All right, Kathy, we're recording. Please go ahead. >> Okay, good morning everyone. Um, thank you for being flexible in rescheduling the meeting. This will be our regular meeting time now, unless something happens along the way when we need to
add a meeting. And as everyone knows, it looked like that added meeting of November 12th was on the calendar. So, I'm not going to start the meeting this way. I will declare a quorum and uh say today is September 16th. It's the 10:00
in the morning meeting of the finance committee. And the first thing I need to do is make sure that everyone can hear and be heard because we are conducting this meeting virtually. So I will just call out your names as I see them on the screen. Bob Hegner
>> present. And Joe, welcome to the committee. >> Yes. >> And Kathy is here and Mandy >> present. Bernie >> present >> and Joe definitely welcome Joe >> present. Thank you >> and councelor Walker
>> here. >> And so I the only person Andy cannot had told me in advance today didn't work with him. He just had a conflict with another meeting. Um but otherwise this new time works for everyone except for
Mandy who has a conflict on is it on the 7th right Mandy? on October 7th. >> I think it's the next meeting. >> It's the next one. I think it's the next one. But >> it's the next finance committee meeting. And I think you said you might have had a conflict that day regardless. It wasn't just the 2:00 versus the 10:00.
>> Yes. >> So our on our agenda, we have Joe, we've been starting with public comments each time to the extent we have a public. So, I'm going to open it up first for public comments, but um Athena, maybe show the agenda on the screen. So, everyone, if
you can um everyone u I can rattle it off. Otherwise, if you could show it on the screen, that would be great. And if not, I can um I'm not sure Athena is still with us. Okay, >> I'm here. I'll get it up in just a
second. >> No, thanks Athena. I didn't give you a heads up. So it we're going to start with public comments and then I put on the agenda. This is a fairly loose agenda. It's mainly for discussion. Um we received all received copies of something called the MARS report that
the regional school the superintendent had requested and I was just going to start with gathering comments today and then open it up more. So I will take notes today on what anyone else has. And uh
then we began a discussion um of what kind of questions we might want to ask um data that we need or just information we need town budget or schools budget and I'm not sure exactly um what we we
didn't get very far on that and then we continued review of the financial guidelines which was also identifying areas where we want to ask questions or get information and I will take as good a notes as I can today and anyone can
send me notes later but it's sort of it's it's a discussion meeting rather than a decision-making meeting. So with that said I'm opening it up for public comments and if anyone in our public um would like to make a comment please
raise your hand. I'll just wait a second to see if any hands go up. No one has raised their hand. So I think we will continue. And what I um anyone who was of the counselors in the meeting or Joe and Bernie since you weren't
there last night when I mentioned that Mars was on our agenda, I said that I would make sure to also get any comments from any council member who's not on the finance committee. So I will just gather any comments or thoughts we have then
gather them from other and produce it as just a memo to the superintendent um and share it with her similar to what they did with the school committee. the school committee submitted comments. Um, and so we're starting with the Mars reports and we can take that agenda
down. Uh, Athena and any and all com it's comments a general sense of them specifics about it. It the floor is open for anything that we might want to transmit back to. In this case, it's the superintendent who was uh she she
contracted directly for it. Um, and I will just wait to see any hands go up. I have a few of my own, but I I will wait. Mandy. >> Yeah. Um, I mean, I I don't know where to start, but in general, I read them
all. They were all very similar with very similar wordings. You know, they're they're definitely a standard report where they plug in numbers from public entities, but I wasn't sure what to take from them. That was the one thing I
thought was really missing was what what is the school committee supposed to do with this data and how is it going to create a useful and um collaborative conversation. And so that that was the thing I thought was missing
about why is EQV important in in this report, right? like or what was the free cash mentioned for in this report or what was the point of the municipal budget things in this report or the
students you know there didn't seem to be a lot of context as to why Mars chose these numbers and what to do with them uh obviously I have my own thoughts what to do with them but it would have been nice to have some context from Mars as
to why they thought these were the economic indicators that schools should be looking at. Um, and I'll just add one more thing before I let other people talk. The municipal budget section I thought was I didn't know what to take from that.
Um, I thought it was misleading. Our public works numbers, even our own budget is spends more than the 1.9 that the state lists for spending in public works. And that's not even counting enterprise funds, right? And so, you know, some of these numbers, I'm not
sure how the state determines them, but the general government number is a number that includes all of our health insurance for the public safety sector and the public works sector and the human services sector and the culture
and recreation sector. um you know and so in that sense their their comparison of oh education only went up x percentage but general government went up y percentage I thought was um a
not an applesto apples comparison I I guess is is what I would say because our general government number includes things for other sectors that are listed in this chart. Um, I'll I'll stop there as initial comments.
>> Uh, Bob, I saw your head. Did it go up and then down? Because it Bob and then Bernie. Yeah. >> Um, yeah, I had I had a lot of the same thoughts that that um, Councelor Hani had, which is um, we we got a lot of there's a lot of numbers in here, but
what are we supposed to focus on and what are the schools going to focus on? um there's a lot of percentages and then there's especially if you look at student enrollment or students with in the various categories. Um there's
numbers and then there's percentages. Um I don't think to me percentages aren't terribly interesting because it's really the number of students. I mean a number of students drives would I I would think would drive cost in those
areas. So um that that's something that we we need again I think echoing what what councelor Hani said I think we need more clarity on what is the purpose of of these numbers. Um I I also found some
of these things to be very um misleading. Um, for example, they talked on page 10 that we we're not taxing the full 2 1/2%, but if you look at the actual numbers, we're less than
on average we're less the average is 017 we're leaving on the table. I mean, you know, this is these are not going to solve any problems in town um to to get all full of money and full amount and
then I mean this is to me we're we're taxing at our maximum give or take you know you got to make some estimates here right so I I don't I don't I found that to be very misleading um then um some of
these are are kind of nits but Um yeah, I found the the the municipal budgets to be very misleading as well as as councelor Hani pointed out. Um the one thing on page 18 school
attending children report uh that table it's arrayed um chronologically opposite from the other tables in in the in the in the um in the report. So, it took me a while to
figure out you how can there be a they're saying there's an increase but I you know a decrease but I see an increase but I mean then I realized oh my gosh it's it's oriented the wrong the different way uh so maybe that should be reor reoriented so it's consistent with
the other tables um because otherwise it can confuse people um and um I guess again could kind of
many of the as when we get back to the student enrollment numbers uh a lot of those are very confusing but uh in particular I think we we need to focus more on numbers of students because that
seems to me to to be driving um things and uh especially special needs students uh would drive special needs costs. Um, but you know, enrollment in general, it's it's how many students do you have?
That's really what the cost driver is, uh, in my mind. Um, yes, there's fixed costs, but the variable costs are all going to depend should depend on how many students you have. That's that's my my general comments,
>> Bernie. >> Yeah. Um the counselors who spoke prior have done a great job of covering a lot. Um I mean my initial reaction to the Mars reports
was so what there's no no new information in there and I'm not sure why they were why they were generated. Um I was interested to know that three of the four towns had some excess capacity in terms of of taxing. hammers. It's not one that has
any significant amount of excess capacity. Um the uh the other thing that was missing is context. Where are these towns? Um how do these
towns fit in context with other communities in the Commonwealth? For example, it's noted that Amorest has 50% of its budget goes to education. that will come up. But as council
Hanukkah pointed out, um the data that they use, which they apparently pulled from, uh the Department of Revenues technical assistance site, um doesn't break out what's in general government and towns
do this a little differently. Uh I think you find if you put it in context that the larger the community, the lower the percentage of the total budget is in education for the simple fact that you you've got to support a lot of other people. You've
got those insurance costs and other costs that are buried in the general government uh figures. And rather than having a volunteer fire department, you have a full-time fire department. You have a full-time police force. Um, we have community responders.
We there's a variety of functions that our government provides that the other towns either don't provide on a full-time basis or rely on us to provide ambulance service. So, um, again, I'm not I'm not certain.
I had made a suggestion some time ago that um it would be good to have they got the Mars people in. It would be good to have folks from the Department of Education um and the Department of Revenue
work on this together so we can get a better idea of of how the schools operate when they're funded, how the towns operate when they're funded in perspective. Um and I think going forward my
consideration would be u uh knowing how our population our school population you know if you look at it with the basic uh town numbers uh we are at or below all the state averages except for special ed
that we're that's that we're above. Um, so we're we're no more complicated in terms of social and demographic and economics than any other city in the Commonwealth except for the special ed piece. Um, I'd want to know how many
positions are vacant in the school at any given time. And I'd want to know a b a breakout of of faculty. um the faculty where the faculty sits in terms of of their experience and what
they're earning and how many aids there are and what the use of those aids are in the school because I think there's a fairly I'm working from memory now which is pretty fallible for me. Um, I think
there's a a large number of of pair professionals in the schools and we want to know what we should know what those are those are about. So that's that's my comment. >> So Mandy, I see your hand back up is
back up. I have a couple things to add. Is that okay if I go first? Um, you know, just um it's partly because I've been staring at a lot of separate numbers. um then I brought that lens to the Mars report. So um I agree with the
comments that have made some so it's it's it's hard for me to even look at the Mars reports because of what I see is missing or what wasn't adjusted. So for example, we know in Amoris only because we asked in in the spring in the
budget that in our pension uh payments and that I believe they called it fixed costs. I think that's where they put pensions and they didn't do definitions of all their terms. Uh they're about there's about two and a half million for our elementary school
for the non-eing staff. I do not know when you pull a state data down whether they've already moved that money into education or that sits in another bucket. So pieces like that are missing. It's also not clear to me what if
anything they did with capital spending. Um and and you know in terms of how we allocate it, Mandy, you know, a big a big piece of what DPW is is roads um and and vehicles and we spend a lot on that.
Um so I just so it's questions of what's in the report as well as then what do we make of it because I think our own data um is much more robust than what I'm seeing displayed here. So, I'm not sure how to use these at all. And my final
comment is that the table you didn't like, Bob, you found disturbing because the the the uh timeline was flipped. There's just something wrong with those numbers. And it wasn't Mars's numbers. Those are state numbers. But if you look specifically at the number of charter
kids, the numbers are just wrong. um when I go and pull charter kids numbers from how much we're paying for every year uh that a they don't bounce around the way that number bounced around and they never reach the total that one of
those lines. So whatever the source of that and I think the source might be Ammeris in the region. I don't know who who reports that up. Private kids, kids who live in our town and go to a private school. There's no way it goes from 190
to four the next year. I mean there's just something there's just something wrong with the numbers. And so I I took that table both not wanting the order it came in. But I was surprised that it wasn't a comment. And one of the I noticed in the school committee comments they focused
they said that there's something wrong with that table. You know it was just like move that because it was an it was a potentially interesting table to say has there been any trend of people who live in Ammerst or the other three towns
going to private schools that's different than it was 10 or 20 years ago. And I decided I couldn't use that data to answer that because when I started to divide the two numbers, um I didn't think it jumped around yeartoear as a share. Same question on has
homeschooling gone up over time or has choice out of our schools gone up over time. So I decided that table was junk, you know, it was wrong and somewhere else we would have to if if we thought that was interesting. And then my only
other comment is um it's a more sweeping one. There's no comparisons. Bernie, you went right down to staffing in our schools, but there's no comparison of what we spend in our schools at all to other towns. Um or
explanation of what might be contributing to the differences we see. There's just none. And and I don't think Mars wasn't set up to do that. So I'm not critic they they clearly they were their question. I think they were asking is do we have the ability to spend more?
I think that was the way the report was organized. You know, is are there pockets of money that that could be drawn on, but they didn't really give us comparisons of similarized towns or similar populations or similar anything.
So, I found it not particularly um informative. Mandy. So that was mine and I just went to a few because I'd also noticed that there was something wrong with the state data and I see that just was pulled down. Um Mandy.
>> Yeah. Um so this morning I looked at the packet from the Mars meeting at the school committee and they happened to have the questions that the school committee members sent in. Um, and one of the school committee members, Tim
Shores, I think did a whole lot of charts which I thought were quite interesting and sort of gets us more to some of the questions we were hoping reports and conversations would do. Um he did a chart on inflationadjusted
average annual dollar change per pupil um for all four towns, the region and the state average and the western Massachusetts average. It's fascinating. Um, but something like that isn't really
the Mars report never got into sort of that type of analysis, which is I think what what disappointed me the most. Um, was it's just a report of numbers and you can do anything you want with numbers, but someone's got to do the analysis um and and answering those
questions. So, you know, I encourage people to go to that packet for the school committee and look at the document that was what school committee people sent in. It's 14, it's 16 pages, 14 pages. Many of them are
charts that this one school committee member did, you know, to give an idea of what the school committee was asking um or thinking of asking, much of which focused on Ammerst and not much on the other three towns either, which is also interesting. Um because we are a four
town region and as Bob pointed out the Mars reports seem to indicate all four towns have excess levy capacity but if you actually look at what that excess levy capacity is Ammerst basically has none. It makes me wonder what Mars determines is not excess levy capacity.
You know do you have to spend over your levy capacity to not have excess levy capacity? It's so hard to get to zero because of rounding. you know, that's why we're not at zero. But, um, whereas the other three towns definitely had excess levy capacity. So, yeah, in some
sense, I'm hoping when the Mars people come, they might have more analytical and analysis to to give us and answer questions with that would be helpful for us. And I'm hoping that the school
committee digs more into their spending, their their um employment, their staffing levels, things like that. Because the chart about annual change per pupil spending to me is just absolutely
fascinating when it's done on inflationadjusted and non-inflation adjusted measures. It's for all all the towns. It's absolutely fascinating to me. And just one point on I I'll I'll get that that report. I agree on Tim's
charts and downloaded into our packet because the one of the things he did, Bob, is what you're asking for. He used a different source. He didn't use he didn't use the Mars data. He just went but he plotted over time numbers of children
>> and the if you don't do special needs as a percent, but as you do it as a count of children, it's a almost a flat line. And so what's happened is the rest of the population has gone down. So the reason that percentage has gone up so
much. So I just thought it was a whole different way of looking at exactly the same numbers that that as you said Mandy you're going whoa and you said what and your your qu kind of question was why is that happening? You know I mean what's going on here? So I saw um someone
Bernie your hand was up too. I didn't have the opportunity I didn't have the opportunity to uh look at what the school committee asked, but it sounds like there's been some uh some interesting questions and some interesting analysis. I'm not surprised that Amoris gets the most uh attention
because we're the biggest. We spend the most money and we're also the ones that are most annoying in terms of the questions we ask um as we've learned uh as we've been told. So, um I I think the other thing that uh needs to be put into
context here is that um probably 60% of our population is students. Uh about a quarter of the town turns over every year if you look at the census data 20% or so. Um
and and so the the capacity, the ability to raise revenue, the ability to the number of people we have running around who are taxpayers um is constrained. So I I think that's been uh I mean we have the highest number greatest
percentage of students is their total total population of any town in the state. Only Cambridge comes Cambridge comes second with about 35%. So that has an impact as well and that's students who uh
you know see so I think um I'm I'm I have a ton of things to do today but I'm tempted to go back and look at the school committee questions uh just because but I I I really think we have to we have to put into context
uh here again the constraints that all the towns have in terms of raising revenue. even if they have excess capacity. Uh for one, because of the the the mix we have in terms of our populations. Um and also in terms of the fact that we're
very dependent on uh on houses. We don't have uh we don't have a large uh commercial base uh for a variety of reasons. the typical single family house um with
a kid or two in it is a lost leader for any community. Just simply doesn't return enough money. Um so, you know, we need to we need to look at that as well. Again, this has to be put into it has to be put into context and um I'm very
curious about the dynamics that uh council and Kathy you you you referenced uh were in those charts. So what what I propose I can we can go to the next topic but I I took what I
think are decent notes. Um um I will type them up to avoid repetition into a format that would be more questions that we we could submit if people want to do it that way as opposed to trying to do
it individually. And I won't do an attribution to any person. And I'll just say these are these are things we wish had been addressed or questions we have about the data and and how are we supposed to be using it um as opposed to
um putting it aside and saying let's do our own group analyses of of um and as Bernie was saying context. So, I I forget when uh Mars is coming back. Probably other people know that date,
but I'll try to get this. Today is Tuesday. I I should be able to get it done by Friday at the latest and just send it out for comments and edits. Um this will just be purely a uh here are some of the questions or issues raised as we as a group looked at at the Mars
report. Um a Mandy. So that's a proposal that I can do that piece. I mean that's >> um at the meeting last week the school committee indicated they were trying to get Mars back for next Thursday the 25th just >> so a week from this Thursday not this
Thursday. >> Not not two days from now but nine or 10 or whatever that is from now. Nine days. >> And so what I can do Joe I see your hand is up. I'll I'll also let other counselors know and provide a a dra I'll figure out with Lynn how I provide a
draft. So make sure that it's not just the finance committee. So I can do it. Here are some things finance committee identified and see if anyone else wants to add thoughts to it so that or people I can find out if other people want to do it on their own rather than being a a
group response. Joe, go ahead. >> Sure. Really quick. Um I was at the school committee last week uh and they were supposed to have a representative there from Mars. Um, and I know I'm kind of coming in sort of late to the game here, but could just really quickly could you just provide me what what is
the purpose of the Mars report? Like what are we try why are we doing this? What is the what's the purpose of it? So my understanding and you heard that was being asked actually by school committee members is a lot they were asking that
that the superintendent um knew there was some general interest on looking at you know ability to pay revenues in some kind of context and discovered that Mars does this type of analysis for regional schools so
approach them so didn't there wasn't a go back to the school committee or regional committee saying what do you think? So she had a draft not a draft she had a copy of what was done for another municipality and said that looks interesting and then contracted on it on
behalf of the region and so when MARS does those they routinely do it both for the regional school side of the population and the elementary school side. So we got those two pieces but that was not in any way and she she said
this during the meeting it is what Bob said it is this is the way they do it it's a standard format they grab the same the same they grab data from the same sources for each town. So it didn't seem like they went in to individual
towns budgets as much as they took the data from the sources and there wasn't actually a source note on where each piece of information came from and but but so there was a a lot of questioning during that meeting of why did we even ask for this report? What are we
supposed to do with it? How are we supposed to use it? um you know it so that was left in there and without the Mars people there to ask specific questions on what's the definition of this to what extent did you take funds
and move it from one category to another to make apples and apples kinds of comparisons there wasn't any opportunity to do that um I think the superintendent thought this was potentially a useful report and so far uh there wasn't a
response like now that we have this we have insights. So I think we'll learn more of that when they meet with Mars on whether people are saying we have that report now let's get down to our regional area and say what else do we want to know or what do we want to know
um you know if this didn't if this didn't satisfy curiosity or um ins didn't provide insights then >> why or why not you know where can we go because most of the data um there's a
wealth of data available from DESIE and the Department of Revenue. And and that's where I first looked at that thing on charter. I said, "These numbers are just wrong." And and someone said, "How do you know they're wrong?" I said, "Because I'm looking. There's a yearly accounting of how many students we have
that we're paying for, you know, and you can do it by by town and overtime, and you can go back to the beginning and who we're paying it to, and the numbers just don't match." So there's some >> that's a good question to address to Mars the representative from Mars where >> so that's is if they're grabbing a state
report and the state report is wrong then they shouldn't use that report you know I mean this might be useful for them to know that there's at least for our town and region there's something wrong with the report um >> who pays for this report I think they mentioned in the school committee it was
a the district pays for this report >> the district had yes the district had they didn't have to come to any of the towns to ask for money for it. They had some money they could draw on for the reports. Um, and there was we were
somewhere along they weren't terribly expensive, you know, for the whole set was in the $3,000 range, you know, to get four reports. So, it wasn't that they went out and paid a consultant for um so my sense is Mars has kind of a a
data set that they can jump into for any town. Um, and they don't do much, you know, back, you know, it just generates >> generate. They already have >> the numbers. Yeah. >> Awesome. Sorry for those softball questions. >> No, no, that's that's helpful. And it's only because I've been staring at what
is available, you know, trying to think of, you know, what can I without going to another town to ask them for something? What can I know about a Northampton or a Pelum or a Shootsberry without having to go into their own budgets? because that's much more
painful because people organize their budgets in different ways. Um, yeah. So, >> okay. So, the next topic was actually it's a nice segue into this. If we
think of we we generated some questions last time we met um on things like ask departments and the schools is anything have they been hurt in any way by loss of federal money um what kinds of
expense increases are they getting because of union contracts of labor union contracts there were a couple others I have a list from the last meeting but we didn't we didn't look at do we have specific questions that we want to ask of the town manager for the
town departments and specific questions we might want to ask of the schools in terms of knowing more of what's going on. The furthest we got in August was to know when the closing year budget would
be available for the schools, an actual budget, you know, as opposed to a a proposed budget. when will they have that and when will they have final staffing you know actual staffing estimated and um I'm not sure those I
didn't follow up to see if we actually asked that but we don't know exactly when it's usually would be by the end of September early October so we don't know when that might be available I do know that um from Paul
that um we are behind in um being able to close out our year. Um so the audit report is out for review. So we probably would be able to have our audit report um not maybe by October 7th, but by the
21st or the 28th. He said we could pick a meeting in late October, but that we're um our new finance director isn't coming on until midocctober and he's recruiting people to try to close out last year, you know, to get to a fourth
quarter and uh certified free cash because we have to do that report. So, I don't have a date yet on those. Um but they're so it's still in the same maybe we'll get it by late October. Um because I think he's going out to recruit some
people to help finish up the reports. When our controller retired, she dis she really retired. She didn't do what some of us do when we retire. She actually left. She she she
left. Um so we we that is kind of in the works. So I didn't know whether we want to take some time and then to the extent the other question is to the extent um we heard during the school meeting that you went to Joe that there's a
subcommittee that's doing fiscal analysis of the school committee. Do we want to say does our finance committee want to offer one or two of us to be if they wanted to work collaboratively looking at the same data um would we
want to offer that so that that's a question of us that I just put on the agenda um not knowing what people's thoughts were so I'll stop talking but that's this agenda item on uh either now or again send them to me uh more focused
questions that would be useful to have answers to that we think it's possible to answer as opposed to um this was this is a research project and that segus in ma Mandy you're the one on guidelines that said you know anything that's going to hit us with federal anything on union
contracts particular stress that we should know about and then you raised should we consider a target amount on roads roads in the guidelines you know um andy who's not here said we should at least here from Jason Steel, but we know
that data, you know, on if we peg a number um get it, you know, have it be in some realm of reality um that this is a goal. So, that's the next two items kind of rolled together for people to
uh offer whatever their thoughts are as of September 16th. Mandy, >> um I think you covered a lot of I'm I'm trying to separate the two guidelines, you know, and so sticking with data relevant. I think the the bud the agenda
item is strategic data relevant to town budget and schools budget. Um, and I think you covered a lot of it because some of it was part of the financial guidelines discussion last meeting of, you know, I really would like to know where those stress points are that are
complete unknowns. You know, the union contracts that aren't settled, the the federal funds that midway through the year might just go poof, right? Because we just don't know. Um, you know, and
and what does that do to budgets? Um, I think for school, you know, town, we tend to get a decent report on our reserves and items that are being paid for out of revolving funds and all. When we talk about town budgets, I don't
think we get as clear of data for schools on some of that. Um, I was looking at their fourth quarter, one of their fourth quarter reports cuz they've been putting out their fourth quarter reports and it talked about moving some
various expenses from revolving funds into the budget and that's why the budget line item is over because they were expecting to use revolving funds but weren't able to because of lack of funds in the revolving funds and things like that. um you know getting more
information on that as we try and gauge and I'm thinking about this in a way of what do we need to then get to financial guidelines right you know you know it's it's how do we gauge requests for what to do with the
financial guidelines and I think we need some information like that um I'm going to bring up something I talked with Kathy yesterday about given tonight's school committee meeting about restructuring K6. I think we absolutely do need to know whether the sixth grade will fit into the two elementary schools
because the information provided in the packet for tonight's school committee meeting seems to imply that the sixth grade will fit in those two buildings. So that it might not need to be a separate academy at the middle school.
Um whether the school committee makes a decision without with that is not on us, but I would like to know the information as to whether the the sixth grade physically those students number-wise where we are with enrollments could
actually fit in those buildings because that from a financial point of view I think affects what we do with our guidelines. um even though we don't have any say over the decision but I think it would reflect on what I think about
financial guidelines um for the region you know I I would like I I think we've started those conversations so some of those those charts that Tim tal put in his questions about per pupil spending where we've
gone up tremendously compared to state averages in insurance rates um and in teachers and in other teachers and some of these other lines um both Ammer schools and the region. I still kind of want some sort of
conversation on why some of those lines seem so out of out of sync with state and regional averages. um what what is what is driving them
being so out of sync? Um again, relevant to how do we discuss our increase in revenue and how to split that up next year? Any any other thoughts on this? I mean, as you said, Mandy, that the two items
of what I put them on agenda, I separated them, but they're the the purpose of them is the same. Um, that we in by the end of this year, meaning end of December, uh, the council will have to have guidelines and these are just
guidelines. The town manager can choose not to follow them. I mean these are guidelines and so trying to understand um you know last year I don't think any of us had an understanding just on the
town side when we were voting a guideline what that meant in terms of staffing in the town you know you know in terms of with insurance rates pension rates union rates um so um when I first got on the council I asked I think I
asked in a school meeting But I should have asked in a town meeting too. If nothing else happens, given the step increases we've got in our contracts, how much do labor costs go up? Pension, pension, health, you know, if nothing else, you know, so the cost of pencil
stays the same. the start tar electricity. Forget that. That that we've got um expenses that um or because they're human expenses go up faster than our revenue expenses do. And I've never
had a good number to that. One year I had that on wages alone it was a 4% increase if there was no change in staff. Not counting health insurance, not counting pension. But that kind of number gives you a context on when we're setting those guideline numbers that
we're squeezing everything. You know, it's not just schools. It's the I mean, as Alicia, we're at the end of the year, this last year, it's like Paul, where is he going to get that? And suddenly it was seven seven positions and wherever those positions were taken from. But
just having a better sense of what that underlying upward pressure is. So, I think I can formulate that question. In the budget book under pensions, it said we were it's something like we were lucky to get only a 2%
increase this year. We're going to be at eight in the next fiscal year, you know. So, I don't know whether that's real or not because we also had the that were almost fully funded on pensions. So, I'm not sure why it would jump up, you know. It's not, you know, so I just think some
pieces like that uh they're pieces of a puzzle that should be knowable. Um so I just made my own note for pensions. Mandy and then >> um sorry one other thing I talked a lot
about schools and outliers and schools and all. I think it would be good to see as again as we talk about trying to figure out outliers if there are outliers in town budgets too. Are there certain areas of our town budget that
have exceeded by a lot average increases in Western Mass, you know, um or the state? And I don't know given all the information we talked about with the one chart on the Mars report as to can can you actually do that? And I just
don't know. Um, you know, um, but maybe when Sean gets in, he can provide us some information about average spending in municipal government versus public
safety. I know DPW is its own, you know, problem because so many different towns do it different ways, so I'm not sure that one's an easy one to actually compare. Um, and have we had increases in any of these sort of areas or just in
municipal government itself that are outliers compared to other towns our size or western Massachusetts in general or the state averages so that we can ask the same hard questions we are of the schools of our own government. Bernie,
>> I I would think some of the reporting that or data that council Hanaki is interested in is already available from the technical assistance bureau. And I I think um it would be worthwhile to call them and ask them what's what they can
what they have and what they can conjure up from their their their data sets. Uh a lot of this is u a lot of this is there and we also have to be careful about what year it's reported. We have for example we have we have more
miles of road than uh do says we have not much but there's there's a difference there and there's a difference in um in u private ways that may become public ways at some so you know when you're looking at DVW you got
to look at that and you know if you use road miles uh as a measure we're we're we're not quite at the middle we're a little bit below the middle in terms of our u our expenditure. So, you got to be
you've got to ask those questions. And I think the uh the folks at the Technical Assistance Bureau, they they've done some great work. They don't charge. Um and I I think we we needed to to ask them for for help. Um and I just want to
second some of what Kathy said about staffing. I mean, one of the one of the things with uh the school staff or the teacher staff, and we're in the people business, all of us, you know, 85 90% of what we do is people. Um, but with
teachers, and this is why it's important to know how they break out. U, they get steps, they get cola, and they get professional improvement credits. And so, you know, uh having a number of
your faculty taking a in grad school um can can be a surprise when it comes to paying them. And I think that's what we have to we have to look at how that those contracts are structured. Uh, one
of the things we tried to do u when I was in Deerfield was separate out steps and cola um so that uh uh uh given who we had on the faculty, given their age, given where they were at um in
terms of their ability to earn um so so going through a school budget and looking at the staffing is a pretty complicated exercise and that's not intended as a criticism. schools are complicated. They're difficult to run. Um, you know, but but I think you you
really need to have you really need to be able to take those contracts apart that our labor agreements as well. I mean um you know we we need to look at we need to look at all that and where we're you know where we're paying people
fairly uh or where we may be u uh we may put be put in an adverse situation because of some requirements of the contracts that's a longer that's a longer hall >> okay so Bernie you mentioned technical
assistance bureau and I don't know what that is so maybe >> well the meeting Revenue Division of Local Services provides technical assistance DLS. Okay. So, >> cities, towns, >> and you can go on their website and get an idea of some of the reports they've
written. Um, >> okay. >> They're uh they're they're in my experience, they're easy people to talk to. You call them up and say, "Hey, I'm looking for this. What can you guys do?" And um then figure out how the you know where the official ask might come from.
>> Yeah. And you know the official not just the official ask but what is the ask? I mean Mandy came up with a a few ways of thinking about this but >> uh to avoid wasting our time and their time it would be good to >> you know think it through a little bit. Um
>> and you know the timeline in all this is pretty short. So we also need something that's easily digestible as opposed to a sea a sea of data. Um >> yeah. Well, one of I think the other thing too is we need to talk with the
department heads and um see where there may be um potential pitfalls. I mentioned the highway department. I just because I'm familiar with this because I did their budget this year. Um I think we have something like 24 miles of um private
ways used as public ways. I I mean, if those folks successfully petition the council to have those ways recognized as as public ways, we've just increased our road miles by a quarter.
>> So, um so one thought I know Mandy at least last year or a few years ago you said could we meet with department heads early uh rather than at the end. So maybe in this stage, you know, on so the next meeting, the 7th, you won't be
here, but I can ask Paul if we could get a couple in to be talking directly to them about a series of issues without uh prejudging budget setting. And uh there
it would be the biggies that we we get into just a brief with what's coming up. the question on roads uh pressures because I think we didn't know until May. We could have seen it but we didn't
know how the expense budgets had been flatlined um and we were having to requ rely on vacancies to be able to buy supplies, you know. So just trying to get a sense of that because we we could budget in a different way in which case
uh it will affect the labor side of the equation. But I just think getting people in to do that um early might give us at least some sense of where the stress points are if does that see you know so I'm looking at um potentially
the 21st of October um seeing whether Paul would be okay with that. You know, we've got the 21st and the 28th. One could be the audit report and another could be this bringing in a few departments. I'm I'm seeing Bob shaking his head. Yes. So, I'm just let me I'll
ask the question. Paul's not here today, but I'll try to He was He was quite protective last time is I guess the word I would use of not wanting to open the door quite that way, but we could we could keep it cons we could keep the
questions constrained. Um, so and and on the the potential idea of one or go on Mandy, sorry. So I just that was an idea I had as we were talking. >> Yeah. One other thing, it relates more to the budget guidelines than
necessarily this, but um we reduced the reserve and abatement line in the FY26 budget to better match historical actual use versus um typical I guess DLS probably guidance
on what you should do. Um, it would be good to to to get an early report on what FY 20's actual use was. Um, because
we'll get to see in the financial indicators what it's being projected at and that might be something we need to deal with in the financial guidelines, the budget guidelines that we give. if it's being projected at the typical
number or what we had them reduce it to um and whether we adjust or make a comment about that in the budget guidelines. >> Thank you. The the other one I think that we ought to be able to get a read
on is the um investment earnings line. um when we found out what we were earning on we that's that cash reserve for projects that have already been approved but we just haven't spent the money and I know Bob from JCPC there was
a $500,000 for roofs and we put in another million for roofs my bet is 1.5 is sitting there unexpended you know and and some other big pieces you know we're drawing down on some but not all of it so Mandy that Melissa was reluctant to
change that. But but we have a we have a baseline even if we don't think that will be true for the next five years. Um we we shouldn't be in a position of being surprised by it. Um so just trying to get a sense of and that's why we had
asked for the three reserves or the the four reserves. the the one reserve is a cash account, a cash capital account reserve that is sitting there waiting waiting to be spent. Um, and we've certainly the school is going to the new school is quickly taking a big chunk of
that out. Um, because that was a early borrowing for the school, but uh having seen construction is proceeding and we are drawing down on all of that. And then the other one, the question we asked is when are we going to see uh and
Mars didn't talk about this at all. We do have a debt service override, a debt service um exclusion and when are we going to see that in our tax rate um and I I think we're going to see it in January when the final rates come in and
Paul was going to check on that. So I just want to know where where that piece of the tax rate is. Um, it's certainly in our budget for this current year as a big bigger number where it didn't exist before. It's a revenue and an expense.
Mandy, I'll wait for my cuckoo clock. Um, the another thing, sorry, my my thoughts are kind of not ordered today. Um, last meeting I had talked about wanting to
have a conversation about a operating override, a full levy 2 and a half, prop 2 and a half override, but I wonder if we should also have a conversation about an override capability or exclusion capability we don't normally use. We've done the debt
exclusion override, which is for the school that is to borrow money and pay for it and exclude it out of the two and a half a year. There's another one called a capital exclusion override. Um that is for essentially cash capital
projects. Not where you borrow to do capital projects but where you collect the money in e sort of extra property taxes for one year and spend it in that year for capital projects. Um and is
that something we might want to think about for something like roads and sidewalks? um where we say it's it's the same voting process at the polls um and the people have to say it, but say, you know, we're having problems fitting roads into our typical budget. We want
to spend this amount because we've heard from you that you're not happy with the road condition. Don't really want to borrow for roads necessarily. And that's part of the conversation. But if you do this override for $3 million in F fiscal year or I don't know whether you could
do $2 million for the next three fiscal years, I don't know whether it's possible to to to do it that way. We will we'll we'll start tackling down and then that goes away. you know, should we add that to the conversation of a
possible option for funding some capital projects without borrowing? And that that might fit I'm just I'm I'm I wrote that down. I'll get people's reactions on terms of timeline. Um
that's easy to fit in in terms of do we want to do that or not and find out what's involved. Um, we did, Bernie's hands might be up. We did do an override for roads several decades ago in Ammerst and Northampton has done capital
overrides a few times as well as so it's worth putting it on the table. Bernie, >> yeah, our our neighbors in Hadley um have made good use of capital overrides. Uh typically, you know, if somebody
needs a new backho or they need a a van or something like that, they uh they they tag those on as as override questions. So they they've done that and they're not the only community did that quite as well. Uh the caution would be
that if we're going to override for road repairs, we need to make sure that the road repairs can happen >> because a lot of what we do is contract out. And there's also a finite number of of
person hours in our our highway department. So, you don't wanna um you don't want to have a a one-year capital override for to repair road that you you may not be able to get to just because of just because of the environment, the
the business of of road repair. >> And and Bernie, that one of our requests, you know, Paul was nodding, but I know he's been it was summer, too, is we asked how much have we had in each of the past three years, and how much have we spent, you know, just some because we've been allocating more. So I
I'm not sure whether we just spent out on all of it. And part of Guilford had argued that if we got to a bigger amount, we were more likely to get a contract. Um you know, so you know, collecting it. So uh Bob and then >> Yeah, I was I was going to mention that
um the I don't think we can do roads with our within our normal budget anymore. Um, I mean, looking at Jason's skills analysis, we need $5 million more each
year than we're getting from the state in order to basically build the roads back to normal. And we need $3 million just to kind of keep the roads in the crappy condition they are now. Uh, so I don't see where we're going to get that
from um within the normal budget process. Um, I mean, maybe we can. Um, I I haven't seen it. And then we've got all the unknowns of capital expenses associated with our buildings where we're just beginning to look at some of
the issues that we have with them. And, you know, it's a big number every year uh just to do kind of the the envelopes. Um, and then there's going to be stuff inside the buildings that have to be fixed. So, I I'm I don't I really don't
see where we're going to get that money. I mean, except through some sort of some some type of override. And I think a capital override might work, but I get I agree with Bernie. We got to make sure that the capacity is out there in order
to do the roads in the time frame that we envision because people might be willing to pay for it, but they're not going to believe us if we can't deliver, right? I mean, you know, if we borrow all if we get all this money in and then
we know don't do anything with it, they're not never going to believe us again that we can we can raise money and spend it on a specific on on roads, for example. So, we it's a it's a double-edged sword. We got to be prepared to that we're going to get it
done. So, anyway, >> Joe, >> yeah, just um kind of a technical question. So, uh, in a capital override, would this be something that would be the term of it would be predetermined and voted on by the community in terms of how would it be one year, would it be
a three-year, uh, type of, uh, override? And that's generally how those how that would work. Are they generally longer than that? Typically, these >> Mandy has her hand up. I think we, you know, I think we can structure it the way we want to structure it, but go ahead, Mandy. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um
the what what I was reading about and I don't have it up here is the question is a certain amount for a certain project in a certain fiscal year. >> So so you would have you put out to the voters, you know, we want a capital
override for X millions of dollars for X project um to be spent in FY27 or FY28. What I don't know is could you say for X number of dollars to be spent in each of you know or whether you have to have three separate questions if you want to
just vote once for 27 28 29 say or do you have to do it every year or you know like >> how how far in advance can you do it sort of thing that that much I don't know but it is for a specific fiscal year >> to spend a certain amount of money which
I think is where Bernie was going if you can't spend it in that year you can't make it up the next year. It has to be spent in that year, >> right? And I I think the experience in like looking at Hadley um their
habit is to um ex expense pieces of equipment that you know you can go out and buy. So you need a new van for the senior center, you put that as an override, a capital override. You know the van's available. You know you can
just go to the dealer and and get one. that works. I I would be I I would be and I don't I honestly don't know the answer. I have no experience with a capital override that goes over multiple years. Um that's something that we'd have to uh
we'd have to research up. >> Yeah. We and we couldn't use it for things like fire engines because we don't know when they're going to arrive. >> Yeah. Well, that's I mean there's a case in point. Um 20 years ago you had a
dozen different companies making fire engines and they got rolled up into two or three in the three and so there's there's an oligopoly and you know you want a fire engine you wait and you pay because that's the way the the uh the
industry has evolved. uh and I I think we need to look at that in terms of our uh in in terms of our departments that are uh reliant on heavy equipment. Um we also have to look at training and
what's out there in terms of of um expectations to train staff because you train staff. You train a police officer, you have to replace them while they're in training. You can't just have them go away for six weeks. Same thing with a firefighter. Um, so we have to look at what the
training requirements are and is somebody is is the Commonwealth upping the ante in terms of what it takes to train a firefighter, what it takes to train an EMT, what it takes to train a police officer, and factor that in because those are costs that are going
to hit us at some point. And uh, training is important. um you know, failure to train, failure to supervise are probably the two biggest drivers of of lawsuits, complaints. >> Thank you. Uh Kathy, um you also
mentioned uh the for the Fort River school override that um that has not hit sort of uh taxes yet and maybe you said that's expected maybe uh with Paul maybe in January that those will start. That's
my my guess is we've got if you if you look at the the fiscal year we're living in right now, which is started in July, it's pegged in something like $3 million for revenue and expense. That's the first time that's appeared. So I think I
think the big piece of it will be the year after this year, you know. So that's so that has to be when it's there it means that the town is intending on putting that in the tax rate. What we heard um a while ago is that when it
occurs your you know how the town sends you your tax bill is going to be the following. It's going to have a piece of paper saying this includes this much for the school that was voted on X state and we haven't and we so there will be a notice in people's tax bills but we've
been asked when are people going to see that um and we don't I don't have an answer for that yet and the tax bill we got for the first half of the year the one starting in July is called preliminary for the year so the town has
reserved the right to to adjust the final when we get the second half of the year. So the way the school is being financed just um I think many of you know this but the MSBA is participating in the
payment for this and they're paying on a build basis when we incur an expense. They're sharing some of that with us based on the agreed on shares you know so some things they won't pay for but other things they're sharing. And so we
that means that the town has to do the debt, but then we get repaid for some of it. So we took out an additional bond, an initial bond last summer and anticipating it was supposed to start in October. Then there was a bid protest. So it didn't start till January, but
that is uh we have now probably pulled down most of that that we raised. We also the town shifted 5 million out of our capital reserve over to an account for the school um waiting to ease the amount
that we had to go up on the the override. So what I don't know what I'm on the building committee so I can see the bills you know and and the construction amount is now in the multiple million you know at first it was $500,000 now it's coming in at kind
of $8 million a month um you know so now it's the building is structurally up and the bricks are going on. So that's when when the Shawn had told us when Shawn was here and then he left, he thought the the the biggest piece of it would be
an FY2728. >> Okay. >> Not not right now, you know. So again, um this is way back when when we took the votes, you know. So the timing of all of this changed when we couldn't go out to bid as quickly as we thought.
when when we went out to bid, but we couldn't build begin building as quickly as we had intended to build. >> Yeah, thank you for for explaining that. Just to give me a little background. >> That's all right. You know, it's >> you know that there's turnover in our building committee, too. And fortunately, they don't they just we
just okay the invoices each time and assume that someone knows how we're pay that the town knows how we're paying for these bills um as they roll in. Um, so I I have a pretty good risk. You know, Mandy, when you were while you
were talking about capital overrides, I just looked the DLS lists all the ones that have been voted on, and I've noticed they're they're not being used very recently. And I think one of the reasons is you used to be able to buy
three miles of roads for $200,000 in, you know, 20 years ago, you know. So some of this is no longer in the the small, you know, some of these were for 200,000 for 60,000 for I mean it's hard to imagine going to a vote for that
amount of money in the town of Ammerst. Um you know you know it just it's not worth setting up the extra question almost. But but in any case, it looks to me it's not being used as frequently as it was in the um 1990s,
probably because of the cost. And then we we a couple of the vehicles that we purchase, we have a guaranteed price, but the delivery date is three years from now, you know, so the money is just sitting in an account ready waiting to pay for delivery. Um
so I think I I'm and unless people have any further thing the the one other question I posed on this was if there is a data committee over at the school do we want to have a subgroup of us or should we just wait and see because
we've also had this proposed piece that's been offered by all four towns with their a person from every town uh to work with the schools and so far there's been a open invitation but not a
taking up of the invitation. Um, so we don't need to complicate it by weighing in on this. And I just put it in. Do we want to? Right now, um, at the council level, Kathy, Mandy, Anna, and Lynn, and
Paul, if we had five people from us, are the designated group. Um, um, and then there's a kind of an equivalent side of f one finance, one select board um, from the other towns. So I don't know whether
people wanted to do anything more here. Um I don't think there's a need to um other than this that we haven't started meeting. There's been no larger meeting because the schools haven't been yet opened the door to having an initial
meeting where we would react to what they want to know and we would pose questions what what we would want want to know. So that just hasn't happened. Um I don't need we don't need an answer now. And um
so if there's if anyone thinks of anything else I will try to type this up into some coh something more coherent than my notes right now. So the first set is on Mars. The second set is a set
of questions first for the schools and for the schools and for the town and some specific targeted pieces and then Mandy we could get a presentation on a capital override if we could figure out who who could give that you know what
are the logistics including this question is it just a one year only or could it be a two year for actually for two years um >> so that's another do question >> that's a do another yeah another local services question. >> Okay. >> Um,
>> right. So, Bernie, I know you you sent me a very nice note on how much you've enjoyed working with us, but that you you you wanted to retire and your slot has not been full filled. You are >> you you are uh it's an open invitation
to stay on till we filled the slot. So, I didn't know whether your note to me was like you you would like. My my my in my my intention is to um I mean I I'll I'll you know if it hasn't been filled. Um I've been doing this for a while. I
think it you know and I very much appreciate what the the way the committee's been um for all the time I've been on it. uh if there's a need, I'll I'll continue and you know try to um
encourage the go to uh to come up with a come up with a replacement because it's I'm I'm uh you know I'm I'm overdue for one and for two I think after a time you just want to move on and let somebody else um have all the big fun.
>> Um my my intention was to say I'm not going to be here anymore. Um, and uh, I I will, you know, if if there's a need and I I continue to get invited, I'll I'll continue to do that. Um, but I do
want to express my thanks to everybody on the committee for all the good work that's been done and for demonstrating that um, reasonable people can disagree reasonably and that people can have um,
discussions. um in very civil uh ways and people people have been making a great effort to get to yes on on all this stuff and I I very much appreciate it. So um I I will leave it to the chair of the committee if you
think it's necessary for me to continue I will be happy to do that. Um but other than that I'm just going to fade away. >> Okay. >> So thank you. Make sure you give us all that money before you leave us. >> That's right. Yes. I'm I'm I'm I'm
packing it into the back of my CRV now while we're at it. >> So, I think >> I'll drop it off uh I can drop it off at Joe's house. He's the new guy. So, >> Bernie, you're an icon, man. Thank you so much for for everything you've done this and and in all honesty, would it be
okay if I kind of kept in touch with you? And I just think you're a fantastic resource and I would love to, you know, it's just coming back into this maybe just pick your brain. Uh >> well, you're welcome to pick my brain, although that's probably some pickings these days.
>> Uh given given my all this gray is having an impact. Um but uh you know, you're you're welcome to do that and thank you for those kind words, Joe. I appreciate it. And it's great to be uh great to go back to the future and having sat on a finance committee
meeting with you. >> Totally. So I think with that we've taken this about as far as we can and um if I get more concrete information from Paul I'll schedule audit and schedule a piece and then I'll find out whether
department heads a few could meet with us so we could directly ask them the questions rather than transmit them in a way that might not be as clear. Um and I will write up my notes for today and share them with you all. So, I think
we're ready to adjourn if everyone is in agreement. Then I make a motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Okay. I will go around for votes. And and Joe, just so you know, I mean, you're you're listed as a non- voting
member, but what we do is we say, do you do you support or not support the motion? So, Bob, >> yes. >> Kathy, a yes. Mandy, >> hi. Bernie >> support. >> Joe
>> support. >> And I see Alicia has already left. So we are officially adjourned. Thank you all very much. care.