--------- We will call to order uh the March 3rd school committee meeting. For those attending tonight's meeting should be aware that the meeting is being audio and video recorded by air public access and ASRSD. Any audience members who wish to record
any part of the meeting must inform the chairperson who will announce the recording. This is to comply with the mass wires tab statute. The listings of matters are those reasonably anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in
fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. Per the Shirley regional school committee policy beed, public comment is not a discussion, debate or dialogue between citizens and the school committee. It is a citizens opportunity
to express an opinion on issues of school committee business. Citizens will have three minutes to express their views. Any staff members addressing the committee are reminded of their obligations under state and federal student records laws with respect to maintaining the confidentiality of student record information and
refraining from disclosing any personally identifying information regarding students. Um, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Roll call. >> Mr. Risinger >> here. >> Mr. Here.
>> Mrs. reshoots. She's on Mr. Rup. Miss Span, >> I'm here. Michelle, >> thank you. >> Okay. Um, so we can just go as normal. All right. Great. Um, do we have our
high school representatives? Okay, great. Um, so either Mr. Hullbrick or Miss Obisonan, if you would like to I can start us off. So, it's been a while since I've been here. Uh, kind of
a lot has been going on. The biggest thing is the end of the hockey season, which is my favorite sport. And it was really hard for it to come to an end. But I was mostly just kind of happy to be a part of such a great team and have like a really solid senior year. I wish
we could have gone further in the playoffs, but I know like looking back on it, we had a great year and that's kind of all you can ask for. Um, I got a Mr. Christy the other day actually scared me. He called me into the office. I thought I was getting in
trouble, but he actually told me that I was saludiatoran of my class. So, that was pretty big news for me. And I also, my best friend is valadictorian. So, it's pretty cool how we're going to both be able to go up on stage and kind of uh say speeches together. I never thought I
would be up there like at all. So, that was a pretty big surprise. Um, for the college process, I am almost done. I'm still waiting on BEu. I really wish I did not do regular decision and had done early action so I could have gotten it
sooner. That's something that's some advice I would give to anybody that's applying to um colleges right now is try to do it earlier because waiting on it is pretty stressful. But once I get that in, I have all the information I need to make a decision.
Uh Mr. Christie also asked cuz we have the um the eighth graders are coming to the high school to tour. What's some advice I would give to my eighth grade self? And I would tell my eighth grade self to just be confident and work hard because, you know, I say most people
pretty pretty smart. High school is not as hard and as like kind of scary as it's cracked up to be. So, if you come in kind of with a positive attitude and just like a good mindset of working hard, it's going to it's going to be easy. It's not going to be too scary.
And yeah, that's all I had. Oh, and we're NHS is doing a family feud night on Friday. Anybody is welcome to come. It's It's going to be a lot of fun. So, if anybody wants to come out, I think it's $5 to enter. And if you build a team of five people, it's $20 to compete. But Aluchi can tell you more
about that, too, because she's also in NHS. >> Great. Thank you, Colin. Hey. So, I guess most significantly, um, the Jazz Band is going to be competing at the Massachusetts Association for Jazz Excellence this Thursday, which I'm excited because this is the first time
I'm getting to compete with the Jazz Band. And I always think that competing with like getting to see other bands is really the best part about um, being in a band and having that community. Um, also for student council, I would say that we're just trying to narrow down our prom venue. Um, we're trying we're
looking at a a whole bunch of different venues. We have one in West Boilston and then we're also considering maybe M like Mountus which I think would be really pretty. Um, I also got the chance to design this which is the RDA sweatshirt.
I think it's really cool because um design has always been something that I really am passionate for and the fact that I got to design something for a club that I've been a part of since freshman year is really cool. Um the fact that Miss Sweetland wants me to sign each logo for each sweatshirt makes
me really happy cuz it's it's like a form of recognition and I think that's really cool. The girls did decide that we wanted the sweatshirts to be in pink. So I I'm really grateful and really happy with that decision honestly. Um, I would say for the NHS um, Family Feud,
there's also going to be concessions and baked goods. I'm hoping I can bake some cookies and some cupcakes for that. So, you can keep your tongueies happy. Um, anything else? But for the eighth grade, what I would tell myself if I was coming into eighth grade is just to make sure
that you just take every opportunity that you really want to do because as much as it's kind of a stressful time as you are kind of adapting to a new situation. I think it's really grateful to just be like free because you're so young and to try everything because you
have the time and like you have the holidays and all the things that you all the resources that you could have to try something new. And I think that's what I would tell my eighth grade self. So, thank you. >> Great. Um, >> sounds like fun.
>> Yes. So, um, the family feud on Friday night. Um, can you where what time and where is it? >> I don't know if they can hear me very well. Dr. Render, do you maybe want to repeat? I'm going to have Charlie say that because I don't have much of a voice.
>> Okay. So, it's going to be from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I just have to double check. >> Okay. >> And it's it's here at the high school. >> Got it. >> To the location. >> I think that was on the weekly communication. >> I didn't know about it.
>> No, we can send out um we can send out a communication if you'd like through email to um all the families in the district. Is that something if we do and you have a lot of people turn up you can support? >> Yeah, that would be great. We're looking
for as many people as possible. Okay. >> So, that would be awesome. >> All right. We can get that out tomorrow. >> Yeah. >> All right. Thank you. >> Hey, Colin, were you able to um help out your goalie a little bit? I know you guys lost in overtime, but with 16
seconds left, he's the only reason you guys got to overtime. if we can pick that thing clean at the end of the third period and I think at the uh end of the game he was the only person to lay prone on the ice for about 3 minutes before moving a muscle. What was it like in
your locker room after the match? >> Uh it was honestly like devastating is really the only word I could use to describe it. It was like it was really sad, but he was he was the first person I um went to kind of like support cuz he
took it the hardest cuz he's kind of younger as a player, too. So, he was like kind of blaming it all on himself. So, I just kind of like I stayed with him a while on the ice and I made sure he was all right in the locker room cuz that's got to be honestly I think uh the hardest the loss is on anyone is the
goalie cuz he's just blaming himself. But yeah, I know him really well. Uh he's from Lunenburgg, but it was uh yeah, it was a hard one to accept, but I definitely made sure to support him as much as possible. >> Good. Great. >> Okay. Thank you both very much. Those
are great updates. Um okay, so moving to if there's any public comment. I don't think there's going to be any in the room. So, is there anybody online? None.
Okay. Um for our cons consent agenda, this requires a vote um to approve the February 11th, 2026 regular session minutes for release. And for warrants, we have AP Warrant 1119
dated 1:30, 2026. AP warrant 1123 dated February 13, 2026 and payroll warrant 17 dated February 20, 2026. >> I make a motion to approve the consent
agenda as read. >> Second that motion. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I >> I >> I >> Any opposed? Okay. >> Thank you. Sure. Thank you.
>> Moving to our new business. Um, first up we have the draft of the 2026 2027 school year calendar. Dr. >> Ren, thank you. So, we do have I might need you to do this. >> Uh, we do have the draft calendar. Um,
it's a bit different this year because of where Labor Day falls. So what you have in front of you is um the draft that we have put together and that complies with certain um contract uh language in Azria's contract. However,
we do have um Mrs. Zimman here tonight, the president of Azria. She uh we always asked for input uh from the union on the on the contract um excuse me on the calendar. uh and she actually pulled teachers
um about the later starting date which um honestly isn't ideal as far as we're concerned. We feel like we we miss some instructional time um at the beginning of the year and replace replace it with time at the end of the year in June. So um I'll stop talking. You're going to be able to uh better understand her, but
she does have a um a proposal or an option that she would like to share. Mrs. Simon, >> I thought she was on. >> This is mine. >> I couldn't unmute. Sorry. Um, thank you,
Dr. Renda. So, um, I'm going to give you the long and the short because I worked really hard on this, so please bear with me. In February 2026, article 29, section two of our contract was followed and the proposed calendar was reviewed. As you all know, Labor Day will be
Monday, September 7th of 2026, which is later than usual. Should we follow a typical calendar for the school year 2627, teachers would report Monday, August 31st, which is the one week before Labor Day and the last day of
school would be June 21st if there were no snow days. If we have five snow days, it would push the last day of school to June 28th because June 18th is a holiday. That late Labor Day holiday of 97 creates a misalignment with the
contract start date. As outlined in article 29, section 1 of the 2025 2028 contract, the school year may begin no earlier than the Monday preceding Labor Day, except in extraordinary circumstances, precisely for a situation
like this. After reviewing the calendar implications, I ask the unit to consider the following adjustment and vote on this proposal. This is the was the proposal that staff would begin Monday, August 24th of 2026
with students starting Wednesday, August 26th. Students would attend school Wednesday the 26th, Thursday the 27th, Friday the 28th. They would come back to school Monday the 31st through Thursday,
September 3rd with no school on Friday, September 4th and Monday, September 7th, following the contract language. We view this as a straightforward application of our existing contract language with a one-time anomaly.
Next year, alignment returns more to normal. Um, and we appreciate the committee's consideration and recommend that you approve the school year start dates as I've presented. The only addition I would add to that is we would actually have some staff would
have to start the Friday before uh new teacher orientation. We we typically have um that Thursday or Friday prior to that Monday. Um but um besides that we would be um as far as um central office
and the superintendent's office is concerned we're we're really fine with starting um then um we feel it does give more instructional time um towards the beginning of the year when needed and less time at the end um for
come June um and with field trips and everything else uh that is happening seniors being gone we we lose some time it's the the time is more valuable at the beginning of the year than it is at the end. >> Yeah. >> And I'm assuming the >> and for the record, excuse me, the vote
was 80.4% in favor of the staff that voted. And we had 93 of our unit that voted. And it allows the district to preserve instructional days for all students, not
just middle and um you know, not excluding the seniors. and it avoids extending the year further into June to maintain overall calendar stability. We aren't asking the school committee to vote to adopt a calendar tonight, but if
you um would like us to or are willing to go with those those dates, we would amend our our draft um and represent at the next meeting, which we feel is we have plenty of time >> to approve this.
>> With the proposal, when would the last day of school be? June >> June 10th and then five snow days would make it June 17th. >> Y >> with June 18th being a Friday and a holiday. >> Yep.
>> More instructional days before MCCAST the better. >> Yeah. >> And then if you >> It's true. >> Or and inversely if you have a later start date you run the risk of now we have to start talking about Saturday school because we can't extend into July. So,
>> right, with with a a we've been pretty lucky this winter >> u considering how much snow we've had when it's occurred. We haven't had snow days. >> But if you have 5 days, all of a sudden you're talking about what are we doing in June? >> Yep.
>> Makes sense. >> Does do you think there's any stomach for um having half days like September 4 or November 25th? That's right before Labor Day weekend and the Wednesday
um before Thanksgiving. >> I don't know. I know those are both are they both in the contract labor days? >> Yes, they're both not they're both contracted non work days. >> We could discuss it and get back to you on that. >> Yeah. To see if there's any interest at
all on their part on that. >> Yeah. anything I could I always look at this and it's anything I could do to get earlier in June because I know how hard >> the last couple weeks of June are for all the teachers. So, anything I could do to shorten that period, but if they could just take a look at that and see
what they think. I mean, we're making accommodations across the board. So, now >> up or down, we should at least know where they are on it. >> Okay. >> Well, you're talking to the person who would be pulling them anyway. So, there you go. I'm sure I'm sure we can find out.
Um, okay. So, you're going to make that change? >> So, we will make that change and represent um um the another draft um at the next meeting and hopefully we'll have some of that information that Mukquinty asked for uh by then. >> Okay. >> Thank you, Mr. Zimon. >> Yep. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um, Adam, one thing I can't remember. Um, the first two weeks of November are always rough with half days and closing and I cannot remember
all of the reasons for the I guess they're different grades have. It feels like there's like a period of feel like there's a period of time in November. Maybe maybe it is not that big a deal. >> Well, >> it might not be as big a deal. I feel
like there was one year where it felt like every week there was a half day and I was reading this wrong where it looked like there was two weeks in a row where there half days. I think those >> had 90minute early releases and there was >> it was it felt like it was a lot of interrupted time. >> It looks like Yeah. Okay. Never mind. I was reading this wrong. Yeah.
>> We've tried to remove that as much as we could to make things a little bit more consistent. >> Yeah. Okay. This is great. I could have a question please. >> Yep.
>> Um sir chair person. Um so there's um I was looking at the half days also and wondering if uh all those were like early release for uh teacher conferences or for uh other things. It looks like
there's eight. Um, I know probably, you know, the 23rd is um Christmas, but uh that's not Christmas Eve, so I don't I don't remember having the half day that late in December. You know, like um
Chris was just saying, it seemed like one time we had a half day every week, and he knows it better than I do. Um, so I I was Did we talk about limiting half days once upon a time and either making them full days off and putting other stuff with them instead of running the
buses for a half day? >> Well, we we can't necessarily make them full days off um and run professional development because we'd be over the contracted days. Most of the half days are are teacher professional development
days. There are some uh that are not. the last day of school for instance in the 23rd I believe is not it's it is uh just a a half day release >> um but I believe all the others are for um teacher professional development
>> teacher professional development I I just know that previously we talked about that maybe professional development was more effective if it was a full day and not have the half day stuff going on. Yeah, I would I would agree. It probably is more effective to have a full day of professional
development. The problem is is we're only contracted forund is it 185 days? >> 84 >> 184 days. So >> I was trying to sneak one in. >> Yeah. If we if we can't if we can we would. Um but we're trying to sneak in
professional development um really any way we can. >> Okay. Just curious. Thank you. we did that um we did combine a couple in the past and so that's why we have a full day professional day in January now
so that was a change and if you notice each of the professional development half days there's there's one essentially every month there's some form of professional development opportunity every month starting starting in October >> so that's how it was established
>> in that full day professional development so I can't pick them up now. Um, didn't that allow us to um work with other other districts and stuff to give a richer professional development? >> Yeah, that's our annual one in November on election day.
>> Mhm. >> So, we're hosting this year. Actually, it's Harvard's turn to host. Unfortunately, Harvard's uh the Bramfield School is a polling location and so we've hosted there before on election day and it was a disaster. So
we will take over hosting and then Harvard will take it the year after. >> Sounds good. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Okay. Um with no other questions I see. Um next for new business is the approval of the revised middle school pathway
exploration policy. >> Thank you. We received some feedback from the department of ed on the middle school pathway explor uh exploration policy. Um essentially if you look on the back page there's a highlighted section. They um
informed us we needed to add uh the section that states students will not receive an unexcused absence if the CTE school or program confirms the students participation in a tour. That is the exact language that was sent
to us from the department of ed which is why I simply added that as a uh sub bullet under school tours. Um we do have some issues with their language. There are no such things as unexcused absences. But um we we do need
this policy um to be approved and a posted. So I I making the concession to add their exact language to that. We we I I'm feel the first bullet says that. Um but um
you have to add it. >> Just to make sure I'm following the negatives in that sentence. So we do not have unexcused absences. >> No, there there there's no such thing. >> They don't exist. >> And so we should add language saying that we will not give an unexcused
absence if you go on a school tour. That was correct. >> Great. Just checking. >> It seems unnecessary. However, it's not in conflict with our policy. So, I'm not that >> not the hill you want to die on. >> No, I'm just I just wanted I'm like,
wait, let me make sure I'm reading this correctly and not misunderstanding the implications. So, >> I felt the best to add it ask that you approve it and we will post it uh repost it to the to the website. Any other questions, comments?
>> Make a motion that we uh approve the middle school pathway exploration policy as the revised middle school pathway exploration policy as presented. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I I
>> Any opposed? Okay. Um, next we have the request to reschedule March 18th, 2026 school committee meeting. >> Thank you. As you are aware, we are will not be certifying the budget tonight.
Um, we will be um um talking in detail about that in executive session. However, um March 18th is not 45 days from the first town meeting. I believe the latest we could go is
March 17th. Um, so we're asking the school committee to reschedule that meeting tonight so that we may certify the budget at the next school committee meeting and be within uh in compliance with the 45day um requirement. We could go the 17th. It is a Tuesday.
Um, we could also go a week earlier or if um the school committee would like to leave that meeting on the books, we would need to schedule a quick Zoom meeting or in person meeting just to certify the budget um sometime before the 18th of March.
>> Wireless you can do the >> call from wireless call. Um, any questions? Yeah, >> I think we should move our uh next meeting till March the 17th to make the window.
>> Are we going to be serving green beer St. Patrick's Day? >> We can see what we can do after the meeting. Okay, >> we'll be in Shirley still. >> Yeah, >> there's a place down the street that serves green beer on March 7th. Yeah, we don't have to change but we do
not have to change location. >> Okay. Any other thoughts, concerns with the 17th? Anybody online? >> I'm good. >> That works for me. >> Okay,
>> so it does require a vote. I'd make a motion that we reschedule the March 18th meeting to March 17th. done. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I >> I >> I
>> Any oppose? >> I >> just leave this zoom. It's easier. Um Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Uh next we have the superintendent report. I'm guessing from Mr. Clearary. Clearing
me. I'm clearing you that. >> My voice is a little bit better than Dr. Renders this evening. Uh so district updates, the last day of school for 2526. So spring is just around the corner. We have had two snow days so far this school year. So the last day of school is now Wednesday,
June 17th, which will be a half day of school for all students. Our budget presentation, FY27 budget presentation this Saturday at March March 7th at 9:00 a.m. We'll be presenting the FY27 budget to the Town of Shirley finance committee.
And we have uh one new acceptance on the college acceptances list. So this was submitted by Vanessa Perez, the administrative assistant for the counseling office at the high school. And that was for Fitsburg State University. >> And that concludes the superintendence report.
>> I thought our last joint session with the board of select Shirley that requirement. >> Um that was our understanding also. But since we we met with um the town managers and um Mr. Sawyer had mentioned
that uh we were still on the the books to present on this Saturday. >> Okie dokie. >> And I apologize. I had a typo. It's 9:30. >> 9:30. >> Yes.
>> I just assumed it wasn't 9:03. I just went 9:00. >> I'll be there at 9, but we're starting at 9:30. We can uh we can call to confirm that if you'd like. >> No, I think I'm pretty sure you're right. >> Okay.
>> But they are expecting us. I'm sorry. I don't know how to raise my hand. >> I believe so. >> We'll we'll we'll call and confirm and we'll send an email uh to school committee tomorrow. >> Okay. Um thank you. for ongoing business. We
have our regular updates for the FY26 budget. Anything? >> Yes. Uh chair, raise your hand. Thank you. Um we have this as a a recur recurring item and we do have a update
uh for this meeting. Uh I have included uh three documents to help kind of visualize uh the state of the budget for FY26. Uh we do have our um consultant from Mazbo uh Dan Deei. He is uh scrubbing
our uh FY26 incumbrances uh to look out to to see if we can find any stale requisitions that may exist and to close them out which will open up uh budget uh amounts for us. Also, he's tracking the revenue to see where we we
are uh uh as far as our chapter 70 and our other items. And the the first document I want to take a look at is the monthly local aid payments. And this tracks our our general fund revenue which includes chapter 70 school
choice receiving tuition, charter tuition reimbursement and regional transportation reimbursement. Uh the second column is our budget numbers that we actually budgeted for these revenues. So we can compare as we look across each month and
then the totals how we how we are doing compared to our budget. I wanted you to notice that uh you'll see a zero for September and lower amounts for July and August for our chapter 70. We have two
state bonds uh which have six different payments throughout the year. Uh so it's it's a great uh vehicle for our debt. Uh the interest rate is very low, but they do reduce our chapter 70. They take they make the payments right out of our
chapter 7s. So, we do have some dips during the year as far as cash flow. Um, and if we run into a a scenario like we had the negative 26 in September, they would also take that out
of a subsequent chapter 70 payment. Uh, so right now we're looking good on all of our uh revenues for the general fund and we do not recognize our full amount of chapter 70 at 8.8. 8 million because of
the the debt payments that we make. Uh our debt is about it's just under $2 million for the two notes, the high school rena and the uh field project. So we we uh review this tool monthly when all the all the receipts are in and
the bottom section is the charges. uh we add in uh the choice and charter going out charges which come out of the revenue and that is how results in our net payment for the month. Looking through at the next uh document
we have the fund balances. It's our top 20 fund balances for the year. And we have our general fund with the highest balance district stabilization.
Uh this uh fund code 229. Uh we this is we asked for access to $300,000 uh for the FY26. We have $112,000 in expenditures. Uh so a balance in the
capital stabilization still of 759,000. Uh and it appears that uh if the low the last quarter uh we spend at the same rate we'll be able to return about 100,000 uh back to the capital stabilization fund.
Circuit breaker is another one of our um larger balances 723,000. The district sped reserve fund uh at 440,000 is for any uh extraordinary sped charges or tuitions out uh we can
access that. And then we have food service who with universal free lunch and participation at uh you know 100% we're doing really well with the reimbursements from uh the feds and the state.
The rest are our kind of a mixture of uh trust funds like the OPE contribution that is our for our postretirement liability uh for our retirees benefits and we make a contribution of $10,000
each year uh to that fund and it's basically a trust fund uh which we don't we we wouldn't access for anything uh that is strictly for that OPED liability. Shirley stabilization fund was uh designed or uh came out of this regional
agreement. Uh while uh Air and Shirley were both paying on the middle school, Air absorbed uh a certain amount to take their fair share while that note was being paid off and it's it is all done as of uh the middle
school debt is done as far as at the end of FY26. We have a couple of grants, the FY 25A, the 240 grant and the title 305 grant. Those are two of our larger grants um
that we have and they we they have large uh balances left. Those are multi-year grants that can go over uh two years two-year time period. Early learning center is our uh preschool donation
AP exams uh high school technology. Then there's a scholarship in there. Uh we're very fortunate to have several uh scholarship accounts. Uh and again those are that's a trust fund uh that would be strictly for the students uh and it's
awarded by the high school or the middle school and then project lead the way which is another grant. So uh it's a pretty strong lineup of fund balances. uh but it is always changing uh as the grants come and go and um use of the
other funds uh as a reserve fund. And then the last report I have in there is our trial balance and this is uh what we use on a monthly basis to review uh the accounting. uh it organizes all the uh
transactions in our accounting system into asset, liability, um fund balance, liability, revenue and expenditures. So with this we can spot any uh abnormalities or mistakes made in
the accounting system uh pretty quickly and make the corrections. hopefully uh catch it at the month end close. It doesn't um roll over as a reconciling item. But this shows you you'll see we have
our asset, our bank accounts, all of our bank accounts, our liability accounts are uh all deduction withholding for payroll uh liability and then fund balance is
our uh undesated fund uh balance. Then all the general funds expenditures are listed uh opening balance, debits and credits and then the ending balance and those all have to balance with the dual account
and that is reviewed monthly as part of our uh practices for the accounting department and payroll and uh payables. So it looks like we're in pretty good shape. We our revenue I is we have that
extra 400,000 uh that we reertified the budget for. So we'll have that and the use of the capital stabilization uh I think we'll we'll be able to uh manage uh the ending balance pretty well
and be in a good spot. >> How do you voucher the expenses for the um building rental fund? How do we what? >> How do you vouch >> for the the payments being made >> for building rental? Yeah. >> So, we have a a software that uh we use
for when they when an organization books the rental, >> right? >> And then it also we can create an invoice and then that goes out uh to the group and we apply it to the we deposit it to the building rental fund. Um, also
our classroom rentals like CAPS and Keystone, they pay us a an annual rental for those classrooms. So that also goes into the building rental. Uh, so that's a nice uh fund that we use to help out athletics and facilities,
but that's how that that goes. >> So you just transfer out of that account to other line items. So I don't know if I answered your question. >> Well, we have yeah building rental you have certain expenses involved in
building rental which include you know custo. >> Yeah. >> Do we just like >> do we take some of that to credit other accounts and charge it to building rental? >> We do athletics we actually designated 50,000 last year right
>> to get down through the to the end of the year and facilities as well. We had um custodial supplies, >> right, >> went through the roof and we had to give them a budget of 50,000 as well. >> Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Anything online?
>> Okay. Thank you, Mr. Picket. >> Thank you. >> Um anything for an update on our regional agreement? >> Uh no update. It's been submitted to um our general counsel Kevin Brleyan u who is reviewing it. Um I did add a there
was a request uh from the town managers um about the formula for calculating um not the required local contribution but the um >> allocation. >> Thank you. The allocation >> above RLC and transportation. Um I don't
know that that's there's any other options than than what we do but uh we we have asked um our general counsel if there are to to share them with us. >> You know I I don't know they're they're wondering if there's a if there's a
better way to do it since we've regionalized. Uh it's it seems pretty standard. Um, as far as we're we're aware, >> it's a rolling five-year average. So, it should smooth things out, but this was a different year with down 88 students.
Uh, surely up 22 and a down 60 65 I believe. >> I just asked for input. He's not changing he won't be changing the agreement at all. And again, um before that regional agreement goes anywhere, it needs to be approved um by the school
committee, right? um and then town meeting and then eventually um the department of ed. So there's there's we're not looking to make changes into that. >> But since he's looking at it already and they had some questions, I figured I would um get it straight from general counsel.
>> Since we used to get zero money for transportation, we get some isn't the bureau in a book. >> Okay. Thank you, Dr. Renda. Um, there are no chairperson's notes this evening. Are there any other topics for
discussion not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance of this meeting >> from the district here? No one online. >> Well said. Thank you.
>> Okay. Um, so we have our communications Yes, I have my communications right here. >> Are you all able to hear me? Cuz it looks like your screen froze. >> Yep. Sounds good. >> Okay, great.
We can't hear you now, though. Are you there, Erica? I think she may her screen may have froze. >> You want me to take it? >> Yeah. >> All right. >> If you might. >> All right. So, Wednesday, March So, here are the announcements. Wednesday, March 4th, Laurier White will have its annual
math night at 5:30. >> On Thursday, March 5th, Paige Hilltop will host a PTO meeting at 7:00. Same night, Thursday, March 5th, will be a STEM night at the middle school at 5:00 until 8:00. On Tuesday, March 10th, winter athletics
recognition night will be at 6:30 at the high school. Same night, Tuesday, March 10th, the Air Shirley PTO meeting will take place at 7:00 at Laura White. On Wednesday, March 11th will be a half day of school. We will serve lunch. There'll be no morning preschool dismissal times
for the high school are at 11:25. The middle school is at 11:15 and the two elementary schools are at 12:15. On Wednesday, March 11th, we have an ASF meeting at 7:00. And I believe Wednesday, March 11th is also the district arts night, which will be at the high school. And Wednesday, March
18th, is the school committee meeting, which has now been changed to Tuesday, March 17th. So, make changes on your announcements for the school committee meeting at 6:30 at the middle school. Great. Thank you, Mr. Clary. Sure. Um, with that, um, we will be moving to
executive session pursuant to MJL chapter 3A, section 21 for our FY27 budget discussion. >> Make a motion that we tonight's school committee meeting at 7:20 p.m. with the goal of
going to executive session. We'll rejoin the session for the goal of a journal. >> Strictly to adjourn. There we go. >> Okay. All those in favor? >> I I need a second. >> Oh, we did not. Um notes.
>> Do you want to repeat that? >> Second or we have a second. All those in favor? >> I I >> Any opposed? >> On the assessment page. Yeah. Yeah, I got that. >> Okay, we're journing for executive session. Thank you. Part: 2
Okay. Thank you. Just u one last thing I just want to mention uh Madame Chair. Um we do routine budget checks monthly and and um and the last one for the snow budget. It's getting kind of tight. We've had a high impact year compared to most years. So just as a heads up, we're
keeping an eye on that. I'm working with Robert and the finance folks and there's possibility we could go over on the snow budget this year and we would address that accordingly. It's happened many times before, but not in a while. We haven't had a big winter in a while. So, just uh wanted to mention that. >> Okay.
>> I know. One according to an inch turned into I thought >> I know. Alexa told me we're going to get an inch. My weather app said two and somebody was sending me a message saying we're getting five. I'm like I have no idea. >> All right. Thank you. So, next up, Rafe Freellander, director community and
economic development, and Mike Wallace, building commissioner. Come on down. Good to see you. >> So, um, unfortunately, we don't have screen share capability. >> Going to have to talk us through it.
>> Madam Chair, and uh, the rest of the board, we uh, so, Miss Freellander came to me and uh, kind of spearheaded getting this going. It was to change some uh change a portion of the sign bylaws um or signed bylaw to make it
easier for businesses to adhere um decals and signage to the outside to the exterior of their windows or glazing down not just downtown but um it's just believe it's too stripped uh and the materials have changed and advanced
since this fil was put in place. Um and uh that's it. I'm just going to pass it. >> Yeah, we did have a nice uh PowerPoint presentation, so we can send that out um to you guys so you can see it later. But some of the public feedback that we received to inspire initiating this
change. Um Jose Bons with JNS um initially came to us and shared um you know, he believes this was an old bylaw because businesses used to paint the signs on the exterior window. And now that we have vinyl graphics that are better, um they can help businesses
because if they're forced to keep putting graphics on the interior part of the window, um windows are tinted, so it makes their signs more dull and not as vibrant. And we u have provided you guys with um three letters that we received from businesses um here in the downtown
area. Um the first one that we received was from the barber shop here on Main Street, Revival Cuts, where the business owner shared that initially they had installed their um decal on the exterior window only to be told by the town to take it down. Um not only did that cost
them money to put it up and then take it down, but then they lost a couple months worth of business because they couldn't open their business because they didn't have the signage. Um something also similarly happened to the um second business um secret grotto salon uh where
they were forced to have to take down signage that they had put on their exterior window. Um so they're really happy to hear that the town is considering u making this amendment because not only would it support them with advertising but um also help them
with additional safety, security and privacy. And then um Jose then um of JNS business products also submitted another letter today just reiterating that the graphics industry has changed for the last 17 7 to 15 years. Um the industry
standard is to apply signage to the outside of glass. Most of the surrounding towns and cities have already been doing this. So this is um more so housekeeping that will help businesses um attract customers and with the other um mentioned benefits of
privacy security. So your packet does have a memo that shows the proposed changes we have that consideration. So the next step we're asking the select board to consider is to forward these proposed changes to the
If the planning board signs off on it, it'll go before um town meeting this spring. >> I'd like uh advisor to speak on some uh so in order to just so the bylaw
we're requesting is to say that I can approve the materials. I know that seems vague, but um there's a whole you go into the back of the uh international building code and you'd find common standards like ISO4578 and that would be on something from Jose
saying that was how the what the adhes uh adhesive um it complies to those standards and then it would say if it was um the flammability, right? The flame spread index and all that stuff and uh can it stand the weather, can it stand uh sun damage and stuff and all
that. It tells you in the book if it's made of this certain material and this certain reference standards and you can refer back to them, then it's good to go. So that's how you determine it wouldn't me be going, you know, that's a cool sign. Let's do it. It's there's a whole
process two is just some hole. >> Apparently it works now. >> Yeah, I know. I a lot of moving parts going on here tonight. Lot of little squirrels. So, um, so I don't think this is a bad idea. I would recommend that,
you know, if we hear about new businesses coming in that we always make sure that they read, you know, understand what the bylaws is so none of them have to go through anything like that ever again. >> Yes. >> Um, yeah. So, I feel bad that that they had to do that. So, >> um,
>> okay. >> May I say one more thing? Yes. We are going to so just so we could squeeze kind try and squeeze this in for this meeting. We are going to um Rachel and I are going to vis revisit the sign bylaw and really dissect it. Not really but a really fine tooth comb kind of
>> deal. And then um what was she going to speak to? Um oh as far as uh the public being aware of what's it it not being on the permit. We were going to also address that having everything just right on the building permit for signs. So there is no like you're
saying. And so there's no wondering what did we do? Did we do it right? It's all It'll be all be on there. >> Excellent. >> Later. >> Excellent. Done. All right. >> Anybody have any questions? >> No. >> I have no questions. I think this I
think it sounds like a good idea. So, >> and we do have the suggested recommendation in the memo. Um I think it is to the to I'll make a motion that the uh suggested zoning bylaw amendment be sent to the planning board for consideration at their March
10th meeting. >> Second. >> All those in favor? Sorry. >> I I too many. >> Uh chair says I. It's going to the planning board. >> You're looking at me. I can't >> just There's all people moving around
dinging and I'm just like what in the world? Thanks for your time. >> Thank you. >> Oh my goodness gracious. >> Drive safe. >> Yeah, drive carefully. So, are we on back on Zoom? >> And APAC is broadcasting on channel 8. Everything is back up. So, I'm in the
process of hosting that heck that. Just kidding. We're back up. >> Okay. Excellent. >> Just got a word. >> All right, then. Next up is NextGen Energy Lights on Mass Initiative.
>> You want me to come up here? >> Yes, please. >> Okay, great. Can I see is one of my partners and Kimberly is one of my partners. >> Yes. Excellent. >> So, I was ready to present from my phone. I want you to know I was prepared to
>> I was going to hand you my tablet to read by. So, >> that's great. >> Oh my goodness gracious. >> All right. Well, Carly, you let me know when we're when we're ready to go. All right. >> Great. So, I don't see I mean Kimberly looks okay. So, he's entered the waiting room and
>> let me just >> Oh, yeah. She'll get all that. Don't worry. >> Beautiful. >> You can go start. Go ahead and start. >> Okay. Well, it is a pleasure to be here tonight and I'm going to I'm going to um try and make this as efficient as possible given the snow outside and
>> the technological difficulties we >> Exactly. and everybody wanting to to um cut to the chase. We are really excited to be here. Um, my name is Gina Ash. Ricardo Ortco is on screen and uh, Kimberly Johnson is our CEO. She is uh,
hopefully going to be on screen in a second. Um, and uh, I live in Harvard. I've been in Harvard for 25 to 30 to 30 years now, I guess. Um, I'm the president and trustee for the Harvard Conservation Trust. So um have done a
lot of work kind of in this area um protecting land very avid environmentalist and uh brought an idea to our select board in Harvard a few months ago which has really started to get traction and uh we decided that we
wanted to reach out to some of the towns around us and see if you wanted to join in a really exciting effort this keep lights on Massachusetts effort. So I'm thrilled to be here. I've had a chance to meet briefly with Janice a couple times and with Robert. Um so if you if it's okay, I'm just going to jump in.
Feel free to ask questions and then um uh we'll kind of get your gut reactions. So we are uh an energy company, very specialized energy company. We build and operate clean energy infrastructure and these are firstofind micro grids and
they're made of carbon free clean energy power generation for electricity gets paired with long duration storage um and connected into our emergency operations into our critical infrastructure in our
towns um so that we are resilient. unplanned outages, not just technology, but that can spread even broader in our communities and can last a long time. We're really looking to start to shore up across the nation. Uh, and in
particular where we all are, I'm very passionate about having it happen here in Massachusetts. So, we can click to the next slide. Um, I don't want to dive into our backgrounds. I'm happy to send you background on all of us. Kimberly's here, Ricardo's here, Shannon just joined. She's our VP of uh of uh public
sector partnerships. And I can tell you we have decades of experience designing, operating, building, maintaining, regulating clean infrastructure. We've worked at the town, state, federal level with Department of Energy, Department of
Defense, Sandia Labs. Um with our team, you get us when we would be working with you. um our expertise, our attention, and we're really good at navigating the details and the regulation and still being able to keep your town front and
center. Um, next slide. So, all of us who live in Massachusetts, we really struggle with the cost of energy here. I was telling Janice and Robert that in Texas where my partners live the per kilowatt hour cost for
electricity is about 5 cents compared to what we pay here. And I don't even want to it's like he who shall go unnamed. It's just so expensive. We import a lot of our energy. There's a lot of congestion on our grid. Our grid is aging. Um, we also have very ambitious
carbon transition goals and uh so there's a lot for us to chew on and uh if we could come in and add some real capacity for clean energy to our towns that would be exciting. I think we could all agree on that. Next slide.
So what are we exploring together? Um we would like the town of air to join the town of Harvard and a few other towns that we have been talking with to evaluate a fully financed fast to deploy
10 micro uh 10 megawatt community micro grid. So each of the towns would have 10 megawws which much bigger than we're using currently. Um what's exciting about this is we will own our town grids. Um we uh they're called hero
hubs. They're intended for us to lower and stabilize our electricity costs, increase resilience in our towns because it's going to be tied to uh tied to our emergency operations connected into our critical infrastructure sites as I
mentioned. Um and because this is larger than we really need in our towns, potentially generate excess electricity that we can then make revenue on for our towns. for Harvard. This is really important. You know, it's all public. We have override last year. We're probably
going to have an override this year. And we don't even have the tax base that you all have here, commercial tax base. So, finding ways to add clean energy capacity, lower our costs, potentially generate revenue, and achieve our carbon transition goals. Very exciting for us.
Um, and what's uh what's really great is we don't want the town to have to take on financial risk and exposure or technical risk. So, let's click to the next one. Um, so I'm going to hand off to Hillary. Um, let her say hello to all
of you. Um, we're so delayed, Hillary, with um with the weather and with uh the technical issues that I figured we would just dive right in. But they'll get to know you too as as we're talking. Wonderful. Um, good evening, afternoon,
Kimberly Johnston. Um, thank you, Gina. So this is hubs for energy resilient operations and if you look to the image where it says uh DRVP network
there is uh that's distributive energy resources and uh and these um are on-site generation paired with storage serving critical infrastructure um assets. So that's from telecom to
hospitals to emergency operations that we're going to connect to, as Gina mentioned, water treatment facilities and other critical uh facilities that really are there to protect and serve communities. And we want to make sure those lights uh remain on, but also you
have excess capacity that you can generate additional revenue streams um for your town. Um um these assets um operate independently and then connected through a VPP, a virtual power plant. Um
so if one goes down, the other one can um uh share that excess uh generation and storage uh to uh the other neighboring town. So with each of this consortium each would have five um 10 megawws
uh and they are would all u be connected as a virtual power plant operation. In addition, they are connected to the traditional grid, the main grid, um, where you could use these assets in orchestration and sell back to the New
England wholesale market, which is your transmission network system. In addition, they could um provide added benefits to the the grid distribution system. Um, especially when we're um seeking um more instate capacity to deal
with those peak demand days. Um so next slide. Uh this was awarded as a top 10 grid innovation award by the department of energy. It was uh seen as a national
replicable model because these hero hubs uh lower electricity costs. They mitigate hazard risks such as cyber threats or power outages uh impacts which are rising. They serve as um assets for um ancillary services,
dem demand loan management, um increase capacity for the state that tends to import quite a bit of energy at higher um costs and uh and this award um because of the um these 300 shovel ready
projects are still shovel ready. So, we've been charged um by DOE to go ahead and move to a replicable uh model that's not relying on federal funding and that's what we're launching here w with Massachusetts is the keep lines lights
on initiative. But this was 500 250 million grant matched by the private sector and now we're moving into a commercially viable model which Ricardo will speak to later. Next slide. Uh so the benefits uh it really this is
unique unique because it's localized um energy that is truly there to serve your uh community needs not only meet the energy needs of um your town but also create additional capacity that are
there to um serve as assets for uh the town as well as the community. So you will add local electricity capac capacity very quickly. It you'll over bill to to um deal with the demand
growth and provide um benefits to the state as well as the regional um wholesale market. You'll reduce electricity costs. When I installed my micro grid on my home, I pay less than $4 a month in electricity and I've
avoided 70 power outages. So the repayback could be anywhere from three to four years depending on um yeah the profile here um which we've already kind of mode modeled high level which Ricardo will get to. You'll optimize large
municipality electric loads um across your town offices uh fire police um and then you'll build resilience and keep the communities critical um facilities powered. And as we know if you lose power you definitely there's cascading
effects where you lose water telecom um gas. So we want to make sure that those um cascading effects um don't occur. And then obviously we will reduce the GHG emissions to um meet your carbon reduction goals and then um uh really
supplement the main grid and and and and boost it from a modernization and optimization perspective. Next slide. Um and then we offer a consortium approach and I'm really excited about the opportunity to present uh to you all
tonight. We are um looking to have a consortium because part of the challenge in accelerating distributive energy resources that are localized energy um paired with emerging techn storage technologies is because the financial
barriers. And so this um consortium approach provides the scale where the ultimately the town will own these assets and they will um not only benefit from the bringing up cash flow from the
lower electricity costs but also now translate and um these assets into generating new revenue streams uh for for the city. Um because we're looking at a consortium, we can also get economies of scale from procurement um
and make sure we're focusing on the domestic manufacturers um across the uh equipment that we roll out. uh we secure long-term cash flow um and then we um deliver low lower energy
uh electricity costs and then this really paves the way for a statewide um distributive energy virtual power plant market in in Massachusetts at your next slide.
We'll definitely pass it over to Ricardo to dive in on the financial aspects. >> Yeah, that's the fun part. So um uh good evening everyone. Uh it's uh it's great to be here and uh and thank you for for the time. Um we came we wanted to
actually overcome what we believe is the the biggest obstacle for um public institutions like yourselves to actually own uh their their own um generation assets. And we established in order to
address that the keep lights on fund. Uh the fund gets together puts together uh both private equity uh players as well as uh public uh funding and which allows basically the consortiums of
municipalities to eventually uh own the infrastructures and take advantage again of all the benefits that Kimberly described that have to do with both the reduction in the cost of energy as well as resilience uh for um for the their
energy needs especially focusing on what are the critical uh which the ones that are critical it being the critical infrastructures. Uh the next slide there's a lot of words here but um if uh if you bear with me and you focus on the schematic uh on the right this is the
way that a high level that the uh keep lights on fund or ko fund actually works and so um nextgen energy will act as the general partner uh for the fund uh potentially inviting state entities to
actually uh sponsor the fund itself. the >> partners. So the partnership will be uh will include basically the tax equity investors uh or private equity as well as infrastructure um investors as well
as the consortium of the municipalities. Um the idea is actually to have a split between 45% so 40 to 50% I would say uh equity as well and a similar amount of debt. the depth will be raised both at the partnership level as well as the
project level. Uh the way that the fund makes money is actually via a couple of um revenue streams. One that is described here which is the uh the PPA which is a power purchase agreement. And so the critical infrastructure uh sites
as well as the municipalities for their own load u will actually uh strike a contract with the with the fund uh for which uh the fund will actually provide uh the electricity at a very reduced price. And so there's a this is a
mechanism by which actually the city will have the opportunity to both reduce their own electrical bill as well as generate revenue for the excess capacity that Kimberly described. So we're we're assuming that uh the 10 megawatt will
more than cover what is the current load of the city itself. So for the um city owned facilities and uh that extra load and the extra capacity can be actually either sold on the market uh via um several revenue streams that are um
additive to the PPA that you will see here. Um I will skip the next slide. So if you can kindly move to slide 13. Um, we talked about ownership and uh and so we just wanted to uh make sure that that we
can uh that we really explain how how this happens. And so in the typical tax equity flip, which is the uh financial structure that we're putting in place, the investor will take 98% of the cash flow. Those cash flows will include the investment tax credits uh which the
municipalities uh cannot directly uh leverage if you will uh the depreciation that gets generated by the uh uh by the assets as well as again the majority of the operating cash flow that gets generated by the by the partnership. The
municipality will take uh 2% of those cash flows for the first five years. after circa five years um the the partnership flips and so the investors will go down to 2% of the cash flow while the municipality will take the uh
majority of the cash flow through from year five uh through the um end of life of the asset which we assume are about 20 years. So there's with the with the small exceptions uh that we'll touch in a couple of slides
of a physibility study that we propose uh uh to be executed in order to really understand how the uh the facilities will be built in each one of the towns. So with that the small exceptions uh there is virtually no cash outflows from from the city uh which will end up uh
owning the the facilities after uh after five years. Uh we've done some very high level modeling at this point which will need to be uh incremented by uh by the physibility study and and really understanding uh where the facilities
will be put uh and how much uh capacity can we really put on the ground. But from the modeling that we've done so far, uh each city would could could generate $ 1.5 million from year six through 20 with a cumulative revenue pool of over 25 million over the
lifetime of the assets. So I think we believe that this is an incredible value proposition both from the technical and operating u side as well as from the uh from the financial side for for the cities. Um,
NextGen Energy um will earn a management fee for uh putting together uh the deal both from the uh financial standpoint as well from the commercial standpoint as well as for overseeing the uh the development uh of the of the assets and
then uh in while they're in operation overseeing basically uh the maintenance and the uh and the operation of the assets themselves by a series of partners both on the EPC side as well as on the uh operating side that we uh
they'll actually uh work with us. >> Next slide. >> Next slide. >> Then why don't you flip one more? Okay. So why don't I recap quickly because I know there's a lot of technical jargon coming at us all late in the day. Um the idea here is
bring five towns together. Why do we do that? because then we get economies of scale and we actually get the investors that are willing to invest in something that's bigger. It's very hard for us to go off and get investors to help us finance a bunch of small 10 megawatt micro grids across all of our towns, but
we put them all together and it behaves like one large plant even though it's distributed and sitting in all of our towns. What I what I my background is software technology, right? We wire them all together so they behave like one big plant and uh so we can get this finance
with very little upfront capital from our towns. We are actually now applying for grants and we're hoping to get some grant money or other support to cover a feasibility and scoping study so that we could figure out where would we put this in air versus Harvard versus Bolton
versus Berlin. Um how would we where would we put the storage? Is it going to be next to the fire station, next to a water treatment or a wastewater treatment facility? Um, and get all of that laid out and then the investors can invest in it for the first five years.
We're the customers, right? And we are paying our normal um electricity bills every month. We get those investors paid off. Around year five, it flips and then we become the owners and then we're paying ourselves after that. and all the excess energy that we have, we can sell
into the marketplace. Um, so we can create some real revenue streams, $1.5 million a year, it looks like, minimum, to our towns. Um, so it's pretty clean. This is very novel. We built it in partnership with Department of Energy,
um, uh, the town of Harvard. So what we're really asking is that, um, the towns, uh, will enter into a feasibility study. And this is you'll see this in the in the deck that that uh we sent over, but it's all the things you need to look at. You know, where could we
potentially site this? How would we structure it? Where would a solar array go? Is it on roofs? Is it freestanding? Do we put the batteries next to the buildings or do we put it next to the solar panels? How do they how do they all talk to each other? How is it going
to be managed? Um and then we bring that back to you. This feasibility study is going to cost 375,000 for all five towns. So, it's 75k per town. Not a lot when we're talking about $130 million facility that we're bringing to our
towns. Um that said, it's budgeting cycle. It's hard for us all to find money. So, we're help we're we're trying to help find some capital for that. We may not. So, if you flip to the next uh two slides up, Carly, one more. Thanks.
What we're asking is that the town of air express an interest in participating in this consortium with our other towns and sign anou which I think I provided to you Robert um it is legally non-binding but what it does is it gives
us this expression of interest that we can take to our engineering firms we can take to the investors and say we've got we've got five towns we are ready to go and um and then we'll We'll work through the feasibility and then there's nothing
binding about that until you actually sign a scoping assessment and the town can decide whether or not we have 75k to put up for this or if you want to apply for grants or have us help you apply for grants, we are really willing to do
that. Um, so let me stop here and I'll let folks answer question. That's pretty much an hour presentation that we did in about 15 minutes. So I apologize for the fire hose coming at you. questions. A >> few um so I see all over you have clean
power. What is it? What what is this clean power? >> The clean power solar arrays. So it's solar panels. So in this area here, it's it's different in different parts of the country, right? But here in Massachusetts,
solar is the easiest to put up. It's the cleanest. Kimberly and Ricardo, am I missing anything here? >> No. >> Nope. >> You're right. >> So, what kind of footprint would this be for uh 10 megawws of solar? I mean, how
many acres or >> Yeah. >> square feet. >> So, I know in Harvard we were looking at putting uh 3 megawws on seven acres when we started. So you figure it would probably be about uh 20 acres. It can be
in one place. It can be split up among other locations as well. And the the storage systems, our battery storage systems can be and this is kind of what the scoping assessment will help us determine is is it is it strongest from
for the town from an operations and a resilience perspective to have the battery storage connected to the school, connected to a water treatment facility, the Wi-Fi, the police stations. Um, you know, where where is that critical
infrastructure most vulnerable? Do we also have batteries located at our solar array so that there's physical proximity there? These are the things that we would work through as part of the scoping assessment and optimize for the town goals and for emergency operations
and just general production. 20 acres is sizable. I mean, I know you can split it up and and go from, you know, different areas, but I know building our senior center, going through all of that, there's not a lot of acorage here in town.
>> Yep. correct me if I'm wrong, but but um >> so on the hero real quick on the um the department of energy uh grant where we had 385 micro grids, they all varied in size from they were on fire stations or
existing water treatment facilities um schools uh as well as um acreage. So they all varied in in in size. Now, we could look to get one 10 megawatt or we
could have um two or more um hero hubs within your town. Um, and that's part of the feasibility assessment is to really look at what you all view as available acreage that would be good sites as well
as critical infrastructure facilities. And then there would be a kind of data-driven down selection um looking at grid congestion, energy costs, ha risk, hazard risks um uh and that would um
ultimately get you to what would be optimal these 10 megawatts to serve your needs. I think when Janice remind me if I'm remembering this correctly I think when we were speaking with uh Harvard select board they suggested that if
there wasn't sufficient land Chris here in town that maybe in Harvard say right on the on the border here there might be some and maybe Harvard could we could colllocate our grids together and they would be serving both towns and you know
maybe the the grid is sitting sort of on on both both sides of the town borders. So that's something we could look at too as part of the scoping assessment. >> Yeah. And that might give get let us be a little bit more creative about how we actually design and build these.
>> And the batteries the storage what are they? They lithium ion are they what's the the type of storage we're talking about? So on the storage um the DOE just released its recent list of all the
storage technologies. Um we clearly would look to the storage technologies that are on that are proven technologies. This isn't an R&D project. This is really uh storage but the storage and I'm just pulling up um the
list here. Um, right now we're thinking lithium, but there's iron um based storage. There's thermal, there's chemical. Um, it it um and we serve on the the national consortium of longduration energy storage technologies
and we certainly want to pull in um one of the labs to work with us during the feasibility um and assessment phase. But we we really want to look at um all source technologies ex and prioritize
those that certainly um bring the most resilience factor. They have the lowest cost and then they're domestically manufactured so we can maximize the credits. I think someone was raising their hand and Yep. We'll get to Yep. >> Oh, I just want to make sure. Okay.
>> Yep. So if we don't know like the exact type what type of battery we don't have storage capacity numbers then right amp hours kilowatt hours for draw down do we have anything
>> that's going to be all part of the engineering design >> given where we are here in Massachusetts how much sunlight I mean it gets very complex when they're calculating how much sunlight we have during the day and powering ing powering the batteries
through our sunlight versus powering the batteries through the grid. And then they're also weighing, well, when is it really expensive? When are the peak demand times where we would want to not be pulling anything from the grid, but pulling from our battery, for example,
and when are the times when and we would want to be selling at that point into the grid. And then we would be charging our batteries when it's either really sunny out or when we could be pulling it at a really cheap time. And so these are all the things that get calculated during this feasibility study um by the
engineering firm that we we have selected to do this for these towns. Have I I'm know I'm I'm hitting the high points here. Um Kimberly, but have I have I sort of covered it generally? >> Great. >> And at the end of life, you say after
five years it flips back to the town. town. Now, does the town own it at five years? >> So, Ricardo, I'll let you you tackle that. >> Yes. So, the town owns 98% uh that 2% uh will need to be um need to be bought
back, if you will, from the uh from the equity investor, but for all intent and purposes, I mean, that's uh that's the that will be a nominal fee. So uh yes from year 6 through year 20 which is the normal uh lifetime for this type of
facilities um unless you know sustaining maintenance uh and capital can be poured into it but you know let's call it 20 years uh yes the the city will actually own their own facilities. So decommissioning would then be on the
town at at 20 years or is there a separate decommissioning fund like a nuke plant would have? >> So what he's asking uh Ricardo is how how is maintenance maintenance monitoring and decommissioning handled?
There's a we have a partner who actually managed the operations of the batteries as well as the the solar facilities and so uh they will manage through the operations as well as the decommissioning of the batteries as their life uh as their life expires.
>> So Chris, it gets built into the whole financing package and it sort of comes as a as a turnkey uh operation. So even though the town owns it, you're not expected to actually have to be managing and maintaining and decommissioning it,
the um those services are provided sort of as part of the keep lights on fund. >> So is it like a escrow fund, something that you know if someone goes out of business or tax credits change or something like that, it's not at year 20 and we have to decommission this whole
big solar array. Now it falls on the town. >> No, >> no, it doesn't. I mean it's the towns are part limited partners into the fund and so it's the fund that has uh the responsibility to uh to manage the uh
the batteries. The investment tax credits will expire in the first five years and so you don't have to worry about that and a lot of the investors will ask for those to be insured. Uh we're partnering with insurance company that actually insures the tax credits. So there's absolutely no risk on uh on
on that side. Um I think that you know the decommissioning of the batteries uh will be built into the fund and the fund will also have uh accountability and legal responsibility for for managing in case there is uh there's a fire or or something needs to be be addressed so it
doesn't fall directly on the >> towns. And as far as just the lower rates that you say you know the town can have lower rates what's that based off of? Is that data modeling or is that just kind of a
a guess? You know, I I like to see numbers and I understand listening to all your answers, you don't have numbers right now, but you know, can you say lower prices? H how do you say that? You know, like what's that based on?
>> Well, that's based on uh from the the modeling that that we have done so far. Um and uh um we are looking at something in the neighborhood of low teams in terms of the um uh the level the levelized cost of of electricity. Again
um it would also depend on the uh a series of the operational and technical uh decisions that that will need to be made after the physibility study will be in place. So for example, it depends on how much storage you will put front of
the meter versus behind the meter. They have different revenue streams. And so depending how you want to manage those revenue streams, then uh the the um sorry depending on how you want to structure basically the um um the
storage then the revenue streams may be different and there therefore uh that final price for for electricity may be different. If you put there's more capacity for emergency operations then the price of electricity will go slightly up because we need again to u
separate if you will um technically a portion of the of the storage to actually reserve that capacity for emergency operations and therefore that portion of the u the storage cannot generate revenue. So it will depend we
will make those decisions together uh both from the engineering standpoint and then understanding what the the implication for the on the financial side and then you will decide how you want to uh to manage some of those uh some of those decisions and uh that will impact the the cost of electricity. But
again um we u calculations um on on the basis of the capacity factors that solar has in Massachusetts uh which is much lower than other states. So we have to take into consideration that and the cost
that we assume as the as the cost for the uh the best uh so the the storage based on the uh the cost that some of our partners and suppliers have uh have in place with us. So at the moment we have the publicly
available information we've been able to pull on costs and demand and things like that and other projects that we've done, partners that we work with and through the feasibility and scoping study then we start to refine that with actual
numbers that we work on with you. And just to simplify it and is you're you're paying for electricity now and likely that electricity is coming through the transmission lines and which is a a sort of charge. they're paying um
you know we haven't seen the your utility bills but for the hero hugs that we um modeled with department of energy generally you're you're you're looking at a lower electricity cost of what you're paying
now for those large scale generation plants owned by um your utility uh versus something that is on site um that is carbon free. So there um paired with the storage. So that's
the that's the simple just change in the electricity cost through your power purchase agreement. And then as Ricardo was sharing, because you're have storage, you can actually generate quite a um various revenue streams depending on the
engineering configuration and what you ultimately are wanting to um um build for on those critical infrastructure sites. any other towns in the area that you've presented to yet? >> Yes. Um, several. So, um, we believe
Harvard is signing theou already. Um, we have presented to Bolton and are hoping to move forward to formal select board meeting as well. Um, we were just, uh, introduced to Shirley. Thank you. um Janice today and a meeting with um their
team on Monday um and also Berlin. So we're really at this point we're really focusing on uh a cluster of towns that we're all together. We have shared services and um shared communities in so many levels already. It really made
sense for us. We all we all use national grid for our distribution. Um we have a lot of shared protected lands. So, it it made sense for us to sort of start with um kind of in the family, if I can can use that loosely here. But we've had
really great traction um already, Sean, and um kind of excited about the momentum that's building pretty quickly. Um that said, we're just beginning this conversation with you and I think um really welcome the opportunity to keep talking, answer questions, you know,
we'll we'll dig as deep as as you want to go. Has there you mentioned models. Have there been projects completed >> in I'm sorry in New England or >> Sure. Not in New England. So it's this is coming to New England. So and and we
are bringing it to Massachusetts because I've lived here for 25 years and I'm tired of paying the electricity cost that I pay um when I'm in other parts of the country. Um this started in partnership with DOE and they started um
Hero Hubs around um the Gulf Coast region which has been hit so hard between hurricanes and unexpected snowstorms and a really antiquated grid. So um you know is it's been a very critical situation from an operations
perspective in that part of the country. we're getting hit really hard on costs um where we are because we don't have the resources that they have there. We don't have the heat, the sunlight, the wind. So for us, it's been really challenging. So it's it's a different
reason that we really need it here, but I think just as important to all of us. Pauline, >> thank you, Madam Chair. I'm sorry to have my hand up for this duration. I appreciate that we've been down or you
all have been down for a while. Couple of things. First, from uh an admin or procedural thing, the screen is seems to be locked on um the last speaker. I
don't know her name, I'm sorry, but glasses with long duck hair. It does not revert back to the current speaker. who is addressing the board, I'm sure. Um, so something is still not going well with the uh orchestration of the
meeting. That's >> Well, as long as you can hear us and it's being recorded, that's that's the important part. >> Agreed. But I have no idea who's speaking. >> Okay. Uh we can identify ourselves. >> I'm not totally sure what y'all are
discussing, but we just went to uh municipal aggregation for our electric bills. This is something different. >> Yes. So, this would be creating something. >> Well, I get that. But is this the only
company you're looking at for creating this quote unquote something? >> This is the first one we've talked about talked to because this is the first time we've ever heard of anything like this. >> And I get that because this is new to me as well. I I hope I hope y'all will at
least explore other alternatives. I'm not saying this company is not telling us everything that is accurate, but it just sounds too good to be true. And I'm an all electric house, so I look at this
stuff very very closely. Um, and I just hope y'all don't make a decision tonight. I don't know where this is going and I have missed most of the meeting but just please take a breath step back and look at other
opportunities. So just to just so you know that um this part is going to be on the video. Okay. So, and in the packet there's also theou that had been created with Harvard and in thatou is a lot of offramps and it's
basically that if this board chooses to go in get look into this which in order to look into this we would kind of need to move to the next next step. um then the feasibility study comes back. We could look at it and then go this isn't
for us. So, you know, there there's no there's nothing locking us in except for perhaps if this board chooses to do so, go into a feasible a feasibility study.
Right now, uh as presented, we've been asked to at least express an interest as to whether or not does not have to be made tonight. I'm not asking this board to rush into a decision. We can bring this back on March 17th. Um so that you know I I've
had this conversation with Gina and and Robert and I have had this conversation. So I'm a little bit more up on it than my uh counterparts here. So, I have no problem and it's it's perfectly acceptable to just listen tonight and
look into it a little bit more and come back on the 17th. Um, now if you Excuse me. Did you still want to have a question? >> Yes. Thank you so much. >> May May I add one? >> Hold on. Hold on. I have someone asking a question. >> I'm okay if she'd like to.
>> No, no, go ahead. Please state your name. >> Thank you so much. Um, Madame Chair, uh, my name is Rachel Koser. live at 30 Grten Harvard Road. >> Okay. >> Um I was wondering uh the limitations for business usage with regard to um
this type of power usage. Um with the rise of like AI and different things like that. I just would want to make sure that this wouldn't be used for I guess something like that. I didn't know if there were any limitations that would be presented with regard to the usage of
the power um that would be harvested. Well, Gina, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the initially the thought was to make sure all our municipal buildings um were covered under this so that you know emergency services and then as we produce more power,
>> we can then branch out to maybe sell it even to like your residents, something like that. Okay. Would that be correct? Okay, good. I'm glad to >> Glad to know I was paying attention. Okay, >> is in control of that. Yes. >> Wonderful. And then um let's see
um have there been any studies with regard to health issues associated with the types of batteries that you use uh in these uh solar panels? It seems like there's not a type of battery that's been discussed uh as a finite solution. So I just didn't know if there were you
know you're putting them in sensitive areas of the town. We're finding nooks and crannies, emergency buildings, schools. Um, so the health of the town I think is really important when it comes to things like this. >> Would that be addressed? >> Would you like to address that now,
Kimberly? >> Uh, yes. So, um, we part of the partner, we're partnering with Snyder Electric and American Microgrid Solutions and we are technology agnostic. Um however we
we want to make sure that the technologies chosen certainly are um public public safe without a doubt and um partnering with Sandia National Labs. They focus on the energy storage
technologies and they perform the environmental and safety testing um as just part of it um prior to deployment and and part of the feasibility and assessment would be working with our partners that are very
um you know class A uh with the national labs to make sure that um those um that those matters are addressed. Uh so there's been no studies with regard to uh health uh ill health issues
um that you could uh discuss >> or not discuss >> studies. So, I have a lithium battery in my house. Um, and I came from Centerpoint Energy and we worked with IKEA, we worked with grocery stores that have installed these um storage systems
and there was healthies performed and ongoing and there has not been any um reported um consequences. >> Okay. Thank you. So I think um I think the important >> but we have a list DOE just issued a list of probably 25 different
technicalities that are in the market today and we really want to be just independent experts that are trying to serve you and your community as best possible to make sure that when you are looking at deploying energy security
solutions that they certainly um are um you know have a look safety lens for sure. Y >> wonderful. And um I know with certain batteries there's a pro um a possibility of exploding. Um have you encountered um
challenges in other locations that this um you know this is um I just know I think recently I saw a story with a woman who just had it was like a little tiny battery next to her obviously but these are larger. Um so does that happen? Um are there you know are there
additional studies with regards to that? >> Um there's there's um certainly there has been hazards even transformers um blow up. So there's always going to be some sort of um equipment um uh risk but
there is equipment testing that we'll do with these um technologies through the the feasibility and scoping assessment. Um, one of our partners has already deployed uh solar and storage technologies on school systems there in
Massachusetts and uh we um um but with with the ones that we're looking at they have um those studies do exist and we can certainly share those with you. >> Okay. So in addition to that also um as far as the storage so the batteries
themselves they they will be contained the general they're generally contained into larger um steel casing and so in case that there is a fire or malfunction or something that that will be that will be contained by uh by casing. So it's different from from a car battery for
example which is directly underneath the car. These are these are built in a way that is that is more safer. So in a feasibility study would some of these questions be answered? >> This is exactly what the feasibility is for and I don't want to focus on the
slide deck but there is a slide which lists all the things that would be covered in the feasibility and scoping assessment and these are exactly the things that will get addressed. >> Yes. Y um I was just wondering who the equity investors are um and when the the
panels are sold back to the town and they have 2% um do they have rights here are there limitations on that as well? So these are generally tax executive investors are generally banks. Uh depending on the size of uh the
investment there are either large banks uh large commercial banks that you know or more regional banks as well as funds that are that are specialized on this guys this kind of investments. We're also looking for investment from green banks. And so these are u public and
private institutions to actually provide um funding for um for green um type of energy. Uh right and so uh this would fall distributed energy solar as well as batteries falls directly into the
purview of those kind of institutions. Um most of the tax executive flips to be honest after the five year when the uh when the flip occurs um the uh the investor intends to get bought out. Um and so uh there is a strong incentive on
their part to actually uh to actually sell and uh and get out of the the partnership so that the assets will be solely owned by the fund and the only partner of the fund at that point will be the consortium of the towns.
Okay. Do they have um like land rights then? >> No. >> No. Okay. >> All right. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. >> Thank you for your question. >> Coming in in the weather. Oh my goodness. >> I know. Thank you. Yes, Janet. >> So, Madam Chair, it's Pauline. I'm still
out here. >> I'm sorry. >> Couple of other questions and that's fine. You uh moved on to Rachel and I've liked her questions. Um, one of the ones I have is who pays for the feasibility study.
>> That would be the town. That would be the town and it would be $75,000 because it's $350,000 for the five towns. So, it would be broken divided by five. >> Okay. Thank you for that. Um, does any of this require town meeting approval?
if after a feasibility study if we wanted to go ahead >> because then we would have the information to then say you know hey this is what we're looking into just like anything we would need to look at something before we have the stuff to be able to take to town meeting so this
would be just like something similar that we've done in the past not on this type of a subject >> sure I understand um if I can just share my initial views with my background I am genuinely ly concerned about who
protects the town in such an agreement. Um if if the electricity service or whatever this is, and I apologize for not being up to date on it. We all lost our access earlier tonight, so I didn't catch it all. But if the town is being
indemnified by the um carrier that is presenting this proposal if they go under and I don't mean to suggest they will but oh snow plow's coming up Adam Street for the first
time. Um we have seen solar and other energy companies uh dissolve due to a number of issues. What happens if that hap what happens to the town of air if that happens? >> Same thing that'll happen to the other
five four towns that sign on with us. We would all go down together. >> Well, you know, >> all jokes aside, that that's what it would be. >> Wanted the answer. That's not the answer I wanted. Well, you know, no one wants to think about, you know, everything going boom,
>> but I mean, that's reality. If if if that scenario that you brought forward happened and it affected the consortium, then this consortium would all be together >> in this issue. Ricardo, would you like
to >> I appreciate that, Janice. And that's I think what the five four or five towns need to keep in mind before anybody signs anything because that could be devastating to all of our towns. Well,
that's why the first step would be to get a feasibility study >> because we could come back with our feas we could do a feasibility study and it could come back and it just won't work for the town of air due to whatever reason >> but it'll but it'll work with
>> well they're they would do the study >> well we actually would retain uh American Micro Grid Systems which is an arm of Snyder Electric here in Massachusetts that builds all of these systems. So, so think of NextGen Energy
as the experts that are pulling everything together. All of the financing, engineering, design, procurement, sighting, building the consortiums with the town. We are technology agnostic. We are agnostic to
um meaning we're not going to push a specific solution on any one of the five towns that are part of the consortium. It's up to the engineering firms to tell us what's going to work best in each one of our towns. And Pauline, I'm a resident
of Harvard for 25 years and I am literally right across the town line here. Um so I spend half my time in air anyway because we have nothing in Harvard. So, we all live in air most of the time. >> We've noticed and we're going to start taking a toll. >> We should
>> So, and I let me conclude my comments so that you all can move on because it's been a long night. My background is litigation, civil litigation, not criminal. um basically insurance litigation and an independent review
with a consortium does not always rely on the consort well I say consortium on the proposal proponents uh reviewer the town of air should have its own reviewer independent
of what are you nextgen I don't even know who I'm speaking with so I apologize >> you're speaking to Gina Ash of NextGen energy. >> NextG. All right. NextGen is proposing an independent reviewer. Fine. They're you're paying them. So, with all due
respect, they're going to tell you what you want to hear. I think the town of Air needs to hire its own independent reviewer to compare NextGen with your competitors. That's just my view as a
taxpayer and I leave it out there. But before we jump into anything, because we jump into things so often, we really need to look into this a little more carefully. And I guess I'll lower my hand and eat the dinner I cooked while
you all were trying to get back to the meeting. >> Well, maybe. >> Thank you. >> So, Janice, >> thank you, Janice. >> Yep. Thanks, Janet. Ricardo was >> Ricardo. >> Yeah. No, I I just wanted to part of the re of the review of the package that
we'll put in front of the cities is also the uh the economics and the economics will come from revenues that are contracts that will be inked uh by the time the um the construction of the facilities will happen. And so both the
investors as well as the towns will want to make sure that you know the electricity is contracted. These are 20-year contracts that will need to be put in place. And so there is virtually zero risk from the economic standpoint once the contracted the contracts are in
place because these are take or pay contracts. Meaning that somebody would actually sign up to actually purchase this much electricity or this much capacity for 20 years at this price. This is what gets financed by um uh by
the banks. So once we have that clearly u inked and we have the cost of the equipment clearly inked um there's really relatively low risk. Nobody needs to necessarily go down. NextG Energy at that point plays
just a advisory role if you will uh to to the fund. The fund is the fund is actually its own almost MLP so municipal light plant um which you guys will put in place without any money down.
>> Thank you. Thank you. >> Okay. Um thank you Janet Prades one court here in air. Um just one quick question of so what happens after 20 years? I mean, you're saying that this is a contract for 20 years. In 20 years,
which hopefully I'm still around because I want to lift them up 101. Um, what happens in 20 years? Does it get renewed? Do you take the batteries out, replace the batteries, or is it just def This happens all the time in every
situation. Even when you're buying your energy from national grid, these are typically 20-year contracts, 20-year facilities. Um, at I would imagine, and Ricardo, uh, please jump in here. I would imagine a few years before the
facility would be retiring, the town will then decide how they want to move forward. That 20 years from now, we're going to have incredible advancements in in energy production. Who knows, maybe even over on Devon's Commonwealth Fusion
actually has cracked fusion energy and we're powering our whole town with something this big. So, um you know, that's 20 years from now. I know. Well, >> we will we will see. Um so, but I should I should let uh I'm adding color here,
but but Ricardo and and Kimberly would would be have give you a real expert answer. >> Yes. No, I think you nailed it. Um uh Gina so uh the technology will change um a few years before we will the towns will need to as a consortium will need
to decide and we will support them to decide whether they want to actually uh continue um the the operation of the facilities if it's possible if uh the uh the solar panels uh can be uh can be restored to their to their initial
performance as well as the batteries or they will need to be substituted new capital will need to be brought in and uh uh the town will decide how would they want to finance that um and we can we can we'll be there to to support that the financing as well. But um the at
that point the the facilities will be completely depreciated from the uh from the economic financial standpoint and uh um you will and there will be they will be commissioned and will be paid. So um there's uh again there's limited financial risk and but if the
operationally you want to continue operate the facilities then they will need to get uh refurbished if we will >> and the town will have generated considerable revenue by that point. So our preliminary modeling shows a million half dollars in
excess revenue generation to the town for you know years uh 56 through 20. So, a portion of those revenues can actually go to thinking about and planning for what the town wants to do with energy by the time um the facility sort of reaches
its maturity. >> Okay, I got a question. So, >> thank you. >> Thank you, Janet. >> Um, if we were to decide to move forward with this idea, when would the F feasibility study start? When you've
signed on the other towns? Um, I'm gonna let I'm gonna let uh uh Ricardo address this as well. >> So, are we are we waiting for all five towns to sign theus? Are we thinking about um potentially sequencing these?
I think that the um it's important for us to for the reasons that Kimberly described before uh it's important for us to actually reach a certain u a certain size uh because that will allow us uh to find the right uh financing partners uh lower the cost of the
financing as well as lower lowering the the supply chain cost. Having said that uh we're discussing with our partners uh so AMS and Schneider the opportunity the possibility to actually study the physibility studies one by one uh which
is the way that that will normally um produce these studies. Um so clustering, declustering if you will uh the cluster and um and really analyzing each one of the entities uh alone because they you
all have different decisions to to make um at the end of the feasibility study. You have different topography and opportunity to actually site both the the solar as well as the batteries. Uh and so I think that there is a possibility to actually sequence those
um independent of you know all theou being physically in. Um we just received notice that Harvard uh at least this is my understanding that Harvard has has assigned theou as of unanimously
approved the signing of the MOU tonight. So um they're they're a little bit further down the uh the path. So but this this is I think great news. Yes. And I would add theou is nonbinding.
It is um um an initiative to explore energy assets that the towns can own, reduce their electricity costs, mitigate u power outages um and um and generate additional
revenue streams. National Grid has already launched a virtual power plant. Um, and these just started rolling out um, a couple years ago. I worked on the first one in Texas with Tesla um, and the city of Houston and we rolled out
micro grids that are operating and making sure that lights are on in a medical center. And in fact, at this last Texas freeze, firm had um not as many power outages, significantly less um than the Texas freeze of 2021 because
these assets were online. And they're selling back to the grid companies to avoid peak peak demand as well as selling um um these excess capacity within the network system. So, National
Grid has already adopted a virtual power plant. Um, we have an opportunity with solar and storage where Snyder Electric and AMS, our partner, they are trying to see if we could seize the maximum tax
incentives at the federal level for both the solar and storage piece too. That could be sizable additional savings um and cash flow generation for the towns. But I want to emphasize this is a non-binding umou
and um and we're truly are just independent experts trying to bring something very novel um that's very viable um to Massachusetts that the DOE has endorsed under both administrations. >> Okay. Well, thank you very much. Do
either of you have any more questions? >> Question was just a request or >> Huh? >> I was just a request. No more questions. Yeah. >> No, >> just um if we could just have town counselor view theou and bring it back
on department heads >> and then bring it back on the 17th a little bit time. >> I fully agree. >> Okay, not a problem. So, we'll keep you posted. Thank you very much. >> It's been very interesting. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Right. Next up, Robert. >> Madame Chair, members of the board, um, good evening. I know we're running behind, so uh, in the interest of time,
I'll get right to the action items. Do have the warrants. >> We're going to start to pull up tomorrow. >> Yes. So, unless there are any administrative questions from the board, um, I'll move right into the action items. the warrants that were approved since the
board last met are in the packet. Um, so I'll go right into uh what has been the focus, which is the the budget. And I I have a brief um presentation. The good news is I'm not going to go through all of the slides. I will send the
presentation uh to the board and get it up on the on the website, but just wanted to give a brief update on where we are with the omnibus budget and just a brief update on the on the capital um
plan. So, next slide. Yep. So, here's where we are right now um March 3rd. Um the highlighted pieces to point out. So the union contract obligations we have concluded the clerical negotiations I
know the board will be discussing in executive session that MOA so those costs are are being put into um the budget under the non-UN obligations there are uh the contracts the personnel contracts have been concluded which the
board will be uh reviewing tonight in executive session the non-UN cola recommendation of 2% uh the recommendation which was approved by the select board on February 17th um is still subject to town meeting approval through the budget. Um but we
are putting those costs um into into the budget. Fixed costs remain um stable throughout this. The so the final the real final piece we're still waiting on is the the air regional school assessment which based on what they
presented on February 3rd um was at over 1.8 8 million or 11.9%. Um, I know that the superintendent uh in the school committee as well as Shirley and I have had conversations in in meetings as well. Uh, our finance
committee has asked uh Dr. Renda to come back on March 19th for an update. We know that this number is going to change, but it's a significant number of the overall budget. So, we need to nail that down. And as the board knows, they
have till March 17th to certify um that number. Then the Nshoba school assessment actually at from February 5th, there was no change. Um that number is the same. So that's where the budget drivers are right now at about 2.7.
Next slide. So in terms of again you've seen this slide before the the highlight again the clerical contracts cost that's been concluded the personnel concluded the
non-UN cola has been recommended subject to town meeting um in the interest of time though we're at 5.9% the draft two which I'll talk about in just a second we anticipate for the omnibus will actually come in around 4%
in the 4% which is below the 5% target. That's without without schools. So, next slide. Um so again, you've seen this slide before. I haven't changed anything. We're just really waiting um
on the schools. Um next slide. So, um, in terms of the capital plan, uh, which is on the capital, um, web page, and I'm not going to get into all of the specifics, but wanted to just give a
brief financial overview. Uh, as the board is aware, the capital planning committee, which is appointed by the select board, meets um generally from November to February to review the town's uh capital plan, five-year plan,
as well as to review all of the capital requests that are submitted by departments and they vote make recommendations to the select board for inclusion of these artic uh items in the articles. This year, the the big three
uh goals, the main goals for capital were that the general fund capital not exceed $1 million. that's based on the whole perfect storm and the need to to tighten things up. Develop enterprise fund capital to minimize uh rate
increases. And on March 17th, uh the board will get into great detail with water, sewer um and storm water um with the rate hearing and then develop a capital plan that still maintains and advances the town's capital in an affordable and responsible manner.
pleased to report uh that as of February 5th, those goals were met by um the committee. Um on February 5th, there are no debt exclusions as part of this FY27 capital plan. There was a project
submitted, the beach house uh project for Sandy Pond, uh which um is not ready at this time to move forward. That would have been a debt exclusion. more work to be done on that front. Next slide.
So when I say that the goals have been met, the general fund capital, so this is that hits the general fund, $646,161. Target was a million. There's a h 100,000 I highlighted for the annual road paving that the finance manager was
able to identify completed projects that had outstanding balances that can transfer that amount um to cover that project that'll be subject there'll be an article on that for town meeting. So the general fund is in in good shape. um
the enterprise fund. This is the various um items total under the each enterprise fund which is paid for by the rate payers. Um so the ambulance the 578 is to replace one of the ambulances in
water. There's 650,000 for water security improvements and the annual water main replacement. and there were 425,000 to replace the PAS media at both Spectacle and Grove Pond. Why I highlighted this as the board is aware
the town is in a in a settlement consortium, a PAS litigation um that we have received to date over a million dollars in settlement funds. The thing is that the funds have to be used for PAS related purposes. So the DPW um
director and the finance manager recommended to capital and capital did agree uh to use 425,000 of those funds to cover that PAS uh media. So that 425,000 rather than hitting the rates in uh in
the water enterprise will be paid directly from that settlement fund. Again that will be an article subject to the town meeting. sewer um at 760,000 solid waste 80,000. This is to replace the solid waste pickup truck which um is
dead. Well, not dead yet, but it's not going to it needs to be replaced. And then the storm water um for 230,000 out of the storm water enterprise which was just created and funded by town meeting and there are no um rate increases for
storm water. Next. And then just real quick so you can see in FY27 we're at 646,000. Last year was 1.6 million. Um the committee we were able to reduce the general fund capital by almost 61% by
over a million dollars while still uh moving forward. The breakdown of the 646,161 284,550 would be funded from capital stabilization. That's per the town's financial policy. So, anything that's
under 50,000 we generally try to pay for straight out per policy. That's a separate article. and then 361,661 uh to be borrowed. And I put in your packet and I'm going really fast in the interest of time in your packet um and
we can explain this at the financial uh forum March 25th in more detail, but the estimated residential tax impact for the general borrow um for year 1 would be about $1143.
So we'll get into that analysis more as we move forward. And then underneath enterprise fund capital is what drives is funded by the respective rates and on March 17th we'll have a robust discussion on the recommendations there.
And the rate review committee also did a very good job which we'll get into detail that night in mitigating um you know rate increases and and trying to uh really tighten that as well. Not that it it's been well done previous years as
well. Next. So again, just to show last year's total capital plan was over $7 million. This year it's at 3.4 million. We reduced about 4 million or 54% reduction in spending from the capital
plan while still moving forward with our capital. and I thank all of the town departments and the committee that really made this happen. I think it's something to to be proud of as we move in that direction. In terms of next steps on capital, on April 7th, the
select board will be approving the warrant. There will be four specific articles related to capital. The first one is that for the general fund items from capital stabilization for 284,500.
It'll list all of the items. Departments will also be prepared with presentations on the actual requests. The second article is the general fund borrow of 361661. There'll be another article, as I
mentioned, authorizing the 100,000 to be transferred from previous completed projects for the annual road paving. And then an article authorizing the 425,000 to be used from PAS litigation funds for the media replacement. And then lastly,
as the board is aware, each enterprise article, each enterprise fund has an article on the town meeting warrant that includes um uh the the total funding which includes the capital. The finance committee is also going to be meeting uh
to review the warrant and make their um financial recommendations um in advance of April 7th. I don't have the exact date yet from them. And then the voters will vote on April 27th at 6 p.m. >> Next.
>> 6 or 7. >> 7. >> 7. We'll fix that. >> Last wouldn't mind going an hour earlier. >> Seven. Thank you. >> Always want to go to bed early. >> So, just to recap. So, draft two,
official draft two we will have to the select board comp on March 17th. That'll be the whole um package. We continue to work on refining the omnibus budget. The next thing I already mentioned, we're working with the
schools and Shirley on that piece. March 17th, 17 March 17th will also be the public hearing. March 25th at 6 PM will be the public budget forum here uh with the
select board in the FINCOM. will present draft two in detail and all the departments will be here answer any questions and take any input um from the public and then the warrant closes April 3rd select board scheduled
April 7th and then April 27th I have it correct here at 7 p.m. So we're in the in the final stretch as they say >> he does it on purpose to make sure we're paying attention. >> Good job Janet. >> So are there are there any questions? I know it's real quick in the interest of
time, but I will we will post this presentation uh to the website and I will get it to everyone. Um next real quick in your packet. So now as is usually the case, you have a memo.
The warrant for the annual town meeting is under development. In the interest of time, as of right now, there are 29 proposed articles. The deadline is April 3rd at noon for warrant articles. That's also the deadline for citizens petitions
to the town clerk. As you can see in the memo, a lot of the articles are the standard articles that we have. Um, every annual town meeting, I just point out the PAS water litigation, which we talked about, the
reauthorization of the prior year borrows for the road paving. And then you heard tonight um from the building commissioner and the economic development director subject to the planning board's review a zoning bylaw
amendment regarding signs. And then you can see there are a couple of community preservation um projects. Uh the air affordable housing trust and the Sandy Pond school HVAC project which this board wrote a letter for. So, as of
right now, it's looking like to be a pretty standard um warrant. Uh we will keep you updated as that uh is developed. If there are no questions, the next item four you have in your packet, as the board is aware, we enter into grant
agreements with the various projects uh through CPC. Uh there is a grant agreement in your packet for the project with the air housing authority for the the two generators that was approved uh at the last fall 2025 uh town meeting.
Uh the grant agreement was provided by the chair of the CPC has been reviewed by town council and is recommended that the board vote to approve uh for signature by the chair. >> Questions? You have questions?
I make a motion that the board approve the CPC grant agreement with the Air Housing Authority um as presented. >> Second. >> All those in favor? >> I say I. >> And then last but not least, in your
packet, there's a one-day beer and wine uh license request for St. Mary's Parish for March 14, 2026, which I believe is the St. Patrick's Day dinner. >> So that would be Saturday, March 14th
from 400 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at St. Mary's Church Hall. >> Um I'll make a motion that the board approve the request for a one-day liquor license um for the St. Mary's
um church hall on Saturday, March 14th. Seconded. >> All those in favor? >> I chair says I. Congratulations. >> For 15 bucks, I got them. >> Can't have St. Patty's Day without some alcohol. Right. >> So, uh Madam
>> Madam Chair, that concludes my report. Is there aren't any questions from the board? I thank you for your time this evening. >> Okay. Thank you very much. I I'll print it. >> The grant agreement. I'll I'll print it.
>> Okay. Yeah. >> The clean copy. >> Yeah. All right. Okay. Next up would be new business select board member questions. Anything? >> Okay. So, since we weren't on on camera before, I'll just tell you that I had made an announcement um that on March
10th at 10:00 a.m. on 12 Newton Street here in Air, which is right behind town hall, is the home dedication ceremony for the Habitat community. Welcome home. And that will be posted on the Facebook for everybody to chair. Okay. All right. So, next up is the approval
of meeting minutes for February 17th. I didn't see anything. I didn't have any changes, >> no comments. >> Um, I'll make a motion that the board approve the uh meeting minutes from February 17th, 2026 as presented. >> Seconded. >> All in favor?
>> I chair says I. >> Okay. And right before that, I want to thank everybody for bearing with us with our technical difficulties tonight. You wanted to say something. Madam Chair, I make a motion that the board move into executive session pursuant to Mass
General Law Chapter 30A section 21A exemption two non-UN personnel ratification of building commissioner personal service contract. Exemption number two, non-union personnel ratification of town clerk personal service contract. Exemption number three
for union personnel ratification of town hall clerical union contract in the board not to return to open session. We will journ from the second session. >> Seconded. >> All those in favor roll call vote. Sean I. >> Chris I.
>> And I. The chair says I. Good night everyone. Good night. We're in executive session.