okay it's being recorded thanks so this is a meeting of the budget coordinating group uh it is in fact March 5th 2025 and we're calling the meeting to order at 12:02 uh I'm going to check to make sure
that you can hear and be heard I'll start with um Deb Leonard and Irv roads here thank you and then Nat Larsson present and I'm sorry Jennifer sha you're also
here present um okay and um finishing up the schools Tilman present and Shannon I'm here great and then for the library
Nat again present I'm sorry I did that already thank you okay and then for the Town Council um councelor hanii presid uh Andy Steinberg pres Anna dein gothier
present uh Paul present Melissa present Athena I'm present am I missing anybody okay councelor hanii you have your hand up yeah I just have a question um since Jennifer hasn't joined us before and the amorist school committee reps have been
clear as to whether they're ammer or region could Jennifer tell us whether she's ammer or region thank you Jennifer that's a good question I I was actually just uh attending as an um Observer um but I was sent the link so I
thought I would just observe okay do you want to put me in the attendees room I I really think it's fine we're not a voting body if you will uh and so welcome thank you so uh we're going to start with a couple of updates and I'm
going to turn to Paul and Melissa for those sure so I'll start and I think the first one is um slightly good news so last time we were together we talked about a significant increase in our health insurance of 19.9
2% um since that time our um uh are the insurance advisory committee which is made up of all the collective bargaining units in the town in the schools plus non-union uh retirees in the town of pelum have met we've reviewed our
coverages and everybody quickly recognized that that was an unsustainable increase so by making plan design changes um we've been able to reduce that increase from 19.9 2% to 14.2% so that helps everybody um it's
still higher than we had anticipated we had been budgeting 133% um and how we got it down is by basically it's really shifting cost um increasing deductibles increasing co- pays um looking at our different
coverages um we still feel we have a very good plan we uh align we look at plans being offered basically by the University at in the group insurance commission and we feel that this is still a competitive plan but it does shift cost to the employees but uh
recogn the employees have recognized that this is an important uh task um that they have to take on to support our budgets and reduce that significant increase so that's one of the good news pieces of information that we want to share today um so I can stop there yeah
H do you have a question about that I do Paul did you all consider uh Insurance buyouts um in terms of if folks incentivizing folks to sign on if they have the opportunity to do a family plan with their partner or something was that we do that we do that you do that
already okay that's been for many years yeah okay um we talked about maybe promoting that a little bit more for folks um things like that okay um yeah to get um yeah every strategy is we're looking at all the different strategies on that the second thing we want to
present is an update on our um budget projections which uh Melissa and Holly and others have been really working on to under the council's financial guidelines to be tighter in our projections and additional and and find
additional ways to um sort of manage our this very big very serious budget crisis that we're in so Melissa did you want to walk through that spreadsheet which you've all seen before but we it is always important to look at it
again so can am I showing the right screen I always worry about that you are you increase increase the size yeah okay so um this is the um the revenue portion of the sheet um and
I I have to say there aren't a whole lot of changes here a couple of notable changes from the last time that you saw this is that we um have decreased um the amount of miscellaneous and that just has to do with um a different way that
the um the the agreements with the colleges are um have been negotiated for future years so that Revenue just shows up in a different a different way so they have been um great Partners I just want to say that out loud this is not a
reflection of their lack of contribution it just shows up in a different part of our Municipal operations um and so is no longer available in the local receipts but um luckily um further down um we have increased um ambulance funding
slightly um actually looks significantly here but it's only slightly uh in advantage to the general fund budget and part of it uh is an increase in the ambulance ask for their Capital project so when we went through and matched the
um the capital requests with um with this sheet um we had to increase the U the ambulance uh funding projected for Capital had been for 70 or 450 and is
now 6 uh 75 so that 200 ,000 was um added to this um amount in addition to another um roughly 200,000 of that will flow into our general fund operations in support of ambulance service which is
part of the Town um part of appro up appropriation in the um expense section further down so the um decrease in the um miscellaneous um is is um being sort of
offset by ambulance so there's really no change to the revenue section of the budget um projections here as we move down to the um expense side the exciting news that we have is
that we were able to increase from three and a half to 4% this year um and and how we did that is that we looked at um like I said we uh see here this increase some people might recognize
this had been um 450 it's now 675 but again all that money comes from the ambulance fund which we saw above that went up by more than the the $225,000 difference here um but the majority of the our ability to increase
is that we've taken a look at some of these unappropriated uses here and this line here reserve for abatements and exemptions um we've had a practice which is consistent with do to um withhold 1% of
the tax um for um abatements and exemptions um we feel that we could probably try and go with half a percent this year and so we're going to try that out for this year and see how that works out um into
the following years but that allowed us to free up you know well over $300,000 which is what we have spread among the four um different um functional areas of the um or operating
budgets Town Elementary School Regional School and the Jones library and that is basically the only change from the last time let's pause for a moment and ask if there are questions Andy please go
ahead yeah I didn't I thought about this after you presented it to the finance committee yesterday um what has been our recent experience on the amount of abatements
and U exemptions that have been voted by the committee uh right so I think that they the reason that we thought we could do it less is that we you know they we haven't been using the full 1% so that's why we
thought we could try for um you know be more sort of a it's not it's more a um less conservative in our reserve for that um expense but is there an actual amount that we have averaged over the last
couple of years um I have not looked at that that's something that the you know it's part of um the close out of the recap but I I don't I don't know what are I don't I don't know what that is off the
top of my head be honest Holly Holly Drake welcome you've raised your hand you have something you want to add to that Holly you need to unmute I guess yes um I had the number in my head but I I want to confirm it before I do it Holly can you move your can you move
your um microphone thing down give me give me a minute and I will double check that I just want to make sure the number in my head is correct okay meantime Deb Leonard you have a question I I didn't catch it's 1% of what is the reserve that's reduced to a
half a percent of what the um it's um it's a calculation of um the tax number up here at the top taxes the base Levy does that include the um
the special assessment the um the over the the money for the elementary school building I don't I'm just doing the math quick in my head I don't believe so okay um okay um Holly whenever you're
ready just raise your hand okay um are there other questions about this and I I'd like to just pause for a moment and say when we go from 3.5% to 4% what amount of money are we
actually talking about total um no I had that written down uh yesterday it's it's like 300 and I think it's 380 I'll look it up if I can if I can
unshare for a second because I do have the exact number that's fine is there anybody else that needs to see the screen okay Anna you have a question or comment so I'm trying to figure out here um I'm
looking at the budget guidelines um and one of the things that they say is distribute proportionally to the four oper budgets unless the remaining funds to be distributed would result in more
than an additional .5 year-over-year increase to each major functional area at which point consult the finance committee so the reason why the finance committee and BCG don't need to be consulted is because you're keeping this to a 0 five increase is that
correct no we consulted with the finance committee yesterday okay can you give me a recap of that conversation I couldn't stay for the whole finance committee meeting and the reason why is one of the other elements you know that we talked about was trying to increase the um the
amount allocated to the to the schools prior to calculating the 3% in uh year-over-year um and I think the spirit of that is generally and broadly trying to increase the amount going to the schools so what I'm trying to figure out is if the conversation yesterday in
finance included a discussion of keeping the other areas where their initial discussion was and pushing the remaining 380 whatever it is towards the schools between the region and Elementary so the Pres the information is just presented
to the finance committee yesterday I don't think there's a row substantive other than trying to understand the data but there are other members of the finance committee here who could weigh in um councelor hanii um yeah so so we had just gotten the data that day not even ahead of time
because they were still working on it an hour ahead of time but one thing we asked was um how much if all of it was pushed to the schools additional for schools in total um and the answer to that was um
153,000 so of that additional increase that is now distributed across all four areas um 153,000 of it is for increases to the town and Jones library to go up from 3 and a half to 4 so it's not 380 it's
it's 153 of that re 80s all of it um so we asked at least what that number would be um there wasn't at least there wasn't a huge concern about there was some talk about should it go that way what Paul had mentioned
yesterday was that even at the 29.4 five million Town projection that the town budget is still approximately 10 no 380 ,000 um in deficit in other
words they are still working on Melissa wants to talk about that but but you know so so we were talking about that where without the increase from three and a half to 4% year-over-year the town budget at this time is still trying to find a half a million dollars worth of
decreases in savings to meet the 29 Million number um that is is currently in there so we heard that yesterday and then we did talk about what does this do to the regional assessment in particular is this if we increase from three and a half to four and I'm hoping we'll get
some conversation on that today does the regional budget actually increase by that extra hundred plus thousand or is it really just decreasing the assessments of the other towns so that that is a discussion for today we can't obviously discuss that yesterday the hope is that it would increase the
budget as a whole and also increase the contributions of the other towns but depending on what we hear today might might change what Finance says and and talks about later on in terms of that increase to the Regional Schools thank you Melissa you have your
hand up and then I'm gonna go back to Anna um so so I just wanted to say that um so um thank you for councelor hanii for taking such good notes the total increased to all the governmental areas
is 382,000 ,000 um and the increase uh like uh councelor hanii said um if we were to not increase the town or the library
that um those additional funds would be um the the total amount of that is $153,000 um and so what I wanted to say and I did hear um councelor hanii correct herself is that we are not we're short
um half a million dollars in our our operating when we put in just contractual changes and the um increases to Insurance not adjusting for um increas in costs that we that we all are
experiencing and so you know we just wanted to put it out there um with the um going from three and a half to um 4% that does bring us closer to a $400,000 whole um it's slightly over
$400,000 but again it doesn't even address some of um cost that that you know like everyone else here in this room um we have Rising costs that that are out of our control um that you
know occur year-over-year so and Anna you still have your hand up yeah did you want to add to that before I go back to Anna if I can just a brief um so the the half million dollar deficit is something that we have never experienced this late in the fiscal year
on the town side of the budget um it's just um usually that Gap is there and then we manage it through during the course of the budget as we get more information um and the only things that are being factored at this moment in time are required health insurance
increases and required um uh steps and and um collective bargaining agreements nothing else is being uh considered uh for the town side of the budget um so are we're going to be very challenged to
maintain a level Services budget it won't be level Services clearly because we're going to be using a lot more fun you know there's all the prices are going up people are trying to do more things we have more resources that we have to take care of um things like that um so I think where the towns side is
suffering at this year more than I've ever had in my time with the town of amest Anna I'm going to go back to you and then to Andy thank you so I wanted to clarify because I I have the most chaotic spreadsheet that I think I've ever created um so I know that the half
per for the library and the um Municipal together is 153 roughly and then the half a percent for the schools would be about 229 again roughly so I'm not understanding the statement that if we didn't add that 0.5 increase to the
library and municipal why it wouldn't be the full add those numbers together 382 or whatever it was I don't understand why that wouldn't be all going to the schools I think that statement was made so I wanted to clarify that um and so so
oh sorry Melissa go ahead I have other question well I was just going to say so there's four parts right um and it's 141 if if we break it up evenly as we have in the past you know just um it would be 141 for the town 134 for the elementary
schools 94 for the region and 115 11,500 for the library so if we removed the um if we added the 11 plus the 141
that's the 153 that's the amount that could be then redistributed you know among the schools at their same proportional rate which I figured out to be an um an additional 90 for the region um I
mean for the elementary and an additional 63 for the region so 150 for the it would be 150 for the region and then uh 225 for the elementary school okay if if
we were to only give it to the schools if that's the question you're asking no it it is that is the question I'm asking thank you so then the other things that you know respectfully I hear that we are all struggling with these increases and
you know Paul to your point you have never faced this type of deficit in the town on the town end since you've been here the schools have been navigating this type of deficit every year since you know going back at least since I've been on Council and I know that's a lot shorter than many other folks have been
involved but I think that this is and the and the schools are trying to close a larger Gap than the town is at this point so I think for me it's I want to look at what's causing the deficit and I heard you say insurance and step increases and things like that um those are also hitting the
schools that same the same way and the schools also have additional increases that I'm sure the town has their own version of that said I I don't know that it is Equitable of us to say we are striving for level services on the
municipal end and at the detriment of the schools being able to get anywhere close to level Services I'm not I don't think that the schools are going to get to level Services no matter what we do but um minimizing the the DraStic nature
of those cuts should be our priority in my mind um and I while it's a terrifying thing to say I think the town should consider looking at what services we need to eliminate in order to make up that deficit it instead of padding more cash
in Andy you have your hand up yeah I I I think that we actually are going in the direction of conversation that I was going to raise because uh we have had different approaches in
how to develop initial budgets between the schools and the town and I'm not going to even speak for the library because the library has actually been losing staff so if you go and say has
the library maintained level Services over the years I would have to say by understanding is the answer is absolutely not and uh so the question comes in is why we do level services for
some for one for two categories Regional and elementary schools and we don't do level Services as a measure for the others and that was sort of inherent
part of the discussion in the finance committee yesterday and I think should be considered in this group I'm gonna go to uh actually Paul did you have a clarification not clarification more
response I want to hear Deb first okay Deb please um I was reviewing uh the town budget from FY 25 and I um was looking at the benefits part and it said that um in fy2 the 9.74
increase for health insurance was balanced out by um the uh salary Reserve account do you still have the ability or are you planning on doing that for FY 26 because the the schools don't have that that comes out of um staff cuts that
comes from staff Cuts called uh bissa do you have a answer to that we can't hear you Holly will correct me if I'm wrong on this but um we put
um we have un we have incomplete um salary um negotiations so we have open contracts and so instead of putting um what we anticipate to be the um the
conse you know the outcome of those negotiations um we put that in a a salary Reserve so that if you know we assume that you know every contract's going to get a 1% a 2% whatever that
percentage we are assuming that that the negotiations will go to and again it's a it's assumption we haven't sat down and negotiated with those groups on what their their true outcomes we set that aside so instead of putting that in the
um uh planning Department's budget we set aside um funds um in a reserve for um those negoti so I I it that's it's just you know I think that there there must be a way that they are budgeting for that in the
schools like you know that you have salary um increases coming you have to plan that you're going to you're going to give something in that otherwise of of course you're not fully funded um I'm GNA ask whether Dr Z
welcome first of all or Shannon would like to answer how you accommodate for Sal um expectations coming from negotiations is it in a separate fund or is it um built in it's builtin um I I did raise my hand to answer answer the
question but it is builting we actually have a range um so we know how far of higher percentage we can go in terms of cola and so we built that in um knowing that if we are below that then there's
an opportunity for us to kind of you know adjust that and and save some positions but we can't go above it cuz we've already had a severe deficit uh so in other words both of us have them in our budgets we just label them separately the town labels them
separately the uh the schools budget them right into the line Holly you had your hand up did you have something else you want to add on that piece or something else yeah I just want just a very very brief explanation I think that what um Deb leard was referring to is um
in each section of the budget we list like the major changes and even though health insurance went up 99.7% in that employee benefits category it actually shows a decrease so we were just explaining how we can have a 9.7
increase and a in a in a decrease in the total overall budget and that is simply because even though our health insurance went up this one category called salary Reserve went down enough to offset that it's not more money it's just now
that that money is allocated out to 12 different departments instead of sitting in one bucket so it wasn't really that we were able to offset our salary increase fully we were only able to offset our salary
increase in this one area because of that that holding bucket that was there for salary reserves does that make a little more sense de does that U do you understand the way people have explained this now
I think I do I mean I think in the end um pluses and minuses translate to pluses and minuses so yeah where it comes from is where it comes from but in the end we're you know we reduced uh
positions last year because of that increase okay um so Paul you had your hand up for a while I want to go to you and then we'll look for other questions thank you so yeah so I think every public entity I've
ever worked with has a salary res orve account named in something or other some it's called contingency sometimes and it is money you set aside for potential collective bargaining increases when you don't have settled contracts we have next come July 1 we will have no Union
contracts settled so these are all unknowns for the town of ammer they are in negotiation with all sub six of our of our unit units and um you know have the same kind of budgetary constraints that the superintendent referenced you know so we try to project that out
that's our job as managers to give you a budget that we think will accommodate collective bargaining increases so we are fair in negotiating with our members you know in terms of the um you know I think it's a fair question why is the school uh often especially the region in
deficit when the town seems to not be right and I think there's a couple reasons for that one is there's a there's a structural challenge for the schools and that half of the we're all facing there's a lot of things first off schools we all know schools have um
escalating costs for many things especially the special ed Transportation things like that there that that you could even de be deemed uncontrolled because you don't have a lot of leeway when you have a contractual thing so there's those driving forces the town
has some of those things as well you know we running SE different services that require things but special ed is such a big piece of the school budget secondly for the region you know it's a separate budgetary entity it gets half
of its budget from the from state aid and that state aid is not going up very well so even if they get if if they get three and a half 4% from the town that's offset by a smaller increase by state age which makes the net increase to the
region lower and that's a very hard thing to take into consideration third thirdly uh I think you know one of the challenges for the district also is the assessment formula you have member cities and towns many many member towns who are not at their
full capacity for what for taxation nor are they paying what one could be deemed their fair share of what it cost to educate their students so that's a piece of it as well um and then the fourth thing is that sometimes it's just decisions that we have made um in how we
budget things and I think there's a different philosophy of budgeting whereas the town is more strict in its budgeting in terms of what positions we fund and what we when we add positions what we add the only positions that have been added to the town side of the budget are ones that the council has
requested the four additional fighter fighters uh and the crest department so other than that there have been no new Ires for the town of am no new additional positions um and so position control is crucial so I think the the
the metric to look at is how many people are employed today versus where they were 10 years ago that's the thing that 80% of our budgets are people so when you look at what the people costs are that's what what has to be looked at um and then you
know I think we were I just speak to I'm not going to talk about anybody else's but our budget we've been very disciplined in utilizing our one-time funds like arpa funds and things like that to manage one-time expenses versus incorporating them into on ongoing
expenses um so I think that that you know we're not in crisis you know if you may say we're not in crisis mode but I would argue that we are managing crisis every year to make to make sure we don't get into crisis mode okay uh I'm going
to start back with Holly did you have something you want to add perhaps you came up with that wonderful number sorry no my hand was still up but I do have that number um so the town is um averaging just over $200,000 a year
uh the do recommendation is the 1% that's what we have always followed um we are going to go to a half a percent this year and we are confident that we can convince the do that we can stay within that and we don't think that's going to hurt our T our um Bond rating
no okay thank you let me go uh Deb I'm going to go to a couple people that haven't spoken yet Irv please yes um thank you now after listening to Paul and uh uh one of the things uh that
comes to mind is that yeah our budgets are different in a lot of different ways uh and and Paul touched on our uncontrolled cost and expenses that we do not control the schools just do not control special ad because we have to
meet State mandates putting in position IEPs State mandated all of those State mandated costs that we have to bear we cannot not do them that's that that's not that's not
that that is not even an option that we have all right so that needs to be considered in terms of our budget when you look at trying to con contrast and compare us to other parts of the municipal
budget and the library budget that's we're we're talking about apples and oranges here and we need to stop talking about that and start talking about apples or apples so as that's one two myself and Deb Le Leonard over the last
couple weeks of taken a deep dive into our uh the elementary school budget because that's we're representing today because we're we're in that although we have spill over to the the region and I can let Deb talk about with her sense of
it but my sense of it is that the ele this is hard the elementary schools are in a position where it cannot cut itself out of
deficits there no there's no way for us to do it Town Council Paul could allocate us enough money this year to eliminate our deficits which would be great and if he said we he would do that
if we promised we wouldn't be in the same position next year we couldn't say that because we will be in the same position next year we will be there and so there are some hard conversations that need to happen
between the town finance committee Town Council the school committee School Employees and unions hard conversations because if we do not have those hard
conversations and some concessions made we will always be in this position I will like to ask to town Paul and the council to help the schools elementary
schools eliminate as much of as 1.4 deficit expected as possible those cuts are not only honorous but they're hurtful to our
students I mean very hurtful you know we there's a huge difference between a Poole and a kit so we we have to have something there to take care of that I'm looking at this as a transitional
year because the following year we need to have some serious conversations and I mean that everyone every the schools School staff and all all of us in this in in the school Community have to look at our
fixed cost those fixed costs cannot be continuing at the same level that they are it's unsustainable and I know that a lot of
Union people probably throwing eggs at my house that's true it it is true and we as a schools and the town need to come together to figure out how we can deal with the
those two areas the fixed cost that we have and our uncontrolled expenses but it's the fixed cost which are Troublesome very Troublesome thank you
IR thank you first of all for the time you and Jennifer are spending no Jennifer Deb I'm sorry Deb you that you and Deb are spending um can I just ask you when you say this is a transitional year which year are you ref referring to
fy2 F 26 fiscal 26 all right so um and when you said you if we wiped out the deficit this year you would still come back with one for next year and that would be FY 27 yes okay thank you for that
clarification um councelor hanii can I go on to tman and then back to you and Deb okay tomman thank you yeah so first of all um I'm delighted to see that there some additional money and thank you for finding that um I don't want to
speak to the budget in too much detail but I want to support councelor Devan go here's point about the schools really need the money and so I hope that um this will be considered um level Services is far away from where we are for the region and and the other
schools um so I just want to point out that the schools are cutting and so we're we're reducing the expenses but this can only go so far um it is a little unfortunate that and we have meetings where we learn about what the what the impact of these
are that are in the realm of the school committee and so you know we hear from the the teachers and and the staff from the schools about what this really means on the ground um but the school committee of course is trying to get as much resources for the schools as is
feasible and so um if you want to hear what what the impacts are really in terms of what it means for our students um I encourage you to uh revisit the budget hearing from the regional school committee and I'm sure there was a similar meeting with the um with the elementary schools um just to get a
sense of you know this this really does matter um I want to comment quickly on the other towns because there was a question earlier you know what what would the other towns do um I cannot speak for you know any of the towns officially but my sense is that if emmer
increases their contribution to the budget and the the towns would follow suit somewhat proportionally and um that would mean that overall uh the available resources for the region would go up and and that would be desirable to reduce the cuts that I mentioned um I I do want
to point out one thing that the select board from Lever has asked me to please repeat and convey to the town of Amherst and and the discussion because this just came up um both at the four towns meeting and in this meeting it was said that you know that that that some towns
have uh paid their fair share and this the way this sounds is maybe a little bit confusing because lever in particular and all the other towns have
paid exactly what they were asked to pay in all the previous budget years the formula was different and because of that there was an imbalance but no town was ever asked to pay more and then said no we're not paying this right and the formula has changed this
year because the towns want to do this differently um but to go then back and say oh you didn't pay your fair share is I guess you can interpret it that way but nobody asked lever to pay more lever was in four towns meeting and said we're happy to give more we want to increase
the percentages but because of the way we had the formula with the with the guard rails that wasn't done and so I I I ask kindly that we please don't position it as if the town intentionally did not pay what they should have paid right it
was what the formula was and what they were asked to pay we're now changing the formula and the towns are willing as far as I understand to adjust to the new formula but for some sometimes that's a very large percentage difference to the last year and so we cannot adjust in one
year that's just not a feasible thing to you know tell a town you go up by 17% so we need to find a path to to get to the right one but um I just want to make sure that in terms of the Nar that we don't make it sound as if the towns weren't willing to pay their part thank youman thank you for delivering the
message from your select board uh I'm going to go to counselor hanii and then I'm going to go to Deb and then to Anna again councelor Han thank you um I have a couple of questions and concerns for all of the school committee
Representatives both regional and local um Irv I appreciate you saying we won't even if we gave you and and found a way to allocate an extra million dollars to the elementary school um for example
that next year you would probably be asking for an extra million dollars above a three and a half or 4 per increase again that that this is not a solution that you're asking for that would solve it for more than just next year that this is an ongoing problem um my
concern is that there has not been any presentation as to how to solve the ongoing problem so I appreciate saying hearing her of say it needs solved and we need to look at it I am concerned that there is a a statement
that this is a transitional year that statement was used last year by all of the regional school committee members to argue for an additional contribution to this year's budget um and say well we would do the hard work within that year
to solve the problem well we haven't seen that hard work I'm just going to be blunt because you're again telling us there is a deficit and we need more money and we want more money and and you're not getting enough money um and
so so I hesitate to to accept that it would be a transitional year recognizing that there is a consolidation in FY 27 which is why I have repeatedly said if you are seeking
more money in the elementary schools to bridge that gap for FY 26 only show us how in FY 27 the FY 27 budget can fit in closer to a 4% year-over-year increase
this year and a three and a half to 4% year-over-year increase into FY 27 because then I would have the information to believe that it really is a transitional year but right now I don't really have that information
um so I'm again asking for that plan so to our elementary school committee members um that are representing here have you been advocating at the regional school committee level to be at a regional agreement method that includes a 4% total
year-over-year increase that would assess all of the towns at the regional agreement method because if you were amr's Regional agreement assessment would be a approximately 220,000 lower than a 3 and 1 half%
year-over-year increase I haven't done the math for a 4% year over a year so it would be even higher which we could then reallocate to the elementary schools and the Regional School would still get its four a full 4%
year-over-year total assessment increase and so by not add so I want to know whether at the region you're advocating to use the regional assessment method at a 4% total year-over-year increase a total assessment so that it would allow
the town to reallocate the over assessment the town is paying as compared to the or is is being asked to pay as compared to the regional assessment method we could reallocate that to your elementary school budget in the guise of hundreds
of thousands of dollars for the Regional School members a Tillman I appreciate what the Leverett select board is saying that yes what has been agreed upon is what they have paid but when you look at the
numbers and this is my concern going forward if we were at the Regional School assessment last year on the total assessment and I'm assuming a 4% total assessment increase this year Leverett would be facing if they were at Regional last year and we did Regional this year
lever would be facing a 7.34 year-over-year increase in their assessment pelum would be sa facing an 11.59 year-over-year percent increase in their assessment if we were already at those Regional agreed assessment shares
both years because of how the shares change yet Leverett this year has advocated for no more than a six and a half year-over-year assessment increase for their budget it gets them farther away from the regional assessment method
this year the plan is then what they would be even if we were already at Regional agreement methods but we're not even there and so Leverett last year was 60,000 under the regional agreement method at the max they've said they'd
pay this year they are $78,000 below the regional agreement method I fail to see how that gets Leverett closer to paying its Regional agreement method and gets us closer to
the regional agreement so yes they haven't declined but we're getting farther away and if Leverett met its Regional agreement share with a 4% year-over-year increase um well if Leverett met its Regional share based on an ammer
year-over-year increase of three and a half% and if pelum met it which at the proposed 4% year-over-year increase total pelum is $143,000 below its Regional assessment method the region if based on a 3%
year-over-year increase for ammer and everyone else followed their correct share for next year's Regional agreement FY 26 Regional agreement method the region would receive $276,000 more in budget and so at the region for the regional school
committee members my question is what are you doing to Advocate at Leverett and pelum to meet those Regional agreement shares to increase the regional agreement total assessment
so that the region gets more money not on the backs of ammer taxpayers but on the backs of those that are below their Regional agreement share and I must say I watched the regional agreement budget hearing I watched the ammer committee budget hearing and I was very
disappointed that at the region everyone talked about more money from ammer no one talked about more money from pelum or Leverett even though it is pelman Leverett that is below the regional agreement assessment share in all of the
proposals so what is the regional school committee doing to Advocate at pelum and Leverett to bring them closer than they were last year which the current plan does not to bring them closer to the regional agreement share which would
increase the Region's total budget hin I know there's others in front of me but I have a situation that I need to um please go ahead address and I I I would be remissed if I don't say this after
counselor um hanaki started speaking and she spoke about the work and no work was done I I immediately did not hear any of the questions that that was said after that and the reason being is because I found it to be and I'm a very direct
person so I appreciate your directness I F I F feel like it's very disrespectful to me and my leadership team that have worked since September to analyze and find areas within each one of the districts and how we can save how we can consolidate and how we can make sure that Educational Systems are Run for the
question at the regional level and I want to be clear some of the things that occur and why the individuals may have referred to Amorous is because they were all Amorous residents that sat there and they had concerns from My Lens as someone who has come into this district from July even when I think about
capital and how the district the the use of our buildings when I receive emails from upset parents because the pool is not functioning or I have individuals and Partnerships some of the deeper Partnerships and use of regional facilities come into ammer out of the other three towns that's okay because we
serve four Towns at the region I think the conversation is even at the ammer elementary meetings and looking at the budgets is how are we truly supporting what we say value which is educating our children and I know that the committee
members are going to talk more about that but we have been working to look at innovative ways and even in that we are met with children who have vast and varied needs and as those needs shift and change whether they are residents or not we have to meet them as an
educational system and that comes with a cost and so for me to ever hear as a leader of this District regardless of what any individual may think I think of my my staff I know my staff works very hard they have been very Innovative and looked at various models they've met
with every town and from my understanding no town is meeting what the assessment method is asking of them including ammer so for me it would be great if all four towns step up to the plate and if there needs to be an amendment to the regional agreement then
let's do so which is what we have been saying at our four towns meeting repeatedly if we do not agree on something we would have to revert back back to what is currently there which does raise and Shannon can correct me ammer above the 3 and a half% that you
have put into your financial guidelines so if we are going to talk about one we should talk about all but I will not allow anyone to ever say that the staff at these three districts did not work hard and did not come up with any innovative ways to try to consolidate
and still run an educational system not when I'm leading it thank you all I need to step away and I'm sure Shannon will leave me thank you thank you all right um Deb I'm going to go back to
you um I wanted to I wanted to say one thing going back to something Paul said in the beginning because I think part of the conversation part of the difficulty in the conversation is facts and we all get different facts so um if you look at
the region and I know I'm here representing Amor but you were referring to the region so state assments is not half of our budget it's it's 27% um so if you're looking for yes I
understand you know hold harmless flat level funding and all that stuff that's not going to save us either so I just wanted to say you know and if you look at the difference between the governor's budget and the additional increments that will
come through as the um as a legislature considers um above minimum Aid per pupil it's not going to translate into it might translate into a
paraprofessional it's not going to make or break our budget problem um so that's one thing I just wanted to say um and then I'm going to start with another thing I wanted to say about
what I've learned about school Finance the structure is complicated but in some ways very simple to understand it's never supposed to be a proportional amount it starts that way
so there's a minimum amount required by uh the state for the mandatory contributions for each of the districts it's never proportional to the amount the S the per pupal amount it's based on the relative
wealth of the towns so it's never going to be fair from a percentage point of view the differential is what what is being discussed so there's Transportation costs that are like flat
out just determined ahead of time the proportions there's the the um fixed assets also determined way ahead of time mandatory contribution determined by the state based on population but based on a
complicated formula of things that Shannon understands so of that for FY 26 there's $16 million of our budget that is not divvied up any other way the assessment method is the
balance between what additional things we are asking for Beyond well the 16 million plus the 12 plus that comes in from other sources so it's it's about 50% of our total budget that we're
deciding how to divide amongst the towns so again just want to read that into the record as something that that should not continue to perpetuate that that just misunderstanding of how that money is divided up and I I recognized that I was
the person who said Give me a year and I maintain it was the right thing to do I have a superintendent now making her decisions about what she thinks should be done at all levels with consultation
of building principles um so I think it was the right thing did I work did I not do anything I didn't produce anything you are absolutely right I did not come back
with a single dollar did I not do any work I would tell you that my children are very concerned about my well-being I don't sleep well I have conversations all out in many different directions I have not pursued project
211 but I am aware I've been in contact with State officials I've been in contact with local officials I've been in contact with our Senator our representative I have followed the budgeting process I have followed bills
I have read bills I have brought bills to the attention of our state representatives I have dive deeply into our budgeting the town's budgeting local budgeting Regional budgeting I have I
can't tell you how hard I have worked this past year so I'm sorry I'm not bringing you with better news but I can't print money either so I have been working extremely hard and no I don't have great news and
the great news is there is a structural problem and it would be great if that could be resolved by state funding so it would also be great the only thing that's going to give us any budgetary relief for FY
26 is if more fair share money is used in in the very small areas that they're talking about the only significant change for our districts is going to be if they fund rural school aid at a higher level
than they did last year and that's within the abilities to do this year so last year the recommendation that came down from the legislative Council group that studied it was $60
million in rural school aid and it came in in 16 million so if they could fund it at a higher level that would help so if you could advocate for that that would be helpful for us we have been and
we will continue to be and in particular um on March 24th the how The Joint Committee for the house Ways and Means will be holding a public meeting at UMass I think it's at
11:00 so tell your friends and show up with your signs because um because we need it from all directions furthermore we are not unique in this that's what the 211 is
21 districts out of 300 are at minimum Aid we have been left out of the student Opportunity Act we will not be in included in the St student Opportunity Act that money is going to cities that have less wealth and more
need than we do and that's never going to come our way Chapter 70 funding reform is not going to come our way because we are $3 million per District more Aid than they would give
us if we weren't at hold harmless I know that's a complicated thing and I don't want to get into it right now but it there's very little that our specific districts will get assistance from at the state level but I want to tell you
that not being um not being alone in our financial difficulties many other municipalities have funded at higher levels than they um intended uh or this year that than than we are and we're not
asking you to but we're saying I'm saying that um many local communities are are increasing their contributions to their schools at five six 7 8 n 10 10% more
than last year so not saying that you should if you can't but if you can I'm saying you should and you know this whole idea of one recurring onetime money is boggling to me I've I've been to England once that
means I went there once it didn't mean I go year after year after year and say oh I've been here one time but that's my pet peeve and and maybe I should get over it but that's all I got to say Anna um I have two
questions uh and I know we the superintendent had to step away Shannon I don't know if you've got I'm not sure if you'll have an answer to these or not and it likely isn't a question that could be answered today but I would like to know if the superintendent or or you
have created scenarios for the budget of what potential Cuts would be if the budget were increased to 4% to four and a half or to five um I think that would be helpful for us in looking at the impact of potential shifts and Paul
similarly um I know that this is I know that's a ton of work to ask and I'm not asking for kind of details I'm just I can look at those budgets and say all right well X number of dollars could could pull this cut back or whatever but I'm not able to
prioritize in the way that that um the school committee or or the folks at the schools can so I am curious just as we kind of move forward to kind of put some reality behind the shifting of dollars to say what it would look like if uh if we were able to fund the schools at four
and a half um or four or possibly five I don't know if five as likely but four and a half or or four um and then my second question was in in looking at the budget and I apologize if this is easily explained and I missed it but um chapter 90 is not in the budget document that I
see right under any state aid or anything and I'm just curious Melissa where is chapter 90 funding and why is it not in the listed in the budget so chapter 90 like all other state grants for both the school and the town departments do not are not reflected in
the operating general fund budget what the council sees is operating general fund okay so Chapter 70 is not a considered a state Grant in the way that chapter 90 is right it's not um so there are other grants that um and Shannon
would know more specifically about this that they fund their operating costs because they're um what I think are called entitlement grants that they receive year-over-year that um support certain parts of education and educational operation and so that's outside of the budget that
she presents at four towns or or or even to the ammer school committee um that that's an addition to just like chapter um 90 is an addition to our general fund um appropriation to support uh roads and sidewalk repair Great thank you for
explaining that um and to answer your question about what would come back if we received more funding that was a conversation we had with the principles the District leadership when we were talking about um the the reductions and and finalizing them before they were
announced public um so there there were a a few that right off the bat if we received any more uh money would be the first things that the principles felt were a priority to be returned um I don't have the that in front of me and
it's not something that we shared publicly but uh at some point if if we do receive more funding um we would have a conversation internally with the principles and and finalize that and and could show it okay so it it kind of in
terms of cart and horse the the horse would be the decision on funding we won't really get to know the scenarios before we know the the funding uh I mean if that's something that's wanted we could certainly put it together I already like I do know um
there was a few that was immediately if we received more funding this is the first thing coming back um but we could certainly put something together like a tiered system I know I can't ask you for that so I will leave that to the school committee to decide whether they want to
ask you for that I just um school school committee members on this call I think for what it's worth I think that would be helpful if you choose to ask for that thanks Shannon I appreciate it and thanks Melissa although please remember we're not the school committee we don't make the decisions as to where to fund
or not fun that's why I said this is not up to me at all I just the information I think helps to contextualize the discussion got it Andy you have your hand up yeah there are several things that have uh come in the conversation I thought would be worth uh just pointing
out or responding to um one is um recognized a little bit in what Deb said and that is we need to realize that this is a systemic problem that is affecting all communities uh we just have to pick up
the Gaz every day and it's just a question of which town School are we going to read about today um I think today it was beler toown uh but uh you know yesterday was probably
Northampton uh but every Community incl um is is coming into the same problem and I uh know that this isn't just our region uh because I uh am on the MMA
fiscal policy committee which is Statewide and uh at our last meeting we were hearing um the school concerns is sort of a primary concern of municipalities and
developing budgets uh second thing is uh um when we were talking about the other towns in the region and um Paul had made a comment that Tillman is uh responding to um I the the point that was really
there is that um if you look at the history of how towns have um our our four communities municipalities have uh taxed um ammer
every year has used the full capacity uh that we can tax to the full Levy limit the other three towns if you look at the history have not always um increased by 2 and a
half% per year when given the opportunity to do so and have what is known as excess lovey capacity um and uh um that um is just a reality difference that give some
flexibility to other towns because they have not um taxed the prior capacity and have the ability to increase without going to voters for an override where we could only do it by going to voters for
an override uh third thing that I was uh just um hope that people had looked at was because uh you know the kind conversation had been about um the there
had been discussions each year previously about U the needs uh to to really look at what fundamentally is going happening in school budgets and
how to deal with it um that I hope you looked at the ammer current article from last that was posted last last week by Alison McDonald um who is a um a former
member of the school committee and uh former chair of the school committee and uh you know she pointed out um that uh there a lot of things that were
recognized and I and I say that because I UND I I really sympathize with our um superintendent and um school committee because so many of you have been cast in the position of being new
to the role and inheriting something where Allison has had the experience of what was in the prior discussions uh we we really except for Irv have been lost in a uh you know huge
turnover in um our uh school committee and and our superintendent and I I uh appreciate that uh that has put you in a very difficult position um but uh the last thing that I
wanted to say um is that we really do need um to work together and try and not be in the combative process and it's important that we think about this in the long term because this is not going
to be a problem that's going away and that's the the bottom line messages is that if we continue to have U the budgets in one segment going up each
year at a greater rate than others um it's just a question of how long is that's sustainable before the whole system caves in and uh
U it that's why the finance committee was U wanting to see some fiveyear planning uh just so that we get a sense that as uh we develop our Five-Year Plan
which we always do because that's sound financial management that we know that U there's fiveyear planning going on in in each of the other components U thank you I I'm going to
call on other people but I want to be mindful of the fact that basically we on the agenda we have provided updates our next item is the whole issue of free cash and excess um at if you will and
deficiencies and then the major in initiatives which was really to look at the capital issues um we have touched on the regional assessment um method um and but we have not at all talked about an override so um and we are pretty firm to
need to end at two o'clock um Tillman unfortunately the previous topic but very briefly um I I want to point out that um in the interest of working together or in alignment with working together um that just mentioned that the
the regional budget was cut significantly does this work right we figured out how to save money because if you had done a level Services budget it would have gone from 35.2 to 37.8 and the superintendent as she stated earlier is only asking for 36.4
which is a 3.4% increase instead of a 7.4 increase now we're realizing that the cuts that are necessary to do that are now affecting the the the school significantly and so we're trying to move a little bit back
from that significant cut but it's not that the superintend and the school committee were just going yeah level services and give us more money I just want to be clear about that um in terms of the towns and lever and 6.5 um in the four towns meeting there wasn't a clear
plan on what the right number should be that you know the towns that are not currently paying the appropriate portion uh should be charged there was the 177% for Lever that was put out as the extreme case and then we
handwaved about what else could there be um so I'm you know I I think if he presented a suitable plan that would get everybody aligned um this is certainly something that Leever is willing to discuss I just want to make clear that only because they said
6.5 from their perspective it's that we want to give more it doesn't mean that they were fully aware of what the appropriate percentage should be and they were trying to insanally stay below that so I think we need a plan for the other towns to figure out how they can get to their appropriate percentages
thank you thank thank you um Irv I I just want to make sure I'm clear about what I was stating you know for for us the elementary schools and our projected 1.4
deficit is traumatic I I can't emphasize how traumatic that is and it is something that should not occur and I know that the school committee will be fighting and coming back to the town to say please do not
allow this to happen it is something that should not occur it should not occur our kids do not deserve that so I want to make sure that is is clear the other thing that when I said
that the town for fiscal 26 could give us the 1.4 million that would not guarantee that we will not be in deficit against again next year and the analogy I have is that if you have a hole in the wall and you
paper over it doesn't mean the hole in the wall went away you still have a hole in the wall and that's where we are in amers and and again I would be would and am advocating for
the town and the school committee and the superintendent to sit down and make some hard decisions I can't we can't do it just with the school committee and the town but it has to be staff also
unions but we have to do that we can't we can't do this we can't go we can't stop this year we go ahead you know at the end of this year well we we get the budget set we get the money and then we go on for next year we we have to find a way to get off
this treadmill we really have to find a way to do this thank you councelor hanii let me start by saying I did not mean to imply that the staff has not done and the schools has not done any
work what I meant to say or I guess I didn't say it well is it's hard to see that work because year after year as a counselor I am being asked to do the same thing which is as Irv just said paper over yet another level
Services deficit that is in the millions and doesn't seem to be getting any smaller so it's not that it's that we can't see any work being done it's not that there isn't work being done I know the staff is working really hard and all but it's
hard to as counselor year after year be told well we still need another six or s% you know year over-ear every year and we'll do the work and we'll get it better and then the next year it's another six or seven per. it's it's hard
to see the results of that to to not to to see where we're going with it as Andy and and frankly Irv have said because here's my concern
if we were to find more money to resolve both the the school deficits both Elementary and Regional School deficits on our own although I still maintain that the other three towns in a fourtown region need to help resolve those deficits with
higher increases getting closer to the regional agreement method um we have to find that money from basically the municipal service but if that doesn't solve the problem and next year the schools need and and that's 2 million in
cuts to a budget that is already facing with Paul having this year been the most outspoken he's ever been about the cuts he's having to make or figure out how to make a half million we're already facing
a minimum half million because that didn't include any increases in cost to transportation to gas to any of not transportation to gasoline to any other supplies or anything that's just the contractual increases that we're facing a half million in the town budget but
that means next year we would cut 2 million from it cut all of that and next year the schools would come back and say well we need another 2 million above the three and a half or 4% already and take it from the town and then we cut another 2 million from the town and and as Andy
said without a plan that's not sustainable either because at some point we end up with no Town Services either um and that's not sustainable so we Paul has managed to fit his Cuts within the 3 and a half% and maybe he
can't maybe we have to ask him for more next year I don't know but we need a plan from the schools because what the schools have asked us year after year particularly last year for this fiscal year and what I think is coming to us
from both committees we we don't have the budgets voted yet but what it is being implied is coming to us is yet another increase there cannot be sustained on the back of the town government operating budget for very long if at all before the town loses
severe amounts of services um to answer Anna's question what would you know what would the shifting of dollars look like um at the region if we did that um I would say what would the proposed assessment shares be and if we increased pum and
lever need to increase even more um my calculations which I know are not the actual data because I have percentages only based on presentations from four towns is that if and I just did this with a 4% ammer year-over-year
increase if we did that and the regional agreement method was followed the entire assessment total would increase by 5.7% not 4% 5.7% um which would be an
additional um $394,000 I think if my spreadsheets correct um to the region above where it sits now um I could based on inaccurate information but I feel like the region is pushing
ammer without similarly pushing pelum and Leverett to increase their shares Clos to the regional agreement method I took I was particularly concerned when one Regional School Committee Member at that Regional budget hearing said what are
you doing ammer to increase this without mentioning the other three Towns at all when two of those Towns at a 4% total increase are below their Regional agreement method um it's frustrating that it's always focused on ammer I know
we're approximate we're only 79% of the the assessment method this year although you're asking us to contribute 80 some per 81% of the assessment method and then my next question for the region is Deb talked about rural school aid that only applies to the region I believe not
to our our elementary schools but I was surprised to hear at the last four towns meeting that the regional school has not been using its rural school aid it's received for operating budgets it's been banking it um that concerns me that at least
that's what was implied um at the last four towns meeting that it is finally going to use that money and has put that money in the budget some of that money in the budget for FY 26 but it had not been in the budget for 25 and 24 so I guess my question is if we go out and we advocate for Regional
School Aid will the region start using it as it comes in in its operating budget instead of putting it in end because it was implied at the four towns meeting that it was just being put into operating for FY 26 after having
received it in fy2 and4 without using it um and so we need the region to be using all of its state funds too to help with its budget as they come in and that could be a miser understanding on mine
too my end but that's what I had heard at the four towns last four towns meeting um I'm going to ask uh Shannon who raised her hand upon that comment to come in yep so I I do want to say I believe what you're stting is a is a
misunderstanding rural school aid has supported our budget um what our operating budget specifically in 2019 and uh was the first time rur school aid became available and it was not built into the operating budget then in 2020 I
don't recall if it was or not but in 21 22 23 24 it was built into the operating budget um and 25 but for 26 with the change in government we were trying to be reserved in whether or not we would
put that in this budget and in the event something was going to happen and we wouldn't have it and we banked on it um but it has never rolled into end it it has to be spent by June 30th and it has supported the operating budget we're going to be getting to
reserve for that clarification because it's not what I understood after four towns thanks Shannon uh Deb a quick comment before we move on to the next item um yeah I have not tried to connect
five years out I have been in contact with Allison based on that uh current article to find out what has been done historically um regarding uh uh efficiencies in the region um she said
nothing had been done in the time that she had served but that she was under the impression that there was work done prior so um the
uh to Anna an Anna's question we will be discussing um in open meeting Restorations and prioritizing what is restored I think we all have a pretty clear sense of what I think
we're I not speaking for the committee but my sense is it's pretty clear the top priorities on on what positions to to restore and those will be discussed at length um and we might be coming back
with another iteration of the budget with those positions restored that's my understanding of the possibilities for the remainder of March and then um what was the last piece I just wanted to
say that for um FY 26 the district is um in the revenue line for the region is contributing $980,000 towards our operating budget so
that's uh $880 between budget support and contingency and 100,000 for interest Revenue thank you um I I'd like to go on to at least the next item which is free cash
and I believe Melissa you had a presentation you were prepared to make yeah okay um so can everyone see that now I just want to make sure um can thank you okay um so this is
just um a quick explanation of what free cash is and it's very similar to um what the school calls is excesses and deficiencies and it's basically a rollover of our um fund balance from year to year so where our revenues or
budgets have surpluses and they roll um forward year after year and so the generation of free cast comes from three primary sources um and so it starts with the prior year fund balance that we close
out at um we add in any Revenue surpluses that we receive in the year and then we subtract um we add in any budget surpluses meaning unspent um budget line items and then to balance to the free cash and when it's certified by
do there are offsets for uh incumbrances uncollected funds um reimbursal grants that we haven't yet received or um uncollected tax revenue so we are uh we operate on a a tax uh on a cash basis so
we we recognize our um Revenue when we receive it so when the money is in in house um so if we were to look at um the free cash that was certified in um
November we um we had remaining free cash of the prior year and that's kind of what I'm going to use is our sort of loosely that's our rolling forward um available fund balance right because the
other stuff is is going to be offset but it it kind of gets really close to the number but that's essentially what's left what like what of the free cash that we had left in are we rolling forward so last year it was 4.6 million we had
um $1.8 million unspent revenue and I believe that we've talked about in this meeting and other meetings that that was based on um Staffing uh vacancies on the town side um and um
and that that's what rolled forward that's what made up the majority of that and then we had surpluses of $4.1 million of Revenue where we had projected conservatively and come in well above those those revenues
so those two things are made up of um like I said the $1.8 million was M majority of that was due to staff vacancy almost all of it and then the um the surpluses in the revenue um
primarily came from local receipts um in the areas of interest income um which we'll talk about because I know that's a Hot Topic here in this group and um licenses and permits motor vehicle excise hotel and motel taxes so all uh
revenue generated items in the local receipts area so in the surpluses I just did a small graph of like which departments uh contributed to that $1.8 million um and
so um I want to call out here because we were with the schools that the elementary school on the town side they're access and defic deficiencies that Shannon's going to talk about did not include the elementary schools that um
closed with our free cash and last year they closed out $56,000 which represents 3% of that um $1.8 million um we had a lot of vacancies in the public safety space and um then in
other parts of uh DPW and um our planning Inspections Office um is what the these other large areas are um the bulk of the savings is shown in what's called General government and
that's because all of our savings for um health insurance when we have vacancies we're not paying health insurance for all those employees and all of that shows in the general uh government line so that's um why that area looks uh
bigger than the rest for for for us uh this is um a 20-year history on investment income and um I show this because I want to show that while we did do exceptionally well in 2024 and we are
doing exceptionally well in 2025 um this is not the historical pattern of these um of this income it has generally been um below 500,000 and 500,000 is the amount that estimated for
fiscal 26 do I think that we'll meet that easily yes I do however I'm concerned that we won't be able to maintain that and there's two factors that go into that one is this sort of trend that you see here where there is this um anomaly Spike but the interest
rates were comparable in 2007 and 2008 and 2009 comparable to what they are today and you can see that we were made much more money and that has to do a lot more with the deposits that we have on hand that are available because of
supply chain and project stalls so we have a lot more cash in our coffers to invest at these interest rates or four or 5% um today than we than we traditionally have in hand and as those projects are starting to kick off that
our availability to invest those funds is going to um Decline and that's why we are continuing to be more conservative than others um would see if you just look back uh you
know two years where we did you know exceptionally well um but that's the reason for that um another major contributing factor of the um of the revenue Surplus had to do with
local receipts and this is a 20-year trend of the overall local receipts and you can see that it's more like a rolling hill and less of a steady increase and so the primary drivers of that are these um motor vehicle rooms
meals and permits and so I pulled those out separately but they seem to follow along um with the overall um e and flow of local receipts as a whole um and I just point that out as to
that we have when I budget Revenue um or anyone in municipal government budgets Revenue they sort of like to look at the lower ends of the Rolling Hills so that when the dip comes we aren't s um
saddled with trying to um plan for cuts because the economy has changed we can kind of expect a Rolling Hill increase but not um not a St straight line and it's not as steep as our best years
um additionally I looked at um what the local receipts are here um and to just sort of call out what the major drivers are in 2024 it was um you know 18% a substantial amount of that income
however in the years that it isn't over a million dollars which was the norm it was a much smaller percentage of that overall um receipts you can see that building permits are here a big driver motor vehicle tax I would say um of the
um local receipts is the most consistent that we could um you know sort of count on to be steadily increasing over time just on the way that that tax is um calculated um meals tax is in here um
and hotel room tax um those are you know they're dependent on the market and the economy so they change from year to year depending on how um how the economy is doing um a big driver right here of these receipts are special assessments
and Pilots um we don't generally Miss on those assessments we know what they are but they are a big part of this overall contribution and I did want to point out that the part that is getting um the Surplus and is getting a lot of um
interest is um loow this local receipts um and because it's the only thing that we can kind of make a an estimate for rather than it's a two and a half% increase tax year-over-year it's not limited by those
sort of guidelines it's limited by Trends um but you're talking about a small part of our overall Revenue source so it is 8 to 11% of our overall budgets year-over-year depending on how much we collect in that but it is a
um inconsistent um Revenue source and that's why we budget it uh conservatively so if we were to look at the free cash for last year um or F in that was certified for fiscal 25 B based
on last year's surpluses it came in at um the $10.4 million which came from our four 4.6 that was leftover last year uh plus the 1.8 of budget um excesses on
the town side and then the um 4.7 of um revenue surpluses and it is actually if you do the math this amount is certified as a slightly lower amount because we um decrease for the
um outstanding receivables um grants that we are being reimbursed for that are timings with or um encumbered funds for projects that we have um spent um money on but the check hasn't gone out
the door so those deesses then we took from that um so opioid settlement and reparations are um projects that we um pull money aside from free cash every year when these um funds come in we do not budget for them and we don't budget
for them on purpose because we anticipate them rolling to free cash so that we can set them aside for these particular projects this year the town um Council has a project that they wanted to look into uh waste holler
study so that came out of the free cash we we've been putting aside for many years the stabil uh Capital stabilization and we do that to um plan for our future capital projects which many of the people on this committee know about the four major capital
projects and this will help us um fund more consistently over time and plan for our future expenses for basically deferred maintenance that has happened here uh in the town of ammer and probably every municipality in
Massachusetts um we bought a uh sidewalk equipment plow um and then we voted that um sidewalk um 500,000 for roads and sidewalks and then $2.8 million for the bank center which was just passed um by
the council I believe last week and that brings our our free cash down to $2.6 million and I want to make a note that that is I have here in my notes um I think it's 2 point 76% of our operating
budget and so that is um significantly less than our 5% targeted goal so usually when we make these transfers and I would say that all of these transfers were made with the exception of the bang Center to keep that um 5% to roll over
to next year so that we would always have it um we did that we we chose to do the uh 2.8 now because the project um was ready and we have um we have moved our arpa funds
into a um expense category of health insurance um that because we have budgeted for health insurance and we used um that onetime fund to um to use that expense so this not that
not roll back to the federal government um we anticipate that you know that that that those additional funds will roll into free cash in fiscal 26 but our starting free cash
balance is going to be lower than it was at the beginning of this fiscal year it um because we've already depleted it so the first um our when we get certified our free cash it's going to start at a lower number number because we've spent
the uh 2.8 which is more aggressive than we usually spend those funds and for Deb where are you best practices for using free cash is to use that on
onetime um emergency needs unanticipated emergency uh Capital Investments and reserve for future use and the reason for that is that when you build um a one-time Revenue Source into operating
cost and the next year comes there's nowhere to take it from and so that's why we say that and can I just add one couple things to Lynn please so just two things one is to make sure that people know that
the arpa funds we anticipate that will flow into next year and that will come out as a unexpended reserve that'll that'll bump up our preash next year so that's why the council felt comfortable making that $2.8 million um investment the other thing with when you're start
looking that pushing our um projections for Revenue once you move a number up if you have to lower it the next year that means you don't have that money coming in next year so that's a that's a challenge so you never want to not move it to a level that you don't think it's going to maintain and the third point is
is that if nobody um uh wants to miss Miss on the mark for our projections that's a really bad place to be um I've seen it done in cities typically uh where the mayor's pushing to get more money and um not to disparage my colleagues but they it often is an
election year um and they push it and then they don't hit it and they don't hit the revenue targets and then NE next year they have to fund as the first thing they have to fund out of their budget so it compounds the issue to the next year because you have to make up whatever you missed so um I think you
know we have been I have been pushing Melissa and Holly to really look at all of our numbers to push them as much as we feel comfortable with which I think they have done and I appreciate the work um that they've done on this um thank you very much for that presentation
probably the most thorough presentation on free cash I've ever seen uh Shannon did you have anything you want to add for the schools uh yes I just want to say thank you Melissa I did not prepare something like you did uh but in the future if I'm asked to do something like
this I I I know what I have to do now um so for the region uh we have excess to deficiency which is very similar um to free cash uh to free cash it's the um difference between the
district's assets and our liabilities um at the end of each fiscal year if there's any surplus or deficit in our general fund only um it would close to e so any grants um that we have that does not close to and it's our only our
operating budget um so school committee can vote to use our end to support our budget which we do do every year uh our end is certified by the Department of Revenue and the balance cannot be more
than 5% of our operating budget if there's ever a situation where it is more than 5% of our operating budget we would have to reduce red the town's assessments for the following year um by what however much were over by 5% we
don't have that problem currently um our end balance as of fiscal year 24 that was the last certified balance is 1.5 million and the district is using 880,000 in our FY 26 budget um so some
of the things that Clos to our end um is an increase in Chapter 70 if we had only uh budgeted for 75 per student our budget is voted and it comes back at 104 per student uh whatever that overage is
will end up closing to our end our interest income uh we have 100,000 in our budget um supporting our budget now if it ends up being more than that that will close to our endd um if there are receivables that we
did not receive by September 30th receivables are um funds that we anticipated to receive we already spent the money but it hasn't come in if that's if we haven't received that those funds by September 30th that goes against our end
um we have a small miscellaneous income from uh homeless Transportation mckenny vento I I think it was only about $6,000 last year um that did close to our end we if
you have if you notice on that um assessment sheet for the region not the assessment sheet our Revenue sheet um in our blue column we have uh it's 880,000 shows an end support says 600,000 and then underneath it says 280 end for
contingency um we try to come in under 280 uh for our regional budget so that unspent will then go back and replenish our Indie and then we can continue to use the funds and have a sufficient balance to support the next year's operating
budget um and that's that's what I have for now on need day are there uh questions Anna it's a it's a process question so why is it that the free cash that comes back from the elementary schools isn't
automatically just provided back to them I know it's a small amount but I I feel like we've seen such such a trend of Thee the elementary schools not necessarily coming forward to request free cash for those onetime expenditures
um and so I'm curious why we can't or don't just simply say this amount came from the elementary schools it should just be returned to their general fund whatever that official name of that is for the schools for them to use process wise why doesn't that happen
Holly has her hand up I I I guess I can't speak to process wise how why that's never happened but technically the town general fund and the school general fund get combined into one fund at year end for do purposes so it in the
end we have to take the town's general fund and the school's general fund and put it together for do purposes and they don't care who spent more who spent less it's just it's just not something we have ever done do doesn't treat it separately
Anna I don't that doesn't necess that doesn't answer your question it certainly doesn't answer your question tell you why the second question my followup is is there anything stopping us from doing that I would say that the school could
spend general fund money first and if I was a school Finance person that's what I would do um and I would just say uh being in this position uh this past year um I have learned so much more than I than
I've learned from the past three years I worked here um so uh that won't happen again where there's 54,000 um and so one of the things that I will say is we would use less school choice funds um and save
that school choice funding uh and that'll go we can use that for prior years but I don't for seen I don't plan on having that this year good answer usually usually it's the pennies that they return okay thank
you for clarifying Shen congratulations on your learning curve she's been amazing right so I I want to just be honest and say we are at uh 1:51 we said we would stop at 2 we need I need to offer public comment and uh we have not
even made it through our agenda so I will discuss with the town manager um the possibility of a next meeting to finish this agenda I don't see that we have things to add at this point uh I do have a question and that is is there
going to be another four towns meeting do we know we don't know sh Shannon did you have an answer to that I do not know um I will say that uh when I counted Back 40 days from um
Leever and Shy's Town meetings it ends up being that the regional school budget needs to be voted by March 17th um so I know they there will be a regional meeting on the 11th I don't believe there will be a vote at that
meeting but I suspect there will be another meeting um either on the 14th or the 17th where there will be a vote so I don't think there's any time for another four towns meeting I'm going to go to Deb Leonard you have to comment I had the similar I have thank
you Anna do you have your hand up still yeah I had something that I'd like to discuss not necessarily it's not necessarily as much of a time crunch as the other things that we're currently discussing but part of our charge talks about coordina develop coordinated budget guidelines and calendars and coordinate the process of budget
development and that's been an underlying current of a lot of what's been discussed today is that we are not currently working on timelines that play nicely with each other at all um and so I would very much like to see a meeting uh I think we're we're kind of trying to
deal with a bit of the most present and Urgent crisis but uh I think that this group cannot go on hiatus until we've really firmly made recommendations to each of our bodies uh after coordinating here regarding how we're going to better coordinate that budget process those
budget guidelines and calendars so it's something that is going to take I think probably multiple meetings of this group to be honest uh and it's not necessarily something that we need to do in the next meeting or even the next two meetings but it's something we need to do before this group disbands uh thank you um I'm going to
Deb you have your hand up again for agenda planning I just want to say that any kind of consolidation request from this committee should really build in a lot of time that's a very complicated problem and has a lot of
overlapping issues to resolve got it uh I'm going to ask now if there's anybody who would like to make public comment there are four people in the zoom audience if you would like to make public comment please raise your hand I see one hand Alex Lopez please
enter the room and tell us um who you are and where you live or generally where you live you don't have to give the address so we need to bring Al yeah got it there you are Alex go right ahead
please hey uh my name's Alex Lopez I live at 265 pot wine Lane just to make it precise um the and I guess uh I came to this meeting with hope um I
leave this meeting with less uh unfortunately I have to say Paul your priorities are showing um you were asked earlier in this meeting about uh the reasons that the schools suffer while the towns have money and if
I heard you correctly you gave four answers um one was special ed and the costs two state aid hasn't kept up so the region suffers three the assessment formula leaves some towns with money while the schools are in debt uh but and
four that schools have added positions while the town hasn't um so I just want to point out a question about why the schools suffer while the town has money you answered that the assessment formula leaves towns with money while the
schools don't have it um and part of that is being said or I mean that is being said by our town manager who currently in his schools have a over million dollar deficit while the town just put up a surplus slide that Lynn I heard you say was the best you've ever
seen and I trust you because you've seen a lot of surplus in this town it was the best presentation I've ever seen not the dollars I want to be clear no I I appreciate that and I'll reclaim my time
um the so I just want to point out that while in the midst of us all looking at each other and figuring out what's fair for each other to pay um amest isn't even taking care of its own elementary schools so let's not start celebrating
and saying it's the other guys first and until we can take care of our own schools um I don't think that looking at other towns and saying that their percentages are incorrect is necessarily appropriate never mind the
fact that our town is standing in front of all of these projects we're currently building talking about the fact that we can't spend additional monies because of the commitments that we have made we did not blink twice when we saw the increased costs of the Jones library and yet we blink every single time the
schools come here and ask for money we talk about the fact that it is an ongoing one-time problem when every time the library had to go out to bid they came back with a higher number and so if we cannot assure our children to the same rate that we can assure Our Town TR
Library trustees that's astonishing that is such a naked display of our backwards priorities and so we look forwards I would hope that in the midst of everything that is
happening in this nation in this state in our school system that we start looking at each other as partners in a way to get out of this because I know when my kids asked my wife who works in humanitarian Aid why Donald Trump was cutting her programs across the world why people weren't going to be able to
see their doctors come Saturday that I had to explain to them that right now we have people in charge who are acting like lifeguards at a pool where someone pooped in the pool and they're more concerned about figuring out who did it than making sure everyone got out
safely so I'm asking us to figure out a way to make sure that everyone gets out safely that our kids are able to get the educational standards that were provided to you when you grew up in this town instead of asking them to continue to sacrifice and cut so that you can fund
your fancy ribbon cuting thank you for your comments Pamela Rooney you have your hand up please enter the room and state your name and where you live hi Pam Rooney 42 Cottage
Street uh I am not an educator so I speak from lack of understanding but I did pick up on Mr Rose to um two concerns that are driving that are that are uncontrollable and driving
the costs and one had to do with transportation and the other was special ed in terms of of Transportation I'm sure somebody has looked at this but is there opportunity to um consolidate Roots so that there's maybe one less or
two less routes across town um to save that Transportation money and fuel costs Etc the second is special ed are there again I do not know the the process or the Mand mandated laws but is there any
opportunity to negotiate the IEPs and the 504 plans that meet General needs but somehow we don't end up with a situation where the special ed um support uh is now overshadowing the
regular Ed and just in terms of the number of students that are served um it's a huge differential on on the number of kids that are being served at at very great cost um and I'm not trying to be callous about it I'm just asking
the question thank you thank you for your questions um it is two o'clock um I in Town Council we ask for a motion to adjourn so I will do so is there a second second and then we'll take a
quick vote I'm going to call on people as I see them on the screen councelor hanii hi Lynn grimer and I uh Andy Steinberg I Anna delin gothier I Irv roads I Deb Leonard
yes and that concludes the actual members of the committee uh we want to thank all of you who have um taken the time to put together the presentations you made to us today today and we will come back with a follow-up date the
meeting is adjourned