motion to open who Moved second all in favor thank I good evening this is a meeting of the uh finance committee joint meeting with the board of Selectmen uh it's Wednesday March 5th 2025 uh we're going to discuss tonight um some various economic issues in the
state and how it could could impact our town uh this meeting is being video recorded and I believe the board of selectman has to open their meeting correct is there a motion open to select meeting so move second all those in favor I I please rise for I to the flag of the United States
of America and to the rep stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you all right good evening everyone and thank you uh for being here tonight uh so listen to our concerns um we're just
a small town here in the Commonwealth of of Massachusetts but we have a lot of big voices and I hope other town finance committees are doing the same thing that we're doing tonight um before we get into the agenda I would like everyone to introduce themselves so Eric why don't you start uh Eric mcglen M finance
committee thanks for yeah you back yeah thank you for coming my name is Ru finance committee Kevin Gas bard of selectman David War bard of selectman Bob Hanley Bard s Mike bu chair finance committee Susan Del Vice chair finance committee P finance committee and master
plan committee Bob zene finance committee good evening Kristen Flynn finance committee Lisa Tomlinson finance committee Phil Adams finance committee thank you and gentleman you want to introduce sure Steve will I represent a couple of districts in
this town I'm Mark Sylvia I'm the state representative for the 10th Bristol District which is two precincts in the town of Acushnet one and a the whole towns of f Haven map poit Maran Rochester and then three precincts and
more one in the city of New Bedford so pleasure to be here thank you for coming tonight we really appreciate it and uh it means a lot to us and to our residents um so I'd like to start you know we have an agenda that we're going to follow some topics on here so I
basically want to take utilities and and green mandates and we're going to kind of lump them together because they basically go together um so I'd like to discuss the utility cost green mandates uh it's as we all know it's been a hot topic for a while now uh with utility rates being out of control gas
electric um I started doing some research myself last August in 2024 when I saw that my electric bill was $200 more than the previous August in 2023 however I actually utilized 2% less energy but it was still $200 more so I
was pretty irritated with that um so that kind of led me to to researching a little bit more so I I printed up a couple things so I did a little homework on here so I printed up something from mass.gov this was the press release from Governor Healey when she signed the
climate law to advance clean energy transition this is dated uh 11:21 2024 so I just want to read a few excerpts um from this so uh uh Governor moraly signed into law an app promoting clean energy grid advancing equity and protecting
rate payers this legislation will accelerate clean energy development and improve energy affordability create an equitable infrastructure sighting process allow for multi-state clean energy procurements promote non-gas heating expand access to electric vehicles and
create jobs and support workers throughout the energy transition just a couple more things I want to read from here so this is a this is a quote from one of the senators in Lexington Mike Barrett um says this bill
sets a balance we need to upgrade the grid without swamping the household budget uh people want to keep the lights on but at a price they can afford and someday if they haven't done so already they'll want to drive electric vehicles in dozens of ways in this bill
and notably by restraining gas expansion as we pursue electric expansion we make sure the future is green and clean and we also protect the middle class and workingclass pocketbooks uh I'm sorry but that's that
just didn't age well um that is anything but the truth of what's happening right now um if you look at what people are paying for gas and electric it's just it it's really out of control
um and something needs to be done about it the the other thing I had researched was you know I didn't realize that the Department of Public Utilities are the ones that set the rates um and they're actually comprised of a a three-person commission uh three environmental
attorneys they're all appointed by the governor um so they set the rates are negotiated U by eversource and then the governor signs off on them you know so I I just I find it laughable that Governor he is out there now demanding that they
lower the rates when in fact she's the one that actually signed off on them I mean it's just it it it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me um to to hear that kind of stuff and then for ever source to First say they're going to lower the
give everybody a 5% reduction right right that was laughable that's nothing on a somebody's $500 electric bill and then they bumped it up to 10% which is still laughable but then they want to recoup that back two a couple months later down down the road uh with
interest I mean it's just it's appalling to me that this is going on right now and in my opinion what's really driving a lot of these um increases in electricity and gas the fact that two pipelines were
shut down uh by Governor Healey something that she was she bragged about it um and the fact that you know we're all subsidizing all these green mandates through our utility bills lot maybe a lot of residents don't realize that but
we are and it's expensive um the cost to do this long term is is really troubling um another another thing that I looked up so this is a a group it's it's called the American
Americans for prosperity.org um so it's an article New England think tanks so there's seven think tanks throughout New England so they're taking all the states uh green energy mandates will double electric rates causing rolling blackouts in the region so I just want to read a little bit of this because it's kind of
interesting with New England state governments committed to reducing their carbon emissions at least by 80% in 2050 residents and businesses can expect electricity rates to double along with rolling blackouts according to a new joint report completed by several of the
Region's leading think tanks the study concludes that weather dependent renewable energies like wind and solar simply cannot meet Regional standards for electricity compliance with the New England decarbonization plans would cost
roughly $815 billion through 2050 the report concludes that's mindboggling to me that that's what the cost is so I mean if you divide that up over that time frame I did the math Massachusetts
probably has one of the biggest infrastructure and and grids out of all the seven states or one of them we're probably close so our share of that over through 2050 would probably be anywhere from 15 to2 billion a year that we're going to
have to fund these green mandates this year's budget proposal $60 billion so just that alone would be a third of an entire budget for our state I mean it's just I I don't see how it works um I'm just going to go on and read a
little bit more here so although the organizations these organizations do support the goal of achieving a cleaner environment which is something we all want we don't want to be breathing in toxic chemicals um the report finds that switching primarily to weather dependent
renewable energy is not entirely feasible for the electrical grid of iso New England which is an independent not for-profit Corporation responsible for keeping electricity flowing across the six New England states the study concludes that ISO New England may be
unable to coordinate electricity to power the region within 11 years warning that if each of the New England states adheres to the same renewable intensive path a blackout scenario could possibly happen according to the study power New
England without interruption during a year in which wind and sunshine are plentiful would require 225 gaw of Renewables or equivalent to power generated by 12,000 wind turbines and 129 million solar panels even more
Renewables would be would be required to power New England in a less sunny or windy Year New England is only responsible for less than 0.4% of global emissions it is unclear how much cleaner the environment
will be become in exchange for the costs that have been imposed on this region and its people ultimately ultimately the report finds that the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions under these plans exceeds the benefits of doing so especially because in many cases green
policies have been enacted without any effort to quantify the environmental benefits they will secure this races the very real possib ility that New England states are imposing net harm on their economies by imposing policies whose costs outweigh their
benefits all right I'd like to open it up to a discussion question questions I want to build on some comments there you know we talk about the utility cost being out of control and how the governor when we first went into this Mass Save Green
deal program that she's promoting talked about the affordability to the residents here in Massachusetts she wants to push everybody to Electric yet she's the one that approved a 30% increase in rate last
year so do we just we just think everybody's stupid and we're just going to sit and take it and don't not realize that the blame actually lands with her at a 30% increase the reduction like Mike said is
fictitious I'll be truthful with you I'd have more respect for the politicians if they'd actually come out and tell the truth instead of trying to obfuscate and shine something up and push it off is a win I'll give you an example Mass Save
budgeted $3 billion which if my homework was correct the actual use of it was less than 800 million ion out of it that was budgeted so we still have what a $2.2 billion
amount that was budgeted that went unused yet the new ask for this year's budget was $5 billion so we used $800 million we had three billion budgeted but this year we wanted to budget $5
billion for Mass saave okay everybody's pissed off about the rates so so what does the governor do oh we're going to knock that number down we just took off $500 million off of our
budget for Mass safe you're still increased at $1.5 billion a 50% increase and you're expecting the residents to eat it and again the promotion is oh look what we did we saved 500 million no you didn't
you spent another $1.5 billion that we can't afford in terms of the CO2 numbers that Mike mentioned when was that that study done Mike do you have a date um I'm assuming it was before the last five or six weeks right I don't
have the entire study here this is a condense version of it so I don't have the date on that well I know it's not brand new and it didn't just come out but we all if if you pay attention they came out and told us that the CO2 rates for Humanity is actually overinflated
because nobody factored in what Algae adds to CO2 worldwide and if I remember correctly the estimates were supposed to be maybe 50% less so if our number in New England is 0.004% cut that in
half but we're all supposed to sit on rates that are skyrocketed by 30% fees that are added on for hidden agendas like this Mass Green Save Green New Deal and on top of it the infrastructure is not built to handle
that gross increase to begin with so what happens rolling blackouts that you have no control over or you know what everything now is monitored is computerized so today you don't get to turn your power on today you can't
charge your car that you were forced to buy you know Massachusetts was a blue state for how long right it's still a blue State personally the only Democrat I voted for was Mark who's not here I wish he was and that's only because I've got a relationship with Mark going back to
the late 80s when he first started getting into legislature and I've actually seen some of the things that he's done and it's not because I'm Republican I'm independent but you guys haven't made sense to me in multiple
presidencies and the fact that you can sit here here and vote yourselves pay raises and throw that in the guys of covid recovery and sit here and continue to take away from the
residents including reductions in the aid that we get from the state while we pay more taxes and let's talk about taxes how are they going to pay for Mass Save and everything else proposed taxes on cable boxes now
on Candy a 2% increase in the state income tax if you're making $60,000 as a family that's $1,200 more a year do you honestly want to sit there and tell me that a family making $60,000 can afford $1,200 they can't afford
$100 and it honestly seems like you guys are out of touch with what your residents in your constituency want because I watch the crap like last night where you've got a president that's talking about doing things that
the popular vote wants and I see all the Democrats sitting back and refusing to give any recognition or any Applause for what they want agendas that you guys back until
Trump took office and then all of a sudden that was evil so maybe they were going to take it a little easier on you guys tonight I'm not I don't think I should I don't think anybody
should and you guys fairly new to the positions that you have three months right so I'm not going to hold it so much against you but at some point I'm going to tell you guys to grow a backbone and back what your constituents want and not what
your party wants all right I yield the floor I'm sorry Mr chairman okay anybody else Mr chairman um this is just a quick question just for clarity because I'm getting conflicting information we all know dpu sets Supply rates on electric and gas
but I'm getting conflicting information that the dpu also has to approve any eversource requested delivery side increases can you guys confirm if that that's true or not and if it
is um let's verify that that is the case yeah so what I can end and thank you and I I'll just say the reason why we're here Mr bero is to listen to our constituents and I appreciate it yep as we start the process the budget process the governor announced her house one
which is her proposal that she submits to the legislature she constitutionally is required to do that the next step now is for the house to actually build our first budget and constitutionally it comes from the house first your first uh joint uh meeting of the House and Senate
ways of means committees is tomorrow and there going to be multiple joint meetings of house Ways and Means the house will then put their budget together there'll be a bunch of amendments it'll then go to the senate senate will do their budget then there'll be a conference committee and then the final budget will go to the
governor so we're early stages this is a great opportunity for us to have this conversation because we're at the beginning of our process so I appreciate the feedback and certainly have some thoughts um Mr Hinkley to your question about how the rates are set every 5
years the utilities are required to come in for a rate case and they go to the Department of Public Utilities you're right the governor appoints all three of the Commissioners two are co-terminus with the governor so whoever the governor that comes in wins an election
they get to appoint two of the three Commissioners the other commissioner serves there's a I think it's a three year term or it might be a 4 yeah three-year term um not more than two members can be of the same political party so that's another requirement for the for the commission they're what you
call judicial adjudicatory commissions so they actually are the ones that set the rates not the governor the governor appoints them but at the end of the day it's after the rate cases are filed there's what you call expart which means you can't have conversations like the
governor or legislators can say to the commission we want you to do this the importance is leading up to it and through filing testimony that's what the dpu Commissioners consider when they um make the final determinations on all
aspects of utility rates um I can tell you most of the calls most of the emails that I've been getting Mr chairman have been about this very issue about the about people's utility bills and it runs the gam and it's not just Democrats or Republicans or Independents it's
everyone people are struggling and in January when they got particularly their gas bill um but also their electric bill people were really concerned about how they were going to make ends meet um so it is a real issue um it is a real issue
that the legislature I mean and we're individuals right both Steve and I are individual members as soon as we started to get as soon as we got our own utility bills but when we got complaints from people we did what we could as legislators so we both signed on to
Joint letters that requested that the dpu take action on particularly the delivery charge aspect but more importantly overall the whole utility increase that has been impacting everyone we also have signed on a joint
letters asking the Attorney General to to intervene as well because the attorney general has the office of rate payer Advocate rate payer Advocate is an office created specifically to advocate for rate payers before the dpu um in addition I've co-sponsored and I think
my colleague is going to co-sponsor legislation in part Senator Mony filed legislation to create um a commission and I know we all get worried when we hear the word commission but beginning and end date clear we clear time frame to get their work done Senator mony's
legislation is to focus on the delivery charge in particular because that's where the biggest concern is for gas and that's three there are three different components to that including Mass a being one of them uh and then uh Jeff Roy who was the chairman of the Telecommunications utility and energy
committee actually filed legislation that I co-sponsored that looks at the entire electrical system to look at to understand how much the utilities are generating in Revenue to look at how rates are directly impacting people across the Commonwealth and what we can do about it so there are things that can
be done but I also I mention all of this because the dpu process is also a slow process and I think the legislature this session is going to have to look at ways to enable the dpu to be more responsive directly to rate payers as opposed to
like you said um making you know giving some relief but then recovering that relief a few months later there needs to be mechanisms that allows the dpu to help people sooner rather than later so there's got to be some short-term and some long-term efforts on this and
certainly glad to hear what other suggestions you have but you're right this is a major issue that and it's not just residents you I mean you represent the town of Acushnet town of aush utilities utility costs have gone up as well so oh yeah
there's more that needs to be done more that needs to be done to address this issue for sure I mean what's what another thing that's concerning to me is the you know the the dpu commission you know because I did a little background on each of them and they all seem to be
aligned with the governor's green agenda so I kind of have a problem with that because it's like how I just feel like the governor's policies are hellbent on forcing people people to go all green like if you don't go green then we're
jacking up your rates and we're going to make you pay more until you cave in and then you're going to go green okay that's the problem I have with this I have yeah my not everybody's home is conducive to putting solar panels on it
okay I'd have to cut all the trees around my down around my property which are beautiful and actually better for the environment than solar panels um I don't want to do that I don't want to have to put solar panels on my house okay I have a perfectly working gas furnace that I heat my home with I don't
want to be forced to put heat pumps in my home um the reason eversource can provide all these rebates for all this stuff is because we're everybody's paying for it regardless of whether or not we're actually directly benefiting from it I don't have a heat pump I don't have an
EV I don't have solar panels but guess what I'm paying for all that stuff and it's not right I mean it's basically we're extorting money from from all the consumers and residents in this Commonwealth I mean it's it's it's out of control I
mean and it's all about and this was this was really more about the governor I mean I know you guys are new but her her policies with with this are going to bankrupt this state and there's no way there's no way
this is going to be sustainable for this long there's there's no possible I I just don't know where this goes at this point just he brought up the green aspect of it so let's throw out a couple other things already talked about the infrastructure can't handle everybody
going green to begin with and the investment that it would take to get the infrastructure the year there and the amount of years it would take doesn't meet her timeline to begin with and at the end of the day solar
panels wind turbines and electric vehicles create more of a carbon footprint to create than the benefit of using them over their useful life now maybe that'll change somewhere in the future but don't
sit here and try and feed us this line of crap that it's for the planet and it's a green New Deal and at the end of the day you're spending more money doing that and if you're trying to tell me that mining for the heavy metals and other
items used for electric car batteries that you want to put everywhere and then on top of it the disposal isn't more destructive for the world than mining for coal or oil I mean please you know and I'm not opposed to
some of this stuff but just don't shut off the spet it's a fossil fuel because a lot of people are dependent on heating their homes with gas and oil you can't you it's unrealistic to expect everybody to just switch to all electric I mean it just it it it's
insane to me well it's convenient when you take the choice away from your residents and force them to go One Direction and now that One Direction sets the rates for the power that you
have to buy from if you want to run anything electric you don't see the conflict of interest there you're creating a monopoly on energy and taking away any choice from the residents by passing the legislation that you do about the
direction the state has to take we haven't done that yeah be obviously there' be some considerations I just want to uh uh make sure you understand some of the point as Mark did so I had talked to you previously after we had a meeting about the electric electric situation so like uh
representative Sylvia said we already sent two letters to dpu with our concerns one one was a few weeks after we were on and a second one was by CA a little more aggressive a week ago oh well not a week ago a couple of weeks ago and yesterday dpu came before us at the State House to explain more to us
and then they said they have a little surprise coming that'll be good for our customers in a week that they didn't want to elaborate on so hopefully something good is going to come up next week but I just want you folks to know CU we're we're kind of taking a beating on this that we did everything we could right away did a followup and we met with DP dpu saying our concerns
yesterday and it was a closed room where we could be very Frank with them so they understand where we're coming from so uh don't think we're not nothing is being done I want again this is more about uh directed directly to the governor I mean she she we keep hearing you guys you
guys we haven't T to vote on that yet so I'm I'm directing all my stuff towards the governor because she's the she's the boss of the state she runs the state right um so this is all directed at her and I it's just it's it's very concerning
because this kind of stuff can really hamstring a state budget when when you're all in on this kind of stuff and what worries me um number as a resident and a representative of this of this town is how this and other things that
I'll bring up in a little while um can affect the local Aid I mean it's it's a big deal um and the other thing that's concerning is you know the governor bragged about yeah I shut down two gas pipelines good for you
so thankfully we're going to become energy independent again in a in a short period of time um we'll be domestically producing more gas oil than we have the last four years basically everything was shut the last four years we had there
was little opportunity to do that so if we have the opportunity to open up some gas pipelines in our state how is that going to play out how how would a potential V on that go um
because that could potentially lower rates for everybody if if we have access to that but if we're going to continue to just not allow it and it's and it's right here and and and the governor's um press release that they're all they're
proud of promoting non-as heating it's if it's all in here I mean I could read the whole thing but I'm not going to anybody can get this on mass.gov press release from November 24 um about the climate law and everything that's in it um it's eye
opening um and I hope you know people out there are watching this and and do a little homework and research because it's it's troubling yeah if I can just say one thing just from my own previous experience and I can say gas pipeline has been an issue
it's not just during the Healey Administration during the Patrick Administration when I served it was an issue but it was an issue for the cities and towns that that did not want to have G gas pipeline cited in their community so I think the bigger challenge we have is no matter what the solution is
whether it's a com whether it's all of the above and it's a combination of renewable energy and fossil fuels whether it's focusing primarily on renewable energy or just on fossil fuels there are consequences to all the choices that we make and I think that's
the most important thing that we all have to understand is no matter what we decide to do there are going to be consequences because energy how we produce energy how we store energy it has different consequences depending on the type of technology that you use and so that's what we wrestle with as as
policy makers but I will say as it relates to gas pipeline so we're at the end of the pipeline in in New England we don't really have any of our own indigenous fuel not like down in Pennsylvania or in other parts of the United States and so the only way we get
gas is through pipelines or LG right LG comes in through going next yeah and so there are choices with that right so there are choices if we bring more gas pipeline in it has to go through communities and ultimately it's the
federal government if it's an interstate pipeline that has jurisdiction and makes those decision so firk would oversee the whole issue of expansion so that was what was going to happen in the late two th the mid 2000s they were going to extend a pipeline all the way through western Mass and bring it all the way
into eastern Mass and the communities fought it tooth the nail the towns and cities like a cushion it did not want to have gas pipelines extended in their communities so I only mention that because there is any solution that we pursue has impacts and so it's not as
simple as saying we want to bring gas because communities don't want them in their towns and I can understand that and from an LNG perspective the same thing because you're going to have to you know you're going to have to have more LG tanks storage tanks and communities don't necessarily want that
so I just mention that to level set that there are a lot of choices that we have to make and none are simple if they were we would have already figured that all out yeah the problem though is it's not presented like there's any choice to make we're already being told this is what you're going to do so if the
leadership is going to sit there and say this is what you're going to do it's hard for us to sit back and say well we've got choices because realistically you don't if you're going to sit and research it and come up with options yes
but until you guys are willing to get a backbone and go against your party and do what's right for your constituents the residents of this state and what possibly a republican program might be there's never going to be a change
it's all it's all word mou well we just said one of the communities didn't want it as a chrisan you didn't want the gas now we're talking about why tanks here in town yeah and we also had a whole town blow up because of gas that that that was a concern to towns it raised a
lot more so mid 2000s you're talking 20 years ago yeah all right so that's when a whole town blows up and like I said the schools would be burning a lot cleaner it' be a lot cheaper to the taxpayers if you had gas going in we could have went module of Oilers instead of humongous oil fired yeah so that's what I'm saying they and Mark kind of
elaborated on communities own a concern which he said they should be but again you're bringing up something from 20 years ago you want gas next week the best high school I the schools we can probably work for you don't want it
Kevin Mr chairman thank you so we can sit here and beat ourselves up about whether we're going to go all solar all windmill all green it's a green news scam this this this benefits to go green in certain aspects of generating a
certain level of power from Green but nobody whether you're Democrat Republican should be telling anybody this is as the governor is trying to do is saying we're going to get rid of your gas appliances we're going we're getting rid of gas completely right the ultimate solution to the problem is a combination
of everything right and stop the madness when we say the carbon footprint and everything else when John carer's flying around in his jet as the Energy Secretary across the globe he's dropping more carbon out of that jet than any fossil fuels producing burning creating energy so people's jets are are dropping
way more carbon and if anybody ever did a real study on on the carbon footprint right and the Earth temperature that we all claim were burn burning up climate right it's a bunch of crack of crap right so if you if somebody actually did a scientific study on if we turn everything to solar everything to wind
what would our temperature cool off it would probably be one degree so so you know there's plenty of studies out there and you can go talk to a lot of smart people I've talked to some people if we want to call them smart we can but let's not fool ourselves not try to put a trophy on anybody's desk about look at what the
initiative we did we created a green New Deal and we're F forcing things down your throat the best solution to the problem is a combination of everything right and by the time we get to this fancy solar panel that creates more juice out of a solar panel oil companies fossil fuel companies including natural
gas natural gas is very clean burning fuel first of all it's one of the cleanest burning fuels outside of propane the reality of it is is they're already working on carbon capture right right from the fossil fuel plant doing this stuff burning this stuff off right so they'll producing very little carbon footprint on that by carbon capture so
we're going to force everything as everybody's saying down people throats But ultimately I think it's a the best way to approach it is is a balance of everything not just one thing you'll find that if you try to do one thing you're going to get this kind of a attitude multiplied by hundreds of
millions of right that's what it's going to come down to because people just can't afford to continue having in taxes raised the utility bills raised so I would suggest as new members um that you in the house that you figure out what you're going to do and when you have a conversation with your members you just
say hey let's take take a more balanced approach to it don't just drop the gauntlet and say we're going solar we're doing windmills out in the ocean that are going to kill the whales Because by the time those things get up and running the amount of oil that that windmill is going to drop into that ocean is going to start killing sea animals just so you know that was a horrible idea whoever
came up with that idea but we're stuck with that too right so you know we can go green it's great for the Earth but let's be realistic about what we're doing when we go green like I said a combination of everything is probably the best outcome for everybody and the most affordable right we never had these
kind of bills until we started going green I can show you my electric bills Mr all that from 19 from 1998 when when they weren't even charging a delivery charge okay it's all a Croc everybody's trying to make more and more money to scam Wall Street because that's where it really comes down to the utility companies is profits on Wall
Street right so I think we all just need to be adults and sit there and say when we're trying to make policy decisions let's try to figure out the right policy that that benefits the consti that you represent right because you're there for 2 years keep that in mind so if you're not making the right decisions and
you're casting votes that are throwing taxpaying dollars One Direction and stuffing things down people's throats how long you really think you're going to be in office right if you can demonstrate to your constituents that you're working your hottest on behalf of them and casting your votes that's benefiting them you'll probably be okay
thank you Mr chairman David yeah I mean this is we've heard you know think a lot on green green energy but I just wanted to share like set the tone for why this is actually an appropriate meeting convened by the finance committee and
it's that's the story of a Kush Net's financial situation you know and I talked to representative Sylvia about this of incentivizing towns to have strong fiscal management right Kris has the highest Bond rating you can get we have
not had any overrides or even consideration of an override our tax collections are almost like in the upper right we're up in the upper 90% of tax collection so our taxpayers show up four times a year to pay their bills on time
right um we get consistent clean audits he the the the residents even voted for the community preservation act to raise their taxes because they know that that's the good thing for the town um and so asket while you take into account
people's utility bills but look at how you can reward the property taxpayer in a town whose leaders not the Border I'm not going to pump our own tires but the finance committee who are doing the right thing
for their residents and you know renters in this Commonwealth get a tax credit which is awesome right it's up to $4,000 50% but if the towns are doing the right thing is there a way we can provide a tax credit for the proper property
taxpayer right we're always talking about housing shorts we want home ownership so a town like a kushit who have all the fundamentals in place doing the right thing still feel like we're getting squeezed you know we've talked to rep sovia we're not a rural community like that doesn't even make any sense
right a r that that might be like a low-key thing but it could provide a great deal of benefits we're not a Gateway City but we're on the border of a Gateway city so chrisna we like we like this middle child that's kind of
not getting all the attention and needs the attention but get rewarded for doing the right things you know and I think that's why you see the level of um angst and frustration not only from the the the volunteers but the ones who run for office um you know we're looking at
we're going through our budget cycle now we're looking at how we can consolidate positions a possibly eliminated position just to carry out core Services you know and all these external pressures could get in the way of some
really important projects you know we've got a vocational school that is looking to be you know a new vocational school there's needs at the school in the school department but you can only you know you can only squeeze so hard so that's my message to you you know is
that consider how you can reward the municipalities who are doing all the right things I mean you've got some towns and municipalities are doing some terrible things people people going to jail for you know misappropriating money or giving sweetheart deals and terrible procurement so that's what I'd ask you
know if you hear anything from me tonight it's it's it's how you can reward the towns that doing the right thing or trying to do the right thing yeah no I I appreciate that and three Mr chairman um I have had those conversations with Dave and I did get a chance I know my colleague did too to
meet with Jamie Kelly to talk about where things are with the budget for this year and I I understand one of the biggest challenges for a kushit is you're rural but you're not rural in the definition of the state rural
communities your tax base is 82 83 84 85% residential and so you're 88 so 88% is residential which has an enormous impact on the people that live in your
community and there is not much of a commercial or an industrial base and it's not something that you can just snap a finger and it happens tomorrow and so thinking in terms of being creative is something that I I certainly and I I won't speak for both of us but that will continue to try and find those
opportunities we're going to have the director of rural Affairs for the state come to a cushion it she's touring the other communities in my district that are that are actually meet the definition of rural but based on a conversation I had with Dave and with Jamie I asked her if she would come to a
cushion it sit down with local officials and talk talk about the issues that the town has to see if there are any opportunities for us to work together to provide more support to the town of Acushnet so we'll keep thinking creatively there's a bigger conversation to have certainly at the state level too in terms of state aid and how we can
support rural communities in the future um so you certainly have that commitment from me and and from Steve change the quota from 10,000 to 11,000 we're in 10 10,633 8,000 it's 8,00
8 but again hon honestly like my grandmother grew up my grandmother's from aush my mother grew up in a Kush net I spent a lot of time as a kid here in a Kush net it's always been a rural community to me it still seems like a rural community to me as your state representative so the
population you know I know you have to have a cut off but there have to be other factors like you talked about that make a community rural that aren't just 8,000 population or whatever the square mile uh density is similar problem in
Westport same thing and probably Freetown yeah I mean I I've been on this finance committee for 19 years uh I've been chair I think the last four or five um and it's the last four years have
been brutal I mean it's been it was bad um and look you know it's it was during the Biden Administration I'm going to just come out and say it it policies affect Federal policies
trickle down to State and then it trickles down to us at local levels and we are really struggling and what the thing that's struggling to me is this trend of other municipalities throughout the Commonwealth resorting to TA proposition two and a half tax overrides
to fund their operational budgets we've never done that I don't I never want to see us doing that as long as I'm on this finance committee um um but that's becoming way too commonplace so what does that tell me why is that happening
so it's it's problems above us that that lead to this so that needs to be figured out um you know is it is it purely a spending issue lack of Revenue It's a combination of things but but something needs to be figured out because a lot of
these policies are really hitting the working middle class the most out of everybody you know the the people in the millionaires category they can absorb you know these these increases in the utility bills not as bad for them and then the people on the Lower Side
they're getting help and that's fine they need help okay I get it but it's the working middle class that are really taking it Taking the hit the the biggest so that's that that that's the problem I have um I think we can move on from the utility stuff
and think we have a little bit yeah all right so let's move on to that I want to I want to condense uh let's see two three and four Al together so we can just get you know move on here so the governor's FY 26 budget proposal uh potential proposed tax increases and
then local Aid um so I believe the governor's budget proposal for FY 26 is around 61.5 billion right M and I know there was just another $425 million supplemental bill I guess passed through the house to continue to pay for um
illegal migrants and shelters um which only going to cover us from February through June um you know that I just want to know when when is this stuff going to end because the cost of illegal immigration in our state has been a tremendous burden on our taxpayers for the last several years in the at the
tune of I don't know two2 billion do plus um and then another 1.8 billion is going to be requested for FY 25 and 26 um I mean we've been a direct pipeline from the wide open Sou border right here for
the past four years and it and it's just placing a you know a tremendous economic burden on on our taxpayers on and also on our Public Schools the public education costs are tremendous due to Illegal immigration Health Care um
Public Safety um it costs $27 million per year in the state of Massachusetts for incarcerating illegal alien criminals now thankfully that's going to go away pretty soon because these guys are going back to where they came from um but all this stuff is very
challenging to quantify um and our tax our taxpayers have been paying for free food housing Transportation Health Care cash welfare payments plane rides phones Etc um I
mean and it's the working middle class that are bearing the brunt of all this and I I just don't know how it can continue um can't I know I I mean I'm appreciative that Senator Mony voted no on this um people have to start stepping
up and saying no uh you can't just say yes to whatever the governor wants um I mean this is pure Insanity um you know here's a here's an article from the Fall River reporter this is from September 2024 Massachusetts spending over $15,000
per month per family on migrant housing and transportation um Mass Republicans demanding transparency from the healing administ over migrant spending they but they couldn't get it so they were getting fought on that um it's
just this this is an eye openening study right here so this is from the center for immigration studies cis.org now this is a very in-depth study I'm not going to read a lot from here um but if anybody wants some good reading go to cis.org um Center for immigration
studies Massachusetts a case study in Mass immigration and the welfare state um there is some great there's some great information here it's really um eye openening um he is an excerpt right here the cost of Massachusetts
taxpayers uh of temporary housing and shelters is enormous uh but it pales in comparison to the cost that will accumulate in the future if those in the temporary shelters today remain in the Commonwealth for the long term
um uh ille illegal immigration has had negative fiscal impact overall uh numerous studies and government reports have shown that illegal immigration is a burden on tax payers uh on average illegal immigrants pay less in taxes than they consume and Welfare benefits
and other social services it just it doesn't end so yeah know you know it's it's interesting I I didn't hear that the governor wants to raise taxes by 2% one because I'm a tax accountant and it's tax season
3% of you're self-employed but so the thing is is we already raised the taxes right there's the mass millionaires tax that went up 4% where's that you know three years ago where did that money go that it's dedic when we voted as we voted as a referendum it's going to
either education or transportation and then thank you because that's exactly my point we haven't seen it in education right and and here's the thing I don't know how much we collected but what I do is as I'm an individual tax account my clients are paying the mass millionaires
tax I see it and it's a significant number and I was hoping I would see some of it here in the town for our for our schools because it's one way we can help kind of help balance the budget we could get more of that money but we're not we're not getting it so where is this money going then if it's earmarked for
Education yeah so go ahead I just want to uh add a little context to that too because we're talking about Chapter 70 at this point and a krushna is deemed what they call a hold harmless Community because the state
feels that the community is alent enough to support the schools y so it goes to other communities so I just want to piggy back on that and understand that just because property values dictate a cush it might be comfortable when the
schools take up over 50% of the budget it's really hard to have absolute bare minimum chapter 7 state aid going to our schools but how are we deem to be affluent enough to support it right because that's my struggle I don't
understand that piece of it but but the formula for Chapter 70 is broken that's my point right at one point it has something to do with how much taxes people pay in the 02743 ZIP code right like per capital income okay I've lived
in the same house for close to 30 years when I started working the job that I have and what I do today my salary and not even in the same ballpark okay but it's the same house so I'm not sure how that is an appropriate calculation do
you see what I'm saying so like I I I I struggle because I see everybody needs right the police need the school needs DPW needs everybody needs you know but I can't sit here and you know support something that's going to cost our
residents so much money that they won't be able to afford their real estate taxes or the decision is do I put food on the table or do I pay the bill I can't get to that yeah I struggle with that that's the other part too is because the governor has come out and pushed some of the tax burden back onto
the towns and how do they tell you to collect more taxes raise your property tax rate we just went through a fiveyear reevaluation of our property values to begin with so it's easy to say well the property values are high so
you guys can afford it oh but by the way you're going to pay more taxes on your property that we're raising the value of on anyway just to cover the costs for the less of the state aid we're going to give you Kevin go ahead
so do you want me to try to answer a question about the millionaire stocks I can I can answer what I know and we can provide you with more information about how it was spent in 24 because there's a breakdown the state the governor's office has a breakdown of how fair share was paid in 2024 and 2025 it also
included free community college so free Community College I think it was about $117 million of the of the fair share tax that went to that but by law what we voted when we voted for the fair share is that it had to go to education it had to go to Transportation uh early
childhood education is a primary focus but also colleges and universities and other programs for education and then trans ation I know the governor has proposed in her house one budget to take an amount of that fair sharing to communities in the form of additional
chapter 90 money so she wants to boost chapter 90 distribution to cities and towns and one of the ways that she's proposing to do that is with fair share so I'm just telling you would we even qualify for any of that boov get you already got a letter for a half a
million now keep in mind um and the additional money has to be approved vess you already received the letter that that would come in it's it's in the form of Mr chairman so to try to help Mr dogado about what happened last year
with the billionaire tax with the T of aisher we received $172,000 in Fair Share act and it was for to supplement chapter 90 there was nothing mentioned in the letter about education and Early Education so that might be an add-on to something that
they're looking to do if it was part of last year it wasn't any letter to us but we it wasn't direct uh SEL gas right the town Kush that's programs across the state so the fair share money is for programs across the state so we received $172,000 last year we actually went to town meeting to be able to expend that
like we expend from the approval from The Bard of Select and the problem with the millionaires tax is what a lot of other states have done isato you probably know this better because you have a lot more conversations with them than I do even though I have some wealthy friends is keep taxing me like you going and I'm going to move out of the state and
that's what moved out and that's what's happening to other states right you're going to see a mass Exodus of the people who are job creators and you're going to lose those people in in the Commonwealth so you got to be very careful of how much you're going to stop banging people on top of what they're already paying right and that's that's sometimes the
problem with elected officials is they think the simple answer is is just tax them more give them another reason to raise a tax right and excise tax is being discussed now let's move that up let's not do the sixe slide and scale let them give a few more percentages out of that see what they can acrew off of
the answer to our financial problems isn't raising more Revenue per se outside of what we already do in my opinion we raise a decent amount of Revenue every year it it's the cost of everything that we're paying for that's killing us right um we see it with labor
right now you can't find people to work right I I I I don't have the answer to that Co came and something happened and everybody went away and we don't have workers anymore I I've never seen anything like it quite in my life right but it's it's it's a problem labor is a significant problem right benefits
significant problem especially for municipalities these these pensions where I know he's going to get to that but all these things have been promised back in the promised land days and it's because we couldn't in the world wars we couldn't afford to pay so they said well we'll give you a little bit better benefits so that when you retire you'll
be all set and and the the system's stuck and then the next thing you know in the 70s everybody else said hey we want a part of that system that's really good and that's how we got into that problem I know that's for a later topic but as far as fair share goes and I'm not so sure that we got an additional
$510,000 on top of our normal chapter um 90 money we the town of ausher receives roughly $315,000 a year Mr all that so I'm not sure you're giving us $800 and change this year I do have a copy of the letter in my phone look at it when other people
I've already read it but you said it an addition Mr Kelly know $500,000 it's not an additional $500 ,000 ra it looks like it's going to be an additional $200,000 so my question would be is are you manipulating that and saying we're
going to give you an additional $200,000 in chapter 90 and this pretty little letter that we just sent to you and we're not getting anything from fair share is that just a compliment or is that fair share added to the regular General are we getting to five $200 extra, plus our fair share money so the
so because it's still fluid the governor's Governor when she gave her State of the State address she also referenced a transportation Bond uh initiative that she is going to file of course it requires the legislature to to vote it to approve it but it's her
proposal as part of that she had proposed to increase over the next five years chapter 90 dollars directly to cities and towns for the next five years using fair share dollars to do it by leveraging that fair share money to borrow additional funds to provide more
Transportation money that's her proposal so she's taking again it's still fluid right because we're not we haven't we haven't voted on anything yet so I think what what um representative wette was indicating is that there is a proposal
from her to increase chapter 90 money using some of that fair share money because it's supposed to be used for transportation so right go ahead so while you you just set a keyw transportation Bond right MH okay so while while we're on that subject matter
the town of aush has asked our previous state reps Mr Strauss and Mr Schmid um and Mr migy sent letters on behalf of the town of a cushion for 1.5 million in the transportation Bond bill that was proposed to us and supposedly give going to be given to us in 2014 for slum
Street yes I'm in conversations I've asked Mr Kelly to provide me with the information so that I can send a similar request you brought it to my attention in a separate meeting so construction of that project is going to start in less than 30 days so it would be nice to see how fast you could expedite that because I do know that both of you gentlemen voted
the $425 million for illegal immigrant Sheltering so and I would hope that to takes precedence your constituency first would take precedence over that bill so um yeah I I'm I'm happy to talk about
why I voted for the emergency assistance bill but I'm not sure if this is I'm happy to do it sure okay so and I don't have to speak for both of us I'll speak for myself and you can speak for yourself as well so um I've been in the
legislature now for 3 months and the governor in January filed a request for supplemental funding to fund the emergency assistance program which is a long-term program that's been in in existence for decades in Massachusetts
IT services veterans children families and yes immigrants who are here legally and have resident status problem is they were going to run out of money was I happy that I had to vote on that absolutely not did I want one of my first votes as a state representative to
be on supplemental funding for emergency funds no but the alternative was and I spent the time try really trying to understand how this all was going to work and the fact that there are all these new conditions in place I wouldn't have supported it if they didn't have
the conditions that were put in place in this session at that formal if if they didn't include the Corey background checks that they didn't reduce the total number of uh families in there between now and the end of the year and some of the other requirements that they had
because they needed to be included but the alternative was to just throw people out on the streets more than close to 50% of the people that utilize those emergency assistant services are longtime Massachusetts residents and so I couldn't in good conscience vote for
something that was just going to in essence if we didn't fund it throw people out into the streets The Residency requirement was an important one for me so those are the reasons why you you have to when you have these opportunities to vote you have to really
think hard and make what you think is the right decision and that was the right decision for me to make on behalf of my constituents did I was I happy that I had to do that absolutely not do I wish that either we didn't have to vote on that or that the issue was resolved previously sure but that's not
why I ran for state representative to make easy decisions and Mr Gaspar the priority for me I see estate rep has three responsibilities first and foremost is to advocate for your constituents and your municipalities I'm a former Town manager I'm the moderator
in Fair Haven a former School Committee Member I get it and every day I'm thinking of ways to try and help this community and the other five communities that I represent to get them what they deserve so that they can provide services to their communities and so I appreciate we're having this
conversation and we keep kind of going back to some of these issues like immigration and that's fine I'm here to dig in with you for the next two years and if I don't get reelected I don't get reelected but for the next two years I want to be the best State Rep that I can be and that is to fight for the six communities that I
represent and I appreciate the feedback that I'm getting because that's helpful as we go through the budget process and I hope we can continue to have this conversation on going for the next two years and I'll elaborate thank you thank you Mr syvia for um you know note on that and why you
took that vote it's just you have to look at it from how we look at it right we when we read things and we see the roll call vote and we see your name up there and we're sitting there waiting for $1.5 million from 2014 right you can see where it would seem that we're not
being you know thought of first right well hopefully we're going to get that checked to you in a timely manner cuz we just started working on it we just found out like a week ago so we got our people working on it uh just a little bit more to piggy back on Mark said I took the whole thing into picture I'm also a selectman as Westport as you know so my
whole thing was we kind of have minimal impact of the immigrants on the south coast and part of the argument for this money was to keep them where they are now let's keep things going they needed it to the end of the fiscal cycle some we have a caucus we we're all in a room like this yes the Democrats uh and they
we discussed it in detail towns came up to us to said hey look do me a favor we didn't want the immigrants in our town but look they're in our schools there's families they're just gonna what are they going to be all over and they could infiltrate to the South Coast they're just going to be loose if you will around the state so a lot of these
communities said do us a favor where they are this money will help us keep them where they are keep them in the schools at least for the school year that's why as you know the school year ends at the end of the fiscal year and that was another part of the decision uh you're going to look at the whole totality I do not support Sanctuary
cities I would not have supported the IL illegal illegal immigrants but we have the right to shelter law which I had nothing to do with and we have to take the whole thing into consideration worst thing I personally would like to see is is uh there's a certain group that stick up for people that their rights are
taken and and these people get in lawsuits and ended up with millions of dollars that would only make it worse and it's happened before we're in certain cases so uh I you know again what Mark said is true and and that's a little bit more of the rest of the story I'm I'm concerned because we kind of have minimal impact here on the south
coast we have homelessness but we don't really have the influx of the migrants and these other cities said hey do us a favor we'll live with it for now that's that's the that's the problem with immigration right is we we should be we should be taking care of our people first amen and then when we take care of
our people then we I think a lot of us would say you know what what else could we do for others now right but when when we're struggling I think that's the conversation of the table when Americans are struggling and we're seeing billions of dollars being funneled to people that came over that border illegally
right that's that's that hurts and I think that's what angers a lot of us right I think if we were all in a good place and we had our veterans in good homes and we had we didn't have a homeless problem and everybody was being taken care of and we could all sit back and say you know what we got a surplus what could we do for the better good of
people Humanity right that's that's our time to do something like that and shine right it ain't put that before this right I don't like when the cck goes before the horse it's not it's it it's it's not our financial responsibility to take care of individuals who decided to
break the law and cross our border and come here illegally that's that's pretty much the the premise of this and the bottom line and the fact that we're a sanctuary State and yes we have a right to shelter law well what can we do about that how can we change that because that
would solve a lot of these problems as far as where do we put all these people because the these shelters are not just for legal residents they they have been housing and look we've had illegal immigrants all all over the state in hotels motels everywhere um I mean it
it's just it's insane and I blame the governor for this it's it's her policies that led to this basically inviting it okay and and then we bear the brunt of it we're we're paying the price the
middle the middle class and that $425 million bill that just passed it passed but it's going to allow out of state people and people from out of the country to to still come here it's not the way we voted it you
have to you have to be a resident you have to be resident massachus that's the Amendments am one of the Amendments we made that he spoke of that's that's not the that's not what I saw yeah you have to be a resident what's that requirement exactly well there's two things right so if you're if you're an immigrant who is
seeking Asylum and you're ferally recognized as doing that in the United States you're a resident of the United States so if you come that's the legal way yeah and if you come to Massachusetts and you're a resident seeking Asylum you and you need
emergency shelter you would you would qualify just like a Massachusetts resident who's been here for you know 20 years 30 years that's the change that we made this session was that it had to be residen you have to prove residency so there's a whole requirement for proving
residency there's a core there's a Corey check requirement so there are a number of things that is that new that within that drug dealers and weapons what the Cory was for a Corey check is not as strong as a a what federal background check Phil you
can probably answer that better probation um I mean cuz how many you need a conviction on a quy probably that's the thing I mean how many sexual assault cases happen in these in these shelters committed by illegal immigrants um I it's just it's appalling unfortunately
Americans do but but it's something we got to deal with it's true so here's my question and I appreciate you you're I'm always going to be honest with you no I I appreciate the detailing of the 425 million and here's a question to be truthfully I don't expect an
answer but it's something I want you to certainly consider that $425 million you voted yes for was also on top of another half a billion that was voted only a few months earlier it's not sustainable right
so how are you planning on changing your behavior moving forward because it's not sustainable yeah so again I don't yeah no those are great those are great questions so a couple of things so for the next fiscal year that's part of the budget process right and I think that
the house chair of ways and means and the Senate chair of ways and means have made it very clear that from their perspective and part of the reason why they put all these new reporting requirements in place with the vote that we took so that that can inform how the legislature decides to fund the program
for the next year the emergency assistance program for the next year they've also capped the number of uh individuals that can be in the shelters right so there's a number of things that they've done um the amount of time has
been restricted to 6 months and so they've put a they put in place they meaning um the House and Senate ways of means committees that then recommended it to the legislature to put all of those in place including reporting requirements which by the way the Senate put some additional reporting
requirements into it to inform the process moving forward I mean I can tell you just from my experience and probably yours as well Steve is that moving forward we need to have real eyes on this to make sure that we don't we don't fall into the same circumstance again
that we did because it isn't sustainable and again to your point could we have used that 425 it's it's one money but could we have used it for things that would benefit our communities only want 1.5 million the 4
25 I got you I hear your message you're both working on I just want to give her a chance to speak Christen go ahead hi um I appreciate you explaining the thought process and why you voted for that um for that for the
uh emergency assistant shelter so that certainly you know helps to explain um things and and also the safeguards put in place that you've described um however I understand and I I feel the same way you know what has happened has
happened and it sounds like you're trying to do things to prevent you know a similar thing so that's appreciated speaking for myself um one thing I do want to talk about and and I think Mr Gaspar and Mr hinley touched on it was some of the state aid to schools and how
that you know affects community like a Kush and and probably a lot of the other communities that you represent um you know 233 Municipal districts are receiving the minimum hold harmless Aid I'm sure that's not news to you so that's a
majority of our communities right there's 300 plus in the common1 right so a majority are receiving the minimum Aid and and what that means for the town Kush net and for other towns is that in a Kush net we are receiving an increase
of only $84,200 per. and school budgets like other um aspects of the Town budgets are increasing by more than 3% by more than what we can collect in property taxes
what we can get from the state um you know I know we don't none of this is news to anyone we talked about utilities utility costs schools are big consumers of utilities only because they're open a majority of the time we serve a large
population and we have a lot of people in and out of our buildings every single day um and as as time goes on we're increasing the number of days that schools are open to to fit the needs of our community before school hours after school hours summer school hours so no
longer we just open 180 days 7 hours a day so we have that we have the costs of um of salaries for our people we a heavy a heavy salary about 70 to 80% so in terms of that your your salaries are increasing by probably four
to five to 6% a year so that's so I'll go back to that 84,000 that's that's not that's not going to cut it um transportation expenditures you have transportation companies they're very few and far between so they are naming their prices and they're
quite expensive um tuitions for students that go out of our district not necessarily to the high schools but we are in aush that we do have to pay for our students to go to other high schools that's something that's not under our control that we can control that cost but out of District tuitions the state
voted um the OSD the occupational services division said you can raise private school tuitions private uh special educ tuitions by 3.67% this year a few years ago it was 14% so it's really hard when we have
that just that minimum Aid and I know Mr gasbar and Mr hingley we said Chapter 70 is broken we've been hearing that for years there have been efforts to to increase it to increase inflation to increase some of the the foundation enrollment categories but yet it's still
other than two years ago I think it still hasn't helped the town of aosa and it probably hasn't helped many of our our local communities so I guess what we struggle here is in in ausnet our budgets are increasing by 2 3 4% you
know just to maintain level Services we're not talking about anything extra fancy just to maintain level Services the town Revenue prediction is slightly more increase than what that level of increase in just the school
budget would be but the town has to service everyone all of the other departments and the pension costs and and everything else that we talk about so I guess insurance right so I guess um I don't know that it's really a question because it's it's a question that we've
been trying to everyone all of us have been trying to answer for a long time it's just a a comment or a thought that you know how do we what can we do going forward to help that to help the schools and then and the towns because the
schools are about 50% of the towns and you know if the T if the school is is taking up a large portion of that increase then it squeezes the town departments who are no less important um so I don't know if there's any discussion at the state level or what
you all can do or what information you might need from us to try to get us out of this minimum Aid because again it's it's 84,000 and that's you know that's that's not a lot of money to help s you know
sustain I need to disclose that I'm a temporary uh facilities director I believe uh I'll be off your books I got to talk to uh the superintendent tomorrow I'm reading to the kids tomorrow for reading week and then I can dig deeper I couldn't Tech technically dig deeper because I was an employee of
the chish school department but that should be done the same thing with westbo selectman I'm done April 8th so all my other jobs are done and I can dig deeper so right now I can't dig deeper Mock's been looking into it a little bit we can't really discuss it while I'm an employee but that should be done this week I mean and the the only other thing
I'll say is that uh last week when we uh voted on rules for the house and Joint rules for the house and the Senate we then formed our committees so we each get named to committees we couldn't uh get our committee assignments until we voted on the rules the rules we voted on
and so uh committees are starting to organize so on issues like utility issues the legislature is going to act on that the Telecommunication Utility and energy committee which is now chaired by Mark CAC in the house the committee is now created and obviously they're going to have to prioritize what
issues they're going to be working on this session same thing with the education committee um just for your edification I was appointed to uh the environment and natural resources committee which under its jurisdiction are things like water Wastewater land
preservation Coastal management land use state parks uh and I was also named to the labor and Workforce Development uh joint committee as well there are two others that I'm on but they're minor in comparison and Steve you can talk about yours but that's where that work
ultimately gets done if there is going to be prioritization on anything we did get a briefing from desie uh last week to go through the funding formula and how things currently exist I honestly don't know that there's going to be any
movement on a change in Formula but I do think for people like me to advocate for the communities that I represent to make sure other people are hearing exactly what that means an $84,000 increase in your overall Chapter 70 funding is is
not going to to do much of anything and and so what's happened over the years is that it shifted the the balance of the state aid versus the local Aid in schools from you know it used to be maybe 52% state aid 48% local and now
it's shifted the other way and it seems to keep you know putting more of the burden on on the local districts high percentage of net School spending is coming from I think part of the problem we school districts face as well uh is unfunded State mandates correct uh you
know that that's a big issue uh where the state legislature comes down with requirements without funding for for these districts so everybody's call C off God and it makes it very very very difficult as you can see here to for us
to come up with a balanced budget there's so many unknowns within the school and they take more than 50% of the town's budget so it's I did want say just one more thing about the millionaires tax um I know you mentioned education and and right now we haven't
seen any in the local K to2 education that we talking about I know you mentioned preschool which there is preschool early childhood and also um community college and that is wonderful you know funding for any education is wonderful
but here in Acushnet we're a k to8 district and also we do need some funds for K12 but um so that that millionaires tax sadly hasn't really trickled other than in roads and in chapter 90 hasn't trickled down and I think it was a lot
of people were very hopeful that it was going to kind of be a little bit of a of a Band-Aid so I don't know if there's anything in the in the works for that but see if we can get that million and a half check a half million check get you some school money okay sounds
good um I'm new to this committee but I also work for another municipality I probably know more about their budget honestly right now than I do this budget what municipality uh e okay okay um and it's not just a chrisan it's not just e it's so many towns in the state are
looking at basically two options you're either going to reduce Services significantly or you're going to go for overrides and and those don't those aren't passing that exclusion maybe but not an override so yeah in operational override is extremely hard to pass and
and we're obviously handcuffed if you will by prop 2 and a half New Growth when fixed costs are going up double digit percentages that's it's just killing the towns and I I would just ask that um you know uh minimum aid for students
unrestricted um state aid I think is our second biggest Revenue Source um for my town budget where I work I'm not sure what it is here it's probably similar you know pre 08 recession um unrestricted Aid was 23% of our town
budget and uh Town revenue and now it's down to 17ish I mean that's $7 million in the town I work so with with um state aid going up 1 to 2% when you know budgets and costs are going up three to four it's it's really killing
us and then it just becomes you know we're going backwards unfortunately or we're asking for overrides which I don't think this town has the appetite for well that's part of our argument too is if we're given a big chunk of change to help the the situation that we expect a
little bit of help and we've got that little bone that we're talking about with with the half mil but we expect more so let us keep digging all right peace and so I just want to finish what we were talking about before you were talking about residencies as one of the
yeah the pre- requisites for the emergency housing aid but you also mentioned that if you are considered someone seeking asylum in the United States as a whole legally a a resident that you're considered a resident so theoretically you could have
people coming from other parts of the country that hold that status to Massachusetts looking for help right so let me just finish so the fact that our governor has the stance that she currently has on working with the
federal government in terms of illegal immigrants in our state and or not working I should say with the federal government it makes us a lot more attractive for anyone around the country that doesn't have that same situation so while you it certainly
helped it doesn't fix the problem and I'll just end it with this and then I'll I'll try and not bother you guys anymore tonight we it's okay we need to talk about the numbers though so and it's great it reduced it but it didn't get rid of it
you my followup question and it's it's really my big concern is that if we continue and we don't make changes that are needed in terms of being considered a sanctuary state or Sanctuary cities and the different policies and the
federal government pulls out money for the the state because of that what's your answer and again I don't expect an answer from you because I don't think anybody has one but if we lose billions of dollars out of Federal Aid because of what our governor wants to do and thinks
is right and it doesn't take into account the actual residents of this state so I I think I think we're all worried about a lot of different things from a federal perspective right there is the possibility that there could be significant cuts to Medicaid if there
are significant cuts to Medicaid that's a big part of the Massachusetts budget there are other there are other Federal funding sources that we rely on um unrelated to immigration related to the other major priorities that affect all of us that it's just unclear right now
what could possibly happen with Federal funding coming to Massachusetts so it's not it's a whole host of things it's not a great place for any of us to be in and that's not taking political sides Peter that's just the reality of what we're hearing of what could potentially be
coming either from Congress or executive orders whether you agree with it or don't agree with it there's a lot there are a lot of unknowns and implications of federal funding coming to Massachusetts that we all have to be mindful of as we're building this budget right but one is a direct correlation to policies put in place by our state
legislature and our state leaders the others you have no control over the state wants to make cuts and this or that I mean the federal government wants to do that they're going to do that and they're doing that everywhere but what that one particular part that's hinged on immigration and whether or not
we're helping uphold the the federal laws that's 100% the state's choice and that falls back on your shoulders and the governor's shoulders it's a concern I mean obviously we're more more conservative on the south coast as you get toward Boston you got the sanctuary cities that are fighting them and it's
it probably is going to hurt us um I just like I mentioned while you were speaking just so you know the numbers I think were 7,100 uh on January on families so just at the end of December went down to 6 on the on the uh the funding that we were doing was down to 6,000 and we we uh
made sure it went down to 4,000 and part of that thinking was influx like you said we actually had the same problem uh and of course we're not going to complain about it we had the same problem when we gave veterans a bonus people from all over the country were coming here to get their bonus and then moving out again but of course I think we all support that it just was a
problem we didn't think was going to happen they come here and and grab the money so but yeah that's what that that's part of the thinking of reducing the numbers so more don't come and don't get me wrong I do appreciate you guys the job that you do the time you you take to came here but obviously I'm
frustrated and I know I'm not the only one well you should be I mean we are too uh you know we like I said when we get in the room we we bark at each other and say stuff and then we got a problem with a headline that doesn't go into details of what we discussed look I think the we
know that the federal gravy train to fund Sanctuary policies is coming to an end to all the states that that support this stuffff yeah um and I think that's potentially a good thing because it's going to curb ilal immigration we've already seen a difference I don't know
if you guys have seen the numbers and the Border apprehensions uh just this February was down around 9,000 M last February it was 190,000 apprehensions so that's when you have competent policies in place
compared to intentionally allowing an invasion of our country uh by an Administration this is what you you know we're going to we hopefully we're going to startop seeing so many illegal immigration into our state now I I think we're going to see a benefit of the
federal policies being implemented now now I want I want to go back to um Medicaid because I want to touch on the the governor's proposed $2 prescription drug tax okay so we're very concerned
with that okay so and this as a healthcare provider I have concerns with that too um you know I read that this would possibly generate $145 million in Revenue um which would then be put back into the mass health
program which has been depleted to help provide free care and I'm going back to that for illegal immigrants so it's not and Medicaid hasn't been cut yet but our Medicaid here has been cut because we've had to fund free care I
mean I can't get free care if I if I walk if I walk into to St Luke's hospital I don't have my insurance card they they're going to laugh at me they're going to say get out of here um somebody else can walk in and it doesn't
matter um it's just this kind of stuff can't continue um well to be honest with you when I saw that I personally said you know you got to think of it from a political standpoint to on that why would you go after prescription JS that's seniors it's people that are voting for you it
it to me that one didn't make much sense I know you your uh videos will be on the internet now and the governor might uh slap me but it it to me it just didn't make sense no it doesn't I mean maybe a little bit with the candy because we we we you know diabetes and whatnot even though I don't support as a healthare
provider I'm support the record show but the but the medication to to us didn't didn't make sense to be honest um no we're hearing that from We're hearing that from constituents even independ independent pharmacists yeah
they really worried yeah because it's I mean you get a lot of elderly people on fixed incomes and they could be on multiple prescriptions they could some people have five and that's 10 bucks that's 10 extra dollars out of their pocket it makes a difference um so I I
don't know I want to Dave you have a question just you whenever we talk I always like to talk about possible solutions or things you know we were talking about it yesterday and I think Massachusetts I don't want to say is a
is a byproduct of sort of the elitism that resides within the city of Boston Beacon Hill not you guys but you you you you know where I'm going with well we've got Harvard who has an endowment of over
50 billion dollar not one tax is paid on that I don't think they pay property taxes MIT $4 billion I mean if you're looking at like a municipal empowerment act allow the
municipalities to tax the institutions that have these endowments not talking you don't give dmouth the ability to tax you m Dartmouth right not the state institutions right but these you know bigger than countries
bigger than countries for Crime love mean you're talking higher red billion 50 ion that's your budget that endowment I mean there's there's potential there again I don't know if it'll go anywhere in the form of legislation I think Senator
Mony there have been bills filed session lean into that kind of stuff you know and it's not just a grand stand but I think there's it's fair as fair you know that's a good point good point Dave um I want to move on to uh basically the last thing and then I know um we have a
resident in the audience who's also on a committee he wants to ask a question after so we're going to we're going to finish up here pretty soon um pensions um right now our as of 2024 our current uh Massachusetts State retirement system has an unfunded liability of about $14
billion the teachers retirement system about $25.5 billion um both are expected to be fully funded by 2036 of course pending investment returns um you know I have I have some concerns with that
because are we really going to be able to attain that goal if if we're going to be funding potentially $20 billion worth of green mandates where's all this money going to come from um I mean that's that's an important piece here so I I think that's something that needs to be
looked at um and then also the way the way we're going about putting new hires into the pension system is is there any thought process on having new hes to state government um
going into like a more private sector type plan like a 401k um and having them vested that way um I don't know which way is more cost effective but I think something like that should be looked at versus the old traditional system the way it's set up
now uh it just my opinion um I don't know what your gentleman think yeah we actually talked to the the CEO of the mass retirees Association uh Sean to haml and he confirmed what you said in terms of when they anticipate both the
teachers and state pension system being the reserve fund or retirement fund to be fully funded by 2036 and I think Bristol County 2034 is 2034 is what they're anticipating so for Municipal Employees in Acushnet and other
municipalities that participate in that um I think the last time that there was pension reform was in 2012 and that's when they changed a number of different things and of course that's all prospective for new employees like he were talking about
um and so um I don't I know that there was some reference to how perak looks at Actuarial actuary and whether or not there's an opportunity to um be slightly more conservative um and I know that Master tyes is going to be talking in Ways and
Means about some ideas that they have um but certainly we'll we'll continue uh to see whether there's opportunities there I know the alternative to move everybody just to Social Security um the cost actually is higher is greater than it
than through a defined pension I had seen that as well yeah y um but anyway so okay govern somebody else got something to say oh you look that way yeah so I've been talking about pensions
and OPB and things of the like for decades right and saying how unsustainable it's been it's truly unsustainable it's bankrupting us municipalities the states the way I look at it it's going to be bankrupt on it as well he's got conservative numbers I
think the last time I looked at OPB and pensions liabilities there was over 100 billion for the Commonwealth of mass so I'd love to see how we're going to pay that off in the next decade um in that that reform in 2012 I think it was moving employees from contributing five
or 6% of their payche to 10 to 12% of their paycheck um so if you look at the contribution and the compound interest over somebody who spends 30 years in a municipality regardless of what job it is we'll just use a basic pension of $100,000 and they stood at $100,000 for
30 years they get 80% of their pay which is $80,000 a year you look at the the the employees contribution and compound interest that it gives them basically 7 years this side is sustainable some of these folks are coming in early age 20
retiring at 55 right so they got over there 30 years they're at 55 they retired you think they're only going to live for 7 years I've talked to a few retirees in law enforcement they say well they only expect me to live seven years 20 years later they still look
healthy as hell which is great right but think about that cost compound that now seven years is the number they live for another 20 years at $80,000 it's $1.6 million on a taxpayer's back to keep that Fund in that one one pension right
and who thinks that's sustainable so when we talk about 401ks and things of the like if you actually really thought about reform I think there's a pretty simple equation right is you don't let people jump into another position and best five years and all that stuff why would you just cap it to a percentage of
the highest earner in Social Security and say that's the maximum any municipal or government however you want to name these people can get in retirement you got people making 200 $250,000 salaries and in certain positions in government the president of the United States gets
450 and 50 of that's a a kickback right depending on his expenses he's really 400 how we paying certain people 2 250 for municipality jobs it blows my mind figure out the the the pension on that person making 200 right that's $160,000 a year sitting on the beach
sipping martinis how do we think that's a fair system when probably the highest earn in Social Security is making what 40,000 50,000 and if you're making anything above that you would have to be earning 150 250 for 30 years straight the calculation in Social Security isn't
my best 5 years it's over the period of time that I spent in Social Security right but the the pension system's not that way the pension system says I can have a job making $30,000 a year for 25 years I get a buddy that's in a political position and says hey give me that job at 150 for my last five years
and I'm banging out at 80% of that number that system's lopsided as hell we I you why I'll tell you why politicians don't do it right because you're part of the system and you don't want to hurt yourselves and I'm not talking about you two gentlemen I'm just talking about politicians in general right it's it's it's it's like putting a
gun to your own head but it is it sustainable for some of the younger Generations that are in the system to tell them and promise them they're going to get 80% of their pay and in 25 years from now the system's not there to pay them right we're talking about social security being bankrupt they're talking
about in the federal government Social Security reform when's anybody going to talk about the public pension system and say we need to reform that first because that's the higher expense than Social Security people learning social security again penis for a paycheck let's face it well Kevin people in the private sector can't even come close to that 80% you're
talking about that's what I'm talking about it's apples and oranges I mean I that's the point I'm trying to make right I mean it's just if if if you started looking at things a little bit more comprehensive and said you know what so I get it so like police officers firefighters and and EMS Ambulance
workers right there public safety you say okay this is your percentage above the top earner in in in Social Security maybe that percentage is 30% above the top earner you look at this category and say this is the category you folks are going to be in and you're 25% Above Top step burner you got to do something like that because quite
honestly giving people parachute um pensions is a broken system and it's been going on for decades it's it's it's none of our faults in this room but nobody's brave enough to step up and have an adult conversation about pension reform and why it's a pretty simple conversation when you sit there and you
tell the the younger generation person that's sitting in front of you saying well this is the reason why we're going to do it because they're telling you you're going to get it and you're not really going to get it your point Kevin why would somebody want to change it when they're benefiting from that's what I just said yeah but you also you you we also have a problem getting people to work for it as it as it is now if you
cut it down more you're going to have less you haven't cut it at all say you been 80% forever look at the private sector no no I'm saying if you don't have that incentive I I got a lot of friends in businesses right I I I'm I'm business one myself and I I've own multiple businesses okay so I don't need to I I don't need to hear the labor
story from anybody okay but what I am going to tell you right now after that Co thing here I know people in big businesses that are hiring people and in two or three weeks either that employee is walking off the job because he doesn't want the job anymore or you're firing him because he just they aren't capable of doing the job anymore right
and businesses are struggling because of that but that doesn't get us back to the public pension system right I mean it's a Fool's game yeah and and and I should note just for the people at home or whatever that's listening to you most people can't retire at 55 like DBW can't it's only like you mentioned briefly the
public safety police I believe fire too they can retire at an early age well just to clarify to police officer life expectancy after retirement is 5 years that's what he said like he said 57 years was talking about with the gentleman I was talking about seven years yeah so that not everybody can go
50 it's way long it's way longer than that right we can just talk about our own town with current Chiefs of police that have retired so I'm not here to pick on Chiefs the police right I mean they got a job to do it's a high ranking job in in law enforcement right I get it and I'm not saying anything about that I'm not picking on one group or another
I'm just saying the system's unsustainable right it wasn't meant for that that's where the system was meant for right is Public Safety and then all the teachers Association if you look it up and do a little history on it I think it was in the 60s or 70s they got into the system and now it's just the the
regular clerk sitting at a desk is they're in the public pension system my man and it's and quite honestly I think it's ruin it for everybody else that it was really the state covers the teacher po correct State covers the the teacher pensions not the
town the bottom line is you know we need responsible spending uh makes sense and without that none of this is going to work I mean it's you're going to have people can't stay in their homes a lot of people on fixed incomes um I've lived
in a cushion it almost my entire life my parents still live in a cushion it um right down the street for me uh I'd like to see them be able to retire in their home U but they're struggling um it's not easy for them um I help them out as much as I can um but
you know sometimes things are a little tough but when I see what I saw today and I'm going to point this up because this was glaring when I saw this the mayor of Boston Michelle woo spending $650,000 taxpayer funded money to a
private Law Firm to consult her on how to get through a congressional hearing today that is freaking appalling I mean it's it's it's outrageous I mean what freaking nerve does she have to do that you say it's a different
environment once you get toward Boston they they wanted more money they fought us on the Amendments we make they wanted more it's ridiculous you know I mean I I hope to God she doesn't get reelected hilly doesn't get reelected because this state with that leadership is awful and
it has been since they've been in office on the municipal uh Powers Act too just so I think couple mentioned it one of the one of the proposals coming forward to was a new property tax exemption for seniors that might be able to help us out a little but that's you know we've got to talk that all i' I'd like to give
the gentleman in the back an opportunity to ask a couple questions oh I uh I'm Eric James I live on slokum street and I want to thank the town for this major Improvement what Improvement we going to have on slokum Street Viet there's no trees going to be put going
to be planted on that so if there's any possible way that we can have some trees planted on that street even the half a dozen uh cuz once those sidewalks are cemented in that's going to be it it's going to be permanent and know it will never have any treats on there so I
don't know if there's any money if we can have any any any state money it's a green initiative right yes it's we we do have we do have uh a grant a tree Grant $3,000 dis is in June did you send us an
email I knew we had an email on yeah I appreciate so uh you know if we could do that before it's done see what we can do with it Kevin goe Kevin you don't have to do anything with it so Mr James on March 18th the board of selectman are going to have woodwooden current come in and give us
an update and and announce that slope of the street project is going to stop construction so I would welcome you there so we can talk about trees okay good so we don't need to do anything until we hear from you if if you need it so the only thing you need to do is get the che get
the the six trees that he wants they big box it'll be cover right okay well how in a bfic committee and we planted four trees I purchased four trees from from bu red Maples beautiful
7 foot trees and we planted them this fall so two of them up at Council agent and two of them on River Road and they're beautiful trees and that's what I want to put over on slom Street oak trees and maple trees they're great Street trees and everybody knows what
trees do the benefits we have we need them we need them and we take trees down you have to replant them that's that's the key of the thing okay so so through the chair through the chair you want tood that right the selectman are going to handle it for now and if you have to follow up they'll follow up with us
because he sent us letters and we were going to just one other thing uh we have a we have that old library down there uh is there any kind of state money out there we can I don't know we can get that money I got it and we can we can do
something make that veteran housing any anything like that I mean it's happening in new Beford they're taking a fire department an Old Firehouse making Apartments out of it I don't know if it's even possible if any anybody even looked into it so erif was kind enough
to reach out spoke to my legislative director the other day Betty she's she's looking into that now um it's personal for me my grandmother I my grandmother lived on Sauer Street you just tell everybody who your grandmother is I should have done that at the begin
she an icon in this town Teresa Leo uh former kindergarten teacher at St Francis Xavier she lived on saier street to the rip old age of 103 she was a proud resident of the town of Christian for close to 70 years she had the cane
yep uh I'm very proud of her I am I am a product of her and and who she was as a human being so you should have said that earli we might not go to be royalty I've handled worse um but in any case so we'll we'll
follow up that that old library the Russell Library is uh rough shape yeah and it would be a conversation to obviously have with the town about what the town does or does not want to do just just you know Eric bradfish our new veterans agent he's looking in to that stuff for veterans housing okay so we
have the American Legion and we have the VFW we can have fundraises we can raise money we did that we did that for the for the memorial vet's Memorial so we we can we can do things uh if it's possible
we can do it so the idea is to look into it yes and see what's available yep yeah and Betty just texted me she's been watching this so she's she's double she's double on it now so thank you yeah you thank you sir I want to wrap things up what is it
so we're just talking about cereal green energy and some numbers that are there that I just saw in a peer review energy um and this takes into account full system usage so this is delivery on the different types of energy um in includes
delivery as well as the cost of manufacturing the electricity solar power in a state like Texas which has a much better much better chance of creating electricity than here in New England uh
it costs $413 per megawatt hour to generate wind power $291 per megawatt energy to generate nuclear 122 coal 90 and natural gas 40 so when we start talking about a green
energy deal green energy is nowhere near as uh inexpensive as fossil fuels yeah so John I mean we hit on that a lot tonight obviously yeah um and it's for obvious reasons because of the the potential cost and what it's going to do
to the state um so can I just can I just pick that back for one second um just so you folks know too cuz this is another angle you say you know it turns out to be the problem with the energy but I've also had the problem people contacting me they're paying their bills on their
credit card the 18% cap came off a couple of years ago so people are paying 35% interest on top of the ridiculous bills so that's another direction we got to go see what we got to do to try to get that that's why they have a trillion dollars in credit card debt for the first time in the history of America right that's what I mean so it's it's
multifaceted it's pretty sad that people are using credit cards to pay utility bills um but but anyway gentlemen thank you coming um into the Octagon so to speak if I if I could I'm sorry um I introduce my legislative director Craig D he's also a Westport selectman and he
he's my only one staff so uh if he follows up with you you know you're talking to Craig dut I introduce myself there yes all right thank you so thank thank you we appreciate uh you guys coming in um and continued you know further meetings with you guys for the first time you know we've done something
like this but I felt like it was needed um and that's why I wanted to coordinate it um but I think I'd like look forward to doing this maybe once a year to just kind of reset and uh and see where we're at and see how things are going hopefully we'll be here before that with the 1.5 million we'll see you next
week we'll try we don't want any more Cy checks it was 1.5 thank you very much problem our next meeting is March 12th all in
favor CL