This is uh I'm I'm uh sitting in Kurt's chair today because Kurt can't be with us. So, I'll be chairing the meeting today. Um and we start by reading the fun part. So, this meeting of the finance committee will be held in person at the location provided on this notice.
Members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting. Please note that while an option for remote attendance and/or participation via Zoom is being provided as a courtesy to the public, the meeting/hering will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the
virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law. Members of the public with a particular interest in a specific item on the agenda should make plans for in-person versus virtual tenants accordingly. This meeting will be live on Zoom. The public may access the proceedings by joining Zoom meeting ID
978-7728220 or by calling 9292056099. For additional information about remote participation, please contact Carly Antineellis, the assistant town manager at atmirair.mma. us or 978-7728220
extension 100 prior to the meeting. All right. So, on the agenda, we have uh review and approval of the January 5th and March, sorry, January 15th minutes and March 5th minutes. And while
they were completed and sent out for review, I don't have them in front of me, so I cannot mark them up. So, I would like to table that for our next meeting. >> Okay. Um,
next thing is committee updates. The only person that has uh attended those meetings would be Robert >> and we there are no updates as I understand. >> Correct. >> Okay. No, we're so so deep in um so we have the police and air
regional school district with us today. I'd like to do uh Dr. Renda and the school district first as that is like an update meeting. Um, and unless there's uh anything you Jer you guys have. All right. So, I'd like
to uh invite up there Shirley Regional School District please. >> Thank you. >> Could you get a copy of presentation? >> Yes. >> Thank you for having us. We're happy to come and give you an update. We we did
uh provide the entire presentation uh for you, but I think we're going to concentrate on slide 17, which is the certified uh budget, but we're happy to answer any questions that you may have on on any part of it. Um Mr. Plunkett will go over the uh the
assessment and the certified budget uh for you in just a moment. I did want to let you know that to get to the numbers that we got to, and I I I I think you will at least be pleased with with how much we were able to get it down. Um, I did want to inform you that this is
using about $1.1 million in circuit breaker money, which is a special education um, reimbursement that the school district gets on a yearly basis. Um, it represents about $700,000 in cuts. It is assuming that we're going to
receive about $130,000 in additional in Chapter 7 funding. We're feeling fairly confident that's going to happen. Um but if it doesn't, that will mean about another 130,000 in cuts that we have to make. And then uh around $350,000 of um
some of our revenues and reserves uh to to get down to this number, but I'll go ahead and pass that over to Mr. Planket to go over these this one. Okay. Good evening everyone. Thank you for having us. Uh the top section of this slide um row number one has the required local
contribution that's set by the state. Uh that's based on uh the town's ability to pay uh real estate uh growth uh income is all taken into factors. Uh and that uh first row there is set by the state.
It also is um dependent on enrollment. uh and air had a little bit of a dip in enrollment this year. Might have been due in part to the shelter. We had about 24 students uh from the shelter that were enrolled at Air Shirley last year.
Uh and those folks those families have moved on uh and been relocated elsewhere. The second and third lines uh the the net school spending the operating assessment uh is the amount that air and Shirley contribute above
RLC and that is allocated via the regional agreement. It's a 5-year rolling uh foundation uh enrollment u and currently air is at 57.45% and Shirley is 42.55%.
and rows two and three that amount above net school spending and three transportation are both allocated the same way by that um by that allocation you see to the right the first subtotal shows the operating assessment uh for
air and Shirley uh 15116,953 for air and jump down to the next section it compares it to the previous year um where air had an increase for operating budget of $14,18,177. It was an increase uh of1 million uh
$8,776 over the the prior year. That was a 72 7.2% increase uh the operating assessment without the debt. We add in the debt row four and I wanted to note that the middle school debt is off the
books. Uh air assumed a portion of the debt when we regionalized and that has been on uh on the books and it came off as of 2026. So uh air is not paying towards that the middle school any
longer and I believe is off the Shirley books as well. And then the next subtotal is uh the operating assessment and debt for air uh at 16 million197,293. Uh it's an increase uh last last year
together those two numbers were 15,33,480 uh which was an $893,000 increase uh for this year. 5.8% 8% um assessment overall for air for the operating assessment and the debt.
>> Believe we're at 11.1 the last time we were in >> I think it was 10.8 >> 10.8. Thank you. >> It was right around there. >> Shirley's enrollment was up a little bit. Uh so and they had um a little
their growth the um the new growth for this year was also up a little bit. So they uh their um their numbers were up close to what air was saying for Royal uh required local contribution and air was down a little bit due to the uh loss
of enroll or decline in enrollment. And then also the debt, the uh the middle school debt coming off was uh also helped to lower the acceptance barrier here was paying about $100,000 a year for the middle school debt for their
their portion of the middle school debt. Uh and now that's off the books. >> I have questions. Either of you or any of you want to go first. >> Yes, go ahead. Uh, the first item interest is on the the budget sheet I'm looking at here,
which Robert was kind enough to send across earlier today. Um, 156,000. >> Oh, in the central office cost center >> from 1.4 million. >> That's where we put all our our adjustments.
>> Okay. >> Over $550,000 of adjustments that we made to get the assessments down. What's an adjustment? >> An adjustment is uh um where that money come from. >> Uh that is using the use of offsets. We
have um set aside uh the circuit breaker like Dr. Brena has said. We also had uh uh additional chapter 70 money uh that we're budgeting uh for to come in and those will be lowering the assessment
for the towns. So circuit breaker is a reimbursement from prior year um special education funding. What we would like to be able to use circuit breaker for is for unexpected special education costs. Uh what we have been doing the last and many districts do this to bring down the
assessment is putting that right into the general fund to pay for special education um expenses. Um we can do that. It's an acceptable use. But if we have unexpected costs, which
we have, um it's a it's a pretty big hit during the year. So the the situation we're going to be in going into next year is if we have multiple unexpected costs, we may have to make mid-year cuts. We have um zero
wiggle room going into next year. >> That's what I was going to ask. >> Yeah, there's there's none. >> Okay. cuz I was also looking at other lines like the special education transportation looked like that got moved to circuit breaker there was
>> about 500,000 I believe >> yeah the private day tuition went down >> uh collaborative I believe was was down >> then there's some other uh random items um looks like your software doubled in
price for uh was reticer. >> Um, it does does it say re does it say reticer on there? So, we're using Aspen. If that says reticer, that needs to be updated. >> Okay. Switch from Power School to Aspen. >> Okay. So, then maybe that's carry over from my notes.
>> Um, and then I mean it was it Medicare tax seems to be way up. Retirement assessment has gone way up. Um and then the other thing was
uh psychological services. Uh it looked like and you can you don't have to answer this now and I can also send this to you in an email but the um >> it looks like the full-time employees from went from 1 to two
um and then the the salary line didn't change. We had a hard time hiring a second psychologist. Okay. >> We had two in the budget. So, we changed the second one to contract services and we were contracting out and we utilized
it that way. >> We did actually just hire a second. >> So, this will be much better for next year. As you can imagine, contracted services uh is a is a bit wasn't too too bad because we contracted independently with people,
not not a service. But typically when you contract with like an Easter Seals, it's almost double the cost. >> Uh but finding school psychologist is um difficult to say the least. >> Is that for um like the whole school system or is that
>> it's two for the whole school system? >> Yes. >> That has to be a relatively new development. And by that I mean the last 20 years. >> Um no I mean there's been there's always school psychologists. We had one when I
started, but their their case load was um ridiculous. So essentially, you would you would like them to do more than special education testing. Unfortunately, the reality is they're pretty much doing special education testing. So when I started, we had one and that person was doing the entire
case load, which was undoable. At one point, we had three. Um we quickly lost two to to districts who whose salary school sites your colleges get stolen and scooped and boed very quickly. Um
but uh the I would say you're correct the last 20 years the the need is going up but districts have had school psychologists for a long time. >> Uh and my last question is Paige Hilltop.
You have two and a half full-time nurses and salaries went down. >> That's incorrect. So we'll have to fix that. We have >> split. >> We have one full-time nurse and one part-time LPN. So, a full-time RN and a part-time LPN.
>> So, my apologies. We'll get that corrected and get you new coffee over. >> Right. It could also be my my eyes went crosseyed at some point. So, >> I jumped in. Did you have a an explanation for >> Yeah, we have a nurse leader is split. Half of her salary is paychecks up and
half is in the district. Interesting. Okay. That's all I got. >> I have a question. Um, on the same sheet, budget breakdown sheet. Um,
I didn't I don't remember every single line or instance of it, but in general, it appears as if all the either department heads or major offices or whatnot have a
basically 15% increase in salary over the last year. Oh, >> which doesn't sound >> Yeah. No. So we um administrators get the same raise whatever the teachers get
it uh it's the same raise. Now there are circumstances where uh we might hire new or someone may try to renegotiate but I believe that is happened only twice since I've started. Um, so if you could
point out that line, we could either give you a give you an explanation right now. >> Um, >> get it to you, but no one has received a a 15% raise. >> Um, it's it's just like across the board. Uh, curriculum and instruction salary assistant superintendent from 144
to 166. Salary student services 124 to 144. Direct the business director salary 134 to 154. Technology salary director 105 to 121.
Sped coordinator 135 155 on and on. Those were corrections. Uh they were level funded the prior two years. uh we used to put all of our the salary money
into a line in the central office and it was inflating our cost uh expenditures from that that cost center. Uh so we actually put the salary amounts into the cost centers where they belong and we
also updated the salaries for the administration because they had been listed as level funded for 2 years when indeed their salaries had been increased in 25 and 26. >> So it's essentially was listed somewhere else. The money's
come out of that line and gone into >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Jen. H >> um I was under the impression that you had a lot of special education coming
into the district and I noticed that the budget's gone down. So, am I missing or is that? >> Um no, we're spend director that the whole sped department is making good use of the collaboratives. Uh Keystone is one of them and then CAPS. We have
actually have CAPS uh in in one of our building in Page Hilltop. Uh Keystone has a couple of classrooms in our high school. Um and it's economically more sound uh than a lot of the other out of district tuition. So they're saving
money there by keeping the kids in those collaboratives and keeping more kids in in classrooms. Jen I don't have con right now. >> It's now or never. >> Okay. Uh well, seeing no more. Thank you.
>> You can always email with any questions if something comes to you afterwards. >> Robert, would we keep these here for >> through the chair? Yeah. If you don't mind if we could keep those. >> Yeah, I don't need them. Perfect. All right. Thank you. >> You don't have the camera back. We'll
>> put our town meeting. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Phil. >> Okie dokie. Uh, next up we've got the police department. If you guys want to come up. Um, and I think what we'll do what we
normally do. So, we'll let the committee stop and ask questions along the way and then we'll hold for public DM. >> Do you mind if I move these? >> We can throw them down here. Let me just get you a presentation. >> Yeah,
>> all right. I do have some hard copies for everybody if they want to. >> I love a hard copy. What's that? >> I keep all them and my my wife is complaining about all the presentation hard copies I keep at home now to write my notes on them.
>> Thank you. >> You can go back and review last year's notes and see if there's any difference. >> Exactly. Let's see what we got. Thank you. Okay. All right. You want to just jump right at it or >> however you'd like to do it. >> Let's just jump right at it like we
always do. Right. Okay. So, uh, this year, uh, we, uh, spent, uh, a great great amount of time really kind of find, uh, going through our budget with a fine tooth comb to try and find areas that we can, um, uh, stick to, uh, the
town manager's mandate to try and find areas of efficiencies, uh, areas of reduction without affecting our, uh, core services. Um, and I'm and I'm very pleased to say that uh, we were able to do that. that not only did we not affect our core services, we were able to just we were basically mainly able to
maintain all of our services and and as you'll see as we go through this that we were able to do that with uh a nominal increase in our overall budget. Um so quick refresher, we have a uh a little bit of a difference in our organizational uh chart from last time
that you uh we were before you. Um, we have uh uh uh on the right hand side you'll see we have coin as part of our organizational makeup. And we're going to go over that a little bit when we get closer. Uh we have 21 sworn officers, uh
one chief, one deputy, five sergeants, one school resource officer, two detectives, and 11 patrol. We have 10 communications officers. Uh one is the communications manager and the other is the uh nine dispatchers. Uh we have two admin staff that comprises of one office
manager, one department assistant. We have one animal control officer. Uh right now we have we don't have any detainee uh watch personnel. Um we have approximately 10 to 15 um uh civilian
traffic control uh members. And we have our as we just talked about our uh jail diversion program coin. Um, and that's comprised of a uh one jail diversion program manager, two co-response clinicians, and one uh community
resource navigator. Um, we're going to just kind of go over a little bit of a snapshot of uh the air police department's activity uh over uh the last several years. Um so as you'll see that uh we're we're looking at our motor vehicle stops here where we have a
slight uh increase in this um and but uh you know with an overall uh increase uh uh in our stops there and that kind of that'll play a little part later on uh in the next couple slides. Um so moving on to the next slide.
Um you'll see we have our uh arrests and our uh criminal applications. Um so our arrests uh are up a little and our criminal applications are trending down.
The next slide we'll talk about our motor vehicle collisions. And um this we can probably attribute to a couple different things. one, our uh motor vehicle uh enforcement and also our four-way stop sign on Graten Harvard Road in Central A, which uh I'm not
going to say that we haven't had an accident since we did that. Um but we haven't. So, it's and that that accounted for a great amount of accidents down there. So, um uh we're pretty happy with that. Uh and then the
next slide just talks about our uh overall incidents and these are just the general reports that we talk about. Um it's uh the trend line is is showing uh you know as a as a slight increase and it is a slight increase from uh from the last year. Um so we're you know we're
we're staying busy. We're you know we're overall a little bit busier uh in in areas. Um the next slide will just show kind of the breakdown of our uh activity over the course of the week and time of day. Um it has changed a little bit. Um
we we we did have uh uh Wednesday was a a drop off. We got kind of a little uh kind of a stick figure bird thing going on up there. So um but Wednesday used to be uh kind of a one of our higher days for whatever reason. So it's had a drop
off. Um and then our Saturday and Sunday which are our weekends are are our lower uh lower days for incidents and arrests. Um time of day you can kind of see as people are getting home from uh uh you
know getting home into the uh from work or whatever. Uh we have that increase and that kind of carries us uh right through. But this also includes all our traffic stops, accidents, things like that. So, um, and then it dies right off as we get to the late night hours and
the overnight hours and then we pick up for, uh, everything else. So, um, and that pretty much is the same. Um, the, uh, when you see some of those sharp drop offs like, uh, you see at,400, um, we're probably going to attribute
that to, um, that's our shift change in the afternoon. So, our officers are, uh, are switching switching out at at that time. So probably accounting for a lot of the traffic stops that are not there.
Okay. Um next slide. Um we're uh any questions about what we just talked about on our overall activity or general makeup of the police department. We're going to jump right in and we're going to talk about the police department's uh budget which uh the next
one will show the highlight of what incorporates the police department's budget. Um, and in the police department's budget, that's uh the admin, records, patrol sergeants, school resource officer, and the detective general.
Next slide. Okay, so a little bit of an update. We have uh our admin sergeant is in full play this as this time. Um we're uh we're happy to announce that uh Sergeant Pearson has been uh has been installed into that position and is
working out great and really um you know taking that position and and growing with it. So we're happy that we finally get that up and running. Um and we're going to continue to see efficiencies in our in our administrative uh functions
there. Um next uh also happy to report that our detective bureau is fully staffed. Uh we have Detective Maner and Detective Serpernaut. Uh they've uh also been put in there. Um and they're doing a a great job there as well. So we're
very happy we finally have that. Yes. And you don't have to raise your hand. >> I watched a lot of Law and Order as a kid, right? I'm just curious like what what is like what is um most common like crime that a detective would do in town?
>> Awesome question. Um, so what we uh what we have a lot of things that we're doing right now is um we're doing a lot of internet crime and we're doing a lot of uh financial uh scam crimes. >> Um, one of our detectives uh is is very
uh very good at kind of tracking down and working on the financial crimes where people are getting scammed. So, we're we're really trying to um be uh if if somebody does get scammed, try and get it to it as soon as possible so we can kind of put the brakes on. Um but
the uh what we what we uh look to is have make sure that they they both are um they have the ability to do any job in in there. They both will have kind of like their forte, we'll say, but they will both be able to do uh everything there. Um
>> yes. So, in recruiting and trying to hire a detective nowadays, do does it in going through like the academy, is there a lot more uh electronic crime training or do you like look for people that went to like,
you know, computer engineering school or something like how do you >> um Yeah. Uh it's that's what when So, you don't get it in the academy. The academy is basic police work. So you're you're learning everything about policing. And it's a it's about five
months of training. Um and uh you you do get um oriented into it and and kind of to understand the scope and the breadth of the problem of it and how to as a patrol officer, how would you deal with those kind of things? And it's mainly report writing and documenting the things that you could gather for
detectives. Um but you know what what we look for when we're um you know when we're we're we're looking for detectives uh is you know what have they been doing in the as a patrol officer and what were they looking you know how how were they
operating with the cases that they were getting and the detectives you know they the the the two that there are really standouts. they were taking their patrol cases and trying to work them as detectives and you know but at the m at the same time trying to work do all the
patrol work that came with it. So um they were you know they were taking it upon themselves to learn um how to do these advanced classes and things like that. So um that's kind of how detectives kind of come about. >> Thanks. >> Thank you.
>> All right. And next slide. Um, so, uh, we have one of our patrol officers that's in the academy. Uh, we'll say that's the green one. Um, so they, uh, so they they just started in February. We're expecting to get that officer, uh,
out of the academy in July, and then they'll start their field training program, which is about 11 to 14 weeks, um, depending. And we are interviewing next week for that final, we'll say, the yellow patrol officer spot there. Um, and we're
confident that we're we're going to have uh somebody uh at least a good focus on uh next week on that. So, um and with that, that would uh you bring our our compliment up to fully staffed and we're very excited about that. It's been a
long, you know, kind of several years, but, uh, we're meticulous in who we bring on and and what we've, uh, learned over the years is that if you just put somebody in boots and get them out there, it's just going to lead to a, you know, it's it's it's not a situation that you want. You want to be particular about who you bring in, make sure you
do, you know, thorough uh, backgrounds. And, uh, I'd much rather, and I know the deputy feels the same, is would much rather have a vacant position than have somebody that shouldn't be in that position. >> So, question. >> Sure. How competitive is there like from a is it just what people are looking for
or is it just like I want to work in the suburbs right in the suburbs? Um so competitive and what like moneywise >> just like I'm sure like if people are in Boston they like working in a city they wouldn't come to air right or is it
>> yeah mo mostly uh people are regional so you're going to where you know the the officers that are working here are generally from this area or they have some sort of connection uh to this area. We're you know we're very happy to uh report that we have several uh residents
that are our officers. Um and uh you know and those uh you know those are people we homerew you know right from the town of Aaron Shirley. So um we're we're happy about that. And then most of our other people are from this general area. >> Thanks.
Okay. So let's uh let's talk about why we're here. Right. So this is our uh this is the police department budget and everybody we talked about. Um this is the overall kind of look as to the last several years. Um, and like I said, we're very happy to report that this
year we're coming in with a 2.57 uh increase. Um, which is uh surmounts to uh that 81,000 right there. Um, you'll do see that we have a uh what appear to be uh large a large increase and a large decrease and we're going to
we can talk about those uh when we get there. All right, moving on. So we're going to talk about first the uh the first line here 51 uh 51,000 there 551000. So this is the salary uh the line that myself and the deputy chief come out of.
Uh and this mainly uh comprises contractual and cooler increases there. Next is the wages line. Uh the wages line is where the sergeants and patrol officers come out of the office manager, department assistant, and the air civilian traffic control.
Um so uh there's uh the budget drivers on this are there's contractual step uh and colar increases. uh the new clerical union CBA that covers the department assistant is included in this uh education incentives which are actually
uh it was a net decrease than what we um than what we normally do. So when we plan these out we plan for the highest liability in in there. So when we're when we had a vacant position, um we uh plan for uh somebody that possibly
coming in with a master's degree and a master's degree has a higher incentive. Um in the the uh the latest hire, that person does not have a master's degree. So we were able to uh realize an overall net decrease in the education incentives
line. Um we did uh we do have a comfort canine uh at uh right now. Um and with a with a canine whether uh it's a work uh a patrol dog or a uh a comfort dog uh or a service dog like that um there's
required care and maintenance that we have to to to pay to that officer because there's um care that they have to do off the clock. Um, so that uh for us that includes uh a half hour a day uh care and maintenance. So that officer gets uh a half hour a day uh increase
into that. Um, and then the detainee watch uh is uh we were able to uh we didn't we weren't using uh the detainee watch because of a program that we're using with the Middle Sex County Sheriff's um that if we have a uh detainee that needs to be held for a
length of time, we can ship them over to the Bora House Correction, they will watch us until and transport back to court. So, um, and that that's a program that the sheriff, uh, offers to the the, uh, police departments in Middle Sex
County. So, we were confident that we could lower that line, lower that line down. Uh, next we have our OT line. Um so the
um the OT line uh this is where we do our time off our uh inservice training um report writing and investigation specialized services uh and where our court comes out of. Um
so as of uh 31 um we're at 47.1% expended. Um this is where a bulk of our we have a a it seems like okay if we're 3-1 and we're at less than 50% why aren't we reducing it? Um the spring in
the early summer we have a bulk of our training and that's where that comes out of. Um we're also uh expecting our community events to be increasing uh on the horizon. we have uh the potential for um uh an increase in um the parades
uh and um holiday uh efforts that we're expected to be at. Um we're also having um we've started our citizens police academy back up um that requires uh officers to work off shift. Um, and we have a couple of the couple other things
in the in the works that uh uh we're excited about and uh we just want to make sure that we're able to continue to do that. The other uh thing is is that when we come up to full staff, those two officers are also going to start incurring overtime on the things that they need to do. So even though we're
short, you know, the officers here when they come on, we're going to, you know, there's there's overtime liabilities there. So, we can expect report and invest invest to increase and especially with the two detectives. We're, you know, that they're uh working off hours a lot and um with uh with detectives,
the new officers, we also expect our court costs to increase. So, we're confident though that we'd be able to to do everything that we need to do um without uh increasing um the budget from last year for the overtime.
All right, we're on to services. So, out of services, um this is where we do our new hire testing, uh vehicle maintenance and maintenance agreements. Um so, some of the budget drivers here, the major
budget drivers, and this is, um where we where I want to do some uh in-depth explaining. So, as you looks like we're 24% increase. Um, so we do have a 24% increase there. Um, but what we did in
this line was removed our because we're going to be hopefully up to full staff, we're not going to need to do any new hire testing because we're not going to need to do any new hiring next year. So, we removed that. Um, we've also reduced our vehicle maintenance. We've gotten
into a uh kind of a a new maintenance kind of scheme where we're using uh major work out of our dealership and our routine maintenance out of a local shop. So, we've um been experiencing a reduction there. So, we're confident
that we can reduce that uh that line there. For us, we were also able to go to Verizon and we uh were able to um work with Verizon and getting a much lower uh Verizon rate uh for our cell phones that we employ. We do employ a
lot of cell phones in our in our department. Um so where a majority of all this is is so okay if we do all these reductions, why are we seeing an increase? So uh we've had a major increase in our IT services. Um, but
it's not as it seems. So, we uh I don't know if we talked about it in any of the budget spots, but um the we changed IT providers and we changed the way that our whole network infrastructure is. Um so, historically all what we paid for
was our our uh IT security and that's what the police department covered. Um let's see. Uh so previously, yeah, so IT security, we paid $43,000 for IT security for our entire department and
uh the u uh dispatch. So uh and that um that was security and on-site uh backup. what it what we do now pay for is um so we have the new security company
uh the security uh what we had to do was we had to become uh CG just compliant um and we're moving our entire network operations into the cloud so what we're um and and the other thing that we
absorbed was our emails. So the email used to come out of the town and that was something that the town paid for. So we because of the sieges compliance that we had to do and sieges is a is a government networking system that we have to comply with. Um so we took our
we took the price and cost of the email services and took that on ourselves. We al uh we maintained the network security and the other thing that we absorbed um for the town was creating this cloud infrastructure
um because we needed it but the town could also benefit from it. So, um what we uh what we're moving towards is a complete and total secure cloud networking infrastructure for um for our police department and for the regional
um communication center. Um and uh yeah, so that's where it's at. Um so it's an increase. some of the some of the money's been shifted off of the the town's IT um and then some of the some of the
resources that we're having the town also benefits from. So, it's a it's a major shift. It's still undergoing right now. It's there's so much that has to go into making this happen. Um but we're uh probably, you know, we're hopefully by the the this budget cycle will be
everything will be all said and done. Um yes. or is any of that a one-time cost or will that be the same essentially next year and ongoing? >> That's going to be the same. It's uh and we've been uh this the the company that we're working with is uh they're they're
they've been working with us for almost a year now to get this uh going. Um and they're uh they're confident that this price is going to be a there's not going to be any major shifts in this price uh for this. So for us and for the for the
town. Um so yeah and this is going to this is going to give us actually the other benefit to having this cloud network is all of our server hardware. We're not going to have to be maintaining all of that. And you know I don't know if you
know servers are several thousands of dollars depending on which ones you get. Um, in the PD alone, we have five um that we're, you know, we're we're hoping that we can get through this project before the main ones go down. They're well over 5 years. Um, but uh it's also
the the town is also going to be reducing their servant their server profile. So, it's going to be, you know, the long-term savings in this in this cloud networking structure is is immense. >> How much it is your cloud service? >> I'm sorry.
>> How much does your cloud service cost? like a total budget of the 190,000. How much is the cloud service part of >> of the network? >> Yeah. The part that you're saying that that you are offloading from the town's budget.
>> Um so let's see. So the uh security uh cloud network is 61,000. So perfect. >> And it looks like we transferred approximately 23 from the town to that
number. >> Okay. Because if you're doing it this year, 31,000 doesn't cover that. But you said you've already worked with them for a year. So part of it was in last year's budget. >> Correct. where part of that's there, but it's so the the email so the cost for
the email that we've absorbed that's in this number >> for next year is was being you know paid for in part out of the town's budget. So it's a shifted number. >> Yeah. >> All right. Next utilities. um just uh
that's our projected um with the numbers that we're getting now. That's the projected increase that we have just for the electric down at but our radio uh shack up uh at the the not the radio shack but the >> the radio uh up at the towers uh and
then the Verizon business lines out of there. So we're just projecting a slight increase there. Um next would be the uh supplies line. Um it's just the uh we're just projecting a slight decrease in there. Um mainly
because uh we had some cost increases just in line with actual spending but um we've uh been the removal of the academy students actually showed a reduction. So the the amount that we would pay for an academy student uh was
more than the increases in supply line. Uh clothing. Uh clothing kind of the same thing here. Um so what's in clothing is the contractual uh clothing and equipment. Uh replacing expiring body armor,
replacing worn and service equipment. Um so the budget drivers here, major decrease here. So removal of the new hires uh here. Um and uh the number of officers needing body armor for the upcoming year. Uh last year we we had a
uh it was a big year for replacing body armor. This year not so much. Just the way that the cycle works. Uh body armor is good for 5 years before it needs to be replaced. Um and uh we just we just keep everybody on whatever rotation they are. That's what we put in. Uh the other
thing that we did was we switched uh to a different body armor product and a carrier. Um and um it's uh that was a reduction there as well. So um and the re and the switch to this body armor had nothing to do with money. It just turns
out it was that way. It was a it was a much better product, much lighter product and it was uh the the officers uh you know really took to it. So doing a trial and error trial and evaluation period. Okay. Expenses
um also an area of reduction. Um out of expenses comes our professional dues, training, subscription fees and tuition reimbursement. Um and this is really uh driven by the removal of academy costs uh there.
Okay, next capital. Um, so this is uh the only thing we have in our operating capital is every year um we replace a cruiser um and that puts them generally on a 5-year cycle um for a police uh car and that's really at the end of its its
life cycle. Um the vehicle that's coming up this year is the uh supervisor's vehicle. So they're the uh they're the ones that respond to all the calls and back up their officers. Um, we're going to be moving that car to an expedition platform rather than an Explorer
platform um for two reasons. One, it's a bigger car and it can carry a little bit more um uh equipment to bring to scenes uh when they go to work with their officers. The other is uh we want to figure out if moving to the uh the
expedition platform will be a little bit more solid and cars will spend less time in service. Um, our cars do spend a lot of time in service. Um, uh, there's a lot of electronic components, especially with the hybrid, though. There's some gas savings with it. Um, there's a lot
of stuff that breaks on it, and we're down cars for days at a time. Um, fortunately, um, sometimes it's warranty, so it doesn't have to, uh, do it. We just had a car that was only 2,000 mi that had to go to the shop for 3 days. Um, so, um, the Expedition does
not have the hybrid system in it. So, we're going to try and see, uh, if that is a little bit more rugged for our uses, uh, as a as a police car. Um, and, uh, as you can see, there's a slight increase in moving to that.
I just wondering uh I see that like not just a but most municipal seem like an out of police and and and fire department cars or American cars. Did you guys ever consider would like a a Japanese car be an option? Would they
have the reputation be more reliable? >> Um great question. I don't know the answer to that. Um, I know that uh the the vehicles that are traditionally used are the the the the bigger trucks um for
lack of a better term. Um and uh and they're uh they're also uh geared towards they have a a line that are um they're not uh civilian models. So they're, you know, they're kind of
really stripped down like the, you know, they're >> they're manufactured like Okay. Okay. >> And then obviously if you, let's say, if you're whatever your equipment company is, you know, does the back seats and does the, you know, bars and that does
all they all work together to then get the components to then go in. And um you know there was a huge change years ago when we went from the Crown Victoria uh you know the full Ford you know Crown Vicks to then the Ford Explorers and you know to some that was that was a lot but
then it took some time you know every night we had a Charger for a short period of time and it didn't work out for us. So I think you know keeping things consistent and obviously you want uh the officers to be driving a consistent platform you know when they're responding to emergencies. >> I see.
>> Yes. So, does a does a department have backup vehicles when one is in the shop for three days? Do they just take like another >> We So, our backup vehicles are usually older vehicles. Um, we we haven't we haven't made a huge push to try and keep
a backup fleet. >> So, what happens when the brand new car is in the shop for 3 days? >> We take one of the older cars and drive that. Um, the problem becomes what happens when two cars go down? or three cars go down, which has happened to us. Um, and then we're at the hopefully no
cars go down kind of mode. Um, and that's why we try to keep as uh, you know, we we try to keep a robust um, maintenance program going. Um, and uh, you know, we try to catch these things early. We've put some um we have a uh uh
not a program, it's a um online form that the officers filled out before their shifts and so it instantly if they whatever they have they check off. They do their their cruiser inspections and if there's anything a miss they can put it in there and it automatically gets sent out to myself, the deputy and the
vehicle maintenance uh crew that they make sure it just gets into the shop and gets squared away as soon as possible. It's been relatively successful in finding things early and getting it into the shop earlier. Um, but still, I mean, the again, you know, things happen on a
on a, you know, the brand new car. You know, something with the gas pedal, there's a sensor on a gas pedal and it broke and it just, you know, the car had to limp it into a parking lot and then they limped it back to our parking lot. So, things happen. So, you just it's one
of those things you just you just try and and and move with. Um we, you know, when we uh increased our um our patrol staff several years ago, we never increased our our our uh patrol fleet.
Um and we've been able to make it work. Um uh with the um you know, with we uh with the um admin sergeant um the admin sergeant fortunately is driving the um the new uh pickup truck that we got through capital last year. So, um, that
kind of takes the heat off of trying to find another, uh, car to to be driven around like that. But, um, you know, we're trying to do our best without increasing our, uh, motor fleet as much as possible. Any any questions on the police budget part of this?
>> Earlier you mentioned the K9. Sorry. >> Yep. We've heard a lot about health insurance. Does that fall under the town's um budget? >> That uh that is under the town's budget. >> Okay. All right. >> We will talk a little bit about it under
the coin budget. >> Okay. >> I was just wondering is that K9 a new addition or have you always had this >> brand new edition? >> Um noticed he's not here tonight. >> He was requested to be here.
>> I did tell the chief. Yeah, >> I try to steal him. He for some reason he likes Mike. I don't know. >> Um, so it's a it's a it's a comfort dog. He's >> Yeah, I know. I know. But what when did it uh was a decision made to have a kina? I mean, it was
>> it was it was this year. It was our uh so our school resource officer >> um in in his in his travels and in in that kind of assignment. It's a uh there was a lot of uh um a lot of uh comfort dogs in that assignment throughout the
Commonwealth throughout the country for that matter. Um so he came to us with the idea that he wanted to try and see if he could make it happen uh with a lot of ideas. What we do is we tell the off, you know, tell the officers, uh, or ask them to say, "Listen, uh, you know, come up with a program, come up with, you know, what's it going to what's it going
to cost?" Kind of have them do that and in, uh, in and our school resource officer, Mike Nicolo, did that. Um, and, uh, and and and sold it. Um, so it was, uh, in, uh, it was his his own personal
dog that he is is was using. It was a It was a puppy when he got it and that's when he said, "I want to try and make this happen." Um, and then there's some there's some things we have to do with personal dogs, but um it's uh he's just now he's got his uniform and he comes in to work with them in the morning and
goes to school with them and all that. >> I see. I see. So, it's mainly for the school. >> Uh he's assigned to the school resource officer and he's up there a lot, but he comes out to other things and uh he's >> wonderful. So, so that it's a the officer's dog to start with. So, it's
not like you had to go acquire a dog and >> Nope. Nope. Yes. It's uh So, it was kind of a, you know, win-win. Um, you know, win for the officer, you know, and win for us. Um, but it was uh it's a great program and I'm glad we were able to, you know, get that off the ground and I'm glad Mike was uh, you know, able to,
you know, put all the pieces together for it. So, >> wonderful. >> He had a great start, but obviously it's been going through training uh, and being certified to be, you know, >> Yeah, that's what I thought. There must be a lot of pleasure. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So, how much does that part um cost you
>> for care and maintenance? >> Yeah. >> Um so, it's a half hour of overtime a day. Uh let me see if I >> Oh, so it counts as overtime. >> Yeah. So, because it's the you know, you got to feed it, walk it, they So, the it's it's built it's a stay lock >> um to to make.
>> So, overtime to the paid to the owner. >> Correct. Okay. >> Yep. >> Who is that? the owner which happens to be the hammer. Yeah. >> So, so, so that add up over time. So, so
half an hour a day, but we're talking about a whole year, right? That's like a >> 20 uh well 10 hours if we count four weeks that 10 hours a month. So, that's uh 120
hours a year or a little more than that. So it would be 10 hours every two weeks 26. Uh so 260 hours. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So So how much does that >> Let me see if I have that. I do have
that. So uh the K9 is adds $12,738.99. >> I see. I see. >> Um and that's in and uh that's just in the um in the wages. >> I see. I see. Thank you. Any
other questions on the police budget? These are all great questions. So, Eric, >> any chance for the comfort dog to get the motion? >> Um, he's going to take the assessment center and, you know, and do all that. So, we'll see. You look You look good with stripes, though. We'll see.
>> So, does anybody else get to play with the the dog or >> Oh, yeah. >> I try to steal them as much as possible. So, so, so if we want to go to I mean not during school hours, but after school hours if we want to go, you know,
go to pet a dog and you know, >> yeah, he's uh you you'll come the summer, you'll see him, you know, when he's not in school because he still be with the uh he'll still be with the so when school's not in session. >> Okay. >> Officer Nicolo becomes part of the patrol staff. >> Okay. >> So, you'll he'll be out and about, you
know, during the day shift more, but you'll see it more from there. >> All right. I'm not working hard. >> All right. So, moving on to the um the communication center.
All right. So, the this is the overall picture of it. Um and yeah, so we'll uh we'll just kind of jump right at it. Um so, the one of the things we're going to talk
about is this overall this this uh picture here. Um, so this is what our uh support and incentive grant is going to look like uh for FY27. So this is what the we're going to be receiving. Um, the support incentive grant covers
uh wages and services. Um, so that's what we're going to get. We apply that to our U budget. Um, the regional development grant hasn't been issued yet. Um, but this is what we are operating in FY26. So, for this year
where we had $174,000 grant, uh the training grant also hasn't come out yet. Um the and this is what it was in FY26. We're expecting it not to be too far off from these numbers. These are pretty solid numbers. Um and the EMD
grant um is uh is that there and that's for FY27. Um what the EMD grant covers is uh some the EMD software that the dispatches use when you call and it helps them mitigate uh medical calls on the from the on the
phones. Uh the training grant covers all in service and professional development training. Uh it covers the class fees and the overtime um for those. Um let's see. The regional development grant. It's a special grant that we get
um because we're a regional uh communication center. So, we generally apply to uh any equipment needs that we have um uh at the at the center and then the 911 support incentive is kind of what it it's right there in the thing. It just supports the uh center as a
whole. >> Yes. >> Where do the grants come from? >> So, uh not I don't think anybody looks at their their phone bills that much. Um, so on their on your phone bills, there's some service charges on your
phone bills um for 911 services and that's all what goes in those. So it's a uh the uh state 911 department has a healthy budget >> allocated who makes the decision where it goes. >> You know what this is a great question.
Um so it goes uh a little bit by uh call volume. It goes a little bit by community need. Uh and that's that we're mainly talking about the um support incentive grant. Um so we're uh you know
we get a healthy sum um compared to you know some of the communities there. So we're we're fortunate to get the support from 911 that we do on this. Um and uh so what we have up here is kind of a breakdown and a visual depiction of how
these grants affect our budget. So um our initial starting budget for uh the dispatch line, as you can see, is right up there. It's just a little bit over a million dollars. um the support and incentive grant which uh does the uh
wages and services line um and that's where it gets applied to there. The 911 training grant goes into our overtime line and the 911 EMD grant goes into our services line. So that as you can see offsets directly offsets the budget. So
that brings kind of the number that we see uh on the on the on the budget sheet there at uh a little bit over a half a million,565,000. Um this year um the uh the assessment
for Shirley uh coming up uh in FY27 will go up from 200,000 to 225,000. So that doesn't go into our dispatch budget that gets put into the overall uh budget for the town. So the so that kind
of so we get supported through that by the assessment that goes into the overall budget. So what we see at the very bottom here is kind of a visual reference of what the budget looks like um with the Shirley assessment included.
So, uh, so that's there and it is less than last year because of the increase in the Shirley assessment. >> Real quick, is is there ever a chance that someone else like Littleton calls and is like, "Hey, you know what? We want to regionalize even more." >> Yeah, there's always a chance. And, you
know, 911 is um they're they're always looking to merge uh merge areas together. um they really want to try and get the standalones um uh you know to merge with somebody. Um so there's always a possibility. We we do have room
for expansion at our in our um in our center. Um it's you know our center is it it would be really fitted for um you know one of our smaller towns that surround us. Um and uh there's uh you know so we're
always we're always open to that. Um and uh the the question becomes what is the actual savings because we would have to really crunch down some numbers and figure out um because we're you know we run with two dispatchers on to cover air and surely and sometimes that day
doesn't seem like you know that doesn't seem like enough. So um we would have to you know look at depending on the community that comes in what do we have to do for additional manpower on our third workstation. So it's a it's a work in progress it seem you know it's so it
wouldn't be just directly offsetting that would have to figure out like what you know uh increased u staffing uh would be and how the effect of an assessment of a third uh top would be nice >> but we're always open to it
any questions on on that part of it the right good all right moving on Let's see. Um so the salary this is uh one person that comes out of here. This is the communications operations
manager. Um so uh the drivers and this are just contractual and roller increases. Um next slide is the uh dispatchers wages. So this is where our two uh nine full-time dispatchers and
two perdm dispatchers pull from. Um and uh the drivers here are uh the contractual contractual step and coler increases and the support incentive grant. Um and uh so with all that, you know, this is just a nominal increase there.
Um in our overtime line, we're uh we're not requesting any increase in here. Um we're we're confident that the uh training grant that offsets all the the training OT um will be covered and give us enough uh and that will be enough for us to also cover our time off court and
community events that they attend. Um looking at the the next line services this is where the maintenance agreements come out of. Um so we did have a uh a remarkable decrease here. Um we uh restructured our our some of our annual
maintenance agreements and we've uh achieved a uh like an overall net decrease. Um so we looked at our CAD and RMS as we did in our uh in on the uh the police side and we were able to find
some areas that we weren't using as much um and we didn't really need them on board. So, we were able to kind of streamline that a little bit um because of the the moving to the cloud-based network. Um we didn't need we don't need
to have Citrix anymore um as our uh conduit to uh having uh Shirley um that's how the that's how Shirley would uh come to us is through a Citrix network. Um we don't need that anymore because it's going to be cloud-based and we'll leave it right through that. Um we
were also able to see a reduction in our radio maintenance. Um so uh we were there um and then um part of the support incentive grant allows us to take 60% of our largest maintenance agreement and
apply that to there. So um this is we used our RMS software which which was our biggest um which was our biggest uh maintenance agreement and just got 60% uh reimbured from that. Next would be our supplies line. We're
not asking for any change here. We're pretty sure that we can get by. This is just where our office and general supplies come out of the center. Um the next is clothing. Um it's just a slight decrease and that's just because we reduced the amount of perdeiums
um from five to three um that that we would have on board. So we just reduced two out of there. their their clothing is uh uh that that's all just their clothing there. >> They had two pium >> we have two we're keeping uh we're
keeping a third uh position in case we uh need to have that. It's uh having the prediums is is a um a benefit because they uh they will backfill for uh the patrol uh the uh dispatch staff and they
don't require overtime. So that'd be just a straight kind of thing. So we're gonna we're going to keep the uh keep it to three. And okay, next is the uh expense line. This is where uh professional dues, training, subscription fees in the uh tuition
reimbursement comes out of. Um the increase here is um the communications manager's tuition reimbursement. Um so if he goes back to school um that uh that's the amount the uh the increase
for him to go uh to a a college. All right. And that is uh that's the dispatch in a nutshell. Um any questions on dispatch?
>> All right. We're going to talk about Coin. So, uh, Coin is is new, um, to the, uh, not to the town, but as a, uh, as a town entity. Um, the the I don't know if we talked about it during the,
um, last year, but, um, so there w we we were in a position where we were going to lose this valuable program um, that was fully grant funded. um we were able to uh be in a position to uh
take on the grant and and bring on um the uh employees there as uh technical town employees. Um so the important thing and this goes to to your question uh Mr. France is um you know does um
health insurance and everything where does that fall under the budget? So everything else except under coin that's so coin it's it's factored into here. So the way that the the um the jail diversion program grant works is that it
covers the entire uh program. So the the entire program includes all of the benefits um all of anything that goes with having that person um working is covered by this grant. So the town is
actually out um zero. So everything is absolutely covered by the this grant here. Um when they when they apply for the when we apply for the grant, we we have to again uh apply for the the highest liability. So we've got to we apply we say that you know this is the
highest level of insurance that somebody could possibly have and get during their open enrollment period. So we have to kind of do that and then as the year plays out you know the numbers you know are as they are this year are relatively smaller because of u um the insurance
choices and things like that that the employees make. So um we work with department of uh mental health to you know even out the budget that way so they they will pull back money as they see we're not going to be using it. But the the this program is completely and totally funded by the Department of
Mental Health. Um >> so how when will the grant run out? >> So it's a yearly grant and we're getting getting ready to apply for it again. Um but one of the things that we have to do um and that I'm going to be um on the
horn with our um state legislature is putting the funding back into mental health um programs. um this uh so statewide um to run all of these programs in the Commonwealth uh is about 19 million um
and it's been reduced to three. So what we have to do is uh this happened last year um they for whatever reason we're repeating it. Um but we uh go back and we uh you know as you know not only uh the prof the police uh
professionals but all of the everybody in the industry has got to go and and they they talk to their legislators and say you got to get this funding back in place. Um the importance of this program can't be understated. Um
we deal with people in mental health crisis probably just as much as we deal with um you know crime. Um and um the days of arresting ourselves out of a mental health problem is is going to be over. Um and what these programs allow
us to do is to get um you know the people pointed in the proper direction rather than a jail cell. Um so just you know tonight um you know we have a a co-response clinician riding in an air police car with an air police officer
going to calls um and if there's somebody in mental health crisis you know we make sure that it's you know you know that it's a safe area and then you know the clinician you know if if it's a mental health uh call they take care of it. Um, and it's it it's huge and it's it's actually a huge impact since we
don't have much more of an impact since we don't have a hospital that we can bring somebody to. So, we've got to triage these people on the street. So, it's it's a huge program. >> Yeah, if I could just add just three points. Echo the chief's sentiment that
since Coin started, it's been an invaluable uh resource to the department and to the town. And I do applaud all of his efforts um to save it. and we remain committed to it. Secondly, in part, not the whole reason, but this in part
allowed us to we're you'll see in the draft with the budget that the social worker position, which is vacant, um is not going to be funded um in FY27 because it's been vacant for so long and that has to be um re-evaluated anyhow.
I'm not saying CO is the entire reason. We talk more about that at the budget forum. And then just the third point though we remain confident that this will continue I just want the fincom to understand that the intermunicipal agreement and though these are town employees and I'm not trying to be uh
cuz I'm an optimist but if the grant were to be reduced or the grant would go away so would the program. So I just at this time just to be clear that if the grant goes away as you can see it's quite expensive the the omnibus budget
could not support that. So just and we chief and I did a lot of work on that with the partners. So it's not if if for some reason the grant is reduced or we lose the grant funding um it's not a a default to the town budget.
>> I see. I was going to ask if the the like the personnel cost here will you know that person become a permanent time employee and be >> yeah it's structured right now that the grant is covering everything including um like the the pension assessment costs
and so forth but if we were to lose the grant um we would lose the program. >> Is there anything voter level that we could be influencing >> um our legislators
>> uh the same as I'm going to be doing is you know is is um you know contacting the legislature and making making them aware that how important this program is uh to the you know to the town of Aaron into the nine communities that we we you know we share this program with. So that's the that's the big thing is the
legislators are going to and as they did last year and I think they all recognize the importance of jail diversion programs in town in the mental in the in the in the fund in properly funding mental health programs out in the communities. >> Okay. So the the nine communities
together does each town have their own representatives or is it air that's sort of the >> So the meaning would every every town lose their >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. So the the intermunicipal agreement is that you know we're where
the we hold the grant we you know we we're kind we have the employees we get the funding but there was the the the sharing of the them is all part of that integration agreement. Um, so we uh and then so there's a co there's two co cor co cor co cor co cor co cor co cor co cor co cor co cor co cor co-response
clinicians split up amongst them and they have a rotating basis throughout the towns and then the community resource navigator um is also roaming into the you know into the different areas um and uh and becoming more of a staple in in the community uh especially
in air. Um the main office is in air um but we're just making some inroads with the uh library. there's going to be some office hours in the library and things like that. So, um so we're um yeah, it's it's so it's it's not only an important program for us, but it's an important
program for you know, the communities that have helped develop this program over the 10 years, you know, that it's been that it's been developing, becoming what it is today. um
the uh number of uh folks that are experiencing you know some sort of mental disability is that trending up or down >> would you say >> up it's t trending up >> I think it's up if I may and I think we are you know better training and better awareness you know we can now you know
instead of saying somebody behaved in a certain way that's criminal and we lock them up now yeah they you know clearly people need to be responsible for their behavior, you know, but was the underlying condition underlying condition mental health or substance abuse and really saying, okay, if this
is the case, let's try to, you know, let's get some help. Whether or not it's treatment for one or the other, dual diagnosis goes a unfortunately handinand u with a lot of these things. So, we work with the court um we work with, you know, families, you know, really trying to prevent it. You know, we might see
something coming like a slow freight train like this is going to be a problem and this is going to be continuous and you know clearly you can't force one to just like any medical thing because it is a medical umbrella you know you can't force somebody to you know due to certain treatment or certain medication you know just like if it was for another
medical condition but we can do our best you know and the co the um co-response clinicians you know face to face as well as our co-response uh navigator really you know having so many resources to be able to give people that are in need as well as families because I think
we all at the table can understand it's not just one person in a family that's suffering. It's you know everybody that you know ends up needing help. >> Uh is there additional training for the officers who >> absolutely
situation? the uh there's been a I'd say over the last two or three years there's been a a really big push to have officers um trained um in uh we've heard the words deescalation um but it's it goes much more than that.
It's it's really kind of understanding the the person, you know, and kind of dealing with, you know, dealing with not the condition, but really becoming a, you know, dealing with that person. And it's kind of you know and they really focus on you know inside. So it's got to
become the officer that understands you know that you know how are they approaching these things. So it's really uh you know looking uh at at the issue from you know every angle to to help do this. So we've um there's uh CIT um the
uh it's an acronym I think >> crisis intervention train. >> Thank you. Um, you know, so that's the, you know, it's and that's a, you know, a thing that we're trying to get all of our officers, um, slowly certified in. It's it's a week's long training. Um, everybody that comes out of it is is,
you know, a transformed uh, officer in dealing with these kind of these, uh, kind of situations, crisis calls. Um, so, uh, these are just, so these are the numbers that, so this is what we applied for. um and got for FY26 the 400,000. Um the
FY27 that's going to be the application number. Um and again, those are the uh the highest liability numbers that we have to apply for. It's it kind of it it scales back down um to actual usages, but we've got to we've got to do the so the town doesn't become affected, we
have to do the maximum liability to that. Um this is just some just some data uh that we have uh that's available to us just kind of like the the the types of the the how the the usage of coin has
grown. So the gray bars are uh FY25 numbers and then the FY26 uh numbers are there. So it's uh you know the October through December I mean just skyrocketed >> you know but it's uh and then the July
through September um you know we were just coming back online because it did have to be as as a transition um it was a lull. So um the uh it's definitely a wellused program uh with that. So,
uh, animal control. Um, not much. There's not much change here. We can, uh, we can just kind of bing through. The only change in this is, um, again, the collective, she's part of the collective, uh, bargaining, uh, unit. And that was the just the contractual
cooler changes there. Everything else we're confident that we can uh, make happen uh, without any increases. So, Um, and so we can kind of blast through all these. There's no change. No change.
>> Um, and then the only other thing I just wanted to add in that is kind of different than this year is our uh capital budget request. Um, which should be the next slide. Um, just uh wanted to see if anybody had any questions about
our capital budget request um that got approved at the capital planning committee. Um, so it's uh we've we've got a building that's coming up on uh 30 years. Um, it's uh the the building uh in the areas that don't get
updated are definitely showing wear and tear. Uh the furniture that hasn't been updated is not ergonomically designed. They're basically countertops with, you know, chairs. Um office spaces are not designed for efficient use of space. As you can see, it's just a big room. is uh
um let's see and then uh the filing and document storage is I mean we just got filing you know just oldfashioned filing cabinets there. Um, so what we've what we take pride in uh is the fact that when somebody comes into our police station, they are amazed that it's a a
30-year-old building because of the facilities maintenance um that goes that the director that takes care of our building as well as our systematic updating of the building. Um that started uh approximately 5 to 6 years
ago. Um and we just systematically are going through that building so we can get another 30 years out of this out of the building. So um originally we had a lot more uh for for this year in our 5-year plan. We had a lot more uh we
were going to try and get a couple different rooms done at the same time. understanding our financial constraints here. What we uh we scaled back um this um but with the caveat that um you know we applied a need versus want and I
think somewhere we're in the middle um with the need versus want. I mean the the off the detectives in the detective bureau can still cozy on up to their countertop and and work. Um, but what we've uh what we want to do is is get
them uh workspaces that are state-of-the-art, that are comfortable, and that will, you know, that will take them take, you know, not them, but take the department for another 30 years in there. So, um, we worked with the company that's been systematically updating uh, our department. Um, they
designed this up for us and, um, you know, we're, uh, you know, we're, uh, this is where we're at. So, um, if there's any questions on this, I can I can answer. >> Yes. Sorry to keep asking. >> No, this is why we're here. So, um, I
have a short attention span and, uh, if I hear background noise, I can't concentrate and I that open concept. How are folks is there a private room where you can go make a call or how does that get managed? >> No, that's that's their room.
>> Okay. Um the uh you know and it does uh you know there there are uh you know there are some you know concerns there um you know especially if you have you know other agencies and you know working you know alongside it's we do a lot of regional work a lot of work with our uh
you know state partners um and uh you know they uh you know if the other the other detectives you know working on something over there it's you know it does it does offer that challenge. But uh sorry.
So there used to be a furniture company that retrofitted these types of systems. Actually was uh labor was from uh Conquered Prison. They're based in Hudson. So I don't know if that's is I
assume you're getting new furniture, but uh I don't know if that's a consideration. So I I don't know if it's even still in business. Used to be in Hudson. Um, no more prisoner, >> huh? >> Yeah, conquer prison is >> understand there's a Shirley prison, too.
>> There's lots to lots of resources. >> I know. >> Yeah, I know that. >> It's just a question. >> Yeah. No, and I appreciate that. And we're and we're we're always looking for uh you know, ways to get things done, you know, the most cost effective and efficient. And uh the the other thing is
we want to make sure it's going to last. We don't you know, you can buy And I'm not saying it is this this, you know, you you can buy, you know, we can buy, >> you know, cheap furniture, but we'll be visiting that in two years, >> you know, and trying to do it again. >> How much is it your uh I mean your
request? How much are you asking? >> Uh this is give me two seconds here. Uh so this is uh to do that whole room and everything you see there is 285.
>> Awesome. >> Compared to what I >> just I want to be clear. It's 28,500. That's >> not $28. >> Not 2,800. I just wanted tomorrow. >> Yeah. So, um, but where, you know,
again, it's a it's a building that was I, you know, I I came into that building, you know, when I was a a young youngster. And >> there >> uh Yep. from this from pretty much right here and moved over there. >> Um, and you know, the building's done us well.
>> Say it's hard to believe it's 30 years old. and and I and really I I I that's a testament to the facilities department who uh are are constantly doing great work for us and and for the entire town and for the town to support the the
systematic upgrade of the department. Um you know one of the things that we are going to be having to visit just to throw it on the on the radar of everybody is just our parking situation there. Um, you know, we've uh we will we can talk about that later, but um you
know, parking is a challenge. We do have some parking um I don't know if we're part of the San Andreas fault or whatever, but one of our back parking lots seems to be falling into the abyss almost. >> So, um >> when you come to see Maverick, we can show you around.
>> I don't even know that you have a back parking lot. All our cruisers are on the back lot and uh every every year it just seems like now when I have had to park my cruiser in a separate store I'm like now I'm putting my e brake on which I never did before. So uh probably a
bigger thing to last again another 30 years and I can the more people we have as our department grows then you know come shift change we're we're on top of each other for parking as well. So, not only we're sinking into the vest, but
also we need more parking. So, we'll uh >> you could I don't know the commuter parking lot that they feel it's a little >> we can all use the we can all use extra steps but that's too many. Um but I can tell you that uh that Chuck of the facilities department is actively
looking at it and just trying to keep his keep. Yeah, I was just thinking that the idea like a building up you know another level >> but if it's thinking that even at a surface level obviously the ground is not strong enough to support another level. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole another
>> it's a whole another one someone else's uh engineering. >> Uh >> so so that's basically us in a nutshell um for the for this. Again, we're very proud of the the budget that we were able to put together and and and u you know, and we give to the town to help
achieve the overall budget increase um that the the town manager gave us. So, um I'm happy to answer any questions about budget or anything else at the PD. >> There's no online. So, >> Oh, really? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Looks like you're off the hook.
>> Yes, sir. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Thank you >> as always. Thank you. >> Next time bring the dog. >> We all want to see the dog until we get the dog.
>> Him and the dog all the time. >> That's okay. >> Reserve transfer proof. >> We should like do like puppy like puppy yoga. Do puppy financial committee. >> That's right. That's right. Especially this time of year.
>> Um all right, Robert, you are last man standing. So, Mr. Chairman and members of the Fincom, so I know that it's late. It's 7:30. Um, on here was review of draft number two of the budget, which
you have, and just a review of the free cash. Now, I I recommendation. I will point out that we're going to cover both of these on Wednesday, March 25th at 6 p.m. at the budget forum. So, in interest of of time, um, if the
committee wants, we can cover everything. You're going to be there on Wednesday. >> My suggestion would be to skip the draft two, okay, and quickly cover the cash cuz I don't know if everyone that yet. >> So, again, let me just Good point. So, we're going to go over draft two um on
uh Wednesday. So, your homework assignment, which is mine, is to put together your questions and so forth on draft 2 and we'll cover that. And then on April 2nd, when you meet next April 2nd on at 6, we're going to review the financial articles to the warrant, which
you'll get in advance, as well as the budget. So, on the free cash, I this is what we had Barbara and I had presented to the fincom back in February and was also presented to the select board. So
um we have just 2.9 just we have over 2.9 million in certified free cash for this year. Um and as the finance committee knows ultimately free cash is subject to the appropriation of town
meeting and we had proposed a at the time this was sort of our professional recommendation on the uses for free um cash and of course as a finances I mean these numbers can be adjusted and so forth but what we're proposing um the
compensated balance fund to put about 20,000 in there the compensated balance balance fund is a fund that the town can use for to fund um for example when somebody retires they're owed some um payout and so forth. Historically that
would we don't always know when the retirements were. Sometimes those costs would hit the departmental budgets. So this was set up by town meeting back in 2020. It has a balance right now of 62,000
and um the recommended balance from the department of revenue um is about 75,000 and we know of some retirements on the horizon. So that's what we're proposing um to increase that slightly. the
forward funding of the pension which the fincome is where we've been doing this last several years at 300,000 to considerable savings um to the town. In fact, um, this year the pension assessment I believe was 6%. I'll check
if we hadn't forward funded it. It would have been higher. And I'll I'll have those specifics I don't with me right in front of me. But we have been realizing savings um significant savings by doing that. The OPED, the postemployment benefits, what we per the financial
policy says we'll put 300,000 in each year. We use the meals tax which is anticipated which is going to be 175,000 and then we use the balance from free cash to get to the 300,000. So we'd
recommend 125,000 there with the meals tax gets us to the 300,000. the UDAG replenishment. The select board authorized a million dollars for the senior center project. And of course, when we use UDAG funding, it's subject
to the replenishment at future town meetings. We're recommending um given the high free cash this year, um that the town um replenish uh half of that. Um well, uh we can. We had proposed to
pay we could pay it back over a 10-year period at 100,000. Barbara had another scenario to pay it back over four years at 250,000. We're recommending a little on the on the higher side to get that um replenished. I want to point out that
historically our free cash average is about a million to 1.5 million. This year and last year was 3.2 million. We've had two um higher than normal years. We're recommending on capital stabilization. Town meeting authorized
$2 million for the senior center from um capital stabilization. We're recommending that the town consider putting a million back in. The current balance of uh stabilization is 6.1 million. That's with the 2 million out.
Um, again, we could repay that in a more conservative or less aggressive way, but our feeling is where we have a higher than normal free cash to make progress on that front. Stabilization still putting 620,680
in there. The current balance is 5.4. We exceed right now in the financial policies on stabilization. we exceed the minimum amount that we're supposed to have in there. And then Barbara presented and I sent you this slide
presentation again which we had in February. She's proposing there are three projects um the that if we pay those down um with the free cash um it
which would be 346,830 it would um remove that amount from the tax bills or from the tax impact for next year and there would be also another savings of about 61,000 in
interest and in the interest of time the three slides after this in the presentation I just so Barbara had done this breakdown it's so um what she's propo proposing is um these are three um
projects that if we pay them there's the principal the interest the total um we would realize uh those savings um let me go sorry I didn't go on a runway
to nine. >> Nine. Thank you. Sorry, lost my spot. Um, so that is the recommendation um from the finance manager and I of course
um as you know those numbers could be um moved around. One of the things that has come up often is, well, with all of this free cash, why don't you pay off um, you know, either pay off more capital or you'll often hear, let's we should apply
that to the tax rate. Now, I know Barbara's not here tonight, but applying it to the tax rate, unfortunately, I'm not saying there wouldn't be a savings, but the savings would be so nominal. We're talking under probably 10 under
$10 or less, probably a dollar. So per uh tax bill this this type of an approach and we can alter those numbers is a much more um I think responsible and proactive way that increases the
value of the free cash. So we're going to again talk about this briefly on Wednesday. When we come back on April 2nd, you'll see in the warrant articles we'll have these amounts, but we're open to any as
you look at any um suggestions. >> Question on the the first one, the compensator balance as you said, it's got 62K in it. >> Yeah, >> I know that every retiree is different, but say on average,
>> how many people would 62,000 cover? And I'm wondering should we put more in there? >> Mhm. Um so excellent question and it depends. So for example um depending on the employee
like for example we have some without anybody specific say we have a 30-year 30 plus year employee retiring generally he or she will have accumulated a certain amount of vacation. Mhm.
>> There's a sick plea buyback incentive, you know, and so forth. On So, I would say on a nonUN 30 plus veteran on average, the the um the what we owe them to pay out could be
somewhere between 10 to 15,000. That's on the high end. >> Okay. on um not because people um sometimes retire um as little as 10 years, believe it or not, if they meet the criteria um or 20. It it could
fluctuate. Okay, >> we haven't had um >> the last time we had a lot and why this was created was actually at CO um lost a lot of uh senior department heads. God bless them. They they earned it. they could retire and rather than staying
another two or three years during co they were able to go um so but on the horizon we feel that will be a sufficient number so that would put it at about 82,000 and we haven't funded it the last couple of cycles but excellent
question >> thank you anything else >> no I don't want to open up some really long discussions Okay. >> He's also open to emails. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And Wednesday, we'll could be uh
covering this too. >> The um the group meeting and I like to call them. >> Yes. >> Group meetings. >> Um Okay. And there's still no one on. >> Nope. There's nobody there. >> Okay. So, that means nope. And this uh
you got some public input. Um, well, we just talked about our next meeting, group meeting. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> which will be when? >> April 2nd at 6, Thursday. >> So, we'll see you. >> Oh, did you fix the website? >> Yes.
>> It said 7. >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah, >> that was the last thing I wanted to bring up. >> Yes. So, Wednesday the March 25th at 6:00 will be the public budget forum which is a joint meeting of the select board and the fincom and all the department heads will be here. Um, and
then you guys are meeting April 2nd at 6 to one of the items is to review the financial items of the warrant which you'll get about a week in advance of that. Barbara's just verifying all the numbers. Okay. >> And I don't know what else the chair or
has planned for that night. Anything is possible. >> Yeah, I have to warn articles. It's going to take a long time. >> Yeah. >> Um I will probably talk with Kurt and we'll send out a cheat sheet or something an email ahead of time. >> Sounds good.
>> And then we can discuss it then. So, >> I don't know if you saw my >> I'm wondering when we're going to discuss that. >> I know. >> We do that next. >> I have to get with Kurt and figure out when we're going to do it. But um it was a heck of a ride. Um
I you know what I'm not going to suggest an endurement. I will let someone else do it today if there's nothing else. >> So I propose we join the meeting. >> Second. >> Okay. >> All right. All those in favor. I >> All right. Motion is adjourned. Our
motion to adjurnn is approved at 7:41. We are done.