okay we're recording thank you um good evening it's April 7th 2025 and we have two meetings tonight the first one we're going to be doing is a public forum on appropriations outside
the annual budget particularly community preservation act budget and the charter review committee appropriation for the purposes of this special town council meeting we are joined by the finance
committee chapter two of the acts of 2025 extended through June 30th 2027 the ability of public bodies to meet in a fully remote or hybrid manner this law allows us to continue holding meetings
remotely without a quorum of the council physically present at the meeting location this meeting is accessible in real time by Zoom by phone and as a live broadcast on Ammeris Media Channel 9 and
live stream actually in fact there are 12 counselors presently in attendance and of that 12 10 of us are in the room in the town room please be advised that this meeting is being held in
person and that in remote if and that remote access is an option is provided as courtesy only in the event of technology issues with the remote connection the meeting will continue in person as scheduled such that members of
the public are encouraged to attend the meeting at at its physical location if possible given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the April 7th public forum to order at
632 i'll call upon each counselor by the name they have indicated they would like to be addressed at that time please unmute your mic and say present and then please mute it again pat D'Angelus present anna Develin Gothier present council present lynn Griezmer's present
counselor Hani present bob Hegner present councelor Lord present pam Rooney here councelor Ryan present kathy Shane I'm here remotely thank you andy Steinberg present jennifer Tob here
councelor Walker i don't see her yet uh Councelor Shane I understand that since you're remote we're going to ask the vice chair of the finance committee to call the finance committee to order so Bob would you please do that yes I'm
calling the finance committee to order at 6:303 p.m and all members um are present or already except uh Bernie is on also present bernie can you hear us yes I'm I'm I'm here okay and Tom and uh
Alicia are not present at moment okay um very quickly there we're going to show two financial orders the first of those is the Community Preservation Act project allocations
and I'm going to ask for the finance committee to just give us what you have uh already voted with regard to this financial order yes so this is the CPA authorization and uh we voted unanimously to uh recommend
that the council uh adopt this uh this plan okay thank you the second is a $15,000 request from the charter review committee for an appropriation for
consultant that is on the screen at this time bob would you just I believe the C the finance committee did not vote on this but you discussed it we did discuss it but um there wasn't any objection that I can think of to um to having this
okay um the clock shows right now it's 6:34 are there any people who would like to make public comment that are either physically in the town room on these issues only there'll be other public comment later and is there anybody in
the audience on Zoom that would like to make comment on either of these two financial orders alicia has joined the meeting councelor Walker has joined the meeting uh thank you councelor Walker can you hear us uh
yes I can thank you Lynn thank you i'm looking for anybody who would like to make a comment on either of these two financial orders the one is for the CPA allocations for this year the second one is for money requested by
the charter review committee our charter requires that we allow as much time for anyone to comment as we do making any presentation so that's why we're holding Let me explain what's going to happen
next i'm going to make a motion to close the public forum at the same time the finance committee is going to remain in session at that point they will actually vote which they were not able to do on recommending the money for the um
charter uh review committee and then we will close this session but because our meeting our regular meeting was posted for 6:30 using the same Zoom link we will immediately go into our regular meeting okay so I move to close the
public forum is there a second second thank you um and I'm going to take a roll call vote on that um Anna Delin Gothier I councelor Rete I Lyn
Gremson I councelor Hani hi Bob Hagner I councelor Lord I Pam Roie yes councelor Ryan I Kathy Shane yes Andy Steinberg I Jennifer Tob yes councelor Walker yes
Pat D'Angelus hi it's unanimous bob I'm turning it over to you yeah i just want to first check before we vote on the um on the council i'm sorry Councelor Hani you had your hand up okay
i'm sorry yes um before we um vote on the charter review committee appointment um appropriation um I does anyone wish to change their vote on the community preservation act project allocations
no okay i don't see any one so um we discussed um the uh charter review committee appropriation of $15,000 for consultant services but because of uh time we didn't get it posted in time we
couldn't vote so um we'll take the vote tonight now um I vote yes uh Kathy we need a motion which is why my hands up sorry can I make the motion yeah go ahead i move to recommend the town council adopt
appropriation and transfer order FY25-05G an order appropriating funds for consulting services for the charter review committee second eight seconds all right roll call okay so we can vote now u I I vote I kathy yes councelor
Hanicki I andy I uh councelor Walker yes uh Bernie I enthusiastically support it okay and Tom Porter is is is not present
so it's unanimous for the members who are present so now you need to adjourn the finance committee so I move to adjourn second so uh we'll go through uh Kathy yes uh
I'm an I uh councelor Hani hi andy hi uh councelor Walker yes uh Bernie yes okay thank you thank you um good evening it's still April 7th 19
2025 and we are now moving on to um this regular meeting of the town council um I've basically already done a lot of the preliminaries in the last meeting so I'm not going to spend much time on those as we have a significant agenda i will
however uh just to make sure that um we do take role for counselors i'm going to again take role on a Delin Gothier still present point of order yes are we not supposed to be voting on the CPAC budget
is there not a You'll be voting on it in the regular meeting thank you okay thank you no problem um given that we have a quorum of the council present I'm calling the regular town council meeting to order at 6:41 um I'm going to start with um
actually Pat D'Angelus hi anna Delin Gothner present councelor Ante present i thank you lynn Griezmer is I councelor Hannik I'm present bob Hagner present thank you councelor Lord
I present um Pam Pam Rooney here councelor Ryan still here kathy Shane here andy Steinberg present jennifer Dob here councelor Walker here okay there's no chat room for this meeting if counselors have technical
issues please let Athena and me know and remember to use the raised hand button the agenda that for this meeting I'm going to ask that it now be displayed on the screen because we have made a modification in terms of the order of the
agenda did I send it to you okay all right thank you okay there is no consent agenda tonight uh there will be one general public comment period the town manager
will present how the FY26 financial decisions may impact next year's budget and then we will proceed to the action items they have been reordered so that we take up the action items that we were not able to finish on a on March 24th
they will be first and second in line on the agenda is there any question okay then we'll proceed uh very quickly um the announcements um I first of all it's nice to see several of you in the
room who spent so many hours putting together a phenomenal global village festival uh it was great i lost a little money in the I didn't lose any money i gained a couple of wonderful items
walking around i bought cupcakes and I shared them with the entrepreneurs so um anyway thank you so much for all of you from DEI and from Crest and all the many other organizations who were there it was an extremely terrific event thanks
uh let me just note that our next council meeting is April 28th and at that time uh the plan is that we will have a regular council meeting and we will have a public hearing on the regional school budget assuming it comes back from the finance committee the
community resources committee has changed its time of meeting its next meeting is April 10th at 3 the finance committee will meet next on April 15th at 2 go will meet on April 8th at 6:30 and
TSO will meet on April 17th at 10:00 um there are no there's no hearing tonight so we're now going to move to general public comment if you are in the audience and you want to make in the town room and you want to make general
public comment you need to make sure you sign up over here with Athena if you're on Zoom and you want to make general public comment please raise your hand at this time
again I'm going to repeat if you're on Zoom and you want to make general public comment please raise your hand at this time athena how many people have signed up one okay there are five four people on Zoom
um so let me proceed to lay this out public comment comments on a matter within the jurisdiction of the town council residents are welcome to express their views for up to three 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 there will be a clock and that clock will show you as your minutes are passing the First Amendment broadly protects individual rights to address the government to speak and to
express themselves including their right to say hateful and offensive things i'm generally unable to shut those commenters down under the first amendment of to the US Constitution unless their levels of speech fall within an exceptional exception
articulated by the courts such as fighting words true threats to a particular individual harassment of a particular individual or incitement of eminent lawlessness activity if a question exists as to whether a particular speaker is engaging on
unprotected speech I must defer to the principles of the freedom of speech we'll recognize speech speakers in the order in which they have signed up we'll begin with people in the room deb Leonard thank you
hi uh my name is De Leonard i live in district 5 i'm speaking on behalf of myself and um I'd like to address uh a topic you'll be taking up later this evening which is the uh regional school district uh budget um I'd like to um you
know the memo from the town manager has some historical information and I'd like to provide a little bit more historical information um in so the the budget that you have in for in front of you FY26 the voted
budget contains um a target reduction of $800,000 and will have cuts of 12 FTEES individuals in
2025 the the uh reductions were $1.2 million and had reductions of 13.5 FTEES in 2024 the reductions were $1.157 million excuse me and had
reductions of 17 FTEES 2023 was a banner year level services no reductions 2022 was $1.2 million in reductions 14.4
FTEES 2021 $800,000 reduction for um there were additions in the FY20 budget for reasons I think we all know that was 8.7
total and that amounted to an additional an increment of $300,000 so um there's been a hypothesis that people who advocate for the schools do so
because they're indifferent to the welfare of the other departments and it's really impossible to verify so repeating it makes it feel like truth in a way that is really hard to argue against and like I said impossible to
verify easier to verify is whether other departments face these kinds of year-over-year reductions that that's just information you can find for yourself so there's those two things that I'd like you to think about but the
last one is I think this hypothesis that the equal percentage idea for departments is working is disproven it's a hypothesis that has been put out there and I don't
see evidence of it and I think many members of the public don't as well thank you thank you for joining us we'll go to Michelle Miller please enter the room state your name and where you live good evening my name is Michelle Miller
and I'm a resident of District 1 ammeris currently holds 28.6 million in reserves nearly 30% of our operating budget that's an extraordinary number nearly three times the high end of the state's recommended reserve range of 5 to
10% neighboring communities are maintaining much more modest levels aimsbury recently celebrated reaching just over 7.5% in reserves montigue and Beluretown both aim for between 5 to 10%
in line with Massachusetts Division of Local Services guidance so we are not just healthy we are exceptionally strong by every fiscal measure and yet despite this strength we're preparing a budget that continues to constrain core
services and stretch departments to the limit we hear that there's no money but in truth we are choosing not to use it i understand the value of caution and long-term planning but at some point restraint becomes a barrier the current
approach though clearly well-intentioned has become too narrow too conservative and in some ways out of sync with the evolving needs of this community i believe it's time to broaden our approach to trust that we can use our reserves wisely and strategically while
still preserving our strong bond rating and financial flexibility the values of this town equity care climate action education access should be reflected not just in our mission statements but in our financial
choices i'm here in the spirit of partnership i would like to see the council and the town manager work together to bring forward a proposal that uses reserves to responsibly close the projected FY26 budget gap and invest in the people and services that make
Ammerst thrive and if that's not where the process leads I want to be transparent that I along with other residents am prepared to begin organizing under the Ammerst home rule charter to bring this question to the broader community that step would not
come out of conflict but out of care because I believe we all want the same thing a town that works for everyone thank you thank you for joining us um Athena I believe we have one more that's right Vince O' Conor
so it appears as though a point of order Vince would you please state your name and where you live thanks yeah vince O' Conor 175 Summer Street apartment 12 it appears as though the appeal to higher authority has become a
two-edged sword first the regional school committee was told that it must use the regional agreement um and imposed um substantial increases
uh upon the three other towns one of which might be in some difficulty because of that but the other the sword cut the other way
too and that way was that the re the higher authorities made it clear that the manager has no role in the council's deliberations
um about the regional school budget that his sole function was to write eight numbers in a blank space um after the council had voted for that reason I would
suggest that in the future the council hold joint public hearings with the school committee that every counselor who can attend in person or by Zoom attend and
that the council because the school committee budget will go directly to it and not through the manager's budget should be present to hear I think which are very and have been in the past
very compelling statements by um both parents guardians and staff and faculty about the regional schools i think it is another way to look
at the equities involved with schools and town departments is to really look at personnel cuts you've heard the statement from the representative of the school committee about the personnel
deletions over the past years i would say that there are no comparable deletions in town staff none did we cut the police department by well
40% uh did we cut the the staffing and fire and EMT by 20% no there were no such cuts all the staffing cuts of the last 5 years have fallen on the
schools this despite the fact that unlike a neighboring community across the river your sentence and that's it the unlike a neighboring community across the river the Ammerst regional and Ammerst
school systems have done its duty its legal duty to educate kids with special needs thank you for your comments jeff Lee please enter the room state your name and where you live this
is Jeff Lee i live in District 5 i urge the town council to recognize that the FY26 budget shortfall and the many appeals and complaints from your constituents are not a passing crisis but will likely repeat annually for the
next 20 years if the $50 million Jones Library project is allowed to move forward the unnecessary expansion will consume at least $1.25 25 million annually from the taxpayer revenues while higher priorities education public
safety public works all struggle to meet the town's needs you set local policy and the town manager is obligated to follow your lead do the prudent thing and resend funding for the extremely costly and
risky library project thank you thank you for your comment i'm going to go to Maria Capeeki please enter the room state your name and where you live you need to bring Maria in thank you maria Kapiki South Ammerst i
won't take up much of your time i'm commenting on the Jones Library project um you know same thing $46 million isn't going to do it i think that should be really clear now even if it were you are
7 million in the hole and that's not going to change um uh it's please this is a financial disaster waiting to
happen um please don't do this to the town please take action your contingency is modest and it is asked being asked to do triple duty i think you know that i think you know that this is a really unsound thing to do please don't do this
to the town please stop thank you um Athena go ahead rob Kuzzner please state your name and where you live before you begin rob uh Rob Kustner 49 Medir Drive here in Ammerst is the green light on yes thank
you okay okay uh I'm sure many of you know me it's been a while since I've done this in person but uh I've lived in town for since the 1980s i served on the select board about 20 years ago and uh I also oversaw although with only the
authority of a citizen chair of a committee what is arguably the largest project besides the mass pike in Massachusetts the mass central rail trail the part through Ammerst is known as the narwatic rail trail about a decade ago at the behest of former late
congressman John Oliver um that project despite what little we could do went over budget by about 40% largely due to an incompetent initial engineering firm taken over happily by
the mass DOT engineers who know learned what bicycling was sometime in the previous decade and uh the unfortunate inflation the cost of petroleum most of repaving a rail Well most of the cost is
asphalt as well as construction services that involve big diesel equipment uh I just heard uh one of our neighbors uh describe the situation with the library budget as having a small contingency a couple million three
million perhaps which may now be effectively gone with changes in um funding from the the federal government we'll see how that works out potential funding
from large donors and the endowments balance the Jones library endowment balance in case you didn't notice I'm talking about the Jones library it seems to be the topic dour how many more minutes do I have why not great i'll summarize with a
metaphor i think we're in a situation where we have a ladder a 46 foot 38 of an inch ladder up against a 46 ft building and we're trying to get to the roof to repair
it there's one person managing that who calls the shots there are various people who are up there on the roof it's raining the foot of the ladder is in a muddy spot and it's sinking into that muddy spot
person managing it may know what's going on and may be happy to climb down the ladder but as soon as that person gets on the ladder that ladder is going to sink into the mud and perhaps that one occupant will be safe but the people stuck on the roof are going to have a big problem getting down and all the
other citizens of the town down at the bottom are going to be left holding the bags i think this is the time to really think this is a probably a very poor metaphor for the situation now but uh uh the
library roof isn't that tall that was that thank you that's enough i I ask you to please stop this project now thank you for your comments rich and Meg Man please enter the room and state your
name that's you where you live rich Mlan Alpine Drive uh I'm speaking today to urge the council to please revise the FY26 budget guidelines that would allow for the elementary school budget to meet
the needs that were given to you by the school committee and to finally change the way that the town budgeting process works to allow for a
flexible distribution of funds that meet the needs of the whole town instead of the intractable across the board percent increase thank you
thank you for your comment amber Keno Martin please enter the room state your name and where you live hello um good evening everybody my name is Amber Ko Martin and I live in district 2 um so tonight I'm here um
again as a parent of two children in the school district um to ask you all to um change the budget guidelines and direct the town manager to include the amount requested by the schools in the FY26 budget and to vote yes to the regional schools budget as passed by the school
committee um these uh changes would restore some of the most essential positions um but they still require a lot of painful cuts um understanding we need to come up with better long-term solutions for funding our schools um
that's you know this is a a way that we can fix it for this year but we need to do better um going forward um and then secondly um again looking at um Anna Develthier's budget memo um I am in
agreement with that um except for the section where it refers to um putting a freeze on crest hiring um I am concerned about the crust program um I think it was one of the CSWG's most important recommendations and a really great alternative to policing and I think it
hasn't really been given the opportunity to thrive the way it should um and I think that taking away two of their positions would would make that situation worse and I really want to see that department fortified um and I would like to see you know as that department
gets gets better um you know making the police force smaller because I think that was the spirit of those recommendations um also I just want to again agree with everybody here tonight who has said "Please please stop the library project." Um I've said it many
times before so it feels redundant at this point but I think everyone here knows how I feel um and I also just want to add that I believe upwards of 20 of my neighbors have emailed uh Lynn and Pat about the situation of our roads on Grantwood Drive they're really terrible
and we've gotten you know um feedback that there's no money in the budget for fixing the roads um and there's also a high level of frustration um about the library project and why so much on the library project and not on the roads and you know people are getting their wheels
busted up in the in the potholes so um you know this we need to really overhaul the budget and and look at our priorities here in town and if you surveyed the town of like what our priorities are I'm pretty sure you're going to hear roads and schools um and
unfortunately you're not going to hear you know a huge you know new library that's so much bigger than the one we have i think they'd like to see the one that we have fixed um but I don't think you would find a broad base of support for the size of this project so just asking you again you know to rethink
that don't fall into sunk uh fallacy um it's never too late to do the right thing have a good night everybody thank you thank you for joining us Amber pat uh please enter the room state your full name and where you
live you need to unmute there you go good evening can people hear me we can okay so my name is Patanbako um from district 2 thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak briefly
so I want to begin by stating that this past Saturday I was very impressed about how the DEI department uh crest department the human right
commission the CSSJC and so many community partners came together vendors performers um this that was the one of the best event that our town put together
and I said that because some of the folks that came out are the people that typically you don't hear the you don't hear them they you know they don't you know come to this
type of meeting and there was a lot of collaboration and I say all this that our town celebrated such an beautiful event and then I heard today that
councelor Anna will be proposing you know reducing the size of crest i mean I've been so frustrated all day i'm here to say that I do not
support cutting any program whether it's uh crest DEI or even the school system i say that because and I posted it on social
media what we have in our town is a madeup budget shortfall crisis we don't have it we have cash reserve and we as a town we need to put our
priorities straight after all cash reserve is is meant to be used once in a while as an emergency as a business woman sometimes I do face budget
some of my company's revenue comes from Medicaid Mass Health that could be slashed but I have to consider my company's um mission and value and I believe our municipality
should do the same laying people off is very inhumane and cruel please I'm asking you the town council to direct the town manager to use our cash
reserve and fund what the school district had requested leave Crest alone and DEI and other programs and the last thing I wanted to say Pat you need
to finish up oh okay okay so I you know I you know okay I'm done but I just wanted to say we don't have budget crisis we have the money to fill it up let's stop focusing on Jones Library and
let's do the right thing for our employees and our residents thank you thank you for your comments allegra Clark please enter the room state your name and where you live hi my name is Algra Clark i live in
District 2 i am echoing the sentiments of many I've heard tonight um I would implore you to fund the schools at the amounts that the school committees are both requesting even these will still
leave a deficit and positions cut in the schools um however the schools are the only place over the past five years that I've seen other than the two frozen police positions that went to crest that there have been cuts made at such a
drastic level to a department um I do want to echo again the hard work that the DEI department put into the global village festival i thought it was a fabulous event and one of the things that really
touched me was there was a map over by the crest table right when you walked in and you could put a pin where you were from and there were so many pins from so many corners of the world and just knowing that we were coming together in community on that day when so many
across the country were also coming together in community to protest what's going on at the national level was really powerful um so you know I don't want to see any cuts to DEI or Crest um I've written to you
so I won't repeat what I've said in email but I just I did want to say Heather are you there that um uh I've been uh oh um I've been contacted by some
researchers at Yale who are actually looking at alternatives to policing and they are interested in talking to talking about crests um so it it is gaining again more recognition and it would be devastating to see that um put
on hold at this time um so you know I have a a meeting with somebody on Friday and I really hope that I'll have positive news to share in terms of the work Crest is doing and the work that the town is doing to support Crest um so
I just I did want that to be known and I I again really appreciate all the work that councelor developier has put together in in the memo that she's presenting and I know that there's going to be some tough choices at some point but I think I'd
really like us to reconsider just picking Crest as as the department that gets cut um I think that would really put a wrench in all of the plans that the town has made in terms of making steps towards equity and racial
justice especially around um public safety and policing especially given the current global climate and national climate where um people are literally being disappeared off the streets just for having views that don't align with
those in power so I really like we need to do things differently here and I hope that crests will remain intact thank you thank you for joining us ler Angelica Bernell please enter the room state your name and where you live
angelica I'm sorry no worries uh thank you uh good evening my name is Angelica Bernal and I'm here as the mother of two school students one in the Four River program and one in the ILC program and I have two asks for you first is that you change the budget guidelines to direct the town manager to include the amounts
requested by the schools in the FY26 budget and second that you vote yes to the regional school budget is passed by school committee it was really wonderful to see so many of you at the importance week this events this weekend from our global village that celebrated diversity in our community to our hands-off rally
in town common where over a thousand of our fellow residents in Amherst attended as you know these are not ordinary times but times of crisis as you also know at UMass five students are now facing deportation as of this Friday after federal governments revoked their visa i
hope you are aware as these events highlight that our crisis is hitting home this is a message that so many of us parents have been trying to communicate to you in the past few months from those of us who have sp spoken to you as members of the special education parents advisory council to the hundreds of us that have been
speaking and sending messages as part of save our schools Amherst i ask therefore that you properly fund our schools first and foremost because we are in crisis i want to thank councelor Anna Dlingautier for acknowledging that crisis and for listening to us thank you at the
previous finance committee councelor Andy Samberg also acknowledged the federal crisis and the consequences stating that they will be horrific but you he was referring here to the impact on municipal departments like the library of the incoming federal cuts but make no mistake the horrific effects are
already here being felt at our schools the problem is here and now and the first sight of impact is our schools just last week we learned that Massachusetts K through2 public education stands to lose over hund00 million in federal funds which will now of course deepen that crisis many of you
have spoken in the past have spoken of crisis in other departments but please don't act your guide your actions in a way that ignores the immediacy of the school crisis for instance we can and should plan for the impact of climate change resilience but if there's a flood that immediately impacts our town we
have to act with urgency not just ignore the running water entering into our homes that is our school crisis it's the flood that is here both figuratively and literally if you look at our middle school roof the parties are also not the same the crisis that affects our school affects our children and our most
vulnerable in the face of crisis I expect that you can discern these differences and act accordly as all leaders can with resolve i hope that you will and be inspired by the actions of countless citizens who have taken to the streets to deal with crisis and push for another world that we know is possible i
don't just hope that we can but we leave that believe that we must for the sake of survival in these last these very dark times and hope that you will have both the courage and imagination to guide us to a better future thank you Angelica thank you for joining us
arley please enter the room state your name and where you live hello um Arley G South Ammerst i'm talking about the Jones i've just been thinking about the stories I've heard of uh uh costs going
up and construction being impacted at UMass i read there were three towers to be built but when they got to the third one the price of steel skyrocketed skyrocketed so they wound up building a onef floor building and used
it for some other purpose and then recently I read about a developer uh in Ammerst who was going to build I guess two apartment buildings maybe on University Drive and went down to one again one building because of
economics i think that it's pretty clear there is a very high probability that this project will not cost 46 million but more it's not certain but there's a very high probability of that so that I'm saying perhaps if the construction
order could be that the back part of the library is built first the part going toward the CVS parking lot in the back so that if funds disappear and you can't do the whole thing at least that side
part that's much more visible and everything won't have been built so I know you're not the architects and all that but you are very involved with the whole project so it's just an appeal
to possibly do an order of construction in case funds run out thank you thank you for joining us that concludes public comment we're going to There is no consent agenda there are no resolutions and proclamations as we move on to uh
section seven presentations and discussion uh let me just um introduce this in the following way based upon our last meeting it is clear that the town councilors wanted more information about the impact of the various budget requests on the town budget including
town services on March 31st since our last meeting the regional school committee voted a similar budget to what they had voted before however now using the statutory assessment method with a 5-year rolling average that amounts to a
4.81% increase over last year for Ammerst in addition on March 26th the Ammerst Elementary School Committee voted to request a budget with a 6% increase over last year immediately after our last meeting the chair of the
finance committee and I met with the town manager and his staff and specifically asked that he provide the council with a presentation at this meeting regarding the potential impact of these FY26 decisions and requests
particularly how it relates to town services prior to his presentation I wanted to take this time to remind the council and all of our residents of our budget process and ask for your patience we begin in November of the previous
year with a first set of budget projections called financial indicators by the end of December based upon the best knowledge available f the finance committee recommends and the town council adopts financial guidelines from
January through April the town manager and his staff regularly provide updates and work on their budget as we know this year we moved up to 4% and they prepare a budget that's
released on May 1st the proposed budget goes to the finance committee where they have extensive meetings during the month of May meeting with people from each of the segments of town as well as department heads the schools the library and our many town departments and in
June with a detailed report and recommendations from the finance committee the town council adopts a budget this is all done in public with many people weighing in along the way during this period the town council may
reduce an any line item in the town's budget but not in other places we can however also ask for an increase in the education budgets however we cannot
increase the town budget this just a little guidance as you look forward with that I'm calling on town manager Paul Bachaman who um will proceed with his presentation thank you Lynn um I'm joined here by our finance director Melissa Zawitzky um who
doesn't have a microphone but if she needs to she can grab one so um so the the short um opening is that my responsibility as town manager is to deliver a balanced budget to the town
council by May 1st of every year um the town council then has two months until June 30th to approve a balanced budget for the town um and then with that balanced budget we move into the new fiscal year which starts on July 1 the mud the budget that must be balanced
includes appropriations to support the operations of the town which includes DPW town hall fire EMS police etc the library the regional school district and the elementary schools as Lynn said we this budget process starts back in
November when we t start talking about revenue projections and for the for the coming year what we project is what we projected then was about 3% as information became available during the course of the year we were able to project a higher amount which was
4% the town council uses that information to create its budget guidelines for the all four entities and that's when the council voted in December what those four guidelines were and they gave them to me to the library of trustees to the Ammeris school committee and to the Ammeris Palum re
regional school committee so the regional school committee submitted a budget request that is 4.81% increase over the prior year this is outside the guidelines determined by the town council but it did align with
the statutory method which was a a major goal for the for the town council and for for me so the the way you think about the regional school budget is the budget is the size of the pie the assessment method which is what each of the four towns pays is the are how the
pie is divided up um on April 1st as required by the town charter the library trustees and the Ammer school committee submitted budget requests the library adhered to the 4% guideline the school committee requested a 6% increase which again is outside the guidelines determined by the town council i now am
working to submit a budget to the council which is due on May 1st that is within the constraints of a 4% increase including all four entities the town's revenues are projected to be 4% and to go up by 4% those are the
recurring source of money that comes into the town on a on a annual basis with new growth new taxes uh fees increases so we anticipate that the money going coming into the town will increase by 4% and that's the money that's the new
money we have to spend if you spend it on one part of the town's budget you will you will have less to spend on other parts so and what we are suggest what has been recommended is that all the entities would get a 4% increase there are not reductions in any of our budgets these
are all increases in the budgets you can go to the next slide please so the current guidelines provide the 4% for the four entities um so I went to put some numbers i think one of the comments from the council was like
well we don't really know what you're talking about in terms of the numbers that that impacts us we hear from the schools we don't hear from the town side and so that's what our goal is tonight is to show you what some of these numbers look like so to maintain our current operations and services this is just for the town side and that includes
significant increases in our health insurance uh our commitment to our collective bargaining contracts and COLA commitments and with that 4% increase we were facing a $350,000 budget shortfall for the townside
budget this is the um and this is with this and then with the regional school committee with voting a 4.81% increase over FY25 that will require an additional 152,000 over their
4% to meet that goal to meet their budget and if the Ammer school committee has submitted a budget request of 6% that's an additional $540,000 over the 4% that they have already been allocated so
um so I think what we really want to do is show you show you the numbers on the chart go to the next slide please so the municipal increase and I want to equate this what a what a dollar figure equals in terms of people we are a peopleheavy business um most of our
expenses are in personnel so our our budget deficit at this moment in time for the town side is $350,000 in order to fix that deficit we're looking at a reduction of 6.5 positions i talk about this in terms of FTE which is called which is full-time
equivalent fte means um it can be one person or it can be two people or more part-time employees the increase for the regional school from 4% to 4.81% is equivalent to
$152,000 and and that's about three positions if the elementary school goes from 4% to 6% that's about $540,000 which is equivalent to about 10 positions and we use $54,000 as our average estimated cost for a a position
in the town of Ammerst if you have a higher paid position it would be uh less it would be fewer positions obviously so our total shortfall if we if the town council says yes to all these things is but we are in a million dollar deficit
which is about 19.5 positions that the town side would have to bear in terms of reductions go to the next slide please so one of the um primary motivations in building the town's budget is to include priorities that were established by the
town council and your goal setting process and we've been very successful at listening to your goals integrating them into the budget over time sometimes it takes a couple years to fully integrate them because we prioritize the goals that you have established for the town in the past few years we've started
new departments we've expanded staffing in existing departments we've introduced new programs and we've taken steps to align the town's work with the overall policy goals of the town council in addition the town council has adopted a series of new goals that it would like to see implemented in the
current calendar year as shown on the next slide so these are the town manager goals that you that you passed recently and some of these are have cost implications some don't some have less you some is just more some are more work but and some of the stuff that we'd be
doing anyway so but just you know we haven't really quantified all these goals but these are things that will take time um it will take uh contracts and things like that to implement next
slide so clearly we can't do it all in fact we'll be faced with reducing our cap capacity to do the work that we are that we have been doing so when we look at a deficit like this we look at the different tools that we have available
to reduce our costs such as eliminating vacant positions um reorganizing town departments um reducing our commitment to town capital um uh which is which is um you know one
of the things that we've committed ourselves to to build to maintain our capital so we have so we could address the four major capital projects um to seek more revenue venue through a proposition 2 and a half override to roll back or delay town council initiatives and then the my lowest
priority is to lay off existing staff that was the the thing I really prefer i do not want to do but that's that has to be listed as one of the options so as we as we work on these things we'll be working with our union partners our non-UN staff and department
heads um we've been looking at all many many different scenarios for how to meet the the deficit that we have and one for you for your consideration like you to look at the implications of changing the bud budget guidelines and this late in
the game right now we have is this thing we have to other considerations when we do budget redictions we have to include we have to prepare for unemployment costs that will come to us next year um if there's if there are impacts on collective bargaining units there may be bumping or bidding if there are actual
layoffs um there's a long-term fiscal stability going forward and just if you are going to change your guidelines I want you to be aware that we have nine working days left before we have to finalize our budget numbers so there's very little time to process the
information we have now um but then to look at additional variables would be very challenging so I just went I I wanted to make this brief um and Melissa and I are here if you any questions or and I what I really would like is some some feedback from you we've heard a lot of public comment about what people's
values are um but as I prepare my budget I do believe in aligning it what the elected officials have said to me what you'd like to see in ter in terms of your budget so I welcome any ideas you have in terms of how to balance this budget um where you would like to see
additions or deletions um and just be aware that we can't spend money more than once once it goes into one one budget it can't be put spent on another budget thank you um it's now time for counselor questions
or comments so I see one hand at this point jennifer Tob please go ahead i I just wanted to ask if you might address um reserves please speak into the mic i want to ask if you might address reserves because that came up for comment yeah so the the town has um
reserves set aside uh for specific projects uh that we have a capital reserve account and a stabilization account and those are specific funds that are available for rainy days um and some people will say "Oh it's raining now we need to use the funds." Um but we
need to recognize that those are one-time funds once you spend them you can't spend them again so if you are maintaining a budget at a certain level and you maintain it for one year the next year you don't have those reserves to support the budget anymore and so you
know then you have a deeper problem next year and I think one of my goals as a as a fiscal manager for the town is to rightsize the budget for the revenues that we have coming into the town do I think Kathy
um Paul I think the chart you showed on the staff positions that have been added under since the council came in are on the low side in terms of dollars because you didn't put benefits in and I'm not sure why you didn't because the roll up
on benefits is roughly 50% 45 to 50% so you can't just do the salary side so the um the cost increase to the town budget is higher um so I just so it's a question of why you didn't include those
um because I think people need to understand that if we add a 10person department it's the salary cost plus the benefit costs this is this is where some of the stress has come from over the last several years and people have
looked at the pie charts to say the school side is is a smaller share than it used to be and part of that is the capital share has gone up and part of it is the town share is a bit higher and that's because of the positions we've added so we've added the 10 in crest and
two in DEI the DEI window was actually a replacement and four firefighters and we're about to add the rental inspectors although some of that will be covered so I just I I think everyone needs to understand that each of those positions and I know the schools know this because
I looked at what happened to their budget with the health insurance increase it ate up money that could have gone for salaries and that's what's also happening to the town budget so maybe you could speak to that so Kathy um you're right there is
additional um cost um the way the reason that we chose to look at it this way is that right now the way that we fund um health insurance is based on enrollment so you know some some people choose to have insurance and some people
don't so depending on you know it's not it's not a onetoone so not every person who works for the town um chooses to enroll in the town's insurance so you can't assume that there'll be a family plan with every new hire um and right now part of what we're looking at is we
budget for our um we we budget our enrollment based on who was enrolled in October of the um in October because that's usually our highest enrollment month um and that
really has a lot to do with um teachers because they you know they if they start a new uh position in the fall then they come on the health insurance in October and so that's our highest month and that's what we use to forecast the next
year but we have also had um significant vacancies as we've discussed in previous meetings over the past number of years and so those vacancies are not included in our um we include a estimate on on filling those vacancies
that we'll have new in um health insurance enrollment and or other benefits um but it's sort of a a rolling average and we don't um we don't budget that every new employee will take health insurance you know so it's I believe we
have approximately 18 to 20 vacancies depending on the what time of year I looked at the the personnel costs um and we budget an an average health um benefit cost for 10
so we only do half you know what I mean it's not it's not a oneto one I guess and that's why we've looked at it strictly on the um on the cost of the salaries for this time no I I do understand that Melissa
um I wasn't looking at a one to one but when we had um excess cash at the free cash at the end of last year it was because we had vacancies and when you look down the line we spent $700,000 less in benefits and just the health
insurance it's also pension we just nobody looks at their budget and doesn't put benefits in and and I'm happy with a rough average so I understand we don't know whether it's going to be a family plan an individual plan a twoerson plan i'm just saying that the numbers I want
the public to understand the numbers Paul put up are very low in terms of the costs of those new positions so think in terms of 40 to 50% more for insurance and health insurance um uh health
insurance and pensions without it being precise uh uh one of the attractions of working for the town or for the schools is good benefits um and and uh people do do use them and it's not a criticism as
much as that these these were expensive additions and we always talked about these departments as million-dollar departments um rather than six $600,000 departments so I think that's one of the way people said why why did Annos memo
had freeze crest crest has yet to prove that it can do some of the things we thought it could do it has had frequent vacancies and high turnover in it so without layoffs um freezing positions gives you some leeway in the budget so
if we're looking for money on where to go um and Paul provided one other one on going down on the amount amount we put aside for capital each year so do we do 10 and a half or do we you put 10.25 there's real money there so I just
I just want everyone to understand that we're going to have to make really hard choices um that we can't fund one side with a big increase unless we find the money from someplace else and I'm not
saying we can't find the money and I'm looking forward to I think what's happening with regional is very positive and looking forward to that being referred to us because actually the town manager said at the last time we met that
4.8% was doable for Amorest you know so that there there's a way of doing that 4.8 it's not a stick to four so there's there's been some movement and I think people should hear that it's real movement and the other towns in the region have said they think they can do
those numbers too so this is not a wish and a prayer so the regional budget looks like it amazingly may move forward at the option three that the region preferred so I I don't think it's all
bad news there's there's movement there and I'll stop talking but I'm just saying that we're understating the numbers if we talk about four firefighters or x number of these if we don't put benefits in way understating them thank you um councelor Hani
um two questions at this time one you may not know the answer to um how much in federal grants or other federal money whether it's directly from the federal government or passed through from the state government to us but
comes from the federal government do our town and schools if you know the school numbers actually receive on a yearly basis is question number one that's the one I'm not sure you'll know the answer to off the top of your head um and number two is could you one of the
options you had on your screen was um freezing vacant positions could you go through some of the vacant positions that we have currently right now that if that was an option you choose what what some of the positions we'd see frozen would be sure so um I don't know the
number exactly i think the schools are going to be hit much harder with federal funds uh freezing than than the town will uh we get community development block grant funds that come from through the state to the town that's about $825,000 um there's some other grants that we get through the fire department
and police department that come in but those are discretionary grants i think the library gets some grants for um for um some uh language services and things like that but I I I I've seen that number but it's it's not a gigantic
number but I really do believe that the schools of all of our entities will get hit the hardest um because they get so much money title one and things like that funding um in terms of the positions that we have looked at uh that are available one is the uh finance
director position uh one is the planning director position one is the director of senior services and one is the town clerk those are the four major departments that are that have major openings um you know we have three we have three now vacancies in the crest
department um there are vacancies in the fire department um mostly because of of the inability to find uh strong candidates to fill the positions or any candidates fill the positions although there's some good news recently to find a couple candidates who going to be able
to serve those fill those seats um I think there's been a recent retirement at the um police department um I'm missing we have a I mean there's there's there's some at DPW that that is sort of there's a flow and what we're really looking for looking at tax
supported uh as opposed to water and wastewater and you know enterprise funded positions so thank you uh Andy Steinberg yeah I'm building a little bit on the
first of the two questions that councelor Hani asked um I think that you know I'm starting actually from a different place though to get there and that is a question of what you view is a rainy day for the use
of the stabiliz stabilization funds that we've set aside um in my long and too long relationship with the town of 20 years um the one
clear rainy day was when we had a substantial in those circumstances where we've had a substantial loss of revenue that was not predicted at the beginning of the budget process
and uh that was clearly uh from the 2007 recession in to the 2008 year um and uh of course the second one was the pandemic but fortunately the federal
government um gave pandemic relief funds that um took that away from us so um you know what my concern is gets a little bit back to what councelor Hani was asking about which is what is a real
rainy day and u what are our fears and um I want to ask it from a slightly different perspective as you answered since you're very involved in state advocacy efforts through the MMA and that is
What are the state risks for revenue and how is a legislature going to react to the state risks uh the biggest one I think is uh probably going to be in mass health but
um uh what are going to be the options and uh you know I think that at this point we're just projecting on that but I was wondering if you had any projections because that's the concern of what a real rainy day might be
so I will know more tomorrow there's an MMA board meeting tomorrow that I will attending be attending and with along with a meeting with the lieutenant governor to get the latest on that i mean you're on the fiscal policy committee you probably know as much as I do at this point in time in terms of what the what their projections are for
the state i think you're right the the concerns are definitely there especially for if the um Medicaid money is withdrawn and the and the state determines it must still make a commitment um and then also you know I think with the millionaires tax I think
I saw in the paper today that prioritizing education and uh public transportation was a goal for that the legislature was trying to target um you asked what is a rainy day and I think um I think there's a real I
think 4% is not an unreasonable increase in this day and age i think you know if you have a budget and it's going up 4% i would if you if I had a department I would say I expect you to manage within that budget um I think that's a a reasonable um uh thing to expect a
manager to do and to say you there's we don't have unlimited funds um and the taxpayers don't have unlimited wallets to give us funds so I think a 4% increase is um is reasonable um there are extenduating circumstances that I
believe will are present which we've identified previously for instance um you know when the um elementary school looks at relocating the sixth grade there might be some one-time transition money that needs to be allocated um to
help them with that transition it there's also could be times when we anticipate a savings in the future budget so when we reduce two schools to one school in the elementary school there may be savings that will um can be implemented if we have a plan going
forward that sometime money can help with sort of as a bridge to to support that so I think there's you can use one-time money as a tool um but it shouldn't be used as a source of ongoing revenue to expect to balance your budget
using onetime money i think that's a really bad fiscal policy um the council so the schools have painted a very good picture of what would happen with some of the cuts that are coming for them and so I wanted to know from
your perspective what would cuts look like for the town you gave the FTE E but that's a number and it's not visual enough for me so let's suppose there are some cuts
what would that look like in terms of the loss of town services um so the schools and library are about a month ahead of us they're they have to submit their budgets on April 1 i submit the town's budget on May 1 with the
other budgets in at the same time so by May one you will see what those not those cuts look like if we are May if we're implementing cuts you know I think what I've said one of the slides we talked about eliminating vacant positions so that we don't want to lay off folks um if there are part-time
positions services that we no longer want to offer um we've looked at lots of different opportunities that we might be able to are there are there opportunities to take advantage of a lot of them wind up not being producing that much in savings um and but there you
know um but you know I think if we if we some with some positions we might eliminate some part-time positions um and what you know sort of re-evaluating what how we organize things in terms of our our um staffing can there be people
who take on a little bit more work so we don't have to fill a position type thing but we're still in process of deciding those council atte um but we we're in decision-m mode right now okay
did you have a further question please go so I suppose since there's more time something that um the town could do is paint a picture um and I think it would be good have gotten some comments from
um members of the community wanting to know what would practically the loss of services look like and so if that's um through any of the means possible a way that that could be explained it would be helpful thank you so if I can just respond to that as well um I think so
it's a big difference if you're saying cut nine positions or 19 positions that's a tremendous difference in terms of where we are in our budget process so knowing what the council is going to do with the um councelor Deon Gothier's um motions tonight would be
very helpful to me to know what you do way how you dispose of that pam Renie thank you um Paul you talked a little bit you mentioned briefly the enterprise funds the water and sewer um charge fees they
pay for themselves essentially and the users pay for that um product uh another another entity comes to mind and that is the development of rental registration and inspections that
um I'm wondering if you are if you are sort of lumping them into the same category as enterprise funds because it is expected at least that the inspection and the rental registration fees are to cover the cost of doing that program
um we also have uh money coming in from UMass that was intended for the inspection program are you able to keep separate those kinds of incomes um I understand it all dumps into one bucket but
mentally are are people keeping track of of what it uh income that should be covering those kinds of expenses yeah that's a really good question so the um the funds from UMass go to the schools and to the town and and those
are segregated separately um to be clear that the UMass funds isn't for the rental registration program it's for health safe and healthy neighborhoods or something like that so uh more generic than that they didn't want it associated they didn't want it specifically tied to
positions which I understand um in terms of the um enterprise funds true enterprise funds carry their own costs um the rental inspection program is not an enterprise fund so when the revenues come in but so when you charge a fee for
service it's supposed to line up with the service that you provide so when you when we um bring that revenue in that revenue goes into the big pot and then that revenue gets divided by four so half of the funds go into the revenue
enhancement it doesn't stay with the department it's not allowed to it goes into the pot of all the revenue that we've increased so basically half of the revenue will be distributed to the school and to the two schools councelor Lord
thank you sorry I had a hard time finding the mute button i'm posed with a few questions about like how do we meet this moment and how do we continue on when costs rise at a greater rate than our
funding and I imagine this has been a recurring question over the years and I know personally this is a reality for many of our families year after year so I understand that a school budget and a town budget are drastically different
than our individual budgets but I'm also trying to figure out how do we meet this really painful moment i don't have faith that going forward it's going to get any easier but perhaps we will find different ways to balance budgets or to
quote unquote rightsize our budgets um but it also it it feels pardon me for saying this but it feels harmful andor painful to me to have like $28 million in reserves and to cut positions and or freeze positions when I think the
$500,000 is about 2% of our savings pardon me if the math is wrong but and I and I'll get that I'm a little naive about because someone recently told me you can't just take endowments from universities to pay for um positions but
I'm I would hope there was a way that we could take the half million from our 28 million reserve in this moment and then be really strategic about other ways of maybe having capital campaign campaign
fund rate i don't Oh I just think we're going to have to be really out of the box in our thinking especially as our our national government may resend funding and will not definitely not increase it in any way taper shape or
form um so how do we get through this next budget crisis um Paul I think you have done an amazing job trying to balance a budget with such a deficit um without um other access to funds that we
might have access to and I don't know how we can but I think if we could take that money to balance this budget and then really moving forward look for other ways to find um fiscal security
fiscal strength um I just wanted to mention this because I think cutting the positions I appreciate counselor Dublin Gothier's proposal cuz she was very strategic about here a half a point half
a percentage from this one a 1% from that will help level this for the schools because that we have heard overwhelmingly how important is that is but I also think DEI and Crest and fire department like
no one department is obsolete or needs to be sorry my words are escaping me um underfunded but I also think to meet this moment we might have to do something that's never been done before
and might be scary or risky financially taking 500,000 from capital stabilization fund or free cash reserves pardon my ignorance around some of this but I I would hope that we can find a way to give you that extra 500,000 so that
you don't have to make these proposed cuts thank you so I really appreciate your um your insights onto that Council Lord um there's you have a lot there um so I think that um you know we did put in I showed you
what a 2 and a.5% out of the capital uh reduction would look like and that's on on one of the slides um but I think one thing you also need I'm sure you do understand that um there's also great demand for repairing roads and investing
in buildings that are leaking and things like that that's where the capital money goes it's that goes to fund those repairs to our buildings because those are just as dramatic and letting our infrastructure um crumble is not an acceptable solution um you know I think
that um you know long-term uh stability of our organization is it requires us to be able to support ourselves with the money that's coming in from year to year um to be pulling from um reserves is not
a sustainable option you're and it makes it worse down the road the sooner we correct it and I I and I and align it with our needs the better off we are there are extenduating circumstances almost every year um for different departments on different things so I
think that that's that's part of uh running an organization hundred million dollar organization like this um so I you know I think you know the capital um uh reserves was was established for a very specific purpose
that the council and before at the select board had identified which was a new fire station and a new DPW those are two facilities that are really need to be replaced and I think the only way we're able to do that is through a
long-term strategy and to deviate from that strategy um which which we have done for the schools will put us farther back and will take us longer to meet the um financial re to have the financial resources we need to replace that those
buildings you should jump i'm gonna go to councelor Walker melissa say I'm sorry Melissa please go ahead so I just wanted to say in regards to the um reserves or stabilization monies that we have um like Paul said I want to echo that the capital
stabilization is part of a long-term strategy that has been in place in the town of Ammeris for a long time and you know to to to defer from that sort of defeats the purpose of the statement that says we need to plan and make a
better plan for ourselves we made a plan for ourselves and we need to not abandon that for um you know this moment and as far as I I think that it's a difficult time and a difficult year but there are two things
happening at the same time here one is we were in this crisis before all the federal money changed right and so what we're looking at right now is how do we sustain our year-over-year budgets both in in the
school side the library side and the town side so that is before the crisis so if you want to talk about a one-time crisis maybe that federal funding is a shortterm federal crisis or at least we hope it is i I might agree with you
shaking your head but I I you know that can that's that's a crisis that you you might dip into stabilization if you thought it was one time and that it would it would come back or there was a a a tornado right and we had to fix
something or that was broken but this is what our first problem is an yeartoyear o a year-over-year increase in cost that is not keeping up with our revenue so that's not a use of stabilization funds so I think that we need to separate a a
crisis of of that we can't create any more taxation or we maybe have chosen not to because I guess there is an option of two and a half but I that's not for me to decide um but the
difference between um the fact that we have a a a long-term problem that can't be fixed with a short-term solution and and the spot for that is in the regular stabilization if we have a short-term solution that's the regular
stabilization or the free cash and not the capital stabilization because that is a deliberate plan that to abandon that would put all those other plans that this uh council has already you know worked really hard to create so I just wanted to separate
those those crisises thank you i'm going to go to counselors that haven't spoken yet councelor Walker um thank you Lynn so I do appreciate um Paul um and Melissa your response but I did want to just push back a little bit
and sort of support uh what Hollow was saying and I I think it's worth considering what our options are in terms of the use of reserve funds um and I know there has been a lot of conversation about not relying on these funds as a solution but I don't think
that that's what's being proposed here i think what is being asked is that is there a way that we can use these as a one-time use to sort of help us have the time to make a long-term plan right and I know that this is something we've been
talking about for a long time at least the last couple of years that I've been on the council is like having a long-term fiscal plan uh for the schools and for the town and we are also again you know just supporting Holla's comment about meeting the moment like where we are positioned in the town right now
understanding that we just brought in a new superintendent right and so like can we give her some time to make a plan we just brought in a new crest director can we give her some time to make a plan like we are trying to force all of these
things but we need to set oursel up for long-term success and I think to do that we need to not continuously cut before we can make a plan um and so I do think that it's worth considering what could happen um what type of long-term
planning could be supported by a onetime use in reserve funds and I think somebody during public comment spoke really eloquently to the the amount of money that we have in our reserves right like it is a substantial amount of money and I know
that we have a plan for that money but sometimes you have to pivot when you're in the face of unprecedented circumstances or things that we didn't plan for um and I'm not at all suggesting that we abandon our plans for the fire station or the DPW which I think are critically important but the
reality of that situation is that those plans are also not fully realized and when we're saying we need this I think uh the town manager said something about needing the reserves and the stabilization funds to support the budget to support the budget but we're
not using them if we're not using them how are they supporting the budget if we're not using them when there is a critical need that's identified by the council and the community then how are we utilizing them to support the budget only for long-term planning i don't think that that might be appropriate in
this moment um and so I would like to see what our options would be there and what type of impact that would have if we did use it for a one-time not a long-term sustainable solution that we continuously use this one-time money but
for a one-time solution pat you had your hand up i'm feel like I'm stumbling around here um we have uh had one shot you money once we had the ESSER funds we knew they
were going to go away and we still the school budget still didn't take that into consideration um I'm also wondering the rental registration bylaw while I know a lot of us worked very hard to get it passed what's its actual impact where
is it how much of it is uh how many people have been hired or and what's the revenue that it's brought in so far and what is projected revenue for next year and maybe that's something that needs to be put on hold uh I don't
know what the costs are in terms of the waste hauler bylaw maybe that's something that needs to be put on hold um not that they're not important but that people over who's picking up my garbage or am I bringing
my garbage to the dump people are more important um and so I I said I'm stumbling around here so I'm going to stumble some more the DPW building is a effing
disaster the fire station needs repair we have limited uh hiring people in those departments in the planning department and every and we gave ourselves a race and I guess that was
important i didn't support it um we can't pretend that those buildings aren't important we can't be like the resident who said in some some email "Oh they we
don't need to talk about that building." We have human beings who are working there and work really hard for us for all of us and I'm I'm really maybe it's my uh workingclass background but I am
really frustrated with uh people who think that only certain things should be funded and people who talk about crests as if it's something that can just be tossed aside there are real people doing work
that's really important the police and I alternate between supporting police in our town mostly and not supporting police but we haven't filled all the positions there either and they are
critical and important at times i I was an educator for years my colleague Lynn Griezmer told me before we were colleagues that I should run for school committee not the council because I talked about education so I
understand deeply the value of our schools but I do not see it as so much more important than the other people in the town so I'm so I I had some questions in there if you can find them and remember
them please go ahead yes I I think you know emphasizing the need for the two new facilities I think is is vitally important that that's um they're only getting worse um and um and so it's it's very clear those and it just takes time
to assemble the funds to be able to move forward on it's just like you know um we we maybe the the you know bond market crashes or something maybe there's some benefits that we get economically through this process but that's not something we don't we don't plan for a
wish um we you know we plan for what we think is is accurately projected as best we can and I'll be honest we are very we are conservative in our budgeting we're purposely conservative because failing to be conservative in your budgeting um
results in being in a bad situation the next year where you've overcommitted your resources either through whatever you know contracts or um you know hirings that you've done and then not being able to support that and then that creates a crisis mentality we've been
able to avoid that we can't the town side can't avoid that this year mainly driven by the cost of our health insurance which was just a staggering and we're not alone in any of these things so it's not unique to the town of Ammerst but I think that um that's why I
have incredible sympathy for the library and for the school superintendent because they're doing the best that they absolutely can and really making providing lots of options to the school committees for the school committee to consider and then they're making informed judgments at that point but I think you know it
um we're we're not there are no easy solutions we you know in past years we've been able to really I'll be honest we we don't fund our operating budgets very much and so when something breaks in a department DPW or whatever they're
taking money out of their vacant positions instead of it's because we haven't upped their the cost what it's costing to fix things um but we're looking at everything quite honestly you know we we've tried to improve our performance for the public some of this
me means we're buying software making things putting things more online each one of those things has an online component to it that's that's a software as a service and just looking at every one of those contracts do we need it do we need it do we need it because I'd rather cut a service contract than a
person so before we start around again um I'm going to take a moment um back in 2007208 um I was overseeing a $25 million operation with aboutund and some
employees nowhere near as big as the town and I look at the situation we're in today it's unprecedented and as much as I think we can reflect on what happened
back in 2007208 we can reflect on what might have happened if when the pandemic hit none of us are even able to predict what we might be looking at tomorrow
when we pick up the paper so as much as I agree that tapping into our reserves is not wise because I think we're going to find out what a real rainy day is probably
within the next four or five months today I listened to joke to Mandy Mindy Dom talk with residents of Ammerst what's going to happen when the government backs out of um healthcare what's going to happen already they
backed out of food security what's going to happen to places like the survival center that's already lost one of its big federal grants and the food bank which has already lost its federal money
so I say that but I'm also going to say Paul we asked for a plan for a transition from three to two elementary schools we said "Okay we'll give you 4% this
year." A transition from three to two elementary schools is a one-time event so if we were going to use reserves for say one more percent above the four for that
transition I actually could support that because it's a onetime transition at the same time we've also asked that there be groups of people that sit down and
actually tackle the hard question that's before us tonight we knew it was coming we started on this two years ago you asked for it you had Sean McGo working on it last year I tried sitting down with some people and it got blown off
this year councelor Gothier is Devon Gothier has also tried the same thing and I understand one of the people has withdrawn from that we can sit here and we can try to
tackle this year but if we don't step back as a town and take on the hard question of how are we going to finance the next five and 10 years and have honest conversations then we're going to
just be sitting here year after year you're going to be screaming at us saying "We don't value education even though we're giving you four print 4% plus rate plus increases." and you're going to be screaming at us for other things we're
going to cut this is a game that we cannot afford to play anymore in this town and so I hope as we continue these conversations we also pledge that we
will in fact not wait another year to have the same conversation over and over again because this time I think we're finally seeing we're at the end we can't continue saying cut here cut there
without starting to see the Ammerst that we all love look slightly different are very seriously different and that's while we're watching the mad man in Washington so that's where I'm coming
from bob you haven't spoken or have you i just wanted to say that um it's very tempting to want to reach into reserves and let's say we go into
reserves for a million dollars and we increase our budget this year by a million dollars well that's a million dollars we have to find next year and how are we going to find it without some plan to find it next year it's it's going to be a worse situation than we're
in right now so because actually it's not even a million it's a million and 40,000 or whatever depending on on on the revenues of the town so it's not a solution it's it's tempting i understand
and and I agree with Lynn if if it's used for some very specific purpose like a transitional purpose that's fine but to use it just as operating costs to
reduce pain this year we have to replace that money otherwise we're going to have more pain next year so we have to figure out how we're going to get through this next year um with the money that we have
okay we're going to circle back jennifer Tob um so I'm asking this question because uh several members of the public asked it i just want to give you again a chance an opportunity to respond to it but um how did we do we put more aside
in reserves than other towns and how did we come to that decision so there we have different reserve accounts um some stabilization some or free cash is about where we are um for reserves and in terms of the capital
stabilization which is what we have set aside for the new building projects that is that is building up a base which was what we said that was the game plan you know years ago if that's a different game plan and that you want to not do the buildings at this time frame that we
have that's a different conversation yeah you know I understand yeah yeah well we have free cash which um which will be if you recall what we did um out of concern with what was going to happen in Washington we took the ARP the
remaining ARPA funds and we we called it revenue replacement and that will fall to free cash and that's $2.8 million I believe is that right something like that so that'll fall to free cash at the end of the fiscal year um so there will be that that fund those funds in free cash and
free cash we try to keep at it about 5% so a comment was made about 30% was that in it total of all of our reserves and stabilization funds we could be closer in in the 20s probably I can get that exact number for you
councelor Hani so I want to concur with what Melissa and Bob said regarding the use of reserves um and how it's not wise because it puts us in worse situations potentially year after year if we start
using them for operating as trying to use them as recurring revenues um it's a tough situation because we were lucky with inflation for nearly a
decade um we're not lucky with inflation anymore um and it looks like we might not be lucky in the future with inflation which makes it seem like a crisis in our revenues
um but the only way to revenue our way out of that crisis if inflation is that high is to Prop 2 and a half override um and I have gotten the feeling from comments I've received that the town taxpayers do not want to see
their taxes rise any higher um and therefore may not support a prop 2 and a half override to increase their property taxes um by a significant percent every year going
forward which leaves us with finding ways to reduce our expenses which is not pretty um we're going to need to do it i don't necessarily agree that one more year of
propping up any of our operating costs with one-time savings with using savings to do so would lead to a result um we've known it's been coming we've
been lucky on the town side that this is the first year we're really facing it but we've known it's been coming we need to find ways to reduce our expenses that hurt our taxpayers the least i'm not sure what that is
um one thing Paul said that struck me was he listed a total town budget shortfall in his presentation of 350,000 but then about half an hour later said the departments have not been increasing
and the budgets have not been increasing their expense lines which means that 350,000 shortfall is probably actually higher if we tried to actually account for the increase in expenses and figure out what that would
be um because through conservative budgeting and all he's not been presenting us in some sense with a level services budget yearly despite
calling it because the expense lines have been remaining flat despite expenses going up so it's worse than even he has admitted um what to do though I don't know what the right call
is it's lost positions no matter which side of the operating budget it's on um I know when we finish this conversation we're going to be faced with budget guideline discussions and I don't know what the right call on budget guidelines is for you either
um because I think what we really do need to see is what councelor Ete was getting at but we won't see till May 1 what is the effect on the town versus what is the effect on each of the school
budgets um particularly at the Ammerst School um district budget that is was passed at a 6% by the Amoris school committee which is the equivalent of 10 additional
FTEES in our town budget um and I think about that with the region and the school the regional school district and the Ammerst school district budgets are the only budgets when you present them that we can raise we cannot raise the library budget we
cannot raise the capital budget we cannot raise the um the town budget the only two we can raise is that so I'm presented a problem when we get to guidelines with where should our guidelines be for the town when we can
reduce the town to raise the school um I'm sorry I don't have better guidance for you right now but it's I think our tough job will be to be looking at where does it hurt the town's
residents as a whole the least and I just don't think we have enough information now to to really talk about that i think that's what we in finance is going to have to talk about i do want to say one other thing about reserves and capital though our buildings and our
capital and our infrastructure are in sad repair and part of that is because the town built itself into a hole when in the last recession 15 to 20 years ago it reduced its capital yearly spending
to save jobs at least that's my understanding that it reduced capital to keep operating budgets where they needed to be um and we've taken a decade and a half to try and start digging ourselves out
of that hole i am hesitant to create an even bigger hole is one thing I would say um I'm going to skip to uh Anna Delin Goth here and then to councelor Ryan and
then back to our other counselors that have spoken so I was going back to what I think was the most recent um funding plan for the four projects and just kind of trying to regground myself
in why our reserves are so large um and and reminding myself about the costs for those projects and the financing plans for those projects so for me I do get uncomfortable talking about not uncomfortable council i'm always
uncomfortable um but I don't like talking about pulling from reserves because it feels like because we aren't necessarily having we haven't necessarily committed all of those funds to a fire station to
a DPW building it's less concrete uh and we can it's a lot easier to say let's pull funds from that and give it to another department whatever it might be and the reality is that we are in my mind that when we pull from the reserves
we are pulling from the projects that we've planned to fund with those reserves um so I guess I'm looking for a bit of confirmation that my thought process is right on that because I do get I don't like the the the way that reserves constantly are talked about as
a we should just pull from it because for me that has very real implications and every time we pull we're looking at kicking those buildings further down the road uh or needing to do more borrowing that we can't necessarily do so I want
confirmation on that but then the other thing we've done a lot of discussing and ringing our hands and I will save most of my comments for the next item on our agenda but at some point we have to give guidance um and and absolutely staying as far away from positional cuts
although Mindy's most recent point is valid too um but of course we don't want to cut any jobs or impact people and I just wanted to say that um but Paul when we talk about the idea of budgeting less
conservatively in the coming year what does that translate to how do we actually I know that's a bit of an unknown in many senses but if you've been looking at the budgets and trying to budget very conservatively and we've ended up with a whole lot of free cash
or a whole lot you know that in addition to what we planned on putting into reserves what does it mean to you to budget more conservatively and how might we anticipate the change that that would bring to budget numbers basically can you predict the future and yeah Melissa
or Paul so um I maybe I shouldn't have said conservatively i think we we we budget carefully you you've heard me say position control a lot because I think that's the driving force in our municipal but or any budget in the public sector it's really about the people if you control how many people
you put on the payroll you control your budget um and we have attempted to do that we have added new departments um and new new staff um we've tried to um incorporate those in uh um judiciously when we've had revenues to support them
if you recall for the firefighters we had uh ARPA funds that we utilized over time until we were able to build up that budget to be able to accommodate it um you know I I think you we could say um what does it look like you could say
"Well we think there might be vacancies in a department so we're not going to really budget every position we're going to budget 90% of the positions and then hope which is not a plan hope that we don't fill them." Um
or purposely not fill them which is against that it's just not what we how I would build a budget and it would not be the goal that I would hope that you would have for me to say you know maybe there's a certain amount of churn that happens every year um and but our town
doesn't really have that much and if had if we had done it with some departments we would be in deep trouble right now and then the net result is that next year if that person that we had hoped would leave didn't then we would be laying somebody off and so I just I do
want to say one thing i do focus a lot on our employees i think we we said that when during COVID that we did that we thought that economic security for our employees was important not just for our employees but for the entire economy and that we were really committed to making sure that every employee maintained a
job and was able to earn a paycheck but all through co and we we we achieved that and I think also now we're really hoping not to lay off employees and you know we'll we'll look at things sort of in you know a sequence of of you know
how hard's going to hit body but um you know that's why we start looking at vacancies first that might but it but it has to be in alignment with what our overall goal is just because there's a vacancy doesn't mean we go after it councelor Ryan
so three brief observations and then a a question really from my colleagues and for myself uh in response to something Paul raised in his presentation that I thought was important first observation uh echoing uh Bob's remarks and the remarks of others that have happened
before we really we cannot abandon our long range fiscal plans that would be very very very foolish these have been in work for a long time they're critical to the future of the town critical on many levels and
while tempting it would be a terrible mistake i think secondly I get the sense that there is a real desire amongst I think all of us to do something to help the schools in this year um and I think there might be a way towards that it's
not going to be all that the schools want but it will be more than what um perhaps the guidelines initially suggest i'm not completely comfortable with that for many reasons but I think it's something that we are open to considering i think there's a way to get
there um free cash might be a place we could go to um looking at specific situations which are one-time transitions would certainly be a place where we could what I think of as building a bridge we've already made some decisions
and I think the right one related to the regional assessment method that's going to start a process that again will not get the regional schools all that they want but hopefully will move in a direction that will provide something the elementary school raises a more difficult challenge but again I think
there's a way forward there we'll talk more about that a little bit this evening third is also something we're going to talk about later this evening and as me been mentioned already by by um the president of the council um and is
basically the the crucial importance of long range planning the crucial importance of critical conversations real conversations about our future and from a fiscal perspective both related to the region um and the town's budgets
that's four towns not one and of course our elementary school and the challenge we face there as well so we'll talk about this later this evening but I'm very hopeful that we can begin to see a way to begin those two immediate
conversations with the relevant stakeholders present and with real information and real commitment to working towards a longterm fiscal plan yeartoear
final uh thought is actually a question in response to Paul's presentation where he asked us "Okay counselors you have all these goals you have all these initiatives give me some idea what your priorities are give me some idea of what uh you might be willing to forego or
what you might be willing to um put to the side for the moment." Um that's a very fair question it's just very difficult to answer it at least in this setting um I might have thoughts about one thing lynn might have thoughts about something else pam something else will be all over the place but I do wonder
it's just a question if there's a way that we in some other setting can have that conversation and if we can offer any kind of helpful advice to Paul or helpful guidance to him um as he goes through this difficult process of trying to bring our fiscal realities in line
with our our desires um so he raised that question in his presentation um I thought long and hard about it during this meeting and everything I thought of I thought well I could think of five other things but um it's something I think we should think about at some point and see if we can offer him any
kind of guidance there councelor Rocker uh thank you Lynn um so I'm just thinking about what some of our options are to address the the budget deficit um like including increasing funds for the
schools um and I think Mandy Joe talked about this but I think I agree that uh looking for an override at this time not only do I not think that our residents would support it but like I also wouldn't support it because our economy is not well people
are struggling we are already have extremely high taxes we are raising them for other reasons i don't think that we should be looking for an additional increase to support the town budget um but I'm also not in favor of freezing positions and moving monies in that way
um again I don't think that's a smart time when we're considering what's happening at a national level and I did still just want to push back on some of the comments from other counselors um in terms of exploring the option of using reserve funds um because I'm not sure
that that's how it works that if we pulled a million that we'd have to put a million back next year i don't actually think that that's how it works um and I don't know like do we need the a million to be put back next year um also I don't
think we're even talking about pulling 1 million um and I do see this as a transitional purpose to transition us into a period of more uh of a more stabilized leadership and to
mitigate some of the harm that is going to be caused to our residents um which I think is worth investing in and worth making changes to how we budget um because again like some of the leadership of the departments that are
at hand are a year or less than a year old um and so when we're talking about and thinking about long-term planning again we have to give these departments a chance to make long-term plans which they haven't had that opportunity because we had this exact same
conversation last year at this time and we had no superintendent and so it feels a little bit strange to be having this conversation again talking about wanting to make a long long-term plan but not giving the opportunities to do so for someone who is just stepping into those
kinds of positions um and so I I also don't know what the best solution is i'm not suggesting that dipping into the reserves is the solution but I think again that it is worth exploring as an option um because
and I think uh Paul mentioned earlier maybe a different word than conservative budgeting but our conservative budget budgeting has often yielded surpluses every year like we just certified a large surplus from our budget from last year um and so when we're talking about
the level of uncertainty that exists and having an opportunity to safeguard really important services and programs by utilizing less than a million dollars from a reserve fund that we can replace another year in another way I don't understand why there's so much
resistance to exploring that as an option not saying that that's the way we're going to go but I think this is a time where we need to have all of our options laid out on the table in front of us and what those impacts would be and so again I would like to see that uh explored as an option
um and I just we're talking about supporting some of our most vulnerable residents and I I just think that it's worth investing in we're talking about not the largest amount of money considering all of the other things that need investing in our town and we know that there are road repairs that
residents are uh often notifying us of that are in need and those monies can also come from these funds but we're not doing these things like we are not doing these things we are not going to pull our entire reserve fund next year to build a
fire station while I wish we could do that like it's really just not going to happen um and so I think that we can start exploring some options that might be unprecedented to figure out how we can support our residents councelor Ward um thank
you one I'm curious about the price difference we keep talking about um two schools to one but this is also a net zero building so we won't have the same heating costs of built two buildings that are over 50 years old um I believe
they have solar power and if I remember correctly there's also geothermal power so what does that cost you know in the future so this one time really crisis moment will look a little different perhaps in the future when we have these
other um things planned i also understand that to some or many the idea pulling from reserves sounds like an an audacity or like never ever um but I
don't we're not asking to do this year after year this doesn't feel like a repetitive moment i think we have more time to plan differently in the future and I hate to say this because this is gonna sound probably weird but I have to
say it but the idea of reserves also feels like a great privilege i was reading about LA is1 billion $1 billion in deficit because of their fires um so and I know town budgets is different i think reserves is a necessity and a
given but personally I was not born into any kind of wealth i've never been able to accumulate wealth i've worked so hard i've earned two master's degrees i come in early i stay late i don't take lunches i work weekends and um right now the job that I have for two years and
seven months closed abruptly and I've been searching but I remain unemployed and uninsured um I cannot afford my medication since December a really necessary and so I'm just speaking from my own personal part and it's not about me but
I also know that last time I worked in the schools 2020 just before the pandemic I worked there for 10 years about half of our students received free lunch so I know that many of our residents in this town many of my constituents also live this reality I'm not alone we live paycheck to paycheck
and and create or help us should we have a medical issue an automotive issue or lose our jobs how does that relate to the town i don't know but we don't have said reserves so I'm not asking for us to spend all if it's really 28 million and we have budget surpluses
uh each year for the past 5 years i still don't think and I know some of you will be like "Yes it's a big issue." but to take some money to meet this moment and then really be strategic um moving forward i'm committed to
finding other ways um I I graduated in Amoris i know many of my alumni some of them they have Emmy awards um somebody helped put the camera on Mars there is money out there i would love to I was talking to somebody about creating an
Ammeris High alumni fund that can help some of the capital issues at the schools so I just think we can really be creative and call on our community because Ammeris is an amazing town i'm really blessed to live here and I think
we need to think outside of the boxes about our schools DPW fire station library and and all the departments and I'm just really grateful that we are having this conversation but I also think I've never had the privilege of reserves i know it's a thing that many
people have like 401ks or whatever but also taking even 1% or 5% or 10% I think won't put us in such dire straits that we can't bounce back thank you thank you
Kathy Shane i just I wanted to emphasize something Lynn said about potentially using a small amount of reserves if it's one time that that was that was the issue because the it's not so much Alicia
replacing the reserves it's if we need it again next year to take another amount out and another amount and another out then there's nothing but if we were just using it one time and the easiest example is the three elementary schools going down to two that if we
said there's a bridge here of some extra money and I don't think we figured that out yet um and yes hollow we estimated the schools if we close Wildwood and lock it so it's not being
heated and that we're not running any lights the elementary school could save about a quarter of a million dollars in um electricity costs because of it being net zero because we're that one school
compared to what we're spending on wild with platfor but that's that's an if but that is a piece of money and that's an ongoing because the the school itself would be operating at less so that is a potentially smaller budget for the two
schools so as I said one person said "Are we closing Wildwood and locking the door and not heating it and not putting the lights on?" Because as soon as we heat it and put the lights on we don't save the Wildwood side so it's it's more
taking a piece of money out for one time for a one-time use rather than every year saying we've got expenses going up faster than our revenues and we're just we can't spend our way out of it um we um when I gave a talk recently for
district 1 I said the entire revenue increase for the town right now is projected at about three and a half million and health insurance took one and a half million of it so all the pieces of it are being squeezed by the fact that everything else all the
salaries all the step increases have to be scrunched in so the other I guess the last piece Paul I mean we we may not have done a very good job of explaining the surplus that was generated particularly the last year
one of it was borrowing early for the elementary school building and and we we didn't borrow early we borrowed appropriately and then we got caught in a bid a bidding a bid protest and so we didn't build it as fast so we were earning interest on some of that
borrowing so that not going to happen again you know it's unusual to have a pot of money that's earning interest so on the revenue side we had interest earnings that were higher and as I said earlier on the vacancy side we didn't spend a lot of money on health insurance
and on people because we had vacancies and if we can't count on that and that was on particularly on the town side on the town general revenue the schools spent their budgets so we've had these circumstances that if we're not talking about freezing positions that secures
those vacancies we can't count on that as ongoing money um we've been low on the expense side for two or three years in a row and there's a few departments that have generated that in if anyone wants to see it you can actually see it
in the end of the year the last few end of the year so Paul is asking us to make some tough decisions going forward there was the question Pat you asked about if we didn't do rental ren registration if we postponed it have we had not hired those
people don't hire the people does that help and I think that's where the inquiry that Paul is going to have to be doing to have the town budget come in at four you know that's just living within four because health insurance is eating up a big piece of it so those and not
and having us at the council not making a new demand in our goals that increases expenses in the town with no revenue source for it i mean we've got to be thinking of if it's new expense there needs to be revenue otherwise we we
continue do this so that's the only you know and so that's where um I know it's not a popular thing to to to talk about crest but we added a million dollar aart department and it's for a variety of reasons it's never cost us a million
dollars because it's had high turnover and vacancies for most of its history so it has generated some of our surpluses because we have got the positions but we haven't filled them continuously so it's it's looking at
where that's coming from people have to make we're going to have to be making some choices um and the the schools have already made some choices to come to us with the budgets that come to us and it's a question of how we find the
money and I think the regional we can find the money for 48 and on the elementary can we go to five as a transition amount and where would that money come from or some of the questions we're going to be wrestling with over
the next four to six weeks we have till the end of June to have a budget we'd rather have a budget at the end of May um or early June but we don't have a lot of time to make these
decisions thank you um we're going to conclude Paul i don't know that we've given you a lot of direction um but it's been a useful conversation uh we're going to take a 10-minute break and we're going to reconvene at
8:55 and uh take up where we left off on the 24th of March thank you please turn your video off and your voice off and turn them back on when you come back makes sense
maybe it's like Yeah I'm Okay thank you that sounds like a Please return to your seats as you return to your seat please turn your camera on
as you return to your seat please turn your camera on that way I know you're here councelor Lord okay thanks Holla that's fine that's Don't
worry and Bob Hegner just sat down and council atte Okay um All right as we concluded our meeting um at midnight or whatever on March 24th um actually it was March 25th when we concluded our
meeting okay um there was a motion on the table that motion is in the motion books uh it's in the uh motions now and it's um I'm going to have the uh town clerk
clerk of the town council excuse me please put it up on the screen that motion was made by councelor Hani it was seconded by councelor Ryan and um it is a motion to amend a larger
motion so the only motion on the table right now is the motion to amend okay is there any question as to where we are okay councelor Hanniki you have your hand
up i would like to withdraw the motion to amend um if it if the withdrawal is concurred by my seconder and then make a separate motion to amend all right the question on the table then to uh
councelor Ryan is do you agree to withdraw the motion to amend yes I do great councelor Hanaki thank you this is along the same lines as the other one but reflects some of the information and happenings that have happened between
the two meetings so I thought I would update essentially the motion so this is a motion i move to amend the proposal as follows excuse me i'm gonna ask the counselor the lurker to put it up on the screen she has it ready um so delete on
page two the third paragraph that begins distribute remaining funds to the Amoris Pelum Regional and replace it with the following prioritize a year-over-year increase of 4.81% for the Ammerst Pelum
Regional Assessment a year-over-year increase of 5% for the Ammerst elementary schools and a year-over-year increase of 4% for the library and distribute remaining funds between the town operating budget and capital budget
funds and then in parenthesis above 10% of the property tax revenue add the words a minimum of between allocate and 10% in the first bullet under capital budget on page two so that's highlighted there on page
sorry point of order athena could you put this on the shared screen i don't think it's showing up on our Thank you i'm so sorry no problem that was the second one I read um on page four which I think is still page
four maybe it's Yeah there it is um in the third paragraph under expense projections delete the proposed first sentence and insert the following sentence in its place given the current challenges facing our schools and libraries we recommend dividing up
increases to each area different for FY26 as indicated below on page four the last paragraph and last bullet which I think is now page five um delete the proposed addition and replace with the following prioritize a
year-over-year increase of 4.81% for the Ammerst Pelum Regional Assessment a year-over-year increase of 5% for the Amorest Elementary Schools and a year-over-year increase of 4% for the library distribute remaining funds
between the town operating budget and capital budget funds ensuring that the year-over-year increase to the town operating budget is no less than 3% and the property tax revenue allocation to the capital budget is no less than 10% and on page five in the first paragraph
under the capital budget add the words a minimum of between funding capital at and 10% does that need a second because I I'm sorry is there a second yes I second it okay councelor Hanaki would you like to speak to your motion
so last the one I withdrew was trying to move libraries into with the schools and the schools in terms of what operating sites would get the bulk of the increase um if there were any increases seems weird to talk about increases because we're talking
about projection not numbers that are different now but um we now know where the regional school committee budget brings us in um and the prior language would have left all of them potentially
going up 5% but the regional school at this point is requesting a 4.81 so I thought updating the language for the regional schools to the 4.81 made a lot of sense um my goal was to keep the library at the 4% that we had projected
before that they operated under when they voted their budget and to propose the 5% that Anna's proposal actually envisioned potentially getting up to um and then giving the town
manager the ability to um make decisions on where between the town's operating budget and the capital budget the funds would best be proposed for use um when we get a proposed budget um it is my
under the math I did to get here just so you know is if the municipal budget is at 3% year-over-year given all the other things in this this amendment um if the municipal is at a 3% year-over-year then the capital might be at 10.28 if I did
my math correctly and if the municipal is at a 3.5% year-over-year then the capital is at a 10.06 06 allocation so it's approximately either three or somewhere in the middle of those but um that at
this point I thought personally that I don't have enough information to say which one needs to get the bulk of that money whether it be the municipal operating or the capital line um but that maybe the
manager could use his expertise and decision-m to have the flexibility to make that decision when he presents the budget kathy I think I understand what you just did Mandy um so I just want to play it
back to um JCPC the capital planning committee uh met and Bob was at the meeting last week which I which I missed and there'll be another one this Friday but I think you know there's there is the capacity with what we're going to be
recommending to the town managers to stay at 10% around that um and that would So we're saying is if we were at 10% this year all the rest of it would go to the general to the town services
and you're saying that that would get you at a little over three three and a half you got to you got to 10.06 but if we were at 10 we're getting to a little bit over three and a half so you are if I did my math right so you
are three weeks away from when the general manager has to give us a budget saying try to with a maximum of three and a half could be lower than that if capital is judged to be higher
so we're squeezing the town budget am I I'm asking just is that is that what I'm understanding you're doing uh that is what this motion would do is be a little clearer although the proposed language that's on the floor
without this amendment puts the municipal at 3% right so you're saying three it could go up as with your math it could be as much as three and a halfish if capital is down at 10 so playing within those two
but it's not going to be at four at least with my math I don't see how the town could get to four unless capital goes below 10 so that's not it yeah I'm not capping it yeah so So that is so
that so that is my understanding of what this wording has done leaving some discretion to get as high as three and a half but but not not higher than that as you Okay I'll stop I'll stop trying to do to do that because I'll have to
quickly look at the math i'm just going to say that I think on the capital side that's possible this that's possible this year without sacrificing something major um based on some recommendations that were made a week ago um by the
capital commit the joint capital but those will be just recommendations to the town manager um not not the final say and I'll stop are there other questions or comments i
have one when you say year overyear what does that mean so that's from the current FY26 budget to what would be proposed in FY sorry the current FY25 budget to what would be proposed for FY26 so are you saying it
is to the base yes thank you George council Ryan so some of this I looks attractive to me but in a normal course of things we'd
send it to finance and they would look at it and we'd get more detail and we get a greater sense of what this actually means so help me understand why we should uh not do that and just uh go ahead and uh and just send this message
to the town manager even though we don't really know how this is going to impact the uh the operating budget of the town um maybe it'll be a little bit better than 3% maybe it won't um and uh so help
me understand why I should support this uh tonight as opposed to having it looked at which gets back to the deeper question of why we're doing this at the last minute but that's we'll get to that later so just tell me why why shouldn't this I mean there does seem to be some
unknowns here um and prudent way would be to get some answers but maybe you would say there aren't any answers and we're just going to have to Yeah I'll let you answer i'm sorry did you want to
address that Councelor Hani i'm happy to wait till after okay anna Anna I just I had some thoughts so I raised my hand um I think George to to kind of address what you're saying first it's April 7th so we're looking at a longer
time frame again for this to go to finance and then come back to the council because ultimately the council is the deciding body uh and there's nothing that would stop this from going to finance getting a full discussion and then someone just revert wanting to revert it back to what we're discussing
right now if finance proposed changing it so I think that for me this is because this is ultimately a council document and because it's April 7th we should be voting on it now for and that's kind of the primary reason uh however we also just heard from the town
manager earlier that we're not going to necessarily know all of those details that you're talking about uh until May I think was the was the phrasing that we got so I don't know that this would we would get any more concrete details
through referral and that it but I do know it would press this even more uh in terms of the timeline of the process kathy um Lynn your question uh prompted my
other other question where once I understood what's being proposed for the 5% for elementary going from four to five what we talked about before the break is if this was a one-time increase
on the base using a piece of stabilization money so the difference between four and 5% would the stabilization money which wouldn't I think that would mean that the town budget didn't have to go down below four
and so why was that not considered and I don't even know how I would word that in this multiple redlined document that we're looking at um because the hope is that the schools the two
schools compared to the three will be able to operate um at least less expensively than three operated at um and one-time money to go to four to five would would keep that
intention um and I know there's already starting to be some discussion of who will be in the new building you know in terms of staffing it and and you've asked for that Mandy you know to let's let's take a hard look at that um
and that that's just starting and as Alicia pointed out we've got a superintendent who hasn't even a year under her belt and she's trying to look at that picture and say "How do three go down to two without having thought about it for the last three or four years?"
You know but really trying to grapple with it so why not the four to five on elementary be pull out of one-time money or pull out of free cash anticipating free cash that we can re replenish free
cash at the end of the year end of the year meaning November so it's a question of of why just go straight up to five um Bob Hegner um correct me if I'm wrong but the
guidelines are just guidelines the manager can deviate from those guidelines without um in preparing the budget and then the town council votes on the budget is that correct correct so why are we doing this
i can answer that would you like me to answer that as the original sure do we want to set a precedent where we have a written and voted on document and then we have a discussion without a vote and we expect the town manager to do something differently than the voted
upon written document that we have previously approved as guidelines for me that sets an incredibly dangerous precedent no guidelines are not sorry no guidelines are not written in stone the town manager does have the freedom to craft the budget that he sees fit
however I think that if we start saying here are the written guidelines that we want you to use but then please use every single discussion that we have without taking a vote to shape your budget that's in my mind terrible territory to start going down so I would
like to see these guidelines formally changed as the formal document from the council that we again vote on uh and I don't I do not think the precedent of a discussion is being a being a ch a
changem factor is one that we should set uh thank you that I answered some of my question as well i was I was wondering um if in fact we were going to we could certainly just vote a list of items tonight um but I was really trying to
wonder where the process to get to a number stood um I'm just going to add as everyone else has talked about tonight where my comfort level lies um I would support the 4.8
i would not call it year up year upon year that I think I would like to change that i think this is a year where we could target 4.8 for the regional school and 5% for the elementary school i don't I don't want to see it listed
necessarily as year upon year um I would support use of um free cash because because uh the town manager and finance director are very conservative in their estimates um I can hopefully predict
that we might have some free cash i would be happy to use that rather than necessarily tapping into um capital reserves andy yeah I think I want to come back on um the question
of why the budget process is what it is and why this is really not the time to change guidelines because I think that there's an
underestimation of the complexity of putting together any budget and the town municipal budget in this case you know I've been watching this process for years and um town manager
um holds a series of what are also called budget hearings even though they're not formal hearings which are meetings with the department heads uh one- on-one to talk about what
their needs are what their goals are and uh then u giving a sense of what the increase that they have to work with is what they can do with the increase what they can't do because of the increase
that is being projected and that all gets written up into a very complex document that takes several months to write and edit and here we are on the eve of the completion of that process
which has been probably been going on at least since January when the original guidelines came out and you're suddenly asking that you go back and revisit the whole thing and so I think that uh the
reason that we put the guidelines in at the time of the year that we do which is not always convenient because every other year is an election year um and we don't wait for the new council to do it the reason we don't wait for the new
council to get the guidelines provided to the manager is that the manager does need that entire time to craft the budget so I think that we are doing if we pass any change to the guidelines at
this point a great disservice to the manager a great disservice to all of the staff who've worked with the manager in the manner that I described and um have just done something that um makes
us feel good but creates havoc for everybody else who has to deal with what we in respond to what we um are changing our guidelines at this late in the process so for that reason I am really
uncomfortable with this entire process other than um being able to come forward and state our concerns which I think we have adequately done already in the conversation that we've had the other
thing that um I want to just point out really quickly so I don't use more time is that um you think this year's problem i really think next year is going to be a much bigger problem and you got and we
need to start grappling with that reality that we are living in a period where recession is now becoming likely and uh we're in the midst of losing tremendous amounts of federal funds to
the state which is going to affect what the state can do for municipalities as well is what um our local grants are going to be so u I think that uh
we it this whole process is really um just pushing it down the road um as uh we accuse everybody else of doing we're doing it ourselves councelor Hani
thank you um to answer Kathy Shane's question about the potential for using stabilization for the four the increase from four or potential increase from four to 5% for the Amoris school district budget increase um that could
be addressed by adding sentences um after this amendment is addressed potentially in two of the five locations I think this is amendment the two that talk about the prioritization of what the percentages are Um there could be sentences added with a motion to amend
that say consider using stabilization for the increase to the Ammeris school district budget due to you know for one-time bridging to get to a consolidated school or something i don't know the language but it could be done by adding a sentence into the guidelines
councelor Ryan asked why now um this is a tough one for me because I myself am not sure whether all of these changes are the right things to do but as councelor Devongier said if we
want the manager to present a budget that frankly I believe he's trying to present tonight that matches 4.81% for the regional school district our guidelines need to say 4.81 81 for the regional school district because he has flat out stated that it is his job to
present a budget that meets the guidelines that we've passed and right now the guidelines we've passed are 4% for the regional school district so yeah we might need to amend the guidelines so that he can match them
if we want the regional school district assessment number in the budget he presents to be 4.81% 81% um and that's then where I get my I don't know what the right thing to do is because I don't know whether 5% for the
Ammerst Elementary School is the right number or not and I don't know whether 3 or 3 and a half% for the municipality or even 4% is the right number all I know is the Amorest Elementary School number can be raised after a budget is presented and the municipal budget can
be lowered but the municipal budget cannot be raised and so I'm trying to do this to get to something I'm potentially can vote for and I still don't know and I'm going to be honest I still don't know even if this passes whether I can um
because we are putting as Andy said the manager 9 days before he has to present a budget if we change that municipal number lower than four we're putting him in an awful position 9 days before he has to figure it out but if we want the regional school district number at 4.81
we should be telling him where he's pulling it from now not in a month we should because in a month when that that 4.81 4 to 4.8 one is 152,000 that's approximately three positions as
he said we should tell him now whether he's going to have to find those three positions not in May after he's proposed the budget um
so that to me is why now and why this late um because I got the feeling that this council wants to meet the regional school district's 4.81% year-over-year increase and we should put that in our
guidelines if we want to meet that Anna so what we're looking at with the school funding broadly is a systemic problem we know we're not alone in this all of the things that I've said before and everyone else has said uh we are not going to fix a systemic problem by not
adding these funds to the base if we ever want to get back to or go to next year the equal percentage increases we need to take this year to kind of level set right to get everybody to a point
where their needs are as close to being met as possible some folks that means bringing them up closer some folks that means bringing them down to the line right but we are not going to fix just threw my earring on the floor we are not going to fix this systemic problem by not adding this to the base and in my
mind not adding this to the base is very similar to using one-time funds we're going to be in the same boat next year looking at the same issue except I believe Auntie's right next year is going to be even harder for everyone and so we're going to be looking at even a
bigger gap um because the needs that we're talking about are more than the anticipated savings of going from three elementary schools to two uh as a reminder the elementary schools passed a budget that was 6% we're just trying to
get to five so I really don't believe and I think we'd be hardressed to say that that 2% that full 2% can be attributed to cost savings so it shouldn't be a one-time boost um I think we need to get to five and then look at
if that is the point where we should be using one-time funds for potential anticipated cost savings but if we don't add it to the base we're are we are not fixing I don't think we're fixing the problem no matter what we do but we're not getting closer to fixing the problem
if we don't add this to the base um and I think you know Andy talked about a couple things that if you if if we get to my next motion tonight that we will talk about uh with long-term planning but also Andy to your point about calendars this is something that BCG is
supposed to be doing as per their charge bcg is supposed to be doing coordinated budget calendars bcg is made up of the schools the library the council and respective staff so part of what I'm going to talk about in the next proposal and I'll mention it now is that we need
to be actually utilizing BCG for what they were supposed to do as per their charge and their ch and the charter which is to do a coordinated budget calendar and coordinated budget guidelines we have not been using BCG for that and I'd like to see that change
councelor Ryan so I'm still stumbling over the yearover-year part um the rest of this sounds somewhat like what I think I felt we were headed towards as a kind of consensus but just for the year and now we're hearing about
it being put into the base um it seems like the cart has once again be been put before the horse um apparently uh my colleagues know what the problem is and so they've already started to work towards a solution we don't actually
understand the problem um there's a whole host of factors here that we have not discussed um that need to be discussed um before we finally say this might be a sustainable path forward what am I talking about well I'm talking
about the use of of one-time monies by the schools uh for the last couple years during COVID what did that do to the budget i'm talking about um well-deserved salary increases that were negotiated um but when that happens it's
not that surprising to think well then maybe you're not going to be able to have as many people as you used to have because you're paying them more money that also needs to be part of the conversation so there's a conversation and I know this is something you're bringing later this evening and I think there's some hope that we'll get
somewhere with that but um you've already seemed to figure out what the problem is and the answer is more money to the schools that may be true um but I don't know that and I have a whole host of questions I'd like to have answered before I start saying "Well the solution
is to put even more money to the schools." What we're offering this year is a one-year uh bridge for the elementary school and a commitment by all parties we hope to actually sit down at the table and take a hard look at all the options and look at all the
questions and get some answers i remember over a year ago asking the uh the school people where was that ESSER money spent my understanding was it was spent on one-time operational expenses and it was close to $2 million i never got an answer i we asked what was the
impact of the salary increases to the budget we never got an answer um we need answers to those questions as part of the larger process of trying to find a sustainable fiscal plan it may very well lead to an increase to the base i don't
know but I'm not willing to do that now um without answers to those questions so I'm willing to support this if you take out year-over-year and make it a one-year commitment because it seems close I think to what we were to sort of headed towards uh maybe I'm wrong there
but I I really am troubled by this idea that this is now going to become part of the base because we already know what the problem is and the problem is just we have to give more money to the schools kathy uh well one observation I would like to
make is that the written guidelines say three for everyone we went to four when we found more money so these guidelines have always I mean the actual written ones way back in December said three because that's what we thought we had so they do change over time i just want to
but the the the limits change over time but the words in the guidelines never change if you went to last year's guidelines they changed before we reach final so the guideline document is you
know old uh you know by the time we get to March most years because we have a better idea of revenues in the next few periods but fortunately it's gone in the right direction last few years this year we were worried that health insurance was going to be even worse than it ended
up being it was going to go in the wrong direction that we couldn't even do three so what what I'm not sure of um is there was what I saw is a motion to refer the entire regional budget the
capital budget the assessment budget and the final 4.8 8 to finance i think people are comfortable with the 4.8 the five people are comfortable with the five do we need to change the guidelines to just say we're comfortable
with those numbers for Paul then to figure out how to get to the rest of the budget on where the money's going to come from for for that so that's that's what I'm grappling with if we all said we like 48 and we like five um and and
that sends us more it is more for schools we're not talking about five for the town and five for the library they're still down at four and I think the cap the capital budget as I said two weeks ago I think it could go down to 10
this year one time 10% and that frees up some money that could fund some of these two things without going into reserves it frees up some money it doesn't free up all the necessary money so I just so
between Mandy and Anna you know it's that's the message we're trying to do to put together a budget that has some bigger numbers in it starting with the regional that we're comfortable with that and Paul had indicated two weeks ago he was
comfortable with that so then since I can't see the document you had up on the screen I don't know how it's word worded that's got George alarmed that this commits us out into the future because our guidelines have always been just one year you know in terms of a percentage
increase fy26 is what we're talking about we're seem never to worry very much about FY27 28 and 29 which we should be worried a lot about so so Mandy it's just I don't know we whether we changed the wording in some
way that that's setting off alarm bells but it seems like the attempt here was to go to get 48 on the record and five on the record and then some some change in the capital or the town side that
allows that to happen and all I said is maybe we need reserves so the town could stay at four which has been where Paul has been trying to plan around four so it's my do we need to change the whole document question um as opposed to say
here are some things we would like to see as the council that's it kathy started down a path that I'm going to continue on every year we've had financial
guidelines i can remember at least two if not three occasions where financial guidelines have varied because the town manager took them and then conditions
changed kathy just pointed out the guidelines right now say 3% last year we added we took one of our budgets up to 6% four on the base and supposedly two
as a gift the guidelines didn't say that in addition to that the guidelines have never gone out and said year-over-year to me we need to stop trying to mess with the guidelines stick
with the conversation we had today and move on it trying to mess with a bunch of guidelines when we don't even have part or all of the answers doesn't get
anybody anywhere the conversation we had earlier is much more productive in terms of talking to the town manager so I'm very frustrated and
um just I can remember adding more crest positions in the middle of the budget season having the bud having the town manager go back and amend the budget i it the guidelines are some place to start with the budget is the
next step and at that point the finance committee takes the budget and uses all of the input we've given even in this conversation and they come back to us with a recommendation in addition to that this
begins to change the question as to whether or not each of the pieces of government get the same percent that is a much bigger conversation and I don't think the place to settle that is in the guidelines this
evening so that's where I stand anna I I'm going to go back to saying there is another motion on the floor so I will not make another motion but I will make a motion at some point to refer these to the finance committee
for take under advisement as they consider the budget mandy's hand is up before mine i'm sorry my hand was up first okay um thank you Athena for putting
this on the screen right above the red I'm going to read the sentence prioritize increasing the region Amoris regional assessment FY25 base to its full FY20 26 base to its full FY25 assessment amount prior to calculating the 3%
yearoveryear increase that's currently in the document the words yearover-year i'm struggling to see how that phrase is so problematic to people when it's currently in the document including the
part that we're prop that Anna has proposed to strike out in the sentence that is in red now the struck out part has to be distributed would result in more than a total five.5% yearover-year
increase no sorry the current language is distributed would result in a more than an additional 0.5% yearover-year increase to each major functional area it is the phrase we
use to refer to the 4% the 3 and 12% the 4.81% we use the phrase year overyear so I'm struggling to understand how that phrase has become so toxic tonight um okay fine the current budget
document also says as I just read does have that caveat for if it goes above 3% we've always had that and he came to us when it hit 3 and a half% and then he came to us when it hit 4% so to say that he's presented budgets not
in line with the budget guidelines because the budget was at 4% instead of 3% well still in line with the guidelines because that's what our guidelines currently say it doesn't say 4.8 for one four for another four for a different one if we
want him to present a budget that meets the regional school district assessment as they passed it we should be amending our guidelines or maybe passing a different motion that says "Hey ignore the guidelines." Maybe we could do that um
because otherwise he has our manager has flat out said he aims to present a budget that meets our guidelines and one p one functional area at 4% one functional area at 5% one functional area at 4.8 1% and one functional area
somewhere below 4% does not meet the guidelines andy yeah just um a year-over-year increase uh what it's really about is you know the question of what you're building next year's budget based
on and when we did it in the guidelines for this year it was because it was a document about what we're proposing for FY26 so knowing where we started the
FY25 made sense but why we're doing year-over-year um it it it's a discussion for next year's budget not for this year's budget that's why I'm not comfortable with having it in
there honor I Andy you say that but in the past we also have specified even if we have changed our vote on it we've specified whether or not we want something added as a to the base or as a gift um and so I I just in terms of one-time funds so I
do think that it's worth noting but what we're talking about here is isn't adding in new phrasing of year-over-year it's it's copying it up right and changing the number um so I'm I am also confused
about why we're stuck on the year-over-year part it shows up in seven places in the FY26 budget guidelines um in the sense of to calculate the blank year-over-year increase basically to calculate the increase this year over
last year's budget and if we want to change the phrasing we can but I don't I don't think that that's the part that I hope that's not the part we get stuck on because it's in there currently um one thing I do want to note George to your question I'm I'm not sure if what you're
suggesting is mismanagement of funds or or what it is um but one of the things that we heard in public comment today was you know the number of positions added to at least the region was somewhere between 8 and nine since that fiscal year 20 but also since that time
frame they've reduced 61 and that's just the region so I don't think that it's fair to say to accuse Esser funds of be being this major prop um I the part that's that I'm stuck on here is how strong people are fighting
the concept of revising our budget guidelines if the budget guidelines like you said have varied which I agree they have not we've been pretty clear in the budget guidelines in the past about what to do if we're clear in these ones about what to do if it goes if an increase goes over a certain amount um to
distribute evenly we've talked in the past about the the added gifts that we've done if we're saying that all we need to do to change our suggestions to the town manager is have a conversation I'm really stuck on why we have budget guidelines in the first place for me
these are an important document they talk about what the council wants to where the council feels the funds should be how the council feels funds should be distributed and what priorities we have for them in my mind this is the appropriate place to have the conversation and I'm still deeply
concerned and bothered that my colleagues you feel that we should just have this as a casual discussion um and again I think that sending it to finance does not help if people are concerned about timeline i I would question
whether a referral is actually helpful in terms of working to solve the problem that we're facing uh and then just reminding folks once more um that the these needs are not one time and that if
we are setting if we specify that these increases are not added to the base um we are just setting ourselves up for a deeper deeper deeper failure next year pam Rooney uh I hear you on the adding adding to
the base so our our previous discussion though was that um maybe they could maybe finance director and town manager could my comment in fact was um I would be willing to look at free cash at the
end of the year and use that toward the 5% for the schools it was not my intention to change the dis the the standard distribution of funding and that's where I've gotten a little hooked up on it um
so it was never I I totally understand there's a structural issue but it was not my intention to create a new basis going forward for the school budgets versus the town
budgets so so setting this as a 4.8 going year after year over year sets the expectation that that would be in fact the basis for next year and that we would it it's that's the way my little mind works
George so the referral is to finance and they have a month the month of May which is their most exciting month and they look forward to it every year um they can hardly wait for when it comes around um and they will have that time to hear
from the public to hear from anyone and they will go through this and have a discussion as they right so that's the purpose of the referral um I think the this whole idea of of altering these guidelines at this point the
point's already been made it's much too late in the process it's unfair to the participants who have gone through this process with a whole other set of guidelines in mind and the real objection is there's just so much we do not know and this is fixing something uh not in stone but fixing something in a
concrete way based on things we just don't understand don't know so I'm much more com I I like where this is headed but I I don't support the year-over-year I don't support that but that's something that finance can talk about um and so I'm I'm hoping that um we can
simply refer this um and let them uh talk about it and we can continue this discussion i think having this discussion has been in fact not just a you know a kind of fun thing to do it's actually not been a fun thing to do but it's an important thing to do and we owe that to councelor Devlin Goautier to
have this conversation but I do not I'm not comfortable with the way this language is at the moment also like to point out u this comment about the loss of of FTEEs i have a document that because getting information in this business has not been easy but this was
the uh document of June 24 2024 that lists the number of staff FTEEs at the regional uh school and in 2010 it was 327.99 and in 2024 it's
327.62 so again there may be something I don't understand that it can be clarified but as I was hearing some comments made earlier this evening and one just made now by a colleague I have this document in front of me and the numbers don't add up so there's just a lot we don't know a lot we need to
understand that's hopefully what this conversation we'll talk about later this evening if we get to it will be about but I am just not comfortable with this as it stands i would like to see it referred i'm going to uh skip over to Jennifer Tob who's not spoken yet okay
so I just I'm a little confused if we refer it to finance and they because then they'll have May to discuss it but don't we need to let the town manager to to give him guidance so as he's working on the budget in the next nine days he knows if
we want to see the regional school budget increase to 4.81% 81% and the elementary school to have an additional five to go up 5% i think we need to let him know that tonight and not refer it to finance i'm
going to be quite bold paul do you need additional guidance so this document is addressed to four parties in essence and three of them have submitted their budgets um and what they've requested
um I think this is yeah I I don't I don't think it's a useful exercise honestly um just I understand why the council might want to take a position like this but in terms of our work it won't make any difference in what we're doing
okay councelor Hani I have a question for Pam and George because you've said something that I have heard one way and I want to make sure I'm hearing it the right way so the 4% increase that is in the
projections that new number of 19 for the regional schools of 19591872 that's the 4% increase would become the base next year and what I've heard the two of you say is that a 4.81 81 which would be 152,000 above that
19744088 would not be the base you intend the base to still be 19591872 even if we pass an assessment of 19744088 because that's what I'm hearing you all say when you say the year-over-year should not become the
base that the 4.81 is not the new base that a four should be the base so I guess I'm confused and wanting clarification that from I both of you or either of you that what is the you know is the number we pass this year for each
of those no matter what that number is at this point is your intention that that number become what the FY27 budget year-over-year increase is based on or is some other number the number you
intend it to be when we talk about 4.81 is that the number you intend next year's budget conversations to start at if the 5% is passed do you intend that number to be the number started at or a different number because I'm I'm not
hearing I'm not understanding which one it is given some of the com comments that were made and I think that also has an effect on conversations we need to have too councelor Ryan did you want to respond
i think it's back again to the horse in the cart uh particularly with the elementary school I think the regional school is complicated because there's three other towns involved and um but yes the the the assumption is that the 4.81 the regional would become part of
the uh budget going forward um with the elementary school I don't know i just don't know i just and and I don't think anyone here knows um and that's my problem um the information the the the serious conversation never happened and
I'm not blaming anybody there's there's blame to go around but it didn't happen and so um that's where I'm I'm struggling with that um I think the regional is much more complicated um but the elementary is is something we have control over and we just need to have a
conversation a real one uh soon and it's going to take many months and what comes out of that I I have no idea what it's going to be um but if it's done honestly and if it's done thoroughly um I can support what comes out of it i mean we still have to figure out how to pay for
it but so that's my answer um Anna you have your hand up hold on i She addressed a question to me i'm sorry if I might if I might um I think it would be the expectation that Yes of course you raise the budget for
this year it becomes the new norm i didn't want that expectation that that we assume that it's 5% for the next year and so it's a it's a one you know we've all talked this is a one-time deal um in reality our costs are never going down
but I don't want to presume that we're going to do 5% next year that's why I didn't like the year pam are you saying are you starting to say I'm sorry Kathy are you starting to talk about I think she's talking about FY27 can Yes let her finish please kathy go
ahead okay Kathy I'm sorry you were saying something about FY27 yeah I think there's a confusion on whether we're talking about 26 which is the coming year or the year after that when people are looking at this wording thank you
that's what I'm I I think that's where the confusion is like is it forever more 5% 5% 5% okay um Anna so we do the budget guidelines every year we have done even splits for
ages that I'm sure Andy and Lynn will tell us how long but we've done those even splits for a very very long time but hypothetically that has been up for discussion every year the way that we do even percentages to each area that hypothetically has been able to be
shifted every year so it if if next year's draft budget guidelines whoever drafts them starts off at even and then we go from there that's what it is right uh in terms of the those increases so just to to answer your question like
year-over-year is not talking about the future it's talking about the number on which this is based um and so every year th that says nothing about how we do the budget next year in terms of those percentage increases which will be up to
the council again next year so um it does not it doesn't default back um I think if it needs to be rewarded then the original needs to be rewarded because this wording was in the original this is not something I added right andy you had your hand up
i did that just but you know I think the next year we're u as we do every year you're going to be going up or down from where you are now and that's really what this
conversation is about I think but saying it so that people disagree but wherever we end up now that's the point we start with next year And you know we we will
either increase or decrease next year from the amount that we have this year and we may have to decrease what I've been trying to say all along and so it's been a question where
we decrease from but in any event uh there probably is better language you can use than we did uh Because what we really were talking about is the base on which we were making an
increase for FY 26 and what we were saying the amount that we know we were trying to make this thing called make it all part of the appropriation that's
what the intent of that night was there's a motion on the table the motion is to amend the original guide the guidelines as they were presented anna oh I was about to call the question but if that's where you were going I will
avoid a second i don't maybe we don't even need to call the question the the uh motion that's on the table is um to amend as proposed by councelor Hanaki
does anybody need to review those amendments then I'm going to begin the vote honor Develin Gothier i councelor Ete I council Lyn Griezmer is a nay councelor
Hanaki i bob Haggner nay councelor Lord i pam Rooney no councelor Ryan no kathy Shane
no andy Steinberg no jennifer Tob yes councelor Walker yes pat D'Angelus no um the nos have it uh is
seven um four six in favor and seven opposed we're back to the original motion the original motion is the guidelines as presented by councelor
um I'm sorry by Anna and the only change that was approved in those guidelines was to reduce the capital from 10.5 to 10% okay that it wasn't the only There's a
whole lot of changes proposed in this document oh okay i was trying to amend those changes it's not just the the down to 10 it's You're right it's um 3% allocated to municipal and libraries and the remainder allocated to the regional
and elementary schools um right okay we are back to the original proposal that was in our packet last week um I mean on the 24th the only motion that was made
to change the original proposal was to change it from 10.5 to 10% on capital councelor Hanaki i'm sorry of George uh George Councelor Ryan
i would like to make a motion to refer this to the finance committee to have them uh consider it during their deliberations during the month of May is there a second to the motion second okay are there comments uh please
Council Ryan I think we've we've had a very thorough discussion u I think there's a fairly clear sense of the direction that uh we would like to see things go um but this particular document has a whole
host of moving parts and a whole host of unknowns and we're not going to settle that tonight um we've heard from the town manager he's been quite explicit um he has ears um he understands he's been listening um so I think the wisest move at this point so we can get to I think
what's a really important discussion which is thinking about how the conversation that needs to be had uh can beun can begin i would urge you to refer this uh to finance Kathy
I guess I'm I'm in favor of that um I just want to make it clear I was also in favor of 4.81 81 and five i I endorse those numbers and it's just I'm having uh it's partly because I'm uh I'm
actually five hours ahead of all of you so it is where where I am quite a bit later than where it is for you so it so I won't necessarily be clear but that
means I'm trying to read on a screen things that I understand what we're trying to do and and I haven't seen carefully the elementary school budget i think the next thing we've got on an action is to refer the entire regional
budget and all its pieces to finance and we meet on the 15th we can we can vote that one out and the regional as a piece and send it back to the council um that's what I'm understanding Lynn is sitting a few action our motions later
on yes that's a lotion later on tonight so I just um the way this one is written I have problems with i have less problems with the other one but the 4.8 and the five I very much think that's where we should be going so that's the
only comment I wanted to make about this councor Hanaki the manager has to finalize the entire town's budget in 9 days to get it to the printer so he can present it to us by May 1 our next meeting is on April 28th
I believe when it's already printed referring this proposed change essentially kills it it's the same as indefinitely tableabling it so we don't have to deal with it except then [Music]
um what does Paul follow what does the manager follow the current guidelines that the town council has passed 4% which is equal increases across all areas what does he do with the 4.81 that the regional school committee has asked it's certainly what I'll be asking and
where does that extra 152,000 come from we give him no guidance because a conversation that is this contentious and split in my opinion gives the manager no guidance i I'm not sure I I was
surprised Paul when you said you've got enough information because what you've heard from approximately half this council is across the board equal percentage increases and then you've heard from approximately half the council 4.81 and
five for others but no consensus on where to pull it where to pull it from and I don't know what I'd do with that i think we should vote as a council to give the manager guidance for
the next nine days i will be voting against referral and then I think we should make a decision on what Anna has proposed then instead of let it hang without giving then any concrete guidance to the
manager because frankly there isn't conversation here that has truly met a consensus of this council because you know what I'm not willing to reduce the library to three as Anna's the current proposal on the
floor is i am a a hard no on that i'm a hard no on five on the regional school committee because they only asked for 4.81 and so my vote tonight on the motion on the the nonreferral will be a
no but I need I I would like to endorse 4.81 81 to the region with an actual endorsement as to where the reduction in the budget should come from so I will vote no on referral
anna I want to take a moment to appreciate what councelor Hani did in bringing forward the amendments that she did to what I wrote one because we
always work better when we work with each other instead of and and Mandy met the that moment by coming forward with how can I get to yes instead of here's all the reasons why I'm a no which is
what I heard from a lot of you and I'm got to admit I'm a little disappointed more motions to amend weren't brought forward i also want to appreciate Kathy for um for working with me on the early iterations of this and helping me to
come up with some of the language um I won't blame all of it on you Kathy but you did help me significantly with coming up with parts of it and so I'm grateful for that it's a shame that we couldn't continue this
discussion with more amendments to get to yes because Mandy is absolutely correct referring this to finance is in essence killing it and it is a copout on voting on it so I'm pretty disappointed that
uh that this may get referred because there's no point honestly there's no point in referring it it's too late in the process to go through a referral and then to come back and I similarly Mandy articulated it probably better than my like little crawling
script on the side of my page will say but I am not sure how tonight gives any sort of direction when you have a council that split 6 seven on those amendments I'm very unclear on how that is supposed to be taken and where we're
supposed to go and I think we so rarely uh are clear in these discussions because they're discussions they're not votes that's why we go to a vote so uh I will I will share that I will be disappointed if the town manager takes away strongly the the no vote and goes
with that because there was more nuance but mostly I'm I'm disappointed and I think it's a shame that the effort to get to yes and that effort failed pam um I'd like to know if it would be
appropriate to make a motion to take a straw vote and the straw vote would be for 4.8% toward the regional budget up to 5% toward the elementary school budget
and flexibility there is a motion on the floor and we need to deal with that and if we want to make a motion it is appropriate to do so but let's finish up the motion that's on the floor so I would I I think I'd like to make the statement that I don't think there is a
you know half the room is not against the recommendations that were in the document that we discussed for an hour it was sort of the wording of it it was the it was the process of it um I am perfectly happy to stake a position for
the the town manager it's just that this this tool is not a good one councilor I'd like to second what has just been said um if we look at the vote it's 7667
however you want to slice it but in reality there is I think a clear consensus that 4.8 and five are what should go to um the schools
um so I I I don't think that there is smoke in the room i think there's a bit of clarity and that is clarity that the town manager can go with kathy um my comment is more on a catching me
by unawares where I don't get to see a document before it goes up on a screen and I can't have it in my hands to look at it makes me totally uneasy um Anna your first draft I got to see it before
we talked about it this time it was redlined in a major way so I don't know no which I understand why that happened so I don't understand why we can't just say 48 and five what Frecker just said i
don't understand why it has to be in the larger document and if you need me to switch my vote to say that's what I would like I can switch my vote but it it really um we're going in a circle right now and I don't quite understand
why because I'm not sure what the words were that others were objecting to because I I don't have it in my hand to really read it and think about it so I'm just going to say that because it is so late on my time i am not finding what
we're now doing very productive i was fine with 48 i was fine with five i was looking for a way of the town understanding where that that would lead the town i'd like to keep it the town at four so I I that's where I would like to
to end up not just the library at 4 and I was always for fine so that's where I and I have no way of a document at this time of night of saying well do I change a word here because I have to do the math i have to go and look at the amount of money we have to work with and figure
out where am I going to get the money from we can't have an unbalanced budget it has to come from somewhere so I think where Mandy's wording the the one we just did I think there had to be cuts in
some town staff and not a single person here has said where those cuts should come from cuts layoffs or freezes where is it going to come from so no one said I I could see it coming
here or I could see it coming there um and Paul had told us that even at 4% it was going to be tough in terms of staffing so I don't know where to go with this other than say I think there is very strong support and I don't know
whether it's 13 of us for 48 and five for the schools and then we've got to figure out how to get there where is the money going to come from that's that's all my world is because I think the town can't necessarily live with four unless
we're willing to say where it should come from that's I and so my my no is because I can't even see the document to know where I would put that money where I would get the money from i'm not going to vote an unbalanced budget
that's it i have a direct question for Mr buckleman are you comfortable with 4.81% for the regional schools yes thank
you are you comfortable with 5% for the elementary school we don't know how we'd get there right exactly so we'd have to work so you have a clear sense of what you're working with and he's agreed to the
4.81% i'm not sure where the 5% is going to come from for the elementary school so I don't think we have to change anything we have a I'm going to get lambasted in the indie who because I
once said that I trusted Mr buckleman i trust him to make clear good supported budgetary decisions i appreciate the work of the uh finance committee and the thoughtfulness that
they bring the disagreements and the collaborations that they bring back to council so if we're going to vote on referring this I would vote yes to refer it but I don't think that we need to pass this because we've already heard from the town manager a very honest and
very clear assessment of the two quantities anna so I want to clarify that the um freezes and reductions that I initially proposed were still in that document mandy's
proposals were were to a uh a portion of the edits that I had proposed so I had made a number of proposed changes to the financial guidelines they were in the packet from our last meeting mandy proposed changes to those mandy's changes to the changes were not in the
packet and I agree that that does make this challenging but I just I wanted to be clear that those the the proposed reductions were not removed um or proposed freezes were not removed and I think what's what I'm struggling with is like is the idea if 4.8 and five
are what people are agreeing on i'm stuck i agree with you that not everyone I don't agree that that was consensus pat I hear you talking um but what I don't understand is for the folks that just spoke up and said I agree with four and a half or 4.8 and five I I wish and
it's the vote is done so unless people vote to reconsider based on new information uh I wish that you had proposed an amendment instead of voting no i wish you had said this is what I'm stuck on here's how we could change it instead of voting no because I I don't
think based on that discussion that everyone was okay with 4.81 981 and5 and this is not about not trusting Paul i trust Paul this isn't about not trusting Paul this is about being clear in our expectations and are written and voted on guidance and I don't think that it's
fair to Paul to write one thing and say another and then say another and so for me a vote is how we share our opinion and these guidelines are how we share our recommendations so that's those are just my thoughts i am not saying that
you distrust Paul yeah really not okay what I am saying is a large part of the community has come here and said that directly and that needs to be addressed as well councelor Hani so the motion on the floor is a motion
to refer i have no idea what it will accomplish because the guidelines that he has to put in his budget book will be the 4% across the board if we refer this because that's what the guidelines are and the budget book gets printed
before it comes back to finance to potentially change um I heard many people state that they don't want to change the guidelines at all yet then maybe say "But I'd be okay with not following the guidelines." So I don't
know what to take from that um I don't want to change them i want 4% across the board but I'd be okay with one going to 4.8 and one going to five that's not 4% across the board um if we don't refer we have to vote the proposed changes that are on the floor which I know I can't
support because it lowers the library to three and my intended motion that was failed seven people voted against was 4.8 5% four for the library and whatever remains either to the town or capital
um we're looking at the projections here we don't propose the budget it's still going Paul's been very clear there are cuts coming and there are FTE losses coming even at 4% let alone if we go up to 4.81 for the region that's an extra
three FTE cuts coming and we'll know in May what those look like um but it's potentially another three i'm not sure how one of our counselors expects us to decide where those three are coming now that's not our job our job is to comment
on it when it comes and to say are those extra 3 FTE okay because we want to go up to 4.8% at this point um I don't know Paul might be okay with 4.81 as he just said Pat but I don't know where it's coming from because we
haven't told him where to take it from that's the point of amending the guidelines none of us even have consensus on what line he should reduce that's why we should be amending the guidelines pam I think part of my issue is that in
preparation for tonight's meeting yeah I should have I should have remembered that we were going and I looked you know it was on the agenda that we were going to be discussing this in detail however it was not in our packet and so if I if I had thought to
go back to a previous week's um meeting packet to look at all of the recommendations I think my initial reaction was I'm not sure I want to I I am very appreciative of the fact that this conversation opened up again
because I think we had we had come up short of addressing school needs so the conversation has been good the details of exactly where something was going to happen i frankly
w was not in agreement with all of the recommendations so it would have been a peacemeal peace meal peacemeal conversation about each and every one of Anna's recommendations to get to a bottom line i would rather put my trust in the
capabilities of the town management in this case to take the and I would like a straw vote um to take the consensus of budgets to target for the
town and let them come back with their own recommendations of where those dollars are going to come from i I in in this case do not need to necessarily direct that
george Council Ren call a question okay the question's been called it does not require a second we move immediately to the vote on calling the question that requires 2/3 um
Lynn is the vote on whether to call the question the vote we're about to have yes the vote is whether to call the question okay and then once we determine that we go from there all right this is the vote
to call the question i'm going to begin with councelor ete I lyn Griezmer's I councelor Hanaki hi bob Hegner hi councelor Lord hi
bam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi kathy Shane yes andy Steinberg yes jennifer Tob yes alicia Walker yes pat D'Angelus hi honor Delin Gothier hi it's unanimous
we move immediately to the question the question is um the motion can I have the Athena would you please read the motion to refer the proposed amendments to the finance committee [Music] um and it there was no date to come back
and it was for consideration during budget discussions yes i'm sorry George why don't you repeat your motion just that they refer to finance um uh during during the month of May during their uh discussions uh on the budget okay that's
the motion that's on the floor that's the one we're now voting on we'll begin the motion in this case with um Lynn Griezmer it's I'm an I councelor Hani no
uh Bob Haggner I councelor Lord nay Pam Rooney yes george Ryan hi kathy Shane no andy Steinberg yes jennifer Tob
um no councelor Walker no pat D'Angelus hi anna Delin Gothier no councelor Rete hi two
seven in favor and six opposed [Music] um Pam Rooney I would like to take a straw vote can you just make a motion i make a motion that
the that the council um recommend to the town manager that the target budget for the for the regional school is a budget of 4.8%
increase 4.81 81 thank you increase from the from the um and that the the elementary school budget be up to 5% second
okay so a motion's been made and seconded to ask the town manager to uh come go forward with 4.8% 8% for the region and 5% for the elementary school uh would you like to speak to the motion
Pam no thank you okay Councelor Hani point of point of order yes i believe it was up to 5% up to 5% thank you Councelor Hani where's it coming from
it can also be come from um reserves councelor ete the danger of this straw pole is it's not a straw pole it's a motion motion it was termed a straw pole um but the danger of this motion is that if it
fails then we actually do not have anything to give the town manager as the basis for where he should move forward to pam you still have your hand up george so hopefully it won't fail
andy hopefully hopefully it won't fail i guess the um response to the question of um how does the manager know where it comes from or how do we know where it comes from that's we're asking manager
to make a suggestion c uh Anna to answer Council Arte's question it leaves him with only one guiding document which is the budget guidelines which has the equal percentage increases of four this gives him a secondary one councelor Hani
so those two numbers together are $421,830 our current budget guidelines do not reduce our capital spending from 10.5 to 10 that means that is a loss of if the only other place it's coming from would be essentially forcing the manager to reduce the municipal side of the
operating budget that's $421,830 less than the 4% in the guidelines to the municipal operating budget which takes the municipal operating budget um down to approximately a
year-over-year increase of um 2.51% kathy Pam would you take a friendly amendment which would say and reduce the capital budget to 10% to close the gap that Mandy just
identified pam you amendment who was the second second kathish okay i All right um councelor Haniki you have your hand up so now we're just debating the
exact same thing we debated for the last hour but outside of the budget guidelines why did we not do it in the budget guidelines and why did we refer the budget guidelines if this is where we stand after we just voted these exact
amendments down in the budget guidelines okay there's a motion on the floor the motion's been made and seconded it's been amend amended so that it basically says 4.81 to the region 5% to the elementary schools although it
does not specify up to 5% and reduce capital by uh from 10.5 to 10 is there any further question or comment councelor Hanaki so as I said in the prior
discussion I wasn't sure even if my motion to amend on that one had passed that I could vote for this because of capital down to 10% i've got a real problem with telling the manager and asking the manager to reduce the capital to 10% from 10 12% um because we have
extreme amounts of capital need including our roads and sidewalks as one person I think it was a counselor today said the two things that we should be putting money to were schools that that we hear from the residents are schools and capital and roads and now we're
going to reduce one of them i I'm not at this point leave the guidelines the way they are and just wait till the budgets proposed on May 1 and then deal with what we need to deal with there i personally wished that we would have
just stayed with the 4.8 and and the up to five and let the town manager figure the rest out um so I'm I'm really caught the motion's been made it's been seconded kathy you have a comment yeah if if this
kills agreeing on those two Mandy challenged it on finding the money and I agree that we have to find the money to do this so I can't have it both ways Mandy if I can find the money in capital you found the money in the original piece too but
I'll take that out if we could get to yes on the 48 and the five that's all I'm trying to do is to get to yes on 48 and five i appreciate that pam it's your motion i retract the 10% or the uh the capital comment kathy you
were No Jennifer you were the second uh yes i want to get to the same as Kathy but I thought that did the manager suggest a reduction to split the difference i saw somewhere 10.25 that was my proposal
right all right so the motion now on the floor is to uh fund the regional schools at 4.81% and the elementary schools up to 5% is there any further question or
comment bring the motion to a vote run out of space um can we see the language on the screen sure to recommend to the town manager a regional school increase of 4.81% and an
elementary school increase of 5% okay up to five to up to 5% i keep forgetting that i'm sorry okay we begin the vote councelor Hanaki how about I come back to you
no bob Haggner i councelor Lord i pam Rooney yes uh councelor Ryan no kathy Shane yes andy Steinberg yes
jennifer Tob yes councelor Walker yes pat D'Angelus no anna Delin Gothier yes councelor Ete yes and Lynn Griezmer is a yes and that
is 10 in favor three opposed the motion passed i know that we are supposed to take up the next item because it was on the previous agenda and this is the
item on the proposed FIS fiscal stabilization and planning task force anna this is your item would you mind if we actually do three other items quickly um the only thing is we do have the chair of the regional school committee
here who is a co-sponsor of this so I don't want to if we're talking about the regional budget I think that's fine but then if we could do it maybe after that so that she doesn't have to stay the whole meeting unless you're planning to kathy I just um want to apologize to everyone
but I think I've reached my limit of my stamina and it is uh it's uh it's 4:00 almost 4:00 in the morning here so I am going to say good night to everybody good
night thanks Kathy all right here's the motion it's in accordance with section 5.5A of the Ammerst home rural charter to refer the Emeris Pelum Regional School District annual operating and capital budgets and assessment method
submitted by the town manager and recommended by the Ammeris Palum Regional School District Committee for FY for fiscal year 2026 to the finance committee to hold a public hearing and to make a recommendation to the town council by April 28th 2025 five is there
a second i'll second thank you there is a whole memo in your packet about this are there questions cath U councelor Han Hanaki i will save some of my more specific
questions about the budget itself for finance um but I have two questions that relate to this referral itself um well one one that is um to the manager which is is this the financial order that we're going to see at the 4.8 at at the
assessment the school committee voted uh because we don't have the financial order yet and if so um since you've said you can meet it where do you plan on reducing the budget i'm referring to the pro projected budget lines so I'm not
looking for specifics other than is the additional 152 coming from the town municipal operating is it coming from capital where at this point are you planning on finding reducing the budget on the 152 that's question number one um and
question number two is I'm confused a bit as to why the proposal is for an April 28th return date and hearing and a vote on April 28th um why we're doing it without connection to the rest of the
municipal budget um particularly because the operating side because one of the town meetings is in late May and so if it I know it needs only three towns to pass it but we can still be one of the first three to vote on it even if we
vote in May not in April when we'll have seen the full municipal budget presentation and know all of the consequences of it so I don't quite understand why there is a push to have us do this in exactly essentially two
meetings with one finance committee meeting in between and vote on the same night as the budget hearing itself without knowing the rest of the budget and prior to the May budget presentation as a whole um that can be changed it was
a suggestion that often we decide we're going to go first sometimes we wait and go last that's my only question on that one so if people want to change the date that's fine um I personally I think it's a nice
it's a good signal for us to send are there any other questions or comments Paul yeah so um I've not determined the source of the funds um at this point in time okay will that be determined by the time finance talks and at its next
meeting about this budget i hope so that's the 15th is when the next finance committee meeting is okay um Okay the motion's on the floor the motion's been made and seconded it's
referral to the finance committee and it's regarding all of the moving parts of the regional budget any other further questions seeing none uh we're going to move to a Oh and it does have it coming
back on the 28th that could be changed if somebody wants to change it is there an amendment the council can't vote till the finance committee's made a recommendation right under the charter if you don't come back with a recommendation by the 28th then
we can't have a hearing and then we can't vote that's fine okay um I Bob Haggner are we at you hi councelor Lord hi pam Rooney yes
councelor Ryan hi kathy Shane oh she's now absent i'm sorry uh Andy Steinberg yes jennifer Tob yes councelor Walker yes patanggeles hi
anna Delin Gothier hi sorry councelor Ete I lyn Griezmer i councelor Hannick i it's unanimous with 12 present and one absent um I I I just want to call attention to the
fact that we do have to vote the university drive overlay tonight it is no wiggle room on that one left um so I'm going to go ahead and make that motion to amend the zoning map to add the University Drive overlay
district consisting of three those parcels zoned limited business in PNBL and Office Park OP in PNS along the east and west sides of univers University Drive between Northampton Road Route 9
in Parn and Amity Street as shown on page 15 of the motion sheet to amend article 2 section 2.0 subsection 2.04 special districts of the zoning bylaw by adding the language to bold
italics on page 10 of the motion sheet and further to insert a new article 17 University Drive overlay district in the zoning bylaw as shown on pages 10 to 14 of the motion is there a second second
D'Angelus okay are there any other questions or comments a point of clarification for our clerk yes are those still the correct page numbers on our motion sheet okay sorry the answer is yes okay thank you i
appreciate that clarity um Okay the motion's been made and second bob Hegner i have a concern about this um and it's different than the concern I raised at the last meeting but uh we got a note from Gus Johnson on Friday 44 and
he said in his note that uh as we are long-term owners of our real estate we do believe that it is it is important given the constantly changing face of retail that we have flexibility in the future to add a mixeduse component if
for some unforeseen reason we sustain any large static vacancy now this to me means that the Big Y shopping plaza is not protected unlike what we were told at the last meeting so I am totally
opposed to this until we get clarification on this okay Jennifer so it's what the big why that parcel is part of the overlay district it's just
saying that they can build mixed use above but that a 100% of the ground floor has to remain commercial with the exception of you know an entrance to the residential upstairs or a mail room but so it is protecting the
retail that that's how the he may not that's not what that's not how I read that no that that is how we that's how the well that's how the planning board and the CRC right wrote
it and that that's how it does it it reads that I I think what the owner was saying is he might not want it to be always have to be the ground floor to be commercial but that's how it's written
but his and that parcel is included in the overlay district and it can be mixed use upstairs but but it is protected in it in the other parts of the overlay district not that parcel 100% of the ground floor doesn't have to be
commercial but it does there right but again suppose he wants to put housing right by the street by University Drive in the parking lot what's currently the parking lot are they prevented from doing that they would still have to meet all the zoning
requirements of the overlay district and the underlying district for parking and everything thanks okay u Pat oh I'm sorry Jennifer okay um he's talk what he's talking about is
there's the potential to do residences above it the big Y has a 20-year lease and since I'm going to be dead in 20 years it doesn't bother me that he wants to go ahead and do that it really is not endangering big wide which is a critical
food source for people here in our town right i wouldn't vote for it if it were i mean it Lynn Nate could be Nate Mallaloy is here if there are questions um Oh okay nate we must have gotten you
out of bed um hi hi Nate good evening um Nate would you like to chime in on this sure so for the parcels that are named uh you know around you know south of the
post office essentially on the you know western side of University Drive 100% of the ground floor needs to be non-residential space you know up to 15% for incidental spaces that can accommodate the upper floors like a stairwell or mail room or you know
utility closet or something but in the in so you know the the big Y property or other properties if it's a big property and they want to put a building in it has to be a mixeduse building the overlay only applies to mixeduse buildings so if they wanted to do some other building allowed in the underlying zoning they could do that but if they
were proposing a mixeduse building they would need to meet those standards whether or not it was in front of big Y or somewhere else so it have to be 100% groundf flooror non-residential space thank you Nate i didn't realize that you were sitting there waiting for us oh
yeah i was listening on my I was live streaming and there's a lag from the live stream to the real time that's why it took you two minutes to get on the thing we really want to thank you for coming in thank you so much uh Andy you have your hand up yeah um I was uh
uncertain about what the meaning of that email that we received was too because I think it also could be read that I really am committed to the
business that I'm in which is a retail uh plaza with a big uh anchor of a grocery store but this is a long time and I'd like it if uh well I don't
necessarily want it to happen if Big Y decided it no longer wanted to operate a grocery store there and no one else came in and it was an empty space that I would like the freedom um I think that
we're in a um very weak position because there's a lot of things he could read into that um email and he's not present to um provide answers to us to uh give more
clarification okay are there any other questions or comments okay the motion's been made in a second we're going to move to the vote we're going to begin the uh vote with councelor Lord i Pam Rooney yes
councelor Ryan hi kathy Shane i'm sorry poor Kathy um uh Andy Steinberg hi jennifer Tob yes
alicia Walker yes patanggeles hi anna Delin Gothier hi councelor Rete hi lynn Gremson i councelor Hannik hi bob Hegner no okay it is 11 in favor one opposed and one
absent it passes nate thank you for joining us and thanks for all your work on getting this through i have been informed by um councelor by Anna Devon Gothier that
she and um the regional chair of our school committee who has sat here patiently all night have agreed that we can move item um I'll find it uh F to the
28th and we want to thank Thank you both for that consideration and we'll move it to the 28th um I'm sorry yeah okay we have two more motions
um let me see if I can just find them okay uh the first one is appropriation and transfer order FY uh 26-07A motion is in accordance with
chapter charter section 5.6 6 having been published on the town bulletin board for a minimum of 10 days on March 26th 2025 a public form held on April 7th 2025 and having been reviewed by the finance committee with a report on April
7th 2025 to adopt council order FY26-07A an order appropriating the FY2026 Community Preservation Act budget as shown on page eight of the motion sheet is there a second second is there any question or
comment seeing none we're moving to a vote uh in this case uh Pamy yes uh Councelor Ryan I got the Shane is absent i got it thank you uh Andy
Steinberg yes and Jennifer Tob yes councelor Walker yes paty Angelus hi anna Delin Gothier hi councelor Ete I lyn Gremer is an I councelor Hani I bob
Hegner I councelor Lord I it's unanimous with one absent uh the next motion in accordance with charter sections 5.6 6 having been published on the town bulletin board for a minimum of 10 days on March 26 2025 a public forum held on
April 7th 2025 and having been re viewed by the finance committee with a report on April 7 2025 to adopt council order FY25-05G an order appropriating funds for consulting services for the charter
review committee as shown on page nine of the motion sheet is there a second second second Hannaki any questions or comments seeing none we'll move to a vote uh George Ryan councelor Ryan i
kathy Shane is absent um Andy Steinberg I jennifer Tub yes councelor Walker yes patel hi anna Delin Gothier I councelor Ete I and Grace Merson I councelor
Hannick I bob Hegner I councelor Lord hi pam Bernie yes it's unanimous with one absent that concludes our action items for No it doesn't i'm sorry later on we still have to do minutes
later on huh we moved it to the 28th yes okay i have a question yes um there was a motion that I had put on that was on the agenda at the last meeting that was move that had been delayed because we adjourned
that is not on the motion sheet um it was the uh I mean I can make it now but u it was the motion to request information from the um it was request information from the superintendent regarding the estimated cost savings i
can read out the full motion but it was not on this we I I apologize for not catching it i apologize for not including it um can we have it as a request it's truly just a request for information if I can
make the motion now I'm happy to do it it's very simple uh Athena can we go ahead we can go ahead and do that right it was part of what was it was what yes it was what was on the agenda i just
missed taking this thank you um Anna please go ahead uh so I move in accordance with charter sections 2.8D and B to request information from the superintendent of schools and the elementary school building committee regarding estimated cost savings from the consolidation of Fort River and
Wildwood elementary schools second are there any questions would you like to speak to the motion i think we've talked a lot about this but essentially it's become very clear that this information would help us in making our budgetary decisions as
well as if we're looking at any potential one-time gifts of funding uh we need this number to know where to get to um with that with such a gift so um we can't have these conversations without the information so I'm moving to
request the information okay no other questions or comments i'm sorry Council Rete i was just wondering if there's a time requirement to get in that information a really good point uh there is not
currently one would you like to add one i don't know what seems reasonable may 1st may 1st well no can we do it before that so that we can talk about it at our meeting no may 1st is fine may 1st may 1st and I
agree with that okay so can I sorry am I allowed to add to that motion um uh regarding cost savings with a request to hear back by May 1st and I agree with that is there any other
question or comment um okay if that information is presented to the council on the 5th yes that's when your meeting is but if they get it to you by the first it could go in the packet yep got it thanks Athena okay we're going to move to a vote and
in this case uh Kathy Shane who's absent is next but we're going to Andy Steinberg yes uh Jennifer Tob yes alicia Walker yes patangels hi anna Dewin Gothier hi councelor I L Grie I
councelor Hannick hi Bob Hegner hi Councelor Lord hi Pam Rooney yes George Ryan i It's unanimous with one absent thank you for catching that we are done with the
motions uh there's no appointments we're on to committee reports uh budget coordinating group has not met crc Pam Rooney thank you uh we have continued discussing solar bylaw and making preparations for interviews and uh
interviewing applicants for zoning board of appeals and planning board in that light I um had put in the packet tonight the interview questions for ZBA and for planning board and would like feedback
from you all if you have any suggestions by Wednesday night to me please okay and we will we will incorporate and discuss that at our next meeting which is Thursday
at 3:00 at 3:00 thank you uh councelor Hani you have your hand up yeah it's a question on budget coordinating group yeah um as you are chair when is the next meeting going to be called to deal with some of the things that um
councelor Devon Gothier has talked about including working on a joint budget schedule for next year and joint budget guidelines and stuff in the charter i have not set a meeting date but I heard that loud and clear okay
um elementary school building committee uh Alicia did or Paul anything there um we are meeting this week on Friday i don't know if that is a helpful update but there should be probably more updates at our next council meeting and
if you drive by the school site you can actually see scaffolding it's exciting anything else on that one Paul okay uh finance committee Bob Hegner uh nothing to report that's not in the
report that we also okay provided g Anna G will be meeting tomorrow um and we are going to be talking continuing our talk oh my god it faded early tonight y'all it went around like 9:30 the word connection to the brain uh go
will be continuing conversation on the AH successor body charge um at our meeting tomorrow we have reviewed the comments received by counselors um in the past and so if you have any other
comments get them to me now um and then similar to what Pam shared about CRC go is going through the vacancy filling process for charter review and um the resident member on FINCOM um we will have the interview questions for you to
review and send feedback on at uh our next meeting but we have approved those vacancy postings so please encourage folks to submit um community activity forms for those councelor Hani sorry I'm like also operating a couple of
committees behind it's okay i apologize um the planning board sta the staff to the planning board reported at I believe last week's planning board meeting that there has been a resignation of a
planning board member yet the council has not received any formal resignation as far as I know because it hasn't come through our email i've not seen that was quite a surprise to hear that report because don't we have to get a formal resignation for it to be in effect yes
no no oh it has to go to the town clerk i'm not sure if it went to the town clerk it has to go to the town clerk and the appointing authority which is the town council i've not seen it we will follow up on it follow Yeah who should be following up on that okay thank you for bringing that to our attention and
even if it was two committees earlier not to worry um on just one other thing on G we either need to just reaffirm and let people go for their liaison assignments or we need to do that one oh great yeah
go will also start discussing liaison appointments uh as soon as possible not tomorrow because the agenda is already done but Yep thank you got it jcpc uh who's going to do that one Bob i I'll report on neither the chair or the vice chair but neither one is present um we
met last week and we went through all of the um requests and came up with a pretty good list of changes that put us I think within 200k of the 10.5%
um but one of the one of the um members of the committee raised some issues about the cost of the fire and police radio system as well as how frequently they they replace
um vehicles versus the school so we've asked the police chief and the fire chief to come to the next meeting which is on Friday just to explain that but we're very close to a recommendation to the town manager okay good um at this
point I have that scheduled for the 28th it's not a voting item for the council it's just a a report uh Jones Library Building Committee anything okay town services well for the
record there has not been a meeting okay thank you uh town services and outreach andy uh at our last meeting we uh spent the entire time reviewing the uh
transportation and parking commission and uh the uh council policy on public ways and the changes that we would recommend um and
it's now in a draft drafting stage once it's done with drafting then it'll be um we'll report it in full to the council but we will be considering it out for comment um broadly and uh then
um so it's not going to yet be a recommendation to the council but it'll be a report to the council um and I guess the other thing is that we are going to try and work um
with the uh district 2 counselors about what to do with Heather Stone and we have good news for you we are going to schedule a District 2 meeting that uh Guilford Moring has agreed to be at
for May 1st at 6:30 would that help you yes thank you thanks i'm glad we could come to rapid conclusion on that one uh liaison reports anybody
okay i'm going to make a motion for the minutes to approve the following town council meeting minutes as presented march 24 2025 is there a second second and we're any other questions comments corrections
changes seeing none we're going to move to a vote comment excuse me point of order i never saw the meeting minutes in the packet i still don't see them in the packet if they're not in the packet we're not going to vote
okay thank you we're not going to vote we will vote on that one on the uh 28th okay uh Paul I believe you're next yeah just two things one is um you've already heard compliments on the global village which I was unable to attend but it was
people just far and wide really appreciated the work that the DEI department and other staff put into it um it was really just by all accounts really spectacular um and also on this the next day many of the same staff were doing the rubbish roundup which are
annual cleanup and just want to thank counselors Ryan Tom and Etay for being team captains at various locations in the town we had two over 200 people signed up i think probably over a hundred had actually showed up on a relatively rainy day but it cleared up
by then and just a huge thanks to our staff especially um Angela Mills and Sam Gifin and the business improvement district to chamber all and a lot of lot of students showed up um from UMass and Ammeris College so it was really a
terrific event lots of good stuff found okay are there questions of the count of the manager yes councelor Hani so in your manager report that was dated well technically dated today it was sent
to us yesterday the 6th and might have had a different actual date on the top and those matter which is why I'm making a thing on it i think it was actually dated the 5th Friday on on the actual couple of dates um within the Jones
library section you had um you stated that the um that the signed MOA for the concludes the section 106 consultation process and then you said these federal grants remain secure at least at this juncture
i am aware that there were a number of grant recipients of the NEH that on Friday received emails rescending awards and I'm curious that's why I said the dates matter um has the
town or the library received any notification up to tonight regarding the NE award not that I'm aware of jennifer so I did want to ask um since we're not
meeting on the 21st it's Patriots Day we don't meet until April 28th is it possible a construction contract could be signed before we meet yes so I find
that I find that problematic um so do is there any update as to uh if the contractor and sub have we heard that the bids have changed or uh bids have not changed our Bob parent has been working with the contractor there's no
contract uh that's been signed or actually I'm not sure if it's even been sent by to the contractor at this point in time um so I we received a uh fundraising I think
it was a funding project update that um the counselors I think were copied on a correspondence between the library director and a resident and my reading of the report of
the fundraising update was it said 80% of the funds have been secured um there's 6.9 million that needs to be raised which is a significant amount
that um from the community campaign it said 4.881 had been secured and I'm not sure I'd like some clarification about that how much of that are pledges versus actual funds money that's been secured i
I I think we all wonder um how pledges that were made before the stock market crash how many of those will be um reduced or people will actually you know have to withdraw their pledges so
there's $7 million yet to be raised we don't know how much of the 4.8 eight that's been raised from the community campaign is secure and the federal grants you know are secure at this juncture but a contract could be signed and we could then learn a week later
that they're not secure so I think that since it's going to be 3 weeks till we have another meeting that maybe we have a special meeting i I mean the idea that at the next meeting we could be told a contract's been signed and there's all this uncertainty about the
funding I I think that would not be responsible for us just to end this meeting and hope for the best um Council Ryan I'm not sure what's what's really being asked this is not an agenda item
um first of all and um so the town manager is very aware of all the concerns and he is empowered to make the
decision um and so at this point um it's in his hands if you wish to uh do something to take it out of his hands or to make some kind of uh but at this point um he is
the one who will make the decision in his best in his judgment as to what is best for the town as he said repeatedly over the m past many meetings um so repeating the same objections over and
over again is not moving us anywhere um so unless there's something specific or concrete you have in mind I see absolutely no purpose in us we our next meeting is the 28th of April that's been on the calendar for a long time um and
[Music] so Paul will make the decision based on the best information he has at the time he has to make a decision by the end of April that's also been known for some time and um we have given him and entrusted him with that
decision so u at this point the issues you've been raising you keep raising them over and over again um I don't see the point so if you have some something specific you wish to to do or ask you should do it um but at this stage as the
town manager has said um he will make the decision jennifer well it's not on the agenda so I um Right but so I would like So I I don't even know if I can make a motion that we need you can make
when we get to count to um future agenda items is the time to bring up something like this when we voted in December of 23 to um approve the increased borrowing
authorization we thought we had $2 million in historic tax credits and the Excuse me you thought you thought that okay well the council was in this is this is not the item is not on the
agenda not ours okay um the item is not on the agenda we are going to move to uh additional counselor comments um at this point are there any
further questions of the town manager based on his report or anything else okay then we're going to move there's no written president's report under future agenda items this is what I have for the 28th
um a call to order at 6:30 potentially a joint meeting with the finance committee for the purposes of having a hearing on the regional school budget unless a vote has not been made by the finance committee we need to hold a hearing before we vote that's right i'm sorry
unless the finance committee is not ready for the hearing at that time does that help thank you um under presentations and discussions I have a JCPC report again it's not a vote of the council it's recommendations to the town
manager um action items again if we do have a recom if we do have a hearing we can then vote on the regional school budgets budget and the other votes water and sewer rates potentially transportation and parking commission
perhaps uh Paulie Village and um appointments uh finance and charter review and then I just added um minutes from this from the meeting that we didn't on the 24th and proposed
fiscal stabilization and planning task force those are the items I have uh councelor I'm sorry Bob Hegner I would appreciate a discussion of the Jones Library financing i realize that
maybe you will have signed a contract by then in which case such a discussion would be moved but I think if if Mr bachelman hasn't signed a contract I think it would be helpful for us to weigh in on our concerns about the
budget and the risk to the town okay councelor Hani so I'll I'll play the counter to that um if a contract is not being signed instead of a contract on financing or a
a agenda item on financing I would like an agenda item on how to bring the building up to repair what's the plan okay Bob you still have your hand
up bob you still have your hand up bob you still had your hand up i'm sorry Anna yeah given the what is sure to be calm quiet and short conversations we're going to have at the next meeting I just
wanted to request that the item that we put off from this one go before that yes discussion i'm I'm moving that right up top of all action items much obliged how's that um and again thank you for accommodating
us tonight are there any other questions or comments from counselors there is no other topics there's no executive session i move uh I'm sorry councelor ete there was space for um councelor
comments yes so I just wanted to take a few moments to speak about recent events at UMass and um happenings in the country
um we just learned over the past week that five students had their visas revoked and this has left the international community reeling and I've gotten
opportunities to speak to a lot of the students and they have a lot on their plate it's hard enough leaving your country to come to um a foreign land um and you have to study and then added to that you have to think about if at any moment you're going to
be legal and so that has left a lot of them in distress um and so I just want to um say that I know that this is a welcoming town and that we as a town can
continue to be welcoming to them and continue to encourage the international students they bring a lot to the town we had the global village events and we could see the beauty that comes from people from all over the world being
here there were places that and people that I didn't know were here and just seeing that was I think a spectacular demonstration of why we enjoy having internationals here um and so we can continue to be a source of support i
don't know what um we can do as a council we may not need to do anything as a council but as individuals we have a lot that we could do by opening our arms and reminding um internationals that they are welcome
here um the extending that I do want to speak about the times that we're in and I want to speak without
alienating any significant portion of whoever might hear what I'm saying i think it is critical that we recognize that these are not normal times that might lead us to be in
despair and sometimes I do fall into that despair but I want to let us know that we can be encouraged and reminded of some core values that exist in this country we call the United
States of America um I have three things that come to mind and if you give me a few moments I'll talk about them i think the first thing I want to mention is that extremism cannot quench
extremism regardless of how one may feel about any ideology if you believe that ideology is extreme it doesn't warrant replacing one form of extremism with the other if you
think of the United States as a bus and the bus is going to a destination and it turns out that you're going in the wrong direction turning around and speeding recklessly is more dangerous than going slowly the point of being a political community
like the United States is that we have a destination but more important than the destination is the journey and we're all taking this journey together the second point I'd like to point out
is America will outlast any political party and it will outlast any ideology nobody here knows the weak party which was one of the major parties when America was formed nobody here is a
member of the Federalist Party which was one of the parties at the beginning of the republic regardless of what badge you carry history is going to wash away that party and that leads me to the third
point that any form of politics that relies on winners and losers is a lost cause and we all must resist a politics that sees winning and losing as most
important the history of America is a history of winners caucuses of winners people that have been forgotten causes that people raised up that over time have disappeared and what we've seen is that victory is never
complete and those that we thought were losers it turns out that losing is only partial and so I just want to encourage [Music] everyone let's not get down at this time
but let's not counter extremism with extremism and let us realize that over time this shall pass thank you thank you are there any other councilor comments i move to adjourn and seek a second
second we're going to begin uh with Jennifer Tob uh yes councelor Walker yes pat D'Angelos hi anna Delvin Gotham hi councelor Ete hi lyn Griezmer i
councelor Hani hi bob Hegner yes councelor Lord hi pam Rooney yes councelor Ryan hi kathy Sheen's absent and Andy Steinberg yes it's unanimous we're adjourned it's 11:21