so I think the first order of business theena do you want to run this part electing a chair I I'm happy too if you'd like me to yeah I think that's the appropriate thing to do all right we're calling the budget coordinating group to order at 1202 PM I'm just going to go and make sure everyone can hear and be heard since this is a remote meeting ly grimer present Matt Larsson here Andy Steinberg present Irv rhods present Paul ban
present Mandy joh haniki present Dr zamar Herman present Tillman wolf present Deb ler present Melissa zaty Anna Devin goer present Sharon Sherry here and Shannon bernia here okay great um so the first order of business is electing a chair and vice chair I'll run the election of the chair and then hand it over to them to run the election of the vice chair Deb did you have a
question no oh okay your hand went up for a moment um so we'll open the floor to nominations the nominations don't require a second you can nominate yourself um the nominee will accept the nomination or not um and then there will be a moment for statements before the committee takes a vote Irv do you have a question no I just want to nominate okay so the floor is open for nominations serve I nominate Lynn as
here okay Lynn do you accept the nomination I do are there other nominations Deb I nominate Anna Devon gothier Anna do you accept I am honored at this time I do not accept sorry Deb but thank you are there other nominations Lynn would you like to make a statement very brief thank you for the nomination this is a very important
group at a very important time would anyone else like to make a comment before the vote okay so I'm looking for a motion to elect Lyn Grier as chair of the budget coordinating group so moved is there a second second second thank you move to a vote Lynn will start with you because you're first on my screen I Nat yes
Andy yes F yes Mandy I tman I Deb no Anna I and Shannon yes wait is Shannon a St member yes I'm sorry okay it's unanimous Lyn I'm handing things off to you no it's not unanimous oh I'm sorry one no with with one no
L thank you so the floor is now open for nominations for vice vice chair Andy Steinberg I nominate IR BRS okay Irv do you accept I accept honor dein goth I'd like to nominate Deb Leonard Deb do you accept I do okay are there any other nominations IR would you like to make a statement yes I I you know I've I've
been on this committee for some time and I have a and I've also been involved with the finances for the town for quite some time I also sat on the school committee which is a really big segment of the budget and I believe I have an overall perspective on the budget that will allow for us to move forward in a cohesive Manner and I really would appreciate your vote um
de would you like to make a comment sure um I've spent a lot of time this past year um and certainly most recently trying to understand both the uh school school budget and the town budget and the um the balance of the two and I think I would bring that level of uh detail and uh perspective to the committee thank you thank you for the nomination on is there anyone who on the committee that would like to make a
comment Anna dein goth here yeah I I hadn't asked Deb if if I could nominate her so I appreciate the on thefly acceptance but the reason why I wanted to nominate Deb for the position of Vice chair is that I've seen her uh engaged in the financial pictures for both the region and the elementary schools as her role uh as a school committee member um in a very detailed and considerate way and I think that um
we Deb is is would be a new um Vice chair on this Committee in terms of bringing in um bringing in some voices to the table who have been engaging in the conversation a bit more recently I think that could be always an important uh important aspect to consider so I I've appreciated how Deb has gone about this conversation when I we've worked together at four towns meetings and um all of the data that she's brought to the table and I think that she will bring a balanced perspective between the school's library and town as we go
forward in a year that's going to be a really tough one are there others that would like to make a comment Andy Steinberg yeah this is going to be a difficult vote for all of us because these are two really well qualified people the reason that I nominated Irv and with some difficulty because I have great appreci appreciation and respect for Deb uh but
we'll vote for IR to is that we have worked together for a very long time uh IR mentioned his long experience both of us served on the original finance committee back at the time that the budget coordinating group was created and I have great confidence in Irv's long long term perspective and
understanding of uh Municipal finance and the financial uh pressures that are on uh the all aspects that are represented here the schools the town the library and um sees the big picture and U I feel like uh you would offer a great contribution are there any other comments from
people seeing none then I'm going to just go by the order you are on the screen for the voting members and I ask you to cast your vote for one or the other or abstain Etc Nate uh Nat Larson I'll vote for Deb ly gmer is Irv roads Andy Steinberg BV roads
VV roads V roads councelor hanii Deb Leonard uh Tillman wolf Deb Leonard Deb Leonard Deb Leonard and Ana Devin gothier Deb Leonard did I get everybody that's a voting member yes uh Deb congratulations the vote is three and favor of I mean
five in favor of Deb three in favor of Roads our next um responsibility or next item on the agenda is to ask the town manager to open with kind of a statement of the financial condition and other things that have come up since we last since abcg meeting last met yeah uh thank you um Lynn so last time we talked was at the financial indicators meeting is one of the times we talked um and we been sharing information and one of the
things the goal today is to share our latest projections which we will share with you and uh update you with additional information last time we met we said we were going to wait till the end of January which is when we anticipated hearing about um the state the governor's budget and also our health insurance which we have both we have information on both of those things I do want to start though by recognizing that we are in an incredibly difficult time on budget but on multiple other levels I just want to
recognize the work that our staff you know especially at the schools and I know on our side are going through with this Federal disruption um which has been uncertain and unstable and um Sharon and I had a conversation this morning about how it's impacting the sh the uh Library Services um the level of Uncertain uncertainty and chaos is something I have never seen before in decades of service and in the public sector there's
constantly changing information um the flip-flopping on which what's going on is one thing then the next day it's something else it's just for our staff and for our elected leaders I know it's really hard to to process um these are real issues that are impacting people's lives and I just think we I want to ground ourselves in thinking about recognizing that we're all in the same in the in the same boat and on the same team in this community
I'm really proud to be part of this community that stands on very strong values um so that's my opening statement I just think we all have to recognize that we're in a really uncertain world as we go through this budget process and we need to be taking um proactive measures but also we have to do protective measures uh to make sure that we are protecting the people that we serve the best we can um
I also want to recognize that the taxpayers are are uh where we get most of our money that you know the debt exclusion for the new school is going to start hitting uh in for real in FY 26 and people are going to see their taxes go up in addition to any regular increase that they would expect to see um so I mentioned and I'm not going to get into long conversation but do want we want to get to the spreadsheet because I think that's really what you guys want to see we have talked about um
state aid and um health insurance I'm going to start with the the worst news is our health insurance increase he um we received health insurance increases from our insurer of 19.9 2% it's a dramatic increase for all Department everybody here um and there are many things that are contributing to that the there there are external factors such as Inc Rising Healthcare cost but our rates are going up at this
high level um mainly due to our experience our employees are using health insurance at such a rate that the insurer is losing money on on on our on our business so our loss ratio is much higher um at the top peak of um of the of all the cities and towns that Maya ensures our our our our uh experience is our experience we own that and it's it's very real what is being what people are
using and that I understand why the insurer is saying we need to increase your rates to help cover the cost of the services that you're that you're using in terms I'm just going to address health insurance for a minute um this is something that's shared for by employees and by the our our you know this Library School in town um these costs impact us all pretty dramatically um and the uh um we are
working with there the law requires us to have an insurance advisory committee which is comprised of the representatives from all the collective bargaining units in this town in the schools and non-union reps as well and we'll be meeting this afternoon actually to start reviewing these increases and talk about things that we can do to lower that high percentage increase and there are some things we can do that I think we you know our employees are Partners in this and they are well educated people on this um on health
insurance on our committee and so we will be talking about ways that we can lower that percentage to make it uh less onerous it's no matter where it goes it's going to be in double digits and it's going to be hard thing to swallow uh but we will be working on that we will be working vigorously over the next few weeks um the lead will be taken by the insurance advisory committee which is um chaired by one of our fire captains and has representation from all the the different unions um assistant chief
actually now fire assist assistant fire chief um and we'll start to work through what are our options in terms of um what we can do to lower that cost of health insurance and everything is on the table um in terms of state aid at the um you know the governor has released her budget which is usually our starting point on state aid and I just ask uh Melissa our finance director to share what that what the net impact of the
state aid is so um the state aid um went up about 2.8% um about $500,000 um but unfortunately um our assessments went up significantly well as well um to the tune of about um $400,000 leaving us with a a net uh gain in state receipts over last year of um
$177,000 so it's a very modest increase under 1% over last year when you um when you balance the uh new revenues with the um with the increasing costs so what we have done um and we'll go through this uh we've reviewed the town council's budget guidelines and we've built this projection in in compliance with the council's budget guidelines um the council asked us to
look more deeply at all of our local receipts which we have done uh we've tried to adjust things as as we can and what we can say today is that we are projecting a 3.5% increase for all of our um uh for the the three for all of our um the town um and I think Melissa might be best just to start going through the the spreadsheet and is this in the packet or do we have this it's not been put in the packet yet but we'll put in the packet I just want to mention
that as soon as we're done with this presentation we'll ask for clarifying questions on anything that's been said yeah thank you um okay so um I guess U we'll start with uh the revenues and so um as I'm sure everyone here is aware property taxes are allowed to go up by 2 and a half% you'll notice that our um property taxes went up by 3.5% and that increase is driven by um the fact that our new
growth in fiscal 25 which was just certified at the uh end of December um was significant um of and so when when the um New Growth goes up it um it builds into our base going forward so that um that's how we come up with a 3.5% increase within two and a half outside of that you'll notice that the overall property tax increase is 5.7 um
2 million 2.1 million of that is um is for the um override so that money is specifically set aside for the dead um the dead exclusion um payments um associated with the Fort River School um that 2.1 million is an estimate um that we have um based on borrowing that we anticipate to do in the next several months um as the project moves forward
and we need to um start spending that money so we borrowed um a little bit this year and there's a small impact on tax bills and then there'll be a more significant one on the tax bills going forward in the uh in the fiscal 26 budget uh second group is the local receipts and as we had talked about one um area where we had received some guidance to um increase those local receipts um we took a look at that um and so you
can see that they're increased um what I think is significantly over um the prior Year's estimates although not exceeding um the prior Year's actuals um and part of that is that these are estimates and many of these um revenues are tied to uh economic conditions and interest rates uh specifically with the investment income so we we push them uh the the increases
significantly um and so we're up 11 uh percent over uh last year in this one category uh thirdly we talked about um the state aid we talked about that briefly earlier um the state aid has gone up a a small amount 2.8% but we want to just also recognize that unfortunately part of that is offset um by The increased assessments which we'll
go over when we get to the expenditure uh portion of our um presentation here um it doesn't impact uh this part of the budget but I guess it's fair to mention for both the school and the libraries the um offset receipts those are receipts uh designated from the um state that go directly to those departments um specifically um the uh Charter uh the choice tuition in and um the public
library assistance both went down slightly so that's just an impact on those particular departments to be aware of um the other financing sources um remains um pretty stable um the only reason that it goes down at all is because we had onetime money in the budget last year that um we do not have um that as an income in this year's budget um overall um the increase in the
um overall revenues is 5% but again a large majority of that has to do with um the increase for the debt exclusion and so that money is already allocated to pay for that new school so if yeah great so in the expenditure category um we did an increase of 3 and a half% sent across all of the operational areas um
the town the Regional School the elementary school and the Jones Library um the way I've demonstrated here what we wanted to be able to show is the um that the 2% or $355,000 from fiscal 25 that was onetime money was built um into the base and they were given 3 and a half% on both their original base and that additional base which looks to uh which is
represented here um as a 5.5% increase because it's 5.5 from the tax revenue increase um when we had to move that um Revenue Source um went away so we had to absorb that in our um increases um from tax revenue um so but basically what that is is a 3.5% increase on the Regional School um but from their um base of the um that included the 355
that was added late in the process last year so I just wanted to explain that part of that operating budget um our capital budget remains pretty uh consistent there are um several um variations in the lines but the um the two things I want to bring your attention to and what the controlling factors are is um if you see at the bottom um where it says um the
6.7 um million dollar um that's a 4% increase and that's based on a 10.5 of the um tax levy um and that's based on the guidance we received from um the Council on that we were going to try and maintain the 10.5% of the tax rate available for Capital that $6 million is made up of um the regional uh tax assessment and The
Debt Service um short-term interest and cash Capital all four of those categories meant together to make that $6 million and movement between them um does not change this bottom line number the 2.1 million and the uh six million um that are from other um funding sources the debt exclusion of course we can only spend the the tax we raise for debt exclusion on debt so that's uh what
that is and we can only spend CPA uh capital on CPA Capital we cannot be used for other things so this large increase of the 21% in capital is primarily driven by the increase um in that debt exclusion so I just wanted to explain that um miscellaneous our retirement system as we dug into the number was not as big of an increase as we had thought
in the past so um bringing that number um down to a more reasonable increase of 2.5% um helped us um create this this budget um projection um and based on guidance we received from the council this year the opep um contribution is going to remain the same at $600,000 and then finally in um unappropriated uses um the state
assessments you can see there that it went up $410,000 um which you know that's why our overall um change from the governor's Cherry sheets didn't go up as much as maybe we had hoped um because with the offset of the um expenses you know it it's only $117,000 um and so overall the budgets going up 5.5 but I think in reality
you'll notice that the places that um are driving that have to do with the um with the debt exclusion so really it's 3.5 is consistent throughout um the all the different budget categories going up between two three um and 2% um and that's and I guess if we have any questions I do have a small Surplus because I didn't try and make get zero by you know um so we're still working on
the numbers um you know and and hopefully we'll be able to um have more clarity when when we get more information new new numbers from the state um more detail on um you know what our costs are so so thank you oh go ahead go ahead I I did want to say that um Paul had mentioned it earlier that um if we look at the um increases for each of the um governmental units
that um that health insurance increase that we are talking about um hits inside that 3 and a half% increase for all of those governmental units and it is um quite challenging to manage and I can say that um I don't know the school's numbers but I'm sure they do that that number essentially eclipses our entire increase and we haven't even um taken into account our um collective
bargaining agreements or other contractual obligations we have going forward so um this is going to be a very challenging year for for all all four of the groups um because I don't think that their picture looks U much different than than anyone else's uh thank you Melissa yeah so that was I was going to jump in the health insurance is a brutal reality that we're facing again and we will be continuing to work on
that and we will be continuing to look at all the numbers and sort of battle test every number that we have um to do the best that we can and I think the next major piece of information um that we expect to get would be the house Ways and Means budget which hopefully will have more positive information and um our you know I anticipate you know by the end of the month early March we would have an updated numbers for everybody so if there I'm sure there will be questions right so let's go with
questions regarding the presentation and then um and that I and Sharon um Shannon that is from anybody I saw your hand up uh and then we'll actually go to individual statements but let's at this point stick with the presentation we just saw and questions regarding it uh Deb Leonard hi I have several questions should I do one at a time mhm go start please what is the split um for the
health insurance between the town um and the employee it it depends on the plan so uh I think it's 75% for the PO and 80% for the um HMO hly is that accurate I I believe that is accurate yes that is correct repeat that please it's we have we have offered two plans a PO and an HMO the town pays 80% of the HMO which is the lower cost plan and 75%
of the PO which is the higher cost plan most of our employees are on the HMO um the the assessments um H how how do those break down in categories in particular the um finance committee uh letter to Paul from Melissa talked about including um re retirement and opab in a different
line is that reflected here or under assessments instead of miscellaneous just to clarify I think you mean the budget guidelines adopted by the full Council no just from finance committee meeting on yesterday I see okay Holly has her hands up Holly please yeah if I may that um that note is actually old we um we combined uh we moved that a couple of years ago so it is reflected in these numbers and it has been reflected in
these numbers for the last couple of years in in which category um I don't have it in front of me right now Melissa down at the uh you want to you mean it in the projection sheet the the opabin um retirement on the projection sheet she's referring to the third quarter or the first quarter report that we put out yesterday is what she's referring to where there was a blurb about that
so it it is in the assessments it is it it is completely separated down there at the bottom you see the OPB and the retirement the retirement does include and and I I think this is where your question may be going the retirement does include the school retirement the retire the opep is a Town's contribution to our opep it is not the school's contribution it it there's pieces of it that that may belong to the elementary school but it is mostly the town and the
Enterprise funds opep responsibilities there Deb you follow on question with that yeah uh when you say schools you mean the elementary schools the the the three element Elementary thank you and can I just ask that that uh document from yesterday's finance committee meeting now be added to the packet for this meeting thank you uh de Deb do you have additional questions um the end of December the the the end of
December certification for New Growth which line is that reflected in in the in the presentation it's it's at the top under the tax slevy that says new growth for fiscal 2025 so that's the 1 million something or the 1.2 million yeah 1.2 okay thank you that's it okay sh yes so with the um health insurance the
I I'm assuming you'll look at a plan redesigned to help bring that percentage down and I know you mentioned a few weeks do you have a a better estimated time frame in terms of when we have to vote um the school budgets in March I'm wondering if we will know before then um so we can have the best estimate in there and not reduce positions that we wouldn't have to if if we knew that
final number yeah that's true that's a good question um so we will be meeting this afternoon as I said with our insurance advisory committee um that's that's a requirement before we make plan design changes there are some things that we can do unilaterally there's some things that but we have to must must do cons consultation there are some things that are collective bargaining issues and I think the teachers contract has more specificity in it than the townside contracts so there may be if we try to change some things uh there may be a
duty to bargain by the um by the district so those are the types of things that we're we're unpacking right now so I think you know for for for instance I you know in terms of plan design changes there's a certain amount that we can do but we try to do it in uh uh consort with the with our um labor with all our with our um employee Partners PA did you want to add to answer add to that I I just want to say though that we we are planning to move
fast we are planning to try to weekly until we can get there I mean we understand I'm I'm not sure how that time frame is going to work with your time frame but Maya will also have a deadline for us so okay thank you we will we will update you Helman quick clarification question on the income side um you show that some of the income streams go directly to the unit such as school choice um and I wanted to know if the charter assessment
reimbursement goes to the town or does it go to the schools so just like Chapter 70 the charter reimbursement comes in as you know T part of the overall um general fund um but the uh School uh and the charter uh out is part of the general fund and the choice out is part of the general fund but the choice in is um designated specifically for school use purposes
that that's how those break down thank you de Leonard um just to to follow up on on tilman's question um there's the schools there's a regional school system and the elementary school system and my understanding is that um the the regional the Regional School gets their own cherry sheet estimates that is not included in this presentation at all that's that's separate and um this uh this Chapter 70
this um choice and Charter are are related to the uh elementary schools okay so Tillman sits on the Regional School District not the ammer school district right they have but they have their own um it's it operates in a similar fashion and they have their own cherry sheet assessments thank you and charges I mean uh revenues so I raised my hand
because I have a question um with your experience Paul once we have made adjustments to our insurance package and we go back to Maya is there any possibility that they will use that as an opportunity to make up some of the difference they're losing on us no um the way it works is Mayo will be part of these conversations and they say if you make this change it will save you 1% if you make that that change you will save 2% and we start to work together to
reduce those percentages the best we can and that will be the and again we try to get it through consensus with all of our labor Partners but um and sometimes we we we'll goes that's how we always want to begin the conversation but I in terms of Shannon's response yes time is of the essence for all of us because we're all building our budgets now and so I think that you know trying to get something in the next three or four weeks is what our goal is are there other questions about the
comments and presentation that have been made so far okay then it's an opportunity now for individual groups uh to make some report on their own budget status and we're going to start with the library where we have Nat and Sharon hi everybody body okay well y'all pretty much said it all uh when I went
to bed last night I had a certain set of comments that I was going to say to you today and then when I woke up this morning the first words out of my mouth after reading poor Melissa's email was OMG um a 20% health insurance increase is really really really bad um the draft FY 26 budget that I put together for the library in prepar ation for this meeting uh we used a 133% increase for health
insurance and that was bad enough uh but now a 20% increase you know to any line is devastating since 2018 uh which was seven years ago the library has been unable to fill three of our full-time positions huge loss for the library um and this annual the an annual 3% increase although I appreciate the extra you know
half a half a percent that's helpful thank you um it's it's not keeping up with all of these fixed costs and I know I'm preaching to the choir this isn't unique to the library um every year it's happening um granted it hasn't been 20% in in previous years that I can remember but um it's absolutely preventing the library from being able to keep up with with Patron demand and
um I'll just stop there yeah I know I'm preaching to the choir thank you for the opportunity Matt was there anything you wanted to add to that okay councelor hanii you have your hand up yeah I just have a clarifying question for the library director you said three full-time positions have been unfilled is that because you can't find people or because the budget does not have the money to pay those three positions that you've had in the past
correct yeah they these are three people that retired and I just I don't have the money to afford to replace them thank you are there any other clarifying questions regarding the library or any other questions for the library okay then we're going to move to the schools uh Deb and Irv and Tilman for the Regional Schools as well as Dr Z
who wants to start I'll jump in first thank you I think when I got the inclination of the 20% um I did not sleep well um I have had a headache since I just want to say that it has we already were struggling to identify specific positions um and keep programming running for our schools so at the region we are upwards of a 1.7 million with the current projection of
19.9 2 um and we're preparing to go into four tones um I did meet with my principles prior to this just to give them um a little foresight into what we learned as well as how it impacts us at ammer our deficit would then be 1.8 million so we're looking at I'm going to just say 2 million at both the region and 2 million at BO ammer in terms of deficits um we do have some planning meetings for the rest of the week
Shannon and Kate has been running some numbers and we plan to present it by school um what that deficit is going to be so that they can start to look at programming it is going to us if we don't do something differently it was already hard before and it's going to be harder now uh did uh Deb or Irv did you have anything you wanted to State on behalf of ammer um just in terms not only just in terms
of amers but also for the region the numbers that Dr Z just put out our crippling numbers uh for our schools and and every dollar that is mentioned impacts a student impacts a kid it impacts our children and so I know that there have been concerns in the past as by members of the community
Especial Especially the council in terms of the schools and not being able to live within their within their means uh but I I think that we're at we're at a point here where we need to come together to look at not only the cost drivers that are driving our cost and that some of those costs people were saying well you need to control those costs some of those costs are literally out of our control and and and and so um what I
what I want this group to understand is that both the region and the school ammer schools face these crippling costs and it is not because we are not trying to control our costs believe me I know Dr Z and her staff have been after this uh for some time and that we will continue to look at each and every category of
costs but I also wish to remind everyone here that our costs are driven by students who offer who occupy a seat in a school and that those some of those costs are not controllable by us and that needs to be
stood uh Deb or tomman did either one of you want to add anything at this point yes please go ahead Deb um just looking at uh positions because prior to coming into this meeting the reduction um uh we were looking at reductions of for the ammer schools of five positions in central office and 13.2 positions in
terms of our teachers clerical workers and Paris and that section just that section alone The Unit A and B teachers clericals and Paris uh was the 13.2 uh reductions was uh a savings of 664 um ,000 so now if we're looking at a two million an additional 2 million
which is essentially an additional 900,000 reduction you're looking at uh another 137 six another SE 17 positions so you're looking at a if I did that right you're looking at a 30 um 3 five total but
30 um 30 position reduction at the elementary schools tman I I just want to say that I fully agree with Irv about the impact that budget changes have to the school and that this is something that really you know is noticeable that points out that this will really have a redu an impact on the available teachers and we're going to spend more time talking about this on
the four towns meeting but um one thing I want to point out is that a a large variability in terms of what the schools have available over time is really challenging to deal with because if you now trim teacher positions it will be hard to get them back and get them back at the same quality and and provide some you know continuity to the uh schools so I um I understand the pressures but I hope we can understand that this is not
something that can be turned on and off quickly year over year thank you Deb did you want to add anything before I go to questions yeah about the region I I I am a near near school committee representative but I I I have studied the Region's budget a fair amount and um look I understand the impact of of level Services state level the impact of more or less unchanging state revenue is strains all sectors but
especially in terms of the region essentially all of our 10 million 9 million from the state goes to these costs that are that IR V Tillman are referencing they're um add of District costs that we have no impact on and then pension and uh retire health insurance essentially wipes that entire amount out
so when um the conversation turns to the the the towns being asked to to take on a larger percentage of our budget that is entirely true but that is also entirely out of our control and we wind up looking at a little less than half of the budget that we cannot impact so when you're talking about reductions
you're talking about reductions from uh a much smaller part of our budget and that's why the uh the FTE reductions outstrip uh the uh the decreasing enrollment because that's the only place in our budget where we really have the ability to change things thank you coun haniki you have a question or comment yeah it's just clarification at this point um when Dr Z talked about the deficits in the region
and in ammer are those deficits for ammer based on a three and a half% operating year-over-year increase and for the region what is that deficit that you talked about based on in terms of Assessments that we've been talking about just so I can get an idea of what those numbers are based on great question Mandy it is um Shannon can chime in but it is based on a tree and a half um % I think we've been updating our numbers as we've been in
conversation so it is based on whatever m is currently supposed to give we are running through some Regional scenarios for fort towns because just getting that last night um and having to project what our new deficit but I believe Shannon you there correct me if I'm wrong it is based on a three and a half correct for Amhurst yes it is three and a half for the region um it's based on an overall budget increase of 4% but how much each Town pays is still up for discussion but
just to give us an idea of where we are um I just used an overall budget increase of 4% can I clarify yeah please when you say overall budget increase of 4% is that assessment overall increase of 4% or bottom line that includes all the state aid plus assessment just the assessment okay thank you okay uh Irv um just want to remind um the audience
and people here uh that it it's really not a good idea to evaluate the school's budget based on per people cost and then try to compare with other districts that is not a fair way of going about it doing doing it it has been something that has been said by other experts in the state that that's not really a good way to do it uh because as every person or every person
who's ever taught in the classroom knows that every student that comes in in the the classroom are not the same they are different and their needs are different they present a different level of needs across the a spectrum and that those needs have to be dealt with not only have to be dealt with uh in terms of what what our our districts want for our children but also because the requirements of state and federal federal and state requirements those
those things have to be dealt with and those that have those things that have to be dealt with come with a cost and and so this is something I I know I will be hammering home over and over again for those out there who say well you have you do have declining enrollment you therefore you should have a declining budget or at least a budget that keeps Pace that is a false kind of assault assumption and that assumption has been
debunked all over the place but people still keep using it and it's not fair not right not intellectually honest are there other questions or comments with regard to the schools okay then since we started out in all cases with the primary leader of the organization let's start with Paul for the town and then we'll move to others okay yeah so um and Holly and
Melissa can jump in so this health insurance thing like everybody else and the budget constraints are very real um for the town um our entire increase in taxes will pay for the health insurance if it stays at the 19.9 2% and will and that does not take into consideration any colas any collective bargaining agreements or any any increases like that it's it's a it's a devastating number and so we're in this as well as
you um you know our budgets have not grown um other than for um contracted increases for the most part and we've taken on additional responsibilities such as the new rental registration program things like that uh uh those and so I think that there are significant um challenges and we're just sort of we're we're a little bit behind all of you because that's budget timeline is about a month behind everybody else because where we are um so as we are going
through our budget meetings and our hearings with our uh various departments we're hearing it loud and clear what they're not able to do what not what costs are going up for computer uh Services you know for for our contracts for um computer services at a at a very large rate so um yeah it's it's bad um Melissa
Melissa well I don't don't really have anything to add to that just that you know we are continuing to look at this and we will um you know continue to um look for opportunities to um increase allocations to departments but at this time you know this is what we felt comfortable um being able to share um and know
it's it's just it's just it's just going to be a really hard year for everyone that's that's all I have to say about that thank you I want to recognize that from the Town Council we have two people from our finance committee councelor hanii and Andy Steinberg and then Anna Devin goth who's also been on the finance committee in the past and on other Financial things do you have other comments you would like to say any other counselors
Andy yeah I think that the one thing that uh Deb said that I want to emphasize uh really is a something that affects all of us and that is a lot of these cost increases that we're dealing with are not really within our control uh when um on the finance committee when we hear from various uh department heads about what
costs are driving their budgets uh things like uh DPW and what they're paying for construction costs what everybody is paying for energy fuel costs uh uh equipment everything that um seems to be you know driving uh in addition to Personnel costs which
and health insurance costs which we all know about they are going up and they are not in our control and um it's uh a a very difficult um set of circumstances to um comprehend and to deal with uh you know we U probably hear more about complaints about roads and sidewalks and why aren't we doing as well as neighboring towns um
we put more money in and PVE less miles um over time simply because the costs are going up beyond our control Anna delin gothier yeah just a quick comment and it's not going to be to the specifics that we talked about today but I would love to request that this group be meeting on a more regular C than I believe it has done in the past um and that the the town manager the
respective leads of the the different areas all consider also convening or requesting meetings for the full bodies to come together um more often than we do to have these conversations those are it's it's unrelated to today's numbers but I think it's especially important this year that we be having these conversations more often um than we have been in the past so I'd like to request that and then at some point again thinking kind of in that longer more
strategic hopefully way um one of the other things I think we should discuss at some point is the timelines for each of these bodies and how we develop our budgets um I think we get into a really sticky spot because of the timelines that different things are coming out from the different bodies and I'd like for us to I think this this group would be an appropriate place to at least have the conversation to get on the same page about when we are at different phases of our process uh and make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for failure I
think lots of things shift with transitions of government um and I don't know that this one has been addressed as cleanly as it could or should be thank you Anna uh councelor hanii I want to support everything Anna just said especially since we are three minutes away from the scheduled hour and we've not even really reached the hard sort of discussion of can we live within these numbers or what could we do about
these numbers we've just talked about how hard they are um and so if we're trying to keep these to an hour we need to be meeting weekly um so that we can delve right into that conversation of questions like is the school committee looking you know is where does the Amor school committee at this point stand on adopting a budget that is at a three and a per year-over-year increase um because last year at at four
towns we all thought we had an agreement and then the school committee the regional school committee passed something very late that was not within that agreement and it threw all four towns into crisis mode in a sense to try and figure out what to do with something that we hadn't ever talked about at any four towns meetings and we haven't even gotten to those conversations in BCG and part of BCG is to try and ensure that obviously we're not voting but that we think committees will be able to
figure something out within these numbers and if they aren't going to be able to figure something out within these numbers what numbers are they looking at and how do we deal with that amongst all four entities that's why we're here and we're an hour in and we haven't even roached that conversation yet uh agree Deb Leonard um I had a couple bookkeeping questions but
um yes to Mandy to counselor Han's Point um last year was anomalous I believe the requests to deal with the process and the timeline have been well heard and hopefully addressed but I also like uh counselor Devin gothier would like uh some clarity around timeline and process because listening in on the uh ammer
town the last ammer Town council meeting when you were voting representative or deciding not to vote a representative the four towns I was again confused about process because um councelor hegner spoke to not speaking at four towns anything more than we have budget
guidelines and that explains my confusion around four towns I I thought the caucuses were more of an opportunity to discuss but if the town position at four towns is we have nothing further to add than what we've already spoken to I don't understand the point of for towns so some clarity around process and how the pieces fit together would really be
appreciated um Paul yeah so two things one is I just for councelor hanii this meeting I have it scheduled for two hours so at least it's that's how it's been posted as so by know we had been alerted that some members have to leave uh I think uh tman had to leave so we know that some people can't commit the entire two hours but according to the posting it's a it's a two hours um and in ter terms of um you know I just want to note that I really want to thank uh
Shannon and Kate and um Dr Z we've really developed strong communication together um and and I think that that's been a really beneficial um relationship that's been developed between uh the staff and Melissa and and Holly on our side so I just want to recognize that staff-wise we're working well as a team the numbers are just not very easy to work with but they're they're working with in goodwi with each
other I'm hearing as um first of all that we are scheduled for more time but I would like to have people uh confirm whether or not they can stay for more time if you're if you can't please raise your hand and let us know I know people have full-time jobs and fulltime responsibilities councelor hanaki so I was supposed to be somewhere at 1:30 because normally these are only scheduled for an hour so that's when I put in I can work on getting that done I
I'm going to go off screen while I multitask for the rest of this so that I can do what needed to be done in that time before you do that I'll be here and I'll be listening I just won't have my video on thank you so much Anna how about you um I can stay I may need to turn my camera off for a moment if I get a call I had to turn it off for a second I had a one o'clock thing I had to do but um yes I should be able to stay are there other people with constraints then one of the things I'm hearing is
that we would all like to understand the different budget processes and timelines for each of the entities represented here and um I guess it for the purposes of this discussion let's start with a town and that to some extent tells us a little bit about the library and also when the school is expected and then let's flip to the school okay Paul so
the town is governed by the town Charter and that's our that's the charter under which we operate um and it sets deadlines for when budgets have to be presented so from the town manager to the council I must present a budget by May 1st from uh the library and the um schools they have to present a budget to me by April 1st so they all are by definition a month ahead of us in terms of preparing the budget we take the numbers that they provide and build that into the overall budget uh and it's my
responsibility to deliver a budget to the Town Council which is the ultimate appropriating Authority um that's a balanced budget so that's the time frame and I do but we do recognize that the schools are also working with towns that have a different time frame the Regional School is working with three other communities that have different timelines than the city version that the town of amest has Paul can you also confirm that the charter requires that we adopt a budget
by June 30th June 30th yeah June 30th and that is a budget that includes money appropriated for all of the entities represented correct okay Melissa did you want to add to the timeline process discussion yeah so I what I what I wanted to add is that you know um so when we compile these um budget projection sheets there's two pieces to it and so a driving part of these
discussions are the revenue pieces um because that lays out what what the different entities can do with those Revenue pieces and the unfortunate part is that we start very early here in ammer and it feels like well you're just giving us the low number well that's because we don't know anything and we don't really know anything until January like that's just that's when we know what our new growth was um you know we have a really good idea of what our um
how how our uh departments are performing up until this point and we don't have anything from the state as to what the state AIDS is going to look like until January so I just don't like I I understand that it's challenging for the other departments but I don't think I could personally I don't think I could give any more information in September when we first
met I can only give more information now because I have more information and so I just wanted to sort of highlight that that's part of the um the the challenge um with is that I can't give good numbers until we have more information from the state and um I have we have set our tax rate and that all of that happens in December and January so I just wanted to add that
part are there any other comments about the town process and budget timeline okay then um Dr Z um Shannon who would like to speak to the budget process for the schools and you probably need to separate it into two different processes one is the region and the other is the element country so we uh we
generally we start our budgets um super early um this year we did I think we started looking at them in September and um October we uh and that's for all of our budgets um we had we we have the budget hearing for all three districts in February and then after the budget hearing and feedback we take that information revise and then bring the budget to a final meeting to school
committee in March that is then voted on and sent to each of the towns the the region is the one with the strict strictest strictest deadline um because there's four towns involved and it has to be so many days ahead of their scheduled meetings so the general rule of thumb is voting in March meets that deadline um and we follow Amhurst
follows um the the same schedule for this the public schools ammer public schools um and then of course along the way we have our four towns meeting and our um meetings internally and a lot of information is not known um for our budgets like um Melissa said in January um when the Cherry sheets come out and the governor's budget Etc now just clarify when you say in March March beginning of March end of March do you have a deadline you try to
reach so it depends on the meetings for well for the region it depends on the the meetings that the towns have and you have to count back I believe it's like 45 days prior to that um so we have our it's it's not the end of March it's normally the beginning to middle of March thank you Deb
um two points I have the dates and um I'm not 100% sure I thought it was 40 days ahead of the earliest town meeting that we have to have a voted budget in for the region um and the earliest of the towns is both shb and Leverett have annual Town meetings the last Saturday in April and then pelum has theirs the second
Saturday in May and of course there needs to be a budget hearing prior to that and then just um I I understand of course that trying nobody has a crystal ball and we're all trying to do the best we can um the the earlier uh for towns meeting that we that we scheduled was in response to the requests by the four towns to have earlier and more frequent um informational meetings so it was not
an attempt to uh uh make things more difficult for the town thank you no I I what I'm hearing is uh a desire first so the next thing I'm hearing is a desire for this group to meet more often uh in fact perhaps weekly or at least TW every other week uh for a while here to create better understanding and explore options uh and
then there was also a request at some point that we have a what I would call a committee of the entire whole which is somewhat what we do when we actually do the um Financial indicators meeting at the beginning of November uh so we would have to work with each of the bodies to figure out when the best time to do that would be that's a little more uh difficult to schedule uh particularly if you're looking for a quorum of each of the bodies um but we
also have on this agenda an opportunity now to have just general discussion thoughts questions Etc councelor haniki um it sounds like it's going to be an awful year for all four um and
and that doesn't mean one is more important than another or one is less important than another or one just just I I just want to make clear that if there's an operating area that's not out there saying our deficits are really bad it's not necessarily because they aren't bad um they just might be choosing not to be as upfront with the hard decisions they're making um but it's clear to me
when I hear from town budget status that that 3 and a half% increase is subsumed solely by health insurance increases and which means colas are on top of that step increases are on top of that all of the equipment and other sort of areas um are on top of that our level Services is not met at three and a half% either even if the town or
the library or other entities are not out there saying that directly like the schools are um another thing I wanted to address Deb Leonard's comment about four towns um I don't know how the other three towns caucus but we have 13 members of a council with a school committee that sits in on the those caucuses um that we don't have enough time to fully caucus debate and return
even if we had a quorum and told our entire Council that at that meeting we might take votes so that they showed up we don't have time in those meetings to actually take votes um so we as a council cannot speak about any agreement that as school committees are are concerned about doing too unless we've actually voted that agreement um
and so if if at four towns there's a desire to come in and get each of the four towns to say yes this is a voted decision we need information we almost need two Town four towns meetings two in a row one to give us the information one a week or two later where we can have a council meeting in the middle of that to actually have the discussion and make
the decisions to expect us to be able to do that at a meeting where we're given 20 minutes to discuss amongst 20 people sometimes or 12 14 15 people is impossible um so if that's the expectation and that's one of the reasons I think the council pulled away from designating a spokesperson because I think it was be being seen as something it wasn't intended to be seen as um if that is the intention we need to know that and have
information ahead of time so that we can have our own discussions ahead of time we can't talk theoreticals before we even get presentations um I am concerned that for the last three years one of the school committees last year it was the region the each of the two years prior it was the elementary school committees
uh voted budgets that were outside the guidelines set forth Within These BCG meetings um and it came in some sense as a surprise to the council and even the BCG group because at BCG there was anytime we met there was never any any indication during the BCG meetings that those votes above these guidelines might happen so if there is discussion going
on at any of the four operating entities Council included that is thinking about not abiding by that three and a half% in some sense saying you know we're thinking about voting a budget that would cost more than that um now is the time to talk about that so that we can have those discussions and I guess I felt like the last three years I've been on BCG that hasn't been discussed and so I
think I would like to see a lot more forthrightness about what is being discussed amongst all the four Towns at at the council at this point all I understand is that the town manager intends to abide by that 3 and a half% number when he PR presents the budget on May one I would expect if he doesn't intend to abide by that um that he would tell the council and in these meetings
we would be able to bring that up um but if there are other entities that don't intend to abide by that or aren't sure they can abide by it right we don't know we need to be discussing that now I'm GNA build on Mandy Joe's comment which I want to thank you for councelor hanii um we also can't expect you the representatives from the school or the library to come to this meeting without having talk to your respective boards so and the same thing is true for When We
Gather at four towns so what I'm hearing is how can we use opportunities of meetings to share information and then use time in between for the individual bodies to discuss information and then convene again that's what I'm hearing that might allow us to have a much more full conver conversation at these meetings even if we have what I would
call a committee of the whole the whole body okay all the elected officials even if we had that unless your individual groups have had discussions you can't at that meeting quickly caucus in a five 10 even a half hour period and come up with a unified statement so thank you councelor hanii ER I you know really you know thank you
both coun hanck and Lynn for bringing this up because uh I can almost guarantee that the discussions that have taken place and that will take place both within the elementary schools and the regional schools are going to be discussions going to be really hard discussions uh around the budget especially when you're talking um about budget deficits north of
1.7 uh million and the level of cuts in terms of Staff especially you know student facing staff uh that uh it is highly likely that the elementary schools and the regional schools are going to be asking for additional funds I would be stunned if we did not do that I know in terms of myself uh when I think about the elementary schools and I
think about uh the students that we have in those classrooms in elementary schools I think I think about uh the um the pictures I.E the picture of a typical student in our in our school uh and the needs that they present and have presented and will continue to present in our classrooms the mandates that we continually have to meet that having uh having to face those
cuts and we haven't even really looked at uh other factors that are impacted that yes we're more than likely to be coming forward with requests beyond the 3.5 definitely will be you know and I you know I would be stunned if we didn't it would be stunning in fact that you know you know yeah yeah I'd be willing
that yeah the elementary schools will most likely as well as the region will most likely be looking at that now having said that I would like for the for um the uh Council in the town to consider looking at the last five years in terms of the surpluses that we the town is produced and that we look at budgeting in such a way for the town
that you don't have that surplus of 5% that you look at you know I know you all talk about conservatively budgeting but there but when you conservatively budget for the last five years and you have 5% that's more than that's that means that that money that could have been used especially for the school was not not used I know there an assumption to say what if it all prop came from the school cly but
no we can't continue to do that and I would ask the town to look at another way of going forward in terms of budgeting other than the quote conservative budget budgeting that produces a 5% Surplus uh Paul I'm going to call on you because I think you've raised hand to respond to this yeah good
guess yeah so I think um the um first off I want to say the Surplus next year will be um more because we took defensive posture on our arpa funds in order for our to protect our arpa funds in anticipation of the change of administration in Washington we have will be delivering all that all that arpa funds into free cash it will make our free cash look larger but where
did that money come from it came from the town side and I want to make a big point that most of that Surplus we're talking about whatever whatever the free cash is coming from is generally generated from revenue um that's been generated by the town or cost savings that have been on where we the town hasn't um expended the funds uh to the fullest extent through the vacancies or whatever and we can prepare uh examples of what that looks like and and what the schools uh have contributed but I just
want to say um free cash is and well we we have a lot to say about this so I think it might be a different topic and I'd rather be more prepared for talking about it but um but I do want to put out there now that because of our um what we've done and we'll be talking to the council about this on Monday in terms of the protecting the arpa money which we were and I think we were pre in doing this by in the end of December to protect the money it will make our free cash look bigger next
year yeah Leonard um lots of good conversations and I'm glad we're having conversations um last year was my first year and I don't want to spend a lot of time belaboring what happened last spring because we've learned a lot but to reassure counselor hanii we have no intention of
surprises we did not intend to be surprising last year the timeline and the lack of institutional knowledge and the interim position of our superintendent and doing a superintendent search there were a lot of pieces that went into not being well informed about the process um and in particular I just want to stress that
the conversations within the regional school committee about what those budget reductions looked like from a programmatic point of view which is where our responsibilities lie as a school committee is not to make decisions about how the budget is a portioned but what the impact is on the programmatic side we did not get and and I I have to say we never got 100% Clarity over the
entire course but I will say we did not get that kind of information until March from our people so and then again the guidance from fy2 the the budget guidelines went to a a ammer school committee that couldn't
meet because it lacked a quorum and a regional school committee that wasn't able to report out to be reported to get reports from the ammer school committee Representatives the same way um and it wasn't until this past year that there was a Regional School commit representative on this on this committee and I perhaps I understand
that um previous School committees interpreted that as as an opportunity to serve a dual role but absent my colleague um Tilman wolf in this meeting I've really tried hard to stay in my role as ammer school committee representative so uh those are my thoughts on those I would love some clarity Paul
on understanding the vacancies and the impact because you know all I have is spreadsheets without words I mean as the years have gone along um the the the the descriptions in in the annual budget have decreased so I've had to go back to 2017 to get some insight into that i' love a glossery where you actually like break out what each of those lines is I don't know how
much extra work that is I would like that for the ammer and Regional school committee documents as well so I can understand what those lines mean um nobody nobody is taking aim at arpa funds um I think IR spoke to previous surpluses not this upcoming Surplus and every well that was 3 and A5 million if I'm not mistaken of arpa funds that will
be appearing in free cash and it is quite in the Forefront of my mind that that is arpa funds um and then just in terms of voting a three and a half% budget I'm pretty sure that we're looking at 30 more reductions in teachers teachers or Paris and I do not see this committee being able to or our
Administration being able to provide an educational experience that is adequate with those kinds of reductions so I don't just again I came prepared to speak to the ammer budget and and that's what I have in front of me but I don't see um I don't see Dr Z having a having that kind there's no crystal ball I
don't see her having a magical wand either that's going to hit um that's of the 285 positions supported by the general fund in the ammer school budget so that is uh 10 and a half% overall reduction so um I want to continue along this line but I want to uh make sure that before we finish today we have an agreement on
the items that we would like to have on another our next meeting whether that be a week or two weeks from now okay and but I'm I'll call on councelor hanii and her roads in a moment but I'm going to throw out three items okay one is a much more thorough understanding of free cash what where it comes from what of it is really free and what
was how did we get there okay a much better understanding of that I also think we're skirting two other big issues one is the issue of our Capital needs and we have them we all have them and we share those Capital needs and I think it's important for us to recognize what they are and the third is is really a a word that's just going to set this group on fire and that's called how do
we do an override and we've never done an override except for the debt exclusion for the schools for the elementary school I don't know how we do an override with this Council so we need to understand that process and whether that's part of the suggestion with that I'm going to just make sure we have all have any other opport to comment and add or comment on that as well as any other comments councelor
hanii um given what I'm hearing and I have some comments and thoughts on some of this um I think an override discussion is necessary the the mechanics of it are the same as it was for the debt exclusion it literally is a council vote to put some override number and an actual dollar amount on a ballot and have a ballot now do you call a special election to do it before an ex fiscal year or do you do it at a the upcoming one in November that would be and then
in effect the year after you know th those are but but the mechanics are the council votes to put it on a ballot but um discussing that as a possibility um might be worth having um I want to Echo of the managers comments about surpluses um our guidelines were written to indicate a maximum goal of
surplus and I wouldn't even call it a goal of surplus but sort of saying you know there's been and I've been one of the instigators of it every year saying are these surpluses too high are we too too conservative in budgeting um and so we decided to this year put in sort of a percentage Surplus that would stop that conver conversation from happening you know if the surpluses are above 5% we can talk about why were they so high
that's more than we want to see in a surplus because of the um lost opportunity for using them in the fiscal year they're the revenues are generated right um but if they're under that number that's a financially fiscally reasonable number to have it wasn't aim for 5% it's more of a when the year end ends was that a reasonable Surplus or
was it not um to talk about um but when you look at this past fiscal Year's surpluses about half of it were due to interest and um our finance director talked about the changes we've made to the updated numbers to address some of that yet we don't want to address it completely we don't want to suddenly budget one .8 million in interest because when interest rates go down or we're not carrying as much um cash for
projects that are going a little slower than we thought that comes out of the Year after's budget and can't be budgeted again and then we see maybe not any increase in operating budgets on year-over-year because we had to remove and change that line from a $1.8 Million number down to 100,000 that would also be devastating so so I think the council and the finance the council has pushed
and the finance director has done what seems to be at this point reasonable to be a little less conservative while also being confident that we won't run a deficit and that's one thing we have to be confident of that we don't run a deficit um the other half of last year's surpluses were basically the town not
the school not the library not the region the town because the town didn't have all of its positions filled um maybe there's a discussion on should we even have those positions if we're not filling them I I don't think that's a BCG discussion but frankly we haven't been able to fill them not because they're not needed um our fire department is running running at least four positions low they can't find people but we cannot cut those positions we must keep them in the budget but as
they run that low that means that budget is UND spent for the year and it comes in as a surplus in the next year and then people say well you should have spend it on the schools well if we had had people to hire in the fire we would have spent it on fire you know we we need to sort of keep it in there um I have you know so so surpluses on the revenue side I think the council and the manager and the finance director are making strides in trying to be closer um the surpluses
from the expense side I struggle with redistributing those to non toown places when it was the town um Irv you know I thank you for being honest and blunt and saying it's likely not going to be at three and a half% um gives us something to talk about yet what we would need to talk about is where does that come from because it
can't really come from reducing the town side of operating or the library side of operating or the capital because we have these Capital needs which means we either have to find we either have to find more Revenue somewhere which we've done our best doing so far unless you see something that's too low um or we would be violating our financial policies of of using savings or what we generally call one-time money to pay for operating
expenses and that is not a ideal situation to be in and kind of doesn't sit right with me so if there are ideas on where that extra money could come from I'd love to hear it um that don't violate our financial policies and then two questions one for the elementary school and one for the region um we are building a new elementary school which means in the start of 2026
which is two fiscal years from now not the one we're discussing but the one after that in theory there are some consolidations um that will happen because of building closes and there will be monetary savings because a building hopefully closes um there will be Personnel Savings in theory because there's more efficient use of space and persons and all um at least that's what was said all through the building process um and that that would all result in budget savings
um what I think would be really important for a council to know especially if you're seeking something above the 3 and a half% is what positions when the new school opens what does that budget look like with those new numbers and what is needed to
potentially Bridge from this year FY 25's current fiscal number what might be needed in FY 26 to bridge us that one year to get to the FY 27 Consolidated budget um whether that is presenting that budget with what position would not be there at that time and what um operational efficiencies would not be there at that time and
saying but because this is a bridge year we might need that and that could be paid for by savings or onetime money or something because it won't be needed the next year some conversation or something that addresses the fact that in theory in FY 27 the elementary school level if you want to talk about level Services level Services number decreases tremendously um at least that was what
was told to us years ago when this consolidation happened is that level Services would go down the cost of level Services would go down because positions would not be need certain positions would be eliminated or Consolidated um utilities would go down oper you know maintenance would go down all of this would go down so talking about the FY 26 budget in relation relationship to the FY 27 budget would be extremely helpful from me as a counselor point of
view on the region side I asked similarly in the September four towns meeting Dr Z talked about a new way of budgeting that presented what I perceived as a level Services budget at an assessment increase year-over-year of 4% so the same assessment increase they're looking here that would be level services and meet level services because there was a consolidation of K 7 to 12 schools into one building it appears
that that is no longer in conversation and so my question as we begin conversations at the region level and talk about some bluntness of we're going to need more money to keep level services at the region above that 4% assessment total increase is what happened to that plan that would have a owed the potentially allowed I know the the health insurance number was not in there potentially allowed the region to
come in with a level Services budget level services does not mean level employment level Services means level services at that 4% assessment number and why that was abandoned such that we might be cutting services now and still need to spend more money to do so I hope that was kind of clear um that I'm adding the that to a future meeting um since we're not going to have
it at this meeting obviously Irv please unmute Mandy thank you for that I mean those those are excellent sort of questions and issues that need to be addressed uh both from the elementary and also for the region uh two things in my mind you know uh we myself and Deb
are representatives from the amers elementary school but we set on the region so we know what the needs are from both ends uh and both sides for me it's really difficult not to think about both of them because I know the budgets for both of them and I know we're we're going with both of them so when I speak to me I'm I'm going to I'm going
to speak both I'm going to say hey here's what it looks like for the elementary and here's what it's going to look like for the region and here's what I think we're going to be coming back uh to uh the BCG with and what the school committee is likely to do um M you made an excellent point and I think that that's in terms of the bridge that's something that is School committees need to take uh seriously in terms of hey we're looking at fiscal 26
can we look at this as a bridge year as related to fiscal 27 when there are likely to be some cost savings because of consolidation that's a very good point and I think that that is something I hope that myself and Deb will take back uh to our committee uh to the school committee because that's that's that's one way of looking at it um I also appreciate that we're having this conversation
now uh in terms of uh of budgets going forward and what I put out there uh is that I I it's highly unlikely that the elementary schools are going to be able to not come back and ask for additional funds given the level of cuts we're looking at uh the deficit is just extraordinary so I would like for us to think of ways in which we can go
forward and being able to have these discussions not only in BCG but also in the school committee where we can bring it back to the BCG as we move through the budgeting process but just just be aware and and ly and you you uh made this point no no surprises there will be no surprise in relationship to what I am saying and what the elementary school system
schools are going to be saying trying to live within that three and a half% is is not only challenging but in some cases unrealistic and we will come back with with a realistic budget that will not be in my and this is just my assumption within the current guidelines and that we will try our best
to be within those current guidelines but uh in my heart in my mind when I look at and I think about those student facing posi positions that would have to be cut I I could not in in good conscience come back and say I accept that Andy yeah I was uh been thinking about a question that IR raised earlier and
Mandy responded partly to which is the question of U how much um of the Surplus is ending up in the budgets each year uh for the last several years uh it has been running roughly around 5% but but it um there's a couple things to recognize one is that that's not always been true um there have been prior years in
I'm talking within the last decade not um you know not distant past where it's been 2% and U the um reasons vary by every year um the one document that I would um urge everyone to look at before the next meeting who is interested in this topic is uh Holly
dr's November 7 memo to the finance committee and town manager um there was the end of the year budget report because um she shows in there that there's a table on page one that shows the uh Surplus for each year and an explanation of why there was that
Surplus um but the one takeaway that's most important for me out of that is that the reason um is never the same that there always seems to be a different factor and um they're not factors that one can predict they're not factors that one can count on and they're generally as noted earlier out of the Town portion of the budget they're not um from other
areas and uh there um are you know realities that we have to cope with in trying to figure that out as to what that means and I'm not going to speculate on that now that's not the top this isn't the topic of the time for that discussion but um you know it it is something that um is not um such an easy
topic for discussion and I don't think that it's going to solve the the long-term problem and I think that the one real long-term problem that we um need to deal with is what does the revenue increase each year and how how as a whole do we live within the increase do we live within that level of increase for each year
because what's happening is our expenses are going up faster than our Revenue um and the last thing that I was wanted to say is on the subject of override it is a difficult discussion to have in ammeron in particular because we have several fact factors that are unlike our neighboring communities including Northampton which were most frequently compared with we don't have
King Street with a bunch of businesses and uh car dealerships and uh that pay large amounts of commercial tax our commercial uh tax base is substantially lower our um taxpayers are um much to much greater extent our residents either homeowners or renters and um as a
consequence to ask for an override and to really appreciate the impact on who's going to be affected by it it is the people who live and work in the town many of whom um are the homeowners and now increasingly reti HED and seniors and uh living on fixed income so
um this is not going to be an easy topic for us to discuss and um it's um it's not going to be something where we can expect that um the people who are going to vote on making the decisions and particularly the people affected by the decisions are going to be able to take this very easily because um it is U you know property taxes are already extraordinarily high
and uh the last thing that obviously we all know is a factor in driving that expense is the U fact that we have much larger amount of land that we don't really have the ability to tax um and that's sort of the unique um circumstance of amor because we have a
tremendous amount of land that's owned by nonprofits owned by the university which is the Commonwealth we are not getting um and they are not taxpayers and we have um over the years been very uh conscious of trying to do things and establishing conservation areas and uh agricultural preservation and that has had an effect
too yeah I'm goingon to take one more brief comment we have posted that we will have public comment I need to call for public comment and then I want to uh just uh wrap up with kind of what are our next steps okay brief comment Deb give me a second to figure out which of my thoughts I want to pull out meantime I will ask if anybody in the audience on Zoom would like to make
public comment please raise your hand now okay so quickly yes Surplus versus free cash I don't understand free cash so I've been focused on Surplus um I would Clarity around free cash is welcome I I understand that there's a lot of concern about building things into the base so I would wonder if there's any
flexibility around should there be an in Inc a surplus some of those funds being allocated to a stabilization fund um Northampton has started one for special education expenses which is a large part of both budgets and then the last part is override will help the the element schools but in terms of the region and the statutory method increasing ammer share
just creates that kind of push back because it skews the overall budget in a way that is not sustainable for the other towns so the region is a whole other thing and I would really appreciate this committee's ability to draw those distinctions in terms of the needs the structure and
what is built into those budgets separate from the elementary schools I understand it's a relatively new thing that having a regional rep on this um but it just it's they're very different and um and then I guess my last very quick comment is there is nothing the thing that I hear pretty regularly about from my my constituents is it is
extremely it's like waving a red flag when you when the message seems to be that the because there is an aging population in ammer that the new generation cannot expect the same quality of Education as the old generation because costs for that
quality have increased and that the previous generation is is is not willing to tolerate that so I would say it would be interesting and important if it's an override or not to find out what our community wants from their tax dollars thank you thank you uh I've asked already whether there are any people who would like to make public comment I'm not seeing any hands I do
want to recognize that we've had both counselors and school committee members in the audience who are not members of this body uh and we certainly want to encourage any others who would like to attend the things that I see as following up on this meeting are first of all is to Poll for oh Holly you had your hand up it looks like a hand just went up in the audience oh thank you so much um all right Kathy Shane please enter
the room we're going to limit you to no more than three minutes uh I don't have a timer so I'm going to just keep time I I will be very quick I have been listening um one thing I can offer to the school committee on the question Mandy raised about consolidation is when we submitted to msba we had to do a one page that said what would what would things look like if there were two schools rather than three and I will
send that to you whether that would still be the way you would look at it Dr Z it's we sat down with Mike Morris and just looked at every single line of staff and went through so I will send that to you at least so you can see where this looked like four years ago that's it thank Kathy and I want to make sure that anytime a document is mentioned in this meeting it then becomes part of the record of the meeting so uh we'll make sure that
that's part of the record of that of this meeting as well so the next steps are that we will be polling for at least another meeting or two and maybe even a regular time for this group to meet over the next month or two um maybe even Beyond but let's focus on the present um if there is a desire for a committee of the whole we will need to know that uh and but I would suggest that this group meet first a next time before we move to
that um there have been several items that have been mentioned that people would like more information about free cash and I'm going to add not just on the town side but on the school side because they may not call it free cash but it's free cash uh second is what is the process for an overrun what would it look like the timing Etc and while there are people on this committee who have been through this process before I don't
want to I want to make sure we have a Level Playing Field for the understanding of how that happens uh and then Capital uh and our long-term look at Capital needs in addition to that there was several questions asked about both the elementary school transition from three to two schools and the Regional decision regarding the possibility of combining 7 through 12 and what would that look like not look
like and where is the thinking on that other than that on this is not like a council I don't get to set this agenda by myself so I will be in consultation with all of you about agenda items and um I am going to suggest that the earliest that we would have our next meeting would be two weeks from now since there seems to be a pretty serious ious demand for some information and we're already looking at staff that are way over taxed okay Paul
comment yeah so I think there is a a conversation to be held to be had about what the role of this committee is B is based on the town Charter um and then also the staff commitment where the for the council members of this committee we are we having duplicate conversations at the finance committee and then this committee and like we're just we we can't be in meetings all the time and because there's preparation for every meeting clean up after every meeting and I think I can speak for all of our staff here that meetings are an investment of time as well so I all for high
communication which I really support but just want to um we should be judicious and clear about why we're meeting right and what the role of this committee is because it isn't it's not a decision-making group here absolutely okay are there any other questions or comments um again since we're not as formal unless somebody would like me to make a motion to adour and take a second and
take a vote uh I will just uh adjourn the meeting okay the meeting's adjurned