okay the recording started good afternoon everyone this is the February 26 meeting of the joint Capital planning committee sometimes called jcpc and as chair I'm calling the
meeting to order seeing that we have a quorum and what I'll do is just call out people's uh names as I see them on my screen to make sure you can hear and be heard because we're conducting this meeting virtually Bob present Nat here
Sarah here Lee present and Bridget pres thank you everyone we have a umly straightforward agenda today um one set of project proposals uh on
it and Jennifer ltin has joined us also she is from finance department once set of projects on it a set of minutes that we don't actually have to review because they have been a review but I'll just take a few minutes during the minute
slot of the agenda to talk about taking of minutes and we have volunteers almost everyone except for two people have volunteered for at least one set um Sarah reviewed this set so they are ready to be posted and I'll
remind people what the process is to expedite so uh Melissa I'm turning it over to you and I'm for the IT projects and I don't know whether you were planning on having sea join us well I did ask him to join
us and I did send him a a nudge um so I can I can see I don't see anyone in participant I mean in out in do you want to do your pro your first
then or you want to do do you want to do the summary you had a here we go H Sean's here okay there we are thanks I got bailed out thank you starting to sweat it um so um but we can do I uh I
posted you know within the last hour um a very rough draft of the um and I let me just pull it up to for for you all to see um um so this is the summary of the funding
and while I don't have the walk through to the um previous remember I had showed you the one that matches with um the the projections that we present at um BC uh G
um Jen and I and Holly looked at this reviewed it agreed on our debt estimates as of today just so you know that we are in the process of refinancing some debt right now we have some stuff coming up in May the numbers will get more
crystallized you know as we actually issue that debt and we get our real interest rate and our real payment schedule so these are our back of the napkin guesses but we made sure that these um estimates are the same as what is going to be projected um in BCG which
I believe is next week so you know just sort of along that same theme that all the information in all the Committees although they're they're coming through in different formats tie together um and so we spent a lot of time making sure
they were exactly the same and and and that so um with that what I will say is that you know we have what we've we've known is that the 6,700 is our you know
10.5% um that we are using to um you know use as our cash use as our Capital goal for the year for the fiscal year um and then in addition to that the debt exclusion is operated on Top This
is an updated number of the 2 million again that's an estimate because we have not borrowed the second round of um financing for the school but that is basically Fort River School which is above and beyond this 10 and a half% um
we have um finalized the numbers for the um Community preservation um contribution as well as the um as well as the uh Comcast and and
then um this other is money that is going to come in from in in this case all of this is ambulance fund transfers that um usually goes through this process and it's appropriated from uh receipts reserved
for appropriation to fund capital in the uh ambulance fund um I had made an objective to um try and keep new borrowing authorizations to a minimum in this year because we have so much large Capital items coming in the future and I
want to leave room for us to be able to do that and still have cash Capital so I was trying to get this number to be um as small as possible I was actually trying for it to be zero but I I didn't
I wasn't successful in that I'm sorry what number what number I don't see that you're the see the borrowing number here thank you um um I wanted to not have any new borrowing initiatives with this Capital round um but I I just couldn't
figure that out so um here is the um all of our general fund debt including CPA um projected debt that's just the interest I expect on our long-term um our short-term notes for this year it's
a it's a number um the pay down of bans is also in this 2.2 million and then new projects that you'll see on the list for the um that's coming in the next couple pages is 5.5 right now that would be new
capital cash projects um you'll see down here that um we don't I wanted to give you some work I guess right so that is not imbalance so you know decisions need to be made on do we fund everything in that
list um do we borrow more do or do do we delay some projects you know so we're we're out of balance um in this fisal uh 26 right now um about a half a million dollars I'll tell you honestly that the
projected numbers into the future I had made no attempt to um forecast the future for today's meeting I was solely concentrated on are the numbers for this year correct knowing that the numbers of the out years um have not been been
balanced but they are consistent with what we um had projected in the past and I did move some of the projects that were scheduled to start in 2026 but aren't starting for various reasons I did move them into future years but I didn't really re-evaluate the numbers
change the interest rates in future years I concentrated mostly on this year and making these estimates as good as I could um that's not very good English I apologize for that so this is our list it's three pages
long of the requests um a lot of the uh color notations here Jen did uh ask me to s of explain my while I was putting the information together if it was a new request new this year and it fell in
2026 I highlighted it in red that was for me and then I kept it because it's good for discussion purposes in this draft you know like so this million dollars right here in facilities um it's not really new um they asked for 500,000
for roof last year but what we had um made a discussion um earlier uh this month to talk about facilities um in a different way so that the request looks new but just so you know it's just not
itemized they're they're going to try and make a Glo more Global look at it and when they come to the meeting they can explain it to you more but that's what the difference between the red and the blue are um and um this is a total of $7.2 million of
request in this year that's funded by 1.1 I have um a uh Associated to borrow uh 5 A5 million is um capital and about
$600,000 is from ambulance funds as we currently have it allocated again this is part of what we'll look at um today's um conversation is around um I T um which is on the second
page and that's why uh Sean is here but that my summary of kind of where um what we got to these numbers and I I I should say before sean gets into the individual um request that he has for his
Department um that the the numbers here have um we have made some decisions internally that you should know about you know a lot of um departments requested more than what's being presented here but we're making a
decision to try and um cap um concentrate on do using cash Capital so that we don't have interest incomes uh expense and that we also want to um limit new borrowing initiatives right
now especially for smaller projects um because we we have some huge projects coming and we need to be able to um have the room for that in the coming years so um that was what I was going to say
about that and so we did um all of the vehicles on this request um most of the requested Vehicles this year were bumped to Future years um with the exception of a portion of the um
Police Department's request for vehicles and um vehicles that were damaged last year and and are in need of replacement ver versus like I you know this one is getting old and I want to replace it this truck there is a truck on here that
was in a crash and is no longer operational for that purpose and so that stayed on the list this year and that was kind of how we um worked through some internal um you know what to prioritize so that we could give you a list to look at at and make decisions
about um that um you know about other priorities that you have but you know that that's kind of where we are and I see that Sarah has a question is it for me or did you want to ask Kathy for for you if if you're done and I'm trying to
take notes while listening which is mistake perhaps but um I didn't catch what all the colors stand for so could you repeat that and and are they defined because I haven't looked at this document yet are they explained at the
bottom okay okay then never mind you don't have to yeah so red is a new request that I saw for the first time this year or it seemed new to me um and blue is there's been some kind of update to the dollar amount it's gone up in cost or we've moved it um for the year
or both great how about the resident Capital requests we talked about they are not on here specifically some of them are inclusive of the other departments um and when those departments come in so um in particular
there are some in the public um works department around um traffic improvements and traffic calming specifically the there are uh correlations between that General request in that department and specific requests by residents capital and um
I've already talked with um Guilford a little bit about whether or not you know the those can be moved in here um you know that yes we're going to do some traffic calming things and of the money we're spending this year we're going to
do one of the um resident requests so they are not actually on this list specifically but you know we did present them to you last time but they are includ they would have to come in inclusive of these um other departments so kind of in conjunction with their
sort of larger ass here can Kathy can I ask a followup yeah you C you can do it because I have a separate set of questions well well but there's money set aside specifically for the resident request so wouldn't that be allocated to the department if
it's we we we don't actually set anything aside Sarah so it's always been a um either is it encompassed in an existing number or do we actually as a committee recommend an increase so EX
for example last year we increased the line for traffic Suns traffic cing for the um the various flashing lights that was an explicit recommendation that then the town manager did do I mean we had to
balance it off but we found money to do that so there's for a variety of reasons we've never had an openline item saying we think we're going to fund something call it resident and then you can't find it called resident
except by reading uh the words in the town manager's final plan which says some of this money is for okay okay thank you just we've never had it so Melissa I have I know we we're just looking at this for the very first
time but could you go back to the summary table I have a couple questions on that having stared at this now for six years one is the state aid in the capital plan we've always shown
chapter 90 and it's always about the same number 890,000 this time there's not and it's it's a wash because it comes in as a revenue and it goes out as an expense but it is an addition to the road money that we're allocating so we
don't make a decision about it and I'm seeing that you're not showing it yeah so we me a disc we had a discussion internally about this um partly brought up by the meeting that we had when we over Public Works which is with the area that in which this is covered and um
also um you know after we received your questions about it so when I was talking about it with um with Guilford and the Public Works team and Paul I said well it's kind of confusing to put it in there because that those funds are not
um they're not sort of under the purview of this department they sort of stand outside of jcpc but they're important notation I believe and I would include it in the um description when we put through for roads and sidewalks the there there's usually a large number and
there is a large request in this for additional funding for roads and sidewalks that you know we expect $800,000 of state aid that will complement this um complement this this Capital request
similarly um many of the other request EST in the Departments so you'll see one thing that I um that I remember from other communities and and is coming up again here is that um turnout gear for the fire department
there is an annual cost for turnout gear for the fire department there are also grants available for that turnout gear and so this year they're asking for significantly less than they've asked for in years past because they have some grant money in order to buy additional turnout gear therefore um the amount
that they need for turnout gear this year is less and so while they're only asking for 20 it typically costs them $50,000 a year this year they're still spending 50,000 but the request that comes through jcpc is a matching number
and so to me what makes more sense and you know kind of what we talked about internally is to sort of say you know the grant money which chapter 90 is an essentially it's an entitlement type of Grant but it it is grant money does not
fall within the this is general fund money and tax um tax revenue to support Capital which is separate um from uh other funding sources like um like a grant or a state aid so that's why we we
took it out but well we can come back to this next time but I would argue against taking it out because people it's a regular allocation and yes jcpc doesn't say anything about it other than in addition to whatever cash we put in roads there's this but it's always been
in the capital plan always and one of the interesting things of of always seeing it is the state is not increasing it and I think to lose the path in I'm talking about the town manager's Capital Improvement plan that line has always
appeared in it so I think taking it out is a mistake and we can come back to that and then I have just one other question and I see that Bridget has one in the projected debt where is the Jones Library Jones Library there is no uh
debt for um currently for the Jones Library there is projected debt uh in um the future years um so you know there's
no you know projected debt is is is here but like I said right now there is no um new like the million dollars from last year if you project it in this year what it
does is take it takes that away from things that we could actually spend it on so I understand I'm just does this mean the reason I'm asking is that if the if the project moves forward you will have to it triggers the $46 million
or the correct and so I think we have to show it now what I don't know is um in FY 26 which is the year that starts in July of this of FY 25 how much will be
in that 12month cycle but I think we have to show it because we can't until we say that project is not a go in FY 26 we don't have that money to spend so that's I think it has to be in the line
so I don't know so that $200,000 is interest income for interest expense for bands okay so that's that's Jones and then Jones is included in that and then you have it and then in the actual debt any authorized debt that I'm projecting
a small pay down on on short-term debt okay so like if we had to borrow a million or two for for to get Jones started before the end of the fiscal year which we may or may not you know but if we had to do that then we could do a pay down of that of you
know 100 or 200,000 and that is included we did have some money um in this actual debt for debt that is authorized but unissued that we anticipate we will have to borrow there's about $5 million that we anticipate we'll have to borrow of
previous authorizations okay so this is these are different numbers than we've seen in the past but you're saying that they are in there in either one line or the other line Jones Jones is in okay y that that was my question and I not at the same level that you've seen it in the past to be to be fair because I
don't I didn't I don't I don't I don't anticipate borrowing $15 million you know tomorrow for it okay Bridget my question is just like a really um logistical one like is there a chat or someone or you can put the links
to the document because when I go into the Civic engageed document Center last night they were there but right now when I link through it says no documents so I just like to be able to read it we don't have a chat but you go into the Amis mass.gov then you go to
jcpc yep and this document that we're looking at it wasn't there this morning so Melissa said she just added it now then you have to go into the packets and the packet for today um so what what I suggest since we're all seeing it
literally for the first time we'll come back to it next week um so people can look at it and Melissa I don't know whether you know which set of projects she'll be coming to us with I've asked a couple of departments nobody's got back to me about their best dat okay so so if
you can at least let us know even if they haven't put them in then we can focus the the next set of sheets show what those projects are so people can at least look at both the summary table and the project list if that makes sense to people you know to come back to this
in the context we'll be looking at additional departments next week Bridget you I don't I can we don't our our um we don't have any chats in this for me know type it in for you I
found I found it following what you said but the what um what had been sent last night when I clicked through to that it didn't go to the same things I was able before to find the it one right and so this is now in addition
to what was in for it this has been now put in so this document is I just clicked on it it's the only reason I know because I I found it I'm I'm able to look at it over my iPad so Nat I see your hand is up yes
just um in terms of navigating this new document if I look at the very bottom for FY 26 it comes out grand total of 7.2 eight whatever million y I'm wondering does this appear on the first
summary page anywhere where would I find that 7.23 so I believe that it's the five5 um I believe it's the the five it's this it's the
550 nine right plus the um plus the million one plus the 674 so what she saying that is that part of it being borrowed so it's not showing up as the cash I see and so you're
you're you're seeing them um in the year we borrow the money it doesn't show up as uh uh it it it bumps up if we approve that project it's going to bump up actual debt once once once it's on the
books okay got it Lee um I'm just wondering if any of the activities that are going on in Washington DC impact what we're thinking about for our
budgets so I will say that um this this particular it impacts budgets as a whole like when we think of the overall community and when we think about Capital this Capital before this committee is generated
um from tax dollars local tax dollars so that number is money that um we will collect so it doesn't impact this directly however um many of these departments specifically I was looking at sustainability has an annual
appropriation in the capital plan to to uh fund um projects within the community that um Elevate or increase our sustainability in the town of ammer um it's a large ask annually and she's
usually able to use that money in conjunction with federal grants and so when I was trying to you know pair down all these requests and I looked at that um initially I had sort of reduced that slightly knowing how harmful that is
based on the fact that she's losing money in other places so I would say to to some things um that because Federal money um helps support a lot of capital that isn't shown in this committee um that they are losing money in other
places so this request um they they have a larger dependence on I would say it that way thank you and and Lee the the one that would could potentially directly
affect these estimates is the library has two federal grants oh so many things no no but many things no no but but those two there's an assumption that we will have those grants in these numbers you know in terms of sources of funds
otherwise um the school project is funded by a tax increase so it's not going to be directly affected by federal so so so these are all in the packet and I think everyone these all these questions are
excellent so as more occur to you coming in back with them next week in the context of more projects because one of the one of the issues that you can see as Melissa said she's focused on 26 but
27 28 29 and 30 don't look very good in terms of the bottom line so n that that easy oh we'll just borrow a bit doesn't work as well when we get out to the Future and we'll spend a a little at least a little bit of time looking at
the whole five years but most of it will focus on FY 26 so I think we can move on Melissa to it just just sit's request and he's done a spreadsheet so I'm going to just share
that um with you guys instead of this because then we can just look at and I can know what this is here but we can just look at his um his spreadsheet
um so that um instead of the whole larger picture cuz um and um if if you want um Sean just let me know um if you want me
to put up your um your individual um uh form requests as well ready for me to jump into it yeah okay um so thanks um for anybody who I haven't met yet I'm Sean Hannah I'm the
IT director for the town um most of this is um pretty boring and and hopefully straightforward um the main thing we tend to ask for every year in in capital is um falls under the line
of infrastructure um and it's it's basically all the normal equipment that we replace on some sort of cycle um and so what you can see is everything up to the and this was just kind of a draft um
spreadsheet we put together so some of the the not everything's spelled out completely but the um infrastructure infr infr total is our infrastructure so um on an annual basis we replace um
trying to think it works out to about 75 PCS every year we we go about five years on our on our computers um servers we replace on a cycle and you can see those going out we we did this out 10 years just because
for us there's some things that end up being a 5year cycle and it's easier for us to to catch them um when we do a fiveyear plan they they end up falling off the last year so that's why that's why you see 10 years out um servers we're not asking for
anything this year switches is Network switches so that's basically what's in every building that connects the fiber that connects all the equipment together um the UPS is the battery backup system that um it's a fairly expensive one and
it's because it's in our in police department and it basically runs battery backup for all of our servers but it also backs up the Dispatch Center so it's it's hardwired and all the computers and dispatch and basically all the equipment in the Dispatch Center is
powered by that um and then telephones we um we replace our phone system about 5 years ago and the um the handsets tend to um tend to fail slowly so we're just starting to starting to plan to replace
some of those some of those every year um so that's where you see the the subtotal of 219 that's that's that equipment um the next I don't know we want to just
run through everything and then take all the questions at the end that make sense yep um okay um the next one down is the disaster recovery system that's one that I hope to eliminate we applied for a community compact Grant um for that
equipment and it's um it's basically our the town's turn to get one of those a state um will will give us one of those every other year um typically so um we we believe we have a pretty good shot at getting
that um the state has a a pool of money they tend to not have enough money to fund everybody's request fully so we anticipate that they may come back and offer us less than what we asked for so
that that number um we hope to reduce um or eliminate um if we reduce it it should be reduced pretty significantly um the next one's a little more um involved in the um the description of
it but it's it's in conjunction with Melissa's um with Melissa's department and it's a um it's a budgeting it's in there as budgeting software but it's it's really a whole system for how we um basic the
whole the whole process of the budget cycle um and it does it does some really neat things it takes our stuff from Unice um it puts it in there and so it offers a lot of transparency as far as how money is spent in in town and gives
gives everybody gives anybody who's interested kind of a real time view of that um it also it also gives department heads um a much easier way to access
their budgets and see where they are on on during the year on their budget spend um right now we use a system called munus which you've probably seen reports from um and they're they're not very user friendly so as new department heads start and they want to see how much of
their budget spend they've spent it's uh it's not very user friendly so this this would enhance that um so I don't know if um if you have anything you wanted to add that Melissa or sure so so there are
um you know I looked at um a couple of different softwares that are available and used by our um peer communities here in Massachusetts that um they're like budget and budget and planning software this um particular uh you know the one
of course that is the most robust and has the most to offer is the most expensive there are cheaper versions than this this large um acquisition and I would say though that the one that
um I would say that although that in the implementation The Upfront cost of it is significantly more the ongoing um year-over-year support meaning the long-term use of it those prices are very comparable so we would get them um
by spending a little bit more in The Upfront um and that's why the request is so high so you know if you might ask me could you do this for less and I would say yes we absolutely could I could probably do it for you know under $20,000 but the maintenance cost would
still be $35,000 a year so what you know what would we get in the long run would be much better if we spend a little bit more upfront so I just want a full disclosure are there uh less expensive options yes there are um the one that I
um am most interested in is uh a software that we are familiar with we have other versions of that here in the community and it has um it's a budget and planning software so it doesn't just do budgets it does Financial reports
planning reports it has a community outreach um feature um it has um interactive maps it um creates a lot of um every document that you put um out
that's a PDF um there is an issue with ADA compliance these um they're called dashboards that it creates for our um budget and our um and our financial documents for both internal um users
such as the finance committee jcpc uh it has a huge capital u module for this kind of planning um and it goes back to and links to all the um data that we have used in the past so the historical data can be pulled forward
from what how we've reported it in munice um and then presents it in a different way and you know these spreadsheets that we um give you here they're all in trying to do the same thing and being completely transparent and but I find them to be
really challenging and I know that um you know we've had several discussions in this committee and in in other committees about how they're not the same and that they're they're you know seven different spreadsheets trying to communicate the same information and do they all say the same things and are
they all pulling the same data and it would make me feel more comfortable to have something where it I know it's coming from our financial system and then I can elaborate on it and be give give those quarterly reports Kathy that we give we would be able to get them to
update on their own and then we would just need to write the narrative we wouldn't have to do the you know oh you know well we report it this different way we need to add another fund so that we can EXP exp laain things because of the unique way that
our relationships are between our school system and our um town and the regional school and what we report from there and how we report the ammer schools within the town budget these sort of exceptions where you can't just spit a report out of
munice without explaining how one account is reflected in another um and it would um for the departments um one of the comments that we've received from many of our um internal Apartments is
not getting there um monthly and quarterly how am I doing in my department budget because it's more than just my operating budget because so many of our departments are operating their um departments with grants and revolving
funds and gifs accounts um in order to support the full operations of their um department so an Department like w department or a department like Council on Aging where they have evolving funds or gift accounts that help support their day-to-day operations they can't see
that all in one place and this would allow us to build something that is easy for us to communicate with our departments um where you know reading Financial reports is not their it's not their job it's not their specialty it's not their interest but you know communicate it into a way that is useful
for them and that they can um be most effective in their departments and we can do a better job of communicating to them and to the public about what these numbers really mean and um build consistency around it so that's my big sell on that it would save me a lot of
time I will say that selfishly I would love it um but there are reasons Beyond you know the ease of use for me but just sort of being able to give more consistent information and then when you ask for questions of us of like well how much does it really cost to hire Melissa
you know what are her benefits cost all that stuff would be pulling from our payroll system and we'd be able to roll up the true cost of our benefits um and while they wouldn't say well Melissa you know pick the most expensive health insurance plan it would be able to say
in the finance department we spend X number of dollars on health insurance in the um it Department we you know we have this much liability for vacation like just sort of those sort of real numbers because they would be associated with
the um liabilities that we are truly carrying in our payroll system so it just would give us access to um a lot of information that we manually calculate right now um that I think people have been asking for and we've we've been struggling to deliver on so that's
my yes please I see Bob's hand is up and then Sarah yeah I just and just um before other question questions um one last thing that's on there is the Jones where say Jones Library um that should just say Jones Library
infrastructure so it's the the town support of Jones Library it infrastructure so it's it's basically the same the same sorts of things that um we show at the top that adds up to that subtotal it's that for the Jones
library and why you see a um increases in FY 27 is just in an in anticipation of um them needing needing more equipments when they renovated so Sean is that actually
equipment is that like PCS is that yeah it's it's um it's mostly computers um printers Network switches um Wi-Fi access points um it's it's basically any
of the it Capital Equipment um so it's it's it's mostly PCS so Bob and then Sarah and Leah I don't know whether your hand is now up for this no sorry that's okay so Bob then Sarah and then Bridget yeah I Sean
I had a couple of questions the the UPS battery backup you you don't have it down except for in FY 26 it seems like that's something that we need to replace or we need might may need to replace sooner than you
know 10 years out or yeah and the reason I don't have that is I was just waiting to hear back from the vendor on on what kind of estimated lifetime we should expect out of that um the one that we're on now is is actually slightly over 10
years old um luckily it's it's modular and we've we've been able to replace Parts in it um and but it's it's end of life end of support so we can we can't buy parts for it anymore um so yeah so we it should go in um one
of the future fiscal years I just I if I had to guess I would say it's probably about eight years um that we should anticipate that but um but not knowing that but that's a good point it it definitely belongs in there in a out
fiscal year as well um and um you didn't it's not in FY 26 but what is a B map oh so Bas map is our GIS um base map um so it's it's part of
the flyover but it also um they do a a flyover um with lar that ends up in GIS um but it does a lot more than just the imagery what they do is they update all the foliage but they update the
buildings and the um the engineering department uses that quite extensively for their their planning when they you know when they designed the the North Common they used the the base map with the features that were there um kind of
as a starting point okay that's that's something we typically update every every five actually I think it's a little more than five years so okay okay and um I'm maybe you covered this but I'm the the fiber
expansion again in 28 and 29 it's not in this year coming up but you you have a a grant down there is that something that we can expect a grant for or we would apply for a grant yeah so we're we're going to apply for a grant um and
actually opens up March 10th um and it's the the state tends to do um offer those to towns cities and towns every other year um so it's it's basically our turn um and we expect that we
will We we'll be eligible for it we expect we would get it and if that's the case then um we expect that we would eliminate both of those FY 28 and 29 asks um right and if this is fi fiber
expansion I mean is this just to expand fiber with that within our system or yeah so we um so as part of the um the last cable agreement we no longer had access to the fiber optic cable that
that Comcast was providing as part of the franchise agreement so the town um used by used some of the franchise um Capital money to install fiber so we
have two two fiber Rings um connecting most of our buildings um but we still have some places that are are not connected our wastewater treatment plant um we have our ring is
not closed in one spot um so we're working with UMass UMass agreed to let us use their conduit um but now we need money to buy the fiber and have somebody install it and and splice it and put the close that ring and so then we
potentially would connect some some of the other buildings okay hey thanks yeah Sarah thank you excuse me I just want to make sure Lee's okay you all right Lee yeah okay okay you just got I don't know
okay good um so one question for uh Sean and then a bunch for um Melissa if I can so the grant you've applied for for the disaster recovery system when do you expect to be notified about that I would expect in the next month or
two I I I would hope that we would know before um potentially before before you complete your jcpc process um it was I don't know that they gave a date um when
they would announce it I I'll look and see when they've announced it historically um it's it kind of falls on typically under the lieutenant governor um but the deadline for it was
late January um that we applied for it so it's I I hope that my hope is to hear for it before before you get too much further into this process okay great thank you um and now Melissa about this
this fantastic software um what if anything do we currently spend on a subscription or maintenance or anything else is this all going to be net cost to us although it'll be saving time for you
and right so so it is um so there they it it depends so right now we don't have anything as far as a budget um software that we are spending a prescription on other than munice and munice is a
financial system and doesn't really do reporting very well and so this is a reporting type of software um for it this the one that I like and the one that I I am looking at the one that's more expensive um has um a public
Outreach um component to it that we currently use something um for and have an annual subscription for that is about $10,000 if I remember correctly if the people who use the public Outreach
um product would be open to you know eliminating that that product using the product that is sort of Incorporated in this um planning and financial uh budget um so planning software then there might
there could potentially be that um that Savings of the 10 um but in addition of 35 so maybe we could save a little bit but yes this is all a new cost um to to the to the
community okay thank you um let's see I think I think I you implied that this if it doesn't include uh payroll or human resources functions it can at least pull the data is that right right it can pull the data
so they um multiple uh software all of the softwares that I looked at um have where they can um receive data from our financial system our payroll system where you can um right now we do when we're projecting out next year's uh
fiscal budget we go through and get every single employee what their step dat is okay they're going to be uh you know U Sean is um on step five he's going to step six next year that's going
to happen in December I'm making up things I have no idea what Don Johan's anniversary is um and so what is his salary um from um July 1 to December 10th and then what is it uh December 11th so we have to do all that on a
spreadsheet manually this would just pull the information all those dates are in our fin our uh payroll software calculate those numbers out also what's associated with Sean's um and my uh personal record is the fact that I have
X number of vacation days on the books that I um that my um uh I've elected health insurance that I've elected Dental you know and so what
are the true costs of employing Melissa zawatski yeah I understand the benefits that's great okay thank you um does this by any chance integrate with the public schools financial system so
it could and one when I first looked at um the software one of the things I SU suggested to this company because they were the first ones to you know they they they called cold and sold me and then I I looked at it and um I I looked
at my peers who had um elected for it and I was like wow this does a lot of things that we're trying to accomplish here and one of the things I had hoped to do in order to save costs was to share that with the school department um
so that you know we could do it together and then we would it this the pricing is based on our overall budget so you know do does it go up or down like per capita per it goes up as the
the larger your budget is the more it costs right and so the schools sort of included in our budgets in a lot of ways so um I okay uh and so I said well you know if the school used it too then
you know we could share the cost um so they said two things one I got them to quote me um based on our budget not including school's budget because we do report separately right you know like we
and um and then um the other thing was that um they said well if you wanted to do both that would be great but you probably don't want to do them at the same time because of the amount amount of work it takes to roll them out and
the roll out for um the schools would be completely different from ours because they do things differently so um I had reached out at the time um to them but then they had changes and I haven't
I haven't talked to Shannon again about this but certainly um if that was something they were interested in it would be much easier if we rolled it out if they if they did the same uh system that that we were doing it would be easier um sure for their setup now I
don't know to what extent you would I mean yeah the department reports to the school committee not to the town but I don't know if you ever want the school data if you do can you pull it from this from the school's existing
system with this so we see the ammer schools right data because they are we do not see the Regional Schools data at all right but how do you see it do you see it only we see it in munice I mean I okay I know how to you know read that
you know but um and so that will still be available right to see if okay yeah thank you that's all yeah and the only thing I would add in terms of getting kind of quantifying how much time goes into the budget um we had uh about five
years ago Maria rqa who was half it half Finance um would essentially disappear from it for half the year to to work on the budget so would I know at that point it was basically half half of an FTE to
prepare the budget so I know that that works when divied up and split out and and spread across multiple people now but it I don't think the I don't think the workload has decreased so this would this would be uh considerably more
efficient for people doing the budget and and I will say to that is when Maria was the person doing it yes it was a lot of work for that one person but she was the only person touching the sheets and now we have all these sheets and all of us touching them and I don't you know
Sean went in there and did something and then I did something just as an example oh now now the capital plan forecast doesn't match the budget forecast and they really need to be in alignment and if we were all working from the same data then and we could see you know who
changed what when where and how then I mean I spent hours trying to get these two these two Excel spreadsheets to to to to to say the same thing you know and part of it is my my learning um ammer process but um the other part is
just that it's not in one place it's in multiple places yep briet yeah thank you thanks Sean um wow just thinking of 75 computers a year I'm getting some concept of how big your job
is so thanks for what you do and um so I have a couple of questions like from this 529,000 I can see if it was approved as is 100,000 that budgeting software line fully for the town
35,000 fully for the library but how does it divide up in terms of other departments like the town Public Safety schools in terms of the cost per Department of what your request is yeah so we don't
um we don't break it out that way but that's a good um it's a good question it's something that we probably should at some point consider even putting in our operating budget just
kind of how um how things divide up for the most part um if you were to look at the operating budget and look at where the FTS fall per Department
it's it's it's not one to one but um it's um it's spread pretty evenly based on the number of users um police fire and DPW are a little different because they tend to have more
users than they do um computers whereas Town Hall bangs um um tend to have a PC basically a PC per user
um but would would you say though in the like in capital you know you're it's not one to one like you said but in the operating I mean there different departments have specialty softwares that that you as the IT department carry
the the annual cost for right so like yeah yeah so that would show up in in operating but in terms of in terms of capital it um I would I would say it's roughly proportional to the number of
users per Department um we could we could get an exact number of PCS per um department but um it's basically it's everything but the schools okay so the schools aren't included in correct
yeah it's everything everything but the schools and and obviously the libraries are are separated out okay super and one more question yeah I was looking back at last year and then looking at this year in the estimate like these fiveyear
spreadsheets were in the mid 200,000 so this is like almost double it seems like a pretty big jump so just wondering about that yeah we hadn't um we hadn't updated that five-year forecast in several years and
um a lot of it is inflation and then a lot of it's just kind of a backlog of things that we hadn't gotten to so the UPS is a good example of something that we hadn't but what we have now is is over 10 years old
um the disaster recovery system which is one that we hope to we hope to um be awarded the grant to fund that that's one that we didn't we didn't anticipate the cost of that with the with the servers we
purchased last year um so yeah it was it was largely a function of us not updating that um I I don't think we updated that in a few years and this and this software this budgeting software wasn't there
either Bridget I just wonder for the committee as a whole not for you personally Sean like when things come in like sort of like some things have been waiting in the queue for years and then other things come in like sort of um you know maybe
they haven't been updated or sort of last minute like how do we weigh those out and how do those relate especially since we've got this concept that we're doing a fiveyear planning process so maybe that's something we discuss more as we go so if I could answer that
Kathy sure so I would say that um you know like Sean said he's updated some pricing and I've done a little bit of work while I haven't balance the out years if if people have said well the cost of a new vehicle let's just because they're easy to think about right has gone from
$45,000 to 60,000 then we change the every other year for that vehicle we change that pricing out for the five years truth is I mean we should probably build an escalator in that every five years they go up you know I don't know
how much um but it's hard to say um and then I would also say while his prices increase here um it really if you take out the disaster recovery and the budgeting software it's still um it's
like 250 versus um 200 and that's just that's that's the true inflation and the other two projects are sort of stand alone outside of his normal ask is that fair to say Sean yes and I think that there was a small
um there was a small um amount in the um in the lines for um not nearly uh $100,000 I think it might have been like3 or $40,000 for departmental requests because from time to time sean
gets requests from um um you know like they get specialty software they updated in police or fire last year they got went to a new software and the these kind of things they come up from time to time where they uh a software is no
longer um being updated so they have to go to the new product didn't they do that with one of the ambulance reporting softwares last year or something yeah was our our fire the fire software they use that no longer support the federal U and state
reporting requirements that they have so we were forced to change yeah so they come up from time to time you know uh hopefully not as expensive as as this but you know that that's been then happening um with a lot of things lately
where we have technology of um and you'll see in um other departments where um communication equipment or um is um changing in the um Public Safety Arena
and so um they're needing to um they can no longer the their old systems can no longer be supported so they have to look at new systems so that's sort of what happens um to these these kinds of Technologies to over
time I have a I'm not seeing it hand so I'll just follow up on two things one on the budgeting software Melissa um As I understood it and then you went kind of quickly over there is less expensive so I think you don't have to answer it
right now but is there something at half the price that would do almost everything or what would we lose if we went to something less so just just looking at that um as a as a question and I I like the idea that this software
potentially could be used by the schools also so the question of you know can it be could it be used by the Regional Schools could it be it's already integrated with our elementary schools so it's sort of a question um yeah so the the so the there's I I talked to
with three different groups and there's really two that um I'm looking at um and certainly the this is open gov which we have in the town um with with you know a totally different program that they another
service they offer and then the other sort of main competition in Massachusetts where I have peer communities looking at them is a is something called clar goov so the cleargov um
software only does budgets it doesn't do financial reporting for the Departments it doesn't do um interactive um dashboards for internal Communications or committee correspondence and it doesn't do
anything for um the public Outreach so this software the open go what comes included in it is this sort of financial reporting on all levels and this um public Outreach where we can do surveys
um you know have people click on a map and say I you know I want you to um redo this park or I think there should be a pavilion here or I I don't even know I'm just making up stuff now or we need a traffic stop you know like if we're
doing a survey that way it's a very interactive public engagement none of that is offered on the other software and then unfortunately while this is very expensive upfront because it does do all of these things and it it's going to be very labor intensive to implement it
well um the problem is that um once we get past the first year of the $100,000 that subscription cost is essentially the same so the um prescription cost subscription cost for
cleargov was I think $30,000 a year this is $35,000 a year and this we might have the savings of our other uh public engagement software so it might actually be less overtime with a with what I
consider to be a better product and and for peer governments places like Northampton are there some in our Western region that are on the your preferred system uh I'm trying to get a sense of Boston might be on it but is a Northampton on
it and or Holo big systems versus smaller so hoolio is not Northampton is not um but like Province Town just recently went there they're eastern Mass communities that I know of and I think
there were some some like uh Brewster I saw the cape um Somerville has one of them I'm not sure which Cambridge went with the third
um the third software that I um it's called it's EU na it's the name of the company quiza is the name of the software I think Cambridge went with them but they are the only Massachusetts community that had that one and so
that's why I'm less interested in it CU I just know less about it um locally I can't remember I I T I typically looked at um eastern Mass communities that had the um the one that I liked um and then
I talked with uh Sandy perer uh Arlington has something but it was a self-built um program that the that people of Arlington built so he said uh you know they didn't they didn't have one of these but you know they had something that they had um developed
themselves any other questions on it I'm not seeing any so Sean we can thank you very I think one more hand came up oh okay n Nat's hand is up because then one one thing um just
getting back to disaster recovery system and the um the Grant application um if for some reason the grant does not come through this year is that something that we could apply
for next year and if so um is it what would be the consequence for delaying that um another year yeah um I our experience with that Grant is
every time we've applied for it we've got it so I I think we have a pretty good shot at it um if we were to not get it this year then I we absolutely could apply for it next
year so I think I think we could figure um we could potentially figure out a way to to push it out a year um or or we I guess if it is rejected by the
state finding out why why the state doesn't like it or why they wouldn't approve it so it's it's possible that we would apply for something else um next year with that that same Grant um it's a pretty the grant is pretty open to
basically any any IT projects that that improve the community so um there's there are other options so if we didn't get it for this this year um think we'd potentially consider applying for
something else next year so um so that disaster recovery system that's something that would absolutely need to be done in FY 26 if we want to put that off we we we potentially could could limp along and and push it out another
year if we needed to um I'm I'm just comparing I wasn't on the committee last year just looking at last year's report it looks like there was 302,000 for it and without that 180,000 assuming we
get the grant for the entire Mount this year the total would be 349 um this year not 529 so that 349 is still kind of closer to the bar ballpark of where we were last year so just yeah put things in perspective
yeah and I think too like Sean um I I think has he's applied for these grants in the past and um and I think what he does is he puts them on here in the event that he doesn't get the entire amount funded like so maybe gets 150 and
not the 180 so that you're not you're not surprised when the 30 comes up um for the balance and then also um you know sometimes the grants are competitive like I know that with the community compact Grant um you know I've applied for it for different things and
sometimes um you know just so many communities apply that you don't get it just cuz it wasn't your turn you know what I mean and and and then they to say oh apply next year you'll get it next year and that that kind of thing yeah um and
I I know that um you know one of the Chan and I had a conversation about could I apply for that Community compact for this budgeting software but because he's like we we if we both apply for something then we'll compete against
each other and his uh Disaster Recovery was a larger item so that's why um the decision was made to apply for for the um you know for the more expensive more expensive things is that fair to say
Sean yeah yeah absolutely I think that is done with questions on it which means Sean you can leave and thank you and we can thank you very much for joining it's been great you everybody so I want to just have a short
discussion on minutes there is a set of minutes in the packet but our process has been is someone does them and in the past if I wasn't doing them I then reviewed it this time Sarah reviewed it and caught um wording and a couple other
things so these have been reviewed and we haven't gone through them and voted on them we've just literally posted it so that so I see this set from last week as or two weeks ago as final and Melissa can go ahead and post it as long as
everyone's comfortable with that process and then I will be I will review and when I review we we're we're posting the recordings by Friday of every week so you can be taking notes while the meeting is happening but then you can kind of check it because the recording
gets up pretty fast to if you miss something and you can cross reference you don't have to collect all the detail that we talked about because you can refer to see the table in the packet so Sarah has volunteered for today and she
is already I've seen her as she said she's taking notes um everyone volunteered for time except for Bridget and holla and so I'll come back to you on the dates that are still available I'm looking forward um and then we can
figure out uh which so the dates that are still available Bridget are March 19th April 2nd April 9th a April 16th and I can do the minutes for that last one so I don't know whether you know you have a preferred one right now I sent an
email and I said March 19th do that work okay that's great I missed it got it so then we have just one person so then Sarah asked about format and if you what what we have done when it works is whatever the agenda for the meeting was
so today would be an exception for this because Melissa was able to get the 5year information in but we use the topics that are in the agenda to divide up the minutes and then it's a Word document so
you can get the minutes from the last meeting and it already says here are the attendees here Melissa's name which I was misspelling for quite some time Melissa with not putting the Z in the right place but all of that's already in
and then you can just go to the discussion of the day and wipe out the previous minutes so we try to make it as simple as possible as a Word document to just work on and I will send uh Sarah again well she already has it the word
document from the prior meeting and then you can just uh continue from that point on so we've tried to spend as little time with the minutes as possible I do have one um question about our meetings
we've got when Wednesdays as meetings and in my roll as chair I am going to be gone on April 2nd and April 9th um two of the Wednesdays as we go forward so I will see how far we've we are by uh you
know mid-march over the next couple weeks um it's possible we might skip one of those or if or if we needed to try to go a bit longer on others Andor reschedule but we have to have a meeting
where we discuss our um what we want to say in the report and then write a report and approve a report and for the most part uh that's at the end you know so the questions we just asked for that
on if if we need to balance the budget do we take the 180 out because we're going to either assume a grant or we're going to assume we apply for it next year so that gets us nearer to balancing those are the kind of discussions we could have about this um and 180 doesn't
get us all the way balanced but Melissa has brought us closer to balancing and then she can come back with well one of these could be debt financed if we go through all the projects and think they are all so high priority we can't see anything else big to get rid of and you
know one of the questions I will have Lee about the library is do we need to be buying computers if the library is going to be closed for two years you know be in a temporary workspace um that maybe you have enough equipment and and that's only a 30 or 40,000 but
it's money you know and if we don't need to budget we we don't need to budget for it so those are the kinds of discussions when we come back at if we can get through all the big departments and vehicles and then Bridget you wisely I think which we
haven't done has been looking at all four years and saying are we pretty sure that at least the biggies are on the list um you know with the best guess on the price tags on them we don't have to get it balanced but we should probably at least talk about how out of balance
it was and and draw attention to it I'm looking forward so I think that's all I had to say just on minutes and then looking forward and I see Melissa's hand is up go ahead Melissa so so I did want to say that as we get into the other departments there are other
um items like this 180 where people have grant opportunities so you know as out of balance as it is there are um other opportunities out there that we can talk about it's just that they haven't been you know they haven't gotten that award
letter yet so they need to say you know I need to do this we're doing the best we can to to do it a different way and so it you know it hope hope is that you know with 180 here and I know of another um fairly large item we could close that
Gap pretty quickly um and then you know maybe then we're talking about well if that's the case you know um do we restore something you know because certainly everything that was asked for is hasn't even been um
presented at this time just because it was so far so far out um that um it just wasn't possible and Melissa could I just ask I think it would be good to post these as two meetings as you to have the big
departments if people are okay with that if we can I can try to be as efficient as possible but but it will help us get through whichever departments are ready Sarah oh I just wanted to uh remind you or tell everyone I'll be away I'll miss
the next meeting um and I'm leaving town on Saturday morning so I will get the minutes to you Kathy by Friday night okay s Sarah uh Sarah um so I should I so I should tell the schools that maybe next meeting is not a
best time for them because I had put that out there for them I would really appreciate that as long as Bridget is not going to be away like the next week or right okay thank you that that thanks for mentioning that so so people can potentially will
be to our meetings and that would be allow us to when you look at this list of projects in the thing Melissa can schedule uh some of the big ones in terms of big groups and if we can get through in an hour and a half um but that will be great so I'm not saying we
will definitely go but we managed to talk a lot about it today so so so do I see I'm I'm just looking around the room for I know Nat you gave me a date that you were going to miss too so that's fine you know people just
let us know um and I think we are otherwise uh uh Bob Kathy we need we need to have someone designated as the chair for the next meeting since both you and Sarah are going to be away no no I'll be here
mine is mine is April mine is mine is I'm I'm good for all of March I won I I will I will be here the whole time not not to worry yes Sarah uh I think the agenda said we'd take public comments so I just
want to note that and there's no there are no attendees yeah and I see no yeah so I was going to open it up for public comments and I keep clicking Sarah and there aren't any public so therefore the agenda can say what we had last time no
public thank thank you very much for reminding me so is everyone comfortable with drawing the meeting to a close yes so I'm just going to say we are adjourned and it is 5:22 thank you all very much and Melissa
thank you for getting us I know the amount of work that went into that the tables that you put in um and we can expect to have a discussion back on those tables as we hit the other departments so thank you for pull yeah and I'll try and update them as we have
new information so that you know like if we know that a grant is awarded and that that Gap comes down or something like that that's great yeah so Melissa if if you're doing such a great job you're actually undercutting your argument for getting a new system
okay well I'll just say she she told us in finance that when she she has to hand enter some of the numbers in a quarterly report and then double check that she didn't have a typo I'm going oh not with a not not with a quarterly and it was
because of the alloc the allocation it wasn't that you didn't have the number but allocating it to the Right Slots so that was kind of cringeworthy hear that so thank you very much thank you everyone we are adjourned now at 523 thanks see you next week by