[Music] being 7:00. I would uh entertain a motion to open. So moved. Second. All in
favor? I this is a meeting of the AUSA finance committee Thursday May 22nd 2025. This meeting will be audio and video recorded. We start our business this evening. We turn it over to Mr. Kelly
and we will go through the budget for deliberations and the time meeting articles. Uh as you know, Mr. Mr. Chairman, uh last meeting you took care of the articles other than the uh
funding articles for sewer and golf. So uh as far as the budget lines, you have done a number of the smaller budgets, the no change budgets,
but I suggest I just go through the list and uh I will tell you budgets that we've worked on in the last couple days and if there's any others that the committee wants to uh discuss. If a
committee member will say hold just like we do in the town meeting, then we can get through it. Sounds like a plan. All right. Reserve fund $150,000. No
change. Town meeting elections $14,280. That went down because there's not as many elections this year. Moderator salary
725 expense 150 total 875 no change. Selectman 236,400 for salary 16,000 for expense 252,400 and that is a decrease. Finance Committee
2500 salaries 400 expenses no change for total 2,900 account $20,56,900 for to expense total 26 64,46
assessors 121,626 for a salary 67,870 for a total of 189 496. Uh that went up slightly. That is primarily
software that uh we had to buy because the previous version was not going to be supported. Treasury collector 212,107 for
salaries 71,600 for expenses for a total of 283,707. [Music] Town Council 100,000 no change. Technology
23,165 for salaries and 220,550 for expenses, 243,715 for the total. the uh Nick was here and explained a lot of the technology purchases to the committee. It's
something we have to do and uh hopefully we'll come into the 21st century soon at some point. Uh town clerk 154,985.
[Music] uh 7,501 for expenses 162,486. Is that highlighted for a change or Yeah. Uh
the change was that uh salary adjustment for the elected official was removed. Uh the board's view is that when you're reelected, that's a time for a salary
adjustment on an elected official, not every year like employees. So that got reduced to what? A zero? Uh no right. But she hasn't had an increase last year. Last year she did.
Okay. [Music] Board of registars 11,000 salaries 14,826 for a total of 25826. That's gone down for the same
reason as elections. uh conservation commission [Music] 79,371 for salaries 2,000 for expenses that's a minor decrease of
81,371 soil board uh zero salaries 15,000 800 for expenses planning board 46,000 957 for salaries
9,600 for expenses 56,557 look up position the uh player sheared the player shared but the clerical position
was cut to 4 hours of appeals 3505 for salary and 33,1 150 for
expenses, 6,655 total. Uh the salary went up slightly there to so it could be put in the grid uh the union grid. And uh at some point
the board has discussed trying to put uh a number of these uh minute uh taking positions into one position.
and have one person, especially since everything's all recorded and everything, and have one person do it, spend $1,000 on AI and just get it done. Well, with AI, especially just if they're the meetings,
you can run caption and it'll just spit out the text. uh 10 buildings 146,183 for salaries, 86,000 for expenses for a total of 232,183.
As you know, we've centralized custodian maintenance into town buildings and uh we're chipping away at the various projects.
Uh I think the uh best project from my point of view was removing uh an unsafe ramp from the front of party ways.
It was like a skating rink. Yeah. And uh they recognized it and took care of it. And uh I'm glad we have a really good foreman and we have uh some young folks
from old colony. So it's uh working out very well. I hope we keep the young folks from the old whole old colony more than a couple of years. And
general government went down $23,017. So we're compromising everywhere we can. I think that's a great thing to highlight too, Mr. counted as the fact that we're asking everybody to be level funded even with the increase in
expenses and we have energy everywhere else and contractual obligations and our general government is still down over last year. So, well, while you highlight that, I'll highlight that the uh board
of selectment went from 273,868 to 252,400. Yep. Most of that was salary. Yeah. So there are no longer any unfunded jobs
in town site. Uh we've closed those up. We've we've closed every job up that uh the selectman are not planning to fill. Right. Okay. Thank you.
Just take me back to the town of Clark one again. Um when we I can't find it now. when she presented um she had it right. Okay. She had the two and then so did the other there's other employees in
that office that are getting they got to Okay just because she was elected that was that supports philosophy. Okay. Uh, what's the term for the town
court? How many? Three years, I believe. She's up the chair, I think. This coming. Police, public safety. Yep. Police department. 2,720,
$24 for salary. and 23 to $230,61 for expenses for 2,950,265 for total [Music] the
total of The permanent employees includes everyone but the chief and all positions that the board is planning to fill. uh including once the assessment center
is done the deputy deputy chief second command they uh I see that in the fires salary increase but you say the police chief is not in the police chief's not
in permanent salaries he's in a separate line okay but in the the combination All the all the other positions in the department are right now in the permanent salaries.
Okay. What else got moved there? Because the secondary command is 122, but the difference in the request is up like 170. Is there something else that went into the because it's going to be a shift
midyear. We have to make sure we have everything budgeted for and uh promotional opportunities. Assuming that
uh two of the eligible sergeants end up going into be chief and deputy chief back. Uh, I I I assume uh the funding
allows that and uh it would allow uh when all the deck chairs stop moving that most likely you're going to need to fill a
cadet position to go to the academy. Okay. just one is that they're planning just one one additional officer going to the academy. They
uh right now it depends as uh you would know on when themies are scheduled and when we can get an officer in. I think he said his hope was two. Yeah. But you were looking
at definitely one came in. Yeah. It's uh because the way I understand the process for the chief and deputy chief is they put the RFP
out for the assessment center company. The they reply, the various vendors reply. Then the board interviews, decides who they want. Then the assessment center company
and the board get together to for the company to know the board's priorities. The eligible sergeants have 10 weeks to
study by civil service law or regulation. I'm not sure which. And then uh they schedule the assessment centers. And I don't know if it sounds like the
board would like to have the two run concurrently and then the board will uh get the res. Uh the civil service gets the results, puts out the results to the board and then the
board makes their choice. They have a budget for the uh assessment. Is it budget beforehand? Well, and if not uh depending on what they what it is,
they'll get a there's adequate funding uh available. Uh I think the last time I saw it was 10 12 grand, but yeah, that's probably about right.
And there's eight or 10 companies, but I'm only familiar with two or three. Did we do fire department? No. No. Okay. 998,174 for salaries 213754 uh expenses.
We decided to take the reserve out. Uh we're going to probably or the board will probably be doing an article in the fall to take care of that. Uh
once we did a little more research, we found that if we put it in the budget and we don't spend it, then it goes to free cash. And that was not the intent of the board. the
board was to have it somewhat like a revolving account, but not specifically right a revolving account. So, we're talking about how we could design something to through
an article to do that understood like we did with storm water and all the other things which would make sense instead of getting blindsided by a large expense that comes up. Yeah. To be able to put a little away at a time. So, that is a
change. Inspectional services 147989 for salaries 19,900 expenses 1607,889.
Uh aside from uh the uh usual contractual increases there, we've got the $1,000 earmarked for someone to
be on the bench, so to speak, as a deputy building inspector being mentored by car building inspector. So eventually he can take the
exams and the courses and get the certification because uh our building inspector as you know is a retiree from another community and he's
uh like like me he's a short time. Mhm. So, we're trying to develop a bench uh sealer weights and measures uh 1,169 and then
1,50 for expenses. The reason for that is uh the sealer weights and measures. Uh we were sharing that individual with New Bedford and
uh they were picking up the expenses. That's right. And and now he retired from New Bedford. So we have to pick up the expenses to make sure he keeps his certification etc.
Makes sense. Mhm. So we could buy for a while. Was good while I last emergency management 4,000 for salary 139 for expenses. That's no change. Animal control
[Music] 54,790 and excuse me 7,240 for expenses. Very little change there. Uh forestry 1,000 for salary and
17,000 for expenses 18,000 total down,000 [Music] uh whole colony. I just before you move on, Mr. Kelly, I just want to point out when we look at public safety, which includes again
police and fire, as well as everything else that we just covered, increase of less than $6,000 over last year. So, it's a a great job for all of those departments for working
within what the town's means were. Just want to say thank you to everybody while we had the chance. Yeah, it's a it's been a very good effort by the town side
and finally the school side. The miniature increase other than fixed cost is Oak Colony, right? And I know unlike our own schools, Old Colony has an increase of Christian students this
upcoming year, which was pretty large. And outside of our own school's budget, their budget includes all of the retirement and benefits and everything else that in place where it's in their budget and it's not in the school budget here, it's in the town budget. So, I
know being on the the school committee or the finance committee portion for their school, I think their increase was only 2.1% once you factored out retirement benefits. They their health insurance was
19.9 and they got hit like we did two years ago. Well, well, we weren't hit that hard. And we were hit 9.9 this year. Almost 10. and and
they we made an offer to them because there was a an opening in the group that we're with. Yep. And they didn't want to explore that. Wow. So that's too bad. Yep. uh Oak Colony
3,243,522 and uh a Christian school department [Music] 16,534,645. I do not know the interior of the school budget, but it was a very good effort for them to come from
approximately 750,000 increase to 141,000. Absolutely. Definitely hats off to the school committee for their hard work for it on on both sides. I know old Colony let go some full-time employees as well
to to cut their budget down. So, not an easy thing to do, but we got to work with what we have within their means, and they were able to do it. So, thank you to both of them. uh public
parks 435,656 for salary for a highway and [Music] 578,200 for expenses for a total of 1,13,856 and that's only a minor increase.
uh 110,000 for snow and ice. You know that is constant because uh do doesn't let you decrease it on so but lets you run a deficit. Yep.
Uh street lighting is 27,350. No change. Uh, Cam Mass is 45,000 for salary. That's got to be a We've got to have an issue there, I think, Mr.
Kelly, just cuz it you're showing an increase of 36,450 on salary total line, but only a less than $2,000 increase in salary. Well, I think that's the total difference if you look at the expenses. That's a total Well, usually you have it
where the where the change is. So, okay. Gotcha. That's probably because we were changing the number a number of times as we were uh looking at changes in pricing coming in. Uh the
international uh situation uh causes uh a fluctuation. We've seen a fluctuation in the past to now of $30 a
ton. Well, remember the good old days when they were taking our recycling for free? Anyway, 45,000 uh for salaries, 1,314,062.
Uh it's not much we can do with that. No. cemetery uh 5,500 uh for salaries and 1,325 for
expenses. As you can see, it's a a minor fairly minor public works increase. Uh and most of that was in the solid waste. Uh, as far as water goes, water
reserve funds 60,000, no change. Uh, public works water salary total 233,416 expense 1,613430 and then indirect cost 41,901.
[Music] is the expense side of it. Where are we drawing the money out of the expenses that it's that high? Is it purchasing from New Bedford? That's what I thought. But then what are our indirect costs? Cuz it's the first time you've seen that
line item. Yeah, we're probably working on insurance cost. Insurance and uh uh we took pension out because of uh an issue with the reserve fund.
reserve receipt fund as far as the pension charging indirect costs for the pensions for that. But it's insurance, it's uh workers comp, that type of thing. Thank you.
And uh the total is 1,888,747 and the debt service is 27,000. Uh public works and water total is 4,672,840. And when you look at that, backing out the cost of water for New
Bedford, it's a very small increase. It's 40,000. Board of Health 132,778 29,385 for expenses and our half of that
is the consortium we belong to for the nurses. Mhm. Uh, so it's 162,163. If someone should play that. Uh, Council on Aging
113,51 for salaries, 23,884 for expenses for 136,935. Veterans 20,772 for salary 121,625 for expenses. That is primarily uh what
we give to our veterans and we we get reimbursed 75% of that from the state. Is there any veterans being affected by that? That's okay. Huh. a good chunk. Is there any veterans being I mean what's being cut? Uh well with the veterans
agent now he he keeps uh very good books. Okay. Just more efficient. I think when Brad came in he said he was comfortable decreasing the number because of where he was at last year. It was I just want to make sure and No, he addressed that.
He said that he was comfortable. Yeah, it was uh prior years we think was back to the envelope uh estimates. Well, and he said that it was aging veterans that have passed that
expenses have declined. No, the board was very concerned with that, but uh we went through and uh went through the I just want to make sure the vet being affected by that and of course they put forward the uh veteran work
program. You've got and veterans can access more than one of the programs. So you can uh like blocks pile one on top of the other. believe you do senior and
well you can do the veterans work off you can do various abatements and uh so you can you not just eligible for one
program and you have to choose uh library 248063 for salaries and 57 7557 for expenses 305
620 that preserves the bars. Recreation is no change at 10,000 salary and 15,000 225 for expenses for 25 220
225. Park and wreck 29,000 salary 20,967 for expenses 49967. Uh historical commission has gone down 7,660. The reason for that is we took
the alarms out of that budget, put it in technology. It's kind of all being centralized with the fiber because it's all involves the
fiber. And if you want, if you want a better explanation than that, either talk to him or Nick and Miscellaneous is 4,000 salary, 8,000 total. And you can see culture and wreck. The
really the uh increase is the library to keep it with um Oh, if we factor the library out, we actually down a little bit. So, it came in under budget. That's a again great job by the
the town. Uh regional government expense 3,85. No option there. You have to pay it. But it's
uh that heavy burden that you see. $57 increase. Okay. Uh debt. You see the principal went up. That's cuz we're retiring a debt and that was the end payment. So that's why
usually principal doesn't change uh much year to year. Uh and interest long-term interest went down 86 380. Uh the
61250 is uh the same as last year because we haven't been quoted yet on the interest cost to the ban. So, I don't expect
it'll be that high, but uh leave it where it is until we know. It won't change that much, tens of thousand at
most. Uh joint benefit accounts. We took pensions, as I said, out of water and also out of sewer because of the difficulty figuring out what we were
doing and whether it was allowed with the uh uh water reserve. Uh and so uh that's from Bristol County and an estimate of
Medicare 2,88,683 and I use present payroll for Medicare. So that'll probably go down a little. Insurance is 2,65,789, an increase of 134,368. And I consider ourselves lucky
to get out of an increase in health insurance of 9.9. Uh that is why we've established the health insurance stabilization fund because down the road if you get
hit either for an assessment because you have some very catastrophic cases in town that are going to skew your rates or you get a higher Anyway, that
will help ease the pain cuz I can't see health insurance not going up year to year for the next two to three years at close to 10% to 12, maybe even
14 unless That's the uh what they're doing with the pharmaceuticals in Washington changes the pricing. But right now we're getting rebates on our pharmaceuticals because
of bulk purchasing and purchasing from uh using rates of uh other countries which is what the federal government's trying to do right now.
So those were all our individual budgets. Could we vote on them as a a whole unless there were questions or do we need to go one by one? Uh we could go uh just let me uh you can if there any you want to vote individually
but the total budget is 36 988765 and balanced to where it needs to be. And that's a number that we can work with, right? balance. Uh now I'd like to go over the revenue
sheets. Uh we changed the withholding uh for the overlay. It had been 200,000.
Uh, I put it on the I think I put it on the front. You did, but I I I shuffled my paper sometimes. All right. Uh, so in the first section, which is the tax levy.
Uh, traditionally you've had around 200,000 in the allowance for abatement and exemptions. your over 3 years your run is around a
100,000 and you have quite a bit in your overlay account right now as you know we used some of it last year and there's still quite a bit in it so the board
uh in their wisdom decided to put the allowance for abatement exemptions, the overlay account at 150 instead of
200. Uh that is a negative number from your levy. So, in effect, we kept $50,000 of the tax
levy instead of putting it in the lake. Uh, as you can see in your sheet, I've got governor's budget, house budget, senate
budget. the legislature in their wisdom hopefully will have a budget by July and so it's once the Senate passes theirs it'll have to go to conference committee and what we hope is the
legislature uh decides the Senate decides to keep their high number the house decides to keep their high number because they usually split One will go with uh town
aid, one will go with school aid. And if we could keep both of them high, then uh we'll uh at least state aid might be around 1%. uh look at local receipts and we've done
multiple year runs now since I've been here and we've increased the motor vehicle estimate which I think is more in line.
It's a little high in the percentage, but you're averaging around a million8 to a million n for excise. And here we have it at a
million6 in our estimate. The a million5 for the excise and 100,000 reserved out of the excise for road repair. Uh I did we didn't change uh the next uh penalties and interest
charges for services in water and FY25 we estimated high and uh to has questioned that so we've returned it to the million8 estimate. Uh the next
major change is your uh meals tax which is approximately halfway down. You'll see that it's got blanks through a number of years. And
then the 31,492 for the first year is a quarter and about 3 weeks because that was the phase in
period. So our estimate Well, it took a while to go from here to the state to the state to the AG and back and then back to do. Okay. So, I thought it went into effect like in October or something like that. Uh we we
had literally one quarter and a scooch Oh, okay. Of uh payment. And so we're estimating at 100,000. That's something that we have to wait and see on. Uh when
we actually get some runs. So it might actually be higher. It won't be much higher, but it could be 125. Cuz that's all during like winter months and stuff like that where to lower. It's
you don't have a lot of uh establishments. You have some, but you don't have a lot. You don't have uh a lot of fast food places or Yeah. Uh you know, so it's it's going to be
constant. Uh it helps. Mhm. uh other departmental revenue. We saw that we've been averaging uh more than our estimate. So, we moved the estimate up 15,000
uh licenses and permits. We've definitely been averaging, but we didn't go crazy because we see a decrease in permits right
now and that's the economy, but we did think it warranted an increase. When you look at some of the actuals and you look at what it's been
tracking, you could figure about a average year to year of about 300,000. But I think it's prudent to wait a year and see what's going to happen with
the economy cuz I've seen some of your permits down as far as 30%. Which doesn't bode well for new growth, an increase in new growth. uh investment
income. I still think that might be a little conservative, but we're going to let it run. [Music]
Now, uh, you have to remember that before I got here, you had something interesting. Well, before I got here, before Jan Gran got here, before some of the finance
people we brought in that were retirees that worked for the town filling in while we hired folks. Uh you had your
uh tax revenue in a capped interest account and you're making about 35,000 a year. So, we've done it in money markets and
other accounts and uh we're doing it professionally and it's paid off. Yeah. Substantially. And other than that, uh you will see in the bottom of the revenue sheet,
uh there's a decrease. That's because we're not using the overlay surplus and we're not charging the indirect costs as revenue because after we did
that one year do advised us to actually put it in the budgets. So that's what we did this year. And so our revenue is 36,993,510. So when you look at it,
we're about 4,5,000 to the good. Yep. That's a small margin. Uh, it's a small, but it's black. It's not bad. It's a small margin, but Sue last time was talking to
me about free cash and where it comes from. Well, when uh I looked at it and I had to go back and the analysis isn't really uh a good
analysis, financial analysis, because the free cash we're looking at now were was affected by our change in our banking policies.
But a million2 of our free cash this year came from uh excess receipts. But that also is a very big chunk of
$500,000 because of changing our banking policies. So uh don't expect that to be that much year to year. Yeah, it's your local office state. Uh are there any questions on individual
budgets? And then I'd like to go to the sewer and golf uh articles which you folks haven't. I don't have any questions. Any questions, comments? Do you make a motion to vote on the I
make a motion that we vote on the town budget as presented. Second. Motion made second. All in favor? I opposed. So voted. Uh appreciate it.
Uh it's on flight. It's you still have a very viable local
receipt section of your revenue that uh in the future I would advise uh and I'm probably preaching to the choir with
committee, but that you look at it conservatively and you don't count on revenue yeartoear that you're and look at the
high numbers, you know, 75 to 80% for the larger accounts is a good estimate. Mhm. This committee for the most part has been pretty conservative. Yeah. Over the
past several years and I know over Yeah. No. Well, it's I I would say knowing the number of communities, the south coast and southeast Mass is
uh fairly conservative with municipal budgets. Seems to make you happy. So you maybe just for one more year maybe. No ass. Uh actually
uh I'm waiting uh to uh see what's going on in my town. I don't want the job, but uh a friend of mine is retiring at the same time from
the town manager job in my town. We've been comparing notes what we're going to do in retirement. Going to go to chairs and have a beer in honor of Norm. That would be
fun. In my misspent youth, I spent quite a bit of time before it was cheers when it was a bullet and fix and there wasn't a norm there. There were multiple norms. uh the sewer enterprise you can see uh
we put some indirect cost in uh these figures are definitely uh well it's at the end 32 back article 32
page 32 how about that h Uh and it there are figures that have to be verified uh as far as sewer revenues and retained
earnings that I have to have. Uh, and that might be the second section as far as how it's raised might be changed slightly by accounting and that's fairly
typical. We do that right up until we send it to printing. It mainly should reflect the top. So, you're looking at about 42 that
uh will be needed. But as I said, that's for the real accountants to figure out because that's a do formula. And
uh I I I will say that the fact that you're doing the indirect cost for both sewer, water, and golf seriously help not only the budget
but for the uh citizens to know what those services actually cost. Golf the same way. Uh the endur cost they went up slightly from last year.
uh mainly because we've uh sharpened our pencil. Uh we have no estimates. Uh we went body by body to figure it out. And uh part of it
engulfes the unemployment costs when certain people are laid off or uh as Christian knows if you're have someone working for you
part-time but they work for someone else and they g get laid off elsewhere. you end up getting bit for part of their unemployment. Mhm. Which I
never understood the rationale for that. Thank you. So I make a motion that we accept articles 32 and 33 33 as presented. Can we do that with possible changes
coming through? Like you said, it would only be uh to re actually reflect the numbers in the first section. Should we hold off until because the other articles, right? We're going to wait on the other one, right? We're
going to we didn't we discuss that we wanted to get more information. We're going to vote on these articles. I thought that was meeting was a couple meeting. Yeah, but there's three that are here. They're all on zoning, right? And general bylaws. Yeah. So, those
don't affect the finances of the town. So, we were talking about taking a position on these three. Yes. That's what I thought we did with They're not under my perview. They just send them to me. I put them in the water.
They applied in Florida articles. Um the ones that we held was article 30 which was the school the the trend one about the Oh yeah that was the one that that was held and then 26 27 28
um that is the collective bargaining that the slacker is still working on. Right. We didn't have that. Those those last three were once we said we were going to take no position on 35 through 37 because it was non-financial. Yes. Correct. Well, I'll second the motion to accept
article 32 and 33 and 34 as written. I thought you voted on 34 already. Yes, we did. Sorry, but you had it still in here. That was the bunker for the coming out of their own funds. Should be 32 and 33.
So I'll second the motion. Motion seconded to accept article 32 and 33 as presented. All in favor? I opposed. So [Music]
we'll take care of this. Now we send it to the printer. Well, we actually proof it tomorrow and then send it to the printer. Mike's letter is downstairs. I
just haven't formatted it in and then I haven't formatted these. select letter if you had either and then we do the index of this one over here. Okay. And if there are any questions
from individual committee members uh in preparation for a town meeting just call the office. I'm always available. Huh? I know you work called your food dancer.
I can even if someone needs certain talking points, I could provide them. Mhm. But uh I'm glad we balanced the budget. I'm glad we got through it. I'm glad we
didn't vote the next year. I'm Well, I'm glad we didn't have to uh actually close departments. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'd like to say thank you to
every uh town uh department as well as the school for stepping up and also to you for the hard work that you've done. Absolutely. Thank you. This year and over the previous years and it was a pleasure working with you. Thank you. The work you got to do next year for us.
I was going to say just surprising you're coming back, right? Well, you haven't seen my consultant ring yet. That'll eat up part of your investment income. That's why he conservative.
He's trying to put a little money. It's like just in case. No. Funny things happen. Yeah. actually uh I was going to retire and then this job was advertised.
Now you have the opportunity and uh and now he said I should have retired. No, it was close to home and I wouldn't have to drive an hour and 15 minutes
working with you. So it was uh perfect. And then Pauline uh informed me about my roots. That was a bonus. See that stuff I did. Now you can't get
away, right? I think we're done. That takes care of the business we have as far as the budget and the town meeting articles. There are several town meeting articles that we're going to uh take up at our meeting before the uh the actual town
meeting. Uh and outside of that uh does anybody have any old business? New business. So the meeting will our meeting will be at 6, correct? At the middle school. As far as I know, 6:00 at the middle school. We'll hear from the
chairman. I don't know which room we're going to use because it's going to be several. Yeah. several meetings going on start. Usually the selectman if they need to will be there for especially if any of the collective bargaining
agreements get finalized and I slept down in the library. Yeah, I assume uh if the school committee has any issues at the meeting
too contracts pending. Yeah. Second. Motion made and seconded to adjourn. All in favor? Opposed? I journed. Heat. [Music]