[Music] so second all in favor I okay good evening this is a meeting of the finance committee is uh Wednesday March 12 2025 uh please rise for the pledge
ofs I to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you good evening ladies there's no
gentleman here so um so we're going to discuss uh budgets tonight obviously but before we get started uh Our Town Administrator Jamie Kelly is just going to give us an overview on some uh numbers and see what's good uh
hopefully Mr chairman just to back up did you say there were no gentleman here I did we're not I know what you mean I was I was pointing to the audience I was kind of being funny you know trying
to we were considered mean last week so ah but with class yes all right just some housekeeping you've got a packet of uh budgets that
the top one says Reserve fund yep that that is the promised no change budgets it's not nothing's been changed and so I just wanted to get those to you A lot of them are typical
every year have the same amount hopefully we won't have to touch any of them but I don't promise uh I haven't updated the revenue sheet
but I gave it to you anyway tonight because I've got a little uh cheat sheet because so many people seem to not understand
and where our Revenue comes from and where uh why we're in the financial hole that we're in I know that this committee understands it but it's some talking
points because some of the other boards and committees seem very shocked when you try to explain the town finances to them
but the tax levy there's four sources of revenue as you know the tax levy is between 60 to 64% of the total revenue your increases each year
are bounded by the 2 and a half proposition however average yearly increases are around 3% uh 2 and A2 growth for fiscal year 26
was estimated of 560,000 New Growth which has gone down every year from fiscal 22 it was 444,000 now we estimate around 2,000
we'll be lucky to get that 200 200 200,000 yeah 200,000 huh he said 2,000 uh well yeah we don't want we want more 200,000 but who knows uh State AIDS TW 24% of the total
revenue however the increase in state aid no matter how much our legislative delegation Pat themselves on the back averages between a half a percent to a percent and a half a year so if you
figure inflation is somewhere hovering around 3% state aid isn't even covering that and uh when you look at their
assessments that they're taking off the top of State age we lose money year to year local receipts are about 10 to 11%
of the total revenue we've had years we spiked in fiscal 24 and that's when I've been here a little while and we look through the receipts and we look through
how you were investing your funds and we looked how you were doing your Banking and you made some abysmal deals prior to and
kep your investment income at 100,000 we didn't make abysmal deals just to make that clear no the town did right the town did and we've gone up to 500 ,000 in investment income
since but you can't count on it part of that was because we also banked and went into the money markets with our oper funds uh miscellaneous we've last year we used
excuse me Mr Kell just back on to the local receipts yeah we're looking at a quarter of a million deficit in local receipts from that High Point okay we've gone down every year since then but we've gone down
because and we're going down this year obviously because we're spending the ARA money we have to spend it by June okay thank you and the slen street project shovel on in
April so that's going to be nice what's up with H Street just curious not the subject I I think this well you always jump off the subject but I think I think the state is waiting for
the migratory Wildlife to go through once more before the we finish with the black top and everything else okay they're more concerned with the libratory Wildlife
mhm thank you uh miscellaneous receipts you can just see that we spiked it last year when we balanced the budget with the uh money
the 132,000 from the excess overlay which was the money that ow the debt that ow paid off so as far as we were concerned
it was a one-time expense and we really hope OC hurt us and does not try to stash that money and stabilization the budget Busters for this
year the pension cost increase about 50,000 health insurance right now it looks like it if we're lucky it's
200,000 PNC insurance is close to 40,000 and then you look at the preliminary budgets we've got from Old Colony and the school department
and that increas is a million5 that can't stand when you take that increase and the insurance increase away from our Revenue we're left with 11, 331,000
84 and just back of the envelope of all the budgets we' got in from the departments on the town side the expenses are 12, 28,000 so we're short about a million
there after I've pulled the rabbits out of my hat so schools have to cut and we have to cut like last year same same scenario MH I just don't understand with the schools
last year they asked for 1.3 million increase in their budget and I think we knocked it down to it was around $800,000 this year they're asking for 1.1 million more above that and they've had decreasing enrollment in their schools for the last five years as I
said that was a preliminary budget I don't think for as far as the kushion at school is concerned because we've been War working with them I don't think we're going to be anywhere close to that My worry is Old
Colony well I know when I was talking with Old Colony at their meeting they understand they need to sharpen their pencil but when they did go through the numbers when they backed out the um if we back out because they cover
their pensions their health insurance and everything else is in their budget where in our school system it's in the town budget when they backed that out their increase was 2.7% over last year and all that was contractual in fact they had already let go one teacher at
that point to try and cut down their numbers for it so while the number is Big okay our enrollment there is big as well and we're the number one for the enrollment and they're actually asking per student a 2.7 increase they had a
chance to they their health insurance increased by9 19% they had a chance uh we offered to work with them and introduce them to our health insurance people and we're hoping
for uh single digits but I'll take 12 looking at what everybody else is getting and uh to work with them to our stop loss is a lot better a number of things are better they didn't want to hear
it well shame on them on that czy and uh I still want to make sure the 132,000 they don't sock it away in DNA or some uh stabilization
account I still can't understand how the school department knowing and having the meetings with us knowing the situation that the town is in and the hard conversations we've had with them the past two years they can actually come up with an increase of 1.1 $ million that
was a preliminary budget they have said it was a preliminary budget they haven't set their budget yet all of these figures are figures that they're all going to be the first round and I understand that my frustration is is just like last year we went from 400,000
increase the year before to 1.3 million so when we knocked it down to 800,000 oh wow we're doing you a favor you're not doing us a favor 1.1 what are they going to think looks good this year 700,000 think we can't afford it it was less than 800,000 wasn't it it it probably
was but it wasn't much less if that was the case I think the final was 330,000 yeah it was much less than that all right then I'll stand corrected on it but let's hope that that does follows the same thing with this year I know we've got contractual obligations that
have to be met for it but we've got it decreasing student enrollment over the last 5 years and they continue to ask for more and more money money because it's for the students what one of the problems all
the way across education is from the state level the state wants to for over 200 school districts they're getting the minimum because the state wants to
narrow that gap between the required School spending and what people are spending to the point that the state isn't helping us yep and I understand that it's going it's on all the school
systems for it and that's one of the things we touched on last week with the the state reps that we're in here the state's just passing their taxes on to the towns and making the towns look like a bad person but well well when you look at it where around 3%
increase with our tax levy we're around 5% increase with our receipts that's keeping Pace with inflation we're a half a percent to 1
and a half% depending on the year with our state aid nowhere near what they need to do to keep Pace with inflation no Take that 5 billion out of the budget for Mass sa
and see what our state aid would be with that that's you know the the Chapter 70 formula is broken it doesn't work especi Chapter 70 is broken sound like ours uh the mass School building assistance is
broken we brought it up how can a town like Lawrence get 90% plus reimbursement from school building
assistance and all Colony vote Tech get 50 to 55% yeah I'm I mean I remember Mr Donovan the previous superintendent complain me of the same issue and it doesn't seem to
get addressed by the state well Board of Education there's a difference between equity and fairness and there's no fairness here thank you Mr Kelly sorry about that took us off on a tangent you trying to
be me it made sense whoa shot fired love uhuh how talking that it Mr Kelly with the the budget was
just you know I beat the uh drum of we're in financial trouble and we have to pinch every penny it's good to put it out there every week because not everybody watches these things every
week and the more we can educate the public I think the better it is you know so what's the total budget showall right now about 920,000 a million is I thought you said 1.5 before so a million okay yeah well it's
1.5 if you look at it one way and if you look at it as far as me finding 50,000 here or 20,000 there I
can get it down to about a million right now so a million before the any school revisions from that 6 and 12% and any other thing right so probably half on the town side at the end of the day now
the town budgets were the departments were told level funded budgets say that every year to them other than collective bargaining raises and then we'll look at how we pay
for the collective baring raises by cutting the rest to their budgets it's all Bare Bones stuff I there's a million dollar holds going to be coming from once we last year
we did seven iterations of the budget as we kept cutting and I think school ended up revising theirs I want to say like four times by the time they got down to their final their final budget so it's and we
found onetime money probably 150 to 200,000 that we will not be able to find this year I've been trying to avoid layoffs since I got
here this year I'm not sure all right so Mr Kelly we're going to do I know you said you're going to do animal control but we'll do that at the end all right um so the ladies can go first um so we're going to have uh Lauren Golder our director of council
and aging present her budget first okay explain all right yeah um so there were um no significant um changes um of course uh director salary that was with the 2% contract um increase um we did hire two new Outreach coordinators they
are splitting the part-time position we found two um very qualified candidates however they were only able to give me8 hours each um so we did cut the the position from 18 hours to 16 hours and they're each working 8 hours a week so there was a little bit of a a savings um
in that aspect um and then my kind of only one request was to increase the the building and grounds um by an additional 3,000 so i' bring it to 6,000 and that's just with the current condition of the building I know that you um are all very
well aware of the few um uh Reserve fund transfers that we've had to do there was one last year um with all the plumbing issues and the septic um and then most recently with the heating unit so I just feel as though having a little bit of a little Nest Egg would you know would help in that way hopefully I don't have
to come to you and beg for more money but those are kind of my only um significant things that stood out do you have uh do you anticipate like any like issues with the building now that may come up at some point um I
think the he the heating unit will you know be an ongoing issue um I know it's come up in the past that there were um quotes done to replace all of the units I can't speak as to you know what had happened at that point um the most recent one that we did have replaced um
I did ask the the texts while they were out if they for saw that happening again they said that while they were up in the attic they could kind of hear which ones were already ticking and um sounding Troublesome five units right and did one y how much should we spend on that on
the most on that recent one 95 9 and that would be a uh a capital item to do the rest was that to do as many as we
can so they couldn't give me you know a definite like this one's going to go or when it'll happen it could be another year from that who knows um but just with everything else which what um what is that servicing the new unit what's what part of the building um it's the
the large function room the big room yes yeah so there's two thermostats in there so there's one unit for each side of the room y so is that increase not reflected in this capital budget that would be in the Artic to increase her line item no for
free take it out of free cash I thought she was asking to double her oh it's the r the building and grounds yep so you're asking for what you're building a ground to go from three to six yes okay that's not reflected no
I've got it at three okay so the so then we're going to so the total of what we have here 138 935 we're going to add 3,000 to that right unless I do not think the uh
final budget will reflect that okay I don't think this selectman will as you as you I mean we'd like to be able to do that but we might not be able to wish list so that's okay if it's a
repair issue uh that's another issue and we'll talk the board as I said the board hasn't taken up any of the budgets yet yeah so the total the total of 138 935
basically uh reflects just contractual increases for the most part yep so that's probably realistic at this point more than likely oh if we have any questions we'll reach out um otherwise thank you for
coming in tonight thank you thank you all right thank you la thank you and we've as you know in the past we took the custodial uh help out of here and centralized it all in town buildings and
we're probably going to be increasing the repair and maintenance line in the town buildings so that we can take care of all of the buildings if we have something like that rather than just do
it individually building the building okay all right next up to that do library director Elizabeth pelling w just going to hand out something thank you're welcome here you go another one another
one add to your collection you probably have a book by the time you leave all right so before we jump into the budget I just want to highlight some fun statistics about your Public Library um
last year we roughly had 27 uh th000 visitors through our doors currently we have about 500 library card holders um and then last year we checked out both physical and online items so
that includes ebooks um e audio books magazines and so forth we had about 84,000 of those items I'm not going to go through all that because just quick question on I mean it's great to have the numbers but where does that stand compared to the previous year I going to
ask that I mean have we seen growth in in the use of the library has it been stagnant um I don't have those numbers with me but um the active and uh e electronic um active card holders have gone up and the electronic content um so
borrowing ebooks audiobooks has Skyrock in it so um we have to focus our shift towards physical materials to E Resources but our programming numbers have gone up so people are coming in for children's programs adult programs our
several concert series is ever popular um but I don't have that number in front of me right now it's it's good to just know that more people are actually using the resources the town's providing so this awesome thank you oh you're welcome all
right so before we jump into the FY 26 budget I do like to talk I would like to talk about um the minimum standards that public libraries have to adhere to in order to receive state aid and to remain certified a public library so I'm not
going to go through every single item on this sheet but in order to remain um eligible for state aid um we must be open to all residents of the Commonwealth must be open of more a minimum of 40 hours in five days per
week um this is a big one we must spend 16% of our appropriation uh must be spent on Library material so that does include physical items and E Resources and then most importantly we must meet
Mar which is the average of the past 3 years years of of the budget uh with a 2.5 increase and that's how we receive our Mar so you see
the formulation at the bottom of the sheet that is the magic number that we need for this year in order to be um to receive state aid and to remain a certified Library if we become desertified it would be
absolutely devastating to our patrons um they would lose bar privileges at other libraries and as you know we are part of the sales network which is libraries ranging all the way from C to where him all the way up to Fox borrow and because
we're a small Library we do rely on borrowing from other libraries and they do also blend from us too so let's get to the numbers um
so it's pretty much level funded um the salaries are um contractual um the techs currently are our negotiations um longevity is Remains the Same so that number is just reflecting
the contractual um increases um and then for Library expenses um everything has remained the same except telephone which has gone up a little a little bit um because we do
have a fax line um that does get used quite frequently and um our materials went up $1,000 from last year um and you can see the final number and below that
is the mar uh as a reminder of what we need to be at or above um any questions real quickly faing is that something that is strictly um for the office or that is public we
are do you charge for that do you charge for facts we do charge for facts um it's you'd be surprised how many calls we receive if do your fax machine um and it's for public use we send the fact we give them a cou letter they fill it out and then we you know charge them for
depending if it's local long distance okay and so that money goes into this account is that correct whatever you charge for the facts you say you charge that money goes into the library gift fund
okay or wait a minute it's either the library gift or the revolving fund yeah one of those two I can get the answer for you that's fine all right thank you you under uh Library expenses do you do you
typically expend the full amount so are you referring to sales expenses yes so sales expenses is a contractual um that is our agreement to be part of the sales network so that is the number I receive from the sales
network every uh fiscal year or beginning of the or end of the fiscal year um so that is our fee to remain in the network how about um other supplies other supplies is what we use to purchase material so what uh physical or
uh E Resources and then we have to spend 16% of our budget on materials so that is not 16% of our total budget so I have to use state aid to um to meet the 16% so that's why it's important that we
remain above Mar so that way we can get state aid and M uh certified also how much state aid do we typically get for the library it depends uh this year we're getting 33,000 as compared
to um it has increased every year it has yes and I think it maybe 27 28 last year and if we didn't have state if we were decertified we would be prices to exist because we're so it's gone from
24,000 and change in 22 up to 33 uh this year 555 33555 however you we cannot include that in our formula for Revenue we have to
put it in and then then back it out mhm yeah but the you know the state aid we're getting does cover essentially the you know the cost of the increase most of it anyway in in the budget the uh looking at it from that perspective it's a $1,000 increase
we getting couple thousand State extra we uh M Elizabeth and I have done this budget four times already this year not over the years it's just
this year alone and uh the one figure we're all guessing on is the energy figure yeah and I don't know if that's uh heavy by a th000 or 2,000
or what but if we're looking at about 10,000 this year and then in a 205 to 40% increase
depending cuz uh you've got a building there that has substantial energy needs compared to some of our other buildings it's heated with oil correct it's not
it's a electric unit still okay okay at the oil takes are still downstairs I it was when it was the community said there was whereas you know a lot of our
buildings shut down in the evening she's open yes and they they do shut off at 7:30 so we're open till 7:30 and they shut off at 7:30 we're in the building till 7:45 Monday
through Thursday and then Friday they shut off at 5:00 because we close at 5:00 we're open on Saturday 9:30 to 2:30 so we're open a lot more uh than other Town buildings sure hopefully the residents on the Commonwealth continue to put pressure on
our utility companies to uh to lower their rates and from your lips to God here Public Utility Commission yeah the dpu yeah dpu that should be an elected
position some states it is it should be so they don't align with the government they align with the constituents well that's I think we beat that last week pretty good so I think we have to go down that road again
does anybody else have any questions for Elizabeth no thank you Elizabeth for than very thank you Jen we love the library absolutely okay next is our town plan of Victoria
alaro all right hi Victoria all right hi uh so for the record Victoria alaro to planner um so the planning board request um is to remain level funded um
none of our expense lines um line items are increasing um the only things that have been moved around are the salary line items um we are proposing to not fund the researcher line
and to kind of disperse that into the town planner salary and the um clerical salary as well um I will note that my position of course is a little different than um the other department heads so my
contract um with matap POA has not been um discussed for this year so that is a placeholder number so if there are any questions how I mean how was any updates like on uh projects with our master plan or
oh yes I I was not prepared to I would I would have had like well it's okay I mean if just come back yeah of course so with our master plan so through that process we're also doing what's called a Water Resource Management plan which is about our water quality and our water
infrastructure and then we're also doing an update to our open space and Recreation plan as well um so we have sort of three projects Encompass in that process we have started meeting um for the master plan we have meetings once a month um Peter is on that committee as
well um and we also have been doing Outreach events for that um you know we have sessions at the library planned the COA we're meeting with the PTO at question Elementary next week um just to we're in the public engagement phase
right so we're getting a lot of feedback um we have our survey release which so far has received over 200 responses um which is really good and that will um remain open until the end of June um and also in June that's when we'll sort of
have draft strategies and and action items and where the committee um will review those and also we have some public engagement in the summer as well um and we should wrap that up um and the other planning items by the end of the this
year sounds good beyond that uh Victoria has been dealing with the OneStop Grant I was just uh portal in the state and has explored a number of
further options uh for us to do some things in the future grants you have in the pipeline that you'd like to highlight or yeah of course um so just alluding to um what Mr
Kelly is talking about um one of the things um that we have in mind um I don't know if you guys are familiar with the tip project for South Main Street yep okay so um you know I had heard from Dan from DPW back at our master plan kickoff meeting that our existing
infrastructure you know Water and Sewer infrastructure under the roadway may need to be replaced um and then also based off of our comprehensive Wastewater management plan done in 2020 there's also a plan to expand that sewer South Main Street down towards the Fair
Haven line so you know before we put this nice new road on um it really would be great to to have that infrastructure all taken care of um so that is one of the one through the state right correct yes funding through the state absolutely y um so I will be submitting an
expression of interest for that and that's um what that is is you can you'll submit to the program and they'll kind of give you feedback which program is right for you and any helpful tips for your application um and then we'll we'll go from there we did meet with um Mr
Kelly and I met with um director Ang go of rural Affairs and um both of our state reps marks uh Sylvia and rep couette last week and they did mention it would be good for a cush it to apply for the one stop for that for that project Victoria the expansion of the
Town Water and Sewer going south down Main Street how many residences would have the opportunity to tie into it do we know hand of rough I don't know off hand that's something that's probably in the comprehensive Wastewater management plan um so I can get that number I'm just curious I mean
when we were talking about nitrogen recovery last year and what the state wanted to put on for guidelines for it obviously houses we can get off septic on the town sewer would help the town yeah uh We've
also uh been approached by Fair Haven uh because they have a large chunk of flow capacity in their new unassigned in their new so treatment PL
and they I think matap pois has 18% I'm not sure how much and they're up there but there's a chunk I don't know if it's 20% whatever that's
they're looking to see if there's a cooperation collaboration but that will be probably once they get someone to talk to who's not interim down
there I have a question on the budget yeah um the requested increase on I understand the bottom Line's the same but the requested increase for clerical salaries is like 30% what is that is that additional hours
or yeah so right now the position is budgeted for 19 and a half which which one is so salaries clerical last fiscal was 21150 and the request was 28750 which you revised to 22 yeah that
was because they folded in the researcher money into that yeah but my question is is that position filled like 30 it's not filled no and it wouldn't go to that level it will go to the town administrators
level I'm just going off what she requested or what the department did Department's going request okay so that position is not currently filled no but I believe the job is no the clerical salary that uh actually it isn't filled
because the person just resigned but there was someone there until recently and if someone would like to apply for the part-time clerical position in the planning board and is listening out
there please send your resume in www any other questions for Victoria Victoria thank you for coming in tonight thank you appreciate it see you thank you welcome board tomorrow thank you appreciate [Applause] it next up to that is our Board of
Health we got Joe career our health agent and Dave VI our chair of the Board of Health good evening everybody gentlemen it's just the same same different format
okay so it all goes in the same book is mulle here one's for Dave one's for you I'm doing good how are you miss you okay so um straight up besides
contractual things um our contractual uh salaries everything has been level funded um the most um the things that we can talk about most is maybe our uh nurses for
the communicable diseases there that's $113,000 uh we expect that to stay the same um in the upcoming year that's some that that's that's a contract position that we pay to them um the other
$133,000 that we have is um in the event that we need that for medical expenses which is starting to get used more and more because of the shared service Arrangement that we have with foren and
New Bedford um we actually have a a nurse that's paid for through a grant which now is you know probably pretty scary uh as we go forward there's a lot of money that's been put into the uh Health departments the local Health
departments over the past years because of what happened with covid and the state realizing that we just did not have the capacity to do what we needed to do um so they've gone out of their way to uh retrain and I probably talked
a little bit about this last year but retrain the entire um you know Health agents sanitarians that are now throughout the entire Commonwealth they've set up um training hubs where they're literally forc ing us you know
at least the longers that have been here to go back to college um we getting retrained in housing retrained in food retrained in all of the title 5 stuff um from all online courses
to in uh in classroom CL uh schools to actually going out doing inspections with our trainers um so I have to manage that um but that that same money that's being that has been granted to us also
has allowed us to start sharing Services um so we picked up a nurse we actually picked up a parktime nurse um this year uh and now we're working on trying to figure out uh what we can do to provide more services to the town with those
nurses and how to use them you know it's it's pretty we you know again we've gone through this for decades where you know the money es and flows we have to um you know expand
our what we can do and then then then then bring it back retract it back and if we go back to what the Board of Health did decades ago um where we actually had those nurses and we had those doctors and we had the staff to be
able to do the things um that now here we are being almost forced to do again because because of the money and the laws that have changed that have actually started to put the pressure on retraining all of the Board of Health
and giving them the Board of Health the local Board of Health this money in order to uh step up to the plate to do this different stuff it's going to it's starting to look a lot more like it did 30 40 50 years ago so if that money
continues to to funnel into us um you know we might have a different look in Board of Health in the future but as you guys are well aware of um it's grant money so uh that could go away quick it's supposed to be uh uh you know it's
supposed to be a 30-year Grant um and it's supposed to you know supplement all of the communities because they've kind of forced us to regionalize a little bit um which is great because one of the things that we're working on and again
we're dealing with roughly 140 you know 140,000 people now because now we're we're taking the shared service Arrangements but we're looking at the fact that we have the city of New Bedford we have uh faen the population of faen and a cushion it and we're trying to figure out how to shuffle all
those people around and use them but the the nice thing if it works out as it as it works out I should say is that um New Bedford because of the large population has a lot of resources that uh we we as a small town just there's no way that we
could right I mean so one of the big things that I push for we push for is to be able to use those Services more and more and it's it's slowly slowly taking shape um where we're going to get that we're
going to get more out of that um so I mean we continue to move forward that extra to jump back around to that $113,000 those different services that we can bring to the town which this year we did the flu clinics right we know last year we did the flu clinics we don't we we literally got ran out of the
flu Clinic business by the state and now they're they're they're kind of pressuring us to go back into it um we couldn't buy the vaccine at the time we did not have the capacity to do that we didn't have the capacity to build um New Bedford does I mean New Bedford has some
of that capacity um so we're trying to figure out how to make that all work because again now if if when when we look at billing insurances and how it works with with a cushion it versus F Haven versus New Bedford and how we're
going to share all that we're trying to figure that out um through them too which they have their own process you know New Bedford has their own process that we kind of have to work through um but hopefully some of this $113,000 that
we're using now we used about $5,000 of it this year um to do vaccines to buy the vaccine and to also do some inhome vaccines for the flu which is something that we haven't been able to ever do um so we were able to get some of those
homebound people now with the addition of the other nurse we're hoping to do a little bit more as we go forward um but you be working with that with like the COA and stuff to 20 oh we absolutely work with the COA right now um we we we actually have a two-prong approach
really because we push on our contracted nurses um through through the community nurses of fa Haven we've asked them to actually spend some time over at the Council on agent and they do blood pressure checks um but we also do the same thing with our shared nurses um we
have them work with Lauren for whatever programs that we need so that there's always trying we're always trying to have somebody around um we're looking forward like we did um uh last year also we did uh the the car seat program which you know we're
trying to get that to happen and and shouldn't say trying to get that to happen we're actually making it happen but what we're trying to do is is get the communities uh F Haven and a cushion it in New Bedford to really connect with what we're doing um you know a cushion
tends to be a cushion it and Fa Haven tends to be a cushion it and we live in our own little Lanes um in New Bedford we we know everybody goes to New Bedford you know but we want and this is our shared service Arrangement it's called SEMA uh and and and that's the
Southeastern Massachusetts uh a Association which is us which is the shared service which we're starting to promote an awful lot of you know uh Health topics through Facebook we share it from time to time on our Facebook
pages if we can um we share it on our website whatever we're trying to do and I know right now we're all working together to try to get more and more programs right now um about nursing moms
um we're working on that right now about how we can get the nurses or how the nurses are going to try to either run some sort of uh class or be able to go directly to some of their homes uh if they reach out for this um and again they're they're doing great they're
they're working as high as they can to try to bring as much to the community as they can again we're tiny you know new bford do have more capacity over there so they're trying to work it through the New Bedford and then pull it back to us and then to for Haven
um yeah so that's any like um basic helpful courses on like nutrition you know eating well just to try and educate the public on how to actually just read a food label and to
be able to pick out some of this garbage that's in a lot of products that are allowed to be sold in our you know in our grocery stores now you know like high fructose corn syrup hydrogenated oils uh seed oils all that stuff is but you know a lot of people that I
think that would be good toate the get them healthier you know look at the amount of sodium in a product um just because so much is so much money is SP on spent on Health Care to take care of hypertention cholesterol issues and diabetes those
are the big three and it's astronomical how much is spent on that and if people just understood look if I take a little bit better care of myself myself and number one quit smoking cigarettes and then you know have a good
healthy diet and get a little exercise you know it's it's easier said than done but it's just it's sadly there's no money in healthy people you got to coach people but people need a coach sometimes where you just kind of look you got to get a system for yourself Y and but if we don't have services like that
available you know it's just sometimes people just need that extra push and mo motivation to get themselves healthy the other question I had was what kind of services besides vaccin ation are we billing for nothing right now it's the vaccinations so just the vaccinations that's it yeah we're trying to work on
these programs just such as you say we did do um just to your point before I get to that is uh we did run a diabetes program that actually was uh in coordination with the why and they were actually able to give out um and that
was through our nurses and we did it over at the Council on Aging and it actually was well received I think there was about 50 people that actually signed up for it and that was again hardcore that was you had to go there you had to be there once a week the nurses did a great job on that and
then they were able to actually get um y memberships um and that actually turned out to be pretty good because sometimes we do this in and and and you know ACC cushioned residents don't jump on board but they really did this time that's a good thing so that was yeah that really
we really pushed that and to your point again about the healthy eating we are working on that that is something that is a topic that we discuss on a regular basis that we're trying to push out there I think that's to yes I actually had a thing on talk radio
yesterday where they were trying to say that if you ate butter you were more likely to have a chance of stroke and they were pushing the fact that seed oils were healthier for you in regards to Strokes when when it comes to like TV and stuff like that they'll change what
they say one week later after they've said it I mean it's just it happens over and over again it's yeah no I mean stuff like hydrogenated oils margarine is worse than regular butter um that's that's a known fact I don't know why they would
come out with that but um yeah I mean unless you're eating a whole stick of butter every day yeah I mean but nobody's going to do that I don't think I hope not but anyway um does anybody else have any questions I just had a quick just came out I saw it on Facebook today great this talk about the greater
new bed health getting shut down is that by any chance impacting you guys as well in in in New Bedford yeah I I I I don't I don't know the funding from Trump might be shutting it down or something there was a thing Bob hunger I I I
haven't heard any of that um you know in our community I mean of course we're sensitive to trying to put some Credence to what I saw so yeah no I have not heard anything I mean we we talk about this when we meet we meet every couple of weeks um about concerns about all of
that but I mean nothing's touched us yet or nothing has touched them that I know of so y okay thank you we're hoping I think there uh there's probably a lot of misinformation about some of that stuff anyway that's floating around if Trump is stopping money coming out he's
stopping money going directly to a thing and putting it on the state the state wants to spend their billions elsewhere then they can't be blaming Trump for it no I think we covered a lot of with the governor's stuff last week so um you think I didn't
Brak that was Eric one other thing Joe before you leave anything anything any more Buzz about um remember last year the title 5 issue with the nitrogen recovery systems anything new coming up with that that we should be aware of I I
think that if if there's anything that I could say I would say just you need to be aware of it because they didn't get it right it's not away they're going to find a way they're going to find a way I I had a feeling they came back at us
again um you know they they know ACC cushion it the state okay the state knows and understands to their capacity the AC cushion River and they have numbers on it and about and again it goes to the septic systems and how much
nitrogen is pumping out of these septic systems um but but I think we talked about this between the board and myself and last year we kind of really pushed back and and a lot of people push back you need to solve new bedford's problem
yeah before you start trying to solve our problems because you know we've been using the ground to go to the bathroom for a long time longer than we've been pumping sewage out into the uh into the bay in regards from sewage treatment PL um
which you know sewage treatment plant within itself doesn't create the problem but the overflows do you know because they can't manage when it rains and it's too much so um you know it's coming it's going to come in some sort of capacity
but I can't imagine I yeah yeah I mean it's just it's a concern because look our our residents are yeah fin a lot of people are just financially strapped there's there's no way this Bo's going to allow that to
happen I think so um so I have this this is only my only feeling that mat matap Po and Mar are going to be targeted next there weam already had something like that instituted I don't know it's not townwide it's only within uh 500 ft of a
wetland resource area that type of thing so I think they might do it in sections I think because they they can't put us lump Us in with marrying M pois they have issues with our Cove SE treatment plant and marrying not the greatest uh needs massive upgrades we're bordering
the river so I I think that's our friend and same with for Haven you know we're on the other side of what new Beford has issues so my a feeling thing I think they're going to do the they come over the bridge go to the first two communities that maybe can't afford it
and don't have as much push back as we do yeah um but we will push back hard I don't designate us as part of like what the W Shed from our water shed we're a part of the river yep and and no other
whereas like mat po has multiple Weds they need Watershed permits for it kind of puts them in a tough spot you know same with Mar yep certainly too um good to know I do have one question um just noticed on the
sanitarian L there's a $30,000 am I reading that right look the top look at the top you're looking at fiscal year to date 2 sex request yeah you're looking at fiscal year to date yeah fiscal year to
date versus the next fiscal year you got to go budget oh so correct yeah anything we've lost the assistant Health agent and the second clerk so we've actually downsized our department in some
respects yeah so their increases are Bas just contractual I was excited there for a minute my bad sorry and all that all that training that you guys have to go through that that's covered by the state you know sadly enough no I mean
yes the training itself is covered by the state but unfortunately the individual towns are paying us to do this which in my opinion I don't like at all because it takes my time away from the town to to force me to do something that I've already done
I've been doing this for 13 years and I I mean I get what they're trying to do but what they're trying to do is make everybody exactly the same Baseline across the entire State one of the things that concerns me you know as as
as a resident too is they're creating a very very very specialized Workforce um that is going to be in the future the only people that you can hire
to do the Board of Health job that specialty comes increased salaries absolutely you know there are laws that have been created there's there's a safe sa pH uh e um uh 2.0 that
literally describes what this is and how it's going to work and and how it's been working so yes as as as as the town goes forward that's when I started with my other we're literally digressing back to
what we used to be from a Board of Health standpoint um which is going to cost this money and I mean the grants only come to get us started but this is so much money that they put in and they're forcing everybody to get to the
knowledge point that they are that you're looking at you know again it's just something that you need to consider as you as a town as you go forward that um it's going to be great for local public health I mean for the residents and the amount of services we hope that
they'll be able to get and the level of services that they'll be getting out of the Board of Health but I mean it a price going to come with a price not now you don't have to worry about it this year probably not next year but it's coming it just sounds like
a lot to to have to go through when you know you don't know the what's the percentage of people that are going to actually utilize it because most people are going to use their own doctor for all that kind of stuff right um so are they making you guys go through all this and you know this highly regulated thing
and just to make it just seems like it's making things more difficult for you guys it it puts there're also trying to regionalize all over the place and uh take it out of little local control yeah
is absolutely the truth I mean anybody else have any other questions no gentlemen thank you for coming in tonight appreciate thank you guys very much than you guys have a good night y thanks you guys are doing a great job keep it up we try we try and
do our best have you got your tax B with the taxes come on we don't do anything with the taxes on man all right Animal Control y yeah well Mr
Kelly's going to uh take care of animal control and so Rebecca couldn't be [Music] here all right uh salary line uh you have the uh
contractual increase we've added an overtime line of a thousand because of the call outs under the fair labor standards act she should be compensated for
that so rather than have the town uh get sanctioned by the state of the feds we'll take care of that now and uh clothing allowance you can see it's
the same year to date hasn't been spent it's due to be spent at the end of the fiscal year other than that it's uh fairly similar just a boarding
increase board services and that's something we have to eat mhm we're still using F I think so I thought we were using Lakefield she
does it depends depends on the situation well just just to you know give Rebecca a shout out she does a great job um for our town she puts a lot of good informational things out in social media
um relative to you know taking care of your your cats and dogs and also just wildlife in general you know things to look out for so she really does try and educate uh the public uh as best as possible I think she does an outstanding job following up what Joe
said and my discussions with Becky and what you've seen in other departments bless The Filling of a lot of these positions
that takes specific particular training is getting to be very difficult and some of it might be the salary level but in reality a vast majority of it is
because there aren't people going into the careers and it's getting more and more difficult to fill these positions and so you're very lucky I know
she's filling in for various towns around here all the time and a number of those people are telling her that this is their last year or their last two years years and they're going to be done
and they don't know who's going to take their Place Rochester is so it's something to put on your radar that you're going to be looking at
potentially a lot of sharing of these professional certified positions among the various towns right now the conservation agent works here and in
leville you we're sharing we're Contracting with map poet to share the town planner uh there is no
way that when you look at the MMA advertisements for vacancies that they're going to be able to fill all those positions on health agent conservation agent
planner uh ACO that just aren't enough people going into those careers also treasur collector Town
accountant uh you know across the board yeah it's going to be an issue oh it is now it is now for us you know but I mean we're lucky in that not only is it an issue for us but
it's an issue for other towns and so we can look at the solution of sharing the folks just collaborate Well it's worse for this town because the salaries across the border well
are well it's also geographically yeah we we've got that we're got a less we can't compete with inside 495 well I think you have to but the
people that we might be able to collaborate with are the other side of the quadman reservoir I think think which so geographically the areas that could most benefit from the collaboration are too far apart you
can't have someone driving between the two are the size of our population is not the same as for Haven um so we can't we can't pay somebody what the Haven probably can so we're always in that
position I mean if we if we're going to go down that road and try and match what other towns that are you know have a higher per capita income or just a bigger population I don't know how we can stay in business without asking residents for
an override all the time which I I never want to do no I mean it's it's ridiculous already I mean overrides or debt exclusions that's one thing um but not not an override to
fund an operational budget no way other than uh some of the now very wealthy towns on the coast most of the other towns in Bristol
County and Plymouth the salary ranges aren't that different it's you can't find the people with the certifications young people are not going into these jobs that's the problem
you know kids in high school or the college they might not be thinking of you know municipal government because they don't know enough about it I think a lot of it is just Why work when you know you you've got benefits for staying home for doing
you know online stuff and and doing you know from the old Administration I I think uh you know the current Administration is is going to make people go back to work and they there's a lot of kicking and screaming about it
but I think once people realize that they're not going to be able to sit home and get entitlements that they're going to have to go to work that they're going to be looking for these that are you know long-term jobs so we'll just see how it plays out yeah
well you could you can also see when we were talking about the coastal communities and how their student population is going down well that's
also because we're a very graay population Massachusetts well this area and Massachusetts is becoming uh a older community the younger people are not
staying here they can't quit it well then the other issue is you know Massachusetts we're the the second most expensive uh state in the country to raise children um so for the working middle class these people probably think of the financial impact of how much it's
going to cost to raise kids so I I can guarantee you that most people in the middle class are probably having less children than maybe if you're way up there above the the millionaire status or you're you're below because you're getting a lot of subsidies to help support these kids oh well Su tells us
the millionaires yeah so so it's going to be more of the other that's you know I mean I I don't know it's not sustainable it is it is not sustainable you know no if nobody ever tackles pension reform in the state like
we brought up last week that's that's another big elephant in the room that nobody wants to address and it it doesn't work you know like like the point Uh Kevin made last week you know you have somebody um you know taking home 880,000
a year uh from a from a pension and and they're into it for 20 years I mean that's $1.6 million and nobody in the private sector is going to rival that 80 grand a year even your top earners will get like half of that um so the people in the private
sector better better invest their money early and wisely because you're not getting the uh the pensions that people get in state and federal government well before you even worry about the pensions worry about the opip exactly
because if you've got health insurance going up 15 to 19% a year mhm I mean weay more untenable what are we paying for retirees do you have any idea I know like in Easton it's over
a million basically a million do a year or something I haven't uh divided it out yeah so that's you know bringing up opab is a good point because we're fun we're funding that as a town right so our our TA our our residents our taxpayers are funding open
yeah we've got a unfunded liability my point is millions my my point is all the residents are funding it regardless of whether or not they work in the private sector or for the state or federal government so somebody in the private
sector is their tax dollars are paying for somebody else's um retirement health care benefits I mean that's I the state is just ridiculous when it comes to that Crow these people that think of this stuff
are just you know they're saying there's a lot of stupid smart people well there is and that's that's at the higher levels of government that that think of all this crap the actuaries who thought about this pension system the way it is they didn't factor in longevity that's for
sure which is good I mean people living longer which is great but how do you continue to fund it you know for a long time all right on to the next topic old business anybody have any old business to discuss new business you know one thing
I I regretted not bringing up last week was um uh the question one the ballot question um the audit the state given the you know the state audit the authority to investigate the legislature
um I really I was upset that I forgot about that um you cut me off with that one yeah that was what I was going to ask but cuz we look what was it 72% 72%
of the people in this Commonwealth wanted that and now they're all fighting it fighting against it why is that because they're hiding some right I mean it's just it it's laughable that it's like be transparent
let us see what you doing but they don't they don't want them we're I think we're like one of three states that doesn't that doesn't allow that just ask for the number of uh settlement agreements for
harassment and then you got you don't even ask for the for for the agreements just ask for how many there are and how much it cost you and you got the the whole issue with the zoning the zoning stuff across the state you know require
mandating that communities um have so much high density housing this is something as you know I'm leaving and there's something to put in your mind I have yet to see where kushit
is as far as an MBTA Community or an AJ Community there has been nothing published yet but if you become either one of those in
your assessments that will come off the top of the cherry sheet money there will be an assessment for either being an mvta Community or being in an adjacent
community and you've got that commuter rail running right down there once it starts to roll then they have to determine St not the state's not helping these communities yeah but this could be but what I'm saying for you guys to
consider I won't be here right it could be half a million dollars yeah and they're putting the onus the financial onus on this on the on the different towns and communities to to figure out a way to fund them and guess what if you don't if you don't
do it then then she'll threaten to take aid grants away from away from us for not doing it yeah but it's illegal when Trump does something like that exactly that's a good point so when he does it the left is like going out of their
mind but when somebody else does it like more Healey it's like crickets they're not saying anything it's fine and it's like this is just just tired of this CR you know social engineering of is finest we got um we got a set of minutes to
approve from uh March 19th and are you going to Define uh which uh ones you want uh which departments you want at your next meeting oh yes we have yeah after we let's approve these minutes and then uh
we'll talk about that all right oh this is actually from Kathy these are from April 30th yeah 2024 oh April 30th 2024 okay so in attendance was myself uh Pete penoy Eric Chu Kristen Flynn Eric
mcglenn and Mr s chain make a motion second all in favor he okay these minutes are approved and I know Kathy you're trying to get caught up with everything and because we got to get a lot a lot of these things posted
uh to the uh the town website um as soon as we can all right so as far as next week's meeting so any I'm trying to think of um who else we could bring in that might be
ready to talk about their budgets Jamie any [Music] insight uh concom so cons Conservation Commission uh are you going to want to bring any of
those uh uh small ones in that I gave you the list of I think we talked were all these ones that are Level funded if we want to bring any of those
I don't think so's no point no I mean we used to have the town moderator come in that's there's no point in doing that um soil board that's SEL Park and what's this Park and Recreation they they're level fund yeah so they're
if they're level funded there's no reason to have them come in really the selectman stay stand as far as the budgets are they they haven't started they haven't even started so I mean Conservation Commission um Board of
assessors okay yeah Board of assessors um a treasur collector okay Tom Clark maybe uh she's what's your next meeting next week it would be next
week the 19th yeah she's back yeah the to CLK you want to give her time to come back from her vacation what well we've already gone over her budget all 14 Ways to Sunday okay about ready he s
accessors um I mean most of the other ones are going to be the big ones you know all the police Fire EMS um gol DPW DPW veterans we don't usually have anybody
from veterans come in no an increase huh there's an increase substantial increase okay then let's let's have the veterans agent and uh at some point we should talk about the Aros act I've
going to do it with the uh select and what's that it's uh increases the exemptions property and but it's a it's a local option but it's not reimbursable
from the state this was for veterans veterans yeah property tax right so they get a reduction in their property tax how what a percentage it's I think $400 but oh so they get that taken off on top of what
they have now I mean if you're looking at 800 you know this is $800 increase they get $800 to of $1,200 increase yeah I mean Disabled Vets well yeah man they don't they don't
get taken care of as well as no people who come here and cross the border illegally said that elderly and and the vets that might you know that might make the difference of someone staying in a house how about our population that's 65
and over do they qualify for any type of um yes they discount on their property taxes regardless of Veteran status why don't we have the assessors when they come in to talk their budget they can brief you yeah cuz I want talk about that know so so our older population is
aware of this and can take advantage of it we we were talking about doing uh a combined informational fair and work Fair down at the
COA with the veterans agent and the COA not only on these exemptions but also on the fact of the uh senior workof program that's right I remember that discussing
that you know last year so uh I think we would be good probably have the veterans department veterans agent Board of assessors here at the same night time yeah schedule them together and effect
to brief you guys on all of that good Kathy you got all that all right thanks so sesors and Veterans next week yeah there's a few other those conom and Tom Clark Tom CLK y was another I know
Kathy was there another one treasur collector Treasurer collector who's going to come in for the treas who's going to be doing that the treasur collector all right so I wasn't sure if we even had so we've got one okay all right just making sure I got
one who's coming in they may or may not be here okay all right I think that's it motion to adjourn second all in favor all right all right good night [Music]