative sure did you see the video on Facebook that we posted of the trucks going out last Friday or the first Friday snow we had it was pretty awesome Jason K who was uh the assistant superintendent was the one in the video telling the guys to put their lights on and whatever else he was telling them to do but uh people all over the country that like Old Mac trucks are going really liking that video and I think it goes it's it speaks to the the work that we do where we're maximizing the life of these old Mac trucks to provide a service that's critical to the residents you know that day was that was it was only an inch or two but it was a icy one right so they get out there quick got the salt out uh using these old trucks that people think should have been off the road a while ago so I think that was pretty cool check it out if you if you have a chance do they have any antique [Laughter] value they do date back to 1987 so maybe could you consider selling ads on YouTube I I think that we really need to you know uh repeat that with all of our departments because um I think more engaging social media content is is going to be really appreciated by the the followers of the of the town's page Alyssa are you saying our meetings are not entertaining I'm talking about you know like Tick Tock esque content on the Facebook page for the town you're on YouTube too you know I'm sure we could carve out 30 or 40 seconds of this meeting that would be wonderfully amusing I I would leave to the chairs to conclude the meeting any way you'd like but I'd appreciate if we could give the the DPW team a round of appra on their way out thank you nice work I move to adjourn the select board meeting second all in favor I Juni the junior guy yeah got move to I already you're G do it again okay I got two microphones just say it move to adjourn the meeting second unfortunately we have to do this roll call Scott I again Steve I Karen I Greg I I'm an I I'm an i Allison if you're still there we're done