##VIDEO ID:hX9VnCiG5hg## this meeting is being recorded we're recording please go ahead thank you good evening it is November 4th 2024 while this is a regular meeting of the Town Council it is also a meeting of the budget coordinating Group which includes all school committee members from the town of amest well it includes tonight at our meeting all school committee members Jones Library trustees and finance committee members who are able to attend if there is a quorum of those bodies present and we have determined that there is I will ask you to call your meeting to order in just a moment the mo open meeting law allows us to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the council physically present however there is a quorum of the council physically present in the town room and on the screen this meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom by phone and as a live broadcast on ammer media channel 9 and live stream given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the November 4th regular Town council meeting to order at 604 I'll call upon each counselor by name they have indicated they would like to be addressed at that time please unmute your mic and say present this will indicate that we can hear you and you can hear us please remember to then mute your mic again a point of order this is you're calling the special meeting to order not the regular meeting correct I'm calling them both to order okay okay so um thank you for reminding me that so it is calling both meetings to order point of order isn't the regular meeting noticed for 6:30 so it can't be called to order yet it's noticed for seven it's for seven thank you so I can't I'm calling the special meeting to order thank you okay we're going to go start with the counselors uh Pat d'angelus pres onor Devin gothier present councelor ET present Lynn Grier's present councelor hanii present Bob hegner present councelor Lord Pam Rooney here councelor Ryan present Kathy Shane here but Zoom is still loading okay Andy Steinberg Jennifer B here and councelor Walker here Sarah Marshall will you please call the Amber school committee to order and ask the people can be heard that you can hear and be heard thank you seeing the presence of a quorum I call the ammer school committee to order I will call on each uh Committee Member to say they are present so we can hear you and I know you hear us Deb Leonard here Jennifer sha present Bridget Hines presentent Irv roads present thank you and yourself Sarah Marshall and I Sarah Marshall I'm here okay um Tammy El Eli would you please call the Jones Library trustees to order okay um Eugene gfo speak up can you hear me yes okay Eugene gofredo here um um Lee Edwards is at the table that's right but she needs to confirm with her mic here okay and Nat Larson I'm here and um I'm here too Tammy okay thank you Tammy that's four of the six of you and the finance committee uh Bob hegner please call the meeting to order and specifically check on any members that are um Beyond besides council members yes uh I'm calling the the finance committee to order at 6:07 pm and I see Bernie in the audience Bernie can you hear us yes I'm present thank you I think that's everybody okay uh I'm here too Bob Tom Porter nice to see okay thank you okay there is no chat room for this um is there is not a quorum of the Regional School oh yes there is isum yes Sarah Bess would you please call the regional school committee to order call the regional school committee to order at 6:08 PM uh Anna herd here pman present uh William present sah Marshall present Jennifer present uh Bridget present ER present Deb present and Sass the entire Regional school committee as present thank you thank you there's no chat room for this meeting if you have technical issues please let Athena and me know to make a comment or ask a question please click the raised hand button if technical difficulties arise as a result of using remote participation in Zoom particularly Athena and I will decide how to address the situation uh discussion may have to be suspended while we address those issues and the minutes will note if we have any disconnection um the discussion regarding I'm sorry during this part of the meeting there is no public comment I do want to call specific attention to the fact that there will be a public forum on the FY 26 Budget on Monday November 18th at 6:30 okay and at 7:00 on that same night which is a regular Town council meeting we will have a public forum on supplemental Appropriations for fy2 with that I'm going to turn to Paul bakaman for the presentation of the financial indicators we will then after that entertain questions from any members of the bodies that have been called thank you Lyn so we have a presentation tonight that should take almost as long as it took to everybody to introduce themselves so um thank you all for making the time to be with us uh We've allowed about an hour for this entire process our presentation will be less than that obviously um this is a process that's unusual um and unlike most communities but it's it's a tradition in ammer excuse me Paul Mandy Joe you have your hand up sorry um when will we be able to download this presentation I'm I'm post I'm in the process of posting thank you thank you go ahead so this is a process that's unusual in most communities but it's a tradition in ammer it's about communication early on in the budget process ensuring that we all start off on the S same foot this is a the first very first step in creating the FY 26 budget it's our staff's opportunity to share key financial information with you the elected decision makers of the town all material shown tonight is will be posted on the town's website at www am.gov one of the things that we start so tonight is the one of the first days of uh dat of Standard time we moved the clocks back so it's pitch black outside um by the time we get to our budget presentation in the spring it'll be bright and light and there'll be Clarity um this presentation is a team effort and I really want to introduce our all women team who leads our finance department we've had male Finance directors in the past but it's always been the women in our departments that have really done the the bulk of the work so our team is led by our newest member Finance director Melissa zawidzki she's worked hand hard with everyone to make this presentation live up to the very high expectations the town has we're really really lucky to have someone who has both the knowledge of M Municipal finance and the understanding of how accounting assessing and treasure collectors officers offices work she's dug into all things Financial asking the right questions and brings an approach to budgeting I think you will appreciate our team also includes Holly Bowser our com controller and Jennifer Le Fountain our treasury collector and Kim meu our principal assessor although she she was taking a backseat literally uh tonight because she's going to make a presentation to you later about the uh tax rate um I really want to thank Holly and Jen for taking such a leadership role during the time we didn't have a permanent Finance director this was above and beyond their normal day-to-day work and the town didn't miss a beat throughout the process so thank you both for being in that role so we can do the slides so just is the introduction we go to the next slide so tonight's agenda um we look back at FY 25 uh at f24 a little bit and we look at the 10year history of where we've been and where we've gone and this gives context to what you can see so you can start to see Trends um we do a quick assessment of where we are in fi25 which is our current fisc fiscal year and we look ahead to FY 26 and Beyond next slide so these are the major takeaways up front that we I want to share with you major challenges now more than ever the town needs to maintain budget discipline as we take on major Capital expenditures Health insurances are big and they're very real and every one of our bodies is dealing with significant double digigit increases in health insurance we have new players in town hall and at the schools we're all working hard to build those working relationships and make sure communication is current and accurate and I do want to recognize that Financial leaders for the school department are here as well so thank you um for being here um you will hear this over and over um we know we we start with Revenue we look at we project how much revenue the town is going to be receiving and then we allocate uh based on the guidelines created by the Town Council those funds and pretty much when you look back at the last decade we are always bringing in about three to 4% uh um of Revenue every year so that's where we are and you'll hear that stated over and over we're making progress progress on our major capital projects with more updates to come and we recognize the pressure the economy is placing on our taxpayers and how much taxpayers are paying in their taxes so we're very sensitive to that so our goal is to maintain fiscal stability without with with strong financials without strong financials nothing is possible so important accomplishments or Su say we presented the town's finances to S&P Global which is the bond rating agency that we go to when we um before we go out to bid for bonds and they look at all of our financials and they reaffirmed our credit rating is a doublea plus that's very good news through tonight's presentation you will see that we have focused on maintaining maintaining a solid financial position for the town this matters whether it's when it comes to maintaining current Town services or when we enter the bond market to borrow funds we are in fy2 with a balanced budget and we have had excellent success in securing millions of dollars of Grants to carry out major infrastructure projects including the new elementary school new library and roadway improvements and we have solid Financial base I've mentioned it several times outside Bond rating agencies reaffirmed our strong fiscal management and the steps we have taken to prepare for the future we have strong systems in place that protect our our resources our staff work together take a team approach to problem solving and address major issues as they arise and we have managed to maintain slow steady growth at a pace that we can afford next slide so now we're going to turn it over to Melissa who's going to go through all these are the indicators that we'll we look at over a 10-year period good evening everyone um so this is the beginning of our Melissa if you just want to speak clearly into your microphone so everyone can hear you thank you good evening can we hear me now okay great um so this is our financial uh Trends um report and financial indicators um there is a side note here that um we've been doing this report um since about 2007 when um it was uh compiled by I believe uh John muans a de friend of the town and of myself um I believe he worked on that as a graduate student but and it um is part of best practices from icma and um other Financial gfoa practices and we like to repeat it okay okay so um I'm ready to go to the next slide your so this is a look at our our history of our revenues um over the last uh 10 years and you can see that um it's not clear from this slide but I I think it's important to note that the the revenue has increased over the 10 years and that uh 3 to 4% range consistent with what we have forecast for Revenue growth over that period and the budget um remains within that 3 to 4% you'll notice that the um distribution of the um Revenue sources um is is shifting from um from state and local receipts to the property tax base um and that's primarily um driven by the fact that uh local receipts um while all um areas are growing the tax fees is growing higher and that um that we are becoming more and more dependent on um taxes that we collect here in the town um State receipts are rising um deadly at about 2 and a half% but the uh property tax are raise are rising at a rate of more uh of 4 and a half% um and that has to do with the fact that we are limited by uh 2 and A2 and then we um have done some growth here in the town of ammer and that helps us grow that that tax base and that is something that we don't have in other areas local receipts um fluctuate from year to year so a lot of times in a local receipt the reason it remains level is that one area will increase greatly while other areas drop off um and they're sort of inconsistent from year to year and they are the most um vulnerable to the economy um and we'll talk about that later about why um they're based on the economy and what keeps them sort of level is the fact that they are Diversified in where the the income comes from that's all I have to say about that uh and so again uh our our budget um has grown uh about three three and a half% so in the 3 to 4% range year-over-year in the past 10 years um um and while the different sectors of the community have been um being uh given the same increase year over-year the sectors that are growing the the most are um the the sectors of unappropriated uses miscellaneous and capital um and some highlights I want to make about that is that um that the unappropriated use so what what that consists of is the um primarily uh assessments from the state or other uh Regional agencies like Piner um Valley Planning Commission and so the driver and that increase um in the um in the unappropriated use is um choice and Charter out um grow grow at a a very large clip and so does um Regional Transportation so the pvta bus um and so that's what's driving that increase and then in um miscellaneous the drivers in that increase are are uh retirem me benefits so um retiree health insurance essentially and retirement assessment from our Retirement Board and then finally capital is growing um but I want to sort of point out that that's a deliberate um investment in infrastructure and that um you know we're we're maintaining um our 10 and a half% uh growth of of the tax base for the um outside but there are other factors that um contribute to our Capital which like the CPA fund which is an outside source of funds and the um override debt exclusion that we'll see on the uh school coming to us this year um and I think it's also important to to mention that in all three of those sectors which are growing which makes it a appear that the other sectors are shrinking those um s those not sources those uses of funds are distributed among all of the sectors of the government so while they're growing not in the town or the region or the library they are those those three sectors are shared among the four um groups here tonight okay good evening um this slide is showing property tax revenue and this is the primary source of both operating and capital spending um this includes New Growth um annual increases are limited by proposition two and a half unless the town passes an operating override and this was last done in fiscal year 2011 um the graph shows the Blue Line being actual dollars and the red line being constant dollars and this is just just showing that inflation is not quite keeping up so we'll go on to the next slide um uncollected property taxes so this slide shows a 10-year history of uncollected taxes as a percentage of the net Levy um we just want to point out again that in fy20 this was slightly higher du due to the covid-19 pandemic um the town adopted an extended due date that pushed the fourth quarter um due date from May 1st to June 30th without any penalty and this also pushed the demand bills into July so the collection went into the next fiscal year um we did rebound and um came back under the 2% Mark and have slowly come down since then and last year we're at about 1.44% um so overall this slide shows our collection rates to be very favorable to the bond rating agencies as we have remained well below the 5% or above warning indicator um so we talked about um state aid state aid has um increased um pretty um steadily um over um the 10 year history um I believe around 2% um and what what we're seeing here though is that even though the state aid is increasing um in comparison to inflation on the constant dollar we are um losing ground um in this Revenue source which is part of how it um sways on our percentage of overall Revenue um in the in the pi that we saw earlier um so compared to constant dollar um the state revenue is down approximately 4% from um 2015 I think we lost a mic sorry the 2023 depth that you see in um as a percentage of Revenue um is sort of it it is still declining but it that's accentuated by the fact that in fiscal 23 we made transfers into the general fund from stabilization um about $5 million which sway uh increases the revenue substantially enough that it uh sways the other Revenue sources so still um increasing as a receipt decreasing as a percentage of overall Revenue um and we're we continue to um lose ground unfortunately in that space as compared to inflation so um this is a history of the uh state aid um and you can see that the um state aid is growing um but so is unfortunately the state assessments um and so you can see that we're slightly up um as a net receipt but I think it's important to say that the uh assessments um from the state are rising faster than the increases to state aid so while we're um getting increases to state aid at about two two and a half percent the increases um to um the assessment are um almost 4% a year annually um if you average it over the 10-year period um and again like I had said previously the the biggest drivers are um Regional Transportation which of over the 10-year period is up um $567,000 um school choice is up $263,000 approximately and the um Charter School uh tuition is up um over 800,000 close to 900,000 at this time in this 10year period am I doing that okay oh yes I am okay never mind um so economic growth so the the the um these primary sources of income in the um economic growth driver um are from building permits motor vehicle excise um New Growth as part of the tax levy meals tax and hotel motel tax so um what you might notice is that we have a really good receipts in 2024 they did drop off um in um 21 um and 20 probably due to the pandemic because you know construction um meals um hotel motel was was almost gone to nothing during some of that period um I will say that um one thing to make note of is that we um have a very high growth in um building building permits for the year 2024 and what that is a reflection of is we have um three very large apartment complexes that were put into place around 2004 and you should probably see that in New Growth um either part of what was in 2024 and probably part of what is coming in 2025 um so if I can just jump in there so what that means is so these economic revenues are things like as she as Melissa said the building permits so we get bangs for the buck when you have a new project coming in um like one of the apartment complexes they pay a significant building permit fee and then when it when it becomes occupiable it it be added to our tax roles and so it hits it hits our books twice great but what I did want to say about that is as nice as it is to get the building permit be that unlike the new growth is a onetime uh Fe and the new growth is then permanently in the base so those fees will not repeat next year so that's something that we have to look at conservatively when we look at um local receipts as a portion of the revenue because we don't know we have to know what projects are coming in order to anticipate that kind of um fee income um Motor Vehicles has been on the study um incline um it it it dropped off slightly um in 2021 but it it is steady uh source of income for us and it creeps up slowly um and we can count on that and then of course uh Hospitality meals and hotel tax revenue has rebounded from the um the pandemic and we are um back in business as they say so that is good for the town and the economy okay just one thing before we move on from the slide I also want to um just make a note of the 2023 dropping down to 4.2% that was another um another place where the additional transfers from the stabilization fund artificially increased our total budget so if your total budget goes up your percentage is going to go down slightly if we backed that out that number would be closer to 4.8% which would be right in line with where it was sort of pre pandemic and for the last couple of years so we are definitely rebounding so next okay so this is the um Revenue per capita um adjusted for inflation so this chart Compares our three major Revenue um sources um the red line at the top is our property taxes and our biggest Revenue source and um it does increase annually by the allowable limits of proposition to and a half and our new growth which typically results in a 3% or higher um increase over the the prior Year's um tax uh tax collections um this graph shows that property taxes have increased but they're not keeping up with inflation per se you notice um as as the um property taxes go up the space between the adjusted for inflation and the actual property taxes just gets bigger and bigger um the middle is our state aid um the green lines and that is our second biggest source of Revenue and the last Revenue shown here the purple lines are our local receipts and they have remained um relatively flat um and again there we're keeping better pa U Pace with inflation that um that Gap isn't growing quite as much um as stated earlier and as everybody knows they did drop during um fy21 due to the pandemic but they are back to normal now next slide so this is our operating expenditures per capita again adjusted for inflation um when adjusted you'll you'll see that they don't seem to go up as much as the um actual lines do and uh in in reality uh when adjusted for inflation um our 2024 number is actually lower than our 2015 number um by um a little bit about uh just under 6% um operating expenses per capita are are very low in ammer this is both a positive sign of efficiencies and a challenge uh the primary reason that the cost per capita is so low here in emmer is because our population includes as you all know um many uh student residents um on and off campus who do not pay property tax bills but they do consume um Town Services still they use our roads and sidewalks our parks and Commons um they require fire Public Safety Services as well police fire ambulance and they also utilize our Public School System um next slide so by calculating the data per capita and comparing ourselves to other communities it makes it it easier to interpret much of the data in this um presentation and um the colors here are shown and and I'm not sure if anybody explained this but um many years ago when we started this um they asked us to um they asked the town to compare ourselves to peer communities communities that were very similar to us but most of those communities were out in the eastern part of the state so we also added some um local communities um several years back and we've been doing these same communities for a number of years um the colors on the chart are the bond ratings of each Community you'll notice at the top you see a lot more of the purple and blues those are the triple um purple is the AAA communities blue are the double A communities and there is one um just a community in the uh in the lower level um this shows that ammer is um below all of our peer communities and the local communities and we are at about 50% of the Statewide average um averages according to do yeah so next slide and and just to note on that slide as well um we have to go back a year where most of the things were reporting on FY 24 but uh the do website does not have all the current FY 24 data so we have to go back to FY 23 in order to get it for every single one of those communities from the safe place so those um comparison slides are a year behind the other slides um so this is our Municipal Staffing levels um this chart depicts the um budgeted Municipal Staffing levels for the town of amers general fund um only it does not include our Enterprise and it does not include any information on school Staffing levels those can be found on their website um this chart shows the past 10 years and shows that we've added approximately 17.5 FTE or full-time equivalents um so just to review the last couple of years in fy22 uh the number did not increase by um by barely anything as a matter of fact it went down slightly um that year was a shift we lost two police officers but we um budgeted for two CRA Crest staff members to start um the process of adding a Crest Department FY 23 is the addition of the other eight Crest responders um that came on board and started during fly 23 and then in FY 24 um The Tick up of four additional um FTE is taking on the four additional f fighters that had initially uh been funded with arpa revenues those are now in the operating budget for FY 24 okay so then this is uh salaries and benefits as a percentage of the total budget and um as expected when salary and benefits Rise um so will the um I'm sorry when Staffing levels rise so will the um the benefits um benefits include arcas steps retirement cost and insurance um unemployment insurance life and health insurance um and I just wanted to point out the one thing that confused me a little bit on this slide was um on the leftand side the the dollars go with the red bars and um how many millions of dollars are salary and benefits and then the headings on the um right hand side are the percentages which go with the blue and the green line so what you will notice is that the Blue Line shows the salary and benefits as a percentage of our total operating budget and although it has fluctuated a bit over the years it remains relatively consistent at about 50 to 55% of our total budget over the last 10 years is people or our salaries and benefits and the green line shows that um the benefits as a percentage of just salary in wages and that um runs approximately 35 to 42% and that's what most people think of as a fringe benefit percent that is the percent of salaries that is um it it that is the um the benefits uh the change from a self-insured um to a fully insured group plan with Maya several years back has helped to kind of level out our health insurance costs um if anybody remembers from several years ago and you looked at those Health claim trust fund um benefits they were they were um much more volatile now we have a fairly uh level predictable line there next anything else did you want to add anything that one okay okay so this slide shows our Debt Service as a percentage of Revenue um closer okay um this is our annual debt expense as a percent of our operating net revenue these are our annual principle and interest payments on existing debt um because our debt expense is low Uh current currently at 8% we have greater flexibility to issue new debt um and it's declined in the past few years as we've paid some things off um purpose on purpose um to get ready for the new building projects that are on the horizon um so in the next couple years this percentage will increase due to those debt authorizations that were approved through the capital Improvement plan um the elementary school is the first of the big projects to impact this and Debt Service is part of the capital budget so next slide please okay so this slide shows us compared to other communities throughout Massachusetts and above Compares us so the top is um to other communities and the bottom is our local community our neighboring communities um for Debt Service as a percentage of the operating budget this will look different in the next few years as more debt is taken on with a few of the big projects underway and our credit rating is strong due to a low percentage of debt relative to general fund revenue and also to good fiscal management next slide so um ammer long-term debt load has remained relatively low and has actually decreased in recent years as shown in this slide this percentage includes both long-term and short-term outstanding debt um this chart does not show authorized but unissued debt like the Jones library and a portion of the elementary school once these items are borrowed for our outstanding debt will reflect an increase in in our percentage this increase um the increase that is showing includes the first borrowing of just under $12 million as the first phase of the elementary school is underway next slide this is a comparison to other communities in Massachusetts above and below a comparison to our neighboring communities showing what our outstanding debt is as a percentage of assessed value for FY 23 these charts are long-term outstanding debt only currently um ammer is still the lowest but again this is going to change in the next few years as more debt is taken on and we just want to say again that we maintain a strong double A+ credit rating as a result of this low percentage of debt relative to our general fund Revenue so um this is our um um uh slide depicting our opab and our pension um um liabilities um as everybody is is well aware um the Hampshire County Retirement Board in the town of amest are taking these liabilities seriously and trying to fund them over time um Hampshire County Retirement is currently funded at just over 75% I believe it's 75.1% of their outstanding liability and they plan to be fully funded um by 20 FY 2032 um our OPB fund is currently funded at approximately 13% just over 133% and our plan is to Red um redirect additional monies um that we will eventually be saving when Hampshire County Retirement becomes fully funded and our annual contributions will decrease we plan to redirect more of those funds to our opab liability so that we can um get a get a a good start on getting that completely funded as well uh new OPB study is done um every two years years so those numbers do fluctuate over the years when a new Actuarial study is done um it may throw the funding um down slightly as our liability grows a little bit but we are making strides um towards uh becoming fully funded in the OPB as well next slide okay this is um reserves as a percentage of the general fund budget and so um obviously um this number well first you know as as many of you here are aware we have um Financial policies in place that um have us maintain a 5% um free cash after IT certified 5% of the um operating budget um in free cash and then um we move another 5% or 10% to the you move is it 10% to the stable is it five yeah 10 yeah the general um and that um M you know bringing it to like 15% reserves we are currently above the goal of the 15% reserves intentionally um and this is due to um wanting to increase the capital stabilization in plans to offset some of the um upcoming um capital projects we currently have on the horizon about four major capital projects that we need to fund kind of simultaneously and the plan for that is to build up the capital stabilization so that we can normalize the um debt payments over time and not exceed that um 10.5% of capital directly from the budget um you'll notice here also the dip um from 22 to 23 and that that is um a consequence of when we took $5 million out of the stabilization and put it into um the cost of the current uh school project that is underway and so um this is our reserves as compared to our peers and you can see that we are fairly strong in compared to our peers we where not the most um funded of other the communities but we do rank high on the bar here and I I just want to call out uh Northampton um because they are the highest of our peers locally um and they had um an intention to do that um for a different reason than ammer do but the idea is to hold reserves year-over-year and Bleed It Down in a um a planned um manner to stabilize the impact of um high cost um capital projects over time so that we can um do the repairs we need um and not just keep deferring those maintenance on this building so it's a it's by Design so I'm sure that you will see over time that Northampton will draw theirs down as well um with the same kind of intention we will um I will say that theirs was created by an override we have no um plan at this time to do an override and that's why we're saving so aggressively to help manage these projects so it comes back to me and I will I'm going to race through some of these because I know we've taken a long time to make the presentation um we just I want to reaffirm with the S&P Global ratings that's sort of the um gold standard for cities and towns what is your Bond rating it's really important many things we can't control the wealth of our community is one of those things that we can control are listed here and basically it's about um good operating principles strong financial management those types of things that's the list on the left um on the right we have the um our health reserves that Melissa just talked about so we have our capitalization Capital stabilization fund and we have a reparation stabilization fund which we're continuing to contribute to next slide so budget highlights um for fi25 we've had good collaboration you know we had some strong discussions in the spring and wound up at a 4% increase for all the operating budgets and we've that we've been able U all the entities been able to continue the investment in capital and sustainability ongoing we all face the sort of same things inflation um we have to work out the regional assessment and relationship with the Regional School District um everybody's experiencing Rising health of of health insurance and retirement and OPB liabilities are a high priority growing the tax base to support the demand for new Services is always a priority as well next slide so here's our working assumptions for FY 26 so this is the revenue piece so this is the upcoming fiscal year as we enter and this is where the council should begin thinking about what it wants to do our we we assume a property tax increase of 2 and a half% which is the most that's allowed under prop two and a half we're pro assuming a new growth number of $650,000 um which is about average for what we have done in the past we're looking at state aid to be flat flat um a little bit nervous about an economic downturn and that often impacts the um state budget uh we're looking at modest growth from year to year um for local receipts and we're not proposing an override next slide in terms of our um expenditures or our budget we're now comfortable projecting a 3% increase for the town the elementary school the region and the library for the town's appropriation and this would be the for so that was that's up previously when we showed this to the finance committee previously we're at 2 and a half% we're pretty comfortable with the projections at this point in time we always try to make that as accurate as possible um we do want to S note that there are some unknowns out there we have a lot of collective bargaining agreements that are not settled uh all of our on the on the school side there are three that are unsettled and two that are two that are settled for the town it says that we have six unsettled we have um all of our unions except for the fire Union are under contract through June 30th of 2025 and we are hoping to get them all under contract prior to the beginning of July 1 2025 and I'm very hopeful that we'll have the fire Union settled in the very near future and we all the the um we agreed that um one of the sort of Hazards is um on the health insurance we're projecting a 133% increase now when we talk to our health insurance company they said somewhere between 10 and 15% off the top of their heads this is not a good number you like a solid number but just seeing what they were looking at in terms of our experience they wait until they get our November experience to before they actually give us a number which we will get in January so we put in we uh between the schools and the town we agreed 133% would be the increase um but I just caution that it could be higher and if it's lower we'll be elated um so when we look at what our assumptions are for where we're allocating our funds we do have to meet our re our um our contributions to uh the Hampshire County Retirement System we are estimating a 12% increase in that and we want to maintain our contribution to op PEB which is retiree health insurance it's a modest amount $50,000 but it's something that the um the the ratings agencies really pay attention to if they if you're disciplined enough to continue to start to meet that responsibility um we would like we we really recommend that we maintain uh the capital investment at 10 and a half% of the levy and continue to be conservative in our budget budgeting with careful management so we T talked with um uh these are sort of redundant in some ways and if it's not I'll mention it for the town I've mentioned all the things that we are focused on the schools identified eser funds as as being uh Gone the needs in their facilities state aid the transition planning for sixth grade move the sixth grade move to Middle School significant increase in health insurance um they've also noting transportation is going out for bid and so they're anticipating an increase for that plus the uh Union negotiations for the library they identifi their Jedi which is Justice Equity diversity and inclusion efforts Patron demand for services increased costs that we're all experiencing uh and their greater growing dependence on the endowment and fundraising and then of course facilities and grounds and staff development so the big but picture going forward um so most of the growth will come from our own resources I think we cannot rely on uh the on new that much New Growth to expand our tax base um the I'm not going to read all of these things they're sort of sort of we talked about these things a lot um we have our concerns on the left and how we're sort of managing them if on the right again utilizing reserves um seeking additional sources of funds sustainable development uh which is you know new new construction um and then we are hoping or expecting that as we build new buildings or as we make investments and sustainable our ongoing costs or expenses safer electricity will uh drop that will give us a little bit more Elbow Room in our operating budgets next slide and who's going to walk through this so um this is our um maybe maybe we just sort of go I think it might be worth it just to we can talk about those with the finance committee because I'm looking at the time and we haven't had any chances for for questions if that's okay these are last two slides of this spreadsheet but I think we identified the major drivers in this already thank you very much um this was always informative and uh scary to put it mildly uh we are going to entertain questions from those boards that are here and I see a hand up and it's uh school committee person Jennifer sha hi thank you for that presentation so I have a my questions are about the ey chart slides um is that okay so first I wanted to request in the future when you show us these slides that you that you fill in the percent change column for all the rows the percent change column is only filled in for the subtitle subtotal rows not for each individual item and it's it's helpful to look at the percent change for each item so that you can see which items are going faster or slower than the total so you can see sort of what's driving the growth you know what I mean the percent change column well in this every single Row in addition to the sub total like those columns are just those rows are just empty there's nothing there you can just copy paste the formulas down okay anyway so I'm trying to figure out why if our town Revenue has gone up or is projected to go up by 4.6% why the operating budget for the four departments is only going up by 3% and in fact the you're showing what the Town Council has informed the school committee that you would do which was to base the percent increase on the amount allocation amount for the regional school committee not including the additional um the additional funding that was that was given so that's what you said you were going to do that's what's shown on the on the um on the spreadsheet and in fact it reflects a 1% increase over the total amount that was given last year so anyway when I look at the expenditures page um slide 33 you know the operating budgets are going up by 2.5% actually not 3% because of the because of what I just said and there are other areas that are going up by more than the 4.6% so that means that they're getting more a share of the revenue so it looks like most of it um or a big portion of it is coming from the line item called Cash Capital Tax support that's going up from 4.1 million in fiscal 25 to 5.5 million in fiscal 26 and it's an increase of $1.4 million and according to my calculations it's an increase of 33% so can you tell me what's in that line it's on page 33 the line called Cash Capital Tax support please speak to the microphone that's the um that's the 10% of tax taxable it's not showing yeah so that's so that's how we come to the 10 and a half% of of property tax um for capital investment that is built into the budget so some of the other increases in that Capital Area come from other financing sources so they're not part of um recurring tax revenue um as part of the operating budget um specifically like when you see um Debt Service um from CPA or Peg that means that's Debt Service supported from funds outside general fund Revenue so we don't um those are transfers in from another department so that's why and then also what's really important to look at here is that the um Debt Service for the um the new um Elementary School um and that's a projected number because we haven't borrowed that money yet but you know we have a bid we may need to go out for we may not but that's the projected um dollars from the um from our financial adviser on what the our first payment will be on the the larger um second borrowing for that but that money that um debt excluded money um can't it is raised separately on the tax bill and cannot be used for operating costs so okay um but the operate the the tax Capital that's our Capital plan that buys fire trucks buses uh Vans for the Council on Aging DPW trucks roads and um sidewalk repairs Park improvements and that uh number is the um 10% of the um tax okay so I wasn't asking about the debt service lines that that those seem pretty straight forward specifically asking about the cash Capital parenthesis tax support line which was right you know it was 5.3 million in fiscal 24 it was 4 1 million 25 and now it's up to 5.5 million in projected for fiscal which is a 1.4 million that's because debt goes down and cash goes up so it's the total number there is what's important um for it the total okay because when we have less debt we pay cash for more items okay so that Mak sense cash Capital Tax before is it 10% or 10.5% 10.5% okay I mean that's a huge number that's 1.4 million that that line item is increasing compared to e any of the operating budgets which whose increases a far lower percent increase and a far lower actual increase I'm not I'm just saying this out loud for others I don't necessarily expect you to to have an answer for that thank you um the next person that has their hand up is Pam roone thank you um a number of times it was mentioned that health insurance is increasing greatly and at one point uh while we were still town meeting I believe we were self-insured and it was something that that Sandy perer uh assured us was a really healthy and costeffective way to manage uh health insurance cost at some point we transition to a different system have H are we continuing to look for ways to to um self self-insure or manage the health insurance differently sh um so the uh we were self-insured and it basically um went broke and that's when we moved and made the critical decision of moving into being fully insured the we have an insurance advisory committee which is includes representatives from all the bargaining units in the town it's it's an employee Insurance bargaining and health insurance advisory committee and uh includes staff from the town as well uh and the schools and what we're looking at is plan design changes to try to uh moderate that increase and there are certain tools that we can do to tweak you know we can raise deductibles uh uh and uh co-pays and things like that and that will reduce the Inc the increase to a certain amount but if I think a few years ago um you know hly and Chen remember this you we had to make that hard decision about the the being self-insured just wasn't working anymore would you like to add further that Holly um I was just going to say given the environment that I don't think that um being self-insured would even remotely be a better option right now being in a pool of other municipalities and a very large pool where we can spread those out um over a larger number of employees is a much better place to be Pam is there any further follow open that okay uh Jennifer uh councelor to um yes I just wanted to ask under big budget strategies going forward um uh Pilots seem to be absent can I know that that's not something we can count on but as for negotiation if that could be included or why wasn't that included sure when we put in I I put that under agreements it's called agreements I call it because um the people don't some people want to call it Pilots some others don't like to be calling it Pilots P pilot for those is called payment in Lee of taxes it can also just be fees or or contributions that um so we do have a uh by the university and the colleges is really what we're talking about so we have an agreement with the University of Massachusetts we're really going to drill down and get try to get an agreement uh with the college this calendar year um and then we then we take on Hampshire college with ham with hamers college I say the college so when that when those funds we can once that is ink we'll be able to uh process that those funds as well okay thank you the only actual payment in Li of taxes we get is the small amount we get for state-owned land yeah that's technically Pilots uh councelor hanii so I'm still trying to digest all of this um it's the first time we've seen actuals for FY 24 um and F and free cash certification and all of that that and I know we normally have conservative budgeting um so I have a couple of questions um on the choices for FY 26 projections um as they relate to FY 24 actuals listed on this sheet on whatever page it's on 33 32 I don't know what it is um because I'm I'm doing it other places um I think you said in the presentation that you're taking a little bit of a conservative approach to the local receipts because of potential slowdowns in economies um but I guess one of my questions is is it too conservative um the actuals in fy4 and maybe you can explain why some of these seem really high for licenses and permits were 1.7 million do um and your FY 26 projection is 1 .0 million um a nearly $700,000 decrease from the FY 24 actuals but also lower than fy22 and 23 by over $200,000 so I I understand that maybe FY 24 might be an anomaly but 23 and 22 were $1.3 million and FY 26's budget is only $1 million um seems like maybe another 300,000 into the Revenue side could help the expense side of the core Services um similarly I I think this investment income is probably the anomaly $1.9 million um is if you can explain why that one is so high it's more than double what FY 23s actual were um and how that works into the budget you've budgeted a half million dollar um which is a lot lower um than 1.9 million um but but where are those significant differences coming from um miscellaneous you say see a note section but I haven't seen a note section so I don't actually know the difference there um the last FY 23 and 24 actuals were 560,000 the budget is 340,000 that's a difference of about 200,000 again um so if we look at some of those and project closer to the actuals we're looking at close to another million dollars or more in Revenue that could then be put into the expense side um the miscellaneous and the other financing sources is also quite low at $75,000 in the projection for FY 26 where the actuals have always been over 100,000 if not close to 200 or more thousand so these seem like extremely conservative projections on some of these um that frankly directly resulted in an FY 24 actual surplus of $5.7 million which I know we'll get to later in tonight's meeting um but 5.7 million even 10% of that were a little you know I'm trying to Fig you know I haven't dug into where that's coming from but $500,000 split amongst three or four different groupings is another employee or two um even if we're looking at that so I guess I'd like to know where some of those really to me seeming conservative projections are coming from but also a bigger question is when we look at the FY 24s which is not an anomaly anymore when you look at 22 23 and 24 all being near five or more million dollars in surpluses are we being to conservative what is the percentage of our budget that we seek to have as a surplus every year are we too high how do we get closer so that we can actually use that money within the operating budgets and capital budgets of the year not when we come here in November and re allocate them out um when we get to the next part my question will be should we be looking at some of that Surplus to plan to use in an FY 26 operating instead of moving it over to Capital stabilization or some of these other projects um so that's sort of my first set of kind of big picture kind of digging down so so um those are really important questions I think we really expect sure sorry one other one that I just saw um the assessment retirement assessment that 12% $1 million increase is what was Zero last year that allowed us to go up to four % in all of the functional areas right yes and 12% is basically double what we normally see so we kind of it is that is that true 6.5 to 6.9 to 7.5 it's about double what we normally see so we actually got a one-year reprieve but are paying for it in FY 26 is that the case sort of yes there's yes we got a temporal B win for that one um and for the other questions those are really important questions to talk about at the finance committee in terms of how aggressive do you want to be on budgeting you know when we look at it we come back with a 5% $5 million is 5% of a $100 million budget that doesn't seem unreasonable to me if that seems to be where where I would want to be in terms of conservative budgeting the council can say you know in terms of your financial guidelines you might want to say we want lower than that in terms of where you project our kind of reserves to wind up at the end of the year we're also on the posture in terms of the guidelines to try to build our reserves so we can take on it we know every one of our entities I said we have facility needs and capital needs so maintaining that 10 and a half% uh is important but you know I think that that's you know at this point in time in the year we're usually pretty conservative on almost all of those numbers and as we get more information we tighten them up and we can be more um aggressive on on the budgeting uh so we will learn that with our um expenditures and with our income as well in terms of like building permit fees and things like that we know what project are going through permitting now you know and that's you know at the end of Permitting is when we get the building permit fees there aren't very many there fewer and fewer in the pipeline quite honestly and so when we talk to the building department they'll say yeah there's one or two out there but they're not like three or four like there used to be so we do look at that and we talk to the assessors in terms of what they're hearing so we try to base it on real information um and um and past practice and I think we try to avoid you know a 5% shift can be you know if we don't have 5% in there I mean we don't we just went through a pandemic where things really collapsed and so I'm hyper sensitive to recognizing and we survived it because we had good reserves and um and preserved the services and the and um the jobs for the people who work for the town so I think that that type of thing those are the values that we we have brought to this to these projections in the past um but I think it's a really important policy discussion to talk about how aggressive do you want to be on on our budgeting um Sarah Marshall from the Emer school committee chair I only just raised my hand to be sure but I'll I'll go ahead I fully endorse um councelor hani's um comment about how much the size of the Surplus which seems to be about $5 million every year and um it's it's upset to see that because that's money that is not at work in our town or in our schools and I understand not wanting to end in the red I very much understand that um but it really bothers me that that money I guess is swept into free cash and is again Out Of Reach for the schools um so I I hope the finance committee and the council do consider uh changing policy maybe around either around the degree of conservatism in the budget or what to do with that Surplus like maybe share it out among Town departments or some fraction of it um I would also like to better understand the free cash and stabilization again that's a lot of money $28.6 million not at work thank you is there any comment back at this point no okay those are good comments um uh school committee member or roads I I'm I find myself being astounded that I am agreeing with Mandy I think over the years we haven't agreed on very much but I I really agree with everything she have said and I applaud you bringing those points forward Mandy the other thing that stood out to me is that pie chart uh where we looked at the elementary and region Regional share of the Town budget uh receding by 3% and 2% respectively that was uh something that I didn't expect to see uh given uh what has been happening over the years so I really would like to really understand that that recession we went you know Elementary down by 3% and the region down by 2% in terms of percentage of over of the overall budget uh and and given that it seems that we really uh should be concentrating on why is that that we're down but yet uh there is concern about us spending more uh so anyway it um I I I I yes I really want to dig into these numbers uh some more because there's a lot of lot in there that needs to be explained and Fuller detail thank you um School Committee Member Deb Leonard hi uh thank you for the presentation I've been looking forward very much to seeing what the actuals were um continuing along the the question about um uh Surplus because I spent a fair amount of time with the Town's budget and I've gone back to 2019 um there has been no year where you've predicted a uh a surplus of any amount back to 2019 it's been negative in 2019 and then Zero from there on but over the last um over those six years the total uh surpluses not only have amounted to a fairly robust uh stabilization account but they've increased um um so I I also question the uh overall value in uh telling the regional schools that there's just absolutely no money in the budget for a $355,000 increase but um here you you you uh consider uh a reasonable overage at the end of the and end of the year to be 15 times that amount um so the region can't benefit from free cash at the end of the year any extra money that we have we can't build into a stabilization account there's no there's no provision for that if the town were to do that for us that would be a way of sharing some of that uh extra cash at the end of the year but really when we have such a large employee heavy uh as as do all these uh sectors we really need that operating cash to keep keep the kids uh educated healthy and happy there's a lot that goes into it and while I appreciate this issue of the uh Bond rating nobody ever wrote a letter to their former uh whatever Town counselor saying thank you for the bond rating we will benefit very much from those capital buildings but um it can't come at the expense of the uh the kids in in the district and when I say that I mean not just the elementary schools because children don't cease to become um cease being Amorous residents when they graduate sixth grade I understand the region is a separate municipality but it is very much one where um many of our residents value the work that's done inside those buildings as well as the fact that those buildings are falling apart and we do not have as a region the ability to save that money on her own so um I would encourage you to really think long and hard as counselors about um the statements that are made in the budget about how amers values uh schools and yet again and again and again we're asked to cut our budgets and seeing these kinds of overages just are really really difficult so I would be interested in finding out how free cash what looks to be about $10 million a year comes about from um these kinds of surpluses because I I really have a hard time interpreting the budget it looks like there's many different places where um Capital can be saved um there's there's the and I I don't understand all of them but there's many different parts of lines in the budget where it says capital capital capital capital and um so uh thank you thank you Deb let let me try to I want to address a couple of things so first off the the region does have its own free cash so um uh so at the end of the year you have for what they call it yeah yeah yeah so% but we're also very hyper sensitive to the challenges of the region I mean the having the arpa money there as onetime money does create a a larger um challenge for next year and we're we're working through what that might look like I've been having conversations with the superintendent about what are what how we can help offset some of that in addition we have looked at um you know you know the health insurance which which which is beyond our sort of real control the big number is and for all everybody and so in terms of getting above 3% we're really focused on how can because how can we make offset that big increase so we are looking at this and we'll continue to work with it through the course of the budget making season I need to pause for just a minute and uh make sure that people know that the hearing that is scheduled for 7:15 will follow this as we convene the regular meeting of the Town Council but we wanted to make sure not to cut the question an answer period short this year uh on these budgets uh with that I'll move to brid Hines from the school committee um I thanks so much for this presentation folks this is really thorough and so well presented it's very clear and and easy to follow so I just appreciate your work first off secondly I appreciated especially the chart on page three comparing the trends across time because a lot of times we're thinking why are the schools losing ground um so much and then we see like the schools are down 5% of the town's overall funding then you combine that with the other thing mentioned of this constant dollar loss from the state and the schools you know just were not able to provide the quality of instruction we once did and then we're facing these dramatic Cuts this year so I think I just Echo you know in a different way the same thing that a lot of other people have said because we see Capital miscellaneous and free cash are up to full 7% of that chart and it seems to me that some shift in spending priorities could help us to bridge this Gap I wanted to mention something to the to the 3% our schools are funded by the state off the growth percentage and we see these as four or 5% over year year after year and yet amist is still only discussing 3% so the schools despite the fact that we're actually the state expects us to be putting the growth percentile towards it and then one final thing I know is just the schools are cutting numerous staff every year we lost seven in the district last year we're losing at the elementary and then we just see the towns adding staff over year after year so it feels like different fiscal universes and I'm just wondering if the town has a strategy overall to mitigate these proportional decreases to the schools compared to other aspects of the town thank you thank you did you want to comment on anything no okay uh Anna herd hi thank you um I wanted to go back a little bit to Jennifer Sha's comment about um the way that you've um presented the the regional school budget and um we had a fourtown meeting and I thought that there was some agreement about steps moving forward and this is not in any way represented in this draft budget and together with together with um the historical surpluses and some of the other comments that have been brought up this doesn't seem reasonable it doesn't seem [Music] um I I don't feel heard in so from the four towns meeting it seemed like everybody was in agreement we had a a plan moving forward and none of that conversation is reflected in this budget and for me that's frustrating um especially in light of all of the other evidence that suggest that it's likely affordable um and so I I I would like to understand why none of the discussion that was put forward during the fourtown meeting seems to be represented in this budget do you want to address that PA so we we base this um this initial this is what we're doing is sharing the information this is not a budget this is initial information with what we're projecting out based on our historical uh our history over the last decade and that's what we present this information goes to the Town Council and to the finance committee and over the course of the next four or five weeks they will work on budget guidelines and that will be the controlling document for how we build our budgets for all the entities so this is in Base information it's a recommendation but ultimately the the guidelines will be developed by the Town Council it's a recommendation based on none of the discussion that we had during the fourtown meeting yeah good um yeah so I mean this is a staff's recommendation I mean this is our professional information and we're based on nothing that we discussed in the fourtown meeting thank you yeah uh I'm going to go to uh counselor Kathy Shane uh who has not spoken yet Kathy um I'll get another chance this Friday and later today on some of the numbers um that were presented so I just want uh to Echo what Mandy has asked about some of the places that we may be under or or overestimating and secondly to try to understand when you do miscellaneous it has pensions in it so some of the labor costs of the schools and other parts are in that line so we're not always the pension line as she as she said is jumping up is health insurance health insurance I'm assuming is in the elementary it's embedded as opposed to Insurance op and in the operating Okay so we've got part of the cost and then the the Chapter 70 money you present present it I think one chart is showing the total before the offsets for Charter and then later we're seeing the offsets for Charter is that correct is I'm looking at that so if I would just have a request for a finance committee that I could see total and then total once we send the money to the charter school where would it be because I'm trying to understand what has really happened to state aid because I think we're exaggerating state aid it's even down more than one of the lines are because there's a negative coming off of it right the Jerry seat and I just want to understand the numbers the in the last slide um graphs there was a state aid and it had state aid with assessments next to it and the netline in the middle so that's the netline is the lower number of the state aid there a little diagonal there's a little triang triangles yeah so that's the net number um less the assessments which includes you know it includes AA and Chapter 70 as the two big things and it includes as the big assessments um Charter and choice tuitions as well as um Regional Transportation those are the big drivers yeah so I know this you followed you're using these um indicators are coming off of what we've seen before but I just I've never seen the detail under them so if we could get just some of the detail under it wanted to talk to the general public what was state aid 20 years ago as a share of the school budget what it is at now and be able to show this draw that has happened since the charter schools opened up yeah I have that information I'll bring it to you Friday I don't have 20 years worth um I have 20 years of overall revenues um but I'll get the state aid 20 year history for you thank you for Friday I let me just add to that and I think the real issue is that there are are some costs that can that are attributed to the schools and also to the libraries that are embedded in other parts of the chart that's what I was asking so in the pie charts yes all three of the miscell excuse me all three of the growth areas which are unappropriated uses miscellaneous and um Capital have shared costs between all four of the sectors of government so that those parts that are growing much faster than any of the operating budgets of any of the sectors um are also shared um by those sectors right and so I think the request is to have the breakout within those sectors so that we understand of those areas what is school what's Library what's town okay is that Kathy does that get it okay uh I'm going to go back to [Music] um uh let's see councelor hanii I I just wanted to correct this Regional School Committee Member Anna herd um I did not leave four towns with ammer in agreement with a plan going forward so I think that from my point of view was a not an accurate statement um in fact ammer at that four towns meeting indicated that the scenarios one and two that shutesbury and Leverett seemed to like the most would be extremely difficult for us to meet um we did not agree to meet with them at that meeting we said it would be nearly impossible to meet with them given the information we had at that time that doesn't mean we're not going to continue to look as the questions in the comments at this meeting are indicating let's see but we did not make any agreements at that four towns meeting so I I take issue with a statement that said there were agreements at that meeting because there were not in my from what I left that meeting with um I'm going to go to uh Andy Steinberg who has not spoken yet yeah I actually was uh thinking about same question same point that uh councelor hanii was making there was also a previous um four towns meeting where we did have an agreement on a 4% and we made the point that uh we could go to the 4% on a one-year basis because one-time Revenue that was never going to recur again it was matter of um a fluke in the way that pensions were calculated for a single year so that we had we had come to 4% and then uh beside in in spite of that we're pressed for a higher increase which was what happened at the uh second four at that next four towns meeting it in April very late in the budget process on the eve of town meetings in three towns and as we were um in ammer which is the largest contributor U closing in on our budget so it it was a difficult process last year I'm not blaming the schools um the school committees in any way for making the request that they thought that they had to make but you know there was a very unusual sequence last year and I think that we all need to just find a way to work together but work together and recognizing that last year was an extraordinarily difficult year and uh one that um had a lot of bumps along the path as uh new school committee members became familiar with the process and uh new as we were going through a period still with an interim superintendent so uh you know I think we need to just all work together together NE uh for next year and do what's right for next year but to recognize the problems that were last year uh from the school committee Deb Leonard hi um thoughts please make sure you speak to the mic thank you um one of them being I very much appreciate the the opportunity to have this conversation in person and um thank you another Paul spoke to the the information being preliminary and and there being a process and that's great when um 10% of our budget is going to be um perhaps appropriated in um in just two weeks from now with right after uh the public forum on it I I I question the Optics if not the the process itself of certifying free cash so so quickly it I'm not certifying of of appropriating it it was certified on the 22nd of October the um the memo was written November 9th and 11 the memo um okay that's wrong the memo was written shortly thereafter um at the end of October uh it was attached no it's October 1st it was I'm getting the dates all medal but here we are it's really not very far out it looks like the process of deciding what to do with free cash is very very much along the way with the um the requests being made no public input so far it's on an agenda I have not been able to find any kind of noticing on the town website about that I understand it is on the on the town's agenda but the actual um recommendations of the individual Appropriations are in the packet in today's meeting so there's a whole level of distress that I believe uh the the school committee is experiencing on combining finding out that there actually is Surplus and we are not um down to the wire with money and then all of a sudden it's gone um I'd like to encourage you to to think about uh Chapter 70 funding and chapter 90 funding in in the same way you understand that state is underfunding chapter 90 and you have in the past made a commitment to appropriating a million dollars a year uh towards roads and sidewalks sort of to mitigate that um perhaps you could consider the same thing um I understand that state money is State money but in the end roads and sidewalks are local as our school children thank you I see no other hands are there any other questions or comments uh may I make a point of information please yes um so the financial orders on the agenda this evening are for referral to finance committee before the council can take action on those orders we need a recommendation from the finance committee and there will be a public forum on each of those orders before the council is able to act on them so that will be posted once those dates are set question is Lee is that supposed to be noticed tending days ahead it it hasn't been noticed yet because we haven't scheduled it yet so so the the public form is required before the council acts on the orders there's no action on the orders tonight aside from a referral to finance committee so finance committee needs to review the orders they'll make a recommendation back to the council then we'll schedule the public forums and then the council will act and at this point the Forum is tentatively scheduled and posted on the agenda for tonight the public forum tonight no it's on the agenda that you see tonight but the Forum itself is on the 18th at 6:30 right and I I don't think that Forum has been noticed no we're not within the 10day period yet so we okay maybe I'm Miss counting days then so the a public forum will be posted before the council is able to act on those orders um and the finance committee will need to complete its review and recommendation before the council is able to act on those orders there will be a public forum and a period of public comment on those financial orders before Council action excuse me Lynn that's okay are there any other questions or comments I have a question I'm sorry my phone keeps dropping the zoom so you don't see me on there even though it's interesting I don't I I wondered I thought I saw your hand and then it dropped me please go ahead thank you um Paul might have answered my question when he said this is not a budget because I'm noting that the fiscal 26 projected column ends in a negative number which it seems concerning but no one brought it up so I maybe not but so like this is not the final and we're we we're not we're not going to we can't have a negative budget we can't have a budget in the red is that right absolutely not this is very preliminary numbers this is basically the second draft there'll be 10 12 more for it's a balanced budget thank you let me a way of better understanding that let me step back and say this is the opening discussion okay we don't close this discussion until June 30th of 2025 and in between then we get budgets from the library we get budgets from the school we get lots of different updates we provide guidelines and on a regular basis we see an update on the budget historically what we have seen is increases so last year for example I can't remember whether we started out at 2.5 or what but we ended up at four this year we're starting at three at least starting there but there's a lot of time between now and June 30th and so again this is the starting discussion and so as much as I hear people concerned about transparency I don't know of any other town that is quite as open about their finances at this point Deb Anna so I I guess I would have a I would like a little bit more understanding of where the surpluses are coming from um and so is it that we're underestimating certain portions of Revenue and then which res which portions of Revenue are we underestimating because I think that if the hesitation or the need to come to a you know uh an even budget is hindered by our inability to to correctly project uh Revenue then that's not helpful either so if we're if we're suggesting that our our budget is must be limited because these are this is all that we can spend but then at the end of the year we end up with a 5 million doll Surplus we're doing something wrong and um it's not helpful and yes it makes us feel good at the end of the year to say oh look we have a surplus we didn't overspend but but what what's happening is we're cutting services because we don't think that we're going to have enough money and then we're hurting the people who who need those services and so I think that if we could do a slightly more accurate projection um or maybe make that projection a little bit less conservative in order to more adequately fund the services that our Citizens need um I think that would be Ben more beneficial than ending up with a $5 million Sur Surplus every year thank you councelor hanii I was going to offer an answer but on my brief one but I think the town staff might be better able to but they're not prepared you know I was tempted to do the same but there's going to be a lot of that discussion in the next phase of our meeting as well but it does anybody Paul or any of the staff want to address what creates Surplus po you want to it so it is definitely a combination of things um in fiscal year 24 um we brought in um approximately 4 million additional dollars of Revenue um one of the biggest chunks of that being um some great investment by our Treasurer and $1.9 million of interest income which is completely unheard of um and that is simply due to the fact that we have so many capital projects that have been back bured a little bit so that money is sitting there available to us to be invested until it is spent um and then it was I believe and I'm just I'll have better numbers on Friday for the finance committee but I believe about a $1.4 million um of our expenditures that we did not spend um due to vacancies um you know cost of things coming in lower um Etc so it is a combination of both um more on the revenue side this year than on the savings of um expenses this year and I just in terms of the um the idea on on projections is not just accuracy I mean I could if we can look back in time we can be 100% accurate you can't be 100% accurate looking forward and I think it's a valuable discussion to say are we being too conservative or too liberal in how we project out expenses and income um there is no we cannot go negative we cannot H have it be below um our budget um because that puts us in deficit that equals negative free cash which means you have to make that up in your next year's budget so I think we're you know the the mission of the professional staff is to make sure that that never happens in the town of amorist and we've been successful in that um and we have to take into account uh if someone can tell me what the um bond market is going to be doing what the stock you know what what interest rates are going to be looking like next year what construction rates are going to be in the coming year what all these different things are going to happen if there's uh what gas and oil prices are going to look like I would really welcome the the inside information because we have to account for that and discount for that in terms of when we're making projections so we are conservative especially at this time of year when we get closer to the fiscal year we will have more clarity in Jan anuary when we hear what the governor's budget is that's when we get our real finan our real health insurance numbers as well and then when the ways and means budget comes out that gives us more information so I think there's lots of V variables um neither none of us have um uh collective bargaining insurance or collective bargaining agreements yet and we don't know what those numbers look like either so we have to carry a budget for those things uh the schools do the same thing that we do for to do that make to make sure that we have money in our budget to to pay our uh employees so there's just a lot of pieces to this and you know I think it's it's a it's a healthy discussion to have I think everybody is Raising really good strong questions why are we do what we do are we doing it accurately enough to make sure that we stay um in the in the in the black on our our budget so um we welcome the conversation to continue I see a hand from Sarah best Kenny chair of the regional school committee hi thank you very much um so I I have a quick question so when uh earlier in the presentation you said guess about 3% um for each of the you know main buckets uh for the Regional School are you where are you basing your 3% off of the total funding from last year the 3 the 6% I think the question Paul is is is this 3% with on top of the 6% from last year so when when you see the spreadsheet the the arpa money from last year is as a separate line identified but it's not included into your base which is what the understanding was last year no no so the answer is no yes correct the answer Bas off the 4% it's 4% it's 3% on top of the 4% from last year right so four assuming a 4% last year it's based on that and then 3% for this year y that is the way it is presently presented yes okay thank you okay uh Andy Steinberg yeah I I know that there's been a lot of discussion and will continue to be a lot of discussion as there should about how to budget and what um you do for budgeting and the consequences of um under budgeting expended of your projections and having surpluses but I you know I've been involved in budget since I was on the first the the former finance committee since 2007 and um is uh difficult as it is the two most difficult years that I experienced in all of that time were the years where we had severe under budgets for um in 2007 because of the recession that happened that FL flowed into 2008 in a severe way where we were actually cutting budgets that we had previously voted during the year because the state was um cutting its state aid to us so that we had less Revenue than we had budgeted for um because of the um how the state handled state aid at the time and then um in 2020 when we had to make accommodations because of the pandemic and uh as painful as this is um I just want to U share my observation that that level of pain is nothing like those years when you go the other way and I hope you know I think that we're right to try and avoid that and uh I think that's the discussion the finance committee needs to have as to how close you want to go and what is the right way to approach it but you don't want to get there um I assure you um I'm going to move to adjourn the special meeting I'm going to First Call in this Sarah Marshall from the school committee to adjourn the school amest amest school committee we need to vote to do that I assume it's uh we do but you can do whatever your practices all right I move to adjourn the ammer school committee is there a second second Jennifer thank you um has to be a roll call vote Bridget Bridget how do you vote yes thank you IR yes Deb yes yes and I'm yes we are adjourned you thank you Jones Library trustees uh Tammy yeah I think we've lost many of them so I will just adjourn uh the meeting of the trustees thank you okay uh finance committee Bob hegner yes I uh move to adjourn is there a second second okay uh we have to do a roll call Vote Yes I'll start with the counselors Kathy yes Andy yes uh Mandy Jo sorry um I think Alicia Alicia is here Alicia and Bernie Alicia yes I okay okay and um I'm an I um Tom yes there he is Bernie yes good night all right we're adjourned Regional school committee Sarah best Kenny uh I move we adjourn the regional school committee can I have a second Jennifer thank you uh Anna yes ER yes marel yes William is a yes uh Deb yes I am yes Jennifer's a yes Jennifer thank you tman still here no uh tman had to step away at 7 okay uh I'm missing one Anna no Anna did you get Bridget Bridget okay there's enough of us we J thank you okay uh I move I'm going to move to adjourn the special meeting of the Town C of the uh budget Coordinating Committee particularly the council and sea second second Pat dangeles I Anna Devon gothier hi counselor Edie I Lyn grie and I councelor Han hi Bob hegner hi councelor Lord hi Pam roone yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg yes Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes thank you uh we're going to take a five minute break while we kind of reassemble for the next meeting please make sure you turn your mic off and your video and turn it back on when you return e e e e for I just want to REM we're going to reassemble in about three for for for e e e e uh I would like to reconvene the meeting as fast as possible we have an a full agenda what she we need to reconvene the meeting thank you okay I'm going to get started gang um it is still November 4th um and this is now the regular Town council meeting um we are I'm not going to go through all of the things about open meeting law I'm just going to basically say that given that EV have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the meeting to order at 8:00 p.m. I do need to make sure that you are all here and can hear and be heard Pat d'angelus honor gothier present councelor ET present Lyn grimer is present councelor hanck present Bob hegner present councelor Lord president Pam Rooney here councelor Ryan here Kathy Shane here Andy Steinberg present Jennifer to present councelor Walker present thank you all right um we are going to immediately I just want to call attention to the fact that your um agenda is filled with upcoming meetings I'm not going to go over them except to mention yet again on the 18th we are meeting as a council We Begin our reading period of the Town manager's evaluation at 5 it's pouring for the rest of the public because we're not saying anything you're not even seeing our pictures at 6:30 there'll be a public forum on the FY 26 budget and at 7 a public forum on the supplemental Appropriations for fy2 on December 2nd we also have a regular Town council meeting with the state of the town and on December 16th we have our last council meeting extensively for the rest of the year um so and then there's a bunch of count of um committee meetings I've tried to post them and consult with each committee chair in pulling them onto the agenda um we are going to move immediately to the hearing on tax classification this hearing was set for 7:15 it will include a presentation an opportunity for public comment and then should we will have a motion to close the hearing and proceed welcome Kim who is har Chief assessor thank you for having me good evening everyone um I see some new faces so I'll go fairly quickly because I know we have a lot to do tonight but if something doesn't settle or you have a question um stop me please because I want to make sure everybody understands what I'm going to say um so tonight we are doing the classification hearing for the fiscal year 2025 next slide please oh I also just want to make quick note that we do have a vacancy on our board so if you know anyone who's interested in being a member of the board of assessors please have them come our way um okay so tonight the things that we are going to be voting on are a single or a split tax rate and then the exemptions so the open space discount we'll just briefly touch on right now we don't use this exemption we use chapter land classification instead rather than just open land um we'll use that for the farms uh the small commercial exemption will be going over as well as the um residential exemption next slide please so we've been doing the tax classification hearings since 1978 um when the tax classification Act was passed um and we basically this this act is to um have us classify our properties based upon these four um categories as well as open space um so we have residential we have commercial industrial and personal property next slide please and so um as most of you know the residential class is is the class that's used for human habilitation so someone's home um so that includes accessory buildings that includes um swimming pools tennis courts garages sheds basically anything that can be included in a home uh um this also includes apartment buildings all the way down to the single family home um the commercial class includes property that is held for a purpose of conducting a business um and this also includes our farmlands the industrial property um is property that is involved in manufacturing uh and the processing or extraction um we have a very small industrial uh class here in ammer and then lastly is our personal property class um and this is basically um for the commercial and Industrial properties um and it's pretty much in a very quick explanation if you picked up a building and dropped the floor off and shook it anything that fell out would be considered personal property so desks computers chairs phones uh pictures you know anything like that uh next slide please love the image um so this is just a breakdown for you as to what our classes look like so we are 88.5% residential um we have a 6.1% commercial a 5.2% personal property and then a little bit less than 1% of the industrial class so overall this is a 12.3% commercial and Industrial and personal property class which is an important figure that you'll want to remember for later and I'll bring that up again um and then again versus the 88% of residential next slide please so so this basically just explains one of the things that we're going to be voting on tonight which is the split or single tax rate so the single tax rate also known as a factor of one is a single rate throughout every class every class pays based upon the same tax rate um you have two options you can shift the um factor of less than one and that is going to shift the burden among the classes um reducing the residential rate um this is most common so the commercial industrial personal property will pay a little bit more and the um residential class will have a little bit of a smaller tax rate on the other side um which is not unheard of but not very common um you can do a factor greater than one which reduces the residential um excuse me reduces the commercial industrial and personal property tax rate and increases the um residential tax rate um so again something what to think about when deciding what whether to do a single or uh split tax rate is um a recommendation from the Department of Revenue which says it's best to keep a single rate unless you have 25% commercial industrial personal property versus your residential um or more of course if you have a much higher rate then that's that's fine um so again back to that last slide with the number of 12.3% uh with the commercial industrial and personal property class versus versus the 88.5% for residential next slide so these are some of the um estimated impacts so on average our single family home uh right now is $539,990 in value um so if we did a single tax rate at $17 82 per thousand the average single tax rate would be about $9,600 whereas if we decided to do a split tax rate um with a $16.65 tax rate for residential class we'd be looking at about $8,900 for the average um bill so this is a decrease of about3 uh $631 keep in mind when we talk about the commercial class the impact of the increase um so in the commercial class the average commercial value is 63,9 $63 so looking at that same single tax rate of $17.82 the average tax bow would be about $1,200 whereas if we did a split tax rate their tax rate would be $26.78 versus the residential class at $16.65 putting their tax bill at $16,800 on average that's a difference of $561 1557 so that's quite a bit of an in increase to do that split and then again thinking about that 12% of properties that we would be affecting um so just a little just a little thought there um next slide please um so the other exemptions that we are able to vote on tonight is the residential exemption so this exemption shifts the um tax burden within the residential class so the commercial and Industrial classes are not affected by this at all so basically what happens is we can shift up to 35% of the average residential property value uh in a dollar amount not specifically to each and every property it's the average value um we can go up to 35% and reduce that from owner occupied properties um so again this just moves around the funds within the residential class this this does benefit those um who are residential and owner occupied um but those who are who are not owner occupied would not get this exemption and if we can go to the next slide we can talk about qualifications and non- qualifications for this property so qualifications single family homes condominiums parts of two and three families and mixed juice properties uh parts of those as well so the non-owner occupied properties uh second homes in rentals um uh apartment complexes um homes that are rented by family members so for example um you know a student comes to town and their parents own their house um but they live in it still their family they would not qualify for the exemption same thing goes for uh a parent purchases a property for for their child or children but they also live in town and their children live in that house that house is not eligible for the exemption um another thing that's really really important to think about with that one is parents who are aging and decide to give their children their house they live there they pay all the bills they you know maintain they do not qualify for this exemption because they are not on the deed and it doesn't matter if they have a livest date they do not qualify so um some things to think about if we do decide to go this route at some point um we need to make sure that we look into who we're helping and who we're hurting um um and then of course nursing homes and groups group homes would not qualify for that as well next slide please um and then this just shows the difference between the owner occupied and the non owner occupied properties I don't want to say that this is a perfect number because there's always somebody out there who's forgotten to change their address um but the information that we have we have about 60 67% properties in town that are owner occupied and again this is just the residential this has nothing to do with the commercial industrial and personal property as well well um and then again the 33% of properties that are not owner occupied next slide please and so just a summary again of the residential exemption that we will be voting on tonight is that it's basically just a redistribution of the tax levy among the Residential Properties so um again it won't have any effect on the commercial industrial and personal property um it's kind of a misn because it says that it's a a tax break for some but it's not a tax break for others um so we just have to be mindful of you know if we do decide to do this uh you know larger homes may end up paying more whereas smaller homes may end up um with a little bit more of a Break um and then it also tends to penalize as I sort of touched on a little bit with the older folks who have put their their homes in a trust or have given them to their children um it also penalizes are lowincome renters because the apartments don't qualify for this so this would go really for any types of renters um whether it's renting a single family home whether it's renting an apartment out of a large apartment complex assuming that bills increase that slowly trickles down to the tenant and so with the lower income with the seniors with whomever is renting this is not going to help them whatsoever uh because we assume again that the costs will be passed on to the to them um next slide please um so the other exemption that I had mentioned that we would talk about tonight that we do need to vote on is the small commercial exemption so we wouldn't need to vote this um we wouldn't need to pass this that is um unless we did decide to do a split tax rate um basically the requirements are to have um less than 10 employees and have their assessed valuation be less than a million dollars um and again very similar to the residential um exemption this is just a shift within the commercial industrial and personal property um tax base where uh you know this business is getting a little bit of a discount um they would pay the residential rate rather than the commercial rate but this business then has to make it up so again just a little shift um in that and um honestly it really doesn't benefit the small businesses who don't own their buildings because again like the apartments if the rent or if the cost of the building is going up if the taxes are going up we assume that trickles down to the rent so again with the small businesses that would be the same for them as well next slide please so my recommendation tonight is to adopt a single tax rate um so a factor of one to not adopt the small commercial um exemption or open space exemption and to not adopt the residential exemption as well any questions we're going to start with questions from the council and then we'll move to a public um comment period uh Pam Rooney thank you I've got a couple questions um what uh first of all I saw that mixed use buildings the residential portion of a mixed use building is considered owner occupied and I'm very curious why that's the case um your your diagram showed the 66% of the properties are owner occupied but that doesn't equal 66% of the dwelling units in town and I wonder if we could get a number of the actual total dwelling units in town today as of now and that's obviously broken down by the number that you have counted that are owner occupied the remainder would be the dwelling uh rental units um I I have a a longstanding question that has to do with valuation and when I think of um I'm I'm comfortable with a single tax rate that's not the concern but my my concern really lies in the valuation and the valuation um when I think of a commercial property I don't know how you incorporate the books the the income that's generated in that building how does that factor in into the the form the formula for a value for the building my question is can there be a comparable formula developed for income residential we know that a lot of units in town are are not owner occupied and they are in fact income generating properties so even if we have a single tax rate how can we incorporate income as a factor in valuing those properties I think it would change our tax base a lot sure um so to answer your first question why the mixed use portion would be included in the residential exemption so that's a tricky one because we would have to figure out exactly what unit the owner occupies and whatever that square footage would be would be where the exemption would come from um so that one would be much more complex they're usually rental so if they were rentals then they would not be included in that yes um so to get to um the total dwelling units and and numbers um between how many properties we actually have and how many are owner occupied I can get those figures for you I won't be able to provide those tonight um but I can certainly email those to you um and then the question about the income and expense this is one that I have gotten a number of times um and although you know I agree that it is frustrating that it feels like people are making profit off of single family homes two family homes so on and so forth the Department of Revenue has us classify property by single family two family three family so on and so forth and the only residential property that we are able to use income and expense method on is the apartment buildings the reason for that is because there is isn't often sales of large apartment complexes of four or more um obviously those are not owner occupied and those do have the income and expense statements whereas anything less than four has when we do our sales analysis at the end of the year if we don't have enough sales in the calendar year that we're looking at we can go back a year and we'll get what we need um and so the Department of Revenue would much prefer that we look at the sales data um they have said that we cannot split the class because um if we are to use the income and expense method on single family homes most of our um properties are are owner occupied and there would be no income and expense so it would completely skew our data they would also say what are you doing why are you not using sales you have tons of them um so unfortunately as frustrating as that is um you know there is there is some guidelines from the Department of Revenue that that don't allow us to do that um when using the income and expense I think to answer another part of that question um for the commercial industrial um and apartment complexes we pull the information so we send out a request in the beginning of the year whatever comes back in for information um you know we we pull that together and we look at it as a whole um and with that being said what I mean is we look at all the apartment complexes of four or more and we look at the income and expense that we receive and then we do it of um all the apartment complexes of eight or more and we look at the information that we have there if there's an outlier if there's an apartment complex that's given us some information that's really high or really low either either direction we will look specifically at that building and say is there something happening at this building uh and this goes the same for commercial property and Industrial as well um but we'll look specifically at that building and say you know is it in a part of town that's like really fancy is it brand new does it have all these really fancy things is that why the rent is so much higher here um you know I hate to blame anyone but is it close to you mass is that maybe why or is it close to Amis college and maybe it has a lot of um student income and it's just a lot of turnover and you know whatever the reason is and then we look at the other side of it for the same thing you know why is this apartment complex not making a a whole lot of money is is it maybe run down like what's happened to it um but but specifically overall we just we don't look at those individuals and we we come up with um an area of where we would like to be based upon that information recently I have um been aware of some sales of properties of specifically apartment complexes that are outside of our town and those are things that we're able to look at too because they don't happen that often um so that's something that's also um you know playing a role in that as well okay um Bob hegner yes I had a question about personal property um I pay personal property taxes on my automobile is that tax at the same rate as my house no so personal property with uh Vehicles versus actual equipment is a little different um so excise tax is taxed in lie of personal property on vehicles because we have them registered through the registry of motor vehicles um for example if you had a whole bunch of really fancy old cars in your yard and you didn't have any of them registered then you would pay a personal property tax um so the vehicle tax is $25 per thousand and that depreciates with the age of your vehicle uh or I shouldn't say the $25 depreciates but the depreciation is based on the age of your vehicle um whereas personal property items like for example the desk the computer those things those have a different scale those will follow either the single tax rate or the split tax rate with the commercial rate welcome okay councel this is a question for my edification um let's suppose the council votes for a split rate what would the process be to determine what the factor would be sure so um what if we decided that we wanted to do a split tax rate um we would first of all not need to start talking much earlier than tonight um but also we would um hopefully anyway that is um but what we would do is we would look at our figures what are our values what is the amount of money um that we need to collect through the town we can put in figures what is our excess um Levy what it you know all of these things what what are all the actual figures that we have early on in the season we put them into the gateway program that is through the Department of Revenue and then we can guesstimate what that tax rate looks like once we get our values certified which we have to do in order to get to tonight um it gives us a little more of a once we get closer to that we can get a little bit more of a perfect figure of what we think the tax rates would be and then of course we can present those like we do tonight if it's something that we're very interested in doing I can put in the certain factors um you know if we want to do a really small shift or if we want to do a large shift of the 1.5 which is the max I could give you those figures um so that you can decide on what exactly the factor would be that you would want to split the rate thank you uh counselor hanii um I attended a webinar today um that in the comment section of that webinar it was on adus so it has nothing to do with tax classification um but in the comment section someone had written a comment that I haven't been able to find or verify but there was a comment that said there was a recent court decision that indicated that short-term rentals were commercial uses that declared them commercial uses not residential uses so Airbnb type rentals um I don't know whether that was for zoning purposes only or not but if that is the case and there's a lot of qualifications in this comment but if that is the case would that allow us to move short-term rentals into the CIP section of our tax classifications instead of the residential section presumably treating them similar to I assume hotels are in the CIP section not the residential section um would we be able to do that and then would we be able to Define what a short-term rental is I know there's a state definition that doesn't seem to have like a number of days or what type of Le lease you need or anything but um know anything about that or how we might that's the first I've heard um so I think you know first thing would be to find out if that's true and and what that actually reads um and then I think that would be in determining what is the short-term leas that would probably be something that we'd also have to look into and I'm sure there would be some discussion with um the inspections team as well um you know if this is something that is coming down the pipeline um just thinking about it off the top of my head I feel like this could be really difficult and timec consuming for us but um something that seems doable because I know you know inspections has lists of rental properties and so um you know we'd have to work with them closely to figure that out and I'm sure there's probably some way in our system that we'd be able to do this but I can't say yes or no if that's coming or not no a followup um we have a short-term we've adopted the local option for short-term rentals Pro um sales taxes I or occupancy taxes or whatever they call it for short-term rentals so do we have given that local option do we actually have a list of short-term rentals that fit into that category that if it is the case that short-term rentals are considered commercial that we would then be able to at least move those into the commercial I don't know how many we have but if we've got a listing of that if all of this is there would we or should we move those short-term rentals if we can into the commercial side of tax classification yeah um you know I don't want to speak for the inspections department because I don't know but I would assume if that has been enforced that they would absolutely have that list um I have all these thoughts now of how this might happen but I you know I think this would certainly take some time and I think that the Department of Revenue would have to guide us on this because they do guide us on how to classify each property um and something that I think is is sort of going back just a bit to the use of the single family homes and the you know the rentals and and things like that the way and this answers a little bit of your question too but the way that we have to Value property is not necessarily who lives there it's how the property is being used and by that doesn't mean an occupant an owner occupant or a rental it's just is it a residence is it commercial so this could bring some I would think if this passed if this is really something that's happened this is going to take a while to trickle down to us because I think the do would have some work to do before employing this to all of us okay Anna I think I have the really loud microphone again sorry it's like echoing too I'm gonna keep going if I'm George has saved me okay um I had a similar comment to Mandy I was reading a report um oh my God I can't believe I'm saying this I was reading a report on progressive tax rates today um which is so weird uh and it was talking about actually uh Mandy one of the towns that has done what you're talking about is Province Town and I think that part of this um I'm sure you knew that but part of this is that the definition of of short-term rental and the definition of seasonal Community kind of bite ammer a little right like we do have a large seasonal Community but our seasonal Community doesn't count in the same way that the cape The Vineyard you know etc those those seasonal communities count because they're swapped um and so I I do think that Province Town's case is really interesting for two reasons that is the first reason the second is that Provincetown passed a I think it was a home rule um for property tax exemptions for rental properties used as affordable housing which I think was a really interesting way to approach a different type of exemption obviously that's not something you would do like right now for us but it'd be something the council would have to work for and get past um but I I thought that that was an interesting approach because if we want to switch towards this idea of a rental exemption how are we also making sure we're protecting the people who would be most adversely impacted by a residential exemption and I don't think we could can I guess I will speak for myself I don't think I could ethically go for one without doing the other so I couldn't vote for a residential tax exemption without some sort of protection for affordable units or affordable housing um but I do think that could be a really interesting way to go down the road the other option um is a bit more roundabout but just I will spare you all reading this uh article on progressive tax rates they talked about also petitioning the state to combine commercial and Industrial and one category because as per our constitution we can only have four types of tax categories I know I'm getting this all wrong but I know the four four is the key number um and so you can change them but you can't you could like change what they are but you can't add more than four you can't have more than four so weird so we could combine commercial we could petition our state legislators to petition the governor to petition all of these changes um to then add in an affordable housing exemption as one of the four full-time uh permanent exemptions which I do think is also an interesting thing for folks in this Council to consider as we Advocate to our state legislators um but I do think the The Province Town example is interesting if folks are inclined to look towards that residential exemption I would encourage us to pursue this path first and if you have any thoughts on this uh word jumble that I just threw out there I'm happy to hear them thank you I think I think the only thing that I can really respond with is just basic basically um the residential exemption the intention of that when it was first created was for the cape um it was for people who lived on the cape and were getting basically priced out because people were coming and building these gigantic homes and paying absorbant amount of money for these little tiny homes that they were then knocking down or you know so on and so forth so it's just kind of interesting um that other towns are considering this in other areas of Massachusetts um I had done a presentation at one point giving more specifics about how many towns had the residential exemption um and I don't recall the exact number but um it was a very small number of of the cities and towns and they were really more out east towards the cake um sorry can I just can I I I actually just had that pull of the residential exemptions the report's a little bit but in 2020 it was 16 something per but those towns accounted for 18% of the Massachusetts population which was really interesting um I just want to make sure we clarify regardless of who pays at what percent we still can only tax up to two and a half percent up so we can collect up to two and a half percent of what we collected last year right so the valuations can fluctuate more than 2 and a half% but the total amount collected can only be that unless we do an override or a de soluion right so another words we're not gaining more money by taxing one group higher and another group lower correct we're just shifting the burden it's a shift and if we do do the single tax rate values go up tax rate goes down and vice versa right generally speaking of course there's always things that happen but um but that's the general okay uh I'm going to now open for public comment if you're in the room and you want to make public comment please make sure that you've gone over here and registered and if you're in the audience on zoom and you would like to make public comment please raise your hand at this time um point of order clarification this is just on tax classification and there will be another general public comment period that is correct Andy you had a question oh this is just on tax classification okay um I see one hand please come forward state your name and where you live oh an maximum of three minutes um Vincent o Conor um 175 Summer Street Apartment 12 um so first I want to correct the statement that was made earlier in the evening about tenants not paying taxes we all every tenant in this town pays taxes I just that statement should not be made again it's incorrect misleading and it it it's not good for the public discussion of taxation of residential property second this is this vote comes uh somewhat earlier than it usually does and I and I've heard some very interesting um comments and I think that it's probably worthwhile to postpone this discussion to another meeting so that some of the suggestions and ideas that have been presented can be evaluated and you can hear back from the principal assessor uh third I want to make a point about the um affordable units in town the affordable units don't only consist of units that are embedded in properties like Rolling Green North square and so forth uh the Housing Authority units but there are also units that are subsidized under various programs the Section 8 program and so forth where um essentially there is there is government money going into those units but and there are people who who actually and I know of one a neighbor has consistently taken a loss to to um rent out at Section 8 prices to families so I think that um that's that's an issue that when you think about doing that you don't want to be taxing the the the payments that are already made by another government agency so I I just would urge the the council to consider taking this up where some of the comments that's been made can be explored and you can have a a get some some of the answers to the questions that have been raised and perhaps and and and also explore the impact of Farmers on Farmers which is negative for some of the proposals some of the exemptions that could be granted or changes so I think it's all those for all those reasons I just would urge the council to um consider this at at at another meeting so that some of the issues that have been raised can be explored don't put it off until another year because they'll be forgotten thank you for your comments are there any other public comments at this time are there any other counselor questions okay then I'm going to make a motion to close the class tax classification hearing and seek a second second motion's been made and seconded I'll begin the vote with Anna delin gothier I councelor I Lyn grimer and I you made counc hanii I Bob hegner I councelor Lord I Pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer Todd yes councelor Walker yes Patti Angeles hi it's unanimous the clo hearing has been closed um we are now going to move to General Public comment anyone wishing to speak who is in the town room if you have not signed up please do so with Athena if you are on zoom and you wish to make General Public comment at this time please raise your hand Athena we have one thank you two have two thank you public comments on matters are on matters within the jurisdiction of the Town Council residents are welcome to express their views for up to 3 minutes the council will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter raised during general public comment public comments are not reflective of the opinions of the Town Council please call the first person uh Vince we just heard from you so I'm gonna call on algra and then we can come back to you okay algra Clark please do I have to press the button you do it needs to be green if it's green then you're fine uh my name is alra Clark I am a resident of District Two um I just wanted to come tonight I know that the financial indicators portion of the evening was earlier I've just been thinking a lot about the schools lately as a mother of a second grader at Wildwood I just kind of wanted to give you a picture of what's been going on there um our second grade has about 60 students in it right now and today was the first day that they were split into three classrooms instead of two so up until Friday there were 26 seven and eighty olds in my son's classroom and it was a little bit chaotic to say the least um so I say that because I think about the chronic reductions in budget that we've seen over the years and how that how that impacts the Staffing in the schools and in turn how that impacts the well-being of the and safety of the students in the classroom um so I'm grateful for the uh school committee members who came tonight and kind of had some questions about surpluses and how we can work together to make sure that the budget isn't as severely underfunded as it's projected to be right now because that would be devastating um and I I know um from talking to other parents that Crocker Farm also has had to to add an additional kindergarten this year so although it's not like indicative of like oh no everything's great enrollment is going back up like there are we are seeing that class sizes are getting so big that there have needed to be additions um in certain areas so I do want to put that at the front of people's minds um I also just I have a question and this is a little bit tongue-in-cheek but last week there was a big house move that really impacted the schools and the town um residents didn't have access to heat electricity um cable utilities and and internet um which could impact their working so I'm just wondering if there's like a fee or a permit that gets um you know if there's an Associated cost that goes along with moving a house and if there's not I think there should be because this is not the first time that this has happened on a school day that impacted um students learning and I think that we got a message about when it should be expected to be over and it went about like I think seven hours past the time that was allotted so perhaps there could be like a hous moving fee overage per minute like when you don't pick your child up from uh after school on time um so that we could offset some of the impacts to Residents that those things happen um because it was pretty significant for a lot of people in town so those are my two SS thank you thank you for joining us and I encourage you to send an email with your questions um that concludes public comment I'm sorry Vince I'm sorry come on up again Vincent oconor 175 Summer Street um apartment 12 um so I sat through the discussion about the in the revenue discussion about as a Prelude to the town budget earlier I also sat through both of the fourtown meetings that uh were referred to during that discussion at no time during that those two meeting did the and I'm talking here about the the man on the third floor not the women on the first floor at no time during those discussions where amorist uh Representatives uh haded poor did the man on the third floor mentioned that in multiple years the budget surpluses have been around $5 million maybe he didn't mention it to the finance committee either and if I were on the finance committee I would feel humiliated and angry for having not been having this pointed out by the man on the third floor this is an outrageous quite frankly re false and dishonest misrepresentation of the the town's Financial Resources by the man on the third floor absolutely false absolutely dishonest and quite frankly if I were the parent of a child in either the elementary or secondary schools I would call my city councelor in demand that they get rid of him this is an unacceptable situation this is not oneye $5 million extraordinary situation this is a multiple year situation and this the council should not tolerate this at all there should be an end to all the the the the cry poor Council and it points out a very significant flaw in this in the in this City's Charter to have a a single person who who supervises onethird of the budgetary expenditures in this town having control over over the entirety of the budget the schools if there is a structural problem in this Charter it is that and and those who knew should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the man on the third floor to continually Mis represent the town's financial position that concludes general public comment we're going to move on to the consent agenda and let me just point out before we begin the consent agenda that there are various items on the consent agenda that still will be discussed later okay so even if we're going to refer items there's opportunity to discuss those items the two items there are two items however are actually um I'll I'll Point them out when we go through here but on the consent agenda that basically means yes you've approved them and if you don't want to approve them without any changes then you need to have them pulled off the consent agenda okay so I'll Point them out as we go along yeah so the consent agenda basically is a combination of either approvals or referrals okay if you are not prepared to approve something that's on the consent agenda then you need to make sure you ask that it be pulled off okay is that clear okay um so the items were uh as they have been in the past uh selected because they were thought to be non-controversial not necessarily true so I'm going to make a motion and again if you would like to remove something wait until I finish the whole thing and removing something does not require a second okay so to move the following items and the printed motions there under and approve those items as a single unit 8A adoption of a residential factor of one equal tax rate and no open space discount for fy2 8A to not adopt a residential exemption for fy2 8A to not adopt a small commercial exemption for fy2 I just want to point out all three of those are votes that finish the discussion okay the next one is to resend authorization is 8B to resend authorization but unused debt as presented in the memo regarding um it's actually should be as presented in the financial order uh FY 25-13 resending authorized but unused Bond date it's dated October 31st it's on page eight of the motion sheet again that's a one once and done once we vote agend the consent that's approving hc1 to7 is a referral of Appropriations outside the budget to the finance committee and that's where the real meat of the meeting is is in this area and then 9 A1 is approval of town manager appointments to the water supply protection committee it's a reappointment of Steven Curts for a term to expire June 30th 2027 that was approved by uh TS it was recommended yes by the committee thank you are there any items that you would like removed Pam like to remove 8B the recession of authorized but unissued debt okay are there any other requests okay so then the motion is as read before but no longer includes 8 B to resend authorized but unused debt any other comments or questions I'll second it okay thank you required uh we'll begin with councelor i ly grimer and I councelor hanii hi Bob hegner I councelor Lord hi Pam roone yes councel Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer to Yes councelor W Walker yes paty Angeles hi Anna Dev gothier hi it's unanimous all right so we're done with tax classifications and we are going to move to the recision I I assume you have everybody has asked all the questions they want to with regard to tax classification is there any else at some point if the council does want to explore or have explored some other alternative that needs to be done with enough lead time so that before we come to an actual uh proposal you have a we have an opportunity to really seriously look at that any questions regarding that Pam you have your hand up Pam Rooney you have your hand up okay okay Bob hegner yeah I just want want uh to request that any um such motions or ideas about um tax rates be referred to the finance committee absolutely totally um okay Pam you still have your hand up well I had a question about 8B with the recisions but if we haven't gotten there yet I'll take my hand down no no we're we're getting there so just leave it on up okay all right the uh next item is 8B in fact and the motion under 8B is to adopt Council order FY 25-13 resending authorized but unused bonds as shown on page eight of the motion sheet is there a second second okay Pam you ask that this be removed please speak to your request thank you it was unclear to me uh that this is either money being returned the use of the word unissued bonds meaning we actually did not borrow that money is that correct or is this money that um was borrowed fully and is now available for something else the question that I really have then is if it's money being returned to what pot does this money go into as a recision we have our finance director here to answer these questions thank you so this is money that was not borrowed those projects um came in at a lower amount we borrowed only the money necessary for those projects and any unused amount or in two of the cases those projects didn't go forward at all so we're we're sending the authorization to give us the opportunity to authorize bonds for projects that we are going to complete and so there's no money going back okay so it was never borrowed was never borrowed thank you Kathy you have your hand up yeah just stay there for a second so um that was very clear explanation um on the capital budget we're given each year interest and carrying costs on authorizations including expected that we think we're going to borrow it so when we resend this way does that chain change that you know so if we thought we were going to borrow $2 million and we only borrowed a million and a half an a in cost should go down somewhere right so my assumption honestly haven't done my first capital project here yet is that we um re um we reallocate those years of debt um based on the new assumptions at the time so from year to year we get U different interest rates so we would change the forecast based on current and updated interest rate and current and updated costs of the project going up or down so just on so it might this might affect the current year we're looking at the actual capital budget the actual capital budget spending has been coming in lower than when we projecting because we haven't moved forward on a couple of the big buildings so we've been C you know saying we're going to do this so would it potentially generate a surplus in this year's cap expected Capital because we didn't have to finance that money so so these projects I don't believe are in that forecast because those are old projects that hadn't been forecasted in a while um but like for for instance if we were um I know that um in a few weeks we'll be looking at you know the four major projects which we talked about a lot today um and so those they've moved they've moved years out it's not nearly necessarily savings but the money that we thought maybe we're going to spend in 26 maybe won't be started till 27 or 28 I'm just asking a couple of these were fairly big recisions and whether they were built into the forecast of debt service or not did did some of that go down and it's going to be nuanced because none of these were at the million range yeah right so I think one was the parking lot where the park now is so I don't think that that was in the forecast at all is that correct yeah yeah and then um thank you okay so in other words there's no extra money out there Kathy right and it it it is answering that if it never was booked in any way I mean we've booked like we're buying this piece of equipment and then we never bought it or it came in cheaper right we we got it on the edge but not never doing it at all yeah examp please go ahead go ahead Holly I'm sorry um so for example the um and I'm I'm just gonna simplify it very much so the I believe the Northampton Road water me was projected at $2 million we authorized $2 million when all was said and done there was cost sharing with the state there things came in different in the bids we only spent $1.2 million of that so we've only been accounting for that 1.2 million for the last couple the last fiscal year and the current fiscal year because we sort of knew it was already going to be capped there so that 800,000 wasn't projected out because we hadn't borrowed for it we hadn't done a a bond anticipation no we hadn't had any costs on that so it's not going to really increase what is available for New Capital because we had already reduced that probably in the last fiscal year thanks okay thank you both um are there any other questions okay the motion's been made and seconded uh we're going to move to a vote councelor uh no it's me Lyn grimer is an i councelor hanaki i Bob hegner I councelor Lord hi pameron yes councelor Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer toab yes councel Walker yes Patti Angelus hi Anna Devon gothier hi coun I it's unanimous okay now we're going to have a present ation on the supplemental budget appropriation requests is that correct Paul are we or do we just want to go through each one and ask questions however you would like to do it okay um we don't have a we don't have a PowerPoint or anything like that we've already voted the referral okay and in your packet is a document that both explains them and attaches all of the financial order let me just start by saying are there any questions on financial order FY 25-12 a an order appropriating from free cash to stabilization funds for reparations and capital coun Hani so if you do it by these I'm not sure where some of my question fit okay do you have an overall I'm G to put them in this one because I think this is the one that would change if my questions get answered a certain way um but but number one that doesn't fit into any of these is I'd like an update on the status of returning that 5 million to the capital stabilization fund for the elementary school project given bid statuses and well bid projections now I I know we're not signed or anything but given all the projections going on what's the status of getting 5 million that we had authorized to move out back in for that project but um I know that's not really related to these at all but it came up it's a question we had five and a half 5.7 million in all of these Financial orders um that are being transferred in various ways um some are being used uh per the guidelines others are adding to Capital um given what we saw in the financial indicators and your comment in the financial indicators that the free cash you know you aim for about 5% of the budget that that seems like a good number of surplus every year um this year's was six not five um at what point do we consider not putting all of the excess um of that Surplus into capital projects or Capital stabilization fund because that's basically what it is f2a is capital stabilization but all the other ones five whatever those numbers are are capital projects um at what point do we say or should we consider um things like keeping 6% in free cash so that 1% in free cash every year can get budgeted into the next year's operating budget for operating support um and I know that's not necessarily part of our current fiscal plan but when should we think about doing something like that or adding to our um adding to the next year's F budget and saving some to support the next year's budget to be able to add stuff in some sense it's what the schools do now we see their budgets at least the region and the region almost always um budgets end D into its op operating budget Northampton does it a little bit too although the way they do it I think is kind of wonky and hard to explain but um um at what point do we consider that and then the next question that I have is we in last year's Financial guidelines for the fy2 budget put in that um you should put money in for the charter Review Committee to potentially hire a consultant I thought we had asked those questions early on that that money was there in the fy2 budget um I have been told it might not be in the fy2 budget so that the committee doesn't have the money to hire a consultant or do Outreach or anything like that and so should we be considering um using some of this money that you've you've got some put to waste hauling and other things if there isn't money in the budget for consultant review for Charter Review Committee consultant hiring should we be seeking an additional Financial order or be asking or modifying on the Fly could we modify this one on the Fly which is why I'm asking it on this one to reduce the capital stabilization fund number from 3.9 is million to 39ish million for consultant and add another line in to spend for consultant so that that's some of the questions but I guess the other overarching question is why did you pick those capital projects and not others sure too you guys can join if you want so um whether we have 5% 5% seems to be reasonable number um as I said and and we are a little bit better better it depends how you define it um whether we better or worse because of that um the um in terms of the charter I'm I I just missed that one if we were supposed to include that we didn't and there's still we can still do that obviously free cash is there all year long and we've appropriated from as the appropriate funds from the from free cash for the track for instance last year um pardon me a gift right um in terms of um why these two these items I mean we've been doing extra money we've always said we'd like to do more money in roads um sort of outside the capital uh the 10.5% because that's always the council has always identified roads as a major investment requirement or request so anytime we have a little bit of Elbow Room we try to I offer that up to the council to see if you still want to do that the um the and we we I'm sure we're going to talk about all of these the um you know the um money for the waist hauler it's a bigger number than we probably need quite honestly um but it's if we just put that number there we'll have more refined numbers before the council actually votes on it so we'll know exactly what we think we need for that uh that's a council initiative in essence um for the um the uh snow plow this tract sidewalk plow uh that was a request that was before the joint Capital planning committee last year and rejected um since that time there have been equipment failures with some of the equipment that for DPW um they have they're down to one sidewalk plow so the question is we will be able to do what we can do with the equipment we have if we get a second equipment we'll be able to do more and so it's and and the timeliness of it for now as opposed to waiting till next next fiscal year next sort of capital programming is that we have winter coming up so I think that's the type of question we can explore more with the finance committee when it sort of takes it into consideration um why are we putting money aside it's the reason we put money aside is to start to build that Capital fund so that we can uh smooth out as I think Melissa said during her presentation smooth out the the four capital projects over time so when it does Spike with we use we'll have this money to to shave it off the other piece was to um we're trying to build up enough cash to pay for the fire station in cash that was our big thing we're saving up money to pay for the fire station um and so we didn't have to go out to borrow for that so building that Reserve is and it's a risky thing because it's a big number it sits there everybody points at it and says why do you have so much money sitting there and we said we're trying to buy a fire station with it um Holly or Melissa do you want to add anything to that um so I will say that um you know what we're trying to do um is build that Capital stabilization back up and you know as you noted the $5 million um was taken out for a different Capital project than than was the plan originally for the you know the other U projects but um I I didn't I was unaware of any initiative to put that back um but I but what I was thinking about was to to build it back um so that we we were back to the same levels we were two years ago before it was taken away and then to build on that to um to and to your point it does the the way that it would flow into the budget should we build it up and then um use it to pay for capital is that the plan that um Sandy worked on um before I was here was to build up that Capital stabilization and not um pay cash as much for it because I think the amount of cash that is needed to do a building at this time is way more than we should have on hand um but to have enough that we can um flow into the budget for the debt um portion which is part of our Capital 10 and a half percent so it would increase that um percentage of capital spending but not from current year revenues and be able to make it not look like we're jumping from 10% to 20% um but that that money is going to come and be um fed into the budget not for operating cost but for Capital and it's been my practice um um and it's been the advice of financial advisers that I've worked with that recash is considered onetime money because we did well you can say we did really broadly on our estimates or we did really well on our estimates this year however you want to look at it but that Surplus doesn't come every single year um and so um like Holly mentioned earlier we did extraordinarily well with interest this year um it is unlikely that we will be able to repeat that interest rates have already started to come down we're already um locking in at rates that are lower than what we previously had and as soon as we start to spend this money that we have on hand we won't be able to make money on it anymore let me just add to that so the um the question one of the questions is if we don't need the question is with the school project do we borrow less money or and that's that's subject to the override the exclusion or do we return this money to the capital funds that's really the the sort of policy question that we'll have to decide on once we have what the numbers are and how we're going to finance it and how it's going to be bonded over time so that that's that's one of the key questions that we don't have a recommendation on at this point in time um and then in terms of using money uh for the for ongoing operating expenses you know we could do that as a practice um you just it's it's it's a one it's one time it's spending it's it's like what we're doing with arpa money it's onetime money we can do maybe do it for three years in a row but that at some point that dries up and we and are we short on on free cash and we can't support the operating budget and that's that's a bad place to be because you build your budget on recurring sources of of Revenue and but the $5 million is set aside and stays there unless it gets moved by the council to someplace else but it's just that $5 million is set aside councelor hanaki you asked a series of questions and I want to make sure that we've addressed I'm good for now okay uh Anna you know I'm having Kathy is ahead of me thank you I will do that in the curtains my order is not showing it that way okay Kathy thanks because my hand is a different color than on and it's in the that's not I'm using my computer not the screen up here so um following up on Mandy did an overarching question so I did have a question about the plow and I'd like to hear more about it we we an expensive plow was proposed in jcpc of 250 and now there's one at 200 and it didn't seem there were that many sidewalks so why this piece of equipment Rose to the top so I I would just like to hear more of it it if it comes to finance um the second one is the opioid I'm not questioning that it needs to be set aside somewhat but it's now accumulating and if I did what we did last year I'm not sure how much is in the total fund what can we use that money for it said where the right services so I don't know what part it can provide a supplement to our operating budget so as we accumulate it so that's what I'm not sure it said sequester it in its own place and then just the last piece Mandy is raising the question of pulling back the five million for the schools the argument for taking it was lowering the tax impact on residents when the school hopefully starts to get built and that most of that will come back once we do the geothermal and the solar so it will come back and that money would all come back to Capital stabilization so the money is due to come back um I don't think we should move off that because there's a lot of nervousness in town we're talking about how to spend the 2 and a half% which is actually a little bit more than two and a half for people on their tax budgets when they see them and people are saying my taxes are already high so I think there was a lot of Goodwill we got by worrying about what the tax impact of the school would be um and so any discussion of that I think needs to be mixed with what's our forecast now interest rates are a little bit better than they were um we don't know how much better and we can't quite go out that big Bond authorization until we have a contract and we don't have a contract yet so there's this delay Factor that's going on so I think that's just a different a very different issue but I did want to talk about what r Rises to the top to spend some of that money on a project as opposed to Mandy's idea of putting some of it back in an operating budget somewhere or some small amount um that finances the next year's worth where we can see it so we've never had that discussion we've usually just usual my I've only been doing this for what six years seven years now whatever the number but we the surpluses have just been uh basically squirrel away except when we did track and field you know we put them out so if I were talking about big projects the roof of the high school and the roof of the Middle School are leaking so there are things that are kind of high on my list of urgent so I think it's a a bigger question of what Rises to the top to want to grab some of this money thanks um Anna are would Paul did you have any comments on any of this yeah I mean I um in terms of I think I tried to explain why you know the roads is we since I didn't question the roads money we were cutting back on it um and I think that that the timeliness of it we go out to bit in the winter for roads for next year the same with the the sidewalk plow um the equipment failure May and the timel of that and you may the council may say we still don't want it that's okay um the um opioid money is allowed is is designated to be spent on uh supposed to be directed by people who have suffered from the um from opioid abuse and so we are part of a bigger Coalition of communities in Hampshire County um that's working through putting money together to come up with um programs and um to address that it doesn't stop at our border every Community has a has some some communities that get very little and they can't really do much so the approaches that you put everything together with Northampton and amst and our health director is part of that decision- making process and we can get an accounting of that for you for sure so just maybe we in finance because I just don't have a sense if we put money in are we spending it also or is it building up we haven't spent any money it's just bu we've been spending it okay we have not been spending any but there are currently some small projects and plans in place to start that planning process to get to the to the point where we we can spend it but it can only be spent on um substance abuse disorder programs um you know um it so it is restricted um it has been building up because we have to have a public sort of process of who where why what we should be spending this money on before we can start to spend it and that is just all starting now and so what came to my mind is is there a clinical social worker who deals with addiction that could be a shared cost and paid for out of that fund that could work with our health and safety program so it's just a some way that it's out there but it's a need we have that's cropping up in town that we have a person Who's acting out and part of the reason they're acting out is drug the drugs they're taking and they need to be stabilized so so that was just because it seems like a lot of money that we're uh building up and I had no idea where it's going so so it's money that has come from the pharmaceutical companies into the state so it's not money that we are dedicating as much no it's great money it's like the cigarette money and then the cigarette money went away so the reason we did this is to account for it make sure that's very clear to everybody where the money is and what it's being spent on um okay Kathy did you get all of your questions answered thank you I I did H all right so I want to make sure I'm understanding some of not all but some of this money that we're looking at here is because we were conservative in our estimates last year right is yeah okay um but that conservative approach impacted the percentage allocated to the ammer schools the Regional Schools the library and the town so what I'm stuck on is why should the excess not be distributed Ed in a similar way even if we said it has to be allocated towards Capital because I understand what you're saying about cash like this being used for operating why wouldn't we have the discussion about allocating this to those different entities given the budget decisions impact those you are so ready to answer me and I can't wait I'm so excited and I'm truly like I am truly seeking to understand here because I I'm if we're saying it should go to Capital we know they also have Capital needs shouldn't shouldn't it do that um I'll pause because I feel like you're ready to to tell me exactly why and I'm excited to learn which one of you wants to burst first I have a second one after this but I want to hear this answer first Holly go yeah um so preash certification preash certification is for the general fund only so the general fund operating budget does include the region the schools the town and the library now the way I'm going to say this is it may sound a little bit snarky but what I really want to say is the elementary schools I mean the Jones Library returned none of their appropriation spent every penny the Regional School District spent every penny of their appropriation did not reach return any money yeah the elementary schools spent everything but $56,000 which flowed back into our free cash that savings is from the general fund operations it is from the town's $28 million general fund portion of the budget so it I don't want to say that it doesn't affect them in any way shape or form but they didn't really contribute to a lot of that savings and the reason why that money was saved was because it was okay saved on The General funds okay I think that makes sense so you're saying everybody budgeted conservatively but they were closer to their lines in terms of their budgeting whereas we had ex we were able to stick to it or able to go more whatever we it's staying in the line it came from we saved more of our expenses to help contribute to that we also had $4 million doar more Revenue right that makes sense which is which is a really large number as well but um and so a lot of that savings was due to vacancies we had a lot of vacancies in 2024 and if we took those away and didn't plan then we couldn't um restore positions that you know are what we been to be essential here in the town and so um you don't so part part of the savings was just that we didn't have the appropriate Staffing last year and so we want to leave the money in the budget yeah but it's a onetime saving because the hope is to restore um those those um positions so the positions like we saw that it was growing th in those growing numbers of that 23 positions there were probably n 199 positions actually filled in 2024 just because of turnover here in the town that's super helpful thank you Holly what happened to the 56,000 from the like did that you said that flowed back to them or is that part of this and we should consider that possibly in our discussion that flows back to the general fund okay portion of the general fund okay so it's part of what we're talking about when we talk about the Appropriations now it's it's all in that that is correct thank you okay sorry I had a second question but I'm GNA re I'll go to the back no no go ahead um I appreciated Holly's phrase of I this might sound snarky and I and and for once I don't actually intend it to um one of the other questions that I had specifically wait were you talking did you want us to this is a specific it seems to be very wide open that's in the set of financial orders we're going anywhere so one of the other things that we talk about when we think about the sidewalk equipment and this isn't actually a question for either of you this is kind of a general thing to consider um you know we we talk about are we willing to let sidewalks go snowier for longer the other thing is how much snow we get has shifted a lot over the years and what is necessary Now versus what was necessary five or 10 years ago I think is is worth discussing um I'm not a meteorologist I'm not a climate expert I'm not a DPW expert far from it um but I do think that that's part of this conversation is what the conditions haven't necessarily stayed the same over the years do our equipment needs need to stay the same over the years as well any comment it's a rhetorical question okay thank you it's something that was directed at the council not at Paul or the so I'm whoops the screen just went off okay I'm gonna go to Andy because uh both Mandy Joe and Kathy have already had an opportunity Andy yeah actually it's a good time because I'm gonna follow up on something that um Anna just raised and that is some some of the excess usually comes from unanticipated revenue and uh don't necessarily have to answer today if the information is not available but it would be helpful at the finance committee to know the answer and that is whether um how much of it came from revenue and whether any of those Revenue lines are attributable to revenue that we receive because of education Pro funding uh for example Chapter 70 so um if there was an increase in a line that was U education related would just be helpful to know that when we consider what's appropriate to do I do I do have those numbers Andy I I can bring them to I I did those numbers already so I can bring them to to Finance on Friday okay we'll get them before the finance committee meeting um I want to pick up on something Mandy Joe asked uh and that is about money for the charter Review Committee and that is and I mean would you like a motion that you prepare a financial order no we can we can bring that back uh for your next for the the 18th and we go through the process we will be bringing some other um Financial orders for the Enterprise funds fine so we'll include it at that because it is clearly something that they were discussing whether or not they could apply for a grant thank you um all right back to Mandy Joe uh councelor haniki sorry um a couple questions and a couple requests so my back of the envelope today was about 3 million came from excess revenues from what our budget was um you're saying four like I said back of the envelope here I I was doing it on the fly but um most of it looked like it was local receipts um from my calculations and so when we have local to to sort of piggyback on what Anna was saying when the excess free cash or the ex the Surplus is due to ESS Revenue due to conservative budgeting on local receipts say what is Our obligation if we had budgeted less conservatively that additional number um local receipts looks like it was nearly 4 million more than our budget 6.7 looked like the fy2 24 recap 6.7 million and local receipts actuals was 10.9 million according to today's list so $4 million more in local receipts that includes all that awesome investment income but um when it's four million more than we than our budget and that would have presumably been split even it divvied up amongst the four um core categories of general fund operating EXP expenditures that's a lot that would have gone to the potentially gone to the region School the elementary school the library um and I'm not saying we needed to figure out a way to budget all four million of that because we're never going to be exact but but when we're now looking at that Surplus and distributing it out I guess after six years on the and seeing 4 million 6 million 5.5 million more every year in excess in Surplus Revenue at what point can we say it's not onetime money that that you're saying because we're seeing it year after year after year um it's not like one year were at 4 million in Surplus and the next year were at 100,000 in Surplus where we're sitting above 4 million every year year in and year out um at what point do we say distribute some of that within next year's budget or as we're looking at this distribute and plan for it for next year I know it's hard to distribute within this year's budget to those operating costs so I think that's a conversation we need to have um but I'm struggling with that and one thing that would help this is is where my request for when we see budgets come in the chart you showed today and very generally all the charts we get show actuals once we have actuals but we never see a budget to an actual so we never get those two columns next to each other in a chart except potentially in a quarter four report which we haven't seen yet so I would love a quarter four report that at least for General government for our town operating budget shows budget and act actuals but I would also love in reports like this that we get at the financial indicators and these spreadsheets that come in not just to show the FY 24 actual but to show the fy4 recap and the fy2 24 actual so that we can see right off the bat in the large areas where those surpluses or deficits are coming from because we kind of lose track of where it is and that might help us figure out whether it is conservative budgeting on the revenue side or um on the def on the expense side two million of it was from the town not spending its budget um which bring brings me to another question not necessarily for this but for potentially Finance as we think about all of this for budgeting next year um our departments have been hit hard because of open positions we budget for and I'm just going to give the fire department I don't know how many positions it is 56 58 positions I think the fire department is budgeting for um and that's all they can hire up to except they almost never have a full compliment of 58 firefighters because there's almost always empties which means there's always less spending than budgeted because there's always an empty and that not only gives us all these revenues excess surpluses every year but also harms our own Staffing because they're constantly operating underst staffed and how do we as we think about budgeting and financial guidelines going forward how do we ensure that if we say the fire department should have 58 firefighters that they have 58 firefighters at all times even though we know there's going to be turnover and how do we do that within a budget that I understand good fiscal practice is to not say a staff can be 60 but you only budget for 58 I understand that's not very good fiscal practice but how do we merge those two so that we don't underspend by 2 million and basically stress our staff out because we've underspent by 2 million I know it's not really related to this I do have a big question about waste hauling you kind of answered it but for Finance on Friday exactly what is it going to cover right so on the fire uh it's a conversation I had today it's a conversation we have weekly um we budget we would like the fire rep Department to be fully staffed there are not people out there applying for the job they're doing everything they can we're moving people off of we're taking temporary employees off the student course um they have a lot of people out injured um so there it's a lot of stress on the department right now recognize we recognize that we H we hired two I think I report this in the town manag report we hired two recently um if we'd hire more tomorrow if we had candidates there are no candidates zero and that's not unique to the town of amest but we have a very we have a good Pipeline and it's like put on your thinking caps how can we fill up these seats because it really is stressful for the employees because we have a lot of people out on injuries IOD or um recovering from or paternity leave or you know there people who are just not present and able to fill shifts so um we keep it budgeted at the full amount because that's it's it might take multi years to get there but we don't want to have to come back and say we're adding more money to the fire department budget in a year when we don't have money to add to it it's much better to have it secure um police have been the same now they're down two positions but they I think we just fully got them up to speed with the most recent hires so I think they're fully staffed at this point in time but there will be more uh churn going over there at at some point in time and we project out where retirement when when retirements are coming all that stuff so the Chiefs the two chiefs are are very active they want those seats filled we want them filled there's no holding back on them um because it's it doesn't help anybody to have them held back um in terms of the you know the addition columns um I don't think that's necessary the financial indicators it's Financial indicators is really just a broad brush look at where we are that's but I think having the budget to actual I understand what you're asking for it's a really complicated more detailed budget sheet but people have to be willing to spend some time digging into it I think the um you know in terms of really knowing where the free cash is being generated from I think that's where the lots of the questions are are we being um too conservative or too liberal on on budgeting so many of our expenses and you know we never predicted that we'd have twice as much in revenue from um interest you know and I don't know I you know like I said we don't know what next year's going to bring so I wouldn't want to bump up the interest if we weren't really confident that rates were going to stay up for that um but it's you know I think having more money is always better than having less um but and how we allocate those funds I don't think it's a good to put it into um operating budgets because it is still one-time money um but we do spend money on you know a lot of this money is going to the library to the elementary school um to roads that service everybody to equipment that gets used by the schools all that all that type of thing so there is a lot of shared expenses that that gets funded by this as well um it's we can't just look at what's on their side of The Ledger because there's a lot of shared equipment as well I one yes I respond so a lot of attention has been paid today to local receipts and I just want to remind people that local receipts are the smallest Revenue uh bucket that we have um well except for other which is obviously one time money and um in anticipation of these questions I did do a 20-year history of revenues um by category and so what I have is that over the course of 20 years um local receipts have only grown 1.9% but they fluctuate as much as 60% in any given year so you can't predict them and that's why we always that's where why all the meat is in in that Revenue Source because the interest income let's just use that as an example because it's it's a that it's a huge outlier this year right so we we were getting $150,000 two years ago we're now getting almost two million you know if we build that two million in what happens when rates drop then then we're sitting here going well how do we maintain this budget so yes it has big fluctuations and that's what and we've done well for the past three years it looks like I mean uh obviously Co was horrible it was our worst dip was a it was a 40% loss that Year from the prior year um but but it it it does fluctuate a great deal and I want to remind people that it is the smallest Revenue Source we have and the least consistent thank you um I'm going to go to Kathy I think Mandy already raised um one of the things I thought that would help us see it I believe we'll get fourth quarter um seen this Friday because that was very helpful last year Holly when we saw fourth quarter you could see what came in way under or way over and my memory is two big lines were the investment income that you uh that we had we had big reserves and we got interest payments on them but Mandy flagged a couple things so am I right that we we'll get fourth qu order so we can look at that what I think it's a very useful compilation it's just a one year worth but it does show you where we thought we were going to be which is when we close the year out yes I am working on the fourth quarter report thank you um let's see uh George yeah I'd like to just put in a word for in defense of fiscal prudence and conservative budgeting and a reminder uh to all of us the historical context um when I came on this Council six years ago for my first term this one of the central uh goals and one of our key objectives were the four capital projects and uh as we know those four capital projects are still shall we say in process um there's a history here and um if we didn't have four capital projects if we didn't have a mle Middle School roof that's leaking if we didn't have a senior center that's not performing providing the functions it should if we didn't have a huge backlog of roads and sidewalks we didn't have these kinds of capital pressures we might be in a very different conversation but we do so I hope people will keep that historical context in mind and that there actually is a very good reason for the fiscal prudence and conservative approach that's been followed for the last few years and at least at the moment I think we should continue to follow nonetheless good questions been raised tonight and I look forward to hearing what happens at fincom and what the conversation becomes going forward but please let's keep in mind historical context thank you George having believe that we need to not lose sight of it uh I also want to mention that at our meeting on the 18th it we have every intention of having an update of the fiscal model for the capital project which will help people refresh their memory on the purpose of having those reserves so that you even out the borrowing float that we often need and I'm I have this vision of that chart and that graph in my mind and I know that in the early years it was necessary for us to have additional cash in order to not exceed our borrowing capacity so that's one of the things we'll wait to see when we see the model but I have a question that relates specifically to money that we are have received as grants and we're sitting on that money and we've invested that money and we've made money on that money through interest does that money that we made on grant money have to be spent for the purpose that the grant was given depends on the grant thank you but so some grants specify that the interest income stays with the grant right um a lot of our grants though are reimbursable so we're fronting the money right so um but we are um you know and for our reserves I mean you should recognize that the capital stabilization the stabilization account those that interest stays with those funds um unlike the free cash which will we have you know $5 million roughly of free cash to start the year at the beginning of this year and then um you know we'll reset that again that that goes to the general fund interest income I do want to compliment us on such good Investments though nothing like making a little money while you're sitting on it um so you've answered that question and I specifically raised that because I know for example we've received in advance money for the library and that's part of what we've been able to invest correct and the Library money stays with the library thank you that's useful information right there um thank you uh let's see George no I Bob thank you I have to change glasses sorry I I think uh this Friday's meeting of finance committee is going to be an interesting one um I think there's a lot of important issues have been raised I think we should have a very vigorous um debate or discussion um I do want to just caution people that if we take free cash and put it into operations and I'm not saying we shouldn't but the unintended consequence will be that people will operations will hire more people which then creates a demand going forward that you have to feed because you've made a long-term commitment to these people so we we need to be thoughtful about what our goals are in if we were to move money into operations is it to hire more staff is it to do other kinds of things so just you know I I just want to caution people that it it there could be unintended consequences for doing so I I think it's a great thing to talk about though um councelor hanii you have your hand up um thank you sorry lots of questions um these might be my last ones for night and they're in preparation for Friday um there are specific capital projects on this Beyond just sending the capital stabilization in fact three roads and sidewalks for a million uh hundred and some thousand for the waist huler bylaw and then this sidewalk plow and we've touched a little bit on each of them but I would like on Friday a better explanation as to how you came to these I mean I I could probably give that explanation myself but versus did you talk to who did you talk to to get to these and how did you make this decision for example you know when we have a jcpc process that goes through sorts of things had nixed the sidewalk plow and I know there might be new things but there were other things they nixed or things that they said if there is more money give it to this one did you go back to that report did you not did you talk to our superintendent of schools to see if there were emerging cap need that might be more useful for 200,000 than a sidewalk plow for example what about the library things like that for Friday please please come in with those conversations or tonight and then one of the things I kept thinking of as I saw all these allocations to the capital program essentially was um you know in our annual budget we've put 10 and a half percent or 10.2% I think it is this year or last year to Capital and then every year we seem to be allocating more to Capital without more to um operating in that sense and so could we get a better percentage number that how how do these allocations go into that do they ever go into that budget to determine what our actual Capital spending per our operate per our total budget is our total budget was 97 million I believe for FY 24 that we just closed out and if we're putting and the next one's 98 million or FY 25 budgets around 98 million um 90 yeah 98 um and a certain amount of that is capital of that is um 8 8 million is capital um but then we're adding a million plus onto that for Capital do can we get historical numbers that show total Capital spending minus the debt exclusion um that include these oneoff Capital allocations so that we get a better understanding as to how much of our total budget every year is being spent on Capital when our financial goal is 10 and a half sure so you know it's a policy decision how much you want to allocate to Capital versus operating that's a that's that's something the finance committee can discuss and review it and submit it to the Town Council if you want to do less for Capital and more for operating that's a that's a policy decision um in terms of the why Capital now um we I try to drive everything all all budgetary decisions through the normal budget process that happens beginning now but and through the jcpc process and then uh through the budget process I don't want to have two different budget Cycles it's just too much work and and we already have another budget cycle with CPA going and cdbg there's there's just too much what what Rises to the top is um there what you see are three different examples so one is a council initiative which was the waist huler uh Council said we want to do this and and and we want money to do it and so if you want we said if you want to do it here's how you do it it's like Council said we want that so that's that's a high priority then Council initiative the second is you know I think what I interpret to be a council initiative or Capital need is roads and we always we try if there is extra money we put it to roads and that's sort of a thing we've done the last few years and the council has been receptive to that uh and then the other the other thing is if there are emerging expenses not just something I didn't get last time so I'm bringing it forth again something happened so we need it there and I have had the conversation with the superintendent say would you have things that were unexpected and we talked about a couple things that might work for her um but she we know we haven't had a really forceful conversation about timing and things like that when she would have to get it she's away this week but when she gets back we'll say are there are there other opportunities because I recognize that some people say wait a minute you get free cash and you just give it to the townside I don't believe that's that's what we're doing because these things all benefit everybody else but um but we but we don't do an open solicitation to all the departments say hey we've got money go what do you want there's very specific things you know I think roads always stands out by itself um and then because we do have un seems like unlimited Capital needs you when you go through jcpc you see you don't see the half of what people really want they just don't bring it to you if because they don't think they're going to get it okay are we completed with this discussion well tonight we're not even remotely completed with this discussion and I believe finance committee is fr at Friday at 9: okay um and that means that cup of joe will only be an hour well Melissa will come over to finance I'll clean up but okay he's going to clean up um I'm sorry it's it's that hour the night um I would like to move on to committee and liaison reports um Community CRC Pam Rooney thank you I think uh the one important CRC announcement is that um we were not able to get published our public hearing for the University Drive overlay so that hearing will not be on November 12 and uh not enough time um to also publish it for the 19th so we need to regroup and determine when we will hold the public hearing for you drive overlay this is just something that just came up and anyway thank you thank you okay um okay uh Elementary School building any I'm sorry go ahead M Jo um how does that affect the legality of it if we miss the 65 day deadline for starting the public hearing I'd have to check I think we need to schedule the we need to open the public hearing before Thanksgiving but I don't remember the date so was like the 23rd 26 24 some somewhere in the 20s so Pam and I just spoke at the meeting tonight and um you know we didn't settle on anything because CRC needs to talk about it or she needs to ask CRC members um to see if we can find a date before the deadline okay that we can notice it in time to at least open the hearing to open it yeah okay uh and Elementary School building I have nothing to report and Paul's report he notice we're we're on hold right now right after a very long hearing last week four and a half hours uh finance committee Bob hegner uh nothing new we as a as I said earlier we're meeting on Friday and and have a long meeting go Anna oh I'm sorry question will that what's on the agenda for what's on intended agenda and when will Financial guideline discussions be coming to finance uh we have uh initial discussion of the financial guidelines I believe will be on the agenda as well as the as well as what else wellend obviously talk about the financial indicators and we're going to talk about the the um allocations thanks the free cash allocation did I see a email that outlined all that I think as to which states we're going to be when yeah something like that oh maybe not okay got it thank you but it probably it probably hasn't been posted yet so it' be good to post it no okay any other questions for those moving on to Anna go all right so go is meeting on Thursday and we will be discussing uh the town manager goals as well as we have two proclamations um one for small business Saturday and one for the Human Rights Day if you'd like to sponsor those I've got uh two responses for small business Saturday but seeking sponsors for Human Rights Day um and if anyone else wants to sponsor small business you were already on it two additional ones who I did not see that but which one anyway great um I will add you so those are on our agenda for Thursday um and as a reminder I'm going to send out right now a Word document version of the grid that was in our packet from the last meeting if folks would like that um but I need your feedback on again we're talking about the goal areas for the town manager goals so that that column that says uh climate action blah blah blah blah blah um I need your feedback on that now um so if you'd liked any changes or you have any comments on that if you have comments on the rest of it send that to me too but right now I'm really seeking that that First Column area uh and I think and and so because that is currently kind of Front Burner we have not forgotten about the ah successor body um or the legislative process guide but we're prioritizing these things for for this upcoming meeting uh any questions TSO Andy yes um I sent a report of our last meeting and the uh summary of questions that we received from various sources uh regarding including the council uh regarding Southeast Street in in uh advance of this meeting it's in in the packet so if you have any questions U I'll respond or another member of the committee can respond um as far as the meeting this Thursday um the agenda there's one I understand one con manager appointment we may have um but the major discussion is going to start with the proposed roundabout at AMD Street and University Drive because of the funds that were received from the state um that's putting that uh referral which had been put on hold for a long period of time until we had funding for it into a higher uh priority and we've been asked to move that more quickly so that that is on the agenda um it's we are we did reserve the opportunity to talk about Southeast Street but I don't think we're really going to talk about the substance what we're going to talk about is the uh date for the meeting and the logistics for the meeting um that we're going to have and we'll make sure that that's well publicized and uh then the um council president will have to decide if there's uh going to be S significant participation from a number of counselors um whether it needs to be posted as a council meeting that's not my call as chair of the committee um the other things that are on the agenda um is school safety zones and uh I understand that Jason skills is working on a plan that he thinks is doable for um the high school and uh that was what the purpose of the referral was um and that's on the agenda because we've been advised that there's a significant likelihood that there'll be a plan ready to present to us um on Thursday so it's it's on it's on the agenda so that if the plan is it there to present um it's posted appropriately and we can actually uh do that and uh we have been putting proposed transportation and parking commission charge and amendments to the Town Council policy on every agenda because we're trying to uh work through a series of issues and uh if time permits we will be going on to the next section as discussed in our last report so barring questions that's it counselor hanii again I'm looking at this versus that Kathy that's okay I even blurred my D background so the little hand sticks out more now everyone else gets a bright yellow one um Andy my question is um have do you know whether the proposed plan and the questions have reached the teachers the crossing guard the custodians the people who now manage the offsite traffic for the school to have input um I got a request from school committee members to send the questions that you generated they were worried decisions that have already been made so I don't know whether there's been an actual meeting with the people at the schools they have they will have a lot to say about what they now do to try to get the kids across the roads and particularly the really busy South intersection with the double road crossing I just want to make sure it's not just Tac but it's also the school itself the people who are are um doing it the crossing guards go out and stop the traffic right now too and walk the kids across you walk the kids across because it's not that easy with discontinuous sidewalks so that's a question they were worried that decisions had already been made and I said not to worry about that um and um yes I uh this is a first step it's not the only step and so I assume that we are going to have a separate um Outreach not just to the schools the people who particularly the current Fort River staff because they have the most experience with the area um but uh also to the general public um that uh we um are very concerned that there be a significant um Community input section to the discussion but um we also recognize that there are a lot of questions that are already out there and they're now been forwarded to the town manager and the superintendent of Public Works um and if the U plane gets modified as a result that would be the more useful uh plan than to reach to the next group U people so the answer is uh to has it is this the done deal now no so so I understand that I just I have a bit of frustration about this because we tried to get this conversation started two years ago and really get DPW working on it and there was a long delay uh really long delay before getting someone uh expert to look at it um and I'm not sure why the except that the state wanted to fund the roundabout that's on University Drive this seems like a fairly urgent problem that's not going to be solved when the school opens but at least we could be solving it with a lot of input I mean people were really caught by surprise by what came to us as the proposed um so and there were conversations with the design team and the traffic people on options that DPW was part of early on on the off site and then the town said we'll take care of that and it's just there's been a long way so I just would like to expedite and involve people as quickly as possible rather than say we've got a long series of steps that might take a year um I'd rather get input and think of potential redesigns thanks and I'm not putting it on your thing I'm saying the frustration precedes us getting this report by quite a few years yeah yeah I thank you for your input and uh you really were are speaking to the entire committee since I think everybody's here um so um that will be helpful for the discussion thank you thank you councelor hanii um on the school safety zones just one request to make sure that whatever map DPW reduces uh includes the Middle School presumably it will since about the only entrance to the middle school is also the high school entrance so but just make sure that we don't forget that the request was for both schools and that the signage on that map that is produced should include all the signs for both schools counselor uh Anna um okay two things the first is this is going to sound like semantics um but they are just called school zones and I I say that because safety zones have a whole different set of procedural requirements and I don't want us to get confused or confused the public and so I would ask TSO in your discussion of this please call them school zones um that's what we voted to to create um and I again I don't want the public to get confused and say why aren't you doing an engineering study why aren't you doing a speed study because those are not required for establishing a school zone so that is my request to TSO um in your discussion of this topic and then the second question I had was in the um report it talked about reaching out to the safe Roots uh to school's people and I'm trying to figure out who that is because I know that it's a state program and I know that there's organization locally from volunteers but I'm and and that is not to say we shouldn't talk to whoever's engaged with that work but I'm trying to figure out who those folks are because um this is a group that we want to engage on other things as well and so I'm curious kind of how they come together how they're vetted um for being the experts on this topic uh I know that they're a big advocates for this topic and that's a really important role to play but that's also different than our transportation advisory committee who are Advocates but are are there because they also bring expertise and so I again I'm not discounting talking to safe frots to schools folks but I'm curious if you're talking to the folks who are local advocates for the program or if you're talking to the state um organizers of the program both are great just curious which one you don't have to answer I think you'd find up councelor hanii do you have your hand up yeah okay um we're are there any liais on reports uh Jennifer yes just very briefly the Council on Aging um I think you all received a notice from the uh Haley um at the executive director of the senior center of the claw For A Cause program and if you could get that word out to your constituents that would be terrific they would appreciate that that's donations for holiday gifts and possibly volunteers to deliver them as well thank you um Town manager's report Paul thank you um I'm G to jump through a few things one is um Cupa Joe is on Friday and starts at 8 I think and then we'll I'll be there to 9:30 Melissa will leave at 9:00 to go to the finance committee meeting um Farmers Market is exploring a Winter Market that will be at the banks Community Center during the month of on Saturdays from 10 to two during the month of December and then every other Saturday during January February we're working out some of the details but it seems like that's going to be a go um tomorrow is election day uh town clerk is really in good shape uh we've got everything every every slot filled um we have safety plans in in place just we don't know what's going to happen it's a very volatile election so uh everybody's on board hopefully it will go smoothly um we've put out a notice that there's a ban on Fires because there's been a lot of brush fires you maybe people are smelling it and uh it's happening our crews have been over helping Northampton with a major brush fire the last three days um so it's real and we don't see any rain coming up uh next um Monday is the Veterans Day at 9:00 break 11:00 is uh the flag raising ceremony on the North Common so you're welcome to that um um let's see the schools uh as mentioned we had a four and a half hour hearing on the bid protest all the written material had to be submitted to the attorney general by last Friday they it's now in their Court to make a decision um and they have it's not a it's more of an advisory decision on what they how they they read the situation and we'll listen read what they have to say and go from there um the uh Library I didn't want want to spend a minute on that so our bids our bid one bid of two came in below our Target number um so the the bid came in at um and and with we were able with the bid we're able to increase our contingency from 1.86 million to 3.43 million um this number it will includes all construction and contingency and paid and anticipated money and the and with it the number being below the appropriation that's been already approved by the Town Council uh the next steps for us is we still are going through the section 106 review which will take some time um and we also are looking at procuring space to relocate the library during the course of the construction um and we're St still on we're looking forward and hoping that we can start the construction in 2025 what I'm going to do is put together we sort of have a draft of a spreadsheet that shows all these numbers that I will sh share out with the council we'll get into this a lot more detail at the um at the Jones Library building committee meeting which I think meets November 18th or something like that so um and the other thing we have to do is make sure we have our OPM on board um and yes that's pretty much it those are the tasks in front of us at this point in time Beyond reviewing the bid and all that kind of stuff okay questions of the Town manager Kathy yes and I sense in advance so I know you're working on them um I'm I'm concerned that the the low bid is also the same contractor who's trying to knock out the two other contractors on the school and I don't know whether people have noticed that and that I think on the school they have a really healthy margin um because they could take advantage of some sub bids that wouldn't work with one of the other contractors so I'm a little worried that they may have low balled their bid in the anticipation that they can do changes later because this is $6 million below what they bid before it's the same break so I want to be really careful that we have a lot of oversight po so I'm not sure who who or what the OPM team would be if we move forward on uh avoiding what I understand happened in the 1993 there wasn't a lot of oversight um on I want to make sure if it gets built that it gets Built Well then I also will appreciate when you and Bob come to us with um something that talks about the budget that adds to the 4 46.1 because the last time I saw one was November of 2023 and um some of that money is already been spent and I know that but I don't know I don't I'd like to see a good estimate of what contingency is now really in because this the contract bid only came in a couple hundred, below the target so it wasn't like with the schools where it was Millions so I I know that was good news so I just like to see it put together in a way that mirrors the way we're getting to see the school budget regularly with the different pieces on what it was four months go what it is now with our best estimates and and I know there's one sub bid you said that we still waiting on electric before the to whole package is done I'm not sure I completely understand how we can still be at a sub bid level because with the school when we had to redo a sub bid we pushed the whole bidding process off for the general contractor but it seems like we can do it after the fact for the other bid so I've only been through two processes one process before this it just seems different because we postpone the whole general contractor bid when we had to redo electric bid on the school so it's these are questions yeah so with the subcontractor bid what we told the general contractors to do is carry an allow a specified allowance we said everybody's going to be playing by the same number for the electrical bid and then we will get the sub bids for the electrical so that's how we're able to to accommodate that because there was a a an issue with the electrical bid that one of the biders picked up and so we had and this happens during the bidding process not not a surprise um but so everybody the money is in a sum is allocated into the budget um for electrical work uh and every bidder has carried the same number in it so it's sort of held harmless for that um so I think our contingency they we treat the contingency differently and Bob can explain this to you more um the at the um school they had contingencies at multiple levels this has just one contingency we don't have an architecture contingency or other contingencies um and our contingency now is about 99.59% which is $.43 million um you know there's there's a long way to go the other piece of this is also just the financing plan you know are we going to have a I can't sign a contract unless I know we're going to have enough money to build this project we know we the town appropriation we know we've got the mblc money and I need to have confirmation from the or Confidence from the um trustees that they're they're going to come up with their share of money it's interesting talking to um people at the University today who were like uh on bid CH on bid uh challenges and they said like welcome to every bid we deal with there's challenges up and down everybody's challenging everybody else's bid right now so it's very competitive that way I think um so I'll try any any other questions just pass them along I didn't ask about the financing but that that's the one once I see what the budget is do we have the money you know and because there's a gap and uh right now the town will be on the hook for it yeah right so that's that we have to account I think there's a about a$7 million gap right now and that's where um we have to have a pretty clear plan about how how that's going to be filled uh Bob hegan I I had the same question uh regarding the the funds available funding and also um I just want to make sure that we protect the town against unnecessary risks when we put together any sort of final package um and I mean if you're doing a renovation you not start knocking down walls you always come up with something unexpected and so uh whether the contingency that's in the budget is sufficient for that I don't know and if we overrun you know is the town on the hook for that money is the library are the library trustees on the hook for that money it it' be helpful to have that spelled out uh Anna um I where was it oh no I lost okay here it is um I was sorry I was was scrolling down on the report and now I have to find it again oh page one um this is actually a question for Athena um your presenting to the MMA on November 16th um is that going to be streamed or recorded in any way if we can't go in person to that the counselor's Association um meeting was canceled due to lack of a low registration numbers ah well that was a a ww thank you for take that one off your calendar uh thanks for the question Anna uh Pam thank you um back to the library for a minute so um you somebody just mentioned the $7 million gap um we we still don't know what the results of section 106 historic review is going to be I hope I hope it does not affect the ne and the HUD Grant that that are again another $2 million worth um do you have a plan to to cover $9 million if that's if that adds to the Gap with the $2 million if we somehow don't procure those grants um and then the contingency or the the the slightly lower bids that we got that were that came in a little under the under the estimate has been added to the contingency is that contingency going to cover are you expecting that that contingency will cover all of the um the neh and the HUD Grant uh requirements for section 106 um if they if they're asking for changes to be made or um averting the I'm trying to remember what the term is the adverse effects on the library that contingency is is going to have to cover that as well question yeah I don't I can't predict what the 106 review will will will will require or recommend um the I don't think they can require anything they they make they give advice to the um funding agencies which is the ne the other the federal grants and then um but that process 106 review is going to go through a process and we have to see how that plays plays out um in terms of um you know I can't predict where the contingency is going to be enough you always would like more um just like with the schools we always would like more um but we only have the amount of money that we have um in terms of you know I think the financing plan has you know the the the funding stack is pretty complicated because it has you know pound funds it has uh the mblc grant it's got you know federal grants it's got lots of fundraising so I'm hoping that the um trustees uh will be very successful and as they continue to fund raise now that we've got a really solid bid in from a very very reputable company okay Jennifer um Pam asked most of my questions but I I just did want some clarification so we have the contingency but since we don't know you know what they're going to find as they start to do the renovation and demolition can it be negotiated into a contract that Beyond a certain point the contractor you know that to limit the change orders that they would have to just assume those costs or would the library take that on um because the library trust the president of the trustees had said during I think the last building committee meeting that he anticipated change orders but you know that we we don't have Deep Pockets so we only have the money that we have so unless we I can't assign a contract that's more than the amount of money that we have um and we can borrow more than they than the council has appropriated so um but don't change orders come after the contracts signed yes yes they can come after would we do you say yes or no to a change order that's the is always the question okay um George yeah um I'm used to have your hand up sorry let me let me get the right right mic like God I mean I have a deep voice but um yeah I just first of all I guess I want to start with um the concerned about um the funding sources and the raising of the money for the capital campaign happen to be a member of that body and I have every confidence and we have every confidence that we can meet our campaign goals um this group has already raised over $7 million um also would point out that at the moment um at least for the last couple months there was a real question about whether this project could proceed and now we know that it can um to expect people to be giving substantial sums of money in that period is is wildly unrealistic and I think people know that so we have every confidence that we can meet those goals um I want to go back to a document I have in front of me um which is the uh memorandum of agreement that comes from November of 23 and I just would like some clarification um because perhaps I'm the one who's who's confused but in that document that was signed by the trustees and by the town it states the library intends to raise the new library share which is 13 m822 518 by applying for grants available to it whether government or private and through gifts to it from individuals or other sources and further has agreed that if the new library share is not a obtain through such sources the library shall use either the library's endowment or other sources of funds available to it which may include taking out a bank loan to pay the new library share item 11 says the library also understands the town will not pay more than its Town share committed by this agreement and the previous agreements so I read that as a fairly clear statement that the risk that some people have been alluding to and seem to be deeply concerned about um uh is actually cover been this agreement um the library understands fully that the town share is what it is and it's not going to change um and that's why this recent new bid is is so important because it shows that this can be done according to the original budget that we according to the budget that we have so Paul I guess I need your uh clarification that that that seems to state that the risks that um these are being raised here are actually on the shoulders of the library trustees um and the library and if you have concerns about those risks and questions about this project you should be addressing them to the library trustees and to the billing committee they're the ones who are responsible they're the ones who are facing the risk um so Paul am I not correct that this document is the governing document and that it says that the risks that U might arise over the next few months or year whatever is actually something that is on the shoulders of the library trustees so so that you're right that that controls the amount of money that the town uh is willing to put into this project uh the bid controls the amount of money it's going to cost to complete this project based on the bid specs that were issued um and the trustees have taken on the responsibility of of doing the rest and that's what but I think it's important for us to know what's that strategy and how they're going to get there when it comes time to sign the contract so we know we've confidence that when the bills that the money is going to be available when we need the money to to pay so I I think the trustees are fully aware of that and prepared for that councelor hanii I'm going to use thatou to segue to something else I'm sure people come back to the library I was listening to a school committee meeting the other day um a regional school committee meeting and a topic came up that involves the town of ammer so I'd like to hear from you about that um the superintendent was talking about working on memorandums of understandings with ammer w and ammer DPW on various things so can you talk about that matter from your perspective and what's going on and what they might look like and all of that yes so um there's a little bit um the superintendent came in with fresh eyes and started to look at the relationship between the town and the district and what services uh when there were needs from the that things that had been more of a handshape agreement previously we're now um saying we should reduce this to writing this goes back to when Ron bonowitz was the shared facilities director of both the town and the uh schools and he sort of managed everything as one big event so he would have an electrician from the school come and work on something at the Town Hall and vice versa so because he had he just looked at as one big thing and it sort of flowed pretty well um Melissa has now taken on the responsibility and I think that at at the um agreement with the superintendent that we should actually write these things down you know we take care of their football field they take care of the track uh they take take care of this we take care of their swimming pool but they own the swimming pool um we we use the swimming pool what do we get charged for when can we use their facilities you know we work together but sort of reducing things to writing will help clarify and identify who's sharing the burden on these things there's a lot it's there's a lot of informal stuff can you come and fill some potholes on our parking lot BPW runs over and just does it in a heartbeat uh they don't charge them for that or anything like that we'd like there to be that continued but we also feel that both sides I think feel that it's probably good to sort of identify and quantify what this relationship is costing each other thank you I've been pushing for those quantifications for I don't know five years six years now so I'm thrilled I'm thrilled to see it um are these um it I think since they would be intermunicipal agreements that you would have to come to us to seek permission to sign them is that correct so we would see them before they get signed yeah be between the between the dist the Regional School District and the um and the town yes thank you uh George you still have your hand up I'm GNA go to Andy yeah I'll return to the library but I'll be really quick um I think that uh one additional thing we need fairly soon in the process is kind of an updated thorough assessment of what would happen if we can't move forward with the project for expansion and renovation and we have to go into a repair option as to what that's going to cost and what years it's going to um those monies are going to have to come from where they might come from um that kind of thing because I think that it's important for the council to know that as we talk about it but I think it's also very important for the community to understand that so there are no decisions for the council to make we've got the appropriation we've got the bid we move forward um the council re-elected body that has voted on this have voted generally by two-thirds or more vote the the general populace has voted on us by two-thirds vote the things that I identifi tonight like you know getting through 106 review and all these other things and having the OPM on board and doing procurement of space and all those things are still tasks ahead of us this project is moving forward the intent is to move the project forward that's what the council voted to do uh I know there are a lot of people or a small group of people out there who are agitating to make this project fail I think that that's um unfortunate because it's been clear my take my my direction from the council the council's voted it by two-thirds vote so you know in terms of getting an alternative I think that's not well time spent and we don't really have people to do that right now um it would be you know we'd have to have Bob parent get off of the school project or the library project they're both taking enormous amounts of time right now so um at this moment time I don't intend to have anybody work work on that um because I if this if we don't make it through I don't see what would prevent us from making it through at this point in time um because we have a successful bidder who's a reputable bidder are there any other questions on the town manager seeing none um I'm going to just quickly move to um let me just pull up something I just want to remind people that our meeting on the 18th begins at 5: uh if you are not going to be here and meaning you'll be at some other location at 5:00 we will email you the documents um that you are to read um you did receive all of the documents now that are input from other people um as of I think about 4:30 this afternoon and please make absolutely every effort every effort to make sure I have your written valuation no later than Wednesday November 13th at 4 o'clock um next on the next council meeting I've mentioned already the two different public forums in addition to that we will have a presentation on the Capital financial model up dated uh if there's anything to report on Town manager goals uh we'll have that um although I'm not pro promising anything uh we expect uh finance committee to come back with actions recommended actions to the extent possible on the referrals we did tonight um we may be actually looking at the CPA appropriation for the track and field uh and also some DPW Appropriations from the various Enterprise funds and also another appropriation that we asked for tonight which is regard to the Charter Review Committee um are there any counselor comments at this time may I make a quick request regarding the next meeting we this is the meeting that the the town provides dinner for counselors we'll have pizza there um if there are any dietary restrictions please let us know and then um we we usually print copies of the evaluations it's a lot of paper so if anyone would like a printed copy please let us know otherwise you'll get everything electronically if anyone won't be attending in person and you'd like a printed copy we don't release them until right when the meeting begins so I need to know that in advance thank you are there any other comments uh Elicia thank you is this the portion where I can say my un um like unanticipated comments topics this is the portion where you as a counselor have made make comments please okay great um I am actually just wondering what is the approval process for for the moving of a house nice question I think Paul's had some um practice answering this one so a person who wants to move the house can move the house under state law and utilities have to accommodate them and bear the cost of making it moving the wires and things like that um they they we charge them for uh costs that the town incurs but we don't get to say yes or no they can't move it or they can move it uh I think you're referencing a house move that was very recent which turned out not to be a very successful um uh move uh and it leaked into the um school day which which disrupted many of people in the at the Fort River School specifically um and created a lot of Havoc with traffic and with people losing power um you know I think we were directing people who have lost power or lost food because of losing power to eversource uh who is responsible for the delivering electricity to people's houses um you know lesson learned on this one going forward as well from the town's point of view um thank you sorry just a couple of follow-up questions so can we I know you're saying we don't have much control over it but are there any restrictions we can put in place like what days of the week this can happen yeah you know I I started looking today around to see if there's a any towns have sort of regulations on this that we can say you need a permit to do this or anything like that I haven't found anything yet um usually movers want to be they want to comply and I think looking again one of the lessons Leed is this is we chose or they chose we all chose a bad day to move it um it would have been easier for them to move it on what the day before a holiday or something like that so um there's that's always a conversation between the Mover the developer and the Mover and usually with the police department in the town additional questions okay no just last comment I do think that that would be really H helpful in the future if the town does have any say for the town to Advocate on behalf of the residents to have that happen like like you said on a day before a holiday or even on a weekend um because my kids couldn't go to school that day we live we go to Fort River we live off of Old belr toown Road everything was shut down the school buses couldn't make it to us I had to call out of work I had to miss a presentation for school it was like a very big deal for our family we also had no power all night long and my kids are afraid of the dark so it was a very difficult night with my kids up all night um and so like I just think it was absolutely ridiculous and that there could have been better advocacy and planning because the schools didn't even send out a message to let families know that they wouldn't be able to accommodate students until 8:23 when school starts at 8: am. any other comments councelor Walker no that's it I just think it's really important to be said thank you y thank you for your comments and I there's others that's totally hear you um are there any other comments not I'm going to entertain a motion to adjourn seek a second second councelor hanck hi Bob hegner hi councelor Lord hi Pam roone yes Ryan hi Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg hi Jennifer to yes councelor Walker yes paty Angeles hi Anna Deon goth hi councelor I ly grimer and I it's unanimous the meeting is adjourned at 10:34