WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=B1K5X7oFG68

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: B1K5X7oFG68):
- 00:00:00: Finance Committee Meeting Opening, Attendance, and Agenda Overview
- 00:02:51: Library Budget Summary, Interim Space, Special Collections
- 00:05:39: Library Revenue Sources, Endowment, Gift Funds, Expenses
- 00:08:08: Library Staffing, Statistics, and Endowment Draw Down
- 00:11:59: Library Building Project, Costs, Successes, and Timeline
- 00:16:52: Library Donations, Questions and Answers Begin Here
- 00:17:29: Public Comment: Fundraising for Library Endowment Urgency
- 00:18:50: Public Comment: Grant Ideas and MassDevelopment Contingency
- 00:20:14: Public Comment: Details on MassDevelopment Program Information
- 00:20:48: Public Comment: Rent Paid by Library for Branch Locations
- 00:22:07: Public Comment: Questions About Library Endowment Investments
- 00:23:46: Public Comment: Agreement on Branch Libraries Maintenance
- 00:24:52: Public Comment: Special Shout Out to Greenfield Savings
- 00:25:10: Public Comment: Number of Library Staff Receiving Benefits
- 00:25:49: Public Comment: Shared Services and Resources with Town
- 00:27:45: Public Comment: Transition to Renovated Library Anticipation
- 00:30:15: Public Comment: Trends on Circulation and Programming Statistics
- 00:32:13: Public Comment: Community Meeting Room Setup and Fees
- 00:34:24: Library Thanks Finance Committee and the Town
- 00:34:57: Library's Volunteer Appreciation and Sharon's Dedication
- 00:36:36: Introduction to Public Health Director, Kiko Malinowski
- 00:37:59: Public Health Staffing, Collaboration, Opioid Settlement Funds
- 00:44:56: Public Health: Crest Collaboration and Practical Examples
- 00:48:25: Senior Center & Public Health Collaborative Work Together
- 00:51:56: Public Health: Home Visits and Opioid Settlement Fund Details
- 00:55:46: Public Comment: Concerns About Visibility, Signage, Virus Updates
- 00:58:17: Senior Center Volunteers, Numbers and Rebound Strategies
- 00:59:51: Public Comment: Senior Center Staff Opportunities Broadening
- 01:01:29: Senior Center Emer Snapers Collaboration, Details on Organization
- 01:03:37: Senior Center: The Need for Social Workers, Substance Use Harm Reduction
- 01:06:05: The Banks Movement, Wellness Consultation Room First Floor
- 01:07:16: Steve Connor, Veteran's Agent, and Central Berkshire Group
- 01:08:55: Public Comment: Communications Communication, General Health Outreach
- 01:12:04: Senior Center/ College Partnerships, Potential Volunteers, and Programs
- 01:13:55: Update on Recreation Department and Major Changes
- 01:19:12: Rec Depts: Challenges, Locations, Operations, and Commitment
- 01:19:51: Public Comment: Recreation Department Moving out from Middle School
- 01:22:58: Public Comment: Continued Scholar Funds and Subsidies
- 01:25:58: Public Comment: New Services and Tax Writeoff for Recreation Department
- 01:29:24: Public Comment: A Thank You to Reo Services for their Hard work
- 01:30:05: The Independence Day Celebration, Objectives and Funding
- 01:32:20: Public Comment: Regional Service and Donation Appeal on 4th
- 01:33:09: Golf Course Revenues, Revolving Fund, Salary Scale Low
- 01:36:13: Public Comment: Pay Range and Light Duty Equipment
- 01:38:13: Wage Scale Inability to fill positions with low budget
- 01:40:13: Friends of Golf course and Gift donations
- 01:40:55: Under Impress: Expenses on the Golf Course are not covered
- 01:41:49: Recommendation made after analysis and deep work that put in
- 01:44:00: Council and Finance questions on answers for all questions
- 01:45:07: More on Golf Course: Expenses, Maintenance, Turf Management UMass
- 01:50:05: Opening the Floor to Public Comments: Setting Three Minute Time Limit
- 01:50:22: Public Comment: Grounds Keepers Salary, Golf Course Maintenance
- 01:53:25: Public Comment: Cherry Hill Working Group and Golf Course Walking Review
- 01:58:54: Adjournment and Next Meeting and Time


Part: 1

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We're recording. >> Good afternoon everyone. Today is the May 19th meeting of the finance committee and my first order of business since I see we have a quorum is to call on members of the committee to make sure

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we can hear and uh we can hear them. They can hear us, we can hear them. So I'll call in the order I see them on my screen. Lynn >> present. Councelor Brebeck, >> present. >> Kathleen Mitchell, >> present. >> Tom Porter, >> present.

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>> And Anna Develin Gothier, >> present. >> Uh, one counselor is told me he's going to be absent. We have one other resident member. If they come, I'll recognize them. Um, we have, uh, two two main

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items on the agenda, but the second has multiple parts. The first is the library and I see that Sharon has joined us. And then the second is a broad group called community services which has multiple different um entities in the town

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involved. So we've moved just so people in the public know we've moved public comments to the end to make sure we can have a discussion before we get the public comments. So, I urge your patience and Sharon, welcome. And I am

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I'm assuming you're doing the presentation. Um, >> yeah. Hi, everybody. >> And and thank you also for um responding to our questions in writing. Um, that was very helpful. And you can assume we

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either have already read them um or but we may or may we may still have follow-up questions. Um, >> absolutely. Thank you. uh really helpful. Uh thank you for sending them to me. Um it's it's helpful to know what you guys are thinking but uh before I

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you know when I'm uh putting together the presentation um first I wanted to introduce uh trustee president Austin Sarah who is also with us and >> welcome. >> If I can is it okay if I share my screen?

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>> Yes. And I'm just going to take a moment that I see Joe Jane has joined us. Joe can you hear us? Yes, everything is great. Sorry I was late. I just had came back from an appointment. Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh Sean is in charge of screen sharing. So if he let you, you can.

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>> Yes. There we go. Okay. Please hold. Okay. Here we go. Thank you again so much for having us. Um let's see hang on

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start here. So uh so I have integrated a lot of your questions into my presentation. Uh happy to answer more questions clarify at the end. We're going to start with the budget

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summary. So, our proposed FY27 total operating budget is for 3,253,135. It's a 5.3% increase over the library's FY26 budget. >> Sorry to interrupt you, but you we're seeing your your um current slide and

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next slide. So, maybe you switch the windows so that we can see the big slide. We're seeing like all the controls. >> How do Yeah, that is so weird. Um,

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>> if not, that's okay. If you have notes, >> I don't know how to do that. I'm so I don't have notes. >> No wor no worries. If not, that's fine. >> I'm so sorry. Uh, I I need a like a a pocket Athena to come home with me and help me with my Sharon. If you click on display

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settings, is there an option to >> to not have it that way? >> Um, >> it says swap presenter and slideshow. Try that. >> There you go. That's perfect. >> Oh, great. Okay.

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>> Okay. Uh, so for FY27, we are going to assume uh that we're going to be providing services out of the interim space 101 University Drive for 9 months. That's um that's what we've budgeted for. So that's why our utilities costs are are low. Uh you had a couple

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questions about special collections. We do expect to uh we're budgeting $15,000 out of that account uh for various special collections activities, including anything related to the section 106 MOA between the town and the

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state and the library. And so this special collections account is separate from our our corporate account. Um it's it's donations that have been given to the special collections department over many many years and and those funds are

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restricted to special collections. So no, we definitely do not charge uh patrons for the use of special collections. >> And Sharon, as you talk, is there a fund then called the special collections fund that you have? >> Yeah, exactly. So, in addition to the endowment fund,

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>> yes, but it's I mean it's teeny. There's like $30,000 in it. It's small. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Revenue sources. Okay. So, the library trustees have submitted a request. It's a for 3.85% increase to the town appropriation

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and the trustees approved a 4.6% draw rate from the endowment. Regarding gift funds, uh both the trustees and the friends approved a $45,000 Woodbury fund grant for the purchase of circulating materials uh just for FY27. Uh in

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addition, uh $129,123 is budgeted to be gifted to the library from donations to the friends and that money will be used to purchase circulating materials and to fund public programming. FY26 annual fund donations to the

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friends you you all asked me about this uh they're essentially equal to those that we've received in FY25 FY24 um so this has made us really happy on the flip side we do think that the annual fund is not increasing at this

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point because donors are giving to both the annual fund and the capital campaign uh and the friends are responsible for the capital campa campaign. So, all of those funds are in friends accounts, but under the MOA, the friends are required

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to hold the capital campaign funds separate from uh their annual fund donations. As far as the endowment goes, the the value of the endowment on March 31st was 9,28,710.93. And the separate woodberry fund as of

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March 31st was $322,918.98 and that was after a $500,000 donation to the capital campaign in FY uh 26 regarding expenses. So we have budgeted for a 9.8% increase to benefits costs

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and a 2.2% increase to book purchases. All of our state aid award will be used uh the the majority of it 97% will be used for staff salaries and about 3% will be paid to the town in form in the form of rent for library services at the

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branches and two of our full-time positions will remain unfilled regarding uh staffing for the expanded library. So, what we've been saying was um if we we were projecting that if we would need to add any additional

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positions, it would be for a custodian. Um but what what we're doing is we're not adding any new positions. Um we have had these three full-time positions that have been vacant for a handful of years.

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And so for FY27, the trustees uh spent a little bit more money, took more out of the endowment draw in order to fill one of those positions. >> And Sharon, can I just ask ask you a question as you go along? >> Um because I'll forget them otherwise.

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So, you're adding the teen librarian, but would you wait to add that person until the new until March when the new open or would you be adding them for the full year? >> Uh, we'll start the process in July and

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so the process takes a few months. So, um, it won't we're not going to wait until March. We need the person to to help our our our Cecilia, our teen librarian now. Um so we'll be bringing them on sooner rather than later.

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>> Okay. Thank you. >> Uh yeah and so regarding the teen and custodial positions um it's not an additional 1.5 FTEES. We are again we're filling one full-time position that's been vacant and to oversee the teen room

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and and we're hiring an additional part-time person to perform custodial duties. Staff and statistics. I was so glad that you asked this question. Um, I did email town council with the library staffing

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charts uh from FY18 to FY25 and they look like the FY26 uh chart that's showing on your screen. Um, so because the charts are arranged by uh library department, it helps you

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see how many people are within each department providing those services. Um, but it's not arranged by, you know, hourly, how often, uh, people work in a in a week. So, um, I gave you the FY26

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FTEES, the actual calculations, but I don't have that going backward. Um, maybe HR could do that, run a report, or maybe Sean can. Um, but what what's what's deceiving about this chart is the fact that the the staff don't work in

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silos. They don't only work in their department. Um they they move around depending on what the needs are. You know, people get sick, go on vacation, and and people have to fill in for each other. So, most staff are working at all four circulation desks between the kids

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and adult and the two branches. Uh most of the library department heads have to work the the reference desk. Um most staff continue to public programming. So, that's for all ages, kids, teens, uh seniors, the branches. Uh many staff

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member members contribute to collection development. Um they help with it. So it's it's just it's a very well-rounded group of really incredible people. And so we're lucky that they um mingle

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and more statistics. I love that you all asked this question as well. I have emailed town council the circulation and programming statistics for FY25. uh all libraries from across the state. This is a requirement is to keep track of all of these all of these figures. So

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obviously you can't read what's on your screen right now. Um so I sent it to you and uh you can access you can run charts on the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners website so you can compare libraries from across the state.

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Let's talk about the building project. So the big question is what happens if we have to draw down the endowment? It's a really important question and I would argue it's the question. The short answer is to be determined. Fundraising

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will continue until the endowment is replenished, however long that will take. You asked if this is sustainable and the answer is no. Not on an ongoing annual basis. These next 12 months are

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crucial. Our need is great. Today, we're asking for donations to expand uh and renovate the Jones. And a year from now, we'll be asking for donations to rebuild the endowment to maintain library services. So, everybody's financial

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support is critical. If you have not yet donated, please do so at jones library capital campaign.org/donate. I'll wait for you. For those of you at home who need to go grab a pen to write this down, jones library

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capital.org/donate. Uh we are hoping if if you feel like you have not been asked, here is your official ask. We are hoping to see 100% participation by town council. Uh again, go to jones library campaign.org/donate.

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Let's talk about our success. So the total project cost is 46.1 million. The town is going to pay 15.7. The CPA uh funds will fund 1 million.

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The MBLC will fund in in two different uh bunches, one for 13.8 million and one for 1.7 million, which leaves 13.8 million for the trustees. The trustees have paid trustes capital campaign.

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They've paid uh $4,826,644.30, which means we owe the town uh 8,995,873.70. CPA still has uh money left in the account for us to use to pay bills. Ammerst College will still owe us

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250,000. Next February is when we expect their payment. Uh the HUD funds are all paid up. So the total pledge amounts that are on your screen were as of May 1st. Uh new pledges and gifts and grant

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awards are being added daily. So for example, last week we were awarded a second Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund grant in the amount of $200,000. Woohoo. Um, so, so what I'm saying is that we'll increase all the the pledge

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payment amounts. That being said, the pledge payment expectations, this is what donors have have um have pledged to us, but it it's not a commitment to turn funds over to the town on those dates. Uh some of the

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donors have been vague about their payment schedules and the schedules of many have are kind of outdated because of of all the delays. Um we do expect to make another payment of $500,000 to the town before the end of this fiscal year.

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We do expect to move into the new building in the spring of 27. We have a year. Uh Fontaine will complete their work. furniture will be moved in. The books will be moved in. Staff will unpack and arrange shelves and then

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we'll reopen. We are not sure when the MBLC will disperse the final payment to Ammerst. We're guessing it'll be sometime during FY28, but I'm not even sure beginning, middle, or end. It's it's based on the

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MBLC's, you know, they have a lot of uh uh construction projects going on all at once and they have a cap, the amount of money that they're allowed to disperse and that dictates when they can pay us. Um so the possible dispersement schedule

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is on your screen right now. And so at that point, uh in FY28 after the MVLC gives us the final 1.6, six. Um, uh, the trustees would would, uh, give the town whatever the balance is. And if we have

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not raised all the funds, uh, the trustees have another year to decide their weighing options between a draw down of the endowment or working with a local bank and mass development. And so once again, please donate at

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Jones Library.org/donate org/donate because every donation makes a difference. That's everything I had prepared and now I'm happy to answer questions. So if you um and just so everyone knows I saw this morning that the this chart

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set is in the packet. So um so I think we can take it down Sharon so that I can see everyone and >> absolutely >> please raise hands if you have questions. Lynn. >> Um, first of all, thank you for the

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presentation and the responses. Um just one of the things I think I heard and I want to make sure I understand it and that is that if in fact you need to use the endowment uh to give the town the amount of money as required by theou on the date

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required that your campaign would then in fact pivot to raising money for the endowment. Is that okay? >> Yeah. And so you know at this point we're talking semantics. There's a lot of conversation about, you know, once the building opens, do you still call it

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a capital campaign or is it a mortgage burning campaign or, you know, we still need to raise $150,000 every year for annual fund, you know, for programming and materials and that kind of a thing. Uh, we still need somebody who is paid

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to oversee uh raising these funds and then uh raising the money to replenish the endowment. So um yeah I the urgency is there >> right. I the re thing I do want to share

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and that is from my own experience with fundraising and that is that at uh following a capital campaign it is in fact very normal for you to have an increased donor pool for your annual fund and for any other additional

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endowments. So it I think that's a solid plan. uh you won't be the first campaign that is not uh completely funded be by the time you open the doors. Uh in fact that's a rare occasion uh in my experience again with

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fundraising. But thank you. >> Thank you Jill. >> Thank you so much for the all the information and this great presentation and all of the hard work you're doing. Um, I met recently with your development director and as I come from a I have a

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development background and shared some ideas for grants and f other funding and I think it sounds promising too that um once the new building is open you'll be able to run new programming which then opens other doors to program funding

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which is a whole another kind of category that is hard to access when you're in limbo without a space like this. though. Um I just had a very small question on just one of the last things you said in the presentation about mass development and as a backup plan. Can you just talk a little bit

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more about that contingency plan um and what program through mass development and any other info on that that you have? >> Yeah. So what what would happen is and I I only know it at at a sky level. Um we work with a bank. A bank has to agree to

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take on the loan. uh the the library building itself would be the collateral and then we're they all three of us we would work with mass development providing that long-term low interest loan.

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>> So it's it's that backing gets you a lower interest rate. Is that what it is? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um I'm looking for I had just uh you as you it was an excellent presentation. So one you you noted that um you pay rent

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to the town for the two branches. Um and do you know the amount of that and is that rent supposed to also cover the oper more or less the operating costs of those the library part of it or I I have

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>> no but I'm glad you I'm glad you asked. Um, so we pay and we have paid. So it's $6,500 rent to use the Mson and it's been $6,500 for a very very very long time. This

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goes back to Ron Bahanowit's days. Um, and so that's just that is so that Jeremiah and his team, they take care of the building and the grounds. Um, so, uh, so the town takes care of,

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we just rent, we take care of the inside, the town takes care of from the walls outside, you know, the gardens and and all of that. Um, and it's the same way with the north now. Um, we pay $5,000

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rent uh to provide library services out of the North Emer building. Um, and again, we take care of from the walls inside and Jeremiah takes care of from the walls outside. >> That's $5,000 a month. >> No, a year. I'm sorry.

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>> Okay. I just want to be clear on that. Okay. >> Thank you. Thank you, >> Joe. Your hand is up. >> Yeah. Thank you. Um, that was actually my question, too. So, uh, thank you, uh, Kathy, for asking that. And, uh, Sharon, thank you so much for your time today. This is great. Um, in terms of the endowment, uh, it sounds like, uh, you

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have half of it right now in cash. Is that corrected or money market fund? Half the 9 million. >> It could be half. I know we just took a a chunk of it out and I don't I don't have the exact number in my head, but yes. >> Okay. And do who managed the the

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endowment? Is is do is that public information that we can we can get like who manages the endowment and what the performance of the endowment has been or is that really not? Um >> it's through Vanguard, but now Yeah. Um and and we now go through um it was

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Mercer and that was just kind of messy and and so now we're go actually going through Greenfield Savings Bank. Huge shout out to Greenfield Savings Bank. They're they're doing the same thing that Mercer was doing but for a fraction of the cost. They're really um you know they really care about the community and

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that's what they're doing for us. So thank you for asking. And is that information disclosed anywhere to the public that you can see that endowment or >> it it's a great question. Not yet. We just did the switch like last month and so even I don't have we're we're working

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on getting uh the the statements online >> and so to stay tuned. Yes. >> No worries. Sharon, thank you so much. >> Thank you. Uh Lynn and Kathleen, >> you're muted. Lynn,

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>> I want to go back to the um agreement on the North Library and uh Mson. You talked about doing inside, but I'm assuming that if something major like a plumbing issue happened inside, it's the town's responsibility to take care of that. Is that correct?

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>> Yeah, what I meant was I'm sorry. What I meant was the walls that just surround the library portion. So the the meeting room is not the libraries. The restrooms are not the libraries. So I just mean the library walls. >> Okay. And that means you take care of

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cleaning or anything else that takes care takes place within the space that you're actually renting within those facilities. >> Exactly. Exactly. And I should have given a shout out to DPW to Guilford and his whole team. You know, they do all of the the snow clearing and the um the

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shoveling. Thank you. Right. Um just and following up, but if something major happened within that area, like for instance, if you wanted to put in new carpet, would that be at your expense or would it be at the town's expense? >> Well, we would probably we would go through the JCPC process.

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>> Okay. Um and also, um I agree with your shout out for Greenfield Savings. They've been very kind to the town of Ammerst and and to other nonprofits in Ammerst. >> Yeah. Thank you, >> Kathleen. >> Hi. Yeah, thank you for all of that. I was wondering if you could could know

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off hand of the 52 people I think who are listed, how how many of them receive benefits. Do you have a sort of a breakdown? I know you have like the under 20, the over 20. I didn't know if it corresponded with that or if you have a rough idea.

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>> It's 20 and above. So, um let's see. So, wherever it said, >> yeah, that's I mean I can look at it. And I just wanted to curious the breakdown. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Are there any other questions? Um

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Kathleen? >> Hi. Yes. I I was also curious um sort of are there areas in which the library and the town share any services resources? I mean, obviously the Mson and the um the

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North Library, you you've detailed sort of that partnership, but I was I didn't know like with HR or with other departments, are there is there um sort of shared services or ways in which you're you're using the town um departments to support your work?

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>> All of it. So, I love that you asked this question. That's so great. Um everybody uh I so yes HR everybody that we hire we go through the HR uh department we are all town of Ammerst

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employees. Uh so yeah so the you know the Jones library is its own 501c3 corporation but we are also a town department. It's kind of the best of all the worlds. Um, so HR I, you know, we work closely with the town manager and

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um, who else? The wreck department. Huge shout out to the entire recreation department. We do programming with them all the time. Um, I'm totally drawing a blank, but I shouldn't. DPW, fire, police, uh, crest.

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Oh my gosh. Um we in the new library we actually have an an office space for crest so that they can have a a a satellite location. Um we work closely with them. Um it it's on it's one of the best

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reasons to work in Ammerst. Um our colleagues are incredible across all the town departments. Um the town clerk is amazing. Um I don't what else can I say? Lynn, help me. >> Lynn, go ahead.

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>> Very, very good job. I think there's an enormous collaboration. That wasn't why I raised my hand up. um as you anticipate the um move back to the newly renovated and expanded library, um you did a couple of things that I

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think were fairly public during the transition from the uh library to your place on University Drive. One was come and take out as many books as you can and then bring them back once we've moved. And then the other one was I believe you had to close for a week or

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two. And so can you talk a little bit about what you see as the transition um opportunity uh come maybe March? >> Yeah. No, fun question. Um fun and exhausting. So it it was more than just

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a couple weeks. I I think we were closed for a month, possibly more than that. Um it is it is a beast. Um, but we're hoping it will be easier to move back in because there was so much math that had to be math to figure out where all of

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our special collections items were going to go and because the whole collection of books and circulating materials doesn't it doesn't fit in 10 at 101. Uh, a portion of the collection had to go in the basement of the Mson and a portion is in deep storage at the bunker thanks

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to Ammerst College. Um, so at least we know we go to all those places and it all gets moved back. The professional movers move everything back into uh 43 Amity Street, but then the staff have to unpack everything and and reshelf

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everything and and hanging art and and all of that. So, I'm I'm not sure how long it will take. That's why I we're still kind of vague about, you know, when it is that Fontaine will end their portion of it so that our in um FFN can

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be moved in and it can be set up. Um so it it um it it'll be a long process, but um yeah, that that's really all I can say for now. And uh just follow up on that. Is the money for the move in the

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operating budget or is it in the capital in the campaign budget? >> It's in the the 46.1 uh million dollar operate uh overarching total project cost. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Joe.

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>> Oh yeah. Uh thank you Kathy. Um uh Sharon, thank you so much again. Um I'm just I'm just curious this is kind of a really dumb question but um the circulation programming statistics I it's very curious looking at these um how can you talk a little bit of just about the growth of these over time we

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have the 2025 fiscal year 2025 have you seen significant or kind of growth in these areas like you know adult books and all the different categories you have here has this generally been um historically kind of these numbers have have grown over the years or can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, what

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a fun question. Thank you for asking. Um, so you know, so 2019, that's what we say was our last normal year, uh, right before CO and and the numbers back then were higher than they are now.

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>> COVID happened and everything took a a nose dive because we weren't open for, you know, many many months. Um, and even even now, so how many years ago was it at this point? Two years ago was when the North Amoris Library was shut down

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and and we moved and and operating out of an interim space. So CIRC stats went down there and the building project and all of the the hubhub has certainly affected statistics and then last year as Lynn had pointed out we had to close.

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So um none of these stats I would I say are normal. Um, I I would, you know, and and therefore once we reopen, you're not even going to be able to

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compare that with 2025 or 24 or or even FY19 because it's going to be such a bigger space. Um, >> right. But the new baseline. Yeah. Okay. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Thank you so much for sharing. I just, you know, the business of of the library. Thank you. I >> Thank you.

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>> Thank you. So Sharon, I have one on on the once you're open, you have uh a fairly large community room, meeting room and then some others. Um

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does the town if the town wants to hold our town room is limited to some extent because of the way the podium is. If the town wants to hold a meeting there um or another group, is it wired so that it

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could also be on Zoom? Is is it set up for electronic or would it mainly be in person? Um >> no, it will be it will have all all the it not as much it as what's in the town room. And I um

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I'm not sure if we will be able to broadcast live, but we could certainly uh do a Zoom kind of a thing, you know, using an owl, that type of thing. Uh I'm not sure about Ammerst media hookup. I'd have to look into it. It's not my It's

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not the >> But you'd be able to You've had some large video screen, so if you wanted to do a presentation, it would be on a screen. >> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And um does the if the t it's a town sponsored meeting do does the town pay?

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>> Oh no no no. No matter what it's Yeah. You know there's a fee schedule and as long as it's a nonprofit and anybody can come to the meeting. You everybody can use the the spaces for free. It's not until you start if you want to hold a

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private meeting and you are charging people to go to that meeting, that's when we start to take a cut. But for the most part, our spaces are free. >> Okay. Thank you. I'm looking around the screen. Um I'm not seeing any other

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questions. So that you're coming this well prepared was a gift to all of us. So thank you very much. Um, thank you very much. Thank you for having us. >> Vote that we don't have to go through specific numbers. We have them. Um, so I don't think we'll have any followup

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because we were asking you now, but we want to thank you. Um, and thank you for for the town budget side coming in on budget >> to what we to put and I realize um, you know, I did most of those questions. You had to go way up on the draw of

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endowment and that's you've already said this is worrisome. you can't you can't continue to do that if you don't have an endowment. So you you'll have to figure out, as you said, to be determined. That was probably a good phrase at this point. >> And that's actually an excellent segue.

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Jones Library Capital campaign.orgdonate. Go there now. >> Kathy. >> Yes. Go ahead, Austin. >> So again, I wanted to speak to that very quickly and then just say one other thing. Um endowment draws vary.

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uh there's no fixed endowment draw. Uh institutions of various sizes sometimes take a lower draw, sometimes take a higher draw. So no one should I think uh come away with the idea that a reduced

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endowment we're going to have to we're just going to keep drawing at the same level. uh responsible endowment management requires that we try to preserve the capital but it also requires that we look at the the needs that need to be fulfilled.

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>> Yep. Um the other thing is just I want to say what you all already know which is the town uh really needs to be incredibly grateful to the volunteers who have raised now millions of dollars

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uh to support this project. They have they have more to go but they've done an extraordinary job. And lastly, uh I can't say this without any depth of knowledge, but surely the town does not have any better public servant than

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Sharon Sherry, and her work on the project and her thoroughess and responsibility are displayed uh displayed today. So, she gave a lot of shoutouts. Uh I want to make sure that the finance committee gives a shout out

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again to Sharon Sherry. Thank you. >> Thank you. and thank you for joining us and you are welcome to go back to your daily lives. Thank you very much for coming. So Sean, now we have a fairly uh rich

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mix of people and I don't know which order you would like to take them in. >> Yeah. So um if you check your email, you now have a file with responses to the questions that were submitted. But given you just got it a few minutes ago, we'll

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probably go through a lot of those questions. You know, we'll we'll summarize the responses to those questions. Um, so I'm thinking we'll go just in the order that the budget goes, which is that we will start with Kiko Men, who is um our public health director, and she's also our interim

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overseeing of senior services. And so, Kiko, I think if you want to maybe just give like a really quick summary of um of you know, your work and then if you want to summarize your responses to those questions you sent, I I took a look. They look good. If you want to just start going through those, I think

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that's the best way to proceed. >> Okay, sounds good. Um, everyone can hear me. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yes. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Um, it's nice to see everybody. It's nice to be here. Um, so yes, uh, I'm, um, happily serving in two roles for the second time. The second

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time that I've been wearing the interim senior services hat since we've had some leadership transition, but I'm feeling excited about a possible new senior center director coming in in the next month or so. We've had some good candidates. So, but I've been, you know, happy to do the job. It actually facilitates in some ways really good

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coordination of services here in the bangs to have one person overseeing these two externally facing organizations in the bangs. And I've actually sort of taken on this role of being the bangs building manager in addition to running programs because there are things that come up just to you know facilitate smooth workings of

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services here and I I kind of jump in to help them. So I'm happy to be doing that. Um I've been the public health director for almost three years now and really grateful that our budgets have remained stable. You know they're small budgets for both senior services and public health but they help us to do the things that we need to do the core

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functions and I'm just grateful that they have not been cut. So that's wonderful. Um I I think with that I'll just Oh, I also just wanted to say to Sharon, the library has been a great collaborator with public health. So there are a couple of staff on in the library that

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who she's I guess she jumped off already, but just so you all know um that are very attuned to the needs of unhoused people and people who might have substance abuse issues or opioid addiction. And there were some questions in my um the you sent me some questions about the opioid settlement funds which

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I'll get to. Um but we have been collaborating with the library to make sure that there's access to nlloxxone which is the medication that can be used to reverse overdose in all of the libraries. Um so and staff have been very open to making sure that information is there and available to people who might need it. So that's just

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another way that departments in town collaborate with each other. Um, so with that, I think I'll just jump into starting to go through the questions that you asked of public health. And apologies that I didn't get this information to you well ahead of time, and I don't have a beautiful

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PowerPoint like Sharon's, but we'll go through these questions. My budget's not as impressive as hers, so doesn't warrant a big PowerPoint presentation. Um, so the comment was made that the staff work is impressive with only 1.8 FTE. And you know certainly Olivia who's our public health nurse and I are very

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dedicated to our work and we do work hard. Um we couldn't do the things that we do without additional help that we have. So that's not reflected in the org chart that is in the budget book. Um but we have um assistance in the form of a public health program assistant who has

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been with us now for almost two years. Um her name is Maheen Ahmed. She's a UMass public health school graduate and she does um you know a lot of the answering of the phone calls, triaging the emails that we get, responding to um customer clients who come to the door and need some information whether or

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supplies, tick removal kits, gloves, those kinds of things. She hands that, she handles all that and she also does a lot of our public health education, updates the website. So these are all things that I don't have time to do and she does a beautiful job of that. Um, we also have a very part-time

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administrative assistant, Nancy Schroeder, who works 12 hours a week just in the mornings. And she's been here for a long time. She's our most um, senior public health department employee and has been a real valuable asset to me just in terms of conveying historical knowledge about things that happened

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years ago, way predating me, um, and just how the town functions and who to call and that sort of thing. Um, and then finally, uh, we had, um, someone who was an intern last summer, again, a UMass Masters of Public Health student, Haley Barrows, um, who we've been paying

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through the opioid settlement funds. So, I'll I'll tell you more about opioid settlement funds, but just so you know that those funds are in place to mitigate the impact of the opioid crisis, and they are supposed to be really geared towards those people who've been most impacted by the opioid crisis. And those are people who use

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drugs who are in recovery or the families and loved ones of people who use or have used opioids in particular. And so our job really was to do a needs assessment and then to plan some programs around those data. And I did not have the bandwidth to do that. So we hired Haley as a student intern in the

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summer collaboration with the school of public health at UMass which I work very closely with and paid her out of opioid settlement funds which is an allowable expense. You need staff to do the work. So she came on as an intern, had a great experience, did a comprehensive needs assessment which I provided a link to in

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the answers to the questions that you have and from that we've been doing some activities. So again, more on that in a minute, but those are the people who help Olivia and me to do our jobs and we wouldn't be able to do all the stuff that we do without that support. So we

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find a way to make it work. Um, one final thing I'll say about staffing and then I'll stop to see if you have any questions about that is that um, I always look for opportunities. I did apply to well, I guess a year and a half ago to the CDC for something called the public health associates program where

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they've they assign an emerging public health professional to work in a health department and they pay that person for two years and they pay for their room and and you know their lodging um, room and board and all that sort of stuff. Unfortunately, we didn't get chosen. Um,

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but I do have an intern coming this summer that I um found through the Mass Department of Public Health and she will be paid by the Mass Department of Public Health. So, I really firmly believe that intern should be compensated for their time and I also really value the opportunity to mentor emerging public

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health professionals. I've been in the field for a long time. So, I like to have young people to work with and so I'm happy that I can continue to make that happen for our department. I'll stop and see if you have any questions about that. >> Um, I'm going to look to see I'm I'm

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also trying to scroll through Kiko's given us quite extensive answers to questions we asked, but um, Lynn, um, I know you formulated a lot of any follow-up questions on staff. I thought that was a really good sense of how

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there are more people working with you than appear in in the in the graph in the budget book. Lynn, go ahead. >> Um, do you have any people working with you that are um working with this was without disclosing names or anything uh

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that are working as part of the tax write off? >> Not in public health. No. >> Okay. Um I would wonder given the talent of some of our residents in Ammerst whether that might be possible. >> Yeah, I think and and I think there's a

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lot we could be doing with the tax workoff program. So that's a great suggestion. Okay, thank you. >> Um, so do you do you want to continue then, Kiko, because we we'd also asked about home visits, whether you leave

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leave the building. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, yes, I'll get to that in a second. There was also a question about um Crest and collaboration with Crest. Do you want me to address that first? >> Yeah, that'd be great. >> Okay. Um so as I mentioned I really feel

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in the two and a half years almost three that I've been here we the departments and the banks have really come together to work collaboratively that's all of us are very interested in working outside of our lanes and in figuring out how we can you know just communicate well and

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and collaborate effectively to best meet the needs of the community. So um and crest is something I used to work in Northampton when the dcc so the crest analog the division of community care was coming up and so it's something that as a public health person I've been really invested in. I think it's an

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important component of public health to have an alternative responder system in a town and so I really wanted to be able to support Crest from the second I walked in the door here as public health director. So, we I think I wrote in the my response here that we there's really not a week goes by. Sometimes not even a

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day goes by in a week that Crescent and Public Health aren't talking to each other. If it's in the hallway about someone that we met with who needed something and did that we sent them to you and what happened with that? Is there some other way that we can follow up? Um I drop down periodically to just check in with Camille and ask you know

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what about this thing that we talked about last week. So, it's very open communication. Um, in terms of practical examples, um, Olivia, our public health nurse, once had to make a home visit to someone where she, it was a little bit of a complicated situation. I can't give

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you all the details, but she needed to request she needed to inform them about something that had happened and it was a bit sensitive and she didn't want to go alone. So, she asked a crest responder to come with her and that went very well. Um, crest responders often drop by and say, "Hey, we're talking with someone who is having some symptoms of

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this. Would the nurse be able to take a look and tell us what could happen?" And you know, Olivia doesn't provide medical services. She can do blood pressures. She can do vaccines, but she's a skilled professional, so she can assess what's going on and she can say, "I think you should call 911. I think you should do

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XY. I think you should call your this looks like it might be this. I really recommend you follow up with your primary care doctor." You know, whatever it might be. But having a medical person in the building is something that all of the departments kind of avail themselves of. And it's really helpful to have here. Um Crest in particular has

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referred many of their um neighbors to sit with Olivia and ask questions, get a blood pressure check, get referred to something, you know, just have a listening ear about medically related things. So that's a very good working um partnership. Um once in a while we have situations

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where, for example, we had a TB patient who had to get to Springfield for an urgent appointment to get medication like that day, which was not anticipated and didn't have transportation. and we were able to have Crest was able to take that person to Springfield. That's an exception. It doesn't happen often and

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those kinds of things were always very very careful to coordinate with Camille. Does you know make good use of limited crest staffing time? Can this happen? And Camille is always willing to bend over backwards and make things happen if it makes sense. Like if she's short, she will say, "No, sorry. I only have one

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person in the office. Everyone else out in the field can't help you today." But we always try to figure out how we can help each other first before we turn to other kinds of things. Um yeah, I guess I Yeah, I guess I'll just leave it there um to see if there are

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any questions about that. So, you know, we we've split it up between public health and seniors, but um if any of these things apply to both now that you've I think you've had to be interim for both of them more than once.

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Am I right? You know. Yeah. >> Yes. >> You know, so yeah. Yeah. So, to if if it also applies because you talked about the three ins walking working closely together, meaning crest, senior, and uh public health, I think. That's right. Yeah, thank you for that,

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Kathy. I will I will talk a little bit about that. I also wanted to mention that DEI is in the building as well. Um, and you know, for me, I've always considered racism as a public health issue. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are public health issues. It's how we create healthy communities. So, I also work very closely with Pamela and we do

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a lot of projects in common. And so we also all three director all four directors three now but when we have a senior center director all four directors of those departments do meet monthly to we sit down for an hour just to sort of talk about what's top of mind you know how can we help each other out

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with our work what's you know the challenge of the month um just to kind of support each other and figure out how we can work more closely so that's something we've been doing for a little while now um in terms of senior center and crest collaboration I think there it's been a bit of a bumpy road. Um

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early on there was I think misunderstanding about what Crest could do, what senior center had to offer, um leadership, different perspectives in terms of leaders in each of those departments and the way they might go about things. Um now I think we have a

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smoother relationship. Um, I've really talked with the senior services staff about how Crest is a resource that we should be making use of and there are many seniors who come in who have issues that could be managed through Crest and issues that were managed through senior

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services. I think and I'll talk about this a little bit more when I get to the senior services section, but there was a question about social workers and there is not currently a social worker in the senior center. Um, there used to be a social worker job and I think in the past directors themselves have been

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social workers, but there is nobody in the senior center staffing right now who is a social worker. I'm a social worker. I have an MSW. I'm not a practicing social worker, but I have that orientation in my work. Um, and I think that is something that changed again predates me. Staffing configuration

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changes. We had lots of conversations with candidates for the senior center director job about the importance of a social worker in the senior center. And I think it's something that really needs to be addressed. Crest responders are not social workers, but they do social services type of work with people. And

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so, um, we've been working recently on being very clear about what are the current services that senior center does offer. It's mostly resources and referrals. It's not so much true social work. Um, it's a lighter touch type of thing. Um, and Crest, I think, also does

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similar stuff, but they do more in-depth things with some aspects. And then the center senior center can do more in-depth things with other aspects like signing people up for Medicare. We that's a service that the senior center offers. So if Crest has a senior that needs that they'll refer them to the senior center. So I think we're still

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working it out. I think there's cordial um you know collaboration between the entities and we're planning to do a meeting in early June for all of us to really sit down and understand here's what senior center does and doesn't do currently. Here's what Crest does and doesn't do currently. public health DEI.

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How can we all continue to communicate and collaborate effectively in this shared space of the Banks Community Center? >> Thank you. >> Sure. Um, home visits, leaving the building. So, public health is all about community

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engagement. I feel like we should be leaving the building more than we do. Um, my scope of work as a public health director for a local municipality is huge. It's very broad and so there are a lot of things that come across my desk. I could be in my desk all day long if I

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wanted to. Um, but I try to get out we we really make a priority of doing outreach events. Um, the photograph that's in the budget book is from the global village where we had a table there and I have talked with our staff about how important it is to do outreach. We go sometimes to the

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apartment complexes when they have um if there's food that's being um delivered or sort of handed out um through the food bank, we sometimes will go and just kind of be there and introduce ourselves. I feel like we need to do a lot more of that, especially because we're going to be moving to the second floor. Right now, we're on the first

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floor. We are very accessible to the public because we're right near the door that a lot of people come in and out of near the parking lot off of Johnny's Tavern. Soon we'll be on the second floor. We will not be as visible. all the more reason for us to be out in the community more. To the question of home visits, um Olivia's scope of work is not

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huge as a public health nurse. As I said, she doesn't provide a lot of services. Um she could do blood pressure checks. She does vaccines. So, if they're homebound, folks who are homebound and need a COVID or flu shot, she is absolutely down to do that. And she does that in the fall. She has a group of people that she keeps in touch

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with who expect her to come and give a COVID and flu shot in the fall. Um she has done visits to folks who have TB. She manages all the TB patients in town. There are not that many of them. And you know, makes sure that people take their medication. It's something called directly observed therapy, DOT, that

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should be done in person, can also be done virtually, but she sometimes will do a home visit for that. R it's a rare thing. We don't have a lot of that. Um, but mostly her work is she has people come here. She does some vaccine clinics here and she will do blood pressure

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clinic checks here, office hours. Um, so home visits aren't really a big part of public health nurses in local public health the way it's currently configured. Um, there is a chance that the the Mass Department of Public Health is working on a new universal postpartum

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home visiting program where a nurse would go to visit a family that had just had a baby within two weeks of delivery and just provide support to the parents, mostly the the birthing mom, um, around breastfeeding and whatever else. Um, and that's something that Olivia's

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interested in and she's on a task force of people that are helping to plan this. So, it may be something that comes to Ammerst in the future. But in general, public health nurses in these smallcale local municipalities don't do a lot of home visiting. It's not a big part of

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their work. And then just to talk about the opioid settlement fund. So, as I mentioned, we with Haley's help, the intern who was here Um, we did a survey. We got fair more than 100 responses from people in town. We also used the results from another survey that was done by

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Hampshire Hope, which is a opioid task force for the region. We did some in-person conversations with people with lived and living experience of using drugs. Um, and we talked also with a lot of providers in the area who serve people who've been impacted by the opioid crisis. So, she put together a really nice PowerPoint that sort of

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outlines what the key themes were that came out of this needs assessment and they were primarily around the need for more harm reduction efforts, um the need for upstream prevention efforts and um peer support. So, we're now working on programming to implement to address

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those kinds of concerns or needs that came up in the needs assessment. And there's a lot more information on our website about all that if you're interested. I'm happy to answer questions. I just I know I'm take probably taking up more time than I should be. So, I'm just going to be mindful and stop there unless you have questions.

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>> Um, no, I I'm you've actually given us quite a bit of information in your written comments too, Kiko. So, um I'm looking for any hands. Uh because the next transition after this is senior center. >> Yes.

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Um, I am concerned about your move to the second floor and wonder if signage could help uh to make people aware of the fact that we still have health services. Um, the other piece that really goes along with this is, um, I'm

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sure you're getting a lot of questions right now about the whole virus that was created with this ship, uh, that, you know, um, and the mouse wrap poisoning kind of thing. Um,

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but given your response to COVID, which was the department's response to COVID, which was astounding, and the number of volunteers that worked with you, um, I just want to make sure that our community does not lose sight of the fact.

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>> You just muted yourself. >> Mute yourself. >> I do not want to lose sight of the fact that our community does have a public health function and a staff public health uh, body. So, um, however, we can make sure that the signage on the first

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floor as you come into the senior center, both from the Johnny's side and the front of the building, uh, really points to that, um, continued and where you're located. Thank you. >> Yeah, thanks, Lynn. I mean, we've talked a lot about signage. I think the Musante

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Health Center um which is you know in the basement of the building that I work very closely with um are also concerned about signage because almost every day we have people coming to the health department thinking that we're the clinic and we have to redirect them. So and I've been bugging Bob Parent who's the project manager on the renovation

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about the signage. So I think that's really really important. Um and just to reassure you we actually have not gotten any calls about hunter virus so far. Um, I think that, you know, the messaging has been pretty good that it's not it's not anything along the lines of what we experienced with COVID. It's definitely

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concerning, um, but not something not to the point where we're getting calls from Ammeris residents about it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Sure. >> I think we can go to senior center and the other Kiko, >> right? Okay. Different hat. Um so there

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was a question about volunteers and the numbers being lower than earlier years. Um I think in general I think the senior center really took a hit during COVID. Now also I can't take credit for anything the health department did during CO. I was not here and I wasn't here you know went to witness what

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happened with the senior center but I I see the numbers and I think that especially with seniors senior centers in general have experienced that it's been the rebound has not happened quickly. you know, like the Meals on Wheels used to have um an in-person dining feature which was discontinued

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obviously during COVID and that never really came back to life. And I think people say that they're interested, but the what I hear is that we try to resurrect it and then it doesn't really take off. So, you know, things have shifted a little bit in our society postcoid. It doesn't mean that we can't

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get these programs back up and running, but I think we need to put a lot of attention to them and I think volunteers are a big part of that. Um, as you pointed out earlier, Lynn, there are amazing people in this town. Um, and we could be doing a better job creating opportunities that are interesting to

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volunteers, coming up with new programs and ideas of ways to help seniors that could use volunteer labor. And again, this was something that we talked about in our interviews with senior center candidates is, wow, we really need to beef up the volunteer program. So, um, I think it's just an area of a lot of

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opportunity and the staff have some great ideas. is they need someone to come in and help direct them to make them happen. These ideas that people have. >> While you're on that specifically thing, let me tell you what prompted that question, and that is hearing from

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people who would like to be part of the tax write-off program, but feeling that the opportunities are not as broad or as inclusive. So, for example, I guess at one point there was a receptionist at the main entrance to the bang center and

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that position used to be run by volunteers and people have suggested that that was removed and therefore that opportunity doesn't exist anymore for tax writeoff. >> Yeah, I had heard that too. Um, and I think the building the building in some

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senses will be less confusing with public health on the second floor because the senior center will be the only thing on first and ground floors. Um, I don't know why that was dis I think the reason that was discontinued is that person really didn't have a lot to do because there wasn't much traffic

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or there wasn't people would just go right up the stairs and didn't stop in that desk or they came in the other entrance or it just wasn't in the end of the best use I think of a volunteers's time. But that could shift post renovation. I think it's an important thing to keep in mind. And the other thing I wanted to mention too is that

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there will be a wellness consultation room on the first floor that will be part of the senior center. And so I think that's where Olivia, our public health nurse, can hold some of her office hours. So she still has a presence on the first floor. Some of those healthc care services that she delivers, I hope, can still be on the

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first floor, but these will all be worked out as things wrap up with the construction here. So um well on this topic Kiko there is a fairly large volunteer group called Emmer's neighbors >> that is focused largely on seniors. Um a

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do you work with them and to what extent does that mean the people used to work directly with the senior center are now I mean I know a bunch of people that drive people to appointments go over and visit them help them move furniture. I mean it's a a broad array of uh seniors

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help largely seniors helping seniors. There are a few younger people but >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the ties between the senior services here in Ammerst and Ammeris neighbors could be much stronger and I and I've heard some of the staff say that same thing. I

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think it's I I don't know if it used to be stronger in the past and if it dissipated under prior leadership. Um not sure what happened there, but I think that's another missed opportunity. Um and one good thing is that uh well there are many good things, but just one thing to point out on this on this note

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is that the Council on Aging has been sponsoring these senior sips um gettogethers in the evening. Um this was really I think Gene Han's brainstorm um or you know brainchild I guess is the word I want. Um, and so they've had a couple of them now and it's co-sponsored

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by Ammerst Neighbors along with friends of the senior center council on aging and the senior center itself. So it's just bringing people together in a Ammeris restaurant supporting local establishments, you know, food and drink as people want to purchase it, but mostly just to sit and talk with each other. So I think and I went to the

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first one and I met some folks from Ammeris neighbors. So I feel like we're paving the way for better collaboration because that also is something we could be doing a lot more with. >> And I don't think it broke off. Emer Snapers didn't exist a few years ago. You know, this is really okay.

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>> Know that >> this is an organization that was in Northampton and people saw what it was doing and then they created a core group to set it up in Ammerst. So I just >> and I just know that because I was at one of the founding meetings on it. So I

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know it's it's not that it the the ties used to be closer. It used to be the nothing to tie to, >> right? >> Great. Okay. That's so helpful. Thank you. think it's good to know. >> Exactly. It's very totally correct, Kathy. >> Um,

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okay. And then in terms of the Crest Senior Center collaboration, I think I covered that already. Um, definitely working on that and it's going well. Um, I talked a little bit about the social worker. So, I mean, most other senior centers, as I understand it, do have a social worker on staff. Um

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the person that we have now, Lucas, he does do some social, he's not a social worker. He's also a masters in public health, but he understands the resources in the community and has he he does some connections for people, but I I do think that there is a deeper level of social

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work that needs to happen. I think that there are many seniors in Ammeris who could benefit from some type of case management. I think I wrote this somewhere in my notes. It's not something that the public health nurse has the bandwidth to do. I do feel like it's something that could come out of a senior center. I'm curious. It's not

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really my job, nor do I have the time to really research this, but it's one of these things that I would pass on to the new director when that person starts is an interest in really understanding if there can be some more followup with people. You know, someone comes in with a particular situation, you don't just

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connect them to resources, but you make sure they get connected. You call them next week and make sure that they're following through. You go and visit them maybe in a month to see how things are in their house. You know, that sort of thing is not something that's currently happening in our senior center. I think it does happen in other senior centers. And I think especially these days with

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isolation still being a really significant concern for older adults in our community, that that's a service that could be provided by our senior services here in Ammerst. >> Um, there was a question about medication management. That's a little bit that's more complicated. You definitely need medical personnel to do

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that. I don't think that's a service that most senior centers offer. and Highland Valley does seem to cover that pretty well. So, that's probably not a a terrain that we would enter into. Um, and then for substance use, you know, with the the harm reduction work that the public health department is doing, we're just getting that message out to

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everybody. Doesn't matter age, you know, demographics where you live, we just want everyone to know that this is to decrease the stigma that's associated with substance use and that it affects people from all a across, you know, all ages. And we want people to have resources to keep them alive. You can't be in recovery if you're not alive is

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the whole principle behind harm reduction. That's why we get Narine out there to save people from overdose. Um and then the last question just about the bangs. I think I touched on it a little bit um with the signage. Yeah.

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And the movement. I I think it's great that the exercise equipment that's in the basement, which has been kind of a bone of contention understandably for people, is going to be put into use in this lovely room in which I'm now sitting. Um, it will be the exercise room. Um, and I think this I think

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seniors are really happy about that. I've talked with people about it and they're very excited. Now, I think it will be a bit of a policy challenge to figure out how we want to manage that. You know, is it card access only? Do we have supervision in there? and we need to make sure to get doctor's notes from people before they can use the

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equipment, stuff like that. But in general, the renovation is going to provide some enhancements that will be really beneficial to seniors in the community. And I I'm not seeing any hands. So the last one I think is the veterans. And you've

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uh so you've answered the one question we had is why is the budget up and you've answered it. Yeah. >> Yeah. And I I can if there's any follow-up questions on veterans, I can answer that. But it's really just driven by the number of veterans that uh we're supporting and our um veteran longtime

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veterans agent Steve Connors. Um either he was just celebrated or he's going to be celebrated coming up. Um but he's the one who manages the whole program and has an office or and again I don't know with the renovations if it's had to move but he has had an office in the bang center um and he oversees that central

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Berkshire group uh which has run out of Northampton and >> what are the plans to replace him? >> So they last I knew they were um seeking an applicant to replace him. The

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uh person has to be a veteran. So, they have some good staff in their office, but that could replace him, but they don't they're not veterans, so they aren't eligible. Um, so last I knew, they were looking for an eligible candidate who was also a veteran

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>> and we will still be part of the same cluster of 16 towns or something like that. >> Yeah, we'll still be part of that central Berkshire group, which is really good because, you know, we get really good service from them. Um, if we you have to have one. So, if we weren't part of this shared services group, we'd end up having to pay for a full-time

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individual ourselves. Um, so this allows us to kind of cost share um with other communities. >> Yeah. And and his farewell party was last Friday. So, it was last Friday. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. He did say he might be kind of sticking around maybe on a consultancy basis, you know, down the

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line, not just yet, but in the future. So, and I think I don't know exactly what's going to happen with that space. I assume the veterans office is still going to be in that office. So that will be the only thing that's not senior center on that first floor once the renovations are completed.

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>> Eco, I just have a a real quick question. >> First of all, thank you for all you do. I mean, it's truly ground game. Unbelievable. Uh, God bless. It's amazing. Um, do you does any platforms like kind of tellaalth or anything? Are you able to to leverage or utilize any of that in in in terms of communicating

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and outreach and dealing with um any patients? I mean, are you able to talk to people like online at all? Is that has that been a factor at all in trying to kind of leverage, you know, your teeny tiny little um team over there?

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>> Yeah. Well, we don't really have so many patients per se. I mean, the only folks that Olivia would interact with are people that she's giving a vaccine to, which is just kind of a oneanddone, has to be in person type of thing, >> or the the TB patients or any any kind of communicable disease. So we we get,

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you know, reports of Lyme disease, alpha gal syndrome, which is a new tick born illness. If you don't know about it, go to our website and read up on it. Very concerning. Those kinds of things she will follow up on. And sometimes she will use virtual like it's just FaceTime or Zoom to do directly observed therapy

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with a with a TB patient. She has done that in a handful of opportunities, but that's really it for patient care for us. Yeah. >> Okay. Is there any area that that you see as kind of a bigger problem or you get more calls on a specific is it just general health issues or is it mental

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health issues or is it drugrelated? Is there any category that that you could say oh yeah this is by far in in in this area in Ammerst u we're seeing more of X uh versus Y or is that just a dumb question? >> No it's not a dumb question. I mean, I

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think we get a lot of questions from people about um certainly about COVID. We still get lots of questions about COVID and flu and respiratory illness. And we do an advisory on respiratory illness every fall because it's confusing about what's happening and the

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guidance for COVID has changed so much over the years. Still with us, it's just not as much of a factor as it used to be. Um tickborn disease is definitely a concern. We're getting a lot of calls about that right now. Um I think um so that and we're really focusing on that

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in this moment because Ammeris does tend to have higher cases of tickborne illness like our lime last year we had a bigger proportion of Lyme disease cases than you would think and that might be because we have a lot of tall grasses in a lot of our recreational areas. So we're doing we're going to do a lot of campaign educational work putting signs

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out on the trails to just let people know about checking themselves for ticks. So we get those kinds of calls and then we get calls about Puffer Pond. Can we swim in it? Um, you know, that's a big one for the summer. We get lots of calls. >> Interesting. Okay. >> Um, but in terms of other like sort of

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disease issues, um, or, you know, I think mental health is obviously a concern in terms of when we interface with people at the banks who have who are coming in here with questions and concerns. It's a lot around mental health issues. >> Okay. >> So, we don't get calls about that, but we see that as being really an issue in

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our community. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you, >> Kathleen. >> Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to ask if you specifically with the senior center, do you have partnerships with either with any of the colleges? It I I moved

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from a college town where fraternity members shoveled snow for seniors. So, I was just curious sort of what the history of the partnerships are if you if you avail I imagine you avail yourself of large pool of potential volunteers there. Well, it's almost as

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if you've been eavesdropping on our conversations of earlier today because I was talking with the staff about this very thing. I think we are not doing we don't have something like that with sen with, you know, fraternity folks or college students shoveling snow or raking leaves. That is something that I think we need to institutionalize and

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make a program out of. Um there have been some college students that have helped out the reception desk. They painted a mural in the senior center that was a project with Ammeris College. So there have been little fits and starts, occasional partnerships, but not a program that could be sustaining along

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the lines of what you're describing. And I think there's really a need for that and it's it's on the list of things that we should be doing or could be doing. >> It's great. >> And there there's several that have been showing up more, Kiko. Um I've just

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noticed, you know, on pickup day there a few groups up here in a farm. They came and worked on the farm. So there's a central contact that gets out the word. I think Angela helps manage that too to do that recruiting. So be great.

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>> Yeah. Yeah. >> So I think I'm not seeing any other hands and Rey has been patiently waiting and you covered a huge amount of territory. Uh very well. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you for

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what you're doing and stepping in to run two two parts of uh essential services and recruit the new person. >> Yeah. >> So, thank you very much. >> Of course. Thank you all for your time. >> Thank you so much.

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>> Yeah. >> So, Rey, again, do you want to just kind of give a a quick update on Wreck and and then go start going through some of the questions? And um some of the questions Ray and I worked on together. So I might pop in on some too. >> Sure. Thank you. Um hello everybody and

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uh nice to see you again. Um uh first of all following up uh uh Kiko and Sharon is I think it makes a lot of sense for us because those are two of our stronger partners, the Bangs crew and the library. I think we do a a ton of programming that involve both of those

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two departments and uh I sat here and listened and watched and I think I learned something. Um so I want to I want to just talk about our our uh uh basically our major changes from last year which are looming for us right now. Uh we did build an amorous revolving

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aquatics revolving fund uh that was I think has been pretty successful despite some hurdles and some challenges. I think was important for us in terms of protecting our our uh staff and and and getting full-time coverage for our

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aquatics coordinator who's done a lot of work to increase our revenue there. Um uh and then also we we uh the town owned officially the morning movement program which also those two major developments last year were really big in terms of

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our relationship with the town and our relationship with the people who use our services. And I think even if it wasn't uh you know stunning successes, I think that they both speak really well for the people who use them, for the people who participate in them, and we're proud of

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those. And so we're looking to try and build on those still looking at major changes that we're that we're looking at this year. We did we did manage to request a a uh support for Cherry Hill

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that allows Cherry Hill to uh just the expenses to be covered that are that that we've been under that that we've been uh uh uh you know we've we've been uh we've been overspent at Cherry Hill as you all know for some time and we we

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did move some money in to try and take care of Cherry Hill there. And relatedly, we also uh are looking right now, it's it's uh the Cherry Hill working group that I know you all have heard about. The Cherry Hill working group is is really putting together u

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some some recommendations for the town manager that will feed our FY28, our whole year for FY28. uh uh but a lot of the adjustments that they have noted and they've been communicating with us are ways that we that we prep and build revenue inside of

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inside of our programming this year and this summer to allow that to work out. So uh so a lot of this the changes that we're looking at right now are operational changes inside of our Cherry Hill operations that potentially allow

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us to brace ourselves for changes uh that that could come through the Cherry Hill working group. um major challenges in this budget season for us as a general oversight. Uh we have not the least of which uh is a

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move coming up out of the out of the middle school. Um and so just the general our our general move in in our location uh which we're going to have to we certainly are going to find some costs in there and we're going to have

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to find a way to certainly message out our new normal. uh our new normal is going to be something that that that we didn't plan for at the beginning of this year, but we are we are finding a space there. The wage scale is something that that has come up for us in a number of

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different areas within our department. The wage scale is something that that we know will be a challenge for us as we move into this and our renters's blues um uh with with uh with ARPS and changes in ARPS and and their their facilities

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and especially uh for aquatic sake in particular especially uh the the closing of Hampshire College. Uh we have we know that some of what we some of the the the uh um uh uh some of the some of the uh

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dependent money those those uh variables that we that we're counting on. We're being tested through those. My staff has been very uh proactive and trying to find solutions before we before they end up um uh forcing us into decisions that

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we aren't comfortable making. We are looking for options that keep us on the on the uh straight and narrow. We are we have a staff that we believe is is capable of making sure that we can we can protect uh our our mission, our

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goals in in uh and and certainly youth sports and aquatics and all those places that that are our renters blues hit us. We are a department that does not own and operate its own space. And so that's that's something that that a reality

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that we're walking through. We're also assessing our our major commitments, things like Fourth of July, things like things like of course Cherry Hill. We're looking at these major commitments that we have and seeing seeing what what happens for us moving forward. But that's an oversight into where we are in

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terms of what what our what our what we're coming out of and where we're moving into. as an oversight for what what the the the big obstacles, the big hurdles that we're looking at are. Um u I could pause if there are any questions about that before getting into the

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specific questions that were presented to us. >> Ray, did you say that you're moving out of the middle school or moving someplace else in the middle school? Is that what you just said? We are moving out of the middle school.

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Our lease, we had a 10-year lease in the middle school which is which is now up and we are now we are in the process of of making a move at the end of the fiscal year. >> And where are you moving to? >> Um we are moving temporarily to

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Wildwood. So, we've been um the town manager, myself, uh the assistant town manager, we've been in conversations with the middle school uh with the the school district and the superintendent. Um as Ray mentioned, the license has expired.

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They are needing that space as part of the sixth grade transition. Um and have been exploring that space basically to move some of their central office off offices out of the middle of the school to make more space for the sixth grade to go into the middle school. Um, so the

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current arrangement was not an option for next year. Uh, in that conversation, the school district proposed some alternatives to try to keep wreck in the middle school. They didn't quite work meet the needs of the rec department operationally. And and this these were

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good open, you know, uh, conversations. Um, and so where we settled is that the best space given what's construction work going on at the bang center. um you know, the middle school is that Wildwood

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would make the most sense and that they could start to get in there as soon as school ends, even though there's going to be some summer programming there. Um there's a couple quads near the gym at Wildwood that they would make available to the recck department. Um so that will

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be likely unless there's some, you know, curveball or space that becomes available. Uh that's the plan. Um, and then whether that's a long-term home or a short-term home, I think that still needs to be worked out and what other options are available. But, but recck

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department's been extremely flexible and understanding um cuz these, you know, these this kind of came up, you know, the last couple months and we're like, all right, we got to figure out a permanent home uh in a pretty short amount of time. So, that's the plan.

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>> Do we um get the space for freeze? >> I hope so, Kathy. I really do hope so. Um I think I'm not I'm not gonna say I'd be surprised if a rental offer was uh sent our way, but I think the you know this is different than renting the regional school buildings, right? The

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regional school buildings are owned by a separate legal entity and um you know there's other member towns that are part of that ownership where Wildwood is a town building. Um, so my hope is there will be no rent since es especially

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since we are picking up the cost of that building for the majority of next year. >> And and will will I don't know whether in the summer months you would use it, but there is a gym. It's an undersized gym, but would if if it's if you're

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there for at least 6 months, would be the plan to be using the gym at all using the fact that there is one. Um, >> yes. Uh, in addition to it being a a really convenient location for us, one of the first things that we that we were

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concerned about when we knew that Wildwood was coming offline was we rely on that gym for a lot of the stuff that we run ABL in the wintertime. Um, uses that gym and that space. And then also the possibilities of that space is that

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without an elementary school in there for the time that we're in, we could we could program adult adult uh uh sports, adult opportunities in that space and turn it into a revenue source. Uh we could provide for the for the town a

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space to operate that that isn't dependent on out of school hours. The only thing I'll add to that real quick is all of that will have to factor into how much funding we request to manage the building because with just the rec department there, if the building is

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really just serving as administrative offices, that's one level of custodial support and maintenance and and that's needed. Um, if it's going to be used in a very public way, then that's obviously a different level of custodial support and cost um associated with it. So, just

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keep that in mind. I don't think final um I think it's still TBD how open the building will be publicly and that will definitely influence the the funding that needs to be provided. >> Okay. Um you know I'm I'm looking for other hands but I'm just looking at some

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of the answers. I mean one of the questions was how many sports teams do we have? And I'm going to hone on on just one particular uh I live north of Mil River and I the recreation area and I'm there a lot and we have these two baseball fields and I

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don't see them being used very often. One gets used quite a bit. Are we down in the number of little league baseball youth league um compared to what we used to be? Well, I can say that uh it is it's the

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space that is used for little league. We don't run it. Little League is not run through our department. >> Okay. >> So, tracking their numbers is not inside of our inside of our >> background. >> Okay, that's great. So, that's not rec

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department. Okay. So, Lynn, you know, I you know, we had a a series of questions on Cherry Hill, but I I uh Are there any other areas of the budget before we get to Cherry Hill rec department?

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>> Um my I did have one other question. I continue I assume that you continue to have scholar funds available for students who uh or for uh people who are unable to pay the fee for recreational events. >> We do. >> Okay. >> Um

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>> and does that include equipment and uh uniforms and so forth? >> We've uh that was one of in a couple different ways. the the uh subsidy does not apply to equipment, but we do have uh a loaner library that was that we've

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maintained. Some of our programs that we that we work with or or haveus with have operated loaner libraries. Uh we inherited some of those, but then we also the that was one of the big gets

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from the ARPA uh from from our uh ARPA windfall from a couple years ago. Um, we were able to extend our lunar libraries to to help support people who are looking for equipment to play. >> Um, >> uh, and I get the other question, it

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really relates to the same question we've asked of others and that is opportunities for um, people to do tax write off by working with you in any form. Does that happen or could it happen? I was anticipating that one because I it came up in a conversation I

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had with Sean a couple months ago and and also I'm sort of listening to the conversation here. The uh uh we've talked about ways to use it. There's some there is some specialty work that we that we are uh that we're we're we're

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not quick to say that it would be it would it would work for us. But in terms of in terms of having somebody as a site manager, somebody to to work to welcome referees and that sort of thing, we certainly have talked about that. >> Um um we had similar concerns that I

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believe Kiko raised about about appropriate use of time. If we brought people in, we wouldn't want to have people coming in in any of our programs and sitting and waiting and sitting and not being used. uh our our face tof face

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traffic our our and who knows what happens with our move but our our personal traffic uh inerson traffic is not has not been as high as it was before. So greeters don't make sense for us in the same way that they may have 5

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to 10 years ago. Um but we have been thinking about ways to sort of alleviate some of our some of our concerns and be able to use people in in these fashions. This really then goes back to Sean and that is do we have a coordinated site

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where people who are interested in this program can see what's available. >> Um so I think the senior center has primarily provided that role uh performed that role. Um actually the assessor and we

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had a department meeting today and um the assessor's office, the collector and the senior center team, they're actually going to a um a training seminar on it and a couple weeks um as a as a group and then they're going to debrief. But I think they are looking for ways to

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better communicate the program and make sure you know there's been some disconnects where um you know people who maybe were told they were eligible or weren't eligible. one thing you have to be resig kind of beefing up the communication around the program and I expect that'll

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roll out um in the next month or so. >> Okay, thank you Jill. >> Thanks so much and thank you for all the work you do. I have two kids and we use your services a ton. Um just a really small question on the Independence Day celebration just and I saw you answered

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it in there and but I saw in the budget book that you have as a objective to assess the value of the Independence Day celebration inside the department and funding the department's funding and management structure. But then in the Q&A you say it's funded outside of the

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operating budget through sponsorships, donations, and vendors. if you could just talk about that a little bit and what you're thinking for the future of that event. >> Certainly. Um we're right in the middle of the heaviest uh prep time for Fourth

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of July right now. Um it is not fun. There's the the operating budget does not provide any money for this. It is entirely funded. What I said in the Q&A here is that it's it's funded entirely through sponsorships, through vendor contracts, through donations. uh and and

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we make the decision every we we never meet because of the rising cost of putting those fireworks on um um and and the the the rising in order to do it well. And I think that I think that our you know Becky Dling and and our

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outreach uh our outreach coordinator has done a really nice job of sort of making that into something that is consistent and reliable in front of the community. We we're hosting a lot of people there. We have it's a it's a complete town effort with cooperation with with uh

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town and UMass uh university uh uh supporting groups. The amount of time and energy that goes into into putting that on with uh without and without a financial benefit like it's not people aren't

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coming to the town and spending money at the restaurants. They aren't coming to town and spending money in town. It is a lot of non-amorous folks. So there's a lot of factors that are involved in it that we are trying to see if it's worth our investment, worth our time investment, worth the coordination,

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worth the worth all of the the the frankly headaches that go to making that a really successful uh program, which I think it has been for the last three years. Um, and so when we talk about assessing it, there is there are some decisions as

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like in terms of just the the the the labor hours it takes to make that work to coordinate those efforts. There there are some decisions that we have to make along those lines that we don't know if it's sustainable based on how how little

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um u it makes sense from a strictly revenue standpoint. >> Great event. great event and we're very happy to do it while we're doing it, but we need to make sure we're clear-headed when we when we think about it. Lynn. >> Well, first of all, um, thank you for

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doing it and thank you for at least doing it for this through this year for the 250th, but I also will observe it's a huge number of people that do not live in Ammerst and so it's a service to the region and I hope that you'll consider in some way passing the hat during the

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event or do something that asks people to donate particularly be again because it's it's really attended by a lot of people outside of Amorest. I told Ray to sell hats, not pass the hat. I said, "Sell hats and then pay for the next few years of >> Yeah.

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>> of uh Fourth of July." So, >> great. >> Okay. I think um I think next is the golf course. >> Oh, may I There's one of the of the of the feedback that I would love to just mention here. it's in the Q&A, but uh

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youth sports being down, I want to make sure that I just I just mentioned that that we have we we embrace, you know, participation in all the different ways. I think a lot of towns are dealing with the same getting kids out and participating. The comparable towns are.

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I want to make it clear that that one of the things that that hit us in terms of our youth sports number is that is that the the the spike in numbers as we boosted our aquatics program. I don't know for sure that they're one for one like we're taking kids out of youth

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sports for that. But there is a sense that that as as like Ammeris United has come and numbers have have gone way up in the three four years that we've been running that program that that there is a it's a zero sum game that that that

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that they're that they aren't still in those other sports. maybe they aren't trying those sports, but those sports that aren't counted as youth sports are are are affecting our numbers in in ways that we know that that that there are challenges to try and get people

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involved and we're working to try and do that, but it's I don't think it's necessarily as dire as those numbers may may show. >> Lynn, >> oh, two comments. Uh, first of all, Ray, I'm sure you and every other town is

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being hit by declining birth rate. Um, and so the fact that it's going down isn't a surprise. Uh, and but the other thing is I just want to really really thank you for all of the work that's going into Morning Movement. It's a phenomenal program and if if you have

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not gotten to visit it, please go visit it. I'm so pleased to see that we figured a way to how to fund it going forward. Thank you. >> Thank you. and last day is tomorrow. So, we'll get

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you all in for for our return next year. >> So, I I think the overall question rather than all the specifics, it looks like the golf course is making money. Um, so there there's a question on why not create a revolving fund now, which

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was one of the suggestions of the working group. um because then it would retain some of this money for course maintenance for capital. And then there has been we've gotten several emails saying that um one of the course

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maintenance and you've sort of talked about it here that the salary scale is so low that we don't get applicants for it and why can't I guess my question would be is there another grade we could list it at because they work with equipment you know at it's right now the

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salary scare is at $15 and CLMS hires for that uh just so and these are people who go out and actually maintained the course riding around on equipment. So it was the two sides that that the the

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revenues are up quite a bit higher than expenses and the course needs not just fertilizer but needs people maintaining it and that potentially boosts revenue up. So maybe you could just talk about and I know Sean this is partly a

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question of you on on why not do do this sooner rather than later and then put some of that money back into the course because it seems like um a a business opportunity for the town. >> Ray, do you want me to start and then

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jump in? Um I'll I'll start with the second part about the wage scale. So, um, you know, Rey has raised the wage scale question in the past because a lot of the staff that support Ray's programs are on what we have, uh, call our

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part-time wage scale. Um, so it's, you know, well defined what roles are at what positions, uh, and what levels on that scale. Um, several years ago, we did a big update to that wage scale when minimum wage was brought up to $15 an hour. We phased in increases to that

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wage scale over a few years because um lots of people are impacted by it and it's expens you know you may think a small adjustment may have a small impact but it's hard to just pick one position on that wage scale and increase it without kind of reviewing everyone's

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role uh for fairness and equity sake. So, for example, if we were to just increase the the groundskeepers at Cherry Hill, would that be fair to the lifeguards and the summer camp employees and all the other uh part-time uh employees that are part of that wage

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scale? So, that's the kind of the rub and it it's really going to come down to whether it's a priority for the town council and the town manager, but I think it is something we've identified as a as an issue because aside from the um the landscapers at Cherry Hill, we do think like our lifeguard rates are too

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low and our summer camp rates are too low. And so, it may again come down to having a multi-year plan to increase those rates and not try to do it all in one year. Um because if we were if we were to go from 15 to 20 in one year, you know, it's probably going to be in the six figures in terms of the impact

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um throughout all the different departments that pay uh part-time staff. So it may be something that we start to phase in as early as, you know, FY27. Maybe it would have to we'd have to see what our funding looks like. It wasn't built into the budget, but more likely FY28 and then have it phased in over

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several years. Um but again, it's going to it have to it would have to be prioritized. So, do we have one part-time? That's it. One part-time rate. There's not. >> No, we have mult we have a wage scale with positions that have been set at different levels. So, there's multiple

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scales. Um, and I think what you're saying is like what could you just move the the groundskeepers from, you know, level two to level four? Um, possibly. But I think again then some you know our personnel board and HR department might say you know is that fair to just pick kind of cherry pick one group uh type of

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employee and move them without kind of re-evaluating all employees. >> Well I you know this is going to show ridiculous from my way deep back when I worked for a building service union where there were people who operated

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light equipment versus operated who heavy equipment. So it wasn't so much an arbitrary, you know, it was what equipment are they working with and what's the nature of the work. Um, you know, so it wasn't so much favor one group over another, but but look into

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what the So that's my question. So you do have different >> I think the reality is it's not just an issue for groundskeeping. I think like this it's been brought up as part of groundskeeping, but I think the larger point of $15 an hour is just not competitive for any type of position >> we're trying to fill right now. So maybe

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there's something that could be done interim for the groundskeeping group. I think that would, you know, would be between Ray and HR to to work that out, but long-term something has to be done to the whole scale. >> Okay. I I don't want to dominate this, but >> No, no, it's good. That was a good question. I wanted to make sure we we shared that.

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>> You gave me the answer. So it cuts across um multiple people that we that we hire. >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And then and some of them are not in my department also to be clear. And so can I okay go go ahead and then

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the other flip is the revolving fund and linked to that is also if there was a friends of the golf course that formed and wanted to give money to enhance >> the groundskeeping or something would does it need a revolving fund to be able

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to do that can you set it >> so that could be done now and I'll I'm not going to go as far as uh Sharon and give our Venmo account so people can make donations. But um but yes, people can donate now if they wanted to. We have a myriad of gift funds in the town.

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We have a dog park gift fund. We have all sorts of gift funds. People can make donations. We put it in a separate an account designated for that purpose and then it can only be used on the purpose um specified in the gift. So um yes, that could be done. Now the bigger

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question around creating the revolving fund. So, I know the working group, you know, their hope was that that revolving fund would have been created in the FY27 budget. Um, in talking with Paul and planning for this year, we just decided that there wasn't enough time and communication to to phase that into this

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year's budget. whenever we talk about taking a you know relatively large revenue source out of the general fund budget and and also the expenses associated with that um it you know it just it's complicated and I think it needs to be well communicated to the other uh stakeholders like the school

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committee and the library trustees and all the everyone who kind of looks at our our revenues to see how much money is going to get divvied up to the operating budgets and so I just didn't feel like we you know this I think that recommendation came out in either late March or April um you know we were already developing our budget and kind

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of like putting the final touches on the budget. It would have been really difficult to have a fair conversation with those groups and if there was any push back, how would we reflect that? So ultimately we decided it would be better to introduce that in the fall. There's a couple other accounting changes that

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we're planning to introduce in the fall that this kind of fits in nicely with. One is our storm water fund. We're hoping to bring that back to the council to get that moving. And then also potentially creation of a facility revolving fund. We were talking about rents earlier. Um and you know, building

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rents could go into a facility revolving fund and be dedicated for supporting our buildings. Um and so this lined up well with that. So that's that was our plan. Now again, I know the group was really disappointed because they were hopeful that any excess revenues generated by

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the course and FY27 would basically stay with the course and be able to support Cherry Hill in the future. Right now when it's part of the general fund, if there's excess revenues, it goes into free cash um like all our other general fund revenues. Um, so one compromise we talked about and this would have to be,

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you know, the town manager would have to support this, the town council would have to support this, but it's an option that we discussed is, um, you know, the town council could in the in the spring next year, fiscal year 27, transfer, you know, we could provide a a pretty detailed projection of what excess

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revenues look like for Cherry Hill, even if it's part of the general fund, and the council could transfer that into a revolving fund at that time. So, while the golf course isn't technically in a revolving fund next year, you know, we could figure out a way if the if the council wanted to um to kind of seed a

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revolving fund with excess revenues. Again, that all assumes the council and town manager want to create the revolving fund in the first place, which um I think there's pros and cons for uh you know, definitely from a Cherry Hill perspective, I understand why if you're generating excess revenue and you're making money, you would want to keep

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that invested in the course. Um so so that's kind of where that's at. The plan is to bring it back in the fall and if um if it's approved and supported there could be a way to also get the excess revenues into that fund to start FY28. >> Lynn and I you've answered my question

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major questions. Go ahead Lynn. >> Do you want to go ahead with any presentation of questions Kathy? >> Um well the the questions um you could go through all the questions. I'm just looking at um he did the youth sport he

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did for supply and so we were hitting we were getting to golf course Lynn so >> right >> you know and I just I'm just conscious of it's a quarter of three so I want to make sure we have time for public comments but yes anyone else should just

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jump in and I'm I have the advantage I opened up the responses so we have responses to some of the questions >> my questions are really around the golf course Um, why was I under the impress? First of all, I want to acknowledge that Michelle Miller, who has chaired the Cherry Hill Golf Course, um, is in the

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audience and want to thank her for that work as, uh, again serving this community as she has in the past. Uh, I, uh, why am I under the impression that somehow another all of the expenses related to the golf course are in fact not covered, that the benefits are

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elsewhere in the budget? That's one question. >> Yes, that's true. the um you know uh benefit costs associated with the employees are in the health insurance budget so they don't show up as a cherry hill expense you know likewise insurance expenses right

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>> um retirement expenses all those types of things are in other areas of the budget so you can't just take the revenue number and the expense number and compare them directly and say that's the profit there's other expenses that get rolled in if you were to do a full comparison >> and if we created a revolving fund would

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it be necessary for that revolving fund to be able to pay for those health and benefit expenses. >> Um, we'd have to discuss it when so when you create a the revolving fund that would need to be created uh to do what the working group wants to do uh would

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require the creation of a bylaw. Um and that bylaw would outline what expenses would be charged to the revolving fund. And so there are we have some revolving funds where um generally I would say we do not charge benefits to revolving funds um

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like we have a couple revolving funds that have staff paid from them partially um or in some cases fully and we have not charged benefits to them. Um >> but that would be something that could be discussed at the time of the bylaw if we wanted that revolving fund to kind of be a true like all-in cost um reflection

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of the course. uh that could be written to the bylaw to do that. >> Okay. The other Pete the other thing was the whole issue of the maintenance of the property and particularly of the golf course. Um the UMass has a turf management program. Uh I know that's

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they're you know exactly opposite when we need management. Um, but I wondered whether there was any way to strike a relationship with UMass on particularly the maintenance of greens, etc. golf course or whether or not there's a way

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to have RDPW um do that. It's a different kind of maintenance than they do for other areas. Um, and I don't know if they have that expertise, but it was just a suggestion. Well, I'll let you tell Guilford that he's got, you know, mowing

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the the golf course on his uh his his routine going forward. But >> I know the UMass thing has come up, so Ray can speak to that. >> I will say that we have been reaching out partially in in uh response to to encouragement from the the working

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group, but we have reached out. Jose Allen, who runs my clubhouse as my sports director and oversees the Cherry Hill Clubhouse, has reached out to turf management. We've talked about trying to build that relationship. Uh and see we the the effort has been made before and

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we're trying to revisit that now. Um and so that is work in progress. >> Sean is are those uh fringe benefits also for all the other rec departments? Is that similar? Like those French benefits are covered by the town and they're not part of the budget. So the distinction is really whether

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something's in a revolving fund or an enterprise fund. So when when something's in an enterprise fund, all the benefits get charged to the enterprise fund. So water, sewer, >> um you know, enterprise funds are much more um rigid in terms of they have to reflect all the costs. Revolving funds

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is sort of in between and you can it's sort of a decision. Um but I would say yes, we generally don't charge benefits to the revolving funds for the staff paid from from them. We don't have a lot of staff paid from revolving funds. We have a a after school revolving fund um

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that pays for a staff member and we have uh the wreck department revolving fund that pays for partial um staff members and our aquatics fund. So there's not too many of them but um but generally we don't charge benefits to them. >> And and Joe, when you look at the budget

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book and police department, DPW, not the enterprise funds, >> none of the benefits show up in the personnel costs. all those benefits, the town doesn't allocate them back when you're looking at the budget, you know. So, >> we've asked in the past, here's the

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payroll. >> Yeah. >> Is it a 50% markup for benefits, you know, like what's you know, and and a couple years ago that was the answer. I don't know what the answer is now, but you know, but that's across the board. All the pension and health insurance is

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over in another account. >> Another account. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. So, if there no other questions, it's 10 of three. And uh with the committee's uh permission, I would like to open it up for public comments.

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Is that okay? Yes, I'm seeing nods. All right, we are open for public comments. And Sean, you are in charge. I'm not the host. Andrew, I'm allowing you to speak and give your comment.

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>> And just so I'll just do a quick please limit it to no more than three minutes or up to three and we don't interact. We will but we will listen closely. Andrew, you're with us. >> Oh, thank you. Okay. I I wasn't sure if I was on there because my my computer

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reacted. So, I have a nice statement to read here, but I just before I start, I wanted to respond to some of the things that I just heard here. And um it's it's something fundamentally um strange about the town um salary

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structure that we are we are requiring the the groundskeepers who have to work outside in the summer in the in the spring and fall cold summer heat and humidity doing manual labors uh labor raking and and and um cutting cutting

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tree limbs off to to the clubhouse workers who we have no problem hiring. People are beating down the door of Jose to to work in the clubhouse where once in a while they have to check somebody out for $15 an hour and we haven't had one person applying for the

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groundskeeper position. So it maybe the the the town has this rule that we have to pay the same amount of money for this person who's working outside six to eight hours a day in the heat and the cold of of of of the year versus the same people who who only work pretty

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comfortable jobs inside. So I don't know how to solve this, but but this is a fundamental problem because because clearly people are not applying to one job and the town has no problem filling these other positions. So, you know, question this this should be asked. The

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other thing is there's only one overheaded salary position at Cherry Hill. This is John. Everybody else is unbed. And I think uh Ryan Dipllock who who did very careful analysis early this year as part of the Cherry Hill working

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group. He showed that there's a profit if you include that even even if you include 10% of Jose and Ray's overheaded salary to the to a Cherry revolving fund there's still a profit last year and this year there was a 10% increase in the fees. So the membership and the

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green fees were increased by 10% which immediately going to increase about $25,000 even even without any increase in the number of plays. So I would keep that in mind and somebody should check that carefully because these numbers don't seem to agree what what what

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Ryan's analysis did and he did a very careful job looking for looking at numbers and he was I know he he he speaks to Sean often so there's some some discrepancy. I don't think I'm going to read my statement because I'm out of time by by now. So but I just wanted to make these two points and I think Kathy covered some of the the

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points that I I wanted to say anyway. Thank you. >> And Andrew, if you send me the written one, well I think you did. I we'll share it with everyone. >> Thank you. Thank you. I did. >> All right. And I'm going to bring in Michelle Miller to speak. Michelle, you're good.

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>> Yep. Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> Okay. Wonderful. Hi everyone. Um so yes, I'm Michelle and I am the chair of the Cherry Hill working group. Um, and I also had a statement prepared, but I'm

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going to just veer away from it a little bit because I think that it's already been discussed that the Cherry Hill working group unanimously um voted to recommend this revolving fund. Um, and that was after very

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careful analysis um and and and really uh deep work that Ryan and the group put in. Um, I wanted to just pull out, you know, a couple pieces here from what you've talked about. I've personally been walking the course quite a bit.

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And, you know, I'm I'm I'm a bit of a golfer. U, my kids both golf. I've been to multiple different courses. And I can say very clearly that this course is from my opinion I don't think I don't

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think it's an exaggeration to say that the course is is not far from losing its um footing operationally if we don't really begin to take a look at this more seriously. And kind of to

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um piggyback on what Andrew was saying, you know, it while I understand that there's an equity issue and that there's um a certain salary uh model that you're all using, there's also supply and

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demand. And you know, we are actually facing a situation where with this $15 an hour position that's only being listed uh in one place as far as I know on the town's website, we've received no

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applications. And so, you know, you go to the course on a day and you walk it and you see John there alone dealing with a broken down machine and then you've got, you know, a heavily traffked um well, you

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know, used golf course that's just deteriorating every day. And so, to me, you know, this is an emergency situation. Um, and I I want to say that I'm speaking, you know, I don't want to speak for the the committee entirely when I'm talking about this piece. Um,

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but just again personally walking it and seeing the deterioration that's happening and the lack of maintenance um that John is, you know, John just is only capable of doing so much. So, I think we have to um, you know, I think

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leadership has to think creatively and realistically about staffing. Um, I think that uh there are HR considerations, but again, we have lifeguards, we have people working in the clubhouse. We don't have one application for a groundskeeper. So, I

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guess I just pose the question, if we didn't have lifeguards, what would we do? We would have to take a look at why we weren't getting applications for lifeguards. And we couldn't just go without having lifeguards or our program would shut

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down. And so I know it's not like as easy to see it um with the golf course because it still kind of feels like it's, you know, moving along, but it is an urgent situation. And just like Lynn recommended you go check out the morning movement program, I recommend that you

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go walk the golf course. Leadership walk the golf course. um because it really is in um in a in a in a uh in in from my perspective um it it it is in an emergency situation. Um now the other

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question I would like to put out is uh the gifts. I know that there are folks who are um enthusiastic about friends group about uh donating to the course but they're also feeling apprehensive to

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do that because to write a check means that you have to feel confident that the course is being operated and managed uh you know well and in addition to that like when you're

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talking about hiring somebody um how do you hire somebody on a pay scale? You know, let's say someone wrote a check for $5,000 today and said, "I only want this to go toward uh maintaining the course and the grounds." How would you

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get around the pay scale issue in that case? So like while I understand that that's you know what what has been said is the reason why we can't move forward and that that we can do this gift what's a practical solution if somebody does make a gift and how would they go about

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making sure that somebody was hired at a higher pay scale or that we would have somebody to do the groundskeeping that they donated their money toward. I think I'll stop there. Thank you so much. Thanks, Michelle. And as I told Andrew, if you have a written comment that you

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departed from and you want to share it, just send it and I'll share it with everyone. >> Thank you so much. Okay. Thanks for all your work. Byebye. And thanks to Ray. Bye. >> Thank you. And it is by my clock one minute of three. Um, and so, um, as

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everyone knows, we start next Thursday at 3:30 and it's DPW enterprise funds and, uh, sewer and water rates. And for the team that has done those questions last night, we learned from the council

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that the first reading for water and sewer will be June 1st. So, we need to write do them so that we can write up a recommendation and get it into the packet. So that would be separate from the overview of the budget. So just just let it giving you a heads up on that. Um

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and I can talk to you later. And Lynn, I see that your hand is not so I'm not and I see Athena's hand is up. So >> um my question is really when do you want the drafts that people are writing?

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>> So the drafts um as soon as possible. So by if the all the departments we've seen, especially the early ones, if I could get it by next Monday morning, it would be great. Um and I um Lynn, I can talk

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to you about what we do with schools. We're still waiting for some follow-up. You know, if there's follow-up questions, it's not worth writing yet. and the DPW, which is Thursday, you clearly won't have it by Monday, but if we could get rough uh at least a rough

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draft so I can start to try to piece it together and I will do anything with an executive summary because that's where we capture big issues. Um and then when we come together next week, it'll be a a

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more focused discussion on any issues, concerns we had, any things we want to write raise to a higher level. So did that answer that? >> Do you also see Yes, it did. You do you also see attaching the incredible set of

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questions and answers? Yeah, I think you know we this year because Sean has done a composite it's great. So when we do the report I can talk to you Sean because it'll make the report even longer but just attaching these to the back so that we don't have to verb it

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and repeat what someone told us but we can keep referring to see the Q&A see the Q&A and make it an appendix on. >> Yep. >> Great. Is that where >> and I see Athena and then Kathleen

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>> just a really two quick things. Um the report on the water and sewer rates can be very brief because there's a short turnaround period between um when you're expected to vote on them on the 28th and the council's first reading on the 1st. So a short report for the water and sewer rates is just fine. And the other

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thing is that I just sent out invitations to um to councilors and finance committee members to the capital improvement public forum on June June 1st. So I wanted to make sure that folks were aware. That's why they received an invitation to the June 1st meeting for

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the um the public forum is at 6:30. >> And that's that's so the resident members know you you'll be up on the podium with us. You know, it it'll be a joint meeting. I mean, again, you can be not on the podium, but on Zoom, but you'll be in the room. Kathleen.

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>> Yeah. I was just um wanted to ask Sean if if maybe if you have the answers to DPW and Enterprise if we could get them in the packet um for Thursday as soon as we can just because I think it sounds like we're going to have a pretty short

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time to, you know, follow up and we won't really be able to send them a lot of questions as followup. So, it would be great to be able to read through that before before they come so we can just be prepared. >> Yeah, I will I'll reach out to Gopher right now and see get a status check on

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uh those answers. >> And so, yeah, we and so just on the original schedule, I think I've said this before, but on the original schedule, I had next week the 26th and the 28th trying to get to the final report, but we have one more day. We

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have June 2nd. So next week those days we'll be talking through if there are any things that we want to raise you know crosscutting things across all the departments and people can look at the write up from last year um cross cutting

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themes um anything that was new and unusual like I didn't know the recreation department was moving um but but that would be something we just want to make sure we capture nor did I know that the um that the cost for Wildwoods

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isn't in the budget yet with us taking it over. You know, we've heard a few things going along the way. Um, and that the rent for the sixth grade in the middle school isn't in the education budget yet. You know, that it so we will

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have to figure out a way to those are larger things that came out of these discussions, but we can talk about those next week on what we're highlighting at the at the higher level. Lynn, >> have you decided whether or not you're asking the superintendent to return?

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>> Um, I wasn't planning on it. Sean, you could you should see whether she wants to come back or just wants to go and and we wrote uh please don't send us essays, you know, just as short as possible. Um, so but uh and and Lynn, it was also I

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think the chair of the um school committee didn't feel like she had much time to respond either. Um, so if we needed to, we could set an hour aside of one of the two meetings next week. Um, but I didn't make that decision because

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I was waiting to see if we were even going to get responses. Um, >> okay. I I just think we need to give them a heads up and see >> and if if people would like to do that, actually, it's a good question to ask while we have everyone up. If people would like to have an hour where there's

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follow-up questions just on the education budget, um you could raise your hand and say if you'd like that, you know, and and that would have to be on the 26 to make it work in terms of our schedule. Um or you can send it to

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me. You can send it to me by email as you think about it. So is there are there any other um comments or questions? Um all right, then I make a motion to adjourn at 3:05. Is there a second?

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>> Second. >> Kathy says yes. Lynn >> I. >> Kathleen, >> yes. Joe, >> yes. >> Councelor Revik, >> yes. >> Tom, >> yes. >> Anna, >> hi. >> We are adjourned. And Sean, thank you

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again for amassing this document for us and being here to answer questions. Yep, no problem. Thank you all. >> We are journed.